So, my friend Sarah totally packed up my boxes in a big Uhaul and moved me to a new address (metaphorically speaking, of course). Check out the new digs!

Entry posted by wendy | 5 notes [Add / View] | www | E-Mail this entry

Last night at the Hideout, I was making eyes at this cute guy with glasses and a corduroy jacket, wondering if he was going to buy me a drink or what when it dawned on me that if he didn't get his act together and talk to me already, I'd have to check 'Missed Connections' in the next couple of days and see if he'd left a message. It wouldn't be the first time I'd look for such a thing. Oh, what, like you don't?

I check 'Missed Connections' and 'I Saw You' in the Reader all the time, scanning for headlines like "Cute Redhead on the Redline," "Girl in Braids at Trader Joes," and "You Stared at Me so Long I Thought You Were a Fucking Statue, Why Didn't You Just Say 'Hi'or Something?".

Just last weekend I was out with my friend J-Cool and he showed me an ad he'd placed in 'I Saw You' for his girlfriend about how he spotted her at this exhibit and how he was struck by her beauty and red heels, as a kind of you know, cute like couple thing, so he could casually say something like, "Have you checked the 'I Saw Yous' yet?" and then she'd go see his message and think it was really sweet and charming and he'd be rewarded with great sex later.

No, no, no, no, no!! The 'I Saw you' and 'Missed Connections' sections are for single, lonely people who are desperate for a date and to get laid, but spend too much time in front of computers, they've lost all social skills that don't include using dorky icons and ridiculous acronyms like ROTFLMAO. Anyone already involved needs to just find some other way to woo his or her partner, and leave undignified things like this for the rest of us. I mean, what ever happened to sending flowers, huh?

Anyway, it was bound to happen. The Single, Lonely, Desperate People of Chicago with No Social Skills Outside IMing and Text Messaging have banned together and started a new trend! Originally conceived on the discussion board of Craigslist's 'Missed Connections," the idea is that anyone single, straight, and looking should ride in the front car of all el-trains (though rumor has it the brown line is the best one for hook-ups). That way we can all make eyes at each other and wait and wait and wait for someone to make a move and since no one will because we're all a bunch of pussies since all we ever do is hang out in front of our laptops with our ipods jammed in our ears, never talking to anyone in real life anymore because rejection is like so painful face-to-face, we can just rush home and post numerous ads on Craigslist and in the Reader til we find The One that got away.

Well, I'm just disgusted. Can we all just please quit being so retarded about everything? I'll start. The next time I see a cute boy I'd like to buy me a drink, I'm going to smile. I might even show teeth!! Now this, dear men, is called the first move. Your turn. (And after we go out, send me some damn flowers already. God. Do I have to spell out everything?)

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Today, one of my professors, who is also a friend, handed me an application for a writer-in-residency program on a small island off the coast of Maine.
"They have to pick someone," he said, "It might as well be you."

I looked at the application and accompanying brouchure.
"This is a remote, rustic wilderness," it stated," with facilities to accomodate a select group of artists. The environment is beautiful, extreme, unadorned. Residents are required to work together on the basics: conserve water and electricity, help clean up after dinner, and tote your share of firewood."

It sounds quaint and charming!

As I read on, I see that leisure activities on the remote island include hiking, rowing, fishing, berry and flower gathering (I LOVE berries and flowers!!), nature-watching and Kayaking (and remember how much I love kayaking).

There's a cook, too! A "creative" cook, as well as a piano. I mean, can you see it? Imagine: waking up to the scent of seabreeze wafting through your open window every morning at dawn, the delightful sound of harmonious piano music from the conservatory outside your cabin easing you into your day, and in the ground's main kitchen: a cook of the most creative kind planning your next meal, as you settle into a afternoon of berry-picking and sonnet-writing. It's a scene so scrumptious, I could bite into like a krisy kreme.

But then I get to the part in the brouchure where it says," there will be one cell phone, one stereo, and just one satellite connection to the internet."
Just one satellite connection to the internet?!?" How the hell do they expect me to compulsively check me email and blog stats and favorite social network websites every five minutes like a normal fucking person?

(On second thought, maybe a little internet break would do me some good...)

Entry posted by wendy | 5 notes [Add / View] | www | E-Mail this entry

Experts say that the bird flu is terribly hard to correctly disgnose, as its symptoms mimic those of many, many other less serious ailments and diseases. If *you* think you might have any of the following, you are most likely actually suffering from the highly contagious and very deadly Bird Flu and should see your doctor immediately:

Food Poisoning

PMS

Pregnancy

Manic Depression

Seasonal Affective Disorder

A cold

A Hangover

A Broken Heart

The sniffles

Claustrophobia

Obsession with Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Oprah

Post-Partum Depression

Continual sadness over the series finale of Six Feet Under

An interest in the occult

A fondness for George W.

