Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

Jenny, I thought you knew that about M. It's pretty hypocritical that he keeps cutting me and other friends out of his life b/c of our personal issues and glitches (only to reconnect and repeat the cycle) when he is the poster boy for screwed up personalities.

Now that I think of it, the way he repeatedly shuns and reconnects is a lot like the way he cycles through dogs.

You should contact him with that insight.

Did I tell you that that little bia texted me the other night after the Archers of Loaf show to see if I was out and wanted to get together?

what is a bia

It is the word that L3sb1@n W.'s younger sister uses instead of "bitch."

Heh, my sisters and I always used "bia"

i missed cooking so much for the last two weeks, yesterday i had a blitz.

-before 7am i had toasted pine nuts and candied walnuts. then produce market, cut up and ate tons of fruit, stored rest for later.
-made sandwiches for lunch with this new vegetable spread thing i got at the market (have you guys ever tried ajvar? it's really good on sandwiches! and i'd imagine with a little extra effort it would make a nice base for a vegetable curry, like a sofrito)
-and in between i picked up (and washed one of) the dogs

-then, i went to dumb old whole foods to get stuff for smoothies and spinach because i have been missing the ten tons of spinach i usually eat something fierce
-came home, talked on the phone for a few hours to mom and one of bffs (a few HOURS!) and then made dinner
- dinner was orechiette (which totally look like wtf diaphragms btw, you're welcome) with tomatoes, mint, garlic, pine nuts and i had some tilapia with my new paprika (pimienta picante!) too. (d doesn't like fish all that much, but i love it and make it for myself all the damn time)

also at some point in the morning i had freed the bean from the vanilla vodka i had been brewing while we were gone and plopped it into another little Schweppes bottle, one also containing some CANDIED VIOLETS i bought on vacay. CAN NOT WAIT for violet-vanilla cocktails in a couple weeks y'all.

i feel like i've been home for a week! ugh i still have so much catching up to do...this is part of my effort to give some respect to the domestic arts.
did you miss me?

wow
sorry about that

i also got candied roses and some licor de hierbas
look out world

I'm probably going to do the same thing when I get home.

our magic knows no limits

i also dl'ed three albums recommended in Electric Eden -- which YOU SHOULD TOTALLY READ dr a johnson -- and had a(nother) crazy long dream about a portal to hell that i happened to be standing on top of/trapped in.

good morning

Wow. Welcome home. I read the whole thing.

thanks je55e!

i am so glad i read that book. it's just exactly what i wanted to read on vacation.

ALSO sad i missed some thing at the whistler that was "improvised music for beat minded folks" with early music as its guiding principle

i imagine this with free jazz freakouts and i just...O_O

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKfBaOvSKjk

I would like to try ajvar.

Ajvar is delicious btw! Have had it at Bosnian restaurant as a spread for cevapi, this grilled mixed meat-on-flatbread dish that is kind of relentlessly meaty without a spread to add variety.

I missed you Amanda!

Your list of food prep is almost as inscrutable as it is exhausting.

i missed cooking so much for the last two weeks, yesterday i had a blitz.

To me this is like saying "I missed changing my oil."

Well, more like "I missed polishing and Armour-Alling my car," since you get the pay-off of a shiny car.

people like what they like, right
i really did miss it. there were ideas coming at me left and right but i had nowhere to put them (kept a notebook tho)

I enjoy weed whacking, which is a chore others might not like.

It's great that you love cooking tho b/c the pay-off is huge.

our gas is still off so I've been eating lots of raw veggies

btw i got ajvar at devon mkt so it's not hard to find -- i got this one

https://www.sobebalkan.com/32-72-large/podravka-ajvar-mild-690g.jpg

blag!

I bet they'd have that at the store where I bought a jar of Bulgarian grilled eggplant yesterday.

Haha "blag!"

I bought some jarred rice salad veggie ragout thingy from one of the Ukrainian shops around here. I never knew something called "rice salad" could be so greasy.

Yeah, Harvestime carries ajvar, too. Have thought about buying it a few times.

Welcome back to the EE.UU., Amanda!

