As much as I don't like to fly, I was in the air again

So where I have I been? Not drunk on the streets of Chicago for 14 days on end*, but rather, in New York, with PO! I had a wonderful trip. I accomplished almost every gerund I set out to do:

- Winnie's karaoke-ing

- Shake Shacking

- Brooklyn Bridge walking-across and sitting under

- Morgan Library-going

- old neighborhood visiting

- Low Steps sitting (this was actually not by design, but it was super fun nonetheless)

- honeymooning (not really but some of you know what I mean)

- most importantly, seeing lots of people I love and miss

If you are among the people I love and miss and did not manage to see, I am probably even sadder than you are about this. Three days, no matter how jam-packed, are not enough to do it all in.

Turns out I really fucking love New York. I don't know why I forgot this, but I remember it now. This is an utter cliche, but I don't think there is anywhere else, at least in the U.S., that can compare (sorry Chicago, I like you and all, but still). I hope I hope I can settle back there, or at least nearby.

Now I am back in Champ-Urb. I complained a lot about having to come back to it, so then it rained really hard on me in retaliation. I then grudgingly celebrated my return by eating a Potbelly sandwich tonight (one of my favorite things about living here. Do they have Potbelly in New York yet?) This is such a busy summer that I can barely believe it is well into July. Lots of work, some class, and running about keeps me busy from dawn til dusk (and then from dusk til dawn I have to fight vampires). I'm off to the glorious Twin Cities this coming weekend, which I am very excited about. I have it on good authority I am going to meet some grandparents. And go on a boat! I love boats. 

I would like to go on a picnic before the summer is over. And see an outdoor movie, which I think they have in Chicago. My dude is moving up there for the last half of July and all of August--incunabula don't just catalog themselves!--so I will be making some visits and trying to bond more securely with the Chi so that I don't always unfavorably compare it to New York. To be fair, I think Chicagoans also unfavorably compare New York to their town. Really, they don't have too much in common, except for being large and both awfully cold and hot at different times. They are just both cities. Stop the comparing insanity!

*From this Aislers Set song called "Chicago New York"  that always gets in my head whenever I fly CHI-NYC. 

Hello, Wisconsin!

Spring! The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, I am procrastinating, and Midwesterners are getting married. This weekend I journeyed in a rented Prius to my mom's old stomping grounds  to celebrate the wedded bliss of two very nice people who I had never met before. Beautiful wedding, though! You haven't heard the Song of Songs 'til you've heard it read with a Minnesota accent. Due to my heathen-y, unbaptized state, I had to awkwardly stay seated during the Communion part of the ceremony, but better that than be smited by a vengeful God, I say. And I got to cross another state off my list. Since moving to the Midwest I have now visited for the first time Indiana, Missouri, and Wisconsin, and I am soon to see the Bluegrass State. That's right, I am going CAMPING this weekend in Kentucky. Anyone who knows me well, or indeed has talked to me for about five minutes, knows that camping is not my go-to form of recreation. In fact, as a child, my family would force me to go hiking, and my mother bribed me with M&Ms so that I would keep on putting one tiny, weary foot in front of the other. However! I am going with very fun people, and I am optimistic that this will be a good time. We can always drink, right?

I am pretty much the last person in GSLIS to be still working on a paper. Yes, blogging is my way of doing work. Here is my 100% accurate log of paper-writing:

7:45 AM  Up and at them! Let's work on that paper, eh? Then I can have fun tonight.

8:00 Can't do anything without coffee. I'll make instant to save time.

8:30 AM Oh, man, I forgot about my laundry. Folding time! Folding timmme, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end...

9:00 AM Hmm, maybe I will work better at the public library. I'll just walk on over.

9:30 AM Ooh, look, the library has the new US Weekly! That Jon & Kate scandal--I just can't resist.

10:00 AM Ok, paper. Hey, my paper is about Facebook, so I should probably do some research by stalking people I went to high school with.

10:30 AM Hey, my paper is about Twitter, so I should probably do some research by stalking current grad school friends.

