a small, balding cultural phenomenon?

every girl attracts their own brand of weirdo. for example, dwtacc draws every dark-haired medium-skinned guy with an accent in the chicagoland area, because they all think she's their particular brand of ethnic. i am much less exotic - i am a magnet for vaguely nerdy short men with receding hairlines. not that they're trying to ask me out - they all want to tell me about their dreams for a fancy car.

this started back in college when i drew the short stick at work and had to go to the copy room with the weird guy to make new brochures or something. he kicked things off with a very disturbing beavis-and-butthead cornholio impression (i'd like to see you keep your composure when you've never seen beavis and butthead before and suddenly a small man yanks his shirt above his head and starts screeching about his bunghole), and then, seeing my discomfort, proceeded to convince me of his classiness by telling me all about the money he planned to make, the fancy car he would drive, and the fine home he would own, once he became a rich lawyer. since i was in the middle of a bunch of rural sociology classes run by hippies that taught things like sustainable agriculture and cooperative business practices, this didn't get him very far. later, when i moved to chicago, i was at dinner with a friend when he started, again, telling me about the car he would buy after his promotion. when i didn't look impressed enough, he asked me "wouldn't you rather date someone with a nice car?" i tried to explain that i was uncomfortable with the idea of spending so much money on a luxury item and was much happier taking the bus out for burgers, he just looked confused. more recently, at work one of my co-workers parked himself next to my desk and started telling me how much he hated minivans, and hoped to buy either an suv or little sports car. unprompted, he told me "i feel like someone's car should be sexy and support their lifestyle."

this is becoming a disturbing trend. i'm not surprised that short balding men want compensatory cars, or that any men hope electronics ownership can bring them sex... i just want to know why they all want to tell me about it. it can't be because of my deep appreciation for cars; my own colorful auto history has consisted of a 1979 chevy impala wagon with am radio and no heat, and my current 96 plymouth whose check-engine light warns me regularly that i am about to have unscheduled stops in random places throughout the midwest. it can't be because they want to date me, or i would hope they wouldn't share their whole m.o. can someone help me think of a way to remove the "please, share your thinly veiled desperation" sticker from my forehead?

the symco society pages (aka i never met a latte i didn't like)

has anyone ever read those reeeeally small-town newspapers? or columns about some neighboring village with no real news to report except blurbs like "mr. and mrs. fred jones were at the home of violet and jack fisher last evening for a game of bridge"? it occurs to me that our blog reads a little like that... with that guiding principle in mind, a tale of two girls trying to run errands on a thursday afternoon:

my good friend twinset and i had both finished work early on thursday, and since i'd been on long work shifts recently and had some amount of errands to do for my brother's upcoming wedding, she kindly agreed to be my chauffeur around the city doing what girls love best (buying things). it seemed like a fun idea...

in retrospect, twinset and i firmly believe that the whole thing went bad the minute she tried to drive down 53rd street toward martin luther king dr. to take locals to little italy instead of lake shore drive. lesson #1: don't EVER drive down 53rd st in hyde park. it's a commercial strip where, for some reason, NOBODY is in a hurry and EVERYONE double-parks or just stops in intersections to wave to their friends.

ten minutes later, we had made it ten blocks and were on our way. we arrived finally in little italy for the successful procurement of candied almonds for wedding favors, plus cannoli and chocolate treats for twinset and me. perfect, we thought. now just some lattes for the road and we'll be on our way. lesson #2: although you might think a local italian bakery is a better place to buy lattes than starbucks, you would be wrong. twinset and i are not coffee snobs, and have both been known to drink whatever swill comes our way. but this was foul. my dad taught me that no self-respecting italian drinks cappuccino after 10 am, so either this was passive-aggressive vengeance for us ordering the wrong drink at the wrong time, or the milk had been sitting out since 10am cappuccino hour.

