Ok, I think today is the 16th. We’re halfway through October and for the most part the weather has been criminally warm. I suppose that makes the consideration of the impending winter easier. Think of it. November, December, January February are winter. By March first, even if the ground is still snow-covered, you know spring will arrive soon. So, here we go, a little over 120 days to the near end of winter and we’re in the mid-sixties. I’m ready. Give me pissing cold rain and fifty while I drink tea and read Moby Dick. Bring it on.

I’m sick, by the way. My chest is locked tight and feels heart-attack ready. Snot runs from my nose at an alarming rate. I can’t work out. I can’t work out. I haven’t hit a wall this hard in two and a half years, and I don’t feel guilty/slackerish because working out isn’t even an option. I’m that tired. Well, Thursday afternoon I lifted weights and yesterday I walked a few miles downtown. More on that in a sec. And I suppose later I might walk to Java Dock. But nothing serious.

This week was uneventful until Thursday when I decided I was going to teach the FUCK out of my afternoon class as the students look dead and I don’t know that I’ve risen to the occasion. The tech (youtube) got stuck but we still did a good job, I think, and I felt better as they left. I finished Ellroy’s Hilliker Curse and started Moby Dick. Friday morning was “long weekend”, or the U’s lame version of fall semester midterm break, but I went into the office anyway and got a lot done in two hours. At 9:15 I drove over to MAM, parked on the street, and sat on the stairs, waiting for the doors to open. I re-upped our membership and walked through the cool new European design show. Scroll down for pictures. Here’s a link to more information:


http://mam.org/european-design/

Some pieces were completely impractical, of course, a requirement of any furniture show just as weirdass clothes seem to be a requirement of any runway show (from, um, what I can on cable, I guess, as I’ve never attended a runway show), but most of the objects were functional and some, like the watering cans, were both cool and cheap. I covertly snapped pics and browsed the disappointing exhibit store before heading to the museum basement. A student reminded me the basement is kind of cool. Now, the American painting selection blows but the weird exhibits beyond that gallery are cool. See the curio boxes below. I wasn’t able to take everything in as I had already spent a good forty-five minutes concentrating on the design exhibit. Next time I’ll head straight to the basement instead of my usual trek to the third floor.

After leaving the museum I walked to the Milwaukee Public Market. The air was clean and the sky open but the city seemed dirty and run down. I don’t know if Milwaukee’s ever going to recover from the downfall of the local manufacturing economy. There’s a curious zombie-movie desertion feel to parts of downtown replete with empty storefronts and sketchy pedestrians. The MPM is nice, though. After circling the stalls I settled on a cheese sandwich at that healthy place where a teenage girl presses wheat grass into juice while another girl makes your sandwich. I snagged green tea also and ate upstairs while reading the local arts paper. Then I cut through downtown on a path similar to the one Dan and I took back to my car before DBT, stopped at Costco, and drove home. Oh, I also picked up some high-grade vanilla extract in what looks like a medicine bottle at the MPM Spice House. Will the vanilla impact cookie quality? We will see.

Last night S and I planned on taking in the Port/Homestead game but decided on Alterra’s and Borders instead because we knew Homestead would kick the hell out of Port. Alterra’s was empty and the cute coffee house girls fawned over S while he drank his strawberry/raspberry Italian soda. I drank a latte while we chatted in the dim light. Then we drove down the highway to Borders. I took a copy of Moby Dick off the shelves and read in a comfy chair while Sky checked out comics and football magazines. We were home by seven-thirty.

My health is hit and miss lately. I haven’t written much about it. I’m going deeper, into more difficult history, and hopefully not feeling as guilty about feeling messed up. Progress, slowly, onward, onward, always, unless staying still makes a difference.

Beethoven’s Emperor is on. Have a good Saturday.