Gross Inaccuracy

I am incredibly lethargic today. I have done little else but pretend to on-line shop, watch The Virgin Suicides (book = better) and look at everyone's away messages. Two caught my eye (I don't know why I'm recording all of these dumb observances lately).

First, one of my friends who I assumed was a Dem. posted this in her "buddy info." space.

"A Republican and a Democrat were walking down the street when they came to a homeless person. The Republican gave the homeless person his business card and told him to come to his business for a job. He then took twenty dollars out of his pocket and gave it to the homeless person.

The Democrat was very impressed, and when they came to another homeless person, he decided to help. He walked over to the homeless person and gave him directions to the welfare office. He then reached into the Republican's pocket and gave the homeless person fifty dollars.

Now you understand the difference between Republicans and Democrats."

Well, actually, if this allegory were true, the homeless person would not be able to even see the Republican because the sun's reflection off his halo woul blind him. And that damn Democrat...playing Robin Hood again.

Also, some girl in my political science class (who happened to message me once regarding something class-related) has this in her "info" box. I'm sorry I won't be able to guild the following with pink and purple letters, like she did.

"G.W. in '04!!!!! I'm going to Washington D.C. I'm so excited I get to see George in person!!!

'Only in America we kill the unborn to make ends meet ... Who will cry for the children ... Who will be their voice?' RESPECT LIFE FROM START TO FINISH!!! LUC PLUS club"

I am constantly forgetting about the fact that I go to a CATHOLIC university. Even so...it just bothers me.

That's all.

Let's Hear it for the Boys

There's only one person in this world who can make me feel like some 19th century British poet, and that's Tim. I feel like he and I are contemporaries in the realm of literature, and while we've never met, we write the most beautiful letters to each other. Well, he writes letters, and then I gush and think about how much I adore him. Here is a brief passage from one of these prosaic accounts, about his turmultuous adventures with sight-singing:

". . .It seems no matter how many hours are spent in a practice room, the tricks and tactics melt into an incomprehensible strain with the disonant (sic) tone of descending intervals and melodic minor identifications. But we're chugging along, even though there's something missing, some vaguely missing link."

Sigh.

My other gentleman friend, Jesse, came in with his friend Gio this weekend from Millikin. Jesse and I have been friends, off and on, since 7th grade. Through the latter part of high school and early part of college, I referred to him as my "best male friend." He, Gio and I went out to dinner at Houston's (a nice restaurant on Rush), and then I accompanied them back to the Lakeview area, where I assume he and Giovanni drank themselves into an uncanny stupor. Before I left them, we went into "The Lucky Horseshoe," which most certainly is the armpit of the Boys Town area. I even respect Steamworks more than this dingy, detestable strip club. We stayed for five minutes and left. I hope to see Jesse (and Gio!) soon, and perhaps have more entertaining conversations with each.

One sir I am not pleased with is Theo. Saturday was not good for us. Hopefully things of Saturday's nature will never again transpire.

Look Out! Fundamentalists! Cover Your Ears!

I traveled back to the suburbs on Wednesday to attend an opthamologist appointment on Thursday. While at home, I browsed through my sister's high school yearbook from the 2002-03 school year. I generally abhor yearbooks and their "goofiness," but I knew a lot of people that had graduated and wanted to see where they were going to college, etc. On one page, there was a box that posed the question, "What is your biggest fear?" One of the answers, coming from a girl I was acquaintances with (and who decided to delight my uber-conservative choir teacher with news of my Blog, sexual orientation, and living status) read, "That not all of my friends will be joining me in heaven." AH! What! This really flusters me. Any of you theologists may refute my objections, but I believe that this is a horrible way to witness to others. Even though Pascal's Wager is cynically true, the threat of eternal damnation is NOT an acceptable reason for maintaining one's faith. Perhaps this person (who, with my luck, will read this account) should show God's love to her peers by curbing her tendencies to gossip and lie, instead of telling them blatantly, "I'm sad because you're going to Hell."

On a related note, Wheaton College has always been this big mystery to me. Since D. Shannon told me about a mutual acquaintance going there, I have been oddly interested in learning about it, and figuring out why their "no drinking, smoking, gambling, or social dancing on or off campus" law has been so heartily enforced since the school's inception. This article caught my eye today, which covers the gradual erosion of this edict. Just kind of interesting.

This...

Is lovely. I spent much of last night watching this over and over again, because it tickled me. Thanks, Joe.

!

I have exciting news that I cannot write about here until I talk to Erin.

(I have indeed spoken to the aforementioned party, and my good news is that Erin, Cyndi and I are seeing Ani DiFranco in January. For all of you non-lesbians out there (aside from Cyndi and Erin), this probably doesn't excite you the way it excites us.)

Three Things

My week revolved around three things: school, the Chicago International Film Festival, and a book.

School...I'm very sacred of my upcoming week. I have so much to do--three midterms, one presentation about Zora Neale Hurston, a 6-page midterm paper, and start constructing a group presentation about Cinema Paradiso (Erin, please send me your notes from your film class!). I took a "personal day" today, so that I could study for said midterms and finally do some laundry.

CIFF...Tuesday, Lauren and I saw The Singing Detective, an indescribable film starring Robert Downey Jr. (excellent), Mel Gibson (disguised), and other people who might be famous, but I cannot think of their names. Here is a description; I can't really do it justice. We both enjoyed it, but left it rather confused.

Not as confused as Joe and I were after seeing Chokher Bali, an Indian film NOT featuring wonderful singing and dancing. Here's the description, even though it doesn't reflect ALL 26 plotlines and "themes." (There was a Q&A after the film with one of the actresses, the producers, and the PR woman, and the first question was, "What was the theme of the film?") Fortunately, Aishwarya Rai, who might be the most beautiful woman ever, starred in it, and of course, India itself is beautiful, and the cinematographer was excellent, so all in all, it wasn't a bad film at all.

Book...before starting my studying this afternoon, I knew I had to remedy myself of a horrible addiction. No, not THAT. I have been spending all of my free time (in which I should either be sleeping or reading something class-related) reading Jeffrey Eugenides' Pulitzer prize-winning epic Middlesex. A long book (well, long compared to what I usually read) but never boring, eloquent without being verbose, smartly written without suffocating the reader in pretentious diction, Middlesex earns my "Best Book of the Year (so far)" award. Do read it. As or the rest of the year, I think I need to not open another personal read until after the semester's over--it's a horrible distraction for me.

I'll be honest with you, dear reader: during the day when I'm not with a computer, or even a pencil and paper, I DO think of interesting things. Eventually, I'll have a moment where I'm actually BORED (Cyndi, I envy you) and can post some of these thoughts. But not now--now, I'm going to go watch an abridged (by me) version of Devdas and try to sleep.

I'm assuming the Cubs won, because I hear a lot of screaming and horn-honking. That makes me excited--I have learned so much about baseball in the past two weeks.

Ok, now I'm really done.

Floss

My weekend's big excitement was a gold g-string. How sad is that? After an exhausting day of work, theo and I went over to our "friend" Frank and his boyfriend James' house for thei birthday party. Someone hired these hulking Latino strippers, and they certainly set me straight about a few assumptions I had about strippers. I thought you couldn't touch a stripper--oh no! I thought strippers didn't get erect during their act: wrong again! I thought a stripper, no matter how raunchy, would never put his unclothed penis near someone's mouth: whoops! I will never allow strippers to molest me for my birthday--you never know where that gold lame pouch has been.

Another Dense, Boring Update

So, it's 8:40 AM on a crisp, chilly Saturday morning. Fortunately, as of thirty seconds ago I have heat (which means my apartment will no longer be 60 degrees and the city can stop coming over to hear my fellow tenants and me grouse about the landlord), but unfortunately, it's 8:41 and I am awake. I figured that, since there's nothing else to do in these early morning hours but drink coffee (check), eat breakfast (check), or go jogging (. . .), I would update.

Traveling from less caustic to moreso, we'll begin with school. School is always good--always meeting new people, learning new things, falling in love with a wonderful professor. My English teacher, whom at first I disliked, has grown on me, little by little. I'm still not a fan of working out of anthologies, nor do I care for the pieces she chooses, but she has a great sense of humor. My Environmental Studies professor, on the other hand, took no warming up to. Dr. French has this horribly wonderful way of being so wry and sarcastic about the Bush administration without actually being unprofessional about it. My Environmental Studies class (basically a hippie "Save the world!" kind of class, with a smidgen of God on the side) surpasses all of my other classes (even bland Euro. film), which is ironic considering it was a last minute "my mother will think it's better than urdu" switch.

Hmm...next happiest thing in life must be...media apparati. I'm still in the habit of reading class-assigned books less than my own personal books. Bah. I finished The Devil Wears Prada--hated it, working on The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith--enjoying it--and Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides--loving it. I haven't had time to see any films recently, but I did purchase Want One, Rufus Wainwright's new CD. Wat a great album--it's quite a "departure" from his last album, Poses, with less musical theater-esque songs (still a few) and more pseudo-Coldplay and just good "pop/rock" tunes. Tim will be getting this CD in the mail (I'll be burning it in effigy for him, as a retaliatory measure against the RIAA) within the next few weeks.

Briefly, work is terrible. Too much working (22 working hours compacted into three days in a row) combined with new administration (it's like comparing Bush to Clinton--very...different...in that euphemistic way), combined with the fact that I'm STILL not receiving paychecks at my store, nor am I getting paid the right amount, just means that I'm generally unhappy about my job and would love to work somewhere else. My co-worker told me about his group interview for H&M (which is superwonderful!), and it thoroughly discouraged me from re-applying. Apparently, they did these hokey group exercises, like building a castle out of same-colored Legos while passing a tennis ball or something, which does NOT appeal to me. I'd like to get some pittly job at the Chicago Free Press, since it's right up the street from my apartment. We'll see.

And, unsurprisingly, my relations with other humans are suffering as usual. Erin is horribly angry with me because I've (self-admittedly) pretty much ignored her for the past two months. Lauren hates me because I haven't called her back, and she's called my house/cell phone (which was buried somewhere in my car for two weeks) many times. Theo...as I, ironically, fight with him at this very moment...Theo and I have had some difficulties as of late. I'm hoping we can make it through at least the lease period. Yeah, it's that bad.

Agh. Now I'm in a bad mood--I should have written about the "bad" things first. I'll make more of a concerted effort to post with somre regularity, and speak to those people with whom I desperately need to speak. Off to work for 87 hours, and then a party, if Theo and I don't start fighting when I return from work (as usual). AGH.