Valentine’s Day Mix (Not Mine)

Posted on February 14, 2012 by lisafindley

Dearest fellow travelers, I had every intention of creating a Valentine’s mix for you again this year, but every time I went to Grooveshark it crashed on me. We are talking through it and expect to emerge stronger than ever on the other side, but for now it’s a difficult time. So in lieu of my Motown-heavy list, might I direct you to The Rejectionist’s indieriffic playlist? (The Rejectionist is a stellar writer and also, as it turns out, a good DJ.)

It’s manufactured, it’s silly, but Valentine’s Day can also be a time to smile more at the people you love, and that’s always a good thing.

It’s a day late, but of course I wish you the best Galentine’s Day too. Leslie 4evah.

Valentine's Day blurry hearts

Image.

I Started a Tumblr: Crappy Editings

Posted on January 19, 2012 by lisafindley

I started a very specific Tumblr last week: Crappy Editings, for fans of the TV show “Happy Endings” who just want the writers to at least Google some stuff if they’re going to pretend the show is set in Chicago.

Mlle. O’Leary and I enjoy the rapid-fire dialogue and ridiculous situations of this show, but it seems every time we talk about it, we find another aspect of Chicago life that the writers got wrong. Surely someone on staff must have lived in Chicago once upon a time? So many comedy writers and actors do start out here, after all. It’s such a great city! So many of us live here and are super defensive about it! Maybe just hire a fact checker now and again, or call up your cousin living in Lincoln Park to get just a hint of some local color.

Anyway, if you want to check it out, head on over. Screenshots and snarky text abound.

Transportation Problem SOLVED

Posted on January 19, 2012 by lisafindley

Forget the RTW/one-way ticket debate: I’m driving to Australia!

Rockin’ Around the (Locally Grown, Hand-Sawed) Christmas Tree

Posted on December 22, 2011 by lisafindley

I realize that not everyone celebrates Christmas. I have no trouble putting my head around the idea that most of the world’s population doesn’t believe in the immaculate birth of Jesus or even in the sacred maxing out of credit cards for plastic toys and cheap rum in late December. Those who do celebrate live all around the world, so there are plenty of Christmas revelers rockin’ around a palm tree or building sandcastles instead of snowmen. Despite the movies and songs about the season, it’s clear to any logical person that Christmas is not just a season expressed in gently falling snow and presents ’round a pine tree. But! If you are from a northern clime, celebrate Christmas, and have the space and money for it, I don’t see how you can go through your whole life without once cutting down your own tree.

I recently learned that one of my friends, who is from Michigan, has never cut down her own tree. Not only that, she’s only ever had artificial trees. Her family was worried about fire hazards, and I get that, but if you’re vigilant about keeping the tree watered and turning off the tree lights when you leave the house, a real tree is safe. And if you’re from Michigan, there are hundreds of places to go where you can select your own tree from a planted forest of them, which is a whole level of fun and adventure you can’t get from going to a lot.

I was in my hometown this past weekend for a couple of events, and while I was there, my parents and I got a tree. After an early setback (the first place we drove to was “closed for the season” — before Christmas?), we went on to Peacock Tree Farm in Laingsburg. Snow really was gently falling, so softly and slowly that I could inspect the individual flakes on my coat and see how different they were from one another. Not too many people were there, since a week before Christmas is too late for most folks (which is probably why the other place was closed), but we liked it that way. Just some fresh-faced workers, several red-nosed families, and a few eager dogs. I took some video of the afternoon so we can all take a look at what it’s like to cut down your own tree and get it back home for decorating. Don’t forget the egg nog.

I’ll be back in 2012 with more photos, essays, travel guides, guest posts, and interviews. Just nine months til I take off on my world trip–glad to have you readers along for the ride. Have a safe and restful holiday and see you in the new year!

Findley Sibling Road Trip 2011 Part Two: Montréal

Posted on December 8, 2011 by lisafindley

Heather, Em, and I took a road trip in September, and recorded much of the silliness that took place. Part 1 of that video debuted last week, and now Part 2 is here, the three days we spent in Montréal. Soundtrack choices, while sure to get me hit up by the RIAA, were made for maximum comic and dramatic effect. Laugh, cry, gaze enviously at the rain-soaked city–it’s all here. Enjoy!

