He Was Robbed!

I know I have said I don't watch reality TV - and I don't, really - but once again, amid the late summer dearth of quality programming, I tuned in to a reality show. This time, it was "Celebrity Duets," a show I was actually hoping might hold some promise since a) I liked some of the celebrities, and b) I know some of them actually can sing.

Let's set aside for the moment that the format was terrible - unlike other shows, this was all about the love the celebrity judges have for their fellow celebrities. Boy, did I miss Simon Cowell for the first time in my life. But moving on, even Wayne Brady, whom I generally LOVE, sucked. He was stuck with unnatural, lovefest-style material that just showed absolutely none of what makes Wayne Brady great. But that wasn't the real disappointment.

Having tuned out for most of the show because, frankly, even the good singers were underwhelming (and I'm sorry David Foster, "Time, Love, and Tenderness" was a terrible duet for Lucy Lawless and Michael Bolton, even though I think the woman can sing), I showed up at the end to see how it all came out. Now, if you caught even just the highlights, you could see one thing, very clearly: Carly Patterson is not a very good singer. Sweet girl, Olympic gold medalist, cute as a button, but cannot carry a tune in a bucket. Okay, that's not entirely true. She can carry a tune, she just has a serious pitch problem, no doubt exacerbated by nerves and by two choices of songs that were beyond her capability. Granted, we knew it would be difficult for the judges to tell her so, because after all, who (besides Simon Cowell) wants to burst the bubble of America's sweetheart? But I was absolutely gobsmacked (and I am not even British!) that Chris Jericho, who actually ROCKED, lost to this poor, misguided girl.

The irony of all this is that I am the first one to say that these shows are generally unnecessarily cruel, and that I hate watching bad performers get told that they're bad. But this is one time where I honestly thought they were doing no favors to Carly Patterson by giving her hope, and worse, they let go someone who actually was better than some of the OTHER celebrity singers who stayed. Chris Jericho, you were robbed.

I Called It

I would just like to make a point of saying: I was a Kiefer Sutherland fan long before it was cool to be hot on Kiefer. Before "24," before the Emmy, before he made a beautiful acceptance speech which closed with a thought to his daughter. I liked him when he played unlikable characters, when he was a punky kid and still a little odd-looking. I knew he was a great actor then, and I'm glad the rest of the world finally got on the bandwagon. Congratulations, Mr. Sutherland. To the rest of you, here's the next big tip: Andrew Thacher. Watch for him.

Wasteful Wandering

Wasteful wandering
When I should be
Doing something better
With my time

But how can I concentrate
When all these ideas are simmering
Like so many bubbles
In froth

Like broth
For my tired soul
Do I find the words pouring out
As if all this time
They waited
And I looked the other way

What is this beast
I carry
As my burden
And my curse
That yet is such a blessing
That I can’t even realize its worth?

What The...?

In case this blog ever gets any kind of following, and you've been happily reading from the beginning and then suddenly *WHAM!* you find yourself running headlong into these completely out of character poems and wonder "What the...?", let me 'splain:

I have this friend. She got me into this whole blogging thing. She encouraged me to write more. And more and more. And she made me think about approaching writing differently, so that I really just get off my butt and do it, even if the "it" ends up being something awful or just not me or whatever. So, now that the words are aflowin', they kinda come out in all forms. I don't claim to be a poet, much less a good one, but hopefully that explains why every once in awhile a few lines of the stuff show up on this page.

Something New

She sees
the strange surface and
knows that it’s something
wonderful
but terrifying

SCREAM! But wait:
No, it isn’t so bad.
Or is it?
CRASH!
There it is again! Oh no!
Why can’t I tear myself away?

Woosh…fizzle…
*Sigh*
What to do?
She watches with fascination
and fear.
She yells
but she isn’t sure why.

Can I be
excited
and upset
all at the same time?
She wonders.
Will it matter?
Make it stop! No -
make it come back!
Wait! I think
I like it.
Or maybe
I don’t.
I’ll decide…
tomorrow.

Say What?

Did I say time slowed down when we came here? I was SO wrong! Time is flying! Our trip is more than half over! I don't want it to be over yet! Help me, my vacation is slip-sliding away!

At least it's been a truly enjoyable vacation. The baby who first screamed at the sand and surf has now decided it's more interesting than upsetting. The fisherman has caught several fish, and I even caught one myself. The trip to Atlantic City was lucrative - can't complain when you come home with $525 more than you left with. The food's good, the family's fun, and the weather has been picture perfect. If only it didn't have to end in just three short days...

