That's What She Said

Come again another day. JUST KIDDING. Please rain? Pretty please with a cherry on top? And some whip cream. PLEEEASE????

I don't know if the internet is the proper place to perform any kind of weather-related prayer, but I've already practically fallen to my knees on the sidewalk and begged the skies to open up and shower us with mercy. It's been days since it's rained in Chicago, which means that for days and days and days, while it has been just threatening to rain, it has felt like the goddamn tropics around here.

Erin and I have been sitting in our apartment, fans buzzing, beads of sweat clinging to our faces, watching each others' hair grow frizzier and curlier by the minute. Everything in our house is saturated with moisture. Even the wood on the door frames is swollen from the humidity, which is super entertaining (not) when it's time to lock the damn door.

I tried to pack some boxes the other day for our upcoming move. Made of the traditional sturdy cardboard, they all folded in the wrong places the moment I lifted them. It was soggy and impossible, like trying to carry a sleeping child's limp body.


Today hasn't been so awful. In fact the temperature right now is downright pleasant. But I still have a fro rivaling that of a certain scary haired comedian/freakshow, and any exertion outdoors results in just enough sweat for me realize that I should have a swimsuit on because I'm fucking five feet under water in a swimming pool. Only I've gotten used to it.

So again, I supplicate to the clouds, the gods, whatever the hell is up there, please, please rain. Please?

You didn't expect me to start squatting in you last August after our brief meeting a few months before at a party, me drunk and passed out on your air mattress, a friend of a friend. But there I was, setting up camp in the sunroom. You tried to accomodate me, and it was nice for awhile. Your built in cabinets and stained glass were charming. Your wood floors and brightly painted walls so amiable and cozy. I thought you were different, Apartment. I thought you were special.

Last weekend I was on a boat for six hours straight. In the hot, hot sun. Sporting six applications of SPF-whatever-was-on-board. SIX applications I tell you! And still I have the most terrible sunburn.

Not only do I have said terrible sunburn, but you can see exactly where the sun was in the sky based on the burn patterns across my body. My left half is significantly more lobsteresque than my right. The inner part of my right leg is crimson, while it is the outer part of my left leg that is burned. I have (gasp! the horror! the shame!) bright white sunglass lines blaring from each temple and across the bridge of my nose. My shoulders got the worst of it, though. Oh, how deep the red of my shoulders.

Sleeping is a treat I'm not even sure I can describe, but I'm beginning to think a Ph.D. in yoga would have been helpful in this situation. After several nights of pretending I'm a contortionist I have found that it doesn't hurt so much if my lower half rests on the side of my [relatively unscathed] right leg, while the top half of my body stays flat, my head slightly elevated so as to reduce the amount of touching between shoulders and pillows. Throw a blanket into the mix, though, and everything is just fucked.

Gentlemen: Here is yet another way in which you are genetically blessed while we ladies are built to suffer: boobs. For when one possesses boobs, it is mandated that one must don a bra if one's boobs are any sort of large or bouncy (mine are both) before going out in public. And every time I carefully, painstakingly, pull brastraps onto my shoulders I let out a yelp that makes my dog flee in terror and the cats scurry under the bed. It HURTS.

But NOW - five days post-sun exposure - the peeling has begun. And the itching. It is...severe. My skin is...patchy. In between treatments of cooling and delicious aloe vera after my shower in the morning and before bed at night, I've been slathering on Aloe Vera After Sun Lotion which is wonderfully moisturizing (despite the label blathering on about how it's actually to "prevent and protect from the drying effects of wind and cold weather" (heh? then why do you call it 'After Sun Lotion' and not 'After Wind and Cold Weather Lotion'?! Get it together, Walgreen's label peeps!)).

I wish I hadn't left my camera on the boat in Minnesota, for the photos would be too amazing to not show you all. Really, you would be astounded. But alas, I have no pictures to share. I can only leave you with the promise that I am RED and BURNED and HURTY and PEELING. And a big, fat reminder to all my fellow fair-skinned folk to make SPF 4 Frillion your new BFF and stay your asses in the shade. Learn from my mistakes!

It's been a rough seven days. Lots of feelings accompanied by lots of tears. What's left is a wake of used tissues and ice cream wrappers, an ephemeral shell of a person, and, surprisingly, a desire to shop like I've never known. What is it about being emotionally assaulted that leaves me itching to spend money?
I no longer possess the clarity to determine if I realistically need the items I'm in search of (or if I need them for anything beyond my own momentary well-being). Am I just looking to distract myself? Most likely. Luckily I can justify a few of my purchases with the knowledge that I've wanted (and maybe needed) these things for months, but never got around to buying them because I was otherwise occupied.

