shut up, universe

this morning, the universe gave me an unequivocal sign that i was supposed to get back and bed and hide under the covers.

i'm standing in the bathroom, in front of the mirror, doing my make-up, and my ceiling light fixture falls down, hits me in two different places in the head, hits my shoulder, and shatters on the floor. luckily, i didn't black out or pass out, and after some ice i'm doing okay (but with two goose eggs and a sore shoulder).

it was one of those ceiling fixtures that is a half circle that has a screw coming down from the ceiling that goes through a hole in the middle of the fixture, and you "secure" it by screwing a decorative bolt onto the bottom of the screw, outside the fixture. it was pretty heavy, too, the glass being about 1 1/2 inches thick. The funny thing is, i last changed the bulbs months ago. i have no idea why this morning, out of nowhere, it suddenly dropped on me. i didn't hit the wall or do anything to shake it. it could have just as easily fallen while i was in the shower or not at home.

but whatever the omen, i ignored it and got dressed and came to work. i figured if i had a concussion and was going to pass out at some point, it'd be better to do it at work where there'd be people to see me. fuck off, universe.

in happy news, i recently got a "body wave" in my hair (read - a perm without the poodle curls) that looks pretty awesome. i feel very sassy.

i also spent an awesome saturday with my friend H., wandering around Graceland Cemetery, a historic cemetery on the northside. There are some amazing old masoleums (including one shaped like a 20+ foot high pyramid, with an angel on one side of the door, a sphinx on the other, and a stained glass window of Jesus). There's a mausoleum designed by Louis Sullivan (who is buried nearby with a monument erected later by friends, complete with an embarrassingly glowing description of Sullivan's life), and burial sites for people like George Pullman (has his own stage with a single giant Roman column) and Cyrus McCormick. My favorite is the area for Daniel Burnham (leader of the Greco-Roman architectural style so popular in Chicago) and his wife and children. Graceland has a small lake at the northeast end of the cemetary (the area where all the barons of turn-of-the-century Chicago are buried) and Burnham has his own small island in the lake, with a bridge, and large bolders with plaques in place of regular carved tombstones. It's a beautiful, peaceful resting place. I found myself wanting to spread a blanket and have a picnic.

In fact, that is what cemeteries used to be - public green spaces. On that blustery Saturday, hardly anyone was in the cemetery. Only a few history gawkers, looking over the stones of family groups and trying to figure out who was related to who and how. But one recent grave, a double stone for a 39 year old man who died two years ago, with his mother's information already carved, save the death date, had a huge bunch of fresh tulips on the stone. So not all the dead are resigned to history and forgotten.

who am i?

I've just become the kind of person who will spend over $100 on her hair. And $13 on a Mary Kay lipgloss. I'm not sure I know this person. Will I be buying $250 open-toed pumps to wear with my jeans next?

Although, honestly, my hair looks pretty awesome. It has waves! And the lip gloss sparkles, so, you know...

my saturday night date

After spending an exhausting, cold and slightly expensive (but very fun!) day at the Aurora outlet mall with the girls (I go the CUTEST dress and shoes!), I came back to the city for my Saturday night date.

Ain't she a cutie?

manipulation station

One of my favorite bloggers, Maggie Mason, wrote a post last week about the film "The Holiday" and how in the film, Kate Winslet ends up with Jack Black.

It seems to me that for a woman to play opposite a guy as good looking as Kate Winslet, they’d tell her to lose a hundred and fifty pounds and consider plastic surgery...I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie where the girl wins a stunning guy on the basis of her awesomeness. In the few examples I can think of, the guy overcoming a woman’s lack of conventional hotness is a central plot point. In movies, awesomeness only seems to really count if you’re a boy, and that makes me want to punch something.

Most of the comments on Maggie's blog completely miss the point she's making, telling her 'it's a great movie, you should see it before you comment,' or that they think Jack Black is funny, so that makes him cute. I wrote this most of this long post in her comment box, before realizing it was way too long for comments.

