Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in museumgirl's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, March 5th, 2006
5:04 pm	LA Livin' One of the things I enjoy about LA is that there are so many different areas/cities/neighborhoods with such distinct personalities and they are all part of the LA metropolitan area -- and my daily experience. Take this weekend, for example. Yesterday I woke up in Westwood, had brunch in Larchmont, watched the sunset over Venice Beach to the sounds of a drum circle, then ended the evening with dinner and mini-golf in the Valley. Today I spent the day at a spa in Santa Monica. Tomorrow I will dine in Beverly Hills after working all day in Miracle Mile and Tuesday Hollywood is calling my name. (10 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 16th, 2006
1:33 pm	Stardust fro the Geeks This is too cool for words! Anyone wanna look at stardust? (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 15th, 2006
10:33 pm	Oh My. I am becoming very practical in my old age. At a lecture this evening, as soon as I heard someone referencing Habermas, my eyes rolled and my brain shut down, but not before thinking, "Oh how pedantic and pretentious!" Several young heads bobbed in agreement, their gazes fixed in rapt attention at the speaker as he droned on, throwing out the occasional profanity to shock the crowd into laughter, proving that he was "hip." Whatever. I had serious questions I wanted addressed: How long did the project take? How much did the exhibition cost to develop? What sorts of fees did the collaborator charge? Who provided funding? Are there other funders interested in supporting this innovative form of exhibition? Are museums other than art museums expressing interest in these sorts of collaborative exhibitions? What was the make-up of the exhibition development team. How did the team function together? At what point were all parties called into the project? But these are not sexy questions. These are rather mundane and drab when one wants to discuss the unity (as opposed to the apparent past hostilities) between art and architecture. My questions would be decidedly unpopular and would waste the time of all the bobbing heads. So I made note of the speakers names so that I can email them later to pester them with my all-too practical questions at a more appropriate time and left. Besides, I had some grocery shopping to do. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 14th, 2006
9:08 am	V-Day Well, it is Valentine's Day and I have to say, I am very disappointed. Usually this time of year, zoos and aquaria are falling over themselves to post ridiculous little gems in the media about mating animals and animals celebrating V-Day. I love that stuff! But lately instead zoos are all death and despair and aquaria are all finance issues. All I have to offer are these three articles, one from a zoo, one from an aquarium and one from a museum. Sigh and alack. Nonetheless, to all my friends out there, I love you and Happy Valentine's Day! (19 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 5th, 2006
12:50 pm	More Treasures from the World of the Weird Right now, all together I have sitting in the same chair, a Magic Cone, an ass Palm Pal and two viruses. All of these were presents from others. No, I'm not kidding. I have very sick friends. But my sense of what categories of objects should hang out together shoud make me an avant garde artist. Please note! Some of the links may not be Work-Safe! (9 Comments |Comment on this)
12:42 pm	Pack-Rat I am a pack-rat. I hang onto the oddest things -- the top of a styrofoam cup, a defunct driver's license belonging to someone else, ticket stubs from every movie I've ever seen -- and sometimes I find them again at the most unexpected of moments. I am in the midst of a huge late-winter/early-spring cleaning. Having realized that there is no way in my present economic state to ever leave my current apartment, I am on a mission to rid myself of the excess and turn my dwelling into a proper home -- one that might even be able to comfortably host the occasional visitor or two. In the process, I am rearranging my whole organizational system and going through all sorts of odds and sods. This morning I came across a letter I wrote -- but never sent -- two summers ago when I was very, very angry. It was jarring to read and brought my state of busy-ness into a full halt. It's hard to describe all that reading the letter made me feel: sad at what was lost, I suppose, but mostly I felt strangely disconnected from the events. I'm not sure if that's a product of time and the natural healing process or of how events eventually unfolded. I certainly felt grateful that my current life holds far less drama, but it also placed a shadow of doubt in my mind, as if I was being reminded that everything could fall apart at any moment, that life and happiness are fragile and temporal and that drama lurks and waits, ready to pounce on us -- on me -- at any moment. That thought makes me tired. So tired, in fact, that I simply can really take the time to do more than nod to it and move on, as if it wasn't really there. No, I don't know what two more years in the future hold for me, just as I had no idea (despite some of my (incorrect) predictions) when I wrote that letter what the future would bring. I'm sorry there has been pain and loss and trauma in my life. But it happens to everyone. Right now, for the most part things are okay and I am trying every day to make things better. At the very least, my life is currently stable and drama-free and that's nothing small. So I've paused, reflected on this latest treasure I discovered, but now it's time to return to the task at hand. I put the unmailed letter in my box of special things and resume my cleaning. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 29th, 2006
