Going to Midway Airport

Sitting here at the airport – it’s 9:22 – I’m here two hours early. I took a cab here for the first time. It was wonderful. $30 + tip but nice to sleep on the way in. And it is so frigging cold this morning. I was trying to get out of the house – you know how it is – when you’ve gota ll of your winter gear on and your body temperature starts to heat up and you race to get out into the cold before you have a heat stroke. By the time I got outside, I took off my hat and saw steaming coming off my face. I’m such an overheater sometimes.

Re-ripped a bunch of music on to the iPod. I’m wondering if I’ll regret locking it into the Apple format. But I figure by then they wll have made Fairplay easier to use and you can use a batch process.

The airport is probably my biggest exposure to how straight men are dressing these days. It gives me some ideas.

I was thinking about how back home someone will describe a guy as a ‘a black gentleman’ and the inherent racism in that statement. It’s like saying ‘this guy who isn’t one of those crazy niggers.’ Nobody ever says a ‘a nice white gentleman.’ I guess it’s like when people tell non-white people, ‘You speak so well.’ I think that is a Chris Rock routine. Oh that’s right – it’s when he’s talking about Colin Powell. I watched Bring the Pain on Comedy Central’s late night FCC and had forgotten how funny he is and how angry. He just stalks the audience. His ‘I love black people but I hate niggas,’ rant is schocking and spot on all at the same time.

The airport isn’t as crazy as I though it would be. Ron had just come back from Sacramento at 7 this morning and said O’Hare was a hellhole. I really just don’t understand all the reports that say that O’Hare is too busy and an obvious safety risk and they don’t do anything about it. Well – the major airlines made some concessions but it still isn’t enough. And the problem with O’Hare is that it is such a hub that delays there can screw up the rest of the country’s airports.

I heard about the Mosul bombing last night. The most powerful report was of a female officer screaming I can’t hear anything! I can’t hear anything! Better armor is keeping troops alive, but seems to be increasing limb-removing injuries. I’m guessing that the next ten years will see huge advances in prosthetics technology and physical therapy. I just keep putting myself in that position. Being in the middle of a bombing like that and hearing the crash and then hearing nothing else for a long time (or the rest of your life). The pictures of soldiers coming home in pieces are very powerful. A coffin is a more easily marketed icon than a man face hidden behind a mask of scar tissue.

(later)

I think The View may feature four of the stupidest people on the planet. Isn’t this a show for women that don’t have any friends? I’m serious – it recreates that pre-lunch with the kids break that neighbors used to have. Where stay-at-home moms would socialize together. Ron and I noticed a strong mom-and-kids lunch tradition at Melrose. The strollers start showing up around 11:30. This connects to Alan’s theory that soap operas are ‘safe gossip” – it allows you to talk shit about people that you don’t know without their ever finding out. They just made a news item that such-and-such percent of doctors believe in miracles and how fantastic and heartwarming that is. Doctors may believe in miracles but if the HMOs can’t bill it to an ICC code – nothing’s gonna happen. Sometimes I think this show ties with Good Day Live for the biggest waste of digital media during the daytime (granted I don’t watch soaps). Ron loves the blond girl with the damaged voice on that show – Hoochie McG-String or whatever her name is.

I think this world needs more sound engineers. To equalize the audio levels on the TV monitors in the airport. Right now I have the overall airport intercom screaming, the gate next to us has an over-loud flight attendant. The TV above me is railing about Campbell’s soup. It’s a din, baby.

Oh my God, Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi as a couple? In the US magazine next to me. I think Portia must be every lipstick lesbian’s Miss America. She’s beatiful, sexy, talented and loves girls.

