Crazybananas

Every year it happens. I slowly stop posting as much to the blog. I fade away from Twitter and Facebook and my Google Reader. I should really just put it on my calendar. And yet, every year, I’m surprised when I realize I need a break from it all.

Though the interweb gives me so many good things, so much inspiration and happiness and joy, it can also tend to suck me in when I am needed elsewhere. And right now I am most definitely needed elsewhere.

This next month is full of exciting, incredible things. A first ever girlfriends vacation (and a first real trip away from Lucy). A baby shower for a good friend (and possibly a baby!). A family vacation to the beach. Seeing our new baby and finding out if it’s a boy or a girl. Life, man. It’s just nutso.

So, until mid-August, I’m out. Inspired by the lovely Gwen Bell I am taking a digital sabbatical. I’m closing down the Google Reader. I’m deleting TweetDeck from my laptop and my phone. Ditto with my Facebook app.

What will I be doing. Well, I’ll still be answering emails, as work and life insist on it. I’ll still check in to my IM once a day, but only for 20 minutes each time. I’ll occasionally post pictures to Flickr (which is linked to Twitter, so there may even be a Twitter update here or there). I will answer texts and phone calls. So I guess I’m not totally gone, just a bit harder to reach. Although, being hard to reach isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, if you need me, you can find me. And if it’s not worth the extra effort, you obviously didn’t need me that badly anyway.

Other things I intend on doing:

- Reading two novels.
- Make a storybook with Lulu.
- Spend countless nights/weekends swimming at the pool.
- Get in some much needed girlfriend time.
- Trade jokes with friends.
- Drink cherry limades.
- Laugh my ass off.
- Grow a new baby.
- Teach Lu to ride her two-wheeler.
- Have several movie nights.
- Do yoga weekly (or more…hopefully more!).
- Journal in a real book.
- Create something.
- Cross two things off my life list.

Until August, my lovelies!

Ready. Set. Live!

Last Thursday, after a cah-ray-zee couple of weeks, I was perusing Facebook when I saw my friend KT had entered a contest to win tickets to see the Flaming Lips in concert. I quickly texted her, “Just so you know, if you win those tickets, you are so taking me with you!” Her reply, “Haha, totally!”

After some silent wishes for good juju, she got the news. The tickets were hers! So followed an unexpected Friday treat, a night outside listening to amazing tunes, drinking delicious beverages and celebrating all around revelry.

By the last Lips encore, I was dead. So tired from the long day, and drained from the night out. But then Wayne came out an stage and made a speech. And every wall I have spent the past two months building, just came tumbling down.

My dad has cancer.

It feels strange to write that. To say it out loud. To read it.

He’s doing fine, always the optimist. And for the now the prognosis is good, so we all have every reason to be optimistic. We’re lucky to live in an age where cancer isn’t necessarily an immediate death sentence, and being a former cancer researcher himself, my dad has a knowledge of this disease that most people don’t.

But I hadn’t cried about it. It was like I was in a constant state of shock. Through the doctor’s visits and phone calls, it never really sunk in.

Until Friday night, when Wayne dedicated “Do You Realize” to a young band member whose dad had just died of cancer. And I just broke. I cried so hard, poor KT held my hand and hugged me. Crap, even the random guy next to me asked if I was okay.

The weird thing is, finally, I think I am.

Bruises cover her legs. Scraped up knees and shins. Toe and fingernails caked with dirt. Tear stains streaking down her face. Thumb in mouth. The poor kid hurts herself more than any other child we know. Skipping and jumping and twirling and falling. Good thing I can relate. The clumsy gene most certainly comes from me. So after the fifth injury of the day, we snuggle up under the covers, and just relax. And recover. Until the next time.

Song of the Moment - Get Better, Mates of State

The Jayhawks lost. The Teabaggers got all racist up in this piece. I somehow convinced myself the husband was coming home from a few days away this afternoon, when it’s actually tomorrow afternoon. Alex Chilton died. My brother cancelled his trip to KC, and I was really looking forward to seeing him, and his lovely family.

Basically it’s all “wamp wamp waaaammp” over here.

So here. Smile. Be happy. And be glad you’re not at home with H1N1 (like poor, poor KT).

1. First up, hula hoops! Dancing in the halls! And Zooey Dechanel, firmly cementing my ongoing girl-crush.

2. I booked my tickets to NYC in May! Can’t wait to see these lovely faces!

3. Yay for healthcare reform!
And a special “yay!” for my Rep. Dennis Moore who was the only Kansas legislator to vote for it. I so wish he wasn’t leaving Congress. (Also, thanks to my former Missouri representative, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver for voting yes.)

4. MGMT has a new album out…you can listen to it for free here.

5. And also, this.

The end.