We’re quite deep into the process of getting rid of things so we can begin packing for the move. Actually, Harold has already packed a few boxes on his own.
We’ve uprooted most of the furniture that we are selling, cleaned, and photographed it. We’re not getting a lot of bites on craigslist yet though.
In addition to the pieces we are selling, we’ve already given away three full carloads of stuff… and we’ve only gone through two rooms! (The two worst rooms) We definitely did have a closet in the office that looked more like a room from clean-house than anything else. Two entire carloads of stuff came out of it and were donated. We also went through all of the furniture and the built-ins in the dining room. (another car load)
The next step in the process of streamlining, sloughing and organizing—basically condensing, is the DVDs and CDs. Harold is making the jump and getting rid of all the CD and DVD cases. They are going the way of my DVD collection and being placed into flip-books.
At the moment the house is a huge mess, and it probably will be for a while, and while that is very difficult for me to live in, I’m having to deal with it. However, in the end, it will be worth it. We’re definitely on our way to fitting our current apartment, into our new apartment. I’m glad we were able to get started so soon.
We are actually getting rid of 10 pieces of furniture. We are adding 5 back in, but smaller and/or better suited to the use of the space we will have. We purchased four of those already, and the store is holding delivery until we move to our new place.
Wow, I haven’t blogged in a long time… and I haven’t written a real entry in almost a year.
Harold got a new job (which he starts in July or August) so we are leaving Irving Park and moving to the South Loop. We’re really excited about our new place! It is on the 17th floor of a high rise at 900 S. Clark.s
We’ve really liked living in our current apartment, but faced with the prospect of NOT having to deal with its little inconveniences I am becoming acutely aware of how annoying they actually are.
I think while I’ve lived here I’ve tried really hard not to think about them too much, and to just focus on fixing the problems I can… making the place as livable as possible.
I have done a lot to this apartment and it has served us pretty well. I installed custom curtains in the Living Room, Bedrooms, and Dining room. I installed custom wood blinds in the Master Bedroom and Kitchen. I replaced all of the drawer and door pulls in the kitchen. Replaced 4 ugly light fixtures. Replaced a broken closet-system. Replaced a broken kitchen sink faucet. Installed several shelves. Installed a permanent shower rod (there was no shower rod when we moved in) Replaced all of the (really ugly) yellow brass towel bars, tp bars, etc in the bathroom with clean brushed nickel ones. Custom paint colors and job. Installed a programmable thermostat. Fixed broken window locks. This list goes on and on…
As much as I have done to this place, there are just so many things that I absolutely will not be missing. Little things that if you owned a place you could fix, but in a rental are just beyond what is practical to replace. (though I’m guessing many would say that several of the improvements I made already are beyond what is practical)
So here we go, things I will NOT miss about this apartment (in paragraph form, thankyouverymuch) Wires running the entire length because the cable isn’t installed into the walls. Hardwood floors that are impossible to keep clean. Years and years of layered paint causing much of the trim to always look dingy. Damaged finish of the doors. Bathtub that is up too high combined with showerhead that is too low. Hooking the dishwasher up to the sink to do dishes. A dryer that vents into the house (this is only really bad during the warm months). Broken closet door in the guest bedroom. A back gate with a chain lock that is almost impossible to open. Back stairs that don’t get cleaned off when it is snowing causing us to accumulate garbage and recycling during the winter months. A kitchen with little cabinet space and only one tiny drawer, causing us to have to store many of our kitchen things in the small amount of cabinet space we have. A back porch with no light. A living room light fixture that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t. The unfinished trim in the bedrooms. The creeeeeepy dual-key-sided deadbolt locks on the guest bedroom which has no windows. Hallway and closet doors that don’t open, don’t close, don’t lock, or stick. Hallway closet not deep enough for hangers and with a rod that is very crooked. Windows that don’t open. Windows that don’t close. Windows with no screens. And then of course there are the projects I wasn’t ever able to finish… for example the curtains I never hemmed… that’s the only one of those I can think of right now.
*stuff I’ve thought of and added since this was originally posted: Front door to building has to be manually locked. Buzzer to let people in does not work. Have to park on street around corner and either a. park far away or b. move car by 9am every day (even the weekends) Sidewalks in this neighborhood do not get shoveled well. Graffiti. Living in-between two bars. Stove w/o vent hood which constantly causes fire alarm to go off. Kitchen Sink drain leaks in the right sink, bathtub drains slowly, mailbox lock is broken*
Yes I can’t wait to move… and hopefully this business that could potentially require us to not be able to get out of our lease early will be resolved and we can move downtown sooner rather than later. Keep your fingers crossed!
In the meantime, dreaming of the new time will get me through the rest of the old time.
“Look what a little Catholic rebellion will lead to… Paul would kiss me and I would think: Oh! I’ve got my very own Jew!” -from Company
I’m writing this from my old MacBook Pro that Harold now uses.
On Sunday we saw “A Little Night Music” in Evanston at Light Opera Works. Like the last Light Opera Works show we saw, this one was also fantastic. If you haven’t seen “A Little Night Music” and like clever, funny, sophisticated, and musically complex shows, I think you’ll like it.
