Self-Imposed Hiatus, Begone...And Happy New Year

I finally realized that my break from life (and as a corollary, contributions to this blog) has reached the one month and one day mark. For shame. I've dusted off Christmas, turned my back on (most) sweets, which have debauched my waistline, and am now ready - with drawerfulls of clean clothes - to face a new year.

I'm taking on this New Year with renewed verve, a new plan, a supportive family, freakingly fantastic friends, and a career spigot that has turned up the professional juice. More on that later.

I don't know about you, but in 2010 I'm ready to never hear the surname Gosselin again, and hoping that healthcare reform leads to insurance reform. You can't have your yin without your yang (it would be unwise) and genuine healthcare reform cannot occur or be sustained without some ass-whippin' on the insurance front. I am also smarting over paying $400 for a basic medical test my insurance company refuses to cover.

In 2010, I do not care if Kathy Griffin F-bombs her way through primetime TV every night for the next 359 nights, hope that one of my favorite books, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is awesomely adapted to the big screen, that my friends the Linnebur-Smiths sell their house so they can move to New York City, that my sister kicks ass on her upcoming test, that Angelika Makkas won't rescind her invitation*, and that when I wake up tomorrow chocolate in all forms will appear repulsive to me.

I wish for many, many more things, silently and brazenly, but I mostly wish this: May this New Year bring you and yours more of the good than the bad, lots of love and gut-aching laughter, the kind of change you hope for, and many spirited and synchronous moments that convince you the universe is nothing if not on your side.

And with that, I leave you with two new songs to get the year started off on a portentous musical note.

Godspeed.

Parallel Lines - Junior Boys

Sometime Around Midnight - The...

*Vampires must be invited into a mortal's home in order to enter. Otherwise, they remain barred, in all their pale undeadness, at the front door. Upon having an invitation rescinded, vampires are physically forced to leave a mortal's hearth and home. It's only fair. Mortals get to keep their sacred spaces vampire-free if they so desire, while vampires get immortality and astonishing strength (apparently).

If you remain as unapologetically enamored as I am of the Twilight series, I highly recommend two things: HBO's True Blood series, and Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels. Those two recommendations lead me to this: I have one more New Year goal: To read enough Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky to make up for all the vampirically-themed forms of entertainment I continue to pursue and digest. It's only fair. Part of me can be intellectually if bleakly engaged, while my more torrid side continues to be delighted and thoroughly entertained. By vampires.

A Non-Train Wreck Family With Multiple Children

My Mom and I were discussing a family with six kids, and how composed the Mom of six is, despite the fact that she also homeschools them. I will repeat: she homeschools six kids. Alone. Herself.

I have a hard enough time wading through the aisles of the local Target during an afternoon of wailing children, snot-leaking noses, and helter-skelter scampering. I'm not the only one. There is a look that Moms get when they've had enough and wish it were more socially acceptable to leave their children in the parking lot, locked in the family car. The look of the harried Mother transcends race, creed, and fashion sense -- even if it's somewhat blunted by a popcorn infused Target.

I am pleased to report that all six kids are genuinely good kids, in spite of or maybe because of, their homeschooling. They are courteous, well-spoken, and friendly to each other. In other words, they would never be offered a reality TV contract. They are the kind of children those who wish for children hope they actually get. Still, the act of homeschooling (anyone), much less six polite kids, is an initiative I would take on only after a host of tortures had been laid upon me and I still had one more to complete. My admiration for this Mom of six is H-U-G-E. I'd like to buy her a drink, but I bet she'd prefer coffee.

I quickly fashioned a fantasy of what my childhood would have been like if I had been homeschooled, but did not get far. I remember clashing vehemently at the age of nine with my mother over how to proceed with my fractions homework. I don't think a homeschooled childhood would have been bucolic. Very likely it would have sucked ass.

