Resolution

So I decided today I'm going to make a resolution for this year. (Yes I know it's March) I'm going to work on becoming ambidextrous at writing. It feels so odd and I want to know how you right handers do it.

Akilter

Things to be grateful for: I'm almost over my cold and my voice is almost all the way back. I was awake less last night than previous nights. Isaac and I both forgot to make coffee so I had to stop at Starbucks this morning and I got a venti coffee instead of the usual grande I make. Also True Blood rocks, I might look into adding HBO to my cable, but probably not. Oh, and my shawl is almost to the edges.

Things I'm not so excited about: Since we didn't make coffee Isaac didn't get any this morning since he goes to work before Starbucks is open. I found this really cute ring (pics below) on Carrotbox on Monday when she updated but someone else put it on hold a few seconds before me and she only had one size of each. The only one left was too small and she doesn't know if/when she'll get more and like any smart business person she won't tell me who her source is. I really want it though! I don't like the color of my shawl so it's going to a good home. For some reason I don't understand there are dibs on it. :) I have to wait until June when True Blood Season 2 comes out on DVD.

Heelys

Right now I really want a pair of these:

Are you a sickie too?

Wow, so I am sick. So sick I took a day and a half off work. I'm never sick, and even if I do get sick it's normally so mild that it barely fazes me. This one took me out hard. I mean I can physically see my weakness when I walk too much, you know when your vision starts to get sorta white and brighter? Kinda like when you work out too hard but then I feel like I need to puke instead. Anywho, it's just a head cold but for some reason today whenever I really breathe in it aches. I also have a terrible sore throat (I don't sound like myself at all, kinda freaky) and it's totally wiped me out. Lots of progress on the shawl though. Still need to find my camera to post pictures. I've had two colds almost successively before this and I think that my immune system had finally had enough and caved. Drinking a lot of xxx vitamin water as it makes my throat feel better, go figure.

Really in love with Brett Dennen - So Long Sweet Misery today.

Forbidden

I think I always feel like I have to have something pressing or profound to say when I write this blog but I'm coming to understand that it just needs to be my frame of mind at the moment. So with that I am going to work on posting more often and writing about my days.

Lots happening lately. Twilight is finally really dropping off, and I'm knitting again. I've started a shawl and I am finally finishing my second sock of my first pair. Yay! I've really been into movies lately. Instead of watching television in the evenings I've been watching movies. Currently I'm watching the Underworld trilogy and I recently finished Feast of Love. I was not expecting all the nudity that it contained but the Oscar and Chloe story line I found really enthralling. Yes I know Underworld is all about vampires and werewolves (lycans) but Michael Sheen is very compelling and apparently I am not over vampire and werewolf story lines. Also The Cake Eaters is a great movie.

I've had a real urge to listen to Ray LaMontagne lately. I swear I could listen to him sing anything and be in love with it. I'm extremely partial to his song Jolene so I've been listening to that a lot today. I've also recently found out about something called Forbidden Rice. Isaac says that they used to make it a lot at the CIA so I'm really interested in trying it. Once you cook it it turns purple which is also a reason I want to try it as purple is one of my favorite colors.

 

 And this is rather disjointed but it's something I started to write the other day, never finished and never posted.

I strive for humility. I don't know how well I always do though, maybe at times I'm too humble as I don't really know how to sell myself and I can come across as too earnest. I've had a lot of people tell me I'm really intense and take charge but I don't know if I see it. I always feel like I'm in the backseat giving directions but no one hears. I'm working on less but my life seems so filled with stuff. I've been watching a lot of movies lately that center on being happy with little and that you are only limited by your mind and the limitations you put on yourself. I think I'm finally stepping into the concept, it was something I've always understood but I think lately I have been figuring out how to embody it. It's making me feel lighter and it's like all my stuff is a second weighty skin yet I can slide around underneath it.

Music

Perhaps one of my favorite things are solo Sunday morning drives with really good music, even if it's just running errands. It's one of the times that I can be contemplative and just let my mind wander and really be at peace. So yesterday I was listening to 103.7 The Mountain and they were playing some artists I haven't listened to in a while but really love. Every Sunday they do something they call Sunday brunch from 8-12 in the morning. I specifically tuned in because they were showcasing Bruce Cockburn who is probably one of my all time favorite artists. He's coming into town at the end of April and I really want to go see him. It's one of my life long goals to see him perform and I entered to win tickets but I might probably buy tickets anyway because I'm so keen on it. Probably my favorite song by him is "Pacing the Cage" but everything by him is fantastic I don't think he has a single song I don't like.

