I know it’s time to post when I get the concerned “are you alive?” emails from readers. Well, I’m still here, and it has been a hilarious couple of weeks.
Let’s start with the most cliché shot of Minneapolis ever: the stone arch bridge:
Cee Cee Russell at the Gay 90’s:
There are some hardcore bikers at LA Fitness. I want to buy a vintage canary yellow moped and park it next to this:
First off, MIA. has a new video.
This is my favorite band and I wish their music was more readily available in the US.
Get with it America.
My own musical endeavors have not been going so well. I’m still in that learning stage where everything I produce is awful. Unfortunately, the only way to get out of that stage is to keep producing crappy tracks until they are no longer as awful. I’ll get it together eventually.
Life is so full lately – I love my job, friends, dogs, gym, hilarious dates, and my brand new Aldo shoes. I think this is the slightly-bootleg yuppie life that I envisioned for myself when I first moved to Minneapolis.
Dates, friends, drag shows, quality time with the dogs, work, snow and unseasonably warm weather.
Technology failed me during these past two weeks. This is how I started the morning:
If you soften your gaze and back away slowly, the fail whale will appear.
Blue screens lit up my work computer throughout the weekend and the beginning of the week. I also caught some version of the plague Saturday night, but meetings and computer repair issues brought my germy-body to the office on Monday and Tuesday.
At times the sinus pressure was so great that my right eye would start pouring as I talked to coworkers. I’m pretty sure they wanted to swat me away with a Lysol wipe.
So winter finally came.
Well, snow did. We had a few sub-zero days but today we were well into the 40’s. We manage regardless of the temperature.
The colder it gets inside the cozier it feels inside, so it’s not so bad.
This is why I don’t whine about my 5:30 a.m. personal training sessions, 7-hour IRS Vita training, or picking up 19 hours of overtime at work. I’m more productive than ever and understanding the purpose of growing/learning pains makes the process easier, and even fun.
Short-term discomfort is necessary to achieve long-term gains. Understanding that discomfort is part of a greater process gives it purpose and makes it easier to work through. Sometimes I wish I had this mindset back during college, but I trotted out of undergrad and law school just fine.
“Creative power flourishes only when I am living in the present.” – Brenda Ueland
Living in the present is something I’ve done a lot lately because my schedule finally filled out. I go to bed early, wake up for personal training at LA Fitness around 5 or 6 a.m. and then go to work. Evenings are filled with dog walks, tax training, or a second trip to the gym. Then it’s a beverage and a T.V. show.
The Netflix show of choice was Damages but now I am onto The Kennedys, which is ironic considering one of my favorite books is Libra.
Some changes are in order though. I need to get back to the Jillian Michaels / natural foods diet and redouble my efforts at the gym. I want to lose my stomach so I can walk around the office with semi-high-waisted pants like Leo in Revolutionary Road. Minus the cigarette of course…
I also need to get back to my Ableton time. It’s been too long and I need to finish my album.
Things pleasantly busy though, and I feel fortunate.
My second-round interviews for the job are also this week. The position sounds amazing and I just hope the second-round interviews are as fun as the first-round interviews.
These certainly are exciting times, even with the lack of high-waisted pants.
Oh, and randomly, here’s my song of the moment…
What a year.
I started the year as a 3L law student living in a mouse infested apartment building in Whittier.
My weeks were hectic. I spent my time jetting between my last few classes, my internship in the suburbs, tax training, and a public defender clerkship in downtown St. Paul.
Things changed quickly when I secured a permanent position at my company and started working full-time in February. There were also drag shows, long nights at Jetset, and blizzards.
The snow melted and classes ended quietly. Pride came and went, I turned 25, and I finally moved out of my ghettotastic apartment.
Work got busy once I moved. Drag shows and dancing were exchanged for Netflix marathons. I was promoted at work and got good at making brownies and mojitos.
By the time of my Miami trip I was 20 pounds heavier than I was at the beginning of the year.
I took the love handles to Miami anyway, which was fairly epic.
I started personal training at LA Fitness again upon returning, so I was horribly sore once New Year’s Eve rolled around. I was one of the DDs for New Year’s despite the best attempts of some people in our group.
My goals for this year include working harder, spending more time on creative projects, and losing these 20 pounds. Hopefully my grueling morning workouts help me get there.
Ending the year plump and employed isn’t bad, but 2012 will be better.
I love making these lists because looking back at my prior choices always amuses me. This was the year of the hiphop dance anthems for me. We got to shimmy and shake to a few good ones.
Palm trees, mutant ducks and Lake Osceola.
It was kind of a cool place to go to college.
Window shopping in South Beach reminds me that Miami women may have different proportions than Minnesotans.
I suspect Minneapolis is a tad classier, but not as fun.
Tader and I decided to spend Christmas week in warmer climates.
Renting a car was a little difficult. After haggling at the downtown Miami Avis we found our rental car parked in.
We eventually excised our rental and gave Tader a quick tour of Brickell.
We then spent some time on South Beach and happened upon the cutest puppy mill.
They are adorable, but I think I like my dogs better. Plus the entire place stunk of puppy piss.
We returned to South Beach later that evening and went to Twist, which was epic as ever. Twist is the massive gay bar in Miami. Never a cover, always a groove.
The next day we went to a hipster club in Miami’s design district called the Electric Pickle. They played the kind of house music you never hear in Minneapolis. The music was great, but not really danceable. It turned into a weird Sims-like line dance.
Oh, and we may have stolen a sign from Walgreens…
The night ended at Twist again. It’s a bad habit, but so fun. They have a beer-serving Burger King next door that’s open 24 hours, which is super convenient when you’re skipping out of a club at 5 a.m.
This is going to be a hilarious, expensive vacation.
It was ugly Christmas sweater day at work. I don’t have any ugly Christmas sweaters, so I wore an ugly University of Miami sweater.
Close enough.
After work I ferried the dogs to the pet hotel. The paperwork was horribly confusing after a 10-hour workday. The nice thing is that I managed to finish all of my work for the week, so I don’t have to take my work laptop on vacation.
The official pictures from the holiday office parties are in.
What’s ironic is that Tader’s office is more laid back and “fun” but had the stuffier party.
Some office Christmas parties are stuffy events with assigned seats. Others go bowling and play laser tag.
We win.
