A housewarming

On Labor Day weekend we hosted a Housewarming Party for ourselves. The point wasn’t to get gifts but to get krunk with a random assortment of people who we love and/or think are nifty. Clayton knows half of Oklahoma City and I know the other half. With that in mind, we were really stingy with the guest list and figured that we might have to have a few more parties to eventually circulate all of our friends through this new house of ours. I think the guest list happened like this…

“You get 30 and I get 30. That’s it. This house can only hold 60 drunk people.”

According to the clock, around 10:15 my drunk self had a sudden recollection that I was supposed to be shooting party pics.

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Did you know that if you tilt the camera to the side then it means the shot is arty? I love this pic because Audrey is looking at her husband with lots of affection. I also love that Clayton is looking at me like, “Why are you taking my picture?” The answer, my love? Because you are smoking hot. Now I have additional photographic evidence of that fact.

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Hey James! Leaning to the side didn’t get you out of the pic. Hee hee. See the two women talking to each other? Yeah…later on this new friendship would fill my camera drive with photos that’ll never make it to this blog.

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That’s Mike looking at Christine like RAWR. I love those two together!

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More love birds. Twenty-five years as of this year!

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Clayton makes a really, really boozy sangria. Two pitchers were created for the party.

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After we killed pitcher #1, I dumped the boozy berries into a bowl for snacking. Those strawberry slices actually burned. They burned GOOD.

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Meanwhile in the living room, Alex and nice-stranger-whose-name-maybe-starts-with-a-J-or-B, found some of our many musical instruments and began jamming a bit. I even grabbed my banjo and held it whilst wishing I could play a single chord.

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This is what happens when you think you’ve shot enough photos and you set your camera down and leave the room.

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Jenny has one of the brightest smiles (and souls) I’ve ever seen. Kristy is similar. It’s no wonder they buddied up so quickly. This photo is severely edited to protect reputations and corneas. Most of those photos are so….um….candid…that I can’t in good conscience post them here. But they involve drums, butts, fruits and nuts. 🙂

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I found the fruit like this the next morning and giggled like crazy. Later in the morning I scrolled through the camera contents and things made more sense. Also, I had to burn that camera.

I’m a little irritated with myself that I didn’t get pics earlier because there was a whole different slate of people who were here then. And a big, beautiful table full of beautiful food. More people came later and we all tested the strength of the back porch. Until 1:30am.

We had a party from 6pm to 1:30am. We rule.

One of my beautiful friends, K.C., brought us this:

Best gift.

And we were gifted three orchids, who are ALL still alive for the time being.

OH! Let’s have a moment that K.C. gifted us her song lyrics (view the song in iTunes here) and three friends brought orchids. When I first got to know K.C. she had just released her album, Orchid. I’m sure there’s a message from the Universe in there somewhere.

Phil Collins

Judge me if you will, but in the last week I have been positively obsessed by everything Phil Collins. I was reading a blog post about divorce and breakups and it led me to this episode of This American Life, which I highly recommend you hear. In the episode, there’s a section that involves Phil Collins and it got me all intertwined with this song.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuvtoyVi7vY&w=420&h=315]

I am currently so consumed with this song that I need to lie down every time I hear it. When I am roaming through my day, I am singing it. The video is pretty incredible. It is absolutely terrible in one way. Cliched to bits with his 80s Nightclub Suit. Painfully literal interpretations of the lyrics illustrated with clips from the movie for which the song was written. But…but… around :40 Phil looks at the camera and talks about the vulnerability of “…and all I can do is watch you leave.” It’s touching and believable, but in the way that you think…”Wow…he’s a decent actor.” But then at about :50 he clumsily tries to look and not look at the camera to sing the lyrics “….we’ve even shared the tears” and I’m all Holy fuck…how can you be that real for the whole world to see?!

Clayton played this for me and it’s pretty awesome, too:

Duke by Genesis

It’s a break up album for the most part (a topic that positively fascinates me) and is extra lovely because it’s more of a break-up concept album. There’s a story being told through the songs and a rarity that it was Genesis’ only (or one of the only) concept albums. Also one of their first big commercial successes** due to the fresh songwriting and vocals of Phil Collins. (Which is a good or bad thing, depending on who you ask.)

Phil went through a heartbreak and divorce around 1980 and it fueled a massive amount of songwriting for years. Some for Genesis, some for solo albums but all were stories of Feelings and Truth and experiences most of us have had, either as givers or receivers. Or both.

Anyway….I don’t remember where I was going with this. Just go listen to more Phil Collins because he is a brilliant pop songwriter and generally rad. The End.

Fun Fact: There are many Phil Collins Tumblr site. Enjoy.

**I won’t slide into whether or not Phil Collins ruined the Prog Rock foundation Genesis built in the 70s, but I am glad we got all those hits.

Narrow Stairs

Funny story: Clayton’s son was all lit up the other day as he told me an interesting piece of trivia about his Dad’s iTunes. Narrow Stairs by Death Cab for Cutie was wrong.

Wrong!

Turns out….the…um…source….from where he imported the album several years ago was adulterated and 3 or 4 of the songs were a copycat band performing their originals. Clayton investigated the claims today and, it turns out, they were true. For years, he was sort of “meh” on some DCFC songs that I cuddled and petted and held close to my heart.

Marek and Lindsay….are you hearing this? He had never really heard Cath until today!

It turns out that the missing/fraudulent tracks on his Narrow Stairs album were Cath, You Can Do Better Than Me, Talking Bird and Your New Twin Sized Bed. ::face palm:: How he’s lived on earth this long without hearing Your New Twin Sized Bed is beyond me.

Narrow Stairs and Plans are the two DCFC albums that I tended to go to when I was in emotional crisis, especially when the crises were of a Relationship Nature. (See all the painstaking, past tense in that statement?) One certainly doesn’t have to be in a crisis to enjoy Death Cab but they do have a way of articulating sadness and desperation in an engaging and grown-up way. Not that I don’t love me some Adele on occasion.

If you don’t own this album, please go own it. That is all.

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