Embracing 2008, looking forward to 2009

Props to the hundreds of thousands of bloggers, especially those with children (whom I will NOT automatically call mommy bloggers :)), who can keep up with photos, videos and heck, even posts themselves this time of year. I find myself at the end of the holiday months, the longest and best I've had in years, if not ever. Work simultaneously invigorated and overwhelmed me. We welcomed lots of new friends in a new house. Julian could identify Santa Claus and open presents on his own. Ian and I kept up our positive attitudes and couldn't pinch ourselves enough to make sure all this happy goodness was real and not just some wistful dream from earlier in 2008.



People keep saying what a crappy year 2008 was. It most definitely held unprecedented lows, both personal and economic, but with a new president, a new job, a new partnership, a new home, a new social circle (even for Julian) and a new wardrobe and subsequent quasi-fame, I am having a hard time remembering anything but the good from '08.



In terms of my own person growth and change, 2008 was right up there, if not ahead, of 2001, 2003 and 2006. Look at the hardship and joy suffered in those years: starting college and 9/11, followed by exiting adolescence and living in Spain, then moving to Austin, losing Troy and embracing Julian.



I'm just thankful that this year, like the others, the lemonade we made quenches our thirsty lips.



My hope is that our collective momentum will continue into this new year. 2009, as every year before it, holds countless opportunities for my family and yours, and my wish is that we all greet them with open eyes and a straight head.

Dreams of space travel and simple days

I'm enjoying a very nice cup of coffee in Hotel ZaZa, a hip, upscale place right in the middle of Herman Park and the Museum District in Houston, where my balcony overlook the Museum of Fine Art and many of the park's lush trees.

I'm playing hooky from the Association of Food Journalists conference, a four day affair with dozens of other newspaper and freelance food writers, restaurant critics and food editors (all very different positions, I assure you), to A) catch up on a wee bit of sleep and B) reminisce about the last time I was in Houston for a conference.

It was a whopping 15 years ago (which is whopping when it's more than half your lifetime), in 1993, for a Young Astronauts conference, a gathering of members of Young Astronaut chapters from across the U.S. We had a pretty strong YA chapter in Aurora, where science-minded students from all elementary school grades would meet after school with teachers and talk about the bernoulli principle and jet propulsion and conduct experiments that involved messy ingredients and homemade hovercrafts that used vacuums to move around the smelly cafeteria where we met.

All very fun for eager 10-year-olds, but not near as much fun as going to NASA and hoping you pushed a wrong button that launched you and your buddies into space.

My mom, who as a teacher was one of the Young Astronaut leaders, had planned to go to that year's YA conference, but although my brain, like most young brains, understood she was going, I didn't comprehend what that meant until the day or two before she left. Once it clicked that she was about to go on a majorly cool adventure, I threw a fit and probably threatened to never talk to her again unless she let me go.

As my wee luck would have it, a small rural school my mom had once worked at was sending a busload of kids overnight to Houston (it was too late to get a plane ticket to go with Mom) and they had an extra seat. So I packed my little kid bags and headed to Bois D'Arc, which is where my parents were living when I was born, the night before the conference started. A TV crew was there, and KY3 anchor Tony Beason picked my little smiling face out of the crowd to interview for the nightly newscast (I ended up interning with him before starting Mizzou. Small world, huh?).

That long, dark bus ride was a milestone for me. Hunched in the rigid seats, I made fast friends with the older students, listening to the Beach Boys and Beatles on their Walkmans and checking out their teen magazines and for the first time getting what it meant to be cool.

By the time the sun rose, we were in a foreign land I now call home. Texas felt like the Deep South and going to NASA and touching the side of a rocket that had been in outer space made me even more sure that one day I, too, would go in space.

Hearing John Lennon sing "Help" might have given me a glimpse of the grown-up world, but I still embraced my childhood dreams.

In fact, as illogical as it might seem, this group of food journalists is going to NASA today, hypothetically to learn about the challenges of feeding astronauts in space, but for at least for one of them, it will be more about revisiting those eager, precocious days where anything was possible, the realities of adulthood be damned.

