gnat celebrates national taco day

it's no secret that i am basically obsessed with tacos. i wish i could remember exactly when my love for them began - my best guess is that it was senior year in high school, before my move to LA and before i learned that there was so much better out there than rubio's fish tacos. in any case, they now occupy a large, delicious place in my heart (and probably also my coronary arteries). for the last four years, taco tuesday has, in some form, been a weekly staple, and longtime readers may remember my experiments with duck tacos, greek tacos, and spaghetti tacos... yeah, that last one was a mistake.

in light of this, i'm ashamed to admit that until about 10am yesterday i was totally unaware that it was national taco day (or that national taco day was a thing to begin with), and on a tuesday of all days! evidently it's on october 4 every year. luckily eileen alerted me to the oversight and we scrambled to make taco related dinner plans. after an extensive google search of hole-in-the-wall taco joints in the area, we settled on taco and burrito palace #2, mostly by virtue of its name:

i wish i had been hungrier so i could have eaten one of each type. as it was i managed one chicken, one carne asada, and one al pastor.

by the time eileen and i got our food i had been anticipating the first bite for over nine hours. that may explain the strange giddy expression i'm wearing below... the delicious horchata on the right probably helped.

because national taco day is an important holiday to be celebrated with loved ones, i texted friends and family early in the day to go out and eat tacos and send me photographic evidence of their feasts. this turned out to be completely agonizing as pictures started pouring in long before it was time for dinner.

jalees and his coworkers visited el taco llama in the valley (and sent me several more spectacular hunger inducing photos that are not shown below):

lily, liz, and jason ate at taqueria guadalajara in davis:

sarge and my sister alex narrowly missed each other at acapulco in westwood:

my cousin neil and his girlfriend leah went for tacos (but no hot dogs) at la chiquita y el chiquilin street tacos and hot dogs in sylmar:

kieng had don antonio's in west LA:

kelly got takeout from pili's tacos, also in west LA:

taylor, who is new to southern california and was not sure she could find tacos in orange county (cute) ended up at trejo's in huntington beach:

and joey in tuscon chose to celebrate with double-deckers from taco bell:

some chose to make tacos at home. jimmy in new york:

becky and jeff in new orleans:

and my parents (who are sort of adorable) in nor cal:

we may have all been miles and miles from each other, but i feel like every one of them celebrated this, the holiest of taco tuesdays with me. national taco day - the holiday that brings people together!

gnat reflects on her URL

it's snowing, again. usually snow makes me feel giddy and child-like, today it's only making me frustrated and homesick.

some days i get this gut feeling that i am in the wrong place. it's as if the magnetic dipoles in my sinuses are misaligned... my body senses my longitude and latitude and for some reason thinks that they are incorrect (and tells me so, with a sense of urgency).

actually, i think that only happens in birds, but you get my point.

maybe i'm just tired of winter. after all, by my standards it should be just about over... at the moment it's not looking like that's going to happen any time soon.

i'm going outside to eat some snowflakes and see if i can get excited about them again.

gnat goes to white castle

i went down to my old hood (south loop) last night with taylor and friends to see a concert at reggie's music club, which happens to be about an inch and a half from a real life honest to god white castle.

the band that opened was excellent, but the "headliner," ekoostic hookah, was underwhelming at best. we slipped out in the middle of their set for some sliders.

taylor insists that this was the worst white castle she had ever been to and that we have to try a different one before i can pass judgement - i'm going to write about it anyway.

we got tiny little cheeseburgers and crinkly fries (and chicken rings, whatever those are...), which we ate while huddled around a trash can because there were no tables and it was 11 degrees outside. i don't really have anything else earth shattering to say about the experience, so without further ado here's an incredibly awkward photo of my tentative first bite:

the verdict: white castle isn't half bad. i wouldn't go on a zany late night misadventure in pursuit of it (unless neil patrick harris is involved, then i'm definitely down), but it wasn't bad at all.

on second thought, i have been known to instigate spontaneous outings in search of strange foods at ungodly hours on a pretty regular basis, so yeah, i guess i probably would go on a zany late night misadventure in pursuit of it.

i had a katy perry induced moment of intense homesickness on the train this morning. my pod was on shuffle and "california girls" came on, and i looked out the window at the snow, and i counted all the items of clothing i was wearing (leggings, jeans, two pairs of wool socks, undershirt, sweater, scarf, sleepingbagcoat), and i got a little choked up because all i really wanted from life at that moment was to be driving up PCH in santa monica with the windows down. and maybe a cheeseburger animal style with fries and a diet coke from in-n-out.

oh yeah.

gnat swears this will get easier (right?)

the last two days have been, well...

rough.

moving across the country to a city where you know exactly one person, a person who is really busy, is not easy. i knew it wasn't going to be when i decided to do it, but i guess i didn't quite expect this. it's only day two, and it wouldn't be all that fair to say i was trying my hardest to get out there and enjoy the city because i haven't but still... there is a big part of me that wants to admit defeat, pack up the little bit of stuff that i've unpacked, and head back to california.

in the meantime i've been applying for jobs and volunteer positions, looking for classes (what kind of classes you ask? cooking, music, knitting, improv, basically you name it and i'm interested), and checking out chicago social networking opportunities.

i just need to make it a few more days and then all of this will get easier. i think. i hope. no, i know.

on a lighter note, last night daniel and i went to a pretty awesome free concert in the park. we saw el ritmo de la vida with doc severinsen, who used to play trumpet for johnny carson on the tonight show. hes completely awesome. and he performed in pink leather pants.

and finally, by request, the view from my apartment which is, sadly, far less spectacular than the view from daniel's: