Loving the Lumineers, Outgrowing, and Other Thoughts

I'm loving the band featured above. They are right up my music-lovin' alley.

A host for a local morning radio show on the (quickly growing outdated) alternative station I once loved in my early 20's mentioned something about this lovely band the other morning on my way to work. It was a negative little quip, but it said so much to me. They were to appear on SNL that coming Saturday, and he said: "They're probably just another one of those groups with a banjo." 

I found myself bothered. I'm usually an NPR or audio-book kind of girl,but I'd forgotten my iPod and I felt like frolicking through the local stations, taking a trip to the morning show I found hilarious and enjoyable in my early college years.

And it hit me so entirely. I've grown up, grown out of a phase where I appreciate such shallow commentary on the world. I find the antics of these individuals juvenile. I've aged and matured 10 years since loving this station. Sadly, the hosts have aged as well, but not matured.

And so, a little letter announcing a permanent parting of ways:

Dear Radio from Hell, 

I'm sorry, but I can't visit you again. Not only is your commentary on so much of what is happening in the world misogynistic, juvenile, and misunderstood, you've also shown your true ignorance of the evolving world. Your thoughts so frequently demonstrate that you've failed to understand craft versus image, art versus spectacle, lyricism versus the cliche. Honestly, Kerry, Bill, and Gina, I find you painfully immature. I'm sticking with NPR.

Signed, 
A former listener

P.S. It bugged me then, and it bugs me now.  Gina, stand up for yourself. Own up to your own intelligence and power as a woman and thinker. You allow those two men to bully you. You remind me of Bella Swan. It is a tragic example for your female listeners. 

30 things I learned by 30.

1. The book is always better.

2. Chips and salsa might feel like a food group, but in all actuality are not. Same goes for Diet Coke.

3. Freckles, curves and naturally curly hair make for a unique kind of beauty. I prefer unique beauty.

4. Loving your job is only possible when you make sure to love your life as well.

5. No one is all good. No one is all bad.

6. Good friends are precious and rare and happen when you know how to be one in return.

7. My parents are wiser than I ever gave them credit for.

8. True charity isn't merely dropping something off at good will or the occasional service project. True charity is loving unconditionally even when it is hard to do so.

9. A good teacher ends up being more of a student.

10. Laziness is usually just a mix up in one's priorities.

11. Life hurts. A lot. And then something miraculous happens to remind you how very good it all is.

12. Every baby is pure and perfect. A miracle. Everyone was once a baby.

13. Harboring feelings of offense or anger or vengeance hurts me more than anybody else.

14. I'm terrified of losing and grieving someone, anyone who is close to me--someone who fills my life with joy. I know I'm blessed that I haven't had to yet.

15. Time is very easily wasted if one isn't mindful.

16. Some so-called "time-wasters" are also those moments you grow closest to people, including yourself.

17. Some of life's most spiritual moments happen in quiet, outdoor places.

18. The first time holding hands carries so much more weight than anything that falls after.

19. Education happens everywhere if you pay attention.

20. It is important to know how to decipher between that which is arbitrary and that which is a true measure of value.

21. Some of life's best experiences happen outside of one's comfort zone.

22. Failure isn't really failure if you gave all of yourself over to the attempting.

23. Prayer is real. Someone is listening if you are sincere about it.

24. Mediocrity in one's efforts leaves one unsatisfied and empty.

25. God, Life, The Universe, call it what you may--s/he/it knows what we need more than we do.

26. Painted toenails and mascara will always make me feel feminine and pretty--even when I'm 90.

27. I am loved because I see myself as someone worth loving.

28. Curiosity and imagination are the true ingredients for intelligence.

29. I'd rather be considered a smart woman than a hot woman.

30. There are times for acting like a grown up and times for acting childlike. It is important that I coordinate my behavior with the appropriate occasion.

"Thirty, Flirty, and Fabulous"

I was celebrated for my 30th just the way one should be--with multiple celebrations!

(Beware of photo overload below.)

It started with the fam-damily a few days before my birthday at my favorite Italian joint.

As evidenced below, I come from a long line of the insanely photogenic:

Alice joined us because she likes me...

Not because of this deliciousness, I swear!

