A little bit of this and a little bit of that.

My mind is scattered, so I can’t be held responsible for what I write today. Thanksgiving was really good. My parents and sister came to visit, which is always nice. Thanksgiving in Texas means a giant meal with 50 people, followed by driving for an hour, followed by another giant meal with 50 people. You come home stuffed and exhausted. In the last two years that my parents have been coming to Nashville to visit, I’ve learned what a relaxing holiday is supposed to be like. Who knew you could actually spend time with your family in between mouthfuls? Chelsea and I saw Harry Potter together, which was fabulous as she has been obsessed with HP for years and we finally got to share that. I still really liked it. I’m curious as to how the movies are if you haven’t read the books, though… so much of the backstory is missing, I wonder if it even makes sense some of the time. Anytime you try to pare down a 700-page movie to a 2-1/2 hour script, things will be missing, but overall I was pleased with what they chose to shoot. I was, however, a little disappointed with Voldemort. I read a review that said he is much more frightening unknown than he is known, and I completely agree. I just didn’t get the creepy vibe from the movie that I did from the book… skinny, bald, pale Voldemort just wasn’t very scary. Monday night was a tough one in the Manes house: we ruined our undefeated volleyball season on the last night. And it was ugly, folks. We just could not get it together. It’s really hard for me sometimes to keep my competitive nature in check. Volleyball is something I am pretty good at, and when things like Monday night happen, I get really frustrated. So we go into the tournament in second place, with the first round next week and the final two the week following. I am nervous. Someone please remind me that this is church league! And now for the good news… tonight is Christmas decoration night! Woo-hoo! We usually put our tree up Thanksgiving weekend, but we just plain ran out of time. So tonight it is. I am so stinking excited. We’ll listen to Brenda Lee, put up the tree, wear some socks pulled to our knees. (Maybe not that last part.) Aaron will play along and pretend like he loves Christmas music. Because we leave for Texas on the 16th, we’ll take everything down a good 10 days before Christmas. Sometimes it seems silly to go to all this trouble to just turn around and take it down, but I can’t imagine not having a tree in our house. It doesn’t feel like the holidays without it. I’ve been listening to Behold the Lamb of God, both to get in the holiday spirit and in preparation of the big show next weekend. This is by far my favorite holiday album, so much so that I don’t even consider it Christmas music. I listen to it all year. This will be our fourth year attending the concert (and my fourth Christmas in Nashville!), and it is such a nice tradition. Nice is such a lame word sometimes, but it’s the perfect description for this. Nice. Is it wrong that my mom started a new job on Monday, and the thing I was most worried about was what she wore and whether she got any compliments on the fabulous purse I picked out for her? (She did, by the way, all positive. Good thing she’s got me to be her style consultant.)

Thanks a lot, Seventeen.

After a solid week of watching the first season of Gilmore Girls, I decided to hit up TWoP for some recaps. I’m working my way through Kiss and Tell, the one where Dean kisses Rory for the first time in the market and she steals the cornstarch. Even though I was never a big Dean fan, the episodes depicting the beginnings of their relationship are so sweet and so very true to her age, at least the way I knew it. Rory’s first kiss was way better than mine. I’m not sure why I feel the need to share this, but I’m going to. Don’t laugh. It was the summer of 1994, right before my freshman year of high school. Some friends and I had gone to Six Flags for the day. There were four or five us, and we were traveling in a big attention-seeking pack, giggling and dancing and being typically chaotic. As groups of girls such as ours are wont to do, we found a similarly aged, similarly numbered group of teenage boys to hang out with. Boys like that are always exciting – they go to a different school, in a different city, in a different world. You can tell them you’re a cheerleader, or a writer, or in the circus and they’ll be none the wiser. One of these boys, Sean, was particularly interesting to me. I remember him being cute. I don’t remember much else, except that he was wearing a Soundgarden t-shirt, which I’m sure my 15-year-old self thought was soooooooooooo cool. We talked about music, we made fun of our friends, we rode the Flashback three times in a row. It was love. At the end of the night, as we were all making our way to courtyard at the front of the park where our parents would be picking us up, Sean grabbed my hand and pulled me into one of those photo booth machines. We took four goofy pictures and sat on a bench waiting for them to develop. He put his arm around me. He leaned in. He went for it. First kiss city. Not great, not bad. BUT. When it was over, I said, “That was my very first kiss.” Why? Because Seventeen or YM or Sassy had told me that if I said that, it would either explain why I was bad at kissing or impress because for a first-timer I was so skilled. Mortifying. We exchanged phone numbers, but we never talked again. I still have my half of the photo booth pictures in a box somewhere, along with my prom tickets and a rock I kicked down the street on a walk with my first real boyfriend. It’s not a terrible first kiss story, but it could be better. I do wish I hadn’t wasted it on someone I would never see again. But I’m thankful that the person on the receiving end of my teen-mag-influenced conversation is not around to tease me about it, because he would be fully justified. So, to steal from Pamie: I have decided that my first kiss was with CuteDean in aisle three by the bug spray, playing a "guess the soda" game, because that's how it should have been.

