Overheard in Evanston

Scene: Davis stop on the Purple Line. About 100 commuters throng the platform, wondering why the train is so goddamn late. Suddenly, a conversation begins between two homely twentysomethings in front of me, and the sheer earnestness of their discussion nearly makes my head explode:

Polo Shirt Guy: So, yeah, all my friends got tickets to the Hootie show, but I had to work.
Nasally Girl: Really?
Polo Shirt Guy: Yeah, and then my boss got VIP tickets to the after party.
Nasally Girl: Wow!
Polo Shirt Guy: And they all came into work the next day with all these pictures they took with Hootie, and I'm like, "Thanks for rubbing it in, guys!"
Nasally Girl: Wow, that sucks!

In other news, I think my ass has permanently fused to this chair.

Tears of a Clown

So, I was recently transferred to the provincial offices of my agency. Folks from the central office don't make it out here very often, so it feels very much like a fiefdom, lorded over by Bewigged Betty, office manager of miserly supply distribution and wild dashikis.

Betty takes full advantage of the office's isolation by decorating it entirely to suit the whims of her questionable taste. A brief inventory of Betty's wall decorations:

• 1973 art show print of geishas mincing through a garden
• Woodblock-style print of a Nubian princess, in profile
• Relief print of trout leaping from a stream--it's in 3D!
• Mirror painted with a scene involving two clown angels greeting a sad and newly-deceased clown into heaven
• Read that last one again. Why on earth would you buy such a thing? And hang it on a wall? In a professional office?
  

Seriously, someone find a line in the budget for a $5 dorm poster of Starry Night or something.

Oh yeah, we have mice. And the attorney next to me listens to his voicemail on speaker with his door open. HULK SMASH!

...and I can't walk out

Last night, Manfriend brought out his guitar and together, we learned how to play Elvis Presley's "Suspicious Minds." It sounds very Von Trapp Family Singers, but it was definitely the best evening I've had in weeks. Manfriend strumming, me singing, both of us no doubt annoying the shit out of our neighbors. I never really listen to music closely, but later, we sat and really paid attention to a disc of Elvis's early recordings and I was stunned. You hear the first few bars of "Jailhouse Rock" and all the cheap parodies you've seen flash across your mind--how can you even think of listening to this seriously?--but then you realize how good, how amazingly good, this song really is. A lot of these Elvis songs were like that. It'll wipe those commercials where "Are you lonesome tonight?" is used to sell cough syrup, or whatever, right out of your head.

Oh, let our love survive,
I'll wipe the tears from your eyes,
Let's don't let a good thing die, when honey
You know I've never lied to you...mmmmm...yeah...yeah

Truer words were never sung. Except maybe, "Innagaddadavida baby, can't you see that I want you, baby?"

Anyway, tonight I saw Talladega Nights with Gurl, an old college friend currently in the depths of unemployment. She seems in good spirits, though, which is no easy feat when those empty days are weighing you down. As for the movie, it was actually pretty funny, in the tradition of stoopid movies like Anchorman and Zoolander, both of which I own.

I applied for another job at my agency last week, and I've got my fingers crossed hard. I'd appreciate any crossed appendages you can spare. Thanks.

Things I like

Kashi cereals
bars of soap (vs. liquid body wash)
tuna curry
books about 19th-century sexuality
music venues with seats
rural Michigan
my grandma's 1950s Woman's Day magazines
foggy mornings
Grinnell, IA
picking scabs
fizzy water
wasting time at work

The computer is drunk.

Yesterday after work, Manfriend came by my office and we hied ourselves to a nice dinner with his friend, Le Critic, before the two of them saw Tom Waits at the Auditorium Theatre. Being the nice girlfriend that I am, I offered to switch backpacks with Manfriend so that he wouldn't have to deal with getting his laptop, etc. past venue security. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my keys out of my bag. Durr. That's right, locked out of me own apartment for oh, the next four hours. Sigh. So, I walked over to a friend's apartment and drank the sangria that was leftover from her party last weekend and fell asleep while she wrote a paper. This morning, I wrote to her about the rest of my evening:

after we left your place last night, i was all "let's get a cab," but manfriend, like a slavedriver, made me walk home. trail of tears 2006, i tell you. when we got home, i managed to brush my teeth and remove my mascara before passing out. i think our alarm clocks got switched, because now mine has a 4-minute snooze, which sucks! my old clock had an 8-minute snooze, which was just right. r doesn't even use the snooze, so i'm switching them back. 4-minute snooze makes me feel like i'm hallucinating.

Surprisingly, I'm not in bad shape today. I thank Pellegrino (posh!) and Kashi cereals for my miraculous recovery. Fizzy water is the wave of the future.