Esprit de L'Escalier

Happy new year folks

I'm heading to my favorite town to see some of my favorite people. I'm a lucky girl. It's been a crazy year with a lot jammed into it. I keep saying to myself that I'm going to write (a now) New Year's letter to send out to people, but let's face it, it's not going to happen. So maybe I can do a brief recap here. This year has been full of cat hair, travel and school. Monsieur Frank joined me last November. I went to China in March, and to various places in the US. I continue to be overeducated as I ditched one master's program for another and now find myself back in Ohio.

Last week I had a brief freak out about how I'm 26 and living in my parents' basement, but I quickly got over it. I'm on a solid path and while I'm still uncertain about specifics in the future, but I'm not really worried about not having options or anything. I'm entering this new year feeling fairly confident in myself and where I'm heading (wherever that may be). I will just continue trying to make my life what I want it to be, knowing that I'm lucky to have the support and tools to do so.

This coming year looks like it will be travel-filled as well. I'm going to visit two absolute, top-ten list favorite ladies in San Francisco in a couple of weeks. June will be full of Guinness as I head to my old roommate's wedding in Ireland. I'm in it. It's the first wedding I'm in, so perhaps being a bridesmaid will get old, but I love the two people getting married and am proud to stand up for them. There are a couple of other places I'd like to get to, as well, but school may cramp those plans.

It's curious starting over in a new (old) place. My life seems a little makeshift at times, but I'm making little steps to having a more normal social life. Which is good, though I miss my friends in Chicago often. But, I'm on my way to see them, so I won't whine too much. Sprinkled throughout this post are some photos I took of Navy Pier in November with my friend Sharon's Yashica Mat medium format camera. I'm doubly lucky, because she's going to lend me the camera to play with for a couple of months.

Have a happy new year everyone!

Randomness and some etsy love

Today we had some sun throughout the day, which was glorious. I had forgotten how gray central Ohio was (according to this website we have 190 cloudy days on average per year in Columbus). But there was a visible sunrise and full sun at lunch, so I went to restaurant with large windows and sat in one, soaking up the vitamin d with my soup and salad and Fast Company.

I've been humming songs from Anything Goes all day. My Dad found our old tape of the 1962 recording - it was always a big hit on family car trips. I was a little wound up Sunday night and gave a little interpretive dance show for the family. I'm really happy my brother didn't think to tape it. I really don't want to end up on youtube that way. I'd rather have my lunacy kept in the family.

When I moved from Chicago, my fabulous roommate Natasha traded up with her new flatmate. She's living with a great girl named Jean, who's a painter. I seriously covet many of her pieces that hang throughout their apartment - lovely snippets of everyday life and Chicago. Well, Jean just opened an Etsy store where she has some cards for sale and this awesome calendar of places around Chicago. (You can find Natasha posing around Graceland Cemetery in October.) Check Jean's shop out.

A couple of Chicago shots

Oh so brief recap

I had an awesome time back in Chicago this weekend. Several times, partially due to lack of sleep, I forgot where I was - like I couldn't get my head straight on where I lived and where I visited. It was funny when I went back to work and people did double takes after giving me a passing, "Hello," because they remembered too late they didn't see me around any more. It doesn't help that my cube still has my name on it.

I have such an amazing group of friends. They are all inspiring, and I needed my gabfests with them, oh did I ever. And excellent, soul-soothing conversations were had. Sharon and I got up early Saturday (ie: dawn) and went shooting around Navy Pier. I got to use her new Yashica Mat. I hope my roll turns out! Photos will be up when I get them developed.

I got my hair cut with the fabulous Amie. Long-time readers of this space know that I am a renowned stylist floater. I could never commit. Until now. She and I went to high school together, though we didn't know each other too well, and we've reconnected and I was totally giddy to see her again. We have great gossip sessions and my hair looks better after each of our appointments! Huzzah!

I hung out with all of my people, which is what I wanted. I'll post some more later. I've got a take home midterm to write and some stats extra credit I need to get on stat! (Oh, such sad humor. That class has sucked my soul away.)

My stomach is growling

I can hear it as well as feel it. I just rummaged through the fridge and ate a leftover hamburger, but I'm still hungry. What I want is brunch. Today is a free day, and I've got to head into town in a bit to go to the library to research a paper. What I want is some eggs, sausage and hash browns and for me not to have to make it. If I was in Chicago, I'd have a number of places to go.

