leaving on a jet plane.

ok guys, i'm moving. all of the ranting, snarking, whining, and dismemberment of my adult life can be found at: http://pennylanesprose.tumblr.com/

i still will be hating zooey deschanel and refusing to capitalize my posts. neat.

bring on the thunderclouds.

i dont have the emotional or mental capacity to type down anything that would honestly reflect the state of my being tonight, but i do have two really important things to share.

1. zooey deschanel not winning a golden globe gave me more excitement than watching the newt gingrich poll numbers decline so rapidly.

2. ansel adams is a crazy, rambling genius. i am super guilty of always seeing that somebody has published a quotation, glazing over it, and moving on. but i actually sat down and read this short little note, and i think it's pretty great. so, check it out...

Dear Cedric,

A strange thing happened to me today. I saw a big thundercloud move down over Half Dome, and it was so big and clear and brilliant that it made me see many things that were drifting around inside of me; things that related to those who are loved and those who are real friends.

For the first time I know what love is; what friends are; and what art should be.

Love is a seeking for a way of life; the way that cannot be followed alone; the resonance of all spiritual and physical things. Children are not only of flesh and blood — children may be ideas, thoughts, emotions. The person of the one who is loved is a form composed of a myriad mirrors reflecting and illuminating the powers and thoughts and the emotions that are within you, and flashing another kind of light from within. No words or deeds may encompass it.

Friendship is another form of love — more passive perhaps, but full of the transmitting and acceptance of things like thunderclouds and grass and the clean granite of reality.

Art is both love and friendship, and understanding; the desire to give. It is not charity, which is the giving of Things, it is more than kindness which is the giving of self. It is both the taking and giving of beauty, the turning out to the light the inner folds of the awareness of the spirit. It is the recreation on another plane of the realities of the world; the tragic and wonderful realities of earth and men, and of all the inter-relations of these.

I wish the thundercloud had moved up over Tahoe and let loose on you; I could wish you nothing finer.

Ansel


...i know, right? 


something of substance is brewing, but right now i need to devote my evening to watching rich, old, fat white men talk about how in touch they are with the latino vote. 

no offense, but fuck your birthday.

item 1: welcome back from the intoxicating break from reality known as christmas & new years.
item 2: bunker hill students, i hope you missed me as much as i missed you!
item 3: yes, i watched that video of zooey deschanel & joseph gordon levitt singing about new years and generally being great pals. yes, i want to kill myself. and yes, SHE STILL SUCKS.
item 4: your birthday hype is dumb.

yes you, 27 year old wearing a sash and tiara that proclaim "BIRTHDAY GIRL" in glitter that is shedding all over the bar and other people's drinks.

yes you, 32 year old who has dragged your friends, family, co-workers, and other acquaintances out for a week long affair of dinners and toasts and cupcakes and other horse shit.

yes you, freshly turned 19 year old who rents a limo and scoots the border over to canada so she can get fondled by dj anthony at rumors nightclub and throw up a long island iced tea all over the homeland security officer on the way back. (oops, that one got a little hometown. BUFFALOVE.)

i want to preface this by saying that i am not an overly sour person. i had a healthy childhood, there is no tragic event associated with my birthday, and i am not claiming to be the authority on how everyone should go about celebratory business. HOWEVER, i am drawing a line in the sand on the multi-day birthday bonanza. and here's why.

your birthday isn't an accomplishment. the only thing you did to earn your birthday was not die for another 365 days. but everyone should have a day where they feel special. so ok. have your day. one day. singular. uno. 2 minus 1.

but there are these people who exist across many generations that can't have one party. they need to have dinner with the besties, drinks with co-workers, a family celebration, a party at a hip venue, a night out with just the significant other, a day for the presents, and then a day for pampering and "me time." why? because you finished a marathon? cured cancer? got a promotion at work? no. you aged. you are closer to death. and furthermore, the odds are high that you've been this vain for a long time, and i, as one of those friends/co-workers/family members have been saving my money for the past 360 days since your last tour-de-france length celebration. COME ON.

lets put this in perspective with the western, monotheistic world. this subset of the global population is really proud of one dude: jesus. i'm nowhere near religious, but all in all, we westerners think he was cool. he helped his neighbors, was a handy carpenter, and was epically quotable.  so how do we celebrate his birthday? by going to mass for (maybe) 2 hours and then spending the rest of the day/night giving everybody BUT the birthday boy gifts and stuffing our faces. so if we're not going to go on a celebration-palooza for jc, why are we going on one for that chick from work who has too big of an ego?

