Moving, Corey and Monique style

Corey and I have a good life. We've been blessed with good family and friends, a happy marriage, we laugh alot, love living in this city and generally enjoy life. Of course we're also us, which means bad luck follows us. I'm not being ungrateful, but man stupid stuff just follows us.

So... we've moved into our condo this weekend. Of course it didn't just happen easily. First we had some issues with the developers not telling us about changes in our place, such as putting up drywall over the bottom quarter of our brick wall in the living room. After going round and round with them, we were able to settle on things and were ready to close and move in on Friday.
We did the walk through and put together a "punch list." This is a list of small items such as touching up paint or cleaning up the brick. They have 30 days from closing to complete this. We put together the list and planned to start moving little things like clothes on Friday night. The truck was rented and our friends were ready to help with the big move on Saturday morning. Well, during the walk thru, the contractor and realtor told us that we couldn't move in on Saturday because they had to put the finish on the hardwood floors. This takes "6-8, maybe 10 hours to dry." This was frustrating because I had literally called the realtor every week for the last month or so to make sure the place would be ready in time. I told her that we could push the move date back if needed, but I just needed to know ahead of time. She reassured me that everything would be good to go by Fri, May 26th. Of course it wasn't, so we scramble to get the moving truck on Sunday instead and made sure that our crew was still willing and able to help out a day later.
Since the floors were supposed to be dry by Saturday night, we decided to get some light moving done that night. We show up to the condo 10 hours after the floor finish was put on and it still wasn't dry. Annoyed, we went back home, finally Sunday morning it was dry.... we thought. I walk into the bedroom to start hanging up a closet system we bought and felt stickiness under my feet. That's right, ruined the floor right off the git go. Luckily the rest of the place was dry, they'll just have to come back and touch up that room, because I'm not paying to fix it.
Next up was the actual move. Chicago seems to be having an unusually chilli season this year, except of course for Sunday. It was the hottest day of the year. Going up and down three flights of stairs to move out of the old apartment in the hot sticky weather was miserable. Tyler claims it was the worst day of his entire life.
Still, we got everything out and everyone is still alive. At least the new place is airconditioned - WRONG! Not yet at least. Nice of the builders to tell us that our A/C wouldn't be in right way. Supposedly it's going to be running this week. Until then, Corey and I have been sleep on the couches because the living room is the only room with a fan. This fan/light is turned on and off by remote control. Pretty cool, except that we're apparently on the same frequency as our upstairs neighbor. So, if they turn their lights off, ours go off too and visa versa. At 7pm last night they turned their lights off. I could only play tug of war with the lights for so long before I had to give up and unpack in the dark.
To me, these types of issues don't seem like "punch list" items. They're items that should be listed as "we need to complete these before we tell Corey and Monique that the condo is ready to be moved into" items. It'd be nice to have cable or for the hallway lights not to be connected to the outdoor light so that it would work in the daytime and not just the night like it does now. Also, on that "ready to move in" list I'd include a deadbolt that works or a shower door. Hey, maybe I'm being picky. This is the first time I've bought a home, so what do I know. Maybe homeowners don't need a toilet seat. Geez!

Wasted time

Two weeks to go till we move into the new place. Much of our efforts have been concentrated on looking for creative ways to utilize the little storage we'll have in the new place. This is the perfect job for Ikea. That's if we can find it. Effing Yahoo Maps doesn't know what it's talking about. Last night we wasted the whole evening looking for the damn place. We were coming from a different direction than normal and according to our directions we just needed to follow a single road all the way to Ikea. Seemed simple. That was until the road that was supposed to lead us directly to the store just stopped. We drove, drove, drove and then no more. Then when I tried calling the store to ask for directions, I waited on hold for 15 minutes and when I finally talked to someone, they said they didn't have directions from where I was. Last night was just a huge waste of time. I wouldn't mind so much, but with Corey gone so much with his rehearsals lately, we have to take advantage of any extra time he's off. This was one of the only chances we'd have this week to get the organization stuff we needed.

Oh well. Besides this little glitch, things are going well so far. The big "Ravenswood Manor" garage sale is on Sunday. Those of you in Chicago should come over and buy some of my crap from me. I never realized until this move that I'm quite the pack rat. I had no clue. I've changed my ways though. Every week, I throw out or give away bags and bags of junk that others may need, but after keeping it around for 2 years and never using whatever the item is, I've finally realized it's time to let go.