5:13 pm	Vehicular Archaeology Vehicular Archaeology The other day I cleaned out my car. While this may be a frequent occurrence for some people, for me it generally happens once in my car's lifetime, usually right before I sell it. This time, however, the impetus was simply shame and a growing weariness resulting from the comments the state of my trunk generated: "Wow, do you live out of your car?" "Huh, well, I suppose that is one solution to your storage problems," "Y'know, you might get better gas mileage if you weren't carrying enough gear for an army in the back of your car." I succumbed to peer pressure and that is why the interior of my car is now more tidy than it has been since the day I first bought it--and promptly filled it with all the residual crap from my previous car. The process was fascinating. True, there was a fair amount of old candy wrappers, empty bottles of water, obsolete directions to locations not even in this state. But amidst the trash were fascinating items: pieces that allowed me to date the last time I had gone through old bags such as a watch that broke in 1994, strange ephemera that I have no idea how I came to possess such as fawnapril's old driver's license, sentimental treasures I didn't realize I had lost such as a post card from my now-deceased grandfather, and perhaps the jewel of them all, a science experiment for a conservation class I took back in 1999! The most exciting aspect of finding this long-lost class project is that it was designed in such a way that the passage of time would only enhance the experiment rather than destroy it. When I presented my findings back in 1999, the experiment had only sat for two weeks. The results were interesting, but not especially pertinent to real-life museum applications. But now my experiment has been sitting in the trunk of my car, neglected and abandoned, and yet it has continued to do its thing and now the results are far more interesting and far more telling and pertinent than they were five or six years ago. ( The details of the experiment, for those who care. ) Nonetheless, if I can find the legend that explains what each pigment is, I may have a paper to write. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 18th, 2006
10:56 pm	Favorite Shoes The first time I tried on what I now refer to as my "beach shoes," I fell in love. I had been searching all over downtown San Francisco for just the right traveling clothes and shoes for the epic European adventure I had impulsively decided I would pursue. I had found a number of quick-dry, no-wrinkle skirts, tops and pants, but shoes comfortable enough to sustain two months of walking day-in and day-out seeking all the treasures that northern Europe's museums and other cultural sites had to offer was eluding me. On a whim, I turned down a side-street and came face-to-face with a pair of shoes in a store window that beckoned me within. I tried them on and my search was over. That was five years ago. I get inordinately attached to the shoes I love, never wanting to rid myself of such faithful companions. When finally persuaded that this is the right and inevitable conclusion to the relationship, I immediately try to recreate those exact shoes -- never with any success. My favorite shoes from junior high school were a pair of soft-leather, ankle-high, lace-up boots with metal studs on the side in a spiral pattern. The boots themselves looked a little like boxing or wrestling shoes, so when they had finally fallen apart after years of abuse from the tough New York streets, I firmly told my mother that I only wanted a pair of boxing shoes. Dutifully, she took me to every athletic wear store she could think of, but every one yielded the same result. As I stood there, enthusiastic and dogged, explaining to the clerks what I wanted, first they would look me up and down, a look of incredulity stealing across their faces, then they would look at my mother as if she were insane for humoring me in this fashion and finally they would inform me that boxing shoes were meant to be worn in a ring, not on the streets of New York. I've heard now that boxing and wrestling shoes are all the rage among the ultra-hip. My favorite shoes from high school were first ordered from a Spiegel catalog for ten dollars. Manufactured by Capezio, I later learned that they were actually designed as folk dancing slippers and, again, were not really intended for regular use. Nonetheless, when the original pair from Speigel's wore out (as little canvas slippers are wont to do when you wear them on pavement everyday), we headed for the nearest Capezio store and bought several pairs of these folk dancing slippers -- I was determined not to lose my favorite shoes ever again. I wore these slippers all throughout high school, and even into the beginning of college. I wore them with socks, with stockings and with bare feet. I wore them on the hottest days of summer and, rather stupidly, on the