rundown

what am i doing right this second?

- being bored off my ass.
- trying to decide if i want to do a 5k walk on new year's day. i've never done one and am not sure how mad my body would be with me the day after. my decision hinges upon what day the fed will take a day off out of respect for gerald ford. if it's tuesday, the day of the funeral, then i'm golden.. but the fed doesn't like to have four days off in a row. that whole '29 stock crash disaster and whatnot makes them very wary of banks being closed for more than 72 consecutive hours. why there'd be a stock market crash on a holiday weekend, when the fed is explicitly closed, i have no idea. i say, fuck it man, it's the 21st century. atms are rampant. unless we get a belated y2k and everything electric goes haywire, people can get to their money just fine.
- writhing in agony from having the 'so long, farewell' song stuck in my head. damned kia commercial.
- scouring my mind for albums that i bought/listened to in the past year. all the 'best of' lists out right now had me thinking, what new stuff did i hear last year? answer: not a whole lot.
girl talk.
um.. i skipped dj shadow since i had it on good authority that it blew monkey chunks.
the deaths? i only kept one song from that album. too classic rock.
oh, duh, clark. of course.
i s'pose 'nautical antiques' from pinback, too, but that was more of a b-side/demo compilation.
black heart procession. bad timing for that one. came out in the summer, but was definitely an autumn/winter album.
dabrye. the instrumental version was much more tolerable than the rap-infused one.
i'm sure there's, like, one more that i can't think of. i was updating myself on music for a while there, but when there's no one in your day-to-day life to glean ideas from and bounce them off of, the 0-day interest wanes pretty fast.

zZz

so mind-numbingly bored. tumbleweeds are skipping across my work desk.

so what'd i do this weekend? my good friend justin stopped by for a couple days. we took in the sights of star and garter burlesque thursday night. odd setup, but worth it. i'll never hear 'white christmas' the same again, thank god. no more thinking of crusty dead white men. and i got to see my mini-idol, michelle l'amour, in the (copious amounts of) flesh. there's a lady who loves her job.

we were supposed to see "frank's home," a local play about frank lloyd wright featuring a role of louis sullivan, but i spazzed out due to working on the house and waited too long to get tickets. oh well. instead, we just had to play excite truck until our eyes bled. such is fate. i also managed to go off my diet and consume mass quantities of delicious pizza, fudge and mom-made snack mix. i think there was some beer in there too.

christmas day was my crowning achievement. my family celebrated the holiday on christmas eve, so that we'd all have monday to rest before being thrust back into work. traffic was much easier that way, as well. so on actual christmas, i played about eight hours of zelda, most of it straight. just like the good ol' days! i was *this close* to being covered with bedsores when i finally got up. violently unproductive was i. oh, and a great haul of loot did i get, and give. after all, isn't that what it's all about?

gingerblog: success!

after several long, long, long days and nights slaving over my labor of love, i give to you, dear reader, my crowning achievement.


i knew it would all be worth it, i just knew it. i'm so pleased i could pop right now. i hope it's a fitting tribute to an architect way ahead of his time.

gingerblog: excitement, she wrote

so. fucking. jazzed. it's been a hard road, but it's finally starting to pay off.

since i didn't finish baking yesterday, i took on the task today, after finishing my posts for chicagoist. those always take so much longer than they should. anyway, i baked.. and rolled.. and baked.. and cut.. and baked. bleh. i didn't get to the full-on assembly stage till about 10 pm. but once i did, whoa nelly! it's starting to look like a building of some sort:


i'm so stoked. this is the good part. it's feeling and looking solid, i haven't seriously fucked anything up so far, i got plenty of icing and candies waiting to be adhered... joy!

gingerblog: slowly but surely

i've made a bit of progress since i last posted. not as much as i wanted, but i'll take it. see, i had this party on saturday night, the very party i kinda wanted to get the gbread house done for. i was under the impression that kim (my constant ride) had to get up early to work at starbucks sunday morning, and that we'd be booking it pretty early. my battle plan was to bake saturday afternoon, go to the party, come back relatively early and finish baking what i didn't get done. 11:30 rolls around, we're still at the party.. kim informs me that, oops, she got someone to cover for her. crud.

so here i am, almost 4 am, updating my blog. christ. but i have the four main walls baked! so happy i at least have those done. with the stained glass and the inner 4-watt light bulb i'm putting inside, it's gonna kick so much ass. can't wait to decorate this biatch!

the secret lives of businesspeople

at work, we use something called the bloomberg system. it's a standalone program that allows people to trade bonds, look at prices, message other traders, send files, etc. i would say it's an invaluable communication and execution tool for professionals.

imagine my surprise when i saw that people can now put their own blogs on bloomberg. so what are business bloggers saying in this worldwide forum? one offering, from a bloomberg employee, was a hangover calculator. another has a title called 'frrrrrriday' (lowercase) and talks about how this guy got drunk with this 'nice ukranian girl' the night before and didn't call his wife. and, my personal favorite so far:

title: Lobster !!
entry: LOBSTER !!

that's it.

it's heartening to know that professionals, when given the opportunity, are just as idiotic as the rest of us.

gingerblog: disappointment

all i have to say about last night's gbread outing is.. well, it can't be properly said in human language. imagine grumpy, garbled grumblings and you've got the idea.

i rushed home (as fast as i could rush with all the fucked up trains) to get back to da hizzouse. i really wanted it to be ready for a party saturday night, so my intention was to finish the cardboard mockup and bake all the pieces, then decorate friday night. hoo boy. cutting little cardboard pieces with a hobby knife takes way longer than you'd think. plus i had to take time out to watch chicagoist's very own scott smith on pbs's chicago tonight, talking about the foul state of the cta. woo scott! put that smack down on kruesi!

finally i finished the prelim structure:

i like it. it actually looked like the building now. of course, at this point it was 10 pm, with my normal bedtime rapidly approaching. i whipped out the new mixer, made a batch of dough so fast it was stupid, cut my front piece out of the cardboard pattern, ladeled some jolly ranchers in the window spaces (stopping to crush up more), then threw it in the oven for 20 minutes. big mistake. according to the directions that i forgot to follow, the candies are only supposed to bake for 10. upon retrieval, i found out why:

oops. back to the drawing board. no house for the party, but that does take some of the pressure off. now i can tweak the process..

get on da holiday train

i had my first cta holiday train sighting last night. it serviced the platform across from me in the loop. i almost didn't see it. after stopping at carson's, i was going to take the red line home. turns out it was fucked up for some reason or another, so i ended up taking the brown line home from madison & wabash. i was trying to balance several bags' worth of shopping when i looked up and...there it was, in all its blaring, blazing glory. as impressed as i was, i couldn't help but wonder if the money spent decorating that train could have gone to a better place. as the train pulled away, i had the urge to shout to santa, 'hey, are the trains fixed yet?'

gingerblog: wayyy behind schedule

i had hoped to start baking by this point. instead, i'm still cobbling together a mockup of the church in cardboard, per my books' instructions. as it turns out, this was a great idea; the spacing of my windows hadn't really been thick enough. my house probably would have fallen down. there's still no guarantee it won't, but now i can at least take steps to shore it up if need be.

cutting cardboard with a hobby knife is crappy work. i only got two sides done and i haven't even touched the roof. sigh. so little time...

she just crawled in there before i snapped the photo. she's been driving me nuts tonight, more than usual.. much more bitey. not cool, especially when i've got a brand new knife in my hands. silly thing better hope i don't get stabby.

gingerblog: appetite for destruction

it is deceptively easy to simulate stained glass windows in a gingerbread house. simply crush some colored hard candy, sprinkle in holes cut out from the main piece, bake for 10 minutes, and let cool. voila. this is, doubtless, the hardest part: trying to keep the candy from flying everywhere as i break it with a hammer. if i didn't wear slippers around my apartment, i'd probably still be stuck to the floor.

thankfully, my results were encouraging.

i'm pretty pumped myself.

gingerblog: progression and concession

in preperation for a complete gingerbread house, i whipped up a couple batches of cookies to test the colors. i need two different colors of gbread to get the look i want; pilgrim baptist was an off-white stone on two sides and red brick on the other two. i'm having trouble getting my hands on red liquid food coloring for the brick. everyone and their mother's baking sweets right now; joann's was almost out of decorating tips, some of them even stolen out of their cardboard packaging. shameful. while i was out, i reluctantly-not-really picked up a little something to help me in my task:

i've always wanted one of these, and what better reason to get one than a gbread house? considering i'm going to go thru flour and powdered sugar like mad, plus the icing i'm making needs to be whipped for like 10 minutes, i couldn't take the thought of wasting my time with the hand mixer. haven't cracked it open yet. i'm under the spell of what might happen if i do.. i may never stop baking.

