Weddings, Christmas, and What It All Really Means

I got really good at packing some time ago. I can bust out a well rounded suitcase in a reasonable amount of time. And unlike many a girlie girl, I can survive on the basics. For example: I abhor needing to bring more than one pair of shoes on any trip. What a pain. Shoes take up so much room.

The point, you see, is that I have a wedding to attend over our Christmas holiday. And that means one more damn pair of shoes in my suitcase. Fundamentally, I don’t mind since I don’t want to wear tennis shoes with a nice dress. But, you know. Shoes. Geez.

We will be staying with Brandon’s mom over Christmas and making a trip two hours away to my home town to go to one of my best friend’s weddings. I'm really excited to see her and am really happy that she is getting happily married. Yet, here starts rant that has nothing to do with her and what will, I'm sure, be a beautiful and meaningful ceremony:

In my personal and imperfect opinion, the modern wedding should be done away with. What a waste of time, money, effort, and ugly pink napkins! We have gotten it all wrong. With so much energy put into planning the ‘big day’, everyone - the bride and groom especially - forgets what is actually happening. They forget the meaning, the essence, and the importance of their undertaking. Kinda like Christmas. And, like Christmas, the wedding should be simplified down into a meaningful celebration of love.

It’s just my opinion, but I think everyone should elope. Lol. And if you want to include your family, let them come with you. Take youself, your spouse-to-be, some nice but simple dress clothes, and the few people in your life who are really important to you and have a small, truly intimate wedding. It really does make the entire experience much more… holy… special… real and true. Make it fun and stress free for everyone. Choose a place that will make a cake for you and set up a nice and simple place for the ceremony. Go somewhere that strikes your fancy, like the Caribbean, or Tahiti, or Alaska, or Ireland, or somewhere with striking mountains, or somewhere that means something to you. Hell, do it in your backyard.

I rant about this because soooo many people stress over wedding PLANNING. Ugh. Middle class America does not have enough money to make as much of a hulabaloo about their wedding day as they would like. And more often than not someone goes into debt over one day, three hundred coordinated napkins, glitter the color of the bride’s eyes, hair, makeup, tuxedos, rentals, blah blah blah blaaaah.

Do I sound jaded or cynical? I truly don’t mean to. I just know from personal experience that no stress and basic planning really make for a wonderful wedding day. I don’t do anything for Christmas that doesn’t mean something to me. I keep traditions that I value, put up decorations I love, and never stress over doing more than I can handle. Weddings should be the same. It’s time we realize that the marital celebration has been commercialized almost as heavily as Christmas. Our ideas of ‘the perfect day’ are not really our own.

Now that I am a parent, I have had to decide what I am going to teach my children about Christmas. Will we pretend Santa is real? Will we open only one present on Christmas Eve? What traditions will we carry on every year? Will it only be about presents… or something more? As I asked myself all of these things, I realised my own answers to these questions. To me, Christmas is about love. Santa, like God (for me), is just an expression of love, compassion, giving, and selflessness. We don’t have to have the tree or watch ‘Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer’ on t.v. every year for it to be Christmas. I want my kids to know that every year around this time we will just be doing our best to show our love for each other and everyone else on earth.

P.S. To my dear recently married friend, if you ever read this: I just felt the need to rant for many of the above mentioned reasons. I hope you know that I love you dearly and enjoyed your wedding tremendously. As we all know, I eloped, so have an impartial love for it! :)

The internet makes me lonely.

"The Dark Knight" Trailer

Click the above link to see the new, recently released "Dark Knight" trailer.

I am so excited to see this movie! There are practically no words. Batman was redeemed by Nolan, Bale, and Co. in "Batman Begins," after the filth that was "Batman and Robin". Now the awesomeness continues with another dark, freaky, pitch perfect fight between good and evil in "The Dark Knight". The trailer has me loving Heath Ledger as The Joker. I had high hopes for him when listening to the audio-only trailers that were our only glimpses of the movie until now. Now, blasphemy that it may be, I think Ledger may be an even better Joker than Jack Nicholson. I love the Batman series and I love that they are doing justice to it again!

