i have survived the mini heat wave we had today in chicago. the thunderstorm just passed over us, and it has cooled down significantly. there is a gentle breeze coming in through the bedroom window surrounding me in cushions of cool air. i actually took pictures of the thunderstorm but accidentally erased all of them before i had a chance to download them. my first digital lightning shots zapped into nonexistence at the touch of a button.

hung out w/ josh b. tonite. went to uptown for some thai food. talked about lots of stuff. he has two of the cutest cats i've ever seen! both were so friendly, more like puppies craving attention and wanting to play all the time.

i'm wiped out...no concert tomorrow (friday). the girls will be celebrating a bday on saturday. i can use the rest. i'm behind around 11 artists. my goal is to have the web pages uploaded this weekend. i'm nodding off cuz i'm writing this in bed...i'm signing off....

tonight's blogging soundtrack: quiet is the new loud - kings of convenience

josh (bearman) called me tonite. turns out he and his friend were driving down damen and saw me while i was shooting photos from the bridge! i got a kick out of that. yeah, that should become a common occurrence, seeing me walking around pointing my camera at everything and anything in the urban landscape which i now call home. my goal is to become a bucktown/wicker park fixture as that strange asian chick who is known to stop dead in her tracks to pull out a camera and start shooting away indefinitely or until the memory on her compact flash card runs out, whichever comes first.

recent soundtrack--

sleeping on roads - neil halstead
ask me tomorrow - mojave3
excuses for travellers - mojave3
out of tune - mojave 3
fold your hands child, you walk like a peasant - belle & sebastian
songs for the new year - simon joyner
acoustic - everything but the girl
bringing it all back home - bob dylan
safe away - denison witmer
of joy and sorrow - denison witmer
from the nest of idea - scientific
films for radio - over the rhine
grace - jeff buckley
i have seen - zero7
cerulean - the ocean blue
i break chairs - damien jurado
tonite's blogging mp3s:
when you sleep - my bloody valentine; nose over tail - alkaline trio; this is getting over you - alkaline trio; western sky - american music club; asleep - american music club; waiting for the moon to rise - belle & sebastian; a summer wasting - belle & sebastian; calm go the wild seas - beulah; deep blue day - brian eno; consolation prize - the ocean blue; do you still remember me - the ocean blue; femme fatale - the velvet underground

it is 10pm @ the spin cycle on milwaukee & wabansia. i am seeking refuge here in these air conditioned quarters from the sauna that is now my attic apartment 3 blocks away. i am waiting for my dryer load to stop spinning. been listening to damien jurado's i break chairs while reading douglas coupland's life after god. interesting combo of pacific northwest emotive outpourings. these guys make me want to laugh and cry simultaneously and alternately.

i love the laundromat. especially tonite when i really needed to cool off somewhere besides my own four walls. the spin cycle is an interesting place. it's kind of like a village well i suppose. you get all kinds of people here. at this hour on a wednesday night, it's pretty empty and quiet except for the constant sound of mechanical spinning from the washers and dryers. it's quite relaxing, really.

it's been a busy week. saw neil halstead twice, and had the serendipitous pleasure of discovering the music of andrew bird, who opened up for neil. i can't describe andrew's music except that it's absolutely gorgeous. i was really blown away. his songs sounded like the sirens song from o brother where art thou--the feel & echo of the music. and he can whistle like a god! i think one of the most beautiful sounds EVER is of really good whistling.

he & his group bowl of fire will be playing @ the hideout the first weekend in may. i am totally there. and i would totally recommend everyone in the chicago area to come out and see this show. i bet it's really cheap. stuff at the hideout is usually free or cheap. always a good thing. another singer/songwriter named sid hillman also opened up. he's been touring w/ neil and sand with him on hi-low and inbetween. all in all, 3 quality acts at the abbey.

i really had a good time by myself at the abbey. it was nice to be able to roam around & take photos as i pleased without having to keep track of other people. i usually get lost in taking my photos anyway, and then i always feel rude if i'm with other people. sometimes it was hard to take photos though when i would get lost in neil's voice. i never tire of hearing that voice...it reminds me so of nick drake.

tonite as i was driving home from the hospital, i saw up ahead of me hanging over the loop a gigantic fluffy cloud--it looked like the pillsbury doughboy's family reunion. i just wanted to float out of my car right there and then and fly to that cloud & plunge myself into it, and i was sure it would taste like the inside of a freshly roasted marshmallow. instead, i pulled into the costco parking lot and walked up to my bridge, the one over the chicago river on damen just south of diversey, that bridge i love crossing so much.

the sun had subsided far enough for the temperature to have cooled to a pleasant summer night air. as the natural light faded to just a whisper, the manmade fluorescent bulbs turned up their volume. there's something about the smooth red steel semiparabolic arches that is so beautiful against a gradually darkening sky. i don't know why i'm so fond of that bridge. i probably won't be able to stand the sight of it a year from now.

on 04.15.2001 at 11:59 PM i successfully did my business with the irs.what an ordeal! there's gotta be an easier way to file taxes. i wonder how many people in the chicago area were as distracted by the weather as i was and totally forgot about that darn deadline. maybe it was just me, always waiting until the last possible moment.

today was another gorgeous day. it was actually sunny and HOT. my poor apartment is on the 3rd floor and all the heat rises up here. i've got a bunch of windows open now, though, and there's a lovely cool breeze coming in through my little eastern window. it seems that the little insects and other creepy crawly creatures haven't caught on to the weather yet, beucase i don't have a screen on my window, and i haven't seen one miniature flying object yet. we'll see how long that lasts.

i went to see neil halstead today at reckless records for his free instore performance. he sounds SO GOOD live!!! he looks like a really normal person. he was wearing something like jeans, t-shirt and a baseball cap. after his show, i was browsing cds, and he was too, and we were right next to each other, and i had totally forgotten who he was because he was so unassuming and looked like your average reckless records consumer. when i did realize who he was, i froze up and pretended to ignore him, although i wanted so badly to go up to him and request some songs for tomorrow night's concert at the abbey.

alright. i'm going to retire for the eveing...

today's soundtrack:
sleeping on roads - neil halstead
blonde on blonde - bob dylan
see the ocean blue - the ocean blue

this is from sunday, 4.14.2002. it's a rambling session, so be warned.

i am coming to you live from wicker park, chi-town--it is frickin' gorgeous!! it's early sunday afternoon, don't know what time, but by the position of the sun and daylight savings time being so recent, i'd say it's about 2:30pm. the cool green grass poking through my toes and it feels absolutely lovely.

bodies are strewn throughout the park eager to melt away the memories of the past cold winter, making room for the hope of spring flowers & warm sun & friendly breezes & lazy puffy cotton white clouds against a cerulean sky. on a day like today, anything is possible. and if i look straight up at just the sky, i can be anywhere in the world because we all share the same blue bubble over our heads despite our longitude & latitude.

listening to safe away (denison witmer). there are guys playing the guitar, alone & in pairs, and a young man reveling in his own personal self-performed concert on a bright red bongo slung around his neck. the whole neighborhood is out. the toddlers, the teens, the young adults, the older adults. it's one big happy coexistence amongst these people who several weeks ago would've turned their collars up against the wind and not cared about the next door neighboors they brushed past on the streets, coming into contact only accidentally due to spatial constraints.

the canines are as happy as can be, some just napping lazily next to their owners and others running around wild & eager for something to fetch. a lot of reading getting done, or at least the appearance of reading. a lot of napping too. i really can't think of anything else i'd reather be doing right now. well, at least in the city of chicago, that is...

i was telling josh (ny josh) last nite how much i'm enjoying being alone these days. i feel like i've hardly had any time to myself my entire life, and now that i've had a taste of it, i get it. there are things that just seem to come together in your heart & mind without any effort when you simply spend time in solitude. it's hard to explain...it reminds me of some stuff i read a while back about how systems (such as organizations or the universe) tend to organize themselves out of chaos if you just leave them alone. it seems that the chaos of my life thus far is somehow working itself out even though i'm not making too much of a concerted effort in that direction. neverthless, i know that it's probably overly optimistic for me to think that all my emotional and spiritual issues will work themselves out even if i just sit on my butt and make NO effort whatsoever to aid the process. i know know i have issues to face. but i'm not gonna get all geared up for war & start arming my nukes. i'm currently watching the various disc throwing going on. there were these two girls tossing a neon green frisbee just like the one josh & i threw around on chrissy field in san fran. except theirs probably doesn't say xerox on it. that was one of my favorite memories from SF, playing frisbee, napping in the sun, playing reverse jenga on the bay w/ the rocks on the shore, driving around the bend in the road and being greeted by the pacific ocean. and my favorite picture of the golden gate bridge is from that day.

there is a young man scrambling up a tree as if he were 9 again. he is now perched amongst the branches like a wild cat, not waiting for unsuspecting prey below, but reading a book. it looks cool and all, but that has gotta hurt after a while. looking around at the park, i can understand why he's chosen to stake out his territory above ground. the grass is literally occupied in its entireity by the invisible boundaries of individual frisbee tourneys, nappers, ball throwers, and other miscellaneous lolligaggers, i being one of them. i wonder why we don't climb trees so often these days. you never see people climbing trees anymore...

well, i'm going to close my eyes and listen to damien jurado on my headphones now. enough people watching. time for some shuteye...

today's soundtrack:

from the nest of idea - scientific (again)
safe away - denison witmer
i break chairs - damien jurado
cerulean - the ocean blue