Michelle's Journal

Hey Hey.  It's finally spring in Chicago.  Just got back from a big road trip.  Went up to Minneapolis to visit my mom and sister and my adorable four year old niece.  We also saw a bunch of old friends.  Then drove all the way down to Knoxville to visit Rob's parents.  We cleaned out one of our storage units (we had accumulated so much crap in Florida that we had TWO storage units) and had a massive garage sale.  Feels so good to get rid of stuff!  We had kept some ridiculous things (a sno-cone maker?!), and we didn't make enough money in the garage sale to cover the cost of storing all those things for the past 2 1/2 years.  Pointless!  Should have thrown everything out.  Next time I'll know better.  

But the best part of the trip was just being in a car again.  I miss that freedom.  Even driving across flat boring Indiana was fun.  I wanted to keep going, and just drive drive drive, all the way out west.  I barely get to travel any more for work either.  :-(  Going stir crazy. 

Otherwise, just sick of hearing the hype about swine flu.  The media has cried wolf one too many times with these supposed pandemics. 

Oh, I wanted to elaborate on seeing our 'old friends' in Minneapolis.  Several of these people we hadn't seen in about 10 years.  Somehow it reminded me of attending a class reunion, where you get this 'snap shot' of how everyone 'turned out.'  It was sad to see some of our friends are still exactly as they were in their early 20s - drinking too much beer, playing in heavy metal bands, jumping from relationship to relationship, but now they are gaining weight and going gray.  

Haven't done much else.  I want to go see The Soloist, but I keep reading bad reviews.  Enjoying season 2 of Breaking Bad.  I'm falling in love with the Jesse character.  

Not much else.





 

Funny thing - I just noticed the last two entries I've made to my journal I accidentally flagged as Private, so I've just been writing to myself.  ha ha. 

Anyway, big changes goin down.  First thing is Rob has gotten hired to teach an art history class at the school where he graduated, so now he can officially add "adjunct professor" to his resume.  So yay!  He's been enjoying it, but it's only one class, and it takes up 100% of his time.  How do people do it?  Hopefully he will be able to teach it again next semester.  I've switched to a new department at work, the Research and Development dept.  It's a whole new world.  I no longer get to drive around the world making maps, but instead get to sit in my cubie and write up 'process documents' which then sit on a shelf somewhere.  And I miss my old peeps.  But, can't complain.  At least now I can sorta say I WRITE for a living!

Anyway, thoughts of the economy are consuming my every waking moment, so let me try to sort out what I think . . . here goes:  My first instinct was "shut up and bail."  This is one of those rare occasions where it's better to just act now and ask questions later.   It's one of those rare occasions where the media and politicians and CEOs and financial advisors should just turn a blind eye and say "Yes!  The bailout is a great idea!" even if it's not.   99% of the economy is perception and consumer confidence.  And if people perceive that the bailout will work, then it will work.  I swear Anderson Cooper has more power over the economy than Paulson!  BUT, what's happened now is we've waited too long.  We've taken the time to think about it, and debate it, and when it's an election year, no one wants to be the one who supported it if it goes bad, and no one wants to be the one who was against it if it works out well.  By waiting, we're just forcing politicians to take a stand on something they likely know nothing about.  (They only have two goals.  1)  to get elected.  2) to get re-elected.)  None of them would ever be willing to come out and say that in many ways, the American people ARE to blame for this.  The collective greed of our local realtors, local lenders, home sellers, home buyers, home flippers, and local do-gooder activists who wanted "every American to be able to own a home" regardless of their financial shortcomings, are all as much to blame as Fannie and Freddie executives.  But, now I'm scared that we're screwed no matter what we do.  It's probably too late for the bailout to work now, now that everyone has had time to debate the merits of it. 

The scariest thing I read was that, if we don't do the bailout, credit companies will be forced to tighten credit to a virtual halt,  MANY companies cover payrolls with credit (which is scary in itself), so suddenly no one would be getting paid, AND, no one would be able to use their credit cards.  The only option at that point would be to pull your savings out of the bank, so everyone would do that.  Who wouldn't?  But the run on banks is exactly what caused the depression in 1930, and we'd be forced into making the same mistake again.  At that point, basically every bank would run dry, and there would be no credit, no paychecks, and wallstreet would tank, everyone's 401K would be worthless.  I know you're not supposed to panic in these situations, but man. 

