Things that May or May Not Be True

Check out my other blog that's open to the public: http://thingsthatmayormaynotbetrue.blogspot.com

Trying to update it as much as I can, provided I find sayings and other things that may or may not be true. It's much easier to be cynical about said things, however, so I am now making a concerted effort to think of things that are true. It's a little sad that I find it easier to turn things into falsities — everything's a matter of opinion anyway!

So, there ya have it. Follow it. KTHXBYE.

Improv! Improv! Im! Prov! Moving! Moving! Mov! Ing!

Two things:

Signed up for level 2 improv class at iO. You should too.

Moved into my new digs off Armitage on Burling. You should too.

Moving! Improv! Mov! Ing! Imrov! Moving! Im! Prov!

Do-Do, Do-Do, Dooo-Doooo!

CNN Justice

I read a lot of CNN Justice online. But today my google widget for Top CNN articles threw me this one on the recent pre-election Philippine Massacre.

There's a part in the story noting that at least 12 journalists died in the massacre, according to the nonprofit Reporters Without Borders (a spin-off of Doctors Without Borders). And it shocked me. Not to the point of actual surprise, but more so, that journalists here in the US who have so much freedom, and so many rights, widdle those away with back-talk, opinions and really crap commentary. Being a reporter is a job. Shouting your opinion the loudest is a past-time. I wish that less crap would get through the system before landing on the pages of a magazine or newspaper. So much is taken for granted in this country, and because of that we're going to fall behind. According to Newsweek's recent issue, we already are when it comes to innovation and invention — thanks to our crap school system. There was a lot of merit to the latest Newsweek, but for me, a lot of that credit fell by the wayside when they decided to use a picture of Sarah Palin in short-shorts shot for the June '09 issue of Runner's World on the Newsweek cover. The magazine would never do that to a male political figure, so why the double standard?

I'm not a fan of SP, so my annoyance and argument against using a photo like that should have even more weight. It's just another stick in the spokes, and serves to discredit a publication that for so many years has been on the cutting edge. To quote a friend regarding the publication, "Yeah, it's all commentary now — no news." Perhaps it isn't all solely commentary, but for every bit of true story, there's someone's take on it for another three paragraphs.

And, isn't that just unfortunate?

I love the 80s. Ryan. The Office. And Prima Donnas.

I've pretty much been watching this video since last Thursday night. And just today watched the "making-of" video. Also hilarious. I think I'm going to watch it again. Right. Now. Join me?

The Ultimate List

So when blogging, at the end of the post just before hitting "publish," there's a small section marked: Labels — in which, obviously, you can type in the sort of keywords that your blog fits into. Most people don't want to fit into some sort of label, or want to fit in a label, but don't actually fit or something, whatever. I, friends, LOVE the option of a "label." Why wouldn't you? You know exactly what you're getting. You can track how different labels have shown up in numerous posts. I love it, so much that periodically I'll click my "list" label and then re-read all the lists I've ever made. It's a perfect way to pigeon who various styles and themes of writing. The number in parenthesis is the amount of times it appears. So, without further ado:

The top contenders are: Life (72), Music (46), Lists (40), College (38), Journalism (34), Happiness (29), Travel (29), Quotes (28), Change (25), Friends (25)

All Labels:
* 30 Rock (4)
* A Ballad (1)
* A.M. (1)
* Across the Universe (2)
* Actress (3)
* Alicia Keys (2)
* Allergy (1)
* Ayn Rand (1)
* Banjo (2)
* Barack Obama (3)
* Beatles (3)
* Beirut (1)
* Bon Iver (1)
* Books (7)
* Busyness (12)
* Change (25)
* Chicago (6)
* Childhood (2)
* Christmas (1)
* Chuck Klosterman (2)
* Cobwebs (1)
* College (38)
* Daily Iowan (11)
* Dash 7 (1)
* Dave Matthews Band (1)
* David Sedaris (1)
* Dixie Chicks (1)
* Eleanor Lambert (1)
* Election (4)
* Employment (15)
* Facebook (6)
* Family (16)
* Fashion (1)
* Fears (1)
* Feist (2)
* France (15)
* Friends (25)
* Gotta Have You (1)
* Graduation (6)
* Growing Pains (3)
* Halloween (2)
* Happiness (29)
* Holidays (5)
* Home (9)
* Hugh Macleod (1)
* Humor (11)
* Improv (1)
* Ingrid Michaelson (1)
* Iowa City (8)
* Jesus (7)
* Job (25)
* Journalism (34)
* Juner (1)
* Kate Rusby (1)
* Katharine Graham (4)
* Kelly Kapor (1)
* Kings of Leon (1)
* Lasts (4)
* Life (72)
* Lists (40)
* Liz Laine Reps (4)
* Mandy Moore (1)
* Middleness (3)
* Midwest (2)
* Mindy Kaling (1)
* Mirah (1)
* Movies (9)
* Moving On (13)
* Mushaboom (1)
* Music (46)
* Natalie Dee (12)
* Neko Case (1)
* New Years (1)
* Nick Hornby (1)
* Nickel Creek (1)
* Nobel Peace Prize (1)
* Nobody Knows Me (3)
* Ode (11)
* Pearls on a String (1)
* Polydream (1)
* Quotes (28)
* Racism (1)
* Radiohead (1)
* Re: Stacks (1)
* Reading (5)
* Reality Bites (3)
* Recession (2)
* Recycling (1)
* Regina Spektor (3)
* Revitalizing (4)
* Rilo Kiley (1)
* Roommates (1)
* Ryan Adams (4)
* Sadness (14)
* San Francisco (18)
* Self-harm (1)
* Sesame Street (1)
* Shakira (1)
* Sheldon Vanauken (2)
* Shout Out Louds (1)
* Sick (3)
* Silver Lining (1)
* Smiley Face Cookies (1)
* Snow Patrol (1)
* Social Networking (2)
* Sophia Kinsella (2)
* Spam (1)
* Stagnant (1)
* Stereotypes (1)
* Steve Berry (1)
* Stress (4)
* Sufjan Stevens (1)
* Switchfoot (1)
* Television (6)
* The Jayhawks (2)
* The Office (1)
* The Weepies (5)
* The World Spins Madly On (8)
* Thomas Kohnstamm (1)
* Tina Fey (2)
* Travel (29)
* U2 (2)
* Unemployment (10)
* Vacation (11)
* Volunteer (6)
* Voxtrot (1)
* Weakerthans (1)
* Weather (8)
* Web site (2)
* Wilco (8)
* Writing (19)

Kaling, Kaling, Kaling.

"Neon is the new metallic? Indians are the new Jews? You can waste a lot of your day coming up with “blank is the new blank”s. But since I’m out on script this week and have no one to talk to all day, I can think about it all I want. So yeah, neon is the new metallic. I love the way neon looks. It’s part 80’s all-star and part traffic cone. Either way, it’s totally playful and great."

I love Kelly Kapor. By default I love Mindy Kaling. She is the actress who plays Kelly Kapor. She should just be Mindy Kapor...or something. Kelly Kaling. Good names.

Anyway, this actress slash writer/blogger is hilarious. I just started reading her blog "things that i bought that i love," and it's wonderful.

Come on, "It’s part 80’s all-star and part traffic cone." Too good.

Books, still in review

If you read my blog, you know I like — no scrap that — love to read. Since my last reading list post, I've finished:

1. Personal History, Katharine Graham
2. Twenties Girl, Sophie Kinsella
3. The Wild Things, Dave Eggers
4. Truth in Comedy, Charna Halpern, Del Close, Kim Johnson
5. I Feel Bad About My Neck (and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman), Nora Ephron

But

I'm still trying to finish:
1. Profiles in Courage, JFK
and
2. You Shall Know Our Velocity, Eggers

I don't know if I will finish either of those any time soon though. For some reason I can't seem to get into either, really. I'm 3/4 done with Profiles in Courage though, so I think I will just tough it out. I mean, it's a good book, it's just so full that I find myself rereading things often just to keep up. I think I'm going to get back to reading autobiographies though. I find them much more enjoyable than biographies, as those read seriously like text books, rather than life stories, which is what they are. I think people are more coherent when they're writing about themselves rather than someone else. It's funny though because JFK got a Pulitzer for Profiles in Courage, and so did Katharine Graham for her autobiography, Personal History.

