t-minus 33 minutes -

‘Til my bday. I’m inclined to say it already feels a little blah though I can’t articulate exactly why. It’s not my age. I mean 33 – I covet it. It’s has to be the second most desirable age to 25. I’m sure it’s partly my lack of concrete plans, other than Not Working (aside from Managing). We’re going to have dinner at an Italian place. IF it’s a sunny daytime, I imagine I’ll make my way downtown and attempt to photograph le town. Possibly have a treat lunch at the café. Because clearly, if Penelope can’t have the actual day off on her birthday (Wednesday? ick), can’t hang out allday with J.Lo, or be surrounded by all her besties (why do you people all live so far away?), a sure way to make her happy is good food. As evidenced by this highly awesome picture at the RickBayless restaurant. Pre-prophetic hotcocoa. That was a damn excellent panini.

Also I confess I used my birthday money to purchase a Keurig coffee maker. Don’t judge. Although really, how could anyone judge because kcups are awesome. The only thing I really need to procure is tea kcup for the afternoon. Lest I fully form a 3-cup/day habit. It’s making me a bit jittery.

Good beverages also make a Penelope smile.

I might also rent a movie I love from the library, or revisit the vampires at dusk. The fates will decide. Oh, and it is Survivor Wednesday. Word. Survivor and vampires also greatly appeal to a Penelope.

You know what other picture I love? This one. Pen&M Perfection.

Heart you. Miss you. Even though my Grandma had just died, my last birthday rocked bcs it was with you! No one else in the world would scatter confetti across the kitchen table for me and carve a happy face out of a clementine.

xoxoxox

pen on the cusp of 33

currently -

I’m waiting for K.Lo to go to sleep, which is going to take awhile, because really it’s like 7:15PM and not 8:15PM like the clock says. Dear Benjamin Franklin… DST was a cute idea, but clearly you were not anyone’s mom.

Anyway, K.Lo’s got her Pillow Pet turtle wearing a Cabbage Patch NY Yankees jersey and a white lacy Baptismal bib, and is calling her Grandma Turtle. And apparently Grandma Turtle is witnessing the crucifixion of Jesus. Poor Jesus, who was killed by the bad men.

Yep, we went to church yesterday. 

On a sidenote, I was thinking about growing out my hair as well, primarily in protest of the crap selection of stylists here. Like the one place I was considering – I took K.Lo there, and the stylist did not cut a straight line. Pretty grim pickins. So I’ll either break down and travel elsewhere for a haircut, or maybe I’ll let it grow. For now it’s growing. I’m not in a hurry. More curious about what it’ll do this time. Like hmm, will it finally lay right? Might I actually look good with long hair? It’s doubtful but maybe I’ll go there for awhile and see.

Chicago is still on my mind a bit, but too like a distant yet lovely memory. I still need to post my pics of Graceland? Or maybe not.

***

currently -

It’s the next day and I’m procrastinating easing into what I’d like to accomplish for Job 1 today. Job 2 appears to be experiencing another lull, which again I won’t ponder. It leaves me more time to stare into space while I wait.

I will say that I’d be lost without books. The HG trilogy is nothing short of amazing and dareIsuggest that if they weren’t so popular you might like them too. ;)

Here in Lenten season, or maybe it’s pre-spring, or maybe it’s simply this transitory season of life, I also feel myself looking around, blinking, wondering. I’m really not ready to feast. Fasting, I can work on that. But feasting on all the listed items in the litany – I can gaze upon them, these beautiful words laid out on the table, but I can’t yet taste. Maybe a sampling thieved surreptitiously here or there, but I’m not ready to sit down and engage with each dish.

that’s all for now –

your penelope

Pen,

Here's a poem from the book you gave me:

Ash Wednesday

Stepping from the brightness of Epiphany
I enter an unfamiliar place called "Lent"
My eyes are slow to adjust to the change.
I blink back tears and stand still wondering
if my eyes are open or closed,
for nothing visible lies before me.

My sense tell me there are objects ahead--
prized places, sacred spaces.
There is no sense of urgency;
time has fallen away leaving
forty days and forty nights
to explore this unknown, yet somehow familiar place;
touching, feeling, knowing holy moments.

-(gretchen oliver)

-I think this is how i feel about things.

