that's you

2005-08-23T07:58:00.000-05:00

i declare 27 to be awesome

2005-08-17T20:59:00.000-05:00

this past weekend was my birthday. that's right, the big two-seven. i'm kind of let down by the number 27 (not my birthday party, that was sweet). nothing really happens when you're 27. i was having this conversation with a friend of mine on saturday (my REAL birthday) who i hadn't spoken with in ten years. yes, he was a friend from high school and i was telling him how i was going to celebrate the anniversary of me being alive and he felt guilty about forgetting.

my first inclination was, "dood i haven't talked to you in TEN FUCKING YEARS i certainly don't think you're that bored with life to remember my birthday" and assured him that if i were to go on a game show and billions of dollars were at stake if i could remember his birthday that i would go home po.

and then another thought dawned on me, i was 27....it's nothing to brag about really. it's not like it's your 18th (where you can vote, go to strip clubs, go to casinos in minnesota, buy cigarettes and lottery tickets and various other socially deviant things) or your 21st (need i elaborate) or even your 25th which i got stoked about b/c my car insurance went down and for a girl who'd been in eight or nine accidents all rather minor but enough to jack the rates up past a nerds waistline it was something to celebrate.

and no, i didn't stop driving.

so all day saturday i sat and tried to think of what to do to make 27 super special. there were no legal things that i could think of now being able to do, there are no religious things out there that i can bask in (but again, i'm only really familiar with like 2 or 3 religions...maybe the buddhists can party uber hard on their 27th?) so in all this i decided that 27 was super fucking sweet because it's 27. there's no REAL reason for it to be rad but i now declare 27 to be the best age on the face of the planet. in the 27th year people will get rich, eat well, have a great wardrobe, a very mild winter, a great vacation to somewhere far away and if you're REALLY good then santa will bring you a secret benefactor for christmas.

i'm not going to even kill one bug before christmas so that the fat man will bring me a benefactor. i REALLY want a benefactor. he doesn't have to be some ubiquitous old man with a dusty suit and a bag with a big dollar sign on it either. i'll take bill gates, oprah, some secret billionaire in france or istanbul. i don't discriminate. i love all secret benefactors.

and people too, you hear that santa....i love EVERYONE! except janice dickinson, she's just retchid.

did i just book myself a one-way ticket on the crazy train?

2005-08-08T18:53:00.000-05:00

as i sit in the last final hours of my time spent in the dungeon (and it's been a helluva long ride) i'm staring down my very last all nighter. HOORAY FOR DIET CHERRY COKE!

but, in the midst of the celebratory insanity i think i've gotten one of the WORST possible songs stuck in my head for no apparent reason.

what am i constantly singing to myself over and over you ask? "Kyle's Mom's a Bitch" by Eric Cartman. WTF?!

"Well, Kyle's mom's a bitch, She's a big fat bitch
She's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world..
She's a stupid bitch if there ever was a bitch
She's a Bitch to all the Boys and Girls!
On Monday, she's a bitch, on Tuesday, she's a bitch
On Wednesdays through Saturday, she's a bitch..
Then on Sundays, just to be different
She's a Super King Kamehameha.. Biatch!"

maybe i'm a snob?

2005-08-04T10:56:00.000-05:00

but i think i would literally kill myself if i had to work at a "lite radio" station and listen to hootie and the blowfish, dave matthews band, celine dion, barenaked ladies and various other totally fucking AWFUL bands.

i mean, the songs they play on "lite radio" are so bad they don't even put them on the soundtracks to lame romantic comedies with either meg ryan/tom hanks or john cusak/some chick.

the one redeeming thing i will say about "lite radio" is that occasionally they'll play gems like "la isla bonita" by madonna or some bangin' stevie wonder songs.

that's what lite stations should be...madonna and stevie wonder and maybe throw in a little moody blues for the nostalgic pot smokers in the crowd.

oh yea and peter gabriel. he pretty much roolz. they should play the songs that got on the soundtracks to john cusak's movies that didn't suck.

t-minus 17 days

2005-08-02T21:06:00.000-05:00

that's right people, only 17 days until i'm done FOREVER! and it's all setting in, i talked to the student loan people and figured out how much i have to pay every month for the next 25 years (um yea, if there's a financial planner out there who'd like to hook a sistah up with how to make them payments happen AND get a condo sometime in my life, hollah). i have been in the dungeon day and night working on final projects, and i have even made myself a little advent calendar. i don't get chocolate though, i get 10 minutes of reading gossip columns. hey, chocolate rots your guts and gossip rots your brain...pick your poison.

so yes, at the end of this little advent calendar is my "major award" and no, it's not a leg lamp...i already have one of those thanks to christmas and my father, any of you who have stayed in our guest room have most likely used it to illuminate your pre-sleeptime reading.

my major award is this.....i'm going to walk from skool to cleo's on my last day of skool and i will sit there until someone meets me and i will permanently have a glass of wine and some chicken wings. i assume that i will be so whacked out on stress i may try to snort said chicken wings but it may get a little dicey with the bleu cheese dressing and celery.

so if anyone spots a story on the news that night with the headline "girl snorts chicken wings and uses pinot grigio as a chaser" that would be me. and the dood next to me shaking his head and maybe his booty (depending upon what time he gets there) will be skot. we'll be famous on the eener-net. and i'm sure if any of my other friends show up they'll likely have some form of cocktail attached to their hands and maybe a rodeo champ belt buckle.

call vh-1

2005-07-27T22:36:00.000-05:00

cos i'm having the best week ever!

on tuesday i went in to meet with the dean of my university. THE dean, not some associate dean but THE dean (duh duh dddduuuuuhhhhh!). there was a bit of confusion as to whether or not my art history credits from my first university would transfer in thus rendering me as a non-graduating student when my graduation is slated for 21 days from today.

i always wear make-up when i'm nervous. i know the psychological implications and manifestations of wearing make-up and i understand my reasons for wearing it when nervous (note: i am not saying that these same undertones apply to people who wear make-up on a daily basis, i think make-up is really quite lovely....i just don't wear it everyday). needless to say on tuesday i wore make-up to school.

i walked into my 10:30 meeting which the dean was late for due to a meeting. i passed my waiting time talking to my favorite teacher and mentor. he was 100% behind my petition as university of texas is a far better school when it comes to art history education than my current university.

as i walked into my meeting with the dean i had sweaty palms and cotton mouth. i presented her with my booklet i'd prepared explaining to her why i shouldn't have to take these courses over again and why i should graduate as slated.

it turns out her best friend is a teacher in the interior architecture program at the university of texas.

after a lovely 15 minute chat with her about accreditation testing and national certification she'd granted me the credits. i AM graduating in a few short weeks.

und then, i wore make-up again today.

und today i was officially offered a full-time job at one of the top firms in the city with 401k and benefits and a raise and all that other fun stuff that goes along with it.

can i just say i love this week?!

i love this week, and penguins....

eco-challenge

2005-07-25T16:30:00.000-05:00

after a very long and very intense night of surprise birthday'ing skot on friday night we woke up saturday to a steamy 90 some-odd degrees. after milling around the apaato for a bit the stomachs started to rumble and the rest of the day was set in motion.

on our walk home from flo i said to skot, "don't you think it would be like some insane mini eco-challenge if we walked to lincoln square today? you know, retchid hangovers, 99% humidity and mid-90's temperatures?"

he looked at me as though i had just farted a leprechaun.

"NO! i think it would be horrible! we would DIE!" was his response. afer much pleading and a promise of chipotle macaroni and cheese once we reached our destination 7 miles away we were off!

it's the same walk we've taken a few handfuls of times. it goes straight up damen to the all magical lincoln square with its bunnies, german apothecaries and bountiful homes for me to dream of someday winning the lottery and owning. there are also official brauhaus' and german beir's a plenty. its like bavaria came to me and i didn't have to gain any weight to visit.

this walk seemed to be a bit more fun than former times. i don't know if it was the heat, the hangover or the combo of both that fostered some intense insanity but we made jokes about ridiculous juvenile things the entire way up, we stopped at the happy food store for some water and dubbed the boring parts the "sahara desert" which holds no humor at all today but at the time it seemed like the most hilarious name ever created.

yea, i definitley think it was a wee bout of insanity. i should do my own urban eco-challenges more often. next stop! EDGEWATER!

with a rebel yell!

2005-07-21T23:00:00.000-05:00

i've broken away from my post. well, not my physical post as i'm still stationed here in front of my wee computer but i've broken from my mental post. i've kicked the habit of homework for a whopping 30 minutes. i'ma keep it that way till tomorrow too.

in my lamentation over not being able to socialize as frequently as i'd like to for the next three weeks i realized that i hadn't yet blogged about my exposure to society this past weekend yet.

intonation mother fuckers!

sadly the band i most wanted to see, the go! team i had to skip out on due to a severe case of guilt. guilt about leaving my stupid computer for things that would actually be considered "fun." the pics look amazing and all the little kiddos dancing were from the pool (read:oasis) right behind the park.

after saturday was done i woke up on sunday with a streak of texas rebellion. i extended both of my middle fingers to my impending doom and decided to go to the festival...all day. no guilt.

as some people my know and others may gather from the photographs it was beyond hot this weekend. i believe the "high" was somewhere in the neighborhood of three digits and the wind went the way of the buffalo. as we headed out our front door into as much shade as we could find loaded with a blanket for sitting below trees and wallets for buying water we started to ease on down the road.

about halfway on our ease we realized we'd forgotten our tickets (nobody else's) at la casa.

if you've never run over a mile with a blanket in your sachel, flip flops on your feet and a heat index that would fry eggs on the ground in the shade i don't suggest you do it anytime soon. sweat hog doesn't even begin to describe how it feels. it's more like taking a "normal" heatstroke, giving it a propane torch and a boulder of crack and letting it have its way with narcotics. narcotics in the middle of the fucking burning man fest.

after coming back from my mental trip to hell (see burning man festival) i was calmed by laying on the blanket and looking up through the trees at the sky, which is a rarity and completely magical. the trees and the roasted corn and water and a consistent dousing of music i enjoy made my slacker sunday one of the most enjoyable days i've had in many, many moons.

that and the fact that the lead singer of les savy fav not only faux tea-bagged a guy who was sleeping a few feet away from me right before their set but that he also convinced 10,000 people to kneel in the middle of a field simultaneously. and he wore a sarape.

i got learn'd

2005-07-19T14:17:00.000-05:00

recently i was skooled in the "post your own pictures" section of blogging. i'm really quite excited because there's one picture i've been wanting to post for about a million years.

i took this picture at south by southwest in march and have dubbed this little fellow the coolest kid in the history of children. i saw this little gem of a dood walking with his mom and his dog at a party just as joe and i were leaving. i whipped out my camera, got down to his level and yelled "hey cute-o!" and this was the look i got.

most.

amazing.

kid.

ever!

2005-07-15T15:46:00.000-05:00

so today i found out that a close friend of mine (nick.named cuddles) recently purchased a horse. a pony rather. i am SOOOOOOO jealous and i can't wait to go on down to texas and meet this little wonder. the pony is a little over a year old and can't be ridden until she is properly trained which will take another year and a half.

that was the most magical thing i'd heard all day.

oh yea, and when i went to give-up square to buy some cheese i walked behind a man who smelled like pickles. i mean, REALLY like pickles...not like vinegar. i think something enchanted is happening today.

2005-07-11T21:39:00.000-05:00

i've become particularly obessed with this website. not because puppies are cute or whatever, but because i feel like i may be able to get a good deal on a dog AND get a road trip squeezed in somewhere. the king charles spaniel i want is in some weird town in illinois and that's driveable. AND his name is "reduced" so i feel as though i should totally go and pick him up. there's another one somewhere in pittsburgh (aka guttsburgh) and that's TOTALLY driveable (on accountah it bein' farther away an' all).

hmmm. i think i need a vacation. and a dog. but not one that needs to be fed all the time or walked when its super freezing outside. i don't think i'm quite ready for the responsibility. i'd just like something that is cute, doesn't shed, doesn't smell and likes to go on walks when the weather suits them. and is small with squatty legs.

2005-07-05T21:09:00.000-05:00

today as i was walking down michigan avenue and heading to northwestern hospital to get surgerized a man stopped me and said, "you've got great calves." i was a little weirded out but figured i'd thank him for the compliment and be on my way as i was in freak-out mode due to the fact i knew part of my insides would soon be on the outside. so i thanked him and he stopped and asked "do you get those from working out or just riding the bus?"

just riding the bus? what the fuck kind of weirdo line is that? clearly this man was totally insane. he asked if i'd ever been to new york and i assured him i had even offering up the fact that my bester fruend lived in brooklyn.

el capitan del weirdo proceeded to give me his business card and ask me out to lunch. can i get a hayll no? all i was trying to do was not freak out and i get asked if my workouts stem from simply riding the bus?

what kind of a bus is that?

another quote from this past weekend i'd like to share.....

"i'll take you guys to the fireman's ball, i'm bombed."
-as stated by a 79 year old woman who drank bourbon out of a glass labeled "poison"

club grandma has got to be quite possibly the best supper club ever invented. i hope that when i'm nearin' the 80 mark i have "youngsters" come over and make me dinner while i get "bombed" with my friends. i mean granted my bedtime will change from the usual early morning to like 9 but hey, just start a wee bit earlier thats all.

2005-07-01T15:33:00.000-05:00

at some point in my life i feel growing up is a necessary evil. not that one has to become boring and wear ann taylor all the time, i mean in the "to do" sense. i'm just not quite ready to assume the responsibilities that come along with growing up. like mortgages (although i DO want a space to call mine own), taking medicine every day so that i don't get sick (this is my problem, not normal peoples problem), paying back student loans, saving money for things needed around the house (isn't somebody else supposed to pay for that?), not making fart jokes, "drinking responsibly", looking both ways before i cross the street, that sort of thing.

i don't like those things. i just went to a checks cashed (more on that later) place to get a new city sticker so that my automobile may be legally parked on the streets of chicago and then had to go to the post office to mail a package for work and wait in line and pay bills and blah blah blah. grown up stuff. don't likey.

at the checks cashed place i was surrounded by a TON of people who i can only assume were on crack, meth, angel dust, crank, booze or any combination of the aforementioned substances. there were people twitching, there were people yelling, there were people with really sweet afros, and most of them had on t-shirts that local banks or retail organizations had given out various street festivals.

i fucking hate, loathe even, street festivals.

street festivals are the stuff that stank and nasty are made of. in most locales they are open to the public and joe public who generally shows up is ready for some cheap beer in see-through plastic cups which goes down far easier for him as he is missing his front teeth. how did said front teeth go missing? i'm assuming some form of domestic violence or perhaps poor dental care. joe public shows up with a t-shirt (at least i've seen joe public wear this t-shirt) that says "FUCK Y'ALL, I'M FROM TEXAS!"

like paris says, that's hoooooot.

joe public also likes to eat anything fried (which i will go along with that temptation) and tends to do so whilst havin' himself a "dip." and that's not au jus either.

the main difference i've noticed from southern street festivals to northern street festivals is rooted in two main areas. food and beer. in the south they have bud and miller light EVERYWHERE. in the midwest they have old style and pabst.

in the south they have corn dogs, french fries, bbq beef sandwiches, fajitas and fried chicken. in the midwest they have bratwurst, hot dogs, french fries, mini donuts, that weird plate cake stuff with powdered sugar all over it (funnel i believe) and pretty much ANYTHING on a stick.

i don't get it.

"hey sissy, you still live down-town?"
-that would be the child of a midwestern and texan street festival goer.

2005-06-28T22:37:00.000-05:00

if i have freckles does that mean i'ma have me some skin cancer? my mo-mah always told me they were angel kisses.

one of these things.....is a total lie

2005-06-27T21:54:00.000-05:00

so i'll post a list and you guess which one didn't happen this weekend.

*went to brand new dairy queen in the middle of the city to get a banana split blizzard which did not stay put when turned upside down

*went to the homeland of wayne and garth

*found quite possibly the worlds second best cheese fries

*saw a friends play which inspired me to try and learn more about this lady...i don't think she was eaten by a bear.

