The Perfect Weekend

9/28 - 9/30

Friday night: This week was extremely chaotic. So by friday night It was fantastic to say to my friends, "hey, I need some couch time, you're more than welcome to come over, but I need sometime at my house." And as we had all gone out the night before last and gotten pretty gone, they were cool with that.
Me, a bottle of wine, cheese & bread, knitting, a good movie, and my couch: the perfect chill night.

Saturday, even better: sleep in. Finish watching "Heroes" in my pj's from bed,
and when the power & water go out across campus, I figure it's the perfect time to go into town. I spend a solid 4 hours at the library catching up on communication and planning my future. Meijer is insane, but I get everything I need.
Back to school, talk to friends on the phone, and then go for a run. It kicks my ass a bit, but feels good none-the-less.
Perfect night: starts out late, once get to town split some cheap sushi outside meijer while having the best cup of chai tea and getting called a cheap date. From there it's time to just chill at Borders reading magazines while my "date" talks on the phone - I know this may seem rude of her, but really, I love this. I love feeling comfortable enough to just do what it is I want to do while she does the same. Awesome. Topping to the evening- a decent movies that's a total cry feast at the end. "Feast of Love" more like "Feast of Tears". Still, great, and had great life-affirming conversation in car back home.

Sunday: sleep in again, and get up just barely in time to go to church. Church was ok, it's only been so-so lately, but today, for the first time ever, I spoke. This is a big deal kinda, but it was fine. Talk to family, chill at borders again waiting for library to open.
Have now spent another solid 4 hours at the library figuring out my future, making
decisions, writing up things for work, and getting this blog written. Now it's off to Borders to seriously get my read on with Entertainment Weekly. From there, no doubt another meijer run for groceries, maybe a run, and a night of finishing up knitting a
baby hat - just in time, the baby was born last night! What a great ending to the perfect weekend

Top Five John Cusack

I’m going to find John Cusack and marry him. He’s so quirky and
perfect. Cute, personable, gainfully employed – most of the time, loves
you completely even when he’s totally heartbroken – which seems to be
frequently. He has fantastic taste in music and wears hisRamones t-shirt whenever possible. He’s articulate, intelligent; I never really get to see his scary side cuz
I don’t watch those movies, but every relationship needs balance and
some time apart, so his scary movies can still be in his life. And,
he’s a Chicago man. It’s destiny. He’s not a red-head, but you can’t
win them all, and for goodness sake, he’s JohnCusack, what’s not to love.

Post-Script

Top Five John Cusack Movies
1. High Fidelity
2. Grosse Pointe Blank
3. Say Anything
4. Being John Malkovitch
5. Con Air
Sub Category: Top Five John Cusack rom-coms:
1. Say Anything
2. High Fidelity
3. Grosee Pointe Blank
4. Must Love Dogs
5. Serendipity

sidenote:
would love to put Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil somewhere
in there, because it's an amazing book, and as stated in this post - I
love JohnCusack- but it just doesn't make the cut of Top Five, still, it gets in with a "side-note".

The Frames - burn the maps

There’s a certain magic in buying an album. There’s the magic of finding it, of purchasing it, unwrapping it and finally getting it open. You have to savor the magic, which is why I don’t put it in until I know I have some time to truly, and hopefully, enjoy the first listen.

It comes from that first listen in the car as you start to drive, start turning up the volume as your ears want more. The love of a good album springs from this magic as scenery passes by your window, as the words of songs seem to speak directly to you and you marvel, as with any love, how you’ve only just found it now.

When I started playing the drums on the steering-wheel, I knew I’d fallen hard. I play the drums/steering-wheel not for every band, for some. But with this band, I knew it was serious. Not a school-girl crush, not a “fav band of the moment”, this is one of those bands where I think I could own everyone of their albums.

Maybe I’m just rebounding, falling too fast, but having a new band to be excited about – I mean come on, rebound or not – it’s magical.

"Reaper" excitment

Oh my goodness, whose excited that Kevin Smith is directing a live-action television show?
Me! Me!
It's called "Reaper," and I admit I was sceptical. But I watched some trailers, and my scepticism has diminished;
I am converted and excited. I love Kevin Smith stuff, and this looks
good. Only thing: it had to be on the CW? Dunno if that's gonna be a
good thing or bad thing in the long-run, but it seems sketchy.

It has to be said again by the way - I love NPR. Wait, Wait don't tell me & This American Life rock my world.

My Future's so bright...

...I think I need shades.

I'm becoming overwhelmed by the possiabilities that lay before me. ( I know, oh woe is me, but chalk it up to white privlege, and let me just ramble for a second.)
I've come to the reality that I want to go to grad school; it was hard to accept, but I'm pretty sure it's what I want. But what do I want to do? It's college all over again, it's making this decision that I feel like will affect the rest of my life and it just feels so scary.

What brought me to these thoughts tonight were the ghosts of memories loaming around every corner. Dinner at a friends house, the drive home, talk of times and places that are now part of my past. I won't work there again, I'm no longer with that person. My past is done, my ties are severed. I am in the perfect position to start over where-ever I want, doing what-ever I want.

And it's totally terrifying.

The thing is, I used to revel in this kind of adventure - or at least, I thought I did. I always wanted to be that person who could pick up and do anything, go anywhere. But one of the things about getting older and finding things out about myself is that, well, I don't really think that's who I am. At least not anymore. That situation sounds so completely scary. I realize the appeal of Michigan is that, at least I know what I'm doing.
As I write that, I realize it's also what I told myself for years leading canoe trips. I liked taking the rivers I knew - a canoe trip is hard enough, why have the added anxiety of not knowing the terrian?
But that thinking kept me to the rivers and lakes I was used to. (oh man, I'm quoting TLC now! Anyone else catcht it? Anyone?)

So I need to do the terrifying thing now. I'm doing that with a new job, and it's turning out great. Now I need to do it on a even grander scale - with the rest of my life. Figure out exactly what it is that I want, and where I want to go to get it.
Right, ok, so, where do I start....

Running in The City

I had my first scary/not-so-safe running experience on Monday.
1.) If I go over 3 miles, I always try to run in The City. It’s about a 40 minutes drive from where I live, but my run is so much better that it’s totally worth it to drive in. Plus, I run errands in town.
a.) The City is, really, the safest city ever. I don’t know that for sure, or any statistics or anything, but in two years of living in the area I have never once felt unsafe or seen any kind of crime.

That being said:
I was about a mile into my run, when a guy in his mid 50s to early 60s passed me on his bike. He passed me, but then seemed more to loop around me.
“Do you like karaoke?” the man asks.
“Umm, Sure, I guess so” I say, thinking this guy was going to give me some flyer or something.
“There’s karaoke tonight at Bob’s Bar at 9:00” he says.
“Great” I say, still running.
“I’ll buy you a beer if you go,” he offers.
I try to remain ambiguous because I can see this going down poorly either way I answer; if it’s no, he’ll say why not or harass me more, and there’s just no way I’m saying yes to this guy. Even if I did say yes, it won’t guarantee that this guy is gone, it may just encourage him to keep following me.
My ambiguous answers are getting me no where though, cuz he starts asking “Well, are you gonna go?” and seems a little pissed about it.
At this point, I’ve reached the local Co-Op, so I just reply again “I dunno,” and duck into the parking lot. My next plan was going to be to go into the bathroom at the Co-Op, but when I turned around in the parking lot and Bike Guy was gone. I stood there for awhile, and people in the parking lot where looking at me funny. I just told them that the guy on the bike was bothering me and asking to buy me a beer, and the nice people in the parking-lot just said to “Yell if you need help” as I continued on my run.

I did a little over 4 miles, and with out music – which I must say, is some serious dedication. Still, I think my “list of things I need on a run” should be:
*Spandex shorts
*Shorts over spandex short
*Shirt/tank don’t mind sweating in
*Lots of hair ties
*Headphones
*I-pod
*I-pod holder
*Pepper Spray

Fashion Faux-Pas: Professional vs. Personal

I’m struggling with what to wear to work. I need to look professional but I want to remain true to my punk-rock roots. Ok, true, I have no punk-rock roots, I’m from the suburbs, that’s virtually impossible. But I do want to stay style-true; to what’s been deemed my “personal style”.

I’ve been able to wear whatever I wanted for the past two years really, I mean, I still needed to look presentable and able to tell kids what to do with them still taking me seriously. But really, I was able to let my personal style shine through; aka – wear jeans and a t-shirt.

But now I’m a 9 to 5-er, well, since I work in the education sector, I’m a 8 to 4-er.(Although most days, let’s be honest teachers, it’s a 8- 5, 8 – 6, 8 till way too late job) And I work at the front desk of an office, so I not only need to look presentable, but also professional. But I hate to lack style. I was asking one of my male co-workers, cuz he’s a friend and been in the office for sometime now, what the dress code was for us, do we have “casual Fridays”? Answer is no, the headmaster hates casual Fridays (bummer by the way) and his response was “Basically, I wear all the time – khaki pants, and some kind of polo shirt.” Well that’s all fine and good for boys, they got it easy. And I suppose I could do the same thing, but, who wants to own 5 polo shirts? Let alone, wear 5 polo shirts. (Unless they are retro- 70s or 80s stripped polo shirts. But those again, not necessarily “professional”). And I understand; there are other, subtle things I can do to "be me" - jewelery, hair, make-up, shoes (although, that's hard to, I'm struggling with wither or not to give up my sandles, converse, and rocket-dogs).

Mostly, I bring this up, because of my outfit today, which I think I’m going to run home at lunch and change. I have a fabulous skirt, it’s long and black and totally professional, but has some rousing, so it’s still got some style. It’s a million degrees in the office this week (and thus why I am wearing the skirt in the first place), so I want to be able to wear some-kind of tank top with it. This is tricky, mostly because of my ample bust. I can’t wear something too revealing, especially because it’s a high-school and we’re trying to get the teenage girls to not do that either. So, your typical tank is out, I need something that’s higher cut. Which I have, and it’s one of my favorite shirts, it’s blue and got flowers all over it – kind of multi-media, because their printed on and sewn on. But it’s also rather tight. I haven’t even worn it in months, because I felt like I wasn’t really pulling it off. But with the running (6 miles last night), I’m feelin pretty good.

But earlier today, a group of boys were sitting in front of my desk and one whose always funny and you can never tell if he even has a serious side, but at the same time does have a sincere punk-rock side, he said “hey, I like your shirt.” Which, he very well might have meant, but he also could have mean “hey, I like that your rack looks awesome in that shirt.” Hard to tell, could be me over-analyzing and being paranoid. Could be true. Either way, I think I’m gonna go home and put on a white tank under a another white tank just to be safe (and cuz those are the only colors I have). White top & black bottoms – awesome, I’ll look just like a waiter.

Chicago II

I know I haven't been blogging in forever, but I just need to skip the preamble about why, what's been going on since then, etc, and just get this thought that's been buzzing in my head for about two weeks now:

Chicago did not make it easy to leave. Dinner and late night fun with friends, driving along Lake Shore Drive while listening to "Sound Opinions" on the radio as fire-works are shot into the sky from Navy Pier. Even the traffic was ok. It was not easy to leave the city.