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Up here in the ceaseless, arctic tundra that is Chicago my mind has been on slow-drip for months. I feel like that should mean only the finest thoughts are distilled. But, at the end of the day it's viscous sap that refuses to be decanted.

Do you have any idea how long it just took me to put those three sentences together?

Oh forget it. I'm going to bed.

Year of the Ox

I suppose I should have some uniquely profound observations to start off the new year but I don't. I am, instead of pontificating, wallowing in a day long Bones marathon on TNT. Not really conducive to deep thoughts.

Neither is this headache. I don't really know where it came from. We were home fairly early and I didn't drink all that much. It might be a food hangover...do those happen? There was a lot of food at that party. There is always a lot of food at our parties. I think we are beginning to reach the tipping point where our parties are more food than booze. I'm OK with that. Does that make me old or fat? Or both? I can hear my elliptical machine laugh at that question. It knows the answer.

I was excited about the prospect of 2009 being nice and calm but it's not turning out that way. It is, in fact, shaping up to be a more hectic year than last. But I think it's going to turn out to be a good thing, this consistent busyness. I'm good with projects and deadlines and I haven't really had any since the theater closed its doors. I should probably thank my girlfriends for getting married and pregnant just so I have a bunch of stuff to do this year. But this is also the year I'm supposed to quit smoking, lose 10 pounds, move to a new, well, apartment at least and decide if I'm going to go back to school. So, you see, hectic.

I spent most of today in bed, watching TV. I guess it's time to get up and get going. How's that for profound?

Happy Holidays!!!!

xoxo

Jen

Lost In The Supermarket

We borrowed Our Friend Jo's car on Saturday to run some holiday related errands (OK, really it was to pick up a new TV but it will come in handy over Christmas.) We stopped at our local Dominick's supermarket to buy big bags of cat food and liter. On our way out I beelined for the $5 bottles of wine that are generally stacked just outside the liquor section but stopped short.

There, set up at a folding table, right next to the cheapest wines in the store, was Alpana Singh doing a book signing or something.

I froze. I wanted to shake hands with her, but I also wanted a cheapo bottle of wine and I knew I couldn't conscientiously do both. Because really how do you walk up to sexy sommelier Alpana Singh and say "Hi, wow I'm a big fan of your TV show and your blog" with a bottle of Turning Leaf in your hand? You just can't.

So I didn't do either. I flashed Ms. Singh a confused smile and rushed my cart off, away from the discount wines. and into a check out line.

I felt bad though. There she was with her hair all curly, looking really nice, (she's hot dude.) But no one was asking her to sign anything or talking to her. I really think they should have put her someplace less intimidating because I would have made my The Husband twiddle his thumbs for at least 15 minutes so I could talk to her about wine. Just not that close to the Yellow Tail bottles.

Slow Clap

Oh, good job Bank of America.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aswiJZGC2Ca8&refer=us

Let me see if I understand what happened over the last year:

You bought a bunch of other banks with other debts.
Then you went on a property buying spree, forcing local merchants to shutter, so you could have prime real estate in retail neighborhoods.

And now you can't afford your payroll so you're laying off 30-35 THOUSAND workers?

Nice.

Taint

I swear to God, if I have to hear about Blagojevich's taint being all over Obama anymore I'm going to throw up.

Math Anxiety

2008 - 1975 = 33

awww yeah.

Monday, Monday

When I woke up this morning it was pitch black. I wake up early, but there’s usually a little bit of light bleeding in. This morning it was still night. I thought I might have dreamt the alarm going off so I rolled back over. But it went off again and I knew it was past time to get up. But why was it so dark?

During the night we had the first significant snow fall of the season and there was about a half inch of the white stuff covering the skylights in the bedroom. Down stairs wasn’t much better and it was much colder. I had hung our new, insulated curtains on Saturday afternoon and in addition to blocking the drafts they also do some significant light blockage. Good when you’re watching TV, not so good when you’re trying to get yourself going in the morning. My grogginess persisted well into the 8am hour.

It probably didn’t help that my morning cup of joe was actually a cup reheated from yesterday. I am mostly unmotivated on mornings like this and it just seemed easier, and you know, conserve-y, since there was still a cup in the bottom of the pot. Shrug. I don’t mind reheated coffee (occasionally.) It reminds me of the “American Style” coffee they served in Greece. I’m not sure if that’s a complement.