*was told not to ever call the police b/c then i would be shot

*discovery of the most perfect temperature

*a four-eyed ogre came down from the mountains to drop a teddy bear and pack of cigarettes at my door

i know, it's hard to figure out which one is a lie.

i got stucked

2005-06-21T17:16:00.000-05:00

so one of my biggest fears came true today. i got stuck in an elevator. i've never really cared for elevators in the first place, they're enclosed, they're a box that hangs really high up in the air, and you're usually in them with people you don't know and don't particularly feel comfortable with. i've long imagined how awful and terrifying it would be to get stuck in an elevator. today, at 10:37 central standard time, my imagination came true.

ugh.

the electricity all went out after this creepy guy got in and then it just kind of stopped.

panic.

when he pushed the emergency call thing the security for the building came on and said "this is security, is everything ok?"

you know how you have those instances where you see other people do things in a state of panic and reassure yourself you would NEVER do those things. i've proven myself wrong yet again.

i blubbered out like a fat thirteen year old boy going through puberty "Nooooo!"

i know, at that moment i realized i wasn't handling the situation with all the kool i possibly could. insert one leg into sweatpants.

as we hung there in between floors and i continually checked my pulse to see if my heart was either going to explode or just give up i tried to think of why i got stuck in an elevator. what had i done in the karmic sense that would render me hanging?

then i remembered. this morning in class my friends and i were all emailing and it went something like this (keep in mind we're all over the age of 25).

me: hey, if hayes rips ass i'll give her fifty bucks.

brian: me too, but she has to do it really loud

becky: i'll throw in another fifty just to see the look on _____'s(insert teacher name here)face.

me: come on hayes, that's 150 bucks. now rip ass!

hayes: what exactly does "rip ass" mean? does that mean to fart?

brian: yes.

becky:(mocking one of hayes' frequent sayings) oh bless your heart.

me: becky, imagine hayes standing up and yelling "I JUST RIPPED ASS MOTHER FUCKER! AND THE SUPER OF MY BUILDING IS A MONKEY WHO FUCKS FOOTBALLS!*"

at this point becky was bright red and i had to leave the room i was laughing so hard and trying to cover it up with coughs. i know, back to being 13.

when i regained composure and returned to class i was greeted with one email from becky that said...(and this is why i think i got stuck in the elevator)

becky: oh hayes, do you need another sticker for your helmet?

i know,it's awful and i've gone to hell (well gotten stuck in an elevator with a creepy dood which is pretty close) for it.

*note: i stole "monkey who fucks footballs" from kato's friend mike....it was far too brilliant not to recycle.

oh wuh uh (say it really fast together)

2005-06-17T12:43:00.000-05:00

today gwen stefani is both on my shit and celebrate lists. i have that "hollah back gurl" song in my head ALL THE TIME. i have no idea why. for a bit i was considering having it be my ringtone on my new phone as the new baby has a wee mp3 player in it while the old bag (which i euthanized on sunday) just had stupid polyphonic ringtone.

if you're at a bad party and you have an mp3 player in your phone at least you can have a little dance party if somebody keeps calling you over and over again to ask how the party is.....with the polyphonic its like you're at a bad party AND stuck in the pac man video game circa 1980.

i think i may pay skot to get one of those jamster ringtones that are always advertised on tv. you know, the ones where its some F list rapper screaming "pick up the phone" to sir mix-a-lot and his butt song.

that could be VERY entertaining in a very quiet restaurant......

a los tres

2005-06-15T08:19:00.000-05:00

good things come in threes. this is why i'm looking forward to today. bad things come in threes and last night was awful so i'm simply assuming that today the three good things are going to come and party with me.

the list from last night includes:

1. going to a furniture party where a former teacher of mine acted like a three year old. i emailed her to ask some questions about a grade she had given me and to say she's been "terse" ever since is an understatement. at one point last night i dropped the straw from my drink and reached down to pick it up and she looked at me and said "what are you gonna do, pee on me?"

uh. inappropriate and for your information i quit peeing on people in public like i don't know....oh yea, i've NEVER done that. but i may start.

2. given that fact that said teacher was such a raging child, my attitude went from jovial to "wet blanket." not a mental state i like to be in and one i derive great guilt from not being able to overcome at a moments notice. i think i was in wet blanket mode for about thirty minutes. not like i peed on anyone or anything....just didn't enjoy the party as much i would've liked to.

3. after going to meet family friends after said furniture party, we got home around midnight. i did a quick check of the ol' email and found out that all the notetaking i'd done for a presentation today was on the wrong chapter. i know, i'm a total moron but it still was one of those moments where you go....fuck. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. so up until the wee hours of the morning i stayed.

this is why today three grood things are going to happen. i've formulated a list in my head of potential contenders...

1. i win an ipod at NeoCon where many showrooms are randomly giving them out
2. i win the lottery and can pay back my student loans AND lease a private jet
3. a leprechaun will appear and dance a jig for me
4. i'll win a trip to a week long spa like canyon ranch or something
5. carbs will magically make you heroin chic thin
6. i'll get the day off work.......and my homework will be done
7. i'll turn into a good witch and can point my finger and anything i want will happen
8. penguins
9. kittens
10. new clothes....new designer clothes
11. cheese will suffer the same affliction as carbs

2005-06-14T16:12:00.000-05:00

for some reason my house smells like a car wash today. that chemically yet soapy smell. i can't really figure out why and i wonder if my house always smells like a car wash it's just that today i finally realized it. i hope not as its not a very enjoyable scent.

this past weekend i went to three parties. one on friday, one on saturday and one on sunday. not all that mind-blowing now is it?

wrong. just czech out the diversity.

the party on friday was a dance dance revolution party. a friend of mine bought it for his girlfriend for her birthday. i thought it to be a little weird and went to the party with a glitter bracelet, a whistle and a whole lotta trepidation. after about 30 seconds playing that game i now understand why millions of overweight adolescents are losing weight from this craze. it's HARD. there are two options of "cluuuuub" people to choose from and you follow these weird arrows and you get to pick your "cluuuub" song. they had a remix of each of the following artits hits from the 80's: Pet Shop Boys, Duran Duran, Madonna and some song off the Clueless soundtrack. at first i was freaked and after a couple of cocktails i think i asked for it for my birthday....but i'm not a fat teenager so i guess i shouldn't get it.

sat'day. the tard and lying in states played a bon voyage show as the tard is out on a month long tour not to return to chica-go go until independence day. sniff. the show was held at lying in states' practice space which i came to find out was located somewhere between korea and the middle east and was suspended 4 stories about an alley with a roof deck and a strong breeze. the most rock and roll thing i saw at this show was skots friend ben. he had a few beers (and when i say a few i really mean like 3 or 4) and was wrasslin' with one of his friends. this wrassle wound up in him (all 6'4 of him) toppling over and spilling a beer all over himself. not *too* rock and roll.....the rock and roll comes in the fact that he didn't even care. it was like he hadn't even gotten wet or dirty or anything. he simply went on with his evening.

kinda gross. super intense.

sunday. "industry" party. when i say "industry" party i don't mean some record label party where everyone is wearing a skull and crossbones somewhere and they all got the new import from the UK that was released yesterday three weeks ago. no no cats and dogs i mean a design "industry" party. twas held on the third and fourth floor decks of a seriously fashionable and seriously high-end lighting company. i am totally going to get used to these soirees. not only did they have fresh sushi delivered and served by about a billion caterers (ok i know its pretentious but whatever) but they had about 8 billion kool things on display and had built an enchanted muh fuhn forest on the ROOF! now that is some styleez. the one annoying thing was that in your drinks they had these "ice cubes" that had LED lights in them which changed colors according to the level of your drink so everyones drinks were all flashy. luckily, they don't put ice cubes in wine.

hobo juice.

as the ramble reaches almost out of control i will hit it and quit it.

this post is a tank top

2005-06-07T17:49:00.000-05:00

does anybody really appreciate how fucking sweet itunes is? i know, i know i'm super late but i've had itunes before for many, many moons and then about 3 years ago we broke up. as of late we've been talking again and today i realized that it's cleaned up its act and is operating at much faster speeds and i think this time we could really make a go of it.

i've already made QUATRO cds for ms.kato and i'm workin' on some other sweet deals for various other peeps spread across the country.

i know this post is rather pointless, just thought i'd like to share my huge loves for itunes.

p.s. if anyone would like a mixed cd please send me an e-SASE and in 6-8 weeks you to can become part of my very own itunes rage. for only FREE NINETY-NINE! shipping and handling included. muh fuhn sweet dood....muh fuhn sweet.

i think i'm slow

2005-06-05T18:04:00.000-05:00

i went to austin for memorial day weekend as a super duper friend of mine was gettin' hitched and i was the number one bridekick (read:maid of honor). i know its been a million years since i got back but i just feel the need to continually revisit this sweet little retreat.

but as it has had time to process and meld together in minen cabesa me thinks i'll simply put it into list form a la kato.

margaritas for lunch everyday....czech

drunken phone calls from trudys one of which resulting in katherine e. johnson in austin the following morning....czech

mexican food at least once a day....czech

curras.....czech

queso......do i even need to put this on the list of possibilities

2 dollars.....come on!

skot doing the worm back and forth across the floor of the reception....czech

one of the weddings of the century....czech!

oh austin, i do love you and all your little tex-mex havens so. god bless us, everyone.

worst. weekend. EVER.

2005-05-22T18:09:00.000-05:00

from time to time bad shit happens to me and sometimes its so bad that it actually becomes comical. like my old apartment which flooded three times in 9 months.

this weekend is up there with the absolute WORST things ever. i mean EVER.

i hate las vegas. i've been there multiple times and each time i hate vegas more. the first time was magical and i won a shit-ass load of money. the second time was fun, went clubbing, drank, gambled blah blah blah. third and fourth times were excessive hangovers and no winning of money. fifth and final time created the hate. lost money, barfed a million times and realized (rather found out) that i'm HORRIFICALLY allergic to wild mushrooms after i ate some polenta with truffle oil, broke out in hives, had my eyes hulk out, couldn't breathe and barfed all over the place.

that fucking sucked.

so now i hate vegas even more. skot went to vegas this weekend and while out at a cluuuub with his "dawgs" took one sip of a drink and passed out therefore slamming his head onto a marble floor. after waking up he went to walk over to where his friends were and suddenly lost his vision and passed out thereby re-hitting his head on the floor. friends (who, by majority, are all like 6'5" and ex-football players) threw him over their shoulders and off to the hospital and CT scans and heart monitors it was.

stupid fucking vegas. who would drug a BOY? i mean, he's real cute and all but damn. GHB? luh-ame.

following that tidbit of information came my lovely saturday night. lori was coming over so we could get insanely drunk (a trip to the chipp inn was scheduled) and have a grand ol' time. she got to mi casa (now renamed F2) around 8. i think we were three bottles of wine in when i got up to get something from the kitchen, looked over my balcony and thought "hmmm that wool rug is tan...not DARK F'ING BROWN".

turns out i'm cursed. the goddess of water has a vendetta out for my fucking ass and a i'ma take that biatch into the ring on this one.

my toilet seems to have a problem. it seemed to have overflowed to the point that there was 1 inch of standing water on the ENTIRE first floor of my house. and like an anorexic teenager my toilet suffered in silence so there was NO WAY TO FUCKING KNOW!

it's really quite funny now that i think about it. and it wasn't "nasty" toilet water it was the clean kind so i'm not locked in a shitbox or anything of the like.

but the cleaning crew that was supposed to be here at 9am today to get rid of the water and such never showed.

brilliant.

i'm going to go and work on my itemized invoice for reimbursements since my vintage wooden scandinavian furniture is now warping and the rugs are still sopping.

replacements anyone?

chicago struggles

2005-05-13T10:22:00.000-05:00

there are many a thing about this city that i absolutely love....winter-to-summer fashions is one of them. not because everyone is SO HOT or the clothes are so great, it's because the majority of people dress like absolute morons so it's just fodder for me and my demented mind to pretend everyone must be blind when they get dressed in the morning.

i know, i'm an asshole.

par example, this morning as i was dealing with a retchid hangover (fell off the wagon when rene arrived and scurred the bejeebus outta skot) and very little sleep i was on the subway coming to skool. i don't understand why some people do this, but people feel the need to wear sunglasses UNDERGROUND?! what, are you neo from the fucking matrix or something? you're UNDERGROUND. you need not to shield your eyes from UV rays. and you're not that dood who made like 55 dollars off the song "i wear my sunglasses at night" either.

exhibit b. as i was walking from said subway to my scholastic destination i saw a man in front of me walking. at first i thought, ok normal dood. und then, my eyes came into focus. he was wearing a very navy blue (as in faded) blazer that looked as though it had originated from sears circa 1986 along with a "cornflower" blue work shirt (not bad thus far) but THEN he was wearing hippie green pants with pleats that would call z.cavaricci into question with BLACK shoes. black shoes and navy blue outfits are one of my pet peeves. but the coupling of all the aforementioned pieces made me think of hayes.

if hayes would've seen this guy she would've said in all her south carolina accented glory, "oh bless his heart." and then she would've proceeded to make him a large glass of sweet tea and a biscut. why? because she's that awesome.

2005-05-12T16:14:00.000-05:00

its funny how life has a certain way of working itself out. i've decided that in summertime people go through some thawing of emotions. or they go crazy.

maybe.

perhaps as people evolve from college drunks and potheads into adult drunks and potheads they just simply progress at different rates and there must be some grand "rate-master" who watches over and says "nope, those people won't remain friends throughout their twenties, their rates are far too different." whereas said grand rate-master may also sit in his/her peripheral seat and say "hmm, those people's rates are vastly different but you know what, i'ma go ahead and keep them on point (i know, ghetto is fun) because they have super high-octane oil or gas or whatever it is that keeps cars in good shape."

johann and chastity

2005-05-11T09:27:00.000-05:00

i've decided not to drink for a while. so it's been a whopping five days since a drop of alcohol has hit my belly (and no i haven't been snorting it either).

i have to say, it feels pretty good. its not like i was a "drunk" per se, but there's a difference between having no drinks and having 2 drinks. not a HUGE difference but a wee difference that i'm enjoying.

in this whopping five days of ne'er a drink to hit my belly i've been thinking a lot about this game that steve introduced to ryan. it's called the alphabet bar game. its where you go through the alphabet and try to think of a bar you've been to in the city you live in that corresponds with that letter of the alphabet. this is what i've come up with:

A-Alive One
B-Beachwood Inn
C-the Charleston, Chipp Inn
D-Danny's, Darwin's
E-Estelle's
F-Funky Buddha Lounge
G-Gold Star
H-Hungry Brain, Huttenbarr, Happy Village, Hideout
I-Innterown Pub
J-Jake's
K-
L-Lotties, Lucille's
M-Marie's Riptide Lounge, Map Room
N-the Note
O-
P-Pippin's Tavern
Q-
R-Rainbo
S-Small Bar
T-Tai's Till Four (ick), Tuman's Alcohol Abuse Center
U-
V-Village Tap, Vini Vidi Vino
W-
X-Xippo
Y-Yakzies
Z-Zakopane

I know there are more and probably bars to fill up the empty spots but it's early and i'm on vacation.

and johann and chastity our weird neighbors are playing scary club music REALLY loudly and the ancient repair man who vacuums the common stair is here and chain smoking again.

time out for fun.

2005-05-09T17:05:00.000-05:00

the sun has finally paid a visit to this city. well, now its gone back to wherever it lives in normal time but this past weekend the sun actually partied with chicago and me.

this past weekend was one of weird coincidence and circulation i suppose you could say. i ran into a few old friends whom i hadn't seen in a long, long time. one of which sold me an all too sweet jacket at a coincidental yard sale which we happened upon due to our sick habit of walking very slowly by the dog park in an effort to create some sort of almost real reverie of actually OWNING a dog but not having to clean up after it or take it on walks multiple times a day and all that other non-reverie stuff (talk about a run-on sentence!). i drank far too much to celebrate the dynasty. i walked too far in heels that were too short to make that large of an impact on my feets. and yet i made just the right amount of homemade bread and roasted vegetables for our "summer solstice" sunday dinner.

and we learned how to make peppermint peach iced tea which i'm still chugging at this very moment being refreshed and sweetened all at the same time.

the circulation comes in the multiple loops of the same walk traversed as well as the last weekend before skool starts again. only this loop of skool will finally be my last. no mas para mi.

it was also the last weekend spent wholly in chicago until june. but i have all these plans for funtimes to be had?! i suppose a dose of curra's will cure what is missing from my heart. either that or it will create a fat pocket to patch it up.

p.s. kato, did you know there are TWO curra's now?! i'm not quite sure what to think of all of this.

dynasty

2005-05-03T22:09:00.000-05:00

it's my threepeat. that's right me and skot's third anniversary today. we're officially a dynasty.

in the midst of our southern dinner and record playin' skot went off to the chipp inn to fetch some mas alcohol so i figured a wee blog to be appropriate.

i've had this thing on my mind since my parents left on sunday. at brunch on sunday my mom informed me that her friend was "devistated" when she came home from work at lunch to find her cleaning lady SMOKING CRACK out by her pool.

i don't know if y'all think that's as funny as i do but.......come ON! you come home to get a sammich and your cleaning lady is smoking f'ing CRACK!

brilliant.

tv is weird

2005-05-02T15:05:00.000-05:00

so in my time off from school i have been working, interviewing, cooking and watching a LOT of tv. not a lot, probably like an hour or two a day. i like tv, i don't even curh.

today, however, i came across a daytime commercial that BLEW me out of the water. it was almost like i could've hallucinated it. it was a commercial for mott's plus, i guess some kids drink that has tons of vitamins or something. so the commercial has a whole bunch of cute kids somewhere between the ages of 4 and 7 i'm guessing and they're all trying to convey to the public how much they like this drink despite the fact that it's laden with vitamins and other things that aren't dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets. clearly, advertising.

so as it goes down the line of cute kid #1, cute kid #2 (isn't that what they're called ryan, i mean you make kid-advertising commercials) it comes to i suppose cute little girl #5 and she's sitting at the table next to the bottle of product with her cup of said product and her line is

"i'm gonna CHUG this."

i almost fell off the couch in laughter. its like that kid has channeled myself and the great majority of all my close girlfriends. its like she was BORN to party. (and no, we're not THOSE people who go to touristy margarita bars and order shots of tequila) i bet her mom had a mini t-shirt made for her when she was 2 that said "born to rage" or something of the like.

i couldn't BELIEVE this little girl said "i'm gonna CHUG this."

i just hope she goes the route of well-rounded person with a college degree, etc instead of being one of those sluuuuuuts who goes on MTV spring break and enters wet t-shirt contests and thinks that screaming "WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO" at the top of her lungs to celebrate the victory of said wet t-shirt contests is "cool."

cos it's not, then you're just nasty. and trust me you ain't ms.jackson neither.

dood tv

2005-04-29T09:22:00.000-05:00

last night at around 7pm central standard time i was given yet another reason to dislike our president.

he scheduled his press conference RIGHT when the OC is supposed to come on. WTF?! are you kidding me? so not only did i not get to see my stories but i also had to listen to him b.s. about social security this and social security that. it's not like he's going to ever change anything to benefit anyone other than himself anyways! grrrrruuuummmmbbbllleeee cakes!

so in defiance i read my book that i've been trying to finish instead. i'm about 3/4 done and fermina daza and her story are progressing at quite a clip now.

when my eyes would barely stay open any longer i went up to watch a lil' tv before going to bed. skot had it on spike tv and was watching what is now my new favorite show. it's called MXC and essentially its Mystery Science Theatre 3000 only its not 2 robots and a dood and old movies, its JAPANESE GAME SHOWS and two doods making up what they're all saying.

