Dianna's Inconsequential Year in Review

My Lame Year-End blog post -  Hurrah!

I’m not nearly the prolific blogger some others are, but I occasionally have some nuggets of humour and truth. I’ve read over most of my entries for the year (it is REALLY slow at work), and here are some of the highlights of 2009.


January
- I still get a little misty, reading over my blog entry about New Leaf’s production of “Touch”. “..I told her I was so sorry for being so out of sorts, and she just held me and stroked my head while we fell asleep…”

February
- The photographic evidence of my annual “slip and fall on the ice”. This year’s was a doozy. Well, actually every year is usually bad, but I had a trusty iPhone to take my embarrassing pictures, so maybe this year’s just FELT worse. Who knows.

March
- One of my favorite entries of the year – taking a personal topic and putting something shitty I did out into the wide open. And while the results aren’t what I’d like, it’s not for me to push the issue. It’s certainly better than it WAS and that alone is wonderful.
- Also in March, I chronicled my stupid month-long healing process from my slip on the ice. I should be put into incubation whenever I sprain something – I’m just a danger to myself in the healing process.

April
- Hahahaha! My entry about my root canal! Hilarious!

May
- The blog entry where I take the date of my father’s death and kick it to the curb. Love it.

June
- Ah yes… the “Sara decided she doesn’t want to move to Florida” post.  It still bums me out a little. Mostly because it's sub-zero temperatures right now.

July
- Wow…. July I was on a roll with the political rants:
        o My own personal health care costs
        o My thoughts on the arrest of Professor Gates
        o And then my disgust at the Birthers movement. Blech.

- I did, however, have some enjoyable times, like our trip to NYC. One of my best times all year. Loved that vacation. Best part was that Sara had never been, so I was able to experience the city again through her eyes. And it was July and MILD fer crissakes. It was a miracle.

August
- Anniversary post wherein I make an amusing parralel between photography and the steadfastness of a relationship. I know, I'm a nerd.
- Saying goodbye to Teddy Awful. 'nuff said.

September
- I appear to have opened a show that month? I have a couple of blog posts about lack of sleep as well as trying to not eat a million things during tech week

October
- My most prolific month of the year – 12 whole posts!!!! That’s an average of more than 2 a week! (hahahaha) Anyway, I am particularly fond of my post with the pic from my Bro’s wedding. I still think I looked smokin’ in that dress.

November
- Love this post about a poster that Jenn had when we were in college.

December
- And then I round out the year with my take on the utterly depressing and absolutely magnificent film version of “The Road”

2010 hopes to be a year of some changes. Sara and I are moving to a smaller (cheaper) apartment, with the motive of saving as much money as possible for a down payment for a house. We have some neighborhoods in the city that we like, and we think we’ll be able to snatch a good foreclosure or short sale property and get some bang for our limited bucks.

Many babies on the horizon…. Sara’s sister is currently pregnant with twin boys, so we’ll have nephews coming out of our EARS (When they’re born, that’s “Nephews 5 – Nieces 0”, not that we’re keeping count). Plus, our great friends Mace & Thales are expecting a baby girl in early summer. Hooray for lesbians having babies!!!

Sara will be entering year 2 of college – with the added bonus of having more responsibilities at work (she got a big raise & promotion a couple of months back). I’m sure it’ll be stressful, but with someone as charming as ME at home, how could it be all bad???

I artistically start off the new year on an incredible high note…. We open “The (edward) Hopper Project” on 1/15. All signs point to awesomeness on this one.

I have a couple of other possible artistic ventures in my pocket, but until they’re definite, I’ll just keep them there in my pocket.

In a little over a month I’ll be 35. I haven’t had any problems with that number until very recently. And it’s not even really a problem, more like an itch in the center of my back that I just can’t get to. I mean, time marches on, so what…. I just want to be sure I’m doing things I love to do and spending time with people I love to spend time with. Period.

