Quodlibets

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, all!  Hope your meal is delicious and you're warm and comfortable, wherever you are.

My list:

• My family.  Best. Family. Ever.  I hope you feel the same way I do about yours.
• the chance to go to grad school; I feel really lucky to have the opportunity and means
• this city, so full of good food and good places
• Diet Coke, and especially the McDonald's large diet, which costs me $1.10 and fuels my mornings now.  Love it.
• our condo.  It's still not exactly hit me that if we don't want to, we never have to move again.  It's nice.
• Oh, Sam.  I'm thankful we got married, and I would have been thankful for you even if we didn't, because I just feel so lucky to be with you.  You're my best friend.  You're amazing and wonderful and I'm so thankful that you found me.

There's obviously tons more things I'm thankful for, but now that I've gone all sappy, I think I'll stop.

Unthanksgiving

Things I am NOT thankful for:

• Traffic
• The increase in our property taxes (BOO Cook County, BOO)
• Homework
• ProQuest (everything about that interface makes me want to just shoot it in the head, or wherever would hurt an interface the most)
• Itchy, dry winter skin--it's already terrible, unfortunately
• headaches of all sorts
• messing up recipes; I cannot tell you how horrible I feel after I mess one up, no matter what Sam says or whether we eat it or not.  I FUCKING hate messing up recipes.
• Gah, North Korea's continued bizarro belligerence
• BlackOps (the game)
• the fact that Sam won't let me have a kitty
• everything ever to do with politics and government; I am so burned out, whatever that means
• cleaning on my day off on Friday (and I mean CLEANING with all caps, man.  Like, scrubbing.)

Pulling the plug

So.  I tried.  I wanted to blog every day, and I did okay.  I wouldn't say great.

But as this past weekend illustrates, I'm not so great at this whole every day thing, so I'm going to say that I'm done.

I will keep blogging during November, when it strikes me to do so (and I hope to keep doing Friday Random Tens on and on and on).  I plan on Un-Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving, still. 

But I don't know what happens after that.  We'll see.

Annotated Friday Random Ten

1. Damaged, Plumb.  Pretty much unmemorable.  I do still listen to this soundtrack occasionally, however (Brokedown Palace).
2. This Woman's World, Maxwell (Unplugged).  My god, I can't tell you how much I love this song.  It's a Kate Bush song, I know, though I've never heard her version.  This version, however, just feels perfect to me.  I can't get enough of it.
3. Happy (Reprise), Jenny Lewis with the Cocteau Twins.  I've never listened to this.  I therefore can't comment.
4. One by One All Day, The Shins.  This is a band I think I'm supposed to like more, and I just don't.  I couldn't identify this song if you played it for me, and I feel like I should just take this album off my iPod.
5. Something's Changed, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.  This is an artist I want to like more than I do.  I think she's got an amazing voice, I love the style of the music, and if you gave me a choice, I'd turn this song (and album) off every single time.
6. Armistice, Phoenix.  What is this, the random ten of albums that don't live up to the hype?  I officially like ONE song on this album, Lizstomania, and turn every single other song off when it comes on.
7. Now My Heart is Full, Morrissey.  Oh yeah.  The Moz.
8. Dice, Finley Quaye and William Orbit.  Yes, this song is from an OC soundtrack.  Yes, I loooooove it.  It ALWAYS makes me see Ben McKenzie in a white tank and looking thuggish and uncomfortable, and frankly, he does thuggish and uncomfortable in a very hot way.  Hot with two t's kind of a way.
9. I Wish You Were Here, Incubus.  Sam is responsible for any Incubus song I listen to, and I really associate all of the songs that I listen to by them with the beginning of our relationship, something like 9 years ago, when he first began to make me mixes, and sprinkled in Incubus.  This isn't my favorite Incubus song--that honor belongs to Aqueous Transmission, which I know is as stupid as it sounds, and yet.....--but I like this song, nonetheless.
10. Knot Comes Loose, My Morning Jacket.  I really like this band's studio albums, as long as Sam picks and chooses the songs I listen to.  This is another band I wouldn't listen to without Sam in my life, because he loves them, and he's the reason I've seen them live three times?  Four?  Something like that.  I fervently hope that I never see them live again, because in person, they drive me to count architectural elements in the theater where we see them (why yes, there are 184 squares in the decorations around the stage).  Counting things is a thing I do when I'm bored or uncomfortable or just...need to hang on to some semblance of sanity.  They have to be things I can see, though.  I'm not counting sheep in my head, for instance.  But light fixtures?  Chairs?  Hats in the crowd?  Decorative elements on the ceiling?  All fair game.  I don't remember when I started doing it, but I do know that no other band drives me to it like My Morning Jacket does.  But their studio albums are pleasant and enjoyable.

