*swoon*

y'all know i'm a zora neale hurston fan. you also know that i love reading. the fact that i didn't scream with happiness when i saw this pic a few minutes ago? pure self-restraint. (also, i need to save my screaming/yelling for the bowl game in a couple of hours. go u!)



source: awesome people reading, a site i just found while clicking through vintage black glamour, another swoon-worthy site.

happy saturday!

roasted vegetables and chickpeas: a review

you'd think that not having a kitchen of my own would diminish my zeal for cooking and looking at recipes. you'd be oh so very wrong. i may or may not have a tentative menu plan in mind for my first few meals in my new apartment (whenever that happens).

when i saw this recipe, i decided i wanted to make it for christmas dinner. so i did. and it was delicious. the prep work was a little intense, b/c sweet potatoes always seem to give me trouble w/r/t to peeling and chopping them, but the payoff? nomz. i still have leftovers and they're still nomtastic. i'd make this again.

my favorite songs of 2011*

not all of these songs were released in 2011, but i added them to my itunes library this year - hence the asterisk. there's no particular order of preference here. i basically dumped all the songs into a playlist and then rearranged a few in an attempt to make them sound more cohesive, for lack of a better term.

here's the list:

mmm...hot fudge action...

i don't even know why i still have this photo in my files, but i saw it last night for the first time in who knows how long and had to laugh. someone remind me to make brownies for the nye bowl watch party so we can try to get a reprise of this:



happy saturday and/or (insert your preferred holiday greeting here)!

just in case you want/need a little more holiday spirit

i know we've all seen this 5011 times, but it still makes me laugh.

highlights from today

--commiserating with folks about the gotdamn snow even though it's december in chicago and we know better

--running into a former northwestern football player (from the 1995-1999 era) at the cvs in evanston

--picking up this book, among others, from the library

--hot fudge action at margie's with donna (sorry, christin. i know you're my usual partner for hot fudge action, but you're out of town and, well, it *is* my birthday and all. :P)

--watching hours and hours of cable, which i'd missed in the past couple of weeks

--all of the texts/emails/tweets wishing me a happy birthday. thanks.

lowlight? definitely twisting my ankle/foot while coming down the stairs of my friends' apartment building. nothing's swollen or sprained, but there's definitely a bit of a limp in my stride.

but the absolute best highlight from today had to be this email snippet:

I believe in you. I have always believed in you. This is a detour, and you will find your way out of it. You’re coping amazingly well.

apparently i needed that more than i realized, b/c that definitely pulled at the heartstrings a bit.

and this is where i thank y'all for reading about my adventures, both here and on my other site. your support, as always, is much appreciated.

coming soon: my list of songs i really loved in 2011 and a "shit that will be (back) in my life in 2012" list. saying that here means i actually have to work on them, so hopefully that means i'll get them up sooner rather than later. stay tuned.

*throws confetti*

it's here! my birthday, it is here! i made it to 35! woo! holy shit i'm old! exclamation points!

i kinda feel like a little kid at christmas. i woke up at 4am and then again at 6am and had to convince myself to go the fuck back to sleep b/c it was just too damn early. when 7:30am rolled around, i figured it was ok to start waking up, even though my alarm wasn't going to go off until 9am. whatever. it's my birthday, bitches!

and omg it's fucking snowing. i'm so glad i arranged a ride from my current crashpad to my new one later today, b/c lugging my stuff around in the snow on cta isn't really an experience i want to have on my birthday. fucking snow. there was no snow in the forecast last i checked. what the shit, mother nature?

anyway...it's my birthday and the celebration will continue though pulaski day (that's in march) at the earliest. i'm not doing anything big today b/c of the aforementioned switch in crashpads - i'm actually looking forward to watching tv and reading b/c it's been a busy week and tomorrow might be a bit epic w/r/t mistreating my liver.

i keep looking out the window and i can't believe it's fucking snowing. i'm going to the library later this morning (yay books!) and there's snow on the ground. this shit is actually sticking. i did not sign up for this.

ok, enough bitching about the snow...for now, anyway. it's my birthday! squee! :-)

it's almost my birthday (and other updates)

of course this week is sorta kinda jam packed with stuff: my monthly date with bureaucracy and a job interview (woo!) and dj'ing at ddpp and maybe helping people pack and maybe helping people clean and definitely laundry and who knows what else?

oh, and i'm taking myself to dinner on friday night, thanks to a stash of gift certificates i somehow had the foresight to put in one of the folders i'm moving around with (vs. one of the folders stashed in a box in a basement). saturday? no official plans for the day yet, aside from moving from one friend's couch to another friend's guest room in advance of my latest catsitting gig. depending on how the week goes, i might go to dave & buster's for skee-ball & tequila shots, or i might just curl up in front of my friend's tv and watch cable all night. i honestly don't know yet.

in any case, i plan on celebrating my birthday until pulaski day at the earliest. (pulaski day's the first monday in march, btw.) special thanks go out to everyone who's asked about my birthday plans. if i come up with a group outing, or if i decide to go to dave & buster's, i'll post an update here or send a mass email or something.

hope y'all had a good weekend. :-)

when a year treats you like this

how can you resist the temptation to punch it in the face? seriously, 2011 - you sucked balls and blew goats, and i can't wait to put you behind me.

