Back to work

I worked from home Monday - partly because I needed a day where I just stayed in my jammies and also because for the next 2 weeks the tower elevator is out-of-service for much needed repairs.

The Auditorium building has 3 sets of elevators that access the main part of the building. However, the Tower (originally used for the architect's offices) only has one elevator and extends from floors 8 to 18. The only other way to access these floors is through a 100+ year old, firetrap of a stairwell.

So I get to walk from 8 to 13 at least 4 times per day (more in the event that I have to go to the bathroom). I'm contemplating just getting a bucket (just kidding).

For those of you have haven't heard me bitch about the death-trap elevator before here's a rundown:

• The last time it had any real maintenance was in the mid-70s.
• It constantly gets stuck (thankfully never with me on it).
• Occasionally it simply skips floors it deems unworthy at a particular time.
• Sometimes it stops on the 10th floor, where there is no access, and the doors open to a blue steel wall. You can tell this happens often because scrawled in pencil and marker across this metal door are phrases such as:
• "Help, help, let me out!"
• "Welcome to the Crypt"

I've spoken with the repair guy on some of the numerous occasions he's been here (he makes his living off of Roosevelt's elevators, I'm sure of it). He said the elevator needs a new generator. Problem is, they don't make them anymore. Once, last summer, they got a "used" generator - that instilled confidence. What it needs is replacing - but that would take months. So until they move the String Bass practice rooms off the 15th floor - that's not happening. (Real smart - put the kids with the gigimoungus instruments in the part of the building with the crappy elevator).

Hopefully this fixes the problem. But I'm not holding my breath.

On the bright side - my legs will be in GREAT shape! So I'll look like a chicken with my bulbous ass sitting atop two very fit legs.

Sigh of Relief

I have made it through the Gauntlet with my soul and dignity in tact. No, really, it wasn't that bad this year.

Pregame Countdown:

Wednesday evening we met up with some friends at BUtterfield 8. That's an interesting restaurant on the Near North side. It's very trendy, but still kinda casual and as we found out the hard way, turns into a douchebag's dream of a nightclub for trendy yuppies named Chad and Margo at the stroke of 11pm. That's about the time we left anyway, it was strange to watch the transformation. Everyone had a great time, great food and we got to hear Jasen's Taquito story.

We rented a car on Thursday for the weekend and made our semi-annual trip to Target (tar-gé) and stocked up on all kinds of crap. When we got home, I reorganized the entire storage closet because there was no room for all the crap we bought (75 million rolls of toilet paper, 2,000 gallons of cleaning supplies, you know the usual). I started putting together the food I was bringing to each place for the next two days and we went to sleep.

First Period:

Christmas Eve with my mom's side always goes incredibly late, so I let John sleep in a little. We got out to my Aunt's house in Schaumburg and were greeted by her little doggy that looks exactly like Little Bear from the children's books. She's a very chubby Cocker Spaniel and very cute.

There are three little kids on that side of the family now and they each got a bundle of stuff. We did our grab bag for the adults where each person brings one gift between $30-$50 and we play a game you know the one - pick a gift, unwrap and the next person can take a new one or steal yours. It was fun until my sister ended up with one thing we put in, which was a cordless soldering iron. She didn't want it and was going to trade it to my dad, not realizing that we had gotten him one as a gift that he was getting the next day. My mom ended up trading what she got for the soldering iron so now we had a duplicate gift for my dad the next day - wonderful.

We ended up leaving there about 11:30pm and got home about 12:00. Thankfully the parking gods were on our side every day we had the car - we got a spot right in front of our place, brought in our loot and crashed into bed.

Second Period:

I let john sleep in again on Christmas day while I got stuff ready for part two. My immediate family decided to do a brunch at my parent's house before going over to my other aunt's house to do our giftage. That morning I also tried to work out what we were going to do about my dad's gift. I know he isn't the type of person to care about that kind of thing, but I still felt bad because my parents are such generous people and I can't not show up with anything for him. We had a calendar to go with it, so we brought that. John convinced me that Best Buy was open on Christmas day - I was skeptical, but I thought Best Buy doesn't care about that - they want money and hell, heathens have to shop too. We were going to get him a gift certificate since there were some movies and CDs that he wanted.

Well guess what - they were closed. Fuck. We swing by Borders in Oak Park, I figured they'd be closed and they were, but it was worth a shot. John's last idea - a damn good one too - was to get a couple movie passes from the Lake Theatre in Oak Park. Movie theatres are always open on Christmas day. Apparently not in Oak Park. Fuck Fuckety Fuck Fuck Fuck.

So we arrive around noon and have a little quiet brunch at my parents house. While munching on Taquitos (a theme this year apparently), ham, hard boiled eggs, cheese, veggies and egg rolls we discussed how it would be nice to do this every year and maybe even skip extended family functions every few years as a decompression...

