gnat surfaces

alright so me being m.i.a. is not a new thing, we all know this - in any case, here's a recap of what happened after i unplugged the router and went offline two weeks ago.

we packed. and packed, and packed, and packed.

everything in the apartment broke at the same time - no kidding, the kitchen sink stopped up, we blew a fuse in the hallway, the microwave mysteriously refused to turn on... it knew we were vacating and it was not happy about it. i spent several hours plunging and cursing and fiddling with circuit breakers, all to no avail.

we packed some more. well, cara packed, i plunged.

...cara had a lot of things to pack.

i had fewer things to pack, which managed to fit in a few suitcases... with a little finagling.

i took a break from the packing and plunging and finagling to say goodbye to some friends over pizza.

finally, we managed to empty the apartment.

the last thing to come down was the chicago skyline. because we were sleep deprived and it seemed poetic at the time, each of us took down one of the three panels: eileen the first,

cara the middle,

and myself last.

and then it was time to go.

these pictures don't really capture the utter disaster that our moving day actually was - when i say we were sleep deprived, i really mean we hadn't slept properly in a few days (cara hadn't slept period), we stupidly packed the kitchen first thing in the morning and couldn't feed ourselves despite having a fridge full of lovely things like eggs and milk, the movers were hours and hours late, and as i've mentioned before things just stopped working left and right. to top it off, my girl guy must have known we were going because he started up before 8am and didn't quit all day.

i suppose none of this matters anymore, because we don't live there anymore.

anyway!

we moved. i am no longer a chicago resident. this may cause you to wonder what's going to happen to gnat's chicago experiment, a blog about my life in chicago. fear not! i have plenty of backlogged adventures that never made it into posts, so i have enough material to keep the blog afloat for a bit (provided i ever get around to writing it down).

so goodbye for now, from california, more chicago adventures coming soon.

gnat unplugs the router

for the last time from our apartment:

gnat throws everything away

thus begins a series of painful moments where i hesitate to get rid of something, then convince myself there's no reason i should continue to own it. this happened last night with several items of clothing, half finished paintings, and the bag of togas and laurels i made for greekstravaganza 1.0. just now, i parted with this friend and needed a forum to say a proper goodbye. here goes:

dear ING cafe mug,

you have been integral to my success as a graduate student. without you, i would have had to pay full price for my coffee during the long, long hours i spent at ING writing my thesis and people watching through the large glorious windows. i would have had no vessel with which to transport my delicious hazelnut coffee from my apartment to work every morning. you have been an excellent friend, and you will be missed.

love,

gnat

in the last 12 hours, the microwave has broken, the lights in the hallway went out, and the kitchen sink up and decided to quit on us. all the pans were packed away before we made breakfast, so we ended up eating clif bars and mike and ikes for breakfast. moving sucks.

more updates to come, i'm sure, as cara and i continue to deal with this:

wish me luck.

gnat relives the move, in reverse

so, there's a lot of this happening these days:

there's been a sort of sad reciprocity between the last week or so and my first few weeks in chicago. just as when i first moved here, most of my things are in suitcases or boxes or in california. i'm on craigslist constantly, only now trying to get rid of the furniture rather than collecting it. my days aren't very structured, again. i spend a lot of time wandering around - the difference of course being that now i know exactly where i am and where i'm going... and how to get back. i've reverted to my touristing ways, now desperate to soak up every experience i know i am having for the last time as a chicago resident; things as stupid and small as taking the el or walking down michigan avenue have suddenly become novel again. everywhere there are reminders of things that have happened in the two years i've been here, good and bad.

like before, i've been doing my best to pawn off as many of my belongings as possible to friends and find alternative solutions for everything that's left. i don't have bobby (my trusty nissan sentra) to take me home this time, so i'm stuck boxing and shipping anything that's worth the postage and leaving everything else. as moving day gets closer, the level of importance an item requires to warrant an airmail trip home gets higher and higher.

my girl guy has really been at it these last few days. this morning he started singing at 8am, forcing me to get out of bed and close my window and to wonder whether or not i'll miss him.

gnat is heartbroken

june 7 is so soon...

gnat writes and writes. and writes. and procrastinates by blogging, and writes some more.

papers have been signed, and come june 7 our apartment will belong to somebody else.

short of maneuvering the logistics of subletting, i have done essentially nothing but thesis, thesis, thesis since my last post. i was on a productivity roll until this morning, at which point i hit a huge wall - i've done almost no work in the three hours i've been awake. what i HAVE done is start a google calendar called "last month in chicago" and plunk activities i still have somehow not managed into arbitrarily chosen dates. 

