You callin me fat?

It's like a scene out of Shallow Hal; this morning on my bike ride to work I went over a little bump in the road and my seatpost broke. Just straight up broke. It's still connected together by the casing, but now it bends at the base like a hinge. I've been riding on it for two thousand miles, and yeah, I'm hard on my shit, but it's not like I'm jumping curbs all day or something. Stupid carbon fiber.



Super lame. The lamest part was when the guy at the bike store had me sitting on my newly seatposted bike to check the height, and I hear behind me, "Carbon fiber is NOTHING TO ME!" and I turn around and see that he's snapped it in half. I said, "Hey, I wanted to do that!" and he was like "Oh, well me too, ever since you came in here." I have the pieces; they're real pointy and dangerous looking.

I've been busy, and I'm feeling worn out. My days are full and have been requiring a lot of energy, but have been worth it. Lots of visitors.

Friday Heathr Bunch was in town to get her visa. We lunched at Handlebar, shopped at American Apparel, met up with Jeremy for coffee and brownies, saw a man singlehandedly break the bus we were riding, walked by the lake, had a drink on top of the Hancock Building, ate at the Billy Goat.

Saturday started with super disappointing brunch at Hot Spot, redeemed only by the fact that they were showing Xanadu on the TVs. Holy shit. Then a Baba Mnouche gig at Glenw00d Arts Fest, and Poppy's birthday barbecue for a little while before biking to Lincoln Square to meet up with Kat1e Ferguson and friends to see the Ditty Bops play at the OTS. During the show, they played a song that went "Shake your thing, skinnybones," and when it was done they put out the call for a few people to come up and shake their things during the next song. Katie and I raised our hands, and before we knew it we were between Abby and Amanda, shaking our not-so-skinny booties and grooving and grinning like idiots. When we sat down we could not breathe from excitement, and then had a giggle fit. Ohmygodtheyresohot. Katie&friends went to find a hotel (that didn't reek of urine) and I biked to Ronny's to see Mike's new punk band, the Silent Scones. They were loud, and real punky, and it was really smoky, but it was so fun to see Mike rockin' on bass guitar. Ben silk-screened some shirts for them, which look great.

Ben is doing all kinds of awesome things lately, like making the screen and making those shirts, making himself invaluable at his internship with the Burnham documentary, and negotiating filming of a DVD of (Baba violinist) Tony's other band. Good job Ben, because you are awesome! I'm totally in love with that guy.

Sunday morning I was a strolling musician at the WTTW fun and run, which was an enormous event! I chilled with other performers (stiltwalkers, musicians, costumed characters) and played songs for the kiddies. Afterwards Ben and I met up with Katie & company at Wishbone, where we ate breakfasts smothered in gravy and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed till we were sore and wiping the tears from our eyes. We hung out there for a long time, and then hung out in Millennium Park. That night I had a gig at Duke's; it was our bass player's last gig with us. The band is shifting. We'll have to see where it goes.

On Monday Julia came to visit me. We had coffee at Swim Cafe, hung out a little at the OTown School, drove around a lot listening to music, lunched at Bite, had ice cream in Lakeview, saw Superbad, ate pizza dinner outside with Ben back at our house. We had a great fun day together. She had just called the day before asking if there was any day she could come visit before school started; I was like, "How about tomorrow?" and that was that. After Ben and I dropped her off at the station we had a little drink at the lakefront "Beachstro." It was all romantic but I was totally beat after the long weekend. On the way home we borrowed Mike's Arrested Development DVDs. So good!

Tuesday was another long day; worked 9-5 and then hustled to get ready and get over to Piece for the live band karaoke contest. Jessica from the front desk ended up saving the day and coming with me at the last minute. We split pizza (so much pizza these days) and beers, and Paul from Tuesday nights came too. The three of us were perhaps an unlikely trio but we had a great time and were buddies with the band. I ended up singing One Way or Another, which was fun but I didn't have it in good enough shape to deserve any prizes. Had I seen Isabel's version beforehand I don't think I would have picked that song, because no future performance has a chance of being that awesome. I goaded Jessica into getting up there; she sang Proud Mary and fucking rocked, and earned a spot in the Top 5. Christine met up with us afterwards and we went to Estelle's.

Wednesday I was beat again, and kind of hungover. Work, Arrested Development.

Thursday: Work, seat post drama, Cubs vs. Brewers at Wrigley! A last minute decision. My first time at Wrigley. A fun game. Brewers lost. Good times with Ben.

I made it home!

When it's been a long day and you're grimy and rained on, aint nothin better than a beer shower.

Isabel says, "Blog, dammit!"

I'm still in vacation mode. I went to Door County for five days with the family and now that I'm back in Chicago the school is on break so I don't have any classes to teach. Check out Ben's great pictures from Door County here. Can you believe he took them with his fancy new cell phone?

