Halfway Hip

2008 New Years Meme

I did this last year, too.

1.What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before? Got my nose pierced.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I made a list of 34 things I wanted to before I turn 34, but I still have a few weeks in which to accomplish that list! Stay tuned...

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? A few of my local friends had new babies. They're all really cute, smiley, and fat right now.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Neither were close, but my stepsister died in September, followed by my best friend's father a few days later.

5. What countries did you visit? No other countries, but I went to Texas, New Mexico, Colorado (for about an hour!). It wasn't much of a traveling year for me.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? The ability to concentrate fully on the task at hand, be it a conversation, a hobby, something work related, playing with my kids, etc. I think I once thought I was great at multitasking, but I'm just not. My brain has had a hard time with that lately. It can even lead me to hurt people's feelings when I don't mean to.

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? The end of April. I never had an exact date for Matt's arrival back home from an unexpected 4 month deployment to Ecuador. I never expected that deployment to be as hard as it was, especially for Aidan.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Getting the kids and myself through the deployment. Working for pay for the first time in 6 years. Being there for my dad when he needed me.

9. What was your biggest failure? The times I got too angry with Aidan. Sadly, this is the same answer I gave in 2006. I think things are finally getting better for good, though. He's school-aged now, which makes a huge difference!

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I had a delicate "sports injury" back in September. I was sick with a cold from the middle of November til Christmas.

11. What was the best thing you bought? New camping equipment from REI.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Aidan has really, really matured over the past 6 months or so. Evan is becoming more of a little stinker, but that's to be expected for a 2 year old. He's still so effin cute and funny. I think Matt's been handling his arch-ultra-neocon father very well lately.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Usually my own...see #9! Same answer as last year!

14. Where did most of your money go? Paying off debt, fixing the foundation on our house, paying for a flying course Matt had to have to get a civilian aviation job. Super Target also seems to get a lot of my money, as do our food co-ops. Such is life. Oh, and ITunes got a SICK amount of $$ from me, too. I've been on a new music diet for a while, as a result.

15. What events did you get really, really, really excited about? All of the great concerts I got to see...The Killers, Arctic Monkeys, Interpol, Modest Mouse, and The Flaming Lips. Aidan teaching himself how to dive off a diving board. Aidan teaching himself how to ride a bike almost immediately. It literally was so exciting, it took my breath away. Going camping as a family again, for the first time in 3 years.

16. What song will always remind you of ‘07? So many!! (see #14 and #15!) Anything by any one of those bands, b/c, for half the year, I was preparing myself for one of those shows by listening to the music nonstop. I've had some very dry music years in the past decade, so I was so happy to welcome it back into my life in this very youthful way...looking up videos, reading bios of the bands, getting excited to see pics of them, and learning the lyrics.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
I. Happier or Sadder? definitely happier. My marriage had a much better year, and the military life is almost behind us!
II. Thinner or Fatter? Thinner, but just a bit. My plan to lose 20 lbs. in the past year has turned into losing just 10! I think I look better, though, and exercise is more of a routine in my life.
III. Richer or Poorer? Probably even. We will soon take a big financial hit when Matt leaves the Air Force, so we're trying to prepare for that.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? I didn't get to spend any time at a beach. I wish the upstairs of my house wasn't such a disaster area. I wish I had written more. I truly notice a lot, and think about a lot, and remember a lot, but I need to work on my brain (see #6) to find the space to write it all down.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Arguing, yelling at Aidan, worrying about what others think. (Same as last year!)

20. How will you be spending Christmas? We spent it together here at home with Matt's parents.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with? Probably Helen or Stephanie or Jean. All local friends.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007? Not with anyone new.

23. How many one-night stands? At this stage in the game, that would get me in big trouble.

24. What was your favorite TV program? The Office, Lost, Flight of the Conchords, This American Life, 49Up

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Life's too short.

26. What was the best book you read? Nonviolence: 25 Lessons from the History of a Dangerous Idea by Mark Kurlansky This was our December selection for my nonfiction book club. This book turned many things that I thought I knew so completely around, I'm still trying to absorb it. At the book club meeting, I was a blubbering mess, trying to explain all the ways this book affected me. I can't recommend it enough.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery or rediscovery? The first album by Interpol, "Turn on the Bright Lights." Yet another cool Canadian band, The New Pornographers. Oh, and I'm a Flaming Lips believer now.

28. What did you want and get? For Matt to move over to the instructor squadron at his job. This meant no more deployments. Plus, he's been the scheduler, which means that he can schedule himself to be home when I need him to! (shh...)

29. What did you want and not get? An end to the war in Iraq. (Same as 2006!) For my dad to stop smoking.

30. What were your favorite films of this year? Sicko, Junebug, City of God are the first ones that come to mind. We usually see films years late b/c our Netflix Queue is at 400 or more.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 33. Matt was gone. I think my mom came into town and spent the weekend, but it was nothing special.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? If Matt had not been deployed for 4 months. The way it went down was incredibly unfair, too, which still stings.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007? I joined the Wardrobe_Remix group on Flickr, which was definitely a great source of inspiration during the fall. I do think it also led me to wear some ugly-weird outfits I normally wouldn't wear, but it was all part of the fun. I bought way less at Old Navy than probably any year before. Most of my new purchases came from thrift stores, Cindy's Resale shop, or Target. Oh, and I think I'm finally out of the plus-size market. That can be both good and bad.

34. What kept you sane? Coffee, good sex, going to my therapist back when Matt was deployed, fun nights out, hiring babysitters when needed

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most/least? I'm not really that celebrity obsessed. I don't check into any of the blogs, and I usually skim over my gift subscription to Entertainment Weekly.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? Probably the SChip health insurance bill for kids.