latte-less but still determined to have a good afternoon, we promptly got stuck in traffic a few more times, punctuated by twinset telling me things like "i just know this leads to armitage" only to find ourselves in industrial parks, and eventually found our way to the last stop - trader joe's. lesson #3: don't tell the driver of the car anything like "see, [twinset], i'm so glad i'm with you! all of these things might have been frustrating, but as long as we don't let it get to us it's fine..." because that statement might precipitate, say, running said car alongside a cement pole and getting big scratches in the nice clean paint job. doh.

but a good time was still had by all. i got my errands done, twinset determined that her husband would never see the car scratches before she got to the body shop, and we laughed over her stories of finding herself at the gym on a treadmill next to one of chicago's national celebrities. anyone who can describe said unnamed celebrity as "my GOD, he smells DELICIOUS even after he's done running!" can't be too mad at me for the inconvenience of the afternoon. i hope.

the bottom of the barrel

i came home from work the other day feeling particularly defeated and decided to curl up on the couch in my favorite pink pajama bottoms to drown my sorrows in three-buck-chuck and spend some quality time with the gilmore girls. i eyed the half-empty bottle of wine on the counter and weighed my options. sure i could do the civilized thing and use a glass, but i'd finally finished washing a giant pile of dishes. for a second it seemed reasonable- nobody would have to know that i'd sunk so low. i'm not sure how long i stood there in the kitchen having an internal debate about whether i was ready to give in and become a completely barbaric pig, but i somehow managed to come to my senses and decided that if i was going to drink alone on the couch at 6:30 on a weekday the least i could do was to use stemwear.

the magnets that hold everything together

my fridge used to be a testament to my young hip life. it chronicled all the fun i was having with my young hip friends and consisted mostly of pictures of us in varying states of intoxication, interspersed with racy commercial art and postcards from the exotic places we were all traveling. but times change, and now my fridge has become a shrine to those same friends' babies. not that they aren't the extraordinarily cute offspring of people who are very important to me... but it's getting a little ridiculous, given that i still function at the level of "ohmigod, billy asked me to the dance(!)" or, at best, "monsoon has $5 lychee martinis on wednesdays!"
i take a little solace in the apparent fact that my silly antics serve as a constant source of amusement to my blogmate, dwtacc, and twinset, who are willing to not only listen to me carry on about said topics, but often act as accomplices. for one thing, it makes me a feel a little better about my failure to evolve into adulthood... and "hey [n#4], a bunch of us are going out for beers tonight," requires me to fabricate entourage on short notice.

emerging from their cocoons

i learned something important wednesday night: goths come out to play on michigan ave at sundown. in the middle of an otherwise very yuppie evening night of meeting mb downtown for a picnic at the free grant park music festival, we found two sad little goths huddling in a little corner of the front garden of the art institute. on the way to dominick's on roosevelt after the concert, a whole goth-gaggle was straggling its way over the bridge. maybe they were on their way to meet the first two sad little goths - i don't know, i can only imagine they all know each other - but i was left with the impression that michigan avenue is a special place for people with spike collars and white face paint.

in other notes, what is it with these people who have never heard of pontoon boats?? i found another besides my chicago-native co-worker, this one a philosophy grad student that mb and i swim with. on trying to explain my fun-filled weekend of floating around on mb's parents' party barge, our philosophical friend asked "so, can you... live... on these... pon-toon boats? at least when i explained that they were basically floating boxes with gerbils for motors, he managed to conclude, "so, i guess you bring lots of beer, then?"

the rise and fall of neurologist number four (n#4)

it's not for lack of trying.

ok, maybe i didn't try so hard, but my blogmate put up a good fight.

it went like this:

i kinda thought i had a little bit of an in with n#4. not enough of an in to do anything about it myself, mind you, but enough that i felt the need to talk about it a whole heck of alot. with the clock ticking, my loyal blogmate absorbed the hint and took matters into her own hands. "game on," she said this afternoon, grinning ear to ear, having just invited him to join us for our collective sorrow-drowning at the local bowling-alley slash bar. then there was a scurry to find to some entourage which resulted only in the recruitment of mb, whose company i always enjoy, but whose presence only promised to create an inadvertent air of staged double date. i'll save for another day my experience with, and subsequent distaste for, double date traps.

