The Adventures of Kinky Reggae: A Vagabond for Beauty

Last weekend Jen and I went to Iowa, and I got to see Jacob! (In case someone I don't know is reading this, Jacob is the baby I had when I was 18. I gave him up for adoption, and he has the most wonderful parents.) Jacob is amazing. He is only 6 years old (just about to start 1st grade) and already reading aloud from Harry Potter. Jacob also loves sports. He plays football, basketball, and soccer, and he's a great swimmer; he knows all the strokes and can dive into the deep end. He went water-skiing for the first time a few weeks ago! Jacob showed me his kindergarten scapbook, and he does very well in school. There was a note in there about his behavior, however... apparently he likes to walk around and socialize and distract other people from doing their work. But there were lots of positive notes, too. He's not a big behavior problem, he just likes to talk.

French people do not say that things are "super-cool." I got made fun of by real French people last night for saying this. But that's okay, because I got to play with guns.

So it is 11:40 p.m. on July 20, and I'm currently regretting the fact that I'm at home. I REALLY want to be out getting the new Harry Potter book. But there are several reasons why I'm not, so I just keep reminding myself of these things. First of all, I can't read the 7th book till I reread the 6th book. I just can't do it. I want to fully enjoy and understand the 7th book. In order to do this, I really should reread all of the books like one of my friends, but that didn't happen. I got too distracted by David Sedaris, Sin in the Second City, and that book on best practices in teaching. The other reason I'm not in line right now is because of my schedule. I had to be up at 5:30 this morning to babysit for 4-year-old twins for 11 hours. Then I had to come home and do laundry and homework. I want to be in bed at a reasonable time because I'm leaving early tomorrow to go to Iowa. I am so so excited because Iowa is one of my very favorite places

I am so excited that this book is finally out. I read a review in Bust magazine a few months ago and couldn't wait to read it. I'm only about 60 pages into it, but I'm loving it! It's about the Everleigh sisters, who, in 1907, owned the most well-known and high class brothel in the city of Chicago. It reads like a fiction novel because it's so interesting, and there is a good amount of dialogue (all of which was actually spoken). The characters are such... characters! They're all just a little off. It's so fascinating to me that all these things happened just a few blocks away from my apartment. I wish the Everleigh sisters were still around... I would love to have a conversation with them!

So I've been back in the city for 6 whole months now, and I'm still not attending church regularly. At first I thought I would be Episcopalian because I like their doctrine. But then I realized they are so similar to ELCA, so I figured I should just go to and ELCA church so I can still be a Lutheran. Being a Lutheran is really important to me; I was raised in a family of German Lutherans and went to college at a Lutheran school. I don't agree with most of the teachings of the LCMS, but ELCA is a good fit for me. The only problem is, all the ELCA churches I visited in the city had very traditional services. Willow Creek spoiled me because I love the contemporary service now. Also, no one really talked to me at these churches, and the sermons were not that great. So then I started going to New Community in Logan Square. There are a lot of great things about this church. The sermons are good; I always go home thinking about them and continue to think about them for th

This weekend was wonderful because it was filled with old friends. On Friday night, my college roommate Paula came to visit! She is now married with a child and lives in California, so we don't see each other very often. She brought her sister with, and our other roommate Jen and her boyfriend Ray met us at Lalo's. We were there for hours. Then we came back to my place. Ray left and Paula's sister fell asleep, so it was just the three of us hanging out. I don't know what else to say except it was perfect. I hadn't realized how much I miss Paula until I saw her again. I didn't want us to go to sleep because that would mean she would be leaving soon. But I know she makes it out to Iowa to see her family on a pretty regular basis, so hopefully I'll get to see her again soon. On Saturday, I went out to Naperville for my friend Carley's bridal shower. Carley and I were best friends from the time we were like, 3. I can't believe she's getti

I've been waiting to blog because I wanted to post pictures of Charity's wedding and the 4th. But ever since my computer crashed I can't figure out how to put pictures from my camera onto my computer. And since Dave spent 10 hours (on his birthday) installing a new hard drive, I really don't want to bother him with it. So the 4th (and 3rd) were amazing! On the 3rd, I got downtown early and met up with some friends. We had a great spot where we could see the fireworks and the orchestra. I think the fireworks were better than I've ever seen them. I guess they used 500 more than usual this year. After the fireworks, we tried to get on the L to get back to my apartment. That's when the craziness started. Apparently there was a power outage on the subway. Imagine that huge mob of people with no way to get home- chaos. So my friend and I just started walking towards my apartment. We figured we could just get a cab when traffic cleared up. Traffic didn&