IT BEGINS

BOOK MONTH IS UPON YOU!

Book Month does not care how long you worked today; BM demands words.

BM is irreverent to birthdays, holidays, three day weekends, and months with only 28 days.

BM does not want to hear your sissy excuses. BM says GET FAT LAZY BRAIN OFF OF DVD AND TAKE FOR WALK.

BM feeds on twisty plots, characters, and risey action. BM laughs at your stupid poetry. BM will kick short story all over writer's block.

BM cares not for details. BM says small fruity girl figure out details. BM says RAAAAHRHHRHRRR.

Oh no, they didn't.

I started bawling when this Pedigree commercial came on.

Now you all can, too!

p.s. The nose through the kennel action is just too, too much.

A tinker, a tailor, a gingerbread maker...

It's a little late for new year's resolutions, but let me just say that my $1.99 gingerbread loaf on clearance from Target is 1. super simple (mix with water, butter, 2 eggs; pour into pan; cook) and 2. making my apt smell deeeeeeeeeelicious.

How's about in 2007 we make some stuff that smells awesome, and eat it in moderation. Deal? Deal.

Terror-bithia

When I saw the trailer for the upcoming movie version of Bridge to Terabithia, my first thought was, "whoa... I don't remember it being that scary."

In fact, I remembered it being a real weep-fest that sometimes inexplicably shows up on banned books list. (What? Why? Apparantly: "witchcraft, magic, evil spells, or related material.")

I re-read it this morning at 4am, when I woke up and could not get back to sleep. The "magic" in the book is really subtle, certainly less detailed than the movie billing (no walking trees, sword-wielding insects or evil "Dark Master"s), albeit rich with filmmaker potential:

"Can't you see 'um?" he whispered. "All the Terabithians standing on tiptoe to see you."
"Me?"
"Shhhh, yes. There's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arriving today might be the queen they've been waiting for."

2008 Presidential Elections

It's a sad day.

I only have three episodes of West Wing left before it's all over: six glorious hypothetical seasons (and one not-so-glorious season) of a collective vision for how democracy should work.

What's keeping me afloat is the fact that the current line-up of presidential nominees looks more like something off of West Wing than I ever would have hoped or dreamed for.

I want to elect them all!

When You Wish Upon A Shooooe....

I wish I'd had these "Peacemaker" flats when I was teaching:



"Children! I come in peace."

It might have stopped Ernesto from hurling a book across my room... but probably not.

In other news, I have forgotten how to link an image to a website, and before any smart ass tells me to "google it," it appears that I can no longer follow directions.

Ice Storm Alert

It's not even raining yet, and all the schools are cancelled.

Growing up on the northern-most edge of a county in Maryland, I'm biased by years and years of waking up to: "Yesssss!!! It's SNOWING!!!" followed soon after by the sinking announcement of "Montgomery County schools are *open and *on-time" [*two words I now loathe].

During my three-year tenure with Houston schools, I never once enjoyed the Texas equivalent to the snow day, the "flood day." The Flood Days I get, because there's all this water and no place for it to go, and what can you do but sit in your car and wait?

So, in sum, I think you all are being a little silly. Just throw down some sand. It's not like we don't have sand on hand: there's a beach not 45 minutes away. And that is the end of my cold weather superiority post; I hope I don't die on my way to work tomorrow.

It's a New Day

When I was growing up, my parents taught me, "We buy AMERICAN cars."

Nowadays, it's "we buy FUEL EFFICIENT JAPANESE cars."

Actually, the rest of my family drive American cars, but if I have a kid I imagine that's how the dialogue would go.

Also, today the definition of a lovely romance is that couple in the Valtrex commercials. "I have herpes, and she doesn't, and we want it to stay that way."

What kid doesn't sometimes wonder, Will I make the same mistakes my parents did? How could we? It's a completely different world. There are so many new mistakes to be made!

But I Don't Wanna.

Ok, fine.

Sooooo... hihi. I had a solid two weeks of visitors this past month, which was wonderful and productive and really nice company, even if my cat tried to smother Heather in her sleep.

Even if it took her 12 hours to get back to Maryland, and my boyfriend was almost swept away by a tornado.

But the weather did not seem to deter 2007 from rolling right along in, with a few street fireworks, Garrison Keillor, Mystery Train, some bubbly (Korbel, not Andre), and one pretty solid kissing partner.

I went right back to work, where we had a minor case of Y2k7 all week, and I found myself set for a date this weekend with 2 DVDs of West Wing, a pretty drastic case of PMS, and... due to an unexpected sweater mishap...

legwarmers!:


Plus the entire text of The Evening Star by Larry McMurtry, which, at 637 pages, is no small accomplishment.

So, there's that.

For those of you keeping tabs, I'm not so great at these post-visitor weekends. Sometimes I revel and recover in the hermitage, but more often than not I find them grating and wish I were better at seeking out company... or showering. Maybe my new year's resolution should be to make better use of the time with myself, when it's just me. So as to enjoy more fully the weekends when it is not.

