5. I want to develop for the iPad. I really do. I have four product ideas I’d love to see materialize and I’m working my way gently into the iPhone SDK at the moment. Aside from graphic sizing, I can’t see how the iPad is any different than the iPhone.

4. The same reason I bought a first gen iPhone. The iPad is a first gen device. Many folks will avoid it for that reason, but first gen tech has always fascinated me. Like the iPhone, the iPad will kick off a slew of imitators. I’d rather get one now and upgrade later. I’ve never been sorry for spending the $1000+ or so I’ve spent on iPhones. They’ve all been marvelously useful and I’d spend twice that on them in the future. Plus, my family loves tech hand-me-downs, so a first gen iPad might just have a future home.

3. I want a new laptop but I don’t want a new laptop. In the sub $1000 space I wouldn’t buy an Apple laptop, nor would I consider purchasing a Linux or Windows machine. This gizmo will do what I need in a travel laptop, which for me ain’t much. I don’t think I’ll get the 3G option because I seldom stay at hotels without WiFi and there are hotspots galore in every part of Chicago that I frequent, including many of the places I will potentially work. Plus, my iPhone isn’t going anywhere, and for directions or a quick text it’s far more useful.

2. The Star Trek The Next Generation-ness of the device. If I have to explain what that means, we most likely aren’t close friends, nor are you a regular reader of this blog, but welcome to the world of radiopeter.com! Toss me in your Google Reader, or better yet, follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/petermavrik. When my iPad lands, I’ll be blogging about it, photographing it, and possibly establishing a similar unhealthy relationship with it along the lines of my iPhone.

1. Bragging rights. For realz. It’s part of being an Apple fanboy and I’ll admit that anytime. Will you?

It shits in Twitter timelines. With every checkin. Possibly the most annoying thing ever.

The magic, for me, of Twitter is how eloquently the people I follow on Twitter are. They “get” the saying “brevity is the soul of wit.” Short, descriptive clips of something interesting. And often, the folks I follow are bloggers who post interesting URL’s when they blog.

foursquare now decides to shit a useless URL into Twitter streams far and wide every time someone checks in. Honestly, I care not. If I wanted to know where someone was, I’d ask.

But here’s the kicker. 90% of the folks I follow on Twitter:

a) I’ve never met
b) Live far away from me
c) Do interesting things in life and have interesting things to say
d) Provide what I’ve often called Smart Content

Smart Content isn’t telling the world where you are. It’s meaningful information. Behind a Twitter URL can be a blog post, and interesting site, a cool picture, and generally something meaningful. foursquare provides a link to a site that tells me how many folks visited a certain corner/bus stop/business etc. I just don’t care AND it’s ruining the way I use Twitter.

Tech is what any of us make of it.

So today I unfollowed everyone who uses foursquare. Logging into Twitter to see pages of URLs that lead me to useless information is not only a waste of time, it’s a waste of my bandwidth.

Nothing personal. I really don’t have any ill feelings towards any of the users. But until the app removes the clutter from what should be a simple and eloquent way of communicating, i.e. Twitter, I ain’t gonna follow you if you use foursquare.

Luxurious.

That’s my one word review of the latest offering from Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. Los Abrazos Rotos, better known by its American title Broken Embraces, is a symphony of healing and injury, truths and lies, and the latest Grand Cru of THE master of filmmaking in my book.

The story is told, as many Almodóvar narratives are, in a series of flashes backward and forward in time. At the open we meet the blind script writer Harry Caine (Lluis Homar) who is told of the death of the successful businessman Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gomez). The unfolding of their pasts tumble across the screen in front of us, zig-zagging through time. Judit (a shifty and mysterious Blanca Portillo), Caine’s agent, is hiding something. Something major.

And then, upon the silver screen, appears the most luminous of Almodóvar’s inventions to date. Penélope Cruz as Lena, Martel’s secretary, fills the screen with the kind of beauty that dreams are made of. She IS the Audrey Hepburn of the present. And the Marilyn. And perhaps the most beautiful woman in the world. Lena appears completely in flashback as the movie progresses, and like all the other characters, she has a dark secret.

The plot is so thick with twists and turns that if I start to spill any more I’d simply ruin the unveiling of it all. However, there is one scene I can’t resist describing. Throughout the film, the camera switches from playing the role of spy to the role of informant for us. Those may sound like the same things, but under the hand of Almodóvar they are two different beasts entirely.

At one point, Lena catches the camera as a spy. She confesses the truth about an affair to the camera. A quick cut to the person who has demanded the spying, and we’re watching as he is reviewing what camera has seen. He gazes intently at the spy footage, his professional lip-reader at his side (mere seconds of Lola Dueñas) trying to make out the words. During the reverse shot as he watches the film, Lena steps into the frame behind him to voice her own silent film, thus voicing her own confession directly to him.

It was a quintessential Almodóvar moment, a reveal within a reveal within a reveal, and perhaps his finest to date. It’s the best few seconds of film I’ve seen in a long time.

The starkness of Almodóvar’s films, his shapes on screen, the costumes, the sheer boldness of color and his obsession with red make this work such a feast for the eyes that it’s easy to miss the undercurrents. But they’re there in plain sight. He has the ability to alter the evergreen axiom; In Almodóvar’s world, seeing is not only believing, seeing is feeling.

Nearly a year of anticipation was completely fulfilled. This is one of his best works and if Spanish isn’t your first language, it’s most definitely not mine, you’ll need a viewing or two to completely appreciate the nuances of the story.

Run, don’t walk folks. This is one you won’t want to miss. And if this will be your initiation to the cult of Almodóvar, welcome to the addiction.

5. Max (John Corbett) and Tara Gregson (Toni Collette) watching their children bowl as each of Tara’s alters (she has DID) arrange themselves in the scene to watch the kids bowl. It was an epic portrait and the ending of an engaging series which she would win the Emmy for later in the year. Season two of The United States of Tara begins Mar. 22, 2010.

4. Mma Precious Ramotswe (Jill Scott) tailing a suspicious dentist, cross cut with Mma Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose) befriending little Wellington (Mosako Mogara) from The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. The music in the background was a track called Mahlalela from Hugh Masekala Presents the CHISA years featuring Letta Mbulu. It opened my eyes fully to the gorgeous show, the literary works of Alexander McCall Smith, and to a world of Afropop I barely knew. I hope more episodes are created.

3. Watching Nicki Grant (Chloë Sevigny) comforting Sarah Henrickson (Amanda Seyfried) as she is miscarrying in a motel bathroom during a family road trip. There was a heaviness to the moment, an emotional gut punch, and the remainder of the season three of Big Love grew better and better as time passed. HBO explored massive changes in the Henricksons and Grants this year. Season four begins January 10th 2010.

