I’m sad, nonetheless, because Studs became intertwined in my love of Chicago. rIAm and I attended his session at the Printer’s Row Book Fair a couple years ago mostly at my insistence (although rIAm heartily agreed), and since then it’s been hard to figure out who is the bigger fan. I will always remember, from that session, Studs answered a question about people living in suburbs instead of cities. “You have to remember,” Studs said, “they [the suburbanites] are people too.”

But it was clear that Terkel was fiercely proud of Chicago, of city life, of the neighborhoods and people who make up the fabric of city, and Chicago life. That pride is one I shared, but Studs’ was contagious. And when I brag about Chicago, one of the reasons I say it’s great is because it’s the home of one Studs Terkel.

Rick Kogan, who was pretty well inseparable from Studs in public appearances lately, has a beautiful obituary published.

This wouldn’t be complete without mention of how and who Studs wrote about. It was the everyman and woman, the ones who aren’t famous – aren’t “important” (Joe the Plumber aside) – but through the voice they are given by Studs become enormously important. One of the finest stage productions I’ve seen in Chicago – indeed, anywhere – was based on Studs’ work Race: What Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession. Some of the books I’m most proud of owning were penned by Studs.

It also broke my heart – and was indeed rIAm’s first utterance after I shared the news of his passing – that Studs will not be around this Tuesday to see the potential election of America’s first black president. But it is in part thanks to Studs and his long legacy that it is even possible for that to happen on Tuesday.

This is the end of an era, and one I’m very sad indeed to see go.

Oh, happy day!

It’s taken only 36 hours to hit me. Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic party presidential nomination.

I watched his Minnesota rally speech live two nights ago, and as stirring as his words were, I still couldn’t fully comprehend what I was watching him declare he had all the votes he needed to claim he is the nominee.

It was interesting to watch an interview on ABC World News last night where Obama admitted to Charlie Gibson it hadn’t sunk in for him either. Obama may have just achieved a countless number of things — the first black presidential nominee, knocking Hillary out once and for all — but he was feeling just as human as I was.

As beautiful luck would have it, my husband arrived home with a library book I had put on hold several months. I exclaimed when I saw it was Dreams from my Father by Barack Obama. How neat is that and just six weeks after I had finished his other book, The Audacity of Hope?

As soon as I found my place on the subway car this morning, I dug voraciously into reading the back cover quotes, the dust jacket and then the introduction. Somewhere in the pages of the first chapter, on the dark tracks between Runnymede and High Park, my eyes began to well with tears. I don’t think it was anything in particular I had just read — I honestly couldn’t tell with my blurred eyes. But I felt something stirring I can’t really explain and frankly, don’t care to find an explanation for. I

All I know is I’ve always had hope in Barack Obama, from the moment I heard him speak at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. He captured my attention and has held it ever since. And not just held it, he has affected my spirit with his words, with his actions and with his message of hope.

Am I gushing? Yes! Because I had the audacity to hope and I will continue to, right until the last vote is counted in November.

And I will put it in writing here and now: If Barack Obama is elected president, I am going to do everything in my power to be at his inauguration. Not because he will be the first black president and not because he is a liberal. I will be there because every fiber in me tells me it’s what I need to do. Perhaps it sounds ludicrous to admit how deep one person I don’t know, and who doesn’t know me, affects me. All I know is this guy is the shit, even if he is a politician, and I am not even an American.

Perhaps sometime soon, I will be able to better articulate how Barack Obama has affected and influenced me. For now, I will just enjoy this book of his that I am reading and wish him much luck in the months ahead.

I first heard of Chomsky when I was about 20. In all the time that I have known of him, I thought he was a political theorist and commentator with a think tank organization. The only reason for me thinking this is connected to a vague memory of either a play on words or commentary on the book title and film “Manufacturing consent” in the student newspaper at the University of Waterloo. I also remember seeing the book in the library of the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group. I guess I thought if the key activist camps on my university campus are into this guy, Chomsky must be some sort of activist himself. I also thought for a period of time that he was Canadian and a contemporary of Marshall McLuhan. Clearly, I didn’t bother exploring Chomsky with any depth, until yesterday.

I’ll satisfy my ego by saying I am correct that he is an activist, and I guess think tank and MIT aren’t too far off, but I completely underestimated how much more there is to him. I can only attribute to not “discovering” him sooner because I wasn’t ready and not in the right place in my life to grasp his theories and commentaries, and more importantly, appreciate them.

Now, I am just blown away and SO EXCITED to make his acquaintenace, beginning in the pages of Grammar for Grammarians (published by Parlay Press), the text for my Structure of Modern English class.

I do concede, I feel foolish and somewhat inadequate for not knowing more and reading more about Chomsky sooner. I’m no intellectual snob (yet… I am an admitted food snob, however) so I never felt the need to be so well-read in philosophy, psychology, political discourse etc. that I could say, oh yes I’ve read Kant, Descartes and Isosceles Triangle, for the purposes of sounding intellectual and well-read.

