A List is TOTALLY as Good as a Real Post

Things I've Been Doing That Have Distracted Me From Blogging (and, Occasionally, Showering):

• Working on...Something. That I can't tell you about yet, because it's for Someone. Someone who reads this blog. I've already said too much.
• Trying to find the time to participate in this puppety-performance art thing (oh, yes, you read that right) so that I can be Doing Something Creative for the first time in two years.
  
• Taking my first stab at making Indian food (thanks, Kitchen Witch!)
• Making mad lists of things that must be done before I travel to Chicago in October for my sister's wedding. Yep, Aunt Benevola's getting hitched, and I am flying with Tankbaby by myself (MOTH to join us later). Eep. So far I have: bought a dress and airline tickets. I have not yet: begun to hoard prescription pain meds to survive the flight. (Not for me, you understand, I would generously share with those around us.)
• Obsessively, raptly, constantly listening to this song, and really, this whole album. What's not like to love about British bluegrass? Gorgeous harmonies, foot-stomping bass lines, and cute boys in suspenders. Am swooning.
• Trying to process the swarm of thoughts and feelings I had when MOTH took me on my birthday date: going to see Rufus Wainwright in concert with the symphony. The first half of the concert was selections from his opera (His opera. That he wrote. In French, no less.), which is not my genre, despite the fact that more than one voice teacher has tried to steer me that way (I am a lyric soprano who wants to be a gutsy alto). But the second half, when he sang and the strings and the horns swelled in the background...ah. It made me want to stand up and sing along--frowned upon at the symphony, sadly. But it all made me think about music and how it's missing from my life these days and how most people in my life now don't even know that I sing. I was taking voice lessons for a while, but stopped when it got prohibitively expensive. I don't miss the lessons, per se, but I miss singing being a priority in my life. But even as all of these thoughts were bubbling up, I was also swept away by the gorgeousness of Wainwright's voice, along with developing a big ol crush on his sweet, flamboyant, self-effacing self (see also, this song, which is what he opened with, and I have been singing it for a week now). And then he sang songs for his mom, who passed away earlier this year, and I cried. And then he sang "Hallelujah." And I cried. Altogether, a really lovely, if emotionally overwhelming, evening. All hail MOTH, Best Birthday Gift Giver!
• Making gallons of homemade chicken noodle soup, the process of which nearly drives me to veganism every time.
  
• Consuming my weight in chocolate brownie frozen yogurt.
• Wondering why I don't need a belt suddenly.
• Getting really worked up over things like midterm elections and insurance deductibles, and realizing that I am officially a Grown-Up, and kind of a boring one at that.
  
• Obsessing over whether 35 is too old to put a purple streak in my hair.
• Getting really excited about my friend's pregnancy--the one that we thought might have been ending at the ER one night, and then the next day, but that your collective good voodoo saved and is now almost twelve weeks along! I'm also hoping to help her plan her shotgun wedding (the official theme), and just generally revel in the fact that sometimes Good Things happen.

And, perhaps most importantly:

• Teaching Tankbaby to make claw hands to request Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance"

But enough about me. What have you been up to?