So now Mayor Rahm and BBB are asking schools to choose between toilet paper and teachers. Awesome.

Well. We'll just see what certain students have to say about THAT.


Ssly. I can't be the only one who thought Beavis when I heard the news. Not to make light, of course, but at least the schools won't be patronizing GA Pacific any longer. Every time I go potty at my daughter's school, I see their logo on the TP dispenser and think, Irony.

Yes, I have not updated in a month. That stupid 'Family Guy' re-run last night -- yeah I know, as opposed to the 'Family Guy' episodes that reach for the non-low-hanging fruit -- made me not wanna look like Peter's 9/11 blog.

That, my chums, is the first and last time you will EVER read anything on my journal about being inspired by Seth McFarlane. So there.

Anyway.

I have a little freelance work this spring - not scads, but enough that I'll actually have to report an income to the IRS next year. I did a couple of Beastie shows as well. I've been at my kiddo's school quite a bit too, as volunteering there kinda helps offset the pure vitriol I am feeling these days toward Mayor Fuckface.Just trying to live in the solution and all that. I love this city. Maybe I don't have a right to be so bent out of shape, what with being a transplant and all. One of the reasons I dropped anchor here was because Chicago was just so damn liveable. It saddens me to watch a Chicago-area native try to run a city when he obviously cares so little about the people and neighborhoods that comprise it.

Bah. Perhaps it's better that I haven't been posting.

Meanwhile, Monkey is doing a fantastic job fulfilling his duties as the temp House Cat.

This meme is via the semibold. I wanted to write one earlier, like actually at the end of 2012 or the first week of 2013. As the punchline to one of my favorite awful jokes goes: better Nate than lever. To wit...

1. Was 2012 a good year for you?
Meh. As "they" say: not good, not bad, just "meh".

2. What did you do in 2012 that you'd never done before?
Drove both my and my daughter's crabby asses all over southeastern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware to visit family. Not really a big deal, but what makes it different from all the other times is that I rented a car like a fucking grown up and did it myself, instead of relying on them to do it for me.

3. What was your favorite moment of the year?
Obama's re-election, thank the gods.

4. What was your least favorite moment of the year?
There was some shit in March and April with my immediate fam that got ugly. I am still sorting out my part in everything, so forgive me if I don't provide the details.

5. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't make New Year's resolutions. If I really mean business I won't wait until January to make changes.

6. What are your plans for 2013?
Isn't that the same thing as making New Years resolutions, which I just said I don't make?

We'll probably get a new kitty, though. New to us, anyway. As with so many other things in our household, it will likely have had an owner or two before we get it :^)

7. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.

8. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes - our wonderful old Russian Blue, Lucy. She was the most purringest cat ever.

9. How many weddings did you go to?
None.

10. What countries did you visit?
None.

11. What date in 2012 will remain etched in your memory?
July 17. Dear daughter and I were all set for a quick slip out of town, which due to the weather did a radical 180 deg on our asses. We finally got where we needed to go, due largely to one of the best customer service experiences I've ever had ever.(Thanks 1,000,000, Southwest!) It was just hard on my poor kiddo, with a lotta unknowns stretching far into the wee hours of the next day.

12. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting elected to the executive board at my kid's school. (Told you it was a meh kind of year).

13. What was your biggest failure?
NOT ASKING MY MOTHER IN LAW IF IT WAS OKAY TO LEAVE MY LAPTOP IN HER ATTIC. That way she would have said no, because the dormer windows leak when it rains. You know, instead of me assuming it was cool AND NOW I HAVE TO SPONGE OFF OF MY HUSBAND OR DAUGHTER'S COMPUTERS plus also fix and/or replace my laptop

14. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
Chronic bone-eating gum disease continued to take casualties. I cried after the dentist pulled a fourth tooth last spring.

15. What was the best thing you bought?
Jockey underwear. Always a win.

16. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
The teachers at my kiddo's school during the strike. They marched, thumped tubs, and sang - all without saying one bad word about Mayor Rahm. Not like he doesn't deserve it, of course, but holding off on the name calling made me all the prouder of them.

17. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
A few days before Christmas, a certain family member bought exactly the same kind of gun used by the shooter in Newtown. He wanted it for his collection before the new assault weapon bans in 2013. Jesus. Why don't you just give Satan a blow job while you're at it, dude?

