Snapped this with my Canon P&S in front of Lincoln Park Zoo during this morning’s bike ride. Used Graphic Converter to create +/- 3EV images and merged in Photomatix to create the HDR. Click the picture for the larger image.
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It’s now become a ritual. I enter my building here in downtown Chicago holding my helmet, my backpack, and sometimes my bike seat. I ride the elevator up to the floor where I work and head right to the bathroom to change.
My new friend is the handicapped stall.
It’s roomy. There’s loads of space to unpack my fresh clothes and pack up the sweaty stuff. Plus, the assist bars make a great place to hang things. Who wants to put on a pair of clean underwear that were just lying on the bathroom floor at work? Eww.
However, the oddest thing struck me this morning. There I was, removing my manties to exchange them for a fresh pair (my taint sweats like you would NOT believe) and I realized I was buck naked at work. I froze like a deer in the headlights.
OK, maybe I had socks on. But nothing else.
This isn’t a new thing. I’ve been changing at work for the last three weeks, and will continue to do so. But today for some reason I kind of stepped outside the situation and really saw what was going on; Me, standing there naked (with socks) in a handicapped stall at work.
What I’m doing isn’t perverse. It’s perfectly normal for bike riders to do such things, and I’ve seen a dozen websites where people say the same thing; bring a change or two of clothes to work and change out of your riding gear into the fresh clothes in the bathroom.
Nonetheless, it still strikes me as odd.
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I enjoy driving. I’ve always enjoyed it and I think someday I might even own a car again. But right now, in the heart of the gayborhood in Chicago, a car and I aren’t exactly a matched pair.
But now I own a bicycle.
I’ve been thinking and reading a lot lately about touring on my bike. It feels like I’m always on the ‘Net trying to soak up as much advice as I can on the subject.
I’m determined to do it. But there’s a few hurdles.
1) The mechanical
I don’t know how to change a bike tire. I don’t know a hell of a lot about my bike aside from adjusting the brake pads and tightening some bolts. Nor do I have a set of tools appropriate for travel that could potentially help with any troubles I might encounter. This all can be fixed with some research and some practice. But it needs to be done. I need to be able to take my bike apart and put it back together again. Not all of it mind you, but some of it.
2) The physical
Yes, it’s true, I’ve been riding about 50 miles per week for the last few weeks. My body is still changing as it’s adjusting to this new way of living, but I’m by no means ready to travel a few hundred miles by bicycle. This will get better in time, but I’m going to have to work hard at it. Somehow I’ve got to get more than 50 miles under my belt every week. When the hell I’ll get that done, I’m not sure. But it needs to be done.
3) The mental
Vacations, in my mind, work best with a handful of planning mixed with a handful of spontaneity. And while I can think of many ways to PLAN a 100% bike trip, it’s the handful of spontaneity that scares the shit out of me. The only way to stay that fear will be to get out there and do it. I can’t lie. It’s scary. I can almost taste it. Prepare, prepare, prepare is my mantra. But you can prepare for only so much. Then you just have to react.
So it’s not like I don’t know what it’s going to take. I think I do know a bit at this point. But it’s going to take a while to get around to it. In the mean time, I’ve decide to create a category called bicycling. Wonder what I’ll be posting under that category a year from now…
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My attachments are gone from my teeth!!! Thank GOD for that because I actually had my first meal without them. It didn’t really feel any different, but my resting bite feels a lot more natural.
This morning at my ortho’s, she removed all the attachments and took impressions of my bite again. My lower needs some more adjustment, so the molds will get sent to Invisalign for imaging a new set of trays. In a couple weeks that should be back and we get to watch the videos (again) of the movements. From there, the final trays will be ordered.
For now I only have to wear my trays at night. They are much looser than before because the attachments are gone. It’s a really strange sensation but I’m glad to be free of them.
I think I’ll buy a pack of gum. I haven’t chewed gum since before Thanksgiving…
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For a long time I’ve known a huge secret about cooking. It’s one of the fundamental things I learned when I first began to cook as a kid and I’ve made it my mantra in and out of the kitchen. Without knowing this precious piece of advice, you cannot, in my opinion, successfully prepare food for yourself or the people you love. Are you ready?
In order to be a good cook, you have to cook a lot.
