i have never seen so many rollie suitcases in the loop. today was absurd-rush hour began around 2:30pm with everyone leaving for the thanksgiving weekend. it's a bit unsettling to realize this is the first time i've not headed back to thousand oaks for this specific holiday weekend. i received a text from pudge saying the group was getting together tonight and that we should come by. oops, i'm totally over 3,000 miles away. weird. but, the weirdness is largely mitigated by a number of other friends still being around-morningish brunch plans + a potentially amazing orphan thanksgiving filled with vegan goodies at ruby's. yum.

and since we're in chicago, the weather talk is a necessity. it's still really nice-it's bizarre how you adapt and i have truly been thinking that sunny 40 degree weather is utterly fantastic. a few flurries, but not even many rain days. my seasonless childhood leaves me totally dumbfounded as to the fact that, yes! that is snow. and it is coming out of the sky, now. but i'm sure the novelty will wear off. but all in all, chicago has been doing a great job of easing us in.



this weekend was the cranksgiving race. it a fairly traditional alleycat where the riders visit grocery stores and purchase an item from a list at each one that will, in the end, be donated to a local organization involved in food drives, etc. in all, its a great cause and usually a whole lot of fun. this one was no exception. allison, lara, and i all rode together and just had a blast. had the inevitable "i'm stuck in this line and the woman in front just pulled out coupons, shit" experience, but it's all part of why this race is so great. the after party happened at adam's garage, home of the cuttin' cruiser, a big art/warehouse space. super awesome although i think i need to begin keeping chris and his whiskey wielding ways an arms distance away at these events. a lot of good people though, good hangouts.

ben vc was gracious enough to drive allison and i all over north chicago to garage sales, etc. so we could better furnish our apartment on saturday. we found some really nice chairs, bookshelves, lamps, at this cafe's going out of business sale. on monday, jake drove me to finally get a mattress too, it's like we have a real home. yes!

for our indoor league, we lost our second soccer game too, and i have the gnarliest bruise on my inner thigh from all the ridiculous shots the boys on the other team were taking, but it's just so damn fun to play soccer again. our team plays hard, but no one takes it too seriously, its kind of a great balance. we've been getting after-game drinks at a nearby bar who is sponsoring our team, so its a really awesomely tiring and complete sunday night outing.

my bikes are both in working order now too. i've been at west town a lot recently since i seem to be breaking everything. even though it's no bike church, it's really great. i was talking to alex (the guy who started it-west town isn't a co-op, it's really still alex's shop, which is a primary difference. but he's super knowledgable and friendly, so it works well) on tuesday night, and he said we would help me weld together trash parts to make a front rack. ah, i'm so excited to do more welding, not spend so much $$, AND just plop canon boxes on the rack instead of the awkward balance procedures. good winter project plans!

work has been really good too. i'm finally learning all the messenger centers and docks and feel like i can really get into the groove of it all. plus, i abuse the use of my nextel and really enjoy the random chitchat with casey and grey and who ever else will give me their dc. the other night, i got paged at 4:15 to do two car runs in under an hour, one of which was a round trip. i really hustled and got it done in 45 minutes (and got to play with the cutest pomeranian in the chase bank) and my dispatcher told me i was wonder woman. it ruled. i also interviewed the other day with intercept. while they had just hired one on, the dispatcher told me to call back in a week. he told me i was exactly what they were looking for and that one of their current riders might be leaving soon. we'll see--they're still an IC company, but have a smaller staff, little turn over, and seem to have a better grasp on what you as an employee expect out of the job. so this could be really nice-keep your fingers crossed for me!

but yeah, happy thanksgiving to all! if only i could be in 4 different places at once...

its really winter

it snowed tonight! so not completely, since it wasn't really sticking to the ground, but it was all over the cars and allison + jeff both concluded it was something like riding in a snow globe. indeed. still totally weirds me out. i honestly think these next five months are going to be incredibly bizarre, honestly behind some comprehension for me.

in other good news, we just got back from playing our first official indoor soccer league game. emily and jeff organized a team of cyclists for a long time co-ed league. 6 v 6 and 45 minute games, all real fast moving. we unfortunately lost, but for once my competitive nature didn't ruin that i had a total blast. i'm excited for an indoor exercise with the imminent frigidness and its really awesome just to play soccer again.

in other other news: our freezer isn't working, so we can't buy tater tots or keep ice cream solid. i keep breaking things on my bikes: who knew a campy cone could cost $16. i sure didn't, but WHO really cracks them in the first place? freehubs don't usually seize after rain. *sigh* i also got stuck in an elevator for an hour on thursday. for realz. the company i was delivering to, felt so bad one guy offered to buy me lunch. i insisted i had to leave since i had to "orientate" the new girl. he instead slipped $20 into my hand and told me to buy myself a nice lunch. ha, or cheap pizza and a couple beers that night. augie wanted to know which building this was so he could get himself stuck in the same elevator. i don't know if it would work the same for round two though.