my worry was all for naught, as it turned out, as n#4 didn't show.

game over.

not that the outing was a total loss.

we expanded my growing list of potential boyfriend deal-breakers to include non-tongue-in-cheek belief in supernatural phenomena, and crossed another guy off the list based on our (relatively unfounded) suspicion that he was a divorced hyperchristian, rather than an atheist computer programmer. it wasn't totally unfounded, actually. the wwjd bracelet and absence of wedding ring that i could have sworn was there the last time i saw him gave it away.

i also took advantage of my time at lucky strike to think about an unfortunately unstable girl at work who gets so stressed out that her hair actually falls out. maybe i'm a horrible person for repeating it, much less finding it funny, but she's such an antagonizing head case that it's nice to have confirmation that it's not my imagination... and that if my biggest problem is my inability to get n#4's attention maybe my life's not so bad.

figures

i could set my watch by the certain predictable phenomena in my life.
like the fact that every purchase i make of a super-cute, super-cheap, white article of clothing results in my spending twice as much time and money looking for the necessary undergarment to wear under it.
or that while i somehow manage to pass myself off as witty and charming to my girlfriends (i think) without trying very hard, the presence of any cute neurologist (take your pick) turns me into an inarticulate stick in the mud.
being a girl is hard.

like a broken record

all in all it was a good weekend, even if it started out with the discovery that my blogmate has been publically mocking me... ON THE BLOG!

getting back to the point, i really did get to do fun stuff. the high point was decidedly all the sleeping i got to do, but i also went to the chicago botanic gardens with twinset, caught up (albeit on the phone) with DWTACC, went to a pro-soccer game, discovered that many soccer players are hot, discovered that many soccer fans are hot, discovered the phenomenon of the soccer geek.
soccer geeks are, for the record, not hot. they travel in packs, sing annoying songs, and wear really ugly soccer paraphrenalia. having spent a decent chunk of my life on the farm in europe i have a certain respect for soccer obsession, but it's just not as becoming on mainstream, denim-shorts-wearing, middle-aged american men.

all this weekend activity was good distraction from the rather disturbing fact that i have a crush on yet another neurologist. i don't understand how this keeps happening. the current infatuation is, for a change, not indian, but he's equally well dressed and speaks with an adorable eastern european accent which becomes even more adorable when he gets punchy, swears, and then apologizes for swearing.
the sad thing is that it looks like if i want to do any stalking i'm going to have to get in line. apparently i'm not the only one with a thing for neurologists.

re-claiming my low-brow roots

there have been some dangerously yuppie exploits described here lately. high-brow ethics seminars, climbing professional ladders, wearing decent shoes out to dinner... we can't pretend it doesn't happen. i confess my ridiculous excitement about the upcoming opening of a whole foods in the south loop.

now, i don't apologize for the yuppie leanings: last weekend's co-worker birthday expedition to the all-you-can-eat chocolate feast at the peninsula hotel was sooooooooooo delicious and fun! plus i think my blogmate might have had enough of quick-shot's pre-chocolate bar drinks that she managed to spill just enough of the evening on her dress to keep us all from being too classy. :) but i am saying that every good yuppie needs to balance a little. so this weekend mb and i are heading back to wisconsin for some much-anticipated brunch at the come-back inn, and an afternoon of a clearly non-yuppie sport: booze-cruising on his parents' pontoon boat on a small lake near madison.

my excitement about this weekend's plans reminds me that you can take the girl out of the boondocks, but you can't take the boondocks out of the girl... while discussing my weekend plans with a chicago-native co-worker, she looked at me blankly and said "what's a pontoon?" riiiiiiight. because when lake michigan is your lake, you ride on sailboats and large watercraft, and have probably never heard of a party barge. the polite-but-disinterested look i got when describing an entire afternoon of floating around with cheap beer made me feel like maybe i'm not too much of a city girl yet, in spite of the pedicures and new non-ripped jeans and all. good thing.

