twelfth new thing

let's get a little bit more religiosity up in this piece, shall we? as i mentioned previously, if this adventure goes the way i intend, i will be doing a lot of new things that involve the church. and, no, this is not one of them. but this week, for the twelfth installment of the 52 new things-- and in celebration of easter-- i attended my first full catholic mass.

some of you may know (this includes you, mom and dad) that my sister married a nice catholic boy in june of 2007. since i foresee a lot of christenings and confirmations in my future (between her and her sister-in-law's kids...) i decided to get a jump start on all this mass stuff. plus, let's face it, if you are in any way a type a personality like me than the rules of mass are totally appealing. so, on easter sunday, i tagged along with the coolest catholic family i know (in atlanta) and attended service at st. michael the archangel.

once i found the place (i am such an ITP girl), i was amazed at how many people were there. thankfully, the cumberland's had saved me a place in a pew and with all of us together, we almost took up a whole one. kev informed me that hardly any of those people show up on a regular basis. nice to know that protestants aren't the only ones who feel the need to come back to the big house only twice a year.

the music was impressive (full brass section anyone?) and easy to sing along with (there were enough people there that my horrible toneless voice was indistinguishable from the rest). i didn't know all of the responses for the rites and readings but i managed to get my fair share of "and also with you"s in. plus, when the priest came through the parishioners with the holy water, i got splashed twice. double blessings! awesome. the little kid in front of us was hilarious (and his mom was hot, but i was in church so i didn't notice...until after the service) and all in all, i had a wonderful time. but there were two things i was disappointed with-- one the priest's fault and one my own.

first, the papa's fault. the homily was HORRIBLE. honestly dude, you got a church full of peeps who probably haven't stepped foot in your sanctuary since this time last year and you deliver what i can only hope was an under prepared sermon. honestly, if it had been earlier in the morning i might have fallen asleep. lisa agreed, it was a total let down. second, my personal problem. i hate not being able to participate in the eucarist. i'm not baptised and so i find it inappropriate to do the whole "body of christ, blood of christ" thing. so i have to cross my arms like a moron and receive a blessing. at least this time i wasn't the only one in the whole congregation and i got an actual prayer while the celebrant had his palm on my forehead. triple blessings! sweet.

after mass, we went to kevin's parents house where his parents and his four brothers and sisters (and respective spouses) had lunch. i always heard jokes about the decibel level at the cumberland house, but i thought nothing of it. i worked in at a veterinarian clinic for 4 years with constantly barking dogs. loudness doesn't bother me. well, they were everything they had been cracked up to be and it was hilarious. and i felt so blessed to be included. until i got home. and then i had a headache. for two days.

happy easter ya'll.

eleventh new thing...

and this is where the wheels came off. this week, i had two possible ways to fulfill the eleventh of my 52 new things. the men's SEC tournament was going on at the dome downtown and a st. patty's day themed 5K and 10K was scheduled for sunday. so i would either attend my first men's SEC tournament game or i would run in and finish a 10K in under 60 minutes. sweetness, right? if the commodores choke (and surely that wouldn't happen) before i was able to get to a game i would simply head to the race on sunday and be totally covered. but then mother nature got involved. and all hell broke loose.

i left work early on friday with the intention of heading down to the dome to catch the commodore/razorback game. after a brief text conversation with a sab about the weather-- which was suppose to be all thunderstormy-- i decided to wait until saturday when it would be nicer to hop on marta and brave the crowds. well, wouldn't you know, the boys lost. to arkansas. for the second time in a week. nice. option number one gone. but i settled in for a movie and a rockin' bar-b-que chicken pizza with my buddy curt content with the thought of running the road race on sunday. no worries.

around 930 a storm came up out of nowhere that distracted us from starting our movie. curt and i walked out on to the porch to watch it a little more closely, stuck our hands out into the forcefully falling rain and marveled at the extreme nature of the lightning. but as a tampa native (lightning capital of the world, bitches!) and survivor of the 2004 hurricane season, i had definitely seen worse. i mean, the lights didn't even flicker. back to fight club.

around 1130 two simultaneous text messages dropped on mine and curt's cell phone. k dub-- ever the worrier-- was wondering if we were ok. why wouldn't we be? as the movie ended, i turned off the dvd player and was met with images of the cnn building in pieces, pieces of the dome falling on to the court, and general mayhem and destruction in downtown atlanta. holy crap! apparently, at 940 an F2 tornado ripped a path from northeast atlanta diagonally to southwest atlanta, causing the most severe damage near centennial olympic park and into cabbagetown. it was the first time such a weather event had ever happened in downtown atlanta-- but not the first in a major city i lived in (i'm beginning to think i have bad weather karma). the resulting damage closed a large swath of downtown atlanta for the remainder of the weekend, canceling the city's st. patrick's day parade and postponing the junior league's road race. great. option two down the tubes. now what?

so in a week when i had two possible ways to accomplish a new thing i ended up doing something i never meant to: i survived a deadly tornado and never even knew it.

tenth new thing...

woo hoo! it's my birthday week! i easily could have done a "my new thing for the week is turning 29", but instead of taking the easy way out, i actually decided to do something new as part of my 52 new things. thanks to the lovely k dub, *shout out*, we had tickets to see james blunt and the oh-so-adorable-possible-love-of-my-life sara bareilles at the tabernacle. now, i have already sung on stage with a major band (twice actually), so i couldn't do that as a new thing. but as for making requests, that is something new. so for my tenth new thing, i made a sign requesting a song at a concert.

