{08 April 2007}
So Owl wrote . . . and this is what he wrote:
HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA
BTHUTHDY.
Pooh looked on admiringly.
“I’m just saying ‘A Happy Birthday’,” said Owl carelessly.
“It’s a nice long one,” said Pooh, very much impressed by it.
“Well, actually, of course, I’m saying ‘A Very Happy Birthday with
love from Pooh.’ Naturally it takes a good deal of pencil to say a
long thing like that.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.
{06 April 2007}
there was a blog entry, but then i ignored the “backup battery power” warning on my ibook, and then there was darkness and no more blog post.
we’ll assume it was the wittiest thing i’ve written in ages and mourn the loss.
but to summarize: most of the blogging has been going on over at the training log, which i’m not necessarily recommending as interesting reading for the general public, but it is the reason that i’ve not been blogging here of late. running daily means that i’ve been logging my runs daily, and i tend to wax poetic at the same time about the weather, or nature, or being outside, or whatever i’m thinking about while i’m running, so the urge to write is being satisfied even if i’m not writing much of consequence.
week before last i ran the shamrock shuffle, me and 30,000 other people, on the first beautiful spring day in chicago. much of the race experience was just about learning how to cope with the crowds, the public transit, the start corrals, etc. but i felt pretty good about my time, too. i’m starting to think of myself as a 9-minute miler rather than the standard 10 i’ve used to calculate time/distance for the past year. maybe i’m actually getting stronger/faster? cool.
so this weekend is my birthday trip to new york. i got in late last night and crashed at wabe‘s and josh’s place, where they introduced me to the late night passover snack that is matzo brei, which is sort of like french toast, unleaven style.
this afternoon, while the good people of the world are working toward their easter holiday, joe and i are watching golf. i am learning that one can ascertain a player’s nationality based on the cut of his pants. pleated baggy pants? definitely american. even young fit guys like tiger woods still look frumpy/stuffy in their golf clothes. i always sort of figured that all golf fashion was old-man frumpy, but it turns out it’s going thru a phase sort of like tennis clothes did when the williams sisters arrived on the scene. all the european guys have nicely cut, flat front pants and slim shirts that show off their bodies. i imagine what tiger wood’s closet must look like: rows and rows of pleated dockers, a million shades of drab, followed by a rainbow of sweater vests and knit shirts with the little alligator on the pocket. how is it that tiger woods could be playing the masters and no one told him that a fawn-colored sweater vest does NOT go well over an orange polo?
{22 March 2007}
so some fishermen caught the largest (well, technically, a colossal) squid ever. and what did they do? they killed it and froze it. now, they’re trying to figure out how to microwave the thing (which is the size of a bus) so that they can study it better.
uh, am i the only one who thinks it was perhaps imprudent to kill the squid before anyone got the chance to poke and prod it? i mean, wouldn’t you learn more from a giant (colossal) squid if you studied it alive rather than defrosted?
i’m not weeping for the life of the poor little (colossal) squid here. it just seems a little short-sighted.
{}
you can’t fool me, sparkling jewel-green lake michigan. this time last year, i had just started commuting to work along lake shore drive, and i was blown away with how beautiful the lake was – sparkling turquoise, the color that makes you think of shallow, sandy shores in the sun-drenched caribbean. as i later found out, that color, peculiar to lake michigan in late march, is because on st. patrick’s day, the city of chicago dumps a vat of green dye into the chicago river. even though the river has been engineered to run backwards (away from the lake), when there are heavy rainstorms the river sort of burps back into the lake, and so over a stormy week in march the dye can leech slowly back into the lake. kind of disgusting, but it sure is pretty when matched with bluey-grey storm clouds on the horizon and a rain-swept sky.
i watch daily for signs of spring. on sunday night i spotted some orangey-yellow crocuses pushing up through the soggy dead grass of my neighbor’s lawn. the willows in lincoln park have that fuzzy red orange haze around them. this morning i noticed patches of grass in the lakefront park that were distinctly greener than they were yesterday. i study the stark outline of trees against the spring sky, looking for some indication of the first buds and emerging leaves, but so far, nothing. it’s been the longest, darkest, coldest of winters. will spring bring more than mild, forgiving air and shades of green? and if not, is the metaphor enough?
{16 March 2007}
earlier this week chicago teased us with two beautiful, spring-like days. typical chicago weather, however; in a 48 hour period, the high temperature halved – from 70 back down to 35. ouch. this seems like a good time to share my favorite chicago quote – well known, i think, but new to me:
loving chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose.
(nelson algren)
hee.
{08 March 2007}
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so a few months ago, my friend sage handed me some yarn (coincidentally, sort of sage-colored) left over from a play and dropped the hint, “no one’s ever knitted me anything before…” so over my ski weekend in idaho last month i knit these giant socks and then felted them down to size in the washing machine. felting really is sort of a magic process. ten minutes of agitation in a hot, soapy washing machine and these baggy long socks shrank up into a nice, thick, dense sort of felt slipper.
after felting them i stretched them over a shoe form (having access to all the resources of a costume shop is so handy), and tucked newspaper around it to get the loose, slip-on shape i wanted. the toes came out sort of pointy (i’d recommend altering the pattern so the toes come out rounder next time), so i decided just to go with it and make curled up elf toes. then i left them on a cool air vent to dry overnight and poof! slippers. this is a great, easy project. good for understanding the fundamentals of making a sock, since you’re basically knitting a size 25 sock and then shrinking it down.
i’d make myself a pair if i wasn’t so damn allergic to wool!
pattern was courtesy of knitty.com.
