lxforever

“If you bring forth what is within you, it will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, it will destroy you.”

—Gospel of Thomas, from Change of Heart, Jodi Picoult

“I promise to cherish this luck and love and you.”

Merry merry merry merry merry Christmas, holidays, season of light, Wednesday, whatever. In my life of undeserving luck and fortune, in my everlasting streak of good chance, 2008 pretty much expanded that exponentially, and I couldn’t be luckier. I could, however, be more grateful. So it’s all I can do to give thanks and remember that every moment I can.

In the meantime…off to warm up with my HUSBAND!

“Merry Christmas, may your New Year’s dreams come true / And this song of mine / in three quarter time / wishes you and yours / the same thing too!”

Wow. So I’ve been a terrible writer in the past 23947234 months and for that I apologize. I blame Facebook. And the wedding (not really). And life. And since the wedding and honeymoon I’ve felt like I can’t write until I write about those, and I haven’t. SOOOOOO I guess expect those to pop up sometime next week during my amazing ‘break’. That gives me freedom to chat about whatever I want, RIGHT NOW. HA.

Anyway. This weekend was a big birthday celebration for Jeff’s 31st. Made a lemon poppyseed bundt cake (obv. I am very proud of this) on Friday, had his mom and her fiance over for lunch on Saturday, meant to go out to Nami but instead picked up sushi so Jeff could watch his Gophers kick butt during dinner, and then hosted a pretty crazy party on Saturday night. 3 am! Pretty rare for us. But it was a great time. Today we did brunch with one of his buddies and then his pops and his wife came over to eat pizza/watch Vikes/eat cupcakes/hang out. Whew! Pretty fun though – we didn’t try to get anything accomplished really (other than vacuuming immediately after the party, ha).

So, In Conclusion: Happy 31st Birthday Jeff! I hope it was a “fabulous” one, among other things. Personally I’d say it was pretty swell.

I can’t believe Christmas is in 11 days. The past few months have been pretty surreal, and coming down from the wedding, which was 987x more spectacular than I imagined, and the honeymoon, which was just up to the amazingness level I’d expected, has really skewed time and thought. But not in bad ways, just…in ways. This whole year has been quite the shebang from beginning to end. January was pretty horrific, but everything else in my small world has pretty much blown me away. I’m incredibly lucky, as always. You know how the story goes.

Birthdays on Saturdays are the best. Another great thing about 2008.

Anyway. I’m seriously intending to be a better updater, if only because it’s pretty creepy/amazing to be able to read over the past 10 YEARS OF MY LIFE wow WTF. So, more for me than for an audience (my ‘audience’ of Diana, Christie, Michael and Steph. And Mom). I think that might help. I always feel like if I’m gonna take the time to write, it should be worthwhile, but that’s freakin’ lame. I’d like to call this new phase in my writing world “Inspired By Trike.”

All right. Enough! Time to read and hang out, if I can make myself not work. Ha!

Trike-like. Low blow. Rattle-free. Every month except January. Shay Bourne and Christmas wreaths and Bethlehem. Mumbai. Thailand. Trapped on the way up. Can you make it more yellow. Well more orange. Well still yellow. Yellow. Was that really all nine years ago? Yellow sweaters yellow paper lights admission bets. 31 on the 13th! 31?! Maybe you should replace that lint trap. Static. Clingon. Audience with the pope / gonna have to wait / how you gonna win / without within? Cough. Cold dust-filled brown gray desert. Arizona? Desert cough? Oregon? SF? St Louis? Boston? Madison. (Chicago in Feb…?) Less blog more twitter (but isn’t that over?). And the infinite… What kind of a yellow is that? Impossible shit storm. Our dear leader-elect of the Free World. All three names. Playoffs and crazy pictures with hats. First life. Pinatas and shrimp and cats. Too many planes. 65 degrees. Hot secretaries and cold alcohol. My Friend Frank. Freddie? Crazyface? BAM! Can that splat be more real. This Is. Your Brain Off Drugs.

—

Sorry about that. I’m hoping by writing whatever I want instead of what I meant to, I’ll start posting and stop abandoning. Vamos a ver. In the meantime, happy December, and happy almost-31 to my dear darling Jeffrey Jason. Ciao!

I have so many, many things to write up – you can probably guess – but I just wanted to say happy November and happy belated Thanksgiving. There’s a lot going on in this planet and I hope everyone’s OK.

No time to update. November quickly approaching. Soon we will have a new president, soon we will be in Italy, soon I will be a wife, soon it will be Halloween. (In what order again?) Terrific 27th (golden!) b-day, thanks to my JJs. I’m 27 now. Old enough, finally. September always tricks me. I think it’s my autumn version of July but then I remember, as we get there, that it’s October. Fingers crossed that’s the truth. Nevertheless. Economy crashing crashing crashing, could we be more irresponsible to be gallivanting across Italy and France for 14 days? But whatever. Wow, I didn’t know how to spell gallivant. As a spelling snob I am shocked. (PS, still can’t pronounce words.)

Too much going on. AAAH. Brain drain. Somehow I’ll get there. Good night!!!

Bad things are happening in this world. Bad things happen every day, Mom. NO. TURN ON YOUR TV. Sorry to be such a hippie but I think we should all just go home and be nice to each other. Everyone gathering in the KLA quad…everyone sitting and staring. What. Happened. What.

