naptime

tubescope

2012-01-30T12:41:00.003-06:00

welp. here's one use for an empty toilet paper roll.

Remembering Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2012-01-16T21:55:00.004-06:00

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.”

— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1966

(photographer: Flip Schulke)

Today we remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—the most recognized clergyman, activist and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s. Racial discrimination tied together the movement’s multiple aspects, from education to healthcare, from poverty to politics. Under Dr. King’s guidance, thousands of people throughout the United States participated in nonviolent marches, boycotts and sit-ins. Their efforts resulted in numerous legal acts, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned discrimination based on “race, color, religion or national origin;” the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

At age 33, as the movement’s undisputed leader, Dr. King had the ear of President John F. Kennedy. At 34, he captured the nation’s attention with his “I Have a Dream” speech.

“It seemed as if every time he spoke, he said something I wanted or needed to hear,” said Rosa Parks, Alabama native and fellow civil rights activist.

At age 35, Dr. King became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Four years later, he was assassinated on the balcony outside room 306 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. His legacy continues to inspire and raise hope today. The United States declared King’s birthday (January 15, 1929) a federal holiday in 1986, but did you know…

He attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at age 15; went on to graduate Morehouse College in 1948, then earned a PhD from Boston University in 1955; Dr. King also received about two dozen honorary degrees.
He met his wife, Coretta Scott, in Boston. Together, they had two sons and two daughters.
After Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in December 1955, Dr. King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted 382 days. During the campaign, Dr. King’s house was bombed, and he was arrested. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court declared bus segregation unconstitutional.
After finishing his first book and traveling to India, Dr. King became co-pastor, with his father, of Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1960 in Atlanta.
Near the end of his life, Dr. King turned his focus to poverty. He wanted a guaranteed family income, and began organizing a march of the poor on WashingtonD.C., so intense and massive that Congress would have no choice but to face the challenge of downtrodden America. Dr. King put the march on hold, however, to lend support to a sanitation strike in Memphis.
Jesse Jackson and Ralph Abernathy were on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel with King when he was shot.
His autopsy revealed that though only 39 years old, he had the heart of a 60-year-old man, perhaps a result of the stress of 13 years in the Civil Rights Movement.
In a February 1968 sermon, Dr. King requested that people not mention awards or honors at his funeral, and instead remember his attempts to "feed the hungry, clothe the naked, be right on the [Vietnam] war question, and love and serve humanity."

Today, the Lorraine Motel serves as the National Civil Rights Museum, and next to Dr. King’s beloved Ebenezer Baptist Church stands the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change. Healthcare disparities, however, which Dr. King called the most “shocking and inhumane” form of inequality, persist. According to Kaiser Family Foundation data from 2009 to 2010, 41 percent of low income adults were uninsured, and 45 percent of poor adults were uninsured. Fourteen percent of white Americans were uninsured; 22 percent of black Americans were uninsured, and 32 percent of Hispanic Americans were uninsured. Please keep this in mind as we celebrate the life of a man who fought so peacefully to make the world a more equal place.

------------

(I wrote this as an email and blog post campaign that went out today at Weiss Memorial Hospital, located on Chicago's north side.)

Shovelin' Chicago

2012-01-11T19:17:00.004-06:00

The city of Chicago, along with my friend and Rahm's Deputy Director of Social Media Ankur Thakkar, launched Chicago Shovels last week. I took it as a gentle reminder that we won't be living in this 50-degree fantasy world forever. In fact, the snow is moving in on us tonight, with a predicted 6 inches by tomorrow. So, friends who live within a 20-mile radius of me, I recommend checking out this latest community building venture. You can track the snow plows, adopt a sidewalk, and join the snow corps, which connects volunteers with people who need help shoveling.

"Winter preparedness is everyone’s responsibility, and when we come together, community by community, block by block, we can help reduce the dangers and health risks that winter weather can bring," Mayor Emanuel said in a press release.

It's all about getting the information out there and connecting people with people, y'all.

P.S. Dan took that photo above the morning after last February's "snowpocalypse," "snowmageddon," "flurricane."

95% water, 100% amazing

2012-01-07T23:36:00.003-06:00

The Shedd Aquarium has 12 different species of jellyfish on exhibit through May.

I know I'm a little late on this one, but in case you're later than me, I'm telling you: go see them. The whole experience--visually, aurally--is stunning.

list #2: books read in 2k11

2012-01-04T22:25:00.009-06:00

1). then we came to the end by joshua ferris
2). the lacuna by barbara kingsolver
3). the help by kathryn stockett
4). unless it moves the human heart: the craft and art of writing by roger rosenblatt
5). regretsy: the world's oddest, most ridiculous, and most disturbing crafts by april winchell
6). food rules: an eater's manual by michael pollan*
7). red azalea by anchee min
8). the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky*
9). just kids by patti smith
10). cutting for stone by abraham verghese*
11). it chooses you by miranda july*
12). thinking like your editor by alfred fortunato and susan rabiner*
13). aunt julia and the scriptwriter by mario vargas llosa*
14). the marriage plot by jeffrey eugenides*
15). you are not a gadget by jaron lanier
16). is everyone hanging out without me? by mindy kaling*
17). jane eyre by charlotte brontë*

i debated putting this list up all week. it's kind of embarrassing for me, as a writer and as a human being, to have only read 17 books over the 365 days that were 2011. that amounts to 1.41666666 books per month, aka not nearly enough. feeling guilty, i checked in with suzanne (also a writer) for comparison.
--------------------
katie: how many books have you read this year?

suzanne: i don't count, but i'd guess... 20? maybe a little higher, but i'll lump a bunch of cheesy vampire books into one group.

katie: i'm around there. i feel like it should be more, though…like i'm not doing a good job as a reader. i have no aspirations of reading a book/week…i like time to revel in it a bit, let it soak in. but 1/month is ridic. i think i'd be happy with 24 books/year. that's one every two weeks.

suzanne: i don't want to feel bad about how much i read or don't read. i do it for pleasure, and yes, there are many, many, many good books i want to read, but...we just can't read them all. i've made peace with it.
--------------------
so who knows what 2012 has in store? i know i need to step up my game--get beyond magazine pieces, short stories, and internet news (not that there is a single thing wrong with any of those mediums). but i fell in love with books before anything else, and i want to get back to that.

also, i need to be as well read as possible before the "potential" end of the world.

*favorites.

it's 2k12, y'all

2012-01-01T09:59:00.001-06:00

Here's to a glorious one.

fun at the shedd lolz

2011-12-23T22:33:00.010-06:00

an enchanting afternoon at the shedd aquarium with the jellyfish...which are A M A Z I N G.

i made these tonight

2011-12-15T22:30:00.002-06:00

sometimes--especially when you spend most of your working hours in front of a computer--you need to do something entirely tactile.

so this is how i got tactile tonight.

i baked 90 of these cookies, without even knowing what they're called. (for real...do you know? what are they called?) they'll make their way to friends and family to correspond with various holiday gatherings. and even though the whole reason i made them was to get myself 100 percent AWAY from the computer, here i am, right back in front of it, showin' them off.

48 hours in ann arbor

2011-12-02T12:13:00.005-06:00

the tour buses in chicago? covered in michigan ads. so i said to myself, "you should go see what the big deal is." then i said, "and also write about it."

i picked ann arbor, (home of the university of michigan, about an hour south of detroit), partly because i had heard good things and partly because a friend of mine had moved there. we spent 48 hours hunting down fairy doors, talking with farmers at the farmers market, drinking jars of sangria outside the law school, and playing tag on a maya lin sculpture. at the end of the day, i recommend you check out this enchanting, forward-thinking rust belt city for yourself. if you live in the midwest, it's drive-able, which means you have no excuse. if you don't live in the midwest, do yourself a favor and visit this fine example of the midwest. there's more happening here than you think.

(also, i wrote about the trip for positive magazine. soooooo......stop reading this and go read that.)

the two reasons i have to keep my gym membership

2011-11-29T19:45:00.004-06:00

california dreamin': parte uno

2011-11-27T15:42:00.023-06:00

three days before we were scheduled to load dan's mini cooper down with two weeks' worth of luggage and camping gear in order to drive thirty-three hours from chicago to san francisco, we changed our minds. it was hot--105+ degrees in some of our stop overs--and we had only two weeks to fit in three major cities (dear friends and sights to see in san fran, los angeles, and san diego). so at the last minute, moderately priced airfare persuaded us to leave the car behind and embark on our romantic getaway by plane.

first stop: san francisco

we landed with plans to stay at my cousin winston's studio in north beach for a few days before migrating south. how exactly we would traverse the 500 miles that would end in our flight home out of the san diego airport, we weren't sure, but we loved san francisco--its appreciation of great writers, artists, and musicians and even better appreciation of great espresso and food.

so we worried about that first.

within hours of being there, we were downing chicken-fried rabbit and san francisco's best chili at comstock saloon. our friend karri--who always seems to be present at my most drunken san francisco moments--was behind the bar making sure we were as full and inebriated as possible, which included a series of shots from tiny glass boots.

for dessert, we ambled across the street to city lights books. dan bought a giant book of war posters. i invested in patti smith's just kids.

over the next few days, we walked. pretty much the entire city. we walked up telegraph hill to see coit tower's depression-era murals depicting working class heroes. we walked through chinatown, union square, and the tenderloin to check out a tiny guitar shop and a pirate store. we walked from the mission to haight-ashbury and the full house houses.

then we biked the golden gate bridge (which can easily make you hate humanity, or at least large groups of people) and down into sausalito

consumed impossibly rich lobster tacos at don pisto's

hiked past and hid within giant redwood trees thousands of years old

and spent a happy hour in chinatown with our ever-enlightening friend, mark.

then came the last page of our san francisco story. it was time to journey onward.

but could we really leave the city we had fallen in love with, despite its lack of sarcasm?

with no car, what mode of transportation would carry us to our next destination?

stay tuned for parte dos....

penguin weather

2011-11-26T23:41:00.000-06:00

this is what "super stoked about the season's latest fashions" looks like.