11:00 AM Why do so many celebrities Twitter? I will read some celebrity gossip and get to the bottom of this.

11:30 AM I haven't blogged in a while! Got to say what's up to the adoring public.

And so on. Amazingly, I have 8 of 10 pages done. That is all that stands between me and being 60% done with library school!! 

I have an exam in 12 hours...

...so obviously it's time to blog!

I was just eating dinner and thinking about all the foods I have been introduced to since moving to the Midwest. Food snobs, vegans, and purists might want to look away. Here we go:

1. MIRACLE WHIP: I never had this as a kid; we always went the Hellman's route (Best Foods for you Westerners, I think). Now my mom has transitioned to the "lite" Hellman's which tastes suspiciously like Elmer's glue. Then Miracle Whip walks into my life. It's got the tangy zip, people, and it's not that bad for you, if you ignore all the things you cannot pronounce and the extra sugar. Why is it not mayonnaise proper? God only knows. Let's not ask questions, but rather be thankful that it was created in "a patented emulsifying machine". 

2. TATER TOTS: These form the crowning glory of Pat's family's hotdish recipe. They are so goddamned delicious, like little pieces of deep-fried heaven. I would have these every day if I could get away with it; I can't.

3. FRENCH DRESSING: I came from a homemade balsamic kind of family. Bottled dressings were off-limits unless they were made from soy and tasted like ass. Actually, I got French and Thousand Island mixed up until pretty recently. But French is delish! It's creamy but not super heavy like your Ranch or your Caesar. The color I do find somewhat off-putting (so orange!), but I'll get over it.

*Wikipedia just told me that French dressing is supposed to be vinaigrette in a "homogenized, pureed, uniform viscous" form. That is just wrong.

4. CREAM OF MUSHROOM SOUP: Not to eat on its own, of course, but to serve as the Lutheran binder that brings our hotdishes together. Thank you, Lord, for C of M and its mysterious deliciousness.

5. BUFFETS: I had never been to a buffet dining establishment until quite recently, unless you count a brunch buffet at a hotel and the like (I don't). At the Hometown Buffet, you pay up front and then go to town. I will be honest: I was underwhelmed with much of the savory options (the clientele is largely 65+, and the mushiness that characterizes much of the fare is thus to be expected), but the dessert buffet was pretty kickass. I would do this again. There has been talk of a Chinese buffet trip, but I am skeptical.

6. GREEN RIVER: Some sort of green "pop", as the Midwesterners would have it. This sounds terrifying but I will do it for science, as soon as I can find some.

7. SNICKERS IN A SALAD/MOUNTAIN DEW SALAD DRESSING: Crimes against a noble food. I was served Snickers bars in a salad by an Iowan, many years ago. The Mountain Dew salad dressing phenomenon has been confirmed by others, but not witnessed by me personally. I can't really imagine what this might taste like.

I really want to make the "vegetarian chili" featured in the Rosemount Catholic Church Cookbook that calls for, as its very first ingredient, 1 lb ground beef.

Con la Mega no se juega.

I blog to you right now from a bus. Yes, it's been done before, and far better,  but never so Megafully. Thats right, I'm on the Megabus, which means I just spent 45 minutes waiting on a rainy, freezing Chicago sidewalk before cramming on board my sad, damp little self and my too big suitcase--but only after a crazy dude extorted a dollar from me for "helping". Travel--so diverting! 

I just returned from the imperial capitol, as father-of-Lizzie's-in-Paign calls it (see how I protect his anonymity?). That's right. W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N baby, D-C. Alternative Spring Break was light on the body shots and heavy on the informational interviews, so just how I like it. I seriously had a fantastic time. Highlights were seeing a Frenchy movie about public schools (El-Nugs and I later debriefed on the accuracy/nostalgia angle; both of us had repressed the memory that gym was called "E.P.S."), dining at a chic restaurant with my lovely Chambana roommate and her fun pals, shopping like we ladies love to do, and enjoying public transportation that did not involve waiting on a dark sidewalk (I am referring to Champaign, although this also describes my MegaBus experience. I need to either get a chauffeur or learn to drive.  Anyone need a good driver in need of a passenger?)

