Many waters

Many waters
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

This is what my backyard looks like right now.

I'm not really sure what is causing this flooding as it only started raining last night. In six and a half years, I have never seen my backyard fill with this much water. It's kind of scary.

I just got back from running 8 miles at the gym. My plans to run outdoors were obviously thwarted by the weather.

It was difficult, but I was definitely helped along by songs from a new running mix I got for Christmas and the Friday Night Lights marathon on Bravo. There's nothing to keep my sad, slow ass chugging along like seeing Coach Taylor yell at his players as they ran wind sprints through the mud and rain, "Champions don't complain! Champions never quit!"

I can't believe that tomorrow is New Year's Eve.

Emily

Emily
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

Emily the great grey cat is now gone. My boyfriend made the best decision he could in letting her go, there is no doubt about that, as she was suffering. Even though she was pretty old and I knew in the back of my mind that she would not be here forever, her last illness came on rather suddenly and it was stunning that she was gone so quickly. I tried to be strong for my boyfriend, but when I first walked into his house the day after she died and she was not there, I was overcome and had to excuse myself to the bathroom before properly greeting his mother and cry my eyeballs out for a few minutes. She was not mine, but I loved her.

I have only known Emily a relatively short while, so it is not my memories of her that matter most, but I will always remember her. She stayed with me for about two months after her hurricane rescue, living in my room away from the other cats most of the time. She would venture out sometimes and they would commence a triangulated staring session. She warmed up to me during those months for the first time, coming out from under the bed for treats and even sleeping with me for the first time on the last night of her stay.

Since then, she has never loved me with the mighty love she reserved for my boyfriend, but she would come to me sometimes when I wiggled my fingers and let me brush her occasionally. She loved being petted and drinking water out of the bathtub faucet. She would jump out with a wet forehead, her thirst happily quenched. She also liked sitting on the back of the futon and lying on the bed in a shaft of sunlight from the window. She loved lying on B.'s chest most of all, I think. One of my last memories of her was laughing at the way she crouched down and approached the new Christmas tree as if an explorer or a stalking tiger. How do you comfort someone you love who's lost the cat he had for, like, 15 years? I don't know. She was very well taken care of and loved and just one of those very good, sweet cats. Life will not be the same without her.

Breathe, Think, Enjoy, Love

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?

I trained for a 5K, did a one-hour running program, and started training for a half-marathon. I also opened an IRA (not that exciting) and marched in a Mardi Gras parade (insanely cold but fun).

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

My only new year's resolution was to make myself and the world a little better. I think I've made myself somewhat better by miraculously exercising for the better part of the year. I'm not sure I did much to make the world better, which is not good. In 2007, I'd like to run the half-marathon. And try to make the world better since I didn't really do that this year. And figure out more of what I believe and what I don't. And find more ways to be creative and create things.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

An old friend had her third son, and my old roommate had her son after being told she was having a girl which was hilarious and exciting.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No.

5. What countries did you visit?

Mexico!

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006?

A regular series of full nights of sleep. (Same as last year and the year before.) Thirtysomething released on DVD.

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

This was very exciting, as was the 5K.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I have to say starting to run and sticking to it. I never thought back in April when I could barely run for seven seconds that I would be able to run seven miles by the end of the year. I feel good about that and proud of myself. I also felt like getting through the backpacking trip was a big achievement because while very fun it was also very challenging to keep putting one foot in front of the other without collapsing and demanding a helicopter ride out.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Hm. I don't know. I guess I don't really feel like I've really failed this year. That is kind of astonishing.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Not really, thankfully.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My new running shoes. The dill weed paint I bought for my kitchen?

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Anne Lamott.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, George W. Bush. (It's the same answer every year; I can't help it.)

14. Where did most of your money go?

Mexico and Christmas gifts.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

In a bad way, I got pretty excited by the flying bug in Mexico, so much so that I completely fell apart.

16. What song will always remind you of 2006?

The World Spins Madly On by The Weepies and Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap and Comfort by Deb Talan. (Click links to listen.)

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? I think I'm happier in general because I feel good about taking better care of myself. I am very sad that my boyfriend's cat is no longer with us, and I will miss her very much.

b) thinner or fatter? About the same, but I think my legs are slowly getting a little stronger.

c) richer or poorer? Richer, but not exceedingly more so.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Recycling, reading.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Ruminating.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Around a large table of food with my family and my boyfriend and his mom. It was loud. We ate a lot. Several friends stopped by. We ate some more. It was a good day, I think.

