somewhat melancholy rambling

It feels like a fall day, oddly. Wind blustery and smelling like burn leaves. The gale force is so strong that no matter which way I turn, my hair is in my face. The sky is grey and overcast--I think we're on tornado watch and huge thunder storms are just around the corner. I'd do anything to be in a soft bed cuddled up next to something warm and comforting be it a human or kitty.

I should have worn boots with my outfit today but grabbed a pair of sandals instead. I feel especially short. I barely stand an inch above 5 feet and my normal shoes give me about 4 inches of lift so that I can somewhat compete height-wise with a standard female, but today, I'm barely 5'2'' and discovered that I can't see what all is located on the top shelf of my work cabinet. Crazy what a couple of inches would do!

On a related note, it's a huge pet peeve of mine when a person lies about their height, especially a guy, on their driver's license. I knew someone who was barely 5'9'' who claimed to be "close to 6 feet." That's a huge turn off and something so easy to disprove! Apparently a lot of men lie about their height (about as often as women lie about their age or weight) even people I would expect to not get a complex about it. I can proudly say that T is not one of these guys. He's 5'10'' and a quarter inch. He towers over some of my friends who claim to be 5'11.''

I'm pretty good a gaging height. My sneaky way of measuring is by hugging the person. For the record, when I hug T without shoes on, my arm comfortably go around his waist and easily rest on his ass while my nose hits the part here his sternum and diaphragm him. I definitely can not see over his shoulder.

Went back to ballet in a long while. I figured I'd rather be in physical pain than be down so often. The lack of dance has really gotten to me and I figured my foot pain has gone away enough that I can manage. Anyhow, it felt so wonderful to be in class again. I kept eyeing myself in the mirror thinking to myself: "Okay not too bad! Not too bad! The little tummy is kinda cute. My legs are still thin. I'm still flexible. Feet are still strong. Arms need more work, but still...not bad."

The funny thing that I did not account for, however, was the weight of my hair! It's gotten so long that the bun in the back is somewhat substantial and I discovered that I now tip backwards whenever I turn. Who would have thought of that? Theoretically, one would continually take classes so the growth of hair would be a non issue as you adjust your technique daily. It's been 6 months or so since I really took class and wow...my center of gravity totally changed!

Anyway, I slept really hard last night and had a whole slew of bad dreams. In one of them I was wading through knee deep water looking for a silver bracelet that my husband had playfully tossed into the water. As a trudged through, just below the surface, I saw two large glimmering cerulean eyes staring back at me. They belonged to a toddler with platinum colored hair and he was smiling slightly. When I reached down to grab the baby out of the water, his body disintegrated into a multitude of colorful guppies. As beautiful as the image was, I felt sad....

I know precisely where I lifted the imagery of the baby underwater from. J and I were exchanging childhood stories not too long ago and he told me of the time when his family went out swimming at a lake when he was 2. He was playing on the shore while his mother watched him. She had diverted her gaze for just a few moments and when she looked back up, her baby was gone. Screams and panic. No child could be seen along the stretch of shore. In a panic, she ran into the lake, worried now that her only son had drowned. It was then that she looked down and saw her toddler looking right back up at her through the water, two big blue eyes opened in wonderment and I imagine a smirk, holding his breath just below the surface. He's not sure if he was lying back or standing underwater, but I'm sure that's a horrific experience for a mother to go through. Anyhow, obviously that story made an impact of me, although for what reasons I do not know.

I haven't slept well for a long time and even though I slept hard last night, I think I could have used another couple more hours especially after that dream. I'm also really sore from ballet last night.

As a side note, one of the cats brought us a dead garden snake as a present. That too set the mood for an odd day.

sleepless in Austin

Well, it's past midnight and although I realize it isn't *that* late, I can tell already there's no way I'm going to be able to fall asleep easily. Even though I'm physically tired, my brain is not doing a good job at shutting off. Normally I can will myself to drift off. I am after all a huge fan of napping/sleeping/dozing/lying comatose. This hobby I place second only to eating. Speaking of which I'm hungry again.

