spring break trip to Milwaukee :)

Went Milwaukee with Miriam for a day... Just a quick dash through some of the photos...
First, we went to an amazing photography exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum... for those of you unfamiliar the museum was designed by the amazing architect Santiago Calatrava (here's a photo of the whole museum... and get this... the "wings" close at night!!!!!)

The exhibit we saw was called Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography, 1940–1959 (that link is very much worth a click)... some mid-century photographers just beginning to break the boundaries of what had until then been primarily a medium for portraits and journalism. The grainy battlefield pix from WWII inspired them to capture the movement and moments of urban life... it was really quite amazing exhibit, I wish I could transport each of you there (especially Goblinbox, I think you'd really get into it!)

Here are some pix of Miri and I playing around with the architecture and objets d'art...










Of course, even the parking garage is spectacular...




Miriam had booked massages for us for later in the day which was a brilliant idea... mine was a birthday present, thank you dearie!!! so much!!!!

While waiting for the massage time we shopped around some vintage stores in the Bayview neighborhood, Milwaukee's answer to what Williamsburg used to be like when we lived in NYC. I bought a bunch of LP's (yes, actual vinyl) for Loopy for her birthday - vinyl is apparently making a comeback among music aficionados (aficionadi?) and she's getting a turntable from Mom for her birthday (I can say all this cuz she never reads my blog, haha!)(not that it would be a very big surprise... I have to ask her what kind of turntable to get :P ) So I picked some classic records either because I know she loves them or, for most of them, because they had great cover art or an enclosed booklet that's still there, or whatever. that was a blast...

Dinner was delicious, rare tuna in a yummy salad and "Asian slaw," peanutty noodley cabbagey goodness. All this at a very down-home feeling place called Lulu Cafe.

The-e-e-e-e-n, as if it could get any better, Miriam had booked an amazing art deco hotel via Priceline... deliciously cushy beds and a DEEP WATER TUB which alone would almost have made the trip worthwhile.........

AND of course I had to indulge in my passion for ROOM SERVICE...



Room service chocolate cake = $13
Room service delight = priceless :)




The next morning after the above room-service breakfast (fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice in its own little carafe!) Miriam brought out the art supplies and I made a collage while she looked through the exhibition book she'd bought at the museum. Miriam commented that she's like my drug dealer, except for with art.




The finished piece is called "The Gaze, aka doing this project made me want to visit Cuba." (the frame for all the faces is an old Cuban building with arcades around a courtyard...)

Checked out an hour late because of the collage, happy happy happy as a clam. Drove home with my "Drive to Milwaukee Mix" on my iPod. All's right with the world.

Have some work to finish up today and Sunday, hope to enjoy Saturday THOROUGHLY with my lovey. This spring break has been delightful and restorative. The weather has gotten extremely mild and delicious... after I take the dog for a walk I'm gonna open all the windows. Welcome spring!

(added a new tag... I had tags for depression, fear, and death... now I have a tag for "happy" :) :) :) )

winter blahs

so another year older... last week or two i've been going downhill pretty steadily... so tired... think the winter's getting to me... have felt over my head at school - have three classes instead of two - and a lot of new students, few of whom are at all pleasant; meanwhile most of my old favorite students are gone to other teachers. or so it seems atm. and i just got a raft of additional responsibilities which, at the time i volunteered for them, seemed exciting and an honor, but now seem overwhelming and heavy.

i did promise myself on my birthday, to try to take care of myself this year and not look for other people to cheer me...

i probably just need some sleep. did i write before that i got diagnosed with sleep apnea? but i'm still waiting for the treatment, for various reasons. i'm sleepy all the time, and every time i sit down i fall asleep. it's embarrassing in meetings and really not good in the classroom - hafta stay on my feet all day. i even wrecked my car falling asleep while driving, so i don't really drive anymore.

on the plus side, my psychiatrist is also a doctor of sleep medicine and she said i'd probably lose a lot of weight once i get my treatment (a cpap machine - Loopy already has one) and need less medication. we'll see. it would be nice to have my waist back lol. most of all it would be nice to want to stay awake past 8:30.

so... you know... that's how it is sometimes...

on the plus side, Loopy bought me 4 dozen roses, a chocolate cake, and a wireless printer for my birthday. we went out to eat at a Japanese home cooking restaurant, one of my faves. yay!

hip pappy bithuthday! the celebrations begin

I always make a big thing out of my birthday, as I mentioned in 2006 (part 1 and part 2), 2007, and 2009. In 2008 I was in bad-job hell and apparently either had no fun for my birthday or failed to comment upon it. In 2005 I posted on my birthday with no mention thereof. Go figure.


