All one panel, because I'm lazy!

meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeowmeow....

Ohhh, that's what cool people do on weekends.

Mad shenanegans with Devin (remember Devin? From Ireland? No? Anyway he was in town.) and Emily last night.

We were all, let's hang out! So Emily and I went to this gallery/rock concert party at the army store (confused by the venue too) on Milwaukee, which was real loud and awkward. Devin somehow knew like everyone there and he doesn't even live in this city. How? We don't know.
Mckenzie from school apparently was working the event and she scrubbed off the under-21 sharpie X on my hand so that I could get "fucked up". I was like, thanks. gross beer.. >_> woo.

The party ended early for a party, and suddenly we're standing in a group of Devin's friends and there's about 11 different potential parties/bars/raves to go to, and no one's making a decision, and Emily and I are standing off to the side going, How do you know about so many parties??

This one guy has a car, so we drive to someone's house where I think we crashed a "party", though even I could tell it was super lame, so we obviously didn't stay there long.

Then we drive to downtown to this high-rise apartment building to this other party which had way too many bros in it. But the building had a pool, and we were like, hell yeah. Let's go swimming.
But the pool was closed and we couldn't get in, but we found an open door to the roof, which was probably the best part of the night.

This building is about 40 stories high. Outside and all night is some major heat lightning going on. We climb up this short ladder to the very top of the roof, which is just a flat plane of weird squishy white roof material jutting above the regular, larger part of the roof around and below it.

The experience was incredible. As soon as I stepped off the ladder, the warm wind was whipping everywhere. It was almost strong enough to knock me over, and most of us sat down rather than fight for stable footing. Right next to us was the slanted roof of the Smurfit-Stone building. It's one of those city buildings I look up at almost every day but seeing from this new, closer angle really made a striking impact on how large the building is, and how high up I was.
We could see the light-devoid area of the lake, and the top of the Columbus building/museum. The whole aroma of colors was the storm's dark purple and the yellow lights from the city streets, a dizzying look down. It was perfect to sit and watch the lightning snaking in between the buildings and over the lake.

I could have stayed up there a really long time but we returned to the party after only 15 minutes or so. Of all the things I've done in Chicago, this was by far the most inspiring.

It was good that we went back indoors, because shortly thereafter it started pouring. By the time we left the party for good, it was full-on flash flood.
We scrapped any further party plans and made a mad dash to the car, which still ended with all of us quite soaking.

The roads were an absolute mess. We were headed back to the driver's house to just hang and finish the night, and we had a ways to drive from the loop to Wicker Park. We drove through rivers on the street, had to detour around lakes formed under bridges, and thankfully did not end up like the stranded truck drivers in the news this morning who had to be rescued by boat.

Emily and I slogged home before dawn, and conclued our night of masquerading as normal party people. The awkward party parts of the night were super lame, but I could get used to having rooftop or rain adventures on the weekends..

Skates

Rather than spend another $86 on a 30-day train pass for August, I decided to instead buy a $4 pair of second-hand roller skates and, (when it's not in the 90s like this week), start skating to work.

Just for fun, I put them on right after I bought them to skate home on. In case you are wondering, skating is not like bike riding. It does not come naturally after years of dispractice.
I managed to stay upright, no thanks to the pitted, glass-infused, porous, shitty sidewalks of Chicago; however, I did make a right fool of myself for 9 blocks, constantly waving my arms to try and correct my balance, stumbling through the starts and stops.
(Seriously. Anyone? How does one "go" without tripping? And I can't seem to recall the trick to making the back stopper (for there's only one) work. So far I've just been grabbing onto nearby objects to stop. I tried the ski toes-in trick to slow down, which only makes your feet run into each other. I also have problems standing still: I try to keep from rolling forewards, but the skates then take me backwards!)

Anyway, there was a lot of "Don't fall, don't fall, don't fall" and "Oh no" going on. Of course there was the one nice Chicago driver who held up the traffic behind him to let me "cross" the street. Even the old Mexican ladies were laughing at me. (Ok, they weren't laughing, but they did say "Be careful!".)

Moral of the story: if you see someone struggling on skates, follow them! It may be hilarious.

Pure 95degreeweather can melt her!

I have nothing to say about today, except that it is very hot.

Here's some little tidbits from the past week, for (hopefully) your amusement.

1. little boy in store: *grabs purse* I'm a girl!
same little boy: *purposefully, repeatedly runs into picture of model on wall* Excuse me, ma'am.
me: that kid is really bored.

2. woman on train talking on phone (in slow, deliberately calm voice the whole time): Hello?.. I'm here... I'm going to hang up if you're going to keep talking like that. You don't need to be swearing... No, I do know you. Your actions tell me who you are. Your actions tell me-- excuse me. You're talking over me... It says here, in this book I'm reading (which had a rose on the cover, btw), "When someone lies to you it can break your heart, because they don't trust you enough to tell you the truth."... *hangs up*
me: are you for real, lady?

3. Cashier in store looked like an Indian Rowan Atkinson.

4. Police car driving past Harry Potter midnight showing line: (in loudspeaker) Harry Potter is sold out! (jk)

5. Fellow tour guide uses term "IRL" in real life.

6. I did not video giving the cat a bath, though I probably should have. In any case, the end result is a partially-bathed cat and 12 scratches on Emma's legs.

