See? It was a party.

Also, a bird shit on my face in the middle of the party. Lucky me!

Crash, recovery

So I wrote that last post in the final moments before my busy lifestyle switched from stimulating to exhausting. I didn't get enough sleep that night, or the night before, or the night after, or the night after that, and I became a zombie sometime Thursday afternoon. Zombie-Lindsay babysat for Finn and was glad when his dad came home early at 9pm, had a long day of Worms on Friday, napped, went to see Pirates 3 with Jessica from Texas who is the new girl at work, subbed four kids guitar classes early Saturday morning and only lost control of one of them, dropped off her guitar for fancifying at the store. At this point the zombie was barely able to bus it home in the rain, and once she got in she plopped on the couch and watched Dick Tracy on TV until it was time to play with Fiona for a couple of hours. Momentarily recharged by the power of cute baby, it seemed like a good idea to head over to the Handlebar for dinner with Ben, where the two of them made the most pitiful attempt at the Reader crossword puzzle ever. Zombies are bad at crossword puzzles. The next morning was Bike the Drive, which is so awesome, but when the alarm went off at 5:30am it was drizzling, and Lindsay was still a zombie, and for some reason her right knee had been bothering her, and so it was decreed that she would sleep in until she was no longer a zombie.

After five or so more hours I woke up, and was myself once again! Ben and I had a lovely Sunday, with the right amount of sleeping in and running errands and relaxing and getting things done around the house. He made a yummy scramble, and we ran to some grocery stores and spent the day cooking and cleaning in preparation for our Memorial Day cookout. Sunday night Baba had a gig at Duke's, which was for whatever reason our best one yet. Perhaps it was because it felt like Saturday night instead of Sunday. In any case it was solid and fun, and I was proud of the band and glad to be part of it.

Monday we woke up early-ish to get the pork shoulder on the grill and the pie in the oven. We put out a great spread for our friends, mostly thanks to Ben's cooking ambition and initiative: pulled pork sandwiches with homemade chili rub and barbecue sauce, specially spiced cheeseburgers with the cheese inside, homemade pesto pasta salad, homemade mango salsa, cornbread cooked in cast iron, melon, grapefruit, carrots, grilled portobellos and fennel and peppers, brownies from scratch and a strawberry rhubarb pie with vanilla frozen custard. People were over between 2:30 and 9, and we consumed lots of beer and margaritas and food. Hosting a party is my favorite.

I am glad to not be a zombie. Gotta love the moneys, but I love feeling like myself even more.

A busy Lindsay is a happy Lindsay

Lately I've been in the money.

This is pretty awesome. Lots of performances and parties, two new babysitting gigs, picking up desk shifts, subbing WW classes, even subbing a kids guitar class this weekend! It's awesome but my days are literally jam packed. When I'm not working I'm sneaking in babysitting hours, and with summer plans everyone's looking for subs so I'm subbing Saturday morning classes three weeks in a row, and saying yes to every party gig I'm offered. Tonight I'm babysitting last minute for the kid of one of the guitar teachers at the school from 10pm until 1am. It's pretty sweet though, just hanging out, watching TV, petting the cat and the dog. They are as nice as can be and encouraged me to "have a beer or two" about five times before they left. Tonight Fiona's sleeping but I'm psyched to play with her when I sit again on Saturday; she is a super cutie. So I'm making a lot of money but I can't quite count on having this extra work in the future, and I still feel like I have to take whatever I can get whenever I can get it. It's tiring, but I do well when I'm busy, and every day is something new so it's still stimulating. It also has paved the way for two very awesome things:

#1: Health insurance! Basically emergency-only coverage, but still! I feel very grown up.

#2: SUNDAYS OFF! After paying my dues for two years, I have been relieved of my Sunday shift. I'm making enough to do without the money, especially if I can get gigs on Sundays instead of sitting at the desk. My boss knew I was trying to get someone else to take the shift, and she recently hired some new people, and told me that if I was still interested in getting rid of my Sundays she'd put one of them on the shift. So as it stands now, I'm done teaching on Fridays at 2, and then until Tuesday afternoon all I have scheduled (apart from any shifts/gigs/classes I choose to pick up) is 2 Monday morning classes. Weekend AND MonTues! AWESOME!

