I've eaten my words and 236 clusters.

Update: I found them today. My apologies to Kellogg's.

What a good time to blog! In the morning!

I'm a total morning person. I forgot that... but give me some expensive, burnty tasting coffee and an hour of free time at my disposal, and it all comes flooding back. Quite obviously, I will proceed to use that extra hour productively.

Yesterday morning, I was reading on the bus (because when you go to work early, you get to sit down and relax instead of standing in stop-and-go Lakeshore traffic for twenty minutes with your armpit in a stranger's face and your canvas tote suffocating a small child or sitting elderly person). Anyway, I'm reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and right before my bus came to a stop, I read this line - an excerpt from a letter written by one character to another (a friend he's been separated from due to circumstances beyond their control):

I am not meant to be alone and without you who understand.

I won't bore you with the context, but upon reading I ran three blocks to my office, coffee sloshing and scalding and spilling, sat down at my computer and wrote this long, emotionally driven email to some of the people I can't imagine living life without (if you didn't get it, I'm sure it will eventually become a Precious Moments clipart-filled forward you receive on some lazy casual Friday). I think I was in some sort of trance. It was pretty sappy, but completely from the heart (I do not bullshit before 9:00 a.m.). I moved to Chicago with a purpose, and I'm still so completely glad I'm here, but sometimes the idea that I physically extricated myself from the very people I can't live without is baffling to me...

So anyway, there you have it. A beautiful line to reflect on. Give me a few more days, and I'll be off this contemplative kick and onto something more palatable, like turkey burgers.

And now for something completely different...
Do you watch these Target Women videos? You should.

Thanks but no thanks on those yogurt coated clusters.

Dear All-Bran Yogurt Bites Cereal,
When I purchased you at Jewel on Monday evening, I forwent my usual box of raisin bran because a) you were on sale and b) your box conspicuously claimed that you contain "Crunchy bran flakes with yogurt coated clusters." However, upon opening said box this morning, I now think a revision is in order. Something to the tune of "Crunchy bran flakes with three yogurt coated clusters," because that is more accurate. I just spent the last ten minutes physically sifting through your flakes with my hands (which is gross, but you drove me to it) in search of additional clusters (none!). Next time I want to buy a box of bran flakes, I'll do just that, which will leave me with enough leftover cash to justify the purchase of [some crappy magazine].

Catherine

P.S. The sample packet of fiber drink mix you threw in isn't solace enough. It just makes me think of drinking a class of pencil shavings. Nice try though.

The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it.

A few summers ago... five summers ago to be exact, I stayed in Omaha in between semesters to intern at an ad agency. Because I'm innately shy and pretty severely introverted (I've only recently learned the value of talking to coworkers), I would spend every lunch break in my car, listening to the City Club forum and eating a PBJ, as women from the various banks and other ambiguously corporate entities in the area power walked around me. A few months prior, I'd purchased David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, only to leave it sitting on the shelf where I would visit it from time to time, imagining the day when I would have enough strength to lift it (it weighs as much as a baby or cat) and enthusiasm to read it. So, after chewing to NPR for a few weeks, I decided to tackle the impossible. And every day after that I would read about three pages over the course of an hour, the majority of the time spent trying to find my place again after getting distracted by a bird or a power walker or the booming sounds of Dodge St. construction. To put it lightly, the book is a behemoth. It is long. The print is small. The pages are bible-thin, and it is written in a stream-of-consciousness style that make the thoughts of a five-year-old seem organized and concise. Long story short, I gave it my all... I tried for a month or so. I made a dent, but I never, ever finished it. Since then, I've carted it around to every duplex and city I've moved to, hoping to eventually dive in again. If I'm going to be honest with myself, it probably won't happen, but it's kind of comforting having it nearby. Like knowing there's goodness inside is satisfaction enough...

When I learned that David Foster Wallace had died (a week ago today), I read a little more about him, I stared at the lurking book... and today I found the commencement speech he gave the class of '05 at Kenyon College. I didn't go to Kenyon, but that's my year, my generation, and his speech struck more of a chord than I expected. The power of perspective is immense, and while no one should be OK with mediocrity, everyone should try a little harder to accept what cannot be changed (at least immediately) and turn it into an opportunity for growth. I say everyone... at least I mean me. I don't think life is short (short compared to what?) but it's still not worth wasting the time we do have on bitterness or regret. Enough. Read.