again, everyone should have a day where they feel happy & loved. i completely support the notion of telling those you love how much you love them on special days. but i don't support beating the dead horse that is your birthday into the ground for upward of five days because you have nothing else to celebrate. refocus that energy on something else, and let us poor (fiscally and emotionally) souls not have to break into a third round of the world's most un-harmonious song. at least for 363 more days.

going to the chapel of love.

i have ovaries.

and because of that fact, i've been planning my wedding since i was about 8 years old.

i spent my middle school years trying to bully boys into liking me (which, for the record, worked) and my high school years changing my signature to "mrs. dave matthews." in college, i registered for a theknot.com account with my best gay, just so i could have access to the inspiration boards and color swatches. we picked a far off date, laughed, had a drink, and forgot about it.

flash forward to this afternoon, when my inbox pops up with "ONLY 200 DAYS TIL YOUR WEDDING" in the subject line. oh, good. the literal countdown has begun until my sham wedding to a dude loving dude. this will be great for my mental health. 

so of course, i spent the rest of my afternoon thinking about marriage. and after all my obsessive plotting, list-making, mental venue scouting, and using the phrase "well, when i get married..." i really have no idea who i'll con into marrying me. or when it will happen (if ever. CUE PANIC ATTACK). but i want to make one thing clear: he better be an architect. not a doctor, not a lawyer. an architect. 

it used to be "the doctah." jewish grandmothers would have a conniption convincing you that a nice MD was the way to go for an ideal mate. they used their noggins, they made bank, and mainstream media had us believing they all look like this:

"i'm going to cure your brain tumor solely with my piercing blue eyes." 

but you know what? doctors work long and odd hours. they don't make bank for almost a decade out of medical school. and student loans are expensive as sin. plus, the lifestyle of little sleep, cafeteria food, and the danger of holding human life in your hands takes the above stud and turns him into this:

"the last boob i touched was during a mastectomy." 

but an architect. that's a different story. architects are creative and scientific. they visualize something in their brilliant little heads, and then they bring it to life. architects have swagger, they know how to socialize, they travel the world, and at the end of the day, they want to build you (ME) your dream house. 

i've been questing to bag an architect since i heard the story of how frank lloyd wright built a house for his mistress as a testament to his love for her. for him, words failed. he wanted to put into the earth the way he felt about someone, so he built her a sanctuary. what a panty dropper! what they don't tell you in that story is that frank's manservant got all lizzie borden on everyone, grabbed an axe and murdered the mistress, her two small children, and several of the men who helped build this lady her malibu barbie home in the woods. so, i realize that not all architects will provide me with a happy ending. some might just provide me with my own e! true hollywood story. 

collectively, as women, we don't know what we want. we want a man's man who can fix all our broken shit, and fire up some burgers on the grill in the summer. but we also want someone to hold us, to tell us we're beautiful while looking us straight in the eye, and someone who lets us rest our heads in the center of their chest before we fall asleep. we're asking a lot. 

so i'll make it easy: all i want is an award winning architect, never married, to woo me over dinners where we discuss the bold vision of louis sullivan, how daniel burnham might have been gay, and how chicago is the true heartbeat of the built environment. we make blueprints for a house in the country, and an architecturally significant restoration of an apartment in the city. we marry under the arch to the old chicago stock exchange, and we spend the rest of our lives envisioning, and building, and bringing this city to a new level of beautiful. 

...takers? i've got 200 days until theknot.com informs me that my wedding day is here, so i better get looking. 

take me back, baby.

dear boston,
i wanted to wait a little while before talked again, but i just can't stop myself. it was wonderful to see you again last week. you looked...beautiful. your brownstones, your sunshine, your preppy new england children running through the common. you've aged beautifully, boston. and this time of year really suits you.

i had such a great time catching up with you, boston. i loved walking your cobblestone streets in beacon hill, and eating every carbohydrate in your city limits. i loved reminiscing about the lazy saturdays i would spend with you, boston. getting my deluca's sandwich, picking up the globe's crossword puzzle, and heading to my favorite bench in the public gardens to lay in the sun and listen to the different neighborhood dialects around me.

i thought i was in love with chicago, but boston, when i heard the dads in the garden this past week telling their kids "don't you check yoah sista like yoar zdeno chara, or else i'm going to put you down cella when we get back home and NOBODY gets any wahfle cones," i was hit with such emotion.

