What I Want for Christmas

Thinking about this made me a little sad, seeing as all my wishes have become undeniably adult and domestic: kitchen things, expensive sheets, liquor.

Which takes me back to simpler times:

I don't recall my brothers and I ever having the "Homeless Guy and Mustachioed-WWI Hatted Policeman" set, but I do have fond memories of the giant mass of Lego-Playmobile-Pirate-Knight-Pioneer-Doctor-Magic-Construction-Princess-Business-Land that once occupied a large chunk of an upstairs room.

So, this is my wish: That this still exists, and that someone in the world gets it for Christmas (or other winter holiday)

A Prescription for Cold Times

Sometimes plans to go to the Beat Kitchen and hear some very loud music go awry, because Chicago is settling into the bitterly frigid time of the year, and no amount of coats, scarves, and Smart-Wool socks can fortify you to step outside.

On a night such as this, J.A. and I instead drew straws to see who would go to the corner store to buy a bottle of whiskey from the friendly Turkish man. (J.A., ever gallant, braved the elements)

And then the only reasonable thing to be done is make hot toddies, with a recipe I made up. I don't know if little book of cocktails that's sitting somewhere among an illustrated book of Chinese cooking and a stack of handwritten recipes would approve, but they are delicious.

To Assemble:

- 1 1/2 ounce of Buffalo Trace bourbon (necessary if you are J.A. and me, and nostalgic for last year's trip to Spain, where this was for some reason the only bourbon we could find, and bartenders seemed nonplussed that we wanted drink it at all. The easier thing was to ask for "Un whiskey, por favor" and then a glass would be filled with Cutty Sark until one said when.)

- 1 1/2 ounces water

Heat the water and whiskey until it steams, and is too hot to dip in a finger. Then add:

- One squiggle of honey (two if you are J.A., and sweet)

- One splash of lemon juice (two if you are R.A., and sour)

- A dusting of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves (or if you prefer, all the spices of the Orient)

Stir together, and enjoy on the futon, wrapped in blankets, while listening to the Sufjan Stevens Christmas album. Repeat as needed until the cold is chased from your bones and the end of your nose.

Cheers!

Has the Whole World Gone...Sane?

Not yet, actually. But I'm getting some deeply perplexing vibes of lucidity from the crazy-pants wing of our country, as noted by the Washington Post

"Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, a growing number of antiabortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions."

This should be straight from the Onion, right? Only in opposite-land could the nation's disembrained actually be considering this kind of approach. And yet, it goes on:

"Some of the activists are actually working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation in Congress that would provide pregnant women with health care, child care and money for education -- services that could encourage them to continue their pregnancies."

And all it took was the collapse of the economy, a landslide political mandate for the Democrats, and the utter disarray that is the Christian/Republican alliance to bring about this fresh new perspective of pragmatism and compassion.

Well, not entirely:

"It's a sellout, as far as we are concerned," said Joe Scheidler, founder of the Pro-Life Action League. "We don't think it's really genuine. You don't have to have a lot of social programs to cut down on abortions."

"You don't work to limit the murder of innocent victims," said Judie Brown, president of the American Life League. "You work to stop it."

Not to get too hopeamacational on you all, but can you imagine a time when people like these are no longer taken seriously?

Preface (still): USB Cord continues missing, a family prays

The election night photo essay remains a dream, thanks to my inability to find that stinking cord which (magically) channels the pictures through the series of internet tubes to your eyes.

So instead, I bring you the lass who Boing Boing has dubbed "Amelie Jr."

For serious, she makes me all itchy to pop out a tiny person who might be as interesting. J.A., feel like making an illegitimate child? If we stopped paying rent we could totally afford it.


Once upon a time... from Capucha on Vimeo.

Preface: Or, I'm looking for a lost USB cord

Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your
painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: yes, it is true I have seen
the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women
and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my
city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be
alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall
bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted
against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his
ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked,
sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

- Carl Sandburg

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

What a time to live in Chicago.

And while I've got some great things to share, for the moment I'm going to start with how much I like Le Monde:

"Le monde avait les yeux fixés sur l'élection américaine. Dès la confirmation de la victoire de Barack Obama, les messages de félicitations ont été diffusés sur tous les continents. L'espoir d'une nouvelle ère dans les relations entre les Etats-Unis et le reste de la planète, après huit ans d'administration Bush, domine nettement."

While J.A and I were waiting in line for the pizza tent in Grant Park, a Brazilian man began talking to us about how excited he was, and how lucky we were to be able to vote this year. It's a tremblingly hopeful thought, that we could very well be on our way to a time when I won't feel embarassed, or just apologetic, when admitting my citizenry to people.

