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happiness Thursday January 29
listening to: cake - mister mastodon farm
reading: the hipster handbook
feeling: stellar
on monday, i was in a good mood. i danced while making beef stew. on tuesday, i was in a good mood. i started reading books again. on wednesday, i was in a good mood. i continued going swimming at freer.
and now, on thursday morning, i'm in a good mood. my throat feels better. i'm looking around my life and realizing that my efforts to simplify are working, and i'm just a happier person as a result. and cake is definitely helping.
now if i could only get chance to stop taking kleenex out of the trash can in the bathroom when he gets mad at me.
drunk aim
so i was about to log off aim tonight when andrea messaged me, drunk. you see, i went out to legend's with liz and andrea last saturday, and they brought along their friend michelle. michelle was fun, as are liz and andrea, but i wasn't particularly looking for anything from any of them. apparently though, michelle dug me. or so she told andrea tonight. mind you, i had no clue because i'm oblivious, right?
well, whatever. andrea tells me to talk to michelle on AIM, and then i said, "no, just give her my screen name and she can talk to me if she wants to." so, michelle had ALSO been drinking, so after receiving my name from andrea, she messages me immediately like we've been pals for ages.
and the conversation continues for about ten minutes, whereat i continue to do what i was in the process of doing before -- going to bed. but in the interim, andrea sent this series of messages to me:
andrea: she LIKE you! me: i'm heading to bed soon andrea: are u talking to her? me: yes andrea: oh good :-) andrea: i'm fucking cupid yo! andrea: hookin' that shit up!
i guess it's funnier if you know how andrea is.
final product Tuesday January 27
the final product
this was one of the best cooking experiences i've ever had. i'd like to thank everyone who came over and enjoyed my food, and i'd like to thank rick conners for the recipe. cara, you know what it tastes like, you should make it. it was easier than i thought it was going to be, but it does take a couple hours.
dancing Monday January 26
today's been a good day. i am listening to the new arling and cameron cd i purchased via alissa from parasol. the record isn't new, but it was time to submit and buy it.
and i was dancing in front of todd and alissa while cooking the stew.
and i'm signing up with charlotte to take a ballroom course.
even though i never dance.
but i didn't say that i like it that way.
beef stew Sunday January 25
last night i cooked a dinner for katy and her friend, thuan, and liz and her roommate andrea. stir fry and rice, some sauteed squash, nothing special.
last night, something small.
tonight, i rest.
tomorrow night, the world: rick conners' beef stew recipe.
i must say, this eating-out ban is getting better all the time.
a guy i work with... Saturday January 24
at the planet, we have one dj who is openly conservative. however, i don't think i need to say anything in opposition to him; he does enough on his own with the media bit. this was copied verbatim off of his AIM profile:
Less than one year until George W. Bush kicks some liberal asshole's ass in the next election. We all know its not "cool" to be conservative so I guess I'm not cool. Fuck you.You're being fed a big old plate of liberal bullshit. Watch the commercials for the news, read the headlines, read the magazine covers + its no wonder why you hate Bush...the people reporting about him hate him because they are LIBERALS. But, I may be wrong...this liberal guy is telling me I can have free health care, guarnteed social security, buckets of jobs, college FREE
+megaliberal Jon Stewart isn't a news source he's an 'ok' comedian w/ a liberal agenda.
my take on it, though, is that the media is more-or-less reporting what's going on (that's a very generous statement), and that it's plain obvious that the president is still lying to us about iraq. c.f. this very liberal media source, and this liberal media, i've heard, has some research from some very liberal sources.
alton, day ii. finally. Thursday January 22
believe it or not, the break to saint louis and alton was so good that i can still recall it with clarity, yes, a week later. you might need to read the post below to refresh yourself on what i did on the first night.
on the second day, i woke up in darkness. sure, there was light peeking in through the cracks in the window shades, but it was more or less dark. and i wasn't tired. at all. so i tossed and turned for a bit, but then just decided to wake up and see what godawful hour i was damned to wake up at.
turns out, drew's shades aren't venetian blinds. they're real shades, and they block out approximately 95% of all light from the outside. i woke up at just after one in the afternoon, and had slept so soundly that i didn't even realize that my waking up was due to oversleep, not insomnia.
however, as i later found out, naomi and drew did not go to bed until well after nine in the morning, and thus at one pm, i already was going to "beat" them in terms of getting up first. so i called my saint louis contact, leslie. after some direction-giving over the phone, i drove approximately thirty minutes to her house. she lives relatively close to wash-u, so that was cool. an area i know.
