I'm going to be a horrible parent.

I'm at Kristin's house enjoying her internet. Because I don't have internet at my house. Or cable. 'Cause we forgot to pay the bill. Whoops!

"Something imitated"

Instead of writing an entry describing my usual late-night boredom, I decided to this instead, which I got from this girl.

Four jobs I’ve had in my life:
1. Pharmacy clerk / cashier.
2. Contact Ranger at a Virginia State Park.
3. Cashier at the JMU bookstore.
4. Wine shop sales associate / tour guide.

Four movies I could watch over and over:
1. Broadcast News.
2. Reality Bites.
3. Coal Miner's Daughter.
4. Waiting for Guffman.

Four places I’ve lived:
1. Montross, Virginia.
2. Harrisonburg, Virginia.
3. Chicago, Illinois.
4. (I only have three answers!)

Four TV Shows I love to watch:
1. Gilmore Girls.
2. Project Runway.
3. Flavor of Love.
4. Arrested Development.

Four places I’ve been on vacation:
1. Outer Banks, North Carolina.
2. Orlando, Florida.
3. London, England.
4. Savannah, Georgia.

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Pitchfork Media.
2. MySpace.
3. What Would Tyler Durden Do?
4. Best Week Ever.

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Hamburgers.
2. Pepperoni pizza.
3. Beef tacos.
4. Grilled pork tenderloin.

Four books I can read over and over again:
1. The World According to Garp by John Irving.
2. Sophie's Choice by William Styron.
3. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.
4. The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Here's my Chinese New Year resolution: Don't get drunk and pass out at the party.

I've been in a weird mood for the past couple of days. I haven't really done anything but sleep past noon and sitting around. Yesterday I woke up at 1:30. I was expecting to get Manhattan from Netflix, so I ran out to the mailbox and saw it was there. I was excited about watching it but when I pulled it out of the sleeve, I saw that it was not Manhattan but The Office: The Complete Second Series. Netflix, you suck balls. You could have at least sent me something I didn't already own. Maybe something good that I wouldn't mind watching again? Why couldn't you have sent me Little Shop of Horrors? I haven't seen that in years.

Last night I ate a box of bagel bites, drank a bottle of wine, and watched The Phantom of the Opera on HBO. It was probably the gayest thing I've ever done. I was watching it, fully aware of how awful it is, but I couldn't stop enjoying it. Then I hopped in a cab and went to my friends Stacey and Emily's Chinese New Year party. It was fun, although I think I was in my drunk-asshole mode.

Also, Logan Square is not easy to get home from. (That is a horrible sentence but I don't feel like fixing it.) I think I walked about twenty minutes in the rain looking for a cab, and I had absolutely no idea where I was. I thought I was walking east but I was walking north, and I was in a neighborhood that I didn't recognize. Finally a cab pulled into the CVS parking lot I was standing in. The guy who was riding in it stopped in to go to the ATM, and the driver rolled down his window and told me that he'd give me a ride, too. When the guy came back from the ATM he was pretty confused.

It was a night full of weird cab experiences, and when I say "full of" I mean that I had two weird cab experiences. That's more than I usually have in one night. Anyway, Stacey and Emily live on a street that is one-way, and instead of driving around the block to drop me off in front of their house, the cab driver backed onto the street and started driving in reverse until I told him to stop. That's service!

Also, I got two great fortunes in my fortune cookies last night:
"Act on the new ideas you are generating."
"Good health will your yours for a long, long time."
That's what I like to hear!

I'm boring and self-absorbed.

My interview this morning went alright. The manager who interviewed me was very nice and easy to talk to. I'd be qualified for the job if I had ever had phone sales experience, but whatever, I think I did the best I could to get my abilities across. The woman said that she'd call me if I got the position or not, which is more than most of the people who have interviewed me have done.

The rest of the day was uneventful. I received another disc of Gilmore Girls from Netflix, and I have to say that season four is kinda boring. Thank God Jess is gone, but now Lorelai is going to date this guy who I hate. I hate both the character and the actor. I don't know what his name is, but he was in The Last Days of Disco and that stupid post-Seinfeld show It's Like, You Know...

I also received and watched GoodFellas. I liked it, but it's nothing that's particularly memorable.

My friend Stacey is having a Chinese New Year party on Saturday night. I'm very excited. I get really excited about parties now because they happen so infrequently. Plus, the alcohol is (usually) free. I also get psyched that I'll meet some fantastically interesting new person, but it usually doesn't happen because I can't approach strangers until I've researched their lives on MySpace. That's probably creepy, but it's true. Besides, "Hey, aren't you on MySpace?" is such an effective line.

Man, I really miss being able to just run out, hop in my car, and drive to a friend's house. Now visits have to be planned out in advance and are also rare occasions. I really want to do something fun tomorrow, something that doesn't involve reading essays on southern identity.

Two things.

One: Another reason why Americans are kinda dumb: "Gay cowboys are now the new penguins."

Two: Another reason why Oprah kicks ass: "A sometimes angry, sometimes tearful Winfrey asked Frey why he 'felt the need to lie.'"

You know a cargo light gives off a romantic glow.

