those other dim dots that were you

this is country music and we do

2011-12-12T00:21:00.000-06:00

Novemberings (and a hint o' December)...

High Places at U of M. Rob used a laundry bin full of clothes as a stand. #ingenuity

The new(ish) Kalamazoo River Valley Trail. Nice.

HP at the Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids.

A bunch of local publishers took over a former Borders for the 2011 Chicago Book Expo.

Went south for Thanksgiving—to Louisville & Nashville.

I don't think I'd been to Louisville since I was in high school and found it quite charming.

And very hospitable.

Some charming and hospitable Louisvilleans.

Friday brunch.

There's a weird, gigantic man-made cavern under the Louisville Zoo called the Mega Cavern. Inside there are ziplines, Christmas lights, and a gift store where you can buy stuff like this...

I'M ALWAYS SAYING THIS.

Like most places nowadays (gas stations, laundromats, Taco Bell), you can be the Mega Cavern's friend on Facebook. #no

Cave Hill Cemetery, an intriguing place.

The inscription on this one says "God Always Seems to Pick His Prettiest Flower." (Yikes.) There's an unusual story behind this grave. Think: low-rise jeans.

The Colonel!

Another quirky Louisville place (actually just outside of Louisville), Henry's Ark.

Part of my Animals at Sunset series.

Karaoke at Rush Inn. Cassie owned some Tammy Wynette.

Will killed it on some Josh Turner. (I listened to new country pretty much this entire trip...not that I don't already listen to it ~~all the time~~ lots.)

Louisville (not pictured): pizza at Garage Bar, tons o' PS3 gaming, bookstores, record stores, sushi, skatepark, bagels, cheese grits, a cocktail called the Churchill, art show, coffee at Java...

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams in East Nashville. I think Dan and I sampled every flavor they have. Finally settled on lemon yogurt and black currant lambic sorbet(!)

Cocktail with jalapeño and candied ginger at Burger Up.

Hatch Show Print posters at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Dolls!

Attempt at a David + dog tableau. Miles is in position...

Hold it!

Nashville (not pictured): Prince's Hot Chicken Shack, Noshville, Parnassus Books, Bongo Java, tempura donuts at P.M., House of Kabob, drinks with friends at Whiskey Kitchen, the Turnip Truck.

Back in the Chi...made Christmas wreaths last week at Misericordia.

It's beginning to look a lot like.

burn my autumns

2011-12-11T18:15:00.000-06:00

Very sad to hear the news that Loren Jansch, lovely wife of Bert, passed away this past weekend. She, too, was battling cancer and had gone off chemo temporarily to be with Bert (who died in October).

Dan and I visited her at Marie Curie hospice in London last month. She was residing in a corner room that looked out on autumn trees. She said she hoped she could get well and look after Bert's legacy...a legacy that is now ours—that is, anyone who loved his music—to preserve. Rest in peace, Loren.

the last living rose

2011-12-03T04:33:00.001-06:00

Took a trip to London Town in early November. 'Twas brilliant.

Bakery near our hotel in the Holborn/Covent Garden area.

Sad saucissons at the French Kitchen.

Nighttime walk to Soho.

Heh.

Hix/Mark's Bar. (Cleo gave me some solid recs! She also introduced me to this drink the last time she visited the 312: Aperol Spritz.)

Portobello Road Market.

More like Cali-Cool Hand Luke, no? Dude looks like he's fresh from the set of The O.C.

I love nighttime carousels in fall. A real Something Wicked This Way Comes vibe happening here.

I've only been to London twice but both times I've had this jam playing on near-constant repeat in the back of my head. (AHHH! Stop feeding the birds, ya old coot. They've had their fill!)

Amazing night market outside the Royal Festival Hall.

Special surprise guest at Roy Harper's 70th Birthday Concert! We had a cool pre-show convo where I told him he was the icing on the birthday cake.*

Joanna was his other special surprise guest of the evening (pictured w/ Roy's wife Tracy).

All my pics from the actual concert are really blurry, but it was a very magical evening.

JP is a really nice dude! But his guitar playing? MEH.**

These kids killed it on a duet of "Another Day."

Store windows at Liberty.

Love this place.

Arancini at da Polpo.

Covent Garden market.

Ladurée shop AKA macaron heaven!

Piccadilly Circus.

Variously colored doors of Belsize Park.

Let me watch night fall on the river,
The moon rise up and turn to silver,
The sky move,
The ocean shimmer,
The hedge shake,
The last living rose, quiver.

---
* Cause apparently my dorkiness is a "special surprise" I like to spring on ppl (legendary or non).
** JK JK

i know facts and now i want to feel them

2011-11-23T12:08:00.000-06:00

Hard to believe it's almost Thanksgiving. The frost is not yet on the pumpkin, but it's dark at 4:30 now and outdoors plants have come in. Haven't posted on this here blog in a while, so I'll start with 9 million pics from October...

En route to Minneapolis with Mom.

We stopped for pie at Norske Nook.

Health & Fitness Expo in St. Paul.

Mall of America.

We got our mall on.

Sculpture garden at The Walker.

Turrell skyspace.

Marathon's end.

Back in Michigan...porch tableau.

View from my childhood bedroom. Oak trees o' my youth.

"Color tour" around the golf course.

The golfers weren't very amused by us, but we had fun.

Into the woods.

B. & me.

Disc golf course around the corner from my parents' house.

Katie and Adam are really pro.

October nephew.

10/10/11. Chicagoland Skydiving Center.

Someone else from my group coming down.

Me on the way down. Ahhhh!

Semi-unsmooth landing. "We caught a wind pocket," my instructor said. D'oh!

Mission accomplished.

El Cid with the kids.

Broadway Antique Market.

Trotters!

Lula bday pie from Colleen. <3

The Elegant Farmer in Mukwonago, WI.

Dogville!

Photo by JPalu.

Cattails!

The house we rented on Delavan Lake.

Brunch at Simple Cafe in Lake Geneva.

Costume karaoke at Sidekicks. Diva girl and Dusty.

Boston.

Miss Piggy.

"Like a Virgin" and Jock Jams.

---
October, always highly anticipated, was even more so this year. Anticipation and a little trepidation, because I was rounding the bend on Lap #30 'round the sun and turning 30 is supposedly a thing to be feared. At least that's what a lot of women's magazines seem to suggest…and Hollywood and Hallmark cards (all the trusted sources), and any publication that churns out those "30 under 30" lists… I've always assumed lists of that nature are mostly just filler, so wouldn't it make more sense to publish "90 under 90" or "100 under 100" lists? More inclusive and they'd fill a LOT more space. e.g., "The 100 Hottest Bodies Under 100" (So many bodies! Helen Mirren and Rihanna could occupy the same list); "90 Notable Ethnomusicologists Under 90," etc.

I'll admit I find it scary that I have now achieved PEAK BONE MASS. But when my actual birthday came, I'd already turned the idea of turning 30 'round in my mind so long, the only real thing left to do was spread my arms and dive in.

As they say: "Time waits for no one—but Tom does."

October highlights: Went to Minneapolis with Mom; ran in the very hilly and scenic Twin Cities Marathon; went to Michigan and jumped in the leaves with my niece and nephews; jumped out of a plane on 10/10/11; went to the premiere of the very intense film We Need to Talk About Kevin; accompanied Jessica unironically to the So You Think You Can Dance live stage show; had an oh-so-memorable 30th bday dinner w/ pals; stayed in a Wisconsin lake house with pals and dogs; went to an apple orchard; finished my second Second City class and started the next; started a hip hop dance class with JPalu; went back to Schwa for another meal to remember (most memorable: a soup that was described as an elevated version of the baked potato bar that used to be at Wendy's—WHUT!); celebrated Halloween with annual costume karaoke, a recycled Cleopatra costume, scary film fest, parties, and pumpkins....

Putting my rose-hued glasses back in their case (I'd hate to get them smudgy), it was a hectic month of last-minute projects and late-night work and organizing a new apartment, too. And the emotions that accompany moving. Rummaging around my parents' house while I was in Michigan, I found boxes of letters from high school and college friends that made me suddenly nostalgic—for specific friendships and old timey letter-writing in general. Thinking "Growing older is just missing more people more" and emo thoughts of that nature... I know, however, moving and birthdays and October—all times of transition—are slippery slopes into nostalgia. Pack up all your stuff and unpack it somewhere else, and you're bound to slip, trip or fall momentarily into the past. Knocked out of your routine and sleep-deprived, you sit on the floor in threadbare PJ pants sifting through souvenirs of all the places & people you've been. (You must take on faith that those apparently discrete dots of you were contiguous...that those severed places cohered...)

Moving can be productive and therapeutic, too. Pack up all your stuff, and you're also bound to be like, "WTF do I have this much junk?" and take 16 boxes of knickknacks, ill-fitting pants, and forgotten shoes to the Salvation Army. (And those threadbare PJs, to the trash.) C YA!

Just don't part with your fave rose-colored specs. I hear they're useful in your 30s. ;)

mostly i just stroll along the path that [time] is taking

2011-10-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

"When I finally give up the ghost, as long as I've left behind enough songs for people to listen to, I think that'll be enough." —Bert Jansch

RIP, Bert Jansch, a humble man and amazing musician. You are missed.

you can't take it with you

2011-10-22T18:31:00.004-05:00

Here lies Petunia, faithful doll and snuggling companion. She was like a second pillow to me from first grade on up through ~~college~~...way longer than I'd care to admit, occupying the coveted role of Most Preferred Stuffed Animal (sorry, Glo Worm; I lied to you, Cabbage Patch Kids), even accompanying me on sleepovers and long car trips.

Unfortunately, preferential treatment has its drawbacks. In my teen years she was routinely kidnapped by guy friends and cousins, the subject of endless pranks and torture. Once she saw her life flash before her eyes while being dangled out the window of a Dodge minivan moving at 50 mph down the Blue Ridge Highway. Other times she was grabbed and twisted mercilessly into a breadstick-like coil (though Petunia always bounced back!). She lived out the last five years or so in the back of a closet, in a Rubbermaid bin full of spare sheets and pillow cases, the doll equivalent of a nursing home. She was stowed away because ~~her owner grew up~~ in a society that fickly gravitates toward youthfulness and beauty, she was far too ~~ugly and tattered and stained to be shown in public~~ fragile.

