Me and the Winter Blahs

If I let winter get the better of me, by mid-January, I can be one big miserable mess. After a particularly weepy winter during my junior year of college, I knew I needed to pay a little closer attention to my mental health this time of year. While I hesitate to call this penchant for the winter gloomys full-blown seasonal affective disorder (I mean, what Minnesotan isn’t a little SAD?) I have enough self-awareness to realize that when the dark, cold winter days start to wear away at me, I need some diversions and distractions to help the season pass.

Some years, I find relief from the winter blahs in the Winter Olympics. Other years writing dates and work outside of the home have kept me from my winter wallowing. This winter? It’s salvation by Broadway Across America. Back in April when I bought season tickets with my friend Sarah to the 2012-13 Broadway on Tour season at the Orpheum in Minneapolis, the decision seemed a little impulsive and a bit fiscally frivolous. But even then, just as spring was about to burst into full bloom, I knew I was already fighting against this winter’s blahs.

Last weekend, Sarah and I went to the third performance of the season: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. (Soooo much better than Catch Me If You Can which we attended last month, but still not quite as good as the season opener: Beauty and the Beast.) I ended up spending an extra night in the Cities because I left on Thursday instead of Friday to avoid a nasty ice storm. It turned out to be the right decision because the roads were so bad that Andy ended up staying home from that Friday because he literally could not make it to work.

Here’s another winter blah beating tip: I lead a stress management seminar one time and I remember one of the tips was “improve your appearance.” After not cutting my hair in more than two years (go ahead, judge me), I hit up a salon in the Cities last weekend and got a good six inches hacked off. (Ahhh!) It’s amazing how something as simple as not having split ends can make you feel so much more together and on top of things.

Because our tickets were for the Saturday matinee, after the performance we battled a bitter north wind for a meal at The Melting Pot, the fondue restaurant on 9th Street. I’d never been before and we had a great time enjoying a four course meal of cheese, salad, meat, and dessert. That said, considering the price tag and the rather homogenous meal, I’d rather give my return business to some place with a little more personality. Or else, I’d probably just go back for appetizers or dessert. I don’t know about you, but I’m perfectly capable of cooking meat in a boiling pot of chicken broth (basically what the main entrée consists of) at home.

We’d planned to visit the ice castle down at the Mall of America after the meal, but embarrassing as it is to admit, these two native Minnesotans weren’t wearing enough clothes to make an hour or so of standing outdoors in temperatures in the mid-teens with a howling wind a great option. Last Saturday was the first “normal Minnesota January” day after a string of days with temps above freezing and I hadn’t left the house wearing the long underwear and down vests necessary for a pleasant visit to a structure constructed wholly of icicles. Maybe we’ll make it to the ice castle next month when I’m down to attend The Book of Mormon (eeeeee!).

What do you do to shake the winter blahs?
 

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What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?

And I said, "What about breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film?
And as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"
 - Deep Blue Something

Source

I like to think I discovered Tiffany's on my own. Despite that Deep Blue Something song that came out when I was 10 or the multiple references to the famous jewelry store in popular media (I'm looking at you Sex and the City and Glee), I didn't really get what Tiffany's was all about until one moment in the Vegas Tiffany's outlet in the Bellagio when I stared long and hard at the Tiffany's classic ring setting and thought, "Well, aren't you stunning." When I visited Tiffany's in New York City, I found the store stately, beautiful, and just the right level unattainable.

If I lived in New York City, I probably wouldn't window shop at Tiffany's while enjoying my morning coffee and croissant. Still, when I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's for the first time last week, I understood the comfort the Holly Golightly character found in gazing at orderly, pretty, sparkly things. And that's about where any common ground between me and Holly ends.  

 You see, I can't remember a time when I didn't recognize this picture:

Source

Yet, somehow, I'd never actually seen the film. I had no idea of the plot line (during my childhood, I assumed Tiffany's was a diner or some kind of breakfast joint) and I'd forgotten that the film is based on a Truman Capote novella. So last week, I sat down to actually watch the film and correct all of my misconceptions about Breakfast at Tiffany's.

And my goodness, I was expecting adorable, sweet Audrey Hepburn ala Roman Holiday (one of my favorites!) or My Fair Lady (which is too long and has a shite ending, but which I feel a certain affinity to since it's based on George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.)  But Audrey's Holly Golightly character is just a pill. A P-I-L-L. As Berman, the Hollywood agent says in the film, "She's a phony, but she's a real phony."

