memoir girl

or so we have dubbed her, comes in with her makeup done perfectly. her lipstick is dark and painted, her whole face really is like a oil painting. It's not greasy or anything, more like unrealistically perfect. She's snow-white fair, and her rich brunette waves frame her face exquisitely. when she talks, she almost whispers seductively, pulling a conscious smile out of the corner of her lips. i'm not trying to glorify her; that's really just how she looks. She's young, maybe late twenties, and sometimes wears this fancy fur hat when it's really cold to go with her ivory turtleneck. if you can gather anything from this description, hopefully it's this: she kind of thinks she's a bit of a big deal. 

she orders the same thing every time: a large cappuccino with an extra shot, extra, extra sweet with sugar-free vanilla, as well as a large hot water and a large ice water. she smiles coyly at me whenever i predict her order (because it's such a surprise) or know that she likes her hot water without a sleeve and says "thank you, sweetie." 

this is where it gets weird.

she grabs a table against the wall and lays out page after page and an open book and goes to town writing what we think are her memoirs. Though at such a ripe young age, i can't imagine how long that book is going to be. apparently one time, one of my coworker's failed to "keep an eye on her stuff" after she requested a watchful eye while she took a pit-stop, and she flipped out that something could have happened to her irreplaceable writings. 

after she calls it a night, we always gather 'round the table she was at in horror. she leaves the biggest mess. and not only is it a mess, but it's a creepy mess. she leaves cups under the table half-way filled with a mysterious liquid that definitely doesn't resemble a sugar-free vanilla cappuccino. it always seems like she accumulates more cups than she requested, all filled with dark cloudy water or flakes of oatmeal. in addition to cups and ripped up sugar packets, she has, on a few occasions, left rejects from her sacred manuscript. scrawled illegibly on crumpled up notebook paper in brown or green marker (i picture her doing the clichéd crumple-up and toss-over-the-shoulder-in-rejection), they are borderline gibberish. incoherent. 

"Reece is involved ... why so nervous and guilty - soon after or about 6 minutes after VC left -- Reece wrote story for school & got into trouble or called in to see school therapist - ... only reason .... wanted to pressure ...." 

and more about Reece, who apparently is involved in some shenanigans. the other page i found is even more hard to read and therefore ten times more confusing, but "Reece" and "infection" pop up here and there. ive seen her with a few medical books, and someone said she was in fact a medical student. 

either way, she looks pretty harmless. but she's just another one of our nuts. 

la plage

i went to north avenue beach the other evening. it was relatively warm out, meaning low 50s, but coming from over a month of bitter cold winds slapping your face left and right, the cool breeze was more than welcomed. even at work today, everyone seemed be to ordering iced versions of their favorites, and believe it or not-- we did spy someone in shorts. i think the brutal cold sends everyone so far into hibernation that the first hint of a new season calls for celebration. 

so this heat wave prompted johnathan and i to pack up a comforter and head to clark/division on the red line and venture east to the water. 

by the time we got to the shore, the sun had completely set, but it was still pleasant out. despite being right beside lake shore drive, it was strangely quiet on the beach. there was little left of the ice that had previously paved over the sand. i frequently would look out my window to see the ice floes on the lake, just the sight of it chilling me to the bone before i even set foot outside. the sand was damp, the water was dark, deep blue. the moon was high above the water, looking back at its reflection cutting into the navy water.  you could see the ferris wheel from navy pier, completely illuminated.  there were only a few other people who had decided to venture out to the beach like us. it was wonderful. it was as if this wave had come over me and started in my toes and scrambled up my body, twisted around in my stomach, and stretched out my fingertips and out the tips of my hair.  

i return two days later with my other friend and her camera, my own journal in hand hoping to channel the energy from the glistening water into some creativity for my screenwriting class. i lied on my stomach on the blanket, dreading the creeping shadow cast from the quickly-setting sun behind the skyline. before long, i had curled up in the sandy blanket like a big cocoon and fallen asleep. sleeping on the beach is one of those incredible simple things in life, when you forget that there's probably sand maneuvering its way into all your nooks and crannies, and you just pass out on nature's own tempur-pedic. complete & utter bliss. the drool mark on my journal proves it.

being on the beach did spark a few thoughts of mine, some of which stemmed from an old friend in high school and a conversation in my junior year english class. 

has anyone read Sophie's World? 

