2008 in Review and Maybe the Revival of this Sorry Excuse for a Blog

I've been looking for a chance to sit with myself for a few hours and think about the last year and how I want to shape my next one. So I'm cuddled under my pistachio-colored sheets with a cup of tea and I am prepared to do that.

Things That Happened in 2008:

• I (almost) chased a burglar, and with Jen's help developed a burglar-proof home defense system using a large baseball-mitt-shaped chair and many empty Staropromen bottles.
  
• I made a big decision (coming home).
  
• I drank the best wine in my life from an ampitheatre-shaped town in southern France that was sparsely inhabited by townies who gave us the stink eye because we were clattering our luggage down the cobblestone streets and not speaking French in a place that obviously does not get a lot of non-French.
  
• (The next day) I woke up smiling in a Monaco hotel room overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.
  


• I got a job at an exciting and wonderful place with artistic and talented and nice people. I like it.
  


• I almost became a vegan, but realized I like cheese too much to ever commit to giving it up.
  
• I climbed into and out of the deepest gorge I've ever climbed into and out of--Divoka Sarka.
  


• I voted in a pretty important election.
  


• I caught Live Aid '85 at Wembley Stadium on VH1 Classic on Boxing Day and it was INCREDIBLE, reaffirming that Freddie Mercury is my soulmate and quite possibly the greatest vocalist/performer that EVER LIVED.
  


• Finally, and most importantly, I saw the movie Christmas Evil, starring Fiona Apple's dad.

As for this year, I'm thinking it will be a quiet one compared to 2008--hopefully, a year where I stay in one place and regroup and plan and write and become a "healthier" person. And by healthy, I mean eliminating the things in my life that makes me feel bad so I have more energy for the things that make me feel good, like running and watching FearNet. And maybe I'll try to wake up, "to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down." And I guess I should start flossing.

Bon Iver is scoring the first week of my new year. (I just realized I accidentally posted this playlist on my boyfriend's house blog. Sorry!) The songs from this album, For Emma, Forever Ago were written in a cabin in Wisconsin by Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) over the course of three months. The fact that this man secluded himself in the woods like some modern-day Thoreau and made art from the always-winning combo of self-imposed isolation and deep sadness, plus the fact that his moniker came from a Northern Exposure episode makes me swoon. These songs feel like where I want to be now. If only I could go to a secluded Wisconsin cabin to have a good think about my life, not really expecting much to come from my sojourn, but then surprised by what does come from inside --the final surprising result of that experience...but, well, that was last year.





Mixtape from http://favtape.com/pghgirl/New






WATCH FREDDIE CHANT.