Oh, hot damn, I really still do know the password to this blog. I'M THE SMARTEST PERSON ALIVE! I don't know about you but find it hilarious that Blogger still exists. If I knew how to fix this page so it didn't look so wonky, I would. Maybe I'd even start writing again. I kinda miss it.

Inhale.

Exhale. :: wheeze ::

Inhale.

Exhale. :: wheeze ::

So, I have pneumonia. After 5 days of hacking, coughing up nothing, gagging, and having difficulties breathing, my boss begged me to go find a doctor. Literally.



I guess it was the 7th exclamation point that drove me over the edge to finally go get checked out.

I got a new job the end of June and have been non-stop working, traveling (mainly for work) a lot lately, and overall just had a pretty stressful summer. And God forbid I actually stay home and do nothing on a weekend, so I guess my body finally told me, "Fuck you." Matt's out of town right now, and since I'm stuck on a couch all weekend, I figure this would be a good opportunity to catch up on my correspondence.

So some major good new news is that Matt sold his condo and he and his dog, Zoe, will be moving into my place next month!!! We currently have a 45 min. commute every time we want to see each other, so needless to say our quality of life all around will be a lot better. No one told me that one of the benefits of moving in together is that I would be getting better cable? And Matt's cleaning lady said she'll make the drive to clean my place now. And my dad sent me an article entitled, "5 financial rules for shackin' up," so I think I got his as much his full support as his Catholic heart could give me. And I'll take it.

Movin' in self portrait!

Back from Europe, but heading to the equally exotic Milwaukee this weekend for my 10-year college reunion. Fuck, I'm old. I remember sitting on my front stoop right around the time I graduated from college, thinking about what my life would be like in 10 years. So the fact that it's finally here and thinking about everything that's happened over the past 10 years is kinda making me want to vomit.

Here we go!

What I did on my blog vacation. My blogcation. That big ass gap in time.

I met a really nice guy Matt on my 31st birthday at Deliah's in Chicago. He's not much of a smiler in photos; and his lips do that thing where they are all naturally frowny, but trust me, he's a nice dude. Don't I have awesome "sex hair" in this photo? Yeah, too bad we were just at the park. No, we didn't do it hobo-style in the park, this is just how my hair is on windy days.



Hobo-style.

As the story goes, I was sitting by myself in a booth at Delilah's waiting for my friends to arrive, drinking a gin and tonic. He was also at Delilah's for his friend's birthday. He knew our mutual friend, Will, was also going to there for my birthday, but didn't know who I was. He said he noticed me wearing this red dress and thought, "I bet that's Will's friend." Eventually, we were introduced, he got my number and we've been dating ever since. Of course, I'm simplifying it about 1000 times, but that's the general gist of it.

In October, Matt actually fell off of a 12' ladder at work and broke his back. He broke his motherfucking back! He was supposed to come over to my house for dinner that night when it happened. I get an instant message at work saying, "Megs, I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm going to make it tonight. I'm in the hospital." Yeah. I called him and he hadn't been administered any drugs yet, so when I heard his voice all wavery...I just lost it. It happened Oct. 15, 2008 and by Feb. 9th, 2009, he was finally cleared to go back to work. He just went in for his final doctor's appointment yesterday, and he's received a total clean bill of health. He's the luckiest/unluckiest son of a bitch that I know. Could of been much worse. Feel incredibly lucky it wasn't.

And then there was this amazing night.



















Seems silly to talk about, but the weather that night was an abnormally warm -- 70s in November. It felt like it was just meant to be. You could just feel the excitement in the air. Everyone was in a good mood and were so, so nice to one another. The only way I could tangibly describe the feeling of being there was similar to going to a major outdoor concert, with about 10 times the amount of people, and everyone is there to cheer on the same band you want to see. An unforgettable night, and I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

In Feb. 2009, I went to Vegas with my girls for a fake annual conference we call "WangCon." All those conferences have stupid names like, "NeoCon" and "ComicCon" so you can use your imagination what nine girls in Vegas were 'meeting' about. Heh. These are the photos you are allowed to see.



Oh, and coincidentally, my friend, Tina married her fiance, Tom, while I was in Vegas. I was asked to be a witness since I was going to be there already. It's not a trip to Vegas unless you get to see Elvis marry someone.



This was our view from our room at the Wynn. Schmancy!



This is my friend, Sarita. Organizer extraordinaire of the WangCon. They're doing a cruise this summer, which I'm sad to say I have to miss out on.



So, as you can see, Wally is still fat and a total pookie.





