Boo

Didn't do anything for Halloween. Laaaaame. Freud wore his Charlie Brown sweater. Maybe next year he'll go as Charlie Brown and I'll dress up as Snoopy. That would be too cute for words.

I know finding this funny makes me a bad person, but I'm sorry, it's funny. In a bad way. But funny.

Elizabeth (my co-teacher for Kids Klub) and I were discussing our lack of local female friends, so we agreed to be "girlfriends." We can talk about boys and PMS and giggle and go shopping. Ok, at least we can talk about boys and PMS.

I'm a farty fart fart fart.

Hannah Spencer is the coolest person ever because she just turned 24 and now she's on her way to travel the world for an extended period of time. Bon Voyage, Fegelah!

Ole!

Tonight I went to a Flamenco show at a Persian restraunt with Yalin, a friend from Oberlin I recently discovered is living in Chicago. It was positively awesome. Totally fun and energetic and fabulous and the food was excellent and the facial expressions on the lead dancer were more intense than anything, including the garlic burps caused by the food. I want a flamenco dress.

For the record, Chase sucks. I should know by now not to count on him for plans, but plans were his suggestion so I blocked out my afternoon and sat around. He did not call, so I called him. Twice. The second time I spoke to him and he informed me that he went with his girlfriend to her rehersal and was headed back to St. Louis later tonight so maybe we'd see eachother on his next visit. Dick. I should be used to it by now.

Flamenco made me miss West Wing tonight. Only bad thing about tonight. Tonight ruled.

My pores feel clogged.

surfing

I'm flipping back and forth between Nancy Kerrigan's Halloween on Ice and the Pace Picante Pro-Rodeo Challenge. They are both exceptionally bizare. The audience for Nancy is all old people and children. I don't really understand what she is doing. Obviously, she is ice skating, but I'm not sure if this is supposed to have a plot. There was a poem and then she was a spider and now they're doing some disco thing with lots of pseudo-disco moves randomly thrown in between the usual ice skating flips and lifts. Then there's the rodeo. They're in Omaha, Nebraska. They all wear cowboy hats when they start and lose them two seconds later when the horse or bull starts to buck. Then they snap back and forth like rag dolls until they fall off and almost die. On the plus side, a goodly portion of the rodeo guys are hot. Suicidal and dumb, but hot.

One of the channels has ads for the Army, Wrangler Jeans and George Strait. The other has the movie Chicken Little and Ultimate Love Songs. One of the disks of the Ultimate Love Song collection contains Whitney Houston: Greatest Love Of All * James Taylor: Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight * Kenny Rogers With Dolly Parton: Islands In The Stream * Eric Carmen: All By Myself * Barry Manilow: Even Now * Toni Braxton: Unbreak My Heart. Holy shit. That's amazing.

Now they're steer wrestling. They ride out on a horse next to the steer, then they jump off the horse and onto the steer and try to flip it and pin it. Why? I just don't understand.

I should be knitting Chase's scarf. I may see him tomorrow and it's almost a month after his birthday already. I've got about a foot to go. Blah.

Ice skating juggler with skelleton assistants doing his thing to "Bad to the Bone." Nancy Kerrigan as the Zombie Queen to "Killer Queen" by Queen.

Ok, knit.

creepy

Creepy creepy creepy.

Fell off the coffee wagon yesterday, headache today, lazy lazy lazy all day.

Dog is whiny, whiny, whiny.

I don't know why I'm saying everything three times. I don't know why I'm saying everything three times...

Bet you thought I'd say that a third time. Wow, I need to get out tomorrow.

When it rains...

1. I find out peripheral friend from Oberlin is living nearby. Perfect person to go out and play with.
2. I actually meet random person to whom other friend gave my email. Turns out to be excellent new friend.
3. Friend who did the giving of the email is in marital crisis.
4. Other married friend fucks up foot and can't afford ER.
5. Friend from junior high may show up in Chicago and want to play this weekend.
6. Many more hours of work after many fewer hours of work.

funny ha ha

Things have a funny way of working out.

lalalala

Happy Simcha Torah. I have an excellent new friend. I am also a touch tipsy and it's not even 6 PM. Silly Jilly. Thank you, Joel. And I am officially not dead. Now I poke my neglected-looking pupping in the face until good tv starts.

