well, that was pitiful

Six entries for Holidailies this year. How's that for sad? I'm reading entries from people complaining that they "failed at Holidailies" because they didn't write for 1 day or only had 20 posts. No, you didn't fail. I didn't even fail, despite my disappointment with my writing output

This year, I wanted Holidailies to be more about sharing than about racing to hit a number -- not just for me, for everyone. I told friends to go ahead and sign up and if they posted four times, that was four more times than they posted last month, and we'd have four entries to enjoy reading. Still, I was hoping I'd write more than I did. We didn't even have prompts for the last few days of Holidailies because I couldn't think of anything else and felt tired of brainstorming ideas.

Sadly, this website is at the bottom of the priority list when I'm writing, even during Holidailies. Freelance always comes first, but even the dishes took precedence over this site this time. I would like to do more personal writing. I took extra time off between jobs this year in the hopes of doing more personal writing, but I never found my groove.

favorite non-film photos of 2009

I recently wrote an article for Slackerwood about my favorite Austin movie-related photos that I took in 2009. It was lots of fun, and now I am sitting here wondering: what are my favorite photos that aren't related to movies? I am digging through my Flickr account to find out.

And, goodness me, I sure do take a lot of film-related photos. I want to pick out the non-film ones, and I have to remind myself: zombies at a red-carpet movie event are film related, photos of venues that are used during film festivals are film related, photos of my Slackerwood colleagues ... you get the idea.

But here are my favorite so far that aren't film related. Not much, anyway.

who is that crazy Catholic chick?

[Note: I started writing this about two weeks ago, when it was actually timely. So just pretend you're reading this before Christmas, when the stores were full of the relevant items.]

I grew up Catholic. Well, it happened to a lot of us. According to the Catholic church, I am probably "lapsed." although I suppose some of the things I've written might be sufficient to get me to "excommunicated" if anyone cared. I don't. I consider myself an ex-Catholic, and anyone who insists otherwise is in risk of receiving a very dirty look indeed. In fact, I have been disgusted with some of the things the Catholic Church has done in recent years that seem more political or holier-than-thou and less in line with the charitable acts from the New Testament.

I spent 12 years in Catholic schools, went to Mass every week during that time, and some things just stick in your head. I remember my English teacher from my senior year in high school, who made us read James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, telling us about the author.
"He thought he'd given up being a Catholic, but you can see in his writing here that it's just not true. YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE, no matter what you might think," she warned us ominously. She was an ex-nun and still a devout Catholic. My mental response was two words long and rebellious. I'd leave the church if I wanted. I'd write about what I wanted. So there.

feast #2

My husband and I have been together for seven Thanksgivings. We've spent the last six of them together; the first, in 2003, he went to visit family and I stayed home and watched The Wild Bunch for the first time and ate pizza. If you're going to do Thanksgiving by yourself, that's the way to do it. Over the years, we've visited his family or mine, and had one or two Turkey Days at home, going out to somewhere like Hill's Cafe for dinner.

We had decided last year that it might be good to make a habit of going to my parents' house for the holiday, since they are so disappointed that we don't visit at Christmas, and it was a good compromise. But this year, all the women in my family were going to NYC to see my new sister-in-law perform with the Rockettes ("my brother married a Rockette" is one of the greatest conversation starters ever), and no one was planning anything fancy.

So C. and I decided that we would stay home this Thanksgiving, especially since we had a vacation planned fairly close to the holiday and didn't want to miss any more work time. I looked into the possibility of taking a short trip with a B&B, figuring that no one goes to, say, Fredericksburg for the Thanksgiving holiday, and boy was I wrong. Turns out tons of people go to San Antonio and Fredericksburg and Wimberley to shop and such. Fine.

feast #1

Normally I don't like office potlucks. I'm not a fabulous cook and I don't feel like making time on a weeknight to get to the store and buy ingredients and cook something, or even to cop out and buy pre-made brownies or salad in the bag or my favoriie potluck compromise, fancy cheese and sliced baguettes and crackers. I've been to office potlucks where two of us brought salad and mine was left untouched, where no one bothered to bring an entree, where someone decided that frosting was an acceptable thing to bring.

But this was an unusual week. Several of us had worked on a big project together in a short timeframe: putting together materials for a divisional meeting, creating in fact an entire working board game to get coworkers to provide feedback on certain issues, refining Powerpoint presentations and handouts and all kinds of things. My previous boss had not allowed me to work on these kinds of tasks because she felt I wasn't any good at brainstorming or creativity. My current boss thought I would be good at it, encouraged me, and he was right -- and I enjoyed myself in the process. Immediately after the meeting, praise came in from higher-ups, and I was feeling very confident about my skills and my future.

here I am, again

So I took a deep breath and looked around me and it was already Day Two of Holidailies, and go go go, I'm the damn owner of the site, can't I even post anything at all? But I have a very vocal to-do list in my head and it calls to me: one interview to transcribe, two reviews to write, at least three presents to buy since remember, you've got to get them in the mail by Saturday and imagine what the post office will be like on Saturday, I don't want to think about it, I will be in denial. And have I made the appointment yet to have my hair cut? I have not. Or to have the oil changed? Denial, denial, we need a holiday carol for denial.

My arms are still feeling noodly from my early-morning training session at the gym and I really could have used an extra hour of sleep and I am rushing to make lunch and check that I paid our credit-card bill and reassure the Slackerwood contributors that the press screening we are all excited to attend is on Thursday, not Friday, my mistake, and don't forget the kitty litter box and the vitamins and hey, why not wash some grapes for an afternoon snack? and oh, crap, when did it get to be 9:20 am and isn't it a bad idea to be late for a 9:30 meeting in your first month of employment? Give the husband a quick hug on the way out and tell him you aren't sure what time you'll be home, it could be 6 pm or 10 pm, see you then, sweetie.