It Was Not A "3D Ride To Hell".

Last night, D. and I watched My Bloody Valentine 3D. We rented the movie at Blockbuster and were given the option of purchasing cardboard 3D glasses, which we took advantage of (at fifteen cents a piece, no biggie). I don't know if it was Blockbuster's glasses or my tiny t.v. but the 3D effect was lost to us. Still, as D. said, "We've seen worse." I can't say I understand what the hype is about this movie. It was good but in my opinion it was not "the best 3D horror film of all time" as the box claimed "the best 3-D horror film ever made" as the quote on the box from Devin Faraci at CHUD.COM claimed.

It does star hunky Jensen Ackles from the CW Television Network's Supernatural which is an entertaining show not just for its hunky leads. In my opinion, Jensen Ackles is a more than decent actor so I was surprised to see him do a campy horror flick. Not to mention, he doesn't quite pull off that teenaged look, you know? Since he's not teenaged and all? I won't let Jensen get all my ire. Some of the other actors and actresses got their fair share of mocking while we watched the film. I did like that the director filmed some of the scenes from angles reminiscient of other horror movies such as Halloween and Friday the 13th but I don't know if that was on purpose or just a happy accident. I also liked that the movie didn't mess around. Folks started getting the business end of a pick ax almost immediately. The story line (without giving anything away) goes something like this: On Valentine's Day ten years ago, there was an accident in a mine shaft. At first, it looks like the son of the mine owner (played by hunky Jensen Ackles) is to blame because he forgot to bleed the lines. Only two people survive, hunky Jensen Ackles and a guy named Harry Warden. When the bodies of the dead miners are recovered and autopsied, the town is horrified to learn that it wasn't the non bled line that caused the accident. Someone pick axed those miners to death. When all is said and done, Harry Warden gets the blame. Then, Harry dies. The town picks up its pieces and gets on with its life. Fast forward ten years, hunky Jensen Ackles does the prodigal son thing: comes into town, visits his high-school sweetie, pisses off her husband, you know the drill. It just happens to be the ten year anniversary of the Harry Warden killings and lo and behold! Yes, the killer is on the loose again despite being dead and hunky Jensen Ackles is the only one who can stop him!!

This movie is fun. I do wish the 3D effect had not been lost because I think that would have heightened my enjoyment of it.
Off topic, I thought it was funny last night when I was recounting to D. much of what I put in my post yesterday and she said, "I hope you have a better week." as she was leaving. Up until then, I hadn't thought of it as being a bad week. I regret being so fractious and I hope I didn't ruin her good time last night. It is a blessing to have friends like D. (and now Inky! and the group I knit with on Thursday nights!) who are also women and who I hope understand that I spend so much time with Axl that when I post, e-mail or hang out with other women I word vomit. Axl is an amazing man. His patience, understanding and love for me are beyond fair so what I'm about to say is not a slam nor is it something I want to be construed as sexist. It takes women to understand women and men to understand men. I think of Axl and I as friends as well as lovers. We are there for one another 24/7 and I find it amazing that we aren't gnawing our arms and legs off trying to get away from one another more. I'm very proud of how we treat one another. I think one of the things we do that helps keep that gah! feeling in check is to spend time with our friends occasionally and give each other the night off. When I hang out with other women, it is a treat be understood intrinsically. I can be however I am in that moment without worrying overmuch that I am freaking anyone out. If I'm feeling bitchy, the women I know are right there with me saying, "Bitch on." Well, not really, but you get the idea. The majority of the men I know like to fix what's wrong, which is a terrific and heroic quality, but sometimes the only thing that is wrong is that I haven't talked a subject to death. In essence, my friends give Axl a break from my jaw jacking (Ha ha. Get your mind out of the gutter. While you're at it, rescue mine out of there too.). When I hang out with my women friends, we bitch, we laugh, we eat too much pizza and the next day all is right with the world again. So, I want to say thanks for that ladies! And Axl, thank you for not losing patience even though I know you want to sometimes. You've been extremely patient as I relearn how to manage my life, stress level and time. You are all more than just my port in a storm (*snicker*) and I hope you know that. I'm a lucky girl.

Mental Vomit

Nothing in the following post is earth-shattering stuff. I just haven't posted much this week and this is what's on my mind:

I can't register for classes until next week because my previous university has to send a copy of what classes I've already taken to the university I'm transferring to in order for my prerequisites to be lifted. Meh. I was hoping to know my course schedule this week. Also, I need to get my ACT scores from my high school and no one is answering the phone because school is out. Double meh.

Last week, I sold my bed and now I'm sleeping on an air mattress on the floor because we'll be buying a new bed when we move into the new apartment. The air mattress gives my current apartment that (not-attractive) crack den feel and, though I thought I'd get used to it, sleeping so close to the floor causes me to feel vulnerable. My cats (I have three) are not fond of the air mattress and goosestep around it. We are not amused at the hacienda del Juggernaut.

