life may never be as sweet again

This is going to be a mish-mash post, because I've been gone ages and ages, a long long time in Intarweb Hours (in actuality, four days) and have much to catch up. First and foremost: Vote for Foxy! She's one of the finalists in the Stuff on My Cat first anniversary contest, and while she's probably not going to win, I'd feel better knowing she has more than, well, zero percent of the vote. Plus, my beautiful pretty kitty has been featured on a nationally reknown cat website! If only her party hat were a little larger... and if only another cat a few photos down hadn't had the same idea, only with Malibu. And you KNOW how I feel about Malibu. Ick. Anyway, the voting closes Tuesday night, so vote now!

Let's move on to bullets for the rest of it:

• Oh, dear. This breaks my heart. You were so, so cute in Empire Records, and I was one of five of us who watched Freakylinks. I swear, I'm generally pretty generous about body image--so what if a star puts on a few pounds? But see, you were really cute. And now... you're Paul Giamatti. Please, please, please, fix it.
• Did anyone catch Fountains of Wayne last weekend? I just watched my tape, and while I'm miffed they got short shrift (those credits started with 5 minutes left in the hour, and their "half" didn't begin till the 32-minute mark), the editing was pretty sharp. It's amazing how big they make those studio audiences look, when in actuality, they... aren't. My cable reception's not great, so maybe those of you blessed with digital cable can pick faces out of the shadows a little better, but it's really hard to see me--and I actually know where to look. Short of watching the show with you and pointing me out, you're not likely to notice. My national television debut will have to wait, I suppose.
• My face is really freaking sunburned. I can feel the basal cell carcinoma forming now, not to mention the additional wrinkles for which I've now laid the groundwork. I know better, I do, but after being cold and wet for much of the prior 36 hours, the Sunday afternoon sun just felt SO good... warm and dry... yeah. My nose is actually lightly blistered. I'm an idiot, and I know better. However...
• ...does having a sunburn make you more approachable? Because the guy at the airport gate in Albany tried to flirt with me, BOTH sets of old security men at the Dirksen building struck up conversations today, and some dude sitting next to me at Panera started talking to me about how healthy my salad looked. NOTHING has changed about me or my routine, so I can only assume that my sunburn makes me look less pale/withdrawn and more friendly or open (or, at the very least, "outdoorsy"). All I know is that in a couple days, when my nose (and scalp, oh god... I swear it's not dandruff, but it's gonna look like hell) starts peeling, I'm not gonna be so cute. Enjoy it now, fellas.

So, that about covers it, I suppose. Oh, yeah, and my little trip? Wonderful. Expect to hear more about Winterpills soon, a new musical find whose CD is currently en route to Ohio because it remained in my mother's purse after I left (*grumble*). I love the new location, for the most part, and it was great seeing my extended FRFF-family again. And, as predicted, the torrential rains, mud, and chilly late-night drizzle have already faded into memory, and all I can remember are the friends, the sunshine, and the songs drifting over the hillside and up into the atmosphere.

And oh, the stars. I'd forgotten how brightly they shine when you're not trapped within skyscrapers and asphalt. It's good to know they're still there, a reminder that there are things much, much greater than me out there. Puts all the little stuff into a bit of much-needed perspective.

keep it to yourself

I just saw a guy walking down the street listening to a CD player. Whoa, dude. Must be anachronism day, eh?

Anyway. What I'm really here to post about is a reminder of this:

Fountains of Wayne on PBS's SoundStage this Thursday, July 20!
If you're in the Chicago area, it's on at 9pm. If you're not, check the SoundStage website for your local listings, as it's nationally syndicated. And don't forget to look for an ecstatic redhead in the hoi polloi who, on Oct. 11, 2005, made a pilgrimage north to WTTW HQ to be a part of the LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE OMG and who has had to wait until now to see the final product of that evening.

And no, the All-American Rejects were not there that night. Yes, Fountains of Wayne taped enough songs to fill their very own hour-long broadcast. Yes, I'm disappointed that they don't get the whole hour to themselves. But hopefully we'll get something other than three different renditions of "Stacy's Mom" (which is how many times they ran through it in an attempt to get a clean take).

Oh, and FYI: I'm going to be out of town this weekend, so it might be quiet 'round these parts. I recommend getting outside and enjoying the weather, as this monstrous heat is supposed to break by Saturday (hooray!).

i'm just chasing time again

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh CI.

I finally got down to proverbial brass tacks today and started figuring out what firms I might want to bid on and where in the list I might want to rank them, and after a couple of hours it gave me the same damn headache that the editing portion of the journal competition did so many weeks ago. It's SO HARD to figure out--and honestly, when it comes down to it, I'm just going to get a random assortment anyway, so I shouldn't be stressing so much. But there are a couple firms I'm starting to discover that I'm really interested in, so I guess I rank those high and hope the rest of it sorts itself out?

I've actually ranked *a* firm, though. Hooray! One out of fifty bids used! I'm almost there!

Anyway, the other source of joy in my life, bidding for fall semester classes, goes live in, well, a matter of hours now that it's after midnight. Here, too, I'm unsure, because it seems like most of the classes I'm interested in don't fill up... but I'm not positive. And if I lowball all my bids, what exactly am I saving my points for in the spring? Gah. I don't think I'm doing the ITA (er, "Introduction to Trial Advocacy," for my non-law-school pals) package this fall, and that's probably where a lot of 2L points are headed... but I'm not sure if I either want to a) wait and do the package fall of '07, or b) abandon the package (and the extra stress, frustration, and 3.5 additional credits it provides) in favor of a DIY-ITA "package" cobbled together from its disparate parts.

The plus side: the Trial Ad class in the spring is taught by a judge! The neg side: if I'm seriously thinking about pursuing litigation, shouldn't I be sucking it up and taking the class that immerses you in it, hands-on (and that's rumored to be "such a good experience," though I've yet to come across anyone who actually liked it)?

eh. Forget it. It's late, I'm tired, and none of this really matters right now. Just musing out loud, or out-typed, or whatever. Hope your respective Sundays were filled with more delightful matters than these.

our aspirations are wrapped up in books

This will be short, as it's late and I need to get some rest for class tomorrow...

...but I just got my copy of Blindness in the mail today from Amazon Marketplace, and I need to get crackin' on reading it for our merry little summer book club. However, as I'm thumbing to the front to put a bookmark on the first page, I notice writing on the inside cover:

"12/24/2003

Tiffany--
This is the best book I've ever read.
I hope you enjoy it too.
Merry Christmas,
Karol"

And suddenly I feel like a trespasser in a book I haven't even started yet. Who are these two--how are they connected? Relatives? Friends? And does Karol know that the best book she's ever read, a personalized gift to Tiffany, is now on ^k^'s desk on a humid July night, when Christmas is so far away as to be almost a meaningless term?

More personally, did I know on December 24, 2003, on the eve of my flight to Las Vegas for a week, that a transaction was occuring somewhere else on the globe that would ultimately wind up putting this book in my hands?

I know Billy Collins said it better, and there are certainly no egg salad stains, but the binding on this book isn't even cracked. Did Tiffany bother to read it at all? Maybe Tiffany and Karol had a tremendous falling out on Boxing Day, or maybe--gasp!--Tiffany HERSELF went blind shortly after the commencement of 2004 and now has to get all of her literature through audiobook, or possibly Braille.

Poor Tiffany. Poor Karol.

But hey--thanks for the glowing review of the book. I'm looking forward to it.

we're still fighting it

In the "...are you serious? I just told you that, a moment ago" department:

Reuters has decided to release an article on "grups". Which is great, I guess, for the three people who didn't know about this phenomenon before and could possibly care, but COME ON. Stereogum had their indie yuppie contest back in April 2005, and even Newsweek--late to the party--ran an article about grups/indie yups last January. (I know this because I just threw said article away... today. Have I mentioned that I subscribe to too many magazines?)

Anyway, we got it. There are 30-40 somethings who used to be "Gen X" and are progressively middle-aging, but still love the music, fashion and lifestyle they enjoyed in the '90s. Great. Any future articles should be presented as sociological studies, NOT freaking "news." Sheesh.

And as long as I'm on a tear (*growls*), the "new" Spin magazine sucks.

Yeah, I'm a little behind the ball on this one (see above post about subscribing to too many magazines). I'd heard about the editorial overhaul, and I could see by the FLASHY GEE WHIZ bombast on the cover that things weren't quite the same. But hoo, boy, is it awful inside. A sex column? Do we need a sex column in a music magazine? And gone are the couple of in-depth music reviews in the back in favor of a "capsule" review style. Here, for instance, is Jon Dolan's capsule for the Twilight Singers' Powder Burns:

"Greg Dulli has 'a dick for a brain,' or so he once sang in his '90s band Afghan Whigs. And on the fourth offering from his Los Angeles crew the Twilight Singers, cocaine-cranked punk-rock R&B gives scary emotional power to similarly rakish soul-baring. When his drama-king croon hits its mark, only the cruel of heart could resist letting him have his day."

...wha?

No, seriously. If anyone can explain what that last sentence means, you deserve a cookie. A cocaine-cranked punk-rock R&B cookie, even. (But not you, Brad Renfro. I refuse to enable your addiction.) Hell, it's obvious the "dick for a brain" line is there purely for shock value, because, again, wha? Just shut up, Spin. I'm SO sorry my subscription doesn't run out till next April, but you can bet I won't be renewing. I already subscribe to one Blender (and that lost a lot of its luster once it stopped running its Monthly Crossword Contest, to be perfectly frank). I did just renew my subscription to Rolling Stone, but I have considerably more faith in that magazine. For one, it has miles more street cred, and its National Affairs articles are usually incredibly well-done. The 1,000th Issue Collector's Volume was pretty awesome, too. I think I'll let the other two music mags go, when their time comes. And Jane, you're not off the hook, either. I'm so sick of new editors breezing in and destroying a perfectly good magazine with their concept of "vision." Bah.

I suppose I should be reading more books, anyway. Or my little Time magazine, or whatever it's called.

hit me with those laser beams

Against my better judgment, I watched the World Series of Pop Culture again this evening.