coldest days of winter. I wore them in the rain, the mud, the snow (again, stupidly) and sunshine. I even wore them into the surf on rocky beaches. I hiked in them, I climbed rocks in them, I moshed in them (again, most of this rather stupidly), hell there were even times I made love in them. I destroyed one pair in the torrential mud and rain that was the twentieth reunion of Woodstock. Nothing official was planned for that reunion, not like the twenty-fifth, which was an exercise in mass-marketing. But Yasgur's farm was vaguely in the same direction as my grandparents' house in Upstate New York where we were headed for a few days' vacation, so we decided to drop by and see what was shaking, so to speak. Dirty tents were set up, far more than I'd expected, in front of a small stage where bands too-stoned to speak or play properly jammed until they forgot what they were doing. Little shrines had been set up around the encampment, and hippies old and young left little offerings. Caught up in the moment, I carefully removed two strands of love beads from my neck and gingerly placed them with love and prayers for peace on a stand with candles and incense burning, protected from the rain by a tarp. A few lopsided booths stood to the side selling tie-dyes, incense, love beads and food. My dad, who had introduced me to the music of the Grateful Dead not long before this trip, bought my youngest sister a tie-dye shirt with a huge grinning sun in the middle. She wore that shirt for a large portion of the first few years of her life. But, as with the original Woodstock, the rain became torrential and the mud unbearable. We slipped and slid our way back to the black-cherry colored, faux-wood paneled Plymouth Voyager and drove off into the night, Rolling Stones playing and my now grosser-then-gross slippers relegated to the back trunk area. When the last pair of my favorite slippers finally had become more hole than shoe, a quick trip to Capezio informed me that that style of shoe was no longer being manufactured. Instead, ballet and gym slippers were offered to me, but I had to decline, explaining that those shoes had no soles and so would not be good for walking on pavement. The puzzled clerk wondered why on earth I would wear these specialized shoes in regular life and I left, disappointed and empty-handed. My favorite shoes in college were probably my size three boys Doc Maartens. They were my first ever credit card purchase. Actually, that particular buying trip represented a lot of firsts. I was a sophomore in college and had taken a week off from classes just before finals and winter break in order to attend my first professional conference, held by the American Association of Anthropology (known as the Triple As) in San Francisco. While I was there, I took the time to look up an old flame of mine. Both of us were in new relationships, but we were still friendly. I walked the short distance from the Hilton to his residential hotel on the edge of the Tenderloin and met him outside, shivering in the December winds off the Bay. He was working in a shop not far away doing retail and piercings and after pizza and a game of pool, I walked him to work. I wandered around the shop, fingering the bondage gear, eying the PVC dresses and checking out the wide assortment of boots. I wondered aloud if I should get a pair of Docs to protect me from the rain and mud of Oregon winters. Despite having already survived one, I didn't actually have a pair of boots. My ex- sprang into retail mode and before I knew it, I was whipping out my credit card for my very first purchase -- at a discount, of course. Just as I was signing, his current girlfriend came in, sporting the black hoody, piercings and Chelsea haircut of a squatter punk. She also had a perpetually running nose and looked as if she hadn't eaten in two weeks. I looked at myself in my heels, slacks and top coat and suddenly felt very out of place. Lip rings and a guy were the only two things that she and I would ever have in common. The Docs stood me well for six years. I suppose if I had oiled them regularly the creases in the toes wouldn't have become cracks and then gaping holes, but I had wanted Docs because they were supposed to be low-maintenance, rugged shoes. Once again, I tried to replace them. But somehow the next time I tried on a pair, I needed the size 4 boys, though they didn't fit quite right and no amount of breaking in seemed to be able to make them comfortable. The old pair had fit like a glove, so to speak. The Docs were officially replaced on my walking tour of Ireland. Even though I had purchased my new walking shoes specifically for trekking around Europe, I had thought that boots might be better for an actual seven-day walking tour. Not having hiking boots, I brought along the ill-fitting new Docs. One day of walking and the resulting blisters was enough to convince me that the Docs were done for good. I resorted to my walking shoes and in them found a pair of best friends for my feet. Together these serendipitous shoes, found in a store I didn't know existed in a side street in downtown San Francisco, and I traversed northern Europe: climbing marble steps of museums, racing through crowds in the London Underground, slipping on ice in St. Petersburg, skirting fountains in Vienna, wandering up the winding paths of Mont St. Michel, hiking up the Glastonbury Tor, exploring Mad King