Happy ... Easter?

Springtime is one of my favorite times of year out here in major metropolis East Coast America. It's truly lovely. The blooming trees and daffodils fill me with joy. Something I have noticed, however, is that for as long as we've lived here, Easter has never felt like Easter to me. That's not true, our first Easter here - 6 years ago - was beautiful: sunny, mild and glorious.

Every Easter since has seemed to follow weather pattern that is just antithetical to the point of Easter in my opinion. It basically goes like this. We have some warm days in early Spring ... or maybe we don't, but invariably, Easter Sunday is almost always overcast, wet, cold or some combination of the three. You don't feel inspired to wear sandals or pastel colors at all.

Today is of course, no different. Though it's partly sunny right now, it's also about 35 degrees outside. I believe the only reasonable response to that on an Easter Sunday is: you're bloody kidding me, right? Having spent the bulk of my childhood in the Panhandle of Texas which is prone to see it last snowstorms in mid-March and is not warm year-round like people think, I'd like to think maybe I'd be cool with this meteorological holiday abomination. But no. Because even in the Panhandle, it's generally 65 to 75 degrees on Easter Sunday, so you can still hunt eggs in short sleeves and not have to wear anything heavier than a light sweater to church. However, global climate change seems to have afflicted the native lands today as well. It's 45 degrees here, feeling 32; there it's 32 degrees feeling 22. (Note to self: never move further north than New York City.)

Why does this upset me so much? Because Easter should be mildly warm and inviting. It should be the time of the year when we feel comfortable enough to shed layers and let our bare skin soak in the first few kisses of the sun. Easter is when Jesus rose from the dead; it shouldn't feel dead and defeated outside. Rain on Easter is an unfortunate occasional occurrence. But after 7 years of rain or overcast or stupid cold as this, I'm prone to just ask Jesus to sleep in another week or so. If I were Christ, that's what I would do: hit the snooze button until it's picnic weather. "Melt the clouds of sin and sadness/ Drive the dark of night away" go some lines from "Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee." How can I feel like the clouds of sin and sadness are melted when it's bloody raining outside? Even from the pagan viewpoint of Easter or Spring festivities: seriously, do you feel fertile and like you want to celebrate renewal when people are wearing dark overcoats and the sun hides her face?

Honey thinks it's odd and amusing that I am so vehement about Easter Sunday weather. (Did I tell you there was a dusting of snow o'er everything at 7AM, yesterday? Infuriating.) His viewpoint, and I hope someday I can adopt it is that it's the weather and it's beyond your control, so why get bothered? I guess I have such fond memories of new dresses and playing barefoot outdoors on Easter Sunday after church, that it saddens me to see children here bundle up at church on Easter. Plus, I'm a very solar-powered individual, I've decided. I enjoy changing seasons and appreciate what they bring to the environment, but ultimately I LOVE the sun. And once winter is over, all I want is to bathe in the sun's light and soak up her warmth.

On the upside, Honey and I did go to church this morning. It was the first time this year. Last year was the first time ever that I hadn't worshipped on Easter and I felt empty for like a week. It's so strange, not having gone to church for all intents and purposes, in over two years that some Sundays really are more impactful than others. I love celebrating the resurrection, ultimately. Miss any other Sunday but the one that celebrates the defining event of the religion. We went to a neighborhood Lutheran church. We'd not done a Lutheran service in a while and we both forgot how much they love to do readings. It was like out the wazoo - almost Catholic.

The service was fair; as first time visitors, it felt a little alien, but we acclimated decently. The sermon was okay, but no really new inspiration on the Easter story - or at least, none that I picked up on. Maybe he needed to work on the delivery. In the 10 years Honey and I have been together, the ministers of churches we've belonged to have been excellent orators. Even my dad, whose tone tends to be more colloquial and less "speakery", is a really engaging storyteller, capable of great analogies. So our expectations are kind of artificially high. We did sing "Christ the Lord is Risen Today," which to me makes any Easter service, no matter how full of flourish or understated, complete. Two years ago, at my sister-in-law's church, we didn't sing it on Easter and it felt kind of like ... "no, I don't think he is risen today."

Of course, contributing to that sentiment was that it 48 degrees and rainy outside.

Leaving the cave hurts my eyes!

Hello, blogosphere ... assuming you haven't all given up on me!

Sorry I disappeared there. I've basically spent the last month buckling down on my thesis, which in its primary, "un-seen by the power-that-be" form, is finished stem to stern. But it looks like, with all the fixes I know I need to make and those I don't yet know, I'm not going to get it finished in time for May graduation. A month ago that would have been devastating. However, I 've done a ton of work in the last month and if I finish this thesis by the end of May and end up graduating in August, so be it. If I wasn't employed full time I could probably still get this finished in time for my thesis committee to review it and return it to me for the necessary corrections in time for final delivery for May graduation. But I am employed full time, so c'est la vie.

