Keeping together
Snow today, polar cold tomorrow. Before they were saying we might hit an all-time record low (surpassing −33°C) on Wednesday but now they're predicting we'll fall a few degrees short. Nevertheless my institution is still considering closing down for the day. If that happens, I may have to go out anyway just to take in the lake for a bit.
This weekend I wouldn't've left the house at all if not for my condomate's needs. Somehow he ended up not getting a key to the back gate (and waited five months to mention it but whatever) so even though I already carried that baby to term and gave it up for adoption, I still felt obligated to hit the hardware store and have mine copied for him. It was an excuse to run to the dry cleaners and the market before returning to home base.
I could have gone out Sunday--I thought about calling a couple different folks--but I looked at my calendar for February, saw how stuffed it was, and realised this would be my last weekend for a while to lay about. I did get a little housework done, but JB volunteering to host the game tomorrow took off some of the pressure. Hopefully Pasillero will want to come by soon.
To make up for a week without any prearranged socialisation, I had a couple of lovely serendipitous encountres. The first was on Thursday after my usual dinner at Sea Ranch. Just as I was getting tired of the adolescents in the room, I checked my watch and realised I could still make the next shuttle. I hustled to the corner only to watch one blow by me. Since it was five minutes early and didn't look like the 6:45 driver, I decided to wait a bit. But since it was also blustery out, I walked down to the Main Street Station for some shelter.
There I ran into a guy with shoulder-length Albrecht Dürer curls who was also waiting. After several minutes, we struck up a conversation. He's a Russian lit major, so he knows a pal of mine who now works at the library and has hung out at the same neighbourhood bar down the block from me. We ended up giving up on the shuttle and taking the train back to the city, continuing our conversation until my stop. (He was heading into Lakeview for capoeira.)
The next evening, I had a craving for pizza so I stopped at the Blaze at Loyola (their Evanston location is still dead to me). I was surprised and delighted to turn around and find a coworker who I'd noticed on the shuttle earlier but hadn't seen follow me. On the bus, we always have our noses in our respective books but we sometimes chat for the couple minutes it takes to walk to the building (usually about the books we're reading).
She was amenable to some company and for the first time we were able to open up about some things. She outed herself to me ("my girlfriend in Portland") and I learned how she'd ended up in Chicago in the first place. Maybe we'll do it again sometime.
This weekend I wouldn't've left the house at all if not for my condomate's needs. Somehow he ended up not getting a key to the back gate (and waited five months to mention it but whatever) so even though I already carried that baby to term and gave it up for adoption, I still felt obligated to hit the hardware store and have mine copied for him. It was an excuse to run to the dry cleaners and the market before returning to home base.
I could have gone out Sunday--I thought about calling a couple different folks--but I looked at my calendar for February, saw how stuffed it was, and realised this would be my last weekend for a while to lay about. I did get a little housework done, but JB volunteering to host the game tomorrow took off some of the pressure. Hopefully Pasillero will want to come by soon.
To make up for a week without any prearranged socialisation, I had a couple of lovely serendipitous encountres. The first was on Thursday after my usual dinner at Sea Ranch. Just as I was getting tired of the adolescents in the room, I checked my watch and realised I could still make the next shuttle. I hustled to the corner only to watch one blow by me. Since it was five minutes early and didn't look like the 6:45 driver, I decided to wait a bit. But since it was also blustery out, I walked down to the Main Street Station for some shelter.
There I ran into a guy with shoulder-length Albrecht Dürer curls who was also waiting. After several minutes, we struck up a conversation. He's a Russian lit major, so he knows a pal of mine who now works at the library and has hung out at the same neighbourhood bar down the block from me. We ended up giving up on the shuttle and taking the train back to the city, continuing our conversation until my stop. (He was heading into Lakeview for capoeira.)
The next evening, I had a craving for pizza so I stopped at the Blaze at Loyola (their Evanston location is still dead to me). I was surprised and delighted to turn around and find a coworker who I'd noticed on the shuttle earlier but hadn't seen follow me. On the bus, we always have our noses in our respective books but we sometimes chat for the couple minutes it takes to walk to the building (usually about the books we're reading).
She was amenable to some company and for the first time we were able to open up about some things. She outed herself to me ("my girlfriend in Portland") and I learned how she'd ended up in Chicago in the first place. Maybe we'll do it again sometime.