a little bit in love

with this guy:



Saw William Elliott Whitmore last night. It was a real late show and didn't end until quarter to two, but he is such a fantastic performer that everyone there would have been happy to keep going all night long. I've seen him a few times and this was maybe the best. Great energy. Hard to stomp on the sticky floor. People hootin and hollerin, really into it. He put away a lot of whiskey and a couple tallboys of PBR onstage and almost fell over when he stood up at the end. Still though, he's just a soulful guy and didn't have a single moment when he wasn't charming, talented, bared and true. He's got a new album out, with a bit of a backing band. Piano, organ... It has such a full sound and it really fits him. Listen to the track on this page. Seriously. Love him just a little bit.

I am a ridiculous fan.

Had a late night the night before last too; Abbey is moving to New York today and she had a big going away party. The barbecue got called on account of rain but we packed into her living room and ate pizza and drank wine and headed over to Rainbo club later on. It was interesting to be in that big group and realize how good Abbey is at connecting people. There were a lot of "we can't stop seeing each other when Abbey's gone" conversations, because everyone has gotten to know and like other friends at her parties and things. And she's good at reaching out at other peoples' friends too; she asked Ben to call Mike and invite him out because she likes him so much and wanted to say goodbye. Abbey has become a pretty good friend of mine, but is also entirely part of my Chicago world, and it is really sad to think that she won't be around to invite to a party or run into in the neighborhood or grab dinner with. I cried drunken tears on the walk home and thought about all the goodbyes I've had to say to close friends. Then I got home and sang a joyful song about my peanut butter toast with honey and cinnamon before passing out.

I guess I went out on Monday night too, just for a little bit. It was Poppy's birthday and after going grocery shopping and practicing guitar for the wedding, Ben and I geared up again and biked over to the Innertowner to wish her well. She was keeping herself busy smiling and falling on people but I thought by her many hugs and snuggly nature that she was glad we came.

It feels really good to be out in the neighborhood again. I feel like I missed the whole summer somehow, out of town a lot, working weekends, weird things going on. I don't think I've been to Rainbo since winter coat on top of the Qbert machine time. I've been going out with work folks, but not in my hood and I always tend to be the youngest. It was a little embarrassing but I was happy to be one of 5 short blonde mullet-tailed girls at the bar last night, comparing bikes with people, checking out creative haircuts and facial hair, being out late on a weeknight in the city, thinking lots of people are hot and interesting-looking, feeling that urge again to have a sweet tattoo that everyone would think is awesome.

Cue comments from family members telling me not to get a tattoo.

Neat to see human beings

Well Ben is back from New York, thus ending my 8 days of living alone with two houses and a cat. It was nice a little bit but I'm really glad he's back. I need to have my time alone but I think I'm a much bigger fan of companionship. Sure, I can fill up the days with just me and my own brain but so many thoughts swirling around in there gets overwhelming.

I got the car back on Tuesday night; Emily was gracious enough to drive me to the impound lot after work. The impound lot is the sketchiest, awfullest place in the world.

Don't get your car towed. It's a drag.

Took it easy for the most part this week. Talked on the phone a lot. Practiced guitar. Went for walks. The place I was housesitting is right near the lake. The lake is awesome. When I'm there I feel like I ought to be seeing the lake at least once every day.

On Thursday night Taavo's awesome girlfriend Meredith drove up to Roger's Park to hang out with me. We had chili at the Heartland Cafe, and split a slice of Chocolate Stout cake, with ice cream, for dessert. I am serious now: it was the best dessert I have ever had. Chocolate pound cake, made with Guinness, somehow incredibly rich and moist, with the most incredible fudge sauce, served warm. Just amazing. Amazing. As Meredith said, "...and that was the moment we became best friends." Eating that cake was a serious experience.

That night I watched Follow That Bird. It made me laugh and cry and sing. Sometimes I remember or relive something from my past that seems to include so much of my essence. Maybe it's weird to say that a Sesame Street movie could do so much to make me who I am, but it's a movie about connecting with people, and being away from someone you love, and road trips, and singing, and corny jokes and wordplays. A lot of it just hit me deeply! I love it. Know who else loves it? Meredith. Like I said, she is awesome.