gingerblog

i have decided to build a gingerbread house this holiday season. this is something i've never undertaken before. the urge snuck up on me around thanksgiving and has been kicking around in my head since. thing is, i don't want to do a regular cookie cutter, kit-ready house.. i want to do one from scratch. one that's easy enough in design, but still going to be a challenge for a beginner. one that, most importantly, is a tribute to one of the most gifted architects of our times, in the 150th year since his birth: Louis Henri Sullivan. hence, my contribution to the world of gingerbread masonry shall be:

pilgrim baptist church.

i wanted to pay homage to the man who lost three buildings this year, including this one, all to fire. although licorice whips going up the back of the dexter wirt building would be a nice touch, i had to take pilgrim baptist on, mostly due to its straight-forward, boxy construction. part of me is sweating before i even buy anything; the other part can't wait to see how it'll turn out. wish me luck!

advil is shit

i pride myself on not being addicted to caffeine. it makes my mood swings even worse than usual, which is saying a lot. so recently i had a headache, so i took excedrin. headache went away. next day, headache came back. so i took some excedrin. headache went away. next day, same routine, until i was getting a headache every single fucking day. since advil does jack shit, i was gobbling two excedrin every time one came on, which is roughly the equivalent of an 8 oz. cup of coffee. (not starbucks coffee, mind you. that's the devil's fuel. look at how much is in that shit!)

long story short, i have a caffeine addiction i didn't even know about. to be fair, i'd been drinking diet dr pepper as well, which contributes 41 mg per bottle. in my ignorance, i thought diet shit was without caffeine. since my current lack of caffeine is now contributing to my headaches too, i've switched to advil hardcore. pure, caffeine-free ibuprofen. fuckin' worthless. it's like using a pencil to knock down a castle drawbridge. maybe i'll just get a morphine drip for work. that's not addictive, right?

a pleasant surprise

christmas came a little early...



thanks, rudy!

side note: just now, to d/l the pics onto my comp, i had to take the SD flash card from out the wii, where i had put it earlier. it even plays my movies. how fucking cool is that.

lakeview, we have a problem

i live in a pretty nice section of town. quite gentrified, nice shops, good restaurants. that last one can be a problem. i have a hankering for run-of-the-mill mexican, tacos and burritos and such...and i can't find any. metromix is giving up nothing non-fancypants in my neighborhood within walking distance. as much as i'd love to chow down on another sesame-encrusted tuna filet like the last time i went to an upscale mexican restaurant, i was thinking more along the lines of some freakin' tacos. my last place in uptown had two mexican places across the street from each other and another on the way home, and those were just the ones i knew about coming off the train.

looks like chipotle again for me..

highlights from my thanksgiving:

• listening to gangsta rap on the way to my mom's place in the 'burbs.


• gorging on delicious, waistband-popping vittles.


• having real cranberries and 'canberries' on the same table.


• playing super mario bros. 2 in its entirety, switching off with scott.


• watching 'spiderman 2' with kristin and rudy, and thenceforth ripping it to shreds, even though it was a good movie.


• having a happy, purring cat on my lap for a good portion of above movie.


• listening to gangsta rap on the way home.

in fact, the only bad thing about my thanksgiving:
having to fucking work at 6:30 in the fucking morning the day after.

wiitarded

what's it gonna take to get one of these systems, eh? the stores i know are going to get what, 10 a week? every two weeks? shouldn't i be able to 'preorder' or stake my claim on the next shipment by this point, even if it takes me a month to get one? amazon's still not taking preorders; compusa isn't offering it either online or in the store; it's nowhere to be found on sears' website, only the games; and my most convenient target said they wouldn't get it at all until fucking february. my 'contacts' are so small and untechy that no one i immediately know is going to get this or is even looking for it.

this blows. how long is it going to take until the market is saturated?

disassemblance of a house

another in my fondness for curious houses.. this one without a happy ending, again. i first discovered this house in april, i think, right next to eat a pita on halsted. it looked a little funny, so i took a picture:

something very waffly about it. supposedly it was a plumbing business or something, but it had a 'for sale' sign prominently displayed on it.

a while later, i walked past it and it had changed:

the waffling was gone. sign was still there. hrm, maybe they're doing reno.

oh, how naïve i am:

well, that's the end of that. i didn't see any permit signs or anything on the barricading fence. it's got a foundation in its place already. god willing, those will some day be overpriced, crappily-made condos. i imagine i came on it pretty late in its lifespan.. i bet it wasn't always waffled, that something covered that up in the past. now i'll never know.

word of caution (an update)

the next time a fire breaks out when you're making toast, make sure you're not on the broil setting.

heroin is a hell of a drug

so i did this story on chicagoist sunday. i may have said some things in the last blurb that were.. questionable. (it has since been edited.) basically i questioned, in the case of a 14-year-old girl lying about her age and having sex with a 25-year-old man, whether or not she would get punished for her actions. she lied, but i seriously doubt she knew what she was getting into. i forgot what it was like being 14 and how screwed up everything is, and how you want to be 'cool' by pretending you're older and doing grown-up things. i think i've just been influenced by movies too much, like 'freeway' and 'hard candy,' where the supposedly innocent young girl turns the tables on her predator.

now, i haven't seen either of them (making my logic suspect, but w/e), but one trivia fact i like is that matthew bright, who wrote 'freeway' (and 'freeway 2'), was one of the genius warped minds behind 'forbidden zone.' in fact, he was probably my favorite actor out of the whole movie; his delivery left me in hysterics. another is that the director of 'hard candy,' david slade, also directed the 'sour girl' video for stone temple pilots. i just went back and watched it on youtube and.. holy fuck, is that.. is that weiland? goddamn, when'd he get so hot?! nevermind the fucked up tongue bunnies or gothtastic buffy, i want a ticket to go back in time and ride that writhing smooth-skinned heroin snake. yowza.

i'm not checking out how he looks like now, cuz that'd just be no fun. and probably pretty yucky.

*insert crappy wii pun title here*

you know something? i haven't owned a new gaming console in a very, very long time. i think even when i had the SNES it had been out for a while. i'm just not that kind of person...and when i was steadily gobbling up consoles, i was still under my parents' jurisdiction and, subsequently, their mercy. we were always a nintendo family; first the NES, then the SNES, then.. well, i rented the N64 a few times. that's where i dribbled off, forsaking consoles for my PC.

well now, i'm groin-grabbingly excited about the wii (pronounced 'we,' in case you haven't heard it from umpteen other sources). i've fallen off PC gaming recently and have acquired some older consoles.. unfortunately a lack of decent games for the PS (even ebay appears to suck - i was never into playstation and don't know what to look for) keeps me from playing mine, and i have to unplug my bunny ears (yeah, shut up) whenever i want to play atari. i'm ready to step it up.

the wii's a shit-ton cheaper than the ps3 or xbox. it's shiny apple-white. it's got the wireless remote controller dealies. there's seemingly no limit to what you can do with those things: swing 'em like tennis racquets, simulate a steering wheel, stab baddies, etc. the whole setup is just so innovative. i'll gladly take artistic over mind-melding graphics, altho those are nice. plus rumor has it you can d/l past games from nintendo's entire library (select ones of course.. i'll pay them not to make anticipation available) for a small fee. $5 for bubble bobble? ..well, it beats a kick in the dick, anyway.

i just read a pre-review of excite truck (successor of excitebike, i guess). what grabbed me was this: you can put your own soundtrack to the game by sticking in an SD full of your own mp3s. definitely spankworthy. but the real reason for this post lies in this picture:

i so want to be that chick.

highest of highs, lowest of lows

the past two days have both rocked and sucked. mightily. first off, yays to the dems, even though 1. bush is a lame duck and 2. i actually voted republican in the cook county board prez race, and the lousy democratic machine still came out on top. we'll see how all that goes. but anyway.

thursday one of our guys from a satellite office came into town, so we went out to dinner that night, to scoozi. pre-dinner, i went furniture shopping with the only female bond salesman (saleswoman? saleslady? salesperson?) at our firm. she was scoping chairs for her domicile. that was cool.. if i'd gone downstairs and drank at the bar instead, god knows how much more fucked up i would have been. dinner was ok - they made a good cream of asparagus soup - and i had a few drinks during the proceedings. our oldest guy talked my freakin' ear off until we mixed up the tables a bit. i landed in the thick of the younger, testosterone-laden, shit-talking crowd. much beer was consumed (by them, not me) and many threats were made. gotta love the irish.

