berry hatchet

for the last month i've been in a delightful e-mail conversation with one of the brightest early-20-somethings i know. we've touched upon lots of things and recently we discussed (mostly i rambled and he probably yawned) free will/fate/simultaneity/other ideas about How Life Works.

i've been drawing the conclusion lately (buckle up...this goes against most things i've probably said to you) that maybe there isn't fate. maybe all these synchronicities and seeming connections between events and thoughts and actions and causes and effects are just a function of the human mind to make sense of it all. we can create our own little narrative arc by assigning significance to every thing that we do and every thing that happens to us and every thing that someone says to us and every thing we think about other people. but maybe it doesn't really matter.

this is what i've been considering of late. then something happened tonight that has me drawing connections between everything and totally ignoring that theory.

tonight i was floored to hear from an ex-boyfriend that i had been thinking of recently, asking that we call a truce and neutralize the bad blood that flows between. contact initiated yesterday with an even more significant someone from my past that an intriguing person from my present reminds me of makes this reconnection seem even more meaningful somehow.

but maybe it's all just coincidence and this is how my mind and shaky emotions and can handle this. i'm just glad it is all positive.

keepin' it irie in 2Kten.

dream accomplishments

i made a film in a dream a few nights ago.

well, in the dream my friend had actually made it, but i watched it. in reality, it all came from me.

it was kind of sad, in the context of the dream (wah wah wah, unrequited love), but it is totally awesome and beautiful in the context of life. i have written songs and stories in dream before, and now i have created a movie!

i get frustrated, though, that i am in the midst of some serious writer's block while awake. when i have time to sit down and sift through my thoughts, i draw a blank. i can compose rambling emails and blog posts, but i can't craft the self-indulgent quasi-autobiographical vignettes that help keep me sane.

let me sleep, though, and i'll give you a masterpiece. always and forever dreams are my favorite part of being alive.

what's the coolest thing you have ever done in a dream?

when i went off to college at 18, i thought i'd be a psychology major. i was enrolled at a research university and i thought i could study sleep and dreams. then i transferred to a hippie school to study journalism under men inspired by woodward & bernstein. now look at me -- pushing caffeine and studying new media (whatever that is, right?).

unrelated, but noteworthy:

- happy birthday (a few hours late) to my favorite christian.

- r.i.p. howard z

- we got our first bad yelp review today

- watch, listen and melt away with me:

muy feo

i know i'm always bloggin' about how i don't want to marry and certainly don't want to reproduce, but i must blog about it again.

first of all, digesting this book makes me realize what an empowered-and-unencumbered-by-the-feminine-mystique woman i am. i truly am a woman of the 90s.

secondly, please watch this video recently posted on the family blog, for an illustration of things i'd not like to propagate:



1. childhood obesity
2. prepubescent sexuality/loss of innocence/loss of self-respect
3. aping of vapid music videos and lousy mainstream musicians: he makes an aggressive, scowling angry face. kids are supposed to be happy!!

i'm not trying to be a total downer, but this is garbage. seeing that little fella stuffed into those outfits highlights how ridiculous that style is. i'm all about self-expression and i will be the first to admit i don't have great style (jeff will second this, as he calls my look "junkie librarian chic"). but look at the stuff they put on mini daddy! terrible! that is eye pollution! usually, unattractive things get worse as they get bigger, but seeing the mini version of those outfits (help me out with the name of that style?) is far worse than seeing full-grown autonomous men wearing that stuff. maybe it's the idea of some father dressing his 9 year old son -- much like a doll -- to match him that disturbs me.

what is mini daddy learning from his 15 minutes of fame? how to thrust his pelvis at 7-year-old girls shakin' it. how to be materialistic. how to throw his hands around at the camera.

this is why i say people should take a break from reproducing for a while! i feel sorry for mini daddy. it's not his fault. his parents (and agent) should know better.

(sorry, brother jeff. i'm not trying to dis your pick. paul's is a little more adult contemporary while simultaneously very kidz bop. materialistic and subtly sexy, as well.)

confessional

i always find it amusing when people (the sexist in me wants to type "women" but the humanist in me knows it goes for any and all gender-identifications) order a mocha or a flavored latte with skim milk.

really? you're trying to save yourself 40 or 50 calories on a nearly 500-calorie drink? srsly? we all know that whole milk tastes best in a latte! c'monnnn!!! the syrup you're asking me to add contains almost 100 calories per pump! chemical calories, even!! oh, and you want a scone, too?

before i was a business owner, i would give whole milk to women (this time it is gender-specific and i was being sexist) i presumed were watching their calories. i know this was some sort of revolt against my own former habits of calorie restriction (and worse) in the name of weight loss and/or maintenance. in fact, i'm such a hypocrite that i often still fix myself lattes with skim milk, all the while thinking "silly girl!" about anyone (male or female or neutral) who orders a latte with the same milk choice. then i wash my latte down with a bagel and cream cheese. i am over most of my food hang-ups (i even eat bacon now!) and my body couldn't be happier.


now that it is my establishment, i give customers exactly what they order. but that doesn't mean i can quiet the judge in my brain. and i know the judge is mostly judging my own illogical drink choices. but i can sleep better at night thinking other people are treating their tongues wrong than recognizing my own faults.

crazy prophylactics

a friend was lamenting her relatively new status as a stay-at-home mom yesterday. she said she took her daughters to a birthday party and was among the other mothers and it hit her that this was her lot.

a quick background on the friend: she and her wife have two daughters (one is 2.5 years old and one is 15 months). she has worked as a chef for years (a hectic profession, in case you didn't know) and opened her own cafe -- working seemingly around the clock -- about a year ago. her wife works downtown as a civil engineer. she recently closed her cafe and is taking a more pro-active role in raising their two beautiful girls.

back to the story: the friend said she was talking with the other mothers and there was a sadness about many of them. one spoke wistfully of what she used to do before motherhood. others seemed resigned to the fact that that's "all" they were - stay-at-home moms. i sensed that she and these other women felt they could be doing something more worthwhile with their time; felt they could be going after bigger dreams and goals. of course there were some who were perfectly happy in their domestic role, who had probably dreamt since girlhood of marrying a prince charming and poppin' out some mini-mes and running them around to play dates and soccer practices. no thanks.

i told friend that i admired that she gave up what she loves to take care of people she loves. i also admire that parenting is literally a full-time job. there is no downtime. you can never not be a parent so long as your kids are alive. on the other hand, it is not a lifestyle i'd like to have. i chalk that up to the fact that i am still young and have lots of living for myself to do before i start living for children. also, i don't want to birth anything or anyone.

today i finally began reading The Feminine Mystique.


the first chapter deals with exactly what my friend spoke of. friedan calls it "the problem that has no name." i think it's interesting that 46 years later, women still feel suffocated and smothered by stay-at-home-motherhood. the more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?

stepping outside the box

there was a time, which lasted years, when i would make a conscious effort to ignore sidewalks and paved paths. i viewed them as The Man holding me down. i would mentally slap my knuckles when following the dog-leg sidewalk instead of cutting across the grass.

i thought i was beginning to de-program myself from the mainstream. paving my own path, blazing my own trail, yadda yadda yadda.

then i dated a landscape architect for a while. one day i told him about my plot to undo The Man's brainwashing. i knew this would be a touchy subject. he set me straight quickly, explaining something he read in landscape architect college: a group of landscape architects did a study on a college campus quad, allowing students to naturally erode paths in the grass. the result was a pattern which is seen on most campuses today -- spoke-like.

he told me that it's actually bad to ignore the sidewalks and paved paths because then you are crushing and eroding the grass. also, a landscape architect like him was paid a lot of money to decide where to put the sidewalk. and a landscaper was paid far less to do the more demanding job of realizing the landscape architect's plan. give them a break.

anyway, since he opened my eyes to the Goodness of sidewalks and paved paths (this was years ago), i have been a changed woman. i will stick it to The Man in other ways. like boycotting H&M (and trying harder than ever to only buy my clothes second-hand) from now on.

i walk through buttercup playlot every day. it is a small park with a paved path that proves a hypotenuse to the right angle that is the intersection of my street and another street. the paved path is arbitrarily curved, mostly for aesthetics, i believe. it has been covered in snow for a month or so, and other pedestrians have sort of formed their (our) own little curved path from gate to gate.

i found this interesting. there is no need to do this when unmarred white covers the ground. we could walk an almost perfectly straight line (save a slight bend to avoid running into a tree) when there is snow underfoot. but we don't. because The Man tells us not to.

now that there has been a bit of a premature thaw, the paved path is visible. it amuses me to see that our snow-curve was not far off from the actual paved path-curve.

i guess jack was right, after all.

sorry, y'all

if you've caught the negative pole of my recent mood swings, you should try to catch up with me this weekend.

two of my favorite living human beings are entering chicago in exactly two hours and it will be a hectic, but much needed, weekend of frivolity and bacon. the only thing that could make it better is if brother paul had booked his rich @$$ a ticket to the windy city.

though i probably would have imploded from mirth-overload.

in any case, this is my blanket apology to anyone and everyone i've been a psychopathic clown to in the last week. i will either be completely exhausted and even crazier next week, or i will be riding out the afterglow of a weekend spent with my highly influential big brother and his (inner and outer) beauty queen of a wife.

bartlett's

in a fit of winter-induced sadism, i decided to watch a favorite movie while i fell asleep last night (though i only managed to keep my eyes open for about 20 minutes). it reminds me of most of the men/boys i've had feelings for (minus my most recent relationship, which was more reminiscent of American Psycho), thus depressing me every time i view it without fail.

there are a few scenes and lines that cut right through me and leave me lying in my own lonely blood. for instance, when joel tells clementine that intimacy isn't constant talking. i cringe a thousand times over. and when david cross's character's wife disses him. she doesn't know what a gem she has! (i kid, i kid. kind of.)

help me feel better: what films bring out the worst in your self-esteem?

see you at tha crossroads

i have been lucky, kind of, in that no person i have unconditional, familial love for has died yet. i sometimes think i am unlucky for this, because when it happens, i will be (am already) a grown adult and will probably lose my marbles for some time.

my mom called this weekend to let me know they had to put tobie, the cat i've had since i was just barely 6 years old, to sleep. i haven't really grieved yet and i don't think it will completely hit me until i return home in about a year and don't hear her sad, aging meow.

her late days were sad. hanging out at mom's house during my short stint back home was kind of depressing. blind, she slowly ricocheted off the living room furniture every time she got out of her favorite chair and did a lap around the room.

i took her into my teenage bedroom and laid on my bed with her the day i left. she used to love hanging out with me in my room, exploring caverns made by pillows and blankets. this time she was scared, confused and lost.

this photo has been the background on my phone since that day:


every time i open my phone now, i am reminded that the friend i've had the longest is gone. and then my mind immediately moves on to think about something else. i hope i don't play this unconscious game of distraction when humans in my life pass away.

well i wonder (by the smiths)

a few questions that have been plaguing my mind of late. please answer as you see fit:

1. can you tell someone you find them fascinating without feeling like a creep? or rather, should i feel like a creep if i tell a fascinating person how fascinating i find him?

2. what's the deal with vices? why do we have to have them? why can't i have a stretch of time longer than a day or two without giving in to any vices? why does one vice replace another?

3. WHAT ARE DREAMS? mine have been really intense lately. y'all know dreams are practically my favorite part of being alive. but what are they?

4. why is rock 'n roll so satisfying?

waiting to exhale (by whitney h)

a friend recently quoted a line from a fellini film in his blog which sums up how i feel about 90% of the time: "I have nothing to say, but I want to say it anyway." that's good, right?

today, however, i have lots to say and little energy to say it.

click here.

employee pwned and operated

we are opening the coffee shop tomorrow.

i am all of these things: stressed, depressed, excited, nervous, miserable, happy, proud, anxious, fed-up, burnt out, procrastinating, doubtful, exhausted.

if you live in chicago, a visit to the cafe in the coming month would mean the world to me. if you don't live in chicago, a visit to the cafe in the coming month would be sort of creepy but kind of awesome.

beware, they say

drunk and with bitter fingers, i composed an e-mail around 3:30 am this morning (last night?) that aimed to end an emotional tug-of-war we've been playing for about six months. hasty? that's debatable. sharp and to the point (in a roundabout way my insecurity refuses to abandon)? mhm.

the most amazing part of it is i used the word 'recalcitrant' and i used it correctly. it just popped out of my brain. it is a word i would never dare to use in a sentence while sober without first checking its definition to be sure i used it correctly. but i was drunk. i had just returned from drinking lots of champagne and shots of bourbon. happy new year.

oh, don't worry, the tug-of-war continues. the addressee came to visit me today before having read the e-mail and we talked the talk, calling truce over pizza and a movie tonight (did i totally ruin that metaphor?). but that's not really the point.

the point is, i shouldn't be allowed near the internet when i'm drunk. even if it does enhance my vocabulary. a while ago google unveiled a function in the labs called goggles. it had you complete a few math equations, i think, before you could send an e-mail. i don't regret last night's e-mail because it was honest and forced me to say things out loud today. but there are certainly past e-mails sent while half-lit that i wouldn't have minded being blocked from sending. i should look into email/blog goggles.

i am mostly impressed with my correct word use and with the fact that i didn't write anything regrettable. i usually second-guess and half-regret any form of communication made after 11 pm regardless of what i've ingested that day.