Weekend update
I love fall weekends! I love October in general. I'm a little sad that it's over. It was a great month ... Hawaii, multiple Saturday night football games, the weather changing from sweltering to perfect, good people, good times, road trip to see Brandi and Amy, fun dinners and coffees with friends, and beginning to train for the half-marathon. But November is looking pretty good so far. The sun is streaming in through the windows, the dogs just gobbled chew bones that are supposed to last up to five days in under two minutes, and it's about time for some coffee around here.
Friday night was rainy and cold, but a good time was still had by all at a gigantic Halloween party where the kids and grown-ups were all in costume and we enjoyed pumpkin ale and baby pecan pies and fried chicken and catching up with old friends. The later part of the evening was spent piling into my brother and his fiancee's guest room to watch the season four premiere of Friday Night Lights. My brother got Direct TV for the sole purpose of hosting such gatherings, and we are all grateful. Clear eyes full hearts Texas forever WOO! It was heart-achingly beautiful and wonderful, as always, and if you're not watching this show by now I don't even know what to say to you. It was fun to watch it for the first time with my mom, who has decided that Tim Riggins has saved the life of every character and will outline ways in which he has done so. Oh, TIM RIGGINS. Oh, Coach & Mrs. Coach and all of you. I love you.
I had class bright and early on Saturday morning, where my classmates and I sat around for a while before finally deciding to call our professor at home. "Dr. T?" I asked. "Yes?" "This is Eliza calling from class." (Pause ... pause ...) "Oh my word!" She overslept, bless her heart! It was a good morning for oversleeping, that was for sure. What can you do? She's only human. We got started presenting our projects and she arrived soon enough. Sometimes it's weird to go to class with a bunch of adults. You feel really childlike sometimes just by virtue of sitting in a desk.
I sat out in the quad with some classmates post-class and we discussed our final project ... again, kind of a time warp to find myself sitting on one of those concrete benches in the sun, where 15 years ago I was probably sitting on the same bench talking to someone inappropriate and smoking a cigarette (gross) trying to pretend I was 2 cool 4 school. (I was not.)
I finished and loved Looking for Alaska and wrote about it at Kidliterate.
I have finally started to watch thirtysomething on DVD. I think it took me a while to actually process that it came out after wishing for it year after year after year. I honestly thought it would never happen. But here it is. So far, my favorite season one episodes remain "But Not For Me," the episode about the Saturday night where Hope and Michael have an ill-fated date night and Melissa and Gary do a little backsliding and have to face each other the next morning and Michael Feinstein sings in the background. I have always loved that episode and it still holds up for me -- and also "I'll Be Home for Christmas," featuring Michael (Jewish) and Hope's (Protestant) conflict over how to celebrate Christmas (very thoughtfully and sensitively and humorously done, I think) and an epic fight between Michael and Melissa and the moment they make up, also known as one of the sweetest reconciliations I have ever seen on film. (Apparently this episode has been written about by people way more scholarly than I am ... see pages 31-32!)
It is bizarre the way I can basically recite the dialogue on these favorite episodes that I guess I've watched a few too many times on videotape over the last 20+ years.
Friday night was rainy and cold, but a good time was still had by all at a gigantic Halloween party where the kids and grown-ups were all in costume and we enjoyed pumpkin ale and baby pecan pies and fried chicken and catching up with old friends. The later part of the evening was spent piling into my brother and his fiancee's guest room to watch the season four premiere of Friday Night Lights. My brother got Direct TV for the sole purpose of hosting such gatherings, and we are all grateful. Clear eyes full hearts Texas forever WOO! It was heart-achingly beautiful and wonderful, as always, and if you're not watching this show by now I don't even know what to say to you. It was fun to watch it for the first time with my mom, who has decided that Tim Riggins has saved the life of every character and will outline ways in which he has done so. Oh, TIM RIGGINS. Oh, Coach & Mrs. Coach and all of you. I love you.
I had class bright and early on Saturday morning, where my classmates and I sat around for a while before finally deciding to call our professor at home. "Dr. T?" I asked. "Yes?" "This is Eliza calling from class." (Pause ... pause ...) "Oh my word!" She overslept, bless her heart! It was a good morning for oversleeping, that was for sure. What can you do? She's only human. We got started presenting our projects and she arrived soon enough. Sometimes it's weird to go to class with a bunch of adults. You feel really childlike sometimes just by virtue of sitting in a desk.
I sat out in the quad with some classmates post-class and we discussed our final project ... again, kind of a time warp to find myself sitting on one of those concrete benches in the sun, where 15 years ago I was probably sitting on the same bench talking to someone inappropriate and smoking a cigarette (gross) trying to pretend I was 2 cool 4 school. (I was not.)
I finished and loved Looking for Alaska and wrote about it at Kidliterate.
I have finally started to watch thirtysomething on DVD. I think it took me a while to actually process that it came out after wishing for it year after year after year. I honestly thought it would never happen. But here it is. So far, my favorite season one episodes remain "But Not For Me," the episode about the Saturday night where Hope and Michael have an ill-fated date night and Melissa and Gary do a little backsliding and have to face each other the next morning and Michael Feinstein sings in the background. I have always loved that episode and it still holds up for me -- and also "I'll Be Home for Christmas," featuring Michael (Jewish) and Hope's (Protestant) conflict over how to celebrate Christmas (very thoughtfully and sensitively and humorously done, I think) and an epic fight between Michael and Melissa and the moment they make up, also known as one of the sweetest reconciliations I have ever seen on film. (Apparently this episode has been written about by people way more scholarly than I am ... see pages 31-32!)
