back in chicago

need to decompress, but no time for it now- i need to buy two gifts and finish making two more for lisa!- some how i don't think that's gonna happen, seeing as we're exchanging gifts when she gets home tomorrow. i don't even really mind the giftlessness, because i am SO EXCITED to see her! i've missed her while dealing with the Cancer Christmas. more on that later.

merry christmas!

I made it! My flight was sceduled to leave an hour earlier, but it was delayed a bunch of times, but then we had a tailwind, so we were gonna catch up, but then we had to circle Philly cause the pilot said there were traffic problems with some raindeer or something. We had just enough time to change into our fancy dresses before midnight christmas eve service.

So Merry Christmas, everyone! mine got a lot less merry now that the smell of bacon is filtering through the door, but i'm past complaining.

but wait! it gets worse!

guess who's still in chicago? guess who's 6:45 flight tonight has been canceled, and who isn't rescheduled until 4:30 tomorrow? guess who's missing the muppets christmas carol at mom's tonight and christmas at dad's tomorrow?

guess who's trying to make the best of it by finishing her xmas gifts tonight so hopefully she won't have to try and smuggle a seam ripper on the plane tomorrow night?

the fun of losing keys

(edit: i was hoping the temp. was attached to that pic, but no. type in zip code 60660 to weather.com and you get -3F, feels like -29F. and i high of 6F today.)
liz said it.

Right now i'm wearing: underwear, cotton tights, waffle weave long underwear, blue jeans, tank top, long sleeved tshirt, long sleeved silk underwear, cashmere sweater, wool socks and when i go out side i will add boots, coat, sheepskin mittens, fur hat, and wool scarf. BRRRRR.

as if cancer wasn't enough

i lost my keys in the past 24 hrs. I went to knitting, then out to dinner, then to lisas, and when i came home, they weren't in my pocket. they must have fallen out when i took out my knitting, and i didn't hear them fall over my ipod.

also, i think everyone's christmas gifts will be not just not finished by xmas, but also too small.

my life, it just sucks all around right now.

fairness

Hey, thanks all, for encouragement for life's deep questions. I don't really believe in god at all, but i certainly refuse to believe in a god like that. I think it came up because i've been thinking so much about my grandparents and i have so much anger towards them. I mean, i've always been sorta "fuck them, let them live in their old little world, they'll die soon enough and the world will be inherited by the next, open minded, generation." but now, that's all turned on it's head. z called again tonight and made me cry on the bus ride home. now that the dignosis is small cell instead of large cell, mom's only got 1-2 years left. Her dad is 83 and still farming. Her mom is gonna turn 80 in march. and they are the sweetest, kindest, most self-debasing people, completely christlike, except for being bigoted and homophobic. Even if i don't think of it as MY MOTHER, and just balance out who's on what team, i feel the circle of my relationships being unbalanced. I guess my mom always taught me how to be the black sheep, and while dan savage is right and we will outsmart, outlast, and outlive them on the grand scale, in my personal world...
well, no offence, but i'm making lots of trades. you wouldn't believe the people i would give my mother's cancer to instead. many of you. i'd feel sorry for you, sure, but my mom's real important to me. i'd even kill off both my grandparents if it meant my mother got to stay alive, and meet her someday grandkids.

question to the universe

So do you think that god is punishing me for being a dyke, or do you think it's just his bizarre sense of ironic humor that i was whining about not having anything to blog about?

new news

my sister called me today at work to say the biopsy's back and it's a different kind of cancer than they thought. so it's grows much faster... but it also dies much faster, so hopefully that will work in her favor. i've been getting used to the IDEA of it all, but then last night instead of talking just ABOUT it to lisa! or allie or anyone who will listen, i actually talked to mom again, and whew, this xmas is going to be hard. i think i've been coping, i've been handling it pretty well considering. but z just got there this afternoon, and it's not something i'm looking forward to doing. it's another situation where everything in me says RUN! and this time i'm actually not going to, i'm going to go there and follow my instructions. (z says the party line is "happi- no, CHEEFUL acceptance. we're not happy about it, but we're not repressing either.")

yeah so...

thanks so much for your love everyone. it's been just lovely to have a community whom i find so caring. thanks for all your stories of people who have lived for decades past their expiry dates, and for people who didn't really get sick from chemo.

i don't even know how to start blogging about it. or talking or anything. yet that's kinda silly, cause all i do is think and talk about it. i'm currently into living my life as if nothing is happening, but full of gallows humor. i'm sure it'll change by tomorrow.

in the meantime, thank you thank you for your sympathy and your good intentions to the universe. i don't understand how all that works, but i know it's important.

the worst awfulness you can imagine.

my mom just called. she has lung cancer that's metastasised in her liver. your comments would be appreciated.

xmas plans

i'm thinking of switching to twittering. what do you think? i don't follow any tweets, i don't really know what the whole thing is about... but i think it's like blogging through text message, and since i'm all about writing short posts these days, and i always think of things when i'm out and about and never in front of my computer, it seems in theory a good match.

i'm going to PA for xmas. everything else fell through. i'm cool with it, it was my choice, but it's kinda unexciting and i'll miss lisa! something fierce. Lisa!'s all worried cause she doesn't know what to get me for xmas. But i told her she should buy me obama's senate seat, so it looks like we're set.

desperate

so...
what do you all want to hear about? i can't do the daily drama posts anymore. i'm sorry. and i get all overwhemed and so don't blog at all and that's a bad thing. so what shall i post about? i think with a little inspiration i can get this thing on a roll again.

btw, thank you a and liz for your fabulous xmas invites! sadly, PA won out. but maybe next year...

holiday!

so i have to go to work now, but tonight lisa! and i leave for PA! I haven't flown with someone else in, oh, 14 years. i'm so excited!

as for work, i can barely remember where i'm going. here's my schedule from the last week:
Fri- Mini muppets
sat-off
sun- bag lady
mon- flower shop
tues- rock & roll heaven
wed- curtains r us!

crazy, isn't it? i'm not very happy at rock and roll heaven right now, so i'm glad to go back to curtains r us to remember what an unhappy work environment is really like.

working life

So work's been pretty good for me recently. Y'all know i was trying to leave curtains r us and i was short on flowershop days, so I was searching the craigslist. I figured the time had come to put that bookkeeping interest to work (because who doesn't want a carreer that includes three double letters in a row?) but obviously my resume isn't up to snuff for THAT sort of work. so I got all sorts of great advice (thanks liz! thanks sarah!) and started to work on it, but there were actual SEWING jobs posted, so i figured i might as well send the resume i already have out to them. And lo and behold, i got them both.

The second, which I adore, you already know about. it's for the costume designer who makes the mascots. I'll be sewing video game warrior costumes for a convention- and industry convention, not like comicon but, like, where the video game people pitch their games to the stores or whatever. I'm working on dark warrior and tram is doing the snow queen. i think the psudonym here will be mini muppets.

the other, which i've been at for a couple of weeks now, i'm still not convinced about. it's a DIY sort of company that makes guitar straps, camera straps, dog collars, etc. it sorta sucks because it's a bad combination of expecting perfect quality, lightning speed, and paying a pittance (which i have to save my own taxes from). But i really like the work, and my co-workers, so we'll see. It's enough to live on (they hit my minimum requirement) and so it will be worth it to me if i get straighter and faster.

so with such jobs, it's looking like germany for xmas is not an option. too many retail-based jobs. plus, i didn't manage to get out of debt yet. (instead, i bought my violin.) this makes me sad. maybe in january, before valentine's day. anyone have any good ideas on what i should do for xmas? alone in chicago doesn't sound fun, and i think it's too long to spend with my religous grandparents. i wish europe wasn't so far away and i could go for the weekend. i'm going to mom's for thanksgiving, so we'll see how that goes. i'll probably be over it and not ready to go back for xmas.

on the upside, i'm now a proud owner of a violin!

excuses

sure it would be easy to blame my lack of blogging on my girlfriend. but lets be honest, it comes down to two things: google reader and hulu. everyone's saying their media lives are empty now that the election is over, and so perhaps that will be my cure, but i fear it will not be the case.

so anyway, here's todays bossyness of things found on the internet to encourage you to leave from your desk chair stairing at your computer. first, tomorrow go to the anti prop 8 rally in your town. they're everywhere, really. just go.
if you need further advance planning, go see the movie i helped make when it comes to your home town. here's the schedule.

there's the bossiness. stay tuned for my next entry when i tell you about my new jobs.

the most amazing thing....

about grant park was after it was all over. i'd gotten a call on the train from my grandma (who was so disapointed that my "i'm facinated by palin" comment weeks ago didn't translate into a vote for mccain) and it made me feel all discombobulated and wierd in a way only my grandma can. I love my grandma, but i lie to her a lot, and there's something about her and people like her who take away my personhood. But then there was the magic of the historical night on the jumbotron in grant park's butler field (i could see the lights that were shining on obama!) what was most amazing to me was everyone going home. it was the usual crush of big downtown events like 4th of july, and closed streets, i'd done that before. but at 4pm parking in the loop was prohibited, so there was no one driving. there were taxis on the street, and the buses lined up all the way around multiple blocks. (lisa! and i walked 3 or 4 blocks and passed 7 or 8 146s before we found one with open doors and passengers that looked like it was leaving anytime soon. there were bikes chained to anything that wasn't moving, and people with yes we can stickers on their helments were threading their way through the sea of pedestrians.

this is where i want to live. chicago. the loop. surrounded by teeming hoards of obamaniacs that can be sorted into all sorts of different boxes. where you can walk in the streets, and everyone takes the bus home if they don't have a light for their bicycle. long live public transportation.

red and blue

so many things i've done, and need to encourage my readers to do, but i've been busy. all sorts of new jobs, mom in town, etc. will tell you more soon. but tonight i have to get dinner eaten so i can go to obama's party in the loop. sadly, we weren't able to get tickets to see him. but we'll be where the party is nonetheless.

got in line at 6:30 this morning and was voted by 7:30. i was ballot 66 in the ballot box. you all better be voted too. especially if you're voting in pennsylvania. i need more voters to balance out my grandparents!

manifest video

so recently all my time online has been spent job hunting. i've gotten some fabulous feedback on my "professional" resume, but now i have to actually make all these changes! in the meantime, i have an intereview for an arty job on wednesday. check it out:
cookie gluck pretty cool, huh?

so i'm getting together my portfolio for her, and i need to find manifest pictures. i thought i could find some from online, but the best ones are the ones i took, or d took for me. however, i did find this video of me stilt walking! ok, i have about a second and a half, but there are lots of my costumes, and the picture when it's frozen, oh yes, that's me. i'm the green stilter. with the sweater, because boy was it cold that day.

the embed doesn't seem to be working, so here's a link:

ah choo!

