Halloween 2009

Every year, Halloween brings out an endless slew of people dressed as strippers (an oxymoron, I know), Jesus, Mario, and slutty [insert symbol of innocence/normally staid occupation here]s. Though there were plenty of these haunting Chicago, overall, the quality of costumes seen this year was higher than last year, possibly because it was not an election year.

Somewhat surprisingly, I did not see a single Bernie Madoff or Kanye West costume. There were at least half a dozen people dressed as swine flu though, with padded stomachs and swirly tail accoutrements.

In no particular order, some of my favorite costumes this year included:

1. A guy dressed up as Chicago legend and Hot Doug's proprietor Doug Sohn accompanied by a girl dressed as a hot dog
2. Stunningly realistic Chicago parking meters, a fearsome sight indeed
3. Libyan Dictator Muammar Qaddafi/"part-time UN Secretary-General"
4. Quail Man, complete with tighty whities
5. Cereal Killer with bloodied cereal boxes and plastic knives stuck through them
6. A Bunch of Grapes (purple balloons in assorted sizes all over the body)
7. Vince from the Slap Chop infomercial, wielding a slap-chop and greasy hair
8. And finally, Redneck Siamese Twins. There are no words to explain this, so I'll just include the following picture. Yes, that is one pair of overalls. Watching them walk, or dance, or sit down was knee-slapping hilarious.
   

In the realm of conceptual costumes, I decided there was no way I'd be able to top last year's rendition of Picasso's Blue Period. So I went another route and decided to go as Gogo Yubari, the crazy Asian chick from Kill Bill. I collected a navy blazer, plaid skirt and white knee-length socks, and pinned the coat patch to the pocket. Then, I spent a while nailing a metal chain around a foil-wrapped styrofoam ball, studded with shish-kebab skewers painted silver. The resultant morning star was actually semi-dangerous; I kept accidentally stabbing myself with it all night.

Here, we have the illustrious Doug Sohn, myself, Haley (dressed as a Mii) and Britton (dressed as a "nurse").

Pillow Fight Day

Unbeknownst to many, last Saturday was International Pillow Fight Day, and the list of participating cities was quite impressive in scope. (Sao Paulo? Székesfehérvár?) Since I couldn't go to the Chicago gathering, I suggested to Liz that we try to join the pillow fight in D.C. There were, in fact, two taking place that day, one on the National Mall and the other at Dupont Circle, and the timing worked out perfectly such that we were at Dupont Circle at the appointed hour.

Since we didn't have pillows with us, the next task was to procure the necessary equipment so that we could participate rather than simply watch (which would have been quite lame). In the immediate vicinity was a CVS and a Books-a-Million, and we decided the CVS would be the more likely candidate to sell pillows. After asking if they carried pillows, the woman behind the counter gave us a long look and pointed us to the travel section, where neck pillows (for use on planes) were available. This seemed unsuitable, sort of like bringing a piddling water gun to a fight against a firehose. Just as we were about to give up, Liz turned around to discover...a dog bed. It was the type without raised sides, essentially a very large, dog-sized pillow, and it was on sale for the low price of $9.95. Bingo!

Back at Dupont Circle, we staked out a spot on the grass and tried to figure out which people were here for the pillow fight, and which people were muggles. The instructions had said we should conceal our pillows for maximum surprise, flash-mob style, so several people were carrying suspiciously puffy shopping bags. In a rather ingenious move, one fellow was holding a large stack of pizza boxes, which turned out to be hollowed in the center to hide his pillow. At about 3:05 pm, an "argument" was started between two of the fight organizers, who jokingly shouted for a bit, then started swinging pillows at each other. At least 50 or 75 people rushed to join the melée, myself included. I started whacking anyone within reach, lightly bopping people young and old, suited and mohawked, white, black and green. People were shouting, smiling, singing "Olé Olé," and jumping into the fountain with abandon. It was the most exuberant experience I've ever had with a crowd of strangers.

After about a half-hour or so, the fight tapered off as we all exhausted ourselves. Who knew that swinging pillows was such an excellent upper-body workout? Then, with shouts of "To the bar!" the crowd began to disperse. Subsequently, Liz and I were left with the unappealing prospect of carrying around a dog bed for the rest of the day. Thinking that it should go to someone who could use it, we approached a couple people walking dogs, and politely asked if they would be interested in a clean, lightly pummeled dog bed. Alas, our offers were rebuffed both times since the pet owners also did not want to carry around a dog bed. At that point, we decided to leave the dog bed on a sidewalk with a note attached, indicating that the dog bed was free. I do hope this didn't later result in phone calls to the police department for "suspicious packages."

Oh yes, before we left Dupont Circle, we were accosted by a guy with a camcorder, who asked us to say a few words on the pillow fight. So, somewhere out there, we are on camera explaining how we came to be holding a large dog bed. I wasn't able to find this online, however here is some footage of the pillow fight, though I didn't spot either of us on camera.

More Firsts, Temperance Edition

My shot glass was tipsy before I even got started.

There are few things I would change about my undergrad experience, but I realize that it was pretty atypical. So, for better or worse, I've been making up for lost time in Chicago with hedonistic antics that most people (except for the people I hung out with) cover in college. I must say, the stories have gotten a bit more entertaining. (People making out with two guys at once vs Friday night Duffield study party, which would you rather hear about?) At any rate, in the last couple weeks, I have acknowledged the end of my political aspirations with the following activities:

Chocolate Cake Shot

• 1 part Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur), 1 part vodka, shoot the mixture, bite a slice of sugared lemon


• I was quite skeptical that this was going to taste anything like chocolate or cake, since its components contain none of those ingredients. But shockingly enough, it tasted like chocolate cake, even evoking the floury texture of cake somehow! My mind was boggled.


