Day 36
Mood: Happy

Day 22
Mood: Rested

It’s day 22 and I almost forgot to post tonight. How many days do “they” say it takes to form a habit? 28? Great, just when I get used to this whole post a day thing it will be time to stop. Well, I guess I don’t have to stop posting every day once December rolls around…but I’m really not sure I’d have something to say every day for another thirty days. And I know there are a number of you out there saying “you haven’t had much to say for these last 22 days.” I appreciate you hanging with me. I have to say thanks to my favorite new Google tool–Analytics–I can obsess all day about how many readers I have and where they’re coming from.

It was a rainy, cold day here in VA. In a way, it’s perfect weather for the Thanksgiving holiday. We’re supposed to sit in the house, eat food and watch football right? You wouldn’t want it to be gorgeous outside, then you’d just feel like a sloth for lounging on the couch. This way–with the sucky weather–we have an excuse. In an early nod to tomorrow’s theme, I’m grateful that we have family close by and that I didn’t have to brave the highways or airports this weekend. I’m all about the no traveling around the holidays excuse we now have because we have three kids. Though if someone was going to offer me an all expenses paid trip back down to The Breakers, I’d be at the airport in a flash. I’m still missing that twice a day maid service. I can’t quite get my boys convinced that this would be a good habit to start.

Oh, I noticed a weird thing when I was at my parent’s house. Wouldn’t you think you’d get your preference for how the toilet paper goes on the holder from your parents? I did. But APPARENTLY I was wrong. I was using my parent’s guest bathroom when I noticed that the paper hung down off the back of the roll–not over the front! Now I still have to check with mom. It’s entirely possible that this was the doing of dear ole dad, but let’s be real…that would mean he actually thought about putting the paper on the holder. Don’t know about your house, but in ours…I’m not really sure what my boys (all of them) think that little bar next to the toilet is for (other than balance for our newest potty-trained friends). I just find it hard to believe that I grew up with a paper down the back mom and somehow transformed to an adament over the top kind of girl. Sheesh, you think you know someone!

Day 17

Day 13
Mood: Panic

Is it because it’s the unlucky 13th day of this little experiment? Is that why I’m staring at the screen with nothing to write? Panic is beginning to set in. I read a number of entertaining blogs on a daily basis and I always come away from the experience feeling a little less worthy of this blog, but nothing? I never have nothing to say…ask my parents, they’ll tell you.

There’s just a lot going on this week. I just wrote a whole paragraph about it, but it seemed so stupid that I had to erase it. Basically, I’m at a loss. I was hoping to have my highschool prom picture scanned into the computer for just this such instance, but alas our scanner isn’t cooperating. So I guess I’ll have to leave you with this gem.

Taken through my windshield while driving in Arlington, VA. Oh, how I miss my camera phone!

Day 6
Mood: Excited

Last night I got down on my hands and knees at 1:00 a.m. in the morning and rooted through my crawl space for an item I wasn’t even sure was there. The object of my search? A yearbook. I obviously hadn’t thought about this yearbook in quite some time since I wasn’t even sure it was in my possession; though after every move my parents make I seem to end up with more boxes of my shit, so the odds were pretty good (thank god my mother-in-law has never moved).

Not finding me in my usual blog surfing spot, and not remembering a kiss goodnight, Shakey sensed a scavenger hunt was afoot. I could hear him wandering around the house calling for me but for some reason sound doesn’t travel up through the first floor. After eventually finding the door opened he peaked in asked if I was in there. Hearing a yes he walked away and went to bed. Shakey’s learned over the years that when I get on the type of quest that leads me to a location like the crawl space at 1:00 a.m. it’s probably just best to get out of the way.

After doing a marine crawl under two cross beams and scooting ten feet on my ass, I came upon the boxes I thought might contain my quarry. But first, I found old pictures from the first years after college. Had to stop and go through those of course. Then I found the boxes containing memorabilia from the wedding–skipped those too recent. Pulling away more dusty shoeboxes full of receipts, {cue heraldic trumpets} there I found the box I sought. Yearbooks from 1985, 1986 and 1987!

For those of you who choose not to remember those days, let me remind you of some of the hightlights:

• neon clothing
• tight-rolled acid washed jeans (pegged)
• leggings (oh wait that’s today too–gasp!)
• BIG hair (Aquanet Super Extra Hold was my personal glue)
• the space shuttle Columbia accident; and
• the overuse of the word “rad”

I’ve recently gotten back in touch with a friend from highschool that I had chalked up to lost. He’s one of those people you took for granted as a constant figure in your life and then one day you realized you had gone in different directions and you didn’t know how to get in touch. Thanks to the ridiculous spam of Classmates.com we actually reconnected and have been catching up on lost time. Of course, all sorts of names I hadn’t thought about in years have been tossed around and so I just had to find a yearbook to look these folks up.

Only 20 years have passed and I can’t get over how many of my “great friend’s” yearbook messages I can’t even associate with a face or last name! But man have I had a good time reading through all of the signatures and laughing at all of the hair styles. And I found the people I was looking for. It’s just so hard to imagine some of them “grown up.”