I sewed Petunia into existence, with my grandma's help, when I was seven. Truthfully, I always found her a bit two-dimensional and odd-looking, with her thick bangs and prim lips and garish bow, the goose (not pictured) she inexplicably clutched to her breast... But she was loyal and dutifully pillow-like. My security blanket in doll form.

Petunia Gladiola Pearson passed away in late September 2011. I moved from one apartment to another and, in the process, had to pack up her Rubbermaid home. The move seemed to take a toll on her. Her body appeared more fragile than ever—her stuffing thinned, her stitches coming apart. To the end, she clutched her little goose, and in her trash bag tomb of broken picture frames and shredded bank statements, I think I heard her whisper "Sleep well..."

on a roof, in the woods, by a lake, on a river

2011-09-22T18:30:00.000-05:00

Looking back on summer on the last day of summer. Pics from late July onward...

Pool on the roof of the East Bank Club!

Chicago River & city skyline from the EBC roof.

Cassie and her ladies at the Poetry building.

David and his cousin after the Printers' Ball. Tapas!

Dan's juice cleanse from Peeled, a new Chicago juice bar that's pretty great.

Camping in Ludington for CC's 31st bday! (Onto August now...)

Friend.

Humboldt Park. Dog days.

The fam in Logan Square.

HP played an outdoor show at the Logan Sq. monument. New jams!

First trip to Native Foods.

At Montrose Harbor.

Exploring in the ~~apparent cruising zone~~ nature preserve.

Ethiopian Diamond.

Home in Michigan.

South Haven.

Fave.

Crane Orchard in Fennville.

Yes, I did sing that terrible song by The Presidents of the United States of America while picking peaches.

On a Kalamazoo roof with my sisters and Emily K.

Amanda's bday brunch at Lula.

Making 30 look good since 8/26/11!

Alice's. (Where else?!)

An adorable version of "Our House."

Floating on the Tippecanoe in honor of ARM's 30th. (Photos by JPalu)

Finally made it to Aviary! Chartreuse three ways in a box with herbs.

Last pool hang of the summer. Hamlin Park with CC. (Onto September...)

Matt and Kendal's wedding.

Stylish officiant.

Their dance party was a blast ("Get Low," a real high point).

Back to Native Foods.

Wha?

Brilliant Corners of Popular Amusements.

Got scammed at the balloon dart game (oh, carnies!) and the Zero Gravity ride hurt my head.

But Bill Callahan sounded good under the big top.

Went to Baltimore last wkend to see my dear college roomie, Mindy, get married to Ryan.

A lovely bride.

Classic.

The vineyard behind their house!

The candy room!

Dope Body and Natty Boh.

Watching the Ravens game at Frazier's.

And that's a wrap on summer 2011!

the greatest

2011-09-16T00:39:00.000-05:00

who needs a degree when you're schoolin' life

2011-09-01T18:52:00.000-05:00

September now and it's 94°F! Reminds me of the years when I would plan (what I believed to be) a bangin' first-day-of-school outfit—e.g., sweater vest, skirt, and knee socks (prep school look) or wide-leg jeans, Bewitched T-shirt from Piranha Alley, and my dad's Pendleton flannel (skater/retro/grunge/ill-fitting look)—only to have the First Day roll around and it be super humid and hot hot hot. Some years I'd sweat it out, since first-day-of-school outfits reflect lots of careful shopping and flipping through magazines and coordinating and conferring—a curatorial exercise that, for my friends and me, filled up at least a couple weeks in August.

"So what are you wearing?"
"What are you wearing?"
"I asked you first."
"I haven't decided yet, but it's gonna be WILD."

Other years, when comfort trumped style, I'd spend the first week of school sporting pedestrian summer wear—souvenir tees (Myrtle Beach, SC; Mackinac Island) and shorts—and count down the days til I could rock wool sweaters and skirts and sweater vests. No one told me back then about "transitioning my wardrobe." It was strictly summer style or fall.

---

Some people say they're "school people," others not. I'm in the former camp. I need mentors and advisers to look up to, discussion to reinforce anything learned, deadlines to get anything done. It has been a while since I went back to school, and every year in September I miss it: that who's-gonna-be-in-my-homeroom anticipation, that better-be-my-best-friend-and-my-crush semi-panic. I miss a new locker and new locker combo, blank notebooks, mechanical pencils, my protractor (so awesome, so seldom used), fresh kicks, fresh starts...

Goes without saying, but in adulthood, outside of academia, we have to initiate fresh starts on our own. Fortunately, they don't have to coincide with any particular month or semester or season of the year. But starts of the "fresh" variety require effort and accountability, not just an eye toward progress but action...stuff that's built right into the school model—stuff I often lack out here beyond the schoolyard and syllabus-less.

I'd like to have new folders and a new schedule and a head-turning new outfit, but what I'd really like is for a teacher to shoo me to class.

new friends

2011-08-20T14:50:00.000-05:00

I forgot to post this pic of my seatmate on the plane from SEA > ORD. She was a young girl (I'd guess ~8 yrs old) wearing capri sweatpants and a soccer T who drew a series of amazing pictures/comics throughout the flight, e.g. "MIDNIGHT MOON STALKERS" [pictured]. Also a drawing of two bears asleep in adjacent twin beds with a heart between them, which she captioned "DON'T LOOK! THERE MATING." I told her I liked her work, then she drew a picture of two girls sitting beside each other on a plane with the caption "NEW FRIENDS ARE A NICE SUPRIZE."

old as the mtns

2011-08-12T14:24:00.004-05:00

Last month I made my favorite pennant-shape trip across the country: Chicago to LA to Bellingham and back.

...LA LA LA...

Had to visit this Cali girl!

Sister in Debs Park.

MJ has some great hiking/running trails in her neighborhood.

Soy Cafe.

Dancefloor lights at La Cita.

Love these 2.

Scoops!

Pupusas!

Rob & Lisa's rad pad.

Babs at Sage.

Among other amazing things, this vegan "soul bowl" contained fried mac & cheese!

The Beverly Hills vultures swooped in during summer sales and left a trail of Lanvins.

Pressed Juicery.

Flore salad.

Thank you, sister! And you, SoCal. I'll be back again when Chicago freezes over...

...CORNER POCKET...

Washington-ward.

Out where clouds come down... (sun setting over the San Juans)

My football fan father would approve of this plane.

Amanda, Sheana (and secret Cameron) out on the town.

Karaoke bombing The Cabin.

How to karaoke bomb? Get in. Sing. Get out!

Brunch.

Down by the bay.

Plaid posse! (Only minimally planned!)

Following photo ops, we danced to Top 40 jamz.

I woke up to Mandar going above and beyond as per usual: coffee, coconut water, favorite coconut yogurt, mimosas...

I mean, seriously!

Jed's Midas touch.

Farmerly advice.

Lake Samish.

Born & raised in a summer haze.

Jed's rdg material/pop-up library for an afternoon at the lake.

Marie B!

BBQ at Ellis.

Another Amanda-made caprese salad.

Went for a Sunday morning run through some of my favorite Bellingham spots and took pics (for you, Mare) along the way. WARNING: nostalgic/nature photos ahead...

Maritime Heritage Park.

South Bay Trail.

Boulevard Park.

Running on water.

Marine Park in Fairhaven.

Fairhaven. Historic!

Mt. Baker.

~~Remembering~~ Trying to remember how to run on hills. Oof!

Our old street at the base of Sehome Hill.

Inside a Richard Serra on the campus of Western Washington.

The way we walked.

Where I used to hang out and read while Mary practiced bassoon.

Back at the Bayou for brunch, Jed, Amanda, and I got three drinks each. VACAY!

Beignets with bourbon caramel sauce!

More Lake Samish.

BBQ at Mark & Tracy's.

So many chips!

Jonny V!

Mark & Cam!

Ian & Ben at Old Town! (I wanted Ben to enjoy some self-serve water and expensive eggs before he moved to Seattle. haha)

Thank you, friends! And you, Middle Earth. Until next time...

all that and a bag of

2011-07-30T14:04:00.010-05:00

At first Chicago Summer 2011 was a hard-to-open bag of chips. Then it finally and definitively tore open (the temp got above 80°F and the city got over its rain problem), and all the Fritos spilled out on the floor at once. Corny though this sounds—and yes, I do mean that literally—I'm standing behind my chips metaphor. This season was that anticipated, is that explosive, and will be gone that fast....

David and Randy's wedding at the Bottle. Together for 35 years!

In his toast, Randy said that when he met David, their mutual love of rock music helped them rescue each other from "the disco abyss"! (Photo by Marla.)

Azita at the Rainbo.

Drag City cowboys at the Pitchfork record fair.

The kids decked out their booth real nice.

Grown ocean.

you've got my rapt attention

2011-07-14T10:28:00.000-05:00

Fourth o' July.

Backyard BBQ.

America!

Made butterflies out of coffee filters with the Misericordia gals.

My second summer playing in the Ultimate Chicago Sandblast tourney at Montrose Beach.

(Not my pic.)

Score! (Also not my pic.)

"Shock the world!!"

It was a blast.

after the gold rush

2011-07-12T11:26:00.004-05:00

Part 2 of CA trip.

Coast Cafe in Bolinas.

Secluded park in secretive town.

Grass Valley.

I jogged around the neighborhoods one morning and saw so many charming houses.

But this one's the charmingest.

Cherries we picked from the tree in the yard!

Nevada City: another well-preserved California Gold Rush town.

This pic does this this gnocchi no justice, but the food at New Moon Cafe in Nevada City is reeeally good.

Karaoke at The National. Introduction to local culture.

The Yuba River.

Respect the power of the river!

Backyard BBQ.

blue green colors flashing

2011-07-08T18:42:00.008-05:00

Took a short trip to Cali last week and stayed on a houseboat!

SFO.

Sausalito!

Tourist!

Our dock.

Our houseboat! (via Airbnb)

First floor of houseboat.

Looking toward entryway. Behind the wooden door on the right is the shower, just off the kitchen. Limited space requires economical design solutions!

Tiny bathroom.

Kitchen.

Downstairs room (the windows are at water level).

Downstairs bed.

Top floor.

Narrow, steep steps to top floor.

Upstairs room.

View from the upper deck, outside the bedroom.

Tiki bar on lower deck!

Best feature of the floating home, in my opinion!!

Afternoon champs. How I do.

Attempt at "arty." Also how I do.

Walking around, looking around...

Lots of little sitting areas along the docks.

The dock that supposedly inspired this.

Many decorations on and around the boats.