• Ideal for people who prefer chocolate Yoohoo to alcohol

Lemon Drop

• Vodka shot, splash of triple sec, bite a slice of sugared lemon
  


• This was lemony...and vodka-y, as you might expect. After the chocolate cake shot, I was a little disappointed that I wasn't tasting the crystallized crunch of a lemon drop.
  


• Best suited for girls' night parties and scurvy pirates
  

Irish Car Bomb

• 2/3 glass of Guinness, drop in a shot of Bailey's, chug before the mixture curdles on you. The chunky film left on the bottom of the glass is a tad disturbing, then I thought about what was going on inside my stomach.
  


• Guinness is not as carbonated as many other beers I've tried, so it was actually pretty easy to chug. Having said that, I don't know how everyone else manages to finish their drink in half the time that it takes me; I was told I need more practice. Be careful not to splash the contents of the glass as you drop in the shot. The drink itself tastes similar to chocolate milk.


• Perfect for your 7-year-old's birthday party. Just kidding, we would want to give them Benadryl instead. Irish car bombs have a certain fratty cachet to them, since they are most commonly consumed for St. Patrick's Day, so perhaps this should be reserved for Man Night. On the other hand, I thought the Irish car bomb was a lot smoother than your average sake bomb, which tastes like turpentine. Maybe someone should inform all the freshman chicks at Miyake to try car bombs instead.
  

Hookah

• There were dozens of flavor combinations at Samah Lounge, and we were at a total loss as to what to choose. Originally, Katherine wanted to spring for Fruit Loops (rose, orange) since that's what she had last time, but then I was persuaded by our server's recommendation of Autumn Night (vanilla, rose, lavender, something else I'm forgetting).
  


• With thoughts of Bill Clinton running through my mind ("I didn't inhale!"), I grabbed the hose and took a deep breath. A pleasant floral scent filled the air, warm and mysterious. I exhaled a few smoke tendrils and leaned against the wall. No wonder they never get anything done in the Middle East! Towards the end though, the hookah became quite harsh and started to burn the back of my throat. This had better not do any permanent damage to my voice. Also, for the rest of the night, I kept smelling vague whiffs of Autumn Night. I swear the Oak Street bend of the Lakeshore Path smells exactly like Autumn Night.
  


• I've heard differing reports on the amount of nicotine in hookah, from "It's like .001 mg!" to "You split hookah between 3 people? That is a lot of hookah.", but overall the impact is slight. I felt a little more mellow than before, but part of me thinks that laying on the floor with cushions would be relaxing anyway, so why bother with the hookah? However, there is a particular brand of bonding that comes from communally sharing and passing the hookah while sprawled on pillows. Next time I have an Alice in Wonderland party, there will be hookah.
  

Marriage-you-wanna?

• After numerous people skeptically told me that "you never get high the first time," I must say that if that's the case, you're probably doing it wrong. And there is no shame in that because lighting the bowl takes some practice. Not surprisingly, I was pretty terrible at figuring out when to cover the hole, when to inhale, when to move in the lighter, how to even work a lighter...all this mostly resulted in a massive attack of coughing, as if I'd swallowed hot sand. I would like to note that the Californians were by far the most adept at this process.
  


• Never mind hookah, this puts the M in Mellow. I can see why the stereotypical group of stoners is sprawled semi-comatose on couches while listening to Jimi Hendrix. (Although, me being me, I was up at 7 am like clockwork the next morning.) Have you ever wanted the superpower to freeze time? It was as though the clock had stopped ticking, and I could move around normally, push children out of the way of trains, or loot a bank...but I was too comfortable to actually go anywhere. Even the most ardent Type-A personalities will turn into a contented bag of mostly water. On my way home, I was curiously unaffected by the (miserable, extremely windy and rainy) weather. Though sans hat, I felt no cold and despite a ten-minute wait for the train, I felt no impatience.
  


• Generally, one of the more pressing questions for neophytes is how to know if you're high. It sounds cliche, but you will definitely know when you're there. For me at least, the effects hit unexpectedly. All of the sudden, it felt like the blood vessels in my head had expanded, my heartbeat was drumming in my ears, and it was impossible to focus. I'd start a sentence and then lose my train of thought before finishing it. Reading was hopeless. Terrible jokes were greeted with uproarious laughter. Even if you had the presence of mind to realize how unfunny the remark was, you still couldn't stop laughing at everyone else who thought it was amusing. (For good measure, I watched some Aqua Teen Hunger Force and didn't find it significantly funnier than when sober.) Most interesting is the way your senses heighten and exaggerate random inputs. As Rolling Stones wafted from the speakers, I could feel heavy vibrations of bass, amplified like Libe on Slope Day. Then, the sensation faded and I started pondering the vivid colors of my shirt. Man, they were bright! Up till that point, I wasn't experiencing anything differentiable from an alcohol buzz, but this last step catapults the experience over booze. Though my short-term memory was impaired, the effects were less severe than with alcohol and cognition was mostly intact, just fragmented and distracted. If only I could have recorded my internal monologue, I might have generated a great new contribution to literature.
  


• Despite my state of complete chillaxation, my heart was pounding violently as if I'd run a 10k. Other physical effects include dry mouth, bloodshot eyes and dry eyes, though the latter may have simply been due to the smoke in the room. I kept thinking how great some water would be; too bad there was no running water in this apartment's kitchen. I was also semi-seriously joking about protecting my valuable vocal chords; for that reason alone, I would not make this a regular practice.
  


