Erin Shaw Street

I didn't realize you wrote such bloody awful poetry

When I was 15, I bought a ticket to a Morrissey concert in Orlando. This would be around the time I had a "Meat Is Murder" sticker on my lunchbox, even if The Smiths had broken up years before. Let me explain: Morrissey and his aforementioned band were the soundtrack to my coming-of-age angst, just as he was to teens 10 years before me and 10 years after me. He will serve in this role forever as teenagers don Doc Martens and smoke clove cigarettes.

Just when I'd made the agonizing decision between my Cure "In Between Days" shirt and Bahaus shirt, my father declared I could not go to the concert two hours away with Chris Wunderlin, my responsible 16-year old driver. What?!?! It's not like the former Smiths front man would be playing in Central Florida any time soon! My life was ruined.

Fast forward 15 years. Yesterday I opened the weekend section of the paper and let out a shrill cry. Could it be? Vindication? Morrissey live at the Alabama Theatre July 19? I first called Shane, barely able to string together the words "The Queen is Dead." Then I called Dad and told him I was going and he couldn't stop me. And this morning I bought sixth row tickets to the show in the initimate theater of my second hometown.

A lot has changed in those 15 years. Morrissey has sung to me as I drove around Columbia thinking way too hard about postmodern feminist poets,  to crime scenes when I was reporter (wow I'm glad I don't do that anymore), sung to me as I picked out bridesmaid dresses  and in the days as I felt Nate's kicks in my super pregnant belly. He's seen some changes too, and is now apparently big with Latino gangs. That's kind of strange but beside the point. I love him! I'm going to see him in July! I will feel the angst live and in person.

From "America Is Not The World" --
"But when the president is never black, female, or gay/and until that day/you've got nothing to say to me/to help me believe."

Meerkats and mullets

We took Nate on his first trip to the zoo this afternoon. He wasn't impressed quite yet and found the people much more interesting than the meerkats (Shane's favorites) and the miniature monkeys (my new favorites). He didn't understand why people were so unfashionable, as he took great pains to look cute.
I explained that not everyone is as cute as he is, and we can't hold that against him.

The most exciting part was seeing an Indigenious Wild Alabama Mullet (see photo at left). Mulletsgalore.com Our rare glimpse at the exotic species left us all thrilled. The Mullet, which once populated our great nation, has seen its numbers wax and wane throught he decades. Sadly, in recent years its numbers have decreased. Thankfully, due in large part to the efforts of Alabamians, the Mullet has held its own in the Deep South.

After our trip, we put Nate down for his nap. He smelled like emu.

Addiction ... So-so

HBO Series: Addiction

HBO debuted this series on drug and alcohol addiction last week. I watched the first installment, the "centerpiece documentary," which is a series of short documentaries on a variety of addictions. The best of these six-seven minute films was one on a union of steamfitters, basically the guys that install heating and air, and their fight against the bottle. We've also watched "Montana Meth," an hour-long doc on a truly baffling and may I just say, stupid, drug.

So far I don't think any of these films, minus some slivers in the centerpiece, have been truly groundbreaking. Mildly interesting, yes. Though I sympathize with them immensely, people struggling with these issues make for really easy, judgemental documentaries. Bottle/drugs + variety of bad choices + bad mascara = good documentary footage. Is that mean?

I don't mean to belittle people struggling with these issues. If anything, I think much of this  series oversimplifies the issues, turning them into After School Specials because there is really no way someone can explain why another human being sticks a needle in her neck. It's just a hard story to tell really. And honestly there are more frank ways of telling this story. Hard? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.

Irish Baby

                                                                   Nate is busy making some corned beef and cabbage to celebrate his first St. Patrick's Day. But more importantly ...

HE SAID HIS FIRST WORD TODAY!!!!

Once again defying the norm, his first word was "light." It sounded more like, yyyight" and it rocked. He's a genius. Not that I'm biased or anything. For more photos of our leprachaun, see "Nate's 1st St. Paddy's Day" album to the right.

Lemonade

I have walking pneumonia and the flu, but it's actually turned out to be a good thing.  Don't get me wrong, I wasn't feeling that way Saturday night during my sister's bachelorette party. I was so sick I couldn't make it to the stage to sing my torch song, "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves" (though earlier in the night I joined her friends in singing "Don't Stop Believing"). This was at a karaoke bar called Starz, yes, with a "z," where people take themselves and their bad singing way too seriously. Apparently death metal and Whitney Houston songs can exist, if only in the bizarre world of a karaoke lounge.

Anyhow, I felt like a zombie, and the next day found out why during a 3-hour visit to a doc in the box. Two shots, four prescriptions and two days later I am starting to return to my normal self. For the first time in a long time I sat outside this morning and read a book and drank a glass of lemondade.  An actual book -- not a magazine or a book about infant sign language. OK, it was actually an easy read -- Margaret Sartor's "American Pie: A Memoir of Love, Secrets and Growing Up In the 1970s." Basically it's her word-for-word diary, and it was fascinating.  I highly recommend.

That was it -- no compulsive email checking, meeting making, diaper changing, thinking about the never-ending liists of to-dos that come with being a mom, a boss, a wife, official cleaner of pug faces. Sitting outside I had the startling realization that doing nothing is quite liberating indeed. Now I just need to put "doing nothing" on my list of to-dos. Ha.

I'm glad that spring is here. Longer days mean walks with Nate (Mom scored an amazing jogging stroller for me from Kids Market) and summer getting closer. I'm ready.

The shower/spa day/bachelorette party went well by the way. I've posted pictures in the album "Megan Birmingham Shower" to the right.

More Than A Feeling

Eleven years ago I was an intern in Washington, D.C., working for a South Carolina senator. I lived in a house filled with students from South Carolina, including USC, Clemson and the Citadel. I told the students from the Citadel that I had just read "Lords of Discipline" and was a little scared of their school, then asked them how they felt about the first female cadents joining ranks. They didn't like that. But we all went out for Mexican food at La Lomita and I walked homein the shadow of the steps of the Capitol before it had secured fences all around it.

Many nights, when I walked in the door I heard Boston's "More Than A Feeling" playing. The ever-popular college boy song, it was imbibed along with cases of Bud Light.

Boston Lead Singer Dies

Cary and Laura Tie The Knot!

I've known Cary for nearly 10 years and never have I seen him as happy as I did yesterday at his wedding to the radiant and ever sassy Laura. The wedding was so them -- they got married down the street from their new home in Avondale, a very cool section of Birmingham that's undergone great redevelopment. When they left the church a New Orleans-style jazz band greeted them, and the entire wedding party walked through the neighborhood with the band playing "When The Saints Go Marching In" all the way to the reception hall,  a newly restored villa in Avondale park.

The band, The Amazing Live Sea Monkeys, is great. We especially enjoyed their sak version of "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This," "I Knew The Bride When She Used to Rock and Roll" and, perhaps my all time favorite, The Pretenders' "Back on the Chain Gang." It was a great party -- Cary even arranged for a lunar eclipse!

Laura did an amazing job with the planning. Check out the photos on "Cary and Laura's Wedding" album to the right.

Nobody puts baby in a corner

Mimi brought Nate a sassy shirt today. His expression says it all! I wish I had a matching shirt.

It's been a big week. Shane's ripping up the rest of our flooring to finish the hardwoods before Megan's shower next weekend.  In other exciting news,  Whole Foods (finally) opened. Mom and I took a sneak preview tour Monday and were mesmerized by the organic produce, olive oil tasting bar and cheese emporium. They definitely pump in something into the air there that makes you realize you can save the world buy purchasing organic produce and wheat pasta. Now I know why they call it Whole Paycheck.