Well, I'm awake. It's morning and I'm wide awake. Of course, that's because I didn't go to sleep last night. I wasn't tired at all (since I slept until 1:00), and, as usual, I came up with the "staying up all night so that I can get my internal clock back on track" plan. But hey, this time it worked. Sure, I hit that hour-long slump around 7:30 where I really wanted to fall asleep (Jinxie even came up on my bed and rolled all over me and I almost said to her, "LET'S TAKE A NAP!!!"), but I stayed strong. Already I've been to the bank to deposit money for the insanely expensive gas bill, and I got some coffee from Julius Meinl.

Now I have to stay up all day.

I have an interview tomorrow for a sales position at this place that sells electronics for promotional purposes. They found my resume on Monster.com and decided to give me an interview. When I called them yesterday (they left me a voicemail in the morning), the woman told me that they had a sales position open. I told her I'd be interested and she said, "Okay, how long have you worked in sales?" I said, "Well, I haven't, but I've had a lot of customer service experience." That was enough for her, apparently, although I wonder if they actually looked at my resume before they called me because that definitely answers any questions they may have about my "sales" experience.

Anyway, I have to read their website and learn about USB memory sticks (their biggest seller) so I can be prepared for the interview tomorrow.

Last night I went over to Dan and Kristin's and hung out with them and Lindsay and Brendan. I felt like Bridget Fucking Jones. Oh, me and my coupled friends. But anyway, I was playing music from my iPod and Magnolia Electric Co. came on, and Brendan made some comment about me getting back to my "dirt-road, Montross roots." It made me laugh, because I never listened to any real country when I was in high school, just really shitty pop-country.

But thinking back on it really makes me want to download "Pickup Man" by Joe Diffie.

I spent most of my sleepless night uploading a bunch of old pictures onto Flickr. It was stuff like the prom party at Julia's house, Morgan's cocktail party, and the numerous pictures that Ben, Laurie, and I took of ourselves at the Dodger. Man, I miss college.

Okay, so I just downloaded "Pickup Man" and you can't deny that Joe Diffie is a lyrical genius:
" You can set my truck on fire, roll it down a hill
But I still wouldn't trade it for a Coupe DeVille
It's got an eight foot bed that never has to be made
You know if it weren't for trucks we wouldn't have tailgates
I met all my wives in traffic jams,
You know there's something women like about a Pickup Man"

Casey Kasem has a potty mouth.

Here's a clip of Casey Kasem going apeshit while taping American Top 40.

And here's another gem: Kevin Federline jammin' to his own shitty song, "Popozao".

It's "Coke," not "pop."

I really have nothing of interest to write about, but for some reason I feel I should try to update every day or two. Also, I had three Cokes today so I'm never going to get to sleep tonight. My caffeine tolerance has depleted immensely once I became too poor to afford Coke. (I'm probably not too poor to afford it, I just happen to spend my money on more alcohol than soft drinks.)

Today was one of my least productive days ever. I spent it watching four episodes of Gilmore Girls and Showgirls (thanks, Netflix!) and I ate a bag of Chex Mix and two packs of Rolos.

I still only have about a week left of unemployment, but I don't even know how often I'll get work. I've seriously become pretty brain-dead when it comes to finding job listings that I would actually qualify for. Craigslist has even been pretty sucky as of late. I guess I could give the temp agencies a call tomorrow; that's always an ego-booster. Those bitches won't even give me data-entry jobs.

I'm excited that Nicole is moving in next week. I've been really bored lately. Kristin's out of the house, Joe and Janna are off living their lives. All of my other friends are now in couple form. I'm seriously about this close to posting a "strictly platonic" ad in Craigslist. I'm hoping that when I start working at Urban I can make a friend or two. Seriously, out of seventy people, there will have to be at least five normal people I can befriend.

Thanks a lot, James Frey.

I'm about thirty pages from finishing A Million Little Pieces and I had a Frey-inspired nightmare last night. The gist was that my mother (who was Julianne Moore) sold my child and her body to a crackhead who lived in a car at the end of our driveway. No matter how hard we tried to convince her, she refused to come back home and stop doing crack.

Of course, I had just given birth to the baby that she sold, and I also had CD jewel-cases that were made out of candy. I can't really explain where the hell those aspects of the dream came from.

We were also having a family reunion at the time (how embarassing is it to have a family reunion around the time when your mom becomes a crack whore?), so there were a lot of distant cousins who I didn't know. A few of them were middle-eastern, which was surprising, and when one asked me how we were related, I was tempted to ask my grandmother, but didn't for fear that our newly-interracial family might be a sore subject.

Yesterday I got the best / gayest package from Christina, which included two DVDs (Working Girl and 9 to 5) and a mix CD with showtunes on it because, as Christina wrote, "It's the only area of music I felt like I could out-do you in." Thanks, Christina!

Chicago is really cold again, so I kind of just want to spend my day in bed. I've been doing that for the last two days, however, so I'm going to actually try to do something this afternoon. That'll probably just involve going to Dan and Kristin's and watching them unpack boxes. I lead such a manic, exciting lifestyle.

Go Google yourself.

You think searching "hairy vaginas" is the only way to find my blog? Think again!