I had the shuffle set to random, I fired up the iPod and I listened for four and half hours straight. Below is the result of my second experiment with the randomness of the iPod shuffle setting.

Before you look, I still swear I have somewhat better taste in music than what appears on the list below. Believe it or not there actually is music on my iPod that was written and produced in this century.

I believe the next logical entry will be to analyze how I became so old so fast.

Swingtown– Steve Miller Band (freshman year college)
Our Lips Are Sealed– The Go-Go’s
You Were Only Joking– The Indigo Girls
Cherry Cherry– Neil Diamond
AllStar– Smash Mouth
A Fine Romance– Ella Fitzgerald
Real Love– Mary J. Blige (Luh-uv this song! I want to sing like Mary J.)
Cream– Prince
My City Was Gone– The Pretenders
When Love Comes To Town– BB King & U2
Shadows of the Night– Pat Benatar
The Joker– The Steve Miller Band
Diggin’ Your Scene — Smash Mouth
That’s Life– Frank Sinatra
Cowboy Take Me Away– Dixie Chicks
My Guy– Mary Wells
Open Your Heart*– Madonna
Can’t Help Falling In Love– Elvis Presley
Crash Into Me– Dave Matthews Band
Tripping Billies– Dave Matthews (is this thing really on shuffle?)
Breakdown– Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Travelin’ Soldier– Dixie Chicks
A Pirate Looks At Forty– Jimmy Buffett
Midnight Train to Georgia– Gladys Knight & The Pips (I don’t think I’d want to be a pip)
Mamma Mia– ABBA
Wouldn’t It Be Good– Danny Hutton Hitters (teenage angst)
Lazy River– Pete Fountain
Don’t Cry– Seal (a certain boy)
Stomp– The Brothers Johnson (Jazzercise—7th grade)
Just When I Needed You Most*– Randy VanWarmer
Destination Anywhere– The Commitments (the ultimate need my freedom song)
Hang– Matchbox Twenty
My Way*– Frank Sinatra (song ruined for me by idiot old boss)
Callin’ Baton Rouge– Garth Brooks (I didn’t know I liked some country until I heard this song)
Evenflow– Pearl Jam
Southern Girl– Better Than Ezra
Slow Ride– Foghat
Sweet Dreams (Of You)– Patsy Cline
One Of These Nights*– The Eagles
Sexual Healing– Marvin Gaye (also Jazzercise—my dancing girls—good cover by someone)
Dreaming– Blondie
Walking in Memphis– Marc Cohn
Your Love Is King– Sade
When I Look To The Sky– Train (live version)
Wishing Well– Terence Trent D’Arby
Good Day Sunshine– The Beatles
Cecilia– Simon & Garfunkel
Cowboy– Kid Rock
Mr. Big Stuff– Jean Knight (Gladys’ sister?)
In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning– Carly Simon
Son Of A Son Of A Sailor– Jimmy Buffett
Stardust– Nat King Cole (the voice of velvet)
With This Ring– The Platters
The Power of Love*– Huey Lewis & The News (I really have to delete this song)
I Feel The Earth Move Carole King
So Little Kindness*– Huey Lewis & The News
She’s Crafty– The Beastie Boys (how can you NOT love them?)
Over The Rainbow– Ray Charles & Johnny Mathis
Never Tear Us Apart– INXS
They Can’t Take That Away From Me– Billie Holiday
The Winner Takes It All– ABBA
Crazy For You– Madonna (oh how I wanted to slow dance w/Matthew Modine)
Jack And Diane– John Mellencamp
Fire And Ice– Pat Benatar
Purple Rain* Prince (needed more upbeat tunes at 5:20 p.m.)
Ultraviolet (Light My Way)– U2
Like A Song…*– U2 (don’t want to hear two songs by the same band in a row while on shuffle)
I Need Love– Sam Phillips
Unforgettable*– Nat King Cole
Hammer And A Nail– Indigo Girls (such a happy song)
I Got You Under My Skin*– Frank Sinatra (too much Frank today—is that possible?)
All You Zombies*– Hooters (heard in earlier experiment this morning)
Twice As Hard– The Black Crowes
Take The Money And Run– The Steve Miller Band (I don’t have that much SMB on my iPod)*
Let My Love Open The Door– Pete Townshend
Diamond Girl*– Seals And Croft (too mellow for today)
Hey Ya!– Outkast (OMG! A song from this century!)

*Song I forwarded though. I’m typically a playlist kind of gal.

hubbyIM: Torre is staying if you haven’t heard (Joe Torre of the Yankees)
mammaIM: I did hear
mammaIM: I was so relieved
mammaIM: I knew Steinbrenner hadn’t gone that far off the deep end.
mammaIM: any word on the conditions/changes
hubbyIM: only one condition….
hubbyIM: I play second base
mammaIM: so I guess we have to move…
hubbyIM: I’ll just commute
mammaIM: okay
mammaIM: but how are we going to get to the games?
hubbyIM: Steiny (as I like to call him) said you could use the private jet.
mammaIM: cool. he’s such a doll

*IM screen names have been changed to protect the guilty.