I stayed home from work Yesterday, which I rarely do. I had (and continue to have) such a terrible sinus headache, that I can barely stand the thought of moving. I spent most of the day on the couch. Yesterday morning I was still able to sleep so I slept until about 10, then woke up and watched movies all day. He’s Just Not That Into You, then The Breakup and then switched to a couple of Sondheim musicals while slicing up the new design for this website. (Hopefully you’ll like it, I do)
I upgraded to the newest version of WordPress and got about halfway done converting the Photoshop file into HTML & CSS before stopping to quickly set up the backup disks on our new Airport Extreme to function as drives for Time Machine. I couldn’t get this to work so I decided I would run the firmware update on the router. This opened up ‘Software Update’ which kept locking up around 20% into checking for software… not downloading it… just checking for it. I noticed earlier in the day that any new files I created were not coming up as searchable in Spotlight…. I decided a restart was definitely in order, maybe it would fix all of these little issues. It didn’t. I restarted and my computer got stuck on the gray apple with the spinning spokes screen. About 20 minutes later I shut it down, cleared the PRAM, and as of yet have not been able to get it boot back into OS X.
Harold ran the firmware update on the router which then had to restart itself. He didn’t realize that I was watching something on Netflix on TiVo. Having lots its connection during internet play, TiVo locked up. Upon restart, the audio track for the movie I was watching loaded about 1 second before whatever was happening on screen. It was about then that I lost it.
I decided I must leave the house. I needed to go see the pretty lights of downtown, take in a little bit of night air, and get out of the house and away from all the non-functioning electronics. While out, I stopped by the Bad Times Burger King for a diet Coke. Naturally, they gave me regular and I had to go back through the line to exchange it. We returned home and I checked one more time to make sure my computer still wouldn’t start up, took some pills as instructed by Harold, and the moment my headache went away was finally able to go to sleep around midnight.
The medicine must have worn off around 2pm, b/c that’s when I woke up. The busy noises of Irving Park (we live on a pretty major road) which usually are my comforting friends who help me sleep, are now my enemies. Its no matter though, with my two hours of sleep I’m now wide awake.
I would work on my website some more, but I can’t get to the files. How I wish I had thrown them on a network drive. I decided to put on Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Company’ on Netflix on TiVo (which Harold was able to fix) and try some more things on my computer
I’m pretty sure the hard disk on my new computer may have failed. In addition to not booting to the hard disk, my brand new 17″ MacBook Pro also will not boot to the TechTool Deluxe CD. I was finally able to get it to boot to the Mac OS X Leopard install disc. It ran through normal setup procedures (you know, it checked the CD and everything) and when it finally tried to install the operating system to the hard disk…. I got this fantastic “Install Failed’ screen. I’ve been through this before on my old PowerBook G4. Basically these are the same events that happened when its hard drive failed.
I’m pretty sure I’ve lost all of the work I did on my website yesterday, which totally sucks. I noticed that if I hold T while starting up, it will boot into transfer mode, so I thought perhaps it might be worth a shot to see if I can pull the files off of it that way, however I don’t have a FireWire 800 cable, and the new MacBook Pro does not have a FireWire 600 cable. My guess is that it doesn’tmatter though, if the Hard Disk really has failed, I’m sure it wouldn’t actually work.
On the plus side, after trying for about 10 seconds on this computer, I was able to get it to see the network drives for Time Machine Backup. Yay! The other positive here is that I haven’t had the computer for very long. The only files I don’t have on this computer are a few Musicals I downloaded since I got that comptuer and those website files. Who knows, maybe I’ll hit an odd spur of luck and actually be able to get them!
Additionally, on Friday the blower motor for my cars A/C stopped working. I found out it I didn’t have to drive to Mid-Missouri and that it could be fixed here in Chicago so I made an appointment. It promptly started working again, and has not stopped since. I figured they probably couldn’t fix it if they couldn’t see how it was broken, so hopefully if this issue decides to manifest again, it will happen sometime during the next 6,000 miles… because after than my warranty runs out and then it would be expensive to fix.
What a busy week I had last week. Its Monday and I’m only now getting around to blogging about it. Don’t you love how I say that like I update with some semblance of regularity? Right.
Anyway. Last Tuesday Harold and I drove down to Hannibal for the funeral of a friend. My friend Jason, who was the musical director of our Cabaret show, died on January, 28th. He was such a fun person, and he did so many cool things. He was so much to so many people. A co-writer, a friend, a director, a teacher, a partner… suffice to say I won’t be the only one missing him. It was nice to see everyone else, though the circumstances were really unfortunate. I wish I would have been able to spend more time with them. I miss those kids! If any of you are readers: Come up to Chicago and be fat with me!
We are on the search at work for a new designer. I reviewed about 300 portfolios and about 20 resumes. Unless their portfolio is pretty good, I don’t even look at the resume. I’m bringing two people in for interviews on Wednesday. I hope one of them works out. I think they probably will. They had great portfolios. I’m excited to meet them, and at the prospect of adding one to our team.
I decided I might try to benefit from the unfortunate demise of Circuit City, and decided I would keep an eye on their HD TiVos and purchase one when the price got low enough. (I know I could get an HD DVR from Comast for cheaper but… fuck Comcast/Medicomm/EveryOtherCableCompany and their shitty ass version of DVR… I want, love, and NEED TiVo. It’s just the way it is. Its like the Apple of the DVR world. Its just better. Seriously.) Anyway, they have refurb TiVo’s HDs on the TiVo website shipped for free, for a total of 199.00. Regular price (online, or at Best Buy is 299.00) I don’t buy refurb stuff, I also don’t buy things online so much to Harold’s annoyance, that was out.
