The Christmas Letter

This year I decided to put our Christmas letter on this blog instead of including it in cards that may or may not be sent out to friends and family who may or may not want to read yet another Christmas letter. That is what you are looking at right this very second. Thank you for choosing to be here!

The year has flown by. Bill finally did the math for me: As we age, each individual moment becomes a smaller fraction of our overall lives, so time seems to speed up. I'd never looked at it that way. But last Christmas feels like yesterday, so there is certainly some truth in that theory.

Cameron is in his second year of college at the University of Chicago, which marks year two of seven of  what I call The Poor Years. He made the Dean's List last year, and he's working in the performing arts building as a sound engineer (and just got his first raise!) and also DJs at a community radio station on campus. His DJ shift is every other Thursday, from 4 to 6 a.m. Bill and I visited him in Chicago a month or so ago and got to watch him in action. At 4 a.m. The vinyl library at the station is vast, so it was amazing to comb through the collection. It's also nice to hear the crackling of vinyl again on the airwaves.

Liam is in his junior year of high school, at a magnet school in San Antonio called The International School of the Americas. His school is consistently ranked in the top of the nation's high schools, so we're glad he's there. He's active in Model United Nations and PALS. PALS is a mentoring program to elementary school kids. He's always been a kid magnet, so it is right up his alley. He started driving this year. Two teenage boys put quite a premium on our insurance, so we didn't claim anything when he hit a fire hydrant. And he's been accident free since!

For years now, I have been the shortest one in the family, but now the boys are both taller than Bill. If you get our Christmas card, you'll see their photo, taken by some random mountain biker in a park still unknown to me. They wanted to take their own photo this year. Who am I to stop them? They are both squinting into the sun, but if you squint too, you'll hardly notice.

Bill is still hunting rabbits, among other things. I still refuse to eat rabbits, though I do enjoy a little venison when we have it in our freezer. He's spent many free weekends this year out hunting in the wilds of Texas. He leaves me a map in case he doesn't turn up, so I can tell authorities where to look for his body. Yes. Morbid.

I decided to take a step back into the writing world this year, spending a few weeks this summer touring with musicians and writing a blog about it for them. It wasn't near as glamorous as it sounds. But it was fun. And it made me realize how much I miss that type of work. Things have changed so much since my magazine days, but I'm looking forward jumping back into that world as soon as I can.

I hope 2013 was good to you! Like I said, it was gone in a flash for us, and I can only assume -- based on Bill's theory of the passage of time -- that 2014 will be a whirlwind year as well. Blessings to you and yours, from me and mine!

All the best
Kristi

NaNoWriMo Starts Friday

My novel emailed me a couple of weeks ago, begging me to work on it. When I logged into my NaNoWriMo account, I noticed it had been two YEARS since I'd been there. That poor neglected novel never was meant to be, an idea abandoned on the side of the road at least a half dozen plots ago.

In case you are unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month, or something close to that. I am not good with exact quotes: Movies, song lyrics, acronyms ... I botch them all in equal measure. FTW, even. (You don't want to know what I thought FTW meant. You probably do know. And if you think that's what it means, you are wrong.)

I run through plots regularly while I'm showering, blowing my hair dry, attempting to straighten the waves with a flat iron held together with electrical tape. My characters speak -- sometimes their voices are audible. And if I'm writing in my head while getting ready for bed (maybe I should try poetry INSTEAD! See what I did there?!), I often wonder if my family thinks I've lost it. I've heard it's okay to talk to yourself. It's when your self starts answering back that you have to worry. Many times full conversations take place in my bathroom when I am the only human in the room. And crazy does run in my family. But so does drama, so I think I'm safe. For now.

As you may or may not have noticed, I regularly neglect this blog. I have published only a handful of entries this year. I am not entirely confident I will be successful with NaNoWriMo, which begins this Friday, November 1. By 11:59 p.m. November 30, I will need to have 50,000 words written down  in order to successfully complete the program. 

