Category: life

Who am I?

You know, the more popular online stores, the Amazons and the iTunes of the world are getting more sinister sneaky creative.

They have started these “recommended for you” features or “just for you” picks.

The choices are based on what you have looked at or bought in the past. iTunes also looks at your current library to make recommendations.

Which is both cool and diabolical because it makes me buy more. I mean, they find stuff I may not have thought of! I’ve dropped serious coin after an hour on the “just for you” feature on iTunes.

So when I’m bored, I’ll go over and take a gander to see what’s recommended. Maybe I’ll make a new find!

However…I’m starting to get nervous about just what, exactly, my “recommended for you” lists say about me.

Here is an actual screen capture of my actual “Just for You” list on iTunes:

This does not say “hip cat”. This does not say “cutting edge”. This does not say “wow, you are the person people want to be like”.

This says…you are lame as hell and listen to the kind of music they play in the elevators around the world.

I can’t even debate the choices. I *adore* Roger Miller, I already own that Lynn Anderson, and I’ve been known to favor a tune or ten by Mickey Gilley. I used to own that Goo Goo Dolls (but wearied of them) and that Michael McDonald song is one of my all time favorites. Oh and that song “Wildfire”…well, it brings a tear to the eye every time.

Fine. I’m a dork. Whatever.

This is like going to the dentist with teeth you are pretty sure are spotless and then they make you chew that red tablet and show you just how god awful dirty your teeth really are.

Sometimes it’s better not to look too closely in the mirror.

I won’t *even* share my Amazon recommendations list. My mother reads this blog, fer goodness sakes! I swear I only accidentally clicked on that questionable item ONCE! I swear!

Using a protractor

I think this whole getting used to being married thing is harder than I anticipated.

I started thinking about this at about 2:00 am last night (this morning?).

That was when I woke up cold and teetering on the edge of my bed.

See, I share my queen-sized with two others, one human, one feline. And somehow, I’m getting the fuzzy end of this lollipop.

I woke up this morning pretty cranky. I tried to tug on the blanket to cover my shivering shoulders, but to no avail, it wouldn’t budge.

So I assessed the situation. Turns out my six feet two inch husband was soundly asleep, and had arranged himself, roughly, into a right angle in our bed.

Yes, full on 90 degrees, the fulcrum of which was well over on my side of the bed. And by fulcrum, of course, I mean his big ol’ bootay shoved over that invisible line that has kept the peace in marriages for centuries.

On my side. Long limbed brotha was taking up a full three quarters of the entire bed.

And then, as if dotting the i, at the apex of the fulcrum rested our fourteen pound feline, limbs akimbo, thus taking up about half of the remaining quarter of the bed I got to inhabit.

I generally try not to disturb people when fast asleep, because I ask the same courtesy, so I tried just to make do. For about five minutes.

Then I got mad. And said aloud, “I’m taking back the night!”

Floppy cat was lifted and relocated. Good. Getting movement from the boy was going to take more thought.

So I went in for the nuzzle. The plan was, I nuzzle, and as he turns to return it, he will shift that bootay back over into the demilitarized zone.

It worked perfectly.

Then, as he turned, I tugged with all I had on the blanket, thus unloosening endless folds of blanket.

Yes. Success!

Happier with the more obtuse angle of the husband and the relocated location of the feline, I wrapped as much blanket around me as possible, dug in firmly in my space, turned my back on everyone, and went back to sleep.

You know…when I was single, I was able to flop like a starfish in the middle of my bed and sleep all night, undeterred.

I never knew a wife has to learn to be so cagy…

Spring has sprung!

Here’s the proof! Look!

Daffodils*, in full bloom, bright yellow in a pretty purple vase in my office! Look at that, spring, sunshine, joy, leaping, flowers, yes!

Wait, stop…don’t look out that window! Don’t do it, I beg you!

Galldarn fog going and ruining my whole Spring thang. WHY!!?!?!

I just want a little sun. I just want to frolic. Is that too much to ask of you, Bay Area temperature inversion? You and your marine layer can BITE ME!

New Mexico wouldn’t let me down this way…it’s supposed to be 80 in Las Cruces today……..

*cranky*

_________

*Daffodils courtesy of the American Cancer Society Daffodil Days.

