The Steampunk World
I went under the knife last Tuesday. It was scary- I'd been under for an appendectomy in high school, but that was such a rush job that I didn't have a week to fret about it. When I woke up I asked the surgeon if I was as handsome on the inside as I am on the outside, but I was so loopy from the gas that I just got a pat on the head. Since I woke up I'm discovering all kinds of holes in me- a band-aid on my right shoulder, a shaved spot on my left thigh, the IV-hole on the back of my left hand... and of course the scar. I have twice as many piercings now! Five staples.
I spent a week off of work, walking only with the help of painkillers, a damn shunt in my wound seeping nastiness into my bandages. Fortunately, the week allowed me to pack up the apartment I share with Singular Girl, but unfortunately I couldn't lift anything the whole move. Had about eight folks to help me in the end, but I'm such a gung-ho mover that I felt silly carrying couch cushions when I could be helping giving my friends a break and shlepping that desk up the stairs. Three months as a mover taught me a lot about leverage so I don't mind moving at all- though it would be nice to live in the same place for longer than a year's lease. You know, a place where you can paint the walls. I guess my first purchase will be a condo, anything to keep from tossing half of my income in the garbage each month.
The new place is the entire second floor of an 1890's Victorian house overlooking Kedzie Boulevard in Logan Square. Logan Square is this neighborhood around 3200 west, 2500 north. In the 1890's they built the boulevard and a bunch of shwanky mansions along it for rich Poles to live in. One of the houses a vew doors down has a ballroom for a second floor. The neighborhood remained shwanky until the 1960's, when it plunged straight into hell. Until about 5 years ago, noone in their right mind would be caught there at night. Now, it's coming back, and in a nice way. The local homeowners are trying to give the place a small-town feel, and there isn't as much of an effort to kick out the ethnic types as there is when a neighborhood usually "transitions". Most everybody who lives there is a P-R, so the neighborhood is overwhelmingly American. Just with a little latin flava'.
We have a three-bedroom, though the previous tenants converted the study into a bedroom. Living room, parlor, dining room (for us, a bar, of course), kitchen, nice big porch. Even a stoop, set back in the yard as it is. The landlord's pretty neurotic, but that's good because the place is his baby. He's always trying to scam us on what we owe and the repairs he owes us, but I'm glad to finally be renting from a landlord. At least you can look him in the eye. Fuck all property management corporations, especially ICM, whose Office Manager told me "That's why it's called 'renting', if you have any complaints you can 'rent' somewhere else." They left us without heat for a few days last winter, and when we complained, the bitter old maintenance guy cranked the steam radiators up to full for three days. Just an example of how your landlord can make you miserable.
Poor old Victor, the landlord, has this place all gussied up like old ladies are gonna be living there, with brass chandeliers and such, but he's always so nervous that it'll be vacant for even a day that he ends up cutting a deal with the first person to express the slightest interest. We got him to knock $200 off his asking price, that about compensates for the problems we didn't notice on our viewing. He even got some shills to come with him and express "interest" in the place while we viewed it- but they were so bored you could tell they were about as interested in that place as a politician is interested in his wife. If you're gonna hire shills, get people who can act.
So the first floor is punk rockers. The basement apartment is PR stoners. The guy with the window across from our porch is old and fat and sleeps in his grape-smugglers with his curtains open. The PR Baptist church across the boulevard has huge concerts every Sunday, where it seems the mic is open which means you get everything from steel-drum bands to boy-band wannabes lip-syncing. There are no bums because nobody's rich enough to panhandle from. The El' goes underground around there, so we can't hear it even though the stop is on our block. The only negatives are that we have to haul our laundry to the end of the block for the laundromat (though Victor has promised to install a laundry room if J.J., one of the downstairs neighbors, does all the work), plus the fact that things get real scary west and south of here. But no gunplay in the streets, this neighborhood is not gang controlled, mainly because the neighborhood association has somehow gotten the place to be swarmed by cops at all times. Oh well, good for me, I only ever break the law in my own home.
Got a new roomie! The Brooklyn Mick. So now I live with he and Singular Girl, and we are to be joined by Guadalupe as soon as she Escapes from her Island. Brooklyn Mick is a funny guy, 100% different from me, and sometimes his rules of the hood cause unneccessary conflict because he's frettin' over things that don't matter to me. But he realizes the principle of "big wedges have little edges" so we're all working hard to make this the best year ever. Plus, Singular Girl and I have our own bedrooms, allowing for some much-needed decoration freedom. She goes for the zen-like clean lines of Corbusier, I go for the gaudy chintz of velvet-Elvis. All I need is one room to fulfill my destiny as collector of velvet in garish colors! Let it only be interrupted by my giant Unix penguin ad that I stole from the train.
I'm back at work today. Sixty nine emails, only ten voicemails. Not too bad! Then a bit of tidying up after the consultant who has been bumbling around in my stead, I sure wish I got $120 an hour to do what I do now only completely fuck it up and take six weeks to do a few hours work. Catch up on my personal emails, and take advantage of the phone.
O Dialtone, never will I take you for granted again! The local phone monopoly, Amerifuckers, wants 30 days to do a hookup, but you can't call them too far before you move because you don't get to pick the day they come and turn your phone on. Anybody know what's so complicated about turning the phone on that they can disconnect instantly yet it takes a month to turn it on? I'll have a phone on September 10th, they say, not guaranteed but please be there between 7 AM and 10 PM. Sure, that doesn't inconvenience me in the slightest. I didn't tell them that as soon as physically possible, I would be switching to one of the alternative phone companies that charge half as much but can't do hookups. Ditka says call Z-tel at 1-800-IRON-MIKE. I was going to go with another, but Ditka says Z-tel. Ditka is wise. Praise Ditka.