I don't know if they commited the same promo gaffe as yesterday; I muted the tv and checked my email during the final commercial break. Fool me once, shame on, shame on you... you fool me, you can't get fooled again!!!11

*coff*

ANYhow, "Zoolander" was an answer tonight, which, yay (in response to a Star Couples question about which 2001 film has both Ben Stiller and his real-life wife Christine Taylor). I tend to pick a team to root for, just to keep things interesting, and Cheetarah has been my only pick thus far who's actually advanced, so go team! In the second matchup I was gunning for Sexual Chocolate because they were comprised of attorneys (gots to keep it in the profession, natch). But in the final round, the last-dude-standing on their team gave this horrendous sarcastic eye roll after he missed a Child Actor question about which star, in 2000, was arrested at age 18 for attempting to steal a boat--but had forgotten to untie it from the dock. The answer was Brad Renfro, and while I don't necessarily remember this particular anecdote, I know he's gotten into a bad way in the years since Tom and Huck (and I'll never forget the girl several rows behind us in the theater who whistled every time he came onscreen).

Anyway, my point--and I have one--is, DUDE. Come on. Don't act like Brad Renfro is so "out there" that nobody could've answered it. You're on a TRIVIA SHOW, for heaven's sake. You are SUPPOSED to know dumb stuff like this. If you don't, YOU look bad, not the question, not the announcer, not even poor, incarcerated, coke-addled Brad Renfro--YOU. So get off your high horse already. (Which, I suppose, you have, since you LOST. Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.)

Perhaps if this show gets me so annoyed I should refrain from watching future episodes...

In unrelated news, Cinnamon Honey Bunches of Oats might be my new favorite cereal (displacing previous fave Special K with Yogurt & Berries). Try a box from your friendly neighborhood grocer next time you stop in. It's better than Brad Renfro on coke! Or Sexual Chocolate!

he sings the songs that remind him of the better times

Ok, so I'm watching the first episode of the World Series of Pop Culture. And it's relatively amusing, though I'm not sure it's thrilling enough to keep my attention for many (or any?) future episodes. But you know what's dumb, VH1?

What's dumb is raising the suspense, saying "Will Laurie make a comeback and bring her team to victory? Stay tuned!" and then first thing on the commercial break, announce the next episode by saying "Velvet Rope Revolution and PDX 503 advance to the quarterfinals! Who will win?"

...which, in effect, means no, Laurie does not, in fact, make a comeback, and leaves me highly disinclined to watch the rest of your commercials (or the finale of the show). Idiots. I would write your PR department a strongly worded letter, but I don't think I can bring myself to care that strongly. *rolls eyes*

edited to add: holy craaaaaap the new sbemail is funny...

with just a cat and a book by her side

I've been looking at kittie porn again.

*sigh*

...by which I mean I hit images.google.com with a search for "birman cat," then gaze fondly at the results and wish fervently that I could have a Foxy-twin of my very own. My apartment allows cats (though I'd probably have to pay more in rent), but I'd just feel bad leaving an animal alone all day. TWO cats are better than one, so the little furry friend isn't by herself all the time, but that just makes the issue twice as complicated. Plus I don't know for sure whether I'll be in Chicago next summer, and vacations are harder when you have a pet, not to mention the fact that I've got a glorified studio and as much as I love the good parts of pet ownership (warmth, cuddling, companionship), I'm not sure I'm really ready for the bad (cat hair, clawed furniture, chewed plants, did I mention cat hair?).

But look at those pictures! Who doesn't love a Birman? With their denim-blue eyes and their cute little Zoolander expressions--it's like they were born doing Blue Steel. I fully intend on populating my dwelling with cats someday (and a Birman or two will assuredly be amongst them), but my crazy cat lady-ship will have to wait a few more years, unfortunately.

the sun still shines in the summertime

Lo, I have tasted Chicago, and it was good.

Precisely which tastes have I enjoyed at the Taste of Chicago this week?

• Chocolate-covered strawberry and mini chocolate frozen banana (after all, there's always money in the banana stand)


• Toasted ravioli with marinara sauce


• Vegetarian pav bhaji (cauliflower, peas, eggplant, tomatoes) with "bread" (hamburger bun, no joke)


• Flan


• Big-ass juicy sweet watermelon wedge x 2 (no upset tummy or anything! I can eat watermelon again! w0000t!)


• Jerk chicken with rice and beans


• A bite of a sweet potato biscuit


• Mango rice pudding with dried cranberries


• Frozen SoCo lime slurpee


• Potato pierogies with applesauce


• Grilled chopped lime chicken salad


• Rainbow ice cream (cherry vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, pistacio, orange sherbert)


• Eli's Cheesecake with strawberries

(What will I be doing all next week, and the week after, and the week after that? WORKING OUT, dear God.)

Anyway, I really, really wasn't at the Taste for the food, crazy as that sounds. I swear. Monday, it was for fireworks (and they were right overhead! and then we got to leave Grant Park with a million other people! that part kinda sucked!).

Tuesday, it was for Mike Doughty, who was really great--lotsa Haughty Melodic stuff. He's fantastic live, but I'd love to see him play for a longer set. These festival shows never keep the acts onstage long enough for my taste. (Oh, and he didn't play I Hear the Bells, the jerk.)

And today? I went for Fountains of Wayne and Liz Phair. And I got there at 1:45, and I got a "ticket" that gave me premier access to seating, and I was FRONT FREAKING ROW. Awesome awesome awesome. World Party was the first act--they were quite good, and I'm surprised I wasn't familiar with them. Mandolin/fiddle folk-pop, and the lead singer looked like a grayer, British version of friend Matt (is that really just saying that the guy looks like Tim Curry? hmm). FoW played a Welcome Interstate Managers-heavy set, which I guess is to be expected (Bought for a Song, Bright Future in Sales, Mexican Wine (yay, it's been in my head every time in the past week that I've thought about the concert), Stacy's Mom, Hackensack, Hey Julie). The self-titled debut had a strong showing, though (Radiation Vibe (yay yay yay), Leave the Biker, Sink to the Bottom). They played Maureen off of Out-of-State Plates, but only one freaking song off of my much-beloved Utopia Parkway, though it was the highly appropriate It Must Be Summer. (Guess if I want to hear Troubled Times, I need to stay home and fire up iTunes. *sigh*) Anyway, I've been wanting to see an honest-to-goodness real FoW show since the Soundstage taping last October, and now I can say that I have.

Oh, and you'll be reminded again, but Fountains of Wayne's PBS Soundstage performance will be on July 20. Check your local listings, as I believe it's nationally syndicated.

I stuck around for Liz Phair, and she was a surprisingly charismatic performer. Also, I'm bummed I never got around to importing Whip-Smart or Whitechocolatespaceegg into iTunes, because she played several songs off of each that I recognized (NOT Polyester Bride, though, which makes me sad, AND I can't stay home and fire up iTunes to hear it. *pouts*). She closed with the one-two punch of Why Can't I and Fuck and Run, the latter of which made for some amusing ASL by the signer onstage. I'd see her again in an instant, though--totally rocking, very laid back, and lots of fun.

Also, perhaps the best part of both Mike Doughty and the FoW/Liz Phair combo is that I wound up at the shows with friends of mine who really weren't coming along because they were fans of the acts, but who walked away from the shows suitably impressed/entertained. Maybe I of all people shouldn't be surprised when people have justified faith in my choice of music, but it's still nice for some positive reinforcement now and again.

Anyway. Time to fish around on TV for some late-nite Law & Order or X-Files reruns. That's right, fellas--it must be summer, because the days are so freaking long, especially when you fall asleep on your sofa watching cable...

everybody said to say 'hi'

I'm cultivating a lot of not-so-useful skills. Not only am I a first-rate spotter of Yalies on cable (per Supermarj), but I've also got my spidey music sense trained on cable commercials, as well. Project Runway Season 3 promos are employing Mellowdrone's "Oh My," which would be great exposure for them, I think, if anyone knew who it was. Likewise, Bleu's "Get Up" is enjoying second life in Chili's new promotion for individualized burger toppings. I need to get that song into iTunes so I can recreate 2003's Singles/B-sides in playlist form.

What can I say? It's a gift... and a curse.

hee.

might sound crazy but it ain't no lie

Interesting Wired article about the evolution of the "hit" and mass culture--and how, very possibly, N*Sync's record for top-selling album with No Strings Attached back in 2000 might never be broken. I personally think it's funny how just after the "diamond" album award was created (ten million records sold), the shifting sands of the music industry made it an impossible feat to reach. (Suckers!)

they said it was a weather balloon

So, I'm watching an old episode of X-Files on TNT. I'm not sure I've even seen any since it went off the air... but off the top of my head, here are a couple observations:

1) David Duchovny? SO hot.

2) Huge ancient cell phones? SO funny.

3) Mulder and Scully? SO GOOD TOGETHER.

Honestly. She was going off about some scientific REM-stage sleep disorder and he immediately countered with an illustrated history text describing succubi, and it's exactly the rapport that made this show so great. They're both intense but in complementary ways, and I really think I like the old episodes better, when the tension was there between them but before all the silly sap about her having his baby (right? I can barely remember now) and them ending up together, blah blah. It really was a terrific TV series, and one of the few that my mom loved passionately that didn't get cancelled right away (see Twin Peaks, Eerie Indiana, American Gothic, etc etc--she really did have the kiss of death there for awhile. It must have left her, though, or Hope and Faith wouldn't still be on the air).

Anyway. I've been known to dabble in sci-fi/fantasy/horror genre entertainment, and this series really hit all three (though I could have done with a little less conspiracy-theorizing from time to time). Maybe I'll stay up and watch the next episode coming on...

a verse, and a verse, and refrain

Hi, reader. Happy Independence Day.

Some of you out there already know why the Fourth of July is so important to me, but for the rest of you, a bit of background might be in order. Fifteen years ago today I had a pretty terrible bike accident that resulted in three broken limbs, including a fractured growth plate above my left knee that stopped growing. Ten years ago this summer, I had a corrective lengthening device placed on my left leg to try to regain some of my lost growth. It wasn’t entirely successful, so I’m still a little uneven. I compensate for it fairly well, though every now and again someone will ask me why I’m limping when the truth of the matter is that I didn’t even notice that I was. I wrote a really great message on the 10-year anniversary of my accident, and re-reading it, I can’t help but feel that the me of five years ago was a little more put together than the me of today.