Friday was my day off. I spent much of it inside a coffee shop. I had been invited to watch a short performance by Taavo, Alex and Ben as the initiation of their new theater company, "One Continuous Mistake." It took a long time to get there and I was not early, though I was there just moments before 8. They did not anticipate a big turnout and had stopped holding the door open so they could start the show at 8. So I was locked out. But I stood there patiently in the creepy alley, could faintly hear Taavo's voice and some music, and then 20 minutes later some applause. I sent some text messages. At the end of the show they found me and let me in. We had some beers at Taavo's after the show. It was neat to see human beings.

Saturday, slept late again, coffee shopped again. Packed up stuff, drove back to the other house, gussied up, drove to Midway to pick up Ben. Hooray!

I just realized that we had to do this all the time for four years. Four years of being far away, talking on the phone and online, sending emails, goodbyes, long-awaited hellos. Dramatic, I suppose, but seriously. What were we thinking.

We had a nice night together. Dinner at Earwax, custard at Scooter's, and then since we didn't feel like drinking and couldn't think of anything to do, we sat on one of the six corners at North/Damen/Milwaukee and watched people. Then we moved to Division and Damen and watched people some more. A lovely way to spend a lovely evening.

Kendra and Marc's wedding is coming up very soon. People are making plans to come to town and everything. I have to practice my songs. What am I going to wear? I need a haircut also. I'm waiting patiently for someone to decide to give me $1000 for a new wardrobe, but I'll take it any time.

complications

What fun have you missed hearing about? Since Door County, I worked a lot, I went to Davenport's with Jenna to see my fabulous friend Emily play, I went out for Chinese food and ice cream cones with Ben, I began housesitting for a cat of a coworker's on the far far north side of the city, Ben and I went to Flo for dinner with Taavo, Ben and I ate early Saturday breakfast at Swim Cafe before he left for New York City, I worked all day Saturday and it was super duper slow, I read Life of Pi, I went to a party at Kiki and Alex's new place, I worked all day Sunday and it was super duper slow, I made a big pizza and hung out with Chai the cat in Rogers Park, I babysat for Finn all day Monday and when I came out my car was gone.

Towed.

The end of the list is: I went to a mini party to drink away car-towing frustration.

Reasons why having the towed car is bullshit:

1. When I parked the car, it was across the street from Wrigley Field. Parking in Wrigleyville is notoriously difficult, so I was very glad to find a spot. Before I left the car I scanned the block carefully to make sure that it was a legal spot. No signs stating otherwise. I felt lucky.

2. I left babysitting at 6:00. There was a Cubs game starting at 7:00. As I was leaving, Finn's mom asked where I had parked because she had gotten towed recently and told me to hurry out and check. She felt bad about not thinking to ask me that morning, but the thing is, even if she had, I would have told her that I checked the block and I was okay.

3. Here is a representation of the street where I parked:

==[<-]CAR_____105'_____( alley )_25'_[->]_30'_[<-]__45'__[!!]_


== is yellow curb, and there was also a sign saying not to park on it ( [<-] )
There was a very prominent, large alley.
Beyond the alley were two arrow signs indicating not to park in front of a driveway.
Beyond those signs, 100 feet into the residential area past the alley, was a sign (indicated by !!) that said NO PARKING ON BASEBALL GAME DAYS FROM 4 HOURS BEFORE UNTIL ONE HOUR AFTER THE GAME.
There were no signs on the other side of the street.
There was absolutely no signage before the alley. Most parking-related blockwide signs, permit zones for example, are only good up until the alley. Spots on the other side of the alley are usually open to anyone. So that's where I looked for signs.

4. If you are confused by my diagram, here are some photos. They were hard to take, because one million Cubs fans were swarming the area, but I borrowed my sitting family's digital camera to get proof of the situation so I could contest my towing.
Here's a long shot where you can see just the corner of yellow curb. My car was parked in the spot right next to this sign in the front. See the alley, and past the alley, some white blobs? Two of those are about a driveway, and one is telling me that my car is going to be towed in six hours.

A good shot of the end of the curb before the alley. Doesn't this look like the end of a block? Would you assume a sign (that you couldn't see) on the far side of this gap would apply to you?

And a view past the alley. That far away sign is the kicker.

Bitches, is what I have to say.

5. Okay, so it's towed. Come out to find car, no car. Sucks. This happened yesterday evening.

6. Have to deal with impound lot employees. At first can't find car anywhere. No one has record of it. People are rude and careless.

