...In which our heroine is kind of a big deal.

Over the summer, we found out at CCAP we'd won a $1 million grant over the next four years to provide technology programs in some of our community schools. Because we've had $600,000 cut from our budget this year, the grant was a huge boon for us, and provided lots of happiness in the office after ten people were laid off.

In addition to this bit of good news, we also got, and I quote, a major award: the 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, presented to us by Michelle Obama. Our executive director David, Herzl Elementary resource coordinator Rachel, and head of community schools April were in DC to accept it, as well as one of our students.

It was, I believe, our sixth year applying for the award, and we were picked as one of only 15 recipients. We watched the live stream this morning, complete with fist pump from the First Lady when our name was announced, and celebrated with cupcakes.

The Chicago Tribune wrote about us. The first lady gave us a plaque. We're kind of a big deal.

UPDATE: Now with photos!

Of all the great things Columbia and Chicago have given me, I think my work with CCAP might just be the greatest.

PS - I'm dying for not being at the five-night, discography spanning My Morning Jacket shows at Terminal 5 in New York this week. DYINGGG. They dressed Pooch in a leisure suit for chrissakes!

...In which our heroine celebrates a milestone.

It's my 250th post. I should have something profound to say. I do not. Instead, here are eleven of my favorite scenes from my eleven favorite films.

Almost Famous - Cameron Crowe, 2000


The Sweet Hereafter - Atom Egoyan, 1997


Blade Runner - Ridley Scott, 1982


Blue Velvet - David Lynch, 1986


A Woman Under the Influence - John Cassavetes, 1974


Boogie Nights - Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997


Leon - Luc Besson, 1994


Lost in Translation - Sofia Coppola, 2003


True Romance - Tony Scott, 1993


The Big Lebowski - The Coen Brothers, 1998


Evil Dead II - Sam Raimi, 1987

...In which our heroine has only one thing.

COULD THIS LOOK ANY FUCKING BETTER? I MEAN, REALLY.

...In which our heroine provides the necessary updates.

See, I told you updates would be sporadic. If you could see the mountain of laundry in my closet, you would understand these things. While I LOVE my apartment, the hour and a half total it takes me commuting every day really does make me have to plan my time much more effectively. But I have an hour before I have to leave for yoga, so let's play ketchup.

Speaking of the devil, yoga is the best thing I've taken up in a while. Every part of my body feels better, especially my brain. It's affecting how I sit, how I stand, how I sleep. At points during the week my joints will pop or I'll feel a muscle I didn't know existed, and it's wonderful. I can even buy into some of the spiritual aspects of it. WHO AM I? A baby hippie. My teacher Nadine is really awesome, and makes things really approachable and works with everyone on their specific body needs. The coolest thing I can do so far is stand with my feet spread, then bend at the waist and touch my head to the floor. The next part of that pose? Standing on your head.

I'm pretty happy with all of my other classes, actually all of them except my television class, but I get to spend the semester on a term paper about Twin Peaks so it isn't all bad. Adaptation is incredibly laid back and my professor is a legit filmmaker. I'm finally working on my teenage girl sex comedy, called Mantises for the moment, in Screen Treatment & Presentation, in which my ten minute pitch went well this week. I have this terrible ability to be able to just fucking wing it when I pitch and still sound good, which is not smart. Preparation, not perspiration. Peace Studies is like story time, only the stories are about the fundamental human questions in yourself. No big deal.

Our hot and hilarious neighbor Logan moved out this week but he left us some great stuff. We now have 5 more chairs including every stoner's delight, a mushroom chair, a big area rug for the living room, a new DVD cart, the cinema tour de force Hollywood Hineys 19 on VHS (!), and five bottles of the finest alcohol that can be bought for eight dollars. All three of us totally had a crush on him, and there are some gross DePaul girls moving in, so I'm sad. Their first question to us was "So do guys like, have like, sick parties here?" Barf.

And there's a new boy, but with complications. Will is my friend Steve's roommate: 23, film major graduating in January, from the suburbs, working on Ride Along which will be on Fox this winter. I like him - he's charming and very kind, not an asshole, not a drunk or a degenerate drug addict. Cool, great. But the boy is shy. Painfully shy. He drove me home Thursday night, and since we've been flirty for a while, I asked him out. To this, he pulled his baseball hat over his eyes and said only, "yeah, sure," then left like a bat out of hell. It isn't that he's not interested, Steve took care of that question mark for me, but he has no idea how to deal with a real, live female like most of his film school brethren. We've been doing a month or so of flirtation, and I'm impatient. Will graduates in January and is moving back to the 'burbs, so it begs the question if its even worth my time at all - I really don't see him magically developing social skills during this week, so if I have to be the aggressive one, should I even pursue something that'd be over in three months? All of this just further proves my theory I need to fulfill Beth Harding's prophecy and date someone older. Someone who has their shit together and has maybe touched boobs or gone on a date in their lifetime. I feel like a terrible person, but I can only be so forward.

I only have two full books to read before Wednesday, awesome! All of my cool pop cultural finds now live on tumblr, so pardon the lack of them on here. This is ramble-only space now. But it's OCTOBER, meaning fall, meaning my absolute favorite time of year. Music Box Massacre 6 - 24 hours of horror movies at the uber-cool Music Box Theatre - is next weekend, but I'm just content to watch all the cheeseball shit on AMC, TCM, and the local channels. Did I mention SIX WEEKS from tomorrow I will be TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE? Festivities are already being planned. Halloween is looking like Hit Girl from Kick-Ass. I always miss being at home during this time of year - fall does something to me that brings all of these new exciting possibilities to the surface for me. And I really fucking love Halloween. And my birthday. And cardigans. And pumpkin-things, accompanied by cream cheese.

Yes, I do in fact enjoy this version of "I Put a Spell on You," and the video is footage of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which may well be the first zombie movie. Deal.

...In which our heroine crunches the numbers.

I made a last.fm account last year when Cassie came to visit for Regina Spektor. It's one year anniversary was September 19th. Let's assess some stats, shall we?

Total Number of Scrobbles:
8529

Seems like a huge number - it counts for about 23 songs each day. Commuting will certainly make this number jump in the next year, I think.

Most Played Artists:

My Morning Jacket: 724
The Beatles: 284
Radiohead: 208
Pixies: 209
Fleet Foxes: 197
Depeche Mode: 196
Led Zeppelin: 172
Kings of Leon: 157
Girl Talk: 156
Neutral Milk Hotel: 141

This is pretty accurate, I'd say. I've gotten into MMJ in a huge way over the past year, and that shows. I don't know that The Beatles and Girl Talk should really be so high on the list, as my listening of them has fallen off as of late.

Most Played Tracks:

Cry - Godley & Creme: 52
Another Night Another Dream - La Bouche: 52
Like a Virgin - Madonna: 50
White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes: 48
Nights in White Satin - The Moody Blues: 45
Rhythm is a Dancer - The Real McCoy: 45
Never Let Me Down Again - Depeche Mode: 43
Heavy Cross - The Gossip: 43
I Say a Little Prayer for You - Aretha Franklin: 41
Sex on Fire - Kings of Leon: 41
Tyrone - My Morning Jacket: 41
Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Part 2 - My Morning Jacket: 39
Do You Believe in Magic? - The Lovin' Spoonful: 38
Me & Mia - Ted Leo and the Pharmacists: 36
My Sweet Lord - George Harrison: 35

SO embarrassing to have bad 90s house music so high on the list. I'm generally more of a singles than record person, so once a song is stuck in my head, it's there for good. "Nights in White Satin" and "My Sweet Lord" will always be on my most played list.

Maybe this is boring, I dunno, but I thought it was kind of interesting, at least for my own personal sake.

...In which our heroine doesn't know what to think.

Sometimes life surprises you, like last night.

I know I'm getting to be the age where marriages and pregnancies will start to become less shocking and more commonplace, but for the moment, they remain in the shocking category.

For those of you keeping score, my closest group of friends freshman year was Emily, Bugs, Lane, and Ben. Emily dated Lane, I dated Ben, Bugs dated Evan. All of those relationships have since ended, but we've kept it cordial, admittedly, ahem, some more than others, but we're still always glad to see each other. Last night was Ben's 21st birthday, and the first time we had all been together since my birthday, nearly a year ago. Lane has a new girlfriend, Brenda, and has moved back to Aurora. I knew something was up when she politely declined her beer at beer pong: Lane's going to be a daddy.

It could be the context under which I spent most of my time with Lane (read: smoking or eating or smoking more) or the fact that he dated one of my best friends for a year, but I just can't wrap my head around it. Lane still seems so young to me - he was happy about it last night, but my perception was slightly altered by a bottle of Tanqueray. They've only been together since May and are going to be parents. Brenda, who I had met one time previously, just straight up told me.

Maybe I should be less surprised or maybe I'm just glad it isn't me (have I mentioned what a beautiful, simple invention the pill is?) but it's still blowing my mind. I know peers with kids, but Lane is definitely the closest person I know with an impending little one. So many questions: are they getting married, moving in together, finishing school? None of them are my place to ask. As Bugs said after he mentioned that he'll be a gay uncle, he concluded with "Well this will be a fun little adventure to watch unfold."

Sometimes, I think I should join a nunnery.

Also, cold Domino's pizza does not pair well with the aforementioned Tanqueray.

When the fuck did we get so grown up?

...In which our heroine is back with a vengeance, just like you knew she would be.

So I lied. I said I was killing the blog, and I thought it was dead, but I cannot stay away. Consider this Katydid in the City a zombie of a version that it once was - unpredictable, bite-y, and hungry for brains  I have too much to write about, and it's the writing that helps me process my day to day activities. I can't promise frequent updates, or even meaningful ones, but I have to have this here when I need it to be. Briefly: kept my job until next September and am now the Joan Holloway of CCAP. Started junior year, can't even think about all the work I have to do if I want to go to LA next year. Started taking yoga to calm mind and body. Have a few new script ideas.

We had to write an autobiography of ourselves for Peace Studies about where we come from, where we are, and where we are going. I took that abstraction and ran with it -

I come from a stance between two worlds – one foot rooted deeply in Catholic guilt, the other placed in the baby makin' bluegrass of Hazard, Kentucky. I come from a home where matters of chief importance are best discussed over tomatoes grown in a newspaper-covered garden, and movie quotes become the chosen vernacular. I come from the place of imagination that being an only child can create, where the characters in books and stuffed animals on the shelf speak volumes. I come from late nights spent slaving away over pages and pages written about Hamlet, lest I graduate with something less than a perfect 5.0.

I come from nights spent in basements, garages, fields, homes with out of town parents where sipping grain alcohol and smoking out of a pop can seemed oh so sophisticated, and the merits of Led Zeppelin II are discussed in the most exhaustive detail. I come from strains of Neil Young on summer nights, midnight movies on couches in the winter, and tastes of spring in well root beer, the tang of salty popcorn on lips.

I am on a couch in this, my very first big girl apartment, in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. I am wondering whether practicing the sun salutation from my very first yoga class this week should take precedent over the three hundred or so pages of reading I have to do. I am still feeling very something about sleeping with my ex-boyfriend this weekend - I care for him deeply still, as much as I don't want to admit it. I am feeling even more guilty that he has taken up residence in my thoughts, despite the fact that I met a perfectly nice, driven boy who should be there instead. I'm still wondering if when I woke in the dawn to him kissing my cheek he actually whispered “I really miss you” into my ear, or if it's one of those convenient spots my memory has tricked itself into believing because it wants to. I am looking up when the next information session is for the semester in Los Angeles – do I even want to go there? - and wondering how much a shitty studio would cost. Too much is probably the answer.

I should have talked to my mom for longer today, told her more about my classes. I am looking forward to my usual Tuesday morning conversation with my father, when he'll tell me some old song to listen to, taking his Townes Van Zandt and Nancy Sinatra records and finding a spot for them on my iPod. I am craving my grandma Daisy's french silk pie, and my grandma Mary Alice's pork roast with mashed potatoes with a stick of butter. I am still stuck on “The Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” and I wonder if it is just strange enough to be true, and if the necklace of tongues was truth or fiction – probably a little of both. I am in love with the chill in the air and the possibilities of fall – the horror movie marathons, the homey taste of my mom's pumpkin squares, not pie, and my twenty-first birthday.

I'm going to do my laundry tomorrow, because I'm out of clean jeans to wear and almost out of quarters. I'm going to find out about that semester in LA meeting, really, and make Leah come with me because she has the great ideas and I have the great words to express them. I'm going to finally pay that urgent care bill when my paycheck comes on Wednesday, even though I would much rather buy some pairs of jeans so I can have to drag my laundry up five flights of stairs less often. I'm going to get really tired of watching Monday Night Football with my roommates, but it is certainly going to help me write this. I'm going to make plans with the perfectly nice boy this weekend, because it's a smarter decision. I'm going to apply for that internship doing the summer camp with Facets Cinematheque this summer, and get to tell kids all about why they should love Citizen Kane even though it isn't in color. I'm also going to try and tutor at 826CHI because I think my real passion is working with youth, and I think it makes up for the bad karma I try my best not to generate.

I'm going to figure out more ideas for screenplays, even though everything I come up with sounds banal and trite in my head – I'm going to have more faith in my writing abilities. I'm going to smile and nod politely at work on Wednesday when I have to make individual copies of sixty parking receipts belonging to my executive director at work, even though he could do it just fine on his own, and I know he really, really needs that $87 reimbursement on top of his $100,000 salary. I'm going to get through the stack of twelve “to be read” books eventually, even if it takes me five years. I'm going to succeed where my parents haven't because nobody likes living paycheck to paycheck, and those $80,000 (and counting) in student loans certainly aren't going to pay off themselves. I'm going to visit where I come from – the chilly green countrysides of Ireland, and the coal country of Hazard some day, and think about what my grandparents thought when they left there. I'm going to have a child by age thirty-three, even if I'm not married, because being a mother is the only thing I've ever known that I really, really want. I'm going to stay in school for as long as I can, because there's a safety in writing papers and turning them in on time that doesn't exist in the so-called real world.

I'm going to take things as they come to me, and ride all of the bad decisions out with the good, and be thankful I can tell the difference between the two. I'm going to stop worrying about a career or those questions my parents friends ask me and just be happy that I can make such choices, that I don't have a four-year old or a drug problem or a full-time menial job, like some of my friends. I'm going to take a moment each day to take some big yoga breaths and be content with being here now, writing this paper, with this chill in the air, and all the possibilities that are lie ahead. 

So I'm back. Even if this is the only entry I make in the next six months, I'm at least back in the head space of writing again. Maybe you're back too, and even if you aren't, at least know that writing this always makes me feel better.