The Workings of a Madman

What had happened was . . . someone snuck in my room over the Christmas holidays and took all of my clothes to a seamstress and had her make them smaller . . . and then they messed with my scale to make it say that I weigh TEN POUNDS!!!!! more than I did before Thanksgiving . . . and then they messed with my mirrors to make it appear that there are new fat deposits on my body . . . really . . . there's no other explanation for it . . . I can't think of a single other thing that would explain this.

In response to what this horrible person has done to me, I have decided that I really have no other choice but to . . . gulp . . . diet . . . gulp . . . and exercise more 'cause the unimpressive household budget doesn't allow for a new wardrobe. So, I'm hitting the road again with my running or as Husband calls what I do, glorified walking. Thought I would share my playlist with everyone in cases anyone elses needs constant inspiration likes I dos. These are just a few of my favorites:

1. How Do You Like Me Now—The Heavy. This has an awesome beat for running and I sing it from my new self to my old self. I like to talk trash to my old self when I'm running. So I ask my old self, "How do you like me now, old me? You are so jealous of new me aren't you?"
   

   
   

2. Move Along—All American Rejects. This is primo running inspiration, "When all you want to keep is strong, move along, move along like you know you should." I use it in conjunction with one of my mantras when I'm on my final half mile and I feel like I'm going to die, "Just keep running, running, running, just keep running, running."
   

   
   

3. Bet on It—High School Musical. Okay, don't laugh, I have three kids and have therefore seen High School Musical many, many times, but don't count this song out just because it's from a kiddie movie. "I'm not gonna stop, not gonna stop 'til I get my shot. That's who I am, that is my plan, will I end up on top, you can bet on it, bet on it, bet on it." Good stuff.
   

   
   

4. Unstoppable (Olympics Mix)—Rascal Flats. This is for all you country music fans out there. Instead of the usual line, "love is unstoppable," it's "you are unstoppable." I'm not, but I can make myself believe some crazy things.
   

   
   

5. Ali in the Jungle—The Hours. If you haven't heard this song, do me a favor and run on over to itunes and download it right this minute. Really. I'll wait . . . . This song is amazing for the way it reminds me that I don't know a single thing about adversity and that all of my excuses for not going that extra mile are just excuses and that people have overcome things way bigger than not feeling like running today. "It's not how you start, it's how you finish. And it's not where you're from, it's where you're at. . . . It's not where you're at, it's where you're going. And it's not what you've done, it's what you're doing, what are you doin' now." Love this song.
   

   
   

6. You're Going Down—Sick Puppies. Okay, this one has a worty dird in it, but it's still good for trash talking to myself. " . . . I feel the heat comin' off of the black top and it makes me want it more . . . I wouldn't put my money on the other guy . . . one of us is goin', one of us is goin' down." It's old me who can't fit into her pants who's goin' down btw.
   

   
   

7. The Kill—30 Seconds to Mars. I feel two ways about this song. It doesn't have a great beat for running, but it's another good leaving-my-old-self-behind song. "Come break me down, bury me, bury me, I am finished with you." I have a big problem with overcoming myself in trying to achieve my goals.
   

   
   

8. I Gotta Feeling—Black Eyed Peas. I know it's kind of cheesy, but you know, I like thinking this—tonight's gonna be good, 'cause I had a good workout and I feel really good about myself.
   

Hope this helps some folks. If anyone has any good songs to suggest, I'm always on the lookout for things to add to my playlist.

Fa La Love it, Fa La Lame

As Christmas day fast approaches, I find myself listening to Christmas music ferociously, trying to pack it all in before my eleventh month fast and cursing myself for not taking advantage of the previous four weeks to listen to it more often. Of course, one does run the risk of acquiring Christmas music burnout, but that's better than regret. So here are my much anticipated (?) top five fave Christmas songs and top five Christmas songs that I wish I had never heard:

Top Five Fave Christmas Songs:

5. Walking in the Air—Peter Auty. This is from Raymond Briggs' The Snowman movie. It is the most moving piece of music and even my kids love it even though it's not about talking snowmen or reindeer that fly . . . though, it is about snowmen that fly.

4. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Just sweet and simple and poignant. Makes me want to cry without knowing why.

3. Twelve
Days of Christmas. I used to love singing this with my family as a child, especially when I got to sing the "fi-ve gol-den riiiiiiiiiiiiiiings!!!" part, though I'm sure that no one else enjoyed it when I belted that out. Saying that I'm tone deaf is putting it nicely.

2. Happy
Birthday Jesus—Alabama. Really anything on Alabama Christmas, volume one or two, but I picked this one because I love that Alabama isn't afraid to say Jesus in their songs about Christmas like it seems a lot of people are these days like there's something offensive about perfect love. I grew up listening to Alabama Christmas and I hope these songs mean as much to my kids one day as they mean to me.

1. Oh Holy Night. This is the epitome of Christmas music. It gives me chills every time.

Five Christmas Songs That I Wish Would Go Away:

5. Little Saint Nick—Beach Boys. Good grief, Little Saint Nick. Seriously? Seriously?

4. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. This song disturbed me to no end when I was a child. What is Mommy doing kissing Santa Claus? Mommy is only supposed to kiss Daddy? What kind of Mommy is this that goes around kissing big men in red suits? I get it now, but I still feel kind of weird when I hear this.

3. Twelve Things at Christmas that are such a Pain to Me. Yeah, there are things at Christmas that are annoying, but those are also things that make Christmas so great. Why complain about them? Just deal with it. Unless we're talking about the five Christmas songs that you wish would go away, then . . . complain away!

2. Anything by Mariah Cary, Clay Aiken, or anyone else who irritates me. If you irritate me January through November, then you irritate me double that at Christmas. God help me if Nickelback ever puts out a Christmas CD, I just might have to boycott Christmas music for good.

1. The Christmas Shoes—New Song. So insanely overly-sentimental that it borders on maudlin. I just googled this song to see who sings it and I accidentally opened up a page that played it. I'm still twitching from it. Many of you may think that I'm being mean by saying that this is the worst Christmas song of all time, since it is about a little boy who wants to buy some shoes for his mother who is dying AS WE SPEAK!!! But . . . come on people! Anything that tries that hard to make me cry is just going to make me scoff it instead. For one thing, I don't believe it. I don't believe that this poor boy in rags goes out on Christmas Eve by himself to buy some shoes for his dying mother. I just don't believe it. I don't believe that the cashier would hear his sad tale and then tell him that he didn't have enough money to buy the shoes, unless they where Jimmy Choos or something. I don't believe that the man in line behind him would wait for the boy to ask for the money before he gave it to him. I just do not believe it. Also, it bugs me that the narrator is so proud of himself for giving the boy money, "Well, I laid the money down, I just had to help him out." Good grief, I hope so! I think Ebby Scrooge himself would have given the boy the money.

So there they are—the good, the bad, and the ugly (the ugly is me singing them). I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Nostalgia, My Old Friend

Holy cow I love snow!

I never really knew this about myself. I always thought that I was a warm weather, sandy beaches, salt water, coconut suntan lotion kind of girl, but apparently I've been a closet snow nut all along. Ask me if I think that there is nothing more beautiful than snow falling lightly to the ground and then creating a blanket of pristine brilliance on my front yard and I will say, "Oui, oui." [To all of you doubters out there who said that I should have taken Spanish instead of French in high school because I would never use French—well, I just did use my French, so there. Oh, and there was also that time in Charleston when I befriended a drunken French sailor and conversed with him for several hours and every time I said something to him in French he responded, "No speak English." True story.]

This surprising love of snow probably has something to do with my childhood and the years I spent growing up in Alaska.

