today, i have plans to do the following: on my lunch break, purchase the new dave eggers book. it got four stars in some publication, however, it may have been the pittsburgh tribune-review, so i suppose i have to take that with a grain of salt. also, tonight i will be stuffing my middle ear with hydrogen peroxide-soaked cotton balls. after some mysterious event on sunday, i can barely hear anything. the world sounds as if i am underwater. its one of those ailments that isn't any kind of emergency, but is just excruciatingly annoying. all day i am missing conversations, accidently ignoring people, and tonight i will not be able to sing karaoke b/c i am having a hard time hearing myself talk. other people are annoyed by hearing me respond "what?" 750 times a day.

yesterday, i got to leave work early to drive one of our attorneys up to montefiore hospital. at first i didn't want to do this, because the lady is the most untalkative person ever. i've worked here two months. she just learned my name yesterday. with this hearing affliction, the last thing i wanted to do was make awkward conversation with someone i just met. however, leaving work at three with the only responsibilty of babysitting someone's car while reading chuck klosterman and avoiding a busride home is worth the sacrifice. ironically, she is also the most softspoken person in this firm. of all the things she said, i maybe caught one or two sentences. (also, i hope thats real irony, not alanis-morrisette irony, because if it isn't i don't think i know what the definition of irony is.)

sitting in the car, i realized two things. if someone says what they are doing WON'T take an hour, it almost always takes that much time or longer. if they say it will take an hour, it will take five minutes. also, if you stay with the car, you can park wherever the hell you want. my sole purpose for accompanying this lawyer was to park her car and then return it to her after her meeting, so she could avoid paying for parking/the hassle of parking an oakland sidestreet. fine. after i dropped her off, i noticed several cars parked alongside the driveway curb. i pulled up behind one of them, planning to stay until i looked to suspicious. no one bothered me. no one within a hundred yard radius even resembled a parking official. i was sitting five feet from one of those no parking signs. however, if i had left, i almost certainly would have been ticketed/towed within ten minutes. somehow, the driver's presence in the car makes it entirely acceptable to park that car illegaly. had i left this car at a parking meter outside eat n park with fifteen-minutes too few, i would have immediately got a ticket. somehow, i can park MORE illegally and as long as i hang out, i'm cool. it boggles my mind.

some thoughts on my music collection.

when traveling on foot, i enjoy listening to tunes on my ipod. yesterday i was attempting to avoid listening to sad songs because i wanted to be in a good mood (FYI: listening to coldplay magnifies any sadness you have by 1000). so, utilizing the shuffle feature as i typically do, i skipped all songs that were slow or otherwise depressing. this is what i found:
a. the majority of my music collection is old sad bastard music.
b. the remainder consists of mostly late 90s popular rap.

i listened to some big pimpin, a little deja vu -- uptown baby (i actually LOVE this song, i contest that as a popular rap outfit, lord tariq and peter gunz are vastly underrated), a little of that big pun song about not being a player (oh, its called STILL NOT A PLAYER. i seriously couldn't think of it).

i don't even feel that bad about this. my ride home yesterday was quite enjoyable.

some thoughts on nickelback

I hate nickelback. they are terrible. once i told some kid at gds to play nickelback on the jukebox, and i don't think he realized i was joking. i was. however, the funny thing is, even though i hate them and their songs are not by definition original, interesting or even slightly good, i find myself intrigued. if one comes on the radio, i'm not switching the channel. i figured out why: nickelback songs make you nostalgic for things that never happened to you. everytime i hear "far away," i become reminiscent of an ex-lover i've betrayed but wish i could win back. this person does not exist. "photograph" makes me miss the good old times back in my hometown with my tight-knit group of friends who used to hang out in the woods and drink, smoke and generally rebel-rouse to a harmless degree. this never happened either! i was a loser in highschool. my 4 friends and i went to eat n park on saturday nights. we didn't drink. yet, these songs come on the radio and i wish i could pick up the phone to chat about old times. this, i deduced, is the only reason anyone likes nickelback. they are making millions of dollars selling you fake memories.

fucking canadians.

also, chad kroeger is the ugliest man ever.

some thoughts on 316 s bouquet

sometimes you'll be lying in bed and a calm will creep over the apartment, i'd imagine much like it would feel if you lived in a shanty house on chickenlegs near a beach while there is a tsunami looming offshore, not close enough to see yet but there nonetheless.
then, slicing the calm will be the dulcet tones of darryl hall as "rich girl" tears into the air at maximum decibel levels. the last time it happened i literally jumped.