Anyway, my celebration began on Saturday at the Art Institute, where I met some fun people (through my Meetup.com group that I created, Lakeshore Sketching & Painting). We went to the Asian gallery that's basically the first thing inside the entrance, and went to work - I sketched an 11th-century statue of Vishnu (in the guise of a man-lion) tearing a demon apart. Kinda gruesome, but hey, there was a bench in front of it.

I developed affection for the statue as I sketched it. Particularly for the very, very subtle curve of arms and legs that made them appear so graceful yet strong. At left, my little effort, which reflects the fact that I couldn't resist a pack of colored pencils in the gift shop.

Then, yesterday, we went shopping at Macy's (celebrating Valentine's Day by spending the day together, but I'm considering it a dual-purpose celebration, also counting as part of my birthday :) ). I bought a new coat so now I look like a grownup with a job instead of a homeless person. I love my new coat - it's brown suede lined with plush faux mink that's sooooo soft and yummy. Super-warm too. Then to go with it I needed a new hat, gloves and scarf. I spent $80 on the coat (between a sale and a $50 gift card) so is it unreasonable that I spent $180 on a sheepskin hat? I think yes, but it's brown, matches the coat, and I think both appropriate for Chicago yet not unattractive.

I stopped myself from also buying a new briefcase and shoes. Well, I didn't really stop myself; we ran out of time.

Also hit Lane Bryant and got new jeans (finally) and new pants for work, which necessitated new underwear. If you don't know what I mean, don't ask.

So we went a lil nuts. It was great. We topped it off with dinner at our fave sushi restaurant where I had the chef's special for $40 - and it was special indeed!!! Worth every penny! (of course I could have had the chef's very special for $80, so it's not like I didn't practice some restraint!)

Today the plan is to get some work done and also get my hair cut and colored. I will look like a new woman at work tomorrow. (Yes, we had a four-day weekend! Yay!)

This coming weekend, Rie and her significant other are visiting, so that will be a blast - and it's specifically designated as a birthday celebration, since she and I have almost the same b'day, yay!

The following weekend is when I'll have my birthday party, where I'll gather a bunch of people from two previous jobs, the current job, and one from the meditation center - it's kind of a motley crew, we'll see how it works out. We're going to dim sum at the Phoenix, which we have greatly enjoyed in the past.

On my actual birthday we have to do something, because in the past, if we don't, I have gotten kind of depressed. So we'll probably have dinner out somewhere.

So that's the birthday plan for this year. I love my birthday.

zoo

yesterday we went to the Brookfield Zoo, in honor of Loopy's birthday, which is tomorrow. it was really wonderful, both because it's an amazing zoo and because we had a lot of fun together. it's possible that ice cream was also consumed, but i refuse to verify that rumor.

pix are on flickr.


we have been through a lot lately - a LOT - and it was really great to get some good time together and just enjoy each other's company in a way we haven't in a long time. really, really great. i love my wifey so, so much... n i have the impression that she loves me too. maybe. a lil bit anyway. ;)

summer usually brings us closer because we have more time together, although i'm usually a little crazy so that's no fun, especially since in recent years i'm looking for and/or preparing for a new job. maybe this summer i can be less crazy. what with the new meds and all. i'll work on that.

wifey may rightly reserve judgment, though, until i can prove that i can balance work life and home life better next year. fingers crossed... and this summer i'll try to practice the things that will help me do that effectively... (well first i'll try to figure out what those are. that's what therapy is for.)

so yeah. at this time of year i start to say "fuck it" to my job, and my students say the same, so we are all quarrelsome for the duration, tho we all also feel we can endure anything for the remaining weeks.

their progress reports come out this week and in past quarters, i would have spent the pre-progress-report weekend freaking out completely, desperately trying to grade everything and enter it in the online gradebook, miserable over anything i couldn't grade. probably crying.

this weekend, instead, i went to the zoo; went to meditation; napped a lot (some of it during meditation ;) ); went to Target and Costco (where we picked up our favorite gigantic chocolate cake for Loopy's birthday—promising each other that we will only eat a few pieces before i take it to work, instead of eating it every day for two weeks, like last time (did I mention that it's a gigantic cake?)); watched episodes of "House" and "The Tudors"...