does anyone actually read this thing? as soon as it really snows, i'll get some pictures up.

a note to chicago runners...

don't do it. i'm serious. alright, well if you're on the lakefront path, or something equally sanctioned for running, fine. if you're downtown, you are asking to be hit. i'm even more serious on this point. there is a flow to traffic. even if you're a fast walker at 8:30am or 4:30pm (when everyone turns into a total speedster), you can mesh. it's always the fucking runners that think they can slip across four lanes, four giant lanes on madison and wacker while only looking the opposite direction. yeah, traffic is traveling east buddy, so when i yell at you, don't give me that ugly look. and besides if you were walking, i could've slipped behind you, but when you halt dead mid-run, it's a tiny bit more difficult to predict your antelope reflexes.

thursday was the first day i messengered downtown when it began raining. it was sunny in the morning, so i think most people simply weren't prepared. when it began raining around 3pm, 25% more pedestrians began running. 25% times a 3x slower stopping ability on freshly wet, oily pavement=uh, bad. luckily there was no actual contact, but i can just see it coming. speaking of stopping power, i really need to build a winter bike as soon as i have any disposable income which might be feasible sans NICA. ugh, i have to figure that one out, and soon. still messengering has been a lot of fun and figuring out the downtown (i know, its an insanely straight forward grid, but it has its quirks) is super awesome. for a city with such inclement weather, there sure is A LOT of metal in the streets. plate, grates, pothole covers, you name it. i will be a pro sidewalk rider by the end of winter, mark my words.

in other news, the sadie hawkins race was last night. a bunch of out of towners showed up, making for 60 or so teams. although there was a lot more warm/rain gear rather than fancy costumes, it was great to see the people who took the spirit of the style race too. while it was quite cold (35 or so, with especially gnarly wind while coming south on the last bit on ogden) it never rained/snowed as predicted, which was a really welcome surprise. the routing was pretty straight forward (its also geared to be a great first race, which is awesome) so there wasn't too much planning involved. coyote and i rocked it (well coyote more than me, but i hung onto his wheel the best i could). we were super close to the first place team for the first 5 checkpoints, but misrouted to goose island and lost some time. we still ended up second (!) to an awesome loft space in little village. allison and ben had a flat mishap toward the end and had to *patiently* wait for a tube delivery, but still arrived at the part in style. there were iro sprints, dance party, lots of happily tired kids, prizes and cheep beer, OH!&walking proximity to burritos. genius. kids that lived there also dumpstered a gallon of odwalla oj for me, winning night, really.



alright, well i am off to try and play some soccer in this 30 weather. whew. and maybe some more thrifting for wool, need more wool...

election day!

it's the big day. the day the chicago police department has been intensively preparing for and the whole town has been discussing with fevor and excitment. lines of voters extending for blocks from schools, libraries and churches began early this morning and will continue on until 7pm tonight. there's an excitement in the air and i know we'll definitely be downtown tonight for the rally, crossing our finger none of the riots get too crazy... right? haha.

election day aside, the last week has been very pleasant, both in weather and activites. the wesley willis documentary last saturday ruled, as did the impromtu 'batman tour' we did with ben and coyote afterwards. we rode around lower wacker, checking out the underground mini-marts and parking garages, taking a short field trip to the swings and to the pier where it looked like 'family matters.' we did some bar hopping that night, met some new faces and went out for a bit in logan square.


the second to last 'classics' race with the namesake of 'fakenger' took place the following day with crazy winds, fedex boxes and lots of tofu. we followed up the race with a large brunch at pick me up and it was then decided our malort virginity must be broken, with haste! the 3:00 tasting quickly turned into an all day endeavor at adam and megan's place. andrew somehow got dressed up like santa and coyote was wearing a belly jersey. yeah.


weeks have been interesting with christina working during the day (she'll have to fill in that update for you) i've been entertaining myself with lots of al burian, computer time and a few cooking experiments. we went to see 'the shining' play at the clipper on tuesday, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite bars in chicago, and visited myopic on wednesday so christina could read more of the ender series :)

halloween dawned, sunny and 70 degrees outside, with crunchy leaves on the ground and a dry breeze in the air. sometimes i still feel as if i'm in a movie, experiencing seasons i've only ever viewed from afar. i never found a real costume and chose to simply settle on a ridiculous halloween sweater i discovered at the village discount outlet, giving christina the tiny teenage mutant ninja turtles costume. the final race of the series began at adam and megan's house again, consisting of check points such as the rosehill cemetery, searching through "the forest" to find the girls with sippy cups of malort or vodka (surprise!) and riding through the insanity of the halsted street fair to get to 666 w roscoe. the "suprise" ended up being forced to do goldsprints once reaching the finish. at least i didn't feel like vomiting after. the party that ensued has some interesting results: coyote with a second nose piercing courtesy of rudy, chris bought even more bottles of knob creek at jewel with me in my bare feet (man, i got so much shit for that, all aimed at me being from california) and andrew got a broken arms from the dog pile started at kessler's instigation. phew.


