john + lindsey: engaged!

[edgewater, chicago]

eden's garden

While in Colorado, I spent some good time with a friend and her two little girls. Older sister Eden's joy is so infectious that photographing her is a sweet and certain pleasure.






[silo ridge, colorado springs]

j.j. & norine

Congratulations to J.J. and Norine! So good to see you before the big event.







[the Pinkhouse, Colorado Springs]

bishop's castle

[Bishop's Castle, Rye, Colorado]

highway 80

[Ms. Dixie and her epic tongue]

[oversized load]

me: Jeremiah?
person at other end of the line: No, I think you have the wrong number.
me: Well, do you live in York, Nebraska?
p.a.o.e.o.l.: Yes.
me: Could you recommend a restaurant in York?
p.a.o.e.o.l.: Chances R! For sure.


me: Could I get the spaghetti with marinara and the spinach salad without bacon?
waitress: Yes.
(much time passes)
me: Okay. Is this sausage in the sauce?
waitress: Ummm, yes.
me: And this is bacon?
waitress: Yes.
me: Right.

[Michael at the wheel]

just back

from an incredible ten days in Colorado spent celebrating Megan and Nathan's marriage by enjoying the state's terrain, hot springs, castles, cathedrals, trains, peaks, forests, back yards, penny arcades, dance floors, and white water.


Fabulosa and friend Jenny Alders flew in from Los Angeles to photograph the week's events while I played the honorific maid.

Watch her blog for the next few days and see all the pretty goods.

printer's row lit fest

I finally made it to lit fest. What treats!

First, a session on publishing children's books, given by author and U of C lecturer Esther Hershenhorn and then 826's dedication and reading, introduced by Dave Eggers, of this sweet tome:


[Things included in this book: * An inflammable super dog * Fear of milk and hammerhead sharks * The prodigious writing of Chicago students 6 to 18 * A final thumbs-up * The Kafkaesque transformation of a sweet little girl named Jessica * Super-warm chocolate chip-cookies * The frequent use and eventual renunciation of at least two swears]


Then, I attended a reading of the newest Skippyjon book (who wouldn't love a Spanglish-speaking Siamese 'kitty boy' that prefers to go by El Skippito?):

before browsing the bookstands, being evangelized by a Hare Krishna devotee (always me!), and wrapping things up with Chris Ware:


and the oddly inspirational Lynda Barry:


Thank you, Printer's Row!

welcome, eleanor!

I was so honored to be part of Eleanor Dorothy Groll's big beginnings on Tuesday morning when Em bravely brought the beautiful, hale girl into the world.

We all fell immediately and unabashedly in love.

As my brother, a new father himself, put it: "This changes everything."

graduating brad

[ottawa, il]

chicago summerdance countdown

A mere 21 days until the...

13th annual Chicago Summer Dance
June 11–August 23, 2008
13 Years of Free Dancing Downtown!

Location: Spirit of Music Garden in Grant Park
601 S. Michigan Avenue

Synopsis: Throughout the summer the Spirit of Music Garden in Grant Park becomes a unique outdoor urban dance space. Dance to the sounds of 42 different live bands. Get into step with dance lessons beforehand. Glide across the expanded 4,600-square-foot, open-air dance floor designed by Chicago artist Dan Peterman. Swing, waltz, cha-cha…or simply enjoy the music!


[my feet on Dan Peterman's dance floor in Spirit of Music Garden in Grant Park]

hullabaloo

I caught a bit of the photography, the film making, and the letter pressing at Columbia College's Manifest on Friday. The event also afforded me the opportunity to finally see Mucca Pazza!

yea, malskeit!

A & K tied the knot a few weeks ago in lovely Colorado. Despite the blizzard that forced them to reimagine their wedding in just under two hours, it was a merry event imbued with strong words and bonded by family and friends. You can see more photographs of what all transpired on my site.

capsized

[illustration by mattbrown]

birdie g

rojo

what she said

"I'm wearing ruby slippers because with you, I'm home."

yum

waiting for baby j

evie at home

lush

Last night Andrew Bird played to a full house at the Civic Opera. Bird's gorgeous soundscape seemed at home in the House. The evening under the night's full moon proved to be one of my sweetest in Chicago so far.

Not so dulce for Bird's violin, which didn't quite make it through the set. A clean break, though, so here's hoping Dr. Stringz can work his healing before tonight's show.



[Andrew Bird]

to taste

Dinner: Or A Deranged Event Staged in a Theoretical Mansion in Which Time and History Have Been Grossly Dismembered and What We Know as the Laws of Physics Wildly Subverted, Conducted as an Inquiry into the Genius of Madness and the Art of the Faux Pas, and Having as a First Course to be Served to a Cast of Sixteen Eccentrics A Dish of Carrot Cabbage Salad Meant to Tickle Every Palate



[Jesse Nathan's collaborative new poetry/song/collage book]

a rebus (for catching up)

Last weekend I stayed at

and attended an interview between

and

then a songwriting workshop with

a concert by

another by

a presentation by film composer

who scored

with common kitchen supplies and just finished
the music for

.

I took my meals with

enjoyed the company (and the war wounds) of

and the opinions of

after hearing a paper delivered by

.

I took serious sass from

and allowed most of my hair to be cut off like

and

.

Which is one way to spend a weekend.

introducing...

[sweet baby evie]

Evelyn was welcomed into the world with laughter and affection on 1 April. She's hale and exquisite in all hoped for ways. Jay and Becky are so excited to be parents and my own mother and father couldn't be happier to be called grandma and grandpa.

(Thanks to JK for marking my new role, too.)

helping hand

Okay graphic designer friends, don't look. I'm still clumsy in photoshop, but having a palette (grand canyon!) helps the bigger ideas begin to take shape. Here's what I pulled together for my sister's wedding—a four-day hiking, rafting, dancing, bonfiring, music-laden, nouveau americana celebration that will take place this June.

speak easily

[the birthday girl]

Amanda celebrates another year of the good life. The friends sing out, shake it up, get down, applaud Chris Bathgate, wrinkle their brows, work the blow torch, and fire up the poi in celebration.

[the living room]

[¡que boa!]

[brooke shaking it up]

[me sans bobby pin]

[fuel for andy's torch song]

[the hostess with the mostest and the bestest]

[the affable and articulate chris bathgate]

[beautiful lakeri]

[d playing with fire]

[lakeri making it look easy]

[andy making it look difficult]

[caitlin telling it straight]

[the girls getting it done]

on like a prom dress

826 Chi's prom (theme: Robot Armageddon) is next month. So yesterday afternoon seemed the perfect time to go looking for haute bulbs, switches, and circuitry to work into a prom dress. There were thousands of distractions, but also some promising objects. As the famous idiom has it, beauty is in the eye of the guy with the enormous magnifying lens. Fortunate that.

la encantada

Humboldt Park is home to La Encantada, a family restaurant run by our friend Edgar and his talented siblings. The building rehab, the food, the cocktails, the photography, and the paintings on display are each hecho por la familia Enriquez. Try the chile en nogada—a poblano pepper stuffed with ground beef, apples, peaches, pears, and raisins, and then smothered in a sweet, creamy nut sauce. Or the enchiladas bananas—plantain stuffed enchiladas in mole with a side of chipotle sweet potatoes or marinated cactus.

garfield park conservatory

[chicago, il]

reading update

So, I think Dad is on pace, but I'm a little behind on our reading project—Bellow!








Here's the past month's reading. So, if you're keeping track, that's 1975, 1976, 2008, and 2009 Pulitzer fiction winners so far. Waiting for pickup at the Sulzer: The Stories of John Cheever. And, because this experiment has made me eager to read a little nonfiction, the lovely Rose George's new book about the disposal of human waste around the planet, The Big Necessity.

welcome, will!

Can't wait to meet you!

the way through

Thursday night found me avoiding the rain in our neighborhood bookstore, The Book Cellar. The night's reading was from poet, photographer, and novelist Jesse Ball. A Believer shortlistee, winner of the Plimpton, and wearer of a particularly fine beard, Ball read from The Way Through Doors, which was succor on a gloomy night punctuated by the downpour, disappointing paneer, and close contact with a rather nasty head cold.

the talented mr. lott

A happy birthday with M: the friends tune stringed instruments, read poems, cover Tiffany and Brittany, dress up, strip down, discuss the meaning of life, suffer Pablo's merciless single entendre, act out, display sculpture, imbibe, dust off the flight suit, and dance in celebration.

[the counterfactuals play a little something]

[on the futon with tiny instruments]

[caitlin, michael, and five bananas]

[the host with the most]

[keith and ben's remake of a johnny cash favorite]

[brandon's fine tiffany]

[jenn and sarah cover brittany]

[pilot Andy]

[supportive audience]

[suited up]

[a glower anyone would love]

[avi and his birthday suit]

[mr. carter on the meaning of life]

[emily making pregnancy look so good]

up with yurts

My first stay in a yurt was during a snowshoeing trip in the Rockies. The six of us arrived to find bunk beds, an indoor picnic table, and a shovel for gathering the snow we turned into drinking water on the wood burning stove. We loved our little yurt.


Treebones, in stunning Big Sur, does yurts differently. Think whale watching from the deck (or your bed, if you can't manage to get out of it), spring water on tap, and made-to-order dinners served fireside in the lodge.

pacific

events! events!

If you like your stories and poems live, this is your week. The AWP (Association of Writers and Writers & Writing Programs) is in town, bringing with it books, storytellers, and poets who are doing their thing at the theaters, pubs, stages, and restaurants of Chicago. A link to the off-site events here.

in case you didn't notice

[see more beards (and pirate supplies—including mermaid bait and scurvy begone, ) at 826 valencia. song about beards here.]

at the shedd

The Shedd Aquarium had a string of free days this week. We took advantage on Monday and spent a few blissful hours with the pipefish, seadragons, gigantic snapping turtles, tropical frogs, and one 80-year-old lungfish. Also mesmerizing were the myriad textures and colors of the coral the aquarium cultivates for its tanks. Such intricate and strange stuff.



[chicago]

made

T and I attended a basic sewing workshop at The Needle Shop this weekend. While making a pillow case, we got to know our sewing machines and learned to do some basic stitching, read fabric, and put in a zipper. [interior of The Needle Shop (their photograph)]

[sewing maven, patient and brave]

[T and Janis, her mini machine with lots of heart]

[before]

[after: pillow looking like something ripped from the pages of a French children's book]

a quiet anniversary

Psst.

Chicago, we are two today.



[stenciling by artdelineator]

make happy wintry inside time

D and I took the shortest possible excursion today (cold!)--visiting both Nhu Lan and HarvesTime during his 12 hours of off. Yum. If you haven't been to Nhu Lan yet, you should let me take you there.






[lawrence ave.]

the sweetness

from WBEZ:

Bitter cold not seen in the Chicago region for over a decade is gripping the area.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Mark Ratzer says a blast of cold air from the Arctic Circle was sent south by a shift in the jet stream. He says the coldest temperatures will come tonight and tomorrow morning.

RATZER: It's gonna be cold. Already this morning here we're seeing some wind chill readings out to our west here as much as 35 to almost 40 below zero. And tonight although our air temperatures will be colder, our winds ought to be just a little bit less, so our wind chill readings will probably be about the same - kind of in that -30 to -40 range.

Temperatures could be the coldest seen in Chicago since 1996.

weather the weather

[from a booth at the silver cloud to lisa c. on a cloudy day]

reading

[the year's reading thus far—from the list and no]

This year my dad and I are reading the Pulitzer Prize fiction from 1975 to 2009 (when this year's winner is announced at the end of the year). This is my dad's normal reading pace, but I've already started juggling—feeling like I'm getting away with something when I read the books I would normally be picking up for pleasure.

If you want to read along, you can find the list of winners here.

belly in the window

the s family

of dart boards and mug shots

As best as I can remember, the reasoning went something like this:

There are some dart boards in weird light.
There are some friends waiting for lanes at the bowling alley.
There is this camera.
So.

great expectations

too cold to go out

[dominoes, moments before accidental demolition]

significant accumulations

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK

A STORM SYSTEM NOW DEVELOPING OVER THE SOUTHERN ROCKIES WILL IMPACT THE AREA THURSDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING. AS THE STORM CENTER APPROACHES...A SURGE OF WARM AND VERY MOIST AIR WILL BEGIN TO RIDE NORTHWARD...OVERRUNNING COLD ARCTIC AIR NOW IN PLACE AT LOW LEVELS OF THE ATMOSPHERE.

THIS WILL RESULT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SNOW...SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN ACROSS THE OUTLOOK AREA FROM LATE THURSDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING...WITH SIGNIFICANT SNOW AND ICE ACCUMULATIONS.

[illustration from sarajanestudios]

Jon

I saw George Saunders's Jon Friday night at The Building Stage. As the Collaboraction sums it: Jon is a futuristic allegory about teenage love and self-discovery in a corporate universe where television commercials replace life experiences.

Smart, funny, and disturbing as Saunders's work can be, Jon was also—I promise it wasn't just the oddly warm December evening or the good company—life affirming.

An exerpt:
Maybe we can come to be normal, and sit on our porch at night, the porch of our own house, like at LI 87326, where the mom knits and the dad plays guitar and the little kid works very industrious with his Speak & Spell, and when we talk, it will make total sense, and when we look at the stars and moon, if choosing to do that, we will not think of LI 44387, where the moon frowns down at this dude due to he is hiding in his barn eating Rebel CornBells instead of proclaiming his SnackLove aloud, we will not think of LI 09383, where this stork flies through some crying stars who are crying due to the baby who is getting born is the future Mountain Dew Guy, we will not think of that alien at LI 33081 descending from the sky going, Just what is this thing called a Cinnabon?

*
You can read the text of the New Yorker story from which the play was so carefully and tech-savvily adapted here. The show's run has also been extended for one more week, so you can still catch it the 18th, 19th, or 20th. Students are only $5; $25 for regulars or people without access to other ways of getting in on the cheap.

a very wednesday birthday

My birthday arrives. The friends eat their hats, abandon their studies, drive three hours to surprise, go 3D, type up wishes, laugh, kiss, bring the dogs, give roses, and eat champagne cupcakes in celebration.





[the Long Room, Chicago]

why sit still?

[family photos, black forest]

muy colorado

[T on Skyline Drive]

[Anna at The Pour House]

[attentive young steer in neighbor's pasture]

[mom with equestrian friends]

[more Skyline Drive]

[Jay on the merits of his poinsettia]

[floral sneak attack]

[Megan and Nate]

[me with poinsettia, dilapidation, and unforgivable head-tilt]

[family waiting for me to get in the photo]

[carving it up]

el bubble says:

We can expect baby Evie in early April.

Hip, hip!

tying the knot in north carolina