(no subject)

It seems like my time goes by before I've hardly realized it's there sometimes lately. I suppose that means I'm keeping busy; that's a good thing.

Tonight, I finished up my taxes. To pay Wisconsin, I wrote the third biggest check I've ever written. In fact, I'm paying almost as much to the state of Wisconsin as I paid for my Dodge Dakota, and more than I've spent in total on buying my Swift plus parts and labor for all the work Juan's done on her.

I wrote a letter to the company that will be continuing my insurance coverage. I was originally going to get coverage for both moiracoon and myself, but she has a new job that offers benefits, so I need to have them switch things over to just me. I will need to wait 'till they get my letter, send me new invoices, and then receive my check with payment before I will have health insurance again. I'm going to keep it for just a month or two and get checkups and dental work and things, then let it go. I'm fortunate in not having any conditions that require ongoing care or medication. If I did, I don't know if I'd able to go back to school, thanks to the way this country's health care system works.

So what's been going on since last I wrote?

Well. After being sick in Wisconsin for a week, I got back down to Chicago. That weekend, I hung out with lisagems and introduced her to Death Note, my brother having introduced me to it while I was 'up north'. I enjoy the anime a lot and look forward to seeing more of it, even though I'm not too sure about this weird corporate politics twist the plot has suddenly taken. But there's a lot more before that point that still remains to be seen with Lisa. I hope we can get together again for more soon. She and I also found, on a trip to Dominick's to look for food, a frozen pizza that came combined with a package of break and bake cookies. What a combination!!

I left for Michigan early the next week, making it out to Allen Park and red_ceilidh's place on Tuesday evening after a stop at Borders for discount books. Percy held up well despite bad bearings in the transmission rumbling ominously the whole way. My trip to Saginaw and the Marshall Fredericks Sculpture Museum on Wednesday was equally uneventful in terms of car issues, fortunately.

The museum was great! First, of course, I found the exhibit my piece was in and tracked my photo down. Can I tell you how giddy it made me to see my name up on a wall next to a picture I took, there among so many other fantastic photos, models, and other artifacts? I actually went back out of the museum and called moiracoon just to share the moment with someone who I knew wouldn't be working in the middle of the day. *bounces*

After that, I went back in and went through the exhibit thoroughly, looking at all the displays, reading all the text. I learned a lot about the influence of the Arts and Crafts movement on the ornately decorated and detailed buildings of the Art Deco period in the late twenties and early thirties. I'd never realized there was a link there and I found the presentation of a lot of links between a number of concepts that I didn't realize were tied together quite enlightening.

I met and got to chat with the archivist who put the exhibit together too. She told me that she was originally thinking of an exhibit just about Marshal Fredericks (the sculptor the museum centers on) and his collaborations with a particular Detroit architect, but eventually she widened the scope significantly to include architecturally related art in Detroit between the world wars. It was great chatting with her about architecture and Detroit and the way the city is perceived and how great we think it is to see the city sort of putting her good side forward this way. Turns out she has an undergraduate degree in anthropology too, so we got to talk about that a little.

I went out to find dinner and came back for a talk on architecture in Detroit being given by John Gallager. He's an architecture critic for the Detroit Free Press and has written a couple of books I'd like to look through copies of. He presented a great slideshow about various buildings that fit the theme of the exhibit and afterward I introduced myself, told him how much I'd enjoyed his lecture, and gave him my card. Finally, I drove the couple hours back to Allen Park and crashed. Er, maybe that's a poor choice of words. *grins* I quietly and peacefully parked my car and settled in for the night with Ceilidh.

I felt a little bad that I didn't talk to her dad more during the trip, but at the same time, I wasn't quite sure how to interact with him. He didn't remember me at all from the last time I was there. But I did get to hang out with Ceilidh, and that was wonderful! She and Sienna the pit bull and I all went outside for some photos in the beautiful Spring weather the day before I left, and I got some great pictures of her piratical and wenchly self.

