Pooing fabric.

As discussion of one cultural zeitgeist came to an end last night--it was our last "What is Modernism?" class through the UT Odyssey program, and I must disappointingly admit that I walked out of the door with exactly zero new insights on modernism--a new cultural zeitgeist was born. Or rather, renewed.

Project Runway, welcome back to my life.

Welcome back Tim, who is wonderful and sincere; Michael, who is slightly less orange-looking; Nina, sour and underwhelmed as ever; and Heidi, not pregnant for the first time since season 1. The gang's all here. Here's who I love so far: the tall skinny blond guy and the fat guy. I mostly love the fat guy because, despite the editors' best efforts to make him the "Boing! This guy doesn't belong!" character, he turned out a really stunning dress. You go, guy who makes salad-themed dresses sometimes!


In other, non-fabric-related news, today is my parents' anniversary. They were married less than three months when they found out they were preggers with me. It kinda wrapped up a hell of a whirlwind year for them: met in the spring, married in the fall, pregnant the next spring. It was the 70s, so maybe that was de rigour, though it strikes me, of the post-Mary Tyler Moore generation, as pretty quick. Anyway, those quirky kids have been married for 32 years; they've been married longer than they were single. Weird when you can start to balance your life like that.

Nick or treat

When we were little there was an annual Halloween contest on Nickelodeon. You sent in your phone number in hopes that Nickelodeon would call your house on Halloween. If you answered the phone "Nick or treat," you won.

We never actually submitted our number for the contest, but Kristin and I still like to answer the phone on Halloween with "Nick or treat," just in case.

This year continued my streak of no trick-or-treaters, now about 7 years running. Yet I always buy a bag of candy, just in case. When I pulled up yesterday evening, one of the kids in the complex (I think he might actually be the only one, come to think of it) was standing in the parking lot in his costume. Just kinda hanging out, eager to hit the streets but his mom probably told him they wouldn't go until after dark. So I went over to him and gave him a piece of candy. (I didn't even make him say "trick or treat." Which, I love when kids say that, all rote and automatic.) He was excited to get his first piece of candy of the night, I think. Though it was hard to tell because he was wearing a Scream mask, one with an extra skein of plastic over the top to allow the fake blood to pour down the face whenever he pumped the mechanism in his hand. It was a bit creepy. I told him so. He squeezed the pump to squirt more blood down his mask, which I took as a sign of approval.

I will not eat them on a train. Not in the dark! Not in a tree! Not in a car!

Dr. Suess + High School Musical = Suessical
Suessical ≥ Civil War: The Musical, the last live musical I saw (Broadway, 1999)

The Suessical is about the cutest thing I have ever seen. Beautiful young people singing and dancing so earnestly, illustrating Horton Hears a Who and showing kids to be true to themselves and to harness their imagination. Just so cute. The girl who played Amazing Mazie may have been Reese Witherspoon's doppelganger. And the closing number of "Green Eggs and Ham" was adorable. The whole thing was really well done.

Is it weird the only theater I've been to in about a decade has been with my Little Sis? When I lived in San Diego, we used to go to plays all the time. I had no idea no idea my cultural salad days would peak at age 22. I need to fix that.

Jesus, take the wheel.

My six-year-old niece, Emily, and I have a tradition when I go home for Christmas: every year we spend time on the internet looking at ghost towns and old graveyards. It's an interest we share, apparently. (I still contend it's a heathier interest than those slutty Bratz dolls.)

As my sister drove her to my parents' cabin this evening, Emily fell asleep. When she woke up, her first question was, "Did we pass the graveyard?"

Kelly: Yes.
Emily: Why didn't you wake me up?
Kelly: You see it every time we come up here; I didn't think I should wake you up for it.
Emily: [exasperated] Well, I hope you would wake me up for Jesus' grave.

She's a bit of a Bible-thumper but has a little trouble with the details. When she gets mad at Kelly and wants to liken her to the devil, she can't because she can't remember the name "Satan." She calls him Saul. She has to ask Kelly to remind her of the right name:

Emily: You're just like that guy--what his name? I call him Saul.
Kelly: Satan?
Emily: Yeah, Satan.

It is finished.

I just finished The Deathly Hallows, and to be honest, I don't know how I feel about it yet. But I'm not going to talk about it and risk giving anything away because I am not that kind of girl. And also, I need to come up for air and rejoin the land of the Muggles.

Mostly I just kept thinking about J.K. Rowling and how it must have felt for her to have written the last line and pushed away from her desk, knowing that 10 years of work and imagination and creation was complete. It must have felt huge and lonely and probably a little liberating.

