You know what you never want to see when you walk out your own door? Police tape sectioning off your block and a SWAT team. The dogs and I decided to get on out of there before we were allowed otherwise and made our way to dog beach. By the time we got back an hour or so later, it was all over. I talked to the guy who owns the coach house in question, and he said his tenant went nuts but that there wasn't a gun or anything. He seemed like he wanted to down play it, which I don't blame him, but I'm willing to bet he's looking for new tenants tonight.

Every block has those people, though. I want to say I was shocked when the house in question was confirmed but as soon as I walked out and saw where the police concentration was I just shook my head. I've always said hi when I walked by, mostly because I live in the only multi-unit building on a block with people whose house are worth millions, and I'm sure a couple of them view me as a those people, too. There is one uppity bitch I truly hate, who never says hello, even when you're saying it and looking right at her, who looks as though she's very bitter for having chosen to stay home with the kids, and subsists on a diet of disappointment for her husband and downers. And Chardonnay. You know those sorts of women drink that by the boxful.

Anyway, I've always loved my neighborhood for being so small and quiet, and the kind of place that unless you live here, you're not really familiar with it, and the number of assholes is pretty small, even for being so close to Wrigley, which attracts the town's finest assholes every spring and summer. So while we may be making headlines these days, I'm still not leaving.

I quickly glanced inside and saw a couple sitting on what looked like an old, ratty couch, watching television on a very large screen, entangled in each others limbs, flipping through the channel selections. By all accounts the rest of the house was very empty, and to think about a house that expensive, that massive, that empty, it immediately makes you wonder where people's priorities are.

But I have learned that you don't get the luxury of questioning other people's priorities. Besides, even from that quick look, those two looked pretty content in that big house, in that little basement.

*****

The other day, I was at the doctor's office and ran into an elderly couple I've seen in there before. Which officially means I'm old and sickly, because, really? Who remembers the faces of those who share her doctor? Only those who are at the doctor all of the time.

They're both in Jazzy scooters and they both sort of look like each other in that way that only people who have been together an eternity can be. It was hard to tell who was there for what, or if both had appointments, until the woman asked the following question:

"Do you remember the name of my medicine for my constipation?" She was the one filling out the paperwork.

He paused and said, "No I don't, baby," then went back to his magazine.

Several moments later she let out a gentle, muted cough and he immediately looked up to watch her. It was all very protective and instinctual. She smiled at him as she covered her mouth, he smiled back, and again went back to reading. It felt entirely too intimate for a general practitioner's office on a Wednesday afternoon. I was an interloper, no matter how unintentional.

In those instances you begin to understand how it happens, how two peoples' lives can merge to become one, how two people end up looking alike, even. It's born out of all of that routine and care and kindness, each serving as a witness to the life of the other, mirroring that life back to the other.

*****

Last night, under somewhat a certain amount of duress, I ended up at Excalibur (watch the music) by 11 p.m. on a perfectly fine Friday night, one in which I should have been, by all accounts, in bed, but was fully done up in about three shades of eye makeup and four shades of eyeliner because my fiance had to be there on assignment for work.

We both talked about how, when we were younger, we'd drive into the city, past Excalibur and assume that, due to the line and its proximity to everywhere we were familiar with, it was the hottest place in Chicago. As locals know, it takes just one trip there in your early twenties to reveal how incredibly horrible and cheesy this place is and, if you're lucky, you'll have two amazingly horrible and cheesy nights there in your lifetime and never return ...

... unless you're fiance tells you that you're going with him for the story he has to write for the magazine. To be fair, I once made him come with me there for a freelance piece I did for his magazine, but only for the span of one drink, so I could interview some guy who said he'd be there, and certainly not to dance. He made me dance, you guys, and I can't dance.

We stood back near the main level dance floor and tried to ascertain if the group of kids - and they were kids, and they even had that one girl who was terribly drunk already and gyrating up against all of her girlfriends, trying to get the crowd to believe that she was going to start making out with any one of them.

My friend Jenni, who is an actual lesbian, calls those girls "Queer by Beer."

The boys didn't have a chance, though they tried, and while at first I wanted to poke a whole mess of fun at these girls, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was them ten years ago, though not Ms. Queer by Beer, and traveling in a pack of people, getting drunk, dancing, making a complete fool of yourself in public, is what you need to do to figure things out for yourself, to appreciate a night on a couch on a Friday night watching TV, in bed by 11 p.m., sober.