Our microwave is pretty slow these days, too. It took three minutes to reheat the coffee and then five minutes to get my oatmeal hot. And yes, I eat oatmeal, most of the time. OK, more like “occasionally.” It would be more often but someone accidentally bought me real oatmeal instead of instant oatmeal. This means I have to actually cook my oatmeal and I get tired of dirtying up pots every morning so sometimes it goes into the microwave. I like to jazz it up with fruit and nuts but I usually end up putting brown sugar or maple syrup in there too. By the end it is barely a healthful bowl of oatmeal. I haven’t resorted to chocolate chips yet but they are tempting, doubly so today with the chill in the air and flurries falling. By the time the coffee and oatmeal were cooked enough to actually ingest I was falling farther behind in my morning routine. Monday is a good day for falling behind though, my The Husband has the day off and I won’t be interrupted by his need to eat, ingest coffee or use the bathroom. So I tend to lollygag on Mondays anyway but I really pushed it this morning.

On top of the snooze button incident and the dying-microwave cooking time for breakfast I have found myself drawn into these goddamn vampire books that I have railed against. Stupid, teenybopper, vampire books. I hate them. I loathe them. They are stupidly full of stupid things and just plain stupid. I can’t stop reading them though. But, I’ll be forced to stop once I’m done with this second book because I REFUSE to buy any of them (these two are on loan from an enabling friend of mine.) And my friend doesn’t own the last two because she REFUSES to buy them in hard cover. We’re trying to stay ahead of this ridiculous addiction. By the time the last two in the series are in paperback we’ll hopefully have forgotten about these first two and just wont care. (Or maybe we’ll find them in a used bookstore.)
So anyway, the snooze button, the microwave, the (stupid) vampire book and the snow. It was a slow morning and I ended up leaving about 15 minutes later than usual. No big deal. Although I did miss two buses as they breezed past in an inconvenient cluster so I ended up taking the train. Which I hate, because it’s crowded and there are a lot of stairs and they make me sweaty when I'm in my winterwear.

But I made it to work. And I sat at my desk, and I did my job. And I didn't fall asleep so I guess it all worked out. I mean, it's Monday. You can't expect too much from a Monday, can you?

So That Was A Little Weird

When Barack Obama won the Democratic Party nomination earlier this year I made a promise to myself. Self, I said, if this guy gets elected to office you’re going to make some changes. He’s telling you to hope and change so listen up. And I did.

In an effort to heed the call to public service that Mr. President Elect has put upon us I signed up to be a mentor to a 6th grade girl on Wednesday evenings as part of an after-school program.

It doesn’t sound like a BIG change but hey, I haven’t voluntarily done anything since the theater company folded up its bag of tricks and that was like, five years ago. So there.

The program is affiliated with the Catholic Church, which is the first weird thing about it for me. I haven’t been affiliated with the Catholic Church for some time. The branch of the church that has its fingers in this pie is Opus Dei. Rationally I understand that Opus Dei is really all about finding ways in every day life to create a more personal relationship with God (at least that's what they tell me,) but all I can associate them with is the creepy albino dude from The DaVinci Code. So I was pretty surprised when the head of the program introduced the priest who runs the monthly Christian Fellowship seminar and hear confessions. He was young (ish, like not green out of seminary but not old and wrinkly either.) And he had a bit of sass mouth to him, which I always appreciate in my clergy. But, I think the biggest impression he left was how uncomfortable he was speaking in front of a room full of women. Which, you know, awww. But then that left me examining the women who are also part of the program.

For the most part the other mentors are all very familiar stereotypes. Mostly they seem to be former Catholic-school girls, like me. But, you know, the cool girls who never let you sit with them at lunch. Their hair is done, they wear slightly too much make up and are somehow still all wearing a uniform. Not the pleated skirt type, the social uniform. There were three women sitting in the back of the room all wearing different sweaters in the exact same shade of pink. They whispered to each other in that affected, nasal voice that always seems to indicate some form of privilege or entitlement issue and waved their fingers around when they spoke.

At least they were aware of their uniformity and sort of chuckled when someone tried to return a pen to one that had actually been borrowed from another. “It’s the OTHER girl in the pink sweater. But, you know, we know her so we’ll give it back for you.”

Standing around at the top of the stairs, waiting to meet our girls was a lot like standing around waiting to find out homeroom assignments. I was already nervous about meeting this girl. I really wanted her to like me, whoever she was. And, as the young girls came up the stairs to be paired up with their mentors that thought jumped to the forefront of my mind. There were a lot of girls and a lot of them looked really hip. Well, you know, still grade schoolers but "hip," wearing sharp jeans and puffy jackets. They had a lot of energy and were greeting their mentors with hugs and smiles. I knew I wasn't going to be getting the same treatment, just meeting my student tonight, but I didn't know what I was going to do if I was assigned one of these girls who was infinitely cooler than I ever was in grade school.

