The Ankle Saga: A Story In Pictures

So. Okay. OH MY GOD, I have started this blog post 80 times and deleted it and started it over, because I have no idea what to talk about right now.

Do I talk about how I rolled my ankle on the way back to Chicago? Yes, let's go there, shall we? In fact, let's go there with visual aids. Because everyone likes visual aids.

On my way to the airport, I walk out the door, down two blocks...



...and then as I'm lifting my suitcase over a curb I also step in a small pothole. There was a crunching noise. It was not awesome.



After about 5 straight minutes of whispered profanity, the girl at the bus stop asked me if I was okay. I told her yes.



When the bus came, I hobbled to the back where I thought I could stretch out. I put my foot up on my suitcase for...blood flow...or whatever reason it is that you elevate a twisted ankle. But then the bus actually filled up, and I kept getting dirty looks from people who assumed I was spreading out on public transportation. I wanted to shout, "NO! I usually mock those people! I am just like you! I AM NOT AN ANIMAL! I AM A HUMAN BEING!" But I couldn't say any of that because I was concentrating so hard on keeping myself from making wounded moaning noises. I refused to be the person at the back of the bus and MOANING.




Eventually I got to the airport...




And then THIS happened.



I had to sit down on the ground like a 3 year old to take off my shoes at security.



Of COURSE I was at the furthest gate. OF COURSE I was.



In Economy with limited space and an ankle hurting like holy hell, every time I crossed my legs I kept hitting the girl next to me. She was not amused. But for some reason, "Sorry, I twisted my ankle" didn't seem like a valid excuse for why I couldn't stick to my own assigned spot.



In the end, I made it and hobbled into the arms of my parents who came to pick me up.



Luckily my family has twisted their ankles so often that we were stocked with fancy Ace bandages and ice packs. Apparently my clumsiness is genetic. And at least I had an excuse to sit on the couch and demand other people feed me cookies and milk. Nothing like being surrounded by the people you love in a warm house with plenty of food (and no joke, 5 kinds of butter) to nurse you back to health.



And hey! On a separate note--check out that survey over on the upper right. Let me know what you think. Totally anonymous even to me, so you can answer even if you think you're a stalker for being here. (By the way, you are not. OR ARE YOU?...No, you aren't.) So give it to me straight. Twitter: Y/N/Meh?

The Tragic Tale of Mold-A-Rama Lincoln

Joe and I went up to the Sears--GAH! WILLIS!!--Tower on Saturday. This is his last weekend in Chicago before he moves to San Fran for the next four months, and he's never been up to the top of the Sears--WILLIS!--Tower. So we decided it would be a fun, quick touristy thing to do. We actually live only a few blocks away, so it was a fast walk. And it was really cool to be able to look at the place you live from up above. Turns out Target is shaped weirdly.

Since I've last been there, they've added these glass boxes that jut out on the west side of the building, so you can basically step out and be 5/6 suspended in mid-air. When I first heard about it, I swore to the high heavens that I would absolutely 100% never go.

Sigh. Here I am, giving in to the peer pressure.



Once we circled the top and went back down, we walked through a bunch of touristy things. Mugs, snowglobes, we walked past them all. But then! *Fanfare music* Photo booths, penny-flattening machines and two, COUNT EM, TWO Mold-A-Rama machines.

For those who do not know about the majesty that is Mold-A-Rama, here's the deal: they're these retro-looking things that make wax figurines. The only other place I can remember seeing them is at the zoo. Near the dolphins, you can get a dolphin. Bears, bears. Rhinos, rhinos. Etc etc, ditto ditto, and so on and so forth.

Here's an example of another one I found on Google.



Up in the top left they show you what the figurine would look like. Then there under the glass is the mechanism: two halves of the mold, which come together and fill with wax after you put the money in. After a minute, the mold is done, and a little arm comes down and pushes it down into the hole where you can get it, vending-machine style.

Well. I got pretty excited about this particular mold, a bright blue Abraham Lincoln with "The Land Of Lincoln" written underneath. It just sounded so kitch, I couldn't resist. Here's what he would look like.



Joe put in the $2 it costs, the two metal arms came together as they should, we heard the noise of the mold coming in, aaaaaannnnnd something weird happened.

Blue wax started dripping out the bottom.

Now, I have a pretty bad memory, but I've also made my way around a Mold-A-Rama before. And I couldn't remember ever seeing the wax come out the bottom of the mold. Confused but hopeful, we waited for the mold to open so we could see what would happen.

