Don't Talk About Me Like I'm Not Here

But darling you still gambled every thing you gave. . .

2009-04-13T02:59:00.000-07:00

Between a food blog and a popular ephemera blog I've twisted and turned about what to do in this blog space. The concept of this blog is fabulous but uncharted so I'm going to post about live music in Portland and disappoint you with my use of adjectives.

Saw Melissa Nadler tonight. She's a good singer/song writer from Boston. I listened to her a few years ago cause she wrote this song about Daisy and Violet, the infamous conjoined twins who appeared in the movie 'Freaks' and bagged groceries at a store in Charlotte that my Grandmother frequented. True story. Fitzgerald met them in Hollywood and puked on site not due to shock but a hangover. I like Marissa's song "Bird On Your Grave". This is my first post about live music so I'm gun shy but next time I'll go all the way and provide links and shit.
-Emily

catching up over a round

2009-04-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a picture taker. I like having pictures of family and friends and sometimes over do it on vacations, but I have very few photos of day-to-day or weekend-to-weekend life. It turns out, however that I love to take pictures of what I'm drinking. Like annoying avid picture snappers, I guess I'm trying to capture and document the good times. I guess unlike others, I don't always have shiny happy faces reflecting meaningful moments to collect because I'm often enjoying myself alone. I had all of these photos on my cell phone.

Cheerwine at the Latham Mart from just before I left the 'boro. Sweet, sweet Cheerwine.

Right after I moved to Chicago, I bought six-pack of Old Style twenty-twos to mark my return to the midwest. I drank them and smoked on my "porch." I still enjoy the fine krausened taste even without the Parliaments.

More recently, I went to DC to meet with alumni of my program to see what kind of work I can get after I graduate in a year. After several days of suit wearin and elbow rubbin, some classmates and I went to the Brickskeller to unwind. They have like a zillion beers, a burger with salami on it, and a nice pub-like feel. Needless to say, I recommend it.

I spent Spring Break 09 in the Charm City with some of my favorite people. We got delicious Korean BBQ at a place pronounced though certainly not spelled Young Cock. Hooray for old friends, hot meat, and pickled cabbage.

- sarah

Be careful what you apply for. . .

2009-02-17T11:36:00.000-08:00

So I applied for some job in Portland in January and the employer called for a phone interview. After the interview I didn't hear anything from them for three weeks so I figured the soft "r's" I used to cover up my southern accent had backfired. But NO, they called last week and requested a video conference interview. This is a picture of a university conference room in Portland from a corporate conference room in Greensboro. I think the interview went well but talking to a room full of people drinking their morning coffee after I've finished lunch is a little strange. . .and to be completely honest I feel a little queasy about the entire ordeal.
- E.K.

I don't have anywhere else to put this. . .

2009-02-16T12:47:00.001-08:00

-E

Future Nostalgia

2009-02-11T20:15:00.001-08:00

+ =

a scent combination that, if ever encountered again, will remind me of walking through Kimbark Plaza in Hyde Park.

-sarah

Waves of Mutilation

2009-02-06T09:42:00.000-08:00

My ipod played a Disband song on shuffle and threw me into waves of nostalgia that have momentarily overwhelmed me. Remeberances of sweaty rocknroll and beer-filled basements. Dancing, petty grievances, late night bars, rivers and tubes and bbqs. Egad, man. I wanna swim and dance and hug my friends. Can I trade back some responsibility for some fun?

-sarah

I am very brave.

2009-02-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

I just signed my voluntary severance package - my ticket out of the office chair that hurts my tail bone every day. As I stood up to leave my signing meeting the Human Resource manager told me that I was very brave. She looked me dead in eyes and said, "Well Emily, you sure are brave." and I burst into laughter that shot straight from my gut. I don't think it takes a lot of courage to leave a situation that totally SUCKS. Brave? ::snorts and scoffs::

I've added some links to blogs that I read and enjoy enough to visit again. . . and one link to another blog that I write. I'll add some more and you should too! Sarah, can you think any blogs about music that don't suck? I can't. You know what else? I'm going to add some embarrassing fashion blogs. Additionally, when I set this blog up I thought I'd use blogspot because I already have a blog on wordpress and I guess I thought I should play the field of blogging. Big mistake. Wordpress kicks blogger's ass.