In my mind, Breakfast at Tiffany's had always been linked with the posh and glamorous. But as the storyline unfolded, as much as I loved Hepburn's timeless outfits, I realized the glamor I'd always linked with the film was as phony as Holly Golightly herself.  At its heart, the film's about a sad little girl who constantly insists that external factors hold the key to her happiness. Still, I loved the calm confidence the entire film exudes that firmly dates it as being pre-JFK assassination.   

The film is much less about glamor, and much more about excess and overcompensation. At one point, as we watched the drunken apartment party unfold, Andy wondered out loud, "Is this supposed to be a social commentary on drinking?" 

As the film wrapped up with the rainy scene in the alley, I couldn't help but feel surprised. I hadn't really liked it.

Not that I hated Breakfast in Tiffany's in those "I'm so disinterested in this I think I'll go clean the bathroom" or "I want my two hours back" ways. But after running into references to the film all the time, I'd always assumed it was just another charming Audrey Hepburn film.

Consider my curiosity sated.

Now, if I could just get that Deep Blue Something song out of my head. . . Ah well, better than having "Moon River" running through my head on repeat, eh?

Have you ever been surprised by a classic movie?
 

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Wordless Wednesday: Mid-May Scenes

The days are getting long and we're currently in a string of beautiful, calm, sunny days that have me running around in a tank top during my outdoor chores. Although the spinach, onions, carrots, and lettuce I sowed last week would really like a hit of rain, it's hard to argue with . . . summer! While it's been "heigh-ho, heigh-ho" back to work for Andy and I this week, we have stolen away down the lake on a couple boat rides and even hiked a nearby trail on Sunday. There's a lot to discover in the woods this time of year.

Sandpipers in a row

Water ripple along a portage

Wood Anemone along the Centennial Hiking Trail

Monday night cookout

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Me and My Nose

(Today, Of Woods and Words is featured over at For The Love of Blogs. If you're swinging by for the first time, welcome. I hope you'll make yourself at home and stay a while!) 

For long as I can remember, my nose and I have not been on good terms. The other day, when I was taking pictures of myself for my sweater post, I was reminded yet again of what a large nose I have.

My inheritance of a very Irish "whiskey nose" was probably inevitable. (Thanks Grampa.) And while I'm perfectly capable of acknowledging my face's less-obvious, yet more attractive facial features, it's always been my slightly crooked nose that, well, sticks out to me. Since my earliest days, I've longed to just shave off a bit of the excess off the front of my nose. You can imagine my depression when I learned noses and ears are the two body features that continue to grow during your entire life.

Over the years I’ve learned that some angles are more flattering than others

I haven't exactly kept my discontent with my proboscis to myself.

“Would you really get a nose job if you could?” my mother asked when I was a teenager.

"Of course," I would, in that wonderful, self-assured teenage way that I haven't been able to find again since I turned 20.

Now, given my priorities if I suddenly "hit it rich", a nose job is not exactly in my Top 10 must-have spending sprees. Or my top 100. Or top anything. Heidi Montag Spencer of "The Hills" fame has been a pretty powerful example to all girls my age for why our bodies are absolutely wonderful the way it is. Thanks Heidi!

Now my nose is a joke. Especially since I discovered its amazing talent once I reached drinking age. Turns out when I have a drink (wine in particular), my nose turns bright red, the blush slowly seeping out across my cheekbones. I’m like the Pinocchio of Sobriety.

We spend so much time feeling jealous, insecure, uncertain about pretty much everything. We worry about our bodies, our careers, our life decisions. My nose is the least of my worries. I have bigger fish to fry. I'd rather focus that energy on something I actually can change and improve.

Still, every once in while I catch a sideview of my face in the mirror and think to my nose "whoa, you're still here, aren't you?" After all, that nose of mine isn't going anywhere. In fact, it’s probably growing a little bigger every day.

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The Secret Life of Hairdryers

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man (or woman) in possession of a good house in northern Minnesota must be in want of a hairdryer.

Why?

Well certainly not for drying hair.

Personally, I try to limit my wet hair's encounters with a hairdryer for a couple reasons. For one thing, I see no reason to use the energy it takes to operate a blow dryer when ever-abundant air gets my hair dry in a good 4-12 hours after I hop out of the shower. Also, when I use a blow dryer, I kind of end up looking like Mariah Carey, circa 1998 VH1 Divas Live.

So, no, the secret life of hairdryers has nothing to do with self-beautification. (Did you really expect beauty tips from the girl who thinks plunking eyebrows is some modern spawn of medieval torture?)

