may 29 2009

i don't even know where to begin about today. especially tonight.

i don't know how i ended up where i have. i don't know about the people involved. i don't know about the things i've done.

in paradise

last minute topic idea. my roommate has people over, and his computer just played coolio's "gangsta's paradise".

i might be the only person who is reminded of their mother when they hear that song. my mom only listened to 5 or 6 cds. she had stocked up the cd player in her car, and those were the ones she listened to, only those. about every other year she might buy one new cd, but that was rare. one of the newer ones was this crazy compilation album that was mostly made up of music my mom loves. female folkish singers with a little bit of rock and a lot of heartbreak. but the track that always stood out was near the end of the cd. coolio's "gangsta's paradise". i can't find the cd now. but that cd is burned into my memory. tori amos and coolio. my mom listened to coolio. well only sometimes. one time i pointed out that i couldn't believe that she liked that song. she quickly changed it to the next track and stated that she hadn't noticed it was playing and that she normally skipped over it. now whether or not it's true she did not like the song, still am amused that she owned the track. and listened to it on occasion.

maybe i should describe my mother. she's a 5'9" thin white woman of some years. i think she was in her mid-forties at this point. pretty conservative. with her music interests lying closer to judy collins and carol king than coolio. she was pretty strict, but i think that this track showed an insight into her level of acceptance. she's conservative, definitely, but i think that she's amazing open to other's opinions and ideas. i did live in new york city for a while and dragged her to lucky cheng's. a drag restaurant. and she survived. and kept her opinions to herself. she still finds it fairly amusing.

i'm happy she owned that cd. it made me like her a little more. at a time when none of my friends liked their mothers.

summer rain

you know it's summer when it rains and rains and rains, and yet it's still warm outside. memorial day has officially ushered in the the new season. and today proves that to be the truth. the seasons have been late or slow in arriving this past year. but summer is just right on time.

living in chicago, it always seems like winter will never end. this year was no different. for at least five months all people could say was "just wait until summer arrives." and she has. now i enjoy winter. i can even be quoted as saying "i'd like to live in chicago during the winter and australia during the winter." just so i could have winter all year-round. i do love the snow and the wonderful cheeriness of having it on the ground. like all city-folk i do abhore the gross brown-ish slush that it turns into after a few days of being driven over. but the few hours after it snows are truly a winter wonderland. i can't help but be nice to every one i meet.

my dislike of summer stems from my school days, when i had no life outside of school, and thus summers were a huge drag. and people get so excited about it, then when it gets hot and humid as it likely does wherever it snows in the winter, people bitch and moan again and just stay inside with their air-conditioning. i do like humidity as well as snow. i spent a lot of my summers as a child in arizona. (this might also stand as a reason why i dislike them so.) where it's hot and dry. you walk outside and you're instantly dehydrated. and you have to suffer through the headaches that are a product of dehydration. (did you know that dehydration is the leading cause of headaches?) the humidity makes you feel sticky and sweaty, but at least it doesn't make you feel dead.

now the best summer days are the ones where they start off sunny and hot, with a cooling at about noon and an afternoon rainstorm. one where the sun is still shining through and the air is still warm. and you still get a good sunset as the clouds are moving on. those are the best days. and i don't even like rain. well... i'm enjoying it today.

spick and span

first off, hurray to me for posting three days in row!!! hip hip hurray! hip hip hooray! hahaha

now to the topic of the day...

today is memorial day. as i had no real plans and the weather is less than grand, i planned on spending the day in my pajamas while watching movies. i did accomplish as much. still in my pjs? check. watched tons of ridiculously bad movies? check. (side note: i do recommend seeing a nice little ditty called "lies and alibis". it does have rebecca romijn in it, but more importantly it has a great plot and interesting lead male character that compelled me to recommend it.)

but more importantly i cleaned! don't get me wrong, i do clean fairly regularly. an apartment with four residents isn't always the cleanest of places. and i'm under the impression that i'm the only one that cleans. anyways... since i was sitting around and no one was home i decided now was as good of a time as ever to attempt a belated spring cleaning. my mother raised me well. on a bi-annual full house clean-up. a period of time, twice a year, when the carpets were cleaned, the closets were emptied, and goodwill got a large donation. i try to do a similar thing about twice a year. college decreed that it was the beginning of school in the fall and the end of school in the spring. move-in day and move-out day. awww... those were the days.

lately it hasn't been so easy. i've lived in three apartments in a year and a half. so i guess i did a fair amount of "spring cleaning" every time i moved from one place to another. i've lived in the current locale for almost a year and no such cleaning has been attempted. when even the slightest cleaning has occurred, mess is created just hours later. (i'd say minutes but that might be exaggerating.) i'd blame living with male roommates, but i know that my brother is a bit of a clean freak and my father though messy keeps things pretty clean.

back to the cleaning. i've only accomplished a small part of it, but i feel like i got so much more done. i've finished off my room, which entailed: laundry, retacking of my wall tapestry, dusting, sewing of buttons and such, and a goodwill donation. next came my closet: reorganizing of the shoes, ditto of the clothes, a good sweeping, and a relocation of my hamper actually into the closet. whew! i'm rather pooped. mostly from standing on a wobbly bookshelf with a staple gun retacking the tapestry. i'm still shocked i survived.

tomorrow will be a little more safe. there are the two bathrooms to be cleaned. and i might just leave the kitchen and living room for the female roommate. she's having a party this weekend, and i'd rather not be worked up about how her guests are ruining the perfect cleanliness of the space.

what i really wanted to mention was the book that i've found to help me in all matters concerning the home. it's called "home comforts: the art and science of keeping house" by cheryl mendelson. it is the most comprehensive cleaning and maintenance manual for your home. i've actually read a good part of it, but it can also be used as more of a reference manual. i love it so much i plan on buying one for every person i know starting out on their own or getting that first home. i hope that you check it out and use it in your own home.

give me a beat

this evening i had planned a nice trip to millennium park to listen to the northwestern percussion ensemble. when i had initially heard of the performance, i only knew that it would be solely percussion instruments and possibly some jazz. i had intended to go by myself, hoping that since attending alone i would definitely be able to obtain a seat in the pritzker pavilion and not have to sit in the grass. as it is memorial day weekend i feared that the park would be packed, and that as soon as the music started people would flock in droves to the pavilion.

i spent the earlier part of the evening with a friend who just happened to be in town, so i invited him along. he had previous plans but went with me most of the way to the park. even before getting on the el i knew that it would be frightfully cold at the park. i decided to press on in hopes that the weather would keep others from attending this event.

i was not wrong; the pavilion was marginally full. not the packed that i had expected. i found myself a seat just as the first piece was ending. i'm not sure what i expected from the ensemble but what i heard was quite entertaining. the first two pieces, that i heard, were by the argentine composer piazzolla known for his work with the tango. they were interesting pieces led by a type of accordian. an instrument that i did not expect to be part of the percussion group. next was an african drum number showcasing the conversational style of west african music. commonly refered to as call and response. next were a collection of medleys, each utilizing the xylaphone. the first was a 1920's collection. the second was, i believed, named the bye bye medley, as it contained two songs each with the title including the words "bye bye". the third, was a sweet compliation of state songs, last of which was a heartstring puller, "california, here i come".

after this i unfortunately had to leave. just as the weather kept people from attending, it kept people from staying. some people were leaving just as i got there. kind of depressing since the music had just started. maybe they were hoping for something more typical. but i wanted to hold out. using the blanket that i had brought just in case i did have to sit in the grass, i wrapped myself as tightly as i could. this would last for a piece or medley. but i have to admit that the wind was too much for me. and so i left right at the end of the first half.

i really wish that i could have had the strength to stay, but another hour of freezing to the bone couldn't be tollerated. i do hope that, for the performers' sakes, people were able to stick it out to the end. it was a marvelous performance. another great experience at the pritzker pavilion.

i highly recommend any of the performances at the pavilion and you can check out the schedule at www.millenniumpark.org/parkevents/
and you can check out the northwestern's percussion ensemble at www.pickstaiger.org/

now that I have nothing to do...

maybe i'll post all the time!!!

i've been thinking more and more about the ability to write and have been toying with the idea of becoming a writer. not of novels. i'm not creative enough to write a full fledged book. more like magazine stuff. i think that's why i started the blog in the first place. and to test my typing skills. which are mediocre. my spelling is up to par though.

anyways, i just finished potrait of an artist, as an old man by joseph heller, who is wildly famous for the mandatory high school reading of catch-22. i loved catch-22 when i was forced to read it as a high school junior, and when bored at my local borders i stumbled upon a shelf of his books. confused about which one i should impulse buy, i selected the most unlike the others, his last novel. it turned out to be a poorly veiled autobiography of his attempts to write his last great novel. which wasn't even published until after his death. it was editted together from extensive notes he had compiled.

reading about how a writer goes about figuring out what to write about and how to write it, threw me into a long reverie about writers i appreciate and my own love of writing and reading. most of what i've been reading lately has been in the non-fiction vien. books of short anecdotal stories. authors who primarily write for magazines and have been given the opportunity to write books based off of an idea or article of theirs.

i have always had a urge to work as an editor for a magazine. my editting skills have always been better than my writing skills. i'm brilliant when given an idea or work of others and am given the chance to improve it. but left to my own devices, i'm lost. i have nothing good to say, and nothing to spur that creativity.

upon further reflection, i think that's why working as a magazine writer would be more appropriate for my skills. you are given the option to come up with your own story ideas, but are usually given an article idea to start with and you get to go from there. i'm ok with that. and the pieces are shorter, keeping me from rambling on as i'm prone to do.

and i wouldn't want to write for a newspaper unless i could write for the arts section or as a critic of anything. as i said i'm much better when given work of others to start from. writing about the day's events, ie car crashes, fires, or political hullababoo, isn't interesting to me.

so if you are reading this, and need an editorial assistant or someone to fill-in for a writer, i'd be happy to assist.