thejeremydiaries

Crossing into the Congo

2012-01-23T01:51:00.001-06:00

Part 1: The geology and geography of Congolese well drilling

We reached the Congo Saturday by ferrying across the Ubangi River in long canoes operated by helpful locals who will motor you across, and carry your baggage, and even kindly point at the only open chair so you know where to sit--all for a fee, of course. To get to the Elikya Center in Gemena, where we're drilling our well, requires an 8 hour journey to cover 250km of dirt roads in such poor shape...that it takes 8 hours (12 on a bad day, I'm told) to go 250km. Nine of us accomplished this task in an extended-cab truck by riding three in the front seat, three in the back seat, and three wedged on a wooden plank between all the luggage and the back of the cab. (The travel guide I write based on this experience (Lonely Planet's Guide to Congolese Well Drilling?) will note that for its leg-dangling room, breathtaking views, and cooling breezes, the wooden plank offers the best seats in the house by far, just bring sunscreen.)

As we walked along the river bank, and while we rode in the canoe, and throughout the bumpy truck ride, Jerry observed the land. How the hills slope, how many rocks you see, the color of the dirt, how the ground handled a recent rain, how the roads are rutted and what that means about the soil or sand or clay directly beneath it, etc. "You see a lot of rocks along here," he notes nervously (well drilling happens around or, ideally, in the absence of rocks). "Looks like all swamp in here," much less nervously. I knew this was going to be a job requiring a fair amount of flexibility to account for all the unknowns, but as I listen to Jerry puzzle over the variables involved in getting this job done, I realize I'm about to take part in the most elaborate improv show I've ever seen. Jerry has never seen the drill rig or the pump we'll install other than in catalogs, never met anyone he'll be training other than the guy who will be interpreting, never so much as visited the country he's working in. And on the plane ride over we came to understand that we weren't sure exactly of the site, either. Jerry's been doing well drilling, in one capacity or another, for about 40 years, but still I'm amazed that he's not completely overwhelmed by the job.

Part 2: Lessons in Lingala

The official language of the DRC is French, but here in the northwestern part of the country most people are more likely to speak Lingala, so the little French I've picked up along the way isn't particularly useful here. Not that it would have been, anyway, since my conversational phrases feel weirdly out of place here. "What do you do with your life?" "This." "Where are you from?" "Here."

But I generally enjoy learning bits of languages, and Lingala has been no exception. Instead of boring you with grammar or linguistic tidbits I found interesting, though, I'll share this, which I am concerned I might be stealing from The Poisonwood Bible (if I am, I read it like 5 years ago and this is totally accidental) :

Life in the Congo is tough. In order to survive you have to be resourceful, which can often mean seeing all 5 of the uses any item is capable of. Lingala is kind of the same: it's a relatively sparse language with only 1200 words to its name, but what it lacks in variety it more than makes up for in linguistic dexterity. Thus, just as yesterday's trash becomes tomorrow's soccer ball with a little bit of adjusting, Lingala's yesterday ("lobí") is also its tomorrow ("lobí")...you just need to change the context.

Part 3: The psychology and theology of Congolese well drilling

"My feet are made of clay and they're expecting a miracle."

Jerry slumps down on the bed as he says this, rubbing his temples. We're getting ready for bed, and we've spent the day puzzling over how to best explain drilling and the hydrologic cycle and whatever else. For the first time I realize that Jerry is as intimidated and nervous about this project as I imagine I would be were I in his shoes. Probably more so, since he actually knows the challenges I'm only guessing at.

To me, this trip seems possible because Jerry undertook it. He came all this way, so obviously he thinks it can be done. For me, he's sort of the "higher power" that makes this project feel like a thing that can obviously be accomplished. But Jerry can't be Jerry's higher power. So as he sits on his bed, feeling overwhelmed, we talk about e challenges we foresee, and we pray like crazy for the rest.

Bangui, Central African Republic

2012-01-20T01:05:00.001-06:00

So the well drilling part of our trip has been put temporarily on hold while we wait for our bags to make their trip to Africa. Since the flight from Paris to Bangui only comes once a week, we're hoping the luggage comes on a freight plane shipment today, bringing Jerry and me a change or 3 of clothes and (more importantly) several tools for the well. If those come today, we'll cross the Ubangi River by canoe Saturday, and then hop on a bus to head to Elikya, a little community center near Gemena. (Handy maps included for reference). I'll tell you a bit about that place when we get there, but for now, here's a bit from Bangui, where we are currently staying.

Bangui is the capital of CAR, but with a population of 700,000 it doesn't feel unwieldy or very stressful at all. There are mostly dirt roads everywhere, the people are friendly, and I have only worried once that a car was going to run me over while walking on the side of the road. Electricity is on here for most of the day, with some scheduled and unscheduled lapses. I hear Bangui and the guest house we're staying in will feel like a vacation home compared to the setup at Elikya, so there's that.

The smell memory I'll probably bring home with me from this part of the trip is the smell of fire. The second we walked off the plane we were greeted with the smell of burning and smoke. Most people around here burn their trash, and it seems like something's always smoldering somewhere nearby. The visuals I'll take will all be colored red, like the dirt on the streets and the thin dusting that covers almost everything else.

Yesterday we went to the market. Lots of things to see and things to hear. Behold, I have a sight and a sound to share with you. Here's a picture of the market:

And if I did this right, here's a link to the sounds: http://db.tt/tIfrCgzj

In Transit

2012-01-18T14:43:00.001-06:00

I stood over my bags, preparing to zip up and head out the door for the airport. I paused briefly and considered putting a change of clothes in my carry-on, just in case. "Eh, who cares, really? If my bag gets lost (which it won't, duh), I can just wear the same clothes. It's dirty in Africa, so who cares, really?" I thought to myself.

Having so decided, I confidently closed my bags, went to the airport, and landed in Bangui, Central African Republic, without my bag, which stayed behind in Paris.

The good news, though, is that Jerry and I have safely arrived on this continent, and we only have an 8 hour or so bus ride to go before we're where we want to drill some water wells.

Congo Test Post

2012-01-16T18:51:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow morning I'm flying to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It's a three week trip, and I'm going to help my Uncle Jerry, who in addition to being a farmer from Western Nebraska has a long-standing tradition of traveling to places that need drinking water, sending a drill to that location, and then instead of simply drilling the well and leaving, trains locals on how to use the machinery while drilling the first well. Then he leaves the drill with them and they can drill more water wells. It's a pretty great system he (and my grandpa before him) have, and I'm really excited and petty proud to be partaking in this family tradition.

Anyway, I guess there will be power and Internet access at least some of most days, so I'm going to try to post some updates and photos etc while I'm on the road. I'm hoping to do this in the most lightweight way possible, which means that right now what I'm really doing is writing a test post for this particular writing and photo uploading workflow that will not require a computer. Anyway, stay tuned, and if you know someone who would like to know about the trip, send the link on to them, too!

of surgeons, snacks, and pee

2010-01-19T19:23:00.001-06:00

yesterday, i had to use the restroom between surgeries. i asked a secretary person in the OR where the nearest facilities were, and she led me to a staff lounge, telling me there was one in there. i walked in to the lounge and found two people eating food and talking. i found the bathroom and, eh, did what people do in the bathroom, and when i walked out, the guy eating a salad said to me "you know, there are lots of bathrooms around here. [he named an alternative location.] it's ok if you use this one [he said this in a way that meant it was not ok if i use that one], but when there are people eating here....it's just...[a long pause to let you know something special was about to come from this man's mouth]...the smell of the urine, and the food...it just makes me want to put a knife to someone's throat. [he actually said, with no trace of irony or sarcasm]."

there are probably 500 completely appropriate responses to such a comment that would unfortunately be completely inappropriate, given the context and my status (none. no status) at the hospital. so i went with a response that would only seem sarcastic if you realized how ridiculous that guy's statement was. "wow," i said, GRAVELY, "i certainly hope you don't cut anyone's neck on behalf of my urine's smell!"

he sighed heavily, so that i'd better understand the burden he was carrying for my sake, and he said, "no, it's alright...it's just...you know."

so i laughed and left the room.

ugh, the OR!!!

top albums of 2009

2010-01-08T19:30:00.019-06:00

10 sonic youth, the eternal

i'll be the first to admit that this is here because i love sonic youth more than because i love every last second of this album. but here's the thing: no matter how many of the lyrics are dumb (but sung as though they're awesome) or how much the song "anti-orgasm" feels pretty much like it was assembled specifically to annoy, those guitars are still...THOSE GUITARS. and sonic youth is still uncannily adept at building discordant note on discordant note and then instantly turning on a dime into moments of grin-inducing or jaw-dropping loveliness. and they still make music that can be simultaneously described as "noise" and "fantastic". and thurston moore still sounds like the coolest guy ever. and i still love listening to whatever they put out. so there.

09 grizzly bear, veckatimest

i'm really ambivalent about this album. on the one hand, yes, it is probably the most carefully and flawlessly assembled, arranged, and executed album this year, and the harmonies and reverb and instrumentation are always interesting, but somehow it just never all becomes the sum all those parts seem to be building toward. it's a bit like meeting a really pretty girl who dresses in unique scarves and sweaters, and you imagine she must be really cool and interesting, but then you start talking to her and realize...there's not much more there. that's this album, for me. so why is it on my list? that's the thing--that boring but pretty girl is still very pretty. and in this analogy, this album is a very, very pretty girl. you could sit and listen to this girl talk about jersey shore for several hours before you realized you were bored to tears.

08 metric, fantasies

metric's collection of infectious synthpop songs buffed to a superglossy shine won my ear's affections all year by giving every song at least 30 seconds of greatness, whether in an unforgettable chorus, with a badass guitar lick, or with emily haines and her careful, whispy voice (finally delivered with more rock star cool than pop princess cutesiness). it's impossible to listen to this album and not walk away humming SOMETHING from "help i'm alive" or "sick muse" or "gimme sympathy" or "stadium love" or...well, you get the idea. compared to their previous work, fantasies feels more substantial and grown up, a bit more varied, and maybe a little more willing to get dirty.

07 califone, all of my friends are funeral singers

this is probably as much as i can like an album without being surprised in the least by it. califone is just consistently great: unique songwriting, and always imaginative and original production that is somehow both fresh and yet familiarly and distinctly califone. as on previous albums, the adjectives "rusty", "weary", and "dusty" will probably never be more applicable to a band making music in the 21st century, and while in some ways this album feels like a continuation of roots and crowns, this is hardly rote repetition. it's just that this band has found a way to explore new and interesting sounds by digging deeper down instead of always searching for new ground. and it seems the further they dig, the more gold and diamonds they find.

06 a sunny day in glasgow, ashes grammar

this album was a great surprise for me this year. i enjoyed ASDIG's debut in 2007, but after a few listens, i felt the reverb:song ratio was just a little too high, and it seemed like repeated listens left me less and less to enjoy. ashes grammar, however, is filled to the brim with great ideas (and yes, reverb) and the perfect blending of programmed beats with pop and rock that is often (OFTEN!) attempted but rarely done well. i'm sorry for this, because ugh, another loveless reference, but i feel like this album and MBV's classic have a lot in common. in particular, i've really enjoyed the way this is both a headphone and speakers album, and can be both background/ambient, almost study music, or at a louder volume, a really intense listening experience that demands a listener's complete attention. it sounds almost every time i hear it like there's more going on than i've noticed before, and the discovery process the last several months has been a very rewarding one indeed.

05 animal collective, merriweather post pavillion

i suppose this exposes me as having missed the boat on the greatest visionaries of our time, but i've found myself enjoying animal collective more and more the more accessible they become. i LOVE their harmonies, vocals, and melodies. i am less interested in the plinkings and bleeps of whatever electronics they're into this week. and this album showcases the best songwriting of AC's career while relying less on their experimental tendencies. the result this time is an album full of great music, and several songs i'll still be listening to when i'm 40. "my girls", "bluish", and "brother sport" in particular are pretty much masterpieces. there are a few songs that sort of drag for me, but every song has SOME moment of staggering immensity, like they're singing to me from the top of the grand canyon, and i never find myself wanting to skip ahead. just a really great album, and really 5 is probably too low for this album, but this was just a very good year for music.

04 phoenix, wolfgang amadeus phoenix

pop music: fun, sure. enjoyable, sounds great at a party. but how good can it really be? well, it can be this good. on very rare occasions, pop music can be this good. everything in this album--every acoustic guitar layered lightly in the back of the mix, each practically metronomic click and snap of the drums, every synth tone and note everywhere, and even every single gosh darn crack in thomas mars' voice--feel so perfectly placed that you'd swear it was all made by computers from the future if it didn't also sound so refreshingly organic and full of life. "lisztomania" and "1901" are the best possible versions of the incredible album opener some band you've never heard of and never hear from again occasionally comes up with, and "love like a sunset" is apparently just there to show you that these guys can make the slow-building ambient song some bands spend an entire career trying to write, as pretty much just a really long intro to ANOTHER super cool song. and that's just side 1! can you tell from my run-on and poorly worded sentences how much i like this album?!? (a lot! i like a lot!)

03 st. vincent, actor

i've heard lots of people call this music "dreamy", and that definitely fits. annie's guitar wizardry definitely often feels otherworldly, and this album often seems and sounds in particular like the kind of dream where everything is going along swimmingly as you walk through some fantastical forest, and then you discover a lovely little flower, which when you stoop to smell turns out to be one small part of an enormous monster that slowly rises above you and attempts to eat you. have you ever had that dream? no? well, the album always feels simultaneously beautiful and dangerous, lovely and disturbing, like at any moment some dark, distorted guitar could swoop in and turn everything into chaos. the songwriting here is stronger than marry me, as is the production and range of the songs. this is a fantastic second outing from ms. clark which somehow avoided being a personal disappointment despite my probably ridiculous expectations after her impressive and memorable debut.

02 antlers, hospice

a few months ago, my first patient died. she was in her mid-50's, and had watched for several years with her family as the cancer that began in her colon slowly advanced, winning battles against surgeries and chemotherapy and claiming more and more territory as it spread to her lungs and liver and brain. when she came to the emergency department the first time i saw her, she was so weak she struggled to swallow, and she was in so much pain that simply articulating the need for more pain medication required an immense effort of concentration and will. despite her obviously terminal condition, her family resisted beginning hospice care, which would have meant not pursuing further curative treatments, but would have also meant nurses coming to her house and keeping her comfortable instead of weekly emergency visits to the hospital to try once again to manage her pain and progressing organ failure. over the 2 weeks she was at the hospital, i was puzzled by the family's refusals until i sat with a resident as she carefully explained to the patient's daughter and mother that she was dying, that there was nothing medicine could do to heal her, and that the best we could offer was to ease her passing. the patient's mother listened quietly, and after a long pause, asked why a surgery that had been performed shortly after diagnosis hadn't worked. and suddenly i understood that even though she had witnessed her daughter's irreversible decline, and perhaps knew on some level beneath her denial that the fight was over, she just wasn't ready to face that fact, to admit defeat. hospice, to her, was a surrender she couldn't accept. we talked further, and as the four of us cried together, they came to understand and accept her death. a few days later the struggle was over, and we cried together again, the patient resting peacefully at last, released.

for me, hospice's story of a man's relationship with a cancer patient carries in its alternatively terrified and grieving lyrics and heartbroken vocals the heavy feeling of the hallway outside that patient's door, the lightness of the release of death, and the darkness of the room's drawn windows the morning my patient died. because every listen must be from beginning to end, and because it's such an experience of sadness and devastation, i've never listened so little to an album i love so much. but every time i do, its honesty, emotion, and beauty more than restore what it takes.

01 dirty projectors, bitte orca

i haven't ridden them all, so i can't say for sure, but i'm willing to bet that there's more stunning, surprising, and exciting twists and turns in the first minute of this album than in any roller coaster ever built. the labyrinthine song structures, and the virtuosic performances thereof, are worth the listen merely to map new sonic territory in your brain: "this, too, is possible!". but this is more than just a proof of concept--there are great songs here, with incredible hooks, soaring melodies, and some really good lyrics. most reviews i've read talk about this album as a cerebral, test-tubey sort of affair, and i guess i get what they're getting at, but if this is a science project, it's happening in the middle of a 3-ring circus, right between 4 motorcycles riding in the globe cage and the man taming the tiger with the chair and whip, and directly underneath the tightrope walker juggling 6 flaming torches while riding a unicycle. yes. that is the science project this album sounds like. regardless of all of that, this album was by far the most consistent, interesting, enjoyable record i heard all year, and it has proven very durable in the face of incessantly repeated listens. and as a bonus, i got to see them live and left even more blown away by the mastery that went into each every song. my favorite album of a year full of really great albums.

my proudest achievement

2009-10-30T17:04:00.002-05:00

today at the hospital i got to shoot lidocaine into a patient's chest, cut into it with a scalpel, and then squeeze all the pus out. it was the greatest thing i'd done all day until i ate ribs for lunch and didn't spill any bbq sauce on my white coat or shirt or tie or pants. all in all, obviously, a great day.

...started makin' trouble in my neighborhood

2009-10-18T10:23:00.003-05:00

last weekend we had a couchsurfer from belgium stay with us. he had a pretty extensive knowledge of the united states, which had been almost entirely formed by his experience watching american tv shows. he knew that east st. louis is a bad town because of a simpsons reference, he went to baltimore because of the wire, his trip planning was based on a philosphy espoused by george constanza, and his expectations of the chicago suburbs was framed by family matters.

so when he arrived by train in philadelphia and noticed that he was in a fairly rough part of town, he figured he must have disembarked in the western part of the city, because "in west philadelphia, born and raised/on the playground is where i spent most of my days..."

incidentally, this only serves to advance my long-held belief that knowledge of at least most of the words to that theme song is a universality among people of a certain age, regardless of where in the US you're from. when i was studying in spain i was delighted to find that my teachers knew the song--in spanish! (i recorded them performing it, and i still remember how it starts: "al oeste philadelphia, vivia y crecia/sin hacer mucho caso a la policia"). and so the legend grows--i think i'm ready to modify the theory to the entire western hemisphere. next i need to start asking people from south america if the words "the license plate said fresh and there was dice in the mirror" mean anything to them. i'll keep you updated...

the politics is always the last to go.

2009-10-15T16:27:00.005-05:00

dementia and senility are pretty scary things. i can't say what it's like to experience them myself, but i do know that it can be disturbing to watch someone slowly lose their mind. and i think it's even harder to watch someone be confronted with what they've lost, because while the mental decline is a slow, insidious process, the moments of realization are usually very sudden, jarring episodes of realizing that while the patient wasn't looking, things have been slowly disappearing.

yesterday, my team of doctors interviewed a lady in her 70's who came into the hospital when she told her daughter that there were "little people" surrounding her in her kitchen. "i know it's silly," she said as we talked, trying to hide her embarrassment with a self-conscious chuckle, "but i believe they were there to punish me. i really do believe that." as her mom complained that the hospital stole her trash can and her cell phone, her daughter told us she'd been forgetting things more and more over the past year, but this recent decline was sudden and unprecedented.

doctors use something called a mini mental status exam to assess basic mental function in this kind of setting, both at a given moment, and its change from day to day. it consists of a series of simple questions, the answers to which are recorded. so we began:

"do you know where you are right now?"

"why do people keep asking me that?!? of course i know where i am! it's a..." and here she paused, realizing she didn't have the word she wanted, and apparently looking on the floor around her for where she'd misplaced it.

"it's a place where people go when they're sick. does that help?"

"don't rush me!", she snapped.

after a few minutes, we told her she was in the hospital, and asked the next question:

"what year is it?"

"1999", she answered confidently.

"who is the president?"

she paused, and then unmistakably, a light came on--she knew this one.

"obama," she scoffed in disgust, rolling her eyes and glancing at us with a look on her face that said "and you people think I'M crazy?!?"

now in convenient travel size!

2009-10-01T18:51:00.004-05:00

hello, blogland readers! it's been awhile, i realize that. and i can understand if you're mad. or you just don't come here any more. that's ok. but i've been doing some thinking about you all, and about the blog, and i've come here to tell you something.

first, the obvs: med school is really busy! it's busy, like, all the time! and i find myself with little time to tell you all the funny or sad or touching anecdotes that talking to sick people all day can bring at the same time that i find myself in the midst of many such anecdotes. it's sad, and a little overwhelming. i keep wanting to tell you all about all the things, but the longer i wait the more impossible it becomes to catch up. and on top of all of that (!), i really miss you all, and i wish i had some way to be in communication with the many people i like and care about but do not come into contact on a daily or weekly or even semi-annual basis. (even if that communication is only mostly one-way...at least i'll feel like we're all still together somehow. or that you haven't forgotten me).

so i'm taking the advice my mother gave me when as a kid i'd let my room get a little too dirty to conceivably ever get it cleaned in time to go to my friend's house: start small. in my room's case, that meant cleaning one corner and going from there. in the blog's case, it means i'm making thejeremydiaries travel sized. on your right, you can see a twitter feed. that's right, i have a twitter account. and with this twitter account, i can post various tidbits about my life from my phone, whenever i have a minute. you can come here and see what's the latest, or you can go to twitter.com/jeremydiaries . if you are also a twitter person, you can follow me...i imagine you know how to do that already.

finally, i wouldn't say i've given up on posting actual things here. and when i do post things here, i'll probably link them in my twitter feed. so now you can always know what's happening in my blogland. and hopefully that will be more than nothing.

currently listening to:

2009-04-15T17:28:00.005-05:00

1. "that's brilliant! it's like a no-lose situation! except for the people who lose."

--kim, about online auction site swoopo.com.

2. medical student ryan interviews a 77 year-old woman with an acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive lung disease:

ryan: about how much coughing have you been doing, ma'am?
woman: oh, about 3 cups.
ryan: 3 cups! of sputum?
woman: sputum? ...it's decaf.

3. "...it's just, I'M KENNY POWERS! AND I'M VERY UPSET WITH HOW I'M ACTING RIGHT NOW...BUT I'M NOT GOING TO STOP YELLING, BECAUSE THEN THAT'LL MEAN I LOST THE FIGHT!"

sorry about the long-term delay in posting there. it got busy around here, and then i finished my last final exams in med school, and (spoiler alert) kim went to china and (spoiler alert) never posted about it on the blog. we'll be right back with more of the news and information you always come here for after these messages.

the best part of waking up...

2009-03-12T21:12:00.003-05:00

i have no idea how, but this blog has thus far managed to remain free of probably the most compelling reason for me to get out of bed when my alarm goes off in the morning. and really, there's some much more exciting news that kim will probably tell you about in the next couple days, but for whatever reason, i thought i'd post a bit about my love for making espresso.

here's my setup. the espresso machine (on the right) is from a spanish company called ascaso, and the grinder is from the italian company rancilio. it is basically impossible for you, reader, to imagine (1) how many completely uninteresting facts there are to discuss about these machines and especially the ins and outs of pulling shots of espresso, and (2) how much restraint it is requiring of me to not write out said uninteresting facts. so, instead of all that information, here's a picture of yesterday's drink, which summarizes my feelings nicely:

weather can NOT make it better

2009-03-07T00:07:00.008-06:00

so that picture down there was just about the last time i ever saw my bike. when i finished studying about 2 hours after i took that picture, i moved it to another bike rack downtown, locked it on the standard chicago bike rack with the extra safe lock (thanks, kryptonite) and left it there for about 4 hours while i went to see a play with kim. and then i went to get it, and it was gone. no trace, no wheel, no chain, no busted lock, just gone.

: (

weather can make it better

2009-03-06T14:51:00.007-06:00

oh my gosh you guys, have you been outside? it's so nice outside today!!! my computer says it's 67º! (i know because i am inside with my computer, and it tells me how nice it is outside while i study and observe that it certainly LOOKS nice out there from in here with my books.) on sunday it was blowing snow so hard at night that the snow drifts were stuck to the side of our house on monday morning! and today it's like summer outside. i unwrapped my bike from its winter cocoon of tarp and ropes and cleaned it up just so i could ride downtown and study this afternoon. that's my bike right there--look how happy it is be have its chain nice and greased up, sitting downtown in the sunlight. i'm surprised it didn't get rickets from not getting any sunlight all winter. i'm really surprised about that. that it didn't get a vitamin d deficiency and then osteomalacia from its 3 months without sunlight. isn't that really surprising? i'm really glad my bike doesn't have rickets. oh, these medical jokes just NEVER stop being funny. right, guys?

Kim vs. The City of Chicago

2009-02-24T12:29:00.002-06:00

So the City of Chicago's excellent customer service is of course world renowned. Once I called to try and pay the bill for our building's water service and they threatened to call the cops on me. But that's another story. This one also involves the police, but it has pictures!

