Falling in love, with Roger Ebert

I have been kind of obsessed with reading reviews of movies from his website.  Old movies, new movies, classic movies, movies I like, movies I hate just to see what he has said.  It all kind of started by reading a post on his blog.  You see because of his struggles with cancer, he has lost the ability to speak, but he can of course still write and he does!  Prolifically.  The post I read was this one http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/10/i_think_im_musing_my_mind.html about how he feels losing his speech has made his writing better, but it was already pretty wonderful.  He also writes that he thinks his reviewing system (as are all grading systems) mostly bullshit, but he also wants to make his reviews useful.  He tells you if it is worth it to go see them, and he writes that it touched him if it did even if it seems like it isn't a good enough or fancy enough movie to do that.

 

So I reccomend everyone at least read the link above and go to rogerebert.com and check things out.  His answer man columns are awesome and so are his movie glossary that is ever expanding with the assistance of readers just like you and me.  They make names for all those truisms of movie truth like The Tell Me Where You Are and I'll Come Get You Rule of movie dialogue among other wonderful things.  Do it, is good internet time wasting.

Interesting day in the suburbs

I had my first Indian food made by Sam's coworker Nirav's wife and mother (PS his wife from his arranged marriage which is just really so strange to my American self). I have no idea what most of it was, but it was freaking delicious and I am stuffed.

Also they took us to this temple in the burbs near their house. It is a Hindu temple and it is enormous and gorgeous and hand carved from marble in India and then shipped here to be reassembled. It was amazing, and there were people worshiping in it and we had to take off our shoes and it was like I was somehow in India, but I was really in a suburb. Amazing.

Several Things

Kitteh had to go back to vet as he licked the suture glue off his owie before it healed. Once at vet, he hissed at our wonderful Dr. Amy. He hissed at her A LOT! So much that she took him in the back to look at it and soak it in non-sting fixy medicine. She also gave him kitty advil and he is now on anti-biotics. Apparently he didn't have anything but hisses. He was not going to be a bad kitteh, he just made sounds like he was. He has also decided that the vet does not make him feel bad all the time. He sometimes gets to feel better. Which is good, as he really hates the vet.

However now he is wearing a cone which he spent most of last night trying to back out of. This is HILARIOUS! Because there is wiggling and this great look of consternation like why does he not get clear of this thing! It is great. He also seems to clip the edges of the cone against everything. And that cracks me up too. He is not amused at all. But he is feeling better.

Also had a conversation with my mother, my very Catholic mother, about the fact that I basically live with Sam now and that is the way life is now. Now, she actually acknowledged that she figured that was true (which I was kind of surprised by--because yes she should have figured that but no since she likes to ignore things that mess with the perceived reality of her choice) and she said, "Well I figured that was how it was, you do what you want." Which sounds like blessing, but I know by the tone that she basically thinks that I am a cocky punk ass who does what I want regardless which even if it is absolutely true, it is still kind of galling to realize that is how your mother thinks of you.

Sunday of lazy

The boyfriend made omelets with blue cheese and cheddar cheese in them when we woke up this morning and spaghetti for lunch, and we cleaned out his storage area. That went rather quickly and I discovered some very old pictures as well as his bizarre enthusiasm for office supplies (seriously over excited about a very small clipboard and some pens). He also collected stamps, coins, and baseball cards through out his life. Hilarious.

Freedom!

Yes, that is right.  The musical episode of my big gay soap opera opened on Monday night and I no longer have rehearsal, at least until March.  So, what do I do?  Tuesday I go sign up to work my retail job for the holiday season.  Whatever.  I need money to buy Christmas gifts.  So if my family (well one member I guess since we are spending a bunch of money on one person only), boyfriend, any of the friends, and boyfriend's family (who I am actually spending the holiday with, including his mother's birthday) are to get anything AT ALL I need some alternate income source.  So yeah, retail here I come.  But I like it there, and I was promised a lot of cash register time since apparently many of the new people not so good with cash register and speed.  Plus several old timers are coming back for this holiday.  And I do like it there.

 

Also Big Gay Musical was well received.  The audience loved it!  My friends Jamie and Chris loved it, but they could not watch my phone sex song because well it pushes well past the bounds of decency and probably good taste (because this is the Ville people) and if you know me it is apparently very uncomfortable to see me pretending to masturbate while singing and making sex noises.  Did I mention this was not a show for America's youth?

