Vitriolic Spree

2009-03-31T12:35:00.002-05:00

THE APPARITION OF THESE FACES ON THE TRAIN
The co-mingling displeasure of a thousand groggy passengers fills the Monday train with the kind of ripe silence that precedes meltdown. I am standing in the middle of it, my gloved hand—yes, gloved in this season—wrapped around a pole to keep me grounded at the turns. A girl is reading Knit Two. I have not heard of this book, but quickly vow to hate its title forever. ("Knitting. You see? It's a metaphor!")

A large, round membrane of ice covers the grass at Seward Park.

•••

It's Tuesday and my office is cold. My hands are cold. I recognize that I have been having trouble writing lately and so resolve to continue typing until something happens. My mind desperately seeks distraction, but I fight it. This very paragraph hangs in the balance. It has no idea how close it is to being discarded forever. Will my need to get over this overcome my desire to confront it later? The answer is becoming more and more apparent. My fingers are warming to the task and I now sit upright, wishing I could type at the speed of thought.

There.

But not yet there. I bristle with stockpiled frustration born of silent weeks. There's so much more needs to be done.

2009-03-09T08:48:00.003-05:00

RAIN GAMES
The hour has been taken, and so the morning fails to rush, instead unraveling with the foggy deliberation of an inebriate. I am unaccustomed to seeing the sunlight come at me from this angle, burning my eyes through the open spaces as my train car twists and clatters southward. Purple dots and blue streaks dance inside my eyelids. It's a silly dance. Your uncle's wedding reception dance.

On Friday night, Lauren and I saw Dan Auerbach at the Metro. For a moment, it looked like Those Darlins might steal the show, but they didn't. Dan was just too good.

I watched Saturday from apartment windows, for the most part, venturing out only for a quick burger and beer at The Grafton. The rains came like a long, deep recession—battering everyone on the way down and then strangling them on the roadside. The sheets of heavy precipitation carried into Sunday, but tapered off Sunday afternoon in time for bowling. I bowled two of my best games in the history of mankind.

And then I ate Duck Curry at Spoon Thai.

2009-02-10T08:33:00.004-06:00

SQUANDERED
You're a reporter. It's Barack Obama's first prime-time press conference.

The president has just unveiled a stimulus package that's supposed to slow the country's economic free fall, one many are calling the worst since the Great Depression. Tomorrow, his Treasury secretary will outline his plan to bail out the nation's floundering banking system. American troops are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Department of Justice just upheld Bush's "state secrets" defense in the civil cases stemming from extraordinary rendition. There's recently been an election in Iraq. There's about to be a one in Israel.

The president calls on you midway through what's been a fairly adversarial question-and-answer session.

Would you be the moron who asks the president what he thinks of Alex Rodriguez using steroids? I mean really, for the rest of your life, would you want to be that guy?

2009-02-09T10:52:00.000-06:00

STATUS UPDATE
The air outside is hazy, dolorous. In other words, it is vastly more pleasant than the current political and economic climate, which grows icier regardless of atmospheric CO2 levels. Chicago felt the heat this weekend, as temperatures reached into the high-50s and snow mounds reduced, revealing scattered poop mounds previously suspended and preserved in the lingering frost.

On Saturday, I demolished a bucket of balls at Diversey Driving Range, working up a sweat and appetite that would later be satisfied with homemade pizza and Perkulator at the Wolfgrant Inn. Sunday was cooler but satisfactory. Lauren and I walked down to Praha where we bought an old kitchen cabinet for a fair price. That night, we bowled our team toward world domination at Lincoln Square Lanes.

I am pleased.

2009-02-05T09:54:00.001-06:00

VARIOUS MATTERS
• When I go to bed on Tuesday evening, I often stare at the ceiling and wonder if I will sleep soundly or toss and grumble through the evening. This inevitably leads to prolonged tossing and grumbling. I spend subsequent evenings trying to catch up on lost sleep, a task which is largely impossible due to the anxiety born of its heightened importance. Grumble.

• Saturday, as the Chicago Kickball Winter Classic wrapped up and we gathered our coats and jackets and began to repair to Ravenswood Pub, someone espied a man in a black jogging suit striding westward across Winnemac Park some 50 yards yonder and shouted "Hey look. It's Blago!" Sure enough, it was. The former governor, whose rangy gait and poof of black hair is unmistakable at that proximity, pumped his fist in the air as a few onlookers cheered. "Did you do it?" someone yelled. "No!" he answered, disappearing past a shoulder-high thicket of brown prairie grass.

• Tomorrow evening, Mr. Gnome is playing at the Double Door. I would like to attend this music show.

• I started reading No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July. I am enjoying it, at times.

• Grumble.

2009-01-29T08:46:00.001-06:00

CHANGELING
Winter doesn't quit. That's why they call it winter.

Somewhere under two inches of fresh snow, four inches of old snow and a yellowing icepack pockmarked with salt caverns sits a sidewalk pining for the darling buds of May, that spring magnificence suspended in sunlight until it gently settles on the concrete, creating vast lanes of impressionism.

With the arrival of February come the first true thoughts of another season, the first glimpse of this imminent possibility.

2009-01-22T08:47:00.003-06:00

SOLEMNLY SWEAR
My train rides have been nondescript, the weather ordinary, bland and seasonal, the sunshine periodic, daylight lengthening imperceptibly. I have been reading the same books as when we last discussed books (Don Quixote unravels with the odd brilliance of a glasswing; The Tipping Point both effects sedation and confounds my earnest attempts to find something, anything in it to enjoy). I work in an office. I sit at a computer. I continue to go about my business.

My broken toe has healed to the point that I no longer lurch forth like a stricken homunculus and now lurch forth like someone who had outpatient knee surgery some months ago. That is to say that my afflicted bone is improving by leaps and bounds despite that fact that I can as yet neither leap nor bound.

Two Saturdays hence there will take place an important kickball game—the much-ballyhooed Winter Invitational—in which I hope to play an active role. Godspeed, crucial phalanx!

A new president has been sworn in—twice. I eagerly anticipate the coming legislation.

2009-01-13T08:44:00.005-06:00

FOUR WALLS & ADOBE SLABS
I feel sorrow as I watch a solitary diner absently spoon oatmeal at a round table meant for ten. I sit alone in the morning—a window seat on the right side, in the direction of travel, of a brown line train to the Loop—and have full view of the CNA Center's third-floor cafeteria at approximately 8:19.

Last night's blizzard was not. Temperatures have only dipped slightly and the morning air is imminently tolerable. I wore my puffy jacket nonetheless and hope this decision is vindicated by a more substantive cold front later today.

The man and his oatmeal have a story. It is one of a forbidden love that only they could ever understand. They spoon, there alone at a table built for ten, as 24-hour news loops on a pair of flat screen televisions hanging above. A man and his oatmeal.

If I don't tell anyone, who will know?

2009-01-12T09:39:00.004-06:00

INITIAL DOSE

We had our first big snow of the season over the weekend. The next five days promise more snow and much colder weather. But unlike the last two years, when we wallowed below 10 degrees for weeks at a time, it looks like temperatures are going to rebound quickly.

Feel the adventure.

2009-01-07T08:42:00.001-06:00

PATIENCE
Another snow, and the icy sidewalk lurks beneath a thin membrane of dust. I progress gingerly through my outdoor route, but still manage to fall victim to the full-body spasms of recovery as my heel loses purchase. One of these days I'm going to pull a muscle. How humiliating will that be?

I'll know in time.

2009-01-05T09:04:00.002-06:00

IMPERMANENT VACATION
My broken toe is swollen and tender this morning, particularly so. Some would say this is because I refuse to hobble about town in my ergonomic walking boot and prefer to hobble in more conventional footwear. Others would say things that are completely off the subject and should therefore be ignored. As an intellectual and a scholar, I know that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and that such truth, when it is nailed down with any certainty, is often fleeting.