saturday i had to work while christina and coyote watched a movie about st. bernards. we ended up going to a party out on california with the most insane decorations i've ever seen, a dj in his underwear that played the smiths and rocked out really hard and lots of silly conversations. we were the only ones not in costume and felt like super lame party poopers, especially in comparison to the oompa loompas and christmas fairies.

the next morning i dragged myself to whole foods by 9 while christina got to go out to the cross race with ben, jeff and adrian. i totally missed out on getting lost in the 'burbs and donuts in the gravel! adam and megan had us over for dinner: vegan stirfry and pumpkin pie! yum! then we threw glowsticks and seal pelts at the fan. easily amused? check yes. (we were sober, too!) haha.

yeah. so i hope some people are still reading this? maybe that'll bring you up to speed. sadie's is coming up this weekend which should be awesome (even though the weather says rain/snow... ugh) and you know what else is awesome? real mail!! do it!!

wordplay, gotta love it.

about a month ago when we were still in san francisco, riding into the sunset to arezmendi to eat mint chocolate cookies and coffee, we happened to pass a businesses with one of those names; you know, one of those really painful ones like 'the crepevine' someone thought to be real cute when they created it. which sparked a discussion about how these people probably start businesses purely on the basis of the 'ingenious' name they thought up, a name so amazing it would just reel the customers in as soon as they saw the hilarity of the word play.

totally ridiculous but i feel as if i've been noticing them more and more since the onset of this conversation and have begun document the good ones i've seen in chicago (which so far is largely dominated by the pet industry... what that says about dog owners i'm not sure yet) i'm hoping to build on this collection so if anyone has any other good ones (i know there's gotta be some amazingly awful food ones) let me know!

here are some i have so far:
BARK avenue


anything is PAWsible


SPOTland yard


WOW & ZEN


i wasn't sure if this was actually a word play on "just great" but thought i'd include it anyhow


okay, this one's just funny.


other than that, chicago's been good. last night we went to the hideout, this weird little house-like venue in a semi-industrial area, braving the elements the whole way (which means it was kind of raining. and it took about 15 miunutes. baby steps, right?) to see tim kinsella dj. kind of. it ended up being more of an arty jam session ordeal, but was still nice to go out and see new places. i need to actually start taking pictures of the stuff we're doing instead of stupid businesses.... working on it. tonight is caitlin's birthday get together and we're going to see the wesley willis documentary on saturday! oh, happy weekend.
in other news, christina's off working while i'm at home, eating some kettle corn and paying the bills, trying to work on some crafty projects. some people may be getting mail soon. who knows? whole foods should start on thursday for me, which means 20% off and free samples! i love living off samples...

that's it for know. hopefully everyone's getting their halloween costumes ready! it's coming up quick.

chicago is for haters, apparently.

so i keep feeling as if i should more habitually update this as to not have some unfortunate melange of events/ideas when i finally do. with so much free time (read: unemployment) you would imagine this to be quite feasible...yeah.

on sunday we explored the south side for the third of the teem beer'd series. an interesting concept (calculating math problems to get the next address) although i'm not a fan of predetermined checkpoint orders. sort of altogether frustrating, although i think this is more predicated on not being able to take alley cats seriously lately (or probably as much, being a wiener about waking up before 9am and still not being altogether familiar with the area), but still a lot of fun and a great way to spend a morning. grabbed breakfast down there before heading back north.





last night we went to see mount eerie at the av aerie. the space is awesome despite being overly lit, but there was an amazing parachute covering the whole ceiling which created this crazy cave effect. julie dorian accompanied him and i arguably enjoyed their trio (them plus one other man touring with julie) set better than his solo performance. the new cd is just so darn good, and he's such a character-real quick with onstage banter. definitely worth the 10 block trip from our house.



the chicago film festival started this week. students with id (even non-valid ids, apparently) can gain free entrance to films beginning before 5pm, perfect for my current budget. we saw a series of shorts this afternoon that were really good. tonight, there was also a free screening of the mark of cain, a documentary on russian prisioners and more specifically, the once symbolic tattooing done while serving sentences. really interesting, especially to hear the filmmaker discuss actually being in the prisons, etc. afterwards. we went out to grab a drink with a few chifg kids after before heading home.

the weather's still been great-a couple days of rain, but nothing really inhibiting. the temperature has been in the 50s, so i've invested in gloves, wool base layers, and arm warmers, but until i actually begin work, i really don't have any investment capital, so to speak. allison and i both have job leads though, (finally!) cross your fingers for us. i keep hearing/reading of the perils of winter-i'm sort of excited. i think i have to write that down now and i remember a couple months down the line that it's suppose to at least be fun in novelty.



in less exciting other news, been listing to a lot of jawbreaker, rites of spring, piebald, mountain goats, and weakerthans. basically, everything i've always listened to. give me new suggestions! or send me mix tapes/cds, etc.


