sweet home chicago
lovely. no one's in the news office today. i'm listening to Ella Fitzgerald and probably gonna work on my peace corps app.
yeah...NYC was tons of fun, most of the time, and a little harrowing at other times...rather than try and tell everything, let's condense it to top 5 lists.
Top 5 worst things about my NYC weekend:
1) Having TONS of trouble making it back to LaGuardia to fly out.
2) This party with all UofC people that made a bar in Midtown seem Psi U two years ago.
3) Wasting the day Sunday being hungover, because all i could do at said party was get drunk.
4) My cousin's apartment building being exactly like a college dorm with more disposable income.
5) The amount of money i spent.
Top 5 best things about my NYC weekend
1) Seeing Kaushik, Aarthi,
Laura, and Emile.
2) Fifth row tickets to Rent.
3) Visiting NYU Law School, talking to students there, and getting excited about it.
4) The rooftop terrace on my cousin's building.
5) A bagel and coffee in Central Park on Monday morning.
6) Shopping at Zara for the first time since Paris.
I'm exhausted today...i may just go ahead and leave here early and take a nap before going over to Judith's.
This amuses me. Not sure how i feel about the Onion redesign though.
This is just WRONG.One other thing before i go...according to the stats for this page, I only had 10 visitors on Saturday, but there were
57 page loads. What was that about?
love y'all
sheer brilliance
in other news
i know, i know, i've said too much today. But there's so much going on! Just a few quick links:
-
The love of my life is on Wired. Sidenote...why does Wired have such an awful website? aren't they supposed to be good at that shit?
-
EWWWW sidenote: check out the comment...it's the best description of Chicagoist i've ever heard.
-
LOL-
Well, we slipped three. We all know
i hate US News & World Report, right?
-oh, and y'all have seen
this, right? Because it's pretty effin hilarious.
love y'all
McCain-Feingold
So sunday morning i wake up somewhere in the hours between 9 and 11 and wander out to the living room in my usual not-that-hungover-because-i-only-drank-a-bottle-of-boones-last-night-but-still-
tired-because-that's-the-way-i-am-in-the-mornings stupor, and, on some sort of weird, masochistic whim, turned on the sunday morning talk shows, just in time to catch the beginning of
Russ Feingold being interviewed on
Meet the Press. Senator Feingold is on there talking about having called for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. This is mildly interesting, but not that exciting. What is more fascinating is that almost from the second the senator opens his mouth, i'm thinking, "this man is running for president." This feeling becomes even more blatant when "distinguished-looking" white man (television anchors aren't names, they're types) asks, point-blank, "Senator, are you a candidate for the presidency in 2008?" and Feingold responds with a full three minutes of platform-enunciating and not-denial. Now i don't know very much about Russ Feingold, but i kind of cock my head in mild interest at this revelation, mainly because Feingold ISN'T Hillary or Kerry, and god knows we need more dems who fit that description. And then i switch over to ABC, where Georgie Stephanopolous, like a good adorable little monkey, is talking about
Kinky Friedman and
the Daily Show. This is when Silpa comes out and joins me. We bask for a few minutes in Jon Stewart's gloriousness, and then i tell her about Feingold, and Silpa says, "oh that's interesting, the only thing i really know about him is the McCain-Feingold bill..." and all of a sudden my usually suppressed, corny, ridiculously lame, political junkie sense of humour rushes to take over my brain with the thought, "wouldn't it be HILARIOUS if McCain was the Republican nominee in 2008 and Feingold was the democrat, and then it was the McCain-Feingold race." And no, actually, it wouldn't really be that funny at all. Vaguely amusing for about five seconds. BUT, i'm fairly certain that were that to happen, there would be a slew of articles ALL over the newspapers, magazines, and blogosphere, comparing each candidates compliance with the legislation that bears their names. And because i have NOTHING to do at the news office today, i'm gonna beat them to it. So here it is, and you heard it here first.
First of all, for those of us who might need a brief refresher,
a summary of the major points of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (aka McCain-Feingold).
Now the dirt. We'll start with McCain, because he's my favourite. Except when
he's being a dick.-
Career profile of McCain's fundraising activities-McCain received $31,000 from Global Crossing, and
appears to have returned the favour.-Also, a Center for Responsive Politics
study from the 2000 presidential election, which reveals an encouraging and ideologically-consistent reliance on small contributors in the McCain campaign, also reveals a rather disturbing reliance on PACs.
-Then there's the
Reform Institute, which simultaneously supports campaign finance reform and provides a convenient way for its chief proponent to circumvent it, if he so chooses
-and McCain's identification with campaign finance reform has made him quite a target for
plenty of other reports on minor items of hypocrisy.
-on the other hand, props to McCain for
effective utilization of internet fundraising back when Howard Dean was still a twinkle in Karl Rove's eyes, and for
keeping up the fight in the SenateNow Feingold.
-The basics:
Feingold's individual-to-PAC contributor ratio is lower than McCain's. His disclosure has improved quite a bit but remains imperfect, and
recently businesses have started to play a larger role in his fundraising. Also,
the man gets lots of money from lawyers.-Feingold
spoke out against his own party's attempts to circumvent the BCRA,
and other fundraising efforts.-Also, he gets props for refusing to accept soft money in his last (pre McCain-Feingold) Senate race.
-Honestly, except for one
chronicle of bitterness of a defeated opponent, i couldn't find a single example of Feingold even potentially violating or subverting McCain-Feingold.
So i guess in this comparison it's the democrat who wins. But in all fairness, it's important to note that McCain has been far more of a national figure than Feingold, and thus far more of a target for critical eyes. Who knows what may be revealed if Feingold steps more into the national spotlight? In any case, who really cares about the 2008 elections anyway? It's all just a game until 2012, which is when
OBAMA should run.
love y'all
Thanks to the good nerds at google for making this ridiculously long entry possible.
it's getting to be that time
Seth Stevenson's
Slate series on Amsterdam this week is making me want to move back to Holland. At the same time, every time i pick up
this book i want to move back to Paris. Which all leads to the main question: What the hell do i want to do after i graduate? I thought i was pretty set on the whole Peace Corps-then-law school plan. Nice and simple. But now i'm kinda considering this owning a business in Hyde Park idea, which could be fun. Or maybe, despite all my "i want to get out of the developed world" idealism, i really just want to find a job in Europe. Here's what i don't want to do:
-more school right away
-a boring, un-self-motivated office job
...but beyond that, i'm a little bit lost. And the decisions loom...
love y'all
Desperate Housewives!
So,
Marcia Cross isn't the lesbian on Desperate Housewives. If one of them is, we're left with Eva Longoria, Teri Hatcher, or Nicolette Sheridan. But i gotta say, if Eva's gay and used Tony Parker as a beard, then life is way more unfair than i ever imagined.
In other news...according to
the official ABC quiz i'm a Gabrielle! SWEET...and here i totally expected (a thoroughly disappointing) Susan.
love y'all
melancholy, alcoholism, and other fun games
Maybe it was the champagne at brunch. Maybe it was friday's acute realization that, since i'm going to new york and columbus the next two weeks, this was my last weekend in chicago before i move back into the dorms. Whatever the reason, all day saturday i couldn't shake the feeling of living in a Hemingway or Fitzgerald novel. Something about the day just had that sense of youth in decadent, anesthetized decline. Like, we went to the beach but it was almost empty, and it was unsatisfying because the sun wasn't quite warm enough and there were biting flies that stung our legs and made us leave after just over an hour. And we went to dinner in Little Italy, and were walking up the street enjoying a lovely evening when we saw a car crash and people crying.
Finally, at the end of the evening, when we were sitting in Nichols park drinking boones and smoking hookahs and cigars, i managed to come back to contentment and lose the sense of being trapped in
Tender is the Night.Here are some things that excited me about the weekend:
-Saw
The Aristocrats yesterday and it was hilarious, as expected. And my gods i'm in love with Jon Stewart.
-Isaac and i, completely randomly and on a whim, decided to investigate the possibilities of opening a restaurant in Hyde Park after we graduate. I don't know why, but there's something i like, A LOT about this idea. I can hear my father yelling at me from the future about this.
The bad thing about having an ongoing flirtation with your bartender being your only substitute for a love life...you tend to want to spend a lot of time at the bar. Anyone up for Jimmy's tonight?
love y'all
Poetry and Aeroplanes
i don't have a lot to say today, so i'm going to let Teitur say it for me:
There was a party last night, last night
Cigarettes and empty bottles, empty bottles
Better open up this window, this window
Need some air to clear my head, clear my head
Alone in these strange beds
I think that I’ve traveled enough
Poetry and Aeroplanes
I am tired of waiting for love
Tend to fall asleep in the fast lane, in the fast lane
Sometimes sinking low in the high life, in the high life
No more happy songs of heartbreak, oh’ heartbreak
Or playing white knight misunderstood, misunderstood
Alone in these strange streets
I think that I’ve walked them enough
Poetry and Aeroplanes
I am tired of waiting for love
Another night I lie awake
In woken dreams of faith and fate
Hope my love don’t come too late
Hope my love don’t come too late
Alone in these strange streets
I think that I’ve walked them enough
Poetry and Aeroplanes
I am tired of waiting for love
love y'all
take me now
the two most ridiculous pick-up lines i've ever heard in my life, thrown at me within 5 minutes of each other at Jimmy's last night, by two men sitting on either side of me:
1) "So, did you get some sun today?" (correct response: "no, fuckwad, i'm NOT WHITE" but i was too confused to respond.)
2) "I'm so fucking high right now. Are you smoking crack too?" (correct response: gather things, run out of jimmy's to where isaac was standing outside talking to laura on his cell. That one i did.)
But oddly enough i still had fun there talking to Zak (Zach? i like it better with a k), the bartender, until around 1:30.
love y'all
it's a toss-up
in which moni embarrasses herself...
;-) that amuses me.
so i wrote a poem today...it's the first time in oh, a year that i've actually managed to complete a poem. It's not the best i've ever written...a little trite, and it rhymes but lacks meter :-/ but i don't think it's horrible either. Judge for yourself:
On the Quads
in the blinding warmth of the summer sun
and the bee-sting silence of my telephone
i kick off my shoes in the damp green grass
and i've forgotten what it feels like not to be alone
in this lavender and tree-lined morning
the worker bees continue on their quests
in coffee cup and scaffolding vulgarity
and i remember what it feels like to find rest
yeah...so that's...ummm...a poem. We're getting free pizza at the News Office today!! :-D
love y'all
SWEET
This is so the most exciting thing to happen in Texas politics since the killer Dems fled to New Mexico and Oklahoma to avoid redistricting a year and a half ago. Thank all the gods there may be for Kinky Friedman's attempts to revive the old-style Texas politician...if he sticks with this, i'll stay registered in Texas just to vote for him.
Also, Parisist on the wearing of the colour black:
"Des existentialistes aux punks, de la reine Victoria à Audrey Hepburn, des gothiques aux amish, le noir rend tout le monde d'accord."
love y'all
SO GOOD
just finished
The Perks of Being a Wallflower. You should borrow it from me.
love y'all
i feel good
i just saw a woman wearing a t-shirt that said "i feel good" and had a little smiley face in one of the o's in "good." It made me smile, because i agree.
i'm not sure why i'm feeling so good.
maybe it's because i just got free ice cream
maybe it's because there are strawberry cream hershey's kisses here at work
maybe it's because i discovered
the best time-wasting website EVERmaybe it's because i really like
this bookmaybe it's because i made risotto last night
and just maybe it's because i met a sweet, sexy boy friday night, and i feel like he might actually call me again
but mostly i think it's because i realized that if i were him i would call me. and as long as i think i'm worth it, if he disagrees, that's his problem, not mine.
oh, and by the way, i think all of you are worth it too.
love y'all
childish
I'm feeling neglected today...first of all i e-mailed silpa in the morning and she hasn't answered, making this about the third day in a row that this has happened. I know, i'm dumb, and just because she's busy at work and doesn't compulsively check her e-mail every 6 seconds like some of us doesn't mean she doesn't love me.
Secondly, i'm feeling undervalued at work. Because here's the deal: I suggested to my buddy Josh Segal that he apply to work at the news office, and when he did, i recommended him really highly to my boss. So Josh was hired, largely on the strength of my recommendation. But Josh was hired to do a special project. So while I often sit here searching the web desperately for things to do, Josh always has something to do, and it's interesting, and he's largely self-guided, as opposed to my job, where i only ever have work if i ask people for it every 5 minutes. Now, Josh is getting to come in specially on Monday, at a time that i will be working anyway, so that he can attend John Johnson's funeral in Rockefeller while i sit here at my desk at the News Office. Also attending the funeral will be, among others, Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, and at least one high-ranking member of the Bush Administration. Now i know that it's morally reprehensible of me to want to go to a funeral because of who will be there. But, just, in general, i feel so out of the loop at the news office, like everyone else is a real employee and i'm just an intern. And i was starting to not feel that way when they assigned me the obituary on Monday, but now i'm back to it. So i'm done doing work today. Childish, i know, but there it is. I just want the week to be over.
love y'all
3 thoughts
three thoughts for today:
1)
Cafe Iberico is my favourite restaurant in Chicago.
2)
I hate David Brooks3) HAPPY BIRTHDAY SILPA!!
love y'all
paranoia revisited
i think our sense of outrage has atrophied.
Here and
here are a couple of things that we should be getting really damn mad about. I love this - apparently our surveillance is both overly intrusive and not being put to good use. What does the New York Times teach us today kids? Our intelligence agencies are for watching us, not protecting us.
oh, and
here's something else. let's see...we're lacking competence, morals, credibility, and now taste...what exactly is it that our government DOES possess?
love y'all
amazed
i just got the chance to see
the film discussed here and if you ever get the chance, you should too.
i am absolutely in shock. It was funny, powerful, moving, mature...and made by two 13 year-old boys from the Chicago suburbs. The film is "aimed at young audiences" meaning that its format is highly reminiscent of a Sesame Street segment, which, of course, just serves to make it more striking that what they're talking about is nuclear destruction.
Beyond making me whole-heartedly buy in to their message, this also makes me feel RIDICULOUSLY inferior. These boys are THIRTEEN for gods sakes, and they've already accomplished something that shows more talent and insight than i am likely to demonstrate over the course of my lifetime.
All i can say is...damn.
update from yesterday: Rowshan, my "second mother" is supposed to have a hysterectomy today. There are lots of good signs that the tumor isn't cancerous. Still, if you pray, put a word in for Rowshan Daneshy...she's one of the kindest women i've ever met, and i've been incredibly lucky to have had her in my life since really before i was born.
Thanks kids, oh and see the film!
love y'all
what a day
so i'm at the news office for an extra day today, and somehow was labouring under the misperception that that would be less stressful than being downtown. HAHAHAHAHA Here are some of the things that happened today, in chronological order:
1) Becky (the instructor) was late to kickboxing today, so she made it extra-hard and ran over, making me a little late to work.
2) Spent a good portion of my morning scanning the newspapers for mentions of the UofC and got NOTHING. Not really my fault, but i tend to misconstrue random things as personal failings.
3) Got a call from my mother informing me that her best friend, who's like a second mother to me, is in the hospital with a tumor in her uterus. Subsequently called my "second father" and completely neglected my news office duties to talk to him.
4) Ate lunch for Habeas Corpus with Nancy and two reps from a test prep company. One of whom has communicated with me by e-mail numerous times, met me once, received multiple e-mails from Nancy with my name in them yesterday and today, and proceeded to call me Molly for half the meal. At least a) i got to hang out with Nancy and b) they picked up the tab.
5) Had to walk from Noodles to 56th and South Shore and back to the news office (for anyone who's not from HP, that's 25 minutes-ish each way) wearing khakis and super-uncomfortable shoes in the 90-degree heat to pick up photos of the man i'm writing the obituary of.
--update--
6) On relieved way home from work ran into one now-graduated object of unrequited affection who informed me that he's supposed to be hanging out this evening with my most recent now-graduated object of unrequited affection, who i had thought was gone from chicago, and who is in fact leaving chicago, and the country, this weekend. As if today hadn't fucked with my head enough already
I guess that's it. Basically, everything has been physically and emotionally exhausting. But here are two good things: 1) I came up with something really cool to give Silpa for her birthday. 2) Today i'm going to kick back and drink a PBR and watch The Incredibles for free on the quads. in shorts. You should come watch it with me.
love y'all
...in which Monica channels Carrie Bradshaw
i have a very Sex in the City like question to ask today: does anyone engage in displacement flirting? Isaac and Joel Lanceta exposed me to this concept yesterday - the idea that if you want to talk to someone, you talk to a friend of their's instead. I think this is one of the stupidest ideas of all time. Yeah, if i'm really interested in a guy i want his friends to like me, but if there's a guy i'm trying to pick up, i don't see the point in not talking to him directly. Is there anyone out there who employs this strategy? Has it ever worked?
In other news, my major assignment today at the News Office is writing an obituary for a Professor Emeritus who just died. This is good in that it's the largest and most consequential job they've ever given me here at the News Office. It's bad because it's WRITING AN OBITUARY, which includes calling the family and friends of this man and intruding on their grief to write a press release. I recognize that this is actually probably something they want, but it still feels sketchy...especially if any of them ever realize that i'm just a student intern...
Finally, every once in a while i'll be surfing the net at work and come across something that makes me have to hold back tears so that it's not 100% obvious that i'm goofing off. Want to see today's entry into that category? Click on the PostSecret link at right.
love y'all
insomnia
it's 2:15 and i've been tired all day, but i can't seem to fall asleep. At least Andrea's still awake to talk to me on IM. I wouldn't mind lying awake so much if there was anyone at all who i wanted to daydream about before falling asleep. sigh. ok moni, get over yourself.
Laura leaves tomorrow to start her cosmo internship in New York, which is exciting (and a little nervewracking) for her, and kinda sad for the rest of us. I'll miss her. But Allie will be staying with us for a couple of weeks, which is cool, because even if i didn't love allie, THE WOMAN BAKES HER OWN BREAD, and i'm never gonna argue with having fresh-baked bread in my apartment.
maybe i should try this whole sleep thing again.
love y'all
city life
wow...i just have to say that the
Metropolitan Diary section of the NY Times is about 67 times more interesting than
it's counterpart in the Trib. Score one more point for the "Chicago is nothing compared to New York" team. On the other hand, i would DEFINITELY choose to live in Chicago over New York if i could live
here. my god that building will be BEAUTIFUL if it ever happens. I may be in love with Santiago Calatrava. He's only, you know, my father's age. And married.
Walking around Pilsen with Laura on Saturday, i realized that if i ever do live in Chicago after i graduate, for a job or law school, (barring someone deciding to give me a condo in the Fordham Spire) i will definitely want to still live on the South or Southwest side. As much as i enjoy wandering around the shops and restaurants in Wicker and Lincoln Park, or the view from Tashfeen and Nithin's apartment in the South Loop, Pilsen and Hyde Park are both just so much more interesting.
Oh, you know what, i ALMOST forgot:
WTF!!?? As Jed Bartlett clearly explained way back in Season 2 of the West Wing, "A recess appointment assumes the Senate's gonna have no problem with the nominee." It's meant to conveniently fill uncontroversial, generally lower-level positions, NOT to subvert the process and place someone whose coworkers think he's crazy, who even Republicans in the Senate are uncertain about, and who has expressed a very vocal lack of respect for the institution he will be serving to one of the most crucial foreign diplomacy positions in the nation! This administration's complete lack of shame as it destroys the fundamentals of our democratic, representative form of government is staggering. And i'm slowly beginning to hate Bill Frist even more than i hated Trent Lott.
love y'all
