a few weeks ago i came to the proud realization that i care more about shoes than real estate. this realization stemmed from my irritation with the 6,000 or so people i know (or don't know) compelled to offer the unsolicited advice that only idiots rent, and that if i were at all financially savy i'd buy a condo already. this advice is almost as intolerable to me as the prolific, "you should go on j-date."
so i've been walking around feeling pretty liberated about admitting that i'd rather have stuff than financial security... but i seem to already have enough stuff, and apparently need new ways to divert the disposable income that i'm decidedly not diverting to a buy-a-house savings account.
that diversion, it turns out, is storage solutions.
i have to give my blogmate credit for this one, as she's the one who showed me that people like us are allowed to crazy at target, filling our (rented) homes with stylish, faux-pottery-barn accent pieces which conveniently house the crap that we already have (and are a little bit ashamed of).
what i hadn't anticipated as i embarked on my quest to find the perfect container for my millions of picture frames, is that stylish leather storage solutions took over the market and then crashed out of style so quickly that you can't even find them anymore, except in weird shapes and colors at the discount store. after extensive searching, interrupted by lots of drooling over shoes, i finally found the perfect basket-thing, only to catch my blogmate using it as a footstool to get a closer look at the orange plastic martini glasses with matching dishtowels.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Sunday, April 24, 2005
vintage reflections
funny how things can snowball.
i spent all day saturday at home cleaning my wreck of an apartment only to find out around 5PM that i had to come in to work on sunday to deal with a crisis. prior to this wrecking of my plans i had specifically front-loaded the weekend with the non-fun stuff so that i could sleep in on sunday and then go out and play (read: shop).
lesson #1: from now on, have fun first, clean later.
so with the new sunday plan (get up early and work all day) i made myself comfortable on the couch with pizza, wine, and the long-awaited sideways DVD. while such a wall-flower evening did nothing to advance my anemic social life, i did manage to learn more lessons...
lesson #2: to hell with vegas... exact revenge on my future throng of bridesmaids by demanding a week-long party in napa (minus the golf, unless i magically know how to play by then)
lesson#3: kick self for not liking the guy who tried to make the 3rd date a weekend in napa
i spent all day saturday at home cleaning my wreck of an apartment only to find out around 5PM that i had to come in to work on sunday to deal with a crisis. prior to this wrecking of my plans i had specifically front-loaded the weekend with the non-fun stuff so that i could sleep in on sunday and then go out and play (read: shop).
lesson #1: from now on, have fun first, clean later.
so with the new sunday plan (get up early and work all day) i made myself comfortable on the couch with pizza, wine, and the long-awaited sideways DVD. while such a wall-flower evening did nothing to advance my anemic social life, i did manage to learn more lessons...
lesson #2: to hell with vegas... exact revenge on my future throng of bridesmaids by demanding a week-long party in napa (minus the golf, unless i magically know how to play by then)
lesson#3: kick self for not liking the guy who tried to make the 3rd date a weekend in napa
Friday, April 22, 2005
midwest state of mind
every now and then i feel compelled to make cultural observations about people and places so un-sophisticated that i'm a little embarassed having opinions about them. but after spending an entire afternoon at ESPN zone (i'm telling you: there really is a time and place for miller lite), i'm in no mood to hold back...
when did rob thomas (of matchbox 20 fame) become ricky martin?
when did rob thomas (of matchbox 20 fame) become ricky martin?
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
existential bandaids
most people probably have the good sense to take a much-awaited day off, especially when that day off comes at the expense of working an overnight shift, as an excuse to catch up on needed errands, clean their apartments, or something relaxing and slower-paced than usual.
we are not those people.
after both working overnight shifts, my blogmate called me to see if i wanted brunch. of course i wanted brunch. but i had planned on picking up a few things at the store this morning. of course she wanted to come along shopping. but she would need coffee first. of course i wanted coffee also. but i had to stop at home first. of course she would stop with me. etcetera. two hours later, brunched and pre-erranded, we headed out - not for something easy, but for the mecca of illinois consumerism, the schaumburg ikea. i had the single goal of buying a closet organizer. somehow, my simple closet organizer turned into an orgy of "oh, actually, i've always been looking for..." and other similar justifications that ended in a mountain of plastic items with umlaut-ed names that i can neither remember nor pronounce. as i looked around, i realized that the only people at ikea on a thursday morning were perfect blonde housewives with their perfect blonde towheaded children in their perfect spring outfits lined up in perfect rows, hands folded across their bodies as they waited patiently for their perfect mothers to buy a perfect pink pillow for their rehabbed bedrooms in their split level ranches in bartlett. contrast that scene with us - two frazzled brunettes in fleet farm hoodies, carts overflowing with orange watering pots and rickety particle board storage solutions, nearly running over the perfect little people as we swerved the stubborn carts toward the checkout, breathless with relief that said storage solutions, larger than expected, actually fit in my 4-door plymouth... with such monumentous effort, one would also think we would count our blessings and head for home, or lunch, or shoes, or at least something small. but no. with the storage solutions properly stowed in my car, my ambitious and sleep-deprived blogmate decided that the best idea was to now buy a new dining table. a few minutes later, the perfect blonde housewives in the loading zone (who naturally drive perfect eddie bauer suvs), their pigtailed little ones buckled safely in their carseats and were about to drive off, except that they were probably frightened by frazzled brunettes cursing and throwing things, realizing that the dining table would never fit into the smaller less perfect plymouth. in the course of trying to make the table fit in my car, we took it out of the box, tried unsuccessfully to maneuver it that way, put it back in the box, and in the process managed to drop the table on the ground, making a satisfying loud crash, smearing it with car grease and scratching the finish a little. we finished boxing it up, and i waited in the car while my blogmate took it back to the store to ask them what to do. i take it they accepted the table, because the next thing i knew she was in the car saying "drive away from here before someone realizes what i've done."
now, we have never been those girls who want the house in the suburbs and to stay home with the kids. but we never meant to actively harm their children and their furniture. i can safely assume that my lack of desire for a perfect blonde life has something to do with my clumsiness (i managed to back my blogmate into a wooden bench resulting in big leg welts for her and skinned knuckles for me) and my overambitiousness (what was i doing at ikea after working a night shift, anyway?), but it sounds better to say that i just dislike it on principle.
we are not those people.
after both working overnight shifts, my blogmate called me to see if i wanted brunch. of course i wanted brunch. but i had planned on picking up a few things at the store this morning. of course she wanted to come along shopping. but she would need coffee first. of course i wanted coffee also. but i had to stop at home first. of course she would stop with me. etcetera. two hours later, brunched and pre-erranded, we headed out - not for something easy, but for the mecca of illinois consumerism, the schaumburg ikea. i had the single goal of buying a closet organizer. somehow, my simple closet organizer turned into an orgy of "oh, actually, i've always been looking for..." and other similar justifications that ended in a mountain of plastic items with umlaut-ed names that i can neither remember nor pronounce. as i looked around, i realized that the only people at ikea on a thursday morning were perfect blonde housewives with their perfect blonde towheaded children in their perfect spring outfits lined up in perfect rows, hands folded across their bodies as they waited patiently for their perfect mothers to buy a perfect pink pillow for their rehabbed bedrooms in their split level ranches in bartlett. contrast that scene with us - two frazzled brunettes in fleet farm hoodies, carts overflowing with orange watering pots and rickety particle board storage solutions, nearly running over the perfect little people as we swerved the stubborn carts toward the checkout, breathless with relief that said storage solutions, larger than expected, actually fit in my 4-door plymouth... with such monumentous effort, one would also think we would count our blessings and head for home, or lunch, or shoes, or at least something small. but no. with the storage solutions properly stowed in my car, my ambitious and sleep-deprived blogmate decided that the best idea was to now buy a new dining table. a few minutes later, the perfect blonde housewives in the loading zone (who naturally drive perfect eddie bauer suvs), their pigtailed little ones buckled safely in their carseats and were about to drive off, except that they were probably frightened by frazzled brunettes cursing and throwing things, realizing that the dining table would never fit into the smaller less perfect plymouth. in the course of trying to make the table fit in my car, we took it out of the box, tried unsuccessfully to maneuver it that way, put it back in the box, and in the process managed to drop the table on the ground, making a satisfying loud crash, smearing it with car grease and scratching the finish a little. we finished boxing it up, and i waited in the car while my blogmate took it back to the store to ask them what to do. i take it they accepted the table, because the next thing i knew she was in the car saying "drive away from here before someone realizes what i've done."
now, we have never been those girls who want the house in the suburbs and to stay home with the kids. but we never meant to actively harm their children and their furniture. i can safely assume that my lack of desire for a perfect blonde life has something to do with my clumsiness (i managed to back my blogmate into a wooden bench resulting in big leg welts for her and skinned knuckles for me) and my overambitiousness (what was i doing at ikea after working a night shift, anyway?), but it sounds better to say that i just dislike it on principle.
