So this week.

Has been a whole lot of hanging out and variously studying with bouts of laughing and throwing of candy corn. Just an ordinary week, folks. The parties were excellent, by the way - Kevin, you have the swankiest digs in all of Chicago. Amber, your parties are always fab. Between the two of you I felt as though all spectrums of party goodness were covered and covered again (plus there were delicious meatballs). Seriously, folks - missing Kevin's party was a mistake - He throws EXCELLENT parties. Amber's party was equally delighful with plenty of music and conversation (not to mention that delicious cheesecake that practially threw me into convulsions of culinary delight). Of course, tomorrow is when the Madison fun begins - Halloween part 1 will be underway and I am more excited than anyone over age 8 really has a right to be. Hopes are that it won't rain, however, the gods have been against us every year so far.

Costume watch: Saw a man walking down the street today in white face makeup, green hair and a purple coat. Best guesses include: Mad clown, the Joker, a terribly color-blind mime, or ordinary UW student. It has been rather disconcerting to walk through the hospital and see an overabundance of witches today. Apparently this is the ideal costume for not breaking sterile field.

Boyfriend's first non-conceptual costume of the last 10 years is coming along well. [conceptual costumes have included: a single red clown nose for the "world's bitterest clown", a shotgun and a duffle bag for a "serial killer", and let's not forget ordinary clothing for "disgruntled med student"]. This year, as he is dressing to impress, is a little different. A fortunate aluminum steaming pan has been transformed (er.. hammered) into a charming breastplate that would be perfect except for the instructions "support bottom" which mysteriously remain printed across the front. I will be adding a detailed embossed sigil to the front tonight. Combine this with the plastic conquistador hat that he found and a plastic sword and behold, he is "Conquistador de l'amour" or something like it. He has refused my pleas to stab an arrow through the breastplate, cover him in baby powder and spider webs and have him go as a post-conquistador.

Alas - great minds seldom think alike.

My own costume is currently in a temporary tupperware home awaiting tomorrow. I will apparently be hanging with Spike, Drusilla and El Conquistador. It should be interesting - stand by for details.

Evasion of normality.

So that promised "life back to normal in 24 hours didn't work out.

When I last left you, I was seated in the med school library thinking that I would return to Evanston that evening. Hah. I went to the boyfriend's study group and then we headed out for a culinary celebration of the end of the personal statement. Post that, we crashed at his house and I spent the night. Next day, didn't leave Madison until after his teaching (4pm) to arrive in Racine and pick up my car at 6. Then down to Kenosha where we stashed his car at the train station and he rode with me to Evanston. Spent the evening in Evanston and forgot to set the alarm so that he missed the train and I had to drive him back to Kenosha - er... yesterday ( I think). He took his car and headed to Madison, while I returned to Chicago and returned phone calls that I have been shamelessly missing. Chatted with Karin and decided to go down and visit her for the afternoon (Think Indian food, shopping, hot coco, and watching a hilarious movie called "Saved"). After that - I came back to my apartment and CRASHED. Morning plans did not materialize, so I am going down to HP soon to get some work done and meet up with Kerri for a movie. Tomorrow I'm hanging out with the charming Ben for thrifting amusement and Allyson for pre-workshop entertainment - then to the workshop, out for pizza, and then off to Madison again so that I can get my car fixed, hang out with my sister, see the boyfriend, and party like it's 1999 on State Street with the Halloween revelers (hopefully there won't be a riot this year).

I will be gone for the next week, dears, but I promise that when I return I will be back to my normal in-the-department-all-the-time-and-available-for-hanging-out-self. No more of this gallivanting across the country for a while.

So I bet you're wondering what happened to me.

I was doing so well, too... Posting almost every day - and suddenly I dropped off the face of the world- or something similar.

