friday

woke around 6:30, but we were still five minutes late to meet nina at the pancake house at 8am. thankfully, she was ten seconds later than us. breakfast of pancakes in the midst of bavarian stained glass, surprisingly busy for 8am. nina brought sculpey for us to play with, but we never got around to it.

dropped di home, and left for TBM, where i lamented the unfinished state of things, and picked up paper for today's printing, as well as a shovel, so i could dig my car out later; 7" of snow was forecast for today.

down towards screwball (via chai), i stopped on the way to meet up with john kinzie to drop off some bullhorn handlebars and di's new watecolor which he bought as a gift for his wife jennifer, and picked up from john some dianogah debris which was still at his house from when we used to practice there, years ago.

east on irving park to screwball, where i picked up four gallons of ink as the snow really started to come down. from there, i drove south on western ave to lake, and across to crosshair, where mat has his painting studio and new press. i loaded in the paper and ink, mat coated screens, and i set to editioning the dianogah prints mat made last week (partially as an exercise in getting his press set up).



mat went back and forth between burning screens and relocating the spray-out booth into an unused shower stall, a move which should have happened years ago.

mat's new press is great, bigger print area, more precise. very exciting.

we ran both colors on the spoon / sea & cake print, finishing around 4:30. i packed up quickly, and dropped mat near an EL stop, then took off north to try to get to TBM by 5:30 to meet john k for some drywalling.

on dempster, i stopped for another chai. when i arrived at TBM, i spilled the full hot chai all down my leg and the floor matt of the driver's side of the newly cleaned car. i was SO bummed out.

john arrived soon after, my mood improved, and we spent several hours installing drywall in the back office and the darkroom. by 9:30 i called quitting time, and we drove over to portillo's by old orchard for hot dogs.

left there at 11, it was super cold out, i went home, woke di up from sleeping on the couch, took her to bed. showered myself, and went to sleep.

thursday

woke sort of late, around 8. di went down to cat sit at tyler and stephanie's, and i ran some errands: walked seth, then went to get the car washed (which was sorely long overdue). from there, went to city hall to get 2008 vehicle stickers. from there to get chai, then rent videos (simpsons movie and battlestar galactica 'razor'), then to kinkos to make films for the spoon poster. home again.

at 1pm, di and i left for her folks' house, to have "christmas" with her brother's family who were in town. sort of strenuous, we took off after playing uno with the kids, kaitilyn and paul. and back home.

we discussed our options, and decided the most efficient way to waste the rest of the day would be to watch both rented movies, back to back, which is what we did. i answered a bunch of emails, type this now, and will now go cut films so we can print the spoon posters tomorrow.

ok.

wednesday

spent most the day working, slowly, on the drawing for the spoon / sea & cake NYE show at the metro. somewhere during the day, di and i got caught up in watching all sorts of youtube videos of people blowing up elmo dolls.

in the evening, around 5, we went over to my folks' to visit with my siblings, their kids, and mike's GF lulu who had just arrived from lawrence with her son, simon. people were tired, i was grumpy, the kids were wound up. we sat and watched 'ratatouille', constantly reminding the kids not to stand in front of the TV, so uncle jay could watch the movie.

di and i went home.

christmas

despite the fact that i am 35 years old, and quite disillusioned with the commercialization of an already-preposterous christian holiday, waking up on christmas morning is still a special feeling. di and i got up around 7, and slowly got ourselves collected enough to head to my folks' house. i wore my new tie and shirt. we stopped at the second starbucks we went to for chai. seth came with us, and, as usual, ran out into the back yard with casey, the goofball.

the tempest of christmas morning had, for the most part, subsided by the time we arrived (around 8:30). we gave our gifts out, received some great presents, and had fun watching the kids get wound up about their new things. i was most excited about the 'old town school of folk music' guitar lessons we got for my dad. we ate various coffee cakes and juice, soy nog, etc. i made a fire.

di and i went back home for about an hour, to drop off our gifts, regroup, and feed the cats and seth.

around 2pm, we drove way-the-hell south to lemont, IL, for the gathering of di's mom's side of the family. they had a train set up in their front window.

[i'm having a hard time concentrating on typing this, as the new access to our turntable has us playing all sorts of old LPs. right now, di has put on a men at work record.]

dinner was italian beef and perrogi. they served me bailey's, and i was happy.

around 6pm, we jumped back in the car and drove 40 minutes up to northbrook, to my cousin joan's house. we missed the presents, but arrived in time for dinner. joan's husband, vince, is a great cook, and they just finished installing an all-new kitchen, of which di and i were pretty envious.

the whole family tried to get a photo taken of the group, to recreate a pro studio family photo taken about 3 years ago for gramma. no one's camera was working (aside from mine, which i only had their incidentally), and there were too many people telling everyone what to do, so i just ended up getting mad. we cut out immediately after the pictures.

we drove home through a tunnel-like train overpass on techny road, and that seemed to cheer di and i up.

at home, we unpacked some of the gifts we had received, including a new estwing axe given to me by diana's folks. i am really pleased with this thing, and look forward to more splitting in the spring.

sitting in the den, we decided it was time to pull out the risk board, to take a stab at re-learning this old patience-trying game. we both got sleepy pretty quickly, and packed it in after only a couple of battles. we'll save this for when we have a third person here, and more energy.

to bed.

monday! out!

monday morning, we woke up and went grocery shopping, stopping for chai on the way. grocery store was busy but not unpleasant.

at home, we loaded the food in, reviewed which presents we had left to buy, and went out again, this time to (gasp) the mall, where we tried hard to roll with the holiday shopping excitement, but pretty much just ended up getting mad at a variety of unique idiots with whom we came into contact.

but we got our christmas shopping done, and i bought myself a new shirt & tie, using a gift card from my credit card company.

back home, we dropped off our gifts, i took seth and went to my folks' to visit with my brother and aidan who just flew in from lawrence, KS. fu madness with the three kids running around. diana went to take care of tyler and stephanie's cats, in exchange for the house-sitting they will do over new year's eve for us.

at 8pm, i met di back home. i started a fire, made some tea, peeled some clementines, and cleared off the kitchen table. i brought down the presents, and we spent the evening wrapping gifts.

saturday & sunday

saturday and sunday i spent at TBM, hanging drywall.

saturday night, diana and i went out to yann and sarah's apartment downtown for dinner. they live in a beautiful, huge, two bedroom apartment that's all new and looks like the setting for a really good catalog photo shoot. it is definitely homey and comfortable, but was a huge contrast to our cozy (aka small) house, under renovation. they made bouillabaisse, olive tapenade on bread, and an apple tart for dessert. this meal, in combination with the pork we had at andrew and xan's a couple nights ago, made us really want to start cooking more at home. a really great visit. we hadn't met sarah before, and felt really comfortable with her after about four minutes.

sunday, john 'weincek' kinzie came to TBM to help hang drywall. john had asked to learn how to do this, a he is planning on tearing out some bad plaster at his two flat before his mother-in-law moves in. we had a great day, very productive. even threw some mud up onto the joints in my office, to show him how that works. lunch was at kaufmann's, of course.



sunday night i went out to my folk's house to have a short visit with my sister and her family, who drove in sunday afternoon from sioux city, IA. we had a fire in the fireplace, and the girls were very pleasant i was impressed.

friday; here we go.

woke at 6, slowly got up, sent some emails, walked seth. took off around 8, i think. got chai, went to TBM.

spent the morning hanging the door for the darkroom, planing some protruding edges on the framing i've done, cleaning some more. nervously re-arranged where the presses are sitting, so as to make a bigger clear spot around the darkroom. did tons of random little things to polish off the rough state of completion that the shop is in.

finally at 1:30, steve the inspector arrived. got about ten feet in the door, said "so this is it, huh?"

i said "yeah, unless you tell me differently."

"okay, looks good."

after one question about if i had specified that i'd be insulating the roof (i hadn't, but plan to address that in a couple years when i can afford to replace the roof), i had the green light.

