City Wendy

Where you grow the wine!

I need to ask you all a favor--well, those of you who live in Chicago, that is...and anyone who might be visiting sometime soon.

There's this new restaurant in Andersonville--Anteprima--that I'd like you to visit, not because the food is great  (which it definitely is!), or that the ambiance is fabulous (it's only so-so, and it certainly lacks the kind of charm and character that comes with long-established--or even unique--eateries), and at best it's just another euro-wannabe-trendy restaurant with a great menu and good wine in a neighborhood that's quickly becoming unbearably cutesy. And at worst, it's another euro-wannabe-trendy restaurant with slow service and a host who has as much class as a jumpsuit zipper.

Last night Katy and I ventured over to Anteprima for our first visit to enjoy some wine in their outdoor patio on a lovely night. We'd noticed their sign earlier in the summer advertising a charming "wine garden," and so we added it to our list of "things we have to do together before I move." Katy and I go all the way back to the week before we started college when we ended up together in the last-minute freshman orientation session, and when we discovered on move-in day that we lived across the hall from each other in Woods dorm, our friendship was sealed. I don't think either one of us would have predicted we'd still be friends 13 years later and making lists of things to do before I move to NY, but after a few years of falling out of touch, Katy moved to Chicago, looked me up, and we've been hanging out again since like no time ever passed. She even let me borrow her jeep wrangler last weekend for a road trip Drew and I took out to a friend's farmhouse in the country (where I got so many bug bites, I'm still bathing in Calamine lotion a week later). She'd gotten the jeep brand new sophomore year and when she moved to NY herself a couple of years later, she gave it to her parents who passed it down one-by-one to all 5 of her siblings until, just a few months ago when her car here went kaput, the jeep was returned once again to get her around town.

"Do you realize you're sitting shotgun in the same seat I sat shotgun when I was 20?" I asked Drew last weekend.

"That's so hot," he replied, snapping a photo of me on the open road.

ANYWAY! Anteprima and why you should go there! So Katy and I arrived there last night excited to finally try out this new neighborhood joint with the special wine garden and the host promptly sat us at a cramped little table in a dark corner.
"Oh," I said, picturing the sign we saw earlier in the summer, "Don't you have a little wine garden?"
"A what?!" he asked, incredulously.
"A wine garden? I thought I heard you had a wine garden?"
"I don't know what a "wine garden" is? I mean, we have a little garden, but a wine garden? I don't know what you mean! What's a wine garden? A place where you grow wine? (yes! he really said that!!) No. We don't have that. We don't have a wine garden."
I narrowed my eyes at him and clenched my teeth, readying myself for a confrontation.
"We saw a sign for a wine garden earlier in the summer," Katy jumped in sweetly, clearly recognizing my look and knowing all too well what comes after.
"Oh," he said, "We just have a little garden, not a wine garden."
"Well," I said, through my clenched teeth, "Can we sit in the 'little garden' and drink wine?"
"Yes," he said," But there's a 20 minute wait."

Now that's where you come in, Internet friends! What I'd love for you to do sometime--some evening when the weather is nice and you'd like to sit outside in a "litte garden" and drink wine and eat overpriced--albeit very tasty--pasta, is go to Anteprima on Clark St. (5216, to be exact) in Andersonville and ask the host to sit you in the WINE GARDEN. And then when he says, "The what?" Just smile and say, "You know--the garden where you grow the wine!!"

Thanks.

Selling Out

I decided to have a moving sale this weekend since the weather should be nice and it's a holiday weekend so people will be looking for a bargain, and plus, I just want to get the damn thing over with so I can enjoy all the other fun parts of moving, like scrubbing the windowsills for the new tenant, and using up all the syrup and soy sauce in the refrigerator. I spent the whole evening going through all my closets and drawers and what not and I've filled nearly 10 big plastic tubs full of shit that at this point, I'd be happy to pay someone to take off my hands. But if I can get some beer money out of it, then all the better.

The cleaning out of my closets and drawers and what not didn't take as long as you might imagine on account of me being super organized and making it a bit of a hobby cleaning out my closets and drawers and what not every three months whether I'm moving or not. And since I've been planning to move for awhile, I've even snuck in a few between-seasons clean-outs. Still, I managed to fill nearly ten plastic tubs and the only reason I can think of for still having so much shit despite regular clean-outs and purgings (hmm...this sentence does not sound good so far)...anyway, the only reason I can think of for filling ten tubs full of stuff is that I am basically getting rid of everything I own.

