Sunday, April 30, 2017
Rain Man
We're going through one of those phases in Chicago weather where it won't stop raining and the sun doesn't come out for days. I'm not a fan. The absence of sunlight wreaks havoc on my emotions; I'm still convinced it's why I cried at that 90210 rerun that one time. And it's not like it's ever easy for me to get out of bed, anyway. Although I didn't exactly enjoy having the norovirus back in February, sleeping for two days straight was sort of my platonic ideal.
Anyway, it's nasty AF out, which means that I spent a good chunk of today watching a Murder, She Wrote marathon on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and speculating about Jessica Fletcher's sex life. I did go to the gym and to the CVS, but that was really just because I desperately wanted Life Savers Gummies.
Yesterday was far more adventurous for me, since I had an all-day meeting with a client. The Willis Tower is kind of a weird place to be in the rain, since you basically end up inside the clouds. And for some reason the temperature in our conference room dropped to near-Gwyneth-Paltrow's-vagina levels. Nothing like typing in your winter gloves to instill confidence in your legal abilities.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
TV Roundup
We've been watching a lot of TV lately, and enjoying relatively little of it. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is finally reaching the end of an interminable season; you know things are bad when they're still fighting about something that happened in episode two in the season finale. Real Housewives of New York is back, and so far okay. My litmus test for these is whether they feel like they're forty-five minutes long or approximately sixteen hours long, and in this case I haven't yet found myself checking the time on my phone every three minutes.
I think we've got one episode left of Feud, which I really wanted to like but have ended up mainly being bored with. The acting is good, despite the fact that I spend a lot of time wanting to punch Susan Sarandon in real life, but I don't feel like that much actually happens. And there's lots of speechifying; I have a hard time believing that people in the sixties spent this much time commenting on the role of women in their society. I am happy to see Sally Draper doing something with her life, though.
We're also working our way through Legion. It started pretty strong for me, but then it just got super weird and hard to follow. I can really only handle two or three different realities, max. I like Aubrey Plaza and I'm always happy to see Designing Women working in general, but there's something about Dan Stevens I find relatively offputting, and mainly I just feel lost (not to be confused with Lost). We'll see.
Oh, and Southern Charm. Too early to tell on that one. No screaming catfights at Confederate-themed galas just yet, but there's still lots of time.
We've been watching a lot of TV lately, and enjoying relatively little of it. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is finally reaching the end of an interminable season; you know things are bad when they're still fighting about something that happened in episode two in the season finale. Real Housewives of New York is back, and so far okay. My litmus test for these is whether they feel like they're forty-five minutes long or approximately sixteen hours long, and in this case I haven't yet found myself checking the time on my phone every three minutes.
I think we've got one episode left of Feud, which I really wanted to like but have ended up mainly being bored with. The acting is good, despite the fact that I spend a lot of time wanting to punch Susan Sarandon in real life, but I don't feel like that much actually happens. And there's lots of speechifying; I have a hard time believing that people in the sixties spent this much time commenting on the role of women in their society. I am happy to see Sally Draper doing something with her life, though.
We're also working our way through Legion. It started pretty strong for me, but then it just got super weird and hard to follow. I can really only handle two or three different realities, max. I like Aubrey Plaza and I'm always happy to see Designing Women working in general, but there's something about Dan Stevens I find relatively offputting, and mainly I just feel lost (not to be confused with Lost). We'll see.
Oh, and Southern Charm. Too early to tell on that one. No screaming catfights at Confederate-themed galas just yet, but there's still lots of time.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Amateur Easter Bunny
We had quite the little holiday soiree this past Sunday. My mom was in town, and we invited my sister and my friend Liz and their families over. So there was lots of drinking and foolishness, but this time with children present. My mother actually insisted that I be in charge of the Easter egg hunt, which devolved into me chucking plastic eggs into the bushes one at a time while my nephew was tracking down the previous chuckee. I'll admit that it wasn't exactly on an epic scale, but it certainly was efficient.
We also set up our rooftop for the first time this year, invoking the ancient custom of dragging disgusting rain-soaked tarps down three flights of stairs to the garage while swearing freely. Since we have a full summer with the roof this year, we're planning to get umbrellas and lighting and outdoor rugs and plants and everything. So far we just have two empty pots to go with our furniture, though. I would blame this on it only being April, but we will likely remain lazy for many months yet.
