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I wish I could motivate myself to get involved in this organization.
I wish I hadn't re-watched IQ at 1:30 this morning (even if it is the last movie in which Tim Robbins is hunky).
I still wish I worked near a Jamba Juice.
I wish I was schnorgling a baby panda right this second:
This New Yorker article by David Sedaris about smoking is laconically amusing, especially the bit where he lists which kinds of people smoked which brands of cigarette, back in the day. Seems spot-on, but what do I know (besides that my mom smoked Salems and was, indeed, an alcoholic)?
Wondering how often smokers actually changed up their preferred type, I asked Ms. Shelley about her brand history. She quickly emailed back:
Vantage--stolen from my dad at age 13
Camel Unfiltered--high school, because I liked the package. I know, I know, early design junkie.
Camel Filtered--late high school
Cloves--the goth years
Marlboro Reds
Capris--briefly, because you could get two for one packs ALWAYS
Marlboro 100's--Atlanta, late eighties.
Marlboro Light 100's
Dunhills--Portland
Springwaters--fancy German cigs, Portland days
American Spirits--no chemicals added
Then, because I'm a dork with a long lunch hour, I looked up quotes about smoking. My favorite is by that guy who came up with almost everyone's favorite quote on almost everything: "A cigarette is the perfect type of perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied." --Oscar Wilde
Besides sharing a meaty meal with a bunch of zombies, I've had lots of other fun lately, too. As my Aunt Lisa recently reminded me, "that's what life's all about, really, if you're doing it right." So I've...
Played Super Mario Brothers 3 on the original NES. While I was ill last weekend, Kim ventured out to the Canal Street Market and picked up a really beat-up console. It was very sweet of him to remember that Jen and I have been hankering to play ever getting re-addicted over spring break. It was even sweeter of him to drive all over the city to find Mario 3 (though I'm the one who finally found it on craigslist) and then drive up to the co-op to re-fix the darn thing after I futzed with it. Anyway, I suck at the game and pretty much kamikazee on every turn. Dannielle and Jen, meanwhile, are die-hard, coin-collecting, 1-UP-ing, world-crushing Mario heros. Still, it's my Nintendo and they had to let me have a go whenever I whined, so haha there.
Visited the Broadway Antique Market. Matt, Meg, Dar and I had a perfect brunch at the Pick Me Up yesterday and then caravaned to Uptown to nose around the BAM. It was zooooo coooool. Imagine the best flea market you've ever been to, then add even more vintage hats and groovey coffee tables and subtract creepy people asking if they can help you. Oh, and add a surprisingly fun soundtrack. That's the BAM, and you should all go there, either on a date or with your wallet.
Watched Creature Comforts ("Featuring the Voices of Your Fellow Americans") with Kim and Alison, last Thursday night. We were all worn out by the week, doped up on a big dinner, and needing some tender entertainment. This is a difficult show to explain, but an easy one to love. See, see, see:
People keep inquiring if I'm happy to be back on my scooter, but my answer doesn't match the polite, rhetorical question. I'm not having a good time scooting around yet because the weather has been such a drag. Literally--this wind has been dragging me around. It's so strong that I've actually been grateful I weigh 50 pounds more than I should; I think that extra weight is keeping me upright on straightaways. The wind makes the low temps feel lower, too, and makes the rain lacerate my face instead of just pelting it. So, blergh.
Shitty traveling circumstances can make me a shitty companion. Last night I scooted home from work, then turned right around and pushed up to Logan Square before zigzagging over to Andersonville. Which meant struggling through 140 minutes of killer-gusts and Saturday traffic. I showed up at Hamburger Mary's irascible and headachey.
Which might have been okay if I was just meeting two women for a quiet dinner like I was execting. Turns out I was meeting a proper cluster of friends on the tail-end of a zombie pub crawl. They were gored up, boozed up, dancing and having/being fun and I was...at risk of being a real downer. But I was also very happy to see everyone, and they gently plied me with some whiskey until I warmed up. A huge plate of "macho nachos" helped, too. Soon I was well relieved I hadn't ditched to stay home with a bottle of ibuprofen and the TBS Saturday Night Movie For Losers.
If you're a woman, and were born between the years 1977 and 1981 (which surely covers half this blog's readership), then you know which fictional characters frequented the Dairi Burger.
But! Did you know there's also a hysterical blog called The Dairi Burger? It's devoted to reviewing and deconstructing editions of SVH and other books beloved by girls who grew up right between Generations X and Y.
Like the Sleepover Friends series (which I perversely loved for making me hate my life more than I already did). And supreme stand-alones like The Truth About Taffy Sinclair. I wanted my name to be Taffy so bad. I think I still do. Maudie and Me and the Dirty Book? I didn't think the book was so dirty, and My Adult Self realizes I was right.
I don't remember ever talking about books with any of my peers. I'm not sure if that's because I didn't have a lot of pals, or if they just weren't reading (or reading what I was reading). Still, books like those highlighted on The Dairi Burger felt like friends. They made me feel connected and understood, and I cared about them. And now I know that many of my current (uh, real) friends felt the same way about these very same titles.
I'm so glad to be grown up.
I've been waiting hours for my scooter to be released from its spring tune-up. At first I thought I'd just wander around Rosehill Cemetery and read the Hunter S. Thompson bio in my bag, but a fiesty little thunderstorm ruined that rumination. So I took the Foster bus to the Red Line and...wondered why I'd done that. What was I going to do in the vicinity of the Forster Red Line? So I traveled a couple stops south and holed up in the Uptown Borders. Trying very hard not to spend any money or eat anything sweet, I failed after an hour and bought a paperback-sized piece of carrot cake.
Now I'm at Jen's co-op, playing Single White Female. I was grumpy after the muggy walk here, so I hopped in her lovely, over-pressured shower. I have nothing to wear to an awards dinner this evening, so I tried on some stuff in her closet. I was bored so I chatted with one of her housemates. I wanted to blog (and read the 30 Rock weecap), so I fired up her computer. I took a moment to leave her a voicemail to warn of my infiltration, but I don't think she'll mind much. What a blessing to have a best friend who understands that sometimes I just end up pretending to be her all afternoon.
I just put together this quiz for the Laura Ingalls Wilder Party I'm hosting with Shelley tomorrow at work. I know there are some Little House fans out there who want to test their prairie memories...
1. Laura’s middle name was: a) Elizabeth b) Sarah c) Mildred d) Mary
2. Laura was born on February 7 in: a) 1858 b) 1885 c) 1867 d) 1832
3. Laura’s youngest sister was named: a) Carrie b) Grace c) Mary d) Nellie
4. When Laura lived in the “Little Town on the Prairie,” the town was De Smet, in: a) North Dakota b) Wisconsin c) Missouri d) Iowa
5. Laura’s Pa used to call her: a) Pony b) Tiny c) Darling d) Half-Pint
6. The man who met Santa Claus in “The Little House on the Prairie” was named: a) Mr. Oleson b) Mr. Ingalls c) Mr. Boast d) Mr. Edwards
7. Laura’s sister Mary become blind because of: a) a horse-riding accident b) scarlet fever c) a house fire d) a genetic disorder
8. Laura’s pet bulldog in “By the Banks of Plum Creek” was called: a) Sam b) Jack c) Bright d) Mister
9. How many terms of school did Laura teach? a) 1 b) 2 c) 3 d) 4
10. Laura died at the age of: a) 70 b) 80 c) 90 d) 100
Answers: 1A, 2C, 3B, 4A, 5D, 6D, 7B, 8B, 9C, 10C
B) Omigoodness guys, have you seen Bree Elrod in that new am/pm ad? I've tivoed it! I get so excited when I see a friend on the teevee! If any of you ever make it to the silver screen, I'll use even more exclamation points!!!!
C) So I used the word tenebrific in a post recently and a couple people wrote in to tell me I'd obviously been abusing the thesaurus. But, rawrsters, I learned that word in my eighth-grade vocab workbook, foshay. Still, I took the time to look it up in several dictionaries and, yeah, only some of them (all online) even include it. It's not a real familiar word. Which is sad. It almost puts me in....a tenebrific mood, you know?
D) I already said Smart People was crap, but my beloved Entertainment Weekly gave me such a good trivia tidbit about it: one of the dudes from Extreme (don't make me look up which one) did the soundtrack and for each song he "challenged" himself to use only as many instruments as were characters in a scene. Bless.
I'd just finished watching Smart People (not sly or fun enough to be worth the price of admission, even at the Davis) with Sherri when I felt my back start to ache. And not in the "I'm re-learning proper scooter posture" way, but in that strange "I think a virus is making my vertebrae melt" way.
I went from feeling dandy at 8 pm to thinking I was going to perish at midnight. The plan had been to stay over at Jen's and leave bright and early for Wisconsin, but Kim had to rescue me from the north side so I could take over his sick bed. I went to sleep shivering so bad I was afraid I'd crack a tooth or two. That didn't happen, but I know I broke a bad fever sometime before 10 am--because when I woke up, my body was covered in huge puddles of sickly sweat.
Aren't you glad you took the time to read this?