2. Anna (Morena Baccarin), leader of the Visitors, stripping down to nothing but her human flesh in some sort of Hype Williams R&B video chamber with Sigur Ros’s “Svefn G Englar” thrumming in the background while she comforts her fellow visitors during a telepathic “gift” called “bliss.” I finally found my way to Sigur Ros because of that scene, the song formerly burned in my brain a few years ago somewhere else. Baccarin is amazing as Anna, and I can’t wait for more episodes of V.

1. Jackie Peyton (Edit Falco) lying on the floor in a stark white American Beauty style tableaux, with pellets of painkiller replacing the rose petals, while the theme from Valley of the Dolls plays. Fucking sublime, from my favorite show of the year, Nurse Jackie. The first words Jackie speaks are priceless and set the tone flawlessly for the series:

Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table

T.S. Elliott 10th Grade English Sister Jane Dechantal. What a champ. She’s the one who told me that the people with the greatest capacity for good are the ones with the greatest capacity for evil. Smart fuckin’ nun.

Last night I saw a new show that is just leaving the nest. A show with lush music, amazingly endearing performances, and an iconic template that’s been around for sixty some-odd years. That show was The Addams Family and if you don’t have tickets now, trust me, you won’t be able to get them.

First, let me say this: Lippa, Lippa, Lippa, Andrew Lippa I love you and your work. I’ll come back to him, but to be frank, his work is the most amazing part of the show.

I actually sat and wrote out the entire show story as best as I could remember, but I decided to distill it down to this: drop what you think you know about the family because it’s all been turned upside down. The genius of the story lies in how people will go into the show expecting one thing, but end up delighted when they find another. The story is as old as the hills, but with a twist. A very un-typical family dealing with very typical family issues.

I’m a lifer here in Chicago, having never lived anywhere else. Part of the reason I used to travel to Broadway to see productions being born in NYC was because I knew I’d see some techno-wizardry on stage, usually a cut above what we see in Chicago. Times, they are a-changin’ folks, and The Addams Family is proof of that. The stagecraft is amazingly complex, perhaps the most complicated I’ve personally seen in town.

There are a couple I-can’t-believe-I’m-seeing-that-on-stage tricks (think Wicked when Elphie flies) that aren’t done just for the sake of the trick. They really do unfold the story even further. Seeing Wednesday torture Pugsley by drawing during a song called “Pulled” is one of the early clues that any stage trickery you see has a point. Watching Uncle Fester dance with the moon (who he has fallen in love with) was hilariously funny and endearing. And the squid. Well, I’ll leave the squid to both your curiosity and imagination.

Take that NYC! We got yo’ fancy tricks covered!

And we got yo’ actors too. Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane are headlining the cast. They’re stellar, duh, but it wasn’t until their main tango/flamenco number that you really see both of them shine. I’d honestly watch Bebe Neuwirth kick a tin can down an alley because really, she’d be so über graceful and slinky while she did it, how could you not want to see her move? They received two rounds of applause at the end of the scene during which she was in a deep bend forward, toes pointed (there must be some dance term for such things, but I don’t know it), thigh-high boots screaming with sex appeal, pale white skin peeking out from her neckline that plunged “down to Venezuela” and holding headless rose stem in her mouth.

I nearly had wood folks.

The remainder of the cast is equally as stellar, with an Uncle Fester singing about things you’d never expect Fester to sing about (remember what I said earlier?) and two dinner guests who find themselves (and more) in the Addams Manor. Carolee Carmello, who plays Alice Beineke, has the biggest transformation of the show and let me tell you, when she growls it out during the song called “Waiting” near the end of the first act, my jaw was on the floor. Her husband, Mal Beineke (Terrence Mann) also gets the chance to let it all out after an encounter with the squid. Damn, I wasn’t going to bring up the squid again. Oh well, sue me.

But Andrew Lippa. Oh Andrew Lippa. Do you ever write a bad turn of phrase? Do you ever misplace a note on the page? I think not. I have to admit, I fell for Andrew Lippa’s style hook, line, and sinker when I saw a mounting of Asphalt Beach as part of the American Music Theatre Project at Northwestern. Much to my extreme sadness, the show never made it past that venue (that I know of) and I’m still Desperately Seeking the Soundtrack or ANY recordings of it.

His book and music are genius. Above the stage design, above the voices, and above the headliners, the book and music in The Addams Family are the real stars. I described the music as lush earlier, and I honestly can’t think of a better adjective. Hats off to the musicians who performed the work, a mini-orchestra who delivered the kind of sound you’d expect in the old MGM masterpieces. AND the show started with an overture of the delights to come. So few shows do that these days. I think it gets lost on the audience.

I’ll say it again, if you don’t have tickets, you’re gonna miss it, and that’d be bad. Will I travel to NYC to see it? Natch. But I love that I could support yet another great opening here in Chitown. If you’re a local yokel, I hope you see it too. And lemme know what you think.

Super Baozi vs Sushi man from sun haipeng on Vimeo.

Dragon Fist from sun haipeng on Vimeo.

There’s a helluva lotta new stuff. The nerd in me l o v e s it all.

My bio prof is actually from the University of Chicago. Don’t ask me how he took a gig to teach a bio course at Truman, but he did. And I have to say, he’s kind of amazing. He’s animated, funny, and despite how he reads PowerPoint slides to us (the inevitable death-by-PPT), I’ve actually been learning a ton as he brings the science home with real-world examples.

He did his PhD in membrane structure as it relates to the basic cytoskeletal elements. The fascinating thing about his work is how different it is from what I originally learned. If there’s one thing I love about being back in school, it’s watching science in action.

I loved my science classes as a little kid, even though there wasn’t much to them until high school. Wait, I take that back. In 8th grade at Sayre, our classroom was essentially the science lab of the school. Mrs. Wegloski, an eccentric in poor health during my 8th grade year, taught me good stuff. She even begged the school board for funds to purchase software that let me dissect a frog ON A COMPUTER. That was 1989/1990 folks. The software was in its infancy, but it was cool nonetheless.

Raised on a healthy dose of PBS, programs like Nova and Nature took me around the world through the eyes of science. In 1993, when Scientific American Frontiers made it’s debut, I was a genXer in flannel and denim, yet each week I made time to tune into Alan Alda strolling into science laboratories around the world and watching science happen. I recorded the episodes on the VCR as well, just so I could watch them a couple times to make sure I learned everything. *nerdalert*

Even today, my #1 source for pleasure reading is Science Daily, a remarkably comprehensive aggregation of scientific articles and journal synopses. It is teh crak, and I can spend hours devouring the articles. Of course, I need google/wikipedia up most of the time to look up unfamiliar terminology, but it’s a learning process that gets easier every day.