The truth is that over the last several days, I have been free of the occupational duties for which I am paid a fair salary. When first I espied the vermiform front of black X's on my wall calendar approaching this short holiday, I imagined how I would revel in my temporal freedom: consuming several classic novels, unraveling complex mathematical theorems and conditioning myself for the cardiovascular rigors of a five-minute mile. Alas, my toe's woeful state rendered all of these goals impossible, and I was forced to spend my hours drinking wine, eating foods of international origin and merrymaking with my friends and their friends.

Perhaps the most painful sting came on Friday morning, when I saw a thief making a hasty retreat across Lincoln Avenue after having pilfered the entire tip cup at a local coffeehouse. I stood some fifteen feet from the suspect as he fled toward the bewildering alleyways and determined that had I not been slowed by my devil fracture I should have overtaken the dashing bandit at once and beaten him severely.

And then, as I threw open the coffeehouse door and returned the cowardly criminal's ill-gotten gains, the grateful baristas would shower me with praise and promise me free coffee for life. And perhaps one of the dark, crumbly cakes behind the slanted glass of the sneeze guard. I would refuse, of course.

2008-12-30T08:47:00.004-06:00

DOUGHNUTS FOR STRENGTH
Lauren and I traveled south for the solstice. And there we took up with relatives and exchanged gifts and pleasantries with wine glistening in the corners of our eyes and merriment tickling our tickle places. The lodgings met with my approval and the feathery bed pads encouraged a hearty slumber.

It is often in such comfortable quarters that devils and enchanters prey on the lowered defenses of the complacent traveler.

One night, as a midnight storm battered the countryside, I arose and walked to the bathroom to fulfill a traditional duty when some species of nocturnal varlet sprang forth from the berber and laid waste to my left foot's smallest constituent. I collapsed onto the floor and there writhed and cursed the evil entity that had crippled me so—what dash cunning to target such a tiny yet essential element of my noble stride.

I am now limping through my week like some being that limps when it walks. I have been slowed and am at present vulnerable to follow-up attacks by foes with less discretion and worse intentions. As such, I have armed myself with a sharpened wit and intuition for further danger. I lurch in the shadows, where the sun does not shine and shadows are created due to the sun's not shining there, there being the places where I do my lurchings and intuitings of further dangers.

2008-12-19T08:51:00.003-06:00

WHERE ARE WE NOW?
I steeled my constitution for the impending one-two punch of Thundersnow & Thundersleet™ before heading out to party Christmaslike amid the chintz and track lights of a chain pizzeria. Early reports predicted initial contact at 3 p.m.; secondary reports rolled it back to 7. I anticipated watching the huge skirts of precipitation ripple sideways over the windows, illuminated by the yellowish halo of sodium street lights. Alas, the winter storm warnings erred on the side of hours and it wasn't until my midnight piss in the comfort of home that I could hear the crystals hitting my window over the tinny squeal of the steam heaters.

By morning, the storm had abated somewhat somehow. I dressed as I normally would and embarked on my morning commute, walking in the street, where tire lines provided the least arduous route east toward the Irving Park station. My new shoes proved capable. I arrived at the station and ascended to the platform without incident. I gather not all were so lucky, and indeed I watched as at least three weary travelers slipped on a metal strip that covered a platform joint, which strip became a hazard under the layer of sleet. All three were able to right themselves at the tipping point and avoid sliding headlong onto the tracks below. (Today I will write the CTA and prescribe some manner of tacky adhesive be applied to the offending strips.)

And so yes, the train arrived and only standing room remained. Don Quixote being an unwieldy book in such close quarters, I opted to stare out the window and listen to Deerhunter and, later, The Dodos. Humans and their mechanisms scrolled by below, plodding clumsily through the sandy mush. The brown made a majority of the Loop before I disembarked.

I am sitting at my desk drinking coffee and reflecting on what has been thus far.

2008-12-09T14:58:00.002-06:00

TRANSLITERATION
My primary complaint about Contempt is translator Angus Davidson's conspicuous reliance on the word "hitherto." Otherwise, I like the book so far. A lot. Alberto Moravia renders a beautifully deconstructed human drama decorated with elegant artistic juxtapositions. Yadda yadda yadda.

2008-12-05T14:51:00.007-06:00

ULTIMATE RED
This morning, the Red Line left me standing in the cold for several suspenseful minutes before peeking around the bend and coasting into Sheridan. She knows that after today things are over between us, at least as far as my daily commute goes. For tomorrow, the Irving Park stop reopens in its bright, brushed-steel glory.

I squeezed into a crowded car and updated my soundtrack. A student stuck in the center became frantic at Fullerton and almost tripped and fell. We plunged underground for the home stretch.

Someone had put a fake advertisement in the overhead concavity:

"DON'T WORRY ABOUT HOW YOU AFFECT THE WORLD

LOOK ... TITTIES!

There's Strong. And Then There's Army Strong."

Tonight will be our last.

2008-11-26T12:07:00.003-06:00

TURKEY BASED
I awoke this morning at six fully charged and couldn't fall back asleep, tossing for that final hour before the clock radio fulfilled its purpose. After opening the work week on a low note, I've been gaining momentum and mixing my metaphors. The local climate has warmed some ten, fifteen degrees since Sunday, to the delight of many. The clouds have parted and the sun now hangs in clear view, there near the ultimate severity of its winter angle, its rays skipping off the terrestrial husk and blinding pedestrians. I squint as I round the corner.

Books. I read them sometimes. I finished Bend Sinister and was pleased. I have since begun Contempt by Alberto Moravia. Meanwhile, my periodic attempt to catalog the books I see people reading on the CTA (sort of) continues:

Aloft by Chang-rae Lee

Murder, She Wrote: A Slaying in Savannah by Jessica Fletcher

Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski

Please have a Thanksgiving.

2008-11-19T08:38:00.006-06:00

SHAZAM

Featured today on The Chicago Reader and Chicago Public Radio.

ETA1: Now Chicagoist gets on board.

ETA2: And what the hell, Gapers Block.

2008-11-17T08:49:00.000-06:00

PITFALLS, PRATFALLS
Some mornings the elevator ride feels like an eternity. And so I walk into my office, take off my coat and and begin typing clichés about the duration of the elevator ride.

Outside on the sidewalk halfway between Michigan and Wabash is a puddle of khaki vomit, its two spatulate blooms smooth at the edges despite what was surely a sudden ejaculation. I nearly stepped in it—

Strike that. After checking the sole of my right shoe it seems that I did step in it after all. The ball of my shoe had been sliding comfortably back and forth across the office floor's laminate wood as I typed. The realization came quite suddenly. I stopped and addressed the situation with a pile of napkins I keep in my desk. I typed this paragraph immediately thereafter.

Lauren and I spent a lovely gray Saturday afternoon at Huettenbar, where we each drank three pints of Spaten lager and listened to music at a pleasant volume. Later, after a mediocre dinner at an upscale Mexican restaurant, we met Dave and Rebekah at Gannon's for card games and additional beers.

The weekend was a success overall. Today got off on the wrong foot.

2008-10-29T08:49:00.000-05:00

OBSERVATORY
The mornings darken, colden. The trees slip slowly out of their summer dresses and their naked limbs crickle and crack in the drying air. Humans walk to secret locations, their chins tucked into deep gray collars. One man in a bright blue coat wanders around a six-corner intersection, negotiating the full circuit of crosswalks, lap after lap, malfunction.

Streetlights go out as the sun turns up.

"Colden" and "crickle" are barely words.

2008-10-16T09:21:00.004-05:00

TITULAR
I didn't count on this being so difficult, but committing multiple book titles to memory while juggling the sundry brain functions necessary to ensure a safe and happy daily commute was often more than I could handle, and subsequently several of those book titles were scattered to the dark nether-regions of my mental library, where they will doubtless collect dust in perpetuity. I suppose I could have written them down—the titles—but that would have required the kind of preparation and execution I was simply not prepared to undertake for such a pointless exercise.