In other news, on Monday night I did something for the very first time. I performed at an "Acoustic Underground" showcase, solo, just me and my guitar, all original material. This was my first go at the singer-songwriter thing. I said yes to my friend and coworker Graham when he asked me if I'd like to be part of the "Ladies Night" show he was booking at Silvie's because I wanted a reason to complete the songs I've written bits of in the past year. Sometimes all it takes is someone else putting a deadline on you. For me at least. So six original songs! It went great; nerve-wracking but very fun. A TON of people came out to see me! Ben, Taavo, Emily, Jeremy and friends, Michael and Kris from my band, Kevin and Christine from the front desk, Jillian and Jessica from the school, Andrew from the store, Karen from my guitar class, Tony from high school, Liz from the bakery. I felt very loved. I felt good about the presentation of my songs, though all of the good guitar players in the room made me self-conscious. I got lots of nice comments, and the rather strange "Perfect for works in progress!", though I suppose they were all quite fresh and truly could use more polishing. It gave me new reasons to practice guitar enough not to be sloppy. Also I'm going to spend some of my extra cash on getting my guitar set up with a new saddle, and have a pickup put in. Sweet!

And I bought a new bike seat too. Go sit bones go!

Full days, good times.

Check it out. Ben was on TV. http://wgntv.trb.com/news/ You have to find the video titled "North Side Industrial Fire Blankets Neighborhood in Smoke." You should be able to find it in the list at the bottom at least for a couple of days.

We were biking home down Milwaukee on Saturday afternoon and were almost home when a guy on the sidewalk asked if we knew what was burning. We turned around and straight up Milwaukee we could see huge, black, black clouds of smoke billowing up into the sky. Since we had nothing going on we turned around and biked to see the fire. We had thought it was at Western Ave or so, about a mile away, but we kept on biking and biking and after more than five miles we finally reached the hugest fire I've ever seen at Irving Park and Pulaski. It was some old warehouse, and the smoke was huge and black and blocking the sun and dropping ashy bits on us. We could hear lots of loud popping, and the fire hoses, and there were people everywhere who had come to scope it out. It was exciting. We stayed for a while and watched, until we needed some fresh air and headed back to our hood to get dinner with Mike and George at an Argentinian restaurant.

So that was Saturday afternoon. Saturday morning Isabel was in town and we went out for brunch at Meli and made chocolate chip cookies. Isabel's the best. Friday night Ben and I went to Looptopia, to see Poppy sing with the Blue Ribbon Glee Club before eating at Eleven with Taavo and Ben and later seeing one of my favorite bands ever, Mucca Pazza.

Sunday: long workday, Duke's guest night gig with a new clarinetist and fiddle player!

Monday Mom came to visit! She sat in on my WW classes:



They went great and we had a ton of fun! Then we went to Lula my favorite restaurant and I took her out for lunch for her birthday! Then I took her to OTS and showed her off and she got to meet Emily and Jenna and other friends! Then we went to Borders so she could use up her gift cards and we ran into Kevin! Then we went to Cafe Gelato and did the Reader crossword puzzle, my favorite crossword puzzle! The we went home and hung out with Ben! Then we all went to Feed for dinner! Then we took her back to the train station.

I had super great fun with my mom. It was less like hanging out with my mother and more like hanging out with a really good friend who understands you the best and the conversation never ends.

And then Ben and I watched Heroes on TV instead of the internet and then biked to the Hideout to see my guitar teacher head up the Wilco ensemble as they played a concert of the new Wilco CD that would be released at midnight that night.

Rockin.

Finders...

So Ben leaves the house this morning and about 30 seconds later my phone rings. It's Ben, walking towards the el stop.

"There's a bike leaning up against our gate. No seat, not locked to anything, looks very left behind. It's a small old Schwinn."

