a collection of thoughts written through out the day.


I am tired. Tired. Tired. Tired. That is what I get for starting off my morning with 1.5 bloody marys. Note to self: be sure to eat something when you start drinking at 9am. After 28 years, a degree from prestigious university and touring with various punk/ska bands, you think I might be able to figure out that food comes before alcohol. No such luck. Age does not equal intelligence.

It’s snowing!!! Winter has finally returned. No more wussy, pussy warm spring like winter. Frozen fingers, nose and toes here I come!!

At work, I have been asked to listen to a bunch of punk bands and pick which ones would be good for a promotion for one of our clients. Never would have I thought this would happen. If someone came up to me when I was sixteen and told me that someday my expertise in punk music would help me in my job, I would have rolled my eyes and told them to fuck off. But 12 years later, here I am being paid by corporate America to share my knowledge of the “alternative”. Uh, huh.

Thinking about it now, it is strange that while in high school I receive a double dose of education. I was learning English, geometry and physics during the day and absorbing the in-and-outs of the punk scene during the evenings and weekends. Through my boyfriend, Scot, I learned about punk music by sitting in his basement listening to Jawbreaker, Screeching Weasel, Green Day and Pegboy. He took me to punk shows at McGregors, the Metro or various local VWF halls, exposing me to the intricacies of the mosh pit and the complexities of the social scene at clubs. Now, all this education is being put into play and used by corporate clients who don’t know GG Allen from Joey Ramone. Bet that the punks in 1970s London never thought their scene would be used to sell everything from tampons to bologna. Ah, capitalism.

lunch of a cup of carrots and white cheddar mac and cheese from trader joes. in six minutes i get to run and get a massage. ahhhhhhhh!!!!

things of worth:

www.saundersjonathan.com
a kick ass website by a photographer who went to school with my friend lisa. she and i spent a good hour exploring the site last night and i still haven't gotten all the way through it. his portraits are beautiful, but the best part of his site is his journal. a nice mix of design, photography and art. reminds me of dan eldon's journals. (a photojournalist that was killed while on assignment. his mother and sister published a book of his journals.)

www.heifer.org
a nonprofit organization that helps to alleviate hunger and poverty by giving families through out the work animals such as lambs, llamas, pigs, etc. so the family can have food and a source of income. a freelancer i work with gave 2 llamas in all our names. so cool.

i'm late. off to my massage.

an old blog off of another blog site. it needs to be published and experience the light of day. i like it. the thing though about looking at old writting is how much things change and stay the same. since this blog, jef and i have dated, i fell in love (i don't know if he ever did), broke up and moved on. jason is still living in atlanta and as far as i know he is being his jason self. i never did make it to my step class three times a week or my abs class. now, i just do step, yoga and a little running on the side.

enjoy.


[2/28/2001 9:43:16 PM | lorene]
another day over. i'm tired. went and did step class. it always feel so good to work out. I can't believe how addicted i am becoming to it. Next week, i will start doing step class three times a week and an abs class. I'm beginning to see result too. It's nice. I spent the rest of the night cleaning up my house. It looks and smells pretty good. Tomorrow, I'm having jef over for dinner. Should be fun if we both can get over our shyness and talk some. We'll see. He is an amazing guy. Simply amazing. It nice to be excited about a boy again. If things don't progress past friends with Jef, I'm fine with that. Because of him, I realize that i am not broken. I can still feel something for guys. It's good. He's given me that and also reminds me that life is more than just drinking, socializing and bars. He brings out the younger, innocent me and it's nice to see her again.

Yesterday, I was feeling pretty tramatic and was looking for music to sooth me. Unfortantly, all my good music was in my car which is in St. Charles getting fixed. Thumbing through the erasure, smiths and countless compulation tapes, i found a mix tape of all bob dylan that jason made for me when i was sixteen. I thought, "oooo, i never really liked this. i need something mellow now. dylan is mellow. maybe i'll like it now." with that reasoning, i slipped it into my tape deck and headed to work.

The tape caught me by surprize. I really like it. Jason had mixed classic dylan with lesser know songs filled with bitting, raw wit. I kept giggling and smiling to myself on the way to the el. Other commuters must have thought i had gone insane. This tape that was over ten years old was finally connecting with me. I understand why people listen to dylan and where jason gets his raw sense of humor. I suddenly understood another facet to jason. Years later, he just gets more complex.

I thought about the jason of 16 years old versus the jason of today. We used to sit around the old big boy drinking coffee for hours and talking about everything. He was the smartest, strangest person that i knew. And he was so beautiful. He used to come up to my locker and stomp on my feet, even when i was wearing sandles – a lovely jason hello. We never kissed. We were just friends that skirted the issue of liking each other. It would have never worked.

Now, Jason looks the same, but years drinking and of not acheiving his dreams have made him bitter. His sacrastic humor no longer pokes and prods, but cuts the conversation wide opening drawing blood. His beauty made older by the nights drinking alone at bars or at home. The last time i saw him a year ago, he was perched swaying on a bar stool steadly getting louder and more obnious with each drink. Val and I dragged him out of the bar before he provoked a fight. He waved us away and stumbled down a side alley in wicker park. Val and i tried to call him back cuz he's not from here (he lives in atlanta), but he didn't listen. Jason never listened anyway. He is too stubborn. We can't win against him. Jason stumbled on singing old folk songs to himself as val and i walked home praying that he would be fine.

I miss the old jason.

my third post to blogger today. mr. joe would be proud. now, those of you out there that can count are now scratching their heads saying," this girl has gone crazy!! there is only two posts up counting this one." well you are right and i am right. the lovely little blog gremlins got hungry around 5:30pm today and ate my last entry which never was published. the literary greatness of that blog has been lost to the vortex of their little stomachs and i am too tired right now to try and recreate it. maybe tomorrow.

one thought though before i crash and burn into dreamland – if i lived thousands of years ago with the cavemen or their ancestors, i would have never survived. never mind, that i couldn't run after wild game or eat raw chicken with my bare hands or make friends with the lice in my hair. i am refering to the fact that i wouldn't be able to see. i am totally blind without my glasses. i would have been a burden to my tribe. they might have taken care of me for a while, but sooner or later, someone would shove me in front of a herd of stompeding elephants and it would be all over.

okay. maybe they wouldn't be so harsh. (they could always save me until they had no food and eat me.) i still couldn't function. let's say, my family needs me to pick berries. i can't find the berries let alone which bushes they are on. trees are big hazy patches of various shades of green and animals are all brown specks that move across the mutted yellow background. (an elephant looks like a lion which looks like a gazelle which looks like a zebra which looks like my hairy cro-magnum dad.) basically, i'd be dead. my lifespan would be zero. the most surreal thing about this entire thread is that it came at the end of my yoga class. these are the thoughts that come to me in my most relaxed and zen state of being. hmmmm…

it's fucked. december in chicago does not equal rain. it equals snow, sleat, zero degree tempatures and weather men telling exaggerating tales about the wind chill. It equals lake effect snow, chairs saving parking spaces and children wrapped like cocoons. But rain? Thunder? (i sense el nino's mark on this. bastard.) Have we been castrated, falling from a fearsome weather city to "pleasant getaway destination"? will we be suddenly inidated with snowbirds looking for viagra, mcdonalds and a golf course? probably not, but tonight i am doubting chicago's fierceness and our proper place in the metrological mythology. i am sure next week when tempatures hit 5º i'll be pleading for the rain to come back, but tonight i scorn it. it just isn't right.