Monday, April 18, 2005
gay, straight, or german?
i've spent the last 2 days laid up in bed, dying a slow painful death of what i can only imagine is tuberculosis.
needless to say i've had time to do alot of thinking... and watch alot of movies.
let's get the film-critic portion over with, shall we? movie themes that make me crazy (take 1):
1) long, epic dramas in which cute, good-natured men spend long, tortured lives trying to win the hearts of women who, though beautiful, are horrible and mean.
2) the ominous death cough (much like my own) that starts about half-way through said dramas, heralding the long, tragic death of said bitchy heroines... of some nebulous disease (usually consumption, which, from what i gather, can refer to cancer or tuberculosis).
getting back to the point, i really am sick as a dog... and i think it's because of a boy.
preface: shortly after we met my manic hippie ex-boyfriend (mmheb) in new orleans my blogmate and i were talking about that kind of guy that just loves women (prgm and mmheb being good examples). as the words rolled off my tongue it occurred to me that someone as boy-crazy as myself really has no room to talk. "i'll admit," said my typically insightful blogmate (mtib), "you do have a certain appreciation for men."
last friday afternoon i found myself of the u of c quad with mtib and dwtacc, as we'd stolen away from our dark confines to enjoy cheap thai food from the divinity school. a third of the way through my tofu and ginger noodles i found myself suffering from stabbing chest pain and a rather "disagreeable sense of impending death," much to the amusement of my two friends. they assured me that it was not, in fact, a massive heart attack in progress and that it probably had more to do with the spiciness of my ginger noodles. dwtacc tried to comfort me by complimenting me on my j-lo glasses and pointing out that i seemed to have caught the eye of "that bob dylan looking guy over there." forgetting about my chest pain, i surveyed the landscape, only to discover that "bob dylan looking guy" could describe any number of people in my immediate line of sight, and that she was going to have to be more specific.
so i certainly can confirm that hippies have apparently taken up residence in hyde park.
the next evening i tried to put the chest pain, the bob-dylans, and the allergy attack that had resulted from my afternoon among the tulips behind me as i headed to the green mill for a night of jazz and hippie-stalking. i had pitched the outing to my girlfriends as a chance to see an excellent new orleans jazz ensemble, knowing full well that my real motivation was that the invite had come from none other than mmheb who would be in town for the show. truth be told, the band's phenomenal-ness was more memorable than my encounter with mmheb (although he did look awfully cute), and the smoke in the bar played no small role in my impending 48 hours on the couch with my death-rattle cough and overall miserableness...
i might not have been fawned-upon by mmheb as much as i would have liked, but i did get a surprising amount of attention from his equally cute sidekick... which i enjoyed until we hit a snag (he lives in texas) and then a deal-breaker (he comes to chicago to visit his daughter).
so while i will no doubt continue to to be the boy-crazy one in the group, and seem to enjoy men with a wide variety of attributes (in the age of men so metrosexual that i'm not sure what to make of them), even i have to draw the line somewhere... and i draw that line at potential step-mother-ness.
needless to say i've had time to do alot of thinking... and watch alot of movies.
let's get the film-critic portion over with, shall we? movie themes that make me crazy (take 1):
1) long, epic dramas in which cute, good-natured men spend long, tortured lives trying to win the hearts of women who, though beautiful, are horrible and mean.
2) the ominous death cough (much like my own) that starts about half-way through said dramas, heralding the long, tragic death of said bitchy heroines... of some nebulous disease (usually consumption, which, from what i gather, can refer to cancer or tuberculosis).
getting back to the point, i really am sick as a dog... and i think it's because of a boy.
preface: shortly after we met my manic hippie ex-boyfriend (mmheb) in new orleans my blogmate and i were talking about that kind of guy that just loves women (prgm and mmheb being good examples). as the words rolled off my tongue it occurred to me that someone as boy-crazy as myself really has no room to talk. "i'll admit," said my typically insightful blogmate (mtib), "you do have a certain appreciation for men."
last friday afternoon i found myself of the u of c quad with mtib and dwtacc, as we'd stolen away from our dark confines to enjoy cheap thai food from the divinity school. a third of the way through my tofu and ginger noodles i found myself suffering from stabbing chest pain and a rather "disagreeable sense of impending death," much to the amusement of my two friends. they assured me that it was not, in fact, a massive heart attack in progress and that it probably had more to do with the spiciness of my ginger noodles. dwtacc tried to comfort me by complimenting me on my j-lo glasses and pointing out that i seemed to have caught the eye of "that bob dylan looking guy over there." forgetting about my chest pain, i surveyed the landscape, only to discover that "bob dylan looking guy" could describe any number of people in my immediate line of sight, and that she was going to have to be more specific.
so i certainly can confirm that hippies have apparently taken up residence in hyde park.
the next evening i tried to put the chest pain, the bob-dylans, and the allergy attack that had resulted from my afternoon among the tulips behind me as i headed to the green mill for a night of jazz and hippie-stalking. i had pitched the outing to my girlfriends as a chance to see an excellent new orleans jazz ensemble, knowing full well that my real motivation was that the invite had come from none other than mmheb who would be in town for the show. truth be told, the band's phenomenal-ness was more memorable than my encounter with mmheb (although he did look awfully cute), and the smoke in the bar played no small role in my impending 48 hours on the couch with my death-rattle cough and overall miserableness...
i might not have been fawned-upon by mmheb as much as i would have liked, but i did get a surprising amount of attention from his equally cute sidekick... which i enjoyed until we hit a snag (he lives in texas) and then a deal-breaker (he comes to chicago to visit his daughter).
so while i will no doubt continue to to be the boy-crazy one in the group, and seem to enjoy men with a wide variety of attributes (in the age of men so metrosexual that i'm not sure what to make of them), even i have to draw the line somewhere... and i draw that line at potential step-mother-ness.
hippie 54, where are you?
my weekend made me feel vaguely athletic. it was nice. up to madison with mb to pick up the latest version of his southern wisconsin bike ride book from the printers and deliver it to the local bike shops. i got a little ego boost out of the whole thing, because every shop we stopped in had some clerk who was really excited to get more of the books, saying how they sell out so quickly, and i got to feel a little more like an avid biker than is actually true, just by being the tagalong. on sunday we did our long run for the week, in preparation for the san diego marathon - 15 miles around lake monona and its bay. it would have been wonderful if only the water fountains would have been on. i have never been so excited to see a bottle of warm grape gatorade as i was at the end of that run.
but that's not really the point i wanted to address... on running around lake monona, i couldn't help but notice that madison's hippies seem to be moving. the last time i ran that route, which was a while ago, there were still a few stragglers left on spaight street, which is now all upper-middle-class youngish families with kerry-edwards stickers on the back of their subarus. the shiny new luxury apartment complexes moving in next to the hemp stores and organic bakeries on williamson street are not helping matters any. later on, moving past brittingham park to the south side of monona bay, i found the displaced hippies. they seem to be taking over the southern part of the bay near the formerly infamous bernie's beach of drug dealing and open container infringement fame. the shady lakeside liquor is still there, but now it's flanked by a bahai center, a natural fibers store (not hemp? tell me how), a salon, and purple and orange homes with flowers in the yard.