Justin Case

Tomorrow I am meeting the e-correspondent guy at Dunkin Donuts at 1:37 PM. So if my body turns up somewhere, Jeni and Hannah know more details and Joel knows where he works. The last time I met some random Jewish guy in person he was totally weird and lame and took me to the Applebee's in one of Cleveland's cooler neighborhoods and he wanted to pet my head and was obsessed with Batman. But this is not a date, so it is not fated to follow the ridiculous path of my short but entertaining dating history.

Short but entertaining: I think that describes me fairly well.

Tonight's White Sox game was way to long. 5 hours, 17 pitchers, 14 innings. So will they sweep? We'll see. I've said it before, but at least they're a Chicago team.

My neck and shoulders are sore. Since I have tomorrow off work, maybe I'll go to yoga with my upstairs neighbor. It would be good for me both physically and socially.

Now, I crawl into bed and play Monopoly on my phone.

Idea stolen from Amy's blog: Google image search results for...

1) The age you will be on your next birthday.

2) The place you live.

3) Your favorite color.

4) Your first love.

Lamaze reunion Josh didn't return any results

5) Your favorite fruit or vegetable.

6) Your favorite animal.

7) The last name of your favorite actor or actress

8) The name of a pet.

9) Your favorite song (right now)

10) A bad habit of yours

11) Your middle name

Jumping Beans

I freaked out earlier at an irregular clicking sound coming from my nightstand. Turns out it was my new beautiful Mexican Jumping Beans, sent to me from New Mexico by Hannah. I was going to take a picture of them, but a still photo of jumping beans is just not that interesting. A short video, however, is much better. Now I understand the true need for video cell phones. Check out my jumping beans in action.

My mom was annoying me earlier tonight because my brother was in a funk and she called me to see if I thought it was ok for her to go out and what I thought she should do. He's 16 and depressed. Funks happen. I spent most of my childhood and adolecense in a funk and my parents never even noticed. So now I'm somehow the funkmaster/depression guru. This wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't supposed to be my mother's area of expertise. I don't mind being more knowledgeable about music than my mother or social graces than my father because neither of them claim to be particulalry skilled at those arts. But my mom has a masters in social work, wrote two books on motherhood, teaches family sociology classes, and has been a therapist for over 20 years. She should not come to me for advice. I should not be more observant of behavioral stuff than her, particularly when I don't even live with the subject in question.
I was thinking a lot about this sort of thing during the days I didn't have internet. It allowed and forced me to write things that wouldn't be seen, so I worked through some parent issues. The most notable realization was that I'm so hard on my mother because she was supposed to be perfect in that "nobody's perfect" sort of way, so I blame her for proving herself human. My dad somehow escaped this because he always seemed human to me. He's very hard on himself and did things that were so obviously wrong to my child mind, I never had issues expecting more of him. My mom, on the other hand, was the prodigal middle child and always tried to make everybody happy. I get very upset when she doesn't understand something because it always felt like any miscommunication clearly had to be on my end of things. Hell, pretty much any time she and I disagree it has to be because I'm wrong-after all, she's perfect. And forget about blame; there's no way we didn't both contribute to these misperceptions. I just need to get used to the fact that she won't always do or say the "right" thing. There are pleanty of things she will always do better than me. Powers of human perception just tend not ot be on that list anymore.

Sox on the beach

Anyone who walked into my apartment right now would still consider it a total mess, but compared to when I woke up this morning, it is much much better. I ditched my mom in order to clean, making me a worse dauther but a better apartment-dweller.

White Sox won game 1 tonight. They're not the Cubs, but it's still nice to see a Chicago team win something. It's been 20 years since the Super Bowl Shuffle, and Ditka is still a god here. Phil Jackson made the mistake of going on and winning with a new team. I think he's like the father that abandoned us and started a new family. We can't help loving him for what he once was and hating him for leaving us alone to pick up the shattered pieces.

Is it rude to vacuum after 11 PM? It's a Saturday...no, I suppose it's the ol' fashion broom and dustpan for me. Then mopping. Then dishes. Then the bathroom. Then the counters. Then general tidying. Yesp.

hairy feet

My apartment currently smells like dogfood and feet. I understand the dog food smell, but the feet have me a bit baffled. I need to do a real clean-up, but it's overwhelming right now and I had a long day. Still, smells like goddamn feet. I hate that smell. I need a maid.