No, around these parts, hairdryers are necessary because things like this happen:

 I spent my waking moments on Saturday morning, clad in my pajamas and robe, crouched in the cabin's open doorway, using a hairdryer to melt the ice (and icicles) that had formed overnight on the threshold and on the screen door. We have an ice dam on the roof which is causing the roof's melting snow to run down the side of the cabin (instead of dripping off the eaves) and in between the door frame.

While, I'm a big fan of icicles . . .

they're a big problem when they start forming where they shouldn't.

As I watched the ice melt away under the heat of the hair dryer on Saturday morning, I couldn't help but recall the first hair dryer my family bought. In my teenage years, my brother, father, and I maintained a small ice rink, 28 x40', in our backyard. We resurfaced the rink about twice a week and the process included either my brother or I heading down to the basement and using a hairdryer to thaw out the pipe which ran to the outside spigot. It worked like a charm every time. No doubt about it, those hairdryers are handy tool for every backwoods man to have in their arsenal.

In all seriousness, the ice dam is not a "haha" issue but an "oh @!$*%&" issue. It's resolution will require more than just a reckoning with a hairdryer. But until Andy has time to get up on the roof (or until we hire a professional to deal with it), you don't need to worry about me: I've got my hairdryer.

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Wordless Wednesday: Walking in a Winter Wonderland

They said on the radio the other day that December is actually sunnier than November. Thank goodness, I say. With the days getting shorter and shorter, we need every bit of sunshine we can get.

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Making the Cut

I rarely get my hair cut. It’s not that I don’t have a fashion sense (okay, that statement’s questionable) or that I don’t understand the concept of cutting off my crispy split ends. But my entire family on my mom’s side was gifted with loads of hair that make most hair stylists gulp. Add in the fact that I almost always have bizarre experiences at the hairdressers and you have a perfect equation for an appointment I procrastinate in making just slightly less than heading to the dentist.

A haircut has ended up being an annual event for me. (I know all my teen magazines recommended a haircut every 4-6 weeks, but now that I’m older, I sometimes suspect those magazines had ulterior motives, and not necessarily my best interests, in mind when they penned those “helpful” beauty articles.) Last Tuesday, when I was bumming around Duluth for a day while Andy attended a seminar for work, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and take off a few inches half a foot of hair. I knew with a walk-in appointment, I was subjecting myself to the barrage of questions: why I never cut my hair; why I don’t dye my rapidly graying hair; why my eyebrows slightly resemble a Wookie; why last night’s mascara is still hanging out underneath my eyes like a raccoon.  

But I had a lovely stylist, the same one who fought with my mane last year, I think. The experience was surprisingly painless, although the poor lady used nearly an entire bottle of serum to keep my newly released curls from going all Bozo under the hairdryer’s heat. Yet, during the whole haircut, we sat just to the side of a salon stylist workshop.

Since I don’t get my hair cut terribly often, I don’t spend a lot of time about the profession of hairstylist. But when you suddenly find yourself in a room filled with capacity with stylists while the head stylist lectures them on setting goals and pushing themselves beyond their comfort zone, your mind kind of starts to muddle over the whole haircutting profession. I mean, did you know they only make minimum wage? While tipping stylists is a pretty standard practice, it’s not exactly as ingrained into our American psyche as tipping waitresses is. And these aren’t unskilled laborers. Maybe they’re not big on the book learning, but most of them have some training and they can all do something I can’t do. I mean, I occasionally trim my father’s hair and it usually just looks like some wild animal with talons mauled the back of his head.

Haircuts are usually paranoid self-centered events for me. But listening to the head speaker address all these stylists, urging them to fill up their schedules, send out appointment reminder cards to their clients, I realized that stylists have a ton of external pressure placed upon them. All the scary questions I dread so much from hairstylists are just part of their job. And probably not necessarily a part of their job they’re nuts about. Plus they have to deal with people who can’t bother to cut their hair more than once a year.  

I walked away from the salon with shorter, healthier hair and a reminder that we’re all in this together. Making the cut’s never easy.

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The Influence of Location

When I started out with this blog last October, one of the main ideas I wanted to explore was what it meant to be a rural writer, instead of a struggling writer stuck in suburbia or in a crappy downtown apartment. I’m not sure how much I’ve actually explore that theme in the nine months I’ve been maintaining this blog: more than anything this has become a writer’s diary and ramblings, be that good or bad. But the influence of location has always intrigued me. Does living in a place that can look like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

Have an effect on how the words show up on the page?