Over the past couple weeks I’ve been driving to the Circuit City on Elston and checking them out. (I have bought a couple of things after milling around the store, and had my taste in movies insulted by a clerk. I hadn’t seen “40 Days and 40 Nights” in years…. and after watching it, decided he was right to be insulting. Anyway…) This week the TiVo HD’s dropped down to 239.00. I decided to get serious about buying one. I drove from one store to another trying to find one IN a box. (They only had the floor models (I found out later that they sent all of the boxed ones back.) I was thinking of purchasing the floor model anyway until they didn’t have the original warranty card (they told me I could do it online) nor anything else that was supposed to come with it. Finally I decided the gods of shopping did NOT feel the need for me to have a TiVo HD at this time. An hour later, Harold receives an e-mail that Sears is having a sale–he checks the website and they have them (New, in the store, and in boxes) for 199.00! There is a sears about 12 blocks (1.5 miles) down the street from us, so we hopped in the car and drove over. We purchased our TiVo, and decided that since we were there, and if we spent $300 or more, we had a year to pay it off with no interest… we would also purchase a 22″ flat panel (Which I later saw (while looking for a swivel mount for our new TV) at Circuit City for $100 dollars more (even with the 30% off) than we paid for it full price at Sears.) for the bedroom and to stick our old TiVo on it. The best parts: 1. TiVo has to be connected to the internet. The NEW TiVo has an eithernet cable, and will live right next to the router, so we don’t have to purchase another wireless TiVo access thing. ($40 saved) Because its TiVo, and not Comcast, the two TiVos are able to talk to each over our home network, and we can watch programs recorded on one, in the other room. Additionally, we can use the instant Netflix thing to watch movies on it. TiVo is Genius. I love it. I’m SO excited about THAT.
Also, Tomorrow (Feb 10) is Harold’s and my 1 year anniversary (from our first date) !!!
Hello there my faithful [and anyone who still reads with the tiny amount I update really deserves the word] internet companions! I hope life finds you well at the present time. I find myself quite unable to sleep at the moment. I should be sleeping because Wesley has to work in the morning… I’ll get to that a little later.
As many of you know, I recently moved to Chicago… Again. Well, I suppose I should say that I am in the process of moving to Chicago. I am up here, and have been since the evening of Sunday, January 19th. I’ve been living at one of the three Extended Stay America hotels in Schaumburg. (A northwest suburb, about 30-40 minutes out of the city, depending on traffic) I hope (only for the sake of those in the other two Extended Stay hotels in this suburb) that we are in the bad one. There is a tiny kitchen-like thing that does contain a microwave, a hot plate (with only one functioning burner) and a small prep-sink. Irritatingly, the room is only serviced every five days… that’s right… same towel and washcloth for dishes for 5 days at a time. Yuck! (the card in our room says they are changed every three, but they most definitely are not.) You actually can go down to the front desk and exchange them out, but that seems kind of sick to me too. “Here are these dirty towels, may we have new ones?” I just wash them out really well every day. The beds here are very hard, and by the time the morning comes, have hurt my back much more than my bed does. The TV has about seven channels, the most entertaining of which is the Discovery Channel. A few minutes ago, I watched a man hollow out a camel (after drinking the liquid from one of its stomachs) and sleep in it for protection in the desert. We’ve also been on a very healthy diet of “How it’s Made,” “Smash Lab” and millions of episodes of “Mythbusters.” I like such shows, I guess… much more than I like watching animals being hollowed out while eating my tasty minestrone soup. Yuck to that. (I like soup but I’ve never eaten so much of it in my life.)
Wesley’s work has put us up in this hotel, it was quite convenient at first as he was working at the restaurant here in Schaumburg, which is right around the corner. Starting today (and from now on) it seems that he’ll be at the one in Aurora. Aurora is not close to Schaumburg. Its about a thirty-five minute journey (one way) that involves two interstates and a tollway–I-290 to tollway I-355 to tollway I-88. There is, however, another way you can take that does not involve the tollway–that is if you’d like to get there in one hour and fifteen minutes. Don’t forget that I now get to drive this FOUR times a day. There, to drop Wesley off, and back to the hotel– (I’ll get to how I spend my days in a minute.) and then back to pick him up, and back to the hotel again. The drive actually isn’t that bad as the entire thing is bordered by buildings, etc. At night, most of it is very well lit. Its just a lot of miles, and a lot of driving and a lot of tolls. I did get I-Pass today, which I totally couldn’t afford– its $50 bucks. A $10 deposit for the transponder, and $40 in preloaded tolls. One advantage to I-Pass is that tolls are only 1/2 of what they are if you pay cash. (I wish I’d realized this BEFORE last night as I’m VERY out of coins, and I need to do laundry again.)
