While my last entry focused on this summer’s crappiest read, there are so many good things that I’ve read this summer that are deserving of blog attention. Lets take a look at these finer things, shall we?

McSweeney’s (issue 28)
Edited by Dave Eggers
Most of the time, I think this lit rag is annoying. I like how fancy it looks–McSweeney’s is the AIGA’s little darling, after-all–but overall the publication’s editorial courtship of smarty-pants hipsters who’d rather choke on irony than say anything sentimental just irritates me.

Regardless, I subscribe to McSweeney’s because I’m interested to see how Eggers and his crew are contributing to the fun literary movement we’ve presently got dancing underfoot. Plus, each issue of McSweeney’s is different from the next in terms of design and editorial focus, meaning that there’s always a chance that it could get better. And in issue 28, better it got.

Eight little books all puzzled together to create two large and beautiful illustrations, issue 28′s focus is on the fable; contemporary authors weave modern-day versions of tall tales. “The Box” summed up the day’s headlines. “The Guy Who Kept Meeting Himself” stopped my heart for a minute. “The Book and the Girl” made me cry. I read each fable, one right after the other, and found fresh joy in each. I was reminded that fables introduce dubious plots that oftentimes make little sense until the last line is delivered. Best of all, I discovered that no matter how old you are when you read a fable, it is still perfectly acceptable for animals to talk.

Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenter
By J.D. Salinger
Okay. I admit it. It wasn’t until I went to see a band with the same name that I remembered: “Hey! That’s a Salinger book I’ve been meaning to read!” I liked the band a great deal and so I thought I’d probably like the book.

I underestimated things here. I loved the book. It is hilarious.

In this short novella, Buddy is a spectacularly insecure soldier who takes a short leave of duty to represent his family at his brother Seymour’s wedding. Only dear Seymour, given to bouts of debilitating introspection, has decided to stand his bride up at the alter, unannounced. Motivated by immaturity and sheer social retardation, Buddy finds himself crammed into a boiling hot car with the bride’s aunt, the matron of honor and her husband, and a deaf and dumb old man in a top hat. En-route to an anti-celebration at the home of the mother of the bride, the group is stalled when an annoyingly jubilant parade blocks the way. Social niceties soon flake away to bickering and prodding. Buddy squirms in his seat, forced to figure out where he stands, who is is, and how much he is willing to take.

Armageddon in Retrospect
by Kurt Vonnegut

For as much sorrow as I felt when Vonnegut passed away last year, this collection reminded me of just how lucky I am to have had my life-span overlap with his for a brief period of time. He makes me laugh, he makes me cry, he reminds me of how sacred this thing called life is. And I think he made a lot of other people feel these things too. And I got to share a world with them. So he did a lot more than write books, Vonnegut did. He changed attitudes. Armageddon in Retrospect‘s twelve writings on war and peace do nothing less.

Other goodies ‘o’ the summer…
You Must Be This Happy to Enter
by Elizabeth Crane
I give it five out of five arbitrary gold stars. Just read it. It’s too fun to review. Zombies. Reality tv. Lots of exclamation points. Excellent!!!!!!!!

Sweetness in the Belly
by Camilla Gibb
I give it three out of five arbitrary gold stars. But this book has been translated into a billion languages and has won loads of awards, so I think I’m the only one whose been this stingy with the star-giving on this book.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
by Haruki Murakami
I give it three out of five arbitrary gold stars. When he’s not writing international best sellers, Mr. Murakami is a distance runner! Who knew?! Loved all the talk about running, but not sure if non-runners are going to like this. Although, my husband said he understood me better after reading it, so I think that says something.

Currently Reading…
Currently, I’m making my way through Gravity’s Rainbow by Mister Thomas Pynchon. It’s a big book that requires a lot of attention, so it may take a while. But so far, at page 50: I’m laughing my ass off.

My favorite character so far is Pirate, the army captain with the rooftop banana patch who forces himself to ignore whatever catastrophic air raids are happening out of doors to make his squadron a homemade banana breakfast. Banana waffles, banana frappes, banana omelets, banana sandwiches, banana casseroles, mashed banana “mold in the shape of a British lion rampant,” banana french toast,banana oatmeal, banana kreplach: seriously, any and all things banana are to be had at this breakfast.

I also laughed out loud like a madwoman at a scene where a group of lab-workers are trying to dognap a pooch living in the rubble of a bombed-out apartment complex. The captain of the operation steps into a cast-off toilet and is unable to extract his foot. So he hobbles through the scene trying to net a dog with one leg as a toilet.

Aside from being hysterical, so far I’ve found Gravity’s Rainbow to be truly beautiful. I’ve had to slow down the pace at which I usually read for this book, as the sentence structure is long and winding and never easy to anticipate. But not always. Here is a sample of simple, plain-faced writing that I read and re-read just for the thrill of it:

“There’s never much talk but touches and looks, smiles together, curses for parting. It is marginal, hungry, chilly–most times they’re too paranoid to risk a fire–but it’s something they want to keep, so much that to keep it they will take on more than propaganda has ever asked them for. They are in love. Fuck the war.”

