Prairie Landing
I said to myself, "This one's going in the blog."
In this professional newsgroup I belong to, people are always posting, "I'm coming to X city this week, anyone want to get together?" On Monday X city was Chicago and the poster was someone named P, who probably wouldn't be embarrassed to see this story here but I did promise. Now, P is more famous than your average newsgroup member. If you Google him you get 536 hits. That day he was featured on NPR for this mysterious credit card he was awarded for reasons nobody knows except the card issuer, which refuses to say. Like the "Da Vinci Code" of consumer credit. He gets a concierge who'll do or get anything he needs.
Anything. The concierge's name is Kevin.
The Chicago contingent of this newsgroup is pretty lame when it comes to raising a happy hour crowd, so I figured I'd be carrying the hostess torch alone. Luckily D., the only other happy hour stalwart, was in town.
We went to an Irish bar filled inexplicably with antique hats,
Garrett Ripley's, and learned some interesting things. For example:
- P funded his company by selling snarky Titanic t-shirts over the Internet.
- He once got 100 job offers by wearing a sign and handing out resumes in Times Square.
- He believes that "Sunglasses at Night" and "West End Girls" are the same song.
At some point I was going to leave because I hadn't written the presentation I was supposed to give the next day. Instead, these two girls from the next table, whom P had been chatting up when we arrived, talked us (or me, I guess, since nobody else was resisting) into going out to sing karaoke. Dinner had been beer and mixed drinks, so the five of us piled in a cab without realizing our destination was literally around the corner. I mean like 1 1/2 blocks away.
If you want to sing on a Tuesday night, I guess you've got to hit the
world's diviest karaoke bar. The bathroom has a moldy shower curtain in front of its one stall, for example. Hungry Hungry Hippos and Operation hang from the ceiling and the neon sign outside flickers.
It turned out that P had 19 years or something of classical vocal training, having attended the "Fame" school. He sang "Faith," "Bust a Move," "Livin' on a Prayer" and many other standards. D, meanwhile, has spent many years in a band, which I already knew, and he sang "Good Intentions" by Toad the Wet Sprocket and a song I didn't know. I refused to sing by myself, and once my companions heard me sing in a duet they stopped encouraging me to do so. (And let me just say, it was NOT my idea to sing "Sweet Home Alabama.")
My throat is still sore. I thought it was because of all the smoke and beer (P bought round after round with the Mysterious Black Card, until I had beers literally piled up on the table) but three days later I'm pretty sure it was the singing.
Nothing like presenting new product strategies when you look, sound, and probably smell like Janis Joplin on New Year's Day. I intentionally save makeup for these situations.
It will be a quiet weekend, though. I have class all day tomorrow, including a final exam, which means I have to get up even earlier than when I have paying work to do.
When I sea food I eat it!
In class tonight everyone had to present a prototype logo and tagline for this organization that's dedicated to sustainable fishing practices. Pretty much everyone had a logo with the Earth or a recycling symbol on it. Mine was the only one that featured a knife and fork.
In which our hero gives in to the temptation to recount her life as if narrating an art flick
I'm taking this class at U. of Chicago. The program is one nobody in my field has ever heard of and several people actively steered me away from. "Who ever heard of doing marketing at U of C? Why wouldn't you just go to Northwestern?" I dunno, because it costs literally 10 times as much? But let me tell you, for a program nobody's heard of, it is one hell of a lot of work. Five hours of class a week plus one whole Saturday, an entire textbook, six case studies and two papers with accompanying group presentations, plus a final exam. All in less than a month!
Last Monday I was giving a rather compelling presentation about how I would've marketed cyanoacrylate dispensing equipment in the 1980s, had I been interested in anything more subtle than maybe eating cyanoacrylates at that stage in my life, when my phone rang. So bad. I ran over to turn it off and recognized the number.
Turns out my friend from two jobs ago, who I will call Juan, quit said job for a new opportunity. He told me all about it as I was on my way home from class. I was happy for him and sad for the other people, because he knows everything about their computer system and they don't, so they are screwed.
Then I was riding on the train, looking out the window and I got all mopey and nostalgic. I wasn't sure why. Possibly it was a subconscious excuse to avoid reading Chapter 11, Distribution Strategies, in my textbook. But it may have been provoked because I was looking out the window and seeing two things. On the surface of the window was a washed-out reflection of the inside of the train. Beneath that was the dark city scenery sliding away. It felt like looking at the present and the past without being able to peel the two apart.
The next day I got a call from Juan's manager suggesting that I consider working for them full-time again. I don't know anything about their computer system either, so their problems could become mine too.
