continuing in the year-end wrap-up, i tried to think of some more liberated-woman things i learned this year, but since i'm still so excited about the new make-up brushes that my blogmate just got me for christmas, i'm not feeling ready to blog about power tools. i have my very own personal drill that i bought myself before mb ever moved here, but that was a few years ago and i've still never actually used it. so instead, how about this?
things i did NOT learn during 2007.
1. "no, thank you; i'm still full from lunch." this seems appropriate since it's christmas morning and i'm still going full-force at the pile of cookies and ham. to be fair, the ham is has a honey-mustard-bourbon glaze on it, and the cookies, well... you know.
2. how to better assert myself on the household netflix queue: why is it that i have suggested lots of movies, yet the only things that show up are beerfest and historical epics about shooting and bleakness? after some whining, the muppets have finally made their way to the top, but overall the year could have been more movie-successful.
3. how to make it past the beginner level of guitar hero 3: to be fair, we don't have a wii or other game system apart from our awesome atari-flashback. and the only time i played was at my brother's place one weekend on his wii system. but upon hearing that my brother- and sister-in-law are enjoying their christmas gift of gh3 - so much so that bill ended up in the er getting a cortisone shot in his shoulder from his battle with slash - i want in on more of the action.
4. how to use a pressure cooker without explosions: see prior post by my blogmate re: me and my kitchen being covered in turkey stock and parsley. i know that i have to try again, but haven't done so yet.
5. how to regain my ability on a mountain bike: seems that i have gotten older and wussier this year. most mountain bike outings have resulted in whining and fear. what happened? bikemyers has been working on me to try out cyclocross, for its off-road biking without the singletrack and bouncing on rocks and such. we shall see.
i'm sure there are more, but your turn first.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
spring cleaning comes early this year
maybe it's not in the holiday spirit to amuse yourself (and hopefully your loyal blog readership) at someone else's expense... but so it goes.
it's not clear to me why we haven't already told you about this - perhaps because it has smoldered along for so many years it just hasn't occurred to us. but in light of the newest chapter, here we go. please bear with the back-story:
my blogmate and i share our office and its three computers with 5 other people. needless to say, the social benefits of working in such close quarters are thwarted by the impossibility of getting anything done. the sad thing is, we actually have another office that was left in a state of abandon and neglect until a few weeks ago when my blogmate, bikemyers, and i decided to take it back.
for years nobody has wanted to work there because it resides next to the facility that breeds lab mice for the entire medical center. mice breading, as it turns out, is an unbearably smelly business. but the mouse factory will soon move to another location and as operations wind down the horrible smell from across the hall is less and less of an issue.
the problem, however, is that we have a squatter. meet the mystery enshrouded e., a german woman famous for her astonishingly pungent body odor, who, despite having comleted her training her almost 4 years ago continues to roam the dark halls of our department working on some kind of "research." we don't think she's on the payroll, and we're pretty sure she doesn't have a functioning ID. but there she is, every afternoon, acting so creepy that none of us want to go anywhere near the office. she's so creepy, in fact, that we can't seem to get anyone up the hierarchical ladder to help us evict her. even when she used to articulate coherent thoughts she was always such a mumbler that no one could really understand her, and back then we were always distracted by the b.o. and the concern that she actually lived in the hospital. in spite of some reassuring signs that she does, in fact, have an apartment with a working shower, the creepy factor is rising - one of our colleagues found her in the ladies room, in the dark, huddled in the dark. another found her in the elevator, rocking back and forth, muttering to herself.
as we began thinking of ways to take back the office the feeding back we got from the higher ups was less than encouraging. something like, "don't do it. you'll be sorry you ever got involved." perhaps we should have heeded the warning, but instead it only fueled our indignance. you might think it's tragic and sad that we have such an obviously unstable lost soul amongst us, but it's not like people haven't tried to help her. and besides, can't she be crazy in someone else's office?
we went straight for the jugular. we marched into the office shoved her coat and bag off into a corner (even more mysterious than what she does in our office is what she's doing when she's somewhere else in the building), and promptly dumped the entire contents of the office into the dumbster we stole from down the hall. judging from 1999 doc films poster on the wall no one had done any major office purging for a long time, and there was dust enough to prove it. after the purge and wipe down we proudly marged out of the office, leaving mounds of trash outside the door, and didn't say a word the the bewildered e. when we passed her in the hall. we weren't there to see her reaction - if you're teetering on the brink of insanity it can't help any to come back from a coffee break to find your workspace entirely gutted. but again, so it goes.
we're hoping the great office purge of 2007 will send the right signal - said signal reading something like, "don't let the door hit you on your way out." but we won't go down without a fight. our boss may not care that we have a maladjusted, stinky squatter in our office, but we're pretty sure campus security will.
bah humbug.
it's not clear to me why we haven't already told you about this - perhaps because it has smoldered along for so many years it just hasn't occurred to us. but in light of the newest chapter, here we go. please bear with the back-story:
my blogmate and i share our office and its three computers with 5 other people. needless to say, the social benefits of working in such close quarters are thwarted by the impossibility of getting anything done. the sad thing is, we actually have another office that was left in a state of abandon and neglect until a few weeks ago when my blogmate, bikemyers, and i decided to take it back.
for years nobody has wanted to work there because it resides next to the facility that breeds lab mice for the entire medical center. mice breading, as it turns out, is an unbearably smelly business. but the mouse factory will soon move to another location and as operations wind down the horrible smell from across the hall is less and less of an issue.
the problem, however, is that we have a squatter. meet the mystery enshrouded e., a german woman famous for her astonishingly pungent body odor, who, despite having comleted her training her almost 4 years ago continues to roam the dark halls of our department working on some kind of "research." we don't think she's on the payroll, and we're pretty sure she doesn't have a functioning ID. but there she is, every afternoon, acting so creepy that none of us want to go anywhere near the office. she's so creepy, in fact, that we can't seem to get anyone up the hierarchical ladder to help us evict her. even when she used to articulate coherent thoughts she was always such a mumbler that no one could really understand her, and back then we were always distracted by the b.o. and the concern that she actually lived in the hospital. in spite of some reassuring signs that she does, in fact, have an apartment with a working shower, the creepy factor is rising - one of our colleagues found her in the ladies room, in the dark, huddled in the dark. another found her in the elevator, rocking back and forth, muttering to herself.
as we began thinking of ways to take back the office the feeding back we got from the higher ups was less than encouraging. something like, "don't do it. you'll be sorry you ever got involved." perhaps we should have heeded the warning, but instead it only fueled our indignance. you might think it's tragic and sad that we have such an obviously unstable lost soul amongst us, but it's not like people haven't tried to help her. and besides, can't she be crazy in someone else's office?
we went straight for the jugular. we marched into the office shoved her coat and bag off into a corner (even more mysterious than what she does in our office is what she's doing when she's somewhere else in the building), and promptly dumped the entire contents of the office into the dumbster we stole from down the hall. judging from 1999 doc films poster on the wall no one had done any major office purging for a long time, and there was dust enough to prove it. after the purge and wipe down we proudly marged out of the office, leaving mounds of trash outside the door, and didn't say a word the the bewildered e. when we passed her in the hall. we weren't there to see her reaction - if you're teetering on the brink of insanity it can't help any to come back from a coffee break to find your workspace entirely gutted. but again, so it goes.
we're hoping the great office purge of 2007 will send the right signal - said signal reading something like, "don't let the door hit you on your way out." but we won't go down without a fight. our boss may not care that we have a maladjusted, stinky squatter in our office, but we're pretty sure campus security will.
bah humbug.
Friday, December 21, 2007
things that changed my life in 2007
time to start the end-of-the-year wrap-up (crazy, isn't it?) -- another year older, another year wiser... here are some things i've learned about this year:
1. pete's fresh market: this place is awesome. cut my grocery bill in half. avocados for 40 cents apiece all year round = fresh guacamole every week. phenomenal.
2. eyelash curler: i had one in grad school, but post-wedding have learned that a little more open-looking eyes makes everything better. it's kind of an extension to my 2003 discovery that adding a little mascara after being up for 24 hours makes you look more awake and alert.
3. bronzer: several times, when counseling frantic friends trying to drop a few pounds before a winter vacation, i have suggested that they stop worrying about what they can't change in 2 weeks and start focusing on what they *can* change, with the help of a tanning bed. a little color is better. until this year, though, i had no idea that the same help can just be brushed on in the morning! evens out the weird blotchy thing that happens to fair skin in winter.
4. good rum: my blogmate and i brought back lots of this in 2005, but until recently i'd only been using it for rum and cokes. not that i would ever say anything bad about rum and coke; it's delicious! but on vacation in curacao this year, we learned from a german hotel manager that venezuela makes delicious rum that can be sipped like a cognac. wow, is that amazing. to be fair, i might have learned this one earlier, but since mb and his friend nick blew through our entire bottle of admiral rodney's barrel-aged rum from st. lucia in one night and i didn't get to have any, that puts this on my 2007-education list.
5. more stores on roosevelt: i am so excited about the north-and-clybourn-esque transformation of the south loop! bring on progress. there are PARKING LOTS where i can take a CAR to get STUFF. compared to my first days in chicago getting lost every time i tried to leave hyde park, this is phenomenal. target, world market, linens n things, panera, dsw (ahhh, shoes...) home depot. errands no longer take a full day.
hmm, more to be continued. so far this is sounding pretty girly. i'm ok with that, but i'll have to think up some power tools or something that also changed my life this year. what about you? learned anything good?
1. pete's fresh market: this place is awesome. cut my grocery bill in half. avocados for 40 cents apiece all year round = fresh guacamole every week. phenomenal.
2. eyelash curler: i had one in grad school, but post-wedding have learned that a little more open-looking eyes makes everything better. it's kind of an extension to my 2003 discovery that adding a little mascara after being up for 24 hours makes you look more awake and alert.
3. bronzer: several times, when counseling frantic friends trying to drop a few pounds before a winter vacation, i have suggested that they stop worrying about what they can't change in 2 weeks and start focusing on what they *can* change, with the help of a tanning bed. a little color is better. until this year, though, i had no idea that the same help can just be brushed on in the morning! evens out the weird blotchy thing that happens to fair skin in winter.
4. good rum: my blogmate and i brought back lots of this in 2005, but until recently i'd only been using it for rum and cokes. not that i would ever say anything bad about rum and coke; it's delicious! but on vacation in curacao this year, we learned from a german hotel manager that venezuela makes delicious rum that can be sipped like a cognac. wow, is that amazing. to be fair, i might have learned this one earlier, but since mb and his friend nick blew through our entire bottle of admiral rodney's barrel-aged rum from st. lucia in one night and i didn't get to have any, that puts this on my 2007-education list.
5. more stores on roosevelt: i am so excited about the north-and-clybourn-esque transformation of the south loop! bring on progress. there are PARKING LOTS where i can take a CAR to get STUFF. compared to my first days in chicago getting lost every time i tried to leave hyde park, this is phenomenal. target, world market, linens n things, panera, dsw (ahhh, shoes...) home depot. errands no longer take a full day.
hmm, more to be continued. so far this is sounding pretty girly. i'm ok with that, but i'll have to think up some power tools or something that also changed my life this year. what about you? learned anything good?
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
merry bikemas to all, and to all a good night...
the snow is on the ground here in chicago, the radio stations are a month into their all-christmas-tunes all-the-time routine, and stores are packed. despite the fact that mb and i don't have kids and aren't spending the holiday morning around a grandma's tree, i really feel like we're managing to create a pretty festive atmosphere for ourselves this season... just on our own terms. score one for tradition, and score one for, well, something else?
- we have a little fake tree, gifted from my parents a few years ago, but left it in storage this year in favor of our second annual "bikemas tree" - pine garland and lights strung up on the bike rack in the dining room, base covered in a snowflake tablecloth from tj maxx. two dimensional saves space in our not-huge apartment, plus less decorating.
- we're a little late getting into the holiday special-meals department, but trimmed the bikemas tree with the help of whole foods (the yuppie seal is now officially broken -- mb walked in for the first time and looked at me quizzically: "i'm sorry, why do you object to this place? it's beautiful!") in our defense, did you know you can get a smoked beef brisket sandwich at whole foods for $4?
- i was lucky enough to attend a lovely three-dimensional tree-trimming get-together at ck's house, complete with home-baked bread, the best soup EVER, yummy wine and good company (and a beautiful tree). we reminisced fondly about other holidays in the city, such as attending an easter vigil ceremony chosen for its proximity to an irish pub (which turned out to be a good thing: after 1 1/2 hours when the lights were still off and the candle wax was threatening to burn our hands, we snuck out and celebrated some very special easter pints).
- we don't have holiday music on cd, but we do have yahoo music engine with its 15 different holiday stations; cookies last night were baked to the "scrooge christmas" station, with such festive holiday tunes as the classic "grandma got run over by a reindeer" and new favorite "daddy drank all our christmas money again."
hope your holiday season is festive on your own terms.
- we have a little fake tree, gifted from my parents a few years ago, but left it in storage this year in favor of our second annual "bikemas tree" - pine garland and lights strung up on the bike rack in the dining room, base covered in a snowflake tablecloth from tj maxx. two dimensional saves space in our not-huge apartment, plus less decorating.
- we're a little late getting into the holiday special-meals department, but trimmed the bikemas tree with the help of whole foods (the yuppie seal is now officially broken -- mb walked in for the first time and looked at me quizzically: "i'm sorry, why do you object to this place? it's beautiful!") in our defense, did you know you can get a smoked beef brisket sandwich at whole foods for $4?
- i was lucky enough to attend a lovely three-dimensional tree-trimming get-together at ck's house, complete with home-baked bread, the best soup EVER, yummy wine and good company (and a beautiful tree). we reminisced fondly about other holidays in the city, such as attending an easter vigil ceremony chosen for its proximity to an irish pub (which turned out to be a good thing: after 1 1/2 hours when the lights were still off and the candle wax was threatening to burn our hands, we snuck out and celebrated some very special easter pints).