Abe was there, all right. But it looked like the mold had filled with twice the amount of wax, and it had plastered him to the bottom. The little arm came out and tried to shove him into the hole (ooer) but only got him slightly loose, thus moving him off his track but not far enough for him to drop.




I'm a true Illinoisian so I have to say, it's the first time I've ever been disappointed in Abraham Lincoln.

Refusing to give up hope, I sent Joe to get help as I stood guarding Honest Abe. I had to explain to quite a few tourists why it was broken and why I was keeping them from attempting to get their own.

Joe came back with some 20-something ticket vendor kind of guy. The guy scratched his head, shook the machine (genius thinking at its best with this one) and confirmed what I said, he'd have to call the Mold-A-Rama people and they'd refund us our $2.

NO! NO. This was simply not good enough. I was invested in my Abe now. I wanted my mold. At the very least, I wanted to see the machine squish my Abe and remelt it and see what happens, because I think melted wax is ever-entertaining. (I'm often called a pyro because I play with lit candles all the time, but it's not actually because I like fire. I fear fire, unless Tom Hanks is stranded on a deserted island and desperate to create it. [Oh my God, Wilson.][Oh my God did anyone else see Bridesmaids where Kristen Wiig is watching Castaway and it's only about 5 seconds long but it's the part where he realizes Wilson is gone and he's sobbing and screaming "I'M SORRY WILSON!" and Kristen Wiig is crying and I'M crying because I remember that part in the movie VIVIDLY and it is seriously more heartbreaking than when actual PEOPLE die in movies and you just want to cradle Dirty Tom Hanks in your arms, even though technically you are watching Bridesmaids and then you remember how every time you see that part in Love Actually where Liam Neeson watches Titanic, they play it for just long enough that you forget you're watching Love Actually and when they stop it you get really upset because you were kind of getting into the scene and you kind of just want to watch Titanic now?])

Whoah. Where am I?

Oh, right. So Lincoln is off-kilter and I wanted to know what would happen if we put in two more dollars. I'm not going to lie, I was really hoping for doubled up, conjoined twin Lincoln. So we asked the guy if we could do it and see what would happen. Of course this guy wasn't about to say no. He was two bakes past half-baked. He said he'd turn his back.

So we put in the money, and of course what happened was this:



The already formed figure was keeping the two sides of the mold from coming together, thus none of the wax stayed in the mold and it all started dripping everywhere. When it opened, it looked like this:



"NO! NO! OH MY GOD, LINCOLN!! WHAT HAVE I DONE? Joe, we need to go. No, we need to get out of here right now. Run. Leave the money, I WILL NOT STAND AROUND AND BE FORCED TO PAY FOR A BROKEN MOLD-A-RAMA MACHINE."



We left the Sears--SCREW IT. SEARS.--Tower with nothing more than a flattened penny and a shamed look.

I Think I'm Alone Now

Oh heyyyyy guys. How've you been? How was your weekend? What have you been up to lately?

Sigh, I'm sorry. I feel like I've been gone/absent for a while and now we've gotten to that point like when you haven't seen a good friend for an awkward amount of time, you know? And you feel weird asking them about their life because they're supposed to be a good friend and you should KNOW if they have a boyfriend/job/car but you don't, but you also feel weird making small talk because they're your good friend and you refuse to discuss the weather. You know.

You do know, right? Please tell me you know. Don't tell me I'm the only one out there who gets that awkward. Although God knows I'm capable of it.

Anyway, I'm avoiding it now. Here's the skinny. The nub. The gist. The low-down. STOP IT, EMILY.

Joe has accepted a 4-month contract job in San Francisco. He'll be gone from the 4th of July to Halloween. I will be alllll alone. I'm moving to a studio on the (extremely) north side. I will be a sad, lonely, destitute old hag, with no one to comfort her during the cold, dark nights but her mustachioed female cat named after an obscure Friends reference.

Thing is, though...I'm actually really excited. But like, REALLY excited.

Not so much excited that Joe is going to be gone. That part makes my insides feel like burning. But I'm excited to have my own place for a little bit. I've never lived alone in my entire life. I've never blasted my music in the middle of a living space for hours. I've never been able to constantly pick my own movies and tv shows without consulting someone else (why HELLO, marathon of old Grey's Anatomy episodes. And how are we this evening? Anyone object to a Miranda Bailey lecture once every 40 minutes? Regina Phalange? Refrigerator? No one? Excellent, let's begin.)

