Finallys

I started a post on the date above and saved it as a draft. Then I didn't touch this thing until late September. I came back and erased what I had saved in that draft and instead wrote what you see in this post. So this did not happen in July, but the date should be September 29, 2006. But I don't know how to change that or if I even can.
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September 29, 2006

I cleaned my bathroom last week. It was a chore but I did it. I was hoping it would have propelled me into cleaning my room but that hasn't happened yet.

I did finally send my Netflix DVDs back in the mail. They've been sitting around since June, I believe.

I finally deposited a check a friend of mine wrote for me... back in April. I finally sent Amanda and Mike my wedding invitation response postcard. It will probably get to them on the deadline for the RSVPs. I put my Cingular bill check in the mail today. So that bill will be paid on time for the first time in probably a year. I'm late fees McGee.

I have a habit of not going to the grocery store for things I need and instead going to restaurants for food. Yesterday I went to Jewel finally. There is something I love about it, you'd think I'd do it all the time. What I love to do is to show up listening to kick ass songs on my iPod while I power grocery shop. I walk with purpose from aisle to aisle as I pick up things on my mental grocery list. I casually people watch but I'm watching them from behind a glass wall while Belle & Sebastian dances in my ear.

Then I stand in line for the self check out express registers. I'm a pro at these things. I scan my things on the first try. I bag my stuff like an expert bagger. I swipe my debit card and enter my PIN and within seconds I've got my extra cash and receipt in hand. Then like a tiger after a gazelle I'm out of that crowded Lakeview meat market. I feel so adult. So mature. I've got groceries. Yeah, I'll make my own dinner. Sure, it's just a PB and honey sandwich or a bowl of cereal, but God dammit, I made it. I love it.

On the other side, I have been checking out the Onion personals A LOT more than usual. Way too much. I put new pictures of myself all over it (same with Friendster and MySpace) and I'm obsessed with seeing if these pictures create more interest in me with the ladies. There have been more hits but so far the 1 "letter" I sent a lady who viewed my profile has yet to be replied to. Ah well. Of note is that "Lost Cause" by Beck is playing right now. How fitting. My latest fanasty is to have some non-improviser lady approach me and tell me she thinks I'm funny after seeing a show of mine. Then we hit it off and start dating. The fantasies never include me being the one to approach them. I should probably start to incorporate that into them. Or, better yet, stop the daydreaming and actually be proactive and when I'm talking to a girl I like actually vocalize it. I'm such a socially inept dude.

I successfully went through August without having any alcohol. The first couple of weeks of September I hardly had any beers. I think the first alcoholic drink I had this month was wine. Yes, that's right, during my friend's birthday fun time in the suburbs. Man that was a lot of fun.

I've fallen into growing a beard. It started out of laziness. Then I was going to visit my parents. I wanted them to see me with some facial hair so i didn't shave. By the time I got back I just felt like trying to see how growing a beard goes. But this time, actually giving it time to grow. Instead of getting sick of it after two weeks and shaving it off. "Wild Horses" by the Stones is playing right now. How appropriate.

I was looking at some lady's profile off of Friendster and there's this one photo of her in a car with the sunlight hitting her hair in this certain way that kind of highlights the hair from the back, giving it a kind of bright outline if you will. The lady is of no importance, because she's taken, but the reason I'm mentioning this light effect is because it is so beautiful. In fact, ladies' hairdos in general fascinate me. When I'm riding the L, sitting down and a lady happens to be seated in front of me, I usually find myself in focused study of the back of her hairdo. I like the way the hairs are either combed or pinned or tossled. Show me a picture of a girl with her face partially blocked in a sexy way by her hair and I'm in heaven. Last year when I was in those couple of relationships, what I particularly loved about cuddling was being able to run my hands through their hair. It's soothing.

I just realized that it's just like petting a cat that's on your lap. Hmmmm. I don't know what that says about me or if it's a good realization or not. Perhaps it just means I'm a cat person. Or maybe just the general sensation of hair through my fingers is pleasing. Like Amelie with her love of putting her hands into a pile of stones. "Corcovado (Quiet Night of Quiet Star)" by Astrud Gilberto is playing right now. How lovely.

I'm directing Sketchcore in their next sketch show, which goes up in about three weeks. It's a lot of work with even more work to do in the coming weeks. It's challenging and fun at the same time. Although I feel like I've been in a personal improv funk in the past month or so, I've had two separate occasions where people have said they wanted to do a side project with me and that's great. I'll have time to do so come November. Coaching Skeleton Attack is a joy and I'm really proud of how good they all are. Great scenework's happening in rehearsals.

