friday, champaign to chicago

woke around 6am, tried to sleep more, but got up at 6:45. jennifer had already left, but bob was still home. sara and i visited with the dogs more, then got the car started and slowly warmed. then headed to espresso royale for some coffee & muffins, then onto the highway.

we got off 94 at peterson, and went to whole foods for lunch and minimal groceries. i realized that i left the TBM debit card at the art coop yesterday. called them and they are shipping it up.

went straight to TBM, and spent the day cleaning, painting, some mudding, some editioning and putting prints away in drawers.

took sara to the train around 6pm, and headed home for a shower, then took off with di for dianogah practice, in the snow. we picked up jason, and got to practice 20 minutes late. stephanie had not brought her clarinet, since she thought this was a singing practice. anya's sax was a bit broken, but di did fine learning the song. we played it through a bunch of times, then kicked the grils out for 15 minutes to run through some regular songs.

exuent, return jason to his house. di and i went home, straight to bed.

thursday - to champaign!

woke, showered, packed, walked seth, and left for TBM. editioned some of the 'animals & objects...' prints for the krannert show, packed some other prints and books, and drove to metropolis to pick up sara. she brought me a chai and a croissant. we headed south on lake shore drive, to 55, to 94 south, to 57 south. i think we set some sort of record, arriving in champaign just over 2 hours after we left. stopped at lincoln bindery, the art coop, a thai restaurant (lunch), espresso royale, and the art & design building, hanging posters everywhere we went.

hung around krannert, fixing loose corners on prints and peeking at the 'blown away' show in the main gallery.

at 5pm, a bunch of the museum's sponsors arrived for a speech by the university's president, who announced that a couple in attendance had decided to add $500,000 to the other $500,000 they had already donated to the krannert and related arts programs. i just loved the cheese and cookies and ginger ale being served.

the proper opening began at 6pm, with a variety of old friends showing up, including alisa (mrs. dempsey) demarco, derek (from castor and centaur), matt tabott, bill johnson, stacey gross, and others. jenny and bob arrived.

sara sold prints, i signed books and postcards.

lots of fun, very exhausting. a couple of different faculty/staff groups were going to dinner after the openings, and we said we were unsure of who we were supposed to go with when people said "you're going to dinner with us, right?"

so after the show, sara and i started cleaning our stuff up, and ended up being the only people at the museum, aside from the guards.

called jennifer, who told us how to get to the restaurant she was at.

we drove to carmons, newly re-opened as a creperie, and ate with jennifer and bob, nan goggin (chair of art & design) and bob graves, dean of college of fine & applied arts. so great. very funny conversation, great crepes.

after dinner we went to jenny & bob's, hung out with the dogs, and went to bed. i was tired.

wednesday at screwball

woke early, after staying up late to finish the new 'animals & objects' drawing. headed directly to kinko's to make a key plate film, then stopped for chai, and went to TBM to get paper and ink. from there, down lincoln to western to screwball.

loaded in, saw steve, and sat cutting films. sara arrived soon after that (way too promptly), and watched and learned. big help. as i finished each film, wed burn screens and get the press running. steve printed and sara took prints off. aside from one major issue with steve's registration, the printing went well.

i ran out at lunch tine to hot doug's, where i saw bob farster, doug, justin, etc. two dogs for me, one for steve, fries and drinks for sara and alana.

got a call from michele at patagonia that all was good with the designs we submitted. i have tweaks to make. very happy to hear this.

i got a bit done on the patagonia 'pronghorn' text, and replied to a bunch of emails, while steve and sara kept printing. i ran though reclaiming screens with sara.

steve took off immediately after printing, and sara and i curated the prints. loaded out into the snowy night, and i drove her home. called kip to cancel going out tonight, as much as i'd like to see cornelius, i was falling asleep.

home, ate some leftover thai with di, did some internets, and went to bed, where i finished reading 'the stranger', and fell asleep.

tuesday

woke at 6, went to the gym with di. worked a bit longer than usual, more stretching, and ran on the treadmill a while.

at 9, di and i met up with sara at the el stop again, we got coffee, and went back to the house. sara and i spent the morning at the kitchen table, she was making color variations on the finished files, and adding color to the unfinished ones. i worked on text for one of the shirts, and answered a ton of emails.

while moving my sweatshirt, i found my wedding ring, which was pretty much the high point of the day.

we at lunch with di, visited with seth, hung out, and got back to work. around 3 or so, sara and i went to TBM to get set for tomorrow's printing at screwball, but i couldn't find the 'animals and objects...' films. i had made a poster for the ispace show, and was going to use the same films to make a poster for the krannert show, but with different dates, etc. i gave up, got sort of mad.

dropped sara at the el, got some chai, went home.

