i saw a cover of a business magazine the other day that read "Inequality: why you should care." so, i was glad to find this today.

from melissa, that scorched-earth, take-no-prisoners liberal goddess slash writer over at shakespeare's sister, comes this open letter: Dear America. Wake the fuck up.

What is perhaps most despicable about this ["it's all about me"] attitude in America is that we are largely a nation of Christians (as we are constantly reminded by the most ostentatious adherents), a religion which has as its centerpiece the notion of personal sacrifice for, literally, everyone else, yet the majority of Christians seem to have drawn from the story of Jesus not the notion of self-sacrifice, but the notion that someone else will make the sacrifice for them.

go read it, it will probably be the best thing you do for yourself all day.

the hold up.

this morning, BoyCat and i walked into the Belmont El station to find a gaggle of people standing around at the foot of the stairs that lead up to the train platform. it was all clear on the side heading north, though, so after ascertaining that we had no idea what was going on, BoyCat went up to catch his train. i sidled up to the group standing around doing nothing and looked around. there was a guy with a walkie talkie blocking off the stairs to the south-bound platform, but no other signs of anything amiss.

of course, in this brave new world of ours, one of your first thoughts upon encountering this kind of abnormal situation is terrorism. ridiculous? yes. and part of your brain tells you "that's ridiculous" even as you're thinking it. but the other part of your brain, the one father back, deeper down, is whispering,

it's a bomb.
was there a bomb?
is there a bomb?
maybe it's a bomb.

i shush this voice as best i can and ask a girl standing next to me if she knew what was going on. she said, "they're blocking the stairs because there's a train delay, and the platform is overcrowded."

oh, ok. plausible enough. i sit back on my heels a little and watch as the area fills up with hapless commuters, just trying to get somewhere, but at the moment having nowhere to go. then, to my right, two big guys in bulletproof vests and police badges brush roughly past me, and make their way up the stairs to the platform. looks like there's a train up there, actually, and i see another guy in a bright yellow CTA vest walking alongside it.

terrorism. terrorism? terrorism.

my brain is now actively at war with itself. one side says, "just be patient, you've got no good alternatives right now." the other side says, "get out of here. this is suspect. walk back to clark street and take the 156 bus, anything, just go!"

i don't move. i think about the small insanity of such decisions, i wonder if these are mental arguments i will always have to have with myself as long as i choose to live in a big city, but i don't move.

within a minute or so, the bulletproofed policemen come down off the platform, another train pulls in and debarks some passengers, and we are allowed up the stairs. i get on the next brown line train that comes by, sit down, and put my headphones in. right before the first song queues up i hear the doors suction shut and the familar computerized voice telling me that "wellington is next. doors open on the right at wellington."

and just like that, things are normal again. but then again, i guess small insanities are the new normal anyway.

your wednesday one-liner.

courtesy of Overheard in New York, an inscrutable man. i've gotta say, if you tried to talk to me about chaucer for half a minute, i'd probably give you a hard shove and run flailing in the other direction.

Guy: You can't talk to me for half an hour about Chaucer and then tell me you have a boyfriend.

--St Mark's & 3rd

tsunamis, tornadoes, and mentally disturbed neighbhorhood men.

the above are what i dreamed about last night. not necessarily in that order.

and people, my body's "now it's time to sleep!" clock is on the fritz. it is in need of serious repair. on sunday and monday, this little clock waited to go off until 1:15 a.m. and 2:05 a.m., respectively. then last night? 8:05 p.m.

i was in bed and asleep by 8:30. what? huh? am i 12?

apparently.

so, i had all the best intentions of writing a cohesive, entertaining, actual-thesis-having post last night, but my internal timepiece ruined everything. perhaps tonight i can make it past the nine o'clock news and actually get something with a point published! we'll see. but with the way my evenings are going, i make no guarantees...

sweet mother of jesus, i am tired.

but anyway. reading the other kate's blog today, i was reminded that i wanted to link to this post by twisty about that mythical creature, The Empowerful Woman.

twisty slays me.

there's also a follow-up post, if you're into reading twisty rants that stir up some shit. and really, who isn't into that?

just so you know.

the result of a pity party for one on a monday night?

being slightly drunk after 4.5 glasses of wine, by yourself, on the couch, with your cat sleeping next to you.

this is also discouraging! but in a highly amusing kind of way.

pity party, table of one.

i'm sure that blog post title has been used innumerable times already. as stephen colbert says, deal with it.

ok, so.

