Birazdan...

[In case anyone was troubled by my silence--ihr weisst, wer ihr seid--my ISP appears to have been blocked in order to combat the denial of service attack on LiveJournal. I haven't seen word that that attack is over, but everything seems to be working again.]

Once again, muckefuck takes a chance on an obscure ethnic restaurant, so you don't have to!

I was at something of a loss last night. I didn't want to go home because...well, I just didn't feel like it. I called spookyfruit, but he had a class to teach and wouldn't be free until 8 p.m., which is past my usual dinner time. I didn't want to go back to Rokucha because of how I embarrassed myself last time. I brought some goodies for Chef Jeff shortly before closing and then sat around while the staff cleaned up. After a while, My Chef asked me if I wanted to accompany him to the 7-11 on the corner. On the way, he explained that it was time for them to eat, but the employees couldn't eat with me around. Gaa! I'm glad I was told and I wondered in retrospect if one of the Thai exchanges swirling around my head had been his boss telling him "Get the big stupid farang out of here so we can eat!"

After rejecting the idea of calling around until I found someone who was free for dinner, two thoughts occurred to me in tandem. One of them was that I'd been meaning for weeks to stop by Powell's Books on Lincoln after work some evening. The other was the recurring realisation that there are a hundred interesting places to eat in this city that I've never been to--and some of them are on Lincoln Avenue. ( At last, I had a plan. )

Bad news

I'm usually not one to dwell on headline-grabbing tragedies. In fact, I denigrate people who do for their lack of perspective. Plenty of people die awfully every single day, the media just don't take notice when they do it singly (unless they're celebrities, of course).

But, Judas priest, what a week.

Monday, 21 dead in a Chicago nightclub. Tuesday, 130+ dead on the Korean subway. Wednesday, 302 dead in an Iranian plane. Thursday, a brief respite--then, today, news of 85 killed in another USAmerican club disaster. All man-made disasters. 3 out of 4 in urban settings, two of these in the USA.

To a certain degree, any human disaster is a man-made one. There are some accidental deaths that simply could not have been prevented at our level of technology. But they are few. (Of course, "our level" is a slippery concept, as one can see by comparing the flood fatalities in the USA and Bangladesh.) Famine is no longer the result of drought alone, but requires poor infrastructure and mismanagement (or willful neglect). Hurricanes and tornados hardly kill a soul where there are effective metereological tracking and comprehensive evacuation plans.

The USA, Korea--these are developed countries. They aren't supposed to have death tolls like these. And evidence of negligence is all around: The Chicago club was under a court order to shut down; it had only one exit. In Daegu, a driver drove a second train into the station alongside the burning train. And the less said about the fourth-rate Rammstein wannabes Great White's unauthorised pyrotechnics, the better.

At least I come by it honestly

Family dramas are always richer when they play out partly on LJ, right? Back at Christmastime, my dad and my stepmom said they were considering a trip out to Chicago to see a play featuring my stepsister's beau. February approached, I hadn't heard anything. I mailed. I called. Finally, less than a month ago, Dad got back to me and said they were coming in tonight, but they had no firm plans beyond that as of yet (such as, oh, where they were staying). I mentioned in welcomerain's journal that I might not be able to come to the Dune Party tonight as a result and that was the first bunj had heard of my parents' plans.

More recently, I got a hold of my stepmom to figure out what those plans were. They weren't. She didn't even want to commit to the play until she was sure her daughter was still going to be seeing the guy. (Dad and I agreed that if the play's worth seeing, it's worth seeing regardless, but this good sense did not carry the day.) I did manage to nail her down for dinner: Penang, 4 p.m. Coming into this week, that was the one scheduled event I could be sure of.

By now, you've guessed it's the one event that will not be happening.

Apparently, my stepmom was worried about getting from South Chinatown to Lincoln Square for the play, even with 3.5 hours to do it in. She felt terrible about rescheduling, but, as she was clearly anxious about meeting her daughter's boyfriend for the first time, I begged off dinner altogether. So, now the plan is (1) meet Dad for lunch tomorrow; (2) meet everyone else at the theater (whose name no one can tell me, nor the name of the play that will be playing) that night; (3) go out afterwards.

Sunday is up in the air. Saturday dinner I want to spend with Monshu, who is getting really shortchanged this weekend. He urged me to go to welcomerain's tonight, which means we won't have an evening together until Sunday. He also enjoys my stepmom and was looking forward to dinner with her, a dinner which has now been put off until April, at the earliest. On top of that, he really hates it when plans keep changing. That's why normally he avoids any sort of involvement when my family comes to town.

Sometimes, I envy him that.