Um, I’d just like to point out that we are already through almost 1/12 of 2012. What? Where has this month gone?! Oh right, lesson planning, old episodes of Wings on Netflix, and Words with Friends. And about 50 cups of hot chocolate. I’m having one now as a matter of fact, but I made it with water instead of almond milk because it has less sugar that way, and I want to be asleep by 10 tonight because tomorrow’s a hair washing day. And that, friends, is my life.

I know I said I wasn’t going to make any New Year’s resolutions, but I do want to do a few slightly more exciting things with the next eleven twelfths of the year. But we’ll just call these whatever the annual equivalent of a bucket list would be. Is there a word for that? “Goals” doesn’t seem exciting enough. It’s too corporate, too type A, too…predictable for me.

The Awesomeness Conspiracy

In the pursuit of awesomeness in 2012, I will:

• make videos for the interwebs
• surprise people
• surprise myself
• not be afraid to fail
• go swimming
• flee the country
• make crafty things
• salsa dance
• send real mail
• party like it’s 1999
• stay up past midnight (but not on school nights)
• make rockin’ playlists
• not beat myself up over not finishing the crafty things I started
• frolic in parks
• sing karaoke like nobody’s business
• be grateful
• be sneaky
• tell people how great they are
• go to New York

Word.

Y’all, I have one more week in this long, long, long, long, long semester. Not bad-long, just long-long. And I’m ready for a break, but what I’m really excited about is organizing all the boxes of class materials under my bed into spiffy binders. And these spiffy binders will all fit into one box, making it possible for me to get rid of all the others. Then, I’m going to adjust my prices and re-list my books on half.com in the hopes that they all sell so I can get rid of that book case. And after that, I’m going to go through all my clothes and sort them honestly based on what I wear and what I don’t. I’m going to get rid of the ones I don’t wear, and then I’m going for a run.

When I get back from the run, I’m going to shave my legs. Both of them. All at once. Then I’m going to catch up on all my stories and take a nap. When I wake up from the nap, I’m going to go to the movies. I don’t know what I’m going to see, but it’s going to be good, and then I’m going to do my Christmas shopping.

After that, I’m going to read. I don’t care what. I’m going to go to the ‘Bou, get the free drink they promised me after making me the wrong drink last time, and read until I’m over it. Then I’m going to look at Etsy and Pinterest while I watch Bones and, let’s be honest, probably Elf for the fourth time in a month. I’m going to lie on the floor and watch the lights on my Christmas tree twinkle while I listen to all my favorite music. And I’m going to talk to people on Skype at all hours of the day and night when I would normally be asleep or at work.

If you would like to join me in any of these activities (except the napping and leg-shaving), you are welcome to do so. It would please me very much. We can make gingerbread houses and eat cookie dough and go ice skating and maybe even hold hands.

So I just took a Bible test, which I’m pretty sure I failed miserably. It’s not that I don’t know what it says, it’s just that I don’t know where it says it. There were all these questions about where one might find certain verses or passages on certain topics, and I sat here staring at the screen going, “Uhhhhhh…,” and then just laughing out loud because I had NO. Earthly. Idea. At least one of them was even a verse that we studied IN DEPTH in Community Group like two weeks ago. Not a clue.

Yes, I have problems memorizing things that are not set to music or quoted in films, but the words are not as problematic as the verse references. I remember some verses verbatim, but I could not tell you where to find them. I just don’t think in numbers. I think in stories and voices and experiences. I remember movie quotes because all of those things come together as I put the quote in the context of the story, remember the inflection of the actor’s voice and think about where I was and how I felt as I watched the movie. I remember song lyrics because songs tell stories, recordings invite me to add my own voice to the story, and music always evokes feelings that come back every time you hear that song. I remember Malachi 3:10 because I said it every flippin’ Sunday of my life for about ten years.

I don’t have ten years to spend on each verse in the Bible.

So if you have a nifty trick for me, a recording of Scripture set to music, or a movie that quotes the Bible and isn’t boring or super-cheesy, please let me know because these numbers are killing me.

