Halfway Hip

Flu Music

So, I have the flu. No wonder I was so cranky for my last post. I started with cold symptoms Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday, I progressively felt worse and worse throughout the day. I knew that a student of mine came down with the flu the week before, and she and I had handed off a few things to each other, so I suspected it right away when I felt feverish. After taking Advil, my temp was still 101, so I went to urgent care that afternoon and got the diagnosis. Now that it's two days later, I feel somewhat better, but definitely not back to normal. Fever goes up and down, and I'm having a really hard time sleeping at night. Last night, I gave up trying and came out to the living room, where I happily discovered the VHI Classic was playing 120 Minutes! Even in my sickened misery, I felt giddy joy at watching some of these gems again: First up, Sinead O'Connor with MC Lyte: "Going Underground" by The Jam. Check out how fresh this would be now!! What goes around comes around! Elvis Costello's "What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding" played, too, but I can't share that with you b/c it was ganked from youtube. Boo. So, weird coincidence. I was just reading in Hillary's blog last night about her favorite album. Mere hours later, I'm watching this video, and I haven't thought about Lemonheads in years. "It's a Shame About Ray." So, not all 90s music was horrible. There was also the Pixies, whose "Monkey Gone to Heaven" was also played, much to my fevered delight. There was also "Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins. I have a love/hate relationship with this band, and still feel that they were waaaayyy overplayed, but this video is gorgeous. They were doing steampunk 10 years before the rest of the world was: Then, they had to go ahead and play one of the main reasons 90s music got so bad. Sony BMG disalbed embedding on this one, but you can follow the link. Actually, it's really not a bad song. Just way overplayed and then it started a huge downturn in "progressive" music that lasted til about the year 2001, when Interpol and The Strokes came along. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCgFYz7VX74 Though, to be fair, my access to true indie, underground music at that time was very limited. No more 120 minutes. No more true college alt. radio. Enid, OK didn't have a quirky little record shop. I should have paid more attention to the reviews in Entertainment Weekly, and then I would have discovered Pavement and Pulp when they were timely. Okay, 90s music ramble over. I don't think this song by The Fixx would have EVER been on the real 120 minutes. It's probably just as well that I can't embed this one, either. It's like being Rik Rolled. Really. Hearing this one, I know I've been unfair to 90s music. Oh, how I loved James!!! I don't think I ever saw this one back then, which is so hard to believe!!!! "Girlfriend in a Coma" by The Smiths. The only video I remember seeing from them was "Stop Me If You Think..." and then of course Morrissey vids. What would 120 Minutes be without a New Order video? This is the one they played last night. Mom, I swear this song isn't about drugs! Why would anyone think that?! If you're still with me, hope you enjoyed this little stroll down memory lane. Kristen's probably the only one still with me. :)

Video from Skate Party

Courtesy of Victoria.

80s chicks from Victoria Akselsen on Vimeo.

80s Skate Night from Victoria Akselsen on Vimeo.

20th Friendiversary Gallery

This is circa 1988 or 89. We were bored and messing around at Kristen's house.

Here is our "before"

Here is the "after"

Who were we trying to be???

Robert Palmer's women, of course! Kristen's little bro, Davey, was such a good sport.

Here is us a year or two later, waiting for the bus, 10th grade.

Skip a few years, to sophomore year in college. Notice that I have the same hairstyle that I did in 8th grade!

Before my college graduation, 1995. Kristen's sportin' The Rachel. I wish I had more pics of this apartment. It was pretty bad!

1998, rockin' the MIA sandals:

1999, New Years Eve. God, this was a fun party.

The week in review

Swiped from my good internet buddy, Sassymama.

1. What was your biggest challenge this past week? Now that Evan is totally night weaned (knock wood), he has replaced night nursing with sticking himself to my face like a barnacle, or like that thing on "Alien" that laid an egg in that guy's mouth. Consequently, I haven't been sleeping too well at night. We moved Evan's toddler bed over so that he's more on his own, but he protested so violently when he woke up at 10:30 last night, we put him back in bed with us. Baby steps, I guess.

2. What was your biggest accomplishment this past week? Little things...I fixed two necklaces, made a pair of earrings, made a new necklace. We started a babysitting trade-off with a good friend of mine, which will save us the $40 a week I was paying for Evan's weekly babysitting back in the fall. While Evan was happily playing at Stephanie's on Monday, and while Aidan was at school, Matt and I had lunch at Thai Raja and then spent a few hours cleaning up our upstairs disaster zone. Filing, box-shifting, finding stuff to give away, discovering more storage in the crawl space. We also discovered more stuff that the workmen left here from the renovation...a sharp circular saw piece, two nasty couch pillows from the previous owners, and a whole lot of dust. Now, we're working on emptying our rental storage unit, which will save us another $50 a month w/out causing too much pain.

3. What was the most exciting thing that happened in your life this past week? It was a little over a week ago, but I'll write about it anyway. Last Friday, we went out to celebrate Matt's birthday with our friends Derek and Melissa. Dinner at Abuelo's was fresh and delicious, as was the pitcher of margaritas that Matt and I shared. We then went on to Nonna's upstairs bar for desserts, where I had a drinkable Tiramasu cocktail. We probably should have tried harder to find a more suitable spot to hang out next, but it was freezing outside, so we didn't feel like walking around. We ended up at the SKYY Bar, a meat market-like dance club. The music was pretty fun, with lots of 90s R&B/pop hits. I had a few too many Citron and sodas and kept repeating that I was "dancing ironically." Matt had a blast watching me get drunker than I've been in a whole lot of years. See pics at my Flickr. It took all day Saturday to recover, but it was worth it. Don't want to do it again anytime soon, though. Will have to research more age-appropriate nightlife options in this area. I also got to go to my book club, as well as to dinner out with two of my friends last night.

4. What one thing made you the happiest this past week? Not really any one thing. Despite lots of anxiety about our future, I've felt basically happy and contented. Matt and I have been communicating brilliantly. I'm really enjoying my SAHM status a lot more these days, knowing that it will all come to an end soon. I've had time to work out more lately. I got in 4 workouts this past week with NO resulting injuries. The weight I've put on due to holidays and weaning Evan is slowly starting to come off. I got a chance to get some minor errands done, such as getting my OU transcript to send in to get a new teaching certificate and taking two pairs of jeans to the tailor. Oh, and I also had time to go to Cindy's Resale by myself. I had $50 in credit, and spent exactly that on a nice pair of black work-type pants, a cream short sleeved sweater shrug/jacket thing, a knit top, a work skirt, a pair of almost-new Indigo by Clarks black ballet flats, and three $1 bracelets (two of which I used to make that cool necklace.)

The Interpol show

It was fantastic. This band has completely gotten under my skin in a way I haven't experienced since I first heard New Order. Those who know me well know that's a serious claim! I was thinking that my Interpol experience really does mirror my NO experience. Before my first New Order concert in 1989, I had heard of them and really dug the sound of their new album, Technique. On a whim, I asked Kelly from down my street to take me to the concert when I heard that they would be in town. We had been flirting for years, and I knew that he had a car. His parents ended up driving us and waited for us in the parking lot. (Wow...talk about belated appreciation!) I knew I liked New Order, but I wasn't prepared for how much I would fall for them at this show. I couldn't help but dance the whole time, despite others around me who may have appreciated me sitting down. (Poo-poo on them...who the hell sits at a New Order show?) After that, I had to get my hands on any New Order recording that my very tight allowance/budget would allow. Years go by, and I make sure to have every recording (that isn't a tired, unnecessary "greatest hits" compilation. I'm looking at you, International.) I've seen them in concert 3x, including when we had to drive halfway across the country to see them perform in 2001, despite being pregnant and broke. Planned a trip to England to see them in 1998 (for their big comeback performance), but the festival was canceled. So, you can say I'm a fan.
As for Interpol, I heard "Untitled" on Morning Becomes Eclectic back when we lived in California, but I never really knew who the band was. Summer of 2004, we went to San Diego a lot for Matt's work, so I had the luck to be able to listen to 94.9 quite a bit. That summer, Interpol's song "Evil" was on almost everytime I got in the car. I loved it. Didn't know it was about a serial-killer English couple til just a few weeks ago, though. That song drew me in and led me to buy the album "Antics," which I played all the time when we first moved here in 2005. For a while, I think it was the only CD in my car. I really liked Interpol over the years, but they never really got to me til I was listening to their new album "Our Love to Admire" and then their first albume "Turn on the Bright Lights," in preparation for this show. I wasn't even going to go to this show. I had already been to 2 concerts the week before, and our Sept. had already been crazy enough. However, after repeated listenings to all Interpol all the time, I just had to go. Plus, Kristen's husband Mike was all in for babysitting. How could I turn it down? Like the first New Order show, this Interpol night really stamped them into my brain. After I got home, I couldn't stop thinking about their music. I joined the message board, looked up all the videos on Youtube (don't have regular access to music videos, so I had actually never seen any of them), and looked up pictures, interviews, etc. Now that a few weeks have passed, I've started living my life again. Don't have the time anymore to sit on my bed and listen to music all day like the early New Order days. I do have to drive a lot, though, and Interpol has been played so much lately, Aidan is learning some of the songs.
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Can Sept please end, like, now?

