The Surprise of the Century...

Hi.

Just wanted to tell you what the surprise of the century is.

My parents left for Texas this morning to have Christmas with my sister and her now fiance (yep...you read that right. Merry Christmas to Shauna) and get back to their daily lives. They have no idea my sister is flying me in this evening as one of their "gifts." You hear that? For today through Wednesday morning, I am considered a "gift." While I'm gone,

Please Do Not Disturb.

Unless I Disturb You First.

Until we meet again:

Ghost hunt.


Peace be with you.
And also with you.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve...

So I am going to pick up my parents in a few. Their flight is delayed. I wish I had known that an hour ago so I could've slept in. Let's just say I had a yucky night. Let's say it involved me being me. And let's just say it ended with me losing my cell phone for almost an hour in my apartment that I didn't leave the entire night. How does that happen?

Notice the tree. Notice the tree topper. Now notice it up close:


Merry Christmas. I hope ya'll have a safe and happy holiday. Peace and Joy.

One Day Left...

Until my parents arrive. I'm so excited. It's my first Christmas in Chicago. I fool people into thinking I am way more of an adult than I actually am. But honestly, this phrase, "Christmas is at my house this year," may actually qualify me as an adult. The one thing I can't get down is Christmas cards. Every year I say I'm going to send them and every year I don't. I have a lot of people I would love to show some love to at Christmastime who live far away. My friends seem to get on this band wagon every year...one of these days...

The thing that scared me most about Christmas this year was the thought of trying to cook Christmas dinner. My kitchen is SMALL. Did I mention it's really SMALL? My mom and I have enough problems getting along in her kitchen that's normal-sized (because everything is bigger in Texas). Luckily, Ann Sather's is serving Christmas dinner all day Christmas Day. Yeah they are. My parents love the idea of someone else cooking for them. Yeah they do. The sad thing is, after Monday I will have officially gone without my Grandmother's dressing for one year. You have no idea how tragic that is.

P.S. I got invited back to the Law Office today, but unfortunately I have to work at the 'Bucks. Messing with a Blackberry while Alexandra and I have myspace comment wars while sitting twenty feet from one another or being entertained by crazy people, one of whom has admitted to killing people while serving them free samples of coffee (yes, even the homeless are picky about their coffee), which sounds better to you?

AND I dyed my hair. It's freaky how much I look like my sister in this picture:


P.P.S. It's only 6 days until the surprise of the century...if only I could tell you. :)

Work Gets In The Way...

Last Friday some girlfriends and I got together to "improvise." We didn't actually improvise. We had a two hour dance party and ate cupcakes. I know what you're thinking, "That sounds like a cliche slumber party! Did ya'll have a pillow fight too??!!" Well, it kind of was a slumber party without the slumber. For now (meaning for our Cagematch entry) we are called: P.S. The Dandade Breakdown after our good friend Neil Dandade. Ellen unfortunately cannot enter the Cagematch with our team. She was stolen out from under our noses by another team. Bastards. Oh not really. I'm only kidding. Here is our thoughtful picture, where we are thinking about thinking but not actually thinking. Or something.


The truths is:
I am stressed.
I don't normally admit things like that, and don't normally get stressed that easily, but I am. Right now.

I woke up this morning with a list so long running through my head that I want to hide from myself. I realized yesterday I have to pick up some things from my friend Johanna who lives in the South Loop, do my laundry, work, find a Christmas present for my dad (I can't JUST get him a nose hair trimmer, you know?), clean my apartment, and finish my screenplay for Project Writing Reader's Theatre at iO, hopefully all before Saturday morning when my parents get here. I am the first writer to present for Reader's Theater. I'm not as nervous about presenting as I am finishing. I'm usually a last minute kind of girl. But there are other people involved now, not just me, and that's pressure. Argh. My cold is getting a little better though.

Does anyone want to come over and do my laundry, clean, and work at the 'Bucks for me? The rest I can handle if someone could just take care of those little things for me. Thanks. I appreciate it.

Christmas Reflection #3...

That's me. As a kid.

My family always opens presents on Christmas Eve and then Santa comes that night. It's pretty groovy and was especially so as a young child. Not only did I get to open gifts, but I always knew more would be waiting for me the next morning. It may sound like a lot, but I was an only child for most of my life...so I was spoiled. I was not rotten though (well, that one time at my fifth birthday I was. I got really mad that Becky Hill tried to help me open one of my presents. The only reason I remember that is because it's on video). My parents...hold it...I mean Santa, always set up the toys and arranged them. It was like walking into the storefront of Toys R Us. Anything that had batteries was turned on and moving, the My Little Ponies were all arranged inside their My Little Pony Castle, and when I got my child-size kitchen and grocery store, it was ready to go. I also could never sleep past 4am on Christmas morning and would not go back to bed. I had to play with everything three times over.

Santa still comes to visit me. You read that right. He even still comes to visit my sister and her boyfriend/maybe fiance/maybe pimp. That's right. Marry me and Santa will grace your Christmas morning once again. In my house, as long as you don't say he doesn't exist, he will come to visit you. Even when I have kids, I bet he will still come visit. Want to know why? My parents still get stuff from Santa Claus sometimes. So maybe...he IS real after all.

NBC Building Day 2...

That's right folks. I did such a good job stuffing Christmas cards into envelopes that the big boss asked me back to set up his Blackberry. I see the connection. Wish me luck. I have no idea how to set up a Blackberry, I figure that's what Google is for.

While I'm gone:


Don't mess with my Chuck.

And again...

So I've accidentally spent the whole day with Alexandra again, except this time it isn't as fun. It's not Alexandra's fault it's no fun. She asked me to help out our friend Meri, who I know from our fabulous book club, by stuffing envelopes for the law firm Meri works at. I am currently sitting at the front desk doing absolutely nothing because it only took me an hour and a half to stuff the envelopes and now I have nothing to do. Alexandra's office shares an office with the Mary's law firm. A-bomb is currently working in the copy room behind me. We are so close, yet so far away. I saw her briefly while she was trying to locate a newspaper for her boss and when she was opening the mail. But that's it. A giant wooden wall-of-office is separating us now.

I did learn one thing today. In the words of Meri, "Don't ever get married." She has repeated this phrase several times today. Apparently there is an incident involving a ham and an in-law. Ah, the holidays.

Christmas Reflection #2...

That's right. I'm on a Christmas Album.

The Christmas of my senior year in high school, that would be Christmas 2001, my vocal coach, her husband, and daughter decided to gift the students of Forte Vocal Studios, an album. They gave us all the option to pick whatever Christmas song we wanted (with some limitations), gave us free recording time, free post-production time, and even paid for the rights for our songs to appear on the CD. That's pretty cool.

They also generously paid for us to do a photo shoot as a studio for the cover. The picture is not the cover I'm sorry to say. The cover itself wouldn't scan properly. The cover of the album, entitled Frost, has a picture of us looking serious and more music-artist-wannabe-like. This is the smiley picture they printed for our walls at home. It may look like a sweet picture but, in person, the make-up lady turned out to be crazy. We actually looked like we all had black eyes and blood stained lips. The hair lady teased most peoples hair similar to the style worn by many people in 1989, however us "hip" ladies went all "un-Texas" on her and tamed it back down. Also, the mom who I rode with in the car that day to the "hip urban loft" where the shoot took place, was sincerely excited about her new Westlife CD. Google them. I dare you.

Frost was sold somewhere, but I don't remember where. There was talk of it being sold at Wherehouse Music, but then something happened, like, they went out of business.

Not everyone at the studio celebrated Christmas. One girl was (and still is I presume) Jewish. I don't remember what song she sang on the album...but she sang something.

P.S. I recorded Mariah Carey's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).
No you can't hear it.
Unless you're smart enough to MAYBE locate it on myspace.
But you'd have to be really smart to do that.

This Will Change Your Life...

This made me very happy. Please watch the whole thing. It's amazing.

It's 1:30 in the morning. I was sick in bed most of today (now yesterday) and took some Theraflu before my attempted bedtime at 8:30pm. Usually it knocks me out, but tonight it left me wide awake. WIDE awake. I keep un-reminding myself that I have to get up at 6:15am for work this morning. That's five hours from now. And my throat still hurts. Boo to colds.

P.S. Of course I am watching Parental Control, and yes, one of those crazy-ass mo-fo's just propsed to the girlfriend that his parents hate. Priceless.

Christmas Reflection #1...

I have been thinking about past holidays lately, mainly because this one is so rapidly approaching. I thought I might take some time to share some of my favorite memories I have been remembering upon my reflection lately....you dig?

This picture is from my first Christmas in Los Angeles. Yes, I lived there for almost two years.

My friend Aimee and I decided to host a Christmas cocktail party for our women's group and their significant others. At the time, Aimee and I considered each other our significant other so it was only fitting for us to host the party together. The party started at 8pm. Aimee, her brother Jason (pictured above) and I (also pictured above) started our drinking around 6pm. Aimee asked Jason and I to take a candid "action shot" of some party mingling. The champagne bubbles had gotten to our heads by this point and this picture was the best we could come up with. I'm pretty sure I'm laughing, not crying and I'm pretty sure Jason is laughing, not hurling. But can we really be sure? You would have to ask Aimee...

I just noticed that all the shrimp cocktail was gone by this point.

Lonely women...

I took myself to an improv show Thursday night. Just me. I knew some people I know might be there, but it ended up just being me. As I was walking to the train after it was over, a woman who had just exited the Green Mill began talking to me. She asked me where I had been what I had been doing etc... She wasn't a homeless woman by any means and was probably in her late fifties. She proceeded to tell me how she had taken herself to dinner and to see a big band play all by herself and that she didn't care that nobody wanted to go with her. I thought nothing of it really. The woman kept making conversation with me once on the platform about anything that came into her head. It occured to me that she doesn't have a lot of friends or family with which to converse. She is pretty lonely as we speak.

This morning it occured to me that I have taken myself to a movie, an improv show, and lunch this week all by myself. And that's just the total for this week alone. I am becoming this woman and I'm only twenty-three. Help me.

Accidents can happen, they can happen to you...

I had the pleasure of going to lunch with my friend Alexandra on Tuesday. In order to meet her I had to go downtown to her office in the NBC building. She drew me these maps in order to help me find my why. She's pretty thoughtful and must have been avoiding actually working. We had a nice lunch of Japanese food from a food court.

After lunch I went to see a movie with myself. For all of you Julia Cameron fans call it an "artist date." It just so happened that the movie let out right as Alexandra was getting off of work. So we rode the train together. It was sweet.

I thought we were parting ways when we ended up eating dinner together too, this time at Chipotle.

Don't think the night ended there. We went to the Hideout to see Funny Ha Ha which for me was less funny and even lesser ha ha, except for the short film and the woman from Schadenfreude. But our friend from improv class Alissa was there. That was fun. Alexandra and I eventually did have to part ways...but not without accidentally spending two meals and several hours of our day in each others company. So sweet.

The quote of the evening belongs to Alissa. We all were putting our coats on and bundling up when Alissa exclaimed, "Why is there an onion in my pocket?" She then proceeded to pull an onion out of her pocket.

A Tale of Three Parties...

Friday was my first snow day. I've never lived in a place with a real winter before. This is exciting for me.

Saturday, I had the first of many early morning, freezing cold walks to work. I had to be there at 5am, so at if you were out and about Saturday morning, around 4:45 or so, you might have seen me. A giant puff ball of Baby Phat happiness. After my lovely writing class that afternoon, I decided to brave the cold, with my friend Michael and his friend Chelsea, and party hop. We went to three parties, one of which I knew the host and the other two I was just an awesome sidekick.

The first one was full of single women and gay men. You would think if the single ladies wanted a date they would figure out to invite some straight men as well. It was lots of fun and a very nice place.

The third one was filled with four couples and was also in a very nice apartment. It made my paint chipped bathroom door feel a little less special. They had amazing artichoke dip.

The second party, well I saved the best for last. The second party we went to was thrown by a guy named Greg, who is in my writing class. Greg's dad invented the laser light show. He lives in a great apartment with brick walls and all that loft-like jazz. The decor was out of this world, almost literally. There was art on the wall with lights making the colors look as if they were changing and a video projected onto the wall. There were crazy neon lights everywhere and even a train that went around the ceiling. Greg also has every computer ever used since whenever computers were invented. It was so cool. I felt like I was on the set of some really hip sci-fi movie, if those even exist. Way to go Greg.

My grandpa worked on the first computers. However I didn't get his tech smartness like Greg got from his father.