A few days ago, I was driving under a bridge, as is my custom. I was peering through the darkness towards the light at the other side, but unbeknownst to me, directly in my path lay a Car-Devouring-Pothole-Of-Epic-Proportions. About 4 feet long, 1-2 feet wide, and 8 inches deep. Here is Mr. Pothole.

My car hit the edge and the two passenger side tires exploded. Here are the Ol' Exploded Tires.

About 30 seconds after my incident, a car behind me did the exact same thing, and in the next hour, a total of 4 cars are parked on the side of the road.

One of us wisely says that if we're going to get the city to help pay for the damage, we have to get a police report. So we call the police.
Police: "Oh. That's not an emergency. We don't come for that. Call 311."

So we call 311.
Us: "Hi. Our car was just damaged by a giant pothole, and there are at least 3 other people who've also hit it."
311: (pause) "So what do you want me to do about it?"
Us: "Well... we need to get a report so we can file a claim with the city, and you should probably send someone over to set up a barricade or something."
311: "We can't help you with claims. You need a police report. But here's a number to call."

So we call the number.
Number: "To find out more about exciting events in Chicago this summer, press 2!"

Finally a cop drives by and we flag him down. "It's not that bad. I've seen worse," he says, while tires explode in the background. He doesn't write reports for potholes, he says, but he gives us a number to call.

So we call this number.
Number: "To find out more about exciting events in Chicago this summer, press 2!"

We finally give up on this and get ourselves towed away and everything fixed up, for a grand total of $300. Here's a picture of that:

Now begins the real fun.

I go on the City website to get the claim form. This is what I discover:
1. The form must be typed and mailed in. Only, there isn't really a form. Just a poorly formatted online fill-in-the-blank that can neither be submitted online NOR printed out without erasing the answers. So I guess you have to print it out and feed it into an actual typewriter.

2. You must include with your claim two written estimates of the cost of repair as well as your paid bill. So... once you have made the repairs, it seems that you must drive around and ask people how much it costs to make the repairs.

3. You must include with your claim.... a police report.

So I call the police.
Police: "You don't need a police report."
Me: "Well, it seems there's some confusion about that."
Police: "We don't do potholes."
Me: "Well, what else should I use to prove this happened?"
Police: "You need a reference number from 311."

So I call 311:
Me: "I need to get a reference number for a pothole incident so I can make a claim."
311: "No you don't. You need a police report."

And that's when my head exploded, just like my tires. The end.

Overheard at the Old Job (R.I.P.) - Part 2

2009-02-20T14:45:00.005-06:00

Since you (yes, all 3 of you) seemed to enjoy the last installment, here are a few more "overheards." This time, we're moving on to employees. This woman is one of the most kindhearted, giving, impossibly cheerful, and puzzling people I've ever met.

Story #1:

Maria comes into work and announces that she lost $20.
Kim: Oh bummer! What happened?
Maria: I think I dropped it. But it's okay. Last time it was $600.
Kim: What?!
Maria: Well, I put it in my pants and it fell out.
Kim: You put it in your pocket?
Maria: No. In my pants.
kim: Like, IN your pants?
Maria: Yeah. I don't have pockets.
Kim: Uh... so you just shoved it in the waistband?
Maria: Well I put it in a napkin first!
And she continues, "So i decided to go to Walmart. And I was walking around... and I felt something fall, and I looked down. But it was a napkin, so i thought - oh it's just a napkin. And i didn't want to pick up a dirty napkin."

Let me recap. The woman has SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS in a napkin shoved in her pants. And she FEELS THE NAPKIN FALL. And she leaves it there. Because WHO WANTS TO PICK UP A DIRTY NAPKIN?

Story #2:
So Maria is at the computer typing and moaning.
Kim: Uh Maria, are you okay?
Maria: Nuuhhhoooohhh. (but still staring at the screen, not moving, continuing to type fervently)
Kim: Well you can go walk around if you want. Maybe get some pepto bismol?
Maria: Uuuuggghhhh.
Kim: Really, it's okay if you want to leave the office for a while.
Maria: Uuuugghhhh.
Kim: Wow. Really hurts huh?
Maria: Lifting up her shirt and rubbing her plump but completely normal mid-section, "Yes!! Just look at it!!"

(I later asked why she thought her stomach hurt, and she told me it was because she ate tomatoes on Tuesday.) (Three days ago.)

Overheard at the Old Job (R.I.P.)

2009-02-15T14:15:00.006-06:00

Hi folks. Kim here. So I was just cleaning out my old drafts folder and came across a message that I'd use to keep a running record of things I overheard at my old office - specifically comments from my boss, Barb. And I just need someone to share them with.

* * * *

(Friday morning, and Barb is preparing to use our weekly team meeting to show us how to make one of those paper finger games that you used to play in 4th grade.)
Barb: "We're going to use it to learn something."
Employee: "Like how to teach letters and numbers and colors!"
Barb: "No. Something better than that. That's boring."

* * * *

(Regarding mentoring and training employees.)
Thursday: "You can't teach anyone anything by just handing them the manual."
Friday, while distributing manuals: "You should all read this. I'll copy it. Just read this and then you'll understand."

* * * *

(After a particularly convoluted monologue by Barb to the employees.)
Employee: "I'm feeling confused."
Barb: "That's how it gets this time of year."

* * * *

(Regarding a job applicant who has her M.Ed. in English instruction)
"I was really impressed! She understood everything I was saying, even though she's from Poland!"

* * * *

(Regarding another African American job applicant.)
"Oh, she's quick. She's got street smarts. She's learned a lot from life out there on the streets."

* * * *

(Regarding a school principal named Mr. Kim who was not returning her calls.)
Barb: "It's because of his culture. They don't care about family over there."
Kim: "Where is he from?"
Barb: "Probably Asia."
(Turns out he was on vacation.)

* * * *

(Regarding an employee.)
"The thing is, she's from Michigan, and from a certain area, and I've learned - Michigan women have a certain way of doing things. And they want it done that way. They're very controlling."

* * * *

Under the category "Unprompted, Random and Abrupt":
1. Walks in the room and declares, "By the way, Willis is getting fur."
(Sorry, were we talking? And do I know this "Willis"?)

2. Phone rings, I answer, Barb - phoning from the room next door - says, "What video thing?!" (I don't KNOW "What video thing..." YOU'RE the one calling ME!)

3. Standing by the copier, exclaims to no one in particular, "Special ed. Those teachers make a lot more money than you or I. $80,000! Ha ha ha!"

* * * *

Oh, how I wish I had recorded the hundred bazillion more...

even med students skip class for history

2009-01-23T07:39:00.003-06:00

actually, that's a misleading headline, because med students skip class all the time. for anything, but especially to study. but here's a picture of some med students who skipped class specifically for history.

top albums of 2008, part 2

2009-01-14T21:07:00.012-06:00

here continues the list of album joy and fun! scroll down for more info about 10-6, but to recap without spoiling everything if you're just joining us:

10: emiliana torrini, armani and me
09: the dodos, visiter
08: q-tip, the renaissance
07: deerhunter, microcastle
06: sigur rós, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

and now, for the conclusion:

05 girl talk, feed the animals

lots has been written about this album, about what it means for Big Important Issues like Music and Art and...Copyright Law. (i assume this is how the editors of time and rolling stone think about and enjoy music). but while i'm not sure how stitching musical sources across 50 years, sometimes one second at a time, is any less original that writing a song that goes G-C-D and then...wait for it...Em-Am for the bridge!, i honestly don't care about the implications and what it all means for The Future of the Industry. (i like how the logical extension of my not using caps for my own thoughts is to use caps excessively for ideas i want to make fun of. makes sense to me!). what i do care about is the way this album is a party on my hard drive, or the way the guitar solo from "bohemian rhapsody" comes on over the jackson 5, combining two of my favorite songs into something not just interesting, and not just danceable, but truly moving. if you haven't heard this yet, forget everything you've read, and just enjoy the ridiculous rush you'll get.

highlights: play your part (pt. 1), what it's all about, play your part (pt. 2)

04 mgmt, oracluar spectacular

an interesting quirk the internet age of easy music acquisition has brought about for me personally is that, since it's so easy to get music, i usually only read about 2 paragraphs about a band or hear one solid recommendation from a friend before i check it out. so (despite the fact that i also read an awful lot of internet news and information about bands) i often hear bands out of their particular context, and for example in this instance i hear a band without the knowledge that these guys are probably kind of tools. because these guys are probably tools, everybody. but this album--dang! this album has a couple of my favorite songs from this past year (regardless of release year), and hearing them helped me through a particularly crappy stretch of life last year wherein my grandpa died in the middle of what my classmates and i will probably remember as the worst 3 weeks of medical school, and i didn't have much besides the first 30 seconds of "time to pretend" to be happy about. as a whole, i feel like the album's a little uneven and gets a little light on the back half (for which reason it's not higher), but half of this album is an incredible debut, regardless of how much makeup these guys wear, or how much stupid stuff they manage to cram into an interview.

highlights: time to pretend, electric feel, kids

03 tv on the radio, dear science

track 1 isn't the same total mindjob that "i was a lover" brought last time out, but it is a completely engaging opener that had my headphones stuck in my ears until the last song faded out. in fact, i think it's safe to say this whole album isn't as good as cookie mountain. most people say this album is their best at approximating their live experience, but since i've only seen them play once, when their young liars EP had just come out (i think it's safe to say they've evolved a bit since), i can't really comment on that. but i DO know that this album feels packed tight with ideas, styles, and energy, and most notably and importantly, a total confidence and assurance while playing and developing a completely unique sound and voice. that's the thing about these guys--they have an identity that is solid, distinct, and they aren't afraid to throw it around a little--they can play a prince-y kind of song and not sound like someone trying to do prince, because they still sound like tv on the radio. even the ballads, which should have made this sort of uneven and a bummer, are some of my favorites, and one of the album's biggest surprises for me was how they could still sound so big and powerful and so...like them, while playing such subdued and quiet stuff. ok, it's true--i'm a fan, and even when i admit an album's not as good as the last one, it's still a favorite. i admit it, and i can't wait to hear what's next.

02 frightened rabbit, the midnight organ fight

where would art be without love? the english language would probably not be where it is today were it not for shakespeare's sonnets, and spain wouldn't have had an edad de oro if it weren't for bécquer's "rimas" (well, and a host of other incredible pieces about lovers' eyes and arms and fingers and etc), and needless to say there wouldn't have been any of that without lovers, and therefore without love. but pop music has found an even more fertile ground than being in love: not being in love anymore. sure, the beatles wrote "and i love her", but they also wrote "for no one", and is there really any debate which song is better? (no, there is not). and so we come to this album, a broken-hearted, defiant, grieving, love-lorn, blood-and-guts-honest break-up record. while i really enjoy some of the lyrics here (ex: "should look through some old photos/i adored you in every one of those/if someone took a picture of us now/they'd need to be told that we had ever clung on tight/and maybe not with arms at night/'i'd say she was his sister but she doesn't have his nose.'"), i can't say that what he's saying brings me back to painful breakups in my past or anything like that. but on a level of meaning and understanding that doesn't have anything to do with words, i feel the loss and grief and bitterness and healing, and beyond that the need to feel life and humanity, and to be human.

highlights: good arms vs. bad arms, the twist, poke

01 department of eagles, in ear park

there are lots of ways to enjoy music, and lots of responses to its enjoyment. list-making, and/or attempts to objectively evaluate music relative to other albums or on its own, is one small part of that world of music enjoyment/appreciation that maybe gets too much emphasis, especially when compared to purely visceral responses that the right song (or words, or melody, or just 2 seconds of sound) can at times elicit. (this is, by the way, more or less the idea mitchell and i were trying to get at with this year's PSA). this album, for whatever reason, made all kinds of moments just like that for me--the first notes feel to me like being immersed in some new wonderworld where everything's simultaneously old and incredibly new, like the first sounds you've ever heard. it feels like i always imagined lucy felt, emerging from the back of the wardrobe--it's all mystical and strange but somehow also familiar. it's just a snowy wood, but it's a snowy wood that you found in the back of a closet. and then there's a talking animal, and even though it seems like you're dreaming, it also feels super...real. i suppose i ought to talk about what about the production makes me feel that way, or how the lyrics evoke such fanciful things, but here instead: my mouth-gaped response to a really fine album.

highlights: no one does it like you, teenagers, herringbone

so that's my list. it was a tough task this year, and one i did with less certainty than in previous years: if i'd made this 2 weeks ago, it would have been very different--half of these might not have been here, and i have no idea what would have been #1. but here it is, for all internet eternity: my favorites of 2008.

top albums of 2008, part 1

2009-01-14T19:36:00.011-06:00

i've never been much for these kinds of statements, but i have to say that in the 8 years i've been making a year-end list, this is the least excited i've been about a year's albums, and the first year i didn't really feel like any particular album was my favorite favorite favorite of the last 12 months. i'm not sure if that's music's fault or mine, but in any case, it took me a fair amount of work to pick my favorites this year, not because there were so many vying for my attention, but because i just wasn't that crazy about most of the stuff i heard this year. that's not to say there wasn't any good music--i DO consistently enjoy these albums and a few others that came out this year. anyway, without further ado, here's 10-6 of 2008:

10 emiliana torrini, me and armini

my medical school friend and dyad ernesto told me i needed to hear this album, and i'm really glad he did. her voice is so smokey, laid-back, and downright sexy that i guess a comparison to norah jones is unavoidable, but this is ms. jones if she wasn't...well, mostly so boring. the songs here feel unpredictable and never feel like recycled sounds, and are much better for it. torrini writes pretty straightforward pop songs, but she's got the voice and pop sensibilities to do it and do it well ("big jumps" is the sort of song industry types probably say will "make her a star" in press junkets or at meetings), and the lyrics and melody to give you something to remember when it's over. light and fluffy like desert, but substantial and filling like dinner. ah, food similes for music--they're never wrong.

highlights: fireheads, big jumps, jungle drum

09 the dodos, visiter

here's to minimalism, and here's to unadorned, unembellished, no-frills music. what i heard the first time through this album, and what was underscored seeing them live this summer, is the way this group's nearly simplistic approach to music (two guys bang the crap out of everything within reach, usually including guitars) allows them a complexity and intensity a 10-piece blog-hype band with strings and an accordion can't create. in his triumphant return to blogging, my buddy aaron wrote that it's the percussion, and not the melodies he usually loves music for, that keeps him coming back to this album, but i'd say it's the musicality and melodic nature of the percussion that makes it so special. sometimes all the banging and clanging seems to give depth and, well, complexity to what would otherwise be a pretty thin outing, despite some very good songwriting, which by the way is why i'll be looking forward to what these guys do next.

highlights: walking, fools, winter

08 q-tip, the renaissance

"sometimes i phase out
when i look at the screen
when i think about my chance for me to intervene
and it’s up to me to bring back the hope-
feeling in the music that you could quote
not saying that I hate it cause here
i kinda dig it
but what good is a ear
if a q-tip isn’t in it?"

none, q-tip. no good. no good at all without a q-tip in it. look, i'm not a hip-hop expert by any means, but a tribe called quest's first two albums are by far two of my favorites of the genre, so i was really looking forward to q-tip's first solo album in 8 years for several months before it came out. and i wasn't disappointed at all--i love his voice, his flow, and he's a great producer, both for the way his beats match his lyrics, and also for the great instrumental performances all over the album. too many mc's get locked into a particular musical sound and rarely venture elsewhere, but this album stays fresh and interesting and all over the map until the end. also, that's a slick cover.

highlights: johnny is dead, won't trade, shaka

07 deerhunter, microcastle

in the past several years, i've really grown to love a fair amount of electronic, experimental, kinda off the wall stuff. i really like the feeling that i'm hearing something i've never heard before, and i suppose as someone who enjoys the discovery of new music, it makes sense that that's a high value for me. but my greatest weakness will always be the guitar--for example a nice, crunchy, overdriven sound, like the chord that opens this album. there's just nothing like it, and those tones and that emphasis on the guitar, both to play both straightforward rock and also some more sprawling, reverb-drenched classic bradford cox music, is all over this album. and so, here it is on my end of year list. this album is deceptively and very subtly intricate, and i was pleasantly surprised on my 5th time or so through the album to still be noticing so much happening behind the curtain for the first time--a definite grower for me, and one i expect i will continue to enjoy in the future.

highlights: agoraphobia, little kids, nothing ever happened

06 sigur ros, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

the album didn't turn out to be the huge stylistic shift "gobbledigook" seemed to herald, but looking back over their recorded output, it makes sense to interpret sigur ros' artistic development as one of their 9:00 slow burning songs, slowly building and beautifully unfolding along the way. this album is one more slow movement toward something new, and once again the journey is as rewarding as whatever i can hope the destination will be. when i think about sigur ros' albums, i tend to think of moments more than songs or movements, and this album is bursting with enough moments of pure, bombastic, joyful release and twinkling, jittery, blissed out sugar-highs to more than make up for the few spots where things drag a little. i can't wait to see where they're headed next!

highlights: Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, Við spilum endalaust, Festival

ok, that's all i have time to write tonight--stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion tomorrow!

kim's great adventure, in photographs, part 2

2009-01-09T16:17:00.003-06:00

when kim left california, she flew up the coast to seattle, where (of course) she took more pictures. and i (of course) am showing you, because (of course) they are AWESOME! enjoy:

albums of the year not of the year, 2008

2009-01-05T17:17:00.010-06:00

last year i started a new list-making tradition: i list my favorite albums i discovered in the year that weren't actually released that year. i really liked going through itunes and finding the stuff i really liked--since music often serves as a placemarker for events and phases in life, it was an interesting way to review the year. so i'm doing it again this year, although i'm already bending the rules a bit (this year i've got a discography on there, AND an album i heard several years ago). let the fun begin:

once OST, glen hansard et al (2006)

i heard "falling slowly" the year it came out, and i thought it was a tremendous song. i saw their oscar performance and was touched by their humility and the way they called marketa irglova back on stage. and i'd heard the movie was really, truly good. but for some reason i never saw the movie or heard the soundtrack...i just missed it, and that song sounded to me exactly like the one awesome song an okay artist makes. and besides, i hate musicals, and movies about music almost always disappoint for either having bad music or bad...movieness (usually it's the music). but at some point this year kim and i watched the movie, and for once (lol) there's a movie about a musician who wants to write good music where...(wait for it) the musician actually writes good music! the scene where they play "falling slowly" for the first time is great because of the way it contributes to the story, and to the development of the relationship, and because it so inspired me to go and create something. and it turns out that not only is that not the only good song on the album, it might not even be the best--"lies" and "say it to me" would also compete for that title in my book. i'm talking a fair amount about the movie, but while the movie augments the music, the soundtrack stands on its own as a really fine collection of songs.

fela kuti's entire discography (1970-onward)

i saw "the visitor" this summer, and if you were sitting next to me at the movie, when the african guy says to the white guy, "victor! you've never heard fela?!?" you would have seen me get my pen and my trusty booklet out and, by light of iphone, write "fela kuti!!". these albums were so influential that you've heard their influence 20 times this week in songs not written by fela kuti. the music is so much more than a reference point, though--it's funky, tight, danceable, groovy, and it sounds like an incredible party is happening whenever you hear it, but it's also kind of...beautiful, and moving. i can't really summarize a music legend's entire recorded output in this paragraph, so...i don't know. take that guy in the movie's advice and check it out!

the motorcycle diaries OST, various artists (2004)

this is turning out to be a pretty movie-centric list this year, which seems decidedly un-music snob of me, but given that i'm here writing a year-end list of albums that weren't from the year, i guess either my snobbery is not in danger or it cannot be escaped. it wasn't that long ago that i talked about this movie here, so i won't again. and i would say it's possible that this music wouldn't be very enjoyable for me without the movie, but i would also say i don't really care--when i realized that the movie, like every other movie, probably had a soundtrack, and then i got the soundtrack, i was pretty happy. and then i listened to it, and that made me happy, too. so i listened to it some more and i still listen to it, and it makes me happy.

in an aeroplane over the sea, neutral milk hotel (1998)

i'm cheating here because i heard this album for the first time quite awhile ago. and it seemed like an ok album, and i guess i got why people thought it was a classic--i figured it was one of the first really indie records to sort of have that bookish-sounding kind of whiney singer, and it had that lo-fi sound and raw playing style that made it sound like an indie rock cornerstone, and there was the anne frank connection, etc etc...and i guess my curiosity was satisfied after one listen.

but some press about this album's 10th anniversary got me to check it out again, and i was BLOWN AWAY. this is the sort of album that begs essays to be written about each song, to have every word turned over and discussed in long, intense conversations that last way longer than the album does, so you put it on repeat while you talk about it because you want to hear it while you discuss it. it seems like every measure of every song was carefully constructed and considered--the musicality and sounds of the words are flawlessly matched to the melody and rhythm of the music.

but it's not just the sounds: the lyrics are brutally honest and clear, devastating in their ability to depict, in specific scenes and stories, what feels like the breadth of humanity--conception, birth, innocence, growth, love, learning, losing innocence, remembering, death, forgetting or being forgotten. aaron and i were having one of those intense, long conversations about the album, and we talked about how opener "king of carrot flowers, part 1" acts as a thesis for the whole album, from the opening line's "when you were young..." to describing the rich world of imagination of youth and the possibilities and horrors it begins, and then the ruthless, wrenching loss of growing up. the album can't be summed up with one song, but i'm going to try anyway by showing a snippet of "holland, 1945", which begins with "the only girl i ever loved was born with roses on her eyes" and concludes:

"And here's where your mother sleeps
And here is the room where your brothers were born
Indentions in the sheets
Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore
And it's so sad to see the world agree
That they'd rather see their faces fill with flies
All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes"

actually, that didn't do it. you should just go listen to it.

kim is a super photographer (pictures from our trip)

2009-01-03T22:31:00.005-06:00

kim got a new camera for christmas, and that ought to mean more quality (non image search result) pictures around here. she spent quite a lot of time getting used to all the dials and whatsits and thingamabobs, and took a lot of pictures along the way. here's some of those pictures! click "fullscreen" if you only see blackness. because she figured out enough to take more than just blackness.

california!

nebraska!

no, seriously--we made tunnels! TUNNELS!!!

