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November 26th, 2008
03:42 pm - have y'all read The Tipping Point?
On pg. 37, Gladwell says "suppose that you made a list of the forty people whom you would call your circle of friends (not including family and co-workers) and in each case worked backward until you could identify the person who is ultimately responsible for setting in motion the series of connections that led to that friendship."
His theory is that most of the people you know will have been ultimately introduced to you by a few people--the Connectors.
I was surprised to find that in most cases, I met someone (at a slam or school event) and invited them to do something with me. I believe I am the main person responsible for most of my social connections.
The only people who really facilitated connections between me and other people in Austin are Hilary and Eirik. I met a bunch of people at their apartment back in the day. Also, when Hilary and I were roommates I was invited to things I wouldn't otherwise have known about.
It's good to know, in the newlywed era of watching TV obsessively, that I do--or did once--have the ability to meet real people.
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10:04 am - aw, hell yeah.
Happy birthdays, Libby & Cristin!
Speaking of holidays, I have a bit of a bad attitude about Christmas this year, and I think it is directly related to how much The Wire I watch. (We're spending Christmas in Baltimore.) If I use the n-word in casual conversation, I will also blame The Wire.
Speaking of The Wire, we're naming our next fish Proposition Joe.
Speaking of Proposition Joe, Josh thinks there should be a spinoff comedy series starring him. Is that a great idea or what?
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October 24th, 2008
October 8th, 2008
October 7th, 2008
05:05 pm - Interview from just_jeff
Here are the rules:
1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
2. I will respond by asking you 5 questions of a very personal nature.
3. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them 5 questions.
1. Tonie baked banana bread this morning.It was yummy. Thing is, I do most of the cooking, and knew this would be the case before we got married. So it's this nice surprise bonus trait that she, the non-cooking one, occasionally makes us delicious fresh warm baked treats. In your
marriage, what excellent bonus surprises are you finding?
Let's see: I never have to do dishes, whether I cooked or Josh did. I have extracted a promise that Josh will be on puke patrol when we have kids. We frequently dine out courtesy of his clients/bosses. Massages on demand. Marriage rocks.
2. What's your game plan? What are you doing and where are you in five years? If it's still pretty open, what are some of the likelier ways it
*might* go?
I will be a professor of English, maybe shopping around a book of poems and / or my grad school self-help book. Or helping Josh make a movie. Or opening a restaurant. Or our own Alamo Drafthouse. We'll have a kid, be thinking about the next kid. Some of the liklier cities we might live: Austin, San Francisco, New York, Minneapolis, Denver, Seattle.
3. What character in a movie do you most identify with? Not necessarily in situation/age/gender/etc., but in how they think about things, or what they care about?
You know, I just re-watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and I think I identify with the main character not just because I'd like to bang John Corbett, but because she feels tension between pleasing her family and doing her own thing. A lot of the tension I felt in that area the past couple years has had to do with my wedding, but I think it's much bigger. I'm the oddball in my family in terms of occupation, style of communication, and ambitions (see above: moving around a lot, making films). I also spend a lot of time with my family, even though I do not feel like my most comfortable self around them.
4. What's a political issue that you care a lot about, what side are you on, and why is this one a big deal to you?
I think the government needs to level the playing field for organic and industrial farmers. It really saddens me that my brother sees his only options as growing corn and beans, industrial style. (Thank goodness it's already more profitable for my father to raise organic-style beef.) Farming policies need to encourage people to buy local food and help farmers supply it to them. It's important to me for obvious reasons--I will be implicated in all the problems related to industrial farming as soon as I get my inheritance: the obesity of Americans, the collapse of the Mexican economy due to our crazy-cheap, subsidized corn--the gross amounts of fuel needed to ship all the corn around to make all the processed foods that are then shipped around some more and sold to poor people who can't afford whole foods.
5. You're 70, and you're talking to your grandkids about your life WAY back in the aughts. What do you think the high points of that conversation will be?
God willing, Josh will be dominating this conversation. He will be saying (as he does now, over and over) how much he loved being in his twenties. All these great things happened--falling in love, traveling, getting really invested in a career, becoming the people we wanted to be. If I can get a word in I will tell about our apartment and how happy it made us, as well as how their grandfather and I met. Josh will insist on pulling out his first generation iPods and iPhones to show the kids the primitive shit we thought was so cool. I really, really want to tell them what it was like to elect the first black President.
*
Current Music: take away these chains from me
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September 25th, 2008
03:04 pm - Hey Ladies! Cure for Cramps!
Normally I wouldn't pound a beer back at 1:30 on a Thursday before I go to work. But desperate times . . .
I can't figure why beer is so helpful. All the texts I've ever read about helping PMS and cramps advise nice healthy things like avoiding potato chips and exercising.
Actually exercising does help. Both heat and ice do the trick. But so does beer.
Luckily we have lots of good kinds at home. Josh had a little get together with some tech geeks the other night and even though I was only tagging along he chose my favorite beers: Shiner Black and Red Hook's Late Harvest. I strongly recommend that last one--it's not around for long. It's a crowd pleaser--sort of medium in darkness, but very flavorful.
My uterus likes it.
I am contemplating buying Miller Lites on the plane tonight--which I am generally opposed to. Just because their customers are on a frickin' plane, they think they can make 500% profit and that sickens me.
In football news, the Ravens are at the top of their conference (except they don't call them conferences in the NFL). I'm enjoying the fuck out of it while it lasts. Josh & I still a little confused every time we score a touchdown (offense? what's that?) but very excited.
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September 23rd, 2008
September 22nd, 2008
04:53 pm - excerpt from conversation with my mother
L: So, we're going to go apple picking as part of Lyndsay's bachelorette party.
M: What are you going to do with all the apples?
L: Lyndsay's sister is going to lead a pie-baking session so we can freeze them for Lyndsay & Scott.
M: Pie??!! Who likes pie??!!
L: um.....
L: pretty much everyone.....?
L: There was an apple picking party in Real Simple this month that suggested making peanut butter dip, caramel dip, and cheese dip.
M: Oh, that magazine is so stupid. Real Simple. There is nothing better than a nice, plain, washed apple.
L: that's not really a recipe.....??
P.S. We are also drinking at this party, don't worry.
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September 16th, 2008
01:34 pm - The AP article on my wedding is out!
Read the article (nevermind the dour headline).
View / Listen to the audio slideshow. Click on captions to read even more. Some of the sounds are priceless.
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September 12th, 2008
01:17 pm - Little Buster, Little Buster, all made out of ticky-tacky . . .
As I may have mentioned, by far the scariest thing about weddings is the stuff. I think I'm addicted to wedding presents, but luckily they have not stopped trickling in yet. We just got a chunk of change from Josh's grandparent's and I'm already drooling to spend it on one of the following:
1) a Dyson vaccuum
2) new diner-style red kitchen chairs
3) All-Clad pots
Also, today our first grown up piece of furniture arrived--Buster. Josh said, "isn't it nice to think maybe our kids will take this furniture to college." And I was like, "not my chair." I could not stop my mother from burning our ancient awesome recliner when I was in Junior High but no one can EVER make me throw away Buster. Josh was like, "you're going to die in that chair, aren't you." Well, I haven't heard of a better way to go.
By the way, Josh and I put the red alert on dying. Dying is not a good idea for the foreseeable future. Don't do it.
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August 29th, 2008
09:52 am - question:
Why is it that every time I lecture someone about drinking alcohol, I do not pass Go but proceed immediately to get drunk, puke, and feel horrible for the next 20 hours?
Last night pizza came out my nose. It was horrible. After a saline nasal rinse, five minutes later, I blew my nose and inside the kleenex was another very clearly identifiable piece of pizza, still in my nose from the puking.