Y'know, like a sun-singed Pillsbury Dough Boy holding a bottle of bubbly...

One of the dilapidated floating homes in the Gates Co-Op section of the Sausalito houseboat community. Having observed the placidity of the other flower-lined docks, Dan and I became super curious about this seemingly "bad neighborhood," accessed via a rickety dock framed by a tangle of power lines and signs of "Enter at Your Own Risk." Turns out these dwellers were the original hippie houseboat proprietors of the '60s and '70s—"water people" who hosted wild parties and got into frequent fights with the "hill people." Now they're stranded at low tide, their homes crumbling into the mud, and yet they refuse to leave. It's called living the dream.

The houseboat from Foul Play (and, according to Dan, the inspiration for our stay).

Amazing '70s houseboat.

View of our floating home from another dock.

The nearby Marin Headlands.

More Sausalito.

intimate and remote

2011-07-07T16:13:00.000-05:00

The well-endowed Poetry Foundation has a fancy new building in River North. A generous (to put it mildly) bequest from pharmaceutical heiress Ruth Lilly made possible the $21.5 million land acquisition and construction.

While I don't like a lot of aspects of poetry culture, I've been obsessed with poetry as far back as I can remember.

...reading, memorization, recitation, rhyming couplets I wrote in elementary school, angsty allegorical poems—a specialty (isn't it everyone's?) in early high school, formal poems with precise internal rhyme schemes I wrote in college...

Also: the dorky pastime of sitting in the poetry section of a library or bookstore and copying down favorite lines...Van Wylen Library at Hope College, the Holland Barnes & Noble off 31, City Lights, Harvard Books, the Central Square Branch of the Cambridge Public Library, the Western Washington University Library in Bellingham. It has always been a very personal interest, one I've admittedly drifted from a bit in recent years.

Had I had access to a very public poetry building like this while drifting through the high school years, I probably would have planted myself here in the courtyard or library and, feeling found and grounded, never left. (I also would've been slightly worried I was going to spill something on the shiny floors and white carpets, as I was a couple weeks ago during the open house.)

Even the restrooms are intimidatingly immaculate!

Besides making sure not to spill anything at the open house, I went to a panel discussion and wrote about it for the Time Out blog. (My little write-up appears to have gotten lost in the shuffle and/or a staffer's inbox, however, so I'm putting it here.):

---

This Must Be the Place

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan writes poems in bed in her pajamas. Former Laureate Robert Hass writes in his study, gazing out the window at plum trees. Elizabeth Alexander, author of the 2009 presidential inauguration poem, jots down ideas on napkins in between attending to parental duties, and Edward Hirsch writes in his head while walking around New York.

"Place" was a recurring theme in a panel discussion last Sunday at the new Poetry Foundation building (61 W Superior St). In the bright, 125-seat performance space—clad in birch to be acoustically optimal for the spoken word—Jeffrey Brown of the PBS NewsHour posed questions to an all-star lineup of poets: Ryan, Hass, Alexander, Hirsch, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins and Chicago-born writer Sandra Cisneros. Jokingly introducing himself as "the best poetry correspondent on national nightly news," Brown asked the poets about the places where they write and the place of poetry, if any, in the cities where they grew up. He told the audience he'd originally hoped to discuss the place of poetry in the U.S. today, but when emailing the panelists beforehand, he had received an almost unanimous reply of "Ugh, anything but that."

One can't fault the all-stars for wanting to avoid this topic. During their terms as U.S. Poet Laureates, three of the them served as poetry ambassadors, working to elevate the place of poetry in our nation. Ryan—the poet who favors PJs—admitted that as a private person, she struggled with this public role. Yet the discussion on Sunday moved toward how the $21.5 million Poetry Foundation building, with its 30,000-volume library and capacity for hosting a range of programming, will help elevate poetry in fresh ways. "Kids can come in and pull a book off the shelf, and their weirdest and most awkward feelings will be mirrored back to them," Collins said. Hirsch—a panelist who had no qualms with commenting on the "place of poetry"—agreed. He wished he'd had access to such a place while growing up in Chicago, but has now made it his duty to "advocate on behalf of the interior life."

When Harriet Monroe created Poetry magazine in 1912, she had a similar aim, hoping "to give to poetry her own place." Who knows if she'd have envisioned a modern structure—with open-air garden and sleek layers of zinc, glass, and wood peel—as an extension of this mission, but the new building is poised to make its mark. Declared Foundation President John Barr, "The building will help us continue the oral tradition of reading and reciting poetry out loud, while shining a national spotlight on Chicago as the home of Poetry, one of the oldest and most important literary magazines in the English-speaking world."

lightning was desire

2011-06-28T15:11:00.008-05:00

Strawberries from the yard!

Jessica L's bday at The Bristol.

Jessica P's bday at...

Rented out the whole place...

...just how Palumbo rolls!

Sampson took some far superior pics.

Banner's bday in Michigan.

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Since last I wrote, list-wise: The weather has been more consistently summer-like (just in time for the solstice); tried out for an ultimate club team and got super excited about the idea of playing competitively again; didn't make the ultimate club team and was super bummed (despite def not being as in shape or up on fundamentals as the other ladies); attempted to transform my bummed-outness into motivation by signing up for the Twin Cities Marathon...not as fun as chasing a Frisbee, but WHAT IS!; starting jogging again (slooowly remembering how to do this); started biking again (like riding a bike); made new friends from LA; Sara & Craig's baby, Frances (Frankie), arrived in the world!!; finally gave the garden some attention (planted assorted tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, plus cucumber, sunflowers, salvia, and veronica speedwell—rolling the dice with these mid-season plantings!); went to MI for Father's Day and Ban's 3rd bday; swam in Bair Lake; visited the crazy new Poetry Foundation building; started a Second City comedy writing class; ate raw for a week(+). "Practice" is emerging as a summer theme...i.e., Comedy writing takes a lot of practice and experimentation. As does eating salad for dinner.

dreams were thunder

2011-06-15T13:34:00.078-05:00

I may be too obsessed with photographically documenting the seasonal shift to spring, but every year around late April/early May, I make a point to revisit (and sometimes take pics of) my favorite running route, the North Channel Trail—stretching along the Chicago River from Argyle to Peterson. There's a two- or three-week window where it seems like every tree along the path is in bloom.

Makes me appreciate Chicago.

Bloom where you're planted. Am I right?

Craig & Sara's baby shower.

The couple of the hour.

What I call a spread.

Nandini-made cocktail with lilac ice cubes.

It was snowing flowers at the Art Institute.

Back to Hoffman Estates to round out the weird X-Factor experience.

Downtown Sound.

How I like my mornings. (For Mary)

Mahoney Home.

take it all

2011-06-07T20:57:00.053-05:00

"Shedding is a reflection of normal growth and renewal in a healthy animal. If a reptile is not healthy, it will not shed as often as it should." —Reptile Skin Shedding: Snakes, Lizards and Chelonians

Hot hot heat. The garden is a weedy jungle with nothing planted yet, save whatever's popping up from last year. I think I recognize cauliflower, green onion, and some rogue mint, but I can also identify a pizza box that blew in from a neighbor's yard. (Giordano's: local native.) In any case, the yard needs work!

True to form, Chicago spring has vacillated wildly between winter-like and summer-like, with too many blasts of cold autumnal rain, and now it's 93°F and everyone's peeling off layers of clothing like reptiles shedding their skin. I'm still not quite ready to transition to a uniform of shorts. (Time to revisit my favorite website.)

When it comes an active lifestyle, everyone should probably take their cues from Courtney, aka SPORTY SPICE...

---

The past couple months in list form: sickness, recovery, Rahm in office, art reviews, birthdays, late-night freelance proofreading in the Wrigley Building, a lot more freelancing in general (a welcome thing, post-taxes), Chicago coming into bloom, a closer look at TV singing competitions (more on that soon), trying out Maude's and Arami (both great) and Owen & Engine (meh), movie nights with CC, making a lot of stuff in the Vitamix, trips to Michigan, Brian moving into a group home, both sisters recording albums, revisiting my favorite sport, sleep deprivation, watching Pulling (brilliant) and The Killing (liked it initially, but it quickly became pretty monochromatic & monotone… D. calls the lead detective Ol' Sourpuss), baby shower, book fair, Easy having surgery, Misericordia, missing people, telepathically telling long-distance friends I miss them (did you get the message?), making overly ambitious summer resolutions and then realizing (as I always do) that the season I longed for is already here, with more street fests and summer concerts and BBQs than one could imagine, much less—while preserving any modicum of free time or essential bouts with semi-boredom—attend. Note for the next couple months: Amid the running & running around, I need some porch sitting and books.

MDW Art Fair.

Easter brunch at Milk & Honey.

The legs are finito.

X-Factor auditions in Hoffman Estates. This guy made it through to the second round, natch.

Daydreaming of pizza?

The peach tree blossomed this year!

Dan's birthday brunch at Lula.

Kalamazoo.

Home in Michigan.

Pretty Mom on Mom's Day.

Spring comes to M & D's yard.

a flash of light or no light at all

2011-04-03T19:19:00.002-05:00

Love this version of "When It Comes," performed inside a yarn sculpture!

slow fade

2011-03-25T18:09:00.007-05:00

Runyon Canyon.

Oscar in body bag, pre-Academy Awards. Ominous!

Venice.

Santa Monica.

Malibu.

Senior pics.

The new Malibu Legacy Park.

These mosaic animals were funded in part by adult contempo/smooth jazz.

Red Rock hike in Topanga.

Was glad to discover that this rock wall still says "Dingus."

Innocuous-looking.

Blurry pic of Bleached playing outside Ooga Booga.

L.A. was super green in late Feb/early March and a welcome counterpoint to the late-winter litter-strewn sidewalks of Chicago: Flamin' Hot Cheetos bags, Taco Bell sauce packets, a crumpled letter from someone in prison... (A recent find.)

Vacay was strewn with hikes, friend hangs, sister hangs, John Krasinki sightings...all that is good & right. And some that is wrong, just for balance: Dan got food poisoning from a green juice and I got shellfish poisoning from some innocuous-looking fried scallops. Truly the worst I've ever felt in my life, and we had to extend our trip by a day so I could lay around a weird hotel in the San Fernando Valley and recoup—aka moan in pain, labor to get down even the tiniest sip o' Gatorade, and occasionally say feverish, dizzy stuff like "So if this is my time to go, send my love to everyone...!"