2009-01-02T10:24:00.005-06:00

if you read the last post and thought "those tunnels are the coolest things i've ever heard about anyone doing in the history of people doing things!", you're in luck, because this post is also about those same tunnels. if you had any reaction even a tiny bit smaller than that, you might find this a little boring. unless you enjoy watching people awkwardly falling over, or the sound of people laughing at people awkwardly falling over, in which case i might have a little something for you. because this is going to be all about that:

here's kim going in and then coming out of two of the tunnels. the third entrance is in the foreground. you can tell by how big it is and how long it takes kim to come out that the tunnels are really cool.

but don't just take my word for it! here's some footage of kim going through the tunnels with the camera. you're looking at some fine craftsmanship there, believe me.

and finally, here's kim destroying the tunnels at the end of our trip. i'm not sure what, exactly, about this is so funny, but as you can hear from michael's uproarious laughter in the background and my snickering behind the camera, it definitely is. maybe it's kim's extra layers of clothing and the way they make her sort of flop out onto the snow, or the sound she makes when she hits the ground, or the way the ground seems to suck her in after a second...whatever it is, it's the good times.

today kim and i go our separate ways: i'm leaving california to go back to chicago so i can start school again on monday, and kim heads up to seattle to visit the piestch's (they of the creative ways to play baseball with food) for a few days. travel!

christmas and beyond

2008-12-28T09:15:00.002-06:00

hello readership! i am writing you from our most excellent holiday adventure. right now we're in the snowy mountains of southern california with kim's family, frolicking in the snow and relaxing in a cabin next to big bear lake. just before this, we were in nebraska for a few days to celebrate christmas over there, too. somehow we managed to leave snowy, blustery chicago to arrive in lincoln, where it was even colder, leaving only to come to rainy southern california and then to the ice-cold mountains, while lincoln and chicago warmed up to somewhere around 60 degrees. it's bad luck, but we've made the most of it. yesterday we recognized the virgin 2-3 feet of snow in the back yard as the perfect playground opportunity and made a series of tunnels which are, in my opinion, super awesome. SUPER! the photo above is of a portion of our tunnel system and was taken by occasional blog photograph contributor michael chan.

this break has been very much needed after a pretty brutal finals stretch to finish out the semester, and i'm finally feeling reenergized enough to start looking ahead to my last semester of classes in medical school, and just beyond that to what most people call the most important exam a doctor takes in his or her career--STEP-1. so there's that to look forward to. but for now, i'm going to enjoy the next week or so of not thinking too much about it.

my weekend looked like this

2008-12-15T14:12:00.003-06:00

5 finals down, 2 to go!

brb, you guys.

important update update

2008-11-23T15:50:00.004-06:00

for those of you who come to my blog, frustrated that instead of the information you want, you're being left with meaningless stories about mishaps at target or new and interesting things to hit with a bat or Why I Want To Be A Doctor When I Grow Up, etc, i think this will be a welcome change. because today, instead of continuing the silence, i'm updating you all on the ongoing status of my own special chronic disease.

i know that many of you have drawn inspiration and courage from my story and my insistence that i will continue to live a normal life despite what many consider to be a debilitating disability. i know many of you see me, going about daily life, never blaming my shortcomings on my illness, and you feel within you the desire to be something better, to be...MORE. you say to yourselves, "if a man with such a handicap can live a relatively normal life all by himself, think of what a healthy person like me can do!". perhaps you, too, suffer from this disease and regularly overcome the same struggles, stigmas, and prejudice that i do. you know the pain, and you continue on. i know that many of you point at your jeremy portaits on your mantles, or your jeremy buttons on the lapels of your winter coats, and, solemnly tapping the photo, you say simply "hero".

well, to each of you i say, thank you. because to me, you are all heroes. you all inspire me, and i have your pictures on the button on the lapel of my heart. and with your support for me, and all of our support for one another, we can overcome! we can be proud of who we are! we can say to the world "here i am, and i am here!". and we can hope for a cure. but until that time, i leave you with my motto:

be strong. be bold. be bald.

show and tell

2008-11-13T12:56:00.012-06:00

kim and i host a church small group at our house. every once in awhile we have a show and tell night where one person shares something important to them or their development as a person. this week it's my turn, and we're going to watch "the motorcycle diaries". and since the old blog is named after the movie, and even exists because of a trip that was partly inspired by the movie, i thought i'd say a bit about it and its impact on my life here, as well.

after i graduated from college, i wasn't sure what i wanted to do with my life. i thought i might want to do medicine or some kind of scientific research, so i decided to spend a year trying both out. i started out doing research in lincoln, but my ultimate plan was to find a job researching somewhere in europe, and then to come back and work in a hospital the rest of my "extra" year. so a few months after graduating i was getting the research experience i'd need while exploring grants and options to work abroad. and then i saw the motorcycle diaries.

if you don't know, the movie focuses on a year or so in the life of che guevara, before he became a revolutionary, and sort of looks at the development of some of his ideals about equality, justice, and defending the downtrodden. if you just know him as the guy on t-shirts, or even if you know him as the guy who fought various revolutionary wars all over the world (and especially in cuba), you might be surprised to learn that he was just a few exams from completing his medical education and becoming a doctor in argentina when he began a journey that took him from the southern to the northern extremes of south america. and it's that trip that the movie is all about.

there's a lot about the movie that really resonated with me the first time i saw it--"restlessness, impassioned spirits, and a love for the open road," as che narrates in the introduction, for example, that i think helped to make the movie make such a big impression on me. but there were also bigger things about caring for people and about realizing lasting and meaningful change in people's lives, that served to articulate and identify for me the answers to some questions i'd been struggling with in terms of what i wanted to do with my life. i wouldn't say the movie made me feel or think a certain way, but i think seeing the movie and responding to it allowed me a glimpse into my own perspective on things.

but even more specifically, there's a scene that changed "being a doctor" from a potential career to something that i felt some part of me had been born to do. it's the scene pictured above, and in it che has been asked to visit this old sickly woman whose health has recently worsened, and as he examines and talks with her he treats her with such care and dignity and gentleness that i felt like i was watching some incredible, sacred work being done, and it seemed to me like the most amazing thing someone could do with their life. and in that moment i began changing my plans for the next year--as the movie played on, i wiped the research plan from my mind and first started planning ways to do medicine, and then to do medicine in the context of the sense of discovery and poverty i'd seen in the movie, and finally to try out medicine in south america. by the time the movie ended, i'd decided on a plan of action that ultimately led to my trip to ecuador, and has ultimately led to me studying medicine here in chicago.

the movie influenced me in other ways, too, but if i was going to make a map to retrace my life, this movie, and even that scene, would serve as a sort of signpost in the road, and even a direction on the compass. as the movie's tagline says:

"deja que el mundo te cambie, y tú podrás cambiar el mundo."

my summer vacation

2008-11-03T14:59:00.020-06:00

this summer, back when the blog backlog (clog) was building up, kim and i went to seattle. we had lots of fun, and planned on writing a really long post with lots of pictures. we almost got around to it, and then we didn't, and then we didn't post anything for several months. for some reason i thought of some of those pictures today, and i'm posting them now without much in the way of explanation, other than to say that the pietsch's, who live in seattle and who we were visiting out there, like to play a little something called "apple baseball" (which is exactly what it sounds like and is exactly as awesome as it sounds), and we also got to play. we also played old bread baseball and watermelon baseball and can of V8 baseball. it was fun and delicious.

the exploding bread is cool, sure, but look at my face. i am very much in the moment right there.

nate not only made a decent cup of apple juice here, he's also showing he's got a swing that means business. that's commitment to apple baseball right there, folks.

caity makes some applesauce.

again with the face. this should be on an atkins diet billboard. "DEATH TO CARBS," it'd say.

ah, summer: friends, sports, and watermelon.

the aftermath. sweet, sweet aftermath.

trevor opens a can of V8 by opening a can of whoopass on a can of V8.

jeremy pietsch is so proud of his work here. "look what i made!!!"

here's some video footage of the carnage.

oh my red:

i'ma make it rain!!!:

and the winner is...

2008-10-31T23:22:00.004-05:00

the final count on the night was 9 jokers and 7 sarah palins in the couple of hours i walked around the north side. i'm not sure who that means wins, but i'm pretty sure anybody in either of those costumes loses.

i told my friends i'd go to their parties, and then didn't show up. on monday i'll explain i was the cubs' hitting in the playoffs. the chicago assimilation is going great!

not quite political

2008-10-29T13:17:00.005-05:00

i'm not super into politics, and this is hardly a political blog, but it's sort of in the air and basically unavoidable recently, and all that talk has occasionally touched on a topic that i feel pretty strongly about. (long-time readers might even recognize this picture from the last time it showed up on this blog.) so strongly, in fact, that i've decided to share a sonnet with you (bet you didn't see that coming!). it's "the new colossus" by emma lazarus, and even if the title doesn't ring any bells for you, and even if you've never heard the whole thing before, i'm willing to bet you'll recognize at least part of it, and know where it can famously be found:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

that's not in our nation's constitution, but it is undeniably in our DNA (literally, even). whatever your thoughts on border control, undocumented employment, and deportation policy, let the debate start here, at what is not only one of this country's greatest values, but also one of the most valuable sources of our country's greatness. (now i'm talking like a real politician! antimetabole for president '08!)

the epic target debacle

2008-10-27T16:56:00.009-05:00

kim and i recently found ourselves in the market for a new bookcase. this was due in part to the ridiculous amount of books one accrues in the process of a medical school education (and the desire to display them to guests--"i know anatomy! i am SMART!"), but also due to the fact that we removed the back from our old bookcase so we could reach the light switch behind it, causing some instability and necessitating the use of a curtain rod for propping up ("i ruined my bookcase...on purpose! i am perhaps not as smart as you thought!").

anyway, like most people do when they want a nice, solid piece of wooden furniture, we turned to target for our furnishing needs. and it was there we found an incredible pre-fab piece of wood and wood-like substances, with only some assembly required. i figured i could handle this assembly with no problem, and i tore into the box. but could i handle it? in your mind, you should be weighing out the evidence presented by the old bookcase: lots of medicine books....but the bookcase itself is broken...on purpose. place your bets accordingly.

fast forward a couple hours. i've just done the only step in the entire process which, if done incorrectly, will irreparably destroy the bookcase when kim comes home. i show her the (nearly completed) work in progress, to which she says "is it supposed to look like that?" and i looked at it, and actually, no. it is not supposed to look like that, with the front part in the back and vice-versa, and screw holes in the part that should be the front. round 1 to the bookcase.

so kim and i went to target to select another bookcase. i asked the customer service rep, in entirely hypothetical terms, if a bookcase could be returned if it had been opened and partially assembled. she replied in the affirmative, so we began our search for bookcase #2. as we browsed the different display offerings, i noted with some satisfaction that the bookcase i'd just mangled at home had the exact same screw holes in the front that i'd given it--so maybe i'm not so smart, but at least i'd potentially make it at target. maybe. let's see how we fared at target.

here in "the big city", space is at a premium, and accordingly buildings are built up to make up for the lack of horizontal space. in a target, this means 2 story targets, which has given rise to the cart-friendly escalator (see pic). so we loaded up our cart with a few other things we needed (several bouncy balls, giant kooshballs, and toys for kim's ESL classes, some socks and underwear for me, and so on), and then we put it all into our cart. i didn't take a picture, so i'm using google images to find for you an approximation of what we were dealing with by the time we loaded our favorite bookcase into the cart:

and onto the escalator our load went, and happily it rode for about 3 seconds until gravity, that malicious little fiend, finally had its way with it, and the whole cart flipped forward, launching, catapult-like, all its contents out into target's airspace. aside from the loud and awkward crashing of the projectile bookcase, it looked very much like a target commercial, as all the underwear and colorful rubber balls arced merrily through the air among smiling white people wearing tasteful sweaters and browsing through cheap goods. it was a glorious scene, and would have also been basically harmless were it not for the fact that those overgrown koosh balls landed at the bottom of the people escalator, got sucked into the gears, and completely stopped the escalator from further functioning.

kim and i walked away and got our bookcase at a different target.

pictorial update essay, pt. 5--anniversaries

2008-07-17T13:32:00.013-05:00

On June 30 we made it to our 1st Anniversary – much to our own great surprise. Despite being extremely busy with school stuff, Jeremy found a way to sneak around and craft an incredible surprise treasure hunt. I came home from work on July 3 to find an empty house and a poem about zombies. Tres romantique! The poem led me to a glass head sculpture where Jeremy had hidden the next clue – a list of “inside references” that we’d cultivated over the last year about locations in our neighborhood. So I got on my bike and criss-crossed the neighborhood collecting sealed envelopes from under mailboxes, behind street signs, and from local shopkeepers.

Each envelope held a line from one of our favorite songs – “This Will Be Our Year” by the Zombies – which, when I put them in order, provided latitude and longitude coordinates. So I used the GPS to follow them downtown to where Jeremy had managed to get us an executive suite at the Hyatt, overlooking Lake Michigan, the river, and Navy Pier. After getting our free happy hour and dessert buffet, we walked 5 minutes to the Independence Day fireworks over the lake. What a clever clever boy!

The next day, the 4th of July, we wandered downtown for a while, watched the kids playing in the fountains in Millenium Park and finally headed to a friend’s BBQ. And then, the REAL fun began… as the sun started to set in Pilsen, the cars disappeared from the streets as families emerged with literally armloads of fireworks. From about 8 pm to 2 am, our neighborhood was about as close to a war zone as I ever hope to get – smoke billowing through the streets, explosions everywhere, sparks and shrapnel flying, booms, cracks, hisses, and ratatats echoing off of buildings. At one point we had to ride our bikes through it, and we can attest to the fact that fearing for your life is a great adrenaline rush.

From the roof our building, we could see probably thousands of fireworks being set off all across the city. It was the best 4th of July ever – a 360 degree panoramic show. Here's a video of a little bit of what it looked (and sounded) like:

pictorial update essay, pt. 4--nebraska

2008-07-16T10:38:00.002-05:00

After Sigur Rós, we went on to Lincoln and enjoyed several days of awesomeness and fun. During the rest of our stay, we spent lots of time with the Howes, enjoyed expanses of green grass such as Chicago has not seen for some time, ate excellent food (Jeremy's nephew Landon especially enjoyed his ice cream, as you can see), enjoyed Lincoln, played with kittens (and more kittens!) and other examples of Nebraskan wildlife, saw more friends, went bike riding, and – best of all – got to borrow the kayaks for a couple afternoons to cruise the rivers and creeks and enjoy ourselves thoroughly. Here's some photographic evidence of our exploits:

On the water, kayaking like explorers on the Amazon (that's what we were pretending, anyway).

Do you know how hard it is to get a shot like this from separate kayaks? It's really hard.

KITTENS!!!

By the end of our visit, the recent tornadoes and rainfall had only exacerbated the rising floodwaters in Iowa, and on the way home, we were forced to take a 4 hour detour around the river. Even that was a close call, as we found ourselves in water up to the hubcaps at one crossing. We stopped for lunch in Iowa City, only to find our Burger King underwater. It is a very surreal thing to look down a street and see familiar distinctions like curbs and white dashes and stop signs all erased while the wide expanse of water slides smoothly and seamlessly from building to building. Note also our friends Chase and Kara, who were very open to exploring and enjoying the adventure (such as it was), except for the part where the detours meant we didn't get home until 1 or 2am...none of us were particularly excited about that. But we made it home in one piece, and thankfully, dry.

Coming up next: the 4th of July and anniversary celebrations! Stay tuned!

pictorial update essay, pt. 3--sigur ros

2008-07-14T09:35:00.000-05:00

editor’s note: this post was, in an inspiring display of marital harmony and compromise, co-written by jeremy and kim. democracy!

after the bike crash and the beginning of the euro, we come chronologically to our great trip west, to nebraska. the timing of this trip coincided (not coincidentally) with a sigur ros show in omaha. but we cracked open the ol’ wallet and found that 6 hours of gas each way was going to cost us a pretty penny. so we put an ad on craigslist for company, and got two students from the art institute to join us--chase (who looks vaguely like a musketeer) and kara (who appears to be leasing out her clothes and skin to be a safety pin breeding ground). but as the return trip was more interesting than the first leg, we'll hear more about them later and skip right ahead to the show.

in omaha, we met our nebraska friends for dinner in the old market and ate our corn-fed beef while listening to tornado warning sirens wail outside the windows. just as we were leaving we heard the service staff telling everyone in the restaurant to move away from the windows. a sane person would probably conclude it'd be better to stay put for a minute, but a sane person would run the risk of missing the show--not an option! about 5 steps out the door of the restaurant, a torrential downpour began and we became almost instantly soaked. we ran the 4 blocks to the theatre and arrived soggy and dripping, to discover a scene something like this:

i'm borrowing the photo from pitchfork here, but the point is that those several hundred people were all huddled together under the marquee, shrinking back from the rain. we squished ourselves into the edge of (only slightly drier) people, and there were told that there was a tornado warning, and they weren't letting people in until it passed. let's take a paragraph break while that fema-style disaster management sets in, shall we?

the ushers watched us sternly from the warm, dry other side of the glass for 45 minutes, until it was deemed safe enough to enter. even then, we were only allowed to wander around the lobby. by the time the concert had been delayed 2 hours, the humid, steamy mass of people was beginning to foment into the beginnings of a rebellion, when from the underbelly of the theatre we heard the sound of horns and drums. we followed the music and pushed our way through a crowd of onlookers, past a couple ushers, and down a flight of stairs to find ourselves face to face with the members of sigur ros and amiina. we were so close we could smell the sweat and feel the vibrations of the drums as they created this joyous impromptu drum circle in the basement. after a while, they marched off to other parts of the basement, and a little while later, the real concert started.

the concert itself was great. this was (i’m trying my best not to brag here) my fourth time seeing them, and other than the time i met jonsi before the show and he put me on the guest list (really trying!) or the time i was in the second row and brushed wayne coyne’s butt as i walked by him (trying really really hard!), this was definitely the best show i’ve ever seem them do. they are touring their new album with a 13-piece ensemble—the band, amiina (the string quartet), and a five piece horn troupe. the sound was enormous, and even though the show at times felt like a dress rehearsal (this was a 4-show tour that included a completely unadvertised show in omaha, nebraska, after all), it was a really great experience and i assume was incredibly inspiring and moving for all in attendance (other than kim, of course, who fell asleep at various times throughout). as the internet is already littered with pictures of jonsi grimacing as he sings and plays, here's a shot of the aftermath.

stay tuned for tomorrow’s installment with even more nebraskan adventures.

pictorial update essay, pt. 2--the euro

2008-06-29T08:13:00.006-05:00

the european championships have been going on for the last 2-3 weeks. i've watched a lot of games on the internet, which for most of the time looked a lot like the above. this has been the best soccer tournament i've ever personally witnessed, based on the quality of play, the amount of drama and excitement, and also because my favorite european team (spain) has done very well and enters today's final against germany as the best team in the tournament.

two years ago i wrote a long and lengthy post on this very blog extolling the virtues of international soccer, and i'll save you my long-winded thoughts on the game and national identity, national pride, and the incredibly intricate anthropological aspects of the spanish psyche as it pertains to their team and its success and failure. (aaron and i have, in the last couple days, have had several lengthy conversations about these matters, so CLEARLY it's a fascinating topic). suffice it to say, though, that if you don't have anything else going on at 1:45 CST this afternoon, it would be a very worthwhile experience to head to whatever sports bar in your neck of the woods will show soccer games, and blend in to whatever international community your neck of the woods has, and shout until you're hoarse at the television screens there. i know i will. ¡¡¡QUE VIVA ESPAÑA¡¡¡

pictorial update essay, pt. 1--the wreck

2008-06-28T09:11:00.008-05:00

sorry about the delay in posting--there's been lots happening, and therefore so much to tell, but unfortunately also so little time to tell. since there's so much to say, and since a picture is worth a thousand words, it stands to reason that the most efficient method of catching up is with a lot pictures. because otherwise these posts would be even longer(!).

so, let's see here. when we left our story (forgetting kim's...incident), aaron was in town. we had a great time, and i think aaron will probably back me up when i say that you should come visit us, too--it's good times. so aaron went home, and kim and i went back to our normal lives. and that's where our story begins...

some morning shortly after aaron left, i decided after waking up around 5:30 (which i usually do) that i would go for a bike ride. this is something that i've been wanting to make a regular part of my summer since about the fifth snowstorm of our crappy winter, and all winter i dreamt of how amazing it would be while stumbling through the snow. i imagined myself waking up every morning, going on long epic bike rides, and really enjoying starting my day with vigorous exercise, breathtaking views of the lake, and probably insightful thoughts or beautiful poetry written while sitting on a rock by the lake. in search of all of this excitement and more, this particular morning i rode down to the 57th street beach, and i got off the trail, walked around, and enjoyed the feel of sand on my feet. aaaaah, what a relaxing, great start to a lovely summer day.

as i sat on the beach, however, a menacing, foreboding wind stirred up over the lake and blew onshore (FORESHADOWING!!!). i sat it out (still waiting for my early morning, lakeside epiphany), but eventually i got tired of picking sand out of my eyes, so i decided to head home. the ride home was really nice, because the wind was at my back--i was going fast, enjoying life, and feeling like nothing could possibly be wrong in the world. but (FORESHADOWING) i was wrong. i approached the 18th street bridge and began the difficult climb to the top, digging in and probably imagining that i was winning the tour de france (i often imagine myself winning competitions during mundane parts of the day. throwing paper in the trash can: "3...2...jeremy shoots...1...HE SCORES!!! JEREMY WINS!!!" or while speedwalking to cross the street before the light changes: "and it's jeremy by a nose!!!". or while buttering my toast:"ladies and gentlemen, i think we may have just witnessed the first ever perfect butter/toast application. we await the score from the judges...6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, and from japan...6.0!!! jeremy has done it!!! the gold medal in the toast competition goes to jeremy and the united states!!! it's the miracle on wheat!!!" but i digress). so i crested the epic incline at the bridge, and did that thing that riders do when they win the tour de france. you know, they sit back, hands off the handlebars, and soak in the glory of their accomplishment. and i was so basking when the aforementioned wind decided that it was finished doing me favors for the day, and it was payback time. the wheels went sideways, i quickly grabbed my handlebars, there was a general sprawling and frantic scramble and spectacle (and i swear just as i was going over the front of my bike i thought of this) and i ended flattened, breathless, and unwilling to move, and unnaturally intimate with the pavement. i said "ooooh, oooooh, oooooh" for awhile, and finally i decided i'd rather not be run over, so i dragged myself to the corner. when i got home, here was the damage:

well, and also there was this intense rib pain which has stuck with me since, making me look (feel) like an invalid while getting out of bed. i think i may have broken my rib, which is really painful and really slow to heal. the pain is so intense, i haven't been able to ride my bike since.

but at least i won the tour de france.

Kim vs. A Pressing Urgency

2008-06-23T16:16:00.009-05:00

Jeremy's been begging me for weeks to contribute something to the blog, and I've been delaying while I ponder what truly remarkable, insightful piece I could submit. I've had a number of really great insights, stories, etc. collecting to be shared with all of you. Unfortunately, THIS story is not one of them. Jeremy insists, however, that it must be told.

It all started early one Monday morning, when everything was under control in the ol' excretory system. No urgent business, if you know what I mean. I got to the office early and got started on some projects. I had to make an appointment with the doctor, so I though I'd call early, before everyone else arrived.

I dialed the number, and just as the voice on the other line picked up, I felt it. That critical, undeniable, URGENT need.

But instead of hanging up, I figured, "I can handle this. I'm an adult. My sphincter knows who's the boss here."

So we start through the preliminaries:
name
last name
middle name
maiden name
mother's maiden name
phone number
mother's phone number
insurer
insurer's phone number
and so on...

Little by little, I start shifting weight, folding and unfolding myself. People are now arriving for work, and I greet them with an awkward grimace.

I'm squeezing with enough force to crack a walnut. Or possibly a coconut.

Then - right in between "Hang on the line while I check for availabilities" and "Just a few minutes more..." I realize that the sensation has changed.

To my horror, I realize that something is ever so slowly making it's way towards freedom.

And I think, "Oh s***." (And indeed it was.)

Let me take this moment to talk with you about transcendent experiences. They say that when you have one, your senses become finely tuned, your awareness heightened and perhaps focused sharply on some new enlightenment. I think I understand this feeling. In this moment, everything in the room became eerily silent, as the entire focus of my body concentrated like a laser on the new enlightenment that I had actually... pooped my pants. It was a feeling of deep

understanding that I cannot fully express.

The woman FINALLY comes back on the line and I'm like, "okaythat'sgreatnextweekokayfinebye."

At this point I'm now using sheer force of IMAGINATION to keep things under control and praying for some suspension of the laws of physics and gravity just so i can keep my dignity.

I slam the phone down and waddle out of the office, knees squeezed together, vision starting to blur.

Avoiding people down the interminably long hallway, I dive into the bathroom and find myself face to face with Shuffly Tom, the cleaning guy.

I shove his bewildered self out the door with a curt, "I REALLY need this room right now!" and rush towards freedom in a 3'x4' cubicle.

If you are on the edge of your seat (as I was), you will be relieved to know (as I was), that I escaped mostly unscathed. And no one was the wiser.

Until now. When, much to the chagrin of my mother, I cast all dignity aside for your middle-school amusement.

I ask only one thing of you: make this story even more grand and glorious by adding fabulous and quasi-embarrasing stories of your own! Yay!

wish you were here

2008-05-29T11:43:00.003-05:00

as you may recall, my good friend aaron is in town this week to enjoy some chicago summertime fun. i thought since he's here and doesn't have anything better to do i'd have him guest-write about our activities thus far. aaron, take it away!

my name is aaron and i got jeremy's secret password, guarded by several laser beam-emitting guard dogs whose breath releases tiny little tracking devises which eventually shoot spikes that drive straight through your heart if you're not him. needless to say, it was a pretty tough, but i was inspired by the most recent film i saw, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." thanks george lucas. i thought there would be aliens involved at some point in my quest, but jeremy remained unpredictable even in his password defense system. he obviously did not consult mr. lucas. this, however, is not the purpose of my entry. it is, rather, to talk about the current state of affairs in chicago since i am here.

yesterday i arrived just in time to watch the usa v. england soccer match. even though the usa looked poorly outmatched, that did not mean that a person could not have fun in this country. we soon made that fun part of our life with an evening of grilling burgers topped with 7 or 8 different condiments. it felt more like the america i was used to. if there had been a burger- stacking competition with us (jeremy, kim, and i) versus some brits (let's say, tony blair, winston churchill, and king john) i'd say we would make them miss revolutionary war-era america.

anyway, lots of fun is set up for the next 2 days. a concert tonight, a spy game this afternoon (look for me reading suspiciously in a café, jeremy playing his guitar ever so slyly on the corner, and kim strategically yakking on her cell phone). tomorrow we have an ushering gig at some highfalutin theatre. maybe jerm will blog about it later.

