WHAT, WHAT!!! we are not the sexiest profession!? we gets all the ladies! it's a proven fact!

Ha, architphilwife, I haven't heard that dinner/supper usage in a long time! That's totally my roots.

But I disagree - architects are indeed the hottest profesion - granted I am severely biased!

beta I love hearing your jersey - but it makes me worry for your blood pressure.

apw is treading on thin ice

I don't know what's going on here because I got into motorcycle class tonight so I don't have to pay $235 for it in California! Woo hoo! I'm sitting on my first bike this Saturday. Wish me luck, I WILL need it. :-O

Going back to read now.

lb, today and the past week or so has been particularly stressful. trying to buy a home, Comcast dicking with my cable...ugh, and then i start panicking about my future property taxes dbling....ack!

oh, yeah, the brand names are nice. TOO BAD NO ONE CAN EITHER AFFORD THEM OR FIT IN THEM. Harrumph.


;)


Oh man, I just got caught up after the weekend away. Y'all have been busy! I have too much to say in response.

WK : Guess what, while you were in Chicago, I randomly high-tailed it to Cincy! No joke, we probably crossed each other on the interstate. We had the same thought : if it turns out I have time, I will give her a call. Don't worry, I understand completely. We were visiting John's best friend, whose wedding he had to miss, and meeting the missus for the first time. I shanghaied them into one full day of architouring but didn't think I could be all "hey let's go see MY friend now!!!!!", especially since we stayed with them. So that was that. But as I told libertybell, I would have LOVED your tour of UCincy. Especially since none of us knew where we were going. But that's a story for another time...

Voices : LBell's is slightly deeper and sexier than I thought it would be!!! Go, lady, go!! You're right, I do have a slicing voice--somehow that's the perfect adjective and I never thought of it before. I use my hands a LOT too. Also grin a lot, so I look real weird in pictures. Ah well. LB and vado, someday I will be able to stop in Indy, but it's a good thing we didn't on Sunday--hit traffic literally AT THE BORDER OF CHICAGO and sat in a tollbooth line for over an hour!!! We were about ready to murder people. That meant we didn't get home till almost midnight. Killer.

As far as property taxes go... that blows. But do you have any cute pics of Angus and his sign??? :D

So, WonderK has THE BEST SHOE STORE EVER in her town : Shoetopia! And I bought one pair of shoes there this weekend and am hopefully going to get them to send me the other pair that I wanted (I came back on Sunday to buy them but they were closed. :( ) Here they are, for lb's pleasure:



(those are FUZZY and comfy)



SEXY AND COMFY AND I AM IN LOOOOOOOVE!!!! These would make ANY LADY's legs look hot as hell when on. But nobody can go buy them till I get my pair--they're almost out of stock! :D

I also liked these but they were out of my size:



there you go, LB.

SWEET, wonderk!!! that motorcycle class is supposed to be awesome. i'm obsessed with bikes and want one BAD. you're super lucky, because trust me, as someone who's tried to get into that class in two different states and gotten nothing but a busy signal for hours on the days of registration... well, you're lucky. :)

the guy we were visiting in cincy had just bought a sweet 1981 bmw bike from his neighbor, in vintage condition, for $2000. i about blew my brain. everything is ridiculously cheap in cincinatti.

oh and we went to that bar on mount adam that has a view of the skyline from the back deck! and saw all the architecture... it was a really good weekend.

about blew my brain.... i am not suicidal over the bike, i promise. :)

myriam check your red book i think i may have shorted you pages 79-84.

hahaha myriam if I had known you had been shoe shopping we would have still been on the phone right up to your tollbooth! I love all three, but especially the last ones. Glad you had a good weekend trip.

haha! Lbell this shop is full of good stuff, and everything i tried on was comfy and i have literally the most difficult feet to shop for. i was amazed. i would actually consider going all the way back to cincinatti JUST for that shoe store, and I am not joking at all.

There seemed to be a lot of good little boutiques in Cincy. It reminded me a lot of Pittsburgh--i think it falls in line with my belief about low rents encouraging a lot of creative small business ownership. we met some people there who all seemed to own a shop, and they were our age. crazy. kinda make me a tweak jealous... but then luckily i remembered all the things i'm itching to do here in chicago, that i could do in a smaller (cheaper) town. ahh well. life's nothing but a trade-off, isn't it.

time to go read sarah's jaunt through pregnancy. i hope no one has dared use the word "preggers" yet. makes me want to stab eyeballs.

that i couldn't* do in a smaller cheaper town.

did i mention i have been running a fever for a good chunk of today? i can't write no more.

how was class, WonderK???

