new years' resolutions?

got any?

since meeting my college roommate, i have always adopted her yearly new years' resolution: have more fun. it's nice - i never have to feel bad about resolutions like exercise more, eat healthier, be nicer, and so on. but i can think of a few that should go on the list this year:

1. stop calling blogmate every five minutes to tell her "i hate everything."

this is hard, because we've had a stressful few work weeks, but for 2007 i will try to substitute with some other more benign cliche. "it's the right thing to do" in particular works well and can be employed in events where i am asked to do something i don't like (in place of "i hate everything") as well as at the end of hard days such as yesterday when my blogmate asks me, "so can we drink tonight?" much more versatile. i can work on this.

2. get out of board game rut.

in college mb would bring a cribbage board on vacations, and set up in front of various non-midwestern scenery (eiffel tower, castles, etc.) he shared this love with ck, my blogmate and me in st. lucia last spring, and since then we enjoy bringing our somewhat-obscure little card game out to bars. when my blogmate and i play, we kind of hope to attract the attention of some young male bartender. unfortunately, every time we've tried this we've only attracted the wrong bartender, like the one with four kids or the short one with bad teeth *sigh*. so i'm thinking of expanding our bar-game base. i was secretly hoping for dominos for christmas, but no such luck. oh well, an excuse to go shopping for myself once the checking account recovers.

i did receive games over the holidays, which is awesome! but mb, butterknife, b's husband and i demonstrated recently that just the receipt of more gifts is not enough to break the cycle. we have spent the last several holidays together playing "apples to apples" for hours on end, and the game is fun but so addictive that we're all a bit burned out from last year. i had purchased for butterknife a much-desired trivial pursuit 80s edition, and we tried mightily to stop playing apples to apples in favor of the new game - which lasted for about 20 minutes until we realized that although we are children of the 80s, we have no idea which former reagan aide said which memorable thing. so we switched to my new present from ck, a more promising game called "quickword," which is a series of word puzzles kind of like boggle. anyone who knows butterknife's husband and me knows that our vocabularies are substantial, and we were quite excited about getting to stop feeling so lame about the 80s and start kicking ass with the word games. but no such luck - total word block. mb, who spends a great deal of effort pretending he only knows little words, was all over this one, with entries like "surreptitiously," while the rest of us could only produce "so." after another 20 minutes we guiltily looked around the table and went right back to apples to apples, which we promptly played until midnight when there were no cards left and we were all falling asleep at the table. doh. maybe the new games need more booze? i'm willing to work on this.

3a. Finish new awesome website.
3b. Stop working on new awesome website (it's for our wedding) and start working on actual wedding.

i won't post the actual link here, but email me if you want to see pictures of our wedding party and parents as bobbleheads. mb and i not having cable or bunny ears for the tv has resulted in some extra free time which we have used to learn more about photoshop and making animated gifs. but don't go looking at the "wedding info" section, because it's the only blank part. perhaps for 2007 we'll do something about that, hopefully before we decide to learn how to make flash movies.

accepting additions to the resolution list now - either for yourself or for me. come on - it's the right thing to do. :)

hippie holidays

i hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season, that nobody is struggling to fill last-minute holiday requests like "please, honey, would you mind picking up some butane for my kitchen torch so that i don't have to lie to my grandmother when she asks me how i'm enjoying my creme brulee set from last year?", and that everyone's home decorating is done to your satisfaction.

me?
i have picked up the butane.
but the holiday decorating is getting out of hand.

it started out simply enough, with a plan to host an appetizer party a few weeks ago, and with the realization that our apartment doesn't really have enough space to hold guests, appetizers, and a tree, we decided to scrap the tree and decorate our free-standing bike rack for a very merry bike-mas. it actually turned out great - faux pine garland and white lights strung in triangle fashion with a few ornaments here and there, presents at the bottom of the bikes. the bike-mas tree was a hit of the party, second only to mb's re-creation of his mother's famous beef smokie chubbies (for the uneducated, that's mini-hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls).

add to the bike-mas festivities mb's beloved "zwarte piet" dolls, which means "black pete" in dutch; they are the friendly but politically-incorrect-in-america traditional christmas elves in holland. i'll summarize their presence: mb loves them. i love hiding them. so ensues the now-annual holiday tradition of each of us taking turns hiding the zwarte piet dolls in each others' stuff.

all fine so far. but now add ck's much-loved holiday gift to mb: wind-up hopping lederhosen. mb loves them, and i also love them. we gave them a prominent home on the dresser right next to the small lego "little jo-na" that mb gave me a few years ago (it really looks like a teeny lego replica of me; weird.) but last night i headed for bed to find the lederhosen sitting on my pillow next to mb. this gives me the feeling that the holiday festivities are taking over just a little.

i can't help but feel like my life is becoming a little bit too animated. mb and i are generally good-natured and happy people, but we realize that there are limits. for example, this weekend we watched a video on the life of ram dass (some guy who was a harvard professor with timothy leary who got booted from harvard after they started running experiments where they tried to create a placebo-controlled trial of hallucinogens to stimulate religious experience). when they did the segment where ram dass brings all the hippies back to his father's farm near boston while they all skip around in a big circle and bathe naked in the stream, we decided that we are not *that* good-natured. and last night, when we were reading the travel-blog of mb's hippie college friends who left their jobs to take a two-month stint camping around the country with no particular plans or destinations, hearing about their enthusiastic descriptions of the "energy" of the desert and the good vibes of parking lots despite entering said parking lots forgetting that their bikes were on top of the car (oops - ouch), we coined a new term:

some people are so good-natured that you just want to mock them.

so my hippie-mocking cynicism balances the take-over of the lederhosen a little, i think.

right?

glass half full

i won't lie. since thanksgiving i've definitely done my share of sulking. for one thing, self-loathing is a fairly distasteful experience, and since i attempted the turkey trot knowing full well that i was on the brink of serious injury, i can only blame myself for the searing pain and the limping and the crutches. so i hate the hobbling, and i hate myself for doing it.

that said...

there's something to be said for having a stress fracture.

that i appear to have done this to myself while running, or even better, while attempting a 10 mile bike/sprint suggests some sort of dedicated and accomplished athleticism. i'd even go so far as to say "hard core." no one has to know that said bike/sprint was completely out of my league.

and i'm told by kl and dh that i look cute when i'm so vulnerable and pathetic.

so i get to be badass and adorable?! i can't lose!

still woozy under the effects of all the attention, sympathy, and looks of admiration, i decided to take it one step further and go on my first ever helicopter transport of tiny sick baby. nevermind that i almost shrieked in terror while in the MRI machine, being fearless is fun, and flight doc just sounds cool.

i probably don't have to tell you that the helicopter experience was somewhat hair-raising, what with my overwhelming sense that we were about to fall right out of the sky. i also probably don't need to inform any of you that no amount of badass injury or life-saving can will save you when what you need is interpersonal know-how.

it figured that the other doc on the flight was someone i've known peripherally for a couple of years, and that i've had to be a little icy with him several times in the past, as he constantly feels the need to make veiled references to a brief romantic stint that once transpired between me and a friend of his (more adventures in self-loathing, but that's a story for another day).

it came out in small talk while in flight (over the headsets, mind-you) that he'd recently broken up with his rather serious and live-in ex-girlfriend, and of course i got roped into admitting that no, i wasn't seeing anyone either. flight doc made some "oh, so should we catch a movie later?" crack that was just weird enough to make me a little uneasy (since i was already practically sitting on his lap in the tiny helicopter cabin). not knowing what else to do, i gave a a really weak, "oh, you don't want me, i'm damaged goods," and started talking about my stress fracture.

i almost got away with it, but as we were landing the PILOT called me out on this not so slick maneuver, again over the radio for everyone to hear. "jo-na, am i imagining things or did he just ask you out and you said something about your leg?" again i failed to be quick-witted at the moment it really counted, and muttered something about the two of us going way back, and was left limping along behind to the stretcher, feeling like a complete tool.

i would be mortified by this experience, except that it offers the chance to work my stress fracture, my helicopter baby rescue, and the fact that i once dated a 5'4" nicaraguan man all into one, convenient, self-promoting story.

it's like my boss always says: never be sad about your data

home for the holidays

so i feel a little bad about blogging at my family's expense. i get off so easy when it comes to family. they're great... and i invited them here.

but here's the backdrop:

my dad, grumpy, with his week-long, miserable bout of intractable hiccups

me, despondent, with my blown knee, hobbling around on crutches

my brother, groaning, wondering what he did to deserve this, trying to figure out how to have a phone conversation with his new, still under-the-radar girlfriend without my parents noticing.

at their absolute worst my parents are still very cool people and 98% of the time i walk around feeling very fortunate that i'm the progeny of relatively hip, open-minded, well-educated parents who rarely make me crazy.

except when they make me crazy.

mom (examining the various pride and prejudice interpretations i have on DVD): "where's the new one?"

me: "you mean the 2005 keira knightley version? it's in your hand."

dad: "[jo-na], when was this old version filmed?"

me: "i don't know dad"

mom: "no, not that one. the other new one."

me: "what?"

mom: "the one with gwyneth paltrow."

dad (holding the old, two-volume version): "how long is this one"

me (to mom): "you mean emma"

me (to dad): "i don't know dad, long."

mom: "yeah, that's it."

dad: "but where did you get this version? did you buy it?"

me (to dad): "it was a gift"

me (to mom): "that's not pride and prejudice mom, it's, um, emma."

dad: "when was this old version filmed?"

mom: "i thought it was pride and prejudice."

me (flustered): "but it's even called, 'emma,' "

mom: "what's the other one that's about emma."

me: "oh, clueless?"

mom: "yeah, clueless, that's the one i like."

dad: "how long is this one?"


boy am i glad that i stocked the bar before they got here.

