Just a *little* weird

Annie over at the Wattlebird blog wrote about how weird she is, and I thought I’d follow suit. Here are 6 strange/possibly interesting things you probably don’t know about me:

 

1. When I’m at work, I must open my Outlook first so it’s on the far left on my lower toolbar. If I ever accidentally close my Outlook while other programs are open, I’ll close all other programs so that when I open Outlook again, it’ll be on the far left. Mainly, this is because I use Outlook so heavily that I like to be able to go directly to it without having to search too much.

 

2. I have little tapping & touching quirks. For example, if I step on a sidewalk crack with one foot, I need to step on another crack, with the other foot, at the same spot on my foot. I.E. if it’s my toes that touch the crack on my right foot, I need my left toes to touch the next crack. If I attempt to make my toes touch the next crack, and instead touch it with the middle of my foot – now I STILL need to touch a crack with my left toes and now I ALSO have to touch a crack with the middle of my RIGHT foot. I don’t really have to think about this too much, I just kind of do it automatically. If something prevents me from finishing this little . . . whatever it is . . . I don’t flip out or anything. But I have a slight feeling of “something is unfinished” for a while. I also do strange finger tapping and rubbing (I rub patterns on my fingernails with my other fingers) and it all has to even out.

 

3. I often think of seriously morbid and horrific things happening, all around and to me. For example, as I cross a bridge on the way to work, I think, “What if someone came up behind me and just pitched me into the freezing river?” and I think about how I hope I won’t panic but will force myself to swim to the edge before the water makes my muscles freeze up. Or maybe I should just try to float on my back. But my heavy coat and shoes might make that difficult, so should I take them off so I’m more bouyant, or will I freeze faster that way? I imagine being kidnapped, run over by cars, trapped in fires, driving off cliffs, being impaled, all kinds of stuff like that. Now, before you advise me to seek professional help, understand that I don’t WANT any of those things to happen. But I do imagine them, very matter-of-factly. I like to be prepared, you know? Don’t park next to vans.

 

4. I have a lot of conflicting and contradictory beliefs and attitudes:

a. I believe a lot of conspiracy theories and I really don’t trust many people in power. I fully expect high-ranking people of all organizations and societies to be involved in some really evil stuff. I teach my kids that if they’re lost, to first look for someone who looks like a mom – not to try and find a police officer or other uniformed person. At the same time, I have an old-school outlook on parenting, respect for elders and authority and position. My Dad’s a cop and a good one.

b. I believe in hard work, personal responsibility and looking past your crappy circumstances to find something better to hope for and work towards. I am not very sympathetic to people who can’t seem to handle every day life. At the same time, when I consider a person to have suffered disadvantages in their upbringing, I am quick to excuse their poor choices and behavior and point to the big bad system who has done them wrong and taken away their access to doing things the right way.

 

5. I often turn dark purple when speaking in front of groups. Even with people I’m very comfortable with and have spoken in front of a bazillion times before. Even when it’s just discussing something during a work meeting. You can always tell if I’m embarrassed, upset or flustered by something – my face will be purple.

 

6. I am completely fascinated with Colonial/Pioneer/Amish/Mennonite cultures. Basically if you had to make something out of a rock or a tree to get by, I am interested in hearing your story. Also, I found out that an ancestor of mine helped found Germantown in Philadelphia. It’s a Quaker/Mennonite area, and happens to be where the abolition movement in the U.S. began. Yay! Run and get Colonial House and Frontier House from your local library or Netflix. I guarantee you will both want to go through those experiences, and realize that your romantic notions of those eras are very unrealistic!

So – are you strange, too?

Dance Party Friday!

I almost forgot to post DPF! I'm sorry, blog friends. We need DPF, right? I do, for sure. There's no real theme today, just stuff I love to jump around to.

I first heard this song in the movie, "Dance With Me" and HAD to find out what it was. I have no idea what the Portuguese lyrics say, but I've listened to it enough times that I can lip-sync it pretty well.




This song I heard when watching the movie, "Bend It Like Beckham". Funny - the video comments are full of people who, like me, heard it in the movie and then googled the heck out of it, but kept being lead to some other song. I was so happy to finally find this!




This is one of my favorite songs by my very favorite band. Daaaaamn, funky boss! GET OFF MAH BACK!




My favorite song by the now-defunct yet ever-awesome White Stripes. (I know I'm supposed to think Meg's sparse style is amazing but really I just think Jack White has talent out the hoo-ha).

Chicago Politics: Post-Racial?