I just got chuckled at. Chuckled!! You share you thoughts with someone and they chuckle at you.

I just told my hubs that I think in my next life I want to live a life like Dave Grohl–and he chuckled at me. What? I ask. He just shakes his head and laughs and say “the oddities that run through your head. The tangents your thoughts run off on and the depth to which they run–I mean if God asked you, you have it all figured out who you want to come back as. You have it all justified.”

So I think Dave Grohl seems to have a good life. So I put a little thought into that. It really only took the walk from the couch to the kitchen to come up with it. It’s not like I’ve been studying him. Though I might have to Google him now just to find out more.

But here’s my reasoning.

For the record, I don’t know much about Dave Grohl except that:

• he’s cute
• he rocks out
• he seems like he enjoys life
• he seems like a pretty normal guy

{I honesly don’t if any of the above are true except the cute part–and even that is cute in a 90’s rocker sort of way. I’m typically not a fan of facial hair, but further research on Google images reveals that he should keep his.}

Okay, so he achieved rocker status as a part of Nirvana (a band I really never got in to) and then survived oblivion after death of Kurt Cobain and formed the Foo Fighters (who I really do like). He’s big enough to be on MTV, get radio play, yet down to earth enough that he still hangs out in his old neighborhood. I’ve seen him walking around Alexandria (he grew up here I think) and at restaurants with his friends. And he’s got a beautiful family.

What’s not to like about his life? He’s famous/rich enough to hop a plane and hang out backstage at cool shows whenever he feels like it, but he’s also mild enough to walk around his hometown without attracting ridiculous attention. It’s through the aforementioned sightings that I’ve determined he seems pretty normal. And if you’re going to come back to live a rock and roll lifesyle I think it would be better to do it as a man. The women don’t seem to fare as well. Sheryl Crow seemed to be on track, but now she’s covering Rod Stewart songs?!

Now if there is a bad story about him…I don’t want to know. Or maybe I should. I mean what if I do get in front of God and end up choosing to go back as someone with a well-conceled heroin addiction? There would be some highschool teacher’s voice in my head saying–“you really should have done your homework.”

First, this is a real question. I’m not sure why I feel the need to keep up with my blog. I could just be writing all of this in a journal, and then I wouldn’t have to change any names to protect the innocent or hold back from sharing really juicy stories or some of my more bizarre thoughts. But there is something appealing about the idea of others being intersted in what you have to say. Call it narcissism, call it a desperate plea for validation…whatever…I still keep a journal online. I’m just not sure if anyone is really reading it. If you are…leave a comment…let me know. You don’t have to say anything witty. Just let me know I actually have a reader or two. (How pathetic is it going to be when I come down tomorrow morning and there aren’t going to be any comments? If there aren’t, I may have to start really sharing my thoughts!)

But as I was coming up with my title for tonight I realized that there has been a tremendous amount of coincidence happening in my life lately. Now I recently had a conversation about theories of coincidence with someone much smarter than me who started throwing around Jung and I have to admit it was a bit intimidating–while at the same time intriguing. Anyway, the concept of synchronicity came up. I’m not what I would describe as a believer when it comes to notions such as the paranormal or alien life or quite frankly organized religion (though I’m not making a final judgement [yes pun intended] on the whole god/jesus thing in case it really is all true), but I do tend to be attracted to conspiracy theories and therefore I rule nothing out. So that’s my very long way of saying that I usually just chalk up things to coincidence, but it’s been happening so frequently lately that I might have to reconsider the whole synchronicity thing.

{Side note: My beloved Yankees are sucking right now. As a true Yankee fan it is completely my perogative–no job–to say bad things about them. But YOU can’t! They just lost their second game to Detroit and if there is one more loss I’m going to owe someone a steak dinner. Crap.}

So what is this synchronicity I’m talking about? WELL, I truly just typed out the title because I was feeling sorry for myself and thinking I had no readers and then I realized that I had just been thinking about Pink Floyd the other day (and I know, big whoop what kind of story is that). And honestly, this isn’t the best example of the alignment of planets that has been happening to me but it got me thinking about all of the others. Frankly, as I type this now I realize that there is no coincidence at all to this because obviously I would have Pink Floyd lyrics in my head since I’ve been thinking about the band. So it’s no wonder that it just came out.

So there goes my whole theory. Now that I’ve shot this one down, I should probably go back and reexamine the other so-called coincidences that I’ve been seeing and find the underlying connections that can be easily explained. Man, what a bummer. I think I finally believe in a theory and then I shoot it all to hell. No wonder I don’t consider myself a believer. After being in DC for just a few months I went out on a date with some DC type who told me I hadn’t been here long enough to be as cynical as I was. The cynic in me then should have said “fuck him.” Afterall, we honestly spent time during a date watching the President’s speech (not the State of the Union mind you) on C-SPAN.

PS–For any of you who might be reading and who I haven’t already hooked on this wonderful/aggravating/addictive game…check out this fun word association game. It’s why I’ve been thinking about Pink Floyd (a band I lack any appreciation for) and not posting to my blog.