here's what i've done today:

7:00 - alarm goes off
7:01-7:40 - hit snooze repeatedly
7:41 - realize i'm going to be late and get up to go to the bathroom
7:41-7:47 - wash face/brush teeth/pick at face. mostly eyebrows
7:47 - 7:49 - look at clock. sigh. put on same jeans i've been wearing for week and a 1/2 and tank top
7:49 - 7:51 - wait for and take elevator downstairs. in elevator try to see if i can keep track of floor even if i'm counting out of order in my head.
7:51 - 7:54 - ride cab 6 blocks to work bc a.) i'm lazy b.) i'm late.
7:55 - arrive to work on time feeling like i stuck it to the man.
8 - 8:15 - chat with my boss about the weekend.
8:15 - 8:30 - wait for buses to arrive and cheerily greet the children.
8:30 - 9 - monitor breakfast, clean up spilled milk and shoot elitist looks at this goofy highschooler who's been volunteering here. she's way too perky.
9 - 9:45 - gather attendence, take photographer around to all the classrooms, check email and help venzalia set tables for lunch. hear, extensively, about how drunk she got this weekend. (she's wearing all pink today)
9:45-9:50 - pick pencil lead out of 6th grader's hand. try to convince venzalia that pencil lead is no longer lead but is actually graphite and as such is not poisonous and that Teh'Ray doesn't need a tetnis shot.
9:51-9:53 - continue setting up dining room
9:53 - carrie ann calls. i promptly leave dining room and find empty and secluded spot to chat. it's not actually my job to set the tables anyway.
9:53 - 10:38 - talk to carrie
10:39 - kate calls. switch lines, say hello and link carrie, kate and i.
10:40 - 11 - 3 way chat.
11-11:15 - kate goes to lunch. carrie and i continue chatting
11:15 - decide i've wasted enough time and go to find my boss so i can do some work
11:16 - 11:20 - find boss. she gives me copies to make. decide i don't want to work, but am acutally very hungry. say i'll make copies later and ask to go get lunch.
11:45 - present - LUNCH BREAK. dont bother me i've had a busy day.

i think they're paying me too much.

Back to School

i just saw the first "back to school" commercial of the season and i'm glad. i love back to school time. i can't wait to see plantz hall, and hilda and david becker

i get to go to north carolina in 6 days, see annicka in 16, see carrie in 18 and kate in 28. things are looking up.

Uh..umm... We.. uh... hope this one works out"

im at a hilton resort in sandestin, florida with my family for a wedding that i played cello in. the wedding was tonight and it was really a beautiful ceremony. plus a lot of the guests were former teachers of mine which made me laugh

the resort is a riot. last night, during the rehearsal, we were competing with not only one, but two jimmy buffet-esque live musical performances being broadcast resort-wide on mostly blown out, cheap, water-proof speakers.

today i looked out at the beach at the staggering number of people playing there and at the pool, too crowded to even swim in and was just baffled. i've decided places like this are basically just cruises, on land. and being that i am not really a cuise kind of person... this i definitely not my kind of vacation spot. i would take boring, quiet, holden beach, north carolina over sandestin, florida any day of the week.

non-ideal resort aside the wedding was really gorgeous. at the reception the groom's 2 sons got up and did a toast and just said, "congraulations dad and paula on your new marriage... uh... we hope this one works out."

-- thank you xavier and dante... heartfelt and to the point. people went wild

i left the reception around the time people, my 9th grade biology teacher included, started throwing themselves down on the ground and pretending to have a seizure dubbing it their new dance move... "the gator". things were getting a little slur-erific
.
all i know is i can't wait to go to friend's wedding. open bar and bad dj --- bring it on, i'll dance till the sun comes up.

maybe i'll be invited to peter gillette's nuptials. yes, he's engaged, to lorraine perrin -- a fact i'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around. not that i'm not happy for them it's just i've never though of peter gillette as husband material. he is among the funniest people i know so lorraine probably has the right idea. that would definitely be a great wedding to attend. i'll keep my fingers crossed.

i'm sleeping on a pullout couch mattress on the floor. let me tell you how my sleeping arrangements digressed to this point. my mom got a hotel room with 3 beds. she was not informed that 2 of these beds were bunk beds built into the wall. the beds are to your immediate right when you walk into the room. judging by the location and miniscule size of said beds i am going to venture that they were originally a closet. stuck on the ladder to get up to the top bunk was a warning label pointing out that the weight limit for the top bed was 75 lbs which meant approximately 1/2 of my sister or i could have slept there. so that was the end of the bunk beds. then there were no empty rooms so i volunteered to sleep on the pullout couch. due to the metal bar cutting my spinal column in 1/2 i had a minor freak out and pulled the mattress onto the floor. and the only blanket they had to give me was one of those gross, stiff polyester motel blankets. you know the kind im talking about. the good news is i think it is entirely fire-retardant so if there is a midnight blaze i'll simply wrap myself in my bedding and escape unscathed.

carrie ann is coming to dallas august 17th.

hokay, back to chicago tomorrow. one more week in the windy, windy city. i can't believe it's almost august. but am quite okay with the fact that it is.

i can hear the ocean from my bed.