Yeah, last night was wasted in some ways, but at least we got some much needed business out of the way. On our endless search for the Swedish wonder that is Ikea, we debated over a very important topic. "Which is the more disgusting phrase? Among a few of the options... 'Gas coming out of my butthole,' 'Gas coming out of my sphincter,' 'Gas coming out of my ass?' " I voted on the first. Seriously, Corey is really lucky to be married to such a sophisticated, classy woman and I have never met a more gentlemanly man than him. Keep your jealously aside people. I know it's hard, but try to resist.

-Mo

Zzzzz

I finally made the jump and decided to try Ambien, the sleep medication. I've been sleeping horribly at night, tossing and turning and waking up every few hours starting at (almost to the minute) 2:00am. I was and still am a little nervous to take sleep aides, because I already talk in my sleep and sometimes walk in my sleep. I hear Ambien can make you do crazy stuff, especially if you're predisposed to doing stuff in your sleep. I'm desperate though, I have to get some sleep.
Last night I took my first pill. Unfortunately it was at about 7 hours before I needed to wake up, not the recommended 8 hours of sleep. Now I understand why they say that, because I woke up an hour late. At least I didn't wake up all through out the night like usual, still I don't feel rested. Maybe it was because I jolted out of bed panicking this morning. Tonight I'll take it even ealier and hopefully all will go well. Maybe the meds will make be do something crazy in my sleep, like pack up the apartment. That'd be nice, just get it all done while sleeping. You know me, I like to multi-task.

-Mo

$20,000

The Billy Brimblecom Benefit was this past weekend, on Saturday April 29. At the risk of sounding immodest, I'm calling it a resounding success. The night so completely exceeded my expectations, I can't begin to explain. The short version: Monique and I talked on the plane to KC and were of the opinion that if we pulled in $8,000 - $10,000 it would be a huge deal. What an enormous help to Billy and his family if we could bring in that kind of money.

Then Saturday came, and it all began to roll in. First in the afternoon we get word that the shows were selling out. Then people arrived and start buying raffle tickets and bidding on auction items, and the thing just becomes this unstoppable force! It keeps rolling on until by the end of the night we've tallied somewhere in the $19,000-$20,000 range. Re-read that last sentence. I'll wait. Yeah, exactly.

There were so many great stories from the weekend. Here's just a sampling:

• Like the friend of ours who I booked to do a teambuilding workshop a month or so ago. He calls and says "Remember that check you gave me for the workshop? I'm tearing it up. Put it in the Billy fund."
  
• We did a huge media blitz before the show. The Friday, April 28th cover story on Billy in the Lawrence Journal-World. Great article, you should read it.
  Jason and I are at Mix 93.3 on Friday morning promoting the show, and "Rocket" the morning DJ guy, gave us a CD of "Popo Zao" that was actually autographed by Kevin Federline. We then raffle that off at the show. Hilarious.
  
• Jason has one of my favorite lines of the weekend. He, Billy and I are at 98.9 The Rock promoting the benefit on Johnny Dare's morning show. Johnny was terrific, really interested in Billy's new leg, which is very high tech looking, with a clear shell part. The boys start talking about ways to decorate that and Johnny recommends filling it with water and goldfish. Billy mentions skittles. Jason says "Fill it in like a rainstick. Then people will be all 'Is it raining? No, it's just Billy doing crunches.'"
  
• Some amazingly generous people came to the show and bid on the auction items. We sold nearly everything! The auction itself accounted for about $10,000! It was helped by the brother and sister who got into a bidding war over the 2 tickets to next season's SNL Season Premiere. The sister won out in the end with a bid of $2200. So the brother tells Jason that if he can hook him up with 2 more tickets, he'll match his sister's bid. Done.
  
• My friend Ryan Dolan procured 4 VIP tickets to a taping of an episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. We live auctioned them from the stage. The bidding started at around $250, but quickly grew to $500. Then it ramped up past $600, then $700, then $800. I thought it was going to end up there, a nice sum certainly when a bidder finally yells out "$900!". Everyone cheers, there's a pause, and the same guy yells again "ONE THOUSAND!" I yell , "Sold!" and we get a cool grand by the man who outbid himself.
  
• Billy had probably the best idea which came to life at the benefit show. A few months back, Jason did a bit on SNL called "The Young Chuck Norris". It was one of those SNL Digital Shorts, and it was a video for a song. Jason played a character named Doug Brogar, the prototypical classic rocker with ripped jeans, long hair, American flag bandana, fingerless gloves, etc. It's a funny song which you can view here. So Billy has Jason email him an mp3 of the song a few weeks before the benefit so the band can learn it. And at the show, Blackpool Lights closes out their set by inviting Doug Brogar and his backup singers, The Liberty Belles, to the stage. Jason, accompanied by his wife Kay, Billy's girlfriend Ali, and Monique sing the Young Chuck Norris song, in full wig and costume. It was incredible! Here's a picture from the rehearsal:

I could go on and on. Suffice to say, the band sounded amazing, the comedy was hilarious, and everyone had a great time. We sold over 40 items in the auction and raffled off another 25 or so prizes. Along with donations that came in before the show, the overall amount raised for Billy is around $32,000 or so. And that number is growing. The website is still up, and online donations can still be made there. Though we've got enough to pay for Billy's prosthetic leg, there is still the enormous debt accumulated from a year of chemotherapy and surgery and hospital stays, etc. So feel free to keep donating!


