yoga, books, movies, tv & too many crime procedurals – not necesarily in that order
I don’t have one of those gadgets that allows you to play your mp3 player through the car stereo. I KNOW. I’ll wait for your shock to subside.
Normally I’d just put my earbuds in while I cruise the highway but 1) my Zune is still on its way back from the Zune hospital 2) mini workout-player is in Spouse’s truck and 3) so are the earbuds. All of this means I am FUCKED for a 2 hour drive. Except…
My CR-V has a six disc cd changer. I’ve had a few random discs in there for a while and by random I mean Juliana Hatfield, Mary J. Blige, Kate Nash eclectic (see above re: earbuds). At the last minute, I remembered that I still own some actual physical CDs – I KNOW – so I grabbed some faves. Here was my soundtrack for the drive to the Springs:
1. Patty Griffin, Living with Ghosts
This album remains in my top 5 of all time. Spare and gorgeous, not to mention awesome to sing along with.
2. Sarah Harmer, You Were Here
Smart lyrics, catchy beats – also fun for singalong.
3. Beastie Boys, Ill Communication
I remember when this album came out and there was NOTHING on the radio that sounded like it. It was the first glimpse of the “real” Beasties and their Sabotage video became legendary. ‘Cause you can’t, you won’t and you don’t stop.
4. Chris Isaak, Heart Shaped World
10th grade A.P. English trip to Toronto. I bought the tape and did my damndest to wear it out. Apparently I did the same with this disc because fully two songs won’t play anymore. Boo. Still love EVERY single tune.
5. Joan Osborne, Relish
One of my favorite albums ever and possibly in my top five Debut Albums. What if God was One of Us is still a good song but my fave without question is Right Hand Man. That song made me a fan for life.
6. Van Morrison, Moondance
Sentimental favorite. Someone asked me what my favorite song was a week or so ago – I’ve got a ton of faves but my favorite love song probably EVER is Into the Mystic.
So those are the discs I cranked through on the drive down. The way back has a whole other handful of discs.
I’ve been reading so there will, actually, be an update to the book list but I’m not sure it’ll get done today. On top of that, I may make the drive to Aspen tomorrow to FINALLY get to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I’m inordinately excited about the film and it’s totally worth the trip.
So in November/December, my Toshiba laptop died and I didn’t have anything so vital on the hard drive that I felt like I’ve needed to spend a lot of time scavenging said hard drive. In fact, because I use a Zune player, all the music I had on the previous laptop is now happily ensconced on my current laptop without any sort of drama or difficulty. What I discovered last night is that it ALSO transferred some audio that I thought I’d lost – a bunch of random yoga workouts, most of which I haven’t even listened to/watched.
So the awesome news is that I now have lots of random yoga workouts to go through and help with some motivation.
Not so awesome, Spouse is sick. He’s actually been sick for several days and doesn’t seem to be getting much better. As a result I’m trapped on the couch watching what is possibly one of the top five worst movies of all time: Land of the Lost. My only explanation is that he’s sick and a bit delusional and that’s what is making this steaming pile of shit entertaining. To him.
Meanwhile, I’ve got TWO DAYS OFF IN A ROW. If I didn’t have a metric asston of stuff to do, it would almost feel like a weekend!
With so many things to blog about, where do I start?
How about this: I’m watching I Hate Valentine’s Day and I think maybe the only thing Nia Vardalos has changed since My Big Fat Greek Wedding is her eyebrows. Alas, it’s not a change for the good. I find these eyebrows or the makeup or something about it to be weirdly distracting.
Books! I finally finished Finch. While I enjoyed the story I loathed the fragments. I will not reread it and I won’t be looking for more of VanderMeer’s work. Also finished The Year of the Flood, Atwood’s latest and I really enjoyed it. In fact, it made me want to reread Oryx and Crake (again) and then YotF right behind it. I didn’t though – I read Silver Borne, the latest Mercy novel from Patricia Briggs. Pretty happy with the whole novel but I think I put more details on my 2010 reading list page.