1. "wearing bra to bed stunts breast growth"
I can just picture some thirteen-year-old girl Googling this because her friend (who is probably much more advanced than she is) told her that her boobs aren't going to get any bigger. Don't worry, Britney: it's an urban legend.

2. "charles grodin health"
I'm glad I'm not the only Charles Grodin fan on the Internet who's really concerned about his well-being.

3. "jack and jackie instant feedback"
I really hope this was not Jake or Jackie because finding my post about them would be slightly embarassing.

4. "what happens to michelle williams character in brokeback mountain"
Geez, dude. Going to see the gay cowboy movie does not make you gay. If you're really that curious about what happens to Michelle Williams in the movie, just go see it. Or at least get it on Netflix in about six months and don't tell your friends about it.

5. "adrien brody underweight"
Is he? I figured he made up for it all in that nose. It's really big! Admit it!

6. "muss morgan DC"
My friend Morgan totally Googled herself. LOSER!

PS.

Someone in West Chicago, Illinois found my blog by searching for "hairy vaginas" on a Spanish-language search engine.

Mostrando 41 - 50 de 984.000 sobre hairy vaginas. La búsqueda tardó 0.03 segundos!

This one's full of useless pop-culture.

Today I was flipping through the cable channels and came across Ray on HBO. I haven't seen it and I never will because I absolutely hate, hate, hate Jamie Foxx. I could have watched it last year when it came out on DVD because my hatred for Jamie Foxx hadn't begun yet. I swear to God, if he "invokes the spirit of Ray Charles" on one more fucking song (or even just uses that phrase in another interview), I will shoot myself in the eye. In the eye, Jamie Foxx! That's what you're doing to me.

I had a conversation with Christina this afternoon about Chuck Norris and how we don't understand the obsession with him right now. Seriously. It's Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is the new Mr. T. Who's next? Richard Dean Anderson? Scott Bakula?

I really hope that Charles Grodin is the next Chuck Norris.

I just spent fifteen minutes looking for pictures of Charles Grodin and I found this website devoted to Grodin and I found pictures of the cover of his book:



If only Tim Gunn and Charles Grodin would move to Chicago and get my life into order. That'd be a reason to get out of bed every morning.

I hate my life, part eighteen.

Let me just describe the first half hour of my day:

I run out at 4:30 to hop into an SUV already holding four people, only to discover that we have to pick up another girl. I ride in said SUV, uncomfortably sandwiched between boring hipster girl with bad hair and boring hipster dude off of whom I receive an Axe Body Spray contact high, all the way to Schaumburg.

I listen to really bad music (think Allman Brothers-type of Dad-rock blues meets VH1 "rock" a la Incubus) while gross guy in the front seat who wears a too-small brown leather jacket that stops about four inches too short on his wrists (yeah man, show off those tats!) and Vans with a marijuana leaf pattern intermittently calls the girl driving a "bull dyke" and plays air guitar. Seriously, if you're sober and playing air guitar, you are a douchebag, especially if you're furiously playing all of the chords.

It's safe to say that the next six hours that I spent in Urban scanning random housewares with a scanner gun and narrowly avoiding death (I had to climb up a really tall ladder and maneuver my poor scanning skills around bulky quilts) were not happy ones.

I did, however, score fifty dollars in cash...

Was it worth it?

I'm losing the funny.

I don't feel good. My head feels like it weighs twenty pounds and my ears feel weird. That's not a good sign. I don't want to be legitimately sick right now. I'd rather just keep taking Echinecea and Tylenol Cold. I don't want to ever have to find a new doctor. Oh, how I miss the university health center (and that's something that I never thought I'd ever type).

I applied to be the copy editor for Chicagoist. It sounded like a good idea even though it was unpaid. I figured at least then I would have some copy-editing experience. Unfortunately, their idea of copy-editing involves me reading the blog several times a day just in case one of the contributors used "your" instead of "you're." That's not copy-editing.

Also, I called the temp agency to talk to Agnes. She had nothing for me, as usual, although chatted with me about how I lost my phone last week ("I did that once, and I was just thrown-off for a week!"). She thanked me for checking-in and told me to "keep doing what I'm doing." I wanted to break the pretense of our friendly, casual conversation and yell, "Look, what I'm doing is obviously not working. I haven't been able to find a job in six months. You haven't really helped me in the five months I've been in contact with you. Stop bullshitting me."

Lucky for me, I do get to work inventory at Urban tomorrow. At the Woodfield Mall. In Schaumberg. Some girl is picking me up at 4:30 in the morning to give me a ride.

I'm so close to just admitting defeat that it's not even funny anymore. I'm out of ideas, I'm losing patience, and I'm really, really disappointed with myself.

I don't like the Golden Globes.

After sitting through another boring lifetime achievement award montage on the Golden Globes, I decided this:

ANTHONY HOPKINS IS OVERRATED.

If he wasn't in The Silence of the Lambs, he wouldn't have won that award.

Think about it. They showed a clip from Bad Company where The Great Anthony Hopkins co-starred with Chris Rock. 'Nuff said.

We are desperate, lonely, and underpaid.