Thanks again to everyone who volunteered, donated prizes, came to the show, performed in the show, bought tickets, promoted the event, bid on auction items, maintained the website, and overall gave of their time and effort and money to make an unforgettable night go from a crazy idea to a beyond-our-wildest-dreams reality.

- Corey

P.S. - More pictures from the event are coming soon!

Zombies

I don't know what our deal has been lately. Sunday night, Corey dealt with horrible insomnia and only got a couple of hours of sleep. Last night I had trouble sleeping. I tossed and turned all night long. Mostly I just kept getting uncomfortable or had aches and pains that would wake me up. I took a pain killer before bed, but that wasn't working, so I ended up taking some Tylenol PM. I still woke up several times during the night, but at least I got a little bit of sleep. The other problem was that you're supposed to take the Tylenol PM when you can get 8 full hours of sleep. I took it around midnight, which meant at 6:15am when I was supposed to get up, according to Tylenol, I still had 1 1/2 hours to go. I finally got out of bed around 7am. I still made it to work on time, but I was definitely a zombie for a while.

The other strange thing about today is that it's almost May, yet I had to break the winter coat back out. It's pretty cold today. I looked out the window an hour ago and there was snow coming down. It's pretty much stopped now, but man it makes you wonder what we're doing to our environment to make the weather act so crazy.

Yesterday I was harassed by a toothless thug wanna be on the "EL." He saw my Harley shirt and kept asking if I could get him one. I tried to explain that I didn't sell the shirts, but he was convinced that I had a closet full of them and could get him one. He even offered to pay extra for one. Luckily a friend of mine happened to be on the train with me at the same time. I'd answer his question and then turn away from him to face my friend and talk to her. I even put my hand up in front of my face to shield him away and give off obvious body language that I didn't want to talk to him, but he kept bugging me. After the guy wouldn't catch on, I had to be rude... well more like blunt with him. Eventually I said, "I don't know! Look, I'm talking to my friend here" and I turned back to her and finally he left me alone.

Creepy El ride, creepy sleeping, creepy weather!

-Mo

Help My Creative Friends

We are fortunate enough to have some really creative and talented friends. A couple of them are currently taking part in contests, and you can vote for them!

First is Clay Morgan's commercial. Clay is an actor, improviser, media magnate and aspiring filmmaker. He has entered a contest to create a TV commercial for 98.9 The Rock, a radio station in Kansas City. The winner of this contest wins a huge grand prize of $20,000. To vote for Clay's entry, go here to the 98.9 website. There are over 300 entries, so don't waste your time going through them all, just vote for #66.

Next is Dan Telfer's shirt design. Dan is also an actor and improviser. He's also an amazing graphic designer. He designed one of the Billy Brimblecom Benefit posters you've probably seen around town. He has submitted a design for a shirt and you can vote by going here, and voting his design a "5". The winner gets a nice $2000 paycheck. You may have to register, but it's free and by now you probably have a junk mail email account at a free site like hotmail or yahoo for things just like this. If you don't, now's a good time to start that.

Thanks for your support.

Not much exciting (which is exciting)

Not much new to report. So far everything is still going smoothly with the condo. We should be officially locked in by Thursday. In the meantime, we've kicked into major savings mode. You don't realize how much money you waste with going out, ordering in and just not paying attention to your checkbook. Not that we were throwing our millions of dollars around or anything, but by being a little more careful, we're able to save a lot. For example, I've learned that I love Aldi's. There I said it. We spent almost 1/2 of what we'd normally spend at the normal grocery store on food that was just as good. Plus, we stopped by a little local Mexican grocery store in our neighborhood and bought green peppers, carrots, apples, pears and deli cheese and only spent $8. $8!!! Awesomeness! Plus, since it's relatively close to our apartment and the weather's been nice, we've been walking there for added exercise.
It's been nice that for the first time in 2 years, I'm not crazy busy. I'm still dealing with back pain, which leads to hand and arm pain as well as my hip and leg. I'm in physical therapy again, so that's helping and I'm trying to stay relaxed and get more sleep than normal. It's the first time in my entire life that I've made sleep a priority. I don't always get to bed as early as I should, but at least the effort's there.
The timing of not being as busy has worked out so that we can spend more time working on Billy's Benefit, which is going to be an awesome night. So many people have stepped up to help him out. It really shows what a great person he is. I'm really looking forward to my trip home, not just for the event, but to see my family, friends, the nieces and my sister who is coming in town from NJ. Hope I get to see all you KC folks out there.