4 Ways to Stay Warm in Real Winter

2009-02-04T19:58:00.000-08:00

1. Eat

You don't need to buy a new down-filled coat if you're able to build one out of your own blubber. Plus, eating is delicious. If you really wanna pack on the pounds, eat your meat and carbs, my friends. I did that by going to the Meatloaf Bakery and getting one of their meatloaf cupcakes. Yep, that's meatloaf with mashed potato "icing."

2. Cuddl Duds

I'm not sure what leaving off the "e" accomplishes, but these long underwear protect my delicate legs from the the evil bite of wind-chilled jeans.

3. Drink

Take your pick of your personal favorite drink - hot toddy, cocoa with a splash of brandy, spiked spiced cider, mulled wine, scotch & water, whatev. mmm... feels warm in the belly.

4. Exercise

You're eating and drinking so much, fatty, that you're gonna look like the Michelin Man when you put on your actual down-filled coat. Move it, move it.

I just found out that with my cable I have a sweet, free On-Demand station for fitness videos. I choose between a whole buncha popular workouts and do them in the comfort and warmth of my living room. I like The Biggest Loser CardioMax even though I've never seen the show.

-sarah

Tell me about your fiscal shelter.

2009-01-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

Hello Sarah, Caroline, Amy and the invisible Eryn - I'd like to hear about your experiences with the economy that we are told is failing. Do you feel the pinch in graduate school? Amy, what do who have to say about the future of print media? What the hell is happening in Louisville? Feed my head people, I need input.

- Emily

Real Winter

2009-01-13T17:49:00.000-08:00

It's 6 degrees right now in Chicago but don't worry - it feels like -6. Oh, and the high in a few days is going to be 1 degree. 1. I'll try not to post anything else that's purely the temperature as I trudge through this season.

Outside world in '09!

2009-01-11T16:44:00.000-08:00

So the best way to avoid the fact that I'm getting observed the day after tomorrow and haven't come up with anything to teach the children is to blog about moving to a new city, right? Right.
Snow in this city is beautiful...for about 10 minutes before it turns into an icy grey death-trap for those of us with unsuitable footwear. My apartment is a sauna. Herin lies my new city dilemma. I need to go out and do things with my very limited social circle so that it will become a less limited social circle and something that more closely resembles actual friends, but I just don't wanna. I want to stay in my tropical paradise apartment, eating string cheese, not bathing, and watching the Ludachristmas episode of 30 Rock over and over again. I know I should go see some amazing art show or explore a new neighborhood with some ridiculous acronym or at the very least go sit in a bar I've never been to so I can watch prettier people getting hit on. Instead I sit in bed reading US Weekly and feeling guilty about how I'm not feeling guilty about not going out. Of course, it's all really about staying safe, and not putting myself out there, and not having to be in super-awesome social mode, and not worrying about whether people will like me, and stopping all that crap should really have been one of my New Year's resolutions. Is there such a thing as a January 11th resolution? 'Cause I'm making one.
-Caroline

A typical night in Las Vegas

2009-01-09T16:28:00.001-08:00

Well, okay. A typical night for me is sitting in my teeny, tiny apartment with my cat. But to make it more interesting, I'll tell you about the craziest Vegas night I've had yet. It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, and I meet up with my friend Andrew at the Double Down Saloon, a notorious punk bar in the heart of the Fruit Loop (gay district). We proceed to watch some bands and drink too much Ass Juice (I wasn't brave enough to go for the other house special, a bacon martini). Eventually, Andrew leaves.

I'm too drunk to drive home, so I wobble over to the hot dog stand across the street, which appears to be run by a loose coalition of drag queens and bull dykes. I get a hot dog, eat it, and keep walking down to the Hard Rock Hotel/Casino, home of the best penny slots in town.