As I was sitting in class yesterday, it hit me like a truck: I’m going to, one day, actually DO science for a living as a nurse.

Profound doesn’t even come close to describing that realization. Somehow my bio-geekery of all these years decided, right there and then, to reach out and slap me into realizing the industry I’m currently in (investment banking, the computer side) is meaningless to me.

I could lament why I didn’t realize this years ago, but spilled milk and all that be damned. Accepting how my bio-nerdiness is way cooler than a million other things has been on my mind for the last day. And in the random Ally McBeal way my head works, after watching Lea Michele and Kristen Chenoweth battle it out two weeks back on Glee (musical-nerd here too), I think a little Sally Bowles is in order.

Everybody loves a winner
So nobody loved meeeeeeee
‘Lady Peaceful,’ ‘Lady Happy,’
That’s what I long to beeeeeeee
All the odds are in my favor
Something’s bound to begiiiiiiiin
It’s got to happen
Happen sometime
Maybe this time
Maybe this time I’ll wiiiiiiiin

I’m happy to report that Dad is well and out of the hospital, pacemaker and all. I think he wants to jump right back into life but that can’t happen immediately. For a man who is on the go all the time (gee, where do I get that from?) this has to be a crushing blow to his ego. In some ways I hope it helps him relax and stop to smell the flowers here and there. We all need more of that.

School is actually going well. I’m in my groove with my coursework and this concept of regularly studying during the week is getting easier to manage. There’s a pretty detailed path ahead of me with the courses I’ll need to take and my application process for Nursing school, but all in good time. Slowly little bits and pieces of the future are coming into focus, and I couldn’t ask for more.

The party was a success, with immense quantities of food and lots of smiling faces eating well. Food is love in my world, and we provided a lotta lovin’ all around. It wasn’t until the party was well underway that I looked around and actually saw all the new pieces to my family.

See, my family consisted of basically five people for the beginning of my life. Mom & Dad, my sisters, and me. My eldest sister sort of left the family when she first married, so we were down to four. When the middle sis married, I was kinda scared it would just be three. But instead, the family is growing. I have in-laws I didn’t have before. There are teenagers and little ones. And the newest addition to the family is yet to come. My sister is going to give birth to a punkin’ (due Oct 24th I think) so there will be actually one more added to the family.

Pretty nifty, this big family thing.

—

A while back I decided I wanted to hit the gym harder. Of course, deciding to do something like that and actually doing it are two completely different beasts. My usual routine is strictly cardio, but I’ve been slacking off lately. On more nights that I care to admit I’ve fallen asleep on my school books in bed. Let me tell you, drool on a softcover book ain’t pretty. And if I’m falling asleep studying, that means I best sleep a bit more in the mornings. At least that theorem works for me. Before you tell me I shouldn’t be reading in bed, I’ll tell you that I did extraordinarily well in my sciences during high school and my previous college life by studying horizontally. Oooh, that sounds dirty.

Anyway, I’m seriously considering hiring a trainer. I’d seriously consider just hiring a plastic surgeon if I REALLY had the coin and the time to visit Facelift Island, but alas, I don’t have either. So the gears are turning in my head. But before I really start to hit it hard, I’m takin’ this car in for a tune up.

I have a physical coming up in two weeks and I need to checkpoint everything going on with my insides just to be sure. No problems except the occasional chest-twinge, but I think that’s because I have no pectoral muscles save for my nipples (which aren’t really muscles, but in my case, that’s all I got) and am experiencing something very similar to Precordial Catch Syndrome. A visit to El Doctor is in order to check my bits and pieces are all in the right places and doing the right things. I just hope that Godforsaken peehole swab test isn’t in the cards. My pipes are fine and there are some places a q-tip should never visit. *shudder*

So Q42009 will be focused on health. Good God, did I just report my health plan in terms of a business quarter? Dammit, I need a new job…

The last week or so has found me not pattering around the world, soaking up life as is my usual M.O. Instead I’ve been in an SICU waiting room, on route many times to a hospital, and touring the halls of our local cardiac unit while my father has been having major heart problems.

He now has a pacemaker but even that hasn’t fixed him completely. The jury is still out on what exactly is wrong and it’s bugging me that we still don’t know. The worst part is not having an answer. Good or bad, I almost don’t care at this point. I just want an answer. So far there is none to be had.

Aging fcuking sucks.

A while back my mom had a scare with her heart. Lots of medications later she is on the right track and doing well. Now the universe thinks it’s my dads turn, despite his flawless checkup this past June.

I’m not complaining mind you. My family has been blessed with relatively few health complications overall. It’s just awfully humanizing, humbling, and downright terrifying to face the mortality of my parents.

One day they won’t be around. I know that in my head. I just hope, in good health, we don’t have to see that day anytime soon.

That is changing rapidly.

Perhaps we are now removed enough from the writers’ strike that the good scripts are coming to life, but have you noticed how much new programming there is out there? It’s like a price war of sorts, cable vs. broadcast networks. Thing is, we are all the winners!

This year has been pretty damn good for television. My prediction for Toni Colette nabbing the Emmy rang true, and I was pleased as punch that she took it home for United States of Tara on Showtime, an amazing way to open the year.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency on HBO threw me into a world I’d never know before and expanded my music collection. Jill Scott as Mma. Ramotswe is a must-see, and Anika Noni Rose as Grace Makutsi, a frazzled yet dazzling jewel on television was truly amazing. The show is a beautiful slice of Africa brought to us in the form of a comedy/mystery series. I hope there is a season two.

We received a few new Mystery episodes, of the Miss Marple and Poirot fame. David Suchet has never looked better, but the writing seemed a tiny bit off. Geraldine McEwan brought us the spry and wizened busybody detective in the latest incarnation of Miss Marple. Divine, she was. More please.

I will not discuss how disappointed I was with Season Two of True Blood. *sigh* Oh, well, maybe I’ll mention how fabulous Michelle Forbes who played Maryann was. She was my heroine Ro Laren from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and she’s a gem on the screen. Watch anything she does.

Of course, the much anticipated return of Edie Falco in Nurse Jackie on Showtime delivered so much more than promised. The names Merritt Weaver and Eve Best are now a part of my vocabulary. They are both brilliant and the show is AMAZING. So far the best first season of anything I’ve seen since Six Feet Under. Season Two cannot come fast enough.

But that was then, this is now.