(ft. kate spade, a small penguin, and fat charlie)

snapshots from occupy wall street, 11.13.11

2011-11-20T21:23:00.019-06:00

zuccotti park last sunday was many things: loud (a mass of discordant drummers on the south end, chanting protesters on the north end); kind of intimidating (guy with devil horns walking slowly while sipping from a chalice, old man with giant "I WANT TO BURN TURKISH FLAG" sign); inspiring (people helping each other and exercising their rights); and crowded (between the cops and tourists lining the outside of the park and the tents and protesters within). there was also a native american man who had set up a table in the park's center to "occupy the occupation" and reclaim the land the united states had taken from the native people. overall, the two hours i spent walking the park, interviewing people, and taking photos resulted in sensory overload that made me want to lock myself in an empty white room.

i hadn't gone to new york specifically for occupy wall street. i went to visit friends in brooklyn, but experiencing occupy wall street was top on my agenda. i owed it to my generation.

at the airport i met a guy and girl carrying campers' backpacks adorned with occupy chicago stickers. josh and kayla--one in law school, the other an undergrad--are on the press team for occupy chicago and were headed to new york to spend the weekend camping in zuccotti park. they were excited, and i felt oddly proud of them for making the trip, despite having never met them before and knowing nothing of their backgrounds. we exchanged numbers. i would see wall street a couple days later--the day before police showed up in riot gear.

in the week that i've been back in chicago, a lot of people have seemed genuinely interested in what i saw at the occupation, mostly asking what it was like and if i had any insight into why exactly all these thousands of people are upset enough to sleep in public parks and storm streets throughout the country (and world, as i learned. the occupy movement is in 1,800+ cities and all seven continents, with a handful of scientists holding it down in antarctica).

basically, people are pissed--pissed enough to forgo personal hygiene, take time away from their comforts, risk arrest (or a shot of pepper spray to the face)--in order to allow an outlet for their frustrations with the way democracy functions in the united states. as i see it, their anger boils down to this: multi-billion-dollar corporations have spent the past century and a half hiding behind the 14th amendment, which was originally created to protect freed slaves. though these companies did not start out with the intent to disenfranchise the communities they serve, many have lost sight of the people for the profit.

corporations have used the 14th amendment, which prohibits the government from depriving "any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law," as their defense. since the late 1800s when corporate lawyers began using the 14th amendment to protect their clients, the courts have looked at corporations--the banks, ge, bp, etc.--as individuals. thus, corporations gained "personhood;" they get the same protections as individuals yet, due to their money and influence, they tend not to be held accountable in the same way the average individual is. between 1890 and 1910 when this first became an issue, the courts saw 307 cases under the 14th amendment; 288 were brought by corporations, 19 by the african americans for whom the amendment had been created.

that legal practice now rules today's democracy and has led to the keywords filling news broadcasts over the past few years: "housing bubble," "insider trading," "financial collapse." it's all kinds of outta control. corporations have become the major institution of our time (up until the mid-20th century the church held this role), with the money and power to sway government actions. for example, the new york times earlier this month exposed the real reason the national park service scrapped its intended ban on bottled water sales at the grand canyon: pushback from coca cola, a major park funder. plastic bottles make up 30 percent of the park's waste and are the canyon's largest trash source. and there they will remain, thanks to coke.

this concept of corporate personhood and how it has unraveled american democracy is the core driving the occupy movement, but you can pretty much tie anything to it--medical injustices, labor unions, the economy. people want to be fully realized and respected as people. they are clamoring to reclaim their own humanity.

yet, while all of these moving branches make the occupy movement confusing from the outside, it was pretty amazing to witness firsthand this massive gathering of people functioning as one. on the east side of the park, volunteer doctors and nurses ran a first aid tent, offering free flu shots and antibiotics. i talked to one nurse, mel, who was reluctant to tell me her last name or the name of the hospital where she works. she had signed up to volunteer after receiving an email from the National Nurses Union, one of the organizations that conceived the first aid tent.

i also talked to peter meitzler, "person in charge" of the manhattan rickshaw company. when i met peter, the sun had set, and he had been pedaling a stationary bike on the west side of the park for more than an hour. at 80 revs/minute, he was generating energy at a rate of 60 watts.

occupy's sustainability committee, comprised of engineers and architects, developed the bike power plan, and brooklyn machine works donated the specially engineered bicycles. each was hooked to a charger about the size of a car battery, which in turn powered the park's generators. volunteers took 30-minute turns pedaling to keep the generators charged and provided all the energy required at zuccotti park. the kitchen and the lights ran off of those generators, and people could also hook up their cell phones.

"we're the human battery charger," peter said of himself and the two men pedaling alongside him.

it was then that a woman in a black pencil skirt and tights approached the bike station. she talked to us about times square and predicted that by 2020, the u.s. would be so embarrassed by the mass amounts of energy it takes to power it that they would shut it down. was she nuts? i asked what her background was, and when she handed me her business card, her credentials caught my attention: elizabeth soltis, senior advisor of the leadership for results programme with the united nations. she lived in africa, but was in new york for the week and had come to support her friend kobi, one of occupy's founders.

"so what do you think about this?" i asked her.

"it's a mass awakening, the most important thing going on in the world today," she said, without hesitation. "it takes incredible strength and courage."

i wanted to continue our conversation, but two men with a camera and microphone asked her for an interview, and i continued on.

at the north end of the park, a kid in his 20s chanted into the passing crowd, "we are people! we are not criminals!" another spoke evenly, addressing whoever paused to listen: "you are more likely to be arrested as a protester than you are for committing a crime." directly across from him, a group of police officers avoided eye contact, yelling instead at people passing by. "keep moving!" and "don't block the sidewalks!" i could see where things could escalate quickly. while most of the cops lining the square adopted a quieter, more watchful approach, others made up for their assumed pacifism.

at the airport on monday, i found josh and kayla spread out on benches at the gate. they were exhausted. the park, they said, felt mostly safe--though they did hear one woman threaten to stab a man and promise that he wouldn't survive the night. they also said they noticed a class system in the park, with well educated protesters occupying the north side near the library, and homeless on the south side. josh and kayla had set up in the middle, along with a mix of artists, musicians, and anarchists. there were also vendors selling t-shirts, buttons, and stickers--a mini capitalistic society within the occupation.

overall, though, people took care of one another. one woman had been at the park for forty-eight days, knitting scarves and cold weather gear for the occupiers.

josh, too, had a story of unsolicited compassion. a few minutes after he left his tent one morning, shivering as he went to the kitchen tent for food, a fellow occupier came knocking. the stranger was holding a blanket. when josh asked where he could return it once he warmed up, the man shook his head. no need; just pass it on.

gina & bridget eat pizza inside a cube inside downtown manhattan

2011-11-14T12:50:00.000-06:00

list #1: some very acceptable reasons to visit ny, ny and bk, ny

2011-11-13T07:55:00.005-06:00

--beginning with ny, ny--

1). to see times square for the first time

2). because you wanted to surprise your significant other for his/her bday

3). gawker throws some pretty good parties

4). you scheduled important meetings with literary agents

5). you need to decorate your entire living room with scenes of wild animals devouring each other--the likes of which can only be obtained with your camera + the museum of natural history

6). susan orlean, chuck klosterman, malcolm gladwell, and ira glass are all going to be in the same room at the same time and it's your official assignment to supervise them as they sign 300 posters

7). "the lion king" on broadway isn't going to watch itself

8). you want to see central park all dressed up in red and orange leaves and then walk all over it

9). two of your favorite people are getting married, and the party is on a tribeca rooftop

10). sitting on a miranda july sculpture in union park while talking on your cell phone > sitting on anything else anywhere and talking on your cell phone

--and let us not forget bk, ny--

11). you want to hold a read-aloud session with some great friends on a saturday night, on a rooftop overlooking manhattan

12). fatty 'cue

13). bookstores anywhere else just don't seem to cut it

14). 90 percent of people you know in new york live here and will totes let you crash on their couch/floor/roof

15). to attend great new york theatre without paying to attend great new york theatre, a.k.a. nighttime in williamsburg

saving the 13th

2011-11-08T16:42:00.004-06:00

it was late for a school night when we got back to the apartment last st. patrick's day. as dan opened the door, we noticed the front room was dark except for the neon glow of the tv.

"did you leave it on?"

"no...."

dan turned on the lights, went straight to the kitchen for a knife, and began checking each room, each closet, and behind every door. i heard him at the back of the apartment, yelling threats about calling the cops. but by that time, whoever had let themselves in had also let themselves out.

when we called 911 a few minutes later, two officers arrived before we had even taken our coats off, coming from a station two blocks away. the intruder had rifled through drawers and pulled the tv and electronics out from the wall, but took only one object: the wii. a child, the police suspected, and later confirmed through fingerprint analysis. there was a school across the street. he had probably come from there.

within the next week, dan applied for renter's insurance. he talked to the landlord about putting bars on the windows. we adopted two ferocious guard dogs. and we felt safer knowing the police were within a three-minute walk and that they responded--quickly.

that's why, when the mayor announced last month that the 13th district police station was one of three he plans to close to help reduce the chicago budget gap, i was glad that people got angry. lots of people. they organized marches and rallies, and started a very vocal campaign to save the 13th.

the 13th station is at wood and augusta. its officers serve an area that stretches from division to madison, and from kedzie to (roughly) halsted. this includes lake street between damen and western, a.k.a. what was named at this time last year as the most dangerous place in the entire united states.

so why would the city want to close a district station that covers some of chicago's roughest neighborhoods (parts of garfield and humboldt parks) and merge it with a district whose station is three city miles away (an hour's drive roundtrip)? according to the cpd, the three closures will save the city up to $5 million. the details of how and at what long-term cost remain unclear.

and i remain unclear as to where i'm going to go the next time not only our apartment but also dan's car gets broken into, when the entire block smells like gas, or when i believe i'm being followed.

for now, i check for the latest updates through save the 13th's facebook and twitter. oh, and i take one of my ferocious guard dogs to rallies whenever possible.

bon iver. apartment show. paris. what more do you need?