Well, I’ve gotten a little distracted. I was looking for songs, see, to use in class. I wanted songs that told stories, so I typed it into the Google, and away we went. But then, at the bottom of one article about story songs, there was a link to the Top 25 Guilty Pleasure Songs, and I just couldn’t pass that up, so now I’m making myself a Guilty Pleasures playlist, and I’d like to share it with you. As of now, it comprises only those songs I already owned or loved so much that I was compelled to purchase them on the spot. Guilt-free.

1. Copa Cabana – Barry Manilow
2. All Out of Love – Air Supply
3. Mickey – Toni Basil
4. The Safety Dance – Men Without Hats
5. Ice Ice Baby – Vanilla Ice
6. Aaron’s Party (Come Get It) – Aaron Carter
7. Afternoon Delight – Starland Vocal Band
8. Bye Bye Bye – *NSYNC
9. I Want It That Way – Backstreet Boys
10. Spice Up Your Life – Spice Girls
11. Just Dance – Lady Gaga
12. …Baby One More Time – Britney Spears
13. Hey, Soul Sister – Train
14. Straight Up – Paula Abdul
15. Take a Chance on Me – ABBA

That’s it for now. If you have suggestions for songs to add, or if you’d like to go ahead and post your own Guilty Pleasures playlist in the comments, feel free. I’d love to laugh at with you about your horrible taste in music!

Also, if you have any suggestions of story songs I could use in class, I’d appreciate those as well!

Last year, for my friend Eden’s birthday, she requested that all her friends make her CDs in lieu of throwing parties, buying dinners, giving gift cards or scarves, etc. Since I love music and making fabulous playlists, I was very excited about this idea. In fact, in the future, if ever you want to give me a CD (for any occasion whatsoever), please do. This is quite possibly my love language.

So I made a playlist for Eden that ended up requiring THREE CDs to burn, but oh my was it ever worth it. And since then, I’ve added to it, making it into a 4-disc, 72-song, epic and fabulous playlist. I have mentioned it to Amaris many times, and she always asks for the list. I always say, “Yes of course you can have the list,” and then I always forget to type it up for her. But the time has come.

Y’all, this is a random, random assortment of music that pleases me so much, I think I may never need to get married. Here we go…

1. Throw Down – The Whistlestop
2. Meet Me by the Water – Rachael Yamagata
3. LoveGame – Lady Gaga
4. Bye Bye Bye – *NSYNC
5. Yellow Ledbetter – Pearl Jam
6. So Much Better – from Legally Blonde the Musical
7. Africa – Toto
8. F*** You – Lily Allen
9. Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? – The Beatles
10. Forget You – Cee Lo Green
11. Piece of My Heart – Janis Joplin
12. One More Road – Roman Candle
13. Hometown Glory – Adele
14. Against All Odds – Phil Collins
15. Gravity – Sara Bareilles
16. Fantastic Mr. Fox (aka Petey’s Song) – Jarvis Cocker
17. Bust a Move – Young MC
18. I Wanna Dance with Somebody – Whitney Houston
19. Ora Basta – Giorgia
20. Faithfully – Journey
21. Born – Over the Rhine
22. Float On – Modest Mouse
23. When You Are Not Enough – Thad Cockrell/Matt Stevens
24. Fango – Jovanotti
25. Leave – Glen Hansard
26. All You Need Is Love – The Beatles
27. Sympathique – Pink Martini
28. By Thy Mercy – High Street Hymns
29. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
30. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp – Led Zeppelin
31. I’ll Cover You (Reprise) – from RENT
32. All I Want Is You – Barry Louis Polisar
33. Cherry Cherry – Neil Diamond
34. Jump (for My Love) – Pointer Sisters
35. You Don’t Know Me – Ben Folds
36. Live Again – Better Than Ezra
37. A Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum
38. Rolling in the Deep – Adele
39. Papers in Order – The Old Ceremony
40. Staralfur – Sigur Ros
41. Jesus and Gravity – Dolly Parton
42. Little Wing – Jimi Hendrix
43. Elenore – The Turtles
44. I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues – Elton John
45. Nice and Slow – Usher
46. Vito’s Ordination Song (acoustic) – Sufjan Stevens
47. Heaven Help Us All – Stevie Wonder
48. Andar Conmigo – Julieta Venegas
49. I Can’t Even Recall – Roman Candle
50. Bad Romance – Lady Gaga
51. Under Streetlights – Brooke Annibale
52. Shelter – Ray LaMontagne
53. Reason Why – Rachael Yamagata
54. Soldier Girl – The Polyphonic Spree
55. Call Me Al – Paul Simon
56. Beat It – Michael Jackson
57. SexyBack – Justin Timberlake
58. Ring of Fire – Johnny Cash
59. Someone Like You – Adele
60. Black Water – The Doobie Brothers
61. Nobody Does It Better – Carly Simon
62. Rehab – Amy Winehouse
63. Kyrie – Mr. Mister
64. I and Love and You – The Avett Brothers
65. Somebody Told Me – The Killers
66. The Chain – Ingrid Michaelson
67. Judy in Disguise – John Fred & His Playboy Band
68. Just Dance – Lady Gaga
69. Forca – Nelly Furtado
70. Fade Into You – Mazzy Star
71. Empire State of Mind – Jay-Z/Alicia Keys
72. Your Love Is My Drug – Ke$ha