Yesterday was election day in Chicago (surely in other places as well) and a couple of the election results were historic. The biggest newsmaker was the election of Rahm Emanuel as our new Mayor. Chicago is the 3^rd largest city in the U.S., so the person in the Mayor’s seat has a great deal of responsibility and power. Chicago is known for its corrupt politics . . . I’ve said that in a system so corrupt, you can’t survive and operate without being a part of or at the very least allowing corruption. We’ll see if any of that changes under Rahm (which is what people call him, by the way – not Emanuel – even his campaign signs say RAHM in large letters, where most campaigns emphasize the candidate’s last name).

Rahm Emanuel and his RAHM FOR MAYOR sign.

Rahm’s election was historic in a couple of ways. First, he’s not a Daley!

Richard J. Daley

Richard J. Daley was the Mayor of Chicago from 1955 until 1976, when he died. His story is very interesting, you can read the highlights here. He was the Mayor who held the second-longest term in Chicago – his son, Richard M. Daley beat him – he was Mayor from 1989 until . . . well, he’s still our Mayor. Rahm will take over for him in May. Learn more about him here.

Richard M. Daley

Second, Rahm is Jewish – he will be Chicago’s first Jewish Mayor. He’s also spent time as Obama’s Chief of Staff, as an advisor to Clinton, and as a congressman. His entire family is interesting, but you might enjoy the fact that Jeremy Piven’s character in Entourage is based on Rahm’s brother Ari, who is an agent in Hollywood.

Another historic election result was Chicago’s first Indian-American alderman (alderman are kind of like neighborhood Mayors), Ameya Pawar, who works at Northwestern University.

Ameya Pawar

He notably ran as an Independent and is only going to accept a $60K salary rather than the standard $110K salary offered to aldermen, and will only serve 2 terms. You can read more about his plans as alderman here.

This article details why Pawar’s win was surprising, and gives you an idea of the cronyism that persists in Chicago politics. I’m having issues with the quote at the end of the article – no one from the neighborhood is from Chicago? Said by a woman from “good Chicago Polish stock”? (FYI, Chicago has the 2nd largest concentration of Polish people in the world – Warsaw has the 1st). I’m definitely one to understand frustration at gentrification, but I hate the implication that is given by tying this quote to a story about the first Indian-American alderman. He’s from the Chicago area yet the implication is that he’s not really from Chicago. Because he’s suburban? Or because he’s Indian?

The reason I began writing this entry is because last night, a newsanchor covering these stories noted that because people of all races voted for Rahm, and because an Indian-American defeated an Irish candidate in a traditionally old-Chicago ward, we are now living in a “post-racial Chicago” . . . Obama’s election was also referenced.

I’m sorry, but we are hardly post-racial. Chicago is an incredibly diverse city – ethnically, racially, socioeconomically. I’m sure we have someone from every corner of the world here. Yes - wards that have traditionally voted for one race or ethnicity voted for non-traditional candidates yesterday – and that’s awesome. But Chicago is also an extremely segregated city, and poverty is greatest in Chicago’s “brownest” neighborhoods. I don’t think we’ll ever live in a post-racial world, country or city, but saying things like this just gives everyone an excuse to stop working toward improvement.

Featured Artist: Additions

This weekend my local Etsy team met again to finalize our mission, our committees, our plans for our web presence, workshops, logo and more! I’m very excited about our team – we have over a hundred members, and 20-30 of them are very active. They all have different expertise and are already adding so much energy and creativity to our team. WE ARE GONNA TAKE OVER THE WORLD, Y’ALL.

I thought I’d begin featuring some of my team member’s shops, and today will be the first feature!

Valerie from Additions creates recycled, wearable hardware. I love the look of her jewelry – it’s . . . approachable industrial! Though she uses hardware materials, her jewelry is still really warm and classy.

She also has a blog! It’s one that any creative person – especially those who have a creative business – will love. She writes about art, the creative process, business tips, her shop and more! Check out her Facebook page, to get more updates!

Here are some of my favorite items of hers:

Your shop is great, Valerie! I’m glad we’re teammates. :)

Dance Party Friday!

Ok, peoples. Today's dance party is gonna be mellow and fantastic. Prepare to be all funked up.

My husband and I were big Chris Rock Show fans back in the early 2000s and we have a few old VHS tapes full of the musical performances from his show. This was easily our most-watched performance. Note Angie Stone and Anthony Hamilton on backup vocals (killing it!), Pino Pallidino on bass and Questlove on drums.


Known for her indie-pop, Feist can also get down. I love this song. And the video features a gorgeous shot of the Chicago skyline.


Michael's Jackson's best song in a very long time, though it didn't get much radio play. It was written by Andre Harris (awesome Philly neo-soul producer) as well as one of the ladies from the group Floetry (who you should totally check out).


