Life's falling together

The weather today was fantastic. I wish I was outside right now. I looked at the apartment that will soon be mine today, it's over in Logan Square. Well, the east side of Logan Square, according to the Apartment People's map. I have no idea what is over there, restaurants, bars, stores, who knows. I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough. Anyway, there was some confusion about which unit is supposed to be ours, so I'm hoping we get that worked out soon so I can sign the lease. I'm excited to move, really. Things are going really well in the "dating" department, too, so all I need now is a job and I'll feel like a full-fledged adult. That's what you're supposed to be after you graduate college, right?

30 days, then 30 years

In exactly one month I will officially be a college graduate. Isn't that great? It's hard to be excited when I don't have a job lined up in what the Wall Street Journal is calling "the rockiest job market in recent years." But honestly I'm not THAT worried. Stuff always works out for me. I'm more concerned about where I'm going to live when my lease is up on May 31st. I am like 90% sure about who I will be living with, but we have yet to figure out which neighborhood will work best for us. Somewhere close to the train is all I really require. And close to some restaurants. I figure I'll be working in the Loop so any train can take me there. The restaurants are so I can take guys on dates there and then we can casually end up back at my apartment where I'll slip in a DVD which we won't watch as we make out for hours with the music from the DVD menu playing in the background.

Anyway, back to the job issue. I will probably just start temping again, hopefully I won't get fired from an assignment this time around. I'll be working weekends at the restaurant too, bussing tables. I'm just too lazy to actually start serving. But maybe I should and try to make that a full-time gig, at least for the summer. Reality: that's not going to happen. I have this small dream that I will be able to become a free-lance graphic designer in my spare time. I am even getting the full Adobe design suite free from some kid in my class who overheard me asking about how much it costs. I mean, he downloaded it illegally but whatever. That's my dream this week: graphic design!

Tables Turned, Priorities Scorned

It may be the greatest miracle of all time! I am interested in a guy who is also into me. I may be too quick to speak (to post) because there has been only one date, but I like to think I have a certain sense about things like this. And what am I basing this "sense" on? Nothing, nothing at all. I have no experience with things like this working out well. But today it feels good and I'm going to preserve that for the millions of netizens who read this blog. Or, you know, the three netizens.

After the rather depressing post preceding this one, it is nice to be able to honestly say that I am happy right now. The feeling may self-destruct before the end of the day but it EXISTS. A person commented on my last (depressing) post in response to my query about the location of the happiness-depository (so I could pick some up) with this statement:

"I think you have to pretend you don't wanna be happy..or something.. then you are showered with happy.. it's stupid. (-Yeti)

And it's so fucking true. I hadn't even read the comment until today, when I went to post about my happiness, and I realized that it did come when I had all but given up on it ever being like this. But, happiness in a relationship (listen to me, talking as if I know what it is like to be in a relationship) sometimes comes at the expense of other things that were previously the source of your happiness. Like a particularly close friendship or a burgeoning hobby or a quest to expand your horizons. Or maybe not, maybe I just don't know what it means to be part of a "couple," me and another person being a package. Do you change yourself for them? Do they change you? Is that supposed to happen? Isn't that what everyone aims for, to finally be part of someone else's life and decisions? Is the sum greater than the parts?

I am so so so pissed off right now and I can't figure out why. Everything that seems to have set me off has happened before without incident and even all together they are sort of "whatever."

SO, first of all I'm out with my male roommate (gay) and his best friend, my other (female) roommate at some lame Lincoln Park bar (they go to DePaul, they probably can't help it). So, gay roommate is talking about just how much sex he has with his boyfriend. So much! They even broke his bed! That sort of made me a little uncomfortable cuz I ain't gettin any lately. I guess that means I am jealous. Anyway girl roommate is being super boring, it's her 21st birthday and she says "no shots" and is slowly sipping her long island iced tea and I'm all, "I'm outta here"

BECAUSE my friend Josh from when I went to school in Florida is in town! Can't wait to see him! He's one of my favorite people. I ditch the Lincoln Park thing and head to Clarke's to eat with them. But the bus never comes and I'm super pissed and I say fuck it and walk all the way to the 151 by Belmont. Then I realize i'm sad over Josh, who has a boyfriend. why is everyone happy with other people? It's not really like I want them for myself but GODDAMN if i don't want a piece of the happy.

