Archive for December 2007

“I’m at a crossroads,” I tell her. “Do I abandon my blog and readers…do I sacrifice the support they give just to start all over somewhere else with an alias?”

As always, she was level and logical and put together what I was saying with what she was *hearing* and what she knows about twenty years of me and my heart and my mind and said matter-of-factly “I think you just have to put it out there without apologies: I’m not going to censor myself anymore.”

We were in the middle of the gift shop at the Chattanooga Choo Choo and while she picked up little trains and inspected them for the worthiness of her child, one processor in my brain paused while the other went into overdrive.

When it started, no one read and I didn’t care what I wrote. “I burned my popcorn at lunch…” blah blah blah.

It was for me, and served as an absurd sort of on-line diary and in the most basic way, I was maybe earlier but fundamentally no different than damn near any other blogger out there, and at last count I think there were 1.86 bijillion of ‘em. Writing on-line was a way to remember experiences, thoughts, and adventures. It was a safe place to let my demons out to play, battle and be purged.

But something I didn’t expect happened: people started reading. They started commenting and I started thinking more about what I was writing. It provided me an opportunity to be more introspective (at times) and encouraged me – as Jack Nicholson would tell you in As Good As It Gets – to be a better man. Er. Woman.

My friend Heather is quick to point out that one of my biggest flaws is that I care too much. She says it with a hint of love, but it’s intended as an insult.

I care about the choices people make. I care about helping people I know and people I don’t know in whatever passive or direct way I can, and I care if I hurt myself or others with my words or actions.

So, I’ve censored myself and sanitized my writing. I’ve taken all the effing fun out of it, and that alone qualifies me for a life long sentence on the Golden Twinkie.

I hold back about my mother because her sister (who I love – Hi Auntie Moie!) reads the site and I’m fully aware that the way my mother would want to be remembered by friends or loved ones or known by complete strangers is not the way I would describe her or our years together.

I hold back about other family struggles because my siblings read. Hell, I’ve never even mentioned my ex-husband directly, but then, let’s see: a) I don’t want to admit that particular failure b) don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing his name (since he still comes here looking for a mention of himself) and finally c) I don’t want to remember that he existed.

OTOH, there is The Mc. Plenty of bits I could have used these pages to process in the early days/weeks/months of our courtship, but I don’t want him involuntarily thrown under the microscope, and therefore try to leave him off the page.

Add insult to injury with my fondness of four letter sentence punch ups. I’ve mildly adjusted my sailor vocabulary because some friends and friends of friends have more delicate sensibilities, and even if they’re immune to it, folks they know aren’t. I’ve had people de-link me because of the way the people that read *their* blogs would think of them if they knew they read me. Which is neither here nor there. I understand, even if I don’t agree.

Boundaries can be good. Maybe I sound ignorant when every sixteenth word typed is four letters. Maybe “fuck” drops readers and they miss the point. Eh. Whatevs.

These boundaries are bad.

Somewhere in all that anti-bacterial writing bullshit, I lost my voice, my inspiration and my passion. I am suffocating. Writing has become a burden instead of a pleasure because I’m worried about what you think instead of honoring what I feel. Your mere existence makes me tired.

So with thanks to Julie (my angel of sanity and heart of hearts) I say: I’m done.

Forgive me for anything I may say that offends and remember: you can always change the channel.

X Mas Card Out Takes

Ho ho hos.

There is no 20/20 vision involved. Not in my hindsight, not in my present sight.

Behold – my youth. Snicker along with me and consider it my gift to you in honor of my 35th year and note there will be no refunds or exchanges.

Mosaic

The complete set is available here, should you wish to print them and trade them with friends.

A colleague of mine and his wife are playing Naughty Elf.

Uh uh. Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but that’s not what it is. Every night in December when their boys go to bed, a stuffed Elf in their house comes to life and does mischevious things around the house. Thursday night it was TP – the boys woke up to a house covered in toilet paper and an elf with a roll in his hand. The plan Friday night was to drive the family car into the back yard for the boys to find it with the elf in the drivers seat – and when they turned the car on to move it, to have the stereo blasting Christmas music.

This sounds so damn fun it almost makes me wish I had kids, and have half a mind to figure out how to make it work with just me and The Mc.

My family traditions growing up involved the nativity set my parents made when they were newlyweds. I say “made” but that’s pushing it – the figures are ceramic and they painted them. Brown. I only know when they were created because my folks signed and dated the bottom of Mary, Joesph and the manger.

