I'm gonna take this as a sign

Two albums in the last few weeks have captured me: Honeyhoney's Billy Jack, featuring the fantastic "Ohio," and Patty Griffin's latest, American Kid, featuring the fantastic "Ohio." Coincidence? I doubt it. This is clearly a sign that my home state was jealous and bitter over my previous creations of the awesome California mix and the serviceable Las Vegas mix. Clearly, I need to create an equally awesome (though likely more melancholy) Ohio mix. It's on, people.

Suggestions are welcome, as always, but rest assured I will be including Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's iconic "Ohio."

Anticipation

Not everyone likes the Before Sunrise and Before Sunset movies, but I loved them. Perhaps because I'm a writer or because I like the sound of my own voice too much, but my twisted version of a truly romantic evening is talking all night long. They've made a third movie in the series, Before Midnight, which comes out late in May. Needless to say, I will be watching Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke talk their way through their relationship in yet another movie, and I am ridiculously excited.

Consuming

I can only go so long and then I have to buy stuff. Preferably books.

Challenges revisited

I've been challenging myself with book projects for awhile now -- finish reading War and Peace, read all of Jane Austen, finish off my to-read shelf, read more non-fiction -- but why do I always focus on books? Because it makes me seem smarter? Sure, that's one reason, but perhaps it's just habit. Or avoiding the stigma of saying, "I think I should watch more movies." (I can't really say I should watch more TV because I think we all know I watch plenty. And occasionally re-watch Dawson's Creek with my almost step-daughter because she must learn the joys of Pacey Witter as soon as possible. Bygones.) The point is this: I don't watch enough movies. Although my Netflix queue has always been long, I usually had a fairly decent turnover, and I went to the actual movies pretty regularly. Now I go to the movie theater once every couple of months, and Netflix rentals languish at my house for months, almost years. (I apologize if anyone was waiting for Young Adult since last March. I finally returned it! No, I didn't watch it, but it's available on Instant now.)

So my challenge is this: I want to watch more movies, and pare down the 504-DVD-long queue on Netflix. (I'm not too worried about the 87-movie long Instant queue, because there's a lot of crossover.)

Very superstitious

J.R. and I went to see the Silver Linings Playbook today, and while I expected it to be good, it was pretty fucking fantastic. J.R. doesn't like Bradley Cooper and I'm not a huge fan either (residual why-is-Will-such-a-douche feelings, I'm pretty sure), but we went anyway because I'd heard great things about Jennifer Lawrence's performance. And they were right. DeNiro was also very good, as the super-superstitious dad running book on the side (I may have some particular empathy with his game-day rituals). On the whole, a really good movie -- funny and smart and only occasionally sad.

Ten years, man. Ten years!

I can't believe it, but this blog is 10 years old today. I started this thing when blogging was still relatively young, when I still hosted it on an angelfire.com site, and when Biz Stone was just this crazy guy who worked with me and talked me into becoming a blogger. Looking back, I'd say that blogging is probably one of the best things I've ever done. Not because my blog has made me rich and famous (it hasn't), not because my blog made me a sweet book deal (nope), but because it has made me a better writer, made me think, and most of all, has led me to make some fantastic friends -- in fact, I even met my husband-to-be through my blog. I haven't met all of you in person (yet!), but I still consider you part of my life. Even though I've slowed the blogging down considerably in recent years, I can't wait to see what the next 10 years bring.

I guess he liked it

Because he put a ring on it. (Don't worry, though. I promise not to blog endlessly about floral arrangements and white vs. ecru. Also, the ring is even prettier in real life and when not photographed by my crappy phone camera.)

Well read

In 2011, I read 53 books, and I was pretty pleased with that number. I blew that out of the park in 2012 with a total of 79 books read. I'm pretty sure this number is unlikely to be matched this year, as I can credit last year's explosion in reading to getting a lot of mystery novels on the Kindle and blowing through them (Charles Todd and Robert Crais, I'm looking at you). My favorites were Nightwoods by Charles Frazier and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. (My least favorite was Maisie Dobbs  -- the writing was so atrocious I wanted to gouge my eyes out at several turns.) Apparently, my longest book last year was Skippy Dies at a whopping 661 pages (luckily, Skippy didn't have to contend in the year I read War and Peace).

I can't say that I have any major goals for reading this year, but I have set a personal challenge to myself to continue going through all the old books on my "to-read" list, and I would like to try to read more nonfiction. And read at least 50 books in the year, of course. Typically, this post is accompanied by a picture of the stack of books I got over the holidays, but this year I only got a cookbook and a copy of The Invisible Bridge. So my reading list is wide open, people. All recommendations welcome.

The end of the world as we know it

Depending on how you look at things, today is either the darkest day of the year, the end of the world, or my birthday. I say: Why not all three?

I can't believe it's already been another year -- I'd say I don't feel older, but after working a metric ton this past year, I definitely feel old. And I'm pretty sure there's some grey hair going on that I don't even want to think about. For now, I'm going to concentrate on my to-do list for today, which includes:

1. Get up. [Done!]
2. Drag ass to work. [Done!]
3. Blog. [Done!]
4. Marvel at the beauty of curled ribbon. [Ongoing]
5. Edit the entire world (or two mortgage magazines) before Christmas break.
6. Finish packing.
7. Get on plane.

Shiny new toy

My precious new Surface.