we were a little late getting to the show (poster making and all) and there was a minor issue between my beloved laurel and another car in the parking garage. i had never hit a parked car before. moving cars? yes. inanimate objects, like concrete mailboxes? sure. but all of those incidences were in sally. and all over 8 years ago (no car accidents in 8 years! holler!), so i think under the circumstances, i handled it pretty well. no tears were shed. just simple disbelief of what i had done. and the fact that there was no real damage.

this was my first trip to the tabernacle, a venue that can best be described as a trashy cross between the ryman (music mecca, if you ask me) and an over-sized house of blues. it was interesting. seating in the balcony but general admissions craziness in the main level. a little something for everyone. the crowd was a decent size though it was apparent that most of the people there came to see james blunt. that's cool. more love for me to shower on ms. bareilles.

sara was amazing. you may be familiar with her uber-ubiquitous hit "love song" but i am proud to say i discovered her before almost anyone had ever heard of her (a song called "gravity" played on my pandora radio station one day and i started crying. so beautiful.) her album little voice accompanied me on my ipod to my first day of work at my new job in may of '07 and onto the buses and subways of nyc during my fourth of july visit later that year. i heart her. i didn't get many good pictures at the show for a couple of reasons. mostly, because i was too busy holding up my hot pink poster that said: hey sara b.! play a song for me. it's my b-day! (it wasn't big enough to put the name of the song "many the miles" but she played it anyway!). also, i was so excited most of the pictures were too blurry from my shaking hands and incessant jumping up and down. again, i heart her.

as for mr. blunt, he made a believer out of me. i must admit that when i first heard about the show i was disappointed that she would be playing with him. i mean, "you're beautiful" and "good-bye, my lover" are not the most uplifting songs in the history of music and i have some history attached to each (as, i am sure, many do). so the idea of having to stand there and listen to over an hour of melancholia made me want to poke my eyeballs out. and then he started playing. the boy is phat. political musings. upbeat selections. mad piano and guitar skills. honestly, i would totally see him again, even without sara b. on the bill. i left the show kinda sad i had missed the james blunt train back in the day. all in all, a stellar show.

*ps* i would be remiss if i did not mention curly haired gargantua standing in front of us at the show. she was quite possibly the most ridiculous sober concert goer i have ever had to deal with in my long concert going life. first of all, chick had no rhythm. literally none. it wasn't even like she was clapping on the 1 and the 3 when every one else was clapping on the 4 and the 8. bitch was clapping on the 5 1/2 and the 2 3/4. my musicology professor would have been pulling her hair out. (and we wouldn't want that, melanie.) second, she took her bra off ala flashdance about 5 minutes in to the show and proceeded to throw it on the stage at the only time james blunt had his back turned to us. he never saw it! and the rest of us had to listen to her yell between songs the whole rest of the night: "my bra! my BRA!" it was ridiculous. and mildly amusing. thankfully no one came to blows, though i feared for her life if she smacked kendra in the face with her nasty mane one more time.

*pps* here is a picture of the sign k dub made for trent of pink is the new blog. it didn't get featured the week i went to the show, but i thought it could stand in proxy for my other poster....which i forgot to get a picture of. dammit!

ninth new thing...

ok. so this week's installment of the 52 new things will be short and sweet. for several reasons.
reason #1: i have no documentation (e.g. "photographic evidence") of it occurring;
reason #2: it was sort of a last minute, whim-esque new thing;
reason #3: i'm slightly embarrassed because my parents read this blog.
but, alas, i will write about it anyway. for my 9th new thing, i did something that most people in the dating pool have certainly done before turning 29. i left my phone number for someone at a bar.

i should just leave it at that, but oddly enough, i feel the need to explain. my gbf chris and i headed out to a little mexican restaurant in little five points because we heard our favorite nashville lesbian musician would be in town. you know me, i try never to miss a jen foster show. we ate dinner at the place next door and then headed over to sabroso. sat down at the bar at 830 prepped for a 9 o'clock show that would surely have us home before 1030. we (and by "we", i mean "chris") introduced ourselves to the bartender, erin, and ordered a couple of beers. the bar was an interesting mix of lesbians, straights and gays, oh my. 9 came and went, 930 came and went. no sign of jen. at this point chris was getting annoyed. and i was holding several glasses of water and a couple of beers in my little body that wanted out. a trip to the ladies room was needed.

upon returning chris apparently had done some reconnaissance work. erin was single. and bored with the typical bar patron. and looking for a girl who knew how to put on makeup and straighten her hair. did i mention i flat-ironed my hair and put on mascara and lip gloss before leaving the house? i don't know why i thought it was a good idea to leave my business card with my signed credit card slip. i certainly wasn't drunk. and i had truly done a poor job of trying to chat her up all night. (in my defense, it was crowded and she was super busy...and i have no game.)

but the point of this year of 52 new things is to do not only new things but also things that push me out of my comfort zone. and i was certainly uncomfortable. it took several drafts of different "pick-up lines" on the back of my card to come up with the right one. we ended up going with the least original line in the history of mankind ("call me sometime") instead of my preferred statement ("i'd like to take you to dinner") because chris liked it better. and i defer to him when it comes to picking up strangers.

as for how this went over, let's just say my phone hasn't been ringing. but, hey, i did it. and you know what? i don't regret it. so she didn't call. so what? baby steps. it's all about baby steps.