- it was cold and rainy today. i went to work in short sleeves and flat sandals with long-ish pants. this resulted in me being soaked to the knees by 8:15 a.m and not fully dry til about 10:30.

- i forgot breakfast.

- i have five grants and reports due in the next four days.

- it was still raining when i left work.

- we came home to our kitchen ceiling actively leaking water. onto the kitchen floor. right through the paint, and plaster, and what i assume should be about five other layers before you reach the outside.

- i still don't have a job in DC. i have only had two phone interviews in two months. this is discouraging.

- we still don't have an apartment in DC. we're going to start making some phone calls and serious inquiries about places next week, but given the employment situation, it looks like i'll probably have to ask my parents to be a co-signer. i'm 26 years old. this is discouraging.

- i'm hungry, but i don't know what i want to eat. don't you hate that?

wally the green monster in vegas: a brief pictorial.

here, in short form, is wally the green monster's trip to vegas:

first, he hit the slots.

his excited posturing belies the fact that he lost his life savings in 30 minutes.

so he went up to his room to look at the view and drown his sorrows. (it's vodka neat, in case you were wondering.)

feeling a bit better, wally ventured down to the pool for some sun, and some more liquid therapy.

wally really does need to learn his limits. lucky for him, "what happens in vegas stays in vegas," right?

except that now it's all on this blog, for the whole wide world to see.

poor wally.

an insomnia-induced post about being earnest and being funny.

a feminist analysis of vegas-style L’Art Du Nu (a.k.a. boobs and $10 martinis) is forthcoming. i swear. because really, how could I not?

but first, something else. piny at feministe has an interesting post up about irony and how it relates to queer humor, which is a response to an earlier, also interesting post by amanda at pandagon about the generational “irony differential.” i have one thing to say about each post, and i’m just going to get right into it. so, if you’d like to have something even approaching context around what i’m about to say, please clicky the linkys to the above (really good! and did I mention interesting?) posts.

1. in amanda’s post concerning the “irony differential” among boomers and Xers, she makes the following point:

There were some people in the thread below that complained that the next generation, the Millenials, is being unfairly characterized as “earnest”. I think they’re probably right that it’s unfair. It’s probably a characterization from the same people that think that these sort of multi-layered jokes are stupid. They’re hoping that the next generation will just give up and stop being so ironic.

i found this intriguing, as just recently BoyCat and i were talking about postmodernism (shut up, we were!), and i was saying how i think it’s a shame that “earnest” has become a dirty word. now, i’m not really an Xer and i’m not really a “millennial” (and don’t call me Generation Y either, that was a load of bunk. what, we’re the generation that comes after X? what does that even mean?), so i don’t feel as if i have a stake in this generational smackdown. however, i think that to react to being called “earnest” as if someone had just insulted your mother has taken this whole po-mo thing a bit too far.

it’s true, though – studied disaffection is the order of the day among people my age. if you haven’t perfected the art of snark, if you aren’t able to construct an entire worldview around your ability to mock people and things, then you’re not worth your hipster salt. don’t get me wrong – i love a good meta joke and perusing Gawker just as much as the next person. but in the end, i don’t think this is a sufficient means of dealing with the world. i know why we do it. we do it because to be “earnest” about anything is to be somehow vulnerable to it – earnestness opens us up to the possibility of truly caring about something and thus able to be disappointed, wronged, or duped. we protect against this vulnerability by embracing its opposite – disaffection – and thus are inoculated against the accusation of ever taking anything (or ourselves) too seriously.

but isn’t this a dead-end? if i can’t care about anything, what’s the point? it’s like nihilism, it’s self-defeating. there’s nowhere to go with it. i’m not saying all us twentysomethings should go out and re-find religion, or environmentalism, or a sense of civic responsibility, but i do think that it’s all right to take the shattered theoretical landscape of postmodernism and try to re-make something out of it. something that you think matters, and something that you can admit caring about. is that so bad?

2. holy cow, this is going to be a long post. ok, piny takes this humor ball and runs with it into the field of queer humor. this reminded me about a point i wanted to bring up around humor and offense – particularly, that tightrope that people walk between the two all the time.

the particulars: the other night, BoyCat and i were lounging around watching some of the william shatner roast on comedy central. naturally, george takei was there. given that george takei recently came out of the closet, i figured there would be some shots taken on that front. what follows are two examples of how you can make a joke about a gay person, one successful and one painfully not so.

