On getting beat at my own game..

You've heard it all before. The Oscars. It's my thing. My old school posse will share in tales of Oscar parties past, when I could somehow talk a group of people who cared little about the awards into coming over for games, drinking and silliness the night of the affair. While the event is still in red on my calendar, I fear the parties have ceased. Even sadder, however, is my personal preparation for the event seems to have now lost its luster.

I guess I could blame it on the light to moderate cold I've been battling the past few days. At least I did see all five Best Picture nominees. That part is actually something that has become more important to me over the years, particularly now that I have a couple of indie movie theaters that I frequent. Still, I was never in "potential party" mode this year, so I couldn't even come up with fun names for Oscar night snacks. Heck, I couldn't even come up with a real menu. Instead, I lamented American Gangster not being nominated, meaning I couldn't call our chips and dip snack "Crips and Dip". We did manage milkshakes in honor of Daniel Day Lewis and hamburgers in honor of Juno's phone. Oh, and Cory did consume a Atone-Mint Chocolate Chip Milkshake to cash in on the triple threat. He's a clever one.

So we ran out to the grocery store a mere two hours before the event. A few years ago I would have spent an entire weekend preparing! Nevertheless, I am proud to share that we did maintain the most important of Oscar traditions; the ballot competition. Yet, for the second year in a row, my guy schooled me in predicting the winners.

Now, I've never been one to color myself as competitive. Still, I don't enjoy losing all that much. What stung about this though is simply that this is MY thing. MY thing, damnit. Why couldn't I school HIM? See, he's a bright and clever guy, consistently beating me at Jeopardy and most references to real knowledge. I accept it. So just give me this little bit of victory!

Truthfully, though, I've never been very good at picking the winners. But this year, despite seeing all five films, I just felt overall less prepared for the show. It kind of snuck up on me, really. And it plays up a theme that's been creeping into my life as of late - that of being unprepared. Unprepared for the show tonight. Unprepared for the San Francisco trip. A sense of unpreparedness for a few things going on at work. Heck, I didn't start losing sleep over work related issues until about a week or so ago. I'm way behind, people!

I'm starting to think it's a side effect to one goal of mine for this year; taking things less seriously. It starts to worry me, however, if it's creeping into things that at one time made me tick. So does this Oscar thing just not make me tick as much anymore? After all, it's been at least a year since I picked up an US Weekly. I used to be a subscriber. (It was a gift from friends, I swear! But also the best gift ever.) Am I just getting too old for the Hollywood silliness to mean so much to me? It's fine, really, if anything it gives me a bit more credibility. It's just funny to think about given there was a point in time when people were convinced I'd be the next reporter on Entertainment Tonight. Again, not a bad thing that this is not the case anymore.

Still, it's a little sad to see it go.

It does inspire me to keep trying to find something new to bring me excitement. Yoga could be my new thing, as I've already discussed in earlier blogs. Lately I've also been focusing on wishing I could really create something. My friend Valerie makes handbags, wallets, hair accessories, baby quilts, you name it.. she's incredible at it. I would give anything to be able to create something like that! I just crave the vision and the skill to make something, anything, like that.

I'm thinking maybe I should practice my cooking more. I'm not a great cook. I'm a good cook. I succeed more than I fail and, quite frankly, a few years ago being able to say that was something of a stretch. So, it's something I've worked toward and improved upon, so perhaps I should go there. And what I love about cooking is the simple joy it can bring people. How it can bring people together, how it can inspire conversation but, even more so, how it can inspire admiration. I dig that. I'm not going to lie.

But the thing about food is that it takes forever to prepare and only minutes to disappear. That part of cooking is just somewhat less satisfying.

Then there's always photography. I managed to take a couple of shots at Christmas of which I was proud enough to enlarge, frame and put on my wall. That's kind of unheard of for me. I love taking pictures, and I'd love to be better at it, but the thing with photography is you can only do so much with a Canon Powershot that cost about $150. True photography requires true equipment which can range in the thousands of dollars. Yeah, not so much.

But do I even have the patience for a new passion? The thought of sitting down and reading about how to do something just seems so tedious to me right now.

Wow, I am simply sounding ridiculous and pessimistic. How DOES one go from wanting to be Mary Hart to wanting to be Ansel Adams? Not sure. So, yes, I'm shopping around for a new "thing". My thing. The thing that when people hear my name they say, "Oh yeah! You know what she's great at?!" Yeah , THAT thing. And so what if it's not the Oscars. I just want it to be SOMETHING.