color coordinated.. gotta love how summer affects people's wardrobes.  i just got back from the smoking room in our office building and saw a woman with the most colorful outfit i've seen in a long time.  not only was it colorful, but she was oh-so color coordinated. i'm assuming she started with the shoes and worked her way up.  the base of her shoes were pink, with orange at the heel, orange in front and a yellow strip across the top. so of course, she had on yellow pants, a pink tunic and an orange jacket.  no lie. at least she matched.

grammatically hilarious...

i am literally the only non-american person that works in this office. literally. yet of all the 80 or so fully english speaking americans that work here, who does my boss come to when he sometimes needs help formulating the right sentence to get his point across in his correspondence with the irs?

yup. you guessed it. my bengali ass.

i love the irony of it all. i absolutely love it...

homeowner to be...

well, it's a done deal folks. i've accepted the seller's counter-offer and assuming all goes well with the inspection and attorney review and mortgage approval, i'm all set to go and close sometime in late august.

to those of you who offered your advice from the previous post... thanks! i went ahead and decided to buy the 4th floor condo. i don't want to look into an alley everyday for the next few years and that was pretty much the deciding factor.

it's scary as hell to think that i've actually made such huge commitment, but hopefully it's all for the best, and hopefully it will become a worthwhile investment. i know for a fact that i'll certainly enjoy living there!

cheers!

condo..

as most of you regular visitors know, i've been searching for condos for the past two months. well, i think the search may be over. but i'm having a bit of a decision dilemma. the condo building i'm looking at is right across the street from lake michigan, however i don't have a lake view. in fact, the unit faces the alley which is actually quite clean, and then another apartment building across the alley, but within enough distance that the windows aren't really looking right into the other building's windows because it's separated by a parking lot in addition to the alley.

the reason i'm going to go into some detail about this decision making process is two-fold:

1) it gives me an opportunity to put my thoughts in writing which will hopefully help me decide which is the better alternative, and
2) it allows me to get some feedback from you readers, if you so choose to provide feedback.

the decision is basically whether to get the unit on the second floor or on the fourth floor. the two units are identical. the condo is a brand new conversion, very modern looking with new and beautiful hardwood floors. the kitchen features stainless steel appliances, beautiful maple cabinets, granite counter tops, and mirrored backsplashes (i.e. the space between the cabinets and the counter tops is mirrored). the units have plenty of closet space with built in organizers (even a set of drawers in the bedroom closet) and a very spacious living/dining room which will comfortably fit a pool table and still allow lots of space for the living area. i saw a furnished model, and it looks awesome!

while i don't have a balcony (it would cost an extra 20 grand!), the penthouse floor of the building (on the fifth floor) comes with a huge outdoor deck, a very fancy party room where i will no doubt be throwing several soirees, and an exercise room.

if you're wondering why i'm not opting for a lake view unit, it's because it's literally a sliver of a view. there are two highrises in front of the building and so the view is cut short by virtue of being in the middle of the two highrises.

so here's the deal.. obviously by being higher up, the fourth floor gets much better sunlight from the west, in the afternoon/evening. the second floor unit.. not so much, but it's hard to tell because today was a pretty cloudy day. also, since the units face the alley, i'd be closer to any unwanted alley activity by being on the second floor. there didn't appear to be much activity when we were there, but you never know.

the kicker here of course, is money. the fourth floor unit costs a whopping 9 grand more than the second floor unit. though, when you divide that up by a 30 year mortgage, it's not a lot in terms of additional monthly payments. so the question then surrounds resale value. and that's always tricky. will the next buyer care about sunlight? will they care about being close to the ground? will they care to pay extra to be higher up when the view isn't really much different?

hmmm... decisions, decisions...

i'm thinking i want the fourth floor unit. and i'm thinking that because i don't think an extra 9 grand will make much difference when it comes to my monthly mortgage payments. but i just feel like i might get shafted when it comes time to sell. though i can probably bank on the fact that the two units won't be offered for sale at the same time once they're both occupied, so a future buyer may not really have a choice once they decide that they like the unit for its features.

am i confusing things by thinking too much? i don't know...

but i definitely know that i want one of the two. the building is awesome. it's not a highrise with 12 million units. it's only five stories high with a total of 30 units. the grocery store is 3 blocks away. the express bus is right at my doorstep. the train station is 3 blocks away. the lake/beach/park is across the street. it's ideal. but i'm always worried about resale value. i can't help it. while owning my own place is the goal, i can't say i'm not thinking about making a profit when it's time to sell. hopefully that profit will help me relocate when it's time to do so.

