Veganized blueberry chocolate chip muffins found on Pinterest via Will Cook for Smiles. These things were amazing. Substitutions made: 1/2 mashed banana swapped for egg, Earth Balance and almond milk. Used vanilla extract instead of paste (though I just added paste to my wishlist). Added in 1/4 cup vegan Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips. I have been trying to freeze portions so I have things for eating later, but these did not last long after giving a couple to our landlord and his husband and to our neighbor Jenna. Simple and yummy!

Also this week: Last Minute Valentine @ Papermoon Pastry. Emissions test. Bite with the boo. Dimo’s with Z, Stephanie, Jason Anderson, & Steven Gilpin pre-show @ Den Theatre. Cocktail @ Takito with Stephanie. Jason/Steven’s Show @ Den Theatre. Upton’s Breakroom with Stephanie & Jason. Sushi with Z, Shanleys, and Amy @ Bob San. Most importantly, I finished Veronica Mars – Season 1 this week! Less than a month before the film comes out. Queue moment of SQUEE!

I have talked about the magic that is my friend and fave singer/songwriter dude Jason Anderson many times. Seeing him play makes whatever worries you had earlier that day, that week, that month, go away at the very least for the duration of his set. Singalongs, hum alongs, making Kermit hands in the hair and fist pumps. Really, I wish I could force any friend who’s never seen him before, especially those who’ve been having a hard time lately, to see him. He is the definition of one who wears his heart on his sleeve and I am proud to call him a friend. Check him out. Subject of this post is from a Jason song.

Films watched 7th week of the year:

Trading Places
Friends with Benefits
Tonight You’re Mine
Short Term 12
Fruitvale Station
Gone

There was something redeeming about all of these films. Z had never seen Trading Places – can you believe that!? Although, I did not remember all the nudity, so I’m pretty sure I only saw it on tv growing up. It is rare that there are films of any cinematic merit that I have seen and Z has not.

I saw a preview ages ago for Short Term 12 and promptly forgot entirely about it, but was glad Z put it on the Netflix queue. I’ve been wistful for pre-weed David Gordon Green a lot these days and Short Term 12 captured that quiet and special feeling that GW & ATRG gave me. I am really looking forward to Destin Cretton’s future films and to finding and watching his earlier works.

Fruitvale Station is a true story and I remembered the stories circulating on Facebook. In this day and age when we are so bombarded with social media, seeing texts pop up as Oscar’s story was unfolding wove the story together and worked seamlessly. Stories like Oscar’s happen every day and, with all the truly shitty remakes coming out, it’s shocking that more true stories like Oscar’s are not made into films. Michael Jordan has made some great choices as an actor. Loved him in The Wire and Friday Night Lights. This was great film, but truly bleak ending, which anyone knowing his story would already know going into it.

Tonight You’re Mine was pretty and fun. It made me wish I’d gone and camped out at a British festival in my youth, but maybe I’ll still do that yet, even when I am about to enter my 35th year. Also making me feel like an oldie was the fact that I had no idea who any of the bands they showed in the film were. I used to inhale everything in the pages of NME/Melody Maker/Mojo back in the day, but music is different for me now that I’m a little older. When I djed on WGMU, worked at Now! Music and Fashion, and djed at clubs, I felt pressured to have heard of every band. I don’t feel the need to know everything now and I definitely don’t know most of what the kids are into and it’s OK.

Friends with Benefits was OK, but the flash mob scene at the end made it worth the watch. Hearing ‘Closing Time’ over and over made me remember how good a book Jacob Slichter wrote about being the drummer for Semisonic. It’s called So You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star: How I Machine-Gunned a Roomful Of Record Executives and Other True Tales from a Drummer’s Life and it’s truly a fantastic read full of hilarity and sadness from being screwed over by a major label. I have always had a soft spot for Semisonic.

My Vegan Valentine Booty, from Paper Moon Pastry

Paper Moon Pastry (Chicago) is hoping to open the retail store soon. Hey, you can help on –> IndieGoGo. The peanut butter rice crispy thing above was flipping amazing. One of the best things. I want to eat one every day. I also have a soft spot because their name is the name of my favorite and very veggie-friendly diner in Baltimore, Papermoon. Hey, speaking of being veggie-friendly, I won’t be going to Stan’s Donuts and here is why. Being vegetarian is HILARIOUS, apparently.