Glee kicked off three weeks ago on Fox. Finally! A musical show on television once again! The cast is young and fresh, hyper-talented, and with Jane Lynch anchoring it beautifully as a hard-nosed coach, the comedy is snarky and fun. I have a special place in my heart for Lea Michele after seeing her in the first run of Spring Awakening. The show is a romp through high school madness set to music of the period. The music-theater fans are creaming their pants, and hopefully the rest of the world will wake up and smell the talent in the show. This is one to watch closely this season.

Starting this week:

Modern Family on ABC, a mocumentary comedy created by Christopher Lloyd (Golden Girls, Frasier, Wings and more) and Steven Levitan (The Wonder Years, Just Shoot Me!, The Larry Sanders Show), two guys who know a little bit about what works, with seven Emmy’s between them. The biggest attractions for me are the return of Ed O’Neil (Al Bundy), father of half of a gay male couple that are raising a child. Sofía Vergara, playing O’Neil’s ‘trophy wife’ is also part of the cast, and if you’ve never seen her do comedy, let me tell you she has me in stitches all the time.

Cougartown on ABC, starring Courtney Cox, another sitcom coming to us promises more Cox, Cox, and more Cox. (I HAD to say that!) I have to be honest, I don’t know much about this show, but since her previous show Dirt was canceled, I’ve been missin’ her on tha’ tube. Dirt wasn’t great, but she was fanTASTIC. So we’ll see, this is one of two wild-card shows this season.

The last thing I want to mention, a premise which I L O V E but am a bit worried about, is the show Eastwick on ABC (wow ABC, you are busy!). If you aren’t conjuring a vision of Veronica Cartwright screaming “DILDOS! ANAL INTERCOURSE!” while spitting cherry seeds and red mush, you sir/madam, are an ass. Get to your local vidjo store and rent The Witches of Eastwick. NOW.

If, however, you do know who Sukie, Alex, and Jane are, we can be friends.

I don’t know how I feel about a television adaptation of The Witches of Eastwick. It is listed as a drama, but I’m hoping for black comedy here and there, in a Desperate Housewives fashion. It could be good, it could be shite, but hell, I’ll watch it just ’cause it is new.

Good lard my DeeVee-aRa will be busy.

I learned about fashion because of Vogue.

Now, you may look at me, a regularly denim-clad, half-breed Greek American and ask what the fcuk I know about fashion. But honey, don’t judge a book by its cover. I loathe menz fashion and truly believe the reason women have the most gorgeous clothing in the world (at any point in history, in any culture) is because as bearers of children, their reward is to be wrapped in beauty. Never mind that female fashion at times is suffered under the hand of merciless men who cut with a blatant disregard to the actual curvature of the body. I’m looking at you Dior, glancing sideways at you Blahnik, and winking at you Mugler (I still cry tears of joy when I see your corsets!). But I digress.

Just as American Vogue forever changed my life, Anna Wintour taught, and continues to teach me what fashion means.

The September Issue documents eight months leading up to the pivotal, what else, September issue of American Vogue, the largest issue of their publication year, and as it happens in 2007, their largest issue to date, an 840 page monster compendium of dress.

Wintour lets her guard down slightly in the film, opening her house, her workdays, and a bit of her mind to the cameras, but the usual and sundry natural British reserve embedded in her personality is evident. However, I must say that with her glasses off her marvelously complex eyes shine brightly under her fawn fringe. There is so much more than la reine de la mode in the film, but we never taste it. That is the beauty of Anna Wintour. Her decisiveness (her self-stated best trait), sharp as it may be, is all people need to know about her. The rest is none of our business.

Before I wax poetically about the ginger goddess that is Grace Coddington, and the utter mess that is André Leon Talley, I must mention a revealing thread that surfaced during the movie. Sienna Miller (gag, purge) was chosen at the intended cover model for the issue. The premise of the shoot was a fanciful Roman Holiday -esque spread of Miller in various famose piazze. Mario (de)Testino was chosen to shoot it and managed to bring back some mediocre pictures (sorry folks, I’m speaking the truth here) without one single shot of Miller at the Coliseum.

Uhh, hello. You were in Roma asshat.

Without raising her voice (was it the cameras?) Wintour repeatedly asked, nearly ten times by my count, where the Coliseum pictures were. None ever surfaced. Detestino failed, much to my glee because, as my play on his name suggests, I detest his 2000’s cliché photography. Where he once created, he now repeats. And did anyone else notice how much Miller looked like Kate Winslet?

Next up, André Leon Talley. Oh. My. God. Fashion homos of the world, we must do our very best to never, ever, become the raging lunacy that Talley presents. I cannot deny his influence in bending Wintour’s ear from time to time. And the man has an uncanny eye to spot, ignite, and crush trends with the bat of a false eyelash. But the fashion emergency that is Talley needs to be addressed. In some ways, I’m not sure why Wintour doesn’t clamp down on him more.

In a telling scene where he is receiving a tennis lesson, artfully draped in a Vuitton towel, huffing and puffing back and forth across the court, he breaks for a moment to explain to the camera that “…she intervened and nearly saved my life..” and then drops THE sound byte of the entire movie: “…what Anna says, goes…”

Finally, the real star of the documentary, if there is a star of such things, is Grace Coddington, creative director of American Vogue . While it may be that the eye belongs to Wintour, the mind belongs to Grace Coddington.

Her photo spreads, without fail, knock me to the ground with an emotional sledgehammer. I was thrilled to hear that she chose Galliano as an inspiration for one of her shoots. Her work with his clothing is the best in the world.

Beyond her eye for through-the-lens magic, Coddington opens up to us like no one else in the film. It is, for her, a chance to talk about the meaning of what she does and why she still does it after many successful years in the business. She presents the most human face to the camera and in some ways you can feel the emotional gut-punch she takes as some of her favorite images are removed from the issue. Of course, the winning moment comes near the end as she is looking a the final layout. She whispers “well, aside from Sienna, this is almost all my issue”. I secretly cheered when I heard that.

Grace Coddington is the kind of woman I’d like to relax in a café with, sipping red wine well into the night. This is her movie and I consider her the most amazing person in fashion today. She is a treasure and a genius, and the film is worth seeing just for her.

In 2006 I…

…began podcasting.

…moved this blog to its latest official title, radiopeter.com.

…wrote this about Julia Child.

…took a semester of Mandarin Chinese.

…was appalled at the ban of foie gras.

…moved to Boystown.

…became a licensed HAM radio operator.

…DJ’d at the House of Blues, opening for ABC.

…converted the radio work I was doing to podcast only.

…started wearing Invisalign.

…made this picture which has become one of my favorite self-portraits of all time.

…became an actor.

