Duchess Jane

I think I'm looking for another low-key weekend.  I've had a lot of plans pop out of nowhere in the last couple of days and I've cleared some things off of the schedule due to astronomical levels of stress, but I still haven't really decided what I'm going to do with myself this weekend besides catch up on sleep.

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I'm struggling to remember which updates I've shared here and which I've neglected.  Wags got a job.  As did Pipes.  Woot.

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Project Runway's new season debuted last night and we had a great turnout in the chat room.  Mark your calendars for next Thursday!  What?  You're busy?  Make it work.  Tim says so.

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I can't stop watching this:

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Dano set a new personal record for the 5k distance in a race last night, as did UltraPal.

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Tweet 'o the week is a dead tie.  First contender is this one, where a follower expresses her love for me in interwebspeak and then acknowledges it might be creepy.  That pretty much sums up my relationship with Twitter entirely. I love you even though we creep each other out.

Tied with Jim again, who is calling my bluff after hearing rumors that only 40% of the content of my stories is really true.  Jim, there are witnesses.  The cabnapper's wife, for example.  I deserve at least 63%.

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This week, years past:

2009:  The ads on this website came down and we marked the last time I did a weekly update that wasn't titled Take No Prisoners

2008:  We discussed fake names and BLC/Corky taught me a new insult

2007:  A little bit of local news

2006:  Duke took me to IKEA for the first time, and also fit his entire head inside of a surgical glove.  He's single now, ladies.  Form a line.

Tonight on my way home, I sat at a stoplight in a town just outside of Rockford, staring at a dilapidated abandoned house.  It is a commercial property, with a commercial real estate sign staked in the tall grass and weeds of the fenced-in pseudo-yard.

I don't know when it exactly it became what it is today, whether it was a slow process or an overnight abandonment.  I only know that four years ago or so, I sat at this same stoplight, staring at this same house, cursing my luck at not being able to secure a meeting inside.  This house was never a house.  It was the design center and central offices of a major home builder whose work my company never secured.  

I pictured the former occupants of the office house, remembering the way my office used to function at the peak of the housing boom, the way the phone never stopped ringing, five to twelve lines lit up all at once.  I wondered which window leads to the room where the receptionist sat when she took my calls, patiently taking my messages for calls that were never returned.

These days, I talk to very few assistants.  The builders that are still standing are doing a lot more of their own administrative tasks.  They call me themselves, they do the scheduling they used to farm out to an army of expeditors and middle-men.  Often, I'm surprised to hear from them at all.  Months pass between new home starts, rather than days.  And occasionally, like today, when they do call, it is to inform us that a developer has surrendered a property back to the bank and the home won't be started, won't be finished, or has been vandalized while nobody was watching.

I thought about the old days for most of my drive home, as I passed at least two more empty sales center buildings constructed to look like giant custom homes, their vinyl siding warping, cracks in the brick visible from the street, gutters starting to pull away already.  I wondered how many of those homes are now sitting empty in the same shape.  I wondered about the admins that I used to talk to every single day.

And there, but for the grace of a seasonally vital industry, go I.

I have been in a real movie-watching phase again.  I saw Cyrus last Thursday, Inception on Saturday, and Youth In Revolt (on DVD).  Cyrus made me super uncomfortable for pretty much the entire movie, and I may never be able to watch Jonah Hill on screen again.  And this may be a blessing.  Youth in Revolt was kinda meh. 

But Inception.  Ohhhhh.  Inception.  Loved it hard.  I sent Duke an email after I left that said "You need to see Inception, it features a hot chick architect who isn't just there to be killed off."  He replied with "Sounds like science fiction to me."  He has a real hang-up about architects in movies - they almost always exist only to say something enginerdy and then get crushed by a falling beam in the first 5 minutes.

I've been having strange dreams since I saw the movie, but I have to constantly remind myself that I have always had strange dreams, and it has nothing to do with the movie, I just have very vivid dreams and I'm only more creeped out by them now, they are not actually increasing in frequency or weirdness.

For readers with me since April or so, you may remember my "Empires Weren't Built Here" series that was supposed to contain a Part 4 that hasn't arrived yet.  The movie Inception may hasten/make possible the Part 4.  I've written it.  I've rewritten it.  It exists in a few different forms.  I'm quite glad that I didn't publish the first version, holding back out of some intense discomfort I have with the subject matter in light of the number of jumpers (suicides by train) that have taken place this spring/summer in the northwest suburbs, the emails that I get telling me that this train or that train will be late due to a "pedestrian incident".  Jim, who saw the movie with me, will probably be the only person who completely understands the physical reactions it provoked in me.  Suffice it to say that I went home that night and took a second, third, and twelfth look at Part 4.  I'm still not sure if I'm ready for it.

