Small Town Wren

Why yes that is a fancy Masters hood.

And in other news, more will be happening around here now that all of that is finished.

My boyfriend took this picture of me a few weeks ago in Indiana. I believe it is the perfect photo to sum me up as a human being.

I’ve been a little mean lately. I’ve been really relishing calling Daniil an old man ever since he turned 28 on Wednesday. But in my defense, he is an old man.

He didn’t actually want anything for the occasion, and I had class on the actual day, so I had the genius idea to go on a bike ride. It’d been awhile since our last ride, so it seemed like a great idea. I made sandwiches and everything. Sandwiches full of tomatoes. The sandwiches themselves were delicious, and the ride was really fun.

It was also really cold.

We rode through Fermilab, which is always beautiful this time of year. Past the bison, past the seed harvest, through the village… We made it to Blackwell Forest Preserve in no time and had our freezing, freezing picnic. Technically we were in an area that was closed since we were near the campgrounds, but we missed the sign entirely.

It started to rain on our way back, which just added to the hilarity of this misguided ride. Cloudy, cold, miserable, and raining. But it was incredibly fun. It was the thought, anyways.

Of course the sun came out as soon as we got home.

I eat lunch with two little boys at work. They’re both delightful.

While walking in the hallway today, I passed one of them. He waved real big and said “Hi, Lunch!”

What a booger.

The Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago opened to the public today. As a member, I got to see it yesterday, and boy am I glad I made it out. It’s phenomenal! Daniil and I made a day of it, and I’m really glad he insisted we see it first since the line wrapped around the special exhibit balcony by the time we left.

The photograph above, labeled as Hyères, France, 1932, was one of our favorites from the collection. I’d seen several of his photos before as a number of them belong to MoMA and The Met in New York City, including this one. But it really caught Daniil’s eye as well. As I would discover over the course of the afternoon, he is really intrigued by the use of lines in art. I, however, am more about motion and what’s not in the frame. We spent the afternoon guessing how each other felt about each photo.

The portion of portraits was one of my favorite parts of the exhibit. It makes me jealous because of all the cool people I will never know that he captured. Such as Truman Capote.

And Albert Camus.

And Ezra Pound.

Cartier-Bresson is one of my favorite photographers, and he shot almost exclusively in black & white. An admirable commitment for a modern man such as himself.

I highly recommend it. The man travelled far and wide as a photojournalist. I was lucky to have a native Russian give his own opinions on the Soviet Union portion. The photographs from newly Communist China are also breathtaking. If you can make it, go.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM – the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

So Ravelry was having a big search party with prizes last week. And I actually won one of the prizes. Say what? I never win anything! I’m the big loser of my family, of my friends, of the universe!

So I’ve got a lot of knitting books and yarns coming my way soon. Which I’m pretty psyched about. Now just to figure out what to knit for who!

Saturday night was the Chicago L.A.T.E. Ride, which I am happy to report I biked in its entirety. 25 miles isn’t a long ride, but it’s now the longest I’ve done in a single day. My previous record was only 15. There were a few moments where it felt like I wasn’t going to make it, I did so with flying colors and only a few injuries, and only having birds shit upon me twice. Yeah, whut? I’m not sure why I was the particular moving target for all the birds, but I ended up with scat on me from all directions. Ugh.

I went with quite a few friends. We ended up all feasting on Silk afterward, a product endorsed enthusiastically by Howard and me. And the sunrise was absolutely gorgeous, if not a bit skewed by clouds. I’m glad that only Daniil saw me have the mos disgraceful dismount from a bicycle ever. I banged up my leg pretty well on my pedal. But hey, my bike is a beast. It’s apparently the heaviest bike ever and gets more momentum than anything on hills.

The eggs benedict afterward was amazing, even if Pick Me Up was strangely out of hollandaise sauce. The drive home was not so fun. Was starting to fall asleep in the end there. Bed couldn’t have come soon enough at 9:30 Sunday morning.

This year was the year of the Never-Ending Birthday. A solid week and a half of celebrations.

If I include every single thing that I did that I don’t normally do, this included: bowling, billiards, dancing, drinking (heavily), milkshakes, icecream, icecream cake, long-lost friends, long-lost dates, movies, swimming, hiking, dunes, baking, more baking, cake, soup, wine, wine, wine, heels, driving, trains, boys, girls, fake-lesbians, creepy dudes, free drinks, birthday crowns, birthday hugs, end-of-school hugs, end-of-school tears, smiles, new buddy games.

Oof. Pardon me while I recover.

Forgive me, Father. It has been one month since we last spoke. I do not wish to relive that day, but I must, and I have.

A little boy died one month ago yesterday and I learned of it one month ago today. He was a small ray of sunshine in my last summer and during this school year. He made me smile often and he was among the small group of children who was there when I got to play the Tooth Fairy last year. He was a student in my friend Megan’s first grade class. She’s a great teacher; she was lucky to have him.

On the one month anniversary of his passing, I had the terrible displeasure of erasing him from the summer school database. I wiped him out of our 2010 records, and that hurt me greatly. Today, I wrote his parents a note warning of the cold, heartless refund they will be receiving from me shortly. I could not bare for that check to arrive, a shocking reminder of what they have lost–what we have all lost–without some kind words. A weak attempt to soften news that can only be hard and sharp.

I miss him. While it’s true that he was not the most present child in my life, he was still there. And his absence is still noticed. And it will continue to be noticed this entire summer when the classes he was registered for–likely only days before that terrible one–will go on without him.

He was seven and he died and no one can say why. A healthy, happy little boy went from playing and laughing in one moment, to being missing the next. It’s as though a cruel game of Hide and Seek was started, and where this sweet child hid is a place none of us can save him from. He just slipped away when no one and everyone was watching.

Forgive me, Father. I have erased him, though I did not want to. Forgive me. Our records are too simplistic to keep students not attending classes in them. Forgive me. I am the only one who maintains them, who knows how. Forgive me. It is cruel that I have gotten to live as I have when he will never grow up. Forgive me. Forgive me.

Forgive me.