Lip service.

Internets! Word.

So yesterday, I had one of those infuriating situations wherein I could not for the life of me find my lip gloss. This isn’t saying that I had lost all 453,697 tubes of lip gloss that are scattered throughout my house; I had just lost the one lip gloss that I am currently using and attached to, thereby negating the other 453,696. Anyways, I searched high and lo, lo and high, and nothing came up. What was driving me bat-shit crazy was that I knew – KNEW – that if I bought another one (to the tune of $6.99! Life, you are too expensive), I would find the tube that I lost. However, my lips felt like a dead person’s lips (or what I imagine a dead person’s lips would feel like, I am not talking from experience here), so I broke down and bought another tube.

Flash forward to that evening, when I was sitting in my normal evening spot, sucking down a couple Fla-Vor-Ices, and I look down at the ground, and what do I see? My lipgloss! Only it was a good thing that I bought another one, because the tube was punctured with several doggie-sized tooth holes! Turns out my gloss had been taken to the Secret Lair (read: under the couch) where my underpants, Steve’s socks, and now apparently sweet-smelling lip gloss go to die.

So it wasn’t completely Crappy Consumer of me to buy a new gloss, I would have needed to anyways.* Which made me feel pretty good. I had decided, though, to go with “Pucker Berry” instead of my “Zesty Red” when I re-bought, because even though people claimed to like the red on my lips, I always felt like “Zesty Red” had me walking that shaky, fine line between “pretty” and “two-bit corner prostitute.” But it turns out that “Pucker Berry” should really just be called “Emily’s Normal Lip Color,” because that’s really all it is. Oh wells. I’m going to protect this tube until it runs out, and then I can re-asses whether “Zesty Red” and I can live in harmony.

*Well, buy another lip gloss to go with the 453,696 that are at home.**
**I should really throw all of those out.

You ARE my boo.

I desperately, desperately want this t-shirt:

Anderson Cooper, "you're not my boo"

Lovely loveliness.

So I have to give a shout-out where one is due. Chicago really stepped it up a notch this past weekend, weather-wise. It was beautiful, not too hot, not too windy, sunny....heaven! Actually, it was what San Francisco should have been when I was there last month, only instead it was 90 degrees, and because I'm a fragile flower when it comes to heat (read: practically a vampire), I kept on having to sit down, felled by cases of "the vapors."

I think Chicago might have pulled out the weather stops because the lovely Patti and Jay were in town. As expected, they totally kick ass and take names. Jay even signed my copies of The Plug Anthologies. One day when he's rich and famous, those are going to be worth something, baby.

Here's a weird story, though:

Before I left to go meet Patti and Jay, I was getting dressed and I asked Steve what he though I should wear, not really because he cares or because I care about what he thinks of my outfits, but more because he was there, and I had to muse about it to someone. Anywho, he said, jokingly, "Wear a dress. Be a lady for once." So I punched him in the face, then put on a dress.

So on my way home from Plug signing and drinks, I cut through Wicker Park, and passed a mailman. He looked at me and said, "Lookin' lovely today!" Which I responded to with a smile and a "Thank you," because my mom raised me right. But then - then! He looked at me with this sort of pained expression and went, "You just can't help being lovely, can you." Like I was hurting him with this supposed loveliness or something. I felt guilty. Guilty! I ducked my head and walked away! Stupid mailman!

****

In other news, I've started back up at school again. Time to finish that Master's, once and for all. So even though I wasn't posting before for no good reason, now I have a totally viable, acceptable one for why I'll be MIA. Which, oddly, makes me feel better about neglecting this blog. Maybe, if I have some time, I'll work on the layout so that it's no longer this pink that burns out your eyeballs. Maybe.

We meet again.

Internet! I'm so sorry I've been away. I actually haven't been away, really, it's just that most of my Internet time has been spent on my 365 project. Which I'm happy to report that I haven't given up on, even with my tendency to be wishy-washy, as well as a Quitter. No! I'm over a third of the way done, actually. My grand plan is to print all of the photographs out and put them in an album, along with the outtakes. Or at least some of the outtakes. Some of them are rather ridiculous. Anywho, so this album will be a sort of virtual diary of this past year. I'm pretty excited about it. I just need to find my memory card, get to a photo place, print the photos, buy an album....!!!! I guess I still have 240 days to get that started, so I'm not sweating it.

Anyways! Some things:

1. Changed the layout of this page, just because I was tired of the old one. However, this is rather shockingly pink. If anyone has any suggestions for making a page that's not sort of lame, that would be cool. One thing that really bugs me about Blogger is how all of the formats cut photos off on one of their sides.

2. I'm re-making my clapotis. My first attempt at the clapotis did not end well, but this time around has gone pretty smoothly, so far:



I'm hoping to have it done before I leave for List Number 3.

3. Oh yeah: I'M LEAVING FOR SAN FRANCISCO IN A WEEK!! My friends and I are going to visit another friend who's at Berkeley. Girls only, so Steve needs to stay at home. He's totally despondent. But I need this vacation, man. Time to unwind, be away from responsibilities, get some good Girl Time in....yes. I'm very excited.

4. I went to a beginning sewing class on Saturday, at this adorable basement shop in Bucktown. In four hours, they taught us a hell of a lot of stuff, and I ended up with a great pillow at the end:



So now, I want to sew EVERYTHING. A little birdie told me that this is a very good book for beginners like me. Amazon's already got my cash.

5. I've been spending the last few months green-ing my apartment. Yes, all of the hype in the news was sufficient enough to scare me into replacing all of my cleaning products, throwing reusable bags into my purse, not using paper napkins....it's costing me a frickin' FORTUNE to do it, but I figure a little expense now for a better environment for those kids I allegedly plan on having? Sign me up.

****

So that's it for me. Internet, I still love you, and look at everyone else's blogs every day. I promise to be a better little blogger.....but maybe not until I get back from San Francisco.

Get cool, boooooy.

So I've been taking the dogs on these epic walks, right into the thick of things in Wicker Park, to try to get them to be more socialized when a dog goes by. Which, in a large metropolitan city, is once every 5 seconds. Anyway, I've realized that I've taught them not to bark by using the words "Be cool, be cool." Apparently, I am training my dogs not to bark, while at the same time teaching them how to make it in a West Side Story gang.

****

Last night, we went for margaritas at Tecalitlan:



I ended up like this:



Damn margaritas and their ability to make you not feel your feet.

I owe the Chicago Public Library ninety dollars.

Just now, I was writing an email to my friend Jeff about books we've read, and while I was doing this, my brain said to itself, "Gosh, I wish they had something like Netflix for books."

And then my brain thought about it, and then went, "Oh good Lord. That's what a library is."

I was appalled that my brain had this monologue with itself. Even more appalling, though, was that I found out that there actually is such a thing.

Saying goodbye.

Today on the way home from work for lunch, “Undone” came on the radio, and instinctively I rolled down my window and turned it up, as I’ve found I always do whenever a Good-Era-Weezer song comes on the air. It’s like I’m slipping back in time to eighth grade, where I would do the same thing, I guess in the hopes that another like-minded eighth-grade boy would hear the music and turn in the direction of the car, and from there a tumultuous eighth-grade relationship would begin. I think you can probably guess that this never happened. I bet it’s just because my mom was crimping my style, there in the driver’s seat.

Anyways, so I’m jamming, right, and then I remember a conversation that Steve and I had last night over dinner, which involved him giving me the news that Weezer is releasing a new album, and that said album won’t have a name, but it will be colored red, a la 1994 and 2001.

He also told me that word on the street is that Rivers is also sporting a thin, hipster-ironic mustache, too. I guess here I should clarify that "the street" = music message boards that Steve contributes to, which I consistently make fun of because he makes fun of me for my Flickr obsession. Glass houses, Steve. But anyways - Rivers! Thin, hipster-ironic mustache! On any other man I'd say that I'm 100% pro-facial hair of any kind, EVEN the ironic kind, but because he's Rivers Cuomo, this news just makes me want to sock him square in the mustachioed* face!

My hatred for Rivers is based partly on his horrible musical contributions in the last few years, but more because of that time when Weezer did a record-signing at Mars Cheese Castle, and Steve went, and as they were getting on to their bus Steve called, "Wait! Would any of you like a cheese curd?" Brian Bell and Rivers gave him dirty looks, while Patrick Wilson said, "Sweet! Thanks!" and took one. So everyone in Weezer save Patrick Wilson are dead to me now.

Needless to say, 2008 Me gave a sad, figurative wave goodbye to 1994 Me, rolled the window up, and changed the radio station.

****

As I was leaving my house on the way back from this same lunch, I remembered I hadn't taken my birth control pill yet, so I did a little pillpop&walk to my car. I looked up as I was multitasking, and saw a chick walking with two little kids in a stroller right in front of me. She sort of looked at me, and I can't be sure if it was because I might be in her way, or if she saw that unmistakeable packaging and was offended that I remembered to take my pills because I saw her kids. That wasn't the case at all! Wise 2008 Me realized, though, that trying to possibly explain this to a total stranger was venturing into a World of Hurt, so I just felt like a tool and soldiered on.

Then I bashed my head on the doorframe of my car, which I normally would want to do something stupid like chalk that up to karma or something, but fuck that noise. As of now I refuse to be superstitious.

*Mustachioed is one of my favorite words! I got sort of bummed when I read that there is an adjective equivalent for plain old mustache. I refuse** to use it.

**I'm chock-full of refusals today! Ask me to marry you! I'm not going to say yes!