Two more songs that really caught my attention while I was running errands were Alexi Murdoch's Orange Sky and Brett Dennen's She's Mine. I finally broke down and bought Alexi Murdoch's album which I have been contemplating since it came out but I wasn't sold on it until yesterday. I also love Brett Dennen but ever since someone pointed out to me the androgyny of his voice I've been holding off on buying any of his albums as I'm not totally sold yet though I love his music. I think for me it's that I now listen to his voice instead of the song deciding (yes, even though I know) on if it's being sung by a man or woman and it's distracting to me. I don't know why this puts me off.  Maybe I'll break down this week. :)

Lord help me I think it's almost over...

So I've been an obsessed person as of late. I don't normally think of myself as someone who obsesses. I would agree with that I give myself over to irrational fears now and then (whether tired and therefore wrought overemotional or because of issues I have from my childhood) but I prefer to think of myself as pretty even keel.

I fell into the life sucking hole that Twilight is with such naivete that I was a somewhat shocked (but made profoundly happy by it) by the force that it took me with. I am a person who only ever gives a book one read through (there are a few rare exceptions) but I found that I was not able to put it down. I am currently on my third read through (back to back) and the feelings are starting to ebb a little. Not only am I reading it but I listen to it on my iPod on my way to and from work and at work while I work. As a sane person I realize this is kinda nutty (okay totally nutty but I can't stop myself, see the obsessed admission above) and I have tried to sparingly talk to people about my feelings for Twilight.

On the premise of Twilight I would like to say that before reading it I never thought I would read it. Some of my reasons were: I don't much like vampires. I'm smarter than that. I had been told by friends that they were unable to even get through the first book. The writing is just so so (I do have to say that while this series has my heart it's not the most cerebral writing I've read). I didn't know too much about it and was able to generalize very easily that it was something that wouldn't hold my interest.

Enter my friend Heather who so generously offered to lend me her copies saying that she thought it would be right up my alley. That was in October. So I put the books in my car and kind of forgot about them (again not knowing much I was easily able to resist) It wasn't until Thanksgiving weekend when I was out of town and needed something to read and remembered that I had the whole series in my car.

At this point my life kinda altered (by which I mean totally altered). I started reading the first one and I wasn't able to put it down. I read the first one in a day and a half and each subsequent one in two days (I did have to work). I resented all the time that I wasn't able to read them, I would stay up until midnight or one in the morning unable to stop reading and go to work the next morning very tired but extremely happy. I didn't watch t.v., t.v. was an annoyance, I would talk to Isaac when it was necessary (I love him deeply but I was enthralled) and holed up with my books the rest of the time. My feelings towards this series are bittersweet. I wanted to read the stories as fast as I could but at the same time I wanted to make it last. Hence the third read through. (Crazily I am contemplating creating my own audio reading of the books as I don't really care for how Ilyana Kadushin reads the novels as it sounds different in my head). I know, I said it was crazy.

I know why I like it and I know the sane, smart, independent, and supposedly feminist reasons why not to like it, so that makes me kind of embarrassed for how much I DO like it. I haven't even been able to knit and I would really like to but I have been unable to put the books down. I have a shawl I want to make and I have sock commitments I need to fill (fingerless gloves too).

In the past two or three days the fierce feelings I've had for this series has started to ebb ever so slightly. I don't resent other activities taking my time away from it. I've been able to go to bed at the same time as Isaac. And I'm starting to watch t.v. again although I'm still kind of resisting that.


I will never consider myself a Twihard  but the Twitarded website is pretty funny but also over the top, I'm not that crazy. I really feel for Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. I know that they all chose to be actors but they have next to zero lives and a lot of people cannot associate the fact that they might actually be people and not Bella, Edward and Jacob in real life.


And if you want to know what I really want for any special occasion that calls for a present, here are a few ideas that I will only wear inside my house or underneath another shirt. :)
Team Charlie
Team Edward James Olmos

This is just Hi-larious