i went to a fundraiser on saturday night where a bizarre confluence of events left me staring out into a pool of rather attractive men without the expected contingent of thin, pretty women flanking them. while i choose to remain stymied by my inability to work this situation to my advantage, i actually know exactly what went wrong. for one thing, if i hadn't been so absorbed in making the pseudo-anthropologic obseravations that follow i might have faired a little better. sometimes there's honestly nothing better to do than to assess a situation from a blogger's perspective, entertaining oneself with bitter and witty condescension... but other times the right thing to do is probably to forget about the blog, have another drink, and go flirt with the boy in the northface fleece. if only i knew the difference...
on the other hand, it's really hard to catch someone's eye when everyone's eyes are closed. such is the case when every man in the joint is ensconced in soul-searching, meditative bliss under the mysterious power of the north mississippi allstars.
i have a long standing gripe with phish heads. not that i have any particularly beef with phish or widespread panic or any of the other granola jam bands, but i've always been a bit annoyed at the way the throngs of trust-fund hippies freak out and follow them around in the country in their jeeps, as if it's actually some kind of respectable endeavor. don't get me wrong, i'm sure it's exhausting to obtain and smoke that much weed, but i just don't get it. what is entirely clear however, is that in the absence of phish or widespread panic the jam band cohort will cling for dear life to the next closest thing. suddenly the concerts of your favorite new orleans funk band or the quintessentially preppy dave matthews band are bursting at the seams with the entire under 30 population of colorodo.
as it turns out, this is an aging population, and now these people have jobs and mortgages and are smoking less pot and drinking more blue moon. they ALL wear that black fleece northface jacket with the padded elbows (i should be careful here since i also wear that jacket), but they just don't have the time or energy to be full time fanatics. instead, they show up to see the north mississippi allstars the park west where yet again they become hard-core followers. they know all the words, recognize all the songs by the 2nd chord (you know they do when you see the one fist shoot up into the air as an act of recognition), and they dance, dance, dance, remembering their glory days. the result of this is my finding myself surround on all sides but a group of awfully cute, well-to-do guys, and bopping their heads in unison, way too captivated by the music to notice me.
oh how the mighty have fallen.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
zzzzzzzzzzzen
while my good blogmate is living the jet-set lifestyle of drunken debauchery in new orleans followed by more-respectable work-sponsored-conference drunken debauchery in florida, i am leading the slow life back here in chicago, trying to recover from a rather busy work week with a peaceful weekend at home. mb and i have been feeling a little stretched lately, and so planned a relaxing and healthy weekend.
i am learning, though, that a healthy lifestyle has its limits in a type-a-personality household. forget our breakfast-making on saturday - food pyramid was somewhat marred by mb's declaration "you know, i really feel that we are food artistes, and butter is our paintbrush" - or our evening argument about how many extra chocolate chips really need to be added to the top of the tollhouse pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough. it's more that, well, i tend to miss the point of relaxing activities. this morning at yoga class, i kept trying to get mb's attention to mock our mutual lack of ability to balance on one foot after the hip-workout of yesterday's snowshoeing. and when it came time to lie meditatively on the floor in between sitting poses, i was frustrated that mb's mat was just a little too far away for me to kick him so he could see me mouth the words "i'm bored. when's breakfast?" (it wasn't just my boredom... i saw him eyeing the clock every two minutes.) and later, while heading into old st pat's for mass, not only did i spend the hour engaged in the celebrated catholic tradition of spending the entire kneeling time scoping the rest of the room for potential dates for my blogmate (this is such non-novel territory i'll skip), but i picked up every possible piece of reading material at the back of the church. you know, to make every non-prayer second informative... this afternoon i am back at home trying to study a little, all curled up with tea and candle and cookies (ah yes, and book), and i'm checking my phone for messages every ten minutes.
i'm sure there's a place for centering one's mind in the present. i'm sure it would make me more effective and efficient and calm and such. but... wait, what was my concluding point again? i got distracted thinking about cookies.
i am learning, though, that a healthy lifestyle has its limits in a type-a-personality household. forget our breakfast-making on saturday - food pyramid was somewhat marred by mb's declaration "you know, i really feel that we are food artistes, and butter is our paintbrush" - or our evening argument about how many extra chocolate chips really need to be added to the top of the tollhouse pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough. it's more that, well, i tend to miss the point of relaxing activities. this morning at yoga class, i kept trying to get mb's attention to mock our mutual lack of ability to balance on one foot after the hip-workout of yesterday's snowshoeing. and when it came time to lie meditatively on the floor in between sitting poses, i was frustrated that mb's mat was just a little too far away for me to kick him so he could see me mouth the words "i'm bored. when's breakfast?" (it wasn't just my boredom... i saw him eyeing the clock every two minutes.) and later, while heading into old st pat's for mass, not only did i spend the hour engaged in the celebrated catholic tradition of spending the entire kneeling time scoping the rest of the room for potential dates for my blogmate (this is such non-novel territory i'll skip), but i picked up every possible piece of reading material at the back of the church. you know, to make every non-prayer second informative... this afternoon i am back at home trying to study a little, all curled up with tea and candle and cookies (ah yes, and book), and i'm checking my phone for messages every ten minutes.
i'm sure there's a place for centering one's mind in the present. i'm sure it would make me more effective and efficient and calm and such. but... wait, what was my concluding point again? i got distracted thinking about cookies.
