Category: Daily

1. A few days back I listened to an interview with Jeff Tweedy. (Clarification: Jeff Tweedy was the person being interviewed. He wasn’t in the room with me.) During the interview he said that when he was in the third grade, he tried to convince his classmates that he wrote Born to Run. At nine years old, he recorded the album off of the radio onto a cassette tape and claimed Bruce Springsteen’s gruff and manly voice as his own. I love that so much.

2. On the way home from Meredith’s marimba lesson on Wednesday night, we saw a house that was surrounded by police cars. Because traffic was slow, we ended up right in front of the house as a police officer was leading a dog around the back. Meredith yelled, “IT’S A STEAKHOUSE!” Of course, she meant to say Stake Out and she caught the mistake almost immediately, but still. IT’S A STEAKHOUSE!

3.

These shoes will be under the tree for me in a few weeks. I’ve wanted them for ages because the sight of them makes me want to roll up my jeans and stomp into an Indian buffet where I will sip a mango lassi before heading out to see Nadia Bolz-Weber.

4.

I’m going to see Nadia Bolz-Weber in January. One of my favorite quotes from her is this: My spirituality is most active, not in meditation, but in the moments when I realize God may have gotten something beautiful done through me despite the fact that I am an asshole.

A few weeks ago I went to a craft show at my church. I fell in love with a set of hand-carved hands, but I walked away without buying them. Last Sunday they made their way back into my world again. Cosmic handshake. I love that when the fingers face away, they look just like you do when you’re giving.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday, but this year feels different. A friend of mine lost her son last weekend. He was 21. The circumstances surrounding his death are completely fucked up and senseless and an entire community of people has been left feeling enraged and broken. Although I never met Krystofer, I’ve read several tributes this week. He was a great friend, son, and brother. His passion for music was infectious and he had a gift for spreading joy. He was one of the good guys, and his life will be celebrated in amazing ways. But first, this unimaginable grief.

A few months back I read something Anne Lamott said, and it’s really hitting me this week as I think of my friend:

You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved.

But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

I’m turning off comments for this one. Do me a favor today and just Be There. Appreciate this very moment. And then appreciate this one. And later on? Turn up the music and dance with the limp.

This morning I went to the library to pick up my hot tea book and my black coffee book.

(I also have my car read, which is currently Parker Posey’s memoir and my here-and-there read, which is the brain surgeon book. And I read a lot of nutrition labels and road signs and sometimes music. Thank God for the brothers Angular and Supramarginal Gyrus and their little friends Frontal Lobe and Temporal Lobe!)

I used to be able to play this. It holds every single one of my emotions. Do you have five and a half minutes?

When I walked out of the library, I saw a guy pacing around the parking lot—dark curly hair, probably in his early 30s, big eyebrows, scruffy, smoking a cigarette, wearing a dirty coat. (I feel weird saying his coat was dirty. He might be trying his best and even if there’s the smallest chance that he might end up at this website, I wouldn’t want to embarrass him. Do people still use the word Vagrant? That word just came to mind, but it feels so offensive to me. Like hobo. I made a joke last month about something looking more Hobo Chic than Boho Chic. At the time I thought it was SO CLEVER, but now I regret it.)

I got into my car and put the books on the passenger seat. The guy walked in front of my car and down the side of the library. I started the car and began screwing around with my book files to get Parker Posey to read to me. The guy walked back toward my car and headed to the library entrance. I took a drink of my (cold and stale) coffee and put the car into reverse. The guy showed up in my rear view mirror which was weird because wasn’t he just headed toward the entrance? He motioned for me to go ahead and back up, and he stepped out of the way to make room for me. So I backed up.

And that’s when he started screaming The F Word at me. “F YOU and your F-ing car!!! F, F, F!!!” (His cursing clearly lacked creativity, if variety is indicative of imagination.) As I drove off of the parking lot, I saw a younger woman exiting the library. SO, I circled around to make sure she stayed okay. By the time I got back to the lot, the woman was still standing there, but the guy was gone. (I then called the library and told them what just went down. I’m a quivering blend of diligence and tenacity.)

I believe this will be my next knitting project, and the scar on my chin is an illusion.

This website has been hacked every week since September something or other. When I say “hacked” I’m not really sure what I mean other than someone keeps going in and changing my login information and then I have to reach out to my hosting company and they have to block a bunch of suspicious IP addresses and maybe remove a few thousand weird links to sport jersey shops.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting on the couch and all I want is to introduce you to this goat I met a few weeks ago.

I’m not sure what his name is or even if he IS a he. All I know is that I called him Jones and I fed him grass and told him a few stories about my life that I don’t tell very many people. (Jones just had that thing about him that makes you want to talk.)