(image courtesy of a friend's tumblr)

rolling in the mashups

these have been stuck in my head all week, so i decided to share them with y'all. you're welcome. :-)

adele vs. the eurythmics:

adele vs. jamiroquai:

all december everything

it really is the most wonderful time of the year. yeah, i'm biased b/c my birthday's in 16 days, but so what? december's my favorite month, my birthday's my favorite holiday, christmas is another favorite holiday even though i don't really make a bfd about it...it's a celebration, bitches!

although i don't foresee being able to do it as live as i'd like to for my 35th (well, not right now, anyway), i'm still planning on having fun. actually, the fun started a couple of weeks ago, when i had a day of free food and free laundry and made a little bit of money helping out a friend. last week's fun? hanging with bff and her mom. i'm taking myself to see "the muppets" as soon as i'm done posting this entry, so that'll be this week's contribution. i've won 2 twitter contests in the past week, so i'm counting those prizes (a cookbook and a pair of jeans) as birthday presents.

remember at the beginning of november when i identified 2 goals that i wanted to achieve? well, that didn't happen. not for lack of trying, though - i applied for 119 jobs and contacted who knows how many agencies re: housing referrals. i actually called a few more places today, only to be told that their waiting lists are at least 6 months long. obviously i don't have that kind of time. you can go to my other site to read more about that.

y'know what i want for my birthday, besides the obvious job offer and stable housing? room service. seriously. i want to stay in a hotel for my b-day weekend. this urge wouldn't be as strong if i actually had a place to sleep lined up for that weekend (december 16-18), but as it turns out, those are the only days in december where i'm not catsitting or crashing somewhere. (wanna offer up your couch/futon/air mattress/spare bedroom? let's talk.)

i think i'm forgetting something, but of course i can't pinpoint what that is right now. bah.

happy december! :-)

gobble gobble (for real this time!)

happy thanksgiving! or, for those of you who don't celebrate this holiday, happy thursday! :-)

i won't bore y'all with a list of who/what i'm thankful for this year, primarily b/c said list would be way too long to type out right now. i woke up this morning and started thinking about a quarterly list of thankfulness, and even that's kind of insane. so, here are a few of the people and things i'm thankful for, in no particular order:

--the amazing folks who helped me move out of casa de eulalia

--friends who've offered up their couches/futons/air mattresses so i have somewhere to crash

--bff, for so many things. it's not her birthday, but i could definitely write another post about our friendship and how grateful i am for her.

--everyone who's donated , either online or offline. i've been blown away by y'all's generosity.

--the friends who, while casa de eulalia still had a physical presence, were more than ok with coming over to hang out on the cheap.

--anyone and everyone who's subsidized food and/or drinking outings in the past few months. thanks for making sure i don't starve to death and for keeping my alcohol tolerance at a steady level.

i feel like i'm forgetting someone or something, so i should probably stop here. this was meant to be a partial list, anyway.

enjoy your day! :-)

supply vs. demand: the food pantry edition

(o hai! as you can see, i do indeed have internet access while at bff's this week, albeit on a limited basis. i'm enjoying it while i can - which means you get to read a new post. woo!)

anyway...i was just reading this article about food pantries in the area and how they're unable to meet the growing demand of folks who need assistance. i've tried to support local food/clothing pantries whenever i can, even during my recent turmoil. and here i am being thankful once again, this time for not (yet) having to visit a food pantry for basic supplies. yeah, i don't have a kitchen to call my own right now, but i can still buy food, so, yay. ok, technically yayboo, but you get my drift.

here's what i'd like from y'all. find a food pantry in your area and make a donation. food, clothing, money - whatever you're able to give. i know that sounds a bit weird, given my usual plea for donations these days, but i also know that there are people out there who aren't as relatively lucky/blessed/etc. as i am right now, and that's not something i want to lose sight of.

kthxbai.

gobble gobble in advance

i'll be hanging out with bff for a week starting tomorrow afternoon. woo! my 'net access might be a bit limited, though, so don't be surprised or alarmed if i don't post updates here or on my other site in a timely fashion. same goes for responding to emails and posting/responding to tweets.

