Dear Penelope,

i leave on saturday and i doubt i'll be adjusted to the 2 hours ahead. It makes the day go fast. No sooner have i stumbled out of bed and an hour on the train and the day is over. This is an expectionally mellow trip. i'm up late in chitown waiting for my henna tattoo to dry. Rekindled my love of chicago beef, as if there was any doubt on how well they do skirt steak. Went to devon street and they looked at my eyebrows and said, thread? I backed out slowly shaking my head clutching the dye. No, i said. This also lead to a contemplation of the burka and if there were many hardcore muslims running around LA. Maybe? All I can think of is the Hassidic Jews. But there were a lot of scarf wearing lasses in the area and a couple burkas that made me wonder. i thought in LA i'd have to go really far- our diverse neighborhoods though polorized are not nearly so so polorized with a few expections- either way they're an hour out from the barrio i live in.

Today was an epic feast day- first a swedish place called Svea for some good eggs and potatos followed by indian food @ Tikken in keeping with the theme then to Weber Grill. Yesterday the highlight was superior skirt steak followed by homemade chocolate ice cream called Zanzibar. Love-eet. Also a show at the planetarium and lunch with Misty and contemplation of the universe and how it seems recently discovery has lead back to humility, back to the universe being an inscrutible mystery. It's like we reached this apex of knowledge and tipped back to ignorance and that makes me happy. I also made it out to oak park and 'operation uvula' was a success. It makes me laugh i love it so. I need to enclose a pic in my next letter, along with my new tattoo.

Tomorrow I'm going to SAIC, meeting with Jerami, and then to Greektown and the Jazzfest. I cannot possibly hit all my favorite eateries or do all my favorite things. Though in the space of a short trip it seems a perfect balance of hanging out and adventuring. Plus the weather is a marvelously temperate 7o something. I went to bed with that feeling of being damp though like i was by the beach. A good comparison to how really dry it is in CA, which apparently is still on fire.

The day before I left I went swimming which was good and Kerry came along and we nearly drowned ourselves laughing because we realized that we were competing stroke for stroke to the end of the lane, just as we had minutes before mocked these 2 guys doing the very same thing. We glanced up and nearly choked with the image. Of course after that, Kerry being 1/2 my size was under enormous pressure to lap me 3x over, since there's no way she should be as slow as I was. We went to CPK after and it was ridiculously late, applauded some firefighters on their way out, made me think of when i accidentally tear up when i hear the national anthem.

Aside from that the plane trip took as long to get here as it did to Guatemala. And I was still surprised they confiscate water. I think i used the words perpetual state of crisis and Cathy thinks big words fly out of my mouth when i'm under stress. Sort of like when foreigners can't hide their accents when they're angry. I used the word nomenclature the other day and though i was right and positive of the context i couldn't have defined it for you.

Other than that, Cath and I wander. I myself wander. I complain ad nauseum about my knee. At one point tonight I realized standing and talking to Cath's friend Jane that the entire right side of my right leg and quad had gone numb. That can't be a good sign?... Why is my right leg so angry? I tire myself out with my looped complaining but I hate transitions- like my transition away from wheat. Today I was mostly vigilant but I still broke down and had a $1 sized piece of naan and my skirt steak today was in fact drenched in soysauce marinade. Whatevs. I think I find the negotiatons of the new to be exhausting- seeking out elevators to baby my knee, seeking out new things to baby my body... this tenderness I don't like- the necessary high maintenance attitude of care and consideration.

Anyway, its dry now.
My love,
M.