stuckbetweenStations.

From the back of the record: 

“In the summer of 1970, the Velvet Underground played an extended engagement at the renowned New York restaurant club focal point, Max’s Kansas City. One night during that summer, Brigid Polk, a long time friend and fan of the Velvets, brought a cassette recorder to Max’s to preserve a typical performance for herself. This record is a distillation of the cassette Brigid made that night…this album stands as the exciting and valuable record of a special group at a special moment in time and space.”

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Loving records really means you love live sound. I’ve got a live Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers record where he spends the first three minutes of “Stop Dragging my Heart Around” verbally castrating an ex. A Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young LP that was recorded right before Young split. The tension is thick & the stage conversations are authentically awkward. And now, I have this-a glimpse at a band during a time recorded by a girl who loved them. It’s got Lou Reed’s banter throughout & some pretty fantastic chatter happening throughout “Pale Blue Eyes,” which is my favorite track. The line “linger on” never sounded so strong. Heartbreak on stage contrasts just a bit too sharply with casual audience conversations.

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Most importantly, it’s preserved. Time can’t touch it. A girl hits record on a cassette recorder on a hot NYC night in the summer of ‘70 & because she did that, I have this: an honest to God time capsule to a band I’ll never see & hear the way folks did back then. It’s more than the music, here. These tracks are familiar. But this night is not. This night, with its unique fuzz & static, stranger conversations and an obviously comfortable crowd with Lou Reed-isms throughout—“Some people have no heart, and they don’t care what they do to you at all”—comes right before they go into “Femme Fatale,” which is an audience request. This night is the only one of its kind.

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Every sound has a story & these, on this record, tell much more than a polished printed record in its thousandth run through distribution ever could. Have got to believe that this is what record players were made for. 

While Dirty Myrtle has never looked this lovely a day in its coastly life, this photo sure serves as a kind reminder that in just two short days-I’ll be with one of my best friends in the world, in front of a body of water, eating fresh seafood with no silverware & absolutely nothing else on my mind except her sweet company & how pretty life is, out of town & near an ocean.

Makes this monstrous to-do list seem all sorts of possible, really. 

(via mean-streak)

I’m about 100 pages into this right now & though I was hesitant at first as it is written by a doctor & has a plethora of body organ digestive diagrams, I really love it. I went without meat a few years back & in place of it, ate mostly processed, mostly terrible foods. Every time I’ve ever tried to quit my affair with breads & grains, I’ve always gone creeping back thanks to hunger pangs and clear withdrawl symptoms. 

So far, I can tell you that Dr. Fuhrman isn’t really about dieting. There are no clever tricks here, no cheat days, no comfortable compromises. He teaches first about what our bodies were meant to digest & consume. This part has been my favorite part so far. Had no idea the way our brain plays such a role in determining what we eat and how much of it we eat and even where it goes when we eat it.

Then, after the obvious harrowing obesity statistics and the relatively dry explanation of what our bodies physically do to what we eat-especially when we eat garbage, he comes to make a pretty simple point—

Eat natural food the way it was created. Eat pounds of it. Literally. Pounds. Every day. Raw vegetables. Steamed vegetables. Fruits. And that’s it.

I’ve been creeping into it slowly. Because I want to finish the book before I make any permanent eliminations or changes to what goes in my body. And, because it’s a hell of a change. Not because it’s crazy or impossible, either, but because it requires me to kill the excuses and do the thing that’s so obviously right for my body.

I can say that, so far, killing the breads & replacing them with vegetables works. I can also say that nixing the meat down to one meal or no meals a day also works. By works, I mean I feel better-cleaner, if you can get down with that word-than I ever have. And that makes me want to keep reading.

All I want in 2012.

(Source: divisionxvi, via mean-streak)

After a very late Saturday night with the girls at the Tavern, I woke up this morning with two very distinct options for this Sunday.

1. Give in, stay jammified, & engage in a full fledged addiction-based viewing of all things Battlestar Gallactica. (Frack Yes).

2. Get the groceries on my list, and then take the pretty plump Miss Tulip for a run through the Sandhills Hiking Trail at Sesquicentennial State Park. 

Most of my life, I’ll admit, I’ve been an option 1 girl. But not lately. I’ve wanted different, and I’ve worked to get different. And now, different works for me. 

Packed up a bag of berries & some farmer’s market homemade granola & took Miss Tulip for what has got to be one of her favorite days in her whole life. She was elated, yall. That tail wags pretty steadily, but this was ridiculous. We made quick time & it wasn’t until we were nearly done that I realized I’d just run about 95% of the two miles without stopping. We both hadn’t noticed. The park was, of course, beautiful & the weather was January warmish-I kept my hoodie on for most of the two mile trek through the forests & woods, down past the waterfalls & around the lake. As I dried her off to get her water dog self back in my car & head home, Tulip began to cry. I assured her, and myself, that we’d be back awful soon.

And we will. I’m confident that place is good for the soul.

These are Allegorical Children’s books that my students created using all twenty of the elements of Fiction we’ve studied this year. They built the books themselves after creating Allegories Dr. Seuss himself would envy. I have students who created Allegories on The Cold War, Pearl Harbor, and the Civil Rights Movement. 

I always know when I hit the kid jackpot when all they want to talk about-in my class, in other classes, to their friends, to their parents, is what we’re doing in Language Arts class. And this morning, on the due date, I walked into our hallway to be bombarded by eager eyes & loud mouths shoving gorgeous creations in my hands. That was 7:20 am, and the day has only improved since then.

Seven years, and they still manage to surprise me. I really love them for that.

Have taken the infatuation I had with my Body Combat class at the gym to an all out love fest via personal training sessions at a Boxing gym nearby. I never even knew the place existed. It’s small, with more punching bags than people & quite the collection of inventive fitness materials. Think sledgehammers, monster tires, and enormous ropes. Found out recently that it was started by someone who struggled & came into his own via the sport itself. Wanted to provide reasonably priced training for those of us who derive great pleasure from beating things down. Fighting back, if you will. 

It’s been about a month & the busted knuckles are finally healing up from my first rounds with open palm gloves on. Since then, I’ve acquired my very own pair of closed palm Everlast gloves (which were not easy to come by-the fellow at the store had a hard time believing I didn’t need Youth gloves and then, that I didn’t need pretty pink women’s gloves) that I can only put on and take off alone with my teeth. This is a classy sport. 

But it isn’t really about that. All the minutes I spend there do my heart a world of good. I have figured some things out in the hundreds of punches I throw in those four walls. What started as an intentional distraction from things in my world I have no control over has taken a quick turn to a weapon for self-preservation. I only have to focus on my body. Where my fist lands, the way my foot pivots, where my weight sits and how much I feel it when I hit something. I feel it long after my session ends. Physically, sure. But mentally, too. My focus is strong & clear, my mood is bright & I’m inching right on back to the optimistic girl I once was. And, because I’ve paired this change with a switch to mostly natural foods, my body is changing too. I’m getting well, yall.

All I wanted when 2012 began was for it to be its own year. I wanted different. I wanted better. Learning to fight has given me a path to that change, and I’m grateful.