• Recommended for when you want to really explore your Led Zeppelin collection or need to write that philosophy paper
  

Opium

• Just joshing, I would never do that! Besides, as we all know, bad things happen when Chinese people smoke opium.
  

Money, Porn and Other Sordid Tales

As befits its audience, Wrigleyville tends to be filled with generic, fratty faux-Irish pubs and sports bars, where the name of the game is cheap booze and raucous behavior. This certainly has its place, but I have discovered a far more interesting option in the seemingly mislocated Risque Cafe. I first heard about this bar through Rob, who described it as antithetical to the goal of meeting women, since it is filled with posters of pin-up girls and specializes in beer, neither of which are strong attractors for females. Sure enough, upon walking inside, I was greeted with the flashing lights of a Playboy pinball machine and large portraits of scantily clad women.

Onto the beer list. Risque features a gargantuan list of over 200 American craft beers, sorted by state of origin. Skimming through, I saw some familiar regional names, like 3 Floyds (IN) and Great Lakes (OH) breweries, along with more far-flung names like Southern Tier (NY) and Rogue Ales (OR). Though some of these beers can set you back $20, each night features a $3 beer on tap. They also have an impressive offering of whiskeys, with three types of whiskey even on tap. I ordered Jack Daniels from tap simply because I'd never seen that before. In case you're curious, it doesn't taste markedly different from a regular pour.

It took us a while to notice the TV screens behind the bar, but we soon caught on to the titillating material being presented. In order of weirdness, on the right-most screen, Mondo Topless was playing, which involved a lot of bouncing cleavage. Oddly enough, the Chinese subtitles were showing underneath, though I was too far away/couldn't read quickly enough to catch them. (One line said something like "I love running through the woods au naturel!") The center screen was showing Teeth, whose plot centers on the vagina dentata myth, and thus, resulted in many disturbing scenes of dismembered members. I should mention that Ryan's friend was playing at Risque that night, so in the middle of his acoustic guitar set, he glanced up to see a dog chomping down and screamed "Oh my god!" in horrified distraction. Shockingly, this movie won a lot of acclaim at the Sundance Festival and has a fairly impressive 82% from Rotten Tomatoes. (Forgive me for my skepticism; since we were watching with the volume turned down, I was joking but didn't actually think the movie was about women's empowerment.) Finally, on the left-most screen, there was fat chick morbidly obese chick porn. Also, some shots of naked children. I didn't catch the credits on this one, but trust me, it was quite bizarre.

Afterwards, Katherine had mentioned that James was housesitting for the guy that runs his law firm for the week, and ergo, he was throwing a party. I was told to bring "as many people as possible." I started to question whether this was a good idea, but upon second thought, remembered that the time Jie and I housesat for her boss, we drove the car and left the headlights on, resulting in a dead battery. Twice. Thus, I dutifully hauled the entire gang with me to my friend's roommate's classmate's boss' mansion on the Gold Coast.

Chicago's "Gold Coast" neighborhood is so named because it is the highest concentration of luxury retail stores and wealthy homes in the city. The house in question was located on Astor, which is renowned for its magnificent mansions, originally designed and owned by all the major luminaries from the 19th century. Hugh Hefner's first Playboy mansion is also located on this stretch.

Needless to say, the home was stunning, straight out of a magazine photoshoot. There was an original Miró hanging on the wall. A jersey signed by Michael Jordan. Flat screen TVs in every room. Two decks offered views of the downtown skyline. A pool table. Fireplaces. The master bathroom toilet was in a room that was completely mirrored on all sides. (Call me crazy, but why on earth would you want to watch yourself?) Two ornate, handpainted and limited edition (by default, because the artist has died) chess sets. Leather-bound books with gilt edges lined the study. And finally, Yale paraphernalia subtly popped up wherever you looked, from the coffee table reading selections to the pennants in the background of photos. Factoring for location, this was definitely the most expensive house I've ever partied in. What a shame that much of the alcohol was locked up, not because the owners were worried about us drinking, but to "keep it away from the son."

As we toured the house, I thought of the tour buses going past the ostentatious homes of AIG executives. Does this empty-nest family need all this space? Does anyone need all this space? The answer is undoubtedly no. I could feel some tremors of populist rage welling up inside me. At the same time, it would be wicked cool to be able to afford all that. Think of the ball pit room I could design! I grew up in a comfortably middle-class family, but for the first time, I felt like a grubby street urchin illicitly peeking into the lifestyles of the Rich and Powerful. This is where cognac is sipped in the cigar smoke-filled room, where admissions decisions are smoothed with the donation of buildings, where legislation is sealed with a handshake. And the Evil part of me wants to be in that upper echelon.

Anyway, we snapped pictures of the Miró (and had Adrian stand in the picture to prove that this wasn't from a museum):

Halloween, Bar Golf Edition

We're nearing the end of the year, and that means a barrage of major holidays, including the triumvirate of Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now, it's not that I don't love my family, but Thanksgiving and Christmas have never been huge deals for us. Moreover, we generally don't roast a turkey (the one year we did it, everyone hated eating turkey for weeks afterward), so over the years, we have variously cooked things like shabu pots, lobster and duck for meals. My extended family is also geographically dispersed, so although relatives will occasionally fly in, holidays are not usually the equivalent of a family reunion. My point is, we have never subscribed to the classic American Thanksgiving/Christmas, so it's a little weird for me to see people going gaga over eggnog and cranberry sauce shaped like a cylinder.