I have most of a plot ready to go. I have four to six characters pretty well thought out. I am struggling to decide whether I should write the whole thing in first person or third, third being easiest for me. I struggle with dialogue. I get bored with writing scenes. I tire of typing. If I could dictate the whole thing, I'd probably be more successful. If I had a WRITTEN outline, I know I'd be more successful. I'm hoping success comes packaged in the official 2gb USB NaNoWriMo armband I've ordered for the month. I will wear it daily as a reminder that I need to churn out some copy. I will pretend it has magical powers, enabling the words to flow so quickly, my fingers will have a hard time keeping pace. (I had to write about magic somewhere, since it won't be in my novel.)

I am committed. Mostly. As committed as I can be without a real goal past the 50,000 words. I'm hoping that the next time you see me here, I won't be hanging my head in shame. That's one reason I wanted to make a public declaration of my intent to finally write a complete novel. Maybe, just maybe, this blog post will prompt me to continue writing. It's all in my brain. I just need to get it down on paper. Don't we all?

Join me if you dare. Wish me luck, if you please. Both are mightily appreciated.

Karen

I like to think that I'll be among the first human beings to live forever. I think I'll drink from the fountain of youth tomorrow, since forty-six seems to be a pretty decent age at which to be frozen in time. I know these are crazy thoughts -- so crazy, in fact, that I don't even waste a wish for everlasting life on Earth when I spy 11:11 on the clock. I know I'm going to die. I just don't know when. And honestly? I don't want to know.

But while I was out enjoying my Summer of Fun Tour, my friend Karen's time on this Earth ran out. I was in Hollywood when I got the first phone call. She was bed-ridden, I was told. No one knew why. I didn't call her then because I was told her husband didn't want her disturbed. She would get better, I thought. I would get home and call her once she was better. I would listen to some outlandish tale she'd have to tell.

I should've called immediately.

The next call came while I was in Phoenix. She was dead.

I am typing these words and seeing them in print for the first time, and I still can't believe it. She never said a word to me. I never knew she was sick, even though I'm told that she was diagnosed eight months ago with an aggressive form of cancer.

She was the most cheerful person you could ever meet. Perky, even. And I feel like a heel for not knowing, not saying goodbye.

There are no do-overs in death. He comes in and takes what's his, ready or not.

She was too young to die. Or maybe she was just to good for this world.

I am selfish to think of all the time I won't be able to spend with her now that she's gone.

No more crazy discussions of her government paranoia, of vapor trails in the blue sky.

No more laughing at her when she pees herself in the port-o-let and has to hang a shirt around her waist until the evidence evaporates in the hot Texas sun.

No more getting irritated at her for falling asleep on our long, late-night drives back to the city after long days spent scouring for goods in cow pastures.

No more Christmas wreath making on my back patio, where if I searched hard enough, I know I'd find mica embedded in the cement from our last crafty get-together.

No more soup and sandwiches after auction previews on Tuesday mornings.

How do you mourn someone's death when you didn't even know she was dying? When you can't find an obituary? When her voice is still on her voicemail? When you don't know the family well enough to ask questions?

Karen was a bright spot in my life, as I'm sure she was in the lives of so many others. And I don't want to let her go. I don't want to take down the magnet with her photo that sticks to my freezer door, even though the calendar below it ran out of days long before her death.

I don't want to forget her. But I want to learn: To stay in touch. To never put off that phone call.

And I am selfish -- maybe even proudly selfish -- thinking only of my hurting heart. And of this glorious light that is now and will be forever dark.

"An angel got her wings, and we'll hold our heads up knowing that she's fine. We'd all be lucky to have a love like that in a lifetime. Friends stay side-by-side, in life and death you always stole my heart. You always meant so much to me that it's hard to believe this."

The Summer of Fun Tour Continues

It's a long way from Texas to Kansas.

It seems even longer when you're trapped on a turnpike!

