gewgaw

Spent the whole day organizing my closet, incorperating new thrifty purchases ($10 for a tailored velvet skirt from JCrew – nice find!!) and preparing for my trip to Monaco. Weather there: 44 nights, 55 days.

I’m feeling light and girly – packing two pairs of heels. Will I regret it?? I hope to return sun-soaked, rested, and ready to work. Sadly, there is no connection in the room, so email will be limited. Count on many photos, tho, and a full report when I return.

Tonight I attended the 5 year anniversary party at Deadtech – which was also a birthday party for my friend Rob Ray, its founder.

Jon (here with his fiancee Melissa and a brew-tastic Seth) organized the party – we went to the same high school. Rob is also from Florida – he went to college in Gainsville, with Jon.

Jon was in a band with Scott (elder brother to Andy – who was my very first boyfriend) and Chuck (who is to this day still confused with Jon because of similarities in their face and manner).

While catching up with Chuck, I was introduced to Dave who *also* went to my high school – tho I didn’t remember him. We played the “did you know” game for a while, then began talking about his studio, which he has been running for about a year. Billing starts at $10 an hour – not bad! I encouraged Paul to talk to him about making a demo of his beatboxing.

It was strange seeing all these people from high school.. a lot of sad stories to tell. Andy (that boyfriend I mentioned earlier) died a few years ago – shortly after our 10 year high school reunion – which I didn’t bother to attend. Small regrets, these are the things that plague us unexpectedly in casual conversations.

I did not get to talk to Rob much – between performing and being the guest of honor, he was fairly busy. I didn’t even get to joke with him about his moonboots – I had the exact same pair not long ago!! When we left he was smoking, spinning records, and grinning from ear to ear – I’m glad Deadtech still up and running after all these years.

I did meet some new people this time – including Debbie (who is teaching and researching materials science at the newly-formed Olin College), Kim (who works with Rob and helps put together shows at the space), and Justin (who is working with some friends on an indie role playing game for the PC here in Chicago). By the end of the evening I’d introduced him to Dave, and then introduced Paul to Kim – who is interested in doing some performance (tap!) to Paul’s nascent hip-hop trio.

I didn’t go to this party intending to connect and reconnect – it just happened. Seems like everywhere I go, it happens. Perhaps that’s the function of the magnet inside me – the reason it is there?

I’m starting to think that I have an “open” face – one that encourages people to talk to me. Maybe it’s that I’m always looking around – that I make eye contact with people and they take that as an invitation? Whatever the reason, I seem to strike up conversations wherever I go.

I am chatty, it’s true. I enjoy making a connection to people and feel like most everyone has an interesting story to tell. But there’s something more to it than that. Colloquially, among my friends, it’s sometimes referred to as “the freak magnet”. But that makes it sound bad – when, in fact, it’s often good.

Like today: On a whim, I stopped off at a thrift store on the way home from seeing Sevren for my haircut. I must have been smiling big, because everyone was smiling back – and I got a lot of “Hello, young lady”s and the like.

I was hunched, trying on a pair of Barbie-pink pumps when a young-ish guy passed and said “Anything good?”. Ten minutes later, he returned and asked “How do you feel about nice people?” – flashing a big, wiry grin.

28, Lithuanian, Dennis has been in the city for 4 years. A well traveled, self-proclaimed mountain bike fiend, he works as a bike repariman (among other things?). Dennis was quite animated, and joked with me as I shopped. He helped me evaluate several jackets, poked fun at my sedentary (clubless, partyless) lifestyle and commented on the sad state of women’s underwear (”Too tiny! I like the old kind – the ones that are really there!”) before taking his leave.

The loose, fast chatter and jokes, combined with his friendly attitude were a real treat – and reminded me of why I enjoy the company of Eastern Europeans so much. I couldn’t help but smile when I uploaded his photo. In his own words? “Hmm – looks like… Coldplay!”

Later, while trying on the things I’d collected, I heard someone say “That’s a nice one!”. Within minutes Jimenyere talking shop about cameras (he’s a Sony cam fan and asked to see my Memory Stick – ahh, the modern age). Tech led to games, and he explained that most African games are very different than Western games – and offered to teach me some of his favorites (he’s from Nigeria).