 

Kitty has no claws.  He is in fact now famous at the vet's for waking up from painful surgery and being willing to take all comers.  They had to cover his cage with a towel to get him to stop trying to swat and his at anyone walking to near his vicinity.  However, seems not to notice that the surgery he had was painful.  It may hurt me way more to see him moving about than it hurts him.  Which I guess is better, but I really wish he hasn't totally ignored or foiled all of our multiple attempts to get him to stop destroying furniture.  Soft claws he liked getting put on, almost as much as he liked chewing them right off.  He showed no interest in multiple scratching posts, and merely took the double sided tape as a sign to scratch another part of the furniture or to move onto the leather furniture.  We really did try, and we talked to vet about it.  He just tried harder.

FEELING BETTTER!

I am over the hump thanks to some nasal spray which although it is gross to use actually lets me breathe all the way up into my skull for the first time in like a month.  I feel so much better.  I am going to enjoy tonight's party and then later the Cabaret I am doing with Chicago Public Radio and the Viaduct (sounds cool but really we are singing some songs from the Ville's musical finale) and tomorrow's concert (go Punchline!) and hanging out, and rehearsal may even be fun on Sunday that is how much better I am feeling!

 

This means soon I shall respond to Sallyacious' hat tip.

 

Still sick

Think it is much more sinusy than previously thought.  Might leave work early to go home and do the sort and stuff I have to do without having to answer phones or sit in oddly lit room with no natural light.  Actually my goal may be to head home at 2pm.  Short nap.  Work from home.

New President elect and bad head cold

I am home sick today. I have had a cold hovering at me for about two weeks, but I thought it would wait until we opened the musical to kick me in the face. Instead it got me last night. Too many late nights and not enough healthful things. Oh well. I took the day off to care for it because I hope that will right me into better health.

Seriously who is working today?

Because I am at work, but way too nervous and excited to work.  Have already wasted an hour and a half.  Just not interested in work and don't have pressing enough work to worry about it.  Am going to stuff things today because that will be appropriate.  Our mail got delivered super early as our street will get closed down later.  We are roughly 2 and 1/2 blocks from the entrance to Obama party central, and there has been important official people there since last week.  Chicago is psyched!  The holy city is kind of vibrating with nervous energy just waiting to spill over into ecstacy and joy.  Everyone is so proud to vote.

 

Unrelated news.  I am buying ice skates this winter (or fall) because I can then go ice skate for free on my lunch break!  Genius!

meeting overheard

I like my job, I feel obligated to preface this entry, because it is mostly enjoyable, rarely tedious, and I find the people interesting and nice to be around and work with.  It also lets me have a life outside of it, and I like that a lot.  However, today an open door meeting was held in the conference room next to me.  There are two companies in my office, and I kind of work for both of them, but mostly for the main one of them that came first.  This meeting was for the big company.  Every single person in the big company except for me and my boss.  It was the quarterly bonus pass out.  All but the two newest employees of that company (who qualify for bonuses but we don't get fully paid until in Q4 for the project they qualify for) got bonuses.

 

I didn't and my boss didn't.  We don't qulaify for them as we never work on a specific project.  We just make the office run smoothly around the people who work on the projects that pay our bills.  The meeting involved a rah rah speech by the owner of the company.  It talks about how when the company profits we all do.  How in part we work hard for moments like this when you see the fruits of your labor. 

 

It was disheartening to overhear this speech when you weren't getting back.  Especially because although my job isn't particularly taxing or difficult or even all that specialized, it does involve doing all the awful shit that if the specialized people were made to do would make them jump ship.  I do it for them, but it seems that is not worthy of reward.  And the thing is, that if they just closed the damn door I wouldn't be thinking about this.  Especially since most of the bonuses were fairly small.  Extrapolated, virtually no one gets as much as $1,000 a year in bonuses.  Some of them get less than $250.  They really aren't that great all things considered, but they happen more frequently, so people might like less since they get them more often.  It just sucked to be sitting out here listening and knowing that I too give to the company and but apparently that which I give isn't too valuable.