-aaron

summer music

2008-05-26T10:24:00.004-05:00

at some point during this long, cold, bitter winter, i tried to cheer myself up by putting together a playlist to play when it warmed up. well, summer finally came to chicago (it seems it was just waiting for the memorial day weekend), and we've even had a couple days in a row with highs over the 70's. so this morning while doing some cleaning, i broke out the list, which i thought i'd share with you all.

as you may or may not be aware, when a music geek shares a playlist with you, he's got one or more of a few different motivations in mind. he might want some feedback (you'd think only the positive kind, but actually music geeks thrive on lots of criticism and debate--playlists have been known to consume an entire evening's conversation). often he is trying to share some music that he suspects you have not heard, and without which he is convinced your life cannot be complete (to put it bluntly and at the risk of seeming undiplomatic, he wants to "educate" you). or perhaps he wants some suggestions, an outside ear to supply the song or two that he feels is missing from making his mix complete. this particular list needs a bit of the first and a bit of the last--after putting it on today i felt like it needed some work.

i have titled this list "sunny, high in the 60's and 70's", and the criteria for the list is all nicely contained in the title: this is a list of happy, possibly drug-influenced (or, as they said at the time, "psychedelic") songs from the 60's and 70's. this particular list is kind of a party mix, which is to say i just want to put it on random--no sequencing necessary. here goes, in no particular:

"windy", the association
"stoned me", van morrison
"so happy together", the turtles
"summer in the city", lovin spoonful
"i was made to love her", stevie wonder
"uptight (everything is alright)", stevie wonder
"a summer song", chad and jeremy
"i want you back", jackson 5
"she'd rather be with me", turtles
"cherish", the association
"abc", jackson 5
"cool it down" the velvet underground
"in the summertime", mungo jerry
"who loves the sun", the velvet underground
"the village green preservation society", the kinks
"signed, sealed, delivered i'm yours", stevie wonder
"this will be our year", the zombies
"elenore", the turtles

a few notes. first of all, that's two artists with three songs, which i usually try to avoid. also, there's a few pretty melancholy songs, but i have to say i think they're good counterpoints, and most of them have at least a sunny chorus. also, the most glaring omissions are probably the beatles and of course the boys of summer, the beach boys. there were just too many to choose from when i made the list and i ended up leaving them off to decide later, but i forgot all about it and now it's sunny out so obviously i'll need your help with those. right now this playlist clocks in under an hour, and it pretty much can't be too long, so don't be bashful--help me out!!!

summer to-do

2008-05-22T09:33:00.001-05:00

since this summer is both the first and last break we'll have as medical students (and therefore the last one ever), "what are you doing this summer?" was probably the most popular conversation starter the last month or so of school. so i thought i'd let you all know a little bit about what i'm going to do with my 102 days of freedom.

officially, the big thing this summer off from classes is...more classes. as some of you may have heard, in addition to working toward a medical degree, i plan to also get a masters in public health, and classes for that degree begin this summer. explaining what exactly public health is should probably be its own post, but briefly, i'm taking these classes to hopefully be a smarter doctor, one who thinks not only about what his patient is sick with, but also what about his patient's life is making him sick--where he lives, his behaviors, etc. in some ways it's like focusing on the leaky pipe instead of cleaning up the puddle on the floor, if that makes sense.

but of course that's not all i'm doing this summer--far from it! there's going to be lots of voluntary reading of non-textbook books (with an emphasis, though, on books about medicine and...uh, saving the world), and going to concerts (starting with m83 with aaron next week, and also including a couple free days at the pitchfork festival), and buying a condo (we've almost decided--very soon there'll be an extra bedroom for you the next time you come to chicago!), and watching soccer (the champions league final was yesterday, and the european championships start june 6), and maybe traveling (we're waiting to see if any smoking deals show up for last-minute flights), grilling food and then eating it, and riding my bike all over the place, and just a whole bunch of fun things. i'm pretty excited, and i guess now you know a little of what will be populating the old blog the next several weeks--so there's something to look forward to!

what about you guys? got any good, exciting plans for the summer? the comments section isn't going to write itself!

update of utmost import

2008-05-15T18:09:00.005-05:00

when my blog was on hiatus these last several months, people would always ask me "hey jeremy, why haven't you written on your blog lately?" or "dude, what's the deal? did you break your hands?" or "have you joined some kind of anti-internet cult?". what they didn't ask me, but what i always knew they were curious about, was "so jeremy, how's your male pattern baldness coming along?" well, now that i have time to blog again, i can give you, readership, the kind of information you've been really longing for and missing these last long months. i give you the current status of the top of my head, as of thursday, may 15:

as you can see, this last year has seen a mass emigration of hair and hair follicles. as someone who's been told since he was about 5 years old that he'd one day be as bald as his dad, i've had plenty of time to notice various balding styles (and also to amass a list of bald heroes, including george bluth, winston churchill, michael jordan, (zidane, until that incident in 2006), and of course larry david, who even beat churchill for the position of honorary president of the club). i have to say, it's not time to abandon ship (shave head completely) yet, but i do see cause for alarm. note, for example, that worrying tuft of hair in the middle of the loss zone (that's what i call it). in all my days of observation of baldness, i've never seen anyone make the donut look good. i have to say, though, that i'm very glad to be losing my hair from the middle out, as opposed to from the front. i always worried how having my forehead slowly taking over my hairline like a territorial dispute would effect the overall look of my face. fortunately, i'll never have to know.

taking this picture (which, by the way, i did about 7 times trying to get the perfect angle for hair-loss assessment) made me wish i'd done this more consistently over the last 5 or so years so that i could have more closely monitored the development up there. i wonder if you can pinpoint the exact day you start to look like you're going bald if you're watching closely. probably not--you know what they say about watched pots boiling and all. wow, i think i may have just stumbled across the perfect hair loss prevention technique*--just keep watching it...really closely. it's cheaper than rogaine, folks. GENIUS!

*in all seriousness, though, you know how in the x-men movies they try to find a "cure" for the mutants, to make them normal again? and how all the mutants are like "we don't want a cure--we're AWESOME and we like it"? that's exactly how i feel about these products. not only that it's incredibly insulting to assume that we (the bald community) would WANT to look like the rest of you, but also because of the superpowers we bald men possess (and which of course we never talk about to the haired of the world).

best summer ever

2008-05-07T19:38:00.003-05:00

ok, sorry about that absence there. i counted, and this year i filled out 28 of those bad boys up there this year. if it makes you feel any better, all you really missed by me not blogging is "i studied today" posted about 100 times. not that much to read.

but today life got a lot better: i finished my first year of med school. a classmate informed me we have 102 days until next year starts. 102 glorious days!

anyway, while this post is full of numerical data, i realize it's a little low on funny. but fret not--consider yourself warned that the blog is back, and i'm going to make all kinds of stuff happen around here. you'll see.

a sandy christmas

2007-12-29T12:52:00.000-06:00

at some point last week i decided to hold off on my music list extravaganza until my friends and i have completed our work making the annual meta list, so if you were holding your breath waiting for my top albums list, well, i hope you gave up or have exceptional lung capacity.

in the meantime, here's a post from sunny san diego. (actually, it's not exactly steaming hot down here, but when i talk to my med school friends who didn't leave the chicago area for christmas i make it sound like it's a non-stop sweatfest down here, just for the jealousy effect.) and since i'm mentioning med school, all the grades came in, and thus far i am still on my way to being a doctor. i can definitely say i've never been happier to get passing grades, so i guess this semester has whatever dubious distinction that honor bestows upon it. (and since i'm writing convoluted sentences i'll note that now when i write any sentence too far outside the standard style i try to guess how strong a candidate it is for another of kim's polls, and how many people i think would be able to ascertain my meaning if a poll were made. and speaking of--i'm sure some of you are wondering who "won" the bet or what have you...unfortunately, the parameters of what, exactly, is being bet on or what would comprise a victory are never as clear once the results are in as at the beginning, so it's hard to say. for example, kim had originally predicted that 9 out of 10 people wouldn't understand the sentence, which i am now to understand meant "wouldn't understand upon first reading," so in her eyes the fact that most people had to read it two or three times clearly means she foretold correctly. whatever the case, though, it seems pretty likely that i'll continue to write these sort of labyrinthine sentences every now and again, and when i do the end readability will not be a high priority for me. take it as a challenge, or safely (correctly?) assume it's not particularly important and move on.)

this was going to be about my break, though, and that's where the above photo (shot by mr. michael chan) comes in--here is our day after christmas beach football game documented in all its sandy, oceany glory. the blurry figures in the background are the "old people" team (which i was surprised to grouped with--when did that happen?), who overcame their alleged aged, creaky bodies (and my inability to catch the ball for most of the game) and won the day. i proudly pledge my allegiance to the old people. hail, old people!

most of break has been similarly enjoyably spent (but with much less physical activity since then, as my efforts at the game made me so sore i've needed assistance to get into or out of cars or beds (old people, i embrace your traditions! i am one of you now!)), and today my family joins us out west for what will certainly be even more adventures.

music week, part 1

2007-12-17T09:07:00.000-06:00

ah, freedom! i have emerged from my spot in the library and into the bright and blinding light of snow and sunshine. it's a lovely world out here, and i'm pretty excited to be taking it all in. and of course on this first day of vacation i'm spending it supine on the couch under a blanket with coffee, music, and my blog. well...the great outdoors can wait a bit, can't they? i should think so!

sometimes i think it would have been pretty cool, from a strictly music geek standpoint, to have been alive (and of the proper age) in the 60's. obviously, i'm a big nerd for music, and it would have been just amazing to have lived during rock music's creation and defining first years. can you imagine living through the beatles and the beach boys fighting for the right to author rock's defining moment? or living through a year in which the beatles and jimi hendrix released monster double albums, cash did folsom prison, the velvet underground released an album that even further pushed the limits of what rock music could or could not be, and also the kinks, simon and garfunkel, and van morrison (to name a few) all released albums that would all ultimately be considered classics? amazing, right?

well, in a way i've got it even better. a few years back i experienced pretty much the equivalent of the entire bob dylan discography being released in the same calendar year. before that i lived a year when radiohead released kid a alongside the white album and the flaming lips' the soft bulletin, which was obviously a pretty good year. so in celebration of the 50 years of rock behind us, i am going to kick off a week of musical musings by presenting you all with a list i've wanted to make in past years but never got around to, which i have decided to title "best albums of the year (not of this year)". the criteria is simple enough: my favorite albums i heard for the first time this year that came out previous to 2007. so here are a few i loved:

Lilly Allen, Alright, Still (2006)

this is an album i missed last year and picked up when i heard a 5 second clip of "LDN" as a radio show's bumper music. (the part where she's singing "sun is in the sky, oh why oh why would i wanna be anywhere else?" at the end of the song, with the horns and the layers of vocals). that was all i needed to hear--i was hooked. i had to find that music, and i did, and then for about 3 weeks that was all i listened to. i'm happy about myspace's democratization of music, but to be honest, the back story of this album was one of the reasons i didn't hear it sooner--it seemed like every time i read an article about her during the year it was talking about the "myspace sensation" or something, and always the actual music a sideshow. fortunately, i finally heard the music, and the music definitely merited all the excitement.

Stevie Wonder, Talking Book (1972)

you know in "high fidelity" when barry makes fun of that guy for trying to buy his daughter "i just called to say i love you", and barry asks rob "top 5 musical crimes perpetuated by stevie wonder in the '80s and '90s, go. sub-question: is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?" when i saw "you are the sunshine of my life" as track 1 on this album, i figured this album fell under the latter day sins category--i can't stand that song's creepy keyboard part and that woman's cloying voice singing those creepy, cloying lyrics. i should have stayed all the way through the credits one of the 15 times i watched that movie, though, because if i had i would have heard album closer "i believe (when i fall in love it will be forever)", and then i would have realized how (to quote rob) unassailably cool the REST of the album is. stevie wonder has an amazing voice and a crazy knack to put sweet pop melodies over the top of really funky rhythms and make it work. this is old news and you probably already knew this, i guess. (i'm imagining my more senior readers chuckling at my "discovering" stevie wonder. i should have known--i mean, "superstitious" is on this album. what more proof did i need?)

Stars of the Lid, The Tired Sounds of the Stars of the Lid (2001)

every so often, my friend andrew lawton will emerge from a month or so without communication to announce on my voicemail or in an email that he has found some music that i must hear. this year's biggest musical discovery by way of andrew was stars of the lid. if you look up information about this band, the adjectives you're most likely to see are words like "drone", "ambient", "sleep", etc. it sounds probably a little boring--there is very little emphasis on melody, and unlike a lot of bands that use lots of expansive sounds, there is no climax here. whereas some music gives you the distinct impression of flying great distances, the world far down below, stars of the lid lifts you several feet off the air and just holds you there, wieghtless. the sounds simply float from the speakers and after several minutes seem to retreat back from where they came. as study music, as de-stressing music, as white noise to blot out the sounds of the outside world for a mid-day nap, this band was a fortuitous find for this, my first year of study-filled, stress-inducing, sleep-deprived medical education, but this music also exists on its own merit, and not simply as a utilitarian means to an end. after all, levitation is not something you just experience every day.

Harry Nilsson, Nilsson Schmilsson (1971)

i'd been hearing about this album for awhile now--it shows up on a few best albums of all time or best albums of the 70's lists, which it will probably not surprise you to learn that i actively seek out on the internet and in magazines, so when i stumbled across a used copy at the record store, i decided to check it out. and you know what? worth the hype. kim says it sounds like a musical, which i have to agree about (sometimes), but with the caveat that it sounds like that rare song from a musical that's actually good and is sung by someone NOT trying to put so! much! energy! in every word and e-nun-ci-ate every syllable like they're teaching english to immigrants. there's definitely a lot of drama in his delivery (like on "without you" (saved by the bell flashback!!!)) and in the arrangements, but never so much that it outweighs the songs themselves, which on this album are uniformly excellent pieces of pop delight.

The Zombies, Odessey and Oracle (1968)

awhile back, a new friend of mine mentioned that this is one of her favorite bands of all time, and i could only think of two singles that i knew they'd done. i clearly needed to do some research, so i read up, did some downloading, and found probably one of the best albums of its time. this album is perfect. i mean, every song. this album is the reason i made this list--i just wanted to celebrate it in some way, and now i'm finding myself incapable of thinking of words to extol it. the songwriting, despite 30 years of influence on a whole bunch of music i've loved for a long time, feels fresh and surprising. i almost can't highlight a particular song because every song merits mention, but...gosh, the jilted desperation of "maybe after he's gone", the melancholy reminiscence of "brief candles", the giddy exuberance of love in "i want her she wants me", and the sultry sexiness of "time of the season" are all prime examples of how well pop songs can capture each of those parts of the human experience. "friends of mine" makes me wish i had some context in which to perform it publicly, and i'll either play "this will be our year" every year on new year's or on kim's and my anniversary, because i just like it that much, and i think it ought to be a part of the fabric of life. the melodies are frequently heartbreaking, as is the vocal delivery. the lyrics are touching but not sappy, classic without being cliched. almost every song has a moment, usually in an explosion of aaaaah's and soaring harmonies in the chorus, that makes you feel...something (sometimes joy, sometimes melancholy) so strongly that you're just so happy to be alive you almost feel silly. as much as anything that came out this year, this album will in many ways define 2007 for me, and i'll probably always remember the way i felt the first time i heard this music, that transcendent rush of joy, that excitement of discovering something wonderful that makes me glad i've got 50 years of hidden treasures from the past to discover over the next 50 years.

so there it is, part 1 of the list extravaganza. did you all make any excellent discoveries this year? hollah in the comments section! and check back on wednesday for the next installment in 2007 music documentation.

A Small Poll

2007-12-10T17:54:00.000-06:00

I am conducting a poll.

But first you have to read Jeremy's blog post, that comes before this one. Then come back.

::: (I am waiting. I will be here when you return.) :::

Welcome back. What a nice blog that was. I especially liked the part about me.

Here is the poll:

Do you understand the sentence quoted below? If so, please translate. Please answer YES or NO, with modifying comments if necessary. (We are betting money on this, so don't leave without commenting!) And drumroll....

"i won't say i want to do this, but i will say i'd rather do this than be utterly lost when the second half of the year i can't wait to pair in sentences with past tense verbs starts."

Thank you for your participation.

next week daydream

2007-12-10T17:32:00.000-06:00

this morning i took a test for my physiology class. it was ok. wednesday i have a nutrition test and then friday is the physiology final. after that, barring disaster, i will have survived the first semester of medical school, and passed everything, too! i will count this as a victory and be pretty happy about it.

i'll also be pretty happy about break, which starts on friday after that last test. you may have heard med school can be a rather intense experience, and if you have, you have heard correctly. that makes the non-intensity of breaks even more refreshing. so that's what i'm usually thinking about while staring blankly at whatever textbook page is in front of me. it makes my brain salivate. i've never really thought about it before, but i guess if the brain salivates it salivates from its pituitary gland. (oh, great--more than a month away from the blog and i'm already making med school jokes in my first post back.)

anyway, as i've been thinking a lot about what i'll do when break is done, and also about how i wish i'd been blogging more this last semester, i thought i'd combine these two thoughts into one action: a blog about what i want to do over break, which i'm going to go ahead write as a numbered list, it being december and all (see #1).

1. first of all, i plan to take part in my favorite december tradition: the making of lists. this year i plan to make at least three lists (which you all can look forward to showing up here in the near future): a top 10 2007 albums list, a top 2007 songs (not on top 10 albums list) list, and a favorite albums of the year (not of this year) list. as a preview to all of that (i realize this is more for my benefit than yours), i have added that flash widgety thing on the right sidebar of what i've been listening to lately (now you can always know!) and also the picture there, which is i think all the 2007 albums that'll be in contention for those lists.

2. lately, i've been noticing strange changes around my apartment--things aren't where i left them, the dishes keep getting cleaned, and sometimes the toilet seat is inexplicably left down. apparently, my wife also lives where i live. high on my list this break is investigating this fact and perhaps even getting to hang out with this wife person. i expect that together fun will be had. and...

3. also i expect there to be some together enjoying of the city i've been seeing the tall buildings of while riding my bike home each night. looks like a fun place--i think i'd enjoy visiting.

4. i want to play my guitar. i haven't done nearly enough of that lately. i would like to play the guitar, and perhaps even make up things to play on my guitar. and then play them.

5. unfortunately, i am going to be reading about neuroanatomy during the break. i won't say i want to do this, but i will say i'd rather do this than be utterly lost when the second half of the year i can't wait to pair in sentences with past tense verbs starts.

6. i bought myself a christmas surprise last week, and provided it arrives next week, i plan to open it and see what's in it. at this point all i know is it's someone's entire record collection which a friend rescued from certain trash. there will almost certainly be pictures of this excitement when the time comes. obviously this will be a several day project of cataloging, careful listening and evaluating the quality of the records and the music, deciding which to keep, and possibly reorganizing of the collection, should the number of keepers necessitate more space.

i have 1 week in which to do this, and then kim and i are going to california to celebrate christmas with BOTH our families. we're pretty lucky it worked out this way, so it'll be great to be able to see both everyones and also to sit on the sand and relax. that'll be pretty fun.

so, in summary: i'm almost done with the first semester, expect more posts over the next couple weeks, and also sorry about all the not posting.

Kim vs. The Chicago Transit Authority

2007-11-15T19:34:00.002-06:00

Dear long lost friends -

Please forgive our great delay in the land of blog. Mr. Howe Jr. has science-y factoids coming out of his ears and is in no state to compose witty blog posts. Recently he has become addicted to the soundtrack for the musical Wicked, and yesterday I overheard him in the bathroom singing something along the lines of "anterior pericardiacophrenic-fraschia minor" to the tune of "Popular." (Now that I think of it, that DOES sound like something the Wicked Witch would say.)

And I, dear readers, have been studying for my own upcoming test, because - being a chronic biter-off-of-more-than-I-can-chew - I am applying for grad school as well. Marriage, med school, new job, new neighborhood, grown up life... it's just not ENOUGH!

And as a super awesome bonus to these already super things - we also experienced several tragic deaths this month: jeremy's laptop and our transmission are both in technology heaven, to the tune of of $2000. [Update: Engine mounts now... make that $2300.]

Anyway, those are a smattering of excuses for the great delay in our blogging. But we don't want to leave the people's votes unanswered, so without further ado...

Kim vs. The Chicago Transit Authority
* * WARNING * *

Includes language inappropriate for children under 18 or parents over 50.

Several weeks ago my job took a field trip, as we often do. The purpose of this particular excursion was to familiarize ourselves with the buses and trains that service our worksites, even though none of us would actually be using these particular buses or trains to get to our worksites. That's just what we do. Don't ask questions.

We were a group of 12; 10 of us had the normal cardboard passes, and 2 of us had those newfangled plastic psychic cards that are connected to your bank account and which the CTA has been pushing for "convenience and ease of boarding."

I got on the bus last, waved my psychic card over the "magic spot," and went to sit down. About halfway to my seat, the driver called me to come back.

Me: "What's wrong?"
Mr. Driver: "You have to pay."
Me: "Oh, sorry. I thought I did." (waves card again)
Mr. Driver: "Your card doesn't work."
"But I just used it on the last bus like two minu..."
"You can't do that."
"Do what?"
"You can't use it like that."
"Like what?"
"You have to wait 20 minutes." (not true)
"Uh... how are you supposed to change buses if you have to wai..."
"You can't do that."
"Okay. I'm a little confused. What's the problem here exactly?" (she says, politely)
"Your card doesn't work."
"Well, how do you know? What does the machine say? It is invalid? Or just not deducting? Overdrawn? Does it SAY it was used too recent..."
"Pay the fare, ma'am."
"This is supposed to be a transfer from the last bus! I shouldn't have to pay again if you can't even tell me why!"
"Pay the fare or get off the bus!"
"What?!"
"PAY THE FARE OR GET OFF THE BUS!"
"You are freaking kidding! Unbelievable!! FINE!"
(And she stomps to the back of the bus to beg change from her coworkers.)

At this point, the slow forward momentum of the bus comes to a screeching halt, and I nearly fall down in the aisle.

Mr. Driver is standing at the front of the bus, feet planted like a gunslinger, pointing at me and yelling: "PAY THE FARE BEFORE I CALL THE POLICE!!"

Me (shouting back across the length of the bus and over several Mexican women): "I'M COMING, FOR F***'S SAKE!!"

Marching back to the front of the bus, I end up nose to nose with Mr. Driver, and holding my two dollars above the machine, I whisper in a voice of barely suppressed rage:
"Here's your two dollars. But I shouldn't have to pay this. I already paid, my card works, and you are rude and an idiot."
(money enters machine)
Mr. Driver: "Get off my bus!"
"No. I already paid."
"GET OFF MY BUS OR I'M CALLING THE POLICE!!"
"NO! I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE HERE! AND I WANT YOUR BADGE NUMBER!"
"Well then find it."

And we stood there glaring at each other, while the rest of the bus waited for the climax of our epic faceoff.

Eventually I spotted his badge number and ferociously scribbled it down while I scowled at him, and then stomped back to my seat, while he continued glaring at me in the rearview mirror.

The best part: A few minutes later the old lady sitting next to me leaned over and whispered, very knowingly, as only old ladies can, "He's kind of bastard..."

About a week later, after calling twice and sending two emails and a letter to the CTA, I received the following note: "As soon as your initial complaint was received, it was immediately forwarded to the General Manager of the garage where the #60 route originates to begin an investigation. That review showed your card actually did register the 25-cent transfer fee when you boarded the #60 bus at about 2:47 p.m., so we will have to check the farebox to see if there was a malfunction."

And that's basically the end. I guess this story is a bit anticlimactic after all that shouting' and stompin'. It would have been better if we'd had a throwdown in the aisle, and then Mr. Driver went unconscious after my wicked pile driver, and then I'd commandeered the bus and given free rides for everyone. And tootsie rolls. Yeah. That would have been awesome. Maybe next time.

Next up: Sleep Talking or Cadaver Life (or Living Cadavers Talking in Their Sleep... one of those).

denouement

2007-10-26T19:21:00.000-05:00

this blog is hardly a current events-linking kind of place, but since i went on at length about it as recently as last week, i thought i'd update you all with this bit of news.

like i was saying, that was some monumentally bad coaching there. restore the order, US soccer!

for the record, when callahan gets fired at the end of the season, i probably won't post anything about it. but i will be pretty happy about that, too.

Plugs for Blogs

2007-10-25T17:28:00.000-05:00

Faithful readers, while we wait for the final results of Jeremy's reader poll, a commercial break...

At the request of my dear, dear friend, the elusive and perhaps fictional Mr. Derrick Fudge, who is trying to take over the world, I am informing you of the existence of his collection of blogs, all of which fill my days with meaning and make life worth living. He is currently in a push to more effectively spread his propaganda across the cyber universe, and he needs more of the masses to read. So, masses, unite!