we ended up going to coyote ugly. i didn't even know they had a fucking coyote ugly in chicago, but there we were. they had the louisville vs. rutgers game on tv; all the guys were standing drooling at the game instead of the chicks at first. there was really only one that was like, whoa, that chick's hot. she had a ginormous rack. our young stud sales assistant PJ kinda sorta wanted to ask her about the authenticity of said rack.. and she just said, 'they cost a lot.' done and done. she gave me my first shot of the night, after i guessed one of the girls' favorite bands right. i didn't get to pick the shot. i think she mentioned a 'jose' and a 'cuervo' somewhere. follow that up with a round of jager shots.. and then a round of tequila for the boys and a soco & lime for pia and me.. all the time wondering if my pasta was gonna stay put. (it did.) it was weird.. last night in the throes of my drunkenness among seasoned men, i realized you can be an asshole and still be a good guy. weird how that stuff works.

the thing about my work is, even if you get rip roaring drunk the night before and stay out till 3, you come in at your usual time, which for me is like 6:45. there's zero sympathy for guys who take the day off and constant ridicule for those who get in late. enter me at 7 am the next morning, shaky, bleary, nauseous, but there. that's what counts. everybody was there with me, but i don't drink that much and i hardly ever drink that much. i didn't have a headache, but this feeling of surly urpiness and mood swings wouldn't go away. and what's even better than being hungover at work for ten hours? oh, having a former coworker drop by with her three kids unannounced. i'm not fond of the woman, either. luckily she has a severe fish allergy, so when lunch showed up, she scrammed.. but not before she borrowed my bathroom key and made one of her filthy urchins give it back to me. i hate when parents do that. it's not cute, it's annoying, they're getting child germs all over my stuff, fucking stop it.

what dampened the whole day was knowing i was going out to dinner/drinks again tonight, this time with my chicagoist peeps at zapatista. i told myself no drinks - i didn't even have much of an appetite - but a pumpkin margarita was unpassupable. and the sesame encrusted ahi tuna filet, with mexican rice and sauteed spinach? to. die. for. fanfuckintastic. i had to cut the evening short, however.. i must check on the welfare of my kitty tomorrow and i need some serious rest. must drag my decadent self into bed.

get your vote on

so tired.. but must post.. reading chicagoist for such a long time, i couldn't help but get caught up in politics as well. chicago and politics go together like italian beef and provolone cheese, fer chrissake. (mm.) it's my first midterm election tomorrow, and i finally feel like i know what i'm doing. i voted in the 2004 presidential election, but had no farging clue what the rest of the ballot was besides bush and kerry. i've researched the candidates, i know the races, i'm gonna go in there tomorrow morning and bam. civic duty done. i never thought i'd be this excited about politics. it's actually rather scary. but dammit, i'm really a part of this city now, aren't i?

and oh yeah.. you. vote. or it's your ass.

guess who's home...!

'bout time. her blood count is stable so far. to keep it there and help it improve, i get to feed her three different medicines every day. the liquid's gonna be the best. ever try to force an eyedropper full of goop down a fully-clawed cat's throat? one of the few exquisite pleasures of life. to add insult to injury, i opened up the bottle...and the dropper shaft was broken clean off. not only that, i can't see nor hear the broken piece when i shake the bottle. it's as if it was always broken. very weird. i just scuttled off to walgreens and got a dropper with markings on it. thanks for the suggestion, scott. otherwise i probably would still be trying to figure out how much a tenth of a teaspoon is and measuring the 0.5 mL dose that way.

my kitten.. how i missed her. i hope she'll be swatting at my cables and shoestrings in no time.

cat update

it's been a hard couple of days, but bailey's doing much, much better. they transfused her tuesday night like i said.. at that time, her blood count percentage was 9.9%; after the transfusion it went up to 24%, which is almost normal, and it's bounced back even more since then. no lab results yet, but they're 99% sure of what she's got, so they started her on medication already. it's very treatable and most likely a one-time thing, probably obtained back when she was a stray. the best indication that she's gotten better is her attempted clawings of doctors and attendants. that's my cat!

it hasn't all been roses. i was a zombie yesterday. crashed at 7 pm.. just couldn't function any longer. i called the emergency place this morning around 7 to get an update. they said she was fine.. then told me she had to be picked up by 8 that morning or she'd be left there all day with no supervision. meanwhile when i went there on tuesday night, the nurse said they closed up at 8 and opened back up again at noon. what happened is, i got lucky, for they only do that on wednesdays. of course, they only told me that this morning after dropping the bomb on me. so, had to leave work, grab a cab, ride up there, get bailey, cab it over to my regular vet and drop her off there. the emergency place offered a pet taxi service. fuck that. it cost roughly the same amount (kim tells me $35 vs. my $32 cab ride; he waited for me in the lot) and i got to see my kitty and pay my bills. it was worth it to see her, but god, way to stress me out. no warning from the ER docs when they called with updates, no 'oh by the way..' this is why i hate going to doctors. i just didn't need the extra stress.

i did, however, manage to get a few titters out of bailey's headdress...

poor thing.

more important than halloween

still halloween for another half hour. that's great and all. it's my favorite holiday, but...

i've had my cat bailey for a while now, since february. she was a stray, so i got her checked out at the vet, got her vaccinations done, had her spayed, all that good stuff. i figured she'd be good on the health front for a while. she's still very kitten-like and always wants to play with me. she used to be like that, anyway.

a few weeks ago i noticed her losing energy. i figured it was cuz i didn't actively play with her all that much and that she was getting used to that fact. she's also been meowing a lot - she hardly ever meows - and having some poop issues. (sorry, but there's a point ->) last night she sat on my desk.. when she got up, she left a little something behind. that ain't normal. i called the vet today and took her in.

it turns out my feisty little kitty has severe, life-threatening anemia. they think it's a blood parasite. it's so bad that as of this moment, she is getting a blood transfusion. the vet sent me to an emergency hospital since i was the last appointment of the night and they had to close. kim and scott picked me up and took me, bless their hearts. i don't know what i would have done if i'd had to go it alone. the shock of her condition was bad enough... i would have gone crazy.

they warned me that with anesthetizing her (they had to gas her at the vet's just to examine her, she doesn't like doctors at all) and taking blood samples and prepping her, that her already weakened system would have to go through yet another few shocks.. they warned me that she might go into cardiac arrest. and i keep thinking.. what if it's something i did? what if she got sick because of me, because of something i did or didn't do? if they go through all the trouble of giving her one or more transfusions or even having to resuscitate her, would it be worth it to go back to me, the owner that's hardly ever around, and when she is, she's always picking her up and putting her somewhere else, or yelling at her to get off the dresser or stop scratching the couch, or being too busy or self-absorbed to give her the attention she deserves? but.. don't all owners experience that at some point? i don't know.. i'm exhausted and confused. and i don't want my kitty to die. she's not even a year and a half, and she's gravely ill. i hope, dearly hope they find whatever is wrong and fix it. and then she's not allowed to so much as sneeze until she's at least ten years old.

every month. without fail.

i love midol. too little and i could cheerfully dig out my throbbing ovaries with a rusty spoon. too much and i feel like i'm stoned off my gourd. either way, surrounding people are sure to be entertained, and isn't that what's important?

eep

ok.. this is a first in my apartment-renting appliance-having career. my toast just started on fire. it was toasting for maybe three minutes max. i'm not sure what made me get up and check it.. it smelled very toast-y right off the bat, and maybe in the back of my mind i thought, 'it shouldn't be toasting this fast..' in any case, i saw smoke coming out the front of my toaster oven, opened it up to see if anything was in there besides toast that was screwing up the process.. and a small lick of flame started to form. turned it off, freaked out, realized i don't have a fire extinguisher, got out some baking soda from my fridge.. it burned itself out in about 30 seconds, however. the plug felt hot when i went to unplug it. normal? not really sure.

this oven's always been kind of iffy. smelled like plastic far longer than it should have after its first use. i've toasted in it 95% of the time i think; i can also remember making two grilled cheese sandwiches in it with no ill effects. i don't know if the toast was just too close to the heating element, or if there was too much energy going through the thing. either way, i'm kind of tweaked right now. must pick up extinguisher and look into renter's insurance. :/

the morning after

i don't want to be here. let them send me home. i don't want to be here. let them send me home... let me fucking sleep. my legs hurt. i hate everybody. i ate too much pasta. i'm saying 'fuck' every other word. just let me go home.

there's only one word to describe me right now:

happyist hour

tonight was my first chicagoist happy hour, my first official time meeting the other myriad staffers. i'm not that great meeting a lot of new people at once, so i was hella nervous on the train going to piece. plus i saw a guy who kinda looked like scott smith, and when i looked at him he kinda looked at me, but i was so freaked out that i didn't know for sure that i just kept avoiding his gaze the entire trip. so very relieved was i that it wasn't him. that would have sucked. in retrospect, if it had been him, i don't think he would have looked at me and said nothing.. being the douchebag that i am, i don't know that i would say the same in reverse.