Miranda Lambert's shop in Tishomingo, Oklahoma

Somehow, my GPS must've known that, and after a quick visit (Okay. Maybe "quick" is overreaching.) to Miranda Lambert's store in Oklahoma, Ms. GPS sent us all the way to Lawrence, Kansas, on back roads. We were actually on highways, but they were MUCH more interesting than driving up I-35. It was slow-go, stopping to take pictures here and there and dodging turtles on the road. I've never seen so many turtles in my life. I saw more turtles than armadillos this trip.

Here are a few shots of a carnival we happened upon somewhere in small town, Oklahoma. I think I should've been a carny. Maybe running away with the circus is still an option? I've always been attracted to the imagery from both lifestyles -- from vintage freakshow photos to the smell of cotton candy to the belting barkers on the midway. Yet here I am. Typing on a keyboard, uninked and firmly rooted to a home that isn't on wheels and a family. Hope you enjoy the scenery.

Please click on the photos to see them in a larger format! 

It was a very overcast day. The carnival was still being set up. I was the lone shooter watching it all take place.

Surfin USA

I'm happy to report that Kristi's Summer of Fun Tour is in full swing! I just returned from a few glorious days in San Diego, where I served not only as a parking good luck charm, but as a weather goddess, bringing the sun from Texas, as well! No May grey or June gloom allowed!

{View of downtown San Diego from Coronado Island}

I saw some amazing beaches, full of amazing things like...SEA LIONS! RAWR!!

{They really don't roar. And they really aren't dead. 

Can you imagine this life? Swim. Sun. Sleep.}

Surfers! RAWR!

{They don't roar either. That was me roaring.}

Colorful landscapes unbeaten by heat and uneaten by deer!

{That is a lemon tree! I stayed with a friend whose backyard 

contained a lemon tree, an orange tree, a fig tree and an avocado tree. 

Unbelievable! California has everything!}

I came home with a wee bit of color and a swollen bottom lip, which I guess reacted in a very California way to three days of fairly constant sun exposure. It looked collagen-injected, for a fraction of the price! {I'm full of so many money-saving tips, you just wouldn't believe.}

I love California! I love the $5 bottles of water, the $4.11 gasoline, the $1.9 million dollar starter homes! I love that I can visit all that, good weather, and fun friends, then return home to my reality of affordable housing, 99-cent water and the love of a family. Summertime may be a beast here, but it's all mine. And it's a great base for my Summer of Fun Tour!

Note: This layout is WHACK. If you click the photos you can see them in all their glory, without strange things overlapping them.

Send Ransom!

Rock stars have kidnapped the writer of this blog!

She wishes.

Instead, her summer of fun has kicked off and she has so many new tales to tell! Sadly, however, very few involve rock stars at this time. BUT... once REAL summer arrives...oh, those stories will most certainly involve music, the open road, art and family fun.

So for now, you can visit her here (but don't worry, as it really isn't a hostage situation), if you're missing her THAT much. She's started a moonlighting gig that just happens to kick blogging arse. And it might involve rock stars.

{Guess where she's headed soon?}

This post is dedicated to a fellow fangirl who has a special love for third-person writing. And if the writer of this blog were the betting type, she'd guess this fangirl also favors the Queen's English.

Being Irish

March, 1986


It was our first road trip together.  Spring break, freshman year of college. We drove my car from Fort Worth, Texas, to Detroit, Michigan. Straight through. I borrowed sweaters from my roommate. Good thing, since it was cold in the Midwest that March. Snow, even. Ice on the Detroit river.

I had never been so far away from home. I was so nervous to meet his family that we drove around Trenton for a while before heading to his house. I fell asleep (we'd been up for more than 24 hours) playing poker with him and his younger sister, who was nice enough to let me share her room for the week.

On St. Patrick's Day, we celebrated with his older sister and her boyfriend at a Knights of Columbus Hall. All they had to drink there was green beer. No water. Only green beer. He won a huge bottle of wine, shaped like a naked woman kneeling with her arms raised above her head. At some point during our second semester at college, he and some buddies drank the wine and survived to tell about it. We still have the bottle somewhere. It has made every single move with us. For a while we used it as a piggy bank.