(If you want to see if I "accidentally" launch us into space on the field trip to NASA today, check out my live-tweeting of the conference, over on Twitter.)

Since when were boogers this cute?

Julian has started to enjoy his baths more. It wasn't that he didn't like them; we just didn't bathe him that much, so he wasn't as accustomed to bathtubs as say, the bottom drawer of the fridge or the mailboxes outside by the laundry room.

But now, he's taken to actually getting into and out of the bath at his own willing. I'll suggest a bath, where he can wash with soap (italicized words are one he's calling out play-by-play through the evening) and water. Then he'll get the comb and brush his hair. Today, he's figured out what mommy is picking out of his nose.

Catching up

So much has been happening lately, there's hasn't been much time or mental capacity to blog much about what's going on.

Suffice it to say that living in uncertainty, both personal and environmental (hello, crazy news cycle and quickly changing world), creates endless opportunities for profound growth and discovery. As long as we remember that, we can conquer the intimidating unknown with grace and courage.

Here are some things that I do know:

ACL is a whole lot more fun when you randomly run into people you know. Marques Harper, the Statesman's style writer, and I had some fun playing around the shopping area at the festival yesterday, including taking some photos at the WaMu (read FDIC/JP Morgan) photo booth and shopping for sunglasses. We were both working the festival. My job was to take photos of people eating from the fabulous food court, which I wrote about earlier this week. His was to take photos of the fabulously dressed concert-goers. (His was the blog I contributed to when I was going through What Not to Wear in New York earlier this year.)


Tigers are cool. We saw this one at the Austin Zoo today.

Julian is awesome. His favorite thing to do now is drink "nilk," go "fast" and put "contats" in his eyes. Oh, and he's still obsessed with stars, trucks and "copters."


Community-supported agriculture helps make even a tiny, poorly lit kitchen like ours look lush and inviting.

(Insert picture of a happy Julian with LaLa,
the wonderful South Austin abuelita who takes care of him during the days now.)

Having Julian in day care is a huge step forward for everyone in the house. Julian has needed the stimulation (in fact, it's possible his two naps a day were linked to boredom. I'd nap that much if I stayed home all day, too!), Ian has needed the space and I have needed to see how this next chapter of my life is going to look, which includes Julian being in "school." What's awesome is that LaLa wants the kids to be kids for as long as they can, so "school" is just her way of describing the playtime/learning time balance she gives them. I think Julian just really likes a sweet woman who lets him cook, a little fellow named DJ and a little thing called Nilla Wafers that mommy never buys.

All of now

Sometimes, in life, we have to focus on the little things to get us through the big crashing waves of change. My mom directed me to this Ralph Marston Daily Motivator from Saturday:

All of now

The bright sun shines in the clear blue sky. Shimmering waves glisten on a restless sea.

Beauty fills the world. Possibility fills your life.

The problems are real. Yet in each one is the opportunity to move forward.

This sparkling moment is one of a kind. Take it in with love and with gratitude, and remember to live it fully.

This magical mystery that is your life knows only the limits you choose to give it. In the heart of your spirit you can experience anything you decide to experience.

Life is in all of now. See it, feel it and know it as it fills you with wonder and joy.

Here is Julian "cooking" eggs, one of the many things that fills me with wonder and joy.

It is a privilege to be his mother.

How do you say what you mean?

On my flight to San Francisco, when I was stuck without Internet, I started trolling my computer and found this AIM conversation between Troy and me from March 17, 2005. He was getting ready to graduate with a degree in journalism (I was supposed to graduate, too, but studying abroad for so long delayed me a semester), and we were buzzing along together in the height of our intellectual (and so clearly complicated and abstract) collegiate endeavors.

He died on June 23, 2006.

I’m really glad I saved this conversation.

Troy: i can't believe all this nick drake stuff is from late 60s and early 70s.
Addie: seriously?
A: gez...it never ceases to amaze me as to how much ground i still have to make up in the music world
T: yeah, it's etc.
12:20 AM
T: you can never say or know everything about anything.
A: tis is true
T: that is a general semantics fact.
A: but you can know more than average about something
A: looking into the things that interest you
T: whats average?
A: but that's such a sociological point...people think they're so fucking cool because they can quote every hemingway or hunter thomspon or the killers or you name the hot item of the moment
T: as long as they like it. then it probably is pretty fucking cool.
A: i guess by average i mean the basic definition of one thing.....you say fitzgerald, i say gatsby, you say franzen i say the corrections
A: who's they
T: i don't know you're the one who said it.
12:25 AM
A: wait, i don't think i said they
T: i have to go to sleep. nick drake is making me sleepy.
T: you said "people".
T: WHATever.
A: right, the rest of them
A: it's never ending
T: our language is self reflexive, so there's always another layer of abstraction that can be added. another picture of a picture of a picture.
A: oh jesus...i think we could go for hours on that
T: an abstraction of an abstraction
T: thats the point.
A: it's like modern art
T: we could go on for hours about anything and have not said everything.
T: or anything, for that matter.
A: jesus....it's like defining to be. it never works. but its fun to try
T: our language was created by people who thought the world was static and basically the same.
A: such fools
T: now we're stuck with a language that can't describe reality
A: but it's the closest thing we have, right?
T: which is really a process of continuous change.
T: well, we can start by throwing out the to be verbs.
A: right, but language is change, people is change, community is change...
A: as long as it is all changing, why not go with it
T: i don't get it. go with what? things arent changing. change is thinging. (sic)
A: the changes....good means bad, cool means weird...girl means boy....what was once totally right, now means wrong....what once seemed logical now seems strange...people once loved beef and now they think it's crazy
T: hahahaa.
12:30 AM
A: they loved milk and now reject it
T: they're all thinging.
A: people have lived off carbs for thousands of years and now it's wrong. who says that? i mean honestly
A: thinging...since when was that a verb???
T: it's so funny.
A: the cliche is that things are always changing, but you can't really reject that.
it comes in circles
T: what i reject is our language as a way to describe what's in my head. it simply doesn't work.
A: so what's the solution
T: i'm restricted to these silly words like silly.
A: hahaha
T: i'm living in a prison of culture.
A: but you can make these words mean what you mean
A: you can make "reasonable" mean what you want it to
T: i will leave you with this nick drake song.

A: and i'll leave you with that idea that the people who really understand you understand what you mean by the words you say...not what the dictionary defines them as, but what you mean them
T: but you will not understand what i mean because they mean different things in different contexts.
A: and each day it changes and i can only take a survey
T: i cannot transfer my thoughts to you. simply cannot be done.
A: i agree.
A: unfortunately
A: but that's the way life is...you cant' dwell on this as a miscommunication
⋯
12:35 AM
T: something must be done.

A (not really all that terribly) troublesome toddler

With his 18 month birthday, Julian officially entered toddlerhood this week, but to Ian and me, it's been a long milestone coming. He's been kissing, crawling, climbing, "no"-ing, "juice"-ing, laughing, playing, tickling, swimming -- all those toddler things that either make you melt or make you crazy. We've found parenthood this book of chapters that get both easier and harder the further you get along.

For example, he sleeps and sleeps, which we're eternally grateful for, but when he's up, he's up, and you don't really get a break until he's sleeping again. Before, when he was waking up and breastfeding and such, you could (relatively) go about your business. Not that this is different than any other kid in history, but when you're in it, you really understand this for the first time. You also start to understand that as soon as you *get* it, it all changes and it's like the first day of class all over again.

It's been long days for Ian while I'm at work, but he's figuring out how not to lose his sanity and still be a full-time parent, a feat I have so much respect for. And I go through the quintessential working mom emotions: feeling guilty for not spending enough time with Julian on one hand and on the other hand feeling slightly ashamed of the relief that sometimes accompanies walking out the door and into my other life.

It's been hard for me to balance my full-time work and also to alleviate some of the stress of his full-time work. And equally difficult, Ian's on call nearly every day for whatever strange schedule or event that comes up that takes me away from him and J.

But it's such a marvelous way to spend your days.

Our neighbor Fern, the one with no short-term memory who walks her dog Lucky about a dozen times a day, always reminds us of what a wonderful life ahead we have. "Don't you feel sorry for people who don't want to have children," she asks. "They don't know what they are missing out on."