Even cooler: Jimeny is an engineer at the south-side water plant – and knows all about its water intake systems. For those of you who don’t know, there is a long story about Chicago and its water – involving a bunch of bizarre feats in engineeringalways loved big factories and plants – and for some reason the water system just awes me. In fact – I’ve visited Evanston’s main water plant and Northwestern’s private facility for impromptu tours.

Anyhow – I asked him about the cribs – huge intake mechanisms that sit a mile out in the lake. People used to live on them for weeks at a time. He told me that while they are now fully automated, the winter ice occasionally clutters up the flow – at which point they have to send someone out there with dynamite to blow up the ice!!

Before we parted, Jimney gave me his contact info at the plant. I drove home thinking about the water plants, ice, snow, and people. I was happy to have my camera with me, so I could re-animate these stories and share them. And happy, in a larger sense, to have my magnet.

—

Other highlights: My actual highlights (tri-color hair still in full effect thanks to Susan and her team of experts at the Wicker Park salon), dinner with Lauren at Alice and Friends, and playing dress-up with my new stuff. The only downside about all this wonderful snow is that I’ll have to wait a while before breaking out the pink steppers!

Most people think of Chicago as a snowy place. But for the most part, it’s usually just cold, windy and gray in the wintertime.

When I say gray, I mean that the clouds swallow up the sky, producing a pillowy, gloomy, twilight-type light that makes you feel like you’re going in slow motion. There are stretches where the sun doesn’t shine for days, sometimes weeks in a row. It’s the one thing that has always made winter quarter the hardest for me to survive.

I am incredibly photo-sensitive (to the point that even small amounts of sun will give me a pink hue). One particularly bad sunburn – which I got while backpacking in China (a long story for another time), seems to have primed me to the point of an almost allergic reaction. Sunbathing is not for me.

But the absence of sunlight is just as hard for me to endure. In the long, opaque times, I become depressed. Nights bleed into days, and my sleep schedule wanders aimlessly – caffine and stress make it worse.

I’ve invented a bunch of little tactics to keep myself animated in the winter months, tiny tricks that somehow keep the seasonal doldrums at bay. A big part of it is embracing the phenomenon of wintertime, making it about costume, comforts and tiny, simple joys.

For example – I collect coats. The hall closet is so full of coats that the bar sags under their weight. Hats, scarves, sweaters, gloves – I’ve developed quite a love of soft furry textures and an eye for wool. Motivating myself to go out into the cold is easier, somehow, when its an excuse to show off a super-silly Russian fur hat or a hot-pink 3/4-length Jackie-O coat with sundial buttons. It may sound odd, but it works.

Cozying up for dinners, making cookies, drinking lots of hot cider, cocoa and tea – this motivates me to get on the train and go home. On the weekends, I will consume plates of pancakes or beniets and wash them down with chicory-coffee, battling the cold blah outside with the warm, sweet goodness in my belly.

But my favorite thing of all about winter time is snow.

As a child in Saratoga, I spent much of my time playing in the snow. It snowed so often and so much during the winters there that we often had snow on my birthday (in March) and even on Easter (for which we made a spectacular snowbunny). Huge snow-forts, toboggan runs, secret labrynthian tunnels – somehow Mom’s warnings about cave-ins and accidents only made us dig deeper. To this day, in my mind’s eye, winter is about snow – and snow is basically a super-duper lego set that just keeps getting bigger.

It’s been snowing here, on and off, for about two weeks now. The streets are slushy and black, the sidewalks packed and icy – but the trees, lawns and landscapes are bright with white. Sitting in the front car of the el train, I watched the snow sprinkle the rails, observed standing trains against the blankness. I run a finger across the bushes and observe tiny beauties against the black cotton of my gloves.

In a completely unrelated conversation, a friend mentioned Ken Libbrect, who has perfected a technique for growing snow crystals in laboratory conditions at Cal Tech, so he can study and photograph them. Beautiful, delicate, unique – even when lumped together they have a magical power. A few photos of my own will help me remember when this year’s crop has melted clean away.

Yet another prediction about Nintendo’s recent DS announcementore succinct than the arguments listed here.

Nintendo: crazy – like a fox?

A good week that balanced work and play, and generated some good memories. Notably a lecture at Kellogg that seemed to go over pretty well, hearing Jeb play, seeing some good films with good people and spending just enough time out and about to appreciate warm, cozy interiors.

