They began construction on the lobby of our office building the week I moved to Chicago, and they finished it about two weeks ago, celebrating its completion (and the addition of a half-dozen pieces of questionable modern art) with a reception last night. We milled around for a good hour and a half, refusing congealed appetizers, sipping little plastic cups of wine and gawking at all of the people who actually work in our building, on floors above and below us, every day. I ride the elevator with a few each morning. I've never seen them all amassed in one location. I guess it was eye-opening, possibly comforting. With a good Merlot buzz going (I always talk about wine! I love wine so much I guess), I ventured out into the pouring rain and met some Second City folks for a show at the IO... where I drank a bit more (I also love reneging on promises made to quit drinking on weeknights). When I got home, I made toast (and finally, I love toast) and passed out watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I woke up a few hours later to a news story about blood spatter conferences. Again: Blood Spatter Conferences. Which apparently exist. I was more likely to wake up to Suzanne Somers selling me a sequined jean jacket, but of course I was roused by blood spatter conferences. It took me an hour to get back to sleep. I guess the last two sentences were the whole point of that entire drawn-out story.
If you are like me, when you are on a plane, you automatically tune out the oxygen mask demonstration in order to do something more interesting, like deciding which Sky Mall page to leave your gum on or playing The Next Song Will Determine the Course of the Rest of My Life with your iPod. Sometimes I worry that I've tuned something out so many times on the simple assumption that I already know how, and that I really don't know how, and that someday I will be forced to actually do it... and not be able to.
These are two versions of one song. In my book, both parties can do no wrong. The only thing Joanna Newsom is guilty of is being incomprehensibly different from anyone else in existence. And the Decemberists could poop in a paper bag and I'd still listen to it.
The cover
The original
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