It was kind of a low key Christmas for me this year. Not a lot of gifts were exchanged (though I did get a kick ass Moby calendar from my brother – I’m putting links to the photos here so you can enjoy them as much as I do: cover, January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December). I made a bunch of yummy vegan treats for everyone, including a chocolate tofu cheesecake that I made yesterday that is fabulous. I always knew I was a good cook/baker before, so it is somehow gratifying to know I can still work wonders with food without using animal products. One of my co-workers had a slice of the cheesecake and loved it. We have yet to tell him that it is tofu. Hey, Christmas is over, I’m allowed to be evil again.

The thing that really struck me this year, though, is the amount of love there is in my family and amongst my friends. I was watching my dad sing in the choir at the Christmas Eve service and I was getting all teary eyed because I really do love him a lot. He is a wonderful person and he does his best to be the best father and husband that he knows how to be. You have to love and respect him for that. I am blessed to have him as my father.

And my whole family is like that. We like to give each other things and share things with one another, be they material possessions or talents or whatever. Whatever we have to give, we give it joyfully and with the knowledge that someone else will gladly receive it and treasure it with all the love they have. It really is an amazing thing to experience love like that.

And for the first time, I was not frightened by the love flowing in my direction during the holidays. I did not run from it. I was not made uncomfortable by it. I did not hide from it. I let it envelop me and I reveled in it before turning around and sending it right back out to someone else. Considering I was thinking of ending my days on this planet just two short years ago at about this time (I didn’t, thankfully. I went to Boston instead. I know, same thing.), I think that’s doing pretty well. I didn’t get depressed this year. I spread love and good cheer this year. That’s something to be proud of.

And now I have a Jersey girl in my office, so I’m going to wrap this up. I think I had more to say, but I’m feeling too good to get all introspective and stuff right now. But please promise me that each and every one of you will have a safe and happy New Year. By all means, go out and party, but please be safe doing so. I love you guys and would hate to see anything bad happen to any of you. Except that one guy…

My first job ever was in the produce department of a grocery store when I was fourteen. After about a year of that, I moved over to our local variety store as a cashier. My neighborhood growing up was a pretty even mix of Christians and Jews, so come holiday time, no matter the store I happened to be working in, we were told to greet our customers with either “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings.” I always opted for “Happy Holidays” because “Seasons Greetings” isn’t really something any teenager would ever really say. Not even “back in the day.” It’s not part of normal speech. It is a phrase made up probably by Hallmark so they could sell more cards. But anyway, I spent many a year saying “Happy Holidays” to many a person celebrating many a holiday.

Personally, growing up in a Christian household, I hate having to say “Happy Holidays” to everyone. It is such a generic, impersonal term that is supposed to convey very personal feelings. Feelings of love and sharing and giving and so on and so forth. So to say “Happy Holidays” to person after person after person while working in a store and having it greeted with a look of almost total indifference would get to me after a while.

On Christmas Eve, my dad’s church has a candlelight service at midnight. Towards the end of the service, the congregation sings a couple of Christmas carols in a row as everyone’s candles are lighted. By the time we get to the third verse of Silent Night, everyone’s candles are lit, the lights in the sanctuary are dimmed, and the organ stops playing. So you have a room full of hundreds of people, each with a candle, each singing softly into the night. It sends shivers up and down my spine and moves me to tears every year with its beauty. And following the service, you can greet each and every other person in the room by saying, “Merry Christmas” and each and every person in the room will smile and say, “And a very Merry Christmas to you, too.” And that, to me, is what Christmas is all about. That feeling of welcome and love and sharing. To me, that is what “Merry Christmas” means.

So in this world of Christmas and Hanukkah and Ramadan and Kwanzaa and the Winter Solstice and however many other holidays all celebrated around the same time by people of however many different religions, all I really want for Christmas is to be able to say to each and every one of you “Merry Christmas.” Christmas is the holiday I was raised with. It is a part of who I am, regardless of how I spiritually classify myself now. And by saying “Merry Christmas” to you, I am sharing myself with you. My feelings of love and peace and sharing and welcome and giving and so on and so forth. And if you smile and say back to me, “And a very Joyous Winter Solstice” or “Happy Hanukkah” or “A peaceful Ramadan” or whatever you say to celebrate your holiday, I will smile and thank you for sharing that part of yourself with me.

From the bottom of my heart, I wish a very Merry Christmas to each and every one of you.

And in this time of rampant consumerism, a small group of Chicagoans set forth from their humble abodes to visit a Warehouse Superstore to gather items in mass quantities that would be used at a meeting of the minds in the not too distant future. And by “meeting of the minds,” we, of course, mean “party with loud thumping music and lots of alcohol.” Of our four weary Chicagoans, three had before ventured to the Warehouse Superstore to be parted from their hard-earned dollars. The fourth had only heard tell of such a place.

There were scarcely enough hitching posts for the myriad noble steeds carrying the hoards of holiday consumers to the Warehouse Superstore. After a few moments, an available post was found and our valiant Chicagoans ventured into the Warehouse Superstore to part with their cash.

Our one Warehouse Virgin was taken aback upon entering the Superstore. The sheer volume of merchandise was almost overwhelming, not to mention the size of each bit of merchandise. Forty-four pound bags of dog food (our Virgin’s cat goes through a four pound bag of food in about three months). Three pound jars of cayenne pepper. Boxes of 1000 paper cups. As one who had only been shopping for herself and her cat for three years, our Warehouse Virgin could not help but giggle at the excesses presented to her in the Warehouse Superstore. For who really needs eight microwavable brownie bowls?

After much laughter and merriment, our four valiant Chicagoans left the Warehouse Superstore with more items and more cash in their pockets than they had anticipated. All in all, it was deemed a worthy shopping trip. And our Warehouse Virgin (a Virgin no more) will never forget the feeling of hick-ish-ess she experienced, dwarfed by sixty-foot tall racks of thirty-six count rolls of paper towels.

I know I’ve said it before and I’m pretty sure I will say it again, but I have to say once again that I have some of the world’s most wonderful friends. The thing that I love most about the lindy hop scene is that the people in it embrace this spirit of giving and sharing and helping one another out whenever they can. It really is a wonderful thing to behold. And even the seemingly small, insignificant gestures mean so much to me that I am at times on the verge of tears because my friends are so wonderful.

So a very happy holiday season to each and every one of them. And to each and every one of you. May your days be merry and bright, your holidays be safe, and your new year a happy and prosperous one.

And I went to see The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers last night and I feel like I should write a review of it, but I don't want to give anything away in case you haven't seen it yet, so all I'm really going to say is go see it. It is beautiful. You don't even realize you've been sitting there for over three hours. Gollum rocks. Aragorn is hot (but we already knew that). It's really just a darn good movie -- the kind of movie that makes me want to make movies.

I wanna be an actor so I can be in cool movies like The Lord of the Rings. *pout*

Just in case you were wondering, or in case you are a pharmacist or some other person who might care from a legal standpoint, that other pharmacy did not fill my prescription. I have to go to a dermatologist and jump through about 8,000 flaming hoops in order to get put on this very effective, very toxic, highly restricted drug. At least my doctor is mailing me my referral so I don't have to pay another $10 to go back for what I went for in the first place because she screwed up.

I think I’m slowly turning into a tea drinker. At least while I’m at work. I did the whole “I’m going to drink three or four liters of water a day” thing for a while and then recently decided that some occasional flavor would be nice. As would something hot in the morning. Besides my radiator. (See, if I had a boyfriend, I could make a hot boyfriend joke right about now, but I don’t. Note to self: get boyfriend so I can make jokes about us having sex in the mornings.) But I’ve been enjoying having tea in the mornings at work lately. I’m even trying teas I would have scoffed at in the past like chamomile and earl gray and so on and so forth. And I’m quite enjoying them. I don’t know that I’m too thrilled about getting myself into something involving caffeine again (I kind of like being off caffeine), but if I keep it to one cup of tea a day when I’m at work, I should be fine. And a lot of the teas I’ve been drinking are naturally caffeine free anyway. But the green tea is calling to me – drink me and enjoy the thrill of a caffeine high! I haven’t had the green tea yet.

The one thing I don’t like, though, is how quickly tea gets cold. When I brew it, I brew it with water that is just this side of boiling, so I have to wait a little while before I can drink it without scalding the entire inside of my mouth. But then by the time I get about halfway through the cup, it’s room temperature tea. The flavor is still there, but as we’ve already determined, half of the fun of tea is that it is hot. And me not wanting to waste anything, I drink the room temperature tea anyway.

Maybe I should get myself one of those insulated mugs.

So to make things that much weirder, I just took my prescription to another pharmacy and they are filling it, no problem.

*shrug*

In the next presidential election, I will put my full support behind whatever candidate has a viable solution to the crappy state of the health care system in America. Seriously.

I am not one who goes to doctors often (I’m a pretty young, healthy kid), so I’m on an HMO plan through work. For those of you who don’t know this, HMO stands for Horribly Managed Organization. The principle behind an HMO is that every member has a Primary Care Physician (PCP) who they go to for just about everything and you have a modest co-pay for each office visit. Which would be great, but do you have any idea how hard it is to find a general practitioner these days? Everybody is specialized. I have friends in medical school or who are thinking about medical school and before they even pick a school, they have often times picked their specialty so they can then decide which school has the best program for that area (OB/GYN, surgery, pediatrics, etc.). So my PCP is an OB/GYN. Which makes annual check ups and whatnot pretty easy since she knows what she’s doing and regardless of what I go in there for, she inquires into my gynecological health (when was your last Pap smear?). But on the rare occasion that I need to see a doctor for something else, i.e. acne ‘cuz my skin is acting up again, going to see my PCP is a major pain in the ass.