On the other hand, Halloween is a holiday that is, at least in my mind, defined by creativity. For one day out of the year, you must come up with a costume that is transformational (wearing only devil horns doesn't count), topical (current events references are a plus), low-cost (preferably created from thrift store supplies) and warm (to battle frigid fall temperatures). It goes without saying that storebought costumes are anathema to this philosophy. In recent years, I have dressed up as magnetic poetry, a Wiimote, a whiteboard, and an accident-victim cyclist.

For this year's costume, I shamelessly stole a tip from MF. I took a bunch of tampons and pads, colored them blue, taped them all over me, and arrived as Picasso's Blue Period. That's right, a perfect combination of ironic wit, high-brow intellectualism, and gross-out humor. I was attracting quite a few stares as I walked around Target in this outfit.

The rest of the Fed Crew included Juno (Haley) and Bleeker (Nate), Derek Neal (Erik), Harry Potter (Ricky), and House (Chris). The plan was to play a modified version of bar golf, with various ways to earn points by either spotting something (Joker, Michael Phelps, Ben Bernanke) or performing an action (scoring a free drink, making somone scream, getting a phone number). Unfortunately, we didn't make it to all 9 "holes" in our "course." In fact, we only managed to hit two places before bars began closing at 2 am. I blame the lengthy queues to get inside and to get drinks. I'm also disappointed that there weren't more political costumes (but "naughty" nurses abounded, of course). For the duration of the night, I only saw one Sarah Palin. Appropriately, she did cause a bit of a kerfuffle by stumbling and knocking over a RedEye newspaper dispenser. Take that, liberal media!

I suppose I shouldn't judge because we managed to start some commotion as well. While walking between bars, Colin (Nate's friend visiting from MD) was casually talking to some guy dressed as Misty May, when he suddenly knocked Colin's sunglasses off his nose. Naturally, Colin was quite peeved at this provocation from a guy wearing a sports bra, and the two of them started fighting. We quickly broke up the fight, as in, Ricky and Nate got between the other guy and his friends while Chris tried to talk Colin down psychologically.

Chris: You are completely justified in your anger.
Colin: Motherfucker *@#)!(*%!

It was a pretty awesome cap to the night.

As for Thanksgiving, like last year, I will be staying in Chicago, partially so I can study for an upcoming final exam, but mostly because it's not worth the plane ticket and time to travel home for Thanksgiving. At any rate, it looks like Chris, Erik and Ricky are going to be in town, so we'll be concocting an "Ungrateful Wretches" feast, which will be vegetarian, of course. I've volunteered to personally hunt and kill a tofurkey. No seriously, I have some excellent recipes up my sleeve for killer mashed potatoes and cornbread stuffing. Also, a great recipe for sweet potatoes and curried lentils. What, that's not at traditional dish at your Thanksgiving?

About Last Night

Let me begin with a declaration: I had no intentions of getting drunk last night. Really. It was pouring rain and I had my bike with me, so I knew I needed to be decently sober by the end of the night to make it home. And then the best of intentions invariably go awry.

Britton wanted to go dancing, so the plan was to pregame at Erik's apartment, play some Wii, and then head out to Beaumont around 11 or midnight. The choice of location was notable, because it had been almost exactly a year since the last time we tried to go to Beaumont. That night ended with me and Britton pitching Haley head-first into a cab, an act that forever cemented our friendship and provided us with ample fodder for future teasing.

This time around, the goal was to actually make it inside Beaumont. That part was successfully accomplished. Alas, I cannot remember anything else that happened.

I realize this is a popular occurrence in some circles in college, but I have never had the pleasure of waking up on a bathroom floor. Until this morning. I rolled over, and my arm banged against a cold, porcelain surface, otherwise known as a toilet. Much to my dismay, I arose with the realization that I had passed out on Erik's bathroom floor. Luckily, there is a nice, cushiony rug in there, so it was fairly comfortable. It was 7:45 am, and I felt pretty chipper, with nary a trace of a hangover.

Next, I started checking my phone. No received or sent calls, so it looked like I hadn't made any egregious drunk dials. So far, so good. Then, I checked my text message inbox and the warning flags began popping up. From Chris: "I'm sorry you thought I was being weird..." Erm, what on earth happened last night? From Rob, the message was "Or not. Not the least bit offended or passive aggressive. (clearly kidding)" This was obviously in response to something...oy veh, if only I knew what. Checking my outbox, it appeared that I had texted Rob with directions: "We are at Beaumont right now at Halsted and Armitage. Come by for 100 percent finance AE presence?" Can I at least pat myself on the back for sending a perfectly spelled and grammatically correct text message while blacked out? By the way, the trip home was miserable because it was pouring rain and I didn't have an umbrella or a jacket of any sort. Yes, I was That Girl.

After my first black out, I swore I'd never drink to that point of intoxication again, but I guess I need to be more careful. From what I can recall, I only had 3 drinks last night (2 glasses of wine and a cranberry & vodka), so I'm not sure what went wrong. We weren't playing any drinking games either (to the best of my knowledge), so I don't think I was drinking particularly quickly.

There is a bit of a bruise forming on my arm. Erik mentioned something about me falling off the dance floor, so maybe that's the cause. What can I say? Sometimes, really great dance moves require taking some risks.

EDIT: Chris has informed me that he was the one who sent out the text message with directions. Damn, and I was so proud of myself too.