once i got there and settled in, though, everything was cool. of course i forgot my camera, but i don't take a lot of people shots anyway. lots of people showed up; very happy about that. olivia and i kind of ended up in the middle of all the conversations, so we got to talk about her weird beer. (kim's scott, you ever had? not bad.) what was really nice was the pizza. mmmmm mm. that's what thin crust should be. it reminded me of... damn. i can't quite put it into words. something delicious in a land beyond time, how's that? they do carryout but no delivery. pout.

nice to meet you all, chicagoist peeps. it's nice to be part of such a cool little group, even if i only do weekends.

more artsy, less fartsy

listening to: black heart procession, 'a light so dim'

so i've got this wackass air conditioning unit in my apartment. built-in, wall unit, a/c stinks like dead musty fish, can't really do anything about it. that is, until i realized that it almost looks like a projection screen for a very small projector...

cool and all, but what are the odds i'd actually watch movies on it? i'd have to get a projector, make sure it conforms to the specified space, find some movies.. fuck that. that'd only be good for parties anyway, and i ain't no partyer. then i looked at it again, and thought it might be a good tableau for some photos i bought recently. the problem is, i bought three and was planning on framing them. i'd hate to break up the triumvirate. instead, i put up a photo of my own:

printed out on four 8"x11.5" matte photo paper, then fixed into place. i likes it. a lot. the best part is i can take a new picture and change it out once i get sick of it. beats having to air mail something from belgium...

*grump*

so i went to delilah's with kim tonight. $6.50 for a mudslide. in a glass that doubled as a votive candle holder. it was that small. i knew bars could be expensive, but jesus christ. upon entering my domicile i went straight to the liquor cabinet, for it did not quench my thirst for booze.

what a shitty week i've had. and i know tomorrow's just gonna be the shittiest day of them all.. my sales assistant stud partner is out, along with the woman for whom i cover when she takes off. plus i've had a couple drinks, which i normally don't do. lord, this is gonna be fun. good thing i already brought some baileys to work beforehand. i think ahead like that. fuck, i should get a raise for that. at my place, it's not out of the question.

chicagoist antisocial

listening to: nin - 'i do not want this'

i've noticed a change every year. after girls' weekend, i get sullen and withdrawn and angry. yesterday it was quite bad, hate simmering just underneath the surface. i felt extremely combative, daring. why? i wish i knew. it might be that i have to socialize with people whom i normally don't see. but i've known these girls for.. god, for the better part of my life now. maybe that's what pisses me off, that i don't have more to say to them. every year i feel i'm in the same place, that i never change, that i have nothing to talk about.

this year was a tiny bit different. i did join chicagoist recently. (i've been meaning to mention that.) but when nobody knows what the fuck chicagoist is since they're not into blogs or they live out in bumble, what difference does it make? i'm still not in a relationship. i haven't bought a house or gotten a fabulous job. (altho i did note that, strangely, i've been at my job longest out of all the girls who went this year. freaky.) i'm small potatoes.. the perpetual tagalong sister. i don't so much feel as if i come from a different time from them all, since they're all about 5 years older, so much as i feel like i come from a different planet. despite the beautiful surroundings and getting out of the city, ultimately girls' weekend amounts to me wanting to spend a great period of time by myself afterward...wondering why i don't have the skills to communicate. like always.

wish you were here

and if you don't like pumpkin, you know what you can eat instead?

my ASS.

tiny trials and tribulations

so tired.. just got a paper cut on my pinky.. hate everything.. the nipples of mother hope have run dry.

it's girls' weekend this weekend, the annual event where i get away from the pigs of the world and do some r&r up in wisconsin. i am seriously pumped, but the prep seems to be taking a lot out of me. something important to do every night, when i don't have that much time to begin with.. couple that with getting up earlier on the weekends lately, and i'm worn out. i really meant to go to sleep early last night, but i was too busy baking a pumpkin. i wanted to try fresh pumpkin for my pie this year; whilst reading the instructions, i realized i wouldn't be able to bake the pumpkin, make the pie, pack for the trip, and do my laundry in a 4-hour period without losing my marbles. thankfully the pumpkin turned out fine. i've got fresh puree waiting for me in my fridge. mm. pictures forthcoming, probably after the weekend, once i've installed my new camera software.

ps. when i woke up and opened my bedroom door, it was unusually warm, especially for being 26° outside, and my heaters haven't kicked on yet. it was then that i realized i left my oven on all night. oopsy.

naming my first ten kids 'ted'

i know it's only cocktober. i don't care. i nominate, for best song of the year, "ted" by clark. it would get top nomination for the century, except it's too fucking short.

why i wish i was born a guy, part 629

ran into a perv today on the red line. i was waiting at chicago for a northbound train when this guy squeezed himself onto the bench between me and another girl. she got up and left; a few seconds later i realized why. he started to inch his hand towards my leg and began fondling the hem of my jumper. homie don't play dat. i left in a huff without saying anything or looking at him. i'm glad he didn't follow, but i don't think that was his style anyway.

then walking back to my place, i passed a pair of guys going the other way. the one closest to me made a kissing noise right by my ear as i passed by. what...the fuck. i looked back but neither one was looking at me. still, that shit just doesn't happen to me. i'm not sure which incident disturbed me more.

the bridge

haven't globbed in a while. (blogged, globbed, w/e.) i've been much busier, and when i have the time to write for myself, i either don't think of it or am too burnt out to do it. i did, however, want to write about the bridge.

eric steel and his crew set up two digital cameras at two spots - one on the north side, one on the south - and filmed the bridge from dawn till darkness, every single day, throughout 2004. one of the cameras was always stationary; the other always had a person behind it. in this manner, the crew captured suicides of people jumping from the bridge. they then interviewed bystanders, friends and families to see what had happened and to gain more perspective on why these people had sunk to this level. a lot of them had mental problems.. one woman was a paranoid schizophrenic, one guy was bipolar (the only survivor who had jumped), several others were severely depressed. i think they showed several people who jumped who.. basically had no stories. i know the families either hadn't wanted to be interviewed or retracted their interviews once they found out the crew had actual footage of their loved one taking his or her own life, but on the surface, that's kind of creepy.

the whole thing was very powerful. i frankly don't know how he's going to market it to a mainstream audience, because you're sitting there watching people die. in this day and age, where there are euphemisms for everything the least bit painful and death on the news seems fake at best, that's going to be a very hard sell. it's also a necessary one. if he can help illuminate more of a depressed or hopeless person's state of mind, maybe some inroads can be made. a lot of argument was made about bridge safety, but that seems secondary in my eyes.. barriers have been attempted at the bridge before, to no avail. people are still going to manage to kill themselves. it's the crux of the problem that has to be dealt with.

the afternoon wasn't all heaviness and gloom. i did see (and eventually help) a bee eat meat. that kinda made my day.

buying back a slice of my childhood

as previously mentioned, one of my finds at the kane county fairgrounds this past weekend was a big box o' atari. actually, it's an atari knockoff made by sears, called tele-games. still plays atari games, which is all that matters. i took it home, beaming.

then, not owning a tv from 1978, i couldn't figure out how to hook it up. that's where the internets come in handy. i looked up how to hook one of these bad boys up to a modern coax tv, ran out to radioshack, and voilà...



if you'll excuse me, i think i hear some blocky, tinny-sounding blackjack calling my name.

viva la spooky

i went with kim and kristin to the kane county fairgrounds today for a flea market. that's yay and all, but it was basically a flimsy pretext for going out and finding some nifty old cemeteries. we loves us some creepy cemeteries. after we cleaned out our wallets buying ataris and a 1929 chicago skyline photo (wait, that was just me), we checked out some st. charles graveyards that were of supposed ill repute. kim had stumbled upon a website that listed more cemeteries than you could shake a stick at, some of which said 'small, much vandalized' or even 'highly vandalized.' score.

we trekked out to south cemetery off 7th avenue, where my increasingly crappy camera proceeded to die upon arrival. no matter; south cemetery's reputation was greatly exaggerated. well-kept, hardly the hellhole the site had made it out to be. next we hit prairie cemetery, which was north of st. charles really, among magnificent houses and a wetland preserve. fabulous place. unfortunately, prairie had been cleaned up much like south, with a lot of newer headstones that were kinda cool. i guess the site submissions from 1986 needed some slight updating.

disappointed, we hiked to back down to st. charles to north cemetery, on 5th avenue this time. huge. your typical old city cemetery. we were drawn like magnets to the older section, as always. kim found a row of family stones by this really creepy old tree. so, standing in front of said tree, i took the following pictures (click on to enlarge please):


no flash.


with flash, a few seconds later.


with flash, a few seconds after that.

yeah. that middle one, with all the mist and orbs? the kind that shows up in supposed 'haunted' pictures? i've never taken a photo like that before. i stood in the exact same spot for all three, taking them all within one minute, i'd say. the only thing i changed was whether or not the flash was on. thing is.. i didn't feel anything while i took the photos. i didn't feel a disturbance, didn't feel like anyone was with me, didn't feel a cold spot or anything. of course i was totally jazzed i caught a possible spirit on film, while kim and kristin hadn't gotten any such pictures. and of course, i'm honored that i was chosen to get the photo, for whatever reason.

i'm gonna try to not stay up all night totally creeped out now.

a little slice of decadence

i've just mixed baileys into silky, voluptuous hot chocolate from the restaurant downstairs. the word 'magic' just got a new definition.