I managed to remember a few of the books I saw people reading on the CTA, here and there:

A Passage to India, E. M. Forster

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , Robert M. Pirsig

Smoke & Mirrors, Neil Gaiman

Last Man Standing, David Baldacci

Fearless Fourteen, Janet Evanovich

The Carbon Age, Eric Roston

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen

I said that I would tell you what it all means, but I didn't promise.

2008-10-14T13:33:00.000-05:00

...AND EVER
I came to work yesterday morning hoping that I would arrive at the office to find I had Columbus Day off. Or Canadian Thanksgiving. I was disappointed to discover that not only did I not have a vacation day, but that the twin forces of velocity and mass had conspired to temporarily expand what physicists refer to as work-time into a seemingly eternal cycle of repetitive events—walking to the water fountain, checking and organizing email folders, adjusting posture.

As a consequence, the fundamental quantity of work-time broke all manner of accepted standards and sent an entire field of experts hurtling into mass confusion (though not literally). Voices were raised, fingers were pointed, and it was decided that the most judicious course of action would be to take an hour-long lunch break and see what happened.

Twenty traditional earth minutes later, the situation had deteriorated significantly, as it was already time to go back to the office and a bill had not yet been split and settled. "Where has the time gone?" asked noted physicist Bertrand Kameltov without irony. "All morning time has been expanding and now, just as I've finished the ultimate bite of my Monte Cristo and moved on to the accompanying waffle fries, it seems time has suddenly contracted." Three tenured professors from Princeton agreed that something extraordinary was afoot and that subsequently timecards and hourly wages as we knew them would cease to have meaning. "I would tip 20 percent," offered Tom Wisenhunt, whose vast scholarship in tip theory did not allow for the automatic gratuity applied to groups of eight or more. (After much gnashing of teeth, Wisenhunt relented and rationalized by claiming the time warp they found themselves in rendered his theories "temporarily inoperable.")

Cosmic affairs did not return to their normal state until afternoon rush hour. But by then the damage was done.

2008-10-09T09:05:00.002-05:00

CARPAL TUNNEL VISION
The thumb is a resilient digit. Yesterday, I shut my right one in a steel doorjamb, where the swinging momentum of an office door came to rest on the center of the thumbnail. Youch. I iced the throbbing thumb, sure that I'd splintered a delicate phalange. The pain reminded me of a statistical chart that I saw in a textbook about the safest human ages—a parabola that peaked somewhere near age 10 and then dropped steadily. I grow more vulnerable by the day. My thumbs are in peril.

But within minutes, the pain receded and I was fine. Instead of death I thought of butterflies. The order lepidoptera. Wings, flight. Slow, brilliant beating. The spiral proboscis. The hovering spiracle.

I am currently reading, well, a few books. But the one I'm reading most actively is White Noise. I hope it gets better than it is.

I've also started keeping a list of books that I see people reading on the CTA. I'll post this list at some point. And then I'll explain what it all means.

2008-10-07T11:44:00.002-05:00

PIGSTICK ON A LIP
It is early in the morning. Or it feels early. The midwestern dawn ebbs, emerging at a later point as winter approaches. The pinkish sky is streaked with high, slow bands of cirrus that will burn off by noon. But for now the air is tight and cool, the winds light out of the west, clouds safe.

The sound of traffic has changed. Thick and rounded in summer, it has become thinner, harsher. It is the white voice of a small seashell.

I can smell burning wood and other byproducts of heat as their fronts co-mingle, the richness of decomposing leaves and wood and grass a consistent backdrop.

It is Tuesday.

2008-09-30T11:43:00.004-05:00

COLD SON
I have discovered that my new autumn jacket has no real pockets. It has fake ones—little flaps that portend pockets yet contain naught but an impenetrable stitched seam. I have been mislead. My pants will continue to struggle under weight of wallet, keys and small, electronic devices.

The Cubs are in the playoffs. I will leave it at that because I've been here before, emotionally. I lack the pockets to deal with another handful of disappointment.

I have adopted a philosophical stance on the White Sox this season. (When people say they have taken a philosophical stance on something, it means they've decided to no longer be a dick about it.) Perhaps I am softening in my old age, but I welcome the possibility that the South Siders will end up in the playoffs. I especially like Alexei Ramirez and would gladly subscribe to his newsletter, although I fear my inadequate Spanish may sully its finer points.

¡Caliente!

A cold front has poked its nose into our business.

2008-09-29T08:34:00.004-05:00

ACHILLES' SHOE
I took a long walk near the confluence of Irving Park and the Mighty Chicago on Sunday morning, taking dozens of pictures along the way (which photos I will continue to upload throughout the week ... AND BEYOND!).

My everyday shoes are deteriorating at an alarming rate. Despair.

2008-09-23T13:13:00.002-05:00

MONOTONIX

Here's video of the same set I photographed on Saturday. The guy who made this must have been standing right in front of me.

2008-09-22T09:03:00.000-05:00

MORNING IN REVIEW
I did not sleep well last night, but no matter. I had no choice but to get out of bed at the preordained hour, soap up my limbs, rinse, dry, dress. Exit into the cool air, the dust of decomposing leaves metallic in the morning sun. My footfalls shatter the spines of autumn twigs, a gratifying crunch.

And now, a brief summary of the weekend in pictures.

2008-09-19T09:52:00.006-05:00

REPRISE
It seems I can't welcome autumn—or any other season—without writing about particular climatic aspects that set it apart from its predecessor.

In spring, I write about the rain, the dirty shells of snow shrinking in the afternoon sun as their cold blood trickles along the concrete curbside and into the city's labyrinthine digestive system. The gradual emergence of animal movement, the loosening at the corners of our eyes, unraveling of leaves and petals, a universal sigh.

What of autumn? The temperature more temperate, air fair. The humidity disengages like a Lego brick pulled free by a child and tossed eastward, leaving a clean, bumpy plat free for a white winter piece. The orange brown remnants skitter about in the first mild northers. Exhalations finally visible, a second breath to verify, a top button buttoned, a numb lobe.

The winter block locks into place—the grey noise, icy oxygen burn, daily challenge, the stark beauty.

I cannot not notice it deeply.

2008-09-15T14:58:00.006-05:00

SHAKING OFF THE RUST
Whenever I decide to write fiction after a long layoff, I invariably end up working backward from an idea that has some utility but embarks too abruptly. Often, this results in a few paragraphs of doggerel that's little more than a thread tied to Point B and pulled straight in search of Point A.

The surge became noticeable every Monday of the fall semester at 8 a.m. Desperate, sleep-deprived undergraduates staggered in and fanned out toward whichever nook housed the authoritative materials necessary to complete the assignments due later that morning.

Vivian Section knew the glassy, importuned look a student's eyes would assume upon learning that no, the pebbly reference book holding the key to his future could not be checked out of the library. She also knew well that these were still for the most part emotional children for whom the specter of failure had previously been an abstract reality, something they could bargain their way out of with appeals to their interlocutor's basic human kindness.

For this reason, Vivian became fond of preemptively shrugging her shoulders and repeating the phrase "I wish I could help you, but it's not me. It's the library system."

This is all an attempt to introduce Douglas, who has become desperately stuck inside one of the library's revolving doors due to a sequence of events that escalates too quickly to be the story's beginning and would be much more suitable later on.

I don't know why I'm posting this. I guess so everyone will know I'm still here. Saddened for various reasons, but here.

2008-08-20T08:52:00.002-05:00

I PROBABLY WON'T FINISH THIS SO
I'll just post it here:

...which for a moment distracted me from the fact that the train car smelled like the museum of history. And I was reminded immediately of that dark room, the bison under glass, its patches of leathery black skin peeling like paint chips between tufts of brown thicket, its lips eerily marbled under some manner of taxidermic preservative as it grazes in perpetuity on thin yellowing shafts of plastic grass.