I can hear you now. “THAT’S IT?! That’s ALL you wanted to say?” Yes. It is. But take heed of the wisdom I’m sharing with you. It’s the absolute truth. And it’s not just that you have to cook a lot of DIFFERENT foods, you actually have to cook a lot of the SAME foods in order to get them under your belt. Here’s an example:
I loved pecan pie as a kid. But we always purchased it because my Mom seemed to think it was a lot of work. When I first moved out of my parents house, pecan pie was the recipe I instantly wanted to begin working on. I could cook general things at that time; eggs, meatloaf, steaks, simple casseroles, and lots of everyday food type things. But baking was a new adventure for me. Baking is 98% precision and 2% experimentation in my book.
So I set a goal for myself; learn to bake a pecan pie in 8 pies or less. Don’t ask me why I chose the number 8, but I figured if I hadn’t learned how to bake one by the time I made my 8th, I had problems. I didn’t do it overnight either. It took several months to work out.
I baked. And baked. And baked some more. Pie one was barely edible. Pie two was holding together better, but tasted funny. Pie three tasted more buttery. Pie four finally had good crust. Pie five was pretty damn good. From there I started playing. Maybe a bit of chocolate here. Some rum for the pecans there. What would a shot of espresso do to the filling? What about pureed raisins?
Pie 8 was glorious. It was a gorgeous perfectly delicious pie that I was very proud of. But the real lesson that I learned didn’t sink in until many years later. It wasn’t actually tinkering with the pie ingredients that made it good, it was making it over and over and over again. The PROCESS of cooking (because it is a process) must become second nature in order for the ART of cooking (it’s also an art) to shine through.
That’s the part that I think a lot of people are afraid of. They’re afraid to experiment because they are afraid of failure. But you have to fail now and again in order to learn from that mistake. And once you learn, you can move on.
Here’s the final thought for this long post. If you want to learn to cook, find something easy and cook it over and over again. Then find something else and cook it a few times. Then move on to another thing.
You really do have to cook a lot to be a good cook.
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shuumatsu
the weekend
Friday night my father performed as part of the Chicago Hellenic Choir. It was a pretty cool concert and I enjoyed hearing hours of Greek Music. It’s been a while.
On Saturday I was supposed to have dinner with the handsome man I met. He didn’t feel well, so he canceled.
With an e-mail.
An hour and a half before we were supposed to meet.
What, if anything, does that mean?
I think he has telephobia because he hasn’t called me. Ever. Only e-mails. SO odd.
Damien and I went for dinner and had a blast chatting, so the night ended up pretty fun. I wasn’t really in the mood for drinks, but we went out for a little bit anyway. I ended up in bed by midnight. Something about Saturday night on Halsted doesn’t really push my buttons at the moment. Sometimes I love it. Other times I don’t.
Sunday was a sleepy day and I did lots of house stuff. I had brunch with Brad & Ken in Lincoln Square at Fiddlehead Cafe, which was formerly called something like Four Square. It was fun, but afterward I wasn’t much in the mood to be out. We went to Bobby Loves for a bit during the downpour, then to Little Jim’s, where someone bought me a drink. I still don’t know who it was, but on the way out someone was all drunken “haaay yuuuuu” and I promptly made my exit and headed home to watch movies and fall asleep.
It was a pretty low key weekend all together. A bit disappointing because I really did look forward to the chance of hanging out with the handsome man. Oh well, maybe it’ll happen, maybe it won’t. The ball is in his court.
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I’m fairly obsessed with cicadas. They are coming and I cannot wait.
I’ve been enjoying this blog a lot http://cicadablog.saltthesandbox.org/.
The Sun Times is reporting May 22 to be one of the magic days for them to start. I want to take tons of pictures…
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So over on my Chicagoist post about ANTM, there are some h a t e r s and some lovers of the show. It’s amazing to see the spectrum of folks who read it, and I’m so proud to not only be a part of that group of bloggers, I’m proud to have found a writing gig again.
It feels good to write. And with Chicagoist, it’s not a GLBT specific crowd like my work in Nightspots was. I loved writing for my queer brothers and sisters over there, but I sorta felt it always had to have a queer spin. At least on Chicagoist, the world truly is my erster. That’s peterspeak for oyster. Those who know me understand peterspeak.
I looked in my Outlook diary at work and there is very little time for me to pee or breathe. Next week will be one of my busiest weeks yet, and I’ve scheduled a Segway tour for my team on Friday. Lord, I know I’ll need the break. I hope they enjoy it.
I’ve learned a really important lesson at work recently. After being in a meeting where loads of people were venomously raising their voices and expressing distaste for each other’s opinion and work, the moment of clarity set in.
Prepare.