Here I Sit

Here I sit, on vacation at last, on the upper deck of a beachhouse in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. A quiet little family town, Stone Harbor has been a summer sanctuary for me since my very first summer, and now that I have a daughter of my own to share it with, my affection for the place only grows.

The smell of the ocean a mere two blocks away drifts casually but confidently on the strong evening breeze. My favorite sounds in my ears – “Faithfully” by Journey, “Southern Cross” by CSN&Y, “Cool Change” by Little River Band (God bless the mp3 player) – sweeten the sensation of calm overcoming my nerve-wracked existence. As unstressful as my current life is by comparison to the days when I worked outside the home, the uptightness that remains becomes painfully evident when, finally in my refuge, I actually feel relaxation occurring. Hallelujah, vacation!

What makes a setting ideal and idyllic? I suppose it differs for everyone. For me, the requirements are open air (no skyscrapers), water, warm temperatures, safety, and a certain aesthetic native to the small towns that retain the wholesome values of cleanliness and quiet. That my family is here with me just further serves the scenery – no six people I’d rather be with than my daughter, husband, parents, sister, and future brother-in-law. It doesn’t hurt any that we got a KILLER beachhouse, quite by accident and entirely thanks to my parents, so that every comfort is provided and every needed accommodated many times over. The only thing missing is my dogs, but we were assured that any house that permitted pets would be one we wouldn’t want to stay in, so alas, the mutts are also getting a vacation at their favorite local vet where they will be daily fussed over and treated.

I think half the fun is in wondering what this year’s adventure will hold – will it be warm? Will it be sunny? Will it rain at least once so I have a solid excuse to go play in Atlantic City? Will there be jellyfish? (This year’s answer, sadly, is yes – warm seawater means, as my sister so eloquently put it, a shoreline littered with “a million little breast implants”. And now with the baby along, there are new questions: will she like the water? How much sand will she eat? Will we be able to keep her happy on a blanket under an umbrella or will she immediately get tired of being confined? Will we thus be able to stay on the beach more than 15 minutes? In any case, I really don’t care – I am happy just to be here, away from the routine, the daily duress of worries about money, time management, and the speed with which my precious little one is going through her young life right before our eyes. For one week, everything just slows down a little, and all there is to worry about is how long to stay out in the sun.

The day before departure every year is like Christmas Eve – full of anticipation that makes it hard to sleep and that much more exciting to finally arrive. Last night, between my own anxiety and the alternate snoring of my husband and fidgeting of my baby daughter, heard on the baby monitor from which I can’t bring myself to part, I didn’t get much sleep. I don’t think I’ll have that problem tonight.

Guilty Pleasures

So let's do some 'fessin' up, folks. These are some of my guilty pleasures - the things that very few people know about me, and for good reason:

1. Hanson (as in "Mmmmbop"). I think the Hanson kids are actually quite talented. Seriously. You may not like their music, but they wrote all the stuff themselves (at least on that first CD, Middle of Nowhere which, yes, I own), arranged it, and actually played instruments. And although I wouldn't want it piped into my earphones 24/7, I actually found "Mmmmbop" a catchy tune.

2. Music with lyrics I wouldn't let my kids listen to and of which I generally disapprove. I would be no less enriched for this stuff not being out there, so don't get me wrong - I'm all for artists cleaning up their acts and parental advisories on music and what not. Nonetheless, I absolutely loved "Tipsy" by J-Kwon, and my newest favorite song is "Love Me Or Hate Me" by Lady Sovereign, featuring the lyric, "If you love me, then thank you! If you hate me, then $%#^ you!" Truly tasteless and yet absolutely addictive.

3. Disney television shows. Again, happy to live in a world where Howard Stern is a janitor somewhere instead of an entirely-too-wealthy DJ/TV personality, I love the crystal clean, bubblegum wholesomeness of Lizzie Maguire and Even Stevens. Well, I did when they first came out. Since neither are still in production, I'm pretty much over them (they don't do much for me as syndicated reruns), but the point is, I like the essence of the shows. Cute, harmless, nonviolent, nongraphic, and totally aimed at the "tween" living inside me.

4. Circus peanuts (the candy). I have never been able to explain their appeal, but I would happily chow down on a whole bag.

