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April 2008 archivesWednesday, April 30, 2008
Can't think of a title here
April has not been the most prolific of months for me. I just checked this blog and realized there were just a handful of posts, none of them particularly revealing or interesting, save for the one about Omar and his daughter. I am so envious of women like my friend Carissa, and her friend Amy, who take pictures and write gracefully, lyrically, as though being a creative person is an honor and a gift and the act of creation is reverent and holy. As opposed to how I tend to view my own brand of creativity, which seems to possess all of the grace of a monster truck rally. Each, I know, has it's place. One isn't necessarily better than the other. Both are necessary in the grand scheme. I just wish I could be prettier about it sometimes. I turned 32 last week to much fanfare with my boyfriend. It was the sort of fun-filled, jam-packed day that I could have only been provided by someone who knows me well. There was Jesus, booze, burgers and full-frontal nudity. Plus an hour-long massage at a spa and a cheese plate. It was not a bad way to usher in a new year especially if you like gratuitous penis shots in your movies, which I do. I have been trying to be nicer to myself. All of this discontent I feel needs a new home, preferably one several blocks away. I am always nervous and dissatisfied, mostly manifesting itself in the state of my body. Which is silly. This winter, in an effort to combat the cold and to avoid sloth completely since I'd lost total interest in running indoors, I began lifting weights. As it stands, my body is stronger than its ever been, with real muscles everywhere. But you get a photo in front of me, wherein I'm caught at an unflattering angle, and I spazz out completely, for days on end. One of these days it will have to be OK that I am not perfect. Maybe when I'm 42? I really need to go back to yoga. Work continues to be amazing and lovely and challenging and filled with kind people who do things like make me margaritas for my birthday and volunteer to help me pick out shoes for soon-to-be dress purchases. I like these people, these new friends. I like working with them and creating with them and they've helped me to navigate through this new world where words like "engagement" and "agency" are relatively new to me, but make me feel pretty grown up. Newsrooms, it's probably not surprising to you, were pretty juvenile in every way you can think of. Agency life has its moments, to be sure, but it doesn't make me want to run in the bathroom and hide like Lynn Sweet once did to me when she didn't get her way. But mostly my days have been the same, Glinny starts whining when the sun comes up, not to go out, but so that I'll wake up and cuddle up with her. She plops her entire body down onto mine and rests her head in the crook of my arm. Afterwards we start our routine, we part ways, I return later and ask her how her day was. It's usually pretty restful, to be honest. If it's not pouring rain or stupidly cold, we go for walks in the neighborhood. Sometimes I leave to go out - actually I do this more often than not, as I never feel like I'm ever caught up with seeing friends - but other times we just sit on the couch and yell at Tyra Banks or Top Chef or some other Bravo show. Things feel rather suspended at the moment, which is not a bad thing. I'm waiting for the tide to turn, for things to change again, just after I'd gotten so used to taking up so much space. Posted by Erin at 04:51 PM | | filed under: Odds and ends Friday, April 25, 2008
Fatherhood
"So, I did something even stupider: I knocked on the door. I don't know why. Maybe a ghost with real-world abilities could help a brother out? Maybe I believed that my child is such a genius that she could somehow unstrap herself, hop off the table and somehow push a chair to prop herself up and open the locked door. My imagination, sometimes it is too active." My friend Omar is hysterical. And I think we can all safely assume an excellent father. Posted by Erin at 03:38 PM | | filed under: Blog move Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Poor kitty
So yesterday was a humdinger in the neighborhood. The bank was robbed and then five hours later we had a big ol' cougar. The cops shot it in the alley right behind my old apartment, the very first place I lived when I moved to Chicago. Last night after dinner, Glinny and I went on a nice long walk and ran into all sorts of neighbors who were all abuzz with what had happened. All Chicago enclaves, when put to the test, are really just like small towns that inhabit one big city. The first neighbor I ran into told me what happened, as apparently the cops shot the cat only an hour earlier. Thank Jesus I'd opted to take Glin for a walk AFTER dinner, and not before, as I'd originally planned. It's irrational, I know, but I'd have thrown myself over Glinny and let the cougar have at me before I'd let it touch my dog. About 40 minutes after hearing about what happened, we made our way towards the scene and the woman whose porch the cougar made a home in for part of the day filled me in on the details. She was on the 10 p.m. news later that night. The most entertaining part of all of it for me was not only talking to a whole ton of my neighbors, but also being able to call my Gram, who always wonders when they're "talking about Chicago on the news" if they're talking about an area close to where I live, and tell her yes. That's where I live. When I got home I sent Scott a text message to fill him in on what's going on and his response was, "People need to leave those old ladies alone." Sigh. I'm madly in love with him so it's too late to turn him in for a new model. Posted by Erin at 12:35 PM | | filed under: Chicago Friday, April 11, 2008
I <3 Nintendo