* Add A Long Way Gone, Beah, and What is the What, Eggers to the soon-to-read list.

Excited!

There's so much to be excited about!

5 Things I love:
1. Improv class
2. This article: here.
3. TV! I know, but seriously: Brothers & Sisters, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty...
4. Shows: concerts, plays, improv
5. Creativity.

Three Days of Concerts: In-A-Row

* Saturday Night: Headlights at Empty Bottle
* Sunday Night: Wilco at Chicago Theater
* Monday Night: The Dodos at Bottom Lounge

Yes, Yes, & Yes. Sign me up. I'm going.

Yesterday afternoon I spent about 7 minutes trying to answer questions to "The Interactive Proust Questionnaire" from Vanity Fair (one of my favorite magazines). One questioned had me mildly stumped.

"Which historical figure do you most identify with?"

I ended up writing Katharine Graham, but I'm not quite sure if that's true. I mean, I identify with parts of her, but honestly, she was a very weak woman for most of her life, and basically pulled it out toward the finish line.

In the end the questionnaire said I answered most like: Donna Karen and Eleanor Lambert. I thought it was sort of funny — I answered most similarly to fashionistas. Creators. DK, obviously of Donna Karen clothing and Vanity Fair's Eleanor Lambert, the pioneering "Queen of Culture."

It's sort of cool to have a look back at history and see who you emulate compared with who you want to emulate. What's cooler is when those two somehow match up.

Top 5 Favorite Actresses

1. Tina Fey- 30 Rock, SNL- She's just funny. I spent the last 40 minutes reading her wikipedia page. Writer, Actress, College-graduate, mom => Whole package.
2. Kimberly Williams-Paisley- Really only in Father of the Bride, but she's just so cute even if I haven't seen her in much since the early 90s.
3. Diane Keaton- From Annie Hall to The Godfather series to Something's Gotta Give- She's perfect in everything.
4. Catharine O'Hara- I always thought she played the best mom in Home Alone, and then I found out she was really a comedic actress thanks to Christopher Guest movies- She's brilliant, especially when acting with Fred Willard.
5. Jenna Fisher- I know her relatively little aside from her role on The Office (US), but she's darling.

* I also used to really love Cheri Oteri, but then she fell off the face of the earth. Molly Shannon, too. What the what?

Nobel (Un)Worthy

This morning I rushed to work, though no one is ever here to scold me for being late, and obviously, I ripped open my newspaper. OK, that last part may be a lie brought on by four years of pretending I'd read the paper before my journalism classes. Seriously, I would bring in three newspapers into class with me every day and maybe read two stories in each. I guess that should have told me something about the declining state of journalism as not even up-and-coming journalists such as myself at the time could get through a full paper even once a week.

I did today, however, look at my google hot trends and found these words glaring at me: Obama Nobel Peace Prize. I'd like to make this clear: I root for our Presidents. I root for the one that everyone thinks is failing and I root for the ones I like and the ones I don't like. I root for them because I don't think talking negatively about a President does anything constructive, and I root for them because most people do better when they have some form of positive support. Deductive reasoning: I rooted for Bush to do what was right, and now I'm rooting for Obama to do what's right. I have not said by any means that either of them have in the past or will in the future do what was/is right. I just am saying that I root for them to do such.

OK. With that all out there, I do want to say that I do not think President Obama's efforts over the past nine months warrant a Nobel Peace Prize. P.O. won the award not for his actual delivery on change, but his rhetoric about change. Those are in no way the same thing. This Washington Post article makes a quality point, effectively undercutting committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland's decision to choose P.O.:

"In response to questions from reporters in Oslo, who noted that Obama so far has made little concrete progress in achieving his lofty agenda, committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said he hoped the prize would add momentum to Obama's efforts. At the same time, Jagland said, 'We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do.'"

But the best is yet to come, when pushed further Jagland sites not those concrete progress points, no, he sites:

"Obama's speech about Islam in Cairo last spring, as well as efforts to address nuclear proliferation and climate change and use established international bodies such as the United Nations to pursue his goals."

And to bring the point home that this award now means less than it did previously:

"'Think about it, it's so post-modern: a leader can now win the peace prize for saying that he hopes to bring about peace at some point in the future,' sniped Wall Street Journal deputy editor Iain Martin in an online post. 'He doesn't actually have to do it, he just has to have aspirations. Brilliant.'"

And doesn't he have a point? We might as well be giving it away to Beauty Queens saying that they wish for world peace.

Again, I root for our Presidents because they are our Presidents. I have respect for the Office of the President of the United States, but I don't think that necessitates my support for awarding something that actually has little to back up the trophy — or I suppose prize in this case. The committee's decision to award P.O. preemptively, in my express opinion, is meaningless and now hereafter the Nobel Peace Prize will be nothing more than another novelty award that doesn't actually say or represent anything. We should call it a Grammy or a Kids Choice Award.

Just Do It - Nike + TOMS

Twenty Questions on Steroids

So a few months ago I received a sort of questionaire from someone. I don't usually do these as they take me forever, but this one had some good questions. So, if you don't mind, here's the top 12: or at least the ones that best describe me.

1. What do you usually have for breakfast? Diet Coke and a Granola Bar running out the door
2. What characteristic do you despise? Thoughtlessness
3. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? France, or somewhere new
4. What was your most memorable birthday? My brother Sean's birthday when my mom had a penny treasure hunt in the living room.
5. Are you a morning person or a night person? Night
6. What did you want to be when you grew up? An actress or a singer, some sort of creator
7. What is your favorite candy? Kit Kats
8. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? The day I start classes at Improv Olympic
9. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Orange
10. Coffee or tea? Plain Coffee, Chai tea
11. When was the last time you cried? yesterday while watching
Brothers & Sisters
12. What are you afraid of? Not having any options

5 Things I love

A few months ago I started writing down a few times a week five things that I love. It really helped me see things in perspective, and I'd encourage you to do the same. For a while I was pretty distraught at feeling like (slash being) a know-nothing, unemployed sucker who went to college only to get diddley. So, it really was necessary for me to write down all the good things that were going on — because there actually were and are a lot of good things going on. So, here's a taste of what I'm talking about. Here are some of the things I collected from different lists I wrote this week in no particular order:

1. 5 minutes after my alarm goes off, all snug in my warm sheets.
2. When things work themselves out.
3. Rebecca, sad she's leaving for Spain, but so happy for her.
4. Sending postcards and cards.
5. Reading on the train.
6. My walk to work, it smells like chocolate and brownies.
7. Catching up on shows with Brian.
8. Talking about the book I'm reading.
9. Seasonal drinks at coffee shops.
10. Larry, Colleen, Sean, Timmy, and Kevin.
11. Options.


What's funny is when I was working in the cubicle I actually wrote Things I Do Not Love lists, which isn't good, but can be funny to go back and read. Here's one of those:
1. Losing jewelry and knowing it's around here somewhere, but still no luck.
2. Cision, my job at Cision.
3. When Corner Bakery runs out of chocolate chip cookies.
4. Not having a pen and paper when I need one.
5. Kankersores.

Unnatural & Natural Fears

I have forced myself into fear.

As is typical in most cities, there's a public transit system, no?

Yes.

With that comes steel vents in sidewalks. You know, the metal overlay that disrupts the sidewalk's cement sheen. I have an unnatural fear of these.

It's true that I've heard stories of strangers falling through, suing the city for countless sums, but I never was afraid before, falling through, that is.

While walking down the street, typically to and from work, I consciously tell myself to dodge these menacing hurtles. But they are no more menacing that a pothole or an abnormal crack causing you to roll your ankle. The funny thing is, is that there are so many variables that can really screw up your day, so why pick just one? If I'm going to cause an unnatural fear in myself over walking across vents, then shouldn't I freak out at the littlest of worries?

It's gotten pretty annoying to change my walking path, seemingly cutting off those walking beside me, those who have no abnormal fears they somehow brought upon themselves.

But, you know what actually is scary: those metal doors that come out of shop basements onto the sidewalks. These are way scarier because you (the walker) are relying on some guy who has to clear out the basement trash to remember to lock the door and perform all the necessary latches in order for passersby not to fall through, breaking arms and legs.

