Happy Halloween!

With love, from the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

ew

I'm kind of sick.

I'm on the couch. I'm very achey and uncomfortable. Everything is bright and loud and extremely irritating. At first, when I started feeling bad, I thought I was just hungover.

Because on Thursday night I spend hours and hours with Andrea, and eventually she came to my hood, and we went to Rodan and drank martinis, and then we came back to my house where Ben was sleeping soundly, and we drank a bottle of wine, and took sixty pictures of ourselves with Ben's computer, and talked and talked and talked the night away, and then at about 6am I gave Andrea a haircut while she played with my makeup. Around 6:30 I put Andrea to sleep on the couch and went up to bed. I slept till 1pm; Andrea had already left.

Let me just say I don't know what the hell happened. It was totally out of control but it was So. Much. Fun. We had just the greatest time.

Friday I felt tired and headachey and really out of it, but not nauseous or really sick. I met with Ginger about the movement piece, I computered in a coffee shop, I sang as part of the Chuck Berry/Buddy Holly tribute concert at work, in a big rockin' group covering the Blind Faith cover of the Buddy Holly tune Well All Right. It was excellent fun. I ate some barbecue and biked home and went to sleep at 10:30.

Saturday I had to work 9-5. I woke up, biked back to work. It was a slow day at the desk and I felt TERRIBLE. So terrible. Out of it, tired, headache, foggy, gross. I went home early. At first I thought I was having a bizaare second day hangover, but then I started to think I was just actually sick for realz. I got home and napped. I showered and put on fresh clothes and Ben talked me into going out for dinner with Mike, which was pretty fun. We went to this little Italian restaurant. Afterwards, we knew two people who were throwing housewarming parties. Both people are kind of just becoming friends, and I had really wanted to go to the parties before I was feeling terrible, so we decided to just stop by. First Lauryn, who I work with, who has an awesome loft in Old Town, and then Margaret, who knew Abbey from study abroad and who just moved to Ukie Village close to us. Lauryn's was pretty chill, and we stayed maybe a little too long before heading to Margaret's. Margaret and her boyfriend had gotten a keg, and they wondered aloud if they had gotten too much beer, which of course Ben and Mike interpereted as a challenge to finish the keg. They didn't end up finishing it, but since I had to drive them home I ended up having to stay out much later than I had wanted to while they diligently sipped from red cups.

So I didn't get a full night's sleep, and then today I had to work all day again. 9-5 Saturday and Sunday! This all-weekend working business was part of the urge to have extra super fun on Thursday night, but it looks like that was in fact not a good idea. Today at work, again, it BLEW. I went and bought vitamin C juice and Day Quil and drank a jillions of water, and waited and waited for the day to be over. Even the wondrous internet held no joy for me. I just listened to M. Ward and waited for 5.

I came home and got under blankets and turned on TV. I have watched a Michael J. Fox True Hollywood Stories show and Mythbusters and Comedy Central's Autism Benefit show. The TV is full of crap.

To top all this off, for dinner Ben was just going to throw in this frozen pizza we got at Trader Joe's. It looked yummy, with artichoke hearts and mushrooms and sundried tomatoes and blue cheese. Well guess what: it was NOT YUMMY. It was in fact TERRRIBLE TASTING. I am not a very picky eater and like most things, but this pizza, I could not even eat. And it took forever to cook, and we had waited so patiently; We threw the whole thing away. Ben and I talked about going to Trader Joes with stickers that say TASTES BAD and putting them on all these fucking gross pizzas. And probably also on the mayonnaise. Also does not taste good.

So as you can tell: I am a WHINY SICK BITCH! I'm washing down some ibuprofin with this tea and going to bed.

WinterTF?

Cold! And blizzardy! But sunny in between the snowstorms. October 12. Very weird. Very cold. Feels like 24 degrees. No heat on in the office yet. Very, very cold to sit still and try to type.

I'm going to be performing at the kids Halloween concert at work- I have to come up with five Halloween songs. I'm already planning on the 5 little pumpkins rhyme that I still remember from Curiosity Cornr. Anybody else out there know good ones?

Ben and I went to see my talented friend Emily perform last night at Davenport's. There were only three of us there, but it was still so awesome. She's incredibly talented and I found myself grinning, then welling up, then angry, then peaceful from song to song. I love her a lot. Today I went over to her apartment before work for coffee and then again at lunchtime to share our lunches. I love hanging out at her place. Her little puppy being extra cute doesn't hurt either.

Hearing Emily last night made me want to work on writing more songs. It also made me realize that it's damn time I get a piano. Christmastime = new keyboard. No question about it.

Other events you may have missed: Dinner at Feed with Abbey, Jess, Poppy, Ben, followed by Happy Village fun. Redmoon's production of the Twilight Forest or something, where Meredith helped create an enchanted environment by pushing huge walls around and talking in a little megaphone. It was neat but a lot to handle and a little too crowded and widespread.

