29.4.07

going public

so one of the really wierd things about the nice weather this weekend is with the windows and the balcony doors open, it's practically like you're outside. the windows across the way used to reveal an apartment being remodeled, but recently people have moved in, which is kind of a bummer as i can watch their tv. (but last time i tried it was basketball and who wants to watch that?) last night d and i were, ahem, ripping each other's clothes off, wondering if there were people in the rooms across the way with the lights on, but not caring enough to shut the shades and block that lovely breeze. also, the noise- anyone who walks up the path in front of my block of apartments sounds like they're in the room with you. we heard a couple of cell phone conversations, someone getting buzzed in, and a whole bunch of drunk partygoers returning home. afterwards i said to d something like, "i hope luke figures out where to get the pizza." and she said to me, "that's probably as close as we'll ever come to having sex in public."

25.4.07

cut and paste

wrote this for a comment on below the eight, but why stop there? blog readers deserve a little somethin somethin too.
"oh god. did you all not get our FLYERS? we've been trying to promote the hell out of adminstrative professionals week (yes, it's a week now) for all of april. and still no one realizes it until someone gets into the same elevator with a balloon. i was at work 2 hrs early today- my shift was 12 hrs long. a flowershop in the sears tower gives you a different perspective on life than just about any job you could have.

also i'm a little miffed at the floral industry because they've been promoting it as professional secretaries week this week - because they think ap confuses people. but now the flower people and the balloon people are warring, and no one knows who to believe. around the flower shop, it gives us a little bit of pleasure to refer to it as admin ass day. "

also, joe, you're a loser for not showing up. everyone needs to show up on a holiday. and i'm drunk. too many drinks after work with ch- should have gone to the spectacle space and put in a few hours there, but sometimes, you're just too tired.

23.4.07

that about sums it up

i'm broke, exhausted, and way to busy with the holiday to blog. happy admin ass week, everyone!

21.4.07

important people, greenness

d and i went down to mccormick place for the green festival today. it was lots of fun, free samples of everyone's favourite whole foods brands. fantastic foods, seventh generation, trillium organics, fun fun fun. d and i were very impressed with the swheat scoop demonstration. i heard mayor daley speak, and so that was my first celebrity citing for the day. we took our canvas reader bags full of all our free samples and headed to d's square dance class on the bus. as we were going up clark street we saw a filming, and we figured out it was for er when we saw john stamos. he waved to our bus!

after square dancing we argued over dinner, as usual, but i won and we went back to the ikosium kafe. i love that place. long live crepes! then we walked to the grocery store, and i bought liquor, brownie mix, and some of that wheat cat litter. as you can tell, it's going to be a fun night. i should sign off, so we can pop in the movie, while getting drunk and eating brownies....

20.4.07

things i wish i said today

i was so silent today, especially on public transportaton, especially to stangers. things i wish i said:

1. i love your coat- it's so elegant!
2. your daughters are just adorable in their matching pink jackets and pigtails.
3. excuse me sir, your fly is down.

16.4.07

on poetry

this post brought to you by garrison keillor's a writer's almanac podcast. because it's exactly as long as my walk between my home and the trainstation. i thought it was closer to 7 minutes, but the podcast is between 5 and 6 minutes long, and it usally gets me from front door to train door or vice versa. first, he has such a soft soothing voice. it's a great way to wake up... or to decompress at the end of the day. there's ads at the begining and end, the first part is the birthdays of authors and a little about their work, and the second part is a poem. it's nice. and it's a good way for me to learn to appreciate poetry. cause i don't really like poetry.

which tends to come as a surprise to people. since i love words so much. i love vocab, i love reading, i love song lyrics. but i can't appreciate poetry. it's to small, goes by to fast. i'm too much of a skimmer. i inhale what i read, and so i really don't do well with books of poetry. i do better when i'm slowed down. i can read the poetry in my planner, because it's just one poem that lasts all week- i am stopped from going on to the next one. and i'm looking from a distraction from my to do list. song lyrics obviously have music to entertain me. and now, garrison keillor's homey voice slows me down. and he picks the poems. so i don't have to go out and find them, they are just fed to me. i think it's good for me. my podcasts, in general, make me feel like a more well rounded person. they are edifying. i feel educated. unlike time spent online, or playing video games, which just dissapears into a useless void.

15.4.07

movie meme!

ok, here's the rules. you go to imdb, type in your top ten fave movies. post 5 plot keywords and the year. then, make your readers guess what the movies are. ok readers? this means you.