HI-LARIOUS.

last night one of the games contestants had to take part in was sitting in a HUGE teacup and going down a waterslide and having to stay upright in order to win your prize.

well. par example....

I FART IN MY CAR!!!

i know i'm not quite doing it the hilarious justice it deserves so czech it out. i heart it ril, ril hard.

dis one be-lated

2005-04-25T12:41:00.000-05:00

today i have to offer a formal apology. my head has almost stopped spinning as of late and i remembered this morning that i had forgotten a dear friend of mines birthday yesterday. i told myself i wouldn't forget and i told skot to remind me to call him and the list goes on and on. sadly though the fumes and foamcore won and i forgot to call JBC and wish him a HAPPY F'ING BIRTHDAY MAN!

that's right folks, joseph benjamin cohen turned a whopping 26 years old yesterday and not a damn moment too soon. not that 26 is anything really special, i mean you can already legally drink, smoke, buy lottery tickets and even rent a car (the shining light that comes with your 25th birthday) and since Joe lives in Brooklyn his auto insurance couldn't even go down last year cos the dood don't even drive.

so i say, we start to celebrate 26 as the new 21 and just call it your "fifth 21st birthday."

joe, i'ma send you that stoner package i always promised you including the following items:

cheetos...baked and regular
salsa
potato pancake mix
a gift certificate to mcdonalds
some socks bought off the guys who sell them on the side of the road at midway
a 40
an antiquated joke book
and
american cheese

do you know why? b/c that's what poor friends do for other poor friends. i think the mcdonalds gift certificate and the socks are just kind of hilarious but the rest could be used.....

i cracked

2005-04-21T16:11:00.000-05:00

i went out last night and got impossibly wasted. when i came home i smelled gas and when skot woke up and asked me if i in fact smelled gas i answered in the affirmative followed up by "you should really check that out." i then passed out whilst he waited up for the gas people to come and tell us if our house was going to explode. i wrote a seven page paper this morning and the entire time i was afraid i would barf my goldfish brain onto my keyboard and that would be the end of it.

i didn't barf, i ate chex mix instead.

since my brain is still somewhere between submerged with the fins and in space this post will be created by what others have once said. because even though i'm in uber-moron state i feel compelled to say something.

quotes of this week....

"i two-stepped with a monkey."
-Nicole Michalek-Dube

"it would be really awesome if you had a rollie fingers moustache, because then i could call you meatwad."
-Skot

"a woman on the el asked me if my drawing tube was a rocket launcher."
-Brian

note:said woman must've been a fucking moron.

robo car go boom boom

2005-04-18T12:32:00.000-05:00

since i'm in the midst of a shitstorm of hell (finals) i have come to the realization that i can no longer speak. i can't talk. its not that i don't have a voice i just can't formulate sentences to go from brain to mouth and out to society. i have resigned myself to robo-melissa for the next 7 days until this bad weather passes. unless the sentences have something to do with shellac, maharam, homeless people or photoshop i can't talk.

i know, in a so-cal bro'ed up way it's "hella lame."

so, since my ability to speak has been put on hold for the next 9 days i'd like to post a formal apology to anyone who has called me and i have failed to return said call. i PROMISE to call you back after the next 7 days....or if i have a breakdown and get shitfaced, i'll drunk dial all yer asses!

in keeping with my new robo-steez i'll go ahead and type out what happened to me on sat'day nachten. i was in my dungeon, er office, working working working and decided around 2am that it was time to throw in the towel for the day. went upstairs to make some tea and watch some tv to unwind the brain when all of a sudden someone was "pounding" on my window. i figured it was skot coming home so i paid no attention to it as i was wrapped up in a super swaddly blanket and cozy....and if it were him he'd be coming in shortly.

well, the door didn't open. i DID however hear my upstairs neighbor walk to the window and then RUN at quite a clip (yes we have shoddy construction so i could tell the speed at which he was running) to the other end of his apaato.

that's weird i thought.

so i got up to go and see what had taken place outside of my window.

well, a MOTHERFUCKING TOW TRUCK GOT FIREBOMBED! those "poundings on my window" were actually some jackass breaking out the windows and windshield of the truck.

panic sets in.

i start running around my apartment looking for my wee egg phone to call 911 b/c i knew there were flammable things in that truck that could ass-plode and really f'up my apaato.

where my schoolwork lives. if schoolwork gets destroyed so does the person who blew up that truck cos i'll kill them myself.

running all around apaato, shaking and egg phone is nowhere to be found. truck is NOT getting any less on fire. at this point i notice the lights on the top are starting to melt.

i think, "the fucking fire department is THREE blocks away, what the fuck are they doing?!"

upstairs track star then comes downstairs to tell me that i should either go to the first floor (basement) of my apartment or go up to his b/c "that shit could blow up"

shaking gets worse and i run down my spiral stairs in more of an effort to find the egg phone.

eventually i find it, call 911 and tell them the sitch, they respond with my address so i assume i'm like the 400th person to call. immediatley call skot and say "hey skot, can you come home? there's a tow truck on fire right outside our window."

fire department shows up, coppers show up, truck gets put out of its misery (although its still sitting in front of my house and i wonder if its possible that i could actually tow itself away?) skot comes home and i decide that moving once i get a job is a must. i want an apartment above ground level with loads of light and a washer and dryer.

let the daydreams begin!

although i really do like the funhouse. just don't want any other stuff to ass-plode. and i really want a laundry machine!

that is all, back to robo-mode.

finals funtime

2005-04-13T14:55:00.000-05:00

you know whats a good motivator for getting impossible amounts of work done on a day you have off?

getting wasted on margaritas in the middle of the day.

hayes and i went to our meeting this morning with our professor and then headed out to get copious amounts of art supplies for our impending doom and just so happened to be right down the street from a place with loads of queso for the eating and margaritas for the drinkin'.

and what did we do?

drank 2 "handled" cups of margaritas for lunch. and now here i sit all wasted. photoshop is going to get a lot more fun in about two seconds. either that or i could start shellac'ing my model. but shellac fumes and drunk melissa could lead me down a bad, bad, bad road.

why'd i have to go and quit smoking?

a pill to make your day awesome

2005-04-08T14:20:00.000-05:00

a certain someone i know will hollah at me when she finds out how people reacher her blogspot in interesting ways.

never happens to me.

until TODAY!

somebody found my little piece of the internet by doing a google search for "dog balls."

if another certain person i know knew about this wee little discovery he/she would most likely play 80's air guitar or something of the like.

now that i've had my day and probably my tomorrow made, i'm gonna crank up some annie and pretend i'm in a scando roller derby! i hope they found what they were looking for.

el dock-tor

2005-04-07T13:29:00.000-05:00

i hate doctors. i don't think they're idiots or scary or anything. i just think that they're indecisive and can't figure out things in a time efficient manner.

unless you've been shot. then its pretty clear what needs to be done.

about two and a half years ago i was having horrible health problems. i was bounced from the emergency room where they wanted to take out my gallbladder to an internist who told me i either had stomach cancer or diabetes (YIKES on both). i was jabbed with iv's and needles for taking blood about 4,000 times and when nothing came back as they predicted i was sent to yet another doctor. apparently this was a specialists specialist or something of the like.

went to see this man and i was cured instantly. no cancer, no diabetes. he gave me some pills and some lifestyle alterations and things went swimmingly....except the pills made me pass out so i did the lifestyle alterations and things go swimmingly.

as of late these problems have resurfaced. no biggie. so i went to see my general practioner. he was out of town. i knew that all i had to do was go into the sub-doc, tell him what was wrong with me, tell him the medication i needed and in what dosage and then be on my merry way.

WRONG.

i got stuck with some fucking moron. possibly an even bigger moron than the guy who told me i may have stomach cancer. this moron suggested that i go back to the hospital, that the specialists specialist was wrong, that i have all the same $10,000 worth of testing done because "something may have changed" and that i should get some anti-depressants.

I'M NOT EVEN FUCKING DEPRESSED!

needless to say, i won't be taking his advice and i've called the specialists specialst to make an appointment with him.

perhaps after i go back to see the s.s. i can actually sit down and drink more than one beer and not wake up in a ball of pain. that would be a magical redneck day.

well i guess it'd be more german since i really wanna go to the huttenbar and drink like 8 wurzburgers. that shit is dee-lish-us yo!

oh yea, i know its random but they're doing work on the sewer for our building and apparently its located close to my office wall b/c as i sit here they're using a machine to fix the problem that sounds like really really really long farts. its kind of hilarious and i bet they can hear me laughing each time they crank up the fartmaster 4000.

put on your white hats

2005-04-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

i like sports and i don't even care. well, its not so much that i actually like sports or even one in particular. i just kind of like going to cubs games at wrigley field . my "associates" have season tickets either through their own volition or through their respective places of business so i've never sat more than 10-15 rows away from the field, nor have i ever had to pay any sort of exorbanent amount of money for this luxury. ALSO, the season tickets from a certain ad agency for the past few years have been conveniently located right next to the BEST soft pretzel and processed nacho cheese stand in the entire park.

there's something magical about going to a baseball game in chicago. not a white sox game, thats just kind of lame and ghetto but a cubs game. there's a seething sense of history when you walk into the park and advertising isn't allowed and there are a million people who are just kind of happy that the sun is shining and there are ZERO coats to be seen. summer in chicago is just rather magical in and of itself.

i love how there are 4,000 beer doods constantly strolling up and down the aisles; more than happy to sell you a tallboy of old style for 6 bucks. and then at the end of the 7th inning its like a mad dash out of there so no one drunk person can try and pay you 100 bucks for a beer "past legal time."

my friend matt tried to have a beer an inning last mothers day when we went to go to a game at the aforementioned pretzel utopia game. he succeeded and he even went beyond the call of duty drinking the rest of ryan and skots beers. all total i think he had about 9 beers in 7 innings.

this feat was followed up by a lot of "hey melissa, tell that lady in front of us (directly in front of us so i'm positive she heard it all as i saw her chuckle) happy mothers day." or "hey melissa, give that lady in front of us a hug, she's a mom and we can't be with ours on this day."

go-tard.

but he did have a positive outlook on the four or five extra innings the game went into. each time they left the field prepped for an extra inning in overtime he would yell out "FREE BASEBALL!"

i think he should've yelled out "FREE MOTHER FUCKING BASEBALL!!!" followed by an insane "AAAAAHHHHHH!"

that would've made that ladies mothers day.

its the birthday!

2005-04-05T11:41:00.000-05:00

today marks the day that twenty-seven years ago in the philippines minen bester freund was born. from there she went to Nebraska and from there she went to barbados and from there to the ivory coast in africa where she couldn't go to skool so she boarded a big ol' jet plane and was off to boarding school in switzerland followed by a brief stint in rhode island and then FINALLY she made it to jester dorm in austin. this is where i would say "the magic happened."

she's a brilliant wee lasseh with stellar style, the sharpest wit this side of the mississipp' and a heart that runs as deep as that huge creh-vass in the ocean people always talk about where fish don't even have eyeballs any more.

keep shakin' your tail feathers gato, and happy birthday to boo!

here is your present. you guys can go to the park together....

el-kay?

2005-04-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

this past weekend i ventured out into un-chartered territory.....the suburbs! a bunch of friends and i from hell went out to becki lynn's house. becki lynn lives in a real very old farmhouse that's absolutely beautiful with more land than i think i've seen in the past 3 years. i mean, she has a special structure for growing green beans for fucks sake!

on a side note, her real name isn't becki lynn....i left all those double named people in texas.

so into the black diamond we piled and out to plainfield we went, loaded with 10 billion bottles of wine, beer, and 4 LARGE bottles of liquor. you know, the kind that have the glass handle that you used to see at all frat parties being dumped into a garbage can and then consumed and now you just see it at your friends houses who can really "bro down" hard. yea, that was us.

as the night evolved i think we maybe moved for reasons other than smoking once. we sat around a table, looked out at a trailer that belonged to her dub-t neighbor Nancy (even though nancy doesn't speaka de english and lives with her sister and 4 children.....all in a trailer), decided that arson to things that were an eyesore was ok and somewhat comical and that skinpants should be worn at all times.

skinpants you ask?

yes, skinpants motherfucker! skinpants are what one wears whilst they slumber or for some right when they come home from work or school. i don't know if i can quite hop on the skinpants bandwagon as i like to leave on my regular fabric pants.

a lot of rambling made short....dah dah dah DAH! i'd like to announce the arrival of a new little blogspot all wrapped up in swaddling clothes. b-rad was so moved by skinpants that he made this happen.

welcome b-rad. we're glad you're here....and not in a scary cult-like way.

oh yea, and in other news today marks the beginning of kato's BIRTHDAY WEEK! stay tuned for a whole lotta e-love to my girl who can shake a tail feather with the best of 'em lasseh! my first gift to you....a dood rockin' his skinpants.

kulture

2005-03-30T21:03:00.000-06:00

so as i sit at home during the first thunderstorm of the season i'm comforted by a few things. one, it's actual rain and lightening...not snow and hell and cold. two, wine aka hobo juice. and third and most inspirational...Neko Case.

skot bought me almost every album she's made on vinyl for christmas this past year and god bless him for it. she's got a haunting voice that will make anyone nostalgic for pretty much anything they could've experienced in their adult-post-college-life.

it's a bit alt-country (whatever that means) but at the same time applicable to even the most punk of hearts. i'll put her on a mixed cd right next to against me! and i don't even care.

by the way, i must give a super shout-out to the gato for the against me! in my life. i'm goin' to reckless boo and i'ma buy 'em all up.

on a side note, i think that nostalgia is one of the best emotions one can feel. i'm not one to dwell in the past but there are certain moments in time that are committed to memory for a reason and i appreciate those moments and the triggers that stimulate them on a daily basis.

i also like when you are in a moment and you can feel your brain going "file save" in the nostalgic-you-will-feel-happy-about-this-later persuasion.

but that's for another time and another blogspot.

sadness

2005-03-25T00:45:00.000-06:00

its quite late and skot and i went to a wine bar tonight to forget about whats going to take place tomorrow.

his grandfather who lived in illinois passed away whilst i was in austin and it was a tragic day.

he was a great man. he was the one i found solace in while nobody else found my cynicism to be funny.

i'll share a small tidbit of the last moments of his gi-normous life.

after he passed away and the people were coming to take away his earthly body, his grandmother (whom i hold near and dear to my heart as my grandmother is so riddled with alzheimers that she barely remembers what has transposed in the past five minutes of her life) locked the door.

it was just the two of them.

she locked the door and brought a stereo up to the room where he left this earth. in those last few moments they shared together, she being of this earth and he being of another celestial plane, she played a song which was "their" song. not only did she play this song but she sang it to his celestial body in the last few moments they shared together.

this to me, as mary.j.blige would say was their last episode of "real love" and knowing the two of them as though they were mine own grandparents is something that moves and touches me.

tomorrow is the funeral for richard myles. i'd like to send his spirit to a happier and less painful place and wish him the best in his journey in the afterlife and hope that he wants to share a glass of brandy with me when i finally reach that place in the sky.

bon voyage sir, and know that you're missed...

minen lizt

2005-03-24T09:33:00.000-06:00

my brain is far too scattered today to come up with a proper blogspot so i figured i'd simply make a list of the random thoughts going through my head RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND....