That will be another post for another day.

ten below

i knew it was coming,

i had been told countless horror stories of its impending arrival. 

i just didn't really know the true extent of its wrath.

as in, january in chicago.

when it's too cold to snow, that's when it's bad. if i step out my front door into flurry of big fluffy snowflakes, i seem to forget that it's freezing out. i adopt the excitement of a six year old and have to command every muscle in my body to contain my urge to make a snow angel in the empty parking lot next to my building. 

this is going to be a trying time on my appendages. my cheeks and tip of my nose and eyelids will hate me, my fingers will curse my gloves for not working overtime. when i inhale its like my lungs will freeze solid from the air inside them. 

au revoir simone - fallen snow

wait, it gets better!

au revoir simone - fallen snow (teenagers remix)

 

Janet

it's been a long time since i've last posted, i realize. i keep making all these pathetic excuses to myself, saying that i am too busy. While i am busy, i also spend the remainder of my time surfing craigslist or refreshing my facebook on this same computer that i could just as easily be blogging on. But who's interested in what i have to say? i'd much rather comb the "missed connections" late at night. 

And then i decided that i have plenty of odd stories to tell, and while i love scrawling them into my little notebook tucked in my purse, i figured i could publicize a few.

today i'm going to tell you about Janet. or Janice, but i'm pretty sure her name is Janet. She comes in almost every day to the tea cafe where i work, wheeling a small suitcase behind her. She is a small woman, possibly shorter than myself. I cannot even begin to guess her age, but her leathered face makes me lean towards the 40s, but probably not much older. Every day she dresses in a different color scheme. Let's say today is red; her red fuzzy striped socks poke out from under threadbare red corduroys, her red turtleneck complements her red vest, with her big red coat on over them. A red bucket hat and red earrings complete the ensemble. 

She walks up to the register and orders her drink; usually a small vanilla chai with skim and whip cream, but she likes to mix it up and surprise us with a blended lemonade or another concoction. Always whip cream and skim. And she pays with her club card, which as a constant $20 on it. When she orders, she cocks her head slightly, and strokes the ends of her black hair, speaking in a sophisticated tone. Her face is worn and red, i think she has rosacea, and she opens her compact and assesses herself frequently. 

She sits down with her caravan, and begins fiddling with various things. One day, she will be laying out fragments of tin foil on the table. Another day, she pays her bills. She obviously loves cats, as we have gathered from bookmarks and magazine clippings that she has left behind for us. We collect her scraps and post them in the back room, our little shrine to her and her eccentricities. Frequently she will hold up a pen (usually a kitty-themed one, at that), erect at eye-level, like she is an antenna for some alien radio. Aliens, from what i hear, thats what the aluminum foil is about. She talks aloud to herself or an unseen being, sometimes almost shouting and cursing. My coworker said that one she saw her poking herself repeatedly in the eye socket. She writes little poems and omens on notecards and post-its, and when we find them we huddle around it and repeat her eerie words. I wish i could remember the last one we found, some verse about coming to earth and finding hatred. It was sad, and sad to think that that's how Janet feels. That there's hatred. 

One of my coworkers is keeping a mental file on her, like a little side-project. I like Janet, she is a little kooky, but for the most part, harmless. From what i hear, she has toned down her behavior. I'm always nice to Janet, i always make sure she wants whipped cream. I wonder about her, where does she go before she comes in? after she leaves? i hear she goes to our other cafes as well, like a little specter that appears right when you think you lost her. 

edit: 1/7/09

Walking down Madison towards the blue line, i pass by another location of our tea cafe. and sitting against the window, prodding at a sweater with a pair of scissors, is Janet.

She's like a little ghost. 

edit: 1/8/09

these are the two index card messages we have received from Janet:

the first date (1/27/67) marks the flash fire that killed three astronauts on the Apollo-1 mission. 

the next date (1/27-28/86) is the Challenger explosion.

the last date (2/1/03) is the Columbia explosion.

three incidents of astronaut deaths. 

i'm trying to decide what kind of statement she is trying to make. 

are we wrong to infringe on alien territory? are these horrific accidents warnings?

the other one is the poem, actually it could even be a limerick.  

"An artist reborn came in fear.

'Don't write anymore' he did hear.

On Earth he didn't know

He had any foe

'Twas shocking when Hate did appear."

you figure it out. 

settling in the south side

as in south side of the loop.

as in State & 8th St.

as in, my home.

i realized i haven't posted in quite sometime considering it's the fifth or so week of school and my previous post was from the middle of summer. don't get me wrong, i have free time, but i tend to spend it watching movies now. all the time. i think it's slightly obligatory, being a film major. i need to keep up with this thing, because i have already seen so many ridiculous things being here, i just have to write them down. writing. i've been doing so much of that lately. i'm in this development & preproduction class, where all i do is write. but it's good writing, its just ideas that have been welling up from my imagination, i just never put them down in ink. it made me realize how many ideas i've had stocked up that i can actually put to use now. but more on that some other time. 

things have been great. for the overwhelming most part. it's weird looking out my window writing this and seeing the thick clouds over lake michigan surrounding the aquarium. it's a nice view, but the constantly-running El train out my window isn't nice at all. i'm getting used to it, but when you're trying to fall asleep at 2 am it sounds like the loudest noise ever, and you could swear that every time it goes by it gets louder. 

