BOOOOOOO

I'll live. Granted with less money and one less pair of jeans, but I'll live.

I saw something today

Just to let you know, I saw the most bizarre thing I have ever witnessed in Chicago today.  While I was in the midst of biking around the Near West Side in order to make my in depth bike map of the community area for extra credit in my urban planning course, I biked across Ashland on 15th after noting the street around Addams Park and stumbled upon a wasteland.  It was apparent that there used to be buildings were there was absolutely nothing but grass, dandelions, trees, ans rusted remnants of chain link fences.  Blocks and blocks of this neighborhood had been completely demolished.  The streets were completely bikable and drivable and even the alleys halfway between the blocks were left.  Some of the sidewalks were completely overgrown, but the next block over appeared to be a brand new sidewalk.  The weirdest thing however, were the hundreds of brand new parking meters lining the sidewalks of the empty lots.  They were the kind that were installed right after the city privatized the parking meters, but before the company replaced all of them with the pay boxes.  I’m telling ya, It was the oddest thing I’ve seen: hundreds of brand new old fashioned parking meters blinking “EXPIRED” in the middle of this vast empty grid.

Right through the middle of all this is the pink line, then a cluster of three random attached homes that seem to be inhabited.  Seriously they are the only three buildings in blocks.  I don’t know what these owners did to save their homes or what they did to get skipped by the meter machine.  One one side of the homes is the elevated pink line tracks and on the other side is some weird run down garden/park with decaying, paint chipped red benches.

This urban twilight zone continues in a checker pattern past Damen and up to Western.  By the time I wound up near Western and Odgen, I had been biking around creeped out and completely fascinated for about an hour.  Then I saw a row of tiny houses a block before Western on 13th and pedaled over to investigate.  They were for real small almost like cottages, cottages in Munchkinland.  The blocks of houses were all dead ends because they were right up against the Metra tracks and most of them were boarded up but some of them looked like people lived in them.  As I was turning around at the dead end at the end of block, I heard voices coming from the next block over and decided to go see if I could talk to someone and hopefully get some sort of back story to the neighborhood.

I rolled up onto two older guys hanging out on the sidewalk drinking beer.  They were talking to a couple of younger guys sitting in a car parked in front of the house.  That was the other thing about these Munchkin cottages; they were tiny houses on tiny lots.  They pretty much had no yard- front, back, side, none.  It was house, front steps, fence, sidewalk.  I asked the men about what used to be where the Pink Line tracks are.  One of the guys was sitting in a chair and seemed to own the place. “Homes,” he said.  I asked what happened to them and he told me that all that land is owned by UIC and the state had bought it up and demolished everything.  When I asked him about the strange houses he said a lot of the homes that were demolished were just like the homes on that block and that they were all 130 years old.

Stupid UIC.  First Little Italy, then Maxwell Street and now a whole entire neighborhood of historic homes!  I’ve never seen houses like that in Chicago or anywhere.  They were pretty much some of the coolest homes I’ve ever seen.  Just thought I’d share the bizarro world I saw today.  Good Night.

Busy Busy Busy

So much stuff to do for school.  I’m going to find it hard to be motivated to do everything I need to do.  Ha I go through this every semester and some how I persevere.  But really, I think this is the most I’ve ever had to do and I’m starting my new job right now, too.  Yikes.  For example, I should have been working on some analysis for my mini-plan which is my final for my urban planning course and all I did tonight was copy and paste the page I’ve already written in a previous assignment.  This is not good enough.  I need coffee, but it’s midnight and I need to go to bed to be refreshed and ready to go tomorrow.

I also have been getting back in to writing on my Sterling.  I wrote an absurd thank you letter to my aunt and uncle for the thoughtful birthday card they sent me.  Today I typed a list of all the things I particularly enjoy and the things I particularly do not enjoy.  I felt better when I saw that the list of things I enjoy is much longer than the things I don’t enjoy.  Taking an inventory of myself may help me land a cute, smart, and sincere guy to play backgammon in the park with.  That’s all I really want; someone to share meals and the awe-inspiring insanity of profession badminton with-maybe study with, too. hmm.  Good night.

