Sweet Freedom....with a better soundtrack

Just like most everyone, I’m a huge fan of days off….holidays…long weekends…vacations…a little hooky.  Time off is ahh-may-zing.  Swoon!

But a notch even above that is time off between jobs.  No BlackBerry buzzing in the background.  No worrying about what you are going to walk back into next Monday morning.  No worrying about the things on the perpetual To Do list that just didn’t get done before vacation hit. 

Nope.  Nada.  Zilch.

The week between jobs, other than pretty much being a total necessity, is like a huge treat.  A little taste of what independent wealth, so I won’t have to work would feel like.  Sweet Freedom!

Yup.  That’s what I’ve named this week.  Sweet Freedom.  I gave it a theme, because that’s just what I do.  What can I say? I like to name my To Do lists too.  Because I’m a dork like that.  But try not to judge.  There are far worse and far lamer things I could be doing.  Like LARP-ing for instance.  Don’t know what that is?  No worries.  Just means you are even cooler than you realized.

But yes.  I name things.  The same way I have a soundtrack to my life.  Certain songs running through my head while things are happening to me – when I’m walking down the street, out with friends, sitting in the park, laying awake at night because sleep totally eludes me.  For that moment, “Dreamlike State” by Erasure is playing because that’s what was playing when Brandon’s girlfriend was visiting him from Minnesota and snuck into his room.  I know. Cheesy.  But for some reason that moment pops into my head when I can’t sleep sometimes. 

ANNNNNNYWAY…...So yes, I have music going just like I’m in a movie (but not a lame montage mind you). Or like I’m on One Tree Hill.  Feel like it would be kind of cool to have music playing over me.  Take right now – the soundtrack of my writing would be "All My Days" by Alexi Murdoch.  For one, because it’s a great damn song.  And for two, because it is actually playing right now, so there’s that.

The one drawback of the whole Sweet Freedom naming – I of course have that damn Michael McDonald song stuck in my head all week.  UGH!!!!!!  Nails on a chalkboard.  Needles in my ears.  So painful to listen to!  I song I loathe as much as “Kokomo” or “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.  Songs that *always* make my Top 10 List of Worst.  Songs.  Ever.  Think VH-1 would do a countdown like that?  Songs I actually hate with a firey passion.  That would be good in an awful way.  But damn that stupid song!

I’ve been doing a good job of distracting myself from crap music with TV.  Lots and lots of TV.  The fact that I have enough DVDs, streaming video and a packed DVR that if I was under house arrest for a year I still wouldn’t run out of things to watch, might not be something to brag about.  But after what in hindsight has been a really rough twelve months, the idea of getting lost in mindless stuff was crazy appealing. 

I always have such grand plans – I will go to museums and work out religiously and clean and organize and write.  I will write my ass off.  I make that promise every time.  And every time I fall a bit short.  I am the queen of procrastinating.

So I found myself online window shopping…and sometimes clicking…because after all doesn’t a new job merit a few new pieces?  A whole new look? It’s a new season so why not a little something something new, even though I dread the idea of months of humidity that lie ahead because not even the best of dresses and heels are going to tame the curls that have already taken over my head. (Bye-bye bangs.  It’s been nice knowing ya.) 

Now I did actually do some other productive things this week - swear! - but won't bore you with the details.  One women's productive can be very yawn producing to another.  And conversations between friends over glasses of wine should stay between friends.  

But as far as The Legacy goes?!  Full-blown manuscript neglect.  It’s embarrassing how bad I’ve been.  Because I think about it pretty much daily.  All the live long day sometimes.  Yet it sits.  Collecting dust.  Resenting me like a neglected child.  Or what I imagine my plants feel for me because I forget to water them sometimes and it's only when their leaves are all saggy and they are begging for water that I think - Crap! I should water those babies.    