GO!

off to the lumber yard to order drywall, they couldn't deliver 30 sheets until monday. grrr.

john hastie, as always, came to my rescue. arrived 30 minutes later with his empty van. load 10 sheets, drive to TBM, unload, returned for another 20 sheets, back to TBM, unload, send john on his way.

i hung four sheets myself before 5:45, when i had to leave. 5/8" drywall is a lot heavier than the 1/2" i am more used to, and is closer to the limit of what i can lift into place and screw to the studs by myself with only two hands.

drove south to kip's, where dianogah had our first interview and photoshoot for a magazine article about the new record. went pretty well, aside from the shock that the interviewer already had the whole album (we've been super tight about not sharing it). thanks, record label!

home again, trying to get back in time to go to a movie with di, who hasn't been answering her phone all afternoon.

at home, she's here, but we decide not to go out.

i answer emails, di goes to sleep.

i will now, too.

thursday, back on track

woke at 6, got up and out by 7. chai on the way to TBM.

spent the day working on the shop, in anticipation of the rough building inspection, which i arranged to take place at 1:30 friday.

the way it works is that once you have your plans approved, you get a building permit. this allows you to install framing of rooms, rough electrical, and rough plumbing and heating. meaning you can run conduit, but can't install lights. you can put water supply pipes in, but no faucets. you can build walls, but not hang drywall. once you have finished your rough build-out (as i pretty much did today), you get three inspectors to come: plumbing (done), electrical (done) and general building (tomorrow).

once those three inspectors have signed off that you're doing things right, then you can finish your build. hang drywall, paint, put in lights, faucets, etc. make the place livable. this is what i'm hoping i will be cleared for as of tomorrow.

after you finish building, the three inspectors each come back to make sure you finished the place, and assuming they like it, you get a certificate of occupancy, at which point you (or i, in this case) can run a business out of the space. i have set jan 1 as my date by which i plan to have my certificate of occupancy.

i started at the shop by removing a half-assed 2x8 header i had doubled onto the header holding up the loft. i took the long on down, and nailed up two shorter 2x8s in it's place. looks better, feels better. removed a bunch of protruding nails which displayed the messed-up way the loft was originally built. added a vertical 2x8 under one end of the 2x8 mentioned above, as a 'proper' way to foot the weight of the loft.

at some point i went to kaufmann's deli again for lunch. i asked the same woman to make me her choice of sandwich, and i ended up with an amazing lean corned beef with saurkraut and swiss on challah. AWESOME. so good. i also got some root beers and a fresh-baked oatmeal raisin cookie.

back at the shop, i pulled up the last of the pink vinyl roll on the floor, immersing my gloves once again in the pain-in-the-ass vinyl adhesive.

framed the front wall of the darkroom, and installed the wall. tried mounting the used pre-hung office door into the darkroom, but will come back tomorrow with finish nails and shims, to do it correctly.

here's the corner of the back office, with the new overhead 2x8 in the background.


this is the new spray-out booth, all clean as of today.


the darkroom, behind a pile of crap an the exposure unit, with the door propped in place.


interior of the rear office, looking toward the front of the building.


my new office, behaving like some type of lumber yard.


took out the garbage, took out the scrap metal.

spent a couple hours cleaning the shop, collecting tools, sweeping, sorting trash and mill ends. got up my courage and left for home.

answered some emails (only 460 emails yet to go through in my inbox!) and showered, so di and i could go out.

we drove down to lincoln square to the book cellar, to hear (rock photographer) pat graham talk about his recent book, silent pictures. when we arrived, jon resh was talking to john hastie and CP, and somehow they had never met before. which is weird.

pat arrived, with chris thompson (formerly of circus lupus, the monorchid). hastie introduced the evening, with a surprisingly well thought-out monologue about the interaction between the photographer and the band operating on the level pat works at, basically analogous to the way i work, sort of, (i like to think).

chris talked briefly about his experience of working with pat, then pat explained how he works. told a great long story about traveling across the country through snow with modest mouse, to arrive at the empty bottle, for the first time i saw them play, ca. '97.

nice time hanging out after some Q&A. i bought the second and third "dark materials" books.

hastie, CP, di and i went across the street to cafe sel marie for dinner. i had an amazing ahi tuna wrap with mango chutney. always good to hang with those guys.

drove christy home, while john rode his bike.

di and i drove home, and i blog at you here in bed while di draws beer labels in the next room.

wednesday, at home, mostly.

di got up early and ran out to work at the museum. i had a hard time getting up, but was doing laundry by 8am. spent most of the day answering emails. did a bit of cleaning up the fall-out of moving into two 'new' rooms in our house over the last few days. sunny clear day, 32 degrees seemed warm when seth and i walked around noon. i drank tea all day.

re-submitted a number of color comps for the 'reckless records' tote bags and shirts. bowed out of a half-dozen speaking engagement invitations. hashed out ANOTHER cover concept for the new album with jason and kip. no longer shaving, i guess.

di came home around 2, and brought some lunch. she packed some orders, then we went out to fedex and the post office to send various forms and packages out. di faxed off her forms for flatstock in austin. always on the ball. she makes me look bad.

sitting at home answering more emails now. did more laundry. having a working stereo makes a huge difference.

monday & tuesday

briefly: spent both days painting the den and dining room, and moving furniture.

monday night, paul came by to have me write some text for him, and he ended up sticking around for several hours, helping install ceiling fixtures.

tuesday afternoon, we went out to the post office, ran recycling to TBM, and stopped at the old man hardware store in wilmette again, to pick up a bunch of stuff, a new mailbox, a bird feeder, some wires for the stereo, paper towels.

more painting.



tuesday night we went to andrew & xan's for an amazing dinner of pork loin wrapped in bacon, with sweet potatoes and shallots, and we brought a chocolate cake for dessert. laid around, exchanged presents, tried to not fall asleep. good good times.

sunday

di shoveled in the morning, despite my protests that that is MY job.

i went out to pick up some old stretcher bars from nina's parents in wilmette (thanks nina), and saw that her parents have several prints by david lance goines in their basement. o the way i got another gallon of green paint for the den, and a chai. from there i went to the hardware store in wilmette, where i haven't been in years, and this may now be even a better 'old man hardware store' than the one i've been going to on central in evanston. i got a present for di, and some switch plates and socket covers for after we finish painting.

saturday, with snow.

it snowed overnight, and flurried all day. light snow showers. something.

we woke around 7, made tea, and went out to run errands: bought paint at epco, return DVDs to central street, di went into the spice house, then we went to two furniture stores looking to see what our options are for bookcases. went to whole foods for groceries and lunch pizza, then came home and started painting.

all day saturday and sunday i painted the den and the dining room while di packed mail orders. there were breaks for shoveling snow.

around 8pm i took off to get jason, to go see shellac at the hideout. bear claw opened, and were really good, really loud. shellac played better, more tightly, than i've seen in a while. they had me sing on 'killers' again. jason took some blurry photos.

driving home was crazy due to the snow.

home and into bed by 1:30.

friday

inspector came by to re-appraise the house.

i went to TBM to gather prints and books around 2pm, headed towards ispace. highway was really slow.

arrived at ispace around 4:20, realized the pseakers for my ipod were broken. hung remaining prints & signage.

bob farster was one of the first to arrive, and offered to go get me some new speakers, which he did. thanks, bob.

folks arrived, the gallery got pleasantly crowded, i got overwhelmed.

good to see a bunch of folks, including my former professors sarah krepp, peter kursel and tim van laar.

opening was to run form 5 to 7, so around 7:30 mary took away the beer and started turning the lights off. diana left. a select few stayed for dinner of thai food. i talked to renate about printing.

karri sold some prints for me during the evening. at the end of the night, jason helped me load prints out, and i drove home alone.

thursday

got up around 6, showered. spent the morning cutting films for the new dianogah print (two pieces of bread), listening to the recent band of horses record. andrea sent me a link which lead me from one thing to another and i found these great videos of andrew playing on the street in paris.