It hasn't been an easy month, friends. Some good things, some bad things, some ugly things. As always, I've been hesitant and blocked about coming here to record any of it for posterity. Whatever.

The good:

1. Concerts! The Killers and The Arctic Monkeys, all in the space of a few days. I'm so glad that we got general admission tickets for The Killers. Nokia Live is a 4000 seat venue, and it was sold out, but we were close enough. I swear Brandon Flowers made eye contact with me! Me! :) Our pics weren't great, but they do show how close we were, and how unbelievably energetic the concert was. There were lights, roses, confetti, skeletons, a crowd who knew all the words to all the songs (and who weren't as young as I expected), silver jackets, guitar riffs out the yin-yang, and a realllllly hot lead singer.

Arctic Monkeys was much more of a low-key show. Despite being crazy-popular in Britain, not many in Dallas seem to know about them. Sucked a bit b/c there wasn't a lot of dancing going on, which made me feel a bit conspicuous about my own need to get down. Still, they put on a very good show, and they're so tight, musically. I didn't really realize how fast their songs are til I realized that it only took them about an hour to play the whole show.

2. I finally got my nostril pierced, along with second holes in my ear lobes. I don't have an "after" pic yet b/c my camera sucks at taking close-ups, at least close-ups where I don't look insanely ugly and old. :) Here's a before shot Matt took of me, all nervous-excited at the piercing studio.

Now that the healing process is well on its merry way, I can say that I'm really happy I finally did it. I'm a little closer to looking on the outside like the girl who is on the inside. Does that make sense? The healing was a little scary there for a few days, but the swelling went down after about 5 days.

3. I got to meet my great-nephew for the first time. My niece seems to be doing really well as a young mother, and it was nice to have some quality time with her and her new husband, Tony. We also got to spend the day with my other niece and nephew. I was amazed at how much my now-teenaged nephew is starting to really look like my older brother, his dad. Oh, and they all have myspace pages, too, so we're keeping in touch better. One of the most important things to me is to stay available to these kids. Aidan and Evan love their cousins, too, and they're the only ones they have so far.

4. I was somehow talked into going to a snake exhibit. I even looked at a few of them. I had to miss the Star Wars exhibit at a different museum, though, due to reasons listed below.

The bad things:

1. The morning we were to leave for our fun weekend visiting family in Texas, I found out that my stepsister had died the night before. She was 48 and had a lifelong illness due to a heart defect. My poor dad and stepmom were just shattered. I ended up taking a separate car to Texas so that I could be with them that Friday and attend the funeral on Labor Day. I had very mixed-up feelings at that funeral. I was so sorry for my stepmom, yet very annoyed at all of the evangelizing that went on. I heard more about going to hell/getting into heaven than I did about my stepsister's life, and that's just wrong. It was also my first funeral to attend since I've discovered that I'm more agnostic than anything else, which led to me sitting there wrestling with all kinds of new thoughts. I've never felt so alone.

