From ashes we're learning, DuPage is burning...
The internet and I are now spending less time apart, I guess. Adam’s been gone in the Virgin Islands with his family, I wish I could say I took great advantage of this in a particular way, but I spent most of it alone. I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed the privacy and solitude.
Over the weekend, I actually took a few steps towards getting my life sorted out. To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, life does move pretty fast and most of the time I forget to look around. So I bought plane tickets to England for Thanksgiving week, I’ve got my vacation time sorted out, Ryan’s going with me and we’re meeting up with
not_on_fire and Brendan C. I’ll be paying my parents back until the end of time for this on an installment plan, but I’ve been jonesing for some international travel for a while and I realized I was being “that guy” about England (i.e. the guy who goes to the US and just goes to New York = the guy who just goes to England and goes to London), so Leeds, York and Manchester and/or Liverpool or bust (and yeah, ending with a few days in London).
In a more practical sense, I finally signed up for the GRE (I’m taking it October 13th). I’m not particularly looking forward to the grad school application process, but it’s something I’ve got to do because I’ve spent too long crippled by inertia and too long being good but not good enough at anything, so it’s time to rip it up and start again.
Yesterday was my one year anniversary on the job. Yikes. But I really can’t complain too much about my job, it’s a 9 to 5- but the people are alright and the work isn’t too much of a grind. My co-worker in the file room Jose’s last day is Friday- I’m going to miss him in the same way I miss Gloria, just when I get used to someone’s quirks they leave on me. So it goes- if all goes according to plan, I’ll be gone before my two year anniversary anyway. I don’t like writing much about work on here, because frankly it’d bore people even more than everything else I write bores people (which is saying a lot).
Also this weekend I did things as varied as do my laundry, wash my dishes (and created more of a mess last night in the unending war against unsanitary dishware), lose money at the casino (Bad idea # 1000: going to the casino a week after paying my bills and before getting my next paycheck) and buy new dress shoes.
I went out to Yorktown Mall to get new shoes and it didn’t feel quite right. The old West end of the mall which used to consist of an abandoned Montgomery Ward’s has been replaced by a “nice” (read prefab, yuppieish, expensive, sterile) block of open air outdoor shops. I always get a weird feeling when I go to malls, I feel like I’m different from everyone else there, but then I feel incredibly patronizing and condescending for thinking that because well, I’m not, really.
But I really didn’t feel right because of my near hypocrisy over shoes, before I bought any leather or sweat shop shoes, I left. I ordered some vegetarian shoes made in a fair trade UK factory- for all of maybe $20 more than I would’ve paid at the mall (upper middle class people who gripe about paying slightly more for that kind of stuff piss me off to no end). I say this not to congratulate myself, but to make a point. In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter whether I buy the shoes I bought or leather shoes made in China.
I’m still using CO2 emissions, I’m sure I own things made in sweat shops, I have given (and still occasionally give) money to cut-throat corporations. And whatever I do positive will just be cancelled out by other people anyway. So personal ethics are pretty much that and most progressive activism and ethical purchasing out there just serves to make the activist or consumer feel better. So it doesn’t matter, but it matters to me. And if I can do something that makes me feel better and gives money to a company with ethical standards, why not? It won’t change the world, but nothing really ever will (except in small increments on certain issues), we’ve just got to try our best.
I’m reading Fever Pitch right now and there’s a chapter where Nick Hornby talks of wishing he was from Islington (in North London) and not being able to own up to being from Maidenhead (in the Home Counties, i.e. suburbs) and how so many upper middle class white people wish for a poorer or more oppressed background to assuage their guilt and the farce of it all. Sure, I’ve had plenty of opportunities in my life so it pisses me off to see people with those same opportunities trying to deny their roots so they don’t feel so bad. Bah, I was able to write all this better in my head (as usual).
Overall, the book is more simply about him being a fanatical soccer fan (particularly of Arsenal, but also of Cambridge United and the English national team) and I’ve been barely able to put it down. Sox and The City is still my favorite book about devotion to a sports team (and if you ever want to know what drives me to willingly attend over a dozen Sox games even after they’ve stopped contending, you could do worse than read that book), and Richard Roeper does a great job about discussing motivations (and besides I’m biased towards any book about the Sox). Still Hornby does a better job of getting down how it feels in the heart and the gut and the bizarre thought processes a sports fan runs through, that non-fans will never understand while still making occasionally surprising me by providing pretty incisive social commentary.
