then washed it away down the kitchen sink

I love data. According to iTunes, my top 5 songs of 2010 were:

5. Florence and the Machine - Dog Days Are Over
4. Beirut - Postcards from Italy
3. Beach House - Used to Be
2. Yeasayer - Germs
1. Au Revoir Simone - Tell Me (Clock Opera Remix)


Most of these are actually tied for second place, and the ranking in those cases is purely alphabetical. I can't wait to reset my iTunes and see what I love in 2011.

1999 Oscar nominated psychological thriller spoiler alert

I love Christmas. I love tradition and family and sentimentality and sweet treats and thoughtfulness and celebrations of all kinds. There is one thing I dread about Christmas, though.

Family Share Time.

It's a tradition that emerged sometime when my siblings and I were young adults. When we were kids, the tradition was that we had to perform before we opened presents. At some point, it transformed into talking about where you are in life - you know, emotionally, spiritually, etc. I HATE IT. Everyone knows I hate it. It's painful, almost in a, "Wow, I am really earning Christmas right now," kinda way. You know how when you were little, you had to wait and wait to open presents? When that glorious moment finally came, it felt like a huge payoff. Well, Family Share Time kind of preserves that pre-celebration angst for me. I guess it's necessary. But still, I pass every time.

This year, I decided that in lieu of sharing, I would bring back the tradition of performing. By making my family perform for me. As it turns out, if you hand people a script that you wrote, they HAVE to read it aloud, because their names are on it, and their parts are marked in pink highlighter, and...it's Christmas. And isn't that what Christmas is really all about? Forcing others to do what you want, as if they were puppets? Wait, that's not it. That's what Being John Malkovich is really all about. Using creative license to avoid uncomfortable discussions with your family? That's probably not it either.

Anyway, here are some short clips of the play, which was kind of a "Christmas Carol meets my nephew" type thing, and in which I made members of my family play other members of my family. They did a bang-up job.

actually, the house remains untouched; it's mostly above the tree line

For the past few months, Northeast Baltimore has been hit with a plague. A plague of crows. I do not remember it being like this last year. And I think I would remember walking out the door to this every morning.

It's terrible. They perch up in the trees by the hundreds all night. They scream every morning before it's light out. People run down the streets in fear of standing in one place for too long. The worst, though, is its effect on our cars.

At least in our neighborhood, everyone is in the same boat. The crows don't discriminate onto which cars they release the contents of their cloacas. Crow poop: the great equalizer. However, if you travel south in the city at all, the area somehow exempt from this curse (Is the blood of a lamb painted over their door frames or something?), people will gawk at you as if you were an alien. A yellow and white poop-spattered alien.

While I am used to the stares and comments by now, today was a new record. My day went a little something like this:

Act I

I'm taking the children I nanny to the Walters Art Gallery. I park on Cathedral Street, get out of the car, and start attempting to open the stroller by some mystical combination of levers and buttons activated in just the right order. A breeze blows, much warmer than the past few frigid days. A middle-aged woman who I have never met approaches.

homeless lady: Excuse me, Miss. Can you do me a favor?
me: Maybe.
homeless lady: You know me. You see me here all the time. Can you help me and my three children get to the shelter? We're freezing out here.
me: I'm not giving any rides...
homeless lady: Could you give us some bus fare?
me: No thanks. I'm sorry.

Having used all her pitches to no avail, the lady drops her pained expression. A genuine smile crosses her face as she points toward my car.

homeless lady: You park by a lot of birds?
me: Yes. It's the worst!!!

The lady laughs and shakes her head as she walks away.

Act II

Leaving the museum, I scheme about the best way to get the baby to fall asleep in the car. I decide we should drive around a bit, and I propose this idea to the three-year-old girl.

me: Do you want to drive by my house? And see where Miss Anna lives?
three-year-old girl: ...It have bird poop on it?

