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.

From the ruined candy factory

Happy Easter and/or happy spring!
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

Happy Easter, if you celebrate it. If not, happy beginning of spring (such as it is). I wanted something a bit cheery here, and it just so happens that on my trip to the Brach's factory yesterday, to commemorate the six months I've been doing the so-called-urban-exploration, I noticed one room had lots of rolls of posters or banners. And this happened to be the one I unfurled. That looks like a knife or something at the bottom, but I didn't bring it.

Yes, it's only been six months at this thrilling but often heartbreaking pursuit that's changed my life in many ways. I first went to Brach's on 9/22/07 with a group of new and seasoned explorers from Flickr, and yesterday was, I think, my sixth trip. Alone, but I kept seeing one or two or three young people running around, and at 5:00, just as I was on my way out, about a dozen of them gathered on top of a tower. Weird. They saw me, but I didn't go over, because I wasn't sure how to ask a big group, "What are you doing here?" But I think they were taggers, not explorers.

I spent the early afternoon at a "new" place I noticed a couple weeks ago--but when I got close I saw the name and realized I'd been told about it before. It's a wonderfully ruined factory, and the sun and the snow covering everything made it even better. I spent mid-afternoon at Brach's, and then went to my ridiculous obsession, Westinghouse, where I ran into some other explorers again, finally. I'm off for a Easter morning visit there now. If you haven't seen my Brach's photos the set is here. A candy factory for Easter, seems somewhat appropriate.

A round-up of recent publicity

People going home from work
Originally uploaded by katherine of
chicago

I can almost feel myself getting back into the blog thing (which includes reading/commenting on everyone else's--I haven't signed into Blogger in well over a week at this point). Forgive me for not writing anything of consequence on the many important things going on in the world, and just putting up some links. The past few weeks--starting not too long after I fixed my photo sizes on Flickr (still just over halfway through replacing them in the photostream, though)--have been pretty cool photo-wise. The websites mentioned here don't always tell you when they're using your photos; sometimes you find out through the "Flickr Stats" function and sometimes people you know tell you. So, in chronological order:

A couple photos show up in this post on Chicagoist 2/26

The Time Out Chicago blog on 2/28 used my “Donut Doctor” photo, my first appearance there, as far as I know

Whet Moser's Chicago Reader blog used a favorite CTA shot of mine for
"You Shoot" on 3/5, and gave me some nice publicity for my other architecture/exploration photos. Also, City of Destiny and my explorer friend Noah's Dump Site are on his Chicago blogroll, among others I know.

Chicagoist on 3/13 used one of my photos large for the first time—the one on this post

The “Merge” section of Gapers Block on 3/18 mentioned Dump Site and some of my photos. Interesting stuff about the architectural salvage business…

And then, the same photo on this post was also used for Gapers Block “Rearview” 3/19. They were the ones bugging me the most about fixing my photo sizes, so I'm thrilled I did and finally made it onto the site. I'm currently working on an article/photo essay for them, more on that later...

Also, on 3/19 I hit 10,000 page views for my photostream on Flickr. It was stuck on 9999 for a while and I tried not to check it too obsessively. It's also been six months since I made my first friends on Flickr that became real-life friends. One first contacted me 9/18, which I much later learned was his birthday, so I joked that I should wish him a happy half-birthday 3/18, and I did. I also finally bought a Ladytron CD 3/18, after it's been the music of choice on so many drives with him to abandoned buildings and so forth. Getting into "UE" is another six-month quasi-anniversary coming up. Please excuse my obsessive streak of commemorating everything, okay?

Too busy, and too lazy

Sunset from the Westinghouse Career Academy roof
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

I wanted to avoid ever writing a "sorry for not blogging" post ever again, but here you go. Last week was depressing for various reasons; this week, not so bad. But I'm still running around wildly taking photos rather than dealing with "responsibilities," or keeping in touch with people, or reading YOUR blogs. I've got a few coherent story-and-photos posts to do from the past week (a survey of abandoned CTA stations, a trip to the North Shore, a visit to a parade)...and I want to write those here first so when I put up the photos on Flickr I can link to a blog entry. But I'm so backed up on Flickr--that's what happens when you take 100 or more photos a day. Anyway, here's one of those photos I really liked but no one else was too crazy about. The extra hour of daylight is a great help for exploring abandoned buildings...