But I’m trying to reenergize myself.  People find inspiration in all sorts of places.  But I’m doing a bit of osmosis/watching-this-makes-me-want-to-write-this therapy.  I will blame part of this crackpot scheme to the fact that the first few days of the week were rainy and humid and flat out miserable and were the kind of days that staying home and watching TV were BUILT FOR.  

So I’ve officially caught up on The Killing  - when you watch six episodes in one day, it’s somehow more fun and totally gets you into things.  I don’t have the ability to keep up with TV (unless it’s Revenge…what can I say? It’s just that good).  But any-AMC-creepy-crime-drama, I’m back into The Killing….I’m back into figuring out who the hell killed Rosie Larson, though there are so many damn characters I pretty much need to start my own murder board just to keep up.  And Billy Campbell is officially creeping me out, which is a shame because loved him on Once & Again.  

I also submerged myself in episodes of Remington Steele.  This is one of those shows that’s so smart and witty and clever and I could watch over and over again.  And somehow I forget how well done it was because it's from a hundred years ago.  It’s the kind of show that when the soundtrack is playing I pretend that I could write something like this.  The one-liners and movie references and on and on. Makes me appreciate great writing and makes me want to write great things. 

So this is me…watching to inspire.  Hatching a plan to dig back into The Legacy and not give up on it.  Not clean the toilet instead of writing.  Be the Nike ad and just do it goddammit!  There's a good story in there.  And I'm not just saying that because it's mine.  

But before I dig into all that, there’s totally this cute little jacket on sale at Kate Spade that I kind of need to snatch up before it’s gone!  But right after that.  Swear!

Mirror, Mirror, that's no longer on my wall. (Or why the next seven years are going to suck!)

So as I've mentioned, I'm kind of on this side of superstitious.  By which I of course I mean I'm very...as in v. v. superstitious.  


So when one of my closet doors went from this...

to this...

....I knew I was totally fraked for the next seven years. 



Qu'est-ce que c'est?  Frak?

Now there was what seemed like a hundred more pieces of mirror to contend with and maybe if I wasn't so busy trying not to slice my hand off while mourning the next seven years of my life, then maybe I would have thought to take some more photos. But dodging a bloody death somehow became the priority.  When I read Flat Stanley I was totally afraid the bulletin board over my bed was going to fall and crush me and I'd be flat...like Stanley.  Being crushed and cut up by a falling mirror/falling accordion closet door....kind of a whole hell of a lot worse.  

Not the way to start my Saturday morning bee-tee-dubs (or any other for that matter) and can only wonder what my downstairs neighbors must have thought when they heard the epic crash.  For the record, no one came running to find out, which is cool with me. I wouldn't have really wanted to open the door to anyone anyway.  But I can only guess that this was the universe's way of forcing me to deal with something I've been putting off in the biggest way possible. (The universe has been giving me a lot of that lately.) That door has been busted for a better part of this past year and my solution is to of course struggle with it and curse it out every morning and night.  I've also been saying I'm going to get these god-awful mirrors taken care of, but having the door fall of the track and the mirrors doing a game of 52 Pick Up, was not quite what I had in mind.

So for now, the door is back up - albeit stuck open and missing a mirror.  And part of the broken mirror is still in my apartment haunting me, while all the little pieces were wrapped into several bags with a big apology note for the guys in my building when I left it in the trash room.  I didn't sign my name, so not sure if they've connected the dots that I'm the culprit.  Not going to worry about that one...not for now at least.

Truth be told I'm kind of a procrastinating little brat when it comes to home improvement.  I either can't be bothered...I honestly don't really like have strangers in my apartment...and I'd like to think that I'm a smart and independent woman so surely I can do some level of repair on my own.  I snaked my bathroom sink drain...and the squirrel tail of hair that came out of that drain was well, as gross as you can possible imagine.  Be grateful I had the good sense not to photograph that one!  But I did it!  Solved that problem without anyone else's help.  