But obviously, on the other hand, the bailout is a bad idea.  We don't have the money "lying around" so we'd basically be 'printing' new money in order to finance this, which would further dilute the dollar.  Plus, there are going to be other industries 'getting in line' to be bailed out next.  It will likely not end until we completely transition into a socialist society.  So then I think, if the market is going down, maybe it's SUPPOSED to go down, and the govt should just stay out.  It can't go up perpetually.  Sometimes I think what we NEED is a good old fashioned depression!  So many people are used to grabbing a starbucks, driving an SUV, cranking the air conditioning, buying the latest iphone, buying a mcmansion, without a second thought.  It still amazes me how incomes are higher than they've ever been, but how many people have no savings whatsoever.  And housing prices are still inflated above what they should be. 

So, who knows.  I guess what will be will be. 

Well I really don't mind the rain.  And a smile can hide all the pain.  But yer down when yer riding the train, that's takin the long way. 

 Just spent two weeks in Fargo once again.  I'm starting to like that town.  Sometimes I think I could live there.  But then again . . . The best part was over the weekend I drove down to Minneapolis to visit my mom and sister and my totally cute 3 year old niece.  We played with balloons for about 3 hours.  She never gets tired.I love how, with kids, if some activity is fun ONCE, then it's even MORE fun 50 times in a row.  The same joke.  The same game.  Over and over again.  But I had a great time.  It's also cool how we've found she actually prefers simple household objects over expensive toys.  All the 'educational' talking electronic toys are sitting broken in the back of the closet, but she will play with a marker and a cardboard box, or measuring cups, or balloons, for hours.  Which is good, I think.  I've made kind of a point to never buy her gifts.  Maybe this is egotistical, but I like to think that when I come to visit her, I AM the gift, and she looks forward to seeing me.  I buy her U.S. savings bonds for Christmas.  Someday she'll appreciate it, I hope.  But the bad thing was, on the drive back to Fargo, I got a speeding ticket.  A speeding ticket!  Sweet, innocent me!  So unfair.  

Anyway, now I'm back in Chicago, and my life is about to be radically altered because . . . drum roll . . . Rob is graduating in one week!!  I'm proud of him, and his parents are coming to the graduation ceremony, which is probably going to be stressful as hell.  The sad thing though, is I don't think he has the same sense of pride and accomplishment.  He woke up depressed this morning, feeling like the whole ordeal was pointless, and it just stripped him of six years of his life, and left him with a bitter taste and eroded self confidence, and he could have been better off financially if he'd worked at McDonalds for the last six years instead of going to school.  I try to be optimistic, but at the same time, I know an advanced degree in the humanities field doesn't have an obvious pay off, especially as you get older, and especially when unemployment is getting higher and higher.  Neither of us are sure what he is going to do now.  But somehow I know opportunities will open up.  It was a smart thing to do . . . wasn't it?  

Anyway, watched the most cute touching French film last night for Rob's film class, called Forbidden Games.  Corny title, but really sweet sad film - best child acting I've ever seen.  Bawled my head off.   We actually had to watch a bunch of French films:  Breathless, 400 Blows, Therese Requim, Children of Paradise, and one other one about a French guy and a German guy who were friends during WWII, but I can't remember the title.  I never really knew much about French film, so, even if he doesn't appreciate his degree, at least I'm learning something!  ha ha. 

That's about it. 

Ok. 

I am finally coming to terms with the fact that I just don’t have time to LJ as much as I would like.  Therefore, rather than letting my poor journal dwindle on indefinitely, taking up cyber space, which I’ve been doing, I’ve decided to give it a proper send-off.  This will be my last post.  This journal was a lot of fun, and meant a lot to me, so I’m not going to take it down completely, since I’m sure I will log in from time to time to read friends’ journals, and will probably want to comment from time to time.  And who knows, maybe I’ll want to start it up again in the not-so-distant future. 

