Prairie Landing
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Hemlines
What's up with this?
I think I like it, but I'm too lazy and timid to do it myself. Also it probably looks best on tall slim women, like most fashions, and would make me look like Yosemite Sam minus the beard.
Then there's this. How exactly does this look good?
I have to fight with tailors all the time about this. Everyone but me seems to have their pants about 1/8" from the ground. As I result I probably look like I bought all my clothes in Europe. In a special store for Europeans who eat at McDonald's, since I don't wear a size 21 or whatever the hell their sizes are.
Side note: Can Banana Republic really get away with charging $168 for these?
I think I like it, but I'm too lazy and timid to do it myself. Also it probably looks best on tall slim women, like most fashions, and would make me look like Yosemite Sam minus the beard.
Then there's this. How exactly does this look good?
I have to fight with tailors all the time about this. Everyone but me seems to have their pants about 1/8" from the ground. As I result I probably look like I bought all my clothes in Europe. In a special store for Europeans who eat at McDonald's, since I don't wear a size 21 or whatever the hell their sizes are.
Side note: Can Banana Republic really get away with charging $168 for these?
Sunday, January 23, 2005
The real problem with butt-ass cold weather
You may remember that in December, I was wandering around the neighborhood in single-digit temps in an effort to get rid of a headache. I mentioned that the sidewalks contained nothin' but me and the snow-tumbleweeds, and that contrary to my understanding of criminal behavior, a couple of local rapists had decided to take advantage of this situation by attacking women. One got caught but one didn't.
I realized that, while the hobbyist attacker might operate in nicer weather, bitter cold is really ideal for the dedicated predator. First, he has an excuse for being wrapped to the eyes. Second, the streets are deserted. And third, the few windblown pedestrians are also wrapped to the eyes and hunched over just trying to get the hell back to their warm apartments, i.e. not likely to see a stalker.
Well, it got super-cold again last week, plus it snowed every day. The other rapist decided to ply his trade in our vestibule. He jumped our neighborh, who luckily fought him off. We heard screaming but wrote it off as the usual Wrigleyville woo-hoo nonsense until we heard sirens, doorbell-ringing and door-pounding from the cops. Now the inside of our front door is covered with fingerprint dust and this morning a TV crew was out front interviewing girls about how scared they were.
I don't know what the hell to do about this. Last Wednesday when I came home from school (around 9:45) I got Colliculus to pick me up at the L stop. But I have class twice a week for four more months and that just seems ridiculous. Plus it's not all that much better the rest of the week when I get home at 7:45. I could get pepper spray but what, am I going to walk around with my finger on the trigger and wave it around to demonstrate my badness?
What I really want is a nightstick. Something that is simple but visible and says don't fuck with me. It has to fit in my backpack, too, or they probably won't let me on the train. I wish I still had the tire thumper given to me by Lauramander a few years back.
I realized that, while the hobbyist attacker might operate in nicer weather, bitter cold is really ideal for the dedicated predator. First, he has an excuse for being wrapped to the eyes. Second, the streets are deserted. And third, the few windblown pedestrians are also wrapped to the eyes and hunched over just trying to get the hell back to their warm apartments, i.e. not likely to see a stalker.
Well, it got super-cold again last week, plus it snowed every day. The other rapist decided to ply his trade in our vestibule. He jumped our neighborh, who luckily fought him off. We heard screaming but wrote it off as the usual Wrigleyville woo-hoo nonsense until we heard sirens, doorbell-ringing and door-pounding from the cops. Now the inside of our front door is covered with fingerprint dust and this morning a TV crew was out front interviewing girls about how scared they were.
I don't know what the hell to do about this. Last Wednesday when I came home from school (around 9:45) I got Colliculus to pick me up at the L stop. But I have class twice a week for four more months and that just seems ridiculous. Plus it's not all that much better the rest of the week when I get home at 7:45. I could get pepper spray but what, am I going to walk around with my finger on the trigger and wave it around to demonstrate my badness?
What I really want is a nightstick. Something that is simple but visible and says don't fuck with me. It has to fit in my backpack, too, or they probably won't let me on the train. I wish I still had the tire thumper given to me by Lauramander a few years back.
Monday, January 17, 2005
About the weather
This weekend The Chief and his new friend V came to visit us. Apparently you can get cheap flights to Chi-town in January. They did the Mag Mile thing and got so cold, they were saying things like, "Let's check out this store!" and ducking into Walgreen's.