It was a bad idea to write about this. I still feel queasy. I'm going back to bed.
On the plus side, I really liked Obama's speech and the impromptu party the occasion inspired.
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August 19th, 2008
09:31 am - I'm married.
My wedding was so incredibly awesome. I'm sitting here at Crescent Beach, on the 5th day of absolutely perfect weather in a row. I have never in my life experienced 5 days of perfect weather, especially not in Iowa. It is not humid. It is not hot or cold. It is sunny. I have not even gotten bitten my a mosquito the entire time I've been here. We've had a full moon reflected in a clear lake. It is unreal.
Here are some theories about why the weather is so great:
1) Josh's mom is expressing her approval from heaven (this was Josh's Grandma's theory)
2) All the good press I've given Iowa since I left home (and the fact that I drew like 60 people who'd never been to Iowa into its open arms this weekend) made Iowa decide to give me a present.
3) Emily placed a small statue of the holy family facing out my bedroom window. Supposedly putting the Virgin Mary face out of a window gives you good weather for an event.
We had a campfire every night. I went swimming almost every day. All the food at all the parties tasted awesome--and there were so many parties! We started Friday night and have not stopped yet.
We had an open mike on Saturday night that was incredible. My nephew Mike sang "You are My Sunshine", but he also gave a long, toast (he's 5). "I love Liz 10 hundred, and Josh, I've very glad that Josh is marrying my friend Liz." At the end he said, "now I think Liz and Josh should come up here and say something." It was like he'd been studying wedding reception videos or something. It was crazy. 7 of my extended relatives sang "What a Wonderful World" in the most cheesy, over the top way possible. We laughed and laughed and laughed.
The wedding ceremony was Sunday morning, 10 feet from the lake, which was blue and perfect, under some tall oak trees. Judy gave a wonderful sermon, our friends did fantastic poetry & prayer readings, and then we had a Quaker-meeting-style section. A bunch of my relatives gave me credit for being a connector--bringing them together and getting to the heart of things in conversation. That felt really good.
Saying the vows felt awesome.
Oh, and I got to ride a 1967 restored ice cream truck in a loop around the park, in my wedding dress. Fuck. Yeah.
Current Mood: hungry
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August 13th, 2008
12:21 am - yea, Austin-Boston!
Just got the news. My two hometown slams on the finals stage, what-what?!
Simone is just the greatest; I am so happy that she's running the Cantab now. Since I have been in Austin, Austin's team has ALWAYS been better than the vast majority of teams in my book. I'm glad to see some other people thought so too.
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August 8th, 2008
02:46 pm - what Texas has joined, let no man pull asunder + BONUS GIFT-GIVING GUIDE!
Um, right. So Josh and I legally married today. (Ceremony is still to come). After a meltdown outside the county clerk's office we discovered that it is extremely easy to get married. We paid $41 bucks, Josh's brother Zach took 5 minutes to get certified as a minister over the internet (cost: $0), he signed his name in one place, and we were done! Crazy. Hilary was our witness. (Even the witness was optional.)Though we had no real romantic feelings about the legality of the marriage it is nice that Zach (the first really important person in Josh's life to spend time with me) and Hilary (the first really important person in my life to spend time with Josh) were the ones to make us official. Zach even did it after witnessing the meltdown. In the eyes of the law, I am a Mrs.
Gift - Giving Guide:
The Good: Last night we went to a truly lame shower hosted by Josh's work friends. No significant others came, so everyone just complained about people they know through work the entire time. I was constantly cut off any time I tried to say anything. Guest of honor, my ass.
Josh's job gave us 2 place settings of silverware and a few extra pieces. That was a good present.