He told me he loved me that spring break, right in his parents' TV room. His mom served us huge portions of food, including corned beef and cabbage. They laughed at my southern accent, especially when I ordered iced tea at a restaurant.

They were the first family I remember being so in touch with their roots. My dad's family is Scotch-Irish, but we never really thought much about it. Certainly never celebrated it.

And then he'd make me a mix tape with a little leprechaun on it. He'd write me poetry.

We'd marry and dance to the Pogues (Irish) at our wedding. We'd eventually have kids and name them Cameron Knox (Scottish, from both sides of the family) and Liam (Irish, and a third generation of Williams). We would introduce those kids to Irish music, maybe a folktale or two.

We would, on certain Saint Patrick's Days, dance in our own living room, to Irish music playing on the stereo. We would even rise from a lunch of guacamole (green) and green grapes when led by an Irish fiddle. And life would be good.

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

Haters gonna hate.

Once you embrace this new-age philosophy (hip-hop? It sounds hip-hop to me. But then again I thought Blondie invented rap, so don't quote me on that), life gets that much easier.

Then the Oscars happen. 
We love them.
We hate them.
We love to hate them.

I happen to love them. Granted, it's fun to pretend we're all fashion critics for one night, dishing as though we're on assignment from Star. That's not the hate I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the fun suckers.

You know the type.

They say things like, "I don't understand why everyone is *so* interested in celebrities. Their poo smells just the same as ours." (Really, fun sucker? Prove it. I like to believe it's covered in glitter and odorless.) And this: "Sewage. Raw sewage."

These fun suckers go out of their way to corral all the haters on social media just to dis a program they *claim* they would never watch. And really. Who could blame them? It's such torture to watch beautiful people parade around in drop-dead gorgeous dresses and whatever the male counterpart might be to the dress. (The correct answer is NOT messy leather tie, Quentin T).

Back in the days when my kids were younger, my husband would take them away (but never long enough. They had bath times and regular bedtimes, and I'm sure I'd barter something in exchange for NOT being the one in charge of bath on Oscar Sunday) and leave me alone with all my celebrity friends. (What's that line from Almost Famous? "They're just more ... interesting.")

Eventually I progressed into what I like to call "The Luby's years." I'd go out super early to fetch my dinner from Luby's. If you must know, it would most likely be a LuAnn with fried fish and tarter, fried okra and either mashed taters or fruit salad. Regular roll. And sometimes it would be chopped steak with natural gravy instead of the fried fish. But it was always Luby's. I'd book the television for late afternoon forward on Oscar Sunday. And I'd watch the ceremony mostly alone. With occasional interruptions by the penis people (my family).

Now we're into the party years. One boy's away at college. One is well into high school. My husband and I dress up, nosh a bit and sit in front of the big screen at a local movie theatre on Oscar Sunday. (I feel much better about clapping in the movie theatre when someone I love wins an award than I do alone in my living room.)

I feel sorry for the haters on Oscar night because it's really fun. And even though my date isn't keen on the Oscars, we're somehow able to have some bonding over the hours-long spectacle. Our conversation this year flowed something like this:

Me: Do you think they oil Halle Berry's skin to get it to glow like that?
Him: That's a job I'd like to have.
Me: Ummm... me too?!

Then later during a commercial break:

Me: OMG! Jennifer Aniston uses the same skin care line that I use.
Him: You should use lots of it then.

"And all to soon the end is gonna come without a warning. And you have to just go home."

Then Oscar Monday arrives. The haters have forgotten all about the Oscars. They find a new cause to latch onto (because that's how they roll), most likely the horsemeat in Ikea's Swedish Meatballs. And once again, I'm all "Leave Britney alone!" because if it's true that horsemeat is in Ikea's meatballs, I only have one thing to say: horsemeat is tasty and it's better for you than the glass shards in your Lean Cuisine.

Hate away, fun sucker...