monday morning quarterback

one of the the things i love about my good blogmate is that, like my father, she has blind faith in my abilities. this faith gives me the false belief that i can, in fact, do the things she thinks i can.

for a while we can both feel good about ourselves.

but then it all breaks down.

in her ever patient indulgence of my triathlon and boy-meeting fantasies, my blogmate helpfully suggested that ck and i participate in a ride n' tie (some kind of bike/run race) last week, as a first peak into the world of the chicago tri world, and a way to jump start the winter training.

seems like a good idea, right? ck was up for it because, well, ck is always up for anything (which is perhaps the thing the collective jo-na loves most about her), and neither she nor i were too worried that the description of this event was a little vague on the website.

we started to get nervous when ck picked up the race packets. "organized chaos," was how the guy described it.

as it turns out, the ride n' tie isn't so much as a competitive biking and running as it is sprint training for crazy people. we probably should have realized that only people of a certain disposition are up and out at 8AM for a late november race in schaumburg. we also probably should have realized that we are not of said disposition. we also should have realized that the biking was just a way to make the time between the sprints SHORTER.

after much swearing and complaining and passing each other up on the course muttering to each other about the drinks the instigator of this madness was going to buy us, we finally limped across the finish line. 10 miles. two people. one bike. much running. much pain. MANY crazy people. we felt pretty bad about our 2nd-to-last place finish until we realized that the winners came in at a sub-five-minute pace.

we felt much better about ourselves once it was all over, and have been alternating states of soaring triumph and searing pain, wondering just who we think we are.

but it's ART!

while helping throw a baby shower this weekend for our good friend jz (formerly known as twinset, although i submit that the name has to change with the still-stylish-but-more-laid-back mommy-attire these days) i was talking with dwtacc (whose name should also really change: are opinions about the acc still relevant here?) about her recent expedition to the museum of contemporary art. apparently berets can be worn without irony in certain settings. also, apparently i could be an up-and-coming artist, since people drawing single diagonal lines on paper get featured as "early works" at the mca.

i'm going to start asking mb (does his name have to change? does it have to be mf now? i don't like that as much) to wear the beret i bought him as a joke a few years ago to our living room from now on. two reasons:

one, we're having an appetizer-and-mulled-wine party in a few weeks, and mb decided that on the evite we should list "location" as "fancington," our joking name for the apartment. let me be clear, this place is not so fancy, especially with the millions of bikes all over the place, but compared to the place in hyde park with the huge bugs and the lack of reliable heat or water, and with the dishwasher, well, we think we're living in high style. plus, according to ck's book that i read, jackie o named all of her homes, and who are we to be outdone? so i think since berets are apparently fine in such high society, it's time his made a more regular debut.

two: we recently got netflix and i am going to start making the claim that we're not movie-watchers so much as art film connoisseurs. similar to the merging of the cds that comes with every deepening relationship, we are introducing each other to our favorite films from college. we take turns on the queue, and after last night's debut of "last dragon" (which was fanTAStic!) i think the level of film here at fancington will soon be reaching an all-time high. next up, i think, are "glen or glenda?" by the great ed wood, and "tron."

my insightful blogmate (whose name will NOT change, although the associated praise-adjectives do vary somewhat) pointed out yesterday that we all believe more strongly in the things we were exposed to in high school or college, like her anger with the starbucks people that burn the latte-milk after years of barista-hood. so maybe the films at fancington aren't GOOD so much as they happened at an impressionable point in our young past(s). but if single lines on paper are contemporary art, breakdancing-martial-arts and cross-dresser-mockumentaries featuring bela lugosi are practically religious icons.

elliptical therapy

right on the heels of my good blogmate and i deciding that we had to abandon the "i hate everything" moto in exchange for the more reasonable and well-intended, "it's the right thing to do," i find myself pondering the kind of misanthropic question that can only lead to trouble: why is everyone lame?

after a particularly distasteful self-extrication from work this morning i went straight to the gym in order to enable some quality perseverating and expend the last of my dwindling energy supply on the elliptical machine. easier said than done, as i realized when i got there that i'd lost my membership card. this prompted a little more eye contact that i really wanted from the guy behind the counter, who looked more like someone who'd just come back from a 3 month, marijuana-intense trek through the himalayas than the average nerd with the big math book that usually mans the entrance. i should have left well enough alone when he asked me how my day was going, but i was a little incensed at the question (since it was 9AM and i was dirty, tired, and sleep-deprived), and attempted some kind of crack about how i wished i'd slept in my own bed. sherpa guy understandably took this entirely the wrong way and yet again i was back to painful self-extrication.

once i was finally up and going on the elliptical machine i thought a bit about my blogmate and mb's music classification scheme and decided that the mix cds i've been compiling in my head for the last three months could be broken up pretty neatly as "run," "bike," and "wallow" (i also considered "seduce," "flirt," and "high-brow"). i then moved on to more meaningful thoughts like, "people suck" and "online dating is like poking a sleeping bear with a stick," before giving in to some serious stewing about the rise and fall of the stock analyst. (pay attention, rw, this one's for you.)

a few weeks a weeks ago i went on a date that would objectively be described as "fine," although in the larger scheme of things might be more like "great," just by virtue of it's not totally sucking. then commenced a week of vaguely flirty, albeit somewhat unsatisfying emails, until he abruptly went dark. i wasn't going down without a fight, and in a moment of post-call, post-jogging delerium, i enlisted my good blogmate to help me send a last email, inviting him to a drinking event that seemed right up his alley in a funny sort of way.

oops.

the response came fast, and initially seemed like the rejection i'd anticipated. roughly, "can't. busy. sorry."

fine.

if only he'd stopped there. "pseudo-goth wine bars aren't' really my thing. i don't think they're anyone's thing."

ouch!

and more to the point, wtf?

i ellipticized furiously, trying not to think about how much my knees were hurting, and did some final tweaking to my carefully crafted, snarky mental response:

"i would argue that competitively priced belgian beers, found stumbling distance from a good friend's house should be everyone's thing. but that's neither here nor there, as i believe the expression you're looking for is 'no thank you.'

"come to think of it, i believe the expression i'm looking for is 'what's your problem?' "

i understand that this response can only exist in my head (and possibly for all of you to enjoy), and that i can't go around antagonizing stock analysts just because i'm disgruntled. but this whole experience has left me in a state of recalcitrant ill humor, which i suspect will only be remedied when i start stalking that really hot guy who sits in the window at the argo tea on broadway.

ode to art film

as some of our loyal readers predicted, the movie i saw at reeling, the chicago lesbian and gay international film festival (which was inexplicably sponsored by canada) was actually very interesting and quite good, although i did preemptively make it very clear to dh that under no circumstances were we staying for the post-film panel discussion ("feminism and gender identity"). at least i knew it was coming this time, rather than getting ambushed by the post preformance deconstruction (lest we forget the heated debate that followed the staged reading of the indian political drama - admittedly i probably wouldn't have been so bitter about that if i hadn't been there chasing a boy).

in flipping through the festival's program, i was very, very sad to discover that i've got a prior committment this wednesday, prohibiting me from viewing, "in the blood," another of this year's offerings. read on:

"in the blood is homo-horror at its finest! cassidy clarke is a closeted jock at an NYC college whose homophobia has kept him from unlocking a hidden inherited ability: seeing the future while fantasizing about the nearest stud. meanwhile, there's a serial killer on campus targeting young co-eds, and his baby sister, jessica, is exactly the killer's type. what will cassidy do when he realizes every time he fantasizes about a guy, he's plagued by images of jessica covered in blood?"

will someone PLEASE go see this movie and give me a full report?!

fidelity

over the weekend mb and i started the important process of preparing for our marriage: we consolidated the cd collections. this, as it turns out, is quite an undertaking, since mb has A LOT of bootleg jam band shows from college, and A LOT of euro-trash trance and techno from living in holland.

i know every modern person at some point compares themselves to high fidelity, so pardon the modern-day cliche, but i really felt like a perverse version of the "how do you catalogue albums?" scene. we definitely couldn't alphabetize since mb has at least 50 cds that all start with "dj" something dutch. as mb put it, "soooo much dj psycho bitch..." plus, as n has pointed out a long time ago, it's a little weird to have boy bands right next to punk. not that we have boy bands or punk, really. so we have loosely conceptually-based ordering by life phase. jam bands, live shows, electronic, and mixes made by us or our friends all get their own sections. studio albums have r&b going to "brother-music" (modest mouse, radiohead, etc) thru beastie boys to trip-hop, a brief stop through my old roommate's contribution of prince, beck and cake (which are only related in their being my favorites in her collection), a short and patchy classics collection featuring siouxsie and the banshees next to earth wind and fire and james taylor... then to the dregs, like my blogmate's and my still-current obsession with crappy world music, my undergrad lesbian-rock phase (come on, you liked indigo girls and ani difranco too!) quickly followed by my alternative-christian-band phase (do you remember sixpence none the richer? that stupid "kiss me" song? it totally fits in that spot). we round out with single-band collections (beatles, barenaked ladies, bob marley) and our combined-but-still-paltry i-do-too-have-culture collection of assorted jazz and classical music that we heard once and bought it to look smart sitting on our shelf.

so i am glad that we are tackling the important issues of facing our life together. no sitting around weighing the details of where we're having our wedding or whether orange or red flowers will look better, no sir. only the good stuff. now if only i can convince my parents of that when we see them over thanksgiving and i have absolutely nothing to report in the way of actual wedding plans, with no brother and butterknife there to bail me out of the cross-examination.

sm, is this what you had in mind by "bridezilla"?

escape hatch

in planning a highly anticipated, yet potentially awkward saturday morning breakfast date this weekend i decided it was probably wise to install some kind of solid bail-out plan should i have the sudden need to, well, bail.

