I Attempt Becoming a "Morning Person"

I once read an article about Tiger Woods in which he stated that gets up at 4:30a.m. every morning and that this simple act contributes greatly to his success. Golf success. Not cheating on his wife success. Which obviously was, depending on how you look at it, not a success.

I have never been a "morning person." I jokingly told Tariq the other day that in my ideal world, I am the last person to go to sleep and the last person to wake up. "So, basically, you would like to be a princess."

I am what I am.

Unfortunately, be it due to age or otherwise, I can no longer be productive when I stay up late and these pesky children and day job require that I get up in the morning. The resulting conundrum being that while I am the last one to sleep, I am now the second to wake up, courtesy Tariq's bedside service of a scalding cup of coffee every morning. This results in my being tired -- all the time.

Furthermore, while there was once a time where I could knock out thousands of words and tens of spreadsheets at the midnight hour, I now find myself in the regrettable position of watching hours and hours of "Cold Case Files" reruns. Not the documentary, but the show. It was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Shut up, it's good. That part at the end when one of the cops waves to the ghost of the murdered person gets me every time.

Anyway, the point is I can't hack it, this staying up late. Also, I want to be like Tiger Woods. Not the cheating on your spouse with strippers part. Just the "exceptional at what you do" part.

Today, I woke up at 5:20a.m. For those of you who are self righteous morning people, you know who you are, may I clue you into the life of someone who is a not a "morning person" who is attempting to be a morning person? The alarm blares. The sickening feeling that it's time to get up washes over you. Is it really time to get up? You glance at the clock and realize you are up about ninety minutes earlier than normal. It's still dark outside. The world feels empty. Too empty. There is no chatter. There is no light. There is no... coffee.

And what, pray tell, will you do with that extra ninety minutes? Write a novel? Make a spreadsheet of supplies needed to climb Mt. Everest? Let's just start with reading the instructions on the bag of coffee grounds. Two tablespoons to every six ounces of water? That seems excessive. The coffee is made and now there are precisely eighty two minutes left to kill.

Make that seventy two.

Outside my bedroom window. I am up before the sun. This feels all wrong. Especially because this photo is on its side. Whatever. At least, I'M AWAKE. 

My Surfing Will Go On and On...

Whenever I'm at my laptop and Tariq heads to bed, he looks at me very seriously, "Now, promise me you'll go to bed soon."  It reminds me of the scene in Titanic where Leo says, "You're gonna go on, Rose, and you're going to die an old lady, happy and warm in her bed, but not like this... not this night, not here.. do you understand me?"

Lyrical Life

You know what I love more than music?

Lyrics.

Sometimes they make me laugh.  Or think.  Or cry.

There's this song that reminds me of a woman from my childhood named Helen.  She was our nanny.  A sassy Southern lady, who now that I think of it may have played for the home team, Helen is most likely the reason I will often say "yer" instead of "your" or "ain't" instead of "isn't."  Don't look so surprised, it happens way more often than you may think.

Anyway, long after Helen stopped being our nanny, she was in our lives.  She drove to Daytona from Bartow, Florida for every birthday, milestone, graduation and often for no reason at all.  I always meant to drive over and see her, but I never got around to it.  Even years after I had a driver's license, I always found something better to do than drive over to boring Bartow.

A little while after my twentieth birthday, my dad called me from the office and gently broke it to me that she had been killed in a car accident the day before.  I will never forget that moment.  As soon as my dad told me, I screamed.

I actually fell down.  Just like in the movies.

I went to her funeral a few days later.  That was the day that I realized that it's more than just a trite little saying.  Life really is too short and, no, you never do know.

When someone said count your blessings now

'Fore there long gone,

I guess I just didn't know how

I was all wrong

But they knew better

You said you'd stay forever

And ever

Who knew?

-- Pink, "Who Knew"

Winter Sky Over the Mississippi River

Local Spirit

You've probably heard about the benefits of buying "local" produce just as much as I have.  Which is a lot.

There are loads of arguments that are convincing.  They have to do with health, economy, the environment and unicorns living forever.

Since our move to Memphis, we've been visiting the Memphis Farmer's Market every Saturday and buying interesting fruits and vegetables.

I've eaten some tomatoes these past few weeks that would make you weep sweet tears of joy, my friends.

But this local thing, I think it goes beyond economy and environment.

I feel like we've become very accustomed to manufactured experiences.  Maybe we're losing touch with one of the most fundamental aspects of our own reality as humans.

