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Sunday, 10 June 2012 (our big moment) 2:37pm Marta and I had brunch at Yum Yum Fish earlier today, and in general have spent a fair amount of time today (and yesterday) out in the sun, and while I'm pretty sure that's a good thing, it's also putting a slight zap on my head. I'm sure I'll feel better before my birthday show tonight—which got written up in SFist, suprisingly enough. 6:21pm Wow. The house is half-full. We've never gotten this many people, let alone strangers, at the birthday show before. We're lucky to get a quarter-full house on regular nights lately. sometime after midnight Well, that was a great night after all. Marta bailed halfway into the second movie to go sleep in the lobby, but two movies in a row has always been a bit much for her (especially at Bad Movie Night, which isn't really her bag). Alas. A lot of people who said they were going to make it didn't (no surprise), but we still got a shockingly large turnout. That's a nice change of pace. | ||
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Saturday, 9 June 2012 (pre and post) 3:12pm With Marta and friends of hers, on the grass near the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park. A "picnic," these things are called. Though she's not here, my new editor at the weekly is part of this particular extended group of friends, because San Francisco is just that small. 7:18pm It took some doing, and has been looking very iffy for a very long time, but I will indeed be going with Ilene and Porter to Everfree this August in Seattle. Marta won't be joining us, sadly. And I'll be doing a writing panel there, scarily. | ||
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Friday, 8 June 2012 (when the feast began) 1:13pm Spent an unexpected night at Marta's place last night, since she locked herself out of her apartment and when I drove over to let her in, there was no good reason not to stay the night. Back home now, but not for long, as I'm going back to her place shortly, and then tonight we're heading into North Beach, for starters. A surprisingly mobile Friday. 7:12pm At Savoy Tivoli in North Beach, where, unlike my last two attempts at Pier 23 and in Hell, I'm actually hanging out with the people from the weekly. Third time's the charm and all that. We arrived at six, Marta's left, and I'm heading out after a little more schmoozing slash networking to go watch a Jerry Lewis movie (preceded by Hollywood Burn) at KrOB's. It's what Fridays are for! | ||
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Thursday, 7 June 2012 (the cold hard truth) 11:39am Getting caught up on my work for this week, and Janeway is getting me caught up on all the fascinating howling I missed while I was out of town. 2:45pm Did an hour of cardio at the gym, and unsurprisingly, I was unable to replicate most of the weight-training stuff that Damiel taught me last week. Gonna have to make another appointment with him, evidently. 5:04pm I just enrolled in 9 (nine) units for the Fall 2012 semester. I can already feel my brain shutting down in protest. 7:13pm We're doing Alien and Aliens at Bad Movie Night this Sunday for mine and Rhiannon's birthday, and people on the internet are getting cranky at us about it! | ||
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Wednesday, 6 June 2012 (six years to the day) 9:43am Spent the night at Marta's, because it just seemed easier that way. I was also hoping to take advantage of the fact that I tend to sleep better in her bed than my own, but I didn't sleep very well, including waking up after a few hours from one of those dreams that requires me to stay awake for a little while in order to purge it from my brain, lest the dream be there again when I get back to sleep. The room filling with light by six in the morning didn't help, either. Is it just me, or is the sun rising especially early, even by early June standards? Back at the Black Light District. Perdita's mostly indifferent about my return, which means that Davina did a great job catsitting. And now, so much to catch on. (I also put my tail back on. I took it off before going to Chicago. Erring on the side of caution and all.) 2:13pm I like travelling—or, rather, I like being in other places—but I miss having control over my food. Thus, I'm very happy to have just returned from the Sunset Supermarket on Vicente with three bags of vegetables. Also, the table of contents for an upcoming anthology has just been announced, and hey, I'm in it! 2:13pm My recaps of episodes 7 and 8 of the second season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic are now up, so that's also cool. | ||
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Tuesday, 5 June 2012 (chicago breakdown day five: detour through the fremen) 1:10pm Back in Andersonville for our last Chicago meal, this time at Huey's Hot Dogs. I've heard many things about Chicago hot dogs, perhaps not as many as about Chicago deep dish pizza, but enough that I have to try the real things—or, at least, the real thing done with a veggie dog. It's every bit as messy and delicious as I'd hoped. 6:51pm Saw a bit more of suburban Chicagoland as we visited some more Marta's aunts and cousins (who run a company which makes, for all intents and purposes, Dune stillsuits) and spent some time at Caribou Coffee in Mount Prospect. We're now back at O'Hare, nomming on Mexican-ish food from Tortas Frontera, and thankfully, it's better than it has any right to be. Leaving on a good food note is important, because this feels like it's going to be a long flight, probably because I'm already exhausted. 10:45pm Phoebe's right where we left her, in SFO's Lot D! With all her windows intact, even! That's always a nice surprise. | ||
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Monday, 4 June 2012 (chicago breakdown day four: aeronautical arachnids and shiny, shiny beans) 10:01am Having breakfast with Marta's godfather at Le Peep, and afterward there'll be more investigating of downtown. 1:13pm Having beverages and a cheese plate in the Signature Lounge on the ninety-sixth floor of the Hancock Building. The view is swell, but I'm especially fascinated by all the spiders outside the windows. 3:37pm After spending some time in Millennium Park (where Jonathan Richman (!) was doing a soundcheck for a show tonight, and I found the Crown Fountain faces to be only a little terrifying), we're now in the Art Institute of Chicago. Like the Museum of Science and Industry, it really requires far more time than we have available to us. Still, there's Seurat and Hopper and Monet and Van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec and and and...the only disappointment (and that's too strong a word) is the lack of a Pazuzu statue in the Indian, Himalayan, and Southeast Asian collection, and it totally would have fit. Guess I'll have to go see it at the Louvre 8:36pm Dinner at home with Marta's mom (somehow, I ended up making salad for the three of us), and Marta and I are now visiting with an old friend of hers at another of her favorite hangouts from back in the day, a loud Belgian bar in Andersonville called Hopleaf. None of their meads sounded particularly appealing, so I'm having a Cuvée des Jacobins Rouge by Bockor, which is appropriately fancypants, as well as suprisingly delicious. And it comes in a goblet! 10:39pm We've moved next door to the considerably more American (and thus less interesting) Konak. It does seem to be a hangout for the local theater crowd, judging by both the many headshots on the wall and the many people here that just came from a local theater awards show of some kind. sometime after midnight Had myself a little meltdown on the way back to Marta's mom's place, both due to my extreme dislike of walking through high-crime neighborhoods at night and some other external issues that have been gnawing at me. Of course, it's not really a trip out of town for Marta and me unless one of us loses our shit at some point. Sometimes it's just one of us, and often it's both, in shifts. And we always get through it. | ||
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Sunday, 3 June 2012 (chicago breakdown day three: it's hot in the poor places tonight) 10:56am Mmm. I really need to learn how to make gazpacho. 12:23pm Marta and I are having lunch at one of her old favorite places, Penny's Noodle Shop. It's near Wrigley Field, which is very cool, and also looks a bit more like how I've always pictured Chicago. 4:16pm At the Museum of Science and Industry. So much science! And Industry! And a hilariously outdated vision of the Internet! 6:08pm Another item on my must-go-to list is Marina City, known to people like me as the "the towers on the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. Had to have Marta (whose grandmother lived in the towers for a while) take a picture of me in front of them, of course. 6:27pm Also also on the list is quote-authentic-unquote deep dish pizza, so we're having it at Pizano's. The place certainly feels authentic, inasmuch as I'd know how that feels. 9:07pm Ending an already highly-caloric day with a milkshake at Oberweis Dairy, because I'm on vacation, damnit. It also timed out nicely that Marta's mother was able to pick us up from the CTA station and bring us here, so we won't have to walk home again. Last night was nerve-wracking enough. | ||
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Saturday, 2 June 2012 (chicago breakdown day two: gushing at the pirates) 8:18am Good morning, Chicago! 1:12pm Having brunch at one of Marta and her mother favorite restaurants, m.henry in Andersonville. I can't wait to find out what the ironic twist will be! (I am unaccountably proud of how that can be either an O. Henry or an M. Night Shyamalan joke.) 3:12pm At Lake Michigan. A large body of water in the east, huh? That's just weird. 6:45pm After a day with her mother, including a driving tour of downtown and other points of interest, Marta and I are having dinner at Cosi. Not very Chicago-y, but Pierogi Heaven is closed, and we're in a little bit of a hurry, so this'll do. 9:42pm What we were in a bit of a hurry for was a show at the Gene Siskel Film Center, which was one of the few places on my must-go-to list for Chicago, and what we saw was Hollywood Burn by a pair filmmakers from Australia called Soda_Jerk, one of whom I fangirled all over afterward, because I really really really liked her movie. (Marta assures me that I'm very cute when I'm starstruck.) sometime after midnight Marta's mom's neighborhood isn't quite as sketchy, as say, Tom's in Brooklyn, but it's still pretty iffy, especially when we're walking through it late at night after getting off the bus. I feel so goddamned middle class. (Marta's mother having earlier casually mentioned a nearby shooting doesn't help.) | ||
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Friday, 1 June 2012 (chicago breakdown day one: journey to mars) 11:25am While going through the TSA checkpoint at SFO, they actually checked inside the squid. Sleep safely, America! 7:37pm Retracing the steps of the great Jan Terri as Marta and I go through the glowy corridor at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Marta's mother will be picking us up soon and taking us to her place. That's the plan, anyway. | ||
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