Ludwig's fairy tale castle, stepping over broken glass in Govan and dancing to traditional music in Dingle. I almost lost one shoe in the bog in Ireland, but managed to extract it along with my mud-soaked foot and sock. As my travels fell in the midst of the foot and mouth disease epidemic in Europe, each time I boarded a train or a plane for another country, my shoes and I had to wade in dishpans of disinfectant. Upon my return to the States I was separated from my shoes in customs so that they could carefully examine my shoes for traces of the dreaded disease. After my journeys were done, my shoes were still comfortable and I wore them nearly every day for work and almost always on the weekends. It was about this time that, new to Southern California, I began walking on the beach a lot. Comfortable, durable and seemingly impenetrable to sand, my walking shoes quickly became my favorite pair of beach shoes. Even after they, too, began to tear, holes forming near the toes as with all my favorite pairs of shoes, I continued to wear them to the beach, even if nowhere else. Last week I walked for miles on the beach in my beach shoes and returned home with blisters. It is officially time to retire my most recent pair of favorite shoes. Once black and almost-stylish, time and exposure to the sun, sand and disinfectant has rendered them an odd greenish-gray. Some areas are worn practically white. I know I can't sell them, or even give them to Goodwill, torn up as they are. But before I relegate them to the dustbin of history, I wanted to give them a proper eulogy. These shoes have seen more of the world than many people have; they have trod where some only dream of stepping. They have been comfortable and good to my tired feet and borne my many wanderings. They were good shoes. I know I will not be able to replace them. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, January 16th, 2006
5:34 pm	Such a Pretty Time of Day Sitting in the dark of my cozy room, watching the sky turn pink behind the bare trees. It actually feels like winter. Ahhhh. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, January 6th, 2006
11:38 pm	Sometimes I Think I can Hear the Ocean from my Apartment This is one of those nights. The moon is hanging low in the western sky, peeking into my window. Soon I won't be able to see it anymore as it drops closer and closer to the horizon, dipping into the ocean and beyond. I don't know why it should surprise me that I can hear the roar of crashing waves as a distant low rumble since I can hear seals/sea lions sometimes, but it does. Maybe I'm just crazy, and what I hear is nothing more than the rush of traffic on the 10 freeway, but it really doesn't sound like it. Also, it seems to be coming from the wrong direction. But if it is what I think it is, it is the best lullaby ever. (Comment on this)
10:46 pm	Things You Can't Find on eBay (Although you can on reptileauction.com.) I am more and more convinced from my daily perusal of news in the museum world that zoos have the most consistently wacky newstories of any of the nonprofits. However, in this instance, an aquarium has trumped all recent zoo news. The World Aquarium in St. Louis has been home to We, a one-of-a-kind two-headed albino rat snake, since 1999. President Leonard Sonnenschein has decided to sell the reptile, and bidding on reptileauction.com will start at $150,000. The picture is pretty cool. (8 Comments |Comment on this)
10:43 pm	Countries Visited Snagged from misterjustin: create your own visited countries map or vertaling Duits Nederlands Oddly enough, while it looks like a lot of red, I've only visited 14 countries, which apparently is 6% of the world. As misterjustin said, I must remember to travel more. (Comment on this)
10:43 pm	Return of the Muse I suppose it would be more apt to instead say the return to the muse. Several months had passed since I last visited the beach. Until last night. Now I have been twice, both times for extended walks along the shore. Last night, with the balmy breeze and the impossible number of stars in the dark sky, was a nearly perfect night -- the kind of night I used to dream of as a young girl. I guess deep in my heart I always knew that I would end up living in a sub-tropical climate. I just used to think it would be Florida. I always forget until it happens, but false springtime is really my very favorite of the seasons. Back the days of Reed (which are much like the days of yore, only with more drugs), I remember in February there was usually a one or two week reprieve from the constant gray drizzle that is winter. During this false springtime, the sun would shine, temperatures could climb to 70 and life exploded on the porches and lawns of the campus as students fled their winter hiding (re: studying) places. There was an intangible and yet incredibly distinct feel to everything about those days -- the air, the smells, the emotions. I loved it then and I still love it. These past few days, with our unseasonably high temperatures and bright blue skies, have felt just like those old days at Reed. Today on my walk along the Venice boardwalk (which is equal parts St. Mark's, Telegraph Avenue, Reed SU porch and Grateful Dead parking lot -- only with the majestic Pacific Ocean mere steps away), I experienced that same old familiar rush of excitement and guilty pleasure at a stolen afternoon of frolicking outside, when