Not this weekend but next weekend I'll be at a wedding for a teammate and I want to buy a kick ass suit. Something that evokes the slick and cool style of London, like something from Trainspotting. My partner in crime at work has moved over to a different job within the company, which is great for him but lonely for me. I get a new partner tomorrow and I'm dreading it. Work load-wise it will be great, but I'm expecting this new dude to not fit at all and leave soon after. I'm hoping for the best but I wont' hold my breath.

This past month has been baby steps for me in getting my act together. That's nice. Finally.

What? No Improv This Weekend?

The team I coach has moved their rehearsals from Sunday to Tuesday. And neither of the team I'm on has a show this weekend. This means I have no improv obligations.

So I'll have time to clean my room, right? Probably but knowing myself I still won't get anything done.

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Last night I was talking to friends about blogging in general. We agreed that blogging is about the most self-absorbed things a person can do. It's all Me, Me, Me, all of the time. The blogs that I like to read, which are very few, are usually of people I know. That and they have a certain point of view or theme or gimmick that makes me continue to keep on reading. Example: A Year of Pictures After the Breakup, the blog I mentioned earlier. My friend ladym also has a blog that documents her life post break-up. My best friend Matt kept 2 blogs once; the first post break-up and the second a travel blog of his adventures in Europe. My friend Sarah kept a travel blog when she went to China. There are probably another dozen or two of improvisers that keep a blog.

For me, I love the ones that I brutally honest. The kind that make me question whether I should be reading this because it is almost too vulnerable. I admire the courage to be that honest in the blogosphere. I almost wish I could be that honest. But I can't be as open as I wish to. I guess it's egotistical but a lot of the time I feel like I'm being watched. Not like I'm being watched by the government, but like I feel like I always have some sort of audience.

I like gossiping... a lot. Check that. I like hearing gossip. I'm a pretty good keeper of secrets and for the most part, especially when I know something was told to me in confidence, I don't spread gossip around. But I'm usually the last to hear anything. People dont' seem to view me as their sound board or go-to person for personal shit. That's great because I'm not a constant dumping ground, but at that same time it makes it seem like I live in a vaccuum.

I would say that currently it does feel at times like all my close friends have moved away. Or that my friends that I felt comfortable being really honest to have become too busy for conversations. So I do feel like my life is lacking real connections. I want to connect with people but you can't force it. And this is just aggravated by how slow I am to make new friends.

But I still feel the need to unload all of these things waying on my mind. I could dump it into this blog. But it would be like tossing coins into a wishing fountain. I need another human being to connect with. Which really fuels my desire to find a love with whom I can be completely honest. This makes me long for which I do not have and then I start getting sad about the things I don't have instead of relishing the things that I do have. Thus the seemingly never-ending cycle of infinite melancholy.

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I used my new air pump on my bike yesterday. It was fun to do in a total cheese ball way. My pump has an air pressure gauge on it. My road bike tires need to be between 115 and 125 psi. At about 100psi is when it gets really difficult to pump any more air into the tire. Man do I need to get stronger. I should start doing sit-ups and push-ups since they are easy to do in that I can do them anywhere any they wouldn't take up too much of my free time. Maybe later I can then add pull-ups to complete the "-Ups" family.

I bought a Sunday pass for the upcoming Pitchfork Festival. I'm looking forward to it. Then a week or so after that is Lallapalooza [spelling is probably wrong]. Yay outdoor music fests!

My parents want to fly my sister out to Brainerd so that she can visit them. I think it's been something like 2 or 3 years since they have seen each other face to face. Mostly due to my sister being too poor to travel and my parents reluctance to ever visit their children in the towns they live in. In the 6 years since I've moved to Chicago, I believe they have visited me only twice. They want me to come up to Brainerd the weekend they fly my sister in. But they haven't picked a weekend yet. I hope they pick Labor Day weekend. My mom's birthday is right around that weekend and I found out that it would only cost me $100 to travel via Amtrak. I haven't traveled by train in 12 years and I miss it.

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Out of the conversation about blogs, I let out the existance of this blog. I can't wait [sarcasm alarm] for when a friend mentions something that I wrote in here, which I'm sure will kind of weird me out a little. I wonder if I ever weirded ladym out when bringing up any of the things she talks about. Now that I know that she reads it, I'll find out the answer soon enough.

Montana

Montana was great. Even during the not-so-great moments, it was a great trip.