2011-11-03T15:01:00.011-05:00

love bon iver.
love paris.
love intimate, instrumental gatherings.
all of which make this moment all kinds of magical.

(p.s. go read about how it came to happen.)

how to throw a super awesome superhero party

2011-10-31T14:15:00.009-05:00

for her husband's 30th birthday, suzanne knew she had to do something out of control, over the top special. luckily, robb is a major nerd, making surprise superhero party clearly the best option. not to mention dee. lish.

now, if you're considering throwing somebody special in your life a surprise superhero bash, follow the following steps. i recommend deviation only if it leads to improvement. however, as you will see, we did a pretty kick ass job. so you're welcome.

1: plan ahead.

this cannot be done in two hours. or even two days. aim for two weeks.

2: start with the menu. this includes food and bevs. we had utility melts (tiny sandwiches with turkey, mustard, and cheese), daredeviled eggs, caped crusaders (pigs in blankets), radioactive spider (vodka + green river + plastic spider), dr. manhattans (just guess), and a bunch of other gems i'm forgetting about.

(robb's kryptonite happens to be reese's cups. he once ate eighty within an hour. it's kinda super awesome as far as feats go, but it could also be considered a great weakness.)

3: must have masks. i suggest making them by hand. it took me about three hours to trace and cut out thirty of these. they are essential for identity preservation, duh.

4: nametags are nice. you know, so everyone can get to know each other.

5: turn the bar into a science lab. we used beakers and test tubes to mix and pour drinks. unfortunately, i did not capture this in photo phorm. too distracted by the invisibility tonic (vodka, tonic, lime).

6: convert a back porch or some other room into a bat cave. again, unforch, i did not get a picture of this either. (AND I MADE IT!) use black, dollar store table cloths to create the cave walls and hang bats from the rafters. you could also hire an alfred; ours was tending bar.

7: invite great friends, even if they are pregnant.

8: memories. make them.

happy hallowieners

2011-10-30T22:03:00.002-05:00

love, maya and charlie, who have no idea what halloween is or why--after six months of nudity--they suddenly have to wear clothes.

abc goes native

2011-10-14T14:25:00.012-05:00

tonight, abc is airing another of diane sawyer's "hidden america" specials. (the previous one featured the people of appalachia, which was pretty interesting to me, having spent my college years in the region reporting on its people.) in tonight's special, diane goes to the pine ridge indian reservation in south dakota. it's one of 565 indian nations in the country; it's about the size of connecticut; and it's home to 35,000 oglala lakota sioux. those stats are fine, but they get worse: 47 percent of the people are living below the federal poverty level and somewhere between 65 and 80 percent are unemployed. plus, there's an insane amount of alcoholism and obesity. from what i've read about tonight's special, diane focuses on the children and how their successes and failures intertwine with the future of the reservation.

so why do i care? a lot of reasons. but also because i've written about the lakota at pine ridge before. it was 2005, and i chatted with documentary filmmaker becky malone for perspectives magazine. you can read my story below and if you're around tonight (10 p.m. cst), you should watch the special. if not, find it somewhere on the internet later. totes worth it.

here's my story....
RECLAIMING A CULTURE: NEW DOCUMENTARY EXPLORES THE LAKOTA TRIBE’S QUEST TO RECLAIM THEIR LANGUAGE, TRADITIONS

(i did not take this picture. mr. sam girton did + it accompanied my story in perspectives magazine here.)

The American government has, by all appearances, forgotten the small South Dakota town of Pine Ridge, located on an Indian reservation of the same name. Condemned houses with paint peeling off the sides fill the reservation’s streets. Rust-eaten cars sit neglected in overgrown front lawns. Children bounce on a trampoline in one yard, but that extravagance is rumored to have come from drug money.

In one house, Kevin Poor Bear sits in his wheelchair using reds, whites, and blacks to paint wolves and other symbolic creatures in Lakota culture on a large canvas. A recovering alcoholic, he relies on the income he earns from his art to get him through each day.

Three of his paintings now appear over the couch in Becky Malone’s living room. A graduate student in the School of Film at Ohio University, Malone traveled to Pine Ridge during March 2004 to film on the reservation and interview some of the Lakota elders for a documentary she’s producing. There, the man behind the paintings invited her into his home — a small house where up to 25 other Lakota Indians have slept on cold winter nights. “They’re so generous they would give you the last bit of food they had to eat,” Malone says of the Lakota people in general. “They don’t believe people should suffer.”

Suffering, however, is nothing new to the Lakota. For generations before the Europeans crossed the Atlantic, bringing weapons, diseases, and alcohol, the Lakota lived in peaceful, patriarchal societies. “This country was founded on religious freedom, but Native Americans weren’t allowed to practice theirs until 1978,” Malone says, noting that many were killed or imprisoned for practicing their religion when manifest destiny spread west in America.

Since then, cities have overtaken the vast wilderness the Lakota once knew, and the government that promised to provide for them has whittled their land down to rows of dilapidated houses.

A few years ago, Roger LaMere, one of three remaining Lakota medicine men, decided he was done waiting on broken promises. He had watched his culture slip away for decades, each generation knowing less of their language and traditions. “Language loss happens so quickly, within generations. You need to know what words mean to understand the culture,” Malone says, adding that the Lakota word for “woman,” for example, literally means “backbone of the nation.”

As a result, LaMere formed the Lakota Project, an outreach program aimed at preserving the Lakota language and culture through education. He travels between Rapid City and Pine Ridge to help the Lakota that have scattered to escape poverty learn their own language. LaMere’s ultimate goal is to establish a school where elders will teach the children the Lakota language and cultural traditions. “He’s trying to reverse 400 years of forced assimilation and lost culture,” Malone says.

To raise awareness for the project, LaMere organized Spirit Walk 2003. The walk, led by John LaFountaine, began in July, and walkers traveled over 1,700 miles from Pine Ridge to Washington, D.C. Malone learned of the project when the group came through Athens. Motivated by her own Ottawa Indian ancestry, she immediately knew she wanted to document the journey. LaMere has since invited Malone to study the Lakota culture, telling her, “The ways of your people are almost gone.”

Malone joined the march during its last leg, from Virginia to the Capitol. She filmed a prayer LaFountaine offered for future Native American generations while a young Mayan girl from New Mexico raised a sacred staff.

Malone plans to turn the 20 hours of footage she has gathered into two films. The first will be a 20-minute film about the Lakota Project for her second-year project. The other will focus on the injustices the Lakota have suffered over time. For this film, Malone will concentrate on the American government’s seizure of the Lakota’s sacred Black Hills — which most people now know as Mount Rushmore — and the small town of White Clay, Nebraska, which sits only two miles from the Pine Ridge reservation and is home to non-Indian owned liquor stores that make over $4 million annually in illegal alcohol sales to the Lakota.

Despite a dark past, the future looks bright for the Lakota children. Students from kindergarten through high school organized a school-wide walkout after the Spirit Walk to tell the tribal council they want the Lakota language used in their schools. “LaMere was beside himself with joy,” Malone says.

For more information about the Lakota Project, click it.

for the birds: restoring illinois' native plants one yard at a time

2011-10-05T08:46:00.019-05:00

In the backyard of the Wood-Leu home in Green Oaks, Ill., miniature stakes section off a 6-inch-square patch of grass. But wait—look closely—because that’s not just grass. A spiral of green leaves whispers the beginnings of an oak tree. The tree will take years to grow into anything that resembles the adult version of itself, but if anyone knows that truly good things are worth waiting for, it’s Louise Wood*—the tree’s protector.

Fourteen years ago, Louise decided she wanted to make the yard of her family’s new home a place exclusively for native plants. Step one: wait to see what would grow naturally.

Step two came later that year when Louise accepted a citation from the Village of Green Oaks for an “overgrown" lawn.

The next few steps blurred together through the following decade, as Louise spent mornings standing across the street from her home, studying the lay of the land and how it interacted with the house, the neighbor’s yard, and the bordering wetland. There were phone calls placed and consultations arranged with plant experts. There was plotting and planning and mapping. Hundreds of hours of research. Ground preparation. And every year, there was the local Mother’s Day plant sale where Louise would find new inspirations for her blossoming vision.

Today, that vision has grown into something that everyone who passes by Louise’s yard can see. Goldenrod, black-eyed susans, foxglove, and nearly 900 native plants wrap around the house in vibrant greens, browns, and yellows sprinkled with hints of purple. Bees float among the flowers as finches speed across the open landscape.

Louise has said that at times, the journey to this day was lonely. Guided by a college background in biology, she strove to create a habitat unique to Lake County, Ill.—a respite for the local birds, insects, and other animals. But until last year when she called on the help of Dave Eubanks, who specializes in greenspace planning and restoration, she was working solo.

“Now, she has people who share this passion and interest,” said Steve Barg, executive director of the Liberty Prairie Conservancy—a non-profit land trust in Lake County. The Conservancy organized a press conference at Louise’s Green Oaks home yesterday, and made 14 years of hard work official. The organization recognized the yard as the first-ever certified conservation yard in Lake County.

The Liberty Prairie Conservancy based the certification on a list of criteria worth varying points. The credentials include (but are not limited to):
· One shrub or tree native to Northeastern Illinois (5 points)
· Lawn chemicals that are minimal or nonexistent (10 points)
· Rain barrels (5 points each)
· Pond, maintained birdbath, or other water feature (5 points)
· Native plants that include at least 10 from the butterfly-friendly list (15 points)

To qualify for certification, a yard must meet a total of 100 points. Louise’s yard ranked 393 points.
The Liberty Prairie Conservancy awards Louise for having the first certified conservation yard in Lake County.