In 2007 I…

…got a DVR and became utterly addicted to it.

…quit DJing and started blogging “professionally”

…bought a Wii.

…started seriously bicycling.

…produced a play with my friend Jodie.

…held an amazing Pride party.

…bought an iPhone. Completely addicted and enslaved by it.

…started taking guitar lessons.

…flew to Toronto for fun.

…flew to London on business.

In 2008 I…

…did my first Caving in New Mexico. Oh. My. God. Loved it.

…finished my Invisalign.

…worked backstage on Die! Mommy, Die! and loved every minute of it.

…bought a Roku player. Another gadget addiction!

…another year, another fab Pride party!

…cried when Estelle Getty passed.

…went to Iowa to help with the flood cleanup. Cried some more.

…but laughed at Tina Fey as Palin.

…watched my sister get married. Painted her face, helped with the wedding, and ultimately realized I’m not a little kid anymore.

…flew a plane for the first time. Not rode it, flew it.

…saw a Democrat return to the Presidential seat. People cried. I feared for the gay. I still do.

…firmly planted the music and teachings of Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon in my life.

It has been a helluva ride. My blogging has slowed down a bit in 2009, but I feel like the things I’m writing about mean so much more to me than before.

I hope you, internets, and you, readers, like the stuff I have to say. It ain’t always pretty, and it ain’t always nice, but writing is so therapeutic for me that it always comes from the heart.

Thank YOU for being here, for your comments, and for the internet love that I feel every time someone links to me. All of YOU out there make this little blog worth it.

Gonna finish today with the lyrics to a very powerful protest song. In fact, I think it is the greatest protest song ever written. I’ll not name the artist or even the song (you’ll know why soon). It was written decades ago, yet it rings completely true today. Frighteningly true.

So shockingly true that even listening to it now is like a slap in the face.

Happiness and peace
are getting more and more
out of my reach.

Violence and revolution
seems to be all that the people
want to preach.

You’re gunning down your brothers
molesting your sisters and your mothers
in the streets.

And the Presidents talking ’bout a change
but nobody’s got sense enough
to come in out of the rain.

When will the people start gettin’ together
learning to live and love one another?

When will the people start finding each other
learning to give and help one another?

This is part one of two, a recap of the first three years of this blog.

In 2003 I…

…got my first DJ residency. There was lots of drama, but in the end it worked out nicely.

…was watching meth start to poison the community.

…hated Hydrate, and I still hate it today.

…blogged a lot about clubbing. Oh to be twentysomething again!

…saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 and my life changed.

…learned how to knit.

In 2004 I…

…started learning Japanese (see Kill Bill Vol. 1 above)

…dated an ex and should have listened to my friends. They said don’t. They were right. It was awful.

…had my first photographs published.

…appeared on an episode of Check Please.

…began working on the radio. 50,000 watts of me.

…caught the chicken pox at my ten year High School reunion.

In 2005 I…

…enjoyed the ending of Sex and the City.

…bought my first Mac.

…went to Japan to spend three weeks in the floating world. It was bliss. I was able to share the experience with my sister.

…started learning Aikido.

…enjoyed writing my weekly music/culture column.

…regularly worked on the radio.

…purchased cell phones for my parents.

…was told I had skin cancer, but they cut it all off.

Stay tuned for part two!

Digging around in my music archives a few days ago I stumbled across one of the great Motown recordings of Gladys Knight & The Pips. “Didn’t You Know (You’d Have To Cry Sometime)” isn’t one of their well known tracks these days, but it’s a great Ashford & Simpson song. Harmony, lyrics, and the effortless Soul that is their sound delivers earmarked this track as one of my favorites when I’d first heard it. I posted the link on Facebook the other day.

Here’s the story behind me and that song…

Once upon a time I was going through a major load of relationship drama. My ex, the cheater, decided he wanted to sniff around my parts a few months after our break. For a time I got caught up in the familiarity of it, completely ignoring my friends advice to stay away. I knew there was still someone else in his life but I was certain I could win him back.

Then, some major shit hit the fan between us and I decided to put him outta my life for good.

Well, I’d sort of decided. I hadn’t made the break yet but I was planning to. I was sort of on the fence. I knew the saying “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” but for a hot second I tried to ignore it. I really did think he could be mine again.

In that wild and wacky way the universe sometimes slaps you upside the head, I picked up a used copy of a Gladys Knight & The Pips compilation. No clue why I actually chose their music at the Disc-Go-Round that day, but I did. Of course, the Soul-for-your-hole poured out of my Discman headphones as I listened to each track on my way home.

It was then that I heard “Didn’t You Know (You’d Have To Cry Sometime)” for the first time.

Ashford & Simpson write about life. They write about the way people relate to our world and each other. I can’t help but think they’ve done a lot of hard living as poets, chronicling their tragic experiences. Or maybe they’re wise and observant storytellers. Either way, they make magic with music and words. And in the case of “Didn’t You Know (You’d Have To Cry Sometime)”, Gladys Knight & The Pips brought that Ashford & Simpson magic to life.

So there I am, battling thoughts of banishing the cheater from my life in my head. And then I heard that magic song. The words, harmonies and silky-smooth Soul wrapped itself around my head and my heart. It was as if the song said all I needed to hear. The choice was clear. Alone was better than with him. I ended it, permanently, the very next day.

Here are the lyrics. Maybe this song should preface a chapter in the book of relationships? I dunno, you decide.

Didn’t You Know (You’d Have To Cry Sometime)
Lyrics by Ashford & Simpson
Performed (best) by Gladys Knight & The Pips

Remember when you left
Yeah you had your rules
About playin’ the game
And any day you could walk away
Feelin’ no pain

Now look at yourself
Yeah you’re all hung up
On somebody else
And in your eyes
I see all the signs
Of the misery
That you laid on me

Baby, baby, didn’t you know
You’d have to cry sometime
Oh didn’t you know
Didn’t you know
You’d have to hurt sometime
Didn’t you know you’d have to lose your pride
Didn’t anybody tell you love had another side

Oh you used to be so proud
Now your head’s a little lower
And you walk a little slower
And you
Don’t talk so loud

Now you’ve gotten wise
Yeah you know how love can build you up one moment
And the next
Cut you down to size
And then you discover all she told you was a bunch of lies

Didn’t you know
You’d have to cry sometime
Oh, didn’t you know
Didn’t you know
You’d have to hurt sometime
Didn’t you know you’d have to lose your pride
Didn’t anybody tell you love had another side

Now you come to me
Yeah you hurt so bad you wanna feel the security
Of a love you once had
Oh, but I can’t open doors
And my arms can’t ever
Take the place of her
‘Cause no other
Could ever take the place of yours
So what can I tell you baby

Didn’t you know
You’d have to cry sometime
Oh, didn’t you know
Didn’t you know
You’d have to hurt sometime
Oh, didn’t you know
You’d have to cry sometime

Today I cancelled my World of Warcraft account. My characters are gone, and with a few clicks of my mouse, a chapter in my gayming life has come to a close. Being a guildie in The Spreading Taint was quite an experience.