I was supposed to have all my packing down by the time I went to bed Thursday night. At 11:30 at night, I quickly threw together some stuff that I thought I'd need, having procrastinated for the entire night. I biked to work because I wanted to have the option of doing Critical Mass before I left for Montana. However, upon seeing the limited luggage space our "van" had, I knew Critical Mass was out of the question and that I needed to buy a duffel bag and repack my stuff.

A Chrysler Pacifica is not really a van as you would think it. Imagine a van and a station wagon had sex. Their baby would be a Chrysler Pacifica. Instead of a sliding door, it had the car-like four doors. The trunk space? Almost non-existant. There was barely enough room for two large sized suitcases. Ben said it best: we need to pack light.

Keywords from the Trip and Brief Explanations as Need Be

the lifetime(s) of Larry ("that's me") of Judith Gap, Montana
- on our way back to Chicago, we stopped at this nice place that was half dinner and half gift shop/convience store. We sat at the dinner counter and this guy to our left who was about 60-something years old took about a minute or so after we sat down to chat us up. He was a talkative fellow and by the time we left to get back on the highway, we basically knew his life story. Great lines from Larry: "I broke my back," "I get high everyday," "when I was 40 years old I found out I was half Mexican," "my first boss was my birth father," "Republicans are horrible," "I knew Jimmy Hendrix and he just free styled the Star Spangled Banner," "you gotta stop by and visit Judith Gap."

"Something's wrong with Bryan's eyes" and Apul's lips
- two of the guys of the Jungle and Ben from the Snakes didn't respond well to the outdoors on this trip. Ben got a huge headcold that kept him indoors most of the time. Bryan had some sort of bad alergic reaction to the first day's hike; his eyes became very red. Apul's lips swelled up for some reason and then two days later he had these puffy regions under his eyes swell up as well. He looked awful. Poor guys.

Yoga on the front porch
Hunting beaver
Foam keg
Levin's trophies
Old diet pepsi cans
Feeding horses
"I know you from the internet"
- this is a quote from Rex to Annie, referring probably seeing her comments posted all over Levin's myspace page.
Rex the speed racer
Wet pizza
- we brought two pizzas from Chicago to the ranch so that Levin's dad, Harrison, could experience Chicago style pizza. The method of keeping them cool with improvised since they wouldn't fit in a cooler. Suffice to say that the pizzas were pretty wet by the time we arrived in Montana 24 hours later.
Baserunning
- the Great Falls White Sox have a problem when it come to base running. So Bad. But it provided a great bit of yelling out "stay" any time they were running.
Red beer
Tiny casinos
Harrison O'Connor's acting debut in a short film
stock footage
Katy's run away attempts
meowing elks
The three sisters and LeRoy.
dead baby deer.
Bloodlust.
Making Barbeque sauce.
Flattened snake carcasses.
L.A. people's busted van window.
- Annie backed up the van into a pole with a box on it. The left rear door was super dented in and the window was shattered. They drove around with a bag taped over it... except on the day they needed it, the 4th of July. Which made everyone inside it covered in a nice layer of dust.
The Harrison O'Connor bow and arrow challenge.
Fluffing sheets for 15-30 minutes.
Suspenders and jeans.
Riding a bike to the Malt Shop.
"I believe."
Good thoughts about America.
Meat pusher.
The burning bush.
Molly went home with the Jungle.
No fighting
LA people are cool
Bertrando
Ben's new drinking game "Pig 2"
Songs: "No Fajjots on the 4th of July" "Ballad of Oscar" "$100 on 1776"
Mashups
Pie
Pork
224 Buffalo Tamales
Ben is a bird guy. He killed two with the van
The sounds of penguins
Sacks and druks and rock n roll song
Trucker Speed
Great Falls bar with mechanical bull
Real bulls, crying. "My penis!"
yelling out "my penis" while a small child was present
elk herd
Perfect weather for a hike up a mountain
soggy feet
Where are your family at around the Midwest talk with LeRoy
Barely any sleep on trip back
Settlers of Catan
James and his 4th of July 3-D glasses
great fireworks display
new friends Annie, Rachel, Apul, James, Bryan, and Bertrando.
Lynn and her Tibetian prayer flags
"you almost killed a kid number 24. How do you feel about that?"
"You got patriot hymmed"

and many other things I'm forgetting.

The 1900s

My acquaintance Arnie had a blog that he kep for a year that he just finished. I was reading parts of it and I saw that he is friends with some people in a band. The band is called The 1900s. I checked out their website and liked the snipets of songs that I heard off of it. I then looked them up on iTunes, expecting a local band to not be on it. But they were on it. So I bought their EP Plume Delivery. I LOVE it. It's like Belle and Sebastion but somehow better. Better than Belle and Sebastian? Yes.