7. To get car out of lot costs $160.

8. Each day the price goes up $10. After five days the price goes up $35 a day.

9. Only the owner of the car can get the car out of the impound lot.

10. It's Ben's car.

11. Ben is in New York City.

12. It's actually not Ben's car. It's registered to his dad in Milwaukee.

13. Ben's family is leaving the next morning to go on vacation.

14. I have to call Ben's dad to get info about the car, like the license plate number, and Vehicle ID.

15. I have to ask Ben's dad to write a letter saying that I can pick up the car, and get it notarized, and fax it to the impound lot.

16. Before he goes on vacation, this morning.

17. It was Ben's dad who got the $90 ticket in the mail with the secret camera picture of me driving through a red light in March. I was busted and embarrassed then. Now I am seriously doubting my impression as a responsible person.

18. I am going to contest this ticket, but who knows if anything will come of it.

19. Since I was housesitting, all my stuff was at this house on the far north side. All the stuff I needed, food, clothes, toothbrush, cell phone charger, everything except my bike. Which I now needed. I took the bus home (south), got my bike, ate pasta and butter for dinner, rode all the way up to the other house. 10 miles. Stopped for commiserating beer and cookout at coworker's house on way.

20. Have to get to the lot tonight. Ben's dad came through and found the notary and everything. Who wants to be part of impound lot adventure 2006? Who's the lucky one gonna be? Who wants to go for a drive?

Will it be YOU?

my eye won't stop watering

In Door County I thought that I just had allergies because of all the nature. But now I am back in smogtown and I can't stop sneezing. Very annoying.

Door County was very nice. I went up for four days with Ben to stay at the farmhouse my family rents every summer. We had the entire Simon Clan there; on the biggest day there were 30 people. Which is a lot of people. There are only three non-teenage kids now, so it especially felt like a big group of real live persons. The weather was great, we played Bocce Ball and Bolo Toss, ate Weinberg family breakfast at Al Johnson's, Ben wowed my family again with a meal (four amazing chickens on the grill), singing, campfires, stargazing, Uncle Tom's, card games, birthday presents, sunsets, playing with kids, silliness.

On the way up we stopped for lunch at a Boy Scout brat fry fundraiser in the parking lot of a grocery store. The grocery store had a regular sized sign that said Piggly Wiggly and GIANT sign that said LIQUOR STATION. So we had to stop at the liquor station. We thought it would be a great idea to drink mojitos on the deck on a nice summer's evening. But we know my family, and figured that if we were consuming something interesting and tasty everyone might want to try it, so we bought a Giant Bottle Of Rum, and grabbed the very last package of mint they had and a bunch of limes. When we got to the house though, and were all ready for our summer sunset cocktail, we opened the mint and it reeked. It was completely bad. We threw it away. But no one else was there yet, so we turned right around to go to the grocery store in town.

Thus began our epic, futile search for mint. They were out of mint at the grocery store. No herbs at all at the other grocery store. No mint at the (closed) greenhouse shop (we peeked). No mint in people's yards that we eyed. We went home, our hopes for mojitos crushed. Luckily we called my brother, who was driving up the next morning, and told him to bring some of the enormous wealth of mint that my mother has growing in her yard. Hooray! He arrived the next afternoon when Ben and I were at the grocery store again, getting chickens. Jesse called me on my cell phone. Forgot to bring the mint, so we should buy some. Still no mint at the grocery store. A few days later, we're in town again. Stop at the grocery store again. No new mint. No mint at the other grocery store. No mint at the greenhouse. No mint at the cherry stand. No mint in people's yards. We stop at a bar. I ask the bartender, with a wink and a smile, do you have any mint here? No mint. Do you know where I can get some? He turns to the regulars sitting next to me on the stools. "Hey guys, any of you know where she can get some mint?" "Mint?" "Yeah, mint, you know like the leaves." "Oh, fer moheedohs!" "Ey, moheedohs!" The guy pulls out his cell phone. "Hey, Chuck! How you doin! Hey, did Jenny put any mint in that garden a'hers this year?... Mint. Yeah.... Oh! Ah." He looks at me, wide eyed, "Catnip??" "No, mint." "Mint..... Okay then. Yeah, fer this lady at J.J.'s. She wants to make moheedohs.... It's a cocktail. Okay you take care." He makes another call like this. No mint. But the other guy at the bar talks with me extensively about how good moheedohs are. We buy tonic. We drink rum and tonics. They are not as good as mohitos, but they're not too bad.

