Tree installation!

So this is happening already, if you're the type who freaks out about how early Christmas/winter holiday things appear. Once it's less than two weeks before Thanksgiving, I'm not too bothered by it, though I was taken aback on this visit when listening to WBEZ and they mentioned a certain FM station had switched to its all-holiday-music format that day (and given the problems with reception downtown, it was bleeding into WBEZ on my radio at that very moment).

I'd come downtown to catch the #6 bus to Hyde Park to visit the Seminary Co-op Bookstore on their last weekend in the space they've occupied for 51 years. They move next week to a nearby spot. Even with CTA Bus Tracker on my phone, I just missed the bus I needed and had 20+ minutes to the next. So I got a few shots of the tree and Christkindlmarket getting installed in Daley Plaza.

I checked and all the signs said "NO TRESSPASSING."

I'd meant to have another pumpkin-y drink at the Joe Muggs cafe in Books-a-Million (I got pressured into buying a membership/discount card at the BAM that replaced the Borders in my hometown, and now I have to buy things with it) but ended up with a gingerbread latte, and just missed the next #6 bus. Under the excruciating circumstances of having to run down the block for one, assuming the crowd of people waiting for it will give you time, then seeing it continue on because no one else was waiting for it. That's when I gave up on making it to Hyde Park, not having time to wait for a third bus, and bought a few staple items at the City Target on State. Also decorated for holidays, but not overwhelmingly so yet.

Bah humbug, Halloween edition

I am meh about Halloween and I feel guilty about it. Here's a holiday that (for secular adults without kids at least) doesn't have religious connotions or family obligations, doesn't have an expectation of gift-giving, is just about candy and revelry. It's easy to complain about Christmas/winter holiday commercialism or to complain about Valentine's Day; it feels too cranky to not like Halloween.

I like candy. I like pumpkins (real ones, and pumpkin-flavored-things, which a friend points out are really pumpkin pie spice flavored). I don't like most spooky things, but cemeteries and the occasional ghost story are cool. And oh I like dressing up. Every year I think my impressive collection of vintage clothes and uniforms and such should go to good use--I should wear something I can't get away with at other times, I should lend or rent items as costumes for others. Or sell a lot of it.

But...eh. I just don't get invited to Halloween parties, or go to the ones I know about, or want to do bar events (since Halloween has become nearly as bad for massive public drunkenness as St. Patrick's or New Year's Eve). I don't want to feel I have to wear a sexy costume. Or actually I'd like to wear one, but it's generally near-winter weather in Chicago at Halloween, even if other days in October have been warm. I live on a floor where I don't have to worry about trick-or-treaters coming to my door. (And don't miss it, as I grew up in a house set back from the street enough that we didn't get many trick-or-treaters. Or we got a few. It's Girl Scout cookie salesgirls we never got...) The Halloween costume pop-up stores in empty big-box and mall stores (especially empty Borders, RIP) depress me. And so this year, where a Wednesday Halloween somehow turned the season into two full Halloween weekends and the day itself...nothing.

The only two things I do are buy discounted candy, and watch morning TV news/talk shows for the hosts' costumes. This year the national shows didn't do their Halloween festivities because of Sandy storm aftermath, so I was left with just the Chicago shows. (Edited to add: oh, and always like the bit on Letterman's show, too--weird costumes for kids--which did happen. The image is of a girl as a restaurant cup of coleslaw.) They did all right dressing up on set or in bits at the big costume store. (Both WGN and ABC7 had LMFAO outfits, and I realized I'm so out of it I wouldn't recognize an LMFAO costume. I know the songs--I do attend a lot of minor league sporting events, after all--but haven't seen the videos enough.)

I am happy to have gotten the photo at the top of the post while walking in Bridgeport during a Forgotten Chicago tour. A nice mix of friendly and unfriendly. AMERICA.

Nov. 1. NaBloPoMo

Happy Halloween...or a bit after Halloween. This photo is from two days earlier, of a pumpkin given to my parents in Iowa, which was already falling apart (the top fell in the next day) and a bit moldy. I did virtually nothing to celebrate the holiday, since I was away from Chicago over the weekend (and away from parties I didn't know about/wasn't invited to). All I saw were a few costumes at the Iowa State Cyclones hockey game, and then on Halloween back in Chicago while taking the CTA. It's always a lost holiday for me--I have material (vintage clothes, uniforms--including some found in abandoned buildings!) for literally hundreds of costumes, but nowhere to wear it. At least I like pumpkins and I like candy. Day after Halloween, I almost forgot to look for candy except at my local Family Dollar, which didn't have much (Walgreens is a better bet). I bought a bag of candy corn for 50 cents and ate too much of it already. The store had Halloween decor still hanging from the ceiling all over...and plenty of Christmas decorations already up. Little trees on top of the refrigerated cases on both sides of the entrance. (They start stocking winter holiday merchandise the first day of fall every year.)