Dear WBEZ 91.5...

With all of Chicago Public Radio’s resources, talent, hard work, and “objectivity,” when will you realize—not all your listeners drive cars? Not every listener is stuck in the car when you’re doing your late-afternoon “All Things Considered” pledge drive shifts. Not every listener is debating whether to “pull over and call,” as you recommend. Not every listener could use a WBEZ license plate holder as a premium for pledging (a WBEZ bike gear bag, or CTA pass holder would be nice). Not every listener “maybe even has WBEZ preset on their car radio," because they don’t have a car, or maybe even a driver’s license.

I know you’re aware of the existence of bicycles and bicyclists, of the CTA, Pace, and Metra, because you do fine news coverage of them all the time—mass transit funding, safety issues, bike culture, etc. You even did a story where your reporters competed to see who could reach a certain spot first—the driver, the cyclist, or the L rider.

I don’t mind pledge drives that much—you do what you’ve gotta do, and it’s better than commercials, and some of your pledge banter can even be entertaining, and disrupting programs isn’t the end of the world when you can now listen to them all online anyway. But why are you so relentless in assuming your listeners are commuting by car? (There’s also the assumption that the listeners are working outside the home at a 9-5 job, but I’ll put that aside for now.)

Sure, NPR came up with that cute concept of the “driveway moment”—the story you just have to finish listening to in your car—and even packages CDs of “driveway moment” stories. But what about those of us who struggle to find a good way to listen to WBEZ while bicycling? Or listen to it nearly constantly on the CTA, having to avoid the subway parts of the L while our favorite shows are on, struggling through the interference-plagued reception downtown (and on Halsted around UIC—I don’t know why that’s a problem)? Maybe your market research indicates the majority of your listeners drive—but that’s no reason to always shut everyone else out.

Perhaps this sounds trivial, but I’m tired of being ignored, when I’ve been a fanatical WBEZ listener my whole time in Chicago (remember “Your Radio Playhouse?” remember Aaron Freeman talking all Saturday afternoon?). I don’t have “driveway moments,” except when visiting my parents. I have moments of standing in doorways listening until I have to take my earphones off and go to the show or talk or class or whatever. I’m not NOT pledging because of this—if I put off pledging, it’s because I’m lazy, or paralyzed with indecision—what’s the best time to call? When a WBEZ person who’s an acquaintance is doing the pledge drive, so they might recognize my name when they read pledges’ names on-air? While there’s someone offering to double all the pledges received? When you offer really great “premia” “today only?” I’ve got no excuse for not pledging. But your car-centrism has peeved me for a long, long time. I wonder if I should note every “you’re in your car,” “you’re stuck in traffic,” etc. comment made during pledge time, add up $5 for each example, and send my money to the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation instead?

I’d already written this rant in my head when the afternoon of March 5, I got a shock during an afternoon pledge pitch. While on the Kimball bus heading to Lawrence, I heard Chip Mitchell, your reporter for the Humboldt Park (my hood!) bureau, say “you’re in your car… or the bus or train” and I was in shock. Awesome! The one moment of inclusion in years and years of pledge listening. There’s hope for you yet.

Chicago birthday part two

Right after I wrote the previous post I briefly visited the Chicago History Museum, a place I get to scandalously infrequently considering how interested I am in Chicago history, and how it's just a bus ride away, in an area I easily visit 5 times a week, maybe? They were having free admission from 11-1 for Chicago's birthday party. I missed whatever performances took place. The Chicago Public Library had a table set up with lots of free copies of the books they've used for their "One Book, One Chicago" program. Now, I'm the last person in the world who needs free books, especially since for weeks now I've been taking out free books from this place. But I love "retired" library books, so I got The Things They Carried and The Coast of Chicago. It was the last copy of the latter, and a man browsing the table expressed disappointment to the librarian...he'd wanted to get a book set in Chicago on Chicago's birthday (my thinking too). Luckily, I pointed out that A Raisin in the Sun is set in Chicago, so I hope that helped. People who share Chicago's birthday were given a certificate or something, but my friend who does was probably at work at the time and like most people couldn't visit a museum at noon on a Tuesday. Oh well.