(btw, yes, i'm nipping baileys at work.. and yes, i do want to fight about it.)

work is a four-letter word

this place pisses me off to no end. it's not so much the work as the incompetence of the higher-ups. the thing is, these aren't the usual corporate douchebags. my office is relatively cool. but for some reason, these otherwise smart men can't make a decisive action to save their lives.

case one: there's a girl in my office - let's call her 'Princess' - who is, in the most basic of terms, useless. she started out as a temp like i did, ending up a permanent trading assistant. i really have no idea how. she's rude on the phone, she takes forever to explain anything and treats you like a five-year-old while she does so, she's got a voice like a dental drill, she blames everyone but herself when she fucks up, she takes frequent smoke breaks, she orders food on the company dollar and never eats it, then bitches at me when i pick a place that's too expensive.. i could go on and on.

her latest thing is falling asleep at her desk. she's done it three times, with her boss finally catching her at it and sending her home. justice? no! instead she got a week off because her grandmother died. a week. my boss only took one day off when his own mother died. the kicker is, she didn't take the whole week.. she was s'posed to come back friday but came back today. that put the day right in the shitter.

she's had a colorful history with prescription drugs (she's a vegan and has a multitude of physical things wrong with her.. i swear before god those two things are related) so obviously she used those and the grief she was experiencing to get out of whatever abject laziness she's pulled. she gets yelled at, she's insulted by her coworkers openly.. yet she's still here. the mind. fucking. boggles.

case two: this girl - let's call her 'Hatey' - didn't do any work whatsoever. she hated her job, she hated the people, she hated her bosses and argued with them considerably, writing spiteful emails behind their backs (work emails, i might add). was she fired? eventually.. it took months and months and months, and she took another very good employee down with her, but she was finally let go. whew.

then one morning i'm mailing some stuff for another boss, called 'Sucker.' i notice an envelope addressed to Hatey. since i loathe myself, i hold it up to the light.. yup, it's a check. a fucking check for a deadbeat girl who slept under her desk and played internet games the last several months she worked here. meanwhile the proles around the office, of which i am one, haven't seen bonuses in forever.. they used to come on a semi-regular basis. or so i'm told. i've only ever gotten a christmas bonus. i hate to bite the hand that feeds, but when your potential money is going to an ignorant slob, i can't help but feel a little pissed off.

wtf

this morning i found five dead birds outside my work building. not crushed or mutilated, just dead. i think they were all sparrows. i've noticed more dead birds around town lately in the same condition. what gives? is it the endtimes already?

the ironing is not all that delicious

at the risk of jinxing myself, i have the remote possibility of becoming a member of chicagoist. i applied for a 'weekender' position a few weeks ago - they don't normally post on weekends, or didn't use to - and have submitted a few stories. two of them got posted yesterday, kind of on a trial basis. if i keep it up and turn in quality stuff, i might get hired for realz. glee!

now for the down side.

as my friends and family know, i was in an abusive relationship for a few years, mentally and emotionally. i finally managed to break it off when our lease was up; we went our separate ways. however, he would still call me at all hours, he sent me upsetting mail.. he even showed up at my doorstep one time, driving from ohio. once i moved into a new place, i changed my number, but he's asked friends about me.. i don't know when it will ever end.

the thing about chicagoist is, when they list their staffers, they put their full names. i don't know if that's a strict policy or not. i just googled myself this morning and came up with very little, nothing that could tie me to anything tangible. but if i'm googlable through chicagoist... i don't know, i'm afraid bad things could happen. i hate the thought of hiding behind an alias when everyone else uses their real name.. i'd feel like a chickenshit. hell, i don't even know if an alias is an option. but i know what i've been through.. what price must i pay to be able to do what i want?

confessional

so i'm sitting here at work at quarter to 6 in the evening. i'm sucking down a coors light (don't make fun, it's all we had in the fridge) and getting a mite tipsy. what's my first thought upon realizing my state... head out to a bar for some more? hook up with somebody and hang out? or...go to an art gallery?

if you chose the very latter, you now fully know how much of a geek i am. i think i would, too, if i didn't have to do fuckin' laundry.

a trip in the wayback machine

crickey. scott sent me a link to the rockstar game, but i haven't even begun down that road. instead, i got to thinking about all the old band names i or those close to me have come up with over the years. problem is, i haven't really consolidated them into one volume for quite some time.. i just write them down as they come to me, so they can be in sketchbooks, on post-its, on freaking napkins for all i know.

so, i dug out all my old sketchbooks (back when i used to actually draw) searching for band names. i'm never sure this is a good idea, but i rediscovered some wonderful phrases and facts. for example, retsyn is made from vegetable oil. the literal translation of 'sarcasm' means 'to tear flesh.' i feel as if i was so much wiser back then. and who could forget 'dark is the suede that mows like a harvest'? adam heck wrote that in my book in.. jesus, '97? something like that. ah, adam, how i miss you. nothing a little zabasearch can't clear up. oh yeah, i also drew a little game called 'honkey kong' that went something like this.

didn't find so many band names, and it's now way too late to start playing that game, but mark my words.. one day, Spooky Biscuits is gonna be big. or Rusty Bacon. or maybe MC Squared... i'll sleep on it.

i will remember.

oh man, is it ever nice to pee in my own toilet again. 10 hours of standing around in intermittant rain, with autumn fully making its entrance into the city. and for what?

pure, unadulterated bliss.

i skipped saturday's touch and go show to celebrate my bday, which at this point, i would just as soon forget. i also hate punk. saturday's lineup was silly with punk bands. instead i spent the day recovering at the golden nugget (mmmm biscuits & gravy) and spending some quality time with kim & scott, namely eating pizza hut and watching mst3k. happy birthday to me!

sunday, however, i was touch and go's bitch again. my intention was to show up at noon for arcwelder and stay at least until pinback, possibly for calexico, the last act of the night. didn't totally go as planned...

arcwelder: missed half the set. the north avenue bridge that i was planning to cross was out, so i had to run for a bus like a dillhole. i ended up getting in at 12:30. i really liked what i saw, though. wish i could have found a cd in reckless's tent.

quasi: didn't see. i dried down a lunch table instead, after picking up a decent dog at the whole foods booth while trying not to get it wet. somehow i managed to finish my faulker book. is it wrong to read a book in full, then read cliff notes for it in order to understand it?

monorchid: horrible. the best thing i can say is that their set was blessedly short due to equipment problems.

enon: um.. not what i was expecting. a friend highly recommended them, so i snuck into the audience. it was a bit underwhelming. i enjoyed the music with synths better than the standard bass-guitar-drum combo. there was also a stagehand for that particular stage who i wouldn't have kicked out of bed for eating ramen.

three mile pilot: cool. this band started both black heart procession (band i really came to see #1) and pinback (band i really came to see #2). if i hadn't seen and heard with my own eyes and ears the melding of those two bands, i wouldn't have believed it. zach smith and pall jenkins harmonizing? a real treat.

tara jane o'neil: didn't see. if i'd stood in one place for any longer my legs would have left without me. at this point i slipped the surly bounds of the fest to wander around and take some pics. i'ma post the 'em on my flickr page.

seam: see above.

brick layer cake: ok. so i get back from taking pics, thinking i'll be back in time for black heart procession. i get up way near the front, all excited and shit, i'm so close. then they bring on this guy who.. jesus lord. it was just the one guy playing guitar by himself, 'singing' (i use the term loosely). i'd forgotten that this guy was playing a mini-set before bhp came on. pissed, i gave up my place and went to take a leak, not realizing he was only going to do two songs. i ended up pretty fucked placement-wise.