Looking forward to…
Tales of Moonlight and Rain
by Ueda Akinari
First published in 1776, the nine gothic tales in this book are Japan’s finest examples of occult literature. I hope to be done with Gravity’s Rainbow by Halloween so that this can be my spooky-time read.

Orkneyinga Saga
author unknown
Written around the year 1200, Orkneyinga Saga is a viking myth ripe with battle, murder and sorcery.

I
by Stephen Dixon
This author is championed by the McSweeney’s crowd and so I’m not sure that I’m going to love him. Sometimes I adore the McSweeney’s darlings; sometimes I abhor them. But I’m always curious. This one is about a man raising his daughter while caring for his wife, victim of a debilitating disease. Sounds like a horrible thing to read in the midst of a gray, Chicago November (this is, I’m guessing, when I’ll get around to it)! But the book jacket promises that the story is told with “Dixon’s trademark honesty, lucidity, and expansive humor” so I’m hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Lanark: A Life in 4 Books
by Alasdair Gray
Mister Gray is a cornerstone of Glasgow life. He is also a famous author. I’ve read a handful of his short stories and they never cease to make me smile.

Granta
Issue 102–The New Nature Writing
I’m behind on my Granta reading. And I’ll probably be even more behind by the time I get to 102. Unlike McSweeney’s, I love Granta cover to cover, issue to issue. I’ve not yet been disappointed.
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What are some of the finer things you read this summer? What books are you looking forward to?

© Truly
  
    The first book in Stephenie Meyer’s four part Twilight Saga, Twilight, is detrimental to the young readers it was written for and not because it’s coursing with the raw lust and haunting darkness you might expect uptight parents to tisk about. In fact, some readers (okay, me) may be disapointed in how chaste and cheerful this vampire romance actually is. The real reason that Twilight is damaging is because 320 of its 498 pages are prime examples of truly bad writing. Worse still, Meyer has taken a perfectly good opportunity to create a strong female protagonist and squandered it on the same old damsel in distress scenario that gives most vampire stories–Buffy excluded here–their bad rap with us feminists.

    The book begins with Bella–a clumsy and brainy high school junior who’s just moved from Phoenix to Forks in upstate Washington. Bella is none to thrilled with the move, self-imposed as it was; she decided to live with her dad when it became apparent that her mother would rather travel with her new baseball player husband than tend to parenting duties in Phoenix.

    To her credit, Meyer does a fine job of creating Bella’s world in the first quarter of the novel. The reader lumbers along foggy mountain roads with Bella in her red, vintage Ford truck. They watch the lush and gloomy town unfold before them, between swipes of the windshield wipers. Readers follow Bella from class to class, they feel her social anxiety and are pleasantly surprised to find themselves cooking with Bella–an unlikely but not totally unbelievable hobby for a seventeen year old in the new millennium.

    Bella soon meets the Cullens, a family chock full of untouchably beautiful and mysterious teens, never seen in direct sunlight. Even though he is inexplicably rude and moodier than a tranny in undersized tights, Bella’s pick of the litter is Edward. Wildly attractive, one laughably bad simile describes Edward as “looking like a male model in an advertisement for raincoats” (pg 358). Bella’s infatuation with Edward reaches near manic proportion when when he saves her from a fatal car accident by catching a mini-van in his bare hands. After getting the inside scoop about the Cullens from a Native American friend–because who better qualified in the land of gross cliches to dispense information about the supernatural than the First Peoples–Bella begins to suspect Edward is more than just your average teenage heart throb.

    If Bella’s story unfolded as that of a smart, daring sleuth on a quest for answers, I’d be a satisfied customer. But Meyer ruins things by breaking every rule of the second act: she gives the protagonist what she wants. Edward soon confesses his undying love for Bella and, in cuddly conversation, details all the stipulations of his family’s vampire life. Is it any wonder that young writers struggle with the Comp 101 basic “show, don’t tell” when this is the crap they’re reading? Also, once you give your leading lady what she wants–what story is there left to tell?

    If Bella was forced to really work for her information, two key things would be at stake for her, propelling the story into the third act and beyond:

    When Edward comes traipsing out of the vampire closet at the start of the second act, that’s the end of Bella’s journey. Nothing else feels risky. Sure, a pack of roving vamps crash Forks and one stalks her and threatens her family. But she’s got Edward’s constant reassurance that he will keep her and her family safe. And since Meyer spent so much time building up the Cullens’ infallibility, we believe him. And it’s boring.

    Meyer even goes so far as to have her character penned up in a hotel room for a good sixty pages, baby-sat by friendly vampires while her beloved is in the thick of the action, protecting her dad from the bad vamps. In a post-Buffy world, I don’t understand how teenage girls can find this type of leading lady truly engaging. Even Buffy–born into her role as action-adventure slayer–seems tame compared to her successor Veronica Mars, the teenage sleuth detective who chose her life as a heroic figure and loves every minute of it. With trail blazers like these, Meyer’s expectation that readers will engage with a protagonist who waits around all day with chaperones is absurd.
   
