Category: Uncategorized

House hunting dilemma

I checked out 8 places in chicago in 36 hours. Not bad. One in lakeview. 2 in andersonville. 1 up by howard. 1 in wicker park. And 3 apartments very close to the morse stop in rogers park. Lakeview dude struck me as a stoner, and the apartment was poorly maintained. Not bad. The first roger’s park person was a self-described fag hag. I started getting guilt twinges just from hanging with her and chatting briefly, and the place was a bit iffy. Wicker park had no laundry in the unit. Also, my potential roommate was waaay too cute. In his presence, I was starting to overlook fatal flaws. It would have had the shortest commute, but just, no. I happened across a place to check out in andersonville on my way to lunch on day 2. It wasn’t bad. Extraordinarily cheap. Nice roommate, though totally run down place. I quickly nixed that one. The last “no” was another cute gay guy, this time in rogers park. He wanted a bit too much separation, and his place was pretty expensive. Very nice, decent commute, but not very homy.

Now on to the maybes.

Howard guy had his own condo. A long commute, (I’d estimate 45 min each way minimum) and the farthest from boystown and other fun neighborhoods. The most expensive one I’m considering ($600 + 1/3 utils). But he’s a great guy. And the gym (Bally’s, also a nationwide chain, $4/month to have access to all) would be between the train station and home, eliminating all excuses for not working out. Grocery store right next to that. He listed a PS2 as an amenity of the apartment. Laundry in the place. He seems totally affable and easy to get along with. Also a homo from SF.

Next place. A 3 BR in Andersonville with two women. One ex-SF-er who will be moving out in January. One Polish lady. $500 a month, including everything: laundry, internet, electricity, heat, you name it (imagine how quickly I could pay off my credit cards…). Polish lady smokes on the front porch, not a problem. An easy walk to see and . A bit far to the nearest gym, which is cheetah (a bit pricy, gay, pretty, but not fully featured (no pools at any of their sites). But, it’s uh, andersonville. It’s a great location, restaurants, a gay bar or 3 in walking distance, grocery store is a bit far, but still walkable. Shortest commute of the places I’m considering, though it would involve a longish walk in downtown or a transfer in boystown (and thus standing for the last 20 min of the commute. Inconvenient for reading).

Last place. Two straight guys. Friendly, mellow. $500, utils not included. Not really close to anything. I just liked the social vibe of the place. (ouch, okay, this one just moved to the bottom of my maybe list).

So, fundamentally, it’s a choice between low rent, and long walks for groceries and gym (~10 min to the gym ~15 to the grocery store, maybe less) Or, over $100/month more for a handy gym and grocery store (and a slightly longer commute). I did feel a bit cozier with the Howard guy, on a personal basis, but the location, especially at that price is too hard to beat. Plus, if the roommates don’t work out, I’ll have a hand in selecting a new one soon. Okay, decision made.

Documentary: Meth

I can strongly recommend a documentary I saw at the SF G&L Film Fest: Meth.

It’ll be showing in chicago on wed & thu for free. Details below:

Wednesday, June 21st and Thursday, June 22nd
Film Screening: Meth
This documentary takes an unflinching, provocative look at past and present gay users. A panel discussion will follow the screening. Panelist slated to attend include Dan Berger, MD; Dan Bigg – Chicago Recovery Alliance: film cast memeber Jim Johnson; and Jim Pickett – AIDS Foundation of Chicago.
Bailiwick Repertory Theatre
1229 W. Belmont
7:00pm
The screening is FREE and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

WoW servers

I currently have 7 characters spread across multiple servers. Only one has a ten’s level digit greater than 1. I’m sticking with my main on the server I share with Simon, Lili, and until I get him up to at least 30. Then I’ll think about alting. That server is Gorgonnash, fyi. You are welcome to join me there, if you like. 😉

[ETA: okay, you may be able to tempt me with a Horde alternate, so I can build up restedness on my main. Feel free to make server suggestions. I will only do one. It should be backed up with a list of people I know and love, or you can make me believe I would rapidly come to love. =)]

the last days in the UK

So, my last few days in the UK were fairly eventful. I went out on the town with a kid from gay.com. Saturday evening I had drinks at Sanctuary, ended up just chatting with him. Then we grabbed burger king (eyeroll). We watched part of a huge breast cancer marathon. In the 20 minutes we sat there, we caught neither the beginning nor the end of the stream of people walking by, late at night. This was right outside picadilly circus, not far from buckingham palace.

