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.