Burn to Shine

...I had you worried there for a minute, didn't I? The Bachelor, Billboard music, Target: next I'm going to exhault the virtues of Olive Garden and Rob Thomas.

No!

Here's a nifty (and Indie) film series I discovered with Jason:

Burn to Shine is a film-making crew that goes city to city looking for houses scheduled to be demolished. A local musician rallies his/her troops, and the bands have one hour to set up, record a song live on DVD, and get out. At the end of the day, the house goes up in smoke.

I bought the Portland one and it's really good. I'd like to go back for the DC edition (ahem ahem, X-mas pressie...) if they still have it at Sound Exchange.

Other non-conformist recommendations:

An Inconvenient Truth
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Stephin Merritt, have you LOST YOUR MIND???
Buy my friend Jillian's stuff.
TFA on NBC and in Fortune Magazine!!! (Cue Evita, "And the Money Kept Rolling In...")

Pop Pop Pop Music

Uhhh... in the absence of "The Bachelor" I'm watching the Billboard Music Awards, and I'm having some difficulty figuring out the dress code.

+ the music is really horrible.

But, anyway.

What would you like to hear about?

My trip to the dentist?

Dr. Carol Alvarado (the dentist; not the city councilwoman) is very nice, and said many flattering things about my teeth, and spent at least 30 minutes examining them in detail, which is more than can be said for **the last dentist I visited.

She unfortunately falls into the multi-visit dental trend of "let's pump you full of X-rays today and clean you tomorrow," but given that she gave me an actual examination, I don't mind so much.

I have some seriously enviable teefs, yo. Thank you awkward adolescence, Dr. Cina, Mom and Dad.

Ok, you are sick of teeth.
Let's talk about Target!!!!

Dear Target,

I think you're swell.

I love your rotating line of international fashion in affordable, accessible styles.

I love your good-smelling, sexy-bottled cleaning products.

I think "wine in a cube" is really funny.

& you have the best Morningstar selection in town.

Do you remember 1997 when I worked at Wal-Mart and you lived next door, sort of an awkward little brother? I don't miss those days at all. I think, frankly, age has been good to both of us. You made friends with Isaac Mizrahi, I got a college education, and neither one of us wound up in a long-term relationship with Rob from Electronics. Yay!

I know you get lots of love, and here's some more.

Your friend (forever),
Mary


**Just look at that superfluous cleavage! Good citizens of Houston, don't let this man near your teeth.

Songs about Weather

in particular, the ones looking to nature's elements as the cause of misery and woe.

I came up with:

1. Both Sides Now, Joni Mitchell
"But now [clouds] only block the sun
They rain and snow on evryone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way"

2. Season of the Shark, Yo La Tengo
"Some things go wrong
Sink so low you even blame the sun
You blame it as the cause
Of the shadows on the wall"

3. Blame it On the Rain, Milli Vanilli
(I feel no real urge to link to or justify this one.)

What else?

It's not that I mind the five hour drive back to Houston so much (except that I inevitably wish I were going the other direction), I just wish it would not rain. For once. Ahem, CLOUDS.

Christmas Challenge!

Ok, gang, this is going to sound slightly absurd, but hear me out:

In my junior year of high school, my chorus teacher had the chamber singer group sing an acapella (no piano) song called "Wassail" for the Christmas concert. I realize there are several wassail variations out there, and after some study I have deducted that it was--I think--a version known as the "Gloucestershire Wassail."

That damn song haunts me to this day. I am looking for a nice recording of it. By "nice," I mean something you might hear in a church sung in classical, seven part harmony. And by "church," I mean MY church growing up, with a volunteer but very well-practiced and well-tuned choir.

I am not interested in some guy (or girl) with an acoustic guitar, or, god forbid, the Manheimer Steamroller (?) version. No individual voices, either; the beauty is in the group effort.

Here is what it is NOT:

-it is not "Here we come a wassailing among the leaves so green..."
-it is not, Mom, the Kentucky version on Wassail! Wassail!, although that is a lovely song, too.

It most definitely contains the repeated line: "With the WAAAAAAsail BOOOOOOOOWL we'll drink to thee...." (because that was my favorite, belty, music-swelly part).

Bonus points to the person who finds it & posts it online where we can all download and sing along.

Merry early Xmas, and happy wassailing.

Dopplegangers

Twice today I did a doubletake in pictures:

The first came from a flickr contact--a familiar-looking blonde head bent over a familiar rug. It was not me in the photo, but close enough, and in such circumstances so as to make me check twice.

The second time came while I was looking through work photos in a folder labeled "program conference, Las Vegas" (I was not invited). I stared at the sideways photo for at least 10 seconds, thinking "is that me? that can't be me. wait, I think..."

...and it's my mislabeled mug after all, taken at the Hobbit shortly after my 26th birthday.

There's something here about self and context.
If you're into that sort of thing.

It Works, Ok.

Somewhere between the testing of the fire alarm and the clangy construction of an office above your head and an unidentified buzzy white noise and the seasickening traffic of 59 in your periphery view, you think to yourself

you think

your life would be lovelier in a Mary Oliver poem.