jamie ann

The past several months have turned me into a bit of a night owl.

At first it was just I couldn’t sleep. I don’t sleep well when things are chaotic around me. I was constantly fighting with my then best friend, there was family drama and my dad being sick and it all just left me feeling very restless. I’d go to bed at a “normal” time and just toss and turn all night until a completely stupid hour, like 4AM. Then I would wake up in a completely foul mood because I am NOT a morning person even when I do sleep and now I was running on very little sleep.

More recently, instead of just laying there hating my life and cursing people who have a normal sleep schedule, I’ve been channeling my super energy into being productive. Now, I wish I could say that I have actually finally cleaned out my closet or gone through and purged all my old beauty products. (WHY CAN’T I JUST THROW THINGS AWAY?! SERIOUSLY.)

But I have been working on my projects late at night and being super productive.

During the day there are so many distractions when you do some of your work from home. There is sun that needs to be soaked up, Twitter that needs to be checked, Google Readers that need to see zero, puppies that need to play fetch (or more like, You’re A Big Dummy If You Think You Can Throw This And I’ll Actually Bring It Back), there is shows that need to be started (Parks & Rec), people that need to be chatted, blah blah etc.

For example, yesterday afternoon I started working on something that I probably could have knocked out in about an hour. Two gchat conversations, a little making fun of Losties, three downloaded albums and five hours later, I finally wrapped it up. It wasn’t super time sensitive so I could take my time (trust me, I’m not that lazy) but I was doing a million other things and working on it slowly.

At almost midnight, the internet was far more quiet. When tweets were fewer and less frequent and there were only a few stragglers on gchat, who were also on the night shift, I buckled down and knocked out a ton more work in just two hours.

I’ve decided I really like working when there isn’t so much noise – both actual noise and internet noise. There’s no lawnmowers running, baseball bats clinking from the nearby Little League park, or dogs barking. It’s calm and peaceful. I’m not trying to keep up with the conversation on all social media channels while knocking out a few hundred words. The internet is (almost) asleep while I’m cranking out work with no interruptions.

I guess that all might change depending on the next job I pick up and that’s okay, I can adjust. But while my schedule has some breathing room, the night shift is for getting shit done.

(It would be pretty neat if Chicago had a late night co-working group like New York Nightowls)

On Thursday evening I decided I could no longer live if I didn’t have a new tattoo immediately. So on Saturday I came home with this:

This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time. It’s perfect and I love it.

I got it done at Revolution Tattoo. It’s a little shop on Western with some killer art on the walls. The place is super, super clean with a friendly and accommodating staff. Plus there is a way cute dog who wanders around the shop and doles out puppy kisses. Go see Chito if you’re looking to get some work done in Chicago. He’s good people.

Tell me about your tattoos.

I know I’ve touched on it before (and Katelin recently wrote about this too) but recently I’ve taken my slightly addictive personality to new levels. I mean, I’m kind of ridiculous.

But we all knew that.

Having such a flexible schedule and the ability to do some of my work from home, I’m kind of big on multi-tasking. Like no, actually, I CAN answer questions for one of my projects and do my laundry while watching my latest show. ALL AT ONCE.

Perfect example, you know how Ugly Betty ended a couple weeks ago? I’ve never really watched it before but I got the bright idea that I was going to start watching it. So I found it online and then watched ALL FOUR SEASONS in like a week and a half. I had it on in the background, while I was cooking, before bed, while writing. I just needed to know what happened and couldn’t wait so I wasted an obscene amount of hours because I just could not stop watching them. And then I fell in love with Henry because he is adorable.

But no really, the show is actually good. Probably even more so if you took the time to actually savor what you’re watching and not plow through them like they will disappear forever if you don’t watch them RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

Same with 30 Rock. I watched the whole thing in weeks. And can someone tell me why the fuck Floyd married some stranger bitch? Floyd and Liz were MEANT TO BE. But before 30 Rock I did the same with How I Met Your Mother and True Blood and Mad Men and Entourage and Weeds. But the last two don’t count because I was only catching up on the most recent seasons.

Also, when I got this new iPhone around my birthday, I downloaded Words With Friends. Pretty sure in a matter of days I had like 37 games going because it was all I wanted to do. Hi, do you play? I’m JamieLovely. I suck most of the time and then argue with the game like no, actually blahblah is a word, Words With Friends. Get it together!

And then there is music. I have a nice little music collection but I go through it in phases. Sometimes I’m all over the place and can be listening to like, The Refused to Justin Timberlake and then to like, Saves the Day but think oh hey, how about some Fugees? all in a matter of hours. But then there are times, I pretty much can listen to one album or artist for the longest. Currently in rotation on iTunes is The Gaslight Anthem’s American Slang, Band of Skulls’ Baby Darling Dollface Honey and Murder by Death’s Good Morning, Magpie. But in my car it’s been Sink or Swim all day, every day with a occasional chance of The 59 Sound for the past couple of weeks.

And then apartment listings. I CAN’T STOP LOOKING AT THEM. Finding a dog friendly, affordable studio or one bedroom in Logan Square is my new thing. Then I start thinking about how I’m going to decorate and before you know it I’m looking at ridiculously priced shower curtains at Anthropologie that I’ll never buy because shower curtains are just not that serious.

I guess I could channel this crazy productive obsessive energy into something useful like trying not to want to eat cheesy bread for every meal or finally cleaning out my closet but that probably won’t be as fun or tasty.

Let’s hope I never start seriously gambling or take up crack because with my track record my life would seriously go downhill and FAST.

You’d probably see a Let’s Crowdsource Jamie’s Bail Money post in a matter of days.

I pretty much have no idea what to write about lately. Or well, I do but I just don’t want to put it out into the universe just yet. So I’ve decided to take a page out of Katelin’s book and start a Top Five series (she does ten though, I think).

So first up in the series: babes I’m currently super crushing on, in no particular order:

Robert Downey Jr. With Iron Man 2 coming out this week, he’s been all over the place lately. Check out this Rolling Stone interview. I’ll be seeing you this weekend, RDJ.

Henry Grubstick. I don’t even know what his real name is but he’s Henry on Ugly Betty. And basically, I’m in love with him. He’s adorable. I’m not talking about the dude who plays him, I mean the actual character, Henry.

Zac Efron. Disney kid, High School Musical, blah blah what the fuck ever. I love him. End of story.

Brian Fallon. I’m pretty sure The Gaslight Anthem’s Sink or Swim hasn’t left the cd player in my car for over two weeks.  Plus, just look at this dude. For a girl who digs boys with tattoos and that make music, he’s kind of it. Such a babe.

Mark Ronson. Like, I really don’t think I could love him even more. DJ/musician/producer, he does it all. And looks ridiculously good in a suit. Swoon.

Honorable mentions: Alexander Skarsgard and M. Ward.

So attention all suited up, tattooed musicians, adorable geeky boys and uh, Tony Stark… HOLLER.

Your top five. Go.