You see, Thursday was great - I perfected Phase 3 and readied for Phase 4, and then went down to Hyde Park for the afternoon (and evening - ah pub). Then things got interesting. I swung by to pick up Kerri on the way back to my apt where we crashed until Friday morning when we thrifted the hell out of upper Illinois and lower Wisconsin. Post that, she was supposed to go back on the afternoon train, which we missed, thus causing a chain reaction that led to my sister (in from Madison), my mother, my grandmother, Kerri, and I eating at the Olive Garden and generally having a wonderful time as we raced the clock to get Kerri to the last train in Kenosha so that we didn't have to race it to Waukegan. Post that, a trip to Kohls and general crashing at home with the family. Saturday morning was an early trip to an estate sale (7am) to purchase an exquisite example of the 1950's Schwinn bike ($25) and then to the Salvation army and St. Vinnies with my sister. This dovetailed into my quick shower / haircut / concoction of an outfit for the Boyfriend's sister's bridal shower at 1 which led to an excursion to find glasses and a rendevous with my sister and mother for cookies, ice cream, and wine. Sunday - I chatted with my mother for part of the morning and then was picked up by the boyfriend so that we could go with HIS mother to lunch (guess where?) at the Olive Garden and post-eating-shopping at TJ Max so that she wouldn't feel left out after which we took his car to Evanston where he and I spent the night to leave early this morning for Racine where I could pick up my car but then changed plans at the last moment so that I ended up going to Madison (where I am currently in the med-school library) and will be coming to Racine to pick up my car to go to Evanston sometime tonight or tomorrow morning (depending on how tired I am) after he teaches a class and I work with him some more on his statement of purpose for residency programs.

Notes:

I am now very tired
My hair is remarkably short (considering it was down to my ass before)
I have no clear conception of what happened to my weekend or even what day it is
I never completed Phase 4

Life will return to normal sometime in the next 24 hours. I'll let you know.

More self-indulgence on the way...

I know you're all watching the KT overhaul with rapt attention - that last night you sat in front of your computer screen in anticipation of my next post, denying your interest in the Presidential debates to find out just HOW MANY DISHES I WASHED, IF I RESOLVED MY LAUNDRY CRISIS, and WHAT IS THIS SECRET PHASE 4?!!

Yeah.

So anyways - my overhaul is going over smoothly and resolutions have been made.

At least 3 study days per week (must include at least 6 hours of solid study on orals material)
At least 3 items from orals lists (total) read and noted upon.
At least 1 day spent on website - until finished
No more than 3 bad meals
Running at least 30 min every day
At least 1 day to unwind / do errands in which no schoolwork can be done.

I'm thinking this leaves 2 days a week for random unexpected things including but not limited to: houseguests, unexpected houseguests, drinking heavily, spontaneous combustion, alien abduction, crankiness, being ill, winning the lottery, and escaping Chicago.

Monetary analysis has also been completed, but I won't bore you even more with the details.

Judging from the number of hits that this site gets every day, someone out there is actually interested in these explanations of my life - either that or they are all just waiting until I come up with something similar to the cars-as-jargon again.

Speaking of interesting, I have been up 'til 2am or so every night this week working on the Halloween costume (think Lara Croft meets cyber-punk). There are, to date, several flashing, blinking, glowing, or otherwise shiny pieces. Think black vinyl pants, a 3 in wide leather and chain link belt, a red corset, a black tank top, a gray 70's leather jacket, a cyborg eyepiece (glows), a wired glove (fiber optic cable, black fingernails, and LED's), a finger-laser that glows red, and a harness that includes glow-in-the-dark cord and a modified 2’’ square glowing silicon pendant -- Oh, and a thigh holster with a squirtgun-turned-flashing-raygun.

Since this costume has to survive State Street (Madison) and the unholy crowds, nothing sticks out more than 1/2 inch from my body (although I'm thinking of converting a super soaker into a laser rifle that straps on my back - or perhaps a laptop I bought for $2.50 and gutted the other day). Since I am going out with the boyfriend, his sister, and her fiancée, I have been sweetly asked by the boyfriend to please "not look like a dominatrix this year".

I will do my best.

Lying on my floor...

and sorting out quarters for the laundry machine (now $3.00 total for wash and dry), I came to 3 shamefully obvious realizations. (1) I have a lot of quarters (2) I can't justify spending $21 to do laundry here when I can do it for free at my parent's house and (3) carpet is itchy on bare arms.