Like Chocolate and Peanut Butter

February is an XL special month around our house. Our wedding was in February -- February 3, 1990, to be exact. Our elder boy was born in February -- Day No. 24, 1994, to be exact. My dad's birthday is February 19, may he rest in peace.

And mixed in the middle of all these important dates is a special day for many: Valentine's Day. It's today, as a matter of fact! It sometimes gets lost around our house. You don't have to tax your brain very hard to figure out why.

But when I was a kid, I remember one February when we forgot my dad's birthday. I mean completely.
I still can picture how it all went down: I  was with my mom at Sprouse Reitz . (No one knew exactly how you were supposed to pronounce the second word in that dime store's name. Some gave it a short I sound, some a long I. Not a good idea to plop down a store with such a foreign-sounding name right in the middle of rural West Texas. But the debate really doesn't matter now, as the store is long gone. Maybe the name confusion was behind its demise.)

Anyway. There we were at the checkout. My mom started writing her check. She gasped and pulled a horrifying face, realizing that day -- that VERY day -- was my dad's birthday. I can't remember exactly what happened after that. I know we tried to throw something together quickly in an attempt to cover up the fact that we completely forgot his birthday. He knew. He just did. It was horrible. And he'd probably gotten my mom something really sweet for V-Day. Yeah. (HUGE pause here, please.)  THAT is a joke. My dad was known for buying her unromantic gifts, like bowling balls and microwaves, on holidays. And Mom always had a very appropriate, but not exactly mature, reaction to such gifts. Then Dad would surprise her on no special occasion with a bottle of her favorite perfume -- Joy.

As for me and my husband? We did NOT have a Valentine's Day-themed wedding, just so you know. I don't remember exactly why we picked February. Maybe because it isn't so hot in Texas in February? I know my husband's sister had been married the April prior. Maybe we were trying to give his family some time to recover from that celebration? Or maybe, since we got engaged in July, we needed a few months to pull it all together. We tried to book the chapel at our neighborhood's huge church for February 10. But they ran you through that place like cattle. All that was available was a crap time. AND you had to use their organist. We didn't even want organ music.

So we settled on a different church. A slightly different date. A female minister. The only requirements were that we didn't play secular music or carry an animal with us down the aisle.

I'm not kidding. 

Apparently they'd had trouble with a bride who carried a kitty cat in a basket to the altar. Or maybe it was a dog. Anyway, we were happy to comply. During the ceremony, my nephew caught the tulle around the candles he was lighting on fire.. I wonder if the church made a "no tulle" rule after that fiasco?

Still, it wasn't a Valentine's Day wedding. My bridesmaids wore black velvet and blue taffeta just to prove it -- one big group of healing bruises, they were. And my maid of honor continues -- to this day -- to point out the sweetheart neckline on her dress. I don't know why. Were sweetheart necklines not trendy in 1990? The florist wouldn't allow me to carry a round bouquet. She flat out refused to create a round bouquet out of fresh flowers. I was a trendsetter even back then, right? For years, people have been paying good money for round bouquets. (I'm guessing I was partly responsible for making sweetheart necklines all the rage too, but I can't be certain.) So much for designing my own wedding.  And at our reception, the hotel planner had promised she'd have "to go" boxes for us, since we'd be too busy to taste the food. She forgot. So our boxes were full of all the stuff no one wanted at the reception -- vegetables. No bacon-wrapped shrimp to be found. And the DJ? Prior to the wedding, we combed through his song list, marking through songs we didn't want him to play. He completely ignored our notes. All. night. long. Last song of the night? "Dancing in the Sheets." Classy.

Then the hotel lost our reservation. I'm sure it is because my husband's dad has his exact same name. And while we were Bill & Kristi, my new SIL's name was Christine and her husband was Bill. They ended up with a really swank room, by the way. And we did too, once I'd said my very loud and quite colorful piece to the desk clerk. So we blew off steam on our wedding night by tossing raw veggies out the window of the Stoneleigh Hotel in Dallas. Classy, part II.