To be fair, in July 2001 the tragedies of September 11 were still two months away—the biggest crises in my life were my lengthy German assignments for summer school class and spotty dial-up internet access in my sublet. I had Future Plans and Post-College Aspirations, but I still had plenty of time in which to sort things out. Heck, I wasn’t even 20 years old yet. Now, at not-quite-25, I have OCI bids to evaluate and rank, my entire future career to sort out (to some short-term extent, at least), and a procrastinatory streak a mile wide to fight in getting all of this done. My 19-year-old self was SO convinced that she could do absolutely anything she set her mind to. My 24-year-old self is not so persuaded, as some things (standardized test scores, assigned professors, forced grading curves) cannot be changed no matter how stubbornly committed you are. I’m a little more cynical, a little more pragmatic, a little less naïve about how the world works nowadays, and that’s sort of a shame, but it’s also inevitable with the passage of time, I suppose.

I do wish, though, for a little more freedom: freedom from self-doubt, from bad habits, from unpleasant people, from injustice. (Maybe I should’ve picked a different profession.)

I wish I had something more uplifting to say, folks. I’m really sorry about that. Maybe I’ll have regained some of my limitless optimism in five years’ time. Maybe I’ll be less worried about how the leg-length discrepancy will affect my aging process. Maybe I’ll be satisfied with how I spent my 20s and eager to turn 30. Maybe I’ll have found success in my job, or at the very least, I’ll have had more concrete work experience behind me to inform my future career plans.

Right now, though, I just feel… transitional. And that’s keeping me grounded. Someday soon, maybe I can take to the skies, like those beautiful fireworks over the lake last night.

Soon. Someday. Not yet. Not quite.

throwing stones in a wishing well

The blogs are all a-twitter today with Fourth of July playlists, so I'm staking my claim to mine now, subject to change, as I'm listening to it for the first time right now and if anything seems too out of place, I'm jettisoning it:

1. Aimee Mann - 4th of July
2. John Vanderslice - June July
3. Neko Case - Star Witness
4. Eddie from Ohio - Independence, Indiana
5. The Decemberists - July, July!
6. Andy Stochansky - Miss USA
7. 2 Skinnee J's - BBQ
8. The Tragically Hip - Fireworks
9. Counting Crows - American Girls
10. Oh No! Oh My! - BBQ
11. Paul and Storm - Ten-Fingered Johnny
12. Dan Bern - New American Language
13. John Vanderslice - Plymouth Rock
14. Moby - Fireworks
15. Elvis Costello - Indoor Fireworks
16. Moxy Fruvous - Independence Day
17. Eddie from Ohio - Fifth of July
18. Elliott Smith - Independence Day

But before I switched to my ID4 playlist (is it absurd that I still use that abbreviation for this holiday a decade after the damn film was released?), I was listening to Tarkio, even though I really really need to be listening to any of a dozen other new acquisitions. Seriously, how do the music bloggers keep up? I'm literally drowning in music right now... it would be easier if I could listen to music and read, but I can't. Anyway, I was talking about Tarkio (hellooo short attention span... oh, look, a bunny!): maybe Colin Meloy has performed some kind of magic spell on me to the point where I honestly believe he can do no wrong, but I'm totally smitten with this two-cd set of his early work with his college band. The Boy commented that it "definitely isn't the Decemberists," and that's true. It reminds me a lot of early R.E.M., honestly, with a similar kind of stripped-down rock sound. But that's just it--it does rock. Significantly, in parts. And that's distinctly different from the Decemberists (whom I love with every fiber of my being, who are my current favorite band because they're as wonderful live as they are on CD, and who are trying to prove me wrong about the "rocking" thing right now with "July, July!" coming up on my playlist, but NO--I'm talking about TARKIO, damnit), who have less of a raw sound even at their most upbeat. Other parts of the Tarkio catalog would be equally at home on stage at a folk festival, replete with banjo and violin. And though Colin's lyrics aren't quite as developed as they are in his later work, there's still a lot to love, particularly for those of us who value complex turns of phrase and imagery. Anyway, my point is mostly that I hope Colin continues to make music for a long time because I find everything he's done to date utterly captivating, and unlike some of my other very very favorite artists who are either (all-but) defunct, aging themselves into pseudo-irrelevance, or just not inspiring in me the kind of passion they once did, I get the sense that this could be the beginning of a thoroughly beautiful musical relationship between him and yours truly.

At any rate, here's a funny story from The Boy, who is currently trying to find cool places to study for his exam tomorrow. And by "cool" I mean not hip, but literally chilled, as the Brits are air conditioning-phobic and his dorm room's a sauna: he went to Starbucks for an iced beverage to cool off and was prepared to pay the equivalent of $9 for a frappuccino but was told, "We are not serving cold drinks because it is too hot for ice." Too hot for ice! I am baffled, but I'm also feeling morally superior, as I sip my own grande nonfat iced mocha with just a touch of whip. Mmm. We Americans might not be culturally perfect, but at least we understand the value of a cool beverage on a hot day.

Happy almost-Fourth. Oh, and check back tomorrow--it's a big day.

we eat and drink

hahahaha, you guys. Thanks for the chuckles. My turn to return the favor:

Pres. Bush covering "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

Happy holiday weekend, everyone!

make me laugh

I could use some cheering up. So post something funny! Here, I'll go first:

Two men walk into a bar.
The third ducks.

*jazz hands*

Now, your turn.

kitten break

because we haven't had one in awhile. and because, lying across my bed, reading a book, I miss having a warm fuzzy darling sweet kitty around.

I see you jockin' me

Though I'm bummed Ljungberg was eliminated from the World Cup with Sweden's loss to Germany the other day, I'm pleased as punch that England is still alive. Hopefully Carrick can avoid smiting and burnination this time around.

with auburn hair and tawny eyes

So, weird: I saw a flock of seagulls tonight.

No, wait--that's A Flock of Seagulls.

Yes, seriously. No, I didn't know I'd be seeing them before I headed out for the evening. And truthfully? When a band's a one-hit wonder (whose back catalog you don't celebrate), you're just waiting for them to play the song you know. Which they did, thank heavens, or I'd've ran, ran so far away, I'd just ran, ran both night and day... anyway.

I find it prescient that IDLYITW embedded the "I Ran" video in Monday's link roundup. Will I accidentally see Blondie next week? Or will it be Morris Day and the Time instead? (Perhaps if I rent Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, I could make that last one happen for myself...)

doing well versus not doing well, whatever that means

So, it's time for me to gripe. Haven't done that in a while--too much happy cheery blogging, not enough schadenfreude for you sadists in the crowd. Tonight's topic: oral allergies.

I developed my tree pollen allergy in spring of 2001. I remember it very, very well: spending many spare moments while in the midst of exam study with a kleenex over my eyes, rubbing with all my might, because they itched so damn bad. (The kleenex had a rougher surface than, say, my hands, so it both felt really good and made things worse at the same time.) Not to mention my itchy, runny nose... I got a prescription for Claritin, and things were ok. For the time being.

Then, that autumn, my folks came for Parents' Weekend, and they brought some apples, cheese and pecans for a light meal one evening in my dorm. We did this all the time when I was in high school--YUM. Except I noticed a little swelling on the inside of both cheeks and my lips tingled a little after eating the apples. Same thing happened the next summer with the influx of bing cherries. Turns out these fruits are both part of the birch family of allergies, and due to my crazy under-worked immune system's unfortunate response, I get an allergic reaction to eating them. It's not awful. I love cherries with every fiber of my being, so I put up with it. And apples are good, too, and not every instance triggers this...

...but twice now in a week, I've had granny smith apples that made my EYES itch. No, I'm not sticking the apple in my eye, thanks. I know what to do with an apple. But I'm starting to worry that I'm pushing it with my allergy issue, and that the more I test my body, the more rigorous a systemic assault it will mount till I'm walking that fine line between enjoying a tasty piece of fruit and anaphylactic shock. Yeah, yeah, I know, hellooo melodrama--but seriously. I HATE this allergy. I also hate that Claritin doesn't seem to work for my tree pollen allergy anymore, and I really, really hate the fact that eating apples makes my eyes itch, for God's sake. Please, immune system--don't make me give up cherries! I won't do it! I won't!

Anyway. Taking my contacts out so I can scratch at my eyes with impunity read in bed till I fall asleep. Nighty-night and sweet dreams.

where the world goes by like the humid air

and a quick quick quickie follow-up post, because I have SO MUCH READING OMG to do tonight:

Most of you have probably already seen the Pitchfork round-up of the 100 best YouTube music vids. I take it as a point of pride that I don't read Pitchfork unless directed there by another website. Fortunately, Stereogum made it easy and compiled a list of the films, so you don't have to scroll past all the embedded clips. Two things:

1) I'm SO glad to see "Ana Ng" on the list. One of us may have made a point of DOING the Ana Ng dance at her first (and second) TMBG shows, much to the chagrin of her fellow concertgoers.

I, uh, won't say which of us that was.

2) I'm SO glad to see David Hasselhoff got his props, too. Ooga chaka indeed, my good man. Check out the comments on his Very Best Of Collection--they know what I'm talking about.

we can pay one price for two

okay! I think the meme's been vanquished!

I’ve been tagged by Cella for a meme, which make the first occasion this little blog of mine has, well, meme’d. I guess it’s high time. Also, I didn't try to make this too hard, because the best quotes from movies are the most memorable ones, right?

A. Pick 11 of your favorite movies.
B. Then pick one of your favorite quotes from each movie.
C. Post the quotes on your blog.
D. Have commenters guess what the movie is.
E. Either strike out the quote once it has been correctly identified or place the guesser’s user name directly after the quote.
F. Extra points for knowing the actor or character’s name.

Movie #1
I always tell the girls, never take it seriously. If you never take it seriously, you never get hurt. You never get hurt, you always have fun. And if you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit your friends.

Whitetrashmocha is right--Almost Famous. I can relate to this sentiment--well, feeling like going to a record store is visiting friends, not the whole sleeping-with-band-members part.

Movie #2
But this is going to be the best movie ever! It's a foreign film from Canada.

Bruce knows his foreign films: Stan to his mom in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, trying to convince her to let him see the work of cinematic brilliance that is the Terrence and Philip movie.