There's a nice sign section in the lobby, shown above, and an original L car. I also took a quick look at the Sullivan section of the architecture exhibit and the section on Chicago businesses and inventions. Surprisingly, the Chicago Food display doesn't have any of the Chicago candy companies (but it does have Wrigley and Cracker Jack). I picked up a few brochures. I've never been on any of CHM's tours but I hope to check out one of their L tours--they offer the Brown, Blue, Green (West) and Green (South). Green (South) is next Sunday...I think it's possibly the most interesting, and I'm planning to go.

I got some hot chocolate (just okay) and a potato bagel with honey butter (longtime fave) from Einstein. When I boarded the #72 at Wells, the driver said she'd be gone for "3 minutes" and I used the time (it really was 3 minutes) to take photos--no other passengers, and I don't know if I've ever been completely alone on a bus before. Unfortunately, the photos were blurry. But here's the inside of a CTA bus, for any of you who've never seen one.

Happy birthday Chicago!

Arrows
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

Today is Chicago's 171st "birthday" and I'm giving it the same thing I always do--the "gift" of documenting it obsessively. I'm pretty far along in one major project. And my newest idea is to walk the entire Pedway, which has always been a mystery to me.

Chicago's birthday is also the same as that of a friend who's worked for the city for 20 years, currently in the Department of Bicycles (okay, the bike department of the Chicago Department of Transportation). It's a day after my mom's birthday and the day before my friend Jason's birthday. I haven't called the friends yet, but I called my mom. The line was busy, but when I tried again I learned it wasn't the modem, it was another call, because my parents finally got DSL. I'd been telling them to for years, mostly because of my difficulties reaching them. And my last trip to visit them was my first after getting into Flickr and the rest, and it was excruciating. Considering my parents both have websites, do lots of online research, have friends around the world, and put up photo essays from their travels, I don't know why it took them so long.

Anyway, if you can, try something new in Chicago today. Rather than some flashy architecture photo, I've put up this cute scene from my neighborhood--I don't take nearly enough photos of Humboldt Park considering how long I've lived here. Re: the previous post--I didn't end up on "190 North." And every time I post something personal, I get afraid to check the blog for a while, afraid people will comment, more afraid they won't...

Just doing my part for "awareness"

First, upbeat disclosure #1: I always like Leap Day because it's my half-birthday, and even though no one's supposed to pay attention to their age being whatever-and-a-half after age, say, 5, I still think it's cool.
Upbeat disclosure #2: A segment I was interviewed for is slated to air on ABC Ch. 7's "190 North" show this Sunday, March 2. (10:35 pm). More on that later.
Upbeat disclosure #3: Since I joined Flickr the day after my birthday, I've now been on there six months. It's changed my life in so many ways, cheesy as that sounds. And fixing my photo sizes makes it so much better. Flickr tells you what your top 200 photos are by # of views, # of comments, and # of favoritings, and as of last week 200 different photos of mine have been picked as favorites! (it's more now) This weekend also marks 6 months since I started MySpace, and restarted this blog (8/31/07, before I knew how to post pictures here). I'm feeling pretty good about all that.

The four photos here are the beautiful former theater, turned into stores, currently being demolished in Albany Park (Lawrence & Spaulding). This first shot managed to displace what for four months had been my "most interesting" photo on Flickr (don't ask, no one really knows how that's determined). If only this building could defend itself...I didn't go inside it, but easily could have.


So, the reason for this post: March 1st is Self-Injury Awareness Day (SIAD), and though I can be cynical about "awareness" campaigns for social problems, mental disorders, etc., I've wanted to take note of this one for years now, but as pointed out above, I didn't have much of an Internet presence until the past six months. SIAD comes at the end of Eating Disorders Awareness Week. I don't think that's on purpose, but these problems often overlap, and I wrote a zine about them a few years ago. I've never had an eating disorder, though I may have taken a few steps in that direction. But self-injury, in my case, cutting, is something I'm quite familiar with.