    The only thing that is a real point of tension after Edward fesses up to being a blood sucker is the question: what is Bella willing to risk to be with him? Although he loves her, Edward is constantly struggling with his desire to bite Bella. Every time the two even get close to anything resembling a make-out session, Edward pulls back and struggles with the vampire equivalent to blue balls. Chaste as it may be, Edward’s turmoil is more than a little reminiscent of the glorified rape scenarios of yesteryear’s Dracula.

    Dependent on the idea that beneath even the most refined gentleman lies a violent predator who is ready to “turn” on their dates at any given moment, Dracula is paradoxically passionate. His prey always dies shuddering in extacy. The subtext: women want to be hurt and men–with their untamable desires–can’t help but to inflict that hurt.

    Buffy the Vampire Slayer took the notion of Dracula and dismantled it bit by misogynistic bit. During the course of seven seasons, Buffy Summers did the nasty with her fair share of vamps–and she was kinky to boot. Ms. Summers got off on the idea that death was literally breathing down her neck, but there was no denying that she was just as aroused by the knowledge that she was an equal in her sexcapades. The vamp could kill her, sure. But not before she killed him.

     Twilight blissfully ignores the feminist course that Buffy paved the way for; Meyer even seems to have gone out of her way to create a wimpy protagonist. Not only is Bella unequipped to defend herself against Edward should he try to get fresh with her plasma, but she seems totally incapable of real-world survival. She is clumsy, suffers fainting spells, and gets failing grades for street smarts. In one scene she tries to research vampires by typing the word into Google. Honestly, Bella? Now I don’t even think you’re that smart anymore, which was the one thing you had going for you.

    After spending a weekend canoodling with the undead, Bella wants nothing more than for Edward to turn her into a vampire. Regardless of what Edward does with this knowledge, the reader’s last question is answered. What is Bella willing to give up to be with Edward? Sadly: her life.

    What makes the literary and feminist regression of Twilight all the more depressing is its success. The back of my paperback edition declares Twilight as a “New York Times Editor’s Choice” and “An Amazon ‘Best Book of the Decade.” Twilight the movie is scheduled for a November release.

    I picked up Twilight after seeing more than a few teenage girls devouring it on the bus, on the subway, in the park. It made me happy to see so many young girls churning their way through this book with such appetite. Now it just worries me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever blogged about something I like to call “Research Mode,” but it is a huge part of my life.

I’ve always liked research. Test prep and studying was an activity I actually scheduled parties for. In school, while everyone else was groaning over assigned research papers, I was already making a list of off the crazy things I could find out more about. In the library, I loved the soft sound of the card catalog drawers, the buttery feel of the index. I loved walking down quiet rows of shared books, my finger grazing plastic-jacketed spines in search for a Dewy Decimal match. I’d let myself fall through the rabbit hole; one thread of ideas leading to the next, to the next, to the next.

Aside from learning new things, research papers made me happy because it was an excuse to write in classes other than English. History papers, science papers, sociology, economics, current events, theater, art–when you think that there was a time in your life that it was your job to soak up information on all these subjects and more it really makes you stop and realize that the life of a student is a pretty complex one. Loads of responsibility. 

I’m getting off track…

Research mode has followed me into grown up life. When I travel, I keep a notebook at hand and jot down things that interest me; historical sites, archeticture, statuary, art, antiquity, words, phrases. Once I’m home, I do a bit of research on my listed items; its like going on the vacation all over again. Also, when I stumble upon something I don’t know much about in daily life, I research it to death. The first time Shaun and I lived in an apartment with a steam heater, it woke me up in the night with its clanking, clunking, screeching. It totally freaked me out and I spent hours in the middle of the night doing online research on the mechanics and history of the machine; I can’t even tell you how much I know about all the various breeds of cockroaches.

When my doctor’s office called yesterday to tell me I had a sluggish thyroid, I was thrown into hard core research mode. After using the internet and phone interview sources to write yesterday’s blog entry, I went to the Chicago Center for Psychophysical Healing to see if the practitioners wanted to weigh in. I also went to the library to look at medical textbooks.

The staff at the Center for Psychophysical Healing were great; I mentioned that it was not in my budget to pursue their services at this time and was invited to be a clinic patient for their students. A complete homeopathic workup will be done on me in September, under the supervision of the founding practitioners (who will actually be physically present). Also, when I explained my issue, I was told by the founder that I need to take this seriously but its good that I’m not delving into meds right away, as that very well could make things much, much worse.

She was also astounded that I’m asymptomatic but thinks that its probably because thyroid just started to misbehave and that significant weight gain would be hard for my body to do with the amount I go-go-go. I described my diet to her and she confirmed that I need to be eating meat daily (and not just fish–beef is the best way for me to get the amino acid boost) and she gave me pills with dried seaweed in them: Fucus Vesiculosus. The seaweed is good because it will give me a huge iodine boost, which will make my little thyroid happier. Little thyroid is hungry for meat and iodine! The Psychophysical Healing lady is having my blood tests faxed to her to use in the clinical work up. After six weeks on the seaweed pills, I am to get my blood re-tested to see how thyroid likes it. Practitioner thinks that all my body wants is some seaweed and meat and things should realign. I hope she is right; I’d rather eat seaweed everyday than drugs.

Anyhow, after I spent an entire day researching (really, I was in the mode from 8am–6pm), I took a long walk around the neighborhood with my camera. I was inspired by my lovely friend Beth’s new photo-blog and hanging out with my friend Nick, who never goes anywhere without his camera.

I was playing around with lighting conditions, shooting in early evening, through to dusk. Dusk + florescent lights is very pretty, but sort of difficult to get right. 

Here’s some of the pics:

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These shadows are sort of what vertigo looked like to me.

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This owl crammed into a tree knot makes me laugh. It was so shady and dusk-like at this point that my favorite composition of the owl didn’t have the best apiture setting. I’ll need to take this into photoshop and make some adjustments, but I suck at that sort of thing (I am a stickler for maintining accurate colors/lighting conditions so I usually just end up getting frustrated with photoshop’s “brightness and contrast” tools). Any tips would be helpful!

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This is Mario and Sergio. They are construction workers that are often found smoking outside of a little pub by the hardware store. 

Moon v. Streetlamp

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Shaun and Giles the Kittenfaced arrive Tuesday evening. For keeps. I can’t beleive we lived through this. We even managed to be productive and have a nice time of things. I’m proud of us. And happy to have my family back. Can’t wait!!!!!

Also–I’ve started in on Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, which is a slew of Young Adult vampire books. I keept seeing these books everywhere (the movie preview looks like a lot of fun, too!), but what really pushed me into making the buy was a girl on the subway. She was 16 or 17, wearing funky clothes with lots of crazy beads and barrets, and she couldn’t wait to tear one of the big, chunky Twilight books from her bag  and delve in. Everything about her reminded me of who I was as a teenager. And after finishing a chapter of the Twilight books, I am surprised to emerge as an adult, with a husband and a career and bills and a thyroid problem and a place of my own. How did all this happen? I’m still so much a vampire-loving drama queen of a teenage girl.
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What are your feelings on research? How about vampires? Also: healthy beef recipies are needed! If you’ve got a favorite and time to share it, I’d love to give it a whirl. Going from eating no meat except for maybe some fish or chicken 1-2 times a week to eating meat everyday will be CRAZY!

Please note: This blog entry contains medical talk. While a part of me thinks “why are you sharing your medical info with the world,” another part of me thinks “why is everyone so weird and secretive about sharing medical info?” I think that if we all talked about our health a bit more, it would demystify the whole thing a bit. Weird body things shouldn’t be shameful or make us feel like failures. We are just animals–alive things–and if we all talked about body stuff more, perhaps we wouldn’t feel so separated from that fact. Reading bloggers who write about medical stuff is sometimes helpful to me, so I thought that if I had something to say about medical stuff, I might as well just say it.

That said, feel free to skip this if the acknowledgement of me having internal organs is upsetting to you. But its my blog, damn it. And so I write…

Problem:
I think I have to break up with my doctor.

You know how I went in to talk to her about that vertigo I had? Well, she assured me that I was probably fine but did some blood tests just to be sure. The blood tests came back confirming that my vertigo was nothing to fret over, but that I might have a thyroid problem. She had me in for a second round of tests.

The nurse from her office called today to confirm that my blood tests say I have “slightly low” thyroid hormone production, meaning that I have something called hypothyroidism (not HyPERthyroidism, which means you gt to eat loads of cakes and be really skinny), which makes NO sense, since I have NONE of the symptoms, which are as follows:

1.) Fatigue/weakness–No. Remember how I love to bike 17 miles a day to work every day, hike up mountains, run 4-6 miles daily, go on evening walks, and play frissbe every night of the summer? Me? Fatigued? Sometimes I wear myself out, but its not like its coming out of nowhere!
2.) Low cold tolerance–No! Actually, if there is anything that I hate its the HEAT! AHHH! Cant stand it. Makes me pass out.
3.) Dry skin/hair–no! Opposite problem, actually. very greasy. lots of shine.
4.) Cold hands/feet–not really. Shaun says sometimes my feet are chilled in the night, but I’ve never noticed. I’m too busy sleeping.
5.) Weight gain–Not at all! At the doctors last week, I weighed in at 140 (I’m 6 feet tall). I hold it steady, man. Sometimes I’m 135. Sometimes, around Christmas, I can get up to 145. But after I stop drinking the nog, the weight goes away. Mostly, I’m a lean lady.
6.) Insomnia–Ha! I LOVE sleep time and I am very good at it.
7.) Constipation–HA! All I DO is shit!
8.) Depression–what? No! Not unless I’m having a completely valid emotional reaction to a horribly depressing fact of life! Like New York! And I think I handle it pretty damn well. And I’m very happy
now, thank you very much.
9.) Poor memory–what? What did you just ask me? I forget. Seriously though, my memory is not as rockin as Shaun’s is, but I think that has more to do with my very specific learning needs than anything. I like interactive learning and learning-through-teaching. 
10.) Nervousness–No! Just. No. I do not identify with this.
11.) Immune system problems–okay. Yes. There was the shingles. I have to baby myself and not get stressed  and make sure I get enough sleep. But I’m pretty good about putting health first, so usually I can manage this on my own, without drugs and doctors.
12.) Heavy periods–HA! NO! Not to get too gory or anything, but from what I gather, I have really light, short rag-sessions compared to most ladies. They are irregular, though. But I’m guessing that has to do with going off birth control; I suspect that my body is still learning to regulate itself. This must be a hard thing for lady parts to do; until fall of 2007, I’d been on the pill for nearly a decade. That’s got to confuse a uterus. Can we not be patient with it and stop demanding it act normally right of the bat?