Now it's about 3:30 in the a.m., and some tourist from Washington, DC decides he wants to make out with me. He's not bad looking, and I am still kinda drunk, so I consider it for about 15 seconds, then extract myself from his embrace. Making out with random tourists is probably frowned upon by locals. After I park myself in front of the slots for a while, and take a few more laps around the casino, I sober up enough to drive. When I wake up the next morning, I feel like hell, but I'm also pretty excited about my adventure. Now I just need to start having more of them.

transitions::bad humor

2009-01-07T16:42:00.000-08:00

This truck is now parked in a garage in the NE quad of Portland. The burgundy Ford (purchased for $600 four years ago) traversed the lower crescent of the states carrying a sewing cabinet that belonged to my grandmother, a fancy juicer, a treasured collection of cookbooks, some clothes, and ::GASP:: an entire trunk of journals and other words that found their letters on paper. These items, vehicle and driver arrived in Portland without incident three months ago. And now, it's time to do it all over again. Except this time there will be four passengers (two of them canines) and an endless amount of time.

I think I would enjoy this transition more if it weren't so overdue. I spend most of my time behind a desk in a bookstore in the belly of a vast nonprofit that is so extremely effected by whatever it is that we are supposed to believe in wrong with the economy that the entire building in SILENT. A collective corporate inhale, belt tightening and all, and it seems that no one wants fresh air - just static and waiting. I usually feel like this poor guy. . .

It seems I've stuck my head too far into the pickle jar and I'm perplexed, humbled by the predicament I have gotten myself into. The bear in the picture was shot to be freed from her misery and this bear needs to find a more promising solution! At least I have better odds!

Truly, my solution is simple. I'll quit the silent but festering job that is blocking my senses, and I'm so glad. I have a hand full of months left of my 20's and I plan to use them wisely. Another exchange of fool-hardy optimism for a chance at something a bit better - and if not better, at least different.

But I'll tell you something you already know. This transition stuff. . .well, I think I'm learning that it helps to stay nimble, or suffer the unfavorable task of scraping rust from the parts that were mobile.

-Emily

how my life is like a sitcom

2009-01-04T21:17:00.000-08:00

so i'm sitting with two cute blondes at jimmy's, a university of chicago bar, and am having a good time catching-up after the holidays. i go to the bathroom and when i come back apparently some boys want us to sit with them. while i was gone these youngins have pulled up two chairs to their table. two. as they pull up a third, i realize its so i can sit down. they approached these fine ladies while i was at the toi-toi. so, i sit and drink my whiskey and soda and chat with these boys. i talk to the one from arizona about how the cardinals won their wildcard game for the play offs and the other about his future in neuroscience. i am the girl with the good personality. i am a girl in a bar whose friends have been hit-on. i am the chubby brunette whose blonde friends have been hit upon. seriously. seriously?

-Sarah

collecting time

2009-01-03T19:05:00.000-08:00

Though I always hate the pressure of New Year's Eve, I like the turning of the year. School suits me well because terms end and begin afresh. This is the time when I collect and list and collate all that I let loose in the previous year. If I have it on a list, I've captured it and think it will be done.

I did swell in my classes last term, but I didn't do a heckuva lot else. I wrote on a piece of paper that I will try to schedule time to do things besides school in the coming term. I will leave Hyde Park.

I had a list of things that Eryn and I were going to do when she was visiting me for New Year's Eve. When she got the flu and couldn't visit me, I mostly stayed home like I had the sympathy flu. I wasn't off to a great start, but I redeemed myself today by going to Intuit, Chicago's outsider art museum. It was wee tiny compared to Baltimore's Visionary Art Museum, but it was free and got me out of my apartment.

I will be mighty fine in oh-nine.