the first idea was to make some sort of work-date with my blogmate, whose help i legitimately (and quite desperately) need in fixing my large, mostly defunct set of research data (to answer questions like, "why are my patients' ages coming out in negative numbers?). it seemed like that was sort of a triple-threat excuse: 1) get out of date, 2) project enough dorkiness to make myself repellant, and 3) fix broken data set.

but then an even better proposition came along. a few weeks back i gave my good friend dh a bit of a scolding for his ambivalence about missing his league football game to go watch the one-time showing of his sister's movie at the gay and lesbian film festival. assuming that i'd actually be busy or out of town or something i told him i'd go with him for moral support, as it seemed unlikely that any of his fellow recreational football players would be willing to accompany him.

dh, of course, remembered this promise and called the other day to remind me of the 2pm saturday movie time. his suggestion was that if the date was going well i could just bring him along to the movie with me. in my violent rejection of this plan i perhaps mis-prioritized, starting with 1) "angry lesbian movie is probably not good first date material", and 2) "no way am i exposing this guy to YOU and your unfilteredness."

dh was understandably wounded. "wow, that's pretty harsh! are you REALLY saying that i'm WORSE than the gay and lesbian film festival?!?"

fair enough, but as it turns out the date is a no-go, leaving me alone with my garbled data and some serious art film to look forward to.

well-informed?

boy am i glad that i started reading the newspaper. how else would i find out these crucial pieces of news?

front section, mind you:

was houdini a british spy? 2 biographers suggest escape artist spied on anarchists, hunted couterfeiters, and was slain by spiritualists.

elephants pass mirror test. elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, a measure of self-awareness that until now has been shown definitively only in humans and apes, researchers reported monday.

italian lawmakers raise fuss on toilet rights. the question of whether italy's first transvestite lawmaker should be allowed to use the ladies' room in parliament has triggered a full-blown debate among politicians.

so i'm no closer to knowing who's running for what november 7th, but now i have things to talk about at parties.

office politics

as my blogmate gets girlier, what with the shiny engagement ring and wedding planning, i'm just getting dorkier.

i'm not sure when i became such an incurable geek, but i can't really find a better explanation for my standing in line at office max today to pay for my brand new paper shredder.

in addition to being a big nerd, i apparently have the sense of humor of an adolescent boy... unless any of you would have such a hard time suppressing the nearly irresistible urge to giggle when the nice girl at the check out asked if you needed an lube for the shredder. i had no idea shredders needed lubricating.

so i got home and eagerly started shredding things, wondering if maybe those people at enron were just shredding stuff because it's fun (it's really fun!), and why it took me such a long time to realize that throwing away bank statements and credit card receipts without the aforementioned shredding was probably a bad idea.

apparently the shredder got mad at me for making fun of its intimacy issues - that or its little motor buckled under the pressure of my frenetic shredding... either way, now i've got a glorified trashcan, a guilty conscience, and lots of documents with no place to go.

smoke and mirrors

for the most part i like getting to work someplace brainy like u of c, but sometimes it can be a little tiresome.

for example, there are dedicated "centers" for the following, some with their own buildings:

integrative science
biomedical discovery
translational studies

seriously? do they know how ridiculous they sound?

it runs in the family

From : sister
Sent : Thursday, October 26, 2006 7:32 AM
To : brother
Subject : amazon

i'm officially a dork. i just ordered "medical
statistics at a glance" just because i thought i
might like to read it.

From: brother
Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2006 7:55 AM
To: sister
Subject: re: amazon

i just got a book from the library called "The Box -
How the shipping container made the world smaller and
the world economy bigger."

dork contest:
you 1
me 1

movin' on up

sorry for the recent absence. my good blogmate and i have been a) studying night and day to try and pass our qualifying boards so that we can be full-fledged workin' types who get paid, b) stuck in suburban texas at a prep course, and c) FINALLY actually taking said board exam. soon there will be celebratory drinks.

many things could be said about the pain of boards preparation, i'm sure... like the people in farmer's branch, texas at boards-school who probably now hate us because we spent the entire week laughing in the front row, drawing silly pictures of ourselves hating to study and getting progressively fatter as the week of pizza delivery went by. or the guy who told us he could not possibly go out for margaritas because *he* was taking the boards on monday (for those not in this business, the boards only come once a year, meaning that everybody takes the boards on monday - but more importantly, what are you doing in suburban dallas if not taking advantage of the abundant margaritas???) or we could regale you with stories about the boards themselves, which assess our ability to deal properly with the pressing issues that affect this nation's children, like whether the bite of a black widow or brown recluse spider is worse for you, and what nastiness can be passed on in rabbit poo and mouse urine. sweet.

but now the big climactic two-day test is over, and we have to move on with the rest of our lives. in a way it's actually been nice to have an excuse not to deal with anything. finish project for work? sorry, taking boards. pick location or date for wedding? no can do, boards. as my dad suggested (immediately after hearing news of my engagement), work out a pre-nup? sorry, boards. also, buzzkill. nice. but also boards. post on the blog? well... you see which item comes first.

speaking of blog posts, i hear that the famed naterohan.com is back up and running. to recap, naterohan.com was once owned by naterohan, but it was purchased by some megaconglomerate in a brief moment of lapsed renewal. i look forward to hearing the triumphant tale of its return. but i close with a brief excerpt from butterknife's husband (nobody says it better) regarding a formatting issue... let me just say that my blogmate and i have been happy about the increased blog-tivity in recent months, and if this is why, i am sad but amused.

From : butterknife's husband
Sent : Monday, October 23, 2006 10:25 PM
To : jo-na, naterohan, butterknife, beloved friends
Subject : AAAHHH!!!

Finding naterohan.com back up and running? Awesome.
Linking to other friends' websites to find a reference to the Quaker Steak n' Lube, in Middleton, WI? Awesome.
Finding a link to my sister's website on naterohan.com? Awesome.
Not Awesome: filterless.blogspot.com = sister's website. filterless.blogpost.com = gay porn links.
Naterohan.com -> links to the latter.
glad that's in my browser's history, fellas.

existential wedding bitch

there's no reluctance here. sign me up.
with big looming test just a week away what could be better distraction than a newly engaged blogmate?
my down-to-earth, feet planted on the ground friend can now frequently be found lost in time and space, gazing into the shining sparkles of her new pretty ring- satisfying for me since until now i've had the monopoly on whimsical musing.
plus, there's all sorts of planning... sans bridezilla... and i get to help.
the questions that arise:
how can she drink her morning bloody mary on wedding day without spilling it down the front of her dress?
if we go try on fancy dresses at saks do we actually need to look nice, or can we go nike-clad carrying bottles of evian, as if we do this all the time?
three cheers for low maintenance-ness.

things that are awesome about canada

blood orange gelato
mountains
salmon (oh, the salmon)
smart cars
the cutest bums ever! canadian accented "excuse me, but are you going to eat those leftovers?"
the cutest bum-deniers ever! canadian accented "i'm so sorry, but i have a teenage son who wants that. very sorry."
eh?
aboot.
the largest, most manicured hedges EVER
a mass transit system that spans trains, buses and sea-buses (vancouver) on one ticket
the adorable suggestion by vancouverites that the reason they don't have a mass transit map is because "there are just too many buses" (really? but we can do it in chicago?)
taking a public bus to the wilderness (grouse mountain hiking)
coffee, and its everywhereness, and its goodness
loonies and toonies (how can canada take itself seriously?)
the fact that all service workers in whistler can tell us with no trace of irony that the best local hike is along the river of golden dreams (snicker)
more salmon
watching downhilling mountain bikers flying over our heads while drinking a pitcher of kokanee gold beer
chair lifts that enable us to only hike downhill
hotel hot tub with lake view where we drink straight rum from plastic bottle (classy)
large signs welcoming us to the wilderness
sitting on top of a mountain looking at a glacier, and leaving with new shiny rock. :)

back to school

i'm sorry, dear blog readership, but with my blogmate out of town (hopefully having the time of her life), not only are you all deprived the the funnier more articulate blog-half, but you're also also stuck listening to the boring, silly ranting that usually gets directed at her in small spurts of email, text, and phone conversation over the course of the day.

with that... what could be better than being a grad student with a real salary?

yesterday i attended the first of a year-long series of lectures entitled, "essentials of patient oriented research," a class designed to fulfill some kind of educational requirement of subspecialty training that might more aptly be titled, "how to be academic 101," or at least "how to fill out forms."

it's hard to describe the atmosphere in a room full of doctors, all fresh out of residency, who finally thought they got to act like grown-ups, but who are instead sent back to the classroom. imagine a group of fairly attractive, trendy-looking young professionals who have spent some number of years enslaved at the hospital, who now have to sign in, take a cookie, and sit still for an hour and half. they take attendance and make you move the front of the class and actually call on people to answer questions. the funny thing is that no one even tries to look like they're taking it seriously. people just sit there giggling, smirking, sleeping, trying to figure out how they can get out of coming to school every week but still get credit. the only word i can think of that describes it is "campy."

as i sat there, trying desperately to stay awake as a very enthusiastic dr. something-or-other gloriously pontificated about ideas and imagination and hypothesis and, yes, the theory of relativity, and i battled my inner demons. do i come to this class every week, in the continued (yet futile) hope that these lectures will actually be interesting and may even restore to me the smart braininess of my youth, or do i do like everyone else and just rig the sign-up sheet? did you say that you'll have cookies every week?

but then i did another survey of the room and was quite surprised to discover that i was filled with hotties. non-wedding-ring-wearing hotties. throw in the cookies and you got a deal!

return to sender

i think i'm caught in the middle of something sordid... or at least kinda funny.

i've never had the presence of mind to do it myself, but i've heard a slick way to block unwanted suitors is to hand over your digits with two of the numbers reversed.

seemingly, someone named monica has been handing out my number as some kind of decoy and now i find myself caught up in a tangled web of deceit and shadiness... or at least something a little weird.

first there was a phone call, mid-day, from a peppy sounding young girl,
"hi. monica?"
"nope, sorry wrong number."
"sorry, bye."

and then came the texts (exactly as they appeared in my phone):

"Hey whats up little girl. Hope im not interupting or anything. I was talking to sandra and we were talking about going to hooters this weekend and wanted to see if u wanted to go."

and a few days later...

