Sick Day

Sledgehammer to the face.

This is how I describe a sinus infection.  Gross.  Like, EWW Gross but also really painful.  Like, my glasses feel like they weigh 100 pounds sitting on my nose and my eyelids are so heavy I am looking out of slits.  My face is actually swollen. Painful grossness.  Good times.

I don't get sick very often, but when I do it's hardcore.  I don't get colds, I get pneumonia.  I'm just that kind of overachiever. 

So today, I actually stayed home and had a sick day.  I don't do this very often either because, well, I don't really get sick.  I think I can count the number of sick days I've taken in my entire career on half a hand.  Feels weird here.  Sick, with kind of nothing to do.  Well, I can find things to do but I don't want to because my head hurts when I move it.  Sleeping would be great, but it hurts to lie down and sitting up sleeping isn't very relaxing.   It's all making me quite exhausted.

I can't read (back to hurt!) so, instead, I've watched movies.  FOUR movies!  So that's good.  Tangled, The American, Moulin Rouge & Inside Job.  All amazing, although the sledgehammer to face feeling magnified considerably with the last one.  Nothing like being reminded of the worst time in your career to get the joy of Walt, George & Ewan out of your system and good.  Sheesh.

In between the movie watching I made brownies because the smell of baking makes me really happy.  But, I can't smell anything.  I'd eat some brownies, which also makes me really happy, but I can't taste anything either. So that all sucks and what's the point.  

I'd like to watch Oprah but she has Gayle on today.  I hate Oprah + Gayle.  They are so annoying together.  You know I really hate them together because I want my best friend to be Oprah so I can be Gayle, right ?  Whose life is better than Gayle's ?  She could teach a Master Class on riding coattails.  Well played, Gayle, well played.

So, that's me on a Sick Day.

I'm going to go catch up on my celebrity gossip now.  It's been awhile since I tuned into Charlie Sheen's Tornado of Awesome and I could use a hit right now, likely better than a sledgehammer to the face, right?


Feel better, me !

Whimsy

I've been bombarded with whimsy lately.

From stage productions of Midsummer Night's Dream and The Fantasticks to the opera of The Magic Flute and an anniversary screening of The Princess Bride and finally Moonstruck, I can't seem to get away from fairy tales of whimsy and mirth where the girl always get the boy, baddies get their due and anything remotely wrong rights itself with minimal strife and struggle.

Charming, fantastical, whimsical. Delusional?

I don’t think it has to be.  We're inundated with bad news and real news and hard news at lightening speed everyday from here at home, abroad and beyond, it all gets a bit crushing, doesn't it?  Why can't we save a little room somewhere in our hopeful hearts and overtaxed brains for a bit of whimsy? A little place where, yes, the girl always get the boy, baddies get their due and anything remotely wrong rights itself with minimal strife and struggle?

This will open you up to a bit more heartache and disappointment, sure.  Most likely people will think you're a little crazy. Well, that's okay. You'll have highs and you'll have lows but you'll rise again to see what else life has in store for you. So, bring on the cynic and the sourpuss and bring on Don Henley, too, who told us we were being "poisoned by these fairytales", to them, life is about erecting barriers of cautiousness to exclude hope.  None for me, thanks.  I'll take a little shot of whimsy to warm my heart anyday.

The Demo

Big stuff going on at the family homestead and in the interest of your boredom, here's the 411 :

House tic-tac-toe, with D and family (aka the Constantopoulos Juniors) taking over the house we grew up in, and Mom downsizing to a smaller townhouse literally 2 minutes away.

All good.  All great.  It is the ultimate best situation ever. 

Our house - in Greek, the "patriatico spiti" or "patriachal home" - is an awesome house.  Huge house, huge lot, huge memories, huge patriarch.  Everything that was anything happened at 149 and now it will all continue to happen there with the Juniors.  Sweet.

Today, I walked into the house (can I still really call it "our" house ? it's D's house now, right?) and it didn't look much like "our" house.  It's demo'd - gutted to the core.  Walls are down.  Ceilings are exposed.  The place is a shell and I was simply overcome.

