Don't be afraid....

to listen to this song over and over again today.




p.s. last nite i had my first experience with chicken in puff pastry. i think i might start wrapping everything i eat in puff pastry.

Don't be jealous

Tonite I have a date with destiny, aka Anthony Bourdain.



He's promoting his new book in Denver. I am wearing my party dress. I can't believe I will be in the same room as him. I am more excited than I was for a New Kids on the Block concert when I was ten.

Hopefully I will have a wild story to tell tomorrow. Like: he signs my book AND offers me a job on his show so I will just have to follow him around the world.

Little lights with music

Around this time of the year, every year, a lovely little memory creeps in. On a school nite when I was 14, I bundled up and hoped in my friend Jenny's mom's minivan. She drove us around to look at Chirstmas lights. Jenny played a mix tape. This song came on:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=9319610

I fell in love. The song was slow and sad and haunting, which was perfect for me at the time :)

Then this song came on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58GvCslX4LA

Of course I was swooning inside because it was so sweet and kinda sad as well. I loved looking at all of the lights listening to these songs. It is one of my favorite memories from growing up. I love how it still makes me feel a little bit of magic when I think about that time. Can't wait to drive around and look at lights this year.
On the mix tape will probably be:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=56821832&searchid=c34dd550-0801-4060-9059-bf6d3e7531e5

And this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q12eoykegf4

Still sad and sweet. I haven't changed too much I suppose!

Magnifique!

Saturday night my brother and I were waiting for SNL to come on. Ryan turned to some random channel that was showing a St. Vincent and Andrea Bird concert. The first song was so lovely. I kept staring at St. Vincent. At first she reminded me of Jessie Spano. And someone else, but I couldn’t quite figure out who. Then Ryan said “Doesn’t she look like grandma when she was young?” Yes she did!! And my mom! It was strange. And pretty awesome.
My mom recently sent me a DVD of pictures that my grandparents had taken. For about 25 years they converted all of their film to slides. My mom had the slides turned back to photos and placed them all on a DVD. I sat transfixed in front of this DVD for 56 minutes. My favorite picture was of my mom:



Pretty lady.

Today I bought this print for our kitchen:

http://sandrajuto.bigcartel.com/product/print-moka

Tonite I am going to try really, really hard to finish organizing our office. I feel like writing and have kinda been saving my thoughts to have the chance to write at the desk in front of the window. Especially since our backyard is covered in bright, bright snow.

Let's kick it

I love getting a swift kick in the pants (where in the world did this expression come from?!). Lately the kicks have involved inspiration. Today the swift kick came from various blogs, flutes I heard in a song, asking a question and receiving overwhelming responses, reading through 457 tweets from a person I didn’t know was on twitter but that made my heart soar once I found her. This weekend the swift kick came from a meeting that made me want to work harder at my job, to learn as much as possible and then use this knowledge in a new setting, where I will need to rely on myself.

I am also getting a huge kick outta the fact that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. I love this time before both arrive.

I read an amazing poem a couple weeks ago. Each line was so superb, the words made me ache. The poem was written in a way that I feel I write, even though I haven’t ever written a poem like that.

We are almost done unpacking and organizing the office. I can’t even imagine having a dedicated writing space. I have all of these cute visions for the space. Can’t wait.

Lyric of the week:

By a 99 cent store she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
~Tom Waits, Hold On

Song of the week: Taken by Trees: To Lose Someone

Artist of the week: Camilla Engman

all we have are words

November 5, 2006

i want to explain winter. how i notice every year that my surroundings turn cold. that the insides of familiar places seem different when the heat is on. how whole sentences spoken aloud have different meanings just because of the weather. last winter i moved my bed along the wall of my room to be closer to the window so that at nite i could stare at the sky that was always eerily light due to the snow. every nite the sky looked the same. when it became spring i inched my bed back to the middle of the room. spring is not the same as winter. the sky doesn't hold as much.

that same winter, i would wait until it became dark to walk to the grocery store. i would alternate scarves before i left the house. i would always wear the same hat. usually i would walk down the street going east to take the shortcut that went through houses, past a pool and by the library. i liked all of the street lamps along the way. sometimes i would go south on the road to cross the main street at an angle without a street light. i usually like to walk outside listening to music. but not in the winter. i like to hear the cold. the silence since everyone is inside. i want to hear everything when it's cold. how snow threatens every other moment.

ultimately, the winter is my least favorite season. but i know that it always comes. so i rearrange my room to make it bearable and i carefully choose scarves before walks. so that i don't feel as alone because winter can be bitter and i tire easily when it's freezing outside, especially when the moon forgets to appear.

Little break

This weekend we went to Glennwood Springs. My aunt and uncle rented a house up there for the weekend and they invited us and my cousins to join them. Steven and I were in charge of dinner Saturday nite. While I was cooking, my uncle Doug and I had the following conversation:

Doug: You're a good cook, you don't get frazzled.
Sara: Thank you! (thinking in my head about five minutes before when I was extremely frazzled)
Doug: I like to cook for two reasons, 1 being that I can cook whatever I want, and 2 since cooking is during cocktail hour and I am right by the fridge.
Sara: hahahhhahahahahhahaa
Doug: I think I know why you like to cook. Because you are very creative and because you like pleasing people.
Sara: I think you know me really well!
Doug: I like to think so, well I guess I don't know a lot, but I do know that you are one of my favorite people in the whole world.
Sara: (melting and swooning)

That encounter made my whole month. I was kinda nervous to make a meal for 8 people, haven't really cooked for that many people by myself. I really loved that my uncle had mentioned the creative aspect of cooking.

Lately I have been feeling a little sad. I think it's because I am such a daydreamer but I have no clue how some of my daydreams could really happen. That is where the creative aspect kicks in. I would love more than anything to have a creative occupation. I would be so much more fulfilled. And not as sad.

Here is the pond that I sat next to this weekend. All of the trees around were yellow. The yellow leaves kept falling in to the lake.