The 3rd Annual 21st Birthday Party

Chris has been making not-so-subtle noises all week about wanting me to come hang out, so on Friday I gave in and invited myself over. At 7 pm, when we were still at work, I was a mite irritated that he was still "finishing things up," but didn't think it was particularly out of the ordinary. Eventually, we got to his place around 7:45, and I thought it was a bit odd the way he was offering to take my bag for me...until we stepped into the kitchen and a dozen people jumped out and yelled, "SURPRISE! Happy Birthday!!" That's right, my surprise birthday party was that much more shocking, given that it was 10 days late. And here I was wondering why the Fed Crew hadn't planned anything fun for the weekend.

I was floored, particularly since I'd no idea that it was coming. Granted, we all know that I tend to be really unobservant. At one point last week, I glanced at Chris' monitor, which had an email with the subject line "Surprise party for 'stal" in the inbox, whereupon I commented, "Man, you have a lot of unopened NY Times emails!" and turned away. Also, Alex apparently stored the cake (an apple tart) in the Fed kitchen frig, and I didn't notice a thing, despite storing my lunch there every day.

Adhering to Nate's "Thou shalt not bring meat into the house of a vegetarian" rule, the gang had thrown together a potluck dinner with butternut squash soup, couscous, pasta salad, brie & baguette, and caprese kebabs in the shape of a bouquet of flowers. Just as we were settling in with full stomachs, there was a knock, and the door was thrown open to reveal...Rich and Sumit! Yes indeed, the economists had arrived, and Sumit was even toting a handle of vodka for additional libations. Can we discuss how the finance team has the best economists EVER?

The past week marked my 1-year anniversary of moving to Chicago and starting work at the Fed. Who would've known that a year later I'd be partying with a fabulous Chicago posse and my boss? What a surreal, magical ride. :)

Mystery Party!

Jen's got a new man, and even though I hadn't actually met David until 3 days ago, he's already doing a great job of scoring points with the Friends. (As we all know, a girl doesn't come solo...you get the added benefit of scrutiny from all her gal pals.) Namely, he's taken my advice on buying a bike, he got me a nice bunch of lemongrass (hard to come by), and best of all, he invited me (and all my friends) to a party. Whee! I immediately forwarded the invitation to the Fed list, and 7 of us ended up making it.

David is a free-lance writer, and apparently, he had written a 22-character Western mystery party that needed to be tested. Each person is assigned a character with a back-story, and has to figure out the answer to a mystery by the end of the night. Further, we were supposed to act and dress the part. So on Sunday night, we all descended on David's (uber cool) loft apartment, adorned with cowboy hats, large belt buckles, plaid shirts and peacock feathers (for Goldie Flapper). I stepped inside to discover we were inside the Sidewinder Saloon, with a motley cast of characters. These included personalities like Georgia Peach (Jen), the demure Southern belle, Earl Deep (Ali), the courteous stagecoach robber, and Becky Cartwright (Britton), the quick-witted bookworm whose favorite book is "Little Women." Ali asked to see my watch, so without hesitation, I showed him how it worked and passed it over for examination. Much to my dismay, he thanked me profusely and then pocketed it!

My character was Malcolm Blackwell, a girl whose real name was "Mary Ann," who was a rider for the Pony Express. She took on the position in order to make money to buy medicine for her sick Pa, and was a fearless rider, light and wiry. It was crucial that I not reveal my true identity, or else I would lose my job. To look the part, I found a $2 cowboy hat at a thrift store, along with a brown vest. I ended up forgetting the hat at home, but luckily, someone brought an extra hat along, and I was thrilled to snag that one.

By the end of the night, I had to figure out who had stolen Swiftheel, a quarterhorse that I intended to buy. To help supplement the information pool, there were 31 clue cards scattered around the apartment. While everyone else was milling about the living room, I decided to sweep through the back of the apartment, and single-handedly cleaned out the laundry room and Goldie's Room. I probably had a dozen clue cards, which turned out to be problematic, because I had no way of discreetly reading them all at once. It's a good thing there were multiple copies of some of the clues, so the information wasn't completely lost in my vest pockets.

Eventually, I was able to trade a treasure map for information on the identity of the horse thief. Armed with evidence of tar footprints outside the saloon and a photograph of Swiftheel "disguised" with a large tar spot, I confronted Tuco Delgado and he confessed to stealing the horse. Meanwhile, 3 people armed with guns ganged up to confront the piano player on the whereabouts of the gold stash, and the Albuquerque Kid (Chris) shot the guy who killed his father. I was particularly tickled by Jen's mystery, which was to figure out the ingredients in a recipe. She held a clue card titled "Gumbo" with sheet music on it, and the notes spelled out "Add a dace [a type of fish], add cabbage, beef aged a decade, a bad egg." Brilliant; I'm impressed that David was able to come up with four foods using only the first 7 letters of the alphabet!

At the evening's conclusion, we gathered around to see if we'd correctly solved our mysteries. Most people had, and depending on whether you were right, your character's story had two possible endings. I was correct in pinpointing Delgado, so I successfully bought Swiftheel and had a long, fruitful career as a Pony Express Rider. Had I been mistaken, my horse would have broken down from exhaustion outside of town, and I would have been attacked by wolves. Oy!

And in the future, if there's another mystery party that needs to be tested, I will be all over that like white on rice.

This is how we roll

I threw my first dinner party last night. According to "Stuff White People Like," the dinner party is definitely an adult milestone. And although I put everyone to work making their own dinner, it was still a substantial amount of preparation. Music was played, sake was swigged, and Trivial Pursuit was broken out (see SWPL post, paragraph 6).

Over the last few months, I've been learning to roll my own sushi and bringing it in for lunch. It's quite simple (and much cheaper) to do it yourself, so to demonstrate the process, I invited people over for a sushi-rolling gathering. Miso soup and salad with ginger dressing were provided. Then, I set out bowls of rice, sushi filling ingredients, nori sheets and bamboo mats, and put people to work. Everyone had a great time, and more or less successfully made their own sushi.

