ross is wearing leather pants! does nobody else see that ross is wearing leather pants?

it was a pretty slow monday until i 1. remembered that i had gummi bears in my bag and 2. saw a woman wearing a leather suit. that would be a suit made out of leather. a leather blazer and leather pants. a leather suit. just rocking it like it's normal to show up at the office like that. in a leather suit.

and then monday didn't seem so boring after all.

sometimes i think of a name for posts like this and then can't remember if i have used that name before

this morning while i was driving to work my gas light came on. and because my gas light has been sort of finicky lately and my tank could actually have actually been .1 mile (miles?) away from being completely empty, i pulled into the first gas station i saw. where, it turns out, gas was 20 cents more expensive than at any other gas station i passed on the rest of my route.

and then, still driving to work, i stopped at a red light and all the snow and ice that had accumulated on the roof of my car came sliding down onto my windshield in one massive, deadly sheet and got stuck. i couldn't see anything. i screamed. then i started sort of swaying back and forth and chanting "ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh." but then i hopped out and cleared it all off before the light turned green. because i am awesome like that (sometimes).

this afternoon i sent AWD a list of things i want to do on this gloriously unplanned weekend. he said no to a trip to the fabric store, doing some sewing and making some valentine's day crafts. weird. but he said yes to brunch and a movie and maybe something fun downtown. so that's good news at least.

i have to admit, i am a little sad to not be home as planned (because my mom never says no to the fabric store or crafts) but i am going to make the most of it. and, my babies, i hope your weekends are glorious as well!

rocky mountain low

the bad news is, i sat on a plane for about five hours yesterday but didn't actually go anywhere. and then i waited for my bag to come off that plane for another hour or so. and then drove on icy, slushy roads through pelting snow. all to end up right where i started. in my living room.

so, no fancy business trip or surprise weekend visit home for me.

sad trombone.

the good news is, i had a living room to come back to, unlike the hundreds of other people stranded in d.c. thanks to yesterday's storm who were frantically searching for hotel rooms/other flights/alcohol/all of the above.

and we didn't lose power last night, which is a stroke of incredibly good luck.

and, for once in my life, i had it together enough to bring delicious snacks for the flight so i didn't starve to death on the tarmac.

and, maybe best of all, now i have four gloriously unplanned days ahead of me. i am thinking some valentine's day crafts and some movie watching and some letter writing and some kissing.

how does that sound?

georgia on my mind

the bad news is that my work schedule has been completely cuckoo for cocoa puffs, which means that you, my babies, have been neglected once again.

the good news is that i have been so busy getting ready for a business trip (my first ever!), which is taking me to none other than colorado springs, which means that i am spending the weekend in denver with the parental units. an unexpected and exceedingly pleasant surprise, for me and i am sure for them, too.

the best news is that i am going to tell you all about savannah before i go. AWD and i had an amazingly wonderful time, and it was sort of depressing to come back. but, let's focus on the positive, shall we?

highlights.

spanish moss dripping off trees, even trees that are not in bloom, is possibly the most romantic thing i have ever seen. i took approximately 5 trillion pictures trying to capture the magic of it, and i don't think i ever did. but i tried. and the old, grand, antebellum houses are to die for.

we toured the mercer williams house, central place of action in the plot of "midnight in the garden of good and evil" as it was in that house that john williams fatally shot his lover, the "walking streak of sex" danny hansford. some say it was murder and some say it was self-defense, but don't count on the house tour guide to clear it up for you. our guide book very emphatically recommended not bringing the incident up. so, that's that.

you can count on your mercer williams house tour guide for a smooth savannah drawl and some interesting factoids, including the origin of the phrase "cost you an arm and a leg." wanna hear it? it refers to the cost of having your portrait painted. you had to pay more to have your arms included, and more still to include your legs. so, that's that.

we also toured the birthplace of juliette gordon low, founder of the girl scouts. other members of our tour included many, many girl scouts and their mothers. and one very unhappy younger brother.

we took a drive out to tybee island and climbed up to the top of the lighthouse (the third oldest in the country!), then to the top of a fort, and then had a picnic on the beach. it wasn't really warm enough for a picnic on the beach, but we didn't let that stop us.

our last day was spent strolling through the rain along river street, visiting the old cotton exchange building and city hall and eating perhaps the most amazing meal i have ever had at the olde pink house. it started as a plantation, the headquarters for revolutionary colonists, then a bank, then headquarters for one of sherman's generals and now it serves delicious food.

the best part of all, though was meeting liz and jen, who i am pretty sure are my kindred spirits due to the fact that they love cupcakes, laugh at my jokes and eat cookies for breakfast. i even sort of liked being mauled by their enormous dogs.

and, certainly not least of all, after 20 hours in the car together AWD and i still really like each other, so i am counting the whole adventure as a success.

wayward child

i saw an ad for the conan o'brien show the other day in which he called his viewers his babies. as in, "don't worry, my babies. i'm back." and i decided i sort of want to call you guys "my babies." so, there's that.

in other news, i went to book club earlier this week to talk about a book i hadn't read (nothing new there) and it turned into a delightful evening of reminiscing about the trauma of being an adolescent. i know it doesn't seem like that would be a delightful evening, being as we were discussing trauma and all, but really it was. maybe because the trauma of being an adolescent is over and we have all realized that life not only goes on, it gets a lot better.