21. Did you fall in love in 2006?

I continued to be in love with the same person.

22. How many one-night stands?

None.

23. What was your favorite TV program?

Ugly Betty and Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica. I wasn't sure about Ugly Betty at first, but it's completely won me over. I didn't like the Friday Night Lights movie so I didn't expect to like the show, but I completely love it. I loved Battlestar from the miniseries through season 2.5 (all viewed on DVD), but season 3 is feeling a bit uneven to me so far. I'm not giving up yet, but it doesn't hold the same wondrous appeal as it did when I was watching it on DVD.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

I can't think of anyone. I pretty much reserve all of my hatred for the president. (Still.)

25. What was the best book you read?

Best novel: Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson. I also really liked The Archivist by Martha Cooley. Best nonfiction: Eat, Pray, Love. I'd like to give a special shout-out to Shelley for giving me the Atkinson book, Grace for sending me the Gilbert book, and Colleen for sending me so many good books and book recommendations, out of which I think King Dork by Frank Portman has been my favorite, and you should all read it.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Totally The Weepies. (Thanks to Erin, Jessamyn, and Lizzie B. for leading me to them.)

27. What did you want and get?

A grip on myself when it comes to exercising. Finally.

28. What did you want and not get?

Rid of my under-eye circles.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

The best movie I saw in the theater was Little Miss Sunshine. Of my many rentals, I loved Serenity, Junebug, and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang the most.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

Let's see. I turned 31 on Mardi Gras Day.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I hate to sound like a broken record, but more sleep.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006?

Um. Jeans? T-shirts? The usual.

33. What kept you sane?

Love & Lexapro!

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Hm. I'm completely over my McDreamy love. I haven't really found a replacement yet. Maybe the coach on Friday Night Lights, but it's not really that I fancy him. I'd like him to be my life coach and say things to me like "Git 'er done."

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

Probably George W. Bush's veto of the stem cell bill. There are really no words for how angry that made me and still makes me.

36. Whom did you miss?

Ephram Brown. Al Swearingen. As of December 21st, my favorite grey kitty.

37. Who was the best new person you met?

Betty Suarez.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.

When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive: to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.

Marcus Aurelius

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I want only this, I want to live

I want to live a simple life.

Or ...

I am humbled in this city

There seems to be an endless sea of people like us

Wakeful dreamers, I pass them on the sunlit streets

In our rooms filled with laughter

We make hope from every small disaster

Or ...

All it takes is a little faith and a lot of heart.

(All by The Weepies.)

(The same survey: 2005 and 2004.)

Jam

Yesterday I drove to the big city to have dinner with my boyfriend and his mom, who's here for the holidays. I left at 2:15, leaving myself time to stop for a pumpkin spice latte, to get gas, and to drop off my friend's birthday and Christmas gifts at her house. Traffic was pretty heavy getting into the city, but it was no big deal. I stopped at Starbucks near his house to get him some Sumatra and was totally suckered into impulse-buying the new Sarah McLachlan holiday CD. I arrived at his house, watched them finish a game of Scrabble, and then we visited for a while and headed to dinner. I had a salad and the flounder special with cous cous, and it was very tasty.

I left shortly after dinner because I knew I had a seven-mile run today and wanted to get home early and get good rest. I looked at my watch when pulling away from his house, and it was 8:11. It was smooth sailing until I hit an exit about 20 miles from home, when traffic stopped. Crap. It was shortly after 9:00. I figured it would move slowly and then I would get off at the next exit four miles ahead and take an alternate route home.

It took me two and a half hours to go four miles to the next exit.

Those hours were spent in sort of a fugue state of denial, misery, and hilarity all wrapped up together.

I told myself I was lucky not to be in the Denver airport, to have heat, to have my phone, to have plenty of gas in my car, to have good music. I fell soundly in love with the new Sarah McLachlan CD in those hours.

I called Shelley, and we engaged in a rousing singalong medley of several of our favorite camp songs from childhood. We noted that there were so many instances of the word "Hey!" in such songs that we couldn't count them.

I called my boyfriend, who read to me aloud from a novel he's reading, No Place, Louisiana, the title of which could not have been more fitting as I stared into the darkness.

