My daily schedule lately is pretty grueling. I wake up at 4:30 a.m. to go to work until 9 a.m. and make people lattes, and then it’s straight into the magazine world, researching story ideas, editing stories, coordinating photo shoots and online content. As soon as I get home (which can be as late as midnight on Mondays or as early as 5 on Wednesdays), it’s not long before I’m hitting the hay to start again. I’ve never understood TGIF until now. These are the things in my life that are keeping me from currently going crazy.
Sunday night — Last Sunday was the premier of our favorite show on HBO, and we kicked it off with a cookout and watch party with our neighbors. Burgers and brats and vampires? Yes, please. We’re hoping to make this cookout and True Blood a weekly tradition.
Cafe au lait with Kaldi’s Highlander Grogg coffee — Half a cup of this maple syrup and rum-flavored coffee and fill the rest with steamed milk, and I am one happy camper. All of my stress and exhaustion just washes away with creamy sweet coffee as I go from one job to the next.
Grilling — Not that I actually do the grilling because I don’t, but I love love love it when John grills. Not only do I not have to cook dinner (well, sometimes I help get it ready for the fire), but I love the feeling that comes with grilling. When we grill out, it always turns into an event it seems, even when it’s just us and we aren’t joined by neighbors. Cooking out becomes a kind of quality time that separates itself from other dinners. I always feel like I’m on vacation.
John and the puppies — I felt like it was corny, but I can’t not mention them. The puppies have been very sweet and well-behaved these past couple weeks, and they’ve been rewarded with membership to the dog park. John has (without being asked) taken control of making my life easier. He just does it because he’s amazing.
Last weekend, I discovered a new creative obsession. Dun dun dun…
Truth be told, I have about zero experience arranging flowers. And though I’ve always thought it would be a blast, I’ve also always assumed it would be out-of-my-league impossible. But for a wedding I was recently in, I got a chance to dive headfirst into the endeavor. We bridesmaids worked late into the pre-wedding night arranging bouquets, centerpieces, and boutonnieres: all in a freeeeezing apartment (to keep the blooms fresh), fueled by milk and cookies…and dudes and dudettes, it was fun as all get-out!!
I gotta tell you, the bouts were my fav to create (so much so that I ended up putting together all of them after many of the other girls had headed home for the evening! Yeah, I was on a crazy creative high.) I was so jazzed about the whole process that I got up early the next morning to photograph all the little guys. Tada!:
(Orange carnations were for the groomsmen and ushers, white roses for the gents in the family.)
I still have a lot to learn — the professional who helped us through the night of arranging created an incredibly gorgeous bouquet for the bride. And wow, her work was a true testament to the real art of arranging, and a great encouragement to continue practicing. But by the end of the night, I had figured out a little better how to make the flowers and leaves do what I wanted them to do, and I was pleased as punch with the product…so it was a good night of first accomplishments!
The new drawings. Piecing together a style; a thought process; a new theology of what it means to be human, to be estranged, to be in community, to be someone outside of oneself; to be in love; to be in sin.
[also, mostly unimportant but zooming is just a mouse click away. the devil's in the details, as is the life and breath.]
So lately, I sit in a chair in front of a computer. I sit in a car and drive miles and miles, and I change my oil and fill up on gas and drive more. I sit on couches and laugh with loved ones. I enjoy sunshine, I swelter in heat, I spend hours calling Ace and my family. I sing songs at the top of my lungs and dance barefoot. I sleep.
I also make. In fact, lately the creative juices have been pumping and I’ve made LOTS of things. The options are wide when only bounded by time, space, and material. [[Thought and action should never be limits.]]
Anywho, some of these things I’ve been meaning to show for ages. I’d like to catch up over the next few weeks…we’ll see how that one goes. The products range from meaningful to silly, lasting to frivolous, successful in product to meaningful in process. But the simple action of creating is balm to my spirit.
I would like to share.
Looking back on it, this is kind of a pointless post. Hopefully it will lead to at least a few well pointed ones.
There’s probably no other time that glitter unitards, a “rockenspiel”, the New Zealand symphony orchestra, Barry White and Ahnuld impressions, and hundreds of iterations of “suga lumps” will ever descend on the Hollywood Bowl. And yeah, it was every bit as awesome as that combination sounds.
Certainly the best review for this concert can be summed up in a quote from Murray, the band’s fictional manager: “They came, they soared, they conchord! A couple of cool guys took to the stage and wowed the audience with music and up to the minutes styles. Move over refrigerators: here’s what’s cool.”
And honestly, perhaps the greatest joy in the show was enjoying the real musical skill of the guys. Yes, they are beyond hilarious, and have always been. But this was certainly not a case of comedy covering up a lack of musicianship: rather, their skills as musicians and performers only served to enhance the laugh factor, and overall made it that much more enjoyable. Love.
Since I am in full Conchord-high mode, I figured I’d share with you a playlist of the evening as it unfolded (mostly courtesy of folks who were a LOT closer to the stage than we were). Some of the videos are actually pretty fab in terms of picture and sound quality, but I’ll continue to update it as I find and others upload higher quality, and fill in the holes in the set list. But for now, about 75% of the show is here…and it includes crazy stories from the road, and some fab updates and ad libs to Fotc classics. Enjoy!
