happy halloween!

dwelling...

i don’t know what the hell is wrong with me today. i seem to be going through a lot more emotions, and it’s conflicting with my normal state of mind. i know it’s mostly pms.

i don’t get cramps or chocolate cravings… i get weepy and introspective. things hurt a lot more than they normally would. rather, my head is forcing me to feel things that i wouldn’t normally let myself feel.

this may sound odd, but one of my fears is dwelling on toys. i don’t like going through the toy aisle at stores, or lingering too long in front of garden gnomes. i have an irrational love of inanimate objects with faces. i know what ruined me: stories like the velveteen rabbit and the brave little toaster. i hate thinking about the demise of things.

i am guessing this is so sharp in my head lately b/c of my dad. i watched his demise. it happened too quickly. faster than a child abandons a birthday teddy bear.

so i’m afraid of things going away. of bad change. a lot of stressful things are happening in my life right now (neverending…), and some of them risk incorporating bad change into my life. some of them are irrational stresses - things i know better than to dwell about. but once you start dwelling, it’s hard not to keep going.

blah.

iDog

so we finally gave in. we got ourselves a puppy! he's the cutest little guy ever. mule found him, just begging to be taken home. i know i know, it's not what you'd expect us responsible kids to do.

we havent picked a name yet, and we dont have his official pedigree. all we know is that he's terribly adorable and very very smart. he loves to have his head scratched, and his nose rubbed. but, his favorite thing is music. we played him stuff from all different genres, and he "danced" to them all! he is a big responsibility, but i think we're ready for it.

would you like to see him at his cutest??!

no no no! not yet!!!

i think it was the year before i moved to MN that there was a humongus blizzard on halloween. since it was still fresh in memory, it was all my fellow freshmen could talk about once the weather turned colder. i saw pictures, made readily available by homesick bunkmates, of 18 year olds in halloween garb and columbia boots, throwing snowballs at each other. i smiled and nodded. "yeah, i'm from IL, we have bad winters too - windy city, ya know?" and of course, that year happened to be la nina: the mildest winter MN had seen in a decade.

the following winter was similar. and the one after that. senior year, the year i had to drive to my classes, i got my first full-fledged MN winter experience. it's not what you'd expect either. my memory holds picutres of mounds of snow taller than myself, of ice skating on the twice frozen lawn, of thawing my piggies in warm water after hours of skiing. what, oh what did MN show me? below zero temperatures.

ice cold wind blowing in from all directions, swirling around your thick jacket, hat and mittens, finding every single piece of skin showing and making sure to threaten it with frostbite. i owned relatively good winter clothing before this fateful winter. i am a bit of a winter enthusiast - broom ball, ice skating, bonfires, hiking - i do it all. but this was the winter of bundle. every subsequent december, i acquired at least one more article of warmth and insulation.

i am the proud owner of matching columbia well-layered, cold-weather jacket, boots and mittens. i have one of the largest collections of scarves and hats i know of, and of mittens - well, i am picky about those as i have raynaud's disease.

anyways, so i moved to chicago in the dead of winter. i came fully prepared and ready to face up to a few more harsh months. and didnt get them... the thaw didnt come for a while, but snow sure wasnt around. where was the march blizzard i was so used to? i had my portable shovel all ready to dig my car out of legendary chicago snow plow mounds. didnt use it once.

so this year, i'm happy and diggin' the weather change. i love the fall. love it. when it gets colder, i get livelier and happier. so yesterday when the guy on the radio predicted snow for today, i pshawed him and shrugged on my thin denim jacket. days end, i was a bit... cold. ok, i was freezing. all last night i was curled up in layers of sweatpants and shirts. and this morning, when i sat down with my bowl of cherrios in front of the news, i glazed over at the big blue mass hovering close to the chicago area. whatever. who cares... but it is gonna be in the 30's today - oo! i can wear my sweaters again! so i bounced to the bedroom and layered up, for the hell of it.

just at the entrance to the dan ryan, i saw something funny. dandruff? shit. no.. effer!! SNOW!!! and i marveled and sent text messages... i took it in stride, it was only a few flurries. so i kept driving. and i turned on my windshield wipers. and my headlights. and i put on my breaks. and then i couldnt really see the cars in front of me. effing-a. white out conditions.

please note that it's october 12th today. and this is what happened:

snow!

more snow!!

Just so's you know - i am having issues with blogger posting pix. anyone else have this problem too? and i cant access flikr right now. :o) hence the links.

you cant kill the rooster: september books

september was long, short, arduous and easy all rolled into 30 days. what does that mean? i have a bizzare list of books that i devoured.

in a sunburned country
bill bryson
bryson visits australia with his voracious appetite for history, culture, minimal adventure and beer. he even has a loveable, oddball sidekick in there for a while. i always enjoy bryson's take on a new place. the enthusiasm he exhudes is very contagious, and i currently wish to visit australia. for at least a month. bryson mostly stays along the coast, but in (i think) 3 seperate trips, he covers a large portion of the land mass via car and foot, exploring every dive bar, every giant man-made crustacean, every teeny tiny niche museum... oh yeah, and some of that really big, famous stuff we all saw during the australian olympics. if you want travel writing, non-fiction that feels like an airplane novel, check this guy out. he's good.

ttyl
lauren myracle
juvi lit, candy package. the entire book is composed as a series of instant messages between 3 best friends. the underclassmen (3 girls with different personalities) brave a new year of high school together. they deal with the normal issues we all went through: popularity, nerdisms, religion, school involvement, grades, and of course... the opposite sex. after you get used to the format, the book is a breeze. not entirely enlightening, but not poorly written. i give it an overall score of: meh.

me talk pretty one day
david sedaris
sedaris' short stories: pee-yo-pants funny. i've read this before (thank you tim and jared) but my lunch hour is perfect for short story reading, and i needed self-depricating humor this month. my favorites are still his stories about his family, especially that of the rooster and amy. please, if you want a genuine smile, check this out.

three junes
julia glass
i didnt expect much out of this audiobook. sometimes i pick out freebie audiobooks that are complete fluff. i really wanted fluff this month. instead, what i got was a neat, colorful, insightful story about life, death, fear, love and real family. ironic? maybe... but i'm really glad i listened. the narrator has a thick scottish accent, and couldnt do distinctive voices very well, but he followed the 3 part story from a scottish father to his expatriot (a la new york) son to a seemingly passing acquaintance that pulls the story together very nicely. maybe it was my full month, but i really enjoyed this one.