So yesterday I got a chance to watch VH1’s “100 Greatest Songs of the ’90s.” It’s five hours long, and although I missed songs 80-51 (grocery shopping and dinner), I must say: it was absolutely fantastic.
If ever you have five hours to sit around watching television, I highly recommend it. With almost every song, my reaction was something like, “Oh God! I love that song!” I mean, we’re talking high-quality shiz here. Everything from Spin Doctors to Sir Mixalot, Nirvana to NSync, Notorious B.I.G. to Billy Ray Cyrus. And watching music videos–a dying art–was refreshing in a very nostalgic way.
So good, I hope they put it out on DVD. I would buy it.
I graduated from college and finally got a new car, received a fellowship to get my Master’s degree at someone else’s expense, moved to Alabama, and pretty much sat around by myself for four months, reading and writing every day. And of course, I got engaged. So, it’s been a year of big events: some joyous, some less so, but overall, I have little to complain about. I look forward to 2007, especially as Emily is moving to Alabama with me.
Who knows where I’ll/we’ll be a year from now? Perhaps still in Alabama, as I finish up my degree. Perhaps in Alabama, as I finish up my degree and teach at the same time. Perhaps somewhere completely different (probably Virginia or North Carolina), as I teach and plan to finish up my degree in the summer. We shall see–check back in 365.
Whatever the coming year holds, I’ve made quite a few resolutions. Eleven, in fact–and let me tell you why. I’m usually pretty good at keeping them for a month or two, but then things get busy and I start slipping. I hold no illusions–I will probably not follow through on most of these, but I think if I keep up with two or three of them, that will be pretty successful. So here they are, separated into two categories but otherwise in no particular order.
Health/Fitness
1. Play basketball twice a week
2. Bike/row/run twice a week (in addition to the basketball)
3. Maintain my weight (after losing a bit of holiday weight first)
4. Eat at least three salads a week
5. Floss daily
Personal
1. Read for pleasure at least 30 mins./day
2. Take time to call an old friend every week or two
3. Write a letter (old-fashioned handwriting style) once a month
4. Spend 3-4 hours/month volunteering
5. Explore my surroundings in Alabama–rediscover my native state
6. Wear my class ring every day
Some of these seem of little importance, and I’m sure but I think they reflect what I want to be in the next year: a healthier, saner, less isolated person, and a better friend. And with better oral hygiene and pride in my alma mater.
I’m going to try to revisit this post at the end of every month–take inventory of how I’m doing, so to speak. But I’m not actually making that a resolution, so I probably won’t even attempt it once.
I have a confession to make.
For the last couple of years, Christmas has been kind of a letdown. I don’t mean in the sense that I didn’t get the presents I wanted or that I didn’t enjoy spending time with family and friends, but I just didn’t have the same sort of excitement I always had as a kid. Maybe it started when I discovered that Santa Claus wasn’t real. I don’t know.
I loved Christmas when I was little, but for the last couple of years, it just hasn’t been the same. I didn’t get the same joy from simply walking through the mall during the holidays. I certainly didn’t have any urge to listen to Christmas music. Exchanging presents, while fun, didn’t seem to hold any special meaning.
I never said anything to anyone about it, but I felt like a Scrooge. I wanted to love Christmas again, but I couldn’t for some reason. I was afraid that Christmas would never be the same magical time of year that it once was. I was afraid that I would have to begin listing the Fourth of July as my favorite holiday.
This year, I’m happy to report, I’ve gotten rid of my inner Ebenezer. I contemplated buying and decorating a tree for my apartment, and although I didn’t (mainly because I’m heading home in a few days), I’ve been downloading Christmas music like a fiend, and I plan on baking more than you can shake a stick at next week.
I also have every intention of making wassail again this year. I know it’s a hassle, but it’s Christmas. Mom, we’re gonna need some apple cider.
I don’t know if it’s because my time away from home has made me appreciate the idea of returning, or if I’m simply clinging for dear life to any final vestige of childhood. But whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t go away. This is how the Christmas season is supposed to feel.
The title has multiple layers of meaning.
First, this post will generally lack cohesiveness. Second of all, I have two papers due in the next week. They will perhaps (though hopefully not) lack cohesiveness as well. And now you know.
Anyway, the presentation is done. I think I did fairly well, though again, I really can’t be sure. At least it’s over. Now I’m on to paper #1, to be turned in by 4:45 on Friday afternoon. That means I have about 42 hours. My professor gave my topic the thumbs-up, so we’re set for lift-off there, now I just need to actually do the work. I wish I did, but I simply don’t have the energy or the desire to really do much on it tonight, but I’m going to force myself to refine my ideas ever so slightly before I go to bed. Tomorrow could be a very long day.