-Mo

Do you have hair on your back?

Last night Corey and I did a show with another girl for a group of middle school boys and their dads. We didn't do this show in association with any theater. Another improviser had a friend who did stand-up and was looking for a 20 minute improv act to go along with him. The original improviser had to work and couldn't do it. She started asking around and the word got passed along to us. We figured it'd be a good way to make a quick buck.
I'd have to say that last night was one of the weirdest shows I've ever been a part of. Let me start from the beginning... We were told to show up at ___ address at 7:30pm, that the show started at 7:45pm and we'd go on for about 20 minutes, maybe a little more if we wanted to and something about highschoolers. The weirdness started when we got there. The so called address wasn't listed on the building. The problem was that there were two schools next to each other, neither with numbers on them. We were about 30-40 minutes early, but wanted to make sure we were at the right place. I called the stand up guy (who had never contacted me the night before with details like he was supposed to) and said, "We're here, which building is it." His answer was, "I don't know. It's the one assigned to the address I gave you." No shit... thanks for pointing out the obvious.
Eventually the stand up met up with us. However, he didn't introduce himself and explain what the order of the night was going to be, or why these kids were here... nothing. He didn't communicate with us at all. He just hurriedly shook our hand and started walking towards the building. He offered to pay us a little more if we performed for 30 minutes and said we should pay attention to what the kids were talking about. Now mind you, at this point we still have to meet up with our 3rd player to figure out the line up and we still don't' know when we're going on.
At this point, we peek into the gym where there are about 50 boys and their fathers to get a sense of what kind of group this is. I hear the speaker asking questions like, "Do you have hair under your armpits yet?" and "How many of you have had a wet dream?" It was a sex-ed class! Apparently these boys were all 5th graders about to go into middle school and were having a sex-ed class with their dads to prepare for the new school. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I encourage the openness. What was awkward is that we weren't told anything about it and here's two girls (me and the other improviser) awkwardly standing there as the poor embarrassed boys have to be asked about theirs and their dad's first erections.
The stand up dude kept telling us to make sure we incorporate what they were talking about into our show. I don't think he understood what we did, because it would be highly inappropriate to act out some of the subjects they were discussing... be it men or women improvisers. After he did his act (which was just him standing up there saying, "wow, you guys just had some awkward talks with your dads... ha ha. I had a wet dream once, when I slept in the bed with my grandpa. ha ha. It's good to be open about this stuff... ha ha") Then he introduced us. This was finally the point when he communicated to us, not before the show... right then and now we found out... um okay I guess we're on.
We ended up just playing 5 games and kept it themed to school, not sex. They actually really loved it and were an easy crowd to play for. In the end, we even got a little bonus money. Next time though, I'd send in 3 guys to improvise and I'd give them a heads up about what to expect.

It's ours, All ours!

Whooo Hooo!!!!

We're buying a condo. I'm freaking out, excited, scared, thrilled and happy all at once.
Since we're on a month to month lease in our apartment, we started checking out bigger apartments to move to a couple of months ago. We just felt like it was time to upgrade. Never did we think we'd be able to afford to buy a place in Chicago, let alone a place in our neighborhood. We were stunned and excited that there was a two bedroom condo in our price range just six blocks away from where we live now. It was too good of a deal to pass up. It's just a block and a half from our cousin Anne. It's a gut rehab, so everything is brand new, it's an older sturdy building but everything is very modern and we fell in love with it immediately. As long as this 5-day attorney period goes as planned, we'll close on May 26th. This is such an adult step!
It's not a ton bigger than our place now, but the kitchen and bathroom are huge upgrades. Plus we'll have a dishwasher and washer and dryer. And most importantly, it'll be ours. It'll be a great investment.
Here are some pictures of the model condo (the one directly above ours)....

The kitchen - The sink is in the right corner, it’s missing the faucet at the moment, but it’s the kind with the extending hose nozzle thingy.

Here's the bathroom, again the faucet isn't in yet, but you can see it
it's the kind with the above counter sink (which I love!). You can see the tub/shower. What you can’t see is that to the left out of frame is just a shower stall. There are two showers in this bathroom, and much more space than this picture shows.