All of this aside, as I lay there looking at 7 piles of 12 quarters ($21 for those of you slow at math) and contemplated the uses that I have for $21 which are not laundry-related, I came to a precise understanding of the change-psyche. If these coins were a $20 bill, it is inconceivable to me that I would have tossed that in a change machine and trotted off, coins in hand, to do laundry. The slow accretion of coins over weeks, however, somehow makes this same price reasonable. I think this stems from the idea I have in my head that change is somehow not money. It's tolls or laundry or soda, but not REAL money (real money being paper - and somehow the dollar coin doesn't even get the status as change - I mean I have like $12 of them in a jar in my apt that I never even think about). I can either combat this tendency with a trip to the coinstar or paying for everything with quarters. I don't know about you, but I feel really sheepish whipping out a pile of change to pay for anything. Nickels and dimes are even worse - at least quarters SEEM useful, but the nickel? really? I can't think of a single use for a nickel by itself. Don't even talk to me about pennies.

Clearly this is insane.

I don't think that it's just me. There is a reason that people are willing to pay $.07 on the dollar to have their coins converted to paper. When I pay for something that is $.95 It really might as well have cost me a dollar, because there is no way that nickel is being trotted out to pay for something else. I mean, how many of you have change jars that you're saving up to turn into "real" money?

Really, if you think about it - the same kind of thing is happening in a lesser degree to the humble $1. When you look in your wallet and all you see are $1 bills (no matter how many there are), don't you feel poor? What if those were converted into $5’s and $10's? Would you not feel less poor?

Interesting. I may just go pay for dinner with quarters to make myself feel better.

Day two of operation Active Overhaul of Katie (code: AOK)

Today - dishes were cleaned, laundry sorted, and apartment cleaned and reorganized. I'm serious here about the reorganization - the computer desk that collects random bits of junk, the cupboards under my TV full of papers, the (oh God) hall closet - all of these sins were dragged into the light of day and scrubbed clean. There are now 3 huge garbage bags full of discarded useless junk and another 2 boxes of items for a future rummage sale ("yeah, right" you say - I dunno, Kerri has some kind of joint rummage sale plan for next year, so we'll see how that goes.) The Health Rider (exercise machine -o- death) is leaving this weekend along with clothes that are heading to Goodwill. Molly, I have backpacks for you to look through. In general, the air in my apt is a little fresher, the floor is a little cleaner, the stacks are a little less chaotic, and I am feeling good.

Tomorrow: laundry, bathroom, more dishes, kitchen (the end of Phase 1: cleaning) and the beginning of phase 2: life overhaul. This entails something along the lines of sitting down with a planner, my orals lists, a list of engagements and making some sense of it all - as well as planning in time for myself, food, running, friends, and life in general.

Phase 3: monetary affairs in order - pending completion of Phases 1 and 2 to satisfaction.

Phase 4 is a secret project - information pending declassification.

Estimated time of completion - Friday.

God speed.

Instantiation of structural integrity pursuant to personal effort.

That's it. I know that I seem to be on top of things, but, alas, no.

I don't mind sharing with you (and really, would I be writing it if I did?) that my life is a big mess right now. Orals and website and laundry and friends and apartment and boyfriend and family and car and dishes and mess mess mess are all clamoring for my attention and really, there is only so much Katie to go around. Because of this, my life has frayed a little at the edges, gotten some rips, and has a slightly manic look about it. I find this intolerable, thus I dedicate this week to getting my life back in order.

This seems a little self-indulgent (to me) as I have so many other things that I could profitably be doing with this time, but I think that actually setting aside said time for this purpose will serve me well in the long run. I seem to remember this book from my childhood called "The Big Clean Up" where Jennifer "picked up stuff, blew away fluff, shook out the mat, hung up her hat, swept the floor, and tidied the drawer, and worked and worked for most of the day until every last thing was put away" (if my memory serves). I will take this as my (rather long) battle cry and attack my life with gusto and Windex.
Hopefully what will emerge is a newer, shinier me.

