 |
 |
I just came home from a weekend in Columbus with EB, which included a sojourn to Yellow Springs for the fireworks you see here.
It was in the 90’s all weekend, which I wouldn’t mind in drier air. Instead we were swimming in humidity and EB’s apartment, charming though it is, lacks does without air conditioning. It was an adventure.
I also got to see @renced and @damgodfrey, though not together. It’s worth mentioning that, despite being roommates, they’ve gone two non-consecutive weeks in the past month without seeing one another.
Columbus is a great city. So is Akron, though.*It’s good to be home.
| Tweet |
I’ve made back-to-back weekend trips to Chicago and New York City this month. The delusion of entitlement ought to last right up until I can’t afford to feed myself from a vending machine.
(Photos from Chicago are pending the arrival of my camera if Chava ever sends it. I didn’t have it in New York and enjoyed the liberty [forcibly] afforded me by paying attention to things with all five senses.)
| Tweet |
Those are my parents standing here. As of this posting, the bridge they’re standing on wasn’t in the linked satellite image.
| Tweet |
PART THREE
Incredible. Jenn and I had been nervously waiting for Shannon outside the bar for at least fifteen minutes. Shannon, who is selfish when she’s drawing robots, apparently wasn’t checking her @ replies or direct messages. Jenn and I dashed inside the bar again, showing our ID’s to the same bouncer for the second or third time, and looking over the shoulders of each person seated at the bar until we saw robots. Then I saw a woman hunched over a piece of scrap paper.
I tapped her on the shoulder, scolded her for her radio silence, apologized some more for my mental lapse, and we headed upstairs for a round of drinks, then another, then I think another. By this time, my roommate from first quarter of freshman year (whom I hadn’t seen since) arrived, followed by about five of Jenn’s friends. We outgrew the crowded bar and headed back to Jenn’s apartment for beer, pancakes, and very analytical debates about the merits of Lady Gaga.
Spencer joined us and dominated The Slinger at Diner Grill, which earns you a hastily composited and photocopied certificate featuring a cartoon dog sinking into a toilet, a miserable quiver about his face, with the words “No more!” hovering over his head.
| Tweet |
I spent the next hour draining my cell phone’s battery (I literally used about 80% in 60 minutes) trying to salvage the situation via SMS. It’s not that I prefer to text when a phone call would be appropriate, but I didn’t have Shannon’s number and I was constantly updating three conversations with new information every 15 seconds or so. I’ll post a screen cap of my cell phone bill when it comes, if for no other reason than to justify having unlimited texts.
So, you may remember from Part One I was in the South Loop. The #tweetup was at Hopleaf, which is in the 5100 block of N. Clark Street. I had told Shannon and approximately ten other friends to meet there at 18:00; by now it was 18:30. But before I could go anywhere, I had to replace my expired CTA pass, a greater-than-usual challenge in my panicked state.
Shortly before this, Jenn’s plans to ride out to the suburbs with her sister for a family party fell through. She wanted to join us. I explained my predicament and she hailed a cab to Hopleaf from her apartment, which is only 2,000 addresses from the bar instead of 2,000 miles like I was. I gave her Shannon’s twitter name and she set to finding her, giving me periodic reports on her location and progress by SMS.
Meanwhile, Shannon, to whom I’d explained the situation in between profuse apologies, had decided to pass the time by exploring the neighborhood and hanging out in art and coffee shops. When I heard Jenn was on her way to Hopleaf to find her, I recommended Shannon head back. But soon after, I lost communications with Shannon.
I took the Red Line from Roosevelt to Argyle, then ran nearly a mile from Argyle to Hopleaf. I was more than an hour late by this point. I stopped in front of the bar, sweating and panting, where Jenn was waiting to sweetly and sarcastically remind me just how embarrassed I should be. Notably absent was Shannon, who I thought would be with Jenn by now.
Jenn and I showed our ID’s to the bouncer and performed a sweep of the bar for people who looked like Shannons’s Twitter avatar to no avail. We went back outside and I sent @ replies and direct messages to her, asking if she’d given up on us and left and assuring her I’d understand. No answer.
My skin burned with guilt. Shannon had ventured out alone to meet with strangers, who it must have seemed had stood her up. Who had, in fact, stood her up for more than an hour.
Then, a tweet!
| Tweet |
It seems whenever I’m in Chicago a project or series of tasks resembling daily life there presents itself. This is one of my favorite things about being the city because it keeps me from feeling like I’m just visiting on vacation.
In the rare case where no struggle presents itself, I unwittingly create one just to keep things interesting. Saturday night, I created a new standard of #colinmorrisblunder.
I planned a night to hang out with as many of my friends there as possible, including two I only know from Twitter. One was Shannon (@frostyplum), who is responsible for the webcomic Wighthouse. Like most people I meet on the inter(net/nets/webz), she’s sweet, smart and smarmy, like a good jam.
I planned the #tweetup, as it’s called when Twitter types mingle in meatspace, for 18:00 at Hopleaf. Then, for the second time this weekend, I did something I almost never do: I lost track of time for hours and was completely relaxed downtown when I was supposed to be with people somewhere in a distant neighborhood.
In this particularly embarrassing episode, I was on a slow comedown from a delicious gyro I ate in a humble hole in the wall in the South Loop. I was making plans with Vanessa, my foreign travel companion, to explore Chinatown when she asked, “But don’t you need to meet your friends?”
“Oh, I said, not until” —looking at my watch “HOLY $#!T!”
I whipped out my phone to warn my friends I’d be late, but I already had a direct message (a private message on Twitter) from Shannon:
“Where is you guys?”
The blood drained from my face and I took off running.
| Tweet |
I’m going to New York City today to visit MC Mike, who will probably take me to cooler bars than we’ve been to together before. I’ve been so caught up in other stuff, like travel, spiders and crowd-sourced crisis management, I’ve hardly taken time to get excited about what an awesome trip this’ll be.
For better or for worse, I forgot my camera at Chava’s when I was in Chicago last weekend. He owed me $15 anyway, so I told him to overnight it to me. He didn’t get around to it, and I was fine with that. Until I remembered last night where I’m going today.
So now I’ve resigned myself to my circumstances, as I always do. I’m convinced I’ll be a less obvious tourist if I’m not snapping pictures of everything. And how do you decide what to take pictures of in New York anyway? Maybe it’ll force me to take better notes in my journal. Whatever.
This post is about nothing. Your fault for reading it.
Oh, wait, if you have ideas of stuff I should do in New York, text them to the number a ways down on the right. Yeah, that’s my phone number! Good luck with that.
| Tweet |
| Tweet |
We were touched so profoundly by the King of Creep’s latest flick, “Vicky Christina Barcelona,” that we decided to go there on our All Saints break. In case you missed those links, the Barcelona photos are on Picasa, with more on Facebook
.
| Tweet |
