whoops

Oh man I was totally wrong. I know that writing a post about a post is unnecessary (or is it "meta?") but here goes. My dad reads this blog (Hi Dad!) and he pointed it out (at least I think that was him) in the comments section of my last post. I guess I assumed that blogging about personal stuff is a chick thing and that men only want to blog about/read about technical stuff/stereo equipment. I was wrong! Sorry Papa!

OK so about five years ago I thought it was a hilarious joke to be like, "Oh the COMMUTE!" because I was so incredibly sure that I would never have a job that I could not walk or bike to. And, like, I wouldn't want a job like that, man. Well cut to now where I'm driving 15 miles into the suburbs every day to work at a job that I absolutely love, to work with people that are wonderful, and to get paid...but Oh the COMMUTE! We are really looking forward to our new place because I am a half hour closer to work and Joel will get to stop hearing me kvetch about the drive.

I feel strange being such a driver. For a long time I didn't even have a driver's license--I had lost my wallet about a year after moving to the Chi and with it my Oregon license (which I had never bothered to turn in for an Illinois one, but that is a whole different story about what I'm bad at). I used my passport for ID and it was No Big Deal that I didn't have a license--I delivered stuff on my bike, who needs a license for that? After I quit biking for work I got a job at UIC and I started biking to work, winter, spring, summer and fall. I loved the vigorous exercise that entailed just getting to work and back. I avoided the secretarial spread!

And today I purchased an exercise DVD, "The Bar Method." Which means that I am most definitely a driver. But I am also happier than I've ever been.

civil

Tonight Lev and I are watching the Civil War documentary. Well, he is really in the other room but he's been coming in here to look at the television at regular intervals. He's also yelling commentary from the other room about the show. I remember when this was on PBS for the first time--my father watched it avidly. And when Dad turned on the TV, it was TIME FOR BED! You don't mess with my father about bedtime. Or anything else for that matter. 

A few weeks ago he told me that he had read my blog. He said that he liked it. I can say for sure that my father read it once and that was enough! He will probably never look at it again. My mother, on the other hand (Hi Mom!), is my most outspoken reader. That is her, "eileen," and she is a prolific commenter. I love that I have supportive parents!

These photographs in the Civil War documentary are truly disturbing. Bodies and bodies and even the living look dead in old photos. I'm trying to bring my DMV-related frustration into perspective by watching this. Oh wow. "Rich man's war; Poor man's fight." Not much has changed.