Dishes will be done WHEN I SAY THEY'LL BE DONE. Everything in the fridge is mine, MINE! ALL MINE!! BWA HA HA HA HA HA!! What's this goo on the bathroom sink? Who knows, but I created it and therefore I won't get the Black Lung by scraping it off. THE FREEDOM IS ENDLESS, PEOPLE.

I'm also looking forward to forcing myself to do more alone-time things. I'm going to go to a movie by myself for the first time. I'm going to go out to eat by myself. I'm going to go to movies in the park by myself. Rent roller skates at the beach? Maybe! You never know what kind of kooky adventures I'll find myself in.

It's not that I couldn't have done these things earlier. I just...never did. I guess I never really thought to. Even when I was unemployed and had all the alone time in the world, the whole pesky "lack of paycheck" thing was keeping me from reaching my true adventuresome potential.

So what does this mean to you? Because, let's great real. The world revolves around each and every one of you. Separately. What it means is that you get nonstop complaining for the rest of the month as we pack up our stuff and put it in storage until Joe's gig is done and we know what we're doing next. HOW FUN FOR YOU! Also, you get to hear about the adventures of a single girl who is not really single. Read: no posts about awkward first dates BUT INSTEAD posts about how I broke my pride falling into the lake while roller skating. Yippee!

Twin Bruises: Like Twin Peaks...In No Way Whatsoever.

Okay. I can do this. I can write you a blog post that is worth everyone's time, and it will not devolve into me declaring the demise of Advertising, either by the cold hand of modern technology or of my own.

*Deep breath...aaaaaand...*

So guess what guys??? I have two enormous bruises on my right hip. Things that I blame:

1. Booze
As Glee so deliciously put it last week, I mainly blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol, baby. In that episode, they seemed to have a hard time coming up with a danger of alcohol as long as you have a DD. I am here to tell you (but I cannot SHOW you, as these bruises are in a precarious position and I'm a lady) that alcohol definitely has dangers, even when a car is no where in sight. Let me expound on this by telling you what else I blame:

2. Tommy Wiseau
A week or so ago, we went to see 'The Room'. For those who don't know, The Room is a newish cult-classic. And when I say "classic" I mean that it will burn itself into your brain so you will never fully be able to scrub it out of your memory, no matter how hard you try.

Yes. The Room is considered one of the worst movies of all time. Made in the same year as "From Justin To Kelly" and "Gigli", those movies become "Casablanca" and "Citizen Cane" in comparison. The Room was written, starred, directed, produced, and distributed by one man: Mr. Tommy Wiseau, who defied all people who said the movie was bad (and by that I mean: all people said the movie was bad) and used his own mystery money to get the whole thing produced.

Here is one classic scene. You guys are going to love it.

Yeah. YEAH. Do you feel that? That's the tingling of love.

So all this to say, they have showings of the movie, similar to Rocky Horror, where people dress up, bring props, throw things, and yell at the screen. And people may or may not COUGHsneakCOUGH COUGHalcoholCOUGH into the theater. Well, after the movie was over, we were walking slowly out of the theater. And I've decided there is nothing worse than trying to intentionally walk slowly while tipsy. Might as well have put me on a freaking balance beam. Aaaaand I slipped. Onto the side of a theater seat.

MORE THINGS I BLAME:

3. Joe
Were we walking next to each other? YES.
Is Joe a big strong man with a beard more powerful than Thor and He-Man combined? YES.
Did Joe manage to catch me? NO.
Game set match. Point, Emily. Gave over. End of game.

4. My Inability To Stand Like A Normal Person


5. Sand
Last weekend, I went to Tom's (Laura's boyfriend...'s) lake house. Where we proceeded to drink COUGHalcoholCOUGH COUGHlegally and safelyCOUGH but which left me slightly off-balance once again. And it was a lake house, so of course there was still sand in some places. Have you ever sprinkled sand on bathroom tile and then tried to walk across it? Well I HAVE. Slip number 2. Same side. Nearly the same place.



I kid you not, I look like I got into a fight with a baseball and LOST. I have two enormous bruises, side by side. BFFs. Just hanging out like it's no big thang. I think this is a new low, clumsiness-wise, even for me. It is, and I am not joking about this, one of my largest arguments against my ability to own children right now. That, and the fact that I refer to them as something I might 'own.'

Sigh. I'm going to go ice these bad boys down.