Without preparation for tomorrow, next week, next month, or even the rest of your life, you are truly nothing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m the kind of guy who enjoys living in the moment and stretching experiences to their fullest. But when you do not prepare (as the lead of this meeting seriously failed to do) chaos will ensue.
Prepare.
In the back of my mind, I’ve always known how vital it was to prepare yourself for the next step/hurdle/event in life. But what I’m amazed at is how people who forget to fail to prepare insist on blaming others.
I never want to be that person. Blame is an easy ball to throw around.
Challenges are by all means necessary. And you cannot prepare for every eventuality around the corner, or sometimes even the ones right in front of your face. Yet there is so much you CAN do to bring situations into focus before you see them clearly.
Prepare. That’s my goal.
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I just looked at my schedule for the next few weeks and it’s scaring me. Icky poo, lots to do.
Last night was another installment of the Windy City Gay Idol and I drank too much after the show. My head is still achy today. Oof. So much so that I couldn’t imagine riding my bike to work, so I didn’t. I shoulda, but I didn’t.
Last night was also the *sniff* last ANTM Cycle 8. I wrote about it on Chicagoist. Check it out.
Brain dead today. Need sleep or something.
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Ok, so the deed is done. My (bike) rack is in place, my fenders are on, and even though my wallet may be $70 lighter, I’m a happy puppy.
I think my bike is fairly perfect at the moment. His name is Dexter.
I dropped off / picked it up at the Kozy on DesPlaines and I couldn’t be happier.
Now it’s time to decorate…
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Just getting ready to go to sleep, and I share some thoughts about new people, new experiences, and an emotional movie I saw called The Cats of Mirikatani.
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I have to figure out how I can schedule the rest of the rehearsals with the folks on our show “Follow My Lead” directed by my darling friend Jodi Gottberg. The show is June 4, 5, and 6 as part of the Directors Festival at the Bailiwick.
Oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late!
I feel like the white rabbit in Alice. There’s so much going on. But I’m not busy. Really.
Tonight is Looptopia. I’m going to try and swing through to see a few things, and maybe make a few photographs. Not sure how successful any of that will be, but I’ll try.
Oh. And. This is some GREAT news. This hunky guy I met through my friend Ken, is interested. I don’t know much about him, but I was a bit bold the other day. Let me tell you the story.
So I’m hanging out with Ken and Brad. Our friend John was planning to have a barbecue (at which I became cook and grill master) so we decided to knock on said hunky guy’s door. After Brad nearly pounded the door in, said hunky guy answered the door (he lives in their condo building) and we invited him to the barbecue. He couldn’t make it because he had to “pick up his roommate from the airport.” ‘Roommate’ I asked? ‘Like, as in, you guys are together?’
He laughed and instantly said “Oh NO NO NO NO, not at ALL. No no. Not us.”
Mission accomplished. I then knew he was single. So I quip back with “Your name is #$%% right? Mine is Peter. Don’t forget it.”
Bold? Yes. Effective? Apparently so because Ken told me last night that indeed, after a conversation on the front stoop, hunky guy IS interested.
It’s all so effervescently fifth grade isn’t it?
So here I am. Thinking about this hunky guy. Hoping that maybe I’ll have the chance to go on a date with him.
I’m giddy as a school boy.
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This morning I rode in a different way. Instead of riding down Halsted into Greek Town and over to my building, I decided to take Halsted to Lincoln to Wells. I can’t believe how much of a difference it made.
There are TONS of people biking on Wells, and the only bridge you have to cross has a bike path built in so there are no open grates to ride over. Quite nice actually. Not to mention, I wasn’t sweating buckets from those evil up-hill battles on Halsted.
It made me think of my life in general today during my ride. There are so many paths you can take to get where you want, why not choose a different every now and then? I’m not talking physically either. Sometimes, to get where you want, or to get what you want, you may need to choose another path.
Maybe it’s time, in a few aspects of my life, I choose another path.
Not going to talk about The Color Purple until I do another podcast. But it was INCREDIBLE!
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I popped over to the new Kozy down here on Polk and Des Plaines. It’s not as close as I thought it was, but that’s ok. It was good cardio walking over there and working up a gentle sweat.
I purchased a bottle holder, a small headlight, and a red taillight. I asked ‘em if they’d be able to do the fenders pretty quick and the guy at the desk said they absolutely would. So MAYBE sometime this week I’ll get it over there in the AM and pick it up in the PM.
I still need to pick a name for my bicycle. I’m thinking about Dexter.
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