Yes, I realize there is a hymn right next to a Nirvana song. I also realize that there are at least three Lady Gaga songs on the list. What can I say? I want to be too cool to like her, but I think she’s ridiculously talented, and I just can’t help myself. And I realize that not everyone likes songs they can’t understand. If you want to copy my playlist, but take out the foreign language songs, feel free, but I will not be held responsible for the outcome. This list is perfect, I tell you. PERFECT! Good for parties and cleaning and reading the Interweb and organizing the boxes of crap in your front room. It picks you up right when you need it and brings you back down just at the right moments. It fluctuates between empirically good music and absolute guilty pleasure songs. It has many genres spanning many decades, and because there are so many songs, you can listen to it over and over and never get tired of it because by the time you start it over, it’s been almost five hours since you heard the first song, so you don’t even realize you’re back to the beginning! Once again, PERFECT!

Dear Mr. Bon Jovi,

If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like to tell you a story. In 1988, a 14-year-old girl from Wilkesboro, NC got the best Christmas present EVER – tickets to your February 17, 1989 show in Charlotte (I believe this was the New Jersey tour). This girl was not me, but having grown up in Wilkesboro, I can tell you that this was an extraordinarily stellar gift. We didn’t even have concerts in Wilkesboro until MerleFest started in 1988. MerleFest didn’t become really popular for several more years, and even then, it was Bluegrass. Now I’ve got nothing against Bluegrass, but let’s be honest. It’s no Bon Jovi.

So this girl was stoked to say the least. She already had New Jersey on heavy rotation, but she threw Slippery When Wet back into the mix just to make 100% sure that she knew ALL the words to every song. “Livin’ on a Prayer,” check. “You Give Love a Bad Name”  – yeah you do. “Wanted Dead or Alive” – She could sing it IN HER SLEEP. And the songs from the new album were quickly becoming new favorites. (I don’t know about her, but “Lay Your Hands on Me” is still one of my favorites.)

As the day of the concert approached, she got more and more excited, and then, without warning, winter happened. On the day of the concert she’d been looking forward to for over a month, a snow storm hit western North Carolina, and the girl’s parents couldn’t drive her the two hours to Charlotte for the show.

She was so crushed that her bangs deflated.

And I don’t know why – perhaps to remember what might have been, perhaps out of devotion to you, perhaps out of a bitter sentimentality, perhaps to present you with a desperate plea through her sister’s blog 22 years later  – she kept her ticket.

So here it is, JBJ. The girl lives in Raleigh now, and she would absolutely pee her pants with excitement to be able to see you in concert after all these years. Could you make it happen for her? She couldn’t go in 1989, but I’ve ridden with her through some pretty bad winter weather, and I can tell you that absolutely nothing would stop her from going this time…if only she had a ticket.

Come on, Jon. I bet I could even talk her into teasing up her hair real big for you just for old times’ sake.

What do you say?

Beth

I’ve decided to forgo professionalism today. If I have to work on a snow day, I’m going to do it in the comfort of my jabambas by the fire. Plus, who wants to go outside today? Not this girl. And if I’m not going out, why shower? I’m just sayin’ is all.