I spent a week off of work, walking only with the help of painkillers, a damn shunt in my wound seeping nastiness into my bandages. Fortunately, the week allowed me to pack up the apartment I share with Singular Girl, but unfortunately I couldn't lift anything the whole move. Had about eight folks to help me in the end, but I'm such a gung-ho mover that I felt silly carrying couch cushions when I could be helping giving my friends a break and shlepping that desk up the stairs. Three months as a mover taught me a lot about leverage so I don't mind moving at all- though it would be nice to live in the same place for longer than a year's lease. You know, a place where you can paint the walls. I guess my first purchase will be a condo, anything to keep from tossing half of my income in the garbage each month.
The new place is the entire second floor of an 1890's Victorian house overlooking Kedzie Boulevard in Logan Square. Logan Square is this neighborhood around 3200 west, 2500 north. In the 1890's they built the boulevard and a bunch of shwanky mansions along it for rich Poles to live in. One of the houses a vew doors down has a ballroom for a second floor. The neighborhood remained shwanky until the 1960's, when it plunged straight into hell. Until about 5 years ago, noone in their right mind would be caught there at night. Now, it's coming back, and in a nice way. The local homeowners are trying to give the place a small-town feel, and there isn't as much of an effort to kick out the ethnic types as there is when a neighborhood usually "transitions". Most everybody who lives there is a P-R, so the neighborhood is overwhelmingly American. Just with a little latin flava'.
We have a three-bedroom, though the previous tenants converted the study into a bedroom. Living room, parlor, dining room (for us, a bar, of course), kitchen, nice big porch. Even a stoop, set back in the yard as it is. The landlord's pretty neurotic, but that's good because the place is his baby. He's always trying to scam us on what we owe and the repairs he owes us, but I'm glad to finally be renting from a landlord. At least you can look him in the eye. Fuck all property management corporations, especially ICM, whose Office Manager told me "That's why it's called 'renting', if you have any complaints you can 'rent' somewhere else." They left us without heat for a few days last winter, and when we complained, the bitter old maintenance guy cranked the steam radiators up to full for three days. Just an example of how your landlord can make you miserable.
Poor old Victor, the landlord, has this place all gussied up like old ladies are gonna be living there, with brass chandeliers and such, but he's always so nervous that it'll be vacant for even a day that he ends up cutting a deal with the first person to express the slightest interest. We got him to knock $200 off his asking price, that about compensates for the problems we didn't notice on our viewing. He even got some shills to come with him and express "interest" in the place while we viewed it- but they were so bored you could tell they were about as interested in that place as a politician is interested in his wife. If you're gonna hire shills, get people who can act.
So the first floor is punk rockers. The basement apartment is PR stoners. The guy with the window across from our porch is old and fat and sleeps in his grape-smugglers with his curtains open. The PR Baptist church across the boulevard has huge concerts every Sunday, where it seems the mic is open which means you get everything from steel-drum bands to boy-band wannabes lip-syncing. There are no bums because nobody's rich enough to panhandle from. The El' goes underground around there, so we can't hear it even though the stop is on our block. The only negatives are that we have to haul our laundry to the end of the block for the laundromat (though Victor has promised to install a laundry room if J.J., one of the downstairs neighbors, does all the work), plus the fact that things get real scary west and south of here. But no gunplay in the streets, this neighborhood is not gang controlled, mainly because the neighborhood association has somehow gotten the place to be swarmed by cops at all times. Oh well, good for me, I only ever break the law in my own home.
Got a new roomie! The Brooklyn Mick. So now I live with he and Singular Girl, and we are to be joined by Guadalupe as soon as she Escapes from her Island. Brooklyn Mick is a funny guy, 100% different from me, and sometimes his rules of the hood cause unneccessary conflict because he's frettin' over things that don't matter to me. But he realizes the principle of "big wedges have little edges" so we're all working hard to make this the best year ever. Plus, Singular Girl and I have our own bedrooms, allowing for some much-needed decoration freedom. She goes for the zen-like clean lines of Corbusier, I go for the gaudy chintz of velvet-Elvis. All I need is one room to fulfill my destiny as collector of velvet in garish colors! Let it only be interrupted by my giant Unix penguin ad that I stole from the train.
I'm back at work today. Sixty nine emails, only ten voicemails. Not too bad! Then a bit of tidying up after the consultant who has been bumbling around in my stead, I sure wish I got $120 an hour to do what I do now only completely fuck it up and take six weeks to do a few hours work. Catch up on my personal emails, and take advantage of the phone.
O Dialtone, never will I take you for granted again! The local phone monopoly, Amerifuckers, wants 30 days to do a hookup, but you can't call them too far before you move because you don't get to pick the day they come and turn your phone on. Anybody know what's so complicated about turning the phone on that they can disconnect instantly yet it takes a month to turn it on? I'll have a phone on September 10th, they say, not guaranteed but please be there between 7 AM and 10 PM. Sure, that doesn't inconvenience me in the slightest. I didn't tell them that as soon as physically possible, I would be switching to one of the alternative phone companies that charge half as much but can't do hookups. Ditka says call Z-tel at 1-800-IRON-MIKE. I was going to go with another, but Ditka says Z-tel. Ditka is wise. Praise Ditka.
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