2009 has been pretty good.  It started off rocky but has gained steam as it’s gone along.  I feel like I’ve been pretty honest with myself overall and that feels good.  In 2010 I would like to continue this trend and just really be who I truly am:  An overenthusiastic dork.

I’ve been working on things with my hands recently.  It feels really good.  And while I like to write (online and on paper), sometimes making beautiful things for beautiful people is necessary.  I’m in a good mood despite the weather, which is notable because normally if it were this cold and rainy for this many days in a row, I’d probably just be curled up in a ball by now.  I attribute this change in attitude to knitting during idle time and collecting addresses to mail goodies around.  Giving is grand.

A slight low point in the last few days was when Osiris played “Blister in the Sun” in the car and it made me cry.  It made me cry because it was the song playing at San Antonio Sam’s right before their speaker bashed me in the head, so now apparently I have a very acute reaction to that specific song.  (I can’t remember the actual song that was playing at the moment the speaker hit me; I had other things on my mind.)  It’s a shame, because I’ve always liked “Blister in the Sun”.  Thankfully I don’t really seem to have any particularly violent reactions to this song:

And now I’m gearing up for a 5 day weekend of driving and family.  There are apparently a lot of photos in VA waiting for me to scan and upload.  I’m pretty excited.

Let this headache take over my brain and then pass, knit, knit, and laundry.

One thousand things are changing all around me.  Each individual change is positive, but somehow taken together they are causing me to completely spazz out.  Coworker D made the observation that if I’m in the midst of things exploding all around me, I’m calm and pragmatic.  On the other hand, if things are unknown for any period of time ahead of me, I’m a total mess.  I don’t like to think about all the possibilities for things to go wrong, but if something actually does go wrong then I’m fine.  The life of a procrastinator, I guess.

At any rate, I know things will be okay.  Things are actually pretty great, all elements considered.  And after work today I found the perfect beer to represent my current situation.  It’s a beer called “Lucky” in a bottle shaped like a demented, smiling Buddha.  It’s so funny the way life presents you with perfect opportunities at the perfect time.  So I’m going to try to be more like this drunk Buddha and less like my normal spastic self.  Goals are good.

It’s a cornucopia of cute!, originally uploaded by waffle housel.

My bounty.

O and I watched a Joe Strummer documentary on the television this morning.  It led to downloading the Mescaleros albums and rekindling my love affair with this song:

It’s a classic good times songs, and serves the dual purpose of making me feel awesome and making me cry, and that’s pretty rare.  Basically perfectly constructed, like this 80° Halloween and my adorable costume.  I figured this year I would do myself a favor and make myself look actually attractive, instead of like a creature-monster like last year.  And no, before you ask, I am not going as a slutty pumpkin, though ladies at the party last night kept groping my gourds.

I’ve been having trouble sleeping for a few nights in a row.  I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been drinking caffeine later in the day or what, but over the years my nighttime ritual and my lack of acceptance of anything other than perfect sleeping conditions have intensified dramatically.  Maybe I’m secretly a princess (Mom and Dad – are you secret royalty?).  And while I think a pea would probably smoosh pretty easily under my weight and the weight of a hundred mattresses, here are other things that may indicate my gentle, sensitive nature:

• The princess and the tiny wrinkle in the mattress pad
• The princess and the sliver of air getting into the blanket cocoon
• The princess and the unevenly distributed blankets
• The princess and the pee
• The princess and the cup of water that spilled all over the bed
• The princess and the thermostat
• The princess and the breath hitting any part of her, even her own breath.

So, anyway, I think that all sorts of external things are playing a role in keeping me up, even beyond 5pm cups of tea.  But that’s neither here nor there (nor does it belong here, specifically, on this blog).  What does belong on this blog is this jam:

Life is too intense.  Practice constant vigilance.

Yesterday, I bought a bright, shiny, shrinkwrapped copy of The Wild Things, Dave Eggers’s novelization of Where The Wild Things Are, the book and the movie.  I’ve only read the first four chapters, but they are so incredibly good.

At 4:30 he was back in the cool comfort of his fort, peering through the peephole, watching for any movement at his house.  No, he wasn’t cold.  One might think that a boy who was out in the snow for so long would get cold, but Max was not.  He was warm, partly because he had on many layers, and partly because boys who are part wolf and part wind do not get cold.

Big brother Erich, who was in town for the weekend, asked me to read it and give him some feedback about it because he thinks it might be a good book to teach his students, once he has a coveted teaching position.  I think it will work, not just because so far it’s just a really incredible book but also because, at one point in time, Erich was this kid:

This weekend I dressed up like Ruth Powers at a very pre-Halloween Simpsons costume party.  I also played some two-hand touch football.  I caught two touchdown passes but then I was sore for days.  It was intense!  But then also fun, as activity usually ends up being.

Even more exciting, though, is that Becky S. and Thom C. put another human into the world!  His name is Benjamin Franklin and he is a little perfect guy:

photo from papa Dogs & Music

I’m so stoked about new life today and I’m very relieved mama, papa and baby are all safe and happy.  I’m not stoked that I have a cold and can’t go visit them and be awkward.  Friends and new friends are the best.