Not Once

Not once
Did he try
Not a picture
Or goodbye

It's the same old song
But I like the way he sings it
When nothing changes
Your heart rearranges
Its bits into something feigning wholness

Not once
Did he try
Not a picture
Or goodbye

I know it is my choice to wait
On a chance meeting or a date
But with him being here
You'd think I'd be more dear
I know I'm worth the risk

Not once
Did he try
Not a picture
Or goodbye

I check my messages for a sign
And hope his heart is still linked with mine
And when he finally contacts me
I know I'll smile and forget my rage
My disappointed heart is still a cage

I Wear My Sunglasses At Night

Today's blog is canceled due to the fact that I have photophobia due to either a scratch on my eye from rubbing it too hard yesterday morning.  (I have lens implants from surgery) OR viral pink eye (no discharge) or allergic pink eye (which I have every symptom for and don't for the others)  In either case the glare of the lap top blog page is too white and too bright on the lowest setting for me to continue.   For those of you that are already worried, it doesn't hurt as much as yesterday and its not really pink only a little bloodshot.  This is why I think I may have damaged a lens or scratched my eye.  I'm on vacation on Wednesday afternoon and if it's not better by then I will go in and see someone without having to pay for the emergency room fees, which I can't afford. 

Thank goodness for sun glasses.  I not only wear them outside but inside when the sun comes up.  HEY, maybe I'm a vampire. 

Updates to follow if necessary. 

Now THAT was a party!

Sherlock Holmes and his lovely wife Ms. Watson invited me again this year to their annual Air Show party.  Last year when I went, I felt more like I had been invited because I was living with Second Daughter and Second Son, being their live in nanny, it seemed right to include me.  I may have been wrong there.  We had met at a wedding, four years ago, we just hadn't had any opportunity to get to be friends on our own.  But now I live here, and this year I was invited on my own.  So I went.  It is always a grand party.  They live on the 15th floor of a high rise right on the very expensive shore of Lake Michigan.  The panoramic view that they have of the lake, beaches, parks and skyline is breathtaking by itself.  I could look out those windows all day and night and be enthralled by the cities beauty.  But add to that, all the drink combinations you can imagine, great foods on a continuous buffet of never ending snacks, wonderfully intelligent and witty conversations with a scope of people from the arts industry to law, and the Blue Angels among other great pilots, and you have a combination for a memorable time.  This party started at 10 am and I wasn't the last to leave at 8 pm.  And I only left because I figured if I stayed until after dark I might not be able to get home without passing out. 

I had a wonderful time but drank way too much, in retrospect I should have slowed down, but it was more keeping up than leading the pack.  Admittedly I'm out of practice for this kind of marathon drinking.  Catching up with people I had met through Second Daughter and Second Son was great.  Some of these people I had run into at a wake earlier this year, birthday parties, and at a few plays here and there throughout the year, but for the most part this is the event where I see them all at once.  And I met someone new and made a new friend that lives in my neighborhood.  An actress that is performing with Mr. Holmes in an upcoming production.  I hope we will be able to get to know each other more.  We talked a lot at the even and have a bit in common.  And Ms. Watson gave me her cell number as I left so that we can do more together.  This made me very happy, as she and her husband are huge Dr. Who fans and I'd love to have someone to watch the new season with.  Or at least discuss it.  I hope I will be brave and call on both of these intelligent and fun women for my adult time in Chicago. 

See its always been hard for me to make the first move.  But I think I have to learn that, and I think that is what Chicago is going to teach me.  How to really reach out. put myself out there, and make friends.  And not just accept my husband or boyfriends friends as mine.  Or wait to be approached, which is how its always happened to me in the past.  I think its time for me to reach out to people I find interesting and make them my friends.  Now where did I put all that extra confidence I've been saving up? 

Cheers

To Write Or Not To Write, That Is The Question.

It must be getting close to another change in the seasons...its a little darker every morning now, and I'm starting to feel the gypsy wanderlust, before the wind shifts.  I love Autumn.  It's without a doubt my favorite time of year.  Summer is too hot and Winter is too cold, and Spring is too wet, but Autumn, when we're lucky, is glorious.  Hoodies and sweaters, warm days and cool nights with the windows open.  Yes, even in the city because I'm on the third floor.

This summer I got nothing done that I wanted to.  I didn't start writing again...yet.  Although I do have an idea now that I think I just have to start before I'm going to see it's real purpose.  I don't know if I can write it without the story in my head first, but maybe I can. We will see what kind of crap I spit up on to the blank page later today. 

As I flip through my Facebook friends it also seems like everyone is losing weight and I'm not.  And I wanted to.  I planned it over cookies and wine.  I thought about it over ice cream and rum.  At least I know where my calories are coming from.  My clothes aren't tight yet, but as John Bender in the Breakfast Club would say, "Well, not at present but I could see you really pushing maximum density."  Yes I'm being hard on myself but I am not liking what I see in pictures so its past time to do something.  Just gotta finish this ice cream in my freezer first.  And drink all this rum.  In one respect I guess since all writers are drunks, might be a good combination for starting this new play. 