It's kind of like how I was really excited when New Kids on the Block were on television a couple of weeks ago with that other group . . . what's their names . . . Boystreet Back or something. I watched the performance on YouTube way more times than I am comfortable disclosing to all of you. Not that I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a dork, but I don't want anyone to realize just how deep the dorkiness actually runs.

After seeing their triumphant (?) return on national television, I was overcome with a desire to go to another one of their concerts. Yes, another one, because I went to one back in 1990 when I was twelve. At least, it said on the ticket that New Kids on the Block were the ones singing and dancing up on the stage, but it could have been some new kids that lived on my block for all I knew, I was so far away.

And no, not one of them saw me sitting way in the back of the stadium on like the 100^th row and decided that they were in love with me and wanted to marry me that very day. Not even Danny. I know, I was shocked too!

Well, Husband was appalled that his (mature?) wife would entertain notions of driving several hours away to see New Kids on the Block. I must say that I was surprised at his appall. He requested an explanation for this strange desire of mine and I had none to give.

You can't really explain something like nostalgia.

Like the jeweler in Breakfast at Tiffany's who expresses satisfaction that they still put prizes in boxes of Cracker Jacks because it gives one a sense of continuity. Why should he care what they put in Cracker Jack boxes? Really, he doesn't care. He just cares that something that existed when he was a child, still exists.

Since I have lived in the southeast for my entire adult life, I quite forgot about snow and the effect it has. It's nice to know that it's still there and it still smells the same and it still sticks together to make the ideal weapon in a snow ball fight and it still rolls up nicely to make a snowman (though that is quite a bit more difficult now that I am not as close to the ground as I was the last time I saw snow). In the same way, it's comforting to me that New Kids on the Block are still performing the same songs they did when I was a child and they're still all bubble gum and lame. Is that really so hard to believe?

So, the weird thirty-two-year-old lady who is outside catching snowflakes on her tongue and frolicking in the white winter wonderland, making snow angels and throwing snowballs at her kids is not crazy, as it may seem at first glance. She's just reliving some fond childhood memories . . . and probably singing "You got it . . . the right stuff," in her head the whole time.

I Was a Poet and Didn’t Even Know It

I find myself to be of two minds about poetry. There is a part of me that wants to discuss it with everyone I meet and go to open mike nights at arty bars and recite my original works and send my poems off to be considered for publication. Then there is another (larger) part of me that wants to deny that I have any idea what poetry is and disavow any knowledge of poems I have ever written and even wipe my hard drive clean of said poems and maybe even smash my laptop in case some computer savvy person came along who knew how to restore deleted files.

Poetry can be a little embarrassing.

Writing fiction is fun. You get to create all these characters from nothing and give them these traits and an interesting past and none of it has to have anything at all to do with you unless you want it to. You can't do that so much with poetry. My poems come from a part of me that I barely even know exists and most of the time, I don't want to know it exists.

It boggles my mind that so many poets and songwriters can just put themselves out there in the public like that. I can't imagine the bravery it takes to show someone your soul and then ask them to tell you straight up what they think about it. What if your soul isn't really as unique as you thought? What if it's kind of creepy or just plain weird? What if you think that you're all deep and inspiring, but really you're like Nickelback, out there thinking that you're saying something profound when really you're just making me want to bash my radio in?

I mean, come on, "And this is where I went to school, most of the time had better things to do." Yeah, no duh, I can tell you didn't go to school much by your inane lyrics and complete inability to be subtle in your songwriting. Clearly, Nickelback missed the class on metaphor. Just because you put words on paper and then put these music note things around them and then sing those words with a gravely voice, it does not mean that it's good, or even that it's music.

Total aside—but stop leading them on people! I mean it, stop buying their albums! You're just encouraging them!

So, if you're expecting one day for Hollie Sessoms to be crowned Poet Laureate or to see me up there at a presidential inauguration reciting something I scribbled on a paper towel whilst I was doing dishes one night, let me just tell you—what's poetry?