On Coffee Shops

So my job requires me to work from home.  Everyone I know thinks this is one of the greatest things that could happen to a full-time employee such as myself, but I tell you what, it's really hard.  Especially the first few weeks when we were still in boxes...it was so tempting to stop what I was doing and unpack and set up the house.

But within the last two weeks I've really done a 180 and love my situation.  I get up every morning around 7:30 (something has happened to me post-college; my internal clock has become a responsible one) and get dressed like a normal human being.  I make breakfast and read or look at my friends' blogs (yes, you.)  Then I get to work in the office (D and I's spare bedroom...we each have our own desks), which is finally completely set up and fully functional and organized.  I work til I'm feeling lunchy, then I heat something up and take about a 30-45 minute break and mentally unwind by doing some non-work (ex: this blog post.)  After that I work straight til 5 o'clock, sometime 6 if I'm on a roll, and once I'm done...I'M DONE.  I just walk out of the office and do whatever my heart desires.  No waiting around on the El or being stuck in traffic.  It's great.

Now, there are some downsides.  Sometimes when I'm on the phone with someone important like a potential guest, the cat will come in and meow (so unprofessional), or something around the house will happen that distracts me (neighbors, mail delivery, etc.)  But the hardest thing is not having a water cooler with co-workers scattered around it.  I interacted with my boss through e-mail and phone calls all day, but pretty much the cat is my only company.  Which brings me to the subject of this post:  coffee shops...the work-from-home-er's solution for solitude.

Unfortunately my neighborhood of Logan Square isn't really known for having very many of them.  But there is a place right down the street called My House.  Located on busy/nasty Fullerton Ave, My House is set up to feel like just that: someone's pad.  There are a bunch of beat up couches to sit on and the barista lounges around amongst everyone.  Unfortunately they only offer 5 types of bagged tea and some so-so Mexican pastries.  I haven't had the coffee but I've heard it's pretty bad.  When I went, they were blasting music at an annoying high level and eventually switched it over to blasting an NPR talk show, which made it extremely difficult to think and work.  I commend My House for opening its doors in a neighborhood devoid of coffee shops, but, like most of the people I've discussed it with, it gets a major thumbs down.  At least for working purposes.

Open mic night at My House; photo from their MySpace page.

Another place close by is No Friction Cafe, located at California and Armitage.  This place has the right kind of atmosphere with hip brick walls and plentiful tables and chairs.  I've been several times now and am able to get a lot of work done.  They play terrible music but they keep it so low it disappears when you put your own headphones on.  They serve really great bagel sandwiches and the tea selection is swell.  My only complaint is that, although the name implies smoothness, the atmosphere comes off as kinda annoyed.  Everywhere you look there's some kind of passive-aggressive sign like "We'll serve you when you get off your cell phone," or "DO NOT put too much toilet paper in the toilet!" (p.s.--visit passiveaggressivenotes.com).  The other thing that ticked me off was that they've got this frequent buyers card like some places do and the other day I bought a $5 smoothie and the barista said I couldn't get a stamp because it wasn't coffee or tea.  At five bucks, I'd say I deserved to be one step closer to a free drink.  Oh well.  I'll still go there when I need to get out and don't want to bike far.

No Friction cops a 'tude.

Since my only other option in Logan Square until the new No Wave Cafe opens later this year is Starbucks (and I'll go eventually, just to be fair), sometimes I do venture off to other neighborhoods.  I've been to quite a few of the classic Wicker Park haunts like Swim Cafe, Alliance Bakery, and Lovely.  Lovely definitely tops the list--they've got one mean pb&j and really great loose leaf tea.  

But today I've discovered the grandest of them all (and I type to you from here now).  I was looking for a place this morning where I could get breakfast and a really good cup of joe that had a nice working environment and free wi-fi and I found it x1000.  Cafe Ballou, located at Western and Augusta, is the cutest little cafe I've ever been to in Chicago.  The enthusiastic reviews for the place on Yelp.com were dead on.  Western Ave is one of the nastiest, noisiest streets in Chicago, but when I stepped inside Ballou the warm yellow globes of light that hang from the ceiling French cafe style and soft Django Reinhardt tunes put me in a pleasant and productive mood.  I had a great egg and cheese breakfast croissant and am enjoying a very delicious mocha latte.  The staff is sooo friendly and there are many local Ukrainians who stop in and it's fun to hear them converse in their language.  And, they even put a copy of Jeffrey Brown's Clumsy in the restroom which gives them one billion more coolness points.

Hello from Cafe Ballou

So, now that my "lunch break" is over I'm going to get back to work.  By the way, here's a direct link to the latest episode of Business Matters, the show I produce.  This episode is on travel and features the founder of CouchSurfing.com, the president of Megabus, a representative from Virgin America Airlines, and Logan Square's own Ryan Wilson, avid couch surfer.

Thank God It's F-R-I-D-E-E!

Dave, who has been in the real live 9 to 5 working working much longer than I, insists that Friday nights are the worst night of the week.  There's this part of you that says, "You must go out tonight, it's the end of the week--live it up!" while at the same time you're tired from working all day and just want to relax.  I used to dub this 6th day disaster "Freaky Fridees."  I never had them because I occupied myself with doing my radio show every Fridee night back in Lawrence...meanwhile 600 miles away in Chicago, Dave attempted a Fridee Dinner Club that only had one meeting after its inception.