So anyway, as I hunker down for my seven years of being royally fraked, I thought why not take a moment and be grateful for all the fabulous stuff I have going on around me now.  Hopefully the seven years thing won't put a pox on these:

I managed not to die a bloody death in the above incident.  Not one cut, scrap or piece of mirror in the bottom of my foot (knock on wood!  tossing salt over my shoulder!).  I cleaned like a crazy woman.  But for now, am injury free.  

I got a new job!  And I'm quite excited about it.  Opportunity.  Cool people. Challenging work.  But it starts in 2 weeks so I'm too superstitious to say much more.

I get to leave my old job.  The last day is so close I can *almost* see it.  Please activate the countdown clock. 

I have a little time off in-between the two which is the perfect excuse to book some self-indulgent appointments for hair and a massage and to hopefully get out of town for a few days for some fun.  Still all in the air, but the freedom to do it is enough to make the list for now.

The ankle I rolled running on the treadmill is finally better so I started running again.  Dusted off "Lose Yourself" and "Dig In" and have quite literally hit the ground running for the first time in months.  

I stalked the J. Crew sale and was able to get a back-up pair of these shoes which I love to death (and wear to death) when my size popped back around 8:30 this morning.  My horrible sleeping patterns of late paid off!!! Don't judge me.  Comfortable shoes are hard to come by.  And I'm a sucker for anything patent leather.  Swoon!

I was also obsessively stalking this jacket because I think it's amazing:

It's sold out EVERYWHERE online.  Trust me.  I've looked.  And it hasn't popped up on eBay just yet.  It breaks my little black heart.  Good news is it won't break my wallet.  Better news is that while searching the whole internet for it, I came across the clip of Tibi's show from Fashion Week where this song played:

Nothing new by any means, but new Kinks to me.  And I was just saying on Friday night how it's been forever since I've found new music ("new" being relative since this song is totally from about thirty years ago).  Whatever...makes me happy. 

Knocked a bunch of stuff off my DVR with sheer commitment and dedication.  So many shows to talk about but don't really have the patience for it tonight, but have to say...season finale of The Good Wife = great.  Revenge...still amazing.  Bones = meh.  It's lost me a bit, I hate to say it.   

The Song Remains the Same - Allison Winn Scotch's new book.  I'm only about 100 pages in but she's just so damn good.  Much like Time of My Life this book is about clean slates, and fresh starts and discovering who you really are, and what you want your life to be and on and on.  The timing of reading this one is, in a word, perfect.

The One Tree Hill finale.  I know. I know.  Let the judging begin. I've held onto the last two episodes for weeks and finally, in my complete mental exhaustion, tuned into them today, and just have to say, if you were ever a fan, you weren't disappointed.  No ambiguous ending.  No stupid cliffhanger where you didn't know what was going to happen.  No insane miracles.  And neither Dan nor Keith came back from the dead....yeah, Gossip Girl, I'm making a dig at you for last week's episode.  So.  Bad.    

And while I have to say the final scene of OTHillers going to watch Jamie play basketball was too much of a suspension of disbelief even for me...(and yeah, I was watching it through some tears.  Mock me all you want. I'm owning these!)...I mean Jamie was supposed to be in high school - a good seven or eight years into the future and all of the adult cast looked EXACTLY the same as the did in the previous "present day" scene. I mean...not for nothing, but they could have all gone to see Jamie play little league (or whatever the little league version of basketball is....I'm a baseball girl).  

Alas, the one-two punch of Gavin DeGraw singing "I Don't Want to Be" at Tric followed by U2's "One Tree Hill" - fantastic musical move. Having the cast reiterate the "make a wish and place it in your heart" voiceover?  Well played.  Bravo!  But the show could have faded out with all of them at Karen's Cafe.  I get the idea of going full circle...with the father/son thing...and the basketball thing.  But hell, you could have put them all on the River Court like when they graduated high school.  Just with their kids and all.  That would've worked.  Just saying.

But alas, I'm guessing I'm the only one analyzing this (did anyone else even watch it????).

So in tribute to nine years, I will leave everyone with this...like the show or not, the song is still completely amazing: