Saturday, January 1, 2011

pretty mess

hi, everyone - welcome to 2011. i'm avoiding exclamations in an attempt to keep my "voice" down; if the rest of y'all are as bleached-feeling as we are tonight, you'll appreciate it.

oh, what a party. i find that there's no better way to send out a year like 2010 than to flash back to how i behaved as an 18-year-old undergraduate. read: wine. champagne. more wine. more champagne. dancing in a giant pack with a bunch of random girls i'd never met before. dancing with my "i do NOT dance" boyfriend, drunkenly belting out lyrics to songs i didn't even know he knew. taking scandalous pictures in which i at least look good.

and then, as all these things eventually do, things took a turn. indulgence becomes excess, and excess brings consequence. as a result, it's a saturday night in a major city, with fun events everywhere, and i am mainlining red gatorade like it's the water of life. we're in bed. i have his scrub pants on, for god's sake. we tried an outing to go see a basketball game; after a quick dinner out, it was apparent that this adventure could not continue. it was damned from the start.

but you know what? it was FABULOUS. all of it - my lack of sleep, making sure the man was still breathing; the joy that is blue-cheese dip that's been left out all night; realizing that the trash was full before the party started, etc., etc., etc. - was so worth it. we had fun. we enjoyed each other's company. we threw our hands up in the air sometimes, sang hey-o, let go, celebrated and lived our lives. and really, that's what it's all about.

now if you'll excuse me, i'm a little woozy, and the man needs more ginger ale. time to go back to bed. and would you hit that light? it's giving me a headache again. thanks.

Friday, December 31, 2010

toast

it's new year's eve, which means that it's time for the obligatory wrap-up of the beautiful dark twisted cocktail that was 2010. we took the good, we took the bad. i dare say we took them both. no facts of life here, though; just another year over.

but damn, what a year. ups, downs, strikes, gutters - i have never had a year in my life that had more upheaval. i ended a marriage; i began a career. i started a relationship; i ended a degree program. i left home; i came home. it's enough to make you dizzy.

and i can say without reservation that, despite the heart-rending pain and dizzying glee, in the cold objective light of morning, i've never grown more than i did in 2010. and i largely did that growth publicly, through this little ol' internet outpost. it's been a hell of a journey here on the blog, and it's been amazing meeting all of y'all out here in the world.

so in the words of kanye west, i think it's time for us to have a toast. let's raise our glasses to:

 - ourselves, for getting through it all, somehow;
 - those we love, both who are here and who are gone;
 - the future, for being better than the past;
 - lessons learned and things achieved.

cheers to all of y'all. have a safe and amazing night; let's meet up again in 2011...

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

literally

i am a writer, writer of fictions
i am the heart that you call home...
 - "the engine driver," the decemberists

i have worked with language as long as i've known how to put my dreams on paper. i've written regularly for basically the last 25 years of my life. fiction, nonfiction, poetry, prose, and even an ill-fated screenplay - your humble blog proprietor has written it all. not to brag, but i think i've got a pretty decent command of this mother tongue of mine. i hone my craft here, there and everywhere, digital and analog, recreationally and professionally. this craft bleeds into my life. i speak as i write, much to the chagrin of my legal writing professors. ("would you actually say that word?" uh, yeah, dumb-ass; that's why i wrote it.) i use metaphor, simile, exaggeration, understatement. i am an architect of words, and it's a talent a) of which i am justifiably proud and b) that has been appreciated by many people with whom i've interacted over time.

so imagine my surprise when it came to my attention that this talent is radically underappreciated by some of the people i love most dearly. i mean, it's not an outright hostility - no one's telling me, as if anyone ever could, to stop my writing. but that sort of foolishness would almost be easier to wrap my head around. it's more of an intellectual blind spot. it's almost as if this crew is thoroughly incapable of comprehending figurative language. it's the weirdest damn thing i've ever seen in my life.

there is a cold, logical literalism at work in these conversations, one that confounds and amuses me in equal parts. words must be chosen carefully in order to get a point across. well, more specifically, to avoid a five-minute excursus as to what i meant and didn't mean, what i said and didn't say. it's important in this crew to be precise. accurate, even. to say that this is a frustrating development in my life is an - ha, ha - understatement. it's funny, too, in that, in the immortal words of jimmy buffett, if i couldn't laugh, i would just go insane.

look, i'm a lawyer. i understand the need to be incredibly precise. but guess what? my linguistic crayon box has 120 colors in it, and i will use every single goddamned one of them. i will not be stultified just because people in this world still use the 8-crayon kindergarten pack. i am a master of the language, spoken and written, and i will practice my art and craft, loud and proud. and if you can't hang? well. i'd advise that you either learn to drive or get off the track, or else you're liable to get left behind...