I played traffic jam-themed Text Twist with the SATURN letters on the car in front of me. Sat. Rut. Nuts.

I talked to my sister, who strategized with me in exasperation on better ways the state police could have redirected traffic.

I watched the person in front of me chain smoke and drop butt after butt onto the center line.

I harmonized with every song on the CD three or four times and fantasized that I was one of Sarah McLachlan's backup singers and wished I had a loudspeaker to pipe the music over the cars and into the air to make everyone feel better.

Once the 2.5-hour four mile trek had passed and I finally turned off of I-10, I took a back way home. I got kind of scared because it was close to midnight, it was foggy, my car was having serious temperature control issues and my glasses and the windshields and windows were fogging up, and I was on a dark road with no street lights.

Then suddenly I emerged into the land of many bright lights, those of a large correctional facility and the tall glowing orange arms of numerous chemical plants.

I panicked and called my sister. "Where am I? It's suddenly all bright and weird and I'm surrounded by chemical plants and prisons! I am scared."

She assured me that I wasn't hallucinating and that all was well.

I calmed down and finally made it home at three minutes after midnight, calculating that I could have driven to Pensacola in the time that it took me to drive 70 miles.

I woke up this morning and headed to the gym, where I somehow ran seven miles. I don't even know how, I honestly don't. It was very hard. Tonight I'm exchanging gifts with Shelley and Maryelizabeth, which should be fun. I went to see Rocky Balboa this afternoon with my sister and little brother because we've seen all the rest of the movies so many times (except for V, because nobody watches that one more than once), so why not? I thought it was mostly boring until the fight at the end. The fight is always the best part.

30 things about my sister on her 30th birthday

1.) She has always been really good at sports.

2.) She played basketball and volleyball when we were kids.

3.) Now she runs and bikes and has done a marathon and triathlons and stuff.

4.) She sang "On My Own" as the senior soloist at her high school concert and got a standing ovation.

5.) She taught herself to play the guitar.

6.) She got sick on Chinese food at the 1984 World's Fair and she was still such a miniature person at age 8 that she got pushed around in my baby brother's stroller.

7.) She is a fierce, rabid, lifelong Tiger fan.

8.) One of her eyebrows is formidably difficult to tame.

9.) She went backpacking through Europe by herself one summer and became best friends with a couple of Greek guys in Athens with whom she stayed up all night celebrating in the streets on the night that Greece won the World Cup.

10.) She left a high-paying, high-powered corporate job to go to law school.

11.) She was always being ranked first in her group at work and stuff like that.

12.) She was valedictorian of her high school graduating class.

13.) She bakes good brownies.

14.) She speaks pretty good Spanish.

15.) Once, when she was a little kid, she wrote a song about Chris Jackson to the tune of Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" and performed it for a video compilation of his greatest basketball moments.

16.) She also wrote several poems about a few of her favorite athletes when she was young that had unbelievably slammin' rhymes going on in them.

17.) My sister loves Domino's cheese pizza, Coke, bagels with cream cheese, candy corn, pasta with marinara sauce, and McDonald's caramel sundaes.

18.) My sister sleeps like she's dead.

19.) I have always been very jealous of this ability.

20.) She never wants to return to the corporate world but wants to help poor people here and abroad with things like housing and finances.

21.) My sister is one of those people who is freakishly brilliant with both numbers and words.

22.) My sister and I shared a room for most of our lives and lived to tell about it.

23.) My sister cries with beautiful ease and this print reminds me of her.

24.) Every time I listen to music I love in the car I wish with a sad stab that she were there to sing it with me because chances are she loves it, too.

25.) She is refreshingly honest and will tell you the truth about whether or not those pants in fact do make you look fat.

26.) She is very talented in the art of painstakingly organized spreadsheets for all aspects of one's life.

27.) The time we spent together in Europe was one of the best times in my whole life even though once we had to stop and scream at each other in the streets of Edinburgh.

28.) She has great girlfriends whom she's had most of her life, and she also has really great friends she's made as an adult who would seemingly walk through fire for her.

29.) I'd walk through fire for her.