For real, I think I'm holding on to, like, a pair of earrings, some photos, and a cookbook.

I'm even thinking of getting rid of these:

My journals! All 20 of them from the last 12 years, and my god, they are BAD! I flipped through a couple this evening and I kid you not, every single page is either about the torment of unrequited love, body image issues, or WTF am I going to do with my life?! And maybe I was smart back in the days before weblogs to keep all my self-obsessed musings to myself rather that self-publish them for the whole world to read if they please, and maybe the way I felt flipping through them tonight is exactly how I'd feel if I dare read any of my old posts on this here site, but UGH! They're annoying!!!! Not to mention horrible, horribly embarrassing. Being caught franch-braiding the mane of My Little Pony--and no, that's not a euphemism..well, maybe it is--would be less embarrassing.

So, I'm thinking about getting rid of the journals, though I've gotten two votes so far to keep them. Honestly, though, I'm not sure why. Will I regret one day not being able to read about how some guy didn't return my calls for the third day in a row and what could that possibly mean--DUH! He's not into you!--and will I ever find someone who will respect me and challenge me and who's totally hot and all and who loves me?

I guess I have a few weeks to think about it. I mean, it's not like I'm gonna try to sell the old journals at my moving sale this weekend. I mean, that would just be weird.

My old personal massager and running shorts from college, though--I'm totally selling those. Takers?

T-Minus

Here's what my to-do list is looking like these days:

Buy one-way ticket to NYC                                       Hire movers

Get apartment rented                                                 Have moving sale

Find job in NYC                                                          Give notice at work

Blog about moving unti it seems real and and I've bored everyone else to tears

Sell car                                                                          Pack

Get cats vaccinated for flight                                  Buy short-term health insurance

Have series of meltdowns                                        Drink anxiety away

Freak out about not having a job lined up           Drink a little more

Forward mail 
(in which the following texts were exchanged:
Me: Will you be my 'In Care Of?'
Him: I thought you'd never ask.                           Scour online job boards          
Me: Cool. And I'll be your 'Plus One.'                        
Him: I think my heart just exploded. )               Change name of blog!!          

Another one bites the dust UPDATE WITH LINK

Last night I had my final meal at Augies--one of my favorite neighborhood haunts. Like most places in my area that I've fallen in love with over the years, it is suddenly closing after decades in business. It all started about two years ago when Cafe Boost, my favorite neighborhood coffee shop where I used to get the best grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches ever and make flirty eyes at the boy in all black who read Proust in the window booth every afternoon, closed it's doors and in its place opened an obnoxious purple-painted hamburger chain several months later. Then the Lakeview Lounge closed, which was almost too much to bear. And this summer it's been a triple hit with the initial shock of losing Cafe Bong, and then Angels, the neighborhood Mexican joint with the best back patio (pear trees, people!), and now Augies.

Augies was one of the first places I took Drew early in our relationship when we weren't sure if we were starting a real relationship or just having a summer fling or what. Over omelets and hashbrowns, we discovered our mutal love of diners and eavesdropping on people in diners and we came up with an idea for a cross-country diner-focused road-trip around which we would research and write our first play together. Augies is everything you'd want in a diner and nothing you wouldn't. The food is awesome and cheap! The waitstaff is the nicest you could ever hope for. And the decor hasn't been touched since the 70's--all dark wood and black leather booths. I go there almost every week and even if no one is awake to join me, there's nothing better than hitting Augies first thing on a Saturday morning for a six-dollar breakfast that will keep me full til late afternoon. And so it was with a heavy heart on Sunday afternoon on my way to the video store to pick up a movie to watch with some friends on the rainy afternoon that I noticed the sign in the window of Augies saying that after 53 years of business, the owners were closing shop.

Yesterday evening I called my friend Katy who I have dinner with every Monday night and told her that Augies was closing on Wednesday. We agreed to meet there for dinner immediately and over our final Augies tuna melts, we recounted memories and meals and lamented how sad it is to lose another local favorite to what will  probably be an upscale brunch place that will serve imported chilles and shaved cinnamon on eggs benedict.

Thankfully, we had my favorite waiter ever last night--a guy from eastern europe who always says, "For zee lady," when he brings me my food.

