This is what you call a Graeme Metcalf special. The bagel broiler melt.

This weekend was pretty good. This'll be a big post, so you better grab a chair and a coffee or something.

I took a much needed break from Hyde Park and headed up to Elise's house to "housesit" for her while she was away. I got there around 9:30 pm on Friday night and proceeded to drink all of the beer in the fridge. My records are at Elise's as well (no room for them where I live) so it was just like old times. Elise kindly left me her bike lock key, so I decided to take a cruise down to the Rainbow Room at around midnight or so by myself. I was standing around stupidly for awhile. I don't really mind going to places by myself, I like "taking in the scene" as it where. I just don't like the idea that I might look like a dink or a weirdo just standing around not knowing anybody. Thankfully, Ashley et al. (new chicago friends) showed up to rescue me from my solitary reverie and all was good. I even felt sort of like an established chicagoan: go to a bar, run into friends, whatever.

Elise lives in Humboldt Park, a big Puerto Rican neighbourhood. Thankfully, there's also white people restaurants there too. I went to one called Flying Saucer (or maybe just "Saucer," The Flying Saucer restaurant is in Niagara Falls) and sat at the counter (loving the counter these days) After lazing around for awhile, I rode down to the Wicker Park area to go to the record store (scored: 2nd Rubinoos record, JSBX's Orange [lost the cd so long ago now], and the Toronto LP with "Your Daddy Don't Know on it) and then for coffee. The place I went for coffee, Filter, is sort of a running joke in Chicago circles. It's at the hub of Wicker Park (Damen, Division, Milwaukee intersection) and people hang out there and work and read and talk. Everyone--EVERYONE--is scoping everyone else out all the time though. Everyone's a craigslist missed connection entry waiting to happen. And basically, people come in from other neighbourhoods to do work there. The big lie is that you're just kind of hanging out at the coffee shop like it ain't no thang, but in reality you've travelled 40 minutes by transit to get to the good ol' "neighbourhood" cafe. So needless to say I felt kind of like a cliche by going there to do "schoolwork," but I don't give a shit.

After that, I went back to Elise's and got a pizza and watched the Laguna Beach marathon. So I'm basically totally caught up now I think. Thank god Trey could come back, revive Active Young America (a NON FOR PROFIT ORGANIZATION), and pull together a fashion show for all the Landslide "victims" huh? What, no one has insurance? If you want to know why so-called "natural disasters" happen in places like Orange County, you should check out some Mike Davis book that I forget the name of right now (all these disasters are totally man-made). Anyway, my favorite character in the show is Talan. I like his posture and he seems genuine. Also, for anyone doing a reality TV history/geneaology: What was the first reality tv show to use shot/reverse shot?

Saturday I was amped to see the Deadly Snakes show. It was super fun and they drew a big crowd. Andre and I caught each other up on some Toronto gossip, which was nice. He admitted missing Toronto, and I was like, "I feel for you man, but I'm here for 5 years." I don't even want to talk about this dead body/torso thing in Parkdale. Umm, so I drank a lot of Old Style and smoked a lot of Camel Lights and then we went to some guy from The Ponys house for some more booze and stuff. It was good times -- SOO much better than hanging out with grad students... or at least a nice change, grad students aren't that bad. So yeah, that was fun. I even talked to Max and he didn't try to stab me. We went for breakfast at Bite (beside the empty bottle).Chad was still drunk and admitted that he is gay. They headed off to Minneapolis and for a minute I wished I was in a touring rock band.

I should have left Elise's house to head back to Hyde Park earlier than I did, but I got sucked in by Bring It On, on the USA network (which, notably, will bleep out "shit," but not "fag" at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon).

So there you have it.

Also, I booked my flight tonight. I fly into Buffalo on December 8 at 8:30pm.

N