A fondness for sweets

Cancer of the Esophagus

Athletes Foot

Bad Breath

A sty

A splinter

A sneezing cough

Insomnia

Narcisissm

A broken collar bone

And Hypochondria

Entry posted by wendy | 9 notes [Add / View] | www | E-Mail this entry

In honor of this, my favorite season, I made friends with my kitchen again, and concocted some rum-spiked mulled cider, a big loaf of pumpkin bread, potato leek soup, and apple-butternut squash-chicken with a maple syrup and red wine vinegar glaze. I also found a lucky penny. I know it was lucky because 2 seconds before I discovered it, I saw an UNlucky penny, and I thought to myself, "Why can't I ever find a *lucky* fucking penny?"

I also found a cute ring, that table , and I think somewhere in the last couple of weeks, my sanity finally turned up.

All I know is that this cool seasonal weather is entirely more civilized than hot, nasty summer, this is the first fall in 11 years I haven't had a boyfriend of some sort or another giving me an ulcer and causing insomnia, the end of graduate school is finally in sight, my apartment looks really cute, I have over 40,000 frequent flier miles, I just remembered what a good cook I can be, and this is the most at peace I have felt in my whole 20's. (Today, when the cashier at the grocery store wouldn't sell liquor to this really old grey-haired lady because she didn't have her ID and it took almost 12 minutes to talk it out, call over a manager, get everything sorted, and I had to pee really bad the whole time, I didn't even sigh once or cuss under my breath or shoot dirty looks at anyone!)

Surely, someone will piss me off tomorrow, though.

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I saw this "thing" at an antique store a couple of months ago and thought it would make the loveliest tabletop. Not having a table, though, I decided not to buy it. However, I made such a fuss about it to my friend Katy, that she surprised me with it for my birthday. Weeks and weeks go by, I can't find the right table. I look at antique stores, garage sales, home decor shops, etc., etc. Nothing is right. I put my tabletop aside and decide not to think about it for awhile. When the time is right, I will find the perfect match. Then Friday afternoon, on a stroll around the neighborhood, I happen upon this little table sitting outside an antique store. It's in great shape except for the top which has been dried out from too much sun over the summer. I buy it immediately, and bring it home. I place my tabletop over the table with the dried-out top and stand back, amazed. I think they were made for each other. The end.

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So, just incase the theme party fiasco wasn't enough embarrassment for the week, I had to go and make a fool of myself again on Wednesday night.

While the rest of Chicago was watching the World Series, I headed to the Hideout to see a reading series, which included one of my favorite local authors. Perhaps you remember the story of my email correspondence with her? I wrote to tell her how much I liked her writing and that I had recently set my mannequin free, placing it front of a random apartment complex in the middle of the night fully clothed in a cute little outfit, and that seemed like something she might do so I thought I'd share. And she wrote back and told me it was a great story, blah, blah, blah, which I thought was a sweet gesture on her part.

Anyway, so I was at this reading the other night, which I went to alone on account of the world series and everyone else having a life and most people thinking that readings are really boring. I'd debated whether to even go at all, since the thought of going to a bar all by myself makes me feel anxious, but a couple of friends made the astute point that being by myself might increase my chances of meeting a cute boy. And in fact, the place was full of boys in corduroy blazers and black-framed glasses, which is just my type, but of course, they were all attached to cute girls in funky scarves and chopsticks in their hair, which is always my luck, I swear.

And then I had to go and sit in front of this obnoxious woman with a pinched-up face who kept sighing really, really loudly every time I moved an inch, because I was blocking her view or something. But you know, that's what you get, I guess, if you sit in the very, very back, lady. And would it have killed her to just move her chair a little bit so as not to be right behind me? I bet she just gave up sugar or something, or maybe her husband doesn't appreciate her.

Anyway, so the reading was great and afterwards, for some reason, I thought it might be a really good idea to introduce myself to the author I like, even though I had nothing intelligent to say, and believe it or not, I'm really too shy for such a thing. But, against my better judgment, I approached her and said, "Hi, I'm Wendy. I wrote that dorky fan email a couple months ago? I told you about my mannequin story? You suggested we call her a 'womannequin'?" And she said, "Oh yeah! So you just left the mannequin? With no contact info or anything?" and I said, "Yeah." And she said, "That's so cool," and I said, "Yeah." And she said, "Did you take pictures?" and I said, " Actually, yeah, I did." And she said, "Do you have one?" And I said " Not on me." And then, suddenly struck witha very brilliant idea, I said, "I know!! I can email one to you!" And then, before she could even answer, I ran out of there like a bat out of hell so I could rush home to my computer and find a picture of my mannequin standing guard in front of a stranger's apartment to email to this author who was really only just trying to be nice to this odd girl with seemingly no social skills whatsoever. Only, in my effort to
rush out of there very quickly, I flung open the door to the men's bathroom instead of the front door to the bar while everyone just sort of watched on in horror.

And that is just one of the many reasons that even if going out alone might increase my chances of meeting a cute boy, I really should just stay home.

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