her feet?

My next door office neighbor likes to talk to herself, and she's been quite the chatterer today (and it's only just 8 a.m.). Just a second ago, out of nowhere, she said "funky." I think I can go home happy now.

sort of embarrassed to admit this

I've been watching American Idol.

(Here I pause to wait for the barrage of beer bottles and rotten tomatoes to end.)

Yes, it's true. I've gone over to the dark side. Actually, I've gone *back* to the dark side. I watched several seasons way back when, then stopped because I grew a conscience and some dignity. But now, well, can dignity and a conscience shrink from lack of use?

Anyway, this stuff that these people sing is never anything that I would pay money to listen to, but ... well ... the fact of the matter is ... this season is actually ... GOOD! I can't believe I'm saying that, but it's the truth. I like the changes they've made this season. They seriously needed them. And the contestants this year? I watched last night - "Country Night" which would normally nauseate me - and really I can only name maybe two people that I think should be sent home. The rest of them I actually liked! I mean, I really really liked! On COUNTRY NIGHT for cripes sake! We're in for quite a competition here.

So yeah, I'm kind of excited to hear what these guys do in upcoming weeks when the theme is something I actually tolerate on a regular basis.


In case you're interested, here are my evaluations and predictions for the Top 13 (including the 2 who have already been eliminated:


Jorge: Eliminated last week, and I don't miss him. He was one of the stronger personalities, but one of the weaker singers.

Jasmine: Eliminated last week, and I don't miss her either. She's too green and needs to live a little before starting a career. Any career.

Danny: I've really liked him from the beginning and I think he has a chance to win it all. I think he has the stage presence to pull off any kind of musical performance, which is good on this show.

Anoop: I'm undecided on Anoop Dog. I think he's talented, but maybe not talented enough? I don't know. It just feels like he's trying too hard or something. But at least he doesn't bore me. And I kind of liked the song he chose last night.

Allison: I really enjoy her performances and I think she has a cool voice. But I tend to forget about her as soon as she's done. Don't know what that's about. But she can seriously sing.

Matt: I wasn't crazy about him at first, but this week he did awesome! I don't get the Justin Timberlake comparisons, but the kid is very talented, especially behind a piano.

Scott: Speaking of pianos, Paula was right when she said Scott was using the piano as a crutch. I give him kudos for doing this kind of thing with what could be a damaging handicap (he's blind, if you didn't know), but he really is the weakest singer. I don't want to sound like the bad guy, but I think he is getting the sympathy "good for you" votes.

Lil: I really like Lil and her R&B vibe. I think she needs to up her game a little in order to stand out more, but I think (and hope) that she could make it all the way.

Megan: Megan, Megan, Megan. What can I say about Megan? She's weird and tattooed and quirky in both her vocals and her onstage shimmies. Personally, I love it, and I always look forward to her performances, but I could see how the general populous might not want to keep her around.

Michael: I liked him at the beginning, but I think his star is fading. He's just becoming very blah. I don't think he'll stick around for more than a few more weeks, if that.

Alexis: I like Alexis. I really liked her performance last week, but this week wasn't as strong. Still, she's one of my faves and I think she'll go far. As long as she keeps being "dirty," that is, but maybe they can stop saying that word? Please?

Kris: This kid is adorable, and he can sing. Yes, that's all I'm going to say.

Adam: So, saving the weirdest for last, there's Adam. I missed some of the early auditions and Hollywood week episodes, so I really didn't know much about this Adam kid until last week. And, um, I LIKE IT!! He's kind of weird and goth and wears makeup and nail polish and tight leather pants, and he's got a voice like I've never heard before. He can do a fantastic falsetto, and really knows how to work the crowd. I wasn't sure what to make of last night's Middle-Eastern-tinged version of "Ring of Fire" But I think I maybe liked it? I liked judge Kara's comment, "It left me confused and sort of happy." Yes, definitely. And I think Adam is going places. Whether it's to American Idol's hall of fame, or to another planet where he can be ruler of the tight-pants girly-singers, remains to be seen.