black heart procession: good as always. 'tropics of love' just makes me go all gooey inside. however, i just saw these guys in august and they basically did the same stuff. i noticed myself getting slightly bored, even though i love 'em to death. the only thing they mixed up was, they threw 'good love is hard to find' by tom petty in there. odd choice, but it worked.

cocorosie: didn't see. there was no way i was going to get fucked for pinback like i had for bhp, so i anchored myself near the front for the hour that cocorosie was on. (they played the other stage while pinback tuned up.) in the meantime i managed to meet a very nice young man named nick (i think i'm older than he is, so i can get away with calling him that), which definitely helped to pass the time. going to the fest by myself was pretty hard.. it was really nice to find someone to talk to. i barely realized a huge crowd had grown around us. suddenly it was time for...

pinback: the weird thing about pinback was, i hadn't realized rob crow looks the way he does. at first glance it seemed like someone had let a mental patient loose upon the stage. who is this guy who looks kinda like a trucker, but also knows all the words to these songs? he sounded different and not loud enough, imo.. it took me a song to adjust. but after that.. sigh. he talked to the crowd a lot, saying how he was a fanboi for all the other bands on the bill. points scored.

they played only two songs i didn't know, and even those kicked my ass. lessee, what did they play.. 'bloods on fire', 'the yellow ones', 'syracuse', 'sender', 'non-photo blue', 'penelope', 'prog', 'fortress' and 'afk'. i can't describe the wonderful, wonderful feeling i got hearing these songs live. and christ, i've only really been a pinback fan for two months. there's just something about them, when all the sound comes together...it's a thousand epiphanies. i found it amusing that they need five guys on stage to replicate what two do in the studio. my only wish was that they'd done 'west' (actually got up the nerve to yell it, too). 'concrete seconds' would have been truly awesome as well. next time.. ?

oh yeah, just to reiterate.. rob crow is fucking insane. nothing like how he comes across on a record. the closest is 'afk' where he cuts loose a teeny tiny bit.. compare that to jumping around on stage, letting his guitar clatter to the floor, turning into a one-man mosh pit.. all the while, the other members are calm as a coma, just churning out the song. great, great stuff.

calexico: no disrespect, but after pinback, who the fuck cares? not i. i booked it before the huge flood of hipsters let loose onto north ave. all i wanted was a caramel apple cider from starbucks and a nice, warm bed. i got boned on the CAC (they were out of apple juice), but a hot choc made up for that.. and the bed is still waiting for me.

despite the weather, the hours of standing around, the hanging around by myself (i didn't see one person i recognized, outside of band members), the putting up with of couples and goofass hairstyles and huge bushy amish beards (i pray this trend dies a quick death), the shuttle to and from the venue and getting lost while i do so.. one millisecond of pleasure i received from one song made it all worth it hundreds of times over. i'm so, so glad i went. i look forward to seeing some of these bands again in the future. many many thanks to chicagoist for affording me the opportunity to go in the first place. i would have done it without you, but you made it much cheaper! :D

impromptu gravel dancefloor

ex...haus...ted. my legs scream for the sweet, sweet taste of oblivion so that my muscles might knit. but first, my review of touch and go's first day of shows...

shipping news: missed 'em. i got in just as they were wrapping up their set. i took the metra north, thinking it'd be easier than taking a cta train and transfering to a bus. sure, it would have been easier, had i gone the right way... i got some nice pics out of it, tho.

supersystem: very good. one of the bands i came to see. it surprised me that they recreated their sound using so few instruments onstage. i also hadn't realized three different guys take vocal duties, but that's just me being dumb. the bassist? train wreck. i have no idea who let him past the elite chicago too-cool-for-school guards, but he was goin' fuckin' nuts up there, made all the weirder by how early it was still.. wrapping his mic cord around his neck, getting really into the music, dousing the audience in bottled water. i felt almost embarrassed for him, but judging by their video for 'whitelight/whitelight', seems like he's like that 24/7. hey, it was entertaining.

girls against boys: listened from afar. i've never been into them, but they played their seminal album 'venus luxure' in its entirety, which must have been a trip for their fans.

ted leo: better than i expected. i've dabbled in his music, not taking a stance one way or 'tother. good stuff live; tight, energetic, and he's got a great voice contrasting with the simplistic punk-like music. he was rather affable with the crowd, too.. very comfy up there. a town favorite, for good reason.

!!!: ah. another band i came to see AND dance to. and by god, i did, along with a good portion of the crowd. one of the singers (out of two) bore an unfortunate resemblance to carrot top, from what i could see. however. that did not stop him in the slightest from pumping the stiffass hipster crowd up and getting those hands in the air, as if we just didn't care. i don't remember much from the songs they played, i only know those funky white guys kicked my ass, just like they said they were gonna. mission accomplished. i must now go collapse.

anticipation

play that song again and go to hell when you die

and

oh oh, i could strangle you all
oh oh, did i say that out loud?

fuck, i love pinback.

h8

i live in dumb central. my part of town is not known for its intellectual creed or world-class culture. clark street, right outside my complex, is instead renowned as a place to get blasted on a nuclear scale. hardly the work of rocket scientists, that.

on a somewhat related note, couples abound. mostly pretty couples, but couples no matter what. whenever i see a guy by himself he's either fratastic, jogging or, if he resembles an entity in which i'd be interested, he must have left the gf at home and is currently talking to her on his cell. there goes that idea.

how do these two concepts intersect? today i was returning from best buy (my dvd player sucks) and saw two guys grilling in the courtyard. two girls were planted by the front door, talking (one let me in, which was nice). as i passed, the two girls walked up to the two guys and just.. started talking. 'hi, you guys grilling? we're new here' 'yeah, we're new here too' 'hey, that's great! blah blah blah' etc.

this is why i don't even try. if i'd done that, i probably would have just been left hanging. my irritation mostly stems from the fact that they made it look so easy. if i'd seen a cute guy out there grilling and gone up to him and said, 'hi, you grilling something?' i would have felt like a complete ass. it's fucking obvious that he's grilling something. but apparently these guys didn't seem to mind that strain of conversation one bit. it's all well and good when you've got some trixie eye candy in front of you, eh.

someone please shove a crayon up my nose so i can be normal and happy.

if i had a million dollars...

- i'd bounce around europe for a long time.
- i'd buy a old, gloriously decrepit property and just.. let it crumble and rot, so no one else can knock it down and put a goddamn parking lot over it.
- i'd make and market a vibrating toy that didn't have a fucking animal on it. apparently i am the only sexual woman on the planet who thinks the whole idea is creepy and gross. get back in the zoo where you belong and stay the fuck away from my cooter.

testing

Energetic Self-Starter Instantly Despised By Co-Workers

holy crap, it worked. the onion has a feature previously unknown to me: at the top of their articles along with the 'email' and 'print' options, there's a 'blog' option as well. it gives the code to paste a headline of theirs right into the average area person's blog, like so. let's try another one:

Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-To-Door Trying To Shock People

kickass. i love useless gadgetry.

the artist what signs

now, for my next trick, i shall attempt to write a blog entry whilst eating a lime popsicle. observe!

Jhonen Vasquez rolled into town today. being the drooling, nihilstic fangrrl that i am, i thought, 'i must get something signed by him.' and then i said, to my sister, out loud, 'i must get something signed by him.' she agreed, but when i did recon on the swarming mass of goth outside chicago comics, i left a message telling her not to bother. poor dear has to work the boiler or w/e at starfucks at the crack of dorchester tomorrow. (yes, there's a 4:30 in the morning now.)

but hey, this is MY blog, and we're here to talk about ME. (popsicle gettin' mega drippy.. whoop, there we go, all in the mouth.. cue brain freezy) i wasn't about to let things go down just like that. *i* was the one who had the comics and enjoyed every dirty, homicidal, antisocial bit of them. so i waited in line. and waited. and got rained on a little. and waited. and waited. and talked to some cool people behind me. everyone was pretty cool, actually; it was the douchebags in my über-trendy neighborhood yelling 'what are you guys waiting for??? what's going on??' across the street that once again reduced my faith in humanity to a quivering blob.

all told, i waited the whole scheduled two hours of the signing. and there were still plenty behind me when i finally got to The Man himself. said Man was sitting behind the counter, looking surprisingly normal for what evil comes out of his head: glasses, purple mohawk. like you do. we shared a brief snippet of conversation, which revolved around him not drinking. a non-drinker! i marvelled at such a rare thing, like a bug with two anterior appendages. more power to him. and that was that; ten seconds max, i'd say. it was worth it, for i knew what i was getting into.. i knew it'd be a cluster, that there'd be mad fanbois and freaky goths (some of the chicks were smokin' hot, too), that i'd touch only briefly upon JV's world and he upon mine, at least in person. but, i came out of it with signed swag and a spooky doll. squee!

