recap for the holes in the week

it's been a good week, and since i've been unable to sit with my blog for most of it, there are some holes in the documentation. i will now fill in those holes. most of them, anyway.

on wednesday, brian and i got out and made the bus for a wonderfully sunny and windy day in the city. they seemed to either be perfect urban hiking weather, or absolutely miserable: cold, drizzly, windy, gross. this was the case, for example, as we made our way back to the apartment on tuesday night. i had my bike with me from the faust meeting, and rode at a walking pace with brian's luggage on my back as we walked for an hour in the rain. it was awesome, and poor brian didn't even have any rain gear on. oh well we made it. so on wednesday, we just sort of roamed around in search of adventure. in the midst of this quest, we were walking down clark (or broadway?) and happened upon a charming little place aptly called Austrian Bakery. and so it was. i enjoyed a magnificent raspberry/cream cheese danish and an almond pretzel with my coffee. brian had some kind of meaty-ass sandwich. the real treat came afterward, though, when i realized that the orange juice machine actually functioned. holy crap, fresh-squeezed orange juice is so good. to follow up, brian decided to shell out for a slice of tiramisu, which he generously shared with me. it was really incredible, so much so that i was too distracted to photograph it.






after our trip to the bakery, we sort of made our way across lincoln park, where we approached the lincoln park zoo. at the gates, i suggested we keep walking because i didn't want to pay for a zoo. brian said he loved zoos, but really didn't want to spend the money either. we continued south along lincoln park until we came to this secondary gate to the zoo, which was not as large and not really marked, but clearly an entrance to the zoo. it was wide open, no ticket booth, just a giant walking path in and out of the zoo. and then it hit us... this is a public zoo. free. animals for everyone, no tickets needed. holy shit, right? you would kind of expect there to be a bunch of socialist animals inside, but they were real american animals, including zebras that didn't ever move and lions that were really good at ignoring the super-annoying kids yelling outside their pit. we exited the backside of the zoo to walk to the lakefront, and after a photo op, we took a moment to sit near the waves and reflect.




following this chunk of adventure, we headed towards downtown in search of food and other good things. i stopped in the north face store on michigan avenue to see if i could find some adventure pants, but to no avail. adventure pants have been on my mind for awhile, and have recently become a priority. these are adventurous times. we continued along michigan ave. until we reached the gap store, where i was sucked in with tremendous force. and what do i find there? fuckin' adventure pants! so i try them on, decide they're badass, and check out. eventually, we found a pizza joint (one from the chain we'd been seeking the day before) and enjoyed a beast of a pizza.

after dinner, we split up. brian hopped the el and went home for a nap; i walked over to this design symposium that faust had invited me to. it was a discussion of the work of three established-but-still-fresh women designers, as moderated by one rick valicenti. i got there before the fausts, and ended up hobnobbing with a couple of the kids from buzz co for awhile. the presentation was really cool, and the motif seemed to be three different approaches on "remaining unapologetic" about your work as you make decisions and put them out into the world. this really spoke to me, as i think this is the next step in my design maturity. it speaks to confidence, experience, and a position where you can get away with it, all things which seem to come after about 8 years in the career. or so said rick when i mentioned this idea afterward. it was good to speak with rick as always, and he did me the kindness of pointing me out to the audience before the question-and-answer portion began. he explained that i was from alabama and now worked for faust. "everyone say hi to paul."

everyone: "hi, paul."

after all of that was done, i headed towards brian's side of things and we met at a place called Clarke's on belmont. it's basically a hip 24-hour i-hop, but with only two waitresses working the whole restaurant. we made a drawing, as brian and i will do sometimes, and ate french toast and belgian waffles and warm bevs spiked with whiskey and kalhua. it was a good chill late night thing, spoiled only by waiting for the bus for freaking ever in the cold. we were clearly underdressed.

thursday morning brought lots of sleeping in, but most importantly, the debut of adventure pants. we walked down belmont to the Bleeding Heart organic bakery, which i had been curious to visit. the girl behind the counter greeted us with blue hair and punk rock, and we were glad to have it. i had a muffin, brian had something like a scone, i think. either way, we enjoyed it. the rest of the day consisted of us walking around, hopping on buses, getting cold and wet, getting our feet soaked, walking into a marshall's to buy fresh socks, and going to see a movie. the movie was ok, kind of funny but super predictable. the trip home became very rushed afterwards as we started calculating how long it would take for brian to get back out to the airport for his late flight. he ended up making it home alright, and i crashed out pretty hard with a nice swelling sensation in my throat.

today, friday, has been an interesting one. i got up this morning with the intent of making a trip to faust for lunch. it was going to function as a practice run for my commute. when i went to look up the nearest wachovia to get some cash for a train ride, i suddenly realized that there are no wachovia banks in chicago. somehow, when i decided to switch to wachovia in february, i remembered there being lots and lots of wachovias up here. nope. totally made that up. so i called sally and told her i wouldn't be making the trip i thought i was, and asked if she had any suggestions for banks. she said she'd email me some.

with the hope that i may not lose all of my shot at a commute practice run, i decided to at least see how long it takes to ride my bike to the metra line that will take me to faust. it's a solid 35-40 minutes in some rather ugly traffic, on bad roads, in sketchy-looking parts of town. i think i will look for an alternate route over the weekend. all the same, it was good exercise. i actually rode much further south than i needed, all the way to cermak, then across cermak to the lake, and up the lakeshore for awhile until i came out way up on north clark. it was a really massive ride, and by the time i happened upon a cool place called Uncommon Ground, i was quite ready for a rest. this place was part restaurant, part coffee shop, part music venue. the radio was playing a nice mix of built to spill, feist, and dido, with other random stuff thrown in sometimes. i asked the hostess for a nice place to camp out, and she took me to a big soft chair. i found out a good bank to run with from sally, signed up with Harris Bank, sent out some emails, ate veggie chili and a big goat cheese salad, and packed up to go sit at a starbucks in roscoe village. there, i sat for awhile to work on some mixtapes. by the time i made it back home, i realized that i had to be at a show in an hour.

i repacked my messenger bag with a change of shoes and headed down western ave again to the empty bottle, where i saw two bands: the f*ck buttons and caribou. the former (who i'd never heard before) were actually really interesting. a lot of experimental electronics, sampling, and shit like that. kind of ratatat meets m83, maybe? caribou are a favorite of mine... they put on a cool show but i wasn't as stoked about it as i'd hoped to be. the drumming was very cool to watch, mostly. all the same, it was good to get out and see some fun live music.


on the ride home, i was hauling ass in traffic, dodging taxis in the rain, and was crossing this bridge when i hit one of those fucking potholes i'd mentioned in an earlier post. this one wasn't one of the worst i've seen (it didn't flip me over the handlebars), but it did catch me with little time to react. somehow i kept my head on straight and just took the hit instead of swerving into traffic, but this gave me a sick pinch flat on my rear tire. the good news is that i had just bought some tubes earlier before i went to starbucks. plus, i was only a few blocks from home at this point so i was just glad i didn't get injured.


finally, i came home and put on walking shoes and my headphones to go get some groceries. more unusual foods, more delicious sandwiches... tonight, salami on asiago focaccia and toasted pita with garden veggie hummus. hell yeah! plus, vitamin-enriched orange juice for my tonsils. what a long day, i'm ready to crash now. if you've read this entire entry, i'd be willing to bet that you are too.