“This is a tribute to what we’re trying to get going. Lake County has the most diverse and rarest species in the whole state, so we have something at stake here,” Barg said at the press conference’s opening.

Some 30 people attended the conference, including Green Oaks Mayor Bernard Wysocki; President of the Lake County Forest Preserves Ann Maine; representatives from Chicago Wilderness and the Audubon Society; the CEO of a local chemical company; and writers from the Daily Herald and Chicago Tribune.

Mayor Wysocki called Louise a “real blessing to the village” and reminisced about the first time he met her, in the field behind her home. Louise was advising the lawnmowers on which areas of grass they should cut and which they needed to let grow. Her knowledge and passion impressed Wysocki.

Mayor Wysocki speaks at the press conference.

Louise left a similar impression on Lake County Forest Preserves President Ann Maine, when, 10 years ago, Maine was going door-to-door talking with local residents. The two spent nearly an hour together talking about ecological issues. Though they had not seen each other in a decade, Maine remembered Louise when the Conservancy asked her to speak at the conference.

“We can get tricked into thinking we have all this beauty and everything is OK,” Maine said at the conference, alluding to Lake County's open spaces and the forest preserves’ 29,000 combined acres. “But it could be better. Hopefully, the neighborhood will embrace what you’ve done and do more."

It's official: Steve Barg of the Liberty Prairie Conservancy places the recognition plaque

Already, people are making an effort--such as Louise’s neighbor across the street, who has initiated the process of removing invasive species from her yard.

However, major change—no matter the size—takes time. Louise knows this. And that knowledge will be reflected for years to come in her ever-changing yard and the tiny oak tree growing at the heart of it.

Educating the masses: Following the press conference, Louise led a tour of the yard.

Watch Louise explain why she plants natives here:

Additional notes:
Want a (free!) evaluation of your property? Check out the Liberty Prairie Conservancy’s http://www.libertyprairie.org/Conservation@Home/Conservation@Home.html program.

*For the sake of full disclosure: Louise is my boyfriend’s mother. Though she ranks among my favorite people in the whole world, I have done my utmost to maintain objectivity in reporting the day’s events.

loves of my life

2011-08-15T19:13:00.000-05:00

there you have it.

and not to play favorites...

2011-08-15T18:59:00.000-05:00

...the lady love who keeps me going everyday.

britt's old hollywood

2011-08-04T20:59:00.003-05:00

in just two months, this ol' girl, the beautiful-in-every-way ms. britt strick, will marry zombie warrior mr. brandon sherer. (you may or may not remember that they got engaged at my apartment last 4th of july.)

here are a few snapshots from her chicago bachelorette party, which we did up in classy old hollywood style.

the ladies

the evening's menu

chinatown, san francisco

2011-07-19T21:56:00.000-05:00

bai bai, mai mai

2011-07-16T04:00:00.001-05:00

leaving the pups behind to head out to california for two weeks. someone does not like this plan.

happiest 4th to you

2011-07-04T21:53:00.002-05:00

readymade no more

2011-06-16T22:26:00.006-05:00

it's a sad day in my corner of the internet. i learned (via twitter) that the meredith corporation is shuttering readymade magazine, which i first subscribed to in 2004 and continue to receive today. maybe they folded due to, as their mother company claims, weakness in the home category. more likely it also has to do with mismanagement (for about a year, i didn't receive the magazine at all, even though i had a subscription. lately, duplicate copies of each issue fill my mailbox). regardless of the cause, this is exactly why i remain a freelance writer instead of trying to snag a full-time gig at a publication.

the publishing industry right now is extremely unsteady, and too few places seem to have the stomachs to withstand the uncertainties. so i will continue to freelance, which comes with its own set of issues. at least i feel slightly more secure than i would hanging on the whims of one single publication. i meet a range of people from corporate big wigs to small start-ups, learn new fields daily, and have to sell myself constantly. i am coming to realize that these are all positives, though they can also be pains in the ass.

all of these words like "shuttering" and "folding" and "market weakness" get my wheels turning. about a year ago, i went to dinner with some friends, and one of them asked me why i still wanted to be published in print. why go after magazines and newspapers at all? why not make a name for myself on my own blog, or any number of blogs out in the internets? i let that stew for a few days. then i wrote. what i wrote seems especially relevant today....

________

For my entire journalistic career so far, I have watched the publishing industry struggle to come to terms with what exactly it means to be a print publication in the digital age. Some, like Wired, have handled it gracefully, embracing the Internet and all the mobile devices that enable it. Most print publications, however, are not faring as well.

In college I worked for the school paper and a local alternative weekly, both in print. The excitement of going to an event and rushing back to a newsroom filled with other writers made my college experience. Since then, I have written primarily for magazines, and my stories have appeared in print and online. I run blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook fan pages.

Yet, I want to see my name in the Chicago Tribune. In print.

I am aware that there are easier ways to see my byline than by submitting a query letter to the city’s largest paper and then waiting weeks for a response. I could publish my own blog, or approach one of the dozens of websites advertising for “writer—telecommute.”

But I grew up here, and the Tribune has made an appearance every single day of my life. Now that I am a professional writer, I want a piece of that paper. There is something about being a writer and being published in your city’s newspaper—a mark of success.

If you are reading this in print format, consider the paper that you’re holding in your hands right now—you smell it. You feel the newsprint leaching onto your fingers. You hear the pages rustle as you turn them. The experience engulfs you. You are not holding multiple newspapers at once, and you are not switching among them like tabs in an Internet browser. Simply due to logistics, you have given yourself completely to this messy, rustling paper for a set period of time. From page one to page end.

And those pages, in some way, still offer a final word—a candle guiding us through the fog of billions of voices.

Because city papers like The New York Times, Baltimore Sun, LA Times and Tribune have historically represented the best of the best in the industry, they span whole geographic areas. They serve as tactile sources that have withstood the decades. We have trusted them to provide unbiased context for the collective conscience of each city and to an extent our nation. You might argue that the Chicago Tribune website could do that, too.

And then I will tell you the main reason I want to be published in the Tribune. It is because I think the Chicago Tribune will disappear. Tomorrow. I think this everyday.

When I wake up in the morning, I am 99 percent certain that Gmail will still hold a record of every email I have sent in the past six years, that I can log into Facebook and see which of my friends got drunk last night or pregnant, and that Pitchfork will tell me what music I should be listening to on the way to my freelance job—as an online editor.

But technology has not killed print. As a society, we understand the immediacy and reliability of the Internet because we have adopted it in virtually every aspect of our lives. It is print’s reaction to technology that has done the medium in.

If we lose print, we lose conversations that need to happen. Newspapers offer a base of what we need to know on a day-to-day basis, while the Internet lets us choose our own adventure by creating a mix of very niche stories that fit our individual personalities.

Today, for example, I read a magazine piece about how 20-somethings need to grow up, a blog article about why honeybees are dying and a NewsHour interview with Twitter comedienne Kelly Oxford. I missed out on that physical connection with a publication created specifically to appeal to and inform a broad audience. A publication meant to provide a base of news that we all should be able to ace on any 3^rd grade current events quiz. And let’s not forget why print exists to begin with: to make information more accessible to the masses.

Yet as print becomes more expensive, more of a luxury item due to this ongoing battle with advancing technology, what else will we lose? As I pedal past rows of houses on my morning commute, will I see any of those translucent plastic bags filled with ink on newsprint dotting the sidewalks—a single, physical representation of everything that happened the day before? While I wait for my coffee at the café down the street and glance over at the metal newspaper racks for the morning headlines, will those racks stand empty?

It could happen any day now.

Meanwhile, the Internet evolves everyday and drives people in numbers that marketing companies and advertisers can track minute-by-minute.

And everyday, I continue to want to be part of something before it dies. I want to figure out for myself why so many amazing writers I know who are a generation—or even five years—older than myself are so jaded. I want to live the history I learned about in journalism school.

It was in journalism school where I first heard that most of what we know we learn through some form of media. I may be a part of that media system, but everyday I fight the fact that my reality comes from collections of pixels splayed across screens, or from the pages of newspapers and books.

Some things I have to learn first hand, and if that means being part of a form of media as it melts away, I want to feel that heat.

So publish me, Chicago Tribune. In print.

--May 2010

no farmers, no food

2011-06-16T15:11:00.005-05:00

"no farmers, no food." i read that in a small shop in ann arbor this past weekend. it made me want to get back to chicago, to the uptown farmers market, which returned this week to the parking lot at weiss memorial hospital. eating fresh, organic food and knowing the farmers who grow it is only rivaled by growing the food yourself--a process i've recently implemented on my garage roof. until my own strawberries and spinach are ripe for the pickin', though, i'll count on my farmer friends to keep me fed. can't complain so far.

where's waldo?

2011-06-08T20:48:00.003-05:00

look closer. he's immobilized by heat exhaustion at lincoln park zoo.

lincoln park zoo with rebecca and her little lion

2011-06-08T20:19:00.008-05:00

me: i took this picture today at the zoo
kg: how do you just up and go to the zoo??...i think i picked definitely the wrong career.

amsale girls

2011-06-02T18:26:00.002-05:00

sunday nights are the worst. or at least they were. that is, until ms. emily leu was cast in a new reality tv show that premiers in one week. amsale girls airs june 12th on WEtv, either right before or right after bridezillas. i don't remember. the point is: i'll have something to look forward to on sunday nights. and you will, too! check out the preview here and see emily in all her bridal fashion glory here.

2011-05-28T21:44:00.001-05:00

they will get real beds soon. until then, i love seeing them like this and thinking about all the sad and lonely nights i spent on those pillows, with no idea that someday they would belong to anyone else.

