Friday - Sammy haircut...that is the worst fake smile. He hates getting his hair cut.
Saturday - My birthday package from my friend, lbs. Who gives the best presents known to man. Ones that cause me angst at return gift giving. But still! Package from lbs! (In it we have sticky tabs, note cards that say "I know, right?!", a LOVELY journal / notebook, a pen, a handmade necklace that says "simplicity" and, my favorite, a framed picture of Glen Hansard with the following note attached: "For your office wall - he's got that "yearning for Tawnya" look in his eye, don't you think?" Why, yes. Yes I do.)
Sunday - a day of playing games while Sammy was sick
Monday - all about the tissues...
Tuesday - lunch at Daddy's office
Wednesday - Play group Valentine's party. Because my friends are way more crafty and cool than I could ever hope to be...
A post inspired from an email I sent my sister a couple of days ago:
So. I'm looking at this link on Amazon about giving MP3s for Valentines. You find the album, enter the code, give it to someone. And then it says, 'here are some titles to think about giving!' This is the first title I see:
"Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" - The Smiths
Methinks someone at Amazon doesn't get mainstream Valentines...Or DOES and that's the real problem. Or, just views it how I always did...
(ok, so maybe it was under the 'anti-love' section, but STILL. I didn't notice that at first, second or even third glance. Funny to be the first thing I see...)
I figured I would embrace the shame. Maybe embrace the shame should have been this year's motto...Or, you know, not. I would like to state for the record that while, yes, I DO own 4 out of 6 Rick Astley albums, they rarely find themselves on rotation. Like...never. I can't tell you the last time I listened to anything by him that wasn't Rickrolled (which makes it really difficult to find real videos, may I add...) Except for #1 & 2. Those still break through on occasion...but I plead nostalgia. And the fact it's his later stuff. And, no. I do not understand my love of Rick while bashing everything else cheese-ish (see: Michael Bolton) other than to say Rick is lovely, Bolton sucks, so let's just move on...m'kay?
1. Hopelessly: I do love this song. Such cheese. SUCH CHEESE. But man. A lot of happy memories surround it.
2. Cry For Help : When was this released? 1991? It reminds me of college and my first marriage, a little, but I'm having a tough time nailing the timing down in my head.
(dude...check out the hair!)
3. It Would Take A Strong, Strong Man: Huh. I really loved this song in high school. REALLY loved it. And just surprised myself by singing every word to it while it plays, open, in another tab. CLEAR evidence that I listened on repeat (or, rewind, I guess would be more appropriate) that I still know every word 18 years later...I remember this and No More Looking for Love as my favorites on the tape.
4. Ain't Too Proud To Beg: Yeah, it's a cover. Still. Good song for his voice.
5. Take Me To Your Heart: HEE! This totally reminds me of high school. Which MAY have been the last time I heard it. Ah, man. The 80s were fun.
Whew. That was tough to get even 5! I nearly gave up after two. Clearly my time with Mr. Astley is best left to the past...
I lived with my sister for a couple of weeks before I started college. It was lovely. I was able to escape my home town early and hang out with my sister and get a sneak preview of college life without the stress. I stayed on her floor (or was it the couch) and ate Special K every morning. I hung out with my sister's roommates, shopping and playing games and learning what to do at 11:11 pm. All very important things to do pre-college, if you ask me...
At the time, and me falling in love way too easily, I fancied myself in love with the boy next door, whose name I cannot remember now (so it was CLEARLY meant to be...), but I remember that he drove a tan Corolla, which seemed very grown up in my mind. He was exactly my type - dark hair and nerdy glasses and smart - and paid the teeniest smidgen of attention to me, so of course, the crush was, well, crushing. I would make sure I was outside every day when he came home and we would stand on the balcony overlooking the valley facing the blazing hot setting sun and chat. I cannot, for the life of me, think of what we talked about - me a sniveling 18 year old know it all and he a - how ever old he was college student. But it was a nice change from the lack of boys in my home town and gave me promise of things to come.
I sat in the atrium of a building on campus and counted down the days until my own college career would start. I sat in on one of my sister's classes and for her others, I would hang out at her apartment, listening to music and watching Rattle and Hum and dreaming. My sister tried to teach me to drive a stick shift (a task I STILL cannot do) and taught me the finer points of eating sour patch kids and Dr. Pepper and using twizzlers as straws. She introduced me to friends and took me dancing and was generally not annoyed that I was hanging out.
After the two weeks, I moved a little more north to start my own college experience. The weekend I moved in, one of my sister's friends came by to ask me 'out'...to go dancing with him. As the crazy would have it, I already had plans with the not so nice first boyfriend. I have oft regretted not going with my sister's friend. I wonder how different things might have been, if at all. Maybe he would have shown me that boys could be nice and not jerks. As it was, I settled for being the most popular girl on my floor for 3.2 seconds; the fact being I had a 'real' college boy coming by checking on me while at the same time finding a new boyfriend my first week there. Ah, things that didn't last...
It's funny, now, looking back at all the memories I have attached to a place that was only supposed to be a surrogate home for two weeks. A blip on my journey. Instead, that apartment building of my sister's eventually became my home, as well, two years later, for the briefest of moments. It's where I was when I dated GEB. It's where I was living when I met my ex-husband. It's where I made wedding plans (as an aside? I kinda miss my 'no shame' posts...). It's where I met great friends and suffered through crazy roommates. It's where I struggled, living here and staying, instead of, again, staying for a brief moment and moving to warmer climes. It's where my first crush, post divorce, was living (well, kinda...he was BEHIND that building, but it was all sort of the same). My oldest niece and her husband currently live there and I always chuckle to myself when she posts things about her home. Because every time she does, my brain starts this very same "do you remember..." dance.
And this song? This song will forever remind me of those two weeks where I pretended to be grown up.
Last month we read Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. It was good. It certainly wasn't the best of literature, but still solid. In reading reviews, the word that comes up most is "quiet". That seems about right.
I couldn't get a good handle on a time frame. It mentioned several things that made me think current day, but the entire vibe was very old fashioned. I realize that was part of the point of the book, but it messed with my head to the point that it continually pulled me out of the story. The characters in the book were also not very nice. I found most of them repugnant. The Major's son? Horrid. Mrs. Ali's family? Ew. A good portion of the village people (heh. village people...)? A mixture between clueless and evil. It made it hard to want to see anyone prosper in any sort of way. The Major and Mrs. Ali, though. They seemed to be the only level headed people in all of England.
I did get wrapped up in their love story. I did want to see how it all played out. I did want to see how the Major's prim and proper life was going to continue to be unraveled. And, negatives aside, I kept wanting to read, so there's that.
The ending, though. I felt emotionally cheated. I really hated that she tied up the endings in SUCH a tidy manner. There was some real room to leave things a tad messy, but with room for growth. There were dropped story lines and things that were WAY too conveniently wrapped up. One of the main story lines involved a family heirloom and the way she treated that at the end really frustrated me. It was the one wrap up that really had me frustrated; more than the son, more than the messy, crazy family of Mrs. Ali, more than the tidy wrap up of the village. I really thought it was handled in a very pedestrian way and should have been a much stronger ending.
Next up is Alice I Have Been. Can I admit that I've never actually read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? I'm not even sure I've seen the Disney movie version the entire way through. So this may be a challenge for me. I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised by it all.
About a week ago, I casually mentioned to Isaac that I was so grateful we hadn't gotten any of the illnesses going around and how lovely that was and HOLY CRAP I shouldn't have said that because you all know where this is going, right? I woke up on Wednesday not the greatest...the tickle in my throat, the headache. Thursday was book club and, clearly the Lord really did have mercy on me, because I felt great and was able to go. But Friday the head clogging was back. And while it's a VERY mild cold, it just reinforces my superstition, you know? Last night Sammy was sleeping very fitfully, and by the time I went to bed, he couldn't breath and was acting like puking may be on the menu, so we stripped him down and threw him in our bed, assuring that none of us would sleep very well. This morning he is in full on cold mode. I always feel badly when he has a cold. He just looks so miserable. So we are hanging out at home, me not showered, smelling of last night's curry, watching a movie and Sammy hanging out on the floor playing with his cars and reaching for a tissue every two seconds. What a fun morning for us. But it could be worse. We could be privy to that fever / cough combo that seems to be going around...
I'm thinking this might actually be ok. A slow week, that is. My desk is currently buried under a pile of stuff: things that need to be mailed and sorted through and read and dealt with. And I keep putting it all off in favor of funner things and I need to just have an afternoon with the music up and nothing else to do and just tackle it all.
My usefulness for winter has vanished. It's cold and a week into February and I'm dreaming of spring. I'm ready for sandals and skirts and warmth and trips to Target without checking the weather first. I'm ready to just be...warm.
I just ran across a writer's conference this spring and I think I'm going. How weird is that? I think it will be weird and I'm sure I'll be fighting feeling like an impostor the entire time. I read something recently about writing not for others, but to simply give voice to thoughts and ideas that need voice. I'm still working through the article and what it means to me and my life. Where I'm going with this crazy thing. I feel like I'm continually trying to see where this career of mine is taking me and I'm looking forward to going to a conference if for nothing but to see if I can hold my own in a room of 'real' writers.
Plans are being made for Isaac's birthday party in a couple of weeks. I'm already looking forward to it. I'm pretty impressed with myself for coming up with it and following through. I'm still working out the last of the details, but I'm pretty sure I'll have it together soon. Yay!
What I've watched while typing. While I still love this movie, I sometimes wish I could watch it again for the very first time. You can't ever get that viewing back. But, dude. He's just hot and that isn't contingent on a first viewing to appreciate.
