No Blaise: No Blaise Goes West Part 1

I have two weaknesses—alcohol, and dogs. Get either of them mixed into my thought process and I am pretty much putty in your hands.

A few years ago, someone took full advantage of this fact and used alcohol and dogs to lure me into an extraordinarily long, stressful, and still somewhat unbelievable, journey.

It’s early Spring in Iowa City, IA. Must be about 2am when, let’s just call him M, starts to convince me to come with him to rescue some dogs.

Now, since its 2am alcohol has been flowing through my veins for a few hours already and I am in my most easily manipulated mind set.  So, when the phrase “rescue some dogs” comes out of M’s mouth, I am instantly hooked.

DOGS?

NEEDING TO BE RESCUED?

I’LL SAVE YOU PUPPIES!!

Before I knew it, I was in a yellow mustang convertible. Top down, on my way to rescue some dogs with M, and our other friend, who we’ll call L.

Being drunk and it being ridiculously late by now, I decide to pass out for a little bit. I wake up a few hours later, and M & L tell me we’re in Lincoln, Nebraska.

I’m sorry, what?

Now that I’ve slept off some of the alcohol, I hear the second part of the dog rescuing sentence. “We’re going to rescue some dogs….from New Mexico.”

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

No, this is not a joke. I had actually verbally signed up to go along on a who-knows-how-long journey to rescue dogs half way across the country.

As I sit in the front seat of this banana car, wondering if I’ll ever see my friends and family again, I look down at my feet and see that it appears I’ve packed myself a small bag to take on this trip. Apparently in my drunken stupor, I asked M to stop off at my apartment so I could grab a few things before we headed out. What did I grab, you may ask?

A tshirt, a sweatshirt, my toothbrush, a bathing suit, and my phone charger.

BATHING SUIT!? Apparently I thought I was going somewhere with a beach.

Anyways, despite all my begging they will not turn around. They are as dead set as I was five hours ago on rescuing these dogs.

New Mexico, or bust..

You may have gathered by now that M & L were not the most mentally stable or trustworthy people out there, so being in this relatively small car with them for what was looking like a never ending journey is still ranked as one of the scariest things I’ve ever done in my life.

Worst of all, they insisted on driving with the top down on the convertible, pretty much for the entire ride, which was mostly fast highway driving. I am not a fan of wind, and so riding around in the equivalent of a high powered wind tunnel was nothing short of traumatizing. I spent most of the trip hiding under a dirty blanket praying I could sleep through the entire trip.

By nightfall we were in Colorado. Unfortunately for me, mentally unstable people don’t remember to fill up their gas tanks. And, since I was trying my hardest to hibernate, I wasn’t paying attention to the gas tank either. Because I thought, you know, maybe the owner of the car/person driving might notice something like that.

GUESS NOT

I awake to find us pulling over in some rural area of Colorado. There are not only no streetlights, but I don’t really see any other forms of life anywhere.  Now I’m sure I’m not making it out of this thing alive.

By some stroke of luck, M has a roadside assistance calling card in his glove box. I go ahead and take the lead on making the call to AAA to come and rescue us. M & L show little concern for getting us out of this mess, which doesn’t surprise me.

Though there are basically no street signs, and I have no idea what town we’re in, I somehow manage to give the man at AAA a somewhat accurate description of where we are and he says he’ll send someone as soon as possible.

Hallelujah!

Stay tuned for Part 2…

No Blaise: Strange Saturday

The Saturday of this weekend, my friends and I had a number of different things set up to do that night, thanks to Time Out magazine. Not to mention it was Dr. Dre’s birthday.

Paaaaarrtttyyyyy

We had four different bars picked out where things were happening that intrigued us. So, we spent the day relaxing and getting ready for a dance-filled night.

We had dinner, got ready, had some drinks, the usual Saturday night stuff.

Empty Bottle has an infamous soul night that we decide should be the first spot we check out, so we hop in a cab and head from Logan Square to Wicker Park.

Pulling up, we see there’s somewhat of a line but decide it should be manageable so we get out and walk up. As soon as we’re close to the building we realize the line is about 15 more people deep than we could see from the cab. We go to the end of it, linger for a minute, then decide to move on to the next destination.

Beauty Bar is our next stop. We hail another cab and are on our way.

As we arrive we realize, no line!

Awesome.

We pay our $5 at the door, and get right in. Within five minutes of arriving we realize, to our dismay, that this is no dance party. Everyone is pretty much just standing around bobbing his or her heads. Not really what we’re looking for. Hannah has figured out that they’re doing manicures, though, so it takes some extra pulling to convince her now is not the time to get one and that we should move on to the next stop.