I also think that people that take lots of pictures have got it figured out. When I check out blogs and see people's pictures on them, I think, "wow, their life is so awesome." And then, of course, I think, "my life isn't that cool." I know it's only the pictures that are doing this. I know this because a picture can take something that is really bland and ordinary and something that you would normally pass by and not notice into something really fascinating.

I am still struggling with the two things I am posted about in my past entry. But, I've only got five days until I go to Montana. So that's really nice.

I've also started to play around with iMovie HD on my computer. It's really neat although it keeps freezing on me, which totally sucks.

Happy and Clean

Two things I need to do that are important:

1) Get Happy. I've been OBSESSED with thoughts about relationships and dating and women on the radar in the past month. To the point where it's making me sad. It makes me sad because the theoretical dating experience in my head is always great and stress free. It's full of excitement and joy. I'm living in fantasy land and it needs to stop. I need to realize that me being single at the moment is fine. I need to relish being free. I need to stop thinking that the only way I can get happy is if I were in a great committed relationship with a women who loved me. Sure, that'd be great, but I'm not letting myself be happy with what I've got. A crush I had on this one girl 5 years ago has once again reared it's head and I can't shake it. I need to either get over it once again or actually tell her that I think she's cute and that I would like to go out on a date with her. She's as tall as me, which is actually sort of a turn on.

2) Clean my Room. Ugh. My room is a mess. Not a pig sty, just a mess. I wanted to clean it in parts over this weekend but, of course, I didn't. I didn't because I'm lazy and because I enjoy it too much to lay on my bed and think about all the different possibilities of me meeting a girl (usually Ms. Crush) and dating her. I'm going to Montana for a vacation in two weeks and I don't want to come home to a dirty room like I just did when I came back from LA.

So I have until June 30 to clean my room. I also need to get out of this funk asap.

Sinus Hell

I believe I'm finally on the downslide of a 3 day long cold. I started feeling ill on the last day of my vacation in LA, Sunday. The plane ride was an uncomfortable one; being that I was in the middle seat of a red eye flight and not able to get any sleep. I probably just misused the semicolon. Did I just misspell semicolon? Semi-colon?

Monday was hot throat day.
Tuesday was general cold day.
Wednesday was sinus hell, with a large ball of snot just behind my nose. When it wasn't a large ball of solid mass preventing me from beathing out of my nose, it was a faucet of grossness. Thank God for antihistimines. Anit-histimines?

Puppet improv rocks the house.
I was too sick to make it to an audition yesterday.
The vice-president of my day job company envies my vacation to Montana in 2 weeks and 1 day. A day over a fortnight?

Not planning anything to do while in LA actually became a bane. By Friday I was super bored and super hungry but food in LA is super expensive and going anywhere always involves driving and parking, which is super stressful. Trying to find parking for over a half-hour, while dealing with a lack of sleep headache, coupled with the not-needed adrenaline of almost getting into an accident and having some guy try to scare me is not a fun task. That last thing was weird. I was stopped at a light in my sister's neighborhood, which is predominately Mexican, and I hear some guy say "hey white guy" from the car to my left. I play along and response with a "what's up?" The guy in the passenger seat then does this "joke" where he fliched his body and arm down in front of him as if you were about to pull a gun on me. In my headache dazed state, it took me a few second to comprehend what he did. By that time the light changed green and rather respond in any way verbally I just ignored it and proceeded to try to find parking. And because I'm prone to obsessive thinking, I kept thinking about it over and over again and it made me angry. I didn't want to be angry. I wanted to be in bed, comfortable, and hopefully sleeping restfully.

Note to self: find out what type of mattress my sister has and remember to never buy that brand. Also find out what type of mattress my friend Levin has and buy it; the nights I slept on that thing were so restfull. Probably a little better than my own bed/futton.

LA Vacation

I'm going to LA tonight. I'll be there until Sunday night. I'll have 6 full days of California sun, which will be nice. Not because the California sun is nicer than the Chicago sun we've enjoyed over the past two weeks. No, because I won't have to do a God damn thing when I'm in LA. Ahhh, vacation.

I leave for O'Hare right after work, but I have plenty of time to get there since my flight is after 8pm. I've got a rental car reservation, so I won't have to depend on a friend or relative to drive me around the city, or pick me up from the airport. My sister lives in LA and I'll be staying with her for part of the time I'm there. The first couple of days I'll be crashing at my friend Levin's place. I haven't seen Levin since April and I haven't seen my sister since April of last year. I have an aunt and uncle that live there too so it will be nice to see them. I will also try to visit my friends Amanda & Mike, Alexandra, and James.

