New Adventures in Public School

Bus stop selfie, amiright?

Yesterday was another FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! That's basically what I say any time I go to a new school for a residency, which is what I did yesterday. (It was not technically the first day of school, it was the first day of the last quarter of school for these kids).

I am still working with American Theater Company's Mosaic Program, but this time, instead of working with three classes at Kelvyn Park High School, I am assisting just one class at Roberto Clemente Community Academy. I kind of got thrown into this one at the last second because they needed a replacement TAA but luckily for me, I already know the program!

Yesterday was my first time going to the school and it is unlike anything I have ever seen before. I couldn't even fit the whole building into one photo! (There is actually a sky bridge that leads to the annex building). It definitely has a different vibe than KP (which was built in the 1930s for the record).

After class was over, I got to enjoy some nice sunny weather because spring has sprung here (at least for the past couple of days -- I've been told not to trust the weather here EVER). I'm going to enjoy the warm for now as I'm headed to the SECOND DAY OF SCHOOL.

Pencil Skirts Mandatory

Technically, no, that is not what the job listing said (nor was there an actual job listing, I got called in for a temp gig), I just look really good in pencil skirts.

I'm temping today and since my readers (*cough* Mom and Dad *cough*) demand blog posts about the most boring tidbits of my life, I thought I would oblige (and by oblige, I mean, I've been here for 45 minutes, answered three phone calls but am already bored out of my mind).

I'm temping at GATX again! They specifically requested me! #Famous. This is my fourth time filling in with them for a total of six days out of my 9322 days on this green(house gas emissions) earth. It's finally warm enough that I can ditch the dress pants (or black jeans masquerading as dress pants) for my preferred business casual pencil skirt. I look great in those bad boys!

Need proof? No worries, I took a selfie in the bathroom to kill some time when I arrived 15 minutes early.

Business awesome

Yup, I rock that look (who else can work a pencil skirt with their bright pink middle school backpack? Just me? Damn straight).

Yesterday, I went to a play that Mandy's roommates were involved in (not just involved in, her roommate Kalli was the director and producer of the whole thing). While we were sitting there, I started telling her about For the Love Of (or the Roller Derby Play). The guy in front of us turned around and said that he'd just seen that show too. He'd seen it on Thursday! I asked him if he meant April 6th, because I'd seen it on Thursday as well. Turns out, he was sitting right behind me four days ago. He even remembered me as "the girl in the corner with the backpack." Yup! That's me! Small friggin world, amiright?

Post-show, we all went back to Mandy's, where I ended up with a glass of champagne in one hand and a slice of bacon/pickle pizza in the other. (I'm a bad vegetarian, I know, but late-night celebratory pizza definitely trumps self-imposed dietary restrictions!).

Now, today, I had a meeting at 11 and a doctor's appointment at 3. These two things happened to be an eight minute walk from each other (but roughly 40 minutes from my house) so my plan was to hang out in the neighborhood in between. The meeting was with the teaching artist I'll be working with for this second round of the Mosaic Program, which starts next week. We were meeting at a café called Delicious (promising name!). I timed it out perfectly! I got there RIGHT at 11 sharp! I didn't have to walk around the block an extra time like I normally do when I go somewhere because I'm always too early. Nope! Today was my day.

Now, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, because after ordering my hot chocolate, admiring Delicious's sloth logo and marveling at their floor made of pennies, I sat down and waited. By 11:15, I was pretty confused. I didn't have my fellow teaching artist's phone number so I was trying to figure out how I could reach her. My first step was to reread our email exchange and this is where I discovered my blunder -- she asked if I would like to meet on Tuesday, April 11 at 4pm, which my brain read as Tuesday at 11. Good work, brain. I was not my standard early, I was extra super duper insane five hours early!!

Well, I finished my hot chocolate and decided I could still be productive with my day! I walked 30 minutes to CTW to do a little bit of work there, retraced most of my steps and got a cupcake lunch at small cakes (this month's special -- brownie red velvet! Ohmigawd!!!) and then decided to visit the small town that is Lakeview's newest Whole Foods. Well, who did I bump into there but the legend herself, Amanda Belscamper! She and her boss had run over for coffee and we all just happened to be there at the same time! Insane.

Well, post walk-thru of Whole Foods, I visited another branch of the Chicago Public Library to get some quality computer time (and have a place to sit where I wasn't expected to spend money). Does this particular branch smell like a stale fart and BO? Yup, pretty much, but is it free? Yes and free currently beats my burning nose hairs.

And that is where I am writing/posting from. Enjoy your reading material, I will now be enjoying mine (a book courtesy of CPL, obviously!)

Be Still My Reading Heart

One could argue that Chicago Theater Works is my home away from home. They could argue that. They would be WRONG! My home away from home is the Logan Square branch of the Chicago Public Library!