I snapped a technicolor cab, a prototypical soft old man and the strange accident sunglasses (still on the el tracks) – now snowglasses. Do you think they’ll be there all winter??

I made dinner plans with Lauren for Wednesday evening, and appointements with Susan and Severn (who took the photo) so my hair will be all sparkly and new when I leave for Monaco next weekend. I am looking forward to some warmer weather!

And sleep! Too tired to write anything interesting today. Come back and see me on Monday!!!

It’s an old question, maybe even one I’m tired of hearing or considering. There have certainly been times when I’ve heard people talk about “art” and wanted to poke out their eyeballs – or mine, and ask them if they find it artistic. Perhaps its this distaste for pointless “holding forth” that makes me reluctant to write about it.

But now that the Animate Arts program is finally getting off the ground, I’m thinking about it in earnest. On the first day of class, Ian asked the students what they considered to be art. The answers were pretty much what you’d expect:

In the eye of the beholder.

Something you can think about – not necessarily enjoyable – not necessarily for you but can be totally for you. Provokes thought or feeling – does something to you – an experience.

Communication – Artists communicates with those around him – but with the knowledge that people bring their own ideas to it – in some way – one way, fixed – not conversational (at least not traditionally).

A way to share a reflection on society that can be absorbed by others.

Needs to be created – (unlike natural formations) – but can objects not created exclusively by artists or for the sake of art – if they provoke feelings in others – can that be art, too?

All art is interactive.

What we are trying to do in the course is blend traditional understandings of art and how it functions with the way Computer Science and programming are practiced. It didn’t occur to me until after the first class that we failed to ask the students “What is Science?”. Perhaps later in the quarter…

When I think about art, I have two distinct groupings in my head. There’s the art that I enjoy aesthetically because it maps to my experience/understanding of culture – mostly pop art, I suppose. Then there’s the stuff that I find interesting because it makes me think about my own aesthetic values and cultural underpinnings. Not necessarily critical – this work encourages me to observing my reactions from afar.

I’m leaning that way a lot, lately – feeling political and upset like a lot of my friends, I guess. A recent incident in Sweden is one example. A relatively simple construction (that reminded me in some ways of Alfredo Jarr’s Geography = War installation at the MCA) – it inspires a dialog on violence born of violence it depicts, and that which was directed at it. When we think of violent games and their popularity, do we engage them with the same critical apparatus? Probably not. Is this good or bad?

These industrial impact photographs are another example. It’s painful to think of how beautiful destruction can be. I wonder about post-apocalyptic games, films and narratives when I look at them. Is the completely destroyed city or society somehow more aesthetically pleasing than the run-down, but functional one? Matteo’s feelings about Milan and Manhunt come to mind. Which would you prefer, he asks – clannish thugs or speeding drivers and bitchy holiday shoppers? Is Manhunt a comment on what is considered horrible – one that can be used to reflect upon the true violence we do to one another?

—

The use of the word “interactive” in conjunction with “art” is commonplace these days – my class included. As games/interactivity make their way into the art world, I wonder how our understanding of art will effect them. I’m actually more concerned about this than I am about the effect of games on our notions of what is artistic. In my experience, games are often blended, bent, or re-shaped to fit into an artistic or academic framework of commentary and observation. They become somehow distant in the process – estranged from us and our “natural” interaction with them.

This came up during our first guest lecture. After viewing several interactive web-based artworks, a student asked “How do people view this stuff? What is their experience, viewing it via the web?”. Well, there’s the influence and perception of time… the desire for instant reaction, the impatience and frustration with brokenness, slowness, opaqueness, and the overall expectation that the work will somehow immediately entertain or provoke. Quiet contemplation and leisurely analysis give way to a more energetic (but distractible) push-pull dynamic.

I have this exact issue when I play a game like Deus Ex or Ico – games that “have merit” beyond the immediate, but are not necessarily my cup of tea, for whatever reason. I struggle with it, in fact – often because my desire to see the medium pushed forward competes with my own need to be entertained, provoked, and led to new places (instead of trudging there myself, I suppose). In a gallery context, the way I process, view, play and participate in necessarily even more restrained, more public. One doesn’t really “Bang the Machine” in a gallery.

And really, who cares about merit? Christmas ‘03, from what I hear, was good for WWII games, sports games and some shooters. How much room is there for our love of sex, violence, ugliness, and aggression in the polite white spaces that art often occupies?

—-

Recently, I helped a friend edit the English introduction for a FamiCom exhibit in Japan. The language used to discuss the games was devoid of what I might call… interpretive machinations. The organizers stated rather plainly that the show was about recognizing the impact of these beautiful, emotional creations on a generation of Japanese children – children who were now museum-going, wage-earning (and perhaps, art-buying?) adults.

The magic and wonder of the artifacts themselves was a focus of the text. A deep respect for the creators, and their vision of new worlds. Whether or not they were art – this was left as an exercise left to the viewer.

I guess when it comes down to it, I’m leery of sharing these worlds with the art world – afraid of how they’ll look under the microscope, dissected by debates about merit, value, and impact. Does this make me political about art and games, or just naive?

Paul came into my room after returning from the Unicornss he was preparing to make a late-night study-enabling snack.

“Listen to this. It’s my smart food talking!”

“Life is always a search for balance. Listen to your heart. Follow your dreams. Make new choices. Eating well is a key to balance in life. Since 1979, LightLifeen committed to creating vegetarian foods that taste great, are easy to use, and are good for you. Remember, drink plenty of water, enjoy a leisurely walk in the fresh air, and make time to be with your family, your friends and yourself. Eat well. Enjoy the benefits of a balanced life.”

“This is my food. It’s telling me how to live – and its smart!!

The quote was from the back of a box of vegetarian chicken patties. We found even more profound wisdom in the realm of vegetarian hamburgers:

“Let yourself be silently drawn, buy the stronger pull of what you really love.”

It’s funny – because all the heavy life change, fear of the future, what is going on conversations I had this weekend could have, in one way or another, been summarized by that quote. How fucked up is that?

Paul doesn’t think it’s fucked up – he thinks it’s great! “These smart people,” he says, trudging past my room with a mouthful of soy-product. “Not only are they smart – their food tastes fucking awesome!”

Taking the plunge – making tough decisions. Thinking through hard problems, stepping out on a limb and saying what you think about them – even when you’re not sure if you’ll get shot down. The hardest audience for an unwieldy thought: yourself.

I spent the morning with Matt. We discussed this over brunch at the diner on the corner near my house – surrounded by the cast of characters that we memorized a year ago, sitting there as a couple. Now we’re “just friends” (a super silly phrase, considering how much I care for and trust him). We have the same faces in someone else’s cast lineup – but we are different people inside. People who made a hard choice, and learned how to grow together separately.

Matt is an enthusiastic and energetic guy who is learning to be more disciplined and pragmatic. No wonder we get along so well! He likes to talk about process, and plans, and goals, and boundaries. We spend a lot of time thinking through the decisions we face in our lives – interactively. He’ll say “Yes, but have you considered this?” and I’ll fidget, or exclaim, or pronounce my newfound wisdom. We bounce back and forth, his brother, my dissertation. His workout schedule, my budget. Life-skills ping-pong. With lots of laughing and silly faces.

Today we talked a lot about “the feeling”. You know it, if you’re at all like me – the sudden, twisted, cramped feeling at your solar plexus – tight like you can’t breathe. If you have it too long, it can turn into indigestion, cramps, shortness of breath – lots of ways it can go. Generally, I’d call it unpleasant – but I get it so often that it’s more like … a fact of life.

Matt was trying to explain how he was avoiding certain mistakes and weaknesses in his life – and getting kind of baroque with language (a gift/curse we both share) when I interrupted and said “I know – you mean, avoid the feeling at all costs, right?”

We discussed. When do you get it? The feeling comes when you’re standing at the register waiting to buy something you don’t need and can’t afford. Or when you say something you thought was a joke but it comes out more like a harsh reprimand or a childish complaint. It’s “oops” and “fuck” and “man oh man” all at once. It’s your body telling you to slow down and think things over – cause you might regret it later if you don’t.

Growing up I got a huge thrill out of testing myself when I had the feeling. Going with the gang to the abandoned house, drinking or smoking, making out till past curfew… all that stuff. I tried it because I wanted to see if the feeling was really telling me the truth. Sometimes it was, and sometimes it wasn’t – sometimes I bested it and others, it made me feel pretty stupid. The few times I’ve really been hurt in my life, I’d say I was working super hard to ignore it.