One would think that one could diagnose one’s own case of bad acne. Particularly when one has been on just about every acne medicine in the past because one had problem skin in high school. And one would think that if one wanted to be treated for acne, in this world of ultra-specialized doctors, that one should go see a dermatologist. Here is where being in an HMO is a pain in the ass. One has to obtain a refferal from one’s PCP prior to visiting said dermatologist or the insurance won’t cover it. Meaning, I have to go pay my doctor $10 (my co-pay) to tell me something I already know. And I don’t know if this is just my doctor’s office or what, but I called over there to speak to my doctor and I got to talk to everyone in the office except my doctor. She’s my doctor. I have questions for her. Why do I have to ask the receptionist and seven different nurses? Can’t I talk to my doctor? Am I asking too much to want to talk to my doctor and not one of her minions? Maybe I am. But I digress.

So fast forward to my appointment to go see my doctor to try to get a referral to see a dermatologist. My appointment is for 7:30am. At 7:40, they finally open the reception window and check me in. By 7:50, I’m taken to an exam room. 7:55, my doctor comes in and asks when my last Pap smear was. Finally, we get to the topic of my skin. I tell her I would like to be put back on Accutane, the only drug from my childhood acne drug experiences that really did anything. She looks at me from across the room and says okay. She writes me a prescription and I’m out the door by 8:00. And I’m out $10. But at least I don’t have to go see a specialist.

So I take my prescription with me to the pharmacy and present it to the pharmacist with my insurance card. They take one look at the prescription and tell me it is missing a little yellow sticker. They can’t fill the prescription without the little yellow sticker. Apparently a new law was passed six months ago requiring all prescriptions for Accutane issued to women to bear a little yellow sticker. And both pharmacists look at me with “You should know this” type eyes. Hi, I go to the doctor once a year. Maybe twice. And I haven’t had a prescription of any sort filled in about six months. And I haven’t been on Accutane in five years. And what the fuck is the purpose of the little yellow sticker in the first place? Is a doctor stamping a prescription in the little box that says “physician’s stamp” no longer enough? And who the fuck passed this law? Who decided it was necessary? I’m the one who asked my doctor to put me on this medicine. I distinctly remember saying to her, “I would like to be put back on Accutane.” And I distinctly remember her saying, “Okay.” And I even have a little piece of paper to prove to the pharmacist that she said, “Okay.” Why the fuck do I need a little yellow sticker?

Granted, this medication is for a largely cosmetic purpose. Though I don’t know if any of you have ever experienced sub-dermal acne, but it can be painful. But anyway, my life doesn’t depend upon me getting this medicine today. In a way, it might be better for me to not start it until January ‘cuz I think I remember being not able to drink while you’re on it. And not being able to drink on New Year’s Eve would kind of suck. But what if it had been a really important medication? Like heart medication or insulin or something? Would a pharmacy turn away a patient with a crucial prescription because the prescription didn’t have a little yellow sticker on it?

I know. I’m annoyed and I shouldn’t write these passionate entries when I’m annoyed ‘cuz I’ll probably piss off exactly the wrong person. But I really would like to see something happen to the health care system in the United States. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for someone who really needs to see a doctor if it is this stupid and irritating to get treatment for something relatively benign.

I do understand the theory behind an HMO and I understand the reasoning for having to get a referral before seeing a specialist – if we all just called our PCPs to get referrals, they wouldn’t be able to bill for services rendered and they’d go out of business. But maybe if we had more general practitioners, we wouldn’t need to see so many specialists. Or maybe doctors wouldn’t have to worry about going out of business for giving referrals if their malpractice insurance premiums weren’t so high. But maybe malpractice insurance premiums wouldn’t be so high if Americans weren’t so eager to sue their doctors for everything that ever goes wrong. Sometimes things go wrong and it is totally out of the doctor’s hands, but people feel hurt and upset, so they sue. Of course, sometimes something goes wrong ‘cuz your doctor is a quack, too. I dunno. This is why I’m not in politics – I don’t have an answer to fix the health care system. Though I would suggest maybe looking into health care systems in Canada or Switzerland or other countries. I think the Canadians have a pretty good deal.

And to top it all off, I’m watching the news last night and I see a report about Bush’s plan to build a missile defense system by 2004. Not counting what it would cost to build and implement this system, it will run about $10 billion a year to maintain. Ten billion dollars a year just in case North Korea decides to attack us one day. And just in case that attack is a missile attack. Mr. Bush? Have you looked at the state of your own country lately? There’s plenty of stuff going on internally that could use some attention, not the least of which is the health care system. And, I dunno, maybe I’m being stupidly optimistic and naïve here, but I’m thinking that if some of our internal problems were fixed (our attitude towards foreign policy, our dependence on oil, our social security, welfare, and healthcare systems), maybe we wouldn’t have to be so paranoid about being attacked by other countries or what the repercussions of such an attack might be. But that’s just me. And being a stupidly optimistic and naïve American youth, I will give my political support to a politician who is ready, willing, and able to deal with those issues as opposed to a politician who just keeps asking for more money to build more weapons that do very little but inspire more fear and paranoia in the general American public.

Okay, I’m shutting up now.

So I had a kind of an odd experience last night. I went out dancing and learned the Tranky Doo (how often do you hear that? Huh? Pretty cool, huh? You have no idea what the Tranky Doo is, do you? This is why I rule) and then stuck around to do some dancing after that. There is a dancer in Chicago who I absolutely love dancing with. He is always challenging not only his partner, but himself in his dancing. I can’t even tell you how many times he has said something like, “Well, that didn’t work,” while we’ve been dancing. And I love it. If you hang around the lindy hop world long enough, you will hear people talking about the dance as a conversation – both partners can talk and both partners need to listen. Well, this particular dancer encourages conversation in the dance. He is one of the best listening leads I know and get to dance with regularly. He actually asked me at one point to please practice speaking with him because he felt he needed to listen better. Anyway, I love dancing with this guy. For a long time it scared the crap out of me to dance with him, but now it’s like an adrenaline rush – I crave dancing with him sometimes. And lately, we’ve had some really great dances. One of them on Saturday threw my back out of whack, but it was so worth it. When you dance with him, you feel like a dancer. If that makes sense.

So anyway, I’m dancing with this guy last night and he was, admittedly, a little bit tipsy. He doesn’t drink much and he is thin as a rail (but its all muscle), so one drink is usually enough for him. He had one drink last night and it was a strong one. But he was still totally capable of dancing really well. Actually, in a lot of cases, one drink can improve a person’s dancing because then they stop thinking about it and just let their body do what the music is telling them to do. But anyway, he had some alcohol in his system. So there were a few times when a move wouldn’t work perfectly or a lead would be a little unclear, but it was still a good dance. I, on the other hand, kept tripping over my own feet and stuff. I felt really off. Unmusical. So when something would go wrong, he would apologize for it, thinking that he was too drunk to dance well, and I would apologize for it ‘cuz I knew it was really I that fucked up. And at one point following an apology from him, I replied, “It’s all good. I’ve just forgotten how to dance.” To which he replied, “Yeah, right” in that “the day you forget how to dance is the day that water buffalo start speaking French” kind of a way. Which, admittedly, threw me off. When my brother started taking dance lessons a few years ago, this is the guy who he took from. When I used to base my opinion of my own dancing on who was asking me to dance, he was a top tier guy (meaning I knew I was good if he would ask me to dance). So to receive that kind of compliment from him…it was unexpected and really nice. That whole feeling of, “Wow, I really respect you. And what’s even cooler is you respect me just as much.” It’s not something I experience all that often, but it’s really nice when it happens. So thank you to that particular dancer.

For those of you who have not yet tried a Clementine tangerine, I have only six words: go try one this very minute. They are sweet and juicy and not bitter like some citrus fruits can be. Clementines are one of my absolute favorite things about winter. I’ve started dividing the year into fruit seasons – berry season, apple season, Clementine season, and so on. I love Clementine season.

Clementines were bred to be small, seedless, and peel easily, thus making them the perfect anytime snack treat. Though they do beg a question – if Clementines are seedless, how does one plant them?

And I also learned at the show last night that there isn't nearly enough jumping or writhing in imagined pain involved when I play my guitar in public. I'll have to work on that.

I went to see Moby last night, but he wasn’t there. Apparently he’s still recovering from the beating or something like that. I had a feeling this would happen, so I’m not really pissed. I understand the desire to not go out in public for a while. Hell, even when I’m not beaten and bruised, I understand the desire to not go out in public for a while. I was disappointed, though, that I didn’t get to see him. I was really looking forward to watching him play cover songs badly and to trying to meet him after the show. We all already know I’m a fan. And I’m kind of annoyed that I paid that much money to see a bunch of bands that were, for the most part, just okay.

What was really disturbing to me, though, was the amount of anti-Moby sentiment that was floating around. He was the butt of a lot of jokes in the crowd and when it was announced that he wasn’t going to be playing because he had been beaten, the audience cheered. How can you cheer at someone getting beaten up? I don’t get it.