Turns out, that was not so much a problem. The girl to whom I was assigned seems very nice. She just turned twelve in September, she's in sixth grade and comes from a Polish-American home. Oh, and also, she's totally like I was at twelve, with the glasses and the awkward haircut. She needs help with math, reads two books at a time and, when reading, skips the words she doesn't know. If this isn't karma I really don't know what is.

She was all business and we dug into her math homework immediately. Luckily she's still only on identifying polygons so I was at least not stuck trying to relearn fractions like one of the other mentors. The time flew and at the end of the night she flew out the door with her father and not a single look back.

We don't meet again until after Thanksgiving but I'm hoping that when we return to the mentoring center I'm paired with the same girl for the rest of the school year. She seems nice, I'd like to get to know her, maybe help her out. Except with fractions. I'm just no good with fractions.

The World Is Run By Idiots

You know what i hate? When you send a question to a website and they answer you with gibberish or by cutting and pasting the same crap that was unhelpful on their site in the first place.

For example "Dear Target, what is your return/exchange policy on wedding registry gifts which we obviously have no proof of purchase information for?"


"Dear So-And-So thank you for writing. Here is the exact same information you didn't find helpful on our website. And, in case this wasn't unhelpful enough, here's a link back to the page on our website where I cut and pasted this information from.
Thaaaaanks buh bye. Target."

And now I must leave you to pound my head against a wall.

...Something borrowed, and some Voodoo

When you wake up on your wedding day in New Orleans and have no voice with which to say your vows there's really only one solution: Head down to the French Quarter and find yourself some white magic. Of course, the magic you find in the French Quarter these days is dispensed by white girls with tribal tattoos and probably not as effective as something I might have found in a cemetery on a moonless night 100 years ago (if you believe in that sort of thing.) But was a fun idea and at that point I had nothing to lose. So a Yankee delegation descended upon The Quarter looking for some voodoo.

We went for a big name, Marie LaVeau's, and the woman behind the counter offered me a gris-gris and some advice, "Just relax honey." It was nice advice, I wanted to take it. I didn't feel particularly nervous though. I was a little wound up about throwing a giant party that night but really, not the type of nervous that would manifest itself in some Freudian inability to speak my vows. So, after the voodoo shop we went over to Pat O'Briens to try a little "Irish" cure.

The idea was to get a hot toddy. This is not something a person usually orders in a French Quarter bar though so it seemed like we were out of luck. We sat down anyway and after the waitress listened to my friends discussing what sort of liquor I should be doing a shot of, she took an interest. "Oh chile, I've heard of cold feet before but you take the cake!" And with that she went off to brew me some hot tea. The whiskey and tea made me all warm and tingly for a little while and then my cousin and I decided to head back to the hotel, where I had set up camp for the week.

Everyone spent the day trying to convince me to not try to talk, or even whisper. But it was useless. There was too much going on, too many people milling about and too many things to communicate. Most of my friends resorted to text messaging my phone but that didn’t work with my mom and after a bath and some loud music I resigned myself to croaking my way through the day and the wedding in hopes that not caring about it any longer would make the whole thing go away.

And then I took half a Valium.

The rest of the afternoon was considerably unremarkable, except for a few random panic attacks, (probably just should have taken the whole Valium.) My hair was done, my makeup was done, everyone made themselves really pretty and we all piled into the longest limo I have ever been in. Like a freakin football field I tells ya!

We got to the venue and I think that’s when I really started freaking out. Let me tell you, I am really tired of people asking me if I was/am nervous about marriage. I am not, not at all. The Husband and I have been living together for about four years now. This whole issue of “marriage” isn’t at all the daunting part of actually getting married. What really freaked me out was all of the make up and the hairspray and the fancy dress and the people staring at me.

You may be thinking to yourself “But Jen, uh you’ve been in theater for like ever. What’s up with this stage fright?”

First of all, I haven’t really been on stage since high school. Second of all, being backstage means you get to call the shots and no one knows you exist. Being the bride in a wedding means a lot of having to relinquish control of the event to other, better trained people, or you’ll go mad. Mad I tell you!! It also involves a lot of concentrating on where you are walking in high heels and ensuring your make up doesn’t run all the way down your face when the groomsmen make you cry by tearing up on the alter. (Thanks a lot you tough guys.)

It helped a lot to know that everyone up on that alter was a dear friend, including the officiant. He had been aware of my voice problems all day and tried to artfully angle his lapel mic in my direction during the ceremony. I think I had exactly enough voice left for a harsh little “I Will.” And then it was back to the croak/whisper I had been perfecting all day.