She also always asks us when, not if, we're going to have another. That's a whole other story, a scenario I cannot possibly imagine right now. Our plates are full, and we're happily busy and occupied with one dog and one child (who just yesterday started saying sometime similar to "good girl" to Shiva).

For all the energy it takes to raise a child, you get it back tenfold, not over the course of a lifetime, but in the span of a few minutes or seconds, in moments like the one below, when Julian got to play with his cat friend, Toby.

It's the hardest job we'll ever do, and it ain't over yet.

Just one more snuggle

Fellow toddler mom Jenny posted something about her son Ollie that resonated with me today. He and Julian are almost the same age, and they are both at this stage of intense and physical of love and play.

He feels free to touch us, pat us, lash out at us, snuggle up to us, or in my case, nurse, http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifas if we don't have separate bodies but are extensions of each other.

It is funny to think about how this will slowly fade away as he gets older. It has already done so, some, and will continue to. There will be a time where he and I will think it inappropriate or weird to snuggle up to me as he does (especially since right now he is fond of snaking one hand into my bra). And there will be a time where he will no longer have sweet baby skin to caress on his back or tummy and I will not be able to give him all the kisses I want, while he giggles for more.

Julian likes the sensory experience of taste and touch, so he loves fingers in the mouth, be it sucking his own thumb or feeling mommy's molars. It's amazing how even Ian gives up nearly every bit of personal space for Julian to explore. He climbs all over me, using my limbs as a ladder and my hair as handle bars. I'm his La-Z-Boy, his horse and his skateboard. He pokes my eyes and inspects my toes. He's so curious about the human body, both his own and others'.

He is a snuggler, but I think it could already be fading. Each time I hold him, hoping that he'll stay still a little longer. A little longer. What is it about that baby skin? I think about losing the intimacy to nuzzle that soft neck when he gets older, and then I remember how gradual and natural it happened between me and my parents. Never gone, just different ways of expressing emotions. But they taught me well, so I know good and well that I can still look forward to playing mama Shamu well into elementary school.

I, too, am sad at the thought of the day when he won't want to give me such big, sloppy kisses, so I just try to enjoy as many of them as I can now.

Julian photos June 2008

Whew! A story, a column, several blog posts, a handful of Tweets and now an updated addiebroyles.com, I've been busy all over the place but on the blog! Lots happening with the Fourth of July (I went downtown with some neighbors to watch the fireworks and check out the portable pool at the Beauty Bar), a long weekend (Barton Springs, and — get ready, casino-lovers — Chuck E. Cheese) and a full week to recover from (see above and next Wednesday's Statesman).

It's been an on-the-go month. Julian and I met up with Dallas Erin in the middle of the month and took a colossal (or maybe it just felt that way in the middle of Oklahoma with a fussy kid) and totally awesome road trip to visit our friends Rachel and Russell (we lived with Rachel in Spain). Picked some blueberries, hung out with the grandparents and PDX visitors. Made me wish we all didn't live quite so far apart.

Julian's setting the pace for our summer. He's an energetic toddler these days, climbing on top of the table, lovingly throwing trash away and talking to any stranger or animal or inanimate object he encounters. I didn't catch any photos of our swimming adventures this month (Julian is into sitting on the edge and falling in, with a half second underwater, to mommy's arms) or of the regular barbecues we've been having with our neighbors. Or just the plain jane afternoon tickle fests, where we all fall down on the pillows and make funny noises and laugh ourselves breathless.

Gary Vaynerchuk is on purpose

I wonder if Gary Vaynerchuk and Wayne Dyer know each other. Both Dyer, the spiritual teacher and author, and GaryV, the host of Wine Library TV who I wrote about in today's paper, spend a lot of time using their natural ability to affect change on people.


Dyer does it outright with all those books and seminars (check him out if you don't know him), but Mr. Vaynerchuk uses, of all things, a wine blog in which he shouts at plastic wrestling figures, spits in a bucket and asks viewers about the last thing that made them smile. Don't groan. He means it. He wants to know where the love is at.

