When the morning comes, let it go, this too shall pass

In my early twenties, I like many other women my age and older was obsessed with Sex and The City.  I identified (still identify) with Carrie. The longsuffering, overthinking, terrible man choosing albeit fashionable Carrie.

On Sundays I'd watch SATC with my very best friend and a total Charlotte, Breann.

So Breann over the years has taken to describing my relationships in SATC characters. I've had way too old for me Aleksander Petrovsky (must be in the name), I've had my sensitive and wonderful Aiden that I destroyed chasing who I thought was Mr. Big at the time. And Now I have my very own Jack Berger.

Hollywood kisses with a post-it note ending.





















What I'm beginning to come up with is maybe there isn't a Big and maybe Big was a giant douche anyway. And maybe, just maybe, I'm not a Carrie. I mean I'm not a city girl. Maybe I'm more like the teacher from Stuckeyville from the other show we never missed, something more original, more obscure. Maybe I'm just a Carol Vessey. Looking for her Ed Stevens.

title from OK GO: This too shall pass 

But no word or warning do you say. One minute right beside me, another you're a thousand miles away

When I said "I'll take it." I meant: as is. Just give up and admit you're an asshole... And I think you'd find that your friends would forgive you but maybe I'm just speaking for me.  - As Is by Ani Difranco

In an effort to practice what I preach...

I often tell clients that sometimes their pain lives in a place without words. Which seems only poetic, but it's actually true.  Trauma experiences are stored in the opposite hemisphere than language. So asking someone to process with words could be asking someone with a broken leg to walk to a hospital to set their leg.

I use Mandalas with clients in lieu of journaling occasionally because it provides a container (the circle) for their feelings, and a boundary. Also because if a client is not highly literate (or young) words can be intimidating and feeling like they are set up for failure before the activity even begins.

So here are two of mine.  I prefer oil pastels because I love to smudge and get my fingers messy and I title mine, a lot of times with song lyrics like the one below is a lyric from Possibility Days by the Counting Crows or with thoughts that I think they capture, like the top photo.  I always date them. Titling and dating is not necessary. It's just something I do to make it like a visual diary.  And yes, the top photo is inside my car.  I had the supplies in my work bag and I just had to "get it out."

Here's to the next step, which I am not happy about taking but not all of our steps make us feel thus.

Title from You're No Train (from Songs for a Hurricane) by Kris Delmhorst 

lie awake at night till they come back around

via

There's no cure for distraction like your dreams coming true.  For the last month I have been living my own dream as I finally found and landed a job doing what I love all day long.  It has made time FLY by.

Fortunately I work a CREATIVE job now, so I haven't gone home at 5pm everyday searching for a creative outlet (i.e. blogging, scrapbooking, crafting). Unfortunately I miss doing my own creativity and expression.  So I am hoping I can find some balance soon.  Until then, I at least want to leave some photo documentation of the last month.

Miss Sloane got her dinosaur mullet trimmed

Much better

Easter happened

She calls him "bess frien" (evah) 

She loved her blue shoes (favorite color) and wearing her hat

title courtesy of Please come to Boston; Dave Loggins

but you go on

Oh October, you always grab me and shake me and tear me open.  October has been a month (since 2001) that has meant so many joyful and heartwrenching things to me that it is difficult for my brain to sort out all that my heart feels. 

I am never sad to see it go. 

My best friend and I were recently having a discussion about October, and if it would be a good time to have a baby.  She remarked that it wouldn't because the baby would be born on my exhusbands birthday (with my luck).  But I said that it would.  No matter what, I am so conflicted about October.  I try to add happy occassions back into the month that has an opal as it's talisman. 

linking up with Stephanie

Fall, my favorite season. 