when i met up with mb at the end of the run (you didn't think we were running this together, one of those romantic "oh, let's stroll along the lake" couples, did you?) i asked him about the moving-hippie phenomenon over breakfast at come back inn. (quick digression - yup, it's still delicious. the swearing waitress who tried my bloody mary when i asked her why it tasted like taco is gone, though.) after the expected urban-development conversation (which my blogmate and i would like to have more of, if mb would introduce us to his urban planning friends), i returned to wondering - really, where are the hippies in chicago? do we have any, or are we doomed to floofy martinis at uber-clean "sports lounges"? bucktown = yuppie. wicker park = still a little gritty and artsy, but as mb points out, in that haight-ashbury kind of way where the punk institutions are still there but flanked by real estate and fancy-pants mono-syllabic restaurants that nobody can afford. ukrainian village = ? punk, but hippies? grand/chicago area = possible, but hard to tell. as dwtacc suggests, hanging out on the quad in hyde park? hp has enough academic weirdness, green space and liberal indignance to support hippies, but it's hard to find them between harold's chicken shack and the complete lack of bars. and don't get me started on the magic-johnson-teaming-up-with-starbucks-to-bring-the-magic-of-megacorporations-to-the-inner-city coffee shops right on campus, where clearly the underprivileged college students are in dire need of another latte option.
i'm still lost on this. dwtacc? mr. honesty with your cool artsy girlfriend? anyone? where are the hippies? i guess i have to wonder at my motivation here... i'm not a hemp jewelry girl, i don't wear patchwork pants, i don't follow around jam bands. i'm not even a vegetarian. but i want to know that there's a place to live where those people can get their free-range whatever for lunch without it being a concept. maybe i selfishly just want to find chicago's version of come back inn and the weary traveler. or find shaggy grad students for my blogmate. or cheap real estate. or redeem myself for the key lime martinis i drank on vacation.
but that's not really the point i wanted to address... on running around lake monona, i couldn't help but notice that madison's hippies seem to be moving. the last time i ran that route, which was a while ago, there were still a few stragglers left on spaight street, which is now all upper-middle-class youngish families with kerry-edwards stickers on the back of their subarus. the shiny new luxury apartment complexes moving in next to the hemp stores and organic bakeries on williamson street are not helping matters any. later on, moving past brittingham park to the south side of monona bay, i found the displaced hippies. they seem to be taking over the southern part of the bay near the formerly infamous bernie's beach of drug dealing and open container infringement fame. the shady lakeside liquor is still there, but now it's flanked by a bahai center, a natural fibers store (not hemp? tell me how), a salon, and purple and orange homes with flowers in the yard.
when i met up with mb at the end of the run (you didn't think we were running this together, one of those romantic "oh, let's stroll along the lake" couples, did you?) i asked him about the moving-hippie phenomenon over breakfast at come back inn. (quick digression - yup, it's still delicious. the swearing waitress who tried my bloody mary when i asked her why it tasted like taco is gone, though.) after the expected urban-development conversation (which my blogmate and i would like to have more of, if mb would introduce us to his urban planning friends), i returned to wondering - really, where are the hippies in chicago? do we have any, or are we doomed to floofy martinis at uber-clean "sports lounges"? bucktown = yuppie. wicker park = still a little gritty and artsy, but as mb points out, in that haight-ashbury kind of way where the punk institutions are still there but flanked by real estate and fancy-pants mono-syllabic restaurants that nobody can afford. ukrainian village = ? punk, but hippies? grand/chicago area = possible, but hard to tell. as dwtacc suggests, hanging out on the quad in hyde park? hp has enough academic weirdness, green space and liberal indignance to support hippies, but it's hard to find them between harold's chicken shack and the complete lack of bars. and don't get me started on the magic-johnson-teaming-up-with-starbucks-to-bring-the-magic-of-megacorporations-to-the-inner-city coffee shops right on campus, where clearly the underprivileged college students are in dire need of another latte option.
i'm still lost on this. dwtacc? mr. honesty with your cool artsy girlfriend? anyone? where are the hippies? i guess i have to wonder at my motivation here... i'm not a hemp jewelry girl, i don't wear patchwork pants, i don't follow around jam bands. i'm not even a vegetarian. but i want to know that there's a place to live where those people can get their free-range whatever for lunch without it being a concept. maybe i selfishly just want to find chicago's version of come back inn and the weary traveler. or find shaggy grad students for my blogmate. or cheap real estate. or redeem myself for the key lime martinis i drank on vacation.
Thursday, April 14, 2005
spicy strawberry meat pies
while i'm rarely one to be at a loss for words, i just don't know where to start.
maybe with the ex-boyfriend brigade. for one thing, i got busted by three different people on friday afternoon while i was wandering around hyde park, clearly not at work where i was supposed to be. one of the run-ins was with an ex-something or other (boyfriend is way too strong of a word) with whom i'd had an extremely unsuccessful summer fling. i was pleased to find that the guilt i've intermittently felt about having not returning his phone calls was substantially alleviated by the discovery that he's moving to california. moving right along... between what i thought were pretty slick dodgings of my real exboyfriend's family and friends i found myself on bourbon street, transiently unable to recall the name of another ex something-or-other, wondering how it was that i'd ever dated such a hippie. i also wondered how someone who was a little bit stinky (in the way that only hippies can be) and alot bit crazy could also seem rather attractive.
fortunately, there was a lot more to the weekend than slightly uncomfortable run-ins with former flings.
there was also gator-on-a-stick (you all know it's coming- tasted like chicken), deep fried strawberries, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry beer, strawberry wine, strawberry face-paint, and picture of my blogmate standing in front of the ponchatoula seed and feed carrying a flat of strawberries (that's 12 pints). there was mrs. wheat's natchitoches meat pies, the depreciating budweiser in a go-cup (the price started @ $1.25 but dropped to $1 when the barista [selling the beer across his espresso machine] got tired of dealing with quarters), 3.5 pounds of crawfish per person, sadly un-spicy potatoes and corn, splitting a crawfish flavored head of garlic 3 ways... and of course the 25-cent key-lime martinis. i guess i might have warned my blogmate that the whole point of new orleans is eating, occasionally interrupted by drinking and live music.
sadly, there were no spicy strawberry meat pies. to the lay person, such a suggestion may sound rather absurd, but when you've already got a mouth full of deep-fried strawberrry and have spent the last ten minutes at a craft stand dedicated exclusively to the sale of soap bottle aprons (yes, little, tiny, frilly aprons for dish soap), anything is possible. in fact, my good friend tb got ahead of herself when she saw the sign that actually read:
spicy________ strawberry
meat pies _____cheescake
$3 __________$2
so while i learned many valuable lessons last weekend:
-- 3 beers in a hour makes blogmate dance,
-- the more j-lo the sunglasses the better (talk about rose-colored, faux d&g lenses),
-- tired, dirty, pony-tailed, hoodie-wearing chicagoans are very attractive to hippies...
i think my most interesting discovery has been this:
the world just looks better when viewed from a convertible.
maybe with the ex-boyfriend brigade. for one thing, i got busted by three different people on friday afternoon while i was wandering around hyde park, clearly not at work where i was supposed to be. one of the run-ins was with an ex-something or other (boyfriend is way too strong of a word) with whom i'd had an extremely unsuccessful summer fling. i was pleased to find that the guilt i've intermittently felt about having not returning his phone calls was substantially alleviated by the discovery that he's moving to california. moving right along... between what i thought were pretty slick dodgings of my real exboyfriend's family and friends i found myself on bourbon street, transiently unable to recall the name of another ex something-or-other, wondering how it was that i'd ever dated such a hippie. i also wondered how someone who was a little bit stinky (in the way that only hippies can be) and alot bit crazy could also seem rather attractive.
fortunately, there was a lot more to the weekend than slightly uncomfortable run-ins with former flings.