This week: Dropped car at Augusta Paulina to finally get the mirror replaced. Dropped the car at Honda for safety recall. Kimmi made Z and I breakfast and then Kimmi and I went to the Ukrainian Village Neighborhood Watch meeting @ Ukrainian Museum of Art. Went to Quesadilla with Amy, Ethan, & Val. My mom turned 70! Gave away used bubble mailers and LP mailers. My Vegan Valentine @ Paper Moon Bakery. Watched a lot of Veronica Mars while trying to get my tax crap together. Am so glad I have my crafter pals to commiserate with over them. Every year I swear I’ll get ahead of them, but then it’s suddenly April. Gah.

Also: Finished reading ‘City of Lost Souls’, the 5th book in The Mortal Instruments series. The 6th and final book ‘City of Heavenly Fire’ comes out at the end of May. If you’re looking for a quick read that also helps improve your vocabulary, then I recommend this series. Cassandra Clare is not reinventing the wheel here, but I have really enjoyed reading the series and her excellent wordsmithery. There are a lot of little indie rock nerd jokes thrown in and actual laugh out loud bits. I wasn’t happy with the casting of the film version of the first book ‘City of Bones’, so I didn’t go see it in the theater. It kind of bombed and I’m shocked to hear they are making the second one. Wish that hadn’t stopped the production company from making the other three His Dark Materials series films. I hope that one day, once our world becomes liberal enough to not have large chunks of it decry a film because the author is an atheist and the novels mention killing God (absolutely not in a Satanic way) that they’ll make all three films. I think seeing them on film would be spectacular.

Films watched 6th week of the year:

Monster’s University
The Boy Friend
The Sapphires
A Haunted House

3/4 ain’t bad. MU was adorable, but not as much heart as the original. The creatures in it are so flipping adorable though.

The Boy Friend = wow! Z mentioned that he hoped the Gene Siskel Film Center would do a Ken Russell retrospective and show a bunch of his early films. GOOD GOD – what a beautiful film to watch. I feel Twiggy was made fun of for being a terrible actor, but she was perfectly cast in this one. This is a film you should watch if you love beautiful production. If you don’t believe me, click on this link and skip to 11 minutes in and watch 10 seconds, stop it and then put the darn thing on your Netflix queue, ya dingus. KEN RUSSELL, that madman that he was had a gigantic turntable built for one of the coolest dance sequences of all time. MIND EXPLOSION.

The Sapphires – I went into it thinking it would be like That Thing You Do, with Chris O’Dowd in the Tom Hanks role and to some degree it was, but it was a great and a MOSTLY TRUE story. Really! Really! And it was written by the son of one of the members. Also, I absolutely LOVED the assortment of women’s body sizes in this film! Love!

Not even worth wasting e-ink about AHH. I laughed a couple of times. A perfectly acceptable background movie.

Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas Q&A @ Music Box

Perfectly summing up the last few weeks: The Longest Winter by Julie Doiron. Hey, what!? I just found a cover of another one of my favorite winter Julie Doiron songs by David Bazan. One day this week I was walking back from the car and realizing that it was the coldest I had ever been in my entire life. That moment was utterly petrifying; to realize something to be absolutely true and that there was nothing I could do about it. Multiple pairs of socks and at least two layers of clothing worn at all times other than in the shower. This winter is sucking the life out of us in Chicago. This is only the first time in 10 years here I’ve ever felt this. This winter I’ve made plans to go out and changed my mind back when I realized it would involve stripping off a couple layers only to have to put them back on later and lose that brief warmth. The one positive is that I’ve been doing a LOT of baking & cooking and I made my friend’s lentil soup, which was delicious. I also made gluten-free brownies, pancakes, and gf orange pecan muffins – all in one day. I also made a nice dent in prepping my Rhymes with Twee tax stuff, which is for me, like most crafter friends I know, the worst type of hell.

All things that I had to and did do this week: Tilda dental. nickd bday. Damien Jurado @ Schubas. After seeing Damien over 10+ times at my rough count, I felt this was the weakest show I’ve ever seen, and I know it’s because I don’t connect to ‘Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son’ like I do to any other DJ album. It sure sounds pretty, but none of the lyrics do it for me. The fact we saw the early show when he was pressed for time also might have hurt my take on this show, but at least his stage banter was top notch.

