Obama's gonna ride his hope stallion all the way to the White House, you betcha, yup, yup! And also, too, doggone it, he'll be AWESOME! (That's Palin-speak for GOBAMA!)
So, yeah, John loves me and indulges my girlie whims. He rocks.
I spent the afternoon looking up ISBN's to check publication dates as a means of sorting hardcovers to go in either the fancy-pants "New Releases" section or in with the paperbacks. This is the glamorous life of a bookseller. I spend a lot of time with my computer. But, the really great news is that we got our first book shipment a week ago today. (However, it's entirely too small. We're placing another order ASAP.) Last week was the first week I went to the store to work every day. It was wonderful and awful and stressful and fun. The good does outweigh the bad and everyone is so excited and supportive. Just the same, it was nice to take the weekend off.
Our July 4th weekend was a blast. We hung out in John's hometown of Cumberland City (which is actually not a city, but a quaint, little town of about 300-350 people in 5 square miles) for a parade in the morning of the 4th. A picture of John and his mom and I watching the parade was on the front page of the local paper on Tuesday. Neat, huh?
At around noon, we met Sara and Chris back at our house and took them with us to a family get together at my great aunt's house. Sara, for the first time ever, got to experience the joys and terrors of swimming in a creek. It's mostly wonderful--all nice and freezing, cold, clear water. But then, suddenly your foot will land on a slimy patch of leaves (hopefully) and the water will be stirred up and... Well, it's a little freaky touching something slimy you can't see. I grew up swimming in creeks more often than pools, but all our L.A. apartments had pools, so I've gotten spoiled lately.
Charlie and Colton are about one summer away from being better swimmers than me. I have the buoyancy of a rock.
We hung out at my sister's house for dinner and then headed back to Cumberland City for the fireworks show the town has become famous for since John and I moved away. There are activities there all day on the 4th and when we got there my great uncle (brother to the great aunt whose house is beside the creek) was performing.
I hadn't heard him sing since I was a little girl. For a very short time, I took buck dancing lessons from a man I knew only as Mr. Spicer in Dickson. By the time I started, he was old and the other girls were supposed to teach me. All I really wanted was one of their flouncy red and white gingham dancing dresses, but that never happened. What did happen was that my cousins and I would dance in our jellies (which were louder than you'd think, compared to regular tap shoes) to the music of my great aunt and uncles.
This weekend, Sara invited us to a Murfreesboro Bluegrass festival called Uncle Dave Macon Days. It was super cool. There were tons of booths with handmade items for sale. Little areas of musicians were scattered throughout the area. And! Two Lincolns! Count 'em! Two Lincolns!
Any event with Double Lincolns walking around is inevitably going to have a high kitsch factor, but there was a feeling of genuineness and sincerity throughout the day. It was actually really lovely, in a way that made me homesick for another time. It was especially ironic when I, in fact, ran into one of the buck-dancing-in-jellies cousins...and she was competing!
In a way, I'm sad I didn't have the dedication to stick with dancing. It would be nice to be a part of the local heritage and keep something like that going. Maybe I'll sell a book on it?
I also ran into an old co-worker from L.A. I was very excited to see Stacey again. We worked together in the first bookstore I worked in. We were the two girls from Tennessee. She moved back into the area last year, too, and I was really happy to bump into her.
Here are a couple more pictures...
My new favorite picture of John. Mmm, deep-fried twinkies!
I stenciled this pretty blue okapi onto a shirt using freezer paper, just like I did with the Godzilla tie. This design is much more detailed though and took me quite a lot longer. I think I love this even more than my 80's necklace.
John was gone basically all weekend for guys-only, somebody's-getting-married partying. And at first I thought, "Okay, cool, it's been a long time since I had an evening to my self. It might be nice to have a night without watching any part of Future Weapons or anything with exploding heads, zombies, giant monsters, or robots." Well, it started out well. My Friday craft was placemats made from Christmas cards I've been saving for the past few years for just that purpose. I hung out at my parents' house and made brownies and watched "White Christmas" (it was a theme) and my mom helped me with the placemats. The idea for the placemats came from ones my grandmothers both made. They cut circles out of the card fronts though, rather than squares, and the end product was sort of oval-shaped. That was fun, but then I went home to my creaky, empty house in the deep, dark woods. Alone. Yeah. So what did I do to take my mind off my troubles? Cross stitch and Designing Women! I pulled through.