FAIL

Gah.  I open up TypePad every day at my desk, and then I stare at it for 7 hours, and leave work, and done.  I never blogged yesterday, though TypePad sat open in my browser all day.

The problem is that I simply have nothing to say.  Wait, that's not right.  I do have things to say, but I can't figure out how to say them anymore.  I'm pretty sure this is because I am extremely self-conscious about my writing right now.

I feel very strongly that I'm not a creative person.  I'm very good at building off of what I have in front of me (for instance, as in recipes) or following the pattern you give me (as in cross-stitch), but I'm no longer good (or maybe I never was good) at creating things from thin air.  I just don't think that's the way my brain works.  I'm not saying this to garner any sort of response, and I don't feel particularly sad about it.  I just think that the power of my brain is in being able to execute quickly and responsibly and easily.  I don't know how to describe how I think about this, exactly, except to say that some people can probably imagine no greater prison in their lives, and yet I feel freed a bit. 

I think this has something to do with the fact that college beat into me the idea that I would be an extraordinary woman.  It's not a bad message for a college to send--after all, certainly some of my classmates will go on to be extraordinary, amazing women.  And possibility, when you graduate from college, seems to be endless, and it helps to have someone whispering these messages in your ear.  But.  I realized, at some point, that I don't have the drive necessary to become extraordinary.  I have, in fact, nearly zero drive.  I just want to live happily, bumbling along, life full of love and good food.  And it seems like that's happening for me. 

So.  I just don't feel driven to be creative anymore.  I don't even know if I could be if I wanted to be.  And I'm 100% happy to throw off the pressure to be extraordinary, and just be.  (It just makes it hard to muster a blog post when you're reallllly not feeling it.)

Travel Day/book recommendation

Home today.  I'm pretty ready to get back home and sleep in my own bed, because the bed here, it's too soft.  I'm not sure how this can be true, because when you first lay down on it, it feels like you're laying on a wonderful, perfect cloud.  But then when you wake up for the 10th time in the middle of the night, you realize something ain't right, and by process of elimination, you end up at the bed.  It's really too bad, because the first few moments in the bed are pure bliss.

Also, I'd like to recommend a book.  It's called "So Enchanting" and it's by Connie Brockway.  Most of you will probably never read it, because it's a romance novel.  But listen, it's a REALLY good romance novel.  I can't believe how good it was.  I'm pretty sure I bought it on the recommendation of the Smart Bitches (who read trashy books), and boy am I glad I did.  I can't even explain what made it so great, except that I absolutely loved all of the main characters.  The plot wasn't anything too special, but it was good enough, and when combined with the characters--well, the book really shone.

I'm only pissed that I don't have more Connie Brockway in my bag for today's travel.  And the reason I don't is that I went to a bookstore to find some more by her, and they had none.  No Connie Brockway books.  Zippo.  Zilch.  It's a travesty, considering how many other bad writers had books on the shelves in this bookstore.  I guess when I have some extra monies laying about, I'll order some of Brockway's books from an online bookstore.  Which is fine, but I'd love to read another today.

Motherhood (or, No Thanks, none for me)

I've felt, pretty strongly, and for a pretty long time, that I don't want to be a mother.  It's true that I do feel a biological urge now and again, especially when I think of how cute Sam's and my baby would be.  But when I think about all the stuff that comes after--the barf and the diapers and the sleeplessness--all the benefits in the world don't seem to make me want to be a mommy.  Most people who know me know I feel this way.  I think a lot of people think that I'll outgrow it, or that I'll do it anyway, because that's what people do.  I don't know if that will happen.

What I do know, though, is that I thought there'd be more of me.  I thought that my generation would include more women who just didn't want to be moms, and thus, because they had the choice, remained childless.  And maybe those women do exist, but they don't really exist in my circle.  Nearly all (or all, perhaps?) of our coupled, married friends have children.  Two of my high school friends are pregnant with their second.  I don't begrudge these people their children.  All of these kids are cute, and my friends make great parents.  I just didn't think I'd be alone.

I wish I could say that I'm comfortable with it, but I'm not, even though I'm pretty sure that this is the right choice for me.  (I actually think that no matter which decision I make, I'll regret it.  But I'd rather regret not having a kid than regret the kid I have.  That's probably another post.)  But I do feel like the odd one out.  I do feel like a strange, strange bird.  I do wonder how those women decided that children would be right for them.  Because I think about it ALL the TIME, and I can't get to that place where it feels like the right thing to do.  (For oh so many reasons.  There ain't just one holding me up.)

