What a beautiful weekend
This has been a very relaxing, wonderful weekend. Friday night, looking for something low key I ended up at Mentally Rehearsed’s house to play Wii Fit. This was my first time, and apparently I’m so bad at the balancing games that it asked me if I tripped a lot when I walk. In my defense though, I went to a kickboxing class earlier in the evening so my legs were a little tired, and no, I don’t trip a lot when I walk.
Saturday I had to hang around the house for a while and wait for some painters to come paint the edge of my front door. They had done the main part of the doors when they painted my complex, but hadn’t gotten around to doing the edges. Then I had to wait a few hours for the paint to dry. You know the saying about watching paint dry, that’s kind of how I felt…
Then I went and met some friends at the park, where we grilled out and played some Bocce Ball. After the park, I went to Brewhouse in L5P with Blondie and adatingdiary. We had a nice table out on the patio where we not only got to witness everything at Brewhouse, but where we could also hear the Karaoke from Corner Tavern across the street. Let me tell you, this was quite a treat. We ran into some guys we know as they were walking down the street so we decided to head back to Brookhaven with them and end the night at Pub 71.
Today after church, I went to lunch with some friends and then came home, downloaded some new music, went for a run, did some laundry, picked up my dining room and living room (this involved going through piles of stuff all over my table and putting about 10 pairs of shoes back in my closet), read a magazine, caught up on some TV, and fixed some super. Now I think I’m going to spend some time reading for book club tomorrow. I’m supposed to be halfway through Rant, and I haven’t even started yet…
I hope everyone had a nice weekend
This might be a first.
I actually made it out of Barnes and Noble with only the book I went in to buy – Rant by Chuck Palahniuk. I was very proud of myself for resisting the temptation to walk out with about five other ones.
Then to top it off, the guy checking me out told me his brother said the book was really weird. I replied that hopefully it was weird in a good way since I am reading it for my book club. Then he goes on to tell me his brother said it had a lot of weird time traveling stuff and traffic came up a lot in the book.
Needless to say, with this glowing recommendation, I can’t wait to get started.
You’d think I was going to Australia, not San Francisco…
Three books, my iPod, a DVD player, two movies, 8 episodes of My So Called Life – I think I’ve got plenty to keep me busy on the 5 hour flight 
What I’ve done today…
So for most of today and most of last night I have been reading ‘Killing Yourself to Live’ by Chuck Klosterman. It is fantastic and by all reading standards I should be done with it by now, but I keep getting distracted by my own thoughts as I’m reading his. I guess this is part of why I am loving this book. For anyone who has known me for more than let’s say an hour and knows anything about Chuck Klosterman, you are probably really surprised I am reading this book and/or that I am enjoying it. This particular one is about a road trip he took while working for Spin magazine traveling to all the places where musicians have died, but I’ve also read ‘Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs’ and ‘Chuck Klosterman IV.’
I have nothing in common with this guy, who by his own count has 2,233 CD’s, but his thought process is great and I really like his writing, which explains why I have been reading this book all day. It does not explain though why I’m not done with it yet. That comes from what his writing is making go through my head. While he does write about some songs I’ve never heard of and some musicians I couldn’t care less about, what has stuck with me the most is how many events in his life he relates to a specific song – not one song, but various songs for various events, etc. This is somewhat of a foreign concept to me. There are not too many songs that make me think of specific events and I would never think about them backwards like he does.
For example, whenever I hear the song Ghetto Superstar (I know fantastic right?) I think of my friend Annie from high school that died a few years after we graduated. She made up a whole dance to this song to be done in a car – i.e. it has no leg actions. I can still do that dance too. But, if I am thinking about Annie for any other reason, I never then also think about the song. Another example would be the Macerena. All kidding aside and nevermind the fact that you don’t really hear this anymore, but this song if heard will remind me of being 15 and driving to Pittsburg, KS with my friend Terri to see her older sister, and the subsequent evening of trying to talk a police officer out of arresting her sister for providing a 15 and a 16 year old with alcohol – so much alcohol in fact that the reason we were talking to the police officer is because he found my friend Terri wandering around the streets with no clue where she was going. This always brings a smile. If for some other reason I remember Terri (who I only hung out with one summer) it never leads me back to the song. The funny thing is that neither of theses songs is probably included anywhere in his 2,233 CD collection, but his book has made me think of both of these things today.
It has also made me laugh and think he’s crazy – In his second day, he is talking about his road trip of death and starts to talk about sometimes he thinks he has Cotard’s syndrome (which is something that I hadn’t heard of until now) and how sometimes he thinks he’s dead and that living on earth is purgatory and that he’s the only one that knows and that none of the other people know we are dead, but then he says that this possibly makes him a prophet, but also possibly means he has Cotard’s. This made me think about how people could think about death like this. I only think about death in the sense that someone is dead or going to die, I don’t think about it in an abstract sense and it’s interesting to read a book by somone who does – especially if said person is writing a book about places people have died.