Do not misunderstand. It has been a fun and I made some new friends along the way. It was challenging, silly, exhilarating, and one of the better games I’ve played. And that’s the gist of it. It was a game, and the time for games that take *that* much time (woah, read that 5x fast) has come to a close for me. School is fully starting and my priorities are there.

So with a fond farewell, and a cheery “Zug Zug!” I bid farewell to Warcraft. It’s been a slice.

For the Horde!

I learned pretty fast that you cannot do neuro checks on real patients the way you’re taught in school. On about the second one I did, I told my 90-something lady to “show me your teeth,” and she dutifully reached into her mouth, pulled out her dentures, and produced them for my inspection.

Check out the whole post, and the blog for more insight into the wacky world that I’ll someday be diving head-first into.

Did you feel that? Oh wait, you aren’t me. You seem to like your job. I do not. In fact I hate my job. But lots of things in life are necessary evils. If I lived through daddy and baby bush (no, they don’t get caps) I can live under the rulers now omnipresent during each of my workdays.

You might ask how. How Peter? How are you lugging such a huge shovel to work each day? Doesn’t your back hurt from wading through interactive piles of bureaucratic dung?

And my response for the last few weeks was simply “I dunno. I just do.” Essentially one of my latent coping mechanisms kicked in and my mind switched off the moment I rode the elevator each morning, only to switch back on the moment I returned to the real world each evening. Of course, my own demons stored every bit and piece of my workday, tossed it into a dark corner of my mind, and insisted on vomiting my frustration all over my dreams.

If I wrote about the things I’ve been dreaming of lately, I’d most likely be arrested. Think Hellraiser, The Cell, and just a dash of Altered States. Without that fcuked up seven-eyed goat of course.

But today was different. Today the paradigm shifted. Could be the cooler weather. Could be how softly I woke up this morning and quietly reflected on what was happening at work. Maybe it was the comfortable realization that I’m on the path to becoming something better. I WILL be leaving that place. There IS an end in sight. The exact date is nebulous, but lemme tell you, it’s gonna happen.

The mantra for this paradigm shift is best written in Yoda speak:

Up with their shit, I will not put.
By their actions, unaffected I will be.
Better than theirs, my world is.

Or maybe not Yoda. Maybe a drunk Russian accent. За здоровье!

_{Yes, I know perfectly well that you saw a picture of Elle Driver aka California Mountain Snake and thought, w t f ?? You are correct, she has nothing to do with Yoda or drunken Russians. Just to be clear, I am not pursuing a career as a one-eyed professional hit-woman. I just love the eye-patch with the hospital cross on it. It seems so… Nurse-y!}

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.
-Thomas Jefferson

past: I loved my job. Maybe too much.
present: When I walk into work I feel queasy.
future: School started. New career in T-Minus two years.

past: Addicted to Aretha’s Rare And Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign Of The Queen Of Soul
present: King Britt Presents: Sister Gertrude Morgan is my new crack..
future: Where is New Amerykah Part 3: Lowdown Loretta Brown? Or even New Amerykah Part 2: Return of the Ankh?

past: I lived in a small Rogers Park apartment.
present: I live in a giant Lakeview apartment.
future: I need a small apartment. But where?

Hello my name is Peter and I’m a fan of The Spice Girls.

There’s a long-winded story about how I met them stateside before us yanks this side of the pond knew who they were, but that’s another tale for another time. Today I’m simply here to say them girls iz the shiznit. History proves it.

Randomly, Genius on my iPhone decided to play “Who Do You Think You Are” the other day as I was walking down Halsted. Akin to the Bee Gee’s “Stayin’ Alive” it’s one of those tracks that puts a spring in my step, a swagger in my hips, and a bob in my head. Both of them actually (oooh, dirty). The hook, bass line, hissy high-hats, and wah-wah guitar are pure disco-licious dance, sparkling with horns and strings. There’s even a tiny hand-clap breakdown that makes me squeal with glee. The track was created by the songwriting/producing treble of Paul Wilson, Andy Watkins and later on Tracy Ackerman known as Absolute.

The DJs in the crowd just smiled.

Absolute has a delicious penchant for remixing some big names. I’ll leave it to you and the internet to seek out some of their gems. Well wait, I will drop Lisa Stansfield’s name because their work with her is genius.

Throughout the Girls’ first two albums, Spice and Spiceworld, you can hear the strongly typed 90’s Pop/Dance. Their music distilled the sounds of the times in an appealing way. Many may argue me on that point, but the producers did what they did exceedingly well. The glittering Pop hooks of the girl-powered five are, well, glittery. On a serious note, you don’t have to love popular music to appreciate their place. For better or for worse, they are a part of music history.

For the record:

Spice went ten times Platinum in the UK, which would be over three million copies, and something like seven times Platinum in the US, which means over seven million copies were sold. UK and US versions of Platinum are different… (300k vs. 1 mil respectively) go figure.

Spiceworld went five times Platinum in the UK (a million and a half) and 4 times Platinum in the US (over four million).

Globally those two albums have sold over forty-three million copies. 43,000,000! 43 MILLION! Not including the other albums the Girls have sold…

So, for some fun on a Friday, here are the lyrics to perhaps one of my favorite Spice Girls tracks. If you don’t know it, Google/Youtube it and dance in your seat. Or dance in your room. Or in the shower, naked. Don’t knock it until you try it. Oh what am I saying, those of you reading this always dance naked in the shower, right?

“Who Do You Think You Are”
by Paul Wilson, Andy Watkins
and The Spice Girls

the race is on to get out of the bottom
the top is high so your roots are forgotten
giving is good as long as you’re getting
what’s driving you it’s ambition and betting

I said who do you think you are?
do you think you are
I said who?
some kind of superstar?
you have got to
swing it
shake it
move it
make it
who do you think you are?
trust it
use it
prove it
groove it
show (me) how good you are

you’re swelling out in the wrong direction
you’ve got the bug, superstar you’ve been bitten
your trumpet’s blowing for far too long
climbing, the snake of the ladder, but you’re wrong

I said who do you think you are?
do you think you are
I said who?
some kind of superstar?
you have got to
swing it
shake it
move it
make it
who do you think you are?
trust it
use it
prove it
groove it
show (me) how good you are

you have got to reach on up
never lose your soul
you have got to reach on up
never lose control

I am not HIV positive. I say that proudly.