This is my first time actually signing into Blogger in months, since its redesign (which I haven't explored much yet). It appears I still can't combine my old Blogger account with my Gmail account and it appears posting photos still isn't any easier. But I wanted to try NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month, established in 2006 as an alternative to National Novel Writing Month (which I kind of hoped to try last year, but I know my limitations!): it's now hosted at BlogHer. I need to officially list myself and promote myself and figure out how I'll handle posts on a few days I'm out of town in November, but I'll try to have something up every day.

and now, Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Things here tend not to be in an order that makes sense--so, after yesterday's first day of winter post, here's my Thanksgiving/Black Friday excursions. Not especially impressive, but I got a few pics I liked.  

My approximation of a Thanksgiving dinner was the delicious (free!) food at the Whirlaway, a neighborhood bar in Logan Square. I hung out with some people that Wednesday night watching an amazing Blackhawks @ San Jose Sharks game, but I put that story on my other blog...

Since I've been in Chicago without family for the past few Thanksgivings, I consider it a big day to see a lot of the city. I think 2005 was my first time doing that--I took buses around, mostly to the far northwest side, and eventually found somewhere to eat. The CTA was on its holiday schedule, the weather was very cold and a little snowy, and I took 8 buses around. And waited a total--a TOTAL--of about 45 minutes for ALL the buses. I doubt I'll ever have such luck with the CTA again (for comparison, last week, I waited an hour in freezing rain for a bus that never showed up).

Then in 2006 (these link to my Flickr photos for each day, but I might not have many posted) it was sunny and 60 degrees F. I went on the longest bike ride I've ever had in Chicago, about 50 miles total, including bicycling all of Pulaski Ave. from south (111th Street) to north (Devon) within city limits. This needs its own post someday... In 2007 I had an exciting visit to my favorite, and now gone, abandoned building, Washburne Trade School. In 2008 I didn't do much, but had dinner a couple different places.

In 2009? I did even less. In fact, all I did besides stuff at home was go downtown for a brief visit before it got dark, to look at decorations and shop at Old Navy--they were open on Thanksgiving in the Loop.

I'll confess, I've done the early morning door-buster sale on the day after Thanksgiving--once. It was Target, years ago (they haven't done doorbuster sales--i.e. the 5 am-11 am Black Friday morning type of sales--in years), probably back when there was only the Logan Square Target in Chicago. I usually buy a few things that day but try to avoid crowds. I appreciate the spirit of Buy Nothing Day, created to counteract Black Friday hype, but...oh, I guess I now have 11 months to work on my rant about it (suffice it to say, I think it's a little elitist to have it on the day a lot of things people actually want are at a price they can afford, especially in this economy).

This year, I wasn't motivated to go shopping in the morning. But I felt like taking a look at the one Wal-Mart within Chicago's city limits, which happens to be just a couple miles down the street from where I live. 

It wasn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. Kind of messy, though. I was there briefly in the early afternoon, snuck a few photos (Wal-Mart was being strict about photography/video this year because of negative publicity from last year's tragedy), bought a few things, and went home to watch a depressing Blackhawks game online, then went out to watch a not quite as depressing (but still a loss) Chicago Wolves hockey game in Rosemont.

I'd love to actually cook, or help cook, a huge Thanksgiving meal in Chicago, but it never seems to happen. A Thanksgiving potluck/big bike ride (if it's nice weather)/abandoned building excursion could be spectacular....

A festive, booze-soaked ordeal

I hope you don't expect this blog to conform to notions of "timeliness," after all, I still haven't posted my Christmas-trip-to-Iowa and exploring-adventures-around-New-Year's stories yet (and now those photos are stuck somewhere on my computer, not in my active photo library). Why look here, it's my St. Patrick's Day post, after Easter (it WAS an early Easter), so far after Easter that I bought a small boxful of various chocolate eggs tonight at Walgreens for 75% off, and I'm enjoying some dark chocolate peanut M&Ms (the existence of dark chocolate M&Ms was utterly hidden from me until I saw that bag 50% off this week). And last night I finally opened the bottle of glogg I bought in Andersonville in December...