This day in history

I remember that day. St. Paddy’s Day, 2007. Yes, a magical day by all accounts.

No leprechauns leaped. No green beer was guzzled. No four-leaf clovers were molested.

But I did have the luck of the Irish : wink :

It was on this date, two years ago, that Oh Fair New Mexico breathed its first blog post.

It was The Good Man who first suggested the theme for my blog. He went with the “write what you know” angle, and it worked. Ok, more often than not, this blog is my personal ramblings and not really NM related, but that’s ok too. I took the idea and ran with it, as they say.

I’d wanted to write a blog for the discipline of writing something every day. I wanted more than an extensive journal rat-a-tapped in Word and kept on my hard drive. I wanted a place to publicly air my thoughts and twisted ideas.

I remember in the beginning, I timidly sent Avelino Maestas an email asking for advice. His blog seemed so freaking cool, what with his gorgeous photographs interspersed with is his witty, smart writing. I had NO idea how to blog, and Avelino very kindly gave me some pointers and encouragement and then out of the nest I fell to test my own ideas.

So here I am at 532 blog posts later and I think my wings are getting a bit stronger.

My work as a writer has increased IMMENSELY because of the discipline of writing this blog every weekday. Some days I cramp up for ideas and then I force myself to write something anyway, even if it’s terrible. Some days, I have more ideas than I can put down in writing.

Often, my loving husband (who was but a boyfriend when this whole thing began) will say, “I can’t believe you blogged about that” (most recent example was about the toilets at a restaurant we visited).

Occasionally I have blogged about something that hits me on a very deep emotional level, and I know that maybe no one wants to hear me, but I have to say it anyway.

Once or twice I’ve even gotten political.

My most popular post thus far caught me off guard. I wrote it for me, the melancholy of a NM ex-pat longing for home at the holidays. But it evidently struck a chord with some of the folks back home, too.

So I continue on with my blog. It’s for me. It’s for you. It’s for New Mexico. Each year I go through the agony of missing where I come from and reconciling to where I live now. The ebb and flow of life.

For all the folks who give me a read now and then, thank you. I actually cannot properly express my gratitude. As someone trying very hard to make a go as a writer, any pair of eyes on anything I write is a genuine gift.

I realize that these sort of blogiversary posts are rather self-congratulatory. Heck, in the midst of all the rejection letters I get from publishers..if I don’t pat my ownself on the back, who else is gonna do it for me?

By the way…The Good Man has promised me a dinner at a really nice restaurant when I get 100 visitors in one day on this blog. The closest I’ve come is 88. So my goal in the third year of blogging is to finally collect on that dinner! I know ya’ll can help me with my cause!

Meanwhile, Oh Fair New Mexico, you still sing a song in my heart. You and me, we are one. Thanks for the inspiration and for my humble beginnings.

Cheers to the next 500 posts!

Photo by Karen Fayeth

The end of civility?

This, the next in my line of roadway rants. See my four way stop discussion here.

This weekend The Good Man and I had occasion to take a bit of a road trip. Just down Highway 1, a small jaunt in order to meet up with a whole passel of my in-laws. (passel being smaller than a gang but larger than a group)

As we drove, in many instances, we were forced to merge, to turn, to navigate our way carefully through the highways and byways of the Bay Area.

I noticed, as The Good Man drove, he always, very politely, gives a wave when someone does him the favor of letting him into a lane, or allows him to turn in a busy, congested area, or stops to let him through.

I also noticed that when The Good Man generously does the same for others, he rarely gets a wave of thanks and recognition in return.

Politeness, it seems, is on the soon-to-be extinct list.

This makes me cranky.

Sure, I know that a polite wave isn’t required by any driving laws. I’ll have you know that when I had to take that drivers safety class to work the points off from a speeding violation, it was often suggested that a polite wave was much appreciated by others on the road. That acknowledging each other actually makes us drive better.

Connectedness people! Put down your Blackberry and say hi to an actual person sometimes!

I shall tack on a quick rant: Upon employment here at my new job, I tried, in vain, for two weeks to say hello to the security guard on the first floor who I must walk directly past EVERY day. It seems strange not to acknowledge another human you see five of every seven days of your life. But he will NOT say hello to me. Will. Not. It kind of hurts my feelings…..