In other news a list of things:

-chicago fallen away like a bright but distant memory of good food, friends, that restaurant (the one that I wanted that wouldn't open) trying to live on cash only and surviving. that was a feat even if this month is a failure. i want to say more but i already feel adrift from that magical place.
-my eye is twitching (still) and i don't even want to talk about my toe
-my nails are growing which is nice and i debate growing my hair long or cutting it but i don't suppose i mind the grey.
-the wisteria is blooming soft and alluring, the freesia is a heady druggingly sweet fragrance that hits you as you walk by and demands attention, the lilac is lovely, formal and reserved.
-i named the grey cat Mortimer. But i'd like a cat and a dog to have in the house. Not that i don't love the ones i have.
-i have to pick the rest of the oranges
-i have to paint
-and quilt
-i filled up a miniature journal. it only took me 1.4 years.
-i'm out of gas, so i have to go... so i can go get some. literally. i mean but i think i'm also out of gas non-literally. so either way.

have a good day,
m.

for lenten reference -

I like the reframing of perspective here, the things from which we fast vs. those on which we feast.

-pen

 

LITANY FOR THE FAST

“Gracious Lord and Savior, by your example, we are called to a time of meditation and fasting. By your Holy Spirit, help us to fast from judging others;

feasting on the Christ dwelling within them.

To fast from emphasis on differences;

feasting on the unity of all life.

To fast from dark thoughts;

feasting on the reality of light.

To fast from discontent;

feasting on gratitude.

To fast from anger;

feasting on patience.

To fast from pessimism;

feasting on optimism.

To fast from worry;

feasting on trust.

To fast from bitterness;

feasting on forgiveness.

To fast from self-concern;

feasting on compassion for others.

To fast from personal anxiety;

feasting on your promised salvation.

To fast from discouragement;

feasting on hope.

To fast from suspicion;

feasting on divine truth.

To fast from words that defeat;

feasting on actions that inspire.

To fast from idle gossip;

feasting on respectful silence.

Grant to us, O Lord, a spirit of humility, patience and love so we can truly become your body broken and shared for the world. Amen.”

must find the time to say more,

hi friends. look at these two ladies. they make me happy. i met them both in chicago in the same year.

and now of course i thought they both had blue eyes... like a grey blue. maybe. but no. they both rather vehemently asserted that after 10+years of knowing them that no, no, we have GREEN EYES! whoops. of course i feel they've been lied to their entire lives but whatever. Green. Ok. How can I argue with those faces. i did admit its my narcissism that keeps me from believing them. there's a whole range of blues and greens- what we're talking about is being aware of nuance. but anyway it is perhaps because we have most of our friendship on paper as i had about 2ish years with cath and almost a year with pen. my two far away penpals. but i can only blame their lack of sending me pictures so much. i hang my head in shame. light sage maybe? i know they both have blonde hair though as they get older they argue with me more about the color it's turning. strangely i had a dream about accidently dying my hair blonde just last night. hmm.

i do like though that friendship is a constant discovery and because we haven't spent years asking every question of one another, surprising things come out even if we're just blinking at one another or yelling at one another from opposite rooms. i met them both when i was a grad student in chicago. cathy was working at borders with me and would come up and give me hugs in the kid section. it was as if i had always been her neighbor. she obviously gets high points for having been raised in southern california. we speak a similar language. penelope would sit in our seminar class and not say a word. 4 at least six months. unnerving but powerful. as i would always give her sideways glances and ponder her mysterious ways. and even then we were reading each others stories literally from day to day, so it translated quite nicely when email after email we built something lovely out of inanimate and electronic objects. words. circuitry. fused by snark, anxiety, and poetry.

i'm not sure what i would do without these women. sometimes yes i do think they might be figments of my imagination. but luckily i am reminded that i am not that creative. but mightily blessed.

we ate a lot of good food -

And I miss it. Obviously I realize that vacay food is a treat, not how you eat in your normal, everyday life – as per its very terminology, but still. I have to say above all I’m still stinging from that trip to WholeFoods. I mean, after we finally found it. *cough snicker* Ah, WholeFoods. This town will never have anything close, but as I’ve mentioned before, the grocery options are simply grim. And WF served to illuminate just how grim, paining me deeply.

