man, damn flickr and their dynamic age-calculation! today i am 24. yikes.
just got back from a lovely dinner at café iberico with ozzie and jesse. could patatas alioli BE any better?? happy anniversary to them, and happy birthday (literally!) to my newest cousin, josephine eleanor!
it’s allergy season. that means a lot of sneezing, watery eyes and every mucous membrane above my neck is on fire – itchy. as. hell. my eyes, my nose, the roof of my mouth, the back of my throat, my eustacian tubes, the corners of my mouth.
in the past, only benadryl has soothed my seasonal torment. unfortunately, benadryl also makes you – say it with me – PASS OUT. i can remember many days in high school when i would come home from school, my head one big itchy mess, and i would pop a couple benadryl, sit to watch animaniacs or oprah or whatever and the next thing i know i’m waking up curled on the couch in the dark at 8:30 with a blanket my parents threw on top of me.
allergy season has always meant a choice: do i grit my teeth and try not to scratch my face off or do i take the soothing benadryl, stop being itchy and oozy, but risk passing out in the middle of the day? usually i’ve chosen the former, but last week i could tell that things were going to bad this fall.
eric game me some walgreen’s knock-off alavert and that actually worked really well. i would take one when i woke up in the morning and completely forget about allergies all day. but at about 7-8pm it would start to wear off. i wanted to take another, but it’s supposed to be a 24 hour pill. and anyway, if i take another in the evening, i run the risk of it wearing off in the middle of the day. in retrospect, i probably should have just brought the wal-avert to work and dealt with it. instead, last night i decided to take a couple of benadryl before bed.
big mistake.
benadryl makes me pass out, but it must also messes with my brain so that i’m not actually getting any real rest. i remember lying down in bed and…a heartbeat later eric is asking me if i plan to get up since it’s already 7:45 in the morning. today i feel exhausted, like i’ve been awake for days. everything is fuzzy and i can’t really think about anything for very long before i want to shut down and nap on the floor. you know that feeling when you’re just on the edge of sleep when you are no longer aware of your body? that’s how i’ve felt all morning.
i’ve taken benadryl at night before without any ill effects the next day, but i guess mixing benadryl with the trace amounts of wal-avert in my system weren’t a good idea. also, i guess i’ve been feeling pretty stressed out lately, and i haven’t been running much. i’m looking forward to a quiet weekend with my parents away from the noise and pollution and bustle of the city.
tonight i read the griffin & sabine trilogy straight through. it was breathtaking. the artwork is amazing and so detailed – even the handwriting is exquisite. the story is compelling and engrossing, told via their postcards and letters to each other, which are presented as real artifacts, complete with envelopes and separate loose pages. i am left with no choice but to order the continuation, the morning star trilogy. the end of the third book, the golden mean, was quite a cliff-hanger and i am eager to find out what happens next.
unfortunately, his other books that i intended to buy next, the forgetting room and the egyptian jukebox aren’t availiable through amazon for some reason.
the above image is from the cover of the golden mean.
my birthday is in less than two weeks. how can this be? why is it that when you’re little you anticipate birthdays months in advance and now it’s like – my birthday? already?
i have no idea what to do for my birthday – i don’t really feel like celebrating, since it just feels like another year where nothing has really happened…just sort of maintaining, you know? well, my job situation is a whole lot better, but other than that everything is pretty much the same. and i’m a year older. a year closer to…being…older. or something. i know that 24 isn’t old, by any stretch of the imagination, but i guess i always thought that by the time i was in my mid-twenties (ugh) i’d have things more figured out.
why don’t i have things more figured out?
update: i bought myself a new ipod for my birthday.
update update: i’m feeling much better now, btw. a passing bit of panic, that’s all.
i finished the ‘his dark materials‘ trilogy last night, and it was AWESOME. it was so so good. i wish they wouldn’t make it into a movie though, because i can’t see how they can do so without compromising in some really big ways. now i’ve moved on to ‘thinking with type‘ by ellen lupton, a book about typography. at 5 pages in, i’ve already had at least 8 lightbulb-over-the-head moments.
