Road Tripping and the consequences therein... a PSA from the road

At this moment, I've been in a car for nearly 12 hours. Loopy set in at abooout hour 8... Or that was just the punch of the 5 hour energy. Did you know you're really only supposed to drink half at a time? Twas news to me... News that I chose to ignore... Obvs.

Luckily, these many hours have been filled with entertainment provided by my sister and co-captian of this here ship, Hillary. Others have included music, reading Twilight out loud (I know, right?), aaaand updating gchat like a fool. Web-enabled phones are like... The cat's meow.

It's also way dangerous. Once K So copied and sent them to me, I realized there might be horribly wrong here... Or so horribly right... You decide:

Courtney's new status message - Three pig trucks and counting. I think Illinois is safe from swine flu now. Citizens rejoice!   9:41 AM Courtney's new status message - Iowa, silos and smokestacks, oh my!   9:54 AM Courtney's new status message - The wise words of Iowa-bound Hill: "are we in Indiana yet?"... "The speed limit should be higher in Idaho"... I-states are hard.   10:00 AM Courtney's new status message - Was just passed by what had to have been an iron tentacle on the back of a truck. Are oversized metallic octopi native to Iowa?   10:36 AM Courtney's new status message - I can hear Shawn Johnson's taco pop from here... Ew wait... I mean HI Des Moines!   11:01 AM Courtney's new status message - Court is driving. Hillary is awesome. Duh.   12:54 PM Courtney's new status message - Mile marker 54. Iowa. Holla.   1:49 PM Courtney's new status message - We have resorted to reading twilight out loud... In nebraska...   3:06 PM

So kids? Just be safe on the road. You never know what kind of Iowan octopi or Olympian taco you could encounter. The more you know.

PS- are you happy now B Ko? ;)

The Curious Case of the return of Courtney Carter

These are crazy times, y'all. The economy blows, the weather is getting warmer (ish??) and there's sunshine involved now... and I find myself reverting to a 15 year old. I think it's been happening over an extended period of time (Hello, "totes"? Acronyms? I'm talking to you.) But what really shot me into the realm of tweenerdom was Twilight (thanks a lot, Kasey)... and my actual interest in this season of American Idol (I'm looking at you, Jason).

I'm a little late on both of these trends, I'll admit it. But when you spend a full weekend in the company of ACTUAL suburban teens and then come running back to real adult-life only to find yourself obsessing over the likes of Edward Cullen and Kris Allen, it's a shock, let me tell ya.

But they're both so dreamy! Edward's all brooding and mysterious and like... vampires are hot kind of... and you just want to tuck little Kris Allen into the back pocket of your Forever 21 jeans and take him out so he can grin lop-sidedly at you and you'll have Taylor Swift play at the wedding and like..... whoa.... I blacked out for a minute. What was I saying?

Anyway, I made a playlist! Here you go... sorry for those of you minus an Imeem account, you should sign up and start rocking embarassing playlists of your own. Then send them to me, thanks. Win for everyone!

While we're on the subject, let's have a visual of our own real tweener years... grr... No Nick Carter involved, my original dreamboat but... enjoy...

Quasi cut the city mouse.

Spring is coming (or so I hear). The gray is lifting, the sun is making an appearance here and there, seasonal depression meds are depleting... and animals are coming out from their hiding spots. Which is sweet in theory... but let's take a good hard look at our animal folk in this wondrous city.

I am reminded of the old story about the city mouse and the country mouse and how they didn't get along, blah blah blah, happy ending (I did about as much reading as a child as I do now). But I can't help but think that the wildlife I've seen around the city recently? Frightening... not your cute little city mouse with a monocle and suspenders... no no no.

Exhibit A:

(I've stated before my hatred of pigeons, no?) Sssssick. This vision of pigeon putrescence, as many of you may know, is Quasi (as in -modo... as in bell tower... as in fugly). The pigeon that I hope to God is dead by now but one that frequented my favorite hotspots around the Loop last summer. WHAT HAPPENED TO IT??