Politics & Child Abuse

Just in case the exciting polls and early voting numbers are encouraging you to hope again, here's a little reminder that there are still some cowardly jackasses willing to exploit their kids to make a cheap point:







It's horrifying to see kids being taught to hate things before they even understand what it is they're hating. Although I'm sure the parents really do believe that marriage equality will result in a lawless vortex that culminates with everyone gay-marrying their gay pets and houseplants.

"Cats and dogs living together openly, mass hysteria!"

In California, no less. Isn't that supposed to be the shiny happy land of oranges, decadence and hippies? This is totally skewing my Milk Dud theory of America: the delicious chocolate East and West coasts surrounding an awkwardly chewy hunk of caramel.

And now I'm kind of cheering for those two poor kids to grow up to be radical communists and open an arugula commune with their gay spouses, or something similar.


Update: And, of course, now the song's stuck in my head. I'm trying to replace it with an alternate version I came across:

"Oh my gosh,
Oh my dear,
Lord forbid I grow up queer.
Since my Mom is a bigot
and my Dad is full of hate,
No on Proposition 8!"

Sacrifice

In support of J.A. and his battle against unemployment, I hereby submit my offering to Athena, and to any nearby gods with a taste for bird:





Hat Tip to a series In Honor of the 70's

"That One" for President

Over the past few weeks, I have been to three different bars for three different debate-watching parties. And although I'm getting utterly burnt out in regards to the elections, a steady infusion of burbon, beer, and french fries really helps one get through watching Tom Brokov scold the candidates for blocking his teleprompter.

I don't know that this debate brought much to light apart from "McCain is tired and cranky" and "This is a really crap debate format", and I think the state of the race could be summed up much more succinctly with the help of this visual aid (via Daily Kos):

An Exercise

Nabbed from elsewhere: Compose a 26 word passage with words that follow from A to Z:

And before coming down, ever forgetting great heights inertia, Jack Klein lolled 'midst nostalgia. Overly persuaded, quite: regarding sunset's too-unworldly violence with Xanadu's youthful zest.

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep

It's been ferociously thunder storming for the past four hours. The cat's making peculiar snarling noises from beneath the futon, and I'm making deals with God that lightning doesn't have any interest in laptops.

(Zeus is angry)


(Terribly angry)

Tomorrow night I'm planning on producing something to the tune of torture, trauma theory, and Batman. But tonight it will have to wait. Because tonight, my dear readers, our 12th floor apartment is flooding. 12th fucking floor. Flooding!

Rest your minds, lest you fear that Chicago's been plunged under a 40-days-style deluge for its wickedness and shoddy public transportation system, and that J.A., the cat, and I are desperately paddling on a tsunamic lake Michigan. Our 12th story flood caught my attention at the kitchen table, suddenly aware that my feet were in a puddle of water. Apparently our building was being overwhelmed by such vast sheets of rain that the windows just couldn't keep it all out. What followed was a great deal of scrambling for towels, along with the sense of foolishness that comes from trying to make an expanse of water do our bidding.

And now we have a large stack of books, which I'm too sleepy and sad to photograph, ravaged by the flood as it came over the window ledge serving as a bookshelf.

An omen's an omen, and I must say I'm chilled by the sight of The Brothers Karamazov, The Aeneid, Being and Time, and a Tom Robbins novel (not a great one) in a state of wrinkly mush. Our neighbor's television is letting out a screech of a flood warning. I swear, if I see even a hint of a locust, I'm taking cover at St. Thomas'. Can holy water fight flood water?

"Oh, Dr. Pepper was originally marketed as a cure for impotence!"

Nothing much gets J.A. down, and he can't even swim...

Sunday Edition: Cocktails

Yesterday involved more apartment hunting, and produced unsuitable results ranging from "Lovely place that's a bit too far north" to "Filth-hole with cat and ferret piss inhabited by a freaky meth-addict".

To recover, Sunday thus far has been more about drinking in the afternoon and not putting on pants:

How are your Sundays?

"In other news, cheese is still delicious...
But what does it matter, when we can never know the future?"

That Summertime

This afternoon is dull, and this is what I came across:

What I'm going to call - the very long book list.

So here are the rules: bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn’t finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand.

