This is how it's been lately friends, a long slog through a foggy street. Each day passes and moments cling to the ridges of the thumbprint of the day. Moments of laughing with friends, of despair over the amount of work and responsibility that has invaded my life, moments of complete utter boredom and/or complete utter wonder with the here and now.
I can't explain how off kilter the sudden Chicago-style changes in seasons throw me. Nothing makes me wish to be back East more than autumn time....I was talking to a friend this past week (a week that literally got to be over 90 degrees - in OCTOBER! a heat wave that everyone was saying "Isn't it wonderful?!" about when NO! It isn't "wonderful" it's bizarre and grody) about how Chicago has only about two days of fall weather before it starts throwing winter in your face in a big bad way. She disagreed, saying "But that IS what fall is!" and maybe it IS what fall is here but, I was spoiled, like a rich child who has always eaten Cocoa Puffs and never had the knock off generic brand. I grew up where fall is a month or longer of playing in piles of leafs, eating apple fritters at harvest fairs (did anyone else burn with the jealousy of a thousand Tonya Harding's when, in elementary school, classmates got to ditch school for a day and go to the Big E?! They would come back full of tales of farm animals, cotton candy and carnie games...), of mornings that smelled like burning leaves and frost, haunted hayrides and overcast days that competed with crystal clear tinge of autumn days - days that are so still and peaceful and perfect for reading books and drinking hot apple cider and watching Anne of Green Gables on the PBS pledge drive...Yes, that is Fall and no place does it better than New England. I mean, c'mon it's one of the things EVERYONE (Democrats and Republicans alike) can appreciate about that area of the country...le sigh.
I haven't written here in a while due to a combination of intense ennui (I have been sighing so much it's like I'm fifteen all over again) and the overwhelming need to do actual work at work.. So instead of rambling on for paragraphs of pretty words (which I can do, I've been ups since 6 am this morning, rambling run on sentences is about all I CAN do). I'm just going to kick up a quick list of Yays and Boos....
Things that are Yay!:
1.
New Hair - I was sick of my old hair - had a uniquely girly freak out about a month and a half ago where I couldn't look in a mirror without shuddering. And even though I had JUST gone and gotten my hair cut etc...I made an appointment and got a wicked awesome bob and dyed my hair much darker than it's been in a whie. I was scared friends, scared that I would turn out looking like the fabulous Liza Minnelli who, let's be honest here does not have the most fabulous hair in the world - it kind of looks like a spider of a wig fell on her head and chose to nest there...But, no Liza Minnelli spider-hair here friends! Only a fabulous bob that is short enough not to get caught in any scarf I dare to wrap around my neck this winter. Yay!
2.
Good Books! - What a great time to be alive and literate! Seriously, I have read so many great books lately:
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Safon, a book that literally I couldn't put down and read in three days. Three days of walking around zombie tired from staying up late reading about the cemetery of forgotten books and a mystery that made my brain hurt from the goodness of it all.. what a gorgeous book! ,
The Glass Castle Jeannette Wall - Disturbing and touching and mind boggling that it is non-fiction and that someone was brave enough to write about their life in such a bare bones way.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl - Don't be intimidated by the slightly too cute title, or the murder/mystery description on the back cover. Just buy, borrow or steal this book and enjoy every last clever description, plot twist and then please find me so we can discuss the ending!
Hiding Out by Jonathan Messinger - Holy crap! I read this book in one night, completely shunning the Battle of the Bulge on Ken Burn's The War, not because it's easy to read or I wanted to burn through it but because it was compulsively read-able. It is full of concise stories that have the most beautiful descriptions of things, people, life that it made me think in clever, lyrical one-liners for the rest of the night. Buy it and love it!
3.
Documentaries - I have ALWAYS been a fiction fan - both in film, art and books. I mean non-fiction stuff has always seemed, well, just so
actual and real...what's the point I always thought? Isn't life itself real enough without escaping into more reality? But, then I started to watch PBS like it was my job and suddenly I couldn't get enough
Frontline and
POV and I was hooked. (Listen, I don't have cable, there is no "Oh, I'll watch the newest episode of
Weeds option. It's PBS or
Two and a Half Men, the choice is easy) And then Ken Burn's
The War came on and I'll admit it, I'm not working on any shows (except 2nd Story! Which YAY! 2nd Story this Sunday, come drink wine and hear amazing stories!), and Dave has maybe been kidnapped by the Film Festival so free time is in abundance. So, I started to watch and suddenly I'm having end of the night conversations with the boy I heart where I eagerly say things like, "We've taken France! I think our boys will be coming home soon!" and comparing production meetings to the meeting of Churchill and Roosevelt...It was biased for sure, and it was overwrought yes but, hot damn it was great! I also just signed up for Netflix solely for the reason that I want to watch the
Seven Up series which follows fourteen British children from the age of seven, checking in with them every seven years..fascinating shit...and yes! I signed up to Netflix for a dorky reason but, really if you saw my queue you would realize that the dorkiness runs deep!
Things that are Boo:
Missing the boy I heart - The boy I love started working seven days a week fourteen hours a day approximately a month ago and instead of getting used to five minute long conversations and only seeing him twice I week I still miss him every day with all of my heart. The electric ache of loneliness and longing has entered the picture and it is a boo...thank god this crazy schedule ends next week which is a Yay!
Doing Too Much and Expecting to Do More - I try to do a good job whenever I do a job and I will push myself harder than most but, lately the job I heart most (which I STILL heart most even though it's overwhelming me a the moment) has become a series of days where everyone wants a piece of me and tasks increasingly centered around financials which I went to college for theatre specifically to avoid. It's a fine balance between loving my job and sacrificing my free time to keep up with my job and I'm still finding the correct mix.
