cold as ice

I've just returned from my first bike tour of 2009 - "Vuelta a Albany Park." Comprising only 20 miles the ride was more a neighborhood tour than a 'bike tour. The event was part of a series of year-round neighborhood bicycle tours organized by a local amateur historian, among other things. Given the temperature, I layered for the outing and managed to stay warm enough except for my feet and the roads were dry enough not to have to worry about ice. I'm hoping I can continue to do these every month. Let the 2009 season begin!

Xtina had her first adventure with the local Polish supermarket today. Typically we're Whole Foods people but after working at a place and learning it's inner-workings, you begin to see things in a different light and I think we're opening up to different options. Xtina was delighted to discover she can pass as Polish - it must be fun to be able to pass as a local.

Friends coming into town in just two weeks, vacation in three weeks - It'll be nose to the ground until then.

Wednesday

It's Wednesday again and that means I'm enjoying a day off. I've already done some reading and caught up on emails. I'm currently reading a book that is completely blowing my mind. It's called "You Are Here: personal geographies and other maps of the imagination" and it's totally up my alley. The book is filled with outright inspiring images - I just read an essay in it called "Personal Geographies of Appalachian Trail Hikers" which I found particularly interesting. It's gotten me thinking about my own "personal geography" and how perhaps what I love most about living in Chicago is the expansion of that area of my psyche. If I want to hop on my bike and be somewhere culturally, ideologically and thematically hundreds of miles away from me I can do so in minutes - there are miles and miles of space with which I have no relationship. Particularly, I think about the evolution of personal geographies and collective personal geographies. For instance, when I visit lincoln park I can stand on a site that's been home to a native american burial ground, a new Olmstead park, the site of countless labor disputes, a meeting place in a working-class neighborhood, a riot scene during the '68 democratic national convention and at the same time all the unseen personal feelings associated with place that are given birth and die without ever seeing light.

Of course, it's been unseasonable warm as of late and I've been to riding to work again. The problem is that when I leave the house at 6:30 it's much cooler than the daytime high and it may be freezing at that time and nearly sixty in the afternoon. Monday morning I rode in and fell on a patch of ice onto the dirty, oily street. I later learned that the street was all wet in that particular section because of an open sewer only feet away from where I landed. Thank you City of Chicago.

I just worked out a deal with my employer that gives me every Wednesday off to volunteer. I'm pumped. I've applied applied for one organization already. If you have any good ideas on where I can spend my time, let me know.

The Art Institute is free all February. I think I'll head down there this afternoon.