Well, look at all the responses i got to that last post! it seems the deep, serious questions i have go unanswered, yet my flippant posts are so well loved! thanks always for your comments, everyone.

my allergy regimen is such: i was about 12 when it occured to my parents there may be medicines to help my drippy nose. so i tried benadryl to no avail, but psudophidrine (or whatever old sudafed was called) made a noticable difference. so they were so pleased with that they took me to the doctor, and i was prescribed allegra in high school, and it was amazing. but then my health insurance ran out, and then, years later, my bottle-o-pills (they gave me a three month supply assuming one every 12 hrs, and i take them maybe once or twice a month.) then claratin went over the counter, and i tried that and it had the same effect as swallowing m&ms, but less tasty. so i made friends with a nurse, who gave me free allegra samples which i HORDED like the dickens. like, oh, my nose is just running, that's not worth wasting an allegra on, i'll wait til my eyes start to water and my ears itch... and then sarah emailed me and said zertec wasn't working for her, so she'd mail me her stash, which i greatfully accepted, but then it went over the counter so i didn't feel so cool and illegal anymore. and that works OK, but it is accessable, and that's really what's important. if i ever get really desparate, i have like two allegra left.

as for your problem, amy, i was totally pro-napkin when i thought you were talking about your nose, then i re-read it and realized it was mouth, which made me switch my position to pro-sleeve. but in general, those quakers need to learn to wait peacefully!

i'm off, i want to finish re-reading a handmaid's tale before i go to lisa!'s to watch the debate tonight. there are lots of creepy scary parts of that book, but the really horrific things aren't what scare me the most. they're too unbelieveable, it's just ketchup as annie dillard says. the scariest parts for me are talking about the past, when she talks about when the world started to change, about going to the convienience store one morning for cigarettes and her card wouldn't work, and then going to work and all the women were laid off. so it started. and still, i can see it happening so easily. Sarah Palin wants to be an Aunt like nobody's business, i told ch. he said i shouldn't worry, he's sure she's never read the book. but maybe. maybe she saw the movie in the 80s. maybe she'd come up with the idea on her own. or maybe Dr. Dobson would tell her. I'm sure he's read it.

Pick Yer Nose

my allergies have been bad recently, but the zertec keeps my sinuses from filling and my nose from running. however, it doesn't do anything about the itching inside of my ears. ani d says i can pick my ears but not my nose, but i don't know- i feel pretty gross with my constant ear picking.

Margaritaville, perhaps?

Am i the only person- i can't be the only one- who, everytime someone on NPR talks about Warren Buffet and what he thinks of the current state of the economy, or whatever, thinks, "wait- Warren Buffet? isn't he a musician? what does he know about the economy?"

texas

ah, where to start? i had a good time, really i did. still, i don't want to deny how hard it was. I am indescribably greatful for all the people who made the trip possible for me. Poor rafael spent an entire weekend having his life invaded. i'm sure he had a nice time, but still, i'm sure he was glad to see me go. Texas was authentically texas. there were cowboy hats, cowboy boots, and lots and lots of highways. highways on top of highways. it was crazy. austin was also beautiful though, the highways cut through hills and creek beds, and i have some nice pictures. also the weather was AMAZING, i mean, i'd hate it year round but that weekend it was perfect, just what i needed to wear my tank tops one last time. and there were palm trees and cactuses. really.

i was worried about the tenseness of making small talk with g's roommates who drove me from rafael's to the wedding, getting to know them again, but my fears were unfounded, and i had a great time with them. because i only see them as a group, i imagine they're always together, when really the likelyhood of us all being in the same place together again is absymally low. however, we did swear to become facebook friends.

the wedding. well, of course there are all the basic normal wedding issues. you know, everyone's so happy and dressed up so nice, and she's there with her sister looking at her grandma and all her friends, who are smiling on as she holds her lover's hand, and i STILL always think, aw, someday when it's my turn i'll... and then i remember i don't get that. it will never add up that way for me. and it seems very unfair, that there's that one sort of happiness i'm denied. I'm not saying i am denied all happiness, or love, or even grandparent approval, i'm just saying this is not the narrative that will play out for me, yet i forget that when i see other people working it, and it stings when i remember. this was i'm sure the most agonizing wedding- i mean, my mom's was awful cause i didn't approve of the match, and that sucked in this one as well. (although, now that he's her HUSBAND, i need to work hard at changing my attitude. because he's a MUCH nicer guy than my stepfather, and what's done is done and i need to get over it already.) there's also, of course, the lust i feel for g, and the way the pastor talked about how they were making their choice for life and that this was their one and only forever; and how that made me feel like she'd chosen between joe and me, and she picked him, even though there was really no contest, i never had a chance, it made it seem so final i never will.

the worst part by far was when the texan pastor made a little political aside in the middle of the homily about us coming together for the marrage of this one man and one woman and that's what marriage is regardless of those wrong thinking people trying to change the laws or whatever. suddenly the wedding was all about me, instead of being all about gabrielle and joe, for me. i wanted to walk out, i wanted to walk out so badly. but i was wearing my high high heels, and i had all these stupid acoutremonts, and i was sitting in the middle of the pew and would have to climb over people. if it was something i didn't care about, like church with my grandma, sure i'd have made a spectacle of myself. but it didn't seem fair to do that to g, who is incredibly hot in her wedding dress and whom i'm still a little in love with.

so I was feeling incredibly introverted, could barely see out of my snailshell, thinking i was gonna be in a depressed lonely funk for the rest of the night. and g's roomates are all whispering and muttering behind me. desperate to be in on some secret, i find out it's about "do we need to stop for cash? will there be a cash bar?" no one really knew if either family would be an anti-alcohol-at-weddings type. (they weren't, btw, there was free wine and beer! horray!) and what a strange little thing, but that snapped me right out of my funk. sure i was in texas, but i was surrounded by other crazy liberals. i had this feeling of minature community, i belonged in this box marked "their friends from chicago" and i felt at home and protected there.

there was great music at the wedding, and great food too. yummy cheese plate with my favorite, boursin, and roasted sweet potatoes and green beans with tomatoes. they played a huge variety of music. the night started off with stuff carolyn could jitterbug to, and the father daughter dance was la bamba, and at the end of the night joe's brothers showed off all their breakdance and zombie moves to 80s michael jackson. the reception was a lot of fun. i had a good time in texas. still, it was hard, and i'm tired, and while i am glad i went, i still feel in need of a weekend!

returned

back from texas, too exhausted to blog about it. i promise to soon, though. maybe tomorrow.

while packing

did you know it's going to be high of 92 in texas this weekend?!?! that means i have to bring THREE pairs of shoes for my 48hrs in texas- plane shoes, sandals, and high heels for the wedding!

yee haw!

I leave for texas EARLY tomorrow morning! g's wedding is the next day! pretty exiting, right? i should be in bed NOW, though, if i want to get enough sleep, and i haven't even STARTED packing yet!

Happy Banned Books Week!

So the weekend totally lived up to the expectations. Friday night i was stuck about what to do- go over to lisa!'s and hear the debates with her and justin, or go to the michelle tea reading at women and children first bookstore. my mom called before the debate for Barak Obama's phone number. she heard someone on NPR explain the financial crisis with this WONDERFUL metaphor, and she wanted to tell it to Obama so that he could use it in the debates and this would make everything perfectly clear to the american people and they would all vote for him. (sadly, being a constituent of Obama's doesn't get me his cell, but i did google his offices for mom.)
So after all that talk with her about when the debates started i was rushing out of the house and when i got to W&CF i realized it was 9 Pa. time. it was only 8 chicago time. i had an hour to kill. So i gave myself permission to buy a book. I was SO SAD to see they had no ron koetrge, and they were out of the girls in 3B, so i bought the night watch by sarah waters and am very excited about it. i walked to kopi cafe and they had a little table in the window, so i sat on the floor and listened to paul simon's graceland, and ate my root beer float, and read my book, and had a lovely little time all by myself. Went back to the bookstore for the reading, which was great, but i had a hard time enjoying it because i ended up sitting next to d. i guess it was my own fault for introducing her to michelle tea. still, uncomfortably awkward.
afterwards, i took the bus to lisa!'s and justin had chocolates which he shared, and i had ANOTHER nice time. it was like i got the best of being single, then went to lisa!'s and got the best of being in a relationship.

Saturday afternoon was one of those "i'm so lucky to live in a big city" times. it was the banned books read out and SO MANY of my YA novelist heroes were there. Lauren Myracle, Louise Reynolds Naylor, Ron Koetrge, Lois Lowry, the guys who wrote And Tango Makes Three, Judy Bloom, and i'm sure more who i can't even remember. It was SO COOL. I really was glad i went- it was like the back of my personal red eye- all the celebrity sightings for people who only I (and a few teenagers and librarians) find as celebrities. Plus, i got a HUGE amount of knitting done on a project i want to be OVER, so that was wonderful too.

Saturday night was my birthday party and CH's with hugo and lisa! there was video games and birthday brownies and lots and lots of wine. i think fun was had by all.

Lisa! and my only goals for sunday were to recover, cut my hair and watch a movie. and we did all those things! lisa! did a great job with my hair, and the movie was stupid, but fun. plus we had thai food, too. Now you can see why i put off blogging about it- so many things, i didn't want to list them on friday, then rave about them todday!

overwhelmed

by the birthday greetings from everyone! i got, like, 15 happy birthday messages on facebook. and my aunt called, and a, and when i got home yesterday i had four boxes! one from mom, one from dad, one from krista and sarah (full of the best goodies- yarn and chocolate and books, oh my!) and then a birthday card from a relative, too. and a box of sewing i'll be doing for a friend of my mom's. but still, lots of love.