MMmmmhmmm

That's right!

Naughty, Naughty

I should have gone to bed much much earlier. I always tell myself that I will and it never happens. I'm a night owl. I can't remember a time when I wasn't. I used to stay up really late reading in my closet. lol. I would turn the light on in the closet, set up a nice comfy pallet of blankets, and shove a shirt under the door so my mom couldn't see the crack of light. I would stay up all hours of the night finishing a good book. And that about sums up the naughtiness of my youth. I was a good kid. Maybe I should have acted up more. Ha.

Reading is still a thrill.

I'm In

I love Pajiba.com. Thanks to their witty reviews I find myself wanting to see a lot of movies I have never heard of before. And thanks to Netflix I actually get to watch all the movies in the world that remotely strike my fancy *cue hallelujah chorus*! There is an awesome review of "Juno" on Pajiba (here it is: http://www.pajiba.com/juno.htm) that made me really want to see the movie. The trailer pretty much confirms what the review says. Sounds good. I'm in.

That is.... I'll have to wait a millenium for the DVD to come out considering we can never get to the movies since we don't have a babysitter... which pretty much breaks my heart.... but it's cool.... thanks to Netflix.... that allows me to see new movies about a year after they are in theaters. lol.

I don't really listen to the radio anymore and rarely know what music is new and popular. I like it that way. I mostly hate popular music. So, the stuff I listen to is mostly music that is old and good, artists that friends like or recommend, or stuff I randomly find. I stumbled across this band and song online. Apparently OneRepublic has recently become hugely popular and, in spite of that fact, I truly like the song. I really like the original version of the song, but can also appreciate the groove factor added in this version with Timbaland. From what I gather, OneRepublic got their break by being 'featured' with Timbaland... which is kinda sad considering the dude did not do much to the song to make it 'his'. Anywho, they seem fairly talented and I like the song a lot... even though it's nothing that new or original. Eh. It can't all be musical genius.

Bits and Pieces of Today

I have so much that goes through my head in one day, that I decided to institute a Bits and Pieces regularly. It helps me get down a lot with a little. I'll probably be including all sorts of stuff, from thoughts to music I can't stop listening to, to book excerpts, to funny videos, to articles, to generally anything that makes me think, laugh, cry, or respond.

What can I compare you to, a window the sun shines through?
Maybe the silver moon, a smile rising
The magic of the fading day, satellites on parade
A toast to the plans we've made to live like kings.

Take It From Me - The Weepies

I don't believe in crying over spilled milk. But what about spilled lemonade? And what does that mean, since life skipped the lemons and went straight to the lemonade? Should it just be lemonade under the bridge?

Gray quiet and tired and mean
picking at a worried seam
I try to make you mad at me over the phone.
Red eyes and fire and signs

Gotta Have You - The Weepies

On relationships:

Take note. Chivalry, gentlemanly manners, and general helpfulness inherently should not have to be asked for. They should be given without request. Thank you.

I adore Ursula K. LeGuin. One short story of hers, "The Matter of Seggri," has stuck in my mind for a long time because of it's sheer artfullness, perception, and truth. I believe it was the first story of hers that I ever read; moreover, as I read more of her work I realised that she wrote a lot about societies and cultures that, in their dissimilarities from ours, pointed out interesting things about our own values, practices, prejudices, flaws, and strengths as any truly great science fiction should. I am currently engrossed in The Left Hand of Darkness, another story dealing with gender roles like MoS. There are so many things I like about this story that I will revisit later, but I wanted to share a section that I read today that really rang true for me. LeGuin's main character is talking about an insane politician who has been trying to sway popular opinion in favor of war by frequently appearing on the radio. Here he describes the jargon the politician uses and then analyzes it:

"He talked a great deal about Truth also, for he was, he said, 'cutting down beneath the veneer of civilization'.

It is a durable, ubiquitous, spacious metaphor, that one about veneer (or paint, or pliofilm, or whatever) hiding the nobler reality beneath. It can conceal a dozen fallacies at once. One of the most dangerous is the implication that civilization, being artificial, is unnatural: that it is the opposite of primitiveness.... Of course there is no veneer, the process is one of growth, and primitiveness and civilization are degrees of the same thing. If civilization has an opposite, it is war."