Kristin moved out today. I helped her and Dan carry boxes and boxes and bags and bags and furniture into and out of a U-Haul. I'm exhausted and I'm going to be sore tomorrow (although slightly pleased that I can carry heavy things).

We went to Schaumberg today to go to Ikea. What a shithole that place is. I did get a few things I needed for the kitchen that were pretty cheap, as well as some cinnamon buns. Mmm.

When we were packing up the U-Haul, I couldn't help but think that I may have to do this again in February if I can't find a real job and start paying rent. I've been even more stressed/depressed about the idea of not finding a job and having to move home to Montross. And I hate that I'm worried about that - I hate that I am still depending on my parents to pay my rent and shit. It's been five and a half months and there should be absolutely no reason I can't get a job. There's also no reason for me to keep calling Lakeshore Staffing and leaving messages on voicemails every day and not get anything in return. Four months of this; it's a little frustrating. Also, the other temp agency that got me work before Christmas now seems to have forsaken me, as well. Aggh.

My mother keeps telling me, "It's not personal, it's business." (Thanks, Michael Corleone.) I can understand that, but I can't help but getting upset and wondering what's wrong with me. My resume isn't horrible. My cover letters aren't bad. I can't believe that after all this time and all the letters and applications I've sent out that it's just the luck of the draw and I'm less qualified than everyone else for every job I apply for. It doesn't make sense to me. I really don't care what job I have, I just want one that will pay me enough and employ me full-time. I just want to stay here. I want to make money and earn a living. I want to be able to rationalize the last four years I spent in college. I know I wasn't a computer science major or a marketing major, but I'm pretty damn intelligent and capable of learning new things and completing tasks. There's a part of me that takes pride in my work accomplishments even if I mostly hate the work I'm doing.

Please, Chicago. Cut a kid some slack. Throw me a bone.

I should quit complaining, because I know I could have it much worse. I could be unemployed and living in Schaumberg. Yuck!

Productivity.

Kristin and I woke up early this morning because Belle & Sebastian / New Pornographers tickets went on sale at ten. I found out that the two shows in DC sold out in twenty minutes so I was really anxious about getting tickets right when they went on sale.

To make a long story short, Kristin and I both managed to fuck up our ticket orders at the same time. The plan was for us to buy three each so that Dan, Eric, Julia, and Lindsay would all be able to get tickets, as well. Kristin accidentally bought six and is trying to get in touch with Ticketmaster to cancel one of the orders. I was an idiot and realized that I had the tickets emailed to my JMU email address, which closed sometime in October. Luckily, Ticketmaster just sent me the tickets to my real account, so I have mine. I'm not sure if Kristin has heard back from them or not.

I was kind of hungover so I went back to bed after I emailed Ticketmaster. I woke up around one and have spent the rest of my day basically in bed. Kristin's been packing because she moves out tomorrow, which is sad. Luckily she and Dan won't be living too far away.

I had the pleasure of watching The Warriors the other day and that movie is so effing awesome. I thought it was going to be a so-bad-it's-good type of thing, but it was surprisingly very well-done. Sure, it's a little dated and offensive, but it's about gang warfare in New York City and it's based on a Greek myth.

I'm thinking of making a second blog that's devoted to mini-reviews of books as I read them. One of my resolutions this year is to read more books, especially since I'm out of school and can get away with reading whatever I want. I'd like to keep track of what I read in a blog. I'm curious, though, about opening it as a group blog. If anyone else would be interested in joining me on this, let me know.

I've got VIBE.

I haven't read A Million Little Pieces yet; I got it for Christmas and I plan to regardless of the controversy. HOWEVER (sorry, Jean Cash, but I had to begin the sentence with "however"), I think James Frey is pretty screwed for getting caught in a big fat lie. Big fat lie.

When the story broke, Frey posted some comment on his website about how everyone was just nit-picking with him and that it was his life.

Last night on Larry King Live, he admitted that he originally submitted A Million Little Pieces to publishers as a novel. A novel. Well, novels are generally fiction. Even the ones that are pretty much based on truth; for example, The Bell Jar was fiction. It wasn't "non fiction" for a reason. Because some of it was just made up.

Anyway, that's what I have to say about that.

I had my orientation at Urban today, which was...eh. It turns out that: a) I won't be working until January 31st, and b) I won't be full time. I'll be at the new store on State Street and they're hiring seventy people to work there. I can't imagine working with seventy people. That's like my senior class in high school. I think it's appropriate that we'll have lockers to put our personal belongings into. I wonder if there will be any sex acts being committed in the bathroom.

I'm a loser. And slightly creepy.

I've already written an entry about how I somehow manage to become obsessed with anyone I see perform any kind of act in front of me. This ranges from famous singers like Liz Phair and Rilo Kiley to people I saw act in the experimental theater's production of Betty's Summer Vacation at JMU. Somewhere in the middle (probably closer to the collegiate theater majors) are improv celebrities.

I blame my friend Christina for this affliction. She's the one who is slightly obsessed with the people who perform comedy at the Upright Citizen's Brigade theater in New York, and it makes sense because that's what she wants to do. For me, however, it's just silly and weird.

