notes from the cape

assorted thoughts since i've been home:

• there is nothing quite as humbling as watching old home movies. we have a video called '[lyon] plays around' featuring yours truly circa august 1983 (aka 5 months) through 1995 or so. it's hard to deny who you were in years past when it's captured on film and staring at you in the face in quite literally. like i said, humbling

• the kitty has made a nest under my bed. she's burrowed into the mattress and sleeps under there during the day. she comes out at night and sleeps on my bed but she's so funny!

• being home has been good for my physique. there's no need for a gym membership when you can haul wood, spread mulch and chain saw for my dad. aside from the health benefits manual labor is actually kind of a nice change from spreadsheets and power point. sometimes i almost wish i still had a waitressing job - life was so much simpler when all i had to do was wait tables from 4:30 til 11 june - september. waitressing is a mental job but it's a different kind of mental.

• sam adams cranberry lambic - try it. it's limited release but def my new fave

was emailing with megh about watching home alone in the office of the d and he asked about taylor's wedding in miami a few weeks ago. it was a busy weekend - lots of tours and lunches (and a dartmouth-themed rehearsal dinner!) - but a lot of fun. for one the weather was sunny and 80, had a great time hanging out with the other bridesmaids and groomsmen ('no horseplay' was an actual instruction on the weekend timeline) and rooming with skips and swanny (it was like old times!). as far as what it was like to be a bridesmaid, i just tried to be as helpful as possible - whether it was moving boxes or shepherding guests.
i was a little nervous to walk down the aisle, but in the end it was just such a happy occasion and i was so thrilled to be sharing in the moment that it wasn't that much of an issue.

the one thing that made the weekend legendary was getting food poisoning right after the ceremony. got back to the hotel and started throwing up - in tree containers, bushes and corners of the hotel. was super bummed to miss the hotel wedding party pictures, but swanny and skips took good care of me, and eventually i was able to come back down to join the party. asked the wedding planner for a bucket (that matched my dress!) and carried it around so i could go throw up every 45 minutes or so. didn't get to eat or drink anything at the reception, but got to dance a little to the fabulous band and join in for the circle dance to 'friends in low places' to close out the reception. tay tay looked beautiful and had a blast, though she got sick towards the end of the night as well. everyone told me i still looked beautiful despite the fact my bridesmaid dress went through six rounds of booting - in the back of my head i was thinking of all the times i've booted and rallied in the last 10 years but i just smiled and nodded. had a great time in spite of the food poisoning and it was a memorable event for sure. i have to say, in the words of james taylor, 'there ain't no doubt in no one's mind that love's the finest thing around' :)

season of joy

She asked me when the season of joy was supposed to end & I said I didn't really think there was an exact date, so we left the tree up till June that year. - storypeople - 'season of joy'

belated merry christmas posting. couldn't bring myself to open my work computer until just now, but i've been thinking about this post for a couple days. we went, as we always do, to christmas eve services at union chapel in hyannisport. it's sort of an atypical christmas eve service - my mom plays the organ for a couple of familiar hymns and carols and families read or recite poems, stories and pieces that encapsulate the season.

this year someone read a poem i'd never heard before but liked a lot called 'at christmas' by edgar albert guest. sampling below, full poem here:

a man is at his finest towards the finish of the year
he is almost what he should be when the christmas season is here
then he's thinking more of others than he's thought the months before,
and the laughter of his children is a joy worth toiling for
he is less a selfish creature than at any other time
when the christmas spirit rules him he comes close to the sublime

at christmas he is almost what god wanted him to be

this past christmas i was grateful to have all my siblings home - my sister's boyfriend joined for the festivities for the first time as well. it was a little strange to have him but i suppose it had to happen sometime. i was also grateful that both my grandparents are in good health - i know there are changes - both good and bad - in the near future - but for this year at least we could celebrate and reflect together. it truly is a wonderful life.

things change, people change, spare change

everyone's all worked up about the facebook timeline thing but i'm really liking it. that could be b/c i prefer to spend most of my time digging around in the past trying to understand how things that happened came to happen (hello history major!) but i'm really enjoying reading the wall posting and statuses from years past.