Whistler is our third, and hopefully final, stop. Which, for those acquainted with Chicago might know, is in Logan Square. So, we’re back where we started.

Oh well, the DJ that’s playing at Whistler tonight is supposed to be great.

Hop in our third cab with fingers crossed we won’t need to head anywhere else.

Whistler has a line. The guy at the door tells us it’ll be 20-25 minutes, and we decide to wait it out.

About five minutes into waiting, that decision changes and we all move to Bonnie’s, which is next door and has no one waiting outside.

We walk up to the door and expect to go right in, but the bouncer stops us and tells us they’re at capacity and that we have to wait.

Seriously?

SERIOUSLY!?!

My friends do a countdown and then run across the street to the Mexican restaurant, deciding to count their losses and end the night with a second dinner.

A torta and some tacos later, we’re on our way home. Our route takes us past the Whistler and we realize there’s not line, so we head over as to try and salvage this night somewhat.

We get in and the DJ is great, as predicted, but the crowd is less promising. Even with the great dancing, the outnumbering of creepy men also on the dance floor make a long stay here not worth it. So, after our first drink, we head out.

Nights like these remind me why my life motto is “If I weren’t laughing, I’d be crying”

No Blaise: Sunday Brunch

I sort of can’t believe this is the first time I’m writing about a weekend brunch story. My friends and I have done brunch both days of the weekend, for as long as I can remember.

Which isn’t saying much, because these days I’m remembering less and less..

Anyways, a few things you should know, overall, about our brunching…

From my experience, most people consider brunch to happen sometime between usual breakfast time (9-10am) and usual lunch time (12-1pm), hence the combined name of “brunch”. However, our group sees things a little differently, so we’re usually enjoying our first sips of coffee around 2pm.

Up and at ‘em!

We also usually are traveling in an abnormally large group. I think we’ve topped off at seven? And that might even be a low guess. What ends up happening, is we just round up whoever is left at our apartment at whatever time we finally decide to break day light, and the group stumbles to a nearby brunch spot.

And I mean “stumble” quite literally.

This brings me to my final point on our brunching. Since our group of people can get pretty large, we have to accommodate our brunch choice by whoever will fit us. On days when there are less people, we head to Johnnys, a diner not far from our place, that provides quick, cheap, and only semi-greasy, food. AKA the hangover cure. On the weekends though, they can get pretty packed, so we reserve our stops there for special occasions. I also think my friends and I ate there at least three times a week over the summer and so we might just be getting sick of it..

When we’ve got a bigger group, which is pretty much always, we head to Rocking Horse, or El Cid, or sometimes Dunlays. Rocking Horse & Dunlays can sometimes get a little packed with the residential hipsters (ourselves included), so in cases where we won’t fit in either spot, we head to our trusted El Cid. For whatever reason, it is never packed even though the food is reallllllly gooooooood.

So, this past Sunday we had about…6 girls in tow as we head out the door to brunch. Rather than having to decide who could hold us all, someone in the group decided on El Cid right off the bat, so we head there.

Sidenote—Hannah & I attended a clothing swap the day before where I picked up an AWESOME shirt that was covered in puppies, and decided to wear it to brunch. Because, when you’re already feeling crazy, why not throw on a puppy shirt?

The shirt looked a little something like this..

Back to El Cid.

We arrive and, as predicted, they’ve got room for all of us. When we get there, the Bulls v. Celtics game is on, so we arrange our seats so that we’re all facing the wall with the TVs. This means we’re all sitting next to each other on one side of the table, further taking away from our efforts to appear normal.

Sidenote #2—For those Bulls fans out there reading this, you’ll know the game on Sunday started at 2:30 pm and we got there for the second quarter. Further evidence of our non-conformist attitude towards brunch. Or further evidence of our sloth-like attitude on the weekends. Either way.

Once we get settled in our seats, our next task is to get them to actually turn on the Bulls game. Hannah asks a few times if they’ll change the channel, they attempt to find it, and then just bring the remotes over to us and give us the task of putting it on.

Since I’ve been feeling a lack of purpose in the rest of my life lately, I decide to step up and be “the one who finds the channel”, thinking it’ll make me feel a little better about my overall life outlook.

Whatever works…

Though she gives me two remotes, both only change the channels on one TV. I test out this theory a few times, to no avail, because as one finally shows Bulls v. Celtics, the other one has remained stagnant on a college basketball game. Womp.