I’m also in the middle of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Not sure if I just hadn’t heard anything about it but I was expecting something really different. Thus far, engaging protag and interesting story.
Our flights were uneventful. Against what must be the largest number of odds, on each flight I was seated next to someone who was going to be visiting our new hometown in the near future. I really loathe seating process of Southwest. Frankly I don’t see anything wrong with being able to check and and get my seat assignment early, INCLUDING a spot next to my spouse, rather than depending on the kindness of strangers allowing me to sit next to him. Add unnecessary seat-partner anxiety to all the least fun parts of air travel (cattle call loading and unloading) with a dose of ‘whoever gets there first, wins’ and yeah, it’s not my most enjoyable travel. I was also not enamored of the Southwest/Kevin Smith debacle, where they were dicks and he was unjustly thrown off a flight. Those things mean I’m not sure we’ll be flying Southwest again.
Seattle was lovely as are my long-distance friends. Probably I’ll upload some pictures soon and then get on with the whole yoga post.
Due to my work schedule, Saturdays are my Sunday which makes Sunday my Monday. It’s discombobulating because despite KNOWING which day it is, I tend to act based on what day it feels like. So I make calls that I’d normally make Monday or try to run errands that I can’t run until everyone else’s Monday.
In order to stave off cutting my hair again, I’ve recolored it (again). Back to a nice shade of auburn which should settle me for a while.
In TV news, last night was I Love You, Man which still cracks me up. It’s funny in no small part because I think the social activities that have traditionally allowed social interaction have shifted over the years, making it harder to find companionship. The idea of “dating” friends is funny but mostly because it’s true. How do you make new friends these days?
We’re pretty excited about our travel plans. Less so about having to pay the government this year. I generally dread tax season and this year was a double-bonus of suck. Feh.
In 2 months, though we’ll be headed back to Michigan for a visit! It’ll be nice to see some old friends and the family.
Tomorrow’s excitement includes laundry, going to the bank, getting dog supplies together for the sitter, making up spare beds, packing clothes and generally wrapping up loose ends.
I love reading other blogs about what people (who aren’t paid to) are reading/watching/listening to but I often forget to blog about those kinds of things myself.
We watched Sorority Row last night while I worked on our taxes and what was hilarious about it was that our friend J hasn’t seen Scream. Definite bonus points for creative death and dismemberment.
I’ve been on a kick lately – I rewatched The Little Mermaid a couple of weeks ago and then put the soundtrack on my Zune. I remember being at Danielle’s house and singing along with the movie (I swear we knew the whole film by heart) more times than I should ever admit to. We also spent an absurd amount of time watching The New Mickey Mouse Club. Yes, I know.
The music is great – better than the film, really. According to the film, in order to win your man you should seem vacuous and behave somewhat dangerously. Go team GIRLS. Also, Disney gutted the very best parts of the HCA story – the parts that made it REALLY compelling – but whatever. I have two places in my heart – one for the pretty and fun Disney version and the other for Hans Christian Andersen’s truly awesome tale.
Because of this, I rented The Princess and the Frog. I’ve got to say that I like it a lot. I wasn’t really tempted to see Mulan at all (possibly because I thought Pocahontas was TERRIBLE) so Disney is possibly trying to win me back. Or doesn’t care about me at all and will keep churning out their crap because it makes them metric asstons of cold, hard cash. Anyhow, the music in the movie is pretty great as well and for the first time EVER, I’m tempted to check out the “inspired by the movie” cd I saw in the store.
Tonight’s dinner was homemade Green Chili Chorizo in Queso Fundido and it was fantastic. We’re watching Best in Show – a film that despite a hundred viewings NEVER fails to crack me up.
Funny for completely DIFFERENT reasons (and no less entertaining) XXX, which is also on. We’re flipping back and forth because we have the attention spans of labrador retrievers.