"Whats going on little girl, just letting u know that nobody's getting together today. So do u got any plants for 2nite."

and finally,

"MONICA!!! Whats up? U doing anything 2nite? Any spot worth hitting up?"

i'm sure the right thing to do would be to send a polite text back alerting the sender of my inadvertent interception of this communication. for example:

"dude, i ain't monica!"
or
"hooters? really?"
or
"i don't know who 'little girl' is but i think she played ya"
or
"interrupted has two "r"s and you have the wrong number"

instead, i'm willfully allowing this debacle to continue... because i think it's entertaining and i'm hoping it gets juicier before it lets up. after much speculation, i still can't figure out what sort of relationship would result in these text messages. flirty, awkward, and a little trashy. little girl?! HOOTERS?!? is that a date? i can't even figure out if the sender is a man or a woman, or if there are multiple senders.

what i do know is that someone is going be pretty embarrassed when they find out that i am the recipient of their carefully crafted correspondence.

rules of engagement

where is emily post when you really need her?

a few blogs ago i suggested that the problem with internet dating was people's inappropriate sense that, having already succumbed to such powerful (yet inherently unromantic) forces, adherence to well-established social norms was unnecessary.

but i stand corrected.

it seems this phenomenon has nothing to do with the internet and that single people are just, well, clueless.

i come to this conclusion after a few phone conversations with one of my good friends who has no trouble meeting men and getting dates without any help from cyberspace, but who is encountering as much deviation from protocol.

people just don't know how to behave anymore.

for the record, if a girl gives you her number, the right time for the first phone call is NOT 1 AM on a saturday night. and if you give your number to a girl and avidly encourage her to call you, and said girl actually does call you as promised, RETURN THE PHONE CALL. easy, right?

given this kind of barbaric courting behavior, i have authorized my friend to use any tactics she deems necessary to retaliate, or at least passive aggressively enforce the rules, and decided that any of the following excuses were fair game when she got called on thursday afternoon for a thursday night date:

1) i'm washing my hair
2) i have plans
3) i don't want to
or (the truth)
4) i can't go out with you because the season premier of grey's anatomy is on.

maybe we all need to go back to finishing school...

adjustment

over brats and beer at my blgomate's house last night i decided that twinset, twinset's husband and i had officially become honorary midwesterners. we didn't meet much protest from the chicago/wisconsin cohort - i guess people are always happy to have accomplices in brat eating and beer drinking.

but i still have some adjusting to do, as i had to take pause after reading this sentence in the paper this morning: "[barack] obama, who was the featured speaker at sen. tom harkin's annual steak fry, has repeatedly said his not a presidential candidate for 2008..."

sen. tom harkin's annual steak fry?!?

filterless survey

given the success of our previous call for the opinions of our loyal readers (see animist electronics: reprise), i'd like to put forth a new question for discussion, banter, and hopefully insult and mockery.
there's always lots of talk about what makes good hangover food, but for all the lying around on the couch you'll do after you've avoided vomiting (or gotten it over with), what movie should you watch? this issue came to mind after i heard about an obviously bad choice for this kind of predicament. i started making a list in my head of better alternatives, and came to the conclusion that almost anything would be a better idea than "happiness" (except for maybe "the hours" or "fear and loathing in las vegas").

i head off my list with:

office space
the big lebowski
better off dead
real genius

i'd like to invite the members of the academy to make their nominations in the category best (and worst) hangover film.

mockery turned on its ugly head

mb has been busy at work lately with many projects, at least one of which seems to involve training on patents and involves the creation of an "inventor's notebook" which i have been mocking ruthlessly. an inventor's notebook? what's that for? i have been composing mb's potential daily entries, which go "dear inventor's notebook: rob is such a tool! i couldn't believe what he said to me today..." and so forth.

but today over dinner, while mb and i were discussing vegetarian cooking (yes, mb, who believes that bacon is not a meat but more of a seasoning, was talking about vegetarian food), he wondered aloud, "you know, with all the advances in technology, i'm surprised that someone hasn't come up with a plant that grows meat." he envisions trees with bacon strips hanging from them, or perhaps a large shrub with coconut-like shells that, when cracked open, bring forth hamburger.

#1: i'm not sure if genetically engineered plants that grow meat would be better or worse for society.
#2: i take back everything i said about the inventor's notebook. mb might actually be the next thomas edison.

boring vortex of despair (you know who you are)

biking home from the dentist this morning i listened to a matchbox 20 song that i've always secretly liked, until i noticed the line, "i'm bleeding and broken."

(subject for another day: aren't fillings supposed to be made of some kind of creepy, indestructible polymer that shouldn't just randomly chip, mandating more dental visits?)

i then started thinking about jessica simpson (who i saw on "the view" while i was sitting in the waiting room at the dentist's) and nick lechey, both of whom are currently plaguing the airways with dueling pop ballads of loss, strength, and redemption.

while i myself am presently stewing in a miserable funk (because my friend offered me her extra ticket to the killers and i can't go because i'll be in dallas doing homework), i'm concerned that black holes of mundane, gloomy drivel are taking over the universe.

rob thomas, jessica simpson, and nick leshea can sort of get away with it because, well, they're too rich and fabulous for anyone to stop them. but such behavior is not for lay people! unless you're david boreanaz (angel), brooding is not attractive. unless you're ben gibbard (death cab for cutie front man), content misery doesn't work. in short, unless you've a whole lot of sex appeal, you don't get to go around flaunting your vague, dysfunctional sadness.

content, discontent

back from a lovely "weekend" in northern wisconsin, if one can describe sunday through thursday as weekend, avoiding all the "wait, why aren't you at work?" questioning. for the record, we weren't at work because our jobs are awesome.

for four days i loved everything.

it was all very informative. i visited the well known tourist spots of shawano, embarrass, and green bay, and learned all sorts of interesting things at my blogmate's childhood home. though i'd been warned about refrigerators that outnumber humans, i still got a good laugh at "the zucchini bars are in the beer fridge." i got to meet nate rohan, fallen blog hero, at a bar where beer was 75 cents (at that price, the seven dollar all you can beer special seemed a bit ambitious). i played lots of cribbage and acquired my own cribbage board, made at least two trips to wal-mart, ate a very satisfying amount of breakfast meat, and somehow over the course of the week worked up the nerve to make myself an online dating profile.

it's taken a little revision to make it a little less redneck - perhaps trying to find a mate while you're in an "oh my god i love wisconsin, farms, and cheese curds!" phase isn't the best idea, but suddenly the iron was hot and it was time to strike.

and now i'm right back to hating everything, and possibly everyone.

with the help of my blogmate i specifically wrote my blurb to sound a little mean and sarcastic hoping to repel a specific kind of earnestness, but i failed miserably. why does everyone have to be so disgustingly nice? and also boring? and also have absolutely no sense of humor?

i don't mean to be harsh - clearly it takes some guts to accept your fate and join the online dating pool, and probably takes even more guts to actually send out messages, but dear god people, keep it together.

i understand that it's fashionable for men to have feelings (and for the most part i'm all for it), but "i am looking for my soulmate" is totally uncalled for. just because you're vulnerable enough to use a dating service doesn't mean you have to put it ALL out there for everyone to see all at once. sooner or later you can tell me all about your parents' marriage and your last relationship and your love of puppies, but the rules of social engagement can't all get suspended just because it's the internet.

and can we ban the use of the words, "cuddle," "romantic," "big heart," and "teddy bear?"

"i am looking for my soulmate," has become so generic that i'm putting in the category of "my style is pottery barn." it goes without saying. also going without saying are, "i like sports," "family is important to me," and "i want a girl who doesn't play games."

so here it is:
swf iso emotionally stifled, slightly angry, sarcastic guy who is appropriately self-deprecating about reading personals ads and will tolerate my love of buffy the vampire slayer. will negotiate with social smokers. please submit avatar.

yogurt vs gasoline

several days ago, at my good blogmate's suggestion, we attended a bicycle film festival at columbia college (which basically meant every tattooed bike messenger in the city drinking pbr in cans and hollering at the screen). there was a funny short film by the above title in which a guy on a road bike raced his brother on a motorcycle in getting across the city. you can predict what happens - guy on road bike coasts merrily down a bike path, while motorcyclist gets stuck in all kinds of traffic, and road biker wins by a lot. but it was cute - every time they showed the road biker, ice-cream-guy-style music would play, the weather looked a little nicer, people were waving; every time they showed the motorcyclist the music got angrier, people were honking, etc.

i've thought about this little short several times in the days since then. first of all, it's definitely inspired me to ride my bike more often, and i've tried riding to work a few times (mb does it all the time since he works downtown, but it's an 8-mile ride to the south side for me). it's a fun ride, especially when the gay games was being held all over the city and i got to ride past the men's water polo team hovering outside of the uic pool waiting for results, and the women's softball tournament in washington park. second, with the summer classes i've been taking, i haven't had tons of time for leisurely exercise, so i've been combining my trips to work/class with my exercise by bike-muting. but third, and most importantly, with the summer classes and the bike-muting i haven't had much time or energy left to go shopping, and as a result my credit card bills look fabulous. i couldn't believe how much less i've spent in the past two months! it's hard to drop $100 at target when i'll have to carry the results on my back.

naturally, i can't leave a good thing alone, and conclude that biking leads to a more active and less expensive lifestyle. now that classes are done (and thanks again to ck and my good blogmate for accompanying my rum-drinking celebratory post-exams afternoon yesterday) and i'm up a few modest dollars, it's shopping time.