Things I learned on my sick day.

1. The hours go by much faster when you’re sick than they do when you’re at work. I had big plans for my sick day: making out my Thanksgiving shopping list, working on our Christmas gifts, giving myself a pedicure. Not a single thing got done.
2. Buying a sofabed was an excellent decision.
3. If you don’t have cable, there is no good TV between the Ellen show at 11 and Seinfeld reruns at 6.
4. Miles the Wonder Dog is an excellent caretaker.
5. Life is good when you have friends who will bring you milk, magazines, Gilmore Girls DVDs and flu medicine.
6. Watching the 1st season of Gilmore Girls makes watching the current season really difficult.
7. I don’t like popcorn.
8. From Real Simple: Putting a sweater in the freezer for several hours will keep it from shedding all over your pants.
9. From Martha Stewart: Adding boiling milk to mashed potatoes will make them smooth and creamy.
10. My sweet husband knows that the best sore throat medicine is a heaping bowl of ice cream.
11. Blue Bell’s Great Divide Ice Cream is genius. It’s like Neopolitan without that wall of strawberry that everyone avoids.
12. Talking to your mom always makes you feel better.

Don't change your plans for me.

There are many, many reasons why I love Pamie. Today, it is this.

I really like it here; I’m quite attached to it…

I love good weekends. This was the kind that makes me glad I live in Nashville. FRIDAY We had dinner with some great friends who we don’t see nearly enough. Went to dinner at my new favorite place, The Family Wash. We were really looking forward to introducing them to this place… they have great food and a huge drink menu, and live music every night. Last time we went it was the Gypsy Hombres, who were jazzy and soothing and QUIET, which is pretty important in such a tiny place. I’d read in the Scene that a band called the Plastic Rulers would be there this time, so off we went. We arrived before the music started, and were seated at the only empty table, which also happened to be right next to the stage. I didn’t think much of it, reasoning that even though my ears were six inches from the monitor, we would be just fine. Now the band was great… the singer had a cool, Jason White-ish voice and they had a funky americana vibe. Had we been six yards, rather than six inches, from the stage, we probably would have really enjoyed it. As it was, we couldn’t hear each other (or the waitress) at all, and we left with both ringing ears and cramped necks from looking straight up the bands’ noses. But the food was good (vegetarian shepherd’s pie, YUM) and our friends really liked the place. It’s always a little nervewracking to introduce people to something you really love, so I’m glad they weren’t turned off by the music or the lack of meatloaf. SATURDAY Saturday was lazy and fabulous. We slept in, ate some lunch, and cruised the used record stores and thrift shops. We cleaned up at Phonoluxe… David Mead, Todd Snider and the first Wallflowers album, which has both mine (6th Avenue Heartache) and Aaron’s (Three Marlenas) favorite WF songs. I was a little disappointed this morning, though, when I popped in David Mead only to find that the clerk had accidentally put a Matt Redman CD in the case. Oops. Yummy Mexican food for dinner and a lazy evening watching SNL and Austin City Limits. SUNDAY Sunday morning we had our first meeting of The Rock, which went really well. I’m excited to see what happens next. Sunday afternoon was a fabulous mix of reading, watching football and napping in the big chair. And then… BEN FOLDS!!! That’s right, folks. After my big fat whinefest on Friday, Aaron surprised me with tickets! I don’t know how he managed not to tell me, I’ve been talking about this show for weeks. And all that time he had tickets, didn’t tell me, and pulled off a sweet surprise. This is why he rules. The show was great, owing mostly to the fact that it was Ben Folds, and it was at the Ryman. He did all my favorites, including the songs about his kids, Gracie and Still Fighting. So pretty. The only song I missed was The Luckiest, which was a letdown. And they did Bitches Ain’t Shit, for which I do not have love in my heart. I get that it’s funny, and the much-younger-than-I-expected crowd was totally into it, but it’s just meh for me. Plus, they did the exact same thing when we saw him with Weezer in July, so it didn’t even have the novelty of the first time. Other than that, I give the song selection two thumbs up. The crowd, on the other hand, I could have done