only in dreams

so i had this dream last night. the whole thing played out like a TV episode. i worked at a job not unlike my current one, only i worked with Paul Rudd. i've held Paul Rudd in the 'awesome' category probably since 'Clueless.' there's just something i've always really liked about him.. and he's cute as all get-out to boot.

anyway, in that gossamer haze that is a dream backstory, we'd worked together for some time and kinda sorta had the hots for each other, but never consummated the sexual tension. i'd had this condom (toxic green plastic wrapper) in my pocket for a while and noticed that the expiration date on it was today. so, we figured, what the hell? no sense letting it go to waste...except we couldn't find any place at work to do the nasty. even in closable rooms, doors were flung open without even a knock; it was that kind of environment.

as so often happens, the geography of my workplace changed from a downtown highrise to a single-story U-shaped school type building. we managed to stake out a secluded place in what happened to be the chairman/principal's office. i closed the blinds, he got naked (!; i remained clothed), we held each other, and.. he sang to me. motherfucker sang to me. i was all down for the sex, and he ended up holding me and singing.

my brain fucking hates me.

in the end, though, we were interrupted before we could go any further by the principal and some other headmaster douchebags barging in, not entirely unamused. i think it ended in typical TV show fashion with the headmasters and Mr. Rudd gathered at a round table, with him singing to them, since they liked his singing so much. thankfully everyone was fully dressed.. so i guess my brain doesn't hate me that much.

*spaces out and thinks of dream-paul's warm flesh beneath her hands* yes, it does. fuck.

it's time for another 'good idea, bad idea'

good idea: entering a ticket giveaway contest on a whim. chicagoist held a write-in contest for the touch and go records 25th anniversary/hideout 10th annual block party, and i fucking won. now i don't have to say 'well my mom thinks i'm a winner' anymore. i'm one of three who gets a three-day pass to the whole shebang. more black heart procession, and my new best friend, pinback. (check them out, go, nownownow. they're the reason i won the flippin' contest.) plus some more acts i've probably heard of at some point. that's all i care about right now, but now i gots some serious research to do...

bad idea: watching 'session 9' right before bed. what the fuck was i thinking?? when am i gonna fucking learn??

does this blog make me look antisocial?

the boi left today. the temp boi, that is. the one who did data entry at my work for a few weeks during the summer. the one who wants to become a music critic and was even enveloped by pitchfork during his stay with us. the one who listened to his elvis costello and spoon and girl talk while i listened to my balding yuppie coworkers yammer on about golf. the one who didn't start out so cute but got steadily cuter as time wore on, as we had more snarky, knowing conversations. the only one i felt really comfortable talking to, at least until i felt a crush coming on. the one who had so many friends he didn't know what to do with them all, while i wondered what it would be like to be part of his circle without knowing how to be so.

it's not so much the fact that we didn't really hang out (though he showed up at the starlight mints show) or that he didn't seem 'into' me. it's the possibility that he represented, the thought that no, i don't have to languish in this stupid, money-grubbing, single-minded field forever. i can do something that i really want to do, involve myself in things i actually care about very deeply. he was like the proverbial stranger who blows into town with the evening shade, rearranges that town's perceptions utterly, then quietly drifts on. sigh.. i'm being dramatic again. but with a driving force gone, i fear my desire to break out into a place for me will slowly wither and collapse again... i wish him all the luck in the world.

no feathers

they're spreading new tar on the parking lot next to my complex. mmmm, tar. i'm including that in my new line of candle scents, along with singed hair and chloroform.

tedium, she wrote

blogs are a catch 22. when i'm doing lots of blog-worthy stuff, i don't feel like sitting down and writing about it. the only times i feel like blogging is when i have nothing else better to do...in other words, when i have no material. eh.

this weekend i managed to walk two miles (roundtrip) for three ingredients to make a one-person fondue. i hate not having a store nearby. it turned out pretty good, though, so i guess it was worth it, what with the exercise and the nice weather and all. i also managed to completely forget about the Arks playing a show saturday night. i swear to god i'm going to see you guys play with Glenn one of these days. (sorry...) i was bored out of my skull, too. serves me right, for some reason i'm sure is valid, on some cosmic plane.

my lot

going to see black heart procession tonight. very jazzed. my only caveat is that i'll be going by myself, which is the usual chain of events when it comes to music i really want to see. it doesn't happen very often, which makes things even worse. i even put an ad on craigslist, the last bastion of companionship. i got a grand total of two responses - one time i posted at midnight on a saturday and got roughly a hundred - neither of which knew the band, which was kind of my only criteria. eh.. i'ma roll up into a big ball of self-pity now and roll away.

ps - just watched bhp's video for 'guess i'll forget you.' there's no reason why a song that depressing should have a video that funny. it's just not fair.

deep thought

on the timescale of the universe, i am ephemera.

@#%@#$, it's hot

man, what a weekend. my friend justin visited from cleveland. i love it when someone visits; i get to see and do stuff i'd never see or do otherwise. stuff like:

• go to the field museum (photos)


• eat at RJ Grunts (mmm...peanut butter shake)


• watch some DVDs, including 'meet the feebles'.. i'll never forgive you for that, justin


• play mini-golf at novelty golf & games in lincolnwood


• see 'a scanner darkly' at the music box


• pick up a ticket for black heart procession for sunday night


• sweat my ass off and commiserate about it instead of merely swearing to myself

whew. i think i made up for several weeks of sloth with that laundry list. i had an assload of fun doing it, too. ffs, justin, ditch ohio already. :D

wicker park streetfest, etc.

whew. been on my feet for pretty much the whole day (my day starting at 12:30, like a sunday should). i firstly went to the brown elephant on halsted, then to linens 'n things, to look for a foyer table. no dice on either end. i proceeded to big hair to get a freakin' haircut, since i'm such a hippie. no deal. i thought they were open 'till 4 on sunday - such says a sign posted in their window - but they're only open 'till 3 and they stop taking walk-ins an hour before close. i got there at 2:30. boned, i decided what the hell, since i came up here, i'll take a bus down to summerfest in wicker park.

it was ok. i was mostly interested in telefon tel aviv and starlight mints, mostly because those were the only bands i'd heard of beforehand. i missed TTA; they played saturday and i had a certain furniture item to wait on for four hours. but hey, i could still see the starlight mints, and buy some unnecessary gewgaws and greasy pizza while i was at it.

i caught the band before starlight mints, who had the enviable name of someone still loves you, boris yeltsin. (one of the better ones i've heard lately.) i must admit, though he looked underage, the singer was pretty darn cute. i should have bought some crap from them. they put on a good show, too.

starlight mints took their sweet time getting everything ready. i guess that's what you go thru when a large part of your act is samples from many different keyboards and having six people on stage. (at one point they claimed they were not going to do a certain song, as they did not have the appropriate puppets with them.) before they went on, i bumped into a coworker with whom i discuss music with quite a bit. that was cool. unfortunately i kind of blew off his companion/coworker at another job/friend when we parted ways. d'oh.

on the plus side, the mints were very good. i'd only heard a tiny bit of their stuff before going to see them. they're.. well, they're downright goofy. they've got a theatrical britpop/dr. seussian vibe going on, with plenty of horn and random sundry sounds. they looked like they were having fun. good stuff.

oh, as mentioned before, i purchased more than my fair share of jewelry and fewd and beer. one necklace i bought is made from old computer parts. the thought just makes me feel all funny inside. not only is it industrial enough to wear to the club, i could slap it on for a lan party. rock.

the day has arrived!

over memorial day weekend, i went to roy's furniture (2455 n. sheffield) to scope out couches. i'd never owned one of my own before; one of the slew of apartments i've lived in so far had a hand-me-down, but it didn't move with me and the sublettors donated it to the brown elephant, if i recall correctly. pro about roy's: they're pretty darn cheap due to lack of advertising, and they have a fuckton of nice stuff. con about roy's: 6-8 weeks for delivery. my poor homeless couch, floating in the ether, was not to be truly mine for at least a month and a half.

but today, they finally deposited it in my living room in under five minutes, with little fanfare. it was as if an alien wormhole had plopped this green overstuffed egg into my undeserving dimension:



and apparently, i'm not the only one happy about it:



aww.

better or worse than secondhand smoke?

the good news is, i got my ancient a/c sleeve unit working. the genius in me (with some help from a landlord) plugged the damn thing in, after turning my bathwater brown for five minutes whilst cleaning the filter.

the bad news is, i'm not sure exactly what my apartment now smells like, but it's not good. sort of like a combination between dirt and fish. how did my apartmental ancestors before me cope with this smell? did they have the absence of common sense to even turn it on? holing up in my bedroom with my new window unit is sounding like a better and better idea.

revoking my citizenship (again)

so bush put the kibosh on opening up more stem cell research. this doesn't surprise me, nor will it surprise anyone. after all, we're dying to let the world know we're devolving to the point where we're willing to toss embryos in the garbage that could otherwise save people (including children!) from dying.

