A Manifesto Kind of Mood

Watching Jerry Maguire always puts me in a bit of a manifesto mood. You should have heard me up on my high horse last night, going on about high-rise living in a conversation with Jeff over a turkey burger at Marge's on Sedgwick. (Stay tuned for more on this topic in Jeff's upcoming book, Cool vs. Comfort: The Eternal Architectural Conundrum.) My passionate speech about the existential issues involved with living like stacked ants in overly imposing glass boxes reminded me of the intensity with which I used to approach my neighbor on Cherokee Road in Louisville to speak to him about his leaf-blower. Basically, I wanted him to:

1. Not blow leaves and sticks upon my freshly washed car, which was parked near his residence.
2. Not blow leaves when people were trying to get married in peace at the church across the street.
3. Not blow leaves when I was trying to study for the GRE.

The Quote of the Month goes to my friend Tim, who noted (upon having inadvertently attended the Magnificent Mile Lights Festival on Michigan Avenue):

"It looks like the suburbs exploded down there. Everyone was wearing Lucky jeans."

P.S. I go to a lot of trouble to text big words like "galavanting" and "cumulonimbus clouds," so please don't write back if your text vocabulary is limited to the letters R and U.

P.P.S. Happy birthday to my mammy!

I Am My Own Housewife

Today was my first official day at home, since I abruptly became someone who Works From Home. (Photo: Working from home.)

I awoke and asked myself, What now? Well, I said to me, you might as well make yourself an egg, just like always.

I turned on the TV and searched my DVR recordings for something to watch. I decided on last night’s episode of The Hills, which I couldn't view during its normal airtime due to the draining, gut-wrenching emotion of the Britney Spears documentary, which I’d watched for two hours beforehand.

About seven minutes into The Hills, my brain began to shut down. I snatched the remote and pressed the “last” button switch to TV in real time. What do you think was on? The Hills. The very same episode. The very same moment in the very same episode, the one where Spencer chastises Stephanie about visiting their Nana. Poor Nana. What toolbags she has for grandchildren.

Later, I proceeded to my gym, Equinox, one of the loveliest places to kill an hour or two while boosting one’s sense of self-righteousness. It was noon. I warily assessed the other worker-outers, assigning each of them an excuse to explain why they might have time to do lunges in the middle of the day.

At Whole Foods, I filled a cardboard cup with spicy gumbo. I waited patiently for chicken cutlets at the meat counter.

Back at my apartment, I said to myself, You ought to dust those baseboards. You should mop (without moping, mind you), and later, you’ll throw away that super-sized box of oatmeal that expired in 07. You can replace it with a box of Quaker’s new Weight Control oatmeal.

Meanwhile, who decides to market a product using the term “Weight Control?” There is a similar tagline for a certain section of the menu at the Cheesecake Factory, I’ve noticed. Weight Management. As if anyone wants to announce to a group of dining companions and the waiter: “Yes, I’d like the Weight Management Pear and Endive Salad, please.” Yeah. And a box of tampons, while you’re at it.

Awkwardly Social (New People Suck)

MNP stands for Meet New People, which was the title of a party I attended last night at Landmark Grill + Lounge across from the Steppenwolf theater on Halsted Street. Prior to MNP I was at the Michael Kors opening at the 900 Shops, where I talked to roughly 15 of the 200-500 people I always talk to. Prior to that, I had a margherita pizza at Frankie’s Scallopini on the fifth floor.

MNP was not supposed to be a singles party, but upon arrival my friend Graham (who agreed to escort me so I wouldn’t have to meet new people by myself) took in the mostly female crowd and said: “Yep, smell that desperation in the air?” Later, when we were surveying the scene from the second-floor catwalk, we also detected a hint of tater tots and possibly a note of funnel cake.

Anywho, though we were sorely tempted to converse only amongst ourselves (like we do all day every day at work), we forced ourselves to seriously Meet New People. A sampling of the conversations that ensued:

Amalie & Graham, approaching party of three: Hi! Are you guys meeting new people?
Two guys & a girl: Yeah. None of us know each other.
A&G: Cool, where do you work?
(Banking, doctoring, and one other thing I can’t remember)
Graham, to doctor: What hospital do you work at?
Doctor: A children’s hospital.
Graham: How nice. What’s your favorite part of your job?
Doctor: The patients.

Amalie & Graham, approaching dude frantically texting on iPhone: Hi! Are you meeting new people?
iPhone dude: I’m waiting on someone I already know to bring me a drink.
Graham: Well, is this seat taken?
iPhone dude: My friend’s coming back. (Continues to text, fully ignoring further conversational attempts)

Amalie & Graham, approaching guy in blue shirt leaning on wall: Hi! Are you meeting new people?
Blue Shirt: No, I’m setting my watch.
A&G: Fascinating!
Blue Shirt (fidgeting): It’s kinetic. It’s powered off the movement of my body.
Amalie: Oh, I’ve never heard of that.
Blue Shirt (appalled): What, you don’t know how a Rolex works? (Runs away. I kid you not. Literally exits the room at high speed.)

My arrival back at my apartment building held ten times more excitement, thanks to the fact that there was a mystery box addressed to me in the foyer. I had not ordered nor was I expecting delivery of any items, so my walk up the stairs was a fantastic exercise in imagination.

A gift from a secret admirer?

A bomb?

Fan mail?

Hate mail?

Popcorn? (That’s what it sounded like)

The reality: A three-month supply of prescription medication from the mail-order pharmacy my healthcare provider now requires us to use.

Oh.

Heavy Metal

Today I was getting a manicure in a nice bluish-blackish-gunmetal-gray that I brought in myself (as always), and the manicurist asked, “So, what’s with the color? Is it for winter?” Well, what kind of a question is that? I mean, the only sensible answer is that I happen to like it, but that didn’t seem quite good enough. Should I have told her I don’t do pink? Should I have said dark nails are my best option for maximum wardrobe blending? Should I have explained that this is a nail strategy that is both cool and also avoids the overt trendiness of pure black? Here’s what came out of my mouth: “Actually, I’m a little bit rock ’n roll.”

What? I am! I used to love Metallica, and even to this day I naturally gravitate toward any item of clothing that features grommets.

Oh fine, so I might have a slight badass complex. This fact first occurred to me while in the Circuit City parking garage on North Avenue with my friend Jeff last weekend, when he tried to convince me that instead of new speakers for Black Beauty, what I really need is a new car. As usual, I was scoffing away. “Humph! What do I need with a new car? This one hasn’t overheated in at least a year! Don’t be fooled by all those check engine and brake light failure alerts; they indicate nothing more than a slight electrical problem. I can take it! Me and this car, we’re in it together. Fight to the end! The very, very end.” Yeah, I should probably get a Honda.

Anywho, I’m off to flower-arranging class. C-YA.

Taxicab Confessions

Once in a blue moon I’ll take a cab to work so I can reduce stress by not having to look for a parking spot, but sometimes it’s not much of a savings. To wit:

Me (sliding into backseat of cab): Man, it’s really smoky in here.
Cabbie: I just got back from a run to O'Hare. Guy was smoking, but I couldn’t see him in my rearview so I didn’t say anything.
Me: Hmm.
Cabbie: My dad smoked for 83 years, lived ’til he was 96.
Me: That’s something.
Cabbie: But if you ask me, it’s selfish to stay alive past a certain point.
Me: Mmm.
Cabbie: I mean, if you’re old and you can’t do for yourself and you’ve got diabetes and you can’t go anywhere and all your friends are dead then waddya got left? The boob tube? No thanks, I’d rather walk off a bridge.
Me: Yeah.
Cabbie: Don’t know why they keep building new condos. Nobody’s buying in this market.
Me: The Spire’s on hold.
Cabbie: The economic crisis is good for a lot of people. People are cuttin’ up their credit cards. Buddy of mine had 21 credit cards. He hit hard times. Lost his six-flat. Told me he could get $250,000 in credit anytime he wanted, but I always told him then he’d have to pay it back.

I really wanted to change the subject but I was too tired.

P.S. Lately I’ve been catching myself talking to myself in terms of Facebook status updates. I think: “Amalie is eating M&M’s.” “Amalie is looking for a new favorite lip balm.” “Amalie has a lot of split ends.” Somebody please stop me.

P.P.S. If you absolutely must send me an e-mail with the subject line, “Fighting Dandruff Fungus!” then please refrain from sending it between the hours of 11:30AM and 1:30PM.

Spooked

My Halloween costume for the past three years has consisted only of a headband adorned with two small and slightly off-kilter tiger ears, but this year I’m not a tiger. I’m a Liger. This is a new word I learned on the Today Show a few hours ago. It’s a cross between a tiger and a lion. Unfortunately, the subject came up because a Liger recently killed a volunteer at an Oklahoma animal sanctuary. No matter what its adorableness level might be, you cannot count on a 1,000-pound cat to behave in a domesticated manner. That’s scary.