there was also gator-on-a-stick (you all know it's coming- tasted like chicken), deep fried strawberries, chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry beer, strawberry wine, strawberry face-paint, and picture of my blogmate standing in front of the ponchatoula seed and feed carrying a flat of strawberries (that's 12 pints). there was mrs. wheat's natchitoches meat pies, the depreciating budweiser in a go-cup (the price started @ $1.25 but dropped to $1 when the barista [selling the beer across his espresso machine] got tired of dealing with quarters), 3.5 pounds of crawfish per person, sadly un-spicy potatoes and corn, splitting a crawfish flavored head of garlic 3 ways... and of course the 25-cent key-lime martinis. i guess i might have warned my blogmate that the whole point of new orleans is eating, occasionally interrupted by drinking and live music.
sadly, there were no spicy strawberry meat pies. to the lay person, such a suggestion may sound rather absurd, but when you've already got a mouth full of deep-fried strawberrry and have spent the last ten minutes at a craft stand dedicated exclusively to the sale of soap bottle aprons (yes, little, tiny, frilly aprons for dish soap), anything is possible. in fact, my good friend tb got ahead of herself when she saw the sign that actually read:
spicy________ strawberry
meat pies _____cheescake
$3 __________$2
so while i learned many valuable lessons last weekend:
-- 3 beers in a hour makes blogmate dance,
-- the more j-lo the sunglasses the better (talk about rose-colored, faux d&g lenses),
-- tired, dirty, pony-tailed, hoodie-wearing chicagoans are very attractive to hippies...
i think my most interesting discovery has been this:
the world just looks better when viewed from a convertible.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
a parallel but warmer universe
leaving aside some of the concrete details of our new orleans trip, since my southern blogmate is working on them as we speak (taking breaks to wonder how on earth she is a bridesmaid again), i was thinking again about ways i could reciprocate my wonderful tour of louisiana with a less-wonderful tour of wisconsin. this was brought up again by my mother, who asked, "i'm glad you had such a nice time. when are you going to reciprocate?" (seeing as mom is a very smart lady but not one given to words like reciprocate, i can only conclude that she is a mind reader and i'd better not have any ill-willed thoughts, ever.)
she clearly does not need more exposure to hippies, jam bands and little coffee shops, and we've done madison before, so as much as i would like to spend a weekend at mother fool's, weary traveler and the come back, i'll hold off for now. she might need more exposure to microbreweries since there's something like two in the state of louisiana (and i've now toured 50% of them) and sadly i found myself the relative beer expert, by which i mean i'd heard of three floyds when one of the hippies asked me about it. she's done lakefront in milwaukee, the most fun tour - if we stayed in southern wisconsin maybe we could do new glarus, just for the whole swiss-ness and bar that does smelt fry for $4.99? yeah, new orleans might have colorful crawfish, but we batter fry stuff that looks like bait and call it a delicacy in selected church basements. there's really no point in trying to compare to the local art galleries with the blue dogs and distorted french quarter buildings - i could maybe buy her a shirt with a mallard on it from northern reflections in the mall or something. or i could make her play "count the wildlife t-shirts." or we could swing over to paoli for the entire town made up of paoli cheese and two little art galleries. not as cute as ponchatoula (that even sounds southern!) but it's nice. the biking between those two is great, but since the locals are all pissy since the last ironman i'm afraid we'd get lynched. we could go to door county (that's the thumb of the state, for the southern contingent), since if new orleans has narrow streets by the water, locally owned businesses, and boiled fish in a big pot, door county is as close as we can get. plus now that we're from illinois we fit right in! real wisconsinites usually can't afford the nice parts of our state - they're pretty much owned by chicago.
the problem with those ideas is that as kitschy as they sound, that's nice wisconsin, and it would be a lie if i tried to claim to be from there. when mb and i started dating, and i told my family where he was from, their eyes got a little big and they said "oh, he's from the nice part of the state." (nice = a town of 10,000 with a senior citizen dinner theater.) where i'm from just got air conditioning in the wood-paneled bar where drunk men with mullets come to race their remote control cars on wednesdays.
i draw these conclusions:
1) wisconsin might actually have some comparable, though smaller, attractions (omitting the whole architecture problem, unless there are national groups coming to tour the intricacies of the split-level ranch)
2) we will never actually see said attractions, because they're nowhere near each other
3) we will instead end up drowning our sorrows in $1 leinenkugel's at korth's and listening to my dad tell the same stories over and over
3.5) there was a suggestion to drink old milwaukee and laugh at the hicks. i have a question: where is old milwaukee actually sold in wisconsin? i've never seen it except in gas stations in south carolina. blatz, yes. huber, sure. schlitz, proudly. old mil?
4) it will be worse than the time my alternator died in milwaukee and none of my relatives would answer their phones to come help us
5) my blogmate will never speak to me again
she clearly does not need more exposure to hippies, jam bands and little coffee shops, and we've done madison before, so as much as i would like to spend a weekend at mother fool's, weary traveler and the come back, i'll hold off for now. she might need more exposure to microbreweries since there's something like two in the state of louisiana (and i've now toured 50% of them) and sadly i found myself the relative beer expert, by which i mean i'd heard of three floyds when one of the hippies asked me about it. she's done lakefront in milwaukee, the most fun tour - if we stayed in southern wisconsin maybe we could do new glarus, just for the whole swiss-ness and bar that does smelt fry for $4.99? yeah, new orleans might have colorful crawfish, but we batter fry stuff that looks like bait and call it a delicacy in selected church basements. there's really no point in trying to compare to the local art galleries with the blue dogs and distorted french quarter buildings - i could maybe buy her a shirt with a mallard on it from northern reflections in the mall or something. or i could make her play "count the wildlife t-shirts." or we could swing over to paoli for the entire town made up of paoli cheese and two little art galleries. not as cute as ponchatoula (that even sounds southern!) but it's nice. the biking between those two is great, but since the locals are all pissy since the last ironman i'm afraid we'd get lynched. we could go to door county (that's the thumb of the state, for the southern contingent), since if new orleans has narrow streets by the water, locally owned businesses, and boiled fish in a big pot, door county is as close as we can get. plus now that we're from illinois we fit right in! real wisconsinites usually can't afford the nice parts of our state - they're pretty much owned by chicago.
the problem with those ideas is that as kitschy as they sound, that's nice wisconsin, and it would be a lie if i tried to claim to be from there. when mb and i started dating, and i told my family where he was from, their eyes got a little big and they said "oh, he's from the nice part of the state." (nice = a town of 10,000 with a senior citizen dinner theater.) where i'm from just got air conditioning in the wood-paneled bar where drunk men with mullets come to race their remote control cars on wednesdays.
i draw these conclusions:
1) wisconsin might actually have some comparable, though smaller, attractions (omitting the whole architecture problem, unless there are national groups coming to tour the intricacies of the split-level ranch)
2) we will never actually see said attractions, because they're nowhere near each other
3) we will instead end up drowning our sorrows in $1 leinenkugel's at korth's and listening to my dad tell the same stories over and over
3.5) there was a suggestion to drink old milwaukee and laugh at the hicks. i have a question: where is old milwaukee actually sold in wisconsin? i've never seen it except in gas stations in south carolina. blatz, yes. huber, sure. schlitz, proudly. old mil?
4) it will be worse than the time my alternator died in milwaukee and none of my relatives would answer their phones to come help us
5) my blogmate will never speak to me again
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
always a bridesmaid...
this is getting a little ridiculous.
phone call last week from long-lost college friend which i failed to return. i assumed she was just calling to say "hi" (note correct use of quotation marks... blog to come about the heinously offensive misuse of apostrophes, i.e. "can's of coke"), as i'd recently sent her a "hey, remember me? yup, i'm still alive!" email. but really, fool me once. today the meaning in the message was all too clear: "hi it's your college roommate. call me." knowing all too well what was coming i slowly dialed the numbers... for all the talk about the popping of the proverbial question i don't think anyone sees it the way i do: "will you be a bridesmaid?"
in the spirit of my newfound optimism (don't laugh- just go with it) i'm trying to put a positive spin on this:
1) i'm now officially entitled to some well-deserved, "never a bride" self pity (as if my ex-boyfriends' engagements [note the plural] weren't enough)
2) it has to be some kind of compliment that so many people feel the need to stand me up
3) by the time it's actually my turn to do this i'll know a whole lot about weddings (and have a veritable bridal throng to fuss over me and throw me a damn good bachelorette party)
and finally...