My first planning dilemma was figuring out what to do with the vegetarians. After all, isn't the point of sushi is to showcase fresh seafood? I ended up soaking wedges of fried tofu in a soy and orange juice marinade, then slicing them thinly. At this point, they almost looked like slices of mushroom, and tasted quite meaty as well. My second dilemma was trying to predict how much rice we would need. Depending on how much of the soup and salad everyone consumed, we would need an inversely proportional amount of rice. I prepared a large bowl of sushi rice, but sure enough, the rice disappeared much faster than predicted. (People were using too much rice in their rolls, a common novice mistake.) In the end, I made about 12 cups of rice, and this was enough to make leftover sushi for Monday.

Cleaning the sushi mats was the most painstaking part of the night. Rather than spending 20 minutes scraping off chunks of dried rice, next time I plan to wrap the entire mat in saran wrap.

Post-sushi-rolling, we trekked out to the 'burbs for Phil's birthday party. Now, I consider myself a pretty good cook, but this party was the most impressive food feat I've seen in years. As we know, Phil is a huge gamer, and Amber (Phil's wife) had made sure that all the food was video-game-themed. Zomg! There were red mushroom cupcakes, green ice cream cone pipes, a Pac-man cheddar cheese wheel, a fire flower made of red and yellow peppers with a cucumber and broccoli stem, a Zelda Triforce cheesecake, and finally, a Katamari ball rice crispie cake, with all kinds of candies (lego sweet tarts, gummy worms) stuck on the surface. It was probably the leetest party I've ever been to, and proof that we should all rest easy; clearly there is someone out there for everyone.

It's too bad we couldn't get the entire table in one panoramic shot, but these pictures convey the general idea.

Just your average Fed party...

Chris threw a sake (bombing) party Sat night, and I ventured out for it, even though it was something like -3 degrees outside with 15-20 mph winds. Why? 3 words: Phil was coming.

Phil works at the Fed, and might be one of my all-time favorite people. At the very least, he tops the list of people I'd consider "characters." He's pretty dorky, plays a lot of WoW, and says things like "My new year's resolution is 1024 x 768."

Alas, Phil is 26ish, married, and lives in the suburbs, so it's a hard sell to get him to come party with the rest of us. (His penchant for Warcraft usually ensures that he doesn't leave the house all weekend.) So, his presence at this party was a bit of a watershed event. Plus, we were all morbidly curious about what Amber (his wife) was like.

The man did not disappoint. Even before showing up, he called Chris, and demanded to know where the nearest Taco Bell was. Apparently, Amber was insisting on getting food, since they'd spent all day playing WoW.

A few shots of warm sake later, somehow Chris and Phil decided to have a gay-off. The contest was over who had the gayest song on their ipod, and each person had 3 picks. Chris started off with some generic riverdance-esque music, which was gay but nothing particularly flaming. Phil responded with "Sweet Transvestite" from Rocky Horror. He knew all the lyrics. There was hip thrusting. I almost peed in my pants.

Chris then ups the ante with N Sync. He doesn't quite know all the words, but that's ok because Alex does, and they perform an loosely choreographed routine that would bring tears to your eyes (for better or worse). Phil replies with another girly favorite: "My Heart Will Go On." He doesn't know the words either, but I am shocked that this is even on his ipod. Chris - 1, Phil - 1.

For the last round, Phil goes first, and reminds us that the contest was originally over who had the gayest song, not necessarily the gayest performance. With that in mind, he plays Fred Schneider's (of the B-52's) "Monster (in my Pants)" I'd never heard this song before, but suffice it to say, the lyrics are highly special. Finally, Chris pulls out a song "in honor of his nickname," ABBA's "Dancing Queen." I'm laughing so hard that my face hurts.

At this point, Phil brings out the song I thought should have been his trump card all along: Electric Six's "Gay Bar." Really, you can't get more gay than that. We decide it might be a draw between the two of them.

Phil: "Come on, when I saw that Chris had all 5 seasons of 'Queer as Folk' on DVD, I knew that I was finished."

All-Nighter at Club Fed

Since I like to be masochistic, I decided to take a class this quarter on top of working full-time. Well, that wasn't exactly the reason, but I figured I should dip my toes back into coursework to strengthen my transcript for grad school apps. More importantly, after being out of the classroom for 6 months, I need to reassess whether I want to go back for a few more years of fretting about exams, or just stay in the "real" world. Luckily, the Fed offers tuition reimbursement for "related" classes that improve human capital, which loosely covers all kinds of business, economics and math classes. Have I mentioned lately how much my job rocks?

The first class I'd wanted to take was Intro to Stochastic Processes, but Prof Lalley pretty much told me it was geared toward PhD students and that I should take something else. So, I settled on an "Introduction to Probability Models" class at the U of C (University of Chicago, in local parlance), which looked like it'd be manageable. It also covers stochastic processes, but with a less theoretical treatment and more emphasis on applications. And as we all know, applications = easy (relatively). Finally, in my smartest move yet, I was able to convince Katherine to take the class with me, so that I wouldn't be studying and doing problem sets entirely on my own.

