america's next top maniac

I just spent the last hour watching America's Next Top Model with my fiance. He immediately honed in on one model's eyebrows.
Lev: "Oh my GOD! WHAT ARE THOSE?!"
me: "What are what?"
Lev: "Those THINGS! On her FACE!!"
me: "Those are eyebrows."
Lev: "Those are caterpillars."
me: "..."
Lev: "Oh, and she has a bad attitude! Baaaad attitude! Ooh she bad. She don't care."
[I have nothing to add to his reverie at this point]
Lev [leaving the room]: "Show's over. SHE'S OUT!"

Check out the skirt I made out of that fabric I bought.

grande dame

Ok, I know that I've been posting and posting (and posting) about the new job. But I just love it so much! I'm finally, totally, truly employed as an editor and I'm working with happy, lovely people. It's too much almost.

I talked to my stepfather tonight. He's been a great source of support and inspiration for both me and Lev; he is successful in his own right and the humblest person I've ever known. He pointed out that we are each in charge of our own destiny--realizing what it is that you actually want, however, requires curiosity, drive and follow-through.

For the first time in my life I'm excited feeling secure about my career. I'm looking at the job I have and I can easily picture having it (or some incarnate thereof) in five or ten years. Lev is looking forward to starting school in the fall. It's happening!

oh em gee

I love my new job! I love my new job! I love my new job!

and sometimes...

And sometimes on Sundays, I actually get stuff done.

african print close-up

my studio. these prints are about to be summer skirts.

ball jars...(I know, putting bulk grain into jars probably doesn't qualify as "getting stuff done.")

mean greenie

It's getting a little greener, no?

Still haven't found an apartment. I looked at a total dump that was nearly twice the price of our humble abode and it made me love our little place. We probably won't move until June, anyway--and we are happy here in the mean time. Happy Sunday!

new digs

Lev and I spent the day driving down back streets on "slow," looking at For Rent signs in apartment windows. We may be moving out of Pilsen--while the rent is unbeatable here, it's very far from my new job and we're thinking north side.

While I hate moving, I do it. Frequently. The prospect of a new apartment is always so attractive to me. I love the idea of being in a place that's like my place, but better. There's always room for improvement, right?

Tomorrow I'm looking at an apartment. I hope it's great and I won't have to keep looking. I also hope that I don't do the Lizzy-looking-at-apartments thing and take the very first thing I see (I've never not done that), and then feel like maybe I should have looked more. Tomorrow it's all on me, too-Lev and I are on totally opposite schedules and so he's going to work while I look at apartments in the Ukrainian Village.

Lev just looked over here and said, "Don't do that thing where you sign a lease without looking at anything else." HE KNOWS.

Today.

Pilsen Botanica

the briefcase, in brief

Today as promised I went downtown and bought some business casual work wear. I also bridged the gap between adolescence and adulthood by purchasing this, my first computer/work-totebag-briefcase-whatever-you-call-it bag.

Baby's first briefcase

I thought about this bag long and hard. First of all, it wasn't cheap--I mean it was at Filene's Basement so it wasn't exactly expensive, but it wasn't thrift store elegance either. I also thought about what this bag means; I stared at my Converse All-Stars and thought about whether I was ready to be all "adult" about going to my new job. I decided in the affirmative and brought the bag to the cashier's line.

Standing in line, I scanned the purses a final time. There was a bag that caught my eye--an oversized slouchy leather bag that probably wasn't that useful for toting a computer around. Getting out of line, I made a beeline for the bag. A woman was already there, looking over each purse. I asked her if I could look at one of them (there were three on the rack and she had two on her arm and one in her hand). "Oh yeah, sure. Nice bags." I sort of joked with her and asked her what she was examining on the bags--she was looking at the grain of the leather (note to self: when shopping at bargain basement places, be like that lady and look for quality). 

We ended up having the sort of light conversation that is made at stores across the world--that's nice, so's that, what are you looking for, etc. I told her that I was looking for a bag to bring to work, and looked doubtfully at the briefcase I'd been holding. She told me that it was "time to grow up" and buy a real work bag! No slouchy bags! 