So a toast to 2009, and a tip of the hat to the coming 2010.

Really???

Yesterday, in the comments section of Don’s blog, I was referred to as a “foul-mouthed fatty from Boston”.
That is such an accurate depiction of me, I’m really not sure I can pissed off at it.
(although “fatty” is a tad harsh… I prefer “tubby” personally)

Hopper's got a poster

As I head off into the holiday season, I bring this FREAKING AWESOME PICTURE.
(set your calenders folks, Hopper opens in 24 days)

poster design by Regan Davis

Back in the saddle again....

So I kind of took a flying leap off the Weight Watcher wagon over Thanksgiving. It was a whole week of trying our best but failing miserably to say no to everything.

"wanna go out for dinner?" "sure!"

"want some more sweet potatoes?"  "Sure!"

You see the pattern here....
Anyway. I gained back a little bit of what I had lost. Then it was hard to get on the wagon again, as it were. So here I am, almost a month after my last RECORDED weigh in, and I finally shed off the few pounds I put back on AND came out the other end with another pound and a half lost. Best part? it FINALLY put me over the 30 pound threshold. Woo hoo!!!!! (check out the updated tracker to the right--> )

It was a little depressing trying to get back into it over the last few weeks, but I just did the best I could and finally have some positive things - hooray!

Now, Christmas is looming. However, it is just a 2 day bump in the road as opposed to a 10 day gluttonous road trip. And honostly, after our 8 hour christmas cookie baking session at Sara's mom's last weekend, I don't want to see another christmas dessert or sweet for a LONG time.....

amen.

"You have to keep carrying the fire"

Back in October, I posted how excited I was to see the upcoming movie version of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-Prize masterpiece, The Road.

So, on Monday night, Sara and I got our tickets and sat in a quite empty theatre (thank god) and beheld the depressing tale. I actually warned Sara in advance, as she hadn't read the book - I told her it was pretty depressing, and if she wasn't interested, I'd understand. She was all for it.

The movie is (overall) very loyal to the book - I only spotted maybe one or two things out of place (tiny) , plus the expansion of the wife character while not in the book was actually pretty welcome. The juxtaposition of the wife, who would do anything to get away from the apocalypse, and the husband who would hear of nothing but trying to survive it, it helped really show both sides, and makes you contemplate - in that situation what would you do? Would you give up, or would you always have one thread of hope?
The loyalty to the book was tested in one haunting scene. The book describes, in morbid detail, the Man discovering a wealth of half-eaten bodies in the basement of a home. The thing is these "people" are still alive (gotta keep the meat alive and fresh), and they have parts that have been hacked off one at a time to be eaten by the home owners who have resorted to cannibalism. I was so afraid they wouldn't show the scene in the movie, or back off it some and not give the full impact of what he had found. They didn't. It was haunting, visceral, bloody, and awful...and it had to be there.

There was so much I loved, it's hard to digest it all - my "cry" moment was after the Man made the thief strip down and give him all his clothes - and he left him there, shivering. The brutality of the moment was awful, and yet I also understood his reasoning for doing it.

Viggo is great, Charlize is surpisingly great and the boy is killer.
(there's also a couple of great cameos I had fogotten about - people who were transformed so well that I could only recognize them by their VOICE)

If you loved the book, you won't be dissapointed, I promise.

"I told the boy when you dream about bad things happening, it means you're still fighting and you're still alive. It's when you start to dream about good things that you should start to worry" - the Man

How Effing Exciting is THIS?

I mean come on, how often is it that the show you're working on has those cool BANNERS put up on the lightposts by the city? Well, when you're doing your show at the DCA, I guess that can happen!!!!
Hooray! I guess the only thing cooler is if you're Mary Jo Bolduc or Erin Orr, who are IN the picture and now have their FACES on those lampposts!!!!!

Outside....looking in.....

THIS to me is what Hopper will be all about.

(image from Rear Window, 1954)