Changing directions completely, I had a very random thought today, and I decided I’d share it. Well, I bought a half-gallon of milk yesterday, and when I opened the refrigerator earlier this afternoon, I noticed the expiration date of my new milk was December 18. This is really nothing special, but for some strange reason, I thought “Hey, on December 18, my semester will be over and I’ll be at home! Sweet!” and I was immediately taken back to my elementary school cafeteria. For the first time in I don’t know how long, probably a good 12 years at the least, I remembered that when I was very young, I used to get excited when the expiration date on the milk carton was beyond the last day of the school year. That’s how I knew summer was almost there. When the milk doesn’t go bad before summer starts, things are looking up. And I’ll take that as encouragement in my current situation. I have no idea why this memory has been locked away somewhere for the last decade-plus, but it was really striking when it hit me today. I just found it interesting.
And finally, some of you may remember that I posted a video a while back in which someone had taken clips from “The Shining” and made it into a feel-good movie. Well, I’ve now been made privilege to the inverse: someone has made Mary Poppins into a horror film. And I have to admit, it looks pretty terrifying. Come to think of it, Mary Poppins does some pretty weird stuff.
Without further ado, I give you “Scary Mary”:
I spent this weekend in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and it was exactly what I needed. I was able to get my head out of the clouds for a little while, spend a couple of days not worrying about my work, and recharge my batteries, so to speak.
For a bit of background, Ocean Springs is a small town on the Gulf of Mexico, originally founded in 1699, and the first capital of French Louisiana. Known for being an “artsy” place, it also just so happens to be the place where I spent the majority of my childhood. Actually, although I’ve been gone for almost a decade, I lived in Ocean Springs longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my 22-plus years. It’s a quaint little place. It’s changed a lot since I moved away, but it’s also one of those places where some things seem to never change.
It was pretty devastated by Katrina, but it’s also a place whose people really do seem to have an indomitable spirit, and one where most of the people absolutely love their town and refuse to let a hurricane destroy their way of life. I’ve said more than once since I moved away that while I loved growing up in Ocean Springs, I would have no interest in ever living there again, but this weekend made me question that. I really don’t think I will end up there, for a number of reasons, but I don’t think I’d really mind it so much if I did.
I left town immediately after class on Friday, and I took my time getting down there. I meandered along rural Alabama backroads, stopping for a little while in the tiny little town where my grandmother grew up. It’s pretty desolate these days, and the roof of her high school gymnasium apparently caved in some time ago. There are trees growing out of the top. I poked around town for a little while and then continued on my way.
I got to Ocean Springs around 6:00 Friday evening and stopped by my mom’s best friends’ house, where I was offered beer and whiskey. I politely refused. After a short while there, I left to meet up with one of my best friends from elementary school at his house. We hadn’t seen each other in about eight years. He’s really the only person from Ocean Springs that I kept in touch with, and we haven’t even kept in touch that well.
His band was playing on Saturday, so they practiced for about an hour while I sat and listened and tried not to go deaf. Then we headed over to the Beau Rivage, which is one of the nicer casinos there on the coast and only recently reopened after Katrina. I blew $10 (high roller!) pretty quickly, but I got a free Vodka Collins, so it evened out. Ok, so it didn’t “even” out, but I had some fun and got a free drink. Whatever. Then we headed back to Ocean Springs and went to a bar, where I had a few more drinks.
Yesterday morning we got up and went downtown for the Peter Anderson Festival, which is basically a huge annual arts crafts fair, known especially for its pottery. Artists from all over the Gulf Coast, and indeed all over the country, come to Ocean Springs every year for this thing. I didn’t realize it was this weekend when I first decided to go down, but I’m really glad I got to go. I have a lot of fond memories walking around the festival when I was little kid (although I was more interested in the corn dogs, I think–I was completely oblivious to the art). There was a lot of really cool stuff that I’ll hopefully someday have the money to buy. Last night, I went to a fundraiser at the Walter Anderson Museum with my mom’s friend, where I had some excellent barbecue and locally brewed beer. For those Wahoos out there, it was a lot like Fourth Fridays, except with wilder art and better food. Of course, it also wasn’t free, but it was for me! Pretty sweet.
This morning, I headed back, only to get about half an hour out of town and then find out that my eighty-three year-old great aunt woke up this morning and made me a batch of her famous fried apple pies. So, of course, I turned around and headed back to town and visited her for a little while. She not only gave me the apple pies, but also all of her leftover Halloween candy (over my objections), as well as a candy dish “to make my apartment look good.” You can’t very well say no to your eighty-three year-old great aunt when she’s trying to make your apartment look good, so I took the candy and the dish and thanked her.
I got on the road around noon, and got back to my apartment a little before 5:00. Since then, I’ve been trying to get back in the swing of things and get a lot of reading done. I have been largely unsuccessful, but it’s nose to the grindstone tomorrow. Two weeks until I fly home for Thanksgiving, and then once I come back from that, less than three weeks until the end of the semester.
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…
