I had tickets to go see Neil Gaiman speak at the Chicago Trib Printers Row Lit Fest today, but I ended up not going. Instead, I went to meet with my new real estate agent.

Yes, after mumblety-some years of being a happy renter, I am looking into buying.

But I'm not going crazy. I'm looking for a condo, not a house.

My dream condo would be a in an older building (like pre-WWII older) with cool details (for instance, this apartment which is somewhere near 100 years old, has picture rail in the living and dining rooms) in an urban setting (I'm aiming at Evanston specifically and closer to the Northwestern campus and downtown than to The City which is immediatley to Evanston's south) where there would be at least some amenities withing walking distance -- a coffee shop, dining, groceries, drug store, that sort of thing. There is quite a big area of Evanston where if you lived on its encircling residential streets, you could walk to pretty much anything you'd need including clothes shopping. Which would ROCK.

I'd also like a designated parking space, a bathroom with a decent-sized counter and NO WINDOW in the BATHTUB (a weird Chicago-area commonplace).

I don't think any of that is too much to ask.

Now to just go get pre-qualified for a mortgage. *gulp*

Ira Glass!

Actual headline from actual news alert sent to me from the actual Chicago Tribune:

Joey 'the Clown' Lombardo sentenced to life

...but Society is to blame!

I got a parking ticket for a "snow violation."  Because I was STOOPID!  It snowed overnight the 13th, and it didn't even occur to me to go out and move my car to the odd-numbered side of the street so they could plow (the village rules are you park on the side of the street that matches the even or oddness of the day of the week).  It just never DAWNED on me that I was parked on the wrong side, though I was feeling very smug about being on the correct side of the street today (even side = even date) and so I didn't need to go out and move the car.

I went out to go to the gym and run errands, saw the ticket, and blurted, "But it's an even-numbered day!"  And then I read the ticket...

Duuuuuuuuu-uuuuuuu-uuuuuuh.

In other news, I reupped my paid membership and added-on LOTS of userpix.  So expect a mad variety of those to ensue over the next few days.
 

Food delivery of non-pizza foods. And fast delivery, too. And not only by going through some secondary business set up to enable food delivery but which has byzantine rules and regs about what can be delivered and which takes for-freaking-ever (see: former city which pretty much only had these delivery options available).

I've been bemoaning the lack of drive-thru Chinese restaurants here in my new fair city, but then I noticed the "delivery" neon lights all over the place. They'll bring all kinds of food to my house. They will even come up the stairs to my door. They will EVEN take credit cards. Heck with sitting in a drive-thru! This place is AWESOME.

Do you remember it? I do! And I experienced the reunion tour of it today at the Field Museum. Gorgeous. Well worth the ticket price and rackrent parking fees. Field is gorgeous anyway, and there's lots to see without the special exhibit -- but it was wonderful.

marimarguerite visited for the weekend, and she and I toured Evanston yesterday, went to wondrous Walker Brothers for breakfast today along with litl_iruka, and then we three Tutted for quite awhile later in the morning. But I managed a bit of revising, tweaking, etc., too :)

27,078 / 90,000 (30.1%)

Chugging along on The Book, revision count -- should have started sooner tonight, and now I can't stay up any longer. Oh, well. I will do better. I still feel a bit un-settled-in, but one or two more weekends of organizing, and I should be good.

Just got an invite to Ravinia concert Sunday which is awesome! That's exactly the sort of thing Chicagoland has to offer that makes it so wonderful. And I'm determined to finally go to a live taping of "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" this month, too.

11,840 / 95,000 (12.5%)

Due to my desktop computer being weird with the internet connection (fixable but a pain), I'm working off my laptop which is fine but I STINK at typing on this little keyboard :P

Unpacking is continuing apace. I bought a new CD shelf today and so have all those put away, put away the DVDs, too. Boxes piling up precariously in the office, BUT finally tracked down the drop-off recycling center and it isn't too far. I need to cut up all the boxes, though. Gack. I need a new box cutter.

Tomorrow is the DMV, voter registration, and library card acquiring -- those are the plans. PLUS, I must finalize the home-office setup as much as possible before this weekend when I'll be assembling the new desk and really setting up the home office. I WILL get settled in eventually. This settling-in is taking longer than it ever has before, but then this is the biggest move I've ever made and I left a lot behind, furniture-wise (on purpose to force myself to get stuff I wanted rather than stuff I was settling for).