Hmm, I feel like I should have some profound statement or song lyric or quote to insert here, but . . . I can’t think of one!  So, hippiedork – papadood – Tanya – dana – sammi – lather – I’ll just say, thanks for your friendship.   Take care y’all and have a happy holiday!

Love

Michie

Finally saw “Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus” this weekend.  I really liked it, but wow, it was so much like Secretary.  Everything about it—how all the actors whisper their lines, the coloring and ambience of the set, the theme of personal growth and exploration of ‘unconventional’ desires.  You’d swear it was like, the same characters, just transported to a new place and time. Nicole Kidman’s mannerisms were totally Lee Holloway-esque, and when Robert Downey whispers “Diane, closssse your eyessss,” all I could think was “fffffour peas.” My husband had some issues with the ‘imaginary portrait” concept.  He thought the film was interesting enough to stand on its own and it was ridiculous and irresponsible that they would “use” Diane Arbus in this way.  He thought it would have been far more interesting to keep the story exactly the same, but just change the names, and then the educated viewer could speculate as to whether it is really “about” Diane Arbus and the uneducated viewer would not be given fictitious impressions of what she was like.  So, I could see his point, but on the other hand I totally get the Imaginary Portrait concept.  It’s just like taking your Real Person Fiction to the extreme and actually making it into a feature film.(oooh, I want to).  I like that term better than RPF.  Imaginary Portrait.  Very cool.  Anyway, it was really good film, (although it fell into beauty-and-the-beast clichés a bit at times).  But the ending was beautiful and it amazed me how Robert Downey Jr. still manages to look sexy with  Chewbacca hair all over his being. 

Not much is new.  Just got back from a week in Fargo.  Fargo!  Gone are my exotic travelin’ days I guess.  But Fargo was actually quite fun.  I was there for my company’s annual meeting of database engineers.  A nice gathering of about 30 nerds from around the globe (mostly Europeans), of which there are only three females, including me (chick power!)  Had a good time, went bowling, ate lots of walleye and drank a few Leinenkugels.  Everyone complained about the lack of quality coffee.  Apparently Caribou Coffee doesn’t quite compare to an Italian café. But they enjoyed the bison steak, and wild rice soup which Fargo had to offer. Fargo’s really not a bad food town.  You can actually get excellent Indian and Mexican food if you know where to look.  But anyway, now I’m back in Chicago, trying to continue my diet.  I’ve lost 10 pounds since July, slowly but surely.  Seems to be staying off too.  The only bad thing about losing weight is it reveals all the other things that are wrong with your body.  Like I noticed my waist is freakishly short, and I’ve got a really bony chest, (where really voluptuous cleavage should be).  Oh well. 

            Anyway, Rob is totally stressed out from school.  His mean professors are making him write three huge papers this semester.  His autumn weekends are spent staring at his laptop buried in a pile of books on postmodern architecture. I always volunteer to proofread his stuff.  It was easier when he was an undergraduate—now I’m not sure what the hell he’s talking about half the time. 

            I really don’t know who I’m going to vote for.  I went so far as to do a big self-analysis and write down all my political beliefs and then try to compare them to the candidates.  It seems exactly half of mine are democratic ideals and the other half tend to fall into the Republican category.  Don’t know.  Leaning toward Hillary.

            Otherwise, just been watching TV. Liked the premier of Boston Legal.  (Of course Brad Chase is the D.A! Brilliant. Brilliant) Liked John Laroquette more than I expected. Otherwise, still addicted to the movie channel.  As we speak I’m enjoying a film called “David and Lisa.”  Pretty intense.  Okay.  Completely engrossed now . . .

My D drive crashed on Friday.  God!  Why?? Lost most of my i-tunes.  Guess it’s my own fault, since I hadn’t backed it up since 2005.  Oops.  I ran a bunch of those free programs which try to recover it, but no luck.  I’m sending it out for diagnosis by a recover y place, but I hear it’s about 2 grand for them to actually recover the data, if it’s even possible.  *cries*  So anyway, my tech support dept at work has been kind enough to let me use a loaner, but it runs really slow. 

