Best Marriage Proposal Ever

File this under videos that are so fun, creative, and romantic they make you cry. 

Overheard: Freedom Ride

"No, sir. I don't know when the naked bike ride is. Please stop asking." - Bike salesman at Nearly New Recycled Bikes to a guy dressed like the pimp in the Simpson's episode "Homer. vs. New York City"

Welcome to the Family!

After my third visit in two weeks to Nearly New Recycled Bikes, I finally found my soul mate! It's a gorgeous, navy blue 1979 Schwinn World Sport. It's got 10 speeds, which is 9 more than my last one. 


It's so fast, it makes me a little nervous. Almost all my Chicago bike-friends have been in some sort of accident and I always believed I've been left unharmed because my old cruiser was so loud and slow, there was no missing it. It jangled loudly over every bump, an audible warning to pedestrians. It was so slow, when someone opened a car door two feet in front of me, I had 3 minutes to dodge it. 


But you gotta live sometime, right? 

"That boy of yours can all but touch his Christmas bike right now. He's ridden it already, through hundreds of miles of imagination. And just because he can't believe it won't come true, because he know you'll give it to him if you possibly can, he's bragged to all the gang about 'his bike' - and his Dad, who never lets him down."

Overheard: Twig and Berries

On Tuesday, I was walking to my friend Ellen's house for an event called "Good Beer, Bad Movie." Basically, a group of friends get together to watch a terrible movie and make running commentary on the actors, plot, and "special effects". Like an interactive Mystery Science 3000. Past features include: Troll 2, Sleep-Away Camp, and The Happening. I was 10-minutes late to Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure - the bastard child of the Star Wars franchise based on the forest moon of Endor - but despite my hurried pace, I didn't miss the conversation waiting for me at the traffic light. With ingredients to make root-beer floats swinging at my side, I came even with three women and heard one of them say "twig and berries". If I were a wolf, my ears would have pricked up and I'd have been capable of hearing a leaf break from a branch in Naperville. I listened more closely and prayed that the light wouldn't turn. But as the story continued, it became more clear that they weren't casually speaking of men's genitalia but talking about a recent craft project. Which reminds me, when is the next crafternoon? I've got a boner of a good idea.

3x3 and The Rise of Fun Math

I teach an improv class on Wednesdays to kids age 6-8 at Kids in Sync, an occupational therapy school that helps kids with developmental issues (i.e. autism spectrum). In addition to the class, I work with one girl for about 30 minutes before the actual class starts so she can warm up. In the past we've done activites such as a putting together a puzzle, playing on the swings, and competing in various ball games that I sometimes let myself win because children need to learn to lose gracefully and I can't lose ALL THE TIME. But today, we did something totally new: Rosie taught me about math. And how math is fun nowadays.


This is how the conversation unraveled:


Rosie: Oh, I know what 9x9 is!
Me: Me too. 
Rosie: It's 91.
Me: No, it's not. 
Rosie: No, wait. It's 76.
Me: Is it? 
Rosie: Yeah.
Me: No, it's not. It's 81.
Rosie: Oh yeah. It is. Now I remember.


At this point, I'm thinking, that's a tough one and I'll lob her a softball question with some low numbers and she'll knock it out of the park.


Me: Here's an easy one. What's 3x3?
Rosie: 11?
Me: No... try again.
Rosie: I know 3x2 is 6!
Me: Okay, so 3x2 is 6... so one more 3 would make it...
Rosie: 12?
Me: 9. Three 3's make 9.
Rosie: Oh! I did know that because there's a fun math story for it.
Me: Fun math?
Rosie: We only learn fun math in my school. It's math but fun. Here's the story to help you remember. So there's a woman and she wants to have kids like her cousin. Her cousin's kids are special because they each have three tails. So if there's three kids, and each has three tails, that's nine tails total. 3x3=9. The woman wants to have kids with nine tails total. 
Me: Oh. That makes sense.


