my puppeteer is making me furious.

last thursday, despite the torrential downpour, allison and i headed up north to meet up with other chifg'ers at the green eye for ira's pub crawl. surprisingly, about 8 others also showed up. from there, we went north to the two way for boiler makers, relax for $1 schlitz, and wrapped it up at the metal shaker, an awesome bar that hosts all sorts of metal shows. deciding i couldn't let the rain thwart my plans proved best as i still had a great time.

allison traveled down to the north american handmade bike show in indianapolis on friday night with ben, chris and dana. since i had work until 6pm, i stuck around in chicago on friday to meet up with caitlin at the bikeart party at the flat iron, saw al's band play and then went with jake and claire up north for (another) allison's birthday. snacks and some silly charades-ish game kept the night awesome.

augie picked jake and me up saturday morning to drive to indianapolis. we arrived at the show in this huge convention center and overwhelmingly wandered around for the next few hours, staring at beautiful bikes and seeing far more people that i ever imagined would be there. the broakland kids had a booth, so we hung out there a lot with teddy ruckspin, chilling in the lounge chairs. allison, augie, jake, augie's LA friend ryan, and i went to pizza before heading over to this cool art-loft space (really similar to flat iron) to FINALLY see macaframa. i was super excited and despite most other people being pretty mellow, couldn't help myself from excessive hollering and cheering. i was really impressed with the final product and excited to yell for nate's fall, steveb, phil, and everyone else. the rowdiness all went downhill from there with a dance party with the montano kids boom box, drunken beer can (and bottle...) throwing, and an unfortunate move to a nearby bar where we were kicked out after a few hours. ha. luckily, we were able to stay at kyle and tj's hotel room and slowly recover the next morning while watching vegas vacation before heading out for brunch.


linked to andrew yoman's flickr set, with some of the least flattering pictures, ever.

eli, jason grove +montano, and stevie all came to stay in chicago that night before flying out on monday. it was awesome to just hang out, catch up, and half watch rad before deciding in finally needed to turn in for work.

this week we also went up to chris' house in roscoe village for vegan desert night. ate cupcakes, pretzels, home roasted coffee and other select beverages, best idea ever!
on wednesday, we held out monthly chi-mix-gear night at ruby's house. theme: ultimate break up mix, this time in mp3 form. good turn out and i came home with lots of new music already on my ipod. i've spent the past couple days making my way through playlists, awesome. theme for next month is body parts i believe. suggestions? this could be a good one.

book club was postponed to next week, though i made it halfway through the kundera book. i'm also mostly finished with xenocide, drawing the ender triology to a close for me. dorky or not, those books rule. i've been trying to catch up on netflix rather than holding onto them for weeks. o lucky man (5 hours, but surprisingly smooth) rosemary's baby (good, but totally weird), road to welville (funny, great cast) and i'm en route to ingmar berman's cries and whispers.

friday was free absinthe hour at the dark room followed by a couple hours at the cobra. imagine how that went...i spent a rainy saturday with jake, drinking coffee, cleaning, eating beets, more naps, watching 12monkeys and (always) more seinfeld. finally ventured out in the rain to see gino, who was in town for his birthday. bizarre party, but good to visit.
i'm hoping the torrential downpour is finally gone for a bit so getting to soccer isn't a drenching experience...

seven letter word for pilsen doorbell...

whew, its been some time.

[recap]
stuporbowl: evan and chas arrived in town wednesday night. we all went on ira's pub crawl thursday night, totally awesome. embarked for mpls on friday night for two days of absurdity. party bus, ran out of gas at 2am in the middle of no where. finally arrived in mpls at 6am and went back to sleep. brunched, "raced", and then hung out at the end. the real afterparty started when we got back to the rollerderby girls' house and they offered up their liquor cabniet, ridiculous, and totally awesome. we made it back to chicago after a super late brunch the following morning and lots of attempted sleeping on the bus amid many rest stops to ensure our gas didn't get too low.