2011-05-11T11:42:00.000-05:00

sitcki pici purikura app for iphone is a great time.

the diagnosis

2011-05-01T14:05:00.006-05:00

first diagnosis: melted heart. dan adopted maya and charlie for my birthday, and i am absolutely head over heels. for all of them.

so as responsible dog owners, we took them to the vet yesterday. dr. brumfield called maya 100 percent perfect in every way.

meanwhile...

he diagnosed charlie with "the fatness." poor babe. the prescription? less food, but longer walks + more love. that will have to get him through these tough times.

spring mode

2011-04-30T14:18:00.001-05:00

mini out and about, enjoying the weather today. i don't care how hot it gets, heated seats are the best invention ever.

why have only one name...

2011-03-28T15:25:00.001-05:00

when you can have at least six? maya and fat charlie (a.k.a. thunderbolt and scsi, mayagüez and chuck, mj and close-to-the-ground chuck, wolf and charles in charge): lost in our hearts since birth, found at PAWS.

four and three years old respectively, this mini-husky and corgidor spend their days illegally lounging on the couch and unsuccessfully hunting for peanut butter.

daniel and i will be fostering for the next three weeks, and more than likely moving on to adoption after that. if you'd like to meet them, it'll be by appointment only. as you can see, they keep very busy scedules.

yeezie

2011-03-16T15:46:00.000-05:00

got a new phone.
specifically an iphone.
and
i
love
it.
specifically the camera and instagram app.

wild west

2011-03-11T11:53:00.012-06:00

i left for colorado in early january to write a story for positive magazine. as i drove toward the dozen towering peaks that made up the gateway to the rockies, i realized i was on my own, couldn't think of a single person i knew within hundreds of miles. cool, crisp air blew past my car windows. maybe, i thought, if the mountains would part like curtains at the start of a play, i could see all the way to the pacific.

in less than an hour, i arrived at my destination: boulder, where somehow cutting-edge green technology, ever-present native american history, and dogs in old pickup trucks all co-exist.

i was there to meet this woman:
anna mcdermott
ex-ceo of a multi-billion dollar general electric company
mountain woman
world traveler
mother of two
author

anna's warmth and intelligence surprised me from the start. whenever i meet the people i'm writing about for the first time, i prepare for the middle. they might be quiet and pensive, which forces me to pull responses from them; or their words might leap from them in a hurry, covering topics about which my knowledge is limited--like aerospace engineering and quantum physics (true story). sometimes the people are so relaxed and open or excited to have someone to listen to them that i end up feeling like i'm talking to a friend i've known my whole life; other times, they're closed off and very clear about why i am there--as a reporter who is somehow going to misconstrue whatever information they share with me.

anna ended up being one of the best types. she told her story as a list of happenings, each event increasingly outrageous. the parallels between her life and janet's became clear early on. these were women who handled whatever came at them. they did not react to things in fear; they simply kept their heads down, focused on what they needed to do, and were wildly successful as a result. janet attributes her success to dogged determination. when i asked anna where she got her confidence, she shook her head. "it wasn't confidence. i was determined."

she made her life what she wanted it to be, and then she opened it up to me. we spent the weekend eating sushi in denver and sipping martinis at the hotel boulderado.

the best thing about the trip was that it was an experience. and while i went to colorado knowing nobody, i definitely have plans to return...and people to visit.

(read anna's story here.)

deftones "change (in the house of flies)"

2011-02-28T12:08:00.004-06:00

for you, spinch.

cupcakes

2011-01-28T17:06:00.008-06:00

do not be fooled: they are CUPCAKES. not actual PAINT.

i made them for my painter friend rebecca's birthday. a practice batch a couple nights before took them from radioactive-shade-your-eyes bright to this...of which i am very proud.
also, the nice thing about making cupcakes is that they don't involve a computer screen.

phil + trish

2011-01-25T15:37:00.008-06:00

so here are phil and trish. he travels the world on behalf of general electric, she teaches special ed. they're getting married in october, so recently i offered to shoot their engagement photos. during most of the half dozen hours we were out on the shoot, i was yelling at them from 30 feet away. they responded well to that style of direction, as you can see.

"KISS!"

"LAUGH!"

"HOLD HANDS AND LOOK LONGINGLY INTO EACH OTHERS EYES!"

"PROPOSE TO HER AT A JAMBA JUICE AND THEN PURCHASE BEVERAGES AND SIP THEM WHILE STARING LONGINGLY INTO EACH OTHERS EYES!"

"DO A TANGO ON A BRIDGE, BUT PAUSE WHEN YOU GET TO THE PART WHERE YOU DIP HER AND THEN KISS!"

"PRETEND LIKE HE'S BLIND AND YOU'RE LEADING HIM DOWN A FLIGHT OF STAIRS."

"FIND SOME TALL PRAIRIE GRASS AND TOUCH YOUR NOSES TOGETHER LIKE YOU'RE ESKIMOS IN SUBZERO TEMPERATURES. ALSO, HOLD HER NECK WHILE YOU DO IT."

"OK NOW WE'RE GOING TO GRAFFITI THIS POLE WITH A STATEMENT THAT SUMS UP YOUR RELATIONSHIP!"

"NOW HOP THIS FENCE AND PUT YOUR HEAD ON HIS SHOULDER. FOCUS! PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE SECURITY GUARD YELLING IN THE DISTANCE! I AM LOUDER THAN HIM!"

"TAKE THE L TO SOX PARK! DON'T GET SHOT! JUMP!"

didn't they do a fantastic job?

drawing from dreams

2011-01-14T12:09:00.003-06:00

this creature was in my dreams last night. i was so intrigued by it--perhaps what you may call a combo fox-deer--i had to draw it. some specifics:
a). it is a creature with the head of a deer but the body of a fox. or rather, its body consists of a fox's tail.
b). it has no legs.
c). it does not fly; it does not walk. it hovers at shoulder-level.
d). it has a very sweet, peaceful disposition.

alright, new goal as of this moment: a sketch book for my dreams. i have never been classically trained in drawing. this may be one of the most important undertakings i have ever undertaken.

the chicken

2011-01-11T17:03:00.006-06:00

there are few meats i've met in my life that i've truly enjoyed.
but dan made us a roast chicken last night.

safe to say i feel differently about things now.
this was one of those meals--complete with rice, spinach, and wine--that makes me sure i picked the right guy.

the graduate

2011-01-05T16:11:00.000-06:00

let me tell you how amazing it is that this day actually happened.

nick began his college experience in 2006 at columbia in chicago with a major in guitar. after one semester, he decided the tuition was a waste of our parents' money and proceeded to switch among college of lake county, truman, roosevelt (?), and northeastern. then he jumped aaaaall the way out to university of california and took a greyhound back home three days later. it was kind of fun wondering where he'd go next, or where he'd enroll in classes and then not show up. but by that point, people were on the verge of losing hope. some already had.

then, after three years, nick announced that he was settling down for good--at northeastern. there he studied environmental studies and spanish, and i take complete credit. we hashed out his interests--traveling, animals, speaking spanish--on a trip to puerto rico a couple januarys ago, and mapped a route that would combine all three. since then he's learned why, when, and how to light a prairie on fire; fed rescued lions in ecuador; and not only graduated, but graduated cum laude.

(i knew things had really fallen into place for him when he showed up at my apartment one day a few months ago, spotted a bioethics book on my shelf, and asked to borrow it--this after he relayed to me the philosophies of a handful of the ethicists within.)

so now nick starts a six-month internship at the shedd aquarium where he'll work with the belugas, dolphins, penguins, and sea otters. stay tuned for photo proof on how this directly benefits me.

spacehog "in the meantime"

2011-01-03T15:51:00.003-06:00

file under: fav things.

christmas morning

2010-12-29T15:46:00.000-06:00

HH.

2010-12-19T23:39:00.001-06:00

our 2k9 christmas card, which remains one of my favorite things ever.
(photo by adam kuehl, concept by daniel leu)

wintertime terrarium

2010-12-08T17:25:00.001-06:00

all the best terrariums are made on a whim. half whims count too. i've been thinking about making one for a long time, years at least. then finally the right moment arrived when amy, her friend tim, and i went to pick out our christmas tree. last year, we went the home depot route, but the tree was brittle from the moment we touched it and didn't hesitate to leave little parts of itself everywhere.

this year we stepped it up a notch and went to sprout home--extra nice because not only does it exist right down the street from our house, but the people who work there actually know things. we walked out with a gorgeously fat, five-foot tree, and the most perfect three-inch cactus plant that requires watering once a month in winter, twice a month in summer. i know this because the people at sprout can/will answer questions.

from there, we went home and rested the tree on the living room floor; amy started cooking.
i made this:

"whip my hair" ft. neil young, bruce springsteen

2010-12-06T14:26:00.003-06:00

and...to my surprise...jimmy fallon

the joffrey tree

2010-12-05T14:05:00.002-06:00

got accidentally drunk on jack frost martinis at the four seasons the other night. on the plus side, this beautiful tree, decorated with nutcrackers and signed slippers from the joffrey ballet, stood in the lobby outside the bar. on the down side, i wandered around borders for (a couple of?) hour(s) afterward and spent $100 on phil collins' "face value" and books like dune and lord of the flies.

it's snowing in chicago

2010-12-04T01:30:00.003-06:00

...and while i'm excited for this first solid snowfall of the year (as well as for scarves and boots and tights and mittens), it's below freezing. literally.

i miss summer.

still on that kanye kick...

2010-11-29T12:23:00.005-06:00

this time ft. the spell-binding talents of zach galifianakis.

cold crab legs: a heartfelt story of loss and emotion

2010-11-24T12:58:00.003-06:00

thanksgiving always reminds me of the day, four years ago now, i honored my dead crabs with a sea burial. so touched was i by the experience that i recorded it in essay form, which i have included below. may buster crab and the legs live on in our hearts and memories. i know i'll always be thankful for the time i got to spend with them.