I've never fainted before, but I imagine if one we're going to faint, this is what they would feel like beforehand. I'm trying to keep myself occupied. If for some reason a string of coherent sentences is interrupted by something like this: fdlsafjdklsa fjf;ew9qiru3-qw[ femak, it's because I'm lying face-down on my keyboard.

So I get about 72% of my news from Gawker, 6% from CNN.com, 8% from the NYT, 5% of my editorialized content from Slate, 9% from assorted blogs and 2% from cereal boxes, containers of Yogurt, the Red Eye and the old man who stands on the corner of Michigan and Chicago yelling about communism. I guess I'd liken my love of Gawker to a gun-toting Republican's love of conservative talk radio. It's preaching to the choir, but it's really good preaching. Anyway, any iota of admiration I had left for Joel Stein (read: jealousy) was wiped away by his LA Times article on Palin, which Gawker speared first. I just echo their sentiments. I'm too tired to set up a link, but it's there...

Update: Last weekend, while out and about with MC, I found a copy of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell nestled among more notable works at a little used bookstore in my neighborhood. I decided to sit on the floor and read some excerpts, and right then and there, I was finished with it forever. It wasn't worth the $6, or the humiliation of the transaction with the cashier... It's just downright horrible, and my standards are ungodly low.

That's all I have for now. Hopefully the weekend will result in a story worth telling. TGIF!

(If you realized that the above percentages add up to 102% like I just did, five minutes later, you win mathematical superiority over me.)

While I'm alive, I'll make changes changes to earth.

Fall will always be hands-down my favorite season. I guess it had a 25% chance of winning out, plus it has my birthday, two pretty decent holidays, etc. But still. But STILL. It’s the only season that simultaneously renews my enthusiasm from where I am and makes me miss the places I’ve been. It’s three months of sensory overload, and I am in it for the long haul. I had no urgent tasks to accomplish over lunch today, but I made myself leave… even in the elevator I got nervous about the uncertainty of a pointless lunch break. Determined not to end up perusing Walgreens for an hour, I proceeded to wander, my biggest purchase/accomplishment being a small soda from Flat Sammies. I managed to come back feeling refreshed.

I kind of fell off the 826 wagon after moving to Lakeview, mostly because I lazily let time pass, and the distance to Wicker Park seemed too far, and then I just started to feel guilty. Blowing small situations out of proportion comes pretty easy for me, and I began to assume that after a prolonged absence, they wouldn’t want me back. After all, volunteers are a dime a dozen, and I imagine they may be upset that I borrowed a few books and then conveniently dropped off the face of the earth. Regardless, I’m going back… I have a TA meeting tonight and a workshop to man on Saturday. We are rewriting the endings to fairy tales. I am excited.

Ummmm…
So.
The theme in my head seems to be travel, for two reasons. Jo returned from India last weekend and came over last night to show me pictures of her travels. What a beautiful place. Having never been to India, only about half of the pictures looked like the India I envision – all Darjeeling Limited and monkey thieves. The other half exhibited a surprisingly varied terrain. If you’d thrown in a guy wearing rope sandals and smoking weed out of an empty bottle of Fat Tire, I would’ve sworn it was Colorado. Anyway, by the time she left, my desire to travel (which has never really been satisfied or even taunted) sort of overwhelmed me, and I made myself go to bed. And then I dreamt that I was robbed by monkeys.

Second, and more importantly perhaps, my sister leaves tomorrow for 14 months in Honduras, where she will live at an orphanage, teach children, do some social work, etc. And I only ask two things of her: That she change the world (not save it, mind you, just change it) and bring me an orphan of her choosing. But in all seriousness, and not to make this blog completely family-centric, I’m so ridiculously proud of her. If anyone’s truly carrying on my dad’s legacy at this point in time, it’s MC. I’d like to think that I will follow suit in some way… I really have to if I don’t want to eventually be eaten alive but thoughts of what I’d rather be doing. But in the meantime, I wish her well. Assuming that she doesn’t even read this, an open message to Mary Clare or anyone else leaving tomorrow for 14 months in Honduras:

I’m going to miss you so much it makes me want to crawl into a closet and eat a box of Reduced Fat Wheat Thins. Can’t wait to visit you (it will be just like DR ’07, only with more guaguas and public urination).