So yesterday I had a ballroom dance lesson, which just confirmed to me that I’d really like to have dance lessons/classes regularly. This doesn’t surprise me (it probably doesn’t surprise you either), but for the first time yesterday, I started to wonder what it is about dancing that I find so appealing. Here’s what I came up with:

• I love music. I think in song.
• Dancing flows naturally out of music. Even now, my big toe is involuntarily tapping to the beat of the Christmas music I’m listening to.
• Dance is a good way to exercise, and when you exercise, your body releases endorphins, which make you feel good.
• Ballroom dance requires you to touch another person, and hey…we all need that.
• Research indicates that at least 80% of communication is nonverbal. To me, that says that ALL the massive amounts of talking and writing I do still only account for 20% of what I have in me to say. Girlfriend needs to get some things out in other ways. I’m not sure that’s the best logic, but it makes sense in my head.

And then wouldn’t you know it? I came home last night and read some more of that book I was telling y’all about the other day, and the next chapter was about dance. AND Christmas! BONUS! Check it out:

There is something primal about dance that transcends all of the conventional concerns. Dancers embody the very ideal of the arts and fuse the spirit with the body. In other words, dance incarnates, and dancers bring this fusion in their bodies. God appeared in flesh via the babe in a manger, bridging eternal gaps in the incarnation: Flesh, therefore, is given the weight of glory [a C.S. Lewis reference]. God came, supped as a man, and bled to bring our bodies and spirits to merge into heaven. He defined humanity within his own body. As Dutch art historian Hans Rookmaaker famously stated, “Christ did not come to make us Christians…but that he came to redeem us that we might be human in the full sense of that word.” Our Lord humbled himself to have a body, to make himself vulnerable, to be lifted up in ignominy, and to find resurrection in that glorious body. A dancer, in a single leap, seems to hover in between the indescribably gap between time and space, taking us with him or her. By doing so, the dancer embodies our souls in the public arena, and perhaps that is the dancer’s grand adventure.

Christians should be the first in line to see and applaud this fusion of body and soul. Christ is not an ideology, a sentiment, or a mental image, but a fusion of body and Spirit. Scripture speaks of how God turns our “wailing into dancing” (Psalm 30:11). Our bodies are not empty shells to be filled with souls but are mysterious and inexplicably tied to our redemption. Our Lord will dance with us in the coming age, and we should begin to prepare for that day.

I’m on it.

My very good friend and favorite Skype companion, the lovely Miss DLF, recommended a book for me to read probably two years ago. I got it and started reading it, but then I got distracted from it somehow and put it down. Well. I picked it back up this morning, and wouldn’t you know it, the chapter I read was about Christmas. “How appropriate,” thought I, “I should share this with my blog readers.” And that’s exactly what I intend to do.

The book is a collection of reflections on art, creation, culture and faith, and how we can view each one and the world through the lenses of the others. DLF recommended it to me because she had enjoyed it so much and felt that as a fellow artistic type, I might also enjoy it. And so I pass along the recommendation to anyone who considers him/herself an artist. The book is “Refractions” by Makoto Fujimura, and I’d like to share with you an excerpt from the chapter I read this morning just to give you a sense of what it’s like and to give you some food for thought so close to Christmas.

I know that many of you don’t think of yourselves as artists and might, therefore, think that this does not apply to you. Let me just say right now that it does. And also, we are all artists in one way or another. If you create anything – whether it’s words, photos, paintings, fruit displays, pottery, jewelry, music, acting, floral arrangements, dance, architecture, film, graphic design, cookie dough Christmas ornaments, CAD drawings, animation, a remodeled kitchen, recipes, origami boxes, scrapbooks, ridiculous/hilarious scenarios, or a really good batch of cookies – you are an artist. And this is for you.

“A Japanese pastor wrote that the most important message of Christmas is that Jesus was born as a babe, weak and vulnerable to the world. A baby is utterly dependent on a mother and a father, and others helping the baby to survive. Imagine, one who would claim to be the all-powerful Creator in flesh, becoming vulnerable and DEPENDENT on fallen human beings like us!

But when you think about it, a baby’s strength also lies in this weakness, as he or she draws people together. The message of Christmas is a paradox. It is through the weak that power is displayed. It is through the vulnerability that true, lasting security is gained. It is through being utterly dependent on others, that a true community is created.