Item #1: Duvet Cover:
I bought a new bed at the beginning of the year, complete with new sheets and a new down-like comforter. It was white. Then it lived on my bed for six months without protection. Now it is almost white. Almost. So I have spent the better part of the morning (!) looking for a duvet cover online. I'm not asking for much really. A simple, solid, reasonably priced cover available in an assortment of colors from which I can choose. Easy, yes?

Wrong. It seems that amongst all the Pottery Barns and Land's Ends and Targets and Bed, Bath and Bludgeon Me's, you should be able to find this most basic item. Instead, all I can find is an limited selection of hideous and hideously overpriced covers for my once pristine blanket.

Why is this so difficult? My request is as modest as it gets and it's 2009 for crying out loud. Aren't you supposed to Google anything and be able to purchase it in just a few clicks? Apparently, this does not apply to bedding. I suppose it would mean this particular concept of an item would have to be manufactured to begin with.

Maybe I'm being too picky, but it seems that what I want should not be harder to find than a Ruched 400 Thread-Count Floral Embroidered Organic Duvet available in each Cocaine White, Bone(r) White and Kiss My White Ass White. Seriously. I do not want leopard print cerca 1989. I do not want flowers that look like a freaking table cloth you'd find at a yard sale. I do not want stripes, not even monochromatic stripes. Is someone fucking with me?

Once I do manage to find a few companies that sell a PLAIN duvet cover, I'm left to eliminate by price. $150 for a blanket holder?? I mean, come on, it's two flat sheets sewn together for god's sake. Are you kidding me? (Sidenote: If I had a sewing machine and knew how to sew, you wouldn't be suffering through this post at all).

Now I'm left with very limited color choices. Why are solid duvet covers only manufactured in white, chocolate, hunter green, sage, red, navy blue and burgundy? Why? Why does everyone who owns a comforter want a goddamn ugly hunter green duvet cover? I cannot understand this phenomenon. The ability to see colors and connect emotions with colors is one of the greatest things about being a human. Why in the hell do we limit ourselves to effing navy blue and burgundy?!? WHY DO WE FORSAKE THE RAINBOW?!? What is wrong with us?

I finally weeded my way through Overstock.com and found a nicely priced duvet cover available in sage (ugh), navy (GRRR), taupe, hunter green (WHYYYYY), bone, white, and (gasp) RASPBERRY!!
Really?? Raspberry? Not red? Not wine? Raspberry. Yes! This is what I was looking for. An escape from the palette of 1990's Lazy Boy love seats. Triumph!! On to lamps!

Item #2: Soft Light Lamp:
Are you fucking serious? After all that, like I'm going to try and buy a lamp today.

And so help me god if the color of that duvet cover is even CLOSE to burgundy...

I'm having sleep troubles! Of all things!

So Zack's gone and waaaaaah poor me, so lonely little Austin. But really, I've been pretty okay. No crying, no tearing of the hair or gnashing of the teeth. Gold star, right? Totally!

Except that I haven't had a good night's sleep in days and it's beginning to piss me the hell off. Because damn; I like sleep. And I sort of depend on sleep to get me through my eight hours of bleary-eyed staring at a computer screen, where I work and write my love notes to you, lovely Internet.

First thing's first. I am going to stop letting my damn cats sleep with me. They are annoying (ELLA) and needy (SAPPHO) and are only cute at 10:30 when I go to bed and they are curled up together at my feet but not so much at FOUR FUCKING O'CLOCK when they are JUMPING ON MY FACE. Because...well, because they are idiots. (Or maybe I'm the idiot. Yeah, that's probably it.) Anyway, the cats are officially Kicked Out.

Also, my subconscious decided to jump start an irrational fear that SOMEONE IS TOTALLY GOING TO COME IN MY SLIDING GLASS DOOR AND RAPE ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT just as I'm about to drift off. From 34 stories up, they are going to do this. With their springy legs and Stretch Armstrong arms and Spider-Man abilities to climb up buildings and shit. Ha. But still, I stumble out of bed to close and lock my slider (which we rarely close and never lock) and am then awake. Wide Awake. Not anywhere close to sleep anymore. Shit. (Note To Self: Would be good if this fear made itself known before going to bed so as to avoid leaving bed to assuage it. Would also be good if you knew how to work the lock.)