Here is a Frightened Rabbit song that makes me think of you, not because you’ve ever heard it before, but because it more or less summarizes a pretty vital life philosophy:



And here is some Daddy Yankee:



Safe travels. Te quiero.

It rained all day yesterday. The entire day. Bus stop to bus stop, sleep to sleep, etc. And it's funny how soon people forget that just a few short months ago, we were trudging over ice and through snow without batting an eyelash. We were nursing bruises, frostbite and crippling cases of SAD, but we carried on with our sanity generally intact. Now, after a summer of decent weather and consistently clear skies, 24 hours of rain results in a state similar to marshall law. Every conversation came back to it... Walgreens made a mint off of it (I stopped in to make my daily purchase of hair elastics and cheap mascara and found a long line of disaffected tourists waiting to buy overpriced umbrellas)... Plans were canceled and shoes were ruined. I stepped outside at the end of the day with an fairly important decision to make:

Take a train and a bus to Bucktown to go to the gym
Pro: Healthy, etc.
Con: Rain

Take the express bus home, drink a beer and watch The Bucket List
Pro: See above
Con: N/A

Will leave it up to you to decide which option I chose.

I hope they serve beer on Mega Bus.

I do not trust Sarah Palin's eyebrows. But I guess that's sort of a non-issue.

I'm seriously considering reading I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell out of pure curiosity. I'm positive I will hate it. I'm sure I will ultimately be worse off as a person for having read it, but the time I've spent mulling over the mere possibility of reading is infinitely greater than the time it would take to find the corner of Borders least littered with empty Frappucino cups and subscription cards and just. read. it. Maybe not even cover to cover. My younger brother, who fits squarely into Tucker Max's intended demographic, couldn't even give it two complete thumbs up. That either says a lot for the caliber of my family's general intellect or not much for the book. I'd like to think it's a combination of the two.

(Note: I just took a ten-minute hiatus from writing to peruse Tucker's Flickr account. But I was making fun the entire time! In my head!)

I decided to dip my toes into the lukewarm pond of discount domestic travel last night and take Mega Bus home for the first time ever. My bus was supposed to leave Chicago's Union Station at 11:55 and reach St. Louis's Union Station at 5:25 this morning. However, it was an hour late, so I ended up spending the end of my Friday night and the beginning of my Saturday morning talking to an...

(Gross. I can't stop, and these pictures aren't even interesting.)

...older woman about her grandchildren and watching a drunk couple stop kissing and stumbling long enough for the guy to board his bus to Toledo. Due to recent events (aherm), I was a little nervous about taking a bus. At night. Next to strangers who may or may not feel it necessary to harm me or at least just stare a lot. However, once the bus started moving, and I began to doze, I realized it was the people around me who were in danger... at least in danger of being made to feel uncomfortable. I've been having nightmares lately, and it's not unusual for me to wake up saying something nonsensical (confusing) or crying (awkward). I would sleep in five-minute increments and then spend the next half hour trying to discern whether or not I'd done anything crazy in my sleep.

The guy sitting next to me looks fairly restful and unfazed. Check.
The woman in front of me is still scraping the cheese off of her Egg McMuffin wrapper. Check.
I'm not drenched in sweat or covered in cryptic messages written in Dr. Pepper Lipsmackers. Check.
We're good to go.

By the time we rolled into St. Louis this morning, just half an hour over our original ETA, I hadn't made any lasting friendships on the Mega Bus, but I hadn't burned any bridges either. And for a $16 ticket and a chance to get home, that's the most one can hope for.

What I listen to when I am alone.

What I will deny if you approach me about it in person.

