Halfway Hip

Me! Dancing!

First of all, I'm now obsessed with Los Campesinos! At the moment, I can't stop hearing this song in my head. I know, it's long. Stick with it, though. Well worth it to feel so happy.

At long last, I have found the song that got EVERYONE all frothed up at Mondo in New York. I remember screaming to Kristen in the midst of our (slightly) drunken festivities, "What IS this? I LOVE this!"

Okay, so why am I all frothed up now, in midst of baskets of laundry, dirty floors, and a toddler who requires a 2 hour bedtime routine? I got a job today! Apparently, the "bad" interview I was beating myself up over wasn't so bad after all! I'll be teaching 8th grade Language Arts at a middle school that's about a 5 minute drive away. Now all I have to do is figure out childcare arrangements for both of the kids. Oh, and also I have to figure out a way to deal with the (slight) guilt about leaving SAHMhood sooner than I had originally planned. I'm sure there will be much more on that later. For now, I can relax and enjoy my spring. There are lots of fun things coming my way. Let's list them, shall we?
1. Seeing Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner at OU on Wednesday while a very good friend's husband watches the kids.
2. Going out for brunch at La Baguette and a pedicure with my local friends on Saturday. A different very good friend's husband will watch the kids then.
3. Moms Night out at The Mont next week. Can expect chips and queso, Sangria swirl, a cute patio, and good conversation.
4. Book club next week, too. This time around, it's The Power of Place. MIL will be visiting, so yet another free babysitting hook-up.
5. Going to Miami in late May to join Matt for a different kind of hook-up. It will be our first trip alone since going to Kansas City for a wedding in Aug. 2005. I'm only there for three days, and Matt will probably have to work each of those days. The ILs seem to be really looking forward to having the boys come down. They're already making all kinds of plans for them.
6. Four concerts coming up: The Kills (possibly), Ladytron/Datarock, The Cure, and the True Colors show (I'm going for Girl in a Coma but the rest of the lineup should be fun, and it's a worthy cause to support.)

Hotel Chelsea, room 219

Here's what I could dig up from a Google of "Hotel Chelsea, room 219." This entry at Wikipedia led me to find out about...

The band Fever Marlene recorded their latest album in the room we stayed in. They also are making a documentary about it. I was so stoked to see this footage from our room!

The #1 has footage of the lobby, stairwell, and hallway as you walk up to 219. The camera tries to film through the bullet hole in the doorway that separates the wing from stairwell. Awwwww....I'm already getting a little maudlin about it, and it's only been 2 weeks!

I had never heard of the band, but I do like what I've heard so far on Itunes. The album that was recorded in room 219, "White China," isn't available there yet.

I didn't write this before, but there was a documentary being shot while we were there. They were interviewing an older man (not sure who he was, but he was obviously someone important) during one afternoon while we were coming and going. So, we might be in the background if any of those shots make it into the movie. I think the movie is Chelsea on the Rocks.

I think I may have to have a little Chelsea Film Fest soon. I've seen all the movies mentioned, but it's been a long time. I think I saw "Sid and Nancy" in high school. I do remember thinking that "Chelsea Walls" really sucked, but I'd be willing to give it another go.

Better late than never: My New York trip

Outside the hotel, March 12, originally uploaded by Halfway Hip.

I'll again have to rely on ye olde bullet format to recall info that's gone a bit stale!

Air Travel Lots of factors came together in a perfect storm on Friday, which caused multiple delays all day long. Almost nothing about my travel day on the way there went smoothly. I left my house at 7am and arrived at Hotel Chelsea at 10:30pm, about 5 hours late. I wrote down a blow-by-blow account of the day in my paper journal, but I will spare you. Luckily, my flights back on Wednesday were the complete opposite.

Trade Show Basically, for me, this meant a lot of sitting and/or standing around and/or fetching things since it wasn't my line of work. By the last day, I felt like my brain had been turned off a little too long, and I was ready to return to my own planet. It was really interesting, though, to see what my best friend goes through in her working life. I'm really grateful, too, for the fact that I could come along on the company's dime. I would have easily traded that, though, for five days of freedom to roam the city.