1984
The Aeneid
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
American Gods
Anansi Boys
Angela’s Ashes : A Memoir
Angels & Demons
Anna Karenina
Atlas Shrugged
Beloved
The Blind Assassin
Brave New World
The Brothers Karamazov
The Canterbury Tales
Catch-22
The Catcher in the Rye
A Clockwork Orange
Cloud Atlas
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
A Confederacy of Dunces
The Confusion
The Corrections
The Count of Monte Cristo
Crime and Punishment
Cryptonomicon
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
Dubliners
Dune
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Emma
Foucault’s Pendulum
The Fountainhead
Frankenstein
Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
The God of Small Things
The Grapes of Wrath
Gravity’s Rainbow
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
The Historian : A Novel
The Hobbit
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iliad
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and its Consequences
The Inferno
Jane Eyre
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Kite Runner
Les Misérables
Life of Pi : A Novel
Lolita
Love in the Time of Cholera
Madame Bovary
Mansfield Park
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlemarch
Middlesex
The Mists of Avalon
Moby Dick
Mrs. Dalloway
The Name of the Rose
Neverwhere
Northanger Abbey
The Odyssey
Oliver Twist
On the Road
The Once and Future King
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Oryx and Crake : A Novel
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Persuasion
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Poisonwood Bible : A Novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Pride and Prejudice
The Prince
Quicksilver
Reading Lolita in Tehran : A Memoir in Books
The Satanic Verses
The Scarlet Letter
Sense and Sensibility
A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Silmarillion
Slaughterhouse-five
The Sound and the Fury
The Tale of Two Cities
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Three Musketeers
The Time Traveler’s Wife
To the Lighthouse
Treasure Island
Ulysses
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Vanity Fair
War and Peace
Watership Down
White Teeth
Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Wuthering Heights
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : An Inquiry Into Values

And I'm going to follow with ten books that, I think, should have made the list:

1.) The Idiot
2.) The Red and the Black
3.) The Golden Bowl
4.) Bartleby the Scrivener
5.) Discipline and Punish
6.) Cold Comfort Farm
7.) Waiting for Godot
8.) Jerusalem Delivered

9.) Swann's Way
10.) Hamlet

Land of Nod

As the Great Apartment Hunt continues, I find myself spending a great deal of time on Google Maps: eyeballing distances to the Blue Line, trying to remember if that street with the surrealist bar was Divison or Damen.

What's been providing the most glee is seeing, in map-inches, the distance by which my commute will be reduced. Hyde Park = 6 1/2", Ukrainian Village = 3".

Something that will be lost, however, is the invariably entertaining morning chat between J.A. and I, when he is just barely awake and I'm slightly more so. For reasons best known to himself, my getting out of bed in the morning is frightening, so he usually calls to see if I'm okay when I close the bedroom door.

This morning, on the other hand, featured this exchange:

Me : (Returning from shower)
J.A. : Oh, are you okay?
Me : Yes, why?
J.A. : Did I wake you up?
Me : When?
J.A. : Last night. I thought I was kicking you.
Me : No, I didn't wake up. (Pause) But I did dream of the Ukraine

He went back to sleep, and it was then that I remembered a rather involved dream of kidnapping and organized crime syndicates. Connected? Maybe.

A Not-So-Ordered List

1.) J.A. is a lame pseudonym. And "Mr. Right", while entertainingly pun-y, is too schmaltzy by the half. I've been tossing around the idea of dropping the pretense altogether; but I'm sure that as soon as I do, the perfect apt-erudite-entertaining handle will occur to me. And then it's too late.

2.) This made my afternoon. Eleventy times over.

3.) I went to my first baseball game in at least six years with Doctor Aunt, Rock-Star Brother, and J.A. (See! It's a lame pseudonym). J.A. happens to bear the peculiar affliction of causing whichever team he roots for to lose. He's got a tragic story of being crushed by the Oregon Trailblazer's defeat at age 10 or 11, ask him about that sometime. So to counteract this, I'd bought him a White Sox hat for his birthday. It proved ineffectual, but did result in some entertaining heckling from some other fans and vendors. "Get your Ice Cold Beer! White Sox Kryptonite!"

And I ended up feeling that I wasn't so much a Cubs Fan, or even a baseball fan, but a Wrigley Field fan. And that's mostly because the age and stateliness of the place made me want to shout old-timey insults at the players. "Off the field with ye, slobberchops!" or "You hit that ball like a gentlewoman with the vapors, by jiggery!" Obviously I need to work on my old-timey insults.

4.) I'm SO excited for our apartment hunt. And, maddeningly, the newly-placed ads for places available in September are all for neighborhoods I've largely written off. Lincoln Park: Too pricey and full of drunken white people. Ravenswood/Roscoe Village/Rogers Park: Too far north and too boring. Evanston: Too not in Chicago, probably covered in bees, etc. So I'm crossing my fingers and waiting for the northwestern Trinity of Bucktown, Wicker Park, and the Ukranian Village to start appearing.