Still too busy for proper move-story blog, but that'll happen -- maybe this weekend!

I just love it here.

I am SO TIRED. I want to write-up the move, but today is my move-lag day, and I am wiped out from the go-go-go, unpack-unpack-unpack of it all. Trying to decide what to do for supper right now and then I think to bed early with a book.

Bedroom and kitchen and bathroom are all squared away. Enormous living room still needs a few more shelves to allow me to finish it, but it's in good shape considering, and enormous office (dining room by design) will have to await delivery of desk on Friday before it can be finished. i'm managing with my laptop on my tiny kitchen table at the moment -- everything's crowded on there so it feels very haphazard.

My internet phone doesn't work well -- it makes a weird dit-dit-dit sound and drops in and out and I'm RIGHT BY the transmitter so there's no reason for it. This is with a regular corded and cordless phone (which I thought was the problem until I ran a control test with the old phone). DEEPLY annoying.

So that's what I'm working on... stuff. Love it here. So much to do. Went to Ikea yesterday and Whole Foods today :) This apartment is awesome.

So, I'm moving to Chicago! Well, the Chicago metro area to be precise. I'll be in the north suburbs, but very close to the city. GREAT apartment in a beautiful old vintage building. And right across the alley from my best friend. It's very weird in a good way -- we just tripped across the place while looking at various listings I'd found online (rental sites, craigslist, etc.) and since it was "close by" (we had no idea), we decided to swing by and look at the outside while I continued trying to get the person on the phone.

Oh. My. God. It's great. It's perfect.

I can't wait.

( more and exterior pics below the cut )

Adventure, it was. Due to me being a goober, I didn't have my checkbook with me so couldn't put down my deposit to secure this Perfect Apartment which made me NUTSO. I scrambled around trying to sort out something but nothing worked, and I finally went home (4 hours away) as planned. Then I couldn't sleep...

And I drove back the next day to hand-deliver my deposit and make sure the apartment was MINE. Worth it. And my car gets good gas mileage, so it was only a bit more than FedEx overnight... and faster. They couldn't guarantee me any time before Tuesday. I would never have survived that wait.

While looking around at downtown Chicago on Google Earth, I was nearly poked in the eye by the Sears Tower. It loomed up so much higher than all the rest of the buildings, and I was zoomed in close to the tops...

trying to imagine what 12-year-old-me would have thought of this world her older self lives in...

Weekend hanging with litl_iruka! FUN! Shopped at DSW (best shoe store on the planet) and got an awesome pair of boots that probably initially listed for $200 or so for $20! $20! I am still amazed. Also, new Reeboks for gym go-age.

I am currently unwinding for the drive home in the lovely slushy sleetiness and allowing my DVR to get ahead of me so I can fast forward through the Oscar commercials.

Just watched Ep. 49 of FMA and I do not know WHAT the heck is going on, but it is blowing my mind. I don't know how they're going to get everything wrapped up in just two more episodes. And I have a Battlestar Galactica episode in the DVR to watch later, too, so... I've got that going for me.

Better start watching Oscars now, as spoilers are beginning to happen... argh.

Ran into Drew Geraci (friend and former Birds of Prey inker) at Shooting Stars booth and a bunch of us went out to dinner and talked comics and geeked out and had a great time.

Jim Lee was in my hotel. I walked RIGHT BY Jim Lee in the lobby of my hotel. I was *this*close* to Jim Lee! (me: GEEEEEEK!!!!)

I stood in a criminally short line to meet Jill Thompson (artist: Sandman; artist/writer: At Death's Door, Dead Boy Detectives, Scary Godmother) who was really cool, signed everything for everyone and did sketches. She did a sketch of Black Canary for me which I'll eventually scan in and put in the gallery.

I didn't realize they were listening (as I thought they were talking to each other) but she and Brian Azzarello (Batman: Broken City) overheard me telling a couple of the guys in line about my nightmare two-hour wait to meet John Cassady in a Marvel line the prior year... two hours I waited before I was kicked out because they suddenly realized John was sitting next to you-need-a-ticket-to-meet Joss Whedon so those of us who JUST WANTED to meet JOHN got the boot. THANKS MARVEL! When I got to the part where I was booted from the line, Jill said, "God, for two hours, they should have let you KISS John Cassady!" Which I would be totally okay with as John Cassady is hot.

So that was fun.

