Still What I Want For Christmas...

Is not my two front teeth. Though I did go to the dentist recently and so I am thinking about teeth and dentistry and being grateful for what I have.

I recently had a request to update this list. Unsurprisingly, some of the same things are on it -- but I have managed to cross a few things off the list. I'll highlight the repeats in red. Here's a link to the original list, as well.

1. Super awesome recording equipment.
2. DSLR
3. A new phone
4. Boyfriend. Might seem lame-o to actually put this on a Christmas list, but oh well. I've been known to do lame, potentially embarrassing things before. I've turned out okay anyway.
5. A Miele vacuum. Probably a Marin.
6. An awesome SmartWool sock collection
8. Someone to go to Italy and Britain with.
9. Vacation days enough to visit above countries.
10. Lots of board games.
11. an awesome wall garden
12. time with family

Here's what I crossed off my list:
4. Nintendo DS Lite with Mario Bros. game and Brain Age.
5. No more accounting!
6. New job. Preferably in Utah or Seattle or San Francisco. Since this is a wish list, pay should be >$70K/year, 40 hrs/week, with 4+ weeks vacation. Unreal expectations, yes, I know... (location and new job)
7. Real furniture. None of this twin-bed-without-a-real-bedframe-put-on-risers-so-it's-three-feet-tall-and-wobbly garbage. Or the fakey "desk" I've got.*

Neighbor Nostalgia

I don't always love my neighbor. Sometimes she plays Justin Timberlake & soundalikes all day, really loud. Sometimes she has loud parties. By her own admission, she can be a little wild.

We've always been friendly, though, and said "hi" when we pass each other on the street, etc.

Last night, I was working on a project and I could hear her music perfectly well through my wall. She had turned on Frank Sinatra's Christmas album and listened to the whole thing. It was the first time I haven't wanted to tear my hair out at her music choice. Actually, for a little while, it made me smile, but it also made me feel a little bit like I was invading--like I was listening to her memories, peering into her mind, being her Ghost of Christmas Past.

I would not have expected her to be so sentimental in her music choice, from the very little I know of her. (We have had perhaps two or three conversations longer than a minute.) But, as I got her secondhand sentimental Sinatra floating through the walls, I felt a Christmas connection with her. Frank Sinatra would not be my sentimental album of choice for the holiday season, but I appreciated that she was celebrating Christmas, and that she is sentimental, just like me.

Maybe today I'll play Mannheim Steamroller really loud and she will get some neighbor nostalgia back. ;) 

No Air

Two songs:

No Air
She's An Angel

These two are both running through my head. TMBG is beating out Sparks n Brown, by a lot. The only thing they really have in common is lyrics that overlap with the title of this post.

Today, I went to put air in the tires of my car. It got cold, and it became time for the Yearly Yuck. (There are lots of Yearly Yucks, but this was the one I was going to tackle today.) It was 22 degrees on Monday, so I didn't do it then. Tuesday, it was 24 degrees and I still didn't want to do it. Today, I decided I would go at lunch. I was on my way home, and I failed to stop at the first gas station I saw. (A fatal mistake, in terms of the eliminating the Yuck plan.) I thought, "I need to go to the bank, so I'll just go to the gas station closer to home and then go a block down the road to the bank after."

Well, I'm telling you, it was a fruitless endeavor, because where I live is a giant construction zone, and apparently they dug up the bank in the last month without me noticing, and due to the subsequent construction all the parking at the gas station was full. Not only that, but the air was "out of order." I'm cursed with Out of Order signs on air compression machines when I need them most. I'm not kidding. This is at least the third time this has happened to me in the five years I've had my car.

I don't like filling my tires up with air. When I have a Mr. Darcy, I will bat my eyelashes or make some otherwise prohibited treat or do something in exchange, but he will handle the air tire car thing. Always, because:

1. it's cold and my hands always freeze up and it makes getting the little caps off hard, and then I always drop them and they squiggle away from me.
2. it's at a gas station. I don't like gas stations.
3. I'm vulnerable. I'm bending down and it would be easy for someone to run me over or come up and bop me on the head or something.
4. the air is always out of order!!
5. pulling out the little air thing is always awkward and I worry I will run out or yank the tube off.
6. it must be one of the only quarter-driven things left in the US. (I have quarters. but still!)
7. I always worry that i'm not using my gauge correctly and I will over/under fill as a result.

Lots of reasons not to like it. But mostly I'd gotten my gumption up to actually do the Yuck, and then I couldn't even take care of it, which made it even Yuckier! Sigh. And now it's still hanging over me, so I still have No Air.