- we don't have holiday music on cd, but we do have yahoo music engine with its 15 different holiday stations; cookies last night were baked to the "scrooge christmas" station, with such festive holiday tunes as the classic "grandma got run over by a reindeer" and new favorite "daddy drank all our christmas money again."
hope your holiday season is festive on your own terms.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
the fall and rise and fall and rise of women's lib
being a girl is really fun.
tuesday morning i finally worked up the nerve to email to gracious hostess of the all-you-can-dreidel party (see previous post) to inquire about the cute non-neurologist and also fess up about the unfiltered foot-in-the mouth moment i had with another boy at the part whom she may or may not be dating (see previous rants about men and their conflicted emotions).
while i maintain that it wasn't entirely appropriate for this person to give me the unsolicited information that he knew the hostess from match.com, i wish i had kept my cool. instead i blurted out a typically unfiltered, "oh, you're that guy," especially since he wasn't that guy. i don't think i gave too much away, and he seemed pretty amused, but boy do i suck as a wingman.
so i apologized to the lovely hostess for my striking lack of tact and asked what she could dish up about the cute non-neurologist. i also emailed another friend who was at the party who seemed to know incriminating things about the brother of the cute-non-neurologist.
the wave of gossipy emails was followed by a frenzied episode of baking, after which i packed up a loaf zucchini bread and headed out for a boot-shopping date with my good blogmate. sadly there was no boot-luck for the big footed - apparently it's too late in the boot-season to get anything bigger than a size 6.5, but the day wasn't a total loss. we may not have sassy boots, but we did embark on the grate office clean-out of 2007 (i'd explain, but i think that story deserves a post of its own), and headed off to the gym for some fairly robust weight-lifting. i admit that benching the bar isn't exactly manly, but it's way tougher than the eliptical machine or assisted pull-ups.
i left the gym feeling pretty tough and liberated... but i got home to a slew of responses to my various emails, one containing a link to the cute non-neurologists j-date page. it's certainly true that i have all sorts of objections to j-date, but it seems that said objections don't stop me from voyeuristically looking at targeted profiles, or forwarding said profiles to my blogmate for further inspection. i also got separate emails from the girl who knows his brother and her husband, divulging the rest of the dish.
i had already had a pretty nice day of gossip, baking, organizing, and weight-lifting and i still had dinner and the lemonheads concert ahead. i'll admit that the pasta dinner and raspberry martini that preceded the show were pretty girly, and that i did my share of girly shrieking upon the site of the still-beautiful evan dando (stay tuned for another future post about reunion lemonheads concerts and the people who attend them), but there was absolutely nothing girly about my concert date and i quickly jump-starting her car before the show without blowing anything up.
so my muscles are sore, my house is full of baked goods, my friend's car starts and the office is clean. now all i need is a pair of boots and a date.
tuesday morning i finally worked up the nerve to email to gracious hostess of the all-you-can-dreidel party (see previous post) to inquire about the cute non-neurologist and also fess up about the unfiltered foot-in-the mouth moment i had with another boy at the part whom she may or may not be dating (see previous rants about men and their conflicted emotions).
while i maintain that it wasn't entirely appropriate for this person to give me the unsolicited information that he knew the hostess from match.com, i wish i had kept my cool. instead i blurted out a typically unfiltered, "oh, you're that guy," especially since he wasn't that guy. i don't think i gave too much away, and he seemed pretty amused, but boy do i suck as a wingman.
so i apologized to the lovely hostess for my striking lack of tact and asked what she could dish up about the cute non-neurologist. i also emailed another friend who was at the party who seemed to know incriminating things about the brother of the cute-non-neurologist.
the wave of gossipy emails was followed by a frenzied episode of baking, after which i packed up a loaf zucchini bread and headed out for a boot-shopping date with my good blogmate. sadly there was no boot-luck for the big footed - apparently it's too late in the boot-season to get anything bigger than a size 6.5, but the day wasn't a total loss. we may not have sassy boots, but we did embark on the grate office clean-out of 2007 (i'd explain, but i think that story deserves a post of its own), and headed off to the gym for some fairly robust weight-lifting. i admit that benching the bar isn't exactly manly, but it's way tougher than the eliptical machine or assisted pull-ups.
i left the gym feeling pretty tough and liberated... but i got home to a slew of responses to my various emails, one containing a link to the cute non-neurologists j-date page. it's certainly true that i have all sorts of objections to j-date, but it seems that said objections don't stop me from voyeuristically looking at targeted profiles, or forwarding said profiles to my blogmate for further inspection. i also got separate emails from the girl who knows his brother and her husband, divulging the rest of the dish.
i had already had a pretty nice day of gossip, baking, organizing, and weight-lifting and i still had dinner and the lemonheads concert ahead. i'll admit that the pasta dinner and raspberry martini that preceded the show were pretty girly, and that i did my share of girly shrieking upon the site of the still-beautiful evan dando (stay tuned for another future post about reunion lemonheads concerts and the people who attend them), but there was absolutely nothing girly about my concert date and i quickly jump-starting her car before the show without blowing anything up.
so my muscles are sore, my house is full of baked goods, my friend's car starts and the office is clean. now all i need is a pair of boots and a date.
Monday, December 10, 2007
it's all about who you know
this may seem like a no-brainer, but it's really nice having lots of friends. it really takes the edge off of things like working-all-the-time or freezing-ass-cold-outside. my partners in crime come in many flavors, but the unifying theme seems to be that they're all social and fun and up for anything - a lovely combination, if you think about it.
you need good wingpeople for events like the museum of contemporary art's first fridays. after years of talking about it, i finally managed to think about it at the right time and rounded a group of people to check it out. i was a little sad to go without my blogmate and mb (who were off gallivanting around the caribbean), as the standing plan had been for the two of them so serve not so much as wingpeople, but as home base, so that when we got tired of prowling there were friendly faces to whom we could report our findings.
friday night at the MCA is exactly what you think it would be. over-priced mediocre wine in plastic cups, DJ spinning house music, lots of beautiful people in fabulous clothes... and as it turns out lots of not-so-beautiful people whose attempts to dress fabulously fell a little short. after a good deal of initial apprehension, i felt much better after i had noticed the striking amount of non-fabulousness. given how many people showed up (alot, especially if you consider how cold it was friday night), i also got a little bit of a boost from being in the smaller cohort of people who managed to put down our drinks to actually inspect some of the art.
the highlight was most definitely tino sehgal's live-action "kiss," featuring 2 dancers engaged in a performance arty PG-13 makeout session. in and of itself it was pretty interesting, and you could station yourself in a corner such that you also got a pretty good view of all the museum visitors trying to figure out if what they were watching art or drunk people. also topping my list of favorites was the giant multi-media oyster-shell on hinges, guarded by some sort of oyster-shell natzi who would only let you climb in and listen to the waves crashing on the inside if you took your shoes off and looked relaxed enough to appreciate the full effect. finally, there was the room full of rock concert bootleg videos, projected in black and white onto weird slanty screens. it's not that it really broadened my horizons to watch silent, slow motion footage of a non-descript 70s punk rocker in leather pants masturbating on stage, but peoples' reactions were quite varied and very funny.
all in all we called our first dabble at first fridays a success and pinky swore to go back when the weather was warmer and we didn't have to battle it out in the coat check line when it was over.
i finished my weekend on sunday night at a very different kind of function, as my friend j.s. graciously hosted all of her jewish friends for brisket, latkes, and all-you-can-dreidel. i'm sure there's a whole circuit of jewish professional singles functions, but as conscientious objector to such functions i have little experience with what is, at least to me, a pretty strange social phenomenon.
i found myself sandwiched at the end of the kitchen island between a rather slimy neurologist who wanted to talk to me much more than i wanted to talk to him, and an attractive and rather slick non-neurologist who wanted to talk to me much less than i wanted to talk to him. the cute one on the right at least absorbed that it was probably his job to save me from the greasy one on the left, but he couldn't quite commit enough to the conversation and as such things just got incrementally more awkward by the minute. i'm not sure how the other people at the party were faring (they at least seem to know each other better than i knew any of them), but when the hostess plopped the piece-de-resistance "better than sex" cake on the table it was like someone had hit the reset button, and suddenly we were all in the same boat of awkwardness together.
when you take a room full of people who are all tipsy and willing to say slightly inappropriate things about "better than sex" cake strange things are bound to happen. there was alot of thoughtful chewing, i think because the consensus was that "better than sex" appears to be a relative thing. trying to be coy with the boy on the right while specifically not encouraging the boy on the left was really really hard, and in the end i gave up and went to play dreidel with the hostess.
i'm thankful for the many social opportunities i am afforded by virtue to knowing the right people. stay tuned for my next installment, in which i report on my rekindled romance with evan dando of the lemonheads, and the always delicious chocolate buffet at the peninsula hotel. thanks for listening.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
identity
as i continue to enjoy a satisfying, if not silly e-relationship with someone who i hope will became my next conquest in the online dating game (should we ever be able to coordinate schedules and go out on a second date), i continue to ponder the way information is shared and misinterpreted in this day and age.
one of my big gripes with the internet dating scene has always been that seemingly anyone can perpetuate the illusion of being funny, charismatic and well-adjusted, given enough time and help from dictionary.com. that's not entirely true - i'm constantly impressed at how many creepy, inarticulate and/or error-laden messages i receive. but it may well be that even those people have managed to incrementally improve their images by putting their misguided, maladjusted thoughts on paper. the point is, we're all able to up the ante a little while under the protective cloak of digital communication. if you don't believe me come buy me a beer and you'll find out that i'm substantially less articulate in person than i am on this blog.
the pitfalls, i'm sure you all know, are numerous. messages that we thought were funny, coy, or sarcastic are often received as being snide, cryptic, or just plain mean. and then of course there's the whole problem of accidental recipients. a word of advice, my friends: after you stop seeing someone, no matter how amicable the separation, take him off your phone contact list that very minute, before you have a chance to do something stupid or careless, like, say, inadavertently send him a "happy thanksgiving from the alamo" text message. also, no matter how annoying you think cutesy IM symbols are, the occasional, strategically placed smiley face goes a long way.
perhaps the reason that i hold out some hope for the boy-du-jour is that we seem to have similar thresholds for e-cynicism. it's nice when your sarcasm is well received, especially when you're giving up some of your best material.
if this seems contrived and icky to you may i suggest that we're not really doing so much better when we're up close and personal. my blogmate and i look alike to the extent that we are both tall, brown-haired, white girls, but i really think the physical similarities end there. and while we have the same job, so do 5 other people in our office. i understand that to many of our coworkers we really are interchangeable, but you'd think after a year and half we'd at least be recognizable as two separate people. this argument seems to be lost on our secretary, who continues to page one of us looking for the other, puts our mail in the other's box, and today had this conversation with me.
me: hi, it's jo-na.
secretary: hi jo-na. what can i do for you?
me: you paged me, i'm returning your call.
secretary: why did i call you?
me: i think you wanted to talk about the meal vouchers.
secretary: oh, i talked to jo-na already, she told me what you need.
me: but i'm jo-na.
secretary: oh.
me: did you talk to my blogmate?
secretary: probably.
live or across a screen, we're all just data points.
one of my big gripes with the internet dating scene has always been that seemingly anyone can perpetuate the illusion of being funny, charismatic and well-adjusted, given enough time and help from dictionary.com. that's not entirely true - i'm constantly impressed at how many creepy, inarticulate and/or error-laden messages i receive. but it may well be that even those people have managed to incrementally improve their images by putting their misguided, maladjusted thoughts on paper. the point is, we're all able to up the ante a little while under the protective cloak of digital communication. if you don't believe me come buy me a beer and you'll find out that i'm substantially less articulate in person than i am on this blog.
the pitfalls, i'm sure you all know, are numerous. messages that we thought were funny, coy, or sarcastic are often received as being snide, cryptic, or just plain mean. and then of course there's the whole problem of accidental recipients. a word of advice, my friends: after you stop seeing someone, no matter how amicable the separation, take him off your phone contact list that very minute, before you have a chance to do something stupid or careless, like, say, inadavertently send him a "happy thanksgiving from the alamo" text message. also, no matter how annoying you think cutesy IM symbols are, the occasional, strategically placed smiley face goes a long way.
perhaps the reason that i hold out some hope for the boy-du-jour is that we seem to have similar thresholds for e-cynicism. it's nice when your sarcasm is well received, especially when you're giving up some of your best material.
if this seems contrived and icky to you may i suggest that we're not really doing so much better when we're up close and personal. my blogmate and i look alike to the extent that we are both tall, brown-haired, white girls, but i really think the physical similarities end there. and while we have the same job, so do 5 other people in our office. i understand that to many of our coworkers we really are interchangeable, but you'd think after a year and half we'd at least be recognizable as two separate people. this argument seems to be lost on our secretary, who continues to page one of us looking for the other, puts our mail in the other's box, and today had this conversation with me.
me: hi, it's jo-na.
secretary: hi jo-na. what can i do for you?
me: you paged me, i'm returning your call.
secretary: why did i call you?
me: i think you wanted to talk about the meal vouchers.
secretary: oh, i talked to jo-na already, she told me what you need.
me: but i'm jo-na.
secretary: oh.
me: did you talk to my blogmate?
secretary: probably.
live or across a screen, we're all just data points.
happy belated ribs-giving
i hope you all had a nice and food-ful holiday weekend, wherever you were. i celebrated my triumphant first-annual moving-the-holidays-for-my-personal-convenience, as mb and i were successfully able to convince both sets of parents to join us in chicago for thanksgiving rather than embarking on the usual drive all over wisconsin. for the record, there are excellent deals on hotel rooms around thanksgiving, should the need ever arise for you. we gave thanks for our health and safe travels, for brett favre's record-breaking season, for the nightly free happy hour drinks at our parents' hotel, and for thanksgiving dinner held at restaurants (weber grill) that serve both delicious turkey dinners as well as the traditional baby-back ribs that i'm sure our forefathers would have eaten had they had a good dry rub.
over dinners and drinks, our conversation turned to the myriad of excellent but fake stories debunked on snopes.com -- i really think that something about those stories is so compelling that it's really hard for any of us to believe that they're false. mb was patiently explaining to his parents that no, starbucks is not refusing to send coffee to the soldiers in iraq, and no, microsoft is not sending out huge rebate checks for sending around junk email, and to soften the blow, told them that lots of us have fallen prey to myths. but as he opened with "this is not a true story, but it's funny and [my blogmate] was very sad to discover it's a myth:" and proceeded to tell the penguin story. my mother hung on almost every word... except the several parts where he said it wasn't a true story. "wait - which aquarium was this at? how old was the child? how did he get the penguin in his backpack? what did the aquarium do?"
so it turns out that penguins are just so lovable that we can't believe that a precocious little child-of-a-friend-of-a-friend didn't steal one from the shedd. not so with senior citizens... nobody at the dinner table was willing to believe my story about the stds going around the villages retirement community in florida.
over dinners and drinks, our conversation turned to the myriad of excellent but fake stories debunked on snopes.com -- i really think that something about those stories is so compelling that it's really hard for any of us to believe that they're false. mb was patiently explaining to his parents that no, starbucks is not refusing to send coffee to the soldiers in iraq, and no, microsoft is not sending out huge rebate checks for sending around junk email, and to soften the blow, told them that lots of us have fallen prey to myths. but as he opened with "this is not a true story, but it's funny and [my blogmate] was very sad to discover it's a myth:" and proceeded to tell the penguin story. my mother hung on almost every word... except the several parts where he said it wasn't a true story. "wait - which aquarium was this at? how old was the child? how did he get the penguin in his backpack? what did the aquarium do?"
so it turns out that penguins are just so lovable that we can't believe that a precocious little child-of-a-friend-of-a-friend didn't steal one from the shedd. not so with senior citizens... nobody at the dinner table was willing to believe my story about the stds going around the villages retirement community in florida.
Friday, November 16, 2007
good clean fun
i don't usually send out mass junk emails, but as i gleefully sent the sneezing baby panda youtube link to everyone i know this morning it became quite obvious to me that one of two things is going on: 1) i have gone soft in my old age or 2) i'm a sea of contradictions. evidence: the last time i sent out a youtube link to everyone i know it was dick in a box.
don't get me wrong. i think there's a time and place for poor taste... usually concentrated in my daily 30 minute fix of the family guy. that said, i'm growing quite weary of the standard, "family centered" sitcoms which, under a very thin veil of propriety, are chock-full of crass humor not really appropriate for families. it goes like this: our morbidly obese hero siddles up the bar with his shifty friends and through a series of winks and nudges conveys a sentiment to the tune of, "hey, it's my birthday today, and you know what that means... it's the one day of the year that my ordinarily frigid (but disproportionately thin, attractive, and stylish) wife releases her inner porn star."
so i guess it's no wonder that i've started to appreciate things that, while funny, truly are benign. hence my love of the sneezing panda, and of penguin in the backpack story. from the moment i heard it i LOVED the story of the 4 year old smuggling the penguin home from the aquarium, and delightedly repeated it to everyone i knew, never for a moment suspecting that it was urban legend. now i am heartbroken, jaded, and sad. i really enjoyed having such a funny story to tell that was appropriate for all audiences, that offended no one, and always made people laugh. i suppose i could continue telling it, but it's just not the same. this demoralzing event has left me so cynical, in fact, that i even have to question the sneezing panda. is it all just a contrived hoax, slipped into youtube to sucker gullible types like myself?
while i remain indignant about the factitious penguin story, and am tickled pink to have been shown the sneezing panda video, i do feel compelled to announce my steadfast belief that no woman actually named her twin babies lemonjello and orangejello. no fewer than 10 people have told me that they personally encountered these infants. this, my friends, really is urban legend. it's a story told coast to coast, that, if true, would certainly bump lemonjello and orangejello above jacob and emily as the most popular baby names in america. i don't buy it.
don't get me wrong. i think there's a time and place for poor taste... usually concentrated in my daily 30 minute fix of the family guy. that said, i'm growing quite weary of the standard, "family centered" sitcoms which, under a very thin veil of propriety, are chock-full of crass humor not really appropriate for families. it goes like this: our morbidly obese hero siddles up the bar with his shifty friends and through a series of winks and nudges conveys a sentiment to the tune of, "hey, it's my birthday today, and you know what that means... it's the one day of the year that my ordinarily frigid (but disproportionately thin, attractive, and stylish) wife releases her inner porn star."
so i guess it's no wonder that i've started to appreciate things that, while funny, truly are benign. hence my love of the sneezing panda, and of penguin in the backpack story. from the moment i heard it i LOVED the story of the 4 year old smuggling the penguin home from the aquarium, and delightedly repeated it to everyone i knew, never for a moment suspecting that it was urban legend. now i am heartbroken, jaded, and sad. i really enjoyed having such a funny story to tell that was appropriate for all audiences, that offended no one, and always made people laugh. i suppose i could continue telling it, but it's just not the same. this demoralzing event has left me so cynical, in fact, that i even have to question the sneezing panda. is it all just a contrived hoax, slipped into youtube to sucker gullible types like myself?
while i remain indignant about the factitious penguin story, and am tickled pink to have been shown the sneezing panda video, i do feel compelled to announce my steadfast belief that no woman actually named her twin babies lemonjello and orangejello. no fewer than 10 people have told me that they personally encountered these infants. this, my friends, really is urban legend. it's a story told coast to coast, that, if true, would certainly bump lemonjello and orangejello above jacob and emily as the most popular baby names in america. i don't buy it.