started over on a new poster, got most of the text done, then had to go to a photo shoot for the new dianogah album, at nathan and stephanie's house.



it went great, and i'm pretty sure we got some good stuff. stephanie made amazing rice & beans with cornbread.

dropped jason off at home, came home, typing this, now will stay up another hour drawing. i hope.

monday

woke around 6, went to the gym. worked a bit too hard, or spent too much time in the steam room, or was dehydrated, because i almost passed out when i came out of the dry sauna. had to sit for a while. eventually felt fine. left the gym and picked up sara at the davis EL stop. we drove past the noyes stop, to show her the way to walk to my house, and got coffee (chai) on central street.

back home, i dragged the imac down from the office, and we spent the day scanning and coloring the four shirts for patagonia. i had many problems scanning using my intel based macbook, and the imac g5 wasn't recognizing it's usual scanner, so we had lots and lots of reboots and file transfers using little jump drives. pain in the ass. thankfully, sara totally knows what she's doing with photoshop, at least as far as what i'm asking of her.

i built a fire, made tea, sara visited with seth and the cats.

at some point, i realized my wedding ring wasn't on my finger.

my first thought was an unconscious feeling that i now recalled having the sensation of my ring coming off, or hearing the *ding* of it hitting the ground. shit.

looked around the house, looked in my gloves, looked in the wood pile in the garage, in the snow in the yard. shit.

called di to let her know.

knowing i had had my ring since i had been home from the gym, the ring has to be on the property somewhere - in the house, yard, or garage.

went back to work with sara, and looked again later.

sent sara home at 5:30 or so, ate dinner with di, and watched 'la vie en rose', a french bio pic about edith piaf. kept the fire going the whole day.

sent unfinished files off to patagonia, feeling like i'm really screwing things up, badly, as they're late. fuck.

going to bed.

sunday, home alone.

i spent the entire day at home, leaving only to go to the garage to get wood. drew patagonia stuff, got a lot done, not as much as i wanted or needed to.

diana and seth came home around dinner time.

saturday

woke really nicely, late (7:45), warm, felt great. took a long bath, reading a magazine. worked on a bit more patagonia drawing, answered emails. got several very weird & interesting emails in the last couple days. more on those as they pan out.

at 11:30 i went out to the art store to get a new sketchbook, and picked up a ticket for the 12:40 showing of 'cloverfield'. headed over to the food whole for orange juice, bread, goat cheese, and fruit. back to the theater to see the film.

amazing. really well thought out, really well put together. huge fucking monster. wow. some of the acting was a bit iffy, but forgivable. could totally justify seeing that again.

home, made a fire, really started in on pronghorn drawing. made headway.

around 8 or 9, hastie called me as i was leaving to see nonagon at the mutiny. then paul called, then robert, then tony, then paul again, until i stopped answering the phone. the poor subaru didn't want to leave the garage,but eventually grumped its way onto the streets and the highway, down to the mutiny.

what a fun time. i'm glad i went. not only did nonagon do really well despite the shit sound system, but it was fun hanging with john, paul, robert, tony, and jim. we were pushing each other, paul and i were trying to lift people into the ceiling tiles.

i took off soon after they played, and paul went with me to get donuts. something about nonagon makes me want to buy donuts. i get donuts after every show. dropped paul back at the mutiny, and took western all the way home.

into bed, read some of 'the stranger', slept great.

friday

i have to make sure i type this stuff on the day it happens. it's sunday morning, and i can't remember friday.

i know i took the civic to get an oil change while di was at the gym, picked up a chai on the way.

i worked on patagonia drawings, and around 4:30 i left for the dianogah practice space. traffic was really slow on the highway. loaded out, drove down to reggie's, blazing cold out. loaded in, sound checked a tiny bit, and went next door for dinner. i had one vodka & orange juice, containing about 8 oz of vodka, and was very swirly at dinner. felt better after some food (catfish, grilled vegetables, spicy rice). opening band was 'light pollution', they did fine, considering the mandolin and flute. they've been listening to the arcade fire. we played, not so well for us to be really happy, but well enough that i don't think anyone could tell the difference. it gave me hope for next week at the bottle. stephanie sang on three songs, and did really well, though i wish she was louder. we'll work on that. i screwed up the verses on 'a breaks b'.

hung out a while after our set, during william elliot whitmore's set. good dude. he played really well, the crowd was totally into them. he kept a group of like 200 people singing with him for an hour and a half, then moved the show next door to the restaurant. we loaded out and left between his sets.

we decided to bite the bullet and load into our space around midnight in the cold. i don't think we've ever had such a hard load. four flights up.

i dropped jason at home. we talked about the highs and lows of the set we played.

home, into bed. i slept like a rock.