this week at the bird machine

i spent the week signing blue planet prints, working on the quatre tete record cover, and cutting films and printing the blue planet posters. mat came in on wednesday, sara was in all week except monday, sue came in thursday. i managed to finally unpack a bunch of books and boxes in my office, up front. sara and sue both did great jobs of cleaning the shop - it's starting to look like i had hoped.

monday and wednesday, i rode my bike to work. 38 miles for the year, to date.

tuesday night, i drove to pearl to pick up some glow-in-the-dark inks, then met up with john h and jim kamp for burritos, followed by an evening of whiffle ball at some gym near north ave and halsted. it should have been fun, but i actually didn't enjoy it at all, which i am surprised to feel. about 16 guys played in this gym, only one semi-major injury requiring stitches, and i found it boring and frustrating. i left around 10, i think, though it went until midnight.

wednesday night, diana and i watched akira kurosawa's 'yojimbo'.

thursday night, in the snow & sleet, di and i drove to pick up xan, then kylie, and went to "members' night" at the field museum, where we saw some insanely amazing things from the collection, and watched events like, for example, the skinning of a bobcat. after this, we dropped kylie at home, and xan, di & i went to lula for a late dinner.

jason and i spent some time this week booking the june dianogah tour of the east coast, and setting dates for the october eurotour.

one night this week i had a dream that three people pinned me down and tried to tag my left hand, on the webbing between thumb and first finger, with a tag like one might find on the ear of a wild animal. another night i dreamt that ALL my pants had tar on them, from re-tarring a roof. on a third night, i dreamt i was at my parents' house and saw an ostrich handlebar bag sitting on a shelf, thus ruining the surprise of a birthday present.

friday, i stayed late at work, signing prints at my desk, listening to ida. i was very happy to be at the shop, and felt really peaceful, despite the huge number of almost-late poster jobs that are about to hit me next week.