(link to my flickr set)



(link to chris dilts' set)

being back in california was pretty great: we flew home first to spend time with the family. my older brother treated us to dinner at the restuarant he is currently managing. sheesh, far too respectable for me, but one of the best meals i've had recently. my mom drove us up to sf thursday night, and we stayed with jen and diego at their beautiful new house out in the sunset. sf was dissapointingly rainy for most of our stay, but the sun peeked out friday morning for our trip to atlas with a whole slew of good people. i spent the day stressing out, ironing out last minute details for the race. yummy dinner at jen and diego's, bender's for the friday the 13th alleycat afterparty, and quality time with taco, john blackwell's new puppy at wendy's house. saturday we pulled the race together and 90, yes 90! people came out. i guess i made it more difficult than intended because only 50 finished. still, i had a great time working a checkpoint and heckling. after party at chrome, dinner at golden era with the group, and a stop at gestalt and the uptown after. sunday, we woke up early to meet up with evan at four barrell before traveling to east bay for brunch at steveb's and then drove up to santa rosa to catch the tour of california. pro racers galore, gold sprints, and coffee filled attempts to escape the rain. ate lanesplitters back in oakland and then arrived back into sf to go to sweaterfunk (?!yeah huh?) night at the lepolounge, a weird bar in chinatown. monday was our last day spent getting bfast with noah and his new lady, dani, dave, and james at st francis, packing up and vietnamese sandwiches in dp. arriving back into chicago was actually really anticipated, and super easy despite our insane amounts of luggage, thanks to dave driving us to sfo and jake picking up on the other end.



cog held a one year anniversary party at av-aerie this past saturday. while i had already seen most of the displayed photos, tons of good people showed up and i had a total blast.


(dumptruck's flickr set)

av-aerie is just a totally rad space, and conviently only 8 blocks from my house. i went to see brian dewan, nana gringold, and music tapes there last night. i'm missing having motivation and friends who want to go to shows. i'll work on it.

we had our first meeting of book club last thursday. shit, i'm super excited to see this actually manifest after far too much idle talk. we chose milan kundera's the book of laughter and forgetting. we'll see how it actually flows.

restarted the next season of indoor soccer. i keep hurting myself but finally learned to just wear contacts. we won our game this past week picking up three awesome players since we were short that night. totally ruling.

i brought back a bike i had left at rigg st. and finally have three complete bikes built up: a work, track, and road bike. pictures to come soon cause i'm super proud of them. hopefully i'll get the last bike i have in working order and i'll be set for sometime.

now that february is wrapping up, i call total bullshit on everyone who told me february would be the worst, weatherwise. hrm, it's been a breeze compared to the average 13 degrees of january. i'm desperately awaiting daylight savings time though-working late just isn't as arduous when it's still light out.

today i was overjoyed. we were supposed to be hit with an ice storm that, instead, only sieged the bottom half of illinois. i, on the other hand, was able to work in the mild 18 degree, partly cloudy weather. motorists seemingly get most aggravated when following the horn, i give them the hand sweep, the "yes. you are behind me. go around, duh" motion. after that interaction today, this woman today rolled down her window and in the garbled speak you are only able to barely hear when someone speaks to you from inside a car, said (i only assume) that i was too far in the street for her to safely avoid me. i gleefully did what i haven't been able to do for weeks now, trapped in these silly lobster gloves, and flipped her. i don't normally condone these things, but there was something so absurd about being excited to be able use all five fingers. the weather does funny things to you.

on that same run i delivered these:

there were 500 of them-postcards that cost $225 for this cheesy clothing boutique, for which i'm sure i was payed $5 or something even though it was on armitage and sheffield. the woman called me hon, honey, and sweetie in the two minutes i was inside, classic. anyhow, when i told my dispatcher about my new-to-me front rack i put on my road bike it made her really happy. she's been giving me all the loop "car" runs, (which is actually often a client who doesn't believe a biker can carry anything more than an envelope...but i'm all about the small-ish boxes that pay me twice as much), which is super awesome since it's been pretty slow. due to the slowness, i've been up to update my monday only, to all-week crossword puzzle champion.