Conclusion:
While I’m willing to believe that I have a “slightly low” production of thyroid hormone like the doctor says (blood tests are blood tests, right? Who am I to argue science?), I’m not going to take drugs for something that is not crating an actual problem for me (aka: symptoms). However, I’m going to keep an eye on my body and try to promote good thyroid health naturally. If I start to get unexpectedly fat and sluggish, I’ll be the first

in line to get me some drugs. But until then….

Thyroid Plan of Action:
1.) I have a list of questions for my doctor. She is scheduled to call me today and answer them. Mainly, they focus on her recommendations for natural treatment. 26 is no time to be starting a lifelong, daily dependance on prescription medication. That just seems so extreame and apt to cause more harm than good. Espcially for a “problem” that has gone completely unnoticed by me (and from what I understand, most of the time this hypothyroidism is pretty hard to go unnoticed–it reek HAVOC on ladies!).

2.) I scheduled a September appointment with the lady doctor, just to have my hormone levels checked and make sure my lady parts are handling the move away from synthetic hormones (birth control) okay.

3.) I scheduled an appointment for acupuncture next Friday. The more I read, the more I realized that the issues I have are the same ones that acupuncture promises to handle best: migraines and immune system issues and weird body “quirks” (like passing out and vertigo and zits!). Acupuncture is also supposed to be good at preventative stuff, making sure that the body stays healthy and good. Which is helpful to me, as all the research has made me paranoid that my thyroid will misbehave someday, which would be horrible. The only crap news is that acupuncture is expensive. $100 for my first-time visit! Then it goes to $75. I can probably afford to go once a month, but from what I understand, its normal for people to get pin-cushioned weekly. Oh well. I’m getting ahead of myself. Acupuncture could very well make me dry heave and pass out. I might hate it and never go again. Which would be cheaper. But with luck, it won’t gross me out and will comfort my little thyroid so that it never ever misbehaves. In which case, I’m happy to carve out a bit of my budget for it.

4.) Eat meat daily. Seriously. I researched the types of things that make a thyroid unhappy and found that it can be a lack of zinc, iodine, selenium, fatty acids, and an amino acid called tyrosine. Meat and salt are good ways of getting these and both items are REALLY scarce in my diet (I eat meat sometimes 1x a week and usually its fish. I don’t really like salt.)

5.) Do “thyrod healthy” yoga. I will look on Amazon for a DVD today. In the winter, I think I may sign up for a yoga studio, since its usually too cold to run and too icy to bike and I’ve always hated doing my wintertime workout tapes in the apartment (I do them to shed the eggnog weight and keep me fit for spring/summer/fall sporty fun, but its a CHORE).

Anyhow, do any of you have thyroid stories you’d like to share? Anyone ever try acupuncture? Advice? Thoughts?  Thanks!

This morning NPR ran a story on Denise Mina, a Glaswegian crime writer that I enjoy. Shaun and I read her and went to a few of her readings/lectures when we lived in Glasgow. Reading her books really let us into the parts of that city that–as outsiders–we’d otherwise never really encounter or understand. Plus, they are fun.

Anyhow, hearing a Scottish voice so early in the morning really brightened my day. Which is funny, because the story is about some of the grittier aspects of Glasgow. Nonetheless, I wanted to write a wee blog post about it, in case anyone else is interested in listening. I think Denise’s attitude, compassion, and humanity really encapsulate that community.

Click here to listen in.
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Did you hear anything that made you smile this morning?

Trek has an awesome component to its website up right now: 1 World, 2 Wheels. (I posted the cute widget for it below.) The site helps you determine how much coal you reduce, calories you burn, and gas money you save by bike commuting. Plus, if you register on the site and challenge yourself to a set number of bike commutes a week (or, if you’re like me: simply stating the number of bike commutes you already take), you are entered to win a new bike.

