It's official

These shots: Apfelkorn, Feigling, and Kalbanis (done in copious amounts) DO give one a Two Day Hangover. I think I might have to puke in my garbage can. I can't believe I came to work like this.

Too much

Oops. I did it again. I'll give the weekend in reveiw. Or at least what I can remember of it. Friday night was good. I worked the DellMark records anniversary show at Old Town. I had decent volunteers, and it wasn't too crowded, so it was an easy show to work. I got to hang out with T and K, two of my favorite Old Town people. I was planning on meeting T after the show at Martyr's, but I wasn't feeling well so I just headed home. Saturday. Ugh. Oktoberfest. My sister and I got to DANK about 4pm. There was a lot of work to be done before the show. Nothing major, just some last minute things. My first official shift was at 6pm. I was on my second beer when my first shift started. I was a front door person. I worked with some nice people. It was pretty slow in the beginning. I was in such a good mood. I love Oktoberfest, it's one of the best times all year. After I was done carding and wrist banding people, I headed up to the party for my unofficial second shift. I was "sticker girl". Something to do with my outgoing personality and my desire to talk to everyone made this the perfect job for me. I just walked around sticking stickers on people. One batch said "Haus your DANK?" the other said "DANK eschoen" Pretty fun stuff. THe fifth floor was pretty crowded and gettin hot, so I headed up to the 6th floor to cool off and have some beer before my 11pm bartendind shift. My parents were on 6, and so was my sister. I was sitting with my parents and their friends and Shannon arrived. This is the point where I stepped up the drinking. Sometime during our bar shift, T from Daily showed up with a couple of friends. We started doing shots. The problem was by the time T got there I had already had more than a few shots. At some point my inner voice told me to stop, that I had had too much to drink and I was already in trouble. I drowned that voice with some more shots. I don't really know why I went to Daily after DANK. I knew I was totally done drinking, I had no reason to go there. I think I was having fun, and wanted to continue having fun. Shannon, Nate (this guy we know. I have no idea how we ended up taking him with us to Daily. Whatever. It's all pretty foggy) and I walked over to Daily. I'm pretty amazed I didn't break a leg or something walking over there. At Daily I only had water. I was so so sick by the time we got there. I remember T smacking me on the ass. I don't know why. I remember Shannon and T dancing. I think. I remember being aware that T was gone. I guess that's his MO. When he's wasted he'll just leave. Doesn't say goodbye to anyone, he just sneaks out. I think this can be a good plan, I might have to do that some time. Shannon and Nate poured me into a cab sometime around 3am. Right now it's about 8:30pm. I just got out of the shower. No need to fill you in on the details about my awful hungover Sunday. Just know that there was puking, gatorade, and pizza. The last was only about an hour ago. Am I going to say I'm never going to drink again? Um, no. I don't lie, and that would be a lie. What I will say is I'm not going to drink like that again. Hopefully ever, but at the least not for a long long time. Sil1x asked me if I had met any cute men. Well - I might have, but I don't know. Like I said, the night is still a lot foggy.

Dear blank......

Dear Tracy Swartz of the Red Eye, I am hugely tired of your Cubs slamming. You are not funny. You are not witty. You are not entertaining. I have no idea why you are on the 5 on 5. Is it because you set the bar so low, you make the other 4 people on the panel seem hilarious and bright? I hope to someday run into you on the street so I can beat some sense in to you. I will first dazzle you with my biting wit, and then probably punch you in the face. I'm guessing you fight like a girl. Dear ABC, Thank you for bringing back Grey's Anatomy. It was fantastic. That was a pretty fast two hours. A wonderful distraction. This season looks very promising. And OMG, you've hired my super-hottie from "Rome" to be the new hot doctor. Yummy. This weekend has promise. Lots of it. It's Oktoberfest. ANYTHING can happen. Free Will Astrology says so.

Love the Free Will Astrology

I sullenly looked up my Free Will Astrology this morning. I was expecting not much. Here's what I got instead: What reasons might you have to celebrate your own private holy day? Why might you want to go off by yourself or in the company of special people and conduct a reverent ritual that reinvigorates your knack for having fun? Here are some possible answers: 1. You're overdue for a break from everything you usually do. (ain't that the truth) 2. You're hungry for the magic that happens when you tak refuge in the sacred. 3. It's time to stop the world and jump off long enough to break the trance you're in. (truer words were never written). 4. You would generate uncanny blessings by paying tender attention to your origins, returning to your sources, and examining the foundations of your life (translation: you will get some from some german dude you meet while working Oktoberfest this weekend) To all of that, I say A-freakin'-men.