Anyway, I’m going to Minneapolis the week after next to visit friends, family and the State Fair.  Minnesota has a huge state fair.  I hear Texas has a really good one too, but I’ve never been there.  I’m freaked out and saddened by the freeway bridge collapse in downtown Minneapolis though.  I’ve probably been over that bridge 1000 times.  Everyone who lives there has.  It’s right in the heart of downtown.  And it’s an interstate! How could this happen?  But watching the rescue efforts makes me proud to be from there.  It looks like those people really gave 110% and the medical and emergency personnel seemed really well organized and efficient.  And it sounds like citizens were doing everything they could to help too.  Compared to everywhere else I’ve lived, Minnesota is by far the most community oriented.  People there help each other even when there’s not an emergency.  Neighbors shovel each others sidewalks.  It was amazing, when I lived in Orlando, how different it was.  I remember after the hurricane people were literally throwing debris in their neighbors’ lawns to “get rid of it.”  Sad.  I’m so glad I’m outta there. 

Otherwise, been reminiscing lately about the late 80’s.  I remember this band called Company of Wolves, who never really achieved the fame level of most of the hair bands of the day (yeah, I’ll ‘fess up. I listened to hair bands . . .) Company of Wolves was a bit more serious than most of the hair bands though – kind of Black Crowes-ish, but with a New York/Lou Reed vibe.) But then they were overthrown by Nirvana in 1991, along with most of the bands from that genre.    Anyway, my friend who worked at a record store and I  met a few of the members in a health food store by chance when they were playing First Avenue in Mpls back in 1990.  They were so cool, and invited us to watch their show from backstage since we were underage, invited us and some other fans onto their tour bus, treated us to an impromptu jam session, and their guitarist Steve Conte even let me play his guitar. And, they were perfect gentlemen!  No hanky panky goin on.  (not that I would have minded . . . )  Then they had a gig in Milwaukee the next weekend, and we drove out there to see it.  Partied in their hotel hot tub, (I’ve got pictures of them jumping on the bed), got reprimanded by hotel security, got to see their show, and hang out with them while they did radio interviews.  I felt so cool!  They really treated all their fans like friends.  So anyway, I hadn’t thought about them for years, but woke up this morning with one of their songs going through my head and just had to google. Turns out they are no longer together, of course, but all still have music careers, and have kept cranking out albums and projects all this time.  And Steve Conte is now touring with the New York Dolls, and has developed a strong following among the Manga crowd for having done a sound track for some anime thing.  Cool.  Anyway, here’s some funny “then and now” pics.  If my photo albums weren’t buried away somewhere in my storage space I’d scan in some of my person photos.  I forgot how cute Steve was/is.  What a rock star!  Might have to buy this album . . . 

Stayed up until about 3 in the morning last night watching The Who's Tommy, just because I had never seen it.  Ummm . . . .huh?   Such wonderful songs when The Who performs them, but the way they are being presented in the movie is just . . . is just . . . But no, it's an interesting concept, but one of those films which, if it had been done in the 60's instead of the 70's somehow would have been way more cool.  You know?  Something about it just seems tired, kind of on the level of that ridiculous Bee Gee's Sergeant Pepper thing with Peter Frampton.  Remember that?  But anyway, the good thing is now all those excellent songs are going through my head.  Put in your ear plugs, put on your eye shades, you know where to put the ball.  na na na na na.