Anyway, I've ignored most St. Pat's festivities in Chicago all these years--never been to the downtown parade, never seen the river dyed (they say it's environmentally safe) green. Nor had I ever seen the South Side Irish Parade, held earlier than downtown's. This year, March 9, so it wouldn't be on Palm Sunday (the 16th). It was an exciting Metra pass weekend for me. That Saturday I took my first Metra trip to the North Shore (its own story, uh, soon!), and I knew the best way to get to Beverly would be taking the Metra from downtown Sun. morning.

As soon as I got to Van Buren Station, I was worried. The masses were there, in ridiculous festive outfits, already drinking (I saw a beer can on the ground) and goofing around. It looked like every white college student in the 6-county area was heading to this thing. It couldn't have seemed more pathetic to be riding the Metra and going to a parade on my own, but that's what I did, scoring a nice upper deck seat to myself on a less crowded train, reading the new issue of Bitch magazine, observing some great future exploration/photo opportunities out the window. As if you weren't getting enough green in this post, here's a shot of the abandoned Kennedy-King college campus (the new one replaced what used to be Chicago's third-biggest shopping district, the 63rd & Halsted part of Englewood) with that lovely Metra window tint.

Though the parade started at 103rd, I got out at 95th. East of Damen, so I had nearly a mile to walk to the parade's start. I'd meant to eat at Top Notch Beefburgers, but they turned out to be closed on Sunday, and I wasn't sure if a shake for breakfast would have been a good idea anyway. I bought a book at Borders (for a book club the next night I missed anyway) and ate at Theodore's, on 95th west of Western. It's a bustling (well, both times I've gone on a Sun. morning) family restaurant place with a huge menu, and cocktails, and since my previous visit, is the only place like this I know of with an all-you-can-eat buffet. Good knowledge for the future, but I stuck with a traditional hearty breakfast. I walked down Western getting a few photos of the signs--The Plaza, various neon delights--but those didn't turn out.

I think my favorite part of a parade is catching moments of setup and rehearsal and then the aftermath, so that's most of the photos here; shots of floats and bands blocked by crowds don't tend to turn out as well. So, there's the pink city truck (above) and shamrock-hoisting and whatnot. And the special Daley family trolley--I never actually saw the mayor, though.



This stretch of Western has a couple pancake houses I've never visited; here's the Original P.H. I don't have much to say about the parade itself. It was fine. Music, dancing, community groups, unions, politicians, TV stations, etc. But now...I've got to start ranting about the crowd. OH MY GOD THE HORROR, THE HORROR OF THIS. I won't say anything so brash as "I'll never complain about drunken Cubs fans again," but henceforth any complaining about them will be tempered with "Hey, at least they're not as bad as the South Side Irish Parade spectators."

I expected drinking, despite all the reports that the police would have zero tolerance for drinking outside (zero meaning 99.5%, apparently). I expected young, boisterous people, though I admit I had a terribly quaint idea of the Beverly/Morgan Park neighborhood as all tight-knit and family-oriented and ethnic and whatnot. ("Tight-knit" and "ethnic" has some historical implications, certainly in Chicago, of a rock-throwing and firebombing against "outsiders" variety, but I won't get into that now.) And maybe it is--note the "Hughes Clan" in the photo, they look like actual residents--but this parade is basically an excuse for North Side/suburban yahoos to clog up the streets with obnoxous drunkenness.

And public drunkenness is much worse when you've had nothing to drink yourself. All the young people with their silly green accessories, and how interminably long it was taking to walk down the street, and the beer and cans and bottles on the ground, and cigar smoke everywhere (is that a big Irish thing?) were wearing me out. It was like being at Spring Break, except in the middle of the Midwest on a cloudy cold day so you weren't even seeing any skin (excepting the few idiots wearing shorts or flip-flops). After a few minutes, I'd had enough, but since I was on the wrong side of the parade route, I couldn't get over to the Metra or buses. I just kept walking.