I went outside to check it out; sure enough, there was a little bright blue Schwinn, in good shape except for some handlebar covering coming off and the lack of a seat. Leaning right against the front corner of our apartment building, inside near the gate. I stepped over it. It's a perfect fit. Ben and I thought it would be a good idea to bring it inside the gate, where it would still be visible and where anyone it might belong to in the front building could retrieve it.

At the end of the workday, it was still there.



Cute, right? It seemed like a stolen bike that got ditched. I posted this on the internet. I hope I can help someone get their stolen bike back.

ORRRR I hope nobody contacts me and I get to keep it and have a new free bike to tinker with and change into a single gear and have a better city bike instead of my fancy beautiful road bike to knock around and not worry so much about locking up outside. Ben recently bought a little old yellow Schwinn Caliente that some guy had converted to a single gear, and I'm very jealous of it. I've been itching to have new bike stuff.

Of course my mind races with the possibilities. I'd need a seat, but I could take the seat off of my Trek bike and then finally buy a better fitting saddle for long rides on that one. I could get clipless pedals and cycling shoes for the Trek too, since I wouldn't have to worry about wearing them if I was going to a bar or something cuz I'd take my other bike. I'd have to tune it up, get new handlebar tape, and figure out how to convert it to a single gear, maybe with a flip hub so I could have a fixie from time to time like a really badass bikey hipster. I could get a little Kryptonite lock that would fit in my back pocket to complete the look, since I wouldn't have quick release wheels and could just lock the frame. While I'm at the bike store I should probably buy a new messenger bag, since my plan for the summer is to get to work earlier so I have time to change out of bike-only clothes and into clean clothes, and stretch, instead of hopping off my bike and clocking right in and sitting in sweaty clothes until they dry. But I'll need room for the clothes and for a change of shoes now too in my bag. Also I could use a second pair of bike shorts. And more practical sunglasses that fit under my helmet.

Then I think, shit, I can't do that. My bike is already awesome and I have clothes and everything already. I can't afford all that!

But I am working a lot, a lot of extra hours as the summer reels in. Right now I'm Finnsitting, late. Jenna's booking me for birthday parties and school performances and festivals all over the place, and I'm subbing for 7 WW classes and quite possibly 4 kids guitar classes (!) in the coming month. It's awesome, and will give me some cash for summer fun (short trip to Nashville to visit Emily during her month-long stay?), but I also have to tuck some away for the unpaid 2-week break from classes at the end of August. Also I'm trying to buy myself some goddamned health insurance, so if that ends up going through I'm gonna have a new monthly bill to pay.

AND I saw these on Zappos and think about them like they're my new spring crush.

Not to mention this!!!

What can I say. My greed comes in bursts, it seems. Often with the change of season.

In other news, life is good and just full enough. Sang in a septet of woman I'm related to in Milwaukee last weekend, Baba M@nouche is working on booking studio time, I'm trying to finish some songs and prepare covers to play solo at a Ladies' Night open mic/cabaret thing that I was invited to perform at in a few weeks, Mom's coming to visit Monday to see my WW classes and so I can take her out for a birthday lunch, Ben and I are doing great but I'm jealous of and anxious about his late June trip to Italy, he made artichokes and grilled chicken Caesar salad for me and Mike last Sunday night while we watched Spiderman 2 in our living room, sitting for Finn is always full of challenges and surprises as the two of us get better and getting along, we're playing the new Wilco in my still-excellent guitar class, Monday afternoon yoga is consistently easier and simultaneously ass-kicking, Tuesday Emily brunch is good times, I'm still off caffeine in the mornings and it's totally liberating, gonna try to make it up to see the number one team in baseball with the rest of the overly-giddy fans, I've had great phone conversations with Janna, Meara and Brandon this week, the weather's been gorgeous.

The new intern at OTS also works at Sweet Mndy B's. I was talking with her today about that place, and it's still as fucked up and frustrating as ever, even with an almost-total staff turnover. I am amazed to remember how miserable I was only a few years ago, and deeply grateful for the place I find myself in now. Life is full of ups and downs, and when you find yourself on the upswing you've got to savor every second.