Overcome with what, it's hard to say.  Lots of feelings, but I can't quite place what they were.  I wasn't sad - we all would have been heartbroken to say goodbye to 149 so this move is amazing for everyone; not quite happy - too much destruction for that; excitement ? not that either, the finished product is too far away.  

I think I was flatly overcome with the realization that we are moving on.   Things are changing and while the changes are all good the reason why they're happening isn't.  It sucks, quite frankly and ineloquently.  I liked the way things used to be - I want things back the way they used to be.  Stubborn, huh?  Just like that huge patriarch who is, of course, indirectly responsible for all this change.  We can tip toe around things for a long time - I could tip toe forever, but sooner or later something has to happen to snap you into attention - the walls literally coming down did that to me today.    It's time to move forward and make new memories at 149, only now we have to make these memories without the person who made 149 so amazing to begin with.   Maybe overcome is understating things a bit.

Found Him!

It’s been a long road, friends.  The stories have been many, the heartaches deep.  You think it’s him - you hope it’s him – but in the end, inevitably, he ends up being a cruel imposter clothed in superior footwear awash in yummy smelling aftershave.  You can never really give up hope that he’s out there.  You must continue to believe that one day luck will finally smile upon you and you’ll find him, so you keep searching and hoping and hoping and searching. Then one day, yes, somehow, miraculously, by some mere fluke of timing and the fate you’ve really only seen on screen and stage, it happens - the moment when you realize you have actually found him, The One.

I found him quite by surprise, which is really the best way – better not to plan for these things, really.  He’s quite amazing.  Everything I ever dreamt about and more: funny, charming, smart, quick, supercute.  We laugh and giggle and BBM and roll our eyes together and play fashion crime court and talk all about boys.  Oh, I’m sorry.  You look confused.  The One, like, guy for me?  Hells & Whatevs – who needs him?  I have found The One Better.  I, Julianne, have found my George!

George is my Boybestie!  My Boybestie is … the bestest.  Because he’s amazingly funny and charming and smart and quick and super cute and makes me laugh all the time and has a very high alcohol tolerance and likes all the same things I do like books and musicals and keeping tabs on Jennifer Aniston’s happiness and is just like me in only the good just like me ways and is just simply the bestest Boybestie a girl could ask for. 

Every Julianne needs her George.  And my George was well worth waiting for.  

I love you, George!  J

Talent

I wish I had a talent.  A natural God given creative talent.    

I know I’m good at a few things but it’s not really talent.  It’s more like I’m good at following instructions (baking).

I try to get good at things but I soon realize that no matter how hard I try or how many lessons I take I will never ever be amazing at it and, well, I give up. 

I can’t sing to save my life.  The only place I feel comfortable singing is in my car – dear Lord, thank you for car windows!   I was forced to sing in Improv class last week.  I think it was worse for my classmates and let me tell you it was THE WORST for me!  This is why I’ve never karaoked.

I can’t draw anything.  If I tried to draw a map of directions from my office to the photocopy room, you would have no idea where to go. My last attempt to actually draw something was done under duress - a “self portrait” most 3 year olds would laugh at.  I don't precisely know the whereabouts of this drawing, but I can only hope it has ended up somewhere dark and lonely where people can't see it.

I can’t really dance.  Well, I do have some pretty fly dance moves, but they can only be considered fly when there is some form of alcohol in close proximity and everyone is drinking it.   I went to hip hop class once.  There was no alcohol.  There were many steps.  There was much laughter.  There was not much dancing.  

I can’t play a musical instrument.  I really tried hard at this one.  Initially, my piano lessons were fun and somewhat rewarding - hey! that’s me making music! But it soon became clear that I wasn’t actually reading the music, I was just memorising where my fingers needed to go.  This is fine for a start, but if you want to get to a level beyond “Three Blind Mice”, it’s a problem.

