As Far As I Can Tell

Although very dorky, I can’t help but drink out of my Biggs|Gilmore coffee cup while doing freelance work for them. Yesterday, as I attempted to do this I threw up the piece of bread that I had just eaten. Today I’m a bit trepidations about it, sipping little by little and gauging the grumble of my belly.

I think my body hates me for making lunch an afternoon meal.

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The Logan Square blue line stop, in halves.

This morning I helped out Roberto, a Ph.D. candidate at the Illinois Institute of Design with some research he was doing. It was a sort of ethnographic study of people’s work environments, which I analyzed with another woman. He was basically studying us, and attempting to develop new theories on the uses of data analysis in the design process. It was pretty interesting, and I got paid $45, so all around it was worth it.

I’ve been considering graduate school more lately, specifically the Institute of Design. The programs I’m looking at would re–enforce the part of my education that I feel is too self taught. Things like interaction design, information architecture, usability, etc. I’m not interested in a masters program that focuses on just formal design issues; I feel like my undergraduate studies were really good in that regard.

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I don’t like Michael Graves. He’s just another one of those people who goes into design because they feel like they can’t make any money in art. He even brags about it in the video on his website. So you don’t want to be an engineer Mike? Maybe that’s because you don’t give a shit how things work as long as they’re your signature color of blue with your actual signature stamped on them too.

The problem with this type of design that is being touted by Target these days is that it tends to emphasis only the visual. Sure, it’s transparent plastic and makes your kitchen all match, but does it work? It gives design a bad name, and ends up creating a market where soap dishes are fashion statements.

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So I have a cat, her name is Birdie. I like her a lot, which surprises me a little. She’s lazy and paws at my belly with her claws like she’s milking it.

None of my mopeds work. Something needs to be done about that. Drat.

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I think I have more freelance work than I know what to do with. August is going to be a very busy month. I would like take August off, like it�s traditionally done. I love the fact that some places close for the month of August; �the vacation month�.

I need to wake up in the morning. Today, Ivo was kind enough to call and try to wake me up during his commute to work, but it didn�t work. I didn�t hear his message until a of couple hours later.

Starting next week I�m going to wake up every day at 8, make my coffee, read the news, answer email and get to work by 9. I�ve said it before, and I�ll say it again. We�ll see.

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$10 for a show is pushing it. I agree that the $5 show price has lasted too long without any flexibility for inflation, but $10? Come on. $7 I can do, $8 even.

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I want some corn with mayonnaise on it. What the fuck am I talking about�I don�t want corn on the cob with gross gobs of mayonnaise and chili pepper on it!

But for some intriguing reason�yes, yes I do.

A couple of days ago I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo:

This morning I woke up early to the quiet of my computers and air conditioner being off. It�s always weird when you�re startled by quiet instead of noise. My first thought was that I had blown a fuse since I have 4 power strips full of electronics plugged into one outlet, one of those items being an air conditioners that�s working it�s ass off in this sweltering summer heat.

I went down to the basement and played with the fuses for over an hour. They looked okay, so I tried swapping them around�eventually just getting new ones even though the old ones didn�t look blown (genius idea huh?). Nothing helped and the only thing gained was an understanding of what fuse goes to what. So I tried unplugging the power strip chain from the outlet, and the outlet spit sparks all up into my face. That blew the fuse.

I put on my giant, yellow rubber gloves that I bought specifically for dealing with touchy electrical problems, but every time I got near the outlet sparks flew; totally shady. I�ve swapped everything over to an extension cord from another room now; hopefully my landlord will come by tomorrow and fix it up.

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Meredith and I banked at National City when we lived in Kalamazoo. It�s a huge bank in Michigan, available in any city, and super convenient with ATM access everywhere. We thought that we�d be okay with keeping our accounts here in Chicago, but it turns out that the nearest branch is miles away downtown on Franklin Street. We haven�t swapped to new banks yet though, so today we needed to go down there to cash some checks.

I drove my truck, and found a parking spot directly across from the bank at a meter. Inside it was a weird setup with only one teller whose setup made it seem like you could only do complicated or �important� things with him. We did our normal check cashing with him, but it was weird; you sit in a chair while working with him. While there we ran into someone who recently moved from Kalamazoo and recognized Meredith from a Stunt Weasel show at The Space. National City seems to be a Kzoo connection.

Anyway, that�s the boring part. The strangeness started when we left and noticed a security guard and plain cloths police officer standing around my truck and jotting things down in a notepad. Apparently I wasn�t in a real parking spot, even though there was a meter, and I was blocking the driveway from some sort of Jewish organization. The cop started asking me all sorts of questions about what I was doing there, and bringing up the fact that Israeli and Palestinian tensions are really high right now. Apparently they were suspicious that my truck was a car bomb or something. It is shady I guess: totally rusted through, gas cans and unmarked bottles of fluid in the back, out of state plates that have the word �army� in them.

Then I lied to the cop. Why I did this I�m not really sure, but once I started I had to follow through with it. He asked me if I lived in Chicago and I said no. True, I�ve only lived here for two weeks, but it�s still a lie. I did it because I didn�t want him to ticket me for not having switched my plates, which is a pretty irrational reason to complicate the situation. He let us go, but I have a nervous, bad feeling about lying. I don�t know how it could, but I hope it doesn�t come back on me. I�m always nervous around the police for some reason, even though I don�t do anything illegal on a regular basis and have a clean past.

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I got a thank you note from my sister and brother in law today for some birthday presents that I sent them last week. Check out the return address label�yikes!