Christmas morning we’d get up, the folks would get baby Jesus out of his hiding place, and we’d sing happy birthday and put him in his manger. We’d open our presents one at a time with Dad playing Santa, all of us “ooh”-ing and “ahh”-ing over our siblings presents, which was crap because we really just wanted them to be satisfied so we could get our next one. We’d have a big breakfast and drink these green slushy things my dad made with 7-Up and lime sherbet. Mmmm. I think they may have had Creme de Minthe in them, but I’m not sure if that came with age or our level of spazzitude. Getting the kids tipsy might have been one way to calm us down.

Somehow, I’m the kid who inherited the nativity set. Every year, even if I don’t get a tree or decorate with swags of fake green or hang a wreath on my door; I still set Mary, Joesph and the manger out, “hide” baby Jesus and bring him out early Christmas morning while singing happy birthday.

My tradition is all queued up and I’m curious (since I may be starting a few new ones): what are your most cherished traditions – past or present?

Giving Dad the angel for the tree

ETK posted a letter to her 13 year old self as part of a meme type project yesterday, and it reminded me of an exercise I went through with my sister a few years ago before she retired from the life coaching business. It was part meditation, part imagination and entirely helpful and enlightening.

She started with present day me (how else would you begin?), and she talked quietly until I found a happy place and quieted my mind. At her direction, I floated slowly out into space and then back down, but the back down was to a 65 year old me. Where was I…what was I doing…what were my surroundings and emotional state like but more importantly – what sage council did I have for that younger more confused and emotionally wrecked me?

So with a little inspiration from ETK and on the cusp of my 35th, I’m revisiting the conversation.

Dear Silly Little 35 Year Old Me:

You are not old. Shut up. You’ve had gray hair since you were 16 and you love it. Look at this belly and these crowsfeet! This is old. Now be quiet and take notes because you know I hate repeating myself and you have a horrible memory…which brings us directly to the goods:

- Take the damn Gingoba…it might not help but it probably won’t hurt.

- Don’t be so hard on yourself. Failure is key to development and your later appreciation of successes.

- It’ll be hard work to erase your crappy programming – but you’ll write a rockin’ much better less buggy O/S for your brain when it’s all done. Expect a lot of tears and resentment during development and know that none of it makes you a bad person — it’s part of progress.

- The Rolling Stones were right.

- Do it. That thing you’re terrified of? Do it anyway. No one is stopping you but you…and it’ll turn out better than you think. I’m serious. Didn’t I tell you to be quiet and listen? Trust me.

- Make more time for your spiritual evolution.

- You’re going to have to fight for things…both to bring them into your life and to get them out. It’s okay. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for and your gut knows what it’s talking about. We wouldn’t have made it this far if that wasn’t true.

- Cry more! It hurts when you hold it in and you always feel so cleansed afterwards. It’s guuuuud.

- Get off your ass. If you think it’s hard to keep those thighs tight and that waist slim now, just wait.

- Love freely. You’ll get hurt even if you don’t. Oh, and PS…you are loved. A lot. Open your freakin’ eyes.

- Don’t let your passion and caring be squelched by meanines. Smile inside and keep doing what you do.

- Be authentic.

- Keep making time for the people you love. Those memories, emotions and relationships will be all you have to sustain you through hard times.

- You. Are. Wonderful.

Love,

Maigh circa 2037

My yearly sabbatical is about to commence – it’s the time of year when I turn off the cell phone, the blackberry, step away from the computer and spend time on me. I recharge my batteries with books, movies, knitting, yoga, and everything else that I love but have allowed to be pushed aside during the rush-rush of the other 340 or so days of the year.

Sometimes I think I’m lucky in a way that my folks are gone. Not because I wouldn’t rather have them here – I would. It’s that I see my friends and the hoops they have to jump through and the added stress in their lives and I don’t know if I could handle the pressure to travel during the holidays and then be holed up with siblings. It’s a reality that’s been absent from my life since just after I was of legal drinking age. The irony of the timing isn’t lost on me.

I’m fortunate that my brothers and sister are [usually] lovable and funny and smart, and that it’s not a chore at all to spend time with them. I’m glad we have the choice to inject that quality time wherever we see fit and that we’re not pressured into it during the holidays.

Over the years I’ve gone from struggling through the entire month of December, weeping my way through the festivals of lights and ho ho ho’s and birthdays to embracing the solitude for what it is and taking the days one at a time, celebrating in quiet reflection.

This year is different than most on two fronts: 1. The Big House is going on the market the first week of January and there’s a lot to be done between now and then. 2. I don’t want to go two+ weeks without seeing my girls.