What I'm saying is that you should try it! Good sandwich spread with some flavorful cheese, sprouts, avocado maybe? I can't wait to try the special sardines I bought.

The thing I am excited about from the weekend is discovering there's a booth at the Logan Square famer's market that sells smoked fish from MI. The firm, flaky, hot-smoked kind of smoked fish, not the gooey cold-smoked stuff (though that does have its place).

Oh that sounds good.

Speaking of smoked foodstuffs, I'm wild about the smoked hummus at City Provisions. So effin' good.

My only real food excitement from this weekend was brunch at The Bongo Room yesterday, really excellent. Also got the run-down from friends re: their visit to Girl and the Goat on Saturday night, which they couldn't stop enthusing about.

Oh man, I love that kind of smoked fish. YUM. I think I will angle for another brunch at L&E + LSFM soon...

finally ate at del seoul yesterday. It was good, but nothing I can get too excited about.

have you read electric eden yet? you will say the opposite about this book. guaranteed. i would offer to loan it to you, but (1) i'm not even close to being done and (2) i've written all over it and (3) i need to carry it around when i go to record stores for the next 100 years.

I was just in CVS and this horrible song was playing in which a woman whines through her nose about how it "makes me hapyyyyyyyy to use you a littleeeeeeee" and please get it out of my head. Trepan me or something. LSD? I don't care.

Does anyone use an internet provider other than Comcast? I think a power surge destroyed my tv and cable modem on Friday night. I don't really want to spend the money to replace the tv anytime soon, but I also don't like the idea of paying the same amount to Comcast for internet only. Ideas?

yenny listen to the song i posted upthread!
i think you'll like it and i was going to say that but had already overkilled the thread a little

I was not unhappy with RCN DSL.

Can't listen at work, alas. I'll have to suffer until 5:30.

AT&T DSL has been okay, though it was a pain in the ass to set up.

I haven't read Electric Eden yet! We got our copy at the library, but it has always been checked out. I should probably just buy a copy. I also have had not the energy or focus to read anything recently due to work/wedding/life stress, but hopefully that will change soon.

I don't know that song, Jenny, but I recently identified two songs that have been plaguing me during my ongoing stint as a motorist (beep beep!):

1. "I Write Sins" by Panic at the Disco. I can't tell if I like it or despise it, but I have some significant reaction to it.

2. "Sex on Fire" by Kings of Leon. MAN I hate what that guy does with his voice. That overwrought, fuck yeh, I'm so fucking feeling it, voice cracking, ridiculous rock star thing.

Also, I'm once again driving a pick up with a Palin-McCain sticker on it that reads "Read my lipstick!"

drive that truck into the lake, plz

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-citys-first-protected-bike-lane-completed-20110725,0,7977663.story

tribune bike stories are always good for o_O comments

AT&T DSL has been okay, though it was a pain in the ass to set up.

Yeah, same here.

1. "I Write Sins" by Panic at the Disco. I can't tell if I like it or despise it, but I have some significant reaction to it.

This was -- no joke -- one of my favorite songs of 2006.

I once wrote:

As emo ascends into mainstream culture ("emos" are now a cafeteria tribe like skaters and jocks), it's been fascinating to see which aspects of the genre are embraced by the MySpace generation: pretentiously verbose lyrics are apparently still in, but the lo-fi howls and jigsaw time signatures of late '90s Jade Tree bands have been replaced by garish theatricality and a thick rhythmic crunch. Part of what makes Panic! At the Disco stand out even further among this new crop is that on "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" the makeup-caked band weds the startled cries of male sexual angst to the delicate baroque touches of xylophone and pizzicato strings. It's all pretty ridiculous, to be sure, but the commitment is admirable, and I certainly can't deny the awesome rush I feel every time I belt out that serpentine chorus in the car.

lo-fi howls and jigsaw time signatures of late '90s Jade Tree bands

ahhaha on that note I have just been listening to Blacktop Cadence

(No Idea, Jade Tree, not much of a difference)

I was never super-into that stuff, but I heard a fair amount of it from friends in college.

Actually, I was listening to American Football this morning (Polyvinyl, but it's Mike Kinsella).