(cue daydreaming music, stars and a slight whooshing)

My top choice would be Glenn's Diner near the brown line Montrose stop. Its look is a little retro and the food is marvelous. My favorite breakfast item is the scrambled eggs with parmesan and chives. It comes with these hash browns that are creamy (which sounds weird, but trust me) with onions, perfectly browned and crunchy on the outside. I like to get it with raisin toast, coffee, and if I'm particularly hungry, sausage. The portions are big. When I was taking art classes at Lill Street, I'd stop by there after for a late brunch and a novel.

My second choice would be M. Henry, way up Clark near Hollywood. Oh god is this place good. The wait is always long, and it was a good long walk from my last apartment, but everything was worth it. I'd often take guests there for Fannie's Killer Fried Egg sandwich, or the Latina omeletta (I'm a sucker for dishes that come with plantains). The best thing to do is to order a bread pudding and split it, though fights often broke out over who got more berries.

My third choice would be A Taste of Heaven, which is also on Clark, but much closer to my last apartment. The service was not always the best, as I was often left waiting in vain for the check to come, but the breakfast food is bringing tears to my eyes with the thought of it. They have this amazing pancake dish, with a crunchiness and a berriness that was too good to be true. Natasha and I would go and split that with either a breakfast burrito or an omelet, either of which would come with a side salad with gorgeous dressing.

(whooshing back to reality)

Hell, I'd even go to Ann Sather's, though I maxed out on that place the first year in Chicago. Their cinnamon rolls are still awesome though. I guess I need to find a new quick breakfast joint around me. And fast.

Preserving historical architecture

This city. Man. I love it like a dysfunctional best friend who's always making the wrong choices. For example, there are two lovely, historic athletic clubs in and around the loop that are endangered for demolition, to be replaced with god know's what, cheap ass condo building. I knew about the Lake Shore Athletic Club, and this morning I read about the Chicago Athletic Association on Michigan Ave. (See a great photo of the CAA here.)

One reason why I love Chicago is because of its buildings, especially its older buildings. I was taught to see them through my father's architect eyes and I love them. Just today I had lunch in the park next to the Art Institute, lying on my back, looking up at the beautiful facades on Michigan Ave. It angers me to know I'll never see Sullivan buildings that were razed in the 1960s by the first Mayor Daley. To still not understand how these buildings weave into the framework that make this city great boggles my mind.

Snipped from Blair Kamin's Sunday Trib article:

They are magnificent anachronisms, jock palaces with drop-dead dining rooms, grand marble staircases and swimming pools fit for a laurel-wreathed Olympic champion. And their allure extends from inside to outside, from private to public. For they are bricks in two of the great walls that define the face that Chicago shows the world, one directly across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park, the other more than a mile to the northeast on Lake Shore Drive. Both face an uncertain future.

One, the Lake Shore Athletic Club at 850 N. Lake Shore Drive, the perfect Beaux-Arts foil for Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's exquisitely skeletal 860-880 Lake Shore Drive residential towers, would be demolished for an 18-story condo high-rise whose design is supposedly not yet cooked. The other, the Chicago Athletic Association at 12 S. Michigan Ave., would be transformed into an Omni hotel, its richly layered Venetian Gothic facade and extraordinary front rooms restored to their original splendor, but its back hacked off for a 19-story tower that could blight views from Millennium Park.

I have a (slight) personal connection to the Chicago Athletic Association, as my great grandfather lived there when he was a resident at Rush. I sent Kamin's article to my parents and my mother sent me a brief history of her grandparents:

My grandfather lived in the Chicago Athletic Club on Michigan Ave. for a number of years while practicing medicine in Chicago.

It was while he lived in Chicago that he became involved with boxing and he later wrote the medical rules for the sport that are still in use today, I believe. His mother became ill (breast cancer) and his father talked him into coming back to Litchfield to take over his practice, which he was loathe to do. Soon after that he met my grandmother (Claire Porterfield) who was singing in a Chautauqua traveling group. My Aunt Jean gave lectures about a variety of subjects and gave elocution lessons on the side.

They traveled by train and Litchfield has a train station. That is one way "nice young ladies" got around to see the country and meet guys. They would be invited to stay in homes of educated people who were interested in culture, etc. and those folks would have parties to introduce them to eligible men.