And I got back in line and purchased this, my first real work bag. I can fit basically everything including my laptop in it. So thank you, lady at Filene's, for helping me make this informed and career-appropriate decision! And I like this new bag of mine, too. 

self portraiture

Today Lev and I took a trip out of town to hit up some thrift stores. I got some shoes and an anxiety attack inside of Salvation Army after looking at one too many chipped plates and then we went on a meandering drive, eventually ending up on Lakeshore Drive.

It's raining and grey in Chicago today. I know I said I was NOT going to spend any time on the couch this week, but I voted against myself and here I am, feet up, watching Roseanne. Tomorrow I'm getting serious about business casual at H&M.

Note that my new shoes are called "Cobbie Cuddlers" and have a bizarre/interesting crest imprinted in the leather. Hello, summer shoes!

summer shoes...relaaax

Countdown to new job! Six days until I start (Monday).

Spoon-placemat match-up

last gasp of the master cleanse

Although I am officially off of the master cleanse, I keep making those lemon-pepper drinks because they are just so good-looking...

this day

today.

Gold locket I've had since turning 12. Silver chain, this year. 



Laredo Roper boots



the journey

Today marks the end of roughly three years of UIC work. When I think about who I was in 2008--wow. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life in April, 2008. I had been a bicycle messenger/freelance editor for almost a year and that wasn't cutting it, financially. I lived in a crappy apartment on North and Western with a roommate. Lev wasn't even a glimmer in my eye--he was in Portland and I didn't know him yet.

In my initial department at UIC, I worked for a terrific, encouraging professor who recognized my editing background and utilized it to the fullest. What would have been a somewhat boring administrative job became a rigorous editing position where I was the go-to editor for all department publications and papers. I learned more about science writing in that job than I could have learned anywhere. It was truly wonderful.

At the end of 2009 the department lost their funding and we all took a significant (20%) pay cut. I moved back to Portland to live at my father's condo for next to nothing, do more freelance editing and "do art" (right?). While living in my hometown, I became a full-fledged Portlander: I was lazy, unemployed and overly eager to stay out until 3 am. However, I did meet Lev, and that was stroke of luck--we met through friends and quickly realized that we were the "best and brightest" of the group (ha ha but seriously), and that it was in our best interest to get out of Portland while we still had our savings. Back to Chicago we went!

We came to Chicago on the Empire Builder Amtrak route. It was a 45-hour trip. We did not splurge for a sleeper car, either--we sat in our uncomfortable and increasingly unbearable seats. At night we slept with our legs crisscrossed over each other, trying to find a position that worked. I found myself unable to sleep at night but falling into a deep and satisfying slumber as soon as the sun came up.

At 3:30 pm on Sunday, April 18, 2010, we spilled out of Chicago's Union Station with all of our earthly possessions--roughly five suitcases. We lived on people's floors and back porches for a month while waiting for our apartment. And what would have been stressful was made enjoyable because we could smile, laugh and sigh together.

I went back to UIC and found work. Lev found a job as well. Both of us quickly realized that we needed satisfying careers. And that brings us here, to where we are now. I am starting a career-track job next week, and Lev is applying to school. We haven't made it yet, but we're getting there.

Tonight my baby cooked me some good ol' west coast comfort food: kale and brown rice. Best kale ever, seriously. This man can cook. 

expensive cotton

Today after I dropped Lev off at work I went to Target to pick up a bathmat--our tub drains painfully slowly and as a result it can be slick with soap if it isn't freshly washed. I'm not into scrubbing out the tub more than once a week, so that leaves six days where it is dangerously slippery. And I found out firsthand this morning how dangerous that can be when I slipped and fell while taking a shower. Just like those advertisements geared towards the elderly that warn the viewer about slipping in the tub, I totally spazzed and hurt my shoulder.

Solution? Bathmat. At Target. Just a bathmat. Yeah right! What is it about Target that makes you want to spend too much on total crap? I already admitted to Lev that I was attracted to "brightly colored things," and today proved to be no different. I walked in determined to purchase only a bathmat, and I walked out with a cloth decorative shower curtain ($15.99), four brightly colored cotton place mats ($6.99), two bath towels ($4.99 each), a mat for the kitchen sink ($4.99), two cereal bowls ($4.99 each) and, oh yeah, what I came there for--the bathmat. With tax I ended up spending over $60.