This is where I go when I need something to do or a change of scenery. It's where I go when I want to get books! The one problem with this branch is that it doesn't have every single book I want! But, having a library card means that I can have any book at any library in CPL delivered to the Logan Square branch. This is obviously extremely useful! I put holds on books all. the. time. Like everyday! One of the best days of my life was when I discovered that CPL has an app that you can put on your phone and use to find books! One of the next best days of my life was the following day when the official CPL twitter retweeted my tweet about them having an app!

Photographic evidence

Both the CPL website and app have added a banner at the top of their pages (yes, I do sometimes still use the website) saying that website logins and holds will be unavailable from April 13-21 and that you will need to use your card at the library. This means stocking up! So I went to the library today to pick up a book on hold and grab another book that they did happen to have in stock.

Now, while I was checking out the book, I got news that would shatter my world! I thought that even though the website would be unavailable, any books that were in transit to the branch (I am currently waiting on two) would still be available for pick up when they arrived. WRONG! Nope, any books on hold that arrive at the branch will have to be stored until the system is back online! That means that if my two books (or even more since I always have several books on hold at one time) arrive after Wednesday, I won't be able to get them until the 22nd! This is awful! I currently have three and a half books checked out (I technically have four, but since I am halfway through one of them, it doesn't count) which will probably get me through the first two days of this insanity!

I'm working on a list based on my reading list of books that are, in fact, available at the Logan Square Library branch. I picked up one today obviously, but I'm going to have to go get more tomorrow, before it's too late!*

*I will be able to check out books after April 13, but I won't have any way of knowing that the books that are on my reading list/that I want to read are available at the Logan Square branch.

A picture is worth 15 words

Hello Sun!

The sun graces us with it's presence and warmth yesterday! We are blessed!

It was a two show day for Tony N Tina's but it was also over 60 degrees out! Insane. I opened both of the doors at the church to let the light in and today is supposed to be even nicer!

(Although we all know that after the awful winter at the TnT church where my fingers basically froze and broke off, I am going to melt without any AC at the church this summer, but let me enjoy it for now).

Writing the Comedy Memoir

Well, say goodbye to all of my expendable income! I just signed up for a class at the Second City Training Center called Writing the Comedy Memoir. It is, obviously, a class for writing about molecular biology and quantum physics. Just kidding! See? I'm already writing funny stuff!

It was a pretty chunk of change, but that's what savings bonds are for, amiright?

Just kidding again, I don't know what savings bonds are technically for, but I'm going to cash mine and use them for this.

Or the Roller Derby Play

Yesterday was my half birthday and I celebrated with theatre and cupcakes (actually, that sounds like just about every other day in my life... but I promise I was celebrating!).

Photographic evidence

It was a nice day out, so I actually decided to walk a large portion of my journey (which ended up being two miles according to Google). The play was north of Chicago Theater Works so I ended up taking the bus to where I would normally get on the train and walking from there. It was really interesting to see things that I had been passing on the train for months up close and get a new view of things. I also ended up going closer to Wrigley Field than I ever had. I took a picture to prove it. (I also think I ended up being closer to Wrigley Field than I ever have been to Fenway Park, which is a little embarrassing for someone whose spent almost an entire lifetime in Boston...).

Now, I take my half birthday very seriously. It is like my regular birthday except better because there are zero expectations but I still get cake. You would think I've sampled every cupcake in Chicago at this point, but I was just as surprised as you are to find out that I have not! Jennivee's Bakery! Just a few blocks north of Chicago Theater Works! (South of Wrigley, I figured I would take some poetic license and get my Wrigley Field bit out of the way before writing about things that I actually care about). The bakery is fairly new, opening between when I created the Cupcake Crawl list and when we actually began our journey, which is how we missed such a conveniently located spot.

I was at a crossroads (Sheffield and School St to be specific). Do I stop at this bakery and treat myself or do I return to my non-cupcake sampling ways until Mr. Ryan Lind makes a triumphant, but currently undetermined, return to the Windy City? (I swore off trying new bakeries between October and Ryan's visit so that we could try them together). I decided that it was my half birthday and I obviously could not have a proper half birthday without a cupcake so I went in.

I didn't get a good pic, so I stole this from their Instagram.

Honestly, everything in the bakery looked delicious. I decided not to get a monstrous slice of cake, although it would have been well within my right as half-birthday girl (although I'm not sure my wallet would have agreed as a slice cost twice as much as a cupcake!) I probably would have ordered the "Bad and Boujee" cupcake on the name alone (the sign did proclaim it to have the best name ever) but I couldn't resist a chocolate cupcake with a champagne-infused raspberry mouse! It was a celebration after all, and it wouldn't be a proper one without champagne! (Although I'm pretty sure I've never celebrated anything with champagne in my life, unless you count mimosas at brunch, where I am celebrating the weekend ritual of overeating at mid-morning meals).

This cupcake was UNREAL! The mousse was perfection and the chocolate cupcake was very dense -- almost more muffin like -- but didn't make me feel like I had a cement in my stomach once I'd devoured every bite of it.

Perhaps the best part of Jennivee's is that it is kitty corner from one of the cast of TnT's favorite post-show hangouts AND it's open until midnight, so maybe next time the cast wants to grab a beer (or five), I will fill my stomach with the one thing I love more than alcohol.

