a questionnaire for readers

there are some things i need to know about you.  i have my reasons for asking, but i don't want to kill you and you don't want to be dead. 

1.  without cheating (ie looking it up online, asking a friend, listening to the song), can you fill in the blank to complete the following Beatles' title: "____________ Rigby"?  (i had an andy moment today, but don't worry, i've since remembered.)

2.  if you had the following three choices to hire for your upcoming holiday party, how would you order your preferences?  Remember, they will ONLY play their holiday hits.
    a. Neil Diamond
    b. NSYNC
    c. anyone whose holiday hit list includes "Last Christmas"

3. would you rather live next door to a karate studio or a blockbuster?

4. would you eat DOTS candy under any other circumstance than the world is ending and it's the only food you've got?  please explain. 

5. can you name the movie from which part of my first line is taken? 

6. santa claus is real. 
     true
     false

7. what is your favorite line from the song, "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch?" (lyrics)

8. have you ever slipped on the ice in front of lots of people and ripped your jeans and had lots of people laugh at you and not help you up?  be honest.

9. are you real?

grateful

who doesn't want to belong?
who doesn't want to have a place where she fits?

i am grateful this year for family in general, for my family in particular, and for my parents especially.  what extraordinary people. i owe them my life and so much happiness.

i am grateful for the details that make people individuals (see marv's shirt above.)  i am grateful for parents with an abundance of personality and a larger than life love for life. and a flare for drama.

how remarkable that i know the equation that equaled me, and that i can look in these two faces that seem to stare right at me in each picture and see myself too! 
isn't it nice to belong? 

(i threw this one in to channel some great leg genes.  go marv!)

darlings, life is such a romance

today was a kickin' day. i was especially grateful because a)it's that time of year and b)the past few days have been kickinthepants days. aka nothing goes right and this is why i can't have nice things and so on. why was today awesome?

1. yesterday i went to the symphony and heard this. i know this happened yesterday, but i am emotionally associative so it was imperative to today's kickinness that yesterday end happy.

2. i got to hang out with lots of women who share my blood. this is always good.

3. i spent most of the day in an actual house, and i spent a nice portion of my time in said house napping.

4. i did something that required guts.

5. it snowed. it really snowed. i have been a little scroogey this holiday season, and not even bad christmas music littering the radio has been able to cheer me up. (as an aside: if you were to compare the ratio of general bad music to general good music with the ratio of bad christmas music to good christmas music, which would win? also, why are so many christmas songs love songs? "the holidays are wherever you are blah blah blah..." i don't hate love--i just think the rest of the year is a good time to celebrate the holidays being wherever you are, and christmas is a great time to celebrate the holidays actually being when and what the holidays are.) anyway, the snow totally cracked me. something about seeing the lights of plows, police cars, and hazards through snow brings the holiday cheer. i think it's because of the nights we'd spend gathered around the window on aloha to watch the cars come slipping by. many a night spent shoveling people out of ditches--it's more nostalgic than egg nog.

6. i went to a totally great concert. i am kind of a stingy standing ovation-er-- perhaps it a pushback against what i think is a (mormon/byu?) hyper impulse to stand every time you're in a performance. no. stand when the performance merits--but i stood so willingly tonight for 'the lower lights,' a hymn revival group. check them out here. and watch this video. aren't they awesome?

Secret Prayer from The Lower Lights on Vimeo.

7. the radio totally hooked a sister up. as i was driving home taking the freeway at 30 mph because of crazy weather without ipod, cd, or tapes, i was at the mercy of the tuner. and i had a solid set of awesome songs between show tunes saturday night on 106.5, some sweet old style christmas jams on 100.3, and classic oldies on 94.1. seriously, never had a moment without a good song. that NEVER happens.

one bad thing amidst the good. i figured out i can't eat candy like i used to. i realized this when i thought, man my stomach hurts real bad--i wonder if it has anything to do with the reeses, sweedish fish, peanut m&ms, chocolate chips, snickers, etc. that i ate in the past twenty minutes. you know, yes, i do think it has something to do with that. dang.

oh me oh my miss apple pie

so last year (or maybe the year before) i tried making apple pie for thanksgiving.  i searched through my photo archives for a picture to show you, but i think i trashed the picture cause it was so ugly.  my pie was a failure. 

i love apple pie.  it makes me very happy.  i want to be able to make apple pie that makes me very happy instead of sicked out. 

do you have any great recipes to share with me? 

p.s. went skiing on friday. it was so choice. how lovely the mountains!

some days call attention to themselves. some days demand a salute.

four years.  i'm marking it here, again; not to remind you, but because time should be recognized, and more importantly, who we become during time should be recognized. 

i am not the same since four years.  these have been wilderness years, and while i can't see how far the sand stretches, i am ready to celebrate my losses.  i am ready to dance for being different. 

we are always learning better to let go.  loss is a possibility, an opportunity, a gift. 

isn't it lovely to live?  aren't we each the luckiest, given a whole heart of our own?

here's a picture of mom on four years:

happy halloweenie through the ages (but in no particular order because that takes too long)

marv wears it so well.

dave (sweet widows peak)

the year dad made my costume. maybe the same year dad blew up the sewing machine.

the year jane made my costume.

she loves.

pirate joanie.

pioneer day, not halloween

queen joanie in a play, not halloween

also not halloween; i just like this picture.

ben

gangsta dave, uncharacteristically not smiling

glimpse

i usually have narrow eyes for myself, but every so very rarely, i get a glimpse into what i could be. 

it happened today.  i was walking across a parking lot in the dark, shuffling the weights on my shoulders (so small as weights go, but so big on my shoulders), looking down, seeing narrowly, and now i can't even tell you where the crack began except to say i saw the perceived dark split open by possibility.  possibility is always light. 

i needed it.  i will hang the moment on my tree of nice things i think of while i fall asleep.  i always reserve the nicest things for just before bed: goals, gifts, my lovely memories, gratitudes. 

when i lived at home, bro bro hung words from my ceiling that used to send me to dream:

ring the bells that still can ring

forget your perfect offering

there's a crack in everything

that's how the light gets through

leonard cohen