Man Singers
Depressingly uncreative, overly sentimental... They fall in love with their best friends and sing about staying in bed all day with a girl I imagine to be Rachel Bilsen. They sound like I should be paying them $250 of Creighton's money to play in our campus coffee shop. Their lifeblood is Zach Braff. I buy their songs in $1 increments from iTunes in the hopes that the next one will break my addiction. I listen to them on repeat. Current unfavorite: Josh Radin

Country Music Videos
I discovered the music video channel on On-Demand the other night and chose to watch two hours of country music videos instead of taking a shower. In the process I learned that Keith Urban is pandering to some non-existent mainstream country music-loving hipster audience. His videos are full of kids in skinny jeans fighting in laundromats. I'm going to be honest with myself and you as well; I will probably do the same thing tonight, this time with wine. Current unfavorite: Anything Rascal Flatts

Flavor of the week: Dave Matthews Band
Sometimes you have to go with whatever feels right at the time. And since I'm working late and deserve a number of things, including sleep and the discontinuation of the janitor's whistling, I owe it to myself to satisfy my ears. Current unfavorite: Anything that reminds me of boy-girl parties and sounds good reverberating through the hollow halls of an empty office building.

I get the picture.

In the small corner of the apartment that I inhabit, which happens to be smaller than the other parts because I would rather save a few bucks on rent and sleep in a twin bed, with all amenities (desk, bookshelf, alarm clock, entire wardrobe) squarely within my cramped reach, there is one window. The window looks directly across the driveway into the corresponding window of the building next door. I have noticed, out of the corner of my unassuming eye, that their extra small room is used as a computer room (probably more suitable). There's a chair, a phone, etc. I haven't let my gaze linger long enough to glean any further details.

Anyway...
anyway.

I've made a concerted effort to keep my shade all or mostly closed when I'm in my room, especially when I'm... oh, I don't know, getting ready for work, checking my email in a sports bra or hosting The Saddest Dance Party Ever, featuring me, my ailing laptop and my roommate's cat, if he stops eating long enough to show up. Long story short, I do my best to keep my bedroom behavior, however sordid (more often pathetic), to myself.

I returned from St. Louis on Sunday to find a potted plant in my room - a gift from one of my roommates. I think it'd been sitting there in the dark, unwatered, for a week or so because it looked dead and smelled like hummus. I immediately rushed to the window in an attempt to resurrect it with sunlight when something caught my eye across the way. A 10 x 14 framed picture of two little boys, propped up in the window, facing me. And while I could've seen much worse (looking out the window into the lives of others is always a gamble), the portrait's presence was pretty jarring, as it unleashed the assumptive floodgates of my imagination. Why did they put that there for me to see?

Well clearly...
They have seen me wearing a towel tucked into a pair of Umbros, drying my hair and singing misquoted Mason Jennings lyrics into my flatiron.
They have seen me lying on a pile of shoes, reading Parade magazine and picking my nose with a tweezers.
They have seen me staring at nail holes in the wall, taking dusty, apprehensive sips from a month-old glass of red wine.
They have seen me completely unedited, and it's scaring their children.

So they put their picture up to remind me that just nine suspended feet away, young minds are developing. I have been passive aggressively warned to keep my blinds shut, and I will oblige... minus the ten minutes a day when I give my plant sunlight.

In my time here.

Last night, after watching 3/4 of The Hottest State* with Mary Clare, I woke up alone on the couch, in front of the blue TV screen. It was that in between place in sleep where waking thoughts are mixed with sleeping ones, and I was momentarily convinced someone was breaking into the house. The quick feeling of severe panic was magnified by the fact that we're now short the stereotypical protector, and even though my dad's presence has probably never been the best defense against possible intruders, it took a split-second nightmare to finally realize he's gone. A week and a half later...

But in the midst of all of this, a few key learnings:
When you are sad, people like to feed you. If I never see another coffee cake again, I will be lucky.

I now know a multitude of ways to respond to "I'm sorry," "How are you holding up?" and "Take care of your mother."

Even if I thought it was just a cheesy plot device before, the urge to look for signs is irrepressible. The cardinal that lingered in the tree as I ran by panting, showering it in a cloud of sweat. The butterfly that landed on my knee while I sat in the backyard, feet propped up on the trampoline, reading an old issue of Glamour and smoking borrowed Parliaments.** What were before just overly friendly (possibly rabid?) creatures are now sources of comfort.