goodbye, hippie-grad-student-low-consumer lifestyle - he-LLO, sale racks!

b.y.o. lawn chair

it should be no surprise to any of you that i'm frequently guilty of cinematic slumming. the fact that i actually own "bring it on" might tip you off. no big shock, then, that i went to see "step up" the night it opened. (my partner in crime for the evening was sm, my new ally in pop teen culture obsession, who was more than willing to delay watching a few episodes of dark, broody angel.) i won't lie - i thought "step up" was great. good dancing, pretty people, predictable story line, happy ending.

but i'm beginning to wonder how my (lovely, yet) snobby, eccentric, vegetarian euro-parents produced a daughter who loves smash box-office dance films... and apparently tailgaiting.

for those of you who managed to miss all the media fanfare (and the deafening roar of the planes overhead), this weekend was the chicago air and water show, a two day blitz of military planes and skydivers doing crazy dare-devil tricks over lake michigan for a crowd of thousands of beer-drinking, hot-dog eating onlookers. i think my blogmate remains a little bewildered at what all the fuss is about, but both of us have spent enough time getting educated by behemoth state schools to know that any excuse to sit in a folding chair next to the grill eating potato chips and sipping miller light is a good one. so much the better if there are actually exciting things happening in the sky overhead.

you'd think i'd be consistent enough in my love of such mainstream fare as to admit that i'm not really tongue-in-cheek about it anymore, and that i'd not be quite so fickle when it comes to my snob-quotient. as such, you'd think that i would have been friendly to the cute guy who was actually nice enough to flirt with me, and would have surpressed the urge to completely high-brow him, even if i did think he was a 21 year-old ticket scalper (he wasn't).

the inner redneck: never there when you really need it.

back on the bandwagon again

though i'll take a fair amount of slack from my good blogmate (mgbm) about my inability to come through with my trademark (though usually ineffective) flirting after she plunked me down in a room full of cute, smart, sweaty runners, i'd like to point something out. mgbm has always been the one to call me out for my chronic bandwagon-ness, especially when it comes to fashion and sporting events... but suddenly, now that i've hopped onto her particular bandwagon, i've seen surprisingly little of her patented smirk/eyebrow-raise combo.

now that i've abruptly decided that the triathlon is the only thing i've ever wanted to do, and have started biking, and swimming, and even running occasionally (with the concomitant shopping for the massive amounts of gear all these activities require), it's more like a big heave of relief coming from the mgbm/mb cohort. for one thing, we decided a long time ago that what i need is an outdoorsy boy, but mostly the issue is keeping up with the jones'. all of a sudden it seems like everyone i know only ever wants to go running, swimming, or biking, and by a bizarre shift in the tide i actually enjoy running, swimming, and biking.

all this is 1) making me feel pretty good, 2) enabling shopping, 3) enabling eating, and 4) generating good people-watching and good stories.

good people-watching at the bicycle film festival where possibly every punk, tattooed, urban bike warrior in chicago had amassed to drink old style in a can...

and good stories after i went solo to ohio street beach to frolic in my new wetsuit and got glared at by a ridiculous tri-trainer who was taking himself WAY too seriously as he lubed himself up to get into his wet suit, and leered at me angrily in a "what is this ridiculous amateur doing on my beach?" sort of way. not only was mgbm quite sympathetic as i told her this story, but she glorified it, and my unfair persecution to some of our collective tri friends.

peer pressure is awesome.

animist electronics (reprise)

i have mentioned in old blogs that i assign tendencies and preferences to my electronics, much to the dismay of my computer engineer brother. you know, the cd player doesn't skip; it's attention starved and wants to be held. the blender simply enjoys fireworks. etc. at some level i know none of this is true, but with one exception: my mp3 player truly loves me and wants me to be happy.

i noticed this in the winter during the hustle up the hancock, a benefit for the american lung association, when my play mix started with hooverphonic "lung" and some similarly appropriate set of songs for me. during my last few weeks of training for the chicago distance classic half marathon, my playlist has consistently shuffled to bubba sparxxx "ugly" every single time i get to the financial/chicago board of trade area. (let's not start too many accusations about just what bubba sparxxx is doing on my shuffle. or ask me how i feel about the cbot. i didn't pass judgement; my mp3 player did.) one day when i was down by the lake feeling nostalgic for st. lucia, my mp3 player kicked out in sequence something i can appropriately call a "tempo run" without having to do any speedwork, although this might only be appreciated by my blogmate (who drunkenly listened to as much caribbean mtv as i did): don omar "bandoleros," rihanna "pon de replay," panjabi mc "jogi," damian marley (i forget which one), and rupee all in a row. it picks fast songs when i need a pick me up, slower ones when i need a break, and rounded me out today during the race by playing dave matthew's "last stop" at the actual last water stop of the run. lovely.

but i'm sad to report that the playlist is getting a little old. mostly because i blew through it all in one pleasant but blister-filled morning. so i'm soliciting suggestions for new running tunes from a crew that knows more music than i do. all moby, beastie boys, groove armada taken care of. retro welcome, doesn't have to be techno (matisyahu "king without a crown" works just fine), doesn't have to even be good (thanks to the good people at niketown for getting this in my head, arrested development "tennessee" is going on next round). your thoughts?

darwin (award nominee) for president?

we don't generally post anything political on our blog, but this is amazing. i have some questions:

1. a zinc mine?
2. really?
3. a zinc mine?

back to the drawing board

series of exchanges had today during statistics class:

me (to classmate): *something non-committal about stats ta, who i did not tell classmate that i have been considering as a potential set-up for a couple of my friends.*
classmate: "[stats ta] needs a girlfriend."
me: "you know, if i knew that he were single, i'd try to set him up with someone."
classmate (confused): "really? but [stats ta] is a big dork!"
classmate (again, light bulb on): "then again, i guess that's better in some ways. i guess my husband is kind of a dork."
me: [say nothing, try not to agree even though i know her husband, who is bald and wears bowties, and is, in fact, a dork]
classmate: "i guess... hey, didn't you just tell me that your boyfriend does SAS for work? so he's a dork too!"
me (sorry, mb): "yeah, he's cute, but he's kind of a dork."

*enter stats ta and professor. professor makes lame math jokes. stats ta laughs.*
me (to classmate): "mathematicians have no sense of humor."
classmate: [says nothing, engrossed in class, better student than i]

*enter other guy in class i have been vaguely considering as set-up potential for friends.*
me (to guy2): "mathematicians have no sense of humor."
guy2 (laughing at stats jokes): "[stats ta] is the (i kid you not) mac daddy."
me (to self): this place is hopeless.

-----

from this afternoon i conclude that 1) mathematicians have no sense of humor, and 2) neither do people involved in summer statistics classes.

sorry, girls. i tried, but even if they're single you can't have these guys. i couldn't take it.

i am such a child

don't ask me why mb and i found ourselves reading about kool-aid on wikipedia this evening.
but look at the list of flavors. seriously, did someone put one of these in thinking nobody would read about kool-aid?

sour grapes

egocentrism is not without its pittfalls. perhaps if i didn't see myself as quite so much the center of my own little universe i'd spend alot less time feeling slighted.
i say this after feeling personally and specifically persecuted after receiving an invite over myspace to join some kind of jewish american singles group, and after indulging in some quality fuming in the car this afternoon, consumed by the conviction that attractive men pushing baby carriages exist for the single purpose of making me feel jealous and spiteful.

there goes the neighborhood

it's not that i was surprised that the sheffield garden walk was a big, drunken frat party. i knew exactly what was in store for me. and it was totally worth it to spend an hour and a half ogling the lead singer of better than ezra...

it was also worth it, just in the overhearing of this conversation between tiny blond girl (in her tiny shorts and tiny tank top) and nondescript guy (who was admittedly attractive in an abercrombie kind of way):

girl: "hey, i think i know you!"
guy: "really? how do you think you know me?"
girl: "i think we made out in a bar!"
guy: "really?"
girl: "yeah! some bar in viagra triangle!"

it was even better than the other abercrombie guy whom i passed right as he was loudly belching into his cell phone.

drunkonomics

you will be happy to know that my bad attitude is fixed.

i had a little meltdown in the office today, and forced my blogmate to stop what she was doing (actual work) to deal with my anger at school, namely, my complete lack of understanding of the famous economics guy (hmm... feg? it's so simple and perfect) running this course i'm taking. turns out the feg thinks we all understand calculus, or at least variables, and definitely supply and demand. but the feg is teaching hospital staff, not economists, and we health care people are not theoretical types. at one point a few years ago i told my blogmate that working had killed my capacity for abstraction (and to her great credit, my blogmate consoled me that at least i'd ever had it, and noticed when it was gone). so, ever helpful, my good blogmate suggested several practical strategies for surviving the feg, including getting help from her brother, who turns out to be an economics-for-dummies instructor, or from my sociologist friend who actually picks girls to date based on their understanding of statistics.

i have a better solution: gin. it turns out that one g&t makes indifference curves more tolerable. perhaps after two, i will forgive the feg for assigning reading that we never discuss in class, and after three, i might forgive the fact that this class is supposed to be about health research and not economics in the first place.

don't talk to me about the law of diminishing returns. i don't want to hear it.

mb:1. sea lions: 0.

you will all be happy to know (and unsurprised if you know him) that mb did not get eaten by sea lions today in the alcatraz challenge. in fact, he thinks he took 17th place overall and 3rd in his age group. this for a 1.5 mile swim through choppy sea water and a 7-mile run up hilly switchbacks, none of which we actually have in chicago, so he did well.

meanwhile, back at the ranch, i have to learn that just because i am biking on roads and paths with many other people this weekend, that does not give me free license to mumble obscenities like i typically do while driving. on my bike people can actually hear me, which has been problematic. a very surprised triathlete putting on his socks certainly did hustle to get out of my way, though.