went to TBM, sorted some stuff, picked up paper.

went down to a body shop which wally recommended to me for the rear-ending i got two weeks ago. the guy gave me a nice fat estimate, which i will turn over to the rear-ender's insurance co.

to screwball (pick up screens, emulsion, ink, see judge, steve), then to sonnenzimmer (pick up screens, see nick), then down to mat's painting studio, where he now has his own press, similar to the cameos at TBM, but bigger and better. it's pretty awesome.

we navigated using crosshair press' exposure unit, and burt screens for the dianogah poster. went out to the hardware store for some lag bolts for a bowling lane table mat's going to assemble in his space. tried to stop by yojimbo's garage, but it was closed this afternoon. stopped to get a chai. back to crosshair and mat's press.

did some fooling around and finagling of the press, but ran out of time to print. jason called as he got off the el, i went down to meet him, and we went to quenchers for a band meeting with our label.

we made plans for touring, record release dates, etc, and i think we settled on a title for the album. good time hanging with the dudes from the label.

i drove jason and kip home, then came home. emailing and typing now. soon to bed.

wednesday, again?

okay, woke around 6:30, got up. showered and set to drawing a dianogah / bear claw / quatre tete poster for the empty bottle in january. spent the morning answering some emails, and loading images onto a jump drive for jason. we spent some time discussing artwork for the new album. somehow, i sat at my desk until almost 1pm.



left the house to go to the post office, took my rear wheels from the touring bike to turin to discuss my options with joe (more about the bike later), and got food for seth and akiko, across the street from turin.

home, seth and i walked around the block, up to the park, etc. he wore his new coat.

back home, i fed the animals, and took off. stopped at TBM to unload various new prints from the car, stopped at ocho's et to get him some new food, then headed down to the filed museum, where i arrived at 5pm.

met di inside, and we went back up to her work space so she could finish mounting a red-breasted nuthatch.

we went down to the volunteer appreciation party at the museum, which was pretty great. great food (including sweet potato fries). the hawaiian band who played were way too loud, i couldn't hear anything.

we talked to sue demel's husband, scott, for a while, and saw di's mentor, dave, as we were leaving to go back upstairs. di and i sat n front of a display of meteorites, and i was surprised about how long i talked to her about meteors, asteroids, the planets, comets, why pluto was de-classified last year, what the plane of the ecliptic is, how planets are formed, etc.

back to di's workspace to et our coats, we ran into dave again, and he walked out with us. di went to her car in the volunteer lot, and dave and i walked out to soldier field, where we had both parked.

i drove home on 94, and di was already home, having taken lake shore drive. di was separating two fighting tomcats in the alley when i arrived.

looked longingly at my bike for a while, then decided to get an hour of painting in. primed the trim on one of the windows and one of the doors in the den. this room will look good, and needs to be finished asap.

typing now, falling asleep.

tuesday

woke at 4:45am, couldn't go back to sleep. got up at 5:30, left the house in the cold rain. stopped by TBM to drop off the misprints and subscriber copies of the sound opinions reprint, then went down to screwball. stopped for chai. at screwball, i curated the 'animals & objects' prints, counted, signed and numbered the run of 280 by 9am, when i loaded them into the car and left.

stopped by hot dougs to drop off posters, then went to touch & go and beans & bagels. stopped to see gini, who makes greyhound jackets, who made a new jacket for seth. visited with her dogs, morgan and betsy, for a while, before buying new pencil leads at cvs, on the way to sonnenzimmer.

at nick's, i spent the whole day signing and numbering the sound opinions prints. around 1pm, i got sleepy and napped on the couch (sitting up) for 20 minutes. around 3:30, i finished, packed the prints into the car, and headed south on lake shore drive, to navy pier. todd from sound opinions took the prints, and i made a quick stop in a studio with matt cunningham, who asked me a few questions about the ispace show, for a tiny piece he'll be doing in the next couple days. after three questions, he took me upstairs to see the sound opinions folks. i talked to jim and greg about my bloody valentine. they wanted to know which animal in the poster was which one of them. jim is shorter than i remember.

from navy pier, i went to hang posters: west to rotofugi (visit with whitney, draw on bathroom wall), then to renegade handmade (hi sue), then to reckless (photobooth with christian), then to quimby's (hi liz), and finally back onto the highway, still in the rain, and home.

di had a fire going, i made tomato and chevre on toasted bread with olive oil, and we watched 'rescue dawn'. amazing.

now trying to catch up on emails (i'm so far behind), and trying to start a simple poster for the january dianogah show, as a test of mat's new press, so we can run the long-long overdue metropolis prints there.

probably sleep soon, it's midnight.

monday

okay, woke at 6, got up, didn't shower, since the waste line is filled with shit, an the plumber won't come until tonight.

got a chai (no coffee for like a week now), then on to screwball. steve hadn't finished printing the 'animals & objects...' poster, so i headed over to sonnenzimmer. nick and nadine arrived just after me. nadine went to work, nick an i worked at sonnenzimmer all day. i curated the sound opinions reprints, sorting the good prints (1115) from the bad (83), counting them, stacking them by groups of 25, and then spent the rest of the day signing and numbering them. overall, they look really good.

photo of stacks of posters to follow.

around 11:30, we ordered pizzas from a place nearby, then walked down to get them. back to the shop, i signed for the rest fo the afternoon, until 3:30, when we drove some big boxes over to fedex so nick could ship them. i took off for screwball, where steve was just beginning the fourth screen on the 'animals & objects' prints. as soon as he had a good one, i took it and drove down to logan square, ten down to tannagram design, near washington and halsted. yann came out, and we met up with a dude i met on craigslist, from whom i bought a brooks bike seat. yann and i took off for rick valicenti's new THIRST studio near the dianogah practice space. thirst is now above richard wright's modern furniture collection building. amazing.

marian bantjes is a graphic artist from near vancouver. her work was unusual and really interesting. i am still processing what i saw. rick had invited a bunch of folks (like yann) over to visit with marian while she's passing through town. nice evening, pizza, cookies.

drove yann home, then headed north. joe the plumber had arrived early and was finishing more quickly then i expected, so i had to get home. joe found the root of our problem, so to speak: a tree or bush has broken into the line coming from the grease trap into our house before it meets up with the main line that goes to the street. for the time being, we are fine and shower again, though we will soon have to dig the whole thing up. a bunch of money later, we know exactly the amount of shit we are in.

bloggy now, then eat some pizza leftovers, then sleep. okay.

sunday, craft fair.

woke up, took a shower, diana told me that shitty brown water was flooding the basement.

awesome!

last week, while we were in manchester, the house-sitters reported getting some water in the basement when they ran the washing machine. we've never had water in the basement, so i was on guard, but here it is, a big puddle, coming from either the base of the basement toilet, or through the wall behind the toilet, which is where the house's grease trap is.

called the plumber, joe, and set up a monday night visit.

took seth to my folks' again, went to TBM to pick up books and some prints, then headed to the renegade craft fair.

another good day at the fair. nothing amazing, good times all around. i got tired towards the end.

packed up around 7:30, reversed the process: TBM, then picked up seth, then home. upon exiting the garage, seth chased something (a cat?) out of the yard. i am typing now, then will address some ispace booklets to send to subscribers, then will move stuff around in the basement.

ok.

saturday at the craft fair

left the house around 8:30, went to drop seth at my folks' house. onto the highway, di and i stopped to get coffee at the skokie swift terminal on dempster, then went to TBM to pick up stock.

down the highway to the pulaski park fieldhouse, for the renegade craft fair.

we were some of the first people to load into the third gym, where our both was right by the door. after an initially rough stop, we set up our prints, and settled in for a long day behind the table.

we both did fine. intercontinental was probably my big seller. long day, lots of seeing people i supposedly know but have no idea who they are. i ate too much from the tasty cake booth. saw russ & kelly, met their 7 week old, jackson calder horvath. jackson and i hung for a while.