there's no place like home

i've spent the last couple of weeks sitting in on an ethics seminar. as boring as it sounds, for me it was a very refreshing change of pace. for one thing, all i had to do was sit there and listen. i was also free from the oppressive thumb(s) of my countless bosses. i guess i also learned some stuff...
but the most exciting thing about the whole experience was the people watching. these people were not part of my usual entourage, and while i found most of them to be friendly and insightful, there were a couple who definitely cought my attention.

in third place was a very high strung young lady who is in my line of work at a parallel institution accross town. her research mentor (who also happens to be my research mentor- ok, i guess there was a little bit of an oppressive thumb factor) sent me her way, thinking that we had similar research interests, not knowing that he was sending me into a land mine of, "look, i just can't deal with having to help anyone or keep any appointments. i don't think i have the time or energy to deal with you!" from this is i drew the conclusion that there are those of us who are filterless, and those of us who are neurotic and rude.

coming in second was a rather charming, very metro-sexual canadian guy of some exotic-looking ethnicity that i couldn't put my finger on. in casual conversation i actually found him to be pretty charismatic, but man did i get tired of hearing him say, "that's ridiculous! that would never happen in canada!" he lost his cool every single day about the various and sundry stupid and/or nasty things that americans do driving everyone crazy (and this was a pretty mild mannered bunch). but while i found his approach a little off-putting, i do have to ask myself, "why in the world do i not live in montreal?"

finally, there was little miss philosophy. little miss philosophy was a very intense, very put-together platinum blond who was so stylish it was kind of ridiculous (i didn't know cole hann made flip-flops), and was either very pretty, or kind of scary looking (i couldn't decide). little miss philosophy is finishing up her PhD in philosophy while sitting on various important sounding boards and committees and was really really really passionate (more like aggressive) in her arguments with everyone about everything. she was always going on about things like personhood, and had a special way of throwing around lofty words that don't actually mean anything. my personal favorite was, "how can you say that? it's counterfactual!" i've done alot of thinking about the possible meanings of "counterfactual," and have come to the following translations:
1) you're wrong
2) that doesn't make any sense
3) i don't get it

so as much i've enjoyed my little sojourn back into the world of academics, i'm looking forward to being a droid again.

power trip

i seem to have gotten to a place at work where people do something they've never done before: listen to me. it's odd. i'm not a terribly loud person, and my prevailing theory on work so far has been

1) don't screw it up so badly that i get called to any of my million bosses' offices (try saying "bosses' offices" five times fast)
2) don't do so terribly well that i call too much attention to myself and draw extra work
3) try not to make enemies
4) try not to make such good friends that i get hit on by same-sex co-workers who send me flowers and wine

so far i'm running 75%. but my point is that i try to fly under the radar. how, then, is it that in the past 72 hours, that when i ask a question i get an answer, and when i wonder if everyone could just be quiet and reasonable for a minute, people are actually quiet and reasonable, and when i have something to add to a conversation, people pay attention? all, really, in the last 3 days. i am the same person. and let me be clear that at work, i am definitely a lowly minion. (not a peon anymore, as ng has pointed out, but the next step up.) it's starting to get to my head already, i think - i've come just short several times of telling other arguably-more-important minions exactly what i think of their ideas.

so i need suggestions on what to do with this fun power while it lasts. my thoughts?

1) convince my underlings to launch peta-like crusade to free all the trapped office paper into the wild where it belongs
2) give everyone ridiculous, slightly degrading nicknames and refuse to call them by their real names (hmm, sounds like this blog!)
3) count how many days in a row i can find someone to go and bring me a cookie without asking me why i can't get off my butt and do it myself
4) something involving my power drill, which i bought excitedly a year ago and have never used

taking ideas.

everyone sucks except you.

ok, so maybe it hasn't been the world's finest 24 hours, what with getting called in to work extra last night at the last minute for someone who will never pay me back, locking myself out of my apartment, finding out that today is ticket-the-cars-in-chicago-that-don't-have-city-stickers-and-laugh-all-the-way-to-the-bank day, and getting back to work today to sort through a bunch of paperwork only to find out that the office people pulled all the wrong paperwork for me to go through. but for all that, still lots to smile about:

