or are you just a present waiting to be opened up?

well hey there hi there, i am slowly (s-l-o-w-l-y) recovering from some kind of head cold that is baaaad news. today it was magically mild outside, even now, the air is still temperate (for this time of year) and i almost want to open my windows. today's sunset was very painterly, as you can see, and i believe a good sky does a lot for the spirits.

now my attention is turned to online research about ring sizing, and in turn i started researching birthstones.

birthstones are incredibly interesting, and can provide hour upon hour of research material. i am attaching a chart of birthstones by month. this chart includes not only the modern american birthstones but traditional, mystical and even other birthstones. there are also birthstones for each zodiac sign, and, in turn, sun/star signs as well, but those are not on this chart.



my birthstone is aquamarine, and i love this stone. i do believe that even if this wasn't my modern birthstone, i would like aquamarine best. during my research i found that "since early times aquamarine has been believed to endow the wearer with foresight, courage, and happiness. It is said to increase intelligence and make one youthful. As a healing stone, it is said to be effective as a treatment for anxiety and in the Middle Ages it was thought that aquamarine would reduce the effect of poisons." not only that but "A legend says that sailors wore aquamarine gemstones to keep them safe and prevent seasickness." wow! i love it more than i ever knew! i highly suggest looking up the meaning of your birthstone. all of the meanings are very noble and make you feel very important. i think this may be a good place to start: http://www.bernardine.com/gemstones/birthstones.htm


now i must turn to a different type of research, the kind i must do every week for my radio show. this week i am filling in for the girl who goes before me, so i have five hours instead of my regular two. this means double the research! double the talking! double the time! double the fun!

you look like an angel, so hold up your head

well hullo.
just a quick one before bed (putting myself to bed is a never ending struggle night after night)
merry christmas!
i just baked up forty chocolate-espresso snowcaps for tomorrow. i am also making the vegan lasagne. yum!




here is my tiny tree also.




may you have a very merry christmas and may your pudding be very full of plums,
bianca

for stephanie

my dearest stephanie. i hereby proclaim "i have officially found the man you will marry"

you mean, he could die from this?!

ooookay its about that time again.
90210 updatezzzz:

claire + steve: still going strong (you were right about them tasha, they ARE cute and i normally don't like steve, but he is tolerable when in the presence of claire)
kelly: sa-sa-sa-single! she went to rehab because her cokie boyfriend dragged her face in the mud too. but now she appears to be doing okay but she met this girl tara (tah-rah) in rehab and now she is living at the beach house. i think she is the one who stalks her and eventually tries to kill her, but i will let you know about this. oh yes, there is also breaking news that kelly is on her first date with this hunky med student she met while in rehab. what a stud!
valerie + COLIN!: so after the cokie broke up with kelly valerie swooped in and preyed on him. then he got caught trying to buy coke and started a high speed chase with the police. valerie paid to get him out of jail but now he is going to have to go back.
brandon + susan: god how susan annoys me! brandon and kelly are so clearly made for each other and i just wish susan would give up the ghost and just let him be with the one he is destined for.
dylan: missing! i think i missed the part where toni dies and he goes crazy and then leaves the show. i am really sad because if there is one person i really love on 90210, its dylan.
donna + joe: still going strong. i chalk it up to a mutual non-belief in premarital sex. he sure is cute! i like joe, but donna annoys me and i already know she marries david, so its sort of like...whats the point really? anyways, donna convinced joe to get a risky heart surgery because he has this heart problem and her dad is a heart surgeon. i have a feeling he might die? don't spoil this one for me.
david: poor david! he's single again and i think he might hook up with kelly's stalker girl. this would be crazy!

okay i will let you know about everything, i can't imagine there is much of this stuff left. i am really excited to decide my absolute favorite era of 902 after i've officially seen the entire series. what a thrill! what a privilege!

just let your feelings roll on by

what a strange series of days i have had.
for two nights i slept in the basement at my dad's house where there was heat and limited lighting while the generator was running, plus the toilet would flush over there. read by candlelight until i couldn't keep my face up any longer and would blow out six candles and fall asleep in the smoky dark. i had the craziest dreams two nights in a row which would come back to me in waves while driving in the car. ate dinner/lunch/whatever you call an early dinner at panera two nights in a row. tonight, while choosing my table, i was wearing a black hat with a large mesh bow/feather deal on the side, i ordered my food and a guy sitting next to me said he was leaving his spot soon and i could take his, and here is this article i just tore out about hats, i noticed your vintage hat because i used to sell vintage clothes. so then a man that was about to leave panera bread ends up talking with me for almost 2 hours about vintage and radio and many other interests we shared. turns out he is steve, of the famed steve's clothing! what a funny venue for meeting such a cool guy! we traded info and i think he might even listen to me on the radio this week. ha!