The class is cross-listed as a graduate course, so it's filled with masters statistics students and senior math majors. To be honest, I'm more afraid of the senior math majors, many of whom have serious bowl cuts going on. When I first walked into the class, the room was filled with Asians. Oh wait, there were two white people, and they looked Russian. By the end of week one, we were 3 chapters and 200 pages into the book. The problem sets are due on Thursdays, and I spent the weekend reading the book, and did a first pass of the problem set on Mon night. At this point, I started to worry, and told Katherine that we had to work on this problem set Tues night. We stayed at the Fed until 11 pm, and at that point we'd only covered 3 out of the 7 problems...and the questions only get harder as you go on.

Wed night was even better--we spent the entire night at the Fed. That's right, we went to work at 9 in the morning, stayed up all night doing the first problem set of the quarter, went to class the next morning, and then came back for another 8 hours of "real" work. And because it was the week before an FOMC meeting, we were swamped with work. It wasn't pretty.

On the other hand, I've never been more comfortable with probability in my life. We were in an office with a whiteboard wall, which was covered with crazy scribblings and mathematical notation by the end. I felt really happy with our progress. Between the two of us, we were coming up with all sorts of re-indexing methods, recognizing obscure probability distributions, and transforming ugly algebraic messes into compact sums like no other. There's no way I would've been able to come up with all that on my own. And it was really satisfying to know that I could still think and analyze on a higher-order level.

As much fun as that was, I'm hoping that subsequent problem sets lighten up a bit, because I can't afford to pull an all-nighter every week. Back in my undergrad days, I could easily turn in projects and then sleep for the rest of the day, but that's not an option any more now that I have a job. Erg.

Rainbo Club

This is an ode to the Rainbo Club (no, that's not a typo), a hipster-infested Wicker Park hole-in-the-wall that will forever hold a place in my judgmental heart. I've only been here a handful of occasions, but those excursions have left indelible impressions on my mind.

The Rainbo Club harkens back to its roots as a speakeasy in the 1920s, and the exterior, with its metal grating, ramshackle neon signage and complete lack of windows, fills you with a sense of foreboding. Are we seriously going in here, you ask. Fear not, the brave will be rewarded with an eclectic scene befitting the bar's reputation as a bohemian hangout.

Greek columns adorn the wall behind the horseshoe-shaped bar, and a deer head is mounted to the right. Beers are plentiful and cheap, and a pint of PBR (the hipster drink of choice) will only set you back $2. The opposite wall is usually covered with artwork from local artists, and I've seen everything from Jackson Pollock-esque splatter paintings to Chicago scenery. A couple months ago, a "Save Terri Schiavo" sign was posted, though it has since disappeared. Tucked around the corner is an old black & white photo booth, and it is widely believed that the cover of Liz Phair's first album was taken in that booth. Also, the last scene in High Fidelity (the proposal scene) was filmed at the Rainbo Club. And the music? Occasionally, you'll hear (overplayed) bands like The Shins, but more often they'll be spinning some kind of alterno-indie that you'll pretend to know.

The crowd, as you can imagine, tends to be adorned with skinny jeans, messenger bags with patches, and glasses with black, rectangular frames. Last night, after cleaning up from the cook-a-thon, we ventured out looking for entertainment, and landed at the Rainbo. The competition for tables was fierce, and we ended up sharing a booth with two random guys. One guy in particular was an unemployed sociology major from Indianapolis, wearing a houndstooth hoodie over a checkered sweater. Jay was fairly entertaining, as he bemoaned his unmarketable college degree and hinted that he'd be game if we wanted to get him a job at the Fed. He actually had a decent grasp of economics, and was speaking intelligently on incentive structure and politics. Too bad he spent most of his time in college learning Japanese (including a year abroad) and now can't find a job that would make use of this, other than waiting tables at sushi places. Oh and, he was a cyclist, which automatically awards him respect in my book.

The Rainbo Club: the only meat market in town where everyone's a vegan. Check it out, don't forget to bring your pretension.

Anterograde Amnesia

Last night was a good time. Or so they tell me. In my mind, I remember playing a round of kings, and then seeing people leave as the party ended, so a solid 2-3 hour chunk of my Sat night has gone AWOL. Luckily, after I woke up on his wet (because I spilled water on it) couch, Chris was around to fill me in on what I missed. Apparently, I was holding conversations, dancing, and helping him clean up afterwards. At one point, I paused and said, "I think I'm going to throw up." and then nonchalantly proceeded to go to the bathroom and do just that. He says my aim was pretty good, though he had to clean the toilet seat a little. Cringe*

This is the first time I've ever blacked out, and although everyone is semi-congratulating me, I'm actually pretty bothered. It's amazing to me that I was conscious and acting fairly normal, but none of this registered with my memory, as if I were on autopilot for a few hours last night. My inner control freak is flipping out about what I did and said. I guess it's a small comfort that I didn't do anything too crazy. Otherwise, I'm sure I would have heard about it by now.

After I got home and brushed my teeth for a long time, I looked up the wiki on blackouts. It looks like I had a textbook case of an en bloc blackout; as I read the article, I thought, check, check, yup did that too. It turns out that the speed at which you consume alcohol determines whether you black out, and I was downing some cranberry and vodkas at an efficient pace.

Remind me not to do that ever again.

Critical Mass

Friday night marked the 10th anniversary of Critical Mass in Chicago. If you've never heard of this, Critical Mass is basically a mass rally of cyclists who gather on the last Fri of every month to bike through the city, take over the streets, block traffic and generally have a good time riding without fear of being hit by cars. The movement (if you can call it that) aspires to advocate cycling but has no official "platform" or "organization" or "leaders." In fact, the biking route isn't decided until the day of the rally, when people suggest possible maps and a general vote is taken. As you can imagine, the unregulated, unpredictable nature of the Mass tends to put the police in a bit of a bind, but in Chicago (unlike NYC) the cops are generally supportive and help block traffic, rather than arresting people for disorderly conduct.

