first times

the power went out on friday night on my side of the street. there isn't really much to do when there's no one around, you have no electricity and it's hot and sticky as anything outside. picked up my sister, hung out with her and drove her home, came back and everything was as it was.

saturday was a picnic with church people at edgewater, slacking around by the lake, hanging out with good people. it was jocelyn's birthday so we met up with some of her friends at kan zaman, which is the biggest ripoff (charging you for water that you thought was free, putting everyone's tab on the same bill so we all almost got stiffed, $10 cover on top of mediocre middle eastern food).

but, we had a good time hanging out. the music was great and we all ended up dancing because it was so energetic but unlike my high school prom, people actually respected your personal space and evidently it didn't matter that i was not dressed up at all. our car was also blocked in three-deep by mercedes benzes and other cars that cost more than a year of college. it felt good to unwind after this completely insane and bipolar week of really awful things and then really amazing things and just become immersed in an experience completely new to me.

this woman came to church this morning, walking from west 115th and lorain to west 45th and franklin to get out of an abusive relationship. she was shaking and terrified that this guy was going to come after her, and just seemed so overwhelmed and tired. me and jocelyn ended up giving her a ride to her daughter's place on the east side before grabbing a free birthday pizza from her old work and ending up in the west side little italy, which was criss-crossed with red, white, and green banners all the way down to the lake.

while we were looking for somewhere to park, we saw an art gallery on the street that had these colorful paintings from zimbabwe in the window. we stopped there while we were walking up the street and ended up hanging out with melissa, the gallery owner, whose studio reminded me of walking into a scene from a neil gaiman story. sculptures everywhere, circus creatures, insects, a tornado built out of scrap wire that spun when you turned a crank at the bottom... amazing. i loved that these were interactive.



the paintings from zimbabwe were done on linen with enamel paint of the kind that you'd use on your car, and the colors were completely beautiful. it was a completely random thing the way i love things to happen, and we spent the afternoon sitting on the doorstep of an old machine shop on west 69th drinking mountain dew, eating pizza, and wondering how everything can be so crazy all the time in every way.