It has nothing to do with whether the movie is good or not (it looks good and I do want to see it). It has nothing to do with whether women are attracted to funny, conventionally unattractive men (I am!).

The point is that in the media, men aren't attracted to funny, unconventionally attractive women. It's a complete double standard that is being perpetuated by Hollywood - because you see old/unattractive men with hot women, but almost never see old/unattrative women with hot guys. Think about film and TV pairings, and ask how often the woman is the less attractive one. How many Hollywood leading women are not smoking hot? How many Hollywood leading men are not smoking hot?

What kind of messages is this sending? What is this consciously or unconciously telling us about what we as women and they as men should be attracted to? Because Hollywood doesn't reflect society as much as it helps to shape it. These subconcious messages are repeated over and over in films, TV and advertising, that women are only attractive when they are physically attractive.

Think about the furor over those Dove ads last year - there were all kinds of opinion articles out there from guys who said that seeing these "fat" women on billboards was disturbing to them, they didn't want to see size 8 or 10 women on billboards. Never mind that the women on the billboards were the same size or smaller than most of the women these men knew. These men have been trained to find a certain kind of body type (that maybe 5-10% of women have?) attractive. Women of a normal body type were "gross." If it had been a billboard of normal looking men, would women have had such violent reactions?

And it's not "instinctive" for men to find skinny women attractive, as some might claim. What is attractive has changed many times, and in many cultures, over history. 50 years ago, Marilyn Monroe was the hottest of hot - and she was a size 10, I think? Pale, white skin used to be attractive in Victorian England, as it was a sign of wealth (not having to work outside). Some cultures prize big hips, because it means a woman can bear children.

Society, and especially the media, condition men and women into what they believe is attractive - and who is in charge of most of this media? Who gets to pair funny balding men with physically attractive women? And why do they do this?

Who spends billions of dollars each year on getting skinny and looking attractive, men or women? Why do women wax, pluck, highlight, polish, suck in, wear killer high heels? What's convinced us that this is how we have to look in order for men to find us attractive? What's convinced men that only women who do this ARE attractive?

This is the point I think Maggie was going for.

sassy new 'do

i just got my hair cut last night, for the first time in about 5 months. i'm a horrible procrastinator, and being so busy anyway, just never managed to get around to it. my hair was looking pretty terrible.

i'd been feeling sort of down in the dumps lately, but a sassy new shag can do wonders for pulling you out of a rut. I feel a zillion times better about life in general now.

thank god, since we're apparently getting a blizzard tomorrow.

as long as they're comfortable

so I have these new shoes. i bought them on a whim last night (an expensive whim!) because i'm the kind of girl who wears the same pair of shoes with almost everything, until they wear out and I'm forced to get new ones. I'd been keeping my eye out for a few weeks now, knowing the end was near on the old ones.

the old ones were extremely comfortable loafers that I love, in a brick red sort of color. the red was occasionally problematic, as it clashed if I wore a cranberry sweater, leaving me either looking for substitute shoes, or writing it off as my shoes being far enough from my shirt as to not matter (wishful thinking!).

So, when I walked down the aisle of DSW, and saw my favorite shoes, but in BLACK, i rejoiced. supreme comfort, and no clashing! Stacey and Clinton would be so proud!

i've been wearing the new shoes today, and aside from a few spots where they need to break in a bit, they are the comfort that I dreamed of (the old ones had stretched a bit and were loose).

the thing is, I've been noticing as I walk around, that somehow in black, these shoes look much more manly than they did in red. i'm not sure what it is about them that makes them look like men's shoes. maybe the stitching, or the straight-from-the-factory shine. but today I have man-feet.

i love the '80s! strikes back!

this afternoon on my way back from lunch, i saw a woman in stirrup pants/leggings, with black flats and a long sweater.

the 80s have returned! time to start pegging your jeans again.