*i think its really cool the way grammas do addition. "two and two are four, four and four are eight, eight and eight are sixteen." i think i'm going to start doing that when i have budget reviews with my teachers. "two and two task chairs are five thousand, four and four resolve workstations are fifty thousand" and see if that soothing way of approaching it lets me slide under the financial radar.

*my friend "jenny" (names have been concealed to protect the victims) is at the top of my list today. she's super southern and very polite and can get along with anyone. she revealed to me the other day though that her routine when she gets home is to hang her coat up, put her shoes away and then take off her pants. she just walks around in her underpants when she's at home which i find to be super out of character and thus super hilarious. i refer to her "home state" as her in her skin pants.

*sometimes i wish i had a time machine so that i could skip over unpleasant things that were going to occur in my life. like the next four weeks. i'm sure they'll be peppered with many a positive thing too, i'm just really dreading all the work I'm going to have to do in the next 28 days. but then again, i should go through it so that my vacation is far more sweeter and laden with far more margaritas.

*if i had a time machine i would be so so so so so fucking rich. but i'd probably also be begged to go on talk shows and discuss how my time machine has helped and hindered people with issues they'd had in past relationships and blah blah blah and then dr.phil would probably call me and say "melissa if you don't come on my show then that's like a pancake not havin' any syrup" or some other stupid faux-texan saying. he's mis-representin' to the media. if it were a texan saying he'd say "melissa if you don't come on my show that's like an armadillah not breakin' tires when it gets run over on a country road" it still makes no sense but at least its texan.

*did you know barbed wire was invented in illinois? illinois isn't tough.

*this is brilliant. are you kidding me? oh yea, and when i was in austin last week i saw ann richards....i rolled up next to her at a stoplight and didn't stop looking at her. i couldn't decide if she was an above a-list celeb that i should continue to visaully stalk or if she was of political interest and that's the draw. eh, either way it was pretty sweet.

that is all. i apologize for the adult deficit disorder aspect of this post.

2005-03-23T15:41:00.000-06:00

never try to extend your middle finger to mother nature in an attempt to overcome what she is throwing at you.

i just walked home from school which is about a 45 minute jaunt over the river and through some hoods (ugh, i don't think i should've said that) and its pretty chilly outside with wind that will knock you on your ass if you're not careful. i figured if i looked down and walked really fast i could overcome the uncomfort of cold.

i was robbed.

my face is frozen, my hair is totally fucked, my feet hurt from trying to walk so fast in shoes that don't want to party that way and that weird thing happened to my hands that happens when you walk....you know how your fingers can get all super swollen. well mine did and they're red so i look like a bloated corpse that was sunburned or something.

but i do think that some sort of rapper is moving in across the street from us in a brand spankin' new house they just finished building. as i walked by there were a bunch of late twenty-something doods standing on the second story deck of the house and all i heard was "damn homie, i used to think you was the man homie."

ok so he's either a budding (albeit crappy) rapper and his friends are lame or its some kid who got lucky as an i-banker or a stockbroker and thinks he's "down" so he brought all of his "dawgs" over to check out his new "crib."

maybe i'll make him a batch of cookies mixed with gin and juice......

this is a pre-script

2005-03-22T16:22:00.000-06:00

i'm not REALLY going to court by the way. i meant it in the moral and karmic way...that's all.

so if you're in the market for some karmic stocks, i have a feeling melissa corp. may be a good investment in the future. at least i hope so.....

fired means done?

2005-03-22T08:34:00.000-06:00

isn't it true that when one is fired from a company you simply don't call and protest said firing for months and months after it has actually taken place? is it not true that you aren't ALLOWED to do so unless you sue the company.

apparently the melissa corp. is in the midst of some heavy litigation because the board members who were released from their responsibilities keep protesting said state of employment.

being sued is such a dick. but in my own counter-suit it would be only appropriate to sue for slander and defamation of character. i'm totally going to make MILLIONS off this once it goes to court. i gots documentation biatches.

Adult Spring Break

2005-03-21T14:32:00.000-06:00

So I've been in Austin for the past 5 days. Rather, i returned to chica-go go last night after spending 4 nights and 5 days in austin at south by southwest and a bachelorette party. i'm totally, totally fucked.

let me just explain why i had the shakes last night and why i may actually be entitled to calling it "adult spring break."

i'd also like to issue some warnings. i know that i come across as an alcoholic but i'm really not. i just do stupider shit when i'm drunk (a la the majority of the sane population) and i live in chicago where the winter seems to last an eternity and there's a bar on every single street corner for said reason.

but this isn't about chicago or any potential addictions i may have. this is about SPRING BREAK MOTHERFUCKERS! and no, there were no wet t-shirt contests, i said ADULT spring break.....motherfuckers.

as a detailed description of all the insanity that took place would be far too long and may become a sleeping aid to some people i'll simply make a wee list of the highlights of the week (in no specific order):

juan: arriving in austin only to pick up joe at the airport and realize that this was how our initial conversation went after not having seen each other in 6-8 months

joe: what the fuck you have a ton of hair?
me: what the fuck you have a beard? are you some kind of mountain man?

we then tried to figure out why he smelled (to me)like a hippie and he cursed out a tow truck. yep, no "hi how are you" no "i haven't seen you in ages" just "you fucking look different"

dos: going over to curdlestinks house (that's christine to the lay person) and realizing that between she, hilary and i we could have a deadly triangle. we each have secret deadly weapons that we realzied when combined could kill ANYONE. i'll give out five options and its up to you to choose your own adventure (note only three are the actual killers).....farts, burps, vomits, body odor, shotguns.

i know, they're all gross. thats why its a secret.

a los tres: i went to curras. curras is probably one of the most magical places on earth. the chicken tacos have stayed the same since i was fuck, i guess since i was 19 and the avocado margaritas are still only three dollars. THREE DOLLARS people! not OCHO like many other places for far crappier bevs.

sqat-tro:rollin' up to club de ville to see my homie max's band play and asking for a "grey goose and cranberry" something i've ordered there BILLIONS of times and having the same bartender who served me hundreds of times in college say with a totally straight face "seven fifty please." i about passed out, crapped my pants and forgot who i was for thirty minutes. it was my first encounter with sxsw discrimination.

five:staying true to my school and watching the oc after having consumed about 4 bottles of wine between hilary and i. and learning that brendan benson was featured on that episode and kind of wigging out. i think it was on accountah my binge drinking but i'm not sure.

seeeex:playing thats you with joe at an "industry" party. it was free beer and it was early on in the day and the people to be seen at this place were AMAZING. one chick had on a neon blue body suit and bright orange sunglasses....and she couldn't rock it. another dood had on a pink sweater with puffy teddy bears on the front and a moustache only he had shaved the middle out so it was like he had two fucking cheez-its on his face. he looked a little crazy but joe and i decided that he most definitely gets laid more than joe. sad really. in order to document this i made joe stand off to the side of these people and pretend like he was waving at me so i could take their pictures. i know its the total shitbag way of doing it, i should've just bucked up and taken the picture straight on but alas, it was early and i think my bloody mary from gueros was giving me a tobasco ulcer.

sebun: taking a picutre of a three year old at said "industry" party wasted off his ass. he had a miller light cup and was stumbling all around and it was filled and he was sippin' on some sizz-ur. his mother insisted it was apple juice but when i crouched down to take his picture and yelled "hey cuteo!" and he looked at me like he was gonna puke. i knew his "mom" was totally lying.

acht:getting a sunburn

nien:bachelorette party at seven. a new super trendy (although its in austin so its incapable of being obnoxious). fantastic feesh, fantastic goat cheese ranch, phenomenal company and 4 bottles of wine and a bottle of bub. fatty liked it.

ten:BBQ. bbq at curdlestink and anne's house. where chicago came together with austin which came together with houston which came together with mexico to produce and evening filled with far too much laughter and 4 trips to the liquor store.

are you still awake?

in summation my dear colleagues, i must profess my undying love for austin and all that it holds. the people are lovely, the food is fantastic, the weather can't be beat and if you can go for a run at town lake and still see leslie off in the distance then you know you must be home.

land speed record

2005-03-14T11:45:00.000-06:00

well, it seems as though the uber-efficient button has been turned on in my wiring and i'm actually done with my tutor work 2 hours in. normally it takes me the whole 3 hours. can you say muh fuhn FAST or what?

genius.

now now now, on to the events of the weekend. we went to see interpol on friday night at the sold out aragon. i was pretty impressed that a band who doesn't move on stage could sell out such a large venue and was a bit skeptical about the crowd before arriving. i mean, are there REALLY 4,000 hipsters that are willing to pay ticketmaster prices? i think not. i was expecting some yuppies and frat boys. and what i got was FAR better. i got a Rock OPERA. some dood who looked like rick bayless (i know i'm a total fatty) was standing in front of us with a leather jacket wrapped around his waist. this was no ordinary jacket you see, it was the kind with a little cinch in the middle to accentuate the "positives." he seemed to have been the biggest proponent of interpol i've ever laid mine eyes on. each song was met with more and more fury and enthusiasm. talk about comedy! finally when they played "Turn on the Bright Lights" came the coup de gras! he started the song with his arms up in almost a celestial form of exaltation and then it just got more and more raucous throughout. forget about it when the "light show" started. this dood was on a mission, he was on a mission from god to rock the absolute hardest anyone has EVER rocked before. and all this in chicago where even sold out shows consist of a bunch of people standing still and MAYBE nodding their heads.

maybe.

sat'day was met with much exhaustion. the blizzard of the evening before really took what little sunlight had been infused from mr.rock opera and drained it out through the icy gutters. but but but! never give up hope, i came home from a particularly busy day of work and meetings (and this is on a saturday) to an impossibly stoned home. a concert was scheduled to be attended an hour after i got home from my last meeting of the day and god bless weed, the lazy took over and the concert was canceled for the funhouse.

after guzzling 1.5 bottles of hobo juice it was off to the chipp inn (always a bad idea at that point). upon arrival it was noted that it was one of the bartenders birthdays so the drinks were super strong and karaoke was rockin (in a bar about the size of a bathroom no less). i got my usual drink and after the first sip promptly packed myself up and told my date that i would be leaving. it may have seemed a bit rapid and over-dramatic but if i didn't pack up and leave the bar at that second there was going to be birthday cake AND barf all over the bar. barf isn't so festive.

i left the chipp and RAN the block and a half home. imagine a heavily intoxicated girl RUNNING at a full clip at 1 in the morning. yea, i can only imagine, another land speed victory for me.

the rest of the nights events i can't recall but apparently the following took place:

1. i barfed (kato, there must've been something in the air)
2. i passed out on the couch with a water bottle
3. i was awoken and didn't even notice my boo sitting on the couch in a near-death state.
4. after not noticing near-death boo, i whizzed past him to go downstairs to sleep in bed and barked back "don't forget the water bottle" (i know, i never knew i could be such an asshole without remembering it)
5. i woke up in pajamas that i had NO earthly idea how they'd gotten there.

all that and a southern brunch of homemade mac and cheese, mashed potatoes with cream gravy and biscuits in conjunction with 2 liters of diet 7up were all that could make that not so lovin' feelin' of impending morning after barf from carrying out its mission.

god bless biscuits!

2005-03-11T11:49:00.000-06:00

last night i had a brilliant formula for how i was to compose today's posting and now its gone. i don't know where it went but it has vanished from the recesses of my brain. perhaps i simply THINK i'm more poetic and emotional late at night or perhaps the total lack of sleep i've been experiencing as of late has just led me to delusion. i don't know, either way i always feel way more articulate and forthcoming right before sleep. maybe its a reflective thing?

in any event, last night we went to go and see a friend's (stef-ahn) band play. they drove all the way from new york (with many a stop on the way) and did a fantastic job. the events leading up to the show were riddled with "challenges" and not in the retarded way, like actual challenges.

we went over to a friend of mine's house for dinner and in chicago, it decides to snow nasty, wet and slushy snow in the middle of march and we happened to be traveling to somewhere near the vortex of hell parking wise....what happens when there's nasty weather and you're in the aforementioned vortex? NOTHING! you drive around for 15 minutes looking for a parking space and then you find one a half a mile away. but alas, i was still thankful that we found a parking space at all, i chalk that up to the parking gods hearing my wee little prayer.

an den

dinner went smashingly, hilary was in town so she got to join us and all was well, wrigley the dog was the bartender and the doorman gave us a ride in the old old old school manually operated elevator....the building was kind of like something you would see in disneyland's epcot center as an architectural homage (that's french) to the roaring twenties. it was totally sweet.

then it came time to trek to schuba's for the show. we'd gotten a few calls from stephan (stef-ahn) warning us that if we didn't show up on time bad things would happen. sooooo, after drinking almost an entire bottle of hobo juice me-self and inhaling about 40 pounds of guacamole it was requested of me that i actually RUN the half-mile to the car.

not sweet

never, EVER run when you've had hummus, guacamole, chips and a bottle of wine for dinner. it makes for a REAL bad party in your guttural area. oh yea, and while you're running, don't get lost and forget where the car is.....makes the run longer.

after all the hustle to get to schubas by NINE ON THE MOTHERFUCKING DOT we rush in and see stephan, ben and the rest of the band kickin' it with jessa and the tard and max and the rest of the natural history....

the band didn't go on until about 9.30 so apparently all the running with the hummus and the guac and the hobo juice and the parking and the little people and the speedos was for "kickin' it time".

long ramble short, it was well worth it and i think i made dates to go to the salt lick with about 4 different bands next week....i don't think i can fit that many rock and roll doods in juan leetle auto moto. it'll be interesting though and i'll have flip flops on the entire time.

yesterday, all my troubles...eh fuck em

2005-03-09T08:09:00.001-06:00

yesterday was quite possibly one of the WORST days i've had in recorded history. not the absolute worst day (that took place on a chilly day in college) but one of the worst. i had a retchid start to my morning due to displaced moods and then things just got worse. i lost a zip disk over christmas containing all the digital media to all former projects i have completed over the past year and a half and yesterday i was asked to resurrect some of those items. upon telling my instructor (note: i will NOT refer to her as a professor) this she said "well you're just going to have to redo it all by next tuesday."

um, excuse me?

yea, each "drawing" takes about 10 hours to complete and the specific one she demanded took about 2 weeks. my response was "so i have to have crank out another 3D modeled drawing by next week" and she said (not looking at me) "yea." and THEN had the audacity to ask about my schedule and how i was enrolled in two classes that are supposed to be a prerequiste for each other.

um, bitch i didn't know you were a teacher AND a guidance counselor.

so here i sit feeling FAR more chipper today. i filled myself up with boston market mashed potatoes last night and went to bed earlier than when i was 10....earning myself 10 full hours of sleep and now nothing can get me.

today, i do care if a bus plows me over onto the frozen streets.

oh yea, and i found my favorite black flats that i thought i'd lost last night after my rendez-vous with a little bo-mac love. things are lookin' up here kids! so in honor of that i'd like to post this peek-ture that makes me laugh each time i see it.

singles bar?

2005-03-07T15:03:00.000-06:00

so on saturday night after a lovely dinner at the restaurant my teacher most recently designed it was off for a friends birthday party.

the party was to be held at a place called bar thirteen. its in my neighborhood and it has sweet fans that swoosh in unison and its a lovely place to go.....on a weeknight.

holy fuck, i walked in and was immediately consumed by anxiety. there were about 4 billion people around and it was sweating more than a whore in church. yes, the bar was sweating. every girl in the place had on almost the same outfit, tight designer jeans, high heels and a blousey tank top. all the doods had on similar attire of button down shirt, designer jeans and some sort of loafer. (btw i hate the word loafer). the music was decent but as the night progressed and i continued to fill myself with drinks to avoid an out and out fit i realized a few things about places like this:

1. all the girls look the same (except the fat ones)

2. men seem to go into "search and destroy" mode in bars like this. they see an ass, a face, a hairdo or a girl drunk enough and they immediately go in for the kill.

3. girls like to make out with each other in these bars. not because they are genuinely interested in their make-out partner but because they saw it on an ad for girls gone wild and they think it'll make them like paris, "hot." (which they aren't)

4. why come the fat chicks always gotta dance all dirrrrrttttyyyy. one chick was dancing on the CORNER of the pool table adjacent to where i was standing. ummm, eew. clean the corners man, clean the corners.