I walked from 95th to the start at 103rd past the worst clog of people at 111th to the end at 115th. It was a relief to get out of there. I wasn't sure what extra trains Metra was running, and I knew there was more than an hour till the train I knew of, so I puzzled over whether the 111th, 115th, or 119th buses to the 95th Red Line were my best bet. I walked to 119th. The final shot's a glimpse out the bus window at an Irish immigrants' group float heading to wherever floats go after parades. On the bus ride I spotted a "new" exploration site that I got to the day before Easter (an old one to many explorers I know, as it turned out). The sun finally came out and I spent the rest of the afternoon getting CTA shots and visiting the school getting demolished. I've still got nothing against the parade itself, or the neighborhood, but though I'd missed this my previous 12 years in Chicago, this visit was enough to satisfy my curiousity about how Chicago celebrates St. Patrick's Day for a long, long time.

Just doing my part to destroy romance

Oh, but I missed my shot at ruining everyone's Valentine's Day in advance. Sorry I wasn't here writing anything properly cynical. Though I'm not a huge fan of the day, in truth the past few Valentine's Days have been pretty good, far, far, better than the typical disaster that is my birthday. I suppose the fact that I'm not still with my co-celebrators of previous years makes those Valentines a "failure" by dating industry standards, in the way that any relationship that's not currently marriage and/or approaching it, is a failure (or am I supposed to cheerily embrace past relationships as "learning experiences"? Hard to keep up with the experts). Oh, but I won't write the anti-dating-advice-industry manifesto right now. One of the "experts" I caught recently, author of a how-to-date-a-"bad boy"-manual, started off a "dating myths" piece on The Today Show by blathering that "men aren't men" and "women aren't women" anymore, and that's typically a good sign one should turn off the TV, throw it out a window, and flag down a cement truck to thoroughly pulverize it.

Valentine's Day got reclaimed as V-Day, to combat violence against women, a while back, and it's a day to peform that feminist play, you know, the, uh, The Hoohah Monologues? Well, the conservative Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute snipes that “February 14, a day generally recognized for hearts, love and valentines, is now a day that has become increasingly associated with female private parts and the radical feminist agenda," and even has a booklet on how to combat this nefarious presence on your campus. Meanwhile, the Independent Women’s Forum “Take Back the Date” campaign (get it? They turn Valentine's Day into V-Day, we'll turn Take Back the Night into...) has an infamous flyer with a dejected, ball-and-chain-wearing Cupid walking past a Vagina Monologues marquee; as Feministing snarked, “Poor Cupid, tethered to the unreasonable feminist demand that women not be raped.” (By the way, Eve Ensler and Jane Fonda were on The Today Show Valentine's morning, and though I had it on I was more listening to WBEZ, and missed when, as Meredith Viera apologized later, “Jane Fonda said a word from the play that you don’t say on television.” I found it out later. Hint to Chicagoans: it rhymes with the name of a major east-west street that runs through Rogers Park.)

I'll second everything Ann Friedman said here on her 2007 piece on the controversy:
“The idea that a play featuring women's ruminations on their bodies and sexuality is at odds with 'true romance' is deeply disturbing. Personally, I have numerous problems with the Monologues, but one valuable thing about the play is that it communicates to young college-age women, many of whom aren't self-identified feminists or women's studies majors, that it's okay to talk about their bodies, to explore their sexuality. I fail to understand how this -- a frank discussion of women's physical selves -- and romance are mutually exclusive.
Moreover, I would argue that women being knowledgeable and vocal about their own bodies does indeed help curb violence….
…The 'chivalrous' dating practices venerated by IWF thrive on outmoded, restrictive gender roles and an inherently lopsided power dynamic. This type of dating has always placed the onus on women not only to suppress their own sexual urges, but also to control those of their male suitors.”

I've read the play, never seen an entire peformance of it, it's not my favorite...but V-Day seems like a worthwhile endeavor when you've got this quote, said just a few days before Valentine's, from Tennessee state Sen. Doug Henry, “Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse. Today it’s simply, ‘Let’s don’t go forward with this act.’ ” Wow.

"Take Back the Date" isn't just an anti-V-Day phenomenon, it's also a reaction against the supposed dominance of "hookup culture" among young people, which like everything else, gets blamed on feminists. I've mentioned it before and I'm sure I'll mention it again, the moral panic over Our Slutty, Slutty Young People and Their Inability to Love ™. Eh, maybe I'll read yet more books about it before I do. "Dates" aren't such a bad idea, the old days of "necking and petting" have their appeal, and if you want to be REALLY old-school, bundling sounds charming. I just don't care to go back to the old days when women's reputations and lives could be destroyed for going "too far."