Yes! Exactly! I love reading such well written observations about ideas I have had in my mind yet couldn't solidify as clearly as a talented author like LeGuin.

Methinks President Bush would read that and be like: "What? No, no, no, you're all wrong. You see, God said war is good. And Congress needs to FUND OUR TROOPS! When can we start another war with Iran? I need some more oil."

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying
No amount of whiskey, no amount of wine
No, nothing else will do
I've gotta have you, I've gotta have you.

Gotta Have You - The Weepies

Best damn General Tso made by an American! YUM!

I freakin’ love to cook interesting and challenging dishes. It usually takes me making a new recipe at least twice to really perfect the proportions, spices, and cooking times because I (of course) just have to tweak all recipes to my liking. I find it almost impossible to agree completely with any recipe I come across. This particular dish is a lot more gingery and spicy than the original calls for.

Shhh, don’t tell anyone but….

Sometimes I don’t even measure the ingredients! lol ;)

I already posted this on FB, wondering what the hell everyone else would think of it. Gruesome. Crazy. Mind boggling. Thank you Pajiba.com for sullying my pristine mind with this. ;)

I Hate It, I Love It, Now Write!

I Hate It, I Love It, Now Write!
Current mood: pirate

For as long as I can remember, I have had really vivid and elaborate dreams. I remember waking up once when I was little after having this awesome dream about getting a HUGE doll house for my birthday and being utterly and completely pissed of that it had not really happened. The dream, as with many of them, had been so real. I could walk up to this stupid dollhouse and touch it, seeing all of the details clearly. This tendency toward realism, of course, applied to scary dreams as well. That sucked. I had these recurring nightmares about some monster. In one dream the monster bit my leg, and I woke up feeling a tingling in my leg where he had bitten me. It is so bizarre how powerful the mind is over the body.

What's interesting is that I rarely have nightmares anymore but still have these elaborate storylines playing out in my sleep. And the funny thing is, it had made me talk in my sleep a LOT. Sorry Michelle! Sorry Brandon! Michelle, my former college roommate and super awesome friend, used to tell me about the numerous times I would do this. I had a test for the hardest class I have ever taken and had spent days studying for this MONSTER of all tests. I spent all of one night cramming this info into my brain about numerous Hindu gods, The Mahabharata, and sacred texts. So, when I went to sleep, what else should I dream about but all the stuff on my test? But it was much more than that. I dreamt about walking around in this huge columned building with blue mist swirling around me. And out from behind the columns would come Krishna, Arjun, Ganesh, and all the other gods I had studied, whispering to me about their lives and their attributes. It was utterly bizarre, like a movie scene, planned out and perfectly flowing. I am still surprised to this day that I had that dream. And, Michelle heard me talking in my sleep that night. lol.

Fast forward a few years later and I was pregnant and working at Arvest, the bank. I had to learn so much crap about money handling, banking processes, and even a bit of Spanish on the side since I was the once other person at my bank who knew it. For the few months I worked there, all I could dream about was the stinkin' bank transactions I made all day. And the Spanish phrases I had to learn to us. Apparently that made the perfect conditions for me to speak Spanish in my sleep. No kidding.

And then I found myself reading about Stephenie Meyer, author of some vastly entertaining books, and how she had taken one vivid dream and turned it into a story. And I loved that. I started thinking about some of the dreams that have really stuck with me. Were any of them worth exploring to see whether or not there was a story there? Absolutely. After I realized this, I began having even more dreams with bizarrly connected storylines. It's weird and cool. So for some time now, I have really been enjoying and appreciating this... gift of sorts that allows me to have fun dreams.

And yet...
Lately one storyline won't go away. I don't want to write it and yet it keeps persisiting. I almost want to be able to turn off my brain. Because, as much as one may think one knows themselves, the brain can really bring up some things that... I dunno, are unhelpful, bothersome, and make you uncomfortable with your own psyche.