It was a good time courtesy of this handsome (and maybe halfway shaggy) couple:

Then it was my birthday on--hip, hip, hooray--a Saturday!

That evening some girlfriends and I met up for Japanese food and gnome-ish party hats:

I still contend that our hats were cuter than:

Proof positive:

Yes, I totally wore a sash (I'm a yellow, remember?):

And tried green tea ice cream:

And it was all because of this lady:

I like her. I might even like her better in a gnome-ish yellow party hat.

The next night these lovely folks threw me a little shin dig:

Dave and Michelle are two of the most down-to-earth,

enjoyable people I know. Plus they have cute kids.

We partied with some of these guests:

(The "Legendary" Benincosa Cousins--

Italian Stallions, these boys...or something like it.)

The Mennzz

And Vicky and Johnny--who we failed to snap pictures of (oopsy!)

Going with the silly hat birthday theme...

Lest you think I'm totally ridiculous, the get-up was solely to entertain this cutie:

All while his older brother did what teenagers do:

Thanks everyone for making 30 so fabulous!

You all rock!

Countdown to 30: Day Eight

Diet Cocola: totally worth celebratin'

Countdown to 30: Day Seven

I have some incredibly intelligent, talented, creative, brilliant, funny, and endlessly entertaining siblings who love me to the core. We are each unique and individual--different from one another as night from day. And yet, when together, I feel like I'm with "my people." I feel I make some strange sort of sense.

This is all of them--"Yours, Mine, and Ours."

I'm the baby.

I was loved by all. Naturally.

(So I say.)

And sometimes this being loved business included mauling.

With a side of: "Because you're the youngest, that's why. Now go get it."

Like I said: these are my people.

(Sister-o-Mine, we evidently need to pose in front of the camera at the same time.

But, as always, thank you for engaging in my goofy posing games while on vacations.)

(Watch for the signature Brooke & Wendy pose again in this post.)

If only I had this one's height.

(Told ya it was coming.)

And a more recent picture of me and the brother.

(Have I mentioned how much I love this picture of me and my boys?)

(Also, in searching for photos for this post, I've realized I need to start posing in front of the camera more often with the Dad siblings--sheesh, Rookie!)

I can't imagine loving, fighting, laughing, playing, teasing, celebrating, torturing, admiring, commiserating, living my life, complaining, or hanging with any other siblings but these. I'm lucky to have so many crazy kids to call my very own.

Half or not, I call you all ALL mine.

Thanks for putting up with 30 years of this:

Countdown to 30: Day Six

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"

~ Mary Oliver

Have I mentioned I'm downright smitten with Mary Oliver's poetry? And Pablo Neruda's translated poems (how I long to read their originals and understand each word). And there's Whitman and Pinsky and Swenson and St. Vincent Millay and Cummings and on and on and on. I am smitten with each of them. With poetry in general, really. Words, frankly, and all that these morphemes and syllables and sounds are capable of creating.

It was a boy that got me into it (poetry, that is--and isn't that always the story?). The boy is long gone, of course. But the poetry. Oh, how the poetry stays.

"Someday, somewhere - anywhere, unfailingly,
you'll find yourself, and that,
and only that, can be the happiest
or bitterest hour of your life"

~ Pablo Neruda

Words are musical. Words are art. Words, when it comes right down to it, are one of the best ways in which we communicate our inner selves to the outer world.

Countdown to 30: Day Five

At one very low point along the old musical taste timeline, I dug these guys:
Joey McIntyre was my personal favorite. My sister, Tammy, and I would endlessly discuss John/Jordan (her favorite brothers) and Joey. And how one day they'd all come a-knockin'. Even if it was in our dreams.

Before NKOTB I remember loving Cindy Lauper and listening to pretty much whatever the older siblings enjoyed: Depeche Mode and R.E.M. (from the brother); even Milli Vanilli and Garth Brooks (from the sisters).

I've since gone through my Hip-Hop/R&B phase in 6th grade. This was around the time I'd call the local college radio station DJs, pretending I was much older than my 12 years, and dedicate songs like "In the Still of the Night" (a la Boyz II Men) to 12 year old boys who didn't know I existed.