Movie #3
There are stories of coincidence and chance, of intersections and strange things told, and which is which and nobody knows. And we generally say, "Well, if that was in a movie, I wouldn't believe it."

Trunger got it, but only gets half-credit for not knowing if it was Magnolia (which it is) or Serendipity (which I've actually never seen).

Movie #4
Are… are you serious? I just told you that, a moment ago.

Yay for Bruce getting this one, too: David Duchovny's creepy hand model guy to Derek in Zoolander whilst in the cemetary. What I love is that it was a total accident that Derek repeated himself at all--Ben Stiller just forgot his line. But it's SUCH a great moment.

Movie #5
Here's the Remains of the Day lunchbox. Kids don't like eating at school, but if they have a Remains of the Day lunchbox they're a lot happier.

Cella correctly answered that this is Corky St. Clair in Waiting for Guffman. Perhaps I ought to be carrying a Remains of the Day lunchbox myself to make my own school lunches more interesting. hmm.

Movie #6
Well, technically speaking, the operation is brain damage, but on a par with a night of heavy drinking. Nothing you'll miss.

ChrisChin answered this right last night, but I was knee-deep in my Judicial Practicum journal and didn't get to editing the page: Tom Wilkinson's character in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is so beautiful and funny and heartbreaking and makes me cry every time I watch it. (Cella and Bruce get honorable mentions on this one, too.)

Movie #7
Hey, now, be fair. EVERYONE wants Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

Sha-zam: it's Talcott with the win--Brodie from Mallrats. I thought about using the schooner line, but figured that was way too obvious. (However, I'm not above giving you a link to a whole bunch of stereograms you can attempt in your spare time.)

Movie #8
If nobody comes down here and buys a car in the next hour, I'm gonna club this baby seal. That's right. I'm gonna club this seal to make a better deal.

I'm so pleased that someone else besides friend Matt and I appreciate the high comedic value of UHF, otherwise known as "The Weird Al Movie." Talcott not only wins a spin on the Wheel of Fish for knowing the movie, but he also gets to drink from the fire hose for remembering that it was the Used Car Dealer, Crazy Ernie. (and YAY Cella for enjoying this film, too! I've even got my parents saying that we're going to Spatula City every time we dig around in the Spare Kitchen Utensil Drawer.)

Movie #9
They’ve gone to plaid!

Trunger again--Spaceballs, by Barf re: the curious nature of Ludicrous Speed. I'd seen this film about 10 times before I ever saw any of the Star Wars films. You can see where my family's priorities lie.

Movie #10
I like the smell of my hair treatment. The pleasing odor is half the point.

Three cheers to Jaci for knowing it's a line from O Brother, Where Art Thou?--a reference to Dapper Dan Hair Pomade (NOT Fop, mind you). I was reading through the quotes from this film at IMDB, and they're all so funny. I think I need to re-watch it this weekend.

Movie #11
But what am I going to do with forty subscriptions to Vibe?

Kristine got it! It's Peter from Office Space, and this is totally my favorite line in the whole film. (Unrelatedly, as I msged friend Marj earlier, there's a guy on the Swedish world cup team who's named Ljungberg, and every time I hear "Ball goes to Ljungberg!" I giggle and think, "Yeeeah. I'm gonna have to, uh, ask you to, ah, step away from that ball and, uhh, come in on, um, Saturday. Yeeeah.")

As for my tags, I'm calling out Marginalia and Marj, since they've been talkin' movies lately, anyway.

here's proof: we have suntans

For those of you who don't already subscribe to You Ain't No Picasso, here's the link to John Roderick (of the Long Winters)'s account of Bonnaroo. Now, I love me some Long Winters. I'm very excited for their (his?) next album (Putting the Days to Bed) to come out (July 22!).

But after having read this article? John Roderick is my new hero. I would give a limb (preferably my left arm, the most useless of my limbs) to hang out with him and fellow Barsuk labelmate John Vanderslice, both of whom seem like stand-up awesome human beings and musicians. (Of course, with their both being named John, this might be confusing. Maybe I could invite Flans and Linnell, too, for a whole barrelful of "Huh? No, the OTHER John!" laughs.)

es ist die Frau die Freitags nicht kann

So, I'm German. Practically 100%. My father's parents were born in Germany and I still have a lot of relatives over there, though I don't really know any of them. My mother's family is far more American, having lived here longer, but she, too, can trace her roots back to Germany (or, at the very least, the Alsace-Lorraine region, which has been alternately occupied by Germany and France for hundreds of years). I studied German for two years in college, even though I'd opted out of the language requirement with French, because I wanted to be able to identify more fully with my heritage. I was even fortunate enough to have the opportunity to travel to Heidelberg, the city of my grandparents, to study German for a month and immerse myself in the culture. Moreover, I will fight to the death for the spelling of my last name, which is the proper, German spelling, but to which American ears want to add a "t." (The German "z" is a "tz" sound, so adding the t is redundant. *grrrowl*)

One challenge that I've had ever since learning about the tragedies of the World Wars (and WWII, in particular) is reconciling my pride in my ancestry with the evils that were perpetrated by a subset of Germans who participated in horrific, inhuman behavior in the name of nationalism. That Germany is nothing I want to identify with--I simply cannot fathom the depths of the soul into which one must descend in order to eradicate so many innocent persons to achieve a highly distorted ideal of a "greater good." It's heartening, therefore, to read this article in the New York Times that shows Germans reclaiming their pre-World War national identity with their flag through the joy of World Cup competition. I'm really delighted to think that the democratic German patriotism that predates and has outlived the Nazi era might be, at last, a source of pride for Germans the world over, even if it's nothing more political than national pride in a sports team. Ich bin keine Berlinerin, aber ich liebe Deutschland (und vielleicht meine Sprache ist jetzt nicht so schlecht...?).

I'm also reminded a particularly amusing Dwight quote from The Office last season: I come from a long line of fighters, my maternal grandfather was the toughest guy I ever knew. World War II veteran. He killed twenty men and then spent the rest of the war in an Allied prison camp...

till the Atlantic's dry

Well, hello there.

Just when Trunger gets all excited that I'm updating, like, all the time, I go a week without. To be fair, it's been a relentlessly busy week and I'm going to be spinning my wheels all weekend to catch up, but I hate to disappoint. So, here's what I've been doing:

• Entertaining friend Sanjida while she stayed with me on Sunday. Highlights included brunch at Bongo Room (mmm lemon ricotta pancakes), Fluevogs (purchased by her, NOT me), the Old Town Arts Fair (? I'm not even sure if this is the correct name for it--we wandered into it purely by chance), and Jill Sobule at Martyr's (SO FUNNY. I've really missed seeing her concerts).


• Meeting with my judge, doing my class reading, going to class, etc etc. Not the most exciting part of my week, but perhaps the most intense by volume.


• Dinner with friend Belina on Tuesday at Giordano's. Haven't seen Belina since her graduation in '02, I don't think, so it was great to catch up with her again. Plus, we've got a standing date for martinis at the Kit Kat Club when she returns from her travels in July.


• Brunch and used cd shopping with friend Bruce on Thursday. Haven't seen him in years, either, despite the fact that we both live in Chicago now. I've not yet had a chance to listen to any of my spoils of the day yet (including 2 new mix cds (yay), old Elvis Costello, Augustana, Doves, Kasey Chambers, a replacement copy of Murmur, and the Afghan Whigs' Gentlemen), but I'm anxious to do so.

Perhaps most distressingly, the Boy (he would prefer to be called "The Man," but I would like to think that I'm not on such intimate terms with The Man, as it were) left for London last night. I've heard from him--he made it there safely, found his dorm, has a phone, etc. Six weeks will fly by, since we're both going to be busy busy busy, but it's hard. I haven't been in a Boy-free Chicago since last August, essentially, and I realize I rely on him for a lot, especially in terms of knowing how to get where and other basic things. Plus, he makes for nice warm snuggling in front of the TV. Sigh. Perhaps if I had a warm snuggly alternative, like a kitty, it wouldn't be so hard... hmm.

Oh, and speaking of small cat-like creatures, I highly recommend Animal Planet's Meerkat Manor series, on Fridays at 7pm in Ye Olde Centrale Time Zonee. They're SO cute, and their interactions really make for a compelling narrative (provided by Sean Astin, of hobbit fame). Plus, it's not like there's anything else you're watching this summer (unless you find Law & Order: SVU reruns as riveting as I do). Also, I can't believe I turned away from the TV for a second and missed Ghana's goal in the first 2 minutes of this game against the Czech Republic. BOO! That'll teach me to turn off World Cup coverage. I'm probably better off not turning it on at all so I don't get sucked in. But soccer is eminently easy to watch, and this game does affect the US's standings, soooo... yeah. Need to knock out some work so I can watch the US/Italy match and not feel guilty about it. So much to do this summer, so little time...

edited to add: ho-leeee crap! 2nd goal for Ghana! Incredible! Why aren't more Americans invested in soccer? It's WAY more fun to watch on TV than football is...

a game of high-stakes canasta

short post (because I've been working all afternoon/evening and I'm calling it quits):

Pitchfork Interview w/ Colin Meloy

He talks a LOT about what the new album will be like, and I'm SO EXCITED. Also, I won't miss Petra--she was fine on the album and her violin work is great, but I do NOT like hearing her sing live with Colin. Too strident a sound.

And thanks, Pitchfork, for heeding my cry about the sex of Colin's child (it's a boy, Henry--or Hank, apparantly. Cute).

dad said, son, you must be...

Oh, dear.

From the BNL Ladies Room update email I just received a moment ago:

New album, Sept. 12. Good news. The album's title?

Barenaked Ladies Are Me.

...

...

...huh.