I turned to my Mom and said: "Can you imagine if you had homeschooled me and Booger (my sister)? You would have blown your brains out". My Mom looked up, paused thoughtfully and said: "No. I just would have had a mental breakdown". And with that she returned to her crossword puzzle and I resumed eating my ice cream. But, with a little bit more hope for how the world will run when I am old, gray, and the whippersnappers have whippersnappers of their own.

¡Bacon!

Dating sucks, and I'm taking the rest of the year off, but that's OK because I have bacon.

A few days ago I bit into a BLT and was immediately reminded of the rapturous way poets describe the sweet arrow piercing of falling in love, because this is how I felt about my sandwich. People in their prose, and poets in their way, have chronicled their ardor in different ways, but the basics remain the same: the senses swim around in dopamine juice as the heart swells, straining against its encasement of ribs and sternum.

And so it is with bacon. With each bite the heart beats itself a bit bigger (I suppose this is literally true if one were to eat bacon at every meal). With each bite a haze of happiness appears. With each bite a symphony completes a movement. Each bite introduces maybe the only true contentment in an aggravating day, or punctuates a particularly blissful one. It is the sole reason why I will never commit to becoming a vegetarian, despite the many and compelling reasons for why it would be advisable.

Dates and romantic attachments may come and go, but bacon will have your back as long as you fry/bake/microwave it properly (respect the bacon, and it will respect you). Of course I won't go into bacon's pesky details, like the USDA's silent treatment on recalls, the debate on sodium nitrite, colorectal cancer, or slaughterhouses. I will, however, allow Sarah Hepola of Salon.com to have the final say:

"Loving bacon is like shoving a middle finger in the face of all that is healthy and holy while an unfiltered cigarette smolders between your lips."

Yum.

P.S. How to say, "May I have some bacon" in a few other languages:
German: Darf ich bitte Speck
Chinese: 我请你们熏肉
RussianL Позвольте мне, пожалуйста, свиной
Greek: Επιτρέψτε μου να έχει κάποια μπέικον
Spanish: ¿Por favor me puedes dar tocino?

Dear Life, Thank You

I suppose 12/31/09 would be an apropos time to stare 2009 in the eye and reflect upon the good and the bad throughout the year, and after coffee and an introspective interlude, formulate a renewed hope and set of aspirations for 2010. But, frankly, I'll be busy that night, sitting on my sister's couch in my nicest sweats, with Season 3 of Dexter and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.

As Thanksgiving approached, I've been pondering how the really truly shitty moments in a year, or their longer counterparts, episodes, can re-cast good moments, even lukewarm OK moments, in a much shinier light. So, I hereby proclaim that on this Thanksgiving Day I give a hearty gracias for the bad times. And, I mean bad times: true job suckage, super early conference calls, the kind of sharp and prolonged stress that causes insomnia and the curse of acne, and times when my checking account brought me nothing but a piercing woe.

Amidst a challenging job search, an anemic bank account, and the adjustment to becoming a member of the Boomerang generation (adults who return home to roost with Mom and Dad), I've also got to give my sincerest thanks - and I feel this thanks all the way down, deep, deep, down, in the cartilage that forms my kneecaps - for my family, friends, laughter, the Twilight Series, HBO, the incredible music that came out this year, and the good friends who despite my being me, were still generous with their time, their $, and heartfelt advice. 2009 demonstrated to me, more than any other year thus far, that after a prolonged gloom, much like after the harshest and most destructive of weather systems concludes, the sun shines again.

Don't just take my word for it. Herewith, a brief glimpse for what others are thankful.

"1. Bacon, in all its savory, sweet and succulent glory
2. Beer, despite all the deplorable things I do when I drink it
3. A decent metabolism that allows me to chronically overindulge in #1 & #2
4. The acute understanding that I'm just another expendable, semi-gelatinous, carbon-based, resource-annihilating whore-ganism in the greater game of nature
5. Phreedom to do my life on my terms
6. Phamily who always have a home for me and shower me in this magical stuff called "unconditional love"
7. Phriends who know my dark side yet trust and defend me
8. Traveling the world but calling Amurrica my home
9. The hope of silent sunrises
10. The comfort of an unknown future"

"Well of course [I'm] thankful for another day above the turf...I am grateful to have been relieved of the bondage of self..that I am free to do whatever I desire to within principled boundries...that I am surrounded by fellow members of my tribe who love and support me--that I didn't gain weight when I quit smoking, and most of all for my assistant who makes it possible for me to only work 4 hours a day...lol."