i also met winston, her dog. this dog has a tendency to lock his legs around your leg, and even if you walk away, you'll drag him, his lower end humping all the way. he's a humper.
he's really cute, though
we went to the south side in search of some good asian food and ended up doing vietnamese. i had amazing soup. i heard a lot about leslie's break, and it was really really good to catch up with her on so many levels. she's been going through a lot of relationship stress, and i can't say either that i've been smooth sailing for the past month.
upon returning to the car, it occurred to us simultaneously to go music shopping. fast forward two hours, and i am the proud owner of five new CDs, three of which he'd been meaning to get his hands on for some time. the other two consisted of a recommendation from leslie, and the other was a band i'd heard on the stereo at stagger inn...again the night before.
- the darkness - permission to land
- the postal service - give up
- dj shadow - endtroducing
- the flaming lips - yoshimi battles the pink robots
- black rebel motorcycle club - take them on on your own
i'm totally in love with the postal service album, and the black rebel CD is quite surprising for a $8 used-CD find.
anyway, we decided to meet up with naomi and drew and eric (and drew's friend from home) lateron, so leslie and i hit the starbucks across the street. gah, i know, an espresso would dominate there, but starbucks got in first. damn them. i want to work for espresso and take on a college campus where starbucks has already tried to win. well, the best way to get back at starbucks for sucking so bad at making coffee is to not to drink there, but that wasn't an option given the "afternoon crash" that was setting in. so i did the next best thing, which is use the bathroom and pissed on the seat.
ok, so i didn't really piss on the seat. at least, on purpose. but there was no way i was touching the lid to lift it, and i was too busy looking at the sign above the toliet. but in retrospect, it's funny that it was something i don't like, much like the osama urinal pucks that showed up after september 11th. gah, forget it. it's a lost attempt at humor. anyway. you probably don't listen to denis leary anyway.
hanging above the almost-pissed-on seat
so there's this poster hanging above the toliet advertising something starbucks-y, and it was referencing that there are starbucks in so many countries around the world. thus, the konnichiwa. now, i understand the point of it, and it wouldn't have been much different to say guten tag, but for some reason public usage of japanese is getting my goat these days, and the fact that it happened in a starbucks is enough to warrant posting on it.
the main question i have is this:
since when did japan become cool?
some of my friends think japan is "cool", but when i hear them talk about it, they're not really talking about japan or japanese society as a whole, they talk about some prepackaged safe-for-mom-and-dad stereotype of these wonderful innovative little people who hang out on a volcanic island chain on the western edge of the pacific ocean. they talk about how good sushi is, oh, and have you tried sake, hey, borders has sushi books and mats on sale for the holidays, ninjas are cool (wait. ninjas are cool. they can have that one), and those people are so amazing with all of their technology, they have cell phones that can take pictures, and they have had those for like years before ours, and did you see lost in translation? wasn't it funny when bill murray was walking around tokyo like a stupid foreigner? and oh my god i love anime, i have a sailor moon lunchbox and a hello kitty bookbag.
oh, wait, mark, did you say you're studying the language? wow, that's got to be a great opportunity for you, since you know, there is so much business there and such, that's so wonderful, that'll really work out for you.
gaaaah. okay, i'm done with that for a moment. i just reached my boiling point on people who buy into prepackaged stereotypes of japanese culture simultaneously produced by japan and twisted by americans that can only perceive other people's lifestyles in context of their own world. and at that moment in time, even though they had no intention of it, starbucks instantaneously represented all of those thoughts on the subject and more at one point in time. while i was peeing. so i took a picture.
one of these days, i'll be more educated on this subject, and then i'll be able to appropriately explain myself and support arguments that i may make, but as for now, it's all opinion. and probably wrong. just calling it like i felt it.
so after dropping leslie back off and remeeting drew, eric, naomi, and that girl's name that is currently failing my memory (damn!), we returned to the illinois side of the river for some good times in alton again. they have the best downtown coffeeshop i've seen in a town of that size in a long time, the redspoon, and it has, uh, red spoons all over. but the chick working there is standardly coffeeshop cute, and moreover, she had her friends (and boyfriend, of course, because all cute girls have boyfriends. it's a todd-and-mark-style theorem that has been in the works for years, but every time we come close to perfecting it, there's an odd exception like joanna's old roommate. by my luck, somehow this parenthetical notation will probably get back to someone who knows her. ah, life's full of chances like that.) anyway. redspoon.
