New roomie

Yes, but not the cute kind. In fact this one is CREEP City.

He's got about a million legs and is making circles around my bedroom ceiling.

EW.

He arrived, totally unannounced, Sunday. Just crawled right through some unknown crevice and made himself quite at home - feeling out the different rooms to figure which one suits him best.

He has SO many legs there is just no way that I will sleep soundly. I mean he moves faster than my eyes can follow.

So, like an adult, I moved my bed to the center of the room where I will lay, cuddled against the creepy-crawly-roommate who won't take a hint.

He's too big to kill!

I'd take a photo but it's too gross. But trust me he looks like your worst nightmare with more legs. Ew again.

We have to agree to disagree. I don't want him here, he clearly wants to hang out for a bit. Alright. Alright. I won't kill him if he doesn't, say, crawl on my face, or, better yet, anywhere near me.

Sincerely - marooned and mopey -L

Dear Comcast, you're dead to me

I never intended for this blog to be my soapbox of technological complaints, but I also didn't count on being swindled by a heartless monopoly.

This relationship was hanging by a thread, but it is now, officially, over.


Dear Comcast,

Get your things and move out.

Sure, it started alright. You promised high speed Internet and (swoon) cable at a reasonable rate. You were accommodating and let me chose the time and day for our first meeting.

You were on time and, though you were slightly brisk and messy, you did what you said you would. I believed in you...in us.

And how quickly things changed. The honeymoon period only lasted a few days - not even a week?!

My Internet was the first to go and I didn't even hesitate to call you, thinking you'd rush to my aid. But you only pretended to listen. You weren't even paying attention, you were already checking out newer customers.

You avoided coming over to fix what you broke. I had to go and get my own modem - you call that gentlemanly?

And when that didn't work I called you back and you put on that sweet tone, saying you'll come out and help me this time. "What time is best for you," you asked. Mornings, I said. But then you just scheduled me an appointment between 2 and 6, keeping me at home so I couldn't pursue other options.

And just when I thought things were going good between us - the Internet was on and it was fast - the cable went out.

I just knew I couldn't depend on you. I even tried to fix it myself.

But that's just your game. You make it impossible for me to do anything for myself.

I even erased your number from my phone, not that it wasn't on the tip of my tongue.

I called and you just kept me waiting, playing that same old song.

What you say, it's just words. You tell me you'll come by, in a week, maybe two, if you have the chance. You're busy, you say. Reminding me I'm not the only one.

You're condolences are empty. You talk me through a half-hearted solution that turns the black void into basic cable, as if to mock my hopes. You even manage to turn the blame around, saying it's my fault for not upgrading to a better set.

Don't deny you're not laughing when you think of the channels you've left me: telemundo, info-mercials and a 24-7 Steven Segal movie station.

And I try to fight back. This is the last straw, I demand. But my fight is tired and my voice has the quiver of tears.

So I say it more to myself: I don't need this kind of abuse.

Except...well, I did so love the way you made the sweet sweet food network available. And those shows on demand? What of the occasional Hills episode? Could I really live without it?

I already know how this will play. You'll starve me of cable shows. I'll waste my only free day waiting for you. You'll arrive late, all coyness and indifference. Within ten minutes you'll be gone and I'll stuff myself with channels, elated with your work.

So quickly I'll forget the heartache that preceded.

This is our game.

But I hate you so much right now (come back!).

xoL

Such a honey!

The random sunrise and college(!)

We had to cover an event this weekend. I chose, or fell into, a 5K race that was to raise awareness for women and children in the Congo. I spoke with the organizer who told me she'd be setting up around 6. That's 6 A.M. And yes, that was a Saturday. All sacred ground for a new stu like myself, but like an eager beaver I went. And in doing so, proved my rookie status.

The organizer (mom and two kids) arrived on the scene closer to seven. So, I wondered around the pre-dawn park and water front, like you do.

I did, however, catch the sun rise, which was pretty beautiful.





After a brief afternoon snooze and a red bull I was ready for a night on the town with, yes, brand new friends. It was a delight. Food, champ, chatting and a later-regrettable shot was involved. We hit up a bar in Wrigleyville, which on a Saturday night resembles Bourbon street during the weekday.

I had found college. It was fabulous.

As the hours crept closer to two I knew I had to send my nearly 30 self home lest I stay a college girl forever (read: start leaving valuable items in bathroom stalls or profess new and intense appreciations for things and people I know not of).

Back to work. Tomorrow we are covering a meeting of local neighborhood politics. After speaking with a 70-ish year old representative of the committee who took my question of "is there a meeting tomorrow" to mean "please give me a step-by-step brief on your and your five closest kin's recycling habits," I can tell it's going to be a thrilling night.