Maybe what's really unnatural is my fear of relying on others in general, whether that's the guy who's supposed to lock the door, the city worker who has to put in the vents properly or anyone else — but I suppose that's a breakthrough for another morning.

Books, Books, Books

I always tell Brian that we can be the couple who reads together. I don't know why, but I have this idea that we could go to a park, and there wouldn't be any bugs, and I could be reading some silly Sophie Kinsella book or some really intense biography about a high-powered woman, and he could be reading some book that periodically he has to read out loud to show just how funny it is.

I don't know why, but it's always been something that I've sort of wanted, for one reason or another. Maybe it's because I really love going to bookstores, but there are never comfy chairs open, so I just end up reading outside and want company. Or maybe it's because I want someone to read sentences aloud to. That's company though, right?

Company is probably the biggest thing, because really, reading is quite a solitary activity. Or, it's all just a throwback to reading outside on the pentacrest in college. Let's go with company as a whole though.

I mean, you've got your book groups and the like, but there's no real discussion, I imagine. Maybe I have a skewed perspective on book groups thanks to my mother. She has been part of one for a few years now and enjoys reading, but somehow always gets distracted and can never finish the book in time for the book group deadline. I get that. But at the same time, it's hard to have a real chat about a book if you've only finished a third of it. Then again, why is there a timetable for reading a book? Ah, ha, libraries also have timetables. Two weeks, or you're out. I pounded down the latest Sophie Kinsella novel, Twenties Girl, in just over a day on Wednesday. I was dodging a late fee and returned it during the off-hours technically after the deadline, but also technically not. Limbo. By the way, in case you hadn't heard from me already, Personal History was great. It's sad that there's no more. If I were Katharine Graham (provided I was still alive), I think it would be really scary to look at a 650-page book and realize that's it. That's your life. I mean, obviously not everything can be covered in a book, but it's sort of intense.

But this is neither here nor there. I suppose I do have a way of talking about the books I'm reading. Thanks for checking up, blog readers. In the meantime, I'll probably be outside. Reading. For now it's JFK's Profiles in Courage.

Top Favorites

At LLR I started a Clip-of-the-Day sort of thing where I post a clip on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites of one our animation studios' newest things that I like.

Yesterday I was really loving this one from Framestore:
Volkswagen Polo 'Dog'








and today's clip from LAIKA:
M&M's Taste

You have to go to the top, click on Reels, then Show Reel, then in the top Right you will see a Blue M&M. Click on it. It's too funny.

Let me know what you think. I've got a couple lined up in my mind for next weeks clips...

Two Quotes to Live By

"To me, working is a form of sustenance, like food or water, and nearly as essential." -Katharine Graham, Personal History, p. 623

"The longer I live, the more I observe that carrying around anger is more debilitating to the person who bears it." -Katharine Graham, Personal History, p. 614

Swimming.

So far working at Liz Laine Reps has been really freeing. Literally. Today I got let out three hours early due to a phone and Internet problem. But, even if I was still there it would be great. Working in an environment with just a few others around truly affords the hard to come by visibility that's really difficult to access in a big corporate environment. Already I've been able to meet the creative team from DDB Chicago and have scheduled screenings and trips to other advertising agencies, along with introducing myself to our roster of animators and directors. Really I'm just jumping into the thick of it and hoping I won't make a mess of things, but actually will exceed expectation.

And, it's helpful to check in with friends, too, who are diving deeply into their chosen life-for-the-moment. Here's a quote from Paul's blog that he practically never posts on, hence the title of the post: "I haven't Posted Since my Birthday."

"nothing else that needs to be said except life is predictable but at the same time full of surprises. i am learning to give all i can in the situation that i am in, and when it is over, i can move forward knowing that i did what i was supposed to do."

We Should All Be Jacks

Periodically I am vain and re-read my past posts. I think I like to check in with myself to make sure I'm not just the sounding board. However, I feel like I have been. In reading the post "Compiling the List of Yesteryear" I left the list with the possibility of gaining a position with Teach For America (TFA) and/or going to Graduate or Law School, slash getting a job.

In another previous post I mentioned that I had gotten my heart broken by various jobs and interviewees at not being selected to work at their organization, company or publication. Unfortunately for both me and TFA (yeah, I said it), I did not get the position to be the Public Affairs Coordinator. Though I would have killed at it, apparently I wasn't a "right fit." Upon asking how I could have strengthened my position or what I was missing or what they wanted and I somehow didn't deliver, they said, "No comment." This, I fear, has become a regular response from the dumper in these short-lived relationships. I've never really been privy to being in little week to month-long relationships, so I a. didn't realize I had been dumped and b. definitely didn't know how to react. My natural response was to ask why, and I guess it makes sense why they don't want to relive their thought-process. I'm convinced that for every job I didn't get over the last year, I am, indeed, the one that got away.

But, alas, I digress — going back to past posts.

I would like to say that in everything I have ever written on this blog I am and will continue to be 100 percent candid. This has, I think, gotten me in trouble, hence making the blog private. For your eyes only. The trouble with being so truthful though, is you see my direct stream of conscience. In re-reading posts I am afraid that I sound like a flake. Bouncing from idea to idea, grad to law to advertising to PR and public service to this, that and the other thing, somehow landing in a cubicle amidst the mayhem — I'm sorry.

It should also be noted that I view myself as a Jack of All Trades, as narcissistic as that may sound, which is why I jump around. I think it's an exceedingly good thing to jump around though. At this time in most of our young lives, we don't have real obligation, we don't have real needs, we just need a roof, a blanket, some food and livelihood, when it comes down to it. So, I suppose, I encourage you to re-read who you thought you were going to be last year, re-think who you are now, and make a list of all the things you want to do. (Maybe even make an outline with roman numerals, and the works.)

What's scared me most in the last few months was the fact that I thought in order to live, to do what I wanted to do, I had to compromise somewhere along the way. Eventually that may be the case, but right now, no way. It may seem like we don't have the luxury of choice, but friends, that's all we have here, and it's awesome. The thought I had constantly rotating in my mind if I didn't quit my job was, if I die tomorrow it will say somewhere in my obit that I worked in a cubicle (maybe not verbatim, I hope), but it definitely wouldn't say I was pursuing my passion — and I couldn't, then and can't now, live with that.

So, I close now by saying I still have real goals and real hopes and real things I'm pursuing, but they will change, and I will too. Graduate school or law school, living abroad, traveling often, making and donating money, giving my time, owning my life, and walking with my friends and God, learning from experience, and watching in excited anticipation for the world to throw unexpected things my way, but might be just the ticket at that very moment. I can't wait for the next exciting thing to happen, and right now I am hopeful that I'm walking more in its direct path, rather than darting left and right.

Wisdom & Working

"They weren't born like that, you know. The self-made millionaires, the now-famous who started with nothing...They learned the skills that brought them to the top, then they practiced, and through practice they changed their behavior — and their behavior made them different people; wholly different. You can be different too — any way you want to be..."

-originally from paragon-athletics

I read this in an e-mail a good friend sent to me about a month ago. Since then I have tacked it up in a cubicle, carried it around as a bookmark (in my Personal History book) and read it nearly a hundred times. It helps me.

The thing is, I've realized that through keeping an on-going list of all the books I've read this year that my most enjoyable have all been either autobiographies or biographies. Even the fiction works I've read all fall into a sort of realistic fiction where something reads as if it could have happened. But, what's more important is that it's through seeing my enjoyment in reading real-life stories that I've come to want to live a life worthy of recounting (slash I've always wanted that, just affirmation). It seems unfortunate to me that many people lead lives that (perhaps I unfairly judge) seem mundane to me. There's a sort of rhythm to life I've noticed as evidence in taking the Chicago Metra train to work every day. People sit in the same spots, wear the same self-given or office-given uniform and talk about their lives by the copy machine, how their significant other is being difficult, how they wish they could take off the afternoon, skip out early on a whim and go on a trip to Lake Geneva. I never wanted the pinnacle of my day to be leaving work.

See, I figure if you're going to be somewhere for 40 to 60 hours per week, you should like it. Maybe that's a development akin to recent years of easy-living for the under 30s, but I don't care. Why shouldn't you like your life away from and at the workplace? It seems a bizarre notion that every day, in order to be productive, has to be recounted in an excel spreadsheet with a regimen that looks, feels and is exactly the same.

Fortunately for me, I've been able to surround myself with people that have higher hopes, and more so, expectations than that — and even still the ability to carry out those passions. Thankfully after sending out an e-mail letting friends know I was leaving behind Cubicle City for some fresh air, I didn't receive any "Are you insane?" messages back. That's just a testament to good friends, good character and like-mindedness, that unfortunately many aren't accustomed to.

History (see autobiographies and biographies) has time-and-again proved that real success doesn't come from sitting on the sidelines. Waiting out the big dogs. Or sitting in a cubicle waiting for someone to give you the go-ahead. I don't want to keep my head down and act natural. There's something to be said for biding your time, but there's also something to be said for knowing what you want, and knowing what you don't want. And if you can be decisive, then be that.

Working

Here's a parred down version of excerpts from an e-mail I sent a few people regarding the day-to-day grind of my first real-real-real job working in a cubicle and my subsequent rejection of that life with built-in inner turmoil. All I can say is, time-wasting is the worst type of waste, so if you know you want to change something, get to it.

"I've just started this new job, I thought it pertinent information to let you know I am quitting.

"Yes.

"You read that correctly...

"I had been chatting with my dad [about my stint on the job so far, and really could only say],"Meh" about it. And it was bizarre. Larry, the man that just wants his kids to get jobs and fall in [the corporate] line, says to me: "Bridge, if you're not happy there, don't do it. You'll get something else." He didn't even encourage me to give it a little more time. Seriously. He went into a spiel about [his first job out of college, describing how he would] just get antsy. That's like me, antsy...

"What's weird is, I went out with some kids from [the company] the other day after work and while walking to the restaurant learned that mostly everyone who works [there] at the same position as me haven't even realized how long they've been at the company. They're content in a sort of job coma. I mean, it's got to be the benefits! I swear, none of the fun jobs offer them. My suspicion has me thinking that perhaps it's a way for the fun jobs to weed out the faint of heart. But. That said. What good is a healthy body, if it's only to serve as a shelter for a broken heart and a job comatose soul?

"Note: I am going to use it eventually in my book: My Life as a Non Journalist."

Other tales of working woes:
John

Susan

Middleness

There's even a whole website devoted to venting about your job. People need to man-up and leave what they don't like. Stagnant. Content. Interchangeable. I don't like that. If you google "I hate my job" in quotes you get over three-million sites. That's sad. It seems other people are less acclimated to life in a paid-to-go-to-a-place-that-feels-like-a-punishment.

Books in review, adding to my year-long reading list

Books Read:
1. Can You Keep a Secret?, Sophie Kinsella
2. Remember Me, Sophia Kinsella
3. The Undomestic Goddess, Sophie Kinsella
4. How to be Good, Nick Hornby
5. A Model World, Michael Chabon
6. Shopaholic and Baby, Sophie Kinsella
7. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
8. *

Books in Progress:
1. Personal History, Katharine Graham
2. A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah
3. Twenties Girl, Sophie Kinsella
4. You Shall Know Our Velocity, Dave Eggers

*I feel like I have one more that I can't remember—I will add it later...

The Second Wind

"The fatigue of the climb was great but it is interesting to learn once more how much further one can go on one's second wind. I think that is an important lesson for everyone to learn for it should also be applied to one's mental efforts.

Most people go through life without ever discovering the existence of that whole field of endeavor which we describe as second wind.

Whether mentally or physically occupied most people give up at the first appearance of exhaustion. Thus they never learn the glory and the exhilaration of genuine effort."

-from Personal History, by Katharine Graham, as quoted from her mother's diary entry.

Over the past week I have begun reading Katharine Graham's autobiography. I am going to be frank here: I love it.

For those of you who do not know, Katharine Graham (neé Meyer) was the publisher of The Washington Post for two decades, which fortune would have it were during the Watergate times. It should also be noted that perhaps I might be a teensy bit biased, as I love journalism and history more than your common 23-year-old. Anyway, the Post broke the story first, with leaks and off-the-record witnesses and eventually publishing the entirety of the Pentagon Papers. Graham's father purchased the Post in the 30s when it was a dying venture and passed it on to Katharine's husband, Phil Graham. He ran it until Katharine eventually took the reigns.

What amazes me most about Katharine herself was her genuine charismatic personality. And what further excites me is her zest for life, change in career paths, interest in politics, desire to be a mother—all of these things. I think what attracts me most is simply the notion that she is a woman I not only admire, but want to emulate. While she was handed almost everything, she never took it for granted, and she knew what to do with it once it had been given her.

Her whole life seems like a second wind after a second wind after a second wind. And it's true, most people go through life permitting themselves only the status quo, but she didn't, and I don't intend to.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles

This summer has gone by in a flash, what's crazier is this year is going by in a flash. Weddings being the driving force behind most of the year, snagged with a load of job interviews. Speaking of which, I got one. A job that is. So, there's an update for you. In an effort to have fun before signing away most of my life, I decided to take a couple of trips before my first day on the job, eminent in t-minus 3 days. Right now I'm in Boston, visiting my good friend from Lake Forest, Amy. Brian is here too, joining in on the fun, i.e. walking everywhere, Sam Adams Brewery, Newbury Street, Fenway and the Freedom Trail that I am pumped for. But before taking off yesterday I had a flash back to the loads of airplane rides I've taken this year.

1. Washington, D.C. first week of January
2. New York, New York, first week of February
3. Naples, Florida, end of February
4. New York, New York, again, late March
5. Atlanta, Georgia, June
6. Boston, Massachusetts, August

And littered throughout: roadtrips.

1. Washington, D.C., January
2. Kalamazoo, Michigan (the mitt), February
3. Iowa City, Iowa, March & May
4. Des Moines, Iowa, May
5. Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, July
6. Watersmeet, Michigan (UP), August

That's a lot of travel, especially if you include the 40 minute commute by train every morning on the way to the city. Anyway, I'm off to enjoy the east coast. See you when I see you.

Mayhem & the Marshalls: Follows us everywhere.

Throughout my youth I have been a Sox fan. Sure, I'm a North Sider, indeed, but when those Black and White Striped players take the field, all loyalties fall South. Naturally. When my five siblings and I were kids, growing up in Lake Forest, we were sort of knocked about for being Sox fans, which fueled the flames of Sox rage even more. I'm sure this is a common life experience for Sox fans, what else could explain the anger? Anyway, this past week that pot reached boiling point when my sister Colleen and two of my brothers, Sean and Timmy, and I went to the Cubs/Houston game at Wrigley.

All of us in our more mature twenties, we decided, why not go to Cubs game? We like baseball. We like hotdogs. We like a happy atmosphere as much as the next guy. So we did. Our dad gave us some tickets typically donned out to his clients, as a special treat for Colleen's homecoming from LA, which was nice. But we had no idea what would lie before us once entering "The Friendly Confines."

About the third inning in, we get to the park and Immediately Colleen and I head to the beer stand to purchase a round. Then we pop down to our seats meeting Sean and Tim there. The guys in the seats behind us are your typical Cub fans, belligerent and loud, heckling the players from three tiers up in hopes of rousing the opposing team. Annoying. As the innings progressed, they turned on whoever was closest (ie the foursome in front of them. Us.) Somehow Colleen had let it slip we were actually Sox fans, an easy thing to detect as none of us had any Cubs gear on. So, we may not have looked the part, but the older couple seated below us, Pete and Randi we'd later come to learn, certainly did, making up for our lackluster baseball appearance. The pair have had Cubs season tickets since 1981, my oldest brother's birth year to put it in perspective). Randi was decked out in a Cubs white polo, a classic blue baseball cap and white pants with the cutest pair of faux golf shoes I've ever seen adorned on a senior citizen. Pete, wearing a complimenting red polo and khaki pants, didn't quite match up Randi in parfanelia, but he gave it his best shot. And, Randi keeps the stats of all Cub games.

Every few minutes Pete would turn around and make conversation with us about how much he hated the guys behind us: "I've already made a formal complaint," and "I just want to beat those guys in the head" being my favorites of the night. About mid the 5th inning, after the guys returned with a fresh round of brews, Sean gets into it with me, of course involving health insurance and the collapse of modern healthcare. [Note, I have the worst health insurance ever. My brother has helped me out with this, but it's really a problem with the system. Our relationship has suffered as a result. He is an insurance agent.] Randi literally turns around and tells us to shut it. Noting that, "This is a baseball game." I went to the restroom (a story in itself) and came back. The jerks behind us were in full form. In my absence they began screaming, "Go Back to the Suburbs" to us and the crowd around us.

In fury, I turned to Colleen and told her, wouldn't it be nice if the guys behind us would stop spitting on the back of our necks with every insult spew? She proceeds to ask them.

Response: "It must be nice to have your daddy's season tickets."

To which Tim relishes: "Oh, yeah, it's great. I'm really thankful. You know, we've got Sox tickets too."

Timmy, love him, but probably a dick-move in retrospect.

Pete makes another complaint. He's really a great guy. The section overseer comes down to let the two chotches behind us know that they've received a noise complaint.

Jerks: "But, sir, their Sox fans."

Cub Employee: "I don't care who they're rooting for, they could be rooting for the Packers. I want you to shut up."

Jerks: "Sir, do you know Adam? He's our neighbor. Yeah, he works here."

Cub Employee, now rolling his eyes: "Great."

Jerks: "Hey, you should get him down here."

This is not working for them. Adam never comes down.

Then, Soriano has to go and knock out a homer. Everyone stands up in excitement. We're thinking, hey! Maybe this game is looking up. Woo!

The crowd goes wild and asshole behind me drops his beer — all over my back, my white t-shirt soaked. Classy. I turn around, and no, I do not know containment. The inner White Sox fan in all of us gets loose. Between Col, Tim, Sean and I, we drop at least 15 F-bombs.

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?"

"WHAT ARE YOU IN COLLEGE?"

Tim chimes in, "God, more like high school, asshole."

A Slew of profanities ensues.

One jerk: "It slipped outta my hand." [Mostly slurring, giving a shrug and taking another sip of Old Style]

It's all a blur for about 4 minutes.

I've stomped up to the top of the section, cry to the old guy who's in charge of the section. I'm crying, and the crowd is still going wild thanks to Soriano. I guess homers don't happen too often. [Note here: The Cubs eventually lose after holding the lead most of the game. Typical.]

When the guy gets his manager down to our seats minutes later, we're still in rage mode. The guys have sat down at this point, Colleen has ripped into them, and Sean looks like he might break someone's face.

I'm a little shocked that my siblings care about me, given the health insurance quarrel not three innings ago.

Colleen has demanded that the guys make amends in the form of nachos and beers. "Get up. Yeah, you, get her some nachos!"

I'm red-faced and yelling: "It's not our fault we're from the suburbs. Gees, you're probably from Mount Prospect. That doesn't make us bad people. What's your problem?!"

Meanwhile, my voice, which was already hoarse, completely disappears into a strained whisper.

Randi tells me to settle down, I tell her to stop yelling at me.

The jerks are ousted.

Colleen finds out the crowd around us, save for Pete and Randi, is experiencing their first Cubs game. One guy attempts to buy a round of beers in celebration at the end of the 7th. After standing in line for 20 minutes, the cashier says, "Sorry, it's the 7th, these are the things you learn."

He settles on Cotton Candy for everyone instead. Hilarious.

And even after all of the mayhem, a woman, who might have been a little off, sits on the steps next to my seat, turns to me, and says, "I don't like you. You're an ugly person. You got those two boys kicked out."

Yikes. She is excorted out by a friend. Pete invites us back to his club stadium seats after the 8th, the longest inning ever, Randi declares that this was indeed the worst baseball game she's been to, and then we run into our cousin Maureen and her husband. Pete loads us up with a round of drinks, then another, and as the stadium shuts down Randi says she can't be the last to leave the park! We learn Pete is an ex-FBI agent, and he offers to get us old badges to flash at anyone who attempts to mess with us in the future. We find out Randi used to be a Chicago Judge, and she knows our whole family. Seriously. Margaret, Judge Quinn, Attorney Bill Quinlan, cousins upon cousins.

Small world. All brought together over the love of baseball, hotdogs, and beer. The American past-time.

Never Trust a Man with Two First Names

I have four things on my "To-Do List" today. It's funny. I make these sorts of lists compulsively. I always seem to have things to do, and when I don't have a lot to do, I either:

A. Make up things or
B. Write down things I have already done, and then cross them off.

I feel accomplished when I do said things. But even I know, at least a little in the back of my mind, that it's all a lie. [Pause for a deep moment.]

OK, so one of the things on my list today is to write a funny story/blurb on my blog. Hence, this moment, right now.

But the thing is, nothing funny has happened today, and though I like to make up stories, they are usually of the depressing sort, i.e. all throughout college I took creative writing and fiction courses. Each story that received the most praises were

1. A story about two brothers living in a small town, one still with their dying mother. The mom was dying of cancer, and I went into all the gritty details about what happens when mom's die of cancer, mostly just the vomiting and clean up. I'm pretty sure I had read the first few pages of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and felt compelled, and or, watched Susan Sarandon's performance as a dying cancer patient in Step Mom. [Another deep moment. I might have to make these more compact to send them to deep songwriter Brian McKnight.]

2. Another of these sad stories was about this really selfish doctor who goes to Cambodia on a research grant and then learns all about child sex trafficking and the like. He gets really distraught and heartbroken, and I think I had him attempt suicide.

I know, right? What's my deal? Anyway, these stories landed some compliments from the class, and one of my professors suggested I apply for the MFA program in fiction writing at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. I like to drop that in casual conversation sometimes.

So, back to the notion that nothing funny has happened. Perhaps it's because I am currently at oh-so-exciting L.Marshall, Inc. working away. Actually, today has been much busier than usual. I did payroll, organized the mail and wrote a few bid proposals. Hark. Something funny has just happened.

I work in an office of two. Well, there are some other people downstairs and then there are all the roofers out on the jobs. The office office is comprised of usually Judy and Terry, whom I might have mentioned in previous posts. Terry is a neurotic chain smoker who is in charge of all the company's finances. He wears glasses straight out of the late '70s, collared shirts from painting and roofing conventions, and gym shoes he is very proud of. They only cost him $8 each. Who doesn't like a good deal? But the best part is his mullet-styled curly hair in the back with a nice comb over. And now, pair that with a Tom Selleck mustache. You can usually find him behind his desk in the back of the office mumbling "Fuck" over and over again. I don't know why. He gets frustrated easily.

Some of our interactions are funny, others, he's kind of a jackass. Like yesterday, I told him I had to leave a little early to go to my other job (one which I had already gotten hours for before agreeing to help my padre out). And like a true jackass he goes, "Gees, that says a lot about you. I mean, you leave early and you took a long lunch." Then he does a deep sigh and says, "Yeah, it really says a lot about you." The lunch was due to Harry and Celeste, grandparents extraordinaire wanting to chat, eat and having me pick up prescriptions for them. Couldn't be helped. They're in their 80s and really are starting to fall apart each time I see them, though they still have their wits about 'em. Usually I only take 30 minutes, but yesterday I took an hour and five. An hour is typically allotted. I decided not to make a stink of it, and didn't mention casually that he takes about five 15 minute smoke breaks per day, plus a trip to Starbucks, adding up to well over that allotted 60 minutes. But, I know I could have.

Anyway, other interactions with Mr. Terry Bobbe (never trust a man with two first names) are more humorous, because really, he isn't a bad guy, just kind of a pain. So, today, I think because I made him feel bad once I let him know why I took a little longer lunch than usual, he offers to get me a coffee from Starbucks. And all I could think for a good half hour was why I didn't say, "No, but thanks a latte!"

When he gets back, he starts to rifle through the mail I had put on his desk. He opens one from Chris Industry's, one of our suppliers, and starts laughing that sort of Flem rattling one, thanks to nearly forty years of smoking. Standing up, "Brigid, oh this is good. This is good. Every once in a while Chris does something like this." Reading from the sheet: "Chris Industry's Bill for St. Mary's of 'dah' Lake." Laughing hysterically, coughing, cough, an "Oh, gees!" thrown in there for effect. "Get it? It's for St. Mary's of 'the' Lake." I get it. Gangster-speak and/or an Indian accent. "Yeah, that's funny," I answer. He sits down, looks at it for a second, then files it, still chuckling.

Lunch Break

This week I've elected to temp at my father's business. Judy, who is normally the Office Manager, is out of town on vacation. I am taking over. Her desk is abnormally messy, and she keeps old plastic spoons, expired coupons and salt packets in her drawers and pen holders.

This afternoon after much debate, consisting of me driving one direction, then turning around in 3 point fashion, I decided to grab some grub at my grandparents' house. Harry and Celeste live in a condo. It's about a block from my dad's office in Glenview, a suburb of Chicago. They live on the Penthouse floor of the complex, and when I knocked on the door to be let inside, I could hear Harry shuffling, then yelling, "Just come on in!" But the door was locked, which I made known, shouting through the door, "It's locked!"

Then Gana answers the door. She's their new assistant person from Mongolia. Neither Harry nor Celeste would readily admit they need an extra hand, what with Celeste getting her knees replaced Thursday and Harry just returned from the hospital after a fall in the shower.

So, I'm making an egg salad sandwich, and Celeste asks me if I want some cake. Harry offers a selection of cookies and then they both see the pie, and ask if I want that, too. Too? I just had some pie. Rye bread for the sandwich? Yes, I say. But, anyway, I've sat down at the round table between the two of them, and I begin to enjoy the first bites, and then Don St. John calls. So, Celeste picks up the portable phone to answer, looks at the Caller ID. "This must be Don St. John." Chuckles all around. "Yeah, Harry? I know him. You wanna talk to him. Yeah, OK."

"Who is it?"

"It's Don St. John. What do ya mean, 'Who is it?' Gees."

He's using a letter opener from 10 years ago with my grandma's face on it to open their excess mail accumulated from too many days before.

"Oh, Don. Well, say 'Hi,' Brigid." So I do.

"Hi, Don. Yeah, I'm their granddaughter. You know? You wanted to say, "Hello," too? Well, alright. Hello." The conversation lulls, "I'll give you over to Harry." So I do.

"Hey Don. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to go to [Insert miscellaneous Old Man get together]. No, it is too bad." The conversation continues for a bit, then his blue eyes light up. "Celeste," he says, putting the receiver on his lap. "Don's son-in-law got a knee replacement in the spring, and he's now out playing baseball on the team this summer." The team is comprised of one of my uncles, Don (who just turned 90 according to my grandma) and other sprightly men of all ages.

"Oh, really, Harold? Maybe I'll join the team now." She's so witty. Her little lips curling into a smirk. The one their accustomed to make after over 50 years married to Harold T. Stanton. " Go ahead, ask him if I can join."

He puts the phone back to his ear, making a silly kissy face to her. "No, she can't catch. The only thing she's caught was me!"

Laughter.

Then comes the Celeste punchline. "No, I got stuck with you." And the lips curl into a kissy face paired with a wink.

Future Stories. But For Now. Just Tastes.

I've become obsessed with taking notes on various happenings.

Some include, but are not limited to:

1. It just bothers me knowing that Jimmy Fallen is out there, somewhere, making more money than me.

2. People keep telling me I'm funny—that I should be in or at least write for 2nd City. I always wondered if these people really know what they're talking about. I mean, they are the "public"—the end all, be all, deciders of who makes the cut to fame. I wonder—did anyone say these nice things to the guys current in 2nd City, performing right now in Old Town tonight? Well, did they?

3. There's a big ex-football player lip singing emphatically to himself on the El train right now. He is also doing a Sudoko puzzle and wearing a blue checked button down with black slacks. A Business Professional?

4. Claddagh rings (with the heart out) on women—What does that say to the world? Is it a plea? "Please hit on me?" Pathetic or just upfront? Is it upfront if the heart is turned in (meaning, "nah, uh, I'm taken, brother!") and sad if it's out (meaning, "I'm single! Single! Take me out! Ask for my number! I'm free tonight. I'm free every night!")

5. Vaginis. This guy's last name is Vaginis. I'm thinking: Vaginis Monologues, a hit television show where at the beginning and end of each episode someone from the Vaginis Family has to share a monologue of what happened to them that day, so starting and ending an episode. This is brought on by Michael P. Vaginis, a guy who unknowingly is being made fun of by myself and my coworkers at Bar/Bri LSAT testing facility. We are currently scanning Scantrons. That's right. Someone has to make sure these lawyers in waiting have filled in their bubbles correctly. And. Yes, that's us. We get to read everyone's last names and first names. We get to poke fun at each of them. There have been a lot of "Butts" so far. I should try and Facebook Michael P. Vaginis.

5. Pretty in Pink. Ducky got the short end of the stick. Except at the end when the pretty girl asked him to dance. They should have made a movie about how in the end Ducky was alright. Titled: Ducky: The After Party.

6. Weird names: Blaine Doyle.

7. Coworkers for the week: Russell (Italian/Black female, obsessed with diversity and EOE, helps companies with diversity training, has an excuse for every single moron who has incorrectly filled out bubbles: ie. maybe they are foreign, maybe they are dyslexic, maybe they are blind (for real), maybe, well, maybe Russell, maybe they're just dumb and can't read.), Janie (a college girl, very sweet, goes to Gaucher College in Baltimore, lives with her sister in Chicago during the summer, temps for fun/money, and constantly makes me sing "Janie's Got a Gun" in my head, all day), Todd (an actor from Indiana, 26, says mildly dramatic things when explaining how something made him feel, i.e. "That kills my soul" in reference to the film Requiem for a Dream), DC (who's real name is Derek, he works as a financial guy for Goldman Sach's usually. Right now, I don't know why he's temping. His wife is his best friend, he says that casually and sweetly causing the women in the crowd to wish for something more. He's sort of a toned down Lionel Richie. He sort of looks like him and has an intense mustache that makes me laugh when I look at it), and then there are two forgettable others (1. Jamie, a beautiful, young black girl who used to work for I think it's AT&T or something like that, and the other is a K-5th grade teacher named Kristen from Naperville. Both are mid-20s).

8. Both my parents, but my dad more so than my mother, want me to appreciate the art of creation, but not to be myself a creator. Actually, that goes not just for me, but for all my siblings. It's weird, because we all learned instruments growing up, but were no Jackson 5. We all learned just enough to know how to read notes, appreciate music and the like, but were never encouraged to write our own stuff or seriously pursue music or theater as sincere job options. Funny. My oldest brother Larry took some acting classes with Improv Olympic and performed in Tony and Tina's Wedding, much to our parents' chagrin. He works at an accounting firm during the day and wishes his life were different. Now my sister is in LA in the process of gaining a BFA in film & screenwriting, my younger brother Timmy writes his own music, Kevin is transferring to USC to finish college with a degree in Screenwriting. The sad thing is, and probably the most selfish, is I was the creative, theatrical, musically talented Marshall growing up. Maybe I just thought I was. I regret playing field hockey in high school in a lot of ways. I should have done the plays. I was good at acting, always have had stage presence and can sing. Now I'm playing the banjo, and jamming more with Timmy. I've seen three musicals in the last month, and when I'm not seeing a musical or play, I'm watching a movie or reading.

9. I interviewed for two jobs this week and have another tomorrow. The one Monday was to be an Assistant Building Manager. That's right. The other is to be a Paralegal at a Home Tax/Mortgage Law Firm. To say the least: these jobs stomp creativity out, are dull, are monotonous, would in fact "kill my soul." I have another tomorrow with TravelZoo to be an Assistant Producer, which I would kill at! Should be more exciting. Is it weird that today I'm wishing I had gone out to audition for American Idol. I don't want to be on a show like that. I love to sing and perform, but I don't want to be like that. Tonight I saw Million Dollar Quartet, a story about Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley, all involved with Sam Phillips' Sun Records in Nashville. I want what they had. I told my mom that she raised kids that all, for some odd reason, want to be famous. I think it's because we all want to be recognized. Maybe it's a big family thing.

10. Fame: Karaoke. When I told my mom about how her kids want to be famous. We just want something more. Competition. Fame is weird. A kid who took the BAR practice test's name was Fame. His/her parent was dreaming big. Kevin, my younger brother, said to me while watching Harry Potter the other night, "I could have done that role. I would have rocked at it. You know, Brigid, his dad is a major movie producer in London," all in reference to Daniel Radcliff.

11. Brian McKnight. Think of "Deep Quotes" of the day. Turn them into song lyrics. Send the finished songs to him for him to either listen to softly OR re-record giving you full song-writing credits. Did you know, "Blue Suede Shoes" sung by Elvis Presley on the Johnny Carson show, was actually meant to be sung by Carl Perkins who also wrote the song. He was supposed to perform it, but on his way to New York got in a big car accident preventing him and his band from arriving. Tough break.

12. I've fallen in love X times this year. With advertising, PR, and education. And I always am in love with music. And Each time these genres break up with me. Each time I get an interview and they turn me loose before giving me a real shot, I'm left hopeless. I'm like the retarded girl at school who can't figure out why the captain of the football team doesn't love her. Tough break. Me and Carl Perkins. Luckily for Perkins, he was a multimillionaire, got to play rockabilly music for life (my favorite kind of music) and to boot was inducted not only into the Rock and Roll, the Rockabilly, and the Nashville Songwriters halls of fame, but was also a Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipient.

13. The phrase: "I've got a taste for...," "What do you have a taste for?," etc, etc, is purely a Chicago thing. No one else says it. Most people are just upfront and say, "What do you want to eat?" Noted.

Expiration Interaction

"Mom?—"

Blatantly ignored. My mother, commonly referred to as "She-She Baby," "Little Sheila" or any combo of those, as her name is Sheila, is standing over the trash compactor reading old mail from no one knows when. She found it to the left of the bread cabinet that both of my parents use to hide old mail they would rather not read, i.e. Macy's catalogs and bills.

"Mom—"

I go over to her. She's sweaty. She's wearing this hot pink Nike dry-fit workout tee with black yoga pants. She looks like one of those mom's you see at the grocery store. You know the ones. The Oneees. With the tennis outfit, clearly having not played tennis that day or any other. It occurs to me that that may just be a Lake Forest thing or at the least a North Shore thing. Anywho. She's ignoring me. As goes our typical routine comes 5 p.m.

"Mom?"

"Why do you have to be so annoying to me Brigid?" She's referring to the fact that I've now gone over to her and given her a bear hug emphasizing the little waist she's widdling down from a size 10 to a 6. Maybe three months ago I went up to my mom, who is adorable, but was mildly Mom-Chubby, and had recently decided to go see a fitness trainer, that I would say goodbye to her cute mommy roll. (As I write this, I really sound like a horrible child. It isn't weird that I do this though. It's a Marshall-ism. Everyone does it.) I go up to her and flick her tummy. I do realize now that maybe that wasn't the nicest thing I've ever done, but whatever. I do it. And I did it.

So today, I notice how little the waist is becoming and give her the bear hug. Then I go for it. I try to flick the belly up, but to no avail. She's really getting taut.

It comes to my attention midway through our little back-and-forth that perhaps it's more than just the trainer. Maybe it's the diet.

She pulls out a slab of ribs though, and I sort of change my mind, though she did buy the relatively fat-less ribs. Our kitchen is one of those kitchens with so many cabinets that at any given point you can open one and find something worth eating, as long as it's not stale. I usually go for the fridge as I am a berry person, and anyone who knows anything knows you put berries in the refrigerator.

So, I'm going for the bottom drawer, and I see it. It's a vast compartment full of Dannon's Lite & Fit yogurt. Hark, it's my mother's no-tummy-roll secret! I noticed this drawer a few weeks ago, when I actually put all of the yogurts there. They're little Sheila's chosen low calorie food selection for snacks and breakfast.

"Mom."

She finally looks over to me as if I've really interrupted her intense old-mail-reading experiment. While ripping into teensy pieces an old bill (another story for another time)—

"Mom, these are, like, old," I don't say it like a Valley girl would, just your typical Midwestern street jargon, "Really old."

"Well, how old?" Pause. She doesn't even go to check the dates. "No, no." Insert a distasteful Chicago accent. Think Costa Rica, with the "O" sounding like the beginning of Apple. "No, it's good for three weeks after. Everyone knows this."

Everyone does not know this.

"No, mom. They put an expiration date on it for a reason." Which they do. Sometimes you can get away with a few days, but we learned from that time with the chocolate milk—

"Remember that time with the milk?" She looks at me with that Mom-look, with that Mommy Knows Best-face, that face that I have decided is a farce, especially in relation to refrigerated food products.

"You threw up in the sink." The story goes like this:

"Gosh, I didn't even know this milk was still in here." Me

"Yeah, it's still good." Her

"What day is today?" Me

"May 20th. What day's it say?" Her

"May 9th. I'm throwing it away." Me

"No, you're not. I bought it, we're going to drink it." Her

"Be my guest." Me

She picks it up, pours a glass. I smell it from three feet away. She puts it to her mouth. I half expect her to plug her nose. Takes a sip. And runs to the sink not only spitting it up, but letting out one of those ghastly upchuck noises. The kind you make when you stick your tooth brush too far down your throat in an effort to clean your tongue.

Attempting to separate the two stories, she says, "Part of the issue is, the weather was warmer."

And the best part is she doesn't even try to deny the milk story.

"Well, it was May then, now it's July, you do the math." Aha, a retort!

"It's still not—" She breaks off. "Brigid, please stop picking on me."

And then she moves on to another piece of mail.

"Who am I?" "I don't know." "I guess I have a lot of things to ponder." -Derek Zoolander

“You don't know me at all.” –Ben Folds, featuring Regina Spektor, “You Don’t Know Me”

We all know what happens when we say things like, “ You don’t know me at all” to a counterpart—whether it’s a friendship where one’s Batman and the other’s Robin, or a parent to a child. The relationship is cut off and you start at scratch (or at least as much scratch as you can get). But what happens when you don’t know yourself at all? You can’t exactly sever all ties.

Ben Folds and Regina Spektor sang a duet on Fold’s semi-recent album Way to Normal (a route unknown all together), titled “You Don’t Know Me.” With a few small tricks of the piano, the melding of a man and woman’s poppy voices together, and rather depressing lyrics, a song was born. It’s actually sort of like The Weepies’ “Nobody Knows Me At All” from “Say I Am You,” but more about a sour relationship than a statement on repeat like The Weepies.

I was listening to both songs tonight. A friend sent me The Weepies tune earlier tonight, and last week Spektor dropped her follow-up album to hit-machine (though not her debut disc) “Begin to Hope.” The album, titled “Far,” plays sweetly, sometimes sadly, but mostly it’s just interesting. Sort of like this question I posed.

I’ve been thinking about the notion of Quarter-Life Crisis’s. Everyone’s heard of the pending Mid-Life Crisis, but it seems that everything is becoming fast forwarded, and now we’re stressing ourselves out earlier and earlier. This evening I was chatting with a friend from college about how I have these mini crises every day about life choices and the like. It got me to thinking about being 50 and wondering if I’d make the right choices. I guess I’m trying to get my crisis out of the way today, make the correct decisions now, so that I won’t have one comes the big five-oh. See, I can’t imagine being nearly done and thinking, “Well, what was the point? Was this the right path? Or just the path of least resistance?”

The only problem is that I don’t quite know what exactly I want to be doing. Leading me back to the serious issue of perhaps I don’t know myself (not necessarily a completely bad thing). We’ll see how this all pans out. I love that phrase, “It all comes out in the wash.” It makes me feel secure in my own strength, even though it’s meant to make people wary about telling lies.

“When I was a child everybody smiled, nobody knows me at all/ Very late at night and in the morning light, nobody knows me at all.” –The Weepies. “Nobody Knows Me At All”

Spam, Porn and the Like

I try to clear out my Spam box daily. I'm a bit anal when it comes to the way my gmail box looks, and right now it's bizarre to me that sans full-time job I have gotten lazy. Earlier today I deleted the Spam box with more than 500 emails in it.

And let me just ask, does it bother anyone else that almost all of the emails have something to do with either free credit or free sex?

I don't get it. When did all inhibitions become cast aside causing the Internet to blow up? In Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs," he makes the statement in one of the chapter essays that the reason the Internet expanded like it did was because of the notion that the Internet got rid of the awkwardness of buying pornography. Not only did you not have to accidentally run into your mom's best friend buying groceries, you got the porn for free. It seemed the best of both worlds, but I mean, please don't call me naive, but doesn't it sort of make you sick? There are over 500,000 sites dedicated to contrived nudity. Aren't there better things one could be doing with their time than either a. creating a free porn site? or b. looking at a free porn site? or the worst, c. paying for porn on the Internet because the free stuff doesn't quite do the trick?

I should think the Spam company (i.e. makers of Spam food (?) products, also contrived) would be upset that their good name has been tarnished by free porn marketers all over your Internet email address. But I guess a product that promotes its "World of effortless, everyday creativity," as Spam boasts on its website, probably wouldn't give a damn. It would require effort, and we've all figured out that free porn or being upset about its existence would require at least some small effort.

Allergy Season

If you've been in Chicago the last week, you will know that something strange has happened. A flip has been switched. One day it was 40 degrees, the next day it monsoon rained circa Thailand in the fall, and the next day there was light. Lots and lots of light. 84 degrees. 87 degrees, 92 degrees. And counting. Higher.

This is what happens in Chicago. Spring, the season for lovers and no bugs, does not exist, sadly. Typically Spring is the time that really bothers me around here, because I know, EVERYWHERE else, Spring is lovely. Come on, you've heard the phrase: Spring is sprouting. So great. Not here though. I think the reason mainly stems from the notion that Chicago summers will char whatever begins to grow during those three months—akin to the parable about the seeds being tossed into different areas. It goes like this. Three seeds are tossed, one in soft soil, that doesn't allow it to take root, so Chicago summer destroys it. Another falls into a rocky place and can't even make it to the small green stem phase. And the other goes into nice soft soil, taking root and growing. In Chicago you can't plant anything except perennials at the beginning of summer because it will die. Perennials are unique to this. Everything that grows has taken root the year before. Tulips are a great example of this.

Spring anywhere else really is enjoyable. Spring in Iowa is my favorite time of year there. Iowa gets great transition seasons in general though. Fall was also a favorite. Sweaters without jackets, no rain and sun with a breeze. I think I'm in the wrong state.

The other thing about Chicago's nonexistent Spring, is somehow, somehow my allergies still get kicked up a notch. It's really not fair though, as we don't get those beautiful weeks or 65 degrees-75 degrees and windy, the best time of the year by far across most of the country. We might, might, might get maybe, 5 days total like these. Days where the cherry trees bloom and take me back to the scent of spring as I rode my banana seat pink 2-wheeler to Cherokee Elementary School. The only nice thing about our cold Spring is the lead up to a warm summer, though this year has been unseasonably cold until Monday hit with 92 degrees reading on the thermometer. Just in time for summer, June 21.

Now the air is on and I can't go outside for a long time for fear of getting burnt. "It might be a crazy life, but it's my life." Thanks Jon & Kate Plus 8, another sad story.

New Music List

1. "You and I," Wilco with Feist, off of Wilco (The Album)

"You and I will not be strangers/ However we get sometimes it's like we never met/ But you and I, I think we can take it/ All the good with the bad, make something that no one else has/ You and I, You and I, Me and You/ What can we do? Well the words we use sometimes are misconstrued/ Well I wont guess, what's coming next"

2. "People Got a Lot of Nerve," Neko Case, off of Middle Cyclone

"You know they call them killer whales/ But you seem surprised/ When it pinned you down to the bottom of the tank/ Where you can't turn around/ It took half your leg and both your lungs/ And I craved I ate hearts of sharks, I know you know it/ I'm a man man man man, man man man eater/ But still you're surprised prised prised when I eat ya"

3. "Gone Are All the Days," Mirah, off of (a)spera

"And we were just a child with a myst that children make/ And we were running wild, no thoughts for what we'd break/ But gone are all the days, gone are all the days/ And once we learn to hide, our size did keep us safe/ The sidewalk cracks were wide, but to jump 'em made us brave/ But then the darkness came-a creepin' over every place/ Over time we took to sleeping, and let the weeds take over this place"

4. "Eet," Regina Spektor, off of Far

"It’s like forgetting the words to your favorite song/ You can’t believe it/ You were always singing along/ It was so easy and the words so sweet/ You can’t remember/ You try to move your feet/ It was so easy and the words so sweet/ You can’t remember, you try to feel the beat"

5. "Everblue," Mandy Moore, off of Amanda Leigh

"So you made yourself a new world/ Where even strangers make more sense/ I pay the pain up right straight ahead/ And with the beat/ You can ease yourself into the light/ Or keep that record on repeat"

I'm Not 23 Yet, but I will be

"Lelaina: I was really gonna be something by the age of 23.
Troy: Honey, the only thing you have to be by the age of 23 is yourself.
Lelaina: I don’t know who that is anymore." -Reality Bites

Next week I turn 23 years old. I may or may not be something by next week, Wednesday to be exact. In October when I came home for the weekend of my cousin Maureen's wedding I had a 23rd birthday party, off the cuff, at a hibachi restaurant called Mikasa Sukasa. Really I was just out with some cohorts of mine, and they decided all at once without planning that it was my birthday. The slew of Japanese waiters sang me their version of "Happy Birthday," I ate a pineapple with cocktail umbrellas in it, and was sad that I was so old.

It's weird that I'm actually going to be that old pretty soon. The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure 40-something-year-old moms and dads or even 30-year-old unmarrieds think, "Psh! Brigid, you're so young!" But not my parents. No, for them I'm never actually my own age, I'm either the 4-year-old version ["Do you need to get tucked in?"], 15-year-old version ["Brigid, stop being so hostile."] or 30-year-old version of myself ["Why don't you have your own business, job, house? Make sure you have a kid before you're too old."]. For real, this all happens. Seriously.

But I do think it would probably be quite difficult to be away from their kid for so long that they missed those actual maturation years in college, years where they couldn't be there, otherwise there might not have been such a drastic change. So, now that I'm home, there's this sort of push and pull where they don't know how old my age should equate to their treatment of me, or really any of my five siblings. [See our recently implemented 12 a.m. curfew for week nights and 2 a.m. on weekends. For real. I need to leave.]

It would all have been much easier if I actually was allowed by our ailing society to become the "something by the time I was 23." Unfortunately, Troy's response is true, but is something incomprehensible to myself and the Larry/Sheila Duo. And Lelaina's response makes it all the better, because for me, "I don't know who that is anymore" either.

cartoon voices

Sometimes I get on a "voice" roll. What this means is basically I develop the voice of what I think someone should or would sound like. I think I could make a killing working for Pixar, Dreamworks or Disney — if only I knew how to become friends with Robin Williams and somehow implement my voices into Aladdin Return of the King and the Genie and Raja (the tiger), coming to theaters never. I should have knocked on Sir Williams' door when we both were living in San Francisco. A shot at fame missed.

Periodically I burst out into comedic voices. I have a couple of characters: one named Bernice, the other her best friend Hermione. Then I've got my umpire voice "You're Outta here!" and a few other ditties, most recently a home gnome who sounds more akin to a baby as all talking is really just goos with intonation. It's gotten some praise from Brian's roommate Danny. Almost all friends in college have experienced my gremlin voice, and one friend, Elizabeth Steele, actually made it her ringtone. I'm 99 percent positive that any time someone heard it they attempted to download a version of it from Ring Tone Nation.

I typically start throwing out my old British lady voice when inebriated. Friends in France can attest to this. Others can also attest to my creepy child laugh, which has somehow morphed into an animé character giggling.

Anyway, most of you have heard these various characters at one point or another. So, this is all to say that I've been told by a few people so far that I should become a voice actress. Every time I hear this I just want to scream, "YES!" and periodically, I do actually scream "YES!" So, consider this my notification Cartoon Movie/Television: I'm coming. One way or another.

So, does anyone know how to break into the industry? I've got a few Hollywood connections, but nothing in the animation world.

Oh, and I should also mention I do a bad ass impersonation of Macy Gray, yeah, the one hit wonder. "Games, changes and fears/ When will they go from here?/ When will they stop?/ I believe that fate has brought us here...I try to say goodbye and I choke/ I try to walk away and I stumble." She may not rock so much, but I do.