it feels like summer in chicago today (i haven't been outside yet, but my windows are all open so i can tell), and summer in chicago is an amazing feeling. 

t-26 days. 

gnat faces her impending move

i spent the morning putting up the craigslist ad, responding to requests to show the apartment, packing up the things i won't need over the next few weeks, and creating a list of things i need to pawn off on somebody before i leave. the list is more than a little haphazard, and putting it together reminded me of the first entry i ever posted on this blog as i prepared to leave los angeles:

things gnat needs to work up the nerve to throw away today:
- "bison" colored can of paint. ("bison" is a nicer description, it seems, for the color of crap. it's a can of crap colored paint.)
- four sets of banged up but still functional plastic drawers.
- 17284392925 plastic hangers. can i donate these? sell them back to target?
- a pirate flag. yep, a pirate flag.
- pennies. a billion pennies. wtf, pennies. i can't even use you to do my laundry. you suck.


it's funny, i find myself again needing to get rid of 17284392925 plastic hangers and approximately a billion pennies. seriously, pennies. wtf.

i came here two years ago with two suitcases and nothing else, how in the name of all the plastic hangers in all the gin joints in all the world did i amass so much stuff? if you or anyone you know in the greater chicago area can find any use for an easel, a robin hood costume (complete with bow and arrows and teddy bear little john), or the aforementioned hangers please let me know.

i'm already experiencing separation anxiety.

gnat cries wolf

after two days of anxiety, tense conversations, visits from supportive friends, and general freaking out, cara and i signed the forms to say that we have withdrawn our intent to sublet the apartment.

(it was only fitting that we celebrated with a cupcake from more)


what this means is that i'm staying - until when exactly, i'm not sure, but i will not be vacating at the end of march.


it's dramatic, i know, but coming that close to giving up the apartment felt something like the chicago residency equivalent of a near death experience. until the end was staring me in the face, i didn't realize how much i wasn't ready for it. my life in chicago has become routine - i guess i've lost my sense of wonder, or at least my will to act on it and take advantage of everything the city has to offer. it's time to shake off the complacency and really enjoy what remains of my time here. i want to be sure that when it actually is time to leave, i don't do it with feelings of regret.

that said, it's time to make a bucket list. what things do i absolutely need to accomplish before i leave? what things do i need to go back and do again? help me interwebs - i want to do this right.

gnat sets an end date

and it's saturday, march 24.

...i'm not ready.

gnat slept through the whole thing

and i'm not even mad - i woke up to this:

what is it about snow that makes me feel like such a little kid?

this afternoon i head west for the rest of 2011, and although i'm so excited to see friends and family (and be warm) i'm also a little sad to leave. i'm starting to feel the potential end of my chicago residency close in on me and am having trouble reconciling how much i miss california with how much i love living in this city. in fact, last night i got a little choked up watching this:

ah well. i'll be back in january, and there will be more snow (and more adventures) waiting for me i'm sure.

gnat bids cheex adieu with bbq

this weekend i said goodbye to a very dear friend. i've known for months that cheex was moving to ireland for medical school, but it didn't feel real until the day finally came for him to actually leave. he had a six hour layover at o'hare on sunday, so i was lucky enough to spend his last afternoon in the states with him. because one of the many things cheex and i have in common is our desperate love of food it seemed fitting that we take him to his last american meal:

yep. barbecue.

i've been meaning to go to smoque since i saw it on diners, drive-ins, and dives last year, and since it is conveniently located right off the blue line this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

barbecue is always something of a troubling experience for me. in my mind brisket and pulled pork exist in a violent struggle for the place of favorite barbecue item, and no matter which i order or how delicious it is i always find myself longing for the other. smoque went ahead and took care of that problem for me.

that, friends, is a half-and-half sandwich. so simple, and yet so brilliant. be still my heart. (not actually, though... i promise to eat more vegetables?)

cheex made it safely to the other side of the pond. i'm sad that he's gone, but also so excited for him as he begins his new adventure!

gnat celebrates one year

i'm posting today from the floor in terminal d of laguardia international airport in new york. exactly one year ago i was sitting on the floor at las vegas mccarran, waiting for a flight that had been delayed due to a tornado watch in chicago and wondering what the hell i was getting myself into. that's right, today marks the one year anniversary of my chicago residency. i can't say this year has been anything at all like what i expected it would be, but i suppose that isn't surprising and it certainly isn't bad - quite the opposite, in fact.

it looks like i'm stuck here for at least a few more hours, but if i ever make it back to chi i think a celebratory cupcake from more is in order.

