Best and Worst of 2k8

Here it is, dear readers: the summary of the year that was (at least in my life). It's time to give out the best and worst awards for the 2008 season. Events: just be honored you were remembered. A lot of events don't even get that chance.

Worst/Weirdest Holiday: New Years 2008.

Key: A night meant to be low key starts with martinis and SNL review and then shifts to “WHAT!?” night with a South African UN pilot, a literal party bus and a stop at Jacks. Whadda way to start a year.

Best Hungover Activity: New Years Day 2008.
Key: Wes invites Robin, Jane and I to play on the segways at the chamber of commerce.

Best ending to the best ruse I've ever managed to pull off:
Preface: Hatcher never wanted to meet my friend Paul. She'd heard so many wonderful stories about him that she thought he'd never live up to the hype and thus chose to actively try to not meet him, even while they lived in the same town and had a few friends in common. Paul and I thought this could not be. So in November 2005 I secretly had Hatcher and Paul hang out for an entire night without Hatcher ever realizing who he was (we gave him the alias “Pete Griffin” from 'Family Guy') and had an entire room of our friends play along (big shout out to KK, Maskey, Grafto, and Hollaback), calling him “Pete” the whole night. Poor KK met him as Pete and we didn't get to tell her the truth til after Hatch left. At one point during the night Hatch said, “Spooner, your friend Pete is hilarious! Why haven't I hung out with him sooner?” I told her it was because he was only in town for one night. Giggle. By the next summer Paul had moved to Wisconsin and Hatch thought herself victorious, never meeting Paul.

Jump ahead to the very tail end of 2007, two years later. I finally get the courage to tell Hatcher the truth, that she had actually met, hung out and LIKED Paul, that we introduced him under an alias and it had gone swimmingly. She burst out laughing. She didn't remember the night but was so impressed that the ruse had lasted as long as it did. In the long run I guess we both won. Hatch doesn't remember actually meeting him and I can say for certain that they did meet and she liked him. All's well that ends well. Best ruse ever.

Worst Wardrobe Malfunction: Alana and David's wedding, Weaverville, NC May.
Key: My strapless dresses zipper breaks as I step out of the car to walk into the wedding. Leslie tries to fix it and instead makes it worse. “Run. Run, Spooner. Run home and change; there is no hope for this dress.” (and I loved Natalie Knauer's “You don't have a spare dress in your car?”) and thus I speed out the front door of the church holding my dress together. Awesome.

Best “That's what she said” moment: Margarita's couch, Asheville, November.
Key: Margarita had wedged her beer bottle into the couch cushions and it was listing slightly, we both grabbed the bottle at the same time to keep it from spilling only to have it spill all over me. I said, “That's what I was trying to prevent and that's what just went all over my butt” and she fell off the couch laughing.

Best Concert Experience: Three Girls and Their Buddy, Asheville, January
Key: Robin and I splurge and see Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin and Buddy Miller play an acoustic round-robin set that sent shivers down my spine. Such beauty.

Best Team Name: The No Talent Ass Clowns, Nate and Anthony's dart team at Barley's Tap Room, March.
Key: It was about 6 hours into the 11 hour tour and they did end up defeating the Hot Bizzos quite handily.

Best Holiday: Fourth of July, Asheville.
Key: BBQ and water balloon fight at Clark and Nancy's house followed by a trip to the Shop to sit on the roof and feel the fireworks rumple. The night didn't end until past 1am and it was just one of those times where life gets perfect for a moment.

Best Spontaneous Trip: Fleeing to Charleston, SC for one day, April.
Key: Katie, Margarita and I forgo other obligations to spend 8 hours in the car to lay on the beach for 5. Standing at the Battery, smelling the ocean after dinner with Squirrel...then guilty Liz Phair sing-a-long on the way home.

Best Not-Holiday Holiday: Valentines, Schmalentines with Doug, The Biltmore Estate.
Key: Doug and I have not-Valentines Day fun tooling around the Biltmore Estate before a picnic at the lagoon (no wine corker so...leatherman! Floating cork!) and then the wine tour. The day doesn't end until 10pm and I'm reminded how much fun we have.

Best Competition: Sangria-palooza, West Asheville, June.
Key: Four kinds of sangria, four kinds of liquor for each, taste tests and everyone wins. Margarita gets double points for making hers with moonshine. Also: I bring giant steak that almost kills me.

Worst Weird Injury: My Lifetime Movie Channel bruise, Asheville, May.
Key: Playing cups with friends and frisbee strikes my left forearm so forcefully I had a literal welt and kept a bag of frozen peas on it the rest of the party. Looked like I was beaten.

Best/Worst Project: The tiling of the floor, Jane's House, Asheville, most of the year.
Key: Started the kitchen and hall in June. Finished in December. Speed isn't a strong suit of my home improvement skills.

Best Visitors: Murphy and Caroline come to AVL, March.
Key: Oh jeez. Bad Idea Girls take on the dirty soouf. “Woohoo! This will not suck!” “Good ol' Muffintop! Muffintop, Tennessee!” Gunticles. The 22oz of PBR for Kings. The 11 Hour Beer Tour with Nate, Cara, Anthony and Margarita and the other characters who roamed in and out.

Best Not Celebrity Run in: The Eli Manning Doppelganger, Jack of the Wood, March
Key: Caroline, while blatantly flashing her engagement ring, getting hit on relentlessly by Eli Manning look-a-like during the final 2-3 hours of the 11 hour beer tour.

Worst Departure, Person: Rita Marroquin moves back to Austin, September.
Key: After 8 years Rita goes home and all of AVL wonders what to do in her place. She is sorely missed!

Best Futile Effort to Get Adults to Focus: Attempting Trivial Pursuit at Rita's Martini Party, Asheville, July.
Key: The group was several martinis in, Rita didn't know what was going on, Nate looked like a J.Crew model and Margarita did eventually lose her pants.

Best span of 48 hours: Running around Paris with Erin, France, October.
Key: “We are young and happy!”, Jeff in IT and Stacey, “Escargot? More like Escar-GREAT!”, surrendering to the French Police when he just wanted to give us roses, the Cafe in the Tuleries, Satire doesn't translate well into Hebrew, Pulling on a wine bottle on our picnic at the Rodan, The bunkbed of death. That whole trip could be it's own page of bests.

Best Wedding Moment: Bridesmaids and Jess, Liz and Phil's Flat, London, October.
Key: Three bridesmaids sitting on the edge of a bathtub, soaking our tired feet and passing around a bottle of champagne.

Best Day: August 5, Hot Springs, NC and Cradle of Forestry, NC.

Key: Katherine and I head to Hot Springs, to lay in the river for the afternoon. Go home, change, and head out on a trip with Jonathan to Mt. Pisgah where we sipped wine, talked, watched the sunset then put the cushions on the ground and looked at the stars. It was close to perfect.

Worst Ending of a Streak: My first speeding ticket, Albemarle County, VA, September.

Key: I had never even been pulled over before and I was actually excited. Then the cop and I talked about weddings and baby showers for five minutes. Also: managed to get another speeding ticket on Christmas Eve. Super.

Best New Tradition: Bouchon All You Can Eat Mussels night, Asheville, Summer.

Key: Delicious mussels, Nate and Margarita, a bottle of muscadet, summer in the city.

Best Lists:

Dangerous Breakfast Cereals (Alpha Bits-of-broken-glass)

Potentially Embarrassing Songs on your iPod

Dramatic Movies made funnier had they starred Tom Cruise in place of Tom Hanks (think: Philadelphia)

American Car or American Gladiator (Woohoo McSweeneys)

Best Moment During Endless Presidential Campaign: VP Debate Drinking game, all over, September.
Key: Friends from across the country texting and drinking on words and phrases like, “You betcha”, “Maverick”, “Joe Six-Pack”, “Scranton” and “Ya know”.

Best Homemade gift: My birthday cards from the Birch girls, Paris VA, May.
Key: two phrases: “I know Spanish OK” and, of course, “Tony I am Tony”.

Moment I was proudest of my country: November 4^th, 2008.
Key: Watching people of all ages be that inspired and hopeful and teary-eyed, dancing in the streets, hugging, yelling in joy. Also: it as Andrew's birthday so that was a fun too.

Most Improved Holiday: My Birthday, West Asheville, May.
Key: playing cups, grilling out, laughing at my friends, a bag of bugles, a secret side trip, feeling loved.

Best Idea that actually became a reality: Road trip to Canada with Jonathan, August.
Key: over 20 hours in the Westy to spend two days in Canada. The afternoon spent wandering around Pittsburgh, the campsite on the shore of Lake Ontario, waking up to the New River Gorge, laughing hysterically while getting soaked on the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls, just one of the best trips I've ever taken. Also seeing the sign “Christian Warho” and then joking about what a Wareho would be.

Best Text Message (tie): “I think of Taps every time I eat popcorn or throw up in a bush.” -Caroline.
“I kinda just want to get drunk, dress up like a fairy and throw glitter on people. But I want to do that pretty much every day.” --Margarita, talking about Halloween.

Best Story That Didn't Happen to Me but is Nonetheless Hilarious: Doug's bicycle road-rage incident.
Key: Just read it here. Amazing.

Benign and Yet Incredibly Odd Moment of the Year: The gas crisis in September, waiting in the queue for 45 minutes to pay almost $5/gal, the creepiness of seeing cars abandoned for want of gasoline. All of Asheville shut down because no one had gasoline.

Favorite Daily Entertainment: Prank War at Work with Andrea and Andrew, all year.
Key: started with stickers, then went to bigger stickers, then involved cars, then involved a plastic dinosaur, then involved wrapping a car in seran wrap, fake birthdays and a loaf of bread I am still a little bitter about.

I'd have to say that the almost weekly camping trips I took with Jonathan over the summer were also a huge highlight of my year, as was getting to know Katie Baker, Kelly Lynch's quick AVL stop, having Slappy the weiner-dog for over a month, wandering around London with Stephanie, getting my ass handed to me in Scrabble by Beth Williams, nights spent at the guitar shop playing darts and talking, and much more. I had probably the best year of my life so far in 2008 and I can't wait to see where 2009 takes me.

Quotes:
“I'm gonna eat the shit out of these pickles.” --Margarita to herself, Quizzo, January (about her fried pickles)
“Hold my coat, he loves Jesus.”--New Years
“Isn't your email address Ihaveaclawfoottub@ashevillesingles.com?” Wait...a conflict tub? What is a conflict tub? --Me and Nate
“Why does it have to be the American Indians? Why can't it be the Mexican Indians? I mean we wore shoes...” --Margarita, on Moccasins.
“Fine. They are playing your favorite song right now but if they play “She's like the wind” you are dead.” --Doug trying to psyche me out while playing darts in newspaper pirate hats.
Frumpy is the new black
32 is the new 25
Ham: It's like meat cake.

A Pocket of Skipping Stones

The party on Saturday was hilarious and late and dance-filled and memorable and a bit fuzzy and I still can't hear out of my right ear so it was, to me, in mono. It is like half of my head is in a constant state of sinking, like my brain is threatening to capsize. Every sound is underwater. I've found I am engaging less as I hear less; I fear I'll miss a conversation or don't want the attention that comes from asking people to speak up or repeat a comment.
Also: I've stopped singing in the car. I always sing in the car, but what I hear now is tinny and distant and my voice isn't familiar and I quit singing.
Yesterday I finally began my Christmas shopping and I traveled around town, collecting gifts like they were skipping stones. All are small and thoughtful, as they should be. Once again the whole family will be in town so my sister is in overdrive organizing the duel holidays that come with duel houses. I hope my hearing will improve before next week; I'll be disappointed if Christmas came to be merely a spectator event for me. I am detached enough as is.

Do You Hear What I Hear

If you do hear what I hear, it is incessant ringing and it isn't fun, is it?

Wednesday morning I woke up to a horrible ear ache. I haven't had an ear infection since I was probably 10 or 11 but I remember the pain well. I hate going to doctors and avoid them if all possible but as the day progressed the pain got worse. The pain got distractingly, excruciatingly worse. I gave up, called my doctor friend and had him look at it. "You have an ear infection," he said and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. At this point I could hardly see straight from pain (good time to be driving around town) but I made it home fine. I took my antibiotic and lay down with a warm rice pack on my ear (it really does help, or is comforting enough to make me believe it helps) when the pain started to abate. Hallelujah. Then stuff starting flowing out of my ear.

Ewww.

The next morning I knew my ear drum had ruptured. The pain had eased drastically but the stuff kept coming out and the ringing had started. I couldn't hear anything out of my right ear except that damn ringing. I went to work. I couldn't keep my head up very long, the vertigo was too severe. I walked around with my head cocked to the side, like I was quizzing everyone and everything. I went home early. I slept for almost four hours.
Today I went to work. And today I still can't hear anything and the sloshing in my head has worsened, I feel like I may pass out or vomit at any time. Woohoo!

Here's to you, Tympanic membrane! Thank you for the worse pain I've experienced in recent memory! And your timing has been impeccable, because you know I have absolutely nothing happening this weekend...oh wait.

Grrr.

Aguafiesta

I've been a dreadful blogger lately.
I haven't called, I haven't written. If I actually sent Christmas cards, I probably would have forgotten to send one to my blog, or I would have spelled her name wrong, I'm that bad of a blogger as of late.
There are reasons for these things; it isn't you, Blog, it's me.
And the fact that the neighbors figured out I was borrowing from their WiFi and locked it.
And then there was the issue of putting the finishing touches on what became a six-month flooring project (the last shoe molding and thresholds were installed this weekend! I'm all done!)Thanks to Zack for letting me borrow his nail guns...makes things go so much quicker.
I am back in the mode of being a storyteller. Sometimes I feel like I live stories so often I forget to live presently and as I am falling asleep I regret this.
I am able to go home for Christmas; I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to swing it but it looks like a go. My mother is once again on her Hanukkah kick and I have a strange feeling my sisters are getting behind it, even as I remind them that we aren't actually Jewish. We are Swedish. And Scotch-Irish. And Cherokee. I point this out and they act a little hurt that i stifle this. I'd say I don't like being the Scrooge but then I remember I've always been the Scrooge.
In Spanish, the word for party pooper is Aguafiesta: literally throwing the water on the party.
I believe there are some parties that probably need a little water thrown on them.
Speaking of parties, Saturday is the yearly swanky party at the Harmon House. I'm going to apologize in advance for whatever happens.

Deck Us All With Boston Charlie

I grew up listening to the Indigo Girls and quite often they used words in their lyrics that I did not know and thus I made up words to compensate. For example, “Everybody loves a melodrama and the scandal of a lie” became “Everybody loves a mellow drummer” and it wasn't until several years later that I learned that melodrama was an actual word. I still like to think that the world does love a mellow drummer though.
These misheard or misunderstood lyrics are called mondegreens, a word only recently added to the dictionary (it is a play on the lyric “and laid him on the green” which was heard “Lady Mondegreen”) but I find it useful as a source of constant entertainment. My friend's husband thought the Eagles were singing about having an “East coast easy feelin” and couldn't figure out why someone would think the east coast was so much more chill than the west. I once dated a guy who was totally convinced that Rusted Root was singing a song about “Siemion the Whale” even as I pointed out to him that the song was called “Send Me On My Way”. For years I sincerely thought Janet Jackson wanted to get away and take me on the Ice Capades. Ask a friend to sing to you the lyrics to “Benny and the Jets” or most REM songs and chances are you will hear some odd explanations as to the words. This summer John and I were listening to old REM and it sounded like Michael Stipe was singing about a love kiosk and we were cracking up laughing just thinking about what a love kiosk would look like; I kept seeing a little stand located outside of an Auntie Annies in some mall. Clearly he was singing about love chaos. Only later on did we find out that the song really was called “Love Kiosk” and so what we thought was an obvious mondegreen totally wasn't.
I love that we do this. I love that “Oh Tannenbaum” sounds like “Oh Cannonball” to a five year old; how is she to know what a tannenbaum is? I'd like to think of mondegreens as our own personal Rorschach tests of our sonic selves. Like our imaginations have the absolute best mix of silliness and profundity and it spills out in what we hear. Very often what the lyrics end up being aren't nearly as good as our imaginations have made them.

There are the blatant examples of “there's a bathroom on the right” and “excuse me while I kiss this guy” and, of course, “Revved up like a douche another runner in the night”

Some examples:

Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer—Hold me closer, Tony Danza
Rock the Casbah—Rock the Cat Box
Killing me softly with his song—killing me softly with insults
She's got a ticket to ride—She's got a chicken to ride (MARGARITA) or She's got a tick in her eye
Para bilar la bamba—Bla Bla Bla Bla la bamba (Hatcher's version)
Keep on rockin' in the freeworld—keep on rockin' at Marine World

If you have examples I'd love to hear 'em!

(The title of the post is taken from a character in the Pogo comic series who had a tendency to make up his own lyrics to songs. Churchy's “Deck Us All with Boston Charlie” is probably the most famous.)

Threshold

Yesterday I spent most of the afternoon/evening putting finishing touches on the subsequent projects that come from re-doing floors (shoe molding, thresholds, etc) and it is such a gift to see projects at their completion (and having an excuse to use a compound miter saw is pretty sweet). It was a beautiful day for it too.
Then I came back to the house where I am housesitting and baked a pecan pie. Last year was the debacle of the wiener dog jumping in my pumpkin pie and thus this year I've guarded my creation closely. I even tried my hand at making my own crust and it looks good at least. I'll find out later how it tastes...
After cleaning up the pie mess I took a long bath in a clawfoot tub. I love super hot water that makes cuts and sore muscles sting a little bit but in those stings lies the relief. I dried off and sat by the fire I built in the woodstove and scratched the bellies of two warm, full, sleepy dogs and drank tea.
Truly, there is much for which I am thankful.
I love my family. I love my friends. I love much, but nights like this are so enjoyable and full and quiet that I wouldn't have wanted it differently even if offered an option.

Truths

• No matter where I am or what I am doing, I automatically feel like I'm drunk and it's 3am whenever I hear "Rock Lobster".
  
• One of my favorite things about Asheville: we get snow-capped mountains. I can look out my window at work and see them.
  
• Creepy Emo guy and Jessica Simpson's #1 Hanger-on had their baby. His middle name is Mowgli. I'm guessing Bagheera and Baloo will be named co-godfathers. They aren't leaving that kid with much of more than the "Bear Necessities" are they? Now I think I'm done with the "Jungle Book" jokes. For now.
  
• I sometimes forget that TV characters are not real people. I get confused because characters like Pamela Anderson are actually real. Well, that's up for discussion.
  
• The latin name for the Pileated Woodpecker is dryocopus pileatus. That was for Leslie.

Without Time to Rise

I had to go back through some old posts to make sure I'm not re-writing one. Blog is now 6 years old, so happy birthday blog. You should be in first grade now. Here's a hat. And a pink plastic pony. And a new composition book.

The other night one of my oldest friends called and after lamenting the Redskins loss we got to talking about more personal things. Once again I'm reminded how much we need witnesses to our lives, eyes to see the truths and beauties where we don't see them. My friend points them out as if they are these glaringly obvious notions, which of course to me they aren't. Maybe it's just that I don't see them and need to be reminded that others do. It changes my days.

I'm a tinkerer. I love projects. I love woodworking, renovations, baking, writing, projects. I tinker partly because it has such a clear conclusion: finish. Make the creation become created. Make the parts into something whole. Feel like I did something. I made bread the other day and while I was working the dough all its metaphors came out. Sometimes I need to knead. To work out those wrinkles, to sum up the parts better, to allow whatever is growing the time to grow, to become warm from the yeast and expand as it should. I don't want my creations to look like communion bread, baked without time to rise, baked with fleeing in mind. I want a living loaf.

"We're the Dancers...."

Video of the mornin' to ya!
Saw this skit from SNL on Saturday and it's nice to know they can still do some funny things. Helps having Justin Timberlake around, that guy really is hilarious.


It wasn't on NBC so I had to find it on youtube (which is where I watched it).

Furrow

I love the word furrow.
It has an imagery that I adore, the lines that make up time and etch across skins and skies. To me it has a monochromatic feel to it, it sounds like a field in winter, rows of wind planted on frozen plain. A hopelessness that comes from farming frozen ground. I get cold thinking about furrow.
(I'll stop before Emilie mocks me again for too many adjectives)
As a young child my sister used to tease me about my brow; apparently I had an "unhappy" look and it bothered her. She said I looked stern and unkind. I'd furrow my brow unconsciously; it was(and is) my thinking face. It wasn't that I was unhappy or unkind, it was that I was in a different place in my head and my face didn't travel with me.
With time a line has formed regardless of expression. A small one--less than half an inch long--but a crease nonetheless, right between my eyebrows. Now it travels with me wherever I go, visible evidence of a life lived elsewhere. I like it.

Moments of Static and Jazz

I've been distracted lately and terrible at writing down thoughts.
They switch quickly, those thoughts. Often my head feels like a radio constantly seeking through stations, moments of static and jazz, loud car commercials and top 40. Call letters calling out just enough to stay blurry.
I am one who carries great intentions.
I have ideas to do much, intentions to do much, but rarely act.
I am perpetually distracted.
Sleep is like liquor: once you know what bad sleep feels like it's easy to see why one should invest in the good stuff. Bad sleep comes off feeling like a waste of time. I don't sleep well most nights. I wake more tired than before.

Saturday night I was at the shop with Margarita and Jonathan, lounging around the woodstove, thankful for its heat. Seems so far from the hazy summer nights with the bay doors wide open, sitting out on the roof watching fireworks and life. These are days of woodsmoke and wool. Jonathan said something that had me thinking about the difference between talking and conversing; they are hardly synonymous. Very often the intention to converse exists but the ability to do it is missing. And thus I talk with no direction.
Like roving between the static.

For the Better

I remember sitting on the floor in the office of Environmental Studies my junior year of college, watching the planes hit and re-hit the towers and thinking, "Nothing will ever be the same after this. This is history at its worst."
Last night I sat on a couch in my friend's living room, wearing blue Mardi Gras beads, drinking some strange concoction out of an orange bendy straw, watching CNN's headline "BARACK OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT" pop up on the screen and thinking, "Nothing will ever be the same after this. This is our country's history at its best."
We toasted with cheap champagne in white Dixie Cups.We screamed, we clapped, we hugged, we stared. We got emotional.
We literally danced in the street.
As the senate and house results came in, one young guy said almost to himself, "Democrats in the White House!? And Congress!? I might have health insurance in two years!!!" The very first thing he thought of when confronted with such a change was his health. That was and is his biggest fear: to be hurt and not get care, to have something small happen that would bankrupt him for life. How telling. Politics has an intimacy we gloss over.

Just as I did on 9/12, I woke up today not knowing what the day would look like, only that yesterday I witnessed a watershed moment in our nation's history and that from here on out the rules have changed.
This time, for the better.

Declarations of Desire

It's the Puritans' fault we have a set election day.
Blame them for the 20+ months of campaigning and advertisements, the robocalls, the countless countdowns, the feeling of Election Day being a sort of New Years Day for the civic minded.
Thank you, Puritans.
I live in a state that sponsors early voting and many of my friends have gone out and done so. Good for them, any vote at any time is worthwhile!
I consciously chose to vote today because I believe so strongly in the day itself, the feeling of waiting in line for such a purpose; standing in a queue with fellow citizens all keen to exercise their right to do so. I walked into my polling place with no one in front of me; I got there in a lull and took my ballot to my booth and filled in the little circles that I prayed would mean something. I placed my sticker over my heart and walked out into the fall.

I remember the first time I consciously went into the voting booth with my mother. It was the 1988 election and she was one of the last to vote in the tiny fire station five miles from our house. I remember looking up at the levers, my mom explaining what they do and why we do it. I got chills watching her pull that handle to seal her votes and open our curtain to the rest of the world. She did something important.

We women have only had the right to vote for 88 years. That means we weren't allowed to vote for Teddy Roosevelt or Taft or Wilson; we voted after they had come and gone. In North Carolina the 19th amendment was only officially ratified by the state in 1971. We aren't a state that thought it was a good idea to give women the vote 88 years ago. I am blessed to have that privilege now.

Sarah Vowell, whom I'm currently obsessed with quoting, has a lovely statement in her essay, "Dear Dead Congressmen" talking about suffrage.

"...look up the word suffrage in the dictionary. In mine, after noting the main meanings--the privilege of voting, the "exercise of such a right," the third interpretation of suffrage is this: "A short intercessory prayer." Isn't that beautiful? And true? For what is voting if not a kind of prayer,, and what are prayers if not declarations of hope and desire?"

Fancy Free

It seems like every time I speak to my mother some new revelation pops up. Last week I was catching her up on trips, etc when she asked me quizzically and in all sincerity, "What exactly do you DO with your time?"
I realized that my mom doesn't really know anyone my age who isn't/wasn't married and/or has children.
At my age she had three children.
Me? I have Cranium tear-away calendar.
Just a somewhat hilarious revelation.
How does she relate to me? I worry about money and where I should go get dinner and what I'm doing with my life just like most people but that marriage/children thing is quite the chasm.
I told her, "Well, I go out to dinner a lot, hang out with friends a lot, go on spontaneous adventures fairly often, sleep in as late as I want on my weekends, I'm terrible at cooking full meals for one person, I read, I waste time online, I'm not good at getting back to my leftovers...that's about it."
And she told me I was footloose and fancy-free.
Trust me, nothing fancy I own was free. That shit expensive.


Photo of the week: Mike and Natalie and Mike's new smartcar. He's been drooling over one for almost two years and finally got off the waiting list and got his own! He's about 6'2" and says it's roomy. Natalie is my dear mentor and friend and all good things. This photo made my day.

Ponderosa of the Week

Two best text messages of the week:

"I kinda just want to get drunk, dress up like a fairy and throw glitter on people. But I want to do that pretty much every day." --Margarita, on Halloween plans.

"Yesterday I was called 'city boy' three separate times. I'm beginning to wonder if I smell like an appletini..." --Paul W, who happens to live in rural Wisconsin.

Friday night I lost my voice playing a karaoke game on Nate's PS3. That was really, really fun, especially since I kept winning. I like winning. And Cara and I dueling on "Total Eclipse of the Heart" as a finale was just...wow. Had problems talking Saturday but totally worth it.

This week I told someone they were a hermit and they told me they were going to choose to think I was referring to the type of cookie. New fact for the week: hermit is a type of cookie. Who knew.

Thanks to Nate for this Article on 5 Presidential Elections Dumber than this one. Anytime sarcasm, snarkiness, nerdy and American History combine I call it a good time.

Four weddings already lined up for summer 2009. Wow.

Jeff in IT

So while Hatch and I were in Paris we kept a keen eye on the possibility of a new friend. Ever watchful, the first morning in Paris we were on the jam-packed Metro on our way to the Arc de Triomphe (btw what is up with every hour of the day in Paris having totally packed Metros? Do these people work? Why do the cars look no different between "rush hour" and "hey shouldn't you be at work hour"?) when we spotted him. We were crammed like little le sardines in a tin Metro can when this guy got into our car and was standing in front of us, alone but for a copy of Rick Steves' Paris 2008. The North American version.
We said to ourselves, "NEW FRIEND!"
He also debarked at the Arc (as it is the terminus of the line, he really had nowhere else to go) and we sort of stalked him while we went about being tourists. We made up stories about him while we walked in the tunnel to the Arc. I decided his name was Jeff. And he worked in IT. Hatch decided his name was Michael and he was traveling the world to find himself. We both decided he was rather friendly and that we'd all get along quite swimmingly.
I admit, most of the time at the Arc de Triomphe I was completely distracted. I was interested in the Napeleon and the generals carved in stone, but the real story was WHERE WAS JEFF? We'd see him and then he'd be gone. He was like our own French Carmen Sandiego.
ANYWAY. We saw our chance at the Arc. Jeff was taking a photo of it and we meekly approached and asked in French if he spoke English (even if you know you have to pretend) and if he'd take a photo of us together. All a ruse to start a convo. Which we did. We spent the rest of the day, and part of the next day with our new friend.
Whose name happened to be Derek.
Who didn't work in IT, but is an epidemiologist specializing in TB.
From Canada.
My bad, Jeff.

My Old Dominion

Dear Nancy Pfotenhauer;
I am a native Virginian. I was born at home, the middle of five children and didn't live on a paved road until college. My father is a war veteran and my mother has worked as a school teacher. My high school was 800 students; the school district covered half a county and in that half we had a total of three stoplights. My brother, my sister and I would ride our bikes down our dusty little road the five miles to the closest town where we would stop at the general store to buy Cokes. The closest mall was an hour away.
This "All-American" life wasn't near Roanoke, Salem, Danville or Floyd; this was 40 miles from Washington, DC.
Northwest of there, in fact.
That would make it Northern Virginia.
And that was in 1992.
I am 27 years old.

I take great offense to your crass statement that the Northern part of my Commonwealth is any less Virginian than the rest of the state because it may have a more urbanized and diverse feel to parts of it or, as in your definition, it votes in a way you don't like. Virginia is simply a place not easily understood. We are the Mother of Presidents and yet the Capitol of the Confederacy. We have the D-Day Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. We aren't the north but we really aren't the south; we are simply ourselves. Virginia is home to the writers of the Declaration of Independence, The Consititution, The Bill of Rights and the Marshall Plan. We have the oldest legislature in the western hemisphere and we are home to "The Silicon Valley of the East". We've two NASCAR tracks and the headquarters for the Washington Redskins. We are "America": past, present and future.
And Northern Virginia has, in the past ten years, survived a sniper randomly killing us as we go about our days, anthrax attacks and one of the planes from 9/11 departing from our airport only to slam into our Pentagon. We've watched the dot-com bubble grow and burst, we've watched one of our own commit the worst sort of crime at our Commonwealth's Virginia Tech. And we have survived and grown stronger because Virginia stood with us. We might squabble with other regions of our state but that keeps us together and makes us grow, just as it did our forefathers, as it does our families.
We are The Real Virginia. Just as Roanoke, Salem, Danville and Floyd are The Real Virginia.
And your short-sighted dig at us won't do anything to change that.
You went to George Mason, you ought to know better.

Sic Semer Tyrannis!

S. Spooner

Scary But True

I may have developed the keen ability to sleep dial. Not drunk dial, sleep dial. Like pick up my cell phone and call someone in my sleep. Cuz I did it. At 6:30 this morning. To my friend Seth. And I didn't know until I woke up to a text from him asking why I called.
Uh oh. This is not good.
It's not like he was even on my "recent calls" list, like my sleepy self had to actually LOOK HIM UP in my phonebook. He's not the first S, or even the first SE. I must have been intentional about this freaking call.
I mean I talk in my sleep, this I know. I talk in my sleep all the time, I burst out laughing, I have slept walked only once, but this....new level of creepy.
So if your phone rings and it's some ungodly hour and it's me calling then either something bad has happened or I'm sound asleep and I'm a jackass.

We are Young and Happy...

One story from Paris...
We didn't reserve a place to stay until we got there. I had looked at a few places (shout out, Rick Steves' Paris 2008) but we hadn't really considered where to sleep. After I met Hatcher at the train station, we sat outside eating bread with Swiss apricot jam and goat cheese while we tried to figure out what to do and where to sleep in a city where we didn't speak the language and we didn't know. No problem. We found a hostel in the Latin Quarter, called and got a reservation in a 4-bed room for that night. Where? The Young and Happy Hostel. We liked the name. That was a selling point for us.
It was on the other side of Paris, but once we got our rolling suitcases down all those steps and onto the packed Metro we were just happy to be together on an adventure. We got to our metro stop and then had no idea where we were and walked about 20 minutes out of the way to get there. Eh well. It was our version of "The Amazing Race".
Conclusion: Young and Happy? Well, here is the stairwell up to our third story room:

Three stories, about three feet wide and two American girls laughing so hard we had to stop periodically to catch our breath. What!? Why did I bring a rolling suitcase? Oh that's right, London. Gahh! But we were still young and still happy and very bruised and battered.

Why am I holding a rose, you ask? Good question. We stashed our stuff at the hostel and headed to the Eiffel Tower to see it all lit up and a-purdy and while we were walking along a darkened path a French Police Officer holding a semi-automatic weapon popped out of the dark and said loudly "Pardon Mademoiselles!" My first reaction was to throw my hands up in the air. Maybe I'm a paranoid American, but man with gun shouting at me means I surrender. Weird I know. Anyway, he walked up and handed us roses, smiled and walked away. We hid behind a bush to see if he'd give them to every passerby but no, it was just us.
Must have been because we were so young and happy.
Other notes about Young and Happy: first night we shared a room with Amit, an Israeli book editor, and Steven, a college student from Ohio. Good times. Second night we were moved to a larger room that we shared with Rosalita and Paco, two Spaniards living in the UK who were on holiday and a bunch of other people we didn't meet.
Also: Young and Happy: bonus points for really, really cheap beer.
The end.

Things I Think I Think

I love watching the Dallas Cowboys implode. Love it. There is very little in the sporting world that I relish more than the Cowboys failing. It's a sick sick pleasure.

The fall...lets talk about how great it is. The leaves, the crisp air, football, apples, haunted pub crawls, sweaters, oktoberfests, less leg shaving...yesss.

I still haven't posted photos from Paris and I plan to, but the internet at my house is virtually nonexistent so it takes more time than I've had recently.

Tomorrow is my first day off (by "off" I mean "without travel/to-dos") in about a month. This, this is needed. Sleep, laundry, bills, etc. PJs til 2pm, catch up on those Netflix rentals, loaf.

My dear dear friend Caroline got hitched this past weekend and I wasn't able to be there (too many weddings/travel in the past month to be able to afford to go, both monetarily and vacation-time wise) and I sulked most of Saturday thinking about missing it. Thanks to Murphy who kept me posted on the happenings. Her wedding is next...

I don't remember the last time I saw a movie in the theater. I really like movies in the theater too, just haven't heard of one I thought was worth it.

Moxy Fruvous did a song called "The Drinking Song" that somehow gets me every time. No specific reason, it just does.

Sarah Palin as a Spoonerism: Parah Salin. You just think on that.

I read Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates on my trip to Europe and though it was good it wasn't as catchy as Assassination Vacation, her previous work. Part of this I attribute to assassinations being more interesting than Puritans. I do have to respect their words though; their intentions are inspirational and full of hope. I recommend it if only for how she captures the words of Winthrop, Cotton, Williams and Hutchinson and their personal brands of rightness and crazy.

SNL on Saturday: I haven't considered that show reverent in years and then this fall I've actually been excited to see what they can produce. I credit Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Seth Meyers for this. That Sarah Palin rap Amy did was astounding, especially since Amy is about 7 months pregnant and Sarah Palin was sitting there watching her pretend to cap a man in a moose outfit. Amazing.

London, Concentrated

So I'm back in Le States and the jetlag has not been as bad as I feared, and for this I owe my utmost gratitude to sleeping pills. Here's to you, drugs.

Paris was, as I previously mentioned, absolutely hilarious. If ever you have a chance to take a trip with Erin Hatcher, do it. I learned this several years ago on a trip to the beach (LOGTRUCK) with a brief stop at South of the Border and a stolen ashtray. The Paris trip overshadowed that beach trip like whoa. Amazing. I will post photos and stories soon! Also check out Hatcher's blog
But first, I was also in London. I realized I haven't mentioned that part. My dear and wonderful Elizabeth Kate, my friend from many an adventure, got married to the sweet sweet Brit Phil. Way to go for that duel citizenship, you two! He's obviously never seen you in roller skates...

I worked half a day and then drove the three hours to Atlanta, where I met up with Alana who drove me to the closest MARTA stop so I could ride it down to the airport. My flight was a red-eye and I landed at Gatwick around 8am London time (EST time: oh who knows I sure didn't). Customs was so quick I talked my way onto an earlier shuttle bus to Heathrow, though there was an accident on the M25 so it was all these little back roads around London. Once to Heathrow I called Liz from a payphone, hopped on a city bus to Uxbridge and 30 minutes later I was finally in Uxbridge! All in all it was about 18 hours of travel. Cool. I hadn't seen Liz in over a year and I must admit, I got straight up emotional seeing her again. ANYWAY this is rambling, some photos from the brief trip to London (not including any wedding photos because I want Liz and Phil to get back from the honeymoon first):

My first pint in London...I asked for an IPA and the girl at the bar just stared at me. You guys invented the IPA, how can you not know what it is? But I did get olives. Yumm.

Trying to be as quintessentially London as possible, I got Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the London Eye in one photo. Condensed trip calls for condensed photos.

I liked to call this the Trogdor Cannon. It was near 10 Downing Street, Steph and I just sort of stumbled upon it and all I could think of was StrongBad's lesson on drawing dragons.

The night before the wedding the girls went out for some pints at the Swan and Bottle, which I kept calling the Swan and Trousers for some reason. Me, Liz, Steph and Sarah.
actual conversation:
Me: "Barkeep, what porters or stouts do you have on tap?"
Barkeep: "Umm we don't have any."
Me: "You are standing next to a Guinness tap. That is a stout."
Barkeep: "Oh. So you want a Guinness?"

The hardest part of the quick trip to London was seeing my best friend but not actually getting to see her, if that makes sense. I was so happy to be there for her big day, but it was almost a tease, like I can view her but not actually talk to her. Selfishly, I wanted my friend to myself for a little bit. I couldn't help wondering when I'll get to actually see her face again, and for that reason when she and Phil drove away from the reception I turned to Liz's new sister-in-law and cried.
Anyway, more photos/stories to come!

Paris (For Now)

Bonjour!
I'm in Paris, drinking Heinekens at the computers in our Hostel, singing "Runaround Sue" with Hatcher...all day I have been saying, "I am in Paris!?" and laughing. Spent the day with Hatch and Derek, our new Canadian friend that we decided was our friend on the metro and made it truth at the Arc de Triomphe. That's another story for another time! What a great guy, that Derek/Jeff/Michael! I will post photos of this fabulous trip soon enough, just know that London and Paris have brought life to a soul already stuffed to the gills with zest.
Some notes:
I have great friends. Seriously, How am I so lucky to have these people?
My friends also have great friends, I love my friends' friends.
Liz now has possibly the greatest sister-in-law ever in Jess, whom I want to be my sister-in-law.
After a wedding nothing is quite so soothing as champagne and a soaking footbath.
Escargo: pretty tasty.
I think there is an FAA regulation that any and all flights longer than 2 hours within and from/to the US must screen at least one episode of "Everybody Loves Reymond"
Alana: shout out for the ride in the monsoon to the MARTA stop. So necessary.
Viva!
Back to the states tomorrow!

What? Totally Productive.

Things I have Done Instead of Packing for Europe:

9 crossword puzzles
15 sudoku puzzles
checked every blog I can think of at least 3 times
Bourbon. Lose one day.
SNL political clips from the past 30 years
Baking oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from scratch
Explained Cuban Missile Crisis and Iran-Contra Affair to roommate
Sewed up some holes in shirts I wasn't planning to pack
Updated fantasy football teams
Facebook. And more Facebook.
Chatted with 15-year-old sister
20 minutes lost trying to find "Hail to the Redskins" as a ringtone
Made "Best of Dar Williams" playlist. Not for my iPod.
Packed up summer clothes then left them in a bin on my floor
Watched clips from season 1 of "The Sarah Silverman Show"
Actually spent time trying to remember Phil Collins songs besides "Sussudio", "Against All Odds" and "In The Air Tonight". I could remember one more: "Take Me Home"...that's it. And something about Billy not losing my number. I totally had "No Jacket Required" on tape when I was like, 7 and LOOOOVED it.

So now I really do have to pack. At least I did laundry yesterday. I hate packing. And traveling. But I sure do love my friends. Maybe I should make bagels...oh! YouTube!

Shout Outs

Monday Afternoon Shout Outs Go To:

Kelly and the SF girls for showing up in my town, drinking some good Belgian beers and one that was just atrocious that Kelly was tough enough to finish (first time I've ever sent a beer back....I feel like less of a woman) and all in all having a grand ol' time. Next time I'll go to SF.

Clinton Portis for posting ridiculous numbers against NFC East foes while on the road. I haven't been this excited about the Redskins since 1992.

Hatcher, Alana and Liz for helping me get this whole London/Paris trip together. Two days, suckas. Whoa. Can I just tell you, blogging public, how excited I am to fumble around Paris with Hatcher for two days!? I mean really. Best idea ever.

Bjork, for writing the genius that is "Venus As a Boy" because it was in my head when I woke up today and man, that makes for a good morning.

Robin, for enduring a 43 hour labor in pursuit of expunging Ruby from her innards. She succeeded with an assist from that trusty ol' C-Section and now I wish rest for the new mom and dad and a long blessed life for Ruby!

Rita, for being brave enough to embark on a journey with the ghosts of Past Lives, Present Hopes and Expectant Futures...and, most importantly, the sidekick that is Texas. Miss ya friend!

A Series of Sentences That Have Nothing To Do With Each Other

Yesterday morning I saw three hot air balloons floating in the cloudless blue above the just-starting-to-turn Smokies and I sighed and was in love.

When Tina Fey's Palin made fun of people playing drinking games with the VP debate I laughed because I was guilty of that.

I leave for London and Paris in three days and I am stressed about travel.

My father and stepmom came to AVL on Thursday night for dinner and didn't meet a single of my friends and it breaks my heart to have had them here without knowing it as I do.

My youngest sister turns 15 on Wednesday and I suddenly feel creaky and unbearably old.

I believe there is a timelessness to "Find the River" by R.E.M., the last cut on "Automatic for the People"

My summer shoe collection is much more extensive and feminine than my winter shoe collection.

I feel like all I do in conversations is tell stories, like all I am is just a bundle of stories...maybe I am and maybe that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

My friend Paul sent me the following text: "Do a search for 'ferret' & 'hat' under google images sometime. I won't tell you how the subject was broached initially." and I burst out laughing without even doing the search (which is very funny) because it was just so bizarre and typical.

I have been needing more time alone lately than normal, and I normally need a lot of alone time.

Why is it that blogger (which is owned by Google) doesn't recognize the word "google" and just started to recognize "blog"?
(mystery solved...capitalize Google and it's all well and good)

Lastly, this is what I look like when I do an impression of Seth, my dear friend (and a 260lb man)...now that I know what I look like when I'm thinking uber fat man, I'm a little creeped out.

There are 435 Members of the House

I believe in nerds.
I believe in the power of nerd-dom, the glory of geeks basking in their knowledge of the arcane.
And one of the most important places for nerds to show their stuff is politics. Politics should not be run by the cheerleader, the jock, the emo band kid. Politics should go to the smartest know-it-all in the room, the one who has the capacity to retain the information crucial to making a decision and the ability to stand behind that decision. Politics should not be a popularity contest, who seems to be the candidate most like your average American because your average American is a moronic jackass who can't tell you where New York City is on a map and doesn't know how many Representatives there are in Congress. Your average American has no business stepping up to bat with the leaders of the world.
Maybe I'm crazy and elitist but the person running my country shouldn't be someone I completely understand. They have to make decisions that effect the entire world; millions of peoples lives are in their hands. I don't really want that person to be someone I can relate to, I want them to be someone so much more intelligent and informed and calm than me that I probably wouldn't know what to talk to them about.
Which is precisely why I thought the VP debate last night was a joke. It was like watching LaBron James play a 10-year old in tether ball. Biden was hitting point after point around Palin's head and she was waiving her arms madly, pretending like she hit it. But she winked and was cute and used phrases like "Joe Six-Pack" and "Doggone it" and ergo she's an average American and she'll get votes. How in the world is she being taken seriously? She sounds like Bobby's mom from "Bobby's World". It's like Lois from "Family Guy" in a battle of wits against the brains of Kit, the Knight Rider car. This is ridiculous.

(I woke up this morning thinking about Sarah Vowell's 2002 essay "The Nerd Voice" from her book The Partly Cloudy Patriot and had to reread it later in the day. The book itself is highly recommended during an election year. Her new release, The Wordy Shipmates comes out on Tuesday)

Update on Thud

Thank you to everyone who offered prayers for my little nephew Thud. I got an email update from my sister, telling me that they went back to the doctor to make sure there wasn't anything injured and the only sign of any problem was minor bruising on his torso.

That's it. This is Thud (with one of his brothers, his sister and friend) the day after the fall:

It's not even as bad as my sister's toe, which is straight up broken.
This is a photo of the back of their house to give a perspective of how far he fell (top window to the deck):
This is the view from the window to the deck...and he broke NOTHING. He literally hit the deck. Astounding. I get the shakes just thinking about it.

Find Me Home

I love maps.
I am genetically bound to love maps; I come from a long line of hobbyist and professional mappers. As soon as I learned to read words I learned to read a map. I started as the navigator for family trips when I was probably 7 or 8. I just can't stop staring at maps. I used to have stationary made of old topo maps. I am that bad.
My grandfather is credited with being one of the inventors of the 3D relief (topographic) map during WWII; I have rather fond memories of the old foam models of much of SE Asia hanging on the walls in my grandparents' basement. Talking to him about maps was learning another way to communicate. I just love how much information can be translated through something so straightforward as a map, like it is a cartographic Rosetta Stone.
Just as I have an undying love of maps, I have an uninhibited disgust of GPS systems.
I think they are lazy, insulting, and encourage and even enable people to be more helpless. Learn to read a map, you moron. Learn the cardinal directions, figure out which way you are facing, and save yourself. Maps aren't getting their credit, shiny new GPS is taking away all of their thousands of years of thunder.
And with that I have a confession...I went to visit my father and stepmother on Monday night and was driving home yesterday and took a wrong turn. I had been looking at maps all day with my dad (to plan out their week) so I knew basically where I was, but I have a navigator program on my phone I've never used and thought this was the time to check it out. Yes, a GPS device.
I have become what I despise.
Observations:
(1) Creepy how my phone new exactly where I was. Very big brother.
(2) It was distracting having a screen to look at to tell me where to go; my eye was drawn to it repeatedly, thus I am too ADD to use such a program.
(3) There was something comforting about being able to tell my phone to find me a way home and it did. I felt a bit like a child crying "I wanna go home!"

I like having a map function but the GPS was a bit too much. I don't need that much hand holding. So there is my compromise I guess. I can save myself, just need a little nudging.

She Just Slap-Shot the Constitution...

Thanks to everyone who shared this with me...
I love having a "Mocking Sarah Palin" section on le Blog. Fitting.

I'd Like to Phone a Friend...

Once again, SNL...hilarious.

"When cornered, you become increasingly adorable. Is that fair to say?"
And, if possible, this whole impression has made me more smitten with Tina Fey. I want to buy her a BFF necklace or at least get her to blog about the debates. Or just have a blog. And be my BFF.

Ghosts

I finally got up the nerve to ask to whom my dad was referring when he used that vicious pronoun "us" and I was correct, it is my former step-mom. What broke my heart was the other guest my father mentioned that was coming along, "the ghosts of [their] relationship."
Great way to word it but it has crushed me today.
One of my good guy friends just broke up with his long-term girlfriend because of her infidelity and he has his own kind of crushing weight to carry, his own ghosts that haunt. Yesterday he said, "I love her and I'm terrified about what she may do to herself," fueling a conversation about rescuing and being rescued.
I don't believe that we can rescue those we love, we can't save them from themselves. We can love them, we can encourage, we can support but we cannot carry.
Sorry it's such a downer of a post; I blame the rain.

Gods of Gasoline

* I manged to get Rashard Mendenhall just as I found out Willie Parker is out this week. Whew. Also: just heard that Buress is suspended for the Week 5 game and guess who has him as their star WR...the team I'm playing Week 5. Obviously Fantasy gods smiling on me today. I did break my "never draft a Cowboy" rule this week and picked up Felix Jones because of all the Byes. I hope he sucks. I deserve it.

* All of AVL is out of gas...station after station has blank signs and pumps covered in bags. In the parking lot of the local grocery store I saw a worn, 1970s RV with a hand-panted sign in its window, searching for gasoline. "NEED GAS" it said in green marker. I drove by a dry station with a man just parked at the pump, waiting for the truck to show up, hoping that it actually does.
It's like we've suddenly developed an intense faith in the gods of gasoline; that they will provide in our time of need.
I wasn't alive during the gas crisis of the late 70s but this has a feeling akin to that. Part of me thinks, "Well, we deserve it," and I believe we do. But the other part of me worries how I can get to work, to the store, get to anywhere in a country where the infrastructure is built with the sacred emblems of Detroit in mind, in a town where incline is king. Thankfully this week I'm housesitting just three miles from work (with no way to bike there safely).
* My father sent me an email saying "they" were coming to visit next week and had rented a cabin an hour outside of town and inviting "us" out for a night. I don't know who "they" is. I'm kind of afraid to ask.

Weekly Ponderosa

Got my first speeding ticket ever driving from my sister's house in Southern Virginia up to my father's house in northwest VA. I mean I've never even been pulled over. To be honest I was a little excited; I didn't know what to do and I may have scared the cop a bit when I told her it was my first time and that I had been driving for 11 years. And of course she totally fined me (to be fair the speed limit kept changing from 65 to 60 to 55 to 65 to 60 and with the hills I had to keep turning my cruise control on and off, so my 73 in a 60 isn't that giant of a ticket as I couldn't keep track of the limit and I was going with traffic) but afterward we talked about weddings for a while. She was rather nice.

Historically I've been fairly open with some of the more private aspects of my life and so I shouldn't be surprised when that openness manages to find the very clearly marked path back and bite me on the bum as it has recently. Thus I decided to develop and maintain some boundaries and actually keep some private things private. How novel. This has been met with mixed reviews, but then so was “30 Rock” and we all know that it's the best comedy on TV.

Sunday was the very first wedding in which I've been asked to write and read something for the ceremony and I was a wreck leading up to it. The night before the wedding I had four different things I was thinking of reading. I didn't know what they expected me to say! What do I know about love and marriage; I mean look at me! I was worried they wanted me to write a poem and if there is anything I can't write well it's poetry. I'd love to, it just isn't my forte. Prose. Verbosity. Grammar. Love 'em. So in the moments leading up to my speaking I still had two in hand; didn't decide until I stood up and in hindsight I chose correctly.

Here's wedding sum up: Heels. Hair. Old Friends. Old friend's beaus/spouses. Old friend's parents/siblings. Good god it's my AP US History teacher from 10^th grade. Prettiest bride. Choked up groom. Waterproof mascara lies. Wine. Mini bottles of Scotch for the boys. “Hamburgler” used in best man speech. Hid behind wall when bouquet was thrown. Groom's college buddy is giant manwhore. Calves really hurt from heels. Bell ringing. Photos. Goodnight. See you at the next wedding.

I forgot I had a ticket to Brewgrass until the day I was leaving to drive up to VA and so in a panic I hopped on craigslist to see if I could find a buyer. I got hold of a guy in town, we emailed and got it set up, he asked to take me out for a beer in gratitude (I declined as I was leaving right then for a long trip which does require...umm...driving) so then he asked if he could make me a mix CD instead. I said absolutely. So when I met him that evening to do the exchange I got money, a sweet mix CD and possibly another friend to add into the fold. I love you, Asheville.

Wise decision on my part benching Kurt Warner this week. I did it because he was playing the Redskins and that just hurts my loyalties but then he had a crappy game so I looked like a genius. Willie Parker: you let me down.

Lately my head has been the most empty it has seemed in years. I don't know what that means. I feel like my writing skills are off, my thoughts are very shallow and I catch myself staring off thinking of absolutely nothing. I rather like that the constant humming in my head has wained yet I don't appreciate feeling anything less than on my game. Whatever game that may be (unless it's a game on my list). Regardless I'm sensing and reacting to everything at a snail's pace.

VA is no longer home. I've finally come to the realization of this. I love it, I always will, I harbor deep pride in being from VA, I love my friends and my family here, but my home is no longer here. It is in NC. My heart has finally moved south with the rest of me. I feel like when I say, “I'm going home,” all the parts of me finally know what that means.

CNY

Who drove to the Wegman's near Dulles Airport while home for a wedding to stock up on her CNY favorites which included Dinosaur BBQ sauce, State Fair Spiedie Marinade, Yancy's Fancy XXX sharp chedder, a six-pack of Saranac pale and a 30-case of Genny Cream Ale to save for the shiity beer contest?That'd be me.
Thank you, Wegmans. I miss you.
(Of note: I only lived in CNY for five years but I love their brands and food more than I do the ones I know from my 20 years in VA and two in NC)

Never Have I Ever

So sad the "Jesus is my Friend" video was taken down...it's quite hilarious. I'll try to fix that later.
Anyway, in college we used to play the game "Never Have I Ever" where someone would say something they hadn't done and if anyone playing the game had done it, then they drank (a game we also incorporated into the best drinking game ever: Kings.). It was funny and revealing. Not much to say, so here's some Never Have I Evers that I truly haven't done. Feel free to add:

NEVER HAVE I EVER....

