Best of 09

I thought, to wrap up the year, I would include a "Best of 09" feature, of my favorite blog posts over the past 12 months. Writing that sentence out sort of sounds like the ultimate in narcissism, now that I think of it, but hey, who doesn't love a little pat on the head from themselves. Now I'll just go make myself a drink, and then reward myself for that too.

It just so happens there are twelve of them, one for each month of this crazy year. So, sit back and enjoy, in no particular order, my favorite blog posts of 2009.

Best of 09...

Funniest:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/01/hilarious.html

Friendiest:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html

Loviest:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/02/note-from-less-than-perfect-time.html

Massachusetts-iest:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/03/things-i-will-miss-about-massachusetts.html

Loneliest:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/03/lunch-lessons.html

Best Picture:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/07/first-day-of-rest-of-my-summer.html

Scariest:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/08/persistent.html

Target-iest:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/08/public-is-just-pubic-with-no-l.html

David-Duchovney-est:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/08/x-equals.html

Biggest Relief:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/08/exhale.html

Dreamiest:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/08/inexplicable.html

Best of the best:
http://adversecurls.blogspot.com/2009/11/home-homeowner.html

3:08 p.m.

I have nothing overwhelmingly insightful or thought-provoking to say right now, but I wanted to document that at this moment, it is 3:08p.m. on a Tuesday and I am wrapped in a blanket, sitting on a couch near a fireplace that is roaring, with leopard print slippers on, a romance novel on my lap and a beer close at hand. I think this is the very definition of relaxed.

Post-Christmas Smoked Turkey Enchildadas

Tonight, we are making smoked turkey enchiladas, and I can only say that I feel nothing but relief that Christmas is over. That's me, saying that. Me, the one who loves Christmas and the holidays so much that we got married at that time. Me. This year, Christmas was a bummer. I'm so glad it's over.

I feel as though I am already making New Years resolutions, like Christmas has ended and a new thing is beginning. I barely remember New Years Eve last year, except that we went to a party at the Gulu and I didn't want to be there, so we left before midnight and celebrated New Years in the car, driving home. I think, somehow, I was already leaving that place. I knew I didn't belong, no matter how much I wanted to. And this year too, I am struggling, so uncomfortable in my own skin. I don't belong here. I can't think of celebrating, or of anything but the house. Of moving. Of having my own space and sitting in a bathtub that is my own, a living room that I've created. Of putting dishes away wherever I decide they go. Of being alone with the one person that I love more than anyone of earth. Of only us.

As is often the case, after a few days of not going to an office and sitting at a desk, I feel like I'm brimming over with creativity. I want to write and paint and dance and sing and go out into the night and cast spells. I want to mow the lawn again, sit on the porch, plant flowers.I want to make things. I want to eat potato salad and cook outside and read in a hammock. I want to go on vacation. I want my life six months from now.

Tomorrow we begin a week of earnest, hard work on the house. And each day will bring frustration, progress, and (I hope) bring us one step closer to being in. And hopefully, there will be time for a little painting and reading and writing snuck in as well. I'm starting 2010 early this year, calling 2009 over and done with as of now. This is our year, internet.

This is our year.

Merry Christmas Eve 2009

Well, here we are. It's been a year I've been blogging here, albeit ever so sporadically.
This year is so different, we've enacted so much change in our lives and things will never be quite the same again. Good and bad, happy and sad, I find this year that Christmas has made me a bit melancholy. Things aren't as easy as I thought they'd be, not quite the way I imagined them. That's the adventure and the truth and the slightly tepid way that life goes sometimes though.

I was always a naive, gullible child, and believed in magic far longer than most other children. Christmas Eve was always a night where magic and possibility was tangible. It was there in the starry sky, in the moonlight on the snow, in the up-past-bedtime and the "do I hear sleighbells?". I'm so glad I had that, so glad that even as an adult I've had magical Christmastimes, even if this isn't exactly one of them.

This year feels frantic, panic-attack ready and stress-filled. This year it's all "hurry, get this floor down and that drywall up, now run and buy presents, just get anything that you see...". It's drive here and drive there and call these people and make sure you haven't forgotten anything and I feel as though I haven't had time to breathe, much less clean my bedroom or take pleasure in wrapping gifts or even just hold hands with my husband in front of a fire. There is no time for us, only for things and other people. Next year, it will be better. Next year we'll have this house, we'll have each other. Next year everything will be easier. I firmly believe this. We just have to remember to breathe, and to put ourselves, and each other before all of the other things that have come first this year.

Merry Christmas 2009. Even if you've kind of been weird.