(no subject)

When I go out for lunch generally I bring a sandwich or pick up some food from a stand and go walking -- I'm becoming very well-acquainted with about a square mile of Chicago's downtown, from Trader Joe's at Ontario, on the north, to Millenium Park at Monroe on the south, radiating west from Michigan. Sometimes I'll just walk the bridges, crisscrossing up Michigan and down State and such.

I'm thrilled that a Wow Bao shop has opened up in the loop, because it means I can get my weekly fix of curry chicken steamed buns and potstickers with sesame mustard. I hadn't realised, however, that past the Bao shop is a whole little shopping mall in the base of the office building. There's an Ethel's Chocolate Lounge, the ubiquitous Starbucks, a FedEx Kinko's and a Chase Bank, which is convenient for me. And sometimes it's nice to walk down Dearborn from the Bao shop and eat lunch in the shade of the Picasso on Daley Plaza. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for Torchwood Chicago. Jack's definitely going to stand out; he'll be the one dying of heat prostration in that wool coat. It's really hot and horrible out today.

There's one guy I've been meaning to post about but haven't really found a way to yet, because honestly I'm totally unsure how to react. He's a panhandler who sits with the saxophone busker on the north end of the Michigan Avenue bridge. Two weeks ago I noticed him because he was holding a small sign reading "We're all looking for change". For the past week or so he's had a proper-sized sign scrawled with "Senator Obama wants change, and so do I". Seriously, I don't know what to think of it; it's funny but sad and also, in a strange way, kind of offensive.

Anyway, I finally decided to mention him mainly because apparently his ploy is working; today he had a much bigger sign than heretofore and he has enhanced his slogan considerably. Now it reads "Senator Obama wants change. Lots of people want change! I want change too, but I want it a lot more than he does" and then lists off the usual adjectives -- homeless/hungry/disadvantaged/etc.

At the rate he's going, I expect his manifesto to be published in early 2009.

(no subject)

Well, that was unexpected.

R's mum cut a deal with an old family friend without telling either one of us, the upshot of which is that I need to be out of the flat by September first so that family friend's son can move in. It's nothing to do with R or me or how we get on, or even how I get on with his mum; it's just a thing she did, and so it's done.

I've spent my whole time here thinking that I'm going to miss this place like hell when I do have to leave, which we both knew would probably be sooner rather than later, but I didn't think it would be quite so sharp or sudden. Especially since it's at the worst possible time; everyone needs housing in September because school's coming back into session, and my boss has asked me not to take any time off in August, which is hard because apartment-hunting is a weekday thing, the new listings come out on Monday and you need to, you know, be there. It's hard to find a flat in this town, everything's gone condo.

I've moved at least once a year, every year, since 1998, with the possible exception of the what, 14 months I spent in Texas? Something like that. I'm just...really tired of boxes. And I'll have to move next year too, because I can get a one-year lease, you have to through the apartment services, but my parents still want me to get my own place to start building equity, and I agree. So it's not like I can find a condo in March and get on with it; I'm trapped in a flat until next September.

It's been a weird week of ups and downs in other things, so, I don't know. I'm sure that some of what I'm feeling is over-reaction, but it's pretty upsetting. It's mostly just the timing that sucks.

Locking comments; this is pretty much all I want to say or hear about it at the moment. Thanks guys.

Review: Pages Passed from Hand to Hand

Okay! Emo fit is past. Time for a book review!

Caveat from the start: "homosexual" in the context of the book is used solely to denote male homosexuality. Perhaps lesbians get their own anthology, I don't know, but this volume is all about the man-on-man action (or, really, lack thereof).

I picked up Pages Passed From Hand To Hand because I stumbled over it while searching for a copy of Teleny, a 19th-century erotic novel attributed (with some reason) to Oscar Wilde. A chapter of it is excerpted in the book, so it came up in the search. It's subtitled "The Hidden Tradition of Homosexual Literature in English from 1748 to 1914" and I figured it'd be kind of interesting and there'd be information about how homosexuality was coded into literature and such. Turns out, not so much.

( Review! )

Final Verdict: It's a perfectly decent collection of 19th century stories and excerpts, but it's just not for me.

Still, there were a few interesting bits.

( Quotes! )