In honor of Halloween, here are 5 more possible scenarios I fear, though they are admittedly less frightening than a Liger attack:

1. My quest for tickets to the Obama rally in Grant Park on Election Night will be foiled.
2. My personal life will never cease playing out like a particularly grating episode of Gossip Girl.
3. I will never find another pair of sunglasses with a frame shape as flattering to my face as my Chanel ones with the gold Cs on the sides, which are starting to seem a little garish to be wearing in this economy.
4. A co-worker will bring a bag of mini Kit Kats to work today, and that’s what I’ll have for breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and linner (late dinner).
5. The Donald is going to surprise Mayor Daley by busting out some sort of huge Trump logo to slap on the moments-from-completion Trump Tower Chicago. Spire, schmire. I'll believe it when I see it.

OMG, Get Me to a Natural Setting ASAP

Earlier this week, I clicked on a New York Times link titled "Natural Settings Help Brain Fatigue," and this picture popped up with the story:


All I could think was: OMG, get me to a natural setting ASAP. I looked out my office window at my River North view of concrete, glass, mechanical boxes and streetlights. The only trees I could see were the potted ones on top of the condo building next door, where this one blonde lady walks a yappy little white dog every afternoon.

I mean, I grew up in a place my high school friends liked to refer to as “BFE,” so far removed was it from the glorious used car dealerships and strip malls of Middletown, our Lousiville suburb. As a child, one of my favorite activities was forcing my younger siblings to meticulously maintain dirt trails we cleared in the woods, marking them every few feet with tobacco stakes. These days, I can walk along Chicago’s lakefront path and look out at the shimmering waters of Lake Michigan, but does it count as spending time in Nature if I can swivel my head and view six lanes of traffic whizzing by on Lake Shore Drive?

A lack of true Fall Activities coupled with my intense anxiety over the election might be the reason why I’m losing so much hair. Or possibly, my persistent use of Pantene Pro-V is finally catching up with me.

Either way, I’m antsy, and so is everyone I know. As a group we’re totally defining the “diss” in dysfunction.

Two recent conversations that really put me in my place:

(While riding in Black Beauty on a Sunday afternoon)
Me: (silently to myself in my head) Man, I sure would like to carve a pumpkin tonight. It sure would be fun if someone wanted to carve a pumpkin with me.
Best Friend Jeff: (abruptly and with malice, after viewing several pumpkins on stoops): I don’t give a shit about carving a pumpkin!

(While grocery shopping at Fox & Obel that same afternoon)
Me: I’m really on a French onion soup kick. I can’t get enough of that melted cheese. Yum.
Claire (my sister): Yeah, look, there’s some French onion soup right there. It looks like worms swimming in dirt.

Somebody Put That Baby in a Corner

I’m only just now getting over my fury at seeing one of the greatest love stories of all time, Dirty Dancing, being made a mockery of in Broadway format at Chicago’s Cadillac Palace Theatre last night. The highlight was when a giant, distinctly phallic 60-foot log was lowered from stage left for Johnny and Baby to use in their over-the-creek balance beam scene. I basically wanted to gouge my eyes out. It was not the stuff on which my 4th grade perm was based.

Meanwhile, I didn’t recognize my own car on the street mere moments ago because my Kentucky butterfly license plate is, alas, a thing of the past. Legally, it probably would have been best for me to switch to an Illinois plate seven years ago, but the butterfly plate was a little piece of home I just couldn’t let go of. And then, the following conversation occurred last week as I was paying my registration taxes at the DMV in Louisville:

DMV Employee: You cain’t have that butterfly plate no more.
Me: But whyever not?
DE: It’s discontinued. There’s the new nature plate options over on the wall.
Me: Really? Those are the choices?
DE: You can have the polar bear, the waterfall, the hummingbird or the dragonflies.
Me: But what do those have to do with Kentucky? Aren’t there any options that have to do with horses or bluegrass or the Belle of Louisville?
DE: There’s this horse plate.
Me: No offense, but that horse looks disabled. He looks like he fell down and couldn’t get up.
DE: Or you could get the plain state plate everybody has.
Me: Bor-ing. Who’s in charge of these license plate designs?
DE: You could’ve designed your own plate online.
Me: What?! How come nobody told me that?
DE: Which one do you want? I’m not entering any number on my computer until you decide.
Me: I guess the dragonflies. No, the hummingbird. Don't you think that one's better on a black car because of the black lettering? No, the dragonflies, because they’re more like butterflies. No, the hummingbird. Final decision, the hummingbird. Although I would like to point out once again that hummingbirds are not the state bird of Kentucky, and in fact I always felt a little uncomfortable with the butterflies for the same reason.