(let me state for the record that yes, i understand that the point of a roast is to be shocking and irreverent and outrageous. i get that you can say mean things about people and they will laugh. that’s totally all fine – if you’re funny. see below for more.)

the first joke in question came from some random white guy comic whose name i don’t know and don’t really care to know, because he wasn’t memorably funny. but he had decent pacing and timing, and was steadily slinging it around. he mentioned george takei, how he liked george, george was a good guy. then he went into the set up, saying something about how he and george hang out, but sometimes it’s hard for straight guys to know what to talk about with gay guys, hard to try to find a topic to converse about. he said, “i’ll be like, ‘hey george, i was just watching the superbowl, i mean um sucking dick!’” which, you know what? was kinda funny. because the comic was just playing up a basic truth, which is that straight guys can get uncomfortable around gay guys, and then say idiotically amusing things as a result. his delivery signaled an understanding of how ridiculous he would sound saying such a thing, which indicated an understanding of how inherently ridiculous such discomfort is. it was certainly not the funniest joke i’ve ever heard, but it at least succeeded in not being off-putting.

the second joke was from ben stiller. now, i’ve had a fairly low opinion of ben stiller’s comedic ability for going on a decade now, and this did nothing to improve his standing in my eyes. i was actually in the bedroom at this point, half paying attention to the audio from the tv in the other room, but i heard him start in on shatner about never replying to his fan letter as a kid. then he says that george takei totally wrote him back. then he says something to the effect of, “yeah, and then george invited me over to his house. and he told me that sitting on his lap was a transporter and would beam me to heaven. so that was nice.” which, you know what? was pretty offensive. because stiller is, at bottom, as lazy comedian, so he took the lazy gay joke route and just insinuated that takei was a pedophile. and lazy jokes with not only zero truth, but also a healthy dose of homophobia, are not very funny. for christsakes, stiller, you’ve got millions of dollars and nothing to do all day, and you can’t come up with anything funnier than a pedophile crack that a sixth-grader could have written? that’s not even offensive, that’s just downright sad.

in short, i know there’s a fine line between funny and offensive, and that often the best comedians are the ones who consistently live on that knife-edge. but i just thought these two jokes were so emblematic of both how to get away with it and how to fail miserably. the moral of the story? be self-deprecating, and don’t waste your money on the next ben stiller movie.

i'm back.

i don't really want to be back, but i am. and i am at work - work! - on a friday after 5 days of vacation. oh, the injustice of it all.

so, i gambled. i ate mcdonald's hash browns for breakfast. i walked the strip in 105 degree heat. i drank a margarita by the pool before 10:00 am. i saw a nudie show.

you know, your basic vegas stuff.

more to come later, but for now, media meetings beckon.

always split aces and eights, never split fives and tens.

ok, people, i am signing off. for six days, i am cutting off all lines of communication to and from the blogging world. eek! will i survive? will i end up scribbling html code on the hotel room walls? only time will tell.

i sense that i will be all right, only because there will be prolific opportunities for gambling and drinking during most of my self-imposed exile. hell, they are the reasons for my self-imposed exile. my plan for the five days in las vegas is pretty much this: sleep, drink coffee, drink booze, gamble, look at cool hotels, eat, drink booze, sit by the pool, gamble, drink booze, eat, drink booze. rinse and repeat.

now i am not a seasoned gambler by any means, but i have made it my mission to play at least a few rounds of blackjack while i'm there. i actually held my own in the casino on the cruise ship two summers ago - i managed to play for half an hour or so and not lose all the money i ponied up. if i can manage that in vegas, i will do a little happy dance. otherwise, i will be trolling the casinos with SisterCat looking for wheel of fortune slot machines (she swears by them now, even though that "wheel! of! fortune!" thing threatens to drive anyone batty) and video poker. i will cast aspersions and dirty looks in the direction of the craps tables, as i managed to lose $20 in 45 seconds at one of those evil things. you're not seducing me with your shiny dice and dealer-wielding-a-stick this time, craps.

oh, and BoyCat is growing a dirty moustache specifically for the purpose of looking like a capital-T Trashy tourist for a day. there is also a fishing-related tank top involved. i told him he had one day, and one day only, for this little role-playing enterprise, but i wager he won't get through three hours before passing out from laughing so hard at his ridiculous self. i'll report back.

ok, that's all i got. see you all next week!

the one with song lyrics and declarative sentences.

and i've got...no illusions about you.
guess what?...i never did.
when i said...when i said, "i'll take it,"
i meant...i meant "as is."

