Non-Resolution

It's my usual year end routine to make New Years resolutions. I don't mind that they're pretty much the same from year to year. It's kind of fun to look back at the end of the year and think about how well I accomplished them (or not). I don't think I'm going to make any for 2005, though. When I look back and remember where I thought I'd be at the end of 2004 and compare it to what has actually happened, I realize that sometimes you just don't even have a clue how life is going to change or how you are going to change it. It wasn't like I was caught at the mercy of events going on around me. I somehow found a way to stop hiding from and avoiding things in my life that felt oppressive. In the process, I shocked a lot of people who thought they knew me well and some of them were definitely not pleased. I know I hurt some people too, and I'm sorry for that. But I like how things are now much better, even if I'm going to start out the first week of the new year in court. The legal shit will someday pass and be done with. Even with it still going on, I find myself looking over my shoulder less often and expressing myself more. I'm looking forward to seeing what 2005 will bring.

OK. I've been a little slow on the uptake here, but far be it from me to deny Kinga her request! (and I'd certainly hate to have to eat a spider.)

3 Names you go by:
Pam
Pammie
PBS (back when my last inital was S)

3 screen names you have:
bogaht sis
bsisnh
that's about it

3 things you like about yourself
sense of humor
ability to read people pretty well
determination

3 things you dislike about yourself
indecisiveness
can be quite obsessive
hesitation to speak my mind at times

3 parts of your heritage
Ukrainian
Jewish
Something northern European

3 things that scare you
The people in Walmart
North Korea
Heights

3 of your everyday essentials
My honey
Coffee
Internet access

3 things you are wearing right now
Sweat pants
Socks
A hoodie

3 of your favorite bands/artists
The Black Crows
Foo Fighters
The Who

3 of your favorite songs at present
If Only - Queens of The Stone Age
Ode to Rochester-- Shuttlecock
Feel Good Hit Of The Sun-- Queens of The Stone Age

3 things you want to try in the next 12 months
Play more music!!!
Start selling some of the items I craft
Write songs

3 things you want in a relationship
Love, loyalty and understanding.

2 truths and a lie
I'm terrible at small talk and networking.
I'm fluent and literate in Japanese.
I have a natural knack for neatness.

3 physical things about the opposite or same sex that appeals to you
Height
Broad shoulders
Intelligent eyes

3 things you just can�t do
Go to bed early
Cut or draw a straight line
Stop hoping stupid people will get a clue

3 of your favorite hobbies
Knitting
Playing guitar and bass
Blogging

3 things you want to do really badly right now
Knit, have a drink, take a nap.

3 careers you�re considering
Translator (more than I do now)
Something legal
Writer (of some sort. Have always wanted to do that.)

3 places you want to go on vacation
Hawaii
Australia
Spain

3 kids names
Rachel
Amber
Jacob

3 things you want to do before you die
Find a job I like that pays enough for me to live on
Settle into a home that really feels like mine
Write a book

3 people who have to take this quiz now or eat a spider!
Chosen One, Nils and Joel

Tsunami

There was a time when I used to have nightmares about tidal waves. I had dreams of them washing into Waikiki as a wall of water as tall as the big hotels there. From what I have read it's not so much the height of the wave as the length of it. It's the way they continue to move in and don't recede. There is no way I can even begin to comprehend the magnitude of the disaster in Southeast Asia. Some of my friends vacation there this time of year and the local tv news here ran a story about a local family who are travelling the world for a year and were separated, and fortunately reunited after disaster in Thailand, but that's not the real story and I wonder how the stories of people so privileged can trump the story of the collosal damage caused to tens of thousands of people who didn't have much to start with, at least not compared to our ways of life.

Here She Is....

Of course Christmas is not just about the gifts, but I just absolutely have to show you this.

Isn't it gorgeous? Couldn't you just yelp with happiness for me? Did I tell you it was just one of many wonderful gifts from my awesome boyfriend, who has a pretty fine collection of guitars himself?
My fingers are sore from playing so much already. I stayed up until 1 last night playing it and I've already played a little bit today as well. A Telecaster has been my dream guitar for at least five years now. I still remember the first time I ever touched one down at the Guitar Center in Danvers. I picked it up, plugged it into whatever amp they had sitting there and just melted inside. I'm playing mine through my bass amp for now, which is just fine. I'm dying to crank it, but that will have to wait until I take it over to my sister's place and convince her to let me play it through her Twin Reverb. This guitar sounds so Tele-sweet and the neck is so easy to play. The Tele even matches my P-bass Deluxe, which also sports that beautiful sunburst paint job. The two of them are just such things of awesome beauty. Here's another picture. (please excuse the crazy reflection of the flash coming off the Tele. I'm too excited to pay too much attention to the photography right now.)