{01 March 2007}
1. it’s been a monstrous week. like, on an epic scale. mostly, there was the thing of a personal nature that i won’t detail here. those of you who know me might already know the gossip, those who don’t know may ask (and i may or may not answer, depending on my state of exhaustion), but it’s not fodder for the internets. so, with that cryptic introduction, the remaining of the week’s 9:
2. my new roommate moved in. our compatibility was assured when we sorted out the kitchen tools and discovered that between us we have five cheese graters and several other specialized cheese-slicing instruments. secondly, there’s the added perk that she works for LUSH, which means that our fridge is now full of samples of fancy face products that i used to have to cross international borders to acquire in college. yay for roommates who like cheese and smell good.
3. monday marked my one year anniversary at my job. this won’t seem of great significance to many of you, but for us nomadic theatre folks, this is a Long Time. if it weren’t for the fact that my personal life has been a fucking mess for the past six months, i’d say that this makes me seem pretty stable.
4. chicago marathon training has begun! you can follow our progress over at chicagomarathon2007.blogspot.com, or check out the training log for a more detailed play-by-play (probably only interesting to other runner dorks).
5. i’ve decided to join Team in Training and raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as a part of marathon training. heck, if i’m going to work this hard to run a marathon, why not do some good for other folks while i’m doing something that’s (theoretically) good for me, too? Team in Training uses TNT as their acronym, but it must be noted that a more accurate acronym is TIT. tee hee. maybe if it were a fundraiser for breast cancers instead of blood cancers. or maybe marketing is not in my future. but any rate, more donation info will be up soon, please consider sponsoring me. 100% of your donation goes to helping fund research and improve the quality of treatment for people with blood cancers.
6. also, i had my first marathon anxiety dream, 220 days before the actual race. the usual, i was late getting to the start of the race, i couldn’t find my shoes, had my shirt on backwards, etc.
7. the fact that i purchased a trigger lock for the prop gun in a show last month means that i’ve been subscribed to the giant thick “Cabela’s Shooting” catalog. the waste of paper on an anti-gun person like me is horrifying enough, but it did mean that i learned about the existence of these. why is it hilarious and also alarming that hunters need what is essentially portable picnic table to prop up their arms and asses in comfort (padded seats!) while they wait for some unsuspecting deer to happen by. gun too heavy? poor thing. anyone who claims that hunting is a “sport” had better be dousing themselves in deer urine and climbing through the bushes with a bow and arrow. otherwise, i don’t wanna hear it.
8. got time to waste? not like these guys do. who knew there was a whole movement around the building of food animals?
9. bacon-flavored mints. i couldn’t make this up if i tried. in honor of national pork-eating day, or something like that, my boss ordered a case of them. our shared office reeks of fake-bacon smell at the moment. the website reads, “once you taste it, you’ll see that mint and bacon is a match made in china.” thank you, china, for giving us the compass, acupuncture, and then bacon-flavored mints.
{19 February 2007}
at big joe’s on friday nights, $2.50 will get you a bud light and 3 raffle tickets. if you’re very lucky, or if you buy a lot of beers, your raffle ticket will get you into a round of turtle racing in the back room. the sponsor of the winning turtle goes on to a championship round at the end of the night, the sponsor of the slowest turtle wins a free drink. it’s back-room cock fighting for the yuppie crowd! the key to winning seemed to be drawing the right turtle; without fail, turtle number 3 always made a beeline for the darkest corner of the table (which happened to be the finish line), turtle 2 worked on the “if i don’t move, they won’t see me” principle of self defense, thereby assuring his sponsor a consolation prize. personally, i was captivated by the fact that the announcer makes his living belowing the phrase “give it up for sally, she’s a TURTLE VIRGIN!” into his microphone nightly. by comparison, making faking blood and dousing men in blue paint doesn’t seem quite as weird a career choice as it usually does.
{16 February 2007}
after running some errands this morning, i walked to my car which i had parked on the street, put the key in, and had the following thoughts:
1. man, why did i bother to wash my car yesterday? it’s covered in salt again already! (turn key in lock)
2. (open door, place one foot inside) hey wait, this isn’t my booster seat.
3. (freeze as i’m halfway to seated) hey wait, this isn’t my upholstery.
4. omigod this is not my car.
i had walked up to some other silver honda accord, put my key in and opened it without any trouble. in fact, i think the lock mechanism even worked better than it does on my own car. i shut the door quickly, noticed a guy leaning in a door watching me quizzically. after a moment’s pause i locked the car door (no sense in letting someone ELSE break into her car, right?), then sheepishly (because i could feel the loafer staring at me), moved down the street two cars to my OWN (much cleaner and sans booster-seat) honda.
weird.
{14 February 2007}
i make the obligatory anti-valentine’s day post by linking to the following message of suburban discontent:
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/mp3/Shop%20Vac.mp3
it’s catchy!