It was me vs. remote…

I walk away partially defeated.

Anika and Ana think they can get the TV to change, so each take over a remote and begin pressing buttons. The end result of this attempt is that now both TVs have no picture and are emitting white noise.

Fools! I’ll fix this!

I step forward, puppy shirt and all, and get one TV back to that random basketball game, and the other tuned to the Bulls game.

Hold your applause.

No Blaise: Dancing in the Dark

One question I consistently ask myself when I’m out on the weekends is, can I dance?

I mean this in two ways.

First of all, do I have the ability to dance? Like, am I good at it? That answer always depends on how much I’ve had to drink.

The more, the better.

The second question concerns whether or not the atmosphere is right, at whichever bar, to get dowwwwn.

There are some obvious times, like if the music sucks or the lighting is overly bright, when you obviously wouldn’t dance.

Though, there are some times when even bright lights can’t stop the beat and people still fill the dance floor.

That brings me to my next point, the dance floor. If there isn’t one, that usually hinders the likelihood of dancing. But, as with the bad lighting, if the music is right, nothing will keep a good dancer down.

Move a few chairs around, push tables against the wall, and you’re all good.

The hardest scenarios are when the music is right, there’s a dance floor, lighting is perfect, but no one else is dancing.

How do you get the party started? Start dancing? But, what if I’m not a good dancer, then every one will be staring at me in all my no-rhythm glory.

AHHH!!!!

That’s when you either suck it up, or have another beer, or suggest to one of your friends that “it’d be really fun to dance right now…”

It’s similar to an icebreaker on your first day of college.

But, once you get one or two people dancing, with whatever method you choose, the party is started.

Then, no one has to know whether or not you’re a good dancer. And, if you’ve had enough drinks, you’ll never know either.

No Blaise: Blvd Banter, Part 2

To go along with the consistent commentary at The Blvd, my roommates and I have also developed our own way of talking about things. We call it, “screaming”.

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the basic definition of screaming, but blvd screaming has a method all its own. For whatever reason, we’ve each decided to deliver a given reaction to pretty much any question asked, in a louder, more forceful, and slightly angry tone. The anger doesn’t come from a mean place, though, it’s done completely with humor in mind.

Does that make sense to you?? Don’t worry—it doesn’t make complete sense to us either.

Conversations can go a little something like this—

Me: “Can I borrow this shirt?”

Katie/Hannah: “FINE, WHY DON’T YOU TAKE MY SOUL ALONG WITH IT!?

Hannah: “How does this look?”

Me/Katie: “HORRIBLE, HOW COULD YOU EVEN IMAGINE GOING OUTSIDE LIKE THAT!?”

Katie: “What should I eat for dinner?”

Me/Hannah: “GARBAGE, BECAUSE THAT’S ALL YOU DESERVE!!”

The parts of Hannah/Me/Katie can also be substituted for any number of our friends that hang out regularly at our apartment. Our rude and obnoxious way of interacting with each other is spreading like wildfire.

Aren’t we trend setters!

Actually, reading the above conversations, I’m starting to realize our days of societal acceptance may be limited…

Occasionally we do talk to each other in a normal tone of voice, and one of the most consistent questions at our apartment is in terms of a given outfit we’re trying to choose. Though, it sometimes turns into a scream fest similar to above, there are days that are more mellow and we actually give regular input.

Choosing an outfit is a daily dilemma at the blvd…

Here’s another sample conversation. I’ll just do an “A” and “B” for the characters in this example, cause literally any girl who has entered my apartment has done this—

A: Do you like this outfit?

B (and C, and D, and E): Yeah!! It looks great

(A goes back into a given room to alter outfit, comes back out)

A: Ok, how about now..

B (and C, and D, and E, and now F): Oh my god yes!! Love the belt. Great touch

(A goes back into given room, changes shirt)

A: Ok , really, how about this one?

B (and C, and D..E & F have moved on to drinking) : Yes, definitely!!

This back and forth can go on for as long as A is willing, sometimes, given who the “A” is, no crowd reaction is necessary for the continual outfit changes.

One of my all-time favorite moments in blvd conversation history, though, has to be over hearing my roommate Hannah on the phone with one of her co-workers. Her co-worker is named Elvis. I am not making this up.

Some morning, about a week ago, Elvis called Hannah to tell her something. Since I can, obviously, only hear one side of this conversation, I got a collage of—

“Hi, Elvis..”

“Ohh, thank you, Elvis!”

“That’s ok, Elvis, thank you!”