Everyone in Litchfield always thought he was the luckiest person to have married her as she was so much fun and always knew how to act properly but with flair and an astute knowledge of people. It was that which made her humor so delightful and why I have always missed her presence. Mother got her instinct about people from her mother; and just about everything else from her father. So I hope they don't tear down that lovely building. It would be so foolish in the long run.

I don't want to be a person that is mired in the past, but I think it is foolish to tear down historic buildings willy nilly for a buck, especially without thought to how the change would affect the tenor of the city and neighborhood.

I've been overbooked since 15

I haven’t been able to put much thought towards posts lately, as evidenced by the fact that my most recent posts involve polaroids and brief weekend recaps (this will probably be much of the same). (The polaroid above is from Memorial Day weekend; it's the B'hai Temple in Wilmette.)

I just tuned into the second half of a very old Adam Dalgliesh mystery. I haven’t seen the first half but just read the book it was based on and thought I’d watch. According to the brief recap the characters are the same, but the events are entirely different. It sounds a lot more convoluted and ridiculous. Why anyone would monkey around with P.D. James is beyond me.

My weekend was packed full and I’m still exhausted. The Genius was in town, and Friday night Natasha and I took him and his friend Marty to Carol’s, our favorite honky-tonk within walking distance to our apartment. Cheap beer, live country, good company, it was great.

Saturday involved a hung-over scramble to complete a graduation gift and then my brother and I headed to the suburbs for a family party. There we had our first sight and sound of the cicadas, which are as bizarre, gross and fascinating as I expected. (I didn’t have my camera, but my brother did. Don’t hold your breath on him sending the pics anytime soon, though.) There was more family than I originally expected and we had a great time. I also went, dead tired, to an engagement party of a friend’s in a crazy huge house in Bucktown. The food and company were good, but I was asleep by eleven.

Sunday comprised of about six hours of reading articles about how fair use of copyrighted material is being degraded and ignored under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It’s a subject that is currently making me angry and I hope my paper on it isn’t too boring. Damn the man, and all of that. (I’m really going to miss my class on new media and the public sphere.) Chuckles and I also went to see Once, which was very sweet. It stars Glen Hansard of The Frames, a band I love.

Tonight I skipped kickball, ostensibly to work on my paper. In reality my brain needed some rest. Wish me luck finishing it and my portfolio project. I’ll need some. I should be back to the regularly scheduled programming soon.

Fish, friends and future plans

My dear friend Amanda and her boyfriend Mike visited this past weekend. We ate, a lot, and laughed, and went all over Chicago. Part of our adventures included a trip to the Shedd Museum, which was packed with families and running children. Perhaps a non-holiday weekend would have been better timing.

I'm a little scattered at the moment, so pardon the lack of posting. Here's a photo of a little gator we saw at the Shedd to try and buy your favor back.

Have all the people possibly interested heard about the bloggy meetup in Chicago at the end of July? Adorable Girlfriend has spearheaded this to coincide with BlogHer. Today she, Blue Girl, Jennifer, Bossy and I had a marathon email session about plans. If you hadn't heard about it, but want to get in on the fun, let me know. There are plans for a bbq by the lake, and BG is batting around plans of matching t-shirts. And possibly a renting a school bus. God help Chicago.

Off to California

I'm off to California this morning for a work conference. I'll be stuck in Anaheim for the most part, though I should be enjoying sunny, 75 degree days. I do get to meet an especially kick-ass bloggy friend. Wish me luck on my and my friend/colleague's presentations. Hopefully we can get through our slides quickly enough.

Up top is a slice of a beloved Chicago spot for the internet, the Chagall mosaic outside of the Chase Building. This photo is best seen large, for the details of the tiles.

Have a good weekend! Here's another photo, because I can't help myself (with large here).

The lake in the morning

When I was in China we moved offices at work. I was on the 18th floor and now I'm on the 30th, which means we're now above the building line and have wonderful light. I sit on the southwest corner of the building, looking over Wabash towards the Sears Tower. The other side faces the lake. Right now, as I paused outside the kitchen, I looked out the far window and saw its dappled surface, a silvery blue in the morning light, stretching out into infinity. In the evening it is a deep sapphire. It's really good I don't sit near the windows on the lake's side, because I would not get anything done, caught up in daydreams.