Honestly.

P.S. I was just in the elevator with a UPS delivery woman who said she voted early today and the line was 45 minutes long. I cannot wait to vote, and if they don’t give me an “I Voted Today” sticker then I fully plan to wear my own “Voters Do It In A Booth” sticker.

Literally, I Die (Dialogue DilEMMAs)

Even though I would prefer to present myself as more of a sophisticated adult, I still frequently use the word “like” in everyday conversation, which is so embarrassing. I try to control it when speaking with the over-60 crowd, but it’s hard. I guess because I think about words so much, I’m also particularly prone to picking up on, imitating, and sometimes inappropriately mocking other people’s speech patterns and catchphrases. I refuse, however, to add the following to my lineup (read in voice reminiscent of cardiac monitor flat-lining):

“Literally, I die. I’m not kidding, put me in those earrings and put me in a coffin in the ground. I die.”
“That’s bananas.”
“She is so shutting it down in that dress right now.”

That’s right, Rachael Zoe. I will not fall prey to your conversational gimmicks, and the only time I’ll ever repeat them is when I’m warning everyone I know not to get hooked on your show because they’ll be in danger of rolling their eyeballs right out of their heads.

When it comes to cuss words, as you know, I don’t often take it to the gutter, except when other drivers try to go when it’s my turn at a four-way stop. I swear sparingly in print and with even greater rarity in the office, except for those moments when I long for a pair of noise-blocking headphones due to grating conversations taking place a few desks over. But I tell you what, that Kathy Griffin had one dirty mouth on her last night at the Chicago Theater. The f bomb, the c word, the a-holes—she was letting 'em fly like there was no tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow, which is today, so I really hope I can control my language at a society luncheon later.

P.S. Why the hell did I ever think it was a good idea to get my ears double-pierced in college, with the extra cartilage piercing at the top of my left ear which got strangely hot whenever I talked on the phone too long? Idiot! Those dumbass holes will never grow back now. Talk about tack-ola.

A Tale of Two Cities

Chicago was recently ranked the most stressful city in America by a Forbes poll with dubious methodology. In second place came New York City. Hmm.

Never have I been more stressed than after spending four days in New York last week with my sister Claire and her business partner, Jennifer. Together they own a shop, the Peacock Boutique, and on this annual spring buying trip we were scouring Garment District showrooms for Derby dresses with fluttery ruffles and cashmere sweaters whose sleeves did not give one’s arms a sausage-like appearance. (Question: Will boyfriend jeans like the ones Rachel Bilson wears here take off in Louisville? Let's hope so, since we ordered a LOT of them.)

While debating the merits of so many thousands of articles of clothing, we became warped to the point of repeatedly reassuring ourselves that $800 is really quite a reasonable price for any quality sweatshirt. I exaggerate, but still.

The U.N. General Assembly was in town, meaning that the routes to almost everywhere were barricaded in deference to the security of some president or other. One night at our hotel, the Women’s National Republican Club (don’t ask), the Prime Minister of the Netherlands was giving a speech, and I found myself in a very full elevator. The following conversation occurred:

Hotel chef (boarding elevator): “I can’t believe you’re wearing that shirt in here.”
Me (glancing down at “Obama Says Knock You Out” T): “I’m just going to get ice.”
Chef: “I’d watch it if I were you.”
Republican in navy skirt suit: “Oh, it’s fine. I think it’s cheeky.”
Me: “I’m from Chicago. You know, Obama mania? I’m not a Republican, I’m just staying here.”
Chef and other assorted Republicans: Silence/glares.

Anyway, if I believed in Botox I'd need a lot of it to repair the effects of September 2008. Not only did I turn 30, but after watching so much news about the economic crisis and book-banning VP hopefuls, I keep catching myself frowning in my sleep. But in an effort to think positive, here are two great things about NYC:

1. Many fast-casual dining options include calorie counts on their menus, making it ever so convenient to forgo corn salsa in favor of tomato (a 70-calorie savings).
2. All cabs are now equipped with do-it-yourself credit card machines, eliminating the Chicago ritual of being verbally abused for 15 minutes each time one presents a Visa card to a driver.