I got to see the angry Canary figure close up and it's actually kind of cool. She just looks realllly ticked off. The classic-style Alex Ross Canary figure is frickin' GORGEOUS.

The V IS FOR VENDETTA trailer is terrific

Pocky comes in many wonderful flavors. My favorite is strawberry and I really like to say "Pocky." For some reason, you can't buy Pocky at AnimeCentral, a big ol' anime convention held annually in the SAME CONVENTION CENTER but you can get Pocky at WizardWorld... this is a very strange thing

DC's booth has taken over and sort of spreads into two other, related booths with the animated properties and their paraphernalia. DCs booths rocked. DCs tchotchkes are far cooler than anyone else's tchotchkes.

Marvel's booth sucked like a vacuum cleaner (not that I'm bitter)

Smaller publishers were well-represented and many had very nice booths and strong presences. I have high hopes for Speakeasy as a new, strong Dark Horse-level smaller publisher. They're doing really good work and have a lot of enthusiasm

There were a lot of really talented people putting out indy comics and doing neat work. Got a lovely Black Canary sketch from one of them who's also a friend of a friend. That will also go in the gallery one of these days.

The floors at the Rosemont are hard and my back hurts from all the walking upon them for hours.

The Rosemont neeeeeds a Starbucks. Badly. For that matter, the Rosemont needs a McDonalds. The Rosemont is a corrupt, closed dictatorship of overpriced foodstuffs, and it wouldn't kill them to put in a Starbucks.

The most commonly agreed upon name for the skywalk system connecting the Rosemont and its bazillion offshoot hotels is "the habitrail."

You could, feasibly, spend your entire weekend trying to figure out where all the habitrail goes to and then trying to remember how to get back to where you started on the habitrail.

"Habitrail" is almost as fun to say as "Pocky."

You can't see everything in the dealer's room at WizardWorld in a day. At least you can't see everything properly in a day. I tried and I couldn't do it. It's too frickin' big.

I love WizardWorld.

Geez, it’s been almost a month since my last entry. I think I’m not too good at this whole blog thing. But I’ve been busy! I went to WizardWorld Chicago this weekend (daytripped on Sunday only) and that was a blast. DC has some fabulous Direct stuff coming out this next year, especially the Jim Lee statues and the new-look Catwoman statue which is gorgeous. I’ve already preordered the Death manga statue and would really like the Dream one... must try to figure out if I can afford it before it’s too late to preorder...

Some of my friends are into anime, and I’ve been trying it out. I’m finding that I like in anime pretty much what I like in books — thoughtful fantasy (as opposed to quest fantasy) and Young Adult-type stories (His & Her Circumstances and Fruits Basket are my most favorites so far) and epic dramas and really quirky, uncategorizable, alt-stuff such as Read or Die. For instance (on the epic drama thing), I don’t know the name of it but the Samurai Kenshin OVA thing was really good, but I like the ongoing series less, at least so far, because it isn’t as serious. In anime as in all entertainment, I just don’t like slapstick at all. On the other hand, everything by Oscar-winning [Spirited Away] Miyazaki (sorry if I’ve misspelled that) is excellent, I adored Ghost in the Shell which I saw years and years ago even though I haven’t much cared for any of the mecha stuff I’ve seen so far (Escaflowne was pretty good but I disliked the ending). So this isn’t really a new obsession (which is nice for once!), but it is an interesting new area for me to explore.

On the OTHER hand, speaking of new obsessions, I’ve discovered a marvelous new author! Jasper Fforde, creator of the marvelous Thursday Next, main character of The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book. There’s a third one out in the UK but not here yet... I’m thinking of ordering it from Amazon.Co.UK rather than await it’s US publication... ’cause Fforde’s stuff is just that good.

Movie-wise, I’ve now seen Pirates three times and am considering a fourth go-see, I actually enjoyed Tomb Raider II more than the first and thought it was a pretty decent summer popcorn flick, Seabiscuit is brilliant (I just finished the book, too, and it’s amazing how well they adapted the story), Freaky Friday was wonderfully fun and very well-acted by both leads... I’m looking forward to Underworld, a vampire/werewolf flick starring Kate Beckinsale, which is coming out in mid-September, and I’d better really like Once Upon a Time in Mexico — also due out in mid-September — ’cause I bought the poster (I’m only human, and Johnny Depp looked fabulous).

Guess that wraps it up for now! Oh, and if you aren’t reading Powers... well, I pity you, really ;- ) — You just don’t know what you’re missing.