head above water

i have no idea how i earned the college reputation of being the zen roommate. granted, in our house of 3, my roommates were a pierced angry feminist social work/chemistry major and a tiny punk neurotic microbiologist who's allergic to everything, so that might not be saying much. but it certainly doesn't fit my recent bouts of irrational anger.

briefly, the good mb is training for some event this weekend involving flying to san francisco and swimming from alcatraz to the mainland then running 7 miles. in preparation for said event, many negotiations have been had regarding training swims in lake michigan. i had recently lost a long-standing bet in which he insisted that the ohio street beach is a mecca for crazy triathlete swimmers and i told him crazy triathletes did not deserve their own mecca. having discovered said mecca (there are lane ropes in the water and up to 100 people at a time decked in head-to-toe spandex), i finally agreed that we could go swimming there. does mb accept this graciously? of course not. he blinks at me a few times and says (to his girlfriend who has just conceded that she is wrong) "i was actually hoping we could drive to the point and swim in the big scary open cold pointy waves, because that will more closely simulate the conditions at alcatraz." so now every single time a swimming-related negotiation arises (which in our household is frequent) i am immediately angry. even though i like swimming, and even actually like swimming in the big scary cold pointy waves off the point. but what kind of person takes his girlfriend's concession of defeat and pushes even further? and then, this weekend when we finally agreed to a morning of swimming and lounging at the beach, found out that the beach was closed (e coli), and on my return later to discover a re-opened beach, i thought i was doing the right thing and called mb to have him join me for the swimming i assumed he desired. do i get any thanks? no, i get "i think you like to do too many things. can't we just sit instead?" sit? am i the one who's planning to fly cross-country to plow through sea-lion infested 50-degree water? so, in conclusion, swimming = angry.

with the upcoming event at alcatraz this weekend, i thought that my random angriness might be over, but fast forward to my current enrollment in this summer course through work that teaches research methods and cost-effectiveness analysis and such. now, my vocabulary is pretty good, but i could not for the life of me understand why every single instructor needed to use the word "heuristically" in every lecture. each time it comes up i have gotten a little madder. do they need a thesaurus? then i asked mb to look it up online, and discovered that "heuristically" means "rule of thumb," or "a set of guidelines based on estimates or best guesses instead of actual data." this explains why economists love it. i concede.

in the end, i have a new job that lets me take classes, a hobby involving playing at the beach, and a new word that i can use for just about anything and sound smarter. and blog material to satisfy my recently-deserted blogmate and self-appointed critic sm (which reminds me, s, when you were in law school i can count on one hand the number of phone calls i got from you, so if i don't have a blog for a few weeks while i'm trying to be in school and start a new job, i don't want to hear it. you're long since forgiven for the few-year pause in correspondence, but if it happens while you're in new york i will show up on your doorstep anyway and demand to be entertained. heuristically, of course. i think.)

defensive action

before my blogmate has a chance to publicly mock me about my consistent and obvious sports watching bandwagon-ness allow me to self-deprecate.

yet again, my life has been taken over my obsession with the final rounds of a sport that i normally care nothing about. if you ask my blogmate she'll tell you that i do this all the time.

i understand that as a 50% french person it's my moral and genetic obligation to care about "football" (i think you can only spell it "futbol" if you're actually a fan of ridiculous, latino-style, "gooooooooool"-screaming commentating, a phenomenon that i personally find to be extremely irritating).

i've always been a bit of a disappointment to some of my french relatives, mostly for my inherent american-ness, but also for my inability to serve any useful function in the spontaneous soccer matches that take place before, during, and after summer gatherings -the rules are such that everyone plays, shoes or not, skirt or not, and that wrath of my grandmother when you've taken out her geraniums is the price you pay for participating in the national pastime.

the truth, i've never really cared about soccer... until now... for the following reasons...

1) respectable excuse to repeatedly hang out in bars in the middle of the day
2) recognition from my boss that this is important, such that he actually makes sure i get out of work in time
3) keeping up with the jones' - i don't know if it's a chicago thing, but EVERYONE is talking about this. it's like reading middlesex or eating sushi - it's necessary data gathering so that you can talk to people at parties
4) chance to publicly love france
5) weird visceral satisfaction - for some reason i keep doing this
and, finally
6) REALLY HOT GUYS with nice legs and really emotive faces who cry like babies when they lose and rip their shirts of when they're happy. i spend most of my waking hours conjuring up schemes by which i get to marry zinedine zidane.

is there a support group for this?

at least you can pick your friends

one of the many nice things about my blogmate's new neighborhood is that she lives stumbling distance from the four corners (affectionately self-dubbed T4C) on taylor street. admittedly, liking T4C is about as challenging as liking death cab for cutie - it's a perfect bar, right down to the light fixtures.

yesterday, as my blogmate and i sidled up to the bar with the cribbage board while we waited for mb to get back from swimming, i instantly fell in love with bartender. tall, punk, devastatingly attractive british boy with an almost comically sexy british accent. he was like a character in a nick hornby novel, without the requisite broodiness. i was so busy gawking at him that my blogmate was left with a pretty lousy cribbage partner.

eventually another hot british guy with an equally soul-melty accent ("what'll you have, love?") replaced the first, and just as i was thinking that i was never going to another bar ever again, the music was muted and everyone turned their attention to the metromix review of T4C that came on TV. apparently "hot bartenders" gets billed just below, "ten beers on fancy european taps," and "tater tots" as the bar's main perks.

before i could get good and depressed about the reality that i wasn't the only one who knew about the dreamy bartenders, in came twinset with a personal crisis that i found so entertaining that i forgot all about my new soulmate(s).

for reasons that are ultimately generous and nice, twinset's mother-in-law is moving to chicago this weekend. let's start out by saying that 1) this is not a surprise and 2) twinset is fundamentally pleased with this decision. they've been talking about this at least as long as i've known them... so it's a bit of head scratcher that suddenly this whole thing is going down in such a flustered state of chaos. it seems that all of a sudden mother-in-law sold her house (somewhere east-coasty) much faster than anyone had anticipated, leaving twinset and her husband not very much time to work out alot of details like, where was she going to live?, and how was she going to get here?

but the real question has become, what are they going to do about the baby grand piano, which apparently must accompany mother-in-law to chicago? apparently there are no relatives anywhere up the eastern seaboard who want this piano and NO ONE (not even mother-in-law) actually plays the piano, but someday potential grand children may need piano lessons.

twinset and her husband live a 2 bedroom lofted sort of place downtown and cannot, WILL NOT accommodate this piano, so the decision has been made that the baby grand will go with mother-in-law into her (drumroll please) ONE BEDROOM DOWNTOWN APARTMENT.

as you can imagine, a transcontinental piano move is an expensive, big deal. and it's probably not a reasonable suggestion (though it mother-in-law did put it out there) that the piano could get put on its side and shoved in the walk-in-closet.

my blogmate, mb, and i were in stitches by this point, with mb saying that if it were a shiny white baby grand that he himself could make room for it, fulfilling some kind of john lennon fantasy in which my blogmate played it while wearing a white ballgown and he stood by and gazed at her while wearing a white tuxedo. we all made helpful suggestions like, "maybe your mother and law can put down an egg-crate and sleep on top of the piano," and "maybe one day you guys could use it as a baby crib." then we started placing bets on how long it would take for the piano to wind up in twinset's apartment, as we described vivid disaster scenarios on moving day. "what it the piano exceeds the weight restriction of the freight elevator?" and "what if it won't fit through the door?"

good times.

friends with desk jobs

coming home from a stroll (read: shopping) around lakeview this afternoon, i was feeling cheerful until i got to my building. first off, big box addressed to me sitting outside the front door, clearly marked "dell" on the side. only slightly less effective than "steal this piece of expensive electronic equipment," if you ask me. i'm also marginally annoyed that i couldn't trade in the free wireless router for, say, a cheaper computer, since i already have a wireless router, but that's another story.

anyway, i quickly had to shove the "why are the dell delivery guys idiots?" thoughts out of my head to make room for, "why does the lobby smell like feet?" and "why is the elevator making such creepy lurching movements and horrible sounds?"

i was feeling cranky about these things for a minute, but then i checked my email and immediately felt better. i'd like to formally thank my good blogmate (mgbm) for bringing her good friend sm into the mix... mostly because between mgbm and sm i now get TONS of emails.

to my extraordinary delight, sm loves many of the things i like, such as figure skating and boys. recently, she has joined me in compulsive buffy the vampire slayer watching. her play by play of the experience makes me 1) feel better about my own unhealthy obsession, 2) re-experience the entire series, and 3) have many messages in my inbox all the time. it's great.

sm has become so predictable in her buffy-related correspondence that when i got a completely anonymous text message on my cell phone that only read, "omg! oz is a werewolf?" i knew who it was and what it was about without any hesitation.

further enhancing my internet experience has been the fact that, despite having what i suspect is a fairly hectic work schedule, mgbm has been sending me many, funny little emails lately, mostly in the "i hate everything" variety.

so let's drink to mgbm, sm, friends with time to email, the internet, and buffy the vampire slayer... and angel, because he's hot.

all systems go?

i'm really not one for conspiracy theory, or even one to revel in the incompetance of government agencies...

and i understand that euphemisms sometimes serve an important social function...

but i was listening to a story this morning on NPR about the upcoming NASA launch of space shuttle discovery and i found it pretty interesting.

apparently the 20 highest ranking NASA guys had their big vote the other day - the launch is scheduled as planned, even though the chief engineer and the head of SAFETY voted "no go."

now, i know absolutely nothing about rocket science, but this decision makes me nervous.
the HEAD ENGINEER and HEAD SAFETY GUYS think this a bad idea and we're doing it anyway? disconcerting on a tangible level, and also in more of a spidy sense way. aren't they just asking for something bad to happen, what with going ahead with a launch inspite of this very public vote.

the most entertaining aspect of the story was actually the "go" executives talking about why they were pro-launch. sure, there have been a few "loss of vehicle incidents," but these no go votes represent "healthy debate."

i'm not reassured.