Anyway...how about that article on "settling" that's made Lori Gottlieb the current whipping girl of the blogosphere? See Feministing or Pandagon or Shakesville (hey, I finally linked to a piece by a man), or Gawker for extra snark. I have little to add, except I'm sorry Gottlieb wrote such a bizarre piece; her memoir of having anorexia at age 11, Stick Figure, is probably my favorite (and the wittiest) of the many, many, many eating disorder memoirs I've read.

Since I didn't write this piece in as timely a manner as I wanted to (I was partly afraid of jinxing my actual Valentine's, which went nicely), I'm able to mention this piece that ties together Gottlieb, Take Back the Date, and the hookup hysteria, plus includes Barney from The Simpsons: Take Back the Loser! And something (finally) on how feminism enhances relationships (The website ads that popped up when I looked at this on Pandagon included "Married & Lonely?," "Women's Infidelity," and "Asian Girls For Marriage." How sweet).

A few years ago I was flipping through a celebrity magazine and complained about shirts that said "Josh's Girl" and the like, wondering why women thought it was cool to be someone's property. Then I thought, maybe I'm harsh, people will think I'm Katherine the Scowly Romance-Hating Feminist. I mean, just because I'd never wear "Tom's Girl" or "The Future Mrs. Anderson" or use the expression "my man" other than 999% ironically, who am I to judge? Then I saw this in Us Weekly's Feb. 11 issue. (The ones you can't read say "Cali Girls Do it Better!" [eh] and "If found, please return to boyfriend." [I immediately thought "Found where? In an alley? That's creepy."]) Being his "girl" and "Valentine" isn't enough, now you're a "playground" (note the graphic) and really, truly, calling yourself "property?" And now I flash forward a few years, to when I complain about the "Zack's Property"-declaring rhinestone bracelet, you know, the one that goes along with the tracking device that's been implanted so he knows where you are at all times, because "he loves me that much"... Once again, I've failed to understand modern romance.

I've been avoiding the matchmaker hype--apparently several of them have reality shows--but I couldn't resist watching a recent Oprah episode which promised to be full of things "single women could relate to" or whatever, which meant I was mostly baffled. Patti Novak, of “Confessions of a Matchmaker,” went on about how it's great that women are competent and successful but you have to let men choose the restaurant you go to and open pickle jars for you and blah blah blah to feel like a man. Oprah (and talk shows in general, actually daytime TV in general) seems woefully ignored in the feminist blogosphere, so I was delighted to discover a feminist food blog called Little Ms. Foodie taking this on. Still, she's not as bad as Patti Stanger of "The Millionaire Matchmaker," relish this exchange in Time Out Chicago:
TOC: What’d you learn about matchmaking from your mom and grandmom?
Patti Stanger: That the rules have never changed. As long as you give sex away for free, without exclusivity, you’re gonna end up single and alone and unhappy. You’re the commodity and when you learn that, men will gravitate to you. You want to be the female, you don’t want to lead in the relationship. And the only way the men are going to lead and be the hunters is if you sit back, smell good, relax and let the man drive the car.
TOC: Anyone ever tell you that’s a little sexist?
Patti Stanger: No.
(Well okay then, that's A LITTLE SEXIST.)

As noted, I had a good Valentine's afternoon excursion (with someone), and also got to spend the evening in a single-girl way: sitting at Borders on Halsted, enjoying a Cocoa Trio, reading an obscure old book about Detroit. If you'd like a true anti-Valentine's screed, this hilarious one at I Blame the Patriarchy will do quite nicely. I'll have a good story specifically about Dating For Nerds sometime soon...Besides the ad, the other images in this piece are: The front and back covers of a novel I found at Shake, Rattle, and Read in Uptown; a WrigleyvilleSingles.com ad seen in Graceland Cemetery Dec. 2007 (cemetery desecration!); a chalkboard in an abandoned Catholic elementary school; all 69 different messages found in an 18-ounce bag of Necco Sweethearts (yep, I sorted them, that's what nerds do for Valentine's Day [Gapers Block linked to this photo on Valentine's Day, thanks!]); a CiceroSingles.com ad seen along abandoned train tracks (in a desolate area where I also spotted a frozen dead dog, and white police harrassing a black man); if that's how you find love, then here's how you find a wedding photographer; and a photo I already used (seen on an abandoned church in Englewood) in this post, but I just replaced it there with a different one and put it here because Chicagoist used it as one of their Valentine's photos, thanks! I hope you all had a decent (or indecent, as the case may be) Valentine's.