The LA Improv Festival is happening this week also. It was at first the reason I was going but towards the last second my team was unable to go. I had already booked the flight and since I could use a vacation [haven't had once since Christmas] I decided to go to LA anyway.

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Riding my bike everywhere is so much fun. I've gotten compliments on how nice my bike is [should be for the money I paid for it] and that is nice although it also makes me paranoid in a "yeah? Well, it's mine, you can't have it" way.

This past weekend was a fun one. Rattlesnake had a show Saturday night and it was a really good one. I played only supporting characters but it was super fun and I really felt on top of my game during the show. I participated in the last few minutes of an Ultimate Frisbee game. Everyone there assumed I was this super good player, which is funny. I guess I just looks like a really good frisbee dude.

In other news, I recently weighed myself on a friend's bathroom scale and it said I weighed 148 lbs. I don't know if I believe it even after my friend said it was accurate. If it's true, then I've gained 13 lbs in the last year. This is a good thing, but I think most of it is fat [which I could use more of, I guess]. Now let's see if I can convert that fat into muscle, which would be better.

It's Summer! I should be doing things! [Roll over]

God Damn, Memorial Day weekend was a hot one in Chi-town. My room is a hot box of sweaty pain. What just jumped to the top of the "Stuff Jon Needs to Buy" list? Fans, that's what.

Other things to do:
Clean bathroom. "Hey Jon, did you look at that sink of yours? Dirty city. And that toilet? Vomit-town."
Clean huge pile of hardly ever worn clothes.
Weed out clothes that I don't ever wear and donate them.
Sell old hybrid bike.
Clean room. Start with alcove I never enter. Then work on bed area. Last work on desk area.
Rearrange room so it uses the space better.
Buy an actual bed. Move futon over and use it as a couch.


I should also think about decorating my walls with pictures. Remember that b&w photo of San Fran in the '70s? Maybe actually get around to hanging it would be cool.

But mostly, the best step I can take to ensure that these things gets done is to not sleep all day and instead of dreaming about all the shit I can get done, actually get out of bed and do something. ANYTHING. Taking a shower would be a nice start. Man, I really waste my weekends like no other.

shy

Updates

Finally got my new road bike. It is super awesome. ... except it sometimes likes to shift gears by itself. I will get this fixed.

I got handed a new iO team to coach about 6 weeks ago. They are good. Coaching is fun and challenging. Let's hope I don't mess them up too much.

I got to play in Armando for the second time ever. The first was a week before my last birthday. The second time was this past Monday. Both times it's been because the cast was really low and needed bodies to do improv. I was really nervous the first time. I did a pretty good job. I was less nervous this last time. I did okay.

I'm going to LA in two weeks to participate in the LA Improv Festival with Rattlesnake High School. It will be fun. Perhaps my sister, aunt, and uncle can see me perform in a show. Visiting with them will be great too. My friend James will be there with nothing to do during the daytime so it will be cool to hang with him in LA. Everytime I've gone there and rented a car (2 times) they have given me a free upgrade. I will predict that it will happen again.

I don't get enough sleep.

I may get the chance to direct a sketch show. That would be cool.

I still need to get my headshots duplicated.

Apparently I take really good photos.

Felt opened last Wednesday and it surprised me how well our first show went. We did slow and patience and grounded scenework. They put a promo we shot on the iO website and it is funny. Nathan is adorable.

I did Critical Mass last month at it was mondo fun.

I'm looking forward to this coming three-day weekend.

Super Awesome New Road Bike

I bought a super new awesome road bike last Sunday (not yesterday, the Sunday before yesterday). It is mondo expensive but with a purchase like this, which I'm gonna use a ton, it's good to get something that I know won't break down and need repairs a week into me using it.

The three previous Saturdays were spent trekking down to the southside to check out Working Bikes. For those of you not in the know, it is this super small shop on Western, a block or so south of Taylor. They take donated bikes and give them to poor kids across the seas. But they also fix donated bikes and sell them to poor Chicagoans. Most of the bikes they have go for between $40 and $99; although I did see one bike on sale for $150 - but it was a really nice bike. I probably would have bought that expensive bike but it was way too small for me. If I had been 5' 6", that bike would have been mine.

The first weekend I went down there was Easter Sunday weekend. They were closed. Completely my fault for not figuring they would be or at least calling first.