maniac randomly called me last week-him and joven had decided four days prior that they were to embark on a cross-country road trip, and that they would be in chicago on friday night. it was super funny to have them just show up-we ate at chicago diner, hung out at a show at jake's, watched mean girls in the morning and checked out some record stores. joven was determined to hate the cold while maniac made it a game to shovel snow. i'm a terrible tour guide, but they were only here for a day, so there wasn't too much showing around to do.

tour da chicago is well underway. the tour is a chicago tradition, i think this is the 8th year running. there are six or so races in the series, all with a slightly different theme. chicagoans apparently don't understand that alleycats should happen at noon though, so i slept through the prologue and and arduously dragged myself out of bed for the 8am start times the past two weeks. it's been fun to race again and have a reason to get people out. luckily it's been cold, pretty bitterly so, way too cold for snow. the dry cold i can deal with, the wet cold is the suck. anyhow, this past weekend was a lot of fun despite flatting out early on. val graciously hosted after, and sunday morning was filled with bagels and hot cider, yum.

my mom also made it out two weeks ago. she somehow came out when it was the coldest its been: hovering in the single to negative digits all week plus wind chill. still, we made it out and about everyday. thrift store shopping and dinners and took her out to bar deville one night to meet some friends. its great having a mom around to make you dinner again too, definitely awesome.

right now i'm loving free coffee mondays at mcdonalds. yes, mcdonalds. its gross, i shouldn't go, but when you want to be inside and mcdonalds is offering you a free warm beverage, i do not decline. this is mostly advertised in corporate elevators. maybe this is why they try to relegate us to freights...anyhow, maybe they don't know who they're really inviting in. (ir)regardless, its an added excuse to hang out in rock and roll mcdonalds. as if i need an excuse. also loving: the public library, pedestrian shields, chi-mix gear parties that turn into "nice-beer-drinking-at-chris'-apartment", new couches, and netflix.

i also felt that i should update because some big other events are coming up-stuporbowl is this weekend and chas and evan are coming in tomorrow evening to squeeze in some chicago time before minneapolis. things are pulling together for the valentine's day race and i'm looking forward to see all my bay area buddies.

crossing fingers for the 10 day weather report to be correct for once and it to be non-snowy and awful this weekend!

i've reached a new low..

i'm updating from the mac store on michigan ave. the ways i've been needing to spend standby is pretty absurd, too bad i find it altogether too entertaining. this morning was actually pretty busy, so i guess its not too bad.

after pining for thai food for weeks, my wants were finally fulfilled-we ate at dharma garden, an all veggie (plus some fish dishes, but you know..) restaurant up north. i order something i thought was going to have deep fried tofu that arrived with deep fried tofu, veggies and all, amazing.

other than that nothing too exciting. i am getting paged right now, byeee!

schadenfreude \SHOD-n-froy-duh\, noun

new years eve was pretty awesome. chris jensen showed up with a bike trailer full of champagne and two dominics worth of sparks (yuck), hilarious. we arrived early to a mellow gathering, which quickly changed as the apartment filled with "ski lodge" dressed friends and only escalated with ruby's nine hour dance mix. most everyone i wanted to see was there, plus lots of dancing and yummy snacks, pretty hard to NOT have a total blast. success indeed.



the following thursday was quite slow and thankfully filled with 2pm brunch and hours of batman the animated series, wrapped up with another movie and winter bike revamping. booyah. friday night was spent at colleen's playing 90s trivial pursuit and eating much pizza, yum. apparently i am not too much of a child of the 90s though, i can't even answer most of those questions, sheesh.

this weekend, i finally went ice skating! emily and simon were my happy accomplices, weaving our way through families and crush-ridden high schoolers. despite sore ankles and questioning my probable involvement in the destruction of a small child, it all ended well (and with no falls!) and was a lot of fun. after watching vh1 top 100 hard rock videos (yes!) at matt's, i attended a reading and screening of a couple shorts by animator jo dery at quimby's. i'm reminded how much i enjoy storytelling too, as it began with a fellow named walker mettling who read aloud from some collaborative 'zines he had compiled, in addition to a couple personally penned short stories. it also ignites the thought i might attempt some writing, something casual such as that is super appealing.