-Sarah

For serious, ladies

2009-01-02T18:24:00.000-08:00

Bitches, update! I love this place. Moving is hard. I love life/life is hard. Blah blah blah. Somebody else write something. Drinking whiskey and blogging is always a good idea. Over and out.
-Caroline

The city falls

2008-11-02T09:40:00.000-08:00

This whole "moving to a new place" thing sure is tricky. In many ways, I feel like it's been easier than I thought it would be. I don't really have much time to be lonely, although it does sneak its way in there sometimes. Mostly I just work, think about work, and occasionally avoid doing my work. But I don't really feel like I'm making a life here. I have aquaintances, some of whom I like very much, but forming real friendships seems difficult, if not impossible. I like my job, but I don't feel like I'm building a career. I like my apartment and neighborhood, but I don't plan on staying here past my allotted time. I like the city, but I'm not really sure where I fit in here. But the leaves sure are pretty.
-caroline

bridges from the future

2008-10-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

Well, this blog is dangerously teetering on the edge of becoming a place for Sarah and I to talk to ourselves. Good thing that's one of my specialties! I'm in Cincinatti for a work thing. I've always liked it here, it's almost as if an improbable force threw a New England town from the East Coast and it landed in the Ohio plains. The prodominant effect is homey and tattered around the edges, ramshakle yet refined. Anyway, the highlite of this trip is that it's getting me the out of Greensboro for a bit. . . and the bridges, I love cities with rivers - they are instant entertainment for me. Where will I walk? I'll walk to the river. Where will I go to be alone without feeling compeled to catch up on cable television in my hotel? Those crazy old staircases that frame the banks of the Ohio river, you drove right by them on your way into town. I'm so ready to live in Portland again. Rivers, rivers, rivers. CAN'T. WAIT.
--Emily--

of course you can have another toaster struedel as long as i can have another bourbon

2008-10-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Friday nights involve staying home even though you live in a glitzy new city. Sure, there's eye-opening cultural events to feel smart at, hip art openings to skim the last of some free wine from, or some fringe improv troupe debuting something terrible that you have to pretend to like even though you don't like theater. Ah, but the times when you are lonely and over/under-worked are short. Text freely and savor these precious moments with whatever food or drink you deem appropriate.

--sarah

Bisected

2008-09-28T18:41:00.001-07:00

So, it's like noon on Sunday, and I'm at the University of Chicago gym on an elliptical trainer with a tv attached. I'm watching a football game and listening to my ipod which is spinning a mix that goes something like Townes Van Zandt, Spoon, Girl Talk, Erykah Badu, and Bread (sometimes my ipod shuffle makes me feel so cool with my eclectic and oh so good musical selections bumping together). I'm thinking about how I'm going to go home and make last night's spinach-artichoke-sans-artichoke dip into a faux chicken, real rice, cheesey spinach casserole for lunch. AND, I've already finished my reading for Monday on the evolution of welfare policy in America. Basically, I'm feeling like The Best Sarah.

I walk home and it's a little cloudy. I talk to Marcus on the phone and he tells me about how they hung out on the Bessemer Court porches til the breaka-breaka. And then I talk to Eryn on the phone about a three-mimosa brunch after a night of hanging out til the breaka-break and I get real sad.

Another Best Sarah lives on porches in the summer-turned-fall. Drinking and smoking and contributing to conversation that gets more ridiculous as the night goes on while she grows more fervently attached to the musical selections that pump. I love the morning-after recovery, the haphazard yet delicate selection of brunchery or lunchery, and fondling the hair of the dog.

So it goes. I have no tidy wrap-up. My moods are somewhat sinusoidal.

--sarah

The passing on of wisdom

2008-09-28T16:06:00.001-07:00

I have now seen two fathers teaching their sons how to urinate in the street. Once was in Harlem, once in my own beloved Bronx. Overheard in the Bronx: "OK son, now you've gotta shake it."
-Caroline

Stoned in Vegas

2008-09-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

I love how my job requires me to jump down the maw of Las Vegas. But sometimes that can be a little dangerous, like last Tuesday, when I approached a woman deep in the ghetto for a story. Turns out she was crazy. She flipped, started screaming every epithet in the book at me, then followed me around the corner and grabbed a handful of rocks from her yard, making as if to throw them at me.

I scurried away. The whole episode has become a running joke between my editor and me. I don't think we've had an exchange since that didn't include the mention of pith helmets. Oh well. Got the story anyway.

Norwood! Norwood! Rah! Rah! Rah!