4) fodder for my budding career in film... i've always felt that deep down i'm a film-maker, or, at very least, a film critic. the movies i make in my head aren't good, per se, but i think they'd sell. this movie will be a clever romantic comedy about a rather cute, witty girl (who's career as a film critic affords her a stylish, high-ceilinged apartment and an unbelievable fashion sense) who finds herself standing up in weddings over and over again thinking she'll never find love... until the adorable, independently wealthy pastry chef spills chocolate sauce all over her frilly bridesmaid's dress... or something like that... maybe someone with talent can actually direct the movie and i can just give it good reviews...
phone call last week from long-lost college friend which i failed to return. i assumed she was just calling to say "hi" (note correct use of quotation marks... blog to come about the heinously offensive misuse of apostrophes, i.e. "can's of coke"), as i'd recently sent her a "hey, remember me? yup, i'm still alive!" email. but really, fool me once. today the meaning in the message was all too clear: "hi it's your college roommate. call me." knowing all too well what was coming i slowly dialed the numbers... for all the talk about the popping of the proverbial question i don't think anyone sees it the way i do: "will you be a bridesmaid?"
in the spirit of my newfound optimism (don't laugh- just go with it) i'm trying to put a positive spin on this:
1) i'm now officially entitled to some well-deserved, "never a bride" self pity (as if my ex-boyfriends' engagements [note the plural] weren't enough)
2) it has to be some kind of compliment that so many people feel the need to stand me up
3) by the time it's actually my turn to do this i'll know a whole lot about weddings (and have a veritable bridal throng to fuss over me and throw me a damn good bachelorette party)
and finally...
4) fodder for my budding career in film... i've always felt that deep down i'm a film-maker, or, at very least, a film critic. the movies i make in my head aren't good, per se, but i think they'd sell. this movie will be a clever romantic comedy about a rather cute, witty girl (who's career as a film critic affords her a stylish, high-ceilinged apartment and an unbelievable fashion sense) who finds herself standing up in weddings over and over again thinking she'll never find love... until the adorable, independently wealthy pastry chef spills chocolate sauce all over her frilly bridesmaid's dress... or something like that... maybe someone with talent can actually direct the movie and i can just give it good reviews...
the good, the bad and the stinky
we're back from sunny warm new orleans. what a great weekend! my blogmate was, as always, a thoughtful host, filling our time with fun activities, good food and drink, great people. i learned that there are many ways to unhouse little crawfish from their shells at lunchtime, that abita beer distributes to several states but does not bottle their strawberry lager (tragic), that $3 fake dolce and gabbana sunglasses are every bit as glamorous as i'd imagined, and that i am a much better dancer when budweiser is $1.25 a can. hee.
i also learned that new orleans has its share of crazy hippies, whose habits are almost as much fun to catalog as the movements of my creepy neighbor:
- taking the 3rd place award for best hippiewatching was the mild-mannered costa-rica-t-shirt-wearing 40-year-old mullet-hippie who wandered halfway across the audience where papa grows funk was playing at french quarter fest, told us we looked nice, and wandered back. given that we were dirty, drunk, and sitting on a lawn littered with empty plastic beer glasses, i am sure we were faces only a hippie could love.
- in 2nd place for hippiewatch was my blogmate's ex, who we met during my five minutes on bourbon street. when my blogmate was accosted by a hairy bearded manic guy wearing cut-off khakis and a latin-american-fabric-vest, talking a mile a minute about some band who was "the best f*&('in band EVER!", i figured this had to be some crazy she'd dated back in the day... nice guy, who took our ribbing about his man-purse fairly well.
- in a clear first place for hippiewatch came good citizen hippie, a dreadlocked lanky man who passed us on the street in the french quarter. coming the other way was a man pushing his friend in a wheelchair, who was not seen by the minivan driver trying to back out of a narrow driveway. we saw the impending minivan-wheelchair disaster coming, but couldn't react in time to fix it - you know that slow-motion "nooooo-OOOOOOOOOOO...." that happens? that was us. but not good citizen hippie! he sprinted back to the minivan, threw himself between the minivan and wheelchair, shouting until the minivan stopped. at that point, good citizen hippie decided to direct traffic for a little while, allowing the wheelchaired man to pass, as well as a mother with her small daughter in a stroller. i kept looking for old ladies with walkers for the hippie to help across the street.
- related to hippiewatching: honorable mention goes to the guy who sat by us on the plane from new orleans to nashville, who is not really a hippie but works for some advertising group that promotes jazzfest and other hippie music festivals like the one in tennessee where all the hippies come live on the farm together for four days and smoke to dave matthews. note to any man reading this with a music-related occupation: if you name-drop too much while describing your job, women will not believe you, and will think you are full of yourself. it's similar to guys who claim to be djs. they are never really djs, they just have lots of stereo equipment in their car trunks. (i will consider an exception to this for henry at wort in madison, because i don't think the djs there are actually paid anything so it's a little hard to be full of anything, plus it's one of my favorite radio stations besides the diva in new orleans - music for the diva in me? that's great! bring on the rupaul, paula abdul and ryan cabrera techno mixes! who the heck is ryan cabrera, and where did he come from? but now i'm really digressing. back to the hippies.) so the plane hippie organizer. yeah, points to the guy who takes himself seriously describing midwesterners as "good people" when he has never actually been here, and who looks at me funny when i snicker every time he says widespread panic.
hmm... i guess i still haven't said anything about what we did in new orleans. next time: our collective inner turmoil about our stated hatred of chicago's love affair with floofy martinis, standing in unfortunate contrast to our demonstrated fondness for the many many 25-cent key lime martinis we drank at lunch monday. doh.
i also learned that new orleans has its share of crazy hippies, whose habits are almost as much fun to catalog as the movements of my creepy neighbor:
- taking the 3rd place award for best hippiewatching was the mild-mannered costa-rica-t-shirt-wearing 40-year-old mullet-hippie who wandered halfway across the audience where papa grows funk was playing at french quarter fest, told us we looked nice, and wandered back. given that we were dirty, drunk, and sitting on a lawn littered with empty plastic beer glasses, i am sure we were faces only a hippie could love.
- in 2nd place for hippiewatch was my blogmate's ex, who we met during my five minutes on bourbon street. when my blogmate was accosted by a hairy bearded manic guy wearing cut-off khakis and a latin-american-fabric-vest, talking a mile a minute about some band who was "the best f*&('in band EVER!", i figured this had to be some crazy she'd dated back in the day... nice guy, who took our ribbing about his man-purse fairly well.
- in a clear first place for hippiewatch came good citizen hippie, a dreadlocked lanky man who passed us on the street in the french quarter. coming the other way was a man pushing his friend in a wheelchair, who was not seen by the minivan driver trying to back out of a narrow driveway. we saw the impending minivan-wheelchair disaster coming, but couldn't react in time to fix it - you know that slow-motion "nooooo-OOOOOOOOOOO...." that happens? that was us. but not good citizen hippie! he sprinted back to the minivan, threw himself between the minivan and wheelchair, shouting until the minivan stopped. at that point, good citizen hippie decided to direct traffic for a little while, allowing the wheelchaired man to pass, as well as a mother with her small daughter in a stroller. i kept looking for old ladies with walkers for the hippie to help across the street.