normally weather (and work...) would prevent such things. And everyone I saw seemed to share that feeling. Everyone was just blissed out of their minds to be out enjoying the day. Okay, sure, the guy who was singing, "Jingle Bells, Get me drunk," and "You'll soon be a hero, Support your local wino;" and the guy chanting, "It's the THC, fucked you and me!" and the guy with a sign around his neck reading, "Will work for marijuana," were all blissed out of their minds anyway, but whatever. The little sidewalk cafes and bars were filled with people hanging out and drinking tall, cold glasses of hefeweizen (just like the old sunny day kegs on the Reed SU porch). Dogs ran by. Rollerbladers skated by. One guy on rollerblades had some kind of home-made, souped-up lawn mower motor-powered unicycle that he pushed in front of him, or perhaps used to pull him along, it was a little hard to tell which. But it looked like he was dancing with his strange contraption. Tourists wandered around looking puzzled or tickled pink at the displays of the locals. Locals ran into one another and exchanged hugs and gossip. But everywhere was a buzz of energy and life. The whole experience made me want to dropout of Real Life for the fun and simplicity (albeit unstable) of the bohemian Venice lifestyle. I loved to spend all day wandering the beach areas, followed by an evening at a little cafe and then a night out on the town or back at the beach. Oh wait -- that sort of sounds like vacation, doesn't it? Hmm. Maybe I just need to go on vacation... Walking back north to my neck of the woods, once passed all the street vendors and head shops, I came to a quiet section of the boardwalk. I was alone and could finally hear the thunderous crashing of the surf. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, just listening to the reckless waves and soaking up the smell of the salty air. Heaven. Absolute heaven. I felt like a part of my soul had just been handed back to me -- a part I wasn't even entirely certain had gone missing. It had been way, way too long. But it felt so good. The beach is possibly the thing I love the most about Southern California. I must, must make a point of going there more in this new year. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, January 5th, 2006
12:06 am	The New Year, Thus Far and a Meme New Year's Day I awoke to the sound of birds. I couldn't remember the last time I had heard birds in the morning. This delighted me and seemed auspicious. I hearby dub New Year's Day the Day of the Auspicious Bird Songs. Since then, I have watched several movies, read entire books, cleaned my apartment and then destroyed it again, banged my head against the wall at work repeatedly as I try to finalize panelists for a conference session, eaten a lot of yummy food, worked out some, gone for a long drive to the beach and generally just been busy. I'm sure you're all terribly thrilled. I also had a conversation that went something like this. "So, you don't own an umbrella at all?" "Nope!" (says I, proudly) "Haven't owned one since 1991!" "So when it's pouring, like it is now, you just get wet?" "Yep! So long as I don't have my glasses on, I don't mind." "But, do you not own an umbrella just because of your legacy -- you don't want to break your streak? 15 years and counting?" This got me thinking a bit. This is not the only aspect of my life that has involved me not doing something for X amount of time, mostly because I didn't want to "break my streak." Not sure exactly where I'm going with this at the moment, except that I think I want to examine the real motivation behind some of what I do and what I don't do a little more closely. Sure, tradition is important, but not washing my car simply because of an idea akin to tradition seems a bit extreme... And now, because fawnapril tagged me, ( here is the 4Things Meme ) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 31st, 2005
6:52 pm	December Thirtyone I've already weighed in on 2005. And besides, I'm in far too good a mood to whine and bemoan a crappy year. I'm also pressed for time and so will not detail the shining moments that kept me laughing through the tougher times. But right now, on this New Year's Eve, as I ready myself to brave the storm (literally -- it's been pouring on and off all day), I am feeling extraordinarily grateful for my life, for all of the moments of gratitude already expressed here in this, my journal, and for all the moments that I know await me. I am especially grateful to all those important people in my life. True, I don't see most people on any sort of a regular basis and I'm pretty universally awful with phones and email and communication in general. But my loved ones are never, ever far from my thoughts -- not ever. So give yourselves big hugs from me on this chilly, windy night. Happy New Year, Everyone! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
10:49 am	'Tis the Season... ... to start lubing my door again. Current Mood: wet Current Music: raindrops (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 30th, 2005