The one thing, the one toy, that we always, always, without fail, had were video games. There is this great picture of me (it really is great) from when I was probably five or six, Atari joystick in hand, my two cousins crowded around me, in a red velvet dress, white tights, black patent-leather shoes, sitting cross-legged, playing a video game. And what makes it so funny is the look on my face. Never before have you seen a more determined little kid. Scott says that the reason he loves that picture so much is that I still get that same look on my face whenever you get a controller in my hand. I love video games, I love computers, I love All Things Electronic. JP, it should noted, was the one who made sure we had video games in the house. Mostly because he loved them as much as we did. The man was a Top Gun master. I've told the stories of how my father and I bonded over our shared love for gadgetry, and the summer I solved The Legend of Zelda was, no joke, an event in our family. So it was with great happiness and no hesitation whatsoever when my friend Rachelle, over dinner a month ago, told me the nice folks at Nintendo had contacted her about having something called a "Girlfriend's Guide To Gaming" night. I'll spare you all of the details, but in a relatively shrewd marketing move, Nintendo set up this chic little gaming night in a pretty loft in the West Loop, all decorated with white candles and white flower arrangements. The gave us fancy food, drinks, candy and introduced us to the joy of the Nintendo DS. They also set up a couple of Wii stations. By the end of the night, they gave us each a free DS Lite and a copy of Brain Game 2. How awesome is that? It was the most magical night of my life. Well, almost. But pretty close. It looked as though I was the only woman there who didn't have to be convinced to go by her husband or boyfriend. Honestly, nothing could have kept me from that party, or that gaming console, and the only reason I actually chose the pink DS Lite is because I know there is going to eventually be a Battle Royale for it in our house and the more I can do to lessen Scott's desire to get his hands on it, the better. Posted by Erin at 01:07 PM | | filed under: Odds and ends Friday, April 04, 2008
Vegas, baby
Vegas was, admittedly, better this time around. I'm still not much of a fan - honest to Pete, there is nothing there to do to pass time if you're not interested in live spectacles of any sort. And I know: if you're not into spectacle, don't go to Vegas. And I promise you, I wouldn't. But I have to go, per my whole, you know, employment arrangement with the folks who deposit money into my bank accounts every other week. I still found things to do to pass the time once work was over. Even before then. My favorite part about the whole trip was probably Sunday, sitting at DB Brasserie, drinking wine and eating some amazing tuna tartare, listening to an animated frog "lip sync" Louie Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." I decided right then and there I'd make the best of it because, let's be honest, how many people get to do this sort of thing? Not many. Really and truly, in the grand scheme of things, I'm lucky to have been able to visit so many places on someone else's dime. (As an aside, I'm not a hater, really I'm not, but a certain uber blogger and her lovely husband need to stop with all of the complaining. About, as a friend mentioned, things they control. I'm starting to wonder if they can use a writing mechanism other than whining to explain what's going on in their lives. The device has jumped the couch.) From a work perspective, the trip was very productive and while I'm not an engineer or scientist, as most of the folks in my client's industry are, I'm beginning to have a much better understanding of things such as ball grid arrays and soldering. Also? I got to hear the inventor of the Roomba speak and he was a hoot. Personally I was probably the most well-rested individual in Vegas, as I think I was in bed by 9:30 p.m. every night, and up by 5:30 a.m. every day. I ran the strip - but only once because I am pretty sure my efforts to run Sunday's Shamrock Shuffle in under an hour screwed up my IT band. I managed to run it in 57:25, but also managed to injure myself. After a four-mile run on Tuesday morning, I called it quits the rest of my stay. I've hurt my IT band before, and it sucks, and I wasn't about to take any chances with the season just starting. I did walk a lot at night, and found a couple of dresses on sale, each only $25. I walked around for a long time at the Bellagio, smelling the flowers and taking pictures. It was so nice to spend some time in warm weather, just to feel even a smidge of sunshine. I would step outside in between sessions at the conference and just breath deeply. I played the slots, only once though. With about ten pulls I won $50 after putting $20 in. I cashed out after that. I'm not a gambler and the whole process of sitting there, punching a button on a noisy, crass machine seemed awfully sad. Maybe if you're there with people, on vacation, who are drinking with you, standing around you, cheering you on as though you had something to do with it? Maybe then it would seem less depressing. Mostly gambling reminds me of these really bougie, quasi-relatives of mine, whom I haven't spoken to in years, and anything I associate with those people is reason enough to avoid. It was still nice to win something, though. There was some pool time, and one day after work I saddled up next to the pool to take in the sun and the palm trees and had a creepy Italian man in Speedos saddle up next to me. As an added bonus, he turned out to be a racist creepy Italian man in Speedos. I won't repeat for you what he had to say about the Obamas, and African-Americans as a whole, but let's just say that with the direction he was heading in, I was seriously waiting for him to let loose with, "What more do they want from us?" After his tirade, he pummeled me with the sort of questions one only asks so he or she can talk about him or herself. He managed to make it clear that he was "very wealthy" and "building a home in South Hampton" and "what did [my] week look like?" After I'd reached my breaking point, and could finally get a word in edge-wise, I told him I wanted to just read my book. In response he started to do push ups next to my lounge chair. That's right push ups. He was the last of three men to hit on me this week. I am not the sort of woman to get hit on, so apparently something was in the air and if you had breasts and were in Las Vegas, look out. One from the plane, sitting next to me, kept invading my personal space, asking me if I was here for "business or pleasure." The other literally got up in my face and stopped me after I was finishing up my run. He was German, so I had a hard time understanding him. But I could understand him staring at my breasts though. I'd had my headlights on. Obviously an invitation. Aside from that, not a bad trip. I'm glad to be home. Posted by Erin at 07:34 AM | | filed under: Odds and ends |
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We were never the sort of kids who wanted for anything. We weren't indulged, well not exactly (well maybe exactly), because we were pretty good kids who did well in school, minded their manners, played nice with the other kids, etc.