Even though I've spent the past week doing nothing particularly exerting, I am tired. So ridiculously tired. Sleep until 11:00 and then take a nap at noon tired. The bags under my eyes are beginning to obstruct my vision.

I could not have designed better friends if such a program or robot existed.

My brother Paul is my hero. Number one on the list. To surpass Bill Pullman and Richard Carlisle*** at just 17 years of age is a feat to be admired and a well-deserved achievement.

I am not ready to be normal again.

We**** are rockstars.



*Do not waste your time.
**Grief smoking doesn't count.
***Inventor of the coin-operated vending machine.
****You know who you are.

I will miss you.

Happy Birthday, Mary Clare!

You are lucky to have such an amazing mustache...


... and such an amazing role model.


Love ya.

Bleachin' your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash under your breath

The debate has waged on since May as to whether I should I go Lollapalooza for one, two, three or NO days. I'd honestly be okay with all four of those options, although it turns out the two- and three-day options will only work if I magically produce a barrel of salable plasma. So one or none, and it looks like one's winning out. Paul and his friends are coming up to stay with me for the weekend, and they'll be attending all three days. Plus, I haven't seen Jordan since I moved and he'll be here, so, you know... reasons. Kangaroo Jack, etc. I'm going for Saturday because it has the highest Bands I Actually Want to See quotient, although skipping Sunday means missing the National and the Weakerthans. Eh, who knows... I'll probably trick myself into thinking a Sunday ticket makes sense too. Then, the following week, when I'm eating kleenex for lunch and using bingo chips for contacts, I will be satiated by the knowledge that I spent $80 to see Gold Digger performed live.

Tentative Saturday schedule:
Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
Mason Jennings
MGMT
Explosions in the Sky
Okkervil River
Broken Social Scene
Wilco

Stop doing.

At the job I held prior to the job I currently hold (doesn't get much more specific than that), we were at one time instructed to make "Stop Doing" lists, as opposed to "To Do" lists. It could be because the number of bad habits I employ far exceeds my list of life ambitions, but I found the task really easy, to the point where my list was long and disorganized and extended onto footnoted post-its and scribblings on the backs of my hands. I'm not sure what happened to that list, but I've started to compose a new, improved one, a Stop Doing 2.0 if you will. Most of the items will remain proprietary, known only to me, my secretary and my life coach. (Stop Doing #445: Save money. Fire private secretary and life coach.) But for now, I have vowed to stop drinking on weeknights and, stemming from that, to stop being a pushover when the peer pressure to do so mounts. I tend to be friends with enablers, and since that will never change (enablers are also fun, passionate, unceasingly caring and extremely loyal), I need to grow a pair. Diet Coke is cheaper anyway, and I can always slur my speech for effect. Falling down shouldn't be a problem either.

I was putting on my shoes for work yesterday, which incidentally had small heels, and I thought about the line from Little Women when Amy's going through the box of donated clothes and pulls out a pair of shoes for Jo to wear to the ball/coming-out party. She says something to the effect of, "Jo! Look at these shoes! What cunning little heels!"

I think I'm going to try to say "cunning little heels" more often.

Life is funny.

I don't have a ton to say right now. It's been a weird week. But last night, as I lay on my boxspringless mattress trying to fall asleep despite the drunken din below my window and the missing ceiling fan up above, I thought about the last time my dad was sick. And I remembered writing about it in a now-abandoned LiveJournal. I went and found it this morning, and it didn't take me long to be reminded that life is cyclical, and age doesn't always bring wisdom. In some ways I wish that I could channel the me of three years ago when dealing with the world's complexities.

November 14, 2004
Meh.
I'm 22 now. Last year I gained the right to drink in bars and on the street from bottles nestled in worn paper bags. This year I've gained a palindrome and the sneaking fear that from now on the years will personify themselves as small, numeric bullet trains, hurtling past me faster than I can find responsibility...somewhere...

In this pile of ankle socks and cats.

Friday night we saw Sideways. It's a movie I probably would've seen anyway, but living in Omaha brings a certain obligation to put food on Alexander Payne's depressing table. I liked it - I know more about banjo making than I do about wine, and there was many an uncomfortable moment - but I enjoyed it all the same. There's something strangely soothing about Thomas Hayden Church's voice.