The weather was so nice that I also went for a run, to the extent that's what you call running out to the lake, desperately looking for a bathroom, remembering they're all closed up through Memorial Day, and staggering back home in a panic. This is why people should never get drunk and go running. The only reason, mind you.
We had quite the little holiday soiree this past Sunday. My mom was in town, and we invited my sister and my friend Liz and their families over. So there was lots of drinking and foolishness, but this time with children present. My mother actually insisted that I be in charge of the Easter egg hunt, which devolved into me chucking plastic eggs into the bushes one at a time while my nephew was tracking down the previous chuckee. I'll admit that it wasn't exactly on an epic scale, but it certainly was efficient.
We also set up our rooftop for the first time this year, invoking the ancient custom of dragging disgusting rain-soaked tarps down three flights of stairs to the garage while swearing freely. Since we have a full summer with the roof this year, we're planning to get umbrellas and lighting and outdoor rugs and plants and everything. So far we just have two empty pots to go with our furniture, though. I would blame this on it only being April, but we will likely remain lazy for many months yet.
The weather was so nice that I also went for a run, to the extent that's what you call running out to the lake, desperately looking for a bathroom, remembering they're all closed up through Memorial Day, and staggering back home in a panic. This is why people should never get drunk and go running. The only reason, mind you.
Sunday, April 09, 2017
Party in the USA
Ian and I are thinking of having a little party this summer in honor of our recent marriage. And by "party," I mean we want lots of our friends to get drunk and eat fried foods in a nice outdoor space. But this is surprisingly hard to set up. Our own place would be great for it, except we really don't want to have to cook or clean up afterwards. Also our neighbors would probably murder us in our sleep. There's a great place just a block away from us, but it's where we caught the norovirus, and we told a lot of people about that, so they'd probably be a little leery of attending a function there. And we're opposed to doing it at any sort of reception hall or hotel, because that feels too much like an actual wedding, and we don't want anyone asking us to do a dollar dance or make a speech about the transplendent river of our love. So we've found a couple of decent restaurants in the area with roof spaces, and we are checking them out.
Which brings me to Courtney. Courtney is the event planner for one of these places, and we have had a lively email interchange with her. She seems wholly incapable of remembering anything we tell her for more than a few minutes, leading to lots of interesting conversations where we explain repeatedly that Asian tacos do not really represent our personal style and that we are not interested in hiring their trance-music DJ for the evening. When Ian first told her this was for a post-wedding party, she told him she could not wait to meet his wife. And then when we first met her in person, there happened to be some random sixtysomething female standing near us, which Courtney immediately assumed was that wife. Suffice it to say we had some 'splainin to do.
Anyway, we're closing in on it. And God willing, I will drink generic brand vodka drinks in the sun once more.
Sunday, April 02, 2017
The Telephone Hour
There are very few drawbacks to my firm's recent office move. If there is one, however, it's how close my office now is to approximately a dozen admins and library staff, all of whom I feel must be watching me eating my sandwich and dropping mayonnaise everywhere through the glass walls of my new space. And because there is literally two feet between my office and the nearest cubicle, I am generally quite careful to close the door when I'm on the phone or in a meeting, since no one really needs to hear me ordering ear medication for my dog. That does not, however, prevent my secretary (who is the boss of me) from demonstratively marching over and shutting my door any time I don't manage to get it done myself.
The first time this happened, she waited until I was off the phone and reprimanded me, adding insult to injury by referring to me as "Mr. Jay." I was so caught of guard that I found myself making excuses, noting that I had not been expecting the phone to ring and that my phone cord did not reach all the way to the door. The result of this, of course, was that my secretary ordered me a wireless headset. Her convenience is of course paramount.
The other day, though, she tried her door shutting maneuver on a relatively senior partner, which did not go nearly as well for her. I'm not sure she'd ever before been forced to consider that she might not be at the very top of our office org chart. Not that this will change anything, of course. I'm still living in fear of her calling me out again for leaning on her credenza or not saying "hello" to her in a cheerful enough tone of voice.
