New Music and the problem of aging

In Twitter conversation (hi, AnnieChristina!), I was introduced to a band with the unfortunate moniker of The New Pornographers. I promptly went to Bethany's fave, MySpace Music, heard a couple of song -- the first of which still sort of tingles in my toes -- then loped over to my old faithful, YouTube.

This is my initial review: Holy mackerel.

Now tell me that the harmonies didn't make your life a little happier. I know they made mine.

In a similar conversation via good ol' Facebook, this artist, Dustin Kensrue, was recommended to me (his wiki profile is pretty interesting, though he's no Dave Matthews. Seriously, DM reads like a novel).

Do you mind if I sidetrack for a moment?

The friend on Facebook who recommended Dustin Kensrue is a long time friend, as in, his father officiated my and Bryan's wedding more than ten years ago, and we attended their church, and this kid was one of my favorite people when I was twenty and he was eleven.

He's engaged.

... Engaged. My little eleven year old friend is twenty-two and engaged.

Every time I see a picture of him all grown up, I feel a bit jolted. What do you mean I'm not twenty anymore? What do you mean he's not eleven? For real? When did that happen?

He seems to have grown into a very lovely man. Knowing his parents, I'm not surprised, but it's sad that I missed it somehow.

Dude, when did I get so old?

Wuv according to Facebook

The latest Valentine's trend via Facebook is to post a picture of yourself and "your spouse or significant other" and note how long you've been together. My college friends tossed up pictures of themselves and their husbands and everyone is adorable and perfect. If I didn't actually like these people, I would hate them. But I do, so I don't.

Anyway, I thought, what the heck, I'll see what kind of pictures Bryan and I have together. You know, what we have from, say, the last year? What we have are a handful of photos of the four of us (courtesy of my mother-in-law, usually... Hi, Mom! Everyone say hi) and two pictures from our ten-year-anniversary weekend-away in Maine last year.

This one, in which I want to be killing him but am instead keeping us from driving off Cadillac Mountain:

          

And this one:

... in which Bryan set the timer on a rock further down and took the picture. We're tiny. If you zoom in (I have), my cleavage is impressive. You'd also note the book in my lap, which I read for much of our time in Acadia National Park while Bryan took a grazillion pictures of trees and rocks and grass. The book was not good, but it was still more interesting than standing around watching him while he was doing this.

For the record, I bore easily.

So, I dug a little deeper into our files. We have pictures of us with the kids, sure, a few from over the years, but there aren't many, and to be perfectly blunt, there are none of the two of us alone.

This is partly (think 80%) my fault; I hate having my picture taken. Most picture taken of me end up like this:

(and if they don't, the sentiment is the same)

I don't post on Facebook often, but this, I felt, was necessary. "There are no pictures of me and Bryan alone," I wailed (secretly relieved). Bryan, of course snarked that we had the above pictures from Maine, and then suggested I post this one:

It's the picture we used on our wedding invitations. We were cute.

One of Bryan's co-workers (who, rumor has it, is going to be inviting me, the little wife, out for a girls' night) commented, "Take one tonight and post it!"

Oh, Lord...

I'm a grown-up. I sucked up my issues and took out the camera. I took a couple of pictures of the boys and tried to catch one of Bryan rocking the (Rock Band) drums, but was, alas, unsuccessful. However, my three year old, who possesses more talent as a photographer than I do, caught one of me. One that I did not automatically delete. One that I will now post here. Because I'm growing as a person.

As for Facebook, I posted this:

It's not exactly current, but at least it's representative of us.

Plus I like Bryan's hair.

Does anyone remember...

I was going to ask if anyone remembers records, but they're coming back into style, so the question becomes ironic but in the way that makes me look oblivious, not cool.

Speaking of records, I had the "Annie" soundtrack when I was a wee punk.

I don't think I'd seen the movie at that point, but I owned the record. It was mine, and I loved it, then loved it again and even more once I had seen the movie.

Speaking of "Annie," my younger sister (I have five younger sisters) posts this as her Facebook status yesterday:

"Your never fully dressed without a SMILE!!!!! :)"

... That's a direct quote. Ahem.

So, I, being who I am, must quote back another line from "Annie," and, in order to do so properly, make sure to check the lyrics online first. Checking lyrics reminds me how much I loved this movie twenty-five years ago. This reminder sends me to Youtube. Youtube teases me with clips. Which leads us here, now, at this moment.

You know the delight -- and sometimes horror -- of watching and listening to something as an adult that thrilled you as a child? You know the feeling of finally understanding something that eluded you all those years ago? The jokes that you didn't get? The boring plot lines that you couldn't grasp why they were so funny to other people?

Friends, Loved Ones, Internet Strangers, being an adult takes "Annie" to a whole new level. A reeeeeally good one. I get it. I catch the nuances and subtleties. The boring parts are precious. I get it.