The message of Christmas, then, can be applied to what we do as artists. What would our art look like if we truly believed that through our weaknesses, through even what we are ashamed of, we could create something that is lasting and meaningful, and incarnate hope back into the world. What if the power of a community is not in the display of power, but in the acknowledgement of our weaknesses? Artists can play an important role in helping a community to be authentic and honest. Japanese aesthetics already embraces the idea that weakness is beautiful: that what is wearing away and what is imperfect actually points to eternity.”

Well friends, it’s after 4:00 on a Thursday, so you know what that means…

PLAY CLOTHES!!!

That’s right! I’m on my couch in my jabambas catching up on the TV I missed this week while I was doing big girl work. It’s great. There’s just one problem: I can’t breathe through my nose. You see, that cold I had was apparently just lying dormant for a week or so, planning its nefarious return, and hoo-boy has it ever returned. I’ve been popping generic DayQuil like Voreos, but the cold just laughs at it. And I’ve had a good 4000% of my daily recommended amount of Vitamin C, but the cold just brushes it aside and says, “That’s pathetic.” I even flushed out my nasal cavity with a Neti pot yesterday, and the cold took that as the perfect opportunity to produce ten times the amount of snot I had up in there before. Awesome.

So I know I owe you guys a few posts. Specifically, there are a few more things I need to tell you about Eric Kearns, we need to talk holiday cards, I’ve got a letter to Bon Jovi to write, and I need to answer the next two questions on my formspring page:

1. What would a 19th century Beth be like?
2. Would you ever go to a nude beach.

But for now, as long as I’ve got the capacity, I need to go practice my nose trumpeting. I think I’ve almost got “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and I’m hoping to really nail “When the Saints Go Marching In” by the time this cold clears up. If it sticks around long enough, I might just hire myself out to local churches for their Christmas Cantatas.

Oh friends, tonight was so enlightening. Please allow me to share with you what I learned from the Eric Kearns show.

1. When something is free and you go ready to be entertained no matter what, you ALWAYS get your money’s worth. I’m telling you, for sheer entertainment value, this show definitely ranked in my top ten free concerts somewhere below Kelly Clarkson, Kelly Clarkson/Reba McEntire, The Avett Brothers, Dolly Parton, and Coldplay, but above the Laney High School marching band. And yes, I’ve seen all of those for zero money.
2. There are really only six types of male singing voices. They can be combined a little bit, but in essence, they are as follows:
   - the scratchy voice (Jimmy Durante, Bruce Springsteen, Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, Neil Diamond, Steven Tyler, Elmer Fudd)
   - the Kermit voice (in higher or lower registers to sound like Rick Astley, Michael McDonald, Cher, Sammy Davis Jr. and of course, Kermit)
   - the falsetto (Johnny Mathis, Barry Gibb, Chris Martin, the guy who sings “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and Frankie Valli…sometimes)
   - the high-but-not-falsetto (Dennis DeYoung from Styx and Frankie Valli the rest of the time)
   - the normal voice with a New Jersey accent (According to Eric Kearns, Billy Joel, Frank Sinatra and Barry Manilow all fit squarely into this category. Jimmy Durante overlaps here as well, but only because of his accent.)
   - the crooner (Perry Como, Al Jolson, and pretty much everyone else who doesn’t fit into one of the other categories. However, noticeably absent from Eric Kearns’s crooner list, in my opinion, are Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole.)
3. Hearing really is the first thing to go.
4. It’s totally cool to break copyright laws at the Holly Springs Cultural Center. Through the whole show, Eric Kearns had pictures projected behind him of the singers he was impersonating. We are 100% sure that these images were Googled and pulled from the images Google returned. They were mostly concert shots and album covers. My favorite by far was a Nat King Cole album entitled “Lo Mejor de Nat King Cole.” For those of you who don’t speak Spanish (Ron Burgundy), that’s “The Best of Nat King Cole.” Eric Kearns was singing a Nat King Cole song in English. Incidentally, he was also singing it in sort of a high, scratchy voice, leading me to believe that he has never actually listened to Nat King Cole.
5. Eric Kearns has never listened to Frank Sinatra. Ever.

Overall, we really feel like the show has potential. The problem is that Eric Kearns takes himself WAY too seriously. I mean dude, you are a vocal impersonator. Embrace that. If he had just a few little costume bits and some of the mannerisms of the people he impersonates, if he’d just ham it up some, it would be really funny (on purpose). As it was, however, we were pretty glad we went and very glad it was free.