Lisa! took me out for dinner and it was oh so nice, and fancy, and scrumdilliumptious, and then i got my gifts from her- all sorts of funky papers from antique stores, old chicago postcards and pennsylvania maps and shiny cigar boxes and such. they're really fun, and very handpicked- a postcard from a hotel in franklin, pa. or a menu from a restaurant that was by my el stop 50 years ago.

plus, there's more party to come! the weekend is Crammed full of fun and exciting activities, more than i want to even list now. i'll tell you all about them after i do them all; i'll be sure and report back how much fun i have!

homepage

I have the "post an entry" as my home page, in hopes i will blog more frequently, but it's so easy to ignore, like other reminders in my life. but today i resolve: i will blog more when the window comes up. i will start my bedtime routine when my alarm goes off. i will live up to my happy and well adjusted discriptor.

obviously not THAT well adjusted, because i am taking the advise of the how-to wiki on how to walk in your heels and they say to walk around the house in them for a week before the party, and a sensible person would put on these torture devises and just say, this is crazy and buy flats. but not me, i plan on clip cloping around for the next week and a half (that's it!) before going to TX and running freely from austin all the way to san marcos in them.

i went back to yesterday's entry and realized you already knew that. but i can't be bothered to delete it all, so i want you to be aware, that i know it- plus it's an update. instead of being in the planning stage, the toes are actively being pinched.

this weekend, lisa! and i took the next step in a modern relationship- we combined our netflix queues. pretty serious, huh? unfortunately i couldn't figure out how to add my account to hers, so i started a new one, and will do some serious culling of my queue. because i REALLY want to get it under 100 again.

Thanks so much for the comments, all! i think there's nothing that inspires me to blog more than comments, so know that you, as a reader, have some sort of power over what you read here. Hugo, thanks! and i can't wait to party with you either! last night's miniparty wheted my appetite for more.

and sarah, indeed, my scam had an expiration date. I don't neccessarily believe in therapy per se- like, i always thoght more power to people who could make it work but didn't see the point for myself. i mean, i have lots of friends who i talk to about myself all the time. but i do think there was some sadness i couldn't find the root of, and once i figured out what the problem was i could do something about it, and now that said something is done, well, i don't need to talk anymore until something else comes up. personally, i just don't wallow very well, so if i can't find a way to take action, i just hate myself more and more. i went to therapy because i felt sad, and i felt powerless about how to fix it, and therapy was what one is "supposed to do" so that's what i did, though i didn't have any faith in it. And feeling sad worried me, because it'd been a long time since i'd felt that way, and i thought i'd grown out of it. so now that i'm feeling overwhelmingly happy, it's hard to find anything to talk to my therapist about, so i'm done for now!

just for hugo

Sure, d mentioned on thursday i hadn't blogged for a week, but then when hugo said he not only read but missed me, i thought i should post and catch up! I thought perhaps i'd start blogging more after tuesday, because I finished up with my therapist. Things are going so well for me, it seemed silly that my major stressor was figuring out what to talk about in therapy! When i told my mother, she ended the call with, "and congratulations on being a healthy well adusted person." which i found particulary hilarious. She was shocked- she said, "you can't be done with therapy yet! you still haven't discussed your mother!"

Christopher came over for dinner last tuesday, and that was so much fun. i miss working with him, and seeing him on a regular basis. but i'm so excited for all the new fun talented things he's doing. It seems like he's really working his degree and living his dreams- but maybe my life looks like that from the outside, too.

doesn't really look like that on the inside. my hours have been cut at the flowershop the economy's been hitting us so hard. It sorta rocked my worldview, but i need to take a deep breath and stand back and look at my life and it's really fine right now, i need to budget and be careful, but i always need to budget and be careful. it always works out ok, and i'm responsible and will not end up living in a box on lower wacker drive- or even in my parent's basement. My mother has an opinion on this, too. She thinks i need a real career to fall back on, and should take up accounting since i like to crunch the numbers at the flowershop. Lisa! is appalled by this idea, since she has more than one accountant in the family, and she fears i would become an unbearably boring person. I'm not sure how i feel about it- i think my strongest opinion at this point is unatainable. i'm not going to get into more debt until the ones i already have are paid off. and i don't think a quickbooks class at the discovery center is really gonna help me out much.

Lisa!'s all into my birthday coming up. She spent all sorts of time this weekend shopping for a present. She's terribly stressed out aboout it, trying to find something sufficently cool. I of course wish i knew how to allieve this stress, because a. i would adore anything she got me cause i like her so much, and b. trust her inherent sense of style, i can't imagine her gifting anyone with something ugly or stupid. I really doubt i'm going to end up with a starbucks gift card. PLUS, she's taking me out to a Fancy Restaurant on my birthday! i'm very excited. Especially now that i suddenly have my birthday off. i'm gonna dress all up!

I may end up coming downtown on my birthday, anyway, though, to take my suitcase to the shoe people and see if the zipper can be repaired before i go to texas for g's wedding. i can't believe it's next weekend already! the how to wiki suggests wearing new heels around the house every day after work until you break your feet in, so i need to start making those shiny silver shoes my house shoes in hopes i can walk for this wedding. there will still be flipflops in my purse, however, you can be sure.

I think a contributing factor to my lack of blogging is my busy social calendar. Lisa! and i went to the bar to see the drag square dancers call bingo, and then this weekend is a miniparty for my birthday and michelle tea's gonna be reading at women and children first bookstore. plus, the banned book read-out is at the freedom museum. Sure, the summer romance was fun, but i think autumn feels so much like a time of new beginings to me, i'm so excited to get out the wool and velvet and see what comes next!

fyi

you will NEVER score points with me by calling me "little girl."

not in any context.

some people just make me want to shout leah's manifesto against cute at them.

today's internet find

chicago loves this, and now i want to promote it too: umbrella today

maki

continuing in the delightful dining trend, went out for sushi with lisa! last night, and she doesn't like fish, so we could do the whole "share a tray full of maki" thing. i'm always a little jealous of people who have these elaborate combination plates, or a whole group who have all their little rolls on the communal dish. being a veggie-only sushi eater, it's hard for me to share. so having FOUR options of various shades of green and orange- lets just say, fun and yummy!

everyone's dream date is different

I need to get cooking on dinner, but i do have to tell you about thursday night before it completely slips away. It was the live taping of wait wait don't tell me at millenium park- for free! Ch and lisa! and justin and i were going to go and have a picnic on the lawn and it was going to be fabulous. however. It poured down rain ALL DAY, but i read the forcast and was prepared. and lisa! was still game! so i stomped down there with my art umbrella and my little flowered galoshes, and there were 100 people instead of 10,000 so i found us some seats and covered them with a shower curtain. and we were still wet, oh yes, oh so very wet, but it wasn't cold, and it was lots of fun, and we ate pita and hummus and drank vodka cranberry and cuddled under the umbrella. after they were done we caught the bus, and called in an order to the blue elephant, and so picked up thai on the way home. we took a hot shower together, found dry clothes, and enjoyed dinner. Lisa! wants to have a torrid affair with sarah palin, so we ended up watching her speach on youtube and yelling at the computer. it was one of those evenings that i hold up as an example, i think, this is what i want my life to look like. just like this.

returned

Yeah, i've been back since the day before yesterday, but there's so much week to squeeze into four days. bag lady has another show, the house is a mess, there's so much to take care of at the flowershop, and i'm still at the workroom. baby preview has been very understanding.

however, i have been wasting time on facebook, and i'm ADDICTED to sharing things on google reader. so y'all should get yourself google reader and use it, because you are missing so much by not reading my shared items.

sex and prudes

There are so many little bits of stories i want to bring together here- i hope i can make this coheisive. Last night i said there were so many interesting articles in the utne reader, and the one i read this morning is no exception- it's about teens taking sex ed into their own hands, and some students protested CPS and wrote letters and shit and actually got comprehensive sex education here in chicago. What a concept- sex ed is so wierd because while teens are pilable, stupid, and hormone filled, they are still pretty close to being fully adult human beings. it's not like abortion, where it's easy to talk about this human/fetus/baby/fleshblob. like, did anyone ever think to ask the actual teens involved in having too much sex to early what teaching would be most helpful for them?

I'm trying to think back to my sex ed classes, and i remember them as very comprehensive. i mean, they were certainly hetrosexual focused, very pro-abstinence, pro-marriage, but i remember being glad at the time to be getting all that information about stds and birth control. And i certainly did get good information at home- my mom's calling in life was to give people depoprovera shots. i imagined her going to work and roaming the streets of reading with her syringe, talking up people in spanish so she could stab them. so she provded me with good information in a "women need to know this" sort of way, like the persuit of knowledge is always a good thing, and that way she could suspend her disbelief that it would ever be knowledge i would need to USE, that i could in any way become a woman or a sexual being.