So I lost $96 at Hollywood Casino this weekend. On Saturday night, I was bored and tried my luck with Jeff and Brendan C. and their significant others. I lost some money on the slots and craps, but my game, roulette, really killed me. I stopped before I could lose triple figures and am hence all-time up $9 at that casino. I like gambling, but seeing aging drunks throw away hundreds of dollars at my table is the best anti-gambling advertisement I can ever see- that and my Dad’s friend Ray who died before his losing battle with gambling addiction could fully destroy his life. So I’ll stay a small fry, but I’ve tasted enough to understand the thrill… On a lighter note, Katie (Jeff’s girlfriend) was blasting Avril Lavigne the whole way home in a losing bid to make me like it, but it sort of worked if only because they were singing along in a ridiculously over-the-top way- I think mainly because it annoyed Christina (Brendan’s girlfriend)- I’ve definitely never enjoyed listening to Avril Lavigne that much and it had nothing to do with the music.
This whole future thing is making me think about DuPage County. Maybe I’m just being a self-parodying romantic, and don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes I think nothing would be better than to leave DuPage, to leave Illinois, to leave the Midwest and never come back. I see too many people stuck here. When people get stuck in the same town, it is a leap to say they get stuck in the same mindset and the same routine and their growth gets stunted- but it’s not much of one. I need to get out again, if only for a couple more years.
I wish some day things with girls would just be clear and obvious and easy. There’s something to be said for having to put in effort, but not getting the desired result gets pretty old. Of course, I don’t have a lot to gripe about in that department, but sometimes the near misses and last minute fuck ups hurt the most… And there’s no point to me writing more about that. Because blah, blah I don’t feel like being specific and I’m not even being vague enough to be interesting, so….
The Firkin and Fox can now be added to the list of the DuPage Theatre, Togetherwood Park and other landmarks in Lombard and Glen Ellyn that meant something to me that are no more. Tom and I were going to go there to watch a Sox game and without warning there was a “For Lease” sign in the window. Easy come, easy go… and the best place to watch sports in downtown Glen Ellyn, not to mention probably the only place in DuPage County that both showed soccer matches and reasonably replicated an English pub is gone.
To end on a positive note, if you ever want to feel REALLY good by doing something that doesn’t involve sex or illegal drugs, drink a beer while taking a shower and using Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint soap. It sounds comically ridiculous, but trust me on this one. I’m pretty sure this entry patently broke my new not writing long entries rule. Maybe I’ll try harder next time (but probably not).
Over the weekend, I actually took a few steps towards getting my life sorted out. To paraphrase Ferris Bueller, life does move pretty fast and most of the time I forget to look around. So I bought plane tickets to England for Thanksgiving week, I’ve got my vacation time sorted out, Ryan’s going with me and we’re meeting up with
not_on_fire and Brendan C. I’ll be paying my parents back until the end of time for this on an installment plan, but I’ve been jonesing for some international travel for a while and I realized I was being “that guy” about England (i.e. the guy who goes to the US and just goes to New York = the guy who just goes to England and goes to London), so Leeds, York and Manchester and/or Liverpool or bust (and yeah, ending with a few days in London).
In a more practical sense, I finally signed up for the GRE (I’m taking it October 13th). I’m not particularly looking forward to the grad school application process, but it’s something I’ve got to do because I’ve spent too long crippled by inertia and too long being good but not good enough at anything, so it’s time to rip it up and start again.
Yesterday was my one year anniversary on the job. Yikes. But I really can’t complain too much about my job, it’s a 9 to 5- but the people are alright and the work isn’t too much of a grind. My co-worker in the file room Jose’s last day is Friday- I’m going to miss him in the same way I miss Gloria, just when I get used to someone’s quirks they leave on me. So it goes- if all goes according to plan, I’ll be gone before my two year anniversary anyway. I don’t like writing much about work on here, because frankly it’d bore people even more than everything else I write bores people (which is saying a lot).
Also this weekend I did things as varied as do my laundry, wash my dishes (and created more of a mess last night in the unending war against unsanitary dishware), lose money at the casino (Bad idea # 1000: going to the casino a week after paying my bills and before getting my next paycheck) and buy new dress shoes.
I went out to Yorktown Mall to get new shoes and it didn’t feel quite right. The old West end of the mall which used to consist of an abandoned Montgomery Ward’s has been replaced by a “nice” (read prefab, yuppieish, expensive, sterile) block of open air outdoor shops. I always get a weird feeling when I go to malls, I feel like I’m different from everyone else there, but then I feel incredibly patronizing and condescending for thinking that because well, I’m not, really.