Act III

After having seen my house, which is NOT covered in bird poop, thank you, the kids and I head back to their residence. On President Street, some teenage girls in the back of a black SUV start heckling me.

teenage girls: Hey! Hey! Roll down your window! You got something on your car! I think there's some bird poop on it! I'll pay YOU to wash your car!!

The girls continue to shout at me for the duration of the green light as I stare ahead and refuse to engage with them, much like I did with the bullies in sixth grade. Even as they turn right at the light and I go straight, one girl sticks her head out the window and continues to shout at me. Apparently distracted by her antics, the driver makes a very wide turn, passing too close to a street sign on her left and knocking that girl's loud head clear off her shoulders and onto the sidewalk.

Okay, so that very last part didn't happen, but it could have. A curse upon her house. We know there's already one upon mine.

sooo, I kinda like being behind a microphone

This was probably the pinnacle of my storytelling career. Aah, Center Stage. Years of putting my name in the hat finally payed off.

I like aligning the videos so that they're all singing together

a blog is an awesome study in identity

Five years ago on this date, this was me.

Sometimes Young Anna was embarrassing, but I really admire her ability to see meaning in everything and her desire to be so intentional about living a good life. The part about the professor who was taking care of his paraplegic son and girlfriend stood out, because I completely forgot about that, five years later, and only remembered him being rude and insensitive. Also, the parts about "living on the surface" stood out to me, because I'm reading a book on meditation, and it talks about living on the surface of life and letting your mind run out of control because you are unaware of how to be in charge of it.

Yes, of course this is true for me. Two Years Ago Anna explains it pretty well here.

So, I was reading this book thinking, Yes, this sounds so good. I would love to have control of my thoughts and therefore live a life where I can be refreshing to others instead of entirely consumed with my own spiraling mind. Then the book mentioned twice a hurt elbow, just as an example of some distracting physical ailment. I laughed out loud, because I was sitting there reading the book with my arm in a homemade sling.

Yes, there is something to be learned here. There is something to be learned everywhere. I'm still skeptical of my ability to meditate.

when Jack says yes, you pay less!

When I am faced with an opportunity for local celebrity, I take it. That is why, when a friend who works for a cable company asked for volunteers for one of her clients' commercials, I was ready. She wouldn't tell us what it was for, so my roommate and I started brainstorming what kind of creepy outfit this could be. There's the obvious story: cameraman tells young, inexperienced women they have a future in modeling...but there are also more sinister options. What if it's an ad for the new Wal-Mart opening in Remington? Hmm...we decided if that were the case, we'd have to bail on the commercial.

It was going to be filmed at the inner harbor, so we set out to meet the crew by Phillip's, all dolled up for winter in our cozy coats and cute boots. Upon arriving, we looked for a bunch of older people in blue vests with smiley face stickers. Not seeing any, we decided it was probably safe and moved forward. We met the crew and found out the commercial was for none other than local car salesman Jack Antwerpen. For those of you unfamiliar with "Jack says yes!" here are some examples of his high-brow sales pitches:

pedicures
water

We signed our lives away, met Jack, and began filming, with minimal instructions. I was determined to overact, and during the first take, when I rushed with a crowd of people to surround Jack, I slipped and wiped out completely on the bricks, which by the way, are not an ideal surface for my cute boots. I put my hand out behind me to catch myself, but it didn't do much. When the laughter wore off, I realized it was really difficult to move my hand, but I played it cool to the crew and other actors. "I'm alright; the show must go on!"

We filmed several more scenes, which included more running. Jack told me to sit that one out, but I wouldn't. I will sacrifice my body for my art. That's just the price of being an ac-tor.

So, the rest of the shoot went well, and within an hour, I couldn't move my elbow more than 45 degrees. Watch for the commercial in January.

my life's awesomeness

I could have started earlier than 2002, but I thought this section was the most interesting. This year has of course been the best, but I'm done with it. The numbers are in and next year's projection is looking good.

Peace out, 2010, I'm ready for 2011!

basically, the plan was a vacuum

I dreamed that my mattress had bed bugs last night. It was vivid and gross. I spent the rest of the dream devising a plan to get rid of them.