zen = amnesia = book = notes = type = profile = nhwc = px
43things = soma = three dog party = fotolog = host

saturday night miscellany...

tonight beth and i re-bonded, walking around new haven, eating an indian vegetarian food feast until our bellies were distended and blissed-out, singing random corny songs and observing drunk yalies teeter in heels and try to start fights in the dusky streets. in our shabby unstylishly puffy utilitarian winter coats, beth noted we stood out as obvious townies. hurrah for not being part of the moving backdrop of j-crew uber-preppie yalies! hurrah for warmth over (questionable) "style". we rambled and made all kinds of positive plans about upcoming three dog party action. i have, of late, become so unmotivated, but am vowing this will change when i get back from my vacation. we also visited with our fine lawrence street-dwelling feline pal, zipper, who was out on his porch waiting to be let in for the night. he did little kitty-hops and rolls for us in the glow of the streetlamps, purring like the champion of pedestrian schmoozing he is.

tonight at work (prior to hanging out with beth) when i was proofreading death notices for sunday's paper i came across ones for a 24 year-old guy and his mother who had died the same day. though the notices didn't list specifics, i learned that he had shot his mom in their home and then, when police chased him, he shot himself. while beth and i were standing there basking in zipper's love and the gentle january night air, this was in the back of my mind--how absurdly unpredictably transient our lives our, how strangely and suddenly one's life can end. i felt so grateful to be alive and in such fine company on a beautiful evening, on the threshold of this trip to sundance.

lately i am making to-do lists and actually checking things off on them. one to-do thing i've embraced, as a new way of calming myself down prior to sleep, is i sit in my bed, nag champa burning, sufjan "seven swans" playing, and write letters to people i have lost touch with or feel inspired to communicate love towards. over the years i have amassed a staggering collection of stationary--literally hulking boxes upon boxes of awesome cards which i never use because i am a first-class horder. this is going to change; i am vowing to use stationary for its rightful purpose--missives--and transform it from passive object (collecting dust in my room) to active conveyer of sentiment. yep, revolutionary! it really puts me in a loving peaceful frame of mind to end the waking day this way, gathering positive feeling and thoughts into words, channeling the love, as it were, and sending it out into the universe where it belongs.

yesterday i impulsively got my hair cut professionally (!) for the 1st time in more years than i can remember. it's got to have been at least 5 or more. i had just gotten to the breaking point of dealing with the awkward grown-out bowl cut from summer. i had started wearing my hair in pigtails every day and my bangs were my nemesis, always a wayward brown wall never staying put when i tried to stylishly sweep them sideways. i wandered into the euphoria salon (on orange st.) because i liked their window displays full of vintage 40's and 50's beauty products and advertisements. yep, my love of retro packaging did me in. i asked for a walk-in, immediately was escorted to a beautiful black and chrome vintage-y salon chair (what are these called?), had this very cool woman who used to work at the tune inn record shop back in the day commence to give me a scalp massage with scented oil and then a shampoo and cut. ooh the pampering! the standard salon small-talk was actually not an issue--she was hip and interesting and full of good cheer and tales of her interesting life and questions about mine. after asking whether i was attached to the length of my hair ("nope") she gave me what is, to my mind, an adorable pixie cut. i have not had hair this short since i was 19 and a freshman at smith. i feel so free! i have such thick wavy hair and she cut it in such a way that it is thinned out and wispy around my face and falls in swirls rather than in chunks of blah like before. i can imagine myself becoming addicted to having a proper haircut now, which scares me. because it did cost (an entirely worthwhile) $45. it was awkward going to work newly shorn, though. everyone made a big fuss and i felt very naked and self-conscious because it was such a dramatic change in length.

in other news:

- i keep googling moonshine to see what the buzz factor is, and it is growing steadily:
aol buzz
joblo buzz
ifc buzz

i leave for boulder on monday and then lafe and i drive up for the premiere on tuesday. roger's young age and dv low-budget feat is really generating a kind of mythos. it's all so surreal and exciting!

- the replacement bulbs for my full spectrum lamp arrived, sweet mercy! oh how i needed them.

-when i get back i resolve that i am: going to join the ymca and swim a lot, volunteer at C.A.W. so i can use their darkroom, volunteer at the free book place again, finish the three dog party website and put an actual shopping cart on there, etc.... also, now that i have health insurance i am making good use of it, seeing all the doctors and such i need/want to for my paltry $25 copay. after one whole year of being un-insured, this feels so splendid.

before = after