In college I had the bright idea of combining a spring break trips with an exploration of how filmmakers treat “real” locations when using them to represent imagined locations in film adaptions of a literary works. I figured it would be an interesting independent study course. It turned out to be an awful independent study project that required an extension and by the time I received my final grade, the project had morphed into a thesis completely unrecognizable from the original idea I'd wanted to explore. But I was still intrigued. What influence does location have on us? More specifically, what influence does location have on our imaginations?

Yesterday at the Grand Opening, I ran into a published writer who had seen some of my freelance work. He complimented me on my work (which was very nice) and then we talked a little bit about the lack of writers in the area.

“We have a ton of craftsmen and artists up here,” he said. “But not too many writers.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “This is a great place to write.”

In my Bylines calendar, the other week, the writer of the week, Deborah Elliott-Upton, wrote about misconceptions people often have about writers. “We don’t all own cabins in the woods with a scenic panorama to inspire our words or upscale offices where we can be alone with our thoughts,” she said. But some of us are just lucky enough to be surrounded by beauty and stillness on a daily basis. That doesn’t mean we always have time to soak up our luckiness: holding down a fulltime job for the last couple months has certainly affected the amount of words that get down on the page recently.

This morning, I woke to a still lake bay, reflecting the shoreline and blue, nearly cloudless, sky. I sat on the deck (granted the dew had yet to dry and my bottom got a bit damp) with my granola and coffee and watched a little fish swim among the boulders in the clear water below. After so much running around for the last couple weeks, it seemed like the perfect moment to be still, to gather my thoughts, to maybe put them down on the page later.

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Like Ripping Off A Band-Aid

Today is the big day for the museum: it’s the grand opening. After weeks of penning how-to manuals and setting up gift shop inventory (that’s on my part) and years (five to be exact) of dreaming, planning, and doing on everyone else’s part, we’re all both shocked and thrilled that the big day is finally here. Today’s event is complete with door prizes, cake, ribbon cuttings, the whole shebang. Did I mention that we have a flash flood warning in affect for the area?

Although the sky is growing a deep, ominous shade of grey over the lake as I type, we’re hoping for a very happy day, come rain or shine. If you’re interested in this museum, I casually refer to on occasion, it actually is kind of a big deal in the area. The Duluth News-Tribune did a great article and the local radio station has given us some very nice coverage as well. Check out the links if you’d like more info.

Yesterday afternoon we had a social gathering in conjunction with all the festivities which required a certain amount of gussying up. My junior year of college, I bought a dress to wear to dressier summer occasions. Since the dress is a halter top and white (a no go for any weddings), I have worn the dress a whopping four times. Not only is the dress largely unsuitable for the Northwoods, I just don’t have that many occasions to wear it.

Still, I like dressing up, I do, and whether or not that means I’m yet another young girl claimed by the influence of Sex and the City and its pro-consumer message, I’m not sure. Because when you really examine what dressing up entails, it’s kind of odd: we put on uncomfortable shoes that limit our mobility, we wear dresses that run the risk of offering an unintended peep show, we subject ourselves to all sorts of bizarre beauty procedures.

I don’t know when people decided plucking eyebrows was a good idea and I’m not sure why I subscribed to this train of thought, but every time I’m intended to head off to a social gathering, I find myself in the bathroom, sneezing away as I pluck my eyebrows. (Pulling out these fine hairs seems to trigger a nerve that makes me sneeze.) I keep hoping I will wear out this nerve someday, but it keeps going strong, even after 12 years of tweezing. They say “pain is beauty” and “truth is beauty”: plucking eyebrows seems proof that the former is a more accurate description of the world we live in!

At the gathering, I attempted the well-intended advice spelled out in Bridget Jones for such social events: “Circulate, oozing intelligence. Introduce people with thoughtful details.”

Bridget and I had similar success following that advice. Unfortunately, it was about 90 degrees inside the museum with about 99% humidity. The only thing oozing last night were all the attendees. Intelligence, at least on my end, was limited to gasping at passersby: “It’s HOT!”

Today the (good) madness continues. And then tomorrow, we figure out what a normal day at work looks like. I told someone: “I just want to rip off the band-aid.” It’s time to be open, to offer ourselves up to the world and show everyone what we’re made of. And it’s time to run around in jeans and t-shirts and let our eyebrows enter into an unkempt state until the next time we pull out our party dresses.

Happy Independence Day to all!

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