Monday, November 12, 2007
out in the open
now that you've all been made aware of the existence of the secret blog, i'll tell you that my anemic blog participation has been largely due to the fact that everything that happens to me is too boring or inappropriate for public blogging. as such you've all been buffered from most of my grad-school related rants, as well the awkward, but ultimately un-interesting play-by-plays of my current round of internet dating. you can thank my good blogmate for that one - she's really taking one for the team.
that said, the harris school of puplic policy really does deserve to be mocked in a public forum. as our sociologist laureat recently put it, "while it's true that medical residency is, in many ways, like high school, harris actually is high school." lucky for me i already have friends and self-esteem (internet dating not withstanding) and as such was not as hurt as some of my classmates upon the discovery of the underground, by-invitation-only party scene... policy students gone wild, if you will. apparently there's a subset of our 120 student cohort that has taken to raucous kickball playing and drinking, but unless you're in the M.P.P 2009 group on facebook you're not actually invited to the "oh my god dude, i got so wasted" festivities held at jimmy's woodlawn tap and other fine hyde park establishments. unfortunately for the cool kids, facebook isn't nearly as anonymous as even the more public filterless blog, and as it turns out, these clandestine get-togethers aren't really much of a secret, as anyone who wants to can find out all about them and even pull up the pictures. don't let on that you know about it though, lest you get chided by the group's alpha girl (known previously to me only as the girl who actually interrupted econ class to ask "what's a widget?") - "oh, those were for our eyes only."
as it turns out, the internet has many functions beyond its use as a not-so-secret slam book and a torture weapon for single 30 year old women. i learned this last week, when a round of pre-blind-date non-sexual foreplay emails in which we dared each other to drink more honestly made me feel much less nervous about the whole thing.
score one for cyberspace.
that said, the harris school of puplic policy really does deserve to be mocked in a public forum. as our sociologist laureat recently put it, "while it's true that medical residency is, in many ways, like high school, harris actually is high school." lucky for me i already have friends and self-esteem (internet dating not withstanding) and as such was not as hurt as some of my classmates upon the discovery of the underground, by-invitation-only party scene... policy students gone wild, if you will. apparently there's a subset of our 120 student cohort that has taken to raucous kickball playing and drinking, but unless you're in the M.P.P 2009 group on facebook you're not actually invited to the "oh my god dude, i got so wasted" festivities held at jimmy's woodlawn tap and other fine hyde park establishments. unfortunately for the cool kids, facebook isn't nearly as anonymous as even the more public filterless blog, and as it turns out, these clandestine get-togethers aren't really much of a secret, as anyone who wants to can find out all about them and even pull up the pictures. don't let on that you know about it though, lest you get chided by the group's alpha girl (known previously to me only as the girl who actually interrupted econ class to ask "what's a widget?") - "oh, those were for our eyes only."
as it turns out, the internet has many functions beyond its use as a not-so-secret slam book and a torture weapon for single 30 year old women. i learned this last week, when a round of pre-blind-date non-sexual foreplay emails in which we dared each other to drink more honestly made me feel much less nervous about the whole thing.
score one for cyberspace.
Friday, November 09, 2007
all in your head?
in the almost three years that my blogmate and i have been writing this blog, we've had periods of being more or less prolific, more or less funny, more or less sarcastic... and probably more or less cryptic. sometimes things happen that, although we've de-identified ourselves to some extent, we just feel like don't have their proper place on the internet. so they pop up in passing references, or in, say, a couple of weeks of blog silence. (apparently we're about to start fixing said blog-silence with a new guest blogger feature... speaking of which, where is our guest blogger, anyway? all this excitement and no material?)
the weird thing is that when you write a blog with someone else, particularly someone that you know well enough to share the stories that don't feature prominently here, it seems like the stories take on a blog-like life of their own. all of the secret stories, no matter how boring or neurotic or inappropriate, start with "so, the secret blog in my head goes like this: 'my usually quiet blogmate was unusually quiet that day...'" it's a weird way of taking a step back from a situation, i suppose. but it sure beats stories that begin "let me tell you about my crazy family THIS time..."
i can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it also has the unintended effect of making everything feel like we're on the wonder years or chasing amy or one of those shows/movies with voice-over internal dialogue. now i want to know where my theme music is. i think art paul schlosser's "pink pants" or maybe "have a peanut butter sandwich" would work great.
the weird thing is that when you write a blog with someone else, particularly someone that you know well enough to share the stories that don't feature prominently here, it seems like the stories take on a blog-like life of their own. all of the secret stories, no matter how boring or neurotic or inappropriate, start with "so, the secret blog in my head goes like this: 'my usually quiet blogmate was unusually quiet that day...'" it's a weird way of taking a step back from a situation, i suppose. but it sure beats stories that begin "let me tell you about my crazy family THIS time..."
i can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it also has the unintended effect of making everything feel like we're on the wonder years or chasing amy or one of those shows/movies with voice-over internal dialogue. now i want to know where my theme music is. i think art paul schlosser's "pink pants" or maybe "have a peanut butter sandwich" would work great.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
the price of being fabulous
one of the costs of prolonged education and training is that eventually, your friends and family all have real jobs and real houses and furniture that doesn't come from a box and a decent wardrobe.
when it comes to clothes, my blogmate and i have both been students or poorly-paid professionals for long enough that we've had several phases of desire for material things, vacillating between "it's time to dress a little better" and, as said in unison the other day, "it's time to dress a little shittier." for the latter, we're both relatively accomplished. i still remember fondly the first time i asked my blogmate if she wanted to spend a little of an afternoon off shopping in our new hometown of chicago, with its magnificent mile and halsted st. and assorted boutiques, and she responded excitedly with "perfect! target! i'll drive." i knew we'd be friends.
but now we're 30. we're still poorly paid. and we're not talking about keeping up with the joneses, just dreaming of a few little upgrades. so two martinis into a conversation last week, we pinky-swore to go on a shopping trip where we bought better clothes. no kohls, no target, no tj maxx. just once, to see what it's like.
you can imagine what happened next -- from the girls who swore that cheap particle-board furniture was out of our lives but then justified my impulse purchase of a super-sale do-it-yourself wine-and-liquor cabinet as "advanced particle board" (and if you saw my rapid transition from "i'm like bob vila's daughter" to "%&$$?!?" you'd call it advanced particle board too)... into banana republic, straight to the sale racks of off-season last-year's-styles. into ann taylor loft, straight to the clearance racks. to be fair, we tried on lots of full-price very nice things; it's just that the things we liked were on the 60% off rack. i had to struggle to come up with one full-priced t-shirt so i could get 30% off of a pair of pants i wanted. and then bee-line to goose island in time for happy hour 1/2 price appetizers.
you can take the girl out of the bargain basement, but you can't take the bargain basement out of the girl.
when it comes to clothes, my blogmate and i have both been students or poorly-paid professionals for long enough that we've had several phases of desire for material things, vacillating between "it's time to dress a little better" and, as said in unison the other day, "it's time to dress a little shittier." for the latter, we're both relatively accomplished. i still remember fondly the first time i asked my blogmate if she wanted to spend a little of an afternoon off shopping in our new hometown of chicago, with its magnificent mile and halsted st. and assorted boutiques, and she responded excitedly with "perfect! target! i'll drive." i knew we'd be friends.
but now we're 30. we're still poorly paid. and we're not talking about keeping up with the joneses, just dreaming of a few little upgrades. so two martinis into a conversation last week, we pinky-swore to go on a shopping trip where we bought better clothes. no kohls, no target, no tj maxx. just once, to see what it's like.
you can imagine what happened next -- from the girls who swore that cheap particle-board furniture was out of our lives but then justified my impulse purchase of a super-sale do-it-yourself wine-and-liquor cabinet as "advanced particle board" (and if you saw my rapid transition from "i'm like bob vila's daughter" to "%&$$?!?" you'd call it advanced particle board too)... into banana republic, straight to the sale racks of off-season last-year's-styles. into ann taylor loft, straight to the clearance racks. to be fair, we tried on lots of full-price very nice things; it's just that the things we liked were on the 60% off rack. i had to struggle to come up with one full-priced t-shirt so i could get 30% off of a pair of pants i wanted. and then bee-line to goose island in time for happy hour 1/2 price appetizers.
you can take the girl out of the bargain basement, but you can't take the bargain basement out of the girl.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
under pressure
on the exact same day last june, my blogmate and i each received a pressure cooker as a gift. hers as a wedding present, purchased on devon, accompanied only by instructions in hindi. mine came in the mail as a 30th birthday gift from good friend b.j., who herself had received a pressure as a wedding gift a few years earlier.
in her various roles as my life coach, my blogmate is by far the superior cook, but we've done a decent among of mutual pep talk since the pressure cookers arrived, mostly to the tune of, "are you sure it's not going to explode?"
so i guess i shouldn't have been that surprised yesterday when my sticky, parsley-covered blogmate called me, in a bit of distress, announcing, "whoever said that pressure cookers couldn't explode was wrong." fortunately the only casualty of the minor explosion was her turkey stock, but i probably should have absorbed her culinary misadventures as the omen they turned out to be.
usually the problem with my cooking is that the food, while tasty, doesn't exactly look appetizing. not so with my beef stew tonight. it was beautiful. but boy did it taste bad. it's been a while since i botched dinner so extravagantly, and even sans explosion my kitchen was a total disaster.
pressure cookers: 2
jo-na: 0
in her various roles as my life coach, my blogmate is by far the superior cook, but we've done a decent among of mutual pep talk since the pressure cookers arrived, mostly to the tune of, "are you sure it's not going to explode?"
so i guess i shouldn't have been that surprised yesterday when my sticky, parsley-covered blogmate called me, in a bit of distress, announcing, "whoever said that pressure cookers couldn't explode was wrong." fortunately the only casualty of the minor explosion was her turkey stock, but i probably should have absorbed her culinary misadventures as the omen they turned out to be.
usually the problem with my cooking is that the food, while tasty, doesn't exactly look appetizing. not so with my beef stew tonight. it was beautiful. but boy did it taste bad. it's been a while since i botched dinner so extravagantly, and even sans explosion my kitchen was a total disaster.
pressure cookers: 2
jo-na: 0
Monday, October 22, 2007
it's getting hot in here
for a city of 9.5 million, chicago sure can feel like a small town.
sometimes that's not so bad. as my blogmate and i headed out for a run in her neighborhood yesterday we stopped to greet her neighbor and her neighbor's cute little toddler son... as we were getting back home we saw the same neighbor and son, this time walking down the street with one of our colleagues from work. confirming, btw, that between us there's really only one functional brain, i completely failed to notice the colleague and only thought to myself, "hey, isn't that the neighbor?" and my blogmate completely failed to notice the neighbor and thought to herself, "hey, isn't that the colleague?"
as another aside, if you're running down the street and a guy who's obviously on his way home from the gym drops his towel on the ground, it's probably wise to resist the urge to pick it up, and scratch your good deed itch some other way. gross.
anyway. part of the reason i was pretty hot to get out of new orleans was honestly that there was just no avoiding ex-boyfriends and the like. embarrassing and hurtful moments couldn't be washed away in the sea of anonymity that we all think characterizes the world of nightlife... you could pretty much count on running into whichever person you most desperately wanted to avoid.
but apparently upsizing your city by a factor of 10 million doesn't help. or else i wouldn't have found myself at a very small party with someone who was obviously the brother of a recent set-up date i went on AND, in the same weekend, taken exactly 30 seconds to land right next to someone i just stopped seeing (under awkward circumstances) at a concert at the metro.
not that i'm a big fish, but dang this pond is small.
sometimes that's not so bad. as my blogmate and i headed out for a run in her neighborhood yesterday we stopped to greet her neighbor and her neighbor's cute little toddler son... as we were getting back home we saw the same neighbor and son, this time walking down the street with one of our colleagues from work. confirming, btw, that between us there's really only one functional brain, i completely failed to notice the colleague and only thought to myself, "hey, isn't that the neighbor?" and my blogmate completely failed to notice the neighbor and thought to herself, "hey, isn't that the colleague?"
as another aside, if you're running down the street and a guy who's obviously on his way home from the gym drops his towel on the ground, it's probably wise to resist the urge to pick it up, and scratch your good deed itch some other way. gross.
anyway. part of the reason i was pretty hot to get out of new orleans was honestly that there was just no avoiding ex-boyfriends and the like. embarrassing and hurtful moments couldn't be washed away in the sea of anonymity that we all think characterizes the world of nightlife... you could pretty much count on running into whichever person you most desperately wanted to avoid.
but apparently upsizing your city by a factor of 10 million doesn't help. or else i wouldn't have found myself at a very small party with someone who was obviously the brother of a recent set-up date i went on AND, in the same weekend, taken exactly 30 seconds to land right next to someone i just stopped seeing (under awkward circumstances) at a concert at the metro.
not that i'm a big fish, but dang this pond is small.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
disjoint
as usual, i emerge from a state of blog dormancy, not with any meaningful or clever insights, but with my usual smattering of reportings that are, i suspect, only amusing to me. neither of the funniest things that i heard about this week actually had anything to do with me, but were in fact left on my voicemail by good friend a.p., obstetrician extraordinaire. a.p. recently left her life of indentured servitude at a large, inner-city public hospital for one catering more to posh washington d.c. suburbanites... or so she thought until she had to fish a cockroach out of a pregnant lady's ear. in more posh, suburbanite fashion, a few days later she took her highly energetic and affectionate dog to the vet, who assessed her faithful companion's fondness for licking everything and everyone as undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder that would perhaps respond well to prozac.
i, for one, have only rare brushes with posh suburbanites, but those i have leave me so traumatized as to come running back to campus where i get to be the stylish one. so i may have lost out to the crazy ladies running around the coach outlet wielding $400 handbags as deadly weapons, but by golly i think i've got a leg up on the girl who parades around school everyday with an old gnarly beanie baby perched on her shoulder.
that said, i seem to have some problems with basic social norms, as i was completely unable to make eye contact with (much less greet) the "distinguished visiting lecturer" who i'd previously known as "the first blind date i ever went on." and i all but ran the other way when i saw one of my former supervising doctors at the swimming pool the other day (yes, old hairy, in swim trunks), lest i be forced to make small talk while standing there dripping wet in my swimsuit.
i can't even try to tie it all together, folks.
i, for one, have only rare brushes with posh suburbanites, but those i have leave me so traumatized as to come running back to campus where i get to be the stylish one. so i may have lost out to the crazy ladies running around the coach outlet wielding $400 handbags as deadly weapons, but by golly i think i've got a leg up on the girl who parades around school everyday with an old gnarly beanie baby perched on her shoulder.
that said, i seem to have some problems with basic social norms, as i was completely unable to make eye contact with (much less greet) the "distinguished visiting lecturer" who i'd previously known as "the first blind date i ever went on." and i all but ran the other way when i saw one of my former supervising doctors at the swimming pool the other day (yes, old hairy, in swim trunks), lest i be forced to make small talk while standing there dripping wet in my swimsuit.
i can't even try to tie it all together, folks.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
and i thought my neighbors were weird
last night i met mb downtown while he studied at his fancy new mba study center and i divided my time between reading and surfing the internet for places that we could get a drink afterward to reward such productivity.
bonus side of mb's new degree program: proximity to new stuff. last night we rewarded ourselves with drinks at the VERY next-to-john-marshall-law-school plymouth bar, which has a rooftop terrace overlooking the back of the library. lots of bonus points for my manhattan in a plastic martini glass (somehow cheaper than their wine??) and view of the gargoyles.
which brings me to a question: if you lived in an apartment downtown, would it be a plus or a minus in your book to have your window directly across from one of the gargoyles? i could totally see greeting it like an attentive pet or nosy neighbor every morning: "hello, mr. gargoyle! how 'bout the weather today? that's a good gargoyle..." but imagine having very creepy dreams at night.
bonus side of mb's new degree program: proximity to new stuff. last night we rewarded ourselves with drinks at the VERY next-to-john-marshall-law-school plymouth bar, which has a rooftop terrace overlooking the back of the library. lots of bonus points for my manhattan in a plastic martini glass (somehow cheaper than their wine??) and view of the gargoyles.
which brings me to a question: if you lived in an apartment downtown, would it be a plus or a minus in your book to have your window directly across from one of the gargoyles? i could totally see greeting it like an attentive pet or nosy neighbor every morning: "hello, mr. gargoyle! how 'bout the weather today? that's a good gargoyle..." but imagine having very creepy dreams at night.
