the past revisited

So remember in my last post I said I thought it'd be funny to read old blog posts? Well I checked what I had written on this day in history..2003...four years ago. It's pretty funny. Let's dissect it. Italics are the original post, normal is my analysis:

Yesterday was nothing but disastrous. It should be noted there was no post the day before so I have no written proof of what made that day disastrous, nor do I have any recollection. Based on the time period, I'd imagine that the "disastrous" was a crappy day at that crappy job and someone getting stabbed on the 19 Polk.

Today, I slept until noon after having a totally strange dream, made pancakes, and laid around until 3. This is what I did every weekend in SF for about a year. Who am I kidding, this is what I still do every weekend. Looks like nothing has changed.

Then Jake and I went to a coffee shop nearby that we think has "cool" people at it. It made me feel much much better to get out of the house. Did some reading for school there. Coffee shop was Farleys in our old neighborhood, Potrero Hill, and I believe the definition of cool here means people our age that looked as broke as we were. We of course did not talk to anyone, and I probably only read five pages of some really boring library school text before we got bored and left.

Then we ordered Chinese and went to the store. Now I am stuffed and am going to do some more work. This was the fall where Jake and I pretty much ate our way trough the city. I gained 15 pounds, and spent the next year losing it. Whoops.

I bought some Skyy Cosmo mix. Don't know if it's any good but its cheaper than buying one at the bar thats for sure. Gross, not sure why the hell I'd buy that. I remember it being horrible and really sugary. I threw it out after one attempt at a drink.

September 27, 2003 was a pretty boring day it looks like. I really wish I still had the archives from before 2003, but the robbery and full blogger crash years ago ruined those options for me. I know my college posts were the true doozies.

totes morts

As usual I have a cold before I have to fly somewhere for a super-fun weekend. Neon green snot, runny eyes, sore throat, the works. Thanks germs, thanks a lot. Thanks CTA, where I probably contracted these germs, for forcing me to be on you over 2 hours a day. I don't want to be sick this weekend for Kevin's party in Minneapolis, but I really don't want to be sick when I go to SF next Thursday. Flying usually only starts my colds all over again, so I'm mildly freaking out. I have a feeling I'll be calling in sick tomorrow to rest up for the big trips ahead.

Tonight Nate and I went to the Chicago anniversary of Mortified. What is mortified? Well, for those of you too lazy to click links, basically a bunch of people stand up and read from their childhood diaries, letters to friends, locker notes, poems, etc etc. Anybody who kept a diary at any age between 6-18 can imagine how literally mortifying some of those entries were. I was telling my boss that in elementary school I used to tell lies to my diary. My most infamous was that some boy liked me (never happened until HS), and we went to Skateland and COUPLE SKATED AND OMG IT WAS SO COOL WE HELD HANDS. Yeah, that never happened. Whoops. Chronic lying as a child, brutal honesty as an adult. Again, no gray area in my life.

Anyway, our friend Brooke was one of the readers and her stories were awesome. It would be an injustice to attempt to re-tell anything anyone read tonight. Everybody was really funny. The event was at the Green Mill, the famous jazz club here that I've never bothered checking out. It was sold out, so it was super packed but the place was still pretty cool. I had two glasses of wine. Apparently wine and mucus are a lethal combo because right now I feel like hurling. Moral of the story: if there are any Mortified readings in your town, you must go because you will pee a little in your undergarments from laughter (pee bit stolen from Ed, undergarments are mine). It was great to get out and do something different, even if I was stuck blowing my schnaze the entire time.

I wonder if it would be some sort of copyright violation to do a mortified-inspired event of my own. I was thinking about totes morts blog posts I've written from 1999 to the present, and I'm sure tons of other people have some embarrassing Live Journal posts or something. It'd be fun to get my friends, most of whom are bloggers whether they like it or not, together for a night of reading funny old posts and drinking. Would that be illegal? I'm not aiming to be all creative and new with this, just thinking it'd be a good time.

there's nothing more I want...

I was talking to Soup just now about life. Pretty profound huh? I couldn’t fall asleep last night because I was melancholy. I’m not satisfied with my life as it’s going, and I can’t figure out how to enjoy each day for what it is without obsessing over what it’s not. I am constantly thinking about the future; about how to get where I want to be and how to accomplish goals I’ve had for ages. I get so worried about it that I can’t make good judgments about the present. Everything I do at work is completed under the pretense of ‘how will this advance me,’ so I can’t just enjoy what is clearly my destined career. I’m embroiled in some political battles, which makes work more stressful than I believe work should be. I’ve always told myself I will not work in a field that requires anything beyond the 40 hour work week, and lately I find myself working at home just to get ahead in the battle. I’m naturally competitive, so it makes sense that I’m wrapped up in this, but I don’t like it.

Unfortunately work is the least of my dissatisfactions right now. I feel totally inadequate as a friend. I don’t consider myself interesting, and lately I’m not even fun to be around. I have nothing to contribute to my friends. I can’t make anything for them, I can’t play an instrument, I have little interest in talking about music, they don’t like film, and I get even more awkward and irritating to be around when I’m already feeling off. I’ve let some friendships wilt, and I don’t have the confidence to fix them or even to think that those people want to be around me in the first place. I’m sick of going to bars, but don’t command enough authority in my circle to get anyone to try anything else. My feelings are hurt when they don’t include me on the ‘to invite out’ list, but I don’t invite anyone anywhere either. I’m stuck in a cycle of feeling ignored and feeling like I have nothing to offer so it’s natural I’d be ignored.

[...]

I’m sick of being in debt and seeing no hope of getting out anytime soon. I’ve done a little to fix this – I haven’t been drinking when I go out all that often, and I haven’t been going out to eat. I’d like to go out to eat but my eating partner has been too busy to get meals with me. I’m saving a little money each month so I can get out of the apartment that I hate when my lease ends in April. I’m supposedly getting a raise this week. I’ve consolidated my bad credit cards. All that said, it will still be about three years before I’ve got that debt paid off, and that isn’t soon enough for me. Yet I’m not willing to make the hard sacrifices to get out sooner, such as get a roommate, cancel cable, cancel dog walker, etc. So again, it all comes back to me being a shithead.

Some people have no ability to plan ahead, and I can’t stand that. I’d like to find a happy medium between planning and doing so that I may stop this depression I’ve sunk into about my life. Everyone seems to have advice too, and while it’s nice that people are looking out for me, this is all something I need to do on my own. I’ve been conducting my own life (and the lives of others) since my mom got sick in 6th grade, and I’d like to think so far I’ve been successful. I have a master’s degree, lived where I’ve wanted to, haven’t had to borrow from parents, had some successful relationships, have solid lifelong friendships, am capable of living independently…I’ve done a lot. I’ve cycled through all this crap before and fixed it on my own, I can do it again.

Audrey's birthday sweater

Nate got a new camera, and took this shot as a test run for his new camera. Happy 3rd Birthday lil pup! Not the best photo, but whatever, you can see how unhappy she is to be wearing clothes.

Weekend Update

Friday was rough. Work, personal, everything. Just really shitty, so I stayed home alone instead of going out. I watched Metropolitan. I really liked it. Simple premise - a bunch of aristocrats 'adopt' a working class kid into their snobby circle and he ends up becoming the most popular. The movie is ALL dialogue, just a warning to people who can't handle that. But if you can watch a Woody Allen movie, this is really no different. It had great class and intellectual jokes, and I found myself laughing aloud a few times.

Saturday...ah yes, Nate and I watched the Cubs game and the Brewers game and sat around until it was time to go to Soup's house for our ride to the 'burbs. Natalie and Matt had organized a trip to Pollo Campero, some fast food Guatemalan/fried chicken place and then to Hala Kahiki, a kitschy tiki bar. The drinks were so so sugary, so most of us could only handle 2 after all that fried chicken. It was a good time, and was really nice to get out of my tiny radius of Chicago that I'm usually confined to. Thanks to Dan and Soup for giving Nate and I rides to and fro.

Today I've been watching too much tv and playing scrabble. A typical Sunday. I should do some work but I don't have much motivation. Audrey's been bouncing off the walls since about 4 a.m., so I've been busy keeping her distracted. Dogs are constant toddlers.

"Nobody thinks you're cool you know"*

The weather was nice out, so I decided to walk home down Webster from the Fullerton Red Line stop. The walk is probably 1.5 miles, so nothing horrid, but for some reason I've never done it. Webster, from Sheffield to Southport, is beautiful. Huge old trees, adorable (but surely expensive) homes, and fancy little boutiques. I couldn't live there because it's yucky yuppieville, but it is nice to walk through. It was a good time to sort through some thoughts before coming home to relax. Not sure how much relaxing I'll do though, as I really need to prep for a big class I'm teaching at the library tomorrow. The irony is that the subject they want me to teach is "researching procrastination", and here I am putting it off until beyond the last minute. It's pretty typical for me to spend 95 percent of my prep time worrying and only 5 of it actually accomplishing something. So far this pattern has worked fine for me, so I guess there's no reason to change it.

*A great line in Freaks and Geeks, when Sam tells Lindsay this after she accidentally eggs him on Halloween. I've been repeating it in my head all day.

off doc's and uncertainty

I went to the dentist this morning for the first time in two years, and yay for me I don't have any cavities! The cleaning was super fast and easy. The dentist was a bit of a doofus. I'm convinced my health insurance only lets me go to weird middle aged men who make bad jokes and make me uncomfortable. My shrink, gyno, and now my dentist are all sort of off. Oh well, I rarely have to go to them so it's not totally awful.

I'm having some serious motivation issues at work, to the point where my boss is noticing and asking questions about my bad attitude. I told him I really need that vacation, so hopefully when I return from SF my better outlook will show. If not then who knows... I'm not sure it's just my job that's suffering. I'm just super crabby and down in general. I'm really hoping that my SF trip and Minneapolis jaunt fix this. Sometimes getting away is all a person needs.

I took Audrey to the dog park after work today. I can't tell if its torture for her or if its fun. She doesn't like the other dogs too much, but after awhile calms down enough to wander around. She won't play with the dogs though, and this one jerk on the bench was taunting her and she got super scared and started barking like mad. I felt really bad for her. However, this is the reason I'm taking her - she needs to get desensitized to dogs and people. On the walk home I noticed that she wasn't as pissy at other dogs. She's making progress...baby steps and all that crap. I'm hoping to take her to the dog beach this weekend.

on the menu for tonight

Season finale of Big Brother 8 is tonight, so Nate's coming over and we are going to eat and drink and be sad that another season of amazing reality tv is over.

Appetizer: cracked pepper water crackers with a garlic and herbs spread

Salad: italian mixed greens with croutons (for nate) and red vinaigrette dressing (ranch for nate)

Dinner: homemade baked and crusted mac and cheese using colby and monterey jack cheeses. Should be interesting considering I don't have the appropriate casserole dish for it.

Dessert: some cheapo peanut butter and chocolate chip bar thing that you just throw in the oven. thanks Betty Crocker!

Wine: Liberty School cabernet sauvignon

I'm a bit nervous about using a bigger pan for the mac and cheese, but I think it should be ok. Otherwise, I can't wait to have a gut busting meal tonight. Too bad the weather got all hot again so it won't taste as cozy as it could.

Weekend Update

Friday night Nate and I got dinner at Crust, then headed over to Country Club Chicago for the May or May not CD listening party and art opening. MOMN had several friends and artists do a piece for each song on the new album. All the pieces were great, and it was nice to do something a bit out of the ordinary. I haven't been to an art opening since SF. Afterwards, we went to Happy Village for drinks. Torri and out of towners Matty and Jori came out, which ruled. I drank too much cheap red wine at the opening so I ended the night with a headache.

Saturday was super lazy. For some reason Nate and I woke up at 8 am and couldn't fall back asleep. We took Audrey for her first excursion to the nearby dog park. Basically it was lots of Bucktown types (read: yuppie) drinking coffee and letting their dogs run wild. Audrey wasn't as active as she used to be, and I think it's because the dog parks here are concrete instead of grass. She had the typical anxiety at first, so Nate and I had to separate so she wouldn't get psycho protective of us. We spent about an hour there, had an enjoyable walk back home, and just sat around all day. I napped for hours, he went to band practice, he came back and then he napped for hours. We were in bed before midnight.

Sunday we went to Best Buy to get Nate a new digital camera so he'd have a working one for the trip to SF. Then we bought Audrey her birthday present: a brown sweater with embroidered blue dots. (photo on left. No Audrey did not become a pug overnight. Waiting for Nate to send me photos of her in the sweater.) Red Dog House, where we went, also had those twisty 'flossie' treats Audrey loves, that I haven't seen around Chicago. This store has been around for maybe 6 months and is only two blocks away, so I'm sort of ashamed I hadn't been in sooner. However, it's good I don't go in because I typically go way overboard in spoiling Audrey. So happy early 3rd birthday Pup!

The rest of Sunday was spent either at Cleo's eating, or on the couch watching baseball. Unfortunately I had to do some work from home Sunday night, which is never fun. And now I'm back at work again for another five days of ultra library excitement. Only two weeks until my Minneapolis trip, and three until my SF vacation. I can do it. Oh and only one week left of Nate being in 9000 bands and having practice every day. Life's lookin' up.

yay areaaaaa

I woke up, fed Audrey, threw on my sweatshirt and took her for a short walk just like any other day. The weather was crisp and breezy, in other words, my favorite weather. Audrey seemed to enjoy it too, as she didn't feel ready to go back inside right away. It reminds her and me of our days walking in the morning in SF. So naturally I've had to roll with the yay area rap and hip hop all day to get even more nostalgic. I'll be there in less than a month! I'm starting to plan it out, where to go each minute, what restaurants are must-hits for Nate. It'll be great.

Tonight I'm going to an art opening for May or May Not's new album. They had tons of our friends do pieces for the songs on the new cd, and they will be on display tonight. Nate has one, as do Amanda, Jane, JP, Matt...lots of people. I'm excited to see what they did for the songs. Beforehand I hope Nate and I can find dinner nearby without a huge wait.

I also plan to take Audrey to a dog park this weekend so she can run wild with the pack. Maybe I'll finally update semi-daily Audrey with photos.

burning buildings

I had a strange dream last night, and it freaked me out considering it was on Sept 11th. I dreamed that a plane was flying weird, and I thought, 'hmm, I think that plane will crash' and sure enough it did. Right into the new building they are making two blocks away. The building burnt down, and the smoke hurt the chicken pita sandwich place I go to. It was a scary dream - lots of chaos, smoke, fire, people sitting outside my window making Audrey crazy. It was pretty intense and unpleasant.

Speaking of unpleasant, wow work! How many meetings can a person have in one day? Oh well, I trudge on with my "fine midwestern work ethic" as my dad claim that I have. That work ethic has me in yet another losing scrabble game against Graham. Someday I will persevere, triumphant among the world of the meek and scared librarians. Uhh...anyway...

I've been having this strange fashion crisis. Some days I start to feel pretty old, and look at my meager wardrobe and think about how immature it is. Most everything I have is crap I've had since college...which was 1999-2002. But I don't have any money to update, and the cheapy places like H&M don't have any more 'age appropriate' clothing...and what is age appropriate for a 26 year old professional who still acts like a douche on the weekends? I feel like I should have better quality clothes, but I don't have the salary to do it. I also am in dire need of another two pairs of pants, at least one of them being jeans.

Wow. A post about dreams, work, and how I don't like my clothes. I believe the Wheezy Waiter would call this a mash-up of the dust bunny and a lame duck post. Maybe my post would be way cooler if I had taped this with my shirt off like Craig does. Only I can't compete in the chest hair department.

Because I can't get any lower...

Edit: I wrote this last night, and slept on it deciding if it should go 'public'. I realized, eh, I'm 26, big deal, I've got no shame in writing stupid crap on here. Besides, the blog gets better traffic this way right?

After X years of dating people in bands, you'd think I would have learned my lesson(s) by now. The first one is I'm really not cut out for it. I wish I could understand why I'm only attracted to people who put music above all else. I certainly tried to find dudes that aren't in bands, and they all blew. The second is, nothing is ever, ever, ever on time at a show. I had the grand idea to eat dinner with Nate at the Harmony Grill before their show at Schubas. There is a high chance I won't see him until Friday night, at another one of his band's functions, so I thought this would be a good time to sit down and hang out. I show up, and they haven't even sound checked yet. I sit alone while they do it and get extreme flashbacks to Jake shows, hell one of those shows was even at Schubas! The delay in sound check wasn't their fault at all, thats just how shows go, but its super irritating nonetheless. And I feel like an idiot for being optimistic that this plan would work.

It makes me sick that I'm angry and bitchy and snappy 23 hours a day right now. I'm not just emotionally but physically messed up- I've been cycling between not eating for days and then binging, not able to catch my breath, can't sleep... I don't think that's who I am - until the past year or two I didn't know how to be angry. Me not knowing what it felt like to be angry was one of the big 'things' to work on when I was in therapy two years ago. I bottled everything up and was totally dead all the time as far as any emotions went. Well now I can feel them, which I guess is what is known as progress, but man I've been full of nothing other than resentment, irritation, and anger at myself and bleeding to outside parties for the past month. The few people I've talked to about it have told me to change the situation if I'm that upset. However, I'm not making any changes only because I know whats causing this turmoil is a temporary situation so I just need to buck up and deal for a few more weeks. I hate being such a whiner and control freak about everything, but other than seeing Audrey every evening, I don't have much that's making me happy right now. I wasn't like this when I was single, which is probably the most irritating aspect of the whole thing. I'd just go out and enjoy myself then, and I don't anymore because I sit around waiting like a doofus.

I'm not cut out for this, whatever this is.

Love is...

...walking your dog in the rain, and then picking a dingleberry (sp?) off her ass because she's too stupid to create a full and successful crap that lands in the mud. Worst part is, I do this so often that she just knows to wait for me to grab her dangling turd. She looks up at me like "lady just pick the damn thing off, stop fiddling with the plastic bags." I wouldn't do this for anyone else, especially in the middle of a street. Just for you Audrey!

Mad Men is so great

After watching 8 episodes of Mad Men, I've decided (and not for the better) that at the moment I'm closer to the Betty character than I ever should be. Totally disturbing considering I've always said I don't want to be like that. When she talks to Don in bed about what she does all day and what she thinks about all day...I am pretty sure I've had that conversation recently. Makes me feel like I need to reevaluate my priorities to myself and my philosophies.

Probably the most interesting aspect of this show is that despite it taking place in 1960 upper-middle class land, and despite viewing the stay at home moms as sad and neglected, really so little has changed. (some) Women's lives are still utterly absorbed and determined by their men. Hell, even the alpha secretary in it, who on the surface seems so amazingly independent, is stuck in an affair that will never benefit her and is based on his schedule. It's so depressing. So utterly depressing.

This post is funny because you have to watch the show to fully get it. Really, I'm just too lazy to explain it all. But seriously, it is such an amazingly good show. Watch it, its On Demand even.

dog blog

This morning was Audrey's vet visit. Thankfully, she's a healthy dog that doesn't have any accidents so I only have to drop 260 dollars once a year to get all her vaccines, bloodwork, etc. She absolutely hates the thermometer up her butt, to the point where they were going to muzzle her. Instead I convinced them she'd be cool if she could just chew on some peanut butter during the experience. And I was right. Skippy to the rescue! Every vet she sees is always shocked about her hair loss, but once I tell them she went to a doggy dermatologist they leave me alone about it. The one funny thing is that someone must have typed her weight into the comp wrong last year - they had her at 17.5 pounds!!! Lil' doggy weighs 11.2!! And that's as big as she gets, so for a minute there they thought I was starving her. No, doofuses, you just had a typo. She's not laying in her dog bed that was originally made for cats, and sleeping off the extreme stress of her junk being groped.