On the plus side, WF’s are only an hour away, and before I moved, they were at least two hours away. So a mini road trip’s entirely plausible. Always must look at the bright side and enjoy in the meantime my boatload of cheap groceries from the supercenter, Voldemart, even if they lack that certain WFlair.

But don’t think I haven’t fantasized at length about taking a WF birthday sojourn for the express purpose of buying myself dark chocolate covered caramels with sea salt. AKA “penelope’s medicine.”

Moving on. Outside of the WF, I drank a lot of diner coffee and you ate a lot of scrambled eggs. Mine were over easy with (ideally) a side of toast, although at AnnSathers (after we finally found it *mwah*) I noticed they did skimp on said toast. But the skinny pancakes made up for it. Even though I felt a little undercurrent of hostility for requesting additional syrup. Which you talked me down from, saying I could share yours. And you thought the waitress sort of hated us, but I posited that her manner was simply more businesslike in general and she did note that her sister shared your name. Which was unequivocally a warmfuzzy, we must concede.

I also drank coffee at JohnHancock’s Apparently Top Secret Sky Bar, and it was like, $5, although honestly I expected it to be more. Just based on the menu. Said coffee was served in an iced-tea glass, which still causes a head-scratching pause, but it was tasty so who am I to complain. My JH coffee stirrer is currently on my car seat, having fallen out of my purse. Did you leave your Voss water bottle vase with Cath?

The cash-only diner with the shiny red seats recommended by not one, but two strangers, was also nice, though instead of coffee-cup vigilance, the staff might have just dropped a nickel on our table. Because seriously – just one cup. That’s all I need!Thankyouverymuch! I mean, I really appreciate it but still.

At MarshallFields/Macys, which will always be MF to me, we slathered our cuticles (and possibly the entire length of our forearms, for those of us whose names rhyme with “audacious”) in lemon-buttery stuff, whose scent you did not actually enjoy, but really I’d take some of that home, please. In the real world, I tragically tend to my cuticles pretty much never. And then we took the WonkaVator to the 5th floor and gazed at the Tiffany ceiling. Lingerie models held a dance party in the background, because who wouldn’t dance all the time, with a roof like that over your head. And lunch on the 7th floor was mediocre at best, but we made do with our view-less table and lackluster tea. My chicken with wildrice soup was aiight.

Then on Saturday, you took me on a train (but not a bus) and down some back alleyway to eat a cheezborger. But not just any cheezborger, a BillyGoatTavern cheezborger. Where do they find that crotchety man to take orders at the grill, and does he really care if you don’t order a double? I kind of think he does. And looking back, I really should have upped my order, as per his kindly, i.e. aggressive, suggestion. But it was just a midafternoon snack, so I don’t know. The BGT was perfectly seedy and just. like. the SNL skit, so I was pleased. Not to mention the pickle condiment bar. PICKLES. As many as you want. It’s how a cheezborger should be.

I wanna go back and eat everything all over again. But sadly, one can only step forward, not back. So I’m making do with my stupidsuperstore and cooking some new things through the pain and pondering a kitchen the color of Cinnamon. I leave you to cover TANK (damn you, TANK!) and GreekTown, including my apparent inability to walk. Don’t forget to mention that effing amazing fried goat cheese with tomato sauce that changed my life.

xoxoxoxo

penelope, your partner in crime

Graceland,

We finally went to graceland. Not sure why I never got around to it when i lived there. But we made it. The snow delivered a majestic and idyllic scene that literally vanished the next day in the rain. And after being handed a list of important people that were mostly all men, Pen and I went off to explore. I thought a cool tour would be a tour of ordinary people or ordinary people with cool names. Like this guy below- oh, august awe. how can we compete with a name like that. Another cool name was Harold Ernest Stump. I want to know what these random people did and what poor Emma looked like, young mother, deceased on a warm?june day in 18?69.

We made it about an hour as Pens hands were going numb (note her silly gloves with no finger tops) and I was alternately sweating in my ridiculously warm coat and kicking dusty snow off my shoes so it wouldn't soak through the mesh holes. (equally silly). But still a pretty magical place- the quiet dampened sounds. The crunch of our foot steps. The murder of crows off to the left. The ambiguous and locked chapel. The various masoleums and melancholy statuary. The many limbed trees networked through a grey sky. An alluring hint of a story. Passing through.

