*you know when you tell your parents you are expecting your first child and you are mostly excited but then you realize you are admitting to your parents that you are actually having sex and a little part of you feels awkward.
*did you know you can slice your finger open by dusting a metal air vent? now you do.
*i am going on a kindergarten field trip tomorrow. to a corn maze. i have an insane fear of getting trapped in a maze and dying . this can't be good.
*you are welcome.
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Just Kids Patti Smith
Our Book Club just finished Just Kids by Patti Smith, which is a fabulous book for a book club. What makes a fabulous book club book you ask? A great book club book is a book that transends beyond the characters, a book that can relate to your own life. A story that connects to the individual and weaves people together.
A bunch of suburban housewives connecting with a rock goddess you ask? The answer is YES! YES! YES!
Just Kids does make a great book club book, the only thing it was IMPOSSIBLE to find great discussion questions. I looked and looked and had a hard time finding great comprehensive questions to really get the conversation going. After hours of Googeling and Re-Googling and pulling my hair out I decided to make my own questions. I pulled from a multitude of sites and reviewed highlighted passages from my Kindle to come up with a list of discussion questions.
Please feel free to use, alter, fix my grammatical errors for your own clubs use!
What were your thoughts on Patti Smith before you read the book? After? Have you ever listened to her music? Was/Is there a musician from your past/present that defines you?
The book gives a small glimpses into Patti and Robert's childhood and family life, how does this shape them as adults?
Patti refers to a story in her childhood, that she often tells Robert, about stealing a charm from a sick friend and her guilty feelings. When Patti left for New York and took the money from the purse she did not express an equal amount of guilt, Why? Where there other instances in the story that were a conflict of moral standards?
Were Patti and Robert equally supportive of each others careers?
What are your thoughts on Patti and Roberts romantic/sexual relationship? Do you think it hurt their friendship at any point? How were they able to maintain a friendship for so long?
Is an artist truer if he/she is obsessed with having to create?
If a piece of artwork is not something you'd want to exhibit in your own home, is it bad art? What defines art? In the case of Robert's art, what defines his work as art vs. pornography?
Should art be regulated? Is it okay to ban art and artist expression?
If you are not in a book club I still HIGHLY recommend Just Kids!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
CD
True to my 18 year old self I am spending my days trapped in my house listening to Tori Amos all day, 'cept for wine I am drinking coffee. It's been about a decade since I have listened to one of Tori's albums all the way through. I blame technology. When is the last time you bought an actual CD? One that you have to actually open the package to get to. Shiny mirrored image disc. One that has all the tracks on it, and a booklet. One that you start at the begining and listen all the way through? Heard from start to finish a musicians story. Been awhile I bet.
I didn't buy Tori's CD, I downloaded it. Hypocrite I know. I needed the instant gratification. The idea of going in my car, driving fifteen minutes to the store, praying they had the CD, purchasing said CD, driving home giddy with anticipation, spending 20 minutes trying to open said CD, plugging in my stereo, placing CD in tray and pushing play is just too much. Now I hit a button, wait less than five minutes and BAM! Tori in my media player.
When I was in my younger years I always went to the music shop on my town's main street. Because I was a hipster. I'd go to the record store because it was way cooler to buy the new Tool album in a store that smelled like patchouli and sold certain paraphernalia in the back than at a store that sold adult diapers. I'd walk home, put the CD in my player and listen. Ahh! the good old days.
One day I will go back into a record store and visit the good old days. Maybe I will even buy a CD for old time sake. Than I'll bitch and moan because I can't get it open- because that was the best part of buying a CD, bitching and moaning about the wrapping.
Today I will enjoy a little Tori and a lot of coffee.
Till next time.
I highly recommend Tori's new album if you are into that kinda of music. Night Of Hunters is in a song cycle so to get the full effect you have to listen to the whole CD from start to finish.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
on death
I think people's fascination with death is strange. Growing up we were taught that death and the pain we experience was private. We cried and we prayed and lit candles and baked casseroles and prayed and dressed up and went to wakes and funerals and prayed and endured the burn of incense on our nose hairs and sang 'On Eagle's Wings' and said good-bye and we'd go home and life went on.
We didn't dwell or put up pictures or post memorials on walls. In a way we had to come to terms with our loss in our own time and place, and allow others to do the same. I was taught that my mourning was mine and that how I mourn could effect other people. That the pain I feel for the person who is gone is no greater than I can handle.
I remember in high school a friend passed and all my friends were upset and crying in the halls and holding each other. Their bodies convulsed and they dropped to their knees and they expressed great pain. And I watched fascinated like an anthropologist because it was strange their outward display of grief. I couldn't bring myself to be so easy with my pain. I must of seemed callous with my emotion-less reaction. But I was sad, beyond sad, to me it was too much to convulse and drop to my knees and express great pain. I went home, locked myself in my room and cried and my family silently supported me in small acts of kindness.
And still to this day I see people react to death and I think 'how strange'.
Maybe it's because I have not seen great personal loss. Maybe I have yet to experience that pain that brings you to your knees over a loved one. This thought scares me.
