Thrifiting Bonanza

Definite success. Got all this for $20 and some change (and yes, that's a real Lacoste sweater).

Most excited for the boots, studded belt, and CUMBERBUND that I thoroughly intend to wear as a belt. Also can't wait to rough up those boyfriend jeans.

Gone Too Soon (No, Not MJ)

I'm not one to gush about boyfriends, so I will try to keep this short and sweet. But it should be said that I am madly in love with Joe, hadn't seen him for a month and a half, and had just over 48 hours to be with him. I tried not to pack the schedule and I think we found a pretty good balance. Here's the rundown:

Friday: Picked him up at the airport. ate at Bank Lane, showed off Market Square and LFHS. Dinner with Amy, Holly, Mike, and AJ Ross's flamboyant twin, followed by twelve rounds of Scattergories in the studio.

Saturday: Ran errands together for Mom. He handled an Italian family gathering with ease, we took a long walk back home. I introduced him to 30 Rock (another convert!). We ended the night with nachos and $6 pitchers at Chief's, then watched Catch Me If You Can at home.

Sunday: I went to church and a work meeting alone, then had breakfast with Joe at Egg Harbor. Took him to the beach for a few hours, and two episodes of 30 Rock later he had to be at the airport. I cried the whole way home.

Again, I don't want to fawn over him, but the weekend really reminded me how happy I am with Joe and what a good match we are for each other. I've repeated this a million times by now, but we value the same things in most aspects of our lives; school, career, extracurriculars, outside friends and socializing, etc. We don't like to make big romantic productions out of anything (but we do appreciate thoughtful gifts or expressions of love, which are often pretty simple but very touching), and we have similar views of what I call the "big three" of CG: race, gender, and sexuality.

This summer I have realized how nice it is to not have to explain myself, my priorities, and my views to someone. Over the past nine months Joe and I have really learned how to communicate and it's so comforting knowing that he will respect my choices regarding these values because he has them himself. It leaves a lot of room for just being happy all the time and allows us to quickly address problems as they arise. And he just always seems to know the right thing to say; he made me cry multiple times over the weekend and a lot of his FB messages have moved me to tears at work.

OK, enough of that. This next year will be amazing and we will survive the next month or so with no problem (and maybe a second reunion???)

Where're My Cloves?

Last night Holly and I saw The Dirty Projectors and The Sea and Cake FOR FREE at Millennium Park. It was sweet. However, we were too far from the stage to even see the bands, let alone take pictures. Since Holly didn't know the music that well, we spent most of the time drinking and making fun of the people around us.

Observe:


The really cool, experienced, super awesome teenagers. They were pulling from a plastic bottle of whiskey (circled) and chasing with a generic 2 liter of soda.



Oh yeah. They had skateboards.



TWO BUCK CHUCK! We were drunk enough we almost asked if they'd share/trade for our PBR.



Then there were the hipster parents. I would not have described the scene as "child-proof" or "baby-friendly" but hey, I don't have a kid. What do I know? Maybe early exposure to pot has proven beneficial later in life...



And the guy with the fluorescent orange hat. RAD.


Finally: Had to lay down to take in the beauty that is Chicago. It's not touristy, I live here.

Look Around

From Holly:

"PS- We need to make a friend with a yacht so we can go boating on a day like today."

In Chicago, we pretty much skip spring. Like, the entire season. It's a pretty nice deal except when winter drags on through May and half of June like it did this year (usually my hide-out-in-NC-til-summer-in-Chicago-arrives plan works better). Now that it's sunny and warm, I am taking advantage of every moment I have outdoors.

I walked to the neighborhood pool and just felt that I had to take pictures because I truly believe my community (pseudo-gated as it may be) is one of the most beautiful places in the world:







This one just amused me:

A bush made out of sod covering!

Parliaments on the Rocks

So today was exactly the type of day I want to have every day for the rest of my summer life. I watched Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion with my mom in the morning. Spent the afternoon wandering/exploring the new high school with Holly. We ended up getting lost more than once in the mix of new hallways and relocated library, cafeteria, and music rooms.

I was about to go home when Holly remembered her mom's friend has an art studio tucked back in the forest of Lake Bluff and that she is allowed to use while this friend is away. I grabbed a sketchbook and Almost Like Being In Love and we spent a few hours just drawing, talking, reading, and napping (OK, that was just me) in this gorgeous club house hidden among trees and gravel roads. I swear it was taken straight out of a movie, probably something sappy and over dramatic that Diane Lane would be in.