Was all this foreshadowing to a disastrous life together?

What were we doing together in the first place? We were an accidental combination, like peanut butter and chocolate, that -- despite a long list of Either/eIthers  -- somehow worked.

I don't know where this photo originated. I stole it from Angrivated.

We don't always work properly. We've never worked properly. But we still turn out some stellar results now and then, including two fantastic sons. We've been together long enough to experience everything we vowed: thick and thin, Hell and high water, better and worse, rich and poor, sickness and health, new life and death.

We're very different, independent people, but we share so many good times together. We're a lot like the odd couple. I think we are exactly the odd couple. I get offered the senior discount at the movie theatre; he looks exceptionally young for his age. I'm deaf; He's color-blind. He's neat to my messy, tall to my short, dark to my light. But together we are whole. Together we know everything. (That's my story, anyway.) All our seasons haven't been rosy. But right now we seem to be in a good place, and I can't ask for anything more. I really can't.

We may not be a match made in Heaven, but somehow we found each other on this big ol' planet. It's a relationship that's partly a function of time and place and circumstance. But mostly a function of love.

And it stuck. 
Somehow.
Kind of like peanut butter and chocolate.

Happy February! And if you celebrate it, Happy V-Day! May you have round floral bouquets but NO bowling balls tossed at your feet.

Lenten Sacrifice

I'm not Catholic. I'm not even particularly religious. But I am constantly hopeful.

I wish on stars,
dandelions,
11:11 clocks.
I pray.
I believe in Karma.
I just constructed a dream catcher, for crying out loud.

Constantly hopeful.

For 40 days, I'll be giving up my stalking tendencies. It takes 21 days to change a behavior, right? So this could end up being a permanent change.

Let me explain my definition of stalking before you get all worried. I'm one of those people with second accounts on Facebook and Twitter, stalker accounts if you will. Don't be shocked. They aren't rare. My accounts were first set up during a period of time when I felt the need to keep watch over someone. It was that whole "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" idea. Then I got sucked in. It became more about watching a soap opera unfold than protection. It became a sort of twisted addiction. Before I knew it, it had become a complete time suck. Years had passed, and I had hours before me that couldn't be accounted for in any productive way.

Over the weekend I had an epiphany of sorts: It's over. It's time to move on. I'm not closing my second accounts, but I am vowing not to use them for the next 40 days. I am giving up my spying addiction. I am trusting that there is no longer a need to be a fly on the wall in this person's life. And trust, in this situation, is a huge step for me in the right direction.

Am I healed?

I am constantly hopeful.

Dream job

Here's the thing about being middle-aged: Your life becomes settled. That can be good and that can be bad. I've experienced both ends of the spectrum and many points in between. For some reason when I turned 40, I became way more honest with friendships and how much they mean to me. It was important to me that people understood how important they are to me and how I want them in my life. I WANT to stay in touch. I've added a lot of women to my list of friends. And I've come to realize that 40-something is a random number that means nothing to me. If I want to have fun, I have fun. Damn the law. And the polyester pantsuits. And the judgments. Well, mostly anyway.

AND... At the age of 46, I finally have found my calling.

And it is... groupie. {How much do you think something like that pays?!} But I'm not giving up my day job. I'll just moonlight as a groupie. It's pretty part-time anyway.

Groupie has been in my blood always. {It helps to be a bit boy crazy.} I believe I was born to live in California, smack dab in the middle of things. And some day I will live there. For at least one year.

I saw my first rock concert when I was in sixth grade. My older sister and her boyfriend took me and my best friend Kellie to see Peter Frampton. It. Was. Eye Opening. I still can picture someone being carted off the floor on a stretcher (we were in the high seats). The couple in front of us made out the entire concert.

I was sold.

Problem was, we lived in Middle of Nowhere, Texas. The closest venues were in Lubbock and Midland/Odessa, each about a ninety minute drive away. So it would be a few years before I hit my concert-going prime, hooking up with our hip youth center director who would "chaperone" my friends and me on these little field trips.