Why doesn't Angelina Jolie just do porn and be done with it?

Watched Taking Lives (unrated version) today, and I have to say that the only reason the boyfriend could give for this as a movie choice was "there were rumors of unexpected nudity" - Ok, I'll bite, I'm a sucker for unexpected nudity (especially of Angelina Jolie) so we rent the tape.

And there was indeed unexpected nudity (although we rather expected it - so thus expected nudity) and really it was pretty good as far as nudity goes - and the sex scene in which it was shown was really some of the most enthusiastic (and believable) acting on her part through thee whole film. The same thing happened in the God awful movie Original Sin (in which the ONLY good acting occurred in the various sex scenes - and the knives? eeep?) And although I love the Angelina, I really have to say that she seemed to be having a lot more fun with the nude scene than the rest of them and thus, I'm starting a petition:

The Free Angelia's Libido Petition:

Our goal will be as such: to give Angelina enough social support so that she feels the ability to move from the rated-prison of feature films to her natural habitat of the porn film. There she will be able to freely, er... express her inner nature (while making a shitload of money in the process - as every straight man age 16 to dead would clamor for the films - move over Jenna Jameson). Join with me - free Angelina!

How much Morrowind is too much?

Tonight.

I ended up the night feeding bits of tortilla to a 3 legged Rottweiler named Delila.

I love it when I can round off an explanation of my evening with a statement like that. So let's work backwards, shall we?

The reason I had the burrito was that Carl went with me on a taco run to this amazing little hole in the wall called Los 3 Panchos where he fluently conversed with them in such a way as to get Jett and I delicious bean, cheese and sour cream burritos of unholy goodness. I am convinced that at almost any restaurant in which the people fluently speak a language other than my own, I am much more likely to get good food if I am with someone who actually speaks that language - this is perhaps a combined derivative of my paranoia that people are always talking about me in other languages when they think I can't understand them, and the idea that in Britain they have much better chocolate than we do in America. I'm not sure how these get connected in my brain. In any case, the equation (probably involving imaginary numbers at some point and a connection with my vague feelings regarding animism) works out so that I believe that food should be ordered only in the language appropriate to its native culture otherwise I am somehow being unfaithful to the food itself (which somehow makes it sad? [as if being eaten wouldn’t make it sad?]) and thus it will not taste good. I am also a huge hypocrite in this regard, as I clearly order Mexican, Chinese, and Italian food and do not speak Spanish, Chinese, or Italian, but hell - I can only do so much. This animism / food thing is a really tricky road to follow when one is drunk because you start thinking about drinking from the drink’s point of view and things can become a little garish. Perhaps I should stick to animism for simple things like cars, trees, and rocks.

The reason that I even knew to go on a run there in the first place was the amazing Stephanie invited myself, Jett, several people whose names I can't remember, Jacob, and (of course) Carl to a bar called Delilas for drinks - at which we (Jett, Jacob, and I) arrived to see Steph consuming the aforementioned burrito (which induced instant craving), and which caused Delila the 3 legged Rottweiler (named after or before the bar? We may never know) to whine and look pathetic (apparently these burritos also cause instant craving in dogs).

Thus, I fed Delila bits of my burrito (because it is really hard to turn down a dog giving you puppy eyes and holding up the stump of it's bad leg) after I had a generous measure of the free bourbon that was being handed out (with glasses!) by a woman who must spend at least an hour every morning making her hair as ugly as it was at that moment - I mean some serious EFFORT was going into the kinda-straight-kinda-curly-very-stiff-volumised fluff.

oh, and did I mention the fellow who stood up on the bar in a kilt and sang (with Scottish accent) a drinking song and proposed a toast that ended something like - "so fuck em all" (which is a sentiment that I have to heartily commend)?

all of this followed Jett and my run to Chipotle for dinner because we be po' (which probably raises the question of why we ordered the burritos later - which can be answered with the simple statement "but it was Chipolte"). This was after my most-of-the-afternoon thrift store run (during which I got both a red pleather skirt and a red vinyl vest) and trip to the Swedish Bakery for a marzipan frog. The marzipan frog being culinary therapy for the moment this afternoon when I fell down on my floor weeping because I was so sick of working on the website.

