Burning Ring of Fire, I Went Down, Down, Down....

Okay, here we go. In three and a half hours I'm taking the hardest test of my life. As I said on Facebook,
"After months of studying words like "opprobrium" & "untrammeled" and figuring out hypotenuse triangles, I'm finally taking the GRE today. I'm pretty sure it will do three things: make me feel dumb, want to drink and cry."

Last night I was studying analogies where you look at the relationship between two words (usually words you've never seen before) and you have to determine out of the four choices, which set of words best expresses a relationship similar to the sample given. For example, if you're given CARPENTER: SAW, you choose SEAMSTRESS: SCISSORS, because those are the tools they use for their jobs. (Trust me, they get a lot harder than that.)

Instead of focusing on the task at hand, I kept thinking of analogies that best explain my life right now...

JEANNIE: NERVOUS=
L TRAIN: DIRTY

JEANNIE: DUM DUM=
CHICAGO: BAD DRIVERS

JEANNIE: IS IN TROUBLE=
CHICAGO WIND: BLOWS

JEANNIE: NEVER LEARNED ALGEBRA=
SOME BIG CITY PEOPLE: NEVER LEARNED MANNERS

JEANNIE: WILL LIKELY STRIKE OUT=
CHICAGO: CUBS

Have a great day everybody! If you get a chance, say a little prayer for me!!

You've got to give a little....or a lot

On more than one occasion (including today) I've seen blood on the sidewalks in Chicago (I'm always dying to know the story behind this too. Robbery gone bad?) There have been plenty of times I've tried to buy an L train ticket, but the machine wouldn't work or take my money. After a weekend of partying, it's not uncommon to see a lot of trash on the streets including empty liquor bottles. And if you don't watch where you walk, you may end up ankle deep in dog poo. My point? The Windy City will let a lot of things go, but one thing they're always right on top of--parking tickets.

It's maddening.

I told you a couple of blog posts ago that Mike and I forgot to get an updated city parking sticker (which you need to park anywhere) because we don't drive much. Recently we got a $240 ticket in the mail for parking on quiet street at 8 p.m. a couple of months ago. The ticket is $120, but a $120 late fee was tacked on because we'd moved, and the city didn't have our updated address. So today we went to pay this and get another parking sticker. The sticker itself is $70 but in true Chicago form, the city clerk's office tacked on a $40 late charge. So little did we know when we went to dinner with friends in January, our dinner would really cost another $280.

Sheesh.

Now back to the blood on the sidewalk near LaSalle and Division--I bet for $280 the city can hire an excellent cleaning crew.

Big Trouble in Little China, or really Chicago

Okay, I'm in big trouble. In T-4 days, I'm taking the hardest test of my life, and I'm not at all prepared.

On Wednesday, I'm taking the GRE to try and get into Northwestern's Masters in Journalism program. When I started the process last August, I thought I had all the time in the world. Now it's becoming blatantly clear that I'm still on the first chapter in my math workbook and I'm struggling with what's considered the easy "Arithmetic" section. I haven't even touched Algebra, Geometry or Quantitative Comparisons. Oy vay.

Here's what's slowing me down...after reading each question I laugh and say "Who cares?" I'm never going to challenge a friend to drive to Springfield going 60 miles per hour while I drive 65 mph, so we can see how much quicker I get there. Plus, have these test takers ever seen Chicago traffic? Usually it's stop and go with a few bursts of 20 mph, so how do we figure that into the equation? Plus, if I've had coffee that morning, you know I'm going to have to stop and pee. And what if the lotto is big that day? You know I'm stopping to get a Powerball ticket.

Seriously, other than math teachers, have any of you ever needed to know the Order of Operations? You know, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally which stands for the order you solve a problem--Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction. I don't care about that, I'm just stuck on the excusing my dear Aunt Sally part. What she'd do, fart?

Not the Biggest Loser, the Biggest Weirdo!

There are people who come in and out of your life, and you don't think much about them. Perhaps it's the person working out next to you on the treadmill. Or the person standing behind you in line at the grocery. There's nothing memorable about them or your encounter, so you never think about them again. Then there are the people you meet and think, "That person is totally great blog material" and I can't wait to make fun of them. I totally met that woman about two hours ago.

This afternoon I went to get my hair done at Maxine Salon (which is the best by the way! Leslie for color, Evan for cuts. You can't go wrong.) I sat down and saw a woman behind me who looked really high maintenance. She brought tons of stuff to her appointment including two full-size pillows (I guess in case she had time to nap?), her expensive purse and get this...her assistant! Who needs a flippin' assistant at their hair appointment? This woman apparently.

I no sooner sat down, when this woman stood up and hit her head on the hair dryer. Okay, we've all been there, we hit our heads on something like the overhead bins on an airplane. It hurts for a second, and then you laugh with everyone else about how you do that every time. Then you get over it. Not this woman...she started yelling at her stylist for not warning her to watch her head, and she insisted he get her a bag full of ice. Then she...you'll never believe this...she made her assistant hold the ice pack on her head!! Really lady? The stylist told her he couldn't put color on her hair with the ice pack, but she quipped that she didn't care, it just hurt so bad!! (I'm guessing she hasn't given birth to a child.)

Oh, it gets better.