Yeah, so, like, if I could set the mood on this journal, it would currently be "chagrined." But I can't, soooo we'll just have to wait and see if Justin's able to nail a correct guess today, too.

somewhere a clock is ticking

...but if you ask for whom its bell tolls, it tolls not for thee: just got an email from Ticketmaster saying that the Snow Patrol show on Saturday has been "postponed." The lead singer has been having vocal problems, so it's not completely surprising, but then there's a list in the email of how I can get a "refund." What if I don't want a refund? What if I just want tickets to see them whenever they come back to town? Can these tickets I have in hand be honored? It's a friggin' sold out show--if I have to re-buy the damn things I'm going to be immensely peeved, particularly since the TicketBastard "processing fee" can't be refunded on this original set.

if this were a journal that could indicate such things, I would set my mood to "annoyed." But it's not, so you'll just have to guess how I feel at this very moment. Go on, guess. See? You're good at this game!

this isn't country at all

Blogger's been acting wonky lately (makes me wish I could take the initiative to figure out how to run an RSS-friendly blog from my own damn website, which I'm sure isn't that hard, but I've just got other things to do right now), or I'd've posted this last night: two clips from R.E.M.'s first national TV appearance, on David Letterman. Check it:





I've often said that I wish I'd been around to follow R.E.M. as an up-and-coming band, rather than jumping on the bandwagon with the rest of the world in the 90's (heck, I didn't really start buying music until 1996, so I was really far behind the crest with this band). Seeing these videos only makes that wish more fervent and reminds me that even though I like what they're doing now, I love what they used to do. I mean, I've enjoyed Up and Reveal and Around the Sun as they were released, but none has the staying power of any of their older stuff, any of their--dare I say it?--pre-Bill Berry-departure material. I read in an article a couple years ago that Mike and Michael both love playing around with production in the studio, and that Peter and Bill were the advocates for letting things stand in a more raw form. Now that Bill's no longer there to take Peter's side, he gets outvoted and the music winds up feeling more clinical, more polished, less fierce. Granted, it's hard to maintain the punk sensibility seen in these early clips across a 25-year career, but having seen them in concert (twice!) just a year and a half ago, I know they're still capable of rocking. I only wish it came across more clearly in their albums.

On a lighter note, I love how much hair is present in the videos (both on Michael and Dave), how goshdarn skinny Mike is, and how Peter's wardrobe does not appear to have changed at all in two decades.

If only my almost-two-year-old self had been more into the hip tunes being played on Letterman in October of 1983... *sigh*

it's gonna be a glorious day

Today is my lucky day!

For serious! Not only is it gorgeous outside AND I'm having the best sushi in the city this evening, but when I realized I forgot to pack a can of soda in my lunch to take to school (yeah, summer session started, but today was only the first class, so nothing overwhelming), I walked to the machine in our school cafe... and there was a can of Diet Pepsi wedged in the vending slot, still cold, so it must've fallen only moments before. FREE SODA! I remember Cella had the hookup to double cans of soda from a machine first semester, but I never had such luck myself. UNTIL TODAY!

Lucky me! hooray! It really takes so little to bring me such joy. Sunshine. A smile on a child's face. Free soda. Fluevogs. FREE Fluevogs. You know. The simple things.

Now, back to work (but LUCKY work! or, at least, I can pretend it is...)

she's a runner, rebel and a stunner

Random point no. 1: I would love to get the smell of bacon out of my apartment.

This would, of course, be easier if I stopped cooking bacon every few days as I have been for the past week, but I had a package of (turkey) bacon to use, and after several rounds of BLTs, it has been vanquished at last. The smell is fairly cloying and I know my hair/clothes absorb a little of it, so I'm constantly wary of walking too close to a leashed dog on my jaunts around the city. I've seen those Beggin' Strips commercials. I know what could happen.

Random point no. 2: I might not be able to walk tomorrow.

The Boy and I bicycled up to Evanston and back this morning, which was really fun--I hadn't ever seen the official NU campus, and it's a nice ride, with only a little bit of scary speeding-car street driving to navigate and bike paths/lanes the rest of the way. I was really hurting on the way back, though, and I have a feeling my legs are going to punish me for it over the next 48 hours. I hope not, but since I didn't stretch out afterwards (I KNOW! I suck! but it huuuurts), signs will likely point to yes.

Random point no. 3: I have the best mommy ever.

For serious. Not only did she send a care package with rice krispy treats (the homemade kind, which are a thousand times preferable to the prepackaged kind in stores) and Zours for the Boy (his fave, no longer available at our local Walgreens), but she sent me an email today telling me about her favorite new radio song (it's "Single" by Natasha Bedingfield, fwiw) and lamenting the fact that she's too old to go out clubbing to "dance to rap and hip-hop." hee!

Random point no. 4: One of the books I sold back to the bookstore a month ago is, ironically, required reading for my summer class.

I don't really need to explain this, do I? I'm sure you can hear the *thump* *thump* *thump* of my head against my desk from wherever you are.

Random point no. 5: I got awesome new running shoes on Saturday.

And two sports bras, two pairs of workout shorts (I hadn't purchased workout gear in over four years; I think I'm overdue, particularly given my desire to get in better physical shape this summer), a cute grey hoodie, a versatile black t-shirt, and a shoe wallet (tried it out today with my keys on the bike ride--works like a charm). Now, I need to STOP SHOPPING. Gah.

And finally... I saw Over the Hedge on Saturday, and I totally recommend it. Not only is the soundtrack supplied by my man and yours, Ben Folds (complete with a re-recorded version of Rockin' the Suburbs), but it's very well animated and absolutely hilarious. Seriously, go--and stay through the credits. You'll hear more of Ben's fine tunes, and there's a cute snippet at the end you won't want to miss. Next on the agenda: X3 (without the Boy, because he's not into "that kind of film," whatever that means. Laaaaaame).

(oh! has everyone already heard that there's a new Decemberists album coming this October? Is everyone as psyched as I am? Does anyone know whether Colin and Carson's newborn child turned out to be a boy or a girl? I figured there'd be some announcement about it in this recent newsletter, but nothing. Hm.)

Anyway. All this 6/6/6 crapola is utter nonsense. Today has turned out splendidly. No demons, no hexes, no omens (and no Omen, either--I'm meh on horror films). Of course, there are still 6 more hours to go, but I'm optimistic.

it's saturday, a quarter past [noon]

Man, the intarweb just shuts down on weekends. I suppose I should be out gallivanting like the rest of the world, but I'm trying to get caught up on work. And if I manage to do that, then I've got chores I need to do, too. Ugh.

But guess what I saw last night? The underwear gnome episode of South Park! O frabjous day! I don't think I've seen it since the bus ride on YGC Winter Tour '01-'02, so it brought back some fond memories (phase three--profit!). Now, if only I could catch an episode with Towelie...

k-i-c-k pronounced as kind

Anyone else watching the National Spelling Bee?

I've ignored it all day, but I just popped it on a moment ago to see a girl drop out on collyrium and a boy on paillon (French, dude! c'mon!). Man, are they INTENSE (and the girls are wearing a LOT of blusher and lip gloss). I took it as a positive omen that ESPN re-ran that Cheap Seats with Ned Andrews at the '94 Bee on it the other night so I could watch (and giggle) with sound this time around.

In related news, I've gotten worse at spelling as I've gotten older (not bad, mind you, but not as spot-on as I used to be--I'm more inclined to spell something phonetically, erase it and spell it correctly), so maybe there's something to be said about having kids in their early teens spell competitively. I shudder to think how a Senior Citizen Spelling Bee would go down--we gain a lot of wisdom in our waning years, but I doubt that spelling is part of it.

Ooh! Another kid bailed on sciolto! Sucker.

i wanna be wanna be wanna be jim morrison

Well, huh. Grades came out today. That was... fast. I think professors had to turn them in by yesterday. I wasn't expecting them till June (which, to be fair, is tomorrow). Anyway--I did better than I did last semester, on the whole. That's good. What's troubling is that I always seem to have one baffling, frustrating grade, and it happened again this semester. I thought I knocked it out of the park with this class, and apparantly I didn't. Like I did last semester, I emailed the prof, and hopefully a conversation will help ease the cloak-and-dagger mysteriousness surrounding this particular outcome.

But the rest of it? Yeah, ok. I'm not overwhelmed, but I'm not underwhelmed, either. Consider me whelmed, I suppose. Whelmed and off to a Cubs game. Er, a Reds game. I haven't seen them play since I got free (nosebleed) tickets for getting straight A's in middle school. (See that, o unnamed Law School Professor? My MIDDLE SCHOOL teachers loved me!)

move at light speed

quick quick quickie post because I updated the sidebar to the blog, something I've been meaning to do since realizing that, well, it's the thing you do with blogs. Anyway. Good thing my rudimentary knowledge of html has held up lo these many years so that you can now see what I'm listening to, courtesy of last.fm/audioscrobbler (three cheers to having cross-platform support! I forgot to download the plugin on my new mac, hence the many-months-long interim between updates), as well as a bunch of links and stuff. If you have a blog and I don't have it listed, feel free to yell at me and I'll add it. Too bad I read my blogs through a blogreading program and don't actually visit the blog's website, so I'm not sure whether anyone will care about this or not. But, it's there. yay. Back to work.

this I'll admit, you are a wonder

Ripping my gaze away from my navel for just a moment (thanks, btw, all those of you who chimed in on my last post--expect a brief essay soon about my love-hate affair with the shuffle feature) to focus on this bit of world news.

I've had a fascination with Mt. Everest for several years now, ever since reading Jon Krakauer's excellent Into Thin Air about the '96 Everest expedition disaster. I will never attempt to climb that mountain myself--too great a chance of death or, at the very least, severe frostbite due to my circulation problem. But I'm utterly fascinated with the people who DO decide to climb it, and perhaps more chillingly (no pun intended, I swear), the often bizarre actions of the climbers in the Death Zone (above 26,000 ft/8,000 m). One of the most terrifying is this all-too-commonplace occurence of literally passing by a climber having problems on one's way to the summit, as happened to David Sharp, who ultimately died. I mean, I understand that you have to be a fairly driven person to even get that far in an Everest summit attempt, that it costs thousands upon thousands of dollars that you'd rather not waste--and, hey, it's not your fault Sharp decided to climb without adequate supplemental oxygen and ended up crippling himself. But wouldn't you want someone to help YOU if you happened to fail in your summit attempt, even if your failure was due in part to a poor decision you made? Conversely, isn't literally stepping over a dying person in order to reach the top of a freaking mountain an immeasurably callous act that you'll have to live with your whole life? I realize it's easy for me to critique these climbers' decisions here, scarcely above sea level on a nearly-ninety-degree day with more oxygen than I know what to do with, but with 40 people passing Sharp by, is it really too much to ask someone to stop and assist their fellow man? Hell, even the guy they interviewed for the article (a double-amputee, and certainly a remarkable person for achieving the summit given his disability) gave Sharp some oxygen, but ultimately left him there so he could summit as well. Maybe this is all part and parcel of the "commercialization" of Everest which many mountaineering experts criticize for allowing inexperienced climbers on a dangerous mountain--if Asian Trekking had done more with Sharp's $6k than simply give him what he asked for, if they'd vetted him to see if he really knew what he was doing on the mountain, maybe he'd still be alive, because he wouldn't've been allowed to climb with so little oxygen, or without a guide or Sherpa.

