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.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
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.
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.
Saturday, November 11, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
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?!
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?!
Monday, November 06, 2006
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"?
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"?
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
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.
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.
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