7. My boss uses LOLcat picture in work email.

8. ohmigod it is so hot I am seriously melting. There I go, puddling on the floor..

Events

Some stuff that's happened this week.

-Cat convention (Meow Con, most likely). Mapplethorpe couldn't attend.



-Harry Potter finally ends. Thanks to all my Harry Potter fan friends that have talked me into seeing every movie in theater. To celebrate the last, I got my Hermione on and conjured up some butterbeer with Neville's biggest fan before going to the midnight premier (after a basilisk-sized line, of course).




-Attempted napping on the 14th floor lounge in between morning and afternoon tours. Lovely day.

But the sandwiches!

It was one of those days. You know, the ones that start the night before with a very interrupted sleep cycle (due to things like: roommates who go to bed later than I, pets who get lonely in the middle of the night and somewhere learned how to open doors, cats in the alley who have serious issues to work out).

Showed up to work really sleepy, low energy. Perked up a little with help of a bagel, compliments on my "I'm a kitty cat" shirt, and some over-zealous air conditioning.

This is day 3 of 3 in my super long work weekend, where I am at school 9-3 (as opposed to usual 12-3/not at all on Saturdays). Get picked to go down to Columbus building to wait for 12:00 tours. At 12:30, after having narrowly escaped tour, get asked to stay behind for another 15 minutes "just in case".

12:35. Tour shows up.

Did my usual speedy-yet-informative Columbus building tour, answered gazillion questions about writing program, next take tour to residence halls.

Elevator broken in res. hall. We wait 10 minutes for the overcrowded other elevator to show up. 17, 16th floor go smoothly, 11th not so much. There's only 1 key to the staged room we show, and when I arrived it was already out. Normally we can catch up with the other group and there's no problem, but because of the elevator disfunction, by the time we arrived to the show room, the keyholder was long gone.

Ok, I say to my tour group, stay here, I'm going to run down and get it.

So I run down the stairs. It's super crowded in the lobby, but I shove through and get the key. Everybody's waiting for the elevators and they're not showing up. Upstairs my tour is waiting for me in a lonely hallway.

Ok, I say to myself, it's only 11 flights. You can do it!

So I start running back up the stairs. Start walking around floor 4. At floor 7, try to give up. But the elevators! They are not working! So I have to press on, finally making it to floor 11, sweating like crazy. My tour is appreciative.

Ha ha, I say, this is going to be my story of the week.

Story of the week not so funny when I arrive back at admissions to find that everyone has been sent home and all the lunch sandwiches have been taken. I could have dropped to my knees and yelled "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" if I had the energy and was in an 80s movie.

My lunch! My sandwiches! The thought that kept me going on the stairs! The only thing left was a platter of vegetables and some melon slices, which I angrily took after complaining to my boss about the key problem.

Well, losing those sandwiches was the last straw. I exited the building in a whirl of bad energy, strengthened by me missing my train, twice (once as I came out of admissions, and again as I came out of McDonald's after missing the first one and deciding that if I had to wait I might as well get to eat too). Then I took the orange line, which was crowded, had to wait for the bus, hit my head on the bus sitting down, listened to the screaming toddler on the bus, slouched home in the heat.

Life owes me a lunch break.

First Fridays

in Pilsen = open galleries to look at.
Went out, saw some stupid art, found a "very vintage" garage sale, hated it but found this cool carved necklace:

which I would totally have gotten if it weren't for that $30 price tag. Wish I had money to go to vintage stores and flea markets all the time. Wait, what? That seems backwards.

I almost forgot to share this

Well today was July 4th.

And this stupid bitch forgot to bring her camera.

I spent most of the day sitting in my pajamas eating sugar and watching Ugly Betty, listening to the sounds of the illegal Hispanic population of the neighborhood celebrate more festivly than I.

Then Emily came home and ended that sad party, and we armed ourselves with some hard cider and cupakes, and walked to the hill park on 33rd for 360degree show.

..Where we sat on the grass watching fireworks of varying distances, the smoke from the gunpowder clinging to the orange city lights, gradiating into night sky, the big dipper just barely visible above us. Not to sound gross, but the moon totally looked like a luminescent aged toenail clipping

If I ignored the m-80s going off and 10-year-olds singing Bon Jovi, and focused instead on the crickets singing and the fireflies (Emily still astounded I've never seen them before), it was a very peaceful, sunburnt summery evening. Complete with our own drunken stranger soundtrack, two guys singing American Pie and Country Roads and the Cheers theme song.

Soon before we left, someone in Chinatown started releasing paper lanterns. We got to watch the glowing lights go up until they went out. For one, we then got to watch the paper part drift slowly back down and land in the park where we were, but some kid jacked it before I could.

Now I'm home. One block away there's a grouping of people letting off fireworks in the middle of a 4-way intersection, making all the traffic wait until the fire stops, then going around the pile of rubble, which will entirely still be there in the morning.

Outside my living room, there's a rap-listening gathering of dumb-looking people talking and drinking and unintentionally including me in their party because I have my windows open for the cooler air.


Stay cool Chicago. We'll be up past 3 listening to things exploding and waiting for a reply back from RLTO.

Bugs

That bug I found in Georgia? It's the wheel bug nymph. Mystery solved.