The Holiday in Film and Music Pt. 1

In an attempt to get in the Holiday spirit a couple of days ago, I bought a copy of a classic holiday film aptly titled: Holiday Inn. Over the years, I have striven to collect various holiday Christmas flicks to help with the holiday spirit. Christmas spirit is usually a little slow for me. It doesn't usually start until after the decorations go up at work. I have bought a tree for this year, which has not gone up yet.

I watched Holiday Inn last night, and while it was enjoyable as always, because it shows multiple holidays of all times of the year, it helped with Christmas spirit only marginally.

I think in watching holiday films, i am attempting to recapture a simpler time and one of happiness during the season instead of the confusion and angst of my adult and adolescent years, because of the holiday never quite living up to my expectation.

I know that a great deal of these problems would be solved for me to shift my focus on to the actual reason of Christmas,the birth of Christ. I plan to do this, this season. Additionally, however, there are the trappings of Christmas that have become traditions down through the centuries that I would like to improve at least in my own life. It has helped in recent years to put up a tree with Jeremy (as we hope to do tonight), and to send off Christmas cards. I also want to enjoy simple things like looking at Christmas lights at houses at night and listening to Christmas music. I have favorite Christmas album staples that I listen to every year. And it would not be Christmas without them:





I plan to continue my musings and pursuits in an attempt to offset my usual and current holiday malaise. I will keep you posted on how I progress.

Happy Halloween/ John Keats's Birthday!

While I don't have any particular plans, I am still very much a fan of this holiday. It all started with my "religious" watching of It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and usually Garfield's Halloween Special.

Some people might be shocked to find that I am a Christian and still an avid fan. To this I would say that is a lack of understanding on their part. Yes, there is quite a bit of darkness surrounding it, but there is also a lot of really interesting tradition. And being of Scotch-Irish (i.e. Celtic) origins myself, I have always been fascinated to learn more about All-Hallow's Eve and Samhain. From what I can gather in the research I had done for a paper on the Origins of Holidays and picking my very intelligent boyfriend's brain, Halloween was once a holiday that originated among Celtic people. It was a day and night that most people believed that the spirit world was alive and spirits and fairies would traverse the world looking for people to haunt or steal.

It was for this reason, that people began dressing up, to "confuse the spirits." And therefore to avoid being stolen. I remember three years ago when I discovered this fact accidentally when my boyfriend suggested we dress up my cat so that the fairies would not steal her. :)

I believe that there are different times when the spirit world is active and that there are also Satanic forces at work at those times, so it is important for me to be aware, that there is a darkness present at those times. However, I believed that God is powerful enough to protect me during those times, and that as long as I do not seek them out, I think that fun can definitely had, and I for one am not opposed to confusing evil spirits.

Also, this Holiday was important in the Church in historic times as it preceded All Saints Day which at one time was a very important Christian Holiday that was connected to All Hallows Eve, in a kind of purging of the evil spirits of the previous day.

Another important fact about Halloween, is that it is John Keats's Birthday, as my love told me also on the first Halloween that we were together. As Keats is his favorite poet, i cannot think of a reason not to celebrate the day.

All this to say, I am definitely not for Satanic celebrations on Halloween ever. But in reality, I do not think that are what its origins were dictating.

Plus, a day and a holiday is far more about what you bring to it. There is darkness in it, but there is also light. Every day is a day that God made, including this one.

P.S. In my experience growing up, remember a lot more other holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas that were full of evil spirits of families quarreling and other problems, that I just don't remember about Halloween.

Partly cloudy with a chance of rain...or wasting time at otherlands that should be spent studying

Today I decided to go to Otherlands, one of my favorite local coffee shop haunts.


I like Otherlands for many reasons, but where else are you going to be able to drink out of a Jim Lehrer mug? Is this show still on? I remember the Mcneil/Lehrer News Report being on when I was 8.



These are the boots that Jeremy helped me pick out yesterday at Target. Yesterday was my birthday so we went to a movie, but before that we went in search of pretties to buy. I am surprised at the number of people who have commented on these boots today. I put them on because it was raining this morning, and I don't like getting wet on cool days like this. So here they are. It is very dry out now but I have gotten used to them so they are still on my feet.


Another thing i like about Otherlands is that they support local art and local causes. They usually have a local art exhibition, but this afternoon I noticed that it was a collection of photographs of the Zippin Pippin. The ride made famous by Elvis Presley's love for it. We (I mean Memphis as a city) are in the process of trying to sell it to Green Bay. I hope they get it. If we refuse to enjoy having things like this in our fair city, it would be nice to know that someone else at least is. In the mean time if all we have left are these beautiful photographs that someone at least thought to take, and our memories, I guess that will be enough (it has to be, right?).

Here is a view of my lovely computer on which I am trying to decide which pictures are clear enough to use for my post.

I love this tile in the back hallway.


(do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a photograph of myself that i do not loathe?) I am looking particularly nonplussed in this picture because i am trying not to overhear the conversation between the two ladies behind me about the decor in their midtown antique shop. On top of this, I am trying not to appear like I am taking my own picture with my camera phone in public, which is exactly what I am doing and had to continue doing to figure out that this one turned out the best anyway. Note to self: Visit Toad Hall Antiques.


This is the view from my favorite table in the restaurant. It is so big and nice, but I felt guilty sitting at it by myself today so I moved. There are 1,2,3...6 chairs at that table. Now there is a 5 top sitting there, so balance has been brought back to the force.


Another pic of me. I like this angle because I look less jowly. I am still trying to lose weight, but oh well. See my other blog if you are interested in that story. I will be posting there soon. Its not lying if I show you and tell you, right?