I wrote a lot about it in the past (2004-05), and I wrote about it with as much of an edgy sense of humor as I could muster, because I didn't want to be like all the stereotypical depressed goth or emo teens with their lurid websites about "crimson tears" and their sad poetry. If that's "therapeutic" for them, fine, but I wanted to be the bright, almost cheerful poster child for self-injury.

I don't want to say much about the details. I had my methods and my different supplies (some from dollar stores, some from art supply stores). Nothing I did ever required formal medical treatment, so I can say now it "wasn't that bad." It'd be scary if I was the type who really went out of control now and then and hurt myself terribly, but in a way it's even scarier that it was just an ordinary habit for me, for months, a daily routine, like brushing my teeth.

I didn't have any terrible trauma in my past, and though that's a major trigger for many self-injurers, it's not the only cause, and I wish the otherwise fine book A Bright Red Scream acknowledged that. I just had a lot of built-up misery and at the time didn't have enough people close to me to express it to, which of course made me feel even worse about myself, and...

I got better. Even though this habit can be very hard to break--and of course that sounds improbable to anyone who can't imagine doing it even once--it's possible to stop. I don't have any great triumphant story of recovery, I just found people to talk to, and started to feel weird (though never ashamed, exactly) about what I was doing, and realized it'd be good to stop. And I stopped. And I had relapses. But now it's been over three years since I cut myself, and about a year since I've done anything I'd define as self-injury. As for impulses to do it...more recent than you'd like to know. But this does feel like such a part of my past. You'd have to look at me really, really closely to know I used to do this.

Then why bring it up? I believe in the awareness campaign language of "breaking the silence" and "ending the shame" or whatever. I do think self-injury has gotten a decent amount of informed, sensitive media coverage. Unfortunately, the coverage is still focused almost entirely on teenagers who do it, possibly with a few adult self-injurers who started as teens thrown in. I never did this till I was 27. I felt even worse about doing it, thinking I was having my "troubled teen" years ten years late. So many problems and disorders are covered in a "what about the children?!" way in the media--it felt like once you're in your 20s or older, you're on your own. No one's watching out for you anymore. Happily, I eventually managed to find people who cared. I'm proud of the fact that I beat something that can be so addicting for so many. I'm proud of the fact that I did it without any help from the mental health system, too, but I don't want to sound like I'm "better" than those who do seek "official" help.

There's so much more I could discuss. The media's enduring love affair with self-destructive female celebrities (the novel here is from 1956)--back then, I had an unhealthy fixation on Mary-Kate Olsen's troubles (anorexia and possibly self-injury). Or the fact that the shooter at NIU had a history of self-injury and published a paper on self-injury among prisoners. I still check in on the excellent Self-Injury & Related Issues website now and then, mostly to look at recent news items about self-injury, which are nearly always about teens (there's a new documentary coming up); a good American resource on self-injury is here. I'm not sure what good this little consciousness-raising exercise did, whether it was anything other than "too much information" on a blog that's supposed to be about exploring Chicago, but I wanted to say my piece, and there it is.

There've been some changes around here

First off, thanks to the reader who alerted me to this post at the Uptown Update blog that made use of the Riviera photo from my "Thriftiness" post, improperly and hilariously citing my blog as "City of Density." I've barely yet investigated the oft-vicious world of Chicago neighborhood blogs...And thanks to the blogs that recently added mine--General Carlessness; Bright Lights, Dim Beauty; reallyboring (who I've added) and the Ecology of Absence blog, the first I know of to actually quote and link to one of my posts. I'd listed the Ecology of Absence site but overlooked the blog; it's blogrolled now.

Also added: EveryBlock Chicago, which is a news feed for, well, every block; The Beachwood Reporter (a sort of newspaperish site); B12 Solipsism (a photo/news/random stuff blog by the guy known as Swanksalot on Flickr); Ottermatic and Shapely Prose (two Chicago blogs that cover weight issues a lot; the latter's founder, Kate Harding, was on the cover of RedEye last week, and the article actually wasn't bad). I definitely overthink the way the links are organized...for the record, everything until the "More architecture..." section in the lists is based in Chicagoland, except for a few in the top "Architecture" category, but everything in there is Midwestern, at least. I deleted the bicycle/transit and "Health and happiness" categories and moved those links. I haven't done really extensive searches of Chicago blogs, so I'm sure I'll have more before long, and there are friends I'd like to promote who have Flickr pages and other sites but not blogs...we'll see.