The City Unfortunately, the trade show stuff kept us from seeing a lot. We got the experience, but there wasn't a lot of time for the serendipitous roaming around that I crave when I travel. We did slack off on Monday afternoon, and it was the best day, by far. We went to SoHo for lunch (the only bad meal we had there) and a little shopping. Most of the shops were way out of my league, but it was fun to dream. I've decided that I want to shop at DKNY when I grow up. I had a real New York Moment when I said, "I could go for a coffee and cookie right now," and found that we were across the street from a cool, TINY shop. I almost killed myself on a student's power cord in there, but the coffee was divine.

I was continually amazed at how friendly everyone was, everywhere we went. A friend of mine, who happened to be in NY at the same time we were, commented on her blog that she didn't want to pull out her camera and look like a tourist. I found that in the moments where I was obviously a tourist, people just got friendlier. People seemed to eat up the fact that we were there from Texas and Oklahoma.

Hotel Chelsea I knew a little about its history, but I wish I had read this blog before I went. However, if I had known all about the ghosts, I probably wouldn't have stayed in the room alone at all, though I don't technically believe in ghosts. I have to wonder, though, if the drag-queeny voice I heard for two hours early Weds. morning was actually the ghost of Nancy Spungen. He kept saying over and over, "God dammit FUCK. God dammit FUCK," like he was stuck on something. I kept wondering if he was stuck in the elevator or something, but I was in too much of a sleep-funk to think it through. I couldn't tell if it was coming from the floor below ours, where Sid Vicious is rumored to haunt, or from the room beside ours.

The hotel was extremely noisy in general, which I had remembered from an old episode of Globetrekker. There's a club in the basement, which didn't help, especially on Saturday night. There were lots of meathead guys on the street yelling and fighting in the wee hours. Friday night, in a room somewhere near ours, we could hear singing and tuba playing. That was the type of noise I fully expected and enjoyed. The radiator banging at 6am sharp every morning? Not so much! The jackhammers on the street at 8am Saturday morning? Not so much!

The Chelsea is covered with artwork. I really wish I had walked the entire stairwell and halls to see it all. I barely left enough time to take pictures. The photos in the Hotel Chelsea Flickr group are better than what I could have taken, anyway, so look through those.

Our little apartment was amazing. Lots of space in which to spread out and entertain guests. (Not that we had that many, but still.) You can check out pics on my Flickr by clicking on the photo above.

Food It was mostly great! It's not hard to eat vegetarian there. I did splurge on some sustainably-raised chicken at Cookshop, just because I could. Patsy's, which supposedly serves the best pizza in the city, was just down the block from our hotel. Now I'm sad that I didn't try the famed pizza, but I was really in the mood for salad and pasta. My God, it was the best salad I've ever had. Angelica Kitchen in the East Village was phenomenal. The staff there was so friendly. When I went up the hostess stand to remark on their choice of music (the entire Joy Division "Substance" album), we got into a nice chat about where were were from/what we were doing/the show "Dallas," which she happened to love (and few of us who actually had lived in Dallas had actually seen). I asked about where we should go next, based on the fact that we loved their music, and one of the servers went back to the kitchen and compiled a whole list for us.

Nightlife We had the best time on our first night there, even though by the time it was over, I had been up for 24 hours. We went to Mondo. I had pretty low expectations for being able to fit in to any club in the city, but this place felt like home as soon as we walked in. We heard songs we already love, including New Order's "Age of Consent," which I had never gotten to dance to at a club, "Fa Fa Fa" by Datarock, which the DJ played at my request, "Crash" by The Primitives, and loads of new stuff that we didn't really know but loved anyway. The crowd was age-mixed, and people were friendly and in no way too cool for the room, which we found a bit the next night we went out. I hope Kristen makes good on her promise to try to recreate something like this in the Dallas scene. It's desperately needed!