things would down more or less at 6pm, though the fair went until 8pm. we stayed until 7:45, then went back to pick up seth. i split some oak for my parents' fireplace.

home in the sleet.

friday

out to TBM, picked up ink & paper. stopped by 'robert's office supplies', new favorite office supply store, in downtown skokie. from there to sonnenzimmer, to pick up ink remainders from sound opinions reprint. to screwball. delivered ink, paper, got steve started on printing posters for "animals & objects in & out of water" show.

from screwball towards ispace. stopped at the art store, stopped at the bank, finally made it to ispace at 1:45.

tacked down some fly-away corners of prints on the walls. mary arrived at 3:30. we stuffed envelopes with the booklet for the show. i sent one to phil ponce, richard daley, sarah krep, and ken carls. weird.

cut out at 4:45, north on lake shore drive. stopped at comix revolution to drop pff booklets, bought 'the golden compass' for di.

stopped at turin, dropped off books, bought a new derailleur and seat post clamp for the surly.

got a chai. came home, ran seth in the yard. seth, in snow, with no collar or jacket... he looks SO happy running.

we're going to see the golden compass 9:50 show tonight.

thursday

TBM, screwball, ispace, hastie, ARKS @ darkroom.

details later.

wednesday.

home-ish.

monday & tuesday

monday, woke around 10, called richard to pick us up from jody's. poor richard (bad cold) took us to the gallery, where we both signed a number of prints ordered from people who couldn't make the opening. around noon, the reporter from the manchester evening news came by for an interview, as well as a photographer. that went fine, she 'got it' and was easy to talk to. as soon as that interview ended, howard and andrew from 'blue planet' arrived to take us and jody to lunch to talk about an upcoming project. just down the street from the gallery, we ate at a nice pub-style place, which sadly was out of fish and chips.

it was, of course, pouring rain.

back at the gallery, we loaded the boxes of cider into the car and made our way back to jody's. after a bit, jody went to get proper take-away fish & chips, which we ate while watching manchester united weakly beat a team from the suburbs of london. elliot came by, laura came home. the cider, after all that, was actually pretty good.

after the game, elliot left, jody & laura went upstairs for a bit, and di and i watched 'the descent', which was better than you might expect.

to bed, not to sleep. took forever to fall asleep. slept maybe by 4am.

at 6:30, jody woke us up so we could pack. we didn't realize he went back to bed. when it was time to leave for the airport (8am), jody couldn't find his keys, and tore the house apart. soon called a cab which took us out into walking-pace traffic. di and i were so unhappy, bracing ourselves for another 24 hours in manchester as we would be missing our flight.

we made it to the airport just in time, and got on the plane. terrible, long flight home. the stupid self-centered fucking people who had flown over in the row ahead of us were again in the row ahead of us, and did everything they could to recline, spread out, bounce their seats, etc. everyone else on the plane was a shaved-headed jersey-wearing 35 year old drinking team member of some football or rugby team. i began a process i will now call "getting the worst fucking headache i have ever had in my life".

home to ohare, through customs, into a cab (thank god he was a great, fast driver, no sarcasm), to lorna's laces to get seth and the subaru, then home. i got into bed and passed out.

woke at 5pm, did a business call re: the patagonia shirts, started answering emails.

blog at you.

sunday, manchester

slept well, vivid dreams. woke comfortably, realized it was noon. crap.

jody & laura, di & i took a while getting up, while jody ran out to et bagels, lox, herring, cream cheese, etc., which we downed at the kitchen table. jody ate six bagels.

by the time we left the house, it was almost 3pm. jody drove us downtown to walk around a bit, though it was already getting dark. it rained and got night-time dark as we walked around town hall, looking at the german holiday booths (a la daley plaza at this time of year).

back to jody's, we laid around for a bit, then went out to dinner with laura, and picked upjody's friend elliot on the way. amazing indian food at east Z east, with crazy lighting.

took elliot home, then back to jody's, and to bed.

saturday

went back to bed around 4am, jody woke us at 7:30. we got up, bathed, and left for richard & sharron's house, where we ate some breads, drank a bit of coffee, and changed cars. headed to the gallery with ingrid & jody, parked underground by the new gallery. over to 'our' gallery, the morning was spent sorting and hanging work.

when noon arrived, we opened the doors and had a steady stream of folks all day, buying prints, some of the originals, and cider. long, steady day of signing prints.



some time after 5pm, we closed up. (left to right) rachel, di, graham, nick, jody and drew went to a bar nearby, where batman, the old 60's movie was playing on TVs. i drank a vodka orange, bought a round of guinesses, and bored the hell out of graham by subjecting him to a bunch of photos from my computer.

we moved to another bar (cord), talked more, criticized each other's nation spellings of words like colour and aluminium.

at 8:45, jody, di and i went to meet up with richard, sharron, ingrid, cassie (and HER richard), and laura for dinner.
we watched a car get 'towed', out the window, lifted by crane onto the back of a flatbed truck. dinner took forever to arrive, but was quite good - i had cod on mashed potatoes with prosciutto.

back out into the dark wet of night, sharron drove us to jody's, where i now type, about to join di in bed.

thursday AND friday: one long day

hi, i'm writing this while sitting in jody's bathtub (sans water) here in manchester. it's 3am saturday locally, there's a big storm outside, and i can't sleep.

where to begin?

thursday morning, i woke around 6:30 and started working on the four (yet-to-be) paintings on the kitchen table. di ran errands and got me a chai. i added acrylic wash colors to the four pieces, and called them done. actually, i'm quite happy with them.

packed, showered, took the subaru with seth and all our bags to lorna's laces to leave with tyler and stephanie, the house-sitters. along the way, di stopped at a UPS store to ship off a couple of tony fitzpatrick etchings which she had sold on ebay.

the cab for the airport took 40 minutes to pick us up. along the ride to ohare, i made a bunch of calls and took care of the insurance claim for the fender bender the other day.

at ohare we had a typical check-in, except that after getting our tickets, we were in the security line, and diana noticed that the woman at the ticket counter had torn the main page of di's passport, so some numbers were missing. after paying a shit-ton to get the new passport expedited in time for this trip, di was rightly pretty pissed.

the flight was (of course) packed, and neither of us slept for more than 10 minutes at a time, if at all. the pilot came on the PA at one point with an "is there a doctor in the house?" request; some woman was having trouble breathing. a radiologist, an EMT, and various odd-job medical folks came to her rescue, macguyvering her into health with their motley array of medical skills.

we landed 45 minutes early, at 6:30 am. richard met us, and drove us to jody's house, where we met laura, jody's lovely new fiancee, and jody, as they were both on their way out for work. i wrote an email to the airline to complain about diana's passport, then di and i slept for a couple hours.

we woke at noon, embarrassed for taking so long, and called richard's wife, sharron, who came by to pick us up. we went to the gallery, saw richard and elli and met simon, the new help. walked around the corner to grab some lunch, and took it to the new RGG space to see the show there and ingrid (sharron's sister). great family, working together.

spent the afternoon hanging the stragglers of the prints for the show (most of the work was hung already). the place looks great. argued with simon over whether HUM is heavy or not. he likes electric wizard, a band i've never heard but whom i dislike just for their stupid name.

it rained and was dark for the afternoon (all day, actually) (typical manchester, from my experience).

back to richard and sharron's house for dinner with jody, ingrid and elli. both richard's and sharron's mums were at dinner, as was sharron's aunt. charming old ladies. dinner was great - i think it was the ame as the last time we ate there. soup with noodle cassarole, chicken, potatoes, corned (?) beef, green beans, and a dessert of chocolate mousse and apple pudding.

after dinner, jody drove old women home, and richard and i tried not to fall asleep on the couches. jody drove di and i back to his house, where we romptly crashed and slept until half past midnight, when i got up, read a juxtapose magazine on the can (hi tara!), then lay in bed for an hour before climbing into this tub to type.

no going to do more drawing for these patagonia shirts. must scan them and send them off today.

cheers.