As I'm getting my hair done, this woman actually has the nerve to send her assistant over to me with this request, "Can you please keep it down, because you're being too loud." Seriously? Anyone who knows me knows I'm not loud unless I've had 3 glasses of Cabernet, and I gave up day drinking years ago. So in true Jeannie form, I started talking louder.

Still gets better.

The woman needs to get the color rinsed out of her hair, but instead of sitting in the chair like all the rest of us, she insisted on sitting on her knees and bending over the sink. (See picture) I couldn't believe it! (Her assistant totally caught me taking a pic too...I love it.)

I believe an important lesson was learned here today: No, money doesn't buy you happiness, but it does buy you a one-way ticket on the douche-bag bus. (I'm also guessing it's a single ticket, because this woman CAN'T be married. Men nip that kind of ridiculous behavior in the bud quickly.)

A different time

If you've read my past two posts, you know Mike and I spent last week as extras in a TV pilot called "The Playboy Club." The show takes place in Chicago in 1963, and the producers went all out in making it seem like that year with the clothes, hair, cigarettes, even the cocktail napkins saying "Playboy Club." It was very cool.

One thing I instantly noticed and found very interesting is how all of us transformed into people of that generation. Suddenly we went from being people who are always in a hurry with no time for pleasantries, to these characters who are friendly, polite, even chivalrous.

I told you when I moved to Chicago from Wyoming, I kept my small-town ways and said "excuse me" to everyone I nearly ran into or had to walk in front of at the grocery. Then it became very apparent that in a city, you're always in someone's way, so I stopped being so darned polite. I also decided to no longer get annoyed in someone didn't hold a door open for me, knowing they're probably just trying to catch the L train.

But last week, I felt like I was back in Wyoming in a different time. All of the extras had to share a confined space, so we were always in each other's way. Suddenly though, people dressed in their full 60's costumes were saying "Oh, excuse me," and "Pardon me." Whoa! Also, the men always held the door open for women as we were going on/off set or in/out of the hair and makeup room. At lunch, they had a huge buffet set up outside, and the weather was frigid. The women were shaking in their hose, so the men allowed all the women to go ahead of them. With only a 10-minute lunch break, and a chance of running out of food, that's pretty remarkable.

Now I'm trying to determine if actors are just an extremely polite kind of folk, or if the fact that we were playing characters of a different time made us act differently.

I'm not sure, but either way, I liked it.

We're done!

Wow, Mike and I are officially done with one of the longest/craziest/most tiring/coolest weeks of our lives. We were cast as extras in a new TV pilot NBC is shooting called "The Playboy Club." It's based on the clubs Hugh Hefner started in Chicago in the early 1960's, and let me tell ya, they went all out with making it look like 1963. We had the hair, makeup, clothes, undergarments...even the shoes that people wore back then. Every morning I spent two hours in the hair and makeup chair getting done up, and the weirdest part? When I looked in the mirror, I saw my mother.

The lead role in this show is the very good-looking Eddie Cibrian (CSI Miami, Sunset Beach, Third Watch--also known as LeAnn Rimes' fiance.) Mike was cast as one of Eddie's friends, so I begged Mike to get Eddie's phone number. Sadly, he didn't. In one scene (which took several hours to shoot), I was so close to Eddie, I could have grabbed his tooshie. Sadly, I didn't. (That automatically gets you kicked out, and that would be embarrassing. Plus I didn't want to waste of all my eyeliner and Aqua Net.)

One of the main female leads is played by Amber Heard (on left-Pineapple Express, Zombieland). She is absolutely gorgeous, and at the beginning of what will likely be a long and successful career. I was so close to her in a scene, I could have grabbed her bunny tail. Sadly, I didn't.

The other main female role is played by the very talented Broadway Actress Laura Benanti (on right). Her voice is phenomenal and her body in a bunny suit? Even more phenomenal. (Luckily I'm secure in my marriage. Plus, I covered Mike's eyes every time the bunnies walked by him.)

Also in the show is the very talented David Krumholtz (probably best known for the show Numbers). Mike chatted with him yesterday, and said he's a very nice guy.

All-in-all it was a tiring experience, considering we worked 16-17 hours a day, but I'm super glad we did it. But let me tell ya, after getting blisters, going to the bathroom in a porta potty, eating a quick 10 minute lunch at 4 p.m. and sitting for hours in a cold tent, I know first hand the life of an extra ain't glamorous.

The glamorous life?

I won't be able to blog much this week because I'm an extra in a TV show pilot, and we're working about 16 hours days. I got up at 4 a.m. this morning, and here it is almost midnight, and I'm still up. I'm exhausted.

I can't share too many details just yet, but what I can say is it takes place in the 1960's, so I spent my entire day in a crazy fun costume. I had to wear huge false eyelashes, which as I said on Facebook, are the most annoying and uncomfortable things I've ever worn. I really don't know how the Kardashians do it. All day the ends of them were stabbing me in my eye, and every time I looked at someone all I saw was black hair. My hair was so teased and sprayed with Aqua Net, I was pretty sure if someone dropped a match next to me, I'd go up in flames. And that was a real possibility, considering every 3rd person or so had to smoke. Unfortunately, it was my turn today, and with shooting all day, I ended up smoking an entire pack. Luckily there are Herbal and I didn't inhale, so I can still run for President.

Oh yeah, and between my tight pantyhose and huge bra, it created the perfect storm for a muffin top. Gross.

And you think high heels are uncomfortable now? Let me tell ya, they were a bitch in 1963. Mom, how did you do it??