a few thoughts to share, if i may.

uno. my friend cristy contended that one reason being an adolescent is so heart-breakingly difficult is because your desire for conformity is stronger then than at any other time in your life, even as you feel more out of place than you probably ever will. i definitely agree with the second part of her point, but i am not convinced of the first. because, you see, i have felt a much stronger desire to conform, almost even a need to be seen as the same as my peers as an adult than i ever remember feeling as a kid. maybe i just remember it more clearly because it is more recent. or maybe i recognize the impulse more now than i did then with the benefit of age and experience. i'm not sure. what i do know is that, as an adult, i have had very clear and sometimes painful moments of wanting nothing more than to please just look and think and be seen the same way as the people around me.

i am also happy to report that i am over it. and i'll get over it every time.

dos. i very firmly contended then, and continue to contend now, that people who felt outcast as children make much more interesting and enjoyable adults. yes, this is a generalization. and yes, i stick by it. and yes, when i was making this point the other night, i might have used the word "worthwhile," which is a pretty bold judgement statement, but i feel OK about that. to be fair, i am sure there are people in the world who have been beautiful and well-loved and self-loved their whole lives who are also perfectly lovely grown-ups. but i think there is something about the struggle for acceptance, from others and from self, that turns out authentic, captivating and unique-in-the-best-possible-way adults. maybe i say this because i want to believe my own struggle was worth it, or because i want to believe that i am an authentic, captivating and unique adult, or some combination of those things. and i am OK with that, too.

plus cristy baked cookies. and that was book club. you should come next time.

tomorrow morning (let us not speak or think of how early), AWD and i are off on a little trip to savannah for the long weekend. i will be speaking in a "gone with the wind"-style southern accent the whole time. i requested that AWD wear at least one item of sear sucker clothing the whole time but it is going to be too cold. plus he said no.

a full report (plus pictures! remember when i used to post those!) when we return. in the meantime, happy weekend to you, my babies.

(sounds good, right?)

so this is the new year

my streak of being on time to work and church in 2011 took sort of a hit in this, the second week of january, but i am pleased to report that i have read my scriptures every day so far this year and i feel pretty good about that.

i also ordered a fancy new journal, anticipating that i will be a consistent (dare i say daily?) journal writer this year as well.

i have a few other resolutions rolling around in my head, but i don't think they are quite well-formed enough to commit to just yet. mostly i just want to be better than i was before, and i think we can all agree that you don't need a new year to make yourself new.

one goal i will most certainly not be making, this or probably any other year for a long time, is to eat a sensible dinner every night. because i just had some fudge oreos for dinner and they were delicious.

mourn with those that mourn

like just about everyone else, i have been totally horrified and, frankly, disgusted by the shooting of representative giffords in arizona a few days ago.

to be perfectly honest, i have sort of been ignoring the whole thing because i would rather not believe that things like that happen in modern, advanced society. and then when i do think about it i get really worked up and try to find people and things to blame, and then i get really depressed because, whether there is a place to lay blame or not an awful thing happened. and none of this strikes me as a particularly healthy cycle.

i did venture out to do a little reading on the whole sad thing today, though, and came across this piece, written a few years ago by susan klebold, the mother of one of the columbine shooters, dylan klebold. it is honest and heartfelt and terribly sad and completely captivating. and for lack of a better way to describe a complicated thing, it gave me a new sense of perspective about tragedies such as these.

it is easy for us to say someone is a monster after they have done a monstrous thing, but i think it is reasonable for a mother or father who has raised a son or daughter with nothing but love to disbelieve that their child could ever do such a thing, and blaming those mothers and fathers, or friends or teachers or guidance counselors for "missing something" seems cruelly unfair.

and it is easy for us to loudly blame violent video games and inflamed political rhetoric and those are things that we do need to talk about in an open and reasonable way. but we also need to talk about the kind of individual human suffering that might lead a person to do something like shoot their fellow students or their elected representative. and to recognize the suffering that those people and their actions leave behind, for everyone. perhaps we forget too quickly that their family and friends are victims, too, that their suffering will also be deep and long.

i can't begin to imagine how difficult it was for susan klebold to relive long enough to put down on paper the events that ended her son's life, and many other lives as well. and i admire her immensely for doing that even for people who demonized and blamed her. maybe we think it will make us feel better to point a finger and assign some accountability, as if perhaps that will allow us to walk away from something awful feeling somehow better.

but i think that that is wrong. i am not totally sure what is right, but i suspect it involves embracing both tragedy and all the people it touches. and then feeling sorry that it has to touch anyone at all.

speak now

one of my goals while i was home for christmas was to go to a movie every single day. it started out pretty well but there were, frankly, not enough good movies to sustain such a project (dear reese witherspoon: you owe me $10) so we abandoned ship after a few days.

we started out with a bang, though, with a christmas day viewing of "the king's speech." i will just say this. i cried. my mom cried. my dad cried. the end.

it was so good.

so good that i took AWD to see it last night.

and i cried again.

if you haven't seen it, you simply must.

and that is all i have to say about that.

the 2-0-1-1

hello, kiddos, and welcome to this the year of our lord two thousand and eleven!

i have been on time for church and work every day so far this year, so i would say i am off to a pretty good start and i hope the same is true for you.

here's to a fabulous year, on the internet and beyond!