10:46 pm	December Thirty It's almost the end of the year. Thank goodness! 2005 has not been the best year for me. In fact, overall it's been rather dreadful. I've had wonderful moments that I've shared with some truly special people, but those moments too often have seemed to be eclipsed by sad and horrible events. I will be very glad to see this year pass on into the annals of history. And yet, December began with me at my lowest -- exhausted and drained, overwhelmed and frustrated and just generally saddened by the sheer quantity of Bad Things that have happened this year. In part, that's why I wanted to start a chronicle of gratitude, as a method for easing me back into seeing the positive more often than the negative. And it seems to have worked. Or something did, because I am ending December feeling better than I have in months. Maybe it's just that I can feel 2005 slipping away into the ether and I am relieved -- eager and anxious for what may lie in store for me next year. And I am reminded of just how much can change in the course of one year. Relationships and jobs can start or end, homes can change, babies can be born. So much can change -- gradually over the course of the year, or else in the blink of an eye. Usually I think of myself as hating change, fearing it and the great unknown that it brings. But today I feel grateful for how much and how quickly change can be affected. I have been heartened by the fact that when bad situations arise or when circumstances turn for the worse, change is just around the corner, waiting with new surprises. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 27th, 2005
10:18 pm	December Twentyseven Yesterday, sitting in the airport, coming home felt like the end of the world. This past weekend has given me such respite -- has done so much to recharge me. I left LA on Friday in an absolutley foul mood, worried that I wouldn't be able to shake it for the whole weekend and that my grumpy bah humbugness would color the whole visit. Instead, my visit washed away my worries and left me feeling more at peace than I've felt in well over a year. So, compared with all that, coming home to work and my small, chilly, single apartment seemed about as dreary as dreary can be. But today, after my stolen extra day, coming home felt more appropriate and I felt ready to deal with my real life again. That said, after returning in the late afternoon, I did not go straight to work but instead decided to stay home and settle in. I made up a big To Do list -- and promptly ignored it. Instead I took a long, hot shower, ate some yummy cookies and went for a long, long drive up the coast. Driving up (or down) the coast, like hot showers, is a favorite indulgence of mine. But, as with walking on the beach, I simply haven't had the time to do that in months. This weekend I realized that I've been so busy all the time the past few months that I almost never take any time for myself anymore. True, I have a lot of fun but there are some things that used to be habitual that have been absent from my life in the past sixto eight months. I no longer exercise. I no longer walk on the beach. I no longer take long drives. Heck, I barely even read. All of the solitary pursuits that I love and that are essential to my being as an introvert and a healthy person I have abandoned. No wonder I feel frazzled. So taking time for myself today, not chiding myself for bailing on work and treating myself to a favorite activity all felt wonderful. True, I'm no longer basking in the warmth of my family, but today was still a great day nonetheless and I am grateful for it. And now, I think I will indulge once more today and go to bed early. (Comment on this)
10:10 pm	December Twentysix The item of gratitude for that one is simple: an extra stolen night with my family. This visit was way too short, so short in fact that I barely left the house, with the exceptions of two shopping excursions with my mom (one to stock up on food for the whole weekend, the other to help her return/exchange clothing gifts) and a family walk Christmas night. Unless of course you happen to count playing catch in the driveway with the dogs as "leaving the house." I don't. But at approximately 36 hours, my visit was simply not enough. So when the opportunity arose to get bumped to a flight the next moring and receive a free travel voucher, I siezed that chance. I'm so glad I did -- that was one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. It just felt so right to have one more night with everyone. Plus, oh man, did I ever eat well! And I got to play a bunch of pool with my dad, more games with the whole family and help my youngest sister with her college app essay. This was the most calm and harmonious Christmas in recent memory (recent memory extending approximately 15 years). It's entertaining to me that probably the least peaceful moment came when my middle sister and I had a stylistic argument about our youngest sister's essay. Too many editors... December 26, 2005 was a fantastic day for which I am unbelievably thankful, though I was far too busy living it to take the time to write this yesterday. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 26th, 2005
1:33 am	December Twentyfive Today's item of gratitude: Dad: "Belly laughs. That's what family dinners together are all about." Me: "Actually, I think that's what life is all about." Sister pantomimes ringing a bell and chimes, "Ding!" Me: "What was that for?" Sister: "I was ringing the Bell of Truth." More laughter. Belly laughs at the dinner table. Nothing could be better. This has been one of the best Christmases to date. I hope that the day was just as filled with joy and wonder for all of you as well. (1 Comment |Comment on this)