And now it's time for everyone to groan because it's so easy to hate this dude. Nevertheless, this song is crazy good.


Here's the most recent of any of these songs - sleeper hit! Very simple but don't mistake that for emptiness . . .

My Office

I work full-time in higher education in downtown Chicago. I work in Academic Affairs, which is the department that handles academic policy – everything from instructor pay scales when chairing student dissertations to being the final word on student dismissals for academic reasons. We probably handle a broader range of issues than most AA departments do, but we’re a relatively young and small institution and that means a few people do a lot of work! It’s not the sort of work I ever imagined myself doing, but I love it. I also love that my school’s mission and core values are firmly about providing resources to the underserved.

Anyway – here’s a quick look into (some of) where I spend my time at work.

My laptop and ginormous extra screen. I have photos of friends, family and stuff I think is pretty.

Note, below my phone – that yellow thing is a button you can push – like the Easy button – and it yells “OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!” (a gift from a co-worker – funny story, someone bought a bunch of those on a trip and packed them in their carry-on bag on the flight home. The bag was stored in the overhead compartment and was bouncing around, making the buttons go off over and over again. There were also buttons that yelled, “I’M SURROUNDED BY IDIOTS” – ha!). And next to the yellow button is my precious – my trackball mouse. I loooooove it.

The other side of my desk is just a holding ground for tons of paperwork. I also always have about 5 cups or bottles on my desk. The 2 Starbucks cups there are what I warmed up my soup in, for lunch. I never remember to bring a bowl. The bamboo was a gift from my boss. Next to it you might see a small mortar and pestle – a gift from a co-worker who went to Greece. There is also a jar of Ethiopian coffee and a bookmark from Istanbul (not Constantinople), and the scarf draped over that chair is from India. All gifts from co-workers who go awesome places and bring me stuff. One day, I will go someplace awesome. That print on the wall is from IKEA, it shows a dock leading to a lake. This is my “window”. Oh, next to the mortar and pestle you may see my Schruteformer. What’s a Schruteformer, you ask?

This is a Schruteformer. The co-worker who went to Greece hosts Stitch N Bitch at her house and last time I went, I took my 3 year old. He brought the transformer, we forgot it there, she brought it to my office, and it never made its way home because I always step on them with my bare feet. I also had the wonderful Dwight Schrute stressball that usually sits on top of the mortar & pestle (which holds mints and chocolates). So the other day while a few people were in my office chatting, one of them went to work to make the Schruteformer. I wasn’t paying attention and got a good laugh when I noticed it later. That’s scotch tape holding his head on.

Totally boring pic, showing the black sweater I wear when I’m cold, my really nice red hooded coat that I got at the thrift store for $5 and my Klimt/Van Gogh prints on the wall opposite my photo collage. The cardboard has big post-it paper that you stick on the wall and write on, with words like “synergy” and “multi-faceted”.

My filing cabinet covered in funny magnets and my bookshelf full of junk. Note the poor fern or whatever it is on top of the filing cabinet. I occasionally remember to water it and leave in my boss’s window over the weekend. I really need to clean up those shelves, they’re an eyesore.

This is the hallway outside my office. Pretty cool, huh?

This is me when I visited a co-worker yesterday (the one who is going to help me with all my logo revision stuff, yay!!). She has awesome Chicago Bears headphones so I pretended to be in the recording studio, singing something in a really heartfelt manner. Think “We Are The World”.

Downtown lights + bodies of water = Chicago beautifulness. This is the view from the bridge about 50 feet from my office. I get to look at this as I walk to the train station, every night after work. As pretty as this is, though – I can’t wait for the Summer when it will still be light out when I leave!

Occasionally I smile in photos, but most of the time, I don’t.

And completely unrelated, but funny (and because I ran across this today):

Happy Thursday!

Black History Month: What's the Point?

My computer ate my original post, so with this re-write I'm going to be really brief:

What, in your opinion, is the purpose of Black History Month? Why is it around? Do you think it has been effective in its mission?

I plan to re-visit this topic a few times and it will probably lead to other related topics.

**note - I do have opinions on this topic . . . just hoping to get a little feedback first before I share my point of view. If you're looking for an idea of my perspective, click on the "race" and "racism" tags at the bottom of this entry**

Disclaimer - I know race can be a scary topic to discuss, so let me be clear - this is a safe zone to talk! I honestly don't think anything inflammatory is going to go on in the comments to this blog, but if you're hesitant to say anything because you think I or someone else will flame you - know that I don't get down with that stuff. I like to talk about these difficult topics but I don't think being mean is productive. Even when disagreeing, I try to do so respectfully.