With that out of the way, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

You know what I hope heaven is like?

An episode of So You Think You Dance, where every day is choreographed by Wade Robson, and everything is dramatic and jazz handsy, and everyone knows how to arabesque, and wearing short-shorts and bustiers is de rigour, and you can always dance with a beautiful Russian.

Carefully planned seredipity.

There's a certain blogger, who lives in Austin, whose writing I love. It's the kind of writing I would aspire to if I even remotely thought I had a modicum of his talent: funny, sincere, intelligent, literate. He is seriously talented, and I admire the hell out of him.

Good writing makes me excited. And I believe in applauding people when they do a good job--especially when there's so much crap writing muddling the internet, because I know I would want the same if I made my living by writing. So it started innocently enough: I wrote him an email about a year ago to tell him that I appreciate his writing, and he responded back. I thrilled a little, I'll admit. Over the next year, I read something of his whenever I could, and sometimes I laughed out loud, sometimes I teared up unexpectedly, and sometimes I would copy parts of it into this journal of quotes I've been keeping since high school. His writing is that good.

And so, inevitably--and because I am stricken with a malady similar to drunk dialing, except I send emails when I am completely sober--I sent another email. Which he responded to. And another. Which he responded to, with a question. It took me an hour to craft my 50-word response.

Keep in mind that the writing is the reason for all of this. I realize how this all sounds, but it's really just me getting caught up in the writing. In the way that I liked to be around people who read and wrote in grad school; same thing here.

I happen to read in his blog that he was planning to be at a certain Austin establishment this morning. And so I decided I would happen to be there as well. I would happen to be reading a book by his favorite author--not the one that everyone reads in high school, but his first one, to show that I know my way around modernist writers. And somehow, we would meet. Completely spontaneously.

I have a record of carefully planned spontaneity when it comes to writers I admire. And that record is: I act a straight-up fool around them. My carefully rehearsed speech to Dave Eggers made me look crazy, and my would-be memorable aside to Jonathon Safran Foer ended with me blurting out my full name and then nearly tripping down the stairs when my heel caught in the cuff of my pants. Because of this, I have put myself on restriction from talking to anyone whose work I admire.

So I decided I had one of two options here: do it but never tell anyone; or, don't do it and write about it instead. Sanity has clearly won the day. Relatively speaking. And it's for the best, really. Because I am 30.

J.K.: Don't kill off the Weasley twins!

There are only two things I'm afraid of in this world*: the polar ice caps completely melting away, and someone ruining the next Harry Potter book for me before I can read to the end.

*Well...also human-size catfish, geese, and komodo dragons, but "two things" has a better ring to it.

One shot, one beer, and a kiss before I go.

Ryan Adams, July 14, Paramount Theater. I must.

I have no problem doing most things alone--going to movies, out for dinner, moving to strange towns, etc.--but I find that solo concert attendance is a toughy for me. Kind of the last frontier. I've been to two: Pete Yorn and Ryan Adams. (Pete Yorn's first record--I feel the need to specify that.) You might think that going to a show alone would be easier than the rest, because music is essentially a personal thing, and it's not like you can talk to someone the whole time anyway. But music is also a shared experience, and that's the whole point of going to a concert (and also why I hate serenades, but that's a story for another day): turning to someone between songs and saying "I can't believe he played this one live!" and speculating what might song might be next. Because I mostly think, if you can't share it (et voila: this blog), it isn't real.

Ryan Adams's music makes me feel like there is always someone lonelier than me. There is strange comfort in that. His music makes me want to get in a bar fight and then make out with a stranger. It makes me want to be a farmer that has lost everything. It makes me want to move to New York and sit on a rooftop and think about my regrets. It makes me want to dance on a dance floor with lighting just like that one barn dance scene in Hope Floats. You know the one; don't pretend.

And I defy you to name a better song than "Come Pick Me Up." And he did play it the last time I saw him. And it was outstanding.

Somehow this is turning into a thesis on why Ryan Adams is worth going to alone. Eh, let's go with it. He is, I think, even though he can be a bit precious and somewhat diva-esque. I don't want to go by myself, really, but I don't know anyone who even kinda likes him, let alone Loves (with a capital L) him like I do (shamelessly, but not fanatically). Who wouldn't laugh if I teared up. Who would feel the same way I would if he played "Dance All Night" or "Sweet Carolina." But I won't not go for that reason, either.

The key is to look like you're just waiting for someone else to show. Maybe they are late. Maybe they can't find parking. Don't worry; they'll be there.

Any minute now.