5. So You Think You Can Dance. I hate reality TV. REALLY. I never watch these shows, although I admit I got caught up in the tail end of a Top Chef re-run marathon that hooked me for three whole hours and launched a new fascination with cooking. Still, I not only hate reality TV, I loathe these competitions where they let perfectly unsuspecting dufuses who do not actually know they're not at all talented go on the air and make asses of themselves, and then proceed to let the judges tell them so. I see no reason for this inhumanity - it's like sanctioned high school bullying, like letting the preppy kids publicly berate the band geeks and book nerds. Nonetheless, my husband roped me into watching a mid-season episode of Dance, and because I love dancing (and by now all the sucky people were long gone), I was easily drawn in and found myself actually intentionally tuning in every week. Worse: I voted. I did! I voted for Travis. TWICE. While I'm not exactly unhappy that Benji won, I admit to being a little disappointed that Travis didn't win the whole enchilada, although I find myself believing that it may work out to his advantage because he won't be limited to the Celine Dion contract once the tour is over. The ridiculous part is that I ACTUALLY KNOW ALL THESE DETAILS AND FIND MYSELF CARING. And I can't wait until next summer's season! Sheesh.

That's about all I can stand for one day. But I just had to share.

$#@%$^&!

WHY CAN'T THEY MAKE THE FRIGGIN' STICKY LABELS ON NEW CDS A LITTLE EASIER TO GET OFF???!!! I get no sympathy from my husband, who never seems to have any trouble, but surely I'm not the only who finds these things ridiculously difficult. "Pull" says the little tab - but if I pull there, I get 1/8 of an inch of the label broken off and a CD that still isn't opened! ARGH! I HAVE A MASTER'S DEGREE FOR PETE'S SAKE! THIS SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD!!!

Some People

What the hell is the matter with some people? Why do adults act like children? A friend creates a blog, a personal vehicle of expression, a window into her mind, somewhere to unload the daily accumulation of thoughts good, bad, and ugly. She takes every opportunity when inspiration strikes to capture those thoughts and put them out into the ether, including the occasional break at work. Sadly, a coworker feels it's his job to not only notice what's on her screen (I'm sorry, is this 1984?) but to make a point of researching the blog to read it and then proliferating his newfound knowledge all around the office, in spite of my friend's repeated request to keep his mouth shut about it. He finds the whole thing funny. She finds it devastating. The blog wasn't exactly private, but it wasn't intended for everyone she knew to share in it. Now her outlet is stifled. Now she has to censor and edit. Sure, she could just start another blog. But the first one had a really cool name! And the first one was the first one, the one she wanted, designed, cared about, created. And now she has to either abandon it, or abandon its purpose. All because some moron thought it would be cute to act like a 12-year old: "Hey, everybody, look at Ann's blog!" (not her real name, of course) It's akin to finding her diary and showing it to everyone. Maybe she shouldn't have had it open at work, but that's not the point. Why do some people have to BE that way? Seriously: why?

I mean, I don't want to steal my friend's thunder. It's not my crusade. But it reminds me of all the times when I have looked chronologically mature adults and thought, "what the hell is the matter with you?" for exactly the same reason. To quote a friend, "that really chaps my ass." (He's Texan.) I will never understand why some people feel the need to continue to persecute others like a schoolyard bully who never grew up.

You know who you are.

Baba-Boom

Okay: I love "Baba O'Reilly" by The Who as much as the next person. It's a great song, and we all think so, even if more than half the population mistakenly believes the song is actually called "Teenage Wasteland" (hey, it's popular lyric on the musical hook of the song, so why the heck would you guess it's called "Baba O'Reilly"?). BUT, has Hollywood run out of other music to use as theme songs? I count two TV shows ("CSI: New York" and "Saved," on TNT) and now the movie "Invincible" with Mark Wahlberg, all actively using "Baba" as the audial draw. Come on, Hollywood - unoriginal as you can be, surely you can do better than this childish game of "Cool Song Copycat."

So Very Glad I'm Not Still Single

My best friend (we’ll call her “Jane”) was recently visiting, and she relayed a story that is just too good to keep to myself. Divorced and raising two children largely by herself, Jane not surprisingly finds it challenging to find the time and places to meet new men, and so has turned to internet dating as a method of simultaneously screening and meeting new prospects. Although a few have turned out to be perfectly fine candidates, there are always, of course, the genuine weirdos.

