Friday, December 31, 2010

Another Year Gone...

So, 2010 was not my year for blogging, I know this. But as I am also not that good with the "year in review" or the "resolution making" or even much reflecting, I'll just leave it at that.

Every year is different. This one had so many things going on, most times all at the same time, that finally when I had time to sit and share...it was such old news and already competing withe "the next thing" that I'd give up and delete the draft I'd half-started. I have a super awesome grand appreciation for all the bloggers with families. How you do it I have no clue. I am shocked and amazed that I can get myself up and dressed and fed and to work some days...and it's JUST ME! You all rock, is all I'm saying.

I have no plans for 2011, aside from trying to keep the noise at a tolerable level. But that's always been my hope. Less stress, more time for me....more time to share.

You know it's taken me this long to go through and organize my vacation pictures from November? And this is due mainly because I promised a HS friend I'd get her the pictures? Seriously, with purpose, and forethought, and motivation! And hello a month and a half and I am still getting them ready to upload to flikr, or wherever. "Wherever" being more sought after as I don't seem to have a clue as to who or where or how I signed up to flikr...so when I asked for my password...that spiffy email they send? Not in any of my inboxes...

See? Sample of my insanity lately. It's like I've fallen off the disorganization tree and hit every branch on the way down. (Does that twisted analogy work?) Can you tell when I write lately I'm all stream-of-consciousness/one-take? I used to do this with letters back in the day, you know, before computers? Before hours and hours and a click of a couple keys could reorganize whole paragraphs and no one could tell you wrote a page and a half and then deleted it when you thought better?

I could say I'm doing the Kurt Vonnegut thing, he was all about the writing one sentence at a time thing and not going back...except I'd be lying as I just thought of that this very moment. It's more that I missed that era of my writing.

We're so good at self-editing now-a-days that no one sounds like who they really are anymore. I do it all day in emails and calls for work, but lately also for facebook comments and even phone conversations. I really and truly I feel like I've lost a little be of who I am/was. I titled this blog tactlesswonder for a reason...as a place for me to share and get it all down and out and...well...I stopped that. I started pouring over my prose to make sure everything was "just right." That everyone and anyone who came across it would see I'm not a danger or a threat or an offense. And I'm not sure why.

So I stopped. Blogging became more than a 10-15 minute update, it became WORK. I do enough of that already.

So maybe this is me making a resolution of sorts, except I started it this year instead of next. I'm posting what I'm doing/thinking/being from-the-hip. Short and sporadic updates seem to be my thing now, but they are me again. Or so I hope. I feel like I'm trying to find my "voice" again, and like my aging body and it's molasses-style of healing? It's slow-going. Slower than my patience is happy with (what patience? where? did I miss something?...)

SO! Everyone! Thus ends another year! I hope you spend it in the company of wonderful friends and/or family (or both for you lucky peeps). May the new year be filled with lots and lots of hope and positive thoughts and a boatload of motivation and wishes and unicorns and rainbows and anything else you can throw in the mix.

Happy New Year's Eve! I will clink-clink to you now as I'll probably be snoring by the time the date change happens...not that I snore! Girls don't snore...or something ;).

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Like Getting Blood Out of a Turnip

Or so I hope....

Dear Con Artists,
I know by now Lost has probably been translated and parsed out to a multiple of countries but I'm going to say this now, what worked for Sawyer will not work for you. We've all been getting the million Zambian dollar emails for years now, we know better, really, so please stop trying to take my parents' money!

I understand how hard you've been working, what with them not being a part of the Internet generation you've had to take extreme measures and (gasp!) CALL them on the telephone, but still, really and truly, they are not so gullible (thank god) to believe that they have just won a thousand dollars!!!!!

And as old and hurty as they are? No, they will not gather up $200 cash to give you when you send them "magical" medicines to cure their ills(!!!).

And lastly? fake Mexican relative that just got into an accident and they will be sending you to jail unless you get wired $1000? Say hi to your new jailmate rommie, they didn't fall for that one either.

And really, fake Mexican uncle? You are the one I'm most offended by. So offended I'm writing you a letter! On teh internets!

You've got a big brass set to go calling someone out of the telephone book, I'm thinking, and introducing yourself by saying, "Hello! Who do you remember from way back in Mexico!" When you heard my mom's voice answer the phone (in Spanish, of course). And how UTTERLY convenient that when she said the first name that came to her head, that name was your name too! SHAME, dude. How many numbers did you have to call before you got someone to speak to you and/or answer in Spanish, I wonder...

And then! THEN! John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, going on and on about how you were just finished filling the tank up with gas in Tijuana and were a mere few hours away and couldn't way to see her again!!!! Her, not your brother, but your sister in law? Really? And when she said your voice sounded nothing like her BIL you had the gaul to say it was because you had the flu?!? Cuz why? You thought maybe they were so soon off the turnip truck that they didn't know that these wires and tubes and electrical devices transported your voice so clearly that it's almost like they're in the same room with you? Hi, it's just shy of 2011 here boy-o, time to buy a clue.

