Kelly likes to...

Have y'all heard about this Google game? You type "YerName likes to" in Google, then you laugh at the results. Here are mine:

Kelly likes to wear green unitards.

Kelly likes to super size everything she orders.

Kelly likes to steal bikes from random kids.

Kelly likes to be needed, as well as to cherish and protect her loved ones, of whom she is somewhat possessive.

Kelly likes to ride naked shotgun. (huh?)

Kelly likes to mix pleasure with business.

and my personal favorite:

Kelly likes to open the book of Proverbs and share its practical advice with others.

ps - check out the new Top Five!

Look out!

Just looking at a large body of water is relaxing, isn't it? I like to pretend Lake Michigan is the ocean sometimes. You can see the other side, and yesterday a lone surfer added to my illusion. This morning the lake was so beautiful. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, I couldn't tell where the earth ended and the sky began.

Riding my bike along the lake path is a great beginning and end to my work day, but sometimes it does get a bit stressful because I have to be careful not to, you know, get killed. Why oh why do people not use their turn signals? I'm sure the gentle Agoraphobia reader would never dream of not using their turn signals, but I have to wonder, just who are these reckless A-holes that threaten nearly every day to actually murder me?

I also spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of person pees on the toilet seat - another daily threat for which I must remain ever vigilant. I have to figure it's some kind of lunatic woman who crouches above the seat, peeing in a semi-circular fashion so as to cover the enter horse-shoe of the toilet seat in urine. She avoids germs, and yet, ironically, thinks nothing of leaving her own human waste for others to deal with.

We're all doomed.

High Street

M and I spent a romantic weekend in Galena - it's the only place outside of Chicago that seems to be worth going to in Illinois. It's a very unusual town for this area - it's built on a hill - the only hill in Ill., and there are old flood gates to guard the town from floods (or maybe drown them all, I'm not sure) and President Grant is from there, and some other president too, apparently, and there are tons of little touristy shops and ice cream parlors and whatnot.

We stayed at a faux Irish pub/hotel, but the drinks were fine...
Here we are on "High" Street - the top of the hill. Imagine you walk all the way up to your street and then you have to climb the stairs up to your house? Right? Oh, and we laughed for 10 years at the address 420 High Street. No kidding.

What's going on? (and I say ahey-a-a-a-a)

It's been a while since I rapped at ya, I know you've missed it, and I don't like it either. After a long day computering, I really don't want to spend all night on my laptop (or the phone, for that matter, if you have an outstanding unreturned phone call), but I'm missing out on some valuable online companionship. I finally broke down and got a Facebook account, and it turns out the whole world's over there on Facebook, doing God knows what. Half of my friends were like, Good lord, where have you been? And the other half said, Ha ha! Join us in the total destruction of mankind! Made me feel kind of ookie.

I did immediately find the old adage of Facebook being more "white collar" than the "blue" MySpace to be true, if judging only by the decreased number of former graduates from my high school who describe themselves as nothing more than "momma" and "Nascar fan" and claim to be "living it up in Florida" and post quizzes like What Kind of Chevy Should You be Rollin' in?

Anyway, I sort of hate MySpace and Friendster and Facebook because, for one thing, there's just going to be another one in a year or so, and then I'll have to sign up for that and remember a new username and password and put a new picture up and locate all my friends again and it's a major P.i.t.A. I relish the those days of yore when we just emailed each other, and were happy about it.

10,000 years!

Ha! Ha! I just saw this article that reads McCain Believes Iraq War can be Won by 2013! Hilarious! This is coming from McCain - Mr. "I don't think Americans are concerned if we're there for a hundred years or a thousand years or 10,000 years." Oh yeah? Well, I believe it can be won by the year 2015, why not vote for me as your next Republican president? Huh?

On Pants

Ever since low-rise pants became a la mode, I've had a heck of a time finding pants that fit. It's simple physics, really: If pants are designed to fit at the widest part of your body, then how are they meant to stay up? They can't, and that's physics. The problem got worse since I've returned to the work-a-day world and find it necessary to wear non-jammie pants. No longer cradled by draw-strings and elastic, I was left with little to hold up my pants but worthless zippers and buttons, because I don't like to wear a belt.

The problem is not just restricted to pants, but also low-rise underwear. Theoretically (I'm not saying this happened to ME) a pair of low-rise undies with loose elastic (technical term, "Quitters") grasping to the widest part of the body could slip down and be held up by nothing but the crotch of one's pants.* Like this:Imagine how uncomfortable that might be.