needless to say, we have a good time.

so i was reading the city paper today, and its tool bag editor chris potter had some words about the sienna miller incident. basically, in additon to saying that she should be ashamed of what she said, he said that the people of pittsburgh acted immature in their response. he basically accuses pittsburgh of being way too defensive when attacked by the media/b-list celebrities. the outpouring of hatred towards her, as he cites in headlines taking cheap shots at her "semi-fame" and other reactions from the last few weeks. i have some thoughts on this:

get a life. fuck if i want to be from a city that lies back and takes obnoxious, uncalled for criticism without reaction. sienna miller is a bitch. she is pissed because she's getting paid nothing to do low-budget movies in cities that aren't london, nyc or la. boo hoo. first of all, a headline calling sienna a "semi-famous" actress isn't an insult, it's a statement of fact. she's done rather obscure movies, other than alfie (which bombed). she is more or less famous for her crash-and-burn relationship with jude law. she's not julia roberts; she's not making $20 million a picture. sorry, "semi-famous" is pretty accurate.

regardless, even if it was an insult, she deserves it. she is working in a city and thought it appropriate to trash talk that city to a national publication, and not even intelligently. a coworker of mine had a friend who happened to run into sienna up on mt. washington after a day of filming at the lemont -- apparently, all she did was feel bad for herself because she's all alone in this city, has nothing to do and is regretting taking a job in such a small-time movie. GET OVER YOURSELF. you're not hot shit, and apparently you aren't even a nice person, either. before she trashed pittsburgh, there were 250,000 or so people here who would have opened their arms to her. i don't doubt that for a minute.

pittsburgh may not have the size or glitz of NYC, but one thing we do have is a population that is fiercely loyal (unless your name is kordell stewart). no matter what happens here, or where they go, pittsburghers will always love pittsburgh. who can say they wouldn't step up and defend themselves when attacked? potter's article cited pittsburgh's constant concern with its national image as a reason for its defensiveness. we should be concerned with our image -- its shit. unless you're from here, chances are you are either a. not a fan of the city or b. unconcerned. in a city that has a floundering economy and is searching for an identity to replace the one given by the steel industry, of course our national image is important. pittsburghers will give anyone a chance; any person from here will lend you bus money, chat you up at the bar or demonstrate their friendliness in any other way possible.

i expect nothing less than defensiveness from a city that gets so much criticism. a few weeks back i spent an hour in kopy's on the south side listening to some jackass from philly talk shit on steelers fans and eventually the city of pittsburgh in general. he was mad because the fans gave him so much shit for being from philly (this coming from a guy from a city whose fans booed santa claus, threw batteries and made fun of TO for his suicide attempt. classy.) i tried to reason with him, and tell him that yeah, philly is a wonderful city but pittsburgh has much to offer, too. he refused to understand. okay dude, then don't live here if you hate it. go to temple.

basically, i think any reaction we give sienna is warranted and frankly, i hope she feels terrible about it. anyone with such a low level of class doesn't deserve our respect unless its earned back. waving your actress flag to a bouncer at a bar when you forgot your ID won't do it.

basically, chris potter, who are you to criticize your city's response? a semi-famous editor of a mediocre newspaper? yeah i thought so.

man, i'm so mad. go pittsburgh.

i'm promising myself i'm going to write more frequently. it's october now; it's been since early august. that's sad. october is my favorite month of the year. perfect weather -- days that are chilly, not needing a jacket to be outside quite yet, but past the days of sweat-soaked clothes and constant sunlight. i prefer when it's overcast. i hate sun. call me dreary and pessimistic if you must.
i'm keeping my window open as long as i can. i need to be cocooned in the down comforter to stay warm, but it's worth it: nothing makes a bed feel more comfortable than the snapping of october air in the window. it does, however, make getting out of bed the most heartbreaking thing. and showers in the morning are terrible. still, i'd rather be cold.
i'm having that itch again -- i want to get out of my apartment, the city, this state. maybe i just want something from home -- a connection with a person, a chance to sit on the red-plaid couch and watch television, or to drive to wal*mart or blockbuster. i never claimed to love greensburg, and i'm sure i'll never go back, but sometimes just unapologetically leaving a place behind feels too empty. if i've got nothing to salvage from twelve years, are those twelve years gone? what does it mean if i didn't leave my mark on that place? and i'm wondering how i will reflect on pittsburgh next year or a few years down the line -- i hope i feel differently. all i want right now is to go home and have someone welcome me, but it's changed so much since i lived there. maybe i learned a lesson about so frivolously letting something go.