30.) I chose this picture of my sister for this post not only because it's one of my favorite pictures ever taken of her. I chose it because I really do see my sister as a fighter. She's always fought to succeed at whatever she's tried to do, and now that she's facing the search for her next path in life, she's fighting to find her way, fighting to be happy. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Yes, my name is Johnny Wishbone

Another weekend gone by. On Friday night, I drove to the big city, ate a spinach salad with walnuts and feta and red onions and raspberry dressing, and watched a little bit of An Evening with Kevin Smith before we had to turn it off. I like Kevin Smith, but I do not like shots of overly enthusiastic fans in any kind of video. Music concert, lecture series, whatever. Spare me the extended footage of audience members applauding, "woo!"-ing, guffawing. Hate.

On Saturday morning, it was off to the French bakery for a muffin and croissant. We bought a Christmas tree and went to split the planet's best barbeque shrimp po-boy. We went to the mall, which was hellish, of course, to buy a gift card for the intern at my office who's graduating, then to Border's, then to meet my parents for coffee but not really because they got stuck in traffic and didn't make it, and started a game of Scrabble before heading out to dinner, where the wait was long despite reservations but the food was very good. The house salad was especially tasty, as was the butternut shrimp bisque, into which I dipped much bread.

The next morning we went out for Christmas lights and put them on the tree and I headed home around lunchtime and set out for my supposed six-mile run which ended up being a 3.5-mile run. I was having a hard time and kept slowing down and slowing down until I realized, "Hey, I'm walking." I kept on walking and didn't finish the run. It might have been the heat or running outside again after a two-week stint running indoors or the fact that mentally I knew that I'd already run 6 miles the Sunday before. I don't know. It was the first time in all of this training that it was body over mind and I was upset about it at first but have now let it go and plan on running my 19 miles this week come hell or high water.

Alert. Alert! Bravo is airing the first ten episodes of Friday Night Lights, marathon style, on Saturday, December 30. My evangelism relative to this show is perhaps growing tiresome but I don't care.

And here's another alert: You can watch three episodes of thirtysomething on YouTube now. I have done searches for this show since forever and now look, there they are: "Separation," the episode when Nancy and Elliot separate; "Legacy," the episode when Michael and Elliot's plane almost crashes so Michael and Hope start drawing up a will, Nancy and Elliot are getting back together, and so forth; and "Mr. Right," the episode when Melissa and Ellyn do video dating, Ethan has to kiss Cinderella in the school play, and Melissa meets Lee. Excellence all around. I now see that you can buy this show on DVD here and here, both of which might be sketchy as the show has never been officially issued on DVD. I'm thinking of buying it from the first link; is that insane?

I caught part of Eddie Murphy on Inside the Actors Studio tonight and was reminded of how often my brother, sister, and I used to watch the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies when we were young. I remember how hard they made my brother laugh. For having parents so holy, we sure did watch a lot of filth. I think the trick is having holy parents who can still find amusement in the likes of Axel Foley.

A Thrill of Hope

Okay, people. You can now watch every Friday Night Lights episode online. You have no excuse anymore. If you've missed it, you can catch up on the entire series. You won't be sorry! It's so good. You can also read Drunken Bee's excellent recaps for additional catching up. I am telling you. This show is enjoyable on every possible level. I could not love it more.

You can also download a beautiful version of O Holy Night that was played by Trombone Shorty and others here. If you want to watch the clip from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip where it was played, you can do so here. If you want to read more about how this all happened, you can do so here.

What else? Last week, it was in the twenties every morning when I woke up. That is no way to live. I can't stand the cold, I hate it, it makes me feel miserable and completely paralyzed. Thankfully it was 74 degrees today and even though I was inside working it was comforting to know. I've been working a lot, running a lot, and eating a lot of Hershey's kisses. I ran four miles on Saturday and six miles on Sunday and four miles last night and somehow this is just sort of my life now. I'm still going just about as slowly as a person can go and pass from walking to running but am trying not to care about that. Meanwhile, I've never been the sort of person with a bowl of candy on her desk at work because I knew I'd sit there and eat the candy all day long but now I am and I do. Hershey's kisses. All day, every day.