Lately, I’m listening to the feeling. And you know what? It makes all the math of choices sooooo much easier. Think about something you’re avoiding. Getting the feeling? Maybe you should tell that person that you’re overcommitted, or that you’re pissed off… or that you really really like them. When the feeling comes on, as Matt says, it’s usually a sign that you should do what you’re afraid of.. make the hard decision. Take the plunge.

——

I spent the day playing digital catchup, reading blogs, emails and writing. I made a list of all the stuff I have to do, and all the people I’d like to contact before Sunday evening. I had a couple of really nice, helpful and centering phone conversations, and then a long chat with my roommate.

Change was the topic of most of these discussions – making changes, how scary change is, what makes change worthwhile and how to measure it. Most of the people I know are dealing with whoppers of one form or another. Learning to talk about the feeling has helped me help them, and myself, to recognize good choices from self-indulgence and backtracking – a valuable skill. I hope to hone this as the year continues, really make it something I can be proud of. Progress – forward progress without the constant doubt. Progress guided by my guts!!

After about 2 hours talking to Paul at the kitchen table, I took a bath. I was trying to read a long paper about AI and aesthetics, but realized my mind was racing, and my stomach was in a knot. I wanted to daydream, think about other people, places, times.

I put down the article and took off my glasses, and lay back in the tub with my ears plugged, listening to the sound of the hot water as it spilled slowly from the strangulated tap (gotta talk to my landlord about the hot water…). I let my mind drift and my body float, and the tension in my tummy melted away. I lay there for some time, just floating, letting myself enjoy the water (something a friend recommended in an email this afternoon – boy he was right!).

After the tension was gone I composed a mental list of the things I wanted to do tonight. This included emails to all the wonderful people who wrote me this week about my post on family. And you too, Borut – I’m still chugging away on an answer about representation and behaviors.

At some point, while thinking through all this stuff, I started playing in the tub. I splashed around with my feet and hands, making sounds and listening to them echo in the tub. If you haven’t done this in a while – try it!! If you tap your fingers on the water in rapid succession, as if you were playing the piano – it sounds neat. Feet slaps sound different than hand slaps. And keeping a beat can be hard because of all the motion in the water. But it’s fun (if messy) to try.

Laying there, splashing, I realized that I probably won’t get to all of your letters – and decided to write this instead. I hope you can forgive me, knowing you’re on the stack.

Home again, in for the weekend. The most exciting thing I have planned is a brunch and some grocery shopping – neither of which I can really spend much time or money on. I am happy to be at rest.

Cooking in the kitchen for the first time all week – pasta and wine, soothing away the stresses of the day. My recipe tonight: catch as catch can – we’ll call it Pasta with Marinated Artichokes in Drunken Crab sauce. Misleading, but yummy.

1 tsp butter
1 can crab meat
dash lemon juice
dash salt
1 jar marinated artichokes
3/4 jar Trader Joe’s Vodka pasta sauce (~20 oz)
1 box tri-color bowtie pasta

Bring the pasta to a boil. Meanwhile, melt butter in saucepan – add drained crab meat and stir till fully warmed. Add lemon juice and salt, simmer for about a minute. Add pasta sauce & stir. Magic happens – the crab meat becomes a thin filament in the sauce, giving it a pleasent thickness. Drain artichokes, chop, add. Remove from heat, reheat and toss w/pasta when done – voila. A light sprinkle of parmesean is nice, but not necessary.

Enjoy this meal with music. My choice this evening was Talk Talk’s Sprit of Eden – one of my favorite albums, despite its association with getting a HUGE, bad, evil speeding ticket while listening to it in a rented car, speeding across North Carolina on my way from Raligh/Durham to the Outer Banks in the dead of night. My favorite track is Desire.

I’ve spent a long time trying to understand the way other people desire, and how they experience that desire. Wanting to know who I am in the eyes of others, how my desire shapes their vision of me. Lately, tho, I’m trying to focus on experiencing my own desire, and being there with it, for myself. Like so much, it is easier said than done.

——————

I’m a bit superstitious. Not that I avoid ladders or would turn away a black cat (I actually love black cats… especially really small and active ones like Karen’s Simon) – it’s just that I see things, and wonder what they mean.