so the girl and her friends and boyfriend were playing scrabble, and when you work at a coffeeshop so chill that you can hang out with your friends at work, play board games, and listen to stellar music with good books on the shelf, you know you work at a hip place. i don't have any pictures.
then, we went to catdaddy's, a really, really cool pub where eric and i talked about music all night while naomi and drew played cards with drew's sister courtney (who we met up with back in alton). eric and i got really into it, and i need to make good on my promise to send him some stuff i've worked on.
then, denny's for the worst meal of my life. i don't even want to talk about it. seven dollars for the ugliest, least satisfying meal ever. never eating there again, and i don't care if it's two in the morning and they are the only place open. i'll buy a tuna salad sandwich wedge from a gas station instead. and a coffee. and probably get better quality.
we went to bed rather uneventfully, and i woke up the next day trying to get on the road soon, because we needed to drive via bloomington to drop off naomi and drew with sarah before taking eric back to work in champaign by four. so that was the trip.
oh man Wednesday January 21
sitting in my "business and technical writing" class that i am taking for my composition ii requirement. and it's taught in a classroom with a lot of nice, new dells with flat panel displays. with internet connections, to boot. shaping up to be the best class ever, i guess. i'm sure the teacher's a nazi about the internet, though, and can look at whoever's screen that they so choose to from up from.
ack it's been a week
ack. i was supposed to post alton day ii, well, the day after. however, this is what happens when you put almost 1,000 miles on your car within a one week period. and then you come back to have class starting. and a speech due on the second day as one of those lame attempts by a professor to get you to think their class is worthy of more of your attention than the others. i've seen it all before, these silly tricks don't work on me.
okay, tonight the rest of the alton pics will follow, as well as some from the weekend, and my thoughts on music and food. oh, and for the two people this applies to, read my two-minute speech in japanese on the other end of this site and leave comments.
alton, part i Wednesday January 14
on monday afternoon, naomi, eric, and i drove to the mississippi river -- just north of saint louis. i could say "alton", but much like when i tell people i'm from roscoe, it doesn't do much good to tell people the name of the town. my former roommate drew lives in alton, and he intended to show us a good time.
naomi was so proud of the directions that drew had sent her, she opted to use those instead of printing out mapquest or yahoo directions. acceptable, and i think that we might have taken the wrong turn that we did take even if we had had more "official" directions. however, the beloved illinois state map in the glove box guided us to what naomi labeled, "the gray road", i.e., the road that wasn't large enough to have a name on the map, that would lead us back to where we needed to be. turning down that road reminded me why i'm afraid of my fellow citizens.
note the mailbox, which is actually emerging as a bullet from the barrel
it was as if we in some parallel universe on what ended up being called "seiler road". a parallel world where guns shoot mail at people and turn the tables on "going postal", everyone has a gun, and most importantly, bruce willis willis bruce is the pastor at the church down the road. the sermon on how to make bombs attached to chairs and throw them down building shafts like in die hard was excellent, and informative to boot.
baptists and guns is going to be the title of my rock band
enough joking aside. the gray road took us where it should have, and we ended up sort of where we needed to be. a quick phone call to drew resolved everything. we ate a quick dinner and ran for coffee at redspoon, the hippest coffeeshop i've ever seen in a town under fifty-thousand people. but then, we strolled on down to the river for alton's main vice: the alton belle. riverboat gambling at its finest.
in front of the alton belle
like any casino that panders to those of us who are generally strapped for cash, this casino offers nickel slots -- where i quickly lost eight dollars. in the process of about twenty-five minutes, like a kid in an arcade, i came back empty-handed and disappointed. eric lost as well, but i had to continually look over at naomi and drew, who ended up profiting approximately two dollars each.
we left for edwardsville to meet drew's sister, courtney, who goes to school there. we met her at the hippest bar i've seen in a long time. not that i see a lot of bars. whatever. figure of speech.
clever titling
despite the name of the stagger inn...again, it's not a home of drunken debauchery, or at least, it wasn't on a monday night in the middle of january when we stopped in. excellent music (the pixies and the black rebel motorcycle club were the two albums playing when we were there, i believe), excellent beverage choices, one of those cool shuffleboard-esque tables where you have to knock the opponent's thing off the end of the table, and a really nice atmosphere with free popcorn and live music on the weekends. eric said that the place was "everything murphy's should be". i couldn't agree more. the bar was almost empty except for a couple regular-types, us, and lesbian vampires who lived in the rafters a couple of cute girls (that's naomi's inside joke about the b-movie she wants to make).