Ding ding ding!

Question: Who's sitting at her desk right now, shoveling a tasty concoction of lite microwave popcorn, candy corn, and m&ms in her mouth??? ME! Next (obvious)Question: Who has PMS in a big way but didn't realize it until she looked down at the plate of sweet/salty that she called "lunch"? You got it - the answer is ME! (again)

Urban Golf ROCKS

So, instead of sleeping, I'm blogging. I've had a huge problem lately with being able to fall asleep. Part of that is good, I've got some extra time that is sorely needed. Part of it is bad, because I am tired. All. The. Time. Anywho. Urban Golf was a fantastic good time. It was way more fun than I even anticipated. Our team name was We Sniff Glue. WSG consisted of Shannon, TheMarty, Tucker and myself. WE were totally awesome. Sure, we didn't have a pirate on our team, but we were highly motivated AND we had the organizer on our team. We were the last to head out on the course, so I feel we missed all of the best garbage picking opportunities. Blue Island is a lot prettier than I expected. Lot of freakin' hills though. My favorite hole was the one where we had to play up hill. Like really up hill. It was fun. That might have been the hole in which I putted my ball right into the back of Shannon's head. My bad, but I totally got extra points for that. I really loved the "watering hole" which was some creepy scary Eagles club. A) They have bowling and pull tabs. B) The bartenders had mullets - and they were women (I think). It was while at the watering hole that we learned that the Cubs clinched. Well OF COURSE they did. -why?- because I was on the freakin' South Side, SuxNation. I am never on the South Side. Sigh. Sadly I did not make out with anyone this weekend. The only men I met were way too young for me. One was 12 years younger, the other about 10 years younger. Sigh. They are both awesome though, and I would love to hang out with them as friends.

Sometimes I'm just a girl

I'm more than a little annoyed with myself. This whole third date debacle has got me acting like a girl. A high school aged girl. Bleh. So, as mentioned before, the third date was weird, kinda a bust. I was all perplexed yesterday. So What did I do? Von? Master of her Universe? Queen of her Awesome world? Yeah, I texted him. Damn me. I texted 'hi', which began an almost normal exchange. No terms of endearment (which is S's normal m.o.) but a little bit better than Wednesday's weird texts. So today, I'm back to meh. And kicking my own ass for being such a girl. I'm so glad I have good plans with awesome people this weekend, and have no intention of seeing S. Here's to the new me, same as the old me.

Jingle Jangle

Ever have something stuck in your head that isn't a song (per se)? I've got some really old jingle in my head. I don't even remember what beer it's for. It goes like this: "If you've got the time, we've got the beer" It's cute, and short, and it's not really bothering me, yet. I can see if I still have this jingle in my head in three hours how I might find it annoying, but right now, it's entertaining. I am curious what beer it's for. I am having a shit week. I'm having a rough week at work. My third date with S was kind of a bust, and now he's being weird. Yesterday I was perplexed/upset, today it's a 'meh'. I'm leaving it up to him. If he texts, great, but no breath-holding here. My friends are right, at least I'm back in the game. I fully intend to put myself in situations in which I can make out with some guys. Like, maybe this Saturday at Urban Golf? Per chance it could happen. I'm extremely sleep deprived. For the most part, I do love to sleep. This week, it's just not happening. Tuesday night (third date night) ended after midnight, and I was wide awake - perplexed - at 5am. Wednesday night I was exhausted, but going out for a Spaten and some carbs w/ Poptart was the better idea than going home. I headed home at 11, and was so beyond tired. Maybe it's the lack of sleep that I have really old jingles dancing through my brain. If anyone knows what beer it's for, please let me know.

