bring on the New Year

it's the last day of 2007. hard to believe that another year has flown by. it seems like I was just celebrating my birthday or traveling to England or riding bikes or going to Cards games or sitting out on the deck after dark or drinking beer at Bottleworks.

i'm looking forward to 2008. to seeing the house sell and getting a new place. to writing and publishing my first paper. to meeting new people and spending time with all my amazing friends.

there will be more knitting projects, long bike rides, more experiments and beers and good meals and travel and dancing.

welcome 2008. i'm glad that you and all the new experiences you promise to bring are on my horizon.

another pleasant valley Sunday

dear faithful Blog Reader,

as you may know it has been a rough Fall for our protagonist, i.e. me. today's post will feature some of the lighter moments of the weekend. I am enjoying a lovely morning in my pajamas. the sun is out, making the ~6 inches of snow on the ground quite luminescent. I made pancakes with real butter and maple syrup (of course!), uploaded photos, and am sipping on my second mug of Earl Grey tea (black, hot). I've listened to Ted Leo and danced around the kitchen. and am listening to Feist as I write this. here are some things on the agenda for today:

1. plan enough meals to get me through until next Sunday when I leave for Nashvegas
2. some final Christmas shopping
3. organizing the office
4. shoveling snow
5. reading
6. a potential appearance in lab
7. a definite appearance at Sunday Spin at Bottleworks

I am pleased to report that the protagonist baked holiday cookies on Friday night, consuming quite a few of them along with slices of mushroom pizza and g&t's. last night it was mulled wine, a huge spread of goodies (our lab is made up foodies, both novice and professional), unusual board games and thunder-snow-storms! I made the long and only slightly treacherous drive home from Webster in a little over 30 minutes.

trying to focus on the lightness of these moments and enjoying them for myself instead of feeling lonely. I do miss the closeness and sharing the little things with someone else. I think that it's human to continue to care... and it's hard to turn off. I've never ridden a tandem bicycle, but maybe once you get used to it, you struggle with pedaling and steering yourself instead of as a unit. but days like today remind me to get up and brush off my scraped knees and keep trying on my own.

my fingertips are holding onto...

the cracks in my foundation...

sigh, kate nash.
check her out here...
and here...
good stuff with my seal of approval!

inspiration, perspiration

inspire, a verb, defined in Webster's as...
1: to influence, move, or guide by divine or supernatural inspiration
2: to exert an animating, enlivening, or exalting influence on
3: to spur on

what inspires you? or let me rephrase that, are you being 1. influenced, 2. enlivened, or 3. spurred by something? what I am passionate about, what lights my fire... those are external things; it is easy to assign the role of inspiration to them. often, I think that what inspires me is instead within myself. it's not that I don't see beauty and joy in the world around me. I think those things are merely a reflection of what I see in myself. it is not the responsibility of the world to drive me to be great, to find peace and comfort in who I am. that potential has always been there. it is really a question of whether I pushed myself to see it... not whether I was around others who drove me to it... which is somewhat an anti-climactic actualization.

it's hard for me to see outsiders have such influence on me as a person. I think as human beings we are far too complicated for such simple arrhythmatic.

self "multiplied by" desired external force(s) "does not equal" realization.

there is no work, no calculus of life in that equation. thoughts?

Ferris Bueller, you're my hero

I missed being born in the 1970s by 28 days, making me, officially, a child of the 80s. though I was too young to remember the earlier part of that decade, I do have vivid recollections of watching MTV (my favorite videos as a 4 YO were "Material Girl" and "Man Eater"- go figure) and being carried in my father's arms through the movie theater parking lot after seeing "Return of the Jedi." So while I didn't learn of the Brat Pack till I was on the hot-pink-cusp of the early 1990s, I felt a kindred spirit with John Hughes' MollyAllyJuddEmilioAndrewAnthonyJonDemi character. my high school senior quote was uttered by the baby-faced Mathew Broderick, who did for Ferrari's what Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" did for BVDs: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once and a while, you could miss it."

At 17 it was easy to relate to the desire for independence and excess. being young. having a good time. just living your life. now 10 years down the line, I'm approaching my Golden Birthday- in January I will turn 28 on the 28th- and I feel like most people around me still want to be Peter Pan. not to say that there's something wrong with never growing up. I think most people feel nostalgic for the ease of childhood and the thrall of late adolescence. I wonder sometimes though, as I approach my thirties, how anyone can get to this point in her life and not know what the hell she wants and/or not already at least be on the verge of accomplishing it.

A while back Ms. Nola pointed me to an article in the New York Times describing my generation's love affair with the Odyssey years of their 20s. I've had my share of wandering and exploration. hell, according to the article, knitting groups, Teach for America, and Facebook stalking all instantly qualify me as Odysseus. and while I still haven't attained all the hallmarks of adulthood (career, financial independence, family, stability)- I feel like I've moved beyond what seems to be the 20-something quest of "finding yourself." now maybe I'm at fault for not longing for more, but honestly, I'm pretty damn happy with who I am and how I've lived my life so far. it's odd, as someone who feels secure in herself, to question whether I'm truly living enough thanks to the constant reminder that others are still stumbling forward in search of something bigger, better... bliss, zen, or whatever. why should I feel at a loss because I feel like I've already found that something in myself? right, Ferris?

bah, humbug!

some current holiday commentary: