Ramble On

Say Cheese

I probably shouldn't put this up so soon after posting my Christmas wish list...but this is the funniest picture of my mom ever. We have all laughed and laughed.

Edit:
Here is a response excerpted from an email from my sister:
"I think you all have too much time on your hands! If so, please feel free to take one of my children...preferably, the bad one."

(She's kissing butt and acting like she hasn't laughed at Mom because she knows Mom is in the midst of holiday shopping, and her Amazon list is 400 times bigger than mine.)

You Can't Always Get What You Want (but it helps to ask)

The only people who will need to read this post are 1) my mom and 2) Ross, who drew my name in the sibling gift exchange drawing.

    My Amazon Christmas Wish List: Here are some books I want. My list is chock full of good depressing writing dealing with mortality and/or dysfunction. You can sort them by priority.

    I also want a pair of really warm, comfy slippers. Fleece would be good. Either brown or black, size 5. Good luck. Apparently people with small feet are just supposed to have cold toes all the time.
    If Santa can't bring me what I want most of all, someone who will stop by to fill my car up with gasoline once a week (currently my most dreaded task, now that I love grocery shopping), I really can't think of anything else I need.

-------
Wow, writing a letter to Santa that involves posting to a blog and copying html to link to a place that sells what you want... times sure have changed.

Change of Plans

    Every month $125 dollars gets taken out of my account to pay the rent for my storage unit. My access code is a phone number from two houses and several years ago. Today it took me a while to remember this number so I could punch it into the keypad
.     When I stand outside the metal door, with the scraped paint that is the only way I can identify which unit is mine, it feels like I am standing outside of a time capsule. Inside are pieces of furniture that have been wrapped and stored, waiting for a home. Most of my art supplies and tools are stored in the back where I can’t get to them, but I can see them and know one day I will be using them again. Boxes and boxes of books are stacked and probably what I miss the most. Mementos and relics gather dust. I haven’t been inside for months and months and today when I lifted up the squeaky door, I stood looking around and taking inventory. I had this odd feeling that I didn’t really know the person whose possessions I saw stored. I caught myself standing there with my hands on my hips, shaking my head with the same expression on my face that I use to make when students in my classroom were acting silly, kind of like that expression you make when a much younger person states a belief with so much conviction and you sadly know that in time they will come to see they were wrong. I can only roll my eyes now at the naiveté and misguided optimism I had at the time I needed to rent the storage unit. It seems so long ago. I was a different person.
    Then I snapped back to the task at hand, the purpose of my visit. Habit is just repeating what you know to do mainly because you don’t know what else to do, and so I felt like I needed to retrieve my holiday decorations. Last year I wasn’t in the festive mood, but this year I feel more in the spirit of the season and put decking the hall on the day’s checklist. My good intentions were thwarted when I could not reach the boxes. I strained and reached and waved my arm at them, but I fell short by about three feet. I’d stop and catch my breath and try again. After realizing I would have to reschedule today’s task for Holiday Season 2007, I sat down on a box to rest from all the straining and the effort of trying to move double ovens and such. And then I just kept sitting, for almost twenty minutes, looking around and hoping I might feel more connected to the person whose name was on all the boxes around me.
    Tomorrow I am going to call my 7-year-old nephew and see if he wants to make plans to come spend the night with me and help me decorate a tiny tree. I am sure that whatever we make together will contain more cheer and good tidings than anything in those boxes anyway. I am excited.

Thankful For Things Big and Small

    Why, on a day I don't have to work and can sleep as late as I want, do I wake up even earlier than normal? I am just watching the clock until it is late enough in the morning that I can call people without waking them. About three hours to go...
    Thanksgiving was wonderful, as usual. I am most thankful, now, that I don't have to eat today. I may feel stuffed until Sunday.

Here's a little somebody to make me thankful. Note Max's new styling haircut. No more mad scientist curls for him.
    Having a designated day to be thankful for what you have is nice, but I am aware of my blessings and thankful for them everyday. My family, friends, my health, the fact that I am fortunate enough to not have to worry about how I am going to put food on my plate or clothes on my body, that I live in a place where I don't have to constantly worry about my safety and can go to the store without the fear that it might be a suicide bomber's next target. That... Okay, I don't want to bum myself out while thinking of all the reasons I am thankful, so I deleted a few sentences that were veering off into morbidity.

(I am also very thankful that when I got home last night Henry had NOT pooped on the floor outside the litter box. Two consecutive days!!!!)