Got my hair cut. By Brenna, my regular stylist who I haven't been to forever. It was a wonderful experience and I have a hot little haircut. My bangs are about one third as long as they were yesterday, and a little choppy. See: Chrissie's blogger photo. Getting my hair cut by Brenna also meant that I got to get my hair washed by Brenna's shampoo guy, Luigi. When I am a rockstar with a hundred albums and a fan club and a lucrative restaurant on the side I will hire Luigi to wash my hair every day. Holy, holy smokalies. Aint nothing like a head massage. Afterwards I was like, Haircut? Sure. Do whatever you want. I don't care. I'm good.

Now I must ask for your assistance. What should I be for Halloween? This is of utmost importance. I have to be something kid-friendly for the Spooky Singal*ng, but I also have been invited to a couple of parties where I could be something more grownup oriented. Any ideas?

May I have your attention please:

We just made an INCREDIBLE breakfast. Ben and I have talked a lot about opening a restaurant someday. We would have an awesome restaurant. The things we are awesomest at making are breakfast things, sandwiches, pizzas, cookies and pies. We'd probably do a mostly breakfast place. Although today we were also talking about having a coffee shop place that had a different breakfast special every day. Pancakes one day, french toast the next, huevos rancheros the next, biscuits and gravy the next, etc. Can you imagine a coffee shop with pancakes? Fresh pancakes with your coffee? Oh man, so awesome, and then you could always get sandwiches. Egg sandwiches, or lunchy sandwiches. Maybe have some pizza specials... oh yes. Maybe one day we'll really opne this restaurant because it will be fucking AMAZING. I want to go there right now.

Please don't steal our idea.

Today, listen to this breakfast we made. I swear to god. I made the sweet, Ben made the savory. I made pancakes, apple cinnamon walnut pancakes. Fluffy, awesome, balanced just right. Ben made the best egg sandwiches ever, with ham, sharp cheddar, skinny tomato slices, a little mayo, on toasted french bread that was perfectly crispy without being scrapey. Fresh coffee, orange juice, a bite of sandwich crunchy, a sweet maple apple pancake fluffy bite... VERY AWESOME.

It was also almost two o'clock when we ate this "breakfast."

We both went out and stayed out all late last night and slept till noon like in college. It was especially fun because Ben took off work yesterday, which meant that we had two days off together like regular weekend people. We got brunch yesterday at this great place called Maple Leaf Cafe that had the best biscuits I've ever eaten. And then we went to some stores downtown and tried on jeans. And then we came home and watched the Twins game, which was a sad time. I was performing last night with Congrss of Starlings at the Old Town School, which was super fun. They were in a great mood, Aerin especially, and so comfortable onstage there, that the show was high energy and fun and wonderful. We had their drummer and bass player too. It was great. Here we are:


After the show we hung around the school for First Friday, and then went to the bar next door for fries and a couple of beers. It was a good crew; Aerin, Andrea, Laura, Meg, Erin, her friend whose name I can't remember and me. We spent a lot of the time talking in shoddy Spanish about Jesus Christ Superstar. And then there was dramatic singing of the line "SEE MY PURSE I'M A POOR POOR MAN."

I went back with Andrea and Aerin to their place to help unload the gear, and then we hung around late into the night, dancing and laughing and singing and talking and being hysterical. Ben and I both got home around 3:30 and each thought the other was a burgular. Then we ate cookies and went to bed at 4.

And then eventually when we woke up, we made the aforementioned Fabulous Breakfast. It was good to have some extra fun time after a long, kind of shitty feeling week. Today we're gonna go check out some thrift stores and then Abbey is in town and we're gonna have dinner at Smoke Daddy with her and Jess. I love it when there's fun stuff.

dudes, it's been forever

I haven't had the urge to blog for a long time.

Isabel visited. It was kind of bittersweet and fun. We went to Selmarie, ate freezer steaks and hung out with Taavo, Ben and Kiki.

I got invited to be part of an experimental kind of movement installation thing at the Cultural Center. Taavo is in it, and they needed a vocalist to provide some background music, and he was awesome and gave them my name. More info to come.

Some more performances with Congrss of Starlings coming up.

Fun with Ben. Saw a Science of Sleep preview. Went to Handlebar. Brunched at the Breakfast Nook. Hung out at Filter watching people in the rain.

Hung out with Emily. What's better than that. Oh I know. Hanging out with Emily and her brand new puppy Hank. And that's what I did.

Altered some clothes to fit better. Now a skirt that had become too big is a little tighter than it should be. Oh well-- it's the style at the time.

Did I tell you that I wrote a good song? It led to a two hour conversation with Miki at work. He runs the cafe and is twice as old as me, and our different perspectives made for lots of interesting insight. I like him.

Went to Will's with Ben. Will's is the Packers Bar. It's super fun. We ate free cheeseburgers and drank Point Special on tap and wore green and gold and cheered and shouted with everyone. Ran into a friend from middle school, a former coworker of Ben's and a friend of Emily's. Packers lost but otherwise it ruled.

Speaking of losing. Well first of all speaking of winning. Twins clenched the division. It was awesome. Ben was grinning nonstop for three days. Then today, they lost to the A's. Ben is now ultimately sad. Girls may have PMS but boys have to be die-hard sports fans. This is a gendered stereotype, but I don't care.

That's the word.