you can play it as cool as you want, boston. but i know you were glad to see me too. we get each other. there's no pretense. there's no need to be guarded. when i look you in the eye, boston, i'm telling you the truth with my entire heart. and that truth is this: i love you, boston.
i love your residents, your history, your architecture, your accents, your bars, your entire way of life. i want to be yours again, boston. i know it's a big commitment, but i'm ready for the 617 area code.

i know i said i wasn't ready. i know i'm in deep with chicago, and i made a promise to live my life in the midwest and not look back. but you can't do this to me, boston! you can't be the most wonderful place in the continental u.s. and expect me to stay away.

you have clam chowder in bread bowls, mike's pastries (i wasn't kidding earlier about eating all your carbs), HARPOON & SAM ON TAP AT EVERY RESTAURANT, and keith lockhart and his floppy hair. yeah, chicago's got hot dogs with pickles on them and rahm emanuel... but it's not even a competition. when you are in the presence of the right place, the place that makes your heart sing, you just know. and you're it, boston.

so what do you say, boston? i can't leave chicago without knowing you want me. but all it takes is one look from you. i saw that a potential dream job has just built a new headquarters with hopes to expand. is this you calling out to me, boston? i don't want to be naive, and i don't want to be impatient. but as soon as you ask me to come back, i'll be there. and i'll never leave you.

i'll wait for you, boston. as long as it takes.

yours, always
penny lane

on fear.

like most of you, dear readers, i bought many 3 oz liquids, charged my electronic devices, and headed for the airport this holiday weekend. i had a wednesday night flight into boston, and a saturday evening flight returning home to chicago. like most of you, i went through the lines, security checkpoints, and life preserver demonstrations. but unlike most of you, i was in a blind panic the whole time.

saying i don't like to fly is putting it mildly. i can't set foot in an airport without my throat tightening and my brain projecting the image of the plane ripping apart over the island like the series premier of lost.

i classify it is a combination of obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder, panic attacks, and claustrophobia all rolled into one. as soon as someone finds out i have a "fear of flying" (which they always do with air quotes, which always makes me want to throw them into a propellor blade), one of two things happens:

1. i get a physics lesson. this always starts with an eye roll, a heavy sigh, and a literal pulling up of the sleeves. "penny," they'll say on the exhale, "don't you know that planes want to be in the air? it's the most natural thing in the world. the science proves that this is the safest way to travel." which then leads to my LEAST favorite fun fact in the history of time: "besides, don't you know you're more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the airport than in a plane crash?"

listen assholes, i'm only going to say this once. i'm the lucky survivor of two near-death car accidents, both of which have left me with some pretty nasty physical and mental scars. i understand safety, fear, and the likelihood of travel accidents. but at the end of the day, i walked/limped/was carried away from the wreckage, and i'm sitting here now, virtually no worse for the wear. but people don't walk away from plane crashes. they're mass casualties, violent deaths that result in the very foundation of our society being shaken. but i still prefer this lecture more than...

2. the person i'm speaking with immediately shares with me their worst flight story. "you're afraid of flying? yeah, i know what you mean. this one time, i was on a plane over the rockies, and we hit an air pocket and fell 3,000 feet in a single second." "you don't like to fly? once, i was in the air, and our engine just stopped working!" i don't know if these jerks just like watching me burst into tears, or if they think they're relating to me in some way, but it NEVER helps. it goes in my mental rolodex of horrifying shit that happens on airplanes, and i obsessively think about it in the days and weeks leading up to a flight. unfortunately, there isn't anything a person can say that talks me off the mental ledge i find myself at every boarding call.

getting on the plane is carefully practiced routine, 37 or more steps on the jet-bridge is unlucky, i have to step onto the plane with my right foot, and i have literally yelled at elderly people on southwest until they have given me my preferred seat; the one behind the emergency exit window row, over the wing, on the left side of the plane. yes, i sound crazy. no, i do not believe it helps. but try and mess with my routine and i will saw through your jugular with my bare teeth.

i have to listen to the safety demonstrations. i have to buckle my seat belt as soon as i sit down. i CANNOT ever get up to go to the bathroom (and yes, this applies to international flights). i never ask for anything from the flight attendants, because i want them to be alert and attentive to the captain when he inevitably radios over to them that we're all going down.