And have I mentioned that I thrash around in my big ol' empty bed looking for a comfortable position? (Moment of Truth here, folks: I'll admit that being able to throw my arms and legs out with abandon was an appealing thought before Zack left...uhhh...not that I do that when he's there, no, definitely not). I spend a lot of time trying to figure out a way to be comfy. Which takes foreverrrrrr. All that flopping around is a really good way to wake oneself up. I should know.

Alright dudes, I am boring myself talking about this so I'm sorry I'm putting you through it, too. I'm going to go have a damn beer and shut my damn mouth. And then sleep. A lot. Weeee!

So, Cape Cod, y'all.

I left Friday morning and the plane ride Made. Me. Nuts. Let me break it down for you.

The first person-to-person encounter I witnessed was some bitchy lady not wanting to put her computer bag under her seat to make room in the super-over-crowded plane for another woman's too-big-for-under-the-seat carry-on. I guess she just...didn't feel like it? Way to be a team player. Awesome. I spent my first ten minutes on the plane glaring holes into the back of her little pinhead. Then, before we even got off the ground, I laid my head against the window and fell asleep. Until we landed in Detroit for my layover. Turns out that nap would really come in handy because the second leg of the trip was when it all went to shit. Bitchy computer bag lady was just my warm-up.

I shuffled my two enormously heavy bags (I'm a nice wife and carried Zack's suits for him so he wouldn't have to check a bag...off to Minneapolis from Cape Cod, remember?) down the narrow aisle of the plane and finally - sweet Jesus, FINALLY - got to my seat, which was by the window. An elderly Filipino couple were already seated in the aisle and middle seats next to mine. The man got up to let me by, but the woman, oh she looked up at me all smug and said "You go over" and gestured over her lap. Uhhhh..?

"I don't actually think that will work. I won't fit there."

Gestures again to the impossibly narrow space between her knees and the seat, "You go over."

"Ma'am, I'm really not going to fit. I think you're going to have to get up to let me pass."

And thankfully, she did.

Now cut to the surround-sound wailing of two babies at either end of the plane. And the mom with her two school-aged children giggling behind me and KICKING MY SEAT. Incessant with the kicking and the TALKING REALLY LOUD OVER THE PLANE ENGINE. Oh my glorious, glorious iPod. That tiny little box of wonder saved me from life in prison on murder charges because had I not been able to tune those fuckers out I might have had to fling myself over the seat and strangle them in rage. But the iPod was my happy place.

And then...then...

Oh my holy Lord. I can't even properly describe to you what was definitely the most offensive and horrifying fart I have ever had the displeasure of smelling. I mean, this was an epic, clinging fart that undulated throughout the cabin in waves. I'm pretty sure that I smelled like a fart until my next shower. And no amount of turning my head or shifting my position helped lessen its stink. It finally began to die down as we landed in Providence (oh, the irony of landing in Providence was not lost on me, friends). So of course once we are at the gate and the plane's engines are off (so it's getting all hot in the cabin because we're smashed in like sardines and everyone's trying to will their way off the plane by moving toward the door before it's actually opened) the horrible fart returns because my life isn't bad enough in this moment.

And then I blew up the plane.

But what really happened was that I shuffled off the plane in much the same manner as I had shuffled on (now cursing Zack and his FUCKING NEED FOR THREE SUITS BECAUSE WHO REALLY NEEDS THREE SUITS OH MY GOD) and I waited for Zack's plane to arrive, 40 minutes after my own. And when it did I relayed to him my FUCKING story about the FUCKING people on my FUCKING plane, complete with extensive hand flailing and yelling for dramatic effect.

And he was all cute and sympathetic and appropriately outraged at my suffering and it made me slightly less mad about carrying his heavy-ass suits.

And thus we began our weekend.

My week is thus far rather craptastic (with the exception of my Banana Nut Cheerios discovery, mind you).

1) I currently have HIVES on my NECK. They itch, and I have no allergy medicine with which to annihilate them. Boo to me.

2) I spent the majority of my morning with no internet. NO INTERNET, I tell you. Which left me staring into space and trying desperately to talk to busy passers-by without success. Sometimes it's cool being me; today is not one of those days. I've also had no coffee.