Back to the frozen prairie, I guess. In an hour and a half I will turn 25 on a bus. That is either kind of funny or deeply sad. Let's go with the funny angle, shall we? I am waiting for this quarterlife crisis business to set in, but I feel ok about my whereabouts (except for the immediate, bus whereabouts). I like my career direction, I like my dude, I like my friends a lot (though a good portion of them are on the Eastern Seaboard), I have all my teeth. What's not to like? This makes me worry that I will have a TERRIBLE midlife crisis, though. I am totally going to have dye my hair with Grecian Formula and buy a Lamborghini (which I maybe still won't be able to drive?)

Next week in L-I-P: California: knows how to party. 

Gimme a toot-toot, now gimme a beep-beep

I am done with my first semester of library school! To quote my friend Sarah, I am now 25% of a librarian. Actually, I just crunched the numbers, and I am actually 30% of a librarian, credit-wise. Exciting! Celebrate good times, come on! It's a celebration. I still have to go to work til next Thursday, so no cold lampin' yet. But it feels good to be finished with classes. Today I am lounging around, then going to the library (some things never change, oookaaay?), getting my hair cut, and whipping something up for the GSLIS holiday party tonight. Great day, right?

Oh man, I am listening to WILL-AM, the local NPR station, which is seriously weather obsessed (they actually have a feature where people CALL IN and ask meteorologist Ed Keeser, whose name I know better than my own, so frequently has it been mentioned on Morning Edition, what the weather will be like in Decatur or Mt. Zion or Memphis or wherever their weekend travels take them, as if they had no access to a TV or the internet or any other means of weather prediction other than CALLING SOMEONE ON THE RADIO; Pat thinks it's just an excuse for people to brag about their weekend plans) and the host dude just said to Ed "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute!" I thought people didn't actually say that. Turns out it is alive and kicking here in downstate Illinois.

Ok, time to shower and visit Champaign Public!

Law and Order SVU is funner than actually being a lawyer

Ok, it has been a month since I last posted. That is fairly unacceptable. But I've been working SO HARD in library school that I just cannot blog. Ha, I am lying. Library school is pretty easy, guys. I highly recommend it as an alternative to law school if you are a humanities major with no job prospects:

• It is usually way cheaper than law school.
• Classmates are cool and helpful, not shitty and undermining.
• It's really pretty easy to get in. Even Illinois, which is apparently the cream of the crop (woooo creamy) accepts a third of its applicants. Last year, I think Yale Law took two people. That's just what I heard.
  
• No LSATs. Only GREs. And really, not even the GREs.
  
• You don't want to kill yourself from depression when you graduate and actually have to get a job in your field of study (I'm looking at you, sad lawyers!)
  
• The bulk of your classwork is watching YouTube videos.

I kid! I have actually learned some things (for real). I guess the main problem with librarianship vs. lawyering is that you don't make any money as a librarian. I will rebut with this point: we will not have money, as a currency, in five years. We will resort to an all-barter economy. So work on amassing some cows, and go to library school! I'll see you in Champ-Urb.

Final thought--it is so so cold out. I want to die. When people here find out my parents are from Maine, they are always like "Ohh, Maine! Must be pretty cold!" It was 37 degrees in Maine today. It was SEVEN degrees here this morning. I don't even want to talk about the real-feel temp. I don't know how I am going to get through winter, people... I am already wearing a coat that is the equivalent of a down pillow, and I am freezing my tail off. (That's a literary device--I don't really have a tail.)

Stratford-on-guy

This weekend I took a vacation in Intenseland, as Cora calls New York. It was really wonderful to see everyone, but the city made me cranky, stressed out, and very drunk (and then hungover). We just don't party like that in Champaign-Urbana. I got to see my sister and her boyfriend's new place in Ridgewood (sorry I kept calling it Midwood!), which was a great neighborhood! If I move back to NYC (unlikely) I am gonna live way out in the boroughs--it helps take the edge off.

