Retro: Happy Easter 1981
My dad just put his entire personal photo collection onto my computer, so I suddenly have access to decades of family photos. Happy Easter!
south of the loop
Retro: Happy Easter 1988
This is me with my cousin and grandma on Easter twenty years ago, back before global warming had completely fucked everything up. Do you see how spring-like it is? That is how Easter should be.
Retro: Christmas 1979
Every year, my dad and our next-door neighbor shared Christmas decorations that stretched across the two lawns. You can see what the whole shebang looked like right here. This was, of course, when we lived in Dallas, which should be evident by my short sleeves.
Merry Merry Christmas!
I wish I could get a picture of all three cats, but Monte has sequestered himself upstairs until very recently. Now that the house is dark and quiet, he feels brave enough to jump on kitchen cabinets, throw up on the basement stairs, and snuggle up in my lap as I type this. Probably tomorrow morning he will go back to being a great big baby.
Merry Christmas!
* * *
current book: The Ice Storm by Rick Moody. I’m not quite halfway through, and I’m not sure how much I like it. It’s definitely an interesting study of the 70s, that’s for sure.
current music: An endless stream of Christmas carols being piped through every speaker in the house. Sometimes this is okay. Sometimes it is not, such as when the Sandy Patty CD falls into rotation, or the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas (they have all the versions), or the really dreadful “soulful” a cappella Christmas CD. Soul-sucking, more like.
current socks: Some really amazing ones that Tim got me at the Sock Shop in London a few years ago: knee-highs with bright red toes and heels, black and gray stripes, and fuzzy green Christmas trees on the sides. I think tomorrow I will wear my old favorites: green socks with a reindeer entangled in lights and holding a glass of eggnog. The caption reads, “Blitzen Christmas.” Makes me laugh every year.
Best Birthday Card Ever
With much thanks to my friend Harriett, and also to Dr. Seuss, whose characters appear all over the card:
It’s Your Day to Make Some Noise!
Today’s the day!
It’s finally here!
Don’t be bashful!
Give a cheer!
(Just because you’re older now, don’t pretend you don’t know how!)
ZANG a cymbal!
BLOOT a horn!
Celebrate that you were born!
It’s your day!
No time for pouting!
Don’t just sit there!
Do some shouting!
Toot a TOOZLER!
Twang a ZONG!
Sing a made-up birthday song!
YIP and YELL from here to Boise.
It’s your birthday!
Let’s get noisy!
* * *
I plan to toot toozlers and twang zongs the rest of the weekend, personally. I do wonder, though, why “YIP and YELL from here to Boise” didn’t deserve an exclamation point?
Because It Never Gets Old…
…even though I do.
Three years ago:
[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-6664216425685339349]
Happy V-Day!
I’ve never been much for Valentine’s Day. It’s always seemed really contrived, and even when you’re dating someone, there are way better holidays to celebrate. (Half-birthdays, for instance). I used to wear all black or gray on V-Day, probably spawned by the bitterness and resentment I harbored from my days in an all-girls high school in Dallas, where large banquet tables were set up in the main lobby to collect the seemingly hundreds of bouquets that arrived approximately every ten seconds (I was never one of the recipients). I’m no longer actively anti-Valentine’s Day, it just sort of registers a big, pink, beflowered “meh.” Except, of course, when it comes to socks. And, yes, this post really is just a lame excuse to tell you about the socks I’m wearing today. The only other thing I can even think about blogging is this stupid winter weather. The cold and snow have frozen my mind, it seems.
Not only is it still really cold and getting colder, there is now nearly a foot of snow on the ground. (It doesn’t seem like quite that much here, but apparently Midway Airport, which is pretty close by, measured 9.7″). My mom refers to snow as “the white shit,” and rightly so. In Hyde Park, nothing south of the Midway has been touched by salt or plow or shovel. So I sludge and slosh up to my shins through slippery sidewalks and dirty gray snowdrifts. I can’t tell where the sidewalks are, but I can’t walk on the streets because there’s barely enough room for the cars as it is.
What have I learned from all of this, aside from the fact that I have a very bad attitude about winter? Next February, I will be planning a vacation. To Tucson, perhaps, or to Southern California. Anywhere there is sunshine, low wind, and absolutely no white shit.
* * *
current book: Having finished the New Yorker, I got caught up in the latest Atlantic, and so have yet to start High Tide in Tucson.
current music: I spent last weekend trying to share the love that is “White and Nerdy” and Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So’s.
current socks: Are you ready for these? Are you sure? Pink crew socks with red toes and heels. Sailor Jerry-style swallows and hearts. The ribbon carried by the swallows says, “Je t’aime.” The best part (or most obnoxious, depending on your perspective)? Plush red hearts attached to the back of the heel. Man, I wish my camera was working.
Happy Half to Me!
I always loved having a summer birthday. Not only is August 3 always hot and sunny, I never once had to attend school on my birthday. I felt sorry for all those poor kids who had to do homework and take tests on their birthdays—and I liked school. But birthdays should be an opportunity to have fun and set your own agenda. Sleep in, shop, eat, get a massage, hang out with friends and family. Even as an adult, I still feel this same sense of entitlement, and I do my darnedest to request my birthday off from work.
I owe (blame?) this feeling of entitlement to Mrs. W., my second grade teacher. Instead of lumping all the summer birthdays together, those of us born between the sunny days of June and the dog days of August had our classroom celebrations on our half-birthdays. For some reason this really caught on in my family, and we’ve acknowledged half-birthdays ever since—this year’s half-birthday card from my mom arrived two days ago. And why not? It’s a fun excuse to send a second birthday card to someone. I am passing the torch to my nephew, whose half-birthday is exactly two weeks after mine. Last year I got him a couple very cool board books from the Frank Lloyd Wright Robie House. Not sure yet what’s in store for him this year, when he turns a year and a half. But I hope that when he is school-aged, he’ll cheerfully demand to have his birthday celebrated on February 17 instead of lumped into a “summer birthday celebration.”
I celebrated my half-birthday this year by trying to stay warm. It is currently 2 degrees outside with a wind chill of -14. I ran a couple errands this morning and arrived back home with pink, ice-cold skin and my face covered in tears and snot. My people don’t do cold weather. And thank God my real birthday is in August—I’m not sure I’d go out to celebrate in this subzero bullshit.
* * *
current book: Just finished the title story in Philip Roth’s Goodbye, Columbus, which I really enjoyed. The problem is that I can’t figure out exactly why I enjoyed it. I can hear Advisor’s voice asking me, “What about the writing is good? You need to figure that out.” I had this same problem with Michel Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles—its brilliance is masked by such ordinariness, and I had a tough time figuring out why it was so good. Perhaps it will become clearer the further I get into Roth.
current music: Los Super 7’s Heard It on the X and Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So’s The Dust of Retreat.
current socks: Multi-colored stripeys.
Fresh Start
I like the idea of a new year, a new start, except that it’s really just another work week in the same beige cube with the same overtime demands. Good thing I didn’t resolve to have a better attitude.
I spent my New Year’s Eve at a blues lounge on the South Side, where I was coerced into donning a hot pink party hat (I had thought it was purple). I watched a one-legged woman named Melvina collect $50, which was apparently the price the audience had to pay to watch her shake her groove thang. Well, her groove stump, really. After she had $50 in her hand, she tucked the huge wad into her cleavage, hoisted herself up on her walker, and began to gyrate. No, I’m serious.
I also got my picture taken with Miles against a holiday-themed, high school prom-style backdrop, drank girly cocktails, and rang in the new year with a glass of cheap champagne and the blues. All in all, I’d say it was an excellent evening.
Happy 2007!
* * *
current book: Crystal Frontier by Carlos Fuentes
current music: In honor of Miles’ visit for New Year’s Eve, I got out Madonna’s Immaculate Collection, Prince’s Purple Rain, and Michael Jackson’s Ones.
current socks: Some of my favorite stripeys (magenta orange yellow blue gray).
Avoiding the G-Word*
Christmas Eve conversation instigated by my mother:
Do you still think you don’t want kids?
Yeah.
Why?
Well, I don’t really like them.
You seem to like Emmit.
I do. But he’s different.
It’s different when they’re your own, too!
What’s wrong with your grandkitties?
They are cats, Laura. Not grandkitties. Cats.
But they’re like toddlers! They get into everything, they put everything in their mouths…
You can’t leave a toddler at home by himself all day!!!
See? That’s why I would be a terrible mom!
* grandkids