Two summers ago, Christina and I went to the Del Close Comedy Marathon at UCB with our friends Dan and Nicole. It was a lot of fun; we sat in that theater for hours at a time watching some bad improv (hey, it happens!) and some really good improv. We saw Amy Poehler perform. Horatio Sanz talked to us (we think he was drunk). We also saw a majority of the people that are featured on VH1's Best Week Ever.

One of which was Jackie Clarke, who I think was on VH1 a handful of times. I remember her mostly because she performed with Amy Poehler in a show called "Wicked Fuckin' Queeyah" where a group of the actors pretended to be an improv group from Boston. Then Christina showed me her blog, which I still read because it's hilarious, and I frequently comment on her posts. I try to restrain myself when it comes to comments and only leave something that someone else might find amusing, but sometimes I forget. Like, for example, during my drunken rampage on Friday night. Sometime after losing my cell phone I left her a comment on her blog that was not funny and was just weird. Again, I'm a loser.

Jackie has a show on a New York radio station with Jake Fogelnest (whose anger really, really scares me). It's a great show, and I've listened online a few times. But here's the issue: they have this time on the radio station's homepage that allows you to send "instant feedback" to whoever is hosting a show at the time. Of course I send a couple, and Jackie reads one of them on the air. They make a comment about how it's great that someone in Chicago is listening.

Ding! Suddenly, I'm "Tyler from Chicago" and sending several messages later in the week. Again, I'm a loser.

Tonight was a really great show. Julie Klausner of Cat News fame was on the show and hilarious. She had some story about converting to a new religion she called "Jews for Jesus Christ Superstar." Then they played several songs from the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack. Several references to Ted Neely and Ben Vereen (Q: "Who hasn't been betrayed by Ben Vereen?" A: "Well, certainly not the scarf industry!") later, I thought to myself, "How can anyone but me find this remotely entertaining?"

By the time Six Degrees Of Andrew Lloyd Webber has brought the trio to a debate over Cats, I send a message that read, "I think Cats is awesome or, dare I say it, jellicle!" About two minutes later, Jackie reads it, and Jake responds with, "I think I'm putting 'jellicle' on the list of words you can't say on the radio." Jackie then says, "I think 'Tyler from Chicago' is no longer allowed to contact us."

Ouch. But hey, it's probably a fair move.

Can we get down with the lights all low?

I finally got my phone this morning, hooray! Of course, it sucks. I don't like it very much but I can't really complain since my mom did spend too much money on it because, well, I needed a phone. I'll have to add that to the list of things I owe her. It's quite a long list. I'm a douche.

In other news, I got a call from Urban Outfitters asking if I was available to work inventory for two days next week. Of course I said yes because I need to work. But: I have to be at the store at five. In. The. Morning. Which means that I'll have to get on the red line at four thirty in the morning. When I realized that there really isn't a better way to get there, I got kind of nervous. I don't like taking the red line at four thirty in the afternoon. Aggh, I wish I had a car for two days.

A few more exciting things happened today. I got a package in the mail from Morgan with her monthly mix CD as well as burned copies of Jose Gonzalez, Des Ark, and a Neutral Milk Hotel bootleg. Also, I got the final disc of the third season of Gilmore Girls, so I'm just about forty-odd episodes from being up to speed.

Again, I am a douche.

I haven't shaved in a few days (I can't actually remember when the last time I did shave), and so now I have slight scruff that borders on disgusting. I asked Kristin last night how much longer it might take before I look really gross (because I have a pretty thin beard, it mostly looks like I haven't washed my face in a week), and she replied, "Umm...tomorrow." I guess that means I should look fresh and (so clean) clean for my orientation at Urban tomorrow.

Get outta my dreams, get into my car.

Today has been pretty pointless. I got up early and emailed my temp agency contacts, even though if I don't have a phone they can't really let me know about any jobs. I didn't want to just wait around for my phone to come in the mail, so I just went back to sleep until 12:30. I checked the mail: no phone. Poop.

I met Kristin at Merchandise Mart for some sweet Arby's. My mother bought me a gift card with twenty five dollars on it, so I was excited to have money strictly for food. Oh, but the Merchandise Mart Arby's doesn't take Arby's gift cards, as I learned when the lady tried to swipe it into the credit card machine, only to realize that it wasn't a real credit card. "We only take the paper ones," she said. She even demonstrated with her hands how big the "paper ones" are, which helped me out a lot.

Today was Kristin's first day back at The Chicago School, so she told me about more bad ice-breakers that she had to go through. Last semester one professor started class with a dumb question, such as "What is your favorite movie?" Apparently some girl in Kristin's class responded with this gem: "Umm, well, I just watched House of Sand and Fog, and that was pretty good, so I guess I'll just pick that one."

Today the question was, "What is your favorite book?" The same girl replied, "Well, over break I read The Five People You Meet in Heaven, so I guess that one."

I have this hypothesis that if your favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption, then you have no personality. The same thing applies to The Da Vinci Code and anything written by Nicholas Sparks. I think I should add a clause: if you just pick the last movie/book you watched/read, then you have no personality.

Kristin was telling me this on the El. We were sitting in those seats that face the "handicapped-priority" seats, so there was this mid-30s man sitting right in our face. After she told me about the girl's "favorite book," I said, "Wow. If your favorite book was made into a TV movie starring James Garner*, then you have no personality." The man then turned right to me and said, "You're probably right." I'm glad I made a quick bond with a stranger over pretentious criticism of shitty literature.





*I realize now that the TV movie version of The Five People You Meet in Heaven actually starred Jon Voight instead of James Garner, which just makes it that much worse.

Morgan is my best friend right now...

...because of this.

Seriously, why haven't the rest of you thought about doing this?

Take THAT, part two.

Some higher being is punishing for my angry dancing last night (I think it's most likely the Duchess of Melodrama working on her own this time as the Prince of Purging was thankfully M.I.A. last night). My phone is gone, and that really sucks when you only have a cell phone on which your life depends. Hopefully my mom will be able to convince the good people over at Cingular wireless to send me a new phone on Monday as I'm sure all of the job offers I've been expecting will come in on that day.

I know I didn't lose the phone at the bar, but I may have left it at the Hollywood Grill on North and Ashland (their pancakes and bacon were so amazing that I lost what little mind I had left). I remember sending text messages to people at the table (to Morgan: "I WAMTED TO PUNCHING A GIRL IN THE FACE;" to my brother: "FAV BRO EVA!"). After that, my sketchy memory does not include having a phone. Kristin called the restaurant this morning but they didn't see any found phones, and that means it could have fallen out of my coat pocket in the cab or on the sidewalk somewhere. I doubt I'll find this phone.

Oh, this is the suck.

I guess I could write something about technology and how much we depend on it. ("Dude, what did people do before cell phones?!?!?!?!?!") But I'm not going to do that, because I like technology. I like cell phones. Especially when I actually have one.

I do have a non-cell phone story that I find amusing. I woke up to find an instant message from my friend Emily, which said, "How do I set my MySpace profile to private? I asked my eight-graders how to make my page look pretty and they told me they were going to search for me."

Take THAT.

Back when I was still using the blog feature on MySpace, I wrote this entry on October 13th:

I applied to Urban Outfitters; when I took the application back in I handed it to the girl at the register and asked if there was a manager there I could talk to. She said that he left, then she proceeded to READ my application and said, "Have you worked retail before?" I said yes, and she continues to read it and said, "Uh, WHERE have you worked?" I told her a wine store, a bookstore, a drug store, which are all retail places, and she continued to look confused. I wanted to remind her that since she just told me that the manager had just left, she shouldn't grill me on my previous work experience seeing as she is NOT the manager. I wanted to take her scarf off and strangle her with it. Because she was inside and wearing a scarf. And it was seventy degrees outside. She didn't need a fucking scarf.

Well, tonight Kristin and Lindsay and I went to Danny's in Bucktown, and that girl was THERE. And I still hate her. But now I can say to her (via the her in my imagination because I'm still slightly shy), "FUCK YOU. I WORK AT URBAN OUTFITTERS NOW."

Ugh, I just wanted to stub a cigarette out in her eye. But I didn't, because I'm a nice guy.

Instead, Kristin and I danced right next to her, knowing that we were dancing better than her and her loser friends.

Also at Danny's tonight I struck up a conversation with some random girl who works at the company that publishes the phone book here in Chicago, and she told me that if I email her my resume that she can guarantee me a first-string interview for one of the sales/advertising (I don't quite remember because I was on my fourth Red Stripe) positions. I am a networking master!

Goodnight!

Gainful' Employ.

I'm officially employed at Urban Outfitters in the housewares department. That's the good news. The bad news is that I'm only going to be making eight dollars an hour. I guess it's better than nothing, and maybe if I don't spend all of my money on alcohol, I can make it stretch. Though I see it becoming an issue trying to pay my Lakeview rent on eight dollars an hour.

I guess that means I'll have to find another job, but I'll take a break for a while and continue to just apply online because there's no way I'm going to find another job in the next few weeks when it took me five months to get the first one.

In other news, I had a missed connection-worthy encounter last night with a cashier at Borders. I bought Requiem for a Nun by Faulkner because it is the sequel to Sanctuary, one of the novels that I had to read twice for Dr. Cash at JMU. When I went up to the counter to pay, the girl said enthusiastically, "I just looked at this book, and not just to put it on the shelf or anything." Then we had a quick two minute conversation about Faulkner and Henry James.

I'm kind of excited about Urban Outfitters. I was getting dressed to go aaalll the way down to the Gold Coast to talk to the manager right when I got the call, so at least they saved me a trip.

And hey, at least I'll get that sweet discount on Penguin shirts.

Monty got a raw deal.

My bed keeps shaking and I really hope that doesn't mean I'm about to be possessed by the devil.

Yesterday I got a MySpace message from some dude who runs a Cubs podcast. He found this picture on my Flickr page and wants to use it at the Cubs convention for a fake caption contest. That pretty much justifies my purchase of a Flickr pro account. If he does actually use it I'll have to figure out how to put that on my resume.

I haven't really gotten out of bed today, but it's still before noon, so it's not so bad (I have seven minutes until I even admit I have a problem). I was somewhat productive in the sense that I emailed my World Book "contact" about not hearing anything back about my resume. I need to email Hot Recruiter because she didn't return my call yesterday about helping me rewrite my resume.

Seriously, why the hell is my bed shaking? I could blame it on the wind, since my bed is up against the wall, but that seems unlikely. It's obviously the work of Satan.

I listened to Jake Fogelnest and Jackie Clarke's radio show last night and it made me really want to do a show again. I miss WXJM a lot; I wish I started with it earlier - if only the people before my year weren't so damn intimidating. While listening to Jake and Jackie, I became reminiscent because they played the theme music that accompanied that animated sequence that HBO would play before a movie started. You know the one: there was a swooping camera flying over a model city and then a big HBO would kind of explode out of the sky or something. I'll probably have that music stuck in my head all day now.

Alright, I need to get out of bed and find a job now.

Silly poop day.

Man, I'm really enjoying this forty-degree Chicago weather. Remember when it was six degrees? Whoa, that was cold!!

[Dear VH1 executives: did you just see how I can recollect things that happened a week ago? Hint, hint!]

I have a sore throat again so I went to the Osco to buy some Echinacea. I don't understand why the 400mg Echinacea is less expensive than the 125mg Echinacea, but I don't care because I want to hit this cold with as much herbal supplement as possible!

Also, Osco was having a sale: buy one bottle of Echinacea, get one free. Great. I now have enough Echinacea for every sore throat in Chicago.

I was really only going to get one bottle. I don't need two bottles of Echinacea. Of course, I end up in Jo Ann's line, and she made me run back and get another bottle. Jo Ann is this older woman who works at the Southport Osco who never ceases to drive me crazy. I think she has some personality disorder that makes her turn crazy mid-transaction. She can start out by calling me dear and then make me feel like an asshole by the time she hands me the receipt. She also drives me up the wall because she's the only Osco employee who sits down at the register and tells the customer to slide their merchandise closer to her.

I'm also kind of in a bad mood because I went to Gap today to return a Christmas present a family friend gave me. I was excited when I got there because they were having an end-of-the-season-sale and I found this great coat that was marked down seventy dollars. When I got to the register, I handed the woman my return item, and she informed me that she couldn't take it because it was purchased at the Gap outlet. Aurgh!

I was in a bad mood for the rest of the afternoon so I came home, watched the original King Kong (which, by the way, is really dumb, but we have to pretend it's good because it was made in 1933 and was therefore extremely impressive for its time, the same way we would say a first-grader's sponge painting of a blue dinosaur is a goddamn masterpiece) and then took a nap. I did make some phone calls today, even though no one answered and I had to leave voicemail that will surely go unreturned.

I'm going to make tonight great, though. I'm going to take my Echinacea, get two dollar martinis from Strega Nona with Kristin, watch Wedding Crashers and Project Runway, then pass out at a reasonable hour. Hurrah!

Happy Birthday, Morgan!

Here's why I love my friend Morgan:

On the night before I drove to Chicago from Virginia, I went to see Liz Phair with Morgan in Alexandria. We had a great time; we yelled out song requests which Liz did not play (but she did reply, "That corner sure loves Girlysounds!"), got drunk off a few pitchers, watched Cary Brothers (that's just one guy, by the way) hop into a car with random NOVA chicks, and went to some bar where Morgan pointed out some dude she knew and his gold-digging girlfriend (where were you then Kanye West?).

The next morning I had to wake up super early so I could drive back home to Montross and then hop into a U-Haul with my father to drive to Illinois. I woke up surprisingly on my own without using the snooze function on the alarm, got dressed and packed in Morgan's really classy living room (she even had a somewhat-comfortable sofa bed!) and tip-toed upstairs to tell her goodbye.

I knocked on her door, which was half-open, and called out her name. She kind of jerked up in bed, and that was when I noticed that she was wearing a nightgown. Like, a grandmother's nightgown. With her boob hanging out.

Don't worry, readers! I didn't see anything bad because Morgan was wearing a bra. Yes, Morgan Hungerford wears a granny nightgown and a bra to bed. I mean, the nightgown is one thing, but the bra? I read in a teenage girl magazine that wearing a bra to bed stunts breast growth!

So, happy 25th birthday, Morgan! I salute you!

PS. Buy stuff from her clothing line. Muss is way cool.

Gay day.

Today Nicole and I watched about four hours of What Not To Wear. Then we went to see Brokeback Mountain with Kristin.

The movie was okay. It was definitely better than the short story, which sums up a pretty complex story that spans twenty years in just twenty pages. I reread it over break (I read it the first time for my creative writing class at JMU), and I thought to myself, "If I turned something like this in, my classmates would HATE it." It's not a very dense short story. Seriously, it could have been a whole novel.

Anyway, the movie was pretty to watch. Also, the acting was spectacular. But as a film... ehh. I think it's just been over-hyped as the first mainstream movie to feature a romance between two men, but it really wasn't that shocking and edgy. I mean, I realize that it was probably much more marketable to have the sexuality handled "tastefully" and with subtly, but seriously, if you're trying to make a statement, just do it.

I was also really more interested in the main characters' wives. I understand that they were in sort of a weird situation, but it was still pretty shitty that they just cheated on their wives for a long period. I guess Michelle Williams's character gets more sympathy since she's much more developed than Anne Hathaway's (even though I really found how her hair became bigger with time to be very entertaining).

Finally, I had some beef with the completely cliched symbolism of the shirts at the ending (which I won't explain further because I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't seen the movie).

(In response to the anonymous comment about my criticism of the film):
I found this on Salon.com and this quote from Stephanie Zacharek's review of the film puts into words what I was trying to inarticulately say:
"After those first risky mountainside idylls, the relationship between Jack and Ennis supposedly grows and deepens, through long separations and marriage to other people... But we're never allowed to see how Jack and Ennis navigate those changes. One minute they're kissing hungrily and furtively, reunited after spending many years apart; the next they're cuddling on a motel bed, sharing whispered hopes and fears about their future, or lack thereof. Lee and his actors give us the occasional snapshot of intimacy, but that's not the same as wrapping us in its glow, or making us feel the danger of it in our bones. This is an unconventional love story that's carefully calibrated to offend no one... [and] risks so much less than its characters do -- it's a closeted movie."
Zacharek also mentions the very ambiguous conversation between Heath Ledger and Anne Hathaway's characters at the end of the film, which also confused me quite a bit, but it is the only instance in the film that is up for interpretation. Overall, I agree with her review of the movie except that I found that all of the actors did remarkable jobs.

We also went to Improv Olympic to see Improv Match Game for the first time since October. The theater was packed, which surprised us because it was always empty when we went before. Plus, it was a fantastic show. Rich Prouty poured beer on a "celebrity" panelist's head! Comic gold! Plus, as usual, Rich picked two people from our group to give prizes to. He's picked Janna, Kristin, and me at least three times each. I'm not complaining; one time I got Frango mints!

Tomorrow I have to get up early and go with Nicole to O'Hare. Then I get to make calls to temp agencies - how exciting!

One more cup of coffee before I go...

...or just one more blog entry before I go to bed.

Today Dan, Kristin, Nicole and I met up with our friend Steve and went to Schuba's / The Harmony Grill with him. We met at his apartment which is fantastic. It's big, it has a fireplace nook with built-in bookshelves, and it has a rooftop deck. I always get jealous when I see other apartments, and I think that it makes me really hate our house. I've never felt settled in. My room is too big and it only has three walls (the slanted ceiling that I thought was awesome in August quickly became a pain). I haven't unpacked and now I can't in the event that I have to move home. All of our walls are white - really off-white. Our basement is way too big and we don't know what to put in half of it.

I just can't wait to be a real adult with a real adult job. I want to buy real furniture. I want to afford Crate and Barrell. I want a couch that doesn't have a wooden frame. I want to frame all of my posters instead of putting them on the walls with straight pins.

I know that's stupid but it's true. I still feel like in college sometimes, and I kind of want to avoid that.

I have to return to the old job hunt frustration this week. I've been pretty happy here for about a month, basically because I got some temp work and wasn't so scared about not having any money. But four days in a month isn't steady enough. And business will go on as usual in Chicago and I'll have to jump back into the search. Blah.

I'll have to go back to Urban Outfitters again so I can have a definite idea if I have a job there. I'm hoping that the temp agencies will come up with something a little more long-term. I don't care at this point, I need a job because I don't want to move home to Virginia.

I was planning to get my friends together at the party before the countdown so we could all shout out our retractions from 2005. I did this once when Martha and I went to West Lafayette, Indiana to her brother's New Year's party. You basically just choose one event from the year that you'd rather forget, and it's gone. It's better than resolutions because we all know those are all bullshit. Surprisingly, I can't really think of anything that I'd like to forget from the past year. Sure, I got a little too drunk a few times, spent too much money, graduated, moved to Chicago without any kind of plan or direction, but it hasn't been so bad in the long run. I've been pretty pleased, I suppose.

G'night!

Happy New Year!

It's New Year's Day. We survived the party, which, I must admit, was a success. Except that we had way too much alcohol and now have a half-full keg sitting in a plastic tub of water in our laundry room.


Also, we had real Cristal and no one was shot. I had two glasses (I ended up finding one glass sitting on a table in an empty room and grabbed that shit!) and I'll admit: three-hundred dollar champagne tastes a lot like ten dollar champagne.


I think the highlight of the party was Kristin's mirrorball. When we found out (four drinks into the night) that there wasn't an official televised countdown for the central time zone, Kristin decided to make a mirror ball. When no one could provide her with a balloon, she ran and blew up a condom. Yes. We had a mirrorball that was made out of a condom, aluminum foil, and a string of mirrorball garland. Oh, and a lot of packaging tape.

Because there wasn't a real countdown at midnight, we kind of just made one up. And when Dan realized that the satellite clock still said "11:59" when we yelled, "Happy New Year!" he just knocked it over. I think I was the only person to notice.

Now we're exhausted and our house is filthy and we have to figure out what to do with the leftover alcohol. But I'm happy. When we moved in I told Kristin that my goal was to somehow have enough people over to have a big party. Sure, I didn't know half of the people here because they were mostly Joe's friends, but it was a good time nonetheless.