“Joe” was someone my friend had been talking to for a few weeks, first by e-mail and then by phone. My friend is quick to admit that she could tell this guy was a little odd, but friendly and funny enough that she continued to chat with him anyway. Then one night, as she lay in bed talking to him on the phone as he was driving somewhere, he said something that made her sit straight up. The conversation transpired something like this:

Joe: “WHOA!”
Jane: “What?”
Joe: “Uh…I don’t know if I should tell you.”
Jane: “Oh, come on. What?”
Joe: “Well, you know how sometimes you have, like, daydreams, except you feel like you’re really kind of seeing something but you know it’s not really there?”
Jane, a little confused: “Um....”
Joe: “You know, you just see something, and you know it’s not real, but it just seems so real.”
Jane: [Brief silence] “You mean like…hallunications?”
Joe: “No, no, not like that. It’s just…well, I just saw this monkey in a sweater behind me. I knew it wasn’t really there, but I just had to turn around and look. And of course, it wasn’t there, but it was just so real.”
Jane:
Joe: “Hello?”
Jane: “Are you kidding?”
Joe: “See! I knew I couldn’t be honest with you about this!”

I swear, folks, I spent 20 minutes alternately marveling at this guy and laughing my head off. I mean, I’ve certainly had the experience where, when you move your head quickly and something passes rapidly through your field of vision, you might think that the object was something completely different than what it was - leaves that look like animals, posts that look like people, etc. But this guy didn’t just see a shadow or something that resembled a monkey. In his rearview mirror, inside his car, he saw a monkey – and more specifically, a monkey in a sweater. That’s what Jane tried to tell him when Joe insisted that it was really no big deal. “You didn’t just think you saw something, you specifically saw a monkey in a sweater. That can’t possibly be good!” All I can say is, that one ranks at the very top of my ‘strangest people encountered in the dating pool’ list, and I am so very grateful to be married and out of that crazy market.

Just Say "No"

A few weeks ago, I was chatting with a friend about life with my baby. This friend is someone who’s fairly opinionated and forthright, traits I attribute to a combination of her upbringing and her profession, which, suffice it to say, is a non-traditional one for a woman and significantly male-dominated. Nonetheless, I enjoy those things about her, because I tend to be that way myself, and it’s refreshing not to have to deal with the often delicate emotional sensitivities of another woman. As a result, we’ve had more than one conversation where I’ve found myself somewhat inadvertently on the defensive because this friend doesn’t hesitate to challenge the things I say or to put forth her perspective on the subject.

So I’m telling her about how much my little girl has grown, and how she’s now completely mobile (crawling), and how we’re beginning to try to teach her the word “no,” because she tries to get into everything. My friend offered up, as I’ve heard her say before, the fact that her mother, “…who was the primary caregiver, didn’t believe in saying ‘no.’ She believed that it was your responsibility as a parent to secure the room so that there wouldn’t be any reason to say no. She thought that children should only get positive reinforcement.” Now, at this point, you’re probably thinking, “well no big deal, she’s just throwing out an observation about what one woman did.” Uh, no. That is not how my friend works – she was, in her own lefthanded way, making a suggestion about what I should do with my daughter. And I, generally preferring to avoid conflict and particularly to avoid arguments that inevitably derive from two people talking about something deeply personal – politics, religion, how to raise your child, etc. – tried to deflect the comment by offhandedly joking that with the layout of our house and two dogs, I don’t have enough money to buy all the gates I would need to protect every last little thing. The next thing I know, I’m defending this statement that I can’t practically safeguard an entire room, as my friend ticks off all the reasons it’s not that expensive, isn’t that hard, etc.

What I should’ve said was, “I’m not sure I agree with your mother.” (Actually, what I should’ve said was “Horse$#!%!” but I do like this woman and didn’t want to completely offend her.) The reality is that I don’t agree, and although my heart was in the right place to not want to devolve this casual conversation into a debate about childrearing, this is one time I keep looking back on and thinking, “you know, I really should’ve just stood up for myself on this one.” While I agree that children should get as much positive reinforcement in their lives as possible, I also believe there are perfectly good reasons for saying “no” to a child, and for a child learning what that means and why it’s important to listen when Mommy says that word. What happens when you leave the house? You can’t possibly expect every other room (or backyard, or department store) in every other house, building, or neighborhood to be completely “secured” from all possible dangers. So what do you do when a child who doesn’t know the word “no” grabs something off the shelf of the store? Or starts to run toward the street? “No” isn’t always about negative reinforcement; sometimes it’s about safety and wellbeing.

