Wednesday, January 21, 2009

This Brain is Intentionally Left Blank

I'm so behind on my blogging, for shame. One would think that the natural tendency towards winter hibernation would reward me with copious cave time during which I hone my writing craft, but that has not been the case.  

Today, I am 11 months sober. Eegads, the last time I blogged an original entry was exactly one month ago, on the 10 month sobriety anniversary. To review, it's been a mighty eventful month, during which (mostly in chronological order)...

The holidays came and went, my governor was arrested and impeached, my son turned 9 and the United States inaugurated the first African-American President.

A bitter cold snap followed by record high temperatures caused a domino effect of copper piping cracks in the basement plumbing of Camp Swanky, too costly and laborious to repair, rendering the building unsafe and impractical to inhabit. But we still haven't been given an official eviction date (our landlord foreclosed, remember?), so....

Instead of renting another apartment, Luke and I moved in with my mom due to economic hardship and a shitty job market, which means I'm no longer a squatter, though most of my furniture and crap still squat at the Swank. Unfortunately, I am not making as much headway on getting things packed out of the apartment and into the storage unit I rented last month as I'd like to be, but that's partly because...

I actually am working part time as a personal/executive assistant to a very busy downtown business person. It's mostly puttering and erranding...it's fun, the pay affords me a bit of cushion and is most likely a job which I could still feasibly perform in the event I eventually find full-time employment elsewhere.

I'm sure I'm leaving out something Big! and Major! that occurred within the last month, but moving on...

You gotta love Pandora's complex, scientific algorhythm by which their servers choose songs they think I *might* enjoy, based on songs, artists or genres whom I've previously rated a thumbs up or thumbs down. While I haven't yet precisely calculated it all out, I must say I get a chuckle out of Pandora segueing "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath straight into "Summer Nights" from the "Grease" soundtrack. Less amusing, however, was the block of music earlier this evening, "Artists From Chicago Who Are Not Jon Langford and Whose Music I Find Deeply Annoying," which featured back-to-back Smashing Pumpkins (blech) and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, the latter managing to sound even more vocally annoying than Bob Dylan on a Bob Dylan cover.

Similarly, Facebook likes to suggest potential friends for me with it's "People You May Know" function. Underneath the potential friend's name, Facebook tells me in what context I may know the person. My favorite is "You both live in Chicago."

It might take me a while, but I'm now determined to become BFF's with all 2.8 million Chicagoans.