A few days after returning from L.A., Dan experienced a constant, shooting pain in his back—the worst he'd ever felt. "If it's my time..." he said, sitting in the ER, half-joking but also sorta not half-joking. (Ultimately, a kidney stone.)

So we lived, and the weird health issues of March seem to have passed—some more literally than others! In conclusion and with the utmost love for everyone, handle fried scallops and raw juice with caution, won'tcha? <3

rounding the bend

2011-03-21T20:34:00.008-05:00

It's the day after the vernal equinox—Spring official—so whatever snow happens from here on out I am going to call UNSEASONABLE. And any days greater or equal to 60°F I'm going to deem WAY BEYOND TOTALLY DESERVED.

Meanwhile, I have some photos of Blizzard 2011 to post since last I posted, and some other assorted Februaryness.

I love how Easy (tiny in the background) is loving the snow.

Nature's cooler.

While Dan was shoveling the sidewalk I worked on another project.

Mary and I used to make igloo villages in the yard after a big snowfall. Katie also used to make us pull her around the yard on a sled after a big snowfall. Sister sled dogs. Some winter traditions I'm more eager to reclaim than others.

Interior view.

Nothing stops Chicago cyclists. Not even 20 inches!

Colleen's BD.

"Michael McDonald" and CC.

New breakfast horizons: Steel-cut oats with almonds, cranberries, shredded coconut, a dash of cinnamon and cloves, crystallized ginger, and rice milk. I'm also into Greek yogurt with dried cranberries, sesame honey cashews (Trader Joe's), and a tiny bit of wildflower honey. The best!

New pizza horizons: Great Lakes Pizza Company. Not pictured: pizza. (The salads are excellent too, however.)

Brett's BD.

The Drawing Room.

Joanna & Jessica at The Girl & the Goat.

One of Mariah's amazingly irreverent V-Day cookies.

A more reverent V-Day dessert (not nearly as amazing).

V-Day flowers from DFK.

Hala Kahiki! aka Hala Kaheadache. Amanda kept accidentally ordering the sugariest drinks on the menu, while I was wishing my Scratch Me Lani cocktail came with an Ibuprofen chaser. (But the tiki decor remains as amazing as ever.)

Also last month: Super Bowl party; frock swamp; caught up on Mad Men; saw the great Vivian Maier exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center and the Jim Nutt show at the MCA; finally made it to Blackbird (first time taking advantage of Chicago's Restaurant Week); FINALLY finally made it to Schwa, the most mysterious restaurant in the city. Verdict, all hyperbolic tendencies considered:

Best meal of my 29-year-old life! Worthy of offset italic type, even.

I wish I could describe it in more detail, but all I can do is reread this 2007 GQ article exploring the brilliance (and craziness) of the chef savant, Michael Carlson. That, and dream of going back again....

felicitous

2011-01-24T12:30:00.003-06:00

My niece opening her American Girl Doll this past Xmas. Her reaction is priceless.

from incline to incline

2011-01-14T19:59:00.000-06:00

I first fell in love with Broadcast when I heard "Tears in the Typing Pool" on a mix my sister made for me in (I think) 2005 and again when I got to see them live for the first (and only) time in Fall 2009. Trish Keenan was a stunning talent. RIP.

clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose

2011-01-13T10:04:00.010-06:00

Happy (belated) New Year, Interweb. I stole this photo from The New Yorker's Book Bench because it's a nice image for the new year, and I suppose a nice image for the day since, optimistically speaking, what is a year but 365 clean slates.

I probably make too many resolutions on too frequent a basis, so in 2011 I'm only really resolving to work out with more frequency, read a lot, do another long-distance run, get more freelance clients, go on a writers' retreat, retake the GRE (ugh), continue exploring different corners of Chicagoland—an extension of my 2010 goal to venture beyond the usual haunts, travel, get more sleep, practice guitar, cook at home more often, do laundry with more frequency (like, more than once every 1.75 months—embarrassing 29-yr-old admission, but true), spend less time online and more quality time with people in-person, learn better ways to cope with stress, and go easier on myself in general, which of course includes letting whatever items on this too-long list that need to slide slide.

Really, that's it. (ha)

It sounds painfully obvious, but the thing about resolutions—and everyone waxes on about this, especially in January, but it's nonetheless a good time to pep-talk ourselves—is that making them means nothing unless we actually rearrange and reprioritize our days in whatever ways necessary to accommodate change. I realize (winter laziness be damned) that there's no way I'll do any of the aforementioned, much less some, unless I shuffle some things around and really put in the time. Even more obviously: post-reshuffling, days are going to look and feel differently, as they should, since "Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible." And regarding progress, it bears reminding that "No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now." Oh, and did I mention: "THE REST IS STILL UNWRITTEN"?! Ha ha.

2011 has so far included a few trips to the Y and more home-cooked meals, as well as the general tendency to stay up super late watching Friday Night Lights on Roku and wear the same outfit three days in a row. Every day a tabula rasa, no?

last christmas

2011-01-12T22:00:00.002-06:00

Some belatedly posted holiday pics...

The Cultural Center all decked out.

Place of employment.

Christmas at Misericordia. (The gals look a little bored, but this is actually a vibe of post-dinner relaxation.)

Requisite holiday cookie decorating.

Dinner at SEPIA. Best. Dessert. Ever.

Easy the Great.

Bill Callahan at Second City.

Jessica's soup + sweaters party.

After soup, we watched this ~~terrible~~ ~~awesome~~ terribly awesome movie.

Jenny got it for 37 cents at a garage sale. Kind of expensive, all things considered.

Bobby=in agreement.

To Michigan.

Mary, Angus, and I stopped at an Indiana Denny's and were blown away by these beverage "innovations": "Orange Peach Sparker: We start with a cold glass of Sprite and orange juice and then add a twist of crisp peach flavor." You've outdone yourself, Denny's.

Home.

Christmas Eve.

The B. with his customized apron. Dan and I got it airbrushed at the Mega Mall.

Amazing pies from Hoosier Mama.

Kale hid as soon as he got to my parents' house. Hiding in plain sight rules.

Eva Longoria wants babies.

I got Dan to smile for a photo. Fuzzy, but still a success.

Alexander/Pearson reunion at Bell's.

Mandy!

Sibs.

Mom's bday brunch.

Kalamazoo Valley Museum.

A wall of Gibson guitars.

Water Street.

NYE in Chicago.

Dan's juice bar.

i gots to shine

2010-12-21T11:21:00.000-06:00

OtherPeopleDancing.

days like television

2010-12-13T23:46:00.018-06:00

November travels...

Joined Dan on the West Coast leg of the Masaki Batoh (Ghost) tour. Met them in Eugene for the trip south.

The drive from Southern Oregon to the Northern California coast (Highway 199 to 101) is so beautiful: Rogue River and Redwoods—and in mid-November, color-changing deciduous trees(!) Dashes of gold against an evergreen backdrop.

Health food store/cafe in Grants Pass.

The Storm Ship in Arcata, CA.

Really good hazelnut shakes!

Into the woods...

Avenue of the Giants.

Masaki and Veronika doing their thing.

\

Nicole's communal home in Berkeley.

Juice bar-hopping in Berkeley.

Into the desert...

An Eggleston moment.

Amazing house in Joshua Tree.

Pappy & Harriet's in Pioneertown.

White Magic!

Slumber party.

The Integratron.

Los Angeles-bound.

The Farmer's Daughter in LA.

Sayonara, friends.

D.V. and some ornery old guy in the craft service trailer on the set of Community. (heh)

There were only like 11 people on our flight back to Chicago, so we did not go hungry/thirsty.

Back in Chicago... Made T-giving turkeys with the ladies at Misericordia (recently featured on this evening news special about David Axelrod & his fam).

Windy City Soul Club. (Jessica owning it, as per usual.)

To New York for the first time in awhile...

Smartphones and Veselka pierogies.

Angelica Kitchen.

The Bowery.

Thanksgiving dinner at the Lowe-Lazar household in Greenpoint.

Bounty!

By & By.

Not pictured: J. Newsom killing it at Carnegie Hall, The Spotted Pig, the amazing fireplace in the lobby of The Bowery, Freeman's, Ninth St. Espresso, LES and Soho wanderings (Maryam Nassir Zadeh, Creatures of Comfort + other great sister recs) Daddy's, Caravan of Dreams, etc. Thanks, NYC.

i love the ground

2010-12-12T21:00:00.004-06:00

octobering

2010-11-29T19:42:00.029-06:00

October came and went awhile ago and with it, leaves, pumpkins, and Mandar. (Come baaack!) Just now getting around to posting these pics...

Pumpking carving party at Jessica's.

Jack (O'-Lantern) Sparrow?

Insane Clown Pumpkin.

Uh oh. Could it be??

The Pumpkin Centipede!!!

Mandar came to visit.

As per tradition, we went to Kuma's so she could attempt to own an entire burger.

Gooooooo!

Battle mode. (P.S. She owned it.)

Look who popped in to say hello.

He was cracking jokes. I call this Rahm com.

Mandar and scary Conan.

Mandar and Gallagher.

Atreyu and the Childlike Empress.

What's her costume? No eye deer!!

Michelle's storybook baby shower. (Onto November now...)

Way into the brussels sprout centerpiece.

Still getting used to the iPhone camera. Lots of fuzz for now.

Launch of the Literary section of Chicago Artists Resource, a project I worked on as an independent contractor for more than a year.

We had a big event at the Cultural Center. Here's Danielle Chapman, head of the City's Publishing Industry Programs.

Tiny Neil Hamburger on the Tim & Eric tour!

The party after the day after the after party. (An entire pack of mini-bar M&Ms yields this.)

a walk around the blvd

2010-10-17T20:03:00.003-05:00

Autumn pics for a sister in Los Angeles... (More from the ever-growing catalog of local trees.)

(And in a couple months when it gets chilly here and dark at 4:30 p.m., I'm hoping that a sister in Los Angeles can send some photos of the Golden State this-a-way! If only Vitamin D needs could be met through photography...)

still feel weak, but

2010-10-16T16:05:00.000-05:00

time makes you bolder

2010-10-16T15:25:00.015-05:00

BD party on the eve of 10/10/10. (Didn't get very many photos, nor many good ones, but it was a real blast. Thank you, friends!)

Pretty ladies.

Cool dudes.

"The thing is, coconut water is the only natural substance that can be safely injected into the human blood stream...!" (or something like that)

Candle lighting. I think ARM got these pics.