Mystical Points and other diversions,

As has been noted in blogs previous, something always happens when Pen and I get together. Chi was no exception. Pen made me go to Xoco. Which is some derivitive of the ancient word for chocolate. My stomach unfortunately wasn't quite repaired so I didn't get through half of this delicious cup of awesome. So round about when it beat me I started to stare deep within its confines for answers in order to cope with my inability. And as you can see there is clearly a heart in the center there, and to the left a lovely tree. One can carry this image further to the right of an entire landscape. So then I was all, Pen what's in your cup- to which she suddenly went oh what?! that's pilot mountain! Clearly its a volcano erupting but she said, trust me. So then the internet provided us with the absolute creep factor conversation of why Pilot mountain was in her cup and why there was a heart and a tree in mine... which apparently also suspiciously looks like 'hanging rock state park'- apparently we're going to have to go to there. On a quest perhaps. Chocolate is suppose to have mystical properties... was used in rituals... and uh apparently is speaking to us about North Carolina's great wilderness. We can only wonder why.

So anyway then she saw Rick Bayless. Not once but twice and it was suddenly the perfect experience. We'll let you know what happens when we go to pilot mountain in some undetermined fall sojourn.

As it is the next weird experience was when we wandered into this creepy occult shop which would almost be cool because of the saints and the aeresol spray cans that say "to ward off evil" except for the not so cool stuff they sell intermixed. I started getting a headache but I'm sure it was because of all the incense and anti-jinx candles burning. Now Pen is 'mad' because I wouldn't let her buy this little 'lucky money' buddha- which I wouldn't have had a problem with except at that exact moment I picked up a card with Jesus on it for 'economic hardship'... So she turns to me with the little green idol- uh, buddha- and i just, at that very moment, read about a prayer to jesus so you know. What could i do. Our minds suddenly each arrived at a crisis and one was a question and the other was the answer. Clearly not a coincidence right? It was almost uncanny in the timing of it.

Anyway ANTM is on and I'm thirsty. More on the not so weird and strange Chicago later.

i need to begin photographing my town for you -

Because when I came back from Chi (and no, of course we’re not nearly done talking about Chi – we’ve barely begun!), I noticed patches of green grass and budding trees. Which means soon the whole world’s gonna be beautiful. Which makes me excited about everything.

So I was downtown for a bit today and sort of dying to photograph everything. But I didn’t. Not yet. It will be a piecey photo tour. Today, you get the post office. It’s all historic and whatnot, with marble on the walls and the floors and very ornate moldings. Someone put some art and effort into this building, once upon a time. Like they used to do with all important buildings. You know. I’m absolutely sure it has a ghost or two, at least.

I had two children in tow and milk in need of refrigeration in the car – excuses excuses. And then there’s the conspicuous photographer thing. But annnyway – here’s a glimpse. The post office. And my little K.Lo moppet, who did want her photograph taken, but not N.Lo, because he did not want his photograph taken. You have to know these things.

about you -

Things I never knew before Chi ‘11:

- M does not like to ride backward on the train.

- M panics about selecting books. The pressure, the commitment. She does better when handed a book and told, “Read this. I know you’ll love it.”

- M can read a map very well. Not always in her life, but one day it clicked. Except sometimes, especially after a bout of stomach flu, directional challenges can get dicey. As in walking toward a dead-end in the airport, or traversing the same block three times in pursuit of an Ann Sather’s. Or a Whole Foods. But she’ll always ask directions without reservation, culling the best answer from several.

- M does not like to shop. Not really. She’s all business. Although it’s probably in your best interest to leave the bookstore after 20 minutes, anyway.

- M will not let you buy the little Buddha whose belly you wish to rub. Because it won’t bring you money, not really. Instead, she’ll suggest a prayer card addressing Jesus re: financial woes. Which you won’t buy because you’re too busy pouting.

- M sees the art in modern installations, where I more often see glorified finger-painting. She’s excited; I’m furious. (Although I’m sure she’s right.)

- M is a bottom-of-the-tube toothpaste squeezer. Just like J.Lo. Non-negotiable.

- M does not like olives, neither green nor black. (Also just like J.Lo.) Or mushrooms. Which only means more for me.

So many new revelations! For future travel, I’m keeping my notebook at the ready for more information, as it is received.

xo,

penthropologist