The second weekend I went down there, I went on a Saturday and got there around 1:15pm. All the bikes were gone.

The third weekend I went down there, I went on a Saturday and this time got there before they opened. I almost slept through the time I need to start my hike down there but luckily woke up in time and wisely decided to skip showering and eating in order to get there on time. I got there so early that I basically volunteered myself to help them move bikes over from a block away to there store.

Now, I didn't know this since I've never ridden a road bike, not even my Dad's old 10-speed, but old road bikes have the gear changers in a very odd space. They're basically at the base or top of the handlebars. I'm used to the newer models of mountain bikes where you can change the gears where you have your hands. As such, I needed to find a newer model road bike. And since I had been desiring a road bike for the past month and a half, I decided to bite the bullet and buy new.

I went to Kozy's Bikes downtown (thought they'd have a wider selection than they one on Halsted) and picked out a nice road bike. I went home and immediately realized that I bought the wrong type of road bike. I wanted a sport model, which had the super awesome gear changers right next to the hand brakes. So I went back the next day and got my order changed. They said they had the bike on order and it would arrive in about a week and then they would have to put it together, with the extras that I bought with it, like a back fender to keep the dirt off my back.

So it's been a week since I placed the order and I hope and expect to get a call Wednesday or Thursday telling me my bike is ready. I cannot wait. Then I will sell my current hybrid bike - hoping to get 200 bones for it - to make my bike purchase hurt a little less in my wallet.

But it will all be worth it to be able to cut throught the wind and go fast and change gears without have to wait a few seconds for the gears to actually change. So awesome. So super awesome.

Jury Time!

What's playing right now while I'm writing: Trouble of My Own by Slumber Party.

The trial was a personal injury lawsuit. I'll try to keep this short.

Background:
Landlord own building. Building has two stories. Landlord, Cynthia, lives on 2nd floor. Jennifer Gray (not the famous one), lives on the 1st floor. There's a small room aread in the basement, Brad, Cynthia's good friend and hair stylist, live there. Cynthia and Jennifer both have dogs. They have both helped each other out in walking each other's dogs when the other was away. Cynthia's dog is an 11yr old, 130lb dog. Huge dog, but old. Cynthia has a holistic vet fot the dog. She even got the dog accupunture sessions to help his arthritis. His name is Budha. Jennifer's dog is named Moxie.

Time line:
1. Cynthia goes to California for vacation. Asks Brad, who is usually hanging out in Cynthia's place to use her kitchen, to look after Budha. Also asks Jennifer to help out if she can, like take him out on walks.

2. Jennifer pops her head into Cynthia's apt to check to see if Budha needs a walk, since she is about to take Moxie out for a walk. Brad and his friend are in the apt eating a steak dinner. Brad says that he and his friend took Budha already out for a walk earlier in the day but if Budha wanted to go out, then fine.

3. Jennifer gets the collar and leash and puts it on Budha. Budha lays down indicating he doesn't want to go out. Jennifer tugs lightly on leash and calls his name to get him to get up. Budha growls. Jennifer wait a bit before tugging on the leash again. Again Budha growls. Jennifer then talks to Brad about stuff for about 2 minutes later, to let Budha cool off.

4. Jennifer crouches down to take Budha's leash off of him. As she reaches for it, Budha bites her hand. The bite is pretty bad.

5. Brad takes Jennifer to the hospital. They treast the bite.

6. The next day the hand swells up. She goes back to the hospital. They keep her there for 3 days while they keep her hooked up to an IV to give her antibiotics for the infection of skin on her hand. Jennifer's hospital bills - or at least what she had to pay out of pocket - were around $8,000. She also missed a vacation to the British Virgin Islands since she was in the hospital. Expense for vacation added with loss of wages from her job, as a producer for Harpo, amount to around $2,000. her lawyer is also asking for pain & suffering, disability, and disfigurement losses. Suggests amounts of $35,000, $30,000, and $15,000.

The whole trial lasted two days. It was pretty much boring and much of it was spent waiting around for it to start on time, which it didn't and waiting for sidebar sessions to end, which there were a lot of. Every person involved were characters. I watched them very carefully so that I can sometime in the future can play them on stage.

The judge was this very old black women. She was sort of scatter-brained and at times it looked like she wasn't even paying attention to the case. Sometimes when one of the lawyers had an objection, it looked like she was mentally flipping a coin to make the judgement, as if she had missed what had been said just a minute ago. Some of the other jurors said they saw her asleep at one moment. I didn't see that.