Our hotel does have coin laundry facilities. Four washers–of which two are broken, and six dryers–of which three are broken. For $2 in quarters per load, I can do laundry. Growl. Aside from paying lots of money to do laundry using a shitty facility, I also spend my days applying for as many jobs as one can possibly imagine. My resume has been re-written and re-set up to accomodate my most recent job at MBS, and I have lots of different cover letters for different kinds of jobs. I should probably have different resumes as well, but I’m not trying to bother my nice resume writer that much. What I have is pretty comprehensive. I also watch DVDs… the first couple of days were hell as I forgot the power cord to my computer and had no internet or DVDs. Barf– my parents FedExed it though, and everything was okay. (Thank’s Mom and Dad!) Today I began work on a really cool concept for a portfolio site for myself, now if I can just figure out Actionscript in Flash a little tiny bit more (and yes, I do have a book on it with me that I’ve yet to look at… I’m sure it won’t be too bad once I actually work on it.) and then I can make it super-cool and jazzy and fancy. I’ve already completed the Adobe CS3 Classroom In A Book on Flash, so I’ve got movies and button states, and symbol types and all that crap down pretty well. Now its just putting the programming with it (its always putting programming into stuff that slows me down.)
I also spend small portions of my days exploring the suburbs. A little bit around Schaumburg, but after being here for two weeks, I pretty much get it…. and around Lombard and Oakbrook. That’s where we’ll be living. We found an apartment in Lombard, IL and were accepted and everything.
WHAT? You say?!?! LOMBARD, IL. Wesley will be working in Aurora, IL which is about an hour out of the city… he doesn’t want to commute that far every day (I suppose I can’t blame him, I wouldn’t want to either.) so we picked Lombard which is just about halfway in-between. Its about 25 minutes from My friend Brenda (in a e-mail she sent a few days ago) could not have put it better: “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Aurora is NOT Chicago” Well, Brenda…. neither is Lombard. Lombard is 22 miles from Chicago, Aurora is 25.5 miles from Lombard. maps.ask.com lists the drive times as about 1/2 hour each… I think they’re closer to 20 minutes. Maybe it’s factoring in traffic… I don’t know.
Unfortunately, this means (not only that I have to live in the suburbs—– Y U C K !) that I have to keep my car, which I had certainly not intended to do. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to make it work yet, but we’ll see. I’m just going to go for it I guess. I’m hoping to get a good job that I enjoy. There sure are a LOT of opportunities for jobs out here. Tons and tons and tons. The Chicago Tribune, and Careerbuilder.com (which I suspect may be headquartered here as it has a very large building right next to the Cumberland stop of the blue line) have teamed up to make a pretty cool job-finding site. It has all of the regular stuff from careerbuilder.com, but specifically on the Tribune’s site. I would guess they probably add the postings from the paper in as well or something, I dunno…. anyway… the site is different. It lets me quickly research jobs and apply for many at once by simply checking boxes… and voila, it sends them all my resume at once. It doens’t let you click ones that require extra work (like jobs where you must include salary requirements or a cover letter, or a real copy of your resume, or design samples or whatever) which keeps you from looking stupid and applying twice… once incorrectly. Hopefully all of this lovely techology will help me find a job in the very near future.
I ‘ve gone into the city mabye about five times since I’ve been here. Going in really helps me take my mind off of how much I miss all of my friends, and especially my family (and my dog Casey!) Sitting by yourself in yucky hotel is NOT good for the mind body or soul. A few days, its been absolutely necessary as its been two snowy to do anything. Most days though, I just can’t do a lot because I’m waiting for Wesley to get off of work so that I can pick him up during the times anyone I know in the city can do anything. (8-10pm) I really must call people and try to see if anyone has any time during their days free. I have this 30 day transit pass that I bought for 80 dollars the first day here (because I thought I was going to need it— that was before we found out about Aurora) so I might as well get some use out of it. I really do need to get out of the hotel though… I get pretty depressed sitting up in here all the time. Naturally, when Wesley gets off work, he really doesn’t feel like doing a lot. Not that I have the money to be doing much of anything anyway, just… REALLY sick of being at this hotel.
Unfortunately, we’ll be here for almost as long as long as we have already been here. We have fourteen days behind us and eleven ahead. I’ll check out of this hotel (FOREVER! Mwhaha! and return to Jefferson City to get all of my stuff on the 13th. I’ll be back in Chicago on the 16th unpacking. I will then be alone for part of a week (except the weekend, while Josh and his boyfriend come visit from DC!) while Wesley goes to Florida for final training classes. Upon Wesley’s return, his friend Matt from Jefferson City (who I sort of know) will be joining us up here. (I guess we’re moving all his stuff in the van with ours before that date, and he’ll be spared the trouble of moving it! Lucky him!) Yay on splitting the $1100 rent 3-ways instead of two.
By the way. Living in the suburbs is not at all cheaper than living in the city. The apartmets (until you get about an hour out) are almost exactly the same thing as in the city, for the same price… only you have to keep your car… so that sucks. It actually costs more to live in the suburbs. For some reason, Wesley has it in his head that it doesn’t… has I’ve heard him say multiple times on the phone to people, that living in the suburbs is cheaper. Normally I probably wouldn’t be so irritated by this, but aside from meeting with a two new friends (Scott from Wisconsin and Carlos who lives in Chicago) he’s essentialy the only person I’ve had face-to-face conversation with in the past two weeks. We all know how social I tend to be, and how this cooped-uppedness is NOT good for it. I almost feel a little bad for him at times, because I know when I’m being bitchy for no reason… but he can dish it out just as well, if not better, than I… so then I don’t feel bad. We actually are getting along fantastically well for two people who have been sharing a small and shitty hotel room for the past two weeks though.