We'd leave as soon as the bell rang at the end of the school day, arriving just prior to the doors being opened. Since all the shows were general admission, we'd book it down to the stage. And we were fast. We were younger than anyone else around us. (back then, 40 wasn't the new 30. It was old lady territory.) We had a blast as front-row Joes. I once traded a hair clippy for a guitar pick from Saga. I got hit on the head with a beer bottle at a Rat concert. I spent many evenings drenched in sweat so bad that my entire body would be waterlogged. I was pulled over the front barrier and fed ice chips at a Quarterflash show. {That was my first bout with claustrophobia. There was no air circulation and I was pushed up against a large, sweaty woman in a tube top. 'nuff said.} I spent the rest of that show (Rick Springfield) up in the high seats.

You get the idea: livin' the dream without even realizing it.

In my BC (before children) adult life, I actually spent some time hanging with up-and-comers and full-fledged celebrities for a living. I was on guest lists. I was trusted to be left alone with rock stars in a hotel room. Or maybe they were trusted alone with me (I was in my twenties). I was backstage with Depeche Mode. Sweet-talked by Spandau Ballet. Information Society rode in my car (driven by my now husband).

Those wild magazine years were preceded by many concert outings, when I could pull the funds together and/or luck out on tickets, and followed by the child-bearing years. I swear my older son loves music so much {he's in a band} because in utero, he heard Willie Nelson, Depeche Mode {where I remember worrying that the pot being smoked around us would affect him}, Billy Bragg and Jonathan Richman.  During most of the child-bearing years we lived in Iowa, only saw a few shows: Cowboy Junkies, Jonathan Richman {this time pregnant with Boy No. 2}, John Denver {I don't care if you judge, remember?}, Greg Brown.

And finally we were back in Texas, though the only band interaction I've had since coming back would be a wink and a stage shout-out from Billy Bragg. (He called me "love." So British of him.) Eye contact with the Depeche Mode band extras. Maybe a drop of sweat from Dave Gahan, but I can't be sure. A small lecture from the stage from my favorite musician, Mark Kozelek, who gave me a surprise hug at another show. And the craziest meet-and-greet a couple of years ago with Collective Soul, where my husband snapped some of the funniest photos.

Fast forward to current day happenings...

A couple of months ago, I forked over some precious cash for a VIP ticket to Matchbox Twenty's performance in San Antonio, Texas. The seats were "spendy," according to the woman sitting next to me last night. I would rank them XL spendy (fourth row center). But worth. EVERY. penny.

The show was yesterday, and as it grew closer, I donned my What Would Penny Lane Do wrist band and consulted the Official Guide for Band Aids book. {Not LITERALLY... that's just a metaphor or a way for me to pimp my favorite movie ever or something.} My imagination ran wild with possible scenarios. I was meeting the band. That much I knew. And that's all that mattered. The details were a mystery.

Until two days prior, when I was notified via email that I had to be downtown for the meet and greet by 3:45.

Impossible.

Yesterday was a school day. I have a high schooler who goes to school until 4. My husband would be unable to leave the office before evening. I was SOL and glad I'd purchased insurance.

So, like any good parent, I mulled the whole thing over, weighing the pros and cons. Then I pulled my son out of school early. At first I felt guilty...but that feeling was overcome by fear of not being able to find a parking spot downtown. And maybe a little fear that my 46-year-old self would stick out like a sore thumb amongst the hot 19-year-olds I'd conviced myself would be lined up for the meet-and-greet.

Turns out I was book-ended by grown-ups. The woman behind me was celebrating her 47th birthday {making me a youngster at 46}. She had come to San Antonio from Oklahoma with her husband earlier in the week. She'd made presents for EACH of the band members {suck up}. She liked to talk. I like to listen. Okay...I like to talk. I checked her lipstick for her, offered to share my Altoids. Typical groupie bonding. We became fast friends.