Drawn Together seemed to hit a wall of humour – it had I think six episodes – not sure if they ordered more or not. I do love Foxxy Love. When she wins their Apprentice takeoff and she screams ‘Oh my God! I am Oprah! I’m a black woman with A JOB!’ She’s such a terrible stereotype but I still laugh. Not for real, real, just for play, play. Or when she and Toot are wrestling in Jello and Toot sucks up all the jello and the wrestling ring is empty and Toot has quadrupled in size and Foxxy screams ‘What the FUCK!’ (bleeped of course) It was just funny. I can’t explain it and I’ll try to find the sound file. I say it out loud to myself and giggle. And when Donald Trump Junior rips off his mask and it’s a megaphone attached to a body proclaliming ‘It’s the JEW producer.’ All of these elements – along with Clara’s constant denigration of Mexicans – make the show coarse but sometimes funny. I do like how Mr. Hero screams like a girl I’m on the phone.

I can smell the cinnamon rolls just yards away. I’m trying to save myself for when I get home. I hope to have dinner this weekend with Dale – the Campus Youth Minstry at my high school. He’s one of my bonus dads growing up. Mom and dad were smart to surround us with elders growing up

Possible New Year’s Resolution: Don’t be so damned timid.

I really have a hard problem tooting my own horn – maybe not in this personal blog. But in person and in a professional setting. I think it’s a hold over from the ‘I only have an acting degree and I just got to Chicago’ syndrome when I first moved here. I discount my experiences and my abilities. I do that a lot in personal interactions – I by default play lower status. It’s strange. I think it’s a humility/modesty theme.

The next four days are kitty’s longest period of solitude. Ron’s dropping by tomorrow night and Brigitte is coming in on Friday or Saturday to check on him. I do look forward to our joyful reunion. Our reunion in the morning when I open the door to the bedroom causes him to jump on my chest and paw me as I pet him for a good 10 minutes or purring goodness. When he walks around on the bed because he’s so just so excited to see me. And no, it’s not just because he’s hungry – he’s had food all night. Getting a cat was a great decision. He’s always a welcome distraction. I can’t believe how fast he grew. I was hoping he’d stay tiny for at least six months. They should breed cats that don’t grow very big. Everybody wants their cat to stay in the kitten size – but be better behaved like an adult cat.

It’s 10:30.

Possible New Year’s Resolution: Add to Wikipedia once a week.

What if we all resolved to go into Wikipedia – the largest encyclopedia – and added our knowledge to it’s database. Just a small commitment could help the project out hugely. We all know something, someone or somewhere in depth. Why not share it with the rest of the world? I’ve wanted to help create the text book for their King Lear and then get a bunch of actors and record it for an audio version too.

I really question that men would want to wear a cologne from Antonio Banderas. Is the idea that women will buy it for their husbands and the guys will wear it at risk of offending their honeys. The same thing with the Donald Trump scent (another example of this chronic ‘Me Too’ megalomania).

I didn’t do the best job with presents this year. I just don’t feel like I got things that are exactly aligned with the recipient.

Won’t someone turn the bass down on these TV speakers? All the airport noise is treble so all I hear is wonk=wonk wah wonk-wonk wah wonk wonk. Sometimes I’m so over-sensitive to auditory input I think I’m insane. Like Ron’s bathroom faucet. It doesn’t ever turn totally off and requires heavy twisting to truly drip as little as possible. It drives me batty. It’s like having a little ice pick gently tapping on my ear drum. I have to get up in the middle of the night and put a bath sponge in the sink to break the water’s fall. Or the sound of someone popping their gum inside their mouth drives me nuts. That harkens back to a high school quiz where Il Neige (we called him that because of his dandruff) popped his gum like that for the entire test. It drove me insane. I hate overloud people. I used to be embarrassed for my high school theatre friends because unless they were laughing louder and harder than everyone else in a 2 mile radius – they weren’t pleased. Men that talk with phlegm parked on their vocal cords also make me loopy. I just want to scream Cough motherfucker! Clear your goddamn throat! Hydrate you asshole!

I’m done with stupid looking sunglasses. Who do these guys think they are? Bono? And they aren’t even functional – they don’t even really protect the eyes.. They’re not really sunglasses. It’s like wearing costume jewelry.

I think women in America should start arching their eyebrows even more severely. I think until you arch so high that your brows actually make two circles it’s not high enough.

