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. :)

Weeds Weeds Weeds Weeds Weeds Weeds Weeds Weeds

To the tune of "Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer." Season 3 just came out on DVD! Matt and I were rolling off the couch on this latest episode, esp. the U-turn scenes. It's not long, so check it: I wonder if the guy over at Stuff White People Like has an entry about Weeds??

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.

what's happening

1. I'm still trying to get over the fact that I'm so lame, I blogged about our toilet seat. The bathroom mini-ren is coming along nicely, though. Matt repainted the trim yesterday, and we have a new mirror to go over the vanity.
2. I'm all caught up with The Office, so now I can watch weekly. Thanks to the free sub to Entertainment Weekly from Jean, I got to feast my eyes on the yummy 4-part cover featuring all of the main Office actors. I love how all of the women are dressed in the latest sexetary fashions.
3. Trying to eat mostly vegetarian, and mostly succeeding. The new rules I have for myself are that I won't eat any meat other than what I can get from local, sustainable farms here in OK. Luckily, there are lots of good beef and pork producers in this state. Chicken is a little harder to come by, thanks to ridiculous processing laws. I'll still eat seafood, but I'll try to avoid that, as well. I'll probably still eat meat when visiting people's homes, traveling, etc, but if I don't need to, I won't. It's a little more adventurous visiting the same old restaurants around town, but trying to eat in a new way. At some places, like Thai Raja, it isn't hard. Their veggie buffet has always tasted better to me than their meat dishes. I thought Misal, the Indian buffet, would be really hard b/c I love their Tandoori chicken and beef korma. I just passed them by and filled up on mushroom curry, red beans, and spinach paneer, which were all excellent choices. Now I've just got to figure out a way to keep full w/out having to eat *all the time.*
4. I have a teaching gig coming up on Nov. 1st. I'll be leading two 75 minute workshops for middle and high school writers. I'm supposed to be helping them get ideas for an Oklahoma Centennial writing competition, so my workshop is titled "Inspired by Oklahoma." We'll be using picture books, photos, songs, news stories, etc. to create found poetry. I have a lot of prep to do, but it's exciting to be able to teach even a little bit again. I'm a little stumped by how to incorporate the Oklahoma Centennial into writing ideas, but things are coming along.
5. Matt and I are going to The Girlie Show in Oklahoma City this Friday. I'm so excited, but a little worried that I'll want to spend too much $$$$. I'm going to concentrate on getting ideas for my own crafts and for possibly starting some kind of craft group here in Norman.
6. Matt's job search is about to get started in earnest. Lots of new regional air travel companies are opening shop, so it's exciting to consider all of the various possibilities. I'm trying to encourage Matt only to apply to companies located in places we are actually willing to live for the next 20 + years. I'm reluctant to start all over again, for a lot of different reasons, but I think I'll be okay if it's a really good offer. The fact that we live in such a low-cost housing market scares me badly, esp. considering that houses aren't selling or even renting very well in Norman right now.

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.