Here is a view of the restaurant. Ah...Yeah...I dont know any of these people.



When did they get this sign? WHEN DID THEY GET THIS SIGN? It is sad the things i see on a regular basis and yet do not notice.


I hope you enjoyed my visit. Maybe come with me next time. Or go visit your Otherlands, in your city.

My love

This man makes me incredibly happy... Just so you know.

Browns: In Parts

haven't posted an outfit in a while. part of the reason for this is that I haven't found something that interests me. But I like this one. I am sad that i do not have my digital camera with me today, but you know it hasn't been very easy to upload images to my computer as it is. You can lose so much space on your hard drive in iphoto just like that. So I decided to do what I always do and take pics of the outfit in parts with my camera phone and email them. I hope that you can get the idea of the whole outfit from that. This outfit makes me happy and my friend helped me pick it out. People could not say enough about the tights today.

Merona - everything except flats and tank top
Black cardigan
brown polka dot top
grey old navy tank underneath
black zigzag tights
black mossimo flats

A smile! The first on record in a while!

Ok, so it is hard for me to smile in pictures I take of myself. I am not sure why. Maybe it is because I just feel like an ass smiling at nothing. It is easier when Jeremy is behind the camera so I actually have someone to smile at. So when I try to it just really becomes a grimace.

What I do like about this pic is the sweater in that I bought with some of my Christmas money. Such a good price and it came with the scarf (I love Target). It was like $6.89 or one of those strange prices. And it is grey. Which is a color that I do not normally wear, as it makes me think of sloppy sweats and jogging suits, which unless you are working out, are just glorified pajamas. But some how even though it has the rounded neck, I think that the snazzy scarf dresses it up quite a bit.

Scarves are also something that I have recently worn alot more of. People keep mentioning that they like the look on me (even people that i dont know very well). I never thought that I was much of a scarf person, but maybe I am after all and it is not just a guise to hide my rapidly aging neck, which I didnt worry about until recently when a friend of mine and I were having a discussion about necks. Well maybe mine has a few good years left. but i should moisturize more. The days of wine and roses and mistreating my skin without too many consequences, are behind me. Oh well. Humph.

Let's Face it, nobody is reading this.

If anyone reads this I would be very surprised. Well, I am hoping to get in the swing of things again though. I will write for me. I actually am hoping to take more pics of me and clothing and I will post those again. As soon as I get my camera back from my man. Also, it is a little difficult to post with no interweb at home, and I am too cheap right now. Sigh.

Perhaps some time soon I will have something interesting to say and some interesting pics to say it with. Until then I think I will add some recent pictures. I have been disallussioned with my wardrobe of late. I think I need some new clothes and or makeup. The first pic is of my baby and my cat (or our cat) Oya. Sorry that they are blurry. But he has my camera. And the second is of me. Note the way the light hits the disappointed look on my face. Try not to note the way that it hits the blemish on my chin though. i think that this face can aptly describe my day today. Although it was taken a month ago. Sigh. and alas, that is all I have to say. I hope to see you all soon, and remember me to the little women.

And so it begins again...

Classes started today, or they would have but my class was canceled or we are actually to go and read the first 3 acts of Ben Jonson's play Bartholomew Fair. I have honestly been in the business of English, for about 27 years, if you count grade school and that I started reading when I was four. I have been in higher education for about ten years, that does not include the 2 years I took off between undergrad and graduate school, "for good behavior," and I can honestly say I have never heard of this play. I, of course have heard of Ben Jonson, one of the more famous contemporaries of Shakespeare but not this title. Needless to say, I am intrigued. I have always thought, that if I could live in any century other than my own, if would be in the 19th century, however, I have to say that after last semester's Shakespeare class with an excellent professor, I have to say that the 17th century is gaining rapidly. In my class this semester with same excellent professor we will read eclectic pieces such as Pilgrim's Progress, which I havent read since my homeschool days, but I think I still have a copy, Something called The Man in the Moon, and some Francis Bacon. I think this should be cool. I will keep you posted. I will also let you know of my other class, which is creative nonfiction workshop, once it starts. Now tomorrow to go look for a copy of Bartholomew Fair online, once I get monies. Ah well, have a pleasant evening. Talk to you soon.

Unsupportable.

I like that word. I think that it is important to steal words occasionally and use them for ones own devices. This one was stolen from BBC pride and prejudice movie that I have been savouring again over the holidays.

My love and I tried to savour the BBC version of EMMA 1972(not the one with Gwyneth), and we found that to be unsupportable. We did however have lots of fun discussing the lead character's widening of the eyes and the various schools of acting included in the film or the lack thereof. we didnt know. I found the movie at spin street (our local movie-buying haunt) and my love promptly bought it for me. again, we didnt know. Jane Austen does not always mean milky goodness, which I would normally attest. But this isnt her fault. she couldnt help it that it was bastardized. In this case, though it somewhat pains me to admit it, I would say that CLUELESS was a more apt rendering of the book than this was.

Ah well. I hope you are all having a glorious new year. I promise this year to not be as much of a stranger, and to blog as much as I can. Real blogs. Not just ones where I try to be a style princess. Most of those I worry do not come off as well as I would like. Anywho, if you have suggestions for me or if you like my style blogs too speak up and let me know, then I will continue when I get the chance, and not feel so much like a sad-bastard old woman trying to be a teenie bopper when I post them because they do not tend to come off as lovely as the ones I read and follow. Until next time. :)
P.S. While I was searching for my image on the interweb, happily I found a 2009 BBC version, which from the looks of it, will be much better. I think I will look for that one next time I go shopping.