2. On the Sunday between stepsister's death and the funeral, my best friend's dad died after his 2 year ordeal with lung cancer. He was only 55. Kristen had been helping to take care of him for all that time, but the ending still seemed to come incredibly fast. We spent the night with her that night, and then I drove back to Dallas on Tues (after coming back from Funeral #1 on Monday) for his funeral on Weds. Strategically, it worked out great. Matt was able to take and pick up Aidan from school, Evan and I stayed with my ILs, and they babysat him during the service. Kristen and her brother did a wonderful job planning the funeral, which was very relaxed. I was so impressed by the eulogy Kristen gave. See, her dad was pretty much an asshole to her for a good portion of her life, but she was able to really dig down and find very interesting things to say about him and his influence on her. They played Dire Straits, Hank Williams Jr., Lynard Skynard, etc. at the service, and then we all went back to his house afterward for food and Natural Light beer.

The ugly:

1. I just have come to really hate being at my ILs house.
2. Aidan was just so hard to handle throughout most of August and Sept. I think he's finally come through to the other side of whatever this phase has been. Kindergarten seems to be agreeing with him. He says he wants to be a math or science teacher when he grows up. He's greeted with lots of hugs every day as he reaches the door of his classroom. For a while there, though, I wasn't doing a good job of being his mother and was really struggling with some depressing thoughts. Thoughts that I didn't deserve him b/c he seemed like too much of a challenge for me. Thoughts that I suck for stereotyping him, if not out loud, than in my mind, that he's a difficult child and won't ever change.
3. #2, in part, led to some struggle within my marriage that got to a new level of miscommunication, which was exacerbated by all of the stress in our lives and the travel and #1. Last week, despite the concerts, was a very unhappy week for both of us. We did manage to finally come to an understanding, though, and things are really looking up in that department.
4. A health problem I've had since pregnancy has returned to plague me on a whole new, painful level. Finally got in to see an NP on Friday, and I now have a referral to a male surgeon on Tuesday. You know that a medical problem is bad if I'm agreeing and actually wanting to see a MALE SURGEON to get it fixed. I'm sick of not being able to exercise. After a year of steadily going to the gym, I realize how much I need it and miss it. I'm on strict orders to get rest until I'm all healed, but that's almost impossible for a mother of young children. Matt's been able to help a lot this weekend, though. He's at the state fair right now with the boys. Sucks b/c I want to be there with them, watching the pig races and eating yucky things.

I should have ended with the good!! I'll end with a cute pic of me and Kristen, just before leaving for The Killers. We're dispaying our individual photo-shoot tricks. Mine is to hide half of my body behind the person standing beside me, and hers is to jut her hip out. Works, huh? :)

Random Photo Sampler: fun 90s

So, I've been all awash with nostalgia lately. No reason, in particular. Maybe it's getting caught up with old friends on myspace, reading old notes/journals, looking at old pics. One seems to feed into the other. A month ago, after my return to The Church with Kristen, I looked up and scanned some pics of us all dolled up 90s style. Cracks me the hell up now. See, this is what we looked like by day:

Nice scarf, Kristen! I'm so glad we had the foresight to take pics of ourselves looking like this before our club jaunts. I would kill, KILL, to have pics of us all dressed up for our teen clubs. These will have to do:

OMG, I wish I had been introduced to the concept of low-lights and a straightening iron. I look very, uh, Oklahoma.

Nothing bad to say about this pic. I sure do wish I could rock the eyeliner like this nowadays. This one of my favorite pics of us.

This was taken shortly after I took Kristen to get this tattoo for her 25th birthday. Wish I had gotten one at the same time. Feels like a crime to have made it out of the 90s without some kind of body modification.

While I'm at it, here's one of Matt. I believe those are pleather pants he's wearing.

Thanks for indulging me.

Inappropriate Music

Music can be deemed inappropriate in the "explicit lyrics" sense, and also, more and more for me as I'm plugging into my Ipod more frequently, in the sense that the music is incongruous with the setting. This is an unending source of amusement for me. I just relish listening to Joy Division while working out. It seems so , so wrong. I should be in my high school bedroom, staring up at the star-stickered ceiling in the dark, feeling some sort of angsty delusional heartbreak instead of sweating on the elliptical, watching HGTV.