I like Moby for what he stands for. I like it that he uses his public figuredom to promote tolerance and open mindedness and peace and forgiving and so on and so forth. I probably would not run around preaching the ethical values of veganism, but as an herbivore, I have to say that the man has a point. I am also not one to run around promoting one religion over another, but I applaud him for having beliefs that he came to through thinking about them and questioning them as opposed to believing in something because he was told to. Not that he does run around promoting one religion over another (just the opposite, in fact), but I think you get my point – I may not agree with him religiously, but I’m not going to hold his beliefs against him. From what I know of the man, he embodies just about every good quality that I would ever want a human being to possess. And he does it with a sense of humor. And he is ready, willing, and able to admit his own faults and shortcomings and fears, of which he has plenty. So for someone to adamantly hate him…I don’t get it. Is it his pacifism you hate? His ideals of tolerance and open mindedness and peace and forgiveness and so on and so forth? And if you hate those ideals, what is it that you believe in? Ignorance and intolerance and holding grudges? People like that scare me. I’m sorry, but they do.

I dunno. I like Moby. And I would be interested to hear from someone who truly can’t stand the man. Someone with a real reason. Honestly. I’m curious

I think it is good for the soul to do something completely out of character every now and again. For example, if you are a particularly quiet person, it can be really therapeutic to just yell for no real reason. Or if you are loud and boisterous, spend an evening at home with a good book. I’m not saying all of the time, just every once in a while. And as long as the out-of-character thing you do isn’t harmful to yourself or anyone else.

That being said, I did my out-of-character thing last night. I went dancing. No, that’s not it. There was a Jill and Jill contest – meaning hot girl on girl action as we danced the lindy hop – with a $50 prize going to the winning couple. A Jack and Jill, for those of you who don’t know, is a contest wherein you enter as a lead or as a follow and are then matched up with a partner kind of through the luck of the draw. It is the ultimate social dancing competition (in my opinion), ‘cuz you don’t know in advance who your partner is and you don’t know what music you are going to be dancing to. You just have to wing it. So the Jill and Jill contest was set up the same way, but it was women only. And at one point, it was advertised as being a topless Jill and Jill contest. I’m thinking that may have scared a lot of women away.

So last night, after I did my workout tape and had dinner and did my laundry and took a nap, I dragged myself out of bed to go enter the Jill and Jill. I figured, why not? Stupid fun on a Thursday night. And, I must admit, I was feeling pretty good about myself yesterday because apparently one of the electricians who comes into my building at work remarked to a co-worker of mine that I have a great ass. Which means the workout tapes are finally paying off. I now have a noteworthy ass.

So I go out dancing in my overalls, ready to do this whole Jill and Jill thing. And I warned everyone that if I had to, I would take off my t-shirt. Keep in mind that from my perspective, wearing a bra under overalls is approximately as risqué as wearing a tank top under overalls. As in, it’s no big deal. So the contest started and I took off my t-shirt. It threw off one of my partners that I wasn’t wearing a shirt. To me, it was no big deal. But it resulted in me taking home $25 (my half of the $50 prize). So my completely out-of-character act was taking off my shirt in order to win some money.

I guess I kind of felt the need to do this because of a comment that was made to me over the weekend. When I was in Columbus, a bunch of us went out to a strip club to celebrate my one friend’s birthday. To me, going to a strip club is no big deal. By the time you see the second woman dancing, it’s like, “Oh, there’s another naked woman. Woo hoo.” It’s not that big of a deal. Most strip clubs nowadays have rules in effect to protect the dancers and while stripping is not a career I would pursue or encourage anyone I knew to pursue, if a woman wants to dance around naked and serve horny men drinks to make a living, that’s her business. And at the first strip club I went to, some of the girls were really talented, so I tipped them. It’s like being a naked street performer. Or not. I dunno. But anyway, my point was that another friend of mine who didn’t go to the strip club was surprised that I had gone because he didn’t think that was the kind of thing I condoned. He thought I would have been a strip club protester or boycotter, which, as I already explained above, I am not. I guess that was another of those comments that really made me feel like a hippie this weekend because it seemed like I was being ascribed all of the traits of being a hippie as opposed to being looked at as a person who evaluates individual issues on an individual basis. And I pride myself on looking at individual issues on an individual basis and formulating my own opinions. So last night I took off my shirt in a dance contest just to, I dunno, prove that I could. Prove that I would. Prove that I’m not a stereotype. Not even a stereotype of myself. And in a really strange way, I’m proud of myself for doing it. And the $25 is a nice little bonus.

Think about how stupid the average person is and realize that half of them are stupider than that.

I hate to harp on this because it really isn't any of my business, but it bugs me. Moby was beaten up after his show in Boston last night. Three guys punched him in the back of the head and in the face. Why? We're not sure. All the information I have is from Moby's journal entries -- I haven't been to find any news stories about it online or anything. And it just bugs me. What is the mentality that allows a person to hit another person? I have friends who study various martial arts and fighting techniques and whatnot and I don't really understand them, either. How can you go in a ring and put yourself into the mindset that you have to kill this other person in the ring with your bare hands? I don't get it. I guess I just don't have that violent impulse and it irks me to see it in action. Or hear about it in action. Particularly when it is not in a sports ring for competetive purposes but is instead on the streets of Boston and aimed at the back of another person's head. The back of a pacifist's head. First of all, if you're looking for a fight, pick on someone who will at least defend himself. And secondly, allow him the opportunity to defend himself. Hitting someone from behind is as low, if not lower, than taking a baseball bat to his nuts. There's nothing you can do. You can't defend yourself against that. You can't even protect yourself when a fist is flying at the back of your head because you can't see it!

And Moby, being the pacifist that he is, is not really going to do anything. He filed a police report. Which is very noble of him. But I'm still annoyed with the guys who beat him up. I was looking forward to seeing Moby in concert on Sunday and perhaps getting to meet him, and now I'll have to look at that sweet face with bruises on it. It's like looking at Owen when he had an eye infection. There's not much you can do about it and you hate to see someone else in pain. You hate to see beauty marred by someone else's stupidity.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't harp on this and I shouldn't let it bug me. It's just really not how I wanted to start my day. And I wish a speedy recovery to Moby.

There was a song on the radio this morning (on the boom-tss station) that sampled some of the music from American Beauty and it almost brought tears to my eyes. The song on the radio wasn’t very good – there were some really bad vocals mixed over the American Beauty stuff – but it brought to mind mental images from the film and certain monologues and whatnot that always get to me. Like Annette Bening yelling in her car. Or Ricky Fitts looking at Lester Burnham lying dead on the kitchen table. American Beauty is such a phenomenal film. If you haven’t seen it yet, please do so at your earliest convenience.

So hearing this song made me think about two other things. Which made me think about two other things. Which made me think about two other things. And so on and so on…kidding. The first thing I thought is that I should start another blog and fill it with movie reviews. Real reviews. Reviews that make sense from the perspective of your average moviegoer. I would state my biases (i.e. Andie MacDowell does nothing for me, but I liked the movie despite her performance) and I would put things in terms that people could understand and relate to (i.e. this is a good movie to watch when you just want to turn your brain off for an hour and a half. Do not watch it if you’re feeling particularly thoughtful or in need of intellectual stimulation). And despite the parenthetical in that sentence, I managed to end it with a dangling preposition. Sorry about that. But yeah, since we all know that Ebert and Roper have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to movies, I should start writing reviews and posting them somewhere. In the event that that happens, I will certainly have a link from this blog to that one so you can see what I think of various films. Which means I should go back through my video collection and start writing.

And the second thing I started thinking about is the boom-tss radio station in general. Why do they only play boom-tss music that has lyrics in it? Most of the best boom-tss music is purely instrumental. When you go see Sander spin or you see Digweed spin or whatever, one in every four tunes has lyrics. Maybe. The rest of the songs are sounds and beats and other fun stuff. And more often than not, the addition of lyrics detracts from the rest of the song. At least in my opinion. So you take a really good sample (i.e. the sample from American Beauty) and you add a beat and a bass line and a cymbal and some other cool sounds and you have a great song. Why add lyrics that make it a stupid, cheesy song? To get airplay? I’m sure it’s been said before and I’m sure it will be said again, but maybe it’s time we reexamined the kind of music that gets played on the radio.

And now I have some “work” to do, so I’m going to go get on that.

So I went out to Columbus this weekend for a dance event that a couple friends of mine were throwing. There was a competition called “Battle of the Swing Cities” going on and some social dancing and this really great funk band and stuff like that. So at the very last minute, Chicago decides to put together a team to compete in the Battle of the Swing Cities. This means you have three couples, each competing in one of three divisions. And the city with the highest overall scores wins the battle. I got to see the score sheets today, along with an explanation of how the scores were tallied and whatnot and it all makes sense and sounds very unbiased and whatnot. Despite the fact that there were two Chicago judges, Chicago managed to walk away with a first place win. And I say “despite” the judges because they gave us some of the lowest scores in each category. Which is why I’m glad the score sheets were posted – because it proves that we didn’t get any special favors. It was the other three judges who liked the Chicago dancers. And while you’re looking at the score sheets, keep in mind that I myself competed in the Strictly Lindy division. Meaning my partner and I placed first in our division. Which (as distasteful as it is to brag) was a really nice ego boost. I didn’t think we had danced that well. But I guess it goes back to connection – Chicago dancers are real big on connection (as opposed to moves) when we dance, which I guess translates in a division that is supposed to simulate social dancing. So maybe I haven’t completely forgotten how to dance.