—
i feel like i’m on the brink of some sort of early-life crisis. so much rides on so little…something has to give, you know? do i stay in chicago or no? go to grad school or no? be sensible or no? i wish i were one of those people that can be decisive and who have always known exactly what they want to do with their life. instead, i’ve never known, i can’t make any decisions and even worse, i’m so restless and my interests so broad that i’m pretty much bound to lose interest in anything and everything i do decide. i also have a sneaking suspicion that that’s my big problem right there – i’m too fickle. maybe nothing will ever hold my interest. argh.
anyway, i’ve done what i tend to do when i’m feeling down – i blew a bunch of money on things i don’t really need. i bought the whole first half of the six-part nick bantock griffin & sabine series, the jeff bridges photography book i’ve had my eye on for a few years and some quoins and a key. what am i going to use those quoins for? ostensibly for printing, but in reality – no fucking clue. all of these things: i saw them, they seemed cheap, i wanted them, so i bought them. why can’t everything in life be so easily gratifying?
view workshop photos.
the first weekend of august i was in two rivers, WI for the letterpress workshop taught by david wolske. in contrast to the first workshop i attended in may, which was more of a dive-in-and-print-throwing-caution-to-the-wind sort of affair, this was a step-by-step look at proper letterpress process and etiquette.
about half of the people who attended may’s workshop came back to two rivers for this workshop – jan, chris and jen came up too. it was good to see so many familiar faces and have more time to get to know everyone. early friday morning david and andy picked me up and we started the long (ok, not really) journey north. the drive was filled with good music and interesting conversation. i got the chance to get to know andy a little better and he is – for lack of a better phrase – good people.
we arrived in two rivers just after noon and went directly to the museum. david began setting up for the workshop, andy had his last hurrah printing the soon-to-be-old devil-may-care way and i took photographs. i borrowed mark’s digital SLR and lenses for the trip and managed to get off about 130 shots that afternoon alone. paul brown, david’s friend and professor from IU, was printing that day too. a lot of tourists came through the museum and a couple of them bought prints paul and david had produced.
after that, david let me observe/help him set up the manual inking SP15. i learned:
new photos! see a few shots from lombard’s lovely lilacia park – lindsay’s picnic last friday.
also, today i spent the day with eric’s family in the western suburbs. we spent the whole day at the brookfield zoo.* afterwards there was swimming at eric’s mom’s house, buona beef and jim’s hockey game. his team lost, but the game was exciting. it was the first hockey game i’d ever seen and i thoroughly enjoyed it!
* – note: not all photos will be visible unless you are one of my flickr contacts and marked as ‘friend’ or ‘family’
random updates since i haven’t written in a week:
i saw ‘murderball‘ last night and it definitely lived up to my expectations. the guys they profiled were really interesting and they found a lot of good dramatic arcs to fill out the main story.
this past friday eric and i went to lombard to hang out with mark and that evening lindsay had a picnic in a park in lombard. pat and jess came too. lindsay made this really good hummus and had some veggies and cheese and chips. it was an exceptionally good picnic and it was good to see all of those guys.
this weekend eric’s sister and her family are coming down from minnesota. jim has a few games while they’re here so i get to see my first hockey game! there might be some museum and zoo trips too. next weekend is the workshop at hamilton. mark’s letting me borrow his digital slr so i can take some better photos of the museum and the town.
this weekend ben and sara are in chicago for a baptism and they’re crashing at my place. they had yesterday to hang out so sara when downtown to visit some of her old co-workers and ben and i drove up to evanston to meet mark and eric.
ben and i found mark in urban outfitters and he insisted on us finding some clothes for him. eventually he ended up buying a shirt with a backwards franz ferdinand logo. ben and i got some ice cream at the cold slab creamery and we went to that little mexican cafe to sit and get something for mark. we got the seven salsa sampler and mark got a margarita. after eric got off work he met us at the restaurant then we went to the century theater to see ‘charlie and the chocolate factory.’ johnny depp was hilarious, but the movie as a whole was a little odd.