Well, now that we're up here together this has all changed.  Fridays have become this glorious time to take off to the town and live it up together, no holds barred (we purchased sweets twice last night).

 

Last night at my new favorite-place-to-watch-a-movie-ever, the Music Box Theatre, we enjoyed the new Fatih Akin film, The Edge of Heaven.  I've seen two of Akin's previous films, and I'd have to say this is his best yet.  It was especially fun for me since I speak a little Turkish and was able to get more meaning out of the scenes when the characters would switch between speaking Turkish, German, and English.

Afterwards we met up with our beautifully pregnant pal, Emily, for dinner at Harmony Grill (attached to the venue Schuba's).  After being immersed in Turkey for two hours, the pistachio chicken special sounded like the perfect meal and was.  The only mistake we made was sitting outside...Harmony Grill is located right by obnoxious Wrigleyville (a neighborhood that's like a fraternity without a university) and all these drunk jerks on party trolleys would scream at us when they came by.  

The night ended with a visit to Julius Meinl, a Viennese cafe that's open late and serves utterly decadent sweets and specialty coffee and teas.  I had the banana hazelnut mousse and could have cried from joy; it was amazing.

Almost too pretty to eat... Almost.

Yes, Freaky Fridees are now Fun Fridees, but even better, they turn into...Sleep-in Saturdays!

The 'This American Life' Food Tour

Last night my friend from Lawrence, Gianna, stayed the night while on the way to Maine (she's going to grad school at NYU, and her folks live in Maine now).  She listened to a Sarah Vowell book-on-tape during her drive, which was a good compliment to the dinner at Lula Cafe that we took her to (as I mentioned in the previous post, it's a favorite of TAL host Ira Glass).

Only a 15-minute wait for Margie's...on a Wednesday.

Afterwards we gave our bellies a chance to gear up for dessert with a stroll over to Margie's Candies, a Chicago institution that's been in business since 1921 (and has the interior decorum to prove it).  In 1965, The Beatles stopped there for a sundae with some girlies after a big show in the windy city.

Need. ice. cream.

We ordered a Turtle Split Sundae and Fresh Fruit Sundae and made enough mmm sounds to make Campbell's Soup Co jealous.

Doesn't get much better than homemade fudge from an 80-year-old recipe.

Gianna left this morning and is trying to get as far as Ithica today where the holy vegetarian shrine Moosewood Restaurant is located.  Again, this is another place featured on This American Life in a story about a boy who faked having vegetarian parents.  I'd say she's officially on a TAL food tour now!

It was nice seeing the lovely GiGi and having our first official visitor at our (as yet un-nicknamed) apartment!  Tonight, the Turk in me craves some homecooked eggplant with couscous and the end half of Vincent and Theo that we're in the middle of watching.

Ethiopian Diamond

(photo credit goes to Flickr member Zesmerelda)

Last night, Dave, Laura, and I headed to Uptown for delicious hands-on Ethiopian cuisine at Ethiopian Diamond up on Broadway a few blocks south of Devon.  The north side of Chicago around Devon Ave is where you find more of your ethnic restaurants such as Indian, North African, and the like.  

We ordered the vegetarian sampler platter ($15.75 a person) and drank Ethiopian beer and got totally filled up thanks to the traditional injera bread you eat your food with.  It was very delicious and had a wonderful setting and a friendly staff--I recommend it!

We ended the night with drinks at the Burlington, which is within walking distance of our apartment in Logan Square.  The drinks were good and priced right, but the music was ridiculously loud...we had to scream the whole time to hear each other.  However, there was a free-for-all candy jar up at the bar.

Tonight:  lovely Lawrencian and soon-to-be New Yorker, Gianna, is stopping over in Chicago on the way to the Big Apple and staying with us.  We're getting dinner at neighborhood (and Ira Glass') favorite, Lula Cafe, and we'll see where the evening takes us from there.

You're Going to Make It After All!

It's official--I am a Chicagoan.  Well, a newbie Chicagoan.  I moved up after months of anticipation on May 21st.  Here I am with my best friends in Lawrence, Sara, JJ, and Melissa, at my going away party a few nights before I left:

Living up here is amazing.  I went from being a full time student with three jobs living on my own in a long-distance relationship to being a college graduate with one job living in a brand new town in a brand new apartment and finally being with my boyfriend (of going on two years) not only in person full-time but as my housemate.  

My new job pays extremely well and is in radio like I wanted, not being in school anymore is a great feeling, our new apartment is huge and so charming, living with Dave is total bliss, and my new home base of Chicago is a thrill.  There's so much to do here it's ridiculous.  And it's all just a train, bus, or bike ride away!  It's also just a car ride away, but with sights like this, I'm keeping my Camry in the garage most of the time:

Anyway, I've been to many neat places (Lincoln Park Zoo, Music Box Theatre, Chicago-Turkish Festival, Printer's Row Book Fair) and have eaten at some extremely tasty restaurants (heading out for Ethiopian cuisine in Uptown tonight!)  With all of these local adventures happening nearly every day I've decided to mostly blog about them instead of all the goofy things I find on the internet (which I'm not on nearly as much anymore now that's there's so many reasons not to be glued to the computer).  Send tips if you've got 'em!  

Turk at the Chicago-Turkish Festival, May 30th, 2008