Tuesday, December 31, 2002

BIG CITY YEAR IN REVIEW:

Best movie I've seen this year: Sexy Beast

Sweetest movie I’ve seen this year: It Could Be Worse

Hottest movie I’ve seen this year: Time Code

Worst movie I've seen this year: It's a toss up between Vanilla Sky and Kiss of the Dragon. Bridget Fonda needs help.

Best book I read this year (fiction): Oranges are not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Witherspoon

Best book I read this year (non fiction): Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey (make that the only non fiction book I read this year).

Best book I read this year (poetry): The Splinter Factory, Jeff McDaniel. And hey, I went to college with the guy too! But I don't really remember him. But I have his picture in my yearbook and stuff.

Best CDs I bought this year: Radiohead, Amnesiac; Lucinda Williams, Essence; Jonathan Richman, Action Packed: The Best of Jonathan Richman.

Song that never failed to make me tear up, all year long: "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds. It's our song, and everything. Awwww.

TV Shows worth setting the VCR for: The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Mind of the Married Man, 24, and, surprisingly enough, ER.

Proudest Moment: Well, that would have to be giving birth to the 9 pound, 4 ounce, 21 and a half inches long Javier Sebastian Vela in the comfort of my own bedroom. Did I mention yet that he weighs 17 POUNDS as of this morning? At 8 WEEKS? Astonishing.

Second Proudest Moment: Jack, while we are on our way to preschool, calls to me from the back seat: "Mama, can you put on Radiohead?" Melt my heart.

Happy New Year, and all that. The big plans for the evening are to mix up a batch of margaritas and put together something yummy to eat, dig out a DVD or two, and have a big smooch at midnight. Perhaps we'll meet the neighbors in the driveway with sparklers so we can pop corks and celebrate together right at the stroke of midnight. That's life in the big city, folks.

Monday, December 30, 2002


Calling the Saint of Lost Voices

Several weeks ago I lost my voice. Not completely, I can still carry on a conversation, talk on the phone, whatever. But I can't sing, can't really talk to someone in a noisy restaurant, can't call my dog over from the neighbor's yard, can't yell at my kids in a threatening manner, and I sound pathetic. Not gravelly and sexy like Lauren Bacall, just pathetic. And it isn't going away. This was before the strep kicked in, mind you. Did I mention the strep? My entire family, not to mention boyfriend, ex husband, and friend, has come down with this lovely ailment. And I have had it not once, but TWICE, in rapid succession. I was two days off the amoxicillin when I came down with it again and had to call in the troops (Brian) to come all the way back from Houston so he could drive to the pharmacy and get my drugs (Z pack this time! Love that stuff) and then put my kids to bed. Brian gets a big gold star for coming back to save my ass. I had to tear him away from his mother and grandmother. Really, the only good news in all of this is that babies don't get strep. Or, at least what I've heard is that they very rarely get strep, so I'm still ever watchful over little Javier.

But wasn't I talking about my voice? Oh, yeah. So, I'm becoming paranoid. I'm not given to hypochondria. If anything, I'm given to whatever the opposite of hypchondria is -- lackadasia? Whatever. I don't freak out when I get sick. I don't think this mole which has appeared on the side of my torso is a sign of cancer (unlike SOME people I know, whose names will not be mentioned, you know who you are). But this loss-of-voice thing is freaking me out. And no one else seems very concerned about it, even the previously unmentioned one. He's not worried about it. My father isn't worried about it either. People who I talk to on the phone seem totally oblivious to the fact that I sound TOTALLY different. And no one's rushing up to me in church to exclaim, "what happened to your lovely dulcet tones?" Of course, we haven't been to church much lately, so that could account for something. Anyway, I'm having this terrible feeling like it's never going to come back, and I'm going to have this voice forever. This voice which apparently makes me sound exactly like one of Brian's ex-girlfriends. And not an ex-girlfriend I'd particularly like to emulate, either. No, an ex-girlfriend I've pretty much snickered over. Apparently we sound exactly alike, especially on the phone, and he wishes he had a recording of her voice so he could play it for me. That would be fun. Is there a Saint of Lost Voices? I want mine back.
Wow. It's been a long time I guess. Nothing like the holidays and two bouts of Strep in a row, visiting relatives, impending divorce proceedings, a newborn...what am I leaving out? Well, there's nothing like all of that shit to just slow you waaaaay down and pretty much destroy your ability to maintain anything like a normal schedule, not to mention a blog.

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Rollicking Chanukah or Hannuka or whatever, to all of you folks out there. Or, as they say in Texas, to all y'all. I'm four days from D day. The court appointment is scheduled for 15 whopping minutes. It doesn't take long to get divorced in Texas, just thousands and thousands of dollars. And that's an amicable divorce, with a mediator and everything.