Friday, October 05, 2007
good / better
when hearing the details of our wedding weekend, mb's friend/groomsman nick said, "i don't think i've ever been to a work-out wedding before." while i'm not sure all parts of our wedding qualified as "workout," there were certain sporty elements. but the better-than-sporty elements are what i'll remember most:
sporty: invite guests to bring bikes to wedding, promises of mapped-out bike route for friday.
better-than-sporty: leave own bikes at home to make more room in the car for booze.
sporty: consider swimming and boating upon arrival friday.
better-than-sporty: break out the korbel (brandy - a wisconsin staple) at 4pm.
even-better-than-sporty: replace actual sports with haggling over the over-charged dinner bill, and harrassing passive-aggressive owner-woman until we get our way. judging by the number of willing participants, arguing as sport?
sporty: golf outing saturday morning.
better-than-sporty: everyone gets motorized carts, arranged in teams for scramble. play enjoyable polo-like game of riding as quickly as possible up to the balls to be picked up and trying to scoop them up on the fly.
worse-than-sporty: maid of honor hit in head with fly golf ball from the next runway while trying to locate stray ball in the rough.
better-than-worse-than-sporty: maid of honor's golfing friends include 3 doctors, an emt, a pharmacist, an attorney, and a health insurance professional.
even-better-than-worse-than-sporty: said emt happens to be a rugby player, the only justification we can think of for his kilt and packers hat golf attire. picture large kilted man running across the fairway amid shouts of "someone's down! and she's bleeding!"
relief: she's fine.
better-than-sporty: team that would otherwise have finished last in the scramble tournament now finishes first, because we only played 7 holes and as such have the lowest score. sweet.
sporty: mb and i promise guests that part of the beauty of getting married in such a small town is that you can walk between the ceremony/rehearsal site, the lodging, the restaurants, bars, etc.
better-than-sporty: mb's dad decides that rather than walk to the rehearsal saturday afternoon, guests will be transported via the rented pontoon boat.
sporty: mb and i plan celebratory 5k for saturday afternoon.
better-than-sporty: my brother and butterknife design surprise shirts distributed to our guests via cafe-press, and present us with them on saturday pre-race.
better-than-sporty: the bikemyers family arrives with real race numbers and finishers' medals, all with pretty designs on them.
better-than-sporty: the best man rides the course on his bike and distributes gu packets, water, and jk/kk-supplied coors light to participants at the turn-around.
worse-than-sporty: truck runs over best man's backpack, squishing the gu and coors light together.
sporty(? outdoorsy, anyway): couple plans outdoor wedding ceremony on the lake, during beautiful sunny sunday morning.
worse-than-outdoorsy: grandparents decide they don't want to attend outdoor wedding and prefer to watch from restaurant upstairs.
better-than-outdoorsy: compromise whereby grandparents are summoned outdoors for photos prior to ceremony, then are dismissed back to the restaurant, thereafter referred to as the skybox. bride amuses herself by imagining italian grandfather as paul tagliabue.
sporty: invite guests to bring bikes to wedding, promises of mapped-out bike route for friday.
better-than-sporty: leave own bikes at home to make more room in the car for booze.
sporty: consider swimming and boating upon arrival friday.
better-than-sporty: break out the korbel (brandy - a wisconsin staple) at 4pm.
even-better-than-sporty: replace actual sports with haggling over the over-charged dinner bill, and harrassing passive-aggressive owner-woman until we get our way. judging by the number of willing participants, arguing as sport?
sporty: golf outing saturday morning.
better-than-sporty: everyone gets motorized carts, arranged in teams for scramble. play enjoyable polo-like game of riding as quickly as possible up to the balls to be picked up and trying to scoop them up on the fly.
worse-than-sporty: maid of honor hit in head with fly golf ball from the next runway while trying to locate stray ball in the rough.
better-than-worse-than-sporty: maid of honor's golfing friends include 3 doctors, an emt, a pharmacist, an attorney, and a health insurance professional.
even-better-than-worse-than-sporty: said emt happens to be a rugby player, the only justification we can think of for his kilt and packers hat golf attire. picture large kilted man running across the fairway amid shouts of "someone's down! and she's bleeding!"
relief: she's fine.
better-than-sporty: team that would otherwise have finished last in the scramble tournament now finishes first, because we only played 7 holes and as such have the lowest score. sweet.
sporty: mb and i promise guests that part of the beauty of getting married in such a small town is that you can walk between the ceremony/rehearsal site, the lodging, the restaurants, bars, etc.
better-than-sporty: mb's dad decides that rather than walk to the rehearsal saturday afternoon, guests will be transported via the rented pontoon boat.
sporty: mb and i plan celebratory 5k for saturday afternoon.
better-than-sporty: my brother and butterknife design surprise shirts distributed to our guests via cafe-press, and present us with them on saturday pre-race.
better-than-sporty: the bikemyers family arrives with real race numbers and finishers' medals, all with pretty designs on them.
better-than-sporty: the best man rides the course on his bike and distributes gu packets, water, and jk/kk-supplied coors light to participants at the turn-around.
worse-than-sporty: truck runs over best man's backpack, squishing the gu and coors light together.
sporty(? outdoorsy, anyway): couple plans outdoor wedding ceremony on the lake, during beautiful sunny sunday morning.
worse-than-outdoorsy: grandparents decide they don't want to attend outdoor wedding and prefer to watch from restaurant upstairs.
better-than-outdoorsy: compromise whereby grandparents are summoned outdoors for photos prior to ceremony, then are dismissed back to the restaurant, thereafter referred to as the skybox. bride amuses herself by imagining italian grandfather as paul tagliabue.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
how you get a three-day hangover
well, the wedding was a success, and mb and i did not, as my blogmate feared, die in some tragic fall from a cliff in northern minnesota on our honeymoon. there are too many great things to write about, so this will have to happen in stages. i was thinking not chronologically, but conceptually:
theme #1: booze, and the weakness of late 20s-early 30-somethings despite our collegiate yearnings
by wednesday night prior to the wedding, i had high hopes for our cocktail-drinking abilities, since after the aforementioned wine/cheese/pedicure party we headed for a post-party with the boys (mb and my new sister-in-law's fiance, dr) at junior's for their half-price appetizers and half-price martinis and mojitos... i ended the night really convinced that the answer to feeling better after my passion-fruit and regular mojitos was to rinse it down with jameson on the rocks. no problem. should have taken my blogmate's slightly-earlier retirement for the evening as a wise sign that these things should end earlier (and with less whiskey).
friday morning as mb and i were packing the car, our neighbor michelle woke up and walked outside to double over laughing on the stairs at mb carting an entire plastic crate of hard liquor out to the trunk. apparently this didn't look like classy wedding supplies... pictures were taken. faces changed to protect the innocent.
friday night looked promising, with lots of beer at the local golf course bar (thankfully not much until later, after we could direct mb's brother- and sister-in-law who finally made it into town through the pouring rain). some fun antagonizing of the passive-aggressive owner/manager with bill-haggling, $2.50 tyranena scotch ale pints, making fun of the bartender who poured on-the-rocks drinks into steaming hot glassware. about 2 hours after the bar actually ran out of enough glassware to deal with us, we retired to the b&b. drinking continued with said plastic crate; incriminating picture taken around 2-3 am, involving the best man's 2-month-old son (the best man was the instigator).
saturday tapered off. those of us who went golfing in the morning had a good time with the beer-cart girl (thanks to jamie, who instructed her by hole 3 that she was NOT coming around enough and needed to stick with us). for the record, the beer-cart girl had nothing to do with the final head injury to the maid of honor (more on that later). thanks to jk and kk for being our official keg-fetchers, and for supplying the coors light cans for race refreshments for mb's super-fantastic 5k wedding run! but somehow, even with almost 60 people at the rehearsal picnic, and a ceremonial keg-tapping of the capital amber around 5pm, it took the guys a long time to make even a dent in the keg.
sunday was beautiful. the ceremony was great, so i'm told. but people -- the bartender frankly mocked me for our weak showing. apparently a wedding weekend with kegs and crates of hard liquor results in you all being a very cheap date come sunday. however, after everyone left and the reception had been disassembled, the tapper was still in place. thanks, heidel house! mb and i sat on the porch with leftover beer and cheesecake for another 3 hours. my favorite part was mb pushing me around the lobby on the luggage cart. i really also enjoy evening weddings, but there's something to be said for all of the guests leaving by 2-3 pm...
i promise, the wedding was actually tasteful and quite beautiful and i wouldn't have wanted it any other way. but you don't want to see those pictures first, do you?
theme #1: booze, and the weakness of late 20s-early 30-somethings despite our collegiate yearnings
by wednesday night prior to the wedding, i had high hopes for our cocktail-drinking abilities, since after the aforementioned wine/cheese/pedicure party we headed for a post-party with the boys (mb and my new sister-in-law's fiance, dr) at junior's for their half-price appetizers and half-price martinis and mojitos... i ended the night really convinced that the answer to feeling better after my passion-fruit and regular mojitos was to rinse it down with jameson on the rocks. no problem. should have taken my blogmate's slightly-earlier retirement for the evening as a wise sign that these things should end earlier (and with less whiskey).
friday morning as mb and i were packing the car, our neighbor michelle woke up and walked outside to double over laughing on the stairs at mb carting an entire plastic crate of hard liquor out to the trunk. apparently this didn't look like classy wedding supplies... pictures were taken. faces changed to protect the innocent.
friday night looked promising, with lots of beer at the local golf course bar (thankfully not much until later, after we could direct mb's brother- and sister-in-law who finally made it into town through the pouring rain). some fun antagonizing of the passive-aggressive owner/manager with bill-haggling, $2.50 tyranena scotch ale pints, making fun of the bartender who poured on-the-rocks drinks into steaming hot glassware. about 2 hours after the bar actually ran out of enough glassware to deal with us, we retired to the b&b. drinking continued with said plastic crate; incriminating picture taken around 2-3 am, involving the best man's 2-month-old son (the best man was the instigator).
saturday tapered off. those of us who went golfing in the morning had a good time with the beer-cart girl (thanks to jamie, who instructed her by hole 3 that she was NOT coming around enough and needed to stick with us). for the record, the beer-cart girl had nothing to do with the final head injury to the maid of honor (more on that later). thanks to jk and kk for being our official keg-fetchers, and for supplying the coors light cans for race refreshments for mb's super-fantastic 5k wedding run! but somehow, even with almost 60 people at the rehearsal picnic, and a ceremonial keg-tapping of the capital amber around 5pm, it took the guys a long time to make even a dent in the keg.
sunday was beautiful. the ceremony was great, so i'm told. but people -- the bartender frankly mocked me for our weak showing. apparently a wedding weekend with kegs and crates of hard liquor results in you all being a very cheap date come sunday. however, after everyone left and the reception had been disassembled, the tapper was still in place. thanks, heidel house! mb and i sat on the porch with leftover beer and cheesecake for another 3 hours. my favorite part was mb pushing me around the lobby on the luggage cart. i really also enjoy evening weddings, but there's something to be said for all of the guests leaving by 2-3 pm...
i promise, the wedding was actually tasteful and quite beautiful and i wouldn't have wanted it any other way. but you don't want to see those pictures first, do you?
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
what's happening right now in cheese?
i wish i had made up that question.
while running errands yesterday morning, i stopped at the newly opened whole foods market to pick up some snacks for a wine-and-cheese-and-pedicure party that i'm having with my bridesmaids downtown. i heard the above question from the mouth of one of the eighty bajillion south-loop yuppies that have come out of the woodwork since the store's opening.
i was happily browsing the non-happening cheeses, and had selected an apple-and-wood-chip-smoked cheddar, an herb havarti, and a spread-ey cheese from brunkow cheese co-op (my favorite stop at the madison farmer's market), when i heard that question and turned around --- to discover that i had failed to acknowledge a 15-foot-in-diameter cheese EMPIRE presided over by the cheesemaster, who was nodding knowledgeably and telling the yuppies that, apparently, spanish cheeses are very "hip" right now.
my resulting cheese selection, while very happening and quite exciting, might have aimed a little past the cheap asian nail salon and sports bar that are our entertainment this evening. i have, umm, something spanish that is kind of like manchego, whatever manchego is (i of course nodded like i knew what he was talking about), and a cotswold??? all i know is that the white one tastes like butter and the orange one tastes like cheddar with chives in it. and they seem like they'll be yummy, paired with the debut of my TOTALLY NON-SUCKY HOME-MADE PINOT GRIGIO that i just got back from the wine shop and some olives.
mmm. don't you wish you were joining us? we'll raise a glass to you.
while running errands yesterday morning, i stopped at the newly opened whole foods market to pick up some snacks for a wine-and-cheese-and-pedicure party that i'm having with my bridesmaids downtown. i heard the above question from the mouth of one of the eighty bajillion south-loop yuppies that have come out of the woodwork since the store's opening.
i was happily browsing the non-happening cheeses, and had selected an apple-and-wood-chip-smoked cheddar, an herb havarti, and a spread-ey cheese from brunkow cheese co-op (my favorite stop at the madison farmer's market), when i heard that question and turned around --- to discover that i had failed to acknowledge a 15-foot-in-diameter cheese EMPIRE presided over by the cheesemaster, who was nodding knowledgeably and telling the yuppies that, apparently, spanish cheeses are very "hip" right now.
my resulting cheese selection, while very happening and quite exciting, might have aimed a little past the cheap asian nail salon and sports bar that are our entertainment this evening. i have, umm, something spanish that is kind of like manchego, whatever manchego is (i of course nodded like i knew what he was talking about), and a cotswold??? all i know is that the white one tastes like butter and the orange one tastes like cheddar with chives in it. and they seem like they'll be yummy, paired with the debut of my TOTALLY NON-SUCKY HOME-MADE PINOT GRIGIO that i just got back from the wine shop and some olives.
mmm. don't you wish you were joining us? we'll raise a glass to you.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
the proverbial nacho itch
i got an email today, helpfully announcing that there are at least 40 registered sex offenders in my neighborhood. "creepy," i thought to myself, "but what an excellent public service! do they really hunt down everyone's email address?" eventually i figured out that the email was not, in fact, an attempt to keep the public informed, but rather some kind of "keep your children safe" scam, trying to trick me into buying some sort of portfolio detailing all the gory details about the local miscreants.