Furthermore, are Everest climbers so desensitized to the possibility of death, so ready to cut and run at the first sign of weakness that they left Lincoln Hall outside, just off the peak, for an entire night before the next day's climbers realized he was still alive? Maybe it's just the effects of hypoxia on the brain that makes people act irregularly (and downright cruelly), but these stories alone are enough to keep me home and off the mountain--that, and the fact that the bodies of those dead people are all still there. Creepy. You're literally on your own up there, regardless of whether you're in an expedition or not, because if you can't save yourself, no one can.

Don't get me started on skydiving, either. I think I'll stick to rollercoasters, instead.

is it better to be better than to be anything?

A question:

Do you enjoy a mix CD purely for the novelty of the music, or do you find artistic value in the arrangement of the songs?

I adhere strongly to the latter viewpoint, as anyone who knows me might guess. I think it has something to do with reconciling my fierce passion for music with my inability to create recorded music of my own: I can't make it, but by gum, I can be creative in organizing it. To be sure, sometimes I choose songs with an eye to the audience--songs that a person or persons might not know and therefore can use to broaden their musical horizons. ExRecs, in particular, and the summer mixes as well, tend to follow this rubric. Moreover, the newer the song, the more interest I have in including it in the playlist to begin with because I'm personally not tired of it yet.

However, I also firmly believe that there's value in a farther-reaching playlist, one that spans your collection and includes beloved songs as well as cutting-edge tracks, and I think this is why ...by the numbers became one of my favorite mixes ever--without the constraint of purely "new" music, I could simply pick songs that appealed to me, and the result was literally intoxicating. I might make copies of such a mix for people whom I think might be interested, but for the most part, the mix is for my personal benefit. Hell, I obviously own the music already--it's the artful arrangement of the music that brings its appeal.

Anyway, I made a mix this afternoon, which I oh-so-charmingly entitled Just for the Halibut. Yeah, yeah, I'm hilarious, I know. Regardless, it consists merely of songs I've loved recently that I wanted to revisit in a holistic setting, and as it resulted in an even 80 minutes worth of music, I feel it's somewhat fated: I can burn it to CD if I choose, or not, as the whimsy strikes. However, I offered a copy to the Boy this evening, and he declined, saying, "I own most of those songs already," and chalked it up to some sort of double-songed iPod distress. I was, and still am, hurt by this rejection, because clearly I already own the songs--it's the choosing of the songs, the collection and the order, that brings me joy. I can't imagine refusing a mix CD from anyone, even if I owned every song on it, because part of the delight of a mix is appreciating the effort that went into selecting particular artists' work and aligning them ever-so-perfectly in order.

Obviously, I think about this way too much. But have I thought myself into a corner? What do you think, readership? Do mix cds/playlists derive value only from their ability to introduce you to a new artist? Is one song on a mix cd really that revealing of an artist's catalog, anyway? And while I'm at it, what's your favorite new artist you've discovered in the last six months?

And as I would be remiss to talk around a track listing so much and not actually include it, here's Just for the Halibut (you want it, it's yours):
1. The Twilight Singers - I'm Ready
2. The New Pornographers - Sing Me Spanish Techno
3. William Shatner - Common People
4. The Polyphonic Spree - Light and Day
5. John Vanderslice - Keep the Dream Alive
6. Mike Doughty - I Hear the Bells
7. Belle & Sebastian - Sukie in the Graveyard
8. Ben Folds Five - Video Killed the Radio Star
9. Ok Go - Get Over It
10. Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - All In a Day
11. The Long Winters - Cinnamon
12. Aimee Mann - She Really Wants You
13. Counting Crows - Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)
14. Joseph Arthur - Can't Exist
15. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California
16. Broken Social Scene - Almost Crimes
17. Aqualung - Left Behind
18. The Verve - Lucky Man
19. Coldplay - Swallowed in the Sea
20. Augustana - Stars and Boulevards

in between all you wish for and all you've seen

Having a bike in Chicago? BEST THING EVER.

I had the awesomest bike ride this afternoon along the lake front. I'm terrible about stretching, so I know I'm going to be sore tomorrow, but it was worth it. I have a bit of a competitive streak, and being on a bike path with a bunch of other people (rather than just tooling around my suburban development back home) brings that out in me, so that I keep pushing myself to pass and stay ahead of other people. And DAMN, was it windy on the way back, so much so that I think I should've saved some of my energy on the way out... eh. I survived. And maybe I'll be more ready for the wind the next time I go out. I do worry that I've shot my brief dalliance with running in the foot, now that I can bike ride instead... I think once the novelty wears off a little I'll be ready to go back to jogging again.

In completely unrelated news, I have a haircut I like for the first time in a year and a half. It's not that big a deal if it gets screwed up, but there's a way that stylists can cut my hair that makes the ends do a little curl all by themselves when I blow it dry, and there's a way that they just... don't. And I can't be any more specific than that, since I'm not a stylist myself, so I just keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. Anyway, it looks healthier and more finished, rather than just long and unkempt, so YAY. All those amongst my readership who were losing sleep over whether or not I prevailed in the battle against my split ends can now rest easy.

I mentioned the Twilight Singers concert, but have I mentioned the new Twilight Singers album, Powder Burns? It's FANTASTIC. Seriously. I was lukewarm about She Loves You--it didn't have the swirling production of Blackberry Belle and didn't speak to me in the same way, which could simply be because it was an album of covers. Powder Burns is completely a return to form, though, picking up where Blackberry Belle left off and moving forward. Early favorites are "I'm Ready" and "Forty Dollars," but I don't think there's a bad song on the whole album. I feel shameful for not yet owning any Afghan Whigs albums, but I have a hard time with artists' back catalogs (see also: Elvis Costello). If the Whigs' stuff is anything like the interesting, layered rock music of the Twilight Singers, though, I'm sure I wouldn't be disappointed.

Finally, the Boy and I rented Match Point yesterday--wow. It got mixed reviews, I seem to recall, but I really liked it, though it's kind of disturbing. I had absolutely no sympathy for the Jonathan Rhys-Meyers's lead character, but he played the part exceedingly well, and the plot wraps itself up with a surprising finesse that left me startled and pensive. I'm not sure Scarlett Johansson is worth all the hype she gets--the Boy commented that she seems to play the same character all the time, and I'd tend to agree--but she was well-cast here. Tonight we're embarking on the haute cinema masterpiece Fun with Dick and Jane; will keep you posted on the subtlety of the acting and nuanced dialogue, certainly.

can't trust that day

Well, well. Hello again, Chicago. It's nice to be back, though I do miss that cute, fuzzy kitty of mine. (I won't miss having cat hair all over my clothes, though. yeeeesh.) I'm presently doing my Course and Teaching Evaluations for the past semester and I think I've waited just a tad too long, because I honestly Don't Care Anymore. Any vitriol I might have harbored for these professors has long since withered--same goes for whatever effusive praise I might've heaped at one point or another. Oh, well. Gotta get 'em done if I want to avail myself of any student evaluations in choosing my classes next year.

In other news, Mom, the Boy and I went to two (!) concerts on Friday night: Dar Williams at Schuba's, then the Twilight Singers at Metro. Dar was really fantastic--I do love seeing her in an acoustic setting, mostly because you really never know what she's going to say between songs. I learned some things about her (and her, ah, past sexual proclivities?) that I never would have guessed. Oh, and apparantly "The Ocean" is about heroin abuse. Did not know that. Killed some time in a coffee shop before heading to Metro for the Twilight Singers, but should've killed MORE time, because doors didn't open till *12:15* am, which was an hour and 15 min after when they were supposed to open. Would've been ok, except that it was COLD outside (it's May! wtf?), and there was an obnoxiously loud drunk guy next to us in line. *sigh* Also, there were two (?!) opening acts, so Dulli + crew didn't take the stage till... 1:45? And they played till, like, 3:30... it was a truly awesome show (and my throat STILL hurts, two days later, possibly from screaming the words to "Forty Dollars" or "Decatur St."), though I kind of felt bad for dragging my poor mum out so late to a show that probably wasn't entirely her cup of tea. She was a good sport about it, though, and the Boy *loved* 'em, so YAY. And "Powder Burns"? Refers to Dulli's struggle with and ultimate victory over his cocaine addiction. Wow. Rock stars and their demons, eh?

So, I spent Saturday cleaning my apartment, which it sorely needed, and I went for a bike ride (!) yesterday along the lake. Windy, and still chilly (again, MAY--Mother Nature, get your act together), but GREAT to be on a bike again. And I suppose I should return to those CTEs, and the mountain of laundry that also awaits me, not to mention my externship duties... yeah.

Monday, Monday, indeed.

then memories are films about ghosts

So, I'm home, which means I'm not sitting at my computer NEARLY as much as I have been, oh, the last three weeks or so. It's rather nice. I am, however, watching oodles more TV, including numerous season finales of shows I haven't watched all season--and some have the nerve to be in TWO PARTS, meaning I have to watch NEXT week, too, if I want to know how everything turns out (I'm looking at you, CSI: Miami). I also saw 16 Blocks last night, which I found to be remarkably well done. Lots of edge-of-your-seat action, but some really surprising plot twists, as well. It was at the cheap theater, so look for it at a Lackluster Video near you shortly.

Anyhow, I've been having some really, really weird dreams this week. And maybe it's because I'm sleeping later, or longer (but not really--I get to bed about 3, 3:30, and am up by 9:30 or 10 each day), or just that I'm surrounded by all these relics from my past that trigger recollections of people and experiences long gone, but I'm remembering them vividly, and they are strange. I suppose the only thing worse than talking about dreams at all is talking about them with a complete and utter lack of detail, but something about the disconnect between image and language keeps me from even attempting to describe them. Suffice to say that much as I love being home, I think I'll sleep more soundly once I'm back in Chicago.