One of the best months in 2000 when my college boyfriend spent tons of time with me in a tiny apartment on the top floor of a house on Bluemont street

blueberry muffins and carmel lattes at Java

The song "This time of year" by Better than Ezra

political campaigning

sweet & sassy Mindy Reese

The song "Ghost" by the Indigo Girls

Annika Noelle

extravagant gifts and celebrations and surprises I would plan for my (eventual) exhusband

the year that Breann and I made the fairy costumes

meeting K

my play was born

Rocky Horror Picture Show

taking maternity photos in st. joseph at krug park with the leaves in my hair

Spaghetti Sloane

our wedding

You'd think that would be the ultimate trump card.  One of happiest days of my life...but it will take a lifetime of more happy things, until then I will just keep adding them one by one.

lyrics from October by U2 (it will haunt you-- no pun intended)

I know my mind is made of matter

via

I am attending a lecture tonight (FOR FREE) by Peggy Orenstein who among other books wrote Cinderella Ate My Daughter. 

I have been enamored with gender and media studies since about the winter of 2001 when I took a class at Kansas State University from a brilliant and outspoken feminist: Melissa Divine. 

The course was fantastically diverse due in part to the fact that the University's football coach Bill Snyder required his football players to take a women's studies class at some point in their college career (Kudos coach Snyder!), also some of the diversity was probably due to the draw of being able to watch cinema and TV for homework rather than to avoid homework.  I literally was supposed to watch Ally McBeal and Buffy and Working Girl.

Since having a daughter of my own I have been acutely aware of media of all kinds and it's effect on girls.  A lot of my class was based around the sexualization of women in TV as well as the violence of print ads and the pressure to be thin.  It has been 11 years since this course and there are not only been any forward mobility in this movement it is the opposite.  Reality TV has brought us so much more to worry about.  Now girls believe that having a relationship with a guy is utmost important to their self worth and that these relationships will involve fighting and possibly competing with other girls to get said guy.  This competition with other girls is catty and rude in nature (The Girl Scout Research Institute 2011).  Reality TV personalities like Snooki show my daughter that she doesn't need education, self-worth or any sort of class at all to be well-known, rich and famous.

And before they may be interested in Reality TV it seems to be Disney's modus operandi to snag them in preschool and marinate them in glitter and all things "wait for your prince to come".  Who cares what happens to our daughter's brains when they are making a cool more than 4 BILLION dollars a year worldwide in products 2.6 more billion at the box office (Disney Consumer Products Research).   

I think Disney says it best when they tell me: "Little girls never forget their first encounter with a Disney Princess. Even long after they're all grown up, they continue to pass along their love for these heroines, introducing them to their own daughters."  (Disney Consumer Products Research). 

As for passing things on to my own daughter, here is what from my youth I intend to pass on. 

My mother was the first woman at her college to be inducted as an athlete into their Hall of Fame.  She still holds the record for most points scored in a basketball game (40 pts) and even since adding the 3 point line no one has surpassed it. 
My dad and mom told me I could be anything, and meant it.  They encouraged me academically and especially fostered my love of questions and answers. 
We played games together as a family, my mother and father love the newspaper and would talk to us about current events and get our opinions on them. 
My mother did not allow us to call boys (or my brother to call girls until age 16).  You may think that sounds sexist.  It was not.  She did not want us worrying about "relationships" when we should be free to think about other things.
My mother did not wear much make up in front of me and never expressed disdain for her body parts. 
We were not called "princess" or "daddy's girl" or any nicknames that were gender specific.  She called all of us (my brother, sister and myself) "babe" as her only term of endearment, otherwise we had nicknames derived from our names. 
My brother was never discouraged from crying, playing dolls alongside of us or being sensitive, in fact he was encouraged to be sweet, kind and loving.   
I never heard my dad make a sexist remark. 
My brother was punished thoroughly the time he dared to tell my sister she "threw like a girl", by my mother who reminded him that she could out throw him and that he never (and hasn't to this day) ever scored 40 points in a basketball game. 

My parents weren't perfect but in these ways they were.  My parents thinking that I was a hard worker, smart and kind were the highest accolades I could think of as a child.