I guess the better way to put is that I notice things all the time, and wonder what they mean. Sometimes it’s just the way a person is looking out the window on the train – or how they carry themselves. More often it’s an odd conjunction of object/place, or a strange contraption.

Chicago also happens to be a city full of really odd signage – like The Weiner and Still Champ – a hotdog place here in Evanston, or Rubens Baby Factory. Seth apparently saw a fake documentary on public television about “Ruben Babies” – a historical account of all the wonderful, successful babies who were made at the factory.

Anyhow – yesterday I snapped these two photos of random things I noticed. I can do that now that my camera is small enough to carry in my pocket/bag. The first image is from the Thorndale el stop – where I waited 25 minutes for a train (causing me to be late for therapy – I really need a car). They were still there this morning. Maybe I’ll keep a running tab on how long they stay there? I kept wondering – did some kid throw them there, or are they the last vestiges of a horrible accident?

The second photo is what I saw after leaving therapy yesterday. A particularly difficult session in which I discussed my looming graduation, the choices I have to make to focus and finish, and the kind of life I want to lead after I leave Chicago. You tell me – is it a sign?

In the small moments between tasks, when I’m walking somewhere or grazing, I have been thinking about my past.

In part, this comes from my bedside reading. I’m at a point in Dhalgren where Kidd spends a while with a bizarre, tweaked-out nuclear family. They’re in complete denial about the fact that the city is burning, that the world is ending – and he’s sitting at a table eating soup and listening to the parents debate whether their daughter should go to state school or community college. It’s eerie, sad, and also incredibly funny – at least, if you look at it the right way.

Trolling through my old directories I found an old, half-finished family album – composed of photos I scanned in (at what was then considered a relatively high resolution – ha!). I’d been sitting on them, waiting to get more/accurate information – but I decided to finish it and put it up. So now, the curious or related can see a little bit of history here.

It strikes me that one of the biggest things about family of the biological type (as opposed to the created, post-modern type discussed in Weird Like Us) is that they tend to stick around. Marraige bonds create lasting commitments – even when divorce occurs (as friends with multiple sets of parents will attest). And it’s not like you usually run your family out for not paying the rent or not cleaning up their dishes – the way you might, say, a roommate.

Finally – you don’t (at least not normally) sleep with your family – the ultimate taboo. Fucking is a problem for the post-modern family – because it’s easy to confuse being close friends with being lovers. And now, with same-sex love taboos crumbling, the issue arises even more.

How to know when a friend is a friend, or more? Reading about the confused relationships between roommates in Powers’ SF communal housing I can’t help but see parallels to my own stuggles in college and beyond. The phenomenon of close-clique inter-dating that Matt always referred to as “groupcest”.

In less conventional settings, groupcest is just the way things go – as Lulu wrote about the friend of a freind’s boyfriend who dated an ex boyfrieind or whatever the connection was. It can be “just one of those things” – the way a group works. But there’s always, at least for me, the fear of disrupting a good friendship, or working relationship, with the intimacy and fury of sex and the vulnerablity of warm, soft nesting behaviors.

What tips the scales? What should? And when they start to tip the other way… how to maintain the part that really matters, and preserve your family?

Brian sent some photos of he and his gal on their Christmas vacation. I’ve yet to meet her, but all signs are good: she’s cute, smart and a really talented golfer (short list for his dream girl, if I’m not mistaken). Her father lives in Paris – they went there for some snowboarding and relaxation. I’ve posted a few of the shots here. So cute!!!

Ian stopped by my office today while I was at lunch and looked over my equations. I knew he’d come by because the VNR Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics (a constant and heavy companion these last few months), was laying open over my keyboard.

I went to chat with him after I’d thawed from my recent exposure to the outdoors. Turns out that while there is no closed form solution for the distrubution, it’s been approximated in Mathematica. Looks like erf(z) is my new friend. This is not the kind of friend I had in mind when I was writing yesterday.

However, he did give me three books: A Dover book on probabiliy (”kinda stodgy”), The Pleasure of Probability, and my personal favorite – The Joy of Sets. See me enjoying this book here.

Randomly, I ran into Severn & Susan (my hair stylist and colorist at Art + Science) while lunching at Lulu’s. I was in a dark corner, inhaling some deep fried crab wantons when they found me. I joined them and two supercute gay organists for lunch. Seriously – they play the organ, and they live with a third organist (who apparently wears tiny black gloves all the time). I think he might be gay, too.