And before all that, I woke up this morning.

Help!

So I'm feeling the slow apathy of someone who isn't used to working in anything less than a total time-crunch.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to stay motivated and working with no classes to structure my life? Orals, website, syllabi - all need to be completed and yet I can't seem to get myself motivated.

Suggestions?
Comments?
Rants?

Better day.

So this morning was a little demoralizing, but this afternoon was great. Elections seemed to go off well, which is a load off of my mind. By mid afternoon (while eating some crazy pita-like Cobb food and sitting on a sunny lawn) I was starting to feel better. Rumors of drinks tomorrow lifted my spirits even more.

I just have to say that, damn, I miss being a kid. This evening I got to hang out with the lovely Anais and:

played in 4 parks
read pop-up books at 57th street books
had conversations between small plastic blocks
spun around and around until I fell down
met some of her friends
played red-light green-light
became a dinosaur
played leapfrog
and attended an impromptu ballet performance on the lawn.

It was fantastically fun, and next week we're working on cartwheels! Suddenly I'm feeling very nostalgic for childhood... but, of course, I am only nostalgic for the part of childhood when people didn't pull my hair, I didn't have to go to bed early, I could tie my own shoes, and I didn't have to raise my hand and get a hall pass to go to the bathroom. Apparently I am nostalgic only for the trappings of childhood with none of the boogers.

Thus all is well in the realm of KT again - morale is high and aggravation is at an all week low - hopefully this will carry me through tomorrow's studyfest.

Bitter Black Bile.

So today was not the best.

Started out the day with this pedagogy sweatshop - nightmarish. I would like to suggest that in a hypothetical teaching situation in which one would be in charge of say, teaching pedagogy, one would choose a teacher who taught well. Perhaps this was some kind of secret advanced pedagogical technique of reverse psychology where the prof: arrives late, gets into arguments with students, hands out useless handouts on which we are supposed to follow along but decides at the last minute to instead paraphrase (with little success) something she got off the internet this morning, wanders off in the middle of the session to get a fruit cup, tells everyone that they're wrong, aimlessly shuffles for minutes at a time through an ill-organized pile of crap on her desk while repeating the same thing over and over, etc. in hopes that the students watching would be inspired to be NOTHING LIKE THAT when they came to teach. I would like to attribute this to advanced pedagogy, but I'm afraid that it might just be crap. Lots -o- crap with more on the way.

So after that I had a rug pulled out from under me in another random departmental way that I really won't go into here.

Then I came home to find out that I felt ill. Continued to feel ill all night, but managed to get in my exercise.

Have lost all interest in the website - am hoping that something happens to make me care again - because right now it's seeming like a lot more trouble than its worth; and if there's noone around to update it after this year (or when I'm gone) then there's really no point in having the damn thing in the first place, which is a shame because it will be really useful. Ah well - it will go up anyways, but like everything in the department fall into disrepair and become a fountain of misinformation in 3 years.

Yipes - so I'm a little grumpy right now. Thunderheads have been building on the horison for days and there has been a definite drop in barometric pressure, so the chances of me throwing a couple of ill-placed lightning bolts are high - also watch out for foggy thinking, icy humor, and 20% chance of sudden tearful downpours. Sunshine and pleasant weather are not expected until Friday, but before then look out for partly cloudy countenances and a chance of snowy disposition. High of 666 low of absolute zero. Here's Mark with sports....

On my first and last day of hibernation.

Hello again - I'm quite proud of my current blogging efforts (I am blogging at least once a day) - Although I'm sure it lacks the small quality of prose that you have come to expect, like McDonalds I will make up for lack of quality with quantity. And so, I supersize my blog.

Today was so strange. I turned off my phone and read all day and actually got work done, dieted effectively, exercised, and cleaned my apartment.