"I am very thankful for my family and my awesome son."

"-Thankful for another wonderful year of life.
-Thankful for the opportunities to travel and see knew things with old friends
-Thankful that I can survive 48 hours with my family (maybe)
-Thankful for a 4 day weekend"

"I'm thankful to live in a country where I can go to college (twice) to pursue the career I want to have. I'm thankful I have a loving husband who is my soulmate. I'm thankful I have two loving, strong parents and a brother who is my best friend. I'm thankful for all of those in my life that help keep me sane and make life worth living. I'm thankful for my poochy, Winston. And, I'm really thankful for food and sex. God is a genius. Oh, and I'm definitely thankful for Stephenie Meyer for letting me lust after seventeen year old vampires and werewolves. *Sigh*"

"I am thankful for kick-ass friends and family...a dog that entertains me on a daily basis, and the knowledge that I'm FINALLY on the right path in life. Better late than never right? oh yea...and for my health, and home, and job. whew!"

"I'm thankful for people who think beyond their own lives, their own families, their own countries and have the balls to act with that bigger picture in mind even (especially) if they may be fired, vilified, or voted out of office for those acts. And for burritos."

"I am thankful for living in America despite all of its faults and mindful of the access and privilege I am provided because of this. I am thankful for a healthy body that functions despite my badness (and I do mean BADNESS!). I am thankful for my wonderful friends and family who love me despite myself and I am thankful for kittens without which I would know no pure joy and unconditional love!"

"I am thankful that throughout so many phases and stages of my life, and in so many settings, I have found myself surrounded by good, honest, intelligent, caring and fun people."

"I am thankful that so far life has pushed me in certain directions and pulled me back from others - in time for me to learn, but not drown ... I am also so very grateful for living so close to this part of the Pacific Ocean ... the sun set today made me feel comfortingly small and in wonderment ..."

A special thank you to the dear friends who kindly shared their thoughts. You are my counterparts, not just on this post, but in life, and I feel pretty fucking lucky.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Bedroom Muses

During a summer in the early 90s I worked as a journalist intern for my hometown newspaper. One of my mentors, for all her daytime professionalism and reserve, could not completely suppress what she was in her off hours -- a Good Time Girl*. She seemed to recognize I was one in the making. She slipped me a cassette. It was Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville.

None of the tape covers in the collection I owned were like this. Liz Phair, draped in a dark cape, her mouth open in a forceful "O", had paired her intimately revealing lyrics with a cover that gave peek at the upper tip of her left areola. The tape cover sat at the very back of my sock drawer -- musical contraband.

I credit Liz Phair with the truce my naiveté feverishly made that summer with my heretofore dormant irreverence and inclination toward highbrow snark. A Catholic education had previously curbed but not quashed the inevitable. Liz Phair used the word "Fuck" all the time and repudiated anything demure or - gag me - princess-y. I unabashedly sang her words in my car with the windows down -- as long as my parents weren't around.

I found out later that Liz Phair wrote and recorded Exile in Guyville in her bedroom. She had taken her destiny into her own arms and completed the ultimate DIY project: a still to this day critically hailed debut.

I have a special place in my heart for musicians who don't wait for recording contracts, but charge up their Macs, ask for donations, sling espressos, walk dogs, and employ Web 2.0 strategies so they can put their music out into the ether, and preferably in your ears. These are the artists who are a pleasure to support because they are bypassing traditional means of mass producing and marketing their music. (So when one in particular makes your eyes go wide with delight, be sure you tell the world about it.)