This is my treasured Thursday morning getaway/work time and, once again, I'm at Panera Bread b/c I lack the creativity and will to find someplace better. To be fair, there's really not much better in town. Last year, when Matt was slaving away on his thesis every weekend, he would hit a now-closed coffee place on Campus Corner or Winan's. Winan's serves very decent coffee, but they have limited seating and not much a selection for breakfast. At Panera, I always get one of the spinach artichoke souffles, and something a little sweet, like an orange scone. I'm trying to show restraint today, so I ordered something called a muffie. I just could not bring myself to say that word to the cashier so I played dumb and asked for "one of those little muffin tops." My pumpkin muffie is quite disappointing, though, and I'm salivating at the site of the big honkin' Cobblestone muffin, which may as well be called cake. The lady next to me is enjoying hers a lot. Hmmm. Oh, well. Better to watch my own muffin top.

Wasting a lot of time today. Baby kept me in bed with multiple requests to "err ine," which translates to "Nurse, I want to." Didn't get out of the house til after the babysitter had been there for 30 minutes. Then, I wasted even more time here at Panera checking random emails. I'm supposed to be doing something productive with this time. Last week, I spent the entire time reading emails. That was fine b/c they were like novellas and caught me up with one friend. Time wasn't wasted. Now, I'm wasting even more time writing about wasting time checking emails.

Where was I? Oh, yeah...inappropriate music.

The song "Jump" by The Movement played on the IPod a bit ago. Definitely incongruous with this setting...there are 3 Korean women talking at one neighboring table, an older man typing away at another table, what appears to be a job interview going on at another, and a mom feeing her small kids breakfast at another. So, unfortunately, I only have the sanitized version, which also appears on the CD I linked to above. Mine's from Entertainment Weekly's Hot Dance Mix, which I got when I subscribed back in the mid-90s. The version I remember knowing and loving so well goes, "Jump muthafucka jump muthafucka jump! Jump muthafucka jump muthafucka jump!" The part that's the best is the beginning when the guy goes, "Ya'll some jumpin muthafuckas." No, really. Kristen and I were just obsessed with song for a while. So much so that we put it on our answering machine in our freshman dorm room in college. Worked for a while, but then my poor country uncle called. "Uh...is this Leah's room? Uh...Leah, this is your Uncle Bub. I just heard a strange message, so, uh, I'm not sure that this is your room..." I think when I finally talked to him, I just brushed it off and said something about having a crazy roommate.

Sitting here in Panera, I'm very tempted to break out the techno hands when I listen to this song. I will keep the santized version b/c I know that Aidan would love it as much as he loves "White Lines" by Rob Bass. I've gotta go find the unsanitized non-Jock Jam version on ITunes for old times' sake, though. Apparently, it appears only on a certain version of Rave Til Dawn. If you're thinking twice about buying it for yourself, consider this sales pitch, culled from the reviews at Amazon:

"i ve ben listening to rave music all my life and i have to admit that this cd would b ausome to have this cd would b grate for me to remix on my cd mixers on line and 1 track the movement jump motha mix ive hered it its a ausom track i cant find the track aney where but on this cd its a rar track to find the onley verson u will find is the clean verson its pritty dumb but hey its still a good track im a dj in a night club so i know my music if its good or bad what ever u do dont buy dj rap shes junk ide thought shed me techno and rave but i was rong i wasted $9.99 on it from i tunes yall should get moon shine cds they have the best electronic music like ferry corsten carl cox dj dan d fuse keoki all thoes artest its at www.moonshine.com yall check it out thanks dj_gangsta "

How can you resist?