I like the idea that each calculation has a story behind it, but it seems incredibly inefficient to memorize entire stories instead of a simple calculation. This became more apparent as I continued to quiz Rosie and she struggled to remember if 7x3 was the story of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly or if it was the double decker bus that rides an elevator. But in the end, she -almost- always got them right. 


I'm glad math has finally been packaged in a way that kids think they're having fun when they're doing math. I wish someone had tricked me that math was fun so I wouldn't have had to cheat my way through college stat class to earn a C and graduate by the skin of my teeth. And I wouldn't have had to write this blog post on an calculator.


Congratulations on making a come-back, math! You're doing it!

Movies in the Park Returns June 11th!

Movies in the Park combines four loves of mine:
1. Being outdoors
2. Relaxing with friends
3. Watching movies
4. Things that are free


Check out the complete list of Movies in the Park by clicking here. 


Let's kick off this summer movie season by adding "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" (Tuesday, June 12) in Millennium Park to the calendar.


Which reminds me, my yearbook quote in high school came from this PWBA. While the other girls in my graduating class wrote quotes from Dave Matthews Band's song "Lie in Our Graves" ("Would you not like to be/ Sitting on top of the world with your legs hanging free"), I chose:

"You don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel."


I've made a lot of mistakes in life (thinking I could pay $100,000 for college on my own, a bowl cut that made me consistently mistaken for a boy from age 8-9) but this was not one of them. 

The Narrative: Things We Learn From TV

Spoiler alert: If you haven't seen Friday Night Lights: Season 2, close your eyes and start furiously clicking until you're sure you've closed your browser. 


Edition 1: Friday Night Lights, Season 2: Landry & Tyra


When you accidentally kill a man trying to rape your girlfriend in a parking lot at night: go to the cops first. Don't put his body in your car and then throw it off a bridge.

Also: check to make sure you haven't left your grandfather's gold watch with your name engraved in it on the body.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

Showing Up

When you care about someone, you find a way to make it work. This ragged stork knows what's up!

What Does Your Sleep Position Say About You?

I recently became addicted to the TV show "Lie to Me," a TV show about a man who figures out crimes by reading subtle facial expressions and body language. He is often enlisted by the FBI to interview suspects, but he also takes on non-crime related tasks - in one episode a very rich man wanted to know if his wife loved him for himself or his money. It's like CSI meets the Davinci Code.

I've been fascinated by the idea of what our bodies give away about ourselves. And one interesting thing I found is that how we sleep says something about us. According to the Internet, there are essentially six different sleep positions with distinct personality characteristics:

Fetal Position (41%) Curled up on your side. Women are twice as likely to rest like this and it is listed as the most common position. These sleepers are said to have a tough exterior but are still sensitive and may appear to be shy but warm up quickly.

Log Position (15%) On your side with legs outstretched and arms at your sides. If you sleep on your side with both arms down, you are a social, easy-going person who is trusting, sometimes to the point of being gullible.

Yearner Position (13%) Similar to the log, but with arms outstretched. A close third is the side-lying position with both arms out in front of the body, with 13% of partipants sleeping like this. Yearners are noted to be open-minded and still cynical, suspicious, and stubborn about sticking to decisions once they are made.

Soldier Position (8%) Flat on your back with arms at your sides. These sleepers lie on their backs with arms down and kept close to the body. This 8% study is said to be reserved, quiet, without fuss, and hold themselves and others to a high standard.

Freefall Position (7%) Flat on your stomach with arms at the head or ears. Those people who lie on their bellies with arms under or wrapped around a pillow with head turned to the side, make up 7% of the population studied. Freefallers are brash, outgoing, and are very uncomfortable with criticism.