1. Art / Lotto / Bizarre / Shampoo / Dominatrix. 1998.
2. Christ Allegory / Organ Transplantation / Passion Play / Acting / Montreal. 1989.
3. New York City / Lesbian / Jewish / Art Gallery / Malaprop. 2001.
4. Old Dark House / Christmas Tree / Great Depression / Alternative History / 1940s. 1946.
5. Divine Intervention / Ensemble / Multiple Story Line / Wiz Kid / Police. 1999.
6. Romantic Comedy / Road Movie / Flea Market / Magic Ring / Chase. 2000.
7. Video Game / Quicksand / Story In Story / Old Man / Shark Infested Waters. 1987.
8. Student Principal Relationship / Rehabilitation / Bitch / Baptist / Pregnancy. 2004.
9. Black Comedy / Family / Engagement / Interracial Romance / Fired. 1967.
10. Goth Girl / Intervention / Lesbian / Nightclub / Group Therapy Scene. 1999.

please guess. please?

resolution update

a quarter of the way through the year, i think it's time to look back and see how i've been doing with these goals i've set. because why make resolutions if you can't revisit them in april?

unsuccessful:
1. still spending hours online. damn you flickr!
3. have not been to figure drawing ONCE. am hoping for a change once squaredancing and fiddle and manifest are over.
7. have had no interest in sketching every day
11. i think about painting. but i never do it.
15. i want to write. i should do that.

hopeful:
2. am watching MORE movies, though not up to the 4 per month yet.
5. i forgot about the letter a week goal. i'm going to be better about it, i promise. maybe i'll write one now.
13. because i've been reading more, i haven't been knitting THAT much more. but i am getting closer to finishing the 2nd sleeve of my sweater. once that's done i'll be confident enough to move this into the successful category.
14. though i've been to st. louis, that's the only travel i have planned till august. i have a free plane ticket that expires the end of july, and i guess whether i use that or not will determine whether i move this one up or down.
16. though i havn't been good at going to bed on time, i feel i have been getting enough sleep. but this one definately needs to be worked on.
18. eh, i floss like once a month. i guess that's an improvement.

successful:
4. i've been pretty faithful with the crossword. i've missed maybe 2 weeks since the begining of the year. and i've started to finish them too- woot!
6. a photo every day has been easy with the 365day project and community
8. though i don't shine my sink every day, i'm still putting flylady in the successful catagory, because my house is cleaned regularly- or was until i started working tuesdays- but you can't look at my closet photos and put this one in the hopeful catagory!
9. i'm now a plus level square dancer, and i'm online shopping for a petticoat to wear to graduation!
10. i have 6 weeks of fiddle lessons under my belt
12. read more was a goal? i read ALL THE TIME.
17. i haven't been real great about celebrating seasonally, but i've been passable. i sent out 4 valentines. i dyed easter eggs with jr. i didn't go ice skating or make pysanky, but i am going to go to the green fest to celebrate earth day, and i want to make plans for mayday. i don't know what yet, but i'll let you know.

ALL THIS TO SAY- i've added a new one! i was watching motorcycle diaries (see goal #2) and i thought gael garcia bernal's muscley arms were so hot. then d told me i looked all buff in this photo: so i decided it is time for me to become strong! or at least work my triceps and biceps until i can be useful moving my friends furnature. how hard could it be for me to add 10 tricep dips and 5 pushups to my daily routine?

missouri highlights

i feel like i kinda shorted you, so i guess i should write something about my reactions to mo. in general, i had a really good time. i loved st. louis. it was the cuteist little city. and i would have to say my fave part was the city museum. it was amazing. d and i had gone to the cathedral, which was amazing too, but i said to her, all that money and time that went into making that huge piece of art- i gotta say, i think jesus would be more impressed with sandwiches for the hungry or microloans for the poor than thousands of golden tessalae. i guess i found the grandeur kind of upsetting. but the city museum! it was such a labor of love, all this spectacular art made out of TRASH! industrial waste turned into jungle gym, and not just jungle gym but ART. it was wonderful and beautiful.

there were more mosaics there, but they were out of chipped tiles and old gears and plates from printing presses. and they were fish and dinosaurs instead of jesus. or teepees.


on the other side of the scale, waynesville was hard. i expected the children to be the diffucult part, but really i was fine with them. it was more the country that upset me. we didn't eat one meal but breakfast in the house, and so it was impossible for me to find a vegetable beyond onion rings or iceburg lettuce. i was so sick of fried foods, i never wanted to see another grilled cheese again. this made me grouchier than i would have otherwise been. i tried not to be whiny, because no one likes a vegetarian that makes her diet an ISSUE, but it's hard to be consistantly cheerful when you are being so poorly fed.

