Two Posts In One Month! Boy Are You Lucky!

I have butterflies in my stomach right now, like I'm excited about something. Yet I have nothing at all to be excited about. No plans yet for tonight. I even have work tomorrow. Maybe my butterflies are caused by the UNKNOWN! What COULD happen tonight! Or maybe it's because this is my 309th post. That must be it. Me and Blogger - who'd of thought we'd make it this far although I'm getting a little impatient over here waiting for a ring.

I was downtown with my mom a couple Saturdays ago to see an exhibit at the Art Institute. That didn't happen though, seeing as the line was out the door to get in, plus already sold out. So we decided to make the most of our outing and just walked around trying to find some free stuff to see. We found a Polish Fest going on in Millenium Park (people besides Irish people celebrate themselves?!?!?), walked around the Chicago Cultural Center, saw some American Idols performing on Ellen who was taping in Chicago that week (although not really cause it was ending because of the shitty weather by the time we tried to get close) and went out to eat at Bennigans (to complete the true downtown Chicago experience!). As we were walking towards the train after that, some people, obviously from out of town, we were walking behind us and said, "It's so weird to see there are 7-11's in Chicago too". Why. Why is god's name is it weird to see 7-11's in Chicago. Doesn't everybody need a place to buy a Slurpee? Or a place to buy a bag of Doritos at 3:00 am? For the rest of the day my mom and I kept saying, "Subway! A SUBWAY! In Chicago of all places! Who knew!" or "GET OUT OF HERE, THERE'S A WALGREEN'S HERE TOO?!" Chicago, it truly is a magical place.

I tend to fall asleep listening to my iPod at night and usually wake up to the cord wrapped around my body, disconnected from the iPod itself or to the cord in a bunch of knots because of the (I guess crazy?) way I sleep. The other day I topped myself though - I wake up, with the earbuds still in my ear, but no iPod at the other end. I find the iPod somewhere in the bed with the part of the earphones that plugs into the iPod still in it. I had ripped the earphone cord basically in half. In my sleep. Now no longer do I only randomly sleep walk in my sleep, but I destroy things. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I got my rebate check from the government Friday May 5th, and also got paid that day so I was RICH, bitches. I paid off some of my Old Navy bill with it (I would be in serious trouble if I had an actual credit card - I can't even control myself in Old Navy for chrissake), went to Target about 80 times (seriously, I think I was there more last week than I ever have been in my entire life) and bought a new monitor for my computer, since I finally have the internet in my room (hello porn!), only two years after Keri and I bought the wireless internet thingy. So, not only did I essentially boost the economy all by myself by spending $200 on a new monitor, my dad told me the new one uses less energy than my old one. Saving the economy and the Earth in one fell swoop IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN'T DO? Here I come to save the daaaaaaaaay.

I was buying gas Monday, and before I started pumping (ha ha, that made me laugh out loud. I am sad) I noticed the car ahead of my had gotten $3.82 worth of gas. The price for a gallon at this station was $3.93. What, couldn't make it around the block?

I've read a bunch of good books so far this year. I've kept a list so I don't forget what I've read and so far I'm at 26 for the year. I think I've read my favorite so far though, or at least my tied-for-first-favorite, along with What is the What, which was The Hakawati by Ribah Alameddine. It was a random find at the library and I LOVED it. It a story of a family set in Beirut, Lebanon of a man, Osama, who comes back to his country after being in the United States for two decades because his father is dying. It was that story, mixed in with other stories of Abraham and Sarah, Fatima and other mythical heros from the Middle Eastern culture. It took me a minute to get into the other stories because it was would be one story, then someone else in that said story would start another story and I couldn't keep track at first but after really getting into it I could easily remember who was who and couldn't stop reading it. Sometimes a 200-300 page book can take me a week to read, even if it is really good, but this one was a little over 500 and took me three days. It made me laugh outloud and cry - you can't ask for anything better in a book. It was just an eye-opener. I guess I think of people from anywhere over there being totally different from me, but then I read this book and realize they're not. They have the same conversations, fights, problems that anyone anywhere else in the world has. People are people, I'm just figuring that out for myself.

John Mellencamp is the Friday Feature artist on XRT. There is a god, and he just so happens to hates me. Damn you Andy, DAMN YOU for thwarting Jim's plan to propose to Pam in The Office's season finale. Still have the butterflies! And still have no plans for tonight!