I realize that to become really great at something you need to train and practice – two things marginally remiss in my ‘talent searching exploits’ as noted above – but there does need to be an element of natural talent that allows you to truly excel with all this training and practice.  I know for damn sure that no training or practice would have allowed this voice, those moves and that pencil to make it to Broadway or study at the École des Beaux-Arts.

This kind of depresses me.  This ability to create something from nothing is, to me, the most amazing talent of all – I regularly attend shows/concerts/exhibits/plays/you name it to not only be transported to another time and place but to also be amazed at the wondrous feats taking place before me. Man, how I wish I could do all that! but, I can’t do any of that and I am simply awed by those who can.  This is admiration to the max and I should just consider myself incredibly lucky that I’m able to immerse myself in the talents of those that continually awe me like this, while I stick to what I do best:  following instructions.

Sparkle

My niece – 6 going on 16 – is quite the girly girl.  If it was possible to be a diva at the tender age of 6 she’d be one, hell, why employ reverse ageism - she is one! She doesn’t  bowl because she “won’t wear THOSE shoes” and won’t ice skate because “it’s WAY too cold”.  Enough said.

An extension of this girly girl personality is her wardrobe selection.  She’s never seen a sequin, feather, tulle skirt, animal print or ruffle that she hasn’t adorned, usually simultaneously.  Shopping for and with her is hard – her Toddlers & Tiaras vs. my Ralph Lauren Classic Collection rarely see eye to eye and while I don’t want her disappointed, I also don’t want her looking completely ridiculous.  Not on Thia Olga’s watch! 

So, off we go for a little shopping trip and it’s one “I don’t think so”and “maybe something not so shiny” after the other.  So frustrating!  Just let me buy you something decent and well made and cute and not so totally over the top, will ya?  Finally, a compromise: a hooded cardigan with a sequined front, in hot pink.  What can you do?  Because she’s the cutest and also quite caring, she asked the salesgirl if they had one in my size too so we could be twins.  I smiled, after I wiped away a tear, and told her it wasn’t really my style – it was way too sparkly for Thia Olga. And then she said it.

“Thia Olga, everyone needs a little sparkle in their life.”

Hot Damn.  Everyone Needs A Little Sparkle In Their Life.  And we do, don’t we?  A small thing that puts a twinkle in your eye, a little something that the mere thought of gives you a lift when you’re feeling blue.  Who cares what your sparkle is – just get some, have some, you know you need some.

Obviously, T literally wears her sparkle and it makes her super happy.  Thia Olga, not so much, but with T sprouting words of wisdom like this, Thia Olga is never too far away from a super big sparkle.   Thia Olga is one lucky girl.

Tell me, what’s your sparkle?

Passive Intelligence

Do you get the impression we don't need to talk to people anymore?

What with Facebook status updates, constant Twitter feeds and cyber stalking we learn all we need to know about people without uttering a single word.  How cyberficient.

You've told me nothing about you.

I know so much about you.

I have often (embarrasingly too often) found myself in conversations with people where I'm being told a story, situation, life update that I'm certain I've heard before - but I haven't heard it before, I've read it before.  Even worse, sometimes I won't ask about a story, situation, life update because I'm waiting for the news to come to me the old fashioned way, but it doesn't because I suppose the person assumes I know and they're waiting for me to mention it. Awkward.

You've told me nothing about you.

I know so much about you.

How do we manage normal get- to- know- you's and tell-me-what's-news in these cyber times?  How can we have the first time thrill of hearing a story, situation, life update when by the time we hear about it it's almost old news?  Should we fake it?  Should we not care?  I care. And I don't want to fake it.  I want to stop this newfound passive intelligence.

I'm going to try to be honest: "hey!  read about your new house - tell me all about it!" (bit wind out of sails, but the elephant has officially left the room); I'm going to stop Facebook Updating & Twitter Feeding stuff that happens to me that I'd rather tell you about (don't worry, I'll still give you a funny quip or clip) in person and I'm absolutely going to stop cyber stalking (I am on the road to recovery). 

You've told me nothing about you.

Tell me everything about you.