2008-08-12T14:43:00.003-05:00

NATIONAL MONUMENT
We made our approach into Albuquerque as the remnants of Hurricane Dolly dissipated over New Mexico, descending through thick white blotches as the pilot told us that things would most certainly get bumpy before touchdown and to hold onto our hats and loved ones lest we careen down the aisle.

Down the aisle. A capital idea.

We rented a car and drove northwest to the Hacienda, a small adobe structure in the brush-dotted hill country between Santa Fe and Albuquerque. The altitude was high and the air dry. My nasal passages grew prickly, my skin tanned quickly.

On Sunday the friends and family arrived. By nightfall, several of us were on the patio under a blackening sky with drinks in hand and warmth in our bellies. As the stars went out and I pledged to retire, Ben and Alberto chugged scotch and went down in flames.

On Monday, Alberto was nowhere to be found. Ben and Dave and Rebekkah somehow emerged unharmed. Lauren and I wheeled into Santa Fe proper and secured a license for wedlock. Later, as we headed out for a group dinner, Alberto writhed on the bathroom floor and the poison continued to work its way out.

The skies cleared on Tuesday and Lauren and I decided that yes, we would get married that evening as planned. But first, the boys headed off to play 18 holes at the local links. We negotiated the fairways for a fair part of the hot day. We had beers at the clubhouse as my nerves kicked in, nuptials imminent.

We married outside under a partly cloudy sky, the backdrop a long, barren valley spotted with bulbous shadows.

2008-07-11T09:03:00.002-05:00

FALLING ... IN LOVE ... W/BACON
I work on the 11th floor of the Gage Building. Often, the elevator closest the east wall will station itself a few inches below floor level and as I mindlessly embark—often flipping through an iPod menu or daydreaming about robot ponies—I'll feel the fractional second of terror as my foot continues where my brain tells me the elevator floor should be. I imagine plunging into a black shaft, the air quickening over my ears, louder as I accelerate. The blind grasping and eventual resignation. And then ascending into the white clouds of heaven, where I'll be chauffeured in an applewood bacon chariot to the Cubs World Series victory party.

2008-07-09T08:54:00.002-05:00

MODERN TIMES
Here's a kick-ass video Reilly made of a day in the life of a filing clerk:

Music by Reilly. Produced by Tecate.

2008-07-07T11:26:00.002-05:00

DEPENDENCE DAYS
The July 4 weekend kicked the butt of Jesus.

Chilean sea bass at Café 28; drinks, pool and much, much more at Ten Cat; magnificent fireworks mayhem and Frisbee flinging at Loyola Park Beach; chicken carcass home cookery (followed by more Ten Cat); hot, sweaty kickball under a blanket of humid heat at Winnemac Park. Meanwhile, the Cubs took two out of three on the road in St. Louis.

That's as good, if not better, than [ ... ]

2008-06-16T09:49:00.003-05:00

CULINARY TOURIST
Friday night opened with skirt steak and Tecate tallboys and closed gradually with live country/western and pitcher upon pitcher of cheap beer. The conclusion is still a mystery, as a spinning blur emerged from the black tabletop and expanded until it consumed us all.

Historians are bound to speculate.

Saturday opened earlier than expected, eyelids rose under protest as an angry white cat established rule of our roost. Coffee was made and consumed as intermittent showers pelted the area and cumulous clouds crept eastward, the tops of their massive white nodules shimmering in the sunlight, blue crevices darkening, deepening within.

By afternoon the threat of more rain abated. But we wanted more, and so walked to a patio for a burger and cold beer. The morning's precipitation had cooled the air and warmed my spirits. The Pride & Joy found my belly and there was much rejoicing.

By nightfall, I had developed an unshakable urge for something different. Andersonville's Midsommerfest was not going to cut it, so we marshaled our forces and headed to Broadway & Argyle for a taste of Little Vietnam.

Pho had eluded me for all my puff, but now I finally had it in my clutches. I slurped up broth and noodles and sprouts with a vengeance, my eyes, nose, mouth watering in spicy satisfaction. Meanwhile, Dave G had the variety stew with extra cow penis. Because he is gay for cows.

We all drank fresh, fruity bubble tea and headed home, turned in at a reasonable hour.

On Sunday morning, I collected and disposed of settled dust and dander. I scrubbed the apartment floors to their former sheen.

At noonish, Lauren and I needed another taste of Vietnamese cuisine, so we headed to Nhu Lan and procured sugar cane drinks and pork sandwiches.

I would like to do this again. And again.

2008-06-06T09:00:00.004-05:00

BUT THINGS GO ON, REGARDLESS
This time there's a real, heavy heat coming up on wind from the southwest, enveloping the platform. The platform is more crowded than usual, and such forced proximity in the hot, humid air can lead to ugly incidents (yesterday, on the front end of the current wave, a youngster got a stern talking to by an older man about saying "excuse me").

A purple clatters by. Then the red around the bend. I get on. We all do.

We're stalled in limbo after Addison, static between brick buildings as the conductor waits for signals. They apologize for the delay. Transfer to purple and brown line trains at Belmont, if that's you're thing. It's not mine. Not today.

Things are getting heated. The car has reached maximum capacity and voices are raised. Cooler heads prevail. Fortunately, the air is lightly conditioned. For our pleasure. Fullerton transpires without incident. The people on the platform don't even try to embark. The girl out there in the white dress, her hair is windblown, tangled 'round earbud wire. She moves her shoulder in strange ways to reconcile the situation.

We roll on before the conclusion. Anything could have happened.

The red rolls on down an incline, into a dark subway tunnel and the windows turn to mirrors. We are looking at each other. At ourselves. Look at us. This is North and Clybourn.

Chicago. More stuffed in. The doors can't close. The mechanisms rattle on tilt. The conductor says "All in, folks. Act like you want to go to work."

I can't believe I'm the only one who smiles.

2008-06-03T08:37:00.001-05:00

EVIL IS ON THE RUN
Yesterday, I saw a man in a Superman costume walking east down Irving Park Road at 7:45 a.m.

2008-05-23T13:48:00.002-05:00

'ROUND AND 'ROUND
I'm back from Baltimore and an extended weekend of walky talking and general trade showmanship. I wore my suit with aplomb. I walked the convention center floor with my chin up, shoulders back and my communications were crisp and affable. For a moment, I affected all the mannerisms of a Fully Grown Human.

Baltimore itself seemed tangled and confused. Downtown's streets teemed with homeless people and the buildings—even the historical ones—were cold, dark and empty. I confess I was busy enough that I didn't see enough of it.

The outskirts of downtown showed promise. Little Italy was small and charming, rows of stubby brick buildings shoulder to shoulder right up to the sidewalk, a man sitting on an old wooden bench playing a mandolin at dusk, festival lights crisscrossing the street above.

On Monday I walked to the Inner Harbor, a nightmare of tourist traps—like the beautiful old power plant building updated with ugly neon signs for Hard Rock Café, Potbellys, ESPNZone. The National Aquarium was a bright spot along an otherwise depressing route.

That evening my flight was delayed for five hours as mechanical problems were addressed. I landed at O'Hare at 11 p.m., rushed through the terminal and out into the night air, through the cab lanes. Arrivals.

It felt so good to be home.

Tonight, Lauren and I drive back down to Louisville, Ky. On Sunday, we head back north to Indianapolis for the Indy 500. Later that evening, I'll walk into the apartment and enter a deep coma.

2008-05-13T14:21:00.002-05:00

SADDLE UP
I'm heading to Baltimore on Thursday for a trade show my company is hosting. The whole thing is very large and organized and professional, so I had to buy a suit to wear so that people don't mistake me for a panhandler. The suit is nice and fits me well. Now people will mistake me for a CEO. And I will fire them on the spot.

Scuttlebutt around the office is that we'll be eating crab cakes and other regional foods—Cool Ranch Doritos, perhaps. Whatever it is they eat out there. I have read a couple paragraphs about the East Coast on Wikipedia. And I have watched a weekly documentary on HBO about life in Baltimore. I feel I have picked up the dialect and customs and cannot wait to show off my knowledge of the area to some of the natives. Maybe they'll think I'm a genuine Baltimoron!