it's been almost four years of ups and downs, highs and lows, and i wouldn't change any of it.

happy birthday, BoyCat - i love you.

an observation.

yesterday, i realized that i hate the word "fiancee." i hate the fact that it can be written like four different ways - fiancee, fiance, fianceé, fiancé - some with the little french doo-hickey on the end. i hate the way it sounds, i hate the way it looks, i hate how close it is to the word "finance" - i hate everything about it!

and really, this is not just because i found out that theo epstein has a fiancee yesterday. really, um, it wasn't. it was just in researching this development - how had i missed the news of theo's engagement for three months? what is wrong with me? - and reading the word repeatedly in boston sports columns and gossip pages that i realized, actually, i despise it.

ok, ok. fine. i'm a little jealous of theo's f-word. but not the fact that she has to be an f-word for the next year and change.

last day-of-my-birth post, i swear...

...but i had to post some pictures* of the beautiful flowers that were waiting for me when i got home from work. BoyCat has some pretty good taste, no?

*now i know it looks like i took these pictures under the cover of night or something, but really, it's the combination of low natural light levels in our apartment and the flower setting on my digital camera. i probably could've done better with my manual SLR, but then i couldn't post them, and what's the fun in that?

proof that those "born today" horoscopes are total bunk.

from msn.com:

Women born on [August 15] are Ms. Houseproud...While August 15 is as ambitious as any other Leo day, these people may not devote themselves to big careers in big business. The women in particular want to have children and stay around to look after them, so part-time work will do. They have lovely musical voices, and anything to do with the telephone is just up their street.

ha, double ha, triple ha, quadruple ha. so many "ha"s, i don't know what to do with them all.

birthday.

today, i turn 26.

this past year of my life has been great, and it has been bad. it has been really suprising, and utterly dull. in short, i guess, it's been like any other year of life and like no other year of life.

so, i'm not going to bore you all with some long-winded recap of the major events of the past 365 days, along with blow-by-blow analyses of their impact and significance. what i will tell you is my motto for the coming year. (i know, seriously, a motto? but work with me here. i'm only 26.) this, like my other revelation of the year, came to me pretty organically - i'm not exactly how it formed itself, or how it took root and began to repeat itself to me, quietly and insistently, over the last few weeks. but this is it:

rethink everything.

if it seems drastic, that's because it kind of is. but i've realized recently that i need to try to see things in a variety of possible lights, not just the shade in which i'm used to viewing them. what will i do for work? where will i live? what will make me happy? what will motivate me? what are my priorities? all are fair game over the next year, and while i don't imagine i'll have any definitive answers on my 27th birthday, at least i'll have spent a year considering what i want the answers to be.

and you know what's funny? soon after this little motto had coalesced in my brain, i saw a hyundai commerical with the written tagline, "rethink everything." goddamn advertising industry! cribbing my personal motto for material gain! i should do something, like sue them for intellecutal property. that, or buy a hyundai - i'm not sure.

tardy. - updated

update: i know that the petition isn't letting you sign it without entering a card type; they're working on fixing the kink over at Ms. right now.

there's no excuse for my tardiness on this one, but feministing reminded me that i wanted to mention the new Ms. I Had An Abortion campaign, which is a reflection of a petition published in the original 1972 issue of Ms., and has been undertaken because "it is time to speak out again– in even larger numbers —and to make politicians face their neighbors, influential movers and shakers, and yes, their family members."

now, i have never had an abortion, but i'll be signing the petition in support of any woman's right to have one if she feels that's the right decision for her. so, if you are so inclined, go sign it, whether in statement or in solidarity.

sunday's on the phone to monday.

and it's saying, "i keep telling you to quit coming around, but you don't listen!"

people, i am so lazy and unmotivated. that, combined with a gigantic pile of pointless crap paperwork on my desk, spells Kate's Not Going To Have A Good Day Today. or KNGTHAGDT, for short.

fucking nonsensical acronyms. fucking workpiles. argh.

more from me when i'm feeling a bit more coherent and a bit less like an irritated primate.

all the cool kids are doing it.

well, shakes, toast, and tart, at the very least.

so here's mine:

friday cat blogging, the wonders of picture manager edition.

so, i realized just now that it was ok for me to be too lazy to track CatCat down and take her picture for friday cat blogging, because i could just crop a picture of her with me (of which there are a few). brilliant. so here's CatCat, soon after we got her, and my disembodied arm:



oh and also? football is on. football! is! on! so instead of telling you all more about why i'm still angry (and oh, i am angry! at many, many people and things. mostly of the inconsequential and/or unchangable variety, but still.), i am going to watch the pats and then the bears play. and most likely drink something. i'd advise you all to do the same.

