Our descent to Akron was initially for the outdoor skating rink at Lock 3 as part of the Holidayfest. We loaded up on bratwurst and sauerkraut and Warsteiner at the Huztenstub, but with the millions of families securing the same plans as us, prompted a “stay-away” from the over-populated ice skating portion of the fun.
The remainder of the weekend I suffered from both hangover and flu-like symptoms (and I wanted little to do with the man playing with natural gas and blowtorches), so it was nice to be lazy under a giant comforter with a great book and (only one) good movie.
Reading: I finished “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey — in ONE weekend (almost 400 pages!!). The book was fantastic and I was completely engrossed in the advancement of his sobriety — now I’m off to do research to see which were the highly fictional memory parts of the story.
Watching: In between reading and pigging out on Donato’s boneless chicken strips and Red Robin jalepeno burgers, I also watched “Talladega Nights” (disappointing, only a few really funny lines. Sad when the outtakes are better than the film.), “Bobby” (again, another disappointment — what happened to a building climax in movie plots? We all know Bobby Kennedy gets shot… the character developments could have been a lot more intense and interesting. The stories all felt detached and flat. GREAT cast full o’ celebrities though), “Chuck & Larry” (dumb. And I hope that some GLBT group had some not-so-nice words to say to the creators of this movie) and “Last Kiss” (finally. AWESOME!).
iPJHiser-ing: “The One I Love” by David Gray, “Heavenly Day” by Patty Griffin, “Crumble” by Esther Mitchell and “Wise Up” by Aimee Mann.
Thinking: G is for gratitude. When I’m in gratitude, if I even stop and make a list of the things I’m grateful for, that’s a form of prayer. It breaks my trance of misery or self-absorption. – Anne Lamott