Apparently, odds are good. Did you know that most of the professional organists in this country are gay? I asked Eric how he became an organist and he said “I’m a gay nerd?”. Oooh, these people made me laugh and laugh. And reminded me that I need to go in for a cut and some color.

Sitting here now, with my “pleasures” and “joys”, I am grateful to them for a healthy dose of non-math sex humor – in the form of crass jokes about swingers, cruising organists, their organs, and so on.

I am such a fourth grader.

Back to the books.

I just got off the phone with my father – we spent the better part of an hour discussing life in the modern world – and particularly, relationships and career/life-choices. He reported on some results from a U of C study on urban living – soon to be published The Sexual Organization of the City.

The conversation was strangely satisfying. I expected, hearing the windup, a somewhat conservative report on the state of American youth/pop/queer culture (a tense dinnertable discussion of years past). But what I got instead was a relatively sympathetic treatise on how baby boomers see their children – how they understand “people my age”, our choices, our lives.

Hanging up, I realized this was the first time in a long time that my “lifestyle” was positively explored in conversation with my parents.

Why the change? I think that through glancing but constant exposure to my post-college life (most recently through phone calls, email, photos and books that I send them – perhaps even this blog), my parents are finally grasping me. They’re coming to terms with how and why my generation differs from theirs and acknowledging that people “like me” live, meet, mate and procreate in a different fashion than they’d expected.

Who am I, in this context? What is my “lifestyle”? It’s a mix of things, naturally. Part of it is my dating life: serial live-in monogamy interspersed with periods of loosely-defined relationships, often long-distance. Then there’s my social life: lots of “art fags”, depressives, geeks of one stripe or another. And then there’s my nascent professional life: computer science and games academic with a overtones of bohemian thought, popular culture commentary and gender studies ramblings. That would confuse anyone, right?

In trying to understand our difference, I’ve often cast a critical/inquiring eye inward. Thinking over the conversation with my father, and my recent decision to skip “home for the holidays” in favor of friends elsewhere, I realized that a lot of the choices that inform my life (and more importantly, my experiences with people) center around the creation of my own home and “family”.

Tho I’ve never married or had children, I’ve always had a home – a place of my own to build up and fill with memories. Since I first moved to Chicago (12 years now!) I’ve been creating space: thrifting couches and paintings, foraging for lamps and cookware. Over the years, my obsession with the design of interiors has blossomed into a full-blown hobby.

Homemaking, for me, is more than just collecting furniture, books and art – it’s a finely tuned equation involving plants and pets, pillows and blankets, food and liquor, sound and silence. And then some.

For example: I believe that smell is a huge part of what makes a home distinct – so what I cook, burn or clean with within my space is very important to me. The interplay of color, texture and light also directly effect my mood, and clutter makes me nervous.

But it’s also about guests. I endeavor to create spaces that are open but full – spaces that encourage you to linger, and pick up a book, dust off a photograph, or inspect a small, found object. Cultivating a warm space that is “alive” in the Alexandrian sense is something I take very seriously.

When people comment on the quality of my living space with warmth and affection, it makes me happy. In many ways, I think I’ve deliberately designed it to welcome newcomers and to encourage them to return as friends. It’s a way to open myself to people, to expose them to tidbits of my life and experience. Something like a home away from home – for kindred spirits.

Lately, I find myself reflecting more and more on home and family. In a recent conversation (revolving around the collection of friends, home and relationships), Seth said “I have complicated relationship with home. It’s weird, I think, but not particularly unusual.” Ann Powers’ Weird Like Us, presents some interesting perspectives:

“Making “family” where you find it is also one of the hardest ambitions to fulfill. No matter how strong the impulse may be to reinvigorate tired customs with the juice of inspiration and personal experience, applying your bright new ways to the life you actually lead can be difficult and even painful. You can declare the nuclear family as antiquated as the corset, but that doesn’t make it easier to explain to your mother why you’ve decided to celebrate the holidays with your housemates instead of flying home.

…Not to discount the genuine trust and love that flourishes in blood families; expanding the definition of family doesn’t have to mean rejecting the people biologically joined to your existence, especially since they most likely rose to the occasion and nurtured you. The ultimate goal is to take no one for granted. Today, though – many people end up doing just the opposite. They push away siblings and parents in a fury over their inadequacies, yet they expect even less sustenance from their friends.