As I was hanging the shower curtain I realized that it was basically just a 72"x72" poly-cotton square of fabric. There is an awesome fabric warehouse RIGHT BY MY HOUSE, where I could have picked out a cooler square of fabric for way less money, sewn it myself, and felt a surge of pride every time I went into the bathroom. And that is when I realized that Target is the worst store ever, and that I will probably shop there for the rest of my life.

Oh and happy first day of spring! We made it!

New brightly colored placemats. Note lemons from failed fast

New shower curtain

dream that woke me up at 4am

I had an anxiety dream last night that made me bolt upright with a gasp. It was that Lev was taking me on a canoe ride down the L. A. river and at the end of it he took out a skateboard that I was supposed to get on and ride.

Anybody who knows me knows that I can't skateboard to save my life. And the Los Angeles river is disgusting.

My gasping woke Lev and I told him about the dream. He was half-asleep and sympathetic, but apparently he couldn't get back to sleep. When I woke up at 8 he was in his office, crafting (his word for it). Lev: "I've been up since 4am doing this! This is awesome!"

fasting failure

Well I'm an utter failure at fasting. The master cleanse is not for me, apparently. I'm lying on the couch, eating an apple (just finished a bagel), watching a special on steam engine locomotives.

Garlic, how I missed thee. Hello tofu, I've missed you too. Veggies, you delight me and I can't wait to cook with you tonight.

Oh, and Lev wants you all to know that I broke the fast with pizza. Topped with italian beef (he ordered it, but man it was DELICIOUS). Don't judge.

the textual massage

Yesterday after I got home from work Lev was perusing my blog (shock upon shock, I know) and he discovered that I'd included a photo of him in one of my posts. He is not down with having his face up around the Internet and he asked me to take it down. For whatever reason, that sparked an argument where I was making the craziest face that I could possibly think of (I remember thinking to myself, "See red! See red!") and finally Lev gave up and left the house. It is usually around this time of the month (I'm a madwoman for four days a month) that he "leaves the house" because of an argument but he doesn't actually take off, he just goes downstairs and sits in the truck while I send him text messages. These text messages are usually stuff like "I see how it is!" and "Thanks a lot!" which, now that I write them without being angry, seem stupid and immature.

So after about five minutes of this nonsense on my end and no replies from Lev I got tired of it and simultaneously received a message from him: "I love and admire you, please stop acting like this." Ok, argument's over. He wins. Dang.

I'm used to being able to kind of do whatever I want--put anything up on the Internet, say whatever to whoever, and never really have to answer for it. Even though Lev and I have been together for many moons it sometimes takes me a minute to really consider his feelings or opinion when I do something. That may be the secret about marriage--you are spending those years together getting used to each other. In many ways I feel as though I've been with Lev my whole life; I felt as though I'd known him forever the moment I met him. However, there are things about him that are surprising and joyous as well, that I couldn't have known when we met. 

I'm sure that ten or twenty years from now I'll look back and think of this as the time when we were so new. But right now I just feel lucky--lucky to know Lev and even luckier to be spending my life with him.

master cleanser

I've gotten pretty good at cleaning things--the house is fairly spotless, the dishes are never in the sink (they are clean and drying on the rack), and my hair is usually within a day or so of a shower. This "master cleanse," however? You know, the cleanse-diet that I put myself on yesterday because I would like to get a jump start on losing weight for the wedding? WELL this is one kind of clean that I'm pretty bad at. Last night I skyped with my bff who lives in Spain and we went over different types of cleanses.

We discovered the "honegar" diet, which consists of mixing honey and apple cider vinegar ("honegar"), and you eat regularly but add in ACV and honey before each meal. At the end of our skype sesh we determined that the honegar cleanse would work the best...because you get to eat.

But I am going to stick with the master cleanse, especially now that I've found out that my friend in New York not only does the master cleanse, she completes the master cleanse as well, and sometimes does it twice a year. Of course, this cleanse is giving my mother sympathy hunger pangs; when we spoke on the phone this morning I told her that a photo of a chicken pot pie in the New York Times looked delicious and she replied emphatically, "That is because you are hungry!"