the way car ads should be.

so i was just reading my new issue of bitch magazine, and there's a blurb about how awful those new "My Fast" VW commericals are. specifically, the article laments the bygone days when "volkswagen advertising was about quiet guys dumpster-diving ('Da Da Da') and a cute Cabrio cruising under a 'Pink Moon'". while those were both good commericals, it reminded me of a far superior VW ad, one that i would seriously consider labeling the Best Ad I Have Ever Seen. you know the one: the silver jetta, the frantic guy in the suit trying to get to the wedding, the ominous yet beautiful soundtrack, and the twist ending. watch it again, because it's as good as you remember it:



and i know all ads are shilling something, but god, i wish they could all be this well-made while they're at it.

real quick, before they take my computer away for "maintenance."

when we all know it's part of an international conspiracy to monitor my every move. i'm onto you, nonprofitland.

ok, three things that have annoyed the shit out of me already today:

1) the guy who tried to open closed subway car doors with his fingers this morning. ok, stick your foot in there if the doors are in the process of closing, that's fine. and go ahead and kick the closed doors of the train you just missed, if that makes you feel better. but wedging four fingers of one hand in between the rubber sealing on the doors as the train is starting to move? fucking moron.

2) the girl who could not, for the life of her, walk in a straight line on wells street. now, i understand a moment of slight veering here or there. but you know what? you just got off the train, there are evidently a number of people around you attempting to walk somewhere as well, and when you drift hither and yon as if you are the only person on the sidewalk, you get in my way. and i want to shove you. hard.

3) the co-worker who asked me within 30 seconds of my arrival at the office, "so, are you in a better mood today?" well, i was, until you asked me that asinine question. what the fuck, who says that? i could only manage a "well, we'll see," as i distracted myself by looking for something in my bag. i wasn't really looking for anything, just restraining myself from flinging something across the room.

grrr. argh. but i just have to get through 3 more hours, and then it's "work from home" this afternoon. i do actually have to do work, i'm on a deadline, but right now i'm pretending i get to go home, put my feet up, eat pretzels and fluff and watch lifetime movies. because really, that would be better.

your wednesday one-liner(s).

that's what fag hags are for, according to Overheard in New York:

Man on cell: Natalie? Nat, if you're there, pick up! Oh my God, I just hooked up with a guy whose house smelled like cat pee, and he wanted me to spit in his face! Where the fuck are you?

--52nd & 2nd

and a bonus one-liner, just because i thought it was so inscrutably funny:

Girl on cell: We need, like, a slutty web-designer friend we can bring in on this.

--Harlem

not enough time or energy to do it justice.

people, i am angry. i have a whole post in my head about how angry i am about a variety of idiotic things. (a post, you say? not an epic novel? it might end up somewhere in between the two when i'm finished with it.) at the moment, however, i am working on updating and re-arranging my resume and applying to a bunch of jobs, so i can't commit to the full-on rant in my brain that is positively kicking the stalls to get out.

soon, my dears.

but until then, let me just give you one example of the stupidity that is making me mutter under my breath and laugh out loud like a crazy person. today, on my walk home from work, i approached a giant, ugly, beat-to-all-hell chevy truck parked on halsted st. the front of the truck was facing me, and the license plate was a confederate flag. i think to myself, whoa buddy, you are in chicago and parked in front of a gay bar - drive 500 or so miles south, and you should end up where you need to be. as i pass the truck, of course i have to turn around and see where this moron is from and exactly how far he or she came to look like a fish out of water.

it was an indiana license plate. indiana.

it's a wonder i don't just punch myself in the face sometimes, if only to distract myself from the rampant, flamboyant foolishness that surrounds me on a day to day basis.

my day, in list form.

