rock on

i'm sure it's old news, but i just have to give a shout out to our newest radio station, 89.3. Yes, the current. it rocks.

i love the radio. even with clear channel gobbling it up and spitting back out mundane, commercial bullshit, I've still tried to love the radio. even with the recent downward spiral, i still have hope.

and now i know why. hope lives on in "the current" our newest most kick ass radio station ever. (please see iwilldare for more eloquent elegies to said station). i can turn it on anytime and almost always dig what i'm hearing. a radio station that plays ani? oh yeah! i mean, kfai is certainly such a station and one that should continue to be programmed on your radio dial. but honestly, check this shit out. and if you don't have the pleasure of living within range, not to worry. the current is available on line baby!

your ears will be happy. i know mine are!

it makes me think:

This is Radio Clash
On pirate satellite
Orbiting your living room
Everybody hold on tight

new stuff

hottie bought me an ipod for my birthday. one of the most beautiful inventions in quite some time.

beautiful because:
1) a world run by apple is far better than a world run by microsoft
2) shuffle gives me dr. dre, ani difranco and magnet in the scope of ten minutes
3) i have my own little private soundtrack every where i go

i mean, the reasons are endless, but i'd have to say, walking around chicago (a windy 20 degrees out) with no hat or gloves (i always forget something and this time it wasn't my underwear), my ipod kept me warm. it gave me a bounce to my step, a soundtrack for my day. i just need to work on my playlists.

and then i found my old friend (rock-star status idol) jim walsh. i hadn't read his column in months. and i spent a few minutes catching up. he totally digs my birthday present.

so i gave myself one more present (even though it's been 11 days since my birthday). firefox. and i dig.

the hotel bar

wednesday night, i spent three hours at the hotel bar on the phone with my bff. i just couldn't bring myself to go to the hotel gym or to watch crappy cable. i could've been revising a story. or reading. or doing something more productive. but instead, i bellied up to the bar, watched the duke/maryland game and caught up with my bff.

business travel is weird. time for a continental breakfast.

techno geek

i thought i'd lost it. it's been eight years since i worked at the computer center (the only job i've had longer than three years). yes, in college i worked at the computer center for student housing. even after i'd moved out of the dorms, i worked my fifteen hours a week in the basement of pops. i loved hanging out with computer geeks. in my prime, i could daisy-chain macs, trouble-shoot countless problems and cruise the internet with mosaic. what glorious days.

it's been years since i've attempted anything remotely difficult regarding my computer. sure, i've downloaded a firewall program and kept my operating system up to date, but hardware...that is where i draw the line. but with our impending renovation project, we had to move the computer. to me, it was a perfect excuse to install a wireless network. or so i thought. so i bought the router. then i realized i would need to install a wireless card. the eighteen year old kid at radio shack said, "ma'am, it's not hard to put it in. really." i decided to give it a try.

the whole project took a few hours. opening the damn thing up, shoving the card in, moving our entire office, getting rid of dust bunnies. when hottie walked over to the table to see the insides of our computer and said, "you look nervous. do you know how to do that?" for one second, i wondered. but i plowed forward. i figured i could always call the geek squad if i really screwed up.

soon enough, i had everything set up only to find that i needed a two to three prong converter for the powerstrip. Curse old houses! needless to say, i successfully installed the network card and managed to secure the router with a network key and everything! so not only am i protected, but i am online with a "very good" connection and i feel like a true techno-geek.

i'm guessing it will wear off by morning.

basement blogging

so i'm in the basement of my dad's newly rebuilt condo. (his bmw spontaneously combusted and burned his garage and part of his condo down last year.) it's so weird to be celebrating christmas in january. well maybe not that weird. but my stepmom left up the tree and everything. and of course, i thought i lost my dad's gift because i bought it in july (which is so unlike me...i'm generally shopping on dec. 24th with everyone else who is a procrastinator). after all of the insanity of this summer and fall and moving our bedroom downstairs for our injured dog and then back upstairs, i couldn't find his gift. five minutes before the taxi arrived, hottie found it upstairs in a back closet (he is so awesome!) and christmas in january is saved!

and happy martin luther king, jr. day too. he and i almost share a birthday. except that mine is on tuesday.

time for presents!

writers in crime

i'm the luckiest girl in the world. yesterday, i got together with my two writing friends for our regular writing group meeting and it was wonderful, as always. i gave them this story that i've been working on. it's been sort of a mess in my mind, but i wanted to get it out there so i would find motivation to finish it. and after our hours of talking about everything, including my story, i left, looking forward to our next meeting in two weeks.

i went to the grocery store to buy supplies for the week. and as i was driving home, listening to the garden state soundtrack, i finally figured out my story. it literally coalesced in my head and gave me another reason to love my writing group. every time i am ready to give up and throw in the towel on creativity, something wonderful happens and i realize that it is more a part of me than i could ever imagine. without my writing friends, i could just take it all for granted and miss out on all of the fun!

and our fourth writing group member (he comes late and leaves early, unlike my coming late and leaving even later) brought a movie that is based on one of his stories. it's been made into a short film that was accepted at sundance. i'm so proud! and full of hope!

get up, stand up

you know that feeling when it is summertime and you are sitting in a vinyl chair in shorts. your legs get stuck to the seat and you can either try to stand up quickly, knowing your skin is going to slowly come unsuctioned from the seat or you can try to slowly ease yourself up, hoping it will hurt less. either way, it feels really good when you've got oxygen between vinyl and skin.

well i think i've been sitting on vinyl in shorts, my friends. continuing to sit there, even though it was time to get up and move around. so starting yesterday, i began to peel myself off of the seat. hottie and i bought a car. to fully grasp this milestone, you have to understand that we've shared one car in a sprawling, semi-public transit friendly city for seven years. since hottie started law school. we've been sharing a 1998 ford escort wagon. a car which now boasts 105,000 miles. she's a trooper, but it was time. we've talked about getting a second car for at least two years.

so yesterday, the vw internet sales manager i've been emailing (for only a year) told me he had deals. needed to meet his 2004 sales quota. so out of the blue, hottie and i went to the dealer. and drove home with a 2005 passat. holy shit i say.

and the only other things i'll say are: why did it take us so long? can we actually live in our car?

and just wait until i tell you about the bathroom renovation. you think two years of car shopping is bad. we've been bitching about renovating our bathroom for three and a half. and we're doing it. we're being decisive. (or maybe i just have a fever...)

Happy 2005

what a lovely set of holidays. in fact, i am so sad they are over. i'm not overly ritualistic about resolutions, though i do have some.
watch less tv
watch more movies
read more
write much more
walk every day for thirty minutes

and now i'm going to see if arrested development is on. hee hee. i'll start on number one tomorrow.