She dropped me off at work and a few hours later Nick Shandor (NOT Devonshire) and I went out for drinks. The Lantern was crowded, so we decided to try Highwood, which everyone always says is "supposed to be a great bar scene," but no one ever seems to make it out there. We located The Wooden Nickel and went inside for some drinks. I had gin and tonics while he made the bartender make some sugary drink that looked manly, then we moved to the worn in leather couches and ate stale Mike and Ikes that came from one of those vending machines your parents would never give you a quarter for.

We were about to call it a night when Nick looked at the Walgreen's we'd parked next to and proposed that we cap the night off by sharing a cigarette. There was no question to the brand (although some reminiscing almost sent us on an all-night quest for cloves) nor the location. We arrived at the sailing dock at the beach around 12:30, found a great place on the boulders and proceeded to kill about half the pack (oops).

It was great to talk about what I am passionate about now. And the more we compare Duke's social life to Dartmouth's, the more pleased I become with our campus culture, or at least the people I've chosen to surround myself with there. It's fun catching up with high school friends like Nick that you haven't kept in great touch with because you still remember each other's high school selves and can pretty easily make a comparison to who they have become so many years later. He reminded me how much more I love myself and how much happier I am. In high school, I was always looking for a spark; I was surrounded by so many people who were really passionate about an issue, usually the environment, and was looking for something to move me in the same way. I've definitely found that with defMo and Common Ground, and I'm so glad to have found my voice and started to figure out who I am, what I want, and what is most important to me. And having people around that I can share this new-and-improved self with is a blessing I didn't really have in high school either.

And I can see how much Nick has grown, too. I tell him I will always and forever call him "Shandor," even though he thinks Nick Devonshire is who he really is. I like to think that I saw the beginning of his transformation, that I was a catalyst in his coming out of his shell. I'm sad I couldn't witness all of his adventures at Exeter because it sounds like he was at his happiest then, but I think we've reached a similar place in our lives. Even if he is a little frattier than I'd ever picture him.

I am glad today happened when it did. I was just starting to get complacent with how the summer was going, but also upset with the fact that the next few months would fly by with great monotony. Today reminded me you don't have to make huge plans to have adventures or heart-to-hearts, and usually it's the ones that aren't planned that stick with you the longest.

10 Year Old Wisdom

"'They won't let you and [your boyfriend] get married, right?' he asked pensively, collecting the pertinent facts.
'Right.'
'And a long time ago, they wouldn't let Rosa Parks sit in a bus either -- right?' I could see where this was going and I loved him for it.
'Right.'
'And now everybody thinks the people who arrested her were skanks, right?'
'Right.'
Noah shrugged and swung himself into the sky again. As far as he was concerned, it was an open-and-shut case.
'So how come they don't know that in a hundred years we'll think the exact same things about the skanky guys who won't let you get married?' Since there was no practical answer, I stopped looking for one and hugged him instead. He had it coming.
The we hit the jungle gym."

-Almost Like Being In Love

Sometimes, I wish adults reasoned like kids. Things would get done much faster.

Decisions, Decisions

LOLLA SCHEDULE
(This is if I find $205 for a 3-day pass, which probably means no Pitchfork)

Friday, August 7
3:00 Bon Iver
4:00 Ben Folds
5:00 Fleet Foxes
6:00 Decemberists
7:00 Of Montreal
8:00 Kings of Leon or Andrew Bird/Peter Bjorn and John)

Saturday, August 8
2:30 Los Campesinos!
4:30 Artic Monkeys
5:30 Santigold
6:30 TV on the Radio or Lykke Li (OMG WORST TIMING EVERRR)
7:30 Animal Collective

Sunday, August 9
2:30 Kaiser Chiefs
4:30 Vampire Weekend
5:30 Cold War Kids
6:30 Deerhunter or Lou Reed
7:30 Silversun Pickups

Consolidation

I think I am going to get rid of my Tumblr, just for the sake of simplifying my internet life. I was going to forward Tumblr my updates to my Twitter, but it ruins the aesthetic I'm going for (and allows posts to be longer than 140 characters...cheating!). I used the Tumblr only for quotes and recording interesting things I found online (mostly articles and videos) but I think that this blog can serve that purpose as well.