wednesday

woke at 6, got up & out. di was up, too, rushing to the museum. she walked seth after i took off. 7am at jamba juice (too much coffee lately), then over to TBM to let the plumbers in at 7:30. did some stuff around the shop, then took off for skokie millwork, paid my bill from last week. talked to insurance companies on the phone outside skokie millwork. down mccormick to lincoln to western to screwball to pick up the two-foot-tall stack of sound opinions reprints (fuck) and their films and keyplate screen to take over to sonnenzimmer. called steve's intern, kirsten, to see if she could do take-off for mat today; she can and will meet him there at 11:30.

took the prints to sonnenzimmer to unload with help from nick (thanks, nick). mixed ink, remembered to stir it well this time.

took off for TBM, arrived just in time to meet up with the plumbing inspector for the village, who did the rough-in inspection, and liked everything except two parts, which pete said he could fix in couple hours. inspector said he could coe back, pete was delighted. i took off for home.

walked seth, answered emails, made a lunch attempting to use the things in the fridge which will go bad while we are in the UK: four eggs, smoked salmon, crusty bread. called southern to talk about some business side of the new record. back over to TBM, talking to jason on the way. arrived again at the same time as the inspector, 2:30. this time all was to his cold, robotic liking. he gave us the green light to proceed. one more rough inspection when we get back from manchester, and we'll be into the home stretch. talked to the plumbers a bit, worked with my dad on the prints i'm carrying to manchester, headed home.

seth and i went out for another walk.

we saw meagan and jesse and stopped to talk, meanwhile di came home. i showered, and sat down to document the prints i'm taking, and answer emails. and type this blog. the rest of the night will be drawing.

ok.

tuesday?!

woke early, left di sleeping. went to home depot (lag bolts, ceiling vents, exhaust vent cover for the roof, 6" vent plug), stopped by the bank to deposit a check, got coffee, and went to TBM by 7:50. the plumbers were already there, waiting to get in.

got pete and john started on stuff. installed the 6" plug over my office, went on the roof to install the vent cover. pulled out drawings for the RGG show in manchester, pulled out paper for the printing today at sonnenzimmer.

dad came by, we figured out some details for the subscription commitments coming in right now, as well as some of the prints which are going to RGG.

i went to whole foods for lunch and had a long talk with jason on the phone while standing in the wine section (not shopping) about song titles and album title, etc. all good decisions.

went to screwball to burn screens. took the screens to sonnenezimmer, where mat was printing the last color on his new renegade craft posters, which are shit-hot. probably his best RCF prints to date. he finished, and we plowed through three screens of diana-and-my new collab print for our show this weekend in manchester at RGG.



nick was working. he and nadine have such a great print shop. nick helped take off for the last half of the third color, after mat had to leave.



i loaded the prints into my car, stopped for a dopio con panna, went to the art store (blick) for a new portfolio and various hoo-ha, then headed home. di and i editioned the prints quickly, and now i type, getting ready to draw a bit and sort out what's left to do before we leave town.

crap.

late, around 11, i started ichatting bob weston, who was with kip and jason at the studio. they worked until 1am, i worked until 1 am.

monday

woke at 5, left for TBM. worked on cleaning, hanging radiator back panels, swapping out burnt flourescent ballast. pete the plumber arrived, dismantled the second bathroom wall to get at the drain. took measurements, made a list, and left to go shopping. my dad brought 2x4s. chuck the electrician arrived. i started framing out the darkroom closet. the electrical inspector came for our rough inspection, said we needed exhaust vents in the bathrooms, otherwise approved. he took off, we finally got around to opening up the one mystery unit above the bathrooms, which turned out to be an exhaust vent blower. re-hooked that into the electrical system, (which unfortunately meant re-doing everything chuck had just done), but we don't have to buy or install anything, which is nice. i took off for home. got coffee to prepare for a long night. on central ave, a woman in a red ford focus rear-ended me at a stoplight. she was distracted by a police officer (lights going) arresting someone and having their car towed. everyone was fine, but my rear bumper (2000 civic) was a bit smashed & scraped. officer walked over, called in for another cop, who arrived and was very cool. woman driver got two tickets, was apologetic. i had coffee all over inside my car. on the way home, jason called to see if i was going tonight. "where?", i asked. he said to the mastering of the new record. no. instead, i went home, showered, unpacked my 'new' used surly long haul trucker frame from tuscon craigslist. di made soup, also cookies. i had to run out to get some ingredients last minute. came home, ate with di, finished drawings for posters for manchester and ispace, went to kinkos to make films, came home to start cutting films. worked until midnight.

sunday

di and i walked for coffee, i think.

at 11am, i went to my folks' house and replaced the attic vent, which had been eaten by raccoons which had been making babies inside the attic. now that the raccoons are gone, i got my dad a roof vent (for father's day) and installed it in the 32 fucking degree weather. seth spent this time running around in their yard with casey, the crazy nut dog.



from there, seth and i (and a trunk full of more oak) went to alan and aviva's studio in ravenswood for seth's final fitting of his new wool-blanket coat. he is a stunt model. i also received my awesome new orange (french army blanket) hat.



when we got home, seth took his new coat for a spin around the yard.



at 6:30, we met up with nina and peter and nina's brother steve for dinner at blind faith cafe. i ate too much, i do not regret it.

home, sleep.

saturday

as i sit here typing at 7:30pm, my hands are dark brown with thick paint.



woke at 6:30, fed the cats, did another round of laundry. did some drawing on the print for the upcoming goodall gallery show. we took seth for a walk, drove to central street, saw lizzie and some other dogs. on the way home, di thought we should start our christmas shopping lists. at home, i unloaded oak from the trunk of my car and split it and stacked various woods.

inside, we talked through our shopping lists, then decided to just hop in the car and go over to the toy store on main street, next to guitar works. we got much of our kid-oriented shopping done, then went to whole foods for groceries and a hot bar lunch. i took di home (listening to 'this american life' about harold washington), grabbed my work clothes and drove to TBM.

i cleaned and started rearranging in anticipation of the inspectors and work to be done this week. dad showed up, and we moved things along in earnest. after he left, i sat and put a second coat of paint on the radiator covers (which need to be hung before monday), then drove home, arriving at 5pm.

i took a bath, ate a dinner di made (cheese on bread, a salad, and vegetable broth), then we decided to walk up to linz & vale for gelato. neither of us dressed warmly enough. on grey, we passed the little house we have been wishing on for jason & hilary, ($100k too much) but this time, it has a new 8 foot tall construction chain link fence around it. we fear that it will be torn down. this is really disheartening for us - we love that little blue house.

once a-fucking-gain, linz & vale didn't have cones, but we got gelato. some other time, i'll go into my issues with a coffee/gelato shop that i keep trying to like, despite the many reasons they keep giving me to dislike them.

walked home. type blog. draw more for the goodall print. paint is on hands. will sleep.

"black" friday

i got up around 5:30, couldn't sleep. spent several hours trying to catch up on emails, sitting down in the living room in multiple sweaters.

after seth walked diana around the block, we decided to drive into downtown evanston to get some coffee at pete's. peppermint mocha, wtf.

home again, i dropped di and seth off and took off for the highway. stopped at the tile outlet on fullerton to et one more box of tile for the surround of the fireplace. from there, i went out to pulaski for an acupuncture appointment with unsoo. she worked on the small of my back, trying to figure out why portions of my feet are still numb from my bike trip in may and june. generally things got better. it was a good experience. my abdomen is something different something.

from there, i got back on the highway. talked to nina who wanted to reschedule today's hang-out for sunday, which is fine, and my dad called with computer questions, so i opted to go straight out to the folks' house to play IT guy.

i reset the passwords for the various TBM office accounts, and sorted a bunch of stuff for the upcoming subscription season.

dad started a fire and we hung out in the living room a bit, i was wrestling casey the dog.

i took a trunk full of split oak, and headed home.

di didn't feel well, and spent the evening in bed. i drew a bit on the poster (very late) for next week's show in manchester. answered more emails, caulked some of the new trim and mudded a couple of missed spots in the plaster. did four loads of laundry. made a mix CD for my cousin jack (see yesterday's dinner) while drawing. got some new ideas for the patagonia projects.

