Amy Lu's View

It’s Epiphany! This means it is still technically “The Holiday Season” so I can still share my Christmas Letter without it being tremendously late. I can even make a thematic tie-in, as an “epiphany” can mean a sudden realization, and learning is a type of realization, and the theme of my Christmas letter (which I wrote long before I knew I wouldn’t get around to posting it until the last day of the Twelve Days of Christmas) is “learning.”

Random fun fact: The gift that the protagonist recieves from their true love on the Twelfth Day of Christmas in the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is TWELVE DRUMMERS DRUMMING! But you really only need one drummer, ME. And I even set my drumset back up tonight (finally, after our Dec. 20 show). 

So as the holiday season officially wraps up, here is my Christmas Letter that I mostly sent to loved ones not on the interwebs, repurposed as a blog post.

Happy Holidays! I hope this finds you happy and well. It’s tricky to sum up a year, so I’m going to concentrate on some things I’ve learned in 2018. I’m also going to refer quite a bit to other posts in my blog where you can read even more about our year!

Things I learned this year:

I really love inspirational quotes about running (especially as temporary tattoos). This year we ran two marathons, Grandma’s Marathon (Two Harbors to Duluth) in June and the Twin Cities Marathon in October. Grandma’s Marathon was my second and Twin Cities was my third. (Chad’s been doing the marathon thing longer). I’m still insanely, and yes, annoyingly, proud of running these two marathons. The experience of running each marathon (26.2 miles) was intense and emotional, but it was the training that I did to prepare for each marathon that was really profound (and hard and boring and time-consuming). As one of my favorite running quotes says, “If you want to change your body, exercise. If you want to change your life, become a [marathon] runner.” I also really love writing about running, so please check out my blog if you have even the slightest desire to find out more of my thoughts about running. Exciting posts include Ultra Asinine, Kooky, Etc. and Not Your Grandma’s Marathon. Our marathon completion times:

• Grandma’s: Amy–4:02:48, Chad–3:35:11
• Twin Cities: Amy–4:03:55; Chad–3:34:03

Playing a character that does horrible things is really fun. This summer Chad and I got to be a very dysfunctional (one could perhaps even say “despicable”) couple in the one-act, ‘The Body Politic,” written by local playwright Terry Newby. Our characters drank way too much, shamelessly seduced each other, and then blackmailed each other as the socio-political environment around them devolved into chaos (NOT autobiographical, really!) I got one of the best acting compliments I’ve ever received for my portrayal of my character, Stacy: “I didn’t like anything about you, not one thing, except how you looked in that red dress.”

It actually may have been my year for playing “bad” girls. Chad and I played gangsters in our spring Duck Soup show and played John Dillinger and his girlfriend moll for a Halloween haunted gangster tour. I also played a bad girl, or at least a sassy and really mean lady, when I played a dying elderly woman this fall in “The Shadow Box” (Don’t Let Those SOBs Pass You Buy). I did not get to wear a sexy red dress but I did get to sing a bawdy song and yell “Put some balls into it!” (perhaps my favorite line from a play, ever). Chad and I even tackled Hamlet and Ophelia in an excerpt (and Chad was AMAZING) and while Ophelia isn’t bad, she’s definitely disturbed. I did portray one somewhat “normal” character in a short one-act about middle-aged parents dealing with their daughter, literally, flying the coop.

I can still rock out with a smaller drum set. I’ve had one and only drum set—my red Ludwig Rocker set—since the summer of 1987. So it was a big deal when I got a new Questlove Breakbeats glittery silver set in February that is much smaller (but still mighty, or at least mighty enough for me) and easier to transport (Retro Rockin’). Drumming is one of my favorite things in the world and it energizes me without making me that stressed or filled with self-doubt (I believe others might call that being in “The Zone.”) I think Chad really enjoys playing guitar because he only swears occasionally when he plays and likes to spend a lot of money on guitars. We are extremely lucky that we get to continue to play and perform with our cover band Clusterflock. (People often ask what type of music we play…basically whatever we want to and can figure out, so everything from Amy Winehouse to David Bowie to Jason Isbell).

We also get to “stretch” ourselves by being in another band, Pigeons From Hell (we’re stretching because I play keyboards and sing a little and Chad plays a fair amount of bass). Pigeons started as a Pretenders cover band a couple of years ago but has morphed into doing mostly original songs.

If you want to take a crash course in patience and humility and cuddling and sock-saving and feeling guilty about your cats, get a new puppy. Just a month ago, we adopted a new dog, StanLee Booker. He’s a small (dachshund/min-pin/corgi?) mix, about 6 months old. He’s wild, adorable, chews EVERYTHING (including a bookshelf) and really wants to chase the small angry puppies (formerly known as the cats) who now permanently live in our basement. (To All the Pets We’ve Named Before).

I’m counting on StanLee to give me lots of blog inspiration!)

We got StanLee about two months after our dog Olive died from old age and a rare form of skin cancer. Olive was the last of our first cohort of pets (Poopie, Rogue, Jube, and Oscar) so her death was the end of an era. We’ll always miss our treasured furry companions and they will never be replaced, but we apparently can’t go too long without pet-fueled drama and hijinks. (Thanks to all my friends for NOT laughing at me for getting a new dog so soon after declaring how I was going to revel in the freedom of a dog-free life for a long time).  

It’s cool that I have a job where I’m always learning new things and I do work that I didn’t even know existed 10 years ago. I didn’t just learn this in 2018, but I wanted to assure everyone that I’m still employed as an online service librarian for Hennepin County Library. This means my job has lots of variety and flexibility, I don’t work directly with the public, and I’d be happy to talk to you about website usability or children’s books.

Please check out Chad’s law firm’s website for confirmation that he is doing well on the job and career front: http://rubriclegal.com/).

Everything I ever needed to know I’ve learned from Doctor Who. Again, I didn’t just learn this in 2018, but it was confirmed/reaffirmed by farewell speech of the Doctor as played by Peter Capaldi. So for those of you that aren’t Doctor Who geeks, that’s where the saying “Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind” on our Christmas cards come from.

Hope we all keep learning in 2019!