The way I see it, I'll be proud of myself when I complete it. And I will have lost all my readers, because I for one know how utterly obnoxious it is when a writer gets too navel-gazey. So my promise to you, friends, is that I will talk about this "master cleanse" as little as possible and get back to writing about cake in eight days.

perfect

today is a perfect Chicago day. Warm weather + too early in the season for all the bugs to have hatched = kitchen-door-wide-open-perfection.

secret weekend

Chicago is warm and sunny today, and to celebrate Lev and I went to the Adler Planetarium. We dropped the truck off in the morning (new brakes, oh boy...) and took the bus from the far NW corner of the city to the SE corner of the city, where the planetarium and the Field Museum are located. 

I'm attempting to do the master cleanse and this is my first day. We'll see how long it lasts.

Lev and me

Downtown, looking over the museum's lawn

The Chicago Field Museum

little fish/big pond

Last night I had the privilege of participating in a conference call with eight very smart and accomplished women from Editopian. Conference calls are hard for me; I get tongue-tied and end up saying little for fear of looking silly or stupid. I like to be able to read the crowd and look people in the eye, and converse that way. Conference calls make me spacey, which makes me nervous, which means that three minutes have gone by where I'm stressing out about not listening, which means that I haven't been listening.

I'm looking forward to the next ten years. I want to become one of those smart, accomplished editors that I was on the phone with. I feel that I am at the cusp of a successful future; I just need time in the saddle, so to speak, to raise my confidence and skill level.

My lifelong goals are to have a successful marriage, build a satisfying career where my presence matters, and to raise great kids that we love. That isn't asking too much, right? Lev and I can handle goal number one and three, but my second goal? The one about the career? That is all me. And I feel like I'm standing at the foot of the mountain, looking up.

spring me along...

I'm supposed to be furiously drawing for this art show that I'm in the weekend after next and it seems like all of my skills have gone away. I have no ideas and even if I did my execution is off. I haven't been in the right frame of mind, and I know that's my ego talking, but seriously. I can't seem to get it together. I may have to just submit old stuff. Maybe this is the turning point, where I go from "creative person" to "fan of creative people." I don't want to relegate myself to fan status!

As of this Friday I am off for nine days. Lev and I are going to the planetarium on Tuesday and I am going to do some serious biz-casual shopping at good ol' H&M. I am not going to spend my time off on the couch, that is for certain. This is perfect timing really. The weather is starting to smile at spring and I can ride my bike to yoga class. I love this time of year.

And maybe I'll get out of my creativity funk and get some good ol' work done. Hello, last week of UIC...

Building on 18th and Ashland, Pilsen.

Good Fortune

"Your present plants are going to succeed."

the wait

Ok so I got an AWESOME blanket-coat with Ms. Bria the other day and now I kind of wish that we'd have a quick n dirty cold snap so I could wear it out. Of course the reason that I could even afford said coat is because it's warming up and the shops are trying to sell off their winter merchandise. So I'm very excited about this coat, because it's awesome, and Lev sees it and in his most polite voice asks, "Can you please not wear that out with me?" Excusé-moi? I asked him if he was afraid of being overshadowed by awesomeness, and he told me that it was "rather grandiose." Just for fun, I looked up "grandiose." This is what Lev is really saying about my new coat:

He will be seeing quite a lot of my pompous coat next winter, and that's a fact! And these are some photos I took of myself in my new favorite coat, in all its glory.

and as if you needed anymore convincing...

And now I'm off to catch the bus to Anthropologie, where I will try and figure out if anything can be purchased at that store without spending more than my $50 gift card. Have a great Saturday!

11:11

I try to make a wish at 11:11 every day. All this wish stuff is relatively new--I didn't know anything about wishing at 11:11 every day until high school, when an older girl I admired looked at the clock in her car and informed me that it was 11:11! Make a wish!

Yesterday was a whole day of Lev Birthday. He had his first professional massage and enjoyed it more than my amateur massages I give him, as he should. Per his wishes, I got him a lemon cake with strawberry filling. For our wedding Lev's only request was that the wedding cake have strawberry filling. He doesn't like chocolate (but does like Snickers bars--figure that one out) but I love chocolate! That was one of the first "big" words I learned how to spell! I think we are going to compromise on a multi-tiered cake with strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, whatever. Yesterday he was like, "Our wedding cake should be an ICE-CREAM CAKE!" which is a hilariously terrible idea. August+Ice Cream+waiting for the ceremony to end=Ice Cream Soup! I also thought about how there is a piece of Queen Victoria's wedding cake preserved at the royal palace, and what if it had been an ice cream cake? Freezer burn city!

