With the party people night and day
Living crazy, that's the only way
So tonight
gonna leave that 9 to 5 up on the shelf
And just enjoy yourself
Groove
Let the madness in the music get to you
Life ain't so bad at all
When you're living off the wall

April's Miracle: Something New

I felt his arm casually snake its way across my waist
His breathing slowed to an unsteady rhythm
I could feel the tension uncoiling through his body
The anticipation building for what he was about to do
A years worth of pent up longing
Of doubts and uncertainty, hesitation and nerves
Slowly he brought his face towards mine
His eyes held my gaze and we both stood there swaying
The world fell away and the room began to spin
His breath was a whisper upon my face
As his lips touched mine I felt a sharp jolt
Tingling current as his warm kiss drew the breath out of me
Though it lasted 5 seconds, it felt like a year
A precious gift, this first kiss

January's Miracle: +1

The first in a series of miraculous events I will chronicle throughout 2009 to highlight the positive occurrences that have taken place in my life.


On a cold January morning, I received the call. I had been awaiting it for five days, yet somehow it caught me unawares. I heard my mother's voice on the other end of the line, "He is here". Even though I had known for several months that he would be arriving and despite the fact that I wasn't there to witness his grand entrance, her announcement brought tears to my eyes. My family is now +1. In January, our little miracle arrived in the form of my sister's first child, a bouncing baby boy.

My sister and I were born 22 months apart. It has always been very important to me to point out that she isn't quite two years older than I am. 'One year and ten months' I used to scream whenever she or anyone else tried to pull the seniority card. Being that close in age has positive and negative aspects, but the one thing that remains true good or bad is that we take life's turns at roughly the same time. Heading off to school, becoming a teenager, first kiss, first boyfriend - these things have all happened in such a way that I felt more than able to relate. What I am trying to say, and evidently not doing a very good job of, is that I can relate to most things that have happened in her life. The first major step she took that I have yet to was marriage, but somehow that didn't feel alien. Having been in love, I could obviously relate. Not to the actual act itself, but to the idea that it is possible to want to spend the rest of your life with one person.

With this most recent jump however, she is beyond my reach. She carried an entire other person for 9 months and pushed him out into the world. I cannot even begin to fathom the awe she must have felt when he was handed to her. To see herself, my brother-in-law and so many earlier generations of our family all mixed together in the features of one tiny infant is nothing short of astonishing. I have only been able to see him via the harsh medium of mega-pixels, yet somehow I feel the tug on my heart. I had no hand in creating this child, that was between my sister, her husband and God. Yet somehow I feel as though a piece of him belongs to me. I look at a picture of him and I feel as though we are communicating. Silent secrets that only he and I know or understand. My nephew. I am in love and I haven't even met him yet.

My Annus Mirabilis

Is it too late to say Happy New Year? Probably, but when have rules or conventions ever deterred me? Happy New Year all. This time last year I laid out a series of intentions/resolutions that I intended to keep in 2008. Half of the things listed were tangible goals, the other half intangible. I will say that I tried valiantly to keep them, and even succeeded in a few areas - the intangibles were surprisingly easier than the tangibles - but not all. I had considered doing a recap/roundup of my achievements, near misses and complete failures, but decided against it. December would have been the right time to reflect on the year gone by; to do so now is counter-productive.

This year I am taking a new approach. Instead of listing my goals, this year I have a mission statement: 2009 is my annus mirabilis. It is my year of wonders, my year of miracles. It sounds very wishy-washy, but I want to focus on highlighting the good things that come my way in 2009, and so to do that effectively, each month I will highlight one event that I am grateful for. A miracle per month. It could be something small, it could be something very significant, either way, you will be reading about a multitude of things that I am grateful for this year.

January's miracle has already happened and while I haven't found the words to do it justice yet, I am searching when I find them you will read about it. Happy 2009.

No Longer At Ease

Whoever said you can't go home, I am finally starting to accept that maybe they were onto something.

Perhaps it is the five year threshold that is proving to be more powerful than I would have thought. For the first time, I feel ill at ease in a city that I have long considered more of my home than anywhere else. It all just seems very foreign. Not the streets, or the people, but I have lost that ease that one usually has when you know exactly how things work. The familiarity that always greets me when I set foot in London eludes me this time.

It isn't frightening or even upsetting, it is just strange. To have to think really hard about what typical procedures are, it just doesn't come naturally anymore to do things the British way. There are all these little signs that tell me that I am struggling to hold on to something that doesn't really belong to me anymore. I am now firmly planted on the outside looking in. Still enchanted by London, but not really feeling a part of it.

Since I arrived in the UK over a week ago, I have had scores of people ask me what part of America I am from. They tell me I have an American twang tempered by a soft British accent. For some reason this makes me sad, I feel as though it should be the other way round. I find myself straining to hear my speech patterns even as I am engaging in conversation which makes for some very awkward encounters. In a bid to demonstrate my 'britishness', I can feel myself softening the flatness of my vowels, rounding my o's more deliberately. Much the way someone fresh off the boat would attempt to fake an accent to belong. This is what it has come to.

Will it always be this way? Or will I simply accept my fate as a global citizen, destined to belong nowhere in particular but feeling comfortable enough to be anywhere? I really don't know.

Say You're One of Them by http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1033445.Uwem_Akpan">Uwem Akpan

My'>http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/37649874?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I picked ths book up on a whim, as I am currently trying to factor at least one African author a month into my reading list. It was quite an incredible experience. 'Say You Are One of Them' is basically a collection of six short stories, some very short, some rather long (almost novellas) but they all feel just right.

Each story is set in a different African country and they are always told from the perspective of a child. It was sad, joyful, moving and exhilarating all at the same time. Uwem Akpan has such beatifully graceful prose that even reading about genocide and religious conflict can seem ordinary and extraordinary all at once. This book would be an excellent selection for a book club, marre only by the fact that each story in itself has more than enough juice to support hours and hours of lively discussion.

We Did It.

The champagne is flowing,
People are crying,
Singing, dancing in the streets,
President Elect Obama,
We can't quite wrap our heads around it.
We can't believe it has come to pass.
We need time to process it.
Barack Obama looked at us and said
"Yes We Can"
We took him at his word,
And yes, we did.

President Obama.
I cannot breathe.

Dixville Notch down, the rest of the country to go

So the first voting results have trickled in from the resort of Dixville Notch, a small resort in the north of New Hampshire with a tradition of voting first in the nation - at midnight to be precise - on election day. The number of people actually casting ballots there is tiny, but it remains a fascinating little bit of tradition. Just the sort of thing to titillate a political junkie like me.

And so of course I stayed up till midnight to see which way the wind would blow in Dixville Notch (it usually blows republican), but this time it was worth it.Obama-15, McCain-6. Bring on the rest of Election Day!

*NaNo update - 4,400 words out of a goal of 50,000.