THANK YOU, EU!!!!!!!!!!!

The European Union has banned the trade of seal skins. This effectively removes the hunt's main market.

Sad, and confusing.

SP: "So now because of Swine Flu they're killing pigs in Egypt."

Me: "Yeah, I know. It's terrible."

SP: " What the fuck are pigs doing in Egypt?"

Broke but productive

What I did today:

Co-hosted a resident orientation.

Worked with a neighbor to clean out the storage room of our tier, hauling debris to the dumpsters.

Disassembled my dining-room table, wrapped and stored it under my bed.

Lay on the floor for awhile in an attempt to stop the racing heart and palpitations that the combination of yesterday's hard biking and today's basement clean out brought on.

Iced my hand. Took ibuprofen. Lay back on the floor. Realized I enjoy lying on the floor.

Rearranged furniture in my living room so that I have a nice sitting area by the windows. I now refer to this area as "the library."

Went off on my cop neighbor about his complaining about condo stuff without being willing to be part of the solution. Realized afterward that heart palpitations had stopped.

Cleaned out my worm bin.

Cleaned the rabbit hutch.

Made a special low-budget "Mexican" dinner from beans, canned tomatoes, soy cheese and corn meal.

Cleaned kitchen floor repeatedly to remove smell of spilled worm-bin juice; finally realized the smell was my budget Mexican meal.

Did three loads of laundry.

Read and forwarded three emails forwarded to me by chagrined cop about severely disturbing gang wilding taking place in Chicago. One gang member mentioned in article is someone cop has arrested. Lives three blocks from our street. 

And now, bed.

Sita Sings The Blues

I'd read about this movie in The Reader, and was intrigued, so I decided to check it out.

The back story: The movie's creator (writer, director, animator, editor) was married. Her husband accepted a job in India, went over, and dumped her. She became preoccupied with The Ramayana, and the result was this animated movie, which tells the story of Rama and Sita, and interweaves it with the story of the end of her marriage. 

It was just great. Well told, fantastically creative, hugely entertaining. You can check it out at the movie website, and I think you can watch it from your computer, but if you can see it on the big screen at all, I highly suggest you see it that way. It's mesmerizing. And a lot of fun.

Sita Sings The Blues

Spring!

Took a group bike ride up the North Branch Trail to the Chicago Botanic Garden, about 35 miles round trip. It was a perfect day for it. I was feeling antsy, since I'd not taken a long ride since last summer, so I hit the pedals hard. At one of the street crossings, one of the guys came up and said, "if this is your slow bike, I'd hate to see how fast you go on your other bike."

I looked at him, puzzled. "I'm not that fast."

"Are you kidding me? I'm doing all I can to keep up with you."

I thought about it -- there were only two people ahead of me, both guys. Everyone else was way behind.

"I guess spinning over the winter paid off," I shrugged.

"Big time," said the guy.

After the ride, I celebrated with a hot-fudge sundae. Yes, I did.

In like a lion, out like a...really annoying...something.

So no new developments on the job front: one person I'm helping seems to expect me to be available in case she needs me, so I guess I'm not supposed to look for work, because I may need to drop everything to go make an unlivable wage at any moment.

The parents of the kids I watch likewise want me to come over when they need me, but don't seem to understand that when I say, "I need to be out the door at 5:30," that doesn't mean one of them should walk in the door at 6pm. Also, today the boy decided to have a complete meltdown because I closed the door to our TV playroom, effectively preventing him from throwing everything he could get his hands on over the baby gate and down the stairs, his new trick. He finally fell asleep after I jammed a bottle into his mouth. If he's entering a phase of being a pain in the ass, I am done. Many people become more nurturing when a baby cries. Me? I just want to put it out in the trash.

Not to mention that both parties are friends and live across from each other, and have become competing for my time, and aren't very patient when the other one needs me.

And as I go from one huge home to the other, I wonder whether they give any thought as to how I'm supporting myself, whether they comprehend that I'm contemplating buying a bumper sticker that says, "my other job is looking for a job that pays me more than a teenager on summer vacation."

The Reader rejected my piece on Red Door, presumably because it didn't feature one of the staff's hipster friends and a photo of his/her tattoo.  While they do have good stories for the most part, a cover piece on a kickball team and the accidental death of one of its members (he fell off a wall) was just not all that topical, even with the description of the deceased's girlfriend's plans to return to New Mexico to pursue a meaningful life of screen printing.

Apple Guy, who seemed all kinds of impressed,  never got back to me, but since I'm a veteran of great dates that lead nowhere, I'm rolling with it. 

Speaking of which, I was taking notes at Voice Over House yesterday. The guy was showing me one of the software applications, and pointed out that it had an odd acronym: MOTU.

It stands for "Mark Of The Unicorn," he said.

"We know what those guys look like," I laughed. "Ponytail, homebrew gut, RenFair supplies.."

Wait.

"Are they based out of Cambridge, MA?" I asked.

"I think so," he replied. "Their area code is 617."

"I actually dated someone who worked there," I said, amazed at how truly microscopic the world is. "He did indeed have long hair, a sizeable gut, and he dumped me."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He was a loser. I'm a loser magnet, specifically, a Lying Loser Magnet. That's why I don't date. I'm cool with it."

And we continued setting up the files for the Chinese recording session which, mercifully, took place after I'd gone.

May. I'm holding high hopes for May. In the meantime, I've begun stripping the woodwork in my living room. If I end up having to sell the place, I want it to look killer.

Let it be Known!

That SP is the most incredibly thoughtful friend, and although he did not make the largest single contribution to my latest charity walk, his was nonetheless very generous, and when combined with such regular presents as Freudian slippers, inflatable dragons, handmade origami cranes (100), Greek icons and a list of other things too long to name, he is in toto a most generous friend.



Which is interesting, considering he is such a wanker to me on the phone.