Winter 2005 was pretty busy. I took guitar lessons for awhile (which I enjoyed, but they petered out when I got busy and then distracted), picked up a frame drum habit, started a storytelling gig at my favorite store in the world (where, ironically, I never once told a story), tax-return-gifted myself with a pocketstudio (which I use occassionally, but never often enough - another thing on my 2006 list), and did a lot of pining for spring.

I also passed up the chance to move back to the Southland and embrace the college lifestyle...and opted, instead, to renew my lease at the same apartment for the third year in a row. In some ways, it's been awesome, living in the same place for so long. I like not having to pack everything up and move it. Of course, living alone is not so great for me - allows me to be self-indulgent and lazy and a poor housekeeper and very bachelor-esque. Not to mention that all my ideas for re-decorating and home improvement have fallen by the wayside because, well, it's just me, and who cares? Well, as it turns out, I care, and there's another thing on my list for 2006.

My birthday also brought me into a Lovers year, numerologically speaking. This ought to be a good thing - the Lovers are my life card, and they're all about things coming together - choice, balance, connection, resolution, relationships of all kinds. So, for the next year, I ought to be putting things together, in lots of ways - and hell, maybe even getting laid. (At this writing, no dice there, but I still have five months before we move into the Chariot....and anything could happen....right?)

I was also haunted by the past - literally. I saw an ex everywhere I turned, on a weekly, if not daily basis. It was like I couldn't go anywhere or do anything without seeing his face, and while I was as over someone as you can get without someone else standing in the void in your heart, it was still like a twist of the knife you'd forgotten you left in your gut. It was a reminder that - while he's riding the train to work with his arm around the chick he chose over me...I'm still going home to my guitar and my cats....alone. Which is okay on the one hand, and totally hateful on the other. Blech. Ugly.

After camp, it was crisis mode with the family - my sister was in a car accident, my dad's health went crazy for a minute or two, my second neice was born, I went home to visit a couple times (got to see my new neice, who was beautiful and the sweetest thing ever). I also experimented around this time with not dying my hair, thinking I'd go back to the natural color and see what happened (not to mention save $15 a month)....imagine my shock and dismay when I found that I've already got a crop of gray hairs just waiting to spring into action and age me prematurely. Not that I'm one of those girls who's afraid of saying I'm getting old; I'm 40 on the inside, and cool with that....but I just think I ought to be able to make it at least to 30 without the silvery hair! So, yeah, I quit that crap and renewed my regular subscription to Feria No. R66.

To end my summer travels, I rode the train across the northeast to New York City, where I reveled in a friend's Broadway debut, was accosted by a short, balding, bigot in the Village, was subjected to stealth wasabi, and tried a mojito for the first time (mmmmm, tasty). It was awesome. I heart New York, I really do. And I'm so glad I live in Chicago....the rent here is crazy, but not as crazy as Manhattan.

I stayed in Chicago for Thanksgiving, and spent it with some good friends; I brought my sacreligious sausage stuffing (a meatless version of my grandma's classic recipe that she would be shocked and horrified to discover), which was a hit with the non-meat-eating crowd.

For winter solstice, me and my posse ("my posse and I" just sounds wrong somehow) rocked some quality girl time - fondue, facials, manis-pedis, and massages....what more (besides the always popular million dollars and a man in a kilt) could a girl want? It was lovely and recharging, and I suspect it's a large part of what got me through to the end of the year without a (total) meltdown. Of course, Christmas took me home for family drama, and that was pretty much the whole year.

I did, however, have a great New Year's Eve. I had some folks over, where we made music, laughed, ate homemade butterscotch truffles and little cocktail pigs in blankets, and drank lots of champagne (but not quite enough, since I still have two bottles in the fridge, dammit!). It was a good way to launch 2006, and the List that comes with it:

1. Make music. Lots of it. Record it. Play it in front of people, maybe even in front of people who've paid to watch.

2. Don't forget the body. It likes to eat good food, and it likes lots of water, and it likes to bust a move. Give the body what it likes!

3. Get the house in order. Seriously, three years in a house is enough time with the walls all white (or mint green, as with the hideous kitchen). It's time to paint the walls, put up curtains, shell out the money for the rugs, and generally act like this is home already.

I know, it's not an extensive list...but it's a start.

May 2006 be the year that psycho presidents and their evil regimes smell their impending ouster. May 2006 bring peace where there is war, prosperity where there is poverty, opportunity where there is devastation, healing where there is pain, and joy where there is suffering. May 2006 bring us all blessings too numerous to count, and bliss beyond reckoning.

So mote it be.

Recent entries...
27 December 2007: 2007: Finis.
17 December 2007: A ruse, a rant, and a poem. It's short.
11 December 2007: Music & falling....story of my life.
08 December 2007: Briefly...ish.
29 November 2007: A poem, a rant, a lesson.