18. Where did most of your money go?
Toward prosthetic teeth. And coffee. And plane tix to visit family.

19. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The 'Comics: Philosophy and Practice' panel in May at the U of C. HERO WORSHIP

20. What songs will always remind you of 2012?
GANGHAM STYLE goddamnit

21. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Seeing my friends. I feel like my apartment is inferior and I am always tight for discretionary cash because of the whole SAHM thing, so I don't ask peeps to go to dinner or concerts et cetera. As a result I don't invite anyone and/or their children out to do anything. ssly got to change that, ' cause I do like my friends a whole lot.

22. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Playing video games, with or without staying up late.

23. How did you spend Christmas?
De-lousing family members. Plus also eating pie and going on a Christmas walk in the woods.

24. Which LJ users did you meet for the first time?
None. I blame Facebook for bogarting all the LJ users. This place is looking like a ghost town.

25. Did you fall in love in 2012?
Yes. With President Obama, all over again, after the second time he debated Romney.

26. What was your favourite month of 2012?
Oh, there really wasn't one specific month. I'd have to say the 30 days from mid-July to mid-August that I was out of town. It felt like a real, honest-to-goodness old school summer vacation.

27. How did you see in the New Year?
Flying back to Chicago. I think at midnight proper I was watching something on TV involving Rodney Dangerfield trying to carry a ginormous wedding cake into a van. Realizing that no good end would ever come from anything involving Rodney Dangerfield and a ginormous wedding cake, I turned off the TV and went to bed.

28. What was your favourite TV show?
Bob's Burgers! I so less than three Gene Belcher.

29. Do you dislike anyone now that you didn't dislike this time last year?
Yep. Always room for one more on the vertical shitlist .

30. What was/were the best books you read?
Hmm. Will have to review my check out history with the Public Library and get back to you on this.

31. What was your greatest musical discovery?
There was this one really amazing vocalist for the Beast Women...her name escapes me right now. No rock and/or roll, though. I need to get out more.

32. What did you want and get?
An iPad for my kiddo.

33. What did you want and not get?
A weekend out of town for myself, child- and husband-free. He'll, I'd even settle for a weekend in Chicago by myself at this point.

34. What was your favourite film this year?
The Artist, although it technically came out in 2011, I didn't see it until right before the Oscars. Lincoln was extremely well done, with an honorable mention to Pirates! Band of Misfits. 'Cause I am a sucker for the Aardman.

35. What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
I turned 44. I had a pre-birthday date with my husband which was very nice but the actual day of sucked ass.

36. What one thing would have made your year more satisfying?
Getting more exercise. Well, being less sedentary, anyway.

37. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
Being very clear on what is and is not age appropriate for a person in her mid-40's to wear.

38. What kept you sane?
Advocacy and community involvement kept me out of a scary headspace in this crazy fucking world of ours.

39. Which celebrity did you fancy the most?
You know, nobody famous really tickled my fancy this year.

40. Which political issue stirred you the most?
Education reform

41. Who did you miss?
Lucy the cat.

42. Did you treat somebody badly in 2012
I had some parenting moments and decisions this year of which I am seriously not proud.

43. Did somebody treat you badly in 2012?
Yes. I had a mentor who, while not super buddy and encouraging about her role to begin with, inexplicably went on a diet of Quaker Instant Bitch last October. I am open to direction from certain individuals, just as long as they're nice about it. She wasn't anymore, so I told her you go bye bye now.

44. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned this year?
How much less annoying other people become once I stop making value judgments on they way they live their lives.

45. What would you like to have in 2013 that you didn't have in 2012?
More clarity and/or fire under my ass about bringing in additional income.

46. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year...
You never know just how you look through other people's eyes.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.

I just received a call from my daughter's school. They wanted to make sure we got her school bus assignment in the mail so that she would be ready for Tuesday.

Yes, we did, I told the caller, but thank you for following up.

Huh. I thought Chicago Public Schools on academic probation were supposed to be run by incompetents who don't give a rat's ass about the students! Funny, that.

My kid's neighborhood elementary school is at a Level Three probationary status and therefore on Mayor Rahm's shitlist. Here are some other fun anecdotal details about it that you won't find on the CPS website:

