Golden Apples

YAY OBAMA. Took you long enough, sir. I understand that this is a "brave step," in terms of the presidency. His stance on gay marriage may ultimately cost him the election, but I respect him ever so much more for coming out with this than sitting on it in service of playing it safe. The fact that love and sexuality could ever be political in the first place makes my brain hurt, but anyway, it's something.

Saturday we'll be celebrating HR's second birthday, um, just a little late. It's going to be low-key as it was last year, and probably all the rest of the years as long as we're hosting. Because that's how we do, low-key. Lots of food, family and friends, cake, boom, we're done. At this point in the boy's life we could have gotten away with doing no party at all, but I actually want to have one. When asked what kind of cake he wanted, the child who is clearly Mike's son replied, "hot dogs." So there will be mini hot dog appetizers, and pizza (homemade by mom and gram, the best at pizza), and various other yumminess, including sangria for the grown ups. There will also be a cake made of cake, half yellow half chocolate, with Winnie the Pooh decorations, because they didn't have Thomas at the bakery. We're going to stick some godforsaken Thomas trains on the cake anyway for good measure. It's supposed to be gorgeous, weather-wise, and I look forward to the party spilling over the to the out-of-doors. Pity I don't have a grill at this time, a barbecue would have been perfect. Next year, perhaps. This year, I expect it to be perfect in its own imperfect way.

And that's that, about the party. Now for the music. Like her mentor Jay-Z, I'm mighty disappointed in Miss Robyn Rihanna Fenty for getting tight with Chris "The Literal Worst After Stalin" Brown again. But this song is a good one, no doubt, and has been getting lots of play in my house lately (downloaded by pop-eschewing Mike, no less) even though it's eons old. It also seems appropriate for the much needed--OK I think we have enough now--onslaught of the wet stuff. And the sun broke through as I finished that sentence. WORD.

Bout It Urryday, Urryday

I realized when I got home last night, when I picked up my buddy boy and did a big exhale, that I had been clenched up all day. Let's just say it was not my favorite work day of all time. They happen. I blame the supermoon. Today is already looking up in that respect.

Oh but also, go to hell North Carolina. Just, really. Obviously there are good guys who live in that state (I think I am friends with all of them) but the rest, BOOO. Thumbs down eternal. I'll never understand the impulse to control or put down other people in service to one's own purported morality. Come to Massachusetts, gay peoples, we love you. I've got a line of bumper stickers, t-shirts and mousepads available with that slogan.

A long long time ago my blog-and-real-life friend (and often pop culture twin) Kev asked me to write a guest post on his collaborative blog, and I finally did it! The results can be found hee-yah. I love that blog, and it was an honor to go do my thing in the authors' company. You should check out some other entries while you're over there, really great stuff.

Song of the day, by Drake: I don't looove Drake, as an artist. To me he'll always be Jimmy from Degrassi TNG, and that guy was a jerk even after he got paralyzed. Maybe even more so. But I do like some of his songs, and maybe this one most of all. He uses a word over and over again that I don't feel good using, and it turns out that it's a positive thing for you because otherwise I'd probably be quoting from it constantly.

Oh, Yeahhhh

So now Maurice Sendak is dead, which is a tremendously sad thing because he gave so much to the world through his art. It's also an OK thing because even though he will be missed like I'm sure I have no idea, he lived a long life and left behind an amazing legacy. In other news, it's a bad week to be a famous person I admire.

We just had a visit at work from the mom of a kid who died back in January, he was a really special kid, one of the ones who breaks through no matter how you try and protect yourself, and with that piled on top of an already emotional heavy, I'm just going to do what I usually do in these situations: deflect by talking about dancing. Feel free to just back away now while you still can.

Is anyone watching "America's Best Dance Crew" this season? I almost didn't because I feel like it's been really lacking the past few seasons, but this season is really doing it for me, especially now that they got rid of Step Boys (Boyz? It's a rule that there's got to be some kind of effed up spelling). I do not approve of comedy dancing.