I began cleaning my couch in earnest Monday night so I can sell it and discovered it was harder than I thought it would be to hand clean a couch. The couch is a Sealy brand, off-white couch and I think I must have been sleeping when I bought it (on Craigslist) because who has three cats and buys an off-white couch? In case you're wondering, the couch is made of a sturdy fabric that has survived the onslaught of cat claws. No rips or tears to report, just soil from regular use. Determined, I searched online for a reasonable couch cleaning product and discovered a foaming upholstery cleaner you can find in the automotive section of Walmart called Tuff Stuff.

Tuff Stuff has worked the best of any product I have used so far to clean the couch. Rumor has it (online anyway) that a lot of places you pay to detail your car are out back using Tuff Stuff (which retails for less than $3.00 a can here).

Insert migraine that lasted all day Tuesday here. I was so puny my boss even sent me home from work. I didn't feel up to anything when I got home either so I went to bed. I forced myself to wake up two hours later to see if the man in the next paragraph was going to follow through. I continue not to feel the best today but my friend, D., is coming over tonight for pizza and horror movies. That's a surefire cure to what ails me if ever there was one. I'm a girl of simple tastes.

I know I've touched on how I simultaneously love and hate the Craigslist but it's more that I simultaneously love and hate the people using Craigslist and their social skills. Last month, I posted some tables for sale and a man who was interested in them called while we were in Chicago. I told him I would call him when we got back home, which I did. When I tried to set up a time for the man to come see the tables, he wouldn't agree to be pinned down to a time. He said something like, "How about I call you when I'm on my way home from work tomorrow?" and I said, "What time will that be?" and he said, "Oh, somewhere around 6:30?" and I said, "Okay, we'll plan to hear from you around 6:30 tomorrow." Six-thirty came and went and not a peep was heard out of the man. There were no further calls from him. Monday, out of the blue, the man calls to see if he can come by within the hour he is calling. He makes no mention of why he didn't call when he was supposed to before plus I am not about to meet with him without Axl around so I suggest Tuesday as a better time to meet and the man says he can do that but, again, when I try to schedule a time with him he does the, "I'll call you when I'm on my way home from work." thing. I was able to get him to say he'd call between six and seven Tuesday night. This time, I call him a little before six to see if he is still wanting to come see the tables. He seems caught off guard and you can tell he has totally forgotten about promising to call me. "Can we do it Thursday?", he asks. Ugh! He is not getting my tables.

Today, I saw this ad on Yahoo!'s homepage and I must say I wonder what the woman in the picture is getting her degree in.

Growing Pains

I was admitted to the university yesterday. Soon, I will receive my acceptance letter in the mail and set up my course schedule for the fall. I filled out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) today. I am completely excited at the prospect of doing something new with my life but at the same time having an, "Oh shit!" moment. It's actually happening. I'm about to be a student again (!) .
Once I know my course schedule, I will have to talk to my boss about what going back to school means for my job. Knowing that I will have to quit my job one way or another has been the biggest downer of this process. In all honesty, the balance between the rewards my job and the responsibilities of my job is so off kilter it seems ludicrous to have any sort of qualm about walking away. Nevertheless, the bittersweet side (seeing the fruits of my labor go to someone else who will probably rock this job out) hits me and I feel like a quitter and a failure. Sometimes, I take the self-pity even further and hate myself for not trying harder at the subjects I struggled with in school because I like to think I might have chosen a wiser career had I felt smarter or more capable at other subjects. How's that for your ego getting in your way? I am surprised that letting go of something I will never progress any further in has me in such a twist that I am picking at myself but changing careers has required an astonishing amount of personal growth and my natural instinct is to dig my heels in against the change.
It is within the realm of possibility that my boss will want me to continue working here for whatever time I can before the demands of going back to school really take over but I am having a hard time discerning if that's what I want. Even if I were to do this job part-time, I suspect the demand would be the same. I am the only person on staff fielding requests in this particular area of expertise so all matters pertaining to that subject get channeled through my office regardless of the guidelines set by the agency. I won't tell you how ugly it can get when someone has the expectation that you can fix their problem and you have to tell them you don't have the solution they've decided on.
I found a surprising source of encouragement for my desire to move on while thumbing through a recent issue of Men's Health magazine at Axl's apartment. I read Ewan McGregor's Tips For a Full Life and though I am only talking about going back to school here and not the possibility of being robbed at gunpoint in Mexico (as Ewan was), his point that "You can't be ruled by fear -- not by other people's, and certainly not by your own." struck a chord with me. Sign me up. Hells yes, I want to live a full life. I think we all have our definitions of what that means but, for me, today, it is simply that I want to do the stuff that makes me happy, to disregard the naysayers, be brave and trust myself and then go about doing the stuff I enjoy doing.
I am having to change a lot of my preset notions about myself and my life and that's scary and hard at times but I'm noticing as I let go of stuff, whether it's people's expectations of me or actual material belongings, I feel so much better. So much lighter. Truer. Younger. Happier. Challenging myself or, I should probably say, responding to Axl's gentle needling to do the things I'm always saying I'm going to do (or should do) has actually been fun and that has been one of the biggest surprises (blessings, gifts) of all.