This has happened three times in the past year, and it happened again last week: I ordered a Starbucks grande nonfat caramel macchiato with extra caramel drizzle. (Ugh. I know. Sometimes I despise people like me.) I tend to order on my phone from my car and then I walk into the store and bypass the line because I don’t want to talk to anyone. (Not because I’m unfriendly, but because I like to save my words.) I waited at the mobile order station until the barista yelled, “Mobile order for Angela!” and then I grabbed the drink, walked back out to my car, and drove away. Upon first swill, I realized it wasn’t the drink I ordered. It was ANOTHER Angela’s drink.

I know I’m not the only Angela in the world, but the fact that I’ve grabbed some other Angela’s drink THREE TIMES in the past year is sort of noteworthy, right? Last week’s Angela had ordered a gingerbread latte with three shots of espresso and three pumps of gingerbread syrup. And it was very okay, and because I was suffering through a migraine at the time, that extra dose of caffeine came in handy. The Angelas all take care of each other. The Angelas know.

I drank Angela’s drink while watching the clouds roll in at the park.

In the past month, a park has gone up near our street, and a cookie cafe has opened less than two miles away.

It’s almost like I’m living in a George Gershwin tune.

When I picked Harper up from school on Friday, I turned right into the park instead of left into the subdivision. I got out of the car and I walked and I stomped and I took photos and I wondered why the park planners didn’t bury the electrical wires.

Please let me take this opportunity to tell you that the above photo used to have an electrical wire in it, and that wire forced me to learn how to remove wires from photos. Always trying to turn a bad scene into a good scene, I am.

The final sentence in the previous paragraph is an unintentional segue into obscurity. I spent a good part of today trying to turn a bad scene into a good scene and sometimes I just really don’t know how to mom stomp teenager sadness. When an offer of burritos doesn’t turn things around, I have no idea how to proceed. (Wait. Did you hear that noise? That was me emitting a melodramatic sigh.)

I started decorating for Christmas on Friday. Decorating is a slow dance for me, and this is probably where I should tell you that I still have a few Christmas decorations up from last year. I dig a constant Christmas vibe.

This was the first photo I put up on Flickr.

It was Halloween and Harper was six months old.
Meredith was two and a half.

Suddenly, a year went by and Harper was 18 months old and Meredith was three and a half.

And everything kept happening and happening.

At some point they started doing their own things on Halloween, and now they’re thirteen and fifteen and Harper is hanging out here to hand out candy and Meredith is out watching a scary movie with friends and our noses and ears continue to grow.

Here comes a bad word as an adjective, and its root is repeated as a noun four sentences later.

Yesterday was just a really shitty day. I had a headache. I couldn’t get into my website. I had to go to the mall because Meredith needs a dress. Some crazy shit went down at the pretzel place. I locked myself in a dark garage (on purpose) for an hour because I couldn’t bear to see or hear people or dogs. Xanax.

Ah, but today? Today was good. I ate a waffle with my mom. I went over to Tempe’s place to knit and watch Hinterland. I ate a falafel gyro and drank what I believe was my first soda in over a year. (Diet Dr. Pepper!)

People, get ready. There’s a train coming.

Back in May, I ordered two books. BOTH of them published today, and both of them were in my mailbox when I got home from Tempe’s place.

It’s To Kill a Mockingbird as a graphic novel (I hate the red “A GRAPHIC NOVEL” circle on the cover) and I have no idea how to feel about it. Yet. I will surely have opinions. Eventually.

I go way back with Beastie Boys. I was quoted one time in my high school newspaper, and that quote was about me wanting to quit school and go on tour with Beastie Boys. When Prince released Purple Rain in 1984, my world was changed. When Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill was released in 1986, everything in my life was classified as “before I heard Licensed to Ill” or “after I heard Licensed to Ill.” I’m 20 pages in and absolutely loving the book. It feels like Christmas.

Tomorrow is Halloween. Not my favorite. BUT, it will feel good knowing that Joe Biden is in town. (I *know* you don’t like him. Just let me dance, okay? We should all be able to dance without fear, right? Even children of non-citizens who were born on US soil.)

We got determination—bass and highs.
White Castle fries only come in one size.

It’s difficult to succeed at NaBloPoMo when you have people from Turkey and China changing the passwords to your site so that you may no longer gain entry. (I’m seriously not making this up.)

They opened a park by our house. Within it is a dog park. Scout knows the way.

1. I was unable to access my website earlier today because my username and password had somehow been changed. Understanding these issues and caring about them has become increasingly difficult for me. I just want to type, you know?

2. I’m all zonked on migraine meds right now yet I AM STILL HERE UPDATING THIS WEBSITE. Tenacity!

3. This morning Jeff and I had breakfast with friends. During breakfast, I told a very inappropriate joke. Sometimes I get all excited to have friends and suddenly I get nervous and I should probably retire my all-time favorite joke because every day finds it becoming less funny. BUT, the important takeaway? This morning Jeff and I had breakfast with friends. And (if you can ignore the joke) it was perfect.

4. I’m reading and listening to a book titled Do No Harm, and I AM IN. It’s all brain surgery and short stories. And so is my life, really.

5. This song is good for this time of this day.