“Sweet confetti I’m looking for a saviour / Finding it hard to break the chain / Nothing ventured nothing gained // Ice cream beauty acting on her best behavior / finding it hard to bite her tongue / feeling so old as the night is young…”

—Natalie Imbruglia

…Oil? Palin? Who? I think it’s pretty clear what this is all about, so I won’t necessarily re-detail it. First of all, Sarah Palin is a super hottie. Sorry, it’s true. Not only is she attractive, but she embodies that sexy librarian look too many males I know seem to adore still. Ha! I’ve said it a million times but I’ll say it again: winning the Presidency is just as much about how good you are as it is about how good-looking you are. I’m serious. Gore-Bush: sorry, Bush was way cuter. Kerry was just plain ugly. I wasn’t aware for most of this, but even Reagan was a movie star. HELLO!

So I figured, the Dems have it locked up. Though he’s not your typical white celeb, Barack Obama is pretty good-looking, and I’m not just saying that because I have a thing for sticking-out-ears ala Will Smith. He’s an attractive guy. Couple that with “hot, handsome Joe Biden” (you really should read that article, it’s hilarious), and you have a hot ticket waiting to win. Put up against nasty-toothed, crumbly-faced McCain and you have THE CRUSHING. At least when it comes to looks, anyway.

Part of his pick has got to be that McCain realized this, somehow, unconsciously (and also found her attractive as well as saw her maverick-status mirroring his own), because with Palin on the ticket McCain’s good-lookin’ factor just shot up about 100x. Ha! I don’t really want to get in to the other thoughts I have about this situation, so I’ll stick with my attractiveness-factor analysis, or what have you, but geez. If that’s how you’re gonna do it, good pick of Johnny Mc.

K, well, I have a ton of other things going on but I really just wanted to update about this. Adios for now, friends! Happy campaigning.

SHAWN JOHNSON is leading the Pledge of Allegiance Thurs at the DNC!!!!!!!!!!!!

AS IF I had to love her more!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!

BIDEN! Yeah, yeah, how can he be ‘change’ when he’s old-school, war-votin’, McCain-toutin’ (2005) and all that jazz. To that I say, still the guy I want…I was impressed with him from the get-go in the first debate back in JUNE of 2007 (CRAZY how long ago that was, ha). Biden – F Yeah! here. So that’s pretty sweet. I could do without the hoopla surrounding it, but, hey. I’ll take what I can get.

My trouble with it is, indeed, superficial; the way Obama-Biden LOOKS just like the name of America’s Most Hated Terrorist Leader is somewhat unsettling. BUT, yet another reason it would be amazing as anything if it happened, if they were elected.

So. Yeah. What’s new. THE OLYMPICS!!!! I almost cried when Nastia won, and she’s not even ‘my girl’—Shawnie’s my new gymnastics fave. But Nastia has been through so much and just put it all together at the right moment—what an athlete. It was so satisfying to see her completely overwhelmed, and so wonderful for her and her pops, too, to finally make it happen. And Shawn got her gold on beam, so yeah. And the way these ladies handled all of the crap they get from the media was so graceful; they amaze me. Let’s not forget Alicia, Bridget, Sam and Chells: sad to see Chells incapacitated, but so proud of her for hitting bars at the right moment (Nast too) and so gutted for Alicia when she fell. Oh honey. But proud of Bridget and Sam too for delivering when it counted, as newbies. WOO!

OK enough gymnastics-gushing. Although I will say this: I know it’s overdone and no one cares anymore, but China is cheating and that’s total bullshit. Obviously we need to revert to a Communist regime in order to play fair. Indeed.

Um what’s new. It’s been a weird month at work. The good news is, what I’m doing is fun so I concentrate on that. Design is pretty fun, after all. I am uncomfortable with the recession and how I don’t see it ending anytime soon, but what can you do other than suffer in silence and save more cash.

Not that we’ll be saving cash today. Off to the great MN State Fair we are, the first pinnacle of Jeff’s year (the second being Christmas). Until I was dating Jeff, I never went to the fair, but now it is a must-do every August. And every year I get more excited for it, ha. I’m becoming such a MN homer.

Allison and Justin’s wedding and the tea shower my sisters threw for me were FANTASTIC. The Marshalltown event was one for the books, and I have pictures up in the photos section. Just a grand ol’ time, they were wonderful hosts and it was a terrific party. Woo! The tea shower was just above and beyond and one of my favorite days ever. THANK YOU JJ and STEPH! Photos from that may be up, too (I can’t remember).

I hope this suffices as an update. (Now that it’s almost September…time is scaring me with its speed.) The wedding is a little over two months. Insane. And then it’ll be 2009 before I know it. AAAH!

Happy end-of-summer (how can that be happy, bleah)!

“Born to please, every simple need / I stand alone in my thoughts indeed / Hate you / for ever making me / I’m in you, I’m your anything // And I want you / And I need you/ And all you are is brand new / And I need you”

—Smashing Pumpkins

“All you have to do is run away / and steal yourself from me / Become a mystery to gaze into / But still I believe, I believe in you”

—Smashing Pumpkins

Was that really FIVE YEARS AGO? And how did I get so lucky?

Time to recover from my unexpected MMR booster. Ha! Later.