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a plea. May 10, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : ye olde sporte , 1 comment

Dear Chicago Cubs,

Please don’t make it to the World Series this year.

Don’t get me wrong. I like you, Cubs. I really do. You are tied with the Mets to be my NL favorites. You may even be beating them a little bit, just because I live in your fan zone and can see your games on television all the time. I’m going to see you play on Tuesday, and I will be cheering for you the whole time.

But here’s the thing. I need you not to make it to the World Series.

Next fall, I’m stage managing a show whose title I can’t say on the internet because of dumb legal and licensing reasons - but I will say that the tagline may or may not rhyme with “the screamin’ arbor of sweet feet” - and it opens on Halloween. Halloween is probably going to be right in the middle of the World Series. And if you make the Series, dear Cubs, nobody is going to come to our show.

When the Red Sox aren’t playing, I will be behind you all the way until October, dear Cubs. I am behind you until Game 7 of the NLCS, should you get there, knock on wood, at which point, I will have to cheer for your opponents, whoever they may be.

I hope you understand. Can we still be friends?

Sincerely,
Abby

——————–

Dear Chicago White Sox,

I don’t even have to ask.

Go Red Sox,
Abby

-@

golly. May 5, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : ten-second updates , add a comment

I sure wish I could turn my head to the right!

-@

somebody intervene. again. May 3, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : misc. adventures, rants & raves , 3 comments

My name is Abby, and I have a shoe problem. But probably not in the way that you might assume. My shoe problem does not consist of my purchasing too many pairs of shoes; in fact, it is quite the opposite. I buy one pair of shoes and wear them to shreds and refuse to replace them.

When I went to West Marine and bought my Top-Siders some time in… 2005, it must have been, they looked like this:


Boring, brown, leather. Pretty standard, really.

I bought them mainly because my parents had at the time a Thing against being barefoot on boats, so I figured I’d let them buy me these shoes and we’d match when we were sailing and I’d leave them on the boat and never think of them again.

So I did that for a few months, until the end of one particular sailing expedition. I accidentally wore them back to school, or packed them, or something, and so they ended up in my closet for whatever reason. And there they sat until I had an important realization. I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “if you wear those, you don’t have to bother to put on socks, but you’ll still be in dress code.”

And thus began a long and blissful relationship.

A few days after I started wearing them, I took out the laces. They were dumb and leather and didn’t stay tied, and the shoes stayed on just fine without them. I wore them at least three times a week all through the rest of high school. When I got to college, laundry started costing money, and I started looking for ways to conserve clean socks, and I started wearing my trusty topsiders all day, every day. They now look like this:


Still boring, still brown, still leather; no longer at all standard.

New features to note:

Fine. You get the point: my shoes are old. But here’s the thing: today, I went to the shoe store and tried to buy another pair. I had the exact same shoes, in the same size, in my hands, in line for the register, and I realized I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t! The little men in my head kept telling me I had at least another year left in my current shoes. Their opponents pointed out that I can no longer wear these out to nice places, and that they now have to be paint/build/work shoes.

But I don’t care. I’m not replacing them until they fall apart in the middle of Sheridan Road.

-@

I have the biggest idiots for friends. April 19, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : misc. adventures, ten-second updates , 2 comments

[DISCLAIMER: If you think it's too soon to joke about Mr. Gowan, you probably shouldn't read this.]

On the phone with Juli the other morning:

JPM: Any news on Mr. Gowan?
ATM: Yeah, he died yesterday morning.
JPM: He what?
ATM: Died. He died.
JPM: I didn’t hear you, he did what?
ATM: He died. Ceased to live.
JPM: … what?
ATM: HIS LIFE A SPLODE.
JPM: OHHH. Why didn’t you SAY so?!

I repeat: I have the biggest idiots for friends.
(For background on things a sploding, play this game.)

-@

things that are really cool: me and earthquakes April 18, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : misc. adventures, technophilia , 1 comment

I woke up yesterday morning and said to myself, “Self,” I said. “You haven’t been parading around with enough dorky things on your belt lately.” So I dug out the little belt clip that came with my cell phone and stuck it on my belt next to the multitool and the maglite, and now, ladies and gentlemen, I could not be cooler.

In other news, the earth in Illinois quaked this morning, and I am super proud and excited to say that I FELT IT! I was lying awake in my bed and suddenly became aware that I was rocking back and forth a little. I was all, “naw, that couldn’t have been an earthquake, I’m just dumb,” but then I got up and Googled it and found lots of news results about it. And I was all, “BITCHIN’. My first earthquake.”

The epicenter was way far down in southern Illinois, apparently, so while it was around a 5 on the Richter scale down there, it was more of a NOTHING up here. I think what I felt was an aftershock, too.

But still, it was my first earthquake, and I’m kind of excited about it.

-@

what on EARTH has become of me April 16, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : ten-second updates , 2 comments

I’m so sore it hurts to drive.

That’s either really lame, or really badass. I can’t decide.

