Brunch and The White Stripes

This week might as well be a guest post for Stuff (or is it Things? Whatever) White People Like.  If you were looking for my feelings on the underground rap scene, you'll just have to wait. Sorry.

Two Sundays ago my lady friends and I got together for brunch. If there is one thing white girls are REALLY good at, it's brunch. It combines a lot of our favorite things: day drinking, mini quiche, gossip, champagne, etc. Now, of course I am generalizing. But generalizations have to come from somewhere, right?

I was watching something recently (no idea what it was now) and one of the characters said something along the lines of "If you are drinking at 10am on a Tuesday, you have a problem, if it's 10am on a Sunday you have brunch." I have to agree.

Brunch is amazing because it's so...indulgent.  People who make impromptu weekend trip to the Bahamas have brunch.

Real Housewives have brunch.

It's almost so leisurely and indulgent you shouldn't be doing it.You know you could being doing something productive, but instead you're drinking mimosas.It's like ditching school, but for grown ups.

At our brunch my friends and I did had pancakes and bacon instead of mini-quiche,  but also did a clothing swap, tarot card readings, and were drinking mimosas sans OJ by 2pm. Like a boss. (Or a Housewife?)

Hot jam of the week is Hotel Yorba by The White Stripes. The White Stripes are one of those bands I always forget I really like. If someone asked me to name my top ten favorite bands, I probably wouldn't include TWS, but when I really think about it, they might be somewhere in the 6 to 8 range. I love Hotel Yorba because it's a little bluegrass-y and it's really hard not to tap your toes. Jack White is a bona fide weirdo but that only makes me like him more. Next time I'm in Nashville I'm going to see if he wants to be my best friend.

Bonus: Another band I sometimes forget I like, The Fratellis, covered Hotel Yorba and it's pretty great too. Check it out here

Jackson Hole and The Hold Steady

In case you haven't checked your calendar lately, it's January. And in case you're new here, I live in Anchorage. January in Anchorage looks like this.

And sometimes like this.

I'm feeling nostalgic for warmer, brighter days.Let's reminisce together, shall we? Some of my favorite warmer, brighter days were spent here:

Grand Teton National Park

I spent summer 2009 teaching environmental ed in Jackson, WY and it took about 35 seconds for the general Jackson Hole region (Jackson is the town, Jackson Hole is the whole area) to become my favorite place in the whole world. I could write pages of reasons I love Jackson Hole, fraught with flowery language and extended metaphors. But I still wouldn't do it justice.

A lot of times this was my job:

Sometimes, it was this:

Other times, I wasn't working, so I floated the Snake River

Or made rock art at the Gros Ventre slide

 I got in bison jams

And played kickball:

Long story short, I made no money, but spent everyday in the sun. Worth it. I've been a lot of beautiful places, especially here in Alaska, but nothing compares to staring up at the Tetons from String Lake or the alpenglow on Sleeping Indian.

This week's hot jam is Magazines by The Hold Steady. I love the honesty (and I'm not sure honesty is quite the right word) of The Hold Steady songs. I love that they don't try to glamorize anything. The songs all tell a story, and usually not a  very pretty one, but it's covered up with catching choruses. Genius.

Books of the Year 2012

I finally got around to tallying up the books I read last year. Grand total: 38! (26 less than last year, but what can you do?)

Here are a few of my favorites (in the order I read them):

A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS - Jennet Conant

You guys, basically Julia Child was a spy. Okay, not exactly, but that doesn't detract from the book. I love Julia Child, but to be honest, I mostly picture her as Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia and I didn't know a lot about her before I read A Covert Affair.

This book has a TON of really interesting tidbits about Julia (and Paul) and so many interesting characters, it's hard to believe it's nonfiction. I like to imagine Julia learned to debone a chicken from deboning communists during her spy days, but I suspect that's not the case

The Likeness - Tana French

The Likeness is the second in the Dublin Murder Squad "series". I say "series" because, while it would be helpful to read them in order, it's not totally necessary. Some of the characters overlap, but I read the first book, In the Woods, several years ago and didn't really remember much about it and didn't have a hard time keeping up with the second. In general, it's a great whodunit mystery, full of murder and suspicions and fake identities and Irish grad students.

Nothing Daunted - Dorothy Wickenden

Plucky is one of my favorite adjectives and I don't get to use it enough. Nothing Daunted is the account of two very plucky society girls from New York who decided to become schoolteachers in northwest Colorado in 1916. (Little did they know, they were really accepted as teachers because they needed brides for the locals.) The author is the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff, one of those plucky society ladies, she began writing the book after finding her grandmother's letters. I bet there were a few things her grandmother wouldn't have wanted her reading...

Ant Farm: and Other Desperate Situations - Simon Rich

I'm pretty sure I finished Ant Farm in about 8 minutes. It's only 160 pages and reads like a transcript of a stand-up show. Simon Rich is a twentysomething writer with just a few writing credits to his name. You know, just Harvard Lampoon, SNL, Mad Magazine, etc. Nothing big...And, if I may be so bold, he's a little reminiscent of David Sedaris. I think my favorite Ant Farm essay is "A conversation at the grown-ups' table as imagined at the kids' table." As one of the few unmarried people in my family, it's entirely likely that I'll end up at the kids' table at some family function. So what I'm saying is, I'm still wondering about what goes on at the grown-ups' table.

Special Edition!

Happy 2013! I feel like I should be writing something profound about resolutions and thankfulness, or reflecting on 2012 or something, but that's too much pressure.So instead of musing about eating more vegetables and breaking my nail biting habit,  it's WORLD'S CREEPIEST SONGS WEEK! 

Nothing like a few hot jams to ring in the new year. 

1) Every Breath You Take- The Police. Obviously. Even Sting knows it's totally weird. He said, "One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'"

2) Silhouettes - Herman's Hermits. Don't get me wrong, I love Herman's Hermits. But this song is a little stalker-y.

3) Young Girl - Gary Puckett and the Union Gap. This might as well be the theme to To Catch a Predator. Young girl, get out of my mind/My love for you is way out of line. Gary, you aren't supposed to broadcast that sort of thing

4) One Way or Another - Blondie. The ultimate anthem for a crazy ex-girlfriend. Telling someone that you're going to get them is not a way to win friends.

5) All My Life - K-Ci and JoJo. This one has a lot going for it. It's a pretty great romantic R&B song, but things take a turn for the weird with one verse... Girl, you are close to me just like my mother/Close to me just like my father/Close to me just like my sister/ Close to me just like my brother. Um, what? Gentlemen, ladies don't want to compared to your family members. Keep that in mind.