This sounded like a massive block party on wheels, so I grabbed some fellow bikers and we headed out to the Mass start point at Daley Plaza. Problem: when we headed out, we discovered that Charles' bike seat had been stolen. Ack! I feel vindicated now for being paranoid and taking my bike seat with me whenever I leave it outside. Luckily, the Millennium Park bike station was still open, and the mechanic was miraculously able to find a fitting seat and post for his bike. This was the same guy who patched up my bike after I got hit by a cab; have I mentioned lately how much he rocks??

Meanwhile, the Mass was in full swing and heading north. And by "full swing," I mean traveling at about 5 mph - thousands of bikers don't make it anywhere particularly fast. Plus, we were surrounded by all kinds of sideshows. There was a marching band, people passing out organic sodas, skinny hipsters toting patched messenger bags, suburban lawyer types in spandex, parents with wagons of small children, bikes with subwoofers attached, short trick bikes, 5' tall 2-tiered bikes, and that guy you always see on Lake Shore drive with the "Hi :)" flag on his bike.


The Mass wended its way through downtown and headed toward Wicker and then Humboldt Parks, alternatively pissing off cab drivers (who were prevented from driving forward by cyclists who "corked" intersections) and bringing good cheer to kids who ran out to shout "Happy Friday!" (the unofficial Critical Mass greeting). I was surrounded by bikes on all sides, there were no dump trucks bearing down on me and no cars opening doors in my path, and for the first time ever, I felt completely safe while biking in the city. By the end of the night, I was definitely feeling One with the Mass or the Universe or whatever.

We made a quick pit stop at Charles' apartment to pick up beer (appropriately enough, he had large quantities of PBR). I have now perfected my technique for opening a can of beer with one hand while riding a bike.

That was without a doubt the funnest thing I've done all month.

There are rumors flying that this 10th anniversary Critical Mass might be the last one ever in the city, since some feel that the ride has become too large for its own good, and more closely resembles a frat party, rather than focusing on cycling advocacy. Personally, I think the Mass will keep assembling so long as there are cyclists who keep showing up once a month at Daley Plaza. (see proponents of the "Last Mass My Ass!" campaign) I didn't stick it out till the end of the ride (we had plans to meet up with people), but if you stay till the end, I hear the horde eventually ends up at say, the North Ave beach and then breaks up into lots of crazy after-parties. Yay, biking community culture!

By popular demand

Last Friday, the Feddies decided to take a trip to Ravinia to see Fiona Apple & Nickel Creek in concert. I had actually heard both of them beforehand, and had even seen Fiona in concert before. (Muchos gracias to MF & the Splashers for dragging me to Jones Beach last summer.) This time, I was a seasoned veteran, meaning Ana and I were the obnoxious ones singing along to the music while everyone else ignored us. The two bands also played together, and Fiona Apple backed by a bluegrass & strings band was surprisingly effective.

Music aside though, the Ravinia lawn is quite a time even if you are clueless about the artist. Similar to the Tanglewood lawn, people bring in booze and picnic baskets and set up shop all over the grass. We brought in lots of bread, cheese and dip (I made pesto the night before), 3 bottles of wine and a lot of beer. Pretty tame, really, as Luis was saying last time, there had been 2 more bottles of wine than there were people. By the end of the night, everyone was pleasantly festive (or maybe somewhat belligerent).

I’ll be back next weekend for Rufus Wainwright. The Rufus/Guster concert at Cornell a few years ago ranks as one of my favorite shows of all time, so hopefully this will live up to that.

Afterwards, we somehow landed at a U of Chicago house party. It was actually pretty happenin’, as in not where fun goes to die. So happening, that by the end of the night, Britton and I landed the unruly task of walking a not-walking Haley home. Have you ever been cab-rejected before?? I hailed two cabs and they slowed to pick us up, then drove off when they saw Haley and thought she was going to be sick. Finally, the third cab I hailed took pity on us and we managed to get her home. Thank god Britton was there to take charge, because I wouldn’t have known what to do, having never really dealt with drunk people before…Britton: “Well, I’d say welcome to college, but you’re already out, so…” Oh 209, we only got good at being college during the month of May. :p

I spent the next morning grabbing dimsum and wandering around the loop with Alex, who was visiting from Missouri (where?). Whoa, Cornell people, in the flesh! It all seems so far removed from where I am and what I’m doing now. And tomorrow is the first day of freshman orientation, and Sunday will be First Night and drumline won’t be at my apt this year…all right, I’ll stop tearing up. Especially since now I know where to find 2-liter beers in glass boots. That's right, we ended up in the German Square of Lincoln Park at the Chicago Brauhaus. Apparently it is humanly possible, though not enjoyable, to down an entire boot in 7 min (not that I tried).

For good measure, I popped into the Organization for Chinese Americans (OCA) picnic on Sun afternoon. There wasn’t clear signage, so I wandered around the back of the house in question to see a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth. Aha, I thought, I have officially arrived. The next test was how much Mandarin I could spit out/comprehend. Sigh, 2 semesters of Chinese later, I still have a ways to go. One of the girls I met was gently correcting my accent. (ouch!) It’s ok, I forgive her, and we’re going salsa dancing this weekend. One of the other interesting people I met was an elderly lady with perfect, unaccented English. As I ogled, someone explained that she was actually born in the US, and her grandparents had immigrated in the late 1800s. Wow, they probably passed through Angel Island or participated in the original gold rush! For all the first generation asian immigrants in this country, I forget that there are 5th generation families as well.