-@

things that are true! April 15, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : live theatre, misc. adventures, rants & raves , 1 comment

Anyone who claims that technical theatre is not athletic (I’m looking at you, Todd Marble) should experience how sore I am today and think again. Yesterday I showed up for my afternoon crew, which involves hanging around with the lighting grads and staff and clambering around in high places, and got sent over to Cahn Auditorium - the space WAY across campus where Waa-Mu goes up in a few weeks. (I hate Waa-Mu. I think it is in insult to the intelligence of the theatre community at Northwestern. But I don’t mind working in Cahn, so it wasn’t so bad.)

Anyway, I got there and was given a task and immediately wished I’d brought my Stetson hat and whip. I had to take two hundred foot cables, carry them up a ladder, string them across a veritable chasm, feed them through a little tiny hole, shove the ends through two more little tiny holes and feed it all down a 15 foot drop.

Easy peasy, right? Except for the part where I had to string the cable across a chasm. That was a little more difficult. I was supposed to lower myself onto a pipe running across the wall, but I got about halfway down and had a series of realizations: “This pipe is a lot further down than I thought it would be.” “I seem to have let go of the ledge. Hmmm.” “I wonder how far down the floor is?”

It wasn’t very far, but Indiana Jones would not have been proud. It was not a graceful move. (I still maintain that it’s because my mother never took me to ballet lessons in my formative years.)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I fell in a couple of chasms, balanced on a couple of teetery beams right above a couple of chasms, contorted my arms around doors and walls and attempted to defy physics… the list goes on.

The moral is:

I’m sore, and I wanted to complain about it.

-@

alert alert alert! April 14, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : (pointless) humor, ten-second updates , 4 comments

Ladies and gentlemen, beware! Beware the dangers of the disease we’re probably all going to get. If not all of us then DEFINITELY DEFINITELY me.

One of these days I’m going to come down with chloomydia.

But I’m going to love every second of it.

-@

you must read my every asinine thought April 11, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : technophilia, ten-second updates, the photo project , add a comment

And here they are, in no particular order:

  1. I’m really digging WordPress 2.5.
  2. I can’t wait for the weekend. (No, for me 5PM on Friday does not yet count as the weekend. I have to wait until 11:30. Why do I stage manage, again? Can somebody enlighten me?)

Here’s a photo!


Go Leafs! … no?

I wish I could repeat my entire photographic adolescence and development with the right equipment. I’d like this a lot better if I had.

-@

hoooo boy. April 9, 2008

Posted by Abby T in : misc. adventures, rants & raves, ye olde sporte , 4 comments

I don’t have school on Wednesdays, but I sure did learn something: ice and pavement are not the same thing. Brilliant!

Backstory.
Almost two and a half years ago, I fell off a bench and landed pretty squarely on my left knee. I broke neither the bench nor my knee, but the latter did bruise pretty badly and the nerves at the surface were temporarily deadened. The bruise healed up pretty nicely, even considering the fact that a few weeks later I started playing hockey for the first time and found myself on my knees more frequently than my skates.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago: the nerves in the skin on my kneecap were just starting to heal or regenerate or do whatever it is nerves do. Then I was struck by inspiration! I said to myself, “Self,” I said, “I know what you should do! Throw yourself down a flight of stairs!” “Okay!” said my body in return. “Sounds great!” My feet contrived a way to trip me and down I went, a-tumbling to the bottom of the stairs.

On my left knee. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. I was kissing my nerve endings goodbye.

Long story short, I went to the doctor, they told me I was an idiot and put me in a knee brace. Fast-forward to a few days ago. I was in the Sports Authority shopping for a new bike helmet (because my old one got stolen which is SO COOL GUYS REALLY) and I saw a display of hockey gear on sale, I guess ’cause apparently the season’s over? So that got me thinking about ice skating and how I should probably wear knee pads when I do so, because of this knee thing. So then I was in the rolling sports aisles getting these knee pads and I spotted some rollerblades on SUPER SALE:


Admit it. You’re into them. It’s okay. I won’t tell.

They’re technically roller hockey skates, but they were at a really good price - less than my helmet and set of pads combined - and I don’t know what the difference is between roller hockey skates and regular in-line skates, and I figured I used to play ice hockey anyway. So I bought them.

Over the past few days, I’ve been taking them out around the parking lots behind my building and it’s super fun. So today, I had to drop by school for a quick meeting, and I figured, why not skate there? The reasoning: if the distance between my apartment and school were flat ice as opposed to flat roads, I could skate there easily in about seven minutes.

However, my friends, I will say it again: ice and pavement are not the same thing.

The trip was hard. Way more fun than walking there, but it took a lot more out of me than I had expected it to. I didn’t think I’d have such an immediate, pressing need to shower when I got home. There was increased friction, there were spontaneous route changes due to potholes in the sidewalks, there were trillions of little tiny pebbles and sticks looking only to bring about my certain death. It was ridiculous, and now I’m tired.

And whiny.

-@