By that time it didn’t matter though. Half of the audience knew I had no voice and the other half thought it was super cute that I was too nervous to speak. Whatever they thought, people laughed through a lot of that ceremony. Which is how we like it.

The rest of the night is a blur of candle light and peoples’ mouths moving. I really have no recollection of what anyone said to me, or what I might have said to anyone else. So, you know, if we had some sort of deep, meaningful conversation at any point after 6pm that night, forgive me, it’s totally gone. I remember maybe five songs that I danced to. I had exactly four bites of food and one bite of cake.

When I came back to work the week afterwards one of the girls in my office asked if the most fun I had were the times I was in the bathroom and I realized that after we left the hotel I didn’t go to the bathroom again that night until the after-party. Is that weird? The girl at the office seemed to think so. I just never stopped moving. Except for that one time I had to stop to take off my shoes. I believe that was after the “New York, New York” kick line my cousins and I improvised. We’ll all try to start on the left foot next time I think.

Overall it seems like we know how to throw a good party. It helps that it was in New Orleans, City Most Likely To Have A Good Party. But it also didn’t hurt that everyone we know is totally rad and were complete champs about getting to know each other, party with each other and all around unselfconsciously be complete lunatics around each other. I would really like to go back and get married again and send my stunt double in to do the dirty work so I could be a guest. The strangest part about a wedding is how completely in the middle of everything you are but, at the same time, completely removed from everything going on around you.

All I really had time to do was catch a couple of quick words here and there and then move on either to the dance floor or some other social group. It wasn’t until the day after the wedding, and the days following our return to Chicago that I started hearing about the side dramas and all of the random shenanigans that, were it not for the wedding, I would totally have been a part of. I can’t really say that I’m sorry I missed all of that stuff. I did, you know, have plenty to keep me busy. It’s just weird. That’s all I’m saying. Weddings are weird.

Also weird? Pirates. But that’s totally a story for another time.

Poorly Thought Out Ideas

I totally shouldn’t be at work today.I can tell you right now that pretty much nothing is going to get done. In fact, if I leave tonight having remembered to rerecord my voicemail greeting I will consider it a productive day.

I also probably shouldn’t have bought tickets to this Ani DiFranco concert tonight. God knows I love Ani and her new album is pretty bitchin' but I bought the tickets without looking at the date and then I realized it was the night before we leave for New Orleans and figured “Oh well, by Monday night I’ll be all packed anyway.”

I didn’t stop to think about how neurotic I was going to get about stuff I may (or may not) have forgotten to pack. I didn’t think about being woken up at 3am this morning and then not being able to fall back asleep.

On the positive side, this concert means I don’t have to sit through a Saint’s game tonight so that’s good. And I will try to not let my brain explode all over the place while I over analyze the contents of my suitcases from afar or what a freaking hassle it’s going to be to have to get through the airport with 3 bags, a garment bag, The Fiancé and all of his crap. Do they still have skycaps?

I for sure had too much coffee this morning and I feel like I could eat a good sized piece of livestock right now despite having eaten my usual breakfast. And I somehow left the house forgetting to take out the garbage again, for like the 4th time in two days. Oh and also, I lost the list of last minute things I have to take care of today. It flew right out of my hand and into traffic. I could take that as an omen that I need to stop worrying about stuff I might forget or I could take it as an omen that I am totally doomed to forget something important.

Either way, can’t really do much about it right? I’m pretty confident I got most of it taken care of (except the take out the garbage thing.) And, even though I am super worried about turning my hair some unfortunate, Greg Brady color, I believe I will be forgoing the swim cap should I decide to take a plunge in the hotel pool this week. That’s what Clairol is for right?
RIGHT?

Yeah, so over-caffeinated, under-sleeped, in desperate need of some hard core mental distractions but also not really willing to do any actual “work” today. What a mess I am.

Woohoooo getting married!! YEHAW!

10 Years Later

You know, I was going to compose an entry about how I've lived in Chicago for so long it's totally making me crazy and who the hell would have ever guessed, when I moved here 10 years ago, that I'd still be here now?

And then I was going to complain about the government cronyism and the mismanaged city infrastructure and how completely annoying I find how slowly everyone here moves (Seriously people, "rush hour," look it up.) I woke up this morning with a hangover and I've been sitting here with it all day but I'm still in a fan-freakin-tastic mood. You know, some days, you wake up smelling roses even when you accidentally step in dog shit on the way to the bus stop.

10 years is a ridiculously long time. It's pretty much my entire, independent, adult life and I've lived it all here in this Fly Over State. And yes, it has been a rocky road. And also yes, this place does make me completely cuckoobananas most of the time. But, if I hadn't stuck it out, if I hadn't passively decided to not decide to move away I wouldn't be where I am today, which is 9 days away from getting married, among other places.