The kids at my school are awesome!

UIC students FTW!

I quit my job!

Yeah, put in my two weeks on my birthday as per plan months in the making ever since my chef gave me a bunch of shit for being too poor to buy a new pair of kitchen shoes.  No money=no shoes.  There was a lot in that statement that he apparently didn’t understand.  Yesterday was my last day there and the first day of spring.  It snowed all day.  The day before, it was sunny and 65.  Oh well, winter is gone and so is my awful job.  I’m going to miss everyone (except for the chef) that worked there, they’re all great.  The good news is that I got a better job and it’s SPRING BREAK.  I only have another couple weeks or so of $5 a day budgets and skipping meals.  Thanks go out to my family and friends here in Chicago that have helped me get through the past few months where it seemed like my life was on the brink of falling apart.  But it didn’t come to that brink because I have all of you; and my boyfriend-the Internet.  Luv u la Red!

I contribute to another bog

The other bog is for my urban sociology class in public spaces at UIC.  It can be seen here.  It’s actually not that interesting.  Don’t bother.

It Is Official! Hockey is a tougher sport than rugby

But only by 0.37 masculinity units.  I’m poor and it’s Friday night, so you get this.

COMPARING HOCKEY AND RUGBY

	Hockey	Masculinty Ratio	Rugby	Masculinity Ratio	comparative ratio
contact sport?	yes	1	yes	1	1=1
blood shed?	yes	1	yes	1	1=1
helmets?	yes	0.33	no	1	.33<1
pads?	yes	0.2	no	1	.2<1
soft/inflatable play object?	no	1	yes	0.33	1>.33
soft playing surface?	no	1	yes	0.33	1>.33
use of potential weapons for equipment?	yes	1	no	0.5	1>.5
total ratios		5.53		5.16	5.53>5.16

Sure, in hockey they wear helmets and pads.  However, hockey is played on hard, cold ice with a hard puck being shot directly at players at high velocities.  The players are also equipped with hand sticks and feet knives.  Last I checked, there were no sticks or knives involved in the play of rugby.

I love the Internet

It’s my boyfriend:

This did make my day.  Thanks Internet.

Today: The List

1. Slept ’til 10:30am

2. recalled “Dance Magic” song from Labyrinth while we drank coffee and ate an apple-subsequently brushed teeth

3. ate at Jonny’s

4. walked from Jonny’s to CVS at Western & Milwaukee to by film

5. rode blue line down to Near West Side and took pictures for Urban Planning class

6. rode blue line back up to Logan Square and took pictures of the monument for Urban Soc class

7. walked home-it was cold

8. did some homework and drank more coffee

9. went to Sunrise to get groceries for dinner

10. made, ate dinner

11. picked up 6-pack and a juiceless lime at JJ Peppers

12. watched Big Trouble in Little China, which I scored from the Logan Square Video Exchange months ago and never watched

13. As Sam Turner read press reviews aloud from back of Big Trouble in Little China VHS cover, found note on the inside that read: “Kurt Russell Getting Buttfucked”

14. watched last 30 minutes of Robocop 2

15. watched first 30 minutes of The Big Country

16. realized Gregory Peck was hot

17. bogged

Grad School

I wore myself out the other day compacting my list of prospective graduate schools from all of them-to 12. I really want to get into CUPPA at UIC, but it’s pretty competitive. It would be great because then, I wouldn’t have to move (half way) across the country for the 3rd time in 6 years. So here it goes: These schools all have master programs in Urban Planning that specialize in transportation, among other things. They are in a slight particular order:

1. UIC

2. NYU

3. MIT

4. Penn

5. Columbia University

6. Georgia Tech

7. Hunter College (CUNY)

8. Temple

9. Morgan State

10. Boston University

11. Minnesota

12. Wisconsin-Milwaukee

PHFEWWW….Ambitious amarite?

I thought long and hard about the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State, my old school. They have a fantastic program there, truly one of the best. But, honestly, you couldn’t pay me enough to move back to Portland. Sorry Portland, Oregon. You have been usurped by Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I ain’t about to start retracing my steps. I’m too young for that.