This is what I read at the first anniversary party for Solo in The 2nd City, which happened at Beauty Bar on February 13, 2013. This is as written, not as delivered.
Solo in the 2nd City! You are a year old, but you don’t look a day over, um, 9 months.
Solo in the 2nd City! Thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak my mind about being a spinster, excuse me, I mean a single lady, to a room of friendly (or maybe just drunk) strangers, instead of my fellow riders on the Broadway bus.
Filed under personal
1. At some point during my tenure at the super awesome private school I attended from seventh grade through upper school (read: high school), Tuesdays after a three day weekend would have a Monday schedule. So instead, of say, starting with math and French then a 15 minute mid-morning break before third period and the rest of your usual Tuesday, you’d have Latin and then assembly for middle school and upper school before break and something awful like a double period of biology.
It wasn’t hard to catch on to the change to the schedule, as any impulse you might have to run to your locker to get your French workbook before class was immediately stricken down by the sight and sound of several hundred girls racing down flights and flights of stairs to the assembly hall. So you’d run to your homeroom, fling your bag in the general direction of your desk, and then hustle downstairs, hoping somebody would save you a decent seat for the morning’s program (good: all male a capella singing group from Yale because hello DUDES and aren’t the Whiffenpoofs basically the private school version of, like One Direction?; bad: talk from mumbling adult about something boring but VERY IMPORTANT like THE ENVIRONMENT).
2. I’m thinking of bringing back my annual list of right-ons, where I’d make a list of things I loved, inspired by Marlys Mullen of Lynda Barry’s comics. I think everybody should do it.
3. I need a perfect, crisp $5 bill to tuck into Hyacinth’s birthday card. Because yes, she is going to be five. And little Nathan is six. And I am older, too.
4. I don’t even want to think about how old I am. Oh, yes I do. Mainly because I love birthdays and mine especially and how I’d dearly love to host a party except my apartment can maybe hold three people. I think I may just invite people to join me at Hot Doug’s on the day and see who turns up to stand on line for a hot dog for a long time. Maybe I could get to Doug’s as soon as they open and just spend the entire day there, holding court at the large round table, and just eating and hanging with people show up until I have to be taken to the hospital on a special hot dog bun stretcher that looks like the life-size hot dog bun at the Chicago History Museum.
i’m delicious
5. I may finally use the restaurant gift card that Leah gave me for house sitting last year. I am very excited to use it at the Olive Garden. I’ve never been to one. The prospect of unlimited breadsticks makes me very happy.
6. The Shedd Aquarium has a blue lobster. It’s true! He? She? is on reserve, and therefore not visible to the public. You can, however, meet this lobster if you sign up for the behind the scenes tour which, while lacking penguin encounters, is quite informative and fun and you do get to pet these goldfish with bumpy heads.
7. I went to Hot Doug’s yesterday with Carly. We only waited 15? 20? minutes before we made our way inside and ordered lunch. If I didn’t manage to develop gout after eating THREE HOT DOGS and half a large order of cheese fries, then I really must be indestructible. My theory is that I’ve eaten so many processed foods, and there are preservatives left in my body that are keeping me alive (if not exactly healthy).
8. Still watching “Girls” even if the new season is pretty boring so far.
9. My brother and Anna are coming to visit in March. Not the weekend of St. Patrick’s, so we won’t be forced to fight crowds of binge drinkers and tourists. But maybe we should plan on wearing green items anyway so we don’t run the risk of getting pinched in crowds?
10. Thanks to Kim and Joseline’s suggestions, I am now thinking of going to far off places that I haven’t yet saved up for yet. Iceland, Turkey, and Sweden are my top three, though Peru may knock Sweden out of the running.
Filed under everyday, food & drink, history, personal
I’m currently reading Rosecrans Baldwin’s Paris, I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down. I am really enjoying it, even if it makes me want to get on the blue line, ride all the way to O’Hare, and get the first outbound flight to Charles de Gaulle airport.