After cupcakes, it was on to the Pride Arts Center to see For The Love Of... (Or the Roller Derby Play). Yes, that was the show's real title (it also came with an equally wordy tag line "A show about women who skate hard and love harder). I was going to see a play about roller derby! The show had been written and directed by women, along with having an entirely female cast.

The show reminded me a lot of a play I did in college called Shooting Stars about an all-women's basketball team in the 1960s. I played a character named Gay and there was also a character named Butch but it definitely wasn't a play about lesbians, unlike what I saw last night. I would say that For The Love Of... was 95% modern-adaptation of Shooting Stars and 5% what Shooting Stars would have been if Gay and Butch had been lesbians.

It wasn't perfect but it's great to see women represented in all of those creative and on-stage roles. We can always use more of that! It also made me consider strapping on skates and finding a roller derby league for what feels like the zillionth time.

After the play, I didn't walk home, just to the train station (and I talked to my sister while I walked because while I might be a big bad feminist, I'm not a naive big bad feminist and I was walking in a neighborhood that, while not appearing too shady, is not one I often visit). We discussed binge-watching Netflix's newest series 13 Reasons Why, which you didn't really need to know but I've included because when I take the time to write a long-ass post like this one, I like to make sure it is overly detailed. Whitney might come to visit me at the end of the month, along with my dad, so that would be very exciting.

The plans for today include hitting send on this blog post and going to work at CTW tonight. I have no idea how I'll fill the time between now and then, but if it is blog-worthy, you shall be the first to know (or maybe you'll know in a month or two, depending on how I am feeling...).

Flashback Friday

I was deleting old photos from my phone when I found this guy! A literal Flashback Friday from today to the fateful Friday when I fought swarms of Cubs fans on the subway to get to my internship at Lookingglass, got to go to their victory parade and the only thing I cared enough to take pictures of was this very cute puppy.

(That was also the Friday where I decided I would call out sick if I ever needed to go downtown on a day where there was any type of sport-related tom foolery happening).

It is a lovely spring day so I have decided to walk a portion of my adventure to the play tonight. I'm walking a part of my commute where I would normally be on the train, and it is already very interesting to see things at the street level.

I also downloaded the Blogger app for posting on the go. You're welcome.

Research

Earlier this week, I met a friend for lunch at a Thai place (my suggestion because I'd been there before and knew that it was within walking distance of his apartment). We had crab rangoons with real imitation crab and then because he is working on a show where he, as the props master, needs to create the "perfect ice cream sundae" decided we should find some ice cream... for research purposes. Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of places to get ice cream in Chicago! The results of a Google search for ice cream are about 99% Baskin Robbins and the last 1% of ice cream is like five miles away. We ended up at Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream, which is a mini-chain that actually started in Columbus, OH, but has rapidly expanded into the Windy City (and probably other places too). You can buy pints of their ice cream at Whole Foods for like nine bucks, but luckily, purchasing a scoop is not going to empty your wallet at quite the same velocity.

Jeni's is splendid though but neither of us actually got a sundae though, so I guess there is more research in our future.

So, updating you on EVERYTHING that has happened since I last really wrote has turned out to be more than I can chew, so here are the highlights (actually, really the only thing I have to share because March was mainly working 24/7).

My best friend, Mr. Ryan Lind came to visit in March! He was supposed to visit in February but every flight leaving NYC was cancelled thanks to a giant snowstorm, so we postponed. While he was here, we gorged ourselves on cupcakes and did lots of touristy things along with some not-so-touristy things.

We went to eight different bakeries and the best cupcakes we had were these tiny bundt cakes we got for free at an event we attended at CTW! Yup, the best cake in life is free apparently. I didn't take any pictures of the mini bundt cakes (they were very cute), but I did take lots of pictures of everything else we ate during our hunt for Chicago's best cupcake (which like I said, were the free mini bundt cakes from Everything Bundt).

I don't think we ever decided what the best cupcakes were, but I think the most disappointing was Goddess & The Baker's rainbow cake. This is what we were most excited for because rainbow! But it was just really plain cake in the end.

Cuties!

The other highlight of his visit was when Ryan finally got to meet Mandy! They'd met via Skype and have obviously heard all about each other, but it was their first time meeting face-to-face. Mandy is a working fiend so we just got to have a short lunch (at the brand new Whole Foods that is bigger than my entire apartment building) but it was nice to see two of my favorite people together at last!

And that was March, at least, the only part of March that I care about.

Today is my half birthday, which means I need to figure out where I can go to get cake in this city where I haven't already gone... I have the next few weeks to do nothing again, before my next gig starts on April 17th, so maybe you'll have more reading material between now and then, and maybe not! We'll see!

I told you that we also did the touristy stuff. 

WOW.

It has been almost a month since I last blogged. But I have a good reason for my radio (internet?) silence. I have worked every day this month EXCEPT for two! But I have the next two weeks off, so I will begin to update you on what has been going on and hopefully keep up posting with more regularity moving forward.