Anyways, all this is to say that I’m really enjoying the book and would probably stay home reading it all night if my friend didn’t call and invite me to dinner. I figured I should do something social instead of continuing to read this crazy book…
A relaxing Friday night
Tonight I stayed in and finally finished “American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, The Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century” by Howard Blum. I started it a while ago, but haven’t had too much time to finish it. It’s a fascinating story about the labor movement of the early 1900’s and the bombing of the LA Times building. It starts by giving a good background of all the major players in the story and then goes from the bombing to the investigation to the trial. It includes side information about how movies played into the times and the public relations of the trial. I’m not always one for crime stories, but this was pretty good. I’m glad I finally had a quiet night to finish it.
Some morning reading
As I scrolled through my trade emails this morning, I came across this article about ABC Family’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” What fascinated me most was not the protests from the Parents Television Council (no surprise here), but the realization that I watch not only this show, but also the shows the article lists as the reason ABC Family is trying to differentiate itself from Disney’s shows for younger viewers…
“Disney executives have wrestled for years to find the right formula that is faithful to its ‘family’ name but also appeals to younger viewers who have outgrown the perky adolescent worlds depicted in standard teen-targeted shows like ‘Hannah Montana’ and ‘Wizards of Waverly Place.’ “
Yes, I am just that cool.
You can’t cry over spilled milk, but what about wine…
This story starts with an entire bottle of wine spilled on my kitchen floor. I heard a dripping sound and thought maybe my dishwasher was acting up, but instead I find a bottle of wine pouring onto my floor. I had to get off the phone with my grandpa, which was drama in itself since he doesn’t hear well and then started mopping up the wine and trying to clean the floor and the table it spilled onto. In all this time, I didn’t really have a chance to be mad because I was too busy reacting to the spill. After I got it cleaned up it was time for My Boys on TBS so I just went about my night.
After My Boys, I went to read some of Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist. I did not go to small group this week so I am a little behind. I read a chapter about being angry with someone and how you just need to let it go because really you are only punishing yourself. This was interesting, but I just kind of read through it and moved on. Around eleven I decided to go to sleep. My decision was obviously not the one that was going to win.
Now that my brain had a chance to do what it wanted, all I could think about was how mad I was about the wine. It was a nice bottle of wine, but besides that I was mad at myself for letting it happen and mad at someone else for making it happen. This brought up a whole lot of stuff I was mad about. So I laid in bed for probably an hour being mad and stewing in my own anger. I called my sister and vented hoping that would help, but it didn’t.
As I sat there being mad, all I wanted was for someone to be there to tell me that everything would be okay. There isn’t, so then that mad me sad – then I started crying. About this time, I realized how ridiculous I was being and thought I probably should have read the chapter about anger a little more closely. Seriously.
Then I was thinking about how funny it was that I was now crying all because a bottle of wine spilled. That made me think about the song Radio by Ryan Horne because in part of the song he sings about throwing a bottle of whiskey on the floor. I got to thinking about how that doesn’t make any sense if you think about it literally because who would knowingly cause such a mess. This made me want to hear the song so I went and got my iPod.
This was another mistake – why I thought this would help me finally get to sleep I have no idea. I have never been one to fall asleep listening to music or any other sound. Once I heard that song I wanted to hear another and ended up listening to the whole CD. Then one of the songs made me think about a song by Jack Johnson, so then I listed to a few of his songs. I finally pried the iPod out of my hand about an hour later and finally went to sleep.
Point of the Story – Sometimes I wish my brain had an on/off switch and when it was time for bed you just switched it off and went to sleep.
What are you waiting for?
Man I am exhausted this morning. I decided to finally watch the ER finale last night. It ended very dramatically. Did Sam get is the ambulance or Pratt? Who’s not coming back? What just happened? etc., etc. I knew however that my friend Jennifer at work would know who is rumored to not be coming back. She is one of the few people I know that still watch this show and she always knows everything about which actors are doing what. If you think I’m bad with all my TV knowldege, multiply that by about 100 and you will get a good picture of Jennifer
It was already late when I finished ER and then I decided to read the first chapter of a book called Cold Tangerines. It was all about waiting in life for the next big thing instead of paying attention to today. I could totally relate – I remember being in middle school and having this picture in my head of myself in college. I was totally going to start going by Katherine instead of Katie and be all grown up, etc.
Totally never happened – I think I am still less grown up at 27 than this picture I had of myself then. I also don’t think I’ll ever go by Katherine for real – unless I marry a man with some weird last name that rhymes with Katie because that would be horrible. But I guess I could keep my own last name in that case.
Anyways, then I went to bed, but continued to lay there forever thinking about all the times I’ve been waiting like this and thinking of the next step, so I stayed up way too late. Now it’s almost noon and I still feel like I’m asleep. This might not be a good book to read before bedtime.