• The non-teaching staff such as classroom aides and security woth whom I have spoken told me they love working for that particular school. One individual said it is his hope that he never has to work anywhere else. 
• The PTO - of which I am a member - brought a South Side girls' theater troupe to perform a cute holiday skit-performance thing last December.  It wasn't particularly arty or clever, but it  original and very heartfelt. What the group told the PTO afterward was that our students were the most respectful and receptive of any of the other schools they visited. 
• Two girls from one of the general education classrooms took it upon themselves to buddy up with my daughter and her best friend. This is especially lovely given that (as of last school year) they are the only females in their cluster program. Yeah, I know, in an ideal world that isn't something for which children should be praised, it's something they need to be doing in the first place...I am totally on board with that. Still, though. I've seen them all interact and during those times there is not a smidgen of condescension or pity from the two girls outside my kid's classroom. Nobody put them up to it; nobody is writing articles for the Sunday Trib about how great it is that these girls are stooping down and giving valuable free time to help their poor socially-impaired peers to feel better about themselves. In fact, if it wasn't for my kid's friend's mom, I wouldn't have known about it at all.  
• Believe it or don't, last April my kid was chosen to be "Student of the Month" for her class - something about exemplary 'good behavior' and 'patience'. (I am just as surprised as you are.)The school has a small assembly each month where parents can come and be all proud and stuff. I know this sounds cheesy, but I found myself getting a wee bit misty at the earnestness all up in that assembly. Moms were crying, dads were giving props to other dads, and all the kids got cookies and juice and certificates. 

My kid does not go to one of the 'good' public schools - at least not according to the mommies at CPS Obsessed and Neighborhood Parents Network and the editors of Chicago Magazine. It is a school run by unmalleable administrators who have the teachers' backs, teachers who run tough but fair classrooms - including the one in which my daughter spends the bulk of her day - and a community of families that would not dream of stepping on another child just to give theirs a leg up in the school system. That, however, is more than I can say about the 'gifted and talented' center that my girl attended for three years earlier - the one where her classroom was moved to the basement by the time she was in kindergarten, to make way for a new accelerated third grade program. Way to pay lip service to diversity and inclusion, Mr. Principal.

Chicago media? Say what you will about the CTU President's personality, but for the love of Maude don't you dare accuse educators of not caring about their students. If the teachers walk on September 10, Ellie and I will be there to cheer them on -and we will not be using our inside voice.

The little "office" area I so smartly created in my mother-in-law's attic was definitely out of everyone's way. It was also, unknown to me, directly under a torrentially leaking roof.

Fuck. My laptop. Damn shit hell.

I am REALLY working hard to be a good sport about the whole thing. Still, though. Grandma might want to have someone out to work on that roof before the house is shown to any more potential buyers.

Well, at least a few pictures survived the downpour, via my husband's computer. Enjoy.


Ahoy, mateys! Out to sea, watching for seals. A few of them got impressively close to the boat.  Supposedly that was because seals are curious animals. I wonder if the half-finished bag of nori snax I had in my pocket helped also, hehe. 


Eleanor is totally fine with just the potato chips. Fine with us - more lobstah meat for Grandma, Mommy and Daddy.


You didn't think I was going to post without including a picture of Wiglet, did you? So hamsome! Since we've been here, he has proudly presented us with three of his confirmed kills. Take that, grey mouse population of Mount Vernon!

Despite the whole loss-of-laptop thing -- again, I am REALLY trying to not be pissy about Mother Nature bringing her wrath upon my humble Vaio -- we are having a great trip. The conveniences of civilization are but a fuzzy memory right now, but I'll become all too reacquainted with them on Tuesday night. First-world problems. *le sigh*

Okay, Chicago summer of 2012. You win. You totally beat up Chicago summer of 1995. I am slightly less miserable now because of the window units in the bedroom and study (did not have in 1995), but slightly more miserable now because of being the primary caregiver for a certain seven-year-old (also did not have in 1995) who has inherited her Daddy's Northeastern blood and the implied intolerance of extremely hot weather. 

So, yeah, it all balances out, I guess.

I am HIGHLY encouraging said daughter to fulfill her responsibilities as much as possible, so that she may earn gold stars quickly and   trade them in for fun air-conditioned activities, like a movie. I'd even hold my nose and deal with the Pizza Rat if it means three hours of climate-controlled goodness. 

All kidding aside, I am actually super worried about tomorrow. With 106-degree temperatures our third-floor apartment will be inhumanely hot. (Yeah, I know, we make the choice to live on the third floor under a pitch black roof so cry me a friggin' river.) Our place is toasty warm the six to eight months out of the year that we really need it to be, but July and August turn our apartment into a disgusting soup. The kicker is that I made plans to go out of town in the middle of July for the specific purpose of being outta Chicago during its average heat-wavey period of mid-July through mid-August. FAIL, FAIL, FAIL.  

Watch the weather go all 82-degrees-and-partly-cloudy the minute we step on that fucking airplane. Grr.