The Return

I just got back from a lovely weekend in Galena with Shannon. I'm using this space to apologize to her (again) for my snoring. Thankfully she's nice enough to not throw things at me when I snore. Anyway. Friday we headed out of town for our weekend jaunt to Galena. For those of you who don't know, Galena is about three hours northish/westish of Chicago. It's very near the Mississippi, and Dubuque, Iowa. I had won a nice bundle of "Galena dollars", so we went to spend it. We stopped for lunch at a nice antique store/bar & grill. The food was meh, but Shannon found some really nice stuff in the store. The weather was less than great Friday, but it wasn't horrible. We checked in to the DeSoto House, which happens to be the oldest hotel in Illinois. Clearly, they haven't used air fresheners, but it was a really nice hotel. This chick at the front desk had us cracking up. She was incessantly on personal phone calls the entire weekend, every time we walked by her. Shannon, who looks for the good in all people (or something) said "Yeah, but she's got that dark hair underneath thing, which is cool." I agreed - she did have cool hair. But I still wanted to make fun of her. My parents were adamant that Shannon and I go check out this Breitbach's place for dinner. 'It's a lovely drive.' they said. 'You'll love it.' they said. 'It's easy to find' they opined. I don't think they meant we should drive to this place, which had no address, in the middle of a drizzly, foggy, dark night. But, Shannon and I are always up for an adventure, so we headed out to find this place. It was terrifying. It was so completely out of a horror movie I'm surprised the car didn't spontaneously start playing some creepy soundtrack. At one point we went over this hill, and it was so foggy that Shannon actually stopped the car because we weren't sure there was a road. Seriously. Finally found the place, in Balltown Iowa. Balltown. Really - I don't even need to say anything about that. The food was good. The pie was orgasmic. After we were fuller than full, we headed back to Galena. Same weather, same everything. We had been on the road about 90 seconds and Shannon said "Humor me. Text someone the following - We are heading back to Galena from Balltown Iowa. If you don't hear from us within two hours, please call the police." OF course, I texted these exact words to TheMarty. He took it all in stride, he's good like that. I'd like to relate more of the weekend to you, except whatever happens in Galena stays in Galena. As it was described this weekend, it truly is a den of inequity. I will say that we drank some wine. More than a little. I knew, though, it was time to head home when we had this exchange: Von: "Run that girl over with the car. She's wearing crocs." Shannon: "Who? Her? She's a little girl!" VOn: "Yep" Shannon: "And, YOU'RE wearing crocs." VOn: "Oh, yeah." All in all, a good trip. We did have a ghost in our room, named Henry Wilson. Look him up, he's a fascinating individual. All in all, a good trip.

Blogcation

Taking a week off. See you on the flip side.

Fackin' Oprah

I could hardly get into my building today. See, some lady named Oprah is taping some show across the street from my office in the park. And I guess she's having a bunch of olympians there. It's a mob full-o-soccer moms. Double bleh. I won't be leaving the building today. If I do, I'll probably trip someone. The ole Pritzger pavillion is having a busy day. This morning Oprah, tonight Andrew Bird. Remind me to be far far away from there.

Good

I know, I know, I'm a little late. I didn't feel like Laboring on Labor Day, so here's my weekend in review. Friday night I worked a show at Old Town. I hadn't been there in over a month, so it was nice to be back. I ended up with a lame job, I had to sit in the basement and guard the changing rooms. I alternated with another person, we sat down there in one hour shifts. The other volunteers were getting on my nerves that night though. I didn't recognize a lot of them. I just about had it with my job-mate who was treating me like I was new. I just drank my beers and did some crocheting. I got to catch up with my friend T. It was fun. Saturday I headed South Side with J&T. It was T's birthday. I didn't know anyone at the party, and it was fackin' hot, but I had a great time. The people were entertaining. Too many kids though. Bleh. Afterwards we went to T's parents' house. The stories T and her friend and sister were telling had me cracking up. I was pretty tired though, from the drinking and the heat. I love hanging out with J & T though, they are so awesome. Sunday I got together with Shannon and A. We met up at a Cuban restaurant. It was really good. We then hit a few bars. We went the dive bar route. We had a great time. A is one of those people that I need to hang out with more. I'm pretty sure I'll be seeing her in about 3 weeks, and that will be good. Anyway, we crossed paths with some interesting guys that night. First there was the self-proclaimed "beer snob" dude with the ugly shirt who was trying to keep up conversation with A. Um, yeah, not so much. She said her favorite beer is Boddington's, a solid choice. He dared to infer it was a sub-par beer. Yeah, between myself, Shannon and A, I think we knew a lot more about beer than he ever will. I'm sure he was looking to hit on A, but she was having none of it! We also met some lame band. I'm pretty sure no one had shown up for their show. The one dude wore eyeliner, had horribly dyed 1990's spiky (yet thinning) blonde hair. I think the band name was Saints of Mayhem or something equally horrible. We ended that conversation as quickly as we could. Monday I had a date. It was great. Really great. I don't need to say anymore about this at this time. Let's just say I've had a nice smile on my face since.