Jump forward to present day: at the beach when we were taking photos on the lifeguard chair my cousin louise and her boyfriend started necking up there, and someone yelled "get a room!" and my aunt (her mother) yelled, "yeah- get a room! - but not in my house!!" and that got my mom going on one of her favorite rants, which she gave to another cousin. "there are some things children need to lie about. children have a RESPONSIBILITY to lie to their parents. Parents don't want to know these things about their children!" and so forth.

i went to the doctor on thursday and mentioned it to mom while we were chatting. i said i was there for my pap and std testing, and she was all taken aback. i explained that i thought it was a good idea to get tested when one gets a new girlfriend, and she was all, well, your risks aren't that high, and i almost said, what, compared with being a gay male bottom? but i decided that was inappropriate to say to one's mother, so instead i said, "i think it's just something that a good citizen just does regularly, like voting or something." and that made her laugh.

two other stories that tie in here: talked to g last night about her upcoming wedding, and i mentioned healthcare, and she talked about how tough she's having it, because she doesnt' have health insurance either, and she wants to get on the pill before the wedding. she's having a hard time finding a good clinic in san francisco, but she says she can't go to planned parenthood becuase it would be so upsetting to both her parents and her fiances. it would be all this lying and sneaking and she doesn't want her healthcare to be like that. i COULD NOT COMPREHEND this. we avoided it after that, actually because it's so touchy. like, she's who they're MADE for. women who want to be responsible and make choices about their family but don't have a lot of financial structure to do it with. they are NOT baby killers! still, who am i to judge. straight sex is so complicated- it's hard for me to comprehend the connection that sex leads to babies.

and of course, while in grand rapids lisa! and i will be staying in separate rooms, which of course is fine becuase i'm all about being respectful of one's parents, but on the other hand is illogical and frustrating not becuase i won't be able to go 36 hrs without having hot hot sex with lisa!, but because it gets FUCKING COLD in michigan at night, and if we were hiking on mt everest we would certainly share a sleeping bag to preserve body heat.

but really, REGARDLESS of whatever title or subject this entry was about, i would need to bring it back there, because I AM SO EXCITED! for my extra little vacation, my last trip of the summer. sure, there's gonna be fall and g's wedding and all that, but this is riding a train! with lisa! and a last chance to wear my handknit bikini! and ah, i'm planning on having the lovliest time.

tidbits

rafael was in town last night, and ch and i went out for sushi with him at his fave sushi place. it was so much cheaper than my local sushi place, and oh so yummy, i stuffed myself until my stomach was distented. however, i had to climb through the cubs fans to get there. i don't care about baseball in the least, but i'll always choose sox over cubs (this is something one must do, living in chicago) because i was a south sider for such a long time, and feel almost defected living on the north side, and i have such exposure to cubs fans, and they are not fun. i don't want to be in any way associated with them as a group.

so I work hard not to do too much D vs. Lisa! comparison. And they are oh so very different. but something D did often was dream of me pregnant. and last night Lisa! had a dream where she was pregnant- under circumstances which only make sense in a dream- and she was gonna get an abortion, but i said we should keep it. ! it got worse, but luckily lisa! assured me i was acting completely out of character in the dream.

on clothing: lisa! and i have reached the point in our relationship where each other's clothing ends up in each other's laundry basket. i wore one of her tshirts to work today- actually, the one that used to be her favourite, because it's in just about every pic on her myspace. sure, it was a cuddly gf thing to do and made me think of her all day etc, but actually the strongest connection for me was that german nostalgia- how i travel through europe, bringing american food instead of clothing in my suitcase, and wearing my german friends' clothes. i do love wearing other people's clothing- of course, because i love variety, and then also because of my degree and all, it's like wearing a costume for me, dressing up as someone else- i am that much closer to being a nuerenbergian by wearing ruth's clothes.
also on clothing, i am paralized over packing for this weekend. i want to pack lightly, but i want to wear my hippest duds, but i want to be fully prepared for all that michigan weather has to offer, but i don't want to seem like i'm trying too hard, but i do want to try hard, but it all has to fit some place very small. i've decided to wear my jeans on the train and i've picked out two quality tops to wear coming and going, but saturday, over my handknit bikini? the turquoise american apparel skirt with the windy city rollers tank? or the tiedyed tshirt skirt with the dykes in the city tank? immobilized, i tell you.

i've been eating an uncanny amount of chocolate recently. it's expensive stuff. so i decided to buy it at the grocery store, where it's cheaper, but i'm STILL trying to boycott hershey and their fucking vegetable oil and mexican factories, and so in a price per oz comparison, well, what i'm trying to say is i spent $9 on chocolate, and that seems embarrassingly high, but i have this brick of 45oz. of m&ms in my freezer.

Continue to be slow at work, but i've been keeping up with the blogs and so know about Del Martin and Sarah Palin. (and have shared feministing articles about them! and other interesting things! so you should get on google reader and share with me too! because i love to share!) I also chatted with liz briefly today, who gave me the delightful list of what she looks for in girls: good grammar, well-read, funny, and looks good in hats. i found it to be the perfect list (other than being an even number of items, which she may fix by adding mentally healthy to it) on so many levels- personal, yet generic enough to fit mulitiple different people, specific things that are important to her yet general enough to be indications of other things. it made my random "no cooking bacon or watching football or tickling me on the sides of my waist" requirements seem petty and trite.

It's been the sort of day when i want to blog about everything, but the difference is today i'm actually getting the oppertunity to do so. finished up this month's wired over dinner (my last tamarind tree meal! boo hoo! if anyone knows of any edible instant indian meals PLEASE let me know. email, comment, call, whatever. i'm DESPERATE. i miss tamarind tree meals SO MUCH. i feel like i can't even experiment anymore, because every single other one i've tried has been disgustingly HORRIBLE.) and so started the utne reader, and i want to blog about EVERY SINGLE ITEM on, like, the first six pages. so this, obviously, will have to be saved for yet another post.

It's Sad

that i only copy and paste things these days and never actually write anything interesting. but, well, lisa!, and lack of sleep, and bags, and working for bag lady and curtains r us, and adding more and more things to my google reader. i've discovered i've become an internet consumer instead of an internet sharer. I love reading all those blogs, and spend so much time doing it. but actually writing on my own blog? i have nothing interesting to say, it seems. certainly nothing interesting enough to justify breaking the long silence. (this post isn't interesting enough either, but now that the silence is broken, maybe i'll type more.) But things are SO SLOW at the flowershop these days (and that is ineffably sad too) that i've been updating facebook at work, and wow, the response is very gratifying! i used to get a comment about every other blog post, and they're so few and far between these days (granted, i know that's my own fault and if i wrote often enough and interesting enough the comments would come on their own) that i have a hard time remembering that i'm just not posting into the void, that people actually care and are sad when i don't tell them about the amazing corn chowder with tomatoes and pesto and oregano fennel risotto and nectarine sorbet that i made for lisa for dinner on saturday, or about chris's luao birthday party in the alley between buildings that was so over-leied it looked like a cute cafe, and luckily all the stuffed parrots had their batteries removed so they didn't talk to us, or about things you're not really interested in, like finding a pattern for my next sweater or trying to suppress my sock knitting urge.

more of that, if i think about it. i promise. i mean the first stuff in the list, not the knitting, of course, but the things before it, because knitting isn't interesting to anyone but me, really.

prime regifting opertunity

In the work email box this morning:

"Good afternoon,

As you should have noted in our July newsletter you had the correct answer for our June Brain Teaser contest. Your limited edition Sears Tower coffee book will be delivered to you this afternoon..

Congratulations, Caitlin"

no where else on the internet

can you find the lyrics to matson jones "new york city fuck off" i did all sorts of google searches for the matson jones new york city fuck off lyrics and there is NOTHING. so now, longing to be the top hit for SOMETHING, i present you with my dictation, for lisa!, since she never pays any fucking attion to any lyrics ever.

I'm sick of electronic fingers
and voices through recievers
give me hands

I'm sick of neurotic picture makers
and heady confrontation
give me heart
oh, wah oh, wah oh.

I'm through with electronic letters
and too many vices
give me help

I'm through with lovely picture makers
and new york city fuck off
oh, wah oh, wah oh.

run run run run run that down
run run run run run that town
run run run run run me down
run run run run run me down.

I'm over cigarettes [until?] their filters
and cold that hurts my fingers
give me gloves

I'm over lonely picture makers
who scatter their hearts
give me guts oh, wah oh, wah oh.

I'm through with lonely conversations
and heartfelt contradictions
give me grace

i'm through with tragic picture makers
and optimistic suckers fuck off oh, wah oh, wah oh.

run run run run run me down...

I'm sick of electronic fingers
and voices through recievers
give me hands

I'm sick of neurotic picture makers
and heady confrontation
give me heart
oh, wah oh, wah oh.

I'm over cigarettes [unto?] their filters
and cold that hurts my fingers
give me gloves

I'm over lonely picture makers
who scatter their hearts
give me some fucking guts oh, wah oh, wah oh.

am i crazy?

...or does gabrielle's fiance look quite a bit like miguel?


back me up on this, people! no one in the world knows them both!

more work!

curtains r us called me up! i'm going to work there next week. sorry baby preview. my life is looking so good right now- there's work everywhere! on top of everything else. i walk through the city streets with my shuffle playing the soundtrack of my life, and it's so cinematic and marvelous i can't stand it- i need to jump or dance or sing or something, because the joy my life brings me is too big to contain.

back from the dead

Busy weekend- lisa! and i went to a advertising party at the top of the W hotel friday night, then saturday i had to go with ch to deliver all those corsages. i made good progress on the bowling ball bags and cooked up last week's FABULOUS vegetables. a tomato mozzarella basil salad (everything from MY garden except the mozarella) a bermuda salad with the green beans, and pesto rotini. Lisa! and i watched shortbus saturday night, and sunday we spent all day at market days. see? no time to blog in there!

Susan, who had a dress i cut a pattern from and copied, called me up with some mending and other projects. so i have MORE sewing! horray! this makes me so happy. but, there's always that stress. i need to actually DO the sewing now that i have it if i want to get paid!

finished my ziggy socks! pictures are on flickr, as well as beach pics, pics of the bikini, and ch's casa bonita themed birthday party!

finally [insert usuaal apology and promise to blog more here]

Corsage-o-rama

Just got home from work. Hello holiday! there's a big event this weekend that needs 20 wrapped boquets of a dozen roses each. and 130 two-rose wrist corsages. that's SO Much work. Ch and i worked for hours today, and we're just past half way with the corsages. the rest of them, and the boquets need to be finished tomorrow.

oh, and did i mention the 80 balloon order? have you seen the size of the shop? 80 balloons take up a lot of space.

if you'll excuse me, i'm going to do my holiday hand regiment now. sorry bag lady. this was unexpected.

espirit de escalier

so stacy's at the local pagan bookstore chatting with the clerk. she's making small talk and the clerk mentions his republican boyfriend. stacy says "oh, i'm sorry" and the woman behind her in line is SO offended, saying "I'm a republican and my son is a soldier in Iraq!" i don't know what stacy said at the time, but a great comeeback would be, "oh, so you're thinking the witches will bring your son home before george w bush will?"

me and the vegan anarchist second cousin once removed

P1040591.JPG
Originally uploaded by nancykatzen

Back from the beach! had a (almost completely) delightful time, and more marvelous ensued with krista and sarah in philly. now i'm home and have SO MUCH WORK. unpacking, laundry, bags, etc. will try and get back in the blogging habit!

creepy calls

I knew I would have to deal with this couple eventually, but I didn't expect it to be as wierd as it is. It's an Indian couple, they've emailed mom before, they want another scan to determine the sex of the baby... so they can terminate the pregnancy. Mom of course won't do such things, but this lady's husband called me today to try and set up an appointment over the phone. Everything's just wrong about it- he was asking strange questions (and NO ONE'S husband calls. people's moms call sometime, but no one's HUSBAND sets up an appointment for her). And I'm usually business like and cheeful and think everyone should get a chance to bond with their fetus. But they weren't really interested in that. I just got the feeling they weren't worried about buying pink or blue stuff. I told him he had to bring in information to the office, I couldn't make the appointment over the phone.