Another view of the awesome kitchen - and Oh My God - Counters!
This last one is of the living room (love the exposed brick!) Since we'll be in the garden unit, instead of a door to the porch, we'll have french doors opening to an extra little room where I'll probably do hair.

Now with the 2nd room, there's no excuse for you people not to visit.

-Mo

Team Building

In about 10 minutes I will be doing a bunch of improv warm-ups and games at Harley. Joey Greene is in town today from Michigan to run a Team Building Workshop for the admin. group at my company.
Our group has had some issues with getting along, communicating etc. When HR wanted to do some team building exercises or something to help out, I figured that rather than let the business go to someone else, we could do it. Obviously I couldn't run the workshop from the inside and besides not being able to take off work it would be a little strange to have Corey do it. So... in stepped Joey.
To be honest, I'm a little nervous. I'm sure it's going to be fine, I definitely trust Joey. It's just always weird when you bring in the talent, show or whatever. Everyone will turn on you if they don't enjoy it. It's a weird mix of women, especially the oldest two, who are the ones that caused problems in the first place. There are definitely other people I'd rather spend 2 hours with. Oh well, it's not a bad way to spend your work morning and it'll be fun. The goal is for us to have a good time, not talk about any issues or anything weird. Plus we get free lunch!
Hopefully this will lead to other opportunities to do workshops either in my company or branch out to others.

-Mo

Things that irk me

* People walking down the left side of the sidewalk, not the right. - Don't crowd my side, I gots somewhere to go!

* People walking up the middle of the stairs (especially getting to the El) - You can't move past them and are forced to walk up all slow ass like and miss your train.

* People talking loudly on their cell on the El. - Dude, I don't need to know your business. Well, unless of course it's funny or dumb enough that it would make a good story or sketch.

* $1200 Handbags - Really, is it that good? Come on!

* Rude waiters - It's not that hard. Even if you're super busy, just tell me you'll be with me in a few. I'll understand

* Parents that let their kids run around with snot on their face. - Must I explain?

-Mo

The Game of Life

This weekend was a strange mix of fun and pain.

Corey's Aunt Judy and cousins Margo (age 9) and Sarah (age 11) came in town for a visit. We had such a good time with them. Aunt Judy spoiled us by taking us out to eat at great restaurants and the kids were very excited to see us and a lot of fun to hang out with. The girls stayed the night with us on Friday. They played The Simpson's Game of Life, which is a hilarious game and even more fun when you watch two little girls play. They were very serious about buying home owners insurance, collecting their salaries and being little grownups. They had a blast! The adults on the other hand (Aunt Judy and Anne - the girl's aunt, Corey and I) went through a more painful ordeal as we watch the Jayhawks play like crap in the tournament. I must say, I'm very proud of Corey. This was the first game I've ever seen him watch his language, especially in a game where we lost because of being so piss poor. He didn't have to make the girls put on "earmuffs" once.

I was in double pain because my back is hurting me again. I've been dealing with it for almost a year and a half, along with other issues, and still don't know what's wrong. I'm continuing to see doctors about it and it looks like we may have an answer which equals treatment (more on that another time).

Also, partially because of the back issue, I have resigned from one of my improv groups. I was a member of pH for a year. I love the show and adore the people, but the 11pm and 12:30am shows were getting to be too much to handle. I'm sad that I won't get to hang with this group on a regular basis, but I also know I did the right thing. I've learned that I have to put my health first and that means getting enough sleep as well as regulating my stress levels.

I'm actually looking forward to having some down time in my life again. Though I'll continue to build my hair biz, I'll also just enjoy having a Tuesday night to lay around and watch TV or a Friday night to hang out with friends. I feel like I hit the ground running when I moved here and now it's time to stop and catch my breath. I know it won't stay this way for too long, but as long as my body tells me to slow down, I'm going to listen to it.

-Mo

200 Sammiches!

This weekend, Dan came into town. He was the first overnight guest we've had since getting the new couch. Yay! More comfortable for him.
Anyways, he was in town for a home and housewares tradeshow for his company, which manufacturers and sells footstools. It's a buyers only show, not for consumers, but since we helped set up the booth we not only got a nice dinner courtesy of Dan's company, but we also got passes to the convention. Corey and I had a blast. It was at the McCormick Center, which is HUGE. There was no way we'd get to see everything, so we stuck to the important parts, mainly the food items. Basically everyone is trying to get other companies to carry their products. In the beginning, as we walked up and down the isles, we tried to be nonchalant about the food samples they were handing out. I even tried to act like I was interested in purchasing for "my company." After checking out stuff for a couple of hours we got to watch the big demos with Alton Brown and then a little later, Mario Batali from the Food Network. If you're at all a fan of the Food Network, you'll know that Alton Brown is pretty entertaining. He teaches in a fun way, while cooking, sort of the Bill Nye of the food world. Needless to say, he was definitely the more entertaining one of the two.