....and....

...i'm just gonna override their grades and give them what grades i think they deserve. hee hee. as long as they're all B's and C's (and a few A's) nobody will complain.

so thank you wifey for a great weekend, and for everything, everything, everything.

birthday coming round again...

today i want to go see this art exhibit
.

i'm hoping Loopy will want to go and will actually enjoy it. she might. it may involve naked people, and who doesn't enjoy that?

well, if not, at least we can have lunch somewhere new and just enjoy each other (the museum is way up in a northern suburb so new territory to explore).

it would be the beginning of my birthday celebration. (i've posted about birthdays and even one of the memories that follow in other years, but i don't care... :) )

next weekend we are going to Madison to spend Saturday with herspiral and her husband. then we're going to have a party two weeks after my birthday. we realized we know and like six people in chicago. that's enough for a party. :) two former coworkers plus one fiancé, one current coworker, and a guy i used to know when we were small children plus his wife whom we met for dinner with my mother and who turned out to be delightful.

i always try to have an extended birthday celebration, at least two weeks and sometimes a month, full of gathered friends and special pleasures. one of these is usually a museum - often an art museum, tho one year it was the . (i didn't consciously create this tradition, but when i ask myself where can i give myself purest joy, that's usually my answer). when i was in college i went to the Museum of Fine Arts at least twice... once I went alone and sketched this piece:


I spent all afternoon, allowed myself to just fall into it, alone in the dimly lit gallery, just become completely absorbed with nothing else to do... it was one of the greatest pleasures of my life. (Of course i had forgotten and missed a meeting with my thesis advisor so guilt and rushing quickly resumed their usual roles...)

(some of you - to the extent that there are any of you! - might know that I am or used to be, or sometimes am an artist, of sorts, maybe. as well as photography i know how to paint and draw, though i haven't for years. after i left art school i was always working on a painting or other piece in my head, but never painted them and the ideas stopped coming. though just this morning i saw a piece in the New Yorker that reminded me of one of these unborn or stillborn ideas... it sounds ludicrously obvious if i describe it but i wanted to make it haunting.... i have a number of pieces in my head related to different phases in my perceptions of our current system of schooling (wouldn't dignify it by calling it 'education') and the harm it does especially to Black children...)

ANYWAY! birthdays.

another year i went to the Museum of Fine Arts with Sylvia and Franklin and we came upon this painting:


(MFA has ridiculously gigantic links - that one was 562 characters!)

It says in the upper right corner - and is titled - "D'ou venons-nous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons-nous?"

Sylvia commented with wry amusement (misreading the middle phrase), 'We came from Cambridge. We're in the museum. We're going to lunch.'

It is a beautiful painting...

in recent years I have taken to breezing through museums... the slow pondering way I used to traverse them has come to seem too painfully obsessive to me... i remember feeling very driven to absorb all the information about all the works and slot it into a massive database in my brain... it's a relief to leave that behind... associate it with Harvard and over-achievement. Loopy has taught me this...

at the same time I hurry more than I would without Loopy (she may be surprised to hear that! heh)... she is not the biggest-ever fan of museums and i try to balance our conflicting desires for depth and speed by looking at one or two things in each room in depth, then skipping the rest - it's a good Buddhist practice to just let go. it's a good human practice to remember others and be considerate... had to do the same in Iran. consider the group and don't get sucked into anything...

there is a sort of agreement tho that for my birthday i get to linger and savor... be a lil bit selfish... maybe?

This makes it sound like I don't have fun at museums with Loopy. i do. i have a lot of fun - it's just a different kind of fun. Loopy has definitely added new dimensions to museum going... we have little games that sound silly when i describe them, so i deleted the descriptions, but we have little games we play among the objects, that bring us into our own shared world and give us (or me anyway) a lot of pleasure... and i'm looking forward to today, I'm gonna go wake her up.

