Snowpocalypse 2011

view from outside my apartment Wednesday morning

I just can't get enough of this buzzword. I can, however, get enough of this weather. Chicago is supposed to get up to two feet in the next 24 hours. The office closed early today, so I hightailed it to the grocery store, where instead of milk, bread, and eggs, I bought diet coke, twizzlers, macaroni and cheese (um, forgive my ignorance but when did Kraft discontinue the Rugrats variety) and an array of tabloids. My vices, however, pale in comparison to my elevator mate who shamelessly told me he was going to invest in frozen pizza and beer to get him through the next few days.

On my to-do list: drink lots of coffee, an SVU marathon with homemade chocolate chip cookies (can't get enough Elliot Stabler, especially when he tucks that tie), and making some headway in The Executioner's Song, Norman Mailer's 1056 page magnum opus that I can so far classify as brilliant. And heavy.

Avoidance Therapy

"Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought"

--Arthur Phelps

Currently on my nightstand (along with the requisite Vogue, Vogue Best Dressed, and W)

I just finished When Corruption Was King by Robert Cooley. An incredibly fast read (I devoured it in a weekend) and a great story. Cooley's ghostwriter (or perhaps Cooley himself, as he is almost certainly bored out of his mind in some undisclosed location) takes you right inside the messy world of Chicago politics and the notorious Outfit, often populated by the same cast of gnarly characters. The story follows Cooley's career, which took off after rigging the murder trial of hit man Harry "The Hook" Aleman and quickly spun into a thrilling, but often dangerous, life as the Outfit's go to fix-it guy. For reasons even he can't completely fathom, he then turned FBI informant as part of Operation Gambat (which stands for Gambling Attorney, a little bureaucratic dig at Cooley that I found hilarious) and testified against some of the most dangerous mobsters in the history of a city teeming with illustrious mobsters.

As a temporary resident of the Windy City and an aspiring lawyer, this book didn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in either my adoptive city or future career, but a definite must-read for Chicagoans (still can't get used to that word) or anyone interested in the history of the Mafia (and let's be honest, who isn't a little fascinated with by the world of gun-wielding guidos that inspired Tony Soprano?)

Up next-- Re-reading The Great Gatsby for the first time since high school in anticipation of the movie version starring the lovely Miss Carey Mulligan.