nina turns 40

memealicious

When I was on vacation, Mikey tagged me with a music meme.  I'm to name ten songs that I'm really into right now.

1. James Taylor~Close Your Eyes  This song is short--under two-and-a-half minutes--but so simple and beautiful, it cuts me to the quick.  Especially the opening:  "The sun is surely sinking down, but the moon is slowly rising.  So this old world must still be spinning 'round.  And I still love you."  I played it so much on our trip that the kidlet now has it memorized.
2. Lucinda Wiliams~Are You Down?  Nobody sings about heartache like Lucinda.  "Can't put the rain back in the sky, once it falls down, please don't cry"
3. M.I.A.~10 Dollar It's hard to sit still listening to any of the songs on this album.  I love the "hey hey hey, oh-oh"s of this song, but the best part is the line, "Peace out, she'll kill you like Uma"
4. Suzanne Vega~Caramel I've loved this song since the first time I heard it.  Who can't relate to her tale of wanting something that she can't have?  "It won't do, to dream of caramel, to think of cinnamon, and long for you."
5. Stevie Wonder~Boogie on Reggae Woman Nobody cheers me up like Stevie.  "I like to see people fall deeply in love.  I'd like to see you in the raw, under the stars above."
6. Ruben Blades~Tu, y mi ciudad Ruben rivals Lucinda for songs that can make you cry.  I think the Spanish may have something to do with it.  "Amor de besos ausentes, acabate de apagar, llegue hasta aqui por quererte, y ahora te quiero olvidar."  My less than poetic translation is:  Love of absent kisses, finish dying out.  I'm here because I loved you, and now I just want to forget." [ I wish I had Badger's mad translating skillz!  I'm so out of practice.]
7. Radio Nationals~Pick You Up Another sweet and simple love song. "I would drive 1000 miles just to spend the day with you."
8. Cubanismo~Mulence I'd love this song if it were nothing more than the opening horn riff.  I always turn it up really loud.  This is a great band, one I've seen live a couple of times, though I missed them last time they were in Seattle, and now the government won't grant them visas to enter the country.  Guess I'll have to go to Cuba.
9. Indigo Girls~Dead Man's Hill One of the Girls' darker songs. "Don't you write it down, remember this in your head.  Don't take a picture, remember this in your heart."
10. Kasey Chambers~A Million Tears "Take my hand, break my stride. Make me smile for every time I've cried. Hold my heart in the palm of your hand.  Don't listen to it breaking, just listen to the band...Take these tears, wash your skin.  I'm having trouble breathing since you walked in."

good things about not being on vacation

I don't have to stand outside in the coastal mist clutching my dad's laptop to my chest and peering through the windows of a not yet open coffee shop.  I got (lousy dial-up) internet anytime I want it, and I make a damn fine cup of coffee, too.

I get to sleep in  my own bed, alone.

This is going to sound horrible, but I get to turn the kidlet over to some other folks for a good part of the day.  After being with him virtually 24/7 for the past week, I need a break.  I bow down in amazement to folks who stay home with their kids all the time.  I don't know how you manage it. 

post-vacation query

How can a house that we haven't even been in all week already be so trashed?

the vacation, she is over

I'm doing the usual post-vacation sorts of activities: laundry, uploading fotos, and fixing myself a consolatory drink.  Join me, won't you?  I won't even make you fold clothes.

one question and two observations

So, when it's eight o'clock (eight o'clock! Can you believe it?) and I'm standing outside the Cyber Garden cafe waiting for it to open, what is it I'm jonesing for most, the caffeine or the internets?

I never thought I'd be bummed that it was Friday, but since today that signals the winding down of vacation, I must confess I'm not all that pleased.  We turn around and head back North today.  At least we'll be going through wine country.

When the few trees that have survived along the beach look like umbrellas turned inside out, you know you're dealing with some serious wind.  The proper course of action is, of course, to buy a kite, which we did yesterday, a black kite with a skull and crossbones on it.  I was worried that my kite flying skills were a bit rusty, but we just walked out on the sand and up it flew.  The kidlet was quite pleased, and it was the most badass kite in the sky--no rainbow birds or butterflies for this crowd.

Overheard in Bella Espresso, Cannon Beach

"I just want to go and seek the face of the Lord"

Oh man, my secular, vulgar, FEMINIST, PRO-CHOICE (oops, am I shouting?) self has sat its wide ass down right next to the white boyz bible study group. 