without. We somehow managed to buy seats between two groups of 16-year-old fanboys, whose spent most of the evening in a woo-off during the quiet moments of the show. These guys probably love Ben Folds for Army, and One Angry Dwarf, and Rockin’ the Suburbs, and I get that. Those songs are totally fun and I sang at the top of my lungs along with everyone else. But part of the greatness that is Mr. Folds is the quiet songs. The aforementioned songs for his kids. The Luckiest. Even Brick, which I personally could go either way on. These songs are amazingly personal. It is highly disrespectful (not to mention seriously annoying) when the man onstage is singing about his little girl and the guy next to me is screaming “Rock This Bitch!” Also, and this goes not only for Ben Folds but EVERYONE: I am so over the encore. We know the band is coming back, the house lights are still down and the bass player took his guitar with him. Beating on the pews at the Ryman is not going to make them come back out. Trying to start a chant of BEN! FOLDS! is not going to persuade them. Do you think they’re sitting backstage, listening to the crowd, confused about what we want from them? It’s a good thing you’re yelling his name – he might have thought we wanted The Fray to come back out. (Trust me, we didn’t.) He hasn’t thrown the stool at the keys yet. He’s coming back. All in all, a good few days capped off by a great show. It’s weekends like this that make rainy Monday mornings tough.

Nuked another Grandma's apple pie and hung my head in shame.

This afternoon, while driving around Green Hills running errands for work, I noticed something strange. Something unusual. Something taunting me from the tree ahead. A flyer for the Ben Folds show at the Ryman on Sunday. Now, I’ve known about this show for a long time. We just didn’t have the extra cash to buy tickets. I was okay with that… kinda bummed, but okay. Even though it's BEN FOLDS. AT THE RYMAN. (Of course, at the time, I thought we’d be seeing David Gray the weekend before.) So a flyer in and of itself would not have bothered me. It was the giant SOLD OUT stamped across it that hurt my feelings. It would be one thing if it had been an old flyer that had been modified once tickets were gone. It would have made more sense to just take the flyer down, but I could at least understand doing that. But this was something else entirely. This was a new flyer that had been created for the sole purpose of announcing that the show was sold out. In other words, created to mock me. This, I feel, is wrong. What good can come of announcing to the general public that a show is sold out? If those people wanted to go, they would have tried to buy tickets. They would have then found out about Mr. Folds’ sold-out status when Ticketmaster could not find them tickets. Easy peasy. It’s not like the Green Hills crowd was online with their credit cards the moment they went on sale anyway. I believe the sole purpose of this flyer was to spite me. I could almost see it sticking out it’s tongue, hear the “nyah-nyah” coming from it’s photocopied mouth. Why, Ben Folds flyer-makers? Why do you hate me so?

Ick.

Today is one of those days that is just… meh. The kind of day where you look forward to your lunch in the park, only to have it rain during your lunch hour (and only your lunch hour). Where you finally feel like you’re on top of things in the office, only to have dropped the ball on something you thought was long over. The kind of day where your hair is just a little too messy, your shirt is just a little too short, your office is just a little too hot. Days like these really get me down. I am much better at big problems than I am at minor annoyances. When something big happens, I can deal with it, because I know that sometimes bad things happen and everyone has to deal with the big stuff. But the little things… the little things make me feel like I’m not very good at regular life. Like I just can’t get it together. Like everyone else is in on some life secret, and I’m standing outside the circle, fumbling to keep the balls in the air while the rest of the group juggles seamlessly. Sometimes I think days like this happen for a reason. We start to feel like we’ve got it together, like we can do it on our own, and we get a reminder of how completely inept we are. It’s probably good for me to be reminded of my desperate need for grace and mercy. And hopefully, I’m starting to understand that a little better with each meh day. I just wish my hair looked okay in the process.