Lev's Birthday!

Today is Lev's birthday! We are celebrating by each spending the day on our respective computers. Just kidding! I made a big birthday breakfast consisting of aebleskiver pancakes (sweet pancake balls with sour cream in the middle), coffee and a Perfect Omelette that I didn't even screw up.

This is our 2nd round of birthdays together. I love keeping track of stuff like that. Life is sweeter and less stressed now; I think we are both happier than we were at this time last year.

On the menu for today: 2:30 massage at Lincoln Square Massage and dinner with friends later on. Happy birthday Levy!

sick days

I'm stuck at home with a whopper cold and that makes living life somewhat difficult. The problem with missing work is that you are half-thinking about it the whole day. 

Time is ticking down at my soon-to-be old job and I'm not having any sentimental feelings about it whatsoever. When I was twenty-one I quit the newspaper and cried a little while leaving the building on my last evening there. I thought about the ending of the Mary Tyler Moore show, shutting out the lights and leaving the office. I said goodbye to the night editor and he wished me luck with all of my future endeavors. This was the same man who, two years before, ended a ten-minute rant about his job by asking me how old I was. I responded that I was nineteen. "Nineteen," he repeated in a high-pitched nasal tone, "When you are my age, don't work here!" I kind of wonder if he is still working at the Oregonian; ten years older with ten years of further resentment and anxiety. I never want that to be me. 

Today I passed a business that had two pigs nuzzling on its awning.

Pilsen Piggy Hug

vive le gateau vert!

Tonight I made a green-icing chocolate cake in honor of Lev's impending birthday, St. Patty's day and my new job. Oh, and I applied online (and was approved) for my first credit card in 5 years. My mother suggested that we get one--for traveling. You know Groucho Marx's famous line, "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member?" Well that is how I'm starting to feel about this credit card. 

I told Lev that the secret ingredient in this cake was pickles. 

today, in pilsen

Today, in Pilsen.

Pilsen scene

ten more things

Ten things about me.

1) When I'm scared I get sleepy
2) I get homesick easily
3) I talk to my mother at least once a day
4) I'm secretly competitive
5) I bleach a small piece of hair behind my ear when the spirit moves me. Nobody can see it unless they know it's there
6) I have regrets
7) When I'm in a particular mood, pictures of cats and dogs from the Anti-Cruelty Society website make me cry
8) Sometimes I wish I could put Lev in my pocket and carry him around with me
9) I fear boredom
10) I'm incredibly excited about the rest of this year (and beyond!)

the road ahead

I got the job!!!!! I got the job I got the JOB!!!!

I'm going to be working in my chosen field--finally. It's like I've spent my entire career waiting for this moment. 2011 is shaping up to be quite a year: I am marrying the most wonderful man I've ever known, I am living in an apartment that feels like home, and I have work in my field! My life took a deep breath and finally exhaled. 

Today I had coffee with a woman I used to work with at UIC. I edited her PhD thesis, actually. Mostly, we caught up on each other's lives--she was also deeply dissatisfied with her previous job, and made a career move that turned into what she is doing now (and she enjoys it intensely). We talked about how when you are little, you think about your future and you know that what you want is to be happy when you grow up. 

When you get a little older, you start thinking about what would make for personal satisfaction: for me, it was around college that I realized I had a talent for editing. I knew I needed to pursue a career in publishing. I began working at the Oregonian newspaper and was smitten with the environment; I loved the hustle that went into putting out the paper four times a day. The on-the-fly copy editing, the search for a photo in the photo library--I knew that I wanted to be a part of the written word somehow. 

I've kept my goals in mind, but it has not always been easy. I took this administrative position at UIC last July, quit drinking, and realized that I needed to work in my field. It's funny, when you drink a lot (and I wouldn't call myself an alcoholic; I quit drinking because I recognized that it wasn't helping me or my relationship go anywhere) you stop really caring about your life. I spent 6 months in Portland "not really worried" about what I was doing with my future. My career matters to me, and I want to matter to my place of work. I'm looking forward to bringing my most talented, best self to my new Editor position on March 28. 

Here's to life!