Though my apartment never gets as dark as my room here does at night. Ahh, light pollution.

you would not write me again

It's done.

No more journal-writing competition. An insane number of students participated--or, at least, picked up the packets. When I turned mine in, I saw that a #215 (!) had already been turned in. This is out of, like, 260 students. Yeesh. The Boy reminded me that just because someone picked up a numbered packet doesn't mean that they actually participated... but it's finally hitting home that all those rumors about the class of '08 being a little, well, intense? Might be true. Soooo... yeah. Won't know till August, but here's hoping for good news.

And tonight? Sushi, of course. Tomorrow, going home. And what does THAT mean?

turn out the lights and I'll glow

I am the product of my upbringing.

More specifically: when my family moved to our "new" home in December '93, we got a fridge with an icemaker and one of those magic in-door widgets that gave you all the tools you needed for a fresh glass of ice water (that would be ice and water, for those of you not so privileged). I lived with the Icemaker until I left for college, at which point the family Icemaker was replaced with a communal Icemaker in the dining hall. Post-college, I moved back home, which meant the family Icemaker and I could renew our acquaintance. My present apartment, however, has no such amenity. Why am I telling you all this?

Because I cannot properly use an ice tray to save my life.

Every freaking time: water all over the floor as I'm trying to open the freezer, or worse, water IN the freezer from jostling the tray too much when I'm trying to set it down. Don't even get me started on how challenging it is to fill *two* ice trays. Maybe I'm just an inherently nervous person and my hand starts shaking en route to the freezer, thereby ensuring that the inevitable spill occurs. Maybe I'm just out of practice. It just got me thinking, though, as I was swapping my wet socks for dry ones and mopping up my spill for the umpteenth time, that I'm more dependent on technology than I even realize, sometimes.

Anyhow. Back to your regularly-scheduled rant about the journal-writing competition (24 more hours)...

now she's taking me to court

Quickie update, for those of you who might have thought that the journal competition vanquished me once and for all--not so! Not so. I'm pluggin' away--have a decent draft, but the citations are all... well, they're not nonexistent, because I made sure to indicate where I got the cite from, but the Bluebook won't be pleased. Not at all. Guess what I'll be spending the rest of my day doing? And since I have to revisit the editing exercise again (nooooo), I suppose I ought to stock up on the headache meds en avance.

In other news, I met with my judge for the summer and got my first assignment--woo! Very exciting. Too bad I can't think about it at ALL until this dastardly competition is through. I've seen more fellow former-1Ls in the block between my apartment and Starbucks in the last two days than I think I've seen in my neighborhood all semester. It's kind of amusing. Of course, the only time I've left my apartment in the last two days is to go to Starbucks, so maybe it's not all that remarkable.

And finally, in all my free time I profess not to have, I made a jim-dandy mix cd for a trade with friend Cella of Turin Brakes-owning fame--I'm eager to listen to it all the way through to make sure my segues (not to be confused with Segways) are in order, but since music + anything school-related = distracted!kat, I suppose it will have to wait a bit longer to fine-tune. Alas.

sky blue, bells ringing

Weird. My iPod, on total, 4500-song random shuffle, has just played 3 of my favorite R.E.M. songs back to back. Not complaining, mind you (and I do have a crapload of R.E.M., so I suppose it's not THAT unusual a phenomenon).

Anyway, knee-deep in the competition-that-must-not-be-named: spent all yesterday muddling through the editing exercise, which started out as "fun! I like grammar!" and ended in "omg, my head hurts SO BADLY and I can't even tell IF there's a problem with this source, let alone how to FIX it." So, I'm going to go through it once more tomorrow evening and then call it completed. It's more important at the moment that I make serious inroads on my case note.

In other news, I've discovered the joy that is the bike/jog path along the lake, and I'm actually--*gasp*--jogging. It kind of sucks WHILE I'm doing it, but I feel [teen girl squad] SOOOO GOOD!!!11 [/teen girl squad] afterward that I think I'll see how long I can keep this up. The problem is that my favorite time to exercise is, like, 10am, which is fine now--but come full summer, it'll be 85 degrees, humid and AWFUL out there that late in the morning, so I dunno what I'll do. Hopefully I'll have my bike here by then, so that might be a way to switch it up...

Huh. Another R.E.M. song. My iPod has a crush, I think. Perhaps an Orange Crush, or a Crush with Eyeliner...? *snarf*

but you left a trace on a data back-road

from an ancient edition of my little Time Magazine (or whatever it's called):

Patricia Wallace, a techno-psychologist who directs the Johns Hopkins Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good [I mean, Center for Talented Youth program], believes part of the allure of e-mail--for adults as well as teens--is similar to that of a slot machine. "You have intermittent, variable reinforcement," she explains. "You are not sure you are going to get a reward every time or how often you will, so you keep pulling that handle. Why else do people get up in the middle of the night to check their e-mail?"

...I suppose it's for the best that I've never developed a taste for casinos.

In other news, I can't get the Brokeback Mountain theme song out of my head. gaaaah. But those ubiquitous parodies? Even funnier once you've seen the original film...

it's not today anymore

I'm done! done done done done done!

Actually, I was done as of 8:47 pm last night, but I immediately went and watched Capote--which, let me tell you, is not exactly the kind of feel-good film you want to see after finishing your exams. Oh, well. Rang in my one (!) day of freedom pre-journal competition with chocolate chip pancakes; picking up my competition packet in a little less than 4 hours, and it's on again. *sigh* But I'm definitely going to Bar Review tonight (woo! first/last one all semester!), so today is just going to be a Day Off. I'll start in on the competition stuffs tomorrow.

Oh, and it's gorgeous outside, again--and I'm actually going out there. Hold me back!

...on second thought, don't.

don't let it slip away

Yeah, so, it's gorgeous outside. 70 degrees, says my weather widget. Sunny, say the light receptors in my pupils. Humid? dunno. Possibly, since it's rained the last couple days, and it's supposed to thunderstorm tomorrow...

...but I WOULDN'T know, because I HAVEN'T BEEN OUTSIDE ALL DAY. aaaaarrrgh.

I love my apartment, really, I do. But 525 square feet just doesn't cut it when you've scarcely left the darn place for the past two weeks.

This is why I'm planning on taking my last exam tomorrow, rather than wait till Thursday/last minute, because I don't think I can take another two days of this. I just hope I'm ready.

24 more hours. I can DO this. Then, just a measely ol' journal-writing competition, and I'm free (!) for the summer.

*resumes nose-to-grindstoning*

are you fine with your surroundings?

Aw, man. "River Valley" just came up on my iPod's shuffle. I can't tell you the last time I actually listened to a Fruvous song.

Damn it, I miss those guys. All good things, as they say...

something in me almost breaks

Quizno's plays good music.

A year ago (or more? I can't remember) I posted on my ol' webpage (which hasn't been updated in forEVer, my apologies) about hearing Semisonic's "One True Love" on my lunch hour and how it totally made my day. Well, last night I heard Tracy Bonham's "Something Beautiful," which just filled my little heart with joy. GREAT song, and not exactly what you hear on the radio all the time (or is it? I don't really listen to the radio, save for the snippets that wake me up in the morning. Today I got "I Am the Walrus," but Sundays are WXRT's Breakfast with the Beatles, so it wasn't entirely surprising).

Huh. I think more of this post is parenthetical than not. (oh, well.)

leave all this misery behind

omg! Turin Brakes have been added to iTunes!

"Big deal," you say. "Who are they?" you say.

Well, truthfully, I don't really know. All I know is that two and a half years ago, I had the idea to do a 4-cd massive theme mix of seasonal songs, and even though summer songs are by far the easiest to come across, my anchor song, one that I'd been hearing constantly on 97X and kind of gave me the idea in the first place, was Turin Brakes's "Painkiller," whose chorus is "Summer rain, dripping down your face again, summer rain, praying someone feels the same..."

...anyhow. Suffice to say, I searched the legal channels (and one decidedly non-legal channel)--couldn't locate it and wasn't prepared to fork over the cash for a CD that might suck, save for that one song. But now? Now I can sample the entire album (and I'll probably buy the whole damn thing--18 tracks for the price of 10? why not?), buy their latest album and even an iTunes exclusive live session, if I want. It's glorious. And most importantly, I can finally finish this mix, which I'll do as soon as my school obligations are through for the year. This is so exciting. I literally got chills listening to the iTunes sample.

I'm such a dork when it comes to music.

*giddy*

we fuse like a family

quickie post, because I have lots to do and not much time in which to do it:

First exam tomorrow. I actually feel... ready? I could be more ready, which is what the rest of the afternoon/evening is for, but on the whole, I'm dealing with exams in a MUCH healthier manner than I did 4 months ago.

Of course, check in with me a week from now--I may be singing a far different tune. But Con Law is first, and it promises to be my most, er, rigorous, so hopefully it's smooth(er) sailing from here on out.

Oh, and the Franz Ferdinand/Death Cab show last Wednesday? *awesome.* Worth taking a night off from studying, believe me. I still want to see a longer Death Cab set, because they picked some odd song selections given that they could only play an hour (and, I'm sorry, Ben, but a gratuitous drum solo BY YOU is not necessary. None of us came to see Death Cab "jam"--well, except for that toked-up kid in back, but he can deal). Oh, well. They're coming back for Lollapalooza in August (with another gratuitous drum solo for what promises to be another hour-long set? only time will tell), so I'll try again then.

Right. Back to work. Oh, and I've got a team blog going on with some college pals o'mine. Click on my profile and check it out--we're all reasonably witty folk, so it promises to be a good time for all. (Though possibly not for icky Helena Bonham Carter.)

hold me, wrap me up

Man, it was beautiful out there today. Like summer! Which is grand, but I'd enjoy a little more "spring" in my April, please. 80 degrees will be lovely in late May; right now, it feels like I blinked and missed something. Fortunately, my desktop weather widget assures me that mid-60 degree days will be back in vogue next week... not that it matters, because I'll be indoors studying for exams. Blah.