Saturday night, we stayed in due to exhaustion, the time change, and the fact that our dinner at Cookshop didn't end til 11pm. Sunday, we went to Sway Lounge, where it was Morrissey/Smiths night, on suggestion of the fine folks at Angelica Kitchen. The music was great, but there really wasn't a real dance floor, and the crowd was a bit too hip and fashionable for our taste. All of that would have been easily tolerated had it not gotten so damned crowded. When we could no longer move, we bailed. Made us appreciate our new friend Mondo even more. On Monday, after looking up some bar reviews, we chose to go to Hi-Fi to check out their famed jukebox. It was dead, but we had a good time watching Pop-Up Video minus the sound while we waited an hour or more for our songs to play. Next, we headed to Niagara, which was very cool, but a little dead, too. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, though, especially looking out at Tompkins Square Park, which played a prominent role in East Village Inky, a zine I still love.
While I was away, the kids and Matt seemed to fare just fine. The kids didn't really ask about me til the last day or so (when I was wanting to come home, too!) and Evan never asked to nurse. I don't want to be away from home too much, but I think it was great for all of us to realize that it could be done. Overall, I'd say that my trip was about one day too long, but I did have a great time. It was a little hard to come back to so many demands upon my personal space and time, but now that I've had a week to settle in, I'm used to it again. Being away also had an unexpected bonus. I got to see a bit what Matt goes through when he has to travel. I realize more how important phone conversations are to the person who is away from home. It's the only connection with the kids. There were days when I didn't make enough time for quality phone calls, and I regretted it. Also, I got to feel what it's like for him to come home and try to get back into the swing of homelife. It takes a while!

so many things...a story of adult ADD

I have so many blog entry ideas going through my head. I usually get the best ones as I'm going to sleep, while I'm in the shower, while I'm working out, or while I'm driving in the car. All useless places to act on said inspiration. When naptime arrives, if I'm lucky enough to score a naptime, my brain is already somewhat fried and I just end up puttering around the net or the house. Do I really get things done? No! No blog posts, no significant emails, no work on the neverending online teacher job application, no dishes, no laundry, no office/file/craft area organization, no preparing of pile o' shit to mail. All of this is stuff I want and need to do, but I just can't seem to get around to doing any of it. I did manage to bang out a proposal to teach another writing workshop last week. It was accepted, so I officially really do have work to do now. Luckily, it was a lesson I already designed. I even have an article published about it. Look, it's on ERIC! I'm famous! Err...nevermind. Don't look. I'm buried somewhere there in the abstract. eeeneyway.... this workshop will be a lot less work...just some minor tweaking. I need to visualize the actual teaching part more this time around. Last time, I caught myself in some really bad teaching moments by going around and saying things like, "Good work." Whaaaa?

Have I mentioned that I'm going to New York City in a little over two weeks??? Kristen and I wanted to take a trip to celebrate our 20th Friendiversary. She's busy as hell and works for a living, so she decided to bring me along for the ride to some baby trade show in lieu of an actual vacation. Well, it will still be a vacay for me because I'll be gone for FIVE DAYS WITH NO KIDS. Even if I had to dig ditches all day long, it would still seem like a break if I had freedom every night to do what the hell I wanted. In NEW YORK CITY! We have no definitive plans, other than 3 days of trade show, and I like it that way. I just want to wander around, look at some interesting people, shop at some unique places, and eat some cool food. We'll tear it up like we did at Baptist Camp in 1988. Matt will somehow make do here at home without me for the first few days, and then his mom will come and rescue help him out for the 3 days he'll have to work. She can't find anything in our house, nor can she work the carseat, the baby gate on the stairs, the shower switch, and she gets really lost driving around our town. I don't know how they're going to make it. I'll probably have to work like a dog getting the house ready, getting the meal plan/shopping done, scheduling playdates , making lists, printing out directions, etc. I'll have to keep thinking of ALL THE FUN I'm going to have. Whee! I haven't been on a plane without a child in over 7 years! I haven't spent more than 1 night away from Evan and more than 2 nights away from Aidan! I have been pregnant or nursing for almost 7 years now! I'm so ready!

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? :)