"sweet," i further thought to myself, "i don't have kids, and as such i don't really care about who the local sex offenders are."
this, my friends, is the story of my life: self-indulgent, irresponsible ignorance.
i feel good about it, actually. but for my relatively care-free existence, and my entourage of relatively care-free friends i wouldn't have the following highlight reel for the week:
saturday: mid morning jog with my lovely friends who let me shower at their house, fed me breakfast, and sent me off to the airport with little baggies of snacks. arrival to pittsburgh to visit one of my new orleans bffs and her husband, who sat me down sequentially in front of carribbean food, a hookah, a bottle of whine, fish tacos, and yuengling on tap. then there was some fairly entertaining tipsy text messaging before we all went to bed drunk and content.
monday: road trip from pittsburgh to falling water (ok, i suppose i can't really hold up love of frank lloyd wright as demonstration of my carefree youthfulness), some cursory exploration of one of the kayak towns where we stood ankle deep in a river feeling pleased with ourselves, and finally, a lovely trip back to the airport, drinking diet mountain dew, eating amish beef jerky, singing along to my friends' new akon cd.
thursday (i know, how could i possibly top diet mountain dew and amish beef jerky?): trip to caesar's on braodway to rekindle my romance with carne asada nachos, about which i've thought non-stop since i tried them a couple of weeks ago with one of my other new orleans bffs and her boyfriend. it turned out that my soon-to-be-wed blogmate also had such hankerings (see the title of this post, an immediately immortalized phrase for which i can take no credit), and also shared my desire for margaritas and gossip. while i think we both looked a bit cuter than usual, i can't really explain the deluge of free stuff that arrived at our table. and while i stand by my belief that it's just the right thing to do to down shots when they appear, unsolicited in front of you, i don't how i thought i could avoid the ensuing drunkenness. then, of course, there was more tipsy text messaging.
if you're not jealous you should be.
"sweet," i further thought to myself, "i don't have kids, and as such i don't really care about who the local sex offenders are."
this, my friends, is the story of my life: self-indulgent, irresponsible ignorance.
i feel good about it, actually. but for my relatively care-free existence, and my entourage of relatively care-free friends i wouldn't have the following highlight reel for the week:
saturday: mid morning jog with my lovely friends who let me shower at their house, fed me breakfast, and sent me off to the airport with little baggies of snacks. arrival to pittsburgh to visit one of my new orleans bffs and her husband, who sat me down sequentially in front of carribbean food, a hookah, a bottle of whine, fish tacos, and yuengling on tap. then there was some fairly entertaining tipsy text messaging before we all went to bed drunk and content.
monday: road trip from pittsburgh to falling water (ok, i suppose i can't really hold up love of frank lloyd wright as demonstration of my carefree youthfulness), some cursory exploration of one of the kayak towns where we stood ankle deep in a river feeling pleased with ourselves, and finally, a lovely trip back to the airport, drinking diet mountain dew, eating amish beef jerky, singing along to my friends' new akon cd.
thursday (i know, how could i possibly top diet mountain dew and amish beef jerky?): trip to caesar's on braodway to rekindle my romance with carne asada nachos, about which i've thought non-stop since i tried them a couple of weeks ago with one of my other new orleans bffs and her boyfriend. it turned out that my soon-to-be-wed blogmate also had such hankerings (see the title of this post, an immediately immortalized phrase for which i can take no credit), and also shared my desire for margaritas and gossip. while i think we both looked a bit cuter than usual, i can't really explain the deluge of free stuff that arrived at our table. and while i stand by my belief that it's just the right thing to do to down shots when they appear, unsolicited in front of you, i don't how i thought i could avoid the ensuing drunkenness. then, of course, there was more tipsy text messaging.
if you're not jealous you should be.
Friday, August 31, 2007
the old swimmin' hole
the other night ck and i decided it had been far too long since we'd done something fun together and made a swimming date. we had it all planned - it was a perfect hot morning, and ck was going to call me as work was wrapping up and we'd meet out at the point, hyde park's answer to "what is there to do in hyde park, anyway?" mb got excited at the prospect of company for swimming in lake michigan, and ck recruited msbikemyers to join us, and it would have been a regular swimming party just like we were kids... and we pinky-swore not to tell bikemyers that it was a party, who had agreed unknowingly to stay home in charge of littlebikemyers...
except that the perfect hot day turned into a grey hot day which turned into a grey cold windy day. mb, ck, msbikemyers and i all arrived at the point, and some of us decided we were more interested in sitting along the rocky shore admiring the chicago skyline than in actual exercise. mb, of course, was not in that group of "some of us," and off he went. mb is a good swimmer, but it was so choppy out there that for us on shore it was like dolphin watching: "where is he?" "i don't see him." "wait, there he is! look, he just shot up into the air!" "ooooh! oh, wait.. where is he now?"
as mb got out of the water, we all packed up, grateful to not be caught in a rainstorm, since the sky was almost black by this point... and were promptly deluged not by storm water, but by a throng of pre-teen boys charging toward the water and stomping on our things in that innocently oblivious way that only pre-teen boys can do. behind them was a group of adults, one of whom, carrying a bible, announced to us, "we're having a baptism!"
it is almost sundown, it is windy, the waves are high, the water is deep, and the bottom of the lake is rocky. there is NO amount of adult supervision that would have made me feel comfortable with those kids at that baptism. undeterred, the ringleader was staking out his place on a flat slippery rock not two feet from the lake. the boys, delighted, were rushing out to be near him. msbikemyers, ck, mb and i left. i just didn't want to know.
as i told bikemyers later (who i think was secretly amused that our secret swimming party had been stymied), i believe that jesus saves as much as anyone. but i am not interested in testing salvation with idiocy.
except that the perfect hot day turned into a grey hot day which turned into a grey cold windy day. mb, ck, msbikemyers and i all arrived at the point, and some of us decided we were more interested in sitting along the rocky shore admiring the chicago skyline than in actual exercise. mb, of course, was not in that group of "some of us," and off he went. mb is a good swimmer, but it was so choppy out there that for us on shore it was like dolphin watching: "where is he?" "i don't see him." "wait, there he is! look, he just shot up into the air!" "ooooh! oh, wait.. where is he now?"
as mb got out of the water, we all packed up, grateful to not be caught in a rainstorm, since the sky was almost black by this point... and were promptly deluged not by storm water, but by a throng of pre-teen boys charging toward the water and stomping on our things in that innocently oblivious way that only pre-teen boys can do. behind them was a group of adults, one of whom, carrying a bible, announced to us, "we're having a baptism!"
it is almost sundown, it is windy, the waves are high, the water is deep, and the bottom of the lake is rocky. there is NO amount of adult supervision that would have made me feel comfortable with those kids at that baptism. undeterred, the ringleader was staking out his place on a flat slippery rock not two feet from the lake. the boys, delighted, were rushing out to be near him. msbikemyers, ck, mb and i left. i just didn't want to know.
as i told bikemyers later (who i think was secretly amused that our secret swimming party had been stymied), i believe that jesus saves as much as anyone. but i am not interested in testing salvation with idiocy.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
karma's a bitch
on my way out to run errands yesterday, i stopped at the ups store to deliver a package to jz up in thiensville. as i pulled up to the ups store, an suv blocked the loading zone, leaving me with nowhere to park; i was in a hurry, and the only spot i could see was right in front of the fire hydrant at the end of the block. "i'll only be here 2 minutes," i thought to myself, "and if there's an actual fire while i'm here, i will notice and move the car. i am not a bad citizen."
so i parked in front of the hydrant, delivered my package successfully, strolled back to the car, and was just putting the car in drive, when -- i'm not kidding -- two big fire trucks were barrelling down on me from either side of taylor street.
"%$#@!!!" i thought. "they want my fire hydrant! i'm not a bad citizen! i'm not a bad citizen!" thinking as quickly as i could, i veered around the corner into the side alley near the hydrant to clear the way for the fire rescue team...
...only to discover that what they wanted was actually *not* my hydrant, but the alley that i'd just entered. at the end of the alley was another fire truck. i pulled into a driveway to turn around, and realized that i was now pinned in between two fire trucks, and the fire was in an apartment building on that street. i think the fire truck actually moved out of the way a little so i could sheepishly sneak my car out of the way.
i feel small sitting in a sports coupe in chicago in general, what with being surrounded by suv's all the time... but that's nothing compared to being pinned in by 3 big fire trucks.
so i parked in front of the hydrant, delivered my package successfully, strolled back to the car, and was just putting the car in drive, when -- i'm not kidding -- two big fire trucks were barrelling down on me from either side of taylor street.
"%$#@!!!" i thought. "they want my fire hydrant! i'm not a bad citizen! i'm not a bad citizen!" thinking as quickly as i could, i veered around the corner into the side alley near the hydrant to clear the way for the fire rescue team...
...only to discover that what they wanted was actually *not* my hydrant, but the alley that i'd just entered. at the end of the alley was another fire truck. i pulled into a driveway to turn around, and realized that i was now pinned in between two fire trucks, and the fire was in an apartment building on that street. i think the fire truck actually moved out of the way a little so i could sheepishly sneak my car out of the way.
i feel small sitting in a sports coupe in chicago in general, what with being surrounded by suv's all the time... but that's nothing compared to being pinned in by 3 big fire trucks.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
swim, bike, run, repeat
i spend a lot of time stating the obvious.
for example, over the last couple days i've come to the conclusion that it's really nice having such awesome friends.
i say this after a recent night of boy-chasing during which i was reminded that there's just no substitute for a good wingman, and there's absolutely nothing like having two good wingpeople at once. more on that story later when, um, there's more of a story to tell.
meanwhile, my friends continue to manifest their awesomeness in other ways.
ck continues to drag herself out of bed very early on sunday mornings to join me at ohio street for swimming and pep talk. she's an excellent swim coach, good company, and, like me, has at least one near wipe-out per bike ride because she's distracted by some incredibly hot guy on the lakeshore path.
[as an aside, i feel compelled to confess that i'm having alot of trouble keeping my thoughts to myself on the lakeshore path. as my blogmate has already explained, you can't exactly cuss and holler on your bike at the various idiots in the way that you can when you're in your car with the windows rolled up. people just don't respond so well to "get your *^% ($#C@ head out of your $#% you stupid %$#@^ &*%$#@!!!" i do wonder though, how they'd respond to more positive feedback. there are a lot of really beautiful people on the lakeshore path, and part of me really wants to tell people how fantastic i think they are. i'd like to think that i'd respond really well to comments like, "wow pretty skinny blond girl, you're running really fast!" or, "please don 't think that i'm trying to take you home, sir, but you and your six-pack are smokin' hot and i really respect that." i do know that as one of very few women cyclists out on the path at 6AM, i have absolutely no problem with the amount of staring that happens by a small subset of the very many male cyclists (the women runners couldn't possibly stop and stare or say anything encouraging... because they're running way too fast for that).]
and the collective triathlon coach comprised of my blogmate, mb, ck, and bikemyers have been very nice in their pointing out that it's probably time to start tapering already. they successfully executed a very slick, multi-phase plan of attack. i paraphrase as follows:
ck:"you know you're going to have to start tapering soon, right?"
jo-na: "you don't have to listen to me, but bikemyers is going to tell you that it's time to start tapering and you should probably listen to him."
bikemyers: "you are super-well prepared, and you're going to do great, but please start the taper, it's the right thing to do."
mb: "have you started tapering yet?"
so thank you, lovely friends, for summoning boys to bars for me, for showing up to be emergency wingmen at said bar with 8 minutes of notice, for coaching me to triathlon, even when i have no idea what's good for me, and for listening to my long boring stories about boys and triathlons. it hasn't gone unnoticed. i owe you one.
for example, over the last couple days i've come to the conclusion that it's really nice having such awesome friends.
i say this after a recent night of boy-chasing during which i was reminded that there's just no substitute for a good wingman, and there's absolutely nothing like having two good wingpeople at once. more on that story later when, um, there's more of a story to tell.
meanwhile, my friends continue to manifest their awesomeness in other ways.
ck continues to drag herself out of bed very early on sunday mornings to join me at ohio street for swimming and pep talk. she's an excellent swim coach, good company, and, like me, has at least one near wipe-out per bike ride because she's distracted by some incredibly hot guy on the lakeshore path.
[as an aside, i feel compelled to confess that i'm having alot of trouble keeping my thoughts to myself on the lakeshore path. as my blogmate has already explained, you can't exactly cuss and holler on your bike at the various idiots in the way that you can when you're in your car with the windows rolled up. people just don't respond so well to "get your *^% ($#C@ head out of your $#% you stupid %$#@^ &*%$#@!!!" i do wonder though, how they'd respond to more positive feedback. there are a lot of really beautiful people on the lakeshore path, and part of me really wants to tell people how fantastic i think they are. i'd like to think that i'd respond really well to comments like, "wow pretty skinny blond girl, you're running really fast!" or, "please don 't think that i'm trying to take you home, sir, but you and your six-pack are smokin' hot and i really respect that." i do know that as one of very few women cyclists out on the path at 6AM, i have absolutely no problem with the amount of staring that happens by a small subset of the very many male cyclists (the women runners couldn't possibly stop and stare or say anything encouraging... because they're running way too fast for that).]
and the collective triathlon coach comprised of my blogmate, mb, ck, and bikemyers have been very nice in their pointing out that it's probably time to start tapering already. they successfully executed a very slick, multi-phase plan of attack. i paraphrase as follows:
ck:"you know you're going to have to start tapering soon, right?"
jo-na: "you don't have to listen to me, but bikemyers is going to tell you that it's time to start tapering and you should probably listen to him."
bikemyers: "you are super-well prepared, and you're going to do great, but please start the taper, it's the right thing to do."
mb: "have you started tapering yet?"
so thank you, lovely friends, for summoning boys to bars for me, for showing up to be emergency wingmen at said bar with 8 minutes of notice, for coaching me to triathlon, even when i have no idea what's good for me, and for listening to my long boring stories about boys and triathlons. it hasn't gone unnoticed. i owe you one.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
all's fair in love and war
or is it?
being single isn't without its advantages. life is simple, unhindered by the complex negotiations of cohabitation, and as the token single girl among your circle of friends, your stories make for the best bar talk. no more of those disapproving looks you used to get when you do something slutty - now it's the collective gaze of admiration to the tune of "your life is so much more exciting than mine" (or at least that's what i think would happen if i ever actually did anything slutty). but really, being the last boy-less girl standing means your personal life is actually interesting to your friends... and if it's not they'll find ways to liven things up.
it's not that i don't appreciate the help. clearly i need it. but, my friends, colleagues, and potentials, lets set some ground rules. i 'm sure i speak for girls unspoken for everywhere...
before setting us up with "oh my god he would be perfect for you" guy, try to confirm that he's actually single. we may be tough, but nobody really needs, "i'm sure you're nice but i'm seeing someone." unhelpful, really.
and ladies, a little coaching of "he's totally cute, i really think you'd like him" guy goes a long way, especially if he thinks the right way to make contact is to make us the 145th person on the evite to the $140 rooftop cubs party. it might be blind, but it should still be a date.
and maybe all you're looking for is a nice jewish girl, but a little finesse never hurt anyone. j-date exists for a reason, people. one of those reasons is to obviate the need for unwelcome messages in our myspace mailboxes to the tune of, "hello, i see you are jewish, we should hang out." i suppose that might work for displaced members of very small, homogeneous minority groups ("hello, i see that you are a basque revolutionary and that you enjoy playing raquetball. i too am a basque revolutionary and i am looking for a raquetball partner!"), but especially when everything about us is neatly laid out on our website you might work on finding a better in.
more credit goes out to nm, who managed to remain tactful and discreet as she did my stalking for me, and even laid out a perfectly conceived drinking and flirting opportunity at my feet. i couldn't take her up on it, mostly because i would have had a hard time explaining to my good blogmate that i couldn't rearrange my schedule to go to her wedding shower, but that i could reschedule to chase a boy around ukrainian village. as it is she's being an awfully good sport about my non-commitment to fried ravioli and plastic-cup chianti in little italy this sunday (until i know what's happening with aforementioned boy-chasing).
if you've got a main squeeze hold on tight folks, you don't want to know how the other half lives.
being single isn't without its advantages. life is simple, unhindered by the complex negotiations of cohabitation, and as the token single girl among your circle of friends, your stories make for the best bar talk. no more of those disapproving looks you used to get when you do something slutty - now it's the collective gaze of admiration to the tune of "your life is so much more exciting than mine" (or at least that's what i think would happen if i ever actually did anything slutty). but really, being the last boy-less girl standing means your personal life is actually interesting to your friends... and if it's not they'll find ways to liven things up.
it's not that i don't appreciate the help. clearly i need it. but, my friends, colleagues, and potentials, lets set some ground rules. i 'm sure i speak for girls unspoken for everywhere...
before setting us up with "oh my god he would be perfect for you" guy, try to confirm that he's actually single. we may be tough, but nobody really needs, "i'm sure you're nice but i'm seeing someone." unhelpful, really.
and ladies, a little coaching of "he's totally cute, i really think you'd like him" guy goes a long way, especially if he thinks the right way to make contact is to make us the 145th person on the evite to the $140 rooftop cubs party. it might be blind, but it should still be a date.
and maybe all you're looking for is a nice jewish girl, but a little finesse never hurt anyone. j-date exists for a reason, people. one of those reasons is to obviate the need for unwelcome messages in our myspace mailboxes to the tune of, "hello, i see you are jewish, we should hang out." i suppose that might work for displaced members of very small, homogeneous minority groups ("hello, i see that you are a basque revolutionary and that you enjoy playing raquetball. i too am a basque revolutionary and i am looking for a raquetball partner!"), but especially when everything about us is neatly laid out on our website you might work on finding a better in.
more credit goes out to nm, who managed to remain tactful and discreet as she did my stalking for me, and even laid out a perfectly conceived drinking and flirting opportunity at my feet. i couldn't take her up on it, mostly because i would have had a hard time explaining to my good blogmate that i couldn't rearrange my schedule to go to her wedding shower, but that i could reschedule to chase a boy around ukrainian village. as it is she's being an awfully good sport about my non-commitment to fried ravioli and plastic-cup chianti in little italy this sunday (until i know what's happening with aforementioned boy-chasing).
if you've got a main squeeze hold on tight folks, you don't want to know how the other half lives.
