I'm sitting here at my butcher block dining table, typing my first entry. The TV is on for background music; I think "That 70s Show" just ended but I wasn't really paying attention. The window behind me is open and I feel a nice, cool breeze on my back. We've just had a couple of really hot, humid days here in Chicago, but some rain and a cool front have come through within the last few hours, and the breeze I feel is refreshing. I live high up in a lakefront highrise and it's true what they say -- it really is "cooler near the lake". Plus it's usually breezy (if not downright windy) near my building. Hot, humid weather makes me so listless.I took a walk up to Uptown this afternoon, while it was still hot and humid, and had lunch at Thai Pastry, just off the Argyle strip known as "New Chinatown", even though it's really mostly Vietnamese. This was my first time at the restaurant, and it is every bit as good as Mark told me it is. The menu is written in both English and Thai. I got there just in time to order a lunch special, so I had the Panang Curry with chicken, which came with Won Ton soup and an egg roll, as well as steamed rice. The meal was delicious and better than most Thai food I've had in this city; I wonder why I never visited sooner.
After lunch I walked around the Argyle strip and browsed in a couple of the Vietnamese/Chinese gift shops. I want to buy another inexpensive wall scroll to complement the one I bought yesterday in Chinatown and which looks lonely hanging on my wall. I saw some scrolls at one of the shops, but decided not to make a purchase today....
Sunday night I met Mark at Borders and we walked across the street to see Margaret Cho's latest movie, "Notorious C.H.O.", where she does her raunchy stand-up comedy yet again. It was good, and made me laugh in spots, but to me her earlier movie, "I'm the One That I Want" was better and funnier.
After the movie Mark told me he had to go home and prepare for his work day on Monday. OK, I get the picture, I thought to myself, no BJ for me tonight. I waited with him until his bus came, then he boarded the bus and I walked home.
After I got home I did something stupid that made me very upset. I was planning on going out to a couple bars in Boystown to have a few drinks, maybe "get lucky", and/or whatever, but decided against it as it was really muggy out, I was tired, and my apartment is air-conditioned. I surfed the web for an hour or two, then decided to go to bed. But my neighbors were so noisy that I pounded really hard on the wall like I sometimes do -- but this time, to my horror, I made a fist-sized hole in the wall. What to do?
I went to bed but doubt if I slept more than two hours all night, partly due to the caffeine of the large Diet Coke I'd had at the movie, but mostly, I'm sure, because I was sick about what I'd just done. How difficult and expensive will it be for me to get that fixed? Maybe I should attend one of those Anger Management classes? Every noise in my apartment puts me on edge. I decided that for now I would just hide the hole by hanging a picture over it and deal with it later.
I had no extra pictures to hang so on Monday, reluctantly, I went out shopping. I really don't want to accumulate any more possessions right now, because within a year or so I plan to get rid of everything I own, give up my apartment, and start traveling the world. So I don't want to spend a lot of money now to add to my material possessions. In fact, it's time to start thinking about how I'll divest myself of some stuff.
I decided the best thing at this point would be to buy some very inexpensive Chinese wall scrolls for that wall. I had some many years ago which I bought for only $2 each, but when I moved to Chicago I got rid of them. So on Monday I looked all over my neighborhood, but didn't find anything... I decided to take the el down to Chinatown and look around. Once there, I found just what I wanted in the first store I checked. But I walked around and browsed around some more, also walking down residential side streets where I was the only Caucasian to be found. I imagined that the Chinese people I passed on the streets were curiously wondering what I was doing there. I wondered what the interiors of the houses I passed look like -- are they decorated with lots of Eastern art, furniture, and knickknacks like I saw in the stores where I browsed? I passed a Catholic Church (St. Therese's, I think) whose bells were playing Chinese-sounding tunes which captivated me. I stopped at Emperor's Choice for a late lunch and dined on Kung Bo, then returned to the first gift shop I had browsed and bought just one wall scroll; the picture was of a colorful peacock with a huge bushy tail. The scrolls are still priced at only $2.50 to $3 after all these years. Just before returning home, I also stopped at a Chinese bakery and bought orange cake and mango pudding. Their prices were very low.
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