1. thanks to my gracious and more-organized blogmate for spotting my lunch since i didn't have my wallet.
2. thanks to the lovely m for being excited to see me at work last night, and telling me i'm better than [the missing girl] anyway.
3. thanks to l for making me a cup of tea when she saw the stack of papers i was lugging around this afternoon.
4. thanks to the weirdly grumpy but affectionate woman at the currency exchange where i bought my belated city parking sticker, for barking lots of orders at me like "you have to be SURE about your license plate number. are you SURE?", "cash only," "$120. and 50 CENTS. FIFTY CENTS!" but still managing to follow the whole exchange with a big left-sided smile and thank you.
5. thank god i'm not leon, my creepy downstairs neighbor, who i think is in serious financial trouble, as evidenced by the "citibank versus leon" signs all over his front door.

and last but certainly not least:

6. thanks to my weird little building manager for at least having the modesty to wear his tighty-whiteys when he answered the door to my request to be let into my apartment. (ew. i mean, does it take that long to throw on shorts???)

a birthday apology

in honor of quick-shot's birthday today, i would like to hereby retract any statements my blogmate and i may or may not have made regarding any distaste we may have for fanciness. we support fanciness, and yuppieness, and all going out and fun in general. it's just the prevalence of said fanciness, as evidenced by floofy martinis in every sports bar in the city. yes, we want to go out for dinner with you the day after you're done hanging out with your boy. and yes, i will wear clothes without holes in them. just maybe not fancy jeans and heels. i might even order a martini in your honor.

righteous indignance

first of all, a warm welcome to two of our newest blog readers! as my good blogmate and i have stated before, we think the best way to encourage our readers to comment is to write directly about them. with that, let me begin my protest of a recent conversation:

my blogmate and i are lucky enough to work with these two women who, although they work in a department related to ours, don't see us every day, and we know each other better socially than professionally. this is generally a good thing, because they're fun girls (and not just because one of them used to be a bartender and can mix 26 drinks in 4 minutes). but i stopped by their office to say hi the other day, and we started discussing their impressions of the people in our department. it turns out they've decided that my blogmate is the more laid-back of the two of us, who can tolerate more disorganization, and i'm definitely the anal-retentive one who can't stand it if someone doesn't adhere to policy. this they base on a particular day where i showed up wearing an orange shirt and orange socks.

now, it doesn't actually bother me that they think i'm anal retentive, although my blogmate is the one who keeps getting nominated for stuff like the form-making committee and i'm the one who has lost my work id five times in the last year. and it doesn't bother me that they're making this decision based on one of my apparently notable clothing choices. i would, however, like to protest that they think my outfit was consciously put together, since this was my extensive fashion reasoning:

1. i have a pair of bright orange socks with little daisies on them, and as much as i love them, you can't wear orange socks with just anything.
2. i had a clean orange shirt which is furry and comfortable, but which has a hole in the side that needed covering.
3. too much orange and a need to cover the hole in the shirt meant i stuck my black fleece vest, which i bought for $4 from unique thrift store in bridgeport over the top of the ensemble. (it's funny, quick-shot, that you think this was a put-together look, because my blogmate asked me repeatedly the whole winter when i was going to stop wearing that thing and put it in the laundry already.)
4. add the less-wrinkled khakis and head for work.

quick-shot's partner in crime will note that when she read our blog profile, she questioned me on our dislike of designer jeans, and i couldn't even answer her question about what constitutes designer jeans, since the only jeans i know about are the the one pair i have with a huge hole in the butt, and the other pair i have without the huge hole in the butt.

so. miss quick-shot and miss fancy-pants (your official blog names until you start participating enough to give yourselves new ones), i may do a lot of quirky things, but putting effort into my dress is not one of them.

ps. don't think i'm letting you get away with "oh, j___? he's nobody..." either.