Monday, December 27, 2010

#roadtrip!

so i kept a running twitter log of things i did and saw while i was travelling. for your amusement, a road trip in 140 characters or less.

12/17, 11:41 pm: getting a milkshake for my drive south. miss my love already, but so jazzed to see my friends!

12/18, 2:18 am: dear henderson, north carolina: blow me. no open gas stations at all? come ON.

12/18, 5:17 am: welcome center, south carolina - that means a 20-minute pause for the cause before pressing on. naptime...

12/18, 6:19 am: greenville, SC: starbucks and hardee's at one exit. heaven.

12/18, 7:59 am: georgia welcome center: mmm. 5 more minutes of napping?

12/18, 10:47 am: AL welcome center: another state line crossed, another nap. so close. by the time i get to MS, had better be repealed...

12/18, 1:11 pm: greenville, AL: just like HS trips to youth leg, having lunch. makes me miss the man. getting closer to the pelican state...

12/18, 3:25 pm: gautier, MS: and down goes . beautiful day, beautiful moment.

12/18, 4:16 pm: et maintenant, bienvenue en louisiane. :)

12/19, 1:05 am: hammond, LA: drunk. smelling of cigarette smoke. desperately sleep-deprived. in a club. wish i was in bed with my man. i missed LA. really.

12/19, 11:34 pm: baton rouge, LA: my friends are amazing people. i love them dearly, and i miss them when i'm not here. LSU law 2010 for life.

12/20, 7:01 pm: new orleans, LA: my heart is this wondrous city, with its love and its life. so glad to be [spiritually] home.

12/21, 10:04 am: slidell, LA: morning coffee in the place where i learned to love estate planning. on the road again...

12/21, 10:07 am: aaaand there's the first rebel flag of the trip. four days in - think that's a record...

12/21, 10:40 am: gulfport, MS: too many memories. so much sin, in the buckle of the bible belt no less. makes me miss someone...

12/21, 4:38 pm: gulf shores, AL: my beach. god, i missed you.

12/22, 12:49 pm: mobile, AL: in the old life, i ignored people who mattered before i met him. that will never happen again. here's to true friends.

12/23, 12:37 pm: my family is exasperatingly sweet and amazing. prying and fussing over me across the miles. i feel claustrophobic and loved. :)

12/24, 8:38 am: mobile, AL: thus ends the "friends" portion of the trip; now begins the "family" portion. 80 hours till i'm home to him...

12/24, 1:36 pm: crestview, FL: met a middle school classmate in the gas station. small damn world...

12/24, 4:34 pm: moultrie, GA: and with that, i reach the edge of AT&T service. no phone, no internet for the weekend.

[here begins twitter-style note-taking on my phone]
12/24, 5:40 pm: tifton, GA: sharing a building here are the "southern heritage supercenter" (white guys) and "dirty south outfitters" (black guys). laughing together outside, dude in rebel-flag bandanna and dude in tupac shakur t-shirt. SO confused.

12/25, 4:12 pm: fitzgerald, GA: being a progressive southerner is a double-edged sword - so much good, so much cringeworthy...

[back to twitter]
12/25, 7:20 pm: arabi, GA: snow in DC = leaving family in a mad rush to get home. this'll be a long 24 hours...

12/25, 11:45 pm: greenville, SC: i swore i'd never eat christmas dinner at a waffle house again. [ed: there's a story here - another time.] and yet, here i sit. good times.

12/26, 12:31 pm: dinwiddie, VA: dear VDOT - it's a good thing that 18-wheeler flipped over. makes the fact that you left I-85 icy as hell obvious. grrrr.

12/27, 11:19 am: finally back home. great trip, but it's so damn good to be with him again...

quite an adventure. back to regular programming tomorrow!

Sunday, December 26, 2010

ahhh.

i am home. recap later. but now, sleep. hope y'all had a fabulous holiday!