You know, studying for my last set of exams was a challenge in and of itself, for many reasons, not the least of which was the whole factor-of-the-unknown thing. I at least have some idea of what I'm up against now... but the weather is SO pretty. I don't want to be inside! I don't wanna! *throws tantrum*

Anyhow. Saw Girlyman and Richard Shindell earlier this week; both great shows. Tomorrow is Peter Mulvey *and* John Vanderslice, then Elbow on Sunday. We had our Habeas Chorus spring concert yesterday and I think it went pretty well--we definitely *sounded* better than ever. FINALLY sang "Both Sides Now" for the first time since October (*sigh*), but got some positive responses from folks afterward, so it's only folks in Habeas that hate the song, I guess. Blargh.

Right. Enough of a study break--back to Con Law.

*bangs head on desk*

you don't know what you do to me

*yawn*

*stretch*

Oh. Hello there, reader. Me again, you know, blogging, or whatever the kiddies call it these days.

Not much to report... we had our Wigmore Part Deux party last night, and it was fun, for sure... but already I could feel the closure. I mean, six members of our cast are graduating in a month and they've all got jobs elsewhere pulling them away. (Or, if they're staying in Chicago, they'll be crazy-busy with work and "real life," whatever that is.) What sucks is that just when I feel like I've gotten to know these folks, I've got to say goodbye. I suppose that crappy-ass "reason, season, lifetime" cliche about friendships is more apropos in situations like these than I'd like to give it credit for... but I'm also a highly sentimental person, so a little grieving over the passage of time and related losses is par for the course.

Sigh.

And what's worse? What am I filling the void with? F*cking outlining and exam prep, that's what. Talk about pouring salt on the wound. Pardon me, I must self-flagellate a bit more. Those of you who prefer my whining woe-is-me posts to the cheery life-is-super! entries, you're in luck. Exams start Apr 24, so I'll be bemoaning life any minute now. Just you wait.

we're leaving together, but still it's farewell

oh, man. What a week it's been.

Wigmore Follies '06, aka Back to the Follies, are naught but a memory, but what a wonderful memory. SO MUCH FUN. I have no idea how we'll top it next year. I won't miss the hideous turquoise parachute pants I had to wear for much of the show (nor the pink lace confection I wore the rest of it, and don't get me started on how indestructible Wet 'n Wild lipstick is), but I will miss singing, dancing and laughing with one hell of a group of talented people. I'm currently listening to the mix of songs from the show that our producer made us and feeling pretty darn nostalgic... we're partying again this Friday, but I already know that it won't be the same. The cast party last Saturday night was inSANE, and coupled with daylight savings time, I didn't get home till 6:30am... and had to be up at 9:15 for my Segway tour of Chicago with the 'rents. Lemme tell you: Segways are awesome. I bet they're even more awesome when you're not exhausted, dehydrated, and shivering because you failed to plan accordingly for the 35-degree drizzly weather. *sigh* It was great to see the fam again, though, and friend Dara, who came to Chicago for meeee--well, ok, she came for Chris Martin and his boys on Friday night, but she did see Wigmore on Saturday.

Anyway. Time to dig myself out of the academic hole into which I fell last week. Except I can't concentrate, because songs keep running through my head, and I want nothing more than to tire myself out by hopping, kicking, and over-enunciating "Hook Me Up With Notes from Civ Pro"... but I won't, ever again.

It's been four years since I've been in a play of any kind. Four years! I can't believe that. Gee whiz, how I've missed being onstage. Here's to hoping we can recreate the magic with Wigmore '07...

all our crying voices, they can't turn it around

Back and broken from spring! I mean, returned from spring break. Ireland was grand, simply grand--though a bit on the cold and rainy side. Locals said that the weather was the coldest it's been there all winter. Yep. That's to be expected, I suppose, whenever I travel someplace. Torrential rains in LA, snow in Las Vegas and Alabama, 50-degree days in Hawaii, nor'easters in New Haven... I've learned to pack sweaters. Lots of sweaters.

Also, I've been catching up on my many sundry Internet reads from the past week (it's AMAZING how much reading material accumulates when you're not vigilantly scouring the 'net on a daily basis), and saw the blurb on Reuters about the shooting/suicide at a party in Seattle wherein the gunman killed six people before taking his own life. It's a sad, confusing story, particularly after hearing of two suicides of acquaintances in the last three weeks. What it it about March and suicide? In March of my senior year of high school there were two suicides within a week of each other, a sophomore and a senior. Is it that the beauty of spring re-emerging from the bleakness of winter is simply too much for an aching heart to take? Or is it purely coincidence? I'm not sure, and I haven't dwelled long enough on this connection to really make anything of it, but I did find the final line of the Reuters article startling and inappropriate:

"Neighbors said the house was a party spot for young people with dyed hair, body piercings and elaborate makeup."

...and? And this makes them more likely to get shot by their friends? More likely to lead a sordid lifestyle that ends in tragic death? More deserving of their fate, somehow? Ridiculous. Equating the behavior of a severely disturbed individual with his physical appearance (or that of his late friends) is grievously unacceptable stereotyping that does not enlighten the substance of the story in any way, and I certainly expect better reporting from a world-wide news source.

On a lighter note, I really did have a great spring break. Relaxing and lovely. I'm just realizing that it's coming to an end, and I'm feeling vaguely crabby and unsettled. Not to mention, I'm sure, the nascent tree pollen that will fire up my allergies any day now. grrr arrrgh.

Back to the reading for class I should've done a week ago. AWESOME Saturday night. *throws metal sign and bangs head*

all the air we breathe is clean

Spring break sure is flying by. I had the grandest of plans to get reeeeeally caught up on my studies... but instead, I seem to have gotten reeeeeally caught up on my sleep and my tv shows. Oh, well. I'll pay for all this later, I'm sure, but for now, I can't seem to muster enough concern to do anything about it. I foresee an intensely stressful exam period spent feverishly outlining... but that's a good month from now, so ehhhh.

Ireland tomorrow! Should be wonderful. I'm very, very excited--it's been so long since I've traveled to a foreign country! Well, at least, a foreign country that's not Canada. (Not that Canada doesn't count--it just feels like, er, a second home! Oh, dear. Now I've alienated my Canadian readership...) The Boy and I agree that we probably should have booked an additional day abroad, since our schedule will likely be fairly tight and involve a lot of driving, but I'm well-versed in living out of a suitcase. Besides, this just means I'll have to return to Ireland someday to catch what I missed this time around.

Back to memorizing lines for Wigmore (since it's less than two weeks till opening night!)... did I mention that it can get darn expensive financing an 80's costume? Did I also mention that our Robert Palmer video spoof has provided the perfect excuse for me to buy a pair of black Fluevog heels I've had my eye on for awhile? Ahh, to be *making* money, rather than just spending it... someday.

cities in circles drawn perfect, complete

one. more. day.

Spring break is so near I can taste it. mmmm.

...but I have 30 pages of property to read, a (final!!!!11) CLR memo to edit, and two more classes till it's officially here.

Oh, and pancakes. Pancakes for breakfast tomorrow. but that's a treat, not a burden. And I'm having sushi for dinner tomorrow at my favorite sushi spot in the city pre-Belle & Sebastian/New Pornographers... and THAT combination is the BEST SPRING BREAK GIFT EVAR.

so excited.

almost.

yes.

just tape the numbers to the bed

Well, I emerged from the cave of my CLR brief, still alive.

So this is hedging on a "yay almost-spring-break" post, which may disappoint those of you who seem to delight in my sorrow. (Well, perhaps that's phrasing it incorrectly. But you get my point.) Unfortunately, the beast that is CLR is not yet tamed--there's one more assignment due friday, but it's a short one, and hopefully I can knock it out tonight and wash my hands of the class... till it's time for moot court oral arguments, anyway. But that won't be till April.

In other news, I have some shockingly 80s costume-wear for Wigmore, I have tickets to see the New Pornographers/Belle & Sebastian on Friday, and friend Erica is coming to visit on Saturday! We're road-tripping up to Milwaukee to see Ben Folds on Sunday, and then after she leaves Tuesday I'll be seeing Jenny Lewis's solo gig here in Chicago. yaaaay concerts! Makes up for missing BOTH Aqualung AND Nada Surf this past weekend. Yet another reason I harbor such vitriol for CLR.

And finally, one more development: I've been appointed president of Habeas Chorus for the coming year! I just found out yesterday, so it's still sinking in. I'm very excited, though. My main institutional goal is to get us a website ASAP after exams, because as an admitted student last summer, I was bummed not to be able to find out more about the Habeas audition process online. I'll keep you posted as this project progresses.

you're the funny little frog in my throat

ARRGH I HATE CLR ACK ACK ACK

*bangs head on desk*

No, not talking about this. I'm referring to my legal writing class. My brief is due bright and early tomorrow morning and it's making me sad.

I'm even sad about going to Wigmore rehearsal tonight, and it's been nothing but joy so far--it's just the fact that I'm losing 3 hours of CLR working time.

I really, really, really hope I'm not on call in Con Law tomorrow... but with my luck, I will be.

anyhow. that's what's up. more soon when I don't feel so much like whining. 'cause who wants to read more of that? nobody, that's who.

start... please start... please start

Ooof. This is going to be a LONG week. It's already been a long week and it's only Wednesday. On the flip side, hellooooo March! I'm counting on winter to be on the long, slow slide outta here. I'm tired of cold weather.

More importantly, I'm tired of legal writing assignments that seem to provide me more stress than benefit, and I dread the hell that will be this weekend in trying to finish my brief. *sigh* Wigmore rehearsals are fun, but they leave me exhausted (even when we're *not* practicing choreography) and eat up my evenings. I loved watching the Olympics, but they cut WAY back on productivity because it's really impossible to "just have them on in the background"--at least, *I* find it impossible. Lindsey Jacobellis was a fool, Bode Miller was a tool, and Sasha Cohen choked like we all feared she might--but it still made for quality programming.

Ho hum. I swear my life feels more exciting than this on most days, but I'll be damned if I can think of anything more remarkable to share with y'all. And I feel bad for just coming on here and complaining--but it's how I feel right now, and BLOGGING is all about FEELINGS, right? And since I'm not in an emo band, all these hard emotions have to go SOMEwhere, right?

Right. *sigh* back to work...