Stuff changes.  Life isn't predictable.

Or, basically, life is a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.

(Thanks for that, Maa-ma. You're a reeal smart, laay-dee.)


Places like Super Target, Wal Mart and other businesses based upon delivering packaged results seem to work in opposition to this basic truth.

Manufactured experiences push us to feel secure in the knowledge that no matter where we are in this country, we're always going to have the same experience.  This is great on paper, but it seems to be teaching us that environment and fulfillment of expectation dictate security and comfort.  If you know what to expect, you feel safe and comfortable.

If you're safe and comfortable, well, you're more likely to buy groceries and a throw pillow.

This is problematic for me because, as I see it, we aren't here on the planet to buy things and a sense of security should operate outside of environment and fulfilled expectation once you reach a certain age.

Security is being firm in one's knowledge of their own values and, at the same time, a personal ability to adapt, even if the environment, food, colors, people, languages or scenes change. I do, by the way, realize that this is a definition that's mostly specific to nations that are politically and environmentally stable.

I'm enjoying the local businesses and produce of the Memphis area.  This place makes me feel that, for the first time in a long time, I'm experiencing a real life and not a manufactured experience in which someone has 32 seconds to say hello to me before they get some sort of demerit.  If that's an alien concept to you, you have never lived in the Orlando area.

Sometimes people in the stores and stalls here are super friendly.

Sometimes they're rude.

Sometimes they're meh.

No matter where I've gone, though, it's always real.

Saturday Special at Our House: Homemade cream cheese spread on baguette with tomato, arugula and cucumber salad & sugar melon (not watermelon) ~ all purchased at the MFM

Home Sweet High Rise

We're here.

I'm going to do a run-down in the form of a bullet post because, hi, I just moved away from my home state that I lived in my entire life and I do not need the pressure of writing a whole post, so why don't you back off already...

Um.  So, that was me talking to myself.  Okay... bullets...

• Road trip. We split the drive to Memphis up over two days this past weekend.  It would've been 13 hours straight, but someone in this family hates road trips.  That someone is also the only other licensed driver in the family.


• Tariq drove. The entire time.  I suggested this was because he's a control freak.  He explained that it was because he wanted me to relax and didn't want me to stress about having to drive, too.  He apparently does not have any problem with making me feel like the biggest jerk on the planet for saying that other thing.


• We stopped in Atlanta. Where some of THE coolest and most awesome people I know live.  I'm a huge jerk.  Again.  In my defense, we got in at 8p.m. and left at 11a.m.


• The kids were terrific. Seriously.

"My kids at hour seven of their second day of traveling."

• Weather.  Checking the weather before you leave is a good idea and something I will remember to do before the next road trip we take.  We drove through a tropical storm for about a third of our trip.  Good thing we're Floridians and we eat tropical storms for breakfast.


• Alabama, I love you, but your road signs are bipolar. One minute I'm horrified by the sign that is proclaiming homosexuality to be a sin, another moment I'm equally horrified by the sign that's boasting that their strippers were featured on "Jerry Springer," and I just shook my head at the one with an older black lady, a young white woman and an older white man proclaiming that they were Republicans.  These signs were all within ten minutes of each other.  I guess the section of Alabama we drove through is fine with straight Republican strippers of various races and ages.  Everyone else?  Move it along.


• We finally got to our place on Monday evening.  It.is.AWESOME!!!  Let me put it this way, we have a concierge. I totally belong in a building like this.  It's like my mother ship, really.

"This is my hood, yo."

• Oh, and there's a law school around the corner, too.

"Calm down, Dad. This is not going to happen."

• I kinda love it here already. It's only been two days, but I think downtown living suits me.  Every day is an adventure.  In fact, yesterday, Tariq drove to Arkansas just to get to the nearest Wal Mart. He returned from this trip every bit as horrified as you're imagining.  It seems that while he was in the electronics section, someone asked a salesperson what a "ringtone" was and how they could get one.

"The bridge to Wal Mart. In Arkansas. As seen from our building's roof."

• And, finally, I AM COMPLETELY UNPACKED. Yes.  In one day.  All my stuff.  Out of sixty (big) boxes.  I didn't realize this was a big deal until Britt told me she was impressed, like, four hundred times.

That's all I have for now.

Photos taken with my SONY DSLR-A230. Cough::SEE, Britt?::cough.