Monday, August 06, 2007
one city block, one million hipsters
as far as i can gather, summer in chicago is about two things: triathlon training and outdoor festivals.
to appease n, my second favorite wicker park hipster (after m, of course), i'll lay off the tri-training-talk for a bit and focus my attention on the many shades of chi-town music fest (sorry n, you make fun of my blog, i make fun of indie rock).
put on your best pair of vans and stretchy black jeans, folks. comb your hair over your eyes, don your best scowl, and head out for the cosmic center of the super-edgy: there's just no better people watching anywhere in town than at the milwaukee/damen/north intersection.
the wicker park festival was everything i'd imagined it would be. even the babies were dressed better than i was. of course, even the hipsters are subject to the occasionally fashion glitch - as n so aptly put it, "what's with all the guys in the weird short pants?" apparently nobody told him about man-capris, once the haute-couture staple of boys town, now plaguing ukrainian village and beyond.
don't get me wrong - i had fun and the music was good, even if kk and i were the only ones spazzing out like freaks at the dirty dozen brass band.
lets move on to lollapalooza. it's hard to follow up my blogmate's clever intro, but i'll do my best.
there was a lot of controversy about lolla this year. at $195 for a 3-day pass the line-up left much to be desired, especially following the previous two years of indie rock heaven. we all pretended like we were above it, but in the end we couldn't stand to let it go on without us.
though i fully backed my good blogmate's description of the alternateens in their festival best, and her prediction of their down-trodden and sunburned demise, the weather skewed the results. don't get me wrong, by friday night there was enough heat stroke and stumbling drunk for everyone to get their fair share, but saturday was so rainy and miserable that on sunday everyone was back out in their finest micro-minis and bikini tops. so much sunburn, such nasty port-o-potties. in case you were wondering, the hipsters all stayed home, having opted for the much more respectable pitchfork, leaving me alone with an army of uber-frat (thanks, nm, for my new favorite adjective).
i don't even know what to say about the music. even weirder than pearl jam as the headliner were throngs of adolescent girls who broke down the doors at 11AM so they could be in the very front row. how people who were still in diapers during the glory days of 10 and the original lolla are the new pearl jam fan base is mysterious to me, but then again, so was the entirety of the teenage cohort (apparently regina spektor is this year's angsty high-school girl icon - think tori amos... or maybe ani difranco).
there were some nice surprises, including paolo nutini and the aforementioned regina spektor both of whom were so charming and adorable that i had quite the internal debate about which one i wanted to take home and stuff in my closet. i was unabashed in my love of snow patrol (they're cooler when you realize they're irish), even though i knew full well i was losing lots of hipster stock by picking them over yeah yeah yeahs. i'd like to think i got some of it back at interpol, where i not only enjoyed the show, but almost managed to keep a straight face. great music, but seriously? so much three-piece suit and scowling. how broody can one band be?
so there it is. n, i hope you're happy, because i've got lots more to say about how much my knees hurt and my evolving close personal relationship with my bottle of ibuprofen.
to appease n, my second favorite wicker park hipster (after m, of course), i'll lay off the tri-training-talk for a bit and focus my attention on the many shades of chi-town music fest (sorry n, you make fun of my blog, i make fun of indie rock).
put on your best pair of vans and stretchy black jeans, folks. comb your hair over your eyes, don your best scowl, and head out for the cosmic center of the super-edgy: there's just no better people watching anywhere in town than at the milwaukee/damen/north intersection.
the wicker park festival was everything i'd imagined it would be. even the babies were dressed better than i was. of course, even the hipsters are subject to the occasionally fashion glitch - as n so aptly put it, "what's with all the guys in the weird short pants?" apparently nobody told him about man-capris, once the haute-couture staple of boys town, now plaguing ukrainian village and beyond.
don't get me wrong - i had fun and the music was good, even if kk and i were the only ones spazzing out like freaks at the dirty dozen brass band.
lets move on to lollapalooza. it's hard to follow up my blogmate's clever intro, but i'll do my best.
there was a lot of controversy about lolla this year. at $195 for a 3-day pass the line-up left much to be desired, especially following the previous two years of indie rock heaven. we all pretended like we were above it, but in the end we couldn't stand to let it go on without us.
though i fully backed my good blogmate's description of the alternateens in their festival best, and her prediction of their down-trodden and sunburned demise, the weather skewed the results. don't get me wrong, by friday night there was enough heat stroke and stumbling drunk for everyone to get their fair share, but saturday was so rainy and miserable that on sunday everyone was back out in their finest micro-minis and bikini tops. so much sunburn, such nasty port-o-potties. in case you were wondering, the hipsters all stayed home, having opted for the much more respectable pitchfork, leaving me alone with an army of uber-frat (thanks, nm, for my new favorite adjective).
i don't even know what to say about the music. even weirder than pearl jam as the headliner were throngs of adolescent girls who broke down the doors at 11AM so they could be in the very front row. how people who were still in diapers during the glory days of 10 and the original lolla are the new pearl jam fan base is mysterious to me, but then again, so was the entirety of the teenage cohort (apparently regina spektor is this year's angsty high-school girl icon - think tori amos... or maybe ani difranco).
there were some nice surprises, including paolo nutini and the aforementioned regina spektor both of whom were so charming and adorable that i had quite the internal debate about which one i wanted to take home and stuff in my closet. i was unabashed in my love of snow patrol (they're cooler when you realize they're irish), even though i knew full well i was losing lots of hipster stock by picking them over yeah yeah yeahs. i'd like to think i got some of it back at interpol, where i not only enjoyed the show, but almost managed to keep a straight face. great music, but seriously? so much three-piece suit and scowling. how broody can one band be?
so there it is. n, i hope you're happy, because i've got lots more to say about how much my knees hurt and my evolving close personal relationship with my bottle of ibuprofen.
Friday, August 03, 2007
the new triathlon: run bike ouch
anyone want to feel a few pounds lighter instantly? try running outside in chicago at noon in august. i got back an hour ago and i still feel down about a gallon of water. but my almost-brother-in-law says planning exercise around off-peak times of day is for sissies, so off i went. in the winter i try to claim that i burn more calories running outside because i have to heat myself up, but now that the city is a great big ez-bake oven, i'm going to claim that i burn more calories running outside because... umm, i don't know, because that was hard? i met my blogmate in her neighborhood for an early breakfast, ran some errands, and then thought it would be smart to run home to conserve fuel and give myself a destination or something. thanks, blogmate, for the phone message ensuring that i was not collapsed somewhere downtown... :)
i might have been collapsed somewhere downtown, but it was only with laughter at the descending alterna-teens in town for lollapalooza this weekend. this pattern is familiar from last year: on friday, everyone's in their alterna-best- little tank tops, short shorts, etc. by sunday, everyone's a sunburned ragged mess. i look forward to the full report from blogmate and friends. for now, i'll content myself with the nice conversation i had with some dreadlocked white guy with an obviously-faked british-sci-fi-accent (seriously, does he think i never watched red dwarf?) we were engaged together in stand-off against one of the charmingly useless corner-traffic police, who had erected a barricade at roosevelt and columbus preventing us from crossing the street. when traffic woman told us we weren't allowed to cross the barricade, despite the total lack of traffic or other pedestrians or concert happenings, we double teamed her: me: "oh, honey, i can't walk that far to cross the bridge. i've been running in this heat for six miles and i still have to get home!" rimmer (making jazz hands) : "looks like SOMEbody has a conTROOOOOOLLL issue!" traffic woman told us that instead of crossing at the nice controlled intersection, because there was a camera where her boss would catch her letting us through and then she'd get in trouble, the right thing for us to do was walk 100 yards north to a gap in the fence, and dart across six lanes of traffic in front of a police car. safety first.
if this is the state of chicago safety for non-motorists, i'm just glad our own bikemyers wasn't any more seriously hurt this past weekend. turns out it's a bad thing when teenage girls on bikes decide to pull their overweight boyfriends behind them on rollerblades, and roll out of control head-on into a pair of very expensive race wheels driven by our friend. ten stitches, one black eye, one fewer pair of eyeglasses, and a pretty hoarse voice later (her helmet got acquainted with his trachea), i guess it could have been worse. hey, if my favorite traffic director were there, she would have sent all three of them straight into lake shore drive to meet an oncoming semi truck. but now bikemyers is... umm, just _myers, until he can replace his totalled ride?
have a safe weekend, friends.
and sm, are you really doing a virtual-san francisco half-marathon? do you get the bag of goodies? that sounds awesome!
i might have been collapsed somewhere downtown, but it was only with laughter at the descending alterna-teens in town for lollapalooza this weekend. this pattern is familiar from last year: on friday, everyone's in their alterna-best- little tank tops, short shorts, etc. by sunday, everyone's a sunburned ragged mess. i look forward to the full report from blogmate and friends. for now, i'll content myself with the nice conversation i had with some dreadlocked white guy with an obviously-faked british-sci-fi-accent (seriously, does he think i never watched red dwarf?) we were engaged together in stand-off against one of the charmingly useless corner-traffic police, who had erected a barricade at roosevelt and columbus preventing us from crossing the street. when traffic woman told us we weren't allowed to cross the barricade, despite the total lack of traffic or other pedestrians or concert happenings, we double teamed her: me: "oh, honey, i can't walk that far to cross the bridge. i've been running in this heat for six miles and i still have to get home!" rimmer (making jazz hands) : "looks like SOMEbody has a conTROOOOOOLLL issue!" traffic woman told us that instead of crossing at the nice controlled intersection, because there was a camera where her boss would catch her letting us through and then she'd get in trouble, the right thing for us to do was walk 100 yards north to a gap in the fence, and dart across six lanes of traffic in front of a police car. safety first.
if this is the state of chicago safety for non-motorists, i'm just glad our own bikemyers wasn't any more seriously hurt this past weekend. turns out it's a bad thing when teenage girls on bikes decide to pull their overweight boyfriends behind them on rollerblades, and roll out of control head-on into a pair of very expensive race wheels driven by our friend. ten stitches, one black eye, one fewer pair of eyeglasses, and a pretty hoarse voice later (her helmet got acquainted with his trachea), i guess it could have been worse. hey, if my favorite traffic director were there, she would have sent all three of them straight into lake shore drive to meet an oncoming semi truck. but now bikemyers is... umm, just _myers, until he can replace his totalled ride?
have a safe weekend, friends.
and sm, are you really doing a virtual-san francisco half-marathon? do you get the bag of goodies? that sounds awesome!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
training day
anyone who knows me well knows that i have a love-hate relationship with exercise (although i suppose one could argue: don't we all?). my ambivalence on this issue manifests itself in a few different ways, but none have been so pronounced in the last few months as my on-again-off-again triathlon debate.
fortunately for me (and my expanding, sagging, 30 year-old backside), fate stepped in quite definitively a few weeks ago... like it or not i'm doing the chicago triathlon because, well, i got off the waitlist and it seems like the right thing to do.
there are, of course, positive and negative aspects of this development and its ongoing impact on my life. they are as follows:
pro: overwhelmingly enthusiastic show of support by my more triathlon-gifted friends (namely my blogmate, ck, and bikemyers)
con: overwhelming guilt at the sad reality that i will most likely have a heart attack on race day (probably before i even get in the water), thus disappointing my awesome fan club
con: overwhelming sense that i'm not a good swimmer, cyclist, or runner
pro: overwhelming sense that it might not actually matter
pro: lots of fun new toys
con: credit card bill for fun new toys
con: ravenously hungry all the time
pro: eating all the time
pro: abundance of cute boys on the lakefront path
con: thinking about how i must look, sweating like a pig on the lakefront path
con: apartment a mess, tons of laundry, bike tire tread marks on the walls, sand and bicycle grease everywhere, entire contents of lake michigan in my bathtub
pro: complete absence of guilt about apartment being a mess, tons of laundry, bike tire tread marks on the walls, sand and bicycle grease everywhere, entire contents of lake michigan in my bathtub
con: drunk after one beer
pro: drunk after one beer
so i guess it all evens out in the end. see you at the finish line.
fortunately for me (and my expanding, sagging, 30 year-old backside), fate stepped in quite definitively a few weeks ago... like it or not i'm doing the chicago triathlon because, well, i got off the waitlist and it seems like the right thing to do.
there are, of course, positive and negative aspects of this development and its ongoing impact on my life. they are as follows:
pro: overwhelmingly enthusiastic show of support by my more triathlon-gifted friends (namely my blogmate, ck, and bikemyers)
con: overwhelming guilt at the sad reality that i will most likely have a heart attack on race day (probably before i even get in the water), thus disappointing my awesome fan club
con: overwhelming sense that i'm not a good swimmer, cyclist, or runner
pro: overwhelming sense that it might not actually matter
pro: lots of fun new toys
con: credit card bill for fun new toys
con: ravenously hungry all the time
pro: eating all the time
pro: abundance of cute boys on the lakefront path
con: thinking about how i must look, sweating like a pig on the lakefront path
con: apartment a mess, tons of laundry, bike tire tread marks on the walls, sand and bicycle grease everywhere, entire contents of lake michigan in my bathtub
pro: complete absence of guilt about apartment being a mess, tons of laundry, bike tire tread marks on the walls, sand and bicycle grease everywhere, entire contents of lake michigan in my bathtub
con: drunk after one beer
pro: drunk after one beer
so i guess it all evens out in the end. see you at the finish line.
Monday, July 23, 2007
race report
mb and i have a fundamentally different take on many things. for example, i showed him a layout for programs for our upcoming wedding which i thought was cute and funny, featuring a different picture of ourselves or our family members as small children on the fronts of them - not only did he dislike them, but he objected to pictures of his small face smeared with cake. (claims it's "objectifying." i claim he's never been objectified, if that's what he thinks. really? women-as-sex-objects is the same as small-children-as-cake-magnets?)
so it should be no surprise that while awaiting the start of a triathlon in racine this weekend, that i look at big pointy sharp-toothed waves in lake michigan and my stomach turns circles, while mb stretches his arms out smiling, and says "this is so relaxing! look at the water; it's beautiful! i'm so glad the swim is a MILLION TIMES LONGER than other races this distance because it'll be so much FUN! this is so relaxing! i'm totally not stressed out." (ok, not a million times longer... but 750m vs 500m matters to slow swimmers when i think the waves could eat small objectified children for breakfast.)
the race itself went fine, actually. i summarize as follows:
1. swim: 750m in lake michigan. mb out of the water 3-4 minutes faster than his nearest competitor. i swallow much of lake michigan making it shallower and much easier for all who come after me.
