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Yesterday was a wash. I slept in incredibly much from a Diwali party that went late and ended up spending way, way too much time worshipping what
my_tallest calls "the Small God" (digital cable, thou art a demanding master!). No calls, no shopping, no webbery, nothing practical. Today was making up for lost time.
monshu practically tore his house apart trying to pull it together--knocking a picture off the wall rushing to finish up laundry before our 9 a.m. brunch date. From that via express bus to downtown where we hit: BB&B, Nordstrom (regular and Rack), the Sanrio Store (
monshu waited outside in his best imitation of taking Daddy's little girl to the mall), the Lego store (Lego Hancock! Lego Hagrid! Lego 6 ft. arachnid!), Field's, and Famous Footwear. Blue Line to Wicker Park, lunch at Penny's, intense browsing at the Fenway Gallery (OMG their prices are fantastic; I hate to take business away from Mike and Maja, but if you're in the market for South/East Asian furnishings, try them first!), and the the serious shopping: Myopic Books. (List to follow.) It was here that I bought my FIRST GIFT OF THE SEASON!
The excitement was too much for
monshu, however, and he headed home. Worst linguistics section of any multistory used bookstore I've been in. I couldn't even find them so the clerk told me they were in Criticism. "That's where the owner wants them filed...He's a little eccentric." (Coworker: "I don't think he's rich enough to be called 'eccentric'. He's just cuckoo.") Afterwards, I still couldn't find them, so I gave up. "Are you looking for Chomsky's books?" "I'm definitely not looking for anything by Chomsky!" A third clerk expanded on their policy of putting all Chomsky's works--political and linguistic--together because...wait for it...people tend to steal them! He graciously spared linguists his suspicion and mused bemusedly about the bibliokleptomaniacs paging through a purloined copy of Syntactic structures going "WTF?"
Checking out, I discovered that our little chat about Chomsky had drawn the attention of mentally-challenged man who began peppering me with questions about whatever seemed to pop into his head. Obviously, there was a lot of knowledge in there, but it expressed itself with minimal respect for conversational maxims. Elliptical, allusive, freely associatative--I never knew when he was throwing out a quote in order to net a reaction, when he was summarising, and when he just non-sequituring. He followed me all the way to the bus stop and I was to the edge of the neighbourhood before I realised that, with all the distraction, I'd left my new-bought boots back at the bookstore. After walking half-a-mile to get them, I decided--in my spoiled urbanite way--that I merited a cab ride home. My engaging, deferential Cameroonian had a tale of woe that culminated in his mother stranded with him for six months until he could convince his ex-wife to lend him the money to buy a return ticket! Dinner was Mexican take-out, followed by a long chat about Christmas wishes with my sister, and I really should be going to bed now.
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The excitement was too much for
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Checking out, I discovered that our little chat about Chomsky had drawn the attention of mentally-challenged man who began peppering me with questions about whatever seemed to pop into his head. Obviously, there was a lot of knowledge in there, but it expressed itself with minimal respect for conversational maxims. Elliptical, allusive, freely associatative--I never knew when he was throwing out a quote in order to net a reaction, when he was summarising, and when he just non-sequituring. He followed me all the way to the bus stop and I was to the edge of the neighbourhood before I realised that, with all the distraction, I'd left my new-bought boots back at the bookstore. After walking half-a-mile to get them, I decided--in my spoiled urbanite way--that I merited a cab ride home. My engaging, deferential Cameroonian had a tale of woe that culminated in his mother stranded with him for six months until he could convince his ex-wife to lend him the money to buy a return ticket! Dinner was Mexican take-out, followed by a long chat about Christmas wishes with my sister, and I really should be going to bed now.
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