don't let anybody tell you that you're not humpable

Well, Thanksgiving was lovelier than I could have imagined, despite my rather debilitating cat allergies. My parents sharing a meal together for the first time in six years was pretty momentous, and strangely, wonderfully, good -- great, even, like tears of laughter running down my face great. Like home. Like the holidays should be. Plus, I made that pumpkin pie my bitch, my cousin played his beautiful compositions on the piano, my uncle played his git-tar and serenaded us, my cousin and I beat his dad at Trivial Pursuit for the first time ever, and did I mention I made that pumpkin pie my bitch?

This church and state dress is now minemineminemine thanks to an early xmas present from dad and i am nevereverever taking it off, sorree hygiene. 

A drunken Australian at the Map Room enlightened me on Australian dialect "My name is Alistair, anyhow." "your name is Alistair Anyhow?" "Noye, that's ... just what we say." and the romance of modern voyager bedding practices: "It's my last night in Chicago, what bar around here can I find a bird to take home with me tonight?" "Well, it depends what kind of girl you're looking for." "No preference, really" was the joyful response. Kirsten told him she lived in Cairns for 6 months and he pointed at her rack and yelled "Cairns? CANS." Splendid.

A busy week lies ahead of gainful employment, bookslut readings, bikram, pizza dates, magazine parties, and caroling at cloud gate. KIRAMAS IS HEEEEERE.

Kirsten & I have been serenading each other with this kind of non-stop, I didn't want to exclude you. Enjoy. 

(why can't a heterosexual guy tell a heterosexual guy that he thinks his booty is fly??)

just one last hit like

your leisure is my pleasure.

today i:

*finished this on the el on my way to work in the wee pre-9 am hours, contentedly sandwiched in a packed car between many a metrognome:

I enjoyed it, but I can't say it's my favorite murakami -- his effort at rendering a cinematic effect felt like he was wrenching it out of the text rather than letting it fall quietly between the lines, which is what otherwise makes murakami such pleasurable magic. i much prefer sputnik sweetheart, norwegian wood, or kafka on the shore to this one.

then it snowed a glorious, full-on, christmas-type big wet flaky snow as i headed to a friend's place to drink cocoa with marshmallows (i'm the world's worst "vegetarian"...fine, fine, pescetarian) and watch scottish drug addicts do their scottish drug addict THANG. oh, ewan, you can do no wrong. 

west coast boyfriends

"a weekly roundup of america through the eyes of two American Americans." 

yessssss. i.e. two guys, sitting around stoned in their LA apartment, discussing delusions, colon rolling (!!!) craigslist m4m posts masquerading as m4w posts, imitating steven wright, and generally enjoying each other's company immensely. like pot psychology but better, before tracie & rich began phoning it in.

gohhhh i love them. BEARDY. +2 points for los angeleez. 

reverse moustache

Bob's awesome new blog, reverse moustache, does just that. Categories include Dictators, Directors, and Fictional Characters. the Tom Selleck one is pure reverse 'stache gold.

i've gone looking for that feeling everywhere

"Where are my women now, with their sweet wet words and ways, and the miraculous balls of hail popping in a green translucence in the yards? We put on our clothes, she and I, and walked out into a town flooded ankle-deep with white, buoyant stones. Birth should have been like that." -Denis Johnson, Jesus's Son

stunning photo by Elea Rage, via syntheticpubes

dumbstruck with the sweetness of being

current obsessions:

-gmail's schizo new 'themes' options -- wtf awesomeeeee. mine is currently set to 'phantasea.'

-the haunting, eerie, trembling persistence of Growing's track (& video for) 'Wrong Ride': 

(better quality on pitchfork.tv, but for some reason embedding pitchfork's videos on blogger effs up the whole page's layout)

-American architect Stephen Holl's winning design for jaw-droppingly futuristic and sleek new building in Copenhagen, with a pedestrian footbridge linking both sides of the harbor. Now, if possible, i'm even more excited about the prospect of meeting up with my london flatmates in sweet nymphette louise's hometown of copenhagen next summer.

-the pumpkin pie yogurt i purchased this eventide in a heinously expensive Target run. trying to find a photo of it led me to another obsession -- an entire website dedicated to all things pumpkin. maren & i were just discussing last nite over Flossmoor Station's Big Black Pumpkin beer that when we achieve our life dream and open our organic restaurant in northern california, we will have a pumpkin patch and that ingredient will be all OVER our menu. (i....will eat anything involving that cheerful rotund fruit.)

that's right, that's obama up there with pumpkins, saying YES WE CAN EAT PUMPKIN-FLAVORED FOODSTUFFS EVERY SINGLE DAY. 

fred the baker

I kind of really want this job if only so that i can say, on a daily basis in a melodramatically fatigued timbre, "Time to make the donuts." Also, free donuts on a daily basis. Dangerous. 

I'll ponder this (and my newly barely-employed status -- that's right, quit the khakis & necktie (nut)job) on the 5-mile run I'm about to attempt. This effort will be duly rewarded with generous-sized bottles of Dragon's Milk later at my favorite Bucktown pub. 

Ghettofied audio-visual return to childhood, below:

(write it)

My most favorite Elizabeth Bishop poem, One Art:

without you, today's emotions would be the scurf of yesterday's

be forewarned: ree-DICULOUS, unnatural, jaw-dropping quantities of adorable in this video. World, meet Mini Amelie Poulain:

Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

dusseldorfing

Went to a delightful Hauschka show last nite. The spry, sweet German fellow, Volker Bertelmann, is a classically trained pianist/composer who outfits his piano with all manner of accessories and trinkets such as leather straps, utensils, bells, & whistles galore. He sat with his piano facing the stage so that we could witness the ingenuity of his "prepared piano" creation. Flanked by two cellists and two violinists, it was a truly lovely, haunting, expansive and simply beautiful set. We applauded him as he exited the bar a few hours after he finished playing, and smiling and gracious, he headed out into a freezing Chicago evening decorated with delicate shakes of snow.

photo from here

gorbachev

The Onion's "Many Disguises of Barack Obama." 

Next to "Illegal Immigrants moving back to Mexico for American Jobs." awesomeeeee.

Speaking of which, seriously considering quitting mine. The uniform is truly soul-destroying. Yesterday I was told to button my very top button, (the hardest button to button, wuh-oh), and that my oxford shirt wasn't "regulation oxford," whatever the fuck that means. Also, the THIRD person in as many days was fired for showing up to work drunk/reeking of alcohol. At 10 am. really??? They're dropping like flies. It's comedy hour in there. Another was fired for referring to the Puerto Rican and black guy as "you people" and proclaiming that black people use their skin color as a "crutch" while discussing Obama's win. wowwwwwwwwee.

Saw the Justice tour rockumentary Friday night (A Cross the Universe), which was, appropriately, full of nothing more than behind-the-scenes profligate boozing, drugging, and sexing (featuring a particularly cringeworthy cameo with some vapid chick from Kansas), interspersed with crowd shots. Unless I missed something. My sobriety was questionable. 

It's Sunday, it's sunny, it's newspaper in bed time. 

houston's too humid, tell me more about that died thing.

Well, i've begun gainful employment (again). i quit that last job about a week after i began  -- all the managers were sweaty, nervous cokeheads who sported pinkie rings (not the hot kind) and heavy layers of hair product, about 3% of the 7,000 servers were remotely cool, and the tips were shit. oh yeah, and i had to wear a multi-colored vest. yes, that vest weighed heavily in my decision to quit. 

My new job is at a fancy-schmancy restaurant on Michigan Avenue, which means holidays + mad rich people + shoppers = hopefully some wicked good tipz. Major drawback: I have to wear khakis and a necktie. Not a piano key necktie (shown) (wait, that would be awesome), but ... still. I've never had to wear a necktie in my life, i have no idea how to tie one, and I haven't worn khakis since the 8th grade. Ugh. The only reason I've consented to this sartorial sadism is because I know I'm leaving for California in two months and can deal with a shitty work uniform if there's an end in sight, plus getting a job is like NIGH IMPOSSIBLE right now. (help, obama!)

so for the past week, i've had to endure training sessions involving a litany of possibly the most inane questions i have ever heard:

"i know the restaurant has just gone through a lot of changes with the refurbishment, but if a customer asks for, say, cream cheese on the side, are we still allowed to do that?"

"i've heard a lot of talk about oxford shirts, now can we discuss what actually constitutes an oxford shirt? i mean, i've heard pocket-talk too. what are we talking, here? one pocket? two pockets?"

"Can our khakis be bell-bottomed?"

"How many strawberries come on the pancakes? The menu says banana or strawberry smoothie -- what if a customer wants both? Can we do that?"

EVERY SINGLE PERMUTATION OF RETARDATION WAS ASKED, no joke. "What's the name of the farmer who grows the oranges we use in the orange juice?" I whispered to the girl next to me, whose blackberry wallpaper is set to the above photo, and therefore my new best friend.

Anyway, in the "dress rehearsal" today I was told I'd have to pin my bangs back and come back tomorrow "looking slightly more..." the manager trailed off. "Corporate?" I offered. "Put-together. Erm...ironed. Crisp." 

Awesome.

too busy drinking to come to the phone

oh, hello, you. 

sorry, i've been a bit Mathangi Arulpragasm for the past week. I was a bit busy drinking and cavorting with various friends and plaid-shirted, tattooed boys. What the hell was I even doing all week? 

*Discovered dark new watering holes within walking distance of my front door (joy of joys!).

*Saw Gang Gang Dance give a shiver-me-timbers rad-ass performance at the Empty Bottle, ie my newfound home, thanks to the glorious 80/20 plaid-shirted, scruffy-haired and bearded male to female ratio, gohhhhhhh.

*Rang in a new president, a new future, YES WE CAN CHANGE, among a waterfall of free tequila shots in a dark biker bar

*had my favorite Beatles song played for me on a Logan Square jukebox (it's "Honeypie," in case anyone out there wants to make me very giddy in bar someday)

*had an unbelievably intimidating goth chick clad in nothing but scary cat's eye contacts, a bra, underwear, fishnets, and those freakydeaky 8-inch thick industrial boots rub up against me in a goth club at 3 am -- an experience that quickly turned from entertaining to violating as she gave me creepy vampire eyes and sashayed her way over to me, arms all a-waving, eye contact unwavering, rubbing her naked sweaty body against my drunk one. I think she mis-judged my inebriated inability to properly focus as making eye contact with her. "Kirsten..." I pawed at my drunker, otherwise occupied friend after a few minutes of dance-floor molestation. "KIRSTEN. KIRSTEN. YOU. NEED. TO. HELP. ME. NOW. FORREALS. NOW." She hopped to just in time, pulling me away just as I had a fishnetted bum backing up into my crotch, arms still all a-waving like Jim Carrey in the restaurant scene in Dumb & Dumber as he waddles up to the pizissssed Asian chef.

(zexxy photo from mauro, via syntheticpubes)

*various other things keeping me from serenading you, dear loyal readers. A wholehearted "my bad," with promises for a better blogging week ahead, with stories from my new job(s) (FINAFUCKINGLY) to come.

KNOCKING FOR CHANGE

The breathtaking panoramic vistas of Gary.

Kirsten & i crossed state borders yesterday for Change. Beaten down by MoveOn.orgs' seventeen thousand daily emails, we got our ass into gear (a false sign-up for the day after Halloween was switched to Sunday once the hangover made it well apparent we were in no state to knock on doors all day) and zipped along on the expressway and landed in the unbelievably economically depressed city of Gary, Indiana to canvass for Change.

We waited in line for Change, we received a brief training session for Change, we got Obama pins for Change, and then we headed out to the most run-down community I've ever witnessed -- not that I've knocked on the doors of Cabrini Green, but this was blocks upon blocks of boarded up and semi-abandoned houses and crack dens, with a few family homes sprinkled in between. We knocked on around 70 doors, urging people to vote early and giving out information on where and how to vote. For the most part, just mentioning Obama's name brought smiles to understandably suspicious faces (What are these two blonde, white, cheerful chicks doing on my doorstep?). 

It was fun, and rather invigorating and inspiring, despite the run-down neighborhood and the pregnant lady who warned from her doorstep "You girls should be careful, there was a shooting up the block from here just last night." Uh, thanks. Apart from slipping voter registration envelopes under doors in London with meg, i'd never canvassed before. We ended most exchanges by chirping "Happy Obama Day!" which people seemed to dig. 

"Naw, I didn't vote for Obama, I voted for elvis PRESLEY." yelled one man from his living room.

"I've gotten 20 calls, 15 emails, and about 12 knocks on my door from you people already," my face begins to fall at this point, yet he continues "and boy am I glad to see you again. I'm grateful to everyone who's trying to turn this red state blue!" His pants were unzipped, his shirt unbuttoned, and his suspenders crooked, but that goofy old man made my day.

"Happy Obama Day!"

tetrahedronal

HAPPY TETRIS-OWEEN TO YOU. 

Despite being mistaken for Rubik's cubes for half the night, it was quite the popular costume, I must say, and rife for party stranger sexy innuendo ("Now you just need a green piece to fit into you." slurs the Irishman). Not pictured: we walked around playing the Tetris theme-song all night, mini-ipod-speakers hidden in Kirsten's splendiferous rack.