My company's trade show is taking place the same weekend as the famous Preakness Stakes. After the race, at least one lucky horse will be ceremoniously euthanized for the failings of its species. This public sacrifice will remind the Gods that horse racing is Big Business.

You can bet on it.

The race, that is. They have all sorts of interesting categories–win, place, show, trifecta, double down—on which you can make bets. You can place a small, risky wager and, if you win, you'll be a Pretty Lucky Human. After all, you're betting on an animal race, and most animals are dangerous and unpredictable.

2008-05-09T11:46:00.003-05:00

NICE JOINT
I haven't been to many bars in the Loop, and I guess I kind of assumed all the places down there would require a tuxedo and ivory cufflinks. So I was pleasantly surprised last night by the casual, beer-swilling atmosphere at Monk's Pub.

2008-05-08T11:06:00.004-05:00

RIDING LAPSE
Last night I got on the bus to head home after a long, hard day at work. I held my card to the sensor but didn't hear the Triple Beep of Acceptance. I tried again. Nothing. Meanwhile, other bus riders lined up behind me, waiting with waning patience for me to get my fares in order. I tried again. Nothing.

Alas, I was trying to get on the bus using my Bank of America card.

2008-05-07T09:54:00.006-05:00

BE SEEN
I like being recognized when I can walk into an establishment I frequent. And I take it harder than I should when I'm not recognized despite my frequent customer status and indefatigable empathy with the plight of the working (wo)man, which empathy expresses itself in the form of generous tips. Lauren and I joke with each other that we're invisible, because we'll often go to restaurants or bars and sit for several excruciating minutes waiting for someone to serve us. Later we'll sit for several additional excruciating minutes waiting for a check.

It doesn't end there. Despite the fact that we stop at our local pub at least once a week—and have been doing so for several months—I still get carded by the same waitresses over and over again.

But a couple weeks ago everything changed. I walked into Starbucks and the lady behind the counter knew my order. I'd only been coming in for about a month. I fully expected to remain invisible for at least another few years. And this morning, she slid my coffee across the counter, smiled, and said "Today is free grande Wednesday."

I'm here. I'm really here.

2008-05-05T15:50:00.002-05:00

OCCUPATIONAL NOTE
It surprises me that most printing companies seem to spend little time and effort on the composition and design of their marketing materials. This is from a pitch I received today:

"As with all modern marketing techniques, mailings too have evolved. The standard nation wide saturation method of sending mail is becoming obsolete, and taking its place is targeted marketing; Mail designed to target the right clientele, and mailed to a very specific list of candidates in order to retrieve the best return on investment."

Ugh.

2008-05-02T10:04:00.001-05:00

IDUNNO
How do cemeteries make money after they run out of space?

2008-05-01T08:44:00.003-05:00

ADVANCED STATISTICS
Everything is happening all at once—the miracle of convergence or, as I like the call it, Cinco de Mayo (roughly translated: "the Ides of March"). Lauren's sister, Katherine, had a baby, which meant we had to drive to Louisville, Kentucky, to see the baby and support Katherine's motherhood and her husband Stephen's fatherhood and the baby's (Will's) newborn babyness.

Babies are the most interesting of all humans. This despite the fact that they make horrible conversationalists. Babies are small and their heads are more oblong than adult heads—their foreheads stretching back like bike ramps. Their eyes are glassy and sedate. The babies themselves seem confused, their glassy, sedated eyes fixed dumbly on the ceiling's florescent light casings.

Our maternal and paternal instincts kick in and we tell them that they'd better not fuck up their lives with drugs and loud music. We tell them this in a high-pitched voice that we didn't know we had. Babies bring out the highest pitch in us. Louder than a sorority reunion at a small regional airport.

As the weekend came to a close, Lauren could not tear herself away from the baby and its parents. I drove back to Chicago alone, listening to a baseball game on the radio most of the way. Lauren flew into Midway the following night. I picked her up at the airport, where her plane's chosen jetway malfunctioned and caused a slight delay.

We ironed it all out.

2008-04-18T08:41:00.006-05:00

MORE OR LESS
They have shed their coats and jackets and gone out with their hair down, chins up, from the outer wards to the city center. Visitors surge through revolving doors and into downtown's blacktop tributaries, laminated maps in hand, backpacks bursting with essentials as they seek out sites, sights, in routes efficient.

At lunchtime, armies of heads bob north and south along Michigan Avenue at the zero point, all seeking sustenance, victuals, commemorative T-shirts and coffee mugs, snow globes. Noon sun draws bulbous shadows underfoot, which shadows slink around sidewalk cafés, over curbs and glistening white street stripes toward the Art Institute, Millennium Park, Bennigan's, where they disappear and their creators continue on to Grant Wood, Edward Hopper, Cloud Gate, Crown Fountain, Breaded Mozzarella Sticks and free refills.

Well-dressed men step out of cabs, extend hands to well-dressed women and hoist them onto sidewalks outside nascent gastro-pubs packed with crisp shirts, cufflinks, pendular earrings that reflect bursts of light onto passersby, lesser stars. Martini glasses come and go. Something shatters in the back and all have a groan and a laugh.

The warm wind bursts in—high dew points sweeten the smell. Hair in their eyes brushed back with curled fingers. Wet teeth glistening white like street stripes.

Shadows wait outside for their illusions.

2008-04-14T14:27:00.002-05:00

VARIOUS MATTERS
• I started a new job two weeks ago. It's great so far—we're talking potential Dream Job territory. It's nice to feel energized by work again. It's also nice being able to wear jeans in the office.

• Lauren and I helped DaveG & Rebekah secure lodging here in Chicago, setting the stage for the Summer of Triumph. Tickets go on sale June 1.

• While I was out of work, I almost finished a short story. I rather like it, but it needs some work.

• Kickball is right around the corner. Sadly, we're no longer playing at Winnemac Park. Instead we have to go all the way out to Peterson Park. I guess that's OK though. What really matters is that we'll still be spending our Wednesday nights at Ravenswood Pub.

• Etc.

2008-03-06T09:34:00.000-06:00

BILLBOARD
Greatness.

2008-03-03T15:27:00.001-06:00

CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
Various sentences I've decided not to use:

Vehicles flow in clusters through the dark city, trailing lines of red and white; clusters of traincars clatter around the trackloop above then outward.

The morning faces opposite—caps of faded flesh embedded in gray coats, chins tucked into collar fronts.

His green jacket—once darker green, now barely—expires just above his knees, and those knees pale buttons peeking through ragged jean threads.

Various metals and glass formerly latent in the vast urbanity turn star bursts as she passes through the particular spaces at which the surfaces direct their light.

2008-02-29T20:59:00.003-06:00

SOLOIST
Do you ever look at your house cat as it sleeps during waking hours and ask "What are your goals?"

"What are your goals in life, Lula? What are your goals?"

2008-02-29T14:30:00.000-06:00

INERTIA
The city is struggling to recapture it average highs, flush its surplus precipitation and get its climactic affairs back in order before springtime arrives. Winter goes down kicking, a carnival of snow on snow, cold snaps and cloud cover. One front gusts into another, advisories give way to warnings, weekends come and go and always the next one holds the promise of warmth—those first days walking on the glistening gray sidewalks, the smell of well-hydrated soil and wet bark, a breeze that doesn't hurt.

It's been quiet, so I'm saving it up. A spring coiled, waiting for spring.

2008-02-05T10:02:00.000-06:00

I'M LIVING IN A FANTASY WORLD
I couldn't see a trace of downtown from Fullerton, only a skim-milk fog hovering over, flowing between the brownstones lined up along Webster. When the thickness obscures even the next block I am gripped with a feeling of being somewhere, but not here. I am riding in a can clattering some 30 feet above street level, out of nothing and into more of it. I am at the center of a small sphere that dissolves before it realizes its own skin—like oil at the edge of water.