Couple o'few things before I stumble off to bed:

1. I accepted the gig I posted about a few days ago. I was all like, "am I selling myself short if I do it? is it a self-esteem booster if I don't?" Then I evoked the wise words of my beloved Grandmom when I was a wee urchin of eight or nine years old: "Let me tell ya something, Jackie. Remember this - MONEY TALKS AND BULLSHIT WALKS." (Yes, she kisses her great-granddaughter with that mouth. The old people swearing, it's an East Coast Jew thing. You either get it or you are probably better off if you don't.) 

Yes! I forgot the most important thing of all - it PAYS! Not a lot, but no change is too chumpy for me right now.

Sidebar: I was telling a friend a few days ago about dear Grandmom's axiom being the dealmaker and she said, "Maybe another way you can look at it is letting go of ego."

Nah, I told her. I really just need the money. 

2. Healthcare is a cause near and dear to my heart. Mostly it's because I have been at all points along the insurance spectrum in my adult life. I've been unemployed and uninsured and pissing in a cup in a storefront operation  with gang graffiti on the walls so I can get antibiotics for a UTI. I've had the Cadillac of PPOs, with my pick of the specialist litter and the luxury of snubbing generic prescriptions. I've been employed but uninsurable because of a pre-existing condition. Currently, dear hubby gives a fat chunk of his paycheck just so that our little three-person operation here can be insured under some low-tier HMO plan - yet, I still have to beg, barter and write grants to get my kid any sort of fancy developmental therapy outside of the one-size-fits-some pediatric clinic model.

Yes, I am aware the last one is still waaaay better than a lot of people in this country have it. I am an edumacated native English speaker with an HMO living in a major city with access to a lot of services (or at least the wait-list for them). What is grinding my gears here is that it shouldn't have to be like this. FOR ANYONE!  As my old housemate John put it during the blazing hot Boston summer of 1988 (gee, I am quite the carrier pigeon of some old BS up in here today), "Life is like a shit sandwich. The more bread you have, THE LESS SHIT YOU HAVE TO EAT." 

Haw, haw! But really? AIN'T IT THE FUCKING TRUTH.

I am not going to even get into it with anyone who wants to make access to health care a moral issue. You people, you just go to hell. You go to hell and DIE. I will get into it with anyone who wants to make it a financial issue, however. I will get into it just long enough to say UH YEAH ACTUALLY THIS COUNTRY DOES HAVE THE MONEY TO SUPPORT AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE. We have enough money to bomb the fucking fuck out of three different countries at once and we have billions of dollars for corporate tax breaks and bailouts, so don't say the money isn't there. Tut! Tut tut tut! (a la Judge Judy) And even with affordable healthcare we'll still have the money for flat screen TVs, clean drinking water, and very-berry-Tofutti-vegan muffins, so don't get all hyper about your quality of life being compromised.

3. Countdown for getting out of Dodge begins on Sunday. I'll be gone for a month, the first two weeks of which I will be the primary caregiver for the girl until Patrick meets up with us. For this reason I am really, REALLY hoping I have my shit together by July 18th. I will be in big trouble if I pull an all-nighter packing Ellie's and my various clothings and specialty items, then land in Baltimore and drive us solo to (shudder) my mother's for a week. Pat's mother, not so much, but still. I can't predict how many shards of self-esteem and/or sleep I am going to have to work with by the time I get to Maine. For now...the lists are made, the items are in the process of being purchased, the crafts and visuals in the process of being assembled. I'm still a long way off from having all our shit in suitcases, though. Wish me luck.

4. I am very much looking forward to caring for my neighbor's cat this weekend. Since Lucy's passing, I am running on a huge deficit of kitteh love. Maybe kitteh won't like me, maybe I won't want kitteh on me when it's 98 degrees and sticky out, but one thing is for sure: I know I'll have an instant BFF for at least 30 seconds once she hears that can opener.

5. In an attempt to screw ComEd out of two hours' worth of AC power, I took Ellie on Thursday to see "Pirates! Band of Misfits" at the Logan. Now, we all love ourselves some Wallace and Grommit, but Aardman's latest aminations? HELL to the YES. I am still singing Jimmy Cliff songs three days later. S'sly, loved it. Will of course see it eleventy billion times once it goes to DVD (a la "Fantastic Mr. Fox")

Ciao. Stay cool, peeps!

I had another tooth removed last week. That makes four missing from the original set. Like the other three I've lost since 2010, this one was healthy due to brushing and flossing and three or four grand in adult orthodontics and lots of yummy first-world fluoridated water. Unfortunately, the bone-eating bacteria came out of remission over the past few months and just crumbled another tooth socket into dust. 

So, be honest with me. Do I have any teeth stuck in between my spinach? 