- related to hippiewatching: honorable mention goes to the guy who sat by us on the plane from new orleans to nashville, who is not really a hippie but works for some advertising group that promotes jazzfest and other hippie music festivals like the one in tennessee where all the hippies come live on the farm together for four days and smoke to dave matthews. note to any man reading this with a music-related occupation: if you name-drop too much while describing your job, women will not believe you, and will think you are full of yourself. it's similar to guys who claim to be djs. they are never really djs, they just have lots of stereo equipment in their car trunks. (i will consider an exception to this for henry at wort in madison, because i don't think the djs there are actually paid anything so it's a little hard to be full of anything, plus it's one of my favorite radio stations besides the diva in new orleans - music for the diva in me? that's great! bring on the rupaul, paula abdul and ryan cabrera techno mixes! who the heck is ryan cabrera, and where did he come from? but now i'm really digressing. back to the hippies.) so the plane hippie organizer. yeah, points to the guy who takes himself seriously describing midwesterners as "good people" when he has never actually been here, and who looks at me funny when i snicker every time he says widespread panic.
hmm... i guess i still haven't said anything about what we did in new orleans. next time: our collective inner turmoil about our stated hatred of chicago's love affair with floofy martinis, standing in unfortunate contrast to our demonstrated fondness for the many many 25-cent key lime martinis we drank at lunch monday. doh.
Friday, April 08, 2005
road trip muse
i'm so excited! this afternoon i am headed for the good state of louisiana with my blogmate (mb; wait, no, we established that was wrong...). i can't wait to see her hometown of new orleans. apparently we are also heading to the beautiful city of ponchatoula (is that right?). i think the itinerary consists of eating, drinking, live music, eating, drinking, ponchatoula, and maybe if i'm lucky getting to meet some of the people who i've never met that visit our humble blog.
this brings up the issue of reciprocation. i feel like i should offer some similar road trip to visit my hometown. but i just got back from a few days in northern wisconsin, which confirmed my belief that this would be an uneven trade. ah, the northwoods... the farther north you go, the more ridiculous it gets. really, after the jellybelly factory just across the il-wi border and house of cheese in kenosha (where weezer once played) it all goes downhill. adult video store billboards (three of them are all named "superb adult video") flank right-to-life signs announcing that 40 million babies will never pay social security and that fetuses smile at 12 weeks. (apparently truth in advertising doesn't apply in wisconsin. i suppose "tacky adult video" isn't as catchy, and the social security argument is a little weirdly utilitarian or something, but i am reasonably sure that a fetus doesn't smile. i don't know much about embryology, but i looked it up online and at 12 weeks the muscles have just learned how to respond to the brain, so the little fetus can sort of twitch. anyway.) cultural attractions include an art gallery advertising chicken for sale; "proud american" and "support our troops" car decals are offset by mudflaps on teal mercury tracers reading "nasty," and there's a sign welcoming travellers by announcing that this is "as far north as you need to go." too bad that sign was 25 miles south of home.
one of my friend's younger sisters just graduated from college in d.c. and refers to her time back at home as "soul sucking." so what do i have to show off? there's always the road trip to appleton so my good blogmate can see the harry houdini museum she finds so fascinating, the $1 beers at korth's bar, the string of phallic-esque names on main street (pensis chiropractic, bump's bar, photography by the wackers). we could stop at the gas station at mills fleet farm (think farm implement store meets walmart) and get the free popcorn that comes with tanks of gas, trying hard not to be weirded out by the long-haired flannel-wearing-in-summer leering men who seem to just sit in the corner. of course we would commemorate her stay with one of the many charming fleet farm t-shirts like "i am woman / i shop fleet farm" or "if they don't sell it at mills fleet farm, i don't want it."
i know there are wisconsin people who read this blog. help a girl out; what's exciting about our little town? i feel like we have to step up the commentary, on account of the southern contingent is kicking our collective butt. i was also thinking, given the current pattern of people starting to finally comment on the blog once we've started writing about them, that it's time to start a jerry-lewis-telethon-like introduction to our readership. you've met mb, rcfog, tb, dwtacc, twinset, mr. honesty. (does anyone else think mr. honesty sounds a little like a porn name?) butterknife, you're coming up. you know who you are.
this brings up the issue of reciprocation. i feel like i should offer some similar road trip to visit my hometown. but i just got back from a few days in northern wisconsin, which confirmed my belief that this would be an uneven trade. ah, the northwoods... the farther north you go, the more ridiculous it gets. really, after the jellybelly factory just across the il-wi border and house of cheese in kenosha (where weezer once played) it all goes downhill. adult video store billboards (three of them are all named "superb adult video") flank right-to-life signs announcing that 40 million babies will never pay social security and that fetuses smile at 12 weeks. (apparently truth in advertising doesn't apply in wisconsin. i suppose "tacky adult video" isn't as catchy, and the social security argument is a little weirdly utilitarian or something, but i am reasonably sure that a fetus doesn't smile. i don't know much about embryology, but i looked it up online and at 12 weeks the muscles have just learned how to respond to the brain, so the little fetus can sort of twitch. anyway.) cultural attractions include an art gallery advertising chicken for sale; "proud american" and "support our troops" car decals are offset by mudflaps on teal mercury tracers reading "nasty," and there's a sign welcoming travellers by announcing that this is "as far north as you need to go." too bad that sign was 25 miles south of home.
one of my friend's younger sisters just graduated from college in d.c. and refers to her time back at home as "soul sucking." so what do i have to show off? there's always the road trip to appleton so my good blogmate can see the harry houdini museum she finds so fascinating, the $1 beers at korth's bar, the string of phallic-esque names on main street (pensis chiropractic, bump's bar, photography by the wackers). we could stop at the gas station at mills fleet farm (think farm implement store meets walmart) and get the free popcorn that comes with tanks of gas, trying hard not to be weirded out by the long-haired flannel-wearing-in-summer leering men who seem to just sit in the corner. of course we would commemorate her stay with one of the many charming fleet farm t-shirts like "i am woman / i shop fleet farm" or "if they don't sell it at mills fleet farm, i don't want it."
i know there are wisconsin people who read this blog. help a girl out; what's exciting about our little town? i feel like we have to step up the commentary, on account of the southern contingent is kicking our collective butt. i was also thinking, given the current pattern of people starting to finally comment on the blog once we've started writing about them, that it's time to start a jerry-lewis-telethon-like introduction to our readership. you've met mb, rcfog, tb, dwtacc, twinset, mr. honesty. (does anyone else think mr. honesty sounds a little like a porn name?) butterknife, you're coming up. you know who you are.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
who's filterless now?
i almost forgot.
at one of the many basketball-watching marathons last weekend, i found myself seated next to a work acquaintance who had perhaps had a few too many. i don't know this guy particularly well and he's a couple of rungs higher than me on the professional ladder, so i was very entertained by his sudden, overwhelming need to, well, share. with the exception of dwtacc, i think most of us are quite familiar with the acquired filterlessness that accompanies inebriation, and the young man in question decided that the time had come to lay his cards on the table.
he readily admitted that while perhaps not so much of a catch in his youth, over time (and evolving degree of job-having-ness) he became something of a ladies man (that is, until, he settled down with his current girl whom he confesses is way cooler than him). for whatever reason, mr. honesty decided that enumerating his various, um, social exploits as a young professional was of vital importance... but he kept miscounting and having to start over. then i remembered how much fun it can be to be the (relatively) sober one.
and though i am (and will likely remain), stymied by the sudden flood of interest in our humble blog (complete with active participation by our loyal readership), i have to admit that the above tribute's function is as a recruitment tool. it seems that the best way to get people to invest in filterlessness is to unabashedly talk about them.
at one of the many basketball-watching marathons last weekend, i found myself seated next to a work acquaintance who had perhaps had a few too many. i don't know this guy particularly well and he's a couple of rungs higher than me on the professional ladder, so i was very entertained by his sudden, overwhelming need to, well, share. with the exception of dwtacc, i think most of us are quite familiar with the acquired filterlessness that accompanies inebriation, and the young man in question decided that the time had come to lay his cards on the table.
he readily admitted that while perhaps not so much of a catch in his youth, over time (and evolving degree of job-having-ness) he became something of a ladies man (that is, until, he settled down with his current girl whom he confesses is way cooler than him). for whatever reason, mr. honesty decided that enumerating his various, um, social exploits as a young professional was of vital importance... but he kept miscounting and having to start over. then i remembered how much fun it can be to be the (relatively) sober one.
and though i am (and will likely remain), stymied by the sudden flood of interest in our humble blog (complete with active participation by our loyal readership), i have to admit that the above tribute's function is as a recruitment tool. it seems that the best way to get people to invest in filterlessness is to unabashedly talk about them.