The Great: Finally, Zach, who had mysteriously insisted on being our "designated driver" from the party, took us home. He opened the garage door, and there was a bright shiny new beautiful orange kayak inside, complete with a car rack, two paddles, two seats (with backs!) and two life jackets. I was amazed, but as Josh kept drunkenly insisting, his mind was blown. He kept saying, "I don't understand. What is it? What is it? I don't understand. What's going on?" It was SOOO cute. I can't think of any time I've ever gotten such a big, expensive, or exciting present. A kayak was the perfect gift because it was something we really wanted and would not have dreamed of purchasing. But it probably would have been much easier for us to purchase one that it was for Zach, Dan, and Liz (the brothers-in-law + Dan's gilfriend)--they are incredibly generous.The whole thing was just stunning.
The Headache Inducing: So we had barely recovered from the kayak when we went inside and Josh drunkenly decided he needed some water. He opened up the cabinet to get a glass, and found 10 new pint glasses, each with $100 in John Adams $1 coins. This from Josh's dad. Such a pile of shiny gold money I have never seen. What you also have to understand is that Josh is ridiculously in love with dollar coins. He was so happy about the coins it bordered on the absurd. We had a long argument because he honestly wanted to keep $1,000 worth of coins under our bed. Finally I convinced him that we had to take most of them to bank today. I spent an hour last night counting coins, and another hour at the bank today rolling coins. Josh seemed to take great delight in the prankish nature of it, but I must admit I had a more complicated reaction. I am grateful, amazed, amused, and irritated. I have HUNdreds of other things to do today besides rolling up coins that Zach had just unrolled 12 hours ago.
The phrase of the day is "What a family!" I can't believe they're mine.
Current Mood: astonished
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July 29th, 2008
11:29 pm - blast from the past
I attended my second cousin Aaron's wedding last week and ran into some boys that I ran around with in high school and haven't seen since (it's my 10 year reunion this summer). It was wild. My favorite, Derek, has been married four years. His wife said to me, "we are an old married couple," and I responded "SERIOUSLY!!!" which was probably rude.
Then there was my ex-boyfriend Ryan, who I remember as being a complete and total sweetheart to the maxcore. We never really clicked that well . . . it was a relationship of convenience because we had a fun group of people to hang out with who were all coupled up. But his kindness was a real eye-opener to me because my first and only boyfriend before him was very hot and cold.
The best moment of our relationship was probably when I brought Ryan to my high school homecoming dance. No one knew about us (he was from another school) and it was enormously, enormously gratifying to have a majorly cute stranger in tow who made out with me on the dance floor. I had such a goody-two-shoes reputation that even kissing in public made quite an impression on my classmates. To me it was proof that when I got out of my high school I could be another person--one that boys might be interested in and even--gasp! proud to be seen with--which thank God, turned out to be true.
Anyway, after we stopped dating he started going out with a girl I could not stand. I called him and kind of warned him about her. I was not at all motivated by jealousy--I was completely motivated by feeling that he deserved better treatment than what he was going to get. It was such an awkward awkward situation, but even then I was struck by how completely nice Ryan was about it--he continued to date this girl until she broke his heart, (at which point he kindly told me that I was right) but I always believed that from the start he gave me the benefit of the doubt and truly believed that I was trying to be a good friend to him.
Well, so 10 years later he is 100% bald (I would not have recognized him) and has just adopted a tiny, adorable black baby. It was shocking to see him again, but extra shocking to see him at such an incredibly momentous time in his life. He & his wife had just found out two weeks beforehand about the baby, so they were extra bowled over by the whole thing.
I keep thinking about him and how happy I am for his new family. Maybe I am totally wrong, but I see the blackness of the baby as further evidence that he's still a great guy. It's not easy to be a mixed-race family in rural Iowa I'm sure. Also, since the agency they went through deals with Iowan babies I'm sure they were expecting white kid. Anyway, Ryan: still so effing nice, but a lot bolder than I ever gave him credit for.
Current Mood: perogis
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July 14th, 2008
03:23 pm - So I Married a PR Monster
  um. . . so the Associated Press might be coming to our wedding?!