The judges: JC Chasez is still the stern voice of reason, and I appreciate that. His notes are almost always super helpful. D-Trix is... what he is, but he usually knows of what he speaks. L'il Mama, I just don't know how she got this gig and she doesn't add much but whatever. I sometimes fast forward through the judging part, to be honest.

The crews: a bunch of them are gone now, and I guess I don't miss any of them because I don't remember anything about them. I'm not even going to talk about everyone, because I don't care about everyone even though they're all pretty good. But you guys, Fanny Pak is back! I'm waiting for them to really wow me like they did on their season I guess, but in the meantime I'm gunning for Mos Wanted Crew. It made my life when D-Trix told them that they were sexy dudes and only prefaced his comment with a little homophobia, that's progress. I'm shocked that I actually like 8 Flavors (I'm not even going to try to spell it like they spell it), because though they are creepy little girl-dolls, they are not so cutesy. They really impressed me during the Madonna week, particularly that fierce big-haired girl who did the triple pirouette into a split. I don't think they should win, but there's a lot of talent there, a lot in the show. I'm glad I got a heads up that the season had started.

Oh yeah, and "So You Think You Can Dance" starts up on the 24th - consider yourself warned.

Off to find some distractions to temper my melancholy. Work is usually good for that.

5 + 1

A list of five lovely things for a lovely Monday in May, and a sad thing too:

1) It's my grandfather's birthday today, he would have been 88 this year. This date will always be special to me, and I use it to remember Pup in celebration instead of sadness.

2) This weekend was a bomb of friend time, of the hilarity and singular cuteness of two very different two-year-olds making nice (mostly). Of ocean smells and beautiful views, even if the weather didn't always cooperate. Of pasta and wine and sitting around the table for hours laughing. Ain't we lucky we got 'em?

3) SUPERMOON. Space is cool, yo.

4) The Secret History, again. I've always wanted to reread this because I loved it so much the first time, and it turns out that 12 hours confined to an airplane (and the dogged inability to sleep under such conditions) makes for the perfect opportunity. Read it once, then read it again, I'm telling you.

5) The best song by the New York Dolls that isn't by the New York Dolls. I think we can all agree that music has been missing this sound for a long time, yah?



Double music post:  I would be just plain wrong if I did not post a song in memory of the recently, unjustly departed Adam Yauch. I am way more gutted by his death than I have a right to be, this may be the biggest loss I've felt from a musician's passing, including Michael Jackson. Where MJ was bigger than life, MCA is as real to me as if I went to high school with him. I feel like we grew up together.

RIP Nathaniel Hornblower, the world is truly amiss without your secret swagger and quiet enlightenment and razor-gargling delivery.

Time Honored Tradition

 38th Time's A Charm (Maybe)

A Play, in One Act.

Scene, interior, office, daytime:

Dawn: Cough hack cough sniffle sneeze, oh hell this cold is draining the life from me.

Same scene, 48 hours later: 

Dawn: Cough hack sniffle sneeze, oh hell.... Oh... yeah. The allergies that come on like clockwork every spring that I forget about like clockwork every spring. 

Fin.

I'm just going to go ahead and schedule this into my google calendar for next year so I can save myself two days of suffering when I could at least be starting up the Neti Pot jamboree. My life, she is-a so exciting.

We've got another busy weekend on the horizon, crammed with two work obligations (even one is rare on the weekend), as well as a jaunt to the North Shore and all the water views and fried bivalves that entails, so it's imperative that I start feeling better immediately. We'll also be seeing out-of-town friends and I look forward to hanging out and letting our toddlers run wild together. Thinking about it, if a weekend can have an opposite, this coming one is probably that to the last one, except maybe the getting to hang around with friends part. But balance in all things, etc.

OK! Bye!

Baby Boomer Wisdom

Growing up, my mother's favorite movie was The Big Chill. I got to see it a bunch of times, maybe I was allowed to, maybe not, and I just remember being horrified by this group of adults, one a doctah no less, doing irresponsible things, illegal things, taking drugs and having affairs and offing themselves and being complicated. As the product of parochial school and a downright goody-goody besides, it was unsettling to me that this lack of moral code was being glorified. It especially freaked me out that my own mother not only liked this movie, but claimed it as her favorite. "They just love each other so much," she said about the characters.

