I missed diaryland! Now all of my favorites have either taken me off of their list or grown bored. I am a little afraid it seems diaryland seems to be advertising businesses now.
hing i like thus far about living here:
-various bits of architecture that i had only seen in books before
-whole buildings that seem intact until you look at the uppermost story and see the -remnants of the building with birds perched in different places.
-bunny rabbit graffiti
-being a short train ride away from chicago (which i was before too but only recently experienced)
-the bus drivers
-taking little naps in the student union by the fireplace (just like home! i'm very fascinated with the student union here in general. it is much more functional than the IMU from a student perspective.)
-ari's after school program and person, A.
-the Peanuts statues commemorating Charles Schultz (some of them are kind of pervy looking though)
-hearing people talk about things i've never tried before like snow boarding and snow mobiling and summer cabins
-the little hole in the tree where people leave notes for the gnome at Lake Harriet
-being able to see skyscrapers but not feel at all like you are in a city
-Hard Monday. It's a night at a bar called The Saloon that plays music that i actually like. there is also a night at The Hexagon that does this but i think i liked The Saloon better.
an aside- k. has expressed interest in becoming a dj. i am thinking he should pursue it. for a larger city there doesn't seem to be many nights ( that i know about anyway ) that would actually end up getting me to dance. he succeeded in getting me to last monday but mostly because of his persuasiveness and the fact that siouxsie and the banshees were playing. to do this and other things we are going to have to start budgeting. i'm thinking of finding a program online, not unlike microsoft money but not microsoft money... it's much easier for me to keep track of things if they are plotted out for me. i'm kind of excited about seeing if i can make it work since i want to save to go to school and visit home too.
people here celebrate winter and snow. it excites me to hear others get excited about it. this morning as ari and i ventured out i felt a little grumpy about having my face slapped by icy wind but then felt a little comforted by the harshness that was going on outside of me (instead of inside) but delivering beauty at the same time. you learn to appreciate snow here because it means it's warm(er!) and brighter outside. sometimes i think i would like living in a warmer climate but i have learned to appreciate change and mittens and struggling against the wind. i think i might get bored if the weather were mild all of the time. winter also challenges me to keep more active. i have found that i even enjoy the darkness. all this time i thought i hated winter when really i think my issue has been initially disliking change. we lazily eased into this winter which helped a lot. i realized this again last winter when i watched Angels Of America and there was that whole scene where Mary Louise Parker goes into the freezer. I wrote a very long journal entry about it.
last night i could not sleep so i got out of bed and went into the living room. mischka planted his big grey furry self next to me and kept me warm and tricked me into relaxing enough to fall asleep by purring insanely loud. we have been having behavioral problems with mischka and i have thought about asking ari's dad to take him in when he moves. our apartments is too small for two cats, one kid and two adults. i am going to try to work with him on his "issues" before then. if anyone has any suggestions for helping an anxiety prone cat behave feel free to leave suggestions.
i've kind of decided that it is time to go back to being a vegetarian. i know i have said this five bazillion times but i'm tired of the way my body feels when i eat meat. too sluggish.
so if you have cat, dj, non-meat, and budgeting advice....i'm all ears