I met the band before she did. I asked them if we could do a fun pose for the photo. Singer Rob Thomas screamed out "silly face" as the flash popped in quick succession. This is what we ended up with:

I'm not exactly sure what we talked about. I remember a mention of Mi Tierra. Rob pretended to offer to disrobe. I pretended to try to dissuade him, asking him to show some tat instead. He complied. We hugged. I may have told him I love his music. I may have thanked him for including San Antonio on the tour. I tried to remember to make eye contact. I remember being surprised that they all shook my hand, considering it is flu season and all. All I know for sure is it went by as quickly as the camera's flash.

Somehow, I thought meeting the band would get Rob Thomas out of my system once and for all. I was wrong. He's taken up residence in my heart and refuses to pack up and go. Guess I'll learn to live with his absence, visiting him only occasionally on-line, where he'll continue to serenade me via mp3 and talk to me through social media posts about no-kill animal shelters and his beautiful wife until we meet again at a future show.

Following the meet-and-greet, my fellow groupie with the lipstick and band gifts, Robyn, let me hang out with her and her husband. We finally calmed down enough to grab a bite to eat before heading to the back of the theatre in hopes of landing an autograph or two. We were successful. Robyn had made a sign and told Rob numerous times that it was her birthday. They bonded over their similar names.

Inside the theatre,  Robyn and I had seats  in the same section, a couple of rows apart. We planned to meet up following the show. During the show, Rob dedicates a song to Robyn for her birthday. One of his "people" said he'd hook her up for a show they're playing in Oklahoma in a couple of days. I've never seen ANYONE so happy. And she is a HUGE fan, so she deserved all the attention. I just played wingman. Or bridesmaid. Or Rosie to her Sophia Grace -- none of which is a bad role.

The best part, according to Robyn, was that we have a new friendship with eachother and a shared experience that we can gab about for years -- or at least days -- to come. We promised to stay in touch. {And we traded texts today. Something along the lines of "pinch me. was last night real?"} We'll share videos and photos from our great MB20 experience. Some day we'll take a road trip together to see MB20 again.  What was that line from Say Anything? "If I can't tell you about it, it's like it never happened."

And I don't want to forget.

A New Hope

"Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar,

took his last drink and swore his last oath.

Today, we are a pious and exemplary community.

Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds 

and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings

considerably shorter than ever." 

~Mark Twain

My New Year's eve started out troublesome at best. There I was, with my husband, at a new-to-us restaurant/bar for a 9:15 dinner reservation and some live music. We would ring in the new year with strangers and full bellies.

Our table wasn't ready when we arrived. Thirty minutes passed, and it still wasn't ready. An hour past our reservation time, we left. Hungry. Thirsty. Angry. With nowhere to go.

This was to be a big night for us. Both our teenaged sons had plans which involved spending the night away from home. We were alone. Celebrating together. We ended up, by pure luck, at a lovely Italian restaurant down the road. Martinis at 10:45. First course around 11 p.m. We locked lips a bit before midnight and then on into the new year. Do you know how hard that is to do? It made me realize how brief our kisses have become -- that we had to look at the clock twice to make sure we'd made our shared kiss the last thing we experienced in 2012 and the kick off to 2013. We drove home with full bellies and happy hearts.

On the drive home, the text messages began to buzz with Happy New Year greetings. They continued well past the west coast's turn of the new year. Facebook was buzzing, with everyone full of hope and excitement for the year ahead. The last message I received was at 5:09 a.m. from my older son: "I'm going to bed now. I'll be sleeping really late!" I'm sure it was his way of asking me not to disturb his sleep with a mid-morning phone call or text, asking when he'd be coming home.

The moment the new year begins is a beautiful thing, isn't it? You can actually feel the hope for new beginnings radiate. Pure excitement. Pure joy. True connections and love. I wish we could bottle the emotions and uncap them every single night at midnight. What a perfect world this would be if the hope we feel, as we close the door on the past and look forward to a bright future, would carry us through all 365 days of the coming year.

Happy 2013.