Seacrest, out.

remembrance

Yesterday at work, we all received small black ribbon pins in memory of four of our employees (from a different sector) who were killed in the recent plane crash in New York. At 10:20 in the morning, we observed a moment of silence in their honor.

During this moment of silence, I was reminded of another time when I was given a ribbon to remember someone who had passed away.

When I was in 8th grade, I spent quite a bit of time in the hospital. Every few weeks, I would go in for a night or two to have an I.V. treatment (something like chemotherapy). One day while I was sitting in my hospital bed whiling away the hours until it was time to go home again, I glimpsed a boy walking into the room next door who looked familiar. Over the next few hours, I saw nurses, doctors, and family members going in and out of the room frequently. I particularly remember the boy's Dad. At one point, he came out into the hall holding a mask over his mouth. He lowered the mask and smiled at me.

It must have been the next morning when I saw the boy again. Only this time he was being wheeled out of the room in a wheelchair, looking like he'd been through a war. That was the last time I ever saw him.

The following Monday at school, the hallways were full of whispers. I could only understand that something bad had happened to someone. Finally, there was an announcement from the Principal. A boy named Jason had taken ill over the weekend. He had acute Leukemia. There were complications with his treatment and he passed away on Sunday.

I don't think I realized right away that this was the boy I had seen at the hospital. I didn't want to believe that I was the last of his classmates to see him alive.

What I learned later was that some bleeding in his mouth (possibly triggered by tightening of braces - the memory is a little bit foggy here) had tipped his doctors off that there was something not quite right. This led to the leukemia diagnosis. He needed a blood transfusion, which I believe is what was happening in the room next door to mine. For reasons unknown to me, he was then transferred to a hospital in the city. There is where they discovered that the transfusion had caused a clot in his brain. He had been scheduled to start chemotherapy the very next day, but sadly, he never made it that far.

A few days after the announcement, all of the students at the Junior High were given little cream-colored ribbons in memory of Jason. I pinned mine on my backpack, which is where it stayed all year, and all through High School, too. When I looked at it, I thought of that young boy I had seen at the hospital. But even more often than that, I thought of his Dad, and the brave smile he had given me from the hallway that day. His family was going through Hell, and he still found the strength to smile at the stranger in the next room.

the house

It's been almost 2 years since my Dad retired, and about a year for my Mom. In this time, they have, like most retired couples do, thrown around the idea of selling their too-big, too-hard-to-care-for house, and moving into something smaller. Perhaps a little 2-bedroom house in town with a little yard, or maybe a townhouse in one of those retirement villages, or possibly even a house far away in a much warmer climate, where my Dad's hips and knees won't bother him so much, and he will never have to snow blow another driveway ever again.

In my mind, this possibility has always been a "someday" kind of thing. On some distant day that I don't have to think about, my parents will move out of the house they've lived in for the past 20+ years. There will be a teary goodbye, all the neighbors will come over with their best wishes, and maybe we'll even bury a time capsule. Right next to the circle of cement at the top of the driveway that used to hold up the basketball hoop, but my Dad was never able to dig up because it went too deep, and maybe he didn't want to anyway since it has the hand prints of me and my brother and the paw print of our old dog Emily.

But it seems that "someday" is coming much sooner than I had hoped. They plan to put the house on the market either this Spring or next. They've already had two people come out to give them a recommendation on how much to list it for, and they've begun the staging process.

A few weeks ago, I was devastated to learn that my Dad had gone through half of the enormous bookcase (that he built) in the living room and given a ton of books to Goodwill. I got mad at him for not asking me if I wanted any of them, which I know was completely selfish and bratty. But I think that what I was really feeling was the sentimental attachment to the house and all the objects in it. Even though the books belonged to my parents, I felt like they had just given away a part of my life. The process was starting - the process that would end with them not living there anymore, and me having no reason to drive out to my old neighborhood anymore. The next day, my Dad called me up and told me he was sorry for upsetting me, and that he wanted me to be there when they went through the other half of the bookcase. As guilty and ridiculous as I felt for blowing up at them, I felt happier that they decided to include me in this process of change. And after the second book purge, I came home with a box and a half of great old books that either I'd loved as a kid (the Tolkien Bestiary), sounded like an interesting read (a biography of Jack Kerouac), or were just really cool (a leather-bound Atlas from the WWII era). The other night when I went over to their house for dinner, I found a couple more boxes of old stuff they wanted me to go through before they threw it out, sent it to Goodwill, or put it in the "garage sale" pile. This time it was kids books that had been in a bookcase down in the basement for who knows how long. Even though I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, I decided to keep quite a few of these old books, for various sentimental reasons (one of them was a personalized story about Mother Goose given to me by my Grandma, who passed away last year).