I don’t think there’s anything in the universe telling me that I need to return to Paris. I was only there last year, albeit for a day. A day, or a few days, is not enough for most places, especially Paris. Not when there’s so much walking and eating and shopping and more eating and occasionally drinking to do.
This morning, when I was reading the book on the bus, the Spotify app on my smartphone played the French version of “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” by Michael Jackson. In French, the song is called “Je Ne Veux Pas La Fin De Nous”. Which sounds to me like “I Do Not Want The End Of Us”. It has the same feeling of longing as the original English title, but with a little more desperation.
If that isn’t the universe but the ghost of a French speaking and singing Michael Jackson telling me to get to France, then I don’t know what.
Oh. Hello!
It seems that the last time I blogged here was June 2012. What the fuck have I been up to since then? A lot, I’d imagine, but I can only seem to remember the following: Continue reading
Filed under personal
@jasmined Why are you just a bowl full of awesome?
— WoodlawnWonder (@WoodlawnWonder) June 6, 2012
Filed under twitter
Carly’s bandmate Jon made a recording of us reading our pieces for Solo In The Second City: Live At Transistor. Hurray Jon! I haven’t listened to my section yet. I bet I sound weird.
It’s posted over at Solo In The Second City, so go listen to it already!
Filed under writing
a reunion
It was towards the end of the party, at a lovely home in a sleepy village west of Chicago, that the parents, all old friends, started herding their children together to take a picture.
The children took their places standing in front of, or hanging on the hips of, their parents, who made sure their children faced the cameras. The parents, who all met long ago in that magical time known as the 1990s at a magical place called Hogwarts the University of Chicago, looked much the same as they did when they first met. The children, of course, looked just like their parents.
One slightly bashful looking auntie, childless herself, was prodded into place. Shutters (do digital cameras have shutters?) clicked or flashed, and the auntie tried to ignore the fact that she bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain Mrs. Potatohead in this very important photograph.
The picture made, the children sprung back into action, climbing and clambering, and time started forward once more.
So I read this post last week at Solo in the Second City: Live at Transistor with Melinda and Carly. I think the reading went well. We had a nice crowd of people, and there was wine. I didn’t have any, but it was nice that it was there.
I think I read aloud okay, but I feel I can always stand to read louder, slower, and stronger. Maybe try some of the jokier bits on people and see how they feel about them, because maybe the bits are just a little too jokey. Tighten up my sentences, remember to breathe. I’ll try not to forget these should I get the opportunity to read, either for Solo or for another party, in the future.
Annabel Garcia of ChicagoTalks.org wrote this lovely piece about Solo in the Second City. Please read it, especially the bit about me:
Jasmine Davila, 36 a software tester is one of those authors who was approached. She said that she had never read at another event but has read at Solo in the Second City and will be doing it again in May.
“I think reading for the series has helped me figure out how to write for performance,” said Davila. “It also reminded me that I love reading to people and I love being read to.”
Filed under go plug yourself, writing
Below is what I read tonight at Solo in the Second City: Live at Transistor. Or something close to it. I may have added some stuff, or sung a bit less. That is to say, prepared for delivery, as speechwriters like to say, instead of as delivered. Enjoy, and thanks for reading.
The following is a list of shit that I do by myself:
Go to the movies. Eat at restaurants. Go to my friends’ weddings. Choose a health care plan. Have sex.
Please. Hold your applause.
After years of going to movies, dinners, and weddings by myself, I had determined that I was a pretty good date so why not take it a bit further and really go somewhere alone? Continue reading
This totally killer poster was designed by Chien-An Yuan.
I’m reading something (that I have yet to write) for Solo in the Second City: Live at Transistor.
I’m pretty sure I’m going to write something about: recent solo trips to the movies, my first solo vacation three months ago, how some grown-ass men on the bus act all delicate when my allegedly gigantic self sits in the vacant seat next to them, and how I think my brother and I may be turning into Matthew and Marilla from Anne of Green Gables.
It’s gonna be swell. There will be readings from Carly, Melinda, and me, and a musical performance by Jon & Carly. Afterwards, maybe we can all go get a hamburger or something.
Filed under go plug yourself, personal, writing