One of the three court deputies, but the main one we dealt with, was this black man with super thick glasses. He seemed a little slow and maybe a little blind. When he would hand out our check to us, he would call our names and when someone said it was for them, it seemed like he had trouble figuring out who said it. He also didn't like it if anyone questioned his authority, which I witnessed one time when on of the more disagreeable jurors wanted to make the calls on something.

When Cynthia took the witness stand, she was in tears for a good portion of it. Very distraught and her answers were pretty evasive. The plaintiff's counsel took to reading transcipts of a deposition taken a month or so before the trial to get her to answer the way she had during the deposition.

Jennifer seemed still and devoid of any real emotion while on the stand. I'm gonna guess she was heavily coached or at least she's just a cold woman.

The doctor who examined Jennifer couldn't be there so they read from the transcipts of the depostion to hear what he said during it.

The plantiff's counsel was this large fat man who could be compared with a bull dog. At times he could get really angry. All the blood would rush to his head, causing his face to get real red. The defendent's counsel was this rail thin man who took his time with things. He seemed a little unorganized and low in energy. Whenever any of his questions would be sustained he had a hard time of rephrasing them to make them okay.

My fellow jurors were a neat bunch themselves. But I wont go into detail since I'm already bored of talking about this whole thing. We went into deliberation on the second day. Under the Illinois Animal Control Act, we found that the defendent, Cynthia, was liable for what her dog did to Jennifer. We decided that Jennifer should receive full compensation for the hospital bills and for losses due to her being in the hospital, like missing work and her vacation. So that's $10,000 right there. I believe for pain & suffering, we made that equal to the hospital bill (I thought it should have been less at first but in the end agreed to the amount). For disability I think we gave her $1,000 and $1,500 for disfigurement. So the whole total was around $20,500.

If you see me in person, ask me about the jurors and what characters some of them were. I'm leaving a bunch out but, like I said, I'm tired of typing about it right now.

Song playing right now as I finish this post: Wild Horses done by The Sundays.

Infinite Melancholy

I'm sad. I'm sad because I think for the first time my shyness conclusively shot me in the foot. It hurts really bad. I'm mad at myself. I need to change the ways of my heart. I know the kind of mindset I need to be in but I don't know how to trick myself into being that new person.

How do you make youself go from wanting a relationship to just wanting sex?
How do you go from wanting to love women to wanting to love and leave them?
How do you go from imediately thinking "this might be the one" to thinking "this is the one at the moment?"
How do you go from a one-at-a-time mentality to a buffet-restaurant kind of mentality?

Mostly I need to not be afraid to overtly flirt with women. It's just that for so long I've wanted to be the non-typical guy. Women get hit on so much that they get tired of guys just wanting them for sex. They like it when I guy isn't trying right away to get into their pants. But my mistake is that I chose platonic-friend mode. I need to chose flirty-but-opting-to-progess-things-slowly mode.

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I'm a juror. The trial is tomorrow and they said it should only take one day to get through it although it may spill over into Tuesday as well. When the trial is over I can talk about it. But I can't say anything about it right now.

I got my attendance bonus so I think I will buy a road bike next weekend. I've decided to hold off on purchasing a messenger bag. I've got a bag a nice bag at the moment, albeit a falling apart one. But if I was able to find such a bag for only $3 at the Brown Elephant, then it surmises that I can find another perfectly functioning mag at a thift store. That way I can save my money.

Air tickets to Ireland are pretty expensive. I knew they would be but I was think maybe around $400. Most I found online are around $615. I need to rethink if I want to go there over Memorial Day week. Maybe I should push it toward the end of summer, around Labor Day week? Especially if I want to be able to afford the LA Improv Festival in June and Montana in July.

Songs and Songs

iPod update: 2363 songs on it now. In one week I loaded a little over 2300 songs onto my computer. I did this by spend almost all my free time sitting in front of my new computer and loading CD after CD into it and hitting 'import CD' over and over again. It was fun although exhausting.

I didn't even touch the Netflix DVDs that I have at home. And the thing is... is that I'm only about 3/4 of the way done. But I did create a new playlist last night. I was so dedicated to it that I was up 'til 1am with it. This made it super hard to wake up today. Thankfully I wasn't late for work but I was only 6 minutes early, which for me at this new job is cutting it close. I'm usually 15-30 minutes early for work. But I'll be laughing all the way to the bank when I get my quarterly attendance bonus from work. $500 is a good amount to motivate me to get to work on time.