My Thursday gig and other random things

*I now have a regular babysitter on Thursdays for Evan while Aidan is at summer preschool. My friend Jean and I hired a babysitter to watch both of our sons together since they play so well together. I have gotten quite fond of this routine we've got going. For the first few weeks, I went to Panera Bread and worked on a freelance writing job for another friend. Two weeks ago, I went to the Tom Romano thing. Last week, I finished up the freelance work and wrote a few blog entries. This week, I didn't get any revisions in to work on, so the time was all mine. I was moving very slowly due to yesterday's festivities and the late night, so I simply sat at Panera and got caught up with email. Specifically, I read all of the emails detailing the travels of my friend Carrie, who was our doula at Evan's birth. For the past year and a half, she's been globe trekking. Since about January, she's been writing of her adventures, and Matt and I were lucky to be on her email list. That's a girl who should have a blog. I had no idea she could write like that. I'm ashamed to say that I had gotten really behind on her updates, but I squirreled them away to enjoy at a later date. Reading back through them today (took almost 2 hours!) was like finding the Fleur de Sal caramels from Trader Joe's that are in my cabinet but that I keep forgetting about. When I find them and allow myself one or two, they are so heavenly. Too much would spoil it. Today, though, I had to keep reading on (about 10 emails in all) all the way to now, b/c she's just ended her journey and is headed back to the US. Not a bad way at all to spend an overly air-conditioned morning in a place as faceless and sanitzized as our local Panera Bread, though it made me wish for the thousandth time that I had gotten some solo travel under my belt before I saddled myself with lots of responsibilities.
*Matt and I now have tickets to go see The Killers in Dallas on Sept. 13th. Our first concert in over 6 years! It's just a shimmy and a shake, uh-hoh, I can't fake...
*Have been reading furiously lately. Finished Life of Pi (phenomenal...I really need to talk about with someone else who has read it!), Hillbilly Gothic (it was okay) and have started Last Child in the Woods.
*I've been enjoying the Entertainment Weekly subscription Jean got for me for free, but I am very behind on pop culture in general. No worries, though, when the run features like The Fop Five Most Awesomely Preppy '80s Movie Villians (can you guess them??) and the ongoing Chart Flashback. The online version has a nice sampling of the songs' accompanying videos. I have to say that I haven't thought about or heard Donna Summer's "This Time I Know It's For Real" since then. I remember really digging the dancer's cowboy boot/short skirt combo in the video. Bobby Brown's "Every Little Step" was a guilty pleasure for me in the days when I was mostly listening to Depeche Mode, The Cure, and New Order. Some things never change, huh?
*We've been a little slow to watch our Netflix offerings lately. I've had the first two discs of The Office Season 2 (American version) for a few weeks. I finally cracked open the first one a few nights ago. Watching the first season, I thought Steve Carrell was hilarious, of course, but wondered if I could watch him for a whole TV series. Watching him, I was painfully reminded of a few principals I've had, minus the sexual harrassment stuff. It seems that in this next season, he's toned down a bit, but the other characters have been amped up to more hysterical levels. I think my favorite one is Kevin. Who is yours? (No spoilers, please!)
*"Porch of Buly" (as coined by my friend's daughter) was half productive (got some of the front garden weeded and the house somewhat cleaned) and half fun (went to said friend's annual shindig and the city fireworks afterward.) It was a late night, but everyone was happy and quick to put to bed.

Boys before books

Today, Evan and I spent a lot of time just hanging out. I bought two new pairs of shoes at Shoe Carnival, one of them a much-searched-for perfect black leather pair of ballet flats. When the workmen got too noisy and naptime became impossible, we went upstairs. While Evan completely emptied out our movie cabinet, I started looking through old letters and journals. I decided to read everything I've written in orde.r The earliest thing I have is a book of poetry that I had to make in 7th grade. I also have two spiral notebooks full of notes that my friend, Angie, and I passed back and forth. Part of me was delighting in the pop culture references (I wrote the words to "Obsession" by Animotion out on one note, said I was watching "Alli and Kate" in another), my crazy-girly bubble handwriting, and the little phrases I put at the end of each note, such as "boys before books." However, I can't help cringing a bit, too, remembering some painful and/or embarrassing bits of the past...things I didn't write about so much. I'm almost dreading getting to the 9th grade folder, where I know there is more *murderous scream here* BAD TEENAGE POETRY. Looking back at the notes, I can't help but think of Tammy Pierce is Unlovable, a comic I read every month in Bust. I just now found out that it's all taken from a diary the artist found in a bathroom. Holy cripes, what are my ancestors going to think of me when they go through all of my shit? And I've been sitting here all afternoon thinking, "Wow, the teens of today are going to be so sorry that they text everything b/c they'll have nothing saved and will regret later not being able to read all of their old notes." :/ So, I think I have a love/hate relationship with this whole old journal/old notes thing. Kind of like this blog. I feel it's so dorky and mundane. I know that *I* will love reading it sometime in the future for its pop culture references, forgotten pictures, details about the kids. I will cringe at the same time, though, just like I do when I watch myself on video, hear my own voice recorded, or read my 7th grade notes.