ah, hot doug’s – you make everything ok. hooray for the teuben – a corned beef sausage with russian dressing, sauerkraut and swiss. i met cecile, elizabeth and brian up there for lunch today. i took drew, since he’d never Experienced hot doug’s. mmm…hot doug’s.

update: cecile’s photos

last night i volunteered at the 137 films fundraiser. the found films were great and the music was insane. the experimental instrument orchestra was amazing! they make instruments out of objects they find in the trash or abandoned. a lot of people showed up for the event – at one point the gallery was so packed it was difficult to move. it was a lot of fun – i’m excited for the next fundraiser!

today katie and i went to the renegade craft fair (holiday edition) and saw art school girl, good night, tv! and delicious. there was a lot of cool stuff but i held myself back and only bought 3 things – two gifts and some little letterpressed gift tags.

after renegade katie and i went to wicker park and shopped a little. andy was working at urban, so we met up with him and had an early dinner at penny’s.

this week: monday hot doug’s, firebelly holiday party + printing workshop on friday, elizabeth’s music holiday party on friday, the nutcracker on saturday and andy’s party after that.

update:photos from the after party and brunch

last night was the premiere of ‘galileo’s grave‘ at the ifp summit. the film was well received and looked beautiful. afterwards some of us went to the ifp after party at the chicago athletic club. i met malik the wordsmith, whose film received the grant that ‘galileo’s grave’ won last year, and who has toured with kanye west, p diddy, carl thomas, etc as a featured artist in various songs. i spent probably the first half hour or hour of the party schmoozing then elizabeth and i got serious about the free bar and i met some of the other rtvf grad students. when the party was winding down, brian, michael and i decided to *ahem* explore. long story short, clayton, elizabeth and the other grad students ended up joining us and we saw some excellent views from the roof, and found the hot tub and pool (although no one had the courage to get in…mike seemed ready to though).

today elizabeth and i went down to the ifp brunch (free!). i met elizabeth at her place and she made bloody marys. once at the brunch, we ate a lot of bacon, met some other local filmmakers and then hung out in the chicago athletic club lounge with clayton for a few hours. afterwards elizabeth and i went back to her place and watched ‘the last picture show’ which, oy vey – is one of the more depressing movies i’ve ever seen.

this evening i pan seared some oriental-marinated tofu (which i’m fairly certain is meant to be used in such as a stir fry and not eaten plain, but whatevs) and started processing the 120+ photos from this month. you can find the first batch in my photostream. included are some photos from lindsay and my trip to architectural artifacts and some from elizabeth’s housewarming party.

oh! also, friday night was andy’s congratulations-you-were-promoted party at tuman’s. after battlestar (which i watched with cecile and devin over some particularly delicious pizza) i rushed up to lincoln square so katie could make me up like a zombie. katie, andy and i were all zombies, although andy was the only one that tore up his clothes and bloodied himself. he looked really great though! katie and i looked sort of like creepy little girl dolls that had been brought to life. i only got a few photos, but katie took some polaroids that are pretty great, so hopefully she’ll let me repost them on flickr so you don’t have to go through myspace to see them and two are posted on flickr. we did a lot of serious dancing, although we had to wait for the people dressed as giant bananas to leave because they were taking up a lot of space. 🙂

wednesday

devin is/was on tour with tilly and the wall, so on wednesday jon, cecile and i went and saw them play at the abbey pub. conrad was there too (but no erik). good show – particularly the part where kianna did a stage dive at the end of their set.

post-show, jon bought the ladies some white castle. oh yeah. we do it classy here in chicago.

thursday

…was the caf launch party, which i heard was super-awesome, but i didn’t attend because i was making chocolate chai spice cupcakes for…

friday

…which was the day of the fb dvd launch party. friday morning katie and i glued together enough of our gorgeous letterpress packaging to make 100 dvd sets. when dawn got back from her insane grocery shopping we spent the next 4-5 hours peeling and chopping various vegetables. aaron and antonio got back from umoja in the early afternoon and they got the rest of the office ready – moved desks and computers, set up the projector, put up decorations.

by 6 o’clock the office was filled with the smells of delicious vegan dishes (seriously!) and we were all in party mode. the party was terrific – mike spun, we had a champagne and cupcake toast (dawn got teary!), and hired katie and offered drew and internship. hooray!

saturday

slept in on saturday, studiously avoided the pile of cupcake-related dishes in my kitchen, then drove to evanston to exchange a comic book. between when i left home and when i walked in the door to watch ‘brick’ with kareem, it was like 2.5 hours. w.t.f. traffic was insane and i was so ready for my stonecutters magic button that lets me bypass the as-far-as-the-eye-can-see line of cars. kareem got his hair cut/did/both? then we watched ‘lucky number slevin’ which was fantastic and reminded me of a lot of cool movies that i’m sure every reviewer on earth has already compared it to ad nauseum.

sunday

sunday was cecile’s 8th annual canadian thanksgiving dinner/potluck. i studiously avoided the pile of cupcake-related dishes in my kitchen, made green bean casserole and came over early to help her and trent cook and set up (after i had watched friday’s battlestar galactica which i missed due to the dvd release party). i had my first keg buying experience, my first the-tap-is-leaking-air-give-me-a-different-one experience and made delicious turkey gravy using my grandma’s recipe. over the course of the night i had the following things exploded/splattered/spilled on me: pbr, cool whip, thickening mix for the gravy. thanksgiving was great – about 50(?) people came over the course of the night and the food was amazing.

monday

uneventful except for the part where i spent the whole evening at cecile’s eating thanksgiving leftovers and making a really weak attept to kick a keg that would require a far greater cumulative appetite than that demonstrated by two less-than-five-foot-tall asian girls with relatively low tolerances for alcohol, particularly when one had just (maybe) broken her toe and hadn’t slept much all weekend and the other still had to drive home and get up early the next day for her internship.

oh, also i studiously avoided the pile of cupcake-related dishes in my kitchen.

tuesday

so uneventful i can’t even remember what i did last night. oh wait – caught up on a few tv shows, talked to people online, lamented that i could’ve been in 80-degree georgia with my family, and went to bed super-early. …after studiously avoiding the pile of cupcake-related dishes in my kitchen.

today

probably actually wash the pile of cupcake-related dishes that now threatens to overwhelm my kitchen with the smell of old chai spice mix and decomposing buttercream. oh crap there are some students coming to work for a tour tonight. maybe i’ll avoid those dishes for one more day.