5. shots are a plenty in joints like this. i have no qualms with shots, i rather like them myself but people in these places order blow jobs because they think its funny to say.....or they're trying to hint something to their mating partner for that specific evening.

so yea, that's my take on trendy singles bars. can't say i'd like to go back to one anytime soon as standing up and trying to get wasted is not my fortay....i like to sit down when i mean business.

the events of my tormented day

2005-03-04T16:56:00.000-06:00

i woke up far too early for humans to be conscious after having a normal night turn into a chipp inn night. so naturally, i almost threw up on the bus on the way to take a midterm i had not yet studied for. naturally. then i take the midterm and teacher decided that having another hour and a half of lecture was the right thing to do.

bad idea.

i had a hangover so intense that i could smell myself and consciousness was not something that was gifted to me, i was workin' hard for the money.

since my brain is at about 25% today, if i'm lucky, i'm just going to make reference to a past post and state that if you could have a visual for how i feel (and probably smell) inside this would be it.

but hey, at least i'm not this dood, monkeys shouldn't be tearing off feet and noses and such. thems some gangster monkeys, do NOT party with buddy and ollie and watch out fo they girlfriend bones too. yep, her name is BONES.

can chimps get neck tatoos? if they could bones, buddy and ollie would all have gang oriented neck tatoos and now bones would be going back to the chimp tatoo parlor to get two roses on either of her breasts that said "buddy r.i.p and ollie r.i.p"

too bad the other gang monkeys name wasn't sifl.

BEEP BEEP BEEP

2005-03-02T08:07:00.000-06:00

went my alarm at 5.15 this morning. well it wasn't a beep really it was more of a tejano song with some dood "singing" words into my ears in a language it was far too early to even try to comprehend. tejano you ask....yes, its the only music i find SO annoying, what with all the whistles and horns, that will actually force me to get out of bed, walk to the other side of our room and hit snooze at which point i'm already "up" so i might as well just stay that way.

why did selena have to die? i liked apartamente (yes i know i butchered the spelling) cinco dos-ay.

in any event, i woke up at the ass crack of dawn to head to the gym to "get it over with." skot has taken to working out and since he has a real job the gym goes on his schedule....meaning my butt is out of bed at 5.15 on wednesday mornings. its painful, its real painful.

while running on the treadmill this morning and failing miserably to watch the sun rise behind pequods pizza and starbucks i decided that daydreaming would suit me best. i reflected back to a conversation that was induced upon me last night about how retchid my spelling is. i'm well aware i'm no champ in any spelling bee but i didn't see myself as lenny from the grapes of wrath....

a list of words the EYE came up with of me being challenged with:

al qaeda (ok so i spelled it like they were hispanic yesterday...i wake up to tejano give me a frigging break)

asinine

beaucoup (i got in trouble a lot for that one in college)

thats what i could come up with, i know its not a ton of words, but alas i also know that there are hundreds more around the corner for me to document incorrectly.

oh yea and most words that have either an "ly" ending or a "ely/ley" ending. i got prollems with them bitches too.

god bless spell check.

2005-03-01T10:45:00.000-06:00

why is it that it will inevitably snow every march 1 in chicago? three years ago today i moved from lincoln park to bucktown and it was the only day of the winter that year that a blizzard happened upon chicago, my move-in day. when all the boys who rallied up to help me move out of the fourth floor walk-up got to carry my stupid sleeper sofa through a blizzard. when i took them out for beer and burgers at a bar down the street we all had to rely on my friend james, who just so happened to live across the street from the bar, to go home and get us all warm and dry socks as mine were for girls and were of no help as they were packed away in snow covered boxes.

i don't quite recall the last two years of snow in march but i do KNOW that there was snow on march 1st. its like christmas, it always happens on the same day and every year without fail it sends me into the tailspin of wondering whether or not summer will actually ever come.

will i ever get to leave my house at night for a walk? will i ever get to leave my house at night period and not be worried about having to shovel out a parking space or get frosbite or get hypothermia or any other horrific cold-induced semi-fatality?

i think that spring is no longer a viable option in the world of seasons and for that i'm going to lay blame on al queada. if there is something truly asinine that has no explanation, lets just blame it all on al queada.

and so, i blame my snow covered trek to the subway this morning on al queada, i also blame hangovers, casseroles, student loan interest rates, paris hilton, suburban malls, back fat and mike's furniture shop on ashland all on the taliban.

vega-vacation

2005-02-28T14:56:00.000-06:00

this weekend i went on vacation. not to some tropical locale but to my own couch with one of my favorite travel companions.

friday nacht was a mess of an evening....a friend of mine from school happens to work in a bar and was hosting a happy hour event which included free drinks (you name it, it was free) for two hours. i've never known what it was like to actually "pound" wine, but i quickly found out on friday night. then came the fever, the chicken wing and blue cheese fever. never get this fever and never EVER pound wine because it only ends up in heartache (or burn whatever you prefer) and a mess of an evening. getting shitty drunk is one thing, getting shitty drunk with hot sauce on your fingers (all the better to wipe your drunken eyes with my dear) and shouting "ALOHA" to a group of frat boys with plastic lei's around thier necks is an entirely different beast.

i think they thought i was kidding.....

in any event, saturday was declared vega-vacation day in the funhousehold! dah dah dah DAH! this vega-vacation (pronounced vej-uh-vacation) consisted of two naps, a trip to irazu for costa rican burretards, a brief stint in an opium den of sorts and about 7 hours on the couch watching LAME marathons of shows that shall remain nameless on MTV.

i know i've rotted my brain.....

but alas, now its back to "reality", the cold reality that is snowflakes falling outside of my window and only two weeks to finish up 4 weeks worth of work before i head down to flip flop town for a 5 day break at SXSW. free booze, good shows, warm weather and NO chicken wings.

ichiban kawaiI!!!!!

2005-02-24T13:54:00.000-06:00

HOLY FUCK! Just when I thought things were going fabulously today I came across this on the eener-net.

i can just imagine what those little japanese dough-ghees sit around and talk about in their wise old japanese accents.

"this udon is quite satisfactory today, isn't it cuteo #2?"

*insert kind of creepy japanese laugh......

Its not about a dood

2005-02-23T10:27:00.000-06:00

"Oh,I love him so
He'll never know.
I'm yours forever more."

As I was sitting in my apartment last night listening to Billie Holiday records and drinking hobo juice after returning from the Chipp Inn, it began to dawn on me.

Billie Holiday lyrics aren't that uplifting.

Then I started to think more "outside of the box." (shudder, i hate that phrase). As Skot and I were sitting at the Chipp Inn we talked about the City. Chicago as a presence rather than a location or destination. We talked about how the Chipp Inn felt like home (and no, we're not alcoholics). It has an unassuming quality that makes you feel like you can go there any evening and have a great time. The windows that line the joint overlook our little neighborhood and the people who are there seem to never leave (now THEY might be alcoholics).

Which led me to think about Chicago as a whole. I feel as though living in this city is like a love affair. It makes me nervous, it's constantly changing and yet there are certain places in this love affair where I've never felt more comfortable.

Its as though after I'm done fighting through rush hour traffic on the subway or bus I can come home to my little piece of this affair and wrap up with my partner in our little cocoon and all is right with the world. Our flannel sheets are like little arms that swaddle (yep, swaddle) away the difficulties of the day, the spiral staircase is like an indoor playground where nobody else can venture.

The love affair has its rough spots, the city and I tend to fight. I get angry at the other inhabitants as they are angered with me because there are so many of us that if the flow is disrupted, even going up the escalator, there's a mini-war. The cold, the unrelenting winds that sweep through downtown can be classified as one of my major battles. This relationship has taught me a whole new vocabulary that isn't fit for childrens or adults ears. The phrase "BALLS" has become a regular complaint between myself and this relationship.

While I know that this relationship won't last forever as I've got to grow and move on, I will always hold a special place in my heart for this city. And that little piece will be there "for-eeeeh-ver more."

almost march

2005-02-21T14:25:00.000-06:00

its the end of february in what has seemingly been an eternal winter. we have been buried by snow and the gray skies have not yet ceased. i'm looking forward to spring, i'm looking forward to things melting and transforming and coming back to life.

this past weekend was the first signs of melting. something i'd been carrying around in a cold and frosty heart was finally lit on fire and has now melted away from both my heart and my shoulders. a weight has been lifted, the sadness to follow.

i hope this internal spring carries into the outside world so that i may walk around town wearing t-shirts and flip flops, shopping for trinkets and gadgets all the while smiling at the fact that my italian ice is, like the icy heart of winter, melting.

uh gross

2005-02-18T16:59:00.000-06:00

i know that anything is possible in new york, if you can make it there you can make it anywhere and it is the city that never sleeps. blah blah blah. i love new york and i love all my dear dear friends who live there but i'm going to have to go ahead and say it, this is going one step too far.

"Excuse me, Mr.Keyes, could you please go back and explain exactly how Beowolf and Grendel were enemies?"

"Hold on Jimmy, I've got to put my leather genital bracelet with red studs on and think about that. Say, have you ever thought about going out to dinner with me sometime?"

"No Mr.Keyes, you're SIXTY FUCKING FIVE and wearing a 'genital bracelet.'"

"Oh now now Jimmy, don't be alarmed it's really very liberating to eat in the nude. I even have some earrings to go along with my bracelet. Yes, Yes, my dear friend Michael Jackson gave it to me for my birthday."

"Mr.Keyes, you are a dirty perv."

All I have to say is that I would never want to go to a restaurant where it was possible to see a retired English teachers dong while I order some lightly seared fois gras or even worse, a charcuterie taster.

that restaurant is totally, TOTALLY fired.

happy valentines day

2005-02-14T12:52:00.000-06:00

i just wanted everyone out there to know that bloodninja most likely wishes you a very happy valentines day.....and he wants to punch your mom in the face.

hugs and kissis and stay cute and sweet

p.s. i am NOT this "mommymelissa" person, thats some other perv who was graced with my name not that its all that uber-special. i mean its not like my name is vitruviusdanemarkthefourth and he was e-banging someone called "mommyvitruviusdanemarkthefourth" then that person would be a damn liar and a whore if they said it wasn't them.....e-fornicators

i need tah git rich, biatch

2005-02-11T23:34:00.000-06:00

today i redeemed my coupon for a spa day. i got it for christmas from my dood piece and goddamn if it wasn't the best thing i've done. i got an hour massage, a facial, a manicure, a pedicure and a haircut and "blowstyle" no you pervs, a hairstyle done by a blowdryer. whatever that means. i realized about halfway through my massage that one of the things that must drive people to be rich is these types of services. i was given herbal peppermint tea whenever i wanted, there was grapefruit water and trailmix (the good kind with salty raisins and m&ms in it) in the area where you were to wait for your "next service" and everyone knew my name. it was like fucking cheers without fat norm.

apres my spa day i met up with dood piece for dinner at Lovitt, a place i've been itching to go to since i saw their nicely color coordinated awning about a million moons ago. after a lovely dinner and byob atmosphere we headed to small bar, one of chicagos gems if you get there early enough. tanked i am and i am essentially writing this post to inform whomever may come across it that......

I'M IN THE MUH FUHN RUNNING FOR A SOUL COUGHING ROAD CASE PAINTED BY STEVE KEENE! i know soul coughing is rather passe but given my affinity for m.doughty and my penchant for all things eccentric in this world...if i do get this gem, its going to be my coffee table. that's right bitches, my muh fuhn coffee table, and 50 years from now my hopefully hip grandkids can take it on the antique roadshow and get loads of money for it.

eat it.

now here's skot (aka dood piece) with his commentary on the situation....

It's like we're having text sex right now, tag-teaming this blog like WHOA. Runnin' a train, if you will. Passe? If I get some Soul Coughing memorabilia, I'ma bust nuts. Please check out Lovitt if you get the chance; it's hot to death. And please check out my boo if you get the chance; HOTT LIXXCKSXX!!!!

on that note

"fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, YOU'RE COOL and fuck you...I'M OUT!"

eh

2005-02-08T10:33:00.000-06:00

i can't be fucked to actually think of anything to blog about today. but i will say that skot came home from the studio last nacht after recording with the tard and he smelled of beer, terts and fruit rollups. fuck, i wanna record an album, that sounds like fun!

oh yea, and i discovered the wonders of chicken wings this past weekend. them shits is GROOD!

shakin' tail feathers

2005-02-07T15:22:00.000-06:00

there are few moments in life when stretched so thin that something can bring me back to a plumper state. on my way from my wee abode i skipped from front door to front door an in effort to see if the mailman had brought me any good news on this dreary day in chicago. i opened my little silver box with our names on it and a great circular gift lept from its chilled metal box into my hands.

a cd from minen bester freunde! my heart screamed hooray and my brain was overcome with curiosity as to what would be included on that little metal disc in the little metal box. the skip from mail door to front door was far more pronounced on the way back to my wee abode. i tore open the shutters and threw up the sash of this little gem and have now downloaded it onto my new computard. its my background music du jour and no other cd has ever taken me from a state of asthmatic breathing to such a state of joy and light heartedness (is that juan word or dos?). a beautiful collection of songs riddled with harmonicas, sweet voices, a few "lads and lassehs" accents and a selection from the beach boys to take you to that oh so exalted state of "i'm really at the beach in the summer during the 50s and am waiting for my chocolate shake" imagination.

so thank you bester freunde, danke a million times over. eartha and i are going to continue to party in the magical homework land i'm stuck in. but we'll definitley have a good party, its hard to be overwhelmed with music like this in the speakers.

danke sinter clause.

also, i know it's been a while but i came across this photo and just figured i'd have to show the BIGGEST group of nerds on their trip to the beach. yea, the beach boys would totally TOTALLY think they were "squares" and never let them ride in their little G.T.O's......THAT'S YOU!

frankles

2005-02-04T11:41:00.000-06:00

i ventured out to the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio this morning for a tour. I headed far far far west on the green line and traversed many a socioeconomic path. once arriving in oak park (the suburb where ol' frankles decided to build most of his famous houses) i was greeted with one of the quaintest settings i've seen in real life. it was like my line of vision was taken straight out of some old magazine, a la norman rockwell only no wooden baseball bats and kids with converse all stars on. all the stores and restaurants were seemingly independantly owned and it just looked sweet. i figured since i was about 45 minutes early i could find some cute little coffee shop or deli to have some tea in before venturing off to my historic destination. as i strolled along pleasantly having reveries of what it would be like to come back to this wee little place in the summer sporting some flip flops and a day to spare i started to notice that NOTHING was open. NADA. i thought, how the shit do these people stay conscious in the morning if there's nowhere to get coffee or tea? they CLEARLY are awake as they're running for the train so how did they come to this state of consciousness because i was quickly losing mine.

i wandered around seemingly magical streets for about 15 minutes and couldn't find ONE store that was open.

bakery. closed.
deli. closed.
all restaurants. closed.

how the hell can a BAKERY be closed at 8 in the morning?! don't these people who live in places like this commonly refer to how life was in the "old country?" don't they wake up at like 4.30 in the morning because of some krakow ptsd about having to wake up and milk cows BEFORE the bullets started flying? aren't they used to living in communist concrete apartment buildings and having to share one shoe for an entire family? (that family was called das hoppers) and don't bakers have to stay up all night and make things for people to pick up for breakfast? uh hello, even that fat dood from the 80s woke up at the ass clack (yes, clack) of dawn and said "time to make the donuts."

my approximation of what goes down in the wee hours of the morning in oak park is that all these working people wake up, beat up their significant others because they can't seem to find their propane torch to light their crack rock so that they can stay conscious. oh, and they're also stressed out because they have to live with the fact that they "have to do this EVERY SINGLE DAY" and "I don't WANT to beat you but you HAVE to understand i NEED rock to make it." this is all of course in some eastern block language they've learned over the years....mainly swear words but enough to get by. the significant other then gets the secondhand smoke and goes on a punching binge in an act of "bitch i'ma keeeeel your ass if you hit me one more time" but is so whacked out that he/she simply runs around the late 19th century victorian house they've had to rehab 12 times in the past 3.6 months at 400 miles an hour flailing ones arms screaming "i'm punching the air and if you get in my way it's your own damn fault."

after the morning beating, worker parnter heads off to catch the green line downtown while home partner walks around the quaint little town square in circles REALLY quickly all the while muttering under his/her breath about how a baker should be open when the sun rises, because THAT'S how they did it in the old country. sluts.

quando?

2005-02-03T13:51:00.000-06:00

i could blog about the state of the union speech or the plane that crashed in chicago or the michael jackson case or a whole host of other newsworthy things but its winter and i'm being selfish (and i don't care about michael jackson).

i want to go to mexico. i mean, i REALLY want to go to mexico. not crappy cancun or any other over-populated "america south" resort destination. i want to go to mexico. like the yucatan peninsula or somewhere along the pacific where i can rent a house for 15 dollars a night and its right on the beach and i can walk to the local bar and get all borracha with friendly locals and go to the discotheque right down the street and dance until i feel like going back to the beach. i want to be able to go shopping and buy a custom-made dress for the sunshine for 10 bucks and eat freshly made tortillas and black beans with mounds of fresh limes all around. i want to get up and walk to the panaderia every morning and buy fresh bread and then stop by some cheese shop and get some sliced oaxaca and some fruits and bottles of water for breakfast and i want to carry it all in some poorly handwoven obscenley colored striped bag of some sort.

i don't want to be in chicago winter any longer. i need a break, i need like one or two weeks away from snow and darkness at 4.30pm and subways and el trains and the slow (note: not the short) bus and no flip flops to be worn on anyone who remotley resembles sanity.

i have this deep seated need to go to mexico, i've had it for about 2 months now and its gotten to the point where i've taken up listening to my ozo matley records rather frequently and have decided that their songs are like burritos. theres a ton of musical toppings all wrapped up into one song. in my favorite burrito there are about 4 different kinds of drums layered with some fresh horns and topped off with tropical overtones and some words strewn together that i understand about half of but like a japanese kid listening to hip hop, i know i like it.

por favor, vamos a mexico.