This is what is important for me.  Society will continue to come up with new ways to entice my daughter into believing that how she looks is more important than what she thinks, and that her "heroines" should wear tulle and glitter.  It's up to me to not be the passive female consumer they expect me to be. My daughter's self-worth depends on it.

title courtesy of ani difranco: rain check

you can't please everyone so you gotta please yourself

OK so I started to feel like a real hypocrite trying to get parents of children with autism who I work with to tow the line with their children when I go home and get manipulated by a tiny drooling baldy myself.

MOM!  I need you...you and I are ONE!

Sloane had been stretching out the night routine of holding and rocking for well over an hour and then was still sleeping poorly after that waking up to nurse numerous times a night and not sleeping well unless she was in bed with me.  I had to draw the line and I wanted to draw it before she could crawl out of her crib (she already pulls herself up and stands there).  Enter Dr. Ferber's Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems (revised 2006 edition). 

I wanted to be one of those awesome Dr. Sears (author of, Nighttime Parenting: How to Get Your Baby and Child to Sleep, The Attachment Parenting Book, and The Baby Book, among several others-- like that highly controversial Vaccine Book) moms all the way.  But in all honesty my sanity was suffering.  I haven't slept for longer than 4 hours in almost 1 year. And frankly, Dr. Sears method was awesome for my preemie, for my newborn, for my infant...but for my emerging toddler it wasn't working. 

This is one of those topics. You know the ones, the ones that start mom wars and mompetition (see also bottle or breast, private or public, stay at home or work outside the home, cloth or disposable, vaccinate or not, etc ad nauseum.

Immediately when I read the Ferber method the scientific language appealed to me i.e. "gradual extinction".  It also sparked my interest in the area of separation anxiety.  Part of the reason I keep Sloane with me so often is that I can't bear not to nurse her, hold her, sleep next to her because she is SO anxious, after I read the book I began to see this anxiety from a separate viewpoint. 

Ferber asserts that Sloane needs to see her and I as two separate people and the nursing and sleeping relationship (that we have) may be hindering that and that she needs my help to learn that gently (although that does involve some tears, which hurts).  Also I had the "cry-it-out" fears in my head, that I was just going to have to close the door and not open it til morning.  But gradual extinction involves leaving her for longer periods of time and going in frequently (and fading that) to reassure her that I am still there (easing the separation anxiety and feeling of abandonment).  I liked that part because my other worry was "what if she is crying for a reason?" (my mind goes right to the craziest most unlikely scenario: kidnapper). 

Also I wasn't sure that I should continue night nursing (upwards to 6 times a night!).  Ferber has a way in his book to continue but I found that it might be too confusing for her (since she does not understand time she would not understand why sometimes I come in and pick her up to nurse and other times I come in only to comfort her briefly).  She is not nursing for nutrition at night she is nursing to comfort herself and have herself drift back to sleep.   

She does not seem to have "shut down syndrome" as Sears cautions in his Sleep Book   (the reason I have tried to avoid any and all tears for eleven months, which is frankly exhausting) although it's only been 2 days of this method.  She did not cry at all for naps today.  She snuggled in to me and I said "it's nap time." took her to her bed and laid her down.  She gave me an anxious look and I reassured her that I would see her in the afternoon.  She rolled over quietly and closed her eyes.  This.is.huge.

For us this is working, now.  I fully expect that no one method is a cure all. 

And now, something non-controversial....

how cute am I?

And a series of shots of Sloane and her cousin (14 month old) Kolten....

trust me, I'm a doctor

this is your first problem

It's not a tumor

I'm going to listen to your heart

Don't cry

You were a good girl for your exam

title courtesy of Ricky Nelson: Garden Party

i'm so in love with ya honey...

As I fed my daughter breakfast and put my hair up in the prerequisite post-baby up-do (only a bit more chic than rocking a ponytail every day) I remembered that tonight is date night in honor of Keenan and my 5 year anniversary of sorts.  We don't celebrate our real dating anniversary because we don't know when it is.  Our relationship just naturally evolved from a single conversation that occurred the first time he spoke to me on October 5th, late at night at a party we were both attending after the play Seascape by Edward Albee. 