It is bizarre the way I can basically recite the dialogue on these favorite episodes that I guess I've watched a few too many times on videotape over the last 20+ years.
:::
Later ...
Today I went to the Unitarian church for the first time with a friend. I liked it. It was different and interesting. Parts of it really spoke to me and fed my soul, and parts of it felt very foreign and strange. I have a lot of thoughts about this but right now I can't really process them. (WEIRD: During the service, a song by Greg Holden ran through my head over and over. I was wondering if this service was feeding my soul ... his song, "Serendipity," which I love, has these lyrics: "I have seen all I need to roam free within these streets. Climbing up walls that are never too tall feeds my soul." Anyway ... like I said, I was thinking about souls being fed, so this song popped into my head. And I just put on iTunes on shuffle and this song popped up! Out of thousands! You can hear it here.) It's hard to capture in a nutshell, but in a nutshell, I love the family tradition aspects of the church I grew up in; however, when I learned recently that a friend's husband left the Episcopalian church to join the Catholic church because of the former's openeness towards gays, it felt like a punch in the stomach. Do I want to be part of the church that people join because it's more discriminatory? No, I don't think I do. But like I said, family tradition. Argh. Moving on for now.
After the service, we had coffee and a lovely visit. What is not to love about a day that is sunny and 65 degrees? What is better than that? Not much! I then had a rather fantastic run and spent part of the afternoon with my future sister-in-law. We sat on their balcony and pored over cottages the family might stay in for their wedding and ate cheese and crackers and veggies and guacamole and my brother made these insane peanut butter / rice milk / protein powder smoothies that basically tasted like peanut butter cookie dough OMG YUM.
Now I've got a cat on my lap and "All My Little Words" just popped up on the shuffle list, a song from my friend mo pie that I LOVE AND ADORE. Seriously? This song kills me.
I guess that's about it for now. Mad Men awaits, and I still haven't watched last week's, allegedly the most intense episode of all time. (Speaking of Mad Men, how funny is "Hells bells, Trudy!" on Community?)
To close, November's first sunset:
Today I went to the Unitarian church for the first time with a friend. I liked it. It was different and interesting. Parts of it really spoke to me and fed my soul, and parts of it felt very foreign and strange. I have a lot of thoughts about this but right now I can't really process them. (WEIRD: During the service, a song by Greg Holden ran through my head over and over. I was wondering if this service was feeding my soul ... his song, "Serendipity," which I love, has these lyrics: "I have seen all I need to roam free within these streets. Climbing up walls that are never too tall feeds my soul." Anyway ... like I said, I was thinking about souls being fed, so this song popped into my head. And I just put on iTunes on shuffle and this song popped up! Out of thousands! You can hear it here.) It's hard to capture in a nutshell, but in a nutshell, I love the family tradition aspects of the church I grew up in; however, when I learned recently that a friend's husband left the Episcopalian church to join the Catholic church because of the former's openeness towards gays, it felt like a punch in the stomach. Do I want to be part of the church that people join because it's more discriminatory? No, I don't think I do. But like I said, family tradition. Argh. Moving on for now.
After the service, we had coffee and a lovely visit. What is not to love about a day that is sunny and 65 degrees? What is better than that? Not much! I then had a rather fantastic run and spent part of the afternoon with my future sister-in-law. We sat on their balcony and pored over cottages the family might stay in for their wedding and ate cheese and crackers and veggies and guacamole and my brother made these insane peanut butter / rice milk / protein powder smoothies that basically tasted like peanut butter cookie dough OMG YUM.
Now I've got a cat on my lap and "All My Little Words" just popped up on the shuffle list, a song from my friend mo pie that I LOVE AND ADORE. Seriously? This song kills me.
I guess that's about it for now. Mad Men awaits, and I still haven't watched last week's, allegedly the most intense episode of all time. (Speaking of Mad Men, how funny is "Hells bells, Trudy!" on Community?)
To close, November's first sunset:
Labels: weekend update
posted by eliza @ 5:55 PM
4 Comments:
Reading your entries makes me so happy. I only get wistful that we are not next-door neighbor friends.
I love you!
Oh ... I am wistful about that, too. I think of you often and wonder how and what you are doing, and I wish you would write more about both of those things. I really do want us to have a fun weekend together one of these days.
I'm so jealous you saw FNL! We are basically Luddites, so I'll be watching in January. :(
We are Catholics with all sorts of religious angst. My husband objects most strenuously to the male-only priesthood. I am most against the teachings on homosexuality. Yet, we both have long histories with churches that were good to us during tough parts of childhood. It's a hard process, and I think it's going to be a long one.
Eileen -- I am sad to tell you that I don't think FNL actually comes on regular TV until summer 2010. Also, it IS a hard process! Thanks for sharing your situation -- it is just not easy.
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