After the demos we decided to go back and say goodbye to Dan, who was working at his booth. Well, we got distracted, because now it was around lunch time and there were even more samples given out. Screw being nonchalant this time. We walked up and down the aisles trying dips, spreads, candies, cookies, popcorn, beer, lemonade, even a grilled ham and cheese sammich. We didn't even bother pretending like we belong. "We're just here for the samples." This time was a lot less awkward trying the samples, since there were a lot more people there. It was like Wholefoods on steroids.

We even got a couple of give aways to take home. Corniest - the fake rose made out of feathers (I gave it to a little girl). Most Nostalgic - A crazy straw. Yummiest - A package of awesome Hawaiian beef jerky. Coolest life changing - a toaster bag. Ok, not life changing, but still cool. It's a little baggy made out of the same material as the McDonald's conveyer belts. You can put anything from a sammich, to pizza, bagels, tortillas...anything really in the bag and then put it in the toaster. This way all the crumbs fall in the bag, not your toaster. You can make a ham and cheese sammich in the toaster! Are you kidding me? That's awesome! We got 2 bags to take home, each with up to 100 uses. That's 200 sammiches!

Spreading the awesomeness

A good friend of ours, Nick Wagner is an aspiring filmmaker (among many other talents). You have to check these out. Vidiocy is a contest created by Jason Chin and Jeff Griggs of Chicago's IO to challenge themselves and their friends with video equipment. Anyone can sign up. The contestants are given randomly chosen titles and 30 day deadline. "Vidiocy challenges both professional and amateur videographers to create touching, hilarious, and sometimes outrageous 10-minute movies!"
I got these from Nick's website www.veryclever.org. I'm assuming he'll continue to update it with new films as he continues to create them (including one that Corey had a small part in). Enjoy and feel free to pass them along!

(Be patient, it might take a couple minutes for them to download, but it's worth it)

Free For All
2nd Place, Vidiocy 6
A Film by Adam Portilla, Nick Wagner, Chris Rathjen, Carroll Cottingham, and Jeremy Blodgett

In the Sheets
1st Place, Vidiocy 9
A Film by Jeremy Blodgett, Adam Portilla, Chris Rathjen, and Nick Wagner

Could be worse

I am doing absolutely nothing at work today. It's really shameful that I'm getting paid to play on the internet. Fortunately it's not always like this. That'd get boring after a while. There are a couple of things I'm putting off, but otherwise I've just been super organized and gotten ahead.
I know this is boring, but that's my day so far. BORING. I've already surfed all the Oscar stories online. Every movie star has been adequately judged - thank you.

My back is also acting up again. It's been over a year and a half since I first started having pains. For the most part, especially since I've moved to a different desk, I've been back to normal. Once in a while though it'll flare up. I don't know if it's my bed, my desk or what, but it sucks. It scared me because they say that once you have a major back issue, you'll have to deal with it for the rest of your life. Great!
It could be worse though. Last night we watched "Miracle Workers" on ABC. It's a show about people with debilitating physical ailments. The Doctors on the show come in and perform various miracle surgeries that the people could never afford otherwise. The medical staff's interviews were a bit overdramatic, but otherwise it was a good show. I placed my bet at 15 minutes for Corey's first tear to fall, but since the stories weren't specifically about kids, he didn't' cry until the end.

They followed two stories. The first was about a woman with horrible back pain. She had already had five surgeries, but nothing worked. The cartilage between her spinal disks had disinegrated. Her spine was just bone crushing bone. Thank God, my back isn't that serious. I can't even imagine. She had to be in a wheelchair just to get around and would likely eventually be paralyzed. In the end, the new technology they used cushioned her spine and took away her pain and she was able to lead a normal, healthy life.
I actually first teared up at 16 minutes. It was because of the second story about a man who had been blind for 22 years, since he was 11. He had never seen his wife or three children. His sister offered to be the live donor of eye tissue stem cells. She risked her own eye sight so that her brother could see. - TEAR- When they were able to restore his sight, it was amazing to watch him light up as he saw his daughters dimples for the first time or his sons blue eyes. - TEAR - He was like a little kid, lighting up when he saw the ocean and all the amazing new things he was able to see. -TEAR- It was really sweet. Anything involving kids and family and it's gonna make you cry. We're sucked into the series now, so Monday nights will be rough in our house. If you call, expect a sniffling voice to answer the phone.