All of this is getting around to the point that I want to spend more time here, on DuJane, and I'm working on making that time possible.  I've been busy writing, just elsewhere and with other goals, but I need to refocus here too.  I dream of you, even on days other than Thursdays.

Yesterday, I bid farewell to my car, which rolled away on a truck headed for the garage of two nice young boys who pooled their paper route money to buy it from me on Craigslist.  (This may or may not be where they got their money, but they were so young and cheek-pinchable, it's the story I'm going to tell.)

Bye, Bean.

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I saw The English Beat and Squeeze in concert on Wednesday night with BLC, Amy and Dano.  I enjoyed both bands, but definitely liked Squeeze more.  I was also a little bit distracted by BLC, who leaned over and whisper-screamed "HOW ABOUT THIS ONE?  DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS ONE?" every single time they struck up a new song.  He was having some issues with the fact that I couldn't name a single song by either band before I arrived.  And answering with "OH SO THIS ISN'T JUST A COMMERCIAL?" didn't help the situation.

Luckily, he didn't hear the following convo during "Tenderness", because it probably would have put him into full cardiac arrest.

Jane:  Wow, this is their song?  I would have known who they were if this song had been listed in their singles on Wikipedia. 

Dano:  Maybe it wasn't a big hit.

Jane:  I know all the words!

Dano:  That's because it's in every movie.  It is the default song for the going on a first date fashion show dressing room montage.

Jane:  OHHH!  So that's why I have the urge to take this dress off, put on a different dress, and spin around in a circle. 

Dano:  Yeah, that's why.

So then Squeeze took the stage, and so did the most enormous bra I've ever seen in my life, so enormous that the guitar player at whom it was thrown looked absolutely terrified and sort of ran from it.  And then the keyboardist did an iPad solo.  No, really.  I weep. 

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I have a whole lot of nothing on my schedule this weekend.  I'm looking forward to it.

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This week, years past:

2009:  It only seems appropriate that this week's flashback would be the most disgusting conversation I've ever had with BLC.

2008:  I caught up on some reading.

2007:  Wedding fashion, featuring a naked lady mudflap belt buckle

Hey friends.  I am laying low this Sunday, already needing some serious naptime to recover from what's been a super fun weekend already.  Tomorrow's alarm clock will be harsh.

On Friday night, Dano and I went to see Toy Story 3, finally.  This is notable for a couple of reasons.  1.) I can't believe I managed to wait a full month after release to see it.  2.) It was Dano's first 3D movie, at least of the modern era of 3D.  I found out this tidbit when I was giggling at the little boys sitting a few seats away who were ooohing and ahhhhing over the effects in the previews, and I mentioned it to Dano, who then put his glasses on for the first time and said "ooooh WOW!" himself, sounding just like the 4 year-olds to our left.  Adorable.

I loved the movie, and of course I cried, and I wished my mom had been there.

Saturday morning, Dano emailed me from work to tell me to be ready to "go out" at a specific time.  The previous night, we'd been talking about going to see Inception together, so I figured his unspecified outing was going to be either that movie, or a fact-finding mission to a helmet shop that we've been planning for awhile as well.  (Likely to become The Enormous Gourd Incident 3:  Rise of the Visors.)  Instead, he drove me to a masseuse where he'd made reservations for us both for 60 minute massages.  A very very nice surprise.

We spent Saturday night hanging out with my pal Colleen and Dano's running buddy UltraFriend.  We started with Dano's famous homemade margaritas, then watched UltraFriend fire off an amazing fireworks show, and then took a trip on his boat for some bar pizza, a jukebox groupie, and golf cart shenanigans.  Our night ended at 4 am on Sunday with what will be the most oft-quoted conversation since the Mel Gibson recordings were released.  Dano wore his 3D glasses from Toy Story for the entire evening, occasionally interrupting the conversation to scream, "OH MY GOD EVERYTHING IS IN 3D" or "IT'S COMING RIGHT AT ME."

It's been awhile since the newspaper has beat me home and I've watched the sunrise before going to bed.  It's been too long really.  Mmmmm, bed.  I might go back there.