The biggest change is the addition of several new categories for some of the non-Chicago political/personal blogs I enjoy. Many were old favorites, and others were discovered as I went through hundreds of links on old favorites' blogrolls. I chose blogs that had posted something new in at least the past couple weeks, are well-written (of course I don't agree with everything, and picked several that challenge some of my views), and weren't exclusively personal blogs (nothing wrong with those, they're just not what I want to list there). The lists are here for my convenience more than anything. I don't expect any of these blogs to blogroll me since I don't write much political content here. Nor will I explain right now why these are the particular causes I care about.

So. There's a general category for political/feminist blogs (* = group blogs), and categories for three issues I particularly care about. Adoption: reform-oriented blogs by people who are one or more of the following: adoptees, especially international/transracial adoptees, birth mothers, adoptive mothers. Mental health: by people who've experienced psychiatric treatment. Weight/body image: fat acceptance/anti-diet oriented. Big Fat Blog, Shapely Prose, and Ottermatic fit that category, but since they're Chicago, they're elsewhere. I'd like to be a member at Big Fat Blog (a blog I've known about for years, but didn't realize was Chicago-based till last year). I understand why they don't want diet-talk there, but their "please don't register if" says: "You are interested in losing weight now (or possibly in the future, maybe - like you're actively planning on it)" and well, I would like to...I just wouldn't make a big deal of it. The Health Institute of Nutrition (THIN) and Fascism Advocacy Center are satirical sites that may baffle those not familiar with their respective issues. But I think they're cool.

All for now, though I'll have another, somewhat depressing post up within a day. Soon I'd like to put up "A Walk in Albany Park", because I did in fact get photos of the building mentioned in the previous post, and buy donuts (pretty good) at Donut Doctor. Okay, it's not a bad place...just don't let the orange-and-lavender color scheme scare you away!

Glued to the computer

Sunny day inside Donut Doctor
Originally uploaded by katherine of chicago

I love this photo, but the place I took it in--Donut Doctor, a donut/ice cream place at Lawrence & Kimball--turned out to be quite bleak. I didn't have any donuts. But perhaps I'll check in on them again when I go out today to get shots of a beautiful building a block east. I'd noticed it'd become suspiciously devoid of businesses and now according to this great post at A Chicago Sojourn, it's going to be demolished.

Other than that...well, when I'm not replacing 100s of photos on my Flickr photostream (I'm 1/3 of the way through!) with larger-sized ones, I'm deleting 100s of duplicate photos from iPhoto so I have room to upload new shots to the computer (from a very fun Sunday of exploration...not to mention more of the shots from last Sunday's Gary exploration), or I'm combing through 100s of blogs to add a new non-Chicago culture/politics section to the blogroll. I've tried to take time away from these obsessive tasks to read books, and cook, and go out. But I've also been a little sick (cold, not flu). I'm usually only sick one or two days a year, but this has been five days, though only Sat. and Sun. (the days I ran around cold buildings, and interacted with actual people, not just the computer) felt truly unpleasant.

Yesterday Flickr seemed to go haywire for people using Safari, so I'm back to Firefox, which I'm pleased to see still works on my computer (when I last tried it months ago it didn't). Right after midnight last night the power on my block (just the north side) went out for 40 minutes. When the power came back, my small TV didn't work when I tried to turn it back on, so I had to dig through piles of junk to be able to unplug it and move it to a different place (works now) and when I did so, I found many of my winter clothes I hadn't properly put away last year, and now my winter wardrobe has almost doubled and I'm almost hoping it stays cold so I can wear all these sweaters and velvety pants and whatnot.

I'm sure I could give you many more examples of the bizarre and obsessive things I've been up to, but I'd better get out of the apartment now. Next post will be about additions to and reshuffling of the blogroll.