Descendant's of God

Is it just me or do the pics from the front page of the online NY Times (at least the ones at 4:15 Central time) make it look like the passengers from the plane crash today are somehow all related to Jesus?

I am just all about the blasphemy today.

Update (since I have nothing more creative to title this)

It's been a bit busy in my life lately and feel I have neglected my half dozen or so readers here for which I apologize profusely. Or as profusely as one can do through a blog. Some updates on life in general - I'm still reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and it's still really good (it's over 1000 pages so this one might take awhile). I went to The Good show last weekend and had a great time (though abandoning the BF and friend while I danced away at the front was probably not the nicest thing to do in retrospect, damn you hindsight and your 20/20 vision). I also am now left wondering how to craft lamps that spell out words (and what words I want). Booked a hotel room for the upcoming Wisconsin winter wedding adventure, $190 freaking dollars to basically just crash at the end of the night is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. There should be some kind of "I'm not going to use any of your child filled indoor water park rides so I should get $80 off the top" pricing. But alas, there is not. So it went on the BF's credit card and I have to figure out a way to pay him back for at least half of it...or figure out a way to not mention it again. Oh and I'm meeting the BF's mom tonight. That is a whole nother post in and of itself. I'm usually pretty good with parents, for the most part they like me, but I am a bit rusty so wish me luck.

Probably the biggest news of all though is that this Friday I'm getting on a plane (cross your fingers on that one!) and heading out to DC for 6 days. Do the math... I'll wait... Yup I'm going to inauguration. Do I have tickets you ask? Nope. Do I care? Nope. While I admit it would be much cooler to actually have tickets to the lawn area I think that just being on the mall during this amazingly historic event will be something I remember for the rest of my life. And more than being excited I am also scared out of my mind. 4 million people freak me out. But I'm crossing my fingers it all goes well and that my camera doesn't freeze, break, or get stolen. I will be back with tales I am sure.

The Good

Just bought tickets to The Good show. If you are in Chicago and are free January 10th you should too. http://www.martyrstickets.musictoday.com/Martyrs/calendar.aspx.

Hope you are having a good start to your 2009 wherever you are. I'm headed out to see Slumdog Millionaire.
Cheers.

I'm amazed I don't just drink all day

This is why I drink at night....

Step One: Email is sent to Program Coordinator (that's me!) from Board member with some random question.
Step Two: Program Coordinator sends said email to a un-named Manager with intro question "Do you want to reply to this, or do you want me to?"
Step Three: Manager replies with "I will - please forward her email so I can respond"
Step Four: Program Coordinator calls Manager, confused, and asks, "what do you mean - forward the email? As in something different than the email I just sent you?"
Step Five: Manager says "Why don't you forward me the original email, so it doesn't have your question on it and I can reply to it that way"
Step Six: Program Coordinator replies (dumbfounded) "Okay"
Step Seven: Program Coordinator silently shakes head as she thinks about the forwarding/replying email process. Knowing that Manager is going to have to use the forward function on her email regardless of which version it is. Program Coordinator then comes to the conclusion that apparently it's just too difficult for the Manager to delete the intro.
Step Eight: Program Coordinator takes break outside while contemplating job options.

Final Book List

I've just started reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and since it's almost 1,000 pages long I don't think I am going to finish it by Wednesday. So here is the final book list of 2008. I kept count after I hit the goal of 52, listed back in this post from September, though I feel towards the end I may have gotten forgetful. With the additional 27 listed here my grand total is 79. Not too shabby.

September: (7)
Jitterbug Perfume. By Tom Robbins.
Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold! By Terry Brooks.
A Thousand Splendid Suns. By Khaled Hosseini.
Bone Vol. 1: Out from Boneville. By Jeff Smith.
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. By Judy Blume (my very own autographed copy!)
The Sirens of Titan. By Kurt Vonnegut.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower. By Stephen Chobsky.

October (6):
The Hummingbird's Daughter. By Luis Alberto Urrea.
Lamb; The Gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal. By Christopher Moore (a re-read for me)
Ocean. By Warren Ellis.
Scars. By Warren Ellis.
Crooked Little Vein. By Warren Ellis.
Y the Last Man: Volume 1. By Brian Vaughn.

November (10):
Y the Last Man: Volume 2. By Brian Vaughn
Y the Last Man: Volume 3: By Brian Vaughn
Fahrenheit 451. By Ray Bradbury.
Y the Last Man: Volumes 4-10. By Brian Vaughn


December (4):
Dracula. By Bram Stoker
Zombies Calling. By faith erin hicks.
Higher Power of Lucky. By Susan Patron.
American Gods. By Neil Gaiman.

Everyonce in awhile, I am totally awesome.

Saturday night boyfriend shares that his parents got "us" (well really him, but I think they may have said "here, take JJ") a $100 gift card to AMC theaters. And while this seems ridiculously large, it really will only cover about 2 and half movies if we get snacks. And I have to get movie popcorn. It's like a drug. A wonderfully salty drug.

Anyway, we start discussing what movies we should go see and he says he really wants to see Frost/Nixon. I have absolutely no interest in this movie. Not to say that I don't think it will probably be interesting, I just am personally not interested. And we spend about 20 minutes with me trying to explain that. But since I can't really come up with anything other than "I'm sure it is interesting, I'm just not interested" we didn't get very far except to decide that he was more than welcome to go see it without me.

We did move on to decide though that we were going to try and see a different movie Sunday night. He works downtown (close enough to River East to walk) and had a possibility of getting done as early as 4. He gave me free reign to pick the movie and so I jotted down some movie times of what I thought we should see (Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, The Spirit, Benjamin Button, etc.) and headed down to surprise him around 3.

4 o'clock came and it looked like he wasn't going anywhere till closer to 8. I was all ready to pack up and head home when he flies around the corner and says they cut him early- let's go!

Excited we start the windy walk to the theater and I come up with the brilliant plan that I think he should let me pick the movie and let it be a surprise. He is very hesitant about this, I think it was the walking through the movie theater with his eyes closed that he was nervous about, but eventually he conceded. So I stood in line alone and bought the tickets, and when we got upstairs he stared at the carpet as I gently lead him to the theater. He was a great sport.

We got in to the theater and it was ridiculously small and almost all the way filled. We didn't get the exact seats we wanted but I think that's okay. I waited nervously for the movie to start, to see his reaction when he figured out what we were going to see (I kept teasing him that it was Twilight - a movie and book series we are both really against). The previews ended and the show began. Here was the moment to see if my plan of having this be a surprise would be worth it. Before we even got to the name of the director a smile came over his face and he leaned in to whisper thank you in my ear. Yup, in case you hadn't guessed already, we saw Frost/Nixon last night.

Building up the karma, brick by brick

So as you have read I recently lost a pretty nasty cat fight between myself, Northwest Airlines, and Mother Nature. Needless to say I have been a little disgruntled lately because of it. But it seems that its starting to look a bit better out there for me. In fact I even stepped up and took one for the team for a complete stranger last night. That sounds way more mysterious than I mean it to be.

Last night, standing outside the bar smoking with my friend W, our conversation was interrupted by the all to familiar Midwestern sound of car tires spinning uselessly in the snow. Turning, we saw a guy either trying to get into a parking spot or get out we couldn't tell. I looked at W - "We should help him shouldn't we?" "Yeah" he replied. And we stared a bit longer.

But we finished our smokes and trudged over to the car. Coming around to the drivers side I asked if he was trying to get in or out of the space. He motioned that he was trying to go backwards so I said we would help push.

Attempt One: We got absolutely nowhere. Walked around to back of car to see if there was a way to dig anything out with my boot. Tried again.

Attempt Two: Pushed so hard that I pretty much fell into the car and then into the snow. Not a face plant kind of fall, just a slow descent onto the knees. But at the end of attempt two we found success! The guy was able to get back on to the road and on his way.

W and I brush off our hands and head back into the bar pretty nonchalantly as though we do this kind of thing all the time. And if you live in the Midwest, you kind of do.

Because see, it's all about the karma. I don't own a car, but I did at one point and I might one day again, and if I stay in this area I guarantee I'll get stuck at some point. I'm not that big and I'm not that strong but if I'm around I will always at least try and help. It's what being in the Midwest is all about.