Month: March 2004

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Apparently there was a PETA protest this afternoon in which a girl painted up her naked body like a tiger and sat in a cage on the corner of Fifth and Green. Someone told me about this, but somehow I missed it. Damn.

Tonight was Meat Night. To answer Jen’s question, Meat Night is a night when friends gather to have, well, meat. It started out this fall when I moved to Champaign – we had Thursday night “family” dinners, but they were all veg to accomodate Hannah and others. So Sarah and Shawn and I started getting together on Tuesday nights to have various meat dishes. Meat Night has been moved to Wednesday to accomodate our obsessive 24 viewing, and much of the time Mark and Missy join us. Anyway, we had chili, cornbread, salad, and brownies. Everyone bitched about school, and the cats furred all in attendance. The kids went home an hour or two ago, and Shawn and I are just hanging out. My back is aching from leaning over the sink doing the dishes, and I’m tired. For some reason I’ve been not-tired at bedtime the last couple of days – like I’m tired earlier in the day, but when bedtime comes around I’m wide awake. So I suppose I should be thankful for the tired?

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FAQ

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So I’m going to put together a FAQ with all sorts of randomness about me, this blog, etc, and I was wondering if there’s anything you’d like to know. Post it in my comments, or email me. Jen, I will answer your Meat Night question herein. That’s all.

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Holy crap, this is great. I know the voting is over, but it’s still freaking amazing.

I would be falling down at my job as a Ludo Ninja if I didn’t mention that Ludo is touring and generally rocking the house. I’m hella bummed that they’re not coming through Champaign – they’re going to be in Indianapolis, though, on 4/10/04. Too bad that’s the weekend we’re going to Indy to see Damien, and I just can’t afford two trips in one weekend. Boo. But go Ludo – come to town soon.

No Derrida last night – we were both sleepyish and instead spent most of the night on the couch. I read Paris to the Moon, and Shawn played Metroid. Pretty pretty game, that. We ordered pizza and generally rebelled against Mondays.

Today was cold and dreary and I felt very lady-who-lunches with my little green bag and my skirt with a slit and my Parisian umbrella. I played with my Delia’s wish list and was generally bored. Shawn met me at work – a nice surprise. Right now we’re watching 24 – no terrorist baby yet.

Oh, and a couple of fun things for people with more money than sense:
backpack coffee set
“smart” mug

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

Monday morning and I overslept, waking at 7:50 to the sounds of birds and traffic and springtime. It’s sunny and cool in my room, and my bed was perfectly warm and comfy. If he had been here, I don’t know if I could’ve gotten up on such a perfect morning. Even the cats, my squeaking crying pawing alarms, slept in this morning, in a tight little catball by the window. God, I love the in between seasons. I went to bed last night around midnight, not entirely tired, and called him, curled up in his soft warm sweater, hugging the bunny he gave me to my chest. We talked for just a few minutes, but it was sweet and let me go right to sleep.

But today will be crazy and I’m sure it’s off to a bad start already by the fact that my ass is on the couch instead of in the shower – but it’s gorgeous out, and I will make the best of it. Happy Monday?

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

It’s late, and I’m not tired, perhaps as a result of my weird sleep last night. I went back to bed and curled up with my boy and my bunny and got to sleep eventually. I was awake early, but stayed in bed late with him, just enjoying the cool breeze and the warm bed. The kids came over around noon, and we dyed Easter eggs, baked and iced cookies (the boys ate the dough), ate quiche, and got tipsy (except Hannah). The kids went home around 4, and Shawn left shortly after. I have cleaning to do, but I’ve been mainly bumming around. Break is over, and work will be crazy tomorrow. I’ve had such a sweet week-and-a-half, and knowing that I have a busy week ahead of me, followed by a weekend without him (we’re both heading out of town), is pretty sucky in comparison. But that’s alright. I’ll live. And tomorrow night we’ll go see the Derrida movie, and Tuesday there will be 24 (but what about the terrorist baby?!?!) and Wednesday will be meat night, and life will get back to normal. Hope your weekend was as lovely as mine.

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

it’s late and i’m wide awake and i don’t know why. in the other room he’s peacefully asleep – i think i fell asleep while he was finishing his chapter, and now am completely awake after a short nap. the birds are singing, and in the park some drunk kids are having a party. it sounds like fun, and for a few minutes i sat by the window to listen. tonight was a nice night – dinner with the kids for sam’s birthday, shared a bottle of decent low-priced pinot noir, then coffee and home. i love being able to walk to these outings, especially when walking in heels and a dress is still feasible. it felt like one of the first true days of spring. we sat on the porch most of the afternoon, reading and writing and just enjoying the day. after dinner we watched movies and i painted his nails green instead of blue, while my own nail-painting attempts were less successful. i finished my book, and now i can’t sleep.

