Loveliness.

Wild Autotune.

• Woods by Bon Iver

More Bon Iver music on iLike

Helmets in Bars.

I'm thinking of starting a blog helmetsinbars.com

Bittersweet Beach.

This year's annual Girls Trip was a strange one. Every year the women in my family - my mother, 2 aunts, sister, sister-in-law, cousin, niece, and myself - take a week long vacation at the beach along the panhandle of Florida. We usually stay in Rosemary Beach, Seagrove, or one of the towns in that area. This year we stayed in a gorgeous house in Rosemary Beach (my favorite place in the country) and it should have been a wonderful week. Things were a little tense this year with all the bunches of things going on in all our lives. For me, it was the first year in a long time that I felt truly at peace being there, but for everyone else it was different. As my mother said "We're all just hanging on by our fingernails." It's been a rough year. On top of all the emotional stuff, the most painful part for me was the devastating effects of the oil coming to shore. During our last 2 days, the tar balls started to wash up, which was a sign of what's to come. On our 3rd day, they brought in trucks to dig a trench in the sand in attempt to collect the oil for easier removal. It was surreal to see the beach full of people lounging in the sun while Caterpillar trucks were tearing up the beach a few feet away. We started to see jeeps driving by stopping to look for oil in the area. And finally on our last 2 days, we started to see hundreds and hundreds of balls of sandy tar washing up on the shore. The clean-up workers were walking the shore in rubber boots and rubber gloves picking up the tar while people seemed completely oblivious to what was happening around them. Here are a couple of iphone shots of the weird scene. And one little video of the tar in the water.

Summer City.

Happy summer everyone! I had a very relaxing 4th yesterday. A full day of laying in the sun followed by roof top fireworks with Pam. From my building rooftop, we could see hundreds of little fireworks displays all across the western horizon. As soon as the sun went down, the western suburbs erupted with sparkles and we watched them with cheep mexican beer in hand and hilarious conversation. Have I mentioned I love Chicago? :)

Pam and I have begun a weekly bike ride tradition and every time it makes me love the city more. We ride as far as we can up the lake and see all the people running, riding, sunning, and playing on the beaches. This place is like a super cool city that turns into a beach town in the summer. Sundresses, bikinis, and flip flops everywhere. If I can manage to survive the winters here, I might just stay a while.