90% yo

2005-02-02T10:09:00.000-06:00

The legend of Groundhog Day is based on an old Scottish couplet: "If Candlemas Day is bright and clear, there'll be two winters in the year."

Every February 2, people gather at Gobbler's Knob, a wooded knoll just outside of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

The ceremony in Punxsutawney was held in secret until 1966, and only Phil's prediction was revealed to the public. Since then, Phil's fearless forecast has been a national media event.

The groundhog comes out of his electrically heated burrow, looks for his shadow and utters his prediction to a Groundhog Club representative in "groundhogese." The representative then translates the prediction for the general public.

um, ok so this biatch has an ELECTRICALLY HEATED burrow? uh duy, no wonder he thinks its frigging spring. he's a groundhog, not a rocket scientist. if i was a groundhog and my heater was set in my house to 70 i'd probably take my ass out for a springtime stroll too. but alas, i am a human with digits that control the weather inside my home and know that if i look out the window (which i'm sure mr.punxsutawney doesn't have) and see blizzard outside i know to not wear flip flops and that my frozen butt is going to be sitting inside for far more than 6 more weeks.

i do wonder what "groundhogese" sounds like though? you think they have street groundhogese or slightly latin groundhogese? whatever hoggi, chu don't know what chu talking about, its gonna be seeex more weeks of weenter ohkay?

uh-maze-ing

2005-02-01T15:25:00.000-06:00

if anyone wants to watch something truly amazing, czech this out. wow.

retro-nuevo

2005-01-31T08:55:00.000-06:00

as i was laid up for the greater part of this weekend in a ball due to horrific stomach problems, i chugged my aloe vera juice and pondered this question....

are sex and the city dvds the new cabbage patch doll? its like a new form of social stature for 20something women to have EVERY SINGLE SEASON on dvd. Like that girl in your kindergarten class who had 8 cabbage patch kids to rival your 1 or 2. bitch.

and

is EA Sports Madden 2005 the new micro machines or hot wheels? for some reason men in their 20 somethings are absolutley entranced by this video game. no comprende. i mean at least when playing with cars as a child you got make cool "vrrrrooooommmm" sounds, with this football game it seems as though all you do is listen to Puddle of Mud (which comes with the game, it does not nor ever will live in my house).

*note: this was the first cabbage patch doll i ever had. i got her at the cabbage patch in san francisco and took her home, the next day her arm fell off. i carried it around with one arm for a day before my mom made me take the stupid thing back.

pufflings

2005-01-29T16:26:00.000-06:00

i'm not talkin' about terts, i'm talkin' about this which is pretty much the most swat-a-tot thing i've read in a ril, ril long time clark.

in the heezy

2005-01-27T14:27:00.000-06:00

that's right motherfuckers! i FINALLY have internet up in my steez. no more going to skool to fight off stupid suburban princesses trying to make toile chairs and tuscan yellow happen in order to get my e-fix. no way jose. i can get straight dosed up in my own damn casa now b!

thats right, i took my g'ed up from the feet up ass out to tough girl ikea and hauled myself a 60 pound desk from flatbed carrier to my car and then hauled that biatch into my office, assembled it and i'm fuhn rockin' and rollin' all 17 inch flat screen style. i don't even curh.

i also bought a fuhn scando rocking chair from my dawg mike's store "uber modern" which deals only in vintage scandinavian furniture and got my fuhn designer discount on. BLAH!

ok, i'm sorry i've gotten the gangstah out and i'm happy to announce that this is my very first posting from my wee little home office off my new super sweet computard.

tis a grand day for this lasseh, a grand day

hail satan and sleet jesus

2005-01-26T10:48:00.000-06:00

this is what skot suggested be our band name during the winter blizzard last weekend. i thought it to be a step beyond genius.

only problem, sounds like it'd have to be a buttrock band.

in other news i've gotten the ok from my mentor to go ahead and make my 4 story restaurant scandanavian (mainly icelandic) themed.

it's going to be so sweet with peektures of ponies and pengiuns and a 2 million dollar budget (read: amazing installations and furniture)

ahhhhhh, let the next 6 months of design begin.......i need a name though. fooey.

i want summer

2005-01-25T13:09:00.000-06:00

i want summer for the following reasons:

*i would like to NOT have a protruding blister on my finger from removing 8 billion pounds of snow from around my auto-moto with a shovel

*i would like to wear pretty shoes again with heels

*i would like to wear pretty skirts and t-shirts again, its easier than pants and sweaters and socks and on and on and on

*if there is no snow on the ground i can walk faster to the bus stop so as not to miss my bus

*i could sit outside and have drinks

*no coats, scarves, mittens or other cold blocking accessories to bother with

*windows down

*it smells better when its warmer outside....except the day before trash day

*the sun has longer working hours, it doesn't hit quittin' time at 4.30 in the summer.

*beach, beeeatch

Jewel

2005-01-24T14:59:00.000-06:00

i've been pummelled to death by snow for the past 72 hours. my car is buried in a 3 foot snow bank never to return to its street prowess until the thermometer hits 45 again and i'm thinking i've become a blob for a brain.
on friday is when blizzarding commenced. skot and i couldn't be bothered to actually go anywhere b/c the snow was so deep that if you walked down the block, when you came back your footprints were gone. so we headed to none other than the chipp inn. ahh that lovely piece of neighborhood heaven. we had made plans to go out on a bigtime date the following night thinking the snow would eventually cease but alas, it was a 2 nights in a row at the chipp inn weekend. i began to think the snow was apocalyptic. we took a cab to a certain chain restaurant that shall remain nameless. we decided that heading to the middle of downtown in a blizzard and eating at a totally mediocre chain restaurant while having drinks there to boot would be hilarious, and it was. chipp inn parte deux.
the only thing that i really found mentally redeeming (in terms of using brain power) this weekend were the following things:

i've decided to name my future dog Allister. i wanted to call it dr.bologna but nicole tells me that would de-humanize it.....um, its a D O G. i like the name dr.bologna but i do agree that Allister would be much more regal.

skot and ryan had a gluttony contest on my couch yesterday. that was awesome. i made soft pretzels and they tried to see who could eat the most pretzel + beer combo in 5 minutes. i haven't laughed that hard at others discomfort in a long, long, long time.

c'est tout.

2005-01-21T11:32:00.000-06:00

oh yea and if you czech out this, you're sure to have a fantastic day. try and think of people you know who talk like this, it's pretty amazing. i heart it so hard.

don't drink and gamble

2005-01-21T09:59:00.000-06:00

i always knew there was a reason they give you free booze in vegas but i always thought i could "handle" myself when dropping money and expecting to get it back. turns out that i was totally wrong.

last night, after watching the oc of course, we had the sometimes weekly texas hold 'em tournament at our house. me and the doods and due to my binge drinking on wednesday night i decided a bottle of water would better suit me than a bottle of hobo juice and it turns out that staying sober helped me to win the ENTIRE pot.

that's right party peoples, this lasseh took the doods for all they had. thanks for the jamba juice for breakfast texas hold 'em tournament.

i am the champion, my friiiieeennddssss.

terts

2005-01-19T08:11:00.000-06:00

i have a very long and sordid past with terts, camel lights, camel reds, marlboro lights (for a low point in my life) and parliament lights. all lights. but last year about this time we parted ways. they weren't doing me any real good any longer and i knew that if i stayed with them forever they would kill me. so i dumped them, i'm not going to say we didn't have a few secret rendez-vous' in dark bars around chicago on cold wintery nights but for the most part they were out of my life.

i was doing really well. i was happy, i was going on dates with my senses again like taste and smell and good skin and things were splendid.

but alas, like the retchidly addictive lover terts are back in my life. we're not fully "going out" again but we've gone on a few dates as of late. its always at my weak points when i'm drunk that i'm enticed into the web of nicotene and i say to myself "well just this ONE tert" and it always winds up being around a 5 time rematch. I need to stop this, i need to get back in touch with my senses and dump tert again. it won't be as hard this time, i just have to stay away from his friend alcohol for a little bit then i should be fine.

and i promise myself i won't sneak off into the bathroom at the empty bottle again with another friend (who shall remain somewhat nameless) also battling this smelly lover and sneak one last smoky affair!

i will envision my self as this guy if i smoke.....and then i will burn the shirt he's wearing!

my brain is frozen, i apologize for the inconsistency

2005-01-18T10:27:00.000-06:00

and what a lovely weekend it was. i suffered through two horrific hangovers which were brought on by (obviously) heavy drinking but also loads of heavy funtimes to go along with it.

i have a huge crush on small bar now, although the food isn't nearly as good as other chica-go go bar fare, i have a huger crush on my new harold and kumar dvd and i have the hugest crush on the empty bottle (well today at least, normally we're silent friends). Last night played host to one of the more fun winter wonderland nachtens i've had in a while....well save this weekend.

We went out to go and see the tard (the narrator that is) play all the stuff that's going to be released on the new ep and it just so happened that this band the forms from NY opened for the wee lads. it was totally, totally bizzare. the dood, jackson, who is the bassist looks IDENTICAL to my dear friend jessah burton woghin except jackson is jessa if he (meaning mr. woghin) packed on 2 inches and 50 pounds. the drummer for the forms was captivating due to my new found obsession with napoleon dynomite. i didn't talk to the drummer at all but i just feel like, based upon his appearance and "steez" that he is VERY similar to mr.dynomite and for that he is flippin' awesome. dang.

also, last night was blessed with a surprise appearance by almost all of my most favorite people in chicago. i could go off on a list but alas i shan't and simply say that there were a flock of emperor penguins and i was graced with many a happy presence.

there are those few magical nights that life is blessed with on these horrible days of bitter cold and darkness (i mean literally, it was like 2 degrees last night) and this entire weekend was a string of them. if only i had a fireplace to snuggle up near once coming home from these magical times.....actually i'd probably just fall down in front of the fireplace drunk, open a bottle of wine and try to drink half of it while skot side-sipped beers and we both smoked 400 packs of terts while only lighting our hair on fire enough to burn half our scalps off and then laughing about how we looked like retarded poodles or something.

p.s. when you grow up, don't threaten to "kick people's asses." it shows very little class and reveals a whole host of lame insecurities and buried issues. some lady in new york has threatened to do this to mienen bester freund and it makes me think the agressor really just wanted to be a bad girl in the movie grease but didn't make the cut or something equally as lame.

everyday? really?

2005-01-14T10:12:00.000-06:00

i've made no secret of the fact that i'm scared to death to go back to work. its not because i'm some trustafarian or i'm lazy or i'd rather sit at home and watch re-runs of lame reality shows, its just that my last working experience was so hellacious that i think i'm still suffering from PTSD. its the little things that scare me like having to make my lunch to take to work to eat at my desk (again this could be the PTSD talking) and having to get up really early EVERY SINGLE DAY and bosses and clients and deadlines and blah blah blah. ok, maybe i'm being a huge baby about this whole thing but here, judge internet are my supporting arguments/exhibits/legal jargon i don't quite get:

Exhibit A: i boarded a south bound blue line train this morning in order to arrive at skool around 8.15, a normal travel time for an employed person. upon boarding what was to be my vessel i took one breath and realized that my specific car smelled like a human or animal of some sort had consumed 47 year old catfish, some purina blend dog chow, perhaps some old old old milk, a little bit of orange juice and rotting chinese food and then decided to fart and vomit the concauction all over the place. and i was stuck because i only had 2 stops to go and the train was moving rather slowly so i did the only thing i could think to save me and that was bury my face in my turtleneck and pray it wasn't foul smelling anthrax.

Exhibit B: early morning radio. we have our alarm set to radio because the blaring BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP that sounded similar to a crane being strangled was too much to bear. NOW, i get to wake up to come dick who probably weighs 300 pounds, has SEVERE adult acne and has never been laid because it would encroach upon his voice lessons and D&D battles.

Exhibit C: meetings. while i recall meetings being somewhat refreshing because it took me away from talking to morons who wanted to buy gas stations, i didn't like the actual "agenda" part of it, and i don't like not being able to drink. we had one meeting once that was for the women only of my craphole firm and the woman boss brought in like 7 bottles of wine and some snacks....that my friends is a sweet ass meeting. but the regular ones where some poor sap has to take minutes and then distribute them in an email make me want to just go ahead and talk to morons on the phone who want to buy gas stations.

so please job gods, hook a sistah up with something that will make me happy, rid me of my retchid ulcer PTSD from my prior stint in hell and please please please whatever you do......give me a boss who likes to have fun and not do "team building" ropes courses or other things of the like

p.s. please send the CTA some industrial strength cleanser for the blue line. thank you.

i'm going to fulfill my 400 pound destiny

2005-01-12T11:04:00.000-06:00

i am currently designing a 3 level super high end restaurant (which i am super excited about b/c that means i have to go to OTHER super high end restaurants and have cocktails for "research" purposes) as well as designing a 3 story historic building with a commercial space on the first floor, a two story condo on the second and part of the third floor and a mini-condo on the remainder of the third floor (which i am less stoked about b/c i like food, not mezzanine level libraries)

this will be sweet. i'm not sure how i'm going to occupy 12,000 square feet with restaurant stuff but i'm pretty sure there will be a sizeable bar area. ahhh, this is like heaven, i get to go on tours of my favorite restaurants, meet uber rich restauranteurs, go out to drink b/c i HAVE to not because i "want" to and its all in the name of getting a good job to ensure i am able to maintain this way of life for a very long time.

i'm such a drunken fatass inside a wee lassehs body which can sometimes compose herself when drunk (only sometimes though).

i have no other news at present. my problem is i think of things to blog about right as i'm about to fall asleep and like when stoned i SWEAR i'm going to remember once i regain consciousness and i never, ever do. no grood.

time to get a note pad....and a bedside table...and a computer that i didn't drop on our poured concrete floors

2005-01-11T13:35:00.000-06:00

so i'm all frustrated cos i'm in this stupid class where i have a whole bunch of friends but they're all being the cool kids and sitting in the back row and trying to entice ME to sit in the back row along with them but alas i KNOW that this teacher speaks really softly so if i do go and join my friends i won't be able to learn a damn thing. sigh, the problems with trying to succeed.

ghey.

so now i'm all discombobulated and feel like i'm back in frigging elementary or junior high school again when i would've just gone and sat with my friends b/c i didn't have to spend 80,000 of my own dollars back then.....the parental money tree paid for everything.

again, i echo the sentiment of being responsible is ghey.

in other worldy events i had a woman today at the bus stop tell me my cell phone was a bitch. yep, a bitch. i got to the bus stop a wee bit early (because due to problems on my el line i've committed to the bus for a while)and there was a woman there who had just emerged from the low-rent place across the street, seemed normal enough and told me that i had just missed a bus. that was the end of conversation but she just kept starting new totally retarded conversations with me which i had no interest in like the weather, how she was going to use her income tax return to buy a new car, how her friend at work had slipped on the ice and broken her knees and all these other random things i care very little about...and all the while she would finish all of her sentences with "oh-kay?" and she kept touching me on the arm.....this i did not like, i was very close to saying "look lady, quit touchin' my mother fuckin' arm or i'ma have to beat you about the face and neck with my bitch cell phone."

well, maybe not something THAT violent but along those lines.....

so, you got any bananas?

2005-01-10T13:46:00.000-06:00

well it's my first day of skool. yick. i walked myself to the bus, packed a sack of baby carrots for a snack and am totally petrified of what this semester is going to be like (the dean told me that i would want to kill myself, not a good sign).

so instead of dwelling on it i'm just simply avoiding it mentally, 100%. i'm filling my mind with happy thoughts and ponderous questions like:

why DID brad and jen break up? and do i REALLY care?

will my car make it out of the parking space its in if i need to go somewhere ever again until all the snow melts?

where the shit is lori?

can i go to marshall fields and only buy thank you cards?

when should i book my spa day that scottah claus got me for christmas?

i know, these are all super mentally challenged things to be thinking about but sometimes when avoiding a serious situation it's best to go with the superficial rather than philosophical.....

oh yea, and i keep thinking about a certain someone's comments about my driving this past weekend. as i was rolling down ashland totally in control of the situation as i have been driving for almost 10 years now i was informed that due to my driving style if i were to be "re-created in a stupid machine the ingredients would be a monkey and a candy cane."

ok.

to which i informed said stupid machine creator that if he/she were to be the product of a stupid machine he/she would be a bag of shit and some hawaiian ice. i don't know exactly what that means but it made sense at the time.

i was later given an impersonation of myself as this monkey cane candy thing and apparantley if i were this actual beast i would have crossed eyes, my right arm would constantly be up in the air and the only words i would know how to say were "so, you got any bananas?"

it ain't milk biatch, people don't say "got bananas?" this ain't no donkey kong society....

i'm off to class, but here's a picture to enjoy.....