For general insanity: thedevilishlyfantasticderrickfudge.blogspot.com (Warning: this blog contains a high ludicrous quotient.)
For thorough reviews on everything from pretzels to presbyterian churches: ratingsrantingsandresponce.blogspot.com
For more sane meditations on theology and grad school by Derrick's 100% more actual alter ego, Mr. Jeremy Pietsch of Seattle: ischangepossible.blogspot.com

Please note, the Howe Jr. family cannot be held responsible for any brain damage resulting from exposure to these blogs. Enter at your own risk.

P.S. Mr. Jeremy Pietsch/Derrick Fudge. I now consider my debt to you paid in full, you treacherous fiend.

life imitates art

2007-10-20T20:55:00.001-05:00

the votes are in, and...US women's soccer wins. i'm not gonna lie, i'm kind of surprised. suddenly i feel a little self-conscious, like i made the title too interesting and only disappointment can follow. but i'm telling myself that if this is boring it's your fault because you picked this topic.

this is now old news, but i guess that's the advantage of writing about the women's world cup--for all you know, the final is going to be played tomorrow night in pakistan (actually: last month in china). so just in case you didn't get up at 5am during the tournament to catch the US attempt to win their third world cup (did you know we're actually good at women's soccer? this is hopefully not the greatest success that feminism's struggle has brought our country, but it's a nice bonus), here's the story:

the united states played well, but perhaps not as dominantly as many had expected, in winning their first round group. they advanced to a semifinal game against brazil, which was certain to test the team more than any of their first games had. just before the semifinal, US coach greg ryan made the unexpected move of pulling starting goalkeeper hope solo for 36 year old backup briana scurry. after allowing 2 goals in the first game of the tournament (while the US played short one player), solo had strung together some 300 consecutive minutes without allowing a goal, and by all accounts was in excellent form (she also started almost all of the 50+ consecutive games they'd won coming in to the semi). scurry, on the other hand, hadn't started or played in months and was doubtlessly rusty. coach ryan made this decision because he believed scurry would be good at the kind of reaction saves brazil's insanely loaded and creative offense would presumably necessitate. he based this on scurry's performances against brazil, especially what was probably the best game of her career in the olympic semifinals three years ago. to say this decision was risky is to say it's reckless to drive 100 mph through downtown chicago. without a seat belt. drunk. blindfolded. and...with really hot coffee in your lap. as most people might have predicted, the US fell apart and lost badly (4-0), the team's unity was shaken, solo criticized her coach, and was completely ostracized from the team.

because the idiocy of the decision was so mind-boggling, and because just saying "worst coaching ever!" didn't quite satisfy my need to quantify the truly awe-inspiring display of incompetence, i found myself struggling before the game to think of an analogy, or a corollary, or some famous previous blunder for comparison. i thought there wasn't any, but then i remembered the simpson's episode where a bunch of major league all-stars play for the springfield power plant's softball team. remember that one? in the last inning of the championship, the game is tied and the bases are loaded, and darryl strawberry is up to bat. but then montgomery burns, acting as manager, benches strawberry for a drunk homer simpson, who's been sitting in the dugout drinking beer all game. strawberry protests that he's hit 9 home runs in this game. burns says "you should be very proud" and then explains that the opposing team's pitcher is a lefty, so in sending a right-handed batter to the plate, burns is playing the odds. in addition to being an excellent episode, this episode provides a precedent for our coach ryan. the sheer number of analogous factors makes my toes wiggle with satisfaction. in the show, homer gets beaned, passes out, and springfield wins the game. unfortunately for the US, nothing really exciting happens when you get hit with the ball in soccer (although even that would have necessitated scurry reaching the ball before it went into the goal), and the US suffered its worst loss ever, lost a shot at winning the world cup, and risked losing one of the best goalies in the world.

"this is all well and good, jeremy, but i've just spent 10 minutes reading this--do you have a point?" that is an excellent question, and i'm glad you asked, reader! i'm not sure, so here's a multiple choice-style conclusion to this post:

a.) coach ryan is maybe the worst coach in the history of women's soccer. he may also be the worst coach in the history of coaching, women, and history.
b.) there's a simpsons reference for everything that happens in life!
c.) apparently there's world cup for women, too.
d.) none of the above. and i want my ten minutes back!

also, i sort of liked the way this voting thing worked, so i think i'm going to make it a permanent fixture. some titles will change, some will stay, and new ones will be added. so pick your favorite...

1. sleep talking
2. faq med school [include a question]
3. kim vs. the chicago transit authority
4. critical mass [formerly known as "biggest bike ride ever"]
5. my life with a cadaver

the interactive gimmick blog post

2007-10-05T10:12:00.000-05:00

last weekend kim and i went with some med friends to a show called "too much light makes the baby go blind". it's a theatrical production consisting of 30 short (about 2 minutes) skits. at the beginning of the show, each audience member is given a list of the titles of the 30 skits, and are invited to, at the end of each skit, shout out the number of the skit they want to see next. the first number a cast member hears will then be performed. it was a really entertaining evening, and while there were mixed results, i thought overall it was a pretty cool setup. so i've decided to rip off the concept for the blog, which lately has been in need of a shakeup.

so, since just going by who says something first would result in the much less gratifying result of only having one person respond in the comments box, this is going to be a vote. below i have the titles of several potential, prospective blog entries, and you all must now decide which one gets written. so shout out a number and i'll write the winner:

1. security nazi
2. biggest bike ride ever
3. sleep talking
4. jeremy talks about music he likes lately
5. life imitates art: the women's world cup and the simpsons.
6. i've found that some effective study habits developed in kindergarten are also pretty good for med school, too.

life in the city

2007-09-12T16:44:00.000-05:00

when i moved out to chicago, one of the big exciting reasons for being here was the rock shows--chicago is obviously a big city, but it's also a music city, so there's a non-stop supply of excellent shows coming to town. and when i got here i was not disappointed with what was on offer. among others, i saw modest mouse, bjork, menomena (to name three bands i'd never seen before but really wanted to), and have just really enjoyed the scene out here. what i hadn't thought of, though, is how hard it is to be in a town with all those great shows and be so busy i can't go to them. last weekend the flaming lips, bloc party, and andrew bird were in town, for example. meanwhile i had a physiology test to study for. or a really great show will come to town (the national and st. vincent next saturday), and i will be unsure of my schedule and the show will sell out by the time i know i can go. (sad!)

while missing the music is sad, though, i also hadn't thought much about all the soccer that would come to town. this sunday kim and i and some M1's from school went to see the US play an awesome game against brazil. i high-fived and hugged friends and strangers, i screamed until my voice was hoarse (and screamed some more), and left feeling pretty good about US soccer again. we played really well, taking the early lead, and then pulling even again at 2-2. and when ronaldinho scored on a curling free kick to make it 3-2, the disappointment of going behind was eased by the excitement of having seen such a wonder in person.

in other headline-worthy news, last night the new stereo finally came in the mail. you may recall, as part of God's "happy birthday lightning extravaganza" package, i got the opportunity to replace my fried stereo with something new. and behold the wondrous result:

look at its switches! its knobs! its needles! it's so glooooorious! after a couple weeks without music in the house (an eternity!), kim and i celebrated our new arrangement (which also includes a new replacement wireless router with wireless music capability) by setting up camp on the couch and listening to music (well, and sleeping) for a few hours. yay, music!

Adulthood Update

2007-09-08T13:58:00.000-05:00

Hello family and peeps around the world.

I have some big news. I am a grown up now and I have proof. Hard evidence in the form of an annual salary and a health plan.

As of Monday, I will be starting my first ever full-time adult-type job. Of course, I haven't been sitting around twiddling my thumbs, but until now in my life, people have overlooked that little part about adequate reimbursement. Usually around April 15, the IRS sends me a little note that says, "We are sorry about your sad situation. Here's some money for groceries."

But after much looking, I've been hired by the University of Chicago as faculty in their Literacy Department. Basically, in the mornings I'll be working at Head Start locations with a team of Americorps volunteers, teaching English to the parents of Head Start kids, and in the afternoons I'll focus on mentoring the Americorps folks, who are all local community members - GED students, moms whose kids are in school, etc.

So it'll be a really great blend of classroom time and relational focus, with lots of strategy and challenge. AND, I work like 5 minutes from Jer's classes, am on an academic schedule (so we get the same breaks), and get FREE TUITION at UIC! Whee! Higher education, here I come! And of course there's that bit about having a real income for a change.

Plus, to top it all off, in congratulations for getting the job, the Howe parentals sent me a lovely houseplant (the houseplant of my dreams!) so not only do I have a job, I also have a kick-butt plant.

Really. Could life get any better?
(Yes. But it would involve more houseplants, probably.)

the first week

2007-08-26T11:08:00.000-05:00

i have now completed one week of medical school. that is to say, i am now a medical student, for real. i guess this means i have a career track--i am ON a career track. i will one day, barring lots of persistent failing of exams, be a doctor. i'm not sure if that's scarier for me or for my future patients, but it's not all gloom and despair--it turns out med students know how to party, too.

so on saturday night kim and i went to a party thrown by a fellow m1 here in our neighborhood. there was tasty food and drinks, lots of mixing and getting to know new friends, and discussion of how fast the lectures move, and the homework, and so on. but then, as we all stood on our second floor apartment deck chatting in the evening air, a group of neighborhood kids walked up the back alley armed with water balloons and unloaded on us. one of my classmates tried to catch them to throw them back, but a much more resourceful student began throwing chicken wings and sandwich squares until they ran out of balloons and fled the scene. these events repeated themselves about a half hour later, this time with more words exchanged. a particularly mouthy 11 year old boy responded to some taunting from the students by shouting "don't make me go stone cold steve austin on you!", which left pretty much all of us on the deck speechless--how do you respond to that kind of threat?

a bit later, a kid from the group came alone with a plastic bag and walked away. the bag was full of several filled balloons, a bag of empty ones, and those faucet adaptors that seem great in theory but never really work out--they were inviting us to join in the arms race toward some wonderful kind of mutually assured saturation, and we were more than willing.

it was a pretty good first week, and a pretty great party.

26 and On Fire

2007-08-23T13:08:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was Jeremy Howe's birthday.

And for his birthday, he got hit by lightning.

Well, not so much HE personally, as the apartment in which he resides with his lovely wife.

About 11 pm last night a huge storm was circling our neighborhood, when suddenly it felt like we were inside of a firing gun or the exploding part of a firework. Crazy flashes of light, huge cracks of noise and sizzly sounds, and phantom smokey smells. It made the hair stand up on your arms and your heart skip around inside your ribcage like a wee bunny rabbit. It hit like 5 or 6 times, and all I could think was, "This seems like it should hurt." Like afterwards you ought to check and make sure none of your organs have liquidized.

We have (had) a turret with a weather vane on the roof right above us, which has now been exploded and had its shingles tossed across the street.

But the most interesting part of the whole event is the fact that we have teeming multitudes of insects that happily co-habitate with us, and when the lightning hit, they all simultaneously dropped out of the air, twitching and dead. CRAZY TIMES my friends. Crazy times.

So for Jeremy's birthday, we got our whole apartment building turning into a giant candle, and a free pest extermination.

The end.

Kim vs. The Produce Manager

2007-08-17T00:58:00.000-05:00

Jeremy has requested that for my inaugural blog posting, I tell you all how I was forcibly removed from a local establishment this morning. As you can see, he enjoys a) having an outlaw for a wife, b) her public humiliation.

I've been purchasing my own groceries for some time now, and generally can distinguish an "expensive" grocery store from "my" grocery store ("my" grocery store has at least three aisles completely in Spanish). However, I've never really known what stuff is supposed to cost - just how good of a deal am I really getting? A gallon of milk... $1? $2.50? Tomatoes... $.30/lb? $1.50/lb? It's an uncharted area of financial mystery which I usually just leave in the hands of the sullen smock-wearing employees with pricing guns. But today was the first official shopping trip of Howe, Inc. and having recently married a bottomless pit of a stomach, I anticipated a pretty sizable grocery investment. So I thought, today's the day. I will know what everything costs and darn it all, I will get a good deal. So armed with shopping list, pen, and paper, I set out for some hardcore research.

First stop, my old reliable supermarket. I've shopped there for the last 2 years and even supplied our wedding with mountains of lunch meats from the deli. I was halfway through the veggie section, noting with some suspicion that red peppers cost more than green, when I felt a tap on the shoulder.

Stranger: "Can I help you?"
Me: "Um... no?"
"What are you doing there?"
"I'm writing down prices. Is that a problem?"
"Yes it is. We can't have people writing down prices."
"Um... I don't understand."
"Who do you work for? Why are you doing that?"
(Feeling hot under the interrogation lights...) "So I can get a good deal? How else should I do it?"
"Show me your list."
I was feeling a little flustered at this point, so I handed over my notebook, though this was clearly a violation of some federal grocery-privacy act. He proceeded to rifle through the pages.
"I'm going to have to ask you to leave the store."
"Excuse me?"
"You're writing down everything in the store."
"I am not! I skipped the whole cactus and lentil section!"
"These things are obviously not all for you."
"It's our first shopping trip! We eat a lot!"
"I'm sorry ma'am. If you continue to write down prices, you're going to have to leave."
Me: "(mumble mumble)...unbelievable!...ridiculous!... (mumble mumble)" But I dutifully put my paper away, albeit with much show of grumbling and stomping about. (As is my fashion.)

Fast forward to 20 minutes later, having sneakily carried on in the deli section, and then not so sneakily in canned goods, and downright obviously in dairy.

"Ma'am. I'm going to have to escort you out of the store."
And that was it. And all in the name of fiscal responsibility.

Was it worth it, you ask?
Well, let me pose to you THIS question: Should I buy those pork chops for $1.88/lb? Those blueberry pints at 2 for $4? Well, should I?!

Heck yes! And now I know! And knowledge is power--take THAT, The Man!

the end of our endless numbered days

2007-08-13T23:30:00.000-05:00

this weekend we took our last trip of this summer, this time to maine, to see my friends chris and tarah get married on the ocean shore. it was pretty much as cool as that sounds--maybe i'll show you some pictures in a minute. and it was a great weekend.

since tomorrow is the start of orientation for med school, kim and i had been planning on getting home and falling gratefully into bed, resting up for the first of many long days. but instead, we opened the door of our apartment and were greeted by the rich aroma of natural gas, so i figured i'd write a blog while we wait for the gas people to come and fix the leak. hey, it's a science experiment--let's see if i write more or less coherently under the influence.

the night of the rehearsal dinner, chris and tarah had me sing a song, which i did at the beach. check out this cool blue atmosphere!

here's the wedding itself. here we see tarah ('s veil), chris, brian the pastor, and tarah's sister ashley and friend megan, who we thought was a pretty great person to know and hang out with. i'm representing for the groom on the other side of the beach, but you just saw a picture of me playing guitar, so i figured you'd be ok not seeing that.

the day after the wedding, chris and tarah and megan and kim and i went whale watching. the boat went fast, which blew our hair back and apparently made me squint my face awkwardly. they say the camera adds ten pounds. and the wind, it adds a good fifteen just to your neck. in pure neck fat.

speaking of fat and all, here's a whale. this is the blue fin whale, which is the second largest of the whales. "whale watching" means riding in a boat for a couple hours and never seeing any more than this much of any whale at any one time. so i'm telling you that this whale is really big, but as i never saw more than this 10 feet of it, i've got to tell you i'm relying a little on extrapolation and a lot on the tour guide, who sounded pretty knowledgeable.

in three-part summary, congratulations chris and tarah; maine is cool; and if i think much about it, i'm a little nervous about tomorrow and the beginning of all that. i'll update you with all that fun soon. in the meantime, i'm gonna go get started on the rest of my life!

overdue update, part 3: our apartment

2007-08-05T19:42:00.000-05:00

editor's note: this is the third in a three part series of...overdue updates. gosh, my title was so effective this editor's note feels sort of superfluous. anyway, the other two are directly below this one. don't miss out!

after a lot of painting, hauling, throwing away, and stowing in hidden places, our apartment is finally completed. last night we had an open house so our friends around here could see us and our new place, but just in case you couldn't make it and you don't live close enough to expect you'll be able to stop by in the next couple weeks, here are some photos of our place.

when you first walk into our apartment, this is what you see. it's our kitchen, and we're pretty pleased with it. note the shelves and radical dish arrangement, which we did ourselves, and the excellent yellow ("semolina", the paint can says). also note the fire escape exit out the window, which is how you get to our excellent roof-top views of the city.

here's the other wall of our kitchen. as you can see, there's not a lot of storage space, which leads to such things as dish displays, or (as in this photo) a suspended dish-drying shelf system, which is unanimously referred to (by kim and myself) as "ingenious". hm...also, we have a mat by the sink, which is nice.

if you look to your right when you come in the front door, you see a bathroom. this one, in fact. but i mean, it's just a bathroom, so...let's move on, shall we?

don't just stand there in our front door, come on in! you could walk, for example, into our living room. it has these windows, which is pretty much my favorite part of this place. that, and the tall ceilings. it's really pretty nice. if you come over, you can have dibs on the love seat. kim made the coverings for the cushions you see here, and even though it was her first such endeavor they turned out really great. she's kind of amazing that way.

to the right of those windows is the old music corner. as you can see, i've got some more plywood crates--my dad and i were busy when i got back to nebraska. this is probably my favorite corner of my favorite room in the house. i just think it looks really quite nice. and now there's room for expansion of the collection, which is of course really important. what good is a record collection if you're not always getting more and more and more? exactly.

next wall to the right is the door back to the kitchen. don't you just love how ridiculously detailed this tour is? aren't you glad you're not here in person, and feeling obligated to say "oo, neat!" or "i love what you've done with the color in this room!"? yeah, i thought so.

i'm sure you're wondering, so i'll tell you. the criteria for the selection of records to place on a wall display is complicated, but can be broken into four broad categories: musical quality, artwork, overall value, and context. obviously, if i don't actually like the music, the album has no business being displayed. and, since it's doubling as decor, the artwork had better be pleasing to look at. value refers to a record's worth. this could mean monetary value, as in the case of that death cab album, which is both an original pressing and out of print, or to sentimental value, such as its neighbor the notwist album, which i purchased in barcelona. what a souvenir! finally, context can mean the color of the wall behind the record, or to the records around it, or to any records also being displayed. two records by the same artist just wouldn't do, for example.

fret not, dear reader, our tour is coming to its end. here's our bedroom, and the final room in our apartment. i like the bedspread, and the color, which kim selected and even painted while i fell asleep on the bed, mumbling how i'd be very happy to help her tomorrow if she'd just quit for the night.

here's a very nice piece of furniture, which we bought off the previous tenant of this apartment. not only is it full of books we love (well, mostly), it's also got a ton of character and looks just amazing. plus, we didn't have to move it really at all, since it was already in the apartment when we got here. i wish i could at least pretend to be ironically taking this much pride in the apartment, or at least in the detail to which this pictorial show is going, but...i can't even pretend!

here, for the sake of completeness, is the last walls of our bedroom. and there's our closet door! as you can see, my desk had to sacrifice its amazing paint job for the room, which was kind of sad, but ultimately i suppose the desk and i both knew that one day its wild color scheme would meet its end for some greater, more color coordinated good. all the same, i sleep better at night knowing its bright colors aren't gone forever, they're just resting beneath the olive exterior.

so that's the apartment--believe me, it's even better in person, so come by and see it (us)! we'd love to have you come visit.

and finally, this is my 100th post on this blog. i wish i had something momentous to say, but i feel like the milestone entry being one that droned on endlessly about the boring minutiae of something like home decor feels ironically, beautifully appropriate on its own, and we'll leave things at that.

overdue update, part 2: silly jobs and free things

2007-08-05T18:33:00.000-05:00

on friday i worked for the company which had previously employed me as an international man of mystery. but my job this week was to be a street musician. i played songs downtown, and the teams had to find me, give me a dollar (yes!), and then identify the song i played to get points for that mission. this ought to be a pretty straightforward task, but i was pretty stressed the morning of the job because of my inability to identify what qualifies as a well-known song. i spend such an inordinate amount of time listening to music, or finding new music, or reading about it, that i've sort of lost track of what normal, non-music nerd people know about. add to that that the people playing were a generation or two removed from me (but not so old that they grew up on rock in the 60's), and you see why i was wringing my hands, deciding if "rebel rebel" (or any david bowie song, for that matter) is really as famous as i think it is, or as it ought to be, or if people who aren't within 10 years of me know anything by radiohead, or do 40 year olds like kelly clarkson, and so on. it was a tough job, and i hated to be so unoriginal, but i ended up using the beatles. beatles songs are pretty much as universal as oxygen, which probably means it was too easy, but at least people had fun. and gave me money.

it's very interesting to people watch whilst playing guitar in a place with lots of foot traffic. when the first group came, they gave me a cup to put money in so i could collect money from passersby while i waited for other teams. so i was able to note the before and after difference: when you play on the street without a place to put money, people look at you freely, curiously ("where's his money collection place?"). they don't mind when you smile at them and make eye contact, and they smile back, and even sometimes talk to you if you're not singing. after i got the money cup, though, some people tried to look at me without making it obvious that they were looking at me, or even implicitly admitting they knew i was there. and let me just say, most people are pretty bad at doing that. in fact, i'm going to recommend that unless you've been trained in the cia or some other spy institution/ninja school, that you should not try. you're probably not very good, either. i would quit, but like i said, i've been hired as a spy as recently as a month ago, so i'm good to go.

other people (probably people who have seen video footage of themselves trying to look without looking) tried a different sort of covert operation. as they approached, they assessed the situation: "street performer. wants my money. probably desperate. will attack me with guitar or look angrily at me if i don't pay up. DON'T want to pay." so here's the great escape plan. as they come by, they look down at the ground (the first rule is always to avoid eye contact), and then just as they pass, they reach about half the length of their fingers into their pocket as if to reach in for some money, continue by, and then once at a safe distance, remove their hand. it was funny, because it's like they care enough to pretend to want to pay, but not enough to make it convincing. it's the thought that counts, after all. and i'm not complaining at all--in fact i felt sort of guilty when people did throw a buck in my cup, like they imagined i was starving or something, and if they knew i was getting paid like $20/hour they'd feel like i scammed them or something.

speaking of scams, you know those annoying pop-up ads you sometimes find on the internet about getting free electronics? you know, the ones you don't even read, the super annoying ones that mean that epileptics can't ever be on the internet? well, it turns out they're not all evil scams at all--photographed above is the macbook kim got for free just by doing one of those things. she had to sign up for several free trials of various subscription services or credit cards or various other things, and then cancel them before she had to pay anything, and then hassle the business in charge, and they eventually sent her this little beauty, which is so much cooler than my computer that i'm a tiny bit jealous of her. actually, i guess it isn't quite true to say it was free--one of the services charged her $70 because she didn't cancel in time. but, she also got about $80 in gift cards by signing up, so she ended up $10 in the black. $10, plus one free laptop. she's a pretty smart person, even if she is crazy.

overdue update, part 1: adventures with aaron

2007-08-05T17:33:00.000-05:00

boy howdy, things have been pretty crazy lately. since getting hitched, kim and i have been racking up the frequent flier miles: trips to colorado springs, california, and nebraska, and this week we're heading to maine to see my friends chris and tarah get married. the day after i get back, med school orientation starts. unfortunately being so busy has meant not having time to update this blog with all the excellent things we've been doing. i think my new year's resolution next year will be seeking that balance: having enough time to write on my blog, but not having so much free time that i never have interesting things to tell about when i write. ah, the zen of the taoist blogger's life. here is a story from recent life...

last weekend my friend aaron came and visited our humble abode so we could all go see sevilla, our hometown team (in spain), play soccer here in chicago. we did, and that was fun, but the next night as we walked around downtown, we came across quite a scene. policemen were running around everywhere, putting up caution tape and herding people along, trying to stop them from taking pictures. we walked a little further on, and saw the burned out body of a crashed helicopter laying on the intersection amongst all the skyscrapers.

we walked a bit further and saw an armored police van, and as we looked closer we saw where someone had shot it several times. we also saw along the side where it said "gotham police department", and then we noticed that all the cars along the street had gotham license plates on them. we had walked right onto the set of the new batman movie while they were still setting up the perimeter tape to keep us out. as we took pictures, some movie people with headsets and walkie talkies ushered us away, but not before kim talked to one of them about being an extra in the movie.