"Thank you for marrying me," Scott said, putting his arm around my waist, laughing as he watched those girls.

"Oh you're welcome," I said. "But I was them once. You're just getting the improved version."

*****

Thanks for the emails and IM's and Twitters and MySpace messages and Facebook posts, everyone. We're so touched by the well-wishes from everyone. Even our alma mater, and the reason for our meeting, gave us a shout out yesterday. Most of you know I'm already a total shit about email, but I'll get back to everyone.

Thanks a lot, though. We're really happy too.

We'd both worked as editors for Chicagoist, a Chicago-centric blog owned by the fine folks at Gothamist in New York City. Back then, Chicagoist was very much a start-up production, not the uber-popular local blog it's become. Back then, there were only a handful of us writing the thing and it meant that we all got to be fast friends.

Beginning in November that year, long emails would frantically fly back and forth amongst a small group of us at the site, all day long. There was much planning and strategy going on, as far as the site was concerned, but mostly the communication consisted of me and my seven new best friends cracking each other up. Never in my life had I experienced such an instant connection between such distinctly different people. Especially considering it would be several months before I'd see any of them face-to-face.

When March finally rolled around, Rachelle, the site's editor, called a gathering for brunch and we all met in person, finally, one Saturday morning at Wishbone. There were a whole slew of people there - I think almost 15 at that point - but it's safe to say that all I really remember is meeting Scott. Despite never having laid eyes on each other, he came right up to me and hugged me, an act for which he later apologized but explained that he'd felt like he'd known me my whole life and it seemed perfectly natural.

A fact which I've only recently recounted, and certainly did not in the immediate, subsequent months of that meeting, is that in that instant I knew too. Only I knew in a bigger, more all-encompassing way that knowing him was going to change my life completely. I'm hesitant to say that I was "hit by lightning," because it was much more subtle than that. Besides, such a turn of phrase implies something rather bombastic. The knowing kind of rolled over me like a very gentle wave, and what was once true was no longer and I was completely at peace with such a change in my reality.

He became the very best friend I've ever had.

I never believed in fate or destiny. I am of sturdy Midwestern - nay, Joliet - stock, I'm like a Mullingar heifer, really, and we don't have the time or the patience for romantic notions. If we wanted any of that we might as well move to California. Besides, you can travel to the farthest country imaginable and it still wouldn't matter because ultimately you just want folks back home to validate your existence in some fashion. Validation is in the water in Joliet like so many fluoride compounds. But instead of something beneficial like reducing tooth decay, all you get is anxious and susceptible to caring too much about what everyone else thinks.

I don't necessarily blame the town in which I grew up for my predicaments, or my parents, or myself. I was ripe for the picking, and you throw such an insecure person into a community where pack mentality is king? It's bound to cause lots of problems for someone who lacks a finely honed sense-of-self with which to wiggle out from under. There isn't really anyone to blame for that inability, either. I had a rough adolescence and the only thing I got out of that experience was the desperate, awful, painful need for things to just finally be OK, no matter what I had to do to make that happen. You know that feeling? Of wanting everything to be OK, nothing more, nothing less? For almost twenty years I lived my life in service of achieving the moment where I'd finally be able to exhale and feel that everyone and everything was ...

... OK.

From Save Chicago Culture: Tomorrow the council will vote to approve an ordinance that has the power to stifle creativity in Chicago's musical, theatrical, and general cultural scenes. With no public discourse or commentary, this proposal has been approved by the City Council Committee and is on the fast track to be pushed into law. It is up to us to let our elected officials know that Chicago's creative scene is too rich, too varied, and too vital to be regulated in such a blanket fashion.

This ordinance will effectively shut down and paralyze any independent music, theater and other assorted live performances, the stuff this town's cultural heart is made of. A city where I can only go see Dave Matthews Band or Wicked is not the city I signed up for.

Scott interviewed Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd ward yesterday, and is as we speak trying to get press access to the council meeting for tomorrow. He wrote a great piece on the issue at his blog, as well. Sign the Save Chicago Culture petition and keep up with the Time Out Chicago blog for the latest!

This post is solely and completely an inside joke devoted to one of my very favorite family members, Jeffrey, who brought this up over Mother's Day dinner tonight and nearly had me choking with laughter on my Brown's Chicken, just when I needed it.

Dude, I could not find a video for this but I am still looking.

UPDATE! Thanks to Dena - thanks, Dena! - we have video!

Honestly, you need to make him a regular read, especially you parents out there. But don't ask him to update more because then he won't have time to write for me, and I can't lose that on my staff. He's stretched thin as it is.

But definitely make him a regular read.

Provided them with NEW, horribly fucking inane tips by which they're supposed to believe they can nab a man. Readers have had to use the recycled, horribly inane OLD shit for YEARS now.

A "sexiness kit?" And in this kit she says we should stash perfume, lip gloss and a pair of heels. I can assure you that if I'm not wearing an outfit that doesn't already necessitate heels, I'm not about to pair up something like my yoga pants and hoodie with purple stiletto pumps. Scott would laugh so hard he'd never regain composure.

Ugh.

We walked in the door and he ran up to me screaming and wrapped his little arms around my legs. Later on, he insisted on sitting next to me on the couch, pillow tucked on our laps, shovel at our side, Halloween book being read. This little guy loves books more than anything. I couldn't believe how he cuddled up next to me. I only see him a couple of times every month; living an hour and a half away is just far enough that I don't get to see him, or his cousin, Aidan, my other nephew, nearly as much as I'd like.

My heart melted all over the place. Scott said he could hear my uterus thumping. Mostly I just liked getting to know Chase a bit better that day.

He's so sweet.

"As these endings were lost, it was necessary for the language to rely upon other means of showing relationship between sentence parts such as adjective and noun, subject and verb, verb and object, etc. The means which developed was, of course, that of Modern English. The subject cane to be indicated primarily by the verb; nouns began to be identified less by their endings and more often by the noun-marking or signaling words that preceded them, such as the, a, some, his, et.c; prepositions increased in importance and took over more of the task of signaling relationships that formerly had been shown also by the cases of nouns."

For a grammar book, those are some shitty sentences. I am probably the only person from JCA's Class of '94 who kept, and regularly reads, her English book.

I am so envious of women like my friend Carissa, and her friend Amy, who take pictures and write gracefully, lyrically, as though being a creative person is an honor and a gift and the act of creation is reverent and holy. As opposed to how I tend to view my own brand of creativity, which seems to possess all of the grace of a monster truck rally. Each, I know, has it's place. One isn't necessarily better than the other. Both are necessary in the grand scheme. I just wish I could be prettier about it sometimes.

I turned 32 last week to much fanfare with my boyfriend. It was the sort of fun-filled, jam-packed day that I could have only been provided by someone who knows me well. There was Jesus, booze, burgers and full-frontal nudity. Plus an hour-long massage at a spa and a cheese plate. It was not a bad way to usher in a new year especially if you like gratuitous penis shots in your movies, which I do.

I have been trying to be nicer to myself. All of this discontent I feel needs a new home, preferably one several blocks away. I am always nervous and dissatisfied, mostly manifesting itself in the state of my body. Which is silly. This winter, in an effort to combat the cold and to avoid sloth completely since I'd lost total interest in running indoors, I began lifting weights. As it stands, my body is stronger than its ever been, with real muscles everywhere. But you get a photo in front of me, wherein I'm caught at an unflattering angle, and I spazz out completely, for days on end. One of these days it will have to be OK that I am not perfect. Maybe when I'm 42?

I really need to go back to yoga.

Work continues to be amazing and lovely and challenging and filled with kind people who do things like make me margaritas for my birthday and volunteer to help me pick out shoes for soon-to-be dress purchases. I like these people, these new friends. I like working with them and creating with them and they've helped me to navigate through this new world where words like "engagement" and "agency" are relatively new to me, but make me feel pretty grown up. Newsrooms, it's probably not surprising to you, were pretty juvenile in every way you can think of. Agency life has its moments, to be sure, but it doesn't make me want to run in the bathroom and hide like Lynn Sweet once did to me when she didn't get her way.

But mostly my days have been the same, Glinny starts whining when the sun comes up, not to go out, but so that I'll wake up and cuddle up with her. She plops her entire body down onto mine and rests her head in the crook of my arm. Afterwards we start our routine, we part ways, I return later and ask her how her day was. It's usually pretty restful, to be honest. If it's not pouring rain or stupidly cold, we go for walks in the neighborhood. Sometimes I leave to go out - actually I do this more often than not, as I never feel like I'm ever caught up with seeing friends - but other times we just sit on the couch and yell at Tyra Banks or Top Chef or some other Bravo show.

Things feel rather suspended at the moment, which is not a bad thing. I'm waiting for the tide to turn, for things to change again, just after I'd gotten so used to taking up so much space.