1.5 transition 1 (swim-bike): run up the beach thru sand, not a short distance. mb RUNS through the foot-washing buckets entering the bike area. i try not to fall just getting up the sand, but am happy because my new watch (thanks, boston!) tells me that i have not, as i had feared, been in the water for over an hour, but more like 22 minutes, and they will not be closing the course before i ever find my bike.
2. bike: 12.4 miles on flat drag-strip suburban racine roads. mb curious about why he's not passing anyone (answer: nobody in front of him). i settle into my usual triathlon bike position, which is neck-and-neck with some 50-some-year-old man doing a relay, and spend the rest of the bike either being passed by him or passing him or trying to avoid or accomplish one of those tasks. this has happened to me before, but last time the 50-year-old was funny and trash-talking: "why would you pass an old man like that?" this guy is not funny, despite my trying to say something friendly... on the bright side, last time the guy was trash talking it egged me on to go faster than i was capable, and i spent the whole run wanting to vomit.
2.5 transition 2 (bike-run): mb - still not passed by anyone. me - uneventful, spending the whole time reciting my inspirational triathlon mantra: "don't vomit don't vomit don't vomit."
3 run: mb passed at very end by one guy, takes 2nd in his age group, 13th overall. me - no vomiting, admiring the scenery as the run path follows a course along a hill overlooking a very peaceful-looking lake michigan, but angry that from that height and distance nobody can tell about the sharp toothed waves that almost ate me earlier.
overall a fun weekend, perfect weather, plus we got to cheer on mb's brother in his repeat performance at the half-ironman the next day (1.2 mile swim, 60 mile bike, 13.1 mile run). although i refuse to concede about the objectifying-baby-picture thing (and in fact, i have been gleefuly exaggerating my response, announcing at regular intervals that mb is an ogre who hates babies, ponies, puppies, butterflies, ice cream cones, and everything good and pure in this world), i concede to mb that lake michigan will not eat me. i might even do it again next year. who's coming with me?
so it should be no surprise that while awaiting the start of a triathlon in racine this weekend, that i look at big pointy sharp-toothed waves in lake michigan and my stomach turns circles, while mb stretches his arms out smiling, and says "this is so relaxing! look at the water; it's beautiful! i'm so glad the swim is a MILLION TIMES LONGER than other races this distance because it'll be so much FUN! this is so relaxing! i'm totally not stressed out." (ok, not a million times longer... but 750m vs 500m matters to slow swimmers when i think the waves could eat small objectified children for breakfast.)
the race itself went fine, actually. i summarize as follows:
1. swim: 750m in lake michigan. mb out of the water 3-4 minutes faster than his nearest competitor. i swallow much of lake michigan making it shallower and much easier for all who come after me.
1.5 transition 1 (swim-bike): run up the beach thru sand, not a short distance. mb RUNS through the foot-washing buckets entering the bike area. i try not to fall just getting up the sand, but am happy because my new watch (thanks, boston!) tells me that i have not, as i had feared, been in the water for over an hour, but more like 22 minutes, and they will not be closing the course before i ever find my bike.
2. bike: 12.4 miles on flat drag-strip suburban racine roads. mb curious about why he's not passing anyone (answer: nobody in front of him). i settle into my usual triathlon bike position, which is neck-and-neck with some 50-some-year-old man doing a relay, and spend the rest of the bike either being passed by him or passing him or trying to avoid or accomplish one of those tasks. this has happened to me before, but last time the 50-year-old was funny and trash-talking: "why would you pass an old man like that?" this guy is not funny, despite my trying to say something friendly... on the bright side, last time the guy was trash talking it egged me on to go faster than i was capable, and i spent the whole run wanting to vomit.
2.5 transition 2 (bike-run): mb - still not passed by anyone. me - uneventful, spending the whole time reciting my inspirational triathlon mantra: "don't vomit don't vomit don't vomit."
3 run: mb passed at very end by one guy, takes 2nd in his age group, 13th overall. me - no vomiting, admiring the scenery as the run path follows a course along a hill overlooking a very peaceful-looking lake michigan, but angry that from that height and distance nobody can tell about the sharp toothed waves that almost ate me earlier.
overall a fun weekend, perfect weather, plus we got to cheer on mb's brother in his repeat performance at the half-ironman the next day (1.2 mile swim, 60 mile bike, 13.1 mile run). although i refuse to concede about the objectifying-baby-picture thing (and in fact, i have been gleefuly exaggerating my response, announcing at regular intervals that mb is an ogre who hates babies, ponies, puppies, butterflies, ice cream cones, and everything good and pure in this world), i concede to mb that lake michigan will not eat me. i might even do it again next year. who's coming with me?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
the empire strikes back
i'm going to have to abandon the notion that nothing ever happens to me.
it all started a couple of weeks ago on a fine tuesday afternoon during which things at work were unusually quiet and i got to leave work early.
"awesome," i thought to myself, "time to run an errand in hyde park before heading home."
the errand was, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful, as tati cycles turned out to be closed for the entire month of june so that the owner could recover from the physical and emotional burden of too many back-ordered bikes. [to her credit, my good blogmate tried to warn me that i should probably call ahead, but did i listen? of course not.]
you might wonder why this part of the story is relevant (i suppose it's not), but had it not been for the fateful deviation to the bike shop i probably would have made it safely back to lakeview sans the ensuing chaos.
as i drove out of hyde park the sky grew darker, the thunder louder, and the lightening brighter, and pretty soon i found myself working my way up lakeshore drive under torrential downpour. by the time i made it to the s-curve conditions were downright apocalyptic and LSD was unequivocally flooded. as i proceeded north it quickly became clear that all the west-bound exits that ran under LSD were impassable, as evidenced by the stalled out cars, roof-deep in rainwater.
just as i was beginning to wonder if i was going all the way to milwaukee, i found what looked like a reasonable off-ramp, several exits further than i wanted to go... which, in fact, was also flooded. so i turned the car onto what i thought was the on-ramp back to LSD, resulting in the following frantic cell phone call to my good blogmate:
jo-na (reading the caller ID): "hi jo-na, what's up?"
jo-na (panic in her voice): "um, i seem to be driving my car up the lakeshore bike path."
jo-na: "the what?"
jo-na: "the bikepath! what do i do?"
jo-na: "let me get on google earth and figure it out"
with some moral and web-based support i found my way off the bike path, under LSD, and finally to clark and foster from which i was able to get home... i didn't have a new bike, but i was home safe and dry.
fast forward to a few weekends later when i finally managed to procure said bicycle with the gracious assistance of the bikemyers family. the bike purchase happened in a frenzy of retail therapy during which i also acquired a new TV, a big CD storage shelving unit, and the misplaced urge to engage in some limited home improvement.
to my surprise i was able to assemble the new bike storage rack without incident... if only the rest of it had gone as smoothly.
i got the CD storage solution up and running (with some help from ss) and had it all loaded up with CDs before i realized that i'd gone about the organization scheme all wrong, so i sat down at the foot of it and got to work. it turned out that i had the whole thing sitting a little too close to the wall, such that it was precariously balanced on the lip of the baseboard. i looked up just in time to see quite clearly that my newly erected media empire was inevitably going to come toppling down on my head, and managed to stick my arm up in such a way that while all the CDs came crashing i didn't actually get completely whacked in the face by storage solution. i also managed to contort my neck in a funny way such by the next morning i couldn't really rotate my head or drink diet coke out a of can without a straw.
the next day, with the CDs and bikes all in proper position i moved on to some minor electrical work. the bathroom light switch was getting a little testy and i had one of those ill-fated, "how hard can it be?" moments where i decided that surely i could unscrew the broken part and take it to the home depot for replacing. i don't know if was feeling invincible after my adventures in the rain, or if i sustained a minor concussion when the media empire fell on my head, but it didn't occur to me that perhaps it might be a good idea shut of the power to the light switch before sticking a screw driver into it. the minor electrocution transiently made my neck feel better, but when my teeth stopped chattering i looked up to realize that i'd blown out the electricity in the whole apartment, thus deprogramming all my electronic gadgets, including my new TV.
what's that they say about idle hands?
from these events i conclude:
1) my life isn't nearly as boring as i think it is
and
2) i am an idiot
it all started a couple of weeks ago on a fine tuesday afternoon during which things at work were unusually quiet and i got to leave work early.
"awesome," i thought to myself, "time to run an errand in hyde park before heading home."
the errand was, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful, as tati cycles turned out to be closed for the entire month of june so that the owner could recover from the physical and emotional burden of too many back-ordered bikes. [to her credit, my good blogmate tried to warn me that i should probably call ahead, but did i listen? of course not.]
you might wonder why this part of the story is relevant (i suppose it's not), but had it not been for the fateful deviation to the bike shop i probably would have made it safely back to lakeview sans the ensuing chaos.
as i drove out of hyde park the sky grew darker, the thunder louder, and the lightening brighter, and pretty soon i found myself working my way up lakeshore drive under torrential downpour. by the time i made it to the s-curve conditions were downright apocalyptic and LSD was unequivocally flooded. as i proceeded north it quickly became clear that all the west-bound exits that ran under LSD were impassable, as evidenced by the stalled out cars, roof-deep in rainwater.
just as i was beginning to wonder if i was going all the way to milwaukee, i found what looked like a reasonable off-ramp, several exits further than i wanted to go... which, in fact, was also flooded. so i turned the car onto what i thought was the on-ramp back to LSD, resulting in the following frantic cell phone call to my good blogmate:
jo-na (reading the caller ID): "hi jo-na, what's up?"
jo-na (panic in her voice): "um, i seem to be driving my car up the lakeshore bike path."
jo-na: "the what?"
jo-na: "the bikepath! what do i do?"
jo-na: "let me get on google earth and figure it out"
with some moral and web-based support i found my way off the bike path, under LSD, and finally to clark and foster from which i was able to get home... i didn't have a new bike, but i was home safe and dry.
fast forward to a few weekends later when i finally managed to procure said bicycle with the gracious assistance of the bikemyers family. the bike purchase happened in a frenzy of retail therapy during which i also acquired a new TV, a big CD storage shelving unit, and the misplaced urge to engage in some limited home improvement.
to my surprise i was able to assemble the new bike storage rack without incident... if only the rest of it had gone as smoothly.
i got the CD storage solution up and running (with some help from ss) and had it all loaded up with CDs before i realized that i'd gone about the organization scheme all wrong, so i sat down at the foot of it and got to work. it turned out that i had the whole thing sitting a little too close to the wall, such that it was precariously balanced on the lip of the baseboard. i looked up just in time to see quite clearly that my newly erected media empire was inevitably going to come toppling down on my head, and managed to stick my arm up in such a way that while all the CDs came crashing i didn't actually get completely whacked in the face by storage solution. i also managed to contort my neck in a funny way such by the next morning i couldn't really rotate my head or drink diet coke out a of can without a straw.
the next day, with the CDs and bikes all in proper position i moved on to some minor electrical work. the bathroom light switch was getting a little testy and i had one of those ill-fated, "how hard can it be?" moments where i decided that surely i could unscrew the broken part and take it to the home depot for replacing. i don't know if was feeling invincible after my adventures in the rain, or if i sustained a minor concussion when the media empire fell on my head, but it didn't occur to me that perhaps it might be a good idea shut of the power to the light switch before sticking a screw driver into it. the minor electrocution transiently made my neck feel better, but when my teeth stopped chattering i looked up to realize that i'd blown out the electricity in the whole apartment, thus deprogramming all my electronic gadgets, including my new TV.
what's that they say about idle hands?
from these events i conclude:
1) my life isn't nearly as boring as i think it is
and
2) i am an idiot
Thursday, June 21, 2007
reckoning
while my blogmate continues to put the best stuff in my arsenal to shame with her witty, insightful banter, i remain stuck in a cycle of blog indecision, perseverating about transient, meaningless events that, though entertaining to me as an amalgam, fail to come together in even an amusing, if not interesting way.
i hang my head in shame...
but continue to laugh on the inside (and sometimes even out loud) about the weird series of things i've heard, seen, done, and said in the last month.
while in france i learned that my seventeen year old french skater punk cousin - along with his entourage of french skater punk friends - actually poured a concrete skate park in the barn, much to the delight of his parents who basque in the transferred glow of youthful spontaneity while also enjoying the peace of mind that accompanies knowing the exact whereabouts of their youngest child.
from french b.f.e. we moved on to italian b.f.e. for a few days of raucous wedding partying and outright euro summer camp. there was lots of drinking and eating and driving around looking for the slovenian border, and of course a story that started, "let me tell you about the most famous transvestite in trieste," and ended, "but then he moved to london... and became a baker... and i don't think he's a transvestite anymore."
i got back from my european adventure and rolled right into my highly anticipated 30th birthday weekend. it's hard to pick what goes on the highlight real, but up there on the list are:
1) zillions of disney princess cupcakes, thoughtfully provided by my blog mate
2) zillions of friends at the village tap on roscoe, along with a decent handful of stragglers and 3 anorexic crashers who stole cupcakes and ran
3) zillions of beers
and of course,
4) the great 30th birthday festival crawl, orchestrated by my blogmate, dh, and kl (in absentia) - you'd think seven festivals in seven hours was too much... but you'd be wrong.
then i went on to new orleans to vist my allegedly convalescing mother who, even with half a lung missing, had the stamina for the zydeco/seafood festival (where i wondered why i had never before tried char-grilled oysters, easily the best food on the planet), the creole tomato festival (where we ate fried-green-tomatoes, easily the second best food on the planet), and a matinee showing of "waitress" (featuring nathan fillion, easily one of the hotest guys on the plant). once i'd finally managed to wear out my mother i went out drinking with my good friend lr, drank a mint julep (i'm sorry, one more time: hands down the best drink on the planet) and found myself happily being driven around new orleans in her convertible, giggling in the passenger seat as she muttered expletives under her breath and made grave announcements along the lines of, "i can't talk to you right now, i'm concentrating on not peeing."
from there i'll skip past the tragic tales of my soul-sucking professional life and move on to the next weekend of binge drinking, this time in honor of my good blogmates upcoming nuptuals... and of course drag queens. so there was a bridal brunch complete with an omelet station (for which i take no credit) and a pretty well stocked bar (for which i take all the credit), and then there was my second annual pride parade party... both welcome excuses for pre-noon drinking, for the acquisition of pressure cookers, and for hanging out with my most awesome friends.
so none of this really comes together very well, except to remind me that while i may not be beating men off with a stick, winning the lottery, or fitting into my skinny jeans, i do have a pretty interesting life... which i am apparently too busy to blog about.
i hang my head in shame...
but continue to laugh on the inside (and sometimes even out loud) about the weird series of things i've heard, seen, done, and said in the last month.
while in france i learned that my seventeen year old french skater punk cousin - along with his entourage of french skater punk friends - actually poured a concrete skate park in the barn, much to the delight of his parents who basque in the transferred glow of youthful spontaneity while also enjoying the peace of mind that accompanies knowing the exact whereabouts of their youngest child.
from french b.f.e. we moved on to italian b.f.e. for a few days of raucous wedding partying and outright euro summer camp. there was lots of drinking and eating and driving around looking for the slovenian border, and of course a story that started, "let me tell you about the most famous transvestite in trieste," and ended, "but then he moved to london... and became a baker... and i don't think he's a transvestite anymore."
i got back from my european adventure and rolled right into my highly anticipated 30th birthday weekend. it's hard to pick what goes on the highlight real, but up there on the list are:
1) zillions of disney princess cupcakes, thoughtfully provided by my blog mate
2) zillions of friends at the village tap on roscoe, along with a decent handful of stragglers and 3 anorexic crashers who stole cupcakes and ran
3) zillions of beers
and of course,
4) the great 30th birthday festival crawl, orchestrated by my blogmate, dh, and kl (in absentia) - you'd think seven festivals in seven hours was too much... but you'd be wrong.