facebook timeline kindly reminded me that i joined facebook march 9, 2004 and i remember that pretty clearly. had just gotten back from two off-terms in florida and on the cape and everyone was taking finals and thrilled to have yet another way to procrastinate. pretty sure i joined in boxa and mulley's room in mid-mass, as they were kind enough to let me leave my stuff there for 10 days until we went to tn for spring break/i could move it into sigma delt.

there are quotes that i have no idea what they mean/where they came from (i'm not an idiot - i have interpol' - mulley), people i don't even talk to anymore (hi friend of my sister's?) and messages FROM COLLEGE as far away as that seems these days. it's like an archeologist piecing together the old lyon. the good old days.

at any rate, i'm chilling in my brother's apt in norwalk, ct, trying to make it home for the holidays. efforts to leave have been thwarted by work, but once i'm home i'm home for 10 days - hallelujah. heading up to hanover for new years to run back 2005 and 2006 ('hold on to your lint roller - we're coming to hanover! - boxa) with mulley, boxa, jeanette, my sister and vin. nothing like the north country to 'clean me out and then i can go on'.

explains so much

The only activity people like to do in New York really is drink.  No one has the space to hang out with all of their friends, nor would you want your boss to see your apartment, so the only place to meet is the bar.  You will meet people over drinks for birthdays, job advancements, job firings, new job embarkments, first day of work, last day of work, to meet new people, to interview for a new position, to talk about your resume, to have your formal review, to celebrate the birth of a new baby, to celebrate Christmas, to just not have to go home to your lonely apartment until your boozed up enough to forget it’s your reality, to meet your husband to be, to meet someone to hook up with, to introduce your boyfriend to your best friend, to introduce your best friend to your boyfriend’s friend he think she might like, to watch the game because you don’t get the channel at home, to vent about your co-worker, to apologize about how you acted the night before face to face, to pick up the credit card you left there the night before–might as well just have one drink, to meet your friends for brunch, to kill time before the play, to kill time after the play, because you're bored on Saturday around 11. The bar is your living room, church, sanctuary, kitchen, dining room and coffee shop and you will get used to the feeling of being hungover after a couple months–it just feels normal after a while.

-  http://westcoastwest.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/if-you-want-to-move-to-new-york-be-prepared/

Sparkly new shoes! (size 9.5) :)

(see full image)

Sent from my iPhone.  

Happy Holidays from the MTA

(see full image)

Sent from my iPhone.  

delinquent

i am a delinquent and i know it. especially since it's kind of hypocritical of me to scan my google reader each day and be mildly annoyed at OTHER people for not posting recently when i, myself, have not posted in weeks. 

i think this may be a result of alternative sharing methods like twitter, pinterest (more on this later), instagram, etc. i certainly have not stopped posting on those forums, if anything i've been posting too much, but if you're looking for me when i'm not here that's the best way to find out what's up in my life. 

now - pinterest - took a bit of getting used to but i'm really enjoying it. basically you 'pin' images to boards based on a theme. sounds pretty simple right? the part i like is that you can follow other people and they can follow you and see what everyone's pinning. it's like google reader before they took away the sharing function (yes - am still bitter about this). i'm not a visual person by nature but this is definitely helping me to pay attention to images, which in turn i think helps me think in images. this is particularly important b/c my preferred way of displaying information in power point is words and while i think it's great, apparently my boss does not. just another example of why it's important to understand how other people around you process information (visual, auditory or kinesthetic - guess which i am?) when attempting to communicate. 

what am i thinking about these days? mainly the holidays and when i get to go home to new england. trying to wrap everything up before i fly to miami next thursday for tay tay's wedding weekend. getting very excited about it and have managed to take my bridesmaids dress to a tailor so i actually will look okay. there's lots planned and i think it will be really fun. bunking in with skips and swanny in a hotel that is supposedly haunted! (i learned this by yelping the hotel). the biltmore hotel in coral gables has been around for awhile and was a hospital during world war 2 and it appears there's some legacy guests. there is also apparently a huge swimming pool that i will go in by hook or by crook. 

another year drawing to a close and i definitely have some things on my mind. haven't quite gotten to the point that i can articulate - though i do believe in 'how can i know what i think until i see what i say?' - but i will save that for another post - hopefully to come before the new year.