When you are achieving your destiny, Dyer calls it being "on purpose." Those Ask and It is Given folks says you are in vibrational harmony with the source. I got the essence of what people love about him. The sincerity, the passion, the heartfelt words. I've met few people who are so truly on purpose as him.

Garyvee is on path in his role as a uniter and motivator. We had such interesting conversations about media and community, two things that are merging so publicly and virtually with the explosion of social networking. But talking about that led us to talk about strengthening our real-life relationships with friends and family. What gives us true joy, what losses hurt the most, what events will bring the next wave of personal change. I met a ton of people at a wine tasting with him in Houston who left the party feeling closer with the friends they came with. When I got home the next day, I kissed my family a little longer.

Gary's keenly aware of these interviews and public appearances and the process through which his words make it into newspapers, magazines and Web pages. So, even though these quotes from the drive (they didn't make the story) are out of context, I think they really give some more insight into what Gary's up to.

"I'm so not into things that separate people into groups."

"People talk about the romance of opening up the newspaper. There was a romance to making smoke signals, too."

"I don't feel like a jerk talking about (my charisma), because I don't think I deserve credit."

"I'm never half pregnant."

"If you think, 'Ooo, video blogging, I'm going to make money doing that,' you've already lost."

"It is my life to build community."

"LeBron James didn't read about being a great basketball player. I didn't read about marketing."

"Until I know someone, I'm not going to judge them. It's the same thing with wine."

"People are scared to go after what they want because either their parents or society told them not to and they believed them."

"People don' t understand how hard I really work. That's the part that's not sexy."

"I think the reason I'm so in tune with my palate is the same reason I'm so in tune with my soul."

Giant

Whew, what a nice break from everything. We drove out to the Big Bend of Texas (not Big Bend park itself, but the area just to the north) to take in Fort Davis, Marfa, Alpine and any other adventures we stumbled upon. We found much success in our main goal, however, which was to get away from the craziness that has built up around us in Austin and enjoy each other with the help of Mother Nature. Eight hours of driving was worth it to be surrounded by miles of open land and open sky and a couple million of our closest stars. Javelinas outnumbering e-mails and phone calls. Julian running around wild-child like among the brush and rocks. Addie and Ian filling up the wells. Feeling small never felt so good.

I've posted a slideshow over in the Through My Lens section of the Web site, which I reserve for other photo galleries. Here are a few of the highlights:

Things worth looking forward to

What a week! With the What Not to Wear show coming up on Friday, things have been picking up around here. I've been working on an article for Thursday's newspaper, talking to the three other contributors from the Austin area, doing interviews for the Aurora and Springfield newspapers, and, of course, taking in some South by Southwest. We also squeezed in a trip to Fort Worth yesterday and today for Ian's birthday. Whew. Makes me tired just recalling, but it's been an awesome week.

Has anyone else caught the What Not to Wear preview?? My in-laws saw it Friday night and I saw it yesterday afternoon. It seems like TLC is running it about every hour. It's just a snippet of clips from my ambush and when they trashed my closet, including a sound bit of Stacy telling me I'm being more like "Raggedy Addie."

It's so surreal to see myself on TV. It almost doesn't seem like it's me. It seems like some body double, who happens to sound and act like me. So, it's concrete now: Friday, March 21, 8 p.m. central.

I have to work this afternoon (always on the go, go, go, you know), but a small piece of wonderfulness from our trip to visit Ian's family yesterday.

He has a 5-year-old niece, Jenna, a sweet, sweet child who loves life and those around her. We love going up there to play in the backyard with her and her 2-year-old brother, Michael. We were talking about birthdays yesterday (Ian's been thinking about it a lot with the big 3-6 coming up tomorrow) and I asked her what she thought was the best age. "Five," she said. "Cause you can do stuff when you're a kid that you can't do when you're an adult."

Oh, I share that sentiment when I look at a set of monkey bars and wonder how the hell I ever swung all the way across them. But I think it's cooler that she loves the age she's at. Despite all the toys, the Hello Kitty, the Bratz, the television characters, she still loves where she's at, not where she's going. Something we can all strive for, no matter if we're facing 6 or 36 or 66.