then i went on to new orleans to vist my allegedly convalescing mother who, even with half a lung missing, had the stamina for the zydeco/seafood festival (where i wondered why i had never before tried char-grilled oysters, easily the best food on the planet), the creole tomato festival (where we ate fried-green-tomatoes, easily the second best food on the planet), and a matinee showing of "waitress" (featuring nathan fillion, easily one of the hotest guys on the plant). once i'd finally managed to wear out my mother i went out drinking with my good friend lr, drank a mint julep (i'm sorry, one more time: hands down the best drink on the planet) and found myself happily being driven around new orleans in her convertible, giggling in the passenger seat as she muttered expletives under her breath and made grave announcements along the lines of, "i can't talk to you right now, i'm concentrating on not peeing."
from there i'll skip past the tragic tales of my soul-sucking professional life and move on to the next weekend of binge drinking, this time in honor of my good blogmates upcoming nuptuals... and of course drag queens. so there was a bridal brunch complete with an omelet station (for which i take no credit) and a pretty well stocked bar (for which i take all the credit), and then there was my second annual pride parade party... both welcome excuses for pre-noon drinking, for the acquisition of pressure cookers, and for hanging out with my most awesome friends.
so none of this really comes together very well, except to remind me that while i may not be beating men off with a stick, winning the lottery, or fitting into my skinny jeans, i do have a pretty interesting life... which i am apparently too busy to blog about.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
squish the grapes slowly
keanu reeves i am not. and i hated "a walk in the clouds." but LOVED my adventure with friend jannine to beverly's wine- and beer-making store for a beginners' wine-making class!
picture a talkative william h. macy (not quite the minnesotan accent from fargo, but close) with one hand in a sling pouring glass after glass of homemade brew for 6 of us to sample as we learned about the different kinds of yeast that make different flavors, why you can't make a cabernet with 18% alcohol (apparently you have to start with twice the sugar as desired alcohol content, but if you have 36% sugar, the yeasties sometimes get tired of eating and conk out early like thanksgiving day in front of the big game, leaving you with syrup), that they bottle something called bourbon-honey mead (!!!) but can't sell it at the store because their half of western ave. is actually dry, so they have to sell actual alcohol at the store across the street. we started a batch of pinot grigio - i love red wine but we preferred the immediate drinkability of whites for a first attempt; wouldn't your heart break if you spent weeks waiting patiently to bottle your wine, then 3-6 months for it to age properly, and then it was yucky?
the process has been pretty easy so far. we mixed yeast with grape juice, bobbed a little sugar-and-alcohol-0-meter in the mixture to test the concentration, giggled a lot at the instructor telling us we had to be "sterile," but that our sterile working area was the top of the bucket that the grape juice gets put in (enter much jannine whispering "oops, i breathed into our sterile field. wait, was that your hair entering the air over our sterile field?" we medical types aren't funny, i realize, but there was a lot of wine and we found ourselves quite clever), and sealed up the bucket. next week we get to go back to see if our yeast are eating the sugar or not and switch buckets.
in 6-10 weeks we get to bottle, label and serve. suggestions for names? anyone lining up to be willing to taste? (if it helps, no, my hair did not end up in the wine.)
picture a talkative william h. macy (not quite the minnesotan accent from fargo, but close) with one hand in a sling pouring glass after glass of homemade brew for 6 of us to sample as we learned about the different kinds of yeast that make different flavors, why you can't make a cabernet with 18% alcohol (apparently you have to start with twice the sugar as desired alcohol content, but if you have 36% sugar, the yeasties sometimes get tired of eating and conk out early like thanksgiving day in front of the big game, leaving you with syrup), that they bottle something called bourbon-honey mead (!!!) but can't sell it at the store because their half of western ave. is actually dry, so they have to sell actual alcohol at the store across the street. we started a batch of pinot grigio - i love red wine but we preferred the immediate drinkability of whites for a first attempt; wouldn't your heart break if you spent weeks waiting patiently to bottle your wine, then 3-6 months for it to age properly, and then it was yucky?
the process has been pretty easy so far. we mixed yeast with grape juice, bobbed a little sugar-and-alcohol-0-meter in the mixture to test the concentration, giggled a lot at the instructor telling us we had to be "sterile," but that our sterile working area was the top of the bucket that the grape juice gets put in (enter much jannine whispering "oops, i breathed into our sterile field. wait, was that your hair entering the air over our sterile field?" we medical types aren't funny, i realize, but there was a lot of wine and we found ourselves quite clever), and sealed up the bucket. next week we get to go back to see if our yeast are eating the sugar or not and switch buckets.
in 6-10 weeks we get to bottle, label and serve. suggestions for names? anyone lining up to be willing to taste? (if it helps, no, my hair did not end up in the wine.)
Friday, June 15, 2007
senor bendice mi camino
saw this written as the bug shield of a truck this morning and loved it.
i'm glad someone's blessing someone's automotive journey. i wish we'd had that bug shield last weekend when mb and i drove out to the palos forest preserve to do a little hiking and see the cicadas. perhaps senor could have made me a little more observant, which would have prevented the following exchange:
mb: "i can't wait to see the cicadas!"
me: "me either. where are they? what's that buzzing sound? how come we haven't seen them yet? what's that buzzing sound?"
*relative silence, except for deafening buzzing sound*
mb: "do you think those are the cicadas?"
me: "oh. right. the buzzing."
me: "so if they're so loud, why can't we see them? on a totally unrelated note, what are those weird bugs nose-diving the windshield? anyway, where are the cicadas?"
senor might have been bendiciendo our caminos, but certainly not the caminos of our little friends who arrive in northern illinois every 17 years, who were meeting a rather abrupt end on mike's car.
my stellar observational powers did not end there; i also failed to immediately notice the pock-marked ground in the woods where the young cicadas exited for the sky, the millions of molted skins left by the nymphs as they grew, or the older mother-bugs on the surfaces of all the tree trunks, laying eggs that would eventually hatch into the next cycle of larvae to bury underground and meet us again in 2024 for a new cycle of getting it on.
once i stopped to pay attention, they were everywhere. but once i stopped to pay attention, it was creepy and i wanted to leave. good thing a loud park ranger with a bullhorn was there kicking out all the nature- and fitness-lovers gathered for stair climbing by the toboggan run (apparently closed for remodeling). relieved, i told mb "great, let's skip any more hiking or stair climbing, go for a little run down that nice flat trail over there, and call it an afternoon." and off we went, blissfully unaware that we were running straight into what mb later referred to as "spring break daytona beach for cicadas." flying posses, piled-up threesomes on each branch, loving couples on the ground, loners on our arms.
ew. but fascinating. but ew.
i'm glad someone's blessing someone's automotive journey. i wish we'd had that bug shield last weekend when mb and i drove out to the palos forest preserve to do a little hiking and see the cicadas. perhaps senor could have made me a little more observant, which would have prevented the following exchange:
mb: "i can't wait to see the cicadas!"
me: "me either. where are they? what's that buzzing sound? how come we haven't seen them yet? what's that buzzing sound?"
*relative silence, except for deafening buzzing sound*
mb: "do you think those are the cicadas?"
me: "oh. right. the buzzing."
me: "so if they're so loud, why can't we see them? on a totally unrelated note, what are those weird bugs nose-diving the windshield? anyway, where are the cicadas?"
senor might have been bendiciendo our caminos, but certainly not the caminos of our little friends who arrive in northern illinois every 17 years, who were meeting a rather abrupt end on mike's car.
my stellar observational powers did not end there; i also failed to immediately notice the pock-marked ground in the woods where the young cicadas exited for the sky, the millions of molted skins left by the nymphs as they grew, or the older mother-bugs on the surfaces of all the tree trunks, laying eggs that would eventually hatch into the next cycle of larvae to bury underground and meet us again in 2024 for a new cycle of getting it on.
once i stopped to pay attention, they were everywhere. but once i stopped to pay attention, it was creepy and i wanted to leave. good thing a loud park ranger with a bullhorn was there kicking out all the nature- and fitness-lovers gathered for stair climbing by the toboggan run (apparently closed for remodeling). relieved, i told mb "great, let's skip any more hiking or stair climbing, go for a little run down that nice flat trail over there, and call it an afternoon." and off we went, blissfully unaware that we were running straight into what mb later referred to as "spring break daytona beach for cicadas." flying posses, piled-up threesomes on each branch, loving couples on the ground, loners on our arms.
ew. but fascinating. but ew.
Monday, May 28, 2007
i saw the future, and...
with my friends off playing in europe, and mb off to west virginia for a week of mountain biking with the guys, i am having an uneventful memorial day weekend. it's been very relaxing - shopping with my former roommate for shoes/jewelry/etc for her wedding, biking on the lakeshore path, making plans to grill out with a couple of friends and neighbors. three cheers to my upstairs neighbors for seeing me waddling back from the store, arms loaded with groceries (why were my arms so loaded with groceries when i am by myself this week? this is what happens going to the store hungry), and promptly call out "hey jo-na, can we get you a beer? kids, move the sprinkler for a minute so she can get inside." and four cheers (is that a term?) for said same neighbor, for not waiting for me to finish unloading groceries, but instead knocking on the door to see if i needed my beer *before* coming outside to socialize.
so yes, there are nice neighbors in the city. and yes, these are the same neighbors whose major hobby on first moving to the neighborhood was sitting on their deck watching drug deals. but these blocks have changed a lot in the last few years - many of the nearby projects have been torn down, and plans are underway for a mixed single-family/rental apartment/section 8/townhouse kind of development. in the meantime, we mostly live in the center of empty lots surrounded by security fences. although technically we live in little italy, mb and i have dubbed the neighborhood "Swath Of Destruction." our directions to friends driving in from out of town go like this:
"west on roosevelt thru x lights... when you get to a totally empty stretch with a boarded up check-cashing place and liquor store, with some teenagers loitering on the corner, look for the lonely little condos in the center of a Swath Of Destruction and that's us."
as we await the inevitable progress of housing developments (meanwhile taking advantage of the cheaper rent), in the center of Swath Of Destruction sits 1950. i spent yesterday afternoon drinking beer with the neighbors, watching the kids run through the sprinkler in the front yard. one of the girls is clearly the alpha; she decides when we are playing little mermaid, and when we are playing beauty parlor, and when we are too cold for the sprinkler, and when we are tired and curling up like burritos in our towels on the sidewalk. the other kids mostly accept these instructions. the parents, clearly more used to this than i am, seem completely at peace ignoring the repeated insistence that they please stop the yard work and give back the sprinkler.
it occurs to me that once Swath Of Destruction is re-built, there will be more strangers, more traffic, more coming and going in our admittedly-rented section of urban renewal. it won't be as easy to know all of the neighbors with more dynamic moving in and out. so i'm a little sad to know that Progress is coming. but i'm even more sad to realize that kids' personalities take after their parents -- i commented to alpha's mom that i was that kid growing up. she told me that when grandma picks up the kids from preschool, she looks in the room and gets deja vu because she sees so much of her mother's personality in little alpha.
mb and i are not planning on having children any time immediately, but i am having visions of an imaginative but talkative bossy little girl whose hobbies are the words "why?" and "let's do it my way!" i don't think penance will help, but to my brother, i'm sorry for all the times i made you play house instead of war with your robots. i'll get mine in due time. progress is inevitable.
so yes, there are nice neighbors in the city. and yes, these are the same neighbors whose major hobby on first moving to the neighborhood was sitting on their deck watching drug deals. but these blocks have changed a lot in the last few years - many of the nearby projects have been torn down, and plans are underway for a mixed single-family/rental apartment/section 8/townhouse kind of development. in the meantime, we mostly live in the center of empty lots surrounded by security fences. although technically we live in little italy, mb and i have dubbed the neighborhood "Swath Of Destruction." our directions to friends driving in from out of town go like this:
"west on roosevelt thru x lights... when you get to a totally empty stretch with a boarded up check-cashing place and liquor store, with some teenagers loitering on the corner, look for the lonely little condos in the center of a Swath Of Destruction and that's us."
as we await the inevitable progress of housing developments (meanwhile taking advantage of the cheaper rent), in the center of Swath Of Destruction sits 1950. i spent yesterday afternoon drinking beer with the neighbors, watching the kids run through the sprinkler in the front yard. one of the girls is clearly the alpha; she decides when we are playing little mermaid, and when we are playing beauty parlor, and when we are too cold for the sprinkler, and when we are tired and curling up like burritos in our towels on the sidewalk. the other kids mostly accept these instructions. the parents, clearly more used to this than i am, seem completely at peace ignoring the repeated insistence that they please stop the yard work and give back the sprinkler.
it occurs to me that once Swath Of Destruction is re-built, there will be more strangers, more traffic, more coming and going in our admittedly-rented section of urban renewal. it won't be as easy to know all of the neighbors with more dynamic moving in and out. so i'm a little sad to know that Progress is coming. but i'm even more sad to realize that kids' personalities take after their parents -- i commented to alpha's mom that i was that kid growing up. she told me that when grandma picks up the kids from preschool, she looks in the room and gets deja vu because she sees so much of her mother's personality in little alpha.
mb and i are not planning on having children any time immediately, but i am having visions of an imaginative but talkative bossy little girl whose hobbies are the words "why?" and "let's do it my way!" i don't think penance will help, but to my brother, i'm sorry for all the times i made you play house instead of war with your robots. i'll get mine in due time. progress is inevitable.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
i should have been watching american idol
while my friends are off eating cheese and intestines and mocking gendarmes in france, i am minding the store back here in sunny chicago. things are not super exciting here. thankfully, nobody is stopping me alongside the road to ask about my knowledge of local criminals, although my neighbors do have some funny stories about sitting on their rooftop porch at night watching drug deals go down in the blocks south of us. i thought i would mix things up a bit the other night by driving up to the north side to do a good deed by watering my blogmate's plants, which would conveniently have happened right around 7pm in time for american idol watching, thus fixing my problem of loving that tv show but having no tv with which to watch it. unfortunately, my conscience got the better of me, and i decided that if my choices were get exercise and see mb or drive across town for one tv show, the right thing to do was exercise. but by the time i got ready to embark on any actual exercise, it was getting late and instead of run outside or go to the gym, i put in a new dvd lent to me by mb's sister: "yoga booty ballet." i thought, this seems perfect! yoga sounds relaxing, i've been working a lot lately, i won't have to come up with my own poses or anything and just get to follow along.
let me just say this: when the video starts with two women asking you to start with your hands folded together, they do NOT get to say "namaste" (which i was taught meant something like "the divine in me greets the divine in you") while the cameraman is zooming right in for gratuitous boob shots. the rest of the video was impossible to follow, because the camera work focused exclusively on the leaders' chests and pelvises (pelves?), occasionally panning over to the south-asian hippie on the bongos, and the only instructions were "now you can get a little funky." namaste? is there a yoga word for "the perv in me greets the d-cup in you"?
from this i conclude the following things:
1. it is sometimes the morally acceptable thing to skip exercise in favor of reality tv.
2. maybe this was for the best. had i gone for a run or watched jordyn sparks win this year's title, i would not have nearly this much good work story.
3. blogmate, ck and ss, when are you getting back? i'm bored.
let me just say this: when the video starts with two women asking you to start with your hands folded together, they do NOT get to say "namaste" (which i was taught meant something like "the divine in me greets the divine in you") while the cameraman is zooming right in for gratuitous boob shots. the rest of the video was impossible to follow, because the camera work focused exclusively on the leaders' chests and pelvises (pelves?), occasionally panning over to the south-asian hippie on the bongos, and the only instructions were "now you can get a little funky." namaste? is there a yoga word for "the perv in me greets the d-cup in you"?
from this i conclude the following things:
1. it is sometimes the morally acceptable thing to skip exercise in favor of reality tv.
2. maybe this was for the best. had i gone for a run or watched jordyn sparks win this year's title, i would not have nearly this much good work story.
3. blogmate, ck and ss, when are you getting back? i'm bored.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