11pm, going to bed. okay, fine.

thanksgivig: the thing.

i did some more caulking, a bit more cleaning, while diana baked a pumpkin pie.

while she was working on the pie, we cooked some frozen pizzas. we agreed that a soda would be great, so i ran down the block and got two cans of root beer, a cherry coke, and a vanilla coke. the cokes were drunk, the root beer saved for later.

i bathed, di walked seth, and we headed out for my aunt and uncle's house. gramma was there, as well as my cousin with her husband, and 15 year old son, and 13 year old daughter. i prodded the kids to find out what they listen to, and generally only received "not classical, not country, not christian music, but everything else" as an answer. eventually i dragged out of my young cousin that he listens to sum 41, green day, blink 182, thrice, etc.

we ate turkey and pie and all the peripherals.

di and i got a little too much family time, and decided to leave at the same time as my folks. mom & dad drove gramma home, and we went to my folks' house to visit casey the sweet but crazy dog.

my parents returned, and we talked about some of the stuff they want to do to their house, and di and i left. home, let seth out, get into bed, type this, sleep.

thanksgiving

woke around 6:30. diana gave me a nice long backrub. it was supposed to have snowed overnight, but there was only the lightest of dustings on the ground. we were a bit disappointed.

we left to walk to central street, but we only made it as far as the park at the end of our block. we decided central street would be too far in the cold, so we looped around and back home, where we hopped into the car and took a slow leisurely drive up greenbay road, turning around in hubbard woods. we stopped and got coffee next door to TL fritz sporting goods in winnetka, where i used to work during highschool, selling sweatpants and ice skates.

as we turned east and drove out towards sheridan road, i saw that fell's clothing store is closing ("going out of business sale"), which is disappointing. growing up, fell's was where i was dragged once every other year or so to get a new pair of khaki dress slacks (in those years when i didn't receive hand-me-downs from billy bach, who was two years older, had the same tall, thin frame, and lived down the block.) fell's also was the supplier of all cub scout and boy scout uniforms and patches. if you earned your stone-throwing badge, you went to fell's to get it.

around ths time i noticed that the light flurries had actully turned into real snow falling. unfortunately this didn't last long, but it was gret for half an hour or so.

we drove south on sheridan, ending up on ridge road, and turning west onto central street evanston. we drove around our neighborhood a bit, since not many people out at all (it being early in the day on thankgiving), looking at houses painted in good colors, or at dogs being walked (lots of golden retrievers out today).

at home, i passed the remnants of the trim up to diana in the attic, where she stacked them. we discussed some plans for the kitchen (paint everything soon, gut and rehab later), and i added the cap to the trim of the one window in the kitchen with casing on it. i cleaned a bit, caulked some of the trim, and cleaned up my tools. a bit more caulking of nail holes, and we'll be ready to paint, hopefully this weekend.

wednesday, at home, mostly.

woke and went to TBM (with coffee). picked up some tools, nitpicked re: the placement of a couple outlet boxes. found that a couple of leaks i thought i had fixed are actually still leaking.

over to home depot for new chop saw blades, a little tape measure, etc.

at home, i loaded the new trim into the house from the garage, sorted the lumber in the den, living room and dining room, then got down to work installing the caps onto the casings installed by paul a couple weeks ago. four different board types, ten pieces in all. over the course of the day i worked with the fire going and did five windows and three doorways.

closer door: cap half-finished. other door: finished.



when those were done, i decided to follow through and get all the quarter-round in around the baseboard, as well.

finished at ten pm, bathed, went to bed.

had extensive, intricate dreams about rehabbing dilapidated factories near the sea shore.

tuesday

i woke, walked seth, got coffee, and went to TBM to survey the whole thing.




stepped out again to go to skokie millwork (arrange delivery of new molding for windows at home), the pet store (cat litter), home depot (12 guage stranded red electrical wire, one sheet 5/8' greenboard, two quarts hammered metal paint, two bathroom wall light fixtures, light bulbs, 8" ceiling vent diffusers, etc). the whole time, i talked to people on the phone, arranging things.

loaded everything into TBM, and got to work cleaning, rearranging.

saw a mom and a child walk by today, and i'm pretty sure the mom said "yes, you're right, that place looks like a dump" as they went past. this line echoed through my head all day.

i built the base for the spray-out booth, installed two 12" sections of drywall for the areas behind the baseboard radiators in my office, pulled nails from some plywood scraps, removed the last bits of BX i could find, separated scrap metal for the junkers, pulled up some of the last old vinyl flooring (terrible terrible adhesive), started installing the doorbell, shortened the ventwork coming into my office (and added new diffusers) and painted the covers for all the radiators, which i hope to hang tomorrow. my dad was by for several hours, as was chuck the electrician. we listened to WXRT today, instead of NPR, as we usually do. the trade-off for hearing pretty good music all day with little to no bad news about pakistan or myanmar was the fact that i heard total bullshit ads for AT&T and menards over and over again all day.

it rained, and the temperature is supposed to drop tonight.

i came home around 8, cleaned my hands (fresh cuts), bathed, ate chocolate chip cookies diana just made, then cooked a frozen pizza. settling in to answer emails and do this blog.

very tired.

monday

i am writing this late on tuesday night.

i don't recall what i did monday morning, but i remember that it got to be 11am sooner than expected. i got email from giovanna and ago in catania (sicily), who are opening a new record store in firenze and want to order more posters. great to hear from them, i threatened to come visit in 08.

i ran down to jason's house, listening to bitch magnet. we got to soma at noon, not expecting kip to show up until a bit later (due to a meeting with a plumber). john wasn't ready, so jason and i went to milk & honey for sandwiches.

at the studio, kip showed up, and we mixed "hollywood nights", "snowpants" and "juice in a shark suit". finished mixing, jason figured out a rough sequence for the album, john burned CDs, and we headed out with a finished album.

i dropped jason at home, then got back on the highway. just south of oakton, i glanced into the southbound lanes just as a truck and car ran into each other. there was a ripping sound, i saw the car spinning, moved my view to my rearview mirror, and saw the car spinning more as everyone going southbound slammed on their brakes. i picked up my phone and was on ith 911 before the accident probably had stopped moving. i told them to send an ambulance. i exited at dempster as usual, and as i passed the fire station on grosse point road, the doors were opening and the truck were pulling out, lights going.

i drove home just a little slower.

sunday

spent the whole day at soma, mixing. 11am - 10pm.

we got five songs done (working titles)-

a breaks b
snowpants
andrew jackson
actual dianogah
song you hate

had a cheeseburger, with swiss and beef brisket on it, from smokedaddy for dinner. the other guys got ribs.

after the studio, i drove kip and jason home, then went home, listening to big black. di and i looked at bills a bit, trying to figure out how we'll pay the next mortgage payment, due on the same day as our property taxes. ooof.

saturday

woke at 8, with 5 hours sleep. fell back asleep with di until 10am, then rushed to et shaved & showered and down to jason's, then on to soma for mixing. at some, john started transferring files from the overdubs at mark's studio, but five of the tracks from one song were missing, having been saved to another disk on mark's machine.

jason and i walked over to milk & honey for coffee & stuff.

worked on new one won, antars, and started on andrew jackson, to add to the list of qhnnnl and puma which we mixed when we tracked, in august.



mark came by around 7 or so, to drop off a DVD of the missing parts for a breaks b. he also brought a microsonics player and a number of 'audible audubon' cards. amazing. more about those later.

finished at 10pm, drove kip and jason home, then went home. found di and seth in the yard. gave di the microsonic and the audubon cards - she was totally thrilled.

off to bed, slept hard.

friday

walked seth to central st in the perfect and cold morning.

worked on the text for the "animals & objects" show poster.