On Every Corner

My friend Kara told me she went to a funeral yesterday that was held in one of those big mega-churches. She said the church was so big her friend went up to the balcony to take a picture with her cell phone to show people. I was like, yeah, yeah, big church, okay.

Then she told me the Fellowship Hall had a Starbucks.

Big Church.

(We didn't have anything like that at the teeny Southern Baptist fire and brimstone church I attended when I was little. We did have a bunch of old ladies who could churn out Congealed Salads in some massive quantities, though.)

Weekend Faves

Favorite Meal: Saturday night's birthday dinner for Susan in Cabbagetown. Or I should say, Carb-agetown. I went off my diet pretty severely. It was a sacrifice I felt I needed to make to show my love for the Suse.

Favorite Quote: "and that just added fuel to my I Married A Crazy Person Theory..." (Spoken by a happily married person)

Favorite Purchase: My new necklace from Mitzi and Romano. Laura was finishing up her Christmas shopping, but I had a one-track mind - ME, ME, ME. (I did buy a gift for Susan, but I had already picked it out before the weekend.)

Favorite Purchase I Haven't Paid For Yet: My new paintings, a series of three small canvases, that I brought home on approval from City Issue. They are definitely keepers. They look so great on my wall that I was inspired to go on a cleaning frenzy to make the surroundings more worthy.

Favorite Thing About The Weekend, Other Than My Old Friend's Visit: Knowing I only had a two-day work week ahead of me!

Blog Fodder

I got this from another blog. I don't normally like these types of things, but I have always been kind of interested in those "life lists" and seeing where I am as far was what I have experienced and what I still need to do. I do have a mental list of things I want to do in my life. This isn't it, someone else made this up. But it was still interesting to see how many things I could check off. Some of these items aren't things you would hope to accomplish. You can probably check off more things than me.
What have you done: mine are in bold....
01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
The rest of the list is after the jump.

Things You Shouldn't Say

Yesterday I had to have a mammogram. (Did that make you cringe to read? I noticed when I said that in passing, as in a response to what are you doing today, to a couple of people, that they visibly cringed.) Anyway, so I went to the office and the lady took all the x-ray shots and then she called me back because she needed another shot of one area. I was like, okay, whatever. Then she came back and told me I could get dressed and said "no matter what you end up having, I hope it turns out all good".

I went to the dressing room and started putting on my clothes but I was all freaked out. Then I remembered we had had a brief exchange while she was positioning me about Thanksgiving and what we were going to be cooking next week. I assume that is what she was referring to, but God, she could have just said enjoy your turkey.

Flashback Friday

This picture is from a visit to Colorado to see my friend Laura one summer. I think we were both 26 in this picture. I probably shouldn't have chosen this photo since I recently posted one showing me on another mountain with another friend and it makes me look a lot more outdoorsy than I actually am. But Laura is coming to visit this weekend so it seemed like a good choice.

Laura and I met as art students in Athens. I am rushed for time right now, or I would write about the first time we went out together. It involved the 40 Watt, Jagermeister, and ended with her spending the night sleeping on a bench on North Campus. We've been friends ever since. Laura and I don't see each other often and aren't very regular communicators. Fortunately, we have one of those friendships where as soon as we are together we pick right back up and it is like no time has passed since we last saw each other. I am looking forward to a fun weekend hanging out with her. She will help us celebrate Susan F's birthday on Saturday.

I have to run now, but let me say thanks to Kathy, Dave, and Amy for their camera recommendations.  SantaMom, if you are reading this, I will be in touch.

Suggestions?

I need to get a new digital camera. The trouble is that I hate doing all the comparison shopping and product review reading that I know I should do before making any kind of electronics purchase. I'd rather find someone who has recently purchased the same thing I need and has done all that boring research and then just go get what they bought. (This only applies to electronics. For furniture or design objects, I can spend hours and hours looking into all the choices to make the best decisions.) I almost bought a flat screen tv a couple of weeks ago, even though I don't have cable or even necessarily want a tv, only because I knew my friend Susan had just spent a lot of time doing research before she bought her new tv and I felt like I should take advantage of this and rush out and get the same tv myself. Even if it just sat in a box.

So help me out. If you have bought a digital camera in the last few months and really like it and would recommend it to someone in the market, please send an email to di_atlATyahoo.com. Or you can just leave a comment, but I know most of you who read this aren't big on commenting. Or just remember to tell me the next time you see me.

Thanks!

Edit: So far I have gotten a great recommendation for the Fujifilm s5000 or 5200.