That's pretty cool.

I wouldn't have the friends I have now, friends that are family. Friends I share the good times with and help bear up in the bad times.

Friends who over serve me wine whenever I ask nicely.

I never would have become a stage manager, I wouldn't know half as much as I do about theater or have seen as many shows. I wouldn't have sang as much karaoke or developed such intense feelings about pizza and bagels (you don't know what you've got til it's gone.) And in the end I don't know if I could possibly be happier anywhere else.

Listen, don't get me wrong. I miss the hell out of New York. It's my home and I love it and every day, no matter how happy I am here in Chicago, I think about New York but the idea of moving back there scares the shit out of me. Moving anywhere, packing up, starting over, building a new life...it scares me.

But, someone told me once that change is good. I didn't want to hear it then but it turns out he was right (loathe as I am to admit that.) And change wont kill me. And what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

But, you know, let's just take this whole thing one change at a time please.

10 years. It's a long time. But, I'm still here.

A Letter to the %$#%^ CTA

Dear Idiots With Your Heads Up Your Asses:


For the second time within a week the Blue Line service along the Bucktown/Wicker Park corridor was suspended this morning with little explanation and even less alternative transportation to downtown provided.

With hundreds of people waiting at the Damen/North/Milwaukee corners for a 56 Bus, at least 50 waiting at the Hoyne/Milwaukee bus stop and who knows how many more stranded commuters streaming west in hopes of catching a bus before it filled up along the route I spent 45 minutes watching buses blow past us. Each driver pantomimed a clear message “Sorry, this bus is full. I would stop if I had room to squeeze anymore people on, but I can’t.” This would have been valid except that as the busses passed us it was plainly obvious that it was only the front half of the bus that was full because no one was willing to move back. There was plenty of room on those busses if the drivers had stopped and either insisted that his passengers move back or opened the back doors for us to get on. Instead we were forced to watch and wait as it got later and everyone started calling their offices to let them know they would be late.

Finally, at 9:22am, a full hour after I had arrived at the Six Corners looking to get on the CTA to get to work two busses made their way east on Milwaukee with no one in them. The first one had a Garage listed on its electronic signage even though there were obviously people on it. It did not even stop. The second bus tried to blow past us as well but hit traffic at the light. I ran to catch up with it and when he opened his doors the driver told me and the two other people who were still trying to get downtown that he had been instructed to run express until he got into The Loop.

We bullied our way onto this bus because when there are hundreds of people affected by a blue line stoppage it is unacceptable to have busses running “express” through a busy neighborhood. Not only is it unacceptable it is a completely irresponsible decision made on the part of the CTA. Do you even recognize how many people there are in a 15 block radius in Wicker Park/Bucktown that depend on the CTA every morning and every night to get them to and from work? Can you understand how angry we were at some faceless managerial decision that would leave us waiting for God knows how much longer until some other bus came along? Do you think we hang out at bus stops for our health? No, we have jobs to get to just as much as the employees of the CTA do. In the face of rising fuel costs, environmental impact of single rider cars and an over crowded city more and more citizens are dependent on the CTA to get them where they need to go. What is the matter with you people?

I am thoroughly disgusted with the management of the CTA system and I’m baffled by the fact that despite the CTA’s continual threats to raise fares, cut services and the infighting that prevents anything from being achieved that may possibly benefit the ridership no one seems to be able to guarantee us a transit system that works. A transit system that does not, in the span of a week, leave riders stranded twice with no information on why service has been suspended.

You guys really need to get your act together. This is a horrible display of mismanagement and is totally indicative of why the CTA keeps running up against problems getting measures passed. If you think that you can continue down this path of lackadaisical service and still raise fares you are going to have a city-wide riot on your hands and you will deserve every headache and every indictment thrown at you.

Good luck with all that.
Jennifer Maravegias
Bucktown Resident

American WhointheWhatNow?

So, the other night I came home from a seeing a show around midnight and turned on the T.V. At that time of night, on a Friday, it's hit or miss on television but I pay for cable and I expect a return in my late night viewing options.

I shuffled through my options on the bottom of the screen while something inconsequential played on low volume (it was probably Sportscenter. Blah blah blah.) Channel 18 is American Movie Classics on our cable and I feel like I should be able to depend on AMC for a good selection of movies. I should, shouldn't I?

Apparently I really can't because otherwise Pinata: Survival Island wouldn't have been what I found on Friday night.

Now listen, I'm as big a fan of Nicholas Brendon as the next Buffyophile (I didn't even make that word up) but Pinata: Survival Island is still quite possibly the stupidest movie I've ever seen. Troll 2 not withstanding. I contend Pinata is barely a movie and is certainly not a "classic," even if they tried to pass it off under their "New Classics" branding. Give me a break AMC!