It also occurs to me that since this is Valentine's Day, maybe I should offer to do something that SHE wants to do. hmmm. there's a concept. ;) anyway i miss her and will go wake her up. :) even though i didn't make her Valentine's Day project which i still want to :) and will!

lil added bonus: while browsing the MFA site i discovered a section on wallpapers for your phone... i don't get why you'd buy them since you can just download them or screenshot them and then email them to your phone, but maybe if you have a simpler phone you can't do that. Anyway, their suggested wallpapers are fun, including some like this:


i love that lil frog. if i didn't already have a lovely picture of Loopy i might get any one of these....

icing on the cake

so between walking, lying on ice, and taking a lot of pills (it's actually been lovely, the first time I've been pain-free since January 3 - I didn't realize how much pain I'd been in b/c I'd just gotten used to it!) I did some more research on the job situation and finally found a good starting point in chicago.

I figured if I could just find one school that's a place I'd like to teach, hopefully I can talk with principal and teachers there and get their recommendations for other places to try. So today... I found one! Yay!

Check it out... only 18 minutes from our current apartment in Chicago... and at least according tot he website, so close to my whole approach and teaching philosophy that I could just cry!

Although I love the "Six Feet Under" box set (it has furry "grass" on top!!), finding this school is the best birthday present I could have gotten.

Now I have to go lie down. Not only should I do that for my back, but I'm starting to feel queasy.... in addition to all the medication, I ate both the two Vosges chocolate bars Loopy gave me within the last few hours ("hey, it's my birthday!"), and, uh, yeah, that wasn't such a great idea.

birthday extravaganza continues!!

So Wednesday night we had dinner w Miri and Dylan - we shared the "All-American Feast," i.e., heaps o' meat bigger than your head, at Famous Dave's on Park Street. Mmmmm. Gotta love that Georgia chop pork..... second only to the oh-my-god ribs. And we all got extra corn muffins! It was heavenly.



And Thursday night it was a fancy-shmancy spread at Lombardino's w Shamus and Ang... Shamus sprang for some absolutely spectacular wine, which went wonderfully with our appetizers (calamari, cheese plate - w pine nut cake and scrumptious sweet preserves offsetting the cheeses, a spicy pizza, and some gorgonzola-stuffed dates on thin slices of some kind of salami-like thing sprinkled with spicy sprouts) as well as our "primi piatti" (R & Ang had orechiette in some kind of fabulous cream sauce; I had pasta with chilis and MINT - so different and refreshing! - and Shamus had pasta with braised short ribs). And then there was another course, but I'm totally blanking out on it... oh yeah.... I had chicken, two people had pork, and someone had a filet. It was sooo delightful I was in seventh heaven.

The only downer was that we had to go elsewhere for dessert b/c Lombardino's wouldn't let us cut our cake there! Ohhh, and what a cake it was.... "La Brioche," chocolaty chocolate with extra chocolate, which wsa just fabulous. (Loopy said she asked if there was a particularly good cake and the woman behind the counter was so emphatic about this one that it was almost scary).



Today my actual bday I'm spending in bed, stoned out of my gourd on valium & vicodin, trying to get my back pain under control (doctor's orders!). I don't care. I'm so blissed out...

Loopy got me several delightful presents including the entire box set of "Six Feet Under" (yes, Miri, you can borrow the last season!). Yay!!!!

I am definitely the luckiest girl in the world.

hip pappy bithuthday to me, again! :-)

And we're starting the usual week-long celebration with a bouquet of GORGEOUS roses from my Mom!!! They smell so great, they look so great... aw gee... I love them.



Also, check this out...
George Takei responds to pro basketball player's anti-gay comments

It's really, really, really funny.

hip pappy bithuthday to meeee! (part 1)

(somebody please tell me you recognize that quote...)

Well, my actual "bithuthday" is not til Thursday, but my favorite way to celebrate is all week long, so...

Friday

It all started unofficially on Friday, with Chinese food & a movie with our friends Betsy and David. I love them. They are the funniest people ever in the history of the universe. (I say "unofficially" because I was the only person who knew I was already celebrating my birthday. But I was.)

That was the night it got so hideously cold—according to this page, the temperature dropped from ten to zero while we were at dinner, and dropped again from zero to minus ten while we were in the movie theater.

So when we were walking to the door of the theater discussing the movie, the conversation went like this: "And I loved the part where—(door opens into arctic blast)—hoooo!" "Yow!" "Holy shit!" "OK bye see ya soon!" "Bye thanks it was fun!" and we all took off running toward our cars. (If you don't believe Loopy was running, you weren't outside Friday night).