Chicago before sunset. North Avenue looking east to Wells Street

the view from here

18th Street Park

Friday was awesomely warm and Lev was positive that we were done with winter. *BUT* this is Chicago (where we're never done with winter), and last night he came into bed and said, "It's gotten really cold and there's two inches of snow on the ground! What IS this?" It ain't over till it's over.

To fend off Lev's winter panic, today I'm making beef stew. While researching beef stew on the Internet (I abandoned all my cookbooks when I moved across the country...I regret this) I came across a "Cuisine of the Midwest" recipe trove. It was worse than I thought--like, I always joke that moving to Chicago from the west coast is a shock because once you get here the locals hand you a brick of cheese and say "Welcome to the Midwest." I mean, I can get down with the occasional macaroni and cheese, but these recipes? The main ingredients are Campbell's condensed cream of mushroom soup and mayonnaise. Apparently, a beef stew recipe is enough to make the Internet think that what I'm really looking for is more ways to ingest heavy cream. Hmmm...

Along those lines (i.e. crummy midwest foodstuffs), a really, really great thing happened Friday night, which is that Lev took me to the best grocery store I have ever been to in Chicago! Seriously. Great, organic produce, organic dry goods and, best of all, affordable. This is huge! Since we moved here from Portland we have been looking for an acceptable grocery store that is NOT whole foods. We live on the south side, which apparently makes things harder (?), but upon setting foot in La Casa Del Pueblo I decided that we are STAYING! Because as you may know, I semi-compulsively fantasize about moving--be it to a different neighborhood or a different city. It's been looking like we are going to remain here in Chicago, though, because of the (omigod let it be) hopeful job and because Lev is onto some brilliant job and school-related stuff as well. New York may be on hold.

And today while walking back from the store, I started seeing summer in my neighborhood. Warm reds, oranges and yellows. I took some photos, enjoy.

Pilsen Window

18th Street, Pilsen, Chicago

Los Libros Bookstore, Pilsen, Chicago

The New and Used Store, Pilsen, Chicago

Mini Mariachi, Pilsen, Chicago

Small Summer, Pilsen, Chicago

ten things

Ten things that make me happy.
1) Doing something stupid and having Lev tell me he's done the same thing (putting 8 scoops of coffee in the coffee maker without a coffee filter, anyone?)
2) Waking up before the alarm
3) Going to the movies alone and texting Lev my comments
4) The first warm days of spring
5) The first cold days of fall
6) A new job that I love (these fingers are firmly crossed)
7) Getting into clean sheets after a shower
8) When Lev calls me beautiful, unprompted (ha ha)
9) Toffee.
10) Good decisions, whatever they may be

here are some photos from today.

Pilsen, looking downtown

Pilsen, looking at the Pink Line

Pilsen, the road out

Pilsen Warehouse

this day

Today.

World Beat Wallet

Pendleton Hunting Jacket



Kenzo Handkerchief





...and beyond!

I'm getting totally anxious and worked up about the potential new job. Right this minute they are checking my references and background. I am who I say I am, so I shouldn't be worried, but that doesn't stop me from having a total 100% FREAK OUT every twenty minutes or so. Oh, I'm calm and confident? Wait four minutes. Ding! Time to envision not getting the job, or there being a mix-up at the company that is in charge of the reference check, or there being a mix-up at the courthouse (or where ever they go to do a criminal background check) and suddenly it looks like I've done something terribly wrong...In the words of Cathy, "ACK!"

Right now I'm riding a wave of calm that I hope will last. I'm just trying to envision kinds of dogs I like (lately these have been very appealing, probably due to our friend's awesome puppy) and perhaps some things that would look nice in my apartment. Is this how positive visualization works? Like, (male announcer's voice) "Picture everything you feel positively about," but then (my voice), "AAAAAAAACK!" (Sorry, I had to.)

Lev's birthday is next week and it means favorite cake and favorite things! I hope he is beyond happy on Thursday. Big 33!

downtown

The Museum of the Art Institute was free tonight, and Lev and I took full advantage. He'd never been; we spent a good amount of time in the ancient egyptian room and in the medieval armory. We also looked at the miniature room until it started to drive us (me) crazy.

 Museum of the Art Institute, Chicago

Lev checking out some artifacts. 

Ancient Egyptian, ca 50 BC. Museum of the Chicago Art Institute

I love this last one. We have always needed our mothers.