power is back now. i am pleased as punch about this development. i am back in my small house and wasting time, as per usual. i am now re-reading catcher in the rye so expect a spike in my usage of "goddamn" "boy" and "crumby." i finished angela's ashes over the weekend, and septembers in shiraz the weekend before that. i am drinking books and what good is country solitude without drinking books anyway?

i suppose it is time for bed and books and i might just light some candles for old time's sake.

another train rolling away

last night as i was trying to get to sleep i started thinking about best friends. i don't exactly know what sparked the first thought, but before i knew it i was trying to recall every best friend i've ever had. the first best friend i remember having is kelli james. when i was four we moved to delmar and she lived across the street from us. she was 5. we hung out all the time. it was easy to travel between our houses and we would explore in the woods a lot. she introduced me to hbo and killer clowns from outer space. we had different toys so that made it even more fun. her basement was a really great place to play. older brother: shaun. dog: shih tzu, cuddles (and later there was bichon frise, reggie). kelli was definitely my BEST friend probably until 1991 or 1992 and we were very close until probably 1993 or 1994, when she went into 6th grade at the middle school and i was still in elementary school. she suddenly started wearing eyeliner and i didn't yet understand things like that. we eventually drifted completely apart and held completely different social circles by the time we were in high school. i haven't seen her in probably almost ten years, but i have heard that she has a son. i would like to meet him one day.

meanwhile there was erica pippert, and mandy darlington. Mandy was my best friend in 1st grade. We were in the same class and the same advanced reading group plus we had the same green dress with white polka dots. She lived sort of near me and had a fun old house. My dad called her darling mandton. Older brother: kris. Dog: basset hound named molly (Christ how am I remembering this!) Erica was best friend in grades 2+3 (1991-1993?) she went to my elementary school but didn't live that close to me. i spent a lot of time at her house where we would watch music videos and play in her backyard. she had a german shepherd named ming and a siamese cat with a similar name. younger brother: brendan. she moved to a different school so we stopped being friends.

5th grade: blaire banagan: we were in 5th grade together. i envied her wardrobe so much and shopped at gap kids for far too long solely because of her. older sister and younger brother, kelly and ryan. ate a lot of dinners at her house where the family would divide by 5 one small dinner salad. she became a prep and i became...who knows. she lives in new york now but i haven't seen her since we graduated high school.

6th grade: lindsey strogatz. we were nerdy and slow to develop together. we had younger brothers that were the same age. her family was nice. i don't really remember what we did together but i know we hung out a lot. i still have a bit of guilt about this friendship because we got along very well but i ditched her in 7th grade when i got cooler. sorry lindsey! You are probably doing something really cool and smart now and I practically live with my parents!

7th grade: Pam Coggins. Oh pam. Pam was a good friend. I loved nirvana and she loved pearl jam. We lived close to each other and spent lots of time in each others houses listening to music, eating snacks and reading rolling stone. Older sister: Kristen. WHAT A BITCH. Kristen and I hated each other. She was mean to me and I cursed her existence. Cats: many and I can’t remember names. Pam and I stopped being friends very abruptly towards the beginning of 8th grade when she became best friends with Caitlin Gertz (someone I was almost best friends with in 1st grade) and then I laminated a picture of the spice girls to the front of her locker in response (at the time this was a MEGA insult – trust me) not sure what pam is up to these days.

8th grade: who knows!

9th grade – 12th grade: sammi cathers. Sammi is someone I’ve known and been friends with since 1st grade, but high school is when we were definitely BEST friends. The similarities were there: children of divorced parents, We pretty much spent every moment outside of school (and probably in school as well) either together or on the phone with each other. We went to shows, went to the mall, had crushes, kissed boys, smoked weed, watched full house, dyed our hair, had internet friends, etc etc. younger sister: Alison. Cats: oreo, and two others, one of which was a hermaphrodite. Yikes! What tore us apart? The immediate answer to that is boys. We both had serious boyfriends at the same time (towards the end of senior year) and this really drove a rift between us. But ultimately, we probably would have drifted anyway. I went off to school in the city and sammi stayed in Albany. We didn’t talk for the first year after high school but started casually conversing here and there eventually. Now we talk here and there. She lives in Albany with her boyfriend shane who she’s been with for the past 5 years.