2008-09-20T14:40:00.000-07:00

The NY Times recently profiled my new neighborhood: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/realestate/31livi.html
-Caroline

Where Me and Barack Walk

2008-09-20T13:30:00.000-07:00

Caroline was totally right when she told me that the shoes I thought were comfortable would prove to be vicious ankle biters when doing my city walking commute. I've got big old blisters from walking 'round & 'round my new neighborhood.

- sarah

I heart NY

2008-09-19T17:09:00.000-07:00

After days of feeling beaten down by the helplessness of seeing amazing kids left to rot (one day, ask me about David, who works 2 jobs to support himself because his family's out of the picture, who spent much of last year in jail, and who still manages to be one of the sweetest and hardest working kids I've ever met), by the sheer assholishness that some people revel in, and by the cold indifference of parents and communities who would rather implode than think that maybe some of this is their fault, I come back to one thing. I fucking love this city.
-Caroline

To Answer Your Burning Question. . .

2008-09-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

In a few months I am moving to Portland, OR. The delay addresses some financial goals that need tending too and I have a job that I need to quit. This past summer was the summer of goodbye parties. I have never ever in my life been to more parties that end with has ta la vista. It was good and bad, good to see people running after a new normal and bad to be left in their wake.

I've moved to Portland before. The summer I turned 23 I rented a Buick Rendezvous (a car no longer in production) and all of my possessions fit tightly in the back while my dog Sweet Pea had room to spare sitting shotgun. I drove North out of San Francisco and merged with Highway 1. I stopped somewhere around the California/Oregon boarder and fed Sweet Pea some fried chicken. I pulled up to a house in a South East neighborhood where I was going to rent a room in a basement. A few days later I fell in love with a boy named Aaron.

Fast forward 6 years; Sweet Pea still rides shotgun but I no longer feed him fried chicken. I'm still in love with Aaron and sometimes when he and I discuss our upcoming move he will say something like, "I just really want to know why YOU want to move to Portland. I mean, I know why I want to move but why do YOU want to move to Portland?" Yes, the cadence of his inquiry is a little obnoxious but it's a valid question. I'm sure someone asked me the same question when I was moving to Portland the first time. I probably laughed it off, or mumbled something about Teflon and hot air balloons. . . I was a little crazy back then. But now, presently, at this very moment I have solid, valid, REASONS.

1.) Portland makes me feel like writing. After wandering the massive neighborhoods and breathing in the crisp air I always feel like collapsing down with pen and paper. This is one of the best feelings ever and it's been too long since I felt it on a regular basis. I want to take the memoir and poetry workshops here. Another writer also makes me want to move there, she's kind of famous. There are statues of her infamous characters in Grant Park.

2.) New forests to camp in, to mud to get stuck in, new birds to watch. Do you know about Vaux Swifts? They used to nest in the hollow stumps of Redwoods but now they settle for old chimneys. If I ever teach myself to draw, they will be my first subject.

3.) I want to live on the West Coast again, but not in San Francisco - not yet.

4.) I want to take cooking classes and learn about plant life that is in indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. Also, herbs.

5.) Oh my god, food, duh.

I realize that the focus of this list (and most of my other reasons) is on what I want to DO there and not WHY I want to go but the difference between those two ideas is minuscule and infuriating. I guess I find it puzzling to be asked why I want to move back to a place I've already moved.

-Emily-

Stick Figure Sisyphus

2008-09-15T17:45:00.000-07:00

As I was screwing together all of my Ikea furniture in my new apartment, I had this underlying feeling that once it was all done, I would have to deconstruct, pack it all up, schlep it down the three flights of winding stairs, re-rent a U-Haul trailer, and drive back across the country to Greensboro in my hatchback. Once there, I would refurnish the ol’ Paisley Street apartment with frequent trips to big box stores to outfit the space just to my liking. Once the last book was placed on the oak-veneered-pressed-wood bookcase in that apartment, I would immediately revisit the ABC store for boxes, resort, repack, and rehaul.

If it ends up this way, I guess I’ll get better at reversing with a trailer attached to my car. Oooh! And I’ll be super svelte from moving lots and lots of boxes up and down stairs every few days. Nice.

- Sarah

"GO" is a word that defies definition.

2008-09-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Voila.