I bike to work roughly 4 times a week. I work 5 days a week, but Chicago loves to throw giant summertime storms, so my biking plans are thwarted at a surprisingly consistent rate of once a week. Those days, I take the express bus or the subway. The MCA is roughly 7.5 miles south of my apartment; on an errand-free day, I take Clark to Foster and bike the lake-shore path all the way there. Its a really nice commute. I’ve only been stressed once, when I was biking against a wind storm, trying to get home to meet friends for dinner at a certain time. Another time, a crazy storm broke out while I was biking and I was soaked to the bone. That was REALLY fun, though. Although, if I was riding TO work instead of HOME from work, I would have been horrified; while my commuting routine allows for me to arrive sweaty to work, I can’t show up looking like a drowned rat.

Speaking of my bike commute routine, I’ve included a summary of it below. I thought that sharing my way of doing things might be helpful to anyone interested in trying a bike commute of their own. It took my a while to get into a groove that suited me and this one does; its no more or less a hassle than any other type of commuting, but it is WAY more fun. Read on if this interests you, skip it if it may bore.

My Bike Commute Routine
1.) After my morning run/yoga, I put NPR on to listen to while I shower up and put on a biking outfit. Nothing fancy; usually a pair of shorts, grippy shoes, and a loose tank w/ sports bra. Then I brush my teeth, blow dry my hair, and breakfast (coffee and yoghurt w/ muesli–yumm!).

2.)  After a breakfast munch, I put my work clothes (folded nicely or rolled), cute shoes, makeup bag, purse, lunch, and a book (to read at lunch!) in my bike basket. If I’m feeling super organized, I prep my basket the night before. But usually I just throw everything in before I leave the house in the morning.

3.) BIKE—Wheee! I plan my commute so that I will arrive 1/2 hour before my “official” start time. Usually this has me leaving the house no later than 8; I like a slow ride and my day “officially” starts at 9:30. I usually get in at 8:40, but I like to leave time incase I need to fix my chain or incase I get a flat or any number of strange things that might occur. Mostly, though, arriving early allows me to grab a cup of tea and chit chat with people before I have to really dig in and work.

4.) Once I lock up my bike in the parking garage, I greet museum security, get my ID badge, and head up to my office with my bike basket in tow (it is awesome and detachable). In the bottom drawer of my desk, I keep a toiletry kit. I grab the kit and head to the bathroom with my basket.

5.) In the bathroom, I use baby-wipes to wipe zee sweat away and wash my face with face wash. I brush out my helmet hair and apply my makeup. I change into my worker-bee outfit. I’ve done all this in 10 minutes before, but usually it takes me about 15. I like to get my liquid liner just right.

According to 1 World, 2 Wheels, by biking 60 miles a week (thats my 15 miles, round trip, to work, four days a week), I do the following:

* Reduce 58.20 lbs of Co2
* Burn 2,820 calories
* Save $13.20 in gas (if I drove, but I don’t so thats $8 in public transit fare that I save those 4 days).

So, Xanga peeps. For the love of body and globe: I double dog dare any of you who don’t already do so to bike to work 1 time before the end of September. Just give it a whirl. See first hand if its do-able, what it takes, and how it might change your life, how it might make things a little happier.  

Well, its official. Summer is in full swing. Scifiknitter is making cat hats, Timshead is road trippin’ it, Boo is kickin’ it with psychics, and Panda is sufficiently Panda-like. With all this living, who has time to blog? As for me, I’ve been trying to get my shit together and adjust to this new and improved Chicago life.

Yesterday, Shaun flew into town for a job interview he went on today. It was so so so good to see him. I’ve been going a bit batty without the one person on the world who so totally *gets* the crazy that is the inside of my brain. He came to the museum and met my staff and wondered the galleries and listened to the free jazz on the terrace that happens every Tuesday night. Best of all, once I was finished with work, I got to take him to dinner at the amazing Uncommon Ground before showing him to our new home!

Last Friday, I moved in to the little home I picked out for my little family: Shaun, me, and kitten-face (aka: Mr. Giles Alejandro Scimitar). In the process, I made friends with a cool new neighbor who, in true New Millennium style, I met through Craigslist. His name is John and he replied to my ad requesting help in moving the Craiglist couch I bought from a nice lesbian couple in Andersonville.

Pictures of the new pad, in Chicago’s East Rogers Park neighborhood, are below:

Where we will lounge, dine, and entertain!

The back wall of the dining room has a fun little window that looks out onto a kick-butt private storage space.

See what I mean? Funny! I want to get little Chinese paper lanterns and outdoor cafe string-lights to put in the storage space, so that when we’re dining in and looking out the window we can pretend we’re in a cafe.

This is the private storage space. For tiny apartment dwellers like Shaun and I, this is LIFE CHANGING! Especially with all the art projects I have going on at any given moment, all of Shaun’s comics and ebay shite, not to mention bikes and rollerblades and tents and hiking boots and sports supplies and the fact that we don’t use a dryer to dry our clothes (trying to be a green-household, dispite all the horrible air travel we’ve had to do these past few months). Also: I can’t think in cluttered spaces. I like order. With a storage room, things have a home. It will make life oh so good. This little space was a major selling point.