Friday, February 16, 2007
remorse is for sissies
the i-love-new-orleans rant that follows is probably wildly inappropriate, in light of the fact that i'm allegedly here to "be with my family" and "honor the one-year anniversary of my grandmother's death..." but to be fair, i'm doing most of the drunken parade watching and frantic po-boy eating flanked by willing-accomplice parents (thus fulfilling the "spending time with my family" requirement), and the ceremony tomorrow will not be presided over by a rabbi or anything remotely resembling a rabbi, so much as by 6 to 10 denim-clad, vaguely solemn family members who are too busy grumbling about the bone chilling 40 degree temperature and supressing their smoldering resentment about various things to think, much less say anything meaningful about my recently departed grandmother. and i definitely pick eating, drinking, and hollering over playing tech guru for my parents. for one thing i don't really know enough about computers to be anyone's guru, and for another, even i can tell that their computer is jacked.
it's been an interesting mardi gras. post-katrina new orleans is more of a shrine to itself than it has ever been, well set up for a suddenly nostalgic ex-pat to the midwest like me. local microbrew is cheaper in any restaurant than a bottle of miller lite is at the avereage chi-town bar, and my parents have been eager to parade me through the various new eating and shopping establishments, where i've had my fill of fried oysters and post-storm satirical t-shirts (i.e. "new orleans, it's not beautiful being easy"...). speaking of parades, within an hour of my arrival i was headed to muses, the all-woman parade, armed with a squeeze bottle full of southern comfort (i misinterpreted my mother's disdainful looks as "why is my daughter an alcoholic?" when in fact she meant, "why can't you just fill your backpack with beer like a normal person?"). there we found my good friend lining up with the other pussyfooters, a crew of 30+ year-old marching dancers, flanked by their, ahem, pussyhandlers, all pissed off and excited because their rival crew, the cameltoe steppers had stolen their trademark colors (i swear i'm not making this up). the beauty of girl parades is that everyone catches lots of stuff without much self-degradation... not the case the next night at hermes, a more standard parade, where my father watched, fascinated, as i successfully sauntered up to the floats, again and again returning with armloads of light-up loot (the quality of mardi gras takings has improved markedly in the last few years - it's not even worth taking if it doesn't blink or have lip gloss or isn't a beer coozy). i'd feel bad about getting so blatantly tanked in front of my dad if he hadn't taken a shot of whiskey before we left the house.
as i was driving around, frantically in search of the krewe of o.a.k.s drunken meandering through uptown (picture a big elaborate pub crawl) so that i could once again march with the pussyfooters, remembering my former tradition of once a year debaucherous hook up (after said pub crawl) with my old middle school crush, it dawned on me that the most interesting aspect of all this year's mardi gras love fest has been recollection of a distinctly different era in my life - a time that was thinner, drunker, and, um, sluttier. i'd be more ashamed if it didn't make for such an impressively nostalgic romp around the city with my old friends, to the tune of, "omg did i ever tell you what i did after that party?"
new orleans: you could feel guilty, but why?
it's been an interesting mardi gras. post-katrina new orleans is more of a shrine to itself than it has ever been, well set up for a suddenly nostalgic ex-pat to the midwest like me. local microbrew is cheaper in any restaurant than a bottle of miller lite is at the avereage chi-town bar, and my parents have been eager to parade me through the various new eating and shopping establishments, where i've had my fill of fried oysters and post-storm satirical t-shirts (i.e. "new orleans, it's not beautiful being easy"...). speaking of parades, within an hour of my arrival i was headed to muses, the all-woman parade, armed with a squeeze bottle full of southern comfort (i misinterpreted my mother's disdainful looks as "why is my daughter an alcoholic?" when in fact she meant, "why can't you just fill your backpack with beer like a normal person?"). there we found my good friend lining up with the other pussyfooters, a crew of 30+ year-old marching dancers, flanked by their, ahem, pussyhandlers, all pissed off and excited because their rival crew, the cameltoe steppers had stolen their trademark colors (i swear i'm not making this up). the beauty of girl parades is that everyone catches lots of stuff without much self-degradation... not the case the next night at hermes, a more standard parade, where my father watched, fascinated, as i successfully sauntered up to the floats, again and again returning with armloads of light-up loot (the quality of mardi gras takings has improved markedly in the last few years - it's not even worth taking if it doesn't blink or have lip gloss or isn't a beer coozy). i'd feel bad about getting so blatantly tanked in front of my dad if he hadn't taken a shot of whiskey before we left the house.
as i was driving around, frantically in search of the krewe of o.a.k.s drunken meandering through uptown (picture a big elaborate pub crawl) so that i could once again march with the pussyfooters, remembering my former tradition of once a year debaucherous hook up (after said pub crawl) with my old middle school crush, it dawned on me that the most interesting aspect of all this year's mardi gras love fest has been recollection of a distinctly different era in my life - a time that was thinner, drunker, and, um, sluttier. i'd be more ashamed if it didn't make for such an impressively nostalgic romp around the city with my old friends, to the tune of, "omg did i ever tell you what i did after that party?"
new orleans: you could feel guilty, but why?
