Nora Rocket's blog

For a long time, my favorite thing in Chicago was the painted window on a certain storefront underneath the Western brown line station: "Chubby Wieners...It Will Happen Soon!" It just had this very portentious feel about it. I know they used this somewhat baroque phrasing to avoid telling us that a wiener would be coming, but that never lessened my delight. I loved how heavy the announcement seemed, how certain: it WILL happen, and SOON.

I'm thinking about the Chubby Wieners sign this week, because things in my life are reaching the It Will Happen Soon point. My options are opening up, change is on the way; could be, who knows. It kicked off three days ago when the job I put in for, and about which I am still reluctant to speak, called me about an interview. So I'm busting down to New York on Tuesday night for a Wednesday afternoon interview with the head of the sales department and the head of HR. I am now an official candidate for this position, and I have the three-page job application form and background check authorization paperwork to prove it.

I could eat the most:
* twizzlers
* maki-sushi
* Kraft Macaroni and Cheez
* Wheat Thins
* mini crab cakes
* almond roca

I say this not out of pride, just to note that I could eat so fucking much of the above stuffs.

+ + +

In other news, I am totally unhappy with my job, but finally in a position to DO something about it. Operation 2009: Best Year Evar has a few key components, and one of them is a new job. I am looking now, with the goal of *the* perfect job in 4-8 months. It usually takes me about 6 to get something that works well enough. I can be a little laid back here in Q4 of 2008, and apply only for the most attractive positions, as I am looking in New York and will move there whenever I get the job. I will move alone if I get a Dream Job before January, which is when my partner can leave the city, but it would be easier to move as a family. So, until November or so, I will only apply for jobs of choice; as the move date approaches, I will apply for jobs of relative desperation. I just put in for something awesome, about which I will say no more, for fear of jinxing a motherfucker.

OMG, Fucking Olympics Geek is the best band, and I cannot WAIT to SEE THEM, I've had TICKETS for WEEKS.

No no, really; I personally have Olympic Fever, which is a great band that you should really check out when they come to your town, your going to LOVE them, ha ha.

Okay, no, seriously, I love the Olympic Games and I choose to ignore all of the problems in the world--and all of the problems that are specific to these games and this host country--for only these 16 days out of every four years.

And then I shudder a little when I realize that there are people who live in this kind of ignorance every day. And they breed.

Okay, quick hit: I'm back, it was awesome, I ate a whole skewer of cow hearts off a cart in the street (it was delicious...the hearts, not the street), and I seem to have developed a taste for the supernaturally coloured Inka Kola.

I took about 280 pictures, so with apologies for sending you off-site, here is the set on Flickr. Please enjoy.

It was only about 10 days, not long enough, but I highly recommend Peru as a travel destination, especially if you can wrangle to go there during the low season when prices are lower. If you speak Spanish, it could not be an easier trip.

Off to Peru Wednesday; back--with my very own alpaca in tow if I get my way--in August.

*ahem* Titicaca. That is all.

1. I loved it.

2. Midnight showing totally worth feeling like defrosted death at work this morning.

3. Watchmen preview very nearly brought on orgasm.

4. Note to douchebag outside theatre: go back to chatting up other girls by quoting (nationally known, televised) comedians' routines and bumming clove cigarettes and stop touching my earlobes without my permission and positing your guesses as to my sexuality based on the size thereof. You so obviously know nothing about me as either a carpet muncher (your charming term--I prefer "lady-fucker" but hey, you didn't let me define me; you took the liberty, so bully for you) or as a modified individual ("are those, like 1 gauge?" pffft.

I was short a back issue of Buffy Season 8 because I've been a delinquent comics buyer and Newbury, a shop I like less and less, did not have it. Fine--it's not their responsibility to have two months ago's single ish. But this story arc ("Wolves at the Gate") has had one MAJOR BOMBSHELL already and I neeeeed every ish. So I went to Comicazi in my neighbourhood and they also didn't have issue 14 on the shelf. At Newbury, which I'd been growing very cool about lately, I would not have asked the staff for help because, ah, they are not fanboys and the store stocks too much general stuff for me to think they care about finding me one back issue of Buffy for $2.99. They cop the kinds of attitude I used to get from the kids at Reckless (but never got from the staff at Laurie's Planet of Sound, which is why I love Laurie's with the burning fire of 1000 of your Earth's yellow suns. That and I think Laurie's could read my mind: if they didn't have something one week, I'd just think to myself "gee, I wish they had That One Album," and it'd be there the next week, without fail).

Delivery methods for Coca-Cola Classic in the order of their relative deliciousness to me (1 being most, 5 being least):
1. from the fountain at McDonald's
2. from any fountain
3. out of a can
4. out of a 2-liter bottle
5. out of any plastic bottle

Finest of the Magnum ice cream bars, in order of fineness (1 being most, 5 being least):
1. Magnum EGO
2. the one that was the multi-chocolate coated with chocolate and a layer of fudge
3. Magnum Crunch
4. plain
5. the one with almonds

Subjective personal ranking of the 7 Dark Tower novels, "best" (1) to "less best" (7):
1. 7
2. 5

So sometimes when you see a problem at work, the correct response is to look around, see if anyone else has noticed, and move the fuck on without trying to DO anything. Because Trying to Do Something will precipitate a storm of controversy that goes all the way to the top. The top, I tell you! One minute it's a polite disagreement ("hm, that's odd; this customer said he did receive stock from a damaged shipment that you'd been told did not go out") and the next, it's all "Nora, pls triple check that you are right before we go forward" and "hm, let's loop the editor in chief in on this shipping error" and lots of work for me.

C and S and I arrived at a new-to-me hole-in-the-wall pub in Cambridge at around 11:30 and began to consume mass quantities. And nachos. When the rains came, we retreated from the patio into the bar and said "well, that settles it" and had another round. By the time we began to be a little sensitive about having outlasted multiple rounds of other patrons, the idea came up to go see the 4:15 of the new Angie Jolie shoot 'em up, Wanted.

This is the kind of movie that, upon seeing previews, prompts my ladyfriend and I to turn to each other and start a low, slowly accelerating chant of "brew and view, Brew and View, BREW and VIEW! BREW AND VIEW!!!" Ah, the Brew and View; another thing to miss about Chicago and wonder why exactly there's nothing like it in Boston (in fairness, the theater near my house serves beer, but it's no B&V). There are certain movies that lend themselves so well to this concept that I want to view them at the Brew and View, even though I wouldn't see them in any other circumstance (in a regular theater, at home, on a plane, at a friend's house...). Summer dreck fares especially well paired with beers, G&Ts, and cheap popcorn swiped off the abandoned table of the couple who are not staying for the second feature.