A couple of key points
Mood:  accident prone
Now Playing: Weezer
Yesterday was not a good day for me on the intellectual circuit. It wasn't my finest hour, let's say.

First of all, I got distracted from moving festivities by a classic episode of Full House, wherein D.J. wins a limo ride and tickets to the Beach Boys concert, but must toil over which family member to bring along.

Of course, in the end, the Boys are so delighted with the Tanner family and their impromptu living room rendition of "Kokomo" that they are ALL invited along (except for baby Michelle, who mysteriously disappeared). Well, from when I first watched this episode in the early nineties until this very moment, I had just assumed they taped the characters singing along with the Beach Boys at an actual concert. But, upon closer inspection, I realized that the crowd shots and shots of the gang butchering "Barbara Ann" are painfully separate, except for a row of raised hands in the "front row" in certain shots. How could I have been so blind? They weren't at a real concert at all. Now I wonder if they *really* went to Disneyland on vacation..!

As if that weren't enough, yesterday marked a milestone in my driving career. For the first time, I locked my keys in my car. Yep, left them right in the ignition (thankfully with it off, though). So my post All-Star party involved calling a tow truck. It always gets me how tow trucks are all at least 20 years old. I guess they never break down. So the guy gets out of his circa-1980 truck and uses this little pump thing to pry open my passenger's side window a bit so he could get this thing in to jimmy the lock open. The whole thing was over in two minutes. And it became painfully clear to me that it is incredibly easy to break into cars, and locking them is really a giant joke. I may start using that removable faceplate feature on my stereo.

But if you are casing my car, stereo aside, here is a brief list of what you'd score:

- a jacket or sweatshirt of some sort
- a Houston Astros cap
- a Pittsburgh Pirates umbrella abandoned by an ex many years ago
- approximately 50 napkins from a variety of fast food restaurants
- a road atlas from three years ago with a route from Athens, Ohio to Houston, Texas highlighted
- about 30 sticky pennies
- A toy lizard found at the legendary Kennywood Amusement Park.
- sunglasses from the Dollar Store in Peebles, Ohio
- A burned copy of The Band's "The Last Waltz"

Ah... I love my car.

Get up, Get up, Get Movin'
Mood:  rushed
Now Playing: Stevie Wonder
This whole moving thing has become a really great excuse for everything. For instance, you may ask, "Why has been so long since you've written a blog entry?" And that answer to that, my friend, is because I am so busy moving. What does that mean, exactly? Is anything in boxes yet? Well, heavens no, it isn't.

But what I have done is begun to compile a complicated series of "To Do" lists that consume most of the time that I haven't been spending watching movies and reading books that I need to return to the library and friends before I move. Once I finish each To Do list, I get the same feeling of accomplishment I would have gotten from actually doing something on the list, without any of the hassle of leaving the couch.

Ok, but in reality, I have managed to get some stuff knocked off the list. Well, I went apartment-hunting anyway. I'm either really good at this or really bad at it, because I can look at 100 places and not particularly like any. Eventually, all the apartment complexes tend to look the same. They all have these terrible names that include as many of these terms as possible: village, water, lake, pond, homes, woods, ridge, valley or park.

I may or may not have ended up picking the place with the best snacks available in the leasing office.

Next time I go home-hunting, which I hope is a very long time from now, on the tour, I'm going to ask if I can turn on the shower. I've been thinking about it, and excellent water pressure is the only thing that's kept me in my current place for so long. I'm not going to actually take a shower or anything creepy like that, just a simple check of the flow.

During the whole trip, I had to eat out a lot. And with that comes the playing of one of my favorite restaurant games: "Are they on vacation?"

To play, you just look around and try to figure out who in the restaurant are locals and who's there on vacation. Tips: Look for foreign hip packs, er, belt bags or fanny packs if you will, Hawaiian shirts, baseball caps, tote bags and accents.

Thanks. Now I can check "write in blog" off my list.

NOTE: Here's a good one. My blog program's spell check doesn't recognize the word "blog."

Home* Sweet Home*
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: Magic Numbers
As I am planning to move next month, I have been digging through the apartment, purging the pointless and organzing the important. And I'm getting a bit nostalgic for the Chicagoland area. Here are some of the things I'll miss:

1. Hot dogs with a whole bunch of shit* on 'em. Especially from Portillo's and Spankys.
*mustard, hot peppers, onions, relish, celery salt and a big dill pickle on a poppy seed bun. While we're on food, Chipotle, Jimmy John's and Lou Malnati's pizza as well)

2. Four distinct seasons, none of which are all too hot, even if one is really cold with lots and lots of snow. But it was fun to have sports writers with snow shovels digging out my car once a week after work.

3. The cute little girl with bells on her ankles who hides behind her mother's skirt when I see them in the laundry room. And also the effiminate Courtney, this tall fellow who works in the office and is also in the laundry room a lot. He has 100 bright yellow towels and folds them meticulously straight from the dryer.

4. Baseball, baseball, baseball. Most days you can watch two games a day, even if one of those is the Cubs. Plus whatever's on national tv. Living in a World Series champion town really was exciting.

5. Paper wad fights at work.

6. Packing the cat in the car and taking a road trip to St. Louis.

7. Riding trains. The parks downtown. Skyscrapers and museums, not that I saw them all that often.

8. Everyone here thinks I have a Southern accent and have taught me new ways to say "sausage" and "garage key."

9. Definitely the Steelers bar. And The Official Bar in Elgin, where my picture is on the wall, and I have the jukebox memorized.

10. I can choose to embrace or to ignore the giant mall in my backyard.

11. Everyone here had just learned to spell my name.

12. With O'Hare and Midway, you can always fly somewhere for pretty cheap.

13. The libraries are freaking awesome. Seriously.

14. Free guitar lessons from Jamie and hanging out at the shop of the most bad-ass airbrush artist in the country.

15. A best friend who likes Family Guy, good movies, thrift stores and yard sales, roller coasters, beer, road trips, crossword puzzles, books, John Prine and Grateful Dead, Mo, and everything else that is great about this world.

16. Coupons! Not only can I pilfer coupons from four different Sunday papers, but they mail me coupons for stuff in the area literally every week.

17. Ikea. I may have to spring for furniture made with real wood now.

18. My apartment faces West, and in the evenings that I get to be home, everything glows pink.

19. I kind of like the central time zone, now that I've gotten used to it.

20. Chicago pops up in a lot of rap songs, and I could always relate.

Eye just don't know.
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Cubbies at Twinkies.
When I first went to my optometrist last year, I was a little put off by two things. First of all, when I called to make an appointment, they asked if I wanted to come that very day. If not today, then tomorrow, or how about the next day... they were much too available. Secondly, when I did go there, the office was smack dab in the middle of a big grocery-store-laden strip mall, and I'm just not that hip on a medical facility that may or may not have been a Subway sandwich shop in a former life.

But the people there were fairly nice, including a little Asian lady who always remembers my face and calls me "Miss Lisa," and the contacts were cheap. So I stayed for that appointment and a year or so later, partially out of laziness, decided to go back again (yesterday).

I had gotten over all of my previous reservations and had given this set of doctors the benefit of the doubt, when they sat me down and had me fill out another form... the typical fare where you write in your name, address, insurance information, etc. Well, this three-page form they gave me was used already. I mean, a previous client had filled out all the information, and someone had painstakingly colored over their swirly responses with a White Out pen. Filling in my name was like carving it in white, plastery (overly frugal) stone. I can't imagine why you'd recycle a form with the approximate value of... 3 cents? 5 cents? Don't you have a Xerox machine? Was the staple made of gold? I said something to the secretary about it, and she just replied something about how the person had filled it out but didn't stay for an appointment.

Probably because they recycle forms. Or maybe because their magazines are really old. While I waited, I read a two-month-old Oprah, or O, whatever it's called, which I had never touched before that day but picked up because someone had colored in her face on the front a fascinating shade of green, and I wanted to see what else the kid did to the magazine.

Op/Ed
Now Playing: Cake
For the first time, I may be published in the paper. I wrote a response to this letter to the editor published on Thursday.

Flag-rant Foul

Many in this diverse community think it's inappropriate for area residents of Mexican origin to display their country's flag and celebrate their holidays.

Maybe they're right. But while we're at it, let's get rid of ALL the superfluous flags we've got waving around.

Blowing outside my apartment complex are several sheets of red, white and blue material, but the stars and stripes they are not. They read "Welcome" and "Now Leasing." I've never heard of those countries, but I hope those Welcomians next door don't play their music too loud.

And at the McDonald's on the corner of Summit and Center Streets in Elgin, President Ronald McDonald has the nerve to fly his golden-arched banner just beneath Old Glory. That's a little suspicious to me: Does he expect our troops to intervene when the
Hamburglar comes calling? And do we have to honor McHolidays, such as 39-cent Cheeseburger Day?

Possibly the biggest disgrace of all is at Chicago's Wrigley Field. There are flags all over that place, with names of faraway places like Braves and Mets! And worst of all, the Cubs flag is almost never flown
at the top.

Who's to say which flags are the most offensive? So let's just put a windsock in it.