I know if I were to die I would want none of the convulsing and the dropping of knees. I would want people to pray and light candles and bake casseroles and pray and get dressed up and go to my wake and my funeral and have their nose hair burned by the incense and sing 'On Eagle's Wings' and say good-bye and go home and have life go on. Because that is all they can do. They have to live.
We didn't dwell or put up pictures or post memorials on walls. In a way we had to come to terms with our loss in our own time and place, and allow others to do the same. I was taught that my mourning was mine and that how I mourn could effect other people. That the pain I feel for the person who is gone is no greater than I can handle.
I remember in high school a friend passed and all my friends were upset and crying in the halls and holding each other. Their bodies convulsed and they dropped to their knees and they expressed great pain. And I watched fascinated like an anthropologist because it was strange their outward display of grief. I couldn't bring myself to be so easy with my pain. I must of seemed callous with my emotion-less reaction. But I was sad, beyond sad, to me it was too much to convulse and drop to my knees and express great pain. I went home, locked myself in my room and cried and my family silently supported me in small acts of kindness.
And still to this day I see people react to death and I think 'how strange'.
Maybe it's because I have not seen great personal loss. Maybe I have yet to experience that pain that brings you to your knees over a loved one. This thought scares me.
I know if I were to die I would want none of the convulsing and the dropping of knees. I would want people to pray and light candles and bake casseroles and pray and get dressed up and go to my wake and my funeral and have their nose hair burned by the incense and sing 'On Eagle's Wings' and say good-bye and go home and have life go on. Because that is all they can do. They have to live.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Random Thoughts on Verbage Filters and Opposites Attracting
*I promised my sister my verbage filter this weekend. Not that it's a very good verbage filter, word that are better left unsaid are always slipping through. My mom has issues with my sister and I be out alone together. Something always seems to go awry. Like the time my sister called one of her teachers a Nazi at her boss' daughter's Bat Mitzvah. Or me making obscene comments about people and those people being right behind me. And we go home and laugh about our social defectiveness and my mom shakes her head and says "I can't let you two out of the house together." And then we laugh some more.
Sisters.
Hopefully her verbage filter and my verbage filter will equal a somewhat workable, functioning filter.
*I am having a hard time being a mother to an 8 year-old boy. You know the direct and total opposite of a 34 year-old woman is an 8 year-old boy. Sometimes I'll turn on his favorite T.V. show and watch it with him and laugh at all the part he laughs at, even though I don't really find it funny. And I will purposefully say poop or pee or farts just to make him laugh, even though I hate the words poop and pee and fart. Those words are tops to an eight year old. And I make his favorite meals and snacks all the time and tell him I made them just for him. Because you have to always find a way to connect.
*Being a mom to a 5 year old girl is easy, clear sailing, although I imagine the complete and total opposite of a 15 year-old girl will be a 44 year-old woman. I have no idea what I will do to connect. I have 10 years to figure it out.
*My husband is working out. With weights. And while he works out I mix his protein shake. As I am making his shake I always wonder if making a protein shake for a 'weight-lifter' ruins my street cred. It can't be helping it.
Sisters.
Hopefully her verbage filter and my verbage filter will equal a somewhat workable, functioning filter.
*I am having a hard time being a mother to an 8 year-old boy. You know the direct and total opposite of a 34 year-old woman is an 8 year-old boy. Sometimes I'll turn on his favorite T.V. show and watch it with him and laugh at all the part he laughs at, even though I don't really find it funny. And I will purposefully say poop or pee or farts just to make him laugh, even though I hate the words poop and pee and fart. Those words are tops to an eight year old. And I make his favorite meals and snacks all the time and tell him I made them just for him. Because you have to always find a way to connect.
*Being a mom to a 5 year old girl is easy, clear sailing, although I imagine the complete and total opposite of a 15 year-old girl will be a 44 year-old woman. I have no idea what I will do to connect. I have 10 years to figure it out.
*My husband is working out. With weights. And while he works out I mix his protein shake. As I am making his shake I always wonder if making a protein shake for a 'weight-lifter' ruins my street cred. It can't be helping it.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
cake
I made pumpkin cake and no one ate it.
Strike that.
I made a pumpkin and no one ate it, but little girl licked off the cream cheese frosting.
I make a lot of things that no one eats but me. Sometimes I wonder if I do that on purpose. A treat for me and only me. That putting a mushed up fruit and./or a form of large squash into a dessert is the same as putting a "Mom Only" sign on it.
It's a delirious cake. A cake I don't have share. Well except for the cream cheese frosting.
This song has nothing to do with cake or cream cheese frosting or mushed up fruit and/or a form of large squash. It has nothing at all to do with this blog post.
Just listen. Listen with a large of pumpkin cake minus the cream cheese frosting.
Strike that.
I made a pumpkin and no one ate it, but little girl licked off the cream cheese frosting.
I make a lot of things that no one eats but me. Sometimes I wonder if I do that on purpose. A treat for me and only me. That putting a mushed up fruit and./or a form of large squash into a dessert is the same as putting a "Mom Only" sign on it.
It's a delirious cake. A cake I don't have share. Well except for the cream cheese frosting.
This song has nothing to do with cake or cream cheese frosting or mushed up fruit and/or a form of large squash. It has nothing at all to do with this blog post.
Just listen. Listen with a large of pumpkin cake minus the cream cheese frosting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)