b/c the cup is back in chicago (and there was much rejoicing)

this week has been nothing short of batshit crazy, news-wise. i'm not ready to delve into some of those topics yet, aside from a heartfelt "wtf?" at most of it. maybe i'll scribble something about paula deen or wendy davis or the supreme court or nelson mandela or something else i'm forgetting at the moment when i'm back from milwaukee.

oh, yeah...i'm going to milwaukee this weekend. ll cool j isn't coming to chicago so i will go to milwaukee to see him. yes, my stannery/fangirldom is that real and that serious. i am looking forward to hanging with my friend christina (a fellow fangirl/stan) and acting a complete and utter fool. it's gonna be great.

but that's not what this post is about. this post is about the blackhawks successfully going #pawsup (i still can't believe that was an actual thing) and bringing the stanley cup back to chicago. woo!

remember when the blackhawks won the stanley cup in 2010? i do. i remember it vividly b/c that was also the same night that troy & i tearfully agreed to break up. when it became obvious that the blackhawks could and would make a run for the cup this season, i wanted in. i wanted a championship that i could cry happy tears over.

since the 2010 cup, i've gotten divorced, had to move out of my apartment b/c i was about to be evicted, crashed on various couches and in various guest rooms, spent a year and some change in the burbs, and finally got back to chicago in april of this year, albeit not on the terms i wanted. so, yeah. i definitely wanted something to celebrate.

i've been at my part-time gig for a year. i'm in chicago. it's summer. i was ready to celebrate.

i'd done my part during the stanley cup final, too. i watched game 1 at a bar and drank way too much whiskey b/c triple-overtime. game 2 i watched at home and earned a migraine along with the loss. game 3? at home. we lost. this is when i theorized that i had to watch the rest of the series at a bar b/c clearly that was impacting the outcome. and it was. and i did.

i was at a bar for game 6. actually, i was at two different bars, but i left bar a after the 1st period b/c it was full of scenesters and i was ready to punch all of them and flip tables, so i left. bar b? much better. full of fans who were focused on hockey and alcohol and didn't care about being seen or socializing aside from talking about the game or about their drinks. i was happy. i was happier when the blackhawks scored. i remember saying that another goal would be awesome, and a few seconds later, i got my wish. i started crying the aforementioned happy tears b/c the cup was coming back to chicago. my life was going to continue the upswing i'm trying to establish.

i know there's no real correlation b/t the events of the past three years and the blackhawks welcoming lord stanley's cup back to chicago. i get it. i understand it on a cerebral level. but sometimes, i need a little something extra to hold on to, to keep me going when i'm ready to go into "fuck everything" mode and give up.

this month's something extra? the blackhawks. thanks for not letting me down, guys. thank you for invoking all of the happy tears. a replay of game 6 is on even as i type this and i'm ready to scream with joy all over again. thanks for reminding me that i love chicago and there's nowhere else i'd rather be, even with all of its faults.

will the upswing i'm hoping for in my personal life be forthcoming? i don't know. i can only hope. until then, i'm gonna keep doing the work and making sure i'm as ready as i can be for whatever's next.

things i do at 5am on a monday (a partial list)

• stretch out in bed (or, in this morning's case, on the couch) and figure out how/why i'm wide awake at 4:45am on my day off
• go to the bathroom
• realize that i'm neither unsober nor sick and therefore there's no real reason to be awake at that insane hour
• do some quick praying/meditation to see if there's a particular lesson god/the universe needs to impart
• swear at god/the universe for feeling the need to teach me a lesson at 5am
• jump on twitter to vent
• decide to attempt to go the fuck back to sleep b/c it's now 5:15 and there's no way i plan on being productive that early
• make up a song

yes, ladies and gentlemen. i found myself making up a song in my cranky and sleep-deprived state. i call it "look at all the fucks i give." i'm actually kinda amazed that i remembered the words, seeing as how the lyrics (such as they are) came to me as i was drifting back to the land of slumber.