Living in the suburbs isn’t all bad though. The only West Elm store in the midwest is very close to our new apartment…. and there are two malls within an 8 minute drive (the closest Yorktown Center/The Shops on Butterfield is like a 2 minute drive) The further away one (Oakbrook Center) has a full Crate&Barrel, Pottery Barn, Neiman Marcus, Tiffany & Co, Bang & Oulfesen… as well as a ton of other things. Though the whole thing is oddly minus a roof… it feels pretty much like a normal mall… and most of the stores look like normal interior mall stores… but the whole thing is outside. There are also tons and tons of good and suburby chain restaurants really close to us, if you enjoy that sort of thing. Buca Di Beppo, Maggiano’s, BRIO, The Capital Grille…. and that’s just the beginning.
Since we’ve been here, I’ve thrown a bit of money away on a few good meals. As far as chains go, I can only remember eating at Big Bowl. For local fare, all in Chicago: Foodlife at Water Tower Place, Socca, The Kit Kat Lounge, Halsted’s. I haven’t had a bad dining experience at a local restaurant yet. I’ve also had some good drinks. My favorite by far was something chocolatey and minty at The Kit Kat Lounge. Sidetrack is still as fun as I remember it, I went to Musical Monday’s… yay for showtunes on videos! (Though they were a little more well known and more accessible to the public than the ones they play on Sunday’s at Freddie’s in St. Louis, which I did NOT appreciate… I like the obscure stuff… I know it better.) I also went to Roscoe’s on Wednesday to celebrate Wesley’s birthday and sing some Karaoke (which was actually Friday, the 1st but he worked.) A drag queen named Honey took our songs. They had considerably more Broadway selections than A&C in CoMo, but I suppose that’s to be expected.) I sang “Find Your Grail” from Spamalot, and also an Elton John song that I sing a lot.
Well, I’m still not really sleepy… but I should at least close the computer and try a little harder to get that way. Thank you for reading, as always!
Much love….
If you’re in Chicago: Let’s hang out soon.
If your’e in Mid-MO: Come visit me soon!
If you’re Josh: See you on the 18th!
Brett Patrick Casey :o)
The last post I had was kind of hurried. Plus it was whiny. Perhaps I can drag this one out a little longer and explain things a little bit better, without being irritating.
We’ll start over.
I moved to Columbia. At this point I’m not sure if I’m going to be staying here or not because I drive to Jefferson City several times a week to hang out with people. I know you’re thinking “But why? Loads of your Columbia friends must be lining up at your door for the chance to hang out with you now that you live near them!!!” It turns out that they are busy. The time-tested, kid approved ”washing of the hair” will suffice as a general explanatory excuse regarding their prior engagements. Naturally, I’m a little bit surprised as I’d always planned to hang out with people, and part of the reason I moved up here was because I figured I’d be less lonely.
Not so.
I am alone almost all of the time when up here. At work I am surrounded by people but my job involves very little in the way of teamwork and much more in the way of sitting by myself and doing research to answer e-mails from schools and on occasion, from students. At home, I sit in my room alone – usually online in a desperate attempt to find someone to hang out with – until I can no longer stand it at which point (for the first couple of weeks) I go to one of the bars. The bars of course offer only a lonely session of sitting on a stool and since I’m not really drinking all that much lately, very little else.
So now you’re thinking: “But Brett, what about your new roommate… why don’t you hang out with him?” Well, my roommate is nice but I think our personalities don’t really click. Actually, they don’t click in most ways. He’s coridal and friendly and all, we don’t so much butt heads, we’re just not the buddy-buddy type. We couldn’t have all kinds of inside jokes like Tim and I, we couldn’t be snooty about certain things together like Ryan and I, we couldn’t obsess over health food and stuff like my mom and I. You get the idea. We’ve just not got much in common.
Having exhausted all of my searchable outlets for someone to hang out with up here in Columbia, I go to Jefferson City. In Jefferson City I have family… they hang out with me no matter what because they love me… I also have several friends who actually don’t mind spending their time with me. Tim and Debra and Shawna are there, and (the last couple of evenings) we’ve all been hanging out together.
I guess when living in Jefferson City it was easy to fall into a rut by just hanging out with my family, and coming up to bar a lot. Without really wanting to go to bar, which I had been less and less even before I moved, I was just spending a lot of time with my family. Moving to Columbia has made me want to reconnect with my friends more than ever. Especially some of the ones I no longer see, like Kody and Ryan and Lexy… however they fell out of the “hang out with frequently” list because they, like my friends up here, have other people that they like to spend time with… perhaps a signifant other or friends that they have standing plans with, et cetera. Debra and Shawna don’t seem to mind Tim (and now me) being there all that much. Tim likes to hang out with all of us.
In Chicago I often felt alone, but it was different. There were possibilities, there was always someone new to meet, and there was always a ton of people to hang out with. If someone was busy, I could call someone else. Plus, were a million people everywhere and I could still be alone, even in the middle of them, if that was the need that wasn’t being met at that time.
So, now you’re thinking “Well, why don’t you just move back here already?! It seems that you’ve learned something new about yourself from this, and perhaps you should just go back and be with the people who want to be with you.”
