Up to Speed

Our new apartment is so big that I've established an unenforceable rule that says that one person can't yell across the apartment to the other person, since there's no way to hear each other. If I want to, say, make nachos and watch basketball (on network TV only, natch), I have to prepare everything in the kitchen and then take everything about fifty feet away to the living room. By the time I've reached my destination, the cheese temperature is unsatisfyingly low. Despite the vast expanse of the place, every footstep on the sagging hardwood floors produces tremendous noise. The noises seem to be louder at 6:30 am, when I'm trying to sleep. There are ants, little black ones, in the bathroom. We have used an entire bottle of ant-killer spray and 8 mini-ant-traps, but still find at least a couple ants per day. This doesn't bother me in the slightest, as these ants rank nearest the bottom of the giant list of hated insects.

The move went OK, except for the fact that my bike got stolen during. The movers left it in the back alley of my old place before loading it onto the truck, and shockingly someone decided that they would like an old but dependable Trek bicycle. Worse was the fact that the movers disavowed themselves of any responsibility, and even charged me for the 45 minutes they spent 'looking' for the bike and yelling at my old building manager. Repeated phone calls to management produced a similar response. So, if you live in Chicago and are looking for a moving service, God have mercy on your pathetic soul if you go with "The Professionals - Moving and Storage", thepromove.com.

The fact that I now live closer to the loop is tarnished by the fact that my commute actually takes longer, thanks to trains that are so crowded I consider myself lucky if I can squeeze into the first one that comes along, which I've managed to do about 55% of the time so far. Plus I have to walk further to the train and to my office. Only good thing is now I have an easy way home at 3 am on a Saturday morning.

The week after moving we went to New York for four days. Much better than the last time around, lots of late nights and drinking and expensive food. Finally got to go to MoMA as well, which was even better than I had hoped. Jennifer Bartlett's "Rhapsody" was the greatest thing ever.

Last weekend was our first relaxing one in about a month, I went to see Saturday Looks Good to Me play on Friday, alone since M was 'tired.' I'm shocked that they don't draw a bigger crowd, there was probably only 35 people there, if that, which is sad considering that in the four bands who played there was about 17 people combined. Usually after I've seen a band live a few times I start complaining about how every show is now selling out and all these new fans weren't there from the beginning like I was. I'm not sure what is wrong with everybody. But I ended up having a great time, bought a couple LPs and had a few drinks with some complete strangers, none of whose names I can recall. My Saturday was crushed by my resulting hangover. No regrets, however.