Art, music, truth, life, travel, books, target practice, wit, knowledge, good one-liners, shoes, cashmere sweaters, cowboy boots, Ireland, bicycling, and lots of other cool stuff, such as...
My new Harley. It's an '06 Softail Deluxe.
Staying up too late on "a school night."Having an adventure.
Learning something new.
Enjoying good friends and cold beers.
Laughing all the way to my innards.
Dancing, especially two-steppin', but I'm growing ever fonder of a nice waltz or a polka.
Admiring people, being admirable, and being admired. (Those are all very different.)
Speaking my mind.
Being understood.
Falling asleep with my dogs.
Listening to rain on a metal roof.
Being right...not just in my mind, but empirically.
Playin' outside...in my garden or otherwise.
Seein' a plan come to fruition.
Loving and being loved...cheesey, but true.
Working out, doing yoga, eating well, and having a good drink...Seek balance in all things, my friends, because life's no fun without vices.
I'd like to meet:
People who see both the trees and the forest. Down-to-Earth folks. People who live with integrity and honesty. Driven people and success stories. Folks who wanna go riding with me as I'm learning to ride my new Harley. Good conversationalists. Anyone who can make me laugh. Folks who take calculated risks. Readers with lives. Drinkin' buddies and dance partners. Funny, sarcastic, witty, smart, incandescent people. True friends and people who know the value of true friendship.
People who are up for hijinx, with or without the concomitant shenanigans.
People who are kind and generous.
People who are consistent, who act the way that they feel, who say what they mean, and who don't bullshit themselves or others or play stupid-assed mindgames. People who can teach me good stuff.
People who deserve, demand, and show respect...and it's gotta be all three. People who exercise, take care of themselves, and make the most of what they have.
Most importantly, I'd like to meet people who don't waste my time. I don't think it's possible to stress that enough. Life's too damn short.
Oh...and because life is so short, it would be really nice if I could meet a bazillionaire who would be willing to put his/her private fleet of planes and helicopters and ships at my disposal. That would be rad. If you know anyone...you know...hook me up! Thanks in advance. You're a peach!
Music:
Classic country (Hank, Merle, Buck, Willie, Leona, Dolly, Loretta, Lefty, Bob, Patsy, George, Charley, Ray...you know...CLASSIC country.) is just about all I listen to anymore, but I was raised on punk rock and new wave, so I also like stuff that's loud, stuff that's depressing, and pretty much anything that rocks and/or rolls or makes me tap my toes. I mostly like music that doesn't suck. Oh, and ABBA. ABBA rules. (Shut up.)
My local favorites include Miss Leslie and her Juke Jointers, Teri Joyce (and the Tagalongs), Roger Wallace, Bear and the Essentials, The Stepsiders, Gary Claxton, Justin Trevino, Redd Volkaert, Dale Watson, Sunny Sweeney, Brennen Leigh, Jesse Dayton, James Hand, Billy Dee, Shaun Young, The Derailers, Two Hoots and a Holler, Asylum Street Spankers, Heybale!, Country Jim and his Country Gems (Miss Leslie's daddy...check him out!), Lonesome Dave Fisher, Miss Lauren Marie, Amber Digby, the Horton Brothers, and anyone else who's keepin' real country alive and well, especially if they're playin' gigs around these parts, so I can get my honky-tonk on.
Thank goodness that I'm in Texas, where places like Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon (Austin), The Broken Spoke (Austin), The Poodle Dog Lounge (Austin), Ego's (Austin), The Continental Club (Houston and Austin), Gruene Hall (Gruene), the Luckenbach ice house and dancehall (Luckenbach), Blanco's (Houston), and other venues are still supporting the live roots, rockabilly, and country music scenes as actively as they are, so I get to see it done right at least a few nights out of every week.
Movies:
I recently watched Easy Rider all the way through, and I have to say that I loved the movie, but that ending...DAMMIT! I'm a sucker for riding off into the sunset, and that one just kinda left me feeling sad and a bit shellshocked.
