Celebration, Kool and the Gang-style

No more Star Jones! So the world can be devoid of ridiculous soundbytes and her delusions of grandeur.

 

On another note, did anyone see the picture of Jamie Foxx kissing Fantasia (Mantasia) during a performance at the BET awards.  I was perusing RedEye on the el yesterday morning, and when I saw that picture I couldn’t resist screaming “ewwwwwwww.” 

 

Yeah, people on the train think I’m real normal!

New Friends! I had the opportunity to make new fr…

New Friends!

I had the opportunity to make new friends the other day when I interviewed Jen Lancaster and Fletch, her husband (and dogs and cats). Jen, a fellow Chicagoan, is the author of our book club selection, and the book that I’ve been raving about lately — Bitter Is The New Black, and I wrote her to give her kudos on the book and to see if I could interview her, and get some relationship tips for the column.

Just so that we’re clear, hers isn’t a relationship book. (Which is a good thing, because I have an unofficial policy that I don’t really like to read relationship materials from other authors — especially not while I’m writing the column — but that’s a different topic altogether.)

Her book is a memoir that reads like a novel, and it details her life as she went from being a top-earning VP of sales through her lay-off and inability to find a job post 911. I was excited about meeting her and interviewing her because, in her book, she talks about her relationship with her husband, which is really healthy and solid. I thought it would be nice to get a good relationship story, for a change.

She was all over the idea of an interview, and graciously invited me over. We had a great time. She gave me a few great soundbytes on relationships. Stay tuned for the article, which you will be able to read either this or next Friday, depending on which column runs first. I guarantee that it’ll be good stuff.

I just love meeting new, cool people!

New Column today Today’s column is all about how …

New Column today

Today’s column is all about how to have a good date.

Also, the RedEye site has changed, and now there are archives, in case you missed any in the recent weeks that you wanted to read, and a new bio.

On another, more serious note, I’m not exactly happy about the terrorist threats that we’re having today. It’s kind of scary to hear a random news item reporting a potential attack on the Sears Tower WHEN YOU WORK IN THE SEARS TOWER. Jeez!

I’m SO Jealous

I had dinner at Sushi Wabi last night with a friend who is moving to Paris for nine months.  PARIS!  I LOVE Paris. 

 

She and her boyfriend are just picking up and moving there so that he can finish a writing project, and she’s going to spend her days reading and walking her dogs.  Although she can’t get into the Parisian habit of not picking up the dog shit.  They don’t seem to think it’s necessary in Paris.

 

I told her that I will be visiting, but not until the Spring, when it’s truly beautiful there.  Maybe I should relocate for a year to a foreign country and spend my days writing.  But, see, there’s this ilttle thing called money.  Sucks, doesn’t it?

Snooping

Saturday, I watched a segment of the weekend edition of the Today show, and the topic was cybersnooping, and how it’s common for significant others to rifle through each others’ e-mail, text messages and call logs. 

 

The guest “expert” was a very attractive man.  He was also one of those hot guys that you can look at and tell that he’s going to be a big fireball of trouble.  In fact I can’t remember exactly what made him an expert, although I suspect that his expertise lies in driving women to antipsychotics.

 

His advice was interesting.  He openly said that women are usually doing the snooping because men are most likely doing the cheating.  He went on to say that he would never leave a woman in his home unattended, and that he never leaves his phone out or his computer on, because he knows that the woman du jour would snoop.  Seems that Pretty Boy has had a lot of experience, given that he has all of the playa-playa tricks of the trade for not getting his hands caught in cookie jars across the city.

 

I couldn’t help but think he was missing the entire point, which was supposed to be the perils of snooping, NOT to teach men how to cheat more effectively. 

 

This is a topic that I have a rather strong opinion on (not like there’s a topic that I don’t have a strong opinion on). 

 

Fuck the espionage.  Here’s a radical idea, cutie pie . . . if you’re in a relationship, KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS!  It’s that simple!  Because guess what?  If you’re not cheating, that gives your nosey parker girlfriend nothing to find when she looks.  When she glances at your text messages, she won’t see any booty call invitations or volunteers of tongue-trickery; she will only find messages from your sophmoric friends about how they’re watching the game, or scored with the ex-stripper they picked up on the Viagra Triangle.  And then guess what?  She’ll stop snooping because she will feel secure in your relationship.