Jesus Loves Choreography and Probably Kathy Griffin

slow morning today. there are 25 highschool kids from a presbyterian church in kansas here helping us out today which means i have nothing to do bc they don't need any more help in the classrooms. these kansas kids just spend the day here, treat the kids like they're 3 year olds who don't speak english-- a 3rd grader does not need to be carried to class -- and perform choreographed dances to "jesus loves me" type of songs at meal time. they make me uncomfortable and the kids think they're a joke. they suck and i've been a pretty big asshole to them.

so in my free time i've taken to going from room to room hoping to find an unoccupied computer whose screen doesn't face a common area so no one can see that i'm surfing the net while on the clock. i've also mastered the "purposeful-i-have-a-task-i'm-busy-completing" walk that i use between computers so people will think i'm super busy and not to be bothered.

i think this walk also intimidates the lame highschoolers which makes me happy because they are the reason i have nothing to do.

in other news i watched kathy griffin's show for quite a while last night. shes ungodly funny. i could listen to her commentary on life pretty much non-stop for entire days at a time.

Troy, Wisconsin is a Classy Place

i'm feeling a tad worn but also kind of a weird giddiness.

this keyboard is old. based on the very satisfying clicking noise the keys make when i push them down, i'd say early-mid 90s. it reminds me of my childhood days spent playing Swampgas on the Apple computer i got for christmas in 1995.

i called in sick yesterday on account of the fact that i had a miniscule headache when i woke up at 7am. who doesn't have a headache at 7am when you go to sleep at 2? regardless i summoned my most pathetic voice and called my boss. instead of making a difference in the lives of 100 low income kids from the projects i slept until 1pm, ordered from my favorite lunch place and watched law and order and roseanne on dvd for 8 hours. it was kind of a beautiful thing.

then i talked to kate and got in a really goofy mood. i wish she could squeeze my head. that's maybe the first thing i'm going to ask her to do... squeeze my head and kiss my ear.

cristina came over last night and we went down to the beach and chained smoked about a pack of cigarettes each. healthy i'd say. we watched the oak street beach life guards cleaning up their lifeguarding paraphernalia. the guys have to wear these tiny orange shorts that seem like something out of a 1950s movie. you would think the city of chicago could update their fashion sense, you know, at leat every 1/2 century.

we also watched these two guys do a gallon milk challenge. their friends were all laughing and taking pictures and they were joined, about 1/2 way through, by two amused and, i would assume, rather bored members of the chicago police department. due to the presence of these two law enforcement agents, cristina and i had to watch from a distance on accont of the miller light we were both drinking from clear plastic cups. both competitors completed their gallon of milk, celebrated for about 68 seconds and then promptly puked in an awaiting trash/vomit recepticle. the gallon milk challenge is one of those universally entertaining acts that most groups of friends, across generations, races and sexual orientations, all attempt at one point in time. it's just funny, there's no way around it.

the big boss - a woman named beth truett - just caught me on the computer. instead of closing out the incriminating windows and giving her my undivided attention, i chose, instead, to play it cool in the hopes that by continuing to focus on the screen maybe she would think i was doing something for work instead of blogging my life away on her time and money. it might have worked.

i found out today that last week, when i was letting my Rock for Kids class run amuck in the computer lab while i chatted with carrie ann on AIM, one of the kids in my class downloaded porn onto his computer. real great, caitlin.

this past weekend i went to Lake Geneva to spend time with my dad's side of the family. it was nice. relaxing and very republican. but nice. on saturday night we went to this car show in Troy, Wisconsin - a thriving metropolis about 25 minutes away from Lake Geneva on CR-12... that's right... County Road12. the show was at this 1950's-esque diner and it was just these balding overweight old men and their wives with saggy boobs and bad dye jobs sitting around their prized 1966 ford mustangs . car culture is just so midwestern, so blue collar and so damn funny. my grandparents and aunt and uncle are very into it. all i could think about was the fact that i was probably the only liberal and definitely the only homo for about 27 miles.

sitting on the grass next to the entrance to the diner was a sign that read,

"For Your Saftety Please NO Burnouts Thank You"

all i can say is this; troy, wisconsin is one classy place.