Highly unusual for a KT these days. I remember when days like this used to be the norm. No more of them this week - busy busy.

Tomorrow down to HP for a teaching workshop as I am bound and determined to get that damn certificate this year if it kills me.

On the agenda for the week (a la Jett):

Orals reading:
- selections from The Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kant). 200pages
- Conjure Woman (Cooper). 235pages
- The Kit Bag, An Egyptian Hornet, The Inhabitant of the Room (Blackwood). 15pages each
- The Uncanny (Freud and Roye? Roya? Ro-somethingorother). 300?pages
- The Yellow Wallpaper & Why I wrote the Yellow Wallpaper (Gilman). 40pages
- Finding some critical sources for my Gothic list. Priceless

Engagements:
- Elections
- Babysitting
- Lunch
- Lunch again
- Apple Picking
- Boyfriend down for the weekend
- Workshop

Things to ponder:
- Why I seem to be Typhoid Mary to my Orals advisors. Think about it - Bill B., Lauren B., and Bill V. Clearly I am a danger and should be approached with extreme caution
- Why the temperature has suddenly plummeted, like, 20 degrees - leaving my apartment cold enough to refrigerate meat.
- Why the library continues to not have any of the books that I need and why for some damn reason people are recalling my books in the first week of the quarter (come on, people! no one is working this early.)
- Why insomnia is my new friend.
- Why I have this unending desire for cookies - particularly Molly's cookies with the cranberries in them and I know that she reads this blog so it might be a plea for cookies that I can pick up sometime if I see her in Racine or Madison or something ;)
- Why I have suddenly been seized with website apathy.
- Why I feel the need to make lists.

Ah well - sugar free instant vanilla jello pudding awaits.

Ahhhhh.

The calm after the storm - that quiet non-noise you get right after a snowfall - the sound of nighttime out in the country - the moment where all I can hear is random street noise and the gentle hum of my computer. 2 consecutive houseguests in the past 3 days (after 4 solid weekends of guests) and now no one here but me. This isn't to say that I don't love Becky or my boyfriend - but there is something delicious in the idea of sitting around in my jammies, reading Terry Prachett, and eating sugar-free jello pudding directly from the bowl.

Today - woke up to the amusing sound of my Boyfriend quietly playing Morrowind with all of the sound off except (for some reason) the sound that it makes when someone hits you. Thus woke up to "clang" "Argggggg" "clang" "swish". This messed up my dreams for a time as I thought I was being attacked by a cliff racer and was wondering where I put my cuirass. Later in the morning we met up with Kerri and wandered over to the Wilmette heritage antique mall garage sale - which was neither really in a garage nor much of a sale. I did, however, get some lovely drinking accoutrements that will add to my now ever-growing collection of cocktail mixers and stir sticks (why am I currently collecting these? could I possibly explain?). At least I'm starting to collect smaller and smaller things. First it was furniture (for which I don't have room any longer) then wine glasses (until I had no more space) then books (well - still books, but they make nice tables) then jewelry (much smaller) and now tiny sticks of glass (at least they're not hummels). We also went down to Tiffin (that's 2 times in 3 days for me) - as always, it was excellent.

Upon returning to my apartment and putting Kerri back on the train to HP, I get a call from Allyson who wants to hang out. I had my heart set on a nap, but I have been neglecting her lately, and she has never met my boyfriend, so she and he and Ivan and I all went to this really cute little cafe in Rogers Park the name of which I cannot remember. The food was great, the conversation was (as always) amusing, but the service was horrific - at one point we were so desperate for a refill on water that we were seriously contemplating tripping our waiter and a nice old man at the table next to us offered us his water. This is unacceptable, folks - the service somewhere should never be so bad that I even think about letting old men with walkers sitting alone offer me their water. I politely declined but wow.

Alas - I just sent my boyfriend back on the long road to Madison and am currently missing him very much and thinking about how quiet my apartment has become.

Don't worry if I disappear for the next few days - I'm feeling some of Jett's "inclined towards home-ness" and a desperate need to do laundry and wash dishes.

Today.

