A Wednesday night surprise	January 24, 2008

In the middle of the day yesterday, I got an e-mail from Steve saying, “Hey, WaPo says Kimya Dawson is playing for free at a teensy record store in Adams Morgan tonight. Wanna go?” And I write him back and I say, “Hells, yeah, fool!” For those of you who are unfamiliar, Kimya Dawson is the former lead singer of the Moldy Peaches, whose music makes up more than half of the now Oscar-nominated Juno soundtrack. I thank K-Co for introducing me to her on a mix tape many years ago. She has found a loyal follower in myself, and by extension, Steve.

But she’s all famous now, so when we arrived for the show—30 minutes before the start time—the venue was already at capacity and a line of hopefuls was starting to stream down the block (we’d heard a rumor that they might let a few more folks crunch in once the show started). In that 30 minutes before she arrived, the line lengthened and lengthened, all the way around the block. And when she did arrive, and saw (and pitied) all of us waiting out in the cold, she hopped up on a nearby stoop and performed a little outdoor show for us. She did three favorites from her latest solo album (“I like Giants,” “Tire Swing,” and “Loose Lips”) and three quick new children’s songs from her upcoming album for babies (one was about farts, one was about bears, and one was about body hair). She then went inside and performed her real show, for the folks who could get inside, which didn’t include us.

It was just cool. To stand out in the cold on the sidewalk in Adams Morgan with a bunch of strangers, all trying to be as quiet as possible so we could all hear, and craning our necks to make sure no cops were coming over to spoil our fun (we were totally blocking traffic). Sadly, I didn’t have my camera with me, so all we have is this blurry shot from Steve’s camera-phone. We should’ve also gotten a picture of our goofy goofy smiles. It was just a happy happy occasion.

Happy New Year!!	January 5, 2008

The end of the year was SO INSANE for me! My holiday travels were very fun (I’ve got pictures! I’ll share them soon). I got so see so many people in such a short window of time, and to give and receive a lot of fabulous gifts (this year, it seems, was the year of jewelry for me—yay)!

I’m kinda happy, though, to have returned to normal life. Work will be uber-stressful for the next few weeks, and it’ll be nice to have less going on in my non-work time. There are about a dozen movies out that Steve and I want to see, football is huge right now, and one of Steve’s Christmas gifts to me—Super Mario Galaxy for Wii—has brought me more joy than I even knew possible from a video game. Nice, relaxing bumming around while the weather is still crappy is what I’m all about for a few weeks.

2008 is shaping up to be a big travel year for me, though! In March, I hope to make my first trip to Las Vegas for my friend Sara’s wedding. In June, there will be Bonnaroo again, I’m sure. In August, I’ll be returning to Iowa for RLD’s wedding. Plus I hope to make a few more long-weekend trips somewhere in there. One will be to Sioux City/Omaha/Brookings to see my family and my friend Heather. The other will be the Rabbit’s first road trip, to Morgantown/Pittsburgh/Columbus to see my peeps in each of those towns. And I need to get my ass to NYC at least once.

Resolutions? Same old same old—to save money and to lose weight. I do want to get real about accomplishing both of these things, but the last thing I wanna do is compose windbag blog posts claiming that I’m really motivated and this year will be the year! Because I did that last year. And the year before. So… my New Year’s Resolution is to be true to myself.