- 1 nonprofitland golf outing
- 1 alarm going off at 6:00 am
- 160 miles driven
- 210 minutes spent in the car
- 22 rich golfers playing on a private course coordinated
- 3 careening golfcart trips
- 75 minutes of schmoozing with said rich golfers
- 2 1/2 grab bags of lay's potato chips ingested
- close to a full cup of potato salad ingested
- too much other food ingested to talk about
- 12 hours on the job

and finally

- one stiff drink, about to be ingested

on javy lopez.

i'll take it.

i have often waxed poetic to BoyCat about the, shall we say, aesthetic merits of javy lopez. he tended to be the highlight of watching any baltimore orioles game, in my humble opinion. and no offense to my lovely boys tek and mirabelli, but really, if i have to watch a back-up, back-up catcher for a few weeks, i'm glad it's this guy:



now i just have to hope for a lot of national-broadcast sox games...

free fridays.

i'm broadcasting now from my living room couch, in my pajamas. i am not, i repeat not on my way to work. i finagled having fridays off from now until my departure from nonprofitland. yes, i am a master negotiator, and i wowed them with my airtight logic (and evident teetering on the brink of insanity). hence, the pajamas.

but i won't be in my pajamas for long, because in true kate fashion, i have packed my first day off with a ton of crap to do. i've got the gym, the bookstore, the grocery store, the hairstylist, and somewhere in there has to be a quick trip to H&M. i am in desperate need of a pool cover-up for vegas. i am going to vegas in two and a half weeks, and i have nothing presentable to wear over my bathing suit. this, obviously, cannot stand.

more later, perhaps. but for now, it's the last 13 minutes of dawson's creek and then dragging my ass to the elliptical machine.

i've got a fever, and the only cure is...

a cold front.



this was the radar around chicago at 9:00 pm last night. i was literally dancing and leaping through the courtyard, screeching like a howler monkey singing, giddy as a schoolgirl. we got caught in a deluge around 7:00 on our way to dinner, and i could not have been happier. normally, in those circumstances, i am cursing everyone and everything at hand while i get soaked from my feet to my knees and wrestle with my umbrella. but yesterday?

rain = elixir of the gods.

i can breathe in my apartment now! all is right with the world! but i'm still not blow-drying my hair before work. because really, fuck that.

is this thing on?

hey, peoples. it's still hot. now you new englanders understand what i've been bitching about for the past two days. is that why it's so quiet around here? everyone's too exhausted by Apocolypse 2006 to type?

i would understand that, actually.

but hey, you should tell me what you all are doing to beat the heat. or a heat-related horror story. or an incoherent mumbling about humidity levels and the antichrist. anything! because lord knows i can't concentrate enough to do any real work today. so talk to me - it'll help me avoid the urge to kick things and/or poke myself in the eye with a bic pen.

well, well.

my trip was only off by about three weeks.

who knew kevin costner had a band? then again, who would really want to know that?

rock on, dyersville.

you know what's NOT amusing?

the heat, anymore.

now i know you all are hot too and kinda sick of talking about it, but ok, seriously? our air conditioner can not handle it. i think it's a combination of that urban heat island thing and the fact that for the past four days, the humidity level has been through the fucking roof. as of 10:00 pm tonight, the heat index at midway airport was 100 degrees and the humidity level was 62%.

our ancient little wall-unit cannot compete with numbers like that. just can't. poor little guy, i can hardly blame him - i'd have given up eventually too.

ok, that's all. i just had to complain about it for a minute, to take a break from lying on the couch, sweating, and swearing at inanimate objects. (oh, the other thing i'm doing? going slightly crazy. a few minutes ago, i started laughing at a vonage ad and couldn't stop for a good three minutes. laughing like a lunatic at a phone company commerical.) i'm trying to think of a funny way to end this post, but i can't even do that.

meh. sniffle. sigh.

you know what's amusing?

when you glance at the mirror in your bathroom at 8:00 a.m, still with soaking wet hair slung up in a knot, and then don't look in another mirror again until 1:00 p.m.

(after you've walked six blocks in the blazing heat, sat through a 20 minute ride on a crowded El train, and absentmindedly fiddled with your hair for five hours while at your desk.)

yikes.

in other news...

it's hot. so hot. so, so hot.

but you already knew that.

yesterday, our air conditioner decided that it was time to cease working properly. it has an impeccable sense of comic timing.

so, we spent the evening sprawled out across two couches, staring at baseball on the tv, while two fans and one fan-formerly-known-as-air-conditioner ran up our electric bill and only nominally cooled down the apartment.

cooled down as in blew some hot air around, so it only felt 75% like a sauna.

i mean, BoyCat had a wet do-rag on his head. people, it was bad.

so, i am now sitting in my air-conditioned office, praying that we can coax one more day of cold air out of that thing when we get home tonight. one more sweaty, sticky, semi-sleepless night on my loveseat sofa does not sound terribly appealing right now.

but if all else fails, the bars are air-conditioned, right?