after the movie ben went to pick up sara downtown and mark, eric and i went to the jewel on chicago for beer and wine. we all met up at el tapatio for mexican food and margaritas. jon called while we were there so ben and sara picked him up and we all reconvened at my apartment for drinks and music and trying not to fall asleep. we watched some family guy on the tivo and the guitar was passed around – it was a great night.
photos from yesterday are posted on my flickr page.
this weekend was/is the wired nextfest. one of the columbus, ohio crowd, dan, was in town because his girlfriend was one of the nextfest’s coordinators. so, tuesday night dan came to tuesday night pizza with eric, matt and i. i shall hereby refer to dan as ‘the idea man’ or ‘idea man dan’ as he has some of the craziest schemes i’ve ever heard for a whole range of subjects, particularly education via the internet. since eric is working for an education-related company now, the two of them had a lot to talk about.
friday i spent the day in evanston – mark and i went to lunch and then saw ‘batman begins’ – my second time, his first. after that, we met up with eric at the comic book store. i bought the first three issues of ‘fillerbunny,’ the chris ware volume of monographics and one of jeffrey brown‘s latest books. shortly thereafter mark had to leave to plan a party so eric and i went to borders so i could pick up chuck palahniuk’s new book, ‘haunted‘ (which i’m going to start reading now…i’ll continue ‘the blind watchmaker’ afterwards). on the way there we ran into ian, his brother and one of his friends. we solidified plans to meet up later that night for ian’s last big night in town before he movies to san francisco. after borders, eric and i went back to the movie theatre and saw ‘bewitched‘ then took the el to cross-rhodes for dinner. we went back to the apartment and recovered from the heat for a few hours (and napped) then left sometime after midnight to meet ian at smartbar. colette had just started spinning when we got there. we stayed for a few hours, danced and had a few drinks then called it a night.
saturday eric and i went to nextfest. a couple of the other lotek guys came into town or made it a point to go to the nextfest for a sort of mini-reunion. aaron was staying with sheila so the four of us met at garcia’s in lincoln park for lunch then went to navy pier. we met jeff at the door and all got in free by dropping dan’s girlfriend’s name. we met dan and tomo inside and stayed till closing.
the nextfest was cool in some ways and disappointing in others. it places a big emphasis on showcasing the future of technology, but as sheila pointed out, not much of it seemed genuinely futuristic. although, all of us are pretty tech-savvy and i had seen a lot of the stuff in popular science (the flying cars, for example) or on some of the tech blogs i frequent. so…i guess we were all pretty biased. it probably seemed really out-of-this-world awesome to the average non-technophile (not that i know what that person would be doing at the wired nextfest).
some cool things i saw included:
after nextfest we frank at spoon in old town. we sat outside and had some sweet potato fries and some drinks. a lot of drinks. we kept thinking that we were going to leave and go somewhere else, but no one could decide on anything so aaron would order another vodka tonic and then everyone else would get another round too. our waitress was this ballerina with the joffrey that is best friends with a girl frank broke up with a little bit ago, so that added an extra level of intrigue to the whole night. we stayed for 3 or 4 hours and i got to hear all kinds of stories, including the (in)famous aaron & vice ‘cop’ story.
today i got up early to run…er, walk – since i was pretty wiped out after all of the drinking and walking around in the heat yesterday. mom and dad were in town for a wedding, so eric and i met them for lunch at the cheesecake factory in old orchard. after that we ran a bunch of errands and bought new shower curtains and stuff for when ben and sara come to stay with us in a few weeks. we ran into at least 3 traffic jams due to accidents or whatever so we were at a standstill in the stagnant heat with the top down for a really long time. hopefully i won’t get a sunburn. so – after a pile of dishes and grout-scrubbing (not that i actually did both of those things…), i’m putting off doing laundry until tomorrow or maybe never because i’m finally cool and relaxed instead of sweaty and grouchy.