I set my crabs on fire last night.

Well, really Dan lit them, after I read their eulogy and Allison doused them in nail polish remover, like the ancients.

It was as simple as Dan and Allison suggesting a funeral, my wanting to take advantage of the lake at our doorstep, and all of us devoting a night to two dead crustaceans despite the cold. In that, we found ritual during a time when we hear all the time that we, as a culture, barely heed the word anymore.

Their memorial service was one that any one of us would have liked for ourselves, but it wasn't our turn. Instead it was little Buster Crab, who lost his life either to fight or filter, (we can’t be certain which), and Leg, the largest of three with identical names who, like Buster Crab, knew the 5.5 gallon tank on the end table in my living room as home.

When I came home Sunday after a weekend in Boston, I found myself down to only two Legs. And who knows how long they’ll last.

Two weeks earlier, the woman at PetSmart had said my four crabs would live “maybe two years?” She hadn’t sounded too certain. In fact, it’d seemed as though she were making a complete guess, but I had trusted her optimism and hoped for the best, picking out the cleanest of glass tanks for optimal viewing, the most natural-looking of skulls for climbing, and the prettiest of faux flowers for sprucing up the otherwise dismal scenery of a crabitat. To think it was all in vain.

Then again, saying so is a disservice to my two remaining Legs. But as I stood on the edge of Lake Michigan last night – surrounded by Dan and Sydney, Allison and Allison’s co-worker Natasha, the arctic wind whipping past from all directions – I could think solely about what I had come to lose.

I pulled a folded sheet of paper from my purse. On one side was a letter from my landlord, the Wexenthaller Realty logo spanning the top in thick, black cursive.

The backside, though, was my own script—a eulogy I had prepared a few hours before, but which I had been working over in my mind for days.

With Natasha’s phone as a light source, I began.

I don't know how the rest of you feel about Buster Crab and Leg, but I know that I have regrets. I regret not getting to spend enough time with them. I feel like I didn’t even know them, like I was never even there for them.

It was true. If you divide a typical day into eighths, I spend at least seven of those away from my own apartment, running to and from work and all over town. For the remaining eighth, I’m either dressing to leave again, or undressing for shower and bed.

I haven’t been home a single weekend since they’ve come into my life. And now, I want to read you a series of voice mails that I received from my roommate, Allison, on the day of their departure while I was out of town. This is what I remember when I think back on my last moments with my friends, Buster and Leg.

Luckily, Natasha’s phone only rang twice during the eulogy, and she responded by telling me to “just silence it, just silence it.” In a hybrid of soldier-straight English and Hindi, she’d taken care of her other incoming calls during the mile-long procession-walk to the beach. We’d bundled into our too-thin coats, leashed Sydney, and chided ourselves as we crossed the Lake Shore Drive underpass at Montrose for not thinking to wear the orange FUNERAL flags or call for a bike cop escort.

12:20 p.m. (approximately, east-coast time): Hi, Katie. Um, I think something bad might have happened to one of the Legs, if you want to give me a call back (coughing). Alright, um, yeah, I’ll just talk to you later. Bye.

I heard my voice shake as I read from the sheet I’d folded into quarters, and sniffled from the cold.

1:10 p.m.: Hey, um, it’s me. Um it actually might be Buster. I’m not sure. Um I’ll just tell you on voice mail. It’s just laying on top of the filter, like it’s kind of sucked into the filter. And not moving. So I don’t know. And currently as I’m talking to you, two of them are fighting and—oh god—I don’t know what to do. So call me back.

Sometime during my transcription of that second call, Sydney started to cry and pace along the shore within a few feet of Allison. “Sit, Sydney. Sit,” Allison commanded, as Sydney cried and nibbled at the seaweed and few dead fish in her anxiety. Her high-pitched whine expressed the deep sadness she must have felt at the final goodbye to new friends. I remember Allison had left me another message shortly after Buster Crab and the Legs had moved in with us: “Sydney has discovered there are living things in the tank,” she’d reported in her trademark monotone, “and it’s nothing but fun.”

1:23 p.m.: Hey. It’s me. So I also think that one of the Legs might have passed away as well. And I think that was a fighting casualty and the other two keep fighting and it’s just chaos inside the tank. Um, I’m not sure what happened to Buster first…if it was the filter or getting attacked. I don't know. But yeah, little bit of a mess. So um, yeah, I’ll talk to you later. Bye.

A few giggles escaped the shivering crowd, and that’s ok. I’m sure it’s what Buster Crab and Leg would have wanted.

That had been my last call from Allison regarding the situation. I’d run out on my class to call her back. When she answered, I asked her to remove Buster from the filter. Maybe he still had a chance. Maybe he was just a little bit stuck. There was silence on the other end of the phone. A long silence. “Hello?”

“Yeah?” Allison said and, “Are you serious?”

“Of course! He could still be alive!”

Another silence. “Well, can I at least finish my lunch first? I’ll call you back.”

But it didn’t matter. He was already gone.

Now Dan held out the little boats we’d taped from National Geographic Traveler pages chosen for their symbolism, (one a Machu Picchu-esque Andean mountain “for their last climb” by Dan, and a colorful photo montage full of life and vitality by me). Allison struggled for a few seconds as she balanced holding onto Sydney’s leash and un-capping her nail polish remover. With careful, cautious resolve I took from my purse the Ziploc freezer bag, heavy with saturated paper towels, that held the physical forms of Buster Crab and Leg. I wanted to see their bodies laid out in the beds of grass and dead leaves that made up the floors of their sea vessels, but it was easier and more sanitary to simply set each towel into each final resting place.

Allison used the remainder of her polish remover on christening the bodies. Almost unseen, Dan hunched low, and set them aflame. Brilliant oranges, reds, greens, and whites exploded and engulfed the paper boats until the towels enveloping them disappeared. Sydney whimpered.

“They’re not going!” someone pointed out, as the boats sat on shore, waves washing around them. I couldn’t stand to leave them held captive by the wet sand, stuck in a purgatory between the lives they knew and the open waters beyond. So I bent down to push them into the waves. Once they were up and over their first swell, I turned away.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said. That’s how I wanted to remember them, floating into the wide open, on a journey through the Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence, and into the Atlantic.

“Were you really crying when you read that?” Dan asked as we walked around the boat-less harbor. I looked at him without response. I’d laughed during the eulogy, true, but that’s only one of two reactions I typically have to nerve-racking, emotional situations—the other being what Dan was inquiring about.

“Maybe a little of both?” he said. “Or maybe a lot of both.”

Those indifferent waves threw the little boats back, but I didn’t want to see. I wanted to imagine them floating on forever. And even now, even as I tell you this, I believe that I didn’t see—miles away and a long time ago, on that lakeshore where Dan placed his hand on my back and Sydney guided us all up the beach—even now I believe I didn’t see those paper boats stuck in that sand.

kanye west "runaway"

2010-11-22T11:07:00.003-06:00

so into the new kanye lately.
and because this is my blog and i can do what i want, i choose to share my obsession with you:

out for a walk

2010-11-20T22:31:00.000-06:00

i took these photos in the middle of the street outside my parents' house. the session involved me repeatedly asking carmelo if he wanted a treat, or ordering him to "sit," give his "paw," or "high five!" when we walked back up to the house, my dad was sitting on the front porch having a cigarette.

"who were you talking to out there? sounded pretty intense," he said.

really? i had my camera around my neck and carmelo at my feet. but which of our neighbors might i be ordering to give me their paw?

sometimes he really makes me wonder....or maybe he's just going deaf--"deef" as he pronounces it, like leaf.

suzanne strikes a pose

2010-11-11T14:16:00.006-06:00

my very good friend (and sometimes-editor) suzanne decided earlier this year that she needed to get rid of some things. she started with her clothes...and ended with her hair.

now, following project 333, she's limiting her wardrobe to 33 items for the next three months. everyday she comes into work looking so well put together, in outfits she obviously thought through--solid skirts with funky tights, belts, bright cardigans. instead of being overwhelmed by an overflowing closet, her limited choices left her with the time and motivation to create more outfits than she'd ever coordinated before.

i'm considering trying this for myself come summer (why summer? do you live in chicago? do you understand true layering?), but in the meantime i try to photograph suzanne's outfits everyday, like this one (which i took with an iphone, by the way. f'ing crisp!):

pumpkin patch

2010-10-28T15:36:00.002-05:00

i've been telling my friend lionel for a longtime that i wanted to do a photo shoot with him and his family. he's not yet 2, so i don't know how much of our conversations he understands, but luckily his parents overheard.

the week before halloween, we headed to a tiny pumpkin patch in a vacant city lot, maintained by a vietnam vet who also sells chirstmas trees when the masses demand it. lionel went ballistic when he saw the lines of pumpkins. apparently he had also been freaking out every time he passed the carved jack-o-lantern on the neighbors' porch, and to see dozens of the glistening beauties lined up for him to hug and kiss and sit on and lift up--it was all too much. can you imagine: you've seen maybe one pumpkin before in your entire life. it appears out of the blue and smiles at you. what a pleasant creature. and then suddenly--hordes of them! o happy day!

for now, here are the trivisonnos--micah, rebecca, and lionel--and a bunch of gourds:

scouting

2010-10-15T21:47:00.005-05:00

tomorrow i'm shooting engagement photos for dan's cousin phil and his fiance, trish. to prep, i've spent the past few weeks reading photography guides, looking at wedding and engagement photo blogs, and asking married friends of mine what their photography sessions involved ( / what they loved and hated about their photographers). i picked up my rental lens (canon eos 70-200mm--the weight of which constitutes a workout in itself), and, after talking locations with phil and trish, went scouting this afternoon with art director danielle.