So, here’s a rough draft of what the sabbatical looks like this year:
- Turn off the Blackberry, change voicemail greeting to typical “I’m not calling you back until 2008, FYI”
- Start to pack, power clean the house, inventory and mark items for storage (cabin), sell or move
- Keep looking for the new love den, now that we’ve narrowed the search to a particular area (East Lake/Oakhurst)
- Read: A Walk in the Woods (still), Three Cups of Tea and A Thousand Splendid Suns (book club book)
- Knit more baby hats (you people and yer dang baby makin!)
- Finish planning January trip to NOLA with the seester
- Plan a visit to The Uncle Dan in Tampa in Feb/March
- Keep an eye on airfares to Anchortown for some of the girls trip this summer
- Take more pictures (with help from ETK) in preparation for Digital 102 class that starts in Jan
- Submit two pieces [of crap I'm not entirely proud of] to Budget Travel, because ETK is the best task master and cheerleader ever
- Knit something for myself
- Renew my car tags (barf)
- Take my annual birthday drive to designated *special place* to be quiet, reflect on the year and think about my folks
- Make a crap load of Irish Creme using the family recipe
- Hot yoga
- Sweetwater
…every day, if I can manage it
- Santaland Diaries with the girls
- Drive to Chattanooga for a few hours with Julie (?)
- Sleep, sleep, sleep.
- Go to the movies – Beuowulf should be a good start (it’s The Mc’s favorite book)

That’s it for me. What’s your story? Big plans for the holiday?

Helen is the kind of place you only have to go once in your life.

It’s a Bavarian inspired village in North Georgia on the cusp of the Unicoi National Forest, a two hour drive from the ATL if you make the trip late Friday rush hour traffic.

My once in a life time visit was out of my system in January when I went with the PFL, but recently a girls weekend called for a cabin with a hot tub, a fireplace and no creepy blue velor couch within a few hours of Atlanta and somewhere Kelly hadn’t been before. Kel is a semi-recent transplant from Boston and after shooting down a half a dozen of her “what about this place” ideas for various reasons. I figured I should suck it up and go to Helen again – because it’s not every day you get to immerse yourself in a real live trashy freak show.

Helen is a place you hear about as a day trip idea when you live in Atlanta, but the stories will never be able to do justice to the sheer volume of crapporiffic wares, abundance of tacky tourists (domestic and imported) or the complete disorientation caused by all that Bavarian architecture being dropped off in the middle of North Georgia by what I can only assume were confused aliens with no GPS.

Flanking Helen are a winery and grist mill on one end and the previously mentioned Unicoi which includes Anna Ruby Falls. Basically, these bits of civility act like the Wonder bread holding all of the crazy in your sandwich.

Surely it’s not the only town in America where you can walk down the street and see a man in too-short sweat pants and white tube socks with Crocs donning a plastic Viking hat, or have a nippletastic Elvis hand you beads from the back of a convertible Caddy – but it might be one of a lesser number where you can experience these things on a day other than Halloween or when there’s a themed parade.

That said, there are a lot of amazing cabins to rent in the area, some absolutely spectacular natural scenes I haven’t been able to photograph with any justice, and a lot of charm in the way Nora Mill operates in a way that honors her traditions. There is also a lovely restaurant near Nora Mill and the winery (notice I’ve barely mentioned it? That’s with reason.) called The Nacoochee Grill that you’d be a fool not to visit if you’re in the area. After having one meal there and being romanced by the decor (you couldn’t ask for more clean, refreshing colors or a more open comfortable floor plan), the quiet, the fresh herbs growing outside the window, the insanely polite wait staff and the uber delicious vittles, we had to go for a second time on our way out of town.

So yeah. This review isn’t much of a review and I’ve already bored myself to tears. The good news for both of us is: I took a lot of pictures.

One of my favorite trees Gia macking on the Gnome Helen and the Gaudy Tree The King

Summary: Helen, GA
Lodging: Cabins! Prices range between $260 and $500 for a weekend. Don’t ask me for any more details, I’m not your travel agent.
Likelihood of a return visit: 0%
Distance from Atlanta: 93 mi
Do:
- Go with lovely, smart, funny women who will keep you laughing. It will be important.
- Take one lap through town. Don’t miss all the alleys/nooks/crannys. Sample Scupperdine and Muscadine wine. Rinse your mouth out with gasoline (it will taste better than the wine). Get some fudge. Take a picture of yourself in the midst of it all, or on the bank of the Chattahoochee in the plywood cut out. Find the guy “behind” Helen playing what I can only describe as a dulcimer on steroids. I love that man. Note: if you follow the nooks and cranny’s, you’ll find him.
- Go to Betty’s Country Store and spend, spend, spend. The ambiance and style of this charming country store will lull you into parting with your plastic and not caring a bit. Don’t forget the cheap wine.
- Visit Nacoochee Village, eat at the grill and buy some pottery.

Time to visit:
- Early summer before the insects and kids are out
- During the height of summer for some tubing on the part of the Chattahoochee that’s not [as] toxic
- During Oktoberfest

I write, you read. It's a clean and simple relationship.