The surprise that wasn't.

So. Aaron’s birthday. STINKIN’ Aaron’s birthday. Months ago, August 10 to be exact, I bought tickets for the David Gray concert in Atlanta on November 6. It was going to be perfect, because Aaron’s birthday is November 1, and a little weekend getaway to the ATL would be a great gift. David Gray is one of his very very favorites, and our last trip to see him was tainted by the group behind us, who mistakenly thought they were at a Dave MATTHEWS show. But I digress. I have the tickets. I have the hotel reservation. I have THREE MONTHS to keep a secret. I am a terrible secret keeper. One summer, early in our relationship, I tried to surprise Aaron with David Gray tickets. All I’d told him was not to make plans for May 13. (Yes, I remember the date.) He promised not to try and figure it out, and I kept my mouth shut. Then his good-for-nothing brother, Chad, called. “Dude, David Gray is coming to the Bronco Bowl on May 13! We should go!” Surprise ruined. I’m cruising along, working HARD to keep things on the downlow. The Rock plans a block party for November 5. Any other date and we’d be all over it, and as far as Aaron knows, we are. We help with planning and sign up for day-of projects, all the while I’m emailing Steve that we will NOT be there, and please don’t tell Aaron. I thought Steve was going to be my downfall, but he held strong. His other dirty-rotten-scoundrel brother, Brian, calls. Wants the two of them to fly to Indiana to watch Notre Dame play Tennessee. When? November 5. I have to shoot it down, but I can’t say why. Secret averted, but just barely. So there I am, November 1. Aaron’s birthday. I’VE DONE IT. I’ve got giant tickets my friend Brad made so I would have something to wrap. I’ve got the new David Gray CD. I’ve got cheesecake. I’m ready. And then I check my email. Dear Fan, We have been informed by the promoter that the David Gray 11/6/2005 show at the Tabernacle has been postponed and may be rescheduled for a later date. Please hold on to your tickets while a rescheduled date is being confirmed. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. We will be happy to assist you. Thank you, Musictoday, LLC Postponed. POSTPONED. All my planning. My painstaking secret keeping. And David Gray has to go and get sick. What do I do? Level-headed girl that I am, I panic. I cry. I call Brian to see if there’s any way they can still go to the football game. (There’s not.) I call the hotel to see if I can change my reservation. (I can’t.) I cry again. I call my mom. It’s not helping. Can Musictoday, LLC assist me in piecing together a last minute birthday awesomefest? I’m thinking no. I realize, of course, that the whole point of a birthday is to celebrate the person. And the whole reason I put so much planning into it is because Aaron is special to me and I want to make a big deal out of the fact that he was born. I’m glad he was born. However, birthdays are a big deal to me. Huge. And a night in Atlanta with the maybe promise of a someday concert was NOT going to satiate my desire for a big fat exciting birthday surprise. But I was going to have to make do. And I did, and it was great. Deep down I knew it would be. But just once, I would like for a surprise I plan to actually work out. Is that too much to ask? Stupid David Gray and his stupid infection.

Ten Reasons Why I Like Aaron.

1. He laughs hysterically at his own jokes.
2. He continues to speak the spanglish-ish language we made up on our honeymoon, three years later.
3. He is passionate about his job and his industry.
4. He makes me dinner.
5. He plans in advance the music he will listen to at work, and gets especially excited about “James Brown Day”.
6. He calls everything “too sexy”, a la the Antonio Banderas SNL skit.
7. He understands that his birthday gifts are as much about me as they are him, and knows to get appropriately excited about them.
8. He knows how to work with junior high kids. He talks to them like adults and respects their opinions and ideas. He is never condescending toward them.
9. His taste in music: 90% excellent, 8% moderate and 2& questionable.
10. He is my favorite of all the people everywhere. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BABY!

This is what happens when you never let me take your picture.

You get Dancing Man.