After I finished John's tie on Saturday, I spent my evening watching the new movie Lifetime has been pushing for months (I usually hate Lifetime movies, but this one was based on a book I've been sort of wanting to read) and working on the cross stitch thing. The movie, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter," was flat and boring and further confirmed that I should only watch Lifetime for the recycled sit-coms. The cross stitch was a kit from the big craft box from when I was in high school. I think there are two more in the box with different designs. This one took a while, so I'm not sure if I want to tackle another one this month.
John being gone for two nights totally sucked. I was lonely and bored. Whatever happened to enjoying an evening alone? Ah, well. He came back on Sunday anyway.
I finished up the cross stitch kit last night:
We watched "Atonement" last night, too, and I really hated it. I think this little stitched flower has bad movie joojoo.
This was a project I tried before Christmas, so I could give John something extra special. I didn't really know what I was doing then and I just made a huge mess. Today, after some research, I made this:
After a very full weekend, I'm trying to make use of my first day of not working. So far, I've taken John to work and uploaded photos. I'm picking John up later so we can go to a party tonight close to the studio. Why? Because tonight's episode of Slacker Cats was one of the two animated by the studio where John works and they're having a party, that's why! Technically, John's work has been on TV before, but not animation, so this is pretty cool.
As I said before, our weekend was pretty packed. It started off with seeing Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night. They were fantastic! It was the first fireworks show John and I have been to, as well. I'd been to a fireworks show as a kid, but I didn't really remember it. We saw a falling star during one of the first few songs, while we sat there eating our picnic-style dinner. Just the kind of evening LA is really good at.
Saturday we went on a 3-hour whale watching trip out of Long Beach (Rainbow Harbor, right next to the aqaurium, to be exact). We saw at least six blue whales and a couple of them surfaced twice. Here are some of my pictures. The whales are actually gray, but when you see them just under the surface they're this beautiful aqua color. We also saw several sea lions and pelicans and a swordfish.
To wrap up, because I need to get busy and run some errands:
Yesterday we stayed home and watched the Titans come very close to beating the Colts. I finished reading Away, which was pretty good. And we saw 3:10 to Yuma, which was pretty awesome.
John and I bought a tripod about a month ago and finally used it this weekend. We took it to Disneyland so we could take pictures at night that weren't blurry. These are the ones that turned out the best. Enjoy my dorky Disney love!
The show John has been working on premiered last night on ABC Family. It's called Slacker Cats. It's an irreverent adult cartoon, sort of like "The Simpsons" or "Family Guy," only it's about talking cats and their owners (who, yes, can hear the cats talking). John's younger sister, Misty, is in town, and the three of us went to a party for the premier last night at Guy's North, upstairs from Jerry's Deli, close by in Studio City. The episode that aired last night wasn't done by the studio John works for--their first episode won't air until September. The party was full of people from other studios. The director was there, as were voice actors Nicole Sullivan and Kiersten Warren. It was a lot of fun. Make sure to check out the show. I'll post the date of the episode John worked on...as soon as I remember to ask him when it is. Meanwhile, he's been working overtime for two weeks now, helping the studio meet a deadline for their next episode.
I just made reservations for our Christmas trip. We're flying to Nashville on December 26th and back to Burbank on January 3rd. We've officially purchased the tickets. We're going to do it. I'm not totally sure if doing it five months in advance was particularly necessary...but I'd rather have them now and not have to worry about it later.
John criss-crossed all over "the Southland," as the newspeople call it, today, stock-piling work for his two jobs. Both of which require, essentially, that he handcuff himself to our kitchen table and draw and shade until his calloused hands wear away to nothingness.
On the plus side, the lady he's worked for the longest lent him an electric pencil sharpener! Jackpot! All our sharpening needs have fallen by the wayside!
Anyway, I was home all day. And I cleaned. I've cooked lately. And now I've cleaned. I'm either becoming domesticated (sounds like a pet, doesn't it?) or my willpower is improving.
