It's 5 am, do you know why I'm up, blogging before the sun?

I certainly don't.

Good morning.

It's 16 degrees, it's dark, it's January, I'm up way too early, I'm going to be unemployed in 72 hours and yet. . . I couldn't be happier.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt died last night

Well in the book I was reading, he did. And I cried my liberal eyes out. I'm even kind of bummed today thinking about it. How weird is that?

Did you know he was with his goomad when he died? Not in a sexual way, just hanging out while an artist was working on his portrait. Enjoying a relaxing spring afternoon in his Georgia vacation home, He tells everyone they have 15 minutes left until lunch, and then grimaces with pain. He collapses (from a cerebral hemmorage) the goomad gets the doctor and then she and the artist friend have to high tail it out of there because Eleanor was on the way.

Anyway, I've always loved history, something I attribute in part to my grandmother. She adored history and documentaries and was an excellent story teller herself. She kept this trunk filled with her notebooks and old photographs, many of which I have now. I've posted a blurry picture of her, my grandfather, and Aunt Kate--circa the Roosevelt era, probably 1943 or 1944. You can't tell how happy she is in this picture because I don't have a scanner. My grandfather bailed very early in the marriage, and not one to consider age-appropriate stories for her grandkids, Grandma Marilyn said she never really loved him anyway. The guy she wanted, she told me, died in the Pacific, fighting World War II.

But somehow I always thought she was lying, that this dude you kind of see here was the one who broke her heart beyond repair.

Hogwash? Hogwash?

Why you gotta say such dumb crap all the time, Mr. Vice President? I got your hogwash right here:

The world is much safer today because of (the war)," Cheney said. "There have been three national elections in Iraq. There's a democracy established there, a constitution, a new democratically elected government. "Saddam has been brought to justice and executed, his sons are dead, his government is gone. And the world is better off for it," he said.

You are seriously killing me, dude.

Thank you Lloyd Dobbler

I'm meeting with a recruiter tomorrow and I think I've found the perfect career objective. Read below.

"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or... process anything sold, bought or processed, or repair anything sold, bought or processed, you know, as a career I don't want to do that"

He's totally thinking about me in this picture

My boyfriend, Patrick Fitzgerald, is already ROCKING HOUSE in the Liddy trial.

He's got something up his sleeve, this guy. I'm telling you. And I'm firing up this blog again for the duration of the trial. I'm blogging for love, friends.

Chicago Bears Super Bowl Shuffle

Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX Shuffle 1985. SHARE INTERNET VIDEOS With Your Friends And Make money. Details @ http://www.thevideosense.com/user/vids/

And She's Off!

Ok, so now that it's happened I guess I am a tiny weeny bit excited about a Hillary Clinton candidacy. Maybe it's all this reading I've been doing about FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, a woman who's so completely my idol now. (sorry Ugly Betty)

I just loathe the name Hillary.

Seriously. Hillary? President Hillary? A Hillary can't be President.

Would it turn off the electorate if she changed her name to something like Golda or Margaret or Geraldine? I'm not hating on her because she's a woman and I'm projecting some sort of self loathing on a sister. If there was a Ned, or a Carl, a Donald, a Reginald, hell, I'd be bitching about that as well.

And does anyone else think it was kind of corny that she announced on her Web site instead of a press conference. Like, isn't she so with it in this age of blogs and U Tube or whatever.

Lame and transparent, I say. Web casts and live chats doesn't change the fact that she and her pals voted for the war in the first place.

But it is kind of cool to see her running just the same.

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and the Virgin Mary hanging out in my Chia Herb Garden

I've bottomed out

Is there a 12-step program for people addicted to celebrity gossip? I hit rock bottom last night watching the Hollywood Insider, when it hit me that I, an educated, fairly happening 34-year-old, just rushed in from her kitchen to catch Kathie Lee singing a duet with Barry Manilow.

I've gotta quit, but how?

I've made some headway recently. In my effort to live off the land when my period of self-induced unemployment begins, I haven't purchased a single delicious copy of In Touch. I'm also heavy into Netflix, feeling really smart as I've been stacking up indies in my queue. I've even remembered that I've got a stack of unread books, and am actually enjoying an FDR biography.

But of course I'm finding the best parts to be about FDR's lady friends, and the lesbian AP writer who was all about Eleanor. The stuff about FDR getting America ready to face down Hitler, well that's just what you have to get through to get to the good parts.

And now that we're on the subject, did you know that there was a shipload of Jewish refugees who escaped Europe but ended up having to return, because no country (America included) wouldn't accept them? What a bunch of fucking jerks, we were.

In that I don't feel like working and decided to update my blog

Alright.

So if I was a lesbian, I'd hit this. She's effin hot and she's been on my "If I was a lesbian list," since day fucking one. J-Lo was on the list, circa Selena, but quickly fell off.

All my friends have such a list. Several years ago while we were sitting on the steps of a New Orleans police station, waiting for a tour guide, we shared our lists. Names like Charlize Theron, Jennifer Aniston, and Angie Everhart popped up.

Ladies, do you have such a list?

We're only at fucking Maywood?

When your commute causes you to want to tear at your own flesh, it's time to consider a new gig.

To that end, I have exactly 14 days left of my city to suburbs CTA/Metra jaunt from hell as I have quit my job. And, I hope you all are sitting down, because I don't have another one lined up.

Oh, the humanity!

Here's what happened. The week before Christmas I struggled as usual to make the train and one morning after pleading (in my head) with the 60 Blue Island bus driver to "DRIVE FASTER, SIR, OH PLEASE DRIVE FASTER!" I got to the platform just as the fucking train was pulling out. A familiar scene to me over the past 8 months.

