Archives for January 2009

No riots in my neighborhood last night. They were across town. You did hear, didn't you, about the BART shooting? I thought Oscar Grant, the man shot, looked familiar, and then I thought I was crazy, but it turns out he was the butcher at my local grocery. Sigh. We are hoping for peace and a
swift resolution, but I'm thinking that might not happen as fast as we'd
like.

Also, don't parents teach their kids to protest anymore? What
the hell? Those kids lying down on the ground, in the position he was in when he was shot to death, that's an effective protest.
Chest-bumping riot police and jumping on police cars (of the wrong
police agency, at that)? Morons. (Of course, I think I knew We Shall Overcome before I knew my ABCs. It was an easier melody.)

From heavy to light.

I'm back to writing every day again. I managed to take three days off before I got too cranky to even be around myself. I wrote, and everything slipped back into place. I think I might actually be a workaholic or something. I'm not even kidding. I think lala would say I'm the last to know, but it does kind of come as a surprise.

Now, having worked for a few hours, I'm enjoying my morning. It's overcast, but it's that bright, hectic overcast that comes right before a shower. I was going to go for a run, but if it rains, I'll just stay inside and Wii Fit it a little.

I just about died the other night when I was playing with it, and I unlocked the MEDITATION game. Dude. What's it called? Locus Focus? The goal is to sit in the lotus position on the board and not move while staring at a candle on the screen. You can hear boards creaking, and then a moth flaps by and gets burned in the flame, and then a mosquito buzzes. If you move your center of balance, the candle flickers, and then if it flickers again, you're out. I made it all the way through! 180 seconds! Champion of meditation! Woot!

As tongue in cheek as I'm being, there really was something to it. Sure, I was playing a game with a controller and a TV, but I was meditating. I was watching my body, my breath. My mind went pretty empty, except for focusing on my center of balance. I am completely aware of how anti-meditation this sounds, but it was strangely effective, too. Whoever came up with that one had a lot of cojones, and I love it.

I'm getting a cheap massage-school massage later today, and I'm planning on spending a couple of bookstore gift cards today, too. (I think the new Meg Cabot books, book 10 of the Princess Diaries, where Mia writes a romance sounds delightful and it has great reviews. You can also purchase the "romance" she writes, too! I've never read her, but it sounds like fun. Good marketing ploy.)

The Wii Fit is WAY more fun than I thought it would be. You play little mini-games, which usually feel kind of dumb and annoying to me on regular game platforms, but when you're doing it under the umbrella of Exercise, you can just lean into it and have fun. It's a multi-tasker's dream! Plus, when you measure yourself and find out you're a whole inch and a half taller than you thought, your BMI goes down, even if your weight goes up! Ask me how I know!

I am not writing for a few days. I turned in the book on my deadline, January 2nd, and I need to launch back into the second one, but it's a long work week (five 12-hour shifts in a row). I have given myself permission to sleep in (until 4:45! Whoop!) for these few days and not write. HOWEVER, it has made me a big grumpy-pants. A grumpy-pants who gets even grumpier when the hole in her sweats is pointed out by Lala, who is knitting behind her. A grumpy-pants who feels like something is just wrong and can't figure it out and OH, I'm not writing, and I feel like I'm withdrawing from something. Actually, upon reflection, I think I'll just get up and write before work tomorrow. That'll fix it.

I love that not writing is hard for me. I love that SO much.

Also, you need to know that an apple slicer, that ring thing that cuts the apple into pieces, is the most genius kitchen gadget ever. Best four bucks I've spent in recent memory. I only like apples if they're sliced, and I hate slicing them. Then this comes along, and whooomp! Apple, sliced! Ready for peanut butter application! What could be better?

We had a lovely New Year's Eve — an impromptu games night at home which led to none of us really noticing or counting down the year. I heard gunshots and glanced at my cell phone. "Happy New Year," I yelled into the living room, but at least one person missed the announcement entirely and asked for the time about an hour later.

I loved being at home for New Year's. We never get to do that, and it was perfect. I might have had a drink or two (ahem), and I was feeling quite nappish by about 1am (I go to bed closer to 8 or 9), so I went in our bedroom and put up my feet. Nothing makes me happier than to drift off with the sound of happy people in the house. Of course, it wasn't the nap I thought it was going to be — instead it was just bedtime, and had I known that, I would have brushed my teeth.

Resolutions? Only one: I will not stab anyone this year.

I make this resolution every year, and it proves that making resolutions TOTALLY WORK!

(Also, I'd like to love a lot and write a lot and eat lots of nice things and hug lots of animals but not take any extras home.)

You're supposed to start the year the way you'd like it to go, and I did all sorts of nice things today:

We stayed in bed late. I made quiche. We walked dogs. We ate garlic fries. We watched a great movie, Slumdog Millionaire (which was almost, but not quite, ruined by the lady behind me who kept squealing at the grim parts and running out of the theater, saying "I can't WATCH this, this is HORRIBLE!" Then she'd kick my chair on her to sit back down. She did this three times. And she was a talker. I don't mind a whisperer, but a talker? Do you see why I make that resolution every year? We consoled ourselves later with realizing that she was with the dumb-ass we'd watched get a ticket earlier that evening. They'd been parked in the bus zone. When the cop rolled up and put his lights on behind them, the guy STARTED HIS CAR and started to drive away. Now, that's kind of the wrong thing to do when you've been caught by the long arm of the law. So Talker was with the right guy, for sure). But grim parts aside, you should run to go see that movie. I loved it. All in all, a lovely day, and a lovely start.

So, Happy New Year! 2009. It's gonna be good.