The Day Has Come and Gone

It's late and I'm tired, so I'll try to keep this short. This has been a long and glorious Christmas day. It has been filled with joy, laughter, great company, great food and some of the most incredible presents I have ever received (Including a Telecaster!!!!! I'll tell you more later. Too many times probably, but I am just SOOOOOO excited about it.) But even better than any of my presents was the time I got to spend celebrating with people I love and some gestures of acceptance that will make it easier for me to draw together all the people I love and not have to feel torn. It's funny what will win people over and when something that seems so small will have a big impact. You can just never tell how contagious optimism and a positive attitude will be and when they will help someone else see things in a new light.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope you're all having as nice a Christmas as I am. I'll fill you in at another time. But I can say, it doesn't suck.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

It's not like I'm hosting any dinner parties for 20 or am expected to come up with magnificent, extravagant presents for dozens of people, so why do I feel so much stress over "getting everything right" for this holiday? Aren't I supposed to be realxing and enjoying time with loved ones? Not that I'm not doing that. It has happened occasionally over the past few weeks, but it's always the unplanned, simple stuff.
Cable guy is here to fix the damn tv. Must go deal so I can get him out of here and go run more errands.

Sunrise

The cold horizon
holds onto orange while
the rest of the sky lightens

I Need A Media Blackout

Hmm. Okay. I'm ready for Christmas to be here and gone already. I feel myself getting sucked into the last minute rush. I entertain thoughts of just one more gift that will really be just the right one. What about the ones already sitting in my closets? Just one more recipe to try. Just one more gift to buy. Just four more days to get whatever IT is done. Being indecisive and always open to the possibility that something else might make a better gift, be more well received and in turn I will be more...what? More perfect? More loved? More accepted? Why do I stress over this stuff so much?

Un-Grinching

I think I'm starting to like winter. When I got up this morning there wasn't much snow on the ground, so I woke up the girl and we started in with the regular Monday morning routine. As an afterthought I decided we should check the local news station to see if the school opening had been delayed, an indeed it had. I was already too awake to go back to bed, but now I know if there's any white on the ground, I best check Channel 9 before I wake up too much.
The weather report said the snow would stop around noon and accumulation would be just about one inch. At 4pm, it's still snowing and there are about 3-4 inches of light fluffy snow on the ground. Easy to shovel but not so hot to drive in. Everything outside is white, black and gray.
I'm inside trying out various holiday recipes with varying degrees of success. The girl is properly geared up and out playing in the snow with her best friend and bf's little brother. I'll start up a fire in the fireplace soon and turn on the lights of the tree and enjoy the moment. I think I feel my Grinch heart growing.

If I Were an Artist

Super!! You are WILLEM DE KOONING.
You think just like you paint: in the abstract. You
live well outside of the box and never know
where life will take you next. Your friends
admire your ability to fearlessly veer away
from the boundaries of society.


Which famous artist most reflects your personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

Nearly Solstice

I might be wrong about this, but it seems like the sun is setting a little later even though we aren't quite at the winter solstice yet. Yesterday it was light until nearly 4:45. It stays dark longer in the morning, but since I'm finished with classes for the semester and am able to sleep in a little bit, that doesn't bother me so much.
I seem to have my annual is-it-or-isn't-it the flu bug. Dizzy, kind of nauseous, headaches for days. Fun, fun, fun. I slept 12 hours last night and still feel tired today. Everyone tells me I'm going through a lot. I suppose that's true. It's been quite a year. I haven't even started to entertain thoughts of my New Year's Resolutions. I think a little more peace and calm might be on the list of things I'd like to acheive in 2005. I'm not going to even bother with a Christmas wish list because I'm one of those people who would actually be pleased to get socks or pot holders or anything, really. I'm pretty easy to please on that front, especially since I just moved again in August and haven't really accumulated a household full of stuff that "normal" people my age seem to have.

When I Grow Up I Wanna...

I always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was little kid devouring books as fast as I could. When I was in high school Arthur Miller came to my English class. That's one of the perks of going to a fancy prep school, famous people come and talk to you and you don't have a fucking clue that they are a Major American Literary Figure because you're just 15 and more concerned about the big zit on your forehead than some old guy visiting your class of 12 students giving you advice to write about the things you think no one else will ever understand because that's exactly what touches people and they do understand it. About fifteen years ago I had a friend who advised that when you write something you'd feel weird about your parents reading, then you probably have something good.
I don't know how to write plots or characters or settings. I want to write about things that will make people squirm a little, not in a macabre sense, but out of some form of recognition, sort of the way it feels when you have an itch inside your foot or on the back of your shin bone. I realize that's a pretty high ambition for a person who can't even keep her shoes tied for more than 20 minutes at a stretch. But the only way to write things that make someone else squirm is for me to write things that make me squirm at the thought of someone else reading them, especially if the reader is someone who knows me. I don't care so much if it's someone I never have to deal with on a face to face basis. Most people, especially writers, are easier to deal with in this two dimensional medium. It's like the way some people will tell their life story to a stranger sitting next to them in an airplane or at the same table at the laundromat while waiting for your laundry to rinse, which is something I can't do , by the way. In those situations, I always just listen.