And I felt like a total hippie this weekend, too. We saw Bowling for Columbine again and I was sobbing in the theater during the montage that follows someone saying that as Americans we don’t just go bomb a country because we don’t like someone. The purpose of the montage is to show that yes, as Americans we do just that. If we don’t like the ruler of a particular country, we will go in and remove him, no matter the cost of human life. I had no idea that American foreign policy was so…scary sometimes. So I cried. I don’t know what else to do when presented with such horrifying facts. It makes me understand why the rest of the world hates us so much. So between that and my walking around in really crappy clothes, carrying edamame with me so I have some source of protein over the weekend and our discussions about marriage and relationships and whatnot, I just felt like a fuckin’ hippie. Not that being a hippie is a bad thing, but it is strange to start really believing in things. It makes you notice the differences between yourself and everyone else. I hope I don’t let that kind of awareness hinder my relationships with other people. I kind of like being a hippie.

I love Chicago. Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin’ town. Do you know what “toddlin’” is? It is a reference to collegiate shag. Anyway, Chicago is my kind of town. Sweet home Chicago. I am thankful just about every day that I live here.

This morning on my way in to work, the sun was rising behind the Chicago skyline and I must say, it was breathtaking. Absolutely gorgeous. There was a light cloud cover (more of a fog, really) so the whole sky was lit up in pastels and the buildings were this beautiful charcoal grey sketched onto the sky. And then the fiery orange sun itself peeked out from behind the John Hancock tower and lit up the city. It was gorgeous. My words are really not doing it justice. In all honesty, I feel like I have now defamed the sunrise because my word choice is so crappy. But when you’re face to face with such a beautiful sight, you tend to lose control of your vocabulary and adjective right there in your pants. I’m actually kind of surprised that I haven’t gotten in an accident driving into work looking at the sunrises or even just the skyline itself. Chicago has a great skyline. And me, being the visual person that I am, I like to look at the beautiful skyline. I should pay attention to my driving, though. So I don’t miss it when that Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLaughlin version of God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen comes on the radio. Such a great song. And I don’t even like Christmas music.

Oh, and I also want to apologize for yesterday's crappy entry. I should know better than to do other things while I'm blogging. Silly me. Trying to work and blog at the same time. What was I thinking? But for the sake of allowing you, my faithful readers, to see me for the complete idiot I really am, I posted it anyway. I may live in a semi-delusional world, but that doesn't mean I want to perpetuate any delusions in other people. Find your own delusions, for Pete's sake. Use Your Delusions, Part 1. That would be a good name for a record.

The great circle of life is sitting back and laughing at me today.

I was upset by my uncle’s death. Not because he was robbed of opportunity – he lived a good life. And not because he was taken so quickly because we all saw this one coming a mile away. But because for the most part, his death will go unnoticed by the world. And I’m not saying that a person has to achieve worldwide recognition to make his life worth something. I think that if you touch the life of ONE other person, you led a good life. What made me sad about my uncle, I guess, was this feeling of nonchalance I thought I should have about the whole thing, despite the fact that a good person is now dead. He was my uncle, but I didn’t know him that well, so I was yelling at myself for mourning his passing. Yelling at myself for feeling something. I know, I’m weird. And after a day and a half of thinking about death and it’s implications and ramifications and whatnot, I’ve come to terms with the fact that his death will be recognized by the people who loved him, in however small a way and that that is the best tribute we can pay to a man who loved his family and lived a good life.

And then today I find out that my honorary sister is going to have a baby. I can’t wait to meet the baby! I want it to be born today so I can go play with it and read to it and help it learn and watch it grow. She and her husband are going to be such wonderful parents. And at the same time it is really odd to have my honorary sister becoming a mom, it strikes me as just perfect.

So yeah, one death leads to another new life. And there is joy to be found in both. And I’m getting all esoteric and my mind isn’t really here right now so I apologize for this random, weird blog so I’m going to stop it now. But isn’t life strange?

My uncle passed away this morning. The one in Minnesota who wasn't doing so well.

I'm happy that I got to see him one more time before he died to let him know that I loved him. I'm happy that he isn't suffering anymore. I'm worried about his wife and what she will do now. I'm sorry for his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren who I'm sure will miss him terribly and who I'm sure are hurting a lot more than I am right now. And even though I didn't know him very well, I know I will miss him in my own way.

I don't know if I will be going to the funeral or not. I'm thinking not.

Good bye, Uncle Delmar. I love you.

I think the potpourri fairy threw up in our bathroom.

And when I walk outside and my shoes get wet and then I come inside and walk on tile, my shoes sound like a duck. But, if I was on Jeopardy and the answer was "A duck!" the question would not be, "What do my shoes sound like when they are wet and walking on tile?" but would rather be, "What else floats in water?"

I need to find a hobby.

I love the way snow seems to make everyone and everything move in slow motion. I’m sounding so not like me that past couple of days, aren’t I? Enjoying things moving in slow motion? Enjoying not knowing what my life holds in store for me next week? Not pissed off that it is snowy and cold outside? Blame it on the beauty of the snow and the fact that I am a redhead again. And the fact that the heat in my apartment and my office are both working really well this year.

But really. Snow in Chicago falls slowly. Slower than rain, anyway. And the weight of it makes tree branches shake slower in the wind. And people walk more carefully and drive more carefully, i.e. slower. Which is, as strange as it sounds, really nice. It’s nice to see the world take a break for a minute. Slow down and realize that Mother Nature is still in control. Why do we, as humans, insist on beating Mother Nature? With our snowshoes and snow tires and insulated houses and portable heaters and earmuffs and mountain climbing gear and whatnot. Not that I’m poo-pooing any of these inventions ‘cuz I know it would drive me crazy if I had to spend winters naked under a bush or something (unless I could hibernate like a bear – bears have the right idea), but I’m just curious. Why must we prove ourselves superior to Mother Nature all of the time? Why is everything “business as usual” no matter the weather? Wouldn’t that count as some sort of Wiccan blasphemy?

I dunno. I’m sorry. I’m boring when I’m content, I know. I’ll try to find some bit of strife to complain about. Gonads and strife! Gonads in the lightening! That squirrel cracks me up.

So yeah, I was away from a computer for a while there and all I have to say is, “Boingy, boingy, boingy?” No. I have more to say today. I just thought that was funny.

But I don’t want to sit and give you a list of everything I did while I was away. Mostly ‘cuz I didn’t do very much and partially because that’s boring. I had Thanksgiving dinner with my wonderful wonderful family and then hung out with some wonderful wonderful friends. And I went to a wonderful wonderful hairdresser and got my hair changed back to a wonderful wonderful shade of red and got it cut to a nice, sassy length. So you’d think that I had a wonderful wonderful time, wouldn’t you? Well, not quite.

I did have fun doing all of the things I said I did. And I had fun watching movies and playing with my cat. And sleeping in and cooking and so on and so forth. But it occurred to me last night as I was out walking (I swear I felt my ear getting infected it was so cold outside. You know that feeling like your eardrum is frozen? Yeah, that one. Not really fun, per se, but it lets you know you’re alive) that I really have no idea what I’m doing with my life right now. I’m kind of in a holding pattern. Which would seem to make me (the girl who likes to be busy) restless. But it isn’t. I’m enjoying my holding pattern in the way you enjoy curling up under the blankie that you’ve had since you were three and drinking hot cocoa and watching the snow fall. I feel like there are things that I should be doing with my life, but I’m somehow not motivated to do them right now. I know they will happen. But I’m not in a rush for them to happen RIGHT NOW, if you know what I mean. For instance, I’m okay with the fact that I haven’t auditioned for anything in a while. I’m okay with the fact that I haven’t played my guitar in a week. I’m okay with the fact that I am not actively pursuing a relationship with a member of the opposite sex. For right now, I’m okay with just being. Just living. Maybe I’m just caught up in relishing the fact that the holidays are approaching rapidly and I’m not depressed. Or maybe I am starting to settle. Somehow I doubt that. I have a tendency to think it’s more a matter of hibernation than settling. Wake me up when things start blooming again, okay?

I'm thinking it's probably a good thing that I wasn't the first person to walk on the moon 'cuz I'm guessing my first words would have been, "Boingy, boingy, boingy."

I love snow as long as I don’t have to be driving in it.

It snowed last night. A beautiful, gentle snow that just dusted everything with a fine white blanket. Covered all of the world’s flaws. So I went out to buy toilet paper. How romantic, huh? Toilet paper in the snow. But it was really nice to walk to the grocery store with big, fluffy snowflakes falling on my coat and lips and to experience a quiet city. Everything was muted, even the dogs playing in the park. A dog in snow is one of the most wonderful things to watch. They are so enthusiastic about it and they don’t seem to care that their ears are freezing off. It is wonderful. Magical somehow.

And on a night that was so magical and so beautiful, I let go of my anger and disappointment. I even though about calling up the person who was the focus of said anger and disappointment just to say that the anger and disappointment had gone away, but I didn’t because I was pretty sure they would come back. So I just had a nice, relaxing, beautiful, magical evening with a cold face and the taste of big, fluffy snowflakes in my mouth.

The Wizard of Oz was on TV last night. As a child, I was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. I told a strange woman in a grocery store once that I was Dorothy Gale from Kansas, I was that obsessed. And it is one of those movies that I owned and lent to someone and never got back, so it has been a while since I have seen it. So I watched it on TV last night. And you know how with some movies, you watch them again as an adult and you realize just how cheesy the movie really is or how bad the effects are by today’s standards and whatnot. Like people watching the original Star Wars and pointing out the black boxes around the X-Wing fighters. So I’m watching The Wizard of Oz last night and in a really weird way, I’m wanting to find it hoaky or cheesy or something. But it’s not. The dialog is wonderful. The sets and costumes are amazing. The make-up is spectacular. The music is fun and appropriate for each scene. The effects are well done, even by today’s standards. The underlying message is just as vital today as it was again when she is so happy to be home.

