My previous entries on this topic included the ultra-embarassing Bill O'Reilly and the somewhat respectable (if you're a left-leaning gal with a taste for Philly accents) Chris Matthews.

I also once had a 2-day "admiration" of Brian Williams after seeing an hilarious interview with him on Conan O'Brien. Come to think of it, Conan even made Sam Dondalson seem "hip".

I don't think I have revealed, though, my former deep-seated animosity toward Matt Lauer - which subsided once he shaved his head and (from personal media sources) really p*ssed off NBC brass. That was kinda cool!

Ew, and yuk, Anderson Cooper does NOTHING for me. Donny Deutsch - uh, let's just say his name says it ALL!!! (Ryhmes with "swoosh!")

Last year I attended the Pride parade, in part, to see Mike Barz on the WGN float. I screamed something stupid and he responded in kind by pointing to me and making some sort of friendly gesture. *sigh*

In college I was friends/coworkers with a guy who later became a sportcaster on the west coast. He had nothing in common with my friend B and I - us gals being kooky alt-rock and hip-hop dj's, he the hyper-preppy jock/frat dude. But one day, as "Todd", B, and I ran errands for the radio station, we noticed he was wearing white, and rather revealing tennis shorts. Somehow B and I became fixated on his thighs. Damn, he had some GORGEOUS thighs. Strong, but not too bulky. We're talking Michaelangelo proportions here. Oh yeah, and a great ass, too! I can still recall B and I giggling over our concurrent discovery of Todd and his wonderthighs. I think this is the point in time when my head was turned away from the pasty rock band guys who visited the station and toward the "I wear my ambition on my sleeve" driven news and sports reporters.

As I have noted before, my media crushes last about a week and then, poof, I tend to start changing the channel.  Its important to note this factoid, lest you think me some sort of highly-focussed stalker b*tch. I practically have ADD when it comes to crushes so no need for any of these quasi-celebs to fret.

As noted in a few entries below I'm currently swooning to the slightly marble-mouthed delivery of WGN news weathercaster and occasional features reporter, Paul Konrad. He is so un-pretty boy that, I guess its a refreshing change for me. He has an adorable smile and a dry sense of humor that appeal to me, although I continue to question his hairstyle choice (a buzz cut of some sort.) He is at his most crush-able when he's on location doing a features story, or wacky on-air stunt, because honestly, when he's in front of the weather screen in his navy blazer he appears heftier than a cumulonimbus cloud! Outside shots really let his personality shine through; or maybe its just more flattering lighting? Anyway, without further ranting, here are some pics retrieved from the wide world of the internet.

Bad hair but pretty eyes.

Paul showing that great smile that doesn't come across on TV as well.


Listen up people, Paul's got something to say!

After doing a little research, I also discovered (as I suspected) that Paul and I were both at NU at the same time - he as a grad student, and me as a lame freshman. Considering his field of study and my penchant for hanging around the radio station,  I KNOW that we had to have been in the same campus building at some time or another. Somehow there are always "six degrees of separation" for me...

Coming soon to a blog near you: my real-life antagonism of a cable-access tv show host and the birth of The Wig.

IDOT has generously agreed to rouse me awake each morning at 6am to the sounds of some sort of scary super-saw that is slicing and dicing the concrete road 45 feet in front of my bedroom window. Thinking about these roadway noises, as well as my oft-noted basement party fetish, I took a mental vacation to the days of living in a skeezy neighborhood off-off-campus my senior year in college. My best friend and I took over the bottom floor of a two-flat from some friends who were graduating the year ahead of us. Luckily, for our safety and sanity, some good guy friends lived in the apartment above us, so we weren't truly two gals living in the quasi-ghetto.

Ghetto? Well, it wasn't a consistently bad neighborhood. In fact it's tree-lined charm was only marred by the presence of the large old victorian house across the street: none other than a very PROFITABLE  (apparently, by the traffic volume) crack house.

Monday through Wednesday it was fairly quiet, but our little street literally turned into a sort of narcotics drive-thru on the weekends. Traffic (and the accompanyment of booming sub-woofers, yelling out of vehicle windows, and other boisterous misbehaving) steadily climbed Thursday evenings, peaking on Saturday night.

Oddly enough, the "players" who ran the "business" were somewhat friendly to us, letting us know that if we ever wanted to "party" they could hook us up.

Oh, but fellas, we KNEW how to "party" - and all without illegal narcotics.

Living on an already-loud corner afforded us the opportunity to host numerous parties that took over the entire flat - upstairs for dancing, restrooms, makeout session in the bedrooms, etc. Downstairs, raucous rockin' tunes provided by some local band or another, and, naturally, The Keg. Our sole disadvantage for attendance was our distance from campus, but there were enough adventurous souls, and devoted friends, who drifted to our flat to soak up the ambiance.