went to NBC tower to hang show with steve. found mat and scott in the garage. 29th floor. extensive chicago show: grzeca, crosshair, sudyka, daly, alana, judge, mile 44, sampson, david head, herzik, me, sonnenzimmer, steve w and some other screwball folks.

opening 6-10, a bunch of folks came. got to hang a bit with mat & sue & matt.

katie (hideout), judge & sudyka:



around 9:30, i headed up towards mark's studio. got to startbucks at 9:58 for a dopio con panna, then found mark in his garage. overdubbed a little guitar, listened to each track of the album critically, then did vocals for 'snowpants'. more screaming than i've ever done.

home in bed by 3am.

today was thursday

woke around 6:30, had a slow start to the day, since diana walked seth and i tried to get started drawing. di took seth out to the suburbs to visit her dad, whose birthday was yesterday.

i worked on three illustrations for a new book joe meno is putting together. sent those off, then sent off the files for a new shirt for andrew. went out for coffee around 1pm, picked up a bunch of firewood from down our alley. diana brought home tacos when she returned. i made a fire. started on sketches for patagonia shirts. talked to steve w about the show tomorrow night at the NBC tower. talked to mat about how the hell we are going to do all the printing we need to do, since screwball's press is broken. email exchange with may yang, who was pointed out to me last week by geoff when he saw that she mentioned TBM in her blog. she wrote with a couple questions about building a spray-out booth in her basement. hi may.



ichatting with geoff tonight (and his dog rocket sauce, above), i was complaining about not having access to a shop right now etc, etc, and he ordered dinner for di and i, from austin. half an hour later, theres a dude at the door with a big bunch of great mediterranean food. thanks, geoff!

sent of a couple more patagonia files. re-wrote lyrics for chorus of "snowpants", to be recorded late tomorrow night with mark.

sat down to draw the posters for the ispace show. listening to pink floyd's 'the wall' for the first time in probably 15 years.



okay.

wednesday

diana waves hi to the blog from her side of the home office.



woke late, around 8, sore.

walked with di and seth up to coffee, and returned just in time to meet up with alan and aviva and their friend josh. aviva has been making woolen goods out of old army blankets, and wanted to have seth model some dog jackets, which he did very well. she's also making amazing "hunter" style hats - i asked her to make me one. josh is a graphic novelist, and he left one of his books here. he's published by ad house.

i spent several hours trying to catch up on emails - interviews and random crap. i fear i am once again starting to fall apart. i'm not sure when all these things are going to get done. a couple projects just slipped into "late", which i'm trying so hard to avoid.

later, the fedex guy finally came for his thrid attempted delivery, which needed to be signed for in person. i got my new camera. very pleased with that.

spent a while trying to clean off my desk, and unpacked my desktop computer from work, which has been waiting patiently in the basement since mid-september. tried to scan a bunch of prints for the catalog for the ispace show, but couldn't get the drivers needed for the imac. frustrated, i spent several hours with three macs running on my desk, scanning with one, file sharing to the other machine, working on the third. blah.

i ate an avacado squished onto toasted bread. i drank orange juice.

will probably go to bed in a while. will keep working.

the tuesday

woke, ran out, coffee, home depot (can lights, bulbs, pull saw, wire nippers, carpenter's pencils), then to TBM.

brought chuck the electrician some more lights (shallow can) for mounting above my desk area in my office, beneath the existing ductwork. took out some of the other ductwork which i found was tied into nothing. removed the last piece of plywood from the now-nonexistant "attic" in the front of the building.

for lunch, i went over to kaufmann's deli again, and the woman behind the counter asked where my friend (chad) was, from last week. huh, second visit, and i'm a regular. i told them to make me a sandwich, their choice. i ended up with a hot pastrami on seeded rye, with swiss, and spicy mustard. holy amazing. also got a root beer and a cookie.

took out as much trash and recycling as i could, cleaned up, and installed the last of the studs in the business office wall.

ran home, bathed, and headed for mayfair studios.

new favorite thing: dopio con panna at dinner time. makes me active into the wee hours. picked up kip, saw his house, realized it's the exact same floor plan as our house, just tweaked a little here and there.

over to mayfair, where billy was already hanging with mark, getting ready to record. jason arrived, and we watched billy add wonky tweaker guitar parts to a couple of songs. we also got him to 'sing' on 'antars'.



billy finished up, and stephanie arrived, to fix a bunch of my vocal incursions. we convinced her to sing a bunch of stuff i don't think she wanted to sing, such as the lines "cold coffee and warm firm breasts" and "the late morning sun falls around all this meat". she was awesome. we got bad dinner again from the bad dinner place.



stephanie left, jason started playing guitar parts, kip fell asleep, snoring, sitting up. i drove kip home while jason invented a new type of rock music.



when i got back, jason finished and left at 1:30am, and mark and i stayed and tried out some other guitar parts until 3am.

i drove home and climbed into a bed.

monday, part 2

figured some more parts for some songs, then headed to mark's around 5pm. picked up kip on the way, as well as an espresso.

we fixed some vocals, tried some other vocals (no one liked them), and reviewed some of what mark had added.

ate crazy food from the crazy food place. drank a little tiny bit of vodka.

we finished up around 11pm, and i drove home. spent most of the time on the higway next to an SUV which was spewing smoke (burning oil?) from under it's hood. the driver didn't appear to notice, as he was talking on his cell phone.

okay.

monday, part 1

woke at 5am with the cat-on-chest alarm. showered, dressed my wounded hands, and headed to the bank and home depot. waited 5 minutes for home depot to open at 6am. ceiling can lights, doorbell components, lightbulbs, masonry drill bits and more masonry bolts for securing framing baseplates to the floor.

coffee. iced mocha.

to the shop, where i swept, stacked 2x4s which have been pulled out of the old walls, took the potted plants back outside (due to the warmer temperatures expected this week), and started framing in the walls on the south end of the business office. the dumpster was picked up at some point, when i wasn't looking.

my dad and chuck the electrician both arrived mid-morning and got working.

i took off around 12:30 to work on lyrics for dianogah. we're going into mark's again tonight for overdubs.

must shower, again, now.

sunday

overslept a bit, til about 8:30. di was out walking seth.

eric g. called, since we had discussed him coming by to talk about making some bookshelves. i ran out to walgreens (hydrogen peroxide and bandages for my destroyed fingers), and to get an irresponsible sunday frappuccino, then came home to try and start catching up on emails.

eric and clara came by around 10:30 to take some measurements for the bookshelves. clara is 15 months, and totally cute.

when they left, di, seth and i went to warren park, near our old house, for the 'greyhounds only' annual reunion, where we got to visit with hundreds of other retired racers. should have brought a camera. seth was so happy to get to see all the dogs.

from there we stopped by chicago printmakers collaborative (so di could drop off an etching for a small print show), then went to the food whole to do some grocery shopping. hot bar lunch. ate in the car, drove to TBM to show di the work, then home, where i started a fire, di made a pie, and now we sit typing.

the rest of saturday

went over to pick up jason narducy, taking advantage of the fact that we live in the same town. we drove south to reggies, in an area i have never been to, 2100 s state. at the club, nonagon was on stage already, unfortunately. sounded good, though, for the 2.5 songs i heard. saw a bunch of people: most of the EA crowd, bob & carrie, CP, and the bands. quatre tete were also really good. i had one white russian = $8. austerity program was really great, 30% of which can be directly attributed to their sheer volume. they were pro-loud. justin is really the life of this band. "this is my fa-vo-rite part!"

after the show, jason and i stopped to get a couple donuts, then headed back onto the highway, listening to 'the queen is dead'. we stopped at TBM to show jason what i have been doing there, then went over to his new house (also on main street), to see the projects he has ahead of himself. funny to move only four doors away from home.

home, felt like shit, in bed sometime after 3am.

saturday, pre-9pm

coffee, tom stack, smashing, nailing, framing.

chuck, electrical.

rooms, suddenly. sitting and looking at shop.

go home to bathe.