takeoff is the hardest part. i play a counting game with myself, partially inspired by that sweet but totally untrue scene in say anything where john cusak is telling that girl who never made another movie that she just has to count until the fasten seat belt sign goes off, and then everything will be fine. i count from the second the engines fire up and we haul ass down the runway until we are well into our cruising altitude, taking note of each and every bump, cloud, noise, and irregularity compared to my memories of other flights.

i wish it wasn't this way. i've tried drugs, talk therapy, immersion therapy, sleep deprivation, yoga, meditating, and avoidance to combat this. none of it has worked. i sat in the boston airport on saturday, unable to breathe, unable to stop crying, CONVINCED that these were my last moments on earth, thinking "why is nobody else around me as upset as i am? am i really going to die like this? how is a flight attendant named brandi with an i going to save my life?!"

i don't want to be coddeled. i don't want anyone to ever have to experience what i feel and the panic i go through at an airport. i don't want to be trivialized for having an irrational fear that impacts my life a lot more than it should. i don't want fake sympathy. i want people to just understand.

but i'd settle for an amtrak gift certificate. and a bottle of wine for the trip.

give thanks.

in 24 hours, ill be hurtling over the northeastern united states in an aluminum death tube with the rest of the traveling masses.

in 48 hours, ill be lying with a full belly in front of a fire in boston with my dog at my feet, my man at my right, and my family all around me.

in 168 hours (one week), i'll be finishing a hopefully awesome work event that i've been lucky enough to run point on since landing my dream job.

so now is when i give thanks. and since i'm an emotionally stunted wasp who can't verbalize thanks to those i truly care about (see: punching the first boy who ever said he loved me in the back of the head. arm spasm?), i'll blog my thanks.  

i'm a lucky enough girl that i'm thankful for many people. but those people get their due- especially over the holidays, where we all make a concentrated effort to tell people we love them before exchanging the hideous sweaters they bought us. what else is there to be thankful for, after we cover the bases of family, health, and friends?

mostly? i'm thankful that i live in the age of communication. i've got more anxiety than i know what to do with. some is of my own making (blow drying my hair in the morning leads to pulling out strands, which leads to "WHY IS MY HAIR FALLING OUT- OHMYGOD I'M DYING AND GOING BALD", which leads to three hours spent on webmd researching the correlation between female hair loss and early death), and some is the byproduct of a life led away from family and friends, with significant stressors and responsibilities i can't seem to escape. for the little anxieties, i silently mull them over until they become a much larger deal in my head and i eventually collapse with worry. for the big anxieties, i call my friends, talk it out, drink some wine, and spend some quality time sorting out my thoughts on my couch in my jammies. it's socially acceptable to communicate with others about your thoughts, feelings, and fears. watch an episode of mad men- this culture hasn't been around forever. and thank god for this change. i couldn't get out of bed some mornings without knowing its ok for me to call up my mother and lay out all my fears about work and home. and my life is made instantly better when i get a mid-day text from my man about the dinner he's making for me to come home to (yeah, internet. go ahead and take a collective sigh at that. he's awesome).

unfortunately, this communication index often is the root of some of my major annoyances in life. people who can't contain their own news longer than 30 seconds before broadcasting it to the internet, or people who use communicating as a way to solicit sympathy. guess what, boy i went to elementary school with? facebook news feed isn't a place where you r.i.p. your grandmother. she ain't reading it. and now you've gone and bummed out your interwebz friends to the point that people feel obligated to write these "heartfelt" messages about loss. nobody goes on facebook to talk about loss! that media platform exists to 1. stalk people i don't know well enough to ask my rude & blunt questions to, and 2. validate that everyone i hated from high school got fat. 

but when i'm not hating people who need to talk about their problems during every waking hour of their life (or those that need to create blogs just to bitch about it- lawlzzzz self-loathing), i'm actively looking for other things to be thankful for. 

other than the social acceptance of talking through my worries and spending a significant portion of my 20s on my couch in my jammies...

i'm thankful i've learned the hard way.

i'm thankful for the heat stands on the cta platforms.

i'm thankful for chivalry. 

i'm thankful my corner bodega has a snoop dogg advertisement that makes me laugh every morning. 

i'm thankful for boston accents. 

i'm thankful for dogs with smushed in faces.

i'm thankful for brunch. oh god, fuck the rest of this list and anything i've typed before this. i'm so thankful for brunch.  

i'm honestly trying to come up with something else, but brunch is dominating. and i think that's a good place to leave off before a holiday dedicated to the consumption of food. go baste those turkeys, readers. and make sure to give thanks for your loved ones brunch. or whatever else makes you happy.