Sunday, I caught the changing of the guard before heading off to Oxford to spend some quality time with Ro. I had another curry + pear crumble meal (at the nosebag in oxford, tastty, but a bit pricy. =) Oxford is pretty, it was great seeing Ro again, more pictures will be forthcoming.

Monday, I checked out the London Eye (huge lines! I passed on it), and the British Museum. More pictures. Huge, enormous, filled with priceless artifacts. Pretty, too. Art ranging from the modern to the truly ancient. Countless artifacts and archaelogical stuff too. I got totally lost. I had dinner at Mildred’s. Spotted a gay bar on the way. Mildred’s, good food. Slow service, but I found it friendly. They are looking for waitstaff. It has a rep for iffy service, but I think that’s mainly due to being swamped.

Later in the evening, I came back to the bar. It was smoky of course, I got hit on by some very inebriated guys who I did not find attractive. Eventually settled in to chat with a friendly, older, deaf bear. He introduced me to his friends. Turns out that 3 of us were from ohio. The friendly bear was from Berlin, OH, and a friend of his from Steubenville. Heh. Still, they were good, friendly people. Tea & hot chocolate afterwards, then back to the hostel to get ready for the plane flight to germany … which is another story. =)

Germany not going as well

I knew the language thing would be an issue for me, but I wasn’t quite aware how much of an issue. Not being able to communicate well with most of the people around me really bugs me. Not that many of them seem to be interested in talking. The weather has been totally clear the past couple days.

It didn’t take me long to figure out I overpacked, but traveling in second class on the national rail system drove the point home. One suitcase partially underneath the seat in front of me, my gym bag between my legs, and my backpack on top of my legs. And still the suitcase invaded the legroom of the seat next to mine. A teensy bit cramped. There was no apparent luggage space, other than an overhead rack to short to accomodate anything but my backpack, which has all my entertainment materials. I’m not sure whether there’s a baggage checking arrangement, or you’re just not supposed to bring that much stuff in second class [, moron].

I finished Skipping Toward Gommorrah on the plane to Frankfurt, yesterday. It’s a pretty good book, overall. The premise of the envy section is weak, and the pride section is redundant with much of his other writing (though still relevant and well thought out).

I’m probably going to rent a bike and check out the castle today. Joe told me where I can find a veggie friendly place around here. This trip segment solidly makes the point that two days anywhere is not a very long time. grr, sigh.

I want to find vegetarian (at least, vegan would be nice if swingable) versions of the local cuisine; it’d be cool if I could find a local homo establishment to meet people. My goal in going on this trip was to expose myself to different cultures. To really do that, I feel like I ought to be speaking to locals, getting to know them, forming transcontinental friendships. Whatever, no time for any of that. This is cranky scu speaking.

London: My observations

Okay, this is a really cool town. If I had the money, and no residency considerations, I’d choose this over nyc in a heartbeat. NYC is the only remotely comparable town I can think of. But london has better architecture, better city design, and better public transportation. Plus I like the accent. On the other hand, everything is incredibly expensive, and this city sleeps. Or at least the part I’m in does.

London is compact, liberally dotted with parks, and sometimes more than dotted. There are large statues and monuments all over. Buildings that you’d think are monuments, but serve more mundane purposes. There seems to be a 4 story minimum building height, with no real upper limit in site. Public transit goes everywhere. The suburbs are still banal. The boundary between urban growth and pastoral areas is shockingly abrupt to my US experience. I haven’t seen a single story house anywhere. At all. Lots of litttle side streets. And contruction, reconstruction, or deconstruction everywhere. You see buildings that have to be hundreds of years old next to one that was clearly built sometime in the last 20. Often times sharing walls. That parts a little chaotic. Some of the streets are paved in brick, others with asphalt, slate, whatever. Ditto for the sidewalks. I have nearly been killed at least 10 times by my aggressive pedestrian reflexes combined with traffic coming from a direction I don’t expect traffic to come from. Getting used to this hasn’t been entirely good for me, because it’s screwed up even my sense of east v west, and furthermore, if this were to still be in place when I got to the US, I’d risk being roadkill again. Though, I have to say London drivers are the most aggressive drivers I’ve seen so far.

The food has been pretty good, despite the expectations I’ve been given. I’ve been selective. Veganism is easier here than in chicago, harder than sf or minneapolis. But really, it all depends on your planning, forethought, etc, etc. I could use more of that. =)

The locals are, on the whole, polite, and very non-intrusive, but friendly once conversation is initiated. Yeah, I think I’d enjoy living here. But that sure ain’t in the cards. =)

If I ever have mone money than I know what to do with, I might come back here. But more likely, I’d go looking for an equally cool place with a better exchange rate. 😉