I called my coworker who was on the train.

"I'm watching you pull away now. I need to be convinced to stay and wait for the 8:40," I told her.

"I'll send someone back for you Angie! Stay! Ahhgghh!" she said dramatically as if I was a soldier left behind enemy lines.

"Alright. Fuck." With my head down, I shuffled out onto the concourse, seriously on the verge of tears, which is about as ridiculous as it gets. So instead of grabbing coffee or a paper, my legs carried me out onto Madison St., and back on the bus that would take me home. I was done. The next day I went into work, gave my bosses six week's notice and we had a very amicable breakup. Of course, I told them that I'm totally open to break up sex after I leave. . .

Anyway, so now I'm looking for a new job and I need your help. What I'm looking for is a series of paying fantasy camps where you hold like 20 different jobs during the week. Maybe one day, I get to be a producer on Frontline. Then for a couple of hours I get to be an inspiring teacher that completely turns around the lives of street toughs with a lecture on the Gettysburg Address. I'd like to be a talk show host too for a spell. Hmmm. What else. A campaign advisor, a newspaper columnist, a screenwriter, a bartender, a chef, an antique dealer, a physicist, an NBA wife, Vince Vaughn's personal assistant, the host of Jeopardy, like all in one week. Anyway, if you see anything like this on Monster.com, please forward it to me. Otherwise, unfortunately, I'm going to have to go on interviews and pretend to care about things like "branding" and ROI.

I'm a dreamer who knows she lives in the real world. My needs are simple. I told my coworker and train pal that I'd seriously blow someone for a short commute, an hour lunch, and casual Fridays.

And I'm not kidding.

Well not entirely anyway. Some career objective, eh?

Oh, Canada!

Here are a few new friends we met last weekend while ringing in 2007 in Toronto.

This is Bruce, the Canadian who could become his country's minister of inebriation given his fabulous entertaining style. While I was outside smoking on New Year's Eve during our Toronto drinking vacation, this gentleman with the noise makers sprouting out of each ear, walked up to Red and Rusty and said:

"Ladies back in the day, you would NOT have had a chance." We loved Bruce. Bruce loved us. Well, he pretty much just loved Red as evidenced by his attempt to slip her the proverbial tongue at midnight.

Bruce, you had us at hello.

Meet the Canadian pint. It's a two hander, I tell ya. And if you drink too many, causing your voice to raise an octave or twenty, do not be surprised if you are scolded by the bartender in this land of liquor control and sky high booze taxes. I say if you're gonna serve us beers the size of my apartment, then it might get ugly. And besides, we were on a drinking vacation. A new genre of travel, I think.

This is Alka Seltzer's Morning Relief, my new best friend and one of the most important drugs on the market today if you ask me. Our first night in Toronto--rather rough even by our standards--would have kept most in their hotel beds. But I got up early, force fed this little miracle worker to Red and Rusty and we were on our way to find breakfast and bloody marys.

I'm sure I got everyone super excited with this post with tales of an impending New Year's road trip. We were going to take Red's SUV and drive from Chicago to find out exactly what's going on in that giant land mass to the North, and no I'm not talking about Wisconsin. But instead, the flights to Toronto came down a bit, and we remembered that the drive home may not be much fun so we ended up flying. I'm just glad I'm a procrastinator and never ended up burning 8 hours of songs. And I am a little pissed about spending .99 on iTunes for the Canadian National Anthem.

Anyway, we got there the day before New Year's Eve and stayed near Toronto's version of Time Square, a spot later a local would tell us is a little on the rough side, but it was close to everything and we were able to walk to most of our destinations. This guy said next time we should consider staying where we wouldn't get shot, which is complete bullshit because everyone knows there's no gun violence in Canada.

Back to the fun stuff. We had a lovely meal at a steakhouse, and after dinner, we went to a pub where we met the aforementioned ENORMOUS Hoeggardens and three very nice Canadian guys, who plied us with more liquor and even more importantly laughed at my jokes and Red and Rusty's antics. Sure, the bartender wasn't laughing, but I think she secretly thought we were awesome. Perhaps, deep down, she wished she too could be a loud, binge drinking, Bush-bashing, corn-fed American girl.

Or perhaps not.

Because they were in fact, born in a barn, Red and Rusty kept running outside to smoke and made new friends with each Marlboro Menthol Light. Dick and Ian, two Englishmen who looked and acted like they had been drinking since birth, stuck around solely I think, to get Rusty riled up. Ian told Rusty to chill out, or maybe it was Dick, because one or both of them had just been thrown out the week prior. When the bartender threatened to put Rusty in a timeout, we left with our five boyfriends from England and Canada for a Russian bar.

Of course everyone was well behaved at Pravda given the pictures of Stalin and Lenin staring at us from the walls and a mysterious deep freeze large enough to fit a body or two sitting in the hallway. At closing time we bid farewell to Dick and Ian and the Canadians got us back to our hotel safely so we could rest up for Day Two.

I had found a bar on the internet and made us reservations as a back up for New Year's Eve. It was quiet at first and with the owner's children running around and the rain coming down outside kind of locking us in, I got a little worried. But it turned out to be a blast. The bar, very similiar to a bar in Chicago's Greektown that we frequent, was filled with all locals who were very happy to ring in 2007 with their "American cousins" as one kept calling us. A strange kid whose girlfriend was more than twice his age, drafted us at midnight to set off fireworks with him--The Thunder King--at midnight.

Thanks for the great time Canada and trying not to overserve us. And sorry for being loud. We'll remember next time, inside voice.

Inside voice.