Merrill Garbus is the one-woman show behind tUnE-YaRdS. She classifies herself as "experimental", and describes her music thusly:

Your mom when she gets really mad but instead of whoopin' yo' ass she starts making crazy-ass beats with the pots and pans AND yo' ass.

This makes me want to get my Mom really mad -- around some strategically placed kitchen gadgetry.

Fiya - Tune-Yards

*Good Time Girl: A member of the female species inclined toward activities one would confidently term as "fun", or "a good time"; a member of a group engaging in goodhearted, if slightly irreverent -- fuck, who are we kidding? -- completely irreverent dialogue that may or may not involve a round or four of spirits, uninhibited dancing, and potentially watching the sun illuminate the dark, giving rise to a brand new fun, er, day.

The Recordings Of The Middle East

When you've got a good thing going, sometimes a second chance is really a blessing wrapped up in shiny, celestial paper, with a big rapturous bow on top. I'd opine The Middle East would agree with me.

I admit to confusion when I first came across the album The Recordings of the Middle East, thinking it was a compilation by Western artists providing their musical viewpoints on the group of nation-states first identified in the Eisenhower Doctrine, in the part about the Suez Canal.

The Middle East is not actually from the Middle East, but from the smallest continent on the planet -- Australia. At first I thought that naming themselves after a complex and violent geographical hot spot was mystifying. Now I think, whatever. I think this mostly because the music is superb; it's ethereal and atmospheric -- but not all the way through. Each song has blood and guts and marrow.

The band broke up a year ago and - thankfully for the rest of us - band members came to their senses, re-recognized that good thing they had going, and reunited. The band released an abridged version of their earlier work a couple weeks ago. If the musical blogosphere has anything to do with it, the album will catch fire like a desiccated Christmas tree and tingle the ears of the alternative set before the calendar year reaches its coup de grâce.

The Recordings of the Middle East is one of the finest etherealesque albums I've had the pleasure of listening to in this Year of our Lord 2009. For me, "Blood" is the standout track, and the album cover is a visual dagger through the chest, but in the best possible sense that can be said.

After staring at the cover for the better part of a minute I wanted to hug someone, but not a dainty squeeze. I felt the desire to participate in an embrace with the kind of vigor and adoration that engages every last chamber of the heart for a moment of true physical connection -- a tactile time out powerful enough to briefly still this fleeting life and demonstrate the sentiments not so easily uttered -- much like the album does in the architecture of each song, and each visceral lyric.

The Recordings of The Middle E...

You're A Bone Machine

I had to turn down a ticket to see The Pixies at the newly beautiful (renovated) Fox Theater in Oakland earlier this week. Saying no to the ticket was like stabbing myself through the heart with a dirty, dusty, blade that causes profound pain but is most assuredly non-fatal.

I have a string of epithets, italicized and bolded, to follow that thought, but I am going to save their incendiary intent for my post on Carrie Prejean.

In the meantime I leave you with what is possibly my most cherished Pixies tune: "You're A Bone Machine".

WARNING:
Much like one might pair a romantic interlude with champagne and strawberries (actually, I'm not sure if anyone does that; champagne is never a cliche without or without the berries), or match the time-tested favorite of peanut butter and jelly on wheat (no crust), "You're A Bone Machine" does not translate well, as in you cannot truly experience the transcendent atomic energy it will unfold in you, if you listen to it on a tepid volume. Some songs require an appropriate amplification that truly rattles double-paned windows. This is one such song.

So do yourself a favor: Go thermonuclear. Turn the dial up on this tune. Your neighbors might be sorry, but you won't be. Such is the fission of The Pixies, and such is the frisson of jettisoning momentary proprietary and embracing your inner, feral, wild child. Allow yourself to scream with Frank Black, to splay your demons, stresses, and cheerful profundities in a musical tantrum that doesn't require you to be the ringleader -- just a member of the crowd. One who sings a long.

Bone Machine - The Pixies