When I'm alone, especially for hours at a time, my mind sort of flows as a narrative. I think things in full sentences, which I don't usually do. I mean, usually I don't have to. But sometimes my mind spits things out in paragraphs, like I'm writing the story of my day. Or my whole life. For some reason, I find it to be somewhat disconcerting.
Technically, it's already tomorrow. That is, it's still Monday night for me, even though it's Tuesday. But, tomorrow, Tuesday, I'll be thinking about my sister a lot. Her oldest son's sixth birthday would have been tomorrow (today), Aug 2. Her youngest just turned two on Saturday and Colton starts Kindergarten this month. Colton will turn five in September. He can already read. I have no idea what Charlie can do... I'm missing all of that.
I like to think about Calvin, the nephew I never really had, sometimes. For years, I would think his name and just start crying. And sometimes, even now, when I think about having my own kids, I think of him and how scared I am of the same thing happening to my someday baby and to John and I. But mostly I just think of his sweet face and how I think he probably knows everyone in the family better than anyone else. He can curl up in his Grandma Penny's lap whenever she's upset about all the weird and uncomfortable things that are going on in her life...and just be with her. And maybe she won't know it, but I think that helps her. He can help Charlie keep his balance and help Colton know what to say. He can go to my mom's Sunday school class or sit with her on the nights she's home alone, wishing that silly daughter of hers would come home from California. He can ride along with my dad all over the country and in my brother-in-law's cop car, late at night on lonely country roads. He can watch my sister laugh with his brothers and take her beautiful smile with him always.
I don't necessarily believe in angels. And I don't have any clear or strong convictions about heaven. I know, to an extent, any discussion or speculation about what our loved ones are doing now that they're no longer living is going to be contrived and cliched.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about how going to church is such an important thing for me. I've always gone. It's one of the only ways now where I can see a piece of home. And I see more and more that not many people I meet in LA go to church or are even spiritual at all, whatever the persuasion. It just seems like all the people I was close to back home, if they doubted organized religion or just didn't believe in God, they were still spiritual people aligned with the idea of Something Bigger (many times criticizing Christianity for trying to explain or limit that force). That doesn't strike me as being the case here. And maybe it's just that I grew up in the Bible Belt. Or maybe it's just the particular selection of people I know in LA. At any rate, I feel the need to cling to my faith. I'm not an evangelical. I don't go around preaching the gospel or even really mentioning it. I despise the viewpoints of the fundamentalist religious right in this country. And yet, I'm growing increasingly aware of being almost embarrased to say that, yes, I do believe in God and, yes, I do believe the part about Jesus and heaven and living forever. It never occured to me not to believe. I've only ever questioned myself and the church and my country and society. I'm still full of questions. But I don't want to be embarrassed. Especially on a day like today. Without spirituality in some form, I honestly don't think I'd be able to cope.
I don't have to understand it. I just know there are times when Calvin comes to see me, too. When I miss the rain or the humidity or the trees of home and want to cry and don't...someone is always holding my hand.
Okay. So, I already have a semi-addiction to design. (An addiction that maybe only John might have ever noticed. Because I kinda talk about it...a lot. And the thing about design: you have to see it. And John is with me. A lot. After all. We are married. And I'm not married to any of you. So if you didn't know of my addiction, don't sweat it.) But today, I have come to realize, Todd Oldham is my new hero. I bought his new book today and spent almost my entire night looking at it. And it's a do-it-yourself book. I basically spent my night reading an instructional manual. And it is so cool. So. Cool.
My other favorite pop-artists/designers include SHAG and Gary Baseman.
I just put up a quick review of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, which I finished yesterday. So. Good. (And the first review I've written in months, I realize.)
small world.
John and I have purchased some new shelves for our living room. I completely adore them. Tinkerbell and Ariel (yes, the mermaid) now have space to breathe...that is, they would have space to breathe, if they weren't made out of resin.
We went to Disneyland today. (I am so in love with this man who suggests we spend an entire day in the one place in the world where I act like more of a child than he does.) And we took oooodles of pictures. But I'm not putting them up until I can figure out a way to make their file sizes reasonable. My laptop's resolution is 1600 x 1200. All pictures look amazing to me. I get all sad and whiny when I have to make them look all pixelated to get the file size down. I'll get over it.