our second night there, i was really starting to feel the country closing in, and we were "going out" with arthena and tony. what do you want to do? they asked. what are our options? we replied. there's not alot to do for fun in waynesville. we ended up going to tony's mom's bar in devil's elbow to play pool. we pull up and there's a HUGE bald eagle painted on the side, with a flag painted in the middle. oh yeah. we go in and order drinks and arthena's joking with an oldtimer sititng at the bar and he starts heckling me about my pink hair. i'm like whatever and go to the bathroom, i hate drunk people. so we get our drinks and our pool table and everyone's apologizing and making excuses for this guy, and i'm like, please, they have old drunk guys in chicago, too. it's the general air that's hard for me to breathe. can we just let it go and not make me stick out any more than i already feel like i do? and d comes over to me and starts touching on me, what's the matter baby? we can leave soon. and i was SOOOOO uncomfortable. and i said, "please don't touch me here." she was of course hurt and we finished our drinks and our game and left. when she was so aloof in the car home, i started to cry and cry and cry, and she softened, and then we talked about it that night. she felt she had nothing to hide, and she doesn't care what anyone else thinks. i felt very very vulnurable. there was no public transportation to get me home if things got hairy. i wasn't a person to these strangers, i was just a symbol of all sorts of things they don't like or feel threatened by. there is so much hate out there. d said tony and arthena wouldn't let anything happen to us... but i guess i've seen too many movies and read too many books to take much comfort in that. (when i told christopher this story, he said, "girl, i've seen the laramie project!")

so that i can safely say was the low point of the trip. and even that had it's good moments- the music was FABULOUS, totally appropriate for the scene, these old old country songs back when contry had more in common with folk than pop. and it was totally the bar out of ani d's untouchable face, though i couldn't find any recognizable constellations when we were playing. and that one incident didn't color my whole trip- the joys of st. louis, and the b&b, and the brazillian restaurant, and the museums and the sightseeing overrulled it all. it rocked. i really love traveling with d. i wish real life was like that. coming home to reality is always so hard.

13.4.07

mini blogs

i have big long posts to write, but i can't do it. come on, give me a break. i'm sick. so instead i have a few one sentence posts. which is better than just one one sentence post, right?

one of my favorite things
i know my list is filled with the usual, like chocolate and cell phones, but something that i rarely think about that must go on the list is raw snap peas. the perfect finger food.

the problem with being sick
...is you can't ENJOY lying in bed watching the muppet show eating chocolate pudding straight from the pan. and if you can't enoy that, well, you know you have a problem.

money makers
i've been wondering if i should put google ad sense ads on my blog. i know some people really hate them, but i don't mind them on other people's blogs. i know i'd get mere pennies for my 10 page views a day, but that something would be kinda sweet, woudn't it? what do y'all think? anyone out there with experience? also, i need another source of disposable income, because i think my girlfriend really needs this bathing suit. preferably in kiwi or peri. but who can afford that kind of gift?

neti
have you noticed these are getting longer as i go along? i must be getting inspired. someone stop me, before i blog something real! so with my ilness and sinus issues, i have been dying for someone to just WASH OUT my sinuses. and they actually have to tool to do that- the neti pot. d called walgreens for me, and they had a little plastic one, so i bought it. it's scary , but i tried it, and it burnt a little and felt like i was drowning and apparently takes more faith and skill than i have. i was disapointed, so though i have some dread every time i look at it, i'm going to practice, and hopefully one day swear by it as others do.

12.4.07

sick

had a sore throat the past few days, but yesterday was really miserable at the spectacle space christopher and i just groaned at each other. this morning i woke up feeling un-good, so i text-messaged in. now i'm just flopping around the house, sleeping and reading and blowing huge hunks of green goo out of my nose. gross.

10.4.07

lazy ass

i'm not really- it's more i'm busy busy busy. i feel shafted out of my weekend. luckily i have a KICK ASS girlfriend who, while i was at square dancing last night, bought me coke, and lunch, and jellybeans, and snuck into my house to drop them off and did the dishes and cleaned the cat box too. i've always loved fairies! then today she picked me up after fiddle lessons with tupperwares of warm homemade lentil soup for my next few meals. my stress level is so much lower than it should be. i work late again tomorrow, but then thursday i should have time to editorialize our st. louis trip. if you want to know what we did, though, there's info out there. first, you can read the description on d's blog and then you can see my photos on flickr. enjoy, and i'll be back before you know it!