I can't even say I stayed awake for the whole thing, although I did try. It was just too ridiculous to keep my eyes open for. It was pretty funny though. The evil pinata stalking the nubile, young frat boys and sorority girls through the uh, Caribbean Island's (?) swath of jungle. Ripping apart their dingies and cutting himself lose from his tether to...You know, I don't even know what this thing did. There would be a wide shot of this menacing, CGI beastie and then it would be quick cuts of kids screaming and blood spattering across the landscape. I have no idea how this thing attacked. It might have bitten and chewed people. It might have ripped them apart with it's ugly, red club-like hands. Or, it could have blown toxic boogers all over its victims. The filmmakers obvious just didn't have the money for those kind of effects.

Nicholas Brendon did have a tattoo on his bicep though. That and the cutoff sleeves on his tee-shirt were pretty much the only thing that differentiated this character from Xander Harris. He maybe didn't get thrown into as many walls in this movie. But, I suspect that was only for lack of walls.

Sadly, I fear that this is all I will ever know about Pinata: Survival Island. This is not a movie I am going to seek out, ever again. I wont even recommend it to my friends. I cannot in good conscious tell anyone "Oh, yeah! That movie was hilarious!" Because really, it wasn't. It just made me sad because it was on AMC. And if we're calling that an American Classic I fear for our future.

One Month to Go

It’s really no secret that The Fiancé and I are hopeless procrastinators but that sort of thing doesn’t really get a chance to catch up with you until you find yourself one month away from your wedding with a list of things to get done.

I’ve already checked off all of the big, important stuff, but the details are killin’ us right now. And frankly I’m over it. Let’s just have this party and be done with it.

But weddings don’t work that way (apparently.) Everyone’s gotta know everything about everything. By everyone I totally mean my mom whom I suspect is beginning to stew in her own juices up in New York. I suspect that because, as usual, I am the one who put that pot on to boil. To be fair, I’m pretty sure she’s been on simmer since I left New York ten years ago. But that’s another post for another time. Deciding to get married in a place that is completely out of mom’s jurisdiction did not help this situation at all. A dutiful daughter totally would have gotten married in her home town and let her mom shower her with rose petals and hire a gang of wandering minstrels to follow her around on The Big Day.

This was not the route I chose to take.

I like New Orleans. It’s a great place to have a party. It’s really far away though so I can’t poke at vendors in person the way I used to poke at directors/actors/designers when I was stage managing shows so it’s a bit of a job keeping everyone on task.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m the one having trouble staying on task. I’ll spend 20 minutes checking out limo prices and then get sidetracked by the need for wedding jewelry. My emails to my girlfriends have been erratic unfocused which, while I love me some stream of consciousness, is not usually my M.O. Every day I am making new lists to replace the lists of yesterday and while some people get stressed out and forget to eat I get stressed out and obsess over food. So, over the course of the day my thoughts may read something like this:

Oh crap I have to get those wedding favors picked out….What time did we say we wanted the ceremony to begin?....I wonder if they have a good mirror in the ready room at Rosy’s….I have to make a list of people coming to the rehearsal dinner so we can send them directions….damn, I could eat a pizza right now…..what about that necklace, that’s pretty…what was I saying about a pizza?...Damnit, work keeps getting in the way of all my wedding planning!...I’ll go out at lunch to find a sign in book….Nuts, I have to get those photos printed….Oh man I hope the food at the wedding is good….How are we going to get a bus to the reception hall mom?...Wont someone give me a slice of pizza?!

You get the picture.

My brain is as jumbled as my email inbox right now between wedding planning, election worrying and actually, you know, having to WORK occasionally during the day I have a hard time turning my brain off at night and when it does shut down, it’s gone. I mean I sleep like the dead when I sleep these days, which is cool because I usually sleep poorly. But, it’s freaking me out because I've been having some crazy dreams lately. Not that I can remember any of them two minutes after my alarm clock goes off but I do know I’m out of breath after a lot of them.

So yeah, weddings make people and mom’s crazy. Learn this lesson childrens. With 30 days to go I’m fairly certain my brain won’t explode before we get down to New Orleans but who knows what’s going to happen once we do get there.

Laissez les bonne temps rouler!

Hope Hangover

To hear the democrats tell it, electing them to office in November will guarantee an idyllic wonderland where all of our country's wounds are healed and we can host some sort of global beach party without everyone trying to blow each other up. It's like some wonderful fairy tale in their rhetoric. Like a cool glass of lemonade after a forced march through the desert.