3) I am searching the world for a spring sweater that doesn't cost a small fortune. I need it for THIS SATURDAY for the wedding I'm attending in CAPE COD. I know I will probably be the least-rich person there, but I don't particularly want to LOOK LIKE IT. Wah.

4) I am BFF with the CAPS LOCK KEY.

And, worst of all:

5) My husband is LEAVING FOR 10 WEEKS. He's got himself a spiffy job in Minneapolis for the summer (whoo-hoo summer associateship!) but that means he'll be there and I'm staying here in Chicago. By myself. Without Zack. And I am very bummed. So bummed, in fact, that using the caps lock key doesn't even make me feel better.

6) As a result of #5 I am EATING MY BODY WEIGHT in terrible-for-me food and CRYING about EVERYTHING. I just can't seem to help myself. NOM NOM NOM.

Sometimes you've just gotta vent about the suckitude of your life. And then you feel better. RIGHT?

Making headlines today is news that the Illinois Senate has approved a ban on text messaging and web surfing on your phone while driving. After reading a couple of different local papers’ stories on the subject, and the readers’ comments that followed them, I can’t help but be baffled and disturbed by people’s attitude toward this change. I don’t think I’m alone in my confusion, but I just cannot understand why this ban is only now being accepted, and why Illinois is one of only a few states to be considering it. Why should anyone be texting while driving?

After looking at some readers comments, and drawing from a few conversations with ignorant drivers I have known, I’ve concluded that some people believe they have the right to do whatever they want behind the wheel, and asking them to please keep their eyes on the road is too restricting of their so-called ‘rights’. When I used to drive on a daily basis, and even when I rode the train along miles and miles of highway every morning, I always noticed people in their cars doing things that were far too distracting to be acceptable driving behaviors. Examining boogers, reading the newspaper, curling their eyelashes, shaving their neck (that was a woman), and a million other things that if actually seen by a police officer, you would most definitely get ticketed for (okay, maybe not the booger thing).

I’ve had this discussion various times with people who I know text and drive and aren’t phased by it. “But I’m a good driver. It’s not that hard. And I don’t do it all the time,” they say. I don’t know where this driving ego comes from exactly, maybe from people who have never been in a car accident and don’t know how easy it is to lose control of a car or traffic situation. But the bottom line is that when you are driving, you should be focused on driving. It doesn’t matter if you think you are invincible. You are not. I promise. And being in a steel box with wheels doesn’t make you exempt from the laws of mortality either.

Furthermore, if you choose to be an idiot and distract yourself while driving, that decision doesn’t just put you in danger. It affects all the people around you, especially those not inside the little steel boxes. In a city like Chicago, pedestrians are everywhere. We, too, follow the rules of road and cross at designated spots and generally obey traffic lights so as not to get run over by cars.

Sometimes standing on the corner in the loop causes a bit of anxiety as taxis fly by and non-taxis (who seem to be even more aggressive around here than the cabs) try to maneuver in and out of the crowded streets. I can’t tell you how many people I see on their phones, and how often I worry that when I step out into the street for my turn to cross, the car speeding toward the red light isn’t going to stop. Sometimes I even wait to make sure the cars have to come to a complete stop before I start to cross, I mean, who knows what these drivers are paying attention to?

Look at the girl in Illinois a few weeks ago who was painting her nails while driving. She wasn’t paying attention, didn’t stop soon enough at a changing light and crashed into a stopped motorcyclist, killing her. I’m sure the girl thought she’d be able to give herself a manicure without any problems. Everyone does. If you thought to yourself, “Oh this is really dangerous what I’m doing and someone is probably going to get hurt because I’m not paying enough attention,” you wouldn’t do it. Instead, people think, “No big deal. I’m a good driver. I can multitask." And what seems to happen in these kinds of situations is a giant karmic twist, where the person killed is never the person who was foolish enough to take everyone’s life into their own manicured hands.

I consider driving a privilege. When getting your driver’s license, you have to prove that you are capable of operating a machine that has the power to kill in a matter of seconds, and you must demonstrate that you understand the rules that come with operating said vehicle on the road. What many people fail to realize, it seems, is that these rules are put in place to keep people safe. Not because there are a bunch of government officials secretly plotting ways to make driving less fun.

If something happened to you or someone you loved because some other driver had to answer an urgent text message, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t think, “That’s okay, it’s his right to not pay attention while driving.”