'hey bob, you just gonna toss those embryos? why don't we try to get some use out of em, since we have em around?'
'nah jimmy, it's a disgrace to the sanctity of life!' *scrapes cells into the incinerator*

what really pisses me off is when he was making his little speech, there were two squirming spawn behind him carried by idiot patsies. i don't pray often, but i hope one of those kids is stricken with Parkinson's or diabetes or something. that'll teach em. fuckers.

i blame the red states

ugh.. fuck you, america, for voting Taylor Ware as the second semi-finalist. how cornball can you get.

itching

what does a lifelong sloth do when it wants to stop being slothlike? what is there to do? impromptu kickboxing? lacrosse? bustin' a move? jesus wept.. unspent energy, wasted in jaw clenching and foot tapping. rollerblades, a skateboard, a bike.. fuck, i don't know how to do any of those things. can a body learn at age 26?

sigh.. i guess a walk's better than nothing..

america's got another patsy

crap. crap crap. crap crappity crap. i think i'm hooked on 'america's got talent.' i always said i avoided these kind of shows like the plague, for obvious reasons, but goddamn, i couldn't stop watching. the whole reason i tuned in was because one of our local gals got on the show (and passed onto the next round, btw). they showed her in a rerun, then damn their oily souls, they showed a new one after that! what kind of demons DO such an abominable thing??

i could get used to this whole 'teevee' thing... sure beats real life.

hawt

WORK, DAMN YOU, WORK!!

finders keepers

my cat is of the curious variety. i certainly haven't found all the hiding places she frequents. i'm not even sure where she sleeps when i'm at work. (she certainly never sleeps when *i'm* trying to sleep.) but apparently she's been dipping into an alternate universe:



i've never seen either of these necklaces before. they look like something i could (or would) only acquire after showing my tits to passing floats. yet, i came home one day, and the green one was on my floor and the purple one was in my kitchen sink. after freaking out a little - omg, what if people are breaking into my apartment and leaving me cheap plastic jewelry??? - i reached the conclusion that these were somehow left over from the previous occupants.

i thought that was the end of it...until i was making mac & cheese tonight and discovered this on my kitchen floor:



yup.. it's an empty, cat hair-encrusted packet of lube. strawberry kiwi lube, no less. i can't make this shit up. and i'm learning more about my neighbors than i ever really wanted to know.

the englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain and blew another fucking tiebreaker

there are few constants in life. it puts my mind at ease to know that amid all the chaos of the world, e always equals mc², the Cubs will always suck, and Tim Henman will never win Wimbledon. i was fairly surprised to see him playing this year. don't get me wrong, i always had a soft spot for the dark-haired chap with the Wallace-like teeth, but the homeboy's just never had the cojones to dig in and win the whole thing. he's a relic - a serve-and-volley player in a world of baseliners - and the increasingly outmoded grass is supposedly 'his' surface.. yet he can't bring it all together and make it happen. i've watched him drag out match after match with amateurs to five sets, only to lose before the round of 16 to anyone who can put up a challenge. poor sod.

he's not even seeded this year.. and i saw his next match is against reigning champ Roger Federer. sorry, Tim, hope to see you crash and burn again next year. cheers!

the sound of sushi

i get breakfast for my coworkers in the morning. (insert sound of whip cracking *here*) luckily, there's an american-style eatery right downstairs in our building that i go to nearly every day, not only for breakfast, but lunch too. today i noticed a bigass sign denoting four kinds of sushi. buoyed, i asked the girl behind the counter about said sign. she told me not only were they starting with the sushi serving today, but to celebrate, they'd give some away free. free rhymes with squee, which is an approximation of the noise i made.

when lunchtime rolled around, i went down to pick up my tasty fishy morsels. complications ensued. turns out they were sent the wrong stuff, ergo, no free lunch. crushed, i opened my wallet nonetheless to spare myself the disappointment of sushilessness. i moped back upstairs and commenced with my pencilpushing.

then, out of the corner of my eye, i spied someone coming into the office. someone put a small plate down next to me with two tiny rolls and a packet of soy sauce. he joggled my elbow and said my name. i whizzed around and saw it was jorge, one of the cashiers/servers in the restaurant. he'd come up even though he completely didn't have to and spanked me some free sushi. how cool is that? it was pretty good, too.. i think he gave me some spicy salmon and tuna. mm.

i know there's no way on earth you read my blog, jorge, but thank you anyway!

ps. a&w diet root beer does not go with sushi. not one bit.

that wheelchair guy

you gotta love stephen hawking. the man appears on the simpsons, futurama and then takes a swipe at the frogs.

Hawking -- who must communicate with an electronic speech synthesizer -- said he once considered using a machine that gave him a French accent but he couldn't use it because his wife would divorce him.

the rest of the article's pretty interesting too.. but man, does that kick ass.

graaaaAAAAAAAARRRRR

i finally gave up the ghost and admitted i lost my cell phone, that it is gone. i haven't the slightest clue where i lost it. i know i lost it on the 5/26, that i had it that morning before i went to work, but when i came home, it was nowhere to be found. i called every establishment i could think of that i visited that day (i went shopping after work, which only makes things worse). the kicker is, i'm not even sure i put it in my purse, since i hardly ever use it. i've turned my place upside down searching for the stupid thing. and it's also off, and t-mobile, in their infinite wisdom, won't turn it on, which i know you can do.

i called t-mobile just now to report the phone and file a claim. their automated system is one of those cutesy things where the soothing fake voice pretends it can interact with you. 'all right, now tell me your problem.' no choices, no menu, you have to tell a machine anything that could possibly be wrong and hope it picks up on a key word you say. who does this benefit, exactly? people who are too stupid to know they're talking to a robot? do some people try to hold a conversation with the answering machine? i would not doubt that for a second, lamentably. i should have said 'purple monkey dishwasher' just to see what would happen.

i finally got to the claim department, where they told me i need to fill out a police report.. on a phone that, for all i know, could still be in my apartment somewhere. all this makes the eventual irony when i find my old phone (after getting a new one) that much more bitter. there's no activity on my records since 5/24; if someone has my phone and hasn't called or messaged anyone by now, they have even less friends than i do, and they can keep the damn phone for the games for all i care. this sucks buckskin.

waiting

i saw these flowers yesterday, going upstairs to my apartment.

sitting.

sitting for too long already.

sitting... for how long?

chicagoista

damn, it's hard to yell at my cat after yelling in a crowded bar for two hours...

just got back from chicagoist's 2nd anniversary party at the pontiac café. pretty fun. they had delicious frosty cupcakes with a 'snakes on the hancock' theme going. i got to eat one gussied up like a snake that looked kind of like a muppet. plus i got some swag. woo swag!

it was cool, but hard to tell who was who. there were the blog contributors, some of whom wore t-shirts emblazoned with 'chicagoist'. then there were commentors, such as myself. then there were friends of both commentors and contributors. then there were people who just wanted the $3 beers and free drink tickets, i'm assuming.. i gave up after a short while. the music was surprisingly agreeable. kudos to tankboy for moving me to shake my booty. parklife represent!

it's not just the fans!

wow. the cubs/sox game today would have been the usual northside beatdown if not for the fight that broke out in the second inning. we (kim, scott and i) were sitting on the third-base side, ground level. the sox's brian anderson hit a fly ball.. a.j. pierzynski, on third, ran for home. everyone stood up to see if the throw would make it to home in time. i saw pierzynski plow into the cubs' catcher, michael barrett, and after that it was complete pandemonium. i had no idea what had happened besides the collision. benches emptied, i couldn't tell if anyone was hurt, it was so crowded on the field. the crowd was going batshit. as we waited to see what would happen, some of the sox fans behind me said barrett threw a punch, then podsednik or konerko jumped him or something. according to them, barrett was a pussy. typical. barrett and pierzynski both got ejected, along with two other guys i didn't even know were fighting. even better, the sox scored a run on the play. joy!

other than that, it was a solid ass-whooping. rich hill's an utter dingleberry. i think he issued three straight walks in that second inning to lead up to a grand slam. no wonder the cubs are the laughingstocks of chicago... we left during the seventh inning stretch. i couldn't stomach being on a crowded train with a bunch of braying sox fans, and drunk ones at that.

silver lining: i didn't get jeered at or peed on, even though i was wearing my cubs hat.. and it was a really nice day out. i must go lie down now.