I am going to accumulate more "stuff" during this move than is physically possible to fit into my apartment. I know that my parents will only be taking one living room set with them when they move, so they've offered the second one to me. My Mom has also mentioned giving me the dining room set. And to my shock, they lately offered me the antique record player that we've had for as long as I can remember. Even in the house before this one.

The thing is, I'm not sure if hanging on to things from the house is going to make it easier or harder for me to accept that they're selling it. That house embodies my family. It was my uncle's construction company that built it. When it was just a hole in the ground, my Dad, brother, and I brought a maple sapling that we'd dug out from behind the garage of our old house, and planted it in the far corner of the backyard of the new house. It's a big, healthy, beautiful tree now, but for a long time, you could still see the crooks in the trunk caused by it's rough beginning. During construction, I used to make things out of the scraps of colored wires left on the floor after the electrical work. I remember the first thing I ever put in my bedroom closet - a My Little Pony corral - and I don't think the room even had walls yet. My little brother only remembers living in this house.

Saying goodbye to this place is going to be difficult, to say the least. We built that house in 1987 and it's always been home base for me and my brother. The place we knew we could always come back to. I visit my parents at least once a week, sometimes more, rarely less. I know that that won't change if they move, and my brother and I will be just as welcome in the new place, but will it feel right? Will it be home? And if they do decide to move out of state ... well I just don't know what I'll do on Wednesday nights anymore.

Have you ever been walking down a long hallway, like at work or something, and you're passing by people, some of them you know, some of them you don't know, and you pass by someone you know, or you sort of know, and you think "smile" but your mouth doesn't actually smile, and then you wonder why you don't have any friends at work?

No?

Ok, nevermind.

yowza!

I haven't written anything in a while, have I? Hmm. I'm trying to think of why that might be ... I was really busy with work for a couple weeks there, but that doesn't usually stop me from documenting my thoughts ... dunno. I guess I've been feeling like I'm in some kind of state of suspended animation or something lately. I haven't been having any deep thoughts, no emotional turmoil, no quirky observations, no rhetorical questions. Just ... existing. Don't get me wrong, I've been perfectly happy with the status quo. It's just not very conducive to blogging.

But here's something. I have been trying to straighten myself out with regards to my diet. Some recent bouts of tummy turmoil ('Turmoil' is a great word, isn't it? I've already used it twice in this entry!!) have clued me in to the fact that I don't exactly eat what I should be eating. Several months ago I decided to cut out all artificial sweeteners (bye-bye Diet Coke), limit my caffeine intake, and drink more water. Now that my bladder has gotten used to the idea, it's been pretty smooth sailing on those seas (I should maybe consider rephrasing that sentence.). But now is the time for a more drastic overhaul of my old eating habits. I need to buy more fresh veggies, more whole foods (bye-bye blue box mac and cheese), and perhaps most importantly, learn to ...*gasp* ... COOK!!! Sadly, this is where the problem lies. It's not that I crave the processed, bad-for-you foods, it's that I am interminably lazy. I don't want to take the time to cook something myself when it's so much easier to throw something in the microwave for a few minutes and be done with it. Even making a salad is exhausting work for me, cutting up all those veggies. I tried once to make one huge salad that I could divide up and eat over a couple days, but then I forgot about it and after the third or fourth day, the whole thing had already gone bad. Utter failure.

However, I was very proud of myself after I went to the grocery store yesterday. I intended to buy some yogurt for my lunches, and perhaps a couple of other things if they struck my fancy. I ended up completely filling my basket, and 90% of it was fresh produce! Go me! I plan to make a trip back to the store in a couple days to get ingredients for some soup I'm going to attempt to make this weekend (a 4-day weekend for me! Whoo!).