And then there was a Fleetwood Mac dance party.

---

Epilogue to Year 28: Humbled by, and thankful for, another lap around the sun. Thankful for friends, family, the season (most lovely fall weather, maybe ever)…
28 was quite a year—ups, downs, up ups, down downs—but I'm ready for whatever's next. I must admit that both fall and birthdays, despite their loveliness, often find me steeped in nostalgia. Already this week I've once again forgotten and relearned (and then forgotten again and relearned again, round & round & round in a circle game) that change is inevitable and necessary and that living and aging gracefully is learning to accept what we can't change and changing the things we can. We can't return, we can only look behind from where we came—and in so doing, forge ahead. (That's also why everyone's grandma has a cross-stitched version of The Serenity Prayer framed above the kitchen sink—ubiquitous because it's true.) One way to describe the posture of readiness is it's unclenching our hands; seen another way, it's opening them.

Thus concludes this self-help desk calendar of an epilogue. (Fall/birthdays also find me doing some Yoda-level philosophizing.) SAH-DAH-TAY!

it's in the trees! it's coming!

2010-10-08T19:55:00.038-05:00

I think of Remedios Varo this time of year and her autumnal color palette.

This one reminds me of how people move again indoors, living out more hrs of the day inside warmly lit rooms.

But it was actually 80° today, so retreating indoors is a bit premature.

Went to MI again this past weekend to get some work done on my car and hang with Mom, post-surgery. In true Mom fashion she was already up and at 'em: taking walks, making soup, locker hooking a rug, etc. She's a trooper.

Went to a local farm for the annual harvest party for Brian's "Friendship" grp.

The B.

When the sky looks like a road.

Early party with my 10/10 bday buddy, Kale.

The minis are getting less mini every day.

Kale snapped this one. Not bad.

Dan took me to Girl and the Goat for an early bd dinner. I've been wanting go there for a while, and it was really great. The chickpea fritters—w/ fried whole chickpeas, heirloom tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella—were the best. Unfortunately was feeling a little under the weather. Hope to go back again someday soon, and next time I'll have dessert!

away game

2010-09-28T11:58:00.002-05:00

Central Michigan vs. Northwestern.

College football=fall family tradition.

Kim + Craig play the Monsters + Dust release party (w/ fly girl Jessica).

Frock swap! (Kim summits Clothes Mtn.)

--

This fall wkend also included catching up with the lovely Becca VW, Enter the Void, and driving the meandering roads of Riverside, Illinois. (My schedule has changed for the better, and I'm trying to make the most of it. At this point, I can certainly make more.) Back to work...

turn turn

2010-09-24T13:12:00.000-05:00

autumn's edge

2010-09-19T19:41:00.015-05:00

Until recently, I had no idea there was a Turrell Skyspace at UIC. Josh was saying the viewing pavilion looks kind of lame on the outside, and I have to agree: The Jetsons meets a boring university bldg. The cascading water along the circumference of the observatory is kind of lame-o as well. Inside, however, all that matters is the oculus in the roof that frames the sky of the moment. Even the college girl sitting on the bench across from me eating Burger King and yapping on her cell phone couldn't detract from the quietness of the view.

The morning glories are taking over the garden! (But cool jewelry, no?)

September has been a month of live music: Neu!, Disappears, Sleep, High Places, Pavement, No Age, &c. Showgoingagogo.

No HP visit would be complete without banh mi!

Jenny's vegan Double Down. Truly intense—to both the mind and stomach!

More sky.

---

BOOK REPORT: Finally finished Just Kids, Patti Smith's moving memoir about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and their creative coming of age in studios, clubs, matchbook-sized apartments, and other boho corners of late '60s/early '70s New York: The Chelsea Hotel, Max's Kansas City, St. Mark's Church... The throughline, as the two twentysomethings slowly carve out a social and artistic niche for themselves, is their intense bond and inseparability. A la Frida and Diego and Bonnie and Clyde, they're each other's inspiration, partner in crime. Like the twins in Slapstick, they're joined at the hip.

One can't forget that Smith is a poet with a soft spot for the mystical, and this bleeds into her storytelling. At times her recollections are shrouded in wispy spirituality (angels and guiding stars and small prophecies) and other times brought down to earth with a refreshing straightforwardness and transparency. In writing about Mapplethorpe, the "artist of her life," who died of AIDS in the mid-'80s, Smith told Interview: "It made me miss him. Sometimes I'd remember the atmosphere of our youth with such clarity that it hurt."

As with Born Standing Up and other artists' memoirs I was reminded once again how much WORK WORK WORK—experimentation, rejection, reflection, revision, half-filled venues, and crumpled drafts—usually precedes artistic arrival (and by "arrival" I simply mean the ability to live off one's art). This shouldn't bear reminding but in our age of quickie blog-to-book deals and YouTube-made superstars, it (kinda sadly) does.

Reading Just Kids, you want the kids to succeed because that's the narrative we love and are used to, and because, of course, we know they will—though not without each other's support and urging. It's a testament to their bond that long after Mapplethorpe's death, Smith still draws inspiration from that wellspring of memory.

dog days

2010-09-09T16:55:00.010-05:00

Weekend camping trip in northern Michigan.

City dog in the country.

Shep is a champion swimmer!

Dan in real life. (Heh heh.)

Fine, upstanding people standing.

More standing.

BULLSEYE WASHERS!

Lake Michigan in fine form.

I should send this to the Michigan Travelers Bureau.

gratitude is an attitude

2010-09-08T21:01:00.002-05:00

Hyde Park Beach with the ladies of summer.

Jessica's last day of summer break before returning to educate the youth of America.

Amanda's 29th BD. Such a hottie...

...and w/ a heart of gold. 24k GOLD.

Spread.

Matchy matchy shoes.

Back to Mich to hang with B. We had a pizza party and watched Friday Night Lights. I'd never seen this movie and found it kind of heartbreaking and very autumnal. I love movies that capture seasons to a T. I love autumn and all its accompanying feelings (even while I'm not quite ready for shorter days). I love B.

keep looking up

2010-08-29T18:15:00.000-05:00

RIP, Star Gazer.

And it was in the planetarium that the fragmented man found a certain unity. It was as if the great, lens-shaped dome, 66 1/2 feet across and four stories high, finally focused him. The ex-altar boy, the dramatist, the disc jockey, the musician with weak lungs and the stargazer with weak eyes all came together. The planetarium became his theater, his church, his concert hall, his home. He actually slept there for years, on a rollaway bed in his office.

He worked furiously, assembling a series of remarkable shows, more than 30 of them over the years, mixing sound and light, science and religion, the humorous and the sublime. He and his crew modified the planetarium's equipment to include huge speakers, powerful slide projectors, a battery of lasers and a zoom apparatus that could make planets float down through the starry void like giant, shimmering bubbles.

The effect was, and still is, dazzling. Horkheimer's shows are luminous, kinetic things, full of rapid-fire references to ancient history, mythology and language. In a recent show, "Night of the Vulcan Moon," Horkheimer managed to drag in Stonehenge, Abu Simbel, Pompeii, the Sinai desert and Mr. Spock of Star Trek. Fact rubs shoulders with fantasy. Ideas and images go off like Roman candles. The big Spitz projector wheels silently on its horseshoe mount, twinkling in the center of an encompassing darkness; and everything sparkles and echoes beneath the grand, overarching dome, against a myriad spangling of stars drifting in and out of pale blue clouds.

—"The Many Phases of Jack Horkheimer." Miami Herald, 1982.

what the garden grew

2010-08-26T10:19:00.000-05:00

A small sampling. (Made pesto with the basil.)

most of all i wanna soar

2010-08-25T21:13:00.004-05:00

More summer...

Kalamazoo Mall.

Jack!

Mary and Miles at Water Street.

Miles and Emily at Bell's beer garden.

Minis.

CC turned 30!

What a gal...

...so loved by so many.

Northern Michigan bd celebration.

Good boy.

Go swimming...jump on Ced's back...

...and that's how you make a bikini shirt.

"You know you're 30 when...your knees buckle and your belt won't."
...your back is hairier than your head," etc. SO true.

Nice arms, CC! (Sporty Spice.)

Back to La La Land.

Roosevelt.

Linker!

Vacay!

Pool by day.

Pool by night.

Soundcheck.

Testing out the sepia tone.

Being weird.

PCH!

There were a million photo shoots happening at El Capitan, so we staged one of our own.

Inn of the Seventh Ray!

neither here nor there

2010-08-25T20:20:00.006-05:00

Mokoliʻi—a basalt island, not a home (except to wedge-tailed shearwaters). But what an island she is!

Q: Is there a place that's not the place you live, on which you fling a lot of feeling, that seems inexplicably meaningful to you in ways psychological and emotional?

1. Mokoliʻi/Chinaman's Hat, Oahu (if I were a wedge-tailed shearwater, that is!)
2. A San Juan Island.
3. Somewhere in French Polynesia (probably).
4. In the hills above Malibu.
5. Big Sur (when I get there).
6. The idea of Vermont.

For a while I've jokingly referred to the Northwest corner of the Pacific NW as my "Dream Landscape," but I'm actually quite serious. "Dream" as in sort of half-remembered from some other life/long-ago summer, and "dream" as in ideal: evergreen forests, islands, and lakes that feel like home to me.

I'm OK with the romanticism of the D.L. concept—that everyone has one or some place(s)/terrain(s)/climate(s) they're drawn to (dare I say spiritually?) more than others—and I even still like the ostentatious way Annie Dillard describes my D.L. in her 1977 book, Holy the Firm, when she was living on a remote island in the Puget Sound: "...the bluing of water with distance at the world's rim, and on it the far blue islands, and over these lights the light clouds."

A few years ago, I found another kind of Dream Landscape (or at least Dreaminess) in, of all places, Los Angeles—the Southwest corner of the SW. But instead of evoking old vibes, it felt entirely new to me: a place laid out differently than Chicago and bathed in another kind of light. Joan Didion warns: "California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things better work here, because here, beneath the immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent." But the LA I like is based only on visits and curated by other people: Red Rock caves and Malibu beaches and juice bars tucked unassumingly into retail strips. I've gone back a few times each year, and each visit yields new things to like and find. Instead of thinking "things better work" out West, I tend to think "some things here just work better." At least (for me) the landscapes do, and the light. Maybe I'm just drawn to edges?