that said, i'll wish y'all a happy thanksgiving now. contrary to what some folks may believe, i have all sorts of things to be thankful for this year. i'll spare you the details, but i am truly happy/thankful/grateful for everyone and everything positive in my life.

i reserve the right to edit or delete this post if i am indeed able to haz somewhat regular access to teh interwebz, though. just sayin'.

louis vs. rick

do you have a cat? do you know someone who has a cat? do you like silly internet humor?

behold, your new favorite thing: the story of a man who taught his cat to use instant messaging.

it's as silly and hilarious as it sounds. of course, we all know my sense of humor is slightly warped, so you might not find it as funny as i did. apologies in advance if you feel your time was wasted.

i love chicago.

this shouldn't be a newsflash to anyone, but i really do love it here. i was leaving a staged reading at the goodman tonight and in the few blocks it took me to walk to the bus stop, i fell in love with chicago all over again. seriously. i damn near wanted to hug the city. yes, i know that's impossible, but that's how i felt.

therefore, it is your job to remind me of how much i love chicago when it's the middle of winter and i'm bitching about the never-ending cold and/or thundersnow. kthx. :P

this is so very true sometimes

(via sjb)

midweek update

i just typed out the title and realized that this is periously close to a mid-month update. yikes.

applied for 34 jobs so far this week. made a couple of calls about potential referrals for housing; nothing solid as of yet, but i am now in possession of a multi-page list of agencies that could maybe possibly be of assistance. paid my cell phone bill and my life insurance bill. almost finished my quota of state-mandated volunteer hours. made dinner for the friends i'm currently staying with. saw some of y'all this past weekend. will probably see a few (if not more) of y'all within the next week or so. yay friendship and all that.

can i tell you guys something that you probably already know? i miss having my own apartment. this is not a new revelation, obviously, but it really hit me earlier today. it's not that i'm not grateful for the friends who are letting me sleep on their couch (and the other friends who've pretty much guaranteed my housing situation for the rest of november), b/c i am. really. honestly. i can't say enough about how thankful i am about that.

but i really miss having my own apartment. i had a really intense dream last night and for a brief moment when i woke up this morning, i wanted to call one of the people involved in said dream and invite them over to hang out. but i didn't. i couldn't. i can't. and that makes me...well, a bit sad. i really want to have a place of my own (or even a stable roommate situation) by the time my birthday rolls around. i honestly don't know how long i can keep living out of 3 bags (four, if you count my stash of library books) and bouncing around from couch to couch.

i'm sorry. i don't mean to complain about things, b/c i know shit could be a lot worse than it is. but i'd also be a big fat liar if i pretended that i don't get bitchsmacked by the reality of it all every now and then. b/c i do, and today happened to be one of those days. (also, i just finished watching last night's episode of "parenthood" and my emotions are all over the gotdamn place.)

so, yeah. that's what's been going on with me so far this week. how the hell are y'all?

so simple, and yet...

i've identified 2 goals for november:

1) get a job; and

2) find a place to live.

obviously the first goal has been on my list for quite some time now. the 2nd one is a more recent addition, but that doesn't make it any less urgent.

these sound fairly straightforward, right? if you've been reading this blog (or my other blog) for any amount of time, though, then you know that finding a job isn't as easy as i'd like it to be. as for finding a place to live...well, let's just say that whole process will go a lot smoother once i have something that resembles an income.

but i'm working on it. i've applied for 6 jobs so far this month (yes, i know the month just started yesterday), there's a couple of potential freelance gigs on the horizon, and the contact i mentioned in my post last thursday will hopefully be able to put me in touch with someone who knows someone who might be hiring, so we'll see.

as for housing...right now i'm just happy for the fact that i pretty much have this month covered w/r/t places to sleep. i have some potential agency referrals that i'll be following up on within the next week or so; fingers crossed that something feasible comes out of that process.

here's to a (hopefully) productive november!

can i just tread water now?

so that job i'd told some of y'all about? the one i really, really wanted? the one that would be perfect for me in at least 3 different ways? the one i had 2 rounds of interviews for (three, if you count my initial phone screen)?

yeah, i just received word from their hr rep that they decided to go with another candidate. sigh.

i'm not so much sad as i am disappointed. did i mention that i really wanted this job? b/c i did. still do, if i'm going to be honest, and yeah, i know wanting a job that technically is no longer open might be weird, but life's like that sometimes.

but i applied for 9 jobs last night, and i had a meeting this morning with a colleague of a friend who might be able to connect me with some folks who might be hiring, so all isn't completely lost. and in case you missed the update on my other blog, i now have somewhere to stay until november 10th, so yay for that.

i feel like i'm forgetting something else that i was gonna share with y'all...i'll edit later if i remember what that something is.

happy thursday. :-)