Excuses excuses

Iowa City church demolition
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

Still in Iowa. Here's something I got to see on my Greyhound trip here a year ago. We had just 10 minutes or so at the station, which was conveniently a half-block from this tornado-ruined church. Of course, on my Aug. and Dec. 2007 trips, it was an empty lot.

Sorry about the previous post; I don't like sounding whiny on Christmas when I have so many...well, some would call them "blessings" in my life. Also, I'd say my Christmas was much better than that guy who got mauled to death by the tiger in the zoo.

I'm feeling hurt about some things, and being around my parents just brings up all my inadequacies (well, no comments about my weight this time) but I'm still finding a lot to enjoy here. Just not the internet connection.

Before I left, I uploaded some photos as a Blogger "draft," to fill in the text later. Including the Duran Duran show at the Chicago Theatre...well, due to my setup here I'm not comfortable writing a file offline, and I'm too scared to write anything long online (I got knocked off my connection TEN TIMES on Christmas Eve). But I'm listening to Duran Duran's Greatest Hits right now, and hoping the ancient wine with Cyrillic lettering on the label I raided from my parents' liquor shelf (I'm not sure I ever did that before!) isn't toxic. I promise to have a cheerier post from Iowa that isn't just personal rambling.

Iowa Christmas

ornament / Merry Christmas
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

More later. I'm using the worst internet set-up I've had in years, and trapped in those days when I can't call anyone for a few days (I guess Sunday was the last chance...I wish I knew who left me a voice mail on my cell phone Sun. on their first call, I'm unable to check it), and although I'm having a decent time at my parents', I still feel...well, I wish I'd contacted everyone before I left but I spent the weekend tense and confused about when I'd actually get here. Well, never mind, I guess I'm supposed to wish Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to everyone, so here you go!

Post-Thanksgiving consumption

If you hadn't already noticed, I had a great Thanksgiving. I found out later that people I knew went to that school that Friday, just after the workers left. But I took a break from exploration for a more "normal" pursuit: shopping. I admit I've done a poor job over the years observing "Buy Nothing Day" the day after Thanksgiving, I mean, that's the day the best bargains are! Even worse, I never buy gifts on "Black Friday," just stuff I want. I also admit that once in my life I got up to be at a store before it opened--Target, and probably 6 a.m. Target hasn't done "doorbusters" (Friday morning only) sales in years but other stores are pushing it back to as early as 4 a.m. (and some places are open on Thanksgiving).

Anyway...I hit a couple electronics stores, then decided I could endure one mall downtown, the one whose name I get wrong, but it's got Nordstrom in it, and more importantly, the Sanrio and Lego stores (all I visited). Took a few photos, but this is the kind of place where I probably would get stopped by security for doing so (hours and hours in abandoned buildings, no problem). I headed south on Michigan and finally ate at the restaurant at the Essex Inn--I hadn't realized for a while it had a "family restaurant"-type place. Like all the ones downtown, it's overpriced, and I was one of the only customers, but hey, I've got a list of these places and I've got to cross 'em off.

Walking to Target, spotted some random art and found messages. First, "Overcoming Uncertainty":



No one on Flickr commented on or identified this. Advertising campaign? Columbia student's art? This kind of pretentious cuteness makes me hate art, and love. For a few minutes anyway.


Heh. There was also one about Anthony Abbate. Google them if you don't know what this is about. Now, I'm not saying two wrongs make a right, but...I'll leave that sentence unfinished...


I actually bought nothing at Target. I went back north and braved the Borders cafe crowds to get a fancy cider drink (no coffee...still no coffee...) and got to Daley Plaza about a minute before the tree lighting ceremony. I'd seen it once or twice before, but I forgot about the fireworks. This was the best shot I could get.



I went back to the Nordstrom mall and bought my holiday gift to myself--a Lego advent calendar. I loved advent calendars as a kid and I've had a few as an adult (mostly chocolate ones). And finally, one for architecture/infrastructure-obsessed nerds! Today I got a construction worker! Of course, if I want to do anything with all these little Lego bits, I'll have to buy lots more Lego! And I don't want to be sucked into yet more consumption!