... and I have no idea how to end this entry. Perhaps "Here's to healthy eating!" works?

The End.

a new perspective

I did some reflecting on New Year's Eve after returning home from the party circuit, and I came to a new conclusion about myself. Something I've never really considered before, but makes a lot of sense.

I think I want to be single.

I was watching some crappy movie a few weeks ago, in which a father imparts the wisdom to his daughter that people have the love life that they want to have. Meaning, you create the situation in which you are most comfortable. Now there are some serious holes in this reasoning, I know, but it does have a grain of truth in it. And when applied to my life, it fits. I remain single because that is how I am comfortable, it's what I know how to do, and it gives me room to find what makes me happy without pinning all my hopes and dreams on someone else. If I was seriously unhappy, and needed that relationship to feel complete or fulfilled, then I would have it. I would be trying a lot harder to find someone. And even if I was failing, I would still be going on a lot more dates, flirting with a lot more people, and just generally putting myself out there a lot more. And the truth is, I'm not doing any of those things. I've never signed up with an Internet dating site, I don't particularly like set-ups, and after numerous failures (and the conclusion that I repeatedly pick the wrong people), I resolved quite some time ago that I would no longer ask anyone out. I wanted to let them come to me. I reverted back to the old-fashioned idea of the male as the pursuer. I figured that since I always picked the wrong people, maybe a person who pick me would be right. But ... well ... that didn't really work either. Not to mention was totally lazy.

So I guess what I'm saying is, my passive approach to dating and relationships speaks volumes about what it is I really want. I'm not willing to work for it, so it must not be that important to me, right? Anyway, assuming I don't completely abandon this new way of thinking in, like, a week or something, you will see a whole lot less whining on this website in the year to come.

Reflections on 2008

My favorite new things about 2008:

- New Prez Obama!
- New apartment!
- New car!
- New job!
- New babies (NOT MINE!! Shoutouts to Dex and Olivia. Love you kiddos.)

Some fave experiences of 2008:

- Seeing a friend's shocked face at her surprise baby shower
- Cuatro de Mayo at El Mariachi with margaritas the size of your head
- Going to the Sex and the City movie with the girls
- Visiting a friend in the hospital while she was IN LABOR!!
- Being almost able to see Stevie Wonder on the jumbo screen if I stood on my tippy-toes at the Taste of Chicago
- 4th of July barbecue with a good friend's family
- Baton Club - transvestites are awesome
- Getting drenched to the bone while attempting to watch Blues Brothers in the park
- Lollapalooza - and seeing Gogol Bordello twice in one day - insanity, I tell you
- Celebrating a good friend being 5 years cancer-free
- Celebrating my Mom being 5 years cancer-free
- Mars Cheese Castle!!! And Jelly Belly side trip!! And the pyramid house!
- Roller Derby and lots of Jack Daniels
- Having a good old fashioned pajama party for my birthday
- Our fantastically awesome Gogol Bordello Halloween costumes
- Kristkindlmarket on the day after Thanksgiving
- A whole weekend of baking Christmas cookies with my Mom
- My little bro unexpectedly (to me) coming home for the holidays

Some of the not-so-good parts of 2008 that should be reflected upon:

- My Grandma passed away this year - she was 90 and had a long, full life, but she will be missed
- My never-ending health issues
- Car debacle - the century-old water mains of Chicago had it in for me this year
- Recession - even the cost of the washers/dryers in my building went up
- Blagojevich - and we were just getting used to being proud to be from Illinois ...
- Several of my good friends moved away
- Packing up and moving AGAIN - not to mention apartment hunting in sub-zero temperatures

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but if I did I would resolve to:

- Meet a lot of new people
- Think of ways to save money and plan on taking a trip abroad, maybe England or Ireland
- Learn to cook and try new healthy recipes (already started this one and made a positively yummy salmon dish the other day)
- Get my apartment in shape because I plan to stay there for some time

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope 2009 is fantastic, especially to all 2 of you who read this blog! ;)