On Saturday we all went to a party thrown by one of Colliculus's colleagues. Someone was trying to explain the term "Californication" as the disillusionment that happens to people when they move to LA and their dreams are dashed. The Chief said, "I always thought it meant titty-fucking." The room emptied in less than 20 seconds.
Anyway, about the weather, I feel like some explanation is in order. First and most importantly, Chicago is NOT called the Windy City because it is windy. There's plenty of debate about why it's called that, but meteorologists will tell you that there is no more wind here than anyplace else. Normally meteorologists are full of crap, but this time I'll back them up. If anything, there might've been more wind on the East Coast, and I'm quite sure Kansas and places like that are windier.
A more sophisticated myth is that we get lots of snow due to the lake effect. First of all, we don't. People here are just as upset about 4 inches of snow as they were in Baltimore, because mostly it just flurries. Second, lake effect snow generally blows east. The prevailing westerlies do their thing, they get to a lake and pick up moisture, then they dump it on the unfortunate residents of western Michigan or upstate New York. Kalamazoo, eat your heart out.
Regarding the belief that it's ckin-cold here . . . OK, I'd like to argue with this one in the interest of promoting tourism, but I guess there's no point. Right now, weather.com says it's 4 degrees. The Chief said it was so cold, it felt like cold from another planet.
I don't actually mind that it gets so cold. It's supposed to be cold in January. My beef is entirely with the month of April. In Maryland, April is sort of a mixed bag of nice, unseasonably horrid, and in-between days. Here, it all just sucks, and any unexpected blizzards get pushed back to May.
One additional myth that I myself promulgated last winter is that Chicagoans are hard-core about the weather. Disappointingly, that only goes so far. On Friday, a bunch of my coworkers were trying to share cabs and saying things like, "I'm not going out this weekend in this" and "You think I'm going on public transportation tonight??" Others have assured me that this sentiment is not universal.
On Saturday we all went to a party thrown by one of Colliculus's colleagues. Someone was trying to explain the term "Californication" as the disillusionment that happens to people when they move to LA and their dreams are dashed. The Chief said, "I always thought it meant titty-fucking." The room emptied in less than 20 seconds.
Anyway, about the weather, I feel like some explanation is in order. First and most importantly, Chicago is NOT called the Windy City because it is windy. There's plenty of debate about why it's called that, but meteorologists will tell you that there is no more wind here than anyplace else. Normally meteorologists are full of crap, but this time I'll back them up. If anything, there might've been more wind on the East Coast, and I'm quite sure Kansas and places like that are windier.
A more sophisticated myth is that we get lots of snow due to the lake effect. First of all, we don't. People here are just as upset about 4 inches of snow as they were in Baltimore, because mostly it just flurries. Second, lake effect snow generally blows east. The prevailing westerlies do their thing, they get to a lake and pick up moisture, then they dump it on the unfortunate residents of western Michigan or upstate New York. Kalamazoo, eat your heart out.
Regarding the belief that it's ckin-cold here . . . OK, I'd like to argue with this one in the interest of promoting tourism, but I guess there's no point. Right now, weather.com says it's 4 degrees. The Chief said it was so cold, it felt like cold from another planet.
I don't actually mind that it gets so cold. It's supposed to be cold in January. My beef is entirely with the month of April. In Maryland, April is sort of a mixed bag of nice, unseasonably horrid, and in-between days. Here, it all just sucks, and any unexpected blizzards get pushed back to May.
One additional myth that I myself promulgated last winter is that Chicagoans are hard-core about the weather. Disappointingly, that only goes so far. On Friday, a bunch of my coworkers were trying to share cabs and saying things like, "I'm not going out this weekend in this" and "You think I'm going on public transportation tonight??" Others have assured me that this sentiment is not universal.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Transgenic goats, unite!
My client is holding something called War Games for which I had to research a bunch of drugs. The most interesting of these is made from transgenic goats' milk. Apparently that's a cheap way to produce complex biologic drugs. I just googled "transgenic goat" and 102,000 entries came up.
I never knew before this job that there are all kinds of new drugs that are not technically drugs, but proteins and antibodies and the like. People synthesize them out of human and mouse proteins. The FDA doesn't even really consider them drugs, since they're not chemicals but free agents that wander around your body acting like they belong there. I find this stuff fascinating and am glad I didn't have to go to grad school to enjoy it.