I do wonder what my future looks like when my friends (and family, for that matter) are shuttling their kids all over creation and Sam and I have got oodles of time to do whatever we want with.  I wonder if we'll be an isolated couple, unable to partake in the things our friends do, because they've got kids, and we don't.  Will we have to make all new friends, childless friends? And that right there is an unpleasant idea, because making friends is HARD, and I am traditionally terrible at it.  Just terrible.

I don't know.  I only know that it feels like I'm outside looking in, and the shitty thing about it is that I don't actually want to be in.  I've come to feel this way somehow, and it's ridiculous and weird, but it's there.

Perfectly good reasons

There are some perfectly good reasons that I didn't blog yesterday, and they are: I forgot. I am not at home. I am on vacation. It feels odious to blog while on vacation. I underestimated how odious it would feel.

I do have a massive post brewing inside me (I've been thinking about it for days and days and days and possibly even longer than that) but I can't put it down in writing right now, at 8 pm at night.  I need to spend some time on it, and actually edit it, because it's bigger than "oh, traffic blah blah blah". 

I don't know if this will happen tomorrow or Monday, but I promise I'm going to try to get this down.  I promise.

I know I've completely failed at NaBloPoMo, which is fine.  I've done better than I thought I would, which is a victory.  More tomorrow, I'm sure.

My reading year

Well, it's over.  It was a banner year for me.  I read more this year than I have in any other year, I do believe.  209 books.  And they weren't all fluff, either.

There are a few reasons that I read so much.  The reading list, as it evolves, focuses my reading, and constantly provides a nourishing buffet (for my brain).  I'm never without a book; when I didn't have the list, I sometimes went weeks without finding anything really interesting to sink into.  I like it better this way.  I sometimes feel hurried, but then I remember that these books exist forevermore, and if I return them to the library without having read them, they're still on my list and I can check them out another day.  Also, I don't do crosswords very much anymore.  I don't know why.  Maybe I killed them by doing too many a day, but now I rarely pull out my book and go to town.  That, in turn, gives me more time to read.

And then, if I simply compare this year to last, well, there are other reasons I've read so much.  We didn't buy a house and move, for instance.  That episode took a toll on my reading, for sure, last year.  I didn't spend 10 days in Champaign killing myself for school (and the weeks before that reading thousands of pages for class didn't help my leisure reading any, either.).  I actually did most of my reading for class last year, too, which is markedly different from this year.  So it's to be expected that the list is bigger.

And man, did I read some good books this year.  Just in the first ten is a book I liked so much that I bought it later in the year and READ IT AGAIN.  (World War Z.)  Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

Questions

That maybe have no answers.

• Why does traffic get worse after daylight savings ends?  Yes, it's lighter out at 6 am.  Does that mean your boss tells you to come in at 7 instead of 8?  Are people waking up at 6, seeing the light streaming in through the blinds and saying, well shit, it's light out, time to go to work.  What the hell is going on?  It's taken me 5-7 extra minutes each morning since Monday.  Why?
• Relatedly, is there an effect that stop-and-go traffic has on people when the road eventually opens up and begins moving?  Seems like people don't go over 45 mph or so after being in stop-and-go traffic, even if the road is clear and open in front of them.  Is this real, or am I imagining it?
• Is there really a reason to continue daylight savings time?  What are the advantages to it?  It seems weird that in November, you're ending up with an hour of sunlight when not too many people want to be up and active, and less light at a time when people are naturally up and about.  I personally don't mind the early darkness, because I love the feeling of being cozy and warm and cocooned in our condo with darkness and cold all around us.  All the same, it does seem somewhat counterintuitive.
• According to a statistic I saw in Library Journal, 65% of adult Americans use the public library.  Are you one of that 65%?  I do know that the public library I use (incidentally, not the Chicago Public Library) is heavily used.  Super heavily used.  But I don't know too many adults in my own life that go to the library, besides all the library people I work with.  (We're junkies, okay?  Many of us have problems with checking out too much and then having to hem and haw about what to keep and what to return.)  But by and far, I think the people I know just don't make use of the library.  So that 65% statistic seems crazy to me.
• There are no narwhals in captivity, are there?  I'm sure they die, or something like that, when they're in captivity, and so that's why.  But isn't that the damndest thing?  Because I'd sure like to see a narwhal in living color, in person, and I bet I'm not alone.
• So how about them Cowboys?