Sir Grump Munch

June 29, 2003

I'd rather light a candle...

Had a fulfilling weekend, which is about as much as anyone can ask. Since my scooter ride on friday was called-off (or rescheduled? we'll see), I decided to go out and do some reading at a coffeeshop instead. I chose Kopi Cafe in Andersonville for its proximity, history of cute-girl-sightings, and the recent addition of one token vegan dessert to its menu. I sat for an hour or two with a vegan coconut bar thing (same as Pick-Me-Up and Chicago Diner) and some San Francisco Spice tea and did some much-needed (poetry) reading. I have a problem with reading at home: I always fall asleep. The only thing I find I can get accomplished within the walls of my apartment is falling asleep, always on the couch (or the bed, should I foolishly think I can read there), with my clothes on, with all the lights on, and more often than not, the goddamned TV on, until about 6 or 7:30am, when I'm either woken by a garbage truck, the hungry cats, or my alarm. Outside of the rare Gocco printing session, very little work gets done around Dumpsterview, but many hours are wasted.

So I sat reading for a while, trying to make eye contact with the girls I deemed most likely to be receptive—naturally I was seated in a lousy location, so that didn't help my case. But as Tom Waits said, "you don't meet nice girls in coffee shops," so maybe it's for the better. They were closing soon, so I walked around residential Andersonville for about an hour, savoring the warm summer air after a lot of cold, thankless nights. I took some photos, experimenting with long exposures, and I found a lot of satisfaction in both the walk and the photography.

Saturday I attended a KFC demonstration with some good local people. We stood outside for about two and a half hours, handing out flyers that outlined the atrocities that KFC (and anyone who eats chicken, really) has a hand in. It explained what was happening, listed a few nominal animal welfare improvements that KFC has refused to implement, etc. Time well spent, I need to get out and do more of this. We got heavily rained on for about 30 minutes, but the sun came out and dried us off again.

In the afternoon I met Naz and Allan for some skateboarding near Naz' apartment. It was great: three guys who hadn't skated in ages, taking it easy, seeing what we were still capable of, hurting ourselves doing simple tricks. Naz took a bunch of video clips and has posted them on his site. I'll link to a so-so one here. I'm Hopalong Chmiel today, all banged-up from the knees down, crippled. But I can't wait to do it again. We ate a good dinner at Joy's Noodles and went bowling at Marigold Lanes, where I rolled two full games in my Signature Style. We capped off the night at Pick-Me-Up with the lovely Michelle and a vegan cookie and tea. Thanks to Naz for being a damn good social planner and always up for good times and great conversation.

Today I went to the Buddhist Temple of Chicago's "Natsu-Matsuri" (summer festival) in my neighborhood. Spent a few hours milling around, eating, writing haiku, being impressed by taiko drumming and entertained by both a kendo sword demonstration and some sort of seniors' ukelele group's performance. So cute and touching, old people really are the best. I also went to the lake (sorry, no shirtless photo this time) and did some more reading. Then I came into work to type all this out, process photos, etc.