A useful link for the ladies
. . . or anyone who loves a certain, ahem, intimate part belonging to someone else:
www.intimatemementos.com. Alert reader Dr. J, who provided this link, comments, "I think they ought to put a check-box for this on the backs of driver's licences."
I don't want to work today, no I don't!
It is sunny, supposed to get up to 78, the birds are singing and I do not want to be calling editors today! Or emailing them! Or discussing venture capital! Or writing my paper on cyanoacrylates product strategy in 1980!
Or writing this blog, really, so I guess if I want to go outside I should get cracking.
All about the learnin' and growin'
I was in marketing class and learned two interesting things:
1. In Chicago, a vacant lot is known as a "prairie." The rest of the Midwest finds this incomprehensible.
2. Apparently, the Pringles slogan "Once you pop, you can't stop" was partially translated for use on packaging in Germany and Germans thought it was hilarious because "pop" means "fuck" in German.
If anyone can provide any context for these two factoids please jump in here. You know those marketing students, they say a lot of things.
Someone just called and tried to get me to apply for a promising job in an unspecified suburb. I told her I was trying to avoid a long commute and she said, "Oh, it's not too far."
Mapquest tells another story. A story of tolls, tail lights and tedium, and a close, nearly personal relationship with the hosts of "All Things Considered." An intimate knowledge of the strange auction call that is radio traffic reporting in Chicago: "Kennedy one-oh-two to O'Hare, 58 the Loop, Eisenhower 48 to Mannheim."
Ha-HA! Me and my East Coast telecommuting clients don't need you anyway!
Alright, I'll stop before I have to rename my blog "Schaumburg: An Online Account of My Personal Waterloo." Back to work . . .
50,000 screaming drunken assholes can't be wrong
I went to the Jewel this afternoon and was surprised by mobs of people outside my home. Most looked lost or drunk or both, and everyone was bitching about the weather. (It was threatening snow, which Chicagoans don't deal with as well as you might expect. Except the ones from Michigan.)
Two separate mobs were gathered around a parked-in SUV and a mildly intoxicated guy was cheering the driver on with gusto. From where I stood, I didn't see how the SUV was going to get out, but perhaps his mind was opened to more imaginative geometries.
I bought my Liquid Plumr Professional Strength at the Jewel, came back and the mobs were still there although the configuration of SUVs had changed.
It was, in short, the Cubs' first home game. It got worse, too. The Bud-breathing crowds weren't too bad, but when I walked to the L behind Wrigley Stadium the place looked like a landfill, skeezy guys were everywhere, and every cabdriver in the state was trying to run me down in the hope of winning my business, demolishing their competition, or getting past me before the light turned red (or green).
Which means I've got what, six months of this?
On the positive side, every bar in the neighborhood now has a little fenced-in beergarden. I've seen at least 10 within 3 blocks of my home. Thursday it's supposed to be 78 degrees AND the Cubs are playing in somebody else's neighborhood!
Today's stupid trade magazine
In the course of my work, I run into many publications dedicated to industries so obscure, you just can't believe they have their own trade magazines, complete with slick media kits and actual advertisers. Today's such publication is
American Coin-Op, available for subscription by "a select group of laundry professionals."
It doesn't beat out my all-time favorite, though, which is
Sulfuric Acid Today. Scratch-n-sniff the brimstone!
ZZZZZ!
Ever since we moved here, Goss has been snoring like a mofo. He goes to sleep and you hear this high-pitched wheezy snore, even if he's in another room. The other night it kept me up and I almost got out of bed to roll him over, like you'd do with a person. Although I didn't know what direction to roll him in.
More rhapsodizing about food, plus shopping
I've been behind on the ol' blog because my friend Michelle came to visit from Atlanta. That, and I had a bunch of work to do.
Michelle brings out either the worst or the best in me. She gets me to throw money all over the place and stuff myself silly -- but only on the absolute best clothing (nothing orange, crystal not rhinestones) and only with really high-quality food. After 3 days of this, someone called from Bombay to find out if my credit card had been stolen and I discovered I gained 3 pounds.
Saturday we went to this place called the Phoenix for dim sum and it was soooo good. She said it might be the best dim sum she's had in the U.S. (possibly San Fran beat it out, but she wasn't sure).
Soooo good! I've only had dim sum once, with my friend Gene, and all I can say is: Gene, and everyone else reading this except my husband, you need to come out to Chicago because the pork dumplings will change your life. They changed mine.
I think that might've been 2 of the 3 pounds. Yesterday we hit the Asian grocery store and had a great big stuff-a-thon of wontons, turnovers, and pecan tassies. So that was pretty gorgesome too, but I actually worked hard for it.