Maybe a Little Respect for the Recently Deceased, Detective?

law and order is chocked full of wonderful puns and guest stars. right now serena williams is the prime suspect in the murder of some frat kid. his body was found dumped in a sewage treatment plant and detective benson just joked, "whoever did this really knew his crap". a little respect please, detective?

in other news, it's hot. too hot to smoke a cigarette on the balcony and unhooking the smoke detector in my grandmother's apartment just feels too wrong. there's a fine line and it feels good that i can still find it from time to time, beneath all the crazy bullshit.

Search-Advanced Search- Sex: Female, Interested In: Women

i had dinner with my dad's mom, otherwise known as my paternal grandmother, at this lovely little french bistro on state street this evening... yuppie-trendy state street. after her 3rd glass of wine she got a little chatty and began talking about some charity that she has just started supporting called Reading in Motion. the acronym for this charity is R.I.M... naturally. unfortunately, throughout most of her description she generally followed the acronym with the word "job" which led to a conversation, in a very packed restaurant, where sentences such as "So I took this new RIM job" were uttered maybe a dozen times.

i was in the 5/6th grade classroom for most of the day today. it was pretty okay. however, at about 11:30, as happens everyday in that classroom - according to aaron, there was a complete and utter breakdown on the part of the children. literally i looked into their crazed eyes as they darted around the room screaming and throwing their arms in the air and saw nothing registering human thought. it was terrifyingly funny. brandon... the boy who masturbated in music/drama class last week... was running around with this huge blue and yellow umbrella singing "I Will Survive" at the top of his lungs while 8-12 girls were doing kartwheels and roundoffs and 15 boys ran around fake shooting eachother. mass chaos. aaron and i tried to regain control but eventually we just sat down, put our heads in our hands, and laughed.

the new freshman are on facebook. all the gay ones have friended me already. on the whole they seem like mostly stereotypical freshman - which im not going to deny i was exactly 1 year ago. te funniest thing i've notice thus far is that on the LU class of 2010 group one of the posts on the message board is "Raise your hand if you're vegitarian/vegan".

i still remember the first search i did on facebook last summer... search-advanced search-sex: female, interested in: women. there were 4 and i thought i was going to die and probably would never have sex. and i also still remember, very distinctly, getting kate's friend request and thinking, "hey, she's cute". who would have thought. what a crazy year: too much alcohol, too much weed, and way too little school work. it sure was fun though - i regret nothing - as the saying goes... this is the life we chose.

i went to the Virgin megastore today after work and have decided that there is still something magical about going into a store and physically browsing for cds. it's a magic that itunes will never be able to replicate. i bought a couple cds to send to my significant other and also bought this funny "Best of Trance" cd that was on sale thinking it would take me back to my stoner days in marshall and tj's room. let's just say listening to trance when you're not baked out is just not enjoyable.

i miss kate a whole lot. i feel like i forget what it's like to kiss her which makes me sad. she called me "bunny" tonight in a message she left me which she hasn't done for several days. i forgot how much i love when she calls me bunny. im her bunny.

regina spektor is a genius.

i would like:
more time to practice
more motivation to practice
some time with david becker and janet anthony
a lot of time with my family
august
and kate

that solo's often long but, it's a good refrain. - true that, regina

i'm out. goodnight.

only rich, white people have swimming pools

today i had to confront a boy, named Brandon, because he got caught playing with himself and trying to get 2 girls, Diamond and Dekira, to watch him durning music/drama class. he says he had an itch.

on the other hand i did just get paid to sit and "teach" a computer class for an hour and a half. mostly i wikipedia'd shit. i learned many things including the fact that texas tops the list of protestant states with 70% of its population practicing some sort of protestant religion.

there's a 7th grade girl named Shaquilla O'Neal. which i think is cruel and just wrong.

my favorite little boy, Rayshawn, just told me that only rich, white people have swimming pools.

"31 and 17 together is what now?... 54?"


i just got home from work and i've decided i'm going to make a sincere effort to remain in a reclining position on the couch for the remainder of the day. that is until i drag myself into my bedroom to take a shower and crawl in bed. i've got cheese crackers, the number for Potbelly delievery, 2 seasons of Law and Order:SVU on dvd, a phone and liquids for hydration. this wonderful list of supplies leads me to beg the question; why would i get up?

on my walk home i saw a bichon trying to sniff a great dane's butt. it looked like the cover to some Hallmark card that would have an inscription like "sometimes you have to strive for what's beyond your reach". or it would be blank and people would use it for all occasions. now that i think about it - i can't think of an occasion i wouldn't use that card for.

at the camp where i am currently employed there are these two middle aged women who ride the bus to and from camp with the kids and, for the most part, just hassle them with constant discipline all the live long day. there's such a cultural difference in the way children are treated and i find it consistently fascinating and amusing. basically they just strutt around yelling at the kids, and one another, in ebonics with accents so thick i can barely understand them. my favorite of the two, venzalia, wears one color of clothing everyday (yesterday was yellow, today red) and paints her nails white with dots of color that match the color of that day's outfit.

