Life Tilt.

My dear boyfriend recently received an e-mail that, after ten years of waiting, notified him that he was in a position to purchase season tickets for the underachieving Chicago Cubs organization.  I have consoled this individual multiple times in the last few years as Chi-town's lovable losers crushed his dreams.  His response back to the ticket office is below.  Please note that, typically, his grammar is awful and his misspellings are blatant and numerous.  Somehow through his fury he was able to conjure the letter below.

Enjoy.

Hello MELISSA,

WOW!  This may be the best day in my life...NOT.  I wipe my $^& with $4058.88 and I WILL NEVER EVER BUY A TICKET FROM THE CUBS EVER AGAIN.  They break my heart every year and run their team and organization like a pile of #&@*.  I wish I could cuss at you but I am a striving real estate mogul and that could hurt my rep.  Let Mr. Ricketts know I am coming after his greedy $*# and if we don’t win a world series under his ownership his #*$ is on the line.  Yeah its fun drinking with friends and heckling SORRYANOS sorry LAZY @#! out there but that has nothing to do with this.  The CUBS are the worst sports organization ever...if you do not agree please let me know when the last time they won the entire freckin thing and provide a valid argument.

I do however love the Cubs and will live and die with them my entire life because just like Herpes it comes back at least once a year and freckin stings you (I wouldn’t really know but I took health class) and you can’t get it out of your system no matter what.  This blows man.

In conclusion the CUBS can suck it if they think I am giving them money.  I will however most likely attend 20-30 games this year, pay $10 for a ticket off some homeless bum that lives at the FRECKIN FRIENDLY CONFINES (friendly for all other teams) and drinks lots of beer just so the Cubs can overpay for players who blow nut sack.  Please forward this to Mr. Ricketts as I am sure you will.  If he wants to have lunch I will buy him a $5 foot long on Addison have him call my assistant at 866-436-5713 (CALL NOW).  I charge $450 an hour for my time but I will give him a discount of 10% because I am a nice dude.  He would be lucky to do business with me.  If Mr. Rickets is interested in self storage facilities let me know cause I got a couple I could sell to him.  I heard he over pays for underperforming businesses and makes terrible investments.

For the record I am a die-hard Cubs fan and will love them forever.  Just wanted to pass along my deepest thoughts. 

P.S.  I am looking forward to hearing from Mr. Ricketts

The ticket office's simple response is below

 Dear Mr. Cavell,

I am sorry to hear that you are no longer interested in season tickets.  Per your request email, I will remove you from the waiting list.  Thank you for your time.

 Sincerely,

 Melissa Trinidad

Rollercoaster Kind of Life

This last week has been a roller coaster of emotions. Just professionally, personally I am fine so I've got that going for me. Good news: I got the promotion I've been waiting for, it's only been a year!  Bad news: I know I'm barely out of college but it would be wonderful if other people stopped pretending they knew what was best for me.  Particularly people in departments that rhyme...well nothing rhymes with HR so there goes that.
Sigh.

I'm attempting to keep my Lenten resolution of staying positive even when it's not easy. Breathe in, breathe out.

Say a prayer for me, this is supposed to be a happy time!

WEEEEEE

This is Why I Blog (sung to the tune of MIMS)

Growing up, I always had a diary.  It's unfortunate that most of those (and there are many) are incomplete.  My fascination with the diary was inspired by the 1964 novel, "Harriet the Spy" by Louise Fitzhugh - the worn out paperback still sits on my bookshelf.   I would start these memoirs for summer vacations and new school years alike.  Now, when I see the blank pages I wonder just what happened.  Where did I go?  How did I feel?  I must have been enjoying myself at least.  According to the scribbles and loopy lettering, an 11-year-old me enjoyed traveling around the Midwest with family, had crushes on boys who fell off the radar a a week later, and surrounded herself the best friends EVER.  I can't help but feel nostalgic, even tearful, when I see notes about being lonely after moving away from my hometown or the passing of my amazing grandparents.

When I went home for the holidays Ryan and I found a Babysitter's Club Little Sister (ladies, you know what this is) "Memory Scrapbook."  I was around seven or eight when I filled out the pages, mostly fill-in-the-black sentences containing profound statements such as:

My favorite lunch at school is good.
The school carnival was fun.
It's the last day of school!  This summer I will miss the girls.  I will not miss the boys.

So now I'm an "adult" by society standards with a grown up, 21st century version of a diary.  You're reading it.  Unlike the lock and key books of my younger years I chose to make this one public.  It's more censored and a lot more expressive.  I don't talk about my daily life or one topic and, honestly, and it has relatively no direction whatsoever.

I love it that way.

One of the amazing aspects of blogs is the sheer mass of them out there.  Some blogs probably have not been touched in years, others only center around specific moments or aspects of a person's life.  I think I started one about studying abroad, I don't really remember.  People write about new members of the family, big moves across the country and a particular hobby that they want to share with anyone willing to give them 33 seconds.  Either way, writings belong to one person and nobody else.  A writing can be shared, discarded or forgotten; either way, it always belongs to the author.

I'm simply here because I love to write.  I live in an age of mass expression but where the sheer volume of voices silences many who open their mouths.  So whoever reads this blog, thank you for supporting me doing what I love.  Plus, I hope I can make you think or laugh on occasion.  Would I write if I had zero followers and nobody cared?  Absolutely.

But I love you anyway.

Party Gras 2010.

This weekend I am partaking in what has, oddly enough, become a constant in my life: St. Louis Mardi Gras.  This will be my fifth trip in the last six years, which is fitting because I spent four fantastic years of college in the Lou.  The Mardi Gras festivities are held in Soulard, a historic neighborhood just south of downtown and in the shadow of Budweiser's world headquarters.  A city founded by French Settlers, named after a King, and sold by Naploeon to the United States defines French influence in the Midwest.  Lasting loyalties to traditions française make for a hell of a celebration; tens of thousands of patrons will hit the street in "party mode" on Saturday alone.

I made some of my best memories in the past years at this festive monstrosity.  Oh sure, the partying is fun, but Mardi Gras is one of those places where you think, "did that just happen?"  Absolutely.  It's a time for me to see those people I miss dearly and act like we have never been away from each other.  I make friends for life and if our only reunions are at drunken Lenten celebrations then so be it.

So here I share wisdom from what I have learned.

• Freshman year: Attending Mardi Gras with a large group, including people you don't even like, is a poor idea.  Cell phones don't work when thousands of people are using theirs around you so don't get lost.  Furthermore, Union Station is more than "a few blocks" away.  Try miles.
• Junior year:  No breakfast of champions is incomplete without Andre mimosas.  Later, we learned from past mistakes and found that a much longer, happier day can be accomplished with fake IDs and the discovery of a heated tent.  
• Senior year:  Cops will enjoy, and place bets, on fights in the snow between you and your boyfriend.  You will conquer.  Later, when you discover a boa constrictor on your shoulders, don't be afraid.  Snow ball fights may ensue between you, your friends, and grown men dressed like Muppets.  When you fall on the sidewalk and hit the back of your head on concrete then it's time to be afraid.  Sure, you have a concussion but you're too dizzy to recognize it and your friends are too drunk to notice.
• 2009, post-college:  No more college apartment, you got a hotel room!  Your foreigner cab driver will offer a reduced fare for certain "Mardi Gras exposure."  Sick.  Note to men: women are wearing four layers of clothing because it's 30 degrees outside so stop screaming "BOOBIES!" you ignorant jerks.  Hurricanes are cheaper off the side streets.  Eating an entire large Imo's pizza will give you a second wind.  If your friend's idiot [now ex] boyfriend finds himself in East St. Louis, let him rot.

I've lived, I've learned, I pretty much love it.  C'est la vie and here's to 2010!

2007

 

2008

 

2009

No Feminazi Ramblings for Moi!

To be frank, I rarely ever write about sexism. It's not that I don't care, I just don't care to write about it. I'm a grand believer that if something is written it should be written well, and my neo-feminism just isn't feverish enough to print.

So today I found this article this article and thought, "wow, I couldn't have said it better myself."

The internet is exploding today with stories about "Lindsey's Vonn's controversial SI cover." Oh, no! So sexist! So objectifying! So the way you tuck into position going down a mountain at 60 mph. Is the position flattering? Nah. Is the picture cheesy? Totally. Sexual? Give me a break.

As the opinion piece states

The headline reads "America's best woman skier ever", for Jean-Claude's sake! Why can't she be both the best skier in the world and really, really attractive too? Tom Brady's a great athlete and a handsome dude and I don't hear people whine when he's shirtless in GQ.

So brace yourself for another of my "because I work in print advertising moments." Yes, Sports Illustrated rarely has female athletes on the cover. Sorry ladies, but your sports just aren't that popular with the mainstream. Second, SI knows its audience is mostly men. Manly sports men. That's why the swimsuit issue sells every year except those women are in barely there bikinis. In that case, the sex is selling on purpose. Honestly, I didn't see the controversy in this cover until I read the articles. Sports Illustrated is, in my opinion, the superior of all sports magazines. It combines real news with human interest pieces and, unlike ESPN, doesn't toot its own horn at every possible moment. SI works its craft and works it well.

If you want to be dirty minded, fine. The rest of us normal people will take the picture for what it's worth, a beautiful female athlete practicing the sport she has worked for her entire career.

Things White Theresa Likes

Unfortunately for us all, Phil Punswhatthehellshisname (real name: Punxsutawney) the groundhog saw his shadow yesterday, signifying six more weeks of grueling winter. I was talking to a friend about it yesterday and made the observation that Groundhog Day is something "white people like."

To clarify, this theory was first brought to my attention by the discovery of stuffwhitepeoplelike.com.  It is decidely created around the middle class, happy-go-lucky Caucasian.  Hilarious and fulfilling, the page makes you [assuming you, reader, are white for simplification] think things like, "you're right, I do love wearing my North Face jacket while shopping at Whole Foods!"  If you, reader, are not white than please read and gain material to make fun of your stereotypical white friend.  I encourage it.  Still can't decide if this site spits truth?  Check out the full list of stuff and you'll figure it out.

As a white person of 24 nearly years, it is fair for me to make assumptions about my cracker brethren as well.  I live on the Near North side of Chicago surrounded by the masses.  The area is full of 20-somethings who occupy sports bars on weekends to cheer on their Big 10 Alma Mater in Division I athletics.  Later, they discover new cultures by eating at that ethnic restaurant "like totally recommended to me by a co-worker who loooooves Ethiopian food!  Or maybe it's Indian?"  Still others wear skinny jeans, bitch about conformist music invading Lolla, and bike to Wicker Park to check out a new hookah bar.

Truth be told, I don't find myself in any cookie cutter stereotype.  Oh sure, I'm a Midwest girl who loves burger specials and light beer (especially during baseball!) but I'm also passionate about finally filling my passport or buying a new pencil skirt to up my professional edge.

On second thought, I just confirmed a few things about me.  I happen to love the Onion (#109), my grey New Balance kicks (#96) and living by the water (#51).

I need a new defense.