Monday , July 19, 2010

Liz's Top 9 of 2009: A Words-and-Pictures Retrospective

Well, cover me with eggs and flour and bake me for forty minutes - 2009 was a big year! I can't remember all of it, but according to a quick review of my Facebook status updates from last January on, these are nine things that really sharpened my pencil over the past 12 months or so. I hope your pencil's real sharp too.

MY THINKING CAP, MY ZEBRA-STRIPED SKIRT, AND MY MAIDEN VANS

These were the three best things I bought this year, by a country mile. Stocking up on knee socks and thigh-highs was also a real smart move. I thank my fellow bloggers for their masterful influence, always and forevs.

SURFING

(Emily Richmond took this photo. That's me, brushing my hair. That's our friend Alisa, stretching her arms. This is our surf spot. Come visit!)

In 2009 I started surfing, after wanting to surf forever and forever. It's so great! I'm so proud of myself! Emily Richmond is so the best surf bro a girl could ever ask for! The funniest part was when we rented boards our first time out and then didn't tie them tight enough to the roof of Emily's Element and they fell off and we dragged them on the Pacific Coast Highway for a while, kinda ruined them and then had to buy them. The unfunniest part was when we almost died!

Anyway, here's a compilation of all my surfing-related Facebook status updates from 2009:

-is going surfing on April 19th.
-is going surfing!!!!!!!!!!!!
-now owns a surfboard
-drank half the Pacific Ocean
-has two halves of a surfboard. (which do not make a whole. mostly because they're in a trash can in santa monica.)
-five hours of ocean. now my bed feels like a wave.
-really gross/awesome/painful/gigantic black & blue on my right knee.
-i love my sandy bed.
-forgot to scrub the ocean-tar off my feet before going to sleep.
-is full of injuries
-surfing with lots of dolphins
-is never not sandy
-achieved eye contact with anthony kiedis for the second time in three years last night. that's what's called being 'on a roll.'*
-3 consecutive surf days = not enough at all
-i think ed hardy is gaslighting me.**
-perfect surf + eating lotus root
-full of surf bruises, yay!
-why is the ocean so cold????!!
-halloween surf with dolphins and fake blood!!!

* surf-related because it happened at a surf movie screening
** not actually surf-related at all, just brilliant and hilarious

PETE & PEGGY

A little while ago this dude told me Peggy from Mad Men reminds him of me, and at first I was peeved but now I get it: We are both big-eyed, dedicated, and full of secrets. On November 17 at 11:51 a.m. I typed "another thing i have in common with peggy: a willingness to do it with pete campbell," which was probably one of my 20 favorite Tweets of 2009. I already fessed up to my Pete lust a few weeks back; his creepy teenager voice and the-boy-can't-help-it smarminess really just bake my cake. And I've yet to live up to last month's pledge to Pete-esque-ly exclaim "A thing like that!" whenever wowed, but there's always 2010.

BOB & TERRY

I saw Where The Wild Things Are twice; the first time I was all "ZOMFG!!!!", the second time I was like "Hmmm..." So it doesn't totally hold up to repeat viewings, but one thing I'll never get tired of is Bob and Terry. Especially their knock-knock joke. In fact, I wish I could be told Bob and Terry's knock-knock joke a minimum of thrice daily. Why can't I be friends with more owls, I keep wondering to myself.

MY WEEKEND IN THE MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

One of my funnest adventures this year was the January weekend when my buddy Alissa the Sea Czar kidnapped me and drove me 400 miles up the coast of California. My second fave part of the trip was visiting the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and listening to the song from the opening credits of The Lost Boys on repeat on my iPod and taking pictures of the Lost Boys carousel while Alissa rode the Lost Boys roller coaster. My first fave part was when we drank a lotta beer and shot some really bad pool and played a bunch of Allman Brothers songs on the bar jukebox. My third fave part was how Santa Cruz has tons of places where you can get really good cookies.

EVERYTHING I KNOW I LEARNED FROM GOSSIP GIRL

Meaning: I'm so in the dark about new music these days, and about 77 percent of the stuff I do end up hearing all comes from Gossip Girl. Like "Bad Romance," which I downloaded after Lady Gaga's appearance on the "Last Days of Disco Stick" episode and then played 47 times in one day. I also got really into "The Reeling" by Passion Pit after it was on The Hills. Other than that, the only new records I fell for this year were I'm Going Away by The Fiery Furnaces and The Empyrean by John Frusciante. I'm trying to love the new Devendra but it hasn't happened yet. Oh and We Be Xuxa by Mika Miko's real boss too, and I'm so sad that band'll be dead in just a few days time. R.I.P. MIKA MIKO!

GETTING "FAULDS" AND "BARKER" TATTOOED ON MY ARMS

I mean, I didn't really. What happened was Emily Richmond wrote "Faulds" and "Barker" on my arms with a Sharpie and then took a picture, which served as illustration for a story called "Getting Back To Where We Once Belonged," by Elizabeth Barker & Laura Jane Faulds. My part's mostly about Paul McCartney, who's the most important thing to happen to me in 2009 - so important, in fact, that I'm not going to write about him here at all, if you can pick up what I'm putting down. And it's cool if you can't - maybe just listen to this song, written and sung by Paul himself. It goes by the name "Tomorrow" and it's now my number-one "life jam."

ALL THE DEAD CELEBRITIES

All I really remember about Douglas Coupland's Generation X is the neologisms printed in the margins; in particular, "celebrity schadenfreude," which is defined as "lurid thrills derived from talking about celebrity deaths." Celebrity schadenfreude is maybe my number-one vice; it's so lame and twisted and possibly cruel, and it made 2009 a real scream, in a depressing kind of way. I took this photo in a liquor store, the day we had our summer tea party. After Michael, I'm saddest about Patrick Swayze.

THE BEST COMMENT NOGOODFORME.COM EVER RECEIVED

It was on a post I wrote about necklaces, and it goes like this:

"It all began when I discovered the sleepy fang hiding beneath my quilt. At first I didn't think much of it, but when I returned later in the day and found it still asleep, a course of action was needed. As I tried unsuccessfully to rouse it I noticed a series of teeth marks embedded along its smooth creamy body. I recognized this as the work of the white dream cat and muttered under my breath something which I won't repeat. Carefully placing the fang on a square of velvet I was interrupted by some pint-sized chattering coming from the paper house on my desk. Its inhabitants had gotten into an argument and as I listened I discovered that the now sleepy fang had been keeping them up most of the night with one of its infamous rave's. My worries at bay, I decided to skip the afternoon's lectures and curled up on the quilt with my sleepy fang."

Top that, dudes. This cat's one of the first results when you Google-image-search "sleepy fang," btdubs. WHO IS THE SLEEPY FANG?????

Tags: 2009, Alissa the Sea Czar, Barker loves the Beatles, celebrities, cookies, dead people, Douglas Coupland, Elizabeth Barker, John Frusciante, Kat Asharya, Laura Jane Faulds, Mad Men, Michael Jackson, Mika Miko, neologisms, Patrick Swayze, Paul McCartney, road trips, surfing, The Lost Boys, The Sleepy Fang, thinking caps, Vans, Where The Wild Things Are

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