Recently I read Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, which is an "in the near future"-type dystopia that I highly recommend. In that book drug companies lord over the world. Corporate employees in all industries live in isolated compounds, but drug company compounds are the best. I find that creepily true to life.
I never knew before this job that there are all kinds of new drugs that are not technically drugs, but proteins and antibodies and the like. People synthesize them out of human and mouse proteins. The FDA doesn't even really consider them drugs, since they're not chemicals but free agents that wander around your body acting like they belong there. I find this stuff fascinating and am glad I didn't have to go to grad school to enjoy it.
Recently I read Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, which is an "in the near future"-type dystopia that I highly recommend. In that book drug companies lord over the world. Corporate employees in all industries live in isolated compounds, but drug company compounds are the best. I find that creepily true to life.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Proof that I live in a real city
You know how in New York, the downtown stores do up Christmas with outrageously glam window displays? They do that here too. This was a novelty for me since in Baltimore, no one bothered except the library, and in Providence, I don't even know what you'd "do up" other than the Blue Bug on I-95. So I got that warm and fuzzy 1950s feeling of living in a city where people actually give a damn and will consider doing their Christmas shopping someplace without free parking.
Here are several photos from around my L stop. Marshall Fields had a "Snow White" theme of some kind.
I guess this is Snow White's mom. That window has an assload of iridescent glitter.
No explanation necessary.
Hail, hail the gods of commerce! Make straight their path!
Here are several photos from around my L stop. Marshall Fields had a "Snow White" theme of some kind.
I guess this is Snow White's mom. That window has an assload of iridescent glitter.
No explanation necessary.
Hail, hail the gods of commerce! Make straight their path!
Monday, January 03, 2005
So bad! But sort of good
One of Colliculus's students went to Raleighwood for the holidays and presented C. with a country-bluegrass cover of "The Wall" by Luther Wright and the Wrongs. It's not as bad as I thought, mainly because it's faster than the original. Plus the lyrics' hokiness seems a little more comfortable in a country album.
Said student also rode a mechanical bull. Apparently R-wood now has some big new corporate country palace downtown. Which, needless to say, is exactly what that town needs.
Said student also rode a mechanical bull. Apparently R-wood now has some big new corporate country palace downtown. Which, needless to say, is exactly what that town needs.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
We spent half of our week away in New York, visiting Noise Footprint, Ianqui, and others I am too lazy to make up pseudonyms for. They've both posted accounts of our doings there (as has Colliculus), but highlights for me included two new chocolate experiences: Brooklyn Chocolate Stout and MarieBelle hot chocolate. Be still my (alternately suppressed and stimulated) heart!
We also saw a photo exhibit on whiteness which was good though small. Not surprisingly, for some of the installations I had to read the explanation to figure out what the point was, since it just looked like a picture of some girls doing normal things. The same museum had a large exhibit of a photographer named Meatyard who seemed remarkably well-balanced, for a photographer named Meatyard.
I totally love New York. I see Chicago as New York Lite, with almost as much going on and almost as many endless blocks of wild and perplexing decor, odd individuals bred to survive only in their neighborhood, and stores of uncertain sustenance. New York is of course inferior in the areas of urban planning, manners and bar bathroom cleanliness, plus it's expensive as hell. These things are a comfort when I fly home and am again separated by the prairie from the Great Megalopolis in which I was reared.
But Delaware . . . I really don't miss that place. We went out for drinks with a group of girls who had never heard of The Onion.
Next up: New Year's! Or maybe Christmas in Chicago. I've got some great pics, whenever Photobucket is working again.
We also saw a photo exhibit on whiteness which was good though small. Not surprisingly, for some of the installations I had to read the explanation to figure out what the point was, since it just looked like a picture of some girls doing normal things. The same museum had a large exhibit of a photographer named Meatyard who seemed remarkably well-balanced, for a photographer named Meatyard.
I totally love New York. I see Chicago as New York Lite, with almost as much going on and almost as many endless blocks of wild and perplexing decor, odd individuals bred to survive only in their neighborhood, and stores of uncertain sustenance. New York is of course inferior in the areas of urban planning, manners and bar bathroom cleanliness, plus it's expensive as hell. These things are a comfort when I fly home and am again separated by the prairie from the Great Megalopolis in which I was reared.
But Delaware . . . I really don't miss that place. We went out for drinks with a group of girls who had never heard of The Onion.
Next up: New Year's! Or maybe Christmas in Chicago. I've got some great pics, whenever Photobucket is working again.