(photo by danielle palencar)

what i thought would take an hour went on for four as we wandered chinatown, millenium park, and downtown. as a designer, danielle was a huge help. while i look mainly at lighting and composition as i take a photo, she envisions how a given image would function as a save-the-date, invitation or centerpiece--mainly how text could also play into it.

by sun down we'd found some great spots, and though i want to break my feet off, i'm super psyched.
tomorrow is gonna be a long day....

pear season

2010-09-23T22:45:00.005-05:00

last friday, twitter led me to a recipe for the fall cocktail that struck me as perfect in every way--pear, rosemary, simple syrup--except for one ingredient: gin. i concede that most hard liquors are acquired tastes, and i have grown to love whisk(e)y, bourbon, tequila, and vodka. yet despite spending a fair amount of my later college years putting in serious effort to accustom myself to it, i in no way find gin appealing. it tastes like a tree and makes my face curl into itself.

then i read this recipe for a "hello fall" cocktail, and so thrilled was i at the prospect of using mashed pears in a drink, i basically read over the ingredient that i hated in equal parts to my love of pears. the pears would render the gin immaterial, i told myself. the simple syrup would balance out the harsh flavor. the rosemary would mask the smell. gin? aint no thang.

danielle came over, and during the hour it took her to make us an appetizer and an entire meal, i mixed these cocktails, using a juicer in place of a muddler to alter the state of the pears.

the results?

i still hate gin.

on the ferry

2010-09-21T00:41:00.006-05:00

my mom at her most relaxed on the ferry to martha's vineyard. she's just a tad irish...did you notice?

she's also responsible for my family's annual pilgrimage to the vineyard. we've gone every year since 1993, with a few exceptions. when people ask why, i tell them it's because the lady above has a slight obsession with the kennedys. i found out on this trip, however, that i'm wrong. she is obsessed with the kennedys, but her fixation on the vineyard grew from somewhere deeper: a memory of the memories of a girl in her class in grade school who vacationed there, and the illustrations of joan walsh anglund, which depict an innocent and charming fishing island full of children in love with everything.

i don't know about innocent, but vineyard humor is definitely charming. for example, this is the ferry from martha's vineyard to chappaquiddick island, called the "on time" because it's hard to be late when you're only going 500 feet and the entire trip takes three minutes.

this year's vineyard trip included my mom and my aunt, jeanne, who flew up from atlanta. one morning, we rode for an hour along the chappaquiddick shore in the back of a pickup truck to the very tip of the tiny island. on the way we learned lots of things--among them how the animals inside conch shells reproduce.
these are not actually conch shells, but a meat-eating relative of the conch whose name i forget. so for now we'll just call them conchs.
the little tiny baby conchs, born from the brown and yellow pod also in my hand, incubated in the pod and would have grown with each new snail through its entire life. the pod comes from the adult conch, which lets a long, snake-like appendage out of its shell as it scoots along the ocean floor. pods line the appendage, and the conch deposits them as it goes. when the little snails in their shells are ready to face reality, they break out of the pods and begin their lives.
or in this case, they're murdered and then wrapped in a napkin and put in a camera bag.

for as many times as i've been to the vineyard, people always ask what i do there. i recommend finding your own pod of conchs, but also checking out the giant lobster boats in the little fishing town of menemsha.

and then enjoying a plate of oysters. or a mug of quahog chowder. or a giant lobster.

as these ladies did. sisters obviously. not twins, but close enough in dna to give me hell about everything. always.

and then there's always the middle of katama bay as the moon first shows its face....

photo booth within a photo booth

2010-09-11T19:30:00.000-05:00

bar deville made me realize how much i need an iphone.
photo booth was broken, but josh's phone wasn't.
(stalking cat was my inspiration on that first one)

i spent my last $8...

2010-08-17T23:27:00.003-05:00

what i look like when

2010-08-15T23:12:00.004-05:00

part of a miranda july installation, union square, nyc. these are written on either side of a slab of concrete (?) that's probably seven feet tall and painted white.

and another....

and then...emily and dave were married

2010-08-09T22:40:00.002-05:00

so this was the real reason we went to new york: the marriage of dan's sister emily to her fiance dave. i always think of them as the classic new york couple. aside from being ridiculously attractive, they live in an apartment overlooking the east river on the upper east side. they are literally within minutes of central park (and subsequently, the museum of natural history). she sells wedding dresses in the heart of manhattan's fashion district, and he is chief resident of the columbia/cornell emergency room. but whatever. i think we'd all be happier if they just moved along and started a new life in chicago.

and now.........their big day:

while everyone else was getting ready...

at the waldorf, people caught first sight of the bride.

and at their ceremony, i read "pathways" by rainer maria rilke (without even a tear!!! how? i have no idea.)

understand, i'll slip quietly
away from the noisy crowd
when i see the pale
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.

i'll pursue solitary pathways
through the pale twilit meadows,
with only this one dream:
you come too.

flower girl callie was an instant hit.

as were the bubbles...

(photo by daniel leu)

then it was time for the party. tribeca rooftop? sushi, cheese + fruit, raw, and martini bars? dancing, three-course meal, and puppets? Well, I guess.

what a night.

also in ny...

2010-08-07T22:18:00.000-05:00

unsolved mysteries
http://www.myspace.com/unsolvedmysteries

ft. some very nice lighting

greenpoint, bklyn

2010-08-05T20:54:00.000-05:00

this is who we stayed with in brooklyn. her name is bridget, and she is a writer.

this is bridget's apartment in greenpoint. it felt a lot like paris, maybe due to the oldness of it, the creaky wooden floors, the art nouveau posters, the things that looked beautiful but didn't quite make sense.

she acts like it's all on accident, but then she led us to dinner. at a french restaurant.

our friend james came, too. he wears button-up shirts and listens to indie music and comes to chicago once a year, in the summer, for the pitchfork music fest. so it was extra special seeing him on his turf.

after escargot and crepes, the four of us returned to bridget's home with a couple bottles of wine and made our way to her rooftop. she and james promised unparalleled views. stepping out of the tiny doorway and onto the slanting roof, all of it painted over in white, i again felt like we'd been transported to europe. as soon as i got to the edge and looked out, though...

there was no denying exactly where we were.

just slightly removed

2010-08-03T01:37:00.003-05:00

in new york for seven nights, and spent half of them on rooftops.

more soon.

much, much more....

the wallpaper

2010-08-03T01:04:00.003-05:00

oh? you say goodbyes aren't a big deal for you?
well then you try living amongst this wallpaper for just one year.

pfork 2k10

2010-07-27T20:47:00.002-05:00

by light

by night

new york for a minute

2010-07-23T12:15:00.005-05:00

tomorrow we leave for a week in nueva york....

these two, seen here in 2008 enjoying fine spirits at 2A, are getting married!!!
but before that happens, dan and i are going to wander the city for a bit. this time we'll be mostly in the bk. that is, until lion king on wednesday night transports us to africa (and then to a hotel in manhattan).

love this city

it's where i walked around mooning a whole park when i caught my skirt in my camera bag.

and where i spotted my first banksy.

where i met these guys.

and where i learned that in some places it's totally fine to bring a giant snake into a hotdog shop.

4th of fantastic

2010-07-20T21:26:00.007-05:00

4th of july

. . .

some great things happened this time.

such as:

"oh wow!"

. . .

and after almost four years together, a couple of my favorite people got engaged.

at my house.

i'd had a little too much to drink and a few too many tears to have the presence of mind to photograph them when it happened (post-barbeque, post-fireworks, in the alley outside my apartment. she thought he was taking her for a secret makeout session; he'd had the ring in his pocket all day, having attempted multiple times previously). here are some of my favs from the past few years:

so now that that's settled, i'll be waiting on my dinner invitation.

sometimes drugs really do make life livable

2010-06-23T20:44:00.010-05:00

boats i enjoy, especially when drugged.

i like watching them sway in chicago's summer harbors and playing scrabble on them between santorini and mykonos. this past year, though, i discovered that boats make me incredibly ill.

in september, we filled our bags with wine, fruits, cheeses and chips, and boarded a sailboat for rebecca's bachelorette party. within 20 minutes, my stomach and every inch of my body told me i was not meant to be there. but i wasn't the only one. rebecca turned pale and silent too as the boat rocked through the jetties and out into the open waters of lake michigan.

before long, we were racing back toward shore.

"try to focus on the skyline."

"put your head down and close your eyes."

"can you make it?"

we spent the rest of the afternoon lying a few blocks from the dock, on a hill outside the field museum. the wine went untouched, the food barely sampled. someone suggested that we get our nails done or see a movie. but we mostly just laid there, pale and weak and unable to look at any one object for too long.

so two weeks later, when dan and i were sitting at a travel agent's desk in athens, greece, booking ferry tickets to the islands, dan suggested we track down some dramamine.

"but these boats will be big, won't they?"

