“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”

"Looking in the mirror staring back at me isn't so much a face as the expression of a predicament."

George: I’m exactly what I seem to be, if you look closely. You know the only thing that has made the whole thing worthwhile has been those few times that I was able to truly connect with another person.

Kenny: I had a hunch about you, sir.

George: You did?

Kenny: Yes, sir. I had a hunch you might be a real romantic.

George smiles.

Kenny: You know, everyone keeps telling you that when you’re older, that you’ll have all this experience - like it’s some great thing.

George: That’s a load of shit. I think I’ve actually just gotten sillier and sillier.

Kenny: Really?

George: Absolutely.

Kenny: So all your experience is useless?

George: No, I wouldn’t say that. As our friend Mr. Huxley says: “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”

"A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp and the world seems so fresh. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be."

Lazy Day, writing about some not so lazy days

Slept late.

Got a pedicure.

Refuse to turn on heat until Dec 1st so most time in apartment was underneath down comforter.

Productive in that I finished blogging about the trip I took to Western NC in August.
Day One
Day Two
Day Three Part One
Day Three Part Two
Day Three Part Three
Day Four

I'm thankful that the majority of my friends are not inanimate objects

But my totem candy corn and turkey candle pals were at the Thanksgiving table.

I'm thankful I'm not travelling today.

I'm less thankful that I' m probably an RDU/CMH porn star given how many times I've posed in the body scanner.

She's a moving target

She prefers it that way
She's leaving town tomorrow
She got in yesterday

She prefers it that way
She's leaving town this evening
She got in earlier today

Pop's Pizza + Five Episodes of Entourage

Rocking it out on a Monday night with my totem.
The priority sticker is from Delta. They put it on my luggage now that I'm an increasingly important frequent flier (I am about 3,000 miles away from GOLD).

Heard on NPR today

Golden Girls was like "Sex In The City" for old people.
Except you would just call it "The City."

A little Lisbeth

No Utility

I haven't used A/C or heat in three months.
Frost this morning.
I won't break me.

"It's like that there's a music, playing in your ear. And I'm listening, and I'm listening, and then I disappear."

Sometime in April, I bought tickets for a November 11th performance of "Billy Elliot" at DPAC.

And then forgot about it.

Until November 10th, when I was en route from CHM to RDU. I was actually going to be in town that night but going to the show was competing with completing employee evals (due on the 12th), unpacking, and ironically, actually going out to Hot Club for swing dancing. Fortunately, a co-worker talked some sense to me and I went.

I had seen the movie, but I really only knew this was a show about a dancing boy (compare that to "Wicked" when I was doing everything I could not to sing along or jump on stage and join in during "Popular").

I thought I was following the story fairly well until a man came out wearing all black and a headset and just stood there. I just couldn't reconcile that moment with anything that preceded it. Then, an announcement was made that there was a technical difficulty and there would be a temporary intermission. Very surreal. If it was a ploy to sell more concessions, I fell for it. I fell for it twice because I got a double shot of vodka with cranberry juice. I was very entertained that the drink was served in a grown up sippy cup.

I also fell for the show. In the past few months, swing dancing has taken on more meaning for me. I've needed it. It's become a delightful alternative to the Hyatt on Tuesday nights in Columbus but more importantly it's reinforced the value of advice I've been given all my life but have never really embraced or realized. The less I think and worry about dancing, the better I do. When I feel my lead, "just follow", give up some control and stop anticipating my body listens, I feel connection.

As if that's not cheesy enough, I was particularly taken by Billy Elliot's response to the question asked as he was on his way out from the Royal Ballet school audition.

"Can I just ask Billy, what does it feel like when you're dancing?" Billy answers in song called Electricity.

The song that ended up on my i-Phone within minutes of leaving the show (listen to it too many times, and yeah, it's cheesy but it's too late in this post to back off from cheesiness).

And, within minutes or arriving home, I was having my own little "Hot Club of Durham" rocking it out to "Bizet Has His Day" in my living room.

It's a bit like being angry; it's a bit like being scared
Confused and all mixed up and mad as hell
It's like when you've been crying
And you're empty and you're full
I don't know what it is, it's hard to tell

And the pictures match the memories.

I remember my mom taking us to a place with copper water. Cockaponsett. For a while I wondered if the color of the water (and even the name of the place) was an invented childhood memory.

It's not.

My mom and her brother (Uncle Ronnie - ever the historian) and Aunt Roberta took a trip to Lake Cockaponsett in CT this fall and sent pics that matched exactly those in my memory.


A place where siblings can be goofy.
(Uncle Ronnie doesn't smile in pictures. He's clearly holding one in here. He's slipping).

No he's not


A place where the grownups can relax


A place that reminds me of my mom. Butterfly kisses Momsy!

Overheard in Minnesota

“Have you made tater tot hot dish lately? How do you make yours?"
-Conversation between two convenience store attendants

North Carolina Carleton Club Voted "Biggest Little Club"

Quick trip to Northfield for Club Chairs Weekend.

This event used to take place in May.
Now November.

I no longer have a wardrobe for November in MN so time outside was minimized. I did tolerate the elements long enough to get the obligatory shot by the sign that proclaims Northfield as the town of "Cows, Colleges & Contentment."NC is technically a "small club" - purely based on number of alums in the state. By attitude, events, attendance, we're big big big, so we got the "Biggest Little Club Award." I might have given us the "Jack Russell Club Award."

Carleton had some comforting familiarities that weekend - Turkey Farm smell, for example. Less familiar: new dorms. They were nice (as in "I might rent an apartment here"). Flat screen monitors in the foyers? Like in an airport, or ad agency. Then I realized the monitors were showing energy consumption in the dorms. Ah, that's much more "Carleton."