Tis The Season

My Christmas tree is beautiful. Why do I have a tree? Aren't I Jewish? Yes, I am Jewish by birth, though not really by belief at this point and I have a tree because they are pretty. This is the second tree I have ever had. I shouldn't call it my tree. I should call it our tree because it's for my girl and my sweetheart, not just me.
The tree is about 7 feet tall and perfectly shaped. It has clear lights, lots of ornaments, tinsel and a red and white skirt. A lot of the ornaments are new and shiny, but a lot of them are older and unique and belong to my boyfriend. He knows how to do up a Christmas tree. I'm kind of behind the curve in that area, seeing as how the only other tree I've really ever decorated was last year's and that was basically me doing it all by myself. I didn't even know to buy ornament hangers at first.
We never had a tree when I was a kid, not even a "Hanukkah Bush". That's such a blatant attempt to mimic the Christmas tree anyway.
So now I celebrate the season without much of any religious significance. I used to boycott Christmas because I felt it was a religious holiday and to celebrate it while ignoring the religious meaning was disrepectful. Now I don't care so much. I suppose I take a more pagan approach now. I mean, there is less than 9 hours of daylight here, and that's on days when the sun actually shines upon us. It's cold and dark, so why the hell not bring a little greenery inside and make it pretty and shiny, listen to and sing songs and eat, drink and be merry? Real winter kicks in from here on out. The daylight will increase, but the temperatures are going to drop and eventuallly we'll get ice and snow that doesn't melt away for months. We all ought to enjoy what we can while we can.

Remedy?

The antidote to too many chocolate and peanut butter chip cookies is the workout and fitness shows on On Demand. At least I feel a little less pukey now.

Everyone Else Learned in Kindergarten

It seems apparent that I need remedial lessons in shoe tying. My laces come untied at least half a dozen times a day. Eveyone who knows me knows my shoes are always untied. It's very annoying on rainy days. I remember my mother teaching me how to tie them. No one else in the family seems to have the problem. We happened to run into my sister and niece today when we were out getting a xmas tree today. My sister looked down and said, "Pam! Look! Your shoe is untied!" It was probably the fifth time of the day.
If you see a grown woman with long brown hair and an untied shoe or two, it very well may be me. You can say "Hey, Pam. Your shoe's untied."
I'll say, "I know. They always are"

Not Just Me?

I was in Earcraft this morning to return my girl's rental flute since my mom got her one of her very own. There was a lot going on at the counter. I saw Chad, who is the bass guy there, but I didn't say hi because he was busy with customers and it's been a long time since I was in there talking about basses with him and he may or may not remember me anyway. I smiled and did the head bob acknowledgement thing instead.
The guy who helped me was going through a manilla folder full of band instrument rental receipts and preparing the proper forms for the rental return and I was flitting around from the glass case full of effects pedals to the used bass amps, with a glance at the rack of strings in between. It was taking a few minutes and I thought about buying new strings for the bass and then remembered I need to get a strap for the girl's acoustic guitar, so I asked about whether they had kid-sized straps, too. By the time the guy finished all the paper work I had drifted rather far afield. He called over to me, "You're all set."
I was a little startled and came back with , "Oh, me? Oh, okay. Thanks. Sorry, I have a hard time focusing in here."
He said, "Yeah, I do too, actually."

Here She Goes Again...

This time of year drives me nuts. I don't know if it's the holidays, the weather, lack of daylight, the astrological circumstances or all of the above, but I tend not to feel right. I feel too scattered, like I make too many mistakes and like I'm disconnected because if I don't disconnect everything is too intense. The choice seems to be drama queen or zomboid. Not my favorite choices.
I know a lot of you think it's all bullshit, but the moon has been in Scorpio and Scorpio has a tendency to fry my ass. Tomorrow is a new moon and all my favorite astrologers are promising things will relax a bit after that. That would be good.