we won our soccer game on sunday! only the second win we've been able to pull off, but its been lighthearted all along. i didn't know many of the other players well before either, and its been a great way to interact, especially grabbing a couple drinks from our "sponsor" so close by makes the whole evening an awesome weekly outing. we only have one more game, followed by playoffs though. i'm feeling a drive to seek out other activities so my life isn't entirely consumed by working and casual hanging out.

sometime last week, jake and i finally made it out too "zoo lights" armed with hot chocolate and a need to view some animals. if it isn't self evident by the name, its the lincoln park zoo open at night and lit up by tons of holiday lights. again, i was surrounded by families and small children, but i was determined. the giraffes were awesome, the polar bear was no where to be found, but the best was the howler monkeys, displaying bizarrely human-like affection. really, all the monkeys ruled.



in other good news, 161 n clark ridded themselves of an extremely annoying messenger center. the security guard told me "the building figured you guys are busy and in a hurry and we might as well just let you guys do your thing." uh, fuck yeah. i only wish this was a group realization.
its been slow at work though, i've been finding better and more absurd ways to fill my standby time. daily crosswords puzzles and the discovery of the loop library's graphic novel section, in addition to elongating the list of spaces you will not be kicked out of.

ALSO, evan and chas are coming to visit at the end of january with plans to travel to mpls for the stupor bowl, which should be totally brutal and absurd. casey and travis and maybe some other sf kids are tentatively planning to make it out too, i'm super excited. mom is coming next week, and i believe gino will be around too. hooray for visitors, i need to begin thinking of all the places i need to take people when they come visit.

we began netflix too! any movie suggestions are welcomed.

as always, i'm bad at being succinct, the rambling comes too easy. and to those of you were luckily not the recipients of a more or less coherent text message, happy new year! if only i could remember to actually write 2009...

and ps. the weather has been fantastic. one 60 degree day last week melted all the snow and now it feels like a dream that the snow ever occurred. i know that'll probably change in two days, but i've been lovinggggg it.

sub zero temperatures, day 1.

my nose hair froze while riding today, seriously. it was between -2 and 1 degree today, unseasonably cold i'm told, figures. i met up with coyote for coffee at 1pm (yes. 1pm, weekends have been lazier than usual) and the inside of the door at swim cafe was frosted. we rode up to REI so i could purchase a full baklava and i was almost blown off my bike from the crosswinds. eek. this is some serious next level shit. just getting practice, really.

yesterday i spent more time at west town fixing up my bike. after friday, it was totally necessary. the worst is really the brown slush that is sprayed all over you when a car passes too fast and too close. ugh. i actually appreciated the "wait. you're riding your bike? today? in this?" question i got about six times. but i most appreciated the receptionist at 130 s jefferson who likes making me hot chocolate. matt mcdonald was right all along-the best part about winter is all the hot chocolate you suddenly have a right to drink, and a lot of it. while i had far too much stand by time, it was sort of well timed and i was able to chat with james about our valentine's day race. get ready!



during soccer tonight, i was hit square in the face with a soccer ball. that was bad enough, and then i realized the small cut i had on the right side was where the right arm had straight snapped off.



some of you may remember this stage of mine (and by stage, i may or may not be referring to a period that lasted around 5 months) a year or two ago where i accidentally stepped on my glasses and refused to get new ones until my insurance covered it again at the beginning of the year, instead opting to "fix" them with varying colors of electrical tape to reattach both arms.



i couldn't help be a little dramatic about it, so i think the girl who kicked it felt at fault. incidentally, by the amazing consideration of the other team, they did a small collection and gave me some money toward purchasing some new glasses. i felt really bad, but accepted at their insistence. hopefully i'll be able to have coyote make me some new ones, phew. i'm amazingly thankful for that gesture too, midwest hospitality i suppose.

we also attended augie's holiday sketch comedy act last night at an awesome little venue in pilsen. it was nothing i expected but a whole lot of fun. i need to continue to seek out different plans that vary from bars and hanging out, plus seeing augie do sketch comedy was hilarious.