Saturday we ate at the Dell for my birthday dinner. I dragged Mary Clare along in an effort to bridge the ever-closing gap between MC the sibling and MC the slightly younger, shorter and cuter college friend. Annie and Shelley had spent the afternoon planning what I would later find out to be a Barbie-themed party afterwards. Mary Clare chose to return to the dorms, which was probably better. The alternative was to stick around and watch me pass out halfway up the stairs later on that night. Because I am excited by technology, I've posted some pictures of the evening. So now I'm 22. The tiny trains are picking up the pace. I'm not ready, and they don't care.

I'd originally defined the intensity of this semester with fairly tangible tasks and obligations. A full load of credits, an internship at an ad agency that will remain unnamed because I don't want to end up like that Capitol Hill intern who's blog was discovered (resulting in a a job loss and a great deal of public shame), and a position as editor of Creighton's literary mag. And while all of this has left me with small, bloody bald spots at times, nothing has gotten out of control.
I keep eating.
I keep sleeping.
I keep showering, sometimes with soap.

But the last few weeks have caused that intensity to morph from a "Full House"-type drama to a more "Party of Five" inspired stress. Two weeks ago, my dad fell off a stepladder and passed out in my neighbor's driveway. A passerby found him, and they got him to the hospital in good time. Turns out he had some bleeding under his skull (a Heeeeematoma), and they kept him for a few days just to make sure he'd be okay. So he missed a week of class, but was back on his feet pretty soon after.

Cut to three days after that, when, while driving to Web Design at 8am in a cold Omaha drizzle, a Maroon Coup Deville ran the light at 24th and Farnum and gave my '91 Sentra the spanking of its life. In the process of spinning, braking and most likely making animal-like vocalizations, I hurt my knee - developing a Heeeematoma where I'd had ACL surgery a few years back. The Sentra was a lost cause, so Matthias and I jacked my stereo, and I'm currently driving a rented Ford Focus for what could also feed a small country, or at least me, for a good month. I have to get a new car when I go home for Thanksgiving - my mom's been hinting at doing the deed before I get home, which could entail a whore-red '87 Tercel waiting for me in the driveway.

Cut back to this morning, when I awoke at noon to find out that my dad, who they thought was fine, had been ambulanced to St. Mary's after waking up vomiting in the middle of the night with a severe headeach. He had emergency surgery this morning to stop the bleeding in his head. He's still in ICU, but my mom says he's awake now and making the occasional poorly received joke.

So I'd like to believe that everything's fine, but this is hard for a number of reasons. It's hard because right now I just want to be home with my family - with my brothers, watching Law & Order reruns with them, making fun of Paul's tiny mustache, telling them things are going to be okay. It's hard admitting that my dad's at the age where something small like falling off a stepladder could mean something big like internal bleeding and surgery. I don't want to believe that he's getting to the place that I've spent my life dreading he'd reach.

And all of those fears, some unfounded and some completely logical, spiral into worrying about my family's welfare if my dad can't work anymore, etc. I get selfish and worry about work I'd have to make up if I had to go home on short notice. I should probably look at the small picture and hope that he'll be able to eat sugar-free pie with us at Thanksgiving. I haven't had a decently coherent conversation with him in a few weeks, and I miss him.

So this is what being 22 is like and this is what approaching the end of the first half of the last year of college feels like. I don't want to wish away time, but I'm ready for this segment to be over. I can't even remember the last time I allowed myself to completely relax. But there's a cat on my bed and he looks lonely, so for now tension is eased in short spurts of cat-sleeping, and watching Britney Spears lick Snoop Dog's goatee. Then I can go home.

Paper Snowflakes

Last night I saw Son Ambulance at Schubas. The only other time I've seen them was probably 2005ish, when they played a free show at the Joslyn for art patrons, local fans and anyone else who wandered in off the street looking for air conditioning and/or macaroni art projects. And at the time, I was too busy painting a rudimentary self portrait with a group of more talented five-year-olds to pay close attention. Anyway, this time the audience was more intimate, slightly older, and with two beers and no dinner, the buzz probably added a little something as well. All in all, the show was good. Not great, mostly because it took them awhile to catch their stride and get into things, and the set ended soon thereafter. The band itself is awesome, and I'm not just saying that as a former Omahan. But... for the sake of full disclosure, the lead singer used to live across the street from me on Dewey Ave., in that big, crumbling mansion full of hipsters, vagrants and hipstervagrants.