What is it about Summer that makes me so lazy?  Is it just the heat? Or is it the heat coupled with my very thin wallet?  It's very difficult to have a good time in the Summer in a city like Chicago.  Pretty much everything is expensive and the parks are, well, lets just say they are not like really being outside in the woods.  Not like the Great White North of Wisconsin.  And public transportation can't even get me to Six Flags.  So it's not gonna get me to a real woody area. I think I miss hikking in Hixon Park the most.  So many good memories there with myself and my thoughts.  Some even with Mr. Hopeful or She of Little Combat Boots.  I wish Chicago had mountains close by like Colorado Springs did.  Then I might be able to find some much needed nature.  I will have to go on an adventure soon and find some or I might go into hermit city mode and never leave my studio other than to work.  That would not be the best idea, unless of course I'm writing.  You know what this is?  All this lamenting nature is just another excuse and distraction to actually writing.   And between us, I think that's what my soul really needs right now.  To write.

But what to write?  Should I finally finish the last draft of the fantasy novel that has been shelved for over two years now?  Or should I get this play pounded out?  My muse nods beside me when I mention the play.  Wow I haven't seen her in a long time.  She looks like me circa 1994, only with much cooler hair, and all the Stevie Nicks stuff I've been able to collect since then.  Well not all of it.  LOL  but a great deal.  So somewhere between Death in Sandman and Stevie in the 70's.  Oh and she has wings.  My muse is a fairy.  And she changes heights depending on how serious she is to be heard.  For a years she's been about the size of my Iphone.  Now she's my size so I think I should try to write today.  No one likes a giant fairy sitting on their bed, eating their cookies, and judging her wine choices.

I better go before she eats all the lemon poppy seed cake too. 

Cheers

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

My experiment worked!  I finally went into the English Pub a block down the alley from my apartment, and despite my fear it was so worth it.  The outside is not much, but then neither was my favorite bar back home.  And it's off the beaten path, but close enough to activity to stay in business, and that appeals to me as well.  The fact that I can walk to it in a minute is also a very freeing feeling.  Even drunk I think I could make it home safe, down an alley, in Chicago.  Because it's my alley.  I've walked it a million times as a shortcut to Second Daughter and Second Son's apartment; so I know it, well. 

But the inside of this Pub is what sold me.  When I walked in the first things to hit my senses were Jurassic Park playing on the small TV high in the corner, a group of very colorful people arguing Star Wars movies, and soft jazz playing from a hidden place I never located.  I knew I was home, before Sinatra started singing Lovely, and the waitress said hello.  Id never watched Jurassic Park, muted with subtitles and Frank singing, but I kinda think that's the only way to watch it now.  And the Star Wars arguments were very difficult to not shout out answers.  I bit my tongue and told the bartender that "Going over there and giving them a laundry list on why they are wrong is not the way to make friends."  and he said, "NOW you tell me."  Everyone that worked there had a quick wit.  I think I found where my peeps hang out.

The next things were the thick wooden tables and leather back chairs arranged in twos and fours around the center.  Three high tables with higher wooden chairs surrounded them, and a cozy booth, almost completely walled off on the opposite corner by the window.  That wall was lined with booths and tables to split or combine and more of the comfy chairs.  But the real charm was the bar itself and all the British paraphernalia on the walls.  At first I wasn't sure where to sit, but I bravely made my way to the bar and decided to eat there.  I wanted to send a signal that I was approachable and you can't do that at a table for one. 

Everything English, (and one breakfront for the Scotts!) surrounded me.  Beautiful framed pictures and posters from rock royalty of the Beatles and Pink Floyd to the real royals of Queen Victoria and Prince Phillip.  Pirates were beside explorers.  And Shakespeare made more than one appearance.  Posters advertising places in England, hobbies like rugby and soccer.  But the most impressive piece was the life-size red telephone booth.  Inside it they had a fancy lamp, which was on, of course and a table with an old, black, cradle style, dial telephone, placed lovingly on a lace doily.  If only it were Tardis blue, I did ask, "How much for the fake Tardis?" and the owner lamented about his search for a real one, and his frustration that if there were ever a great selling item it would be a life size Tardis.  We discussed our mutual search and failure and my parting line, "If you paint this blue, I'll buy it,"was received with warm smiles and nods.  The bar was lined with whiskey, scotch, gin and bourbon, and the beer choices were endless both cold and the traditional warm.  I sampled a pale ale on tap, warm.  Which was good, but I'm too American, I like my beer cold, so I settled for Samual Smith IPA from India. Which was awesome and went really well with my fish and chips.

The owner and his wife were delightful and they invited me back on Friday for all I can eat fish and chips.  I expect to meet more regulars then.  I did meet one and he was very interesting, and worked at the Lincoln library which is full of all sorts of civil war and Lincoln info.  He knows a lot about that era but was kind enough not to brag on it.  He also hoped to see me again when I left.  The wait staff and bartender were very nice.  One of them had just celebrated her birthday last night at the bar and it was packed, and she was hung over.  They gracefully allowed me to join in the jibs, as the regulars did, when she complained about her head.  Everyone seemed very nice and I was treated like I had been coming there all year not just one night.  She mentioned the hipsters were drinking Malort.  The bartender nor I had ever tried it so we sampled it.  It was the most disgusting thing we had ever tried.  It truly tasted like bug spray, bitter, bitter bug spray.   Fucking hipsters will drink anything and call it cool.  Google it, there's an actual article "The New Malort: The Worst Drink To Ever Happen."  And I agree.  They have a second room to eat in too and a reading room in the back full of books for sale.  I meant to go back there and check it out but I was having so much fun talking with everyone that I am saving that for my next experience on Friday night.

I can't wait to show this bar off to old friends and family,  that might come and visit.  It really is a hidden gem.   Oh and it's call The Red Lion in Lincoln Square.  In case you want to google map it and check out it's website.  If you're ever in Chicago, look it up.  I'll be the one at the bar with blue hair. 

Cheers