friday

woke, dress in yesterday's filthy clothes, coffee, TBM.

today i got an eggnog latte instead of a mocha.

the dumpster only had 2 big bags of alien garbage, so i kept loading what scraps i could find. chuck the electrician showed up around 10 and started making a plan for wiring the front third of the building. exploratory cutting, removing old outlets and switches, etc.

i cut out a run of old black gas pipe, pulled up some framing base plates, loaded all the scrap metal into the alley (gone in ten minutes), and tried to stay out of chuck's way.

around 3 i cut out for home. bathed, took seth into the yard, cut our mantel down a bit so it will be level when i reinstall it around the wood stove. doing dishes is pretty much my least favorite chore, but i did two batches, since they've managed to pile up in the last few days.

started trying to catch up with this blog and several days' worth of unanswered email.

ichatting with xan:

thursday

woke up and ran out as fast as i could. had to get to the shop, as the dumpster was coming, and the shop has a foot of crap on all the floors. got (coffee) to the shop, saw that i had beaten the dumpster, so i kept tearing drywall down, tracking old wires through the ceilings, pulling nails from 2x4s.

chad came by around 11, and took me to kaufmann's deli up on dempster, which is pretty much the best food near TBM. amazing old-school place. pickled tomatoes in a vat. bakery. corned beef. hhhrrrrrgh.

i called about the dumpster at 1pm, they said it was on the way.

we took our sandwiches back to TBM and ate, then chad was able to hang out and work for a while. he pulled nails from downed 2x4s, until about 3 or so, when he took off.

i took a sawzall to the copper joints of the raditor supply lines, thus dumping several gallons of black boiler water onto the floor. i shoveled broken drywall and ceiling tiles into the puddles to soak up the wet.

at 4:30 i called again about the dumpster. i was less pleasant.

started removing the radiators. here is the room at this time:



at 5:30 the dumpster arrived. they sent me a 20 yard box, instead of the 15 yard i ordered, but for the 15 price. by 7:30 i had loaded the thing by myself, running frantically back and forth with insulation, broken drywall, ceiling tiles, and shit.

same room, reverse angle, after cleaning:




ran home quickly, itchily. showered, and headed south with di to the metro to see battles. openers were all good, but played too long. caribou was really good, and played way too long, which kind of ruined them for me.

battle were shit-hot. weird dynamics in the band, not sure i can imagine their process. there's always someone who's not playing at any given moment. they were really really good, though, seemingly as excited to see themselves playing as everyone in the audience was.

when they "finished", but before any encores, di and i left. di was really inspired by what she had seen, and was talking about the set like someone who was high. transcendental. i agree.

home, take seth into the yard, bed. 1:30am.

wednesday

sitting here on friday, trying to recall wednesday. this is part of why i started this blog anyway. i have no idea where the days go, sometimes.

by noon i was at my desk, working.

i worked on the metropolis coffee drawing a bit, and did a shirt for andrew.

later, though, i went down to WTTW, arriving a little after 6pm. i met up with isaac and lisa, the two other "40 under 40" folks to be featured on "chicago tonight". the interview was brief, and i think i probably sounded pretty dumb, live. "well i, uh.... ha..."

from there, i ran over to southport to meet up with di, mat &sue, and nadine & nick. after waiting about an hour for a table, we ate at tango sur. i have GREAT chilean salmon in penne. ooof. time was short, so we hoofed it down the block to the music box theater just as bill plympton was being introduced, in turn introducing his film-in-progress, "angels and idiots".

really enjoyed the film, especially as it was not completely colored yet, with bits of the story only roughed in, and others which were totally finished. the plot was good, but i was tired about 3/4 of the way through and kept losing track of the film as my eyes closed.

when the film ended, i got a postcard signed by mr. plympton in the lobby.

long goodnights with the gang, then walked di to her car and drove home in mine.

bed, sleep.

later tuesday night.

okay: left home around 5:30am i think, drove to screwball to burn a screen and mix ink. set up the next color for the sound opinions reprint for either steve or mat, whoever prints today.

left screwball at 6:30, stopped for coffee at lincoln & mccormick, then went to TBM.

smashing: did it.

ordered a 15 yard dumpster from the waste company to put right in front of the shop, then went to the city around 1pm to get a permit for the dumpster. don't need a permit. nice!

did some emailings at home, posted to gigposters.com about the article in crain's, then shaved, bathed, and walked seth.

drove over to the EL at 4:45pm. while on the platform waiting for the train, someone called asking me to be on WTTW TV tomorrow night to discuss the crain's article. i have later plans, but can make the 6:30 taping/broadcast (on wednesday).

i guess i haven't mentioned: crain's chicago business included me in their annual "40 under 40" article, which means, i guess, that i'm some sort of entrepreneur, or at least have an entreprenurial air about me.w

arrived at the hyatt regency ballroom, saw jon "capitalistpig" hoenig right off the bat, and met a couple of the other 39 of the "40 under 40". soon i saw my childhood friend justin jarvinen walk past, so we got to catch up on the last 19 years.

seated for dinner, barack obama's campaign manager (or similar position), david axelrod, talked as the keynote speaker. the owner of crain's talked. i was under-dressed and out of my league and feeling WAY more uncomfortable than i ever do in daily life, but dinner was really good: chicken and halibut over rice, vegetables, etc.

met jeff, the husband of joanna schneider, another elementary school classmate. met pete dumont, owner of the company that hired me for the intercontinental job. met various friends-of-friends.

left as soon as i could, at no fault of the event. i just was really uncomfortable. finally got a copy of the magazine, though, which i had not yet seen.

walked back to the train, sat, happily, carrying various booty i was given by nice people in suits. dude across the aisle from me on the train was snoring, leaning over sideways.

called my folks at 10pm from the train to see if they were awake - hadn't yet told them about the whole crain's thing, but they saw it today.

debarked at noyes, drove home, talked to di, bloggin with no pants on, sitting up in bed.

can't sleep

woke around 3:30, can't sleep. got up to do laundry, eat cereal, answer emails. xan wrote to congratulate me on the permits, which means, i guess, that someone is reading this blog, which is weird.

going down to screwball to burn screens, i think, then to TBM to tear more shit out. i have to order a dumpster.

monday.

when i finished editioning the austerity program / nonagon prints, i packed some stuff into the car and headed (coffee) to TBM, where i dropped of the new prints, got some paper to finalize the layout of the upcoming metropolis prints (hi tony), and lament that the shop is still going nowhere.

ran over to village hall to check on the status of my building permit.

MY FUCKING BUILDING PERMITS WERE APPROVED.

delighted, i plunked down another $400 to get the piece of paper, stopped by the hardware store to get some supplies, went home to change (hello to paul, diana, greg), then back to TBM.

tore out the front wall down to 52" off the floor, tore out the east wall of my new office. took down the ceiling of the whole front of the building. paul stopped by to sawzall some 2x4s. i worked until 7pm, then went home to bathe.

here are some before and after photos. note the massive amounts of dust in the air in the 'after' photos.

monday monday

sunday night.

after the boys left, we went to get akiko some cat food. stopped by turin to browse, then home again. i primed some quarter-round in the basement for impending installation in the three soon-to-be-complete rooms, and di tiled around the base of the wood burning stove.

paid some bills, started cleaning off my desk, answered some emails, realized exactly what a fucking mess my life has become without my print shop.

i started editioning the austerity program / nonagon prints, when di came and told me we were going to the gym. i did 30 minutes on the eliptical machine, then lifted and stretched, and sat in the hot tub and the sauna and the steam room. on the way home, i got jamba juice, dropped di off, and i headed down to the hideout to hear anne elizabeth moore read from her new book 'unmarketable'.

on the way, i scheduled tuesday, friday, and either wednesday or thursday to print at screwball. left messages for mat and sue.

arrived soon after anne started reading. good crowd. saw liz & joe mason, jon resh, christa donner, and many other friends. i took off pretty quickly after the reading.

home, sleepy, time change rears it's head. good night.