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You carry heaven and hell with you. ~ Sri Ramana Maharshi
Saturday, January 1, 2000: Birthday ribbon
I've decided to go back to the sidebar design. I missed it. I missed having a place to stick peripheral things that I wanted to remember and link to, but that didn't necessarily belong in the main journal entry. And I missed recording the books that I was reading, and keeping track of the ones that I've read. So I've gone back to that, and I've gone back to recording all the books I read. I stopped doing that for a couple of years because it felt sort of like those people who used to record all of their CDs on their websites. But in this case, I missed it because I used to be able to go to my list of books and find a title or author that I'd forgotten, and I can't do that now. So it's back. There's nothing on it yet, but I expect there will be before long.
I would also like to try writing short reviews of some of the books I'm reading, mostly because I'm terrible at it for some reason, and I'd like to get better. I don't know why I'm so bad at it. I think I feel a little out of my element because I don't have an education in literature, and my book choices are sometimes certainly not literature--I almost always choose books for their entertainment value, rather than for any other reason, so I think I sometimes feel a little . . . not embarrassed, exactly, but shy, maybe, when talking too much about what I'm reading. I'm not sure why that would be the case, but I think it is sometimes.
I get a little defensive sometimes when asked why I like certain things. Books, music, movies. I seldom have a fully formed opinion--I don't know why, I just like them. I usually have a more thought-out reason when I don't like something, but I think that generally my reaction to things I like is more visceral, i.e., I might be able to come up with an intellectually well thought-out reason, but I'm more likely to say, well, I just liked it a lot.
We drank a bottle of sparkling wine last night (Martini & Rossi Asti Spumanté, which I like better than champagne--sweeter, I guess, and not as dry) (which reminds me of the sign I saw on the liquor store when I stopped to get it last week: "All liquor and wine with 2000 or Millennium on the label--20% off." but someone had written in the disclaimer underneath: "Except for beer, sparkling wine, and champagne." In other words, nothing that people would probably be buying for their celebration) and ate black-eyed peas this morning for luck, and I'm going to make soup this afternoon, which feels like one of my New Year's Day traditions.
I slept until almost 11:00, when Bob came up and told me that he thought I really needed to get up. I'm not sure why he thought that. It felt kind of cool, though, to stay in bed for a couple of hours while he went downstairs to watch football or parades or (probably) golf. It felt like a nice way to start the New Year.
A good day to talk about calendars, too, since that's one of my obsessions. Although I tried very hard this year not to be obsessed about it. I failed in some ways, but actually I think I did a pretty good job.
Bob bought me a Stephen Mackey calendar for the bedroom. That's what I had up there last year, too. I love it. It seems nice and quiet, but colorful.
There's a Magnetic Poetry calendar in the kitchen, with big squares for writing things in, and a magnetic sheet with word snippets hanging below in case anyone feels poetically creative.
Our friend Donald gives us an Arizona Highways calendar every year at Christmas (he lives in Phoenix), and that one goes in Bob's bathroom. I buy Bob a Tolkien calendar every year, and that one goes in the office.
My friend Mike sent me the Llewellyn Witches' Calendar for Christmas, and I have it hanging in the corner here where I work. For today it says, "For good luck and prosperity throughout the year, season your New Year's Day meal with sweet basil." And it says today's color is indigo. (I just went in and heated up the rest of the black-eyed peas and added some basil--don't want to take any chances.)
My New Year's Day recipe:
Dump a can of black-eyed peas in a pan (don't drain them), add a little salt, quite a lot of onion flakes, and a pinch of basil for luck. Heat at low temperature until hot, mash slightly, and eat.
I'm going to sit down today and transfer birthdays and phone numbers over to my new little pocket calendar--just a free card shop one--that goes in my purse.
Matt called this afternoon to see if we wanted to meet him and Karen for dinner, which we did, of course. They gave me a gorgeous glass candle holder with pewter leaves around the outside which makes amazing shadows on the wall. We had a nice, long leisurely dinner, made more leisurely by the fact that they got Matt's order wrong and had to remake it, and we think they must have had to, I don't know, grind wheat for the pizza crust or something, because of how long it took.
The people sitting next to us were close to passing out from hunger, their order took so long to arrive. I was considering giving them my leftovers which I was taking home, but fortunately their pizza arrived just as we were getting up to leave.
I didn't mind, though (and of course it wasn't my order that didn't arrive), because I love their company. I always have such a good time with them. Bob said I was "giggly," and I suppose I was, but of course that just means I was having a fun.
Goals/Resolutions/Ideas for 2000:
- Learn how to make fonts, and make one of my own handwriting
- Take my vitamins every day, and stop eating so much junk
- Read at least fifty books
- Get a job
The holiday season is complete. Dinah ate, swallowed, and subsequently threw up, a length of red ribbon from one of my Christmas presents from Barb. Oh, and it's her birthday today! Dinah is one. We don't know that for sure, of course, but we took the age the vet thought she was when we got her, and decided that she was probably born around the first of the year, so for convenience's sake, made her birthday New Year's Day. So maybe the ribbon eating thing was her way of celebrating.
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