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.