I got my hair cut last night. Tricoci University, the school owned and run by Mario Tricoci Salons, offers walk-in services. For $12, I got one of the best haircuts of my life. I had to wait an hour after driving 40 minutes, but it was totally worth it. Bea, the student who did my hair, first asked me if I wanted to keep my current long layers or try something different. I said I had no idea and that if she thought there was something that would look better on me, I'd be happy to change. She and her teacher agreed a bob would look best, so we discussed length and what she was going to do. The teacher started her off, cutting a few "guide" pieces for length, then complimented me on having the "perfect neck" for hair cutting. Apparently, my neck is long and curves the same way the haircut should, so it would be obvious how to do it. The teacher came and went, and they discussed my hair and head in terms of "tic-tacs" and clock faces. Bea learned "slithering" and she and the other students were all very excited by this new technique's results. So for $12 I had a wash, cut, blowdry and style that looked better than the $75 cut I got at the actual Mario Tricoci salon last time.

Other notable service offerings:

• Men's haircuts: $8
• Basic manicure: $7
• French manicure: $9
• Basic pedicure: $20
• Basic faccial: $10-$15
• Full service and price listing online

In other news, my e-correspondant person made a very casual meeting suggestion, so no more worry about that monkey.

I know I should walk Freud again before bed, but I just want to pass out. We'll see if he lets me.

triumphant return

my internet is back. huzzah.

harsh realities

How does one go about turning an e-correspondent into a friend in reality? Particularly when said correspondent is male and right now you just need friends and people to hang out with? I'm no good at this sort of thing. It's be easier if he was a she. At Interlochen I more or less asked Amy to be my friend during orientation week. It was quite out of character for me, but not nearly as complicated.

Who am I kidding? This is the sort of painless mini-drama I love. Still, if you have ideas, I am happy to hear them.

Happy Birthday, Brian Zeller

You have now been alive one year for every open hour (daily) of the diners we love so well.

That is all that is worth saying tonight.

crash

What do you get when you mix two new drivers and an unmarked intersection? An accident. 26 hours after getting his license, my brother got into his first crash. Everybody is ok, but both cars were damaged. My brother was at a breakfast with his soccer team. He went through an unmarked intersection after not seeing the other car coming down the street, and the other car didn't break and rammed into his side. The driver of the other car was one of my brother's teammates and friends who'd only had his license for a few months. Oops. I'm fairly shaken and my brother is mostly just mad/upset over his loss of car and freedom so quickly. My parents were almost landing in LA at the time of the crash, so I get to be the one to help him deal with a lot of it. When we finally got ahold of them on the phone they were very good and supportive about the whole thing, but this kind of killed any fun sibbling bonding plans for today. I keep saying this but I keep thinking it, too: there are lots of basic driving things that can only be learned through experience, and the only way to gain experience is by driving, but it is scary to know someone you love is out there in that period. Defensive driving--the kind that can only be learned over time so you don't even have to think to avoid potential accidents--is just so important and so scary when it isn't there yet.

Stop, children, what's that sound?

At my parents' house. Can't sleep. Long day today. I subbed for the first grade at work from 9:30-2:30. It went well overall. It's a very precocious class, which I like a lot, but it does tend to make things a bit more difficult. Every project, direction, and request is met with at least one argument, five declarations of how it could be done "better," and two requests for what we should do instead. I've seen their regular teacher in action, and neither she nor I accept anything besides polite suggestions (preceded by raised hands, of course), but they try nonetheless. It's like 9 versions of me at that age, so I suppose the cosmos is just sitting behind the curtain giggling at me. Still, I had fun, so Cosmos, the joke's on you.

After school#1, I went immediately to school #2 to help out with their Kids Klub. Things seem to be going much better than they were a few weeks ago. Today was "Spongebob Day," and Jessica had them making Spongebob faces out of sponges and pre-cut construction paper pieces. She puts hours into prepping. Makes me feel a bit like I have a small teaching penis, but then again we have a smaller group and therefore barely any paid prep-time, and there's only so much I really want to do out of the kindness of my heart. At least not for this.

By the time I left school #2, my throat hurt from yelling; not angry yelling, just teacher-voiced child-wrangling yelling.

My brother got his driver's license today and got to drive into the city for a date by himself tonight. My mom spent most of the time he was gone freaking out about his wellbeing, but considering what she was like just seven years ago when I was in his position, she's come a long way, baby.