He really made me feel slimy. Mom's husband had the same reaction when he dealt with them last week, but it really does make me, too, feel all conservative and racially profiling and stuff. I mean, he never SAID that's who he was. But it just felt odd- I didn't want to talk to him or set anything up. Really, I think abortion is a mandatory right that all women should have- but I get the feeling that it's HIM, and I don't think men should have the right to choose abortions. And I think the Feminism against gender selection wins out so hard over the Feminism for abortion.

the solar paneled bag

First, i think it was what caused my shuffle to act up. second, the phone charger still doesn't really work, even with the summer sun.
but i can't be sure of any of these things. why? because i have this problem:

knitty

So, most of you know- my newest project is a bikini. to wear to the beach! next week! i'm so excited! first, it's the beach! who doesn't love the beach! plus, i'll see krista and sarah (though not at the beach, but in the city!) and amy and z and the party in a box, plus the usual fun of my parents and my pop-pop. only better, because there will be OCEAN involved.

and a knew knitted kbikini. oh yeah.

but i realized last night, if i finish my bikini on the way too the beach and am wearing it on the beach, what will i KNIT on the beach? sweater of doom? rife with problems. another grocery bag? boring and too quickly completed. one of my two pairs of unfinished socks? too big. I want something i can wear myself.

i had more requests. i want a new project. something small like socks. only fun, like lace or faire isle. ooh, i haven't done two color knitting in a while. but it has to use up some of that yarn i got for xmas. maybe something with noro stripes like the scarf joe made? and then look what i found:
the ziggy socks.

Perfect. absolutely perfect. so excited about this i actually put my name in for a ravely invite. because i know all of you don't really care, but i want to be excited with someone who does. and save you from the agony of any other knitting posts.

Order of completion

So when you're constructing a garment, the basic rule is to do everything you can to each piece before you sew it to any others. You know, sew the darts and gathers to the fronts before you sew them together. put the cuff on the sleeve before you attach it to the bodice. and sew on. Well, this dish i made last night from the passionate vegetarian reminded me of that- every ingredient you had to do a couple of things to before you could attach it to anything else. the Kale needed to be de-ribbed, then blanched, then chopped. The zucchini needed to be grated, than salted, then drained. the potatoes needed to be grated, then soaked, then drained. the onions needed to be chopped then sauteed. and so on. even the eggs needed to be beaten first. My kale kugel-gratin took most of the night. it was good, but not worth all that work.

also, something is wrong with my shuffle. it just keeps blinking green-orange-green-orange- the sign it has no music on it. but that's no what itunes tells me. sigh. back to the genius bar again.

mitzi

um. if i can get this video to embed, you will see what each and every morning is like in my house. thanks, sarah, for sharing.

sex and gender in real life

So. i need more work, so i don't sit at home and mope whenever i'm not in the flowershop. was whining bout this to my mother, and she said she needs an extra secretary to answer the phone and make appointments at her and her husband's business, baby preview. And so the phones are supposed to start forwarding to my cell, and lo, the internet is a marvelous thing that i can pretend i'm in an office in reading when i'm really sewing bags in chicago (except right now. right now i have no bags. i only have my 1950's cherry sundress).

And i have a postcard right in front of me with the packages they offer, and at the very top it says "2D gender determination package." As i tell my mom whenever we talk about this typo, "wow! cool! who knew modern technology could tell gender! does it show whether they're playing will dollies or trucks in there? or just if they'll prefer pants or skirts?" She says stephanie (the real secretary)doesn't think saying sex is appropriate and always substitutes gender. which i guess, if you're going to be that euphamistic, makes sense- we wouldn't want to actually look at a baby's genitals to determine its sex! that's not nice! the whole thing gives mom a headache, and she says she gets so nervous about using the appropriate term she just asks if the parents want to know if it's a girl or a boy.

it's really important to people. i guess they want to make sure all their gender branding starts early. not that the likelyhood of the sex and gender not matching up is all that high. i have to remember, this is reading, PA, not the wide world of cultural antropology.

i want more friends who end emails with boobs.

that is all.

random lists

while tidying my desk today i found a blank book with an inscrutable list in it. what's it for? i have no idea. i don't remember writing it.

humid
air coating chapped lungs
pop of saliene bottle (hiss)
thickness/clouds/tangible
suburbia vs. urban
the importance of transport
newness of life/jealosy/fear
Kira1 aIII cec. " " JI Jan 1
K-PAX

any guesses? it was on the page after "topics to blog about," none of which i can remember what i wanted to say. those are:
-gender
-frances
-treehouse poster
-why i'm veggie
-new years horror stories
-tori, joni, ani
-being a cunt
-disgusting things

i mean, if you put in a request i COULD blog about any of these things. but i don't think they're particularly as remarkable as i did when i jotted them down.

plus, G.Z.'s phone number. who i think by the extention works for columbia, but again. i'm just not sure.

cherries jubilee

Along with other unremarkable vegetables (i guess i'm a bit jaded) this week, i got a pint of the most magnificent black cherries. how do you eat cherries? i bite them in half, eat the half, pry the pit out of the other half with my teeth, spit it out, and then eat the other half. i was intending to work my way through this pint the same way, and then they came, and the suggestion for them is "for a simple dessert, cover with amaretto and marinate overnight in the refrigerator. serve with whipped cream." well, what ISN"T better marinated in amaretto (note to self- invent amaretto tofu marinate)? so i got out my little knife and my cutting board and i sat down to half cherries. this takes a long time, did you know? prying those stupid little pits out is a huge pain. i was bored before i'd done two dozen. i started thinking about fifties housewives who would bake cherry pies from scratch. my goddess! it would take all afternoon just to pit the things. then i got the marvelous idea- no one is going to eat these cherries besides me. so i started prying the pits out with my teeth. hugely successful! ended up doing the whole pint! they are marinating RIGHT NOW! i can't wait for tomorrow. it's like christmas. do you think if i go to bed early, my cherries will be sufficently marinated sooner?

my thoughts on gay marriage

I've always been so strongly ambivielent about it. It's not a right i want. i feel like it should be a right i can have, but there's something about it that always seemed like the focus is on the wrong place. and then i read this article in the utne reader tonight over my dinner (frozen amy's and TWELVE oz of raspberries!) and now i have my manifesto. i think i may read her whole book. PLEASE click through and read it, because i can't summarize it. and if i did, i wouldn't have her amazing examples. but what i got from it is this. marrieds have rights, so gays say they want to be married, too, so they can have rights, too. but what about all the OTHER people who should have rights? rights should go to ALL families. why does one's significant other have to be one's sexual partner? what about siblings? what about children of complicated setups? why doesn't our country value ALL families? Focus on the family always seemed to me to focus not on the family but on the political agenda, and now i have found someone who is REALLY focused on the family. this makes me happy, i like to find worldview bandwagons i can jump on.

twittering

no insight here. not even any real activities. just sadness. sewing away in my closet, trying to sew bags, but keep getting distracted by internet, novels, knitting projects. listening to cathartic music, the weepies' hideaway, ani's dilate, patty griffin, everything but the girl's walking wounded. "i'm sleeping later, waking later. eating less and thinking more. And how am i without you? am i more myself or less myself? i feel younger, louder, like i don't always connect."

such sadness

back from the farm. the trip was fine, but at the end d and i had a difficult conversation which ended in... well, a breakup. i understand it had to happen, but that doesn't make it hurt any less. any encouragement would be appreciated.

off again

deb, jr and i leave for the farm tomorrow for the family reunion on the fourth, swiming in the pool, and hiding of the sexuality. sounds like fun for all, right? will give you the full report when i get back. promise! haven't i been blogging more the past few days, ever since i met my new reader? the old unglaubliche is back!

oh, and a side note about movies: i've gone to the theaters to see indiana jones and prince caspian this week, and i enjoyed both, because i don't mind a little hollywood in my fantasy world. certainly there were problems, but not ones i can't overlook.

but what i want to talk about in prince caspian was Recognizing cinematic moments- knowing how minor visual effects were created, instead of just the feeeling of oooh, that's pretty. there was a shot where they (i assume) shrunk the appature, so what started out as the kids dark in the foreground completely overwhelmed by the overexposed glowingness of the pure white outside. and then the appature shrunk and the exposure was set for outside, and the kids are just black sillouettes and we can see what actually is outside. or during the duel scene, sure it's really bright out, but all that light makes them able to Ramp up the contrast- it was almost like a comic book, all outlined in black. anyway. it feels pretty cool, like i'm super-high-falootin, to be able to see light.

superinteractions

Have been connecting with everyone the past few days. Talked to A last night, she's looking for a new life, and she didn't like any of my suggestions. so i'm putting it out there- the comments are open for anyone's ideas on what A should do next. I'm just hoping the beach will be in her plans (and Z hopes so too!)

Talked to my mom next, she's going crazy too, with the classic line, "oh, hold on a sec. [speaks in spanish] The mexicans just said they've destroyed my house." they're using their economic stimulus check to pay illegal immagrants to rip up their carpets and install hardwood floors. unfortunately it takes awhile to do.

Talked to my Oregonian Aunt when trying to reach my grandma, and had a very nice conversation with her- we haven't talked in a long time, but we're both into makinig nice, it seems, so it's all fine.

And I'll see her this weekend, cause d and jr and i are all going to the farm for the 4th. So she had my grandma call me back after she'd finished her hand of cards. I told her our travel plans and everything, and the weather of course.

Then I talked to Z, to see if she had plans for the beach, and she explained her problems with choosing a lab in a way i could understand, and a little family gossip, sisterly bonding, and product placement.