wondering

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Cait referred to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as being “emotionally obliterating.” Sitting in the theatre in the half-dark with tears running down my cheeks, I completely agreed. I wish I could describe all the things I was feeling. Kate Winslet’s character was so many people I’ve known – she works at Barnes & Noble, and in so many ways was an amalgamation of many of the girls I worked with there – stunningly individualistic, ravishingly beautiful, so insecure of who they were and who they wanted to be, trying to make themselves more interesting or more wonderful by being deliberately different. But what got me more than anything was Jim Carrey’s character’s struggle against the erasure he had requested. As his memories are erased, he begs the technicians (from the inside of his head, on the other side of sleep) to stop, to let him keep just this one tender memory, let him keep this one piece of her – and of course they don’t, so inside his head he and Clementine (Winslet) race through his older memories, trying to find a place to hide her, just a bit of her. And I found myself wondering if people from my past would erase me, if they had the opportunity. And I recognized myself in Joel (Carrey)’s unwillingness to lose the memories of the person he was so very ready to be rid of. The movie was so, so good.

And my night was good too. Work was slow (surprise), and after mutting through $60,000.00, they sent me home around 4:15. Took a quick shower, then met Shawn at Borders for a little while. He got me my wonderful Marshmallow bunny, and we collected random free things from the “educator” table. What I really want to know is how anyone’s going to use the Ra album in their classroom? Hmm, it went home with me instead. Yay for free stuff. Dinner at Miko, where the waitress was fun and complimented me on my Hello Kitty necklace, then we went to the movie. Wonderful. Stopped by my place to grab movies and such afterwards, and it was so pretty and foggy in the park that we decided to walk from there. It was terribly romantic and pretty and I felt like I was running away from home. Oh, and my sandal broke a couple of blocks from Shawn’s, so I had to limp a little bit. We watched Adaptation, which I have somehow owned for almost a year but have never actually watched. I really liked it – it was awkwardly beautiful, and I really want to read The Orchid Thief, though I realize it will probably bear little resemblence to the film.

Right now I’m hanging out on the couch while Shawn is playing video games and we’re listening to one of his random cd finds from yesterday. I finished A World of My Own yesterday and am now almost done with Douglas Coupland’s Souvenirs of Canada. Did you know Coupland also has a book called God Hates Japan? I had no idea. He’s got a new novel coming out in the winter, as well as a second volume of Souvenis of Canada. Should be pretty freaking great. I suppose I should really finish all the books I’m still reading, but instead I’m going to start Paris to the Moon and/or Why I Write. Tonight is dinner for Sam’s birthday at The Great Impasta (which is not in Maine, contrary to Shawn’s current link), then tomorrow we’re dyeing Easter eggs and making cookies at my place with Sarah and Hannah. Should be a nice weekend.

~ brixton ~ Leave a comment

A quick blog while I wait for my coffee to perk. It’s rainy here, and a cool breeze is blowing through my apartment. Lovely. Yesterday was a nice day – work was wicked boring and featured such boredom-busters as me climbing in the Sixth Street window to take down decorations while wearing a short skirt. No worries, I’ve done such things before in the Wonderland window – except there I always was on a ladder, not actually climbing into a little window box. It was entertaining, if nothing else, and Neil and I had fun speculating on what horrific things would go up next. Shawn was at my place when I got home – how nice it’s been to come home to him this week – and we hung out for a while, then went to the kids’ for dinner. They made chicken stuffed with feta and pesto, scalloped potatoes, and other tastiness. It was nice to just hang out – we haven’t all been in one place in a couple of weeks owing to schedules and such. Hannah was up for going out, so the four of us went to Nargile and smoked a hookah – and I finally figured out why I could never get mine to work. Now I just have to locate the charcoal. 🙂 It was a nice night and we felt like dancing – talked about summer plans – Sarah and I were accused of seeing everything through a Rockford filter – and we headed home around 11ish. Shawn spent the night, and that was wonderful as well.

And of course we see things through a Rockford filter – that is our common experience, and that is where I’ve spent almost the entirety of my adulthood. I’m sorry that filter excludes some – I’m sure everyone has their own sort of filter, be it their undergrad experience, their current grad school experience (don’t get me started), where they came from, etc. It’s just that we happen to have ten years of history together, which is a pretty fun filter in and of itself. That’s what best friends do. I guess we’re like people who always talk about living in New York or Chicago or some other big city – except not as cool, cos it’s Rockford. 🙂

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Things I have done today:

  • Blogged for Gypsy.
  • Finished my non-degree application.
  • Thought about hating my job.
  • Looked for a new job.
  • Had lunch with the boy.
  • Meat night – just the two of us, but tasty cranberry chicken stuff.
  • Made my bed.
  • Enjoyed the fresh air.