We're down here in Savannah right now, at the Sentient Bean. So far the tour has been pretty good -- we've had small to packed crowds at the shows (last night in Athens almost, but not quite, no one there). Mostly it's been hot, humid, and lots of driving. I've been finding that being on tour fuels my desire to play. When it becomes the only thing we're really here to do, it makes me want to play more, not less.
The Bean is the first of our shows where they have put up the posters Stolie and Dave sent out, and also the first town where a profile (and interview with Stolie) has appeared in a local paper. So there's a pretty good chance we'll have a good turnout tonight.
High-speed internet access from the cafe doesn't hurt, either.
I'm proud to announce that my lovely bride has finally started a site of her own.
I say finally because this has come up before. At least twice.
I was going through my archives last night trying to find where I'd mentioned Lisa needing a site, and discovered how riddled with broken links the archives are. One day I might fix that. One day.
For now I'm gearing up to leave for Nashville with Stolie and Dave tomorrow morning. We'll be on tour for eight days, coming back to Chicago late next Tuesday night (I think). I'm hoping to write about what's happening while we're gone. This is my first tour, so I'm kind of excited. "Kind of" excited because some aspects of it (other than the dates), like where we're staying, are up in the air. The only thing I know for sure: I'll get to see some Chellmans while I'm gone. I have family, and a couple non-family Chellmans, that I'll be visiting in Tennessee.
The good news is we were approved for the new apartment. We went back and looked around again; made sure everything was as good as it seemed the first time (it was); got the skinny on security, laundry, dog, and other policies; and eventually signed a lease. On July 12, we move.
The not-so-good news is that the building is in fact 13 units, not 6. This means more people to potentially be bothered by, most obviously, drums. This building, like all biggish buildings (from what I've heard, this is my first time living in one), has a noise policy of none. No noise that irritates your neighbors will be tolerated.
Obviously, this is largely good for us. We are, for the most part, quiet people. Or at least, we're not loud people. Except when I'm practicing drumming.
This apartment is first-floor, which means there are no people below us, a very good start. I got clearance from the landlord to talk with the neighbors above and around us to see what we could arrange. He said, sensibly, that as long as no one has any complaints, of course it's fine. My hope is that we can make arrangements so I can have full-volume practice times every day. My fear is that they will say yes, but then if they have a problem, they'll go to the landlord (or worse, the police) instead of me.
One of the major problems we've faced in our current living situation is people having this weird idea that talking to your neighbors about something that's bugging you, when it's bugging you, is a bad idea. They seem to think it's nobler to just bear it, and then expect the other party to similarly bear whatever obnoxious behavior you have.
Tolerating other people's obnoxious, or at least inconvenient or somewhat annoying, behavior is certainly a part of life that we all have to deal with. However, I don't believe that it should be done without talking first. I sincerely hope our new neighbors will be more inclined to talk with us if something is not suitable.
I can just hear you saying be careful what I ask for.
Of course, the apartment above us is opening up at the beginning of August. Anyone looking for a two-bed in a nice area of north Edgewater/south Rogers Park?
It's been a very busy couple of weeks. But you knew that.
Lisa and I went looking for a new apartment yesterday, once again going with Apartment People. We made an appointment for 10:00 AM, made it, and waited for a hour and a half. We thought making an appointment might save us the long wait, but if everyone else makes one, what can you do?
Our agent this time was a fellow named John (same name as our previous agent, weird) who took us to six apartments on a Saturday afternoon. The first was okay, but not great. The second was unenterable; they had given AP the wrong key, apparently. The next four were all very good, but the winner ended up being the very last one we saw. It was really a toss-up between bachelors #3 and #6. However, we hadn't confirmed the pet policy on #3, which turned out to be cats-only. Number six won by forfeit.
It's close to twice as big as our current apartment, has a great kitchen, and is only about 15% more per month. It's also within two blocks of Devon Avenue, the place to go if you like food from other countries. It's also much closer to the lake, friends, and Lisa's brother than our current digs. Going up in rent isn't great, but it's getting us a place that should make us much happier. Much as we like many parts of our current apartment, there are serious drawbacks that we will not miss.
Our application is in, and we're currently waiting to hear back. If all goes well, we'll be moving during the second week of next month.
Meanwhile, I'm gearing up to go on tour at the end of the month with Stolie and Dave Tamkin, whom I've never met face-to-face. It should be good fun, traveling the southeast. My plan is to write about it while we're gone, Lis-style, although we're only covering four states in eight days.
We're preparing a redesign of ShooFly as well. We've done a whole bunch of sites since the site was last updated, so it's crying for help.
There are other things too: gigs (the music page is grossly out of date), trying to start a home studio (have Logic, have keyboard, need microphones), trying to train the dog, and so on.
Oh, and Lisa and I have a piece in the just-released issue of No East, a collection of online artwork from various Chicagoans.
Yesterday Joe and I went to the coolest grocery store in the world, by accident. We'd driven out to the burbs (Addison IL) to see The Matrix: Reloaded on an IMAX screen, which was enjoyable though it left me with far too many questions. Anyway, traffic getting out there was bad (surprise, surprise) so we just missed the 3:15 showing and had almost 3 hours to kill. So we walked around in the rain, got some greazy pizza, used an arcade's restroom, and decided to pick up a few necessaries in...DUN DUN DUN...
Food Harbor, apparently one-of-a-kind of that name, has its welcome message in ten languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, and Hindi (if I recall correctly). And it has long aisles devoted solely to those cultures' cuisine. Piles and piles of Indian flours and spices, stacks of Asian noodles, rows of Jarritos and Barrelitos, and fresh fish tanks in the bank full of fish, eels, and turtles (eep). And, of course, the junk food of practically every nation. Every aisle was well-stocked with sweets in addition to staples. I was simply amazed. I wished I had a camera, but I would have taken a picture of just about every single thing in the store, so it's probably just as well that I didn't.
It's too bad it's so far away, but of course there are so many ethnic food shops in the city. I've just never seen so much devotion to so many diverse cuisines in the same building. Very cool!
The other week, Joe and I went to see the X-men movie, and it was during the previews that I realized the screen had more square footage than our apartment. Of course, the screen was more or less two-dimensional, so I suppose it would be sort of cramped. But you get my point.
A few days after the movie screen epiphany, we went to our friend Zach's place for a barbeque. His and his wife's place is gorgeous — a beautifully restored apartment with an attic-turned-enormous bedroom with palacial bathroom. The jaws of all of us visiting for the first time had to be scooped off the floor like guacamole. What's more, they own the place!
That incident confirmed what Joe and I had already more or less agreed upon: we have got to stop renting. It still probably won't be for another year, but the wheels are turning faster than ever. And what we really want is a single-family home, which is expensive to come by in the city. So we'll have to evaluate how far into the burbs our egos will submit to moving in order to find
something we like and can afford.
We are probably going to move in a month or so, anyway. We love the apartment — adorable two-bedroom with nice hardwood floors and all the old fashioned trim and a wall hutch — but we don't adore our neighbors. It doesn't help that no one told us when we moved in that there's a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" policy in this house, i.e., we can't ask them to quiet their party down at 2:30 AM because they've never told us that it sometimes bothers them when Joe plays his drums for a couple hours in the early evening.
Yeah.
So I've been returning to the housing classifieds and housing search services. We'll probably go through Apartment People again, as last year's search with them was so successful. In the meantime I'm catching on to some of the Chicago housing lingo:
Wish us luck...