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
where's the foul?
my blogmate always teases me about my episodic bouts of sports fanatacism. she has a point: for the better part of the year i'm only vaguely interested, but come play-off time suddenly i become some sort of glued-to-the-TV maniac.
the difference between me and the true fan became clear to me as i talked my good friend dwtacc (down with the ACC... she rejected "friend#1" on account of it wasn't personal enough) off a ledge monday after the illini failed to capture the NCAA title. i'll admit, it was a painful game to watch, what with the offense seemingly being played from half-court and passes bouncing off the backs of unsuspecting teammates who were looking the wrong way (in the final minutes of a 3 point game). now, i don't claim to know much about basketball, but you know something's wrong when you ask yourself, "hey, why is he running in the wrong direction?"
in any case, i really was a little worried about dwtacc as she went right through the yelling and swearing phase (surprising coming from the girl who ordinarily isn't much of a potty-mouth... unless she finds herself at a 22,000 person race hoping to serendipitously run into her friends who are holding her race number while said friends are still standing on the el platform like idiots), and directly entered the stern, silent phase. i didn't think she disliked anyone more than her creepy ex-boyfriend who keeps calling her (over and over and over) but it turns out that her new sworn enemy is sean may (oafishly big tarheel who was the clear sweetheart of the game and is the child of an important hoosier, for those of you who don't know... like me before last night).
so i think we should all bow our heads in a moment of silence, mourning the illini's loss of the NCAA title... at least in solidarity with my devastated friend.
the difference between me and the true fan became clear to me as i talked my good friend dwtacc (down with the ACC... she rejected "friend#1" on account of it wasn't personal enough) off a ledge monday after the illini failed to capture the NCAA title. i'll admit, it was a painful game to watch, what with the offense seemingly being played from half-court and passes bouncing off the backs of unsuspecting teammates who were looking the wrong way (in the final minutes of a 3 point game). now, i don't claim to know much about basketball, but you know something's wrong when you ask yourself, "hey, why is he running in the wrong direction?"
in any case, i really was a little worried about dwtacc as she went right through the yelling and swearing phase (surprising coming from the girl who ordinarily isn't much of a potty-mouth... unless she finds herself at a 22,000 person race hoping to serendipitously run into her friends who are holding her race number while said friends are still standing on the el platform like idiots), and directly entered the stern, silent phase. i didn't think she disliked anyone more than her creepy ex-boyfriend who keeps calling her (over and over and over) but it turns out that her new sworn enemy is sean may (oafishly big tarheel who was the clear sweetheart of the game and is the child of an important hoosier, for those of you who don't know... like me before last night).
so i think we should all bow our heads in a moment of silence, mourning the illini's loss of the NCAA title... at least in solidarity with my devastated friend.
Monday, April 04, 2005
introducing the coen brothers' many poor, less talented cousins
i love bad movies and i love spying on my neighbors. so imagine my excitement at finding myself getting both items at once this weekend.
somehow, a lazy saturday filled with browsing bookstores and gorging on so-cheap breakfast at our local dive turned into a conversation between mb and me about spring cleaning. and before i knew it, that conversation about spring cleaning had turned into spring cleaning itself, with lots of throwing away the worst of my hand-me-down furniture to make some room for mb's stuff still in storage. away with the paint-peeling orange-and-green desk (not a small feat, as we live on the top floor of a walk-up). but as we were preparing to take the next load down the back stairs to the trash bin, we noticed some activity next door. gathered around a black saturn in the driveway were two college boys dressed as beat cops, complete with the big hats and beating sticks (what do you call those?), two more dressed like luigi from super mario brothers, a villain and a sort of non-descript overweight guy whose role i could never ascertain. peering out from a bedroom window above the black saturn was another college guy dressed in yellow striped pajamas and a red sleeping cap (the long pointy elf-ey kind). after about thirty minutes of standing in a big circle laughing at themselves, they all lined up and one by one climbed up the saturn and piled through the bedroom window. then they came out, stood around again, sang some songs, and did it again, this time interrupted with a lot of "wait... should my head be here or over here? no, it'll look stupid if my head is over too far..." eventually they moved the car, brought out a ladder (hmm... that would have been helpful first) and a video camera, laughed some more, and dispersed.
i can only assume one of them is taking some kind of film class, because i can't imagine u of c students do this kind of thing for fun. (i would, but that's beside the point.) but they were so pleased with themselves that they didn't notice our side-splitting laughter next door. i almost dropped the old recliner i was holding. (note to the fans of my recliner: yes, it's time for it to go. yes, tears were shed. no, it's not gone yet - it's sitting on the porch where mb is using it as his grillin' chair until it rains. and to my blogmate: no, the orange shag which once covered the chair is not gone. we now have orange shag carpet, to which mb is fastidiously applying rug backing, giddy with excitement that after all these years, his precious orange shag rug is finally on the floor where it was meant to be.) i was a little relieved that i couldn't keep getting rid of furniture for fear of ruining the guys' carefully constructed shots... although a plummeting recliner might not have been completely out of place.
somehow, a lazy saturday filled with browsing bookstores and gorging on so-cheap breakfast at our local dive turned into a conversation between mb and me about spring cleaning. and before i knew it, that conversation about spring cleaning had turned into spring cleaning itself, with lots of throwing away the worst of my hand-me-down furniture to make some room for mb's stuff still in storage. away with the paint-peeling orange-and-green desk (not a small feat, as we live on the top floor of a walk-up). but as we were preparing to take the next load down the back stairs to the trash bin, we noticed some activity next door. gathered around a black saturn in the driveway were two college boys dressed as beat cops, complete with the big hats and beating sticks (what do you call those?), two more dressed like luigi from super mario brothers, a villain and a sort of non-descript overweight guy whose role i could never ascertain. peering out from a bedroom window above the black saturn was another college guy dressed in yellow striped pajamas and a red sleeping cap (the long pointy elf-ey kind). after about thirty minutes of standing in a big circle laughing at themselves, they all lined up and one by one climbed up the saturn and piled through the bedroom window. then they came out, stood around again, sang some songs, and did it again, this time interrupted with a lot of "wait... should my head be here or over here? no, it'll look stupid if my head is over too far..." eventually they moved the car, brought out a ladder (hmm... that would have been helpful first) and a video camera, laughed some more, and dispersed.
i can only assume one of them is taking some kind of film class, because i can't imagine u of c students do this kind of thing for fun. (i would, but that's beside the point.) but they were so pleased with themselves that they didn't notice our side-splitting laughter next door. i almost dropped the old recliner i was holding. (note to the fans of my recliner: yes, it's time for it to go. yes, tears were shed. no, it's not gone yet - it's sitting on the porch where mb is using it as his grillin' chair until it rains. and to my blogmate: no, the orange shag which once covered the chair is not gone. we now have orange shag carpet, to which mb is fastidiously applying rug backing, giddy with excitement that after all these years, his precious orange shag rug is finally on the floor where it was meant to be.) i was a little relieved that i couldn't keep getting rid of furniture for fear of ruining the guys' carefully constructed shots... although a plummeting recliner might not have been completely out of place.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
the world sprang ahead... and i fell back
it was quite a weekend. i took my friend's hair on a date, lost my cool at the patagonia store, and missed a road race... oh yeah, and watched lots of basketball.
just i was getting myself comfortably curled up on the couch on friday night, finally ready to watch the last episodes of sex and the city, ending the crack-TV siege, little miss twin set called to announce that after 2 hours and $200 she wasn't wasting her cute, bouncy haircut at home with her husband- apparently he too was comfortably curled up on the couch. so i did what any self-respecting friend-of-married-girl would do- hopped in the shower, drank a beer, and pulled on my sassygoingout boots. she showed up (2 hours and $200 later) a little punchy having split a bottle of wine with her hair dresser, ready to be shown a good time. i think i was a pretty good date- we drank an excessive number of mojitos and waited an excessively long time for a table at an excessively trendy restaurant. afterwards, being the perfect gentleman that i am, i put my tipsy friend and her hair in a cab and sent them home to her hubby.
