i am a sucker for a play on words.
as in, i would totally buy this, just so i could serve the french boyfriend a gin and titonic, and watch his expression when he laughed at me.
and rolled his eyes.
and shook his head.
lather, rinse, repeat.
new year’s resolution: move past the anxiety into confidence and excitement, especially pertaining to, but not limited to, teaching.
the only conversation we’ve had all evening.
boy (watching television): hey, isn’t this one of the godfather movies?
me (looking): um…no.
boy (pointing to one of the actors on screen): isn’t that guy in the godfather?
me: yes, but it’s not one of the godfather movies.
boy: are you sure?
me: yes. sidney poitier was not in the godfather. neither are hardly any other black people.
boy: how was i supposed to know that?
me: you’ve watched the godfather.
boy: oh, right.
aaaaand, we’re clear.
oh, my.
you know when you have several programs up on your computer, a few word documents, a game and an instant message, and you check the usage report on your computer and it’s running, but it’s nearly 95% of capacity?
no? too nerdy for you?
hmmm.
well, that is the only analogy i can think of to explain how i feel right now after spending six days in or near my french boyfriend’s hometown. between staying with his family, seeing good friends and awkward friends, spending time in a gallery for his art opening and listening to literally hours of stories about people i don’t know, i am at about 95% capacity.
i’m all full. no more room for now. we need to close some programs, shut the chatting down, and get the hell out of town and go home.
it was a dickensian week, being the best of times and the worst of times, but all i can do right now is just hermit to regroup.
we have now retreated to our 1 and 5/8 star-hotel (more on this later), and the boy asked what i wanted to do for the evening. my answer? anything that involves not speaking, listening, hearing stories from the past, attempting to make small-talk or see anything new.
so, pretty much sleeping.
he understood.
happy new year from the nordic lodge on the chilly western slope of colorado.
locations.
this week i am in sunny* craig, colorado and steamboat springs. my french boyfriend got a call a few months ago from a lady who used to show some of his work in her gallery about three years ago. that gallery has since closed, but she is working with two new galleries in steamboat springs, and they wanted the boy to be their first guest artist for 2010.
* [insert sarcasm]
his show will be up all month, with a reception on january first for the monthly artwalk they have. so, because we wanted to see some of his family for Christmas and because he had this show, we are spending the week here in craig and new years eve/day in steamboat springs.
small town america. good times.
this morning i am typing this from a small coffee shop called serendipity, where i’ve just consumed about a half-gallon mug of tea (i seriously have not seen cups of tea this big EVER) and a freshly made cinnamon bun the size of my face. my sugar-coma should come later this morning.
kiddie pool of tea = many trips to the bathroom
my brother tucker and his wife julie with their littles were spending Christmas up in Breckenridge with her family, and so we stopped and had a mini-beer at the dillon dam brewery with my brother, his father-in-law and brother-in-law on our way up. it worked out perfectly, as they happened to be at the restaurant at the exact time we were stopping through, and it’s right off the highway. i love it when things work out perfectly like that, or when you plan out your events so you have the perfect amount of time to do things. it’s an “exact change” kind of perfection that makes me very happy in my life that is otherwise definitely not like that.
so here we sit and type, and to give you an idea of what it’s like to be in small town america, we have been here one day, and the boy has already gotten one comment on his “funny boots”. according to my small town translation book, funny = stylish and cool in the normal world. as we were sitting here, both with our mac laptops out (which, admittedly, is super yuppie, but we both had to get some work done this week and have no internet at his dad’s house where we are staying), this kid walks by and says “whoaaaaa, cool computers!”. that made me laugh.
i have to go now, as the french boyfriend has nearly burned his esophagus with scalding coffee and now i have to type his pretentious artist’s statement for the gallery, while we attempt to make it not pretentious.
shoutouts (as my kids in high school like to do):
– it’s a babypalooza out there right now! my friends sara and irene just had lovely lovely children over this christmas holiday and on christmas as well, so welcome and kisses to babies dawson and tessa; you have great moms and i can’t wait to meet you. i also have no less than three other friends who are welcoming their first babies in the new year. what fun!
– happy anniversary to my mom & dad today!
– to all my old friends i got to see over the last week; good old friends are one of the most valuable treasures in my life, and it’s like a christmas present to see them again. i must get to ironing out my master plan to get all of us to live in one place.