And why are there so many ugly drag queens. What’s the point of looking worse? Why don’t you just cake feces on your faces? Isn’t the idea that you are trying to out-feminize women?

Oh alright – everybody is standing up like Pavlov’s sheepdogs.

(8:52 pm)

Just did some online surfing on dial-up. Cleaned out spam and whatnot. Posted a brief message on my blog about the snow and now I’m here in one of the bedrooms typing. Adeste Fideles is playing on the TV in the living room as my dad and uncle sleep by it’s glow.

Dad and I had a discussion about their eating habits. He swears that they only buy junk food when my sister and I come home. I don’t know if I buy that – but he insists. They made their opiate-like toffee and I keep stealing out onto the breezeway to sneak another chunk or five ever few hours. It’s the perfect food – sugar and butter. What else is there. Well, there’s bread. Spoke with one of my old teachers from high school – we won’t be able to meet up because of the weather either. It’s gonna be a snowed in holiday. I hope that things are manageable in time for Sunday so I can get back home safely and reunite with my kitty.

I talked with my old teacher on the phone – he is the campus ministry leader – and he was asking if I was doing plays anymore. I always feel a slight shame answering that question. That I’m not. I figure I’ll return to it eventually. I always tell myself that it will always be there when I’m ready to get back into that.

I think the hardest events of this year were the apartment chaos and being so affected by the presidential election. One event that I had full control of removing myself from and another that left me feeling hope/help-less. I think it’s crazy that the big thing that seems to be tipping the perspective of Rumsfeld is that he rubber stamped death notices to soldier’s families. Not that he rubber stamped pretty much everything else. I believe it is going to take decades to undo the ill will that the U.S. has accrued in the past few years. I always feel like ‘fascism’ is an alarmist word but what do you call it when you have secret prisons, impeachable offenses unpunished, war criminals in public office, disappearances, extraordinary rendition, collusion with corporate power and centralized corporate media control? Do you just call it progress? I think people assume that things will get extreme only when they feel extreme. I keep wondering what terror attacks are being plotted on the U.S. right now. Part of me thinks that the next lash out may come from the inside – from people that look just like us. Because that’s the group we’re not watching right now. Maybe I blog and think about politics too much. I probably do. Maybe I’m in love with the guilt. I just cringe when I look at my paystub and see all those taxes and know that so much of it goes towards such damaging behavior. Maybe I just need some re-education. I have less pride in America and more pride in individual Americans. And such sorrow for the men and women coming home without limbs. I just keep thinking about that over and over again. And if veteran’s benefits will be able to provide the needed care or is it just going to create a new generation of homeless. When people (me) whine that one person can’t make a difference I think of individuals that have made a difference. People don’t want to be remarkable – they want to be celebrities. We all wish we could be Stupid Spoiled Whores in our own gated community cloisters.

I think people worry entirely too much about the weather. I really do. So there’s a snowstorm coming in tonight. Then don’t worry about driving in. Humans like to worry a lot. I try (and sometimes succeed) at not worrying about things I can’t affect and the weather is the ultimate thing you can’t change. It’s like getting mad at the bus or train for not arriving. Standing there freezing your nuts off – you can’t do much about that – except jump into a cab. Maybe it is because I don’t drive in Chicago that I don’t greak out about the weather. Plus, I’ve never been in a car accident. Though I am always suspicious of left turns in oncoming traffic when I’m a pedestrian ever since that lady almost ran me over on Belmont and Halsted.

Possible New Year’s Resolution: Get more tattoos

My family is not going to like this one. But I want another tattoo – or two. I’m not going to entertain yet another round of choosing since I blog about that way too much. I think I’ll make them a reward for achieving fitness goals.

Last year I said I was going to cut my personal possessions in half. I think I’m on the way there. Moving twice in 30 days helped that. And I also am giving most of my old books of plays to my high school’s theatre program. There are two boxes of stuff that I never really unpacked from moving that I’d like to conquer. As well as convert my video tapes of plays and such to DVD format. I need to overhaul my clothing in a major way – I’ve gotten rid of lots of stuff but I need to do the replacing.


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