I don't like wearing a belt because it makes me feel like I'm being strangled and my internal organs are going to get all messed up, like Victorian ladies that had to wear corsets.

But, anywho, I started wearing a belt the last few days because the problem was getting way out of hand, and, while I feel strangled about the mid-section, I haven't had to hike my pants up at all. Who knew?

Anyone know where I can get some high-waisted pants?

*I just like saying "crotch".

Boneyard Prayer

Last night we saw Boneyard Prayer at Redmoon Theater with our friends J&R. The show had all of the elements that make Redmoon great - it was created in a collaborative process of artists, the set was beautiful and sparse, they used puppets, projected animation, amazing, original music, little/no dialogue, and their cool mechanics. The story was really depressing, which is why I wouldn't otherwise give it a glowing review.

Boneyard Prayer is about a hobo who returns to his wife after a long absence. They've lost a child, among other things. The set looks like the top of couple of railroad cars filled with dirt, which the hobos shovel all over the place during the show. It must be so uncomfortable to perform covered in dirt - dirt in your hair and socks all through a performance - can you imagine? Redmoon calls it a "folk opera" - and the music is stunning, very folks-y/ragtime-y kind of stuff. I don't know music very well, but I think everything was in minor key. Maybe? The lead actresses voice was gorgeous - beautiful tone.

Too bad it was such a downer - I mean, not a single laugh. Previous shows there have done a great job of mixing quite serious themes with a little levity, which I think would have been a nice balance. In the end, even though it was beautiful and artful and mournful, it didn't really give me any new insight, which I've really come to expect from that theatre group. At slightly over an hour it's plenty long enough - any more and we'd all be hitting the bottle, just like that puppet.

!Ole!

Snap! A certain husband just made his special 3-2-1 Margaritas! Now we're in Heaven. Listen, if you didn't know I was The Best Wife Ev-ah, I just bought a certain husband a Certain Video game on the way home. Now he'll be playing the latest Grand Theft Auto for hour upon hour, whilst I sit blissfully and wife-fully nearby, reading Misquoting Jesus and a new comic book, Last Man (or something), which is occupying most of my time these days.

Three-Two-ONE!
3 parts ta'kill'ya
2 parts triple sec or cointreau
1 part lime (freshly squeezed)

Know what else? This is my view from work - nice, huh? See that? That's The Lake. See that? That's the Sears' Tower, beeaaaatch!32132132131231231233212312321231232132212321!

Iron Man

Last night we saw Iron Man. M liked it, but I thought it was pretty stupid. But, I like Robert Downey Jr so much that I still had a lot of fun. That and I had a cocktail before the movie. Seems like a lot of people were questioning his super-hero-starring ability, but, despite being over-manscaped, he looked hot. I really liked the beginning, because I don't know from Iron Man, and his character was (to me) just some sort of rock star character in Afghanistan, joking around with soldiers. Then he has to wear some kind of dope-ass heart charger, and that's when things started getting stupid. The heart battery is apparently a major part of the conceit of the 1963 comic by Stan Lee, but I didn't think the translation to today was very elegant.

I lovelovelove Gweneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love and The Royal Tenenbaums, but after reviewing her filmography in imdb, I'm forced to admit that she's not the great actress I like to think she is. At the very least, she's made some really bad choices. Sad to report, she has zero chemistry with Downey Jr in this movie, and it ain't RDj's fault.

Ooo - just got Fur from Netflix with RDj and Nicole Kidman - more on that after I watch it!

Conveyances

I've started riding my bike to work, which has been both exhilarating and mildly terrifying, just on accounta I broke my arm a few years ago after I wandered into some bad karma and I'm desperate not to do that again. Did you know that the invention of the bicycle played an important part in the role of women's liberation? I think that's very interesting. Anywho, I feel quite liberated on my bike.
Lately I've seen this bizarre kind of skateboarding, only the skater in question has no board, just wheels under the shoes somehow. Like they sawed a skateboard in half. Has anyone else seen this? I've been trying to explain this phenomenon, but no one seems to believe me. But! I just looked up (online) proof (is that any kind of proof at all?) - turns out they're called freeline skates. To me it appears that the skater has neither increased speed nor increased coolness, so I can't really figure out what the advantage is. But, perhaps freeline skates will play an important role in something, who knows?