The conversation began with a compliment (he walked up and said to me "Shannon I think you're gorgeous." I was immediately struck speechless and my eyes hit the ground), which whenever I think about the way we met I remember how much impact we have with our words.  I remember that a well-timed compliment can change someones life.  Another time in my life an apology had the same effect on me.  It wasn't something I sought or expected but it came to me in a free and sweet fashion and it changed the way I thought about significant things in my life.   

I find a lot of relationship inspiration in the blog Today's Letters.  I love how unabashedly the couple speaks of working on their relationship and they share what makes their marriage work.  Every time I read the letters they write each other I remember the power of words and I tell myself to be kinder, speak more sweetly and listen harder. 

When I contemplated what type of person I wanted my child to become I kept coming back to the notion that I want her to be kind to others.  I think that there is less and less focus on kindness in our culture, in fact being "nice" can be seen as weakness, or undesirable.  So many times I hear people "apologize" for their words in this way:  "I'm sorry but that's the way I am" or "I am sorry but I am just a bitch."  That isn't an apology it's a rationalization.  And when I apologize during an argument I often find the time to attach my rationale for my comment to the apology.  This isn't the type of apology I'd like to receive "I'm sorry but..."  Usually when we attach a "but" you can throw away everything that came before the but and only listen to what came after. 

So today 5 years after a compliment I want to commit myself to being as kind to Keenan as I am to those whom I work for. 

buy this beauty here

 title courtesy of Anne Murray: Danny's song

pump the jam

adventures in lactation follow:

It's my last 2 days at my job, which fortunately means...my last 2 days utilizing my pumping spot. It's been so nice that my employer has followed the federal law in providing me a place to take a break during the day to use my awesome "pump in style" (that's really the name of the ugly leather black bag...you can't make this stuff up! as if the bag style matters when you are sitting in the oh-so-sultry position of having your work clothes hiked up and 2 pumps attached to you praying someone respects the lock on the door) Medela.

style in a nutshell black bag

danger in the pump room, I told my work bestie that if I am electrocuted
while pumping to make me look to decent before allowing in one in to the room.

respect the signage

title courtesy of the 90's, I had to do it.

So you bend back and shake at the frame of frame you made...





little sloane tag was custom made by this great little etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/people/petitepaperie

for the photo challenge @ hello cutie challenge blog




Little sunshine baby

 



We are headed to a wedding, not the Kentucky Derby (She wore a dress as well)

 



us at the wedding (minus her straw hat)

  Spent the weekend in my home town with Sloane and just can't seem to get back into the swing of things.  I am very aware of the time of year.  Next year this time of year will be happy, I will be preparing to be a bride.  But lately I have been thinking of the sadness of last year. 

I think of the phrase that my wise friend Kate presented to us on one of our girlfriend weekends recently: "This was not the plan."  I think in your 30's this phrase hits you for the first time, in your 20's you are still seduced by the thought that there is limitless time in life to do what you want.  Then your 30's hit and you realize that the seduction was just that.  And now it seems as though it's now or never (even though I suppose it always is now or never).  Hello 30's.

I also am mindful of the old adage "We make plans and God laughs".  It makes God seem a little sardonic (maybe God is).  But sometimes it is so painful you are not living your plan that it is uncomfortable, I haven't felt that since Sloane was born but I can feel it creeping in at times.  I want to make sure that I am not wishing away today in hopes of a better tomorrow...this has always been a struggle for me.  I can always tell when I need to quit taking myself so seriously and get out of my head.  This is one of those times.  I think I should start by logging off of the internet...

title courtesy of The Decemberists: Dear Avery

and if I had an aeroplane I still couldn't make it on time

lots to say...alas my computer caught a virus and is in the I.T. hospital and blogging from my phone blows. Be back soon to imbue the screen with all things trivial that occur in my mind on a semi-weekly basis.

including but not limited to.
Sloane turning 4 mos. old and surviving vaccination
More pages for the baby book etc
How rad my best friend Bre is (plus how much I love her kids)
Random things I find cute/funny/adorable/unbelievable
How mad I get at the tv show The View but how I never quit dvr'ng it


title courtesy of Manic Monday ala Cindy Lauper (whom I am pretty sure would spell "airplane" "aeroplane")

You might as well face it, you're addicted to...