I agree that children need to hear “yes” and “good job” as much as possible. I don’t see any reason why, after saying “no” and the child actually does what s/he’s supposed to, that you can’t then celebrate with a hearty “good girl!” or “thank you, Jimmy!”. I believe positive reinforcement is appropriate when your child is very proud of herself for coloring a picture, and that after telling her “it’s beautiful!” you need to curtail your compulsion to add that next time, it will look even better if she colors inside the lines. But refusing to tell your kid no? Without digressing into a rant about what’s wrong with America these days, let me just say that you’re asking for trouble – for you, for your kids, and for everyone those kids are ultimately going to come in contact with throughout their lives. So, on behalf of their teachers, their friends, their friends’ parents, the local police, and the community at large: please parents, just say “no.”

The Deterioration of the Second Space

I've just noticed that the nifty little software that enables and publishes these posts automatically removes the second space after the period at the end of the sentence and before the capital letter of the next. How rude.

Amendment

My husband would like it noted that rather than a classic Corvette and H3, he would prefer I use my fictional wealth to buy him a souped up F350 and a fishing boat. Ladies and gentleman, the Y chromosome at its finest. :)

This Old Guitar

"This old guitar taught me to sing a love song
It showed me how to laugh and how to cry
It introduced me to some friends of mine
And brightened up some days
It helped me make it through some lonely nights
Oh, what a friend to have on a cold and lonely night."

- John Denver, "This Old Guitar"

So I was listening to this song today - yes, I listen to John Denver, willingly - and it got me thinking. First I thought, "man, that is a really great lyric..." but then my mind started to wander and I started waxing philosophic on the subject of things, their sentimental value, and why I can't seem to part with my dad's old guitar.

My dad's guitar is an Old Kraftsman, circa...oh, 1950-something. It's probably worth some money - not a fortune, but more than a yard sale price. It needs some wood work, because a degree of warping has made it essentially untuneable, and someday I'll probably invest the money to have it fixed up. Even though I don't play the guitar.

My father is still living, so this particular memento is nothing more than a semi-historic article I find cool and comforting. I have often wanted to play the guitar, and have taken a crack, more than once, at learning to play. I still have a copy of "Guitars for Dummies," and can hack out a few of the basic chords. But I don't really play. I don't guess I'm ever likely to get around to learning how to really play. But I feel like that guitar is an essential belonging that I would only part with if selling just about everything else I own wasn't bringing in enough to live on.

I am a songwriter. Well, I was a songwriter; I wrote a bunch of songs in college, a compilation I titled "Songs from the Laundry" (hence the title of this blog). And I've written a couple since then, but only a couple. I don't know if the juice just kinda dried up once I'd cleared the teenage angst from my belfry or if I let pragmatism discourage my creativity or what, but I just haven't been very prolific on that front since I was about 19. Still, I have written some songs, I love to sing, and I love other people's music. Somehow, simply possessing that guitar makes me feel like a songwriter, even though I have never used it in the writing of a song or played one of my songs on it. Even though it's been at least 6 or 7 years since I last wrote a song. I feel like a songwriter. I get the John Denver lyric, because even though I can't actually attribute any of those experiences in my life to my dad's guitar, I have had those experiences, and somehow, having that guitar makes a neat, romantic connection in my head to that nostalgia.

Now, I'm a fan of the show "Clean Sweep," that airs on TLC (bear with me, I swear this is germane to the subject at hand). For the uninitiated, this reality-type show takes a couple with serious packrat and/or cleanliness issues and re-does two rooms of their house by removing every single article to the backyard, going through it piece by piece, getting rid of at least 2/3 of it via yard sale or trash can, and redecorating the rooms before returning all the remaining possessions. I love the show because it takes people otherwise incapable of doing so and restores order to the chaos. It gives me the same nice sense of tidying up that assembling a jigsaw puzzle does, only vicariously.

But I take issue with one particular philosophy of Peter, one of the organizational experts, which is that essentially, stuff you keep for sentimental reasons should be tossed - it's the memory, not the stuff, that matters. NUH-UH! Sometimes, it's the stuff. Not so much so that you should keep every single material object you were ever given by someone else or that belonged to someone else or that has some particular memory attached to it, of course. But every once in awhile, along comes an artifact that simply holds power for you, because of what it symbolizes, or reminds you of, or enables you to feel about yourself, your past, your future.

