beautiful, funny, sad & true

It’s been quite a year, I have to say.  Going through and choosing entries was particularly difficult this time around.  I always enjoy looking backwards.  So much has happened this year that it had become a bit of a blur, quite frankly, and it was fun to revisit some of those experiences.  Others, however, weren’t nearly as much fun.  I could have made this entry about twice as long as it is.  There will be another separate entry for the ‘best pictures of 2008’ coming soon.

accordions, Decemberists, and EmeraldCity – This involves a night when I made a noticeable transition from fan to equal participant.

shock – This was one of the worst days of my entire life.

good news and truth – This was the end of said time.

Yakima trip, part one – This was quite possibly the worst Yakima trip ever, in which I lost a friend.

Tinkle – Tinkle is the name of a fictitious product; this entry describes a hilarious parody my friends and I made of sports drink commercials from the early 90’s.

on tour, day 3 – This was one of the best and most memorable days of my entire life.

my dinner with Andre – We read the screenplay in the play-reading group, and there are also some ruminations about why this movie meant so much to me.

‘six-six-five and one fucking half’ – This is a rock ‘n’ roll story from way back in the day.

errrr. . .hi, mom – I have to be honest; I really like this particular entry.

O, the hilarity ensues – ‘Good luck driving around with my dead, pregnant wife!’

please ban more books – The school district in the town in which I grew up turns out to be responsible for upholding a ban on a very famous book.  Glad I left that town.

litany – This was a hilarious repartee my friend and I shared.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for your support throughout this last year.  In case this somehow wasn’t enough for you, here’s the entry for the best entries of 2007.

Have a great new year!

OneYearAgo

After yesterday’s post, I walked out and about in my neighborhood and took a few pictures.  This neighborhood is beautiful anyway, but with this much snow it’s even more beautiful.  And the Christmas lights and everything. . .it’s just an amazing treat.

Here are the ones from last night. . .

. . .before I went home to my sort of warm apartment.   I woke up this morning to go to work, and found that it had snowed a couple more inches overnight.  I had to take a picture of my forlorn little car.

Luckily, my friend was warming up his truck to take his girlfriend to work, and they offered to drive me also, since her work is right near mine.  That really made my morning.  There were only a handful of us who actually made it in to work today, and it was so cold inside the building that most of us bailed out after a few hours.  I left at noon, and I’d worn my jacket and scarf the entire time, and even my hood occasionally.  Three people left around ten-thirty, but I stayed until my fingers couldn’t really type anymore.  There were a couple of diehards who stayed on after I left, but they didn’t think they’d be there for long.

I certainly wasn’t the only one who was home from work today, either.  The streets were filled with families and couples who were out enjoying the snow.  And they were friendly, too!  I couldn’t believe it.  Everybody greeted me, or waved, or smiled, or even flirted, in a way that (I’m here to tell you) they rarely do.  I kept thinking, ‘Where was all this friendliness in all those times when I was feeling lonely and sad, and felt like something must be wrong with me because no one would so much as glance at me when I was walking on the street?’  But that’s neither here nor there.  It was nice, and I appreciated it.  It was so nice, in fact, that I kinda wanted to stay out longer, and keep crossing paths with people, on purpose.

I stopped in at Aztec Willie’s for a yummy burrito, which gave me enough energy to shovel my sidewalk, which I found still sucks after all these years.  You’d think that with technology being the way it is, there’d be some sort of process that could make the act of shoveling obsolete.  C’mon, science, can we get on that, please?  The polar bears need all the ice they can get.  Isn’t there some way to get this up (or down) to them?  I mean, JEEZ.

So then it was time to deal with my car.  I got all the snow off it, but the windows and sides are encased in ice that’s about a quarter of an inch thick.  Clearly I’m going nowhere today, unless it’s by foot.

This couple had the right idea; forego the driving and the walking, and go straight on to skiing.

I also have a smallish secret that I’d like to let you in on.  Every time I see her walking on the other side of the street, to the grocery store or something, I want to say, ‘want to go to breakfast?’ or ‘your eyes are beautiful; what color are they?’ or ‘ditch the zero and get with the hero’. . .you know, something really romantic like that to completely sweep her off her feet.

Anyway, don’t tell her I said all that.  She and her guy seem really genuine and nice, and I don’t want to mess that up for them.  Really I don’t.

So to change the subject back to the actual one we’re SUPPOSED to be talking about, I’ll leave you with this nice picture of my snowy, wonderful neighborhood.

My friend just called to tell me that he got a message on BookOfFaces from a girl in his high school class.  This year is their twentieth reunion, so the class is using that web site as the point of connection for everyone.