SWM seeks punctual SWF

by the time i was done with my work day and my blogmate had completed operation buy-new-plants-for-new-backyard, and by the time we were both done battling northside, pre-cubs-game traffic we were both ready for a beer or three. it was thus with much relief that we finally managed to find each other at the village tap. i drank stella and she drank molasses (otherwise known as rogue hazelnut) and we munched on spinach and mushroom quesedillas feeling pretty darned good about ourselves...

and that was before we'd even realized how good we had it.

come to find out that my good blogmate had been wondering why she been greeted with such a welcoming grin by a certain suit-wearing gentleman hanging out in the bar, awkwardly without escort. she then arranged herself at a table such that she couldn't see what i was seeing which was a markedly attractive, well-dressed man pacing nervously around the bar, until he was finally joined by a similarly nervous woman who greeted him with a rather stiff handshake.

it was only then that i reported my discovery of the obviously internet-type blind date that was happening to my soon-to-be enlightened blogmate, who finally understood the frantic pre-drinking that she'd been observing while she waited for me.

we then proceeded that have a good, prolonged laugh at the new couple's expense, and developed various creative, though ultimately unfulfilled schemes to send the guy a drink as a condolence pride for 1) being on a blind date 2) having his date show up WAY late and 3) being busted for it by us. that said, we're not quite that mean, and we decided to leave it alone.

and i decided that i had another airtight reason not to go on j-date.

foreplay

as a general rule i try to avoid work-related shop talk on the blog. if i have to talk about my job i try to generalize things as much as possible, maintaining the illusion to my audience (and mostly to myself) that i'm just like everyone else.

but screw that.

i've had some minor health problems in the last few weeks that have resulted in my having to share various bits of very personal information with various doctors, all of whom have turned out to be uncomfortably aged-matched male peers. if you're a single girl and you're a pediatrics resident, the absolute last person you want examining you is single, boy as your internal medicine resident, especially when you work at the same hospital as him. it's just weird.

when the nephrology fellow wanted to know when i'd last smoked marijuana and did i prefer sex with men, women or both, that was awkward, but at least the weirdness was blunted by his being dorky and married. today when i went for my kidney ultrasound i was especially horrified to discover that my test would not be done by the fat, middle-aged radiology tech i was expecting, but by a young trendy resident with cute shaggy hair who was, let's just say it, hot... and definitely not wearing a wedding ring. i would have been completely mortified by the situation if he hadn't been so obviously mortified. instead i decided to lay back and have a good internal laugh at the comical absurdity of the situation.

"so you didn't want to wear a, um, gown?"
"she said i didn't have to. do you want me to?"
"uh, i don't know. i guess this is fine."

excrutiating.

and this is all before he couldn't actually find my left kidney and needed to call in his boss, who proceeded to school him in front of me,
"i've told you before you need to set the internal edge definition to 2" (or some other piece of technical hoopla that i didn't understand).
by the time it was all over i was lying along on the stretcher, covered with ultrasound gel, feeling like i needed to smoke a cigarette.

all i can say is, you don't really know awkwardness until a cute radiology resident puts an ultrasound probe down your pants.

there goes the neighborhood

i understand that there's nothing edgy about living in boystown. but that's part of its appeal. it's safe, the gardens are well groomed, and it's quiet. or at least, it used to be quiet.

a few months ago i woke up to the sounds of a loud, fairly awkward shouting match taking place in the street below. it was one of those domestic arguments that you really don't want to overhear - i felt a little embarassed just lying in bed listening to it, not only for its obviously not being meant for public consumption, but for it's awful, psych 101 quality, to the tune of, "YOU'RE UGLY! YOU'RE UGLY ON THE INSIDE!" painful, right?

not as painful as the fight that woke me a few days ago, i think between the same two people. they carried on long enough for me to make a number of observations about them, the first being that they were loud, obnoxious morons who both seemed to have been the recipients of exactly the wrong amount of education. enough schooling to know a few 3 syllable words, but not enough to know quite how to use them, or to quell the overwhelming springer factor. it started out with alot of "YOU'RE SO HYPOCRITICAL!" and "WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I HAVE THAT OBLIGATION?" before things started really degenerating. to follow there was alot of "FAT SLUT!" and "LAZY WHORE!" and finally a resounding chorus of "NO YOU SHUT UP!" before the cops finally came.

classy.

hatred on wheels

i hate everything.

no offense to my blogmate and mb (mbm & mb...) but today i hate bicycles and the people who ride them.

after spending the better part of last week wallowing in congested, vomiting misery on my couch i was finally forced to pull myself together and go to work today... but from the second i left my apartment it was all wrong. i was pulling out of the driveway before i realized that my nice hot cup of coffee was still sitting on the kitchen counter, and on the road less than 3 minutes before everything went to hell. i was specifically aware that bike the drive (the yearly cyclist love fest where they close off LSD to cars for some good, old-fashioned two-wheeled fun) was happening this weekend, but specifically thought that it was happening yesterday. i'm still way too chicago-dumb to attempt an efficient maneuver through city streets without any help from mapquest, and proceded to work my way south in a slow, disorganized way that was anything but sexy... and that landed me at work a good 20 minutes late.

things might have moved a little faster had it not been for all the wholesome, happy, bike-helmeted families that were meandering their way westward, obstructing not only my usual route to work but also clogging every intersection between me and my destination.

i'd like to think that my irrational rage was born from my own, inner outdoorsy-ness and my sadness that i couldn't join in on the fun. but really i'm just a bitter girl who hates everything.

yours in hating everything,

as i've previously mentioned, i've recently picked up the habit of serially text-paging my blogmate messages that only say "i hate everything" or some variant thereof.

please add weather to the list of things that i hate.

as my blogmate recently pointed out, i compulsively check my email every morning when i wake up. what my blogmate probably doesn't know is that like clockwork, when i'm done checking my email i check the weather forecast.

but there's no point. in addition to never having any email at 5:30 in the morning (unless my blogmate was up late and desperately needing to tell me something), the weather has absolutely no bearing on my life.

though i resent, in theory, the fact that it's late may and still consistently darned cold outside, neither rain, nor sleet nor hail change things for me at all. nice weather, nasty weather, either way i go to work and come home and only experience the weather for the duration of my drive down lakeshore. ok, i'm occasionally inconvenienced when it's raining as i walk the 12 yards between the parking lot and the door, but that's about it.

in fact, the impact the weather has had on me lately me is to 1) make me extremely resentful when people tell me how nice it is outside and 2) make me miserably sick for the last 6 days. not sick enough to keep me home from work. just enough to give me that crappy, death-warmed-over feeling.

my miserable allergy-attack-cold thing led me to walgreens today, where the guy behind the counter wouldn't sell me any generic sudafed because i didn't have ID. i'm two weeks from turning 29 and i'm getting carded for cold medicine.

i also hate cold medicine, my need for it, and my lack of ability to buy any.

to our very good and guilt-ridden friends...

you are all lovely people.

mb and i are very excited about the upcoming move, and have been talking about the various stages of packing, gas leaks, throwing things away, etc. with many of you. and like good friends, you have all been happy for us. we love you and are excited to welcome you to our new home in a week or so.

let us set the record straight to ease your collective conscience. we are hiring movers. i have never seen so many confused and vaguely guilty faces, ranging from the explicit "umm, i know it's my job as friend to offer to help you to move -- do you need me?" to the more subtle "yeah... ummm... so my sister? is also moving that day. sorry, would love to help you..." to the joyful "sweet! no more third-floor walk-up?"

we understand your reluctance to move our furniture -- you've already helped us so many times in the last three years, have lost toenails and watches on the steep wooden back staircase, have lost parts of your cement front driveways while i come careening through in a truck whose size exceeds my driving skills. we are also reluctant to move our own furniture. and to those who have regularly asked "you're HIRING? like paying MONEY? that doesn't seem like you," yes, even we think it's worth it this time.

so rest easy, thank you for three years of lifting, dragging, lending showers when ours stops working, laundry when ours stops working, etc. your next job will be to come admire the new place. there will be beer. we'll keep you posted.

self-subversive?

excellent. plan avoid-yuppie-lifestyle is well underway.

after a pleasant conversation with a co-worker about her husband and kids, and her laughing about how much more exciting the single life must be, i headed off for work saturday morning. when mb picked me up (raining, no car, etc.) we returned to casa hyde park, which had been brewing a huge gas leak all day. this seemed to explain mb's headache and nausea, i guess... so i called and argued with the building manager for awhile, who finally came up to check out the situation, decided that he personally did not smell any gas, and left. i called the gas company, who in 30 minutes showed up and validated our concerns by saying that they could smell it halfway up the stairs. now having a new connector of some sort, we opened all the windows, turned on the fans, and decided to have that single night on the town my friend had been mentioning. mb made the wise suggestion that since we're leaving hyde park in 2 short weeks, we owe it to the 'hood to spend our evening here. fish and chips at the very deserted pub were good, but memoirs of a geisha was not. that movie is pain heaped with awkwardness complicated by suffering and more pain. an hour in, i poked mb and mentioned that the movie was a little weird. he whispered back that he'd rather be sniffing gas fumes. so back we went, and spent the rest of our most awesome evening in a now gas-fume-free but freezing apartment.

so now things are well-ventilated and everything, and we're getting ready to move soon. (aside: we think the new place should have a name, like the kennedy's "wexford" or something. we're debating between "snootington" and "fancington." any votes?) lest i worry about our immediately fitting in to the new neighborhood and becoming the yuppies that we fear, the place won't look clean or conservative any time soon. when i mentioned that i'd picked up 20+ copies of a local lgbt paper, i didn't mean for packing gifts, i meant for packing our apartment. our granite counters and stainless steel appliances will easily be tempered by the million scantily clad men smiling from the pages of the chicago free press.

