gnat complains

the phrase "april showers bring may flowers" has never made any sense to me. in my experience by the time april rolls around the flowers have long since appeared, the rain is long gone, everyone is in shorts and sundresses and my spring fever has kicked into high gear.

not so, in chicago! it's been 45 and raining for weeks, and weather.com seems to think it's going to go right on doing so through the end of the month at least. upon returning from california after spring break i somewhat triumphantly put my sleeping bag coat in the back of my closet... last week i had to pull it right back out again.

(side note: i always thought spring fever referred to a warm weather induced upswing in mood and crazy increase in energy, a phenomenon that inconveniently struck me, without fail, during finals week of winter quarter every year throughout college, causing me to spend more time at the beach than was probably prudent right before exams. as it turns out, spring fever can also mean a feeling of low energy and weariness that occurs with the onset of spring. in german it's called "frühjahrsmüdigkeit," which according to wikipedia translates to "spring tiredness" and which i have been attempting unsuccessfully to pronounce for several moments now.)

so, i have spring fever, and not the fun kind. this, in combination with mcat studying and subsequent attempting to catch up on all the things i wasn't paying attention to while i was mcat studying, has prevented me from having exciting chicago adventures to tell you about... sorry.

april sucks.

gnat celebrates the american pastime

do i look like a convincing baseball fan or what?

last saturday sarge, harmony, and taylor took me to my very first baseball game. yes friends, i made it 24 years without having ever been to or even watched a baseball game. what can i say, i have foreign parents. baseball is not a thing we do.

baseball is, however, a thing chicago does, which is surprising considering the cubs haven't won a world series since 1908. in fact, they haven't even appeared in a world series since 1945 - the year the curse of the billy goat was placed. according to legend billy sianis, founder of chicago's billy goat tavern, was ejected from the park with his goat murphy (for whom he had purchased a box seat ticket) because of its offensive odor. sianis, a greek and therefore a lover not only of goats but of ominous superstitious things, declared on the spot that the cubs would never win a world series again. since then numerous attempts have been made to break the curse on chicago's "lovable losers," most of them involving bringing goats to wrigley field.

well, the cubs didn't get a goat last saturday but they did get a gnat.

sarge, harmony, and taylor, all lifelong baseball fans, were extraordinarily patient about explaining some of baseball's complexities to me, as well as amused by my complete ignorance of the baseball-going experience. for example, i always thought the seventh-inning stretch was... ok honestly, as i write this i realize i had no idea what the seventh-inning stretch was, but i definitely would not have guessed it meant that everyone in the park literally stands up and stretches.

as we left i got a picture with the statue of harry caray, (only slightly less ridiculous than one i have tucked away somewhere of me with the actual han solo frozen in carbonite prop) who only now after reading his wikipedia bio do i know anything about beyond "hey! would you eat the moon if it was made of ribs?" in fact, i tried to emulate will ferrell's harry caray in this photo... let's not talk about how widely i missed the mark.

there were no peanuts and no cracker jacks, but there were hot dogs and beer and i had a great time.

since then i have been camped out at elly's (remember elly's?) furiously preparing for the mcat, which i am taking on saturday. not only do they have marvelous pancakes but they are an excellent study venue! i know what you're thinking - "gnat, saturday is not very many days from today. shouldn't you be studying right now instead of blogging?" and you are absolutely right, here i go. wish me luck!