So apparently among all the disaster in our world there is something so controversial and terrible it warrants our media attention...







A 5 year old Suri Cruise still sucking on a pacifier.

to this controversy/discussion I say: Really? Seriously, you would think she was sucking on a hand grenade as heated as this discussion has gotten, or that the picture was of Katie and Tom shooting her up with herion through her peep toe custom made Louboutin baby heels.

I realize I am not an orthodontist and it looks a little silly but I really don't know what the big deal is. Devil's advocate Sigmund Freud would say if you take it away before they are ready you face psychological problems later. All of my siblings had pacifiers or finger sucking until around age 2 and 1/2 of us had braces and the other half had perfect jaws/teeth.

Maybe I am just sensitive to the issue: I loved my pacifier(s) (I slept with two so that I would have a back-up, see I've always been a planner) until age 2 when I had to have a funeral for them and throw them in our trash (I missed them hardcore at night for quite awhile but my parents stuck to their guns and probably wished for earplugs to drown out my cries).

And I know one day I will have a sad little face to explain why she can no longer have her "best friend".

title courtesy of Robert Palmer: Addicted to love

it's all about the wordplay

1:11 am, watching Hoarders quietly so as not to wake Keenan, propped up on 19 pillows so to sleep at a 85 degree angle, I have my first non-baby related thought in weeks!

I attended a conference on hoarding a few years ago in Wichita Kansas. It was an especially enlightening psychological conference. I did not learn much in grad school regarding hoarding but after 2 full days of lectures and workshops I felt much more informed. Since then there is a series on A&E called Hoarders. I was watching two episodes last night (thank-you heartburn and insomnia) and noticed that in all four of the case studies a similar sense of anxiety from the trucks that came to help clear the hoard.



All four of the cases the individual who hoards had a visceral reaction to the word "JUNK" hugely written on the fleet of trucks sent to "help" them. Of course, you may see junk as a slang term or even a term of endearment for a voluptuous backside. But it is clear that people do not want their things (even if it's old food and every newspaper since 1961) called "JUNK", or their whole neighborhood seeing that they have 17 truckloads of "JUNK".

I understand that this is advertising with this company, however the clinical psychologists who attend these interventions must have the knowledge that a truck with no words at all on it may be a better suited idea, after all the individual who hoards is usually in crisis during the part of the intervention where the things are put onto the truck.

My point is: words matter. Connotations matter. These people are in crisis, please help them by being sensitive to this.

*Neither here or there for this post but also I doubt many of these interventions work just like an addiction, or any other behavior pattern hoarding takes a long time to change and it is unlikely this is accomplished in only a few days and then kept up.

title courtesy of Jason Mraz: Wordplay
an

a lot of oysters but no pearls...

I love following this blog.

My blog doesn't have a huge readership to get me noticed and is inconsistent, unfocused and boring: but if not...I would be certainly chosen as a "Curmudgeon of the Week". I just know it.

So I decided to fill out my own interview, in preparation for my unlikely 15-minutes of blogger fame.

When did you first self-identify as a curmudgeon? As a very young child (2) I requested an "Oscar the Grouch" birthday cake and theme party (screw you cookie monster!) I also told my mom that my favorite muppets were the critics: Waldorf and Statler.

Who’s the curmudgeon (living or dead, historical or contemporary) you relate to most? Sylvia Plath.

What do you hate that other people inexplicably love?
*Happy endings in film/theatre
*Things being "wrapped up neatly"
*Receiving gifts

You are Dante. What, in order from least to most excruciating, are your nine circles of hell?

1. A dinner party in the book The Stepford Wives, where they are serving chutney.

2. Stuck with people who think they are either funny/smart/or witty when they use the word "retard" or "retarded"

3. Sitting next to a baby/toddler/kid on a plane whose parents haven't heard about or are somehow morally above the safe use of Benadryl.