…Right now, no arena is so troubled as that old stereotype of home. “Are you my family?” people ask each other everywhere, and their answers often astonish and dismay them. To establish new standards, we need to examine the informal arrangements and uncelebrated ties people have cultivated outside the norm.

…The Journal for American Demographics reports that as the new century begins, over 5 million adults will live with other adults unrelated to them by blood or marraige. As the human life span increases, more elders are finding it necessary to share housing, with more than four hundred placement organizations matching up senior tenants with homeowners who have an extra room… Members of all age groups find life with roommates becoming permanent.

… Family is an idea in transition.”

stlerofculture.typepad.com”>Souris’ musings about friends and connection reflect a similar sense of urban family. In a recent holiday card, I remarked on her and Silvio’s ability to make me feel “like family” – and I really meant it. It’s a skill, a talent, even, that I think we’re all cultivating to some extent. Networks of connection, human and electric. Binding us like chained skydivers, spelling out “FUCK YEAH” as they coast earthward.

I’ve had exceptional luck given the nature of life, meeting like-minded people. “Creatives” in the most abstract of terms, a sweet, satisfying granola of thinkers, tinkerers, performers, dilettantes, cheerleaders, critics, architects, anarchists and rockstars. And each time it happens, I feel a little tug, in the back of my mind and heart. I feel lucky.

New family is a wonderful feeling. Something to look forward to in the new year. Like Bjork would say – “I miss you, but I haven’t met you yet. So special, but it hasn’t happened yet.” To all the wonderful weirdos waiting in the wings – hurry home!

Well I never thought I’d write this but… I got a new camera today, but I’m too tired to post photos. More accurately – the process of installing software, troubleshooting card readers and the like is… daunting this late in the day.

It’s true – my early bird status is confirmed. By 10 pm I was dragging my heels at the office and decided to head home. I’m writing this entry from bed. I’m barely awake.

But I did run into a couple of gems today. The first: “proof” that chocolate is wonderful (heart, cholesterol, cancer). This goes out to all my late-night hot-chocolate peeps – you know who you are.

And second: the etymology of the word “fuck”. This goes out to Justin who is plumbing the depths of carnal pleasures (and writing all about it!). Travel safe, dude – and wear your jimmy hat!

So I lied about spending the holidays alone. Ok, perhaps fibbed is a better word. A spontaneous trip to Austin for some warm weather, cycling, DDR and affection was a good decision – a welcome respite from grinding out documents, documents, documents.

Though the weather there was warm-ish, a chill would settle on the house each morning. I found myself awake at 8 most days, which gave me plenty of time to read and stare out the window at the great towering birch tree and contemplate my life. Tea, crepes and oatmeal scotchies were my morning ritual, and afternoon naps even more delicious. I so rarely indulge in oversleeping these days.

Highlights of the week include: tons of good food and company (but especially eating my first pomegranate with Doug), ordering a new digital camera (to arrive this Tuesday!!) and being mesmerized by my new fiber optic hummingbird lamp.

A few long conversations with faraway friends rounded out my weekend, including chats with Souris, Justin, and a three-hour marathon call with Rachel (who I’d not spoken to in over 3 months). I guess one hour per month is not so bad… Seth’s crazy roadtrip email updates were another point of interest. Not only did he experience Playboy pinball and photograph a rotting, dead animal for posterity – he won $100 in the lottery! He also supplied this amazing quote, from our friend Gerard, who he visited in Miami:

“Every time I bring a sloppy joe to an English tourist, I die a little inside.”

Now that I’m back it’s hard to get excited about the grind of a new quarter – tho today’s heavy snowstorm was a good foil. Cloistered in the cozy confines of my apartment (except for a brief photo-taking jaunt that left me chilled to the bone) I cleared the last few nagging tasks off my list (for example, I finally fixed all the broken links for my early photos and rolled over the main photo page for the new year). Then I set up my weekly calendar and started writing once more.

This week I will go see Jeb play for the first time in months and eat dinner with Hilary and Marko – who I haven’t seen for what feels like a year. It will be nice to catch up with them and see how Liz has grown.

My new year’s resolution? To stay in touch.