But I really didn’t feel right because of my near hypocrisy over shoes, before I bought any leather or sweat shop shoes, I left. I ordered some vegetarian shoes made in a fair trade UK factory- for all of maybe $20 more than I would’ve paid at the mall (upper middle class people who gripe about paying slightly more for that kind of stuff piss me off to no end). I say this not to congratulate myself, but to make a point. In the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter whether I buy the shoes I bought or leather shoes made in China.
I’m still using CO2 emissions, I’m sure I own things made in sweat shops, I have given (and still occasionally give) money to cut-throat corporations. And whatever I do positive will just be cancelled out by other people anyway. So personal ethics are pretty much that and most progressive activism and ethical purchasing out there just serves to make the activist or consumer feel better. So it doesn’t matter, but it matters to me. And if I can do something that makes me feel better and gives money to a company with ethical standards, why not? It won’t change the world, but nothing really ever will (except in small increments on certain issues), we’ve just got to try our best.
I’m reading Fever Pitch right now and there’s a chapter where Nick Hornby talks of wishing he was from Islington (in North London) and not being able to own up to being from Maidenhead (in the Home Counties, i.e. suburbs) and how so many upper middle class white people wish for a poorer or more oppressed background to assuage their guilt and the farce of it all. Sure, I’ve had plenty of opportunities in my life so it pisses me off to see people with those same opportunities trying to deny their roots so they don’t feel so bad. Bah, I was able to write all this better in my head (as usual).
Overall, the book is more simply about him being a fanatical soccer fan (particularly of Arsenal, but also of Cambridge United and the English national team) and I’ve been barely able to put it down. Sox and The City is still my favorite book about devotion to a sports team (and if you ever want to know what drives me to willingly attend over a dozen Sox games even after they’ve stopped contending, you could do worse than read that book), and Richard Roeper does a great job about discussing motivations (and besides I’m biased towards any book about the Sox). Still Hornby does a better job of getting down how it feels in the heart and the gut and the bizarre thought processes a sports fan runs through, that non-fans will never understand while still making occasionally surprising me by providing pretty incisive social commentary.
So I lost $96 at Hollywood Casino this weekend. On Saturday night, I was bored and tried my luck with Jeff and Brendan C. and their significant others. I lost some money on the slots and craps, but my game, roulette, really killed me. I stopped before I could lose triple figures and am hence all-time up $9 at that casino. I like gambling, but seeing aging drunks throw away hundreds of dollars at my table is the best anti-gambling advertisement I can ever see- that and my Dad’s friend Ray who died before his losing battle with gambling addiction could fully destroy his life. So I’ll stay a small fry, but I’ve tasted enough to understand the thrill… On a lighter note, Katie (Jeff’s girlfriend) was blasting Avril Lavigne the whole way home in a losing bid to make me like it, but it sort of worked if only because they were singing along in a ridiculously over-the-top way- I think mainly because it annoyed Christina (Brendan’s girlfriend)- I’ve definitely never enjoyed listening to Avril Lavigne that much and it had nothing to do with the music.
This whole future thing is making me think about DuPage County. Maybe I’m just being a self-parodying romantic, and don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes I think nothing would be better than to leave DuPage, to leave Illinois, to leave the Midwest and never come back. I see too many people stuck here. When people get stuck in the same town, it is a leap to say they get stuck in the same mindset and the same routine and their growth gets stunted- but it’s not much of one. I need to get out again, if only for a couple more years.
I wish some day things with girls would just be clear and obvious and easy. There’s something to be said for having to put in effort, but not getting the desired result gets pretty old. Of course, I don’t have a lot to gripe about in that department, but sometimes the near misses and last minute fuck ups hurt the most… And there’s no point to me writing more about that. Because blah, blah I don’t feel like being specific and I’m not even being vague enough to be interesting, so….
The Firkin and Fox can now be added to the list of the DuPage Theatre, Togetherwood Park and other landmarks in Lombard and Glen Ellyn that meant something to me that are no more. Tom and I were going to go there to watch a Sox game and without warning there was a “For Lease” sign in the window. Easy come, easy go… and the best place to watch sports in downtown Glen Ellyn, not to mention probably the only place in DuPage County that both showed soccer matches and reasonably replicated an English pub is gone.
To end on a positive note, if you ever want to feel REALLY good by doing something that doesn’t involve sex or illegal drugs, drink a beer while taking a shower and using Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint soap. It sounds comically ridiculous, but trust me on this one. I’m pretty sure this entry patently broke my new not writing long entries rule. Maybe I’ll try harder next time (but probably not).