4. Trying to make a logical argument on the set of The View.

5. Having to call tech support at our cable company.

6. Being on an endless elevator with a chatty person who smells like vanilla & fish.

7. Slow-developing-dementia.

8. Living in a world where a woman's (girl's) shameless exploitation of her body is worth more than the contents of her brain (that's right we already live in the 8th circle of hell).

9. The nation actually elects Sarah Palin and thus she ruins positions of power for women for the next 60 years, thus making her the only female president I see elected in my lifetime.

If you had the power to sign into law an amendment prohibiting a specific human behavior what would you outlaw? It is a tie between displaying a hanging set of "testicles" on the back of your oh-so-masculine vehicle and wearing a Southern Flag on your person (i.e. tattoo, belt-buckle, sleevless t-shirt). Maybe I can piggy-back one onto the other and make them into one law.

Let's lighten up. What makes you all warm and fuzzy inside? (Your heart can’t be COMPLETELY charred.) I think my siblings are pretty awesome people.

What's your favorite curse word/phrase? "Murderation" or "Murder!". Although it isn't a curse word it always stops people around, which is more effective than the old standards.

lyrics by fellow depressed curmudgeon: Adam Duritz, A Long December

there's a paradox in every paradigm

I DVR The View. I know the show has it's problems. But I DVR this because it's frankly exciting that I can watch 4-5 women of different ages discuss current events as well as more trivial things. I frequently become disenchanted with the show, as one does with any opinion-show. But lately it seems like too much to keep bottled up. So here it is...

an open letter to The View

I DVR The View each day. But lately I've become disenchanted with what I can only assume is hypocrisy. It seems that "cheating spouses" has been a Hot Topic for ages, recently it's blown up with politicians, celebs and Tiger.

The View tries to have variety in the co hosts, to prompt good discussion, different viewpoints and for the audience to have "their own" co host to relate to. What makes me feel terrible as a woman is that in the midst of this "Hot Topic" it seems that the co hosts are quick to forgive men involved in infidelity but continue to roast the women involved.

Joy's comment about one of Tiger's mistresses (a little word-play with her last name) was funny however when you juxtapose it with the fact that not that many weeks later co hosts gather on the couch oohing and ahhing over Mike Tyson (a convicted rapist, and a man who admits the best punch he's ever landed was off of Robin Givens face).

Also the co hosts were unanimously disgusted (save Barbara, who hasn't been on every time Rielle's brought up) with Rielle Hunter's photo shoot ala Risky Business meets the Muppet's, as well as her involvement with a married man. But then Sherri Shepard (who seems to herself be hurt by infidelity) chooses to don a Kobe Bryant jersey the week of the NBA playoffs (clip).

I am not saying you can't preach against infidelity and cheer for the Lakers, but wearing Kobe's jersey on national TV may be a bit hypocritical.

What I am missing on The View is someone who is unabashedly pro-woman. I am not saying that women cannot ever be boneheads (Whoopi uses this term as an ungendered description of stupidity) but someone who might say to Sherri "What's up with the Kobe jersey?" Or someone who seems a little less enchanted with guests like Mike Tyson and Snoop Dogg (the man who's lyrics proclaim women as "bitches" and "hos" who calls himself a "pimp" and penned lyrics like: "Shootin' the breeze, with a cute Vietnamese/or was she Lebanese? I think she Chinese/It really don't matter cause they all on they knees": The Last Meal.

Unabashedly for women...another problem with this is that when 2 co hosts are out (Barbara for health reasons and Whoopi to make a movie) The View decides it will go "out on a limb" and invite male moderators?!? How I ask, is that controversial? Many of these men already have their own public forums. Plus you took a show that was about women's conversations and let the males moderate it?

C'mon The View, go out on a real limb and hire a woman for women. Help us have a show that shows our little girls that we are not our own worst enemy. (Sisterhood is powerful you know)

title courtesy of ani difranco: paradigm

here comes that feeling again.

same.time.next.year

Time for my annual love affair with a tennis tournament.. and after Venus looking completely silly at the french open...I say this was silly because you can claim "woman power" all you want, but this outfit was "sexy" as defined by the male-gaze.