Currently my mind is thinking of the "Evil Pink Sugar Cookies." The local grocery store, HEB, carries these things in 10 pack clam shell containers and they precisely look like this spinkles and all:



There's something about the mouth feel that makes these things delectable. They're super soft and in reality, have absolutely not substance. In fact, you get maybe a 2 second high off of these things because there's not any chewing involved. And yet, the delicate flavor (they're actually not too sweet) and inviting aroma of butter makes you want to eat another one...and another...and thus a new form of crack is born.

I offered one to my mom today who tagged along with us for grocery shopping. To my horror, she wiped off the icing before eating the cookie:

"The color scare me," she said.

Indeed, there are very few edible things in nature that come in that shade of pink. I asked her if she liked it.

"Like what?"

The cookie.

"Oh, I forgot I ate it. I bet it's fattening."

See? Not even my mother, who I inhereted my gluttony from, could even remember she tasted such a thing.

T thinks they're vile and in a lot of ways they are because aside from flour, sugar and egg, I can't quite figure out what other ingredients are. Caranuba wax. Why would you need that? They're also 90 calories each. Still, they taste darn good to me.

***
My brain is also abuzz because there's been so much going on lately. As you know, my mom moved up here into our home and then a couple of days later found an apartment in the neighborhood, so it seems like all we've been doing lately is moving boxes, packing and unpacking.

My brother came down Saturday morning to help mom move (again) and I only got to spend about 10 hours with him. My friend Mark had already planned to introduce me to his friend Dave who works over at Guitar Resurrection (a fantastic locally owned shop specializing in vintage guitars and amps) because he was looking for a theremin player for his band. That conversation went fairly well above all the ripping and roaring from the sound room next door as Mark was hammering out power chords over the Bogner Amp (3 grand...sheesh, amps are expensive) he's been eyeing for some time. I ended up buying a guitar slide for my brother, oohing and ahhing the various accessories in the store, musing over various guitar picks all shades of the rainbow and then settled on some heavier gauge ones simply because I liked the color. I'm really not a guitarist, but I do appreciate the accouterments. Mark kept mentioning he always feels like a kid in a candy store whenever he visits and I don't blame him...

I have mentioned this before, but I'll say it again. If you're a single woman and you really want to find a guy, just walk into a guitar store. It would help if you knew music, especially if you can play guitar (because your hotness factor will shoot through the roof) and bonus points if you can keep up in conversation about types and feature of guitars, but just knowing an instrument helps. If you don't you can always be the one asking for lessons---believe me, they staff will want to teach you. I have yet to meet a chick who actually worked at a guitar shop. For whatever reason, even though I know there are a lot of gals who play guitar, you'll find mostly men, roughly in their early to mid 20's in various manners of dress (yet all slightly dishelved even if the outfit consists of a suit) hanging out on a Saturday afternoon there. It's like Fry's electronic store but with less geeks or Home Depot with less dads.

Anyway, after the music store excursion, Mom, T, JBRo and I watched Beth perform works by Hayden and Beethoven with the Austin Choral Consort at St. Matthew's Episcopal church. Mark was there too since his vocal coach is Barry Scott Williams, the choral conductor. That was a lovely affair and would have been a nice way to end the night except that mom really wanted a television and the only place open that late was Walmart.

I hate Walmart. Not even just the corporate aspect of it, but the layout, the chaos, the shitty products and the people! This is where my classism and judgemental side rears its ugly head. Arrrgh! People, just because it's Walmart doesn't mean you suddenly need to look the part of trailer trash. A tube top should never be worn on anyone over 150 lbs. If we can see your ass crack when you're not even bending over, the skirt is too darn short. Wear deodorant....I mean, I don't see these types of people on a day to day basis in the city. I only see them in Walmarts. Makes no sense. Do they live there?

Not only were we at Walmart, it happened to be during tax free weekend, so the lines were enormous. Here we were at 11:00pm fighting to grab the HD flat screen TV for mom amongst wailing kids, screaming parents and a whole mess of weirdos who were there just because they had nothing better to do. We just sat next to a timpani and 200 piece choir for the past 2 hours and the night before T and I were at a rock concert, so the sounds of whiny kids really got on our nerves.

Nevertheless, we got mom a TV.

***

It's about 1 am now and I'm starting to crave hot sauce and chips. I'm thinking if I stay up longer I'm eventually going to want a steak dinner. Better go to bed now. Long work day ahead....