FINALLY

2005-01-08T10:00:00.000-06:00

shit, i've been without internet for over a week now and i feel like a hunchback or some sort of desert tribal person who has suddenly been infected with smallpox and doesn't quite know what to do about it.

but alas, my vaccination has come and i am back on the internet. in my own defense i went to the coffee shop down the street from me with a super sweet y-fi (is that what you call it skot?) connection and got the piece of trash laptop connected and still when mozilla or internet explorer was double clicked upon i got that oh so lame message of "cannot find server"....well find this biatch cos now i'm on a REAL computer. yea trash laptop, sit in the corner and continue to be relatively worthless.

(i'm just kidding little dell, we's gone take you to the doctor and getchu all fixed up)

sooooooo, 2 weeks in texas and 4 days of driving (total, 2 days each way) and what did i learn? that i may be petrified of flying but it beats the hell out of driving for 2 days under a rain cloud the ENTIRE way. i never thought i would flip off the sky more than 100 times in one day but like the guiness book i broke the record. other than that i don't think that skot ever wants to spend that much time in a car with me again due to the fact that he finds out about secret obsessions from high school.....a la me popping in the ABBA greatest hits cd and knowing MOST of the words.

poor dood.

in my own defense though ABBA is pretty fuckin' rad. Four totally insane scandos who get together, all get married, all get divorced, get super rich and write songs about doods named Fernando and Dancing Queens who are below legal age in the united states and money, money, money and a whole host of other things i'm sure they had to be smoking crack (albeit scandinavian crack which most likely doesn't make you twitch n' itch it probably just makes you run around the may pole REALLY fast and you have tea with gnomes or something) to have come up with.

i need to get my brain back in blog mode, its just filled with a retchid hangover and now i must return to my dunkin' donuts coffee and tutor the youth of today.

a statistical christmas

2004-12-27T10:19:00.000-06:00

this christmas shouldn't have happened the way it did, rather this christmas eve shouldn't have happened the way it did....

i am in houston where the humidity flows like water in the ship channel and the heat will make you want to die, most of the time. this christmas eve though something very statistically off happened, h-town had a white christmas. that's right folks pure snow falling from the sky. magical yes? not so much.....we had to go over to my redneck families house for the annual christmas eve crappy gift exchange complete with bean dip, brisket, fritos, soda (every which kind they refer to as coke) and lots and lots of casseroles (PEUKEH)! i got my annual piece of crap gift, this year an empty bottle of dom with a candle holder which doubled as a cork and a non-scented candle to top my empty bottle of dom.

sweet.

after all the gloriousness to behold next to the oil refinieries we headed home to our little piece of non-environmentally toxic piece of h-town on the complete opposite side, in order to do so we had to roll out on the highway....its still snowing at this point. rollin' down beltway 8 at about 65 miles an hour my parents japanese luxury mobile starts to fishtail right as we came up on an overpass to see the sight of a 15 car pile up....we're still going 60 miles an hour at this point and can't stop fishtailing, somehow my father invokes the spirit of a dead race car driver and maneuvers around ALL the cars zig-ing and zag-ing while fishtailing at 60 miles an hour and we hit the cement (in houston they say see-ment..bunch of dumb rednecks) barrier and we hit right where i am sitting so i hear the car crumble and crunch and fear that my door may just fall off.

in an effort to keep all of us alive (unlike the other dumbasses in the pileup who got OUT of their car on an overpass that was ice to look at the damage) we decide to just look at it when we get home as the car is still moving...good thing

we get off the road of death and opt for a slower highway that only has ONE overpass....it was at this overpass that the statistics just got weirder and weirder. we went over the only overpass and some dood in an suv hits the retaining wall on the opposite side of the freeway and careens into OUR side of the highway, a little more invocation by my father and we missed the suv which slammed into the concrete barrier on our side and totaled itself by 2 inches.

at this point i'm thinking i may either, go into shock and suffer internal bleeding, throw up which i'm even more afraid to do b/c what happens if when i roll down the window the door which i think is annihilated falls off, or just pass out and hope my parents don't notice and freak out more.....

eventually we made it back to our little piece of h-town and the snow is still falling rapidly all around, my brother and i decided we should go sledding on the golf course and all these other wonderful reveries sprung.....we got to the driveway and i open my door hoping it doesn't just fall off....it seems as though NO DAMAGE was sustained, not even a fucking scratch man! i HEARD the car crumble and there's nothing, the wheels were a wee bit scraped but the actual AUTO MOTO was just as it had never been in a wreck....throw up feeling comes back.

get into the house and immediately my family (parents, brohamm and myself) each get our own bottle of hobo juice, we ain't fuckin' around with this one.....we all get drunk (myself and my brother much more so), nix the sledding cos then we'd have to actually walk and decide to go to midnight church, drunk.

if you've beaten the odds statistically about a billion to one twice in one night, i highly suggest your own bottle of hobo juice, if its christmas eve and you have to go to church while intoxicated, i suggest not doing this cos by the time you get through what is seemingly the longest string of carols you could've ever imagined and you take your communion and it makes you think you're going to barf....you begin to think the miracle of christmas is a bottle of water and a bed with fluffy pillows.

so i'm gonna have to give a shout out to santa and all the christmas miracles i called in this season and say thank you very very very very much.

home, an interesting place

2004-12-24T14:56:00.000-06:00

so here i sit at my parents house in h-town, which some people classify as going "home" for the holidays. I'm not so much a fan of this whole h-town being my "home." afterall, i never really lived here except for a 9 month stint in high school and one summer after freshman year of college. other than that my time here has been limited to holidays and weekends home from undergrad #1. i feel far more at home at our apaato in chica-go go or anywhere in austin. i suppose some of it has to do with a state of mind although i do appreciate the parking spaces a plenty and free food and booze and impending presents that h-town (more specifically kickin' it with the parentals) has to offer. oh yea, and its snowing here IN HOUSTON today so that's pretty sweet too.

so we made it "home" for the holidays and we didn't even have to go to an airport. we took the griswold way and drove down. let me put out a little word of advice....do NOT stop at a cracker barrel in southern illinois. its like the weight watchers anti-christ and the marlboro man teamed up and built a haven for their little minions. southern illinois houses the greatest amount of fat, unattractive, gray from smoking for 100 years people wearing those frightening christmas sweaters i have ever seen in my entire life. need more proof, our waitress volunteered to us for some reason i can't seem to remember that she didn't have a spleen. um, wtf?! first off why did you tell us you don't have a spleen and secondly don't you need a spleen to survive?

weirdos.

and little rock, arkansas isn't that crappy of a place. i will be the first uber cynic to admit that i didn't find it all that bad. it's nestled between a bunch of mini mountains and the people with accents thicker than molasses (yes i got that one from being in arkansas) are easy to identify and avoid and chuck took us to a lovely little poolhall/restaurant/bar thing. i didn't see any mullets, i didn't see any missing teeth, we're stopping there on the way back to see the bill clinton museum and i surely didn't see any brother and sister couples that i was aware of. so thumbs up to stopping in little rock on a road trip....i still wouldn't fly there for a tropical vacation though.

my brain is quickly turning to mush and i'm being beckoned to come and wrap christmas presents for my brother and his girlfriend whose laugh sounds all too similar to buttheads. being "home" is going to be interesting, especially for 5 more days......

Gratitude

2004-12-16T13:06:00.000-06:00

I am 2 hours away from finishing this semester. I have one more class to hand in my projects and take a small quiz on plumbing. As though I REALLY care about the ratio of 3 inch piping to slant in terms of waste. Um, not a plumber...don't care so much.

So as a finito to this most difficult of semesters I'd like to reach out and thank some people (in no specific nor alphabetic order):

Skot-You aren't the first domestic partner to dub a Harrington student "nazi" or "stalin" or "straight up crazy", trust me, my skool buddies experience the same thing when their "roommates" offer to help and then experience the shitstorm that is obsessive compulsive perfectionist. Thanks for buying cds to help me make it through the exacto blues.

AutoCAD-Thank you for making perspectives easy easy easy to do but you can eat a dick for crashing every 5 seconds.

Lori-We have no more classes together, sigh. But thanks for all the grumble cakes along the way and I'm sure we could take el Senor de History of Interiors and Architecture....that is unless he started talking then instead of us beating him with fists he would beat us with a monotone voice and boredom. AND DON'T YELL YOUR PRESENTATIONS LIKE THAT GIRL IN OUR ID CLASS.

Shit and Fuck-Oh you two beautiful words of the English language. I wouldn't have made it through anything without you and your magical exaltation oh so frequently.

The Student Accounts Office-Oh wait, nevermind, you totally fucking suck...bunch of shitbags.

Pantone Markers-Why the fuck are you 4 dollars a piece? And why is it so AWESOME to have like 400 of you with which to layer and create magical colors?

The El-Thank you for getting me to class on time and providing hours of entertainment trying to carry 4 3'x4' boards at rush hour. I like getting dirty looks, really.

and last but not least,

The Zip Disc-Amazing little bugger you are. I'm sorry to say that this was your last semester and Santa Gates will be coming to my house with a memory stick, or a USB or whatever they're called they're just super sweet. I'll remember you fondly.

I raise my glass and my chips and queso to this semester being over....ahhhh 2.5 weeks of nothing to do but travel and get presents. totally, totally sweet.

2004-12-14T11:54:00.000-06:00

but here's a little something i DO understand.

holy crap....puerto rican corgis...the website is called "corgis de san juan"

this dog could totally be the beast master en espanol

crock

2004-12-14T11:27:00.000-06:00

why is it that sometimes in an adult life you have to be "understanding"? i suppose its because if all the adults acted as though they were 4 years old and really told everyone how they felt about things it would be as though we lived in a world full of g.dub's.

although i think our president is a complete moron, i think i'd like to not be understanding for just one day. either that or i really need to go on vacation......perhaps the latter would be far more constructive and "adult"

re-blog

2004-12-13T09:55:00.000-06:00

ok, i have to re-blog about the state of the christmas ornament contest. all the aforementioned people are still in the lead but we have received a new submission that seems to be on par with former years champions.

the new submission was from dave and lisa and it is a decoupage of lisa in a former life hugging a toilet and surrounded by empty bottles of what seems to have been a clear liquid. around it says "merry fuckin' christmas" with a guest check from a restaurant on the back stating who the well wishing is from.

pretty

sweet.

now i'm off to learn more about how to quick time memorize for a final i have in 1.25 hours which i have not studied one ioda for. whatever man, its cool. i get presents soon.

oh yea! and i have one more question. upon BEGGING skot (and attempting to bully it out of him) i have gotten one clue about my christmas present....its a breed of dog but its not an actual dog. hmmmmmmm. given that i only know like 4 types of dogs it makes it a bit of a limiting hint. lets see....corgi, weiner dog, french bulldog, pugg, golden retriever, lab....AH HA he got me dexters lab on dvd! either that or i should look to the jack russell terrier and assume he got me jack....

skittish

2004-12-11T13:29:00.000-06:00

its quite rare that i wake up early and have no problem with it. for some reason today that was just the case. its a saturday and i have tons to do, i hit up skool for some printouts that wouldn't work so now i must do the drawings by hand and honestly it doesn't bother me, i have reached zen with my work load and i embrace it.

i reach this zen-like state quite frequently but i don't really see it as zen, i just see it as ultimate repression and denial and i'm totally fine with it. either that or i just have a horrible problem with day dreaming. kind of to the point that i miss my bus/subway stop alot and i can go for a run and not remember at least half of it because i think i go a little unconscious. who wants to ride in my car?

today as i was driving to tutor my 13 year old pupil (what a stern word pupil is) i was listening to a cd that should most definitly be resurrected from your vaults and if you don't have it, you should buy it. i had a little M.Doughty, "Skittish" rockin'. well, not so much rockin' as transfixing in an acoustic-folk way with his nerdy soul coughing yet gruff voice chiming in. this album is truly amazing, truly truly truly amazing. not only are there songs that make you go hmmm, he also does a cover of "Real Love." Imagine mr.super nerd singing "real love, i'm searching for a real love...someone to set my heart free" in a folk manner. que fantastico.

I'm kind of into these albums that take me back to a very specific time in nostalgia these days. Albums that take me to a place in nostalgia where i feel like a different person. its very strange to me that the inner core and personality of a person can remain quite constant over the period of thier lives but little tweaks here and there can change ones perception of your own self so drastically. Par example, i used to like camping and due to a string of unfortunate interactions with mother nature and some of her hissing creatures i now hate it, a lot. yet i still enjoy going into outdoor stores like REI and patagonia and LOOKING at the camping stuff. maybe some day i'll just cave and buy one of those Naegle water bottles that all the hippies have and that could be my gateway drug back into enjoying the great outdoors? (don't worry i will NEVER be a smelly hippie...ever) either that or somebody should just take me to Iceland....please and thank you

how do you spell relief?

2004-12-09T13:19:00.000-06:00

NEXT THURSDAY
thats how. either that or DEATH. i know its really self-centered to blog about my obscene amount of stress but its my release so just go with it. i'm so fucked in school right now i can really not see. i've had a nightmare everynight for the past 8 days and some of them have been as follows;

*my house was being robbed by isaac brachs and he was going to burn it with me inside of it but i told him no because my house wasn't "up to means of egress code for the city of chicago" and he spared the flames, but stole my entire semesters worth of projects.

*i went back to high school with prairie and jenny and our school was being remodeled and they came to me in my homeroom class and told me that i would have to draw all the electrical plans for the new layout....but they didn't have a basic blueprint of the construction documents so i had to measure the entire school and do the construction documents as well

*simon (the dog) came to my house and ate my christmas tree and then my professor came by and told me that he (simon) was the wrong color for the floor and that i needed to go out and buy a new dog.

ugh, i don't deal well with stress, my brain does ok i suppose because it represses everything but my body takes the brunt of it. my stomach is about to turn into one ginormous knot as its already composed of 405 which may very well just go ahead and morph into what will be known as ulcerus gigantus. i can't drink any hobo juice to alleviate some of the stress b/c my stupid ulcerus gigantus won't party with hobos these days and my brain is so overloaded that i feel like my eyes are floating somewhere and that my vision is so skewed i may just walk into a moving vehicle on my way home from the subway or bus.....whichever i can guide my drooling self to with the most amount of ease.

and the best part.....3 glorious weeks of being poor and visiting my parents so that they'll take pity on me and buy me a haircut (since in my stress i smoked some terts last night and while on the phone trying to light it off the stove i SINGED my bangs and one eyebrow so i look like a complete moron) and some mexican food and maybe some new running shoes. aaaaaahhhhh the reveries of having absolutley nothing to do for three whole weeks.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. i'm gonna change my latitude next thursday, and i'm gonna change it hard.

i promise no more drugs after this

2004-12-08T08:38:00.000-06:00

last night after many many many questions directed to my domestic partner about why it was that all the presents under the tannenbaum had been donated by MOI and where some pour moi might be i was given this answer;

"once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a dark alley next to a dumpster. her name was melissa and she used to be very successful and well liked until she started doing drugs. her drug of choice was christmas and her dealer was dude named santa claus. at first her addiction was minimal, once or twice a year but eventually she became so hooked on this type of crack that her teeth fell out and she spent all her student loan money on it. she lost her house, her boyfriend, her fake pucci dress and her tannenbaum. so let this be a lesson to all of you out there, stay away from christmas and if you run into a dealer named santa keep in mind he's just BAD NEWS."

sweet. i still wanna know where my fixes are though.....

me and mother nature is gonna have a cage match

2004-12-07T13:03:00.000-06:00

i could REALLY use that secret benefactor right about now. ok dude or chick, come out of the financial woodwork and bail me out please!

oh yea and when mr. or ms. secret benefactor comes out of hiding could you please take a crowbar with you and take out mother nature at the knees. it's been torrentially raining all morning and its been in the 50's all week. um what the fuck mother nature, is this some shitty tropical/global warming joke you're trying to play on my christkindl time of year? if i wanted to live in a place with rain three times a week and no need to wear a jacket i would've stayed in texas. i know i'm going to eat these words once february rolls around and my fingers and toes are on the brink of turning "mountain climber black" with frostbite but it ain't that exciting to ride the holiday train when you're squished between other folks with umbrellas and messed up wet hair.

sigh, i guess i can just pretend that i live in seattle and begin to drink only coffee and unwrap the "Singles" dvd i bought for myself, wrapped and put under the tree so that it seemed as though there were more presents. what else could i do? i'm not going to start wearing flannel, i'm not going to get any more pale than i already am (lest i be totally see through), and i'm certainly not going to go to a starbucks......maybe i'll pick up a lisp and a pound of salmon?

are my ears pointy?