"Oh, he's my favorite too!!" Katy said, after he took our order.
"He's always just so nice," I replied.
"So nice!" she agreed.

I told him he was my favorite and that I'd really miss seeing him and I asked him where he was going next and he said he didn't know yet. When we left, we gave him a great big tip and waved good-bye and wished him luck.

At this rate, I'm gonna have nothing left to miss when I finally go because everything is closing before I'll have a chance! Oh, Augies--Rest in Peace.

UPDATE:

Read the Tribune article and watch the video clip. (thanks, Jen)

Time vs. Money

Cruising Craigslist for writing jobs in NYC, I came across an ad placed by a "busy young executive" seeking someone to write his personal blog for him so his friends could keep in touch.

Seriously? I've heard of a lot of stuff that people with disposable income pay others to do for them: their grocery shopping, raising their kids, tending their gardens, walking their dogs, cleaning their homes, and waxing their pubic hair, for example. But writing their personal weblogs?? I mean, really?!?!

Look, I understand busy--I really do. I don't particularly like being so busy myself, which is why I've limited myself to one day job, two weblogs, some freelance work, two cats, a long-distance relationship, and a handful of really good friends. Even so, I still don't have time for things I really would love to do, like meditate floating on my back on great Lake Michigan for hours. So you know what? I just don't do that! I accept that floating on my back on great Lake Michigan for hours is not going to be part of my life because I simply do not have the time what with all my Sudoku-playing and gin-drinking. Choices, see?

What I don't do is pay someone to go float on her back on Great Lake Michigan for me. I also don't pay someone to go play tennis for me three times a week, or watch Big Love on HBO either, even though those are some other activities I wish I had more time for.

I don't know. Maybe I just don't understand what it's like to have so much extra income that I can pay people to have hobbies for me. But, you know--I'm okay with that. I'm usually so jealous of the things people can do with their shitloads of money--like pay off their credit cards and buy cars that don't break down every other week. But this ad has got me thinking and you know what? Being rich isn't all it's cracked up to be, is it? I mean, not if you don't even have time to blog. Because let's face it: there's pretty much nothing better than rambling on about the intimate details your boring life for the whole world wide web to read about.

Unless of course, you're floating on your back on great Lake Michigan for hours on end. But that goes without saying, I'm sure.

I'm too Wussy for the Cyclone: UPDATE w/ red shoes

Well, Coney Island turned out to be everything I imagined and more. We ate hotdogs (not Nathans dogs, though, because the line was ridiculously long), rode the swinging ferris wheel (not the cyclone, though, because I’m too much of a pussy), and people-watched:

Also, we waded to our knees in the Atlantic Ocean and the Ocean!! It’s so much better than the lake! Don’t get me wrong—I love our Lake Michigan, and for good people-watching nothing beats Hollywood Beach, but the Ocean! The waves are so much bigger, the current incomparable, the foam, and the warmth, and the blue—I love it all!

Drew says that in a few months developers are coming in to re-do Coney Island, which makes me a bit sad. I liked it in all its seedy glory with the stray cats hiding beneath the rides and the public pay toilets (25 cents a pop!), and $15 blue Margaritas in foot-long plastic cups, but at least the developers won’t be able to touch the ocean. Sure, they’ll probably change the boardwalk—polish it up, maybe paint it and give it some glitter, but the waves will remain the same, and the sand, and hopefully this (and if anyone has a caption idea for this picture, I'd love to hear it!):

Coney Island was just the cap-off to another fantastic NY trip. It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. Wednesday night after I got into town, overcome with the mad, oppressive heat bearing down on me and an intensely long wait in the subway where my face nearly melted off as Drew made small talk with an old friend he ran into, I promptly grabbed him and told him we had to turn back, that I couldn’t go on like that—that the singer we were going to see wasn’t worth me losing my life to from heat stroke in a subway stop under Times Square. And suddenly needing to pee and needing water and air conditioning and peace and quiet, I ran up the steps to the street and all the way back to Drew’s apartment, his keys in hand, the sweat still pouring off me in buckets, the backs of my knees soaking wet, my dress sticking to every inch of my skin. I ran past tourists and trucks and cabs and nightlife and the whole strange, mad world of midtown Manhattan with Drew trailing behind me, growing increasingly frustrated with my histrionics and when we met back up at his place, short-tempered and red-faced--the both of us--I burst into tears and didn’t stop crying for at least half an hour. Suddenly, the weight of my upcoming life-change proved too much and faced with the ugly side of my new backdrop, I had a second meltdown of the evening.