Where's it at, people? I WANT SOME

Silent with snow

Man, the snow is really pretty tonight. I was getting really pissed off at all the cold temperature lately and about to swear off winter but this snow changed my mind. It started out as some of those quarter-sized flakes that make the world feel like a snow globe while I was on campus earlier today. It was so awesome, just staring up at the sky, my favorite song playing on my iPod, the entire world out of my view except for the thick but softly-falling snow.

Now, I just left the downtown campus after working on a paper all night (and playing around with my new blog www.settingitaside.tumblr.com) and I hadn't realized how much snow had fallen because I was nowhere near the window. When I finally looked up at the Water Tower I saw the snow layered on the tree branches near the tower. It was straight out of a photography book or something. (just realizing I live in a picturesque city)

I watched the snow fall on Michigan Ave. for a while waiting for the bus, but nothing compared to when I was walking back to my apartment, further on the North Side. The sidewalks full of unshovled snow and the trees lining the streets each forming into their own unique heavily iced decorations, I was engulfed into a completely different world.

Seriously, it just changed my whole perspective. Brought back that wonder with the natural world that so often disappears in city residents. Fucking awesome.

Tpyos are going to riun me froevre

Man I fucking hate typos. If my web browser didn't have some program that underlines all the words I misspell when I write e-mails or online comments or even this blog, you would all think I spell at a 5th grade level. I mean I might still. Who knows.

Anyway, I forgot how great of a device this is for procrastination! I have a 50-question multi-choice test tomorrow morning in marketing, a class where I have taken a half-page of notes in 5 weeks and have never opened the book. Only fifteen minutes until midnight! 0 chapters down, 6 to go.

This picture is from the library, staring out at the dorms across the street. Look how cool I am with a macbook and maroon shoelaces. I was procrastinating then too.

Out of Town

The Scene: Kansas City International (really? international?) Airport, 7:20pm

M is just realizing that after a random-sobbing-attack filled weekend with his family, his 7:30pm flight back to Chicago is going to be delayed for a while.

It starts out with just a weather advisory, a 10 minute delay. Then, via text from Chicago friends, M realizes that weather situation is severe. Weather.com has 70% precipitation for Chicago until 12am.

M checks with airline associates; the flight is now delayed until 8:15pm. Not too bad. M buys two cans of beer from the Wolfgang Puck Kiosk (why is this kiosk affiliated with Wolfgang Puck?). Starts to chug one. Coordinates a pick-up effort in Chicago based on the quickly spreading delay. He's not going to deal with the CTA after 11pm on a Sunday night after a weekend like this, who would?

Delay has been extended to 9pm. The Chicago team is on standby, armed with the flight number and the airline website. What can only be another delay announcement is muffled by the sounds of the Shiny Toy Guns Channel on pandora and simultaneously ignored by M who is working his way through the second beer quickly. It's already 9pm, obviously the flight is not leaving until 10:30pm at the earliest.

The looming question: what time do kiosks in the admittedly hick state of Kansas stop serving beer on a Sunday night?

How to Blog

How do you blog? Should I think about and edit what I write, or should I just write? If I go the first route, I'm too lazy to actually follow through with any ideas. The second route, well, this is it.

I talk to myself a lot

I was walking home from the train the other day and I was thinking about something, I think it was my Old Testament teacher, and I realized I was moving my lips. I then realized I probably looked as crazy as the randomly-shouting street people who hang out near the methadone clinic near my house. It wasn't really a big revelation, but sort of sad that the "crazy" is starting to get out of control. Maybe it's because I don't talk to any people for days at a time and I just HAVE to talk. Who knows.

Is time even moving?