today before they could set the tables for the kid's lunches i had to run down to the dining hall and report how many place settings would be needed. i found venzalia and sandra in a heated discususion about venzalia's new man and how he's "disrepectin' her" and "just needs to step off". i interrupted and reported there'd be 31 from 3rd/4th grade and 17 from 1st/2nd grade. venzalia looked at sandra and said, "so, let me think...31 and 17 together is what?... 54?" to which sandra responded, "mmm, yeah girl. we gon need more cups".

i'm really liking this job. it couldn't be funnier or more unpredictable. plus, i'm a pro at the copy machine now. today, for my last job of the day, i performed a combination where i had the copier double side copy, hole punch and staple 75 individual packets of 6 pages each. as i stood there, in a state of dazed admiration at shelves of the copy room which house the myriad selection of colored printing paper which is available to me as an employee of City Lights Summer Day Camp, the massive copy machine behind me completed almost an hours worth of work in not even 1/8th of the time. on my walk home, prior to witnessing the bichon/great dane butt sniffing scene, i took time to ponder over and give thanks for the fact that we, as a people, are so determined to make life easy that we were willing to put a great deal of time and effort into inventing such a glorious machine. the future truly is now - hoverboards here we come.

detectives benson and stabler and beckoning

"a g-u-n, a switchblade, a fire launcher and a bomb blaster"

"hogan knows best" is the new Osbournes and i think infinitely better than its predecessor. it's just so damn funny. on the last episode i watched with great enjoyment as the hogan family tried adopting a baby chimpanzee. it was pretty fine until he started shitting in Hulk's gym. poor little guy didn't stand a chance after that for that is "the holy hulk's domain". at one point hulk put "harry hogan" in this little Hulkamanic muscle shirt. it was ungodly cute. as of this moment now their newly minted 16 year old son is driving his dad's hotrod sports car down the street without permission. in my opinion this can only end in some scenario which will make for really superb reality television.

The summer camp i'm working at for the next 4 weeks officially started and it was pretty wild today. i hung out with this kid christopher for like 40 minutes and he told me all about his favorite movie, Treasure Planet. and i mean all about... as in scene by scene plot description. the best part was that everytime he came to the word "gun" he would spell it under his breath. however, he freely and frequently used "switchblade" "fire launcher" and, my personal favorite, "bomb blaster".

today also consisted of a field trip to Ravinia, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. first i would like to say taking a group of inner city adolescents on a field trip the first day of summer camp is by far the dumbest idea i have encountered. as bad as i feel saying it those kids need training and maybe some time to adjust to summer camp life. so we arrive at Ravinia; this idilic and serene setting in one of the richest suburbs of chicago and basically just unleash the chaos of 100 1st - 8th graders from Cabrini Green and Henry Horner, the two roughest neighborhoods in the city, onto this beautiful scene. we served bag lunches which kept the kids under control for about 6 minutes and then they just went nuts. i'd look one way and two little boys would be wrestling and punching eachother while in my peripheral vision 4 little girls were doing back flips down a hill. literally. that is not an exaggeration. the teachers didn't seem worked up so i just tried to pretend i wasn't. somehow we got them into lines and into the concert hall to hear some music. this group of young artists played mozart's string quintet in g minor which is actually one of my absolute favorite pieces of music. when i realized what they were playing i was just thrilled. unfortunately the cellist had a rather robust way of expressing her music through her motions which our kids found exceedingly and unbearably funny. talking began about 6 minutes into the piece and by the end i thought they were just going to bust. as i sat there trying to listen to this beautiful quintet i just had to laugh at the snickering, rustling and barely controlled madness that was the kids of City Lights Summer Day camp. i couldn't help but notice the wonderful irony of having these kids listening to music in the same hall that music officiandos and master musicians had played in. after the music the MC of the concert asked if any of the kids had questions. the kids in the two other groups at the concert politely and quietly raised their hands while one of my personal favorite kids, Teh'Rayquan, shouted out "Yeah, over here, why ya'll moving round so much?" good god. i just let myself laugh. it was too much.

i'm hoping that not everyday will be as moderately out of control as today as but i'm also hoping it will be. what better way to spend the usually dull days of summer?

my significant other and i were grumpy with eachother on the phone tonight which is pretty unusual. i complained a lot. boring. no more complaining from me... i really have nothing to complain about and i care about her too much to ruin what little time we have to talk by being a downer. i wish i could call her back now but she's sleeping. i'm feeling bummed about this.

47 days

i have to be at work at 7:30 to make copies for 1/2 an hour. i'm strangely content with this.