I'm giving you a longing look  I've been listening to this song a lot in the past few days.  There's something special about the lyrics - I really like that line "when your dreamboat turns out to be a footnote."  Ah, Elvis.

SHIT, this is HARD!!!!!

Welcome to the Year of the Water Buffalo!

It was perfect, you know, with just one little problem

I'd write more songs if Khaela Maricich didn't already write perfect ones.

Fists Up - The Blow

Everybody ought get on top of a hill at some point and yell at the top of their lungs: "MY LOVE IS THE LOUVRE!"  Because it's true.

I cherish with fondness the day (before I met you)
I'm not crazy about this video, but this song makes me want to jump up and down on a trampoline.


This video is pretty good. The song is too. Look how fresh they all look!

Fiery Crashes
I'm a little scared of a lot of stuff, and in that lot of stuff includes flying. It wasn't always this way - this fear crept up on me just in the past few years. As flying became more routine, I became more afraid of it. I used to take flying easily, flipping through the Sky Mall catalog during the safety demonstration and lift off, seatbelt fastened and my feet rested on top of my carry-on bag. Nowadays, the power of the plane feels overwhelming, and I've become sensitive to the whir of the engines and the plane sounds - cruising down the tarmac, adjusting of the wings. Airports have started to feel more desparate too, with so many people rushing and the staleness of the air and the atmosphere feeling like it's crushing me.

My mom always warned me about thinking or talking about disaster, as if by doing so you're invoking the event to happen. Probably from constantly being told not to do that, I can't help but do it, and by imagining the disaster happening is the only way to keep myself calm. I am in the mindset for a smoky demise should it happen. I imagine the rush out the exit door, people throwing themselves from the blow up slide, maybe scrambling to grab their belongings they're expected to leave behind, the fire, the heat, the CNN report. And then I can feel the rattle of the overhead bins and the speed pick up in the plane, and I close my eyes. I open them and I'm right where I was before, just a mile straight up.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Trading Places Moving to Chicago has always been something in the back of my mind, but nothing I ever took seriously. I usually keep it as an escape hatch - the thought of retreating to my new-home-that's-not-home was the adult equivalent of my childhood habit of keeping a backpack runaway-ready, filled with granola bars and my favorite toys. If shit got too bad, I knew I could take off, there was someplace to go. Traveling there last weekend and seeing my family reminded me that it's not exactly an escape plan, but perhaps a good idea to try out. Not that Minneapolis is missing anything - far from it. I have wonderful friends, I know where to buy good stuff, the fast way to drive across town. I guess I'm romancing the notion of starting over, and testing my ability to roll and experience things new again. It's the allure of discovery. It also doesn't hurt that I do feel a little retreated and sad, and nothing mends feelings of loneliness like feelings of resilience. "Well fine then. I'LL JUST LEAVE, MINNEAPOLIS. See how you like it!"

Maybe there's something wonderful waiting for me. Maybe it'll be worse. Maybe it would be just like here.

What I do know is that Chicago holds the cocoon of my family to envelop myself in. I want delude myself into believing that the Mpls/Chicago proximity makes my family "close by," but really it's not. I can't just have lunch with my sister this weekend. I can't drop in for birthday cake. If I make too many cookies, I'm probably not going to UPS them. (Well, I might, but it's not as easy or fun as dropping them off.) I've grown to envy my friends who have their family close, where the holidays aren't dictated by airline prices or weather reports. That might be my signal to leave; at least for a little while.

My sister emailed me a quote she read in the Chicago Tribune today:
"Tough times never last. Tough people do."

I really do love Minneapolis. My heart feels alive here. It's a question of whether I can take that with me, or if I'll have to leave it behind.