Happily, this meltdown wasn’t anything a little food and drink and a great night’s sleep couldn’t cure and in the morning I felt like a new person. Thursday and Friday were filled with nearly non-stop preparations for Drew’s party Friday night—his first in 10 years. Knowing that his friends were going to be looking for signs of the girlfriend’s influence, I felt an overwhelming need to help make the apartment he’s called home for 14 years suddenly look like something from a design magazine. Falling a bit short of that, I still think we managed to make the place look pretty fucking good. Two days of running around the city proved worth it in the end with some new furniture and lighting and little touches here and there and when the first guest arrived—30 minutes early and before I’d even had a chance to shower and get dressed—the apartment, at least, was in fine shape. And I had a new pair of red patent leather party shoes found on sale (60% off!) between the Food Emporium and Gracious Home, so win-win, you know?

We managed to squeeze in a few other fun things in the weekend—a picnic in Prospect Park with some friends Thursday evening to watch some bands, and brunch at my favorite neighborhood restaurant for the $8 all-you-can-drink special, and an afternoon in Central Park where I imagined riding my bike eventually through fallen autumn leaves and budding springtime flowers. And maybe the best part of the whole trip was saying good-bye, not because I was ready to leave, but because it was the last good-bye I’d have to make. Because after 12 visits to NY, I won’t be visiting again. The next time I go, I’ll be holding a one-way ticket and two crazy cats in my hands.

I'm pretty sure they won’t know what hit them.

Wishful Thinking

Weather permitting, I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon for a few days in New York. Drew says we're going to go to Coney Island while I'm there because something about it not being around much longer? I say "Oh yay!" but secretly I don't really know what Coney Island is and I'm not comvinced it's something I'll like, but I hear you've got to do it once just to say you've been there. I've put a few things together and the best I can surmise about the place is that: a) it has hotdogs, b) and rides, c) is it an island?

The very first picture I ever saw of Drew was of him at Coney Island. It's a tiny picture on his website that I found when I googled his name and baby clothes business after the first time we talked onthe phone(did I ever mention that he makes baby clothes in his free time? Once, a few weeks after we met I asked him if he wanted to have kids someday and was like, "Umm, I make baby clothes?"). I really couldn't make out much from the picture, though, it was so tiny. I could tell he had this great big smile and I imagined he must have deep-set dimples, too, and maybe also thighs that could crush coconuts.

"Pretty much," I told him not too long ago, "I pictured you as this rugged Jewish lifeguard."
"How many rugged Jewish lifeguards do you know?" he asked, giving me a quizzical look.
"Definitely not enough!" I replied.

And that makes me wonder: does Coney Island have swimming pools? What goes on there, exactly? I'm sort of confused by the whole thing. I don't actually like amusement parks, if that's all it is. But maybe I can get away with just eating hotdogs. And swimming--if they have a pool.

Someone at work today asked me where I was going on my vacation and I said, "Oh, it's not really a vacation--it's just New York...same ol', same ol." I guess I kind of sounded like an asshole and I didn't mean to--it's just that I'm looking forward to going on a real vacation sometime soon--after I'm moved and settled and all. It'll be nice to get on a plane and go somewhere new where I--preferably we--can stay in a hotel--with a pool!--and explore all new stuff.

We'll have to go some place with public transportation--maybe Barcelona!--because I hate to drive and Drew doesn't know how. It's true--he really doesn't, but whenever I say that outloud in front of him, as in, "Holy shit!! I can't believe you're a billion years old and you don't even know how to drive!!!" he likes to remind me that at least he has his learning permit.
"Great!!" I say, "That and a dollar will buy us a cup of coffee!" And then he reminds me that we're in New York and I say, "Great! That and five dollars will buy us a cup of coffee!"

I really would like to go to Barcelona one day. And Greece. And definitely Iceland.

I have a whole notebook filled with wishful thinking--things I want to cross off my to-do list before I die. I think right now I'm gonna go add "Visit Coney Island," just so I can feel accomplished this weekend even if all I do the rest of the time is drink overpriced coffee and complain about the heat.

