may day dawned cold, drizzly, and grey in Chicago this morning. i have borne the chicago winter thus far, but now i’d like to file a formal complaint. i mean, i was prepared for, and endured, 6 full months of winter, but now that it’s may, c’mon, let the other seasons have a turn. the trees and teenage girls seem equally determined: fragile blossoms and baby leaves are blown this way and that, mini skirts and flip-flops adorn bare legs red with the cold. myself, i find something absurd about wearing polar fleece and my winter hat out in may. did i move to chicago, or iceland?

in protest i am spending four days in idaho next week, where spring has arrived. desert sunshine, i miss you so.

everywhere i went today i was confronted by people hassled by their children: single mothers whose attention-starved kids are making her toothache worse, babies that cry because even babies know that there’s something inhuman about the roar of subway tunnels, shy kids that tug at mom’s coat sleeves when she’s trying to pay the dentist.

as i escaped the noisy, chaotic street for the tranquility of my apartment, i breathed a sigh of relief: thank god i don’t have any children. as if in response, zeke gulped down his dinner and promptly projectile vomited it all over the window. and then headed back to the food dish to see if he could have another snack.

disgusting creature.

let this day go down in history as the first time during a tech that I actually got to take my dinner break, instead of spending the hour frantically re-writing paperwork or repairing props or something.

to be honest, i wasn’t really sure what to do with myself. i ate my usual Tupperware Special for dinner, tried to nap but the dressing room settee was too short and made my neck ache, tried to read a novel but kept feeling like there was something i should be doing, so i killed half a hour chatting with my intern and now i’m posting to my blog. it figures. i finally get an hour off and the freedom simply perplexes me.

zeke started out the day with the breakfast of champions: my birthday roses. later today he threw up bits of the roses in every room in the apartment.

4 days without hot water will cause one to sing hallelujah when the water heater finally gets repaired. the building manager was kind enough offer us showers courtesy of the Abbot Hotel next door, however, given the choice between having a cold shower & bad hair and setting (naked) foot inside the dodgy transient hotel, i opted for the former. i’ve seen enough youth hostel showers for a lifetime.

we are not, however, going to have any more birthday parties. you know that childhood geek fear of having a birthday party and having no one show up? such was saturday night. the excuses were all valid – parents in town, hot date with the new girl, tickets to see a show, stuck in rehearsal, down with a bad cold, hosting another birthday party, boyfriend visiting, have to be up early for easter services – but it doesn’t negate the fact that only one of my friends actually showed up. luckily, andy’s friends can always be depended upon to materialize at the mention of PBR and the opportunity to sit around rehashing scenes from last week’s improv class, so we didn’t lack for guests. but really, i think this is just a grown-up symptom of a life-long affliction of social ineptitude. in junior high school the girls passed mean notes about me, as an adult i have inconvenient parties. i was always better with 3 close friends and a bottle of wine, maybe a scrabble board. i think in the future we’ll stick to what we know.

far-away friends: you are missed.

turning 26 turned out to be a rather pleasant experience – the day was punctuated with calls and cards from distant but dear friends, and there were a dozen roses and a dinner date waiting for me when i got home from work. coincidentally, the birthday also included an unexpected raise at my day job, and an offer for a new stage management gig.

the high occurance of gifts featuring tiger-striped cats (3 paper cards, 1 e-card and 1 painting) was enough to give one pause, however. do i talk about my cat too much? am i becoming a cat lady?

a new-found sarcastic pleasure: commemorative stamps. for example: the state of idaho, which is refunding me $128 in taxes, got the frog and the turtle stamps (the frog cause he’s cute and green, like money, and the turtle because it could take till July before I actually see any refund money). the feds and the state of illinois, however, were mailed with the scarlet king snake and the reticulate collared lizard stamps, because that’s how i feel about owing all those taxes. so nya.

anyone out there familiar with the nyc band Betty? tell me more.

just when i’ve finally got time to write to slithy tove, my hosting company goes down, taking slithy tove and my email server with it. and, since i set my company’s web site up with the same host earlier this year, also no work email. earthlink’s DNS server or whatever can’t even find an entry for the parent company. not a good sign. it’s like going to mail a letter and discovering that the entire post office is gone. disturbing, how much of a void something that doesn’t actually have a physical presence can still leave in its absence.

and speaking of mail, lately i wonder if my junk mail is trying to tell me something. i keep getting “welcome to the neighborhood” postcards (thank you, People’s Gas and Commonwealth Electric, for selling my personal information) from a) renters’ insurance companies and b) doctors and hospitals. do they know something i don’t know? an apartment fire is imminent? my appendix is hovering just this side of septic?