– to my french boyfriend, who makes the holidays very happy and warm for me, and who also looks awfully cute in winter cardigans, boots and scarves.
here’s to ending a very exciting and crazy year, and looking forward to a new decade.
monday morning up!date
although many times it’s an ughpdate, emphasis on the ugh!, today it’s an up!!!date, because it’s my first lovely monday on break. wooooo!
Outside my window… is an ugly steel window well grate. Oh, I should say that I’m in my parent’s basement, otherwise known as “my apartment” or “the well-appointed hovel where my parents graciously let me stay so I can finish college” or, if we’re judging by looks right now, my “refuge camp”. It looks sort of sunny out, though, and when I go upstairs to take in christmas decorations and way too much chex mix, it looks lovely outside.
I am thinking… about the things I need to get done today, which all have nothing to do with Christmas. Over the years I have ended up being very well-prepared for Christmas. This has not come because I am an uber-responsible person, but more because I really love gift-giving, and I need time to think about what might be a good gift for people. So, I start early. I also knew how poor I would be this December (although I grossly underestimated that one), so I planned early.
So instead of Christmas shopping, I am doing pesky administrative things pertaining to medical bills (boo!), student loans and passports, and then moving on to writing literature papers. What fun!
I am thankful for… so many things. Really. I love being able to spend copious amounts of time in proximity to my parents at their cozy home, for friends we get to casually hang out with all the time because they live half a block from us, for family living in the same city, for a life that I like, for a boy that I love immensely, for being engaged, for these mini-snickerdoodle cookies sent to my family by my uncle and aunt. Bursting with thanks, really.
I am wearing… my pajamas still. I attempted to get going and dressed much earlier, but I only was able to accomplish the get going part. Excuse me while I change into actual clothes.
I am remembering… a time when Christmas felt entirely more sad and melancholy than it has in some time. so glad it’s different now.
I am going… to get things done today! I’m channeling my inner Thomas the tank engine: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…
I am currently reading… The Color of Water, a memoir for the Juniors I will be co-teaching next semester. I am also reading a very dry anthology of early American literature that I wish I could just learn by osmosis; however, the pages would get awfully sticky that way.
I am hoping… that my friend Sara gets to have her baby soon!
On my mind… many. many wedding details are on my mind, as well as school. But currently, I’m being diverted by looking at hotels in Europe…J
Noticing that… I think I am a productive person in late morning and early afternoon. Early morning is not so great, and late afternoon is not so great. But late morning and early afternoon I am READY TO GO.
Pondering these words… “I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always … so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.” –Yann Martel, Life of Pi
From the kitchen… oh, I’ve gotten to do some lovely cooking and baking this week. As it turns out, I love to cook – selectively. When I have time, my own kitchen, food that I’ve picked out…then I love it. Maybe at some point in my life I will learn to love it when I have to do it in a compulsory fashion. I HOPE. I picked out recipes to make for my family and my love, so this week it was homemade chex mix, stuffed mushroom caps, the pioneer woman’s wonderfully ridiculous steak with blue cheese onion sauce (Oh.My.Gosh…this just about killed us last night, it was so good), California eggs benedict coming up…delightful.
Around the house… get the bed made, finish some laundry, get my pesky administrative things done, make some headway on my literature papers (they are neverending, I tell you) watch my Paper Heart documentary that I’ve been looking forward too, and helping my mom with cooking for our family’s Christmas celebration which will occur tomorrow! Oh, and cutting the wedding guest list down to a number we can afford, which is SO.PAINFUL.TO.DO. how is it that we know and love so many people? I suppose this is a great problem to have.
One of my favorite things~ snickerdoodles! The cookie, and the name! I think I’d order it just to be able to say it. SNICKER! DOODLE!
From my picture journal… these are gifts I wrapped for the boy. Have I mentioned how much I like to wrap gifts? I do. I like the presentation as much as the giving of special things. I am a sucker for good packaging, it’s true. Anyway, this year I wrapped a few in magazines and a few in an old road atlas, and he loved them.
happy week everyone, and merry christmas!
quotes: on my philosophy towards teaching
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. “
{from the author of the little prince. phew. that one hits me in the gut, it’s so poignant. love.}
sara, darling. 