That's the bad news, but the good news is: my professor loves my work. Frankly I feel like my data analysis is terribly elementary. I feel like I'm painting a truly interesting subject using crude, chubby crayons and in only primary colors. But he loves it, so I must be doing something right. When he asked this week how I was holding up, I told him the truth which is that I feel like I'm losing grey matter; that when I re-read my paper, I'm not seeing content anymore, I'm seeing figures on a page which I gather are letters, but I'm really not sure. He suggested I take a break and come back to it after a bit. I'm a magnificent enough procrastinator to know that that's dangerous for me. I feel like I've created a groove for myself right now, though, so my plan is to instead of plowing ahead 8 - 12 hours each weekend day, to just knock out 2 - 4 hours a day so I don't over saturate myself. At least until I can start understanding again what I've written.

Life in the last 30 days has been an emotional roller coaster, too. When I started grad school, I remember my mom telling me that it can be hard on a marriage when the student is writing her/his dissertation or thesis. Wow. I have totally learned that this month. This has been hell on both of us. Compounded too by the fact that I've been doing a show on Friday nights. If I were married to me, I would've left my panic-attacking ass three weeks ago. Honey is a trooper though. I don't know how to reward him when this is all over. I made him a playlist of songs to get him through this, but I don't know if that's enough. Some solace though is knowing that there will be an end to this and it's within sight; as well, that others have survived the same thing. I ran into an old coworker of mine yesterday and she agreed that her thesis was one of the hardest things she'd ever done and that it definitely put a strain on her relationship with her then boyfriend, now husband.

On the good side, my show has been immensely popular and has been selling out since the second weekend. I'm with a good group of people whom I'd really like to get to know better offline. We've got one more show next weekend and then we're down till June. We'll remount for the summer and if it continues this wild popularity, we're already planning variations for a fall and holiday run! Luckily, with my thesis done and only 10% to go until it's dead and cooked, and an effective study groove established, I think the show will be more of the creative release that I need than another taxation on my brain cells.

I'll try to catch up on all y'all's blogs, soon and I'll try to post some more, soon. I have been missing cruising!

iPod Playlist Tag/Meme/uh ... whathaveyou

Babydog got to walk in the annual St. Paddy's Day parade, today. We entered her in the "fun dog show" before the parade. Can you believe she didn't get "best smile?" Notice she's not smiling as widely in this picture. Methinks it is not because she lost a meaningless title, but rather because Mommy and Daddy won't let her lick the candy off of the fingers of toddlers she does not know.

Sonnjea tagged me with a tag (?) today. It seems we're supposed to share the first 10 songs that come up on random on our iPods. Then tag 5 more people to play or else something bad will happen to Sonnjea's imaginary hampster. (She also has an iMaginary iPod, so those without iPods may use their iMaginations, as well.) Then I think we're supposed to let people comment on our musical taste in the comments section.

My iPod is currently without juice, but it holds my "mellow" playlist which I also have set up on our iTunes library. So, I just stuck it on shuffle and here are the first 10 songs it came up with:

1. New Slang - The Shins
2. The Writing on My Father's Hand - Dead Can Dance
3. Out of a Serpent's Egg - Dead Can Dance ... by the way, if you're gonna goth, go w/ them.
4. Don't Panic - Coldplay
5. Sundress - Ben Kweller
6. Song of the Sibil - Dead Can Dance
7. Happy Holiday Y'all - Robert Earl Keen
8. Bedshaped - Keane
9. Hitchhiker's Smile - Victoria Williams
10. Clap Along Song - Dead Can Dance

Note: I do like Dead Can Dance a lot, but I normally don't listen to more than one album at once. I think I set too wide a filter for this playlist and it populated a disproportionate amount of DCD for me.

Now, I tag the following - assuming they're reading my blog - Churchgal (whom I still owe a response to), VirginiaGal, JoeinVegas, NubianTemptres and ... hmm. Let's try Mommanator.

... as an aside, I've been told that someone commented recently on a post, but because I established comment moderation, it didn't get to me. If this is true, and not someone trying to play off the fact that no comment was left and he/she feels guilty about it, I have since disabled comment moderation. Please be kind - or at least witty with any causticity.

If you remember from my last two moan-fests, I am in a depression. However, I have been feeling very, very good for the last 3 or 4 days. And after a wonderful opening night last night, I feel great. This lucidity is a good thing, and will probably help me work through my nasties better. That said, I apologize for the toadiness of my last few posts. I know reading/hearing someone mope can get annoying.

eNjoy the iPod tag!