What's truly exciting about moving, apart from the prospect of leaving Hyde Park and my excessive commute in the dust, is that Chicago has some bitchin' real estate. In New York, my income would probably have me thinking something like "Ooh, I think I can afford to live in a cupboard with both a light and a door!" But out in the Midwest I find myself browsing among apartments with fireplaces, interesting woodwork, and even backyards.

5.) La vie en beau!

Dig In

Now that the primary circus is over, my morning web-surfin' on quiet days in the office lacks some of it's former zest. But two loves of mine remain:

New York Times Columnists

The Debunking of Hysterical American Health Scares

Vis a vis the first link, I'm really hoping that this format will catch on, and that they'll set up a double column with Dowd and Kristol. Mostly because I'm pretty sure that Maureen Dowd would end up clubbing Kristol to death with a bottle of gin, thus ridding the Op-ed page of his vileness and striking some fear into David Brooks.

And speaking of salt, Taste of Chicago is going on this weekend. And even though last year resulted in a handful of people with salmonella, I'm planning to attend anyway. I think that, what with the constant threats of e-coli spinach, poison salmon, and tainted tomatoes, I've gone past my horror threshold. And really, what's a little food poisoning compared to the ridiculousness of enjoying a B-L sandwich on a summer afternoon?

Black Cat Bone and a Mojo Hand

Happy Friday 13th everyone! I'm trying to think of a way to celebrate. Finding an underground blues bar and getting drawn into a high-stakes game of chance with a one-armed man sounds appropriate, but I'm taking suggestions.

Thus far, my bad luck has consisted only of my body playing a cruel trick on me. You see, last night I decided against opening a bottle of wine, thinking that I had to get up early for work, and I'd only end up drinking a glass too many and having a headache. (Yes, I've been depressingly responsible about that sort of thing these days...)

But you know what? This morning my head hurt anyway! For reasons entirely non-alcohol related! I feel completely taken in.

But on the bright side, dear readers, it seems that we're actually not perishing from sloth, fat, toxins, and cell-phone radiation.

Coming up are pictures of the west coast and the tale of my secret monacle, but since I'm in the office I feel like I should maybe, you know, work.

Ketchup, and other vegetables?

I've noticed that, just as every media outlet appears to be contractually obliged to call John McCain a maverick eleven or twelve times a day, claims of elitism in a candidate can only be valid with the evidence of:

a) latte drinking
b) arugula

I find the latte bit more puzzling, because everybody drinks them. Hell, I've even come across the term "latteconomizing", in a Tribune advice column, in reference to cutting back on ones' twice-daily trips to Starbucks to offset the pinch of our economic downturn.

The slander against arugula leaves me not so much confused as indignant. In the first place, there's really nothing so fancy about it. It's just another salad green, and one which costs slightly less than the supposedly more proletarian bags of spinach that sit next to it in our local grocery store. And it's delicious. So, America, shut up and eat your damn vegetables.

(I'm also reminded of a tidbit I encountered in some American History class: Somewhere around the 1700's, there was a law in New England that you could only make your indentured servants eat lobster a few days out of the year, since they regarded them as horrifying sea-bugs)

And in the spirit of cataloguing snobbish vegetables consumed by educated white people, this is what Joel and I had for dinner last night:

(Let's say it together kids! Ar-ti-choke!)

If I were a more diligent photo-taker, I'd have started clicking as I was cooking these beasties, because they are spiny and peculiar-looking, and come with stems that must be removed with a great hack from a knife. But as you can see, I caught the aftermath:

What I love about eating artichokes is the process, peeling and gnawing the leaves, working your way to the innards. This is the opposite of a snack, a food that requires commitment and attention, as well as the imagination to suppose that a spiny cactus-thing could be good to eat:

Needless to say, if Rush Limbaugh comes out with the breaking scandal that Obama likes to follow his arugula lattes with a side of artichokes and socialized medicine, I'll be okay with that.

My Ordered List

For about two weeks now I've been carrying a paper journal around with me. This is a choice I based on the following circumstances:

1. I recently bought a purse large enough to not bulge awkwardly with this addition.

2. This journal is bound with red leather, which matches my day-planner, and plays to my newly acquired love of matching.

3. I've stopped thinking of the act of writing in it "keeping a diary in public" (something that seems to me a little unseemly, or at least conspicuous) but instead think of it like this: I'm taking notes.

And of course, if I can come up with a numbered list of reasons to do a thing, I'm likely to feel it's a good idea.