Weekend

Oh my goodness - the weekend has just flown by! Now that I'm workin' again the weekend is but precious time that slips through my fingers. The first few weeks at my new job were good - I think I'm going to like it there, long term. I was really exhausted because I got sick right away and was getting used to a new schedule and not wearing pajama bottoms all day, and that took a lot out of me. But, I think this week will be better.

Watched Michael Clayton and loved it - George Clooney just gets better and better, doesn't he? I thought the dialogue, and especially that opening monologue by Tom Wilkinson, was just amazing! It was like David Mamet wrote it! Aside from being a great story, I'm really interested in bio-engineered food and seeds, so I liked how that was the dirty underbelly. Another great source of info-tainment (I can't believe I just wrote that) about that stuff is Ruth Ozeki's book, All Over Creation.

We also installed a chandelier in our dining room - what a difference, huh?
Before - boring light one might see in one's grandmother's bathroom:
After, gorgeous light you want to host fabulous dinner parties beneath:I bought the light online - you can get them for much, MUCH cheaper than in a lighting store, and we also got one of those nifty ceiling medallions to give the room an extra architectural detail. Naturally, we used CFL bulbs - they're lately becoming available in dimmables.

Check out the new Top Five!

Weekend

My parents came to visit over the weekend to see a Cubs game with us - but we really lucked out because (once again!) they helped us with our out-of-control yard. Such digging and tilling and replanting you have never seen.

The Cubs game was fun - and ridiculously cold, even though we were experiencing a relative heat wave of mid-60s weather. The crowd was crazy, and we had a great time screaming and shouting and singing along with everyone. Here we all are:

You've got to head over to me da's (much ignored) blog for a very interesting story of his celebrity encounter!!

Update

I've started my new job and so far it's going really well. Wouldn't you know my second day I started to get an itch in my throat, yesterday I was really sick and today a little worse so I stayed home. Feel terrible about the bad timing, but what can you do? Anyway, aside from that, it's great, and I think I'm going to like it there. My boss is cool and into reducing and reusing like me, and told me about this nifty flash video called The Story of Stuff. Check it out!

Speaking of stuff - there was an article in yesterday's NYT about a study that indicates that money does buy happiness. I learned that back in the late 90s when I moved to San Francisco and started making a lot of money. It makes sense - people who have money most likely have well-paying jobs and therefore don't have to worry about stuff like rent and medical bills and various payments and food-on-the-table - things that make you insane when you don't have it. Of course, another thing I learned was that money buys stuff, and stuff, explicitly, does not buy happiness. Which (see how it all comes full circle?) is what that video gets to.

In other news, my parents are coming for a visit and a Cubs game this weekend and I hope to put them to work in our front garden, which is an absolute mess right now. Last week I practiced what I tagged Intuitive Gardening, where I just sort of followed my intuition with little to no actual gardening knowledge. We'll see what happens. I want to put more flowers in the garden this year, so I planted some seeds - I hope they come up.

UPDATE: I should mention, shoes don't count as stuff - they're simply marvelous things that have also been proven to buy happiness, just like money. (:

Movin' On

I'm about to (am I?) stop watching American Idol as mysteriously as I started watching it in the first place. Last night's "Idol Gives Back" was like an old fashioned variety show (and not in a good way). I can't help but find it ridiculous that the welfare of our world is in such dire straights, that even multi-million dollar corporations like Fox figure they've got to throw it a bone every now and then. I mean, is that how our government deals with crises of health and social welfare? Just wait for some self-serving company to take care of it?

Although, I did enjoy the performance of the great Annie Lennox very much.
In other news, I volunteered for the last time (hopefully not for ever) at the Art Institute yesterday. By some coincidence, I was listening to Selected Shorts by Symphony Space on my 'pod, when a story about a person who passed a long period of the Art Institute came on! He wandered the halls of the museum, imagining, hoping, to wake up in the luxury of some of his favorite paintings. It was called “Killing Time”, by Stuart DybekI really loved my work there, but, alas - I must go on. Before I left, I took a short walk to my favorite place in the museum (and Chicago), the Ando Gallery, where I've passed many a happy, peaceful moment.

6 more months, one less bag

Saw this great, easy crrrraft on Martha that just about anyone could make: a shopping bag from an old tshirt (everyone's got at least one of those!) A bag for every bag! That's my motto. I'm going to make one of these and see if I can jimmy it into an ICoE bag.

Here's another interesting looking crrraft - a diy silhouette. Cute, huh?via DesignSponge

You know who else is (nefariously) crafty? Bush and McCain. Check out this illuminating video by MoveOn.org:

Finally!