Yes - this weekend has thus far been a roller-coaster ride of fun. Post drinking / blogging yesterday I slept until 11pm, which has surprisingly not screwed up my sleep schedule. The Boyfriend arrived at 11 and woke me by calling on my cell phone... conversation as follows:

me - "whursst?"
him - "hello!"
me - "where are you?"
him - "open your door"

staggering from bed and tossing on a bathrobe I open the door to see my boyfriend smiling at me. Now that, my friends is a good way to wake up.

And thus we left for Dave's white-trash party. And it was cool. And he has a VERY nice apartment. And I swear that he shaved himself a mullet just for the occasion. Boyfriend and I went home fairly early as both he and I were exhausted.

Now, three movies (First Contact, Interview With a Vampire, Kill Bill), several additions to Halloween costume, Morrowind, and a pizza later - we are winding down a delightful evening at my apt.

Tomorrow - antique show. Sleep. Perhaps more Indian food. And all of the things that make life grand.

sorry about the apostrophe

Alas - my grammar this morning was apparently a little off - I believe that it was the bloody marys - damn clever little things when it comes to messing up grammar.

In any case - just got back from Devon where Becky and I made the buffet at Tiffin worth the $8 in a big way. Wandering down the street we picked up various entertaining things.

Can someone tell me for what people use 2 2-foot long hollow anodized aluminum rods with designs and bells on? Becky bought some and has no idea what they're for.

We walked into one shop where the ladies were very nice and very good at sizing up exactly how much someone is willing to pay (not having prices on any merchandise so that they can make up a price on the spot helps). I actually got a fairly good deal on a necklace / earring set which is beautiful. Becky got totally snowed only because she didn't care at all what price it was an we were both too tired to haggle. I think that the ladies felt bad, however, for the extent to which they essentially monetarily raped us in the eye because as we were leaving they gave us bracelets for free.

Back here for a nap before the evening's festivities.

Ah well. Thus, Becky - I can say for certain that this was an evening / morning I will always remember - very gold.

Carousing --- or was it debauchery?

Last night - no wait - this morning I went out with my charming friend from Milwaukee and that Wisconsin type place on a food / liquour extravaganza through Chicago.

Oh dear.

Becky's sole intention on trips like this is to see JUST HOW DRUNK she can get me over the course of the evening. Do you want to know how drunk? If you're still reading I bet you do...
diet coke and pineapple rum
woodchuck
rum and coke
jack and coke
2 bloody mary's with fucking SALAMI on top (very good).
some "fruity drink with rum" created especially for me by a socially awkward barkeep in a bowling shirt
an appletini
another appletini (for which, I am sad to say, I didn't get the secondary alcohol (possibly because the barkeep thought I was quite drunk enough already when I left the bathroom giggling because I had inexplicably decided to buy a vending machine cock ring))
3 buttershots
malibu and pineapple

So clearly - drunk. Becky achieved her goal. I was going to post while still drunk at 9am, but my great idea for a post was a long dissertation regarding how hats are similar to small dogs and why one should be very careful when wearing them (hats, not small dogs - although one should be very careful about the wearing of small dogs on one's head).

Beck and I started out in Evanston where the bars were instantly declared lame. Thus, we trundled back to my apartment, got some schedules and grabbed the purple / red line to Belmont. we ended up at the Twisted Spoke first (althouth I was not aware that this was the home of bloody mary goodness - which Jett showed to me later). Then off to some crappy pub and then down to the Underground Lounge where the aforementioned barkeep in bowling shirt informed us that all of his drafts were broken so the special was really $2.50 for a bottle. Then back to the Twisted Spoke to meet up with Jett and party (we evaded a very very drunk 50 year old man with deft and speed thanks to Jett's generous efforts). Then on to some unnamed bar where there was dancing - ahhhh dancing (ask Jett about it - it was fun!)

Then back on the train at 4:42 am to get back to Evanston where we arrived safetly sometime around 6.

Holy jesus.

Tonight's another party - I'm not hungover and we're going to get Indian food - this should be fun!