I have been looking at craigslist for bikes and I'm getting a slightly better idea of what I want as far as a road bike goes. I asked by friends for their advice and my friend Ben came through in spades, giving me super sage advice. He clued me into a place on the south side on Western that fixes up donated bikes and sells them for only $70-$99. A road bike for less than $100... awesome!

I'll probably also by myself a custom-made messenger bag. One that can transport a laptop too.

Oh, back to the iPod. Those ear plug things? Awful. I don't know if it's something about my ears but they don't fit in them comfortably. The left one keeps wanting to fall out unless I jam it in there, which I'm sure is not a good idea. And the sound quality isn't quite that great. On top of it all, it irritates my ears have something rubbing on the ear cannal entryway. The ear irritation is on par with the pressure I have on my ears when I have a headcold. Weird ear pressure issues and such. Not fun since my body is the type to create a sickness if my mind seriously thinks I'm getting sick. It's like a self-fulfilled prophecy with my body.

With getting a bike for around $100, and a messenger bag which will be another $100, that leaves $300 for extra perchases. I should probably use it to duplicate my two-year old headshots. Ugh... it's frustrating in how lazy I can be.

Jury Duty Summons

I got summoned for Jury Duty yesterday. It's for April 7th. It will be fun to see what it's like for one day... but I really don't want to be picked. A one-day jury duty experience is fine. Anything over a day would be awful. I would actually have to listen to a case and learn law stuff. Not fun. I'd rather have my Law & Order courtroom experiences. [Side note: L&O Criminal Intent is awesome.]

In bigger news, I got my new laptop computer yesterday. It came a day early and that was nice. It's a MacBook Pro - you know, one of the fancy new ones - and it's great to have something top of the line for a change. I like telling people the model of computer I'm getting but a split second afterwards I get a pinch of guilt for flaunting my super expensive purchase in people's faces. I think in two weeks or so I'll back off and begin being vague when I talk about my new computer. Or at least indicate that in the past I've always had shitty computers and it nice to treat myself for the first time ever computer-wise. Plus, my parents are helping me big time with the expense of it.

I got 29 songs put on my iPod that I bought off Rich a month ago. That was nice.

The next week or so I'll be a hermit while I rip my whole CD collection to iTunes. And I'm going to love the whole process.

3. 2. 1. Contact!

I wisely decided to ditch my old blog because making a log of experiences of Internet dating is SO 2002.

I don't know why I want to be a blogger. Kind of like my yearning to be a NPR listener

-> when I'm listening to it I'm think "awesome, I'm so super smart for listening to NPR. I'm so tapped into the news of the world. I'm so sophisticated!" But the updates are all about conflicts overseas, oppressed people getting shit on, and how this world needs to be saved from pollution and overpopulation. This makes me really depressed to be a human being and I usually don't like being made depressed. So I change the channel.

.

Also in the same way I want to be a jogger.

My life in 2006 is going to be proactive. I'm going to get shit done. I'm gonna be a real go-getter.

I kid you not.

I'VE made lists.

yes. LISTS.

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THINGS TO GET DONE IN 2006.

1. obtain a Mac computer. - preferably a laptop. more specifically a MacBook Pro.
2. get headshots duplicated. - you know, the ones I had made almost 2 years ago? yeah, those ones.
3. get an agent. - dependent on item #2.
4. start messing around with video stuff. - make film shorts.
5. start yet another improv project.
6. Travel more. - setting sights on Ireland, Japan, LA, and Texas. Maybe SF too.
7. start running again.
8. buy road bike. -sweet, sweet road bikes... how I love thee.

THINGS ALREADY ACOMPLISHED IN JUST THE FIRST 18 DAYS OF 2006

1. bought an iPod.
2. got a new coat.
3. expanded pitiful wardrobe

As for item #1 on the first list, I have already gotten the ball rolling to achieve this goal. The plan is for my parents to help me pay for it. I'm leaning hard on the fact that this month is my birthday month.

I've got a work bonus coming to me and I plan on using all of the money towards making item #2 come to fruition.

I've already met with a friend of mine and we are totally going to make sure that item #4 gets done.

Item #5 has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now. I just need to figure out who I want to do it with me... and then, of course, see if they have the free time to do it... then, after a couple of my initial picks decline, figure out who I want for their replacements... then stumble through a few rehearsals... then find one more replacement after one person drops out after unfocused rehearsals... find a director to focus rehearsals... and, finally, find a space we can perform this awesome concept show.

I've got May or June slated as my time to visit Ireland. Which reminds me, I need to check out my vacation days situation so I can also have the time to travel out to Montana if it happens again this summer.

I also hope to turn this blog into a vlog.