so long, smash, the show we loved to hate

i know someone who auditioned for a minor role on smash back when it was "hey spielberg's about to do this tv show about broadway!" unfortunately, the timing didn't work out and this someone had to miss out on two seasons of compellingly crazy television.

that's really the best way to describe smash, i think. compellingly crazy. my friend kdc has written about the rise and fall and our (somewhat) good-natured hatred of smash in a more articulate way than i'm able to at the moment.

i remember talking to the aforementioned someone during the 1st season after the ridiculous church scene (not to be confused with the ridiculous bollywood scene, because oh yeah that shit fucking happened) and telling them that i was glad the universe had decided that they couldn't be a part of this clusterfuck b/c omg what a clusterfuck.

i watched the series finale earlier this afternoon, which was obviously filmed as a season finale before the show's cancellation. so entertainingly awful.

and speaking of entertainingly awful - this rendition of "under pressure" from the finale has kept me laughing for, i don't know, at least 2 hours.

inspirational cough drops; or why halls needs to stfu and let me be sick

i'm (hopefully) in the last stages of the plague a cough/cold that's been tormenting me. as part of my recovery, i've been using halls cough drops.

did you know that halls has started printing little slogans on the wrappers of their cough drops? the tag line is "a pep talk in every drop." that's actually the first thing i have an issue with. i don't want a pep talk when i'm taking a cough drop. i want all of the honey-lemon flavored mentholated goodness to soothe my throat and put an end, albeit temporary, to my coughing fit(s). that's it. i don't think i'm asking for too much here.

but no. halls wants to cheer my cold/cough on with witticisms such as these (and yes i saved a few wrappers so i could have some semblance of variety on this list):

• "don't give up on yourself." (ok, well, i suppose that's solid advice regardless of health status.)
• "tough is your middle name." (no, it's not. especially not when i'm sick. fuck you, halls.)
• "dust off and get up." (again, solid advice when i'm not sick, but right now? fuck you, halls.)
• "get through it." (well, i'm trying, hence the unwrapping and consumption of the cough drop.)
• "buckle down and push forth!" (fuck you, halls.)
• "push on!" (no, really, fuck you, halls.)
• "the show must go on. or work." (i am definitely guilty of donning my superwoman cape even when i'm not feeling 100%, but really, halls? fuck you.)
• "don't try harder. do harder!" (first of all, giggity. second of all, fuck you, halls.)

and, my all-time favorite most despised "pep talk" from halls:

• "let's hear your battle cry!"

dear halls: ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS WITH THIS ONE? if i was capable of emitting a battle cry that didn't sound something like "omg everything hurts i can haz couch nao kthxbai," i wouldn't need the damn cough drop in the first place! i'd be able to wrest myself from couch or bed and punch you in the face for making such an asinine suggestion. fuck you, halls.

y'know what, though? i'm gonna keep taking halls b/c i still have another unopened bag and on some level, these pep talks are amusing to me. i still like the messages on my dove promises wrappers more, though. mmm...inspirational chocolate...

something something end of an era something something

i'm sure some, if not most, of y'all have heard about the school closings in chicago. what you don't know is that the 2 cps elementary schools i attended way back in the day are on that list. i knew that one of my alma maters (can an elementary school be referred to as an alma mater? it seems a bit weird, but whatever) was on the list, but i wasn't aware of the 2nd one until this afternoon when i revisited the full list.

so, farewell, dumas and pershing. dumas is where, if the administration had gotten its way, i would've skipped from kindergarten to 2nd grade. my mother won that battle, such as it was, and instead i skipped kindergarten and went to 1st grade. dumas is also where i drove teachers crazy with my "cursive" writing (read: adding tails to all of my letters). in first grade, we would sing "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" every morning. i still can't spell it, but i think i still remember most of the lyrics. i have no idea why our teacher thought singing a song from "mary poppins" was a vital part of our education, but that's neither here nor there.

my mother was already sick by the time i transferred to pershing in 2nd grade. i remember for certain assignments, we had to write our school's full name at the top of our papers. do you know how hard it was to squeeze my name and "john j. pershing magnet school for the humanities," plus whatever other heading details, in that upper right-hand corner of notebook paper? it was hard.

my 2nd grade teacher (mrs. kloak, if memory serves correctly) wrote me a special note when i came back to school after my mother died. at the end of the year, she wrote notes for all of us and i think mine is still in my scrapbook. i also remember some kids talking about my mother's death and saying that she had cancer. i was adamant in defending her from that, somehow, and saying that she'd died of a heart attack, which is what i was told.

i was in high school by the time daddy told me the truth, that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. i think we were on a road trip - maybe to st. louis to visit my grandmother? who knows? all i know is that i looked at him that day like he was an alien. maybe everyone thought a 7 y.o. was too young to know about cancer? who knows? longtime readers/friends know that my family is nothing if not dysfunctional, so this was par for the course.

so, yeah. my parents are gone and the cps schools i went to are gone and something something end of an era something something.

oh, and fuck cancer, btw.

Money train: Metra stops and income levels

i was catching up on news/headlines before i call it a night and saw this interactive graphic from the folks at crain's chicago business: Money train: Metra stops and income levels

(note: you might need a log-in or some sort of workaround if you're not already registered on their site.)

i thought it was an interesting take on income patterns throughout the region. admittedly i didn't spend that much time clicking around the map b/c i'm sleepy, but i thought y'all (esp. the ones who don't follow my twitter feed where this link has also been posted) would dig it.

and on that note, g'night.

moar fun with teh interwebz, part 85 bazillion

i swear i have at least 4 blog topics waiting to be tackled, but seeing as how i just spent the morning organizing files and paying bills and prepping for a phone interview, i figured i'd just throw this up here:

that's right, folks. the star of one of my favorite tv shows retweeted me on thursday night. it's not the first time a celebrity has replied to or retweeted me. hell, it's not even the first time kerry washington has acknowledged my twitter presence. i mean, the 1st time ll cool j interacted with me on twitter, i was pretty much in the clouds for the rest of the day. this particular one is entertaining to me, though, b/c kerry was live-tweeting "scandal" right along with the show's fans. one of my friends tweeted me saying "omg kw retweeted you," or something along those lines, and i was all "omg i know! squee!"

now i just have to convince crazy uncle joe to take me up on my numerous invitations to come hang out in chicago so we can go party. :-)

this concludes your fangirl moment for the day. have a great weekend!