It's hard to plan big in the way Obama is asking us to after the past eight years. We've tried to plan big and it failed. We've tried to plan small and those plans failed too. I feel like everything has failed. Every system we had in place has been broken, every law we've had to protect us has been tossed aside like so much scrap paper. This has been a rough eight years. There's been a lot of fear and a lot of hate mongering. And it's really difficult to just turn around after a week of speeches and confetti and say "Sure! I believe again! Let's fly to Never Never Land Barak!"

But I'm trying.

I know there is no perfect system. And I know that for all of his promises and slogans, electing Barak Obama is not going to be an instant fix for all of our woes both national and international. I know this is not going to be the Camelot his speech writers are painting for us. But it's got to be better than what we've had, than where we've been.

And even if all of his big plans turn into little plans at least I can feel good about those plans. And even if it takes three years instead of three months to make the kind of headway into reform that this country so desperately needs, at least there will be headway. And instead of feeling like we're falling backwards maybe we can finally feel like we're taking steps forward. As a country we were never meant to go backwards.

I don't do a lot of political pontificating here or anywhere really. I am not, generally, that well informed and I will defer to those who keep themselves politically educated . But this year I don't care anymore. I am maybe not the most politically minded person and I will not engage you in a debate even if you ask me nicely but this year I'm standing strong for the democrats. I'm standing strong for the Obama/Biden ticket. And if you ask me why I might not be very eloquent in my reasoning but in my heart and in my gut it's less about change I CAN believe in, it's about change I NEED to believe in.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Dear Gustav

Take Texas.
No one will miss it.

Hideous Edifice

*Please note: I’ve been working on this piece for about 3 months now and intend to edit it to include pictures of the titular Hideous Edifice but my camera has been broken and I just got it out of the shop.


The neighborhood we live in used to be fairly unassuming and functional. It shares a border with that hipper, edgier, artsy neighborhood where I used to help run a theater company. And, even in its prime, that neighborhood was pretty unassuming too. A blend of working class, artist and immigrant collectives, Wicker Park and Bucktown were the proving ground for Chicago’s emerging artist scene in the 90s when I moved here. No one but the broke artists really wanted to bunk in with the predominantly Hispanic and Polish working class who dominated the area back then. Rents on retail and work/live loft spaces were cheap and the streets were littered with buskers, itinerant hippies, skate punks and artists peddling wares out of abandoned doorways and backs of trucks. Sure, it was a little dangerous to walk around in the wee small hours back then but when else were you going to get free pickings from the donation boxes left outside the Salvation Army? Or stumble on an after-party that you were too drunk to go to but also too drunk to say no to?

There were liquor stores, convenience stores, coffee shops, thrift stores and used bookstores where you could get a reasonable facsimile of a cup of coffee for a buck while you browsed. (OK, to be fair the bookstore is still there but the employees are way more precious these days.) There was also Furniture Row, which is still in the last throes of being dismantled in favor of chic boutiques and upscale shoe stores. You could pretty much furnish your entire apartment for less than $1000 as long as you didn’t plan on any of the furniture lasting much longer than 2 years which probably worked out OK for a lot of people who found themselves priced out of area apartments after the millennium turned.

You could find prostitutes for all discerning tastes at any hour and Horchata flowed like water. There were no lines to get into The Double Door (unless someone dropped a dime on The Stones playing a secret show) and North Community Bank was the only stash hole for your money.

Ten years later it’s a whole different landscape.

First of all let’s talk about North Avenue, which has been overrun by the Japanese boutique chain, Akira. To be fair, I have no idea if it’s Japanese. I know it’s stupid and expensive and takes up way too many store fronts. Plus, if I keep thinking its Japanese I can continue to use my Godzilla allegory of how it’s taking over the whole damn neighborhood. Really though, how many perfectly good stores have to go out of business to make you happy Akira? Do we really need an Akira, Akira Men, Akira Shoes, Akira Accessories, Akira Men’s Shoes, Akira Men’s Accessories? And let’s not forget about the curtain draped storefront you use as a staging ground. Take your $350 jeans and scram you retail monster!

I suppose I shouldn’t complain about Piece Pizza. If it hadn’t gotten so popular and become such a beloved Yuppie/Hipster hangout it would probably be shuttered right now. Plus, there’s just no way a pizza place that good with such astonishing micro-brewed beer was going to stay under the radar for long. We had a good run though, a good few years when it was still a secret gem in a dodgy neighborhood. We could get free pitchers when the owner spotted us and we knew most of the wait staff. Now it’s just another player in the Friday Night Traffic Jam that makes me not want to leave my house. Luckily, they deliver now so I don’t even have to bother with the over served assholes who crowd the bar.

