Upcoming Concert Itinerary

All of a sudden, my next three weeks got super massive concert heavy and I am SO excited.  Even better?  It’s a pretty random mix of music.

First?  My dad’s taking me to see Tom Petty and Steve Winwood on Wednesday night, July 23.  The show is at Minneapolis’s Target Center and we’re going to grab dinner before hand.

The Saturday following that, July 26th, my friend BP and I are headed down to Chicago for Neil Diamond’s show at the United Center.  STOKED for that road trip with him.  He’s in the guard and has been in Turkey since Feb and comes home this Sunday.  Our first plans are to hit up a Chipotle.  As soon as I realized he didn’t have that goodness on that side of the world, I committed to Chipotle-abstinence out of respect and anticipation.  Anyway, the big day is Sunday and we eat Chipotle for dinner.

Finally, a week after the Neil party in Chicago, I’m BACK in Chi-town for Lollapalooza, headlined this year by Rage, RADIOHEAD, and Kanye.  Most excited about Radiohead.  And half the bands on the MySpace stage.  Other bands I’m UBER excited for?

- Mates of State
- The Black Keys
- The Raconteurs
- Lupe Fiasco
- Flogging Molly
- Cat Power
- Gogol Bordello
- Iron and Wine
- THE TOADIES?!
- DeVotchka
- MGMT
- Black Kids
- Louis XIV (whose show here at the Varsity Theatre last winter/spring was AWESOME)
- The Ting Tings (and I’m going also to their afterparty show at The Metro on Friday night
- What Made Milwaukee Famous (who opened for Louis XIV when they were here)
- VHS or Beta (special DJ set?!)

‘Bama or Bust

Well, we made it to the dirty dirty without any trouble. My dad works for Northwest, so while I am too old and quote-unquote independent to fly free like he and mom do, I fly on a cheaper companion pass and we all fly standby. Try THAT on Christmas Day the year they reduce the number of flights in general. The flight this morning was supposedly oversold, but we still managed to not only get on, but to sit up front. That was always the perk about dealing with not knowing whether or not we’d actually get ON the flight – knowing that there was always a little chance of sitting in first class.

And I hate take-off. HATE it. Something about the initial force of power or height or something, but my whole body just kind of silently freaks out. So what if it’s 7 in the morning? I’m sitting in first class, stomach in knots, dressed UP (because we are “representing the airline” or something) so dammit, I’m having a drink. And I did. I thought about a bloody mary, but vodka seemed fairly intense for barely being 7AM – even for me. I opted for Bailey’s and coffee instead.

I don’t know if it was the alcohol or just the coincidence that we “reached a final cruising altitude of 39,000 feet” at the same time I finished my coffee, but 25 minutes or so after take-off, I’d finally calmed down enough to read my book. *see next entry for my totally unqualified and abbreviated review of Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.

So I read and we flew, and eventually we ended up in Memphis. We switched planes, and headed to Mobile, which is where we are now and have been lounging for the past few hours.

I brought books, magazines, and my laptop. I’m planning to read, read, write a little, dig up trashy celebrity gossip, and watch whatever the rest of the family is watching on whatever TV is in the room. Right now, it’s something on PBS about the Vanderbilt hunting lodge (aka MANSION) in North Carolina. Before this, it was Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” (about sushi!) and then Marc “I’ll-Take-the-Physical-Challenge” Summers’ “Unwrapped.” *more on this later – I totally found my dream job.

So, Day 1/Travel Day of Vacation has been a success in that I really haven’t accomplished much except finishing one book and starting another – My Point… and I Do Have One, Ellen DeGeneres’ 1995 book that was updated (or something?) and re-released last October.

My goal is to finish that and start The Audacity of Hope by lunchtime tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

If I Hear Sweet Caroline One More Time…

Between a wedding, a cover band, and a dueling pianos bar this song was one staple of many (Brown Eyed Girl, Baby Got Back, and Piano Man) that we heard more than once in our trek through Naperville and Chi-town. Details to come, but long story short: the trip was awesome, amazing, and adventurous. Here’s a preview of the fun to come:

This is me and Andy under the bean thing at Millenium Park. We went from here to an awesome restaurant across the street called Tavern at the Park, which I’ll give more about later.

Thank You For Calling ULTA, Your Beauty Destination

Well, I didn’t go back to World Market. They never called, despite cute little shift manager girl telling me that they were desperately hiring, and definitely would love that I already have World Market Wine Shop experience. But, no phone call. So, I figured I’d try another former place-of-employment of mine – ULTA. And since the hiring manager is a former coworker, long-time pal of mine, it wasn’t too difficult to persuade her that I’d be a decent asset.

Anyway, I started there on Saturday. While it’s nice to be making some extra $, I miss the downtime already… with the exception of a few hours on Sunday night, I have been moving just about nonstop since Saturday morning.

With the help of my dad and good pal Jer, I moved the bulk of my stuff from storage to the house in St. Paul – where I’m moving in November. After that, I worked, then with the promise of bowling and beer, I drove up to Brainerd to see That Cute Guy. Left Brainerd on Sunday morning (but not after breakfast and coffee… awwww) and went straight back to work. (NOTE: do NOT wear pointy-toed heels to stand on your feet all day!)

Yesterday – wow, I barely remember. I worked, I remember that. And I remember feeling as though it had been productive. Oh yeah, then I met dad at his wine club (schmancy, I know), The Grape Nutz for some themed food and wine. Left there to head to watch The Bachelor premiere with some girlfriends and to drink more wine.

Today started at 5:30am, and I had another super productive day until around 2 when I got a migraine-ish type headache-of-all-headaches. You know – the kind where your vision goes blurry, you get a little off-kilter, and your brain feels like it’s trying to push itself beyond the walls of your skull. THAT kind of headache. Needless to say, I lost the level of productivity from the day before and instead counted down the minutes until I could get away from that computer screen.

That didn’t do a whole lot of good considering here I am, in front of a computer, in class.

I just realized this got rambly. Quick wrap up with why I’m excited about the rest of the week:

– breakfast tomorrow morning w/ a good friend

– Hippity Dippity (my vball team!) plays in the CSC Co-Rec Championship Game!

– leave the game all sandy and gross and drive for two hours up to Brainerd.

– wake Andy up to have him let me in so I can wash Theodore Wirth (the park/vball courts) off of my feet, and then curl up with him and fall asleep, except I get to SLEEP IN on Thursday morning when he has to get up for work, and I’m going to…

– spend Thursday SLEEPING, watching TV, writing, doing whatever I want.

– date night Thurs night – he’s making me dinner and taking me to see Good Luck Chuck. Don’t worry – I’ll let you know how it is!

– Friday-Sunday camping w/ friends in Taylor’s Falls. More to come later…