Down With Televised News

I just made my first contribution to a political campaign, and it felt pretty good. (So don't screw this up Obama, or I'm out $50...)

J. and I have been talking about taking some weekend trips to Ohio to volunteer for the Dems in November, since somehow the South Side of Chicago doesn't seem like it's going to need a lot of encouragement. Here's hoping this silly country won't complete the Triple Crown of elections coming down to one state kind of "voting", and mucking it all up.

Could be worse. Could be Zimbabwe.

And in other good news, Chicago is finally feeling springlike. I walked to the bus stop from work with no coat, and a daring nine inches of forearm exposed! This does not, however, rule out some sort of early May snowstorm. The Midwest is tricky...

Something I'm loving about these non-bitter temperatures is the fact that normal people are appearing outdoors, running, strolling, escorting small children. About two weeks ago all one saw were highly muffled, wrathful looking figures, or young U Chicago runners schelping joylessly, in their "Where Fun Goes To Die" hoodies. (They take that motto so seriously around here. Very lame.)

With any luck the weather will continue charming, so that J. and I can begin planning our Great Apartment Escape to the North Side. My secret ambition is to find a two bedroom place, to accomodate a study/library with a desk. Maybe we'll even get fancy and get bookshelves that aren't from Target!

Actually, I have another moving ambition that involved renting one of those Car-for-a-Day things, and scouring the city for more interesting furniture. Although, I have to say that our futon qualifies as interesting, since one of the wooden crossbars has cracked, and we are currently too cheap and uninspired to invest in a whole new frame. Our too-large collection of books came in handy, and we wedged a number of sturdy ones in between the frame and the floor. Ingenious!

Note for future blogging: The mysterious president of the Private Equity Firm I'm now working for (odd, no?) is appearing after a three month business trip-round-the-world. I'm told things will get crazy when he's back. Here's hoping.

Still in Chicago, still something of a hermit

I've decided that it's finally time to cut the cord to Livejournal. But, of course, one still needs a blog. I'm beginning to believe that without this and Facebook one doesn't even have a toehold in reality.

I'm nine months into being a college graduate, though it's tempting not to count the summer and to continue with the sense that a year really begins somewhere in early September. Either way, I'm still on the quest to find that "life experience" people like me supposedly come across when they put a year or two between themselves and grad school.

Over the past few months, in the name of supporting myself, I've ended up as a temp worker specializing in health care organizations. In fact, I'm writing this during an afternoon lull at the American Osteopathic Association, between putting together material for a conference (with a super-cool hole-puncher/binding machine) and organizing a filing system. For the most part, the work isn't enormously interesting, but this association, and a few others, have liked me a lot, asked for my resume, and tantalizingly hinted at some real jobs that could open up in their publishing departments. It's not Yale, but editing health care textbooks could be interesting. So I'm ending up with some damn fine secretarial skills, getting my foot in the door for some positions that could be genuinely interesting, and earning enough for rent, shopping trips to the Loop, and maybe even a kitty.

And I'm pleased enough with the state of things to put off grad school for another year, so I can stick around in Chicago. This does spoil the symmetry of J. and I alternating our MA programs before the five to seven ominous years of potentially far-flung doctorates arrive on the scene. But that's tempered by a recent epiphany of mine: I'm young. Very young. So much so that I don't think I'll be past my prime as a teacher or a scholar if I decide to become a grad student at the venerable age of 24 or 25.


I love it here, Chicago is gritty and lively, and if J. had a job we could have a nicer apartment in a more interesting part of town. That's not to say that I'm not growing fond of Hyde Park. 57th Street seems to be only used bookstores, and we're nicely lake-adjacent. And there is a certain kind of guilt accompanying the wish to move away from the poor, black neighborhood in the South side to a hipper, safer North area (Chicago's a really segregated city). I think it might be harder for me than for J. , since he has a community at U Chicago. Nearly all of the friends I've made here I've met through him, and I'm looking forward to moving someplace where I can meet people on my own. U Chicago's really not a "fun" sort of place, and I feel somewhat like at outsider as the mere girlfriend of a student.

But it's not all U of C's fault that I'm feeling a tad isolated. Since we moved out here I've had this mindset that I can't really enjoy anything until I've found a well paid job for a suitable sort of organization that's worthy of my many talents. It's a modern Austenian concept, just replace marriage with employment. So I haven't found a yoga studio I like, or taken Spanish lessons, or joined up with some Obama campaigners (though in this particular city that seems a little moot). And while all these things would be easier in a neighborhood with farmers markets, and streets I don't mind walking late at night, they're hardly impossible here.

I guess I'm still working out how to socialize minus Kline and the Black Swan.