What did we see? "Walk The Line," again, of course. I'd see it again—seriously—I really like that movie. One note, though: recent evidence suggests that Johnny Cash was the all-time king of the earworm. I won't prove it to you, and for that, you should thank me.

Saturday

Saturday was wonderful. Best birthday in a long time and it wasn't even my birthday yet.

First, Loopy stole my phone.

She was gonna get me a Blackberry, but she chickened out because it's so expensive (I'm kinda glad because I'm not sure about it—I might get a Trio instead. I dunno).

But it was such a sweet and thoughtful plan and she was so cute (she wrapped up my phone with all the Blackberry brochures!), and she was so adorably excited about it all ("I dreamed this up months ago and I've been scheming ever since!"), that I totally forgave her for the part where I was standing in the icy 3-degree wind calling her from a pay phone.

Then, I picked Loopy up from her office per her request.

I had been out on the east side and almost went to Maharaja (our favorite Indian restaurant) for lunch, but didn't have time, so when I picked Loopy up I suggested we go there for dinner. She appeared to consider this for a moment, and agreed somewhat reluctantly, it seemed to me.

When we arrived at Maharaja, I saw that jab, her friend B, Ang, and Shamus were there—coincidence, I thought, until I saw Loopy's happy face and the big pile of presents!

It was a surprise party! (I love those!) And I had conveniently picked the restaurant where it was!

I didn't suspect a thing, not for a second! (Although once I knew, all kinds of little weird moments suddenly made sense....I started up the inevitable refrain of "So when you said this...and when you said that..." with Loopy; "I've been lying for days!" she crowed gleefully.

I resisted the temptation to pull a Sally Field and pounced on my loot:

• a purple lava lamp for my car dashboard (ya think it'll stand up to Wisconsin temperatures??)
  
• a set of rose-scented soap (I love rose-scented anything, just ask anyone who knew me in college)
  
• a classical guitar CD which I'm enjoying right now
  
• a Putumayo world music sampler, and
  
• a subscription to Radical Teacher (which turned into a subscription to the magazine of my choice since I already get RT). Do these guys know me or what?

I then polished off an entire masala dosa, during which I attained a state of cosmic bliss.

The Maharaja guys know us (Shamus is concerned that they know too much about us, like our names and birthdays, but since we've been going there for birthdays for three years it's not too terribly surprising) and they do little extra things for us. So I'm convinced they made the dosa especially good somehow—it really did seem even better than usual, and when I said as much to the waiter, he said, "of course, it's your birthday!"

If you doubt that, get this: they improvised a birthday-cake-like dessert by piling a bunch of Indian desserts on a plate and sticking a candle in the middle (Shamus and Ang both took pictures—send me one and I'll put it up here). Two scoops of mango ice cream topped by maraschino cherries, looking exactly like breasts, were the centerpiece of this concoction; they were surrounded by literally piles of kulfi and gulub jamun. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Monday

So let's see...birthday week continued Monday night when Miri treated me to dinner at The Weary Traveler, which I love and Loopy doesn't—those are the best places to go when your wife is out of town.

We had a great conversation as always, and I luxuriated in (not literally) a big ol' bowl of my favorite vegan chili (with added steak tips & thick-sliced bacon, to make it un-vegan) and two big hunks of cornbread (one extra cuz I asked nicely). This satisfying repast helped me sleep through meditation.

Today

As if all this weren't already more than anyone deserves, my intermittently long-lost cousin called me up out of the blue to wish me a happy bday, and my dear (and never-lost) college roommate Amerina sent me some nifty things.

One of dear Amy's gifts, while perfect and delightful, is impossible to describe (see it here). The other is also delightful but easier to describe: "chicks rule" bath soap—smells wonderful. These goodies were wrapped in Edward Gorey paper, of course, and accompanied by a card wishing me a better year ahead... you can say that again...thank you dearie!!

Tomorrow I head down to Chicago by bus, then Thursday (the actual birthday) Loopy and I have a Loopy-Loopy fun day (location and activity TBD, suggestions welcome) before dining at my (current) favorite Chicago restaurant—this time we're gonna have the prix fixe, I can't wait!!!

I might tell you all about it or I might not. I've certainly babbled on long enough in this post.

And that's all I have to say, so far, about what is turning out to be a really wonderful birthday week.