commercials i hate

you'll be thrilled with yourself for finding this website: http://www.commercialsihate.com/index1.html

the mamas and the papas (or, semicentennial things)

My parents are undeniably hip. Let me explain.

This month my mother celebrated her 50th birthday. There are many reasons to admire her, not the least of them being these pictures:

Also this month, my father has begun to be recognized, in a very public, international way, that he is a rock star. Or a jazz star, more specifically. My own father is headlining one of the final shows of the 50th Monterey Jazz Festival this September. See a much better description of this extremely classy event.

picture glitch

There seems to be a problem with my picture-posting, so I've removed the wedding and durham links. Boo to flickr.com. Anyway, for now, I'll refer you to the flickr.com account itself (see msinterpret), or snapfish for previously posted photos, if you're so inclined.

wedding, dancing, cooking.

Living has taken priority over writing for the past couple of weeks. I wish I could say they were the same, in a very Thoreauian sort of way, that I'm the type of person who carries a notebook everywhere she goes and actually uses it, but needless to say, I'm not. In the past couple of weeks, I have:

A) attended the most wonderful wedding, for two of the most wonderful people I know. My pictures look like crap, and I'm hoping other attendees will send me more, but you can view them anyway if you like. Leave it to John and Alex to have a somewhat non-traditional blowout, both wholeheartedly and in the most relaxed, welcoming of ways: a wedding on a farm, punctuated by an evening of campin', drinkin', socializin', and the like. This trip was a wild ride. I left Saturday the 9th (the day of the wedding) at 8:00 am for Durham, to scoop up Matt and Amanda on the way. These two are like family, and I was happy to have them band with me for the duration of the trip - I miss them both, as they've left Wilmington for more intellectually stimulating locations. I envy them.

We continued further West to the small town of South Point, North Carolina to the Belle Cow Farm and arrived promptly at 2, having made swell time, a full two hours before the start of the wedding. We proceeded to set up camp. Fast forward to me, smiling largely and excitedly: gathered before a farmhouse porch-made-altar, we watched as Alex descended a long country rode, riding atop a fabulous blue retro convertible all the way to her sidewalk aisle. John and Alex exchanged vows, they mixed sand, Alex's veil blew in the wind, revealing her kickass back tattoos.

And then we built a campfire, put on our play clothes, and threw down.

B) watched an international dance festival exhibit at the Duke Gardens in Durham on the way back home. Must've been the right day to visit Duke Gardens. It's a gorgeous private park area which spans goodness knows how many acres and evokes alice-in-wonderland-ish feelings. Just so happens that on this particular day, a woman was teaching a large crowd of passersby how to dance wildly in circles. So, we found a shady tree, broke out some wine, and watched. It was a yummy-tasting piece of the Durham hippie pie.

C) got violently ill with food poisoning. I don't know where or how, but I'm finally back to work and feeling somewhat more appreciative of my health. I'll spare you any photos of this.

D) watched the first episode of Top Chef, Season 3 -- second episode to air tonight!!

I'm a truly, madly, deeply lucky girl.

jesus is just alright

So, for better or for worse, I've started going to church. A non-denominational, smiley-faced church where people seem normal. And after all these years of being a sort-of-non-and-sort-of-zealous-but-very-cynical-believer, I can still feel my catholic mother crouching in the wings.

Not that catholic churches aren't normal. In my case, you can take the girl out of catholic, but you can't take the catholic out of the girl. Except for, say, the women's rights and confession parts.

Sunday I attended my first of a 10-week series of meetings, which is meant to be a conversational and non-judgemental environment for those (a) unfamiliar with certain aspects christianity and wish to learn the basics, those (b) "returning" to christianity after a hiatus, and/or (c) seeking answers to christianity related questions they have.

I'm all three of these, but for the moment, I'm particularly peeved at the notion that one can base an entire belief system solely on faith. At this meeting, more than half of those seated in our Alcoholics Anonymous-ish circle were beyond the "basic questions" point, because they had bypassed the "why am I believing in all of this" point. They had had a death in the family and God saw them through. They had had an addiction, and God saw them through. They had had an eating disorder, and God saw them through. Period. Because somehow, they've always known for sure that undeniably, it was God - christian, Jesus-spawning God.

Somehow? God had been there for him his whole life, one man said, and now he wanted to return the favor.

You gotta have faith. You better have faith, in fact. Just let's not be unapprised about things.

so i lied, and i tried.

But everyday blogging might be a bit much. We'll see about this. As long as summer hours at work stretch on (and on and on?), I'll have no excuse to quit this. Saturday: long conversations with Visha about writing and sex and real estate, involving alcohol and old LPs droning, yeilds the following:

Mostly, though, talk about writing. All I know is, I hope that V forgives me for getting drunk while workshopping sections of what is to be her thesis, which involves topics of Iraq and 911 and family relations and the South. (And V, I still have no clue what publisher it could have been that I wanted to "put you in touch with" - or whatever it was I said. I owe you a typed-written page or two of feedback. And an apology.)

I only wish writing was as easy as it sometimes seems it could be.

the hardest part

Sometimes, the beginning is the hardest part. For me, anyway.

A couple of days ago, on the beach, I congratulated a friend for her sense of initiative - that she's 24 and has already tried her hand at being a personal trainer, and has quit - knowing that she hated the job - despite financial risks, is an accomplishment, I told her.

She doesn't know what it is she wants to do with her life. And I think, how many times, every day, do I deal with this? This problem, I nearly wrote, though this is another struggle: to know and to trust with conviction that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be.

And so I begin this blog, because writing somehow validates the day and the person.

I have had the urge, recently, to chronicle each day. I have a new camera, and a renewed joy for picture-taking, for sharing. (The writing, however, feels a bit rusty.)

This past weekend:

Oakdale Cemetary, Wilmington.

Shawn, grilling.

Letting Felix, the new cat, into the outdoors.