Looking out from inside the Observatory

An election day that will surely end crazier than most days around here begins as many days lately have: me sleeping in 'cause I get home late from work, waking up in time to put Julian down for a nap, eat breakfast and think about going back to bed. It seems like the schedule around here has been sprint-crawl for a few weeks. From a lazy day when I don't leave the house except to go to work, others when there are a thousand things to do (wedding invitations, anyone?) before I step foot in the office. My two online classes are overlapping these next few weeks. It doesn't really matter how well I do in either (one's a headline-writing course; the other is for HTML), but I don't want to just blow them off and do poorly. So I've added a few more things to my plate and my body's readjusting to the extra work.

It's a give and take, though. I'm still halfway through Middlesex, progressing a page or two at a time before something comes up that I have to take care of. I've been relying on easy-to-throw-together meals lately, which means I haven't been eating or cooking like I want to. Julian and I did manage to watch the season 3 finale of Lost yesterday (wow! I love that show!), and Ian and I have arranged a few dates in the past few weeks, the most recent of which deserves it's own paragraph.

Ghostland Observatory is an Austin band that blew up a few years ago after a performance at the ACL Fest. The duo plays pretty awesome electronic dance music; the lead singer wears his hair in Willie-style pigtails and evokes Freddie Mercury in a very good way. We saw them at a CD release party for their new album "Robotique Majestique" at the newly renovated Austin Music Hall downtown. We danced and danced and danced. Damn, it was a good time. Members of the Longhorn drum and horn line came out at the end, at which time I promptly freaked out and danced some more. Felt good to get out to a show. We don't do that as often as I'd like, but when we do, it's a good time.

Before the show, Ian and I hit the Tiniest Bar in Texas, in honor of the recently Coloradofied Blythe. She's started her new reporting job at a newspaper out there. Seems happy about the move; I'm so glad for her. She's an adventurer whose adventure here had dimmed. It was time to take on something. We all miss her so. Work just isn't as fun without her. I keep thinking she's on vacation and she'll be back in a few days...

Anyway, here are a couple Ghostland songs for your to enjoy (or to decide you hate. The first song here is their big "hit" from the last album. The second is a new single of the new one. Having listened to all of "Majestique", I kinda prefer the older stuff.)





And a little Julian to get you through the day:

Spare any change?

RonD has some points to consider about this What Not to Wear thing. How change is inevitable, essential, and at its root, a little bit scary.

Humans seem hard-wired to reinvent themselves every six, seven, eight years. But how often can one accomplish such a TOTAL update -- hair, makeup and that BAD ASS WARDROBE you get to pick -- in such sweeping fashion? And without doling out any of your own dimes! Goddamn, but that's fine.

Enjoy the experience. You should feel excited, and a little out of breath. Dashes of sweet anticipation. You will change in ways you don't know, but they'll be good and cool changes ... The Japanese like to say that you can do nothing about your feelings; change your behavior and your feelings will follow. I'm excited to see what the new exterior will do for the inside you.

On the surface, What Not to Wear is about fashion, of course. But if you've watched the show more than a couple of times, you know it also extends deeper than that. Even in the lamest of cases, a change in appearance, for the better, is going to affect the made-over person on many nuanced layers, which are different for every person. The show thrusts them into reinvention, a total update, as RonD puts it, something we all could use every few years. And, YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO PAY FOR IT. I mean, seriously, I am awash in gratitude for Ian and the universe powers that be lined this up for me. It's like I won the lottery and hit the Mega Millions jackpot of inflicted personal change and growth.

And with winning the lottery comes all kinds of unexpected changes, which I'll do my best to be prepared for. Stacy and Clinton aren't known for being polite in this process. They are as much life coaches as stylists. They dig into the psychology behind weight and overall physical appearance. There is often crying.

As in life, just as you start thinking you know exactly how it will be, something else will come along and mix it up. Television show or notwithstanding, I will try to take Mr. Davis' advice about enjoying the anticipation of the unknown and remembering the very "Ask and it is Given" mindset that you cannot change how you feel, only how you choose to behave and react.