I’m not sure how I feel about Gap constantly emailing me that I recently earned some rewards dollars with their credit card. (Yes, I have a Gap credit card. When entering the working world, it saved me a $hit ton of money when professionalizing my wardrobe.) I earned these “rewards” by putting a giant charge on the card from the vet hospital that, in the end, still didn’t save my beloved basset hound.

Oh, since not updating for like months, Neil and I have gotten engaged & we had to put down Fergus Jackson, aged 14 months. So much happiness and so much sadness.

It’s almost lotion season.

And by that, I mean it’s almost that time of year that I wish I carried lotion with me, but I don’t, so I just sit around lamenting my dry, chapped hands and trying to hide them from those to which I need to remain professional. Maybe this year will be that turning point year, the year I become an adult and realize that picking my skin flakes is not an appropriate thing to do in public.

Sometime in the next week, I’ll be finding a place to live in Des Moines and moving there before starting my new job next Monday. This post could be filled with the tribulations of packing and finding someone to take over my lease, but that’s been done. It’s oddly similar to what I blogged about exclusively about three months ago. I could wax poetic about how if you’re unhappy in your life, you should just change it, though I’m not sure I yet qualify as the grand authority on that. I am over the moon about my new position, though if it hadn’t have happened to come available when it did, I’d probably still be at my desk job, secretly loathing my life and this city. That brings me to something I think about often, how I could just speak honestly about how much I don’t love Chicago. I don’t hate it, but I’ve never liked it. There are many cities in this world to which I could give my heart, but The Windy City has never been one of them. I realize this is blasphemy to the dozens of people I personally know who would bleed for their city. That’s great for them, it’s just not for me. I’m certainly not running back to Des Moines because that’s a place I couldn’t live without, but having been away for a bit does make me appreciate it a heck of a lot more than when I had just graduated.

So, for now, I’ve got nothing. This might also very, very possibly be my last post here & I might just switch on over to BrittneyW.com. I probably won’t post any more frequently, but what’s the point of owning your domain name if you’re not using it? (Now the link isn’t working, great. Well, it exists.)

And now, I leave you with this little gem: What To Do When You Disagree With a Blog Post. It’s hilarious and speaks to everyone who has at least one blog troll (their word, not mine, but I kind of like it.) See you all back in the 515!

One year ago tomorrow, somewhere on a quaint farm in Iowa (at least that’s what I was told) a young basset hound was born. I don’t really want to think of what that would have looked like, but at least he’s pretty cute now. Happy first birthday to Fergus Jackson, still very much a puppy, yet much larger and hairier and louder and bigger than before.

Tonight Roomie Lauren (yet no longer roomie anymore, sad) and her mom came by to bestow basset birthday treats from Wigglyville. Ok, they’re actually in town for the Paul McCartney show at Wrigley and also graciously bought me dinner, BUT– they also brought Fergus bacon treats and a squeaky plastic beer bottle. He’s pretty oblivious to both and instead is really fascinated by the empty Muscle Milk container he found on a walk outside.

On a completely unrelated puppy birthday note, many of my peers got married this past month. Yeesh.

Note: the following story contains no exaggerations. At all. Seriously, it all happened. Unfortunately.

I just killed a motherfucking cockroach. Yes, this post deserves any expletives that might happen upon it. I was on the phone with my parents, chit-chatting about the monotony that is my day-to-day, when I saw a softball-sized thing crawling up my bathroom door. Now, living in the garden apartment, I’ve gruesomely murdered my fair share of in-ground creatures– centipedes included (for curious readers: I will absolutely move out the minute I see a rodent.) Usually I leave Fergus to chase after the flies or moths that might get in, but this fist-sized demon monster was above his eye level, and I know my little hound too well– he’d be far too scared of this cockroach than it would be of him.

“BlaaahhhhhCockRoachAaaaahhhhh!!!! It’s antennae are as long as its body!!!!!!!!!!!”

Lord knows Papa K and T-Bone probably laughed a million at my expense, but this.was.not.funny. Mom said something about bug spray or hairspray, but I barely had time to heed warning before dropping the phone and grabbing my nearest weapon of choice– a lint roller.

“FERGUS! FERGUS! FERGUS!” I waited until the cockroach had crawled to the back of the bathroom door so I could sneak attack it with hairspray in one hand, lint roller in the other. I tiptoed in to barrage that insect (are they insects? Arachnids? I’m too freaked out to Google it) with the will and power of something reminiscent of the attacks on Fallujah. Unfortunately, I recently ran out of Garnier aerosol and was left with stealing Avon pump spray out of Mom’s bottom drawer last time I was home, so my weapon of choice was not as effective as I feel it could have been.

I triumphed too early when the ol’ roach went down– he was brilliant at faking dead. Just when I’d released the first vice grips on my heart, the little fuck start running along the baseboards toward the safety of the back of the toilet. Long story short, the cockroach got almost down the hall to my room until I finally worked up the guts to just bash it to juicy pieces with the lint roller. My entire bathroom floor is now covered in hairspray, Fergus can’t stop sneezing, and I guarantee you I won’t get a MINUTE of sleep tonight after knowing that things could be crawling all over me in my sleep.

Something about the horrid heatwave goes here.

I bought the world’s biggest zucchini at the Farmer’s Market today for one dollar. Holler.

RHYME.