that guy told kim the name of the casting director, so with our taste for movie crashing adventure thus piqued, we walked further along and talked to another official looking person, claiming to be extras and asking where we might find that guy. our use of the name was impressive enough that that official looked us up an address, which made us even more convincing when we got to the next person, asking for an address, a name, and with a plausible movie role. unfortunately, at this point we were back to the people who had first kicked us out, so aaron and i, fearing we'd be recognized (they call it "made" in the business), walked on while kim gained access to the building where the extras go. a security guard there asked for her name, which she supplied, and when he told her she wasn't on the list, she replied "really? i was told to meet (director's name) here at 7:00 with all the extras." so security guard told her where to go, and she made it in where all the extras were waiting to film the movie's big chase scene that night. apparently, there were snacks and assorted free foods, but kim only hung out for a little bit before she left to find us again.

anyway, here's a few other pictures from the weekend:

here's the three of us post-game, after walking from soldier field to the museum campus to enjoy the skyline at night. it's really a very nice skyline--come stay with us and we'll show you!

here's aaron and i enjoying chicago dogs. because i am stuffing my face, you can't tell how happy i am to have found a hot dog eating buddy (kim is apparently biologically or philosophically opposed to "encased meats" as she calls them. see, i told you she's crazy.). plus, these were pretty good dogs.

on saturday we went on an architectural cruise, which was pretty cool. after that (and before batman), we checked out this flamenco show in millennium park. it's a nice view from here, but we mostly watched the show a little closer. like, where you could see what was happening on the stage.

after our batman adventure we grilled out (on my third story fire escape stairway), and had a sing-along time. aaron and i used to play together all the time, so he brought his guitar out with him so we could enjoy that together. hopefully our neighbors enjoyed it as well, even when it got sort of loud singing oh, darling at about 2am. well, we had fun anyway.

wedding pictures and sounds

2007-07-22T17:42:00.000-05:00

michael chan, my friend and brother in law (in law) took some pictures of the wedding and wedding time. he made a slideshow of these photos, which you can see by clicking the word "slideshow". not that one there, the first one. or you can click here. enjoy!

moving in, kim and jeremy style

2007-07-11T11:49:00.000-05:00

here's a shot of our new apartment. and our old car. and our ingenious method for moving and hauling the groceries, etc. ultimately we hope to involve several pulleys and lots of clips and wenches and things. when you come to visit us, if you don't feel like walking up stairs we'll probably just put you in the basket. it'll be fun!

things are going well--we're still getting settled in, and there's of course the decisions about the color of the paint and the arrangement of boxes and records and furniture and all of that stuff. but it's coming together. when everything is in its place kim and i will give you a grand tour of the place. it should be a good time.

oh and by the way i'm using the apple store's internet right now, where i also tried out an iphone and hot diggity they are just really, really, really neat. i realize that they're sort of a big item you've already heard about, and that i should probably have something more to say if i'm going to mention such a ubiquitous device/pop culture phenomenon, but...that's all i have to say. it's really, really, really neat. and also hot diggity.

the land before time

2007-07-09T09:20:00.000-05:00

readers of blog and fellow net citizens (i know i'm supposed to say netizens, but i just can't get myself to do it), i have undergone a life-changing experience. i have a completely new perspective on the world that will probably lead me to completely redefine the direction and meaning of my life. i'm thinking of maybe volunteering at the city rec center or an after school club or something. for behold, i write to you from a strange, foreign land. a desolate, depressing, empty land characterized mostly by a lack of information and a lack of trivial pursuits or really any fun at all. a land where messages can only come as fast as the post office delivers them, where news can only be read in newspapers.

haha, i bet you thought i was talking about marriage until that last one there! no, sadly my friends i am referring to life without internet (married life is actually pretty great, really). i have so much to tell you, so many stories to recount, pictures to upload, and so forth. but for now instead i give you this small update and the assurance that today we decide between at&t's dsl and comcast's cable. and a hope that very soon i will learn about the world's catastrophes from the comfort of my couch. until then, i guess i'll call the soup kitchen.

a perfect day

2007-07-03T10:26:00.000-05:00

so, kim and i got married on saturday. if you were there, you know the day was about as great as it could be, with nice sunshine and a breeze to keep things from getting too hot. people ate food and played park games (thanks to everyone for bringing games--especially dave, who lugged his cornhole game a whole 88 steps from his car to the park (he counted and reported how much effort it took, so i know)) and generally everyone seemed to get used to the idea of a wedding as kim and i had envisioned it, and relaxed, and ultimately enjoyed themselves. at least, the people who told kim and me afterwards what they thought of the ceremony all indicated that they thought it was a success. i guess probably most people don't go around telling the bride or groom they think their wedding is terrible while it's happening, but i'm definitely willing to take this as a positive sign. personally, i thought the thing was a smashing success, and if you didn't come you really missed out on something special. (likewise, though, i suppose the groom doesn't go around saying he thinks his wedding was a failure afterwards. but you should take this as a positive sign, too.)

although we started off designing as simple an affair as we could get away with, this wedding couldn't have happened without a whole host of talented, free labor friends. what follows is unfortunately not a complete list...

first of all, thanks to nellie chan for being the wedding coordinator, at times from as many as 5 time zones away, and for arriving at the scene calmly and coolly and making everything work. (the decorations! the food! the site! and patience and enthusiasm and panache and etc etc etc)

likewise to the entire roth family, who showed up early and moved boxes and foods and peoples around and were very understanding and cooperative in helping us make the thing we wanted to make, even if it wasn't exactly what they wanted to make.

and to the howe family for the meal the night before, for bringing friends and family together and creating such a warm environment in which everyone could meet. that was also exactly what we were hoping for, and we were so delighted with the opportunity to see our friends mix.

to our crack team of photographers, jonathon miano, ryan clarke, and michael chan, for their flexibility, patience, and understanding, and for (probably) taking really great shots. the shot above is courtesy of michael.

to all our friends who helped out the days before or the day of to make either the meal or the wedding or both work so well. slicing vegetables, cleaning fruits, organizing, arranging, carrying, cooking...and all with such great smiles and humor. this couldn't have happened without you!

we mentioned some specifics of the ceremony to carlos and janeil a couple weeks ago, and that was how we realized that we had failed to actually ask them to officiate the wedding. but they took it all in stride, and worked very patiently to discover with us what kind of ceremony we wanted, and put up with being forced into last minute preparations and then made it all come together so well. thanks you guys!

and finally, to everyone who came and participated, and helped us make the day the kind of day we wanted. we had a blast, and we hope you did too!

i'm getting married today!

2007-06-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

...that's all. hooray!

see you soon!

blogs, weddings, etc.

2007-06-27T10:37:00.001-05:00

first of all, i'd like to apologize to all my dear friends and readers for the total lack of blogging. this has been a crazy month, but that's no excuse--this blog is important! be assured that i have every intention to be a very diligent, hilarious, and insightful blogger in the coming months, when i become a newly married first year med student. i'm sure the entries will start to get very interesting in the next couple months...so stay tuned if you want to know what goes through a man twice gone crazy.

in other blog news, kim has now become an official member of this blog, thus making our holy union that much more real and binding. you can expect to hear all kinds of funny stories and musings from her life in the coming days. don't worry, though--she's not going to be some yoko type that starts to edit and limit the creative explosions of words and hilarities that you've all become accoustomed to--she'll simply add to the wonders that happen here. and when we have really passive-aggressive fights we'll probably just post insulting things about each other here, which ought to make for a pretty good read for all of you in internetland. let the adventure begin!

finally, i've heard some concerns from various people about ability to find the wedding once they've arrived at the park. i understand your fears and hopefully will clear them up for you all now. i think the best tool for finding the park is the google maps feature, and i suspect that some of those who are concerned about finding the place don't understand how the map works, so i've included an image of the map here to explain a little. click on the image here for a bigger picture of the map (you need to go to the link on the wedding website to actually USE the map, though). first of all, did you know that by clicking the picture and dragging you can move your view of the map? and did you know that the scale over on the top left can be used to zoom in and out of the picture? and finally, and perhaps most importantly, did you know that by clicking "satellite" over in the top right corner you can have the view of the park you see here, allowing a real-life view of actual landmarks and such? well, if you didn't, i hope this mini tutorial has been of some help to you and will make using the site more helpful in the future, as well as when attempting to find this part of the park. if not, the picture above is a shot taken while standing on the actual place the wedding will happen, and probably there will be signs on saturday directing folks to the location, or to a different location if it turns out we have to go elsewhere for some reason (like a bunch of puerto ricans playing baseball or some such). or call a friend or me or kim and we'll attempt to guide you if you're lost.

so i guess that's it for now--we're in the last days here, so i hope those of you who are coming out are excited for the trip and are looking forward to a great time on saturday--i know i am! hey, if you know my number, do me a favor and call me when you get in town so i can keep track of who's arrived and who's potentially lost. and plus just so i can hear your voices and say hello!

see you all soon!

chicago, leading the way

2007-06-03T18:04:00.000-05:00

chicago is a notable, leading city in many things. we've got the olympic bid, we've got the cuisine (i'd mention more than chicago dogs and italian beefs if it didn't seem so much like bragging), the architecture, the culture, the list goes on and on. and this summer we're #1 in a whole new category: gas prices. that's right, the highest! the number 1, most expensive in the whole country. in your face, everyone else!

and as if that wasn't enough, we're also at the top (or bottom) of another pile. our mail service is the worst in the country. that probably explains why i STILL can't get mail forwarded to me from my lincoln address. this honor is special, though. i mean, anybody can just jack up gas prices--shoot, i'll sell you a gallon of unleaded for $50 right now--but it takes a special something to lose letters, delay parcels, destroy postcards, (and the packages! don't even get me started on packages!) quite the way the chicago post office does. it's a real thing of beauty to behold.

so, in summary. chicago rules. we lead in so many things that we even lead in things other people don't want to lead in. because we lead. we rule.

the cicadas

2007-05-31T10:19:00.000-05:00

as you might remember from a lazy saturday discovery channel program (or wait--didn't you spend your lazy saturdays watching the discovery channel?), periodic cicadas are fantastically disgusting looking bugs that live underground for 13 or 17 years and then come up to make a huge racket, find some insect lovin, and then very quickly die as their offspring head underground for another 17 years. perhaps upon hearing this information you thought "how interesting! what a strange life cycle!" and maybe you also thought "but this information will never have any real impact on me". i did. but then, i wasn't planning on moving to chicago and getting married the summer that three "broods" (that's what they call them) would emerge from their subterranean lairs to make really noisy mating calls (they say it gets up to 100 decibels!), litter the ground with their carcasses, and gross out innocent people throughout the city and in any outdoor weddings that might be happening in any of the city parks. like the one i'm planning on having in a month, just at the height of their infestation.

we, the intrepid bandit wedding planners, are going on as planned with our wedding, plague of locusts or no. perhaps someday we'll look back at a wedding overrun with noisily horny bugs and laugh. or maybe we'll end up miserable and wonder why we didn't take God's warning more seriously. i mean, it's a plague! on the wedding day! what else would you expect?

i guess probably we'll look back and joke that we're miserable, perhaps in response to questions people ask about why we have a cicada's molten body framed on our wall (which also sounds like something else we'd do). probably we'll grossly exaggerate the number of cicadas, the noise, and how many we accidentally ate because they ended up in our sandwiches. probably i'm already exaggerating the number of bugs we'll have in our park and how loud they'll be. if you're planning on coming out for our little picnic/wedding, do us a favor and try not to let the facts get in the way of a good story. and...bring some mosquito netting.

shaken, not stirred

2007-05-28T15:16:00.000-05:00

the hotel room was in complete disarray. on one bed, the pillow had been heavily stained by something red and the sheets were disheveled, three ominous tarot cards apparently arbitrarily arranged amongst the sheets. the other bed was covered in money, poker chips, and playing cards. women's fishnet stockings and oddly colored wigs were strewn about the room, and the light bulb had been removed from the night table lampshade. in the bathroom, several lines of a white powder were neatly laid out on the counter, and the name "IVAN" had been written on the mirror, perhaps in blood. in the bath was a red-stained shirt and a general disorderliness. a knock sounded very distinctly at the door, six times, just as we'd agreed. "vladimir?" i nervously called out in what i hoped sounded like a british accent. after a moment's hesitation a woman's voice said "...yes?" i rushed to the door and opened it to a group of smiling, middle-aged businessmen and women.

last week i was an actor for go game, a company that specializes in team building and scavenger hunts--"the future of corporate play", they call themselves. i played the role of a secret agent at a murder scene--dressed in a black suit, mod sunglasses, and carrying a three-olive martini around the room with me (i don't have to tell you how it was prepared, do i?). as teams entered the hotel room, taking pictures of the "evidence" in the room, i told them of the crime boss ivan, and how vladimir was the only man who had ever seen him and lived to tell about it--we had met in russia two days prior and were meeting in chicago to review the evidence one last time before he testified in court. but it seemed as though vladimir's vices and ivan's henchmen had been his demise--and ivan would be a free man again.

i like my job as an interpreter, but even if this job hadn't paid way better by the hour, it would have been nice just to have a change of pace and pretend to be a double 0 for a day.

best week ever

2007-05-14T16:44:00.000-05:00

let's review, shall we? first i went out to california (read: great weather, inn n out burger, trip to vegas) to meet kim's parents. while i was there i found out i got accepted to med school here in illinois. then, kim and i set a date to get married--june 30th, in chicago. and then we came back to chicago and saw björk in concert. and THEN i found out i got accepted to the urban medicine program and will definitely be in chicago for the next 4-5 years, thus making pretty much exactly what i wanted to happen come to fruition.

oh, wait! did you hear i'm getting married? i am, i am! isn't that cool? you've really got to meet this girl--she's the best one of the whole bunch, and she's going to stick around until one of us dies! AND she's an illinois resident, so she cuts my med school debt in half! AND she doesn't mind the styling twist-tie ring you see displayed so proudly in the photo. AND she's even such a good and kind person that she puts up with me for hours on end without even rolling her eyes, even when i show off my radical dance moves in public (that happens pretty often). you will, of course, be hearing more from kim in the near (and distant) future, so stay tuned for an opportunity to get to know the incomparable, lovely, and utterly fantastic kim roth!

i can't tell if buying a lottery ticket right now would be greedy or just common sense--i'm on a roll!

the big envelope

2007-05-09T09:33:00.000-05:00

yesterday while kim and i were driving around california my roommate nate called me to let me know that i had recieved another official looking piece of mail from the university of illinois, and...it was big. he opened it up while i was on the phone with him and began reading:

"dear incoming student..."

...and then, you know, "it is our pleasure," etc. and they even have a seat for me! even though my own state school doesn't. so i guess i didn't have to have the letter in my hands to believe i'd been accepted, as long as someone i knew had it in their hands. so i'm in, i'm in, and all that waiting wasn't just a really long tease. JOY!

i'm so happy to have been accepted, and to be honest a little relieved. the next question is if i've been accepted to the urban medicine program, which will determine if i'm on the chicago campus or the urbana-champagne campus. i'll keep you all updated, but for now i'm just going to have a nice deep sigh...

med school mailroom drama

2007-05-05T07:37:00.000-05:00

i very nearly had the momentous moment i've been waiting for the last couple weeks (or months, or couple years, depending on how you look at it) yesterday. the UIC website informed me earlier this week that they'd made their decision about me, and a letter informing me of this news had been sent. so when my friend sarah (my good friend and fellow high school alum who now lives one floor below me) called me to tell me she'd seen some mail from med school in the mailbox i grabbed the nearest train home and listened to my heart beating louder than my headphones in my ears. i was finally going to know! i found my letter and ripped it open, only to find...information on financial aid? nothing saying i've been accepted or not accepted, just information on how i ought to go about applying for fafsa. but...but...am i accepted or what?!?

i suppose it's possible to speculate that these facts would INDICATE that i've been accepted, but i'm not believing anything until i have the letter in my hands. this waiting game, i tell you what. i suspect i've ridden on so many miserable, long bus rides (and waited at bus stops for long, late, cancelled bus rides) just to condition me for these experiences. so i guess i'm thankful, because i feel like i should be going crazier than i am. we'll see what happens when i get back from california...

oh yeah, california! so in a couple hours i'm flying out to california to visit kim and her family. in the short time i've been here kim has progressed from being an especially interesting and fun person to a completely unique person, to a person unlike anyone i've ever met in my entire life. somewhere along the way she's also become my girlfriend and since last week she went home for a bit i've decided to run out there as well. so the next post should have more definite news about med school and maybe some sunny beach pictures.

unless my plane crashes and i die.

the weekend is free!

2007-04-23T09:23:00.000-05:00

this is a shot of the congress theater in between modest mouse's sound check last night and when the doors were opened. i was there to take the picture because i was an usher for the event. that's a job which doesn't pay but does afford one the opportunity to watch the soundcheck...and, you know, actually see the show for free, from more or less wherever you want. plus it provides a fun format in which to chat with other enthusiastic concert-goers, and the ageless quandary of what to wear to the show is handily resolved: i think i'll wear black slacks and a button-up white shirt.

i had a great time, in other words, and really enjoyed the show. this was my first time seeing modest mouse live (but not my first attempt) and they were the rocking energetic crazies i had expected them to be. plus they played the view and paper thin walls and that made me pretty happy. and as an added bonus it's at this exact same theater i will reprise my ushering role in a few weeks for bjork's concert, whom i have also never seen in concert (that one ought to be memorable--i'm excited nearly to the point of incontinence over that show).

friday night was ushering a play called black diamond, which was about liberia and their civil wars and bloody history. that was not quite the same pick-me-up atmostphere as the rock show, but it had some very solid parts to it (amongst the gritty violence and occasionally dismal moments) and i'd say i benefitted from having seen it.

i wish i could say i had some point to this post other than to brag about going to concerts and plays for free, but it seems to me that's all i really have to say right now.

med school madness

2007-04-17T17:17:00.000-05:00

i told you all i'd update with information about my med school plans when i had them. and here i am to do just that! here comes the infos:

when i moved to chicago, my mail did not follow me. despite filling out the appropriate forms i still haven't gotten mail forwarded to chicago since i moved here. i was reflecting on this a month or so ago and decided that i should call my friends in omaha to see if they'd made a decision and had sent it...to the chicago post office, where it was wasting away and wanting to tell me all its important news. the addmissions person told me they hadn't made a decision yet, and we chatted a little bit and then all of the sudden she started talking in a very quiet voice and whispered that she wasn't supposed to tell me this, but the fact was that my file had been reviewed and that i had been accepted to med school!!! but since she wasn't supposed to tell me, i couldn't tell anyone, either, so i had to keep it on the dl.

fast forward to just before i left for china, and let's open the letter i got from unmc, congratulating me on being accepted to school but saying that unfortunately they didn't have a seat to offer me at this time. and that's how i came to know the fabulous world of the alternate list. since everyone that gets accepted to unmc doesn't ultimately decide to go there, spots open up with time, and i'm on the list to get one of those seats when that time comes. i am in the top 25% of that list, which pretty much guarantees that i will be offered an actual seat (ah, the fine difference between being accepted and having a seat! very important distinction!) by the time august comes. so that's the situation for going to nebraska.

meanwhile, let's talk about the chicago situation. right after i got back from china i interviewed at the university of illinois-chicago college of medicine (uic to you) and had a great experience. the interview process there is three one on one interviews, and during the second one after discussing a little of my background and the parts of medicine that interest and concern me the interviewer interrupted me to ask why i hadn't had an interview sooner. i told her i wasn't sure and she said "the reason i ask is because usually we see people of your talent level much earlier in the process". she went on to tell me about a relatively new curriculum at uic called the urban medical education program (umed, thank you very much), a small program focused on serving patients in urban areas and meeting the needs specific to that environment. there are several aspects of the program that pretty much perfectly match what i want to do with medicine, so i'm obviously very excited about the chance to be a part of the program. so was my interviewer, who went so far as to call a person on the committee for selecting students for the umed program to say that i am a "phenomenal candidate" for that situation, and helped me introduce myself to the dean of admissions while i was there. it's hard for me to imagine having had a better interview there.

so we'll see what happens. i've never been a "phenomenal" candidate before, but i have been a very strong candidate who didn't get accepted, and i've been an even stronger candidate than before who got accepted but who didn't have a seat. so i guess i'm cautiously optimistic. but the program would really be an incredible opportunity and i'd love to be a part of it. i should know in the next month or so about all of that, so we'll see how things turn out. more updates on the way!

china

2007-04-09T20:15:00.000-05:00

i've finally found myself enough time to pick some pictures and post them for your pleasure. lucky you, and lucky your pleasure. before we go to the pictures, let me just say that going to see china with my mom was a really great experience and it's a really cool country and there's lots of neat-o things to see and do there. i recommend traveling with your mom and i recommend traveling to china. on to the pictures!

when we landed we went to our friends in shanghai, the meyers. in a display of recombinated hospitality and tough love they refused to let us go to sleep upon arrival in the afternoon, despite our bleary eyes and slurred pleas. that night, to keep our adrenaline pumping, they took us downtown and then to this hotel's 40 or so story atrium, where they apparently figured the onset of vertigo would keep us on our toes and fully awake. they were right--i nearly threw up. or down. down 40 stories.

here we are having another amazing meal in shanghai. bee tin (mrs. meyer, who is singaporean) ordered food for us so we didn't end up eating dog. she did a good job of that as far as i know. either that, or dog tastes really good--all the food we had was delicious. plus this restaurant does a remarkable job of keeping its ceiling mirrors clean.

here's a picture inside a temple in xian, which is the second city we went to. this is where they light the candles and then bow several times in the smoke. that probably would have been a better picture than this one, but this one's not so bad. plus, this way you SEE this one and get to hear about and imagine that one. so this one picture, in a way, is worth TWO thousand words. that's word economy right there.

this, then, is word and picture extravagance and superfluity. this is also in xian, overlooking one of the excavated portions of the tomb of the first emperor of the qin dynasty. this tomb was under construction for most of the guy's life, which means mr. qin was either really morbid or blessed with a strong sense of foresight. or both, i guess. first of all, let me give my standard photo disclaimer (long-time readers, sing along if you know the words): it looks way better in person. but seriously. each and every one of those clay statues is life-size and individually designed and hand made. this room, in other words, is approximately enormous. and it's sort of surreal to be there. plus, they've only excavated three of the many many pits full of untold treasures and tourist traps, so the whole thing is completely unique and bigger than whatever comes close to it and so on.

this is the great wall. some folks say you can see it from outer space, which is not true. so if you tried to see it from there you'd be pretty disappointed, and not only because at some point you'd probably realize you could have seen it without leaving planet earth anyway. we went from where we're standing here to where you can't see the wall any more in this picture. this hike was probably my favorite part of the china trip. there was incredible scenery, that palpable feeling of history, fun times with the mom, and the fun feeling of breaking the law when we snuck past the "danger in path ahead" sign. breaking the law in repressive communist countries just gives you an extra little thrill.

here's a picture depicting the scenery. and the history. and the mom time. and the overall awesomeness. but not the law-breaking, because this part wasn't forbidden. but probably there's extra helpings of awesome here to make up for it. we visited the great wall while we were staying in beijing, which is where we went after we went to xian. those are the three cities we went to: shanghai, xian, and beijing. next picture!

finally, this is tiananmen square. an enormous swatch of cement filled with monuments to various pieces of chinese splendor, it's also the site of an incredible massacre for which there is no monument. the eeriness of being between the time when that happened and when it will ultimately be acknowledged is...like, really eerie. the square is enourmous (in typical empirical fashion) and full of people and just walking through it was a very exciting experience.

so that's some pictures of china. there's probably more around somewhere, and there's therefore a decent chance i'll post more pictures after these pictures. but here are some of them, for now.

ping

2007-04-06T11:03:00.000-05:00

yes, i am back from china, and not dead or now communist. but i also brought back like 500 pictures and haven't had time to sort them into fair, good, and blog-worthy categories. but i will, dear readership, i will. and when i do, you can be sure i will share those and other pieces of news and updates shortly thereafter. stick around! we'll be back to normal production soon!

mexico, like it used to be!