Thursday, February 08, 2007
the freak show continues
when it comes to gym geeks, we've blogged, mocked, complained, pointed and laughed quite extensively over the past few months... and while we may never tire of this most amusing subject, perhaps the rest of you have. so i would like to present a variation on the theme, now that i've discovered that the opposite extreme also exists at the ratner center. in case you were wondering, yes, it's possible to be too hip for our gym.
yesterday i discovered a girl who a appeared to have gotten lost on her way shooting a jay-z video. i say that because only a hip hop (or maybe raggaeton) back up dancer would show her face anywhere in quite such a ridiculous getup, especially with that much pomp and circumstance. i apologize for those of you who don't enjoy fashion play-by-plays...
1) ass tight, ultra-low-rise, black capri-pants with a hot pink stripe down the side.
2) white knee socks, 70's style with the colored stripes at the top
3) black retro saucony running shoes
4) short, tight camouflage baby tee with the bottom and sleeves cut off
5) GIANT faux-tiffany (or perhaps real-tiffany) silver necklace with heart-shaped pendant
6) hair down, perfectly manicured with super blond highlights (brown underneath)
7) gobs of eye make up
8) weight-lifting gloves
as if she wasn't calling enough attention to herself, it seems that between sets she
would come back into the locker room where she would pace back and forth in front of the mirror, staring at herself, no doubt perfecting the VERY scary expression on her face.
i was frankly terrified.
yesterday i discovered a girl who a appeared to have gotten lost on her way shooting a jay-z video. i say that because only a hip hop (or maybe raggaeton) back up dancer would show her face anywhere in quite such a ridiculous getup, especially with that much pomp and circumstance. i apologize for those of you who don't enjoy fashion play-by-plays...
1) ass tight, ultra-low-rise, black capri-pants with a hot pink stripe down the side.
2) white knee socks, 70's style with the colored stripes at the top
3) black retro saucony running shoes
4) short, tight camouflage baby tee with the bottom and sleeves cut off
5) GIANT faux-tiffany (or perhaps real-tiffany) silver necklace with heart-shaped pendant
6) hair down, perfectly manicured with super blond highlights (brown underneath)
7) gobs of eye make up
8) weight-lifting gloves
as if she wasn't calling enough attention to herself, it seems that between sets she
would come back into the locker room where she would pace back and forth in front of the mirror, staring at herself, no doubt perfecting the VERY scary expression on her face.i was frankly terrified.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
priorities
mb and i drove up to wisconsin this weekend for various wedding-planning-related items, the most awesome of which involved a trip to fox valley cheesecake company, located in the booming metropolis of omro. i'll summarize by saying that it pays to get married in the middle of nowhere- holy cheap cheesecake! so yummy. but even better was the excellent customer service - rodney (the owner, who we are sure is younger than we are) assured us that we could come and taste AS MANY TIMES AS WE NEED to make sure we're sure about the details, and was very willing to answer all of our questions. so far:
me: "we can taste as many times as we need?" *drool*
mb: "tell me about that 1950s mannequin in the corner of the room. does she make you uncomfortable?"
so we have signed a cake contract. and we have learned that yes, sometimes the store's decorative mannequin sometimes makes rodney uncomfortable, but that it was worse when she used to live in the back room and scare rodney into thinking she was a real person when the lights were off. this brings our actually-completed wedding tasks to cake, bobblehead animations of wedding party on website, and bridesmaid dresses for $78 apiece from nordstroms. note the conspicuous lack of actual contract for location or date. whatever. it's coming. the important part is that even if the wedding falls through, mb and i have agreed that before departing for the caribbean we will collect our 150 little cheesecake tarts and show up on a friend's doorstep to stuff ourselves silly with raspberry white chocolate and turtle goodness.
me: "we can taste as many times as we need?" *drool*
mb: "tell me about that 1950s mannequin in the corner of the room. does she make you uncomfortable?"
so we have signed a cake contract. and we have learned that yes, sometimes the store's decorative mannequin sometimes makes rodney uncomfortable, but that it was worse when she used to live in the back room and scare rodney into thinking she was a real person when the lights were off. this brings our actually-completed wedding tasks to cake, bobblehead animations of wedding party on website, and bridesmaid dresses for $78 apiece from nordstroms. note the conspicuous lack of actual contract for location or date. whatever. it's coming. the important part is that even if the wedding falls through, mb and i have agreed that before departing for the caribbean we will collect our 150 little cheesecake tarts and show up on a friend's doorstep to stuff ourselves silly with raspberry white chocolate and turtle goodness.
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