We still have a ton of rum left. I'm sure my family thinks we're crazy lushes now. Why did you bring this giant bottle of rum? Why are you obsessed with mint? Why can't you just have a beer like the rest of us?

drive bike bus drive drive bike drive

The bike tour was, all in all, great. The first day Ben, Jesse, Dad and I opted to ride the extra 25 mile loop taking our daily total up to 100 miles. Most of the people who ride the "century" are really hot shit bikers who leave at the break of dawn and sail through the ride at 25mph without breaking a sweat. We were good enough riders, holding strong amidst the regular 75 milers, but deciding at the last minute to do the extra loop set us back, and when we returned to the regular route at the lunch stop, it was almost completely shut down and there were only a handful of riders there. This was then the case at every rest stop for the rest of the day. We were tireder, after riding extra long, but the lack of momentum you usually have from being amidst a bunch of people doing this thing together made it extra tough.

The food at Whitewater was HORRIBLE. It's dorm food, so what can you expect, but it seemed far worse than other years. Bummer. Showered, slept.

Sunday morning, right after we choked down cold eggs and cardboard waffles, it started to rain. It rained and rained, hard big buckets of rain, for the first 40 miles. They were trying to keep riders off the road at one point, holding folks up at the rest stops. Some people, including Ben and me, kept going anyway, since it was impossible for us to get any wetter and just standing around getting cold at this rest stop with no indoor shelter didn't seem like any fun. Riding in the rain was kind of fun actually. As Ben said, there are few opportunities when you really get to be in the rain and be totally soaked with no pressing engagements or places to go. Eventually they let the folks at the rest stops go, which meant that everyone got to lunch at the same time and there was a huge line of dripping riders waiting in the windy chilly air to go into an air conditioned building. I was freezing. Teeth chattering, blue fingers. It was a bad scene. Tons of people quit and decided to sag to Madison; it was really a disappointing morning. When we got back on the road, it was super windy. That was the hardest part. But we warmed up, and the sun came out, and by the time we crossed the finish line that afternoon it was sunny and nice. 175 miles in two days! Not bad. We bussed back to Milwaukee, and then drove back to Chicago, and then finally could collapse in our bed at home.

Monday I had to teach WW. I was pretty stiff, and had a hard time on the Very Tall/Very Small song with my quads, but it went well and then I got to rest a bit. This is the last week of classes, and two of the moms in my Monday 6-12 month class gave me a really nice card and a gift certificate to Borders for $50! In the card it said that they were both elementary school teachers and they were impressed with how I ran the class and had a lot of fun. It was so nice. I was flattered. Talked on the phone with Meara all night and remembered that we are kindred spirits in some ways, which rules.

Tuesday Evanston classes, then back to the city to work my Tues night desk shift. It was graduation for the classes, so the night started at the school and progressed to the Tripoli bar up the street, and involved a bottle of wine, Fat Tires and a shot of Jameson from my old guitar teacher.

Wednesday I awoke feeling remarkably chipper and had a great, very busy day at the desk. Ate a jillion free bagels. Dinner was Santullo's pizza with Ben, and then we went to see Little Miss Sunshine downtown. A funny, well-made movie about lovable losers. We went to an earlier show, and afterwards the theater next to us was just about to start Talladega nights, so we snuck in for the double feature. It was the first time I ever did that. It was really exciting and I was really thrilled until the movie started and I remembered that I hate car racing. Still had funny bits though.

As soon as I get off work today I am driving back up to Milwaukee to see the DITTY BOPS with Katie!! I am bursting with excitement. The thing is: I love the Ditty Bops. And they played in Chicago, AT the venue where I work every day, in the midst of their bike tour across the country, on Saturday night, when I was a sore, crumpled heap of twitchy muscles in Whitewater. I left them a little gift package at work though. For the bike tour I made these great homemade power bars for my teammates, and so I left a few for Abby and Amanda with a letter and a comic strip I drew imitating their Rumble Strips, about me missing the show and singing their songs while I was biking around the city, and finally deciding to see them in Milwaukee. If you look at their trip log website, you can see in the picture with the marching band in Chicago that Abby is just about to bite into something that I'm pretty sure is the power bar I baked. Awesome.