2007-03-17T20:48:00.000-05:00

i have successfully returned from mexico, without apparently bringing back a single unfriendly microorganism in my bowels. either that or my bowels have become more diplomatic and don't just expel every foreigner it meets. ...wait, that's not what i was going to talk about. here, as promised, are some photos from the last week:

this or something like it was what the clinics we did looked like. in the foreground we have pete, the physician's assistant i worked with all week. in the background we have mexicans. sick mexicans, probably. this was the third of four clinics we did, during which time we saw about 350 patients (including 100 on this and the day previous). i enjoyed working with pete, and i think we made a pretty good team. this picture also hints at the importance of dust in the tiny poverty-stricken towns we visited. it's not just a reason to buy pledge and a medium on which to write "wash me" on windshields--it's also roads, sidewalks, floors, and the thing the hot dry wind blew in your eyes!

here's a shot of another clinic, before we started. this was most of the people who had already lined up before we'd arrived. no kidding, probably 75% of the kids in the picture have a cold, sinus or ear infection, or flu. and of those, about 3% cover their mouths when they cough. i, then, am a testament of the miraculous disease-preventing power of God, because i probably had an index of infectious saliva on my arm at any given moment during a clinic. the whiteys in this photo are, from left to right, johanna, kelly, and david.

this is the scene previous to a third clinic. the pastor's wife had made us a delicious crab salad, which you can see us eating here. while we all appreciated and were probably to some degree humbled by this generous gesture, david's facial expression, and johanna's watching him eat it, more or less sum up the group's feelings about the actual eating of this dish--it's hard to make out in the photo, but what we have here is crab meat pulled right out of the ocean, lettuce, and some kind of mayo base to the whole thing, which had apparently been sitting out long enough for the lettuce to wilt before we tore into it. i don't know how savvy you are on what not to eat in little tiny villages out in the middle of nowhere in mexico, but...i think i just listed all of the major things to avoid. but we soldiered on, and we all didn't get sick. when someone said we'd just have to smile and eat it and trust God with the rest, i said "so...you think we'll get sick." but somehow God sent neither lightning bolts nor amoebas to my belly in response, and we all lived happily ever after, even at great distances from toilets.

here's a shot of me in action. notice my form--i'm leaned way in, like i'm about to interpret the sound of her heartbeat, should it become necessary. for the record, the heartbeat sound in spanish comes out as "tun tun. tun tun." this was at the end of the day, which is sort of unfortunate because you can't really appreciate the crowds and general activity going on for most of the day while we worked. so you'll just have to take my word for it--we were pretty much rock stars. ROCK STARS!

in addition to working, there was a lot of playing. we stayed in a missionary house about a 10 minute walk from the beach, so in the mornings we'd go over there. one morning i went exploring a little and decided to check out an apparently deserted and under construction house. while i was there the watchdog ("pulgoso," i later learned he was called) alerted the security guard (gabriel) to my presence. gabriel is, i'm sure, an excellent security guard, but i found that he also makes a top-notch tour guide after minimal conversation. he showed me the house and told me a bit about the place and his life while we walked. the house was very cool, and i'm currently working on a good plan to usurp the wealthy americans to whom the place belongs in the near future. if it works out you can come down to party with me.

here, then, is one such view from the house. you're probably wondering what hair styling products i use, but try to focus. (but i'll let you in on a secret--i just use a hair compressing device known as a "baseball hat" and it does the rest. the deeper mystery is, why'd i take the hat off for this self-portrait if my hair looked so dumb underneath? and that's one i won't answer for you just now.) don't tell anyone, but the beach where we were supposed to be doing all this thankless work was pretty awesome. you can kind of see it in this picture.

so there's some pictures from mexico. there's a lot more, and maybe i'll show you later. or maybe you should come over and i'll show you. it's up to you later. don't forget, though--tuesday night is menomena's show here in chicago, and it's also wednesday morning over in china.

trains, planes, and automobiles

2007-03-10T08:12:00.000-06:00

today begins a stretch of adventure and excitement. in a few moments i'll head out the door and get on the train which will carry me (via airports and such) to mexico for the next week before it brings me back long enough to clean my clothes (and show you all pictures, of course!) and then head out once again, this time to china (via the other airport). this is, i guess, what wandering folks like myself do when they feel the icy grip of a 4-year (plus) commitment creeping up on them.

i am going to mexico with a group from my lincoln church led by dr. martin (that's him modeling the proper way to say "ah" from the last time i went). for the past several years he has gone to a series of small pueblos in northwestern mexico to do free clinics there. 2 years ago i went as an interpreter, and this year i'll be reprising that role as well as once again meddling with the setup and attempting to find the very best, most efficient way to clear the language barrier and see as many patients as possible. i'm very excited about the trip and the challenges and fun that i'm sure are awaiting all of us there.

my trip to china, on the other hand, will probably not be of any benefit to anyone other than the people around here who are glad when i'm not here. my mom and i are going just purely for the fun and edification of it, and also of course to finally find the magical, mythical part of china where the world's toys are made. this is a trip i've dreamt of ever since i played with my first transformers and while converting a car to an ominous looking robot (with lasers!) i wondered to myself "where on earth did such a fantastic piece of plastic come to be?" and there, on the robot's food (formerly a rear fender) was the answer: made in china. so china, here i come! (in a week.)

come back soon for pictures of mexico and for progress reports on the red's efforts to indoctrinate me. but mostly for the pictures.

home is where my habits have a habitat

2007-03-06T07:00:00.000-06:00

i have now officially, completely, and as permanently as can be expected (given the temporary nature of my chicago stay) moved into the apartment which from this point forward i will refer to as my apartment. this triumphant return to chicago will, i hope, coincide with the end of this awkward blog silence and is now going to be kicked off with a photographic tour of my room, furnished as it is with a smattering of belongings most accurately summarized as "stuff".

we begin our tour with probably my greatest wood-working achievement ever (it wasn't just a weird coincidence that we never had shop class at the same time in high school--i was probably in choir that period or something). while i was home this weekend my dad and i made these 6 open faced cubes for my records. they might look a lot like what you've been calling "crates", but given the amount of energy expelled in making them, and making them actually uniform and actually cube-like (and not trapezoid-like), i feel like open faced cubes is a much more prestige-appropriate title. note also my brilliant use of suitcase as speaker stand and my freakishly tall bed. i'm actually putting in a bid to host the 2018 summer games entirely under my bed. that's how much space there is down there.

moving your head slightly to the right, you begin to suspect that nearly all the space in my car was devoted to musical things. and you are right. (we feel the musical culture surrounding the underbed area will be a huge draw for the IOC.) also, i'd like to thank, from left to right, sarah, betsy, and jordan for these excellent wall-hangings which, in a pinch, have also served as very capable articles of clothing, especially in cold weather. thanks, guys!

snap that head back to the left, and you see the epcot center-like covering of the olympics complex. my grandma made that for me. my grandma is way more hip to geometry than your grandma.

this last picture is pretty much just here for completeness, so you can have seen the fourth wall. there's a closet, a mirror that the former inhabitant left me (probably as a hint about my grooming skills) and a door, which i think is probably one of the most underrated, least appreciated parts of any room. because either you use that or you have to dive in and out of the windows to go anywhere.

baila, guapa

2007-02-27T08:18:00.000-06:00

in addition to black history month, the chinese and korean new years, groundhog day, family day, and darwin day, in chicago february is also host to the chicago flamenco festival, a month-long celebration of the spanish music and dance form, with various performances given throughout the city. i am by no means a flamenco afficionado, but i just totally love watching and listening to it. the music and dancing is at once delicate and aggressive, the movement is fluid and also abrupt, and the wrists are just...enchanting! this saturday was the final performance, and i thought it'd be fun to go. unfortunately, so did a lot of other people who presumably had heard about the event before i'd even arrived in town, and they got all the tickets.

i really wanted to go, so i told my new friend kim about this dilemma, and she said she figured we could get in. we made some calls and planned our possible points of entry. the first move was to arrive early to the show, when ticketless potential patrons would be given a number based on their arrival, which would then determine the order in which returned or cancelled tickets were distributed. so we got to the front of that line, and while we waited kim reviewed our other options. we'd both come dressed as ushers in the event that more were needed, and kim had brought black tux jackets so that we could dress up as caterers and walk past the ticket takers in that capacity. (this is a ruse kim has successfully pulled off before, and is both one of many things that has made getting to know her a real adventure and the main reason i think she is a direct descendant of macguyver. also, i think she might be crazy.)

it was a very stormy and snowy night, so several tickets were returned and as kim and i were first in line, we had no trouble getting in after all. the show was quite enjoyable, and afterwards we went to a reception where was served tapas and sangría. the wine, the bocadillos, and the spanish accents flying around the room transported me back to ehspain, and overall i had a really great night. kim did, too, although i expect she would have preferred to have gotten in in some way that required a grappling hook and made less use of the front door.

faq chicago

2007-02-20T13:54:00.000-06:00

q: so, you're out in chicago now. what part of the city are you in?
a: right now i live in lakeview, which is on the north side. but in a couple weeks i'll be moving to an apartment in humboldt park.

q: oh. i don't know where that is. should i probably come to chicago and check it out?
a: yeah, you probably should.

q: ok, cool. i think i will! so...how are things over there? keeping busy?
a: things are pretty great. i'm kind of busy, but not in a working all the time kind of way. my job is pretty flexible (a friend here says i don't have a day job. but she also says i'm going bald, so what does she know?), so i've been filling my time with a few of chicago's exciting areas--the museums, the restaurants, the places where homeless people pee, and so on.

q: oh. i see. what IS your job, anyway?
a: i work as a medical interpreter, which means i go to appointments and speak in english and spanish between a doc and a patient. it's pretty cool.

q: really? because it sounds boring.
a: oh, no way! i really like it. like last week i interpreted for a birth, which was awesome. and i get to see lots of different kinds of medicine and imagine myself doing them and decide if i'd like it, which is kind of like shopping for clothing, if you were going to only wear one suit for the rest of your life.

q: i have a sinking feeling you're about to tell another gross story involving bloody or detached body parts. let's change the subject before i start to wish i hadn't eaten such a heavy lunch. so what hospital do you work at? the one from ER? have you seen george clooney there? PLEASE give him my phone number! he's soooooo cute!!!
a: i'm actually not employed by a hospital or health clinic. in fact, i'm technically not employed by anyone--i'm an independent contractor. i work with an agency that finds interpreters for places that need them, so i work all over and around the city. this is in some ways a pain, but it's also been fun and a great way to see lots of the city. if i see george clooney i'll send him your love, but to be honest i'd always imagined the person behind the "q" was a man. weird.

q: well, i mean, it's not like i LOVE him. i just said he was cute. and that's all. so, uh...what else do you do when you're not at work?
a: well, i've found an incredible and interesting group of friends here who i have really enjoyed getting to know and hanging out with. and they know so much about chicago--i'm finding out all the great places to go, the cheap or free ways to see the city, and where to go for good falafel.

q: so you've been in one place for a month and a half--got any big plans to leave the country?
a: as a matter of fact, i do! in march i'm going with my lincoln church to mexico for a medical missions trip. i'll be interpreting over there and hopefully perfecting the triage system i tried out last time i did this trip, two years ago. i'm very excited to go back and to learn and see what i can while i'm there.

q: haha, i was kidding when i asked. you travel too much. you suck. but hey, weren't you planning on coming back to lincoln to get your stuff?
a: hey, what did i tell you about that kind of language?!? yes, i am coming back to get my stuff. i ended up waiting a little longer than i thought i would, which has meant that i wear the same pair of pants to every job i have, and one of two sweaters. it's easier to live out of a suitcase when you're on the move and nobody sees you twice, but i think some people in various medical clinics in chicago are beginning to think folks from nebraska can only afford one set of "dress-up" clothes. we're a simple folk. anyway, i'll be back in lincoln for the second half of next week. give me a call and we'll see if we can't hang out a little. it'd be fun!

q: i guess i might. it sounds like things are going really well for you. are you surprised?
a: to be honest, i kind of am. when i was in ecuador i told an american doc about my plans to become an interpreter out here, and he told me i wouldn't be able to do it because i'm not a native speaker. at the time part of me thought this was likely more a reflection of his own inability to speak spanish effectively (gosh, he was pretty bad) than an indication of the feasibility of my plan, but it was also really discouraging to me--he said it like he knew what he was talking about, and that he was very definite about it. so this whole experience has been a really great lesson to me to just go after whatever it is i want, no matter what anyone says. i mean, no matter the odds or--

q: you're starting sound a little too much like one of those inspirational posters, man. that's really lame. i think i need to go.
a: oh, ok. well, maybe i'll see you in a couple weeks? when i'm back in town?

q: eh, whatever.
a: ok! i'll wait for your call!!!

border wars

2007-02-08T16:10:00.000-06:00

last night the united states played mexico in soccer. the game was in phoenix, but whenever the us plays mexico along our southern border it's more like a home game for them. and we keep playing them down there because that way the stadium's full. it's a complicated issue, but the point is, the crowd was decidedly pro-mexico.

it was officially a friendly match, but as one fan's sign at the stadium pointed out, when it comes to these two sides "there are no friendlies". it's true. there's been bad blood between the teams for years, and since lately we've been the dominant side, things have gotten especially ugly. there's usually some elbows thrown, words exchanged, and...name-calling, too! and of course during the corner kicks, there was the requisite throwing of water cups at our players.

so there they all were, a crowd of 60,000-plus people, most of whom HATED the united states, and as i watched i couldn't help but think how nice it was to have so many people gathered together, hating our great nation just for our soccer, and irrespective of our politics and diplomacy.

oh, sport! i love you!

real news

2007-02-03T17:04:00.000-06:00

the whole idea of this electronic webpage was, at inception, to inform interested parties of my doings. lately, though, i've been more into using my considerable talent for talking without actually saying anything. so i thought i'd give an actual update of my life rather than an off-kilter observation or a lenghty story about...nothing. so here goes:

on the work front, i've been training for this interpreting job, which has been boring but not as boring as the similar class i took in lincoln. training ends next week, but i got to start actually working early and i had my first paid jobs this week. i did all kinds of different appointments, and pretty much enjoyed the job as much as i thought i would--a lot. it's so fun to see ultrasounds or whatever healthcare situation they put me in. and it's a great challenge, and i am learning a lot, and it's just so interesting!

the second sunday i was here i went to the church one of my roommates attends. i enjoyed the sermon, and in the bulletin they had some information about an esl class the church does for free which was to start that very week. this combined three areas in which i am, if not an expert, at least pretty well-versed: teaching, working for free, and the english language. so obviously i signed up and started doing that right away. i really enjoy doing it, but more importantly, it allowed me to get to know a lot of people at the church, and i found much to my delight that they're really great people! already in the few weeks i've been out here i have people i can call and who call me for various fun times, and they're people i genuinely enjoy. i consider myself very blessed in this regard, and am just really happy out here--i can't imagine this first month going any better. i'm enjoying every minute out here, and i'm really looking forward to all the next months.

so that's my life lately. stay tuned for a zany story about the mishaps that befell me the other day when i tried to order a pizza.

the list!

2007-01-31T19:43:00.000-06:00

countless hours of listening, head-scratching, sorting, writing, re-writing, and this is all you've got to show for it? (or a better question--are YOU really going to read all this?) my superfriends and i will soon join our powers for a composite list of 15 unquestionably awesome 2006 albums, but in the meantime here, in the great 5-year long tradition of musical nerdery of matt and i, are my favorite records of 2006. without further ado, the list:

10 Califone, Roots & Crowns

It’s probably mostly because I haven’t read much about this band or this album, but I can’t understand why this album isn’t more often (and favorably) compared to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Like that album, Roots & Crowns sees Califone with one foot firmly planted in folk and dusty, brittle singer/songwriter stylistic traditions while bravely stepping off with the other foot into uncharted and experimental production values and sonic textures. Far from a spin-off of YHF, though, this album has its own sound, its own textures, and its own thematic concerns—its own identity. It’s hard to imagine the lazy horns of “Spiders House” and the electric energy of “A Chinese Actor” and the slow aching beauty of “The Orchids” appearing together on any album from this or any other year.

Highlights: Spiders House, A Chinese Actor, The Orchids

09 Peter Bjorn and John, Writer’s Block

I nearly missed this album. It didn’t immediately grab me, and I’d nearly tossed it aside when Aaron told me a favorite lyric from “Objects Of My Affection”: “And the question is was I more alive than I am now? / I happily had to disagree. / I laugh more often now, I cry more often now. / I am more me.” That seemed to me to be a pretty good lyric, and it was talking about a lot more depth and melancholy nostalgia than I’d heard on my first trips through the album. I went back and listened a little more closely, and I discovered that the entire album was written with the same sentiment, the same earnest reflection and depth, and a surprising wisdom. What I’d dismissed as a lack of content was actually evidence of great subtlety and restraint and brave writing and production. Suddenly the fancy percussion and whispery, reverb-drenched vocals were the finishing touches on perfect pop songs and not just interesting accoutrements attached to a collection of several intervals of four empty minutes, and suddenly I was hearing a really great, smartly written, and expertly produced pop record so subtle I nearly missed it altogether.

Highlights: Objects Of My Affection, Young Folks, Amsterdam

08 Ratatat, Classics

On their second album, Ratatat broaden their scope, widen their sound, and make another fantastic record of hip-hop tinged beats and stadium-sized near-metal hooks. This album has a few more mid-tempo numbers on it, which is probably part of the reason it wasn’t as giddily received as the debut, but the slower songs here are better than the ones on Ratatat, and the jams this time are just as towering and danceable. The biggest difference between the two albums, though, is the layers and intricacy of Classics. Each song feels a bit more carefully planned (and perhaps unfortunately a bit less spontaneous), with a few more ideas packed into the corners, and develops a little more slowly. If this sounds like a bad thing check out the swirling guitars in “Lex” or the low-end moves in “Wildcat” or the funky shuffle in “Loud Pipes” and be assured that, although they’re "just" an instrumental band, Ratatat has enough ideas and willingness to experiment for more than one undeniably excellent album.

Highlights: Lex, Loud Pipes, Tacobel Canon

07 The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America

How does an album aping a musical icon I never really loved, celebrating a reckless adolescent existence I never lived nor wanted to live, and lifting lines from Steinbeck novels (for the title, no less!) get me to turn my stereo up too loud and jump around my bedroom working up a sweat on my air guitar? One word: RAWK. Marshalls stacked probably two stories high play classic rock riffs like it’s 1975, Craig Finn gets pretty close to actually singing a few times, and the band only slows up to catch its breath twice in the whole 40 minute onslaught (and the ballads are actually good enough that you don’t skip ahead to keep your heart rate up). If you can sit still during the bridge/breakdown of “Stuck Between Stations” or that awesome towering chorus on “Southtown Girls” you were probably complaining about “that awful noise” when Springsteen wrote the spiritual ancestors of these songs 30 years ago. And that almost makes you old enough to be dead, so maybe that’s why you’re not rocking out in your bedroom like me.

Highlights: Stuck Between Stations, Chips Ahoy!, Chillout Tent

06 Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped

When I heard Sonic Youth’s new album was going to be composed of shorter songs than their usual, I was worried they were going to sacrifice some element of their makeup that I really liked. For being a departure in their approach to songwriting, though, Rather Ripped sounds remarkably like a SY album. The shorter songs don’t result in less of the explosions of guitars that I’ve always loved—they’re simply more concentrated. The more traditional song structures give the songs a more compact, explosive feeling, like if you squeezed a million liters of hydrogen into a pop bottle and then threw a match on it. In place of the long drawn-out feedback sequences of previous records, here we have more focused and economical playing—each note feels more important, each crescendo more carefully placed and paced. And yet even in this context they still find space for moments of expansive beauty like the “why won’t you show me what’s inside?” post-chorus sigh in “The Neutral” without making it feel rushed or squeezed. It’s not Sonic Youth lite, it’s Sonic Youth dense.

Highlights: Do You Believe In Rapture?, Turquoise Boy, The Neutral

05 Band of Horses, Everything All the Time

Why do people say “that guy sounds like My Morning Jacket” like it’s a bad thing? Jim James or James Mercer hardly invented the style, and besides that, we should probably be thinking of singing like this as more of an ideal to strive for than an affectation to fake. And anyway this album’s success does not depend on the extent to which Ben Bridwell sounds like Mike Love or your favorite soulful brass-colored vocalist, but rather on whether or not the band brings it and if the lyrics and melody can support the emotional weight Bridwell instills in every note. In the slow-burning, crystalline opener, in the “I’m yours!” release of “Wicked Gil”, and in pretty much every syllable in “The Funeral”, the answer is a resounding, fist-pumping, exclamation point-laden yes. Yeah, this album sort of trails off on the back half, and maybe those acoustic ballads sound a bit like…those acoustic ballads, but this fact never stopped me from putting this on every time I wanted to hear something raw and powerful. Albums like this remind me that flashy ideas or even great playing skills are not requisite to making a great rock record—Band of Horses just play like they mean it and believe it, and I believe it, too.

Highlights: Our Swords, The Funeral, Great Salt Lake

04 Fujiya & Miyagi, Transparent Things

But they were just pretending to be Japanese! Not only is the sonic approach here relatively simple, it’s also been done before (a lot)—why do I flip out every time I hear it? Well, let’s see. There’s the head-tipping beats, the busy bass locking in the backbeat, the thin guitars skittering along on top, the occasionally non-sensical and scatter-brained lyrics coolly spoke-sung, and there’s the warm, warm synths, flawlessly placed in just the right amount in those big gaping holes of sound, like filling a nice sponge cake with a good cup of cream. Mmm…that’s a tasty sonic confection! But more than the individual ingredients, it’s the group’s grasp of the overall feel of their songs and their carefully layered builds and climaxes that send the album’s best moments straight through the stratosphere and into orbit, bringing me right along for the ride.

Highlights: Ankle Injuries, Transparent Things, Cylinders

03 Islands, Return to the Sea

Nick Diamonds returns to make another playground of sound in which to sing songs about love and death and demons and the end of the world. To say no one writes a pop song quite like him is to stake an early claim for the lead in your high school’s big production of “Captain Obvious: The Understatement” next year (break a leg, buddy!). I suppose I’m probably in the minority, but I like this work better than Unicorns—it’s still a little off-kilter, but the production is more advanced, the arrangements more accomplished, the songwriting at once more focused and just as playful. At times it seems the band set out to prove there’s nothing they can’t pull off: creepy spooky hip-hop song? “Where There’s A Will There’s A Whale-Bone”. Sunny Graceland “doo doo doo doo” sing-along moments? “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby”. Synth-pop freakout with solid gold payoff closing verse? “Rough Gem”, anyone? I could go on, but suffice it to say there isn’t a misstep on the whole album—this is a perfect collection of imperfect pop songs.

Highlights: Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby, Rough Gem, Jogging Gorgeous Summer

02 Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Neko Case’s voice is so velvety smooth and powerfully sexy, so smoky and sultry, so volatile and versatile that President Bush actually considered asking her to sing his State of the Union address this year so it would be more positively received. (He changed his mind when he found out she’s Canadian. That’s the last thing America needs!) While it’s probably true that Case’s voice could save even a terrible song from hard drive deletion (is there a more ignominious fate for 4 MB of music in this day and age?), the songs here are haunting stories of death at the mouths of wolves and dirty oil pans, of dead loves or lost loves (and fingers), of crazy gospel characters and the apocolypse. They are in other words the perfect setting for Case’s considerable vocal mastery and uncanny knack for subtle expression. The instruments know exactly how to behave, giving the perfect touch of tension (and terror!) to lines like “and the blood runs crazy / with a giant’s strides / and the woodsman failed to breach those fangs in time / so they dragged him through the underbrush / wearing three winter coats and a dirty knife”. If Bush doesn’t change his mind maybe she should look into singing Jack London stories.

Highlights: Margaret vs. Pauline, John Saw That Number, The Needle Has Landed

01 TV On The Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

Allow me to dispense with all the superlatives for just a second. This album is my favorite of the year because from the busted brass horn samples of “I Was A Lover” until the freak-out fuzz bass dies out in “Wash the Day Away”, it just doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve ever heard before. It’s not like they invented a new genre in the quest to sound unique—this is rock and roll, but twisted up, turned inside out, stretched, squeezed, and cranked to 11. Tunde Adebimpe’s voice and harmonies, as on previous records, are their own incredible entity, capable of carrying conviction, creepiness, and an overwhelming sense of urgency at the same time. Dave Sitek’s production and waves of guitar noise are nearly impenetrable, and the rhythm section has so many rhythms and ideas happening it sounds like they recorded two trap sets, each manned by cloned vishnus. And sonically the album is all over the map—the open, soaring harmonies of “Blues From Down Here”, the driving 4/4 rock of “Wolf Like Me”, the handclaps and garbage can percussion of “A Method”…and so on. Since the very first listen, this album has continued to captivate and enthrall me, providing equal measures of close-eyed cerebral challenge and fist-pumping visceral pleasure.