2004-12-06T13:11:00.000-06:00

fa la la la la, this past weekend was the annual funhouse family christmas, and a party it was indeed. it happens every year, the same celebration with lots of people and lots of booze and lots of food. i think this year has topped all others though. we had more food than i've ever seen (yes, i will admit i DID go to the grocery store at 10 on friday night with james and skot TOTALLY wasted and buy a 25 pound turkey) and more booze than i imagined possible.

to put the booze in perspective, i went out and bought 14 bottles of wine before the party, i would say somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 people filtered through and EVERYONE was wasted and i still have 12 bottles of booze. it seems as though every person brought two bottles of something (most champagne) and everyone just consumed. the eggnogg (which was equivalent to 2 bottles of brandy) was gone halfway through the night, and yea.....the last guest left at noon yesterday. most everyone else left around 4.30ish.

and the ornaments gathered this year were FAR superior to previous years. i spent a good majority of last night just looking around my tannenbaum at all the new deocrations. we haven't quite picked a winner for best ornament yet but the front runners and their creations are as follows;

Lori...voodoo doll complete with pins and a pretty ribbon (and she bought me a dancing santa that RAPS, he's a hip hop dancing santa complete with hat cocked to the side that says "S.C")

Dirk...handmade wooden ornament composed of love birds and a heart

Jon....neat-o critters drawn with a bic pen, very nightmare before christmas-y

Scott Comeau....santa disco boots

Nate....a blinking light ornament with a picture of santa upside down that reads "without jesus, santa's stuck"

and

Lauren....her pikachu comme antlers and necklace out of pipe cleaners was pretty damn cute too

ahhhhh the euphoria i derive from celebrating the holidays is endless, endless until i wake up on sunday morning thinking that i've taken ecstacy and that it is not manifesting in "good feelings" rather its manifesting itself in a "rolling hangover". my hangover went as follows; migrane, extreme nausea, detached from body feeling, repeat. and the worst part was that i had to write a frigging six page analysis on hagia sophia. i shouldn't complain, its done and it was relatively painless but there's something to be said for having a horrible hangover and just sitting around all day and enjoying being brain dead. although i don't particularly like to be in pain, i do like the excuse a retchid hangover gives me to indulge in being 100% lazy. like that charachter on mr.show, the lazy kid. on the satanic network. i heart that show and i definitley think skot's new solo project, "hail satan, sleet jesus" could be the house band.

so i extend my thanks and love to the funhouse family christmas gods, the party was fantastic, the time went by like i was at the chipp inn and we didn't have to take anybody to the hospital this year.

is it kidnapping if you consent?

2004-12-03T08:23:00.000-06:00

i woke up quite early and on the side of the bed opposite of good. it seems as though this dissipation of a friendship is really rubbing me quite poorly. i think its because the two "board members" being dismissed don't know they're being dismissed and think everything to be fine.

BUT

there's a saving grace to my morning mood every single day. and it just so happens that this morning it came in the form of a vanity plate, a sworn enemy of mine, but this one was great, it just said "donut".

i think donut put me on a roll (eeew, pardon the pun)once i got to skool 2 girls who i've only seen in the elevator who also seem like people i would like based upon their outside appearance (i know it's totally lame but they have sweet clothes) came up to me and one said to the other "see, i told you she went to our school." at this point i was just trying to get my strawberries wild breakfast down and i suppose i looked at them quite puzzled and it was then explained to me that they were driving down milwaukee ave. and saw me walking to the subway and one said to the other that they should stop and pick me up and drive me to skool but apparantley the other was a little gunshy. not to be a paranoid freak but if they would've stopped i probably wouldn't have gotten in the car....its morning and i could very well hallucinate people in the morning. but alas they vowed to pick me up the next time they saw me and i will most certainly oblige.

oh yea and my house is going to be filled with turkey and chex mix smells tomorrow as the annual funhouse family christmas is to take place and the apaato will be filled with wonderful food (thanks james for making a turkey dood), wonderful booze, many friends and my 8 foot tannenbaum......all will be right with the world.

can i get a patent on my re-invention?

2004-12-02T11:56:00.000-06:00

i'm tired of being mad, of being so stressed out i think i may be the first 26 year old to voluntarily go into an old folks home named "sunshine city" or something equally as cheery and relaxing, i'm tired of having dreams that the professor i hate the most stole my christmas tree and told me in order to have it back i have to "design a way out" when all i want is my tannenbaum back and mostly i'm tired of not having time to do things that will make me less stressed and less angry.

i can't wait until stupid finals are over. my "to do" list is so long and so itemized that when i look at it, i feel like i'm having an asthma attack.

grumble cakes.

the bright side of all of this (other than sunshine city on the horizon) that i have a sick love of finals week, not of the stress but of the actual week where its like with every project submission and exam its one step closer to total relaxation and that oh so important night of getting so shitfaced that you could care less about anything in the world but sweet, sweet hobo juice and the fact that when you wake up the next day you won't have a wee thing to do for 14 whole glorious days. it is in those days that i run an obscene amount, watch the food network, read books that have been piled up in a que accumulating dust, have lunch with friends from school who are also enjoying their 14 days of splendor, go to high end shops and dream about how i can buy the things i want when i finally get a job again, sleep late, make gourmet meals for dinner, and basically look at the world in a beautiful shade of "i don't have to do a damn thing."

and about the anger thing, i'm sure i'll get over it, being able to run many many miles to work it out would help but alas, i have many miles of mouse movement on the computer in order to get all these horrific construction documents done.

i suppose this is what my dad meant when he said "there's a lot of stress involved in re-inventing yourself."

funny,i never heard walt whitman bitching about how he had to poop in the woods....maybe when i'm done with skool and have a job again and monies with which to visit my freunds and buy myself polka-dot socks i'll write a book and instead of having walden pond, i'll have the "mirrored high rise of re-invention" be my locale.

a memo to shareholders

2004-12-01T07:45:00.000-06:00

MEMO:

To all stockholders in the Melissa Corp, we have a little announcement that we need to share before getting on with normal business. Unfortunately it has come to the presidents attention that two of the members of the board have done things so detrimental to the company that we're going to have to let them go. It really won't effect the normal goings on of Melissa Corp so the other board members need not be worried. In fact, the two members being dismissed rarely attend meetings so it won't be known to them until the next meeting they choose to attend where they will simply be greeted by security guards and asked to leave the premises.

END MEMO.

riled brain death

2004-11-30T11:08:00.000-06:00

i'm totally braindead today. totally. stupid fucking chipp inn. oh yea, and the dog ate my ice cream mitten.....my lovely little neopolitan looking mittens are now maimed by a black lab that looked similar to eschel (maybe all black labs look similar but not all black labs can do the twist like eschkers).

i'm going to continue on with my day, try not to puke, contemplate having a jamba juice for lunch and wish that i didn't have to be at skool today doing all this work for finals. i'm going to float upon the thought that i could be at home with my tannenbaum in a plush bathrobe drinking orange juice and watching a movie.

stupid chipp inn, it is now the "did me inn".

santa, czech your list, i didn't ask for no spare tire

2004-11-29T11:11:00.000-06:00

so this past weekend was a wonderful juan at that. i love the holidays, i love the holidays in an almost psychotic manner.

after drinking ourselves into comas at a sushi restaurant and subsequently "barfing kelp" skot and i awoke to the worst hangovers i can think of on thanksgiving morning. we skipped our scheduled 5 mile run (sorry turkey trotters, didn't think you'd enjoy frozen barf.....which is actually how skot and i became friends, hmmmm) and headed over to my opera singer friends house right on state st and monroe to watch the parade from their 9th floor window. unfortunately santa gets up far earlier than booze hounds so after emerging from the christkindl market with a "frohe weinachten" gingerbread heart for the opera singers tree we caught the tail end of a sad reindeer (ok a donkey with antlers) and santa. a lovely brunch followed filled with homemade scones and fresh tomatoes, opera singer though had to go to work so we headed home....still suffering from retchid hangovers.

the weekend was still on the up and up however, we shared drinks at one of our favorite watering holes with friends on thanksgiving nachten and the day after a major life revelation came from a very, very, very distant cousin (nicoles great, great, great, great, great grandfather was Robert E. Lee who just so happens to have been my great (x5) uncle). She and her hub-band were over for dinner and afer a long spat of drinking she proclaimed

"I think I'm just going to drink myself into obesity."

I think a little part of my world was turned on its axis. so THATS why my healthy eating and working out 6 times a week isn't keeping the pounds at bay.

I instantly re-thought my christmas list.

I don't quite recall asking santa for back fat for christmas but somehow it has arrived before he's even sqeezed on cheek of his fat butt down my chimney. well, i blame santa and i blame hobo juice. i'm re-writing my christmas list today, right now.

origninally i had asked for a new computer, some slippers, records and a spa day. now i'm going to demand that mr.postman put a tracking number on my letter and send that shit back to the sender, i've got some editing to do. my new letter is as follows;

Dear Santa,

I have been relatively good this year, i haven't hit any cars and driven away, i've gotten good grades and i am truly thankful for everything i have....except back fat (but i can adjust if it'll get me back on the "nice" list).

For christmas i would like;

a personal chef
a personal trainer
new running shoes
new taste buds that create horrible allergic reactions when faced with fatty foods
8 minute abs
a bionic metabolism that can crush the aforementioned taste buds and allow me to eat whatever i want whenever i want and still be as fit as ummmmmm, heidi klum...and please let this metabolism anihilate any weight gain caused by alcohol abuse

and last but not least, a secondary liver to get me through the holidays

love
Melissa

p.s. i'll leave out CHEESE if you bring me all those things
and i want a persian kitten like bill's too please and thank you

Inspiration point

2004-11-24T14:10:00.000-06:00

i was going to blog today about how much i love bjork and how i wish i was her so that i could have razell beat box on my album. or about how i'm a huge moron when it comes to chicago city streets but instead i czeched out katos blogspot and was touched and inspired so here goes my letter to the thankful fairy.

Dear Edna (that's my name for her)
I would like to give thanks this year for many things. I would like to thank you for the kato and all the respect and love we have for each other, i couldn't ask for a better bester fruend. i would also like to thank you for skot, he's the one "who never lets me down, he gave me back my crown" and i do adore him for thinking he's the most hilarious person he knows....its really amusing. i am thankful for the christkindlmarket and gluvine, queso, emperor penguins, sushi wabi, nicole and her proximity to fun at all times, jillicious, qwan and his aiding and abetting many a sociological crime with the OC, persian kit-tees, scandinavian design and the magic of the first snowfall.

i would also like to send a thankful shout out to lori for swapping homework with me when skills necessitate, wine, mr.pizza and uzi, my anti-Cincinnati posse, sugar cohen who adores the term "cody" as much as me and christmas trees.

much love, mad propahs, muchas gracias, merci beaucoup, krumpin' and danke sinter clause...
M

the freaks come out in fall

2004-11-23T10:44:00.000-06:00

wow. its only 10.45 and i've already seen my share of crazy for the month. it all started this morning.......

i woke up annoyingly early and decided to skip the workout till later and get started on my 4,000 things i need to do by thursday. i headed out to the magic spot to get my day started right. the one by my house is REALLY weird. the ladies (especially geita) are all jerks and theres always a bum begging for money outside. today i was feeling especially generous and decided to give the bum a dollar on my way out.....HE WOULDN'T TAKE IT. um, ok that's the most extreme experience i've had with trying to be a friendly facist.

then

as i'm driving home from shipping a package to sugar land for the holidays i see a normal yuppie looking dude running down milwaukee and he's a wee bit too sweaty for the weather, upon further inspection i notice he's juggling. JUGGLING! three balls, like a clown whilst running. ok.

next

i'm driving over to another neighborhood to catch the brown line and i see a bum steal a garbage can, wheel it down the middle of a main road while wheeling a bike in his other hand and then leave the bike and start attempting to "ride" the stolen garbage can all the while laughing hysterically. he wins crazy #1 today.

and finally

i'm on the brown line approaching my stop of washington and wells when a normal looking man sitting next to me just says "jackson, closer to washington and wells or quincy" i let him know that i'm not quite sure and he follows it up with "its quincy" so i'm thinking ok well then why the fuck did you ask me crazy and he then says something about being presidential to which i respond "madison is one block south of washington" and he says "then its monroe, i have to walk 4 blocks" a humurous reply of "well at least you'll get some exercise" was offered by me and then he started laughing HYSTERICALLY like i was funnier than sinbad and pot combined.

i'm done with the crazies for today.

D O N E

but i do want a san joaquin kit fox ril, ril hard. and i want one for the kato too so we can buy them pretty collars and take them to tea. and no, its just a reverie the crazies haven't seeped in.

ohio, poo-keh

2004-11-22T11:39:00.000-06:00

so i officially hate this place. i'm going to start a campaign against it, i'm going to call my government officials and tell them to just level the city, murder the city planner and start over. who the fuck builds a city out of CIRCLES that lead nowhere but to kentucky and in that circular city they decide that they are too fucking cheap to put a street light....ANYWHERE so when you drive around lost for 2 hours at night your eyes begin to go crossed b/c the glare on their shitty streets is so bad from all the brake lights that you almost run into their river (which is most likely filled with other people from out of town who have killed themselves so they no longer have to drive around). oh yea, and its a lame city b/c they have streets like "turkey bottoms" (i shit you not) and an airport called "lunken airport" which i have officially re-named "blumpken airport".

F Jerry Springers homeland.....

although i hate the city itself i did have a lovely time this past weekend. i travelled to hell for a wedding that was like heaven. in high school there were 4 lassehs who were inseperable and it was one of those wee lassehs weddings. i picked up the other two at the airport here in chica-go go and we trekked across flat land and more flat land only armed with easy cheese, bananas, carmel corn and triscuts. prairie had flown overnight from honolulu and jenny from minneapolis...we were travellin'!

the weekend was filled with many a laugh and many more a drink (did you know that at carrabbas they don't have bottles of wine, they have PITCHERS! how dub-t awesome is that?) after our near suicide trek from chicago in which we got lost EVERY POSSIBLE WAY me and the lassehs put away 4 pitchers of wine, smoked some terts and all was right with the world for the next 48 hours.

katies wedding was phenomenal, and the reception was better. we danced with people we hadn't seen in over 10 years and it seemed like only an hour had passed since we last rendez-vous'ed, we drank like the bar was open and free (oh yea, it was) and we laughed like it was goin' out of style (which it kind of is with stupid botox).

and then it was time to head home, after prairie barfed (pololo in hawaiian) every 15 miles (it was a 500 mile trip) and we were back in chicago i realized that on both legs of the driving trip we didn't listen to the radio or cds...at all. we just talked the ENTIRE time. that struck me as pretty phenomenal. i don't think i've ever done that......and now that i have its going to be something that i strive for whenever i'm with good friends because thats kind of what makes the world go round, and food like queso.

it was great to see old friends and share nasty hangovers....but i'm happy to be back in chicago where i know how to get around, its a grid, and marshall fields is having a sale.

Nogo de Chao

2004-11-18T09:35:00.000-06:00

last night we headed to fogo de chao for ryans birthday party.

i think i should've gone to the hospital. if anyone has ever been there you know its the equivalent of a rich,fat americans buffet dream. it's probably 90,000 steps up from places like golden corral, old country buffet and the quintessential sizzler but goddamn if they don't have an OBSCENE (or obese) amount of food running through and around that place. there are about 50 gauchos running around with their sweet puffy pants and meat, meat and more meat. it's a fatkins or meatlovers dream. especially if they've say, been stranded on a ship out at sea for 6 months and haven't taken a shower or eaten.

being a non-meat eater for the most part myself i simply had the salad bar. and i still thought i was going to die. the salad bar was chock full of lettuce, all sorts of salads (meaning like grain and pasta not more lettuce) fresh and grilled veggies, a whole rivers worth of smoked salmon, bread and the best part.....UNLIMITED CHEESE! (i think thats where i got into the heart attack trouble).

suga pop, qwan and qwans girl all got the meat delight. ok, so is this not an inherantly american place if all you have to do to have 9 different types of grilled animals brought to you on a skewer is flip over a coaster? its like panchos with the flags only it costs 4,000 times more and they don't have sopapillas.

at one point in the meal suga pop was seeing spots in his eyes (read:his brain wasn't getting enough oxygen), qwan was FULL of meat (read more:when he put a piece in and tried to swallow it stopped someway in between esophogus and belly) and qwans girl had pulled her pencil skirt up to the point it became a mini-skirt. i just sat in semi-silent agony and think i saw my life flash before my eyes. i definitley thought that having an anyeurism was HIGHLY possible and informed my dinner companions of the proximity of northwestern hospital if i were to go down.

a word to the wise, fogo de chao is a NOGO de chao unless you enjoy near death experiences and waiters called jeff who look so stoned that they've transformed into lurch from the adams family and the only sign of life is the "livestrong" bracelet.

i ain't hatin' on the place, the food was awesome-o its just there's SO MUCH of it. maybe if you're not a total fatass inside like myself you could party there with jeff and the gauchos and not go home wondering if too much cheese and salt CAN actually kill you.