Beyond that, I like anything directed by Mike Leigh, except the one with all the crying chicks, and some movies by Jim Jarmusch, but not Coffee and Cigarettes. Wes Anderson's films. Anything with Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, or Cary Grant. Old westerns. Most sci-fi and fantasy (my inner geek demands it!). I'm even comfortable enough with my coolness to say that yes, indeed, Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies rule. I love movies. I couldn't possibly make a list of favorites. It would change daily. I'm like that. Funny, romantic, absurd...whatever. I also like period dramas, chick flicks, and stupid, stupid movies like Anchorman, Wedding Crashers, and Dodgeball. Stupid funny is still funny. Let there be no doubt.
Television:
I'm addicted to The Amazing Race and the Discovery Channel. Lately, the only shows I watch with any regularity are Traveler (If you haven't seen it yet, you oughta...it's actually really good for a network series!), The Tudors (Showtime really did some good work with this one...and I'm a period show junky, and I am a bit of a Tudor history buff/dork, so...yeah.), Entourage (another great HBO series), Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (Yes...I cry every time. I'm such a sap!), and...that's about it. I don't have much time for TV. I'd rather be out on the town. That said, I loved the Sopranos, and I never missed an episode. I have to say that the ending to that series was just about the lamest ending I've ever seen to a series. The writer and anyone else who's responsible for that steaming pile of crap should be shot in the kneecap...Soprano-style. That show was awesome on many levels, and it deserved way better than that.
Books:
On a strong recommendation, I'm currently reading Sterling Hayden's memoir, Wanderer, and it's brilliant stuff. I'll gladly pass along that recommendation with my wholehearted endorsement. I just wish I had more time for reading, but the term will be over soon, and I'll get back to it then. In the meantime, it's a lot of stuff about structural family therapy, which is interesting, but hardly inspirational.
I had this great section written, and it's disappeared...it said something about loving nineteenth-century Birtish novels, particularly those by George Eliot (especially Romola, Adam Bede, and Scenes of Clerical Life), and mid-century, misogynistic male writers like Kingsley Amis (Lucky Jim) and Evelyn Waugh (Decline and Fall). I also read a lot of Tom Robbins, and his Still Life with Woodpecker is one of my all-time favorite books. I seriously think I've read it half a dozen times.
I love tons of poets, but Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay are my two faves. Parker, because she's got a sassy style that reminds me of myself and makes me laugh, and Millay, because she reminds me that nothing that we'll ever think or feel is truly unique. It's all been thought or felt before...her Renascence is absolutely amazing, and Interim blows me away, but First Fig and Second Fig are gems in their own rights. Funny story: When my ex-husband and I got married, I had selected one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnets to use as my toast for my future ex. Instead, out of my mouth came this:
Second Fig
SAFE upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
Now...as appropriate as that sentiment is for my overall philosophy on life and my tendency to fly by the seat of my pants through much of life's adventure, even the most jaded of you can probably concede that it was not exactly a fitting toast for newlyweds. Ah...the power of the subconscious!
I once heard a horrid hippie wannabe beat poet in San Francisco, who insisted on bastardizing one of Millay's poems into a truly craptacular folk song at some coffee house. If I'd shot him, which I sorely wanted to do when I realized that I could never hear that poem in its pure form again, I think I coulda gotten off from the murder rap, 'cause he had it coming.
I'll try to recreate my previous brilliance at some point in the future, but chances are that the muse has abandoned me.
Heroes:
This section got eaten too, but it said basically that my hereoes are:
People who invent or create things.
People who live their lives on their own terms, getting what they need, doing what they must for themselves, without unnecessarily or intentionally hurting others.
People who are human and who are not afraid of owning that and embracing their humanity, warts and all.
People who see both the urgency in life and the need to slow down and are able to balance the two.
And there are many others, much more specific, and they probably already know who they are.