Thanks Ceilidh for once again hosting a travelling dog. And even more so for being a wonderful person who I care about and enjoy spending time with. *hugs*

And speaking of wonderful people, upon my return to Illinois that weekend, I got to see danaeris! The two of us had planned to meet in Oak Park for a tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio there. She drove out on Saturday from her place, while I took public transportation to meet her. I was excited about seeing new scenery from the train as I'd never taken the Green Line before. What an array of neighborhoods! From the glass and steel behemoths of The Loop to some very low-rent residential districts to some heavy industrial areas. I even saw the abandoned Brach's factory! I'd wondered just where that place was.

Finally, after disembarking at the Harlem stop, I made the fifteen minute walk to the studio. I was too late for the last tour. Which was ok, because Danae actually didn't arrive until ten minutes or so after me! The two of us took the opportunity to enjoy a short walk around the area, looking at the usually rather nice and in some cases really superlative architecture, including a number of other Wright-designed buildings. I preferred one of his earlier, very gothic looking buildings to a newer, less ostentatious one that Danae liked more. But they were both beautiful.

Anyway, we moved on from there back to a party at Ohana House with a bunch of folks. I had a nice time and chatted with someone for a while about astronomy and astrophotography, and got to sit and talk with uncle_vlad for a while too, which is always nice. I realized that my ankle, which I'd hurt in a trip earlier that day, was getting rather more painful. Danae was so wonderfully sweet to me and made me sit down and put ice on it and got me food so I wouldn't have to get up. I have mentioned how much I appreciate her presence in my life and how happy I am to have met her, but I will say it again. She rules.

It was pretty loud and I was getting a headache, so despite that, it was nice to be on our way back to my place. I spent the night very happily snuggled up with the aforementioned wonderful person and, really, I don't think I can beat that for nice ways to spend a night.

The next day, we got up and took to our vehicles to head south toward the Robie House. I have already related the exciting adventures that ensued, as we both lost control of our cars on Lakeshore Drive, so I won't revisit that unpleasantness. Instead I'll write about how awesome the building was.

Now, I noted that I preferred Wrights's old-school gothic/victorian look over the newer building in Oak Park. That doesn't go for the Robie House. I thought it was neat at first from the outside. The inside, as we took the tour was pretty great too, and there were a lot of elements, like the inset lighting behind carved wood panels, and really just the overall flow of the space were really neat too. And in fact, the more I've been thinking about it and looking at pictures and floor plans and remembering what the space was like, the more it's been growing on me. Maybe I was just a little too rattled to fully appreciate it at the time, because, neat as the house was, the thing that I actually remember best was staying very near to Danae and putting a hand on her shoulder or my arms around her or kissing the back of her head as we listened to our guide talk.

But as I said, the more I look at the Robie House, the more I like it. I even started sketching it out on graph paper to approximate in Minecraft. But that's a post for another time.

From there, we decided to visit the Morton Aboretum. Unfortunately, it's kind of pricy to get in and it didn't make sense to pay $11 just to walk around for a little while before dinner. More unfortunately, I'd already paid and gone in before checking my voice mail and getting a message from Danae telling me not to. *giggles* The gatekeeper was very kind and refunded my admission on the condition that I leave right away. I'd like to go back and see more when there's more time.

For dinner, we capped off the craziness of the weekend by arriving at a restaurant that Danae had a groupon for, only to find it closed. I suggested a sushi restaurant I'd seen nearby and we had some really good food there before going back to Aurora for the night, laughing and joking about the weekend we'd had.

I was in St. Charles as usual in the early part of the week. On Monday evening, I was at Fermilab again for the usual board game night. It was great to be there with daylight still to spare! I got to see the bison herd! *bounces*

And I suppose that about covers it. I had my class tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to get a copy of my birth certificate in Waukegan and then drive up to Kenosha. Saturday I have to meet with Moira. Then Sunday Danae and I are finally going to do that tour in Oak Park. I cancelled plans to get together with cranberrynomiko today and instead stayed home until class. But after today and tonight, I'm feeling like I at least have a hand up in the air from beneath the pile of stuff I'm supposed to have been doing. Yay!

Things are pretty good.