Q: Is it better to only visit Dream Landscapes, because you get to fling all that feeling onto them and then leave (before any dullness or disappointment sets in or the largeness of the place diminishes in your mind)? Or are there Dreamscapes that stay dreamy with residence—places you always felt you'd feel at home in, then do?

I think of stuff like this all the time, but anticipate no immediate As to my Qs, and so stay put.

most-making

2010-07-26T17:34:00.012-05:00

Same ol' seasonal themes afoot: restless energy, the escape-to-nature impulse... It's almost the end of July, and I feel like I've only very recently started to make the most of summer. Truth be told, I've been way too busy with work, way too busy stressing out and not sleeping and making nine versions of the same to-do list in order to absorb and enjoy this time of year on the level I'd like (aka ground level: intensive and up close). Recently, though, I've been able to catch up and so lighten up, to dive deeper into calm's clear pool.

Got to hear Rhoda, former college adviser and ongoing source of inspiration, read from her NYT-bestselling book. Got to play in a beach ultimate tournament, which wore me out but rekindled my love of the sport. Went to the annual Pfork Fest and caught up with old friends. The whole fam visited. Ben visited. Played tennis. Transplanted sunflowers and pulled up weeds.

How are things with you?

---

Chicago Sandblast at Montrose Beach.

Liars.

A merch table luau of sorts.

The nice dudes of Bear in Heaven being interviewed backstage by The Arts of Life Band.

Golden boys.

HP in Millennium Park!

A secret fire pit on Lake Michigan.

A secret Dan in the nature preserve.

Feigning impatience with the photo sesh.

Garden progress.

The corn is not yet high as an elephant's eye. But close.

---

Book Reportlette: Just read Bill Callahan's new book, Letters to Emma Bowlcut, a slim "novelette" that opens and folds in epistolary bursts of everyday observation, existential insight, and well-timed humor. Set against a desert backdrop, the humor is appropriately dry. There's negative space amid narrative bursts (like the desert, too, or the distances between people) and a seamless meandering between the hyper-specific and the dreamily vague (the way of all good letters).

Did I mention its appealing lack of question marks.

Recommended.

---

...You leave and return so easily. I admire the cadence of it. I want to go out more but a nation's army needs me to wash 50,000 blood-spattered uniforms first. In the river, on a rock.

...If there is one thing I have it is a buoyant, unreasonable hope about things I haven't experienced.

...It crossed my mind that all my letters are about me and not you. I would hope that you pay me the same respect. —L. to E. B.

tunnel of summers

2010-07-06T21:54:00.007-05:00

Back from Independence Day wkend: Wisconsin edition. A spur-o-the-moment trip featuring small towns, small-scale fireworks shows, inland lakes, and a lakeside tiki bar. (Americanacabana?) Also: local restaurants, a fireman's picnic, a soda fountain, and tennis. I'm just as glad as anyone that we Declared our Independence and went on to defeat the Redcoats in a revolutionary way, but being used to Chicago's bombastic celebrations, it was nice to have the whole holiday dialed down a notch.*

Sheboygan, WI's fine dining experience. (Apparently, no one dines fine on July 3.)

Local band The Screaming Cucumbers tackle an Alanis cover.

Cheesy glass sculpture at Blue Harbor Resort. (We stayed at La Quinta.)

Shops in Elkhart Lake.

Elkhart Lake was once the home of Camp Harand, a theatre camp Dan went to as a kid. It's also a road-racing destination and a tucked-away resort town.

According to Dan, Gessert's soda fountain is unchanged since the late '70s.

The lady behind the counter said she'd been there since the '70s.

Locals dancing at the fireman's picnic.

Osthoff Resort—where the camp used to be.

Lots of landscaping going on here now.

Tiki bar!

*I kept saying stuff like this throughout the weekend, and D. kept saying I sounded like a lady from a New Yorker cartoon—going on about the "rustic charms" and appealing "quaintness" of life outside "THE BIG CITY." Haha. Who am I kidding? Chicago's Armageddon-ish Fourth experience can be pretty great, too. (Even now, a few doors down, someone's lighting off the rest of their fireworks.)

called me the roving jewel

2010-06-28T16:12:00.014-05:00

Solstice and street fests and more biking than I've done in a while. It's always weird to have waited so long for summer and then to have it so officially here. Always accompanied by the same desires, too—like living it up, getting in better shape, reconnecting with ppl, and being outside as much as possible. Oh, and for current lack of travel funds, seeing new and interesting corners of Chicago(land). Some days I make the most of it, and others I'm AC- and deadline-driven. Lots of times I'm torn between the two. Sooo, I'm wondering, summer—can we have two of you?

Garden progress: phase no. 3.

Lemonade feat. garden mint!

Just interviewed Audrey Niffenegger for the forthcoming literary section of Chicago Artists Resource. She showed Danielle and me some of her amazing artist books.

Craig's new music project w/ Kim on vox. Highly danceable!

ZZ Top double bass drum set at Crossroads Guitar Fest.

Bert Jansch getting set up before the rotating of the giant stage.

Playing to 40,000-ish ppl at Toyota Park (and killing it).

Dusty + Billy. They still got it!

Jumbotron BB King.

--

In other news, I recently got a gig editing an online news publication called Center Square Journal, which covers Northcenter, Lincoln Square, and Ravenswood Manor. I've been doing some reporting outside of my usual arts and culture beat and reconnecting to my old North Side stomping grounds. The hyperlocal focus is a journalistic shift that's new and exciting—one that seems to offer a real and sustainable solution to the problem of newspapers' increasing obsolescence. And in our age of information overload, info. that remains timelessly important is what's happening on our own city blocks.

back to music city

2010-06-09T20:03:00.007-05:00

Belmont-Hillsboro, Trash Humpers at the Belcourt, Melrose Pool Hall, tour of United Record Pressing, Grimey's, Loveless Cafe, a house I had a dream about that for some reason also exists in Belle Meade, Frisbee outide the Parthenon, Great Escape, Green Hills, Firefly Grill, juice bar, Pancake Pantry, Tanglewood Historic Drive, Lonnie's, 12th Ave., PM, Venus + Mars, Jack's, Oak Bar at the Hermitage Hotel, Sky Blue Cafe, Music Row, Bert Jansch + Neil Young at the Ryman, PM again. Fin. xo Nashville. Stay dry.

no little plans

2010-06-09T19:53:00.002-05:00

Architectural cruise: a mother-daughter dream fulfilled.

Mom in the city.

These riverside cottages look cooler in real life and—the architectural guide assured us—in the sun.

Finally made it to XOCO. Did not disappoint!

cadenced

2010-05-21T01:57:00.002-05:00

My first Cubs game ever! Watched from a rooftop over Wrigley.

Dan's BD brunch at The Publican. (Frites for bfast!)

A birthday walk around Ravenswood Manor—favorite Chicago neighborhood—and up the North Branch Trail.

A birthday pizza (and Lost-viewing) party.

A birthday boy.

In Plainwell with the minis.

Dad's meticulously arranged kabobs.

Banner! (In constant motion.)

Reinterpreted action hero: Batman mask, Superman shirt/cape combo, and lightsaber.

Tiki bar!

Phase no. 2 of the Urban Productive Garden: When Stuff Goes in the Ground.

What goes down, must come up, right? Isn't that how it goes?

to disappear into the right words and to be their meanings...

2010-05-20T20:03:00.010-05:00

UNFROZEN: I'm making a publication loosely based on the theme of thaw, featuring creative reflections—art/story/list/essay/whatever—on seasonal/climatic changes or how Chicagoans loosely feel when Chicago feels like this (as opposed to, uh, this). Trying to round up stuff by this week (or early next), so email me if you're at all interested: laurahelenpearson@gmail.com. Danke schoen!

PRESSING ISSUES: Recently started writing for Is Greater Than again. This time I'm sifting through literary news and highlighting various presses, periodicals, and experimental projects. This month's installment spotlights stuff like Letters with Character, The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature, The Office of Blame Accountability, and 48 Hour Magazine.

but don't take my word for it...

BOOK CLUB: Recently finished The Braindead Megaphone, an essay collection by George Saunders, for Virtual Book Club. I first got into George when I read his essay about the William J. Clinton Foundation—"Bill Clinton, Public Citizen"—in The Best American Nonrequired Reading (originally published in GQ). Really great! I didn't love everything in Megaphone, but I did love a lot—namely: the titular (ew!) essay, "The New Mecca" (about Dubai), and "Buddha Boy" (about Buddha Boy—a kid from Nepal who was meditating for something like seven months without food or water). From the latter—some effusiveness that balances out the travelogue-style observations and wry humor:

You know that feeling at the end of the day, when the anxiety of that-which-I-must-do falls away and, for maybe the first time that day, you see, with some clarity, the people you love and the ways you have, during that day, slightly ignored them, turned away from them to get back to what you were doing, blurted out some mildly hurtful thing, projected, instead of the deep love you really feel, a surge of defensiveness or self-protection or suspicion? That moment when you think, Oh God, what have I done with this day? And what am I doing with my life? And how must I change to avoid catastrophic end-of-life regrets?

I feel like that now: tired of the Me I've always been, tired of making the same mistakes, repetitively stumbling after the same small ego strokes, being caught in the same loops of anxiety and defensiveness. At the end of my life, I know I won't be wishing I'd held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fear of the people around me. So what is stopping me from stepping outside my habitual crap?

My mind, my limited mind.

And then he ponders whether Buddha Boy is somehow subverting this cycle via endless meditation. Or not subverting exactly, but rather "fighting" in a new way "the thousands-of-years-old usage patterns of the brain." That's the mystical angle, anyway—the more overtly reverent one. (George also considers, if fleetingly, that given the way Buddha Boy's sort of propped up against a tree in the Nepalese jungle, he could very well be in a coma. Or dead.)

I'm glad the essay slips away when Buddha Boy does. We're left with a sense of unknowing that suggests the greater sense of Never Quite Knowing how to control the mind's crap. The spiritual part of me hopes that when he finally got up from the lotus position, Buddha Boy did in fact steal through the woods—silent, almost weightless, and aware of "the world, the beautiful world." The physical/practical side of me hopes that after months of battling the brain in the most extreme way possible, he just got up to get a sandwich.

and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden

2010-04-26T13:51:00.008-05:00

Phase no. 1 of "The Urban Productive Garden" (aka turning Dan's backyard into a magical realm of green zebra tomatoes, rhubarb, cauliflower, cherry trees, &c, then making sure the dog doesn't pee on it all.)