I had set up a friend with an interview at my office, because he was having trouble finding work in LA. I felt stuck- I'd feel bad if he came to work here, but on the other hand I'd feel bad if he couldn't find a job because I'd held out on him. So I set it up, and then got news today that he took another offer. So that ended well.

Forgot you guys were trying to buy a house, beta - good luck with it and don't worry - everything will work itself out, for me too.

Because!!! there IS some good news! Turns out anyone who bought a house in 2005 - which includes me - somehow got skipped over for the Homestead Exemption - computer glitch. So I just found out tonight that my revised tax bill will be 20% less yay! It's still way too high, but it's much more manageable. Yippee!

Holy SHIT myriam! You found my shoe store! My friend Meghan has the green pair and I was lusting over the bottom pair last time we were there. So funny, I was paging up and I saw those shoes and I thought, 'man, myriam has the best taste in shoes ever'....

And you went to City View! Did you get a Bloody Mary? Next time we all rendezvous in Cincy we'll go to City View and have Bloody Marys.....they are legendary.

Incidentally myriam, while I appreciate your assessment of Cincy, you were in the most wonderful neighborhood in the whole city. It has the indie record store, indie video store, indie shoe store, best bar, best burrito, and best restaurants in town all within the same strip. That doesn't really exist outside of that area soooo....yeah.

~~~~~

Class was good, by the way. I'm fairly certain that I'm both the youngest and the smallest person there. And by that I mean "not round". I felt a little bit better because I thought, "gosh if these older ladies can ride motorcycles so can I". You know.

liberty bell! 20% less is better but not enough. Also what about your neighbors? This whole thing is very upsetting to me.

Yeah, we ate at Honey (it was ok, not bad, but not tremendous either) and the Hideaway, which I LOVED. Their meatloaf was INCREDIBLE and the chocolate mousse actually lived up to my secret-french-family-recipe standards. Also turned out our friends knew one of the owners and she hung out with us and was a total hoot. I had a great time. The record store did indeed look good, and our waiter at Honey gave me a lead on a secret shop in Boston that I'm gonna check out next time I'm in town. Good times!

Yeah the green pair are messing with my mind--I HAVE to get them. Am calling the shop first thing in the morning tomorrow. That store has amazing prices--you can't find shoes with that kind of style in chicago for less than $160 each.

Everyone cross your fingers that they didn't sell the two remaining pairs in my size today!!!

Oh, and I had Skyline Chili, which I was totally surprised to find is really just a fast-food version of moussaka, without the eggplant! Not too shabby, just surprisingly not what I expected.

Oh and the owner dude of City View is really nice!!! I liked how--just like Pittsburgh--you actually meet all the owners of the shops. My little 'hood is like that here, but it's not quite so friendly as a smaller town.

i liked the prostitutes in front of superbeatledud's place when i visited. they were surpringly like the white trash prostitutes found in indianapolis.

Honey is my favorite restaurant. If it was just "so-so" they might have had an off-night. Best food you'll get for that price anywhere, in my opinion.

Apologies to everyone for having a personal conversation with myriam on TC. Here is my penance:




(I'm glad you had Skyline. It's the best :o)

nicely done. I'm sorry, everyone, too. Just one more thing -- I agree, the price at Honey was fantastic. Really very cheap for what you get. I was pleasantly surprised and impressed. It was perfectly great food. Just didn't blow my mind, is all. :) I may have picked the wrong thing.

Also we ate at Cracker Barrell on the ride home and I feel sick today. Hmm!

don't mind me...

ha ha I was just coming on here to say that I checked, and I have 79 and 84, but am missing 80-83. :) Thanks for checking! I haven't gotten that far yet, I'm only about 15 pages in so far. OH, there goes thunder over my head!

Ok, so I see a lot has happened since I left yesterday. just to clear it up, I don't have an East Texas, redneck/anna nicole smith accent, but its not full Texan like Tommy Lee Jones either. There a few word sounds that say "not from the north" but not too many. I show my regional origins more through word usage/lexicon. Like Apw, I do say supper, but I also say lunch, and dinner is reserved for any large meal, except breakfast, cause a huge breakfast is typical when with a large group anyway. I also say sack when in refference to groceries instead of bag, which is reserved for something you would keep, sacks are more disposable, even if I keep them too. I used to say buggy when reffering to what you push while shopping, but had to convert to cart when in Philly for my five years of school. I noticed that they weren't very good with synonyms up there, and would confuse easily. I had to translate a lot when I was up there.