Color me naive, but maybe I'da fallen for it too, just for a second, after a few Manhattans. Thank you jeebus that my mom doesn't partake of the fire-water. Instead she said, "Well, okay, see you when you get here," without having shared her name and address AND letting my dad know (you know, your brother? the one you didn't ask about?) that something was afoot. Which was a good thing when your SECOND call came, the one wherein you got into that accident and now "waily waily" they want to send you to jail because the driver's little girl got smashed into the windshield! (There is a special hell for such creativity you know.) And can your wonderful family send you the money before they haul you off to Mexican jail!?! (I'm guessing, seeing as you'd just called to say you were in TJ.)

Props to my dad for being equally creative, speaking to you telling you how sorry he was but "carnal," totally tapped for money due to the mint and a half he spent during xmas (see referenced turnip comment above).

You failed in your effort to extort money from my parents, but what you did do? You bastard? You upset them. You put doubt into them about what if it was him? What if we really didn't recognize his voice? What if he really is in trouble? A few phone calls cleared that up, but the damage was done, you ass. If anyone has earned the right to upset my parents, that's me, not you! Who the hell do you think you are anyway? Dude, I'm a firm believer in both Karma and bad juju and with the ferocity of bad feelings I'm directing your way? You'd just better watch out.

Sincerely,
Your Loving Niece

Friday, December 24, 2010

I Couldn't Resist

My love of Neil Gaiman + my twisted nature = sharing Nicolas Was with you all.

39 Degrees North: Christmas Card 2010 from 39 Degrees North on Vimeo.


Merry Christmas!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

I'm As Bad as My Former Students...

I go on vacation tomorrow for the rest of the year (I know, it's only a little over a week, but it sounds much more fabulous to say "rest of the year" vs "one week" you know?)

And I don't want to go to work today.

I doana wanna! How poopie. Who invented work anyway! (And whateverallelse my students were prone to say on the last day before any holiday/break/summer vacation.)

But I am an adult! Or so I keep reminding myself...and I need to finish the tasks I've set out on my cube door (we have frosted glass "doors" on our cubes for "head down" time which I found out preeeetty early on - day one? That you can write on with dry-erase markers. I know, I am a dweeb, but it gives me a place to write my agenda like the old days...or something...)

Anyhow...just popping in to say I'm still here, maybe drowning in work a little, but it's okay, see above re: vacation. ONE MORE DAY!

I can do this.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Xmas Shopping Blows

Last night at the holiday party a co-worker's wife asked if we all did the "holiday" thing.

Living two blocks away from the "downtown shopping center" has reminded me just about daily since "Black Friday" what I hate about that same-old holiday thing. The daily emails telling me how much I'm missing out on all the discounts for all the shopping I'm not doing is not helping lift my "spirits."

I did put up the mini metal xmas tree-shaped ornament holder my friend gifted when she was packing for Australia. If it were a teensy bit taller it would be a much better way for me to display my FULL SIZED ornaments...but it's not, so it kinda looks a bit Jack-Skelington-style Xmas instead of what I pictured...but um, whatevers, it's the thought that counts, or something. And at least my little ever-greenie plant thing isn't bowing under their weight this year. (In a more Charlie Brown Xmas Tree style that pulled at my heart strings just a little too much last year.)

The holidays bring me down in a odd way. Thanksgiving is the beginning of the end. It used to be the last time that we could all be happy about getting together for a big meal and not be blasted by the ads and commercials and nonsense of the capitalistic nature of the US (my Santa Cruz is showing, sorry.) This year, though, it started in July...

Color me naive, but that whole "Xmas in July" thing had absolutely NOTHING to do with getting together with friends and family and being happy to be together and spend time with the kids and play and laugh and eat to excess...it was all about buying stuff. Because buying stuff is supposed to make us all happy! (These people need to watch an episode or three of hoarders, I think.)

What really got to me was when I was in LA last month. When the tee vee was on, it was commercial after commercial after commercial for toys and widgets an gadgets that you had to have to make this holiday special...um, this was a week before Turkey Day. What happened to waiting until Black Friday? I'm just being one of those old folks who go off about "back in my day" here, aren't I?

I guess I'm just holding a little pity party for myself as I have to go brave the crowds to find a birthday gift for my nephew, as well as visit Hay See Penny's for the very specific thing my mom said she'd love another pair of (gramma jeans, my mom wants gramma jeans...sigh, and people wonder just how I developed into the fashion queen I am :).).

How do people do non-xmas shopping during this time? I'm already strategizing which grocery stores I will be limited to as anything connected to any shopping center's parking lots will be prohibitively full by 8AM...and I don't know about you...but that's just not my cuppa tea either.