This past weekend was jam-packed; 3 gigs with Baba Mnouche, Ben's sister in town, driving to and back from Milwaukee to sing at Tosa Pres with the family and attend a Brewers game. Except for a bit of band drama, everything was fun.

In my down-time from classes I've been hanging out (with Emily Monday and Julia Tuesday) and putzing around. Normally I'm not a big fan of the stereotypical hang-around-in-your-pajamas-all-day game, but I did just enough of that on Monday and it was awwwwesome. I have vague plans to get things done and do some class planning too, but work at the front desk has been busy when I am there, and chilling out in my house has been oh-so-nice. Especially in the rainy weather we've had.

My drives to and back from Milwaukee were in pouring, storming rain. It was not fun. Today Chicago got hit by a flash thunderstorm, right after I had left to take my break from work. I had gotten one block away from the school when the two raindrops I'd felt were followed by a dumping, swirling mass of water and wind. I immediately sprinted back to the school, and in that 20 seconds got drenched. The A/C which is always a little too cold anyway felt extra chilly.

One of the things I've been doing in my downtime at home is googling songs from this list, finding videos of them on YouTube, checking the keys and measuring their rockability. Because on Tuesday I am going to compete against the other rockstars-at-heart for FREE BEER AND PIZZA FOR A YEAR. Live band karaoke contest. At Piece. Celebrity judges. For a good cause. Check it out. I am thrilled by the challenge. Leaning towards some Bon Jovi.

Now I'm trying to figure out if biking home is a good idea. T-storm warnings, but it seems light enough right now.... I'm gonna race!

I'm lazy, but my work is awesome

I've tried to blog a couple of times and it keeps not working out. One of these days I'll get around to it.

In the meantime, you can read this excellent blog. If you don't know very much about the organization I work for, you can pretty much get the big picture here. Last Tuesday, as part of the year's big 50th anniversary festivities, we got into the Guinness Book of World Records for hosting the world's 1argest music 1esson. 1350ish people all learned to rock out in the park next to the school. This lady took some sweet pictures.



The lame part was that I had to work at the desk at the other location, even though most of the classes were canceled for the history-making event. So we held down the fort. The quiet, ghost town of a fort. It was very different from my usual highly social Tuesday night. It helped that this morning at work someone thanked me for "taking one for the team." From everything I hear, the event was a big success and a ton of fun!

Stuff to blog about

The more I have to blog about, the more difficult it is for me to sit down and write it.

While I am wimpy about big crawly bugs, I am vicious when it comes to fruit flies.

We maybe have bedbugs. I have itchy bites but haven't gotten new ones since we washed and vacuumed and sprayed and sealed everything as best we could. Next year when Pitchfork rolls around, Hotel Greenview may be CLOSED.

I rode 150 miles on my bike in two days, from Milwaukee to Madison, and raised almost $1000 for MS research. Jana, I can't wait to ride alongside you next year.

Doobie Brothers at Ravinia (with Tuesday night crew) : Decemberists at Millennium Park (with Meara and Alan) :: Strauss at Ravinia (with Mom and ladies from Tosa Pres) : Poulenc and Ravel at Millennium Park (to see Hugh sing with the Grant Park Orchestra). All concerts were way fun.

I love long, slow building songs. California One/Youth and Beauty by the Decemberists, The Bleeding Heart Show by New Pornographers, Dialogue Pts 1&2 by Chicago, Midnight Radio from the Hedwig soundtrack. Ravel's Bolero left me grinning for a day.

I don't do nearly enough karaoke. After Margaret & Evelyn's birthday party and being a semi-celebrity on the bike tour after singing at the karaoke they had at a rest stop (one guy who missed me singing this year singled me out on the second day to ask what I had sung; he remembered my performance of Something To Talk About from 2 years ago!!), I am full of karaoke love. So much so that in a dream I had a vision of proposing a class called "How To Rock at Karaoke" or something similar, where I could help people learn to pick songs they can do well and master the skills needed to blow everybody away. I am constantly trying to evaluate my skills and think of classes that I could teach at the school, and I think this class, silly as it may be, could be a huge hit if I can get it together. My other plan is a youth choir, as we don't have many options for 8-12 year old singers.

Don't be a bad friend. It's not that hard to return phone calls or show up for plans. Being a good friend is more fun.

The new director of the school where I work is awesome. Every interaction I've had with him has been great; you can tell he's going out of his way to connect with staff, teachers and students and to really learn what the organization is about so he can become a part of it. He came to the school on a Tuesday night to check out the great community that has developed, and came out to the bar with all of us to play and sing. He even brought songs to share. He definitely is a good fit and it's very exciting.

Some people aren't into kids and babies. Some people are. Like me. They bring me joy and energy with no more than their presence.

I get into ruts. Even when the ruts involve fun things, it's not that fun to be in a rut. New stuff is exciting and stimulating. I'm looking forward to Door County next week with the fam and a two week break from classes, which bring travel, visitors, and new experiences.

Here concludes your semi-monthly update.