i spent the next day out and about with my friend (gwcbwdbsbhhwtt for those of you paying attention) and her brother. he had a gift certificate to spend at the patagonia store, so after wandering around the art supply store wishing i was artistic, i wandered around patagonia wishing i was out-doorsy. perhaps if i actually was out-doorsy i wouldn't have been so snide in supplying mr. everest base camp with the word for which he searching ("technology") but as he rambled on about the high-tech, windproof, fire-proof, NASA-quality fleece i found it harder and harder to keep it together. when he started to pitch the sonically-guided seams i lost all composure and started laughing uncontrollably. i had to sit down in the adirondak chair (supplied so that weary shoppers could watch a movie about banff) just to catch my breath. though none of the patagonia employees seemed particularly appreciative of my amusement, they were fortuitously distracted, moments later, by a dramatic fender-bender in the parking lot. i think somebody rear-ended mr. base camp's jeep.
the next morning i found myself pacing around on the corner of belmont and clark at what i thought was 8AM, waiting for friend#1. when she hadn't appeared 15 minutes later i ran to the el to meet friend#2 in an attempt to keep the whole plan from disintegrating. but i was too late. i raced up the stairs to find friend#2 taking on his cell phone to friend#1 who was the only one of us to have remembered the time change. "hi," he said, "what time do you think it is?" while friend#1 actually made it downtown in time to run in chicago's big spring 8K, we were holding all the race packets. after all that fretting about my lack of preparedness and gimp-footedness we missed it completely! determined to maintain our fragile dignity, we ran our own private 8K race on the lake and went to the post-race party as if nothing had happened. i blame the final four- surely if we hadn't all three been glued to our bar-stools yesterday watching michigan state get clobbered, one of us might have anticipated this.
go illini!
just i was getting myself comfortably curled up on the couch on friday night, finally ready to watch the last episodes of sex and the city, ending the crack-TV siege, little miss twin set called to announce that after 2 hours and $200 she wasn't wasting her cute, bouncy haircut at home with her husband- apparently he too was comfortably curled up on the couch. so i did what any self-respecting friend-of-married-girl would do- hopped in the shower, drank a beer, and pulled on my sassygoingout boots. she showed up (2 hours and $200 later) a little punchy having split a bottle of wine with her hair dresser, ready to be shown a good time. i think i was a pretty good date- we drank an excessive number of mojitos and waited an excessively long time for a table at an excessively trendy restaurant. afterwards, being the perfect gentleman that i am, i put my tipsy friend and her hair in a cab and sent them home to her hubby.
i spent the next day out and about with my friend (gwcbwdbsbhhwtt for those of you paying attention) and her brother. he had a gift certificate to spend at the patagonia store, so after wandering around the art supply store wishing i was artistic, i wandered around patagonia wishing i was out-doorsy. perhaps if i actually was out-doorsy i wouldn't have been so snide in supplying mr. everest base camp with the word for which he searching ("technology") but as he rambled on about the high-tech, windproof, fire-proof, NASA-quality fleece i found it harder and harder to keep it together. when he started to pitch the sonically-guided seams i lost all composure and started laughing uncontrollably. i had to sit down in the adirondak chair (supplied so that weary shoppers could watch a movie about banff) just to catch my breath. though none of the patagonia employees seemed particularly appreciative of my amusement, they were fortuitously distracted, moments later, by a dramatic fender-bender in the parking lot. i think somebody rear-ended mr. base camp's jeep.
the next morning i found myself pacing around on the corner of belmont and clark at what i thought was 8AM, waiting for friend#1. when she hadn't appeared 15 minutes later i ran to the el to meet friend#2 in an attempt to keep the whole plan from disintegrating. but i was too late. i raced up the stairs to find friend#2 taking on his cell phone to friend#1 who was the only one of us to have remembered the time change. "hi," he said, "what time do you think it is?" while friend#1 actually made it downtown in time to run in chicago's big spring 8K, we were holding all the race packets. after all that fretting about my lack of preparedness and gimp-footedness we missed it completely! determined to maintain our fragile dignity, we ran our own private 8K race on the lake and went to the post-race party as if nothing had happened. i blame the final four- surely if we hadn't all three been glued to our bar-stools yesterday watching michigan state get clobbered, one of us might have anticipated this.
go illini!
Saturday, April 02, 2005
acknowledgements and musings
clearly i'm a bad person: yesterday i lied to an ACLU guy on the phone. this morning i didn't listen to NPR because i can't take the guilt of pledge season.
the fundraising did get me to thinking, though. as we enter our 7th month of blogging, i think it's time to thank our loyal readership- we couldn't do it without you (actually, we probably could, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun). not including myself or my blogmate, i think our readers now number in the double digits (provided we haven't scared off rcfog).
in other news, now that i've put my infatuations with the various wedding boys behind me, i'm back to obsessing about the double indian neurologists (in1, in2). in1 continues to render me mute (or a babbling moron) with his dashing good looks and irresistible charisma, though i remain unnerved by his overwhelmingly good fashion sense. in2 has turned out to be a little louder and more obnoxious than i would have expected, but in a good way. there have been some very subtle flurries of activity (if i were smarter i could use some kind of geeky EEG analogy) and i'm hoping that he'll make an appearance at our mutual friend's basketball-watching party (read: psychotic, screaming, go-illini hysteria) this weekend... because clearly what i need is to fuel this ridiculous obsession.
the fundraising did get me to thinking, though. as we enter our 7th month of blogging, i think it's time to thank our loyal readership- we couldn't do it without you (actually, we probably could, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun). not including myself or my blogmate, i think our readers now number in the double digits (provided we haven't scared off rcfog).
in other news, now that i've put my infatuations with the various wedding boys behind me, i'm back to obsessing about the double indian neurologists (in1, in2). in1 continues to render me mute (or a babbling moron) with his dashing good looks and irresistible charisma, though i remain unnerved by his overwhelmingly good fashion sense. in2 has turned out to be a little louder and more obnoxious than i would have expected, but in a good way. there have been some very subtle flurries of activity (if i were smarter i could use some kind of geeky EEG analogy) and i'm hoping that he'll make an appearance at our mutual friend's basketball-watching party (read: psychotic, screaming, go-illini hysteria) this weekend... because clearly what i need is to fuel this ridiculous obsession.
Friday, April 01, 2005
seven degrees of kevin bacon
mb and i realized this morning that ever since we've moved to chicago, we seem to be much closer to celebrities. well, maybe not actual celebrities, but we now know people who know people, which is the best we figure we'll ever do. true, mb knows his share of olympic athletes and ironman winners from being a college swimmer and triathlete. i am a little athletic too, but the olympic marathoners don't run from the 4:30 markers, so no rubbing shoulders with the greats for me (although i did get passed by a rather portly tommy thompson once in a 5k run).
so one of our bosses has a wife who comes from some amount of money, and he tells stories about hanging out with hilary clinton. during my job promotion interview yesterday, i learned all about my bosses' various famousnesses, including being on cnn and featured in time magazine. but best of all, it turns out that one of my blogmate's friends was a debutante! i had only heard of this before in movies, but you know that whole thing where eligible women get to dress up all pretty and get displayed to the society men at their parents' social gatherings? not only do i know someone who knows someone, but i get to ride in that someone's someone's car during my upcoming trip to new orleans. my butt will be sitting on a seat that gets sat on by greatness. job interview or not: i'm really going places now.
so one of our bosses has a wife who comes from some amount of money, and he tells stories about hanging out with hilary clinton. during my job promotion interview yesterday, i learned all about my bosses' various famousnesses, including being on cnn and featured in time magazine. but best of all, it turns out that one of my blogmate's friends was a debutante! i had only heard of this before in movies, but you know that whole thing where eligible women get to dress up all pretty and get displayed to the society men at their parents' social gatherings? not only do i know someone who knows someone, but i get to ride in that someone's someone's car during my upcoming trip to new orleans. my butt will be sitting on a seat that gets sat on by greatness. job interview or not: i'm really going places now.
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