I can, however, totally complain about what happened to Damen Avenue.Years ago I attended a workshop by an Urban Planning Group which discussed the intended path of Chicago’s gentrification efforts. I sort of laughed it off when they said that the end goal was to have more neighborhoods that look like Old Town. Who the hell wants more Old Town neighborhoods? No one who lives there can afford to shop their neighborhood stores. No one who shops the neighborhood stores lives there and neither group of people cares to stop and give the time of day to each other. Piffle I said. No way was this going to happen to Wicker Park/Bucktown. The Artists would never let that happen. Oh but they totally did.

I feel like it all started with The Real World Chicago but that was just the beginning of the end. A year or so later when my theater company got priced out of the space we were renting (stupid, rotten, shitty nogoodnick slumlord asshole…ahem, I digress.) There were already signs that the neighborhood was on the Gentrification Upswing. First of all; all of the hookers were gone. Second of all; you could count on one hand the number of months it took for storefronts to turn over. Something would open in April and be closed by August. Another store, with a similar look would open in September and not make it through the winter. Spaces were getting pricier but there weren’t enough shoppers coming in to keep these newer, trendier stores afloat. Fluevog somehow abides however. Don’t look at me, I think those shoes are ugly AND overpriced. But, back to Damen Avenue:

Someone, somewhere totally flipped a switch and sent Damen Avenue reeling back to 1987 while I was out of town one weekend I think. All of a sudden walking home from the train is like walking through Roosevelt Field Mall trying to steer grandma towards Spencer’s Gifts. Except I would maybe be OK if someone opened a Spencer’s Gifts in the neighborhood, is that wrong?

Marc Jacobs was first and can someone please tell me why he’s trying to sell me cashmere in the middle of the summer? It ain’t gonna happen Marc. Next was the BCBG next door. All of the fashions and window dressings are straight out my less than illustrious junior high days –neon, simple geometric shapes and lots of cut outs. WTF? Who buys this stuff? Ohhhh right that would totally be YOU Ms. Double-Wide-Stroller-with-a-Venti-Mocha-Latte, and your ear attached to your cell phone. You are far from your North Shore McMansion. Scram.

Now there is also a LeSportSac store (people still buy those?) and the latest addition is – and I am not even kidding – a Dairy Queen/Orange Julius.

Look, I am not one to disparage a nice dish of ice cream by any means but I remember when every other door on this street opened into an art gallery. I remember when you could go dancing at Danny’s on a Thursday. I remember when you could go eat at a restaurant in the neighborhood and not need a reservation on a Tuesday night. I remember being the only table in Silver Cloud and that shit just does not happen anymore.

And I bought an Orange Julius the other day for the first time in probably 20 years (shut up, I’m old. I know.) It didn’t really taste very good which made me sad.

I know I know….Blah blah blah it’s inevitable. Stop complaining about it. It’s just as much your fault as anyone else’s you crazy white girl. But it’s not. I didn’t move into this ‘hood with expectations of better shopping. I didn’t buy a condo a block from a Catholic Mission and then complain about the “undesirables” who gather on the church steps. I didn’t come into this neighborhood and decide to destroy landmark buildings in favor of granite counter tops and Jacuzzi bathtubs. I moved into this neighborhood because it had flavor. It was real. It was, occasionally, very dirty and a very dangerous but it wasn’t all painted in ecru and masked with crown moldings like it is now. Do you know how obnoxious it is to feel like you have to get dressed up to go to the corner store for milk? Do you know how even more obnoxious it is when the corner store is a fancy food market where the milk costs more than $2 for a ½ gallon?

My The Fiancé, who grew up in a bad neighborhood and was not in Chicago during the heyday of Wicker Park/Bucktown doesn’t understand what I’m complaining about. He prefers the safe walk home and the fancy grocery stores. I can’t say I mind being able to buy a nice bottle of wine on my way home but I object to the total obliteration of the neighborhood feel. I am all for gentrification at a reasonable rate but this proliferation of international chains and body waxing salons is ridiculous when you stop to consider how many locally owned businesses have gone out of business in the last three years.

It just makes me mad and depressed that the wonderful little neighborhood I have called home for over 5 years has taken on the look of every other retail neighborhood in every other city, in every other state all over the country. I used to like living here because it was totally cool in its total uncoolness. Just like I used to love hanging out at Piece, and Danny’s, Las Palmas and The Artful Dodger (RIP) before the overdressed masses discovered all of these places. Now, when I go out into the neighborhood I might as well be anywhere. And if I might as well be anywhere, what am I doing here?

Totally Me Dudes...

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