Like this. I thought this sequence was barely tolerable as a six year old. Now? I want to dance like this. all.the.time.

Now, to be fair to my kindergarten self, my love for Tim Curry began with "Annie," and even at such a young age, I knew enough to appreciate Carol Burnett. But Bernadette Peters!

This is the last one, I swear. It's just... I get it now!

Dude, being a grown-up rocks.

Hey, I found a loophole for inappropriate stories!

I was brought up very well. Some might say that I had a fairly idyllic childhood: two parents who (still) adore each other, one sister, one brother, all close in age, all of us best friends. We weren't just raised in the "church" but with prayer and the Word. Homeschooled, protected from evils, loved like crazy.

All this begs the question, where did I go wrong? No, wait: Where did Beth go worse? Do you know how much she likes to say "penis" and blog about penises? I mean, really. I'm not one to nickname a significant part of my sons' anatomies, so the word penis is mentioned around here (usually with something having to do with potties), but Beth is... worse.

The thing is, when Bethany's at home, we're on IM for hours every evening while she blogs, and we say these things to each other that we don't (I don't) say to other people, like, you know, in public. Turns out that this is a practice that's rather difficult to uncondition. Ahem. We say things that make our mother blush. No, seriously. Apparently she actually blushed in the diner the other morning when Beth said something (I didn't hear, unfortunately) about, of all things, vaginas. Poor Mom. I actually feel bad for her.

Case in point: as the kids (between our three families, we have about 125) were bedding down for the evening, we were biding time by watching "Knight Rider." Bryan was watching it; we were sitting there mocking it. I'm pretty sure that's what you're supposed to do, anyway. So, there's this shot in the scene of some wacked, random implement in the middle of the garage, just beyond KITT, and Bethany goes, "Wow, that was random." The scene cuts to the bad guys lowering identical wacked implement into their wacked implement thingy, and, ah, that explains that random shot.

My mouth opens and this pops out: "Scary phallic bomb."
Mom: "I'm going to work on my (Facebook) farm." She all but runs to her computer.
Bryan (laughing): "That's what they call a weapon of mass destruction."
Bethany: "That's what she said."

Bryan and I laughed so hard, I expect our neighbors filed noise complaints. I'm pretty sure Beth's only saving grace here is that Mom may not understand the joke. I'm hoping.

So anyway, kids, remember that no matter how good your upbringing, you can still go wrong if you spend too much time on that evil place they call "The Net." Also pray that I bite my tongue in time so I stop driving my mother from the room. Thanks.

Anonymity

Here you go. You ready?

My name is Jessica. I am 31. I am married and have been since 1999. I have two boys, and their names are Elijah and Asher. We live in Atlanta.

There. Who's reeling?

Let's strip off a little more, shall we? I have a few internet aliases which shall now be revealed so that those who might have stumbled upon me elsewhere might know me for who I am. Here they are: Punk, Chahhead, Jolliebell.

Hi. *wave* I'm Jessica. How's it going?

I need to be honest; that's what this comes down to. I need to be able to say the names of my boys and reference our setting and speak of myself in the third person if I so desire because sometimes, I so desire.

So, in all honesty, I swore I wouldn't open a blog until I finished writing my book(s), but I'm so burnt out, writing thousands of pages over the last nine and a half months, and I'm starting to turn my attention elsewhere, mostly Twitter, and my head is becoming full of things I wish to say but have no outlet from which to speak. Write. You know what I mean. Stop nitpicking.

For instance, I noticed lately that the statuses I post for Facebook and Twitter are never duplicates, one to the other. NEVER. And there's a reason for this: audience.

My husband -- whom we shall refer to as either Bryan or the Mister from here on because that's who he is -- once described Facebook as a big room of our friends and family, just hanging out and chatting (and farming... you know who you are). That's who my audience is there: friends and family. I post dorky things my kids have said or done and update those who live far away (everyone) about what's going on with us down here in the ATL (See? Like how I referenced where I live? Nice, right?). But I never post the more random thoughts that slip through my head. Those I save for Twitter.

I only have a small following, and most of those are either family or nearly-spammers (you know who you are), but I have a couple of people who follow me (whom I also follow) that are neither, and these tend to be the people I'm thinking of when I very carefully construct the tweets that I post. They're a different audience, and, in a way, I'm giving them a different character, another side of me than those on Facebook see. I'm not a mom & housekeeper & homeschooler; I'm a music snob & caffeine addict & writer. It's freeing in a way, but, in that same way, it's just another pigeon-hole.

Here, I'm laying it out. I'm all of me, and I'm not sure how well I'm going to do with that since I don't know who my audience is and I myself am still trying to figure out how all the pieces of myself fall together, what the whole picture looks like. But, in the meantime, I'm going to write as though you, the audience I someday might have, is seeking the whole picture.

Welcome.