What took the cake was the ultra blowout houseparty we threw one balmy Saturday night during Spring quarter. The guys upstairs booked the band (a quite popular Chicago mod-rock/jazz combo of that era) and hauled a keg or two into the basement.

Since my apartment was on the first floor, my roommate and I set up an "admission" entryway - a buck or two per person, to offset our costs...we made over $300 and stopped collecting money after a few hours...so you can imagine the scope of this insane venture. We also went all out and set up a DJ booth - a vintage red crushed-velvet u-shaped bar on wheels  - that we rolled into the corner to collect/protect our stereo system. We plopped an old tv on top of the bar and for weeks ahead of the gig, taped various MTV clips, monster truck races, kitschy 60's movies from late night cable...all to provide a "nightclub" atmosphere for our shindig.

Our friend, Mitch, behind the ultra-fabulous bar-on-wheels

We arranged furniture to reveal a generous dance floor in our dining room, and strung up colored Christmas lights around the ceiling.

My roomate, an art major, put together the most fantastic party fliers, and made it her mission to roam the halls of the library and campus coffeehouses handing out these amusing yet informative papers to friends and otherwise "interesting" characters.



I donned my favorite black minidress and best wig, helped roommate with her false eyelashes, and then prepared for an eventful night. Since neither of us cared for beer, we supplied our own private beverage stash: a 40-ouncer of Olde English 800 for her, a sports-type bottle of diet pepsi and Jim Beam for me. The thought of these now nauseate me, not just for their putrid flavors and effects on the body, but for their utter un-glamness, as contrasted to our fabulous thrift store ensembles.

Every school  - high school, college, whatever - has its "cool" clique. In our case, there were two senior guys who, although they didn't know it, were worshipped from afar by the likes of the roommate, "B." and myself. Not that we wanted to DATE them - we just thought they were soooooo COOOOOOOOOL. "Steve" and "J.P." were their names. They were both film (or similarly less-than-employable) majors and both looked as if they had emigrated to Evanston via 1990-grunge-era Seattle. Long hair, torn jeans, the "right" flannel...the works.

B. somehow passed along a party flier to a friend of a friend of one of the above-named "cool" dudes...and so we hoped, against all odds, that these campus grunge-gods would grace our humble home with their presence on that fateful April night.

Once readied in terms of hair, makeup, furniture arrangement, and coctail concocting, B and I tuned our stereo to the now-defunct stylings of WJJD-AM: the premiere easy-listening station in Chicagoland. Think Uptempo = Perry Como; Mellow = Mel Torme. That and the velvet bar made for a swanky lounge vibe in the empty apartment. We planned to crank up the Monster Truck videos and dance music once the crowds assembled.

We expected the doorbell to begin ringing at ten. At 9:30 we still hadn't turned down the lights and were surprised by our first - and quite early - visitors. We went to the door to find none other than "Steve" and "J.P.". I don't even remember saying "hi" or "hey" or anything. I think one of us stunned lasses muttered something about beer in the basement and "welcome to our home."

I recall our upstairs flatmates (thankfully) taking the helm and whisking the dudes toward the keg, giving B and I time to scuttle into my bedroom, grab each others hands and half-screech, half-whisper, "OH MY GOD!" "WE ARE SOOOOOOO VALIDATED!" You would have thought, at that moment, that Duran Duran (for us 80's chicks) or P. Diddy (for all you kids out there) had shown up.

Even more enthralling was the admiration the the gods of cool bestowed upon our little party setup. They complimented everything ranging from the lounge tunes to the decor. And with that we were on our way to one WILD night.

Due to the combination of great weather, downtime in exam schedules, and the existing near-rabid fanbase of the band playing our gig, we had literally hundreds of late-teen/early-20-somethings swarming over the flat, into the basment, and flowing into our backyard.

Sometime around 1 a.m. or so I went into the basement to check on Keg reserves, only to find my neighbors - the Drug Dealers - pumping out some plastic cups worth of Michelob.

"Damn, you girls are CRAZY!" was the hearty compliment offered by Neighbor/Pusherman A.

Meanwhile Pusherman B was preoccupied with the view of the backside of an unknown sorority girl.

Damn, we WERE crazy!



At some point, I was so pleased with the turnout, the awesome dancing in the dining room and the general satisfaction of our guests, that I began hitting that Jim Beam mixture a bit more heavily than was customary for me. Yadda yadda yadda...the next morning we had a handsome and shirtless drummer from a different local band on our couch. After some initial questioning we realized that  both B and I had hooked up with him in one capacity or another THAT NIGHT! Luckily she and I laughed our arses off about it, and so he was able to move from sheepish explanation of the evening to nervously chuckling along with us.

After the departure of all guests, the cleanup began...never before has a backyard been littered with more MD20/20 flasks, empty cups, or fond memories.

I have deciphered one bit of oddity from last night's dreamscape, and it will be neither comprehensible nor amusing to anyone outside of the WGN-Channel 9 viewing area.

I am a big fan of the sophmoric, self-depricating, occasionally edgy (for morning tv, at least) WGN Morning News.

Substitute the perfectly coifed Mike Barz for Vince Vaughn and buzz-cut Paul Konrad for Will Ferrell (see entry below). Now THAT is more accurate and/or applicable to my sentiments. (Note on links: awfully airbrushed and way-too-toothy pics for all personalities but they were all I could find. Tune in to WGN/WGN Superstation to see them live in action.)

What do I mean? That I find the affable, slightly pudgy, occasionally awkward, frequently sweet and kind albeit with an undertone of dark mystery of (Emmy-award-winning) meterologist Paul to the over-the-top yet undeniable sexiness (in a frat guy sort of way) of Mike - who, if you have never seen him, will soon be a features reporter on Good Morning America. That Mike is the kind of guy who is so handsome and slick, its intimidating to me. Larry and Paul....mmmmmmmm, now those guys seem to be more in my league for fun fantasy flirtation.

But what's up with the basements? I think wet cement smells sexy, perhaps? Or that I am pining for the days of student apartment house parties with the keg and band usually located in the BASEMENT? Well, let's face it - if you wanted to be where the boys were, you'd hang where the keg was - and that was almost always in the cellar. I ALWAYS wanted to be where the boys were back in the days...even though I hated the smell and taste of beer.

So now you know.

Here's another what-you-eat-and-watch-on-tv-is-what-you-dream scenario from last night:

Dinner/snack: Homemade nachos with guacamole, adobo salsa, diet lemon-lime soda (generic store brand, natch.)

Before Bed Viewing: Foreign Correspondent (Alfred Hitchcock comedic thriller, 1940), The Venture Brothers, Cartoon Network.

Dream: Attending a teenage/college-age house party and making out with a shy but adorable Will Ferrell  ("Stay Cool!") in a basement laundry room while dodging the wrath of two "bad girl" toughs out to beat me up as well as avoiding the slick antics of someone resembling the ever-so-"money" Vince Vaughn.

Persistent Theme: Making out in dank basements with older guys...(see previous entry). I've never heard of a laundry-room fetish but I guess there's a first time for everything...

...or you will end up having wierd dreams like I had last night.

I dreamt that I was back in my post-teen, college radio-dj-ing, clubhopping days and somehow met and hooked up with Lee Ranaldo at a seedy basement punk gig. We made out in the corner of the room. Then I ended up moving into a loft apartment with him.

Eeeewwwww! Why couldn't I dream about a cute and unpretentious alt-rocker?!?!?!?!

I've been thinking about posting some personal stories for awhile but I just haven't been "up to it" so to speak.

A few weeks back, after I had my mammogram, I briefly noted that my dad had to have a prostate biopsy due to elevated PSA levels at his annual physical. After some research he and the rest of the family had positive outlook as the odds were in his favor: 75% of men his age with similar PSA levels have no cancer at all. Unfortunately he got dealt the bad odds and found out from the biopsy results that he has prostate cancer. 

Since he is young (only 58) it is recommended that he have a radical prostatectomy - which is hard to pronounce and spell, but even more diffcult to go through and recover from. It is a 2-hour operation where, well, I'll spare the gory details but there is slicing and dicing of necessary body parts to remove the gland and then hopefully successful re-attachment of these severed parts. It is a 4-6 week recovery. He is lucky in some respects in that he has gotten control of his weight, blood pressure and glucose levels over the past few months. From a financial standpoint he is able to take short-term disability as well as stay in touch with his team by working from home a bit as he is able.

I've been swamped with various chores, projects, appointments...as well as babysitting duty for our new kitten, "Percy". We got him on Monday afternoon and I've had few sleep-filled night since! He appears to be long-haired and although his eyes are blue-gray now, I would not be surprised if they change to green.

I will likely be very busy for the next two weeks with more appointments, out-of-town visitors, and continuing babycare. He is barely 6 weeks old but is doing well on his food and the "kitten glop" I made to give him that extra nutrition boost. (A sort of pudding made from yogurt, evaporated milk, egg, and gelatin.) He's doing great with his litter box but is sort of pestering our dog and "senior citizen" cat, Buster, so I have to really keep an eye on him as they are tolerant of him but I'd hate to see him push the envelope too much with his antics!

We explained to my curious daughter that "Aunt Patsy" (the lady who died) was creamated as she was asking why we didn't attend a ceremony after Mass to "put her body in the ground."

Today during the funeral mass for hubby's Aunt, my mind wandered a bit during the eulogy, given by one of her sons.

So...