“Sounds good, Elvis”

As well as a number of variations on the same theme, all mixed with the name “Elvis”.

Talk about a wake up call..

No Blaise: Bulls v. Bucks

A couple months ago, my friend Ryan, who lives in Milwaukee, suggested we all come down to see her and go to a Bucks v. Bulls game. We planned it for Feb. 4 and for the next few weeks kept forgetting and then remembering that we had this plan.

Around the middle of January we got around to actually buying tickets, and solidifying the plan.

Days before we bought the tickets, however, Ryan informed us that she’d in fact be in Chicago that weekend for a work training, making it impossible for her to go to the game.

Great!

Now without Ryan, we decided to still try and take advantage of the game, since we figured that tickets to a Bucks game would be cheaper than trying to buy Bulls tickets when they played at home. Post-purchasing them, however, I’m not 100% sure that was true.

Oh well, we bought them and yesterday was the big day!

I get dropped off at Hannah and Anika’s work place, cause they both had to work on a Saturday…the horror!

I’ve got two sleeping bags, a backpack full of my stuff, and a bag filled with whiskey, champagne, and bacon.

Because what else do you need, really?

We cram five girls into a car, and are on our way.

As we approach Milwaukee, I get excited both for the Bulls game, and for my chance to be reunited with my beloved Spotted Cow. HALLELUJAH!

In the approaching weeks, I’d asked Ryan multiple times if the stadium in Milwaukee had Spotted Cow, and she assured me that they did. But, when I arrived, it turns out they in fact did not, so I had to settle for some Leinenkugel. UGH (Just kidding, the Honey Weiss was pretty delish)

I’m also pretty sure there were more Bulls fans than Bucks fans at the game..

I should now mention that we planned this trip with like, 10 other people. My group of 5 bought our tickets together, but the rest of them picked their own spots.

We get to our seats and realize, hey!, half of the other group has seats two rows behind us. Cool!

Games goes on, I have a few more beers, Bulls win. Woo hoo!

Then we go out an about in Milwaukee, Hannah and I split a bratwurst that was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever had. We go to a bar that’s great for dancing, then back to Ryan’s for afties.

I heard the after hour party was lots of fun, but as soon as we got home I passed out for the night. They tell me I snored the entire time. Awesome…

To add insult to injury, there were about 5 signs on the side of the road on our drive home that said “Make Peace, Not Snore,” as well as the subtle, “Snoring Kills”.

Not even the embaressment of snoring for three hours straight in a room full of people can get me down, though. I got to order Spotted Cow all night, and brought home a ridiculous amount.

Ahhh, reunited, and it feels so good.

No Blaise: Flirting with Vegetarianism

A couple years ago, I went through a stint of being a full out vegetarian. It lasted a couple months before it just became too inconvenient, and I ended the streak with a chicken sandwich from McDonalds. Which was maybe one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made…I was throwing up for two days straight.

Going from no meat, to McDonalds meat? GOOD CHOICE!

Since then, I’ve been on and off with meat. I never want it in my salads, it’s great in pasta, and I could never ever deny a good cheeseburger. This all comes down to not me being a vegetarian, just me having food mood swings.

When I’m eating something without meat, or if I’ve opted for a tofu-something, I’m all “Ohhh yes, this is so refreshing that there’s no sort of meat in this. I love being a partial vegetarian.” Then the next night, I could be eating a cheeseburger, and I’ll be all, “Oh my goddddd this is good. I could eat one of these a day!” So on, and so forth.

So, obviously, my commitment to a meat free life has fluctuated.

A couple months ago, my now-boyfriend Ted, and I go on our first date. We’re talking, then it gets to what we’re ordering, and Ted starts describing his food habits. Talking about how he’s trying to eat only fish, stay away from all other meats, he usually can do it, etc etc… It’s sounding more and more like what I’ve been gearing my food habits towards, though he seems slightly more committed to a meat-less palette. I coined our food intake style as “flirting with vegetarianism”.

Awww, flirting about flirting with vegetarianism, isn’t that just the cutest thing? I finally found someone who eats the way I eat!

Ted and his similar eating habits seal the deal for me, since we’ve been dating ever since.

Our dates nowadays will occasionally happen at places like Native Foods, which is vegan, or we’ll get a tofu or seitan sandwich from Bon Bon, and feel very proud of our vegetarian meal.

Other times we’ll go somewhere and I’ll get a cheeseburger, or Ted will get a giant hot dog…sometimes made of an exotic meat, and both of us will try and pretend like we don’t know what we’re eating.

I had a salad yesterday, it’s fine!