What a dumb ass!

If someone were to squirt me with water, my reaction might be to chase that person and tackle them, squirt them back, maybe even get them back with an equally harmless practical joke later when they weren't expecting it.

It would not be to THROW SCISSORS at the guy.

Click here for video (warning, it may be a little slow to load, but it's worth it)

I think this is hilarious. What a dumb ass.
Possibly the best part to me is the "squirt guy's" reaction.

The Good, Really Good and What were we thinking?

I don't know what my deal is lately, but I'm a movie watchin' fiend, which is pretty rare for me as I never rent or go see movies anymore. Lately I've watched very inspirational and luckily excellent Indy films. The latest one was "Millions." "Starting anew after the death of their mother, 9-year-old Anthony is ever practical, while his 7-year-old brother Damian uses imagination, fantasy, and faith to make sense of his confusing world. When a suitcase full of money falls out of the sky at Damian's feet, it sets the boys on the adventure of a lifetime that leads them to realize that true wealth has nothing to do with money." It was a great story and was really funny. The cinemetography was especially impressive and the little boys are adorable. - Highly recommended!

Then, this weekend, Corey and I rented "Murderball." "A film about quadriplegics who play full-contact rugby in Mad Max-style wheelchairs - overcoming unimaginable obstacles to compete in the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece." Again, it was extremely inspiring, funny and overall really well done documentary.

Though both of these movies seem like they could be sad "poor him" type of movies, they were quite the opposite. Murderball showed the real side of these disabled guys. They didn't feel sorry for themselves, they just wanted to play this sport. And man, it's a tough, violent, awesome game. I'd love to be in the stands one day. When the athletes were approached about their lives being documented, the only stipulation they had was that they didn't want this to be a sob story. They said, "just make us look cool." Mission accomplished, and man do these guys score some hot women. Plus, they all have a great sense of humor about their disabilities. Again - highly recommended!

One movie I would not recommend is "Video Voyeur - The Susan Wilson Story." It's a made for TV movie that we got stuck watching last night. Around midnight last night we got hooked on the horribly bad acting by star Angie Harmon and a bunch of unknown actors. True to the nature of this type of movie, it's an overly dramatic, poorly written story based on the true story of one woman's fight to bring justice into the world by changing the law about people secretly video taping others in the privacy of their own homes without consent. We started watching it because it was so bad it was hilarious and though it never got any better, we couldn't turn it off. We just had to see the end, even though it meant staying up past 1:30am. Needless to say, I'm exhausted this morning.

Stuck with it

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. We've had a lot going on that's kept me away from my computer. First we got iPods. We had debated on whether we wanted to spend the money right now on them, but finally after finding an 1GB Nano online for sale we said, "screw it, let's go for it." A couple days later.... our computer crashed. Apparently they had nothing to do with each other, just a coincidence. However, the hardrive is gone. We had to spend a bunch of money getting a new hardrive and of course we didn't have as much info backed up as we should have, so besides not being able to post anything new, we lost a bunch of pictures, a few sketches we wrote, updated resumes and who knows what else. Luckily some stuff was saved in emails and the most important pictures from our wedding are on disks, but it's still frustrating. A good friend of ours here is going to try to do some disaster recovery for us which is super nice. In the end, saving a few bucks on iPods doesn't really mean much after all that money we unexpectedly spent on the computer.

Luckily my hair biz has really been picking up, so that helped with the money part. I'm going to get a website in the near future, but part of that depends on if we can recover the before and after haircut/color pictures I've been saving on my computer.