And to make it that much better, in all of the commercials for it and when they had interviews with current TV stars talking about the movie, they used Moby’s In This World as the background music. Two of my favorite things put together -- The Wizard of Oz and Moby. It was a good night.

I also thought I would take a brief moment today to talk about Thanksgiving since I won’t have computer access again until December. Or, if I’m feeling really inspired, I might go to an internet café to log on and update you, my faithful readers, while I’m on vacation. But I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep, so I’m not promising anything. For now, let’s just assume that I won’t be updating this until December.

Wow, it’s almost December already. Wasn’t it summer yesterday?

Anyway, Thanksgiving. I think Thanksgiving is my second favorite holiday with Halloween being my first. I know there are a lot of people who dread Thanksgiving and/or go straight for the booze when they get to their family gathering hoping to get hammered enough that they won’t remember the “encounter” with Uncle Phil, ya know? Every year, I count myself to be in the lucky minority who actually enjoys spending time with her family. Extended family, even. I love going to my uncle’s house or my grandma’s house and seeing my grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins, mom, brother, and assorted significant others. We are a really wonderful group of people. We care about each other’s lives and we all have something to contribute to the conversation. There is a lot of laughter and usually some singing. It is a lot like a storybook Christmas gathering, but for Thanksgiving. And here is where the distinction lies in my mind: at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, you get together with your family, stuff yourself silly, and enjoy the company of people you really love who really love you. But at Christmas, the whole “gift-giving” thing gets in the way. Who should you get gifts for and who shouldn’t you get gifts for? What if so-and-so got you a more expensive gift that you got them? What if someone gives you a gift for whom you don’t have anything? What if you give someone something and they have nothing to give back to you? And then the distribution and unwrapping of gifts. It takes too long and really isn’t all that entertaining. I always vote for the “everybody open everything all at once” option, but I’m always voted down in favor of the “let’s watch each person open each gift so we can see what everyone got” method.

So yeah, that’s my beef with Christmas. It is too commercialized and too stressful. Which is why I prefer Thanksgiving. The spirit of the day (at least in my family) is approximately the same as it is at Christmas time, but there is no stress. Just lots of food and lots of good company. So this is why I love Thanksgiving and this is why I am very much looking forward to spending it at my uncle’s house this year. And I will be bringing baked ravioli and a vegan chocolate cake to share with everyone. Despite my not eating turkey, I’m sure I’ll still stuff myself silly. My family is pretty good about things like that and has already inquired into my dietary restrictions to ensure I will be able to stuff myself silly. I told you my family rocks.

Okay, so ya know how I’ve been getting all burnt out on dancing lately? I think last night might have changed that. I put on one of my favorite vintage dresses (and was amazed that I still fit into it) and I went out dancing. I had forgotten how much fun it can be to dress up vintage and then go dancing. The jellyrolls. The red lipstick. The limited arm movement. And to think – I used to do that every night before I went out dancing. Every night for probably a year or so. Wow. No wonder I was so passionate about it! And I have to say, I look damn good in vintage dresses. I was built to wear 1940’s and 1950’s clothes. These modern designers who make clothes for women without hips and without boobs make me ill. Give me those old fashions when women flaunted their hips and bosoms, but not in a completely revealing manner. Leave a little something to the imagination, ya know? I look damn good like that, if I can be so immodest.

So yeah, it was fun to dress up and dance again last night. And I watched a really amazing dance between two friends of mine (instructors in the Chicago scene) and was inspired to go out and improve my own dancing ability. Who would have thunk it? Maybe this chapter in my life isn’t quite over yet.

I don’t want to be here today. There is a woman here today who isn’t supposed to be here and she has this tendency to make life difficult for everyone around her. And both of our conference rooms have been shanghaied by big groups of people who are going to be here all day. And there’s something funky going on with my contact lens so my left eye feels all droopy and stuff. I’m a big tall man. I cut the grass. My left eye hurts. I am waiting and reading hearts. I am having a Liz Phair moment. I am asking for your forgiveness for my Liz Phair moment. I am wishing I were somewhere else. I am Jack’s inflamed sense of rejection.

I do have a meeting off campus this afternoon, so at least I’ll get out of my office for a little while. Which will be nice. And I took next week off so I can sit around and do nothing. Taking Thanksgiving week off is becoming a tradition with me ‘cuz it only uses three vacation days to get away from the office for a whole week. Thanksgiving week last year (or was it two years ago?) was when I painted my living room red. I love having a red living room. This year I think I’ll go downtown and check out the Christmas decorations and stuff. I’m getting into the holiday spirit, which is really weird. I’m usually not much of a holiday spirit kind of person. I have a tendency to get depressed around the holidays because I go to all of these various holiday functions whereat I am the only single person surrounded by couples. And I never have enough money or energy to get people the things for Christmas that I would really like them to have, so I feel like a giving failure. But this year…I dunno. I’m getting into the holiday groove. I already have ideas for my mom and my brother and I know they will be things I can afford. I’ve been listening to a Christmas CD my friend gave me last year instead of listening to The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. I’m looking forward to trying to bake vegan Christmas cookies and such. It’s bizarre. But hey, if I can get through one holiday season without getting depressed, I’ll take it. It will be my Christmas present to me.

If you are a woman, you have probably seen this thing that has been circulated via e-mail talking about the various stages of a woman’s life in regards to her mirror. Hang on a second, I’m going to see if I can find it so I can catch the rest of you up to date…

A Look in the Mirror

Age 8:
Looks at herself and sees herself as Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty

Age 15:
Looks at herself and sees herself as Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/Cheerleader or if she is PMS'ing: sees Fat/Pimples/UGLY ("Mom I can't go to school looking like this!")

Age 20:
Looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly" - but decides she's going anyway.

Age 30:
Looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly" - but decides she doesn't have time to fix it so she's going anyway.

Age 40:
Looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly" - but says, "At least, I'm clean" and goes anyway.

Age 50:
Looks at herself and sees "I am" and goes wherever she wants to.

Age 60:
Looks at herself and reminds herself of all the people who can't even see themselves in the mirror anymore. Goes out and conquers the world.

Age 70:
Looks at herself sees wisdom, laughter and ability, goes out enjoys life.

Age 80:
Doesn't bother to look. Just puts on a purple hat and goes out to have fun with the world.

There we go. I like this little tidbit, I really do. Makes me wish I had a purple hat. And at other times, it makes me feel like I’m already 80 years old. Because I’m sorry, but you get to a point where you just don’t care anymore. It takes a lot of effort every day to worry about things like, “Do these pants match that shirt? Is this shirt too slutty? Does this dress make me look pregnant?” and so on and so forth. Women put way too much thought into what they look like. And why? To impress men? BUZZZZZZZZ! WRONG. To impress other women.

In my 25 short years on this planet, I have learned that any man worth having isn’t really interested in the stick figure lollipop girl with three inches of make-up and hair that doesn’t blow in the wind. Most of the men that I know like women with curves. They like women whose faces they can see. They like hair that they can run their fingers through. They like women with intelligent things to say and a sense of self-confidence. Men like real women, just like we women like real men. So why do we spend so much time in the gym or at the beauty salon trying to look “just right?” Because we are afraid of the competition. The media has convinced generations of women that if our hair isn’t just perfect, men won’t find us attractive. That if we aren’t wearing the latest, greatest shade of lipstick, men won’t find us attractive. If we aren’t wearing a $600 skirt, men won’t find us attractive. And we, being delicate creatures, constantly looking for approval, have bought into this load of tripe hook, line and sinker. We look around at other women who are taller or thinner or have blonder hair or more expensive handbags and we think to ourselves, “She has more than I do. Therefore men will want her more than they will want me and I will die alone.” So we go out to get diet pills or high heel shoes or hydrogen peroxide so we can compete with these other women for the attentions of men. But the men really aren’t paying that much attention. So we’re really competing with other women.

I, for one, am sick of it. I would much rather be comfortable. So going out in my green cords, black shoes, black t-shirt, blue sweater, brown jacket, and green bag may say to all of the other women on the street, “This one is NO competition,” but that’s how I’m going to dress anyway. And while I am single (and very happily so), I will admit that I am not deprived of male attention. And I know the men I am encountering and building friendships with and whatnot are interested in me because of who I am. It’s a wonderful feeling.

So I guess my purpose behind this blog today is to encourage more women to throw on a purple hat and go out to have fun with and conquer the world. We shouldn’t have to wait until we’re 80 to do that. Think of how much more you will be able to do with your life if you start now.

*Stepping down off soap box and into monkey slippers*

I’m feeling like it is time for another herbivore-ism update. Time to take stock of my physical well being and ponder its relationship to my dietary and lifestyle changes. This may get graphic so if you are about to eat lunch, you may want to change the webstation.

For the most part, I feel great. I think I had about two days this fall when I felt icky in the sinuses, but not as bad as I have felt in the past. Whether that is weather related or diet related, I don’t know. But I haven’t felt as sick this fall as I have in some previous autumns. So sinuses are doing well.