Well, to you I would say that I want to. Actually I want that very badly right now. However, and I’ll bet you saw this coming, its not quite that simple. First of all, my job is up here. I don’t mind driving back and forth all that much, but it does take up a larger chunk of your day than you would think. With traffic and in/out of the city its less like 25-30 and more like 40-45 minutes each way. Blocked off, that’s almost two hours of time. Of course, if I’m driving back to Jefferson City for people to hang out with anyway… I suppose I’m not saving that much time or gas. However, I’m not driving during rush periods so traffic isn’t quite so bad at the times I’m traveling.
I also have a job interview up here with one of the newspapers for a graphic design position. ["What, why didn't you tell me? That's so exciting for you! Ohmigod I hope you get it!"] Thank you, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m working hard to make sure I’m all brushed up on everthing that they need… and everything else. <blockquote>Sidebar: I’m told that for a part of my interview (which btw is with two people… and I think they’ve been looking for quite some time… this is the second time I’ve submitted my resume to them for this position) I will have to design a graphic layout and/or advertisement using color correction and clipping paths in photoshop and using Quark for layout. </blockquote> So of course I’m curious as to if I’ll get that job, and to how much money I’ll be making… if I could afford my own place… etc. .
Right now everything is all about unknowns, and naturally that makes me really uncomfortable. Will I get this job? Do I want a place in Columbia? If I had one, maybe Tim could come up here and live with me once he got a car. Does Tim want to come up here? Why do I need to be around people so often; why am I not okay with being alone? Should I try to move to Saint Louis? Should I move in with my friend who offered to let me live with him but he already has a roommate I’m not sure if I like; wouldn’t that put me in the same situation I’m in now? Will I ever get out of Mid-Missouri? Will this thing where I have to be around people prevent me from doing this in life? It seems to prevent me from getting design work done that I should be doing… and that’s something I love. I just like to be sitting in a room with other people when I do it. Is that stupid? Should I go to college when I’m 24 and can get loans on my own, or will I have a job that I should stick with for a while for experience? Could I do both? Should I try to grow my business and do that instead? How come everyone else can get the cracks to work on their iPhones but mine just locks up? Shouldn’t it be easier on mac? I want a prettier dock on my screen! Will I have enough money to visit Christy in spain? So you see, it goes on and on… and I just don’t know.
A while back, I stated that I believe a large part of growing older is being able to realize that I don’t have all of the answers. I’m unsure. I don’t know.
All I know is this: I want to be happy. How do I get there? What does it look like? How will I make the right decisions to lead me to that goal?
I won’t: I’m going to screw it up.
What I will do, however, is admit when I’m wrong, and learn from my mistakes. Because if I don’t make them, how else will I know they were mistakes? Preparedness and (attempted) objective thinking can only take you so far. Things either feel right, or they don’t and usually I can’t know which until I’m doing them.
What I will not do is let being afraid of making the wrong choice keep me from trying things and therefore shaping me as a person Then I don’t grow, and I go nowhere. I’m all about growth and going places (cool and fun places that is.)
Well guys and gals, I suppose that’s all for now.
Brett Patrick Casey :o)
My days as a heavy drinker are over. In fact, for the time being, I can no longer drink at all.
Even though I have no health insurance of any kind (I haven’t been slinging textbooks for long enough yet.) I decided to go to the doctor (or more accurately the nurse practitioner, who I actually prefer.) for a visit.
While there, I mentioned that I was out of Phentermine (which I take for weight loss, though I’ve gained 35 lbs since I’ve been on it.) Some days I’ve taken my phentermine twice (either by accident or otherwise) and those are the only days it seems to help. I don’t feel like it helped because it got rid of my hunger though. (It did, but you still get hungry… you just don’t want to eat very much b/c you’ll spend the next two hours feeling like you need to puke, but not actually doing it.) I believe the reason it helped those days had more to do with the fact that taking two doses increased its “upper” effect to a point that I actually felt ok about life. I think its much easier for me to make healthy decisions when I’m feeling good. Otherwise, I’m more inclined to eat my feelings… I guess. I dunno–its less that–I think its more of a food makes me feel good thing. I’ll eat even when I’m not hungry, just because.
Beacuse of all of this, we came to the conclusion that was time to try something different. She put me on Lexapro.
Apparently, you cannot drink on Lexapro. So, I quit drinking. (Let’s see how long I can handle this.) Saturday night I went to the bar, and didn’t have a lot of fun. The people were fun, I sang well (no surprises there) and a good time was had by most… but I just can’t be “me” without the liquor. I’m me, but the regular shy “I don’t know you very well.” me. Not the me that people from the bar are used to. I don’t really have a choice though, so I’m trying to see the silver lining in all of this.
My days as a heavy drinker are over. In fact, for the time being, I can no longer drink at all.
Even though I have no health insurance of any kind (I haven’t been slinging textbooks for long enough yet.) I decided to go to the doctor (or more accurately the nurse practitioner, who I actually prefer.) for a visit.
While there, I mentioned that I was out of Phentermine (which I take for weight loss, though I’ve gained 35 lbs since I’ve been on it.) Some days I’ve taken my phentermine twice (either by accident or otherwise) and those are the only days it seems to help. I don’t feel like it helped because it got rid of my hunger though. (It did, but you still get hungry… you just don’t want to eat very much b/c you’ll spend the next two hours feeling like you need to puke, but not actually doing it.) I believe the reason it helped those days had more to do with the fact that taking two doses increased its “upper” effect to a point that I actually felt ok about life. I think its much easier for me to make healthy decisions when I’m feeling good. Otherwise, I’m more inclined to eat my feelings… I guess. I dunno–its less that–I think its more of a food makes me feel good thing. I’ll eat even when I’m not hungry, just because.