Finally, at work today ch and i were listening to neko case's train from kansas city and we had a whole discussion on what he was doing in Kansas City. Ch thought she was from Kansas City and had moved on with her life and he was trailing after her. I thought she'd stayed put and he'd gone away to war or maybe speculating out west or something, and he asked her to wait for him, and she, well didn't.

I love my job.

happy pride!

The dyke march is on the move! it was in pilsen this year and it was as awesome as always. different, because last year i had my "in" with the lesbian community and felt super connected, but since i'm "out" with them now, i was worried. but they are too lazy to leave andersonville, and d and my square dance friends came, and it was a wonderful day of marching and chanting for all.
the worst: just realizing that my suntan lotion didn't quite go all the way to my bandaids and i've got some red outlines which i don't think i can tactfully post pictures of.
the best: i met a reader! A shout out to the überhot s, who came up to us saying, "excuse me, are you caitlin? i read your blog!" i felt instantly famous in a way that made me want to work on those dang novels, and suddenly reconnected to the web. sure, chicago is full of lovely dykes and i don't know ANY of them. but some of them know ME!

insomnia

What's up with this waking up at 4.45 and not being able to fall back asleep shit? I am NOT a fan.

the plus: I can get more bags done...

update again

goddess, it's been ages, hasn't it? life continues on here as usual. d's got a new job that keeps her around on the north side. work at curtains r us is few and far between, but i've got some bags to work on right now so that's all good. Anne from San Francisco was here this weekend, and we got to hang out, cook feasts, and have giggly girly conversations. AND she took me to the bag lady's to pick up said bags. AND when she left she left the charmingist little note and her extra ipod shuffle (!!!) which is purple and lots-o-fun. my vacation plans continue! if you are going to be in western PA july 3-6th, in philly July 25 or Aug 3, or rehoboth beach, DE july 26-Aug 2, i'm going ON TOUR! and i want to meet up WITH YOU!

the crowd rawrs.

suddenly

so the movie's over. just a screaching halt, sudddenly. and i go from curtains-r-us begging me to come in to them saying, "oh, call and see if we need you thursday. we definately won't need you saturday." what the? my debt isn't paid off yet! damn taxes. damn, damn ikea. that economic stimulus check better come eventually. hopefully the bags will pick up. or i'll find more work. i always do. i just need to make sure i don't wait too long. cause i've been LOVING having a thursday off. it's been such a splendid day! i remember the days of working on my own projects, not setting my alarm, being off when everyone else is at work. i've missed it. i wish i could afford to only work, like, 25 hours a week. or even 32. that'd be a good life.

anyway, today i cleaned my house, cleared off my desk, took care of (jsut about) everything in the "to deal with" pile, did all of my mending, paid my bills, wasted huge amounts of time on mint.com, planned my menu, picked my bike up from the shop, went to the grocery store, went to the library, AND ate 3 meals. and started a few other sewing projects. and sorted my packages to mail.

i rock.

in exciting vegetable news. my garden! it is growing! i have three green tomatoes and a clump of broccoli a good inch in diameter! my share this week, along with chives and turnips, includes lettuce. and salad mix. and spinach. seriously. and the turnips came with greens. so it's gonna be a salad sort of week. the lettuce was FILTHY, i'm afraid all the dirt i washed off it will clog my drains. but my salad was good and now i'm eating some of the strawberries that were the best, most beautiful part of my share. i sliced them and sprinkled them with sugar and melted it with cointreau (or however it's spelled), and put them in the fridge until very cold. mmmmm.

i'm so used to only being home on sundays, i keep feeling like tomorrow is monday and i have to work another six days in a row. but tomorrow i'm at the flowershop- practically weekend anyway- and then i have 2 days off in a row! whoo hoo!

the rest of the article

Ok, i just want to blog about SOMETHING else, so i'm taking care of the rest of this so it will stop haunting me, not because i really have time.

6. Accept genetic engineering. I tend to be against it for other reasons. Again, at what cost to what makes life livable are we willing to cut carbon emmissions? the crazy rules for the corn my grandfather grows for monsanto- it's a scary world out there. i'm not a scientist, so i don't know exactly where i draw the line- somewhere between hybridization and genetic engineering- but i definately have a line. And the examples they give are pointless, I think. in 3 they were anti organic, but now they're all,"fertilizer is the biggest cause of greenhouse gasses in farming." hmmm. and the other things genetic engineering may discover seems like a poor use of energy. instead of genetically modifying crops for ethanol, why not use the technology to try and get all that energy out of switchgrass? why not try using less? and of course, lab-grown animal flesh is not something i think we should be investing any sort of energy into at all.

7. Carbon trading doesn't work. on a global scale, no. i mean, bush was right about the problems with kyoto, but that still doesn't make for a good reason not to sign it. it's certainly something that can be easily abused. but i don't think that makes it bad in and of itself. i mean, i feel like i'm a "meat trading" vegetarian. americans need to eat less meat. they won't. so since it's an easy thing for me to do, i won't eat ANY so i'll balance out the guy who has it for every meal. i feel like i'm doing as much as i can in my lifestyle to curb my emmissions. but it's nice to be able to do something about the 3 or 4 tons i do relase per year.

8. embrace nuclear power. yeah, it's better than coal. no one will argue with that. but come on. you can't do it without nuclear waste. you just can't. and it's a dangerous job for poor homer simpson. and there is no place to put the waste. no one wants it. we are constantly creating more of it. again, why save the world from global warming just to destroy it by nuclear irradiation? i didn't realize that it produces less carbon than renewable sources. i'm not sure how that can be, but it must have to do with manufacturing.

9. used cars, not hybrids. this seems to be a "well, duh" one for me. public transit? anyone? it also speaks to the consumer culture, however, and how to be green one needs to buy things these days. save the planet by buying the right cleaning supplies, makeup, hybrid car. my mom's husband has been searching for a new used car, because the suv gets such bad gas milage. they need to keep the suv to haul the boat. and my mom won't let marty drive her car- plus he doesn't do stick. so they bought a convertable. two people. three cars. ANYWAY, there's the great fact in this one that a 1994 Geo Metro XFi gets the same average gas milage as a prius. so the carbon gap from the expense of manufacturing it would never close. it doesn't say anything about buying HYBRID cars used, though.

i promise that will be the most i ever write about used cars. i can't believe i wrote that much. anyway,

10. prepare for the worst. i don't need to hear this. first, i want to have faith that things will get better. i don't think that change being inevitable is a good enough reason to not make any changes. i think instead of preparing for the worst, we should work like crazy to make the worst not happen, and then deal with the consequences of what comes when it does.

so there it is. cut carbon, kiddos. just be reasonable about it, please.

excuse

I really WANT to tell you about the other five, but it's that time of year, suddenly, where the computer gives off too much heat. shutting down now.

ps. connie- don't be afraid! I only said something because I was honored when i heard you learned things and were inspired by my blog. i blog so rarely now i feel like no one bothers to read, so i only name-dropped you cause i thought i'd written something slightly informative!

reducing carbon part 1

So I knew as soon as I got this montht's wired that i was going to feel strongly about it. It's neon orange cover blared, "Attention Environmentalists: Keep your SUV. Forget organics. Go nuclear. Screw the spotted owl." and then in smaller print, "if you're serious about global warming, only one thing matters: Cutting Carbon. That means facing some inconvienient truths."

I of course started arguing immediately, "the spotted owl has nothing to do with global warming. Protecting endangered species is something different all together!" and of course, no one could convince me that keeping an SUV was EVER a good idea. But now i've read the article, and i'm staying up past my bedtime to let you know what i think about it, because i found it very conversation inspiring.

1.Live in cities. HORRAY! i am of course a fan of this one, because I love living in cities. And I feel it makes a huge impact on my personal footprint- living in the city enables me to make all sorts of green changes in my life that i wouldn't be able to otherwise.
2.a/c is ok. AC is NOT ok. it may give off less carbon than heating, but how neccessary is it? America is way too over air conditioned, in my opinion. heat is a requirement. bodies freeze. there are more deaths in chicago from the winter than from the summer. Keep your thermostat as close to the outside tempature as you can, regardless of which way it goes. i think they're just trying to be controversial. and they compare the heating of a new england home with the aircondtioning of a phoenix home, but that's one small part of the whole effect of the environment. nothing is said about how closer things are in new england, so less carbon is released in travel, or, um? water? and how Phoenix wants some from my fucking watershed? i get really upitty about this. if you want to live in the desert, live in the DESERT. if you want water, live in a great lakes state.
3.organics are not the answer. duh. i didn't realize this was still a myth. local is better than organic. even in chicago, where local is in wisconsin or indiana, and you don't have the mennonite farmers of pa. (my mom says she buys local instead of organic because she knows that this chicken was loved and had a name.) Wal-mart sells organics now. isn't that sign enough they aren't that much different than conventional? I am not convinced that all else being equal, it's not better to buy muir glen salsa than safeway select. my tomatoes are being shipped form far away anyway. i'd rather support small companies. maybe i don't want to LIVE in a world without biodiversity. i think choice is important, and that all the wildness and variety and different colors are part of what makes this world a wonderful place, and i think that going carbon neutral isn't worth it if it creates a world of grey.
4.farm the forests. i thought this one was really interesting. i do think there needs to be places in the world that are just LEFT ALONE. but i also think wise agriculture is a good idea. their plan of chopping down old trees, planting new ones, keeping those happy until they've sucked all the CO2 they can out of the air, using the wood only for high quality durable goods, not burning scrap. that really seems ok to me. again, the headline sounds contriversial because it sounds like chopping down trees and planting corn. but treating trees LIKE a farm- that's something i could believe in.
5.China is the solution, not the problem. it seems to be a question of scale. china's just so big. if given a choice, i choose germany over china every time. but if america isn't producing affortable alternative energy solutions, we have to use all that fossil fuel to get them here somehow. I think what china has going for it is acceptance of the problem and that sacrifices will be necessary. i don't think america believes either of those things. We think it's not really a problem, it's just al's bitter cause he lost the election. and just in case it IS a problem, well, we'll buy carbon credits and recycled paper goods.

and that's only half! but i have to open the shop tomorrow! (ch is camping in MI) so you'll get the next 5 tomorrow. (but connie, you can still comment!)