I recently started taking an iron supplement because I was finding myself getting unbelievably tired really early in the evenings and then I’d zonk out for the whole night and wake up still tired. And, um, a certain female bodily function was, um, going away. Which was cause for some concern on my part. So I started taking an iron supplement. My local apothecary has a supplement in liquid form that is not only iron, but B-12, B-6 and C vitamins, or something like that. It is totally vegan friendly and tastes kind of odd, but not necessarily bad. So I’ve been taking that for a couple of weeks now and have noticed an increase in energy and last night I got really bad cramps. So it would seem that things are coming back to normal. It is mildly disappointing to me that I need to take a supplement of any sort, but B-12 and iron are hard to get from a vegan diet – it can be done, but it can be hard to maintain. And the human body stores about 15 years worth of B-12, so I could be going along thinking I’m fine for 15 years and then suddenly end up in the hospital. So I guess it is better to take my couple of teaspoons of fruit juices and vitamins every day than to wind up in a hospital fifteen years from now or to be unable to have children. And out of all the things to supplement, at least it is the difficult ones to get that I’m supplementing, right? It’s not like I’ve developed a protein or fiber deficiency.

My skin was starting to act up again. I had terrible acne as a teenager and was put on this super potent drug called Accutane. Accutane shrinks your sebaceous glands for five years which, in turn, clears up your skin. No oil, no zits. But it dries you out completely (dry hair, dry skin, dry eyes, dry lips) and you have to get monthly blood tests while you are on it and it is kind of expensive. So my skin has been acting up again recently. I don’t know if it is because the five years since I was on Accutane are up and maybe it didn’t fully work for me or if it is diet related. But I found a homeopathic acne treatment that I decided to try (as opposed to typical Western medicine) and so far, I’m pretty happy with it. I’ve only been on it for a couple of days and I’ve already started to notice a difference. But we’ll see how it works when I’ve been on it for a while. The problem with homeopathic medicines is that they can take a while to start working.

Nothing really to say on the weight/body fat front. I’ve been working out so my butt has a nicer shape than it did and my pants are starting to fit better again. I still have a ways to go, but I’m not too worried about that right now. When my body hits a nice stasis point, then maybe I’ll start to worry about that. Or maybe not. I think that’s another blog entry all together.

But here is probably the most interesting change that I have noticed thus far. I have started using vegan friendly products wherever possible as well – shampoo, conditioner, facial cleanser, toothpaste, deodorant, body wash. And I was running out of my vegan friendly conditioner, so I used my old brand one morning and my hair felt heavy and weighted down. This is a conditioner I had used for years and absolutely loved, but that is now too heavy. So the next day, I was back to a vegan friendly conditioner and my hair felt light and silky again. I am, in general, pretty good to my hair, but it made me start to wonder what kind of damage people do to their hair to necessitate such heavy, oily conditioners. Long story short, I’ll probably stick with vegan friendly shampoos now, purely by choice, no matter what I do dietarily.

Oh! And my palette is changing, too. Get this – back in March, I went to a Middle Eastern restaurant with some friends (this is just as I was beginning the transition, mind you) and had the Vegetarian Couscous dish – veggies and couscous in a really spicy sauce – and it was almost too spicy for me. I went through a lot of water that night. So flash to last week. A group of friends and I go back to the same restaurant and I order the same dish and it was barely spicy to me at all. It was perfect. Delicious. Maybe I’m just building up a tolerance for spicy things, but I thought that was an interesting change.

On a social level, I’m torn about herbivore-ism. I do enjoy the feeling of self-righteousness that comes with it. I like feeling that I am being less intrusive on the planet than I used to be. I like knowing that I am living and letting live, you know? Granted, it could be argued that I am killing plants which is bad for the planet, but I feel good about not killing and eating animals and I like feeling good about that. I love it that I am still being exposed to new and different foods. I love it that I have found some staples that mean I don’t have to spend twelve hours every time I go grocery shopping. I love trying new things and I love it that I can actually enjoy the foods that I’m eating now. I love it that I can stuff my face and not feel bloated and greasy. And to be honest, I like having a “thing.” I like being not quite normal. I like having a quirk that has a name as opposed to “she’s just weird,” you know? And I like it that it is a thing that feels good and that serves, even to a small degree, some social purpose.

But it is hard sometimes to go out to eat with friends. To go to the trendy brunch place and only be able to order hash browns. To have people always pointing out what the veggie friendly menu items are and worrying about how many veggie friendly items will be on the menu before picking a place to eat. And with the holidays coming up…so many holiday traditions are centered on food. Particularly foods that I am not eating right now. The cookies. The chocolate. The cakes. The turkeys. The mashed potatoes. I love it that my family is making sure there will be enough for me to eat at Thanksgiving. I really appreciate that and love them for it. But this will be my first Thanksgiving without turkey and mashed potatoes. This will be my first Christmas without a bag of M&M’s in my stocking. One of my friends invited me over for an evening with he and his wife and said if it got late, I was welcome to crash there and have pancakes with them in the morning. But how would I ask them to make me vegan pancakes when they have already been so generous as to open their house to me like that? It’s the little things that make herbivore-ism hard. And I guess it is a matter of which is more important to me when it comes down to sticking to my guns on this one. Though at the same time, my current dietary choices are also preventing me from overdosing on fat and sugar at all of these holiday events. And considering that that is a problem I have had my entire life, maybe it’s not so much of a sacrifice to pass up the third helping of mashed potatoes, ya know?

I really do like being an herbivore.

I had an interesting moment this weekend. But it occurred after the moment that it was in response to, if that makes any sense at all.

I went to see my friend’s band play. I don’t think I have ever missed one of their shows (though I have left early a time or two because of other commitments). They are such a fun band and they play music that I know and like. It’s a good time. And in the past, I have been called up to play a song or two during their set breaks, but that hadn’t happened in a long time. I think after a while, the lead singer got tired of sharing the stage with “guest artists” and wanted to have his own shows. Which is totally understandable. I’ll go see him regardless. But this weekend, he asked if I wanted to play a couple during their set break. I had a couple of friends in the audience who hadn’t seen me play before, so I agreed. I was expecting to need to be drunk, but I didn’t need to be. I was expecting to play one song. I played four. And people were cheering and buying me drinks and laughing at my really bad jokes between songs. It was great! I felt bad that I wasn’t better prepared to play that night or I would have played a fifth tune. Most of the songs I play aren’t really suitable for that kind of bar anyway, though, and I didn’t want to subject them to too much angry chick music, so I played four and called the band back up to finish their show. I felt pretty good when I left to go see The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

What occurred to me the next day was that I wasn’t nervous up on stage. At all. I got up there and sang well. I played pretty well, too. I am not, nor do I think I ever will be, a great guitar player. But I didn’t fuck up the chords and despite my long-ish fingernails, the sound was pretty good. But I sang well. This is the part that amazed me the next day. I was not drunk and yet I still sang well in front of a large group of people. I knew most of the people there, but not all of them. And not all of them had heard me play before. But I belted out my little song and a couple of others and I didn’t sound like a mangled five year old child or anything. One woman actually commented afterwards that I sounded like a 1960’s folk singer like Joni Mitchell or something, which I took to be a considerable compliment.

So I’m making progress. Maybe one of these days I won’t choke at a musical audition.

If you have not yet seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding, please do so at your earliest convenience. You will never look at Windex in the same way again.

So as I’m sitting here debating whether or not it is too early in the day to change into my jeans (I brought them to work with me because I’m not going straight home today), tortured by the hole that has inevitably developed in the toe of my pantyhose, convinced that pantyhose are, indeed, a direct product of Satan himself, I decide it is time to do a little research. Much to my dismay, I find that pantyhose were, in fact, invented by a man – Allen Gant Senior. He was the first guy who thought to put stockings and a panty together to minimize on the number of undergarments a woman had to wear. And if you run “Allen Gant Senior” through the online anagram site, you get “Satan Leg Linen Or.” And I’m sure that in this case, “or” is short for “whore.” You know. Pronounced with a Cockney accent… So indeed, pantyhose are the work of Satan.

If I could go back in time and kill one person, it probably wouldn’t be Hitler. It would be Allen Gant Senior.

I’m kind of dwelling in the impermanence of life today. And not just life itself, as in “everything dies,” but even in the little facets of our every day lives. I can clean my house today, but tomorrow it will be dirty again. I have this job now, but I may not still have it in five years (here’s hoping). I have friendships that are really important to me now, but that may fade in the next year. I have friendships that have faded in the past year. And a lot of the impermanence of life is kind of sad to me (losing friends, losing interest in dancing, closing a show or wrapping a movie), but it can also offer comfort at times. You know going into a job interview that it will be over in an hour. You know going in to surgery that it will be over soon and you can begin to heal. You know that even though today is Monday, Friday is right around the corner and then you have a whole weekend to goof off and have fun. You know that when you are having a really bad day or are down on your luck that things will get better. Or at least I know that one. I think that is the difference between mood swings and clinical depression. I am no longer depressed. Now I’m just moody.

Today my moodiness is making me wish that there was at least one thing in my life that was permanent. I like change. I believe in change. Change is good and healthy and vital to leading a good, full, healthy life. But it is good to have a touchstone, too, you know? I have my relationship with my mother and I have my relationship with my cat, both of whom will die one day. So I guess I should enjoy them now while I have them, right? And all of the other things I have in my life that make my life worth living. Enjoy them now because they will be gone one day. And try not to think too much about the day when they are gone.

Have you ever had the feeling that your life is going to be a cliche? Live fast, die young. Loved by millions, understood by none. Too many cooks spoil the soup. That kind of thing.

Yeah, me neither.

Last night, Necessity gave birth to a daughter and she called that daughter Invention. Or Kitty, for short.