As was this! ITS A YARD!!!!!! Holly crap! You don’t know how much I’ve missed being able to have breakfast and lunch outside, all quiet and happy with a book like I did on my parent’s deck growing up. I’m looking for a suitable, used BBQ too. No more fish-stink in the house!!!! (I like grilled fish a good deal and the grill pan makes the house smell a little aqua-licious sometimes.)

Anyway, back inside the house. We’ve got loads of REALLY BIG CLOSETS! Like this one! This is also a life changing event. Especially coming from NYC where closets are a myth. Like unicorns.

We also have a kitchen. See? Its a good one! Shelves! Roach-free! AMAZING!

Hey–a quick aside: this week’s This American Life is about Fear of Sleep and features a story about a house so roach infested that the roaches cuddled up inside the [human] tenants EARS when they went to bed at night! AHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHHHHHH! Obviously, I can’t WAIT to listen this week. Damn, I love that show.

Anyhow…

…this is where the magic happens.

Ha! Not really. I just always thought it would be funny if people said that about the toilet.

This incredibly tiny room is Shaun’s office. (I claim the entire storage space, since I also have crafts and sports gear in addition to my writing stuff.) We need to re-paint the walls, because this color is grotesque and oppressive. Tan! GAG ME!

This is our new used couch! The bear on it is Theodore T. Bearington. We go way back.

This is zee bedroom. It is little, but since we only need a bed in there, it should be fine. (Shaun and I both get sucked in to movies and books and music so easily, we make it a point to have ONLY a bed in our bedroom, to make sure we actually unplug properly.) Also, I got a 1/2 price dresser at Target. Its in bits on the floor!

Well kiddies, that’s the grand tour. I can’t wait until Shaun and my beloved rat ass puss get here with the rest of our family’s worldly possessions (mere days!!!). But in the meantime, I’m content to snuggle up on our cuddly new used couch and be happy with the direction life is going and all the crazy places its been.

Today, I used one of my “personal days” to stay home from work and hang out with Shaun-san. We chilled out around the neighborhood before heading to Lakeview for him to get a pre-interview haircut. Then we went downtown together for a pre-interview lunch, where we copy-edited the text on the paper place mats together. DORKDOM=GOODTIMES. I read in the park for an hour while he talked to his could-be future employers for an hour.

Shaun seemed totally confident coming out of the interview. I hope he gets this job–he’d be such an asset to this place and it seems like he would really enjoy the position. Its a publication production/editorial hybrid position at a literary not-for-profit.

He was off to the airport, headed back to NYC, just as I started this blog. Its not long now. I like my life. I really do.
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Are you at home with your home?

PS: Oh yeah! I few weeks ago I was whining about wanting a funny yet brainy good summer read. Well, this book–You Must Be This Happy To Enter–TOTALLY hits the spot. Funny. Fresh. Elizabeth Crane is spot on and my literary hero this summer.

I think my vertigo was brought on by stress. I am the queen of the psychosomatic symptom, after all. After Vertigo swallowed me whole last week, I was freaked out enough to take a rest. I took a 4 day break from biking/running (a crazy thing for me to do in nice weather), I went to work (but I worked no overtime), and I retreated from social life (books and movies took the place of friends and conversation).

During this rest, I had a chance to realize that I’m married to a cell phone. I miss Shaun.

Until now, the long distance thing has been totally manageable. Its not been ideal, but prior to the Vertigo, I was really fine. I had Chicago back, full of friends and farmers markets and museums and lake-side loveliness. I like my job. I have a new bike! But really. Seriously. This. Sucks.

Since our long-distance began in late May, Shaun and I talk at least once a day. We email. Google chat. Text. I am sick of talking. I’ve grown to hate talking. Talk talk talk. My jaw hurts. I hate my computer. Roar.

My agitation at the talking makes me a bitch to talk to. It makes me a shite listener. “What does that even mean?” I hear myself asking. The threads of language become tangled in my agitated brain. I sound like a snot-nosed brat.

Don’t get me wrong. I love talking to Shaun. He’s the funniest person I know. Smart. Twisted. Grand. But I also like experiencing things with him. Its just as much about sex as it is about seeing something hysterical and being able to communicate it to someone with nothing more than the lift of an eyebrow. Its about seeing new things together. Its about making things together. Meals. Homes. Evening walk routes. Netflicks queues. Its about playing frisbee and with someone without worry about how much you suck at it. Its about being able to ask for help. Its about not even having to ask.

I don’t understand how to cook for one.

Anyhow, he’ll be out August 19th. For good. This is never allowed to happen again. It blows.

Once I let myself come to terms with everything, I felt better. Squee had her old friend of our from high school over last weekend–someone who I always liked a great deal but never really established a true relationship with. So it was really cool to get to know her and chill out. She’s really come into her own; I always remember her being pretty in a hippie chick sort of way, but she is a real bomb shell now. She reminds me of Natasha from the Bullwinkle cartoons. We three went to a great patio restaurant for drinkies on Friday night. The outing was my official end to my pity party: I miss Shaun but thats no reason for the summer to suck. Life is now.