"doesn't matter."

we spent the next day and a half searching athens' hilly streets for a pharmacy. those little round signs with the neon green first-aid style crosses that we took for granted because they were around every corner...they are not pharmacies. i do not remember what they are, but they are not pharmacies.

finally we found one, and the 10 euro i spent there was very likely the best money i spent all trip. i can't say for sure because i did not actually witness an entire boat full of people puking into paper bags on the trip from crete to santorini as rain poured over the aegean. the dramaine knocked me out.

lucky for me, three of the pills came back in my suitcase. and when melissa asked if dan and i wanted to go out on a sailboat last week, i could honestly say it sounded like the best plan for an otherwise empty saturday night.

and there we went. after a day of thunderstorms, the skies cleared twenty minutes before our scheduled departure. accompanied by the perfect playlist, a firey sunset, and fireworks overhead, we left three million people behind for a few fleeting hours on the water.

indiana

2010-05-31T23:12:00.001-05:00

day 2

2010-05-31T22:52:00.006-05:00

last week i posted some photos of the first day the poplar tree near my work started releasing its seedlings. here's day 1 again...

and then day 2....

banksy in chicago

2010-05-26T20:10:00.004-05:00

three weeks ago, we went to see the banksy movie, exit through the gift shop. it was incredible. i will own it once it is own-able. ever since the movie, though, i'd been wondering why banksy never does anything in chicago. and then...

two weeks ago, my friend ankur alerted me that banksy had finally hit. in the form of a baby carriage rolling down a flight of stairs--a scene from the untouchables. banksy crafted the carriage to fit the outline of steps already in place. ghost steps, an impression left behind from a building torn down on the west side of town, not far from where we enjoyed cocktails and dinner...

just over a week ago with our friend howell. we drank champagne and got drunk on stinging nettles, lamb tongue, and chocolate crisps. we discussed big picture things like life and whether or not there's meaning behind it and what happens when you think it's something to be gotten through and not something to be enjoyed. afterward, we walked two blocks to where we saw...

and at that moment, life was something to be enjoyed.

when we first got to the empty lot and stared at this relatively small work of art that filled maybe five square feet, two asian guys were also there, one in a shepard fairey OBEY shirt. they took pictures and bragged about their own art, prematurely claiming fame and fortune, saying they're gonna be huge, HUGE one day, that we should watch out for them, that they were going to go f shit up now.

then one of the guys told us their names and within seconds they fled in embarrassment because really, what kind of street artist reveals his true name?

it's like being a super hero.

you just. don't. share that information. with anybody.

next, a british guy pulled up, climbed out of his suv, and walked over. he was following banksy around the world, and after this he'd be heading over to 16th and carpenter to see what else the man had done with his time here.

a couple showed up too somewhere in the 15 minutes we stood around in that empty lot. they stopped directly in front of the image and stared. they could have been standing in any museum in the world--wearing dark suit and dress, purse under arm, hands in pockets--but here they were at peoria and randolph, in an abandoned lot, nearly midnight.

the poplar tree

2010-05-24T20:55:00.004-05:00

outside of the place i spend most of my weekdays, a gigantic poplar tree is dropping white fuzz like dandelion seeds over everything. it's softer than cashmere, and walking to work each day is like walking in a blizzard where you can catch the flakes in your hand or blow them away as they fall in front of you. they collect in piles along the curbs and over the grass, and today on an afternoon walk i dug my fingers deep into one of those piles. megan said this is what clouds must feel like. she is also the one who found the care bears quiz online last week and made the whole staff take it, so she may or may not live in a fantasy world.

megan and danielle on a walk.

margoat

2010-05-12T11:01:00.003-05:00

my aunt's baby mini goat, margoat hemingway. god, i love these creatures. you can carry them, and when you're not carrying them they just run--clicking around the house in their little high heels--and make hysterical little half-scream, half-laugh type sounds.
(soundtrack: volcano choir, "island, is")

2010-04-24T21:24:00.000-05:00

naptime

2010-04-24T19:19:00.003-05:00

i went up to my parents' house to work today. after spending eight hours alone in my apartment yesterday, barely leaving my desk, i was ready for a change of pace. so i sat on the floor next to carmelo and wrote about good vs. bad cholesterol while he chewed on chipmunk feet and slept.

why i love birthdays

2010-04-21T22:12:00.009-05:00

seriously right now, i should be working. i have four scripts to write (about various bodily injuries) so that four doctors can read them in four videos that will be posted on a professional basketball team's website.

however, it was my birthday recently, and i can't stop looking at a collage that my very talented roommate amy made as a gift. she based it off a photo taken a couple years ago at a rooftop, shotgun wedding. that night--warm, with the air and water show going in the background--was one of the most enchanting nights of my life thus far, and the photos from that night are so good they look like they could be fake. or, if they were illustrations and this were the office, michael scott might call them "tracings."

here now are both of the images. not bad, right?

koala in a tree

2010-04-14T17:24:00.000-05:00

rainbow trout, smashed potatoes, and some broccoli

2010-04-14T16:20:00.005-05:00

dan and i made dinner again--mediterranean style. i totally thought i could handle eating the fish with the head still on, but my appetite definitely drifted. we'll just call it portion control. and who knew their eyes went all white after you cook them???

spreeeeeeng!!!!!!

2010-04-06T18:51:00.002-05:00

walking home from work, sun blinking through the clouds after a rainy morning, and the kind of inviting warmth that blankets you as you breathe it in. this is exactly why winter is so difficult. and why peter gabriel so perfect.

2010-04-05T00:13:00.005-05:00

outtakes

2010-04-04T22:24:00.003-05:00

adam shot our christmas photo, and i shot these.

probably the best meal for the day

2010-04-04T22:01:00.007-05:00

for the most part, i'm vegetarian. when i cook for myself, the recipes never involve meat. however, at a barbecue or when i'm out to dinner with people, i'll eat half of a hamburger or whatever the menu offers. i don't let my food choices rule my life, basically.

dan, though, loves meat--steaks, lamb chops, burgers, bacon--and as someone who has had anemia, sometimes i just need the iron you get from a little red meat. that doesn't mean i like working with it, though. so i leave that part to dan. above he prepares the ribs for the recipe we chose for tonight: chinese lacquered baby back ribs.

los ingredientes

marination station

spargle!

and voilà! one of the best meals i've ever made.

josh visits

2010-04-04T13:24:00.002-05:00

our friend josh and his (awesome) girl lora came to visit a couple weeks ago. among other things, we went to one of my all-time favs, violet hour. i swear everyone looks like this there. the dark graininess is no fault of the photographer.

revelations in asymmetry

2010-03-19T14:44:00.003-05:00

adam kuehl, photographer

mark edwin wetzel, illustrator

last week, my friends adam and mark displayed the arts on which they've been working for the past five months or so. they took mark's lopsided drawings and applied the style to adam's photographs. adam told everyone that it was the first gallery opening i'd ever been to (TOTES not true. i had to underage drink somewhere.), but he gave us prints of dan's image last night, which more than made up for his lies. i'll be keeping that little daniel next to my bed, of course. or over the toilet.

down on the farm

2010-03-18T13:41:00.005-05:00

my grandpa, who has never owned a pet in his life, is staying for a few days with my aunt and uncle on their farm...amongst horses both full size and mini, goats, dogs, cats, and chickens. i went out to visit him yesterday and found him sitting in the living room, flipping through an old baseball book. at his feet, a black and white baby goat stared up at me and let out a hybrid laugh-scream. looking just beyond the two of them and out the back door, i saw jack, a full-size horse, trying to mount buddy, a mini-horse. the whole scene was very surreal, and i asked my grandpa how long he'd been there.

"too long."

TO BE 1 YEAR OLD

2010-03-01T20:45:00.002-06:00

(11 days late, but happy anniversary time, blog)

love.

chef nick

2010-03-01T20:18:00.004-06:00

i don't really know what this is.

2010-02-17T23:22:00.004-06:00

these are its tracks.

and this is it. i think it's a heron, but maybe a crane? is there a difference?

I DON'T WANT TO OFFEND.

also: it could be a freaking dinosaur.

but figuring it is a heron......i always wondered what they did with the carts when they were done shopping.

of course this guy was there too. somehow, despite all his crazy-person circle jumps and face-in-snow sprints, he didn't scare off our new friend.

2010-02-15T12:46:00.004-06:00

...

laureen and seth

dave and kelli

gina and matt

daniel and me

dan's work party was friday...on the 40th floor of a building downtown, in a room lined with walls of books called "the library." there were a dozen intimate nooks, each lit by a single light, and a photo shoot ensued. despite complications brought on by an open bar and my lack of a good flash, i like how these turned out.

brendan leaves forever

2010-02-03T17:12:00.003-06:00

farewell to britt and brandon. poor the rest of us. who's going to carry knives in their boots now? to britt: don't be offended. the pictures from when you ditched us A MONTH EARLY didn't turn out so well due to poor lighting. but i'll see what i can do when i get photoshop up and running once more. much love to both of you little deers.

sleeper cell

2010-01-29T15:18:00.003-06:00

i've had him for almost a week now, but tomorrow he returns to his life in the burbs. and i return to my life of MISSING HIM. it's just so nice to have someone around who loves purses as much as i do.

cabrini-green: still dyin'

2010-01-22T19:51:00.006-06:00

i saw this building earlier today as i was driving down larrabee ave., and pulled over to check it out. it's one of the old cabrini-green buildings. when i got home, i began looking into their current status and learned:

the chicago housing authority began building cabrini green--bordered by chicago ave., halsted st., evergreen ave., and sedgwick st.--in 1942. at cabrini's peak, 15,000 people lived in the high-rises. then gentrification happened, and developers began buying all the prime land around cabrini-green, believing that one day the buildings would be demolished and the people inside shuffled elsewhere.

in 1995 that actually began to happen...and it's still going on as of this morning, 15 years later. the building above is near chicago and larrabee. the daley administration's plan was to build row houses and condominiums in place of the cabrini high-rises, and bill them as mixed-income housing. that means some of the units would sell at market value, while others would go to chicago housing authority residents at "affordable" prices. of course, the current economic environment complicates this decade(+)-old plan, and the daley administration is now bailing out the developer of the "cabrini-green redevelopment project" after the developer defaulted on a $32-million construction loan.

i just want to know: where are the people who lived in the blue room?

2010-01-22T19:41:00.003-06:00

OBVIOUSLY this is what dreams are made of.

2010-01-22T19:30:00.004-06:00

i've walked down the street on which these houses live AT LEAST a hundred times. but i didn't notice them until the other night--right around midnight--and i was so excited to see them. i yelled, "tweedledee! tweedledum!" looking back, though, this image speaks more to the shining. i wish i could tell you there were always a lone tricycle parked out front, but i haven't been back since.

science + industry

2010-01-16T18:12:00.005-06:00

this was my 6:30 a.m., friday.