Plus the Marilyn Monroe / Eric Clapton segment was cool – got me thinking about our celebrity culture now.  So, since everyone else is talking about Lindsey Lohan I figure I'll put in my two cents.  I keep reading how she is the "New Robert Downey Jr. of her Generation," [First of all, you can't have a NEW Robert Downey Jr. people, He is a one-of-a-kind timelessly excellent respected actor.  And speaking of Downy, I finally saw Zodiac.  Oh my god.  What an amazing performance.  The cool thing was I was sitting next to an older guy from Iraq on the plane while watching it, and he leaned over at one point and told me RDJ is his favorite actor and he loved him in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and I'm like, Oh I know, and we ended up having a really nice long conversation about movies, and then politics, history, religion.  See! Downey can bring nations together!]  But ANYWAY, what's amazing to me is level of attention she's getting.  When Downey screwed up, unless my memory is serving me incorrectly, I think I would hear about it on entertainment shows, or, if it did make the evening news, they at least waited for the entertainment section of the news.  I don't remember it being headlines, for crying out loud.  The level of fame which is bestowed upon young people now just seems more intense than anything I remember witnessing in my lifetime.  I mean, I know it's happened before - Elvis was this famous.  Marilyn, The Beatles.  But,  it seems like the big difference is that then, at the height of their fame, people actually LIKED Elvis and Marilyn and the Beatles,   Maybe it's just my narrow social circle, but I have never personally met ANYONE who admits to liking or having any interest in Lindsey or Britney or Paris.  So how the hell can they be so famous?  The internet?  That must be it.  After all, the internet knows where you've clicked.  It knows all.  It keeps constant tabs on us.  Everyone can SAY they don't care, but at the end of the day, when the hits are tallied up, it turns out everybody, man and woman, young and old, apparently likes to look at pictures of cute young women.  And here comes Uncle Ernie to guide you TO, your very own machine . . . na na na na na   And then it becomes a vicious circle.  Advertisers realize how secretly popular these people are and start pushing them into prime time news, etc, which makes them even more clickable on the internet, etc.    

Anyway, 'nuff about that.  In other news, I'm still enjoying Chicago.  Having a great summer, and I'm actually glad I'm not traveling so much any more.  I'm in CHICAGO.  Why would I need to travel?  Just the other day I went to the China Town here and got all the delicious dim sum and bubble tea I could consume.  Just like being in Taiwan. 

 
Listening to you.  I get the music.  Gazing at you.  I get the heat.  Following you.  I climb the mountain.  I get excitment at your feeeeet

Is anyone else really tired this week or is it just me? 

Made it home on Sunday.  Saw James Belushi walk by while I was sitting in the taxi waiting for them to run my credit card through.  He came out of the House of Blues, alone, and walked over to a limo parked outside the hotel.  Then he had a friendly conversation with the bell boy, who was seriously kissing butt.  But anyway, thought that was cool.  I rarely see celebs.  I'm not a huge fan, but he seemed like a really nice guy. 

Anyway, so, it is looking like Rob is not going to get any funding next year to continue his graduate studies.  It's so fucked up.  Why do these schools lure you in with generous packages the first year, and then leave you hanging?  What's extra insulting is one of the students who DID get funding has gotten WORSE grades than Rob, and continuously misses lectures, and cancels his own TA discussion sessions because he's too tired or busy or some lame excuse.  But then he has plenty of time to sit in the professors' offices and schmooze.  It's all a political popularity contest.  I know the world is "like that" but at the same time, these university people are totally self-righteous and are always talking about how much more "integrity" they have than the "evil capitalists" out in the corporate world, but then they turn around and behave exactly the same.  So, what do you do.  If we have to pay for it ourselves I'm just not sure it's worth it.  Maybe it is.  Maybe you need a high level degree to even compete any more.  Who knows.  We are just discouraged.  He's worked so hard and deserves better!  Sorry, just had to vent. 

Anyway, the weather is beautiful today.  Finally spring here. 

I don't think Justin Timberlake is attractive at all. 

I used my hotel points to get a free massage while in Thailand.  I've never had a professional massage before.  It was funny because I didn't realize how modest our culture is.  I walked into the room in a robe and swim suit, since I'd been at the pool, and the masseuse is like, "okay, take everything off, and lie on your back."  And then she didn't leave!  I'm so used to, you know, at the doctor's office they give you privacy when you're taking off your clothes and then give you some kind of thing to cover yourself, but no, this woman just stood there like, "well, I'm waiting!"  I think of myself as not the type to have hang-ups like that, but you know, it was awkward.  And then during the course of the massage, she massaged my stomach, and yeah, you just lie there totally exposed.  Weird.  But anyway, it felt good, and whatever aromatic oil she used smelled great.  I would do it again!