Some people ain't me

(obviously inspired by:



although actually it was the Bette Midler version I grew up listening to on car trips with the fam).

My dad has always resented the musical Pippin for the complex he said it instilled in my brother, the singer, and me.  "Gotta find my corner of the sky" and do extraordinary things "when you're extraordinary" we've felt justified in asserting ever since those lyrics were ingrained in our heads when bro played the title role back in the year 2000.

If ever there were a year to adopt a mantra or life philosophy.  It was the TURN OF THE CENTURY for goodness sake.

In any case... my dad should have begrudged Bette for bidding "goodbye to blueberry pie" years before on the casette tape we had of the TV movie star turn she'd had as Mama Rose.  Because that may very well be where I first found that urge to burst out.  I knew I'd never thrive and bloom living life in a living room and Mama Rose does it for her girls, but I was going to get myself to the big city come hell or high water for me.

And I did.

And my dad has also commented on how when he's seen me walk through the streets of Manhattan while visiting with my mom he's marveled at the way the energy I must exert pounding the pavement charges right back up into me with each clip or clop of my heels on the sidewalk, because I'm alive here (there), my heart beats to the pulse of NYC.

What's been interesting for me to notice in the past month since I've moved west (of the Hudson) is to analyze the bulk of the people who have also come guns blazing to be in the Big Apple.  Most (some) people HAD to leave where their from, were the ONLY ones to get out, and would never go back as often as I do/have.  They came to connect to the NYC life line and cut ties with their former lives.  They're baffled by the way my life resembles 27 Dresses because that's the kind of story that requires you to have stayed connected to where you came from and who you were before you got to start anew in the concrete jungle where dreams are made.

But some people ain't me.  And far as I go west, I'll likely always call West Newton home.

I tell people I turned off my biological clock for a few years

Or well, I just told one person.

But now that I've come upon that turn of phrase, you know I'm going to employ it on the reg in discussions of game plans and time frames and thoughts on the subject of fertility and whatnot.

My mother made the biggest faux pas of the decade at my college roommate's med school graduation party when she said to one of my other Manhattanite friends that she should be worried her eggs were going to dry up.  I mean, really, MamaNaugs, not her best truth in jest moment.  The joke was light hearted in its intention of course, but it's the kind of off color remark that really hits home with a twentysomething single gal.

Even while we're loving our lack of commitments and the freedom we have while we're not tied down, we're counting the months that go by - we know there's a limited supply of babies-to-be backed up in our ovaries.  We're not stupid.

But, it dawned on me in this conversation I just found myself in that the me who wanted to have babies by the time I was 29 was someone so different than who I am today and even who I was once I'd bounced from Boston in the Fall of 2008.

That truly was before I moved to Manhattan and turned off my biological clock for a few years.

And now of course as we round the bend from the wedding season of my life to the baby boom I'm happy to report that I do in fact still harbor some maternal instinct.  It's just that I'm keeping it in reserve - like my potentially dried up eggs, and I'll tap into it in a good five or six years (hopefully) when all's quiet on the Western front.

If ever an Onion article's hit close to home

It's this one.

Oh the paradox.

Divine Secrets

Sending love to my Nook Girls who don't necessarily know they're in my prayers as often as they are.  And who won't necessarily stumble upon this post anytime in the near future.  But who never fail to be the ones that know the song in my heart and sing it back to me when I have forgotten it, which, chorus girl that I am when all's said and done, is pretty poignant. 

http://www.thehouseofhendrix.com/2013/07/16/35-things-i-want-my-daughter-to-know-about-girlfriends/

All 8 of us will be in 1 place for the first time in 4 years 3 months from tomorrow. 

Doesn't get much better than that!

The time is 12:45AM

I still haven't figured out how to write that in military time... 0045 I guess?  How do you say that?, I wonder.

Also, remember when before we all had cell phones that automatically updated us with the time of day regardless of where we are in the world, you used to be able to dial N-E-S-T-L-E-S, which was 637-8537 to get the time told to you by a pre-recorded operator?  I don't think you even needed to dial an area code.  And I definitely don't think I realized I even remembered that you could do that until just now, when I decided to title this post with "the time is..."

In any case - I'm writing because I'm up.  I went to bed two hours ago, after a VERY productive Saturday.  It's actually my first uneventful Saturday of the Summer as I've otherwise had to travel, or attend a function, or perform, or partake in some sort of celebration every other Saturday for the past 8 weeks, so simply having no obligations has been significant in and of itself.  Naturally I had to find a use for this freeby though...couldn't just "futz around" as my roommate declared he was doing this morning when he emerged from his room sometime between 11am and noon.

So I set myself a writing goal for the weekend, and I'm right on schedule, which is always a treat, but as I prefer writing earlier in the day to late at night, I thought I'd turn in around 10:45pm and get a good night's sleep.  I'm 2/3 of the way through the writing I wanted to finish over the course of these two days, so I should have no trouble wrapping things up tomorrow between a work out and mass. 

But first I've gotta go count sheep.

Or somethin.

I'm a "soon as my head hits the pillow" sort of sleeper, so I never quite know how to respond to insomnia.  It graces me with its presence maybe once a year.

I thought perhaps a blog post as a palette cleanser might help in this case.  So thanks in retrospect for bearing the brunt of my burden by reading this, y'all.

And here's hoping you've had not trouble sleeping as of late.

Loud & Clear: how/why TED Talks fall on this girl's deaf ears

I want to be inspired by TED Talks SOOOO BAD.  I have tried to watch tons of them.  James Cameron's, that guy from Pixar's, Elizabeth Gilbert's - these people are dreamers and doers.  They're TOTALLY speaking my language.

Case in point, I just found this quote in a book I was reading and felt so strongly for it I was inspired to add it to the About Me section of my facebook page:

"All men dream: but not equally...the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." -T.E. Lawrence

James Cameron, that guy from Pixar, Elizabeth Gilbert - heck even good old Sheryl Sandberg - these guys and girls are dreamers of the day if I've ever encountered any.  And this one, I just gave a watch/listen to earlier today:



I'll be damned if I didn't want her words to really soak in as I watched it since it's hailed as one of the 15 TED Talks that will totally change your life according to this compilation: http://mashable.com/2013/07/08/ted-talks-change-your-life/#lead-image

BUT

I'm not sure if it's always been a thing or if it's just in the seven years since I've been a serious student, but I cannot retain information I receive auditorially (why is that not a word, btw???).  I'm just 100% officially whatever the opposite is of an auditory learner.

Give me a 10 page transcript of one of these 20 minute lectures any day and I'll take the words to heart.  But listening to them I'm like a little kid distracted by Dora the Explorer playing on the TV when her parents are telling her to put her toys away.

Peacing Out

Not from the Blogosphere - fear not.

But this is on the subject of.  Inspired by this article: 'Don't Say Goodbye' by, Seth Stevenson about Ghosting aka the Irish Goodbye.

A guy I trysted with ever so briefly last Summer introduced me to the term, concept and practice of this sort of departure from a scene, when he texted to apologize one Sunday morning for pulling an Irish Exit from the bar the night before.  (Stay classy, Boston.  Have I mentioned I'm smitten with a Southerner at the moment?  Pretty sure once you go gentleman, you never go back, but more on that another time).

Anyway, I gotta say, while I was unimpressed by the antic last Summer, I'm pretty partial to the way it's portrayed in this article.  Amen to hello's being so much more fun than goodbyes in general, and so long as you're upfront about your intention to go AWOL (ala the Northern Irish Goodbye described in the article), why not skip the silly skulk up to and away from the host?

Just mosey on.  Think to yourself:



but hit the road, Jack.