Urban productivity!

When all is said and done, it'll look a lot less like a green highway to nowhere.

This urban gardening session sponsored by Corona and the inimitable flavor of Tony Toni Toné.

trees of the blvd. (spring edition)

2010-04-19T18:12:00.002-05:00

logan square typography

2010-04-19T18:08:00.003-05:00

UNFROZEN (project)

2010-04-15T14:10:00.007-05:00

Friends: In a gesture of making something out of nothing, I am putting together a humble (handmade, likely stapled) publication about reemerging from Chicago winter. If you would like to participate (and I really hope you'd like), please send me something that has something to do with this theme: photo, essay, story, list, drawing, collage, review, mix cd (I will burn copies), etc., ad infinitum.

Topics and interpretations may include, but are not limited, to:

1) flora & fauna
2) field notes and field recordings
3) weather reports
4) trail maps
5) where in Chicago you find your “nature” fix
6) field trips in + around Chicagoland
7) mojito recipe (just kidding…no, not really kidding)
8) spring outerwear: the ongoing conundrum
9) things you do differently this time of year, or intend to do; things you don't do, or intend not to do
10) fictionalized conversation between baby bunnies
11) the hissing of summer lawns

Those are some just ideas—and semi-hokey ones at that!—but you can expand upon them, do something else, or make them hokier still. This is a low-pressure situation. If you want to contribute (deadline: May 13), email me at laurahelenpearson@gmail.com, and I'll let you know where to send whatever!

Pls. include your address, and after I put it all together, I will send you a humble copy through the mail. If you don’t have time/interest, no worries, but feel free to spread the word to anyone who might be interested. (Also, if out-of-towners feel inclined to contribute, I’m fine with extending the theme beyond Chicago.)

bloom where you are planted

2010-04-08T15:07:00.007-05:00

I learned that there had been many ice ages. That they came and went. I learned there were no mammals original to New Zealand. I learned that space was not just adrift with cold, flammable rocks. Here and there a creature was riding one, despite the Sufic spinning of the rock. The spores of lightless life were everywhere. I think I learned that. —A Gate at the Stairs

This one orange tulip popped up by way of reminder that DESPITE THE SNOW MASQUERADING AS APRIL SHOWERS THAT JUST FELL FOR A SECOND IN CHICAGO, spring is a sure and eventual thing. Despite a certain ambivalence due to a certain disorientation as of late, I just know that something good is going to happen. (Just saying it could even make it happen!)

Now's the time that we ("we" being Midwesterners who've, alas, outgrown winter) begin to see natural beauty return to the city but still have to look sort of selectively for it. Instead of flowers, I guess I could have also chosen, as totems of spring, the dirty Walgreens bags, fast food cups, or old issues of the Spanish daily Hoy Fin de Semana, strewn across yards. They're as emblematic of the season as anything. When the snow melts, we're suddenly reacquainted with yesterday's litter. (The receipt inside the Walgreens bag said November.)

Speaking of yesterdays, I just passed the five-year mark of being a Chicago resident. Moved here without a clue about this city and have stayed here—admittedly, much longer than I thought I would—obtaining clues. There's a lot more to it, I know, but like any long residency/winter, I suspect that I just need a bit of newness and busyness and at least one mini tulip to reorient. Dan said, "This city's what you make of it," which is something I clued into right away, but it's still good to be reminded by someone who's living proof.

highway run

2010-04-04T22:23:00.018-05:00

On the road with HP>>L.A. to Detroit.

How does her garden grow?

Rob's stash of vitamins & supplements.

Tour is no excuse to skimp on the D3.

SF thai.

San Jose with Lisa.

World's greatest gas station in Eugene, OR!

Reed College.

Pre-show fire juggling at Reed.

Best soy latte that you ever had??

Lovely host, Jae.

Portland looks nice in spring.

For the roses.

KEXP in Seattle.

Kory & Rob at Rob's BD brunch.

Kilby Court in SLC.

MJ & Val at Slowdown in Omaha.

Checking NBA stats on phone.

***EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW***INTERNET INTERVIEW***WEB EXCLUSIVE***IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW***

While on tour, I had the exclusive opportunity of interviewing the High Places for the Internet. The High Places are a band with two people in it. The two people are Rob Barber and Mary Pearson. If you want to learn about the band High Places made up of two people, Rob Barber and Mary Pearson, then read on. I asked them some in-depth questions about their jangly, tangled, mangled, wrangled, trippy, blippy, drippy, new-fangled, bassy, spacey musique. Read on to read the questions that I asked and the answers that they gave.

What is the best thing about music that you like?
Mary: The sound of it.
Rob: It tickles me.

Why is L.A.?
M: My answer is because in French it means “the.”
R: Shopping at the mall.

Favorite thing?
M: Nope.
R: My earlobes.

Given that the latest album takes a more narrative approach, thus narrowing the lyrical lens song by song, while at the same time refocusing, album-wise, to encompass all mankind—simultaneously providing a distinctive and as of yet unparalleled specificity that feels, by some strange token, universal, and, come to think of it, refreshingly fresh—where are you touring next month?
M: Europe.
R: April.

And how have you been?
M: Vs. mankind.
R: In lockdown.

Say I’m making a sandwich, say, and I only can use three ingredients, but it needs be a good sandwich—like the best sandwich ever made, like a sandwich that could take on mankind—what are my three ingredients?
M: Peace, love, and understanding.
R: Peanut butter, fluffernutter, and jelly.

What is the favorite thing about me?
M: Interviews.
R: Powerful, skull-crushing thighs.

What is the favorite thing about malls?
M: L.A.
R: Payphones.

If you could call one band/musical artist at the mall to collaborate with you, who would it be?
M: Paramore.
R: Henry Rollins.

Name your top 50 albums from 1982–85.
M: Nope.
R: No.

Name your least favorite 50 albums from ’85 on down.
M: Nope.
R: I love the Jeff Foxworthy records.

Why did you name your music that?
M: It sounded right.
R: It was just born that way.

How do I look?
M: Prepared.
R: Powerfully prepared.

How many High Places does it take to screw in a light bulb?
M: A couple.
R: One. Rob does everything.

nature does not change by will

2010-03-17T16:38:00.004-05:00

Went to Michigan this past weekend for Mom's Kalamazoo Children's Chorus concert, a really great Jo Newsom show, a mini jaunt to Holland (my first in years (being on my college campus again was extremely surreal)), and Brian's b-ball tourney.

Bronze medal from a beauty queen.

Since we sprang forward on the clock, I'm in the mode of springing forward in projects too (less plotting, more planting). Pretty much all I do is talk about the weather and circle game of seasons, so naturally I must also mention that today's temp was crowding 70°F!! A little sun goes a long way.

(I was like every kid who had grown up in the country, allowing the weather—good or bad—to describe life for me: its mocking, its magic, its contradictions, its moody grip. Why not? One was helpless before everything. —A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore >> current read)

Will be on the road with High Places soon in the following cities:

03-24 San Francisco, CA (Rickshaw Stop)
03-27 Portland, OR (Berbati's Pan)
03-28 Seattle, WA (Crocodile Cafe)
03-30 Salt Lake City, UT (Kilby Court)
03-31 Denver, CO (Hi Dive)
04-01 Omaha, NE (Slowdown)
04-02 Minneapolis, MN (Triple Rock Social Club)
04-03 Chicago, IL (Schubas)

Hoping to see some bros in different area codes!

the sea around us

2010-03-09T14:10:00.017-06:00

Dan and I went to Oahu to see what winter there is like! AM 940 ("All Traditional Hawaiian, All the Time") was our soundtrack throughout. These images were taken to the tune of it (and, in the back of my brain, a little These Trails and Bobby Brown sifting through sights and experiences, also. Oh, and that terrible song the off-key sister sings in Dirty Dancing.)

Despite the fact that we headed up to the NE windward side of Oahu to stay in a less populated area, and despite our relative steer-clearance of Waikiki, here and there, the tourist in me poked out to say "Aloha!"

The road from the airport up into the stunning Ko'olau Mountain Range (not really a range at all, but the edge of some ancient volcano, the rest of which fell into the Pacific).

My Hawaiian home.

View from the backyard. Ugh!

Giovanni's shrimp truck in Kahuku.

Goat Island in the distance (to the right). We walked out to it to snorkel—or sort of walked: We were in a wrestling match with wild surf. Still have a little souvenir coral embedded in my hand.

Noodle bowl from McDs.

North Shore waves at twilight (Shark's Cove).

A lot of scenes from a certain hit TV show were filmed at Kualoa Ranch.

Chinaman's Hat!

Root system on the hike to Maunawili Falls.

Previously on LOST.

View along the trail.

Where's Dan?

The falls at the end of the trail...

...and a swimming hole.

If this were my neighborhood, I guess I'd be OK with it.

Lanikai Juice.

Lanikai Beach!!!

ROY G BIVs...

...everywhere!

In the clouds over Kailua (Pali Lookout).

Tween surfers near Banzai Pipeline.

Humpback in the distance!

Paradise Found.

We found it in the back of a health food store in Haleiwa.

Sunset at Sunset Beach.

The hole that Mother Nature punched.

Laie Point.

Dole Plantation in central Oahu.

Inside the world's largest maze!

Waimanalo.

Went to Waikiki for our last night and got into full-on tourist mode...

Exhibit A.

Exhibit B. (we wandered onto the property of this hotel for front-row seats at sunset.)

Also at sunset, there was an awkward flamethrowing performance.

birds of paradise

2010-03-08T17:42:00.000-06:00

Back in Chicago for almost a week. Back in the land where 50°F feels like an accomplishment—dowdy March slipping on the only dress she owns and putting her best foot forward. You can accuse Midwesterners of some things, but not ungratefulness! When the sun showed up, I fell right back into a posture of gratitude and feverish hope (pretending, I think, that a month away cured me of all SAD symptoms—but not especially wanting to test this theory). Meanwhile, the 10-day forecast says rain but equably mild temps. Sure as the mercury creeps up the thermometer, I'll keep praising every notch it passes.

More pics of February out West...

A well-named flower.

A replica of the bungalow where we stayed in Echo Park.

There's the avocado tree that the squirrels obsessed over.

Mom and Mary on the way up to the Griffith Park Observatory.

Katie in Malibu. For her & Mom's visit, we ate out and walked around and went to the Grove and the Farmers Market and Jimmy Kimmel.

V-Day at M Cafe.

In Venice.