As I read more about Chomsky’s theories this morning on the El, I did momentarily feel short-changed when I realized that I could have spent my early 20s learning about his generative grammar theory instead of taking organic chemistry, twice, because I failed it the first time, and couldn’t drop my ill-formed goal to complete a minor in chemistry (and gosh darn it, I did get that minor and can’t say I’ve used any organic, analytical or environmental chemistry since). But feeling short-changed was short-lived because in choosing to continue to pursue my education by starting a masters degree I opened myself up to the possibility of learning something new. Enter Chomsky.

The best part of discovering Chomsky in the past 24 hours is that my small, quiet recent wondering of “would I get to live in the same era as someone I consider a genius?” has been answered so quickly.

Chomsky is almost 77 so my time slotting him under living hero status is likely short. I’m already keeping an eye open for any speaking engagements I can attend and perhaps a Google Alert on him is in order, so I can catch his most recent ramblings and others’s ramblings on Chomsky.

* I say, “also,” because although I have used “the universe exploding in my head on several occaisions,” the person I would describe as the chief cause of explosions in my head is Albert Einstein. I don’t pretend to understand the depth of all his scientific theories, but by god, he will always rock my universe because being able to say I have the same birthday as Albert Einstein ROCKS and continually reminds me I have a lot of work to do if I want to accomplish half of what he did in his lifetime.

I am not feeling that particularly competitive at the moment (but bring on a game of Boggle, Trivial Pursuit or Scrabble and I will be in an instant!), so I’ll just mention what I’ve been up to this past week, all of which hasn’t permitted me the time or energy to post:

(Warning: Some geek speak in the text below)

1. I did a lot of playing around with WordPress to figure out how to apply the design I wanted for this site to an existing template designed for use in WordPress. Then as I started to apply the design, I wrote some of my own CSS and PHP, the latter a scripting language I’ve never used before. Amen for the WordPress support forum and codex!

   I know, I know, if you are reading this on the date it is posted you will be quick to point out, “The static pages are still empty!” and “So much for your CSS and PHP skills, there is some wonky stuff happening in your archive template.” My answer to all such quips and negative fascinations is THIS WEB SITE IS A WORK IN PROGREESS. I’ve already spent a couple nights this week troubleshooting and experimenting, like getting borders to appear around the photos we post. We all know, given my attitude that nothing I do is ever good enough, I am going to be spending endless hours tweaking to make everything work just right, as I explore all the possibilities of this nifty technology. So there!

2. In a summer long project, that culminated in frantic efforts in the last week to GET IT DONE, I’ve been writing content, editing photos and futzing around with code, all to launch a purty *new* web site for the department in which I work. I must warn you though, I wouldn’t check my code work there; it’s far from W3C compliant. The very clean and tidy looking template uses CSS sparingly; the template was not created by me, although I’ve made minor modifications. If I had more time, I would have flexed more of my CSS muscle, but alas it shall simply be an ongoing project in my work hours to convert more of the backend to CSS as I maintain and update the site.

3. I have been spending an exhorbitant amount of time replying to my maid of honour’s (hi melissa!) idea rich and very long emails. And I still have more of her messages to reply to. Am I complaining? No, not at all. The emails are evidence of what an amazing creative mind Melissa (and her beau Henry) has and how much she CARES about doing great work. This whole planning process — including the emails flying between us — is stimulating my creative juices in ways I’ve always wanted (get your mind out of the gutter). There is no doubt in my mind, I need more opportunities to tap into those juices and let them flow and flow.

   I’ve also noted, that in the end, all this email sent and pondered and replied to will be a wonderful record of the planning and work we all did to make j.’s and my wedding day happen.

   I came to grips with it from the start: wedding planning from a distance is all I will ever know, the plus side being my fingers are getting wickedly strong from all the typing. I will be able to crush anyone who doesn’t appreciate the outcome of all our planning. :)

So…

As you can imagine I have spent an obscene amount of time this past week in front of a computer screen and gloriously, managed to avoid any Internet down time. So now who’s your (Internet) hero?

This all said, I can’t end this post without telling you j. has been a superstar, a doll, MY HERO this week: he’s made me dinner, took care of doing the laundry and kept this site active with all his insightful and endearing posts. He even offered to pick me up at work tonight when I called around 8:30 pm to say I was done and the new department web site was posted. I asked him if he was sure he wanted to interrupt his evening to come get me (it’s about a 15 – 20 minute drive each way when there is no traffic on the highway) and he said no problem, he just had to finish wiping the counter and tie up the garbage. Yeah, I’m totally serious. And dinner was waiting for me when we got home.

He writes, cooks delicious food, does housework and picks me up when I work late. Is there any doubt who’s the hero in this relationship?