That guitar, however dusty and unplayed, means something to me. It symbolizes the role music has played in my life. It also symbolizes all the things I've never gotten around to doing or committed to long enough to learn to do well. Hey, I didn't say the memories or symbolism were always good - but sometimes there's value in periodically being nudged out of your complacency by the twinge of things you wished you'd done a little differently. The guitar holds together some nice moments of my past, and it also holds the promise that maybe, as it sits there in the corner next to my Steinway baby grand, my daughter will decide that she will be committed enough to learn to play the guitar, and she'll write her own songs with it, and my father will have passed on one of the most important tools in her life. So I'm not gettin' rid of the guitar.

Things I'd Do If I Had The Money

I often happen across ideas for what I'd do if I had a huge amount of money. No, I'm not talking about the obvious "if I won the lottery, I'd buy..." kind of things. Of course, I'd do those things too, but after I'd paid off the mortgage, set up my daughter's college fund and my retirement account, bought my husband his classic Corvette and an H3, and bought my parents...well they have a good house and the only cars I'm guessing they'd actually drive, but I'd think of something good to buy them...THEN I'd do some other things with my money. I am constantly running across people I'd help and good ideas I'd sponsor. Oprah may have made it popular, but she didn't completely pioneer the idea of angel giving and random acts of extreme generosity. Here are a few of things, off the top of my head, that I'd like to do:

1. I'd buy the 12-year old girl across the street a new basketball hoop. Her mother, a divorcee raising three daughters on her own because her jackass of an ex- (who lives less than a mile away with his new wife) doesn't do much to help, put up the current hoop a few years ago. Now, my neighbor is a good woman who made a valiant effort with the hoop, but she'd be the first person to admit she was in over her head with the project. The frame is sturdy enough, but isn't in the best shape and is kinda anchored with a bag of dry cement, and the net disintegrated into a tattered collection of strings a long time ago. And yet this girl is out there every day, by herself, for anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour, practicing her basketball skills on that sad little hoop. No kid was ever more deserving of an upgrade. I wouldn't want to embarass my neighbor, but if I had the money, I would totally sneak a new hoop and net in there in the middle of the night.

2. Rather than spread the wealth around to a bunch of worthy causes that, in my personal opinion, spend more money on marketing and solicitation than they do on helping actual people, I'd fully fund a charitable venture (hence no solicitation expenses). I'm not entirely decided yet on exactly who it would serve, but the point is that it would be focused, directly help actual individuals or families (or fund research), and if other people found out about it and wanted to throw in some of their own dough, hallelujah.

3. I would pay to completely makeover my sister's kitchen, since she came through with a loan for our kitchen renovation when we needed it and couldn't afford it.

4. I would buy a radar gun and big neon sign for my yard - and I assure you, my neighbors would support me on this - and would sit in a lawn chair zapping all the careless yahoos who go flying down my little 200-yard long street because they think it's a handy cut through between two main roads. They think nothing of doing 50 in a 25-mile-an-hour zone, in spite of the 9 children under the age of 18 and one elderly gentleman who live on this block. What chafes me the most is that the worst offenders are the Town trash trucks. So I would sit with my gun and a little remote board for the sign with a few pre-programmed messages like "SLOW DOWN, MORON! CHILDREN LIVE HERE!" that I could flash at the speeders. Alternatively, I could use the money to buy some spike strips like my husband's suggested, and just pay to have people's tires repaired afterwards. It would give me the satisfaction, and I am certain that after awhile, people would start avoiding our street.

5. I would have a big party - a backyard picnic kind of thing - for everybody I know. And I mean everybody (that I'm still in touch with). I'd fly in all the out-of-towners and put 'em up in the local Four Seasons. I'd hire caterers from three of my favorite local restaurants (for variety), and my sister's friend's band (they're really good). We'd just hang around all day, maybe all weekend, and enjoy each other's company and meet each other's kids and catch up on all the stuff we never have time to sit around and catch up on. Wouldn't that just be the best way to spend a weekend?

I think that'll do it for now. At least until I actually have some money.

What do I know?

So here I am, of all the people I know, unquestionably the person with the most to say - or at least, the most talking to do - and yet when I sit down with this blog, finally an outlet for the multitude of words that pour out of my 120-wpm-typin'-fool fingers, I can't think of a thing to write about. It's like those awful creative writing exercises: "Write 500 words on any topic you want..." Sounds great until you actually have to do it. Apparently, I need boundaries.