Mantel detail at the Mann-Mangum household.

lovely gold

2010-02-08T20:21:00.005-06:00

—here, beneath the immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent. (JD, "Notes from a Native Daughter")

Decided to explore the serene grounds of the Self-Realization Fellowship in Pacific Palisades.

Reminded me a bit of the Baha'i Temple in Wilmette, albeit with more of a catchall vibe, in terms of iconography and architecture (hence "worldwide spiritual organization.")

Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga. Pasta and pan-flute music.

Soooo over-the-top in terms of ambiance—and thus, so totally my kind o' place!

Red Rock.

So many caves!

People who live out here probably get used to this stuff—but not this Chicagoan.

Kinds of blues I forgot existed (or even deserved—!)

how the west was fun

2010-02-05T20:35:00.003-06:00

Tulsa. (My first time in Oklahoma. It was deep in snow. Pretty to look at but treacherous to drive through!)

Albuquerque. (My first time in New Mexico. This B&B, Casa de Suenos, was amaaazing.)

I-40 into Arizona.

I loved Flagstaff! Had no idea it would feel so much like Colorado.

California at last! (A treehouse in Topanga.)

janurawry

2010-01-30T16:24:00.006-06:00

At the beginning of '10 I felt like living a 'back-to-fitness' cliche and so joined a gym and did some intensive group classes ("new year, new you!" &c, &c). A few weeks in, though, I started living a 'backing-out-of-fitness' cliche in the form of some intensive sitting around. As per usual, I wanted to keep up with it, but "things"—working/TV/DJing/working/preparing to leave town for a month/etc.—got in the way.

The beginning of the year saw me following a similar trajectory in eating habits—starting 2010 super healthy-style, and then more recently, gravitating toward jumbo pizza slices and burritos that could feed a family of four. Long story long, the highlight in all of this for sure was Raw Food Week. Never at this time of year, in my SADness and hibernation, have I experienced such an upswing in energy and noticeable spring in my step. Having never gone totally raw or vegan, I was eager to try seven days of eating this way, but I was also kind of skeptical (just ask Dan). As promised to some ppl, here's what was on the menu, as well as some rawflections....

breakfast — Breakfast is one of my favorite things in life, and going raw in the morning wasn't too much of a challenge. Options included: raw granola with hemp or almond milk, any kind of fresh fruit, a Larabar (they make raw versions), or an intense and amazing green meal shake akin to Karyn's "Morning Cleanser" (green meal, apple juice, rejuvelac, banana, flax oil, lecithin, raw cacao powder, mesquite powder, maca, goji berries, still more fruit, etc.) And nothing says "hellooo, morning!" like a wellness shot.

lunch — True, it's no breakfast, but lunch is pretty awesome, too, and raw lunch was mildly easy. Options included: sliced carrots, celery, and cucumber, grape tomatoes, flax crackers ("Mexican" or "Italian" flavor), raw hummus or seed cheese from Karyn's (the raw garlic in these spreads, however, got to be a bit much for me—indigestion dot com, bleck!), raw macadamia nuts, pistachios and curried almonds, raw energy bars, avocado, blood orange slices, apple, dried botija olives (sooo good), and kombucha...lots of kombucha. Oh, and one day I had this slice of sun-flax "bread" that actually tasted a whole lot like wheat bread(!!)

dinner — Dinner was my biggest struggle during RFW. In the winter, I want to eat nothing but pasta and root vegetables and bread and cheese on bread (I am not alone in this, I know), but during RFW I had to refocus and rethink the third meal. I made a lot of salads with spinach, carrots, multi-colored peppers, dill, avocado, grape tomatoes, flax seed, and crunchy dehydrated onions that reminded me (happily) of French's Fried Onions. For dressing, I mixed apple cider vinegar and a little olive oil. Now salad days are great, but repetitive salad nights can be tough. Granted, I could've gotten more creative for dinner, but I was a little lazy. On day six, Dan and I ate at Cousin's, one of Chicago's few raw food restaurants. I had crimini mushrooms stuffed with tahini, pine nuts, and sundried tomatoes (oh, and "love and gratitude"), and a zucchini pasta with marinara. This restaurant is definitely hit or miss, but after five nights of salads, it was a huge hit.

dessert — Dan the Man made a bunch of raw desserts from this book, including key lime "ice kream" bars (made with cashews), pineapple ice box dessert, and an acai-banana pie with a crust of crushed pecans, which was my favorite. I also ate Karyn's Mango "Dream Cream," (dreamy, to be sure, but I generally feel awkward about raw foodists' spelling choices and nomenclature.)

by way of conclusion — I was blown away at how quickly I got full while eating raw. I knew it was because my body was digesting everything immediately instead of later—hence the delayed full-feeling that comes from eating cooked. Take Thanksgiving dinner, a classic example: All that consumption of cooked food followed by all that need for a nap. Energy-wise, I felt much better, even after a couple days, which combined with the gym, made me feel nearly invincible. I think a more sustainable version for me would be raw breakfast and lunch, followed by veg dinner (with a little bread and cheese for good measure, because even a new year/new me can't imagine life without such comforts). Moderation once again wins the day.

these trails

2010-01-04T18:50:00.010-06:00

How did we get to 2010?

I suspect the same way we always have: waking up, going to sleep, watching sitcoms, &c.

Still, kind of a jolt. Like encountering this projection at a black light-themed NYE party.

Or this blacklit collection of neon paper.

In other news, Raw Food Week began today. I'd forgotten what carrots taste like. And seed cheese. JK. I never had seed cheese til just now. (Pretty good, tbt.)

'70s DIY books from Dan for Xmas. Really perfect.

Bloom where yer planted.

VISIONS for 2010:

>>JRNL AGAIN. I haven't done this regularly for probably five years, and I must say, I miss it. The setting/characters may change, but the themes never do. I've been wrtg more or less the same sentences since I was seven—in handwriting that, every year, becomes a little less precise.

>>PICK UP THE PEN—or the laptop, but that doesn't rhyme—and oft, continuing all efforts to make freelance work WORK. (Time mgmt, etc. ad infinitum. Invoices flooding inboxes like killer waves!)

>>READ OFTEN. I have such a hard time retaining stories + info. I've read, so not only do I want to read a lot of books this year, but I also want to try writing mini reviews/responses to what I've read, too. Possibly on this here blog(?)

>>HOT AS CAYENNE. (Yikes! Reached far—too far—for that one.) In any case, I want to go to some hot or at least warmish places this season + year, beginning with California in February and onward and elsewhere intermittently until winter melts. Meanwhile, I will at least plug in my full spectrum lamp and up the D3 intake. I mean, let's be serious: It's bone-rattling cold!

snow on snow

2009-12-27T11:19:00.009-06:00

Fall into winter...

Casper.

Tea at the Drizzle.

The Island City ca. Thanksgiving.

Veteran memorial.

Devils Head, Wisconsin (Photo by Martha).

Michigan Ave.

Christmas at Misericordia.

Brian in Chicago.

Hoosier Mama.

Xmas party at The Frat.

Sara and Craig's anniversary party.

Back at 1251.

Brooke's "audience" for her dance performances.

Mom rec'd some colored tongue depressors and crayons in her homemade Xmas present from Brooke and Kale.

Dad's Brian-made apron.

trees of the blvd.

2009-11-07T12:23:00.011-06:00

that's morning time, before we got there

2009-11-06T09:46:00.005-06:00

A fall weekend in Music City.

Food on table at At the Table.

A beekeeper came to the Bermans' to deal w/ a li'l yellow jacket problem.

Miles on his farm.

The plan.

Addendum to the plan.

T-shirt sales.

Robert's.

Pumpkin cairns at the Farmers Market.

Marche.

Flea Market.

TTFN, TN.

that's us, before we got there

2009-11-05T09:30:00.006-06:00

From time to time, nothing makes me feel more out of touch with people than the Interweb: Photos of weddings (wait. you were engaged? two years ago? wow. huh!) and photos of babes (everyone's birthing new humans at the moment, and I suspect this'll continue forever); distant strains of virtual conversation; conversational snippets; 140-character memoirs about meals and cats. I know some of this out-of-touch vibe is inevitable: We grow older and naturally roam within narrower, but perhaps more purposefully defined, circles; I know part of this is that I've been a real crappy penpal/long-distance pal the past couple years, and I feel guilty about letting certain correspondences fall by the wayside, even though this is a semi-typical (albeit semi-lame) course to follow in this, our 21st century; and lastly, yeah: THE 21st CENTURY. Seems like a little of this guilt is a very contemporary predicament and, from time to time, unavoidable, since we now “know” A TON about each other (friend, family member, long-ago classmate, friend of family member)—or well, a virtual ton. In conclusion: I'm sure the pioneers didn't attempt to keep in touch with everyone they met on the wide frontier. Except for people they met who had like, a surplus of medical supplies or knew a surprising amount about animal husbandry or had a really amazing recipe for corn pudding. Also in conclusion: Nothing puts me back in time like Autumn and, in many ways, back in touch. I have some letters to write.

Other recent wtgs:

+ Interview with Bruce Willen and Nolen Strals of Post Typography (Proximity)

+ Review of Bright-Sided, by Barbara Ehrenreich (Time Out Chicago)

+ Feature on Joan of Arc's Flowers (Ghettoblaster)

---

A Backward Glance O'er Travel'd Roads AKA Photos It Took Me a Long Time to Upload

Matt & Heidi got married in the Michigan woods.

It rained...

...then it didn't!

Everything was illuminated.

Beauty.

There were horses and a pony on the property.

Amanda made sure they rec'd tons of attention.

As did John.

Celebrated my 28th birthday w/ the fam at Chuck E. Cheese.

It was Kale's 3rd BD also, and believe it or not, Chuck E's was his idea.

FYI: 9 million tickets still only get you a tiny pack of Pop Rocks and an eraser.

Pretty sure Brooke took this one.

The rest of birthday week incl. such excitement as karaoke, dinner at avec, mini-pumpkins, and a marathon, the latter of which was (not surprisingly) ridiculously long but (surprisingly) survivable. I forgot to run with any food, kind of assuming they’d have plenty of it along the course, but no. :( Around mile 14, I thought I was gonna pass out from insane hunger. But I made it to the Power Gel station at mile 18 and fortunately got a second wind. I’m not sure what wind I was on when I finished, but I was extremely stoked to finish, nonetheless.

Scare-a-thon. (Photo by someone professional.)