Highlights: Wolf Like Me, A Method, Blues From Down Here

across the sea

2007-01-24T14:30:00.000-06:00

some of my very best friends live in places very far away from here, so far away you have to cross borders or oceans (or both) to get to them. mostly, this is a pretty bad deal. i haven't seen my very good friend sarah, for example, in more than a year, and since she lives in japan, we don't get to talk very often, either. and when we do talk, it's the end of my day and the beginning of hers, which is just weird--you learn to make it work, but you never really get used to the weirdness of nearly falling asleep while talking to someone who just started her morning work (in this case, teaching english to japanese kids).

but it's not an entirely bad deal. in addition to hearing some fascinating tidbits about japanese culture and japanese elementary school culture, i often get some pretty entertaining excerpts of english according to 5th graders in japan. and as an added bonus, sarah and i have been sending packages to each other in our respective locations (crossing two oceans, including three continents unless i've forgotten one) for the last three years. these two vibrant, wonderful traditions recently came together in a package wishing me a happy thanksgiving, christmas, and easter. included was the work of one young girl, in response to a cultural education project in which the students learned about the american custom of the new year's resolution, and then made their own. what will YOU improve this year?

foiled! by the salt!

2007-01-22T17:43:00.000-06:00

these are the steps to my apartment. that's salt that they put down a week ago. ALL of it. is SALT! if the city undergoes a slug uprising, they're not getting in here. at least, not through the front door. which is a really comforting thought. take that, slugs!!!

the christmas tree epic

2007-01-18T20:32:00.000-06:00

the people i'm staying with here in chicago did not know me before i showed up at their door with a suitcase and pillow in hand like a blind slumber party play date or something. they agreed to do this in part because of a pretty tenuous friend of a friend of a friend connection (although it turns out we also have a mutual friend, just one degree of separation apart), but mostly they let me in because they're nice people, and i needed a hand. so they did me a favor, and i am thus in some way indebted to them. due to this and the fact that now instead of having a living room they have a third bedroom, i often try to find way to help out around the house. this has included things like cleaning the kitchen or doing their dishes on various occasions, but the biggest chore that's needed done since i got here was disposing of the christmas tree.

so i did some investigating, and it turns out the day before i got to chicago there was a city-wide tree recycling effort, and all that needed to be done that day was carry the tree to the alley, and it would be collected and taken care of. for the week after that day, you could carry it to a tree recycling pick-up location. i looked around and found that the nearest one was about 2 miles away. and i asked myself, "how do you transport an 8 foot tree 2 miles in a big city if you don't have rope or anything other than your suitcase and your pillow?" i imagined larry david manually carrying a christmas tree down busy streets, shouting at the people who gave him particularly nasty looks, and thought that would a pretty funny episode of curb your enthusiasm. all i had to do was carry it, then, and i had a ready-made funny story to tell on future blind dates or in awkward moments after saying something offensive. so i bundled up, got my keys, and walked over to the tree. i picked it up by its unwieldy trunk, shifted my weight as if to make a step toward the door, and laughed at myself for being so ridiculous--this was not going to work. i informed my roommates they had until the end of the week to take it and offered to help, but said i couldn't do it on my own.

the week came and went, and the tree stayed put in a shared unfinished stairwell in the back of our apartment. my drive to be in some way useful was great, however, so i proceeded with plan b. i went to the hardware store and purchased a saw to cut the thing into tiny pieces and throw it away. i started into my work with great enthusiasm, gleefully chopping the tree into manageable pieces. it didn't take long until i'd gotten pretty warm, despite the fact that the stairwell was maybe 20 degrees warmer than the freezing air outside. so i took off my jacket and sweatshirt, placed them inside the apartment, and closed the door. the door that locks! the door that only unlocks with the keys in my jacket! the jacket that was now on the other side of the door! i realized what i'd done about 2 seconds after i did it, and tried the doorknob in case i'd unlocked it from the inside, but it wouldn't turn. i sighed and went back to cutting.

while i finished the job i considered my options. it would be several hours before a roommate came home, and i was at this point wearing a t-shirt. i didn't see as i had any option but to reveal my thoughtlessness to my upstairs neighbors, whom i'd never met before. i shuffled up the stairs and knocked on their back door. they had no way to help me, but they did know the landlord's number, so i called him and told him, too, that i am an idiot, and he told me that he, also, couldn't do anything. so i had to wait, which is where i was before, but now i'd also made a few new friends over "hi, i'm an airhead. lol!". i borrowed my new friends' broom and cleaned up the mess, and then i paced around the stairwell trying to think of something to do for the next long hours (why couldn't i at least have taken my ipod out of my jacket?!?). after some time, pacing and looking through the window at my jacket grew tiresome, so i sat down on the step outside the door i so desperately wanted to open. i thought once again how simply this might have been avoided, and, exasperated, i slumped back, leaning on the door and then falling backwards when the door opened, because i hadn't pulled it all the way shut. (lol!)

so i took the broom back, thanked the neighbors for their concern, told them i'd picked the lock using the super awesome secret spy skills i'd learned when i worked for the cia (now that's what i call saving face!), and went inside. later, after i'd grown confident about the workings of doors and door locks, i trudged out into the snow to the throw the tree pieces away. the biggest bag wouldn't fit in the dumpster, though, so i had to wrestle it in there, and when i did, the lid came down directly on my nose, causing the attractive blood coloration you see above. "dadgummit!" i (probably) exclaimed, and did a little "that hurts!" dance, imagining that probably every apartment window in the alley had people watching the christmas tree get the last laugh on me.

later that night...
"jeremy, did you get rid of the tree?"
"yeah."
"oh. thanks."
"no problem."

...no problem.

there'll even be a band.

2007-01-14T15:36:00.000-06:00

after a long 8 hour day of training yesterday, i called my friend mitchell, who was in town for the day. we had a pretty exciting plan for the evening--grab a bite to eat, and then go see andrew bird playing a hometown, sold-out, small venue show featuring new material from the album he was about to go on tour to support. there was just one problem, though: we didn't have tickets. so our getting in would require a little extra work.

our first move was to head down to the venue a few hours early and see what might develop. we took the train and then walked to the address and found ourselves in what pretty much seemed to be a shipping yard. mitchell and i began to wonder if perhaps andrew bird was part of an elaborate crime front, and there wasn't really going to be a concert. finally, though, we found the venue, and decided to walk around back to see if anything was happening back there. sure enough, we could hear the sound check through the back door, which had been left open juuuuust a crack. mitchell and i looked at each other, and then headed in. one exploratory turn inside the building found us a foot from the stage and the band, much to our delighted surprise. they looked at us and then went back to work, so we sort of stupidly stood still, staring like dumbfounded cows. this would have been a good time to come up with a plan for the next move, but instead we just watched. so when the sound guy came and asked us what we were doing, all i could manage was a weak mumble about not having tickets and maybe we could watch the soundcheck. sound guy said that'd be up to mr. bird, who made just enough of a motion with his head to indicate that he in fact heard this statement, but without visibly responding in any way to show support or opposition to the idea. so sound guy escorted us out.

as we walked back to the front, we met the bouncer and chatted him up, doing what the corporate (or myspace people) call "networking". as mitchell and i walked away from the venue and talked about various things we might have done or things we might have said and wondered what, exactly, is the etiquette for offering bribes to bouncers. we got some food and decided to go back and try our luck with the bouncer again. at this point i elected mitchell captain of the team on the grounds that i could drive to see the show in indianapolis so i wasn't as invested as him (but secretly because i fear confrontation). we headed back hoping to find the bouncer, but instead met jessica, who booked the show and who told us there was no way we were getting in without a ticket. when mitchell insinuated that perhaps some financial resources might change the situation, jessica responded that if she was even a little bit unethical, she could have received all kinds of favors in exchange for entry to the show. i asked if there was someone more unethical we might talk to, but she said they were all ethical in there. so we started to leave again, but this time we saw our friend the bouncer through the window and waved at him. he smiled and waved (this big black bouncer guy, smiling and waving at us!) and came out. "have you talked to those two?" he asked jessica, but old jessica just would not back down, so we left again.

this time we regrouped in the lumber section at the nearby home depot instead of over italian beef sandwiches in lincoln park, and we decided that if we came back after the doors had opened we might just see the bouncer, who we felt was pulling for us in this matter. so we killed some time, and came back to the venue. the doors were opened, but no one was waiting outside, so we shuffled up to the front door and went in, where the bouncer was waiting to check IDs. he said it was up to jessica, so he called her over again, and mitchell, pulling out our very last unused trump card, said, "here's the deal. we came all the way from nebraska, and we saw that it was sold out, but we thought..." "you did not come from nebraska! show me your driver's licenses!" jessica exclaimed, sort of smiling (it's good to have good-looking friends!), and i knew we were in. we produced our proof of residence (GO 'SKERS!!!), and she asked us how many times we'd seen andrew before, and where. and then she let us in, and mitchell and i paid and got our hands stamped and then found a place to hide in case they changed their mind.

(i'm sure some of you are thinking that technically i didn't come from nebraska to see the show, but like lots of people have probably said at various times throughout history, don't let the facts get in the way of a good scam. so let's leave it at that, eh?)

and then, there was the show. everyone, go see andrew bird if you can--it's an incredible experience, and andrew bird is a rare phenomenon: a gifted songwriter AND a virtuoso performer. he must have played 10 songs from his new album, which i can very confidently say will be AMAZING. and if you don't believe me, ask mitchell. it was really good.

the apartment people

2007-01-11T09:52:00.000-06:00

wiki tells me that chicago has over 9 million people if you count all the suburbs and the small communities that have been gobbled up by expansion. that's a lot of people, but i think it's going to work out because in my week here so far i've come to find out that they also have about 2 million apartments available. so everyone has a place to live. in an attempt to make some sense of all those options, i went to the apartment people, which is a company that helps you find apartments for free. i filled out some papers ("i don't care where or how i live, just make it cheap!") and then i met with the guy who would be my companion for the rest of the day, who we'll call dave. dave took me to his trashed out, cigarette-smelling car and we were off. after we started driving he asked if it'd be alright if he smoked while he drove, and explained he'd had a "weird morning". i said that'd be fine, thinking the cigarette smoke would be the only relic of his morning to which i'd be exposed.

but then, as we were looking at the first apartment, he said he wanted my opinion on something as a third party, and that if it was too weird, i should say so. i imagined he was going to ask me what i thought of the landlord's (admittedly unique) odor, so i agreed, but then as we got into the car to look at apartment number two, he laid it on me. apparently, dave has been living with his girlfriend for the past 9 months, and they're planning on getting married in the fall. for whatever reason, dave decided to in some way use his email or her email to obtain her myspace password (!), which he then used to break into her account (!) and read correspondence between her and her ex-fiancee (!). and she is not very kind about dave when she's talking to her ex-fiancee. in fact, she says some pretty mean things about him, including that she wants to leave him. (the stressful morning, it turns out, had been dave doing all of this internet sleuthery.) dave tells me she's been a liar for quite some time, including for example when she hangs out with her ex-boyfriend and says she has to go because she's on the greyhound bus. oh, dave. after telling me all of this, dave tells me his dilemma is if he confronts her about the myspace messages (and you think he's going to say "i'll have to admit i'm a creepy stalker boyfriend", but...nope), he'll just have to believe her, and he obviously (OBVIOUSLY!) won't be able to read her myspace messages anymore (!!!). so does he confront her about it, or does he just pretend he doesn't know and leave things the way they are?

i was trying to formulate a logical, simple response, but most of my brain was occupied with praying that either my face was showing absolutely no clues as to what i was thinking or that he didn't take his eyes off the road for one tiny second to look at me. i finally managed to say "yeah, that's a toughie. um...have you considered just breaking up with her?" without adding anything about the creepy boyfriend problem or the possibility that maybe he should wait until he's 40 before trying to be involved in a romantic relationship again. he didn't think breaking up with her was a good idea, even when i suggested that it was likely she would soon leave him regardless ("no, when we talk she tells me we're great," he countered). we left the situation unresolved, so i guess i'll never know what will happen to dave.

and that's why i'm taking "try to be more open with other people about your life and your emotions" right off the new year's resolution list.

architectural marvels, modern and medieval

2007-01-09T15:16:00.000-06:00

only 4 months after i'd originally planned to arrive, i am writing this update from chicago. i got back from cancun saturday afternoon and then left for chicago sunday morning, and monday was my first day of training at my job. i currently live on a couch on the north side, and if i want to i will move into the tiny bedroom soon to be evacuated by one of the two guys who live in the apartment which houses the couch. this apartment, and this neighborhood, and all that business is really nice, probably significantly better than i need to live comfortably, so for this first week or so i'll also be looking for other options that are more of a dive and are a bit cheaper. you know how i roll. or walk, as the case may be. being here for more than a weekend and seeing things from the perspective of "i live here" is pretty great overall, and i'm pretty excited to see what's next. it's another new deal, another inertia reset, another place in which to figure out which direction is north (almost always a challenge for me). i'm exploring, uncertain about most of the details most people know before they move, and therefore basically happy.

there'll be more to say about chicago (and me in chicago, of course!) but for today let's have a look at some pictures of mexico.

this is the big pyramid at chichen-itza ("chicken pizza" to my family). it's pretty big--those figures at the base are actually not upright-walking ants, they're people. it's also really old and full of historical and sacred religious significance, but to be honest, i sort of wasn't listening to our tour guide. so i'm not really sure what any of that would be. except i can definitely say the mayans built and used this building.

when i wasn't ignoring informative guides in ancient archeological sites, this was the kind of scene i was taking in. the resort we stayed in was about 45 minutes south of cancun, and about 10 minutes north of playa del carmen, whose street and beach view is currently making you jealous of me. it's not digital trickery--the sky really was that blue, the water that clear and bright, and the americans that plentiful and amply sized.

just in case the mayan riviera wasn't exciting enough, jordan and her family came down and stayed at a place a few miles (quite a few along the beach if you're walking there, by the way) from my place, so we hung out down there quite a bit. idyllic moonlit beach walks are better with a friend than alone sometimes even if you're like me and often enjoy the peaceful solitude. so it was a good time. plus we had fun taking pictures in the middle of the night. here jordan perfects her scary kung-fu face and poses. i'll let you in on a secret, though--it's all show, and you can probably take her. look how unimpressed i am.

so that was last week. this week has been pretty interesting, and don't even get me started on next week--probably i'll still be in this country, but who knows what developments will have developed!

been a bad blogger

2006-12-30T08:11:00.000-06:00

i suppose it's time for a long overdue update. most recently, yesterday was my last day at my job here in lincoln, and i was pretty sad to leave. working there has been a very challenging and rewarding experience, and i feel like the clinic and i both benefitted from the interaction. i really enjoyed the staff there and will miss them, and really i'll miss the patients as well. i'm glad my first in-depth exposure to medicine here in the united states was from this perspective (which is to say, the low-income community health center), as i believe i learned a lot of valuable things about what life is like for a growing number of people in our country, and i don't want to be in the career i'm trying to get into without knowing about those people and their situation.

next, in about 30 minutes i'm heading to cancun, (fake) mexico for a week with my family. the day after i get back in town i'll drive out to chicago to start training for my new job out there. hopefully now that my life is going back to crazy i'll post more often to keep you all updated on the latest happenings and strangeness. in the meantime, it's off to the yucatan peninsula for me.

happy new year!

terror on the plains

2006-12-16T17:06:00.000-06:00

the other day i was driving by the capitol and i imagined terrorists flying a plane into it. i thought that that would be a strange move for the terrorists to try to pull off, and probably it'd be really challenging, too--it's kind of a small target to hit. but then i started thinking about the reaction around the world. after the twin towers went down, there was sort of a general consensus that the best thing to do was to get on with things, to doggedly return to "life as usual". often it was said that to not do so would be to let the terrorists win, so everyone stoically went about their routines, trying very hard not to let on that they were troubled. so it seemed sort of funny to me to imagine the reaction to nebraska's capitol being attacked. after finding out that nebraska was not the name of a city in some state in the midwest, but was actually one of those midwestern states, people not from the midwest would then be faced with a very small tightrope on which to walk: they'd need to, as with 9/11, stoically return to the usual so the terrorists wouldn't win while also trying to seem troubled about the loss of property, government and (presumably) human life in a part of the country they couldn't find on a map. that'd be a real psychological conundrum. it'd be the same questions about when is it ok to continue with whatever aspect of life, but instead of people asking themselves, they'd be asking other people. it'd be very weirdly externalized.

i guess what i'm saying is, i don't see that the state capitol here is a good target for terrorists, but if they were more interested in social experiments than in whatever they do with their building exploding, we'd probably have a lot of fbi agents around the building all the time.

a top ten list.

2006-12-04T17:50:00.000-06:00

it's my favorite time of year. december is upon us! the snow is falling, everyone smiles at you extra nice so you'll buy more stuff, and best of all, my friends and i make our top 10 albums of the year lists, which is an extremely laborious process that takes, well, basically an entire year to compile, discuss, argue, insult, and fastidiously and obsessively rearrange. so to warm up i am presenting a different top 10 list, of probably equal significance, import, and influence in world politics. i am speaking of course of my top 10 favorite t-shirts.

ah, the t-shirt. is there a more essential, versatile piece of wardrobe? they're like souvenirs as fashion statements, and since i don't really like fashion statements or souvenirs, i love them to their 100% cotton core because they do an excellent job of both things at once. without further ado, then, the ten most cared-for pieces of the one article of clothing i most carelessly wear.

at number 10 we have this number from my favorite lincoln record shop, spindle records. evan schmidt and i went to spindle's going out of business sale (it later came back to business, and arguably with cooler tshirts) intending to purchase a shirt along with all the on sale records, figuring they'd be pretty cheap. we found so much clearance vinyl i totally forgot about the shirts, but evan remembered at the cash register, and we each picked up a nice parting gift for something like $5. the design is half film reel and half 45 spacer, which is far from amazing but is sort of nice looking. plus, it's green and yellow. green and yellow has been screwed up maybe...once since they made the switch to color, and every other time it's been pretty much perfect.

up next we have this concert purchase from the summer. if you're a reader of this online publication (or if you know how to click the archive link) you already know some of what made that night so great, and the flaming lips and the night itself make the memory half of this shirt especially great. that night really truly was a memorably wonderful and happy night that served to lighten the heavy days that surrounded it. but touching sentimentality for summer shows aside, look at the thing! the colors! the design! wayne's hair! those hands! bonus points for the hands later showing up in the fall's gondry film, which can't really ever be a bad thing.

8: another concert relic, this one from explosions in the sky. this was another particularly inspiring show that reminds why you like music and why you pay so much to see it played live. explosions has great artwork for their albums, and their t-shirts are right on par with their best stuff. they had several really cool designs, and i think my friends and i all managed to pick up a different one. this one, though, was my favorite. the idea--a couple is lifted, floating, by their kiss, or by love--is great already, but i think the way their limbs are hanging, and especially the guy's tie, are what make this shirt really great. they're either weightless or they're defying gravity, and either one sounds pretty good to me.

when i was in spain, this t-shirt was a pretty reliable way to identify study abroad kids. as the palest, blondest, least hispanic-looking person in most of the places i went, the last thing i needed was more help outing myself as a tourist. plus i would have just felt like a tool wearing it around. i mean, EVERYBODY was doing it! so i didn't buy one. and then i got home, and i realized a pretty substantial fact: i was no longer in spain, and thus no longer studying abroad, and thus no longer a part of a very visual minority (whose majority i had sought to avoid). so i regretted not purchasing the famous osborne bull shirt, and when aaron went to spain for the second time this year, i made sure not to make the same mistake twice, and i asked him to bring me one home. as far as the article itself, it's a classic. look at that anatomically correct bull, standing so proud and defiant! and the red...it is (quint)essentially and (arche)typically spanish, which is obviously a good thing. obviously!

andrew lawton and i spent 48 minutes together every day just after lunch experiencing some of the most profound and intense moments of boredom and frustration we will probably ever suffer through while "learning" about our great nation. as a sort of escape from a pretty miserable pedagogical nightmare, we imagined what life would be like for the first US astronauts to live on the mir space station. this led to the invention of two russian cosmonauts, yuri and dmitry, who were a strange combination of the ambiguously gay duo, hanz and franz from saturday night live, and....come to think of it, the borat character, who at that time had not yet been invented. in character, we complained about "ze american peeg dohgs" and their horrible capitalistic system of commerce. andrew went away for college, but made second semester of my freshman year just a little bit better by coming home that winter and bringing with him matching shirts, one with "yuri" on the back and the other with "mitya". it was like team communism had jerseys or something--i was elated. my enthusiasm for actually wearing this shirt diminished when i realized my parents and other people their age probably were not going to stop looking at me like some kind of subversive (slash terrorist) when i wore it, but i still think it's a great t-shirt.

a good deal of my fondness for this shirt (#5, if you're keeping track) stems from a probably embarrassing pride of the performance it commemorates, which was my high school's one-act my senior year. but we really did something that year, man! we, like, really took on a challenging piece, and made an important statement! and so on. as great as it was to have my name so near arthur miller's (on the back, which is how these shirts always go), though, the action on this shirt takes place up front. the fallen tree plays a pretty pivotal role in the story, and my friend mike bartsch had this in mind when he designed the shirt. he drew the broken, sideways tree and wrote "all my sons" in a typewriter kind of font. it was a very minimalistic design and i thought it was very worthy of the whole thing (no small endorsement considering my total lack of perspective on the matter). but a funny thing happened on the way to the silk-screen company. a fellow classmate decided there should be no broken tree without there being a stump from whence it came, so she took the liberty of adding it right into the designer's drawing, without even asking him or anything. and the silk screen company or someone else decided to just lift the drawing and type the words in using one of those fonts your computer has but you never actually thought you'd see used. for a long time the first thing i did when i got the shirt out of the dryer was reapply a generous dose of sharpie to the trunk, trying in vain to darken it out into oblivion. it didn't work, as you can see.

here's another shirt i wished i'd bought in spain when i got home. this one, though, i'd looked all over for and never found just as i wanted it. i could never find a shirt with the seal and the name all written out like a college shirt, like this one. and what university shirts i did find i never found in my beloved heather grey color, which is pretty obviously the best color for a t-shirt. fortunately for me, my friend sarah (whom i'd met over there) and i had by the time she got home from spain established a pretty good tradition of sending each other packages in the mail, and when she found that the shirt she got for her dad was too small, she did what any good friend would do and sent it my way. if when people say "it's the thought that counts" they mean that sarah thinking of me when she bought the shirt would have been the most important part of the gift, those people are totally wrong. this shirt is super great, and it's from spain, and it says "i've been to spain!". when i wear this shirt, i don't even have to try to be a unique person, my shirt advertises my special person traits to the world at large all on its own.

probably the greatest rock and roll road trip i've ever taken was the time adam nun and i went to see sigur ros in minneapolis on their agaetis byrjun tour...without tickets. to make a story i've often enjoyed making very long quite a bit shorter, we showed up early at the venue, spotted jonsi outside, met him, talked with him, got on the guest list, and then ran around minneapolis for no apparent reason in a fit of unbridled joy and stupidity for a few hours until the doors opened. we called aaron chambers in our fit of excitement and delirium, and he asked us to get him a shirt, and then the three of us all ended up with one of these shirts, which does a great job of sticking to the artwork of an album that is one of my all-time favorites. plus, it looks so good with kakhi shorts, and it's dark enough that it doesn't show pit stains too bad. it's an all-around summertime winner.

the other day i wore this shirt and i remarked to aaron that at this point it looks like the t-shirt the world's first sunny day real estate fan EVER would wear. this was one of the first band shirts i ever had, which is funny because of it's iron-transfer origins--it's totally the first rock shirt for a former homeschooled kid. i like this shirt because i made it myself, and i like the album, and i like the album art. i don't reckon i have a lot to say about this one, other than that i've probably worn it about a thousand times and it wore really well, all faded and with modestly sized holes spread randomly throughout. it's a classic.

this shirt is my goldenboy. except i don't have the heart to finish it off, so now it just sits in my dresser, unworn for fear that those last strands will finally fall apart and my favorite shirt will die. there's a certain kind of hipster who would buy this shirt in a thrift store, and if someone would ask him if he actually went on a cruise in 1992 would say "psh, no!", making clear his disdain for anyone with enough money to spend on that kind of thing. he might even mutter "stupid leisure class!" under his breath, just for good measure. so it's kind of funny that if someone asked me if i got this shirt at a thrift store i'd probably answer in some way that i would hope would show how much i dislike some of those ironic t-shirts, and some of those ironic t-shirt wearing hipsters. oh, the irony! anyway, i WAS crusin' in '92, and it was great fun for me. at the time, the shirt was too big for me, even too big for me to wear back in 92 when arsenio hall and mc hammer (and...vanilla ice?) had made wearing baggy things cool. but slowly and surely, my stature and the midwest's fashion sense moved toward each other until they converged and seemed to stand perfectly in place for all of my college years, which is to say, the best t-shirt wearing years.

so there it is, my top 10 t-shirts. or more accurately, a personal history in 10 t-shirts. now excuse me while i decide which are my favorite pairs of underwear for the next list.