I love my apartment. I have lived there for about two and a half years and I really don’t want to move to anywhere else right now. I love the neighborhood. I love my red living room. I love it that the radiators have been working overtime so far this fall. And as silly and pimped out as they make the place look, I love it that my bedroom closet doors are mirrored. Means I don’t have to worry about not having a full length mirror in which to check myself before I leave the house. Not that checking myself first always prevents me from looking silly when I go out in public (I quite often do look silly), but at the very least, it allows me to say, “Eh, fuck it,” before I go out so I don’t have to spend a significant portion of the evening feeling uncomfortable or silly. You’d be surprised how nice it is to say, “Eh, fuck it,” before you leave your house. It’s very liberating.

But anyway, my closet doors are mirrored. I’m thinking that the building was re-vamped in about 1974 and they put in mirrored closet doors ‘cuz that was the fashion at the time, as was tying an onion to your belt. But I believe they were installed sometime prior to my own birth because ever since I moved into the apartment, they have been broken. Or one of them was, anyway.

So last night, as I’m putting my laundry away, the broken door came off in my hands. I don’t know how often you’ve been stuck with a mirrored closet door in your hands, but I’ll tell ya, it makes you think, “Hmmm. Maybe I should try to fix this.” So I did. I got out my hammer and my screwdriver and I studied the part of the door that make it slide open and shut and I fixed my closet door. I re-installed it, too. All by myself. It was one of those wonderful, “I may be a woman, but who says I can’t take care of myself?” moments.

I should be a carpenter.

I am not a religious person, but there are times when I just know that someone or something out there is looking out for me.

I did not want to wake up this morning. I was feeling lethargic and unmotivated. I didn’t go out dancing last night because I am completely unmotivated to do so. Dancing has, in a lot of ways, lost its thrill. After almost four years, I am getting tired of going to the same places to have the same dances to the same songs and the same conversations with the same people. “How are you?” “Good. You?” “Good. How’s so-and-so?” “Good. How’s so-and-so?” “Haven’t heard from so-and-so in a while.” “Sorry to hear that. What play/movie are you working on right now?” And so on and so forth. Or in the case of dancing: Jockey. Tuck turn. Swing out. Swing out. Circle. Tuck turn to cross hands. Tuck turn. Inside turn to sailor position. Tuck turn out. Swing out. Repeat as necessary. Not that I don’t love dancing, but as we all know already, I need to be challenged. I am a stimulation junkie. So last night, I couldn’t motivate myself to go out dancing so I read until I fell asleep. I felt pathetic and old and boring. Like a chapter of my life is coming to a close and while I know that it may be time to close that chapter, I’m still sad to see it go. I have loved dancing for the past four years and I love the friends I have made. But I need something new and exciting, ya know? Or else I’ll sit and dwell in how sad my little existence is with a pathetic job and no boyfriend and scrounging for pennies and whatnot. So I was feeling crappy this morning and didn’t want to get up.

But I did get up this morning and came in to work. Granted I was a couple minutes late, but I made it. And I was greeted by an e-mail saying that Moby will be playing as part of a music festival coming to Chicago on December 15th.

Just as I am getting ready to blog about the fact that I need something to look forward to and motivate me, I get word that Moby is coming back to Chicago. I have no idea how long his set will be, but I’m thinking that doesn’t matter so much. He has so much energy on stage, it is infectious. I can geek about the Moby concert from now until December and then I can geek about New Year’s Eve.

So yeah, someone or something out there is looking out for me. Lifting me up when I feel like crap. So whatever that is, thanks.

I learned something interesting about myself this weekend. I am a minimalist. I can appreciate the beauty of really complex things, but I prefer things that are simple. How did I come to this conclusion? A couple of ways. I had a friend staying with me this weekend who exposed me to all kinds of beautiful music I had never heard before. I love other people’s CD collections. I love listening to things beyond my little realm of existence. And the talents of some of the artists I was listening to blew me away. They both inspired me to go make my own music and humbled me into admitting that I really know nothing about music and I’m not very good at making the music that I do make. Not that I’m going to stop making music, but I think I belong in the category of people who can kinda do it, but really don’t need to have a recording contract. Which is fine. I make music for me, anyway. I don’t expect to have a career in it. But anyway, this was some fabulous music that I was listening to. But after a while, I kind of hit the sensory overload point. I couldn’t concentrate on another guitar solo ‘cuz I was still processing the last one, ya know? So this morning I listened to my simple little Moby disc on my way in to work and relaxed into the simple melodies and harmonies and familiar sounds. It was nice.

Tangent: I had a dream last night that somehow I got into Moby’s house and was sort of hired to do research for him. But it wasn’t really research ‘cuz he would tell me to do things like copy down the quote on page 111 of that book. It was actually a very stressful dream because I was trying very hard to impress him and do a good job and whatnot and I constantly felt like I was failing. And there were a million other people in Moby’s house doing all kinds of jobs for him. I found myself wondering how a person could live like that – in the midst of so many people all running around doing their own thing. Kind of like my theater friends from college. So I woke up this morning feeling kind of unsettled.

Back on topic: the other thing that made me realize this weekend that I am a minimalist was a dance performance I saw. Chicago is a wonderful city in which to experience the arts. There is a month long dance festival called (appropriately enough) Dance Chicago that has a rotation of programs to cover just about every style of dance that exists in Chicago. When I’m rich and famous, I will go see all of the Dance Chicago programs because I think they are wonderful. But for the time being, I’ll just see the one that has my friends in it. They did an okay job. Some of the other troupes that performed absolutely blew me away, though. And some of the pieces I didn’t really understand. So I started thinking about what I liked about certain pieces that I didn’t like about others and it once again comes down to minimalism. The groups that were together and dancing with the music and that would take a second to rest or sit in a break in the music were the ones that really impressed me. The ones that were all about random jumps and arabesques and leaps and such were the ones that confused me. I can understand wanting to move to the music that was being played – a lot of it was really excellent music. But I have never in my life been inspired to leap and pirouette and such to Me and Julio by Paul Simon. So that piece comes from a musicality that I am not familiar with, so the piece doesn’t really speak to me. But I do really like Paul Simon. Anyway. I found myself liking the pieces that didn’t necessarily have some piece of choreography to fill every sixteenth note in the music, but instead liking the pieces that felt to me like they came from the music and that were crisp and clean in their movements.

Maybe I’m old fashioned. Maybe I should broaden my horizons. I do not doubt the talents of anyone I was exposed to this weekend – be they musicians or dancers or yachtsmen (we crashed a Yacht Club event – that was kind of cool). I’m just expressing my own simple tastes. I think there can be a lot of beauty in simplicity. Or maybe I just hope that there can be because I’m a kind of simple person. But I really did have fun and I want to thank my friend for sharing his music with me and going to Dance Chicago with me. I love having my horizons expanded, regardless of whether or not I keep them there.

This show that I’m doing is detrimental to my health. Beyond the fact that it takes away from my daily workout time, I have now gotten blood (dishwashing detergent and food coloring) in my eye twice and been cracked in the face with a gun. Granted, none of these injuries have been intentional, but they have happened nonetheless. The blood in the eye I blame on the flow patterns of liquids on a flat surface. The gun to the face I blame on the three of us being really caught up in the moment. One of my fellow actors is supposed to slit my throat with a credit card and throw me at another actor who kind of catches me and lowers me to the ground. Yes, we have practiced this many times to try to prevent any injuries from happening. But last night, the actor with the gun (the guy catching me) held the gun differently or something and it connected *SMACK* with my lip. So as I’m lying on the ground, I’m wondering if it is my blood or the fake blood from the blood capsule that is spilling out of my mouth onto the floor. Fortunately it was the fake stuff and any swelling of my lip has been minimal. But it is incidents like this that make me very glad that tonight is the last performance. Now I gotta start looking for another project…

My mom suggested that I write a book full of anecdotes like this about some of the shows I have worked on. They are usually much more of a fiasco than the audience sees. Though, if I write that book before I have achieved a certain level of notoriety, nobody will ever want to work with me. Maybe I should wait until I’m old and gray before I start in on my memoirs.

I wanted to vote yesterday. Honestly, I did. This is the first time in my life when I felt I actually had a political statement to make by voting. Granted, I didn’t know a whole lot about a lot of the candidates and for that reason, I probably would not have voted in every race. But there were a few where I wanted to cast a vote and take a part in deciding my country’s direction for the next two years. However, I was stuck at work late last night and then had a show to do, so I was unable to get to the polls. I did not vote. I therefore have no right to complain, right?

I am glad that Illinois has a Democratic governor. That could be a good thing. And a lot of our Congressional Representatives are Democratic, so I at least feel good about living in a state that is represented by at least some of the people I would want representing me. But I will make a point to vote in the next presidential election. I don’t want Bush to have another term in office.

This is a point of contention for my dad and I. My father is a conservative and I am not. I heard one of my co-workers say that you become a conservative when you have something to conserve and for that reason, I can understand my dad’s position. He has a family and a home and a job and whatnot to look out for. Whereas I only have the future to think about, which is why I must classify myself as a liberal. I think that the lines between right and wrong have been blurred and I would like to see politicians in office who are willing to look at problems from as many different perspectives as they can to try to come up with the best possible solutions as opposed to those who do things because they believe what they are doing is right and that those who disagree with them are wrong, you know? Call me crazy, but that is the world that I am going to have to live in and that I am going to have to raise my family in (when I have one). So no, maybe I don’t have anything to conserve and perhaps I am being extremely naïve in thinking that thoughtful politicians do exist, but these are my current beliefs. They are subject to change if presented with a good argument.

And since I am not nor ever have been a fan of politics, this is hopefully the last you’ll be hearing from me about this for a while. At least until I vote and then feel like I have the right to complain about the crappy state our country is in.

So here I am this morning all paranoid that I won’t have anything interesting to write about because, once again, though my mind is swirling and racing and whatnot, it really isn’t anything that is suitable for discussion in a public forum. For while I am ready, willing, and increasingly able to forgive myself for being human, I’m not quite at a point where I can forgive myself for being a girl.

So anyway, I figure I won’t have anything to blog about today until I get in an elevator. We’ve already determined that I am a very visual person, so if there is something readily available to read, I will read it. Including the safety rules posted inside the elevator. “Do not smoke inside the elevator car.” “Do not approach an open elevator shaft if an elevator car is not present.” And my personal favorite, “Try not to linger unnecessarily in elevator door openings.” “Try not to…” So if you’re trying really hard to not be in the doorway, but you just happen to be there anyway and the door closes on you and squishes you, you can sue the Elevator Company. Or if you are lingering in the doorway with a specific purpose in mind and the door closes and squishes you, you can sue the Elevator Company. Who comes up with this verbiage? And why is only the one rule seemingly optional? “Try not to smoke inside the elevator car.” Whoops! My cigarette lit itself! I know what people say about second hand smoke and no, I am not a fan of second hand smoke, but seriously, which poses a bigger threat to people, a cigarette or an elevator door without sensors on it to tell the door that there is something in the way? Will a cigarette squish you? How many cigarettes have you seen in movies chop off the hands/head of the bad guy? Yeah, I thought not. And no, I am not advocating smoking in elevators (or anywhere else, really, for that matter), but I just thought that “Try not to linger unnecessarily in elevator door openings” was a pretty silly rule to have posted inside an elevator. And now I’m stopping.

I had a kind of a weird moment this weekend when I took my friend out for her birthday. We went to a wine bar and were lucky enough to snag the seats by the fire. So there are about ten or twelve people sitting around a fire in a wine bar, drinking wine and other various cocktails, enjoying the soft, plushy couches, talking about everything and nothing at all, and it occurred to me that my life will not change one bit if I become famous. I will still take my friend out for her birthday and sit by the fire while a bunch of other people talk about a bunch of other things. I will still stay late enough to make sure my friends have a safe way of getting home, no matter how tired I am. I will still seek out the interesting conversations. I will still scritch the back of my friend’s neck ‘cuz I know how much he likes it. And it occurred to me also how odd it would be to have random people taking pictures of that and then going home and saying to their friends, “I saw Kitty at the wine bar tonight! Yeah, she looked like she was having a nice evening with her friends, so I didn’t want to interrupt her for an autograph or anything, but I did take this picture of them. Check it out!” I dunno. I guess it was a kind of a “My life is only really interesting to me” kind of a moment and I can’t really imagine what it will be like to have other people who I have never met before be interested in that kind of crap. Though I’m guilty of it, too. I’d still love to hang out with Moby and just see what a normal day for him is like. Why? Dunno. He is interesting to me. Is it his public figuredom that is interesting to me? Maybe it is the way he deals with his public figuredom that is interesting. I don’t know. Like I said, I’m guilty of being interested in famous people’s lives just as much as the next guy. It’s just going to be weird one day when I’m the famous person whose life other people are interested in.

That being said, I had an “I love my life” day on Sunday. I had lunch with my mom and was reminded of just how blessed I am to have her in my life. And then I went out to get food for Owen and found myself really enjoying the cold, fall air. And loving the fact that I live where I live. I love being able to walk to the grocery store and the movie theater and the apothecary and the train station and the park to watch people playing with their dogs and to the dry cleaner’s and to the video store. I love it that I live near a music school so there are always people out and about carrying all kinds of instruments. I love Chicago. I love my neighborhood. I had one of those days when I just knew that I am exactly where I am supposed to be at this point in my life. Have you ever had one of those days? They are really nice.

I know that Moby’s next single off of 18 is “In this World.” Which is a lovely little song. But I would like to talk for a minute about the song that comes after that on the album – “In my Heart.” Maybe it is because I have a certain affinity for songs with piano in them, or maybe it is because this song is, to me, the most wonderful, celebratory song I know, but I love it. Though it isn’t an “I just got an A on the test I studied all week for” kind of celebratory song. It is more of an “I just found my daughter who was kidnapped three weeks ago and she is okay” kind of celebratory song. The kind that inspires those tears of joy that mix with laughter when you are so relieved you can’t speak and your body is wracked with sobs because everything you had been holding on to so tightly for so long has just been released through every pore in your body. It is that kind of song. And as a person who has experienced such wonderful, painful joys in my life, I really appreciate this wonderful, celebratory song that captures that feeling. So thank you, Moby, for “In my Heart.”

I have an uncle who is in pretty bad shape. He has been for quite some time now. I’ve actually written about him before – my trip to Minnesota a couple of months ago was probably the last time I will ever see this uncle because it sounds like he is finally starting to give up. I can’t blame him, I really can’t. Were I in his condition, I wouldn’t want to live anymore, either. I am amazed that he has hung on as long as he has. But how horribly sad for his family. They have been there by his side through this whole ordeal (his wife especially) and to now have to actually have the “Should we unplug him?” conversation. It is never an easy decision to make and that can’t be an easy conversation to have. How does one even approach it? With the understanding that there will be a lot of tears, I guess.

I don’t have an answer for this one. Even though we all know it has been a long time coming, it will be very sad when my uncle dies. But I know also that he is tired and in a lot of pain and maybe it would be better if he were to just let go. I don’t know. I can’t say. I’m not the one most directly effected by the situation so I probably shouldn’t even be talking about it. I hope my uncle doesn’t have to suffer too much longer, whatever way that can be accomplished.

I am also forced to think about a woman I met over the summer whose father just got a liver transplant. My uncle got a transplant about ten years ago. They said he would be lucky to live five more years. And now he has been in one hospital or another for the past five months or so. And while I am ecstatic for this woman and her father that they get to spend a few more years together, I am also forced to wonder if her dad is now on the same path as my uncle. I hope not because I would not wish this situation on anyone. I hope that her father goes on to lead a long, healthy life and that when his time comes, it is quick and painless as opposed to the long, drawn out death my uncle is going through. That has to be just about the worst thing I can imagine.

Were I a religious person, I would be praying right now that my uncle doesn’t have to suffer anymore and that this woman’s father never has to experience the suffering my uncle is going through. Since I am not a religious person, I will just send as much positive energy from my heart to my uncle and her father as I can.

Man, is it cold outside today! The kind of cold that comes up and smacks you in the face and says, "You're alive, gosh darn it!" It's kind of nice in a way, but I know I'll be sick of it in about a week.

So I got a smidge more good news last night. One of the other films I shot a long, long time ago (October 2000) in a galaxy far, far away (Roscoe Village) is nearing completion. Mix Tape, it all of it’s wonderful, rough cut glory, has been submitted to both Sundance and Slamdance and will be submitted to a few more film festivals in the near future. This is not saying that it will be shown at either of those film festivals, but considering I waited almost a year before I even heard whether or not the rough cut was progressing, this is good news in my book. The director told me he could put together a clip reel of my scenes if I wanted them for my demo reel, but I told him I would rather wait until the sound design is done and whatnot. I’ve waited two years for that footage, I can wait another couple of months, right?

But one of the other really nice things that the director said was that my scenes were his favorite parts of the movie. He was really impressed with my performance and even went so far as to say it was almost too bad that I’m not in it more. So that was encouraging. Maybe when the folks at Sundance are watching the rough cut to see if they should show it at the festival, they won’t disregard my performance completely. What good that would do me, I have no idea, but we all know I live in a dream world already, right? I got good news, so I’m going to keep dreaming.

Happy Halloween!!!

I love Halloween. It is, by far, my favorite holiday. Always has been. Dressing up in clothes that only your id will allow you to wear. Trick or treating. The parties, the candy, the downright fun of it all. I don’t know if my love for Halloween inspired my studies in costume design or the other way around, but I love Halloween.

The only bad part about Halloween as an adult is you can’t really dress up and celebrate at work. I did wear all black today and I put in my vampire fangs, but it’s not quite the same as going to school as Scooby-Doo or an ice cream soda, ya know? The whole vampire look is easy for me, what with my glaringly pasty white skin and all. They should start casting me in vampire movies ‘cuz they’d save a lot of money on white make up. But yeah, as an adult, unless Halloween falls on a weekend, the actual day of Halloween is kind of a let down. I went to a party this past weekend (I was a bowling pin. People thought I was a sperm.) And since that is over, I kind of feel like Halloween is over, ya know? Hence the vampire fangs today – to try to keep me in the spirit of things. And I may have to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas tonight. I love that movie. And you can watch it October through December and it will still be seasonally appropriate. I’m kind of sad: whenever I want to listen to Christmas music, I pull out my Nightmare soundtrack. C’est la vie.

But have a very safe, very fun, and very happy Halloween!

I have always thought of myself as a very visual person. I like looking at things. It is easy for me to recall visual memories. And if I see someone do something, chances are, I can do it too.

But lately, I’ve been really taking note of my other senses. The various sounds that I like (men’s wingtips on gravel is one of the best ones), the smells in my life, different flavors, different textures. And I’m really astounded at how well my senses work. They are always taking something in and analyzing and categorizing it. How wonderful to be so aware of the world around me!

Though it has also rekindled a desire in me to experience a sensory deprivation tank. I’ve never done that before and I’m kind of curious about what happens when my senses have no smells or sights or sounds or textures to analyze anymore. Considering how well they work, how far will they go to find or create stimuli?

Sorry. I’ll have something more interesting to talk about later. Maybe after lunch. My tummy is starting to make grumbly noises.