The not-entirely-lonely Thanksgiving

I was quite thrilled at the prospect of spending Thanksgiving alone exploring industrial ruins. Other explorers I know have gone out on holidays, and it seemed entirely appropriate given that I didn't exactly get invited to spend Thanksgiving with my family. (My parents haven't visited Chicago for Thanksgiving in a few years, and they weren't going to be in their hometown; they drove to Houston for my dad's 50th [!] high school reunion, and spent Thursday in Kansas City, and I didn't see a reason to go.) Also, most of my friends were either occupied or presumably out of town. Last year I spent Thanksgiving alone doing my favorite kind of exploring back then--going on insanely long bike trips, photographing signs and buildings along the way. I did almost 50 miles, my most in one day (oh, it was 60+ degrees and sunny then).



I needed to go to the trade school to catch up on the demolition of its west building, and I figured there'd be no workers there on Thanksgiving, though there were workers at the adjoining businesses until noon or so. But first, I made it into a new place, a small abandoned oil company.



Getting in wasn't hard, but I was instantly covered in mud, and soon, in the lightly falling snow, and the burrs as I hacked my way through this wilderness. Well, it's wilderness compared to the giant factory floors I've been hanging out in recently. There are several immense tanks, and this is the view from the only one I climbed; I wasn't a fan of icy metal steps. I got a few cloudy shots on top.



There's a small building where I took this shot and the second one in this post. Then I climbed up on the structure you see here. Not much to say about this place, but I'm glad I checked it out.

Then off to the school. I walked towards the demolished wing at ground level and could swear I heard someone off that way yell "Yo!" at me twice. I got a little freaked out and took the stairs over instead. A fair amount had been demolished in the four days since I'd seen it. This was my first time photographing snow-covered ruins.



I walked through the main part of the school, which seems safe for now. This rainbow here got snapped in half since the first time I saw it.






One of my goals for the day, besides observing the demolition of the west building (achieved) and getting on the roof of the east building (not), was finding the spot with the radiating colors. It used to have a mirror in the center and many people took self-portraits there. I stumbled into the room accidentally. Did I really miss it on my prior 5 visits here?



I moved on to the east building; I'd seen plastic there last time and it looks like something's going on. Sure enough, asbestos abatement signs and equipment were everywhere. They didn't stop me, but made me a bit uneasy. My parents would probably cry if they knew how I spent my Thanksgiving, wandering through all this danger...


I went back to the demolition area; the snow had long since stopped and it was now sunny. How nice to get shots under two different light conditions. I walked through the rubble this time, since the workers at the adjacent business were gone, and noticed the icicles. Got some of my all-time favorite shots. Oh, I forgot to mention, Thanksgiving was also the two-month "anniversary" of my first real "urban exploration," another reason I was so excited to go out. So "all-time" isn't that long...



Leaving, I walked around the perimeter of the building to see the damage looking east. Oddly, there still seems to be a small functioning building attached to the demolished section. I wandered a bit more around the neighborhood--I'd honestly never noticed the small abandoned factory across the street--and got on a bus heading north.



My friend Kate surprised me with a call and an invitation to hang out that evening. I agreed, but still went ahead with my other meal plans. I needed a diner-ish place besides Golden Nugget open on Thankgiving serving a "traditional" meal, and my impulse to go to the D&L Snack Shop (which has turned into CJ's Cafe since my one prior visit) was a good one. Sure, it's the kind of place filled with depressing old guys, but their Thanksgiving meal was only $6.99, and "all you can eat." But I only had one serving of everything. I went home and cooked up a vegan dinner I was pretty happy with. I arranged it for the Flickr photo and only ate a little.

I had amazing luck with CTA buses all day (until my last one late at night): I must have waited 15 minutes TOTAL, on a holiday, for the first six buses I needed that day. Incredible. So I was early to meet Kate at Simon's in Andersonville, a great bar I've now been at on Christmas and Thanksgiving. We had quite a lot of Scrimshaw beer on tap and glogg (the season for it just started) and caught up on girl talk (you know, mostly but not entirely about boys). Needing to eat and sober up a little, we got a cab to the Golden Nugget on Lawrence and had pancakes. It was quite empty. Their Thanksgiving meal was $11.99 and not all-you-can-eat, bah. We hung out at her place for a while and I got to see her cat Sammy.



I left after midnight. One of the best Thanksgivings ever. My brother called me the next day, but I didn't call my parents back until Sunday. Oops. Oh, and I'd like to use the extra white space next to this photo to say it took me well over an hour to put this post together; my first time trying lots of photos going left and right AND links to Flickr photos. It almost looks okay...