37. Whom did you miss? My friend, Sara, who lives in Denmark now. I think I'll get to see her this summer, though! We did share a long phone conversation back in November, but it was way overdue.

38. Who was the best new person you met? She's not new, but I got to hang around Melissa again. She's the wife of one of Matt's longtime coworkers. She's another disgruntled Air Force wife, another English teacher, she's done the stay-at-home bit, she has small children, she and her husband are irreverent and antiwar as well. We went to their Halloween party, sat next to them at the otherwise painful squadron holiday party, and we'll get to see them next week when we hit the town for Matt's birthday.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007: That I don't have to try to earn a PhD in parenting. A Bachelor's degree is good enough, with a smattering of graduate-level study. Many thanks to my therapist for this analogy.

40. Do you have any lost feelings of others? I'm still not sure I understand this question, but I'm guessing it means to ask if I've disappointed anyone this year? The answer is definitely yes. It's never intentional, but my inability to multitask can sometimes leave my friends out in the cold. Things are left unsaid, undone.

41. Quote a song that sums up your year:I'll give a sampling of lyrics from all the bands I got to see:

From Interpol's "Pioneer to the Falls":

So much for make believe, I'm not sold
So much of dreams deceive, I'm not prepared to know
Your heart makes me feel
Your heart makes me bold
For always and ever, I'll never let go
Always concealed
Safe and inside, alive!

From The Killers' "This River is Wild":

Run for the hills before they burn
Listen to the sound of the world
Watch it turn
But shake a little
Sometimes I'm nervous when I talk
I shake a little
Sometimes I hate the line I walk
I just want to show you what I know
And catch you when the current lets you go

From Modest Mouse's "Missed the Boat":

While we're on the subject, could we change the subject now
I was knocking on your ear's door but you were always out
Looking towards the future we were begging for the past
Well we know we had the good things but those never seemed to last
oh please just last
Everyone's unhappy, everyone's ashamed
Well we all just got caught looking at somebody else's page
Well nothing ever went quite exactly as we planned
Our ideas held no water but we used them like a dam

From The Flaming Lips' "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song":

If you could blow up the world
With the flick of a switch
Would you do it?
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah)
If you could make everybody poor
Just so you could be rich
Would you do it?
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah)

If you could watch everybody work
While you just lay on your back
Would you do it?
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah)
If you could take all the laughs
Without giving any back
Would you do it?
(Yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah)

From The Arctic Monkeys' "This House is a Circus":

This house is a circus, berzerk as fuck
We tend to see that as a perk, though. Look
What it's done to your friends. Their memories are pretend,
and the last thing that they want is for this feeling to end.

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?

Love for Ian (but not for James)

As much as I'm loving my newer Itunes purchases, like the Arctic Monkeys and The Libertines, I'm still so in love with my old favorites like Echo and The Bunnymen. I first heard "Bring on the Dancing Horses" via the Pretty in Pink soundtrack I bought right after seeing the movie in 6th grade. That tape(!) proved to be very influential, as it also introduced me to The Smiths, New Order, INXS, and Beloius Some. I had Echo's self-titled album on tape (can't remember if I had the original or a dub from Kristen), and then I bought Songs to Learn and Sing sometime in the 90s. I realize now that I really need all the back catalog, in addition to all of Ian McCulloch's solo stuff. Just look at these lyrics, will ya? Sublime.

The Game (from Echo and The Bunnymen)

A sense of duty
was my one intention
and an ugly beauty
was my own invention
Pride a proud refusal
and I refuse
to need your approval
Too many seekers
Too few beacons
But through the fog
we'll keep on beaming

Through the crying hours
of your glitter years
all the living out
of your tinsel tears
and the midnight trains
I never made
'cos I'd already
played...the game

Everybody's
got their own good reason
why their favorite season
is their favorite season
Winter winners
and those summers sons
aren't good for everyone
aren't good for everyone
Spring has sprung
and autumns well done
so well done

And it's a better thing
that we do now
forgetting everything
the whys and hows
While you reminisce
about the things you miss
you won't be ready
to kiss...goodbye

The earth is a world
The world is a ball
A ball in a game
with no rules at all
And just as I wonder
at the beauty of it all
you go and drop it
and it breaks and falls

I'll never understand
why you thought I would
need to be reassured
and be understood
When I always knew
that your bad's my good
and I was ready
ready...to be loved

Born under Mars
With Jupiter rising
Fallen from stars
That lit my horizon

I'll never understand
why you thought I would
need to be reassured
and be understood
When I always knew
that your bad's my good
and I was ready
ready...to be

Through the crying hours
of your glitter years
all the living out
of your tinsel tears
and the midnight trains
I never made
'cos I'd already
played

it's a better thing
that we do now
forgetting everything
the whys and hows
While you reminisce
about the things you miss
you won't be ready
to kiss...goodbye

Although I don't associate him with Echo's music, I "went with" a guy in jr. high named James who looked a lot like Ian did in the late 80s. Tasty. Ian, not James. He carved my name in his arm and then broke up with me for no reason. He was in my Southern Baptist youth group and started a campaign against me with some other guys. Their big schtick was to call me prima nase, which they said was German for "the big nose." I just looked it up and couldn't find proof, but I did find something I wish I could have called him back..eine grobe Scheibe..."a big fuck-up." Heh. I hear he now lives in Houston now and is a Budweiser deliveryman. Oh, and he had a big nose, too.

So, back to Echo. They are back together again, and touring! Shit...that was last year. Hopefully, they'll swing this way again. Kristen said that we need to go see as many of these bands as possible, before they're all gone for good. I agree. The last concert I saw, though, was New Order at Moby's Area 1 Festival in California, 2001.