revenge of the nerds

conversation between ng and i seems to keep coming back around to our respective dorkiness. it's a natural instinct, i think, among those of us have always been a little nerdy, to put it out there all at once, lest you inadvertently give the impression that you're actually cool and then get all tangled up in maintaining the illusion. it all started as i was trying to give him a little bit of blog back-story to get him caught up. i put my foot in my mouth trying to explain about the bizarre events staged by my blogmate's theater geek neighbors, forgetting momentarily that ng actually is a theater geek. he absorbed the ribbing rather well, and put out his theory that we all have some degree of inner dork. i argued rather adamantly there's nothing closeted about my dorkiness- that i wear it all on the surface for everyone to see. i'd like to think that it's an endearing quality, but i'm probably wrong... actually, i might even be wrong about the inner dork part.

in spite of my constant complaining about having to work all the time, here i am, putting in an entire day that is totally self-inflicted. granted it's for exorbitant amounts of extra money (see multiple past blogs referencing my love of shopping). this action in itself might be considered dorky, but really it's about shoes.

anyway, as i was getting settled into my temporary work space (i.e. surfing the internet), i discovered that not only could i not print anything, but that my computer wouldn't even acknowledge the big fancy laser printer sitting right next to it. after trying all the tricks i know (high-tech stuff like making sure it was plugged in) and even attempting the add-printer wizard, i gave up and called IT.

aside: i think that the all the installation wizards so graciously provided to us are actually some kind of cruel joke being played on us by the microsoft computer geeks (probably well-deserved, given the forthcoming computer-geek mockery that ensues). it looks like idiot-proof, user-friendly stuff, but i, for one, still can't ever accomplish the task at hand and feel even dumber about it because they make it look so easy.

the IT guy on the phone was pretty patronizing until it became quite clear that he couldn't fix my problem. he did, however, access my computer remotely- i'm always a little creeped out when that happens- there's something freaky about your computer executing all these commands (with the mouse arrow moving all around) when you're not the one doing the commanding. (for those of you who are mystified by my intense hatred of horror movies, my fear of possessed computers ought to convince you that i'm not faking it).

so phone IT guy (PITG- p could also stand for patronizing) gave up and dispatched live, in person, frenetic IT guy (FITG). FITG was every bit as peppy as PITG wasn't. he was tickled pink to even have found me (and more importantly the printer), and i have to say that he got full credit for finding his way through the maze of hallways, as i was totally incapable of explaining where i was. i spent the next 15 minutes in a tiny room with one highly energetic dude who was so surprised by his inability to fix the problem that he crawled under my desk on hands and knees to check things out (i wasn't sitting at the desk at the time)- he'd correctly surmised that only frank mechanical failure could explain his apparent lack of computer prowess. he was the happiest computer geek i've ever seen. i was less happy, since it turned out that my problem was lack of some kind of internet access so that my printer can talk to the server which can talk to my computer- this problem can only be fixed if someone takes financial responsibility for my office and pays for the service.

though i've already demonstrated how un-computer-savvy i am, i can't deny my fascination with FITG. besides, doesn't it seem like connecting the printer directly to the computer would eliminate the proverbial middle man and obviate the need for funding? maybe i have some inner dork after all...

cat dung, fake dragons and beer: a week in review

in an effort to catch up on my blogging, here is a clif's notes version of my last several days...

1. my neighbor's cat poops in my pepper plants. thankfully, my neighbor seems to notice and comes to clean out the peppers. even more thankfully, i just learned last night that the cat belongs to someone else, because the distraught owner was standing outside wondering if my neighbors were home because she really wants the cat back. despite what happened last time i let a stranger into the building (see the story about the chatty wet goth), i reeeeally wanted to let her in so her cat could stop pooping in my plants.

2. mb is especially dismayed that even though my plants are getting pooped on, his plants are still suckier than my plants. he did some kind of pruning job on his hanging plant that leaves about five leaves drooping over the side of the pot. maybe if we leave it on the ground for the cat to go to work on it, it will survive?