Yesterday Second City had a women's only TourCo audition. This was the second time I've auditioned for them. There's a few things to know about these auditions. Every improviser in the city is going after the 3 or 4 spots and pretty much no one gets in on their first audition, often it takes several tries. I know someone who auditioned 7 times and someone else who auditioned 12 times before they got in. You just don't go in expecting to blow the director away and make it on to this big comedy career. You basically audition to get on the director's radar and get better at auditioning. Of course in the back of your mind there's always a little hope that you'll be the exception to the rule and your magical, amazing talents will shine through and they'll put you on the road the next day. This did not happen to me.
Last year when I went to the open auditions I totally panicked. I was stuck in my head the whole time. You pretty much have 3 scenes to "wow" the auditors. In one of my scenes last time, I did a teaching scene (a no-no in improv) in which I instructed my partner to smear brownie mix on the bottom of her shoe. When I realized that this was stupid, I started freaking out in my mind and began inventing stuff, hoping to fix it... "put the brownie mix on your shoe and walk around... you know, so that the mob will slip on it... when they... you know...come into your house". It was embarrassing how horrible it was. Hilarious in hindsight, but still. This time I was much calmer. I wasn't really nervous and though I'm fairly confident in my improv skills, I didn't do a single memorable scene for them. Oh well, no Second City stage yet, but at least a step in the right direction.
The audition was at 11:20am in the afternoon. You'd think that since my company is technically a bank we would've had Presidents Day off, but we didn't. Because it was a last minute audition notice and since Corey had the day off, I played hookey. We had lunch together and I took a long nap later in the day, it was nice. When I came into the office today I had to turn my fake sick voice on. I figured it was more suspicious if I was too sick to come in yesterday, but perfectly fine and back to normal today. So, I greeted my coworkers with a gravely, nasal, congested sounding voice this morning and now I'm stuck with it. I have to use this voice even when I talk to Corey on the phone in case anyone overhears me. Though I am convincing and really getting a lot of sympathy, it's pretty annoying to continue to do. I think I might have gone a little overboard because I really sound like I should be back at home in bed. It's like on Friends when Ross started teaching his class in an English accent because he was nervous. He had to find a way to fade it out. I'm just glad that tomorrow I'll be feeling better.

A beautiful lesson

This weekend I saw a wonderful movie called "Born Into Brothels." It was the Academy Award winner for best documentary in (I believe) 2005. http://www.thinkfilmcompany.com/brothels/
The film is about a select group of children who live in the Red Light district in Calcutta where their mothers and often grandmothers and even great-grandmothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski a New Yorker, has been living in the district for several years. She's a photographer and while capturing what it's like in this horrible place, she really connects with the children. Knowing that their situation is hopeless without some kind of help, she does what she knows best and begins teaching a photography class for the kids. Their photographs have become world famous. Through their art, she's able to help them get enrolled in boarding schools and get away from the brothels, but most importantly to get an education, which is the only thing that will save their lives.

I fully expected this to be a heart-wrenching, tear-filled movie. I figured I'd be depressed at the end. However, I was really pleased at how inspiring it was. Of course it was sad, but overall it was really uplifting. These children are so brave and beautiful. It's true what they say about the truth coming from a child's mouth. They know exactly what their mothers do, they know the situation they're in, but it's all they've known and they are still positive about life. They know they could be and do more and with the help of Zana, they actually have a chance. Though they're in far worse situations than anyone I've ever known, they are still kids. They laugh and tease each other and play, just like a normal child. It was beautiful to see. I won't give away all the details, but I highly, highly recommend this movie.

After watching it, I was really inspired to do more for others. So often we take our easy, privileged lives for granted. I'm complaining about having an office job that I don't particularly like. Are you kidding me? Life could be so much worse and for so many, it is. Now I'm not saying I've had a huge life altering experience, but it definitely affected me. I'm going to start looking in to charities or things I can do for others. This woman was "just" a photographer, but her little gift changed the lives of these children and will continue to do so for more in the future. I realized that though I'm not sure what yet, I have so much to offer that I could help someone else with. I just hope that I never forget the lesson of this movie.

Blaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh

My eyeballs are going to fall out. I have spent all day long formatting and printing excel sheets. Are you kidding me? This sucks. I've said it a million times, but I just wish I could quit my job. Again, the job itself is fine, the people are overall great and the pay is nice, but man it's so boring. I've really been working on building my styling business. I've been contacting brides through "The Knot" (a wedding website). I've got quite a few interested in having me do their hair and makeup. Plus I'm talking to more photographers about working with them as a freelancer. I think I'm still a good year away from switching careers, but it'll be worth it. The biggest help will be my website I'm going to get. I'm still not sure of the details, but it'll be nice to send potential clients to a professional site with my work displayed on it. We'll see, I'm still toying with the idea.

Though work is boring, at least the past weekend was a normal fun weekend. Normally Corey and I rush out of town to do a show. While it's a ton of fun and fullfilling as an improvisor, it's also nice to know what it's like to have a real weekend. Friday night was the 3rd installment of Game Night this time at Owen's. It was a blast. We actually slept in Saturday and enjoyed Joey's Brickhouse for $12 all you can eat brunch. It's not a buffet, it's all you can eat off their menu. Corey was in heaven! That night Rob Grabowski and Andi Woody were in town from KC. We went out to dinner, to a friend's karaoke party and to see my pH show. Sunday was just resting and watching the boring ass Super Bowl (seriously, it was boring). I can't remember the last time I had a normal weekend like that. I'm really excited because this weekend is going to be similar.

I'd write something more interesting, but my brain is too mushy right now. Back to printing!