it seems that more and more people are keeping blogs these days (which at times simply seems to be renaissance of high school livejournal with a more specific focus, and renamed to add more credibility, but who am i to be down on that...) still, i've been keeping up on a sporadic few. i caught this video tonight off hipster nascar:

VIMBY - Macaframa LA Premiere

c'mon dudes. bring it to chicago, i want to see this so bad. it'll probably make me cry seeing sf without seeing it there. still, i can't believe i haven't been able to catch it yet, sheesh.

and the best news of all, for four days next week, allison and i are the proud caretakers of scout, jason's most adorable dog while he is out of town. OPDs to the max, i can't wait.

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

last week was quite the busy one--trying to get all the fun in before the holidays. and the many inches of snow. i also discovered the worst thing about cycling in chicago winters. it's not the freezing extremities, the rusty chain or the deep snow that doesn't get plowed. oh no, it's a little something weather.com likes to call "wintry mix"--when the temperature hovers around 30, you get a nice mix of everything you could possibly imagine: snow, sleet, rain, hail, all at once yes. yes. luckily we haven't gotten too many of those days, but there's more coming. wednesday we met up at the clipper for jason's birthday, which had quite a good turn out and i got to see some people i can't for a bit. also got to talk about some more reoccurring plans to get me through the winter months. i'm totally going to need it!

lately we've been complaining about our lack of new music, but chi-mix gear jumped in to save us! we met up at simon's on thursday night to exchange cd with some other kids, each choosing a track to play while we drank and lamented the fact we couldn't light simon's fireplace. everyone ended up leaving kind of early so coyote and chris convinced me to accompany them to bar deville (which was fairly simple, as they bought me drinks and it's about 8 blocks from my house) we all got a few more drinks and when i met up with coyote in the morning for coffee, we discussed our bizzare dreams from the night before. we checked out a few new zine/bookstores down in pilsen--i really like that area and need to get down there more.

FRYday. you heard me. we brought it. cait and jason fried it. kiwis, eggplant, melon, asparagus, bananas, wafer cookies. once we paired with cheap beer cait simply said "welcome to the midwest!" i couldn't have said it better. additionally, they also have two rats and the most amazing dog named scout who jumps on laps and spoons you. spoons you! so jealous. we left to check out the loft show jake and augie were at, but the fried food kicked in to full effect and we left shortly after to our warm beds.

so. the freezing temp and the snow isn't condusive to a lot, but it is good for one thing: holiday parties! i went to ira's annual holiday party on saturday night, including party-wide whiskey shots on the hour, decorations, holiday garb (ben wore a tie!) and a snack table. nate was spinning records and made me and ben really strong manhattans. everyone was super friendly and i even met a duo of acrobats. amazing.

sunday was more soccer--at which we lost again but got some new players, scored a few goals and still got our own private booth at the beer bistro. chris also told me he had crazy dreams after going to deville! we deduced the beer was to blame. crazy brooklyn ale. i'm going back for more.

monday dawned clear and sunny--which in my experience means good, warm days. here, no atmosphere means it's going to be bitterly cold and brutal. so i spent it drinking lots of coffee, cooking and buying more shoes, vhs and warm clothes from village discount. once christina got home, we headed out to goldstar for chris dlits photo exhibit. $2 pints and free popcorn along with stories of frozen eyelashes and nostrils freezing shut made for good times. shortly after, we headed over to sprints at the cobra. they tried to give augie a bucket anticipating his imminent vomiting--so naturally, he put it on his head.


tuesday was the real snow day--we got about 3 inches of snow and it was totally nuts out. we decided to stay in for vhs movies and dinner. all my co-workers think i'm totally nuts "you're from california and you're going to ride your bike in this?!?" i totally would have thought all chicagoans would be more accustomed to the weather, but each seems to deal with it totally differently--and are still freaked out by it just as much as i am. i do enjoy christmas carols much more this year though, with actual snow on the ground and christmas so imminent. we're still figuring out what we're doing to celebrate this year, so far from home. that's about it for now. hope everyone's happy, safe and warm!