However, I did love the culture (the CULTCHAH). I saw the Babar show at the Morgan, which was awesome, and my last morning I went to the Guggenheim and saw the Catherine Opie show as well as the new Jenny Holzer installations, which were both pretty fucking reveletory. I was sorely tempted to spend the night at the Guggenheim (only $250 for students!) but had to return to Chambana.

For Halloween, I was a member of the fighting Illini basketball team. So it pretty much looked like this:

You get the idea. A highlight was maybe flying home--while flying into Chicago at night, I sat in 27D, behind the wing, watching the lake turn the sky into blue-green smoke, which is a life-long goal of mine.

Then President Lincoln, I mean Obama, was elected, and my occasionally wavery faith in the American public was restored. Indiana went blue--thanks Dawn!

It's been a while...

...but I can still remember just the way you taste, blogosphere. (Kind of fruity.)

Greater Chambana and the splendidly autumnal Midwest have kept me pretty busy for the past few weeks. I have gone on wonderful DAY TRIPS to archives in East St. Louis and Evanston (two very, very, very different places), cried tears of joy and then pain over the Red Sox at a local bar, visited to a orchard/pumpkin patch/kitcshfest with my roommates, been weirded out by Thandi Newton's "impersonation" of Condi Rice, and done lots and lots and lots of busy work. (So much busy work. But if you need to compare owls and bats for your third grade paper ever, I'm your woman.)

I really love library school, as I think I have mentioned. Somebody told me today that I was a born reference librarian (thanks, friend who told me that!) It's a really good feeling to have found something that I like and am somewhat ok at (fuck false modesty. I am AMAZING at this). However, I am already thinking of places to move after I'm done with the program:

• NEW YORK: Pros: everyone I know lives there, lots of culture and fun, great seasons, the Morgan. Cons: everyone I know lives there (KIDDING!), expensive as shit, made me mildly insane over the course of six years.
• PHILADELPHIA: Pros: seems cool, lots of museums, Erin is there (hi Erin!), cheap, cheesesteaks. Cons: Have spent probably less than 48 hours total there, so I don't really know.
• CHICAGO: Pros: has really come from behind (heh) to be one of my fave towns. Cheap, lots of stuff to do, fun people. Cons: far from the folks at home, really cold.
  
• ALASKA: I would really prefer not to move to Alaska.
  
• ANYWHERE ELSE???

Weigh in, friends! Or don't because maybe no one is reading anymore...

I am going to New York the day after tomorrow! I can't wait to see everybody, eat some delicious food, and go to the Guggenheim.

Hoosier? I hardly know her!

Today I went to a place I had never been before--the great state of Indiana. True story--several years ago, I forgot Indiana was a state. I am embarrassed now. Indiana is totally a state, and an important one indeed to the future of our country, for it is a swingy, swingy little state. Of course, now it is a radiant midnight blue, thanks to the canvassing work of this lady here.

Indiana looked strikingly similar to Illinois. There was much corn, and some small towns with antique stores and such. We were canvassing a subdivision outside Lafayette (where Purdue is). Here were some of the subdivision's street names.:

• Waterstone Drive
  
• Waterfall Court
  
• Stoneripple Court
• Stonegate Circle
• Stonegate Court
• Stoneripple Circle

Please imagine trying to tell these apart. On foot. With clipboard.

Then there was another subdivision:

• John Adams Street
• George Washington Lane
• Thomas Jefferson Drive
• Pennypackers Mill Road

So apparently that last one is the name of a Revolutionary War battle site in Pennsylvania. At the time, though, we did not know that, and we thought it was rather endlessly hilarious.

I think I mayyyy have convinced one lady to vote for Obama. Dawn, if you're reading--remember what we talked about! Then we went to a soda fountain. I loved Indiana. Also, me and my co-canvassing partner discussed Obama's probable Jedi status with an 8-yr old boy. If he could only vote!