Starfish Position (5%) Lying on your back with arms and legs outstretched. These people are good listeners, helpful, and are uncomfortable being the center of attention.
For those of you who haven't slept with me, I spend most of my night curled up in the fetal position like a hedgehog or velociraptor tightly clutching a nest of eggs. But I can't fall asleep in that position. I can only fall asleep on my back (a la "soldier" or "starfish"). But it's not really either one of these because I can't sleep with my arms down at my sides or over my head. Instead, they are comfortably resting on my chest. It is clear to me that they have left out an important segment of sleepers: the mummy vampires.

Mummy vampire (1%) Lying on your back with arms covering your heart. Indicates a trustworthy and faithful corpse. He or she makes friends easily, but will let few into the inner circle. Sensitive, introspective and likely to drink your blood for sexual arousal.
What else has the Internet missed?

---


This was originally posted this in the Robot vs. Dinosaur blog in August 2010, but I liked it to so much I thought I'd share it here, too.

Life's Uglier Moments

Yesterday I had the opportunity to record a web-commercial for work on one of our merchant's products: a spy pen. These screenshots, provided by film maker Joe Avella, remind me that life is filled with ugly moments.

Overheard: White Trash Funeral

Friday, May 4th

"Ya'll want to go zip-linin'?" - Cousin Jessie after grandma's funeral.

Knowledge/Karate is Power

My new improv team is in the process of shedding our 'slave name' and re-branding ourselves. Each of us was allowed to suggest one team name. My choice: Karate for Dummies.


This name is near and dear to my heart because it's inspired by my pathetic childhood self. My mom would take my older sister and I to the Forbes Library; while Carrie perused cool teen dramas (including Spellbound by Christopher Pike that had a sex scene in it that I could never find), I typically went for the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and books about space, geology, or dinosaurs. But on one fateful day, I found a book on how to practice karate.


Truth be told, it couldn't have been a "...for Dummies" book since they published their first "how-to" software guide in '91 and didn't expand into general interest topics until the late 90's, but according to the Forbes online collections, there are two books that it could have been:


Karate Made Easy by Ralph Corrigan
or
Facing the Double-Edged Sword: the Art of Karate for Young People by Terrence Webster-Doyle.


While I don't remember the title, I do remember the instructional photos. I studied the poses in my room and drank in the details of each photo, calculating how far apart the feet should be, what direction the fingers should point, and where that clenched fist should rest on the chest.


But we lived in a small home that wasn't much bigger than my current apartment and soon  my sister uncovered what I was up to behind my closed bedroom door. She teased me relentlessly. I shamefully returned the book to the library and claimed I was over karate.


Although I had given up on the sport, I never gave up believing you could learn anything from a book. As a high school sophomore, I impulsively bought an electric guitar because I thought, "There's only six strings, how hard could it be?" and picked up a copy of Guitar for Dummies. This actually worked; I've never had a lesson and play guitar well today, but what took me eight years to achieve I could have easily done in two years with regular lessons. But I didn't want lessons. What I liked most of all was pouring over the book and figuring it out on my own. I felt like a scientist.


To this day, it's hard to see a bookstore and resist the temptation to go in. Bookstore have an irresistible energy. They're so full of potential. In those silent books are world of information and stories, just waiting to be unleashed.


In December of last year, I bought Making a Good Script Great so I could transfer a story from my head in a logical, coherent screenplay. In January, I bought Easy Spanish: Step-by-Step because I wanted to be prepared if I met my (ex)-boyfriend's Mexican parents. In February, I bought The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet because a friend said it was a great story and beautifully written. When I moved a year ago, I fretted over which books to keep and which to give away, just like the stars of Hoarders who can't let go of empty soda bottles and pet-hair tumbleweeds. I absolutely love books.


It's funny now that I thought I could teach myself an ancient art form with a 4th grade reading level guide book, but I admire Young Susie's willingness to try. That's one of the things that I still like about myself: if  something interests me, my (lack of) skill doesn't prevent me from pursuing it. I go after my dreams and am attracted to people who aren't bystanders in their lives, but are a driving force toward their success.