gnat discusses the pitfalls of craigslist furniture

longtime readers may remember my complicated relationship with the ugly chair, which was left behind by the previous tenants of my apartment and for several weeks was the only furniture i owned in chicago. once cara moved in and we assembled a respectable collection of real furniture, i gleefully relegated ugly chair to the trash room.

well today i finally had to do this:

see, it turns out "real" furniture purchased dirt cheap from craigslist isn't always of the highest quality. the chair pictured above is one of three (the other two are also of questionable structural integrity, though this one is the worst) which were generously included free of charge with our $30 dinner table.

this particular chair has collapsed under an unwitting diner not once but twice, and since my attempts to reassemble and secure it with packing tape have failed into the trash it goes. taco tuesday regulars will either be very excited about this or disappointed that they will no longer experience the brief, exhilarating moment upon sitting down when they wonder whether the chair beneath them will hold up or take them tumbling to the ground.

gnat continues to move across town, solely by virtue of the chicago transit authority

i spent this week lugging suitcases back and forth across the city on the bus and i'm down to two more trips worth of stuff at the old apartment. while here, i took some scissors to the leftover ugly chair and made some improvements:

now it's convertible!

for ugly chair comfort either sitting upright or lying down.

yesterday while hanging out at the new place i decided to explore food options in the immediate vicinity. a quick trip around the corner brought me here:

johnny's grill. home of possibly the greasiest food i have ever eaten. i decided on the gyros special, the first greek food i've eaten since arriving in chicago. (there's a LOT of greek food in chicago and you'll be hearing about more of it sooner than later.)

on my way home i noted that there is a small cupcake shop just steps from my front door called more and decided to check it out. i selected a cupcake that cost almost as much as my lunch.

bleu cheese walnut praline. sounds ridiculous, i know, but i was between this cupcake and a blt flavored one (yeah, blt like the sandwich) and the girl who rang me up said the blt had ranch dressing flavored icing. no thanks.

after examining the cupcake for a bit and photographing it from several angles i finally brought myself to taste it. maybe you can't tell from this picture, but... the cake is definitely bluish.

the frosting was delicious but the cake tasted like, well, bleu cheese, and while i do love me some bleu cheese on a nice cobb salad i think i've decided that bleu cheese cake is not for me.

living so close to a (ridiculous and exorbitantly expensive) cupcake shop with so many silly flavors promises to be dangerous, but i figure if i try one every few weeks i'll have made my way through their lineup by the end of the year. therefore, more cupcake (get it) stories to come, i'm sure.

gnat comes to you live from the new apartment

the previous tenants left behind a hideous but comfortable chair, which is currently the only furniture i possess, so here i am.

the ethernet cord i borrowed from my roommate is like three feet long so i'm pretty much tethered to this spot but there's a nice breeze coming in through the windows so i don't mind. right now the people next door are wondering who are these crazy new neighbors who are blasting queen at 9:30 on a sunday morning.

i'm waiting on bed bath and beyond next day delivery to bring the basic kitchen/bathroom stuff i picked out yesterday, in the meantime i'm trying to elucidate what furniture i'll need and how the heck i'm going to get it here (not to mention when).

more pictures to come later.

gnat attempts to divest herself of as many possessions as possible

all of the furniture is gone and everything is boxed, bagged, or suitcased with the exception of clothes and items i'll need this week and some random knick-knacks i'm still hoping to pawn off on friends and family before i go. i unloaded the plastic hangers and a large percentage of my pantry and spice rack, as well as my tv and dvd player, to the cousins today, found a clever hiding place within the apartment to leave the paint, and procured a vacuum cleaner strong enough to pull all of the dust from the carpet thats been hidden in the crevices between furniture and wall. (gross, i know.)

it wasn't until i had done all of these things and paused to feel extremely satisfied with my progress that i remembered i will still be living here for another week, and now without the luxury of distraction that's been provided thus far by packing. it's been like a game, almost, a race to find a place for everything to go. i've been putting off the saying goodbyes stuff for at least a week now with the self-directed excuse that i needed to get things in order here at the apartment first. what comes next is the sorta nice but mostly crappy part, where is awesome to see everyone and hang out but with the caveat that it's the last time i'll get to do it for a long time.

actually, i just noticed that i lied. ALL of the furniture isn't gone. there's still a chair that i found on the sidewalk in front of my apartment four years ago. one of the legs was falling off but i reattached with with some haphazardly applied wood glue and a few carelessly placed nails. i guess maybe i'll put it back on the street where it came from, maybe someone else will get as much use out of it as i did.

dammit, i gave the tv away and now i can't watch good eats while i fall asleep. that was bad planning.