i don't have too many stories yet, unless you count the drunk woman who did a face-plant at the corner of damen and milwaukee, and when a stranger rushed to help her up, she started sucking his face. 

ahh chicago! like my friend joe said, "that would only happen in chicago. in new york no one is nice enough to help them up, and in chicago, people are weird enough to do something like that."

i'll keep posting stories from the front lines. when i'm not pouring through childhood memories for a 5-minute film proposal or making hibiscus steamers at Argo Tea. ('nother post for another time. promise.)

speaking of that 5-minute film, that's what i'm working on right now. 

because three little kids sliding down a woody hill in a plastic kiddie pool is charming, but not quite a story line. 

Orientateeristrationing at 1104 S. Wabash

yeah, i was doing something like that for eight hours in downtown Chicago on wednesday.

eight hours with a bunch of self-proclaimed filmmakers. I mean, technically we are film students, but i'm almost starting to cringe at that title, even though a few months ago i couldnt wait to earn it.

it started when i met this guy randomly at my mom's-friend's art show gallery exhibit whatever: when upon hearing that i was "studying film!" (as my proud mother boasted), he immediately made a comeback with "oh everyone's a film student now! everyone goes to LA, no one makes it, pompous bs about myself..."

yeah, he was a ___bag. 

so anyways, i bent over and peeled my self-esteem off the ground and brushed it off. 

"so, directing? everyone's trying to direct these days..."

"No. Cinematography, actually."

"Oh. You'll get work."

and that was about it. and i decided that no arrogant west coaster is going to try and put me in my place. 

back to orientation:

after getting my campus card photo taken at 8 am (it's horrid- you can see my roots! :<>

so here's what it's looking like thus far:

history of cinema

aesthetics of cinema

development & preproduction

quantitative something (math)

biology of the human immune system

ROCKIN.

so then i got to sit with a bunch of people that i already formed opinions about and pretend like i'll remember their names and chat about "what our favorite films are"!

to me, there is a difference between 'films' and 'movies'. 

doctor zhivago is a film.

superbad is a movie.

see what i mean?

still, the question turned up 'lord of the rings', 'star wars', and the favorite 'garden state'

(i said 'the science of sleep', although 'rocket science' is a close second)

and another word of advice, do NOT say you love foreign films and either a) not name any or possibly worse b) cite 'Amelie' (unless you are referencing French films or Audrey Tautou)

you know, i bet the serious fashion majors get even more pissed. It's not a shopping major, Barbie. 

they say only 60% makes it past the first semester. 

we'll see. 

*the use of the word "like" in the sentence is not a teen frivolity- i'm approximating distance, okay?

since i always post a tune:

only because theyre called

lectric - film school

five weeks to go, and the nerves are kicking in. or are they butterflies?

My medicine-woman doctor cured my off my persistent drowsiness and traded it for a minor case of insomnia. Okay, insomnia such an overused word. Maybe i just need to cut back on the naps & coffee. 

Considering i have two calendars in my room and one on this computer, i find it hard to escape the fact that there are roughly FIVE (5) weeks left before i pack my bags and head up north. I started the summer with this I AM SO READY SHIP ME OFF RIGHT NOW kind of attitude; you know, that whole invincible teenager thing. Or maybe the fact that most of my friends were staying in Texas or majoring in business or something boring fed my TAKE CHICAGO BY STORM vigor. 

now i'm on song 32 of 6572 on my iPod, wondering if i should delete my previous post to avoid any i told you so's. 

but the unexpected happened; i realized what i'm going to be missing, and it actually made me cry. 

but getting a glitter & sequin-filled envelope with a letter written on pink construction paper with scalloped edges reminded me that things just might be okay. It was from a dear friend of mine who had graduated high school last year. It made me realize something else; i still keep in touch with her, so of course i will keep in touch with my friends. It's just another state, letters and phone calls and facebook posts don't care if you're in Maine or California. These next four years are just going to weed out the people who don't matter as much as i thought, and make my relationships better with those who do. 

it's still scary.

honestly, this summer has been more than ideal for me. almost unrealistic, yet it's happening. I realized it when a friend said to me at a coffee shop the other night, something was different about me. And it is; i'm happier than i can ever recall--i'm done with people who bring me down and found people who I really feel comfortable with. 

i just hope these next 5 weeks creep by. at a glacial pace. please. 

BY THE WAY:

i went to tilly & the wall on wednesday. it rocked. i actually got a sideache from dancing so hard.

&I FEEL SO ALIVE &I FEEL SO ALIVE &I FEEL SO ALIVE &I FEEL

mp3: beat control- Tilly & the Wall