There was a time when I thought the world couldn’t touch me. I worked hard, played harder, and did some incredibly stupid things with my life and my body. Making it to the other side of all of that in good health doesn’t mean I wasn’t lucky, but there were choices I made and paths I took to bring me through. I fortunately woke up early.

I am not HIV positive. I say that without guilt.

I’ve known people who thought HIV was an inevitable product of being gay. They ignorantly resigned themselves to the insane myth that they’d get it eventually, so who cares, right? They played however they wanted to play. When it happened, they locked themselves away from the world until they were “fit” to reëmerge.

Healthy on the outside, perhaps with a low viral load, they were (and still are) so sick in the head it nauseates me. When I hear “Well, who cares, I’m positive anyway” I cringe. Trust me when I say I’ve heard that a lot. That sort of carelessness is terrifying. Fortunately I’ve had enough common sense to put those idiots out of my life.

I am not HIV positive. I say that loud and clear.

On the other end of the spectrum, I recently met an attractive young man from Chile. We struck up a casual conversation. In less than five minutes he admitted he wasn’t exactly out of the closet. As we talked, partially in English, partially in Spanish, the conversation turned to sex, and eventually to HIV & AIDS. What shocked me was his lack of knowledge not only about how you get it, but his perception of “what it looked like”.

Here was a young guy, obviously interested in other men, so afraid to be with anyone who identified as gay because, in his words “I see AIDS”. He pointed to one of the local gay magazines, to the guys on the cover, and said “There. When I look at that, I see AIDS”. There was nothing I could say to respond. I’m highly skeptical of all sexual partners, but this guy was downright terrified of being gay because of HIV. That isn’t right either.

I am not HIV positive. I hope I never will be.

I don’t know what it’s like to discover you are positive. I don’t ever want to know. Thus far I’ve seen two reactions, firsthand, from people who are recently diagnosed. I’m talking about gay men here. They either treat it like a wake up call or they respond like it’s a snooze button.

Those that are awakened engage. They seem to look long and hard in the mirror and make changes in their lives. The gravity of it, for whatever reason, sinks in immediately. I am proud to call those people my friends.

Then there are the other sort. The kind who get it, barely deal, and are still a hot mess afterward. They are mad at the world, mad at their friends, and seemingly mad at the disease. Yet instead of engaging in life, they sink into a kind of emotional tar pit. I’ve tried to extend my hand in that situation, to help where I can, to be a friend. I know many people who have tried to do the same. But inevitably all I, or they, end up with are bite marks on our palms.

I am not HIV positive.

I keep saying that because I don’t hear other people saying it. I think we need to hear people saying it. More people. Everyone who is not positive needs to say it. Loudly. Over and over again.

As much as the gay community tries to be inclusive, I feel we’re sending a message that it’s OK to be HIV positive. And it isn’t just us either. Seen a poster for an HIV drug lately? The models are a shining picture of health. Seen any advertisement related to HIV? It shows a smiling person or a happy message.

It’s not ok to believe it’s ok to be HIV positive.

I’m convinced I’m not supposed to say that. Nobody else is saying it. But so many people are thinking it, at least according to the whispered conversations I’ve had. I suspect folks are refraining from saying it so they won’t make positive people feel bad for living with HIV. Is that my intent? Of course not. I don’t know everyone who has it, nor do I know how they got it.

I’m saying it to prevent people from getting HIV.

There’s such a fine line on this issue that nobody seems to acknowledge it. We all hear the word “prevention.” We hear the messages saying we must get tested. And we hear volumes of dialog about living with HIV. But who is saying it’s bad to get HIV? No one that I know. No magazines that I read, nor newspapers. No blogs, nobody on Twitter, nobody on Facebook, and no one in old media.

Is the issue, as I stated above, that nobody wants to feel like they are excluding people living with the disease? If that’s at the core of it, thinking needs to change immediately. Screw political correctness, if that’s what you call it.

Living without a disease has to be better than living with one, no matter the disease.

Those who don’t have HIV should want to remain HIV free. That takes behaviors based on the premise that it’s not ok to be HIV positive. But I just don’t see that message anywhere.

If I’m wrong, please point me in the direction of the folks who are saying what I am. I’d like to support them and showcase their work. I’m not talking about support services for testing or people living with HIV. Their messages are important, but I want to know who is telling people it’s bad to catch HIV. I have yet to see that anywhere.

An ounce of prevention isn’t worth a pound of cure. It’s worth much, much more.

Feed-back to me folks. Speak up. If you are afraid to be public about a response, toss me an e-mail/private message/or use the comment form on radiopeter.com and I’ll happily post your response anonymously.

NO GOOGLING ALLOWED!

Well, that explains it. That’s why these people treat me like some dime store floozy. They think I’m screwin’ the boss. And you just love it, don’t you? It gives you some sort of cheap thrill, like knockin’ over pencils and pickin’ up papers.

Get your scummy hands off of me!

Look, I’ve been straight with you from the first day I got here. And I put up with all your pinchin’ and starin’ and chasin’ me around the desk ’cause I need this job. But this is the last straw. Look, I got a gun out there in my purse, and up until now, I’ve been forgivin’ and forgettin’ because of the way I was brought up. But I’ll tell you one thing: if you ever say another word about me or make another indecent proposal, I’m gonna get that gun of mine and I’m gonna change you from a rooster to a hen with one shot!

brevity is the soul of wit
-Hamlet

past: I was recently dating someone.
present: Now I’m not.
future: I learned more about what I (dis)like.

past: I dropped out of college.
present: I’m returning to school in a few weeks.
future: I need to start working/volunteering in a hospital, stat.

past: My license says I weigh 140 lbs.
present: I do not weigh 140 lbs.
future: I will lose ten pounds. But I still won’t weigh 140.

Generally, I avoid discussing my job here on radiopeter, partially because it isn’t interesting enough work to merit an essay or two, but mostly because my life outside of work is far more stimulating. I could conceivably write about the weak dogs on my job who can’t make a decision to save their lives, or the lackluster managers and poor project managers who self-sabotage their work regularly. But that isn’t nearly as enjoyable (or as cathartic) as sharing my passion for caving, my love of meaningful lyrics, and my enjoyment of good films.

So when I find people online willing to not only rehash their workday, but writing about it in an exceptionally captivating way, I’m dumbstruck with awe. I also find myself greedily addicted to their blogs, sad when they don’t post, excited when they do.