even better, mb reminded me that some of our new neighbors are mormons. he's planning the welcoming statement now: "hi, i'm mb and this is my live-in girlfriend. it's great to meet you! hey, would you mind giving me a hand carrying this crate of booze wrapped in soft gay porn?"

we're going to fit right in.

help a girl out

why didn't someone tell me that chicago free press was a gay men's newspaper before i picked up 20 copies of it for packing filler?

material girl? a flight of ideas.

i am rapidly but anxiously reaching the conclusion that stuff is good.

after months of mocking my blogmate's dental hygiene preferences, i recently purchased one of those new battery-operated auto-rotating toothbrushes. i can honestly say that my teeth haven't felt this clean since, well, since i last saw dentists regularly. (i'm sorry, but on the south side the only dentists i've found who take my insurance are named rufus, and i can't get past it.) so i'm pleased with the new discovery (and mb is super jealous), but added to my increasing love of pedicures and accessories... it's becoming a problem. we're also moving in a few weeks, leaving behind our undergrad-style walk-up where the floors slant and the lights dim when the microwave comes on, in favor of a newer place with extras like washer-dryer, central heat and air, shower that (hopefully) works on demand.

so here i am, feeling a little guilty and trying to avoid the slippery slope, feeling good for the decision not to replace stella right away and share mb's car for awhile, and who is trying to interfere? my parents. they think it's completely unreasonable that i not have my own car and are calling every other day to find out if i've bought another yet. their reasons thus far:

"but you need one"
"but then you won't come visit us"
"don't you work?"

so i think the material line is jagged. i'm completely willing to justify a much more frivolous though inexpensive option like electric toothbrush (mmmm...) but getting more stubborn by the phone call about not replacing stella, which i could probably put to better use than a crest uber-kleen or whatever. i'm not sure where the line is; i'm currently planning to save money by taking a wine-making class down in beverly, but then buy a big wine rack to house the case of cheap wine that will then come home with me.

so i'm inconsistent. or maybe i'm doing just fine, and the electric toothbrush and wine rack are just fine as long as i don't have gold chains for my palm pilot holster like guido. that's the best thing about guido. all of the rest of our idiosyncrasies smooth right over.

goodbye guido, bye-bye beefcake

at 2:30 AM this morning i found myself lying wide awake in bed, completely unable to fall back asleep, trying to sort out which unpleasant factoids about my ex-boyfriend were actually true (yes, he did get married to someone else uncomfortably close to the time we broke up, no, he i and did not get married and divorced in october of 2003). i fell back asleep just in time for my alarm to go off at which point i dragged myself out of bed and actually managed to get myself to work a few minutes early, giving me just enough time to enjoy a nice bowl of oatmeal before getting started on my day. but a leisurely breakfast wasn't really in the cards for me, and no sooner than i had walked in the door i found myself bombarded by angry phone calls from angry people who had me convinced that i was a blind, incompetent moron.

i was feeling pretty lousy about the way the day was going until i looked around and noticed the conspicuous absence of our visiting intern guido (or at least that should have been his name - he also went by beefcake or "that body builder guy")...

then things started looking up.

working with guido was a double whammy of awfulness. for starters, he was possibly the most useless rotator we've ever had. i'll never know if he was actually as thick-headed as he seemed to be, but i've never seen anyone demonstrate such an astounding lack of work ethic. getting him to do anything was like hitting your head against a wall.

for all his uselessness, he might have gotten away with it had he made a little less of an aesthetic spectacle of himself. he was completely ridiculous. he was about as thick as he was tall, with a shiny bald head and perpetually red face. not his fault, except that one could only become so muscle-y by spending all one's waking hours at the gym (possibly with the help of anabolic steroids). and he wasn't just huge and thuggish. he wore horrible clothes - baggy pants with pleats in weird colors with tight shirts and shoes and belts that always perfectly matched and were always just a bit too ornate. he would then adorn these belts with various gadgets, all held in holsters with little gold chains. palm pilot, cell phone, beeper, stethoscope. he even had holsters for his ridiculous pens. i realize that it sounds silly to hate someone for their choice of writing instrument, but every day he would show up with a different, big, shiny, obnoxious fountain pen. you'd think with such a flashy pen he'd write something down occasionally, but you'd be wrong.

so although i keep emailing and text-ing my blogmate messages that only say, "i hate everything," i at least have the solace of knowing that i never have to see guido again.

freak show

ok. now, i understand that 1) i have no love life at all and am in no position to casually wave off potential suitors and 2) that i am not infrequently guilty of the crime of randomly and inappropriately becoming infatuated with people i don't know and cannot have. seriously- farbeit from me to criticize someone for their romantic whimsy. but the following scenarios have occurred this weekend and i take this constellation of events as a bad sign.

1) at the uber-trendy vida lounge on cinco de mayo some 22-year-old guy in a sox jersey and big (stupid) sombrero actually groped my chest under the thinly veiled guise of examining my blinky corona necklace party favor.
2) at a random dive bar on milwaukee and addison a greasy pony-tailed man in one of those baja hoodies that were so popular in 1993 approached ck and i to see if either one of us gave a good massage, because he had just beaten up his friend and his friend could sure use a good massage.
and finally
3) roy the cable guy came knocking yesterday afternoon (interrupting my transfixtion on my mind-numbing, error-ridden spread sheets) and after craning his neck around the door to see the inside of my apartment tried to strike up a conversation about my listening to boy dylan and how much he loves bob dylan and what's your name and you should call me.

really???

our hero rides off into the sunset...

and so our story comes to a close.

last we left off, i think my stella was towed off to midas. on monday morning i explained to them that all her lights came on but the engine didn't even think about turning over. why everyone thinks that sounds like a battery problem is beyond me, and why midas insisted it might be my battery when hamed and the aaa guy had both tried to jump my car is also beyond me. so it came as no big surprise when don from midas called and said "guess what? it's not your battery!!" and also as no big surprise when he ran some fancy-pants diagnostic test which told him exactly what the cab driver from friday night said without ever seeing the car -- bad starter. although unlike what the cab driver said, which was that the mexicans would fix my starter for $130, somehow at midas this same repair was going to cost $489, because also struts and something related to steering needed something or another. i don't know, i stopped listening at $4. i'm a little suspicious that don raised the price of my repair artificially (you think? at midas?) because he conveniently remembered that i was looking to get rid of the car. suddenly his daughter needed a car, and he had $400 to pay me, and that extra $82 diagnostic charge disappeared. so yesterday i took the title over to midas and left with $400 in my pocket. that seems better than a $500 repair. so now i feel that stella has a proper home with exactly what she needs: a young student who doesn't have money for a nicer car but needs to get to work, and has a father who happens to be a mechanic. everything comes to a nice happy ending. and puts me squarely where i belong, making better use of my two bikes.

it does, however, put me in the position of needing to name my bikes, which i haven't done in the few years that i've owned them. taking suggestions, with stella having been retired, and cicciolina in use as the name of my cell phone (i can't think of a better phone name than that of an italian porn star in parliament, can you?) anyone? the two girliest bikes on the road need names -- a mint green giant mountain bike, and a black specialized road bike with anodized purple wheels and matching water bottle cage? just get me a little white plastic basket with flowers for the fronts and i'll be in business.

sttteeeeelllllaaaa.....

so you tell me. what counts as charity here, anyway?

it is now three days later in the never-ending saga of stella's retirement. it turns out that my cab driver's beloved "automex" does not, as far as i can tell, exist. i think la mexicana incognita is a little disappointed (as am i) that she doesn't get to go all latina with the mechanics, but such is life...

also, sadly, stella had not been kidnapped by hamed or the cab driver. i found her parked safely in a lot behind lalo's on lasalle. feeling a few twinges of nostalgia for my sweet car, the only one i've ever owned (and also because i learned that aaa does not tow straight to salvage yards) i called aaa and a pickup truck came to move stella to the midas across the street faster than i could order a margarita for the wait. this wrecks my blogmate's and my streak of waiting for tow trucks while drinking, but i can't complain. this bought me a day and a half of procrastination since midas was closed until this morning.

what to do now? while at work saturday morning i managed to amuse my co-workers with my never-ending internet hunt for salvage yards, car donation charities, etc. i found:

- a salvage yard that would give me $125 if i could get stella there, $60 if they towed
- some charity called kars4kids, which claims to pick up the car, donate to some other charity that gives the money to youth in some fashion, and give me a voucher for 2 nights' hotel stay in some resort-esque locale

i was feeling good about the charity/hotel option (especially since aaa wouldn't tow me straight to the salvage yard) until this morning, when i actually looked up the charities in question on some non-profit evaluation sites. i was initially excited since their links included stuff like gottorah.com, which along with my new-found love for matisyahu, might further my previous designation as honorary jew (for the purposes of holidays, anyway), except that nothing on any web site actually told me my car money would actually go to said causes.

i had a long drawn-out conversation with mb last night where i told him i had known stella's time was coming, but wanted her to pass with more dignity than this. he told me it's like caring for the elderly, where you love them but can't bear the burden anymore and have to ask for help, except that the elderly don't get sold for parts.

so feeling even guiltier, i called another salvage place this morning to see if i could get a better estimate. hooray! bob at the salvage place told me that they just bash cars in, but he knew a lady who was looking for a cheap car to get around town, and once i got an estimate from midas could i call him? so now i'm wondering if i can an estimate for what i think is the starter (~$170 repair, i think), and an ok from salvage-bob saying the lady in question could give me the cost of the starter repair plus ~$100 (maybe total $300?) i could sell her my stella. this makes me feel less like i'm sending stella off to a yucky nursing home or pulling out her feeding tube, and more like she's retiring to be a walmart greeter or something minimally productive.

i think it might be the right thing. but i invite opinions.

to be continued... again...