My Kinda Town

Axl and I returned from Chicago on Saturday. I hated to leave but we had stayed just the right amount of time, enough that I was still having fun but I was starting to miss home. On our last visit to Chicago (my first) in September 2008, Axl indulged me by doing a lot of tourist-y stuff (museums, Navy Pier and the like). This time, we decided we were going to seek out the out of the way places. Axl has been to Chicago several times and wanted me to experience some of the smaller neighborhoods just outside the city. We frequently talk about moving to Chicago and Axl wanted me to see these areas so I would know what he had in mind. We spent a lot of time in Bucktown and Wicker Park for that reason and because of an article I had read in the April/May 2009 issue of BUST magazine. Bucktown had lovely residential tree-lined streets and lots of people out walking their dogs and strolling their babies. That was nice to see after the fast paced bustle in the area we were staying in downtown Chicago. The article in BUST, unfortunately, lead us on kind of a goose chase and, no offense to the author(s), but the majority of the stores featured in the article were way out of this girl's price range. I loved the jewelry in Eskell and I enjoyed seeing first hand a lot of work done by artists I'd previously only seen online at Renegade Handmade. We visited two Reckless Records locations and enjoyed flipping through the bins there. A favorite discovery of mine (not mentioned in the BUST article) was Crossroads Trading Company. This is a store similar to one where I live but without the lame music and bitchy sales people. At CTC, you can trade or sell your used clothing and I think the highlight of it all was that I found items there that were actually in my size range. I bought a shirt there for less than $4.00 that I know I'm going to love wearing.
So, that's a bit about the shopping. We did do one tourist-y thing and that was to take a Wendella Boat Tour. Nothing against the Wendella folks because they do have it posted at their ticket counter that school groups frequently use their services but it was awful having to share our tour with a high school group. I think, perhaps, Wendella would be better off letting school groups have a boat to themselves because these were some of the worst kids I have been around in quite some time. Where the chaperones were, I have no idea. The boat tour takes you through a canal in downtown Chicago past many of the skyscrapers and you get to listen to the boat tour person give you information about buildings you have probably noticed (Trump International Hotel and Tower anyone?). Then, the boat takes you into the Chicago Harbor Lock and you go out onto Lake Michigan for a time. Like I said, kind of tourist-y but I enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed it so much more had we not had to put up with a bunch of tweens who could really give a damn. They talked over the boat tour announcer and a lot of the charm was lost after that. Laugh if you want but if I could have figured out what school those brats were from, their principal would have received a letter from me tout de suite.
Naturally, I have to tell you about the food. The food! I gained a pound and a half while we were there but I don't regret any of it. The restaurants that stand out in my memory are The Original Pancake House, Giordanos and Hot Doug's. Axl and I did not order any of the acclaimed Original Pancake House items (The Dutch Baby or the Apple Pancake) but their skillets were out of this world. Last time we were in Chicago, we went to Gino's East (the one you see on t.v. and in movies with all the writing on the walls) and ordered deep dish pizza. Gino's was delicious but after experiencing stuffed pizza I think stuffed is my personal favorite. On our last morning in Chicago, we went to Hot Doug's. Hot Doug's opens at 10:30 a.m. and it was a good thing we got there a little after 10:00 a.m. because a line was already forming. We faired pretty well because this was the line as we left:

Doug Sohn took our order. He is the nicest guy. We ordered two of "The Dog", which is a Chicago-style hot dog with all the toppings. Axl ordered a "Saucisson Alsacienne" which I had a bite of and fell in love with promptly. It is bacon sausage with creme fraiche, caramelized onions and triple cream brie cheese. I ordered a smokey pork cheddarwurst wrapped in applewood-smoked bacon with roasted garlic dijonnaise and colby-jack cheese. We went a little crazy and ordered a game of the week which this week was brown ale and chipotle buffalo sausage with chili-garlic mustard and vintage farmhouse cheese. Spicy! Of course, we had to try the duck fat fries (offered only on Fridays and Saturdays). Yes, french fries fried in duck fat. I know what you're thinking. I used to be a vegetarian and I shame myself. On the other hand, food this delicious and well done is definitely one way to turn up in the life force.
That's all for now. Don't want to bore you. It was a terrific trip. My guy certainly knows how to treat a lady to a good vacation.

See You In A Week

Come And Knock On Our Door

Today, we did the walk through of our new place and I was able to take some pictures of the interior.
Kitchen/Living Room area:




Bathroom (the electricity is off in the apartment and I couldn't get a non-blurry shot to turn out):

Bedroom:

The second bedroom was dark as pitch (no windows) so I wasn't able to get a picture of it.
We didn't think we were going to have to ask the landlord to repaint the place but we saw that it does indeed need freshening. She said they'd start painting on Monday. I'm really looking forward to living here.

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