After work today I attended a J-School alumni event downtown that was surprisingly great. At first I wasn’t going to attend because of my social awkwardness and inability to maintain any sort of professional eye contact that doesn’t make me feel like a creep, but it’s not like I’ve got much else going on.

On Friday, everyone in our office gets to leave work at noon and go to a rooftop for the Cubs game! Not only is it my first one ever, but I’m excited for the unlimited food and drink portion of the seating location as well.

One of my fellow PRSSA-ers doing some sick internship says in her Facebook status that Ryan Gosling wrote her a love letter this evening while she was hob-nobbing at an event. I’m not a huge fan of The Notebook, but color me jelly belly.

I’m getting bored of blogging (not that I’m exactly imparting a lot of deep life wisdom here.) I need a new angle. Nacho Lindsay is truly an inspiration. Jalapeno Popper Brittney doesn’t really have the same ring. Not to mention I feel all jalapeno poppers come out of the same industrial-sized freezer bag– the only thing that varies sometimes is cook time and type of frying oil.

Also, my hair looks like poop. I realize that is not the professional term, but it’s in an awkward “I’m too cheap for a haircut and I’m trying to grow out my bangs” stage. Ahhhh– Ryan and Simple Jack, I mean Kyle, on “Teen Mom” just met each other. Their semi-staged life events are far more important than mine.

Today was my best day at work I’ve had since starting. Things just really clicked, and I finally felt confident that coming here was the right choice. That, plus a surprisingly gourmet meal I made on the fly for dinner have both made for a pretty awesome Thursday.

Generally, people in Chicago are way less fat than people in Iowa.

Meat is ungodly expensive here.

The lights in my kitchen dim ever so slightly when I use the toaster or the microwave. It also dims and brightens when my waffle maker turns on it’s “done” light. One of the most useful electrical flaws you’ll ever find.

Today feels like a Wednesday. It is, in fact, a Tuesday. Fact: this is the first week I’m working a regular 8-5 M-F work week. Due to weekend conferences, holidays, and afternoons off, I’ve never worked one of these at my job before. We do have a potluck tomorrow so perhaps I can pretend it’s a ragin’ party. I made pesto pasta salad, and I don’t know about you, but that was always one of our requirements for a damn good time in college.

Speaking of college, tomorrow’s date is 7/13. For anyone who ever had the pleasure of stepping foot inside the glorious place with the same address, we ask that you observe the holiday by getting black out drunk wherever you are. Unfortunately for everyone who actually had to live there, we all (and yes, I’m included myself as a resident) have big kid jobs and might have one light domestic beer before calling it a night.

I feel absolutely terrible for bemoaning my long distance relationship when there are thousands of military families out there living without their loved ones for very scary years on end, but occasionally I do get very sad, self-pitying and overall wallow-y about being apart from Neil for at least a year. My father might take this as an indication that we have moved up a Defcon (yes, he seriously inquires about our relationship as if it’s some sort of defense maneuver by the Armed Forces) which it probably is, but there’s no need to discuss that in the privacy of our own home when I can just announce it on a very public yet sparsely-read blog. I’m mostly upset about the hundreds of miles between us because I’m the sole caretaker of one Fergus M. Jackson, Esquire who, pardon my French, has been an asshole lately. It’s like he always wants to play with me or hang out on my lap or needs to go outside to pee or be petted and loved and fed. The nerve.

If you want to know how the Britney Spears/ Nicki Minaj concert was on Friday night, just read this review in the Chicago Tribune. It says exactly everything Neil and I thought about it. It’s not that it was a bad show, but Britney really seemed to be phoning it in. If she truly doesn’t enjoy performing anymore, I hope the powers that be stop trying to milk her for cash after this tour and let her live her life.

The older I get, the more I realize I just want to bake for the rest of my life. I think I would be completely happy working in a Hy-Vee bakery right now.

This week has gone by surprisingly fast after a great long weekend helping Neil move and chillin’ at home. I’m starting to like my job more each week, and it seems I have more to do each day which makes the clock go by faster. Today my co-worker/ work friend (she was hired the same day as me and is the same age) went to the farmer’s market in Daley Plaza over our lunch hour. We both fell in love with it and plan on making the trek there every Thursday. We sampled some amazing garlic cheese, creamed honey, and just ok banana bread, but I managed to make it out with what I went in for– tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. T-Bone hooked me up with some homegrown basil this week, so I made a caprese salad for dinner.

Fergs and I just returned from our longest walk to date around the lake. I messed up my knee something awful on a run the other day so this trek was a bit painful, but the weather has been too nice to stay in and enjoy my newly installed Comcast (someone stop her– she’s talking about the weather again.) In WAY more exciting news, NPH and I are headed to the Britney Spears/ Nicki Minaj concert tomorrow night!! He got me tickets for my birthday, and I think he’s almost as psyched to go as I am. Roomies Lauren & Rachael will also be in town attending the Katy Perry show, so, you know, insert hangover here. And that, my friends, is my most recent life update. Oh, I bought a toilet brush this week after doing the math on whether I could get away with just buying one of those Clorox ones with the disposable heads (nay.)

A bajillion congrats to Kayla for winner that damn Sub-Jammers competition. I wish we could go, but I would smack you in the head if you paid $300 just to register for some sandwich convention. I will instead turn my vacation interests once again to Vegas. Like a mistress in the night, she’s been calling to me (and it doesn’t help that The Mirage keeps sending me emails. Whoever signed me up for that list, that was a cruel joke, and I love you for it.)