For anyone who has checked out my archives or comments, you may have noticed that most of the pictures from my blog have vanished. Why? Oh. Well, you see, when I moved to this domain name, I left a folder of images traveling on the back of John's website so that I wouldn't have to change all the code for every single picture. Apparently I didn't tell John. And he deleted that file.
So tonight John hooked up my old desktop to his monitor and I burned off a few pictures. There are still several pics missing, but I at least fixed half of them. And changed the picture in the comment window.
Speaking of John, he has a personal blog on amoeba. And he mentions me in almost every post. Which I don't particularly like. Mainly because I disagree with what he says about me. Like the other day when he said he thought I liked King Arthur.
Today at work it came up that I have a website. What for? Umm...I just have a blog. Do you talk about Bush, then? Well, yeah, sometimes.... Why? Isn't that what all blogs are about? No.
John and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Monday. (Pictures of the wedding can be found in the photos section.) To celebrate, we spent the day at Disneyland, including dinner at the Blue Bayou.
When we came home, we followed tradition and ate the top of our wedding cake. Which tasted like cardboard. So, we had about two bites each and threw the rest away.
What a weird tradition. And kind of gross, really.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of my grandfather's death. He died while I was in Florida on my honeymoon.
I remember sitting in the MGM Studios park, eating lunch in the section that looks like Hollywood in the 40's. There are fake ads around for Kodak film that are supposed to look "vintage". So they're paintings. Somehow Norman Rockwell type paintings were supposed to sell film. Anyway, by the time we were leaving Florida, the big story was that Kodak was laying off about 15,000 people. Because they were going to go digital.
And my grandfather was dead, I found out, just before the fireworks started on our night in the Magic Kingdom. Will they advertise digital photography with strange, nostalgic images of film cans and people with jobs?
When I sat there by palm trees and stucco, with the sounds of Glen Miller being piped out of rock-shaped speakers, I pictured my grandfather working in his in LA or standing in his WWII Coast Guard Uniform on the beach somewhere in Hawaii...somewhere where there are green plants with large, broad leaves. He's still, watching the water, but tapping his foot to some new big band song.
He was already dead when I was thinking that, but I didn't know until the following night.
John gave me an Elliot Smith CD for Christmas, which I've been listening to this morning and yesterday. He looks a little like Alan Rickman and sounds a little like Paul McCartney. John explained to me, sitting by the tree, emptied red stocking in my lap, that he'd heard about him on NPR. That the music sounded like something I'd listen to...and that the guy killed himself last year. In fact, this album didn't come out until after his death.
And John was right to get it. It does sound like something I'd listen to...though I feel barred from being a fan, per se. I've missed that boat. Like now his death is linked to his being in my brain, clouding the real view.
And there's something odd about having his music stuck in my head. Why is it different with music? I little birdie told me the new, restored version of Ariel is waiting for me to open on Wednesday (birthday). And yet, reading those poems of Sylvia Plath could there be something more personal? will not have the same feeling.
And. Of course. The question arises:
Why do I gravitate to people who killed themselves?
After all, I also got a book about Hemingway for Christmas. And we all know my weird fascination with him.
Is it their power? Their potency? Their utilization of choice?
Oh, probably not. The music is intoxicating. As are the personas of people who, for one reason or another, have become larger than life. Well, literarily speaking anyway. I'm not much interested in Kurt Cobain. Afraid I missed that boat, too.
In 1985, my family planned a huge surprise party for my grandfather. He was retiring. I was four years old. He had made his living at Lincoln Foundry, here in Southern California, making casts and molds and other such technical and mechanical things that are still over my head.
All I really remember was yelling "Surprise!" And seeing my grandmother nearly pass out. [Note: I do also remember my uncle telling Amy and I not to get up during the night because there were snakes under our bed.}
Today I noticed a book on the bottom shelf of the bookcase behind where his chair always sat. The spine said "Brancusi." Now, being married to an artist, I do happen to have a side story about this artist which includes this picture:
The story is that Kenneth (one of John's friends) hates that sculpture, called "Bird in Flight." And John was sort of being a jerk. In a really cute, artsy, no-one-really-gets-the-joke, kind of way.
Anyway, Lincoln Foundry made a cast of one of Brancusi's other works. I remember hearing this from Grandpa before, but I had no idea the guy was actually famous enough to make it into the standard art history lecture.