[To be fair, I will state that these guys just seem like a group of men who want to study and share in their quest for the divine, and I have no beef with that whatsoever, in fact I think it's important.  It's just interesting to note that I immediately think, "oh, crap" when faced with a group of folks holding bibles, whereas there was a time when this would only have elicited indifference from me.]

oh, so it's not Bacon Hill

Goddamn resort towns--I had to stop at three different coffee shops to find one open at 7:30 in the morning.  Luckily, the one I did find has good coffee, wireless, and open tables by the window.  And after sitting here for 45 minutes, it's jam-crammed full of other urban folks jonesing for caffeine and connectivity.  One dude has his laptop open while he's in line to buy his drink.

All this vacation activity is wiping me out.  I frolicked yesterday, people, yes frolicked on the beach with the kidlet, who is convinced that Haystack Rock is actually Lewis & Clark's Beacon Rock because we saw a little video presentation at Fort Clatsop yesterday which highlighted the latter, and the two are similarly shaped.  He also had a lightbulb moment when he realized he'd been been calling Seattle's Beacon Hill by the wrong name. 

This coast is incredibly beautiful--the shifting mist, the wide sweeps of sand, the trees windblown and naked, the cliffs--it's hard not to fantasize about  moving here and opening my own little coffee house, which will, of course, be a hot spot, and always, always open by 6am.

What is it about a coffee shop that makes me so happy?  I mean of course there's the fact that it sells my DOC, but it's more than that.  I'm here in Lewisandclarkolandia and we found a place that roasts their own.  The kidlet is sitting on a couch by the window, reading his Magic Tree House book, and I'm here at a table, with my dad's laptop, sipping my espresso and grinning as I type.  It's like someone's living room in here--and that's what it is!--that sense of welcome, the arrangement of furniture in such a way that bekons you to settle in and stay.

It's funny to drive my mom's big boat of a car.  I kept reaching for the gear shift and trying to push in the clutch, and everytime I turned my head, the car would follow.  I only almost drove us off the road once. 

The coast is lovely.  Small, touristy town, but a motel room far from that, and a walk through the dunes and there it is--that vast expanse of smooth sand and open sea.  It was overcast, but the air was soft and embracing, and clouds of small birds darted above the waves.  After a day in the car, the kidlet was happy-goofy dancing all around, limbs everywhere, sandals off, screaming at the cold water on his toes. 

el camino

What do you get when you take four suitcases, three generations, two boxes of traveling toys, and stuff it all into one red car?  You get a raucous road trip, that's what!  My mother, the kidlet, and I are off on a big adventure, heading for points south and west.  Yep, we're going to la playa, baby.  Looks like we'll catch the tail end of a kite festival and a biker convention, among other things. I expect to get some sand in my toes, sun on my face, and a big rat's nest in my wind-tangled hair.  My jaunt through Oregon wine country on the way home might prove fruitful as well.  I hope the kidlet is ready to watch his mom geek-out over the Lewis and Clark goodies along the way--even better if I can convince him to join in.  Have a fabulous week, y'all, and there will more than likely be an update or two from the road.

Feeling all out-of-sorts and kinda woozy.  My sinuses have been bugging me this week and so I'm taking sudafed for it, and it gets me high in a weird sort of way.  Sometimes just silly and talkative, which I tend to be anyway, but sometimes soulful and wanting to reach out to the people I love--it can accentuate this longing that has been nagging me lately.  I feel like an adolescent, like I don't know who I am.  I know, typical, boring, utterly predictable sorts of mid-life feelings.  I have been pushing myself, growing, but I haven't quite reached a new place, a new sense of self.  I just know I'm changing, that this change is something that I've wanted for myself, but I don't feel settled yet.  I feel in-between, and irritable, and like I'm not getting what I need.  Then, I'm really pissed at myself because there's an opportunity for me to write something on a subject near and dear to me, and submit if for consideration to be included in a book, and I can't do it.  It's just one fucking essay and I can't write it.  I distract myself with blogging, and with boys, and I pretend I'll write it later, but the deadline is less than two weeks away, and I'm going on a road trip with the kidlet and my mom (yay!) next week, and when the hell am I gonna write this?  When I have taken the time to sit down to work on it, why is it that I have nothing to say?  Am I only capable of self-indulgent whining and attention whoring on this blog?  Can't I even muster the disclipline for a few thousand words that aren't just me blathering on?  Am I that addicted to self-sabotage and being stuck where I am?  Apparently so.  It's good that I will be away from eVil corp. for a week, that I am going to the beach to face the waves and the wind, that I'll be out of the city and in some open space.  I'm too caught up inside my head, forever analyzing, going round and round, thinking, thinking, thinking about every damn thing, and I need to get back inside my body, to feel the solid reality of my physical self and my physical surroundings again.