looser

so mom's gone, yet i still can't be bothered to blog. i don't know what's wrong with me. maybe i'll at least update pictures tonight. then again, maybe not.

can you believe

...mom comes tomorrow? for like a week? when am i going to find time to sew? when am i going to find time to blog?

new theory

I've been completely unable to catch up with my life, recently. i work all the time, and any time i have in my house i spend sleeping, instead of, say, sewing for pleasure or petting the cat. or blogging. i've been managing to feed myself with some regularity and keep my house at a maintainable state, but i haven't been able to move forward in anything, and it always seems like i'm trying to cram in everything i have to do in the 15 min before my bedtime alarm goes off. and invarably it takes 45 min and i don't have time to do the yoga part of my bedtime routine. well, today's new theory is that yoga isn't the part to cut. and yoga before bed will prepare my body for rest, so it can make the most of the megre time i'me giving it. this will in turn make it alive, awake and enthusiastic for tomorrow, leading me to acomplish my tasks in record speed so that my evening is filled with patternmaking for pleasure and the swap out of summer and winter clothes.

sounds good, right?

i was GOING to blog...

but then it was past my bedtime so instead i read all my comics and ate half a can of pringles.

oops.

but no, it's ok, because i got to read this little gem from mimi smartypants:

"Speaking of books, I want to french-kiss the Chicago Public Library for FINALLY implementing an online reservation system. You are only allowed to put five books on hold at a time, but still: I sit in front of my screen and say I want to read this, this, and this (and this and this), and then THEY run around town picking it up from all the various branches? HOT DAMN. I feel like the Queen of Literature and the stack grows ever taller. In fact, I had better go read right now."

i could talk about how cool it is to live in a big city, or how it rocks my world that someone as hip and famous as mimi smartypants has a paralell experience with me... but i think i'll just say that this passage spoke to my soul in a deeply profound way, and makes me wish i had written it myself.

on vegetables

I planted the mother's day idea in jr's head a couple of weeks ago, so he could be mulling it to appropriately celebrate. Somehow he came into the posession of $42 and decided he wanted to spend it on taking his mom and I out to lunch, at his favorite restaurant, this terrible diner called the hollywood grill. after that, we did the very mother's day appropriate task of going garden shopping! Deb had seen some good deals at the jewel (4" terracotta pots for .69!) so she took me there and I bought most everything. I picked up a couple of trailing things at gethsemane, but they didn't have my tomatoes yet. I'll go back in two weeks.

I'll be posting pictures soon, i promise. sometime this week. for my round planters, i have one in cool colors with a tall purple delphinium thing, aggeratum, purple petunias, and blue moon lobellia. the other one is warm colors, celosia, maragolds, sweet potato vine and collus. I bought a hanging basket of wave petunias, my fave lantana and some little red flower. and i made a hanging herb garden with chammomile, sage, pineapple mint, oregano and lavender. In the long boxes i have 2 basils, peppermint, cauliflower, broccoli and brusselssprouts. I have room for tomatoes. Last year I was so happy with my windowbox variety i want to get them again this year, but they aren't out yet. so I'll get them when my mom's in town next week.

After calling my mom, & grandma, i made dinner. I had parsnips to use from the veggie share, and so i got inspired. D has this delightful habit of making breakfast on the weekends, but she has a slightly frustrating habit of making enough for a family of five. i've had these biscuts in my freezer for a while, and didn't really know when to eat them. SO, i made a root vegetable pot pie with the biscuts on top, and it was the yummiest thing ever! i'm so proud of inventing the recipie myself, so i posted it on allrecipes.com. i'll post a link as soon as it's up after being aproved!

at the same moment

It's so frustrating. i write these long insightful entries in my head, and i have no time to type them out for ages, until it's too late and there are too many and it all becomes just this little summary of my week. or whatever.

but i'm not worrying about that right now, because i'm exhausted. it's been such a long week, with mother's day upon us at the flowershop. and me staying up too late as well. i did feel like i lost a very valuble weekend going to st. louis. not that i was sad to go, i just wanted more! d came over tuesday night to help with the bags, then i got the rest of them glued last night. she picked them up today.

wednesday night i went to hear robyn at park west! i'll probably never hear a big electronic show at the allstate arena, no petshop boys or madonna for me, so it feel like it was that totally different experience in my own small way. you know, i'm used to chatty little folk singers who are a band with just them and their guitar, and they tell stories while tuning. i kept saying, wait, where are the backup singers? i hear them, but i don't see them.... but i did enjoy the concert, and i'm still in love with robin. i didn't bake her cookies, but i did almost take her roses.

at the same time i was at robyn, g was getting proposed to. she'll be marrying the boyfriend i don't like much in texas this october. so i better not return the gold shoes, cause i'll need to wear the blue dress at her wedding. i felt so vindicated by her telling me how she and all of her sisters think steve maddens are too uncomfortable to wear for more than an hour at a time. but mostly we talked about robyn (i mean, an engagement, what's to tell? a concert is where the stories are at. plus, i think she likes robyn more than i like joe)

fuck. i forgot to go to the library again. forgot= knew it was part of the plan after the bag lady was here, but when she left i just curled back up in front of the computer for a few more hours. i'm so unable to move. i'll have to drag them all to work tomorrow as penance. that and the stack of dimes i'll owe them for being overdue. and sadly, one can't renew overdue items online, so i can't even stop the dime hemmorage until tomorrow.

Disclaimer: i love and adore all things about all libraries. with the exception of the ocassional too-pungent homeless and LOC catologing. which i'm starting to get used to. so overdue books are more an embarrassment to me, the library is such a wonderful gift, how dare i take advantage of it like this? it's not, greedy bastards, if i wanted to pay i'd go to a bookstore. first, it's literally pocket change. second, they deserve every penny. i am glad to pay to keep things like libraries going. i'm just that glad i don't have to.

schedule

last night i cooked dinner (pasta primavera, with spinach, asparagus and ramps) and cleaned my house. tonight i cut and sewed bags (with d's help!) tomorrow i'm going to hear ROBYN at park west, and then thursday it's gluing the bags in = done by the weekend.

so you can see how there's no time to blog in there.

but a, i really want to know what your mom said.

return from st. louis

home again. had a good time in st. louis, the wedding was nice, didn't think too much about being in philly or miami. but now i'm home, and there's so much to do, and i'm overwhelmed. lots of lists and no internet for me!

epic

So, I woke up this morning, as I always do (being alive, and all.) I plugged in my iPod, tried to decide what kind of yoga I wanted to do. I picked hip opening #3, one i haven't done before, since I'm desperate for new yoga (i thought last month's "yoga for runners" was too specific. and then this month it's PRENATAL YOGA! come ON! even people who WOULD be interested in this will only do it a few times. don't they think shoulder opener #2 would be more useful?). but my pearl's being fussy and not letting me play it. so i restart, skip to it, yada yada yada. i'm bending along, through my poses, and i think i hear it stick- but maybe it's just the music getting quiet. then i'm in cobbler's pose, and my feet are smelly and my hips are opening, and she stops talking, and i'm holding, and holding, and i finally realize, it's not the world's most intense yoga, pearl has quit. so i restart... and she clicks and whirrs and makes the most atrocious sounds before giving me.... the sad ipod face. wah wah.

so after work today I go to the genius lab. like a FOOL, i don't make my apointment first. when i get there at 6, the first slot they have is 8. EIGHT! it's not QUITE enough time to go home. so i have two hours to kill on the mag mile. d had ice cream with lunch which sounds really good on this delightful day, so i go to ghardellis and eat ice cream outside and finish my book. then i wander through borders for a while, looking at all the things i would buy if i shopped at borders and wasn't boycotting them and shopping exclusively at small independently owned local bookstores. (this is ignoring the fact that yesterday i bought Robyn and the new Weepies albums at borders, because i had to have them NOW and the small independently owned local record stores did not thave them. at least, not the one i stopped by.) finally i head back to the apple store.

I'm like, 7th on the list, so i get out my crochet, but then the three people ahead of me aren't there, and i'm suddenly next. so i quickly stuff my crochet back in my bag and pull out pearl and take off her little creamsavers bodysuit, because i know they'll want it off, and i bump the buttons, and the apple appears, and she whirrs and ... shows me menus. like nothing was wrong. like there was no sad ipod this morning. grrr. i kept my appointment anyway, and he said i need to reset and that will fix software problems, and hardware problems they can't do anything but replace, anyway. so. i'm back to where i started. it's obviously hardware, with the clicks and all. but now it's just waiting for death. i'm doing, like, ipod hospice here.

so i walk back to the train, calll my mom to give her the ipod update, and hang up to go under the subway and realize i have no wallet in my pocket. !!! i walk all the way back to the apple store. have them walky talky all over. no wallet. walk back to borders. have them walky talky. no wallet. call deb and ask her to come pick me up. look under all the shelves i browsed. wait in line and leave my name and number and a disription. go to ghardellis. ask there. the concierge asks the girl who sweeps, and she asks me, is it gold? IT IS! SHE HAD IT! HORRAY! HUZZAH! such relief. called d, told her she could turn around. took the train home.

didn't make it home till 9:30. my vegetable delivery had come, but they didn't take the old bins away. now i have three vegetable bins. they are huge. there is NO room for them in my kitchen. i couldn't deal with it and left the two without veggies inside in my vestibule. inside are beautiful slender spears of asparagus, thick leafy ramps and spinach and watercress. i am so sad i have to go to st. louis this weekend and cannot cook them up. i am really glad i don't have to spend my weekend replacing everything in my wallet, though!

search for sliver shoes, continued

after work today i added DSW shoe wearhouse, pink frog, the alley and nevermind to the list. FINALLY found some steve madden silver pumps with bows on the toes at Marshalls. huzzah! although they make my feet cramp up just thinking about them. maybe i can put insoles in them...
pink frog came SO CLOSE, with these adorable turqoise sequined clogs. in size 5.5. how i wish i could just shuffle around in those! my life would be so different with normal sized feet.

shopping spree

so, now that i've got this dress...
do you have any good guesses about where i could get close-toed size 5 silver or turquoise heeled shoes? i mean, besides akido or payless or sears or filenes basement or tjmaxx or bakers or charlotte russo or wet seal or nordstrom rack. cause i tried those already... and my feet hurt!

adminstrative professionals week

... is finally over. i've bought a FANCY dress for tammy's wedding next weekend. d cleaned my house for me, cause she's sweet like that, and now i'm tidying up online. reading my 84 emails. and instead of blogging, i'm watching youtube videos of
Robyn..
Damn you gabrielle.

things that make me go whee!

a good piping foot.