3. my musical-producer-wannabe neighbors have been back regularly. seriously. how can college boys singing in british accents in a back courtyard take themselves this seriously? how can i find out what they're doing? i already tried showing up at intermission with a gin and tonic wandering around their "stage" smirking. taking suggestions.

4. 4th-of-july bachelorette party antics in minneapolis: great weekend spent with my brother's fiance (known hereafter as butterknife for her amazing ability to need stitches when using said dull object), saw their new house, bridal shower went well. let me just say that no bachelorette is as noticeable in a bar as the one who shows up with a veil decorated with white lights that run off a battery pack that sits on the back of her neck. three cheers to our friend who designed that one. :)

5. my love of vicarious living is continually aided by my blogmate's new boy, who works in stage design and seems to have opinions on weighty subjects like where to purchase the best theater dragon and how to apply latex face masks. ooohh... maybe he could come critique my theatrical neighbors? or bring them a dragon?

...last week butterknife told me that from my stories, it seems like i don't actually work. point taken. but who wants to hear about paperwork? if i had a job where i bought dragons, i might tell those.

touche'

i may have mentioned in passing to my blogmate and a vegetarian co-worker that my strategy for convincing mb to like new foods was to describe it in more boy-friendly terms. so, not "potatoes and tofu in yogurt curry", but "potatoes and extra protein with sauce!" not "quiche," but "breakfast pie." etcetera. straight out of the simpsons episode where the woman selling hummus and tahini calls it crunch patties with flavor sauce, i know. a co-worker commented, kindly, that it sounded a little like talking to a child.

but lest i develop any feelings of superiority, mb got me back. in hearing about my blogmate's excitement over her new wireless high-speed internet, i naturally decided i wanted one too. the only problem is that mb has a large spiffy desktop computer which clearly does not need to be moved anywhere, and my laptop is a software-overburdened little machine that makes lots of clicking noises before it decides to do anything and is missing the letter x. but since the weather's been so hot lately, and the only air conditioner is in the bedroom, i thought that was my big chance to sell to mb that if we had a wireless thing-ey, we could surf the internet in air-conditioned comfort.

so i made my pitch, casually, in a conversation about the weather. mb patiently asked lots of questions, none of which i could answer. "how big is the box?" "i don't know." "does it plug into the wall phone jack and then there's a wireless connection from there?" "i don't know." "can the neighbors use it or is it protected?" "i'm not sure. i think maybe you can guard it somehow." "are you sure it's just $80 for the box and there are no additional charges?" "um, that's what [my blogmate] said." "you just want one because [your blogmate] has one, don't you? i was wondering how long it would take before you'd ask..." *insert laughter*

i hang my head in shame.

spa day gone wrong

once you break the seal and start allowing yourself yuppie indulgences it's all down hill.

my blogmate and are both fairly new to well, having paychecks, and for the most part we plant our feet in firm opposition to fanciness, insisting that we are, in our hearts, low-brow.

but we're starting to crack. first it was the latte. then the storage solutions. sooner or later we were bound to discover pedicures. after weeks of talking about it, we finally decided on a day for the much-anticipated day of foot care to celebrate my having turned 28 and her having run 28 miles (ok, i know that's not quite right, but go with me here). off we went for the post-marathon pedicure at the somewhat shady nail place near her house in hyde park. it was pretty standard stuff. toxic fumes filled the air as the emplyees barked mostly unintelligible orders to us about where to sit and what to do.

the woman who did mine made it clear by her body language that not only was she not interested in helping me achieve pretty feet but that she was pretty gosh-darned resentful at having to deal with me period. how it was my fault that the foot-soak tub-thing was overflowing i couldn't say. i was done with my pedicure and had marginally nicer feet about 6 minutes later.