Flashes

This past weekend was bookended with two lovely trips to Hollywood Beach with my girlfriend, Niki. We arrived there Friday afternoon shortly after 5 o'clock, straight from our respective offices and we stayed all the way until the sun went down. Somewhere in the middle of our visit, a third girlfriend stopped by on her way out of town, bringing us beer (the good kind) that we wrapped in bandanas to keep the cops at bay, and ginger chewy candies which we ate with abandon. At 8 PM, wading in the lake and staring out at the darkening horizon, I tried to cup just a bit of summer in the palm of my hand like I might have done some similar summer evening in my youth with a firefly, watching the spaces between my fingers glow orange with each flash.

Again on late Sunday afternoon, we made our way back to Hollywood Beach, magazines and Twizzlers in hand, and watched day turn to dusk before we headed for a Mexican dinner and half a pitcher of Margaritas to cap off the weekend.

Hollywood never disappoints and yesterday, in particular, was a day of beach-bound circus freaks keeping us well-entertained. There are characters we recognize now, like "Mr. and Mrs. Universe," a couple so incredibly beautiful and exotic-looking, we're not sure why or what they're doing in Chicago.

"Maybe they run a modeling school or something," I pondered, watching the deeply tanned husband and his perfectly-toned pregant wife wadel hand-in-hand into the water.

"Maybe they aren't even real," Niki replied.

Sometimes I think the same thing about our beach--the way the lake stretches into the horizon like an ocean and the the hot white sand massages the soles of my feet and the Mexican ice cream men always have lime popsicles for me the second I'm craving them most. Maybe it's not real--maybe I've imagined this one great outlet in a city and a life that otherwises causes great anxiety with its traffic and favorite bars closing without warning and work dilemmas that keep me awake.

So, my weekend was bookended by the beach, but somewhere in the middle I was sad and lonely and missing NYMan a lot, because, really? The weekend is mostly for couples. I can try to fill it with friends and activities and tell myself I like my own company when I'm alone, but those stretches of Saturday afternoons or Sunday mornings that I can't convince myself otherwise, I miss him, and I tell myself, "Soon I won't have the beach. I won't have the summer or the sand or my friends with their ginger candies and bandanas for our beers." So I hold all that in the palm of my hand right now and watch the spaces between my fingers glow orange with each flash, and I know when it finally flashes off for good, I'm going to have something else to hold: I'm going to have Drew. And I'm going to have a new city that I'm pretty sure might just have some flashes of its own.

The Anti-Mullet

So, can you believe I actually went almost four months without a haircut?! It's true--I did! Before yesterday my last haircut was in the middle of April and I only got that one because I had a job interview and I needed to look sort of presentable and the bangs in my eyes weren't going to cut it (no pun intended!). But after the new hair dresser snipped way too much and left a bit of a bald spot near the front, I decided I'd go as long as I could possibly stand it before getting another trim. "As long as I could possibly stand it" came about two weeks ago, but still fearing anyone with a pair of scissors, I poured myself a few cocktails and held my breath all the way until yesterday when I could neither drink another drop nor go another second without exhaling, so I gathered all my courage and went to yet another hairdresser, hoping, praying this cut wouldn't leave me anymore distressed than I have been since that fateful day last summer.

I think I discovered the key to a decent haircut. The guy I saw yesterday--the new guy? I got liqoured up with him twice before the big day--once a week before hand and then again the night before. See, he's a friend of a friend, which is how I met him anyway, and he works at the salon I'd been going to since September where my stylist--the one I'd entrusted to cut off the mullet and guide me through the awkward transitional grow-out--dropped the bomb that she was changing careers, how dare she! So, anyway, the new guy had a little background on me and the pre-trim cocktails only served to further solidify our mutual understanding of the situation. It also gave me a legitimate excuse to utter the phrase, while stabbing the air wth a stir stick for emphasis: "you fuck my hair up, you die."

Anyhoo, I had just the idea what I wanted to do with my hair: the anti-mullet!! Perfect, no? I mean, my hair is long enough for it now, so I thought, " why not?" I told him to go business in back and party on the tops and sides. And this is how it turned out:

NYMan says I looks like kinda like a 1920's flapper girl now, and you know what? I'm gonna take that as a compliment. Better a 20's flapper girl than an 80's Nascar fan, you know?