Freud tried to climb into bed with my parents. My mom is convinced she's vaguely allergic to him, and she's doesn't like animals to begin with, so she threw him out. I'm just impressed Freud feels comfortable enough to snuggle in with them. It's a good sign, especially considering my mom had done very little to encourage him, though he's enough like a cat he may like her because she mainly ignores him. She does like that he likes her. And then there's my dad who, had he been conscious at the time of Freud's intrusion, would have loved it. I could never marry a person who didn't like animals.

I managed not to mail my rent check this month because it got lost on the floor of my car. I need a better system, not to be such a fucking idiot, or to find myself a secretary/partner/spouse who is better at the whole bill paying/financial organization thing than I am. Because I suck at it. Even though I have a big accordion folder with all kinds of categories and sub-categories and I use Microsoft Money to manage my bills and accounts and everything, I still screw up too often. But it's hard. You figure, every month I have rent, cell phone, credit card, health insurance, electric, plus auto and renter's insurance a few times a year, plus whatever other random bills show up now and again, it's easy to either misplace or mispay one. They all are due at different times, too, and some can be done online while others require mailed checks, which just complicates things further. To fuck one up every few months is easy to do (like not realizing I haven't mailed the rent until they call and I look and see that I've written the check and I'm pretty sure I had it in the car and oh look at that it's all squished on the floor of the car) and really, really, really bad. I've heard the lecture and I even understand it and know it's true--bad credit is a nasty nasty thing to have. It can fuck lots of things up both short and long term. I'm young. Maybe this is something I'll learn to improve to perfection. I hope so.

It's 4 AM. Is my brain empty yet? This is not a good way to get over a migraine.

migraine

Migraine. Really nasty one. Most nauseous I've been in ages. Now I'm fasting not on purpose because I don't feel like eating (though I had a handful of dry Kix and milk with my morning pills). I'm trying to drink my peach sparkling water for calories, but I almost puked twice on my walk with Freud. God I hate this. My brain had been so good lately, too. Damnit damnit damnit.

ring-a-ling

My old phone finally died. It was a great phone for the two years it lasted, but it wouldn't take a charge and it seemed like it was the charge connector things and not the battery (new battery, anyway), so I gave up.

My new phone is the LG vx8100. It has a 1.3 megapixel camera with zoom, video capability, speakerphone, and (my favorite) a memory card slot so I can play mp3s and easily upload and download pictures, calendar appointments, and live-action porn. The two external speakers are quite impressive, as is the large full-color screen on the front of the phone. You can do quick things like read incoming text messages, play/stop/fast forward/rewind songs, and mess with the speakerphone, all with the phone closed. And it has a dark blue face plate. And it is a bit heavy, but it's not fat, it's just big boned.

What Not to Wear

The What Not to Wear thing was some combination of fun and disappointing. We stood in line for maybe 15-20 minutes, then they closed me in a "360 degree mirror" room, which was kind of like, yes, that's nice, these are mirrors and that is me...Ok now what? My mom and I had been watching people doing this computer thingy where you chose your body type, height, hair color and age and then got "rules" for what to and not to wear and had to pick the "correct" outfits from the pictures. The body type choices were limited to pear, hourglass, and slender. Not sure what we were, we asked one of the line helper people (think mall Christmas elves looking for work in October), who found the style expert who was there from the show (not one of the on-camera famous ones, but a style expert nonetheless) and we asked her. She wasn't quite sure, either, as my mother and I are both rather petite but we definitely have hips and asses. The stylist said I was more hourglass and my mom more pear because I was just enough bigger on top. Moment of triumph, having bigger boobs than my mother. Is that silly? Sick? Whatever. I'll take my small joy morsel. She also recommended I do scoop and v-neck tops with patterns on top and avoid prints on bottom in order to draw the eye up more towards my face. She also complimented my hair color, saying it matched my skin nicely. I thought this was funny, considering my hair came with my skin (that is to say it is all natural). After our two minutes with the stylist (which was two minutes more than most people got) we did the computer thingy. I kept choosing the "wrong" outfits until the male October Mall Elf came over and tried to help me. Then we got print-outs of what we'd done on the computers and What Not To Wear goodie bags containing a WNtW fridge magnet frame, WNtW purse mirror, 1 oz Aveeno lotion, and two ad flyers.

Before leaving the mall I dragged my mom into the Lego store. Among other things, they had a huge back wall of all different shapes and sizes and colors of legos sorted like candy in the grocery store and sold by weight. When I am extremely rich, I want that wall in my house.

