dear white sox:
i love you a lot, but i’ll love you a lot more if you stop with the sucking. seriously, kansas city?!?!?
criticism means i love you,
–sabrina.
p.s. yes, i know we’re, like, barely done with the first week of the regular season. still doesn’t mean i wanna listen to either cleveland fans or cub fans, so pick it up a bit, ‘kay? thanks.
i’ll give a prize to the first person to correctly guess the theme behind my apartment’s shiny new paintjob-to-be. (no fair guessing if i actually told you already.) also i have no idea what sort of prize, but this being me there’s a good chance it’ll be shiny of some sort.
Me: Okay, I think I’m ready.
Home Depot guy, who — it later turns out — was supposed to get off shift right before I strolled up to him: What– sees pile of chips and my list — oh, boy.
Me: Well, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing colorfully, right?
here’s a description:
aside: actually, the Home Depot guy was totally cool. he called in another guy to help him and they mixed up ten tubs of paint for me. it turned out that they were out of one particular base in the quart size, so i have to hit the other Home Depot on North Ave. today and try and get that, but they accidentally mixed a different on that should have been a quart in a gallon size, so they mixed up ten tubs. i was grateful i had a book with me, as i was waiting at the paint counter for a good forty minutes. the guys were super cool, though, and i have lots of really gorgeous paint now. i am through with living in white-walled boredom! even if the cost of spectacular color is over $200 — yikes. but i do have half a dozen fabulous people coming over to help me beautify my life, so i’m feeling pretty warm and fuzzy about that.
but back to my silly little contest:
as a red herring, i’ll throw in that i’m plotting to paint the gas line to my stove — which rises along the wall behind the stove and enters the wall, inexplicably, about halfway up — a bright enameled green, and attach silk flowers to the top. but that’s just me being me. (bonus point if you correctly guess which type of flower — daisies, sunflowers, or forsythia?) okay, i have no idea if any of y’all actually care at all, but i figured i’d post this and see if anyone was amused enough to try and guess. there is a theme, it’s fairly obvious if you think about my long-term interests/hobbies, and i’m totally buying the matching shower curtain at some point if i make it up to water tower.
up at 7 am, thanks to the subwoofer neighbor. out of the house by 8:30, to run by dominick’s and pick up (chips|water|soda) to keep painting volunteers refreshed. at the new place by 9:15, after carting groceries plus painting supplies up to the third floor. washed walls and trim in office (read: v. small bedroom). carried ladders (2) from car upstairs. met building caretaker, nice guy, rides a nice bike. began washing walls in living room. around 12:30 folks start showing up. wash wash wash wash wash scrub scrub scrub scrub scrub. make two auxiliary trips to the corner hardware store to fetch accessories. wash wash wash scrub scrub scrub scrub. folks, i have to tell you, the last guy that lived in the apartment was a filthy, filthy slob. i am not exaggerating. the bathroom alone was horrifying. bill volunteered to rip out and repair the caulk around the tub, which is a herculean task and for which i am immensely grateful. masking tape, masking tape, masking tape. finally painting began, in the cleaned rooms, while we continued to clean other ones (and bill continued to make the bathroom considerably better). painting operations ceased at approximately 1945, when michael and i both said “fuck this” and dove headfirst into stephanie’s chocolate stash.
back on the ranch, i have to tell you: i have never in my life been quite so grateful that we live in an age of modern technology such that if i pick up this gadget and type in a series of specific pre-selected numbers, it lets me speak to someone who will actually show up at my house with food and i don’t have to do anything other than give them a couple pieces of paper for it. (eta: man, you can tell how tired i was writing that by how many typos i didn’t notice before publishing it. uh, fixed now. and yes, i still hurt in the morning. yikes.)
as part of the never-ending schedule of chores that i must do as part and parcel of moving to a new apartment in a new neighborhood, i made the acquaintance of my new aldermanic offices today. telephonically-speaking, that is.
of course the city of chicago’s aldermanic maps (PDF, naturally!) are such crap — and not labeled with, oh, say, street names — that i had to guess which ward i was going to be in, and then call them to ask. like a dumbass. (which i am, but i don’t like to advertise it.) because, you see, yesterday when i drove up there to pick up the keys and then go look at paint chips on walls, i discovered that my street has permit parking. not zoned parking, apparently, but permit parking. i have no idea what the difference is other than terminology and signage — as any chicagoan knows the sight of a zoned parking sign, with its two red stuck-on-looking numbers, insisting that flouters of the zone shall be towed, crushed for scrap, and melted. no, my street has signs that say in rather polite small letters that between certain hours you must have permit 800 to park here. also, zoned parking signs will have the same number for blocks around, but the next block south of mine had a different permit number. the price of a permit seems to be the same. i find myself a little confused. nonetheless, it was as good an excuse to begin taking advantage of the public services available to me as a new resident of the ward. this led me to perusing the Flores’ 1st Ward web site a little more, trying to see what i have to do to update my voter registration. (ladies and gentlemen, i would cry if not allowed to vote for the better complete loser in the upcoming gubernatorial race!) and while doing that, i discovered that not only does alderman manny flores provide his residents with a handy little website — pretty standard these days, anyways, i should think — a public access television show, and an email list, but he has podcasts as well. podcasts, people. my alderman podcasts. i am not making this up. he’s apparently very concerned about our green space and participatory art, and evidently doesn’t mind being accompanied by awful smooth “jazz” music. i’m feeling a little bit uneasy. of course, i am glad to know that the first ward has formed a Grocery Task Force. my tax dollars at work, baby!