Tonight I had a threeway call with my little brother and sister. It was enjoyable. My little brother called to announce that he's done with finals and had just had a conversation with my parents during which he proclaimed his rather unconventional post-college plans, to which they responded surprisingly positively. He was laughing hysterically while telling me this so I called my sister so he could tell her, too. We talked about that and about how we are proud of him and happy for his excitement, and of course the conversation turned to Friday Night Lights. "I love it so much," I said. "Yeah," he said, "My friends and I just sit around when it's over saying we can't believe how good it is." We agreed that Lyla is the weak link but that she is growing on us. We also agreed that we love the coach and the entire coach family and that Mrs. Coach is the hottest mom on television. My brother said, "They are the best couple ever." Which amused me very much. I mean, clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. I wonder if one day that will become totally cheesy and awful to me. Right now it's sort of cheesy but not at all awful. I love this show, and I love that my siblings love it, too. I know my older brother would like it if he watched it. I hardly ever talk to him these days, which is sad.

Christmas will be here soon. Everyone is coming home, and that makes me very happy. My sister will be here, my little brother is graduating from college, and Shelley is coming. I'm looking forward to a lot of eating and gifting and hot chocolate drinking and loving.

Pink roses

Sometimes I feel like if I don't write about my weekends that they'll be lost somehow.

On Friday night, there was sushi. And, of course, the watching of Battlestar Galactica. On Saturday, there was running shoe shopping, beignets and half-cafe au lait/half-hot chocolate, a stop in my favorite store, a visit to the library book sale where I bought this CD for a dollar, a visit to this store where I accidentally plopped a giant blob of lotion all over the floor, a work fish fry, Vietnamese food, and Wordplay, which was very geekily enjoyable. On Sunday, there was a homegrown orange for breakfast and a game of Scrabble where I got the X, Z, J, Q, and all sorts of other high-scoring consonants so I actually won the game. Then I went on my first five-mile run on a cold sunny day. I was very glad to have my new headband/ear-cover thingie or I think my ears would have frozen and shattered onto the ground. I have no idea how I'm going to run 16 miles this week considering it's Tuesday and I haven't started but I suppose I'll make it happen somehow. Along with a six mile run at the end of the week but I'm not thinking about that yet.

What I'm thinking about is how I have a sudden new obsession with baked Cheetos, how sad and moving Anne Frank Remembered (that I watched Sunday night) was, how very good Case Histories is, how Zuko smells lately like he rolled in something that died which is possible considering the deer legs that were being tossed about to and fro in my backyard by the neighbors until I left them a very nice note asking them to please keep the frightening hoofed meaty limbs to themselves because they are in fact super gross, how Marley spends entire days with her entire body buried under my comforter in a hidden lump of warmth and purriness, how Khaki refuses to get down from her cat bed unless it's time to eat, how totally awesome the James Taylor Great Performances show was on PBS and how I cried at the end when they sang "Shed a Little Light," how Daisy just wants to curl up on top of the pillow that sits atop her crate in ball of shivering my life is so hard-ness, how I don't understand why it was 23 degrees here this morning and 40 degrees in New York City, and how happy I was made earlier by the appearance of pink roses in my office in recognition of two December fifths ago being the scary but exciting blind date I went on with the sender of the pink roses.

I've never really been a huge James Taylor fan the way my sister is a huge fan. I've always loved "Carolina in My Mind" and an old live version of "That Lonesome Road" but I've never really known much about him except that most of his music seemed kind of, I don't know, milquetoastey. But after watching this show, I think I am digging him on a deep level. I mean, maybe there's nothing wrong with singing songs about how we should shower the people we love with love and show them the way that we feel.

Two deer legs and a partridge in a pear tree

People always say that things look brighter in the morning because they do. I woke up this morning after dreaming of deer parts all night long -- seriously. I set out for an early morning run even though it was 34 degrees outside convincing myself that my very expensive running pants would keep me warm but they certainly did not and I only lasted about two blocks before running home and driving to the gym for my 3.5-mile run. I hate running inside, but what're you gonna do? Anyway, so I got home, felt emboldened by my run, and decided to go on a spy mission and peeked into my neighbors' (college boys) yard and saw that it, too, held a deer's leg. So I figure that they gave one to their puppies and decided to toss one over the fence for mine, too. To which I can only say thanks but no thanks. I definitely got myself worked into a frenzy last night, concluding that it could only be the remnant of a Satanic animal sacrifice ceremony. Lord. I talked to a co-worker about it this morning who said that her husband always gives deer legs to his dogs after hunting. "Fur and all?" I gulped. "Fur and all," she assured me. My boyfriend said last night that there was probably a simple explanation, and, as usual, he was right.