Wintry

What a nasty day it was today. I woke up to the sounds of the city plows scraping snow off the streets. I decided to hit the snooze buttom for an extra ten minutes of hiding in bed and then climbed out and headed for the tv once I saw how the streets were looking outside. Every school district in the area, except ours, had called for a delayed opening. I considered the state of the roads, the timing between when I drop my girl off to school and when my first class starts, the importance of what we would have accomplished in class today, my general motivation level and the number of times I have cancelled class this semester (zero) and decided it was a great day to cancel my 9am class. So I did. I emailed my students and most of them got the message before they got out of the house (or even their pajamas), so that was pretty good. I shoveled the stairs, cleaned the snow off the car and got the girl to school on time. I spent the morning taking care of household type tasks and got to school in the early afternoon. There was a decent turn out for class considering the weather. I was only there for a couple of hours but by the time I was ready to leave there was a nice coating of ice over every surface of the car that required scraping. So, are you wishing you lived in Northern New England yet?
The weather this evening has been sleet and rain. All the windows on the north side of the house are coated in ice. I've got a fire going in the fireplace. It doesn't crackle because it's a gas fireplace, but it's still cozy. The thought of not having to go out to the mall is motivating me to overspend on online shopping. What I really need to do is go sit by the fire and knit more gifts. And so, I will.

Happy Chanukah!

It looks like it's fun to party with the Chanukah faeries.

Moronic Monday

I can't believe I just discovered where the faculty microwave is on this floor. I've only been here for over a year now. Hmm, I suppose this could expand my lunch options greatly (and cut down on the amount of leftovers that get tossed out at home).

Monday is No Fun Day

I hate Monday and today is a very Monday Monday. Work bums me out because I wonder how much longer I'll actually be here and when I think it could be just one more semester I start to lose motivation. At least the evaluations have already been submitted and this is the last week of classes. I can get through a few more days of this.
I thought I was all cool with the holidays and how and with whom we would be celebrating them, but that apparently is being turned upside down right now. Chanukah starts tomorrow night and I don't even have a menorah. I'm not a very religious Jew, but I am Jew enough to know in the overall scheme of things, Chanukah is not a big deal, not like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It has been said about me before, and I'll say it again-- I'm a bad jew. Sue me. That and a few bucks will get you a latte at Starbucks.
The day started out okay enough. I got up and did a short "power yoga" workout that I found on On Demand. I pay enough for the damn tv service every month, I might as well use some of the features. And if I can use them to actually get up off my ass and exercise a bit, well that's just peachy. Yup, everything's peachy. Except my sucky mood and I'll keep that to myself and my blog.

My sister and I have a little routine going. Every Friday morning that we're both free, we meet downtown at Harvey's for breakfast and a gabfest. We drink way more coffee than is good for us and good, real, hearty breakfasts. No egg white omelets for these girls. We fill each other in on family stuff and I get a chance to vent a little about my (God, please make it really really soon officially, please) ex. My bro in law is still mad at me, or at the way, according to his perceptions, that I went about things. I'm not mad at him. He doesn't know how my life was, not really. He doesn't know all my reasons and he really doesn't need to. I wake up every morning liking my life a whole lot better now. Hmm, I'm veering on a tangent. That's because I am annoyed. I try not to be publically annoyed at the ex. I even try not to be privately annoyed. But despite my best efforts, sometimes I find myself feeling that way anyway.
I suppose what I really need to do is tear myself away from this damn computer, sweep the kitchen floor, vacuum the living room, write back to my mother, and take care of some banking type stuff. It's so much fucking fun to be a grown up. Really.

Animal Instinct

All this dwindling daylight is making me want to eat like there's no tomorrow. This is the season of the battle between willpower and the animal urge to plump up those fat stores to get you through the barren months of winter. I try to explain to my fat stores that I live in a heated residence and there's plenty of food available no matter what the season is. They don't always want to listen to my brand of reason.
I try to fool them by drinking hot herbal tea. They say, "How about a cookie to go with that beverage?" I knit, because you can't eat and knit at the same time. That actually works out pretty well. It stops me from eating and shortens the list of Christmas presents I need to go out and buy.
I stopped waking up early to do yoga because the sun doesn't rise until nearly 7 these days. Doing yoga in the dark wasn't my intention. Doing yoga as the sky lightened was. By the time the sky is brightening, it's already the part in the morning routine where I'm checking my email, making our lunches, and trying to convince the girl to come out from under the covers. We have a routine. Her clock radio goes off. I let it play until the djs get so stupid that I go in her room and hit the snooze button. It goes off again 9 minutes later. I go in and turn it off and then I wake her up. Good thing I got her that radio alarm clock back in September, huh?

December 1, 2004

If there were ever a day made for staying home in bed under the covers, this is it. It's gray, cool, wet and windy. The general consensus here seems to be that at least if it were snow, we'd all have been able to stay home in bed.
It's the first of December. It's been a crazy year. If you had told me a year ago where I'd be now, I would have taken the bong away from you. I don't even have a bong now.
Big, big, big changes. The astrologers were right. It's been a transformative year.