I remember seeing it attacking other prettier** pigeons and as a result, had nightmares for a week. It looks like it was punted (a dream of mine... to punt a pigeon), landed in a puddle of engine oil, climbed its way out leaving feathers and maybe an eye behind... and then made it's way (one-legged) to Chase Pavilion where it graced us with its oily presence. And then I saw it again a few days later when it slimed its way up to Wacker. I'm sure there was a trail.

Obviously this was a traumatic episode since over a year later, I'm still getting chills from it, let alone writing about it in a public forum. What brought this back to the forefront though? Why would I relive such a traumatic birdsight-ing experience? Who would do such a thing?

A city raccoon... didn't think they existed, did you? Welp, me neither... ::sigh::... but they sure do.

Mason and I were walking along Pine Grove the other day and saw the Great Dane of all Raccoons just hanging out, staring at us. We dubbed it Roxie. Once it made it's way back into the crack between the buildings from whence it came, I thought about what it must feed off of to be so big (the answer, I told myself, was rats.... and probably Quasi). Eeew, city animeals.

So whilst I might never understand the wildlife in the city, it is SO entertaining to give it a backstory. Someone needs to write a newer updated version of the city and country mouse but have someone cut a bitch... because honestly... both Quasi and Roxie are far more comfortable with a switch blade than a monocle.

** "prettier" is SO relative in this case. All pigeons are hideous (hence my intense desire to punt them) but in comparison, these things were Venus de Milo compared to poor Quasimodo. RIP, Quasi... or just... see you in a month or two.

You can't stay here anymore.

Winter... it is a BITCH... and she's that bitch that comes skipping in and is like "Oh hi! I'm pretty and you can warm up near the fire and drink hot chocolate and look! I brought you holidays! Aren't those fun?" and you're like "Yaaaay! I love this, it's so cozy and presents are involved!"

Then after about a month or two of that you're like... "Hey, ummm didn't you have somewhere else to be?" and Winter is like "Nope! I wasn't really planning on leaving until like... March... but I might stop back here and there in April too... you don't mind, do you?"

Well yes, Winter... I do mind. Greatly so. Get the hell out of my city and don't come back until I'm good and ready... or until November. Whichever comes first. You haven't given me presents in months, my skin is translucent now and this gray cloud cover is making me crazy.

I think a good dose of sun (and maybe a beach with an umbrella-decorated drink) would do me a WORLD of good right now...

My promise set in stone (or just.... blog) is that with new sun and warmer weather I will be a ... cheerier... more cheery... cheery-ier... whatever... person. :) Until then, I'm getting a sun lamp and putting umbrellas in red wine. Who's with me??

I just hate birds...

That's a lie. I do hate pigeons but that's another post all together. I was told the title of the blog sounded like a hunter's forum so I thought I'd just get that out of the way.


Hello! And welcome to my blog (finally). For the three of you reading, I'm sure you know how much I adore movies. And you might also be wondering where the F this blog title came from, if it truly is not an homage to my love of pigeon hunting. Welp, let me tell ya. There's a little film that slipped under everyone's radar back in 1998 entitled "Music From Another Room". It has an uber cute Jude Law in it (before the smarmy and the nanny came into his life) and it captures my entire verbal habits in just one little quote...


"You say as few words as possible. It's very effective. Like a sharpshooter. I'm a bit more like a shotgun, you know? Scatter words like birdshot hoping something is gonna hit."


(Click on it!! ... go to 4:30 and carry on from there, it's much more charming when heard in a de-Law-cious British accent)

Point being, I love to talk... I love writing even more so here I am, entering the blogosphere. I plan on using this space to just kind of rattle about the things that are of interest to me and just as a nice break from work too. Let's face it. In this economy and at this job, I need a nice little distraction until the job market opens back up.


So keep an eye out for randomness, thoughtfulness, your usual dose of ridiculousness and Courtney-brand fun. I'm just gonna throw some words out there. Something's gonna hit. :)