skim capuccino.. to go..

lately i've been following a routine with respect to winding down after work. in the past, my wind downs have always been on the couch, with a cigarette in hand, watching tv. but nowadays i'm not watching tv so much. maybe it's because i still don't have a couch. but also, i don't smoke in my condo. so whenever i can with the weather still decent, i go to the coffee shop and sit outside with my capuccino and light up a cigarette to just chill for a few minutes before i head back home to deal with whatever chore is at hand.

but i think yesterday might have been the last day for that kind of frivolity because it's downright chilly outside today.

if you took note of the heading to my last post, you might've read between the lines to realize that i ended up playing hookey that day. *cough*... *cough*

but it was indeed the last 80 degree day of the year methinks. and i took full advantage. it was hot and sunny out and i lay on the beach for hours. it was a good day, and i'm glad i had the sense not to go to work.

over the weekend i rented a car to visit ikea for this bookshelf which i absolutely love (in brown).

and don't you know they didn't have it in stock?

yeah.. i was royally pissed. but i managed to run several errands while i still had the car, so it wasn't a total bust. but still..

i priced a ticket to dhaka for the holidays. i'm waiting to hear back from the bosses that be on whether or not my month long vacation has been approved. it's not like i'm asking for any extra days or anything.. it's all legit. they just like to keep me waiting is all. but it'll be nice to go back home for a month. i'll even be spending new years eve there for the first time in 13 years!

so i'm still unpacking... gawd.. yes.. it's just that when i moved to the new condo, i had these high hopes of buying really nice furniture so i tossed some of my old furniture, and somehow.. i've no idea how.. but somehow, i didn't have as much money leftover after the closing as i thought i would.. and i'm pretty much broke. not broke broke, but i'm having a hard time figuring out priorities.. as in what do i need first.. a desk to put away all my files and have something decent to put my computer on? or an entertainment center to put away my cd's and knick knacks? or a couch and loveseat so i can get comfortable? it's hard i tell you. hard. this homeowner shit is overrated.

ok, so maybe not. but i hate being on such a tight budget!

tomorrow may very well be the last 80 degree day in chicago this year...

yesterday after work i had about an hour and a half to kill before i had to be at our home bar for pool league. so i figured i'd walk down to millenium park to check it out since i hadn't really been there since it opened this summer. my cousin told me about a free outdoor photography exhibit called the family album which showcases a photographer's journey around the world taking pictures of all different kinds of families from various countries and all levels of society. it was really quite interesting. i was especially enthused when i ran across a few family portraits from bangladesh.

the funny thing is, i felt like a tourist.. in my own city. considering i live in chicago, it's kind of weird that this was my first time visiting the new extravagantly expensive park, but hey..

i hear daley spent $425 million on this project. i personally can think of 425 million other different uses for that money that would actually better the lives of the people that actually live here, but hey.. priorities, right? we all know daley's a big spender.. he'd rather use the money to build a park to attract tourists than to spend it on education, feeding the homeless and other less urgent issues.

he's also backing the governor's new plan to increase state funding by issuing tickets to people caught with marijuana possession instead of sending them to jail.

but back to millenium park. that bean thing, or cloud gate as they call it, is so overrated. i mean.. really..

so i'm walking around, checking out the park, when all of a sudden from the corner of my eye, i see something moving, quite vigorously. i look to my left and to my horror, i see a homeless guy lying on the grass not far from the millenium park outdoor restaurant, spanking his monkey. thankfully his dick wasn't out there for the world to see, but he had his hand in his pants, and a relatively blank look in his eyes as he proceeded to go at it. it was quite possibly one of most disgusting sights i've witnessed in a long time and pretty much ruined my millenium park experience.

i looked around to see if anyone else saw what i saw, but people seemed to just be walking around obliviously. he wasn't that far away from folks sitting at the restaurant eating their moderately overpriced dinners.

one more day til tax day...

for all you home decor enthusiasts out there (i'm slowly becoming one, didntcha know?), i've got a website for you to peruse. if you've already visited the site before, then boo for you.. but if not, it's got quite a few nifty little thangs to spice up your digs. and in appreciation for me introducing you to this website, feel free to send any of the following items my way *grin*:

this uber modern spice rack for which i would gladly kill a spider (i was told as a child that muslims aren't supposed to kill spiders and i therefore never have as tempted as i may have been)..

these wonderfully colorful coasters and a matching bowl..

skyscraper vases.. which are pretty cool looking, but i've always been fond of the traditional kind as well..

and last but not least (i haven't been through the entire site yet!) billiard plates!!! which c said she'd get me as a housewarming present..

a little pricey them things are, aren't they? yep.. especially that spice rack.. ouch. i want it so bad i can taste it.

wait! tomorrow's payday..

aww.. shite. no can do.. gotta buy furniture first methinks.

i swear, new homeowners should get an automatic $5,000 shopping spree just for taking the plunge.. don't you think??????????

alan keyes is a dimwitted fruitcake...

i've decided to change the way i title my posts. from now on, expect the title to have absolutely nothing to do with the post (unless i choose otherwise). instead, the title will just be a reflection of something other than the subject of the post that is on my mind but for the most part needs no further explanation.

aside from the most previous post about aaron, i haven't really written anything about my move to the new condo. it was pretty effortless and drama free. i hired movers which was lovely, so i hate to disappoint you but there's no scam story this time around. he, he. and that's a good thing.