my blogmate, as it turned out was just getting started. i've given her a decent amount of ribbing in the last few weeks about her desperate need for foot grooming, but really- i was kidding. unfortunately for her (and me, the bored onlooker) she landed on the world's most compulsive manicurist. this guy went at it with the clippers and cuticle pusher and motorized buffer thing for, no joke, 2 hours. it was excrutiating for her (and for me, the bored onlooker). the guy got so carried away that he actually made her big toe bleed. apparently they don't do any kind of first-aid training before they let someone take sharp objects to people's feet, on account of this guy had NO IDEA what to do about the bleeding. eventually my blogmate willed the bleeding to stop and the world's most compulsive manicurist finally got around to actually painting her toenails.

by the time it was all over i'd lost the will to go to they gym and decided that i should just get my traumatized blogmate to a happy place with food and beer.

the end of an era

after months of dragging my feet i've finally done it. i've cut the cord- literally.

dial up, we've had a good run. i'll never forget the time we spent together...but it's time to move on. i'm sorry.

so i've joined the ranks of well, everyone, and gotten myself a high-speed internet connection AND a wireless router.

it's hard for me to put into words how proud of myself i am for getting it set up all by myself, and how giddy i am about being able to rove around my apartment with my laptop, checking my email every 30 seconds, not tripping over the long, twisty phone cord with whom i've developed what i suspect is an inappropriate relationship.

the 25 five foot phone cord and i go way back: back to when i had a big enough apartment to actually need a 25 foot phone cord. its insidious presence in my house, its having had both little clippy ends broken such that it doesn't latch into the phone jack properly, its CONSTANTLY being in my way. i have to say, as i collected it up (unwinding it from the various pieces of furniture under which i attempted {unsuccessfully} to conceal it) i hesitated, wondering if i really had the heart to throw it straight into the trash can. "what if this whole DSL thing is a dream?" i asked myself." without the wherewithal to actually sever all ties, i've decided to let the cord take up temporary residence in the corner, in some kind of internet purgatory while i search for the gumption to send it to phone cord heaven.

what can i say, old habits die hard.

little miss vicarious and her very big day

does anyone else remember the mister and little miss books? little white books with characters like little miss know-it-all, mister sleepy, mister busy, etc. what would a little miss vicarious look like? because i need the character for myself, to properly document the size of my smile, knowing that i finally got to not just hear about, but accompany my blogmate on outing #2 with new guy (ng?).

the outing in question was none other than the sorrento cheese pesto pasta vino festival in heart of italy (not little italy, because chicago has to have three or four separate italian neighborhoods in the city proper) on 24th and oakley. i was excited because 1) i love neighborhood festivals, 2) i love heart of italy and have gone there for lunch on every family vacation since age ten. sometimes i think my dad actually drove through chicago even when it was clearly out of the way, just for lunch at the now-defunct villa marconi. the neighborhood is a teeny bit shady, but that never mattered at villa marconi since all of the cops ate there, handguns and kevlar hanging casually on the backs of their chairs. long way to go for a $5 plate of tripe, though. and 3) i got to meet ng.

ng is a nice guy (uh-oh, also ng... nng?), who won early points by buying beers for the group. i would comment more on the level of his suitability for my blogmate, but what matters to me is where he fits into my life as friend-of-blogmate. he laughed at my jokes, whatever they were, was willing to tolerate a silly street festival, and seemed to enjoy people-watching. since my blogmate's boy-barometer includes "would this guy go to an indoor water-park with me?" as an up-front deal-breaker, these all seem like good signs.

i should also add that the people-watching at this festival was fantastic. ng told me on arrival that i had to go watch the world's pizza dough tossing champion, which was a good call; think stereotypically-italian-slicked-back-hair and black man-baby-tee break-dancing with dough, all with a very serious facial expression that clearly showed his boredom with performing this feat on the hour every hour for four solid days of festival, all accompanied by bad italian techno-pop. the one-and-only frankie avalon sang his many many hits. and many many large women wearing low-cut black shirts with badly tapered tight jeans and an average of 4 gold chains on their artificially tanned necks wandered around bellowing out for their partners in curiously east-coast accents for a midwestern town: "joooooeee? joe, there's a seat over heeeere! joooooeee?"

i call it a good day when i can spy on my blogmate's latest gossip-in-progress while munching on a stick of fried gnocchi.