the best part of this place, possibly, though, was the bathroom. someone had gooseegged all over the wall, and some clever soul had penciled in ones to make a binary string of digits. intelligence rears its ugly head even above the urinal at the stagger inn.
i didn't decipher, i was peeing
we went back to alton after that and decided to try our luck again at the belle. this time, i was going in, and i wasn't coming out until i had re-earned my $8. so i waited while everyone played more slots. i talked to eric, and we all drank lots of free coffee. they even had the amaretto flavor creamers that are so tasty. but then when everyone was out of money, i pulled out a crisp jackson and went upstairs to the tables. you see, if you're going to win in a casino, you don't do it at the slots. you do it at the tables. the tables were $5 minimum, so i knew that i needed to be careful. i only stayed in for three hands.
first hand, up five.
second hand, even with the dealer -- no change.
third hand, showing eleven.
you always double down on eleven.
so i did, and won. up to $35 on a $20 investment, i decided that i would probably end up back at $20 if i kept playing, and my sole point in playing was recouping my $8 that i lost at the slots. so i got up and left and cashed out, totally proud that in the end, i had gotten free coffee, gotten my money back plus seven dollars, and gotten that much closer to lung cancer from secondhand smoke. from the two casinos i've now been in, though, this one had MUCH better ventilation. the other one i literally had to leave.
(friends who smoke: i'm not trying to make you feel guilty. i wouldn't hang out with you if you smoked and i minded. but buildings that are smoky sometimes win out in the end over me -- and i have to leave. do yourselves a favor, though, actually make good on that promise that you always make to yourselves about "quitting after college". your time is almost up.)
me, after winning $15 on blackjack
and that was all on the first night. more to follow later.
the loo Monday January 12
i'll be heading to saint louis this week for some visiting of friends who are much in need. i'll be back on wednesday, WITH a blog post that i plan on writing in the car. i promise. i have a lot to say.
i did put winter break pictures up, but they are mostly all of dogs, so be forewarned.
some people do, some people don't Thursday January 8
it's been an interesting past couple of days, to say the very least. nathan's done with his time in champaign-urbana, and i'm "alone" without him for the first time in about three-and-a-half years. i took him to the airport on sunday and dropped him off without incident, because as i've learned, i'm a "hey, i'll see you lateron" goodbye person. in fact, i've already had thoughts about a japan-australia tour this summer. with schaffer, if the mug can afford it. well, if i can afford it. but, like london, somehow i'll find a way.
after dropping nathan off at midway, i drove down cicero towards 91st, and i saw cara for the first time since late august. basically, we sat and talked for quite awhile, and she and i both learned that we'd been operating under false assumptions of the other person's previous thoughts and circumstances. one could argue that "the past doesn't matter" in a logical sense, what is is what is, but i would disagree in the sense that personal relationships don't always follow the logical path, and people simply ignore a past that involves emotion if those emotions aren't clearly displayed on the table.
to that end, yes, i told cara a lot of the negative things i thought i would never tell her, and the resulting effect, i surprisingly found, was that i actually felt much better afterwards. moreover, we mutually explained our positions, and understood each other in a way that will more or less allow us to interact now without bitterness.
however, there's the other wildcard: you can't take for granted that the other person is ready to hear what you may have to say, and if they're not mature enough or it's just too soon in whatever context, it's entirely possible that they'll avoid you and the issue entirely as a defense mechanism for avoiding pain, reinforced by the rhetoric of independence and "cutting off what hurts you".
nate, maybe it's better for me that you've left: instead of having coffee with you to talk about where i'm at, i'm forced to blog it in hopes that you'll read it. which requires writing it down.
side note: the mediation training comes in handy in my life yet again, with conflict resolution styles (be it avoiding or collaborating), and converting positions to needs and wants. interested? email me, or nate.
history Thursday January 1
while cleaning out a closet at home, i found some notes that jen leavitt and i had scrawled on the back of a notepad during a video in class. i'll see if i don't find anything good in here. the first page:
1/21/99
Hrm....soup... I want chicken dumpling
in a way, i'm glad i didn't blog in high school.