I haven't had the chance to revisit the film since I done grown up myself, but it doesn't matter because the thing is, I get it now. Somewhere along the way I became an adult. It's impossible to pinpoint the exact time in my life, as with most things it was a gradual onset, and without even realizing it, it became clear that being grown isn't much different than being whoever you are at any given time in your life. Sure you accumulate more responsibility and what you're allowed to do opens up, but you never really feel any different inside. And part of growing up for me, the real lightbulb moment, was accepting that everything's always just going to be gray. There's no black and white like you're taught, people will fall in and out of love and screw up and hurt each other and do things your 10-year-old self doesn't want to believe people outside of the movies are capable of doing because they are human and this is what it means to be human. The point is, if you're lucky enough to have people in your life for decades, the love you share trumps all. It makes it all bearable, all understandable. And my mother saw this truth in a movie and held fast to it. She probably understood my disdain for it, and didn't try to explain or even tell me I'd learn when I got older. She let me figure it out on my own. Maybe I'll never get around to loving The Big Chill, but quite awhile ago I figured out that I had already embraced its essence.

This is all a very long intro to what I really wanted to talk about, which is the wedding in the desert I attended. It was the wedding of one of Mike's oldest friends, a guy I don't know very well since he's lived out West for a long time, but I know him enough. In addition to being a joyous occasion for the bride and groom, it served as a reunion for the rest of Mike's growing-up crew, the guys of his formative years with whom he's pretty much remained in touch. As people move farther away from each other, I think weddings do this for groups of friends all the time. You know, you mean to be talking or seeing each other but everyone's so busy, so then there's this chance to attend a celebratory occasion you also use it to celebrate togetherness. It becomes inextricable. And in these modern times where weddings (mostly) don't exist to announce the exchange of chattel, the reuniting is nearly half the point.

One of the great things about being married to someone for such a long time is that their people become your own. Mike feels this way about my oldie-besties (especially when we're at our most annoyingly esoteric, eh Mikey?), and I feel that way about his. These people are mine. I may not have known them since I was in middle school - dang, a couple of them I just met for the first time this weekend, but I don't feel any less claim. They're just good dudes (man-dudes and woman-dudes), and they obviously care so much about each other, it's clear in the easy interactions. Everyone's life has gone in a totally different direction, but when it counts, they all head to the same place. These are the people of Mike's life, and they've become of my life. And I feel so lucky for it.

Our Friday-Sunday jaunt was exhausting, I won't lie, but it was worth it, because when do you get to be with people like this, all together, reminiscing and creating opportunities for future reminiscence? The specifics of what we did (swimming in the 100 heat, getting brunch two days in a row at an awesome farm restaurant, spotting a roadrunner and a jackrabbit, staying up until 3 a.m. making nonsensical ruminations about queefs, oh yes, and there was the matter of a wedding and reception too) are probably not going to be important. But as I look through the pictures from the last few days, it's all there. The story of human connection, of growing up and growing apart and coming back. Always coming back. In the end, that's every present, every toast and every smile and every joke and every tear.

Congratulations, Fran and Jess. I wish you many, many happy years together. Thank you for creating an impetus for this group to chill out together for a couple of days. Until next time.

Love. Each other. So much. You don't have to be my mother or Glenn Close to take those words to your soul.

If I Could Talk, I'd Tell Ya

This jet setting wedding weekend was a blast, and true to form, I'm in no shape to write about it today. I blame the time change adjustments and some kind of scratchy-throated, voice-robbing, coughing crud I must have picked up on the plane. There's so much I want to write about, hence so much that I'll leave for tomorrow.

In case you were wondering, the boy did just fine left in the care of his beloved Mammy and Tita, and though I missed him so much by Sunday morning it physically hurt (and that's not just the tequila aftermath), the fact that the three of us survived the time apart was good for us all.

So, a catalog of good stuff tomorrow. For today, what I really need is for this workday to end (three more hours), a good head-clearing run (if the aforementioned crud doesn't strike me down first) and a relatively early bedtime crash (toddler willing, as ever).

Time to power through.