Hi. Happy Tuesday.

I apologize, but I need to be whiny for a minute.

I know I have no real reason to be whiny, because when I sit back and take stock of the things in my life, I really have it pretty good. I have an amazing family and brilliant friends and a job that pays my rent and I'm basically healthy and I have a cat who brings me almost unspeakable joy and I managed to get Comic Con passes before they sold out and I am involved in a couple of shows at the moment, so all in all, I don't really have the right to complain. I know that. But I feel the need to complain anyway, and my friend in Texas agrees with me.

I need something big and mind-blowingly brilliant to happen to me. Soon. Or I'm gonna lose it.

I think at least part of my problem is that I have a tendency to dream big. I dream about making a living being an artist and about getting to work with my heroes and about meeting an absolutely wonderful man who I can share my life with. Big dreams. But the big stuff doesn't happen to me. I don't think I'm a big stuff kind of person. I don't think I'm the sort who would ultimately get cast in some film that will go on to garner seventeen Academy Award nominations. I am the sort who gets cast as a supporting character in a community theater production. Which is brilliant and lots of fun and I get to meet fun people and learn stuff. But when you're dreaming of Italy and you get to make your own spaghetti dinner at home instead, yes the spaghetti is tasty, but it's not quite what you were hoping for. And I feel like I've been hoping for a lot for a very long time and getting lots of little joys that are kind of Italy-adjacent, but they're not quite Italy.

I have no idea where this whole Italy thing came from. If anything, I'm fantasizing about a return trip to London.

So I think I have two choices in this situation - I can continue to dream big and constantly feel that my full potential has yet to be reached, or I can try to teach myself to dream smaller. So that when chocolate I can't eat arrives at my office courtesy of some vendor I work with, it's enough to make me feel acknowledged and appreciated. Instead of hoping my super secret admirer would send me flowers or vegan chocolates I can actually enjoy.

My friend thinks, though, that I'm due for something big, and I'd like to agree with her. I think it is about time my idol shows up at my door with a vegan cupcake so we can have a lovely chat and he can offer advice on how to further my artistic career. And then so I can give him a hug. Because I'm due. I'm due for something so amazing it blows my face off.

Of course, knowing me, I will be so incredibly grateful when said face-blowing-off incident occurs that I won't feel worthy of it and I'll probably screw it up. Like if the idol/cupcake thing happened, I'd probably forget to invite him in for a chat. Note to self: always invite your idol in for a chat.

Okay, I think I'm done for now. If you see me in real life and I'm snippy or less than my usual polite self, I apologize in advance. I'm feeling a bit trudged upon at the moment and it has nothing to do with you but it is making me a bit pissy. Sorry about that.

Rabbit, rabbit, happy February!

Or happy blizzard, is more like it.

Yes, Chicago is due to be hit with a blizzard sometime around 3pm today. Forecasts are saying there could be up to two feet of snow by the time it ends tomorrow around 3pm. Plus winds and cold and general ickiness (I went to military school with General Ickiness - not a very pleasant fellow). And I have to admit, I'm kind of scared by it.

I'm not afraid of snow. Snow, in moderation, can be a very pretty thing that brings peace to the world. But two feet of snow when I have to be out and about in it is not fun. It makes travel difficult, it means an extra ten minutes of prep time to bundle up appropriately, it means you're dripping everywhere you go, parking is a nightmare, but the alternative is walking in the ick, or worse - taking the bus. I may have to take a bus. Where I live now, the train station is about a ten minute walk, so depending on how bad the sidewalks get, I may have to take a bus to get there. I don't take Chicago buses; I just don't. I don't like them and will avoid them at all costs. But I may have to take a bus. At the same time that the rest of the city is taking the bus, so it will not be a pleasant experience. It will be my nightmare of taking the bus, thus enforcing my position of avoiding the bus at all costs. And even then, there is no guarantee that the bus will be running any better than regular traffic and I might get places faster if I just walk there.

But yeah, it's the prospect of having to be out and about in the cold and the snow and the ick that is freaking me out. Will I still arrive at my destinations on time? How much earlier will I have to leave to allow for crowded trains? Once I'm able to dig my car out again, will the doors just plain fall off?

And perhaps worst of all, is all this panic for nothing? Chicago has a tendency to avoid the brunt of bad storms. I don't know if it is because of the extra heat generated by the city, but when the 'burbs get six inches of snow, we often get only two or three in the city. Will this be like that? Will all of this panic result in just a sprinkling? If so, and if they decide today that we should have a snow day tomorrow, will we still get a snow day?

It's kind of funny how freaked out people are about this. Even I can see that from my own panic. But honestly, I wish it would just start snowing already so it can be over with and we can figure out how to work around whatever sort of mess it all creates.

Be safe everyone, and stay warm.