So do I have an accent, technically, but I DO NOT sound uneducated, or like a Tennesee Williams character.

i didn't think it was southern, but i also use buggy on occasion (architphil uses cart)...

another verbal bone of contention with us has always been "tennis shoes" which i pronounce "tinny" dropping off the "s" as if it were french. this hurts phil's ears but its something i've always said.

strange how the language issue comes full circle to the shoe issue!

Hey! I say that too! I hate the word "sneakers." I dont even know where that word came from.

Oh, and myriam, 'preggers' is also a word to be despised.

when I hear "sneakers" it always makes me think of shoes a burglar would wear to sneak around your house at night, with you asleep inside.

I had some fillings replaced at the dentist this morning; the entire left side of my face is numb.

I am currently drinking coffee through a straw.

'coffee through a straw' would make a good band name. 'bourbon through a straw' would make an even better one.

oh, oh, I just realized, I have only eight more weeks left at work. Jesus, that's not very long. Fuck, fuck fuck.

Existential Crisis people, I need you! I haven't put my car up for sale yet. I haven't put my furniture up for sale yet. I haven't redone my website, put together work samples, or worked on my portfolio yet. I'm not readyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

A Texas accent and a southern accent sound very different to me.

And my Texas twang doesn't come out of course until I leave the state where it becomes really obvious, like say in Chicago, when visiting family.

A thing at a time ratio.

^ It's the only way I'm able to get anything done coherently.

Yep, rationalist, make a list. Don't freak out.

Um, yeah. I'm here. And I'm freaking out too, so I'm not much help.

Anxiety attacks actually work to my benefit because often they speed up my metabolism, while normally it's so slow that it's almost non-existant.

Well, I got one item checked off from my virtual list... I finally got ahold of my building manager, who said they would absolutely pro-rate September rent for us. So that's a nice little bonus!

WonderK, you seem so calm! Five weeks from now, I absolutely guarantee that I will not be as calm as you.

wK- most two-wheelers in Cali just have a learners permit, including the governator. because of the cost, most don't bother to get a full license and just keep renewing the permit. good luck and safe practicing!!! I earned my wheels renting a scooter in rome a few years ago. if you can survive roman traffic, you can ride anywhere.


Vado- i'm still puzzling over if you sound like dr. strangelove with a faux german accent or the cowboy general. so tell us, does your left hand try to choke you sometimes?

R- you can always put off the website changes till after you move- just stick a site under construction notice up. try to use your remaining office time to work on the portfolio and work samples.

Eight weeks is a huge expanse of time.

I wouldn't even start worrying about the stuff you listed until I was two weeks out, r.

but the car is salvage, and I'm afraid that nobody will want it = ( and if nobody wants it, I'll be quite poor.

my left hand is usually choking something.

I thought he was dead

Thats one hell of a cake!

tumbles did you see my awesome casters resource? i highly recommend calling those folks, they damn sure know their products and you won't regret their advice. casters.com to the rescue!

I think vado's choking joke above was in honor of mdler's birthday, right?

oh, and completely off subject, I wanted to say I like the name LBell. I like how it rymes, at least for me cause I say ellebell when I read it.

Ok, carry on.

fwiw - we use http://www.componenthardware.com/ for all of our caster needs. they make some kickass industrial plumbing fixtures.fittings too.

that is, if you can call industrial plumbing fixtures kickass. which i think you can, btw.

who said i was joking?

what about my birthday?

Happy Birthday, mdler.

I got you huge cake with a lady jumping out of it singing to you.

It will be in LA at 3 pm.

here ya' go mdler...knock yerself out.

happy birthday...now go an' git' some!

I always think of it like elle-belle. :)

awesome casters/hardware resources, guys. if there's one thing that rivals my affection for sweet shoes, it's sweet hardware resources... actually that may even SLIGHTLY trump shoes, dare i admit it.