(it looks like this just in case you needed a visual reminder...)

really. i've also finally had time to read. i read the second book in the ender trilogy in two days. so much love for myopic in being able to find all those books for $3. i'm trying to finish crying lot of 49 after beginning it on three separate occasions, pynchon, i got you this time.

that's it for now. i'll try for the frequency thing.

chicago, for realz.

alright, alright, i haven't been taking any pictures so i've been hesitant to do any updates. yet, here i am, a week in, looking outside into rain and feeling it's as good a time as any.

this is the first day of rain, the whole first week has been awesome "halloween type" weather, where its still all dry and warm out. even now, it's raining, but not too chilly. it seems that the first thing anyone brings up when talking about chicago is the weather, so it seemed only right that i do the same.

our flight left at 8am, october 1st. we took as much as possible, per the size requirement. nevertheless, the xray lady was shocked to see me carrying the main console to my stereo in my frieght backpack. mneh, i knew i would want music most of all when moving in.



after our flight, we were faced with transporting all our known belongings-each with two "carry-on-size" bags, a large suitcase AND our bike boxes-to our new apt. moving all of this through the airport, onto the actual el train proved strenuous, to say the least. once in downtown, we caved and flagged down a taxi van, which was only $10 &totally worth it. phew. yet, moving in up three flights of stairs has proved somewhat difficult, especially due to the nature of them (extremely wind-y) but particularly since the last two days they've been painting them. yesterday, every TWO were taped off and you were supposed to step over those. yet, with bikes (and ahem, a couch) its hard to abide by this. so after we mucked up the new paint and then had to call mark (the property owner) to come and fix our leaky faucet, i don't know if we're on his favorites list. but our apt still rules (despite the noisy overhead neighbor)-and there is even a nice big basement to store our bike(s!)



yes, multiple bikes. we went to pick up our road bikes from union station yesterday and proceeded to piece them back together on the sidewalk so we could ride home rather than take the L again with large boxes. yet, i am slowly coming to the realization that everything i have been doing and will continue to do until i am actually settled here, has been warranting copious stares and multiple unencouraged comments about the nature of our actions. yes, i know rolling a table with a tv, baking pan, bowls and vcr for a mile isn't the smartest idea, but i don't have a car, so bear with me. (&stop staring?) anyhow, our bikes are almost complete, and i realize i didn't include my road bike pedals in this box. so allison nicely loans me one of her pedals and we proceed to ride the mile and a half back home, each sans one pedal. yep, more stares, amid much laughter (is this really happening?).

our apt is finally beginning to look a little more whole. we found a matress and couch in nearby alleys and found a lot of kitchen stuff, etc at saturday garage sales and thrift stores. not having a car makes taking advantage of free craigslist a little more difficult, but its been helpful as well.





we met some cool kids off the chifg board by going to their version of goldsprints on saturday night and hanging out. despite it being a small party, and me being quite afraid it was going to be incredibly awkward walking into some random's house, everyone was super friendly. we did an alleycat with the same kids the following morning at 9am, not many kids showed up (about 15) but it was a lot of fun and nice to meet more bike kids. allison and i went to a free show at the empty bottle last night (chinese stars +local bands) and ran into some of the same kids there again, randomly. some really sweet people though, we ended up grabbing a drink after with one guy at this weird bar called club foot with lots of dolls in cases and memorabilia on the walls. there are quite a few mellow, small bars within some blocks from our house, we lucked out on location i think. its funny that even though chicago is so much bigger than sf, most people still hang out in a smaller conglomeration of neighborhoods and it still manages to have the a small-ish community feel. i was sitting outside trader joes today waiting for allison to finish applying and augie randomly rode by and stopped to chat. man, that guy rules. but exactly, its definitely feeling smaller (in the good and managable way though), i really like it so far.

speaking of applying-we've both been on the job search and for some reason, i imagined it would be so easy here. i know the state of the economy is no boon, but its been more of a search than i imagined. i'm only 4 applications in, but i was really hoping to score something before the real bad weather hit. we'll see.

anyhow, this is feeling long enough. as always, i'll work on taking more (and better) pictures soon. and hopefully this rain lets up a bit tomorrow so the job search can continue with vigilance.