feeling sick, and only at work because we’re interviewing our grant applicants today. there will be no shaking of hands. i totally overdid it this weekend and stayed out too late both nights and drank more than would be advisable for someone with a bit of a cold. now i’m paying, and i know it’s my fault. but the weekend was great, so it’s worth it i suppose.

friday night was the urban exposure art show at the urban outfitters on rush. andy was showing his photos so katie and i ate at big bowl then walked over there (after a side trip to anthropologie and the puma store. ahem.). the art was fantastic and i bought (reserved?) a painting you can see in the foreground of this photo. after the show we went to darkroom for a little dancing then took the el home. a few more photos here.

saturday i went to target with matt and cecile (matt was kind enough to take me town to fb so i could pick up my car from the night before) then we went to hopleaf and met jim and sippel for dinner.

more rtvf folks showed up and we ended up staying at the hopleaf for awhile then going to charlie’s ale house for drinks in a quieter locale. some totally random people showed up and turned our table into that table – the loud obnoxious drunken table everyone hates. drunken people entertained themselves, jim talked to juliet (who apologized profusely for all of these people inviting themselves) and i talked to matt cozza. we ended up closing the bar and i got to bed sometime around 3am.

yesterday i (surprise!) felt my cold had gotten worse, so i couldn’t go bowling with jim last night. instead i im-ed and myspace-ed and read blogs all day (what am i? 15?), watched the rest of ‘dexter’ and uploaded photos. also decided on a name for antonio and my first little illustrated character, to whom you will be introduced as soon as possible.

the holidays were a lot of running around and everything, but it was nice to see everyone. i was home for almost a week so i got to fully enjoy the break. good food, nice hot showers, movies and lots of ds9.

yesterday i met up with ian and his friend brandon for a late lunch. we shopped for brandon for the night’s festivities (he didn’t pack enough nice clothes for the trip) then went to josh’s to hang out for a few hours before going to andy’s party. i only got to stay a little while because i had already made plans to go to a party some of katie’s friends were having. i met andy’s sister and her best friend, both of whom are really fun and sweet. the plan was to have a guitar hero showdown, but a lot of people were there and music was playing, so instead we spent three or four hours dancing and drinking champagne punch.

shortly after midnight, the guitar hero controller was busted out, but only so jason could do a pretty awesome rendition of ‘sweet child o mine’ along with the song. it. was. fantastic. the party was great, and a perfect start to 2007. haven’t really thought about resolutions, but they’re probably small things like ‘frame all that art that’s been laying around for over a year’ or ‘get rid of clothes/books/art supplies/etc that i no longer need/use’ or ‘spend more time in caves’.

happy new year!

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.