In other news...
This morning I left a frozen veggie burger in a plastic bag somewhere in the apartment. I'm not sure where, and I'm already dreading the day I go to throw away a q-tip and find it decaying beneath the bathroom sink.

I'm treating this like my regular blog, so maybe I'll post it in my regular blog as well. (If you're reading my regular blog, it means you're reading the copied and pasted but no less authentic version.)

I have never wanted to be where I currently am less than I do today.

Pitchfork is this weekend. If you're in Chicago, you should go and hang out with my sister. You will have to be comfortable with the fact that I'm living vicariously through you (it's a pretty painless process).

Annie and I, along with a few other rather rad people (see photo), are traveling from our respective cities to KC this weekend to celebrate the nuptials of John and Monica. There are also plans to drink, reminisce, make mistakes and reminisce some more about mistakes recently made. Hopefully we'll return with stories and actual blog posts, because I'm feeling like a cock tease for hinting at good things to come.

At home in St. Louis. Where the men are men, and the humidity is cloying. I have resigned myself to looking effortlessly dewy for the next three days.

I'm not big on talking to strangers. Never have been. This characteristic was beneficial as a child, as not even candy would provoke me to start a conversation with the friendliest unfamiliar looking people. That Rick Springfield song was old news to me. So whenever I approach a situation where stranger conversation could possibly occur, I usually take the necessary precautions in order to seem aloof and unapproachable. Last night, after four hours of pita eating, gift buying and people watching at Midway, I finally boarded my plane for home and promptly took a seat in the back... a dark corner where I could rest my head against the small, thick window and watch Chicago disappear into a cloud of ozone. When I could sense that someone had taken the seat next to me, I promptly buried my head in my book and attempted to exude indifference. Most people can sense it when you're not up for making small talk, and most are simultaneously understanding. After all, it's 10:30 on a Wednesday night. We've all been turned into zombies by a painful series of 15-minute delays, and we're all anxious to reach our destinations. My seat friend was an exception to what I thought was a widely accepted rule and commenced conversation before he'd even had a chance to stuff his carry-on into the overhead compartment.

"What are you reading?"
"Um, just this...book." (Exhibits book cover, continues studying last three words of previous paragraph.)
"Is it scary or funny?"
"Um, funny. I guess."

Thus began an hour long conversation that covered everything from tractor buying to the politics of small town living. I never learned his name, but I did learn virtually everything else about him. For instance,
- He has a one-year-old son named Ethan.
- He has Ethan's footprint tattooed on his left tricep. (It's difficult to show strangers a tricep tattoo. It involves complicated meneuvering from both parties. But I have to admit, it was kind of touching.)
- He monitors power lines for a living.
- He was celebrating his 29th birthday and hoped to get back to Bunker Hill, IL in time for a Milwaukees Best or ten.
- He owns livestock.
- He's not fond of minorities. (I responded to this with a grimmace, but I don't think that was enough to turn his world around.)

The conversation proceeded, despite my exxagerated efforts to stuff ear buds into my ear drums and cover my face with a blanket.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"Um, no. I mean, I did, but I don't anymore."
"Isn't hard to meet people in Chicago? Everyone's moving around all over the place."
(At this point, I mind-punched him for finding that dark place in my brain where the only other inhabitant is 50-year-old spinster me.)
"No, not really."
"How long are you in town for?"
"Until Sunday."
"So would it be rude to ask you to lunch tomorrow?"
"Yes, no, no. Not rude. But I can't." (I have to take a nap on the couch and give the cat its insulin shots.)

At this point, normal conversation would probably taper off, but this particular exchange continued until I met my brother at his idling car outside the airport. I never learned my traveling companion's name, but I owe him a bag of dry roasted peanuts for coaxing me out of my book and into reality. Normal people talk to strangers every day, and they usually learn something. I learned that it's possible to get an infant's footprint tattooed on your tricep, and that power line workers get a free vacation day when it rains. It rained today, and I found myself hoping he made the most of his day off.