2001-2006: jeff harrigfeld. Oh jeff. What can I say about this one? Is the one mysterious friendship of my life. Jeff and I met at valentines while I was in high school (I think I was 16). He worked at mcdonalds with my friend ariele and she introduced us. He went to suny Albany. We stayed close all through high school and became really close right after I graduated. We stayed best friends all through my college career. He was my true adventure friend. Time with us was always fun. He just had the best way of having fun and making things fun and not letting you worry. I hope I brought half the stuff to his life that he brought to mine. Younger sister: Jessica. Dog: gertie. Jeff mysteriously stopped speaking with me in mid 2006. Still a mystery. A little bird told me he moved to Chicago recently with his girlfriend (who has been described to me as his soulmate) I wish him only the best and know very well that our paths will cross again (even if I have to force it – ha)

2002-2008: Naomi hanson. Naomi and I met through a mutual friend, andrea. We sort of clicked right away and started hanging out all the time. We kind of went to the same school and had the same college fun times schedule: good times, good drinks, good food, and talking smack. Never have I had a better travel friend. There is something there that just works. We went on many trips together including a grand tour of Europe in the winter of 2003, Amsterdam twice, mexico city, and half of the usa on a whirwind this summer. Older sister: Emily. Cats: sausalita and beezus (rip). I don’t know how to talk about the demise of our best-friendship without sounding like I have some other agenda other than writing a stupid blog about best friends, so I just won’t. Naomi currently lives in new york and we have a light chat on occasion.


So there you have it! My history in best friends! What a wild ride! I feel bad not including some very close friends who maybe I don’t remember being “best” friends but maybe they were? I need to just type their names. What if they google themselves? I hope they don’t.
Caitlin gertz, adele godfrey-certner, Jessie Goldberg-pohl, kate Oakley, Stephanie Sherman, Kristen cady-sawyer, alysan brod, meg allen, Jessica Blackwell, Emily silver, alex itov, hilary johnson, kristen ruggeri, anne barrett, erica brunner, kaitlin freewind, stephanie porto.

Phew! Best friends are a funny occurrence. I think a lot of it is circumstantial, and then some of it is actually based on fact. Sammi and I were friends first out of convenience. We lived really close to each other and both liked watching full house. But then we inevitably assumed the same territory and had fun doing things together. It falls into the nature vs. nurture argument, I suppose. Because you will no doubt adopt practices and likes of people you are around. Its osmosis and it happens to everyone. There are always glimmers of what makes you like someone in the first place, over everyone else you could pick to be your friend. Its something I haven’t really thought about enough but I do know after writing this that “best friend” is a term that I will no longer use lightly. It takes a lot out of both of the “Best friends” to be that to the other person. What is a best friend? What are best friends? I’m going to look up the definition of best friends, and in the meantime, leave your definition (or an anecdote about besties) below.

its late in the evening and the music's seeping through

all of the thanksgiving food is either eaten or in the trash. why can't there be a thanksgiving every month? i would like to give myself and my company this year a thanksgiving award. i am going to try a new recipe every week. doesn't that sound nice? there can't be anything wrong with teaching yourself to cook. now if i could only call that man in schenectady about those two-step lessons...

i am trying hard to stay on track. now you may ask, you have a track? i will not take offense if you ask this. i would ask too. i don't exactly have a "track" but i compiled a list of things i would like to take care of, and i am trying to stay focused on this list.

i have been neglecting my trip pictures for a month or so now, so i am going to attempt doing one roll per night. this is aiming very high. i know.

what should i do for new years? i would love to not think about this, but its coming on so quickly! i thought about going to montreal but what kind of patriot would i be if i rang in 2009 in canada? new york new york new york, you are a constant source of sadness for me. you will not win. mark my words, you whitewashed culture ghost. i am angry at you right now, new york. do you hear me? what fun would life be without a little internal struggle, hm? i think i might also be mad at the internet. do you think this is true?

my sadness comes and goes on the surface. i'm sure its pretty consistent once you really get in there, but i, like most, try not to go in there very much. what should i do? can i get a sign from above? can i get an amen for uncertainty?

all i know is i am getting back in that car come spring. i better pay off that damn debt, and quick. because all this sitting around is bad for my bones. there is travel and wonder and wanderlust that i don't want to quell. paris in march, and the great usa in may. this time completely alone. i could build a new life if i wanted to, couldn't i? why am i so afraid?

too long. toooooo lonnnngggg.
try this!