They (The Writing Authorities) say you should write about what you know. Oooookay... it's not that I know that much, it's that it still doesn't narrow the field quite enough for me to get started. I know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about a very few things...that doesn't leave me with much guidance for blogging. I suppose once I get accustomed to this, there'll be more of a daily stream-of-experiences that will trigger the muse, but today I feel chatty and actually have a few extra minutes while my baby girl naps, so I hate to waste the opportunity. But, what to write? Well, what do I know?

I know that it's a BEAUTIFUL day outside, finally a reprieve from the 100-degree weather we've been having. I know that I loved the heat and humidity when I lived in Houston, but for some reason, 100+ temps in Washington, DC have considerably less appeal. I know that I miss Houston from time to time, and I know that that is one sentiment I never thought I'd utter. When I moved to Houston, I thought it was the most awful city I'd ever lived in...well, it was, actually, if you strictly go by the "I'd ever lived in" criterion. It was dirty, hot, concrete, seemingly vegetation-free, crowded in spite of its ridiculous vastness (who defines a city with a 90-mile radius?), and chaotically random as a result of its infamous lack-of-zoning-laws approach to urban development. Yet, after four years and a lot of time spent locating little patches of exceptions to the rules, I came to love it so much I hated to leave. But leave I did, to marry the most wonderful guy in the world, and now I'm back in the political hotbed of America, living a stone's throw outside the Beltway, hating it only when the temperatures drop below 50.

But I digress. Or is that the point, really, of a blog? Does this newfound bulletin board for thought give stream-of-consciousness writing some kind of grassroots legitimacy? Aw geez, now I've waxed philosophic. Not my intent! Let's resume the accounting of what I know. The list is longer than I'll manage to address today, of course, but let's tick off a few others that are at the tip of my brain this idyllic afternoon:

I know that green is a great color, on me, on the trees, on the walls of my office, and on the bridesmaid dress I'll wear this Fall when my little sister gets married.
I know that my daughter has a smile that can absolutely undo everything wrong in the world in less than 2 seconds.
I know that I don't have nearly enough time to devote to something as relatively silly as blogging, and yet it holds a strange, magnetic attraction that I sense will end up consuming much of time, even if I have to borrow it from my sleeping hours.
I know that my husband is way cooler than I generally admit to him.
I know that the quality of television programming has sunk to levels that constantly have me itching to sell all my TVs, and yet, I spend at least 10 hours a week watching anyway.
I know that actor Andy Thacher is destined for greatness. Mark my words and this date on the calendar, folks, 'cause when he breaks and you all suddenly know who he is and worship the boards he treads, remember where you heard it first.
I know that my dogs are two of the cutest and coolest animals on the planet. They're not too small, they're not too big, they're not yappy, they're not gonna win any contests, and they are totally content to just lie on the cool tile and nap.
I know that my parents love me.
I know that the Degree Ultra clear deodorant really doesn't leave marks on my clothes. Huh.
I know that I'm beginning to bore even myself with this list, and that must signal that it's time to wrap it up.

Well, I feel better for having written something. I like that I can give myself a little mental and digital exercise (that's "digital" in the finger-joint sense), and not have spent any money doing it. Heck, I love that. What's better than free entertainment that simultaneously whiles away the day and keeps your cognitive faculties sharpened? Hot dog, I've found a new hobby.

And with that, my little darling awakens from her nap, and I must return to real life. Good day!

So here it is, I'm finally doing it - blogging. Lots of folks have suggested I write for a living or otherwise get my word out on the street, so I'm finally giving in to the peer pressure and the technological age and making the leap into the abyss. Blogland, here I am.

What will appear here, ultimately, is anyone's guess. I'm sure only that it'll be a random agglomeration of my thoughts, fears, rants, raves, praise, wonder, and God willing, witticisms. You might read about my politics; raising my daughter; my wonderful husband - and the flaws generally attributed to his Y chromosome; my personal pet peeves; the people I love; my daily experiences...or nothing in particular at all. Isn't that the joy of the blog?

Maybe this will be read by millions. Maybe it'll never be seen by anyone but me. Maybe it'll inspire someone, anger masses, unwittingly support a cause, or just sit here and be thoughts lost in the ether. At least it's being done. Finally. Happy reading, any and all...