My friends, the unthinkable has happened and I am once again gainfully employed! I couldn't be happier. A long period of loneliness and couch-potato-ness comes to an end, and now I shall once again be a hard-working, disposable-income earning Special K of days gone by. I'm going to be working at the local university, as a "Training Specialist". I can't thank my good friend DeBordian Perruque enough, because he hipped me to the opening, then very kindly told glorious tales of my ability to multi-task, how well I work with others, and of my striking penmanship.
Me, on the way to my interview

Had a great weekend, celebrating my new job with friends, celebrating the b-day of the very sweet Sweethealoha, and today, mucking about in the garden, raking and rejoicing over the tiny buds that are finally sprouting up. The weather in Chicago was absolutely amazing this weekend, and everyone (including us) has been going crazy running around outside. Mostly we looked like grizzly bears emerging from our caves, grumpily rubbing the sleep from our eyes, unshaven, with twigs hanging in our hair, trying to find someone to feed us brunch at a sidewalk cafe.

Wanna see some cool stuff?
Check out Google's office space in Zurich,
read Peter Sagal's reaction to forgetting girls in Whoville,
and a new Top Five.

Somebody stop me!

I just can't stop blogging about American Idol. What is wrong with me? (Last night M said, "Blogs are so 2005." and I said, "Blogs are forever!" and M. said, "I'm going to write that on a t shirt and give it to you." Now I really want that t-shirt!) My sister rather astutely pointed out that when Randy doesn't like a song, he'll ask them a question like, "How you doing tonight, dawg?" instead of "Listen up, dawg..." She was dead right on that one, folks. Re: last night's American Idol, all I can say is "How you doing?" I thought pretty much every single song kind of sucked for this one reason: No one can sing a Dolly Parton song like Dolly Parton. Her voice is just so sweet and perfect and full of expression, I'm crazy about her.

Last night really exemplified that je ne sais pas of the difference between a good cover and mere karaoke, 'cause I thought all those songs just sounded like karaoke. IMHO, there are only two covers that come close to being good covers of her songs - the ridiculous and dated I Will Always Love You by Whitney, who nevertheless knocks it out of the park at the end, and a Jolene, by Mindy Smith from this dumb album called Just Because I'm a Woman, which is a bunch of people singing Dolly Parton's best songs not half as well as Dolly.

Viva la Dolly!

New Look

Spent a few hours today updating the "look" of Agoraphobia and Bookish. Have been wanting to do that for a while and turns out it wasn't difficult at all. I used these two guides to help. Let me know what you think!

And here's a little blast from the past to show you how much things have changed! That's my sister, me, Mac the cat, and my bro. How about those leg warmers, right?!? Check out the new Top Five, too!

Winter Luau

Even as snow still lay on the ground we had our Winter Luau. I thought it went off marvelously, despite the fact that M had a little cold and that we incurred the wrath of karma by jacking up the heat to 83 degrees during Earth Hour. (I felt really bad about that.) Ironically, our coat rack fell right out of the wall due to the weight of everyone's winter coats. Isn't that funny? We served Mai Tais and Miehanas and went crazy decorating with paper umbrellas and garnishes.We dragged the patio umbrella into the dining room to create a make-shift lanai.
Me and my galfriends in our finest faux-flowers...

Top THIS

There's this television show called Top This Party (or maybe Top That Party) where ridiculous people throw ridiculous parties with the help of semi-witless party planners. At the beginning of each show, the party planner asks the host how much they're willing to spend on the party, and they usually lean back, and with a great show of braggadocio, say, "I don't think we could do it for less than ten." They mean, of course, ten THOUSAND dollars, otherwise a rather large percentage of say, my total educational cost. And in each show, there's some ridiculous element, like a giant snake or an entrance by helicopter that almost doesn't happen because of the witlessness of the party planner, and the host goes totally ape shit and claims that the whole party will be ruined if it doesn't work out.

This is all background information.

Tonight we're having a Luau, and the ridiculous element is a stuffed pig on a spit, without which, I'm pretty sure, the whole party would be completely ruined. I enlisted my friend C, Master Thrift Store Shopper, to assist me in finding a stuffed pig. She asked me, "How much are you willing to spend?" I leaned back in my chair and said, "I'm willing to go as high as three." She knew what I meant.

Certain people (like a certain husband) said it couldn't (or was that "shouldn't"?) be done. But I think it looks pretty awesome. Top That!