And one shout out to Jiggy: You, your antics and even your eye boogies will be missed. xoL

Nights like these

This wasn't supposed to be epic, but I now have my very own Internet connection.

Yes. It's only taken three weeks

You just wouldn't believe the relationship that has evolved between my router people, my modem people and me. At one point the router guy tried to conference in the modem guy, which obviously would have been a blast but, alas, router was in India and modem (in an attempt to escape confrontation) only gave me a local number.

So - this week has been FORever and a day. We had a report due today and though I'm well past the all-nighter faze I did stay up way past my bedtime and then fretted the dark hours that followed. But, all for not. We presented a mean report on the neighborhood of Bucktown.

In case we thought that work load was the worst of it we were reminded quite promptly after the last power point slide faded that this was, technically, just the beginning.

Now I'm to think about 'beats' that I want to cover and encouraged to think outside of the box. I have tended toward the arts, but I agree that it would be boring to just slide down that path. Where does that leave me?

Could I be a reporter on the police beat? Tracking crime and public safety?
What about business, keeping watch over the greater economic crisis and it's trickle down effect on our little neighborhoods? I swear if my turn my head, tilt my chin and squint, my profile resembles that of a hard news girl.

With the report done and a night without assignments (note: I did not say homework...there is always something to be done) I celebrated with a mini bottle of wine, pink leopard slippers from TJ Maxx and a little something called Project Runway.

Hard to imagine there was a time when I could just sit and veg every night, but no time to dwell. New life, new rules. But luckily there are things like little bottles of wine to celebrate the unexpected.

The new addition

Lola has arrived (in CT). Be prepared to swoon...







I cannot resist - nor even prevent myself from - speaking directly to these photos in a high-pitched voice.

Such a honey!

Time to celebrate with some pink champagne

Internet wars and more

Time is a mystery. Here it is, Sunday night and I'm already about to begin my third week of school. And what happened with week two?

Hard to say.

Some time, earlier, I managed to get a load of laundry done. After the wash cycle I found myself in the basement three quarters short of warm, dry clothes, so I spent the rest of the week watching my socks dry in the frigid Chicago air that sneaks into my apartment.

A little later I returned from a long day to find that my internet was dead along with my faith in Comcast. I have since been embattled in a never-ending blame game: Router people say it's Comcast and Comcast send me off to router people.

By midweek I was curled in the fetal position on the rugless section of my living room, being warmed by the glow of my internet-less computer and begging the Comcast woman on the other end to understand that she was causing me to utterly lose my mind. And wa-la. She got it. No, she didn't fix my internet, nor did she offer a concrete solution but she lent me a sympathetic ear for 20 minutes and sometimes that's all you need.

Until - after a sketchy and cold bike ride to the other end of Chicago to swap modems - the internet fails me again. I'm letting it go. And I've found a new friend by the name of HaxByToph who graciously has not put a password on his wireless access. Thanks man.

Sometime throughout the internet war, I hit the streets for a reporting and research project in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. We had to write a descriptive piece on a place, any place, we cared to choose. Before we were let out they advised that it may not be best for the men in my class to, say, hang around playgrounds with kids, lest they be deemed pervs. The same should have been said for single 20-something women who snoop around dog parks. So there I sat on the periphery of the dog park, talking into my voice recorder, sans pet for the better part of an hour. I was eyed for threat of puppy-napping. Which, I won't lie, I came close to.

Here's a little honey that was top of the list for potential puppy-napees:


A random yard found during my Bucktown travels:


Everyday is a grab bag of unknowns. The mornings tend toward the positive if even exhilirating (yes! We scream in our heads. This is why we are here!) where as the afternoons are hours worth of anxiety: where are we headed, what are we reporting on and how long do we have to write it up? Nothing makes you feel like a bad ass reporter like a breakdown 10 minutes before deadline. Ah, it's a good life.

The first quarter isn't conducive to a budding social life, but luckily my fellow 61 students are in the same boat. Friday, post distressing writing assignment, I went with a few people in my lab to have drinks at a local Evanston bar. Under such circumstances - chatting with many new people at once - I couldn't be more accommodating. I want to do EVERY. Thing. Hence accompanying my new friends to watch the Boston Red Socks game. Yes, that's right. I went to a sports bar to watch a game.

Maybe I didn't pay attention or even could recall who the red sox were playing, but it was lovely and even better to gripe together. We can grow closer by our common confusion/fear of our daily journalistic existence.

Another week another big question mark. But this thing called grad school is getting better or something close to that. I'm holding onto those morning lectures and guides me through the rest.

Now if Comcast could just button up and fly right then I might be able to get on with my life.