Saturday, I felt 100% good again. After my morning run and a few chores, I took my bike in for a small repair. I rode downtown to the Museum of Contemporary Photography (at my alma matter, Columbia College) to check out their latest show. Ate a brown bag lunch (patty pan squash salad w/ cold brown rice) in the Art Institute Sculpture garden. Rode back uptown and went swimming and read my book at Foster Street Beach. I came home and drank a cold beer and ate some yummy trout with farmers market kale and tomatoes while watching the BBC series, Spooks, on DVD. This is my idea of a perfect day in Chicago. This is why I call this place home.

I move into our new apartment on Friday. I pick up a rented cargo van Thursday evening and pack it up in the night. I’m doing this in the evening because I’ve arranged to buy a Craigslist couch and the seller needs me to pick it up Thursday evening. I’ve also arranged for a guy to help me move the couch from Craigslist. The dude just lives down the street from where I need to get the couch from and he seems super nice.

Here is the couch:

It is ugly in the way that I like. It reminds me of circus and burlesque queens. Plus, the price just can’t be beat and I like that it is 6 feet long and deep. I like tall armrests/couch-backs. It makes me feel like I’m in a cave. I’ll be sleeping on this couch until Shaun and the movers arrive in mid-August.

I’ve also arranged to buy a Craigslist chest of drawers and a cool, vintage Eames chair (below):

It needs a little patch, but I like it. And again–the price is great for a vintage Eames. These pieces will go good with our art. I like that I get to match the furniture to the art. Ha!

I also want to make good use of the cargo van on Friday by going to the garden store to fit our new pad with some vegetation. Some herbs and house plants, since its too late in the season (I think–I might be wrong) to take advantage of our yard (yes–we have a little yard for the first time ever. YAY!). While vegetation is not exactly in the budget at the moment, I want to take advantage of having a vehicle (for new readers: I’ve been car-free for nearly 8 years. I’m a bike/bus/subway rider and lucky to live in cities where this is possible.).

Anyhow, its going to be a busy weekend. But it is the tail end of everything. And soon my regular life will be back and better than ever.

Also: I’m not thrilled with the book I’m reading, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. I was looking for something fun and funny (but still really good–I tend to really struggle with “beach books” and chic lit makes me want to kill myself), but this is not making me chuckle yet. Any reading suggestions? Books I’ve found funny: Master and Margarita, Jitterbug Perfume (I tried all the other Tom Robbins, seeking the same fun and I did not find it), and everything David Sedaris (but I’ve already devoured everything by him, including his latest). I also think Death of a Salesman is hilarious. Few things have made me laugh harder than when Willy Loman calles Biff an adonis. I also think the names Biff and Happy are hillarious, in general. I want to name two horribly ugly purse dogs Biff and Happy. Or perhaps two salamanders. Godot also makes me laugh. Whenever I wait for the bus, I am really waiting for Godot. I read: A man named Pozzo enters with his slave named Lucky, who he calls Pig. I laugh. You can see why its hard to find a funny book for me, can’t you? For instance, I thought that The Happening was the feel good hit of the summer. People tell me that it is a horror movie, but I’ve not laughed so hard at a movie in ages; I see a man walk into a lion cage at th zoo and calmly feed himself one limb at a time to a tiger. I laugh. Mark Wahlberg is a comedic genious.

With these things in mind–any suggestions?

During my lunch break on Monday, the world slipped away from me and I fell down on the sidewalk.

I have 2 theories as to why this happened:

1.) Our world is actually a decoration–a snowglobe of sorts–resting on a giant coffee table belonging to a giant god. On Monday, around noon, the god decided to plop down on the couch and read the newspaper. He flopped off his clogs (gods love clogs) and propped his hairy feet on the edge of the table’s glass top; for a few uneasy moments, the table’s top perched haphazardly on the table’s base. Luckily, the giant god’s mother bristled into the living room and said, “get your filthy feet off of there.” He did and our world was put back to where it usually is.  

2.) I have vertigo.

I remember reading an article once upon a time about how deep sea divers can get lost in the water; they swim around so much that they forget which way is up. On Monday–and thrice since–I’ve struggled to find which way is straight. I may have an inner-ear infection. My ears are warm in a yucky way. I can feel my brain folds in a buzzy, gross headachey way. If I were a baby, I’d wail a bit.

I’ve been to work all week, ploughing through.Yesterday morning, I tried to convince myself I was fine by going on a 6-mile run. I ended up walking most of it after nearly falling over into Lake Michigan. Luckily, I’ve had enough sense to retire my bike until I’m sure that I won’t fall over onto a car. But man, I need to get better; I’m seeing the doctor asap. I’m not usually prone to jealousy, but I’m green with it riding the crowded bus to work, looking out the window at all the happy bikers smiling at the sun.

Ever had vertigo?