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So long, 2008! Here’s wishing you (and myself) a happier, brighter, healthier, and generally more magical New Year in 2009, despite the news reports, the economics experts, the naysayers.

We’re going to go watch some fireworks, eat some appetizers in La Jolla, and visit the seal beach before we ring in 2009. Hooray for warmer climates, for palm trees instead of evergreens, for dolphins off the coast, for scrub and cacti and hummingbirds sitting on bird-of-paradise leaves next to the highway. This is the first time in, I think, five years that I haven’t been seriously sick on New Year’s Eve, and I am going to go enjoy it!

Blessings and happiness and wishes granted…

Too many movies?

This is not the inspirational blog post about 2009 because I don’t have the mental energy for that yet. It is a list of movies I have watched in the last seven days, mostly on those “old movies” channels like AMC or TCM:
–Casablanca
–The Big Sleep
–The Maltese Falcon
–Annie Hall
–Teacher’s Pet
–Christmas in Connecticut
–Remember the Night
–A Christmas Story
–House Bunny
That’s an overdose of movies, because we had a lot of rain around Christmas and San Diego isn’t exactly thriving with indoor activity options. A lot of them were very good (sadly, not House Bunny. I was expecting better from the Legally Blonde screenwriters, but alas, I’m afraid all the good stuff in that script was from the book it was based on.) I had never seen Annie Hall before, or Christmas in Connecticut, both of which I liked very much. I never really liked anything of Woody Allen’s before except Bullets Over Broadway. The Big Sleep has great scenes in it, especially towards the beginning, some of them written by William Faulkner, I think, which makes me like him better. I read something about how the screenwriters had to write to Raymond Chandler (the book’s author) to find out who had killed the chauffer, but even he didn’t know.

Merry Christmas Eve!
Well, the shortest day of the year is behind us. I’ll remember 2008 mostly for the weirdness, the combination of dramatically good with dramatically (and sometimes comically) bad.
For instance, the day in the middle of a Northwest cold snap I found out Kelli and I had won the Dorothy Prize (a hugely helpful poetry phenomenon in a financially tight year) I was also hospitalized for breathing trouble (a combo of asthma and bronchitis) and the propane tank of the cabin we were renting in PT (our source of heat and hot water) was repossessed because our landlord had some complicated problem with his bills.
It was really hard to celebrate that day, but that is something I’m coming to learn – you have to celebrate the good things when they come along, even if it’s hard to appreciate all that wonderful. To be happy despite. To count blessings instead of curses, even while you’re cursing.
In the last year, I’ve seen white deer in the woods, watched orcas and sea otters, taught marvelously talented high school kids about poetry and comic book heroines, finished writing a new manuscript, read hundreds of wonderful books, learned new poems by heart. In my new town, yesterday, in between rainy spells during which I was thinking about how I missed my Seattle friends and my family back in the Midwest, I saw whales from the shore, jumping around in the blue ocean. I watched egrets and phoebes and hummingbirds. My sweet husband baked cupcakes. I am breathing. These things make me thankful.

Here’s wishing you all a happy, healthy, bright 2009! Don’t forget to celebrate!

Tis the Season…

For interviews? Here’s an interview with me (where we talk about fairy tale influences, Cinderella, and other various and sundry details) posted at the online fairy tale lit site, Les Bonnes Fees:
Interview with Jeannine at Les Bonnes Fees

At December 16, 2008
By Jeannine Gailey
In Christmas tamales, rain and wind and snow, seasonal cheer, thankful
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In the Christmas Spirit…

Well, you know, living in Seattle for so long made me realize the grave importance of celebrating around the solstice, whatever religion you might follow, because the short short days, the absence of sunlight, absolutely demands that you throw yourself into a frenzy of sugar and caffeine and general merrymaking of some kind. I never went to one of those naked-dancing solstice party things, I’m more of a church-on-Christmas Eve-with candles-and-carols kind of girl, but you know, I’m happy I was invited to some. Yesterday there was snow in Seattle and I felt sad I missed it.

Yesterday was huge winds and driving rain for 24 hours here in SoCal; weirdly, it was warmer in Boston than San Diego. We could barely drive our little Honda CRV over the flooded highways. So we mostly stayed in and decorated our little three-foot tree (perfect size for a little apartment, by the way) and Glenn made homemade tamales with masa and pork slow-cooked in orange juice and apple cider. They took forever to make but were really good. Here tamales are a Christmas food; they show up at the fast-food Mexican restaurants around Thanksgiving. I’m down with this tradition.
So, I’m writing Christmas cards and putting together presents to ship out. I should also maybe put together some poetry subs to send out, but who is really reading this time of year? We’re also thinking of going out to see some of those holiday lights. It’s been too cloudy for several days in a row. I can even wear my coat!

I’m feeling very blessed and content this year. Thanks to all my friends and family and everyone for their encouragement, their love, and the little (and big) things.