"look at all the fucks i give" (set to the tune of "camptown races")

look at all the fucks i give
doo-dah, doo-dah
what an awesome way to live
oh de doo-dah day

i'm all out of fucks
you're shit out of luck
look at all the fucks i give
oh de doo-dah day

(repeat as needed/desired)

happy monday. :-)

on: current wave of emo/nostalgia

i feel like i've been all over the place emotionally this week. it really hit me last night when i realized i'd gone to 3 different grocery stores for things (and still managed to forget something i wanted for tomorrow's dinner, smh) and how i really am my father's child, b/c he used to drive from store to store in search of the best deals. and then this morning, i was making breakfast and had another moment of channeling my father. to say i miss him would be an understatement, obviously. but then it all kinda clicked while i was watching melissa harris-perry and having my breakfast and looking at my twitter feed.

i got a haircut the other day (stay with me, folks, b/c i promise this is relevant) and it's been weirding me out for a couple of reasons. one, my hair hasn't been this short in a while and i'm dying to see how short it'll look when it's in its curly state. two, my timing for this haircut was damn near perfect b/c #summertimechi is upon us and one of the last things i want to deal with is my hair on my neck. it's hard enough being a fat girl in the summer - no need to add to the sweat.

and then the proverbial light bulb came on. the last time i can remember having my hair this short is the summer of 1998. i got it cut especially for graduation. somewhere i have a picture of me and james standing outside after i'd walked across the stage and my hair was about as short as it is now.

y'all. northwestern's commencement weekend is happening even as i type. it's been 15 years since graduation. i had an impromptu hangout with a fellow alum (and former football player) earlier this week and someone asked how long we'd known each other. we both started laughing as we said "19 years" and then realized, holy shit, we're old. i also thought that if we partied that hard on a tuesday night, there's no way my liver is going to survive homecoming. i'll have fun trying, though.

my father has been dead for 16 years. one of my regrets, and i admit it's a pointless regret to have b/c there's jack shit i could've done about it, is that daddy didn't get to see me walk across the stage and receive my northwestern degree. we both worked hard for it. after he died, james and i continued working hard so i could actually stay at northwestern b/c it was looking kinda impossible for a second there, but we did it. daddy and james and i did it and to this day, i hate that daddy wasn't there in person to see it. i also hate that i can't call james and tease him about being old, but that's a different story.

i'm looking forward to homecoming this fall for a lot of reasons. i just wish the two family members who helped me get through northwestern in the 1st place were around to indulge in this nostalgia with me.

(some of) the reasons why i fucks with sjb

omg you guys. today is softjunebreeze's birthday. she just happens to share a birthday with prince. i'm kinda hoping the faux prince account on twitter will wish her a happy birthday, b/c that would be awesome. it'd also be awesome if any of the real and/or fake joe biden accounts wished her a happy birthday. you'd think i'd have more pull with crazy uncle joe by now, given my ongoing desire for him to come to chicago so we can have all of the liquor and party hard andrew w.k. style, but no.

so, instead, i am writing a post in honor of sjb's birthday while i'm slightly unsober. b/c sjb would be like "fuck yeah!" b/c she's one of my key partners in shenanigans and fuckery and other decisions that may or may not be considered bad/poor in hindsight, but sound like "winnar!" at the time.

b/c sjb's one of the people who offered me their futon when i was couch-surfing (and not in the fun "vacation all i ever wanted" kind of way) back in 2011. b/c when i got ready to leave sjb's place and head over to my bff's house for the next portion of my couch-surfing, sjb was all "dude, take this cash so you can cab it from here to the metra station w/o having to worry about lugging that big-ass suitcase on the cta." i'm sure i thanked her at the time, but i'm not sure she knows how much that meant in real life. it meant a lot.

and did i ever tell y'all about the time sjb broke my brain when she said that mj's "billie jean" and cee-lo's "bright lights bigger city" were sorta kinda the same damn song? seriously. check it out for yourselves:

"billie jean"


"bright lights bigger city"


mind you, i may or may not have been unsober when she first told me about this, kinda like how i may or may not be unsober while i'm writing this post, but still.

oh, and if you've ever seen/heard me reference #leyomitwirl, it's b/c of sjb. she's the one who first showed me this classic:


i'm sure there's all kinds of youtube/other internet-based goodness that sjb put me on to that i'm forgetting, but, y'know, unsober. besides, i don't wanna totally embarass her. that would be rude.

y'know what's not rude, though? closing this post with this song that borrows from prince's "let's go crazy." i mean, it is also prince's birthday, so i might as well give him a shoutout, right? right.