It wouldn't be a Megan-blog if there wasn't at least one cat photo, so you're just going to have to deal. I gotta admit, when he sits like this, it kinda freaks me out and cracks me up at the same time.

And because I'm getting sick of posting photos, I'm going to wrap this up now. Finally! I'm gonna end this post with one of the most recent photos of me at Matt's sister's wedding.



I had huge awesome country club hair that day. See, you really didn't miss that much as apparently I've just been concerned about what type of hair I have that day.

New adventures to come.

It's Election Day! Finally!

I feel like I've been waiting for this day literally since 2004 when I first heard of Barack Obama and voted him in as my Senator. I feel very lucky to live in the Chicago area and get to witness everything first hand -- many friends have said they wished they could be here today. I know it's a historic day, so I'm just trying to soak everything in - what people are saying, what shirts and pins they are wearing, where they plan on being tonight. Even down to what the sky looks like and how lucky we are to have unseasonably high temps today in the 70s.

I've made plans with a friend and co-worker of mine, Lori, to head over to Grant Park tonight to try and witness it all go down. It's going to be a pretty wild night. I'm just hoping it turns out to be one giant party in the streets and hoping some Neo-Conservative Republican jack-ass who thinks Obama is the anti-Christ doesn't go AWOL and ruin it all.

Work is letting us out at 3 PM today and I'm planning on booking it out of here and heading over to Millenium Park/Grant Park to see how many people are down there and to see if we can grab a few beers before heading into the park. It's somewhat strange to be mere hours away from knowing what the outcome is going to be. Right now, everyone around me has really high hopes and we don't really foresee Obama losing this. Let's just hope our intuition is right.

Photos to come. So exciting!!

Today, I reflect on a post that I wrote (quickly) in 2004.

Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Congrats to Barack Obama for blowing away crazy religious fanatic Alan Keyes for race to the Illinois US Senate. I'll see you again in '08 when you become the first black U.S. President. I felt lucky I even had the opportunity to vote you in today. You are amazing.
Posted by Megan at 9:22 PM · Comment (0)


I will admit, I cried like a baby last night watching his bio video and during his speech last night.

Ok, so I'm sitting here watching female diving and I swear that little 15-year-old Chinese diver, Wang Xin's, leg is about the size of my arm. Of course she won't make a splash! It's hard to do when you weigh about 45 lbs. Somebody get this girl another cup of rice, please.

This weekend, the guy that I'm dating, Matt, and I are heading to Michigan to hang out for my friend, Kat's birthday. I'm really looking forward to seeing her again and for Matt to meet her. It'll be our first trip together, too, which is exciting and fun. Yes, Matt is someone new and is pretty much the nicest guy ever. He's the kind of guy that you would be really happy to know that I'm dating - funny, super nice to me, and is just a solid guy. I could go on, but that would be gushing and then one of you will just yell at me to 'Get a room!' and I'll be all 'Quiet, you.'

So, since I haven't done much writing, I will give a quick recap as to what I've done this summer in list form.

1. I finally met Mimi Smartypants. We sort of bumped into each other, actually, but I saw her read at the Hideout's "Funny Ha Ha" show which featured a bunch of super witty Chicago women writers (and one from Brooklyn). Very entertaining - lots of great talent in one room.

2. I spent 2 days at Lollapalooza. On Friday, my friend and I got free VIP tickets into the Metromix party at the Hard Rock Hotel which I HIGHLY recommend. It featured free drinks, food, haircuts, make-up applications, massages, swag, tattoos!! (no, I did not get one) and access to a lot of bands. I met Mark Ronson's bandmates who were very drunk, but very amusing. Chicago was their last stop of the tour and a few of them said how much they loved our city, which was nice to hear. Because of all the free drinks I was seriously hurting all day on Saturday and by Sunday, I was sick of the heat and decided I'm too old to do that shit again. I figured I had a good run considering most of my friends quit doing this stuff about 5 years ago. I'm 31 and I'm out. Peace, fuckers.

3. I can't believe it's almost Labor Day and the fact that I'm reflecting back on my summer, but the rest of my summer was basically spent hanging out with friends, having a few beers, golfing with my parents in Lake Geneva, WI, watching live music, trying new cooking classes, and spending time with Matt. Oh, and I saw 'The Dark Knight' like the rest of you, and yes, I thought it was amazing. Gotham Hospital was a building located along the Green Line and I would see it every day on my way to work. I remember when they blew that building up. It was done at night and it amazed me that they could make it look like it was the middle of the afternoon in the movie. Screw Heath Ledger, someone give the special effects team an Oscar.

What's been going on with you guys?