Films watched 5th week of the year:

In a World…
Happy Christmas
American Hustle
The King of Comedy
World War Z

Not one bad movie this week and each one was oh so different. Lake Bell is really flipping cool. I wish I knew how cool when I saw her at The Room screening Z and I saw at Laemmle’s in LA because I would have high fived her. She wrote/directed/starred in In a World…. I am really into movie previews. I hate missing previews in the theatre. I watch then when we play DVDs at home. I seek them out on Flixster whenever I see one I have even 10% interest in the film it’s made for. When I saw the preview for this; a film about voice actors who did the voiceovers to previews, I knew it looked good, but it ended up being great.

Happy Christmas was really charming – might be a TINY bit biased since Joe is a friend and Jude is his son, but this truly is Joe’s most accessible film. When I told my parents to see Drinking Buddies because I was an extra, I told them they I was not sure they would like it [they ended up not seeing it due to a short run in the NOVA area, but I stand by this], but this film is one I know they would enjoy.

After Ginny made her bday plans for Magic Parlour, Z and I made an unofficial plan to see more theatre/theatrical things and I read about The Rose and the Rime on one our our favorite local theatre production websites, The House Theatre. It sounded great and we were able to score a great deal on preview tickets through Goldstar, so we went. It was one of the best plays I have ever seen; sweet, funny, moving, and unique with bunny puppets, acrobatics, and aerial acts. Absolutely the perfect play to see in Chicago this polar vortexy winter and you can even take children to it, but there are a few scary scenes. It is playing through March 9th and I totally want to see it again. House Theatre does amazing things at Chopin theatre and this show shines.

This week: Said farewell to my former supervisor Arline at work at Ten Pin/Rossi’s Liquors, Attended the Craft Racket – Winter 2014 @ Blue Buddha Boutique, Dragonlady with Z, Nick O. & Greg, House Theatre presents: Rose and the Rime @ Chopin Theatre, Lunch with Erica B. @ Tava, dropped stock off at Local Goods/picked up holiday stock, Bite with Jen L & Z.

Seeing Erica Make Great & family was SO awesome. I’m trying to see more of my old faves this year. I wish there were more days in a week!

Films watched 4th week of the year:

Magic Mike
Prince Avalanche
Studs Terkel: Listening to America
Artois the Goat

Good film week, but thought Magic Mike would be funnier, Prince Avalanche more likeable; and Artois have MORE GOAT in it. Studs Terkel was perfect; that dude was amazing. Artois the Goat was really fun though and Z and I agreed that it seemed wacky like an indie Australian film. Z made his monthly veg. dinner for me that I found on Pinterest: Baked Polenta with Spinach & Goats Cheese. This was one of the most simple recipes either of us has ever made, but the payoff was ridiculous. SO good & so easy and it paired well with our goat movie. Re: David Gordon Green, I think the dude has smoked too much weed; this was so mediocre. I miss GW & ATRG DGG. sigh.

Z & Imani’s Bean Pie – it was awesome!

Started feeling sick on Tuesday night while out with Stacy @ Takito. Took a half day off Wednesday and the whole day off Thursday and went to my doctor’s office where my doc’s nurse practitioner said I had a viral infection. Friday we woke up and our heat was out and since I didn’t want to use any more PTO, this forced me to go to work and stay away from everyone so I didn’t spread my infection. Magic Parlour @ Palmer House. Baby polar vortex started. Mac & Cheese Cookoff, where there were only 3 vegetarian entries, so I went to lunch @ Antique Taco with Jason. Afterwards, I quickly went to Empty Bottle Farmer’s Market and I returned to a house that was thankfully warm once again! Z convinced me to briefly leave the house to go to to Quesadilla and then we came home and I reprinted the b-side card.

Films watched 3rd week of the year:

Silver Linings Playbook
Trance
Stuck in Love
Dredd

I had seen SLP once before and thought the same thing, man, Hollywood thinks people with mental illness are wacky – this is such a ridiculous portrayal, but sure, the film is fun to watch. Trance was quite good and vexing. Stuck in Love was the recommended by Netflix movie that popped up when I logged into my queue and it was just perfect to have on while I was balancing my checkbook and tidying up. Dredd, wow, it was pretty damn bloody and just so-so.

In TV this week, I finally am caught up with True Blood and Glee and Z and I finished Dexter. I was actually mostly OK with the ending except for the fact [ SPOILER ALERT IF YOU ARE LIKE ME AND SOMEHOW HAD NOT YET FINISHED WATCHING DEXTER ] that he threw Deb’s body into the sea where he threw TERRIBLE CRIMINALS. He took her body away from all of the other people who cared about her and threw it in with the criminals. Also, a lumberjack?! How unoriginal. Where do you go to disappear? With the WOOD! Derp. So, now on to Treme!

