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.