Har, har.

I swear to Maude that if my 72-year old, chimney-smoking, crap-eating, oral-hygiene ignorant father tells me ONE MORE TIME how much easier dentures are than real teeth, I shall stab me a river. THEY DAMN WELL BETTER BE because 'm gonna have to wear a partial for a lot longer than you, OLD MAN.

Anyway. 

For the time being, I'm carrying around the bicuspid in my purse. This way, when some precocious little so-and-so comes trotting up to me at the playground bragging about how they lost a tooth, I can say, "So did I! Wanna see it?"

Hahaha! OF COURSE YOU DON'T.

Listen, Junior, get out of my face and go shove your tooth under your pillow because I'm hanging on to mine. Untilthe tooth fairy pays off my balance at Diversey Dental Works, the bitch can just pry it from my cold, dead hands. 

Sweet quarterbacking Jesus. I kind of cannot believe that I did not hear about this until, oh, I dunno, YESTERDAY. (Well, at least something good came of my going to Myopic Books last night, I guess. Chicagoans, is it just me or has that place turned into a total wet blanket since the new management took over?) It should go without saying -- I'll say it anyway, though -- the shit is 100% completely registered for at this point. 

I can attend the simulcast, which means that I get to squeeze into a folding chair and watch the conference on TV with the rest of the hoi palloi. Yay. I guess I should be grateful that 1. I don't actually have to pay anything to attend and 2. I was better late than never, because usually when chumps like me snooze, chumps like me lose. There is a eensy-weensy chance that I can go for reals if somebody doesn't show and I happen to be one of the lucky folks lined up 15 minutes before the conference starts that day. 

Is it even worth going to Hyde Park on the CTA -- dear hubby shall need the car to take our offspring to dog therapy and soccer -- only to have the will-call window slam shut in my face because the person in front of me got the last ticket?  I have enough me-time favors accrued to cover a Saturday off; I would just prefer to not spend the bulk of them in a student coffee shop with my thumb in my ass until the "Graphic Novel Forms Today" simulcast. 

It's pointless to even worry about it now, though. See, the awesome force of THIS MUCH AMAZING TALENT gathering in one place at exactly the same time will surely throw the Earth completely out of its orbit next Friday. This time next week, the conference -- as well as the entire planet and all its inhabitants -- will be a non-issue. See ya in Hell! 

Or on the U of C campus. Whichever comes first.

 Adam Yauch • 1964-2012

Holy crap. MCA was not even that much older than me. Sorry if this sounds callous, but the fact that he died of cancer and not some lame drug overdose makes me feel all the sadder.

Truthfully, I didn't think that the Beastie Boys would even make it past "Licence to Ill" -- YOU GOTTA FIGHT. FOR YOUR RIGHT. TO PAAAR-TAY -- especially after seeing them live. I won tickets to see them at the Rochester War Memorial. This was during my first year of college, which I guess is as good of a time as any to mortify one's self by attending a concert chock-full of frat boys. Opening bands were Murphy's Law -- WILD THING YOU MAKE MY DICK STING, HEY THIS NEXT SONG IS ABOUT BEER B-E-E-R...yeesh, you get the idea -- and Public Enemy, who I didn't appreciate seeing live nearly as much as I should have. I already burnt myself out laughing my ass off listening to "Cooky Puss" about eleventy billion times, so even if they could have played that song live it probably wouldn't have done much for me.  The show was pretty unremarkable, save for a triangle of lights being penetrated by a giant stage-phallus.

Yep. That was the Beastie Boys' claim to fame on the "Licence to Ill" tour in 1987. An enormous penis fake-fucking a cluster of stage lighting. I don't think there was a single member of the band older than 21 when I saw 'em.

Anyhoo, a few years pass, I move to Chicago, I finally get a CD player from my friend Mark when he went into the Navy. Trolling the bargain bin at Tower Records -- because back in the d-iz-ay we used to have to go to brick-and-mortar stores to buy our music, whippersnappers -- I come across a copy of "Paul's Boutique".

Eh, what the hell. I figure for $5 it's worth a listen. 

Whoa. These dudes actually might be legitimate musicians! And just like that, the fickle finger of my early 20's musical tastes points back to the Beastie Boys. 

I could babble on about activism and some of the cool multi-media projects they've done, but dear hubby has the kiddo at soccer and I'm still feeling the Depression that is Not Depression (refer to yesterday's post) so I'd really rather just take a nap while I have the chance.

To Adam's parents, wife, and daughter: tanchumim. To MCA: thanks, and RIP.