A.MAZ.ING.
i've got to take a picture of my lime velvet cushions at curtains r us when i'm done with them.

body piercing saved my life

wish i had time to give a review of this book, or at least tell you how it rocked my world, but i don't. i'll just say it was facinating to read a book about something i used to be totally into, that's written by someone who has the same beliefs i have now. for not ever being a christian, he was so open to xtian music... and it's hard for it to break into my mind that the phenomenon of xtian music has continued after i left the fold- those bad bands are still out there! anyway, here's my choice quote:

"When I started this book, [my wife] was concerned that I was going to become a Christian. That didn't happen. But I have become a fan, not just of the music, but of Christians, and of Jesus himself. To me, the message of the Gospel is love one another, look out for the less fortunate, and try to walk gently on the earth. and I love that. I think evenagelical Christians tie themselves in ontological knots trying to make the whole Bible jibe, which is simply impossible with a collection of historical texts written over more than a thousand years. to anyone struggling with Christianity, my advice (and I realize how little this is worth, coming from someone who doesn't believe in God) is to try and keep your eye on the big picture, not a verse here and there. Love God, if you're so inclined, and love one another. Sort out the rest using those principles as a lens."

where'd the weekend go?

i had TWO days, count them TWO days off this weekend, and i still feel it was insufficent. i need to get used to this daily grind.

also, need to go to bed on time. d and jr and i went to the girlyman concert at old town school of folk music tonight. a VERY different venue than schubas- but much better for taking jr to. his first concert, meeting a celebrity and getting his new cd signed... i think he handled it all very well, considering his bedtime is an hour earlier than mine.

again, obsessed

i'm reminded again why i'm an obsessive about sleep. i really DO need my 9 hrs to function. it sucks, but i'm such a miserable person without enough sleep. and 8 hrs is not enough. i've been pushing the envelope on my before bed routine as of late, and ending up skipping yoga- and still being in bed way after i should. which makes me tired all day. which makes me lazy when i get home. which makes me procrastinate my tasks. till suddenly it's after 9 and i haven't started my routine yet. for insatance: tonight while i was waiting for my computer to fire up, i thought i'd try on my outfit for tomorrow- curtains r us is having an art exhibit in it's showroom tomorrow. as their sticher i really need to wear somoething homemade, but it's hard to find something in my closet that's not either frumpy or skanky. i finally decided on the (frumpy midlength) skirt i cut up into a corset and and micromini skirt. which is really just to small to do ANYTHING in, so i added a ruffle to the bottom, and now it's like, three inches longer. but i was going to stop sewing when my alarm went off at nine... which it didn't cause my phone's still on silent. see, this is the sort of thing that happens. and i turned on my computer in the FIRST Place, because i needed to blog, because it's been ages. but then i got distracted, and then it was past my bedtime, and well, here we are.

more to come. really. i do want to spend some time comparing and contrasting my two jobs and give you the dramatis personae of the new place.

i feel so LOVED!

i know, i haven't been blogging at ALL recently, even worse than my usual not-writing streak. it's just that i'm working so much and something has to give if i'm not going to let my house fall into disrepair and eat out every night. but THANK YOU faithful readers for all your snail love!! i got a lovely sweet letter from sarah, i feel like a pen-pal... and today a box arrived from germany! jamie has sent me tiger und tigerente backformen! so now i can bake tiger and tigerduck shaped cakes! yummy!


thank you, thank you, both of you! i promise to visit you each in the next year!

things i love

buying a BIG ol' squash and peeling and seeding and cubing it. and then only using half of it and freezing the rest.

now i have squash all prepared and just waiting to be used in my freezer! ah, such joy!

signs of spring

i saw two robins today! and three days ago i saw crocuses. i can't belive we may actually have a season other than winter! i am so tired of winter this year. i think i didn't escape it enough or something. it seems so much worse- i'm just OVER it. i'm so glad things are growing!

my sprouts are doing poorly. things that sprouted deliciously green are now shriveling up before getting their secondary leaves. it makes me sad. i want to have a lush garden. any tips? besides moving somewhere where the sun shines?

also- this six days a week thing is starting to get to me. my weekends aren't nearly long enough. i need some time off, asap.

burglarized today.

came home from work and found my apartment had been torn apart by vandals. obviously some stupid kids looking for a thrill, as they decided my portable dvd player only works when charged, my computer is too heavy, and my reading draft sarsparilla contains no alchohol. the only things missing were my spare change, my jug of vodka and my diskman. but everything in my apartment was opened and touched and now i feel rather violated. the police were great. the detective, not so much. more later.

no wonder i need to escape into books

can i just say i work ALL THE TIME now? it's so strange to be choosy about my jobs, but there is just not enough hours in the day. hellooo! where were you all in JANUARY?

best. website. ever.

Chicago Public Library.

Don't you wish you lived here?

(now that i can renew and PLACE HOLDS online, it's pretty much like ordering from amazon- only the library has better pickup hours than the post office, and it's all FREE.)

Crocheted Flowers

new obsession

spent my weekend crocheting flowers! photos to follow!

multiblog

see, the problem is big things happen really fast, then i feel like i can't blog until i've caught up and i just get farther and farther behind. i had a job interview on saturday which i didn't really blog about because i go to lots of job interviews and only some of them pan out into jobs and many of those jobs aren't interesting enough or come and go fast enough to blog about. but this job was for a more permanent perpetual position at a coture drapery house- and they were really behind and wanted me to work that afternoon. so i put in my first day the same day i had my interview. whew! i worked there again today and i spent the day thinking about what pet name i should give it, since pesky mac always thinks up clever names for her coworkers and employers and i sorta like curtains-r-us, cause it sounds so cheap and chinzy and gramatically incorrect, and these are fancy drapes with handsewn weights in the ends and all. i mean, they can afford to hire me, they must charge a pretty penny.

the second entry was going to be about weather. cause i'm sick of winter in chicago. and you know, i LOVE winter. i live here cause it snows. cause it gives me a chance to wear sweaters. extremes are exciting. but it's been cold for a while now. i'm ready for a change. i like newness. and 50 degree weather was predicted for this week, but boy did it take a long time coming. and the weather on our POS system at the flowershop is wrong and has predicted 20s and freezing rain and stuff all week. but today it finally happened! ch wanted to go for a drink after work and so i said i'd meet him, and i walked the mile or so to meet him and i passed a thermometer clock which said 60!!!! i walked under the train tracks while a train rushed overhead and it was sunny and pearl was playing amy correia's life is beautiful and my soul was filled with joy. and then i went and bought shoes.

it was pretty nostalgic actually, cause when i first started working for ch, the first concert he took me to was kristin hersh at schubas, and when i got to belmont early to meet them i went to something old something new to kill time and i ended up buying doc marten fisherman sandals supercheap. i don't think i've been in since then, but they still have their killer designer shoe specials.

i got steve maddens sorta like this, only without the strap:
"img src="http://www.6pm.com/images/727/7276496/4974-325460-d.jpg">
and i got doc martens, too:

no, i did not need two pairs of shoes. but the kids shoes there are DIRT cheap. $10.88 for both pairs! that's like, $2.50 per shoe!

so those are the 4 blog entries you get before the one i want to post, which is telling you how after a few drinks ch really hurt my feelings. i was talking about how exciting my new job is, cause i love meeting new people since everyone in chicago keeps moving away. and he said that it was sorta my choice, and i said, like i should make friends with less transient people?, and he said no, like people leaving me is just this PERCEPTION of myself i have, and i think the idea of being left is this romantic notion.

it was really a shock, like a punch to the stomach, and i didn't know what to do. i trust him and his opinions, and no one can make a valid self-assesment, only those on the outside can see one's life as it truely is. but i hate to think i'm that sort of person, wailing away on the moors of chicago about how lonely i am because all my friends keep leaving me. i like to think i state it more as facts: i have transient friends, it's good to have friends all over the world, but i need to not hole up and feel sorry for myself but keep making new friends so i know people who live in the same city as me. but maybe that's just a bronte novel with a nancy-katzen-raised cloyingly optimistic spin on it. and it's all just self-fullfilling. people don't want to be friends with whiny people who just feel sorry for themselves. so if i am that person, i'm not going to make friends, and if i am that person and don't think i am, i'm not going to be able to figure out why.

at the time, i just stammered well, i guess its just perception, and ate my food and sat in silence until he brought up a new topic. why did i make that choice? i guess it was the surprise, surprise that he could say something that would hurt so badly. now i have such 'esprit de l'escalier i have to blog about it, which only makes it worse. why couldn't i have argued with him then, described my hurt, made him explain his perspective until if i didn't agree with it i understood it? instead i just retreated and avoided, and now i'm lashing out by blogging about it. and then he'll read it, because he only reads my blog when i write about him, and then it will be the whole issue of me writing mean things about my friends on the internet again, because this is a CONSTANT problem with me, it seems, and hmmm, perhaps this is a cause of the whole friend problem to begin with??!?!

it's that instant fight-or-flight reaction. i remember in the moment when he was talking about it, i wanted to protect myself, i wanted it to be over. anything i said wasn't with the intention of understanding him or reasoning, it was trying to make it be over as soon as possible. yet it lingers, which is why i feel compelled to blog about it, knowing it isn't the right thing to do- because i can't get it off my mind or cheer myself up again.

ok, i'm exaggerating. i feel a lot more cheered writing about it. i feel even more cheered after linking the wikipedia entry for l'esprit de l'escalier -which i googled because blogger doesn't spell check on macs, because i never know how to spell things in french- and i found out it's a german expression too! Treppenwitz! isn't that so much better? and easier to spell! sadly, what i felt wasn't even treppenwitz. you need some "Witz" for it to count. i feel more like i want another try in general, rather than i have something clever to say now.