Beacuse of all of this, we came to the conclusion that was time to try something different. She put me on Lexapro.
Apparently, you cannot drink on Lexapro. So, I quit drinking. (Let’s see how long I can handle this.) Saturday night I went to the bar, and didn’t have a lot of fun. The people were fun, I sang well (no surprises there) and a good time was had by most… but I just can’t be “me” without the liquor. I’m me, but the regular shy “I don’t know you very well.” me. Not the me that people from the bar are used to. I don’t really have a choice though, so I’m trying to see the silver lining in all of this.
I’m going to start with a quote that has stuck with me very strongly ever since I first saw it.
“I’m an architect in a city with no architecture…” – Jorge Garcia, Mexico, Dwell, Oct/Nov 2005.
Depending on how you look at it, this is either horrible, or wonderful. The fact that the city has none leaves it open for lots, however… why might a city not have any architecture? Lack of funding, lack of interest, lack of development, all of the above? It tends to lean more toward the horrible in my opinion.
I really feel for this architect in a way. I’m a designer, in a city completely unconcerned with aesthetics. What’s worse is, the better I get– and I’m always trying to become better, the less necessary I seem. Also the less interested people seem in my services. Here, even my current level of design is superfluous. No one wants it, no one needs it, and sure as hell no one is willing to pay for it.
In most places, especially in America, consumers are driven toward more upscale things. Our peers and parents and experiences teach us to want to better ourselves, its the American way… right? Unfortunately for me, Jefferson City and most of Mid-Missouri (on the whole) is perfectly content being a giant shithole of ugly.
Brand image means almost nothing here, unless your brand is McDonalds. Actually, that isn’t true… Brand image is important here. Its important that you don’t let your brand image get too good… WHY could that POSSIBLY ever be a PROBLEM? Well, here… especially in Jefferson City, its a huge drawback. If people think your business is nice, they automatically decide it’s too expensive, and therefore will ignore it completely. Never mind your greatly superior customer experience, ambiance, product, and overall customer satisfaction. Why the hell would those things matter if you’re not SELLING your product for the ABSOLUTE LOWEST PRICE.
I once asked my mom about why the buildings here were all so terribly ugly… even the brand new ones are made so cheaply. I noted that in other places we frequently go, in Wisc. or wherever, the strip malls are ALL really varied and nice looking. They’re built with quality materials (not EVER stucco!) and they attract interesting and cool businesses, and customers. She pointed out that if developers did that here, no one would go to their strip-malls…. or shop in their stores. She’s right, they wouldn’t.
I told her that I didn’t want to have to look at that ugly cheap crap, and shop at stupid stores, and drive by their ugly “architecture” daily. “They’re not trying to attract your business, they’re trying to attract the business of the people in this town…. they don’t want you!” She’s right. They don’t.
Its Wal-Mart culture, and I hate it. You buy crap, you treat it like crap, it wears exactly as you would expect crap to, and then you throw it out and replace it with more junky crap. Don’t save your money and buy a nice set of pots and pans and take care of it, and use it for 25 years… buy Wal-Mart… tear the shit out of it, and replace it once a year… yeah, that’s MUCH better.
When I worked at Cole County Residential Services, I was constantly annoyed by one thing, (actually by many things, but only one in particular relevant to this story) the fact that most of the staff people, when refering to a product or store, would say: “They’re high.” or “That’s high.” in liu of “That’s expensive.” This always drove me crazy… aside from the fact that its vague, and the syntax of the English language has been completely thrown out the window, (much like the writing in my journal entries) It was also just a constant reminder of that CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP thing, which I hate so much.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for saving money. I’m just never for saving money at the cost of quality, or experience, or service, or durabilty, or any of the other countless things that always buying the cheapest item or service can exclude.
The point of all this… I’m a square peg, trying to fit into a round hole. I don’t belong here. I’m incredibly unhappy. I haven’t felt like myself for months, and it gets worse all the time. If I have to live in this area, where the conscentration of this terrible attitude toward quality is so great, I don’t see myself ever being happy. However, I feel incredibly trapped. Financially, I’m completely unable to get the fuck out of here. If I have to live here, in this terrible place, and I can’t ever get out, I don’t see the point in living. Living here isn’t living. Challenges and culture, experiencing new things, taking risks—failing! That’s living. I used to have that. And I miss it. And I want it back. I don’t want to live, if I have to live here. THIS is unacceptable.
This is a WHOLE other lecture, and I won’t discuss in great length today but, another quote I’m fond of:
“I don’t know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do,” Mr. [Frank] Gehry says. “Architects have to become parental. They have to learn to be parental.” By this he means that an architect has to listen to his client but also remain firm about what the architect knows best, the aesthetics of a building. This, Mr. Gehry says, is what makes an architect relevant in the process that leads to a completed building. “I think a lot of my colleagues lose it, lose that relevance in the spirit of serving their client, so that no matter what, they are serving the client. Even if the building they produce, that they think serves the client, doesn’t really serve the client because it’s not very good.
