SCENES FROM ILLINOIS

for the past few days i've been at my other home, in illinois, spending time with family and friends, playing music, and enjoying some culinary delights that just don't exist in my little town. and i don't know what i was thinking planning so much time on farms and in little towns during my vacation from the farm, but i did just that and i enjoyed it so.

mum and i went apple picking. we snuck into the honey crisp row when we should have been picking liberties, we ate apple cider donuts, and we pet goats and cows and alpacas. it was the awkward apple picking temperature of 80 degrees out, but it was delightful. the next day, jaclyn, katie, and i went to the adorable downtown area of long grove for their apple fest. more apple cider donuts, chocolate covered grapes (weird but good!), a pond-side lunch, and a caramel apple macaron. yum.

my one bit of time in the city was spent at the super cute hideout, a quaint house hidden in an industrial area of lincoln park, playing with san fermin. it was so much funnnn!! their music is such a head-boppy, sing-along, get nostalgic type of good. i brought the band 'sun' sick cakes (named after the song "sonsick"): they were fiery like the sun-- chili chocolate cake with saffron chili cream cheese frosting.  

other highlights: eating good blue cheese (i had forgotten the pleasures of that), clearing out the trader joe's nut aisle, and picking up some cacao nibs, dukkah, and pumpkin spice coffee to bring back to north dakota.

also: mum flexed her mother skills and forced a bunch of really awesome winter clothing on me in preparation for the crazy weather that is to come. there is snow in the forecast for saturday!

-yeh!!! 

CHICAGO: INSTAGRAMS

i nearly plumb forgot that we stopped in chicago on the way from new york to north dakota. and by forgot, i mean that i was in such a summery dream-like state that i couldn't be bothered with taking many pictures and thinking and making decisions like donut from glazed and infused? or pistachio icream?  both, obviously.

eggboy and i had a delightful afternoon of tacos and used bookstores in wicker park. jaclyn, katie, and i had one of those epic emergency late night steak 'n shake runs (but not before eating horseradish pub cheese on the lawn at ravinia in front of a wild aida ).

also: a dip in the pool, tomatoes from mum's garden, the new-ish fiona apple, and the gran partita. 

plus house of cards and sleeping in. 

summer.

you know the drill. 

-yeh! 

TAKE ME OUT TO THE SOX GAME!

when i grow up i want to be a closing pitcher, is what i decided last night. and i'd have really badass entrance music, like that stockhausen helicopter thing. (it'd be played live.) everyone would fear me and i would pitch ​140 miles per hour and i would save the game every time. i'd tuck my socks in, i'd chew bubblegum.

all the good stuff. ​

-yeh!​

HOME

the mental state i am in right now. ​i'd pay good money to bring it back to new york. not in like a drug way, but in a wide open spaces, freshly cut grass smell, huge freaking suburban grocery stores, have the patience to sit and look out the window and do nothing sort of way. i've been bad about emails, i've tweeted perhaps once, and the above photos were only taken when i wasn't planted in front of the television watching game of thrones​. i ran a 5k yesterday. it was fun and i might pretend that that's enough real exercise to get me through the week.

i woke up this morning and i asked myself "self, what do i need to do today?" and i responded, "nothing." it was the greatest. i think i'll go to the library.

-yeh!​