 

It’s not about hiding the info.  It’s about having no info to hide.  Jeez!  Freakin’ figure it out!

Nausea et al

You will all be proud of me.  I narrowly escaped vomiting on the bus this morning. 

 

I’m one of those people who has a day-of-the-week pill organizer.  No, they’re not just for octogenarians.  They’re also for those of us who are trying desperately to remain vitamin-enriched and well-preserved.  All told, I have between seven and ten pills that I take each morning.  That might be excessive, but hey . . . they make me feel better — at least mentally.  And we all know that’s the most important thing.

 

Anyhoo . . . I added a few more pills to the mix. Two Pamprin, to be specific.  That was a bad idea and my stomach hates me for it.  Let’s just say that I would prefer to have gut-wrenching cramps — cramps so bad that it feels like Lilliputians have invaded my body and are using my ovaries for trampolines — rather than go through the abdominal hell that I just suffered.

 

As the bus inched toward the Loop, I felt a wave of nausea coming on.  I had a few problems with this.  One, because it was keeping me from concentrating on my book — Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster — that I LOVE, and two, because I don’t want to be the subject of morning chatter throughout Starbuck’s and coffee pots across the city.  “The Woman Who Barfed on the Bus” is not a title that I want.  And I REALLY didn’t want to lose it all over my very cute, girly pink, Nicole Miller jacket.

 

I popped a Smint, and concentrated on making it to my stop, which is fortunately situated directly in front of a Walgreen’s. 

 

The Walgreen’s workers, who are slightly surly, were staring at me as I reached for the nearest stack of 1,000 bottles of off-brand spring water, ripped off that annoying plastic seal and began guzzling.  I wanted to point out that it was either that, or an emergency cleanup in aisle 1. 

 

I’ve since settled my stomach after my tasty oatmeal breakfast. Yum!

Contact Lens Its whereabouts is still a mystery. …

Contact Lens

Its whereabouts is still a mystery. Is it still in my right eye coexisting with its replacement lens? Did it get wrestled out during a particularly rigorous eyerub?

Either way, I’m having a bit of pain in my right eye, and I can’t decide whether it’s real or psychosomatic because I think there might be a contact lens folded and stuck in the top left corner of my eye.

I’m off to spend the rest of this gray afternoon watching the (weird) film “Me and You and Everyone We Know” — or something like that. Then to dinner with dad.

Speaking of which, my father mentioned today that Steven Seagal will be at the House of Blues tonight.

I reacted as you might: “Doing WHAT?”

Well, apparently he’s in a band and they’re performing tonight. My father actually knows him (so do I, but that’s a different story for a different time), so I think he’s anxious to sample the musical skills of Mr. Hard To Kill.

I’m not nearly as anxious, but since it’s Father’s Day, I might be forced to indulge him, even though I tend to have a problem with actors turned musician.

Yes, I realize that Steven Seagal is barely an actor, but you get the point.

Several years ago, a bunch of us got roped into going to DoubleDoor to see Keanu Reeves’ band, Dogstar. That was a bad decision. I would have preferred to listen to Bailey howl all night.

Finished with most of my day Made it to all three…

Finished with most of my day

Made it to all three of the godchildren’s recitals by the skin of my teeth.

The first one was the 6-year-old’s dance recital. There were children as young as three who were participating. The little ones are funny. They basically stumble through the dance moves, and everyone thinks it’s cute because they’re so young and shameless. I feel for the instructors because teaching a three-year-old a dance move is as effective as herding cats. Frustrating.

The second recital was Christopher’s (the 6-y-o’s) tumbling recital. Big day for Chris. This recital was the antithesis of the first one. It was for a different entity, and the difference was:
1) The Mayfair Academy’s event was in an auditorium, while the Hyde Park event was in a gymnasium
2) The Mayfair event had professional lighting and curtains and the whole shebang. The Hyde Park event did not.

There are more but, really . . . why bother? The point is that it varied dramatically.

