The Anvil Tree

Who here has a Twitter?  And am I following you?  Are you following me?  D’ya wanna follow eachother?  Doesn’t that sound dirty?  TWEET ME.  Okay, that sounds dirty.  Anyway, you can find me here.

I’ve been waivering back and forth on the whole Twitter exposed thing.  I know that sounds stupid.  But there are times where I’ll be called on the carpet about something I’ve written.. or .. Tweeted.. Twit?.. anyways.. and I immediately lock it down.  But in reality?  That’s not the medium I use Twitter as.  If I’m private, then people have to request permission to read my Tweets.  And frankly?  I have nothing that I regret saying, so why should I care if anyone and their brother reads it?  Cause, you know, if they don’t like it?  THEY COULD JUST.NOT.READ.IT.

And I just LOVE the open community of Twitter.  I love following streams of people.. it’s how I’ve found most of the people I follow.. just hopping from @ reply to @ reply and learning about other users.  And if I get to one that I can’t read?  I write them off.  Sorry, but signing up for Twitter and then locking your shit down?  Dude, that’s not what the medium is for.

My humble opinion, obvsly.

***

Secondly, new post up over at Bodies in Motivation where I discuss celebrating the small victories in life.  ALSO, it talks about this fabulous idea of AndreAnna’s to keep ourselves accountable through a Flickr pool.  All about it, dude.

***

After having a fabulous lunch with my sister today, I went and seriously lusted over EVERYTHING at Mod Cloth.  If you don’t love most of those clothes, well, have your eyesight checked.  They are pure cute with a splash of cherry pie.  I especially love their accessories.  And dresses.  Hell, I love everything there.

And Ann Taylor Loft.  Their stuff is such great “staple” pieces that I could easily sink several hundred dollars there and be outfitted for the next several years.  Of course, that means I’d look really snappy at my divorce proceedings, cause my husband would NOT go for me sinking hundreds there.

***

I’m feeling very meh about So You Think You Can Dance this season.  Which is depressing me.  There’s been MAYBE one routine a week that just blows me away, but more often than not, it’s just one routine that I don’t hate as much as the others.  The one exception thus far was “The Butt Dance” by Mia Michaels, featuring my favorite Evan (I kinda know him.. through, like, the Kevin Bacon game!!) and the one dancer that has curves, Randi.

***
Lastly, I leave you with this.

Bryan had to leave town this week to do some business in HotLanta, and this morning, while I was getting ready in my bedroom, I heard Tony’s little voice coming from Jack’s room saying, “DaDa! DaDa!”

“No, Tony,” I called from my mirror. “DaDa is not here. You’re in JACK’s room. JAAAAACK.”

But he continued. “DaDa! DaDa!’

I finally gave in. “ALRIGHT, DaDa! What are you talking about?”

And he waddled in with this.

“Ohhhh,” I smiled. “Well, yes. This IS DaDa’s.”

“DaDa! Jewwwwwwce?” he was so proud.

I think Bryan may have a slight addiction. Then again, Tony can’t reach the wine fridge, so he couldn’t do this with Mommy’s jewwwwwwce.

So, let me just take a moment to talk about a recent passing that has severely affected me.

No, not Michael Jackson.  I mean, sure, icon and legend and all of that jazz.  But, really, to me he is always going to be that WEIRD guy.  This may make me callous and you may violently disagree with me, but in my mind, his fame and sphere of influence has been gone since the raid at Neverland.

Or even Farrah Fawcett.  As little as I cared about Jackson’s passing, I cared even less about Farrah’s.  I know this also makes me evil, but I was in that generation that knew nothing of her other than her hair came back into fashion a few years back.  And she had famous nipples.  But, can I say, that if you’re going to go, that ANAL CANCER may just be the more horrible way to die?  Yes, I do believe that having some parasitic amoeba eat away the inner intestines of your bowels might just be the one way I don’t want to die.  So my condolences and all that.

But yesterday?  FUCKING BILLY MAYS DIED.

I’m sorry; that was incredibly rude.

The LATE FUCKING BILLY MAYS DIED.

I have had a long running obsession with infomercials.  That doesn’t make sense, nor is it healthy for my bank accounts, but there you have it.  I love them.  LOVE THEM.  Maternity leave was like a godsend to me because I could spend sleepless days in front of court tv and sleepless nights in front of infomercials. 

Billy Mays was sort of a hero of mine.

I mean, think about it.  The guy had one talent: he could yell persuasively.  And he turned that into a multi-million dollar empire.  And he did it all with one shirt, my friends.  That?  That is talent.

Then, Discovery Channel FINALLY picked up on what I already knew: that Billy was a star.  He was featured in the new show, “Pitchmen”, alongside fellow infomercial genius Anthony Sullivan.  It showed how they picked their products to sell, and how genuine they really were.  They LOVED what they did, and they were good at it.  They were our modern day carnival barkers, and I loved it.

And now?  There is no more Billy Mays.  My heart is broken.  Our Everyman has fallen.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute.. you started training in April and ran a 5k in May?!”

I nodded, beaming.  It even astounded me. 

There was no good reason for me to pick up running.  I just decided that I wanted to do it.  So I did.

I get that from my mom.

My mom was constantly discovering new amazing talents that surprised even her.  One day, she got tired of spending good money on hair accessories for us.  She just hated that they never quite matched, and LAWD, they were expensive.  We didn’t always have that kind of money.  But she wanted her girls to look like we did.

So she started making hairbows.

And she was GOOD at it.  And not just good, but good enough that she started doing trade shows and church sales and made the rounds as “BowJangles”, and people LOVED her stuff.  My personal fave was a bow she made out of comic strips.  She was savvy enough to grab a dated comic strip (say, a birthday or an anniversary) and make a precious bow out of it.  She was Etsy before Etsy was invented.

Then we got older and she decided that she wanted to stay involved in other ways through our lives.  We were heavily involved in local theatre, and Mom didn’t sew or act or sing, so she sat out for a season or so until she found something she COULD do. 

So she decided to be a graphic designer.

And she was GOOD at it.  I mean, really good.  She designed most of the posters for the shows we performed in, as well as the programs and often the tickets.  She had an uncanny knack for unusual color combinations, and made stock clip art look hand-drawn and unique.  She educated herself at home, through books and online courses, and now she’s in high demand for her artistry in graphic design.

My mother has this amazing skill for just deciding she wants to do something and becoming insanely proficient at it.  Sure, this may apply itself in odd forms .. growing up, Zelda was a source of disdain because the tv was off-limits until Mom had solved the damn game .. but for the most part, it resulted in beautiful and ethereal creations that, to this day, I am grateful and amazed to have witnessed.  And incredibly jealous that I cannot replicate.

But the zest for succeeding?

I get that from my mom.

Happy Birthday, Mommy Dearest.  You are everything an Italian mother should be, with a dose of southern grace for good measure.  Thank you for everything you’ve given me and my family.  I hope this birthday is the best yet, but overshadowed by the ones to come.  I love you.

(My mom reads this blog religiously.  It would be AWESOME if everyone could visit here .. even from the feed reader .. and wish her a happy birthday in the comments.  She would be ecstatic!)(Also, tell her how awesome her daughter is.)(No, ME, not the other daughter.)