Here are a list of blogs/sites I have bookmarked over the course of the last year or so (beyond FML and TFLN):

hipster runoff
lookbook
white whine
my life is average
look at this fucking hipster
engrish funny
awkward family photos
this is why you're fat
why the fuck do you have a kid
spotted: dc interns
xkcd
sea of shoes
the sartorialist
happiest people ever
rumplo
hype machine
nosh and tell
natalie dee
mcsweeneys
the cobrasnake
pets who want to kill themselves

The list will go on once I get back to my laptop and go through the ridiculous amount of bookmarks I've acquired this summer.

CBOE Update 1

So it's been two full weeks and I haven't said anything about my internship yet. The truth is, there is not much to report. The first day or so was incredibly overwhelming, but once I realized I was to be a stereotypical "intern" (i.e. coffee grabbing, errand runner) I calmed down a fair amount. The day consists mostly of crosswords or chick lit and praying that a trader needs someone to go buy him lunch so I can see some sunlight.

The people are certainly the most interesting part of the job. Many times it feels like I'm working with a bunch of overgrown frat stars, which is often probably the case. It's a total Boys Club feel, out of hundreds of traders, runners, monitors, etc. there are probably only 10-20 girls on the floor and not many of them work together. Luckily for me there are two girls at my firm that I spend most of my time with; they're both south siders, totally brash and able to hang with the guys and all their crude jokes and foul language. I'm not quite so brash, but I think I've made it clear I'm not quite as dainty as everyone thinks.

I do worry that my supervisor thinks I'm not doing enough, so when he gave me a textbook on options trading and futures contracts, I totally dove in. I've been highlighting and taking notes, quizzing myself at the end of each chapter. My goal is to finish the book by the time Joe comes to visit. My other goal is to be able to explain, in layman's terms, what, exactly, my company does. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), none of the other interns seem to share my drive. When I explained to one fellow intern how excited I was to have an on-going project and something to learn/study because I get antsy when I have nothing to do, I was met with a blank stare. Actually, it was beyond blank. He looked at me like I was from outer space.

But it's really a great job and a great opportunity. It's weird to think that I only have six weeks (18 days?!) left. I'm looking forward to learning and picking up even more as I go along.

Misnomer

Rock'n'Roll by Tom Stoppard
(At Goodman Theater through June 7)

The first line on the Goodman's website regarding this show states:

"Rock 'n' Roll is a sweeping and passionate love story that spans two countries, three generations and 22 turbulent years."

While that is, for the most part, accurate (I'd contest the "sweeping and passionate" part) it is not necessarily positive. There were many things I could critique about the play but without a doubt its greatest weakness was its length. Twenty years is a lot of time to cover, no matter what subject you focus on. And when one tries to cover multiple facets of a story that spans multiple decades, the narrative becomes overcrowded leaving the audience with a bit of sensory (or maybe just information) overload.

The Cold War is a big subject to take on, even if you simply approach it from a historical/political perspective. But then to mix in an ailing family, a teenage-hormone-fueled love story, and the entire history of rock'n'roll...it was just too much. It felt as if Stoppard had a problem deciding what he wanted to focus on, so he just threw in a bit of everything. Most of the political discussions were over my head and left me wondering "Is that how most dinner party discussion go?" Granted, I'm not the most informed source on Prague during the Cold War, but I don't think one should have to be a history professor (or read three pages of program notes) to grasp the core plot of a play.

The strange love story between Jan and Esme was all that really held the story together. And that became creepy in the second act when the actors switched and started playing the daughters of their Act I characters. It was a weak attraction and a weak glue that ultimately did not work. The show would have been much better off closing the curtain at intermission and excluding the segments from the 80s and 90s.

Also slightly disappointing was the lack of musical discussion. Though music had a role, it was a supporting one at best. The soundtrack was fantastic, but was always either background noise or transition music (that came in WAY too loud and was more scary than invigorating). It definitely was not integral enough to call the show "Rock'n'Roll." Thankfully, I located the soundtrack on the Goodman's website: http://www.goodmantheatre.org/Season/RocknRoll/RNRPlaylist.aspx

However, there were a few redeeming moments in the first act that made the mind-boggling second half worth sitting through. Timothy Edward Kane was great as Jan, the Communist protege turned apathetic anarchist with the vinyl collection the fueled every music-related moment of the show. But the real show stealer was Mary Beth Fischer as Eleanor, whose portrayal of a scholarly, accomplished woman torn apart and isolated by breast cancer brought me to tears.

All in all, a worthwhile experience, but definitely not for the faint-hearted or those who can't stand more than 10 minutes of uncomfortable political discussions over dinner.