The ground has warmed considerably after some week or two of cold and snow. The melt overwhelms the city's old pipes until water, slush reach equilibrium at curb height and stand there, draining as fast as melting. I jump over a cold pond and my fortunate foot finds purchase on the slick sidewalk (I have seen others not so lucky—heel sliding on contact, then ascending as the upper body descends buttfirst into the streetside snowpack).

This week will be crucial. Storms threaten to replenish the ground's waning snow levels and a light dusting becomes less likely as the next front's full scope emerges on the Doppler. My arm already weary from snowballs thrown, I can't countenance another vast payload of ordnance without wincing in anticipation. How many times can one brave man lay waste to neighborhood punks before his aging rotator cuff fails him?

I shall soon find out.

2008-01-25T08:35:00.000-06:00

COLD MORNINGS
There's no use crying when a cold front pushes down from the pole. The hot air won't stop it. Wake up a few minutes early, drape wool socks, long johns, gloves, hat onto the vermiform radiator as it belches its morning steam.

The air is dry and I'm thirsty. I take down two full glasses of water as the low sun gradually illuminates the southeast. I dress and bundle, my gloves hot, hat warm, and insert ear buds. Kiss Lauren goodbye. She twists in the comforter, too comfortable for morning yet.

I go out the front door, down the stairs, out another pair of doors and into it.

Good Friday.

2008-01-04T11:07:00.000-06:00

RECOGNIZE
The recognition.

2008-01-02T13:51:00.000-06:00

SO...
Lauren and I are engaged. To be married.

And I'm pretty happy about that.

2007-12-17T12:16:00.000-06:00

ON SUPERHEROISM
Knee-high boots seem to be the standard. I wonder why we don't see more superheroes opting instead for cross-trainers.

2007-12-14T10:02:00.001-06:00

I AM A BLOGGER, BLOGGING
There they are again: young father and child, bundled up, sleeping in the back of the bus on their way to Sheridan, where they will awaken, disembark, transfer, continue, gain momentum, self-caffeinate, perhaps. The old man in the brown coat sits nearby, crosses himself as the bus roars past Graceland Cemetery, crosses himself again on the way out, his forefinger deliberate, pointing upward at the Father, inward at the twist of Son and Holy Ghost, the glass of his glasses a tangle of reflected neon as we roll past Seminary.

I don't want to leave here. Not this stop, anyway.

2007-12-05T11:29:00.001-06:00

OVERBOARD
My shampoo bottle says "for dull, lifeless hair."

I wouldn't go that far.

2007-12-03T12:55:00.000-06:00

BYE BYE, BROWN LINE
Today is the first day of the rest of my life—a life that requires a different kind of commute than the one I previously enjoyed. Instead of a four-block walk to the Irving Park Brown, I now have a two-block walk to the Irving Park 80, followed by a transfer to the Red Line at Sheridan, which will deliver me to Grand, which station is a mere two blocks from pay dirt.

And in the evenings, I shall take the same route, only backward.

To my pleasant surprise, the new way actually got me to work faster than the previous one.

2007-11-30T10:30:00.001-06:00

FAREWELL, NEW FRIEND
Today will be my last day with the Irving Park brown line stop until next year, when it will—like Addison and Montrose before it—reopen in all its antiseptic gunmetal glory. I am sad. Irving Park and I have only been together a few short months. I shall miss looking out at the old Manz warehouse building in the morning as the sun comes up behind it, burning the wispy cirrus orange and pink—half the world in front of me, coming to life, exhaling a cold breath over the lake, westward, over me to the other half. I'll miss alleyway below, the old cars decaying in the grass and gravel, the demolition and new construction. I'll miss my short morning walk. The faces in morning traffic.

2007-11-15T12:35:00.000-06:00

DINNER
Last night, I branched out from the usual Panang Curry Chicken and tried the Gang Hung Lay with sticky rice from Sticky Rice. Unbelievable. It tasted so good that my shoes flew right off of my feet.

Lauren branched out herself and got the Gang Som with Shrimp. She took one spoonful, scrunched her face and said "I don't think I can eat this. It's too spicy."

I like to think I have a pretty high spice threshold, so I tried a spoonful. Holy fucking hell, that shit was spicy. So spicy that my shoes flew back on and then flew off again. There are foods I've tasted in my life that have made me wonder what kind of person is actually able to eat them, but the Gang Som was spicy beyond all proportion—only a dragon could possibly enjoy that stuff.

2007-11-13T08:44:00.001-06:00

SMALL WONDER

I have today's featured photo on the Chicago Public Radio website.

2007-11-09T08:18:00.001-06:00

IMPOTENT
I'll let Glenn field this one.

2007-11-06T09:55:00.000-06:00

BOURBON COUNTRY
Forty. Below forty. Low- to mid-thirties. Winds out of the north northwest at twenty miles per hour with gusts reaching into the forties. The isobars are packed. Upper-level lows. Here we go. Let's go. Are you ready? I'm ready.

My new coat makes a behemoth of me. (Oh, the perils of online shopping.) It keeps my core warm but not hot; it strikes the correct balance; it breathes. This morning's first outdoor exhalation bloomed gray around me. I start later earlier than before. The time change confounds my rhythms.

Lauren and I spent the weekend in Louisville, Kentucky—a five-hour drive down through Indiana and across the Ohio River. The air there was warm and clear during the day and chilly at night. The food was good and plentiful. Red wine spilled could not dampen our spirits. Kentucky spirits would later lift them to uncharted heights as we shivered outside with cigars.

On Sunday, the city parks spread out before us all green and red and yellow. The hills obscured downtown altogether, and for a while we pretended to explore Louisville's unseen corners, there amid the oaks and brush, the hearty copse crunching 'neath our shoes, the dogs running up ahead, tongues lolling laxly from their mouth sides. Our hamstrings burned. We made for the car and then headed down side streets among the old homes and mansions, past the small airfield where vintage biplanes ruled the runway.

We took off shortly after that, drove back north through mighty wind shear.

2007-10-30T09:28:00.000-05:00

OVERCOME
I used to listen to the radio on my cheap dual-tape-deck boom box. I'd sit in my bedroom, waiting for a song I liked to come on so I could hit record. That's how I made my earliest mix tapes. The ends of my music faded into disc jockey inanity—call letters, tenth callers, "that's George Michael with," assorted science fiction sound effects, canned slogans in impossible bass vocal ranges.

Making the tapes—trying to perfect the fine art of finding the opening cues and depressing the proper buttons ("play" and "record" simultaneously) at the emergent moment—became more enjoyable than actually listening to them. And then taking things to the next level, I actually mixed the music from that source tape to the next tape, ordering the songs into proper dramatic arcs, accounting for the myriad sonic impurities inherent in recording straight from the radio.

And still the results were a disappointing, low-fi muddle.

•••

Today, my electronic music library is spinning out of control. I am over-organized, my playlist list overflowing with particular mixes for every occasion and discographic breakdowns based on all possible methods. I have defeated the purpose of the function. Further, my efforts to be inclusive have caused my gigabits to overflow with the maddening likes of Candie Payne, Gnarles Barkley and Lady Sovereign, as well as bizarre niche productions from obscure acts like Ruins, Prurient, and Storm & Stress for which only isolated, unlikely occasions even exist (robot funerals, skydiving disasters, spoiled milk heaves).

My thumb numb from scrolling 'round, searching for the perfect soundtrack with which to walk from Welles to State, Hubbard to Lake, Ravenswood to Damen, in the rain, sun, wind, fog, etc.

2007-10-25T11:05:00.001-05:00

SHUT EYE
Last night's was a fitful sleep, as I flopped about in the telltale discomfort of lingering caffeine intoxication. This despite the fact that I'd not ingested caffeine since early yesterday afternoon. Which caffeine I delivered to my system by way of cheap, bland office coffee. Which coffee usually wends its way through my system in time for the evening wind down.