Sibling Road Trip 2011 Video

Posted on December 1, 2011 by lisafindley

Dearest fellow travelers, I’ve put together a video of the first part of the grand road trip Heather, Em, and I took in late September. The video has some silly inside jokes, a few nice shots of the misty scenery, and far too much of Timbaland’s dumbest but most earworm-y collaboration.

I had a lot of fun putting it together, and you’ll see that we had even more fun filming it. Enjoy!

Update: Part 2 is up now!

An Apple a Day

Posted on November 7, 2011 by lisafindley

One of these things is not like the other

Guess which apple was picked over a year ago, and sat in a grocery store encased in wax that keeps the pesticides in; and guess which apples were picked mere weeks ago at an organic farm before being sold at a farmers’ market?

Supermarket chain fruit and veg is normal for me, but then sometimes I have delicious, expensive organic stuff and think anew that I need to make a real change in my buying habits.

The Postcard Project

Posted on October 20, 2011 by lisafindley

I’ve been a packrat for as long as I’ve had possessions. Mom made increasingly futile attempts over the years to get me to throw out illegible scribblings, broken toys, once-treasured stuffed animals long left in dust. It was a holiday in the Findley family when I moved just about the last of my boxes out of the basement and into my Chicago apartment. I’ve gotten a lot better over the years, but I still keep more than I should.

My penmanship will be just as fancy-looking but illegible.

So it was not too surprising when, cleaning up my desk at work a few weeks ago, I found a stack of paper three years old. It was the remains of one of those page-a-day calendars, the theme of this one being “1,001 Places to See Before You Die” (a morbid way of looking at it, and clunkier than “The Bucket List,” but it sure did have a lot of pretty pictures). I’d torn off the pages and kept them in a stack because they might come in handy someday. When? What day would a stack of frayed-edge color landscape photos from 2008 come in handy for anything?

I found a use for them. I decided, in the tradition of the marvelous Mlle. O’Leary, I needed to step up my non-electronic communication, so I’m making postcards out of the old calendar and sending them to friends all over the world. It’s not a hard thing to do, or a skilled one, but it’s fun to sit in front of the latest Parks & Rec pasting photos on cardstock and writing affectionate messages on the back. It’s a good time to pause and think about the person I’m writing and ogle the scenery on the postcard.

I’m sending at least one postcard a week from now until next September when I leave on my trip, so if you want one, just let me know. Don’t put your address in the comments, because don’t put your address on the Internet, good grief I hope you know that, but do drop a note if you’d like a postcard and you can email me your postal address. I can’t promise when or what stunning vista you’ll receive, but I will promise that sometime in the next year, you’ll get a handmade postcard in the mail from me. Here we go!

Image from here.

Your Awesome Halloween Costume 2011

Posted on October 13, 2011 by lisafindley

Halloween is nearly upon us! One of the few holidays not centered around family activities or large meals, it’s a time for sugar highs and slipping into a different persona. My mom always made great costumes for the twins and me. As we got older, we had individualized ones, but there are some adorable pictures of us when we were small, as Little Bo Peep and her two lost sheep, and The Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2. (So, so good.) You could say I had high standards of costumes to live up to as I grew up and traded in my trick-or-treating bag for a bottle of beer. I’ve decided on a costume for this year, but I still have lots of leftover ideas that should be put to good use. I know a lot of people find thinking of costumes a stressful activity, so let me ease your burden and suggest you take one of these and make it Your Awesome Halloween Costume 2011 (note that Sexy Fill-in-the-Blanks are not included, and gender bending is always encouraged):

The Costume: David Wooderson, aka Matthew McConaughey’s creeper character in Dazed and Confused

Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused

pre-shirtless bongo playing days

What to Wear: bell bottoms, especially if you can get salmon-colored ones; a concert t-shirt (the one in the movie is apparently a Ted Nugent album cover); a Southern gentleman’s blonde moustache; a can of beer

What to Do: Walk around with a can of beer in hand and a lazy, stoned smile on your face all night. Say things like, “That’s what I like about these high school girls; I get older, they stay the same age” and “You gotta joint? It’d be a lot cooler if you did.” Leer at redheads. Tell everyone to meet at the moon tower for the real party.

Major Caveat: This costume is only open to people who could never be mistaken for creepers in real life. It’s only funny if it’s a huge exaggeration. If you’re a dude, here’s a test: Mention to a female friend that you plan to be this for Halloween. If she hesitates or her eyes shift away, you may be a creeper in real life and should steer clear of this costume. Also, look at your choices, look at your life.

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The Costume: Freddie Mercury, in honor of the 20-year anniversary of his death

rock god

What to Wear: tight white bootcut pants; a white men’s undershirt; a healthy black moustache; a false set of disturbingly straight and large teeth; Adidas shoes; and if you’re feeling flush with cash and luck in finding it, a bizarre yellow jacket with lots of buckles

What to Do: Strut around as if on stage all night, including athletic jumps and dives. Sing dramatic songs in full range, including an alarming falsetto. Search for a David Bowie to sing “Under Pressure” with you.

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The Costume: Leslie Knope, aka Amy Poehler’s amazing character on Parks and Recreation

next stop, the White House

What to Wear: a gray business suit with red dress shirt; impossibly blonde hair; low pumps; a giant planner filled to the brim with notes for meetings; a copy of A History of Pawnee, Indiana, which you wrote from memory

What to Do: Be super friendly and cheerful, and yet stumble your way into the most awkward situation possible within 2 minutes of meeting somebody. Cover it up by being more awkward and solemnly promising to hold a town meeting to find a solution. Warn people off the snake juice. Recite facts about great women in American politics and hand out “Knope 2012” buttons. Be entirely awesome.

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Other ideas:

Couple costume: One of you dresses in jeans and a ratty t-shirt, possibly with tambourine or other noisemaker in hand, and carries an “Occupy Wall Street” sign. The other dresses in waist-high khakis and a sweatshirt with a golf logo, possibly wearing a crucifix or a trucker hat, and carries a “Tea Party” sign. You introduce yourselves as the new political parties of America.

Wear a nondescript outfit and pin a large piece of paper to your shirt with the name “shnazzy83” or “jasonINfectionnn.” Run around screaming “firsties!” and “Shut the f up! You’re so stupid I can’t believe you graduated kindergarten!” and the like. You’re a commenter on the internet. (A few years late to be super trendy, sure, but unfortunately there are far too many commenters like this for it to be a fad–present company excluded, of course.)

Photo 1 from here. Photo 2 from here. Photo 3 from here.

New Year’s Celebrations Check-In

Posted on September 15, 2011 by lisafindley

Hello, dearest fellow travelers! How are your New Year’s Celebrations coming along? Eight months of the year have come and gone, so while the magazines are already moving from guilting you for your bathing suit body to guilting you for your imminent holiday gluttony, I propose we go back and review our much more fun lists of activities we knew we’d enjoy in the year 2011. Here’s a recap of the concept:

“[With New Year’s Resolutions,] soon every decision becomes a negotiation, every moment a cost/benefit analysis. It’s mentally exhausting to live in a near-constant state of trade-offs.

“Thus, New Year’s Celebrations are totally free of cause and effect. You don’t go see that iO show as a reward for going 30 days smoke-free; you go because you have a free night and $12 and it sounds like fun. These are no-strings-attached things to do. The list is just a reminder of all the ways you love to have fun, a handy reference for whenever you might have cause to use it and celebrate the fact that you are alive.”

Here were mine. I’ve put a strikethrough the ones I’ve done this year, and I’ve added some new ones as well.

~~Spend an entire day at the beach~~
~~Spend an entire day reading~~
Visit a museum I’ve never been to before, like the DuSable or the NMMA
~~Eat a peach (and play a good album)~~
Say “yes” to a random invitation when I have plans to do something more dull
Visit the Garfield Park Conservatory when it’s cold outside, all the better to enjoy the tropical interior
Drink a beer chosen by the bartender at Quenchers
Lose my voice singing along to a mix CD of Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals
Learn how to sing harmony on a Girlyman song
See a band in concert I’ve never heard before