I don’t know any of these writers outside their blogs. But if you aren’t afraid of a frank discussion of health care in the U.S., life in the ER, calling bullshit on drug abusers and alcoholics, and an insiders perspective second-to-none of an industry that shovels more $hit than any feed-lot rancher, give these blogs and click and a read.

These folks are amazing writers AND they are all the real deal. They’re also an inspiration as I ease myself in the direction of becoming a nurse. At the moment they are all speaking a highly specialized language that I only mildly understand, with the remainder transliterated by Google.

Amazing journeys, amazing writers. What follows is a short list of the work of saints. Maybe someday I’ll find myself living in their world. For now, their looking-glass has me mesmerized, and each stands as an example of what good blogging is.

madness: tales of an emergency room nurse

Musings of a Highly Trained Monkey

Impacted Nurse

Adventures of GuitarGirl RN

In June of 2007 I was traveling with my good judy Todd. I’ve known him for what feels like forever, and we travel well together, and thus had one of the more amazing NYC experiences I’ve had.

At Todd’s suggestion we went to see a musical called Spring Awakening. I’d only been hearing whispers about the show in Chicago, but the media had been making a fuss about it, so Todd caught the bug and decided we’d go.

Most of my history with musicals involves learning about them through other people, and hearing the music before actually seeing the show. Maybe that’s a gay thing, or maybe an artistic one, but that’s just how it’s worked in the past. However, when a new show comes out, I try my very best to ignore all the press. I want the experience in the theatre to be as virginal as possible.

Todd offered to let me borrow the soundtrack and I blatantly refused. There was a blip on the television and I turned the channel. Even YouTube was just starting to show signs of Spring Awakening, but I wanted nothing to do with it.

From the very first notes of the violin solo that draws Wendla (Lea Michele on Broadway) out onto the stage as she sings her first phrase “Mama who bore me…”, to the close of Act I’s beautifully harmonic “I Believe,” I sat wide-eyed and still absorbing the amazingly complex work as it unfolded.

In Act II I was laughing, crying, and trying as hard as I could not to see myself on stage as one of the teenagers full of angst, searching to find their way in the world. The story, penned in Germany in 1891 (that isn’t a typo) and subsequently banned is laden with sex, masturbation, abortion, rape, suicide, and incest. The material, heavy as it is, hit me hard where it hurts. Personally I wasn’t directly involved in all those things, but what your friends feel, you feel. Spring Awakening opened a floodgate of memories.

Dark and nostalgic, it did what good theatre should do. It made me think long and hard about life and the things we’ve all done. As I’ve said before, you have to understand where you’ve been and what’s been happening around you in order to get to wherever it is that you want to go.

The show is making its Chicago debut next week and I have tickets to the Wednesday performance with a close friend from those angsty teenage years. In more ways than one I’m looking forward to storming down memory lane.

Over the course of the last six months, some immense changes have taken place. As of today we have an entirely new management structure from my boss*** all the way to the board of directors. Incestuous as the banking industry is, the new people on our side are not ignorant to our place in the market, nor are they unaware of the issues any global bank faces today. We, existing employees and new, all want to dance together.

As experienced as these new folks are, they know very little about our world, both culturally and technically. With any corporate, there are many aspects to daily business that are cultural, i.e. how problems are addressed, how technical issues are resolved, how business decisions become reality, to name a few. In essence, we all know how to dance, just not together.

There are fascinatingly complex technology maps in my part of this world. Folks in investment banking technology generally represent systems that have a historical legacy of M&A technology. Integrating disparate technologies are a fact of life in the M&A world, and banks are often hit heaviest. To say it’s a spider’s web is to put it lightly. Perhaps calling it semi-organized chaos is apropos. Claiming it is functional is valid. Believing it is well documented is just plain wrong.

Besides, nobody learns to dance on paper.

And so, as the title of this post suggests, the corporate dance commences. All the new people need to learn about all the old systems. All the old system owners need to scratch their heads and attempt to explain why things are glued together the way they are while getting to know the new people. All the business folks need to explain “why” and not “how” they do business. The moneymakers need to understand what they are making money for. The tech leads need to know where to lead their techs.

The new regime needs to be folded, not stirred, into the old one, and the wheel of financing change that changes the financials needs to keep on turning.

I’ve been to this dance party many times in my career here, and unless I’m laid off, I suspect I’ll see one or two more parties after this. Heck, I’m sure I’d see it in any industry, financial or otherwise.

Maybe I’ll just sit on the sideline this time drinking punch because honestly, I’m just too tired to care.

***I report to this guy, this “boss” as it were. Between you and me, he needs a couple years worth of people management classes.

Could it be my new Nurse Jackie obsession? No, that’s not it. That’s far too shallow, even for me, the guy who went out and learned Japanese mostly because of Kill Bill Vol. 1.

I’ve been seriously working on becoming funereal, i.e. trying to figure out school to become a Funeral Director. The long and short of it is; it doesn’t seem likely. The only college to offer the courses in the evening, Malcom X, doesn’t always offer them. There has to be enough demand, they say.

In this economy and the ones of yore (hardly ever get to use that word), programs of study are offered based on demand. The logic in that is solid. The issue, it would seem, is regarding the threshold of demand. I’m no statistician, but I can guess that people aren’t banging down doors to learn how to play with the dead. At night. At Malcom X.

As I was registering at MXC, the admissions counselor, disheveled as she may have been, dropped the n-word on me like a ton of bricks.

“Ever considered Nursing?”

The theme from ER started playing in my head. I could picture Hathaway being rushed through the corridors in the pilot episode. Then, the whistling song from Kill Bill Vol. 1 where Ellie Driver (Daryl Hannah) places a syringe of poison on a tray on her way to kill Beatrix (Uma Thurman) banged around in my mind. Then I faintly saw the credits of Nurses, the Empty Nest-via-Golden Girls spin-off. I tried very hard not to picture myself wearing a white dress and a nurse cap, slipping my size 11’s into a thickly padded pair of white shoes.

Me, a nurse?

I smiled politely and said I’d think about it. Well, the idea has been simmering in my head for a couple weeks now. I’ve added the meat (talked to a few nurses), dumped in pounds of veggies (figured out the coursework I need), and thrown in some herbs (read a ton of nursing blogs and keep reading more), and have kept checking for seasoning (trying to absorb any nurse related info online).

Guess what? It tastes kinda good.

Thankfully I have no hard and fast decisions to make this very minute. I have at least three semesters of pre-req courses to take, and the path is strikingly similar to the pre-req work for mortuary school. So the wheels are set in motion for SOMEthing. Just not completely sure which path I’ll go down.

Maybe that’s the best place to be. Options, I haz dem.