And so I refuse to believe caffeine ruined my slumber. No. Other forces were at work. Sinister, nebulous forces with fangs and talons forged of white smoke. Cleft tongues, halitosis. Forces of Halloween.

I awoke with demon prints on my soul. Pulled on clean slacks and packed my bag for short travel, and then out the door and into the cold morning, into the train car, forward into Thursday's beginning as

_______ CIGARS THE GOLD STANDARD

in faded paint on a brick building side appears and disappears to my left.

One week's beard growth weighs on my chin flesh, cheek skin itchy under the soft black tips. What the hell am I doing? I will allow my face to progress naturally, its hair to thrive unfettered. Or only partly fettered. I pull my right hand's nail backs sideways over the nascent bramble and close my book around its mark as the train car pulls into Merchandise Mart.

This is a brown line train to the Loop.

2007-10-18T08:23:00.000-05:00

'FATHER,' HE SAID, 'WHAT A HORRID TOWN THIS IS.'
This is so profoundly disappointing.

I can't even write about it.

UPDATE: Thank you, Chris Dodd, for placing a hold on this deeply flawed bill.

2007-10-16T14:48:00.000-05:00

LETTER B
The mornings darken.

A woman leaves bar smoke in her wake at 7:30 a.m. She smells like college's worst times. She's too old for this.

That afternoon, on the elevator: "It's beautiful outside. I want to put my fingers in the soil."

I nod. "Grab a handful of leaves from a curbside pile and throw them in the air."

Bottle this season and sell it.

Or no. Just let it be.

2007-10-11T10:44:00.000-05:00

EXCHANGING PLEASANTRIES
I've never been a big fan of Irish food. But last night's dinner at Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro knocked my socks off.

Heckuva halibut. Crispy kale. Perfect potatoes.

We got the goat cheese cheesecake to go. Walked home in the cool mist, a bottle's worth of wine in our bellies.

2007-10-10T15:16:00.000-05:00

AND A COLD WIND BLOWS
It has come, and not a moment too soon. I feared the record high temperatures and oppressive dew points adumbrated the kind of inconvenient shift in local climate we've all been dreading—and hell, it may have. But it's nice, reassuring, to know that the cool air percolating at the poles can still stab that hot heat in the heart in time for the leaf change.

2007-10-05T09:43:00.000-05:00

INCOMPLETE
I don't understand the salutation "greetings." It's essentially saying what you're doing without really doing it, like handing a cashier a piece of paper with "purchase" written on it.

2007-10-04T10:32:00.001-05:00

PERIODIC ELEMENTS
Tuesday evening in a grade school gymnasium, summer's kickball officially gave way to autumn's dodgeball. I again find myself excelling at a child's game, exercising the demons of physical education, which demons were born not of a lack of ability, but of a lack of participation, as I lurked in the back lines of the youthful cavalry and hoped for little else than to emerge from such games neither scathed nor seen. No more. This week I stood on the front lines and my team—our team—emerged victorious, doubling the score of a hapless adversary via cannon arms, true aim and soft hands. Today, my torso is a tight vest of muscle pain and there's a thread of fiber ablaze in my right shoulder. (I am reading a heavy book, and this morning had difficulty holding it at eye level as the train rocked, so deep runs the soreness.)

I want to write letters on paper to these friends and teammates and send them out so they can be displayed on fireplace mantles. The letters will recount the early days in Chicago—the lonely nights in a small apartment. The divergence of interests. The distance between me and recent friends in former cities. The sudden alienation.

And then I will write about kickball, about these strange new people who make their livings as play actors and thought doctors. (I have taken pictures of them and so know they exist.) I will write about other things—the drinking, the eating, the spontaneous application of high fives. The recent friends in former cities will see all this and long to follow me to Chicago, where they too can play the games of their childhood and then afterward drink down beers with vigor as the western sky glows orange.

It would be so easy for everything to fall into place properly—we are simply organisms moving through space for a while. We can choose our direction and motivation. We can meet other organisms and decide that we like being near those other organisms and so take action in that direction with that motivation.

I admit that some of this is too large for here.

2007-10-01T12:28:00.001-05:00

SHEESH
I'm sure it rankles conservative crackpot Michael Medved to know that Roger Ebert (a liberal!) writes much, much better movie reviews than Medved ever has ... or will ... or could. But why oh why does he insist on putting this contrast—that between an eminently talented critic and an ideological nitwit—on further display by delving into social commentary?

You don't have to answer that.

2007-09-28T09:51:00.001-05:00

SOMETHING, ANYTHING
I woke up late this morning and showered quickly. I can move through my morning process with dispatch when I put myself in such a pinch. I finish the tasks in stages—cleaning and drying the body; pulling clothes onto limbs in their customary order; creating, with the help of some sticky blue product, a follicular masterpiece at my summit—and head downstairs and out into the crisp air. Smack.

The days have grown shorter at both ends and the morning light is dim, casting soft grays onto every surface. I walk east toward the train station as the sun splits from the lake and burns the coastal building sides gold. The remnants of glare play havoc with my rods and cones—black dots dance on everything. I can barely see the kid trying to hand me the free newspaper I turn down. Turnstyle. Steps. Platform.

I stare out at the crumbling tenements as the L clatters through an S curve in River West. A bare-limbed evergreen from Christmas past leans in an unboarded window, three, four ornaments glimmering, their hooks clinging to the limbs' parched nodules. I can feel the space of the air between me and that place—it is wide and empty and cold. The train car jerks left as we roll into Chicago & Franklin.

2007-09-21T09:29:00.000-05:00

MISCONCEPTION
Some people on the internet may well have the mistaken impression that I'm a productive person.

2007-08-29T08:39:00.000-05:00

NO WORDS
Lauren and I were living in Dallas when Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.

What has happened since then — and what has not happened — should be criminal.

2007-08-23T13:27:00.000-05:00

FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS
WooohoooooOOO!O

2007-08-22T11:41:00.000-05:00

BANG YOUR HEAD
Republicans are dangerous and destructive; democrats are useless. Perhaps the new majority on Capitol Hill is actually trying to foment cynicism instead of break through it. But to what end? Oligarchy? We're already there.

...on a lighter note.

2007-08-21T08:41:00.001-05:00

KILLER COMBINATION
All the power and nothing to lose.

2007-08-16T11:44:00.001-05:00

NEW EPA MISSION STATEMENT
Prevent the environment from harming industry.™

2007-08-15T08:03:00.000-05:00

LIGHT
I have today's featured photo on Gapers Block.

2007-08-09T10:05:00.001-05:00

VARIOUS MATTERS
The first thing I do when I arrive at work in the morning is check the kitchen to see if there are any doughnuts. If there are, I eat as many as I can as quickly as I can. This is important. Because I don't want anyone else to have any doughnuts. I then fill my mug with coffee—horrible coffee made from beans picked, as far as I can tell, in the hills of downtown Detroit—and return to my desk. And then I drink the coffee down until the active ingredients enter my cardiovascular system and make me strive to be everything I can be—at 140 bpm, give or take.

I feel like the city—storm and clear and storm again. Puddles collecting near the corners and under the bridges. Shadow gone and shadow back. White popcorn cumulus. Grimy gray nimbostratus. Partly cloudy with periods of nerve-melting clarity and possible suntan. I hear music emanating from the backs of other humans' ear buds. On the bus or on the train. Elevated or subwayed. In the streets or sidewalks, stairwells. Too many disparate beats to rectify.

I need to kick it into high gear, whatever that means.

2007-08-01T07:57:00.000-05:00

PLEASURING THE PRESIDENT
Kaboom.

2007-07-31T08:30:00.001-05:00

DAMN
What an awful way to start the week. Both Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni died yesterday.