So he got a message from a woman saying that she remembers him from choir, and asking him if he also used to play in the band Iron Horse.  My friend said he did, and she told him that to this day she’s married to a guy she met at one of our shows.  To the few and the proud who may actually have been in attendance at Iron Horse shows back in the day, and who might also be reading this, it was our show at the Ahtanum Youth Park.

There, you see?  Music really does have the power to bring people together, especially if it’s the music of INXS, Yngwie Malmsteen, Van Halen and the Beatles.  And, of course, the Fat Boys.  She said they slow-danced to our version of “Honesty” by Billy Joel, which we did an off-the-cuff version of (along with many other songs) in order to stretch out the night.

This is one of those blog moments when I wish I had a VHS-to-computer transcriber thingy, because I have that show somewhere on a videotape, but I have no way to get it onto my Mac.  So I could totally allow her to relive the magic all over again, by finding her on BookOfFaces and sending her a link to this blog entry, with a hilarious old video of the song she and her husband danced to, way back when.  I suppose it’s the thought that counts, right?  I’d totally do that if I had the technology.  Grrr.

That story made me laugh, warmed my heart, and brought a little tear to my eye all at the same time, mostly because A) those of us in the band thought it was a fairly crappy but funny show, where we did all these weird songs we’d never played before, and B) I just think it’s awesome that not only did she meet her future husband at that of all shows, but that they’re still together now, over twenty years later.

Le Sigh.

I just got tagged by Carolina to reveal six random things about myself.  You may be surprised to find out that I’ve never been tagged in one of these things before, so I’m rapidly trying to think of what I can write about, since I usually have something in mind before I ever start writing.

Okay, here goes.

NUMBER ONE:

I love Bach’s organ music.  I mean LOVE IT love it.  If I could marry it, I would.  I love it so much that if it’s playing, I can’t do anything else because I get absolutely sucked in by its perfect structure and beauty. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.  E. Power Biggs playing “The Jig.”

One of my favorite memories of my dad (How many times do you hear me say THAT?) is when the two of us were attempting to play this particular piece on a beautiful pipe organ in Ellensburg, Washington. I was sitting on the bench, playing the manuals (that’s organ terminology for keyboards) and my dad was on his hands and knees underneath the bench, playing the pedals with his fists. It was hilarious and touching, even moreso when I think about it now. I’ll never forget that moment.

NUMBER TWO:

Speaking of Number Two, I find it absolutely repulsive to have to listen to someone go Number Two in the bathroom (I’m thinking of the bathroom at work, by the way), especially since most guys are notoriously disgusting and loud when it comes to this particular activity.  I’m so disgusted by it that if there’s someone else already in the bathroom when I walk in, I’ve been known to go downstairs so that I don’t have to listen to that happening.  I mean, really.  The sound, the smell, everything.  Ewww.  And if they’re sitting there tapping away on their cell phones, that grosses me out even more, because I imagine them wiping their asses and then grabbing their phones before they get the chance to wash their hands again.  NASTY.  I hope no one ever has to borrow their phones for any reason.

NUMBER THREE:

I used to have two mullets.  No, not at the same time, but consecutively.  I liked them so much that I grew one out until it got all scraggly, and then I cut it off and grew another one, which was only a slight improvement over the previous one.  Here’s a picture of the first one, in progress, in 1988. . .

. . .and here’s a picture of the second one, in full effect, not long before it got cut (THANK GOD) in 1995:

I know; I was hot.

NUMBER FOUR:

The longest time that I’ve ever dated someone was five years (on again/off again).  The shortest time was three days.  Does that count as two things?  I don’t know, but I’m counting it as one two-part answer to one two-part question.

NUMBER FIVE:

I have no tattoos or piercings of any kind.  I used to have my left ear pierced, around the time of Mullet Number One, but I only wore an earring in it for about a year, and I haven’t worn one since then, so the hole has long since closed up.  No, I don’t have any pictures of that.

NUMBER SIX:

I’ve made more money playing the accordion than any of the other instruments I play.  It’s paid for itself many times over.  The cello is in second place, then probably the electric guitar.

NUMBER SEVEN:

There is NO Number Seven.  Thank you.

So, which six people would I like to tag and to see respond to this in kind on their own blogs?

Andrea

Josh

Emily

Sarah

Jo(e)

BoringFish

Thank you to Carolina for including me in this, thank you to YOU for reading, and thank you six participants (or anyone else who wishes to) for lending your metaphorical voices to this endeavor.

OneYearAgo

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

–Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “Wind, Sand, and Stars”