I don't know why. Maybe a ghost with real-world abilities could help a brother out? Maybe I believed that my child is such a genius that she could somehow unstrap herself, hop off the table and somehow push a chair to prop herself up and open the locked door. My imagination, sometimes it is too active."

My friend Omar is hysterical. And I think we can all safely assume an excellent father.

Last night after dinner, Glinny and I went on a nice long walk and ran into all sorts of neighbors who were all abuzz with what had happened. All Chicago enclaves, when put to the test, are really just like small towns that inhabit one big city. The first neighbor I ran into told me what happened, as apparently the cops shot the cat only an hour earlier. Thank Jesus I'd opted to take Glin for a walk AFTER dinner, and not before, as I'd originally planned. It's irrational, I know, but I'd have thrown myself over Glinny and let the cougar have at me before I'd let it touch my dog. About 40 minutes after hearing about what happened, we made our way towards the scene and the woman whose porch the cougar made a home in for part of the day filled me in on the details.

She was on the 10 p.m. news later that night.

The most entertaining part of all of it for me was not only talking to a whole ton of my neighbors, but also being able to call my Gram, who always wonders when they're "talking about Chicago on the news" if they're talking about an area close to where I live, and tell her yes. That's where I live.

When I got home I sent Scott a text message to fill him in on what's going on and his response was, "People need to leave those old ladies alone."

Sigh. I'm madly in love with him so it's too late to turn him in for a new model.

The one thing, the one toy, that we always, always, without fail, had were video games. There is this great picture of me (it really is great) from when I was probably five or six, Atari joystick in hand, my two cousins crowded around me, in a red velvet dress, white tights, black patent-leather shoes, sitting cross-legged, playing a video game. And what makes it so funny is the look on my face. Never before have you seen a more determined little kid.

Scott says that the reason he loves that picture so much is that I still get that same look on my face whenever you get a controller in my hand.

I love video games, I love computers, I love All Things Electronic. JP, it should noted, was the one who made sure we had video games in the house. Mostly because he loved them as much as we did. The man was a Top Gun master. I've told the stories of how my father and I bonded over our shared love for gadgetry, and the summer I solved The Legend of Zelda was, no joke, an event in our family.

So it was with great happiness and no hesitation whatsoever when my friend Rachelle, over dinner a month ago, told me the nice folks at Nintendo had contacted her about having something called a "Girlfriend's Guide To Gaming" night. I'll spare you all of the details, but in a relatively shrewd marketing move, Nintendo set up this chic little gaming night in a pretty loft in the West Loop, all decorated with white candles and white flower arrangements. The gave us fancy food, drinks, candy and introduced us to the joy of the Nintendo DS. They also set up a couple of Wii stations.

By the end of the night, they gave us each a free DS Lite and a copy of Brain Game 2. How awesome is that? It was the most magical night of my life. Well, almost. But pretty close.

It looked as though I was the only woman there who didn't have to be convinced to go by her husband or boyfriend. Honestly, nothing could have kept me from that party, or that gaming console, and the only reason I actually chose the pink DS Lite is because I know there is going to eventually be a Battle Royale for it in our house and the more I can do to lessen Scott's desire to get his hands on it, the better.

I'm still not much of a fan - honest to Pete, there is nothing there to do to pass time if you're not interested in live spectacles of any sort. And I know: if you're not into spectacle, don't go to Vegas. And I promise you, I wouldn't. But I have to go, per my whole, you know, employment arrangement with the folks who deposit money into my bank accounts every other week.

I still found things to do to pass the time once work was over. Even before then. My favorite part about the whole trip was probably Sunday, sitting at DB Brasserie, drinking wine and eating some amazing tuna tartare, listening to an animated frog "lip sync" Louie Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." I decided right then and there I'd make the best of it because, let's be honest, how many people get to do this sort of thing? Not many. Really and truly, in the grand scheme of things, I'm lucky to have been able to visit so many places on someone else's dime.

(As an aside, I'm not a hater, really I'm not, but a certain uber blogger and her lovely husband need to stop with all of the complaining. About, as a friend mentioned, things they control. I'm starting to wonder if they can use a writing mechanism other than whining to explain what's going on in their lives. The device has jumped the couch.)

From a work perspective, the trip was very productive and while I'm not an engineer or scientist, as most of the folks in my client's industry are, I'm beginning to have a much better understanding of things such as ball grid arrays and soldering. Also? I got to hear the inventor of the Roomba speak and he was a hoot.