2007-07-30T07:57:00.000-05:00

GOODBYE
Ingmar Bergman

2007-07-27T09:16:00.001-05:00

KEEP IT TIGHT
The summer rain has made the black streets misty; my morning walk progresses with the smooth fits of a dream. Cool wet droplets land on the crown of my head and head down over the backs of my ears. The air is thick and sweet as low gray clouds race southward over the city and between downtown's black towers. Chicago moves forward into the secret corners of summer, where anything can happen at any moment. I long to be stuck outside. I want to hear it coming, whatever it is.

2007-07-20T08:22:00.001-05:00

DEMOCRACY II
Now with 90% less pore-clogging oversight!™

The Boy King says: "Let that good man have New Legs!"

2007-07-18T11:05:00.000-05:00

MAINLY IN DES PLAINES
The suburbs are having all the fun.

It was supposed to rain in the city. Good, clean, mid-week rain. Alas, it never came. And now the morning clouds have evaporated, leaving the sky bright, naked, the sidewalks warm and awnings dusty. My black umbrella languishes in the dark recesses of my messenger bag. How can we grow without water?

I must have tweaked my back over the weekend. Maybe it happened as I was lifting spirits during Saturday's kickball playoffs. We lost our first game and thereafter drank with relish. We sprawled out in the grass as the winds whipped the field into a cone of dust all around us. The hot sun browned my neck and arms deeply, but the radiation had me reeling by nightfall. I made tracks for home and there relaxed—the couch a familiar womb, the remote loose in my hand.

I need the rain now. I need to feel its cool summer vapor. I need to feel it in my pants.

2007-07-12T09:48:00.000-05:00

VARIOUS MATTERS
There are a million things I could be doing, and this is not one of them. I am reading "Switch Bitch." I am listening to This Heat. I am looking things up on Wikipedia.

Last night, the kickball team was again victorious, as victory oozed from every orifice. We shall prevail in Saturday's playoffs. We shall ooze more victory than anyone thought possible. The Chicago Department of Parks & Recreation will need to mobilize a HazMat team to clean up all the victory before it coagulates in the summer sun.

Tonight, I will drink wine and listen to Toumani Diabate at Pritzker.

I enjoy drinking with other humans. I do.

2007-07-09T10:33:00.000-05:00

ON CUYLER
On Saturday, Lauren and I found the greatest apartment of all time. It's difficult to properly explain how huge and important this is to the future of humanity. I tried to draw a diagram, but couldn't find paper big enough to do justice to the sprawling floor plan.

Waiting to move is going to be hellish—we have another month and a half to go.

2007-07-06T08:29:00.000-05:00

THE POWER OF PURSUASION
I can't believe this shit.

And I'm not the only one.

ETA: Bill O'Reilly is nuttier than a bowlful of macaroons? That I can believe.

Oh for fuck's sake enough already!

2007-07-05T12:18:00.001-05:00

OY.

2007-06-28T10:42:00.000-05:00

BACKSLIDING
Yesterday, it was this.

Today, it's this.

What the hell is going on?

2007-06-19T13:03:00.000-05:00

THROUGH A GLASS LOUDLY
Outside my office window, the Fabulous Tuckpointers conduct their grind orchestra. This has been going on since Monday morning and it's beginning to drive me a little bit crazy. I counter with stoner rock, but to no avail, as the non-delicate operation causes the kind of high-frequency din that easily infiltrates my headphones, sending my inner ear bones into overdrive.

I'm taking a couple days off this week. I just need to make it through these next few hours. And then tomorrow. And then I'm free.

2007-06-14T10:27:00.000-05:00

ON LOSS AND LOSING
Our kickball team lost its first game last night. Our fate was sealed as the orange sun sank westward into the plains. We had kicked to the best of our ability, yet we could not overcome our poor fielding. We disappointed ourselves, our families and our country. We repaired in utmost haste to the Ravenswood Pub, where we drank cupped beers and dined on chicken and beans. We filled our stomachs, but could not fill the sudden vacancy in our collective soul.

Because that band sucks.

•••

The tree leaves sound like a ball of loosening cellophane as I walk to the car. Porch lights fade on lush lawns and a backyard pond fountain babbles its best. I don't know the names of the trees in full bloom, but its flowers are everywhere and the white buds crush into khaki underfoot, turning the sidewalk into the surface of a rich cake.

Cake. Yes, cake.

2007-06-13T10:24:00.000-05:00

WORDPLAY
Oh, hell yes.

2007-06-08T10:16:00.001-05:00

ACTUAL SHIT THAT TOTALLY HAPPENED
Last night, when the hurricane-force winds began to bend the treetops eastward, I was again reminded of my childhood on the mean streets of an affluent Chicago suburb.

I remember a white-haired man who lived around the corner who had a German Shepherd named Augenblick. They used to play fetch with a Frisbee in the alley. Augenblick, a good dog, would hurl the disk skyward and the white-haired man would dart down the alley after it with the quickness and intense focus of a jungle cat and, just when it looked like the disk had completed its flight and hit the pavement, the man would lunge his head forward, scoop it into his mouth and shake it like captured prey.

Back then, my friend Damien and I would have rock fights near the interstate canyon with the kids from the next block over. Damien had curly hair and deadly aim, but limited range. I, on the other hand, had a rocket arm and was thus able to stay well out of our opponents' range. One day, shortly after a spate of street renovation left a pile of fresh stones near the battlefield, we again took up arms against our adversaries. Damien bravely crept toward the demarcation and nailed young Kiko in the upper torso with a chunk of pointy limestone just as four mercenaries from zip code unknown emerged from a nearby bush and laid him to waste with their own arsenal. As Damien clawed at the pavement and cried out, I realized our folly. We were outnumbered by crafty interlopers and the outlook was grim.

Our only hope rested on the high-tension tendon and sinew of my right arm, which at that moment directed my hand to the largest, flattest wedge of white concrete within reach. I reared back and released said wedge with all my might, letting out a guttural battle cry that echoed through the streetscape.

For a moment the world and its occupants moved in slow motion—the flat spinning stone cut a majestic arc against the cobalt blue sky of late afternoon. The group of kids on the other side stood gape-mouthed, their faces directed upward at the hard rain to come.

Seconds elapsed. Minutes. More.

A white-haired man emerged from the alley, scrambling forth on all fours, his fingernails clicking furiously on the fresh pavement. His hind legs coiled, released and he shot forth, arms stretched and then spreading as in a dive from great height. His chin jutted forward, his teeth closed on the spinning stone. He continued, gliding over the rail, over the interstate, landing finally on a hill in the distance. The corners of his eyes crinkled in happiness. And he shook the stone until it was reduced to rubble.

2007-06-06T10:38:00.000-05:00

ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOOKS
I'm pretty excited about this weekend's Printers Row Book Fair. Last year, I scored a first edition hardcover (w/dust jacket!) of "Infinite Jest" as well as dozens of vintage Barnes & Noble bookmarks.

The key to success at the book fair is to do a full walk-around before you purchase anything. That way you don't weigh yourself down too early and burn your hamstrings out by noon. Also, this allows you to formulate a plan whereby you go back and get the smaller books first and the big ones last (I recommend drawing up a series of maps and pie charts as you wander along—and maybe bringing a Bunson burner just in case—so you can remember where it was you saw that hardcover collection of Balzac's lesser-known horse d'oeuvre recipes).

But then, you have to be careful you don't pass up on a book someone else will want, lest you leave empty-handed. If you fear this may happen, surreptitiously move the book you covet into the Mary Higgins Clark section of the bookseller's tent. That way most people will never see it, and those who do will likely be functional illiterates.

And most importantly, remember that "row" means something different in America from what it means across the pond. Here, it evokes order, not chaos. So remember to relax. Don't box that old woman's ears with Micheners because she cut you off on your way to the Paper Cut Treatment Station. Take it in stride. Move along.

Enjoy the sweet smell of wood pulp and silverfish, fellow bookworm.

2007-05-29T15:24:00.000-05:00

OVERLOAD
I often feel that no matter how much I've done, I've wasted another weekend. But not today. I colored my last three days outside the lines. On Friday night, I dined on cactