I'm with my Oracle peeps in St. Louis. I don't even know what I'd do without these kids; they are amazing. I can honestly say that my life would be very, very different without them. I love them all to death, and my life is better, richer, and much more fun because of their presence.
I've been having a bit of a hard time lately. I've turned a corner, but I still feel like being alone now shouldn't be this hard. I feel like I should be doing a little bit better than I am, and I am still just really struggling with my life as is. I shouldn't because it's really pretty good, but there's still a part of my heart that's a little (sometimes it feels like a lot) bruised and battered. But things are mending, slowly but surely.
Being here while the World Series is going on is pretty fantastic. We're staying right downtown by the Arch, so we're really close to the stadium. We have plans to wander that way later tonight, maybe heckle a few people, maybe see if Tom starts rooting through a bum's stuff again tonight, etc. etc. I wish the weather were a bit warmer. We brought 16 people to conference this year, which has to be a record, and that's after cutting down the list a tad. We thought we'd be able to bring everyone, because usually only around 8 people can even make it, but for some reason this year we're all just here.
The conference is definitely not as beneficial for me as it once was. There were some good sessions still, but most of them are not tailored to copy editors and most of them are for people with slightly less experience. That makes me sound pretentious. It's not meant that way; it's just that these sessions are largely for people who just haven't had the chances to work with the people that I have and get some of the experiences that I've been lucky enough to have. That still sounds kind of pretentious. Oh well.
It's been a really fun weekend. There will be photo documentation at a later date. There's one I especially love of Malin and I rocking out to the Cure on her iPod. I might have to break down and get me one of those one of these days. It would be nice to have.
Anyway. Time for the evening's activities to commence. This is a really lame blog. Sorry to waste your time.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Monday, October 09, 2006
weekend update!
Oh my. What a weekend I had in Chicago. Talk about getting exactly what I needed. Here is a brief summary.
Friday:
Afternoon:
I leave class, Meagan drives me to the airport. On the way there, we get stuck in the midst of a funeral procession. Yes, a funeral procession. We discuss the ways in which we are unfamiliar with funeral procession traffic etiquette. I am briefly afraid that I will be late to the airport, but we pass the entire procession and continue on our way.
Once in Chicago, I make it to Mel's apartment free from incident. I chill there until she gets home from work - we talk, giggle, gossip, order out for dinner. I consume half of what is quite possibly the most enormous meatball sub known to mankind and then we get ready to go out while drinking plenty of vodka/orange juice.
We hit two of Mel's favorite bars in Chicago, Delilah's and the L&L. At Delilah's, we drink a lot and are offered shots by someone who doesn't even try to suck us into conversation (which we appreciate). A discussion of how we became friends ensues, following which we detail the lack of any attractive guys at the bar, so we head to L&L.
At the train station, we take about twenty pictures of ourselves, giggling uncontrollably the entire time. Once at L&L's, we order another round and then notice that there are still no cute guys around and that we have, in fact, probably already had enough to drink so we head on home, holding hands down the street.
Saturday:
By the time we get up and out of the house, it's past 2. Oh well.
We hit the art museum and learn that language, as it turns out, is not transparent. Our deep artful appreciation of the miniature rooms goes only as far as, "hey, I'd really like to have that wallpaper." We discover that contemporary art is not for us, although a photo exhibition we see is pretty sweet.
We wander around Lincoln Park, browsing through girly things and talking about all the restaurants we see that we'd like to eat at. We feel especially classy walking through this high-class neighborhood with super big gulps from the 7/11.
Getting ready to go out requires aggressive hair styling and much debate about what our clothing choices for the evening should be. Once we're out the door, we head over to the Liar's Club, which turns out to not be such a hotspot for this particular night. Mel's friend Bill calls and invites us back over to Wrigleyville where things are apparently crazy.
Things are just as crazy as we suspected and become even more so. We have a few drinks, joke with all of Bill's friends, who seem to be enjoying our company. We head outside to wait for the trolley that has apparently been ordered for Bill's friend Jenny's birthday. Once on the trolley (which is well-supplied with drinks), headed down the street, Jenny apparently is very angry that Mel and I are there, as we were not invited. Bill and all his friends offer to pay for us and tell her to chill out but tension escalates.
A fistfight breaks out in the back of the trolley and soon Bill is bleeding. The trolley pulls over, and Mel and I, feeling the intensity, leave. We wander around looking for a place to go to the bathroom for awhile, and without any luck end up in a conveniently placed alley. On our way back to the train station, we see four police cars and a police van next to the trolley and wonder how things got so out of control so fast.
On our way back to the train station, Mel decides that really the fight broke out because we are too pretty and the girl whose birthday it was was afraid of us. At the moment, it seems like a pretty good theory. We get home safe, interrupted only by an interesting phone call from Mal.
Once home, we go straight to bed. At 6 a.m. Mel gets a text message from Bill informing her that he had just got out of jail.
For the first night in over a week, I sleep.
Sunday:
We get up and have brunch at the Twisted Spoke, which serves the best French toast I've ever eaten in my life. We then go see The Science of Sleep, a very interesting movie that I don't get and that leaves us with an unidentifiable feeling of some sort of uneasiness.
I pack everything up and head home. Reach home without incident, although as an aside, I think this whole "orange alert" thing at the airports is ridiculous and having to place my hand lotion and lipgloss in a ziploc bag is absurd.
All in all, a pretty sweet weekend. Exactly what I needed - distraction, sleep, and Mel.
Friday:
Afternoon:
I leave class, Meagan drives me to the airport. On the way there, we get stuck in the midst of a funeral procession. Yes, a funeral procession. We discuss the ways in which we are unfamiliar with funeral procession traffic etiquette. I am briefly afraid that I will be late to the airport, but we pass the entire procession and continue on our way.
Once in Chicago, I make it to Mel's apartment free from incident. I chill there until she gets home from work - we talk, giggle, gossip, order out for dinner. I consume half of what is quite possibly the most enormous meatball sub known to mankind and then we get ready to go out while drinking plenty of vodka/orange juice.
We hit two of Mel's favorite bars in Chicago, Delilah's and the L&L. At Delilah's, we drink a lot and are offered shots by someone who doesn't even try to suck us into conversation (which we appreciate). A discussion of how we became friends ensues, following which we detail the lack of any attractive guys at the bar, so we head to L&L.
At the train station, we take about twenty pictures of ourselves, giggling uncontrollably the entire time. Once at L&L's, we order another round and then notice that there are still no cute guys around and that we have, in fact, probably already had enough to drink so we head on home, holding hands down the street.
Saturday:
By the time we get up and out of the house, it's past 2. Oh well.
We hit the art museum and learn that language, as it turns out, is not transparent. Our deep artful appreciation of the miniature rooms goes only as far as, "hey, I'd really like to have that wallpaper." We discover that contemporary art is not for us, although a photo exhibition we see is pretty sweet.
We wander around Lincoln Park, browsing through girly things and talking about all the restaurants we see that we'd like to eat at. We feel especially classy walking through this high-class neighborhood with super big gulps from the 7/11.
Getting ready to go out requires aggressive hair styling and much debate about what our clothing choices for the evening should be. Once we're out the door, we head over to the Liar's Club, which turns out to not be such a hotspot for this particular night. Mel's friend Bill calls and invites us back over to Wrigleyville where things are apparently crazy.
Things are just as crazy as we suspected and become even more so. We have a few drinks, joke with all of Bill's friends, who seem to be enjoying our company. We head outside to wait for the trolley that has apparently been ordered for Bill's friend Jenny's birthday. Once on the trolley (which is well-supplied with drinks), headed down the street, Jenny apparently is very angry that Mel and I are there, as we were not invited. Bill and all his friends offer to pay for us and tell her to chill out but tension escalates.
A fistfight breaks out in the back of the trolley and soon Bill is bleeding. The trolley pulls over, and Mel and I, feeling the intensity, leave. We wander around looking for a place to go to the bathroom for awhile, and without any luck end up in a conveniently placed alley. On our way back to the train station, we see four police cars and a police van next to the trolley and wonder how things got so out of control so fast.
On our way back to the train station, Mel decides that really the fight broke out because we are too pretty and the girl whose birthday it was was afraid of us. At the moment, it seems like a pretty good theory. We get home safe, interrupted only by an interesting phone call from Mal.
Once home, we go straight to bed. At 6 a.m. Mel gets a text message from Bill informing her that he had just got out of jail.
For the first night in over a week, I sleep.
Sunday:
We get up and have brunch at the Twisted Spoke, which serves the best French toast I've ever eaten in my life. We then go see The Science of Sleep, a very interesting movie that I don't get and that leaves us with an unidentifiable feeling of some sort of uneasiness.
I pack everything up and head home. Reach home without incident, although as an aside, I think this whole "orange alert" thing at the airports is ridiculous and having to place my hand lotion and lipgloss in a ziploc bag is absurd.
All in all, a pretty sweet weekend. Exactly what I needed - distraction, sleep, and Mel.
Monday, October 02, 2006
i got served.
So much for not being single. I should've known I'd be back here before too long, but I really didn't. I really thought things were going along just fine. But they weren't.
The thing that sucks the most is how completely inadequate this makes me feel. I hate that another person has so much control over what I think of myself and how I feel on a daily basis.
I know I'm going to be just fine in a little while. But right now, even though the logical, rational part of me knows that none of this is really my fault and that I'm not somehow defective, the other part of me that's sad can only think that if I were somehow different - prettier or funnier or smarter or something - that it would have been enough to make him think I was worth it. And I know that's silly, and it doesn't really make sense and isn't probably true. It's just how I'm reacting to this right now. I thought I would be safer than this.
The other way I'm reacting is by not sleeping. I'm so exhausted - I was already tired, and this was going to be my weekend to catch up on sleep, but no such luck. I'm going to have to start figuring out a way to clear my mind enough to fall asleep soon or I'll go crazy.
I wish I could be more angry or more understanding of what happened and why it did, but I'm not, quite, any of those things. I'm mostly just sad. I won't be forever, and I know that, but the getting there from here part is kind of tricky.
In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to a weekend trip to Chicago to see Mel. Things will be better there. I'll be distracted and happy and we'll have good good times.
The thing that sucks the most is how completely inadequate this makes me feel. I hate that another person has so much control over what I think of myself and how I feel on a daily basis.
I know I'm going to be just fine in a little while. But right now, even though the logical, rational part of me knows that none of this is really my fault and that I'm not somehow defective, the other part of me that's sad can only think that if I were somehow different - prettier or funnier or smarter or something - that it would have been enough to make him think I was worth it. And I know that's silly, and it doesn't really make sense and isn't probably true. It's just how I'm reacting to this right now. I thought I would be safer than this.
The other way I'm reacting is by not sleeping. I'm so exhausted - I was already tired, and this was going to be my weekend to catch up on sleep, but no such luck. I'm going to have to start figuring out a way to clear my mind enough to fall asleep soon or I'll go crazy.
I wish I could be more angry or more understanding of what happened and why it did, but I'm not, quite, any of those things. I'm mostly just sad. I won't be forever, and I know that, but the getting there from here part is kind of tricky.
In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to a weekend trip to Chicago to see Mel. Things will be better there. I'll be distracted and happy and we'll have good good times.
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