I think Venus is sexy when she aces a serve going 128mph. Why can't a female athlete be sexy without resorting to nude-shorts and black lace lingerie? If she isn't prancing around in things like this she gets called "mannish". There is a problem with this, this is not the kind of thing I want my future child to witness. A woman can be sexy and shoot a heck of a 3-ball. She can be sexy and turn double plays and throw a fastball. She can be sexy and fight for a rebound.

Then there are those people who will argue that Venus' outfits are her art. Ok, I guess I don't have a counter-point.

Bring on Wimbledon, Venus you will look sexy, powerful and great in the strict-Brit-dress-code.
(Oh and Andy, so will you) Go USA Tennis!

title courtesy of Counting Crows from song of the same name

moonlight & love songs never out of date

What I am thinking about today:

"It didn't happen, that's why it's romantic. If it would have happened it just would have been life." paraphrased from an episode of The Good Wife

Further evidence that the above is true... IMDB lists the top 50 romance movies. The number 1 movie is Casablanca (SPOILER ALERT- they don't end up together). source

title courtesy of the theme song of Casablanca: As Time Goes By

broke into the old apartment

"When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other." Rob Sheffield: Love is a Mix Tape

A combination of things that brought this post up.

1. My friend at work told me that she is loaning me Love is a Mix Tape. She knows how I have a healthy respect for melancholy.

2. I got a new bookcase and am filling it up, when searching through books in boxes to add to the shelf I found my journals (1999-2007).

3. Keenan was at work and I was bored and began to read about my past from my past-POV.

When I read through my journals I realized that a blog just isn't the same. I have always kept a pen and paper journal and I loved to staple little bits of artwork, love notes, newspaper articles, horoscopes, fortune cookie fortunes, photos and song lyrics into them.

One of my journals has the backs of postcards and envelopes that are full of song lists for mix cds that I made my best friend Bre (during our long distance relationship).

Then I found it within the pages...a list, a rather comprehensive list of songs organized by relationship and time in my life. Break up anthems and love manifestos all in lyrical form...This is the kind of thing I love to look back on, and giggle. Did I really take everything so seriously? Yes.

So I decided to dedicate a post to it and a few weeks of the playlist to it.

"I want you to get into the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that's happened." Claire Coburn, Elizabethtown the film

title courtesy of Barenaked Ladies: The Old Apartment (it's on the playlist)

It takes two when it used to take only one

for sale here

a challenge... this is probably a bad week to try to do any sort of "more" of anything...but I was doing such a good job of blogging in February, and now I can hardly believe it's March 15th. Really?! I would've have guessed it was the 8th.

So this week I am going to jot it down, more. I can't just let life get away without writing about it...Can I?

title courtesy of Ryan Adams: Two

wanna get me a little oblivion

sugar sweet sunshine

the great thing about this cupcakery in NYC is that it is open late. when i have a terrible day at work, i get home too late to go to cupcake a la mode. it makes me wish for the bigger city life. (only for the briefest of sugar-craving moments).

title courtesy of the epitome of "bad day blues" bands the Counting Crows: Perfect Blue Buildings

watch me go, I'm a happy girl.

Where better to shamelessly promote yourself than on your own blog? Nowhere.
Nestled between Brainy Smurf and Bug-out-Bob, you can see my "2009 Creative Contributions Award". The agency I work for celebrates one person per year for this award and 2009 was my year! Hopefully after I pilot my two sessions of drama camp for kids with autism they will want to award me again next year (I am not greedy, just ambitious).

It was funny, when they announced me for the award (it was super loud in the building with background noise) I thought they were calling my name out so that I could help pass out the awards, so when I got to the podium I asked what they needed me to do. The emcee looked quite confused and handed me the award. The photo of me accepting the award is truly funny as I look like I am not sure whether to reach out for it or not. If I had access to it, I would post it here. Luckily it is emblazoned in company infamy so that everyone can see my embarrassing moment. But now only my blogosphere knows the real story behind my flustered look.

title courtesy of Kansas girl Martina McBride: Happy Girl