My phone won't charge. I think this means it's time to get a new one. I'm due, anyway ("New every two," thank you Verizon), I just didn't really want to incur the expense yet, and I know I'll want a phone that's more than their $100 allotment.

Designing cable knitting patterns is much harder than designing non-cable patterns. I'm basing what I'm doing on an existing pattern, but it's being a pain in my ass and I keep having to take out rows and re-do them. Sorry, Chase, you are never getting your scarf.

What are the chances of my getting up early enough tomorrow to go to the library for kol nidre music stuff before work? I wanted to do a lesson on the music of kol nidre Tuesday, but that requires having said music in playable form. Considering it's almost 4 AM, I'm thinking this is not likely.

Ah, Uterus!

Stupid fucking reproductive system. Stupid fucking cramps. I really hope they can find a Pill to put me back on that won't give my strokes but will make this lovely time of the month somewhat more pleasant.

Food and such

I'd been drinking coffee again the last few days, so today I weened myself. This meant a guaranteed migraine and a slept-through day. The headache wasn't as bad as it could have been (thank you, Migranal), but I was certainly unconscious a lot. Freud's being all snuggly. He's so cute when he's worried about me. I woke up very hungry at one point and ate two bananas in quick succession, followed by shell pasta with seasoned ground beef in vodka sauce. I'm not always a huge fan of tomato sauce, but put vodka in it and mmm mmm delicious. Put vodka in anything, really...I'm trying to come up with something that would be ruined by vodka and nothing comes to mind. Chocolate syrup...pickle juice...so long as it started edible, vodka can't really ruin it, it seems. It wouldn't necessarily improve some things, like I don't see it being particularly worthwhile in chicken soup, but no combinations as horrible as toothpaste and orange juie or anything. Facinating.

Even though I made pleanty of times before I even met Brian, I still associate beefy pasta with Brian. All those winter terms and debates over the significance of covering the boiling water and what constitutes "too much" rosemary; it's a food that will be forever tied to that friendship. There are other foods that always make me think of other people, too. Corn pops, chow mein cookies, and fruit roll-ups are pure Jeni, eggplants are my mother, arichoke hearts are my sister, brie cheese is my cousin Laura (we used to hollow out the entire wedge together, avoiding the skin), wings are a combination of Brian and Matt. My brother, I'm afraid, is still linked to Spagetti-Os, thanks to his toddler habbit of getting them all over his face, including in his ears. Interestingly enough, some of my very best friends don't really have specific foods. Hannah is just the concept of eating fast, Toph and Diana get beverages (Guiness and water respectively, the latter being responsible for the first time I ever considered water to be a real drink). I think of Ellen when I drive past RJ Grunts, and Amy has somehow escaped without a single food association.

I have a tiny little canker sore on the tip of my tongue and it hurts a lot.

I watched Platoon tonight on tv and now the Barber Adagio for Strings is in my head. That's one of those pieces that I love hearing and hated playing.

Best thing about being on Blogger instead of Friendster: I don't have to worry about the fucking monthly picture upload limits. Those sucked. I was good about staying under 50 pics a month, but I hated rationing and often if I found something better or didn't like the way a pic looked I'd keep it because I didn't want to "waste" my quota.

My hands smell like garlic.

Tomorrow my mom and I are going to the What Not to Wear thing at Woodfield Mall. I hope it doesn't completely suck, because I am excited. I have no real fashion sense and I really just want somebody to tell me how to dress and how to do my hair and makeup. I also really want "girlfriends" around here who aren't my mom, but that requires my acquiring girlfrines, a skill I've never been great at.

One of my Kids Klub students is a really good writer (considering he's not quite 7). I always knew I liked this kid, but when he spat out four pages in complete, well-written sentences, I better understood why. He gets in trouble a lot in school, but I think it's because he's bored. He knows most of the answers already, so he stops listening and starts goofing around. I'm guessing if someone gave him extra work or side projects or something he'd be much better off. Reminds me a lot of my brother and a little of myself once I realized getting in trouble wasn't the end of the world (though I was already 11 or 12 by that time).

Moved

I'm finally sick of Friendster's blog thing. So this may be a new site, but it's still the same ol' me.

You're never alone when you have a radiator; it's happy to talk to you at all hours of the day and night.