Personally I was probably the most well-rested individual in Vegas, as I think I was in bed by 9:30 p.m. every night, and up by 5:30 a.m. every day. I ran the strip - but only once because I am pretty sure my efforts to run Sunday's Shamrock Shuffle in under an hour screwed up my IT band. I managed to run it in 57:25, but also managed to injure myself. After a four-mile run on Tuesday morning, I called it quits the rest of my stay. I've hurt my IT band before, and it sucks, and I wasn't about to take any chances with the season just starting. I did walk a lot at night, and found a couple of dresses on sale, each only $25. I walked around for a long time at the Bellagio, smelling the flowers and taking pictures.

It was so nice to spend some time in warm weather, just to feel even a smidge of sunshine. I would step outside in between sessions at the conference and just breath deeply.

I played the slots, only once though. With about ten pulls I won $50 after putting $20 in. I cashed out after that. I'm not a gambler and the whole process of sitting there, punching a button on a noisy, crass machine seemed awfully sad. Maybe if you're there with people, on vacation, who are drinking with you, standing around you, cheering you on as though you had something to do with it? Maybe then it would seem less depressing. Mostly gambling reminds me of these really bougie, quasi-relatives of mine, whom I haven't spoken to in years, and anything I associate with those people is reason enough to avoid.

It was still nice to win something, though.

There was some pool time, and one day after work I saddled up next to the pool to take in the sun and the palm trees and had a creepy Italian man in Speedos saddle up next to me. As an added bonus, he turned out to be a racist creepy Italian man in Speedos. I won't repeat for you what he had to say about the Obamas, and African-Americans as a whole, but let's just say that with the direction he was heading in, I was seriously waiting for him to let loose with, "What more do they want from us?" After his tirade, he pummeled me with the sort of questions one only asks so he or she can talk about him or herself. He managed to make it clear that he was "very wealthy" and "building a home in South Hampton" and "what did [my] week look like?"

After I'd reached my breaking point, and could finally get a word in edge-wise, I told him I wanted to just read my book. In response he started to do push ups next to my lounge chair.

That's right push ups.

He was the last of three men to hit on me this week. I am not the sort of woman to get hit on, so apparently something was in the air and if you had breasts and were in Las Vegas, look out. One from the plane, sitting next to me, kept invading my personal space, asking me if I was here for "business or pleasure." The other literally got up in my face and stopped me after I was finishing up my run. He was German, so I had a hard time understanding him. But I could understand him staring at my breasts though. I'd had my headlights on. Obviously an invitation.

Aside from that, not a bad trip. I'm glad to be home.

The perfect size, it seems, is actually a four, not a six, as it was twenty years ago.

I know my previous post was riddled with more f-bombs than you can shake a stick at. My family is, no doubt, sighing deeply. My reaction was visceral, especially considering that it's been a tough winter, one that's found me struggling with my own body as it continues to adjust to thyroid medication. Five-to-seven pounds may not sound like a big deal to be gaining in three months, but when you work out as much as I do, and adhere to a pretty healthy, moderate diet, it's tough not to have all of your old body image issues surface when all of that effort produces, well, nothing because of the little blue pill you take every morning.

But all that said, I'm still angry about the language in the books. And by the emails and Twitters I received, I'm not the only one out there. Some of you sent emails last night to Noreen Marchisi and Kathy Dunn, and obviously, now, you can too if the spirit moves you.

I'm sure as much as anything that the SVH series isn't the only YA book out there that elects to use something such as a clothing size to describe its main characters. There is nothing inherently wrong with it, and there is nothing wrong with describing the body type of a main character in a book, fat or thin. What irks me is how that size, and therefore that body type, is quantified. In the canon of the series itself, I've never understood the importance of pointing out their clothing size, if only to forcibly hammer home the point that the Wakefield twins are conventionally attractive girls. But the idea of calling it "perfect?"

Really? Do we have to keep using such irresponsible language?

The fact that they've set that standard of perfection to an even lower size, one many girls simply can't fit into, is just cruel. And as far as I'm concerned, if it is one more contribution to the cacophony of messages that serve to distort and destroy a young girl's self-esteem, no matter how seemingly innocuous, it's one contribution too many. I'm sure there are other books that use similar language, but this is the one that I grew up reading, one that I consider an influence in how I viewed myself. And it's the one whose publicist and publicity manager issued a press release touting the offensive phrase itself.

C'mon, Random House. Drop the the three little words and live with yourself a bit longer and more peacefully. Don't be such simple-minded assholes.