since my move, however, i've had major headaches with the developer's project manager. he's quite the irresponsible, undependable, full-o-shit smart ass who at times seems really nice though i can't quite help but think he's a tad patronizing towards me. at the end of the day he makes all sorts of promises that he can't keep and truthfully i just think it's a memory thing and that he should really walk around with a pen and paper to jot down all the shit he needs to take care of. thanks to him, i haven't had cable for the past 2 weeks since i moved in. some story about how comcast needs to come in to open the cable box to let directv switch my line over. supposedly the project manager (pj) hasn't had any luck in getting comcast out here to take care of the switch.

ironically, this morning as i walked back home from getting a cup of coffee, i saw a comcast truck in front of my building. the guy was roaming about the building trying to find the cable box. of course i could't help as i have no idea where the freakin' cable box is, but i called pj and of course it went straight to voicemail. i apologized for bothering him on a saturday and told him that the comcast guy was here to hook up someone's cable and couldn't find the box. the call was more so in the hopes that i could get the comcast guy to switch me while he's here, but alas pj has not returned my call.

now, i'm sure pj is a smart guy who knows what he's doing.. but damn, if he could just keep me posted and let a bengali know what the fuck is up, i'd have no issues with him. but instead he just doesn't answer his phone whenever i call which leaves me in the dark and mighty frustrated. you know what i'm sayin'??

and can i just add that i've missed 2 weeks of my favorite show nip/tuck!!??? do you realize how tragic that is? and let me tell ya, if my cable doesn't come on before west wing starts up again, there will be hell to pay. i'm just sayin'..

on a brighter note, i've finally fulfilled a dream of mine that i've had in my brain for the past 10 or so years. deshigrrrl is the proud owner of her very own pool table!!!! yep, ladies and gents, that's the first thing i did when i moved in. i bought a refurbished table for a decent price and literally sat there and watched as the two guys came in and set the table up from scratch. it took a good 3 hours or so, but as geeky as this sounds, it was fascinating to see how a pool table gets built. i had no idea..

i went with black felt. i had a choice of several colors, but in the end i chose black, because a) it's my favorite color and i've always wanted to see what black would look like on a pool table and b) i didn't want the color of the table to dictate the color of my walls (when, of course, i get around to painting them).

so yeah.. i'm a homeowner. and it feels good, except that i need to buy some furniture to make the place a little more homey/comfy, but i'm really short on funds. the closing tapped my bank account quite a bit (as expected) and while i did have some cash left over, i decided to put it to good use and paid off all but one of my credit cards. the one still remaining has a smaller balance than the others, so it's not a big deal. but it feels good to be almost debt free. hell, what with mortgage payments being double what i paid in rent, i'll need all the extra money i can get.

it's nice and all that i'm being smart with my money, but it's taking every ounce of will power in me to not go out and put a couch set on my credit card. yeah, i'm thinking that would be pretty fucking stupid. i thought about that 0% financing over X years that all these places advertise, but i'm just gonna sit tight for a while before i make a move on buying furniture.

speaking of will power, or lack thereof i should say, i tried to quit smoking last tuesday and only lasted through wednesday. not a good sign. i think i'm gonna go with the patch, because it's just way too hard to go cold turkey. i'll start again on monday with the patch and see how far that takes me. smoking is a bitch. i would never wish it upon anyone to pick up this nasty ass habit.

maybe i'll start a separate blog once i quit to track my progress and even use it as an outlet to vent when i go through withdrawal. they say the first 3 days are the hardest. i quit for 3 months once.. that was 3 years ago. it's time, people. it's really time..

heavy on my mind...

surely you've heard the news. a huge section of the blog community is talking about it. and i've been wanting to blog about it all day but just couldn't pull away from work long enough to get my thoughts in order.

i'm at home now, and oddly enough i'm still bewildered by the whole thing. and it's all so very strange to me in a way, because i didn't know him, i've never met him, and hell for a while there i didn't even really have a clear picture of what he looked like until pictures started appearing on people's blogs today in memory of him.

aaron hawkins.

the uppity negro himself.

the really, really strange thing is, though, that he's been on my mind for the past week or so. i'm not kidding. i've been reading his blogs for a while now, and i've always found them to be buckets full of information on anything and everything under the sun. i was always amused by his wealth of knowledge and vast array of interests. and the fact that he was a chicago blogger made him all the more interesting.

so, yeah.. i'd been thinking about aaron for over a week now, because there's a coffee shop by my house that i frequent, and there's this black guy with dreads who's in there every time i go. he's always on his laptop typing away, and i kept wondering to myself whether or not he looked like aaron. not because any black guy with dreads looks like aaron, but because he's mentioned my neighborhood in several of his posts, and maybe in the back of my mind i figured he lived in the hood. so i pictured him typing his blog entries from his laptop at the coffee shop. i glanced over at the guy a few times, trying to see if i could match the tiny little picture on the bottom right corner of aaron's website to this guy and while my gut feeling was that it wasn't aaron, i couldn't help but wonder.

and that's why he's been on my mind.

but of course, the guy didn't turn out to be aaron, and frankly i have no idea who he is. but aaron's gone so i suppose there's no need for any further speculation.

it's so weird how the death of someone you've never even met can affect you the way aaron's death has affected me. i mean, sure, we knew of each others existence and communicated via comments on various occasions, but i didn't know him half as well as some of the other bloggers did. but i figured all along, that being a chicago blogger, i'd probably meet him eventually..

so i'm kind of sad now, because that will never happen.

and i'm even more sad that he was going through so much that he felt the need to bow out. i can't even begin to imagine...

rest in peace brother...