Current Mood: *shaking her head*
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June 30th, 2008
01:42 pm - names!
Josh and I finally chose our last names. I had been in favor, and still am in my heart of hearts, of combining our last names to make an entirely new name. No one in our families was too crazy about that, and ultimately Josh did not want to complicate his daily life quite that much. I don't blame him. Since I was planning on changing my name anyway, and it's not weird for me as a woman to do so, it wouldn't have been nearly as hard on me.
I also considered being "Liz of Josh," but . . .
we are going with the hyphen. This was initially my least favorite choice. When thinking about it as a single gal, I just never found the hyphen aesthetically appealing. "Too long and complicated" was my view. Since I go by my middle name, I felt I had quite enough name aggravation in my daily life (because a lot of institutions don't accept identifying you by anything but your legal first name).
But when it came down to it, I couldn't give up my name entirely. I have gotten quite attached to it. We could have both used my last name as a second middle name. But Josh was willing to hyphenate and take my name in a way that has real consequences for him--he'll be filed under a different letter and everything!
Josh wanting to take my name seems like an amazing gift--one I can't pass up. Also, Josh's name gets way more aesthetically appealing with mine in there.
I'm no longer going to have my fake-sounding "CIA name" Mary Jones! I'm going to be the only one of my kind. My anonymity will be severely compromised. That's going to be the weirdest part for me. I will be Google-able, which I'm not looking forward to. On the other hand, the credit score companies will find it a lot easier to keep my accounts straight, and I won't get any more threatening notices about bills I never paid that were never mine to begin with. UPS won't send my fucking herby thing to a lawyer with my name in downtown Austin.
And I comfort myself that the combo-name for us that I made up can still be used informally, like it was in our wedding invitations.
Anyway, it's a good thing to have settled. There are a lot of options in this day and age, which I am grateful for. When my mom asked what my future daughters would do when they got married, I answered that I felt confident that they'll be even more free than I am to do what they want. I certainly won't be offended if they ditch all or part of their hyphenated names--or if our hypothetical sons do so, either.
P.S. Susan, Josh cited your awesome name as a point in favor of the hyphen. That was hard to argue with. ;)
*
Current Mood: green tea
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June 18th, 2008
07:37 pm - prayer
A few weeks ago, my best friend in elementary school, Michele, died. She was at home, alone, and she choked. She wasn't found for four days. Though we had not been friends since junior high, and I had not spoken to her for ten years, her death has been heavy on me. I don't think I've ever heard of anything so senseless--if one can die at home, doing something so easy, so necessary for survival--something we all do millions of times in our lives--well, I don't know what.
It has been harder for me because all I know and imagine of her leads me to believe that she was not happy. This was also the case for my other school friend, Mariah, who's been dead almost four years now. (I did not have many friends in school. It's so hard to believe two of them are gone.) There's a temptation to say their lives were wasted, their potential unfulfilled.
I came upon some notes I took of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now several months ago, and I fulfilled the intention I had after reading it of weaving some of its lines into a prayer. What I came up is very comforting to me. Michele was not the sum total of her accomplishments minus her missed chances. She had so much energy and mischief when I knew her, she was constantly scaring or startling me or making me uncomfortable. She laughed very loudly. She was not her job, her love life, her child, or her pain. And she was definitely not her death.
Anyway, I post this because I know many of you are thinking of Shannon, who is not merely a young woman in critical condition. She is all radiance.
*
Prayer for Michele you are not your pain.
this moment is all
you will ever have, so choose it. you are real
and so you cannot be threatened—
you are already complete.
nothing you have ever done
approaches the radiance
of who you are. *
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June 7th, 2008
09:18 pm - recipe for a Saturday night
Q: Do Jane Austen and Shiner Black go together?
A: Of course.
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Current Mood: The BLACK
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kangaroosequins's journal
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