We do gifts and we explained to dad that his Martin Luther King Day gift will be arriving shortly (thanks Donna for the use of that term). We then head off to the land of suburbia where I'm dreading the aftermath of the Christmas Card Catastrophe. I got to see my "little" cousin for the first time in 4 years (he's like 12 feet tall). It was fairly tame though mom tried to persuade John to wear the gimp mask. I didn't want to instigate anymore - well, deep down - yes I did. If it was just me and my Uncle in a cage-match, I'd have no problems. But I didn't want to ruin it for everyone else.

At one point, I couldn't help but point out the hypocrisy. The same people who were most offended by our Christmas card because it wasn't in the "spirit of Christmas" were ignoring their family in favor of watching Shaq vs. Kobe on tv. I exclaimed to my mother that I was deeply offended that they were watching basketball instead of celebrating the birth of Santa.

We did the whole grab bag thing (on that side of the family the hosts draw names and you get something for your chosen person). There was a mystery gift under the tree that no one claimed - there was no label. It ended up being Ann Coulter's - How to Talk to a Liberal. BARFFF. More on this later. We left there around 9pm and stayed up to watch a little tv and went to bed.

Third Period:

And you thought it ended there. On the 26th, we got up and took Annie to the dog park. There were a couple other dogs there, but it wasn't crowded which is good. She plays mostly with us, occasionally running with a couple other dogs.

John went to Best Buy to get a gift certificate for my dad and used part of his gift certificate to buy a stand-alone Sega genesis controller with a few games in it. It's amazing to me that they can fit entire game systems into a tiny controller now.

As I was looking for a book in our box of goodies, I ran across something horrifying. Somehow, Ann Coulter's bilge ended up in my box. I think it was my Uncle in Colorado who bought that for me. But the joke is on him because he obviously doesn't get that that book is intended for conservatives. We also laughed because he couldn't admit to buying it. If you're gonna do something like that, at least have the balls to stand up for it. So I'm saving it for next year, and on the cover of the book we are going to put a picture of Ann dressed up like the Shewolf of the SS and inside will be a pamphlet entitled "how to talk to conservatives" and I will basically say something to the effect of "use very small words and mention god frequently".

We thought it a good idea to bring Annie to see "grandma and grandpa" (my parents) since we were going to go there anyway and we had the car. She was a very good girl and had fun. We went to get a humidifier and grab a burger at Goose Island, came home and watched Return of the Living Dead part II and went to bed.

The most wonderful time of the year?

I know plenty of people who LOVE christmas or one of those other holidays that just happens to occur around Christmas (because we ALL know when God created the world 6,000 years ago he also decreed Christmas the first holiday EVER right?). I also know that this is the time of year when a lot of people are very depressed, unhappy, whatever. I've become the latter lately. I think it's a combination of the crass commercialism, combined with the over-christianization of everything in this country as of late. I just don't want to do Christmas anymore, it's become a holiday of obligation rather than something I can truly enjoy. I like seeing friends and some family. Other than that though, the whole mechanical nature of the holiday grates on my nerves...

I don't mean to sound bitter, but I'm just tired of it all. The day after Thanksgiving I heard operatic christmas music at the grocery store, and it hasn't stopped since. I'm tired of being trampled everywhere I go with images of toy soldiers, severed santa-heads and those candy-ass animitronic light-up reindeer that just give me the creeps. I thought Christmas was 12 days not 1 month? The tv commercials, car commercials (procrastinated on your shopping - go out and buy your sweetheart a Lexus - who cares if you have no job). It's sickening how the whole world instantly goes all "gimme gimme" around the time we're supposed to be giving.

That's another thing - I appreciate all the Salvation Army bell ringers, I think they do good things. But I also think that when we concentrate all the "charity" during December it allows us to clear our collective conscience that maybe there are needy people the other 11 months out of the year? At least they had a Christmas dinner - couldn't give a fuck about them in February or July. Don't get me wrong, I think it's good that people are jarred every so often out of their fluffy little worlds and reminded that there millions of homless and working poor people in our country (and others). But I just think it doesn't have to revolve around Christmas. There's just something that bothers me about that that I can't quite put my finger on.

Read This

Do me a favor today - read Donna's blog. It's very funny and maybe if she senses more people reading it she'll write more... I need more reading material. She doesn't believe me when I say she's funny.

Oh this is FUN!

I'm sure everyone here has either read or is at least familiar with Dante's Inferno. If not - go buy the cliffs notes and come on back, there's no time to dilly dally.

Take the Inferno Test - it tells you which ring of hell you'll end up in... it's very very fun indeed.

http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv


Apparently I belong in the 5th ring of hell "The river Styx runs through this level of Hell, and in it are punished the wrathful and the gloomy. The former are forever lashing out at each other in anger, furious and naked, tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth. The latter are gurgling in the black mud, slothful and sullen, withdrawn from the world. Their lamentations bubble to the surface as they try to repeat a doleful hymn, though with unbroken words they cannot say it. Because you lived a cruel, vindictive and hateful life, you meet your fate in the Styx."

Kinsey

I really think everyone should go see Kinsey. It's the movie about the life & circumstances surrounding the infamous Kinsey report on human sexuality. It eerily mirrors what I think many conservatives would like to see our society return to - a sexually ignorant society that believes that oral sex leads to infertility, masturbation causes blindness, and homosexuality is a mental illness. Side note on that, it wasn't until the 1970s that Homosexuality was officially removed from the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual used by the APA to diagnose mental illness.

The plain truth is, the types of educational courses being offered across the country now, mirror those that were in place during the time of the Kinsey report. It is morality disguised as scientific fact and it serves to keep one vocal groups' visions of morality (man + woman = baby) as the dominant form of public policy.

If you want to see where we're regressing to - see Kinsey. Yeah, it's a little hollywooded - but it's pretty true to the story. It's also very frank, very open, and I think will shock just about anyone.

Pavlovian Response

As background for this: Our holiday card was a picture of John and I in bad Christmas sweaters in front of a fireplace, very picturesque- you can see it here.

Inside was the newsletter that John wrote (except for a part about the pets). The one I wrote was too tame for John, so he re-wrote it and allowed me minor changes. Some of my changes were over-ruled. In any case, the premise of the newsletter was supposed to be a drunken rant by yours truly about how the recent election has made us re-evaluate our "moral" values. That John had recently subscribed to "Guns & Ammo" and Soldier of Fortune to learn how to fight the "dirty ragheads" and I had taken to "straightening out" the "homo" population of chicago. Needless to say this satirical jab at the Religious "Right" was not taken well by some (as expected). It was the kind of humor you need to read between the lines to appreciate - however, most people don't appreciate biting humor that makes you think - which is why Adam Sandler is a millionaire...

The card reached Illinois residents Dec 7th and the reactions have been coming in. They were varied - but nothing we didn't expect:

• "Now I think you have gone too far... If you cannot change the world or at least the country on your own, I suggest you just deal with it and keep your views and thoughts to yourself. Most of us do not want to hear your insane thoughts of how life and Politics is supposed to be in your little world... or maybe try and see if you can change another country like you think you can change this one... Most of us all know that there is a God in this world that gave us all of this Earth to use as we wanted to. Yes some of us pray to a different God but most of us know that at least there is a God that created Earth and all of the things on it including the good and the bad people. But we also know that he really did not create people that never believed that he did not exist, that was brought on by themselves. ... Believe in what you want, say whatever you believe but just don't say it to me or anyone in my home anymore"
• Side note on this person: At least now I have ammunition the next time he cracks a nigger or "shine" comment in front of me. I'll simply tell him that he should move to another country where they keep their blacks in line if he doesn't like the way this one is and to keep his politics to himself...and to believe what he wants but don't say it to me or anyone in my home. Such a good christian he is... I think that was on the third tablet that Mel Brooks dropped "thou shalt hate anyone different from yourself".
  
• "...your card is the only one we will publicly display in our apartment. "
• "You are a genius. And John too. Loved the Christmas card, I'm still laughing. You've outdone yourselves."
• "It's fuckin' awesome"
• "Now that was funny...i thought it was hilarious"
• "The photo is great...Your Sweater makes it ...I was especially heatwarmed with your comments about jews"
• "...just got done reading your xmas card update, best xmas card ive ever gotten dude, i so needed a good laugh!"
• "...we loved it. I'm bringing it in to work tomorrow to show my coworkers!

I also must add that most of the people above consider themselves Christians, but still found it funny. Says something about their security in their own beliefs that they have the ability to laugh at themselves and understand that it's not directed at THEM, but at whacko fundamentalists...

Intelligence Bill

According to the Center for American Progress the House finally agreed on the final version of the hotly debated Intelligence bill. Thankfully they did so in time for everyone to attend the White House Christmas party.

Interesting thing though: The final bill is 600 pages long, it was agreed upon yesterday evening and will be voted on today. How many Reps actually READ the damned thing? My guess is very very few.

Center for American Progress wants to put together a report on how many actually read the bill - here's how you can help:

Go to this site and find the telephone number for your Rep. Call and ask whether your Rep. has read the bill s/he is about to vote on, and report back to
pr@americanprogress.org.

Also, urge your Reps to enforce the 72-hour rule, which gives a 3-day waiting period between the finalization and passage of a bill. This rule is often waived by - you guessed it - house republicans so they can jam their agendas through unnoticed.

Bring it on

So we sent out our Christmas greetings this weekend and I am anxiously awaiting the shock and awe... I can hear my mother now "oh my god" shaking her head disapprovingly while my dad laughs over her shoulder... You can tell where I get my sense of humor from.

We even made our own custom return address labels. Sadly, we didn't keep a card for ourselves, but I have the picture still on Shutterfly. And we'll always have the "newsletter" to cherish.

Now back to the task at hand - finishing my papers, studying for my final exam, and wrapping the rest of our consumerist-robot purchases for the yultide season.

John is gonna be out of town Wed - Saturday. Too bad I have no time for a girls night. Oh well.