-Wall Street Journal
Again. Dead on. Why hire someone to make your project creative, when that isn’t what you’re really looking for? I’ve run into this again and again in the past. (Though less lately… most of the time the projects I work on as of late, are mostly about letting me do my own thing… MOSTLY… which believe me, turns out better for everyone involved.) Just like he says: What a disservice I’m doing for a client to let them take over and give them a compromised product that is low quality.
Well, that’s all the bitching for tonight.
Brett Patrick Casey :o)
I’m going to start with a quote that has stuck with me very strongly ever since I first saw it.
“I’m an architect in a city with no architecture…” – Jorge Garcia, Mexico, Dwell, Oct/Nov 2005.
Depending on how you look at it, this is either horrible, or wonderful. The fact that the city has none leaves it open for lots, however… why might a city not have any architecture? Lack of funding, lack of interest, lack of development, all of the above? It tends to lean more toward the horrible in my opinion.
I really feel for this architect in a way. I’m a designer, in a city completely unconcerned with aesthetics. What’s worse is, the better I get– and I’m always trying to become better, the less necessary I seem. Also the less interested people seem in my services. Here, even my current level of design is superfluous. No one wants it, no one needs it, and sure as hell no one is willing to pay for it.
In most places, especially in America, consumers are driven toward more upscale things. Our peers and parents and experiences teach us to want to better ourselves, its the American way… right? Unfortunately for me, Jefferson City and most of Mid-Missouri (on the whole) is perfectly content being a giant shithole of ugly.
Brand image means almost nothing here, unless your brand is McDonalds. Actually, that isn’t true… Brand image is important here. Its important that you don’t let your brand image get too good… WHY could that POSSIBLY ever be a PROBLEM? Well, here… especially in Jefferson City, its a huge drawback. If people think your business is nice, they automatically decide it’s too expensive, and therefore will ignore it completely. Never mind your greatly superior customer experience, ambiance, product, and overall customer satisfaction. Why the hell would those things matter if you’re not SELLING your product for the ABSOLUTE LOWEST PRICE.
I once asked my mom about why the buildings here were all so terribly ugly… even the brand new ones are made so cheaply. I noted that in other places we frequently go, in Wisc. or wherever, the strip malls are ALL really varied and nice looking. They’re built with quality materials (not EVER stucco!) and they attract interesting and cool businesses, and customers. She pointed out that if developers did that here, no one would go to their strip-malls…. or shop in their stores. She’s right, they wouldn’t.
I told her that I didn’t want to have to look at that ugly cheap crap, and shop at stupid stores, and drive by their ugly “architecture” daily. “They’re not trying to attract your business, they’re trying to attract the business of the people in this town…. they don’t want you!” She’s right. They don’t.
Its Wal-Mart culture, and I hate it. You buy crap, you treat it like crap, it wears exactly as you would expect crap to, and then you throw it out and replace it with more junky crap. Don’t save your money and buy a nice set of pots and pans and take care of it, and use it for 25 years… buy Wal-Mart… tear the shit out of it, and replace it once a year… yeah, that’s MUCH better.
When I worked at Cole County Residential Services, I was constantly annoyed by one thing, (actually by many things, but only one in particular relevant to this story) the fact that most of the staff people, when refering to a product or store, would say: “They’re high.” or “That’s high.” in liu of “That’s expensive.” This always drove me crazy… aside from the fact that its vague, and the syntax of the English language has been completely thrown out the window, (much like the writing in my journal entries) It was also just a constant reminder of that CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP thing, which I hate so much.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for saving money. I’m just never for saving money at the cost of quality, or experience, or service, or durabilty, or any of the other countless things that always buying the cheapest item or service can exclude.
The point of all this… I’m a square peg, trying to fit into a round hole. I don’t belong here. I’m incredibly unhappy. I haven’t felt like myself for months, and it gets worse all the time. If I have to live in this area, where the conscentration of this terrible attitude toward quality is so great, I don’t see myself ever being happy. However, I feel incredibly trapped. Financially, I’m completely unable to get the fuck out of here. If I have to live here, in this terrible place, and I can’t ever get out, I don’t see the point in living. Living here isn’t living. Challenges and culture, experiencing new things, taking risks—failing! That’s living. I used to have that. And I miss it. And I want it back. I don’t want to live, if I have to live here. THIS is unacceptable.
This is a WHOLE other lecture, and I won’t discuss in great length today but, another quote I’m fond of:
“I don’t know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do,” Mr. [Frank] Gehry says. “Architects have to become parental. They have to learn to be parental.” By this he means that an architect has to listen to his client but also remain firm about what the architect knows best, the aesthetics of a building. This, Mr. Gehry says, is what makes an architect relevant in the process that leads to a completed building. “I think a lot of my colleagues lose it, lose that relevance in the spirit of serving their client, so that no matter what, they are serving the client. Even if the building they produce, that they think serves the client, doesn’t really serve the client because it’s not very good.
-Wall Street Journal
Again. Dead on. Why hire someone to make your project creative, when that isn’t what you’re really looking for? I’ve run into this again and again in the past. (Though less lately… most of the time the projects I work on as of late, are mostly about letting me do my own thing… MOSTLY… which believe me, turns out better for everyone involved.) Just like he says: What a disservice I’m doing for a client to let them take over and give them a compromised product that is low quality.
Well, that’s all the bitching for tonight.
Brett Patrick Casey :o)