• Learned to dive
• Liked Kristen Dunst
• RSVP'd promptly
• Been on a cruise
• Made out in an elevator
• Consistently pronounced "nuclear" correctly
• Eaten peanut butter and mayo together
• Listened to the Jonas Brothers
• Understood French
• Seen an episode of "Battlestar Galactica"
• Voted Republican
• Owned a mountain bike
• Kissed Dylan Kinsella (DRINK you people who have...ahem...)
• Known exactly what "The Hills" is
• Had a baby
• Driven a schoolbus
• Used a fake ID
• Drank at Maggies, Lucy's or Konrad's
• Had a mani or a pedi (I don't like strangers touching me)
• Gotten a perm
• Won a game of "asshole"
• Played strip poker
• Been to Mexico
• Fallen out a window
• Learned to French Braid
• Passed out on contruction equipment or in a field
• Owned any Soulja Boy
• Thought leggings were a good idea

He Is A Friend A Mine

I have no words.
Thank you to makejoefamous for sending this out.

Weekly Ponderosa

Back to the tidbits kiddies I'm beat!

(1) Tina Fey as Sarah Palin was clutch...it really is creepy the similarities. Why do only the comedy shows have the wherewithal to call out the BS? Why are the Daily Show/Colbert Report/SNL the shows that actually go, "Hey, you guys realize this is all spin and absolute crap, right?" No wonder we are getting more cynical. PS I looked up what a flerg was...just go to Urban Dictionary. It fits.



(2) Thank you Drew Brees for absolutely killing my fantasy standings this week. Of course the team I was playing in that league was comprised of many of my players from my other league, so I knew I'd probably win one and lose won, which I did. And in real life Brees was playing my Redskins, so sorta glad he sucked.

(3) Leave for VA on Wednesday right after work for a wedding (surprise! A wedding!) Another bonsai trip with another huge one sitting on the horizon. I love to travel but it truly does exhaust me.

(4) I watched "Snatch" again on Saturday night. I love that movie. It is such a guy film but also is so funny.

(5) Jonathan and I were speaking vaguely about our personal long-term plans last week and it made me realize how few of them I actually have. I made a whole bunch after college but they blew up in my face so fantastically that I haven't made many since then. I need to get over that and start thinking about what I actually want. Cuz I have no idea.

(6) There is a prank war happening at work. And it gets better and better. I love my coworkers and essentially disdain my job, but I guess it is the people that make the experience.

The Tuesday Void

“From her roost the water hen stretched out
Her purple-green neck
The kingfisher's quick glance
Shook water droplets from his crown
And I thought love would always be
That brilliant on the wing and wild.”
Ibykos, 6^th Century BC

Hey look it's a Thursday and I'm writing about a recent camping trip. La De Da. Jonathan and I went back to Black Balsam, the place where we first camped almost two months ago. It was late as we drove up and the headlights cut noncommittal swaths through the fog that laid heavy in every fold and crease; the tall spruces sharply protesting against the sea. Along the side of the parkway multiple pickup trucks with cages were parked and Jonathan said, almost to himself, “Must be bear season.” The hunters were out training their hounds to track in the Tuesday void.

Black Balsam was as beautiful and chilly as I remembered and the waxing moon held its groggy eye just above the treeline. The fog brainwashed the stars into submission. I stepped out of the van into a silence punctuated only by hounds. The howls were distant but hauntingly present; I thought of The Hound of the Baskervilles and I shuttered. Natural and yet foreign to the place.
The next day we drove to the southern terminus of the Parkway and did a short (yet vertical) hike up to an overlook. About half-way up the trail we stopped to catch breath and bearings and the flora was humming. Literally humming. Every single bush and shrub and tree was full of bees, beetles and insects pretending to be either and somehow all were singing to the same chorus. It was as if the sound came out of the earth; like rocks were humming along and we had stumbled into their sing-a-long. Remarkable.

On the way down the trail we picked over the last wild blueberries of the season and I found myself humming.

The One Who Knows

I haven't made it to Quizzo much lately (that sucking sound you just heard was the world catching its breath in hopes it doesn't explode all over your face out of sheer terror and shock); between trips and Labor Day, etc the weeks have piled up and Mondays have gone with them.
This week I missed most of Quizzo because something so much better came up: I got to meet my new favorite person on the planet...Miss Ena Genevie Farkas.

Ena was born on Thursday at 5:49pm to my dear friends and fellow LoCoers, Katherine and Andy and I can't believe how much I love her! Like get mildly emotional, tingly and all girly crap! I haven't truly felt that way about a newborn baby since my little sister was born nearly 15 years ago (to be fair I haven't been around when any of my nieces or nephews were born, so maybe I would have felt that way with them too, dunno. Still maintain I have the maternal instinct of a spider plant...maybe a can of soup). It helps that I've been friends with Katherine for over 10 years and so meeting this little one is a culmination of a journey through high school, college, jobs, marriage and beyond.
Anyway, I'm so proud and excited and happy for two of my very favorite people.

Open Letters

Dear Ice Cream Truck with "Accepts Food Stamps" spray painted on its side,
No.
Love,
Spooner

Dear Fantasy Football team owners who drafted Tom Brady and were smug about it,
Ha.
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Ha.
Love,
Coach Spooner (record: 2-0)

Dear Sarah Palin,
Thank you for making me decide firmly against McCain. I was a little wishy-washy but the pick of you as a VP totally solidified that I will now be voting against you. Now go eat a mooseburger and teach kids that "abstinence is the only way". Way to go, new grandma.
Love,
Spooner

Dear Celebrities, VMAs and stuff read in gossip columns,
Thank you for once again out crazying yourself. And for allowing me to feel the same way I feel in Wal-Mart: like I'm the smartest, most stable, probably most normally attractive person there.
Love,
Spooner

Dear Washington Post,
Thank you for the Anti-Wedding story, complete with a scavenger hunt (with the theme "Death and Taxes") and a protest AS WELL AS an attempted wedding in Wegmans (BEST GROCERY STORE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE) and a call to the ACLU. Way to fight the Wedding Industrial Complex.
Till debt do us part,
Spooner

Dear Saranac Brewing,
So glad you are back. I love you. Never leave again. Leave the burnanating to Trogdor.
Hug hug, kiss kiss,
Spooner

Dear Spellcheck,
Thank you for reminding me that "crazying", "Trogdor" and "burnanating" are not actually words. I was so sure I was right.
Bet you don't like bootylicious either.
No, no you don't.
Love,
Spooner

Sundays of Possibility

I think it's when I'm happy and stable and warm and safe and loved that I feel like I don't have anything to say except to note that I am all of the above. Could it be that I need to be itchy in order to scratch out my thoughts as if they were chiggers crawling just beneath my surface; words little red bugs keeping me up at night and never letting me settle in and simply be in a moment? I wouldn't be surprised. All that is to say I don't have much to say. My excuse for a post is a list of what has been buzzing through the headphones as of late. Lots of old and new...I just learned how to play "Hotel Yorba" on guitar which explains why it's back in rotation.

• Almost—Sarah Harmer
• She & Him’s “Volume 1” album
• The Moneymaker—Rilo Kiley
• The Greatest—Cat Power
• Hotel Yorba—White Stripes
• New York, New York—Ryan Adams
• Say What You Want—Rosie Thomas
• Heartbeats—The Knife
• There She Goes--Babyshambles
• Yankee Bayonet—The Decemberists
• "Escondida” album –Jolie Holland*
• Great Salt Lake—Band of Horses

* I dug out "Escondida" after a street busker was playing "Old Fashioned Morphine" while I was out to dinner and it got wedged in the head.

Football season is back and I am genuinely excited and not just because my fantasy teams are going to be asskickers; I love the Sundays of possibility. Hope springs eternal at least once a week during the season.