so, as you can see, i've got a big decision to make. i'm gonna sleep on it and call my realtor tomorrow with a decision..

so help a sister out and feel free to drop any suggestions or opinions or other ways to look at this whole thing...

monster...

wow. i realize i'm a slacker, but i just saw the movie monster today and i'm feeling a little speechless about it. but i will say this: the academy did good by charlize theron. she deserved that oscar, big time. that movie had me scared at times and teary eyed at others. it was a fantastic, deep and moving flick. i highly recommend you see it if you haven't already.

on a completely unrelated note, what is it with grocery store baggers who just have no fucking clue how to bag groceries? they put all the heavy shit in one bag, and then separate the lightweight shit into three different bags! every single grocery store i've ever been to has done the same thing. i guess they just think every single shopper has a car, so weight distribution isn't an issue.. well it is... i have to walk four long blocks with my damn groceries!

no shows, no goes..

this has been a week of no shows and no goes. by that i mean, two very anticipated events of the week were busts. last saturday i was supposed to go to the prince concert. but he had a strained vocal chord, so he was a no show. i was certainly disappointed, but at least the show has been postponed and not cancelled. he played the next day, but then cancelled the rest of his shows because his drummer had a death in the family. so i'm scheduled to go to the aug 3rd show.

yesterday, i was supposed to go to barbara's bookstore at uic to get bill clinton to sign my book. i had a hot ticket which was in high demand as not too many people had one. it was hard enough to take time off work what with it being busy season and all, but my boss agreed so it was all good. billy was supposed to arrive at 1pm, and at first i just figured i'd go at around noon and stand in a long, long line. then i changed my mind and decided to go early in the morning at around 8am instead.. that way i could get a head start and be out of there shortly after 1pm and head back to work. well, that's where my naivete gets the better of me. when i got to the bookstore shortly after 8am, the line was already 4 blocks long. what was i thinking? people were camped the fuck out. i saw lawn chairs, sleeping bags, coolers, umbrellas to block the sun... it was a mess. and at that rate i'd be there all freakin' day... so i made an executive, albeit disappointing, decision to just leave and head back to work. if i didn't have a shit load of work to do with a friday deadline, i might have just said fuck it and stayed all day. but i couldn't. i would've pissed off the man royally had i done that.

and while meeting billy for 30 seconds for his john hancock may have been worth the wait, it just wasn't the right thing to do at the time.

but back to last weekend.. now, as you all know it was gay pride weekend. and fun was had by all. c and i attended the parade, cheered the paraders on and came home with plenty of promotional goodies and a few priceless photographs which didn't quite come out as well as i'd hope so i apologize in advance...



gay marriage at it's finest..



always a righteous cause..



pretty in pink..



is that belly for real??



always a crowd pleaser.. parents and families of gays and lesbians..



as much as i hate the cta, the little girl riding was too cute to pass on..



the classic booty shot.. at least one person does this every year..



and finally, a tittie shot of a blurry but true sticker on yours truly. (sorry for the blur.. you can blame c for that. it's an hrc sticker that says "dubya.. you're fired")

they called for not only rain but thunderstorms at about 3pm that day. just in time for the parade to be over. and it sure did look like it was going to rain.. but as we all know, god loves gay people, so the rain never came until much, much later in the wee hours of the night.

so our plan after the parade was to head over to cricket hill at montrose which is where most of the gay people of color converge to exhibit their pride, if only for a day. c and i lugged our picnic gear over there and proceeded to grill out, chow down and take in the sights and sounds of beautiful gay people everywhere. literally. days like that you wonder where they've all been hiding!

about two hours into the whole thing, we hear police sirens all over the place. we look to the west and see, i kid you not, 50 cop cars racing right through the park heading due east towards the lake at speeds i wouldn't recommend in a park setting. it was like a swat team took over the grounds. it was like a scene from cops or america's most wanted. c and i were curious as to what was going on, but as soon as we saw a few paddy wagons in tow, we decided it was best to pack up and leave.

we later found out from some folks that were close to the scene that there was a brawl involving a knife and blood. one of the bicycle cops was apparently involved and he got on the horn "calling all cars"... and before you knew it, all cars were on their way. i swear it was almost like they were just waiting around the corner for something to happen, cuz there's just no way all of them could come around all at once like that. that many black folks congregating by the lake (on the north side) is all the excuse they needed.

so we left, as did a herd of others, and came home to change clothes and head back out to the bars for some much needed alcohol (i was sober all day), dancing and fun.

and that folks, was my gay pride.

although i had fun, i'm thinking next year i may have to try celebrating in another city. any recommendations? atlanta? san francisco? nyc even? (ooh.. how brave of me).