9.4.07

home again

i'm back home safely, but oh so much work awaits me! i hope to post about my trip soon. i had a wonderful time in st. louis, it was the cutest little city, and waynesville... well, i feel it gave me the full missouri experience! lots of stories soon, i promise!

4.4.07

i'm off!

d and i are going to missouri for her spring break. and i'm not packed yet! we leave EARLY tomorrow morning, and she's already here, cleaning for me since i'm blogging. so obviously this will be very short. but i'll be back sunday.

3.4.07

three track

so much drama in chicago these days is all about the cta starting its three-track plan for belmont and fullerton. usually there's 4 tracks (2 each way) for brown, purple, and red line trains. but while they're doing reconstruction they are going to have one closed for the next 3 years. so they can run fewer trains, and it's already crowded, and they're estimating commute times doubled, and so on and so forth...it went into effect yesterday, and i had no trouble going to work- though the main problems will be coming home, as it's the northbound track that's closed. on the way home we were going to ch's house, and we didn't wanna be late for square dancing. since it was not just construction but a sox game too, i suggested we take the bus. it was fine, not an exciting adventure, but sometimes you do what you have to do.

today i was taking the brownline from work to violin lessons. and when i got on at quincy, it was already packed! quincy's only the second stop in the loop, so this is a bad sign. i stood from quincy all the way to paulina. it was SO SO SLOW. luckily half the stations are closed for reconstruction, or i can't imagine how long it would have taken. it was definately over an hour- and it should take about half that. i'm so glad i don't live off the brown line these days- living off the redline is bad enough!

1.4.07

rooftops

bummed around yesterday until it was time to go to the square dance. it was the first beginning class level dance, and EVERYONE there was all, "where's d?" i wanted to make a general announcement, "d's in iowa. i don't wanna talk about d. i don't wanna talk about iowa. can we just dance?" but instead i was polite and answered all their questions. gloria was there, for the first time since before christmas, so i was glad to catch up with her. it was pouring, and michael and john offered me a ride home, so i took them up on it. then i remembered michelle's birthday party. screw it i thought and went home.

when i got home there was a bunch of texts on my phone. one from d and a bunch from ch and hugo at t's. i was so sad i'd taken that ride, cause i would have had much more fun walking to t's and getting drunk with ch and hugo. instead i called them and sent my regrets. then i called michelle and sent her my regrets. i explained the situation to her, and she said she understood. but a few minutes later my phone rang and it said it was her, but when i answered, it was stephan. he told me to get in a cab right now and he'd pay for it. i said i couldn't, but thanks, i was just feeling too mopey, and he said mopey can be fun, and i didn't have to come out, but if i stayed at home and moped and felt sorry for myself he'd never speak to me again.

so i hopped on the red line with my umbrella and headed down there. they'd eaten, so i picked at their french fries and drank and drank. more and more people showed up, and we went to michelle's house. grant had given michelle 2 confetti cannons for her birthday, and we decided to go up to the roof to shoot them off. so we got out the ladder and climbed up to the top of her building. it was beautiful, you could see downtown and wrigely field, and the "m" of the music box sign, and the coffee shop where i'd had the meeting with cory and tom 2 days ago. i begged to shoot off one of them, and so they let me. POP! and then confetti blows around. my cannon showed us how the wind was blowing, so grant stood on a parapet and shot off the other, and we all stood so the cloud of confetti blew all over us, then off the edge of the roof, and we watched the sparkly cloud float down over addison street, twinkling in the street lights, and it was surreal. it got more surreal as we started wandering the rooves (roofs?). the bulidings on her block are all connected, so we just kept wandering the twisted paths around the fire escapes and the skylights and climbing over the parapets from one building to the other. we finally got to a little alley- it was only like a 2 foot jump, but no one was crazy enough to try it. it was really cool, though, very contemplative, to be wandering around on top of the city at midnight with a bunch of artists. stephan took the train home with me- he lives in uptown. i got home too late to go to figure drawing this morning (curses!) but i did feel loved.

thanks, y'all

i don't deserve friends as nice as you. i may bitch or feel lonely sometimes, but when the shit hits the fan, i've got a rockin support group. doesn't matter how far away you live- y'all take care of me, and i thank you for your comments, and phone calls, and cabs, and threats. you've taught me so much about what love looks ilke. thanks. thanks again.