The best news from the visit is that I got her dog park tag, so I can take her to the dog park finally. Of course I don't have time today or tomorrow, but soon I hope to go with her and Nate. I'd love for Nate to see Audrey run wild, since he's never had the chance.

Tonight I'm going to make dinner for nate: fish, homemade mashed potatoes, salad, and then brownies a la mode. Tasty! I also grabbed a bottle of my favorite wine, so I'm looking forward to his return to town (he was in Iowa last night with Sleep Out).

afternoon off

I have to work on Sunday, which sucks, but in return I took this afternoon off. It feels so great leaving work at 1 when everyone is still there! So I took two exceedingly slow trains and one bus home, stopping off for a slice of pizza on the way. The world is so different during the working day. I saw people I'd never seen before, everyone was a bit nicer, it ruled. So I chewed on my pizza, pet my dog, and watched the last twenty minutes of some horrible Lifetime Television for Women movie.

There's something about a self-imposed alone day that makes it much more bearable than an alone day that you didn't want. You relish every moment of it instead of just wanting to sleep it away until the next event. I think tonight I'll watch a movie and go to bed early.

Tomorrow I have to take Audrey for her vaccinations. I also have to bring in a stool sample (I laugh every time I type that) so she can get her dog park tags finally. She really hates getting shots, getting the thermometer up her butt...its not pleasant. I'll have to get her a treat so she doesn't hate me all day. Actually, she usually feels under the weather after shots so she'll probably just cuddle up on the bed.

Late Ozu: End of Summer

I watched Kohayagawa-ke no aki, or The End of Summer last night. I've read a bit about Yasujiro Ozu, the director, and the ratings on netflix for his films are as high as any Herzog great so I went for it. This is actually the wrong film to start with, as it's part of a series, but I didn't miss anything really.

This guy does a better review than I could ever do:

Yasujiro Ozu clearly had a lot on his mind as he wrote The End of Summer, his penultimate film: the old vs. the new, generational shifts, family loyalty, death. It's all in there in this wonderfully elegiac film. Leave it to Ozu to make the smoke from a crematorium chimney look positively poetic. "It's the cycle of life," someone watching the smoke comments. Indeed.

My favorite aspect of the film was the dad, he was so joyous the whole time. I loved that he did whatever the hell he wanted, as long as it made him happy. I also love that despite the fact that he so obviously had this affair and even (perhaps) an 'illegitimate' child that the viewer (and his family) could still look up to him as a role model on how to live life. So way to go old man who wore the dish towel on his head because it's hot out, way to go.

dear diary, omg wuts up lol, love CA

Still my number 1 or 2 favorite album of all time (sorry Talking Heads), and especially kicking my stupid ass right now:



I don't care of Jessica Hopper says the cover is sexist, I still (occasionally) like the totally early millennium wuss-art of it all. I know it's a stupid album to say is your favorite, but the combination of history and songs are pretty intense for me.

dog blog

Warning: If you are already miserable do NOT watch Shelter Dogs. I've spent the entire hour sobbing looking at these dogs. I only felt bad for one of the owner surrenders in this, and that dog thankfully got adopted to a really cute old couple. The film made me really re-think my stance on no-kill shelters. One of the saddest moments was them showing this freezing cold outdoor kennel of dogs stuck there for the rest of their lives. Or maybe the actual scenes of euthanasia were the worst. I held Audrey close to me the entire time, and decided to look at some of her photos to make me happy. I am so amazingly glad that I got my dog from a shelter instead of purchasing a dog. I don't know how to explain how glad I am that I made that decision. Watching this film makes it very very hard to not go out right now and get another pet. Ugh. Anyway, here's my lil gal Audrey.

This is the first photo of Audrey I have - I cropped Jake and myself out of the photo because we looked really crappy and chubs.



Audrey snuggled up in the blanket in San Francisco. She loves snuggling.



Chillin' on the pillow last month.



Audrey turns 3 in a few weeks, and in two months I will have had her for two years. Expect a totally horrifyingly sickly cute birthday party.