The third recital, which I nearly broke my neck to attend after Chris’ tumbling event, was for Chris’ sister, who’s nearly 10. Haley’s in with the big kids, and their recital is the most fun. Those kids were so impressive because some of them are really very talented, and there was one segment where the teachers danced along with the kids (the kids are so big these days, who can tell the difference between a 12-y-o and an adult?). It was amazing.

The only problem was that I was seated in front of a problem family. It consisted of a rather meaty woman who was accompanied by her 5ish-y-o daughter.

The big broad was also a mother of one of the performers, and was all about “her baby.” Did everyone see her baby? Did we know that the one in front, second from the left, is her baby? Wasn’t her baby fantastic?

I didn’t want to tell her that her baby, if it’s the girl that I saw, is well on her way to being a gastric bypass surgery candidate if she doesn’t start leaving the Hostess on the shelf in the gas station where it belongs. But I digress . . .

I wished she would have paid better attention to her other baby — the five year old who couldn’t sit down if her life depended on it. She stood, she danced, she waved her hands in air (and yes, she waved em like she just don’t care), and essentially blocked my view each time she lifted from her seat. I wanted to grab her by the back of her pants and snatch her into her chair, and then I wanted to crack her mother in the head with my program for not watching her kid.

Eventually, since nobody else was administering any disciplined, I leaned up and said “excuse me little girl . . . could you please sit down? I can’t see around you.” I was proud of myself. That was much better than the “Sit your narrow ass down in that seat before I beat you” that I was tempted to say.

I was concerned that her mother would glare at me, but she actually reinforced my reprimand, which was refreshing.

I was supposed to go out afterward, but I was blown off by two of my friends. They’re both moms, and moms are always social wildcards. They’re never the most reliable party buddies. If that kid even looks like he/she has a cold, or if there’s a problem with said child’s father, it’s over. The night is ruined, and you’re flying solo.

So, I’m flying solo. Fortunately I don’t mind.

What a day ahead of me . . . Alrighty, people . …

What a day ahead of me . . .

Alrighty, people . . . I’m queen of the overleveraged. Sometimes I think there’s a contest to see how much I can pack into the day. I have THREE children’s dance recitals, a birthday party, my dad’s gig, and I’m capping off the evening by meeting another friend for cocktails. WTF? Did I mention that I just put in two flats of annuals?

Then there’s the little problem with my contact lens. I’m one of those people who brutalizes her eyes by keeping in her disposable contact lenses for WAY longer than I should. My optometrist believes that I order several pairs from a discount retailer in between visits. I hate to tell her the truth — that I actually make those that I buy from her last for an entire year. The irony is that my prescription improved last year. My right eye is -1.75, and my left eye is -2.5. My left eye is actually my stronger eye, even though my eyesight is worse. This is all relevant info, I promise you.

Last night, I was sitting on the couch, rubbing my eyes, thinking that it was about that time for me to switch to a new pair. I closed my left eye — the strong one — and realizes that I couldn’t see so well out of my right eye. So, I did what every normal person would do — I stuck my finger in my right eye to adjust my lens. Except there was no lens there.

After I eliminated the burn from having massaged my unprotected eyeball, I looked in the mirror and searched my eye for the lens. Lenses can occasionally slide up under the lid, and, in bad cases, can get folded up and crammed in the corner of your eye. (apologies to those who are getting sick from this post. Imagine how it is to go through it. Yuck!)

I never found the lens – not even after tilting my head, using an eye wash, yanking on my lid. That bad boy’s gone. LONG gone. I wish I knew what happened to it, and when.

I have new contact lenses in now. I can only hope that there aren’t two in the right eye.

“Blinky” is signing off to continue the day!

Weird people

I know that there are a lot of weird people in the blogosphere.  I looked at a report from a nifty little service that allows me to see how people get to my sites.  It isn’t that comprehensive, but I can see what they searched for to find me.  Usually it’s benign stuff, like ‘Gina B. RedEye.’ 

 

Well . . .  I just saw where someone searched for “How to rob a vending machine with a crowbar,” and ended up on this blog.  This scares me for many reasons.  The first is that someone would be stupid enough to search for that.  Haven’t you seen CSI, moron?  The second is what I must have been writing about to pop up as a result for that search.  I’d better check into that one.