So I'm on the floor, looking at this book when I notice my grandfather's walkman resting on top of the books. I can see him, now, in my mind, swiveling the chair and sticking it down there after listening to the end of the Dodger game.
And I wonder, was he the last person to touch this? Is it still here because that's where he put it?
I put on the headphones and turn on the AM radio because I figure that's what he listened to the games on. But it isn't a game.
I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood, I know I could always be good to one who'll watch over me.
"Someone to Watch Over Me" was added to the list of songs my mom and I play and sing together whenever we're in the mood to hurt our backs and sit at the piano shortly after we saw "Mr. Holland's Opus."
I remember my grandfather sleeping with a little, blue square radio under his pillow. I remember finding it when I would come into their room in the morning and climb from the foot of the bed up in between them. They smelled like honey and Vicks Vaporub. Grandma would hold my hand and smile at me, our cheeks soft against her pillow, face to face. Grandpa's radio would buzz and hiss. And I remember how much thinner he looked without a shirt on.
Won't you tell him please to put on some speed? Follow my lead, Oh how I need Someone to Watch Over Me.
Tuesday night John and I went out with some friends (Jim and Helen) to see Hellboy. (It's a comic book movie. So of course we went to see it.) It was a lot better than I imagined. When John explained to me that the story was about a half-man/half-demon who was brought to earth as a baby by Nazis and (a surprisingly alive) Rasputin, I was pretty sure it would be hokey at best and disturbing at worst. And I have to say, I was wrong. Somehow, through a lot of rain in the sequence with the Nazis and a minimal amount of back story, it actually came across being no more hokey than any other comic book movie--a genre that, let's be honest, highly depends on people who love illogical characters in fierce action sequences. At any rate, I enjoyed it. Even if his horns didn't look any different after we got to see him file them down.
The best part about going to see it? Getting to see the Van Helsing preview for the umpteenth time. And every time. It gets better. Not because I necessarily think it will be a good movie (or that I think it will be bad, either, for that matter), but because Kate Beckinsale is completely hilarious. I think she's supposed to be Romanian, but she does this crazy accent, like she's trying to sound ridiculous. She sounds like the voiceover for a cereal commercial. Vee mawst cahpture Cahount Chahcula und eet 'is bahts! I want to see that movie. Just for her.
Last night we rented X-Men and X2. I had only seen the first one once, shortly after it came out, and had never seen the second one. Watching them back-to-back really added a lot, I think.
The thing I find shocking about all these comicbook movies though is how easily they've sucked me in. There was a time when I felt guilty for having watched Little Women dozens of times without ever finishing the book, but now I feel like I can't really say I like Wolverine, for example, because I haven't read the comics.
So then John asks me last night, "Now that you've seen the second X-Men movie, which comic book movie is your favorite?"
Some element of my reaction to that question hearkened back to the way I felt whenever I was called on in philosophy class: I didn't want to lie and say I thought something I didn't, but I didn't want my professor (who, now that I'm thinking about it, would make a great wizard in the Harry Potter movies) to think I was wrong or stupid. But with John, there was the added pressure that I might insult him. Not that it mattered. I didn't pick one.
Of course, my first response was "Josie and the Pussycats." Tara Reid reached a level of ditziness in that movie that borderlined on being spiritual.
I just fell down the stairs. Well, technically, I slid, flew, and slid some more. I screamed (in mid-air), causing John to come running to my side, where he helped me up. And asked, "Where does it hurt?" I had to answer, through my embarrassed tears, "My butt." Holy crap. I'm glad this boy isn't going anywhere because he freaked out when he heard me scream and didn't laugh at me once.
If you don't know me, you will learn, because I like to talk a lot, that I fall all the time. ALL the time.
Last night we saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Best movie I've seen in so long. I wanted to be Kate Winslet. I don't think she's ever looked so amazingly beautiful. I even thought Jim Carrey was hot in this movie, which was a completely new feeling for me.
And, of course, "we" means "John and I." So at the end of the movie he turns to me and says, "It's nice to see a movie that makes me appreciate what we have." At which point, I just kinda hugged his head, since we were still in the stiff theater seats. I got a bit emotional and he said, "I said something good, huh?"