Well, it's halfway through the week, a good solid hump-day, and I'm bored out of my mind. Not because there's nothing to do; exactly the opposite, really. I'm supposed to be researching junk mail for an advertising project (my senior thesis, or "capstone project" in Loyola-speak) but I told myself that I was going to do that after I go to the gym, but I'm putting that off too, just because it's kinda far away. Not that far, only a 10 minute bike ride, but it just feels early to be starting the chain of events that will end with me doing the research. If there was ever a better reason to pointlessly post a blog, I never heard it. Oh, there's also tons of stuff I should be doing for the clubs I'm in, PRSSA and IABC, since I decided it was a good idea to have an executive board position in not one, but TWO student organizations my senior year. Who am I trying to impress? Oh yeah, graduate schools and prospective employers. Regarding employers and this blog, I'm always half-worried that something I write will bite me in the ass, but I'm also half-hoping that someone will read this blog and offer me a job writing for gawker.com or something. I have journalistic cred! I'm taking Reporting and Writing this semester, sees ah canz write storees.

Actually, I really just wrote all this because I took this really cool, semi-anonymous picture this weekend and I thought it would be perfect for my blog. Also Hannah Montana was a repeat (well aren't they all) and so was Ned's Declassified Survival Guide, Law & Order, True Hollywood Stories: ANTM and after that I just stopped channel surfing, it was making me sad.

Fine, I guess i'll go! Unless there are some new blog posts that I've missed..... I'm gonna go check that out.

Don't you find abandoned senses attractive?

Chicago is such a bustling place, it always amazes me when I find another really unique part of town. I was driving around Bucktown the other day, looking for a maternity shop called Belly Dance, but me and my friend got lost and ended up in Ukranian Village. It's a super hipster part of town, and it gave me a really different look at Chicago than the one I get at Loyola's Mag Mile campus and my Uptown home. It's just another reinforcement, telling me I made the right decision to move here. I can't wait until I have a real job and can look at apartments in all parts of town! Not just the cheap ghetto where I can afford to live.

Another story: I chugged three beers when I got home from picking up the supplies for my latest promotion because I was so pissed off at the manager. The dude who I was picking the stuff up from, the manager, took an HOUR AND A HALF to give me a t-shirt, hardhat and box of tissue samples. Seriously, I have shit to do! So I took the edge off with the beers, then I packed up my books and went to class. Needless to say, my notes are not very coherent (or existent, actually) from the first hour of class. Hey, college is almost over and I'm not going to be able to do this at a job, so I thought I'd take advantage of the anonymity of night class. Hell yeah.

My other Site

I accidentally typed in www.gaytoast.blogpsot.com.... see the blogspot part is spelled wrong.... and it took me to some bible site. I thought it was funny.

TIES

I officially have a tie fetish lately. I know I said I couldn't afford second-hand clothes, but I realized that Yellow Jacket is just way over-priced. So what I really liked there were the ties, and now I have bought about 15 new ties from Goodwill (in Kansas on a family visit), a random antiques store and Chicago's Village Discount Outlet. I love them all. Too bad I don't have a job where I have to wear ties. See, that would make it a normal purchasing spree. This lack of practicality makes it a full-on fetish. Anyhow, I love them.

Secondhand Change

Hey I was out walking around Chicago the other day, under the guise of "working" for the magazine I intern at, and I found a really cool vintage store called Yellow Jacket. But, at the same time, I realized I was too poor at that point in time to even afford second-hand clothes. Sad, right? But, I guess it's something that happens in college. I'd rather it happen now than when I'm 23, out of school and don't have the possibility of new employment right around the corner. That's what I've been telling myself lately, that a great job is just around the corner (i.e. after graduation) and I will be making BUNDLE$. Hmm we'll see how that goes.

A month later...

Jeez it's been a month since I was fired and I sort of have a new job? I've been doing the "gigs" on craigslist.com. They pay more than $10/hour and I get to sleep in usually. The downside is that the jobs aren't regular, and I haven't made enough money to pay my rent. Good thing my mother still sends money! Passing out flyers while wearing a bathrobe on Michigan Ave was a pretty fun experience, though. I hope someday I can tell this story to someone and sound like a cool person.

On a side note, I always have great ideas for shit to write about, then when I get on here all I do is write about my stupid job. I'm going to try better. I mean, I'm a single, gay, hearing-impaired, cash-strapped, recreational-drug-using senior in college. Shouldn't my life be more interesting? Really, I'm gonna try.