In high school it was all things Broadway (with a little bit of Jewel, Sarah McLachlan, and other Dawson's Creek/Lilith Fair fare scattered in). Ragtime was my favorite. Then Into the Woods. The summer after I graduated I bought a Discman with my first paycheck. I recall listening to West Side Story as I walked (okay, maybe I skipped) in rhythm to the bus stop.

Until I realized just how nerd-a-licious my tastes were. And that boys listened to something a little bit tougher. Which was the impetus for my pop/punk/ska/rock phase. Blink 182. Weezer. Incubus. Sublime. Beck. Good Charlotte. Foo Fighters. (Whom I still adore--Rock Star Boyfriend, anyone?)

And then I became an upperclassmen. I'd taken Women's Studies 1010 (for 2 weeks). I was a serious-minded English Major. I bought all my clothing at thrift stores. It was an era of Ani DiFranco and Tori Amos and Chaco Sandals and bandannas in my hair.

And then I mellowed down the hippie-granola-vibe. I'm now smitten with everything from Glee to The Frames to Alicia Keys to Regina Spektor to Debussy to Ray LaMontagne to The Weepies. I've discovered that I don't really like what's on the radio--beyond NPR.

And the beautiful thing about music--it always takes me back. "The Right Stuff" still gets me dancin'. How can you not laugh and feel young and careless when the music of your lifeline comes drifting through the air? I celebrate music. Even the eras of really bad musical taste--and there were many. Each song is linked to a memory, a someone in some moment somewhere I haven't been in a very long time.

Here's to the stuff that makes my toes tap, my hips sway, my mind surge with memory. Here's to music. I delight in it.

Countdown to 30: Day Four

Once upon a time
I was blonde-ish, bald-ish, and kind of doofy looking:

But guess what?

They kept me anyway.

Maybe because I matched the set?

And then I turned into someone even doofier looking:

(But Grandma and Grandpa insisted I stay.)

Unfortunately, I only got a little bit doofier:

And then it went from bad to worse:

(My mother chose my glasses. But you never would have guessed that on your own.)

Until I turned into a beautiful swan.

Then again, maybe not:

Countdown to 30: Day Three

Everything I am I owe to my parents. They are good people.

Even if my mother sported a white-woman's poodle 'fro circa 1980 (evidence below).

(My parents on the left the weekend they eloped in Vegas--aunt and uncle on the right.)

I get my expressive nature from my mother. I talk with my hands, emphasize every sentence. I feel her energy and presence run through me. Tonight I found myself sitting in a position exactly like one of hers. It was eerie and comforting at the same time.

I get my mellow side from my father. I can, if need be, go with the flow. I like to be alone, in my own little world of quiet and thought. I also got his terrible vision. Does this mean I can send my eye doctor bills his way?

I learned to laugh because of them. Even at my dad's stale jokes: years upon years of hearing, "You're going to eat your mother?" after asking "When are we eating, Mom?" (He still thinks this is knee-slappin' hilarious, by the way.)

(THIS, my friends, is the 80's in all its Mormon WASP-ish glory.
In fact, I'm pretty sure this was taken at a ward party.)

I am lucky. My family laughs. Sometimes at each other, sometimes simply because we're being silly, sometimes because it hurts so much what else can one do. My parents taught us this. To keep going. That life keeps moving. That tomorrow is tomorrow and is sometimes much better.

I learned to accept others charitably, without judgment--to love unconditionally, to give of myself, to serve, to stay loyal to family--all from them. I learned that everybody's family is a little crazy and that's okay. I learned to feel things, to be self-reflective from them.


Between the two of them, they've raised 10 children. They have 19 grandchildren. They mixed two families together and made it out alive. They've lost businesses, houses, parents. They've been married over 30 years. They are good friends. They drive one another crazy.

They're down to earth. Their idiosyncrasies are boundless. They are each quirky and witty and fun and intelligent. They are intriguing, unique people. I am grateful I have them. How can I celebrate these 30 years without acknowledging who got me here?

I love you, Momdu & Popsy. You're good people.

Love,
da baby

Countdown to 30: Day Two

I've since learned better.

I now prefer an icy Diet-Cocola.

With fresh squeezed lime.

Or an icy cool water.

Water rocks my world.

I'm also far too curvy (and fashionable)

for overalls.

But, in all honesty here, wasn't I cute?

(And rockin' the piggies?)