Songs: Molina featuring Lawrence Peters

This week: Polar vortex closed my work’s office for two days. Made my very first from-scratch pie – pecan. Watched a whole bunch of True Blood. Had lunch with Jess L. Decided to finally buy a Kindle – went with the most basic model. Celebrated Emily’s bday with brunch at M. Henrietta. Celebrated Eliza’s bday @ her party. Songs: Molina tribute @ Hideout.

In all the years Jason Molina was alive and playing shows, I only know I saw Songs: Ohia once in October 2012 with Damien Jurado. ‘The Lioness’ is one of my favorite songs of all time, even if I wouldn’t call him one of my favorite bands or singers. I had missed the first tribute and I asked friends who had seen it if they were going to play ‘The Lioness’ and they all said no, but they ended up playing it and it was crushing. Seeing his former bandmates and friends pay tribute to Molina by playing his songs was extremely moving. Not all the singers were great, but emotions ran high in the room anyhow.

It has been nice not having such stringent resolutions to follow. I am reading so much and it is a great feeling. As I thought, I am not watching as many movies as a result, but it’s okay. Am really enjoying spending quality time at home with my boo, my dog, and my ‘hog these days.

Films watched 2nd week of the year:

Weekend (2011)
Mary Pickford: The Muse of the Movies *

* documentary

Weekend was a great film with lots of uncertainty and sweetness and the soundtrack was good.

Man, Mary Pickford was COOL. This documentary was truly eye-opening. What an admirable lady. After finishing the film, I read the Wikipedia entry on her and the film does not delve into her alcoholism, but she was truly a trailblazer.

Closet doors do not need to close

I used the first week of the year for a lot of unwindulaxing and practicing hygge. We rearranged our bedroom, went through clothing for Brown Elephant trying to unclutter our life like in this article – you have to be unapologetic about it. Gifts that were given years ago and never used, things we meant to sell on Craigslist but never did, VHS tapes, Sega Genesis, a pile of Dwell magazines I always meant to read = Brown Elephant. Now these things will have the potential to make some money for the Howard Brown Health Center! Dog collar, old leash, toys Tilda didn’t like = PAWS. I signed up for Unroll.Me and I am already a HUGE fan of the time saved by just that! I am trying to make my life less cluttered physically and digitally and even just in the first week, I have felt much more happy at home.

2013 Resolutions:

• Update the La De Blog once a week.
• Watch one documentary and one foreign film a week.
• Make something great once a week. [inspired by my friend Erica’s lovely make great blog.]
• Go to at least one new to me restaurant a month.
• Read at least one book a month.
• Continue getting fit.
• Continue buying “Made in the USA” as often as possible.
• Every Wednesday will be Vegan Vednesday!

I did good with my 2013 resolutions, but when I make too many, or restrict myself too much, I cannot keep up with all of them. The ones with lines through them were ones I was not able to commit fully to. This year, I will still likely watch a documentary a week, but this year I want to concentrate more on reading. Cinema and television shows have taken over much of my free time the last couple years.

Having Vegan Vednesday strictly on Wednesdays was easy except for a handful of times:

• when my office would order lunch and nothing vegan for me and then I was angsty and hungry
• when Kirstie & Jason brought home fresh buttery croissants and cheese from Paris and had a party on a Wednesday
• when Christmas fell on Wednesday

Having some flex to my resolutions will help me keep them. Here’s to another god-damn new year!

2014 Resolutions:

• Update the La De Blog once a week
• Read 30 minutes a day
• Continue getting fit
• Continue buying “Made in the USA” as often as possible
• Floating weekly vegan day
• Photo a day on Instagram

Films watched 1st week of the year:

Follow my Voice *
The Great Gatsby (2013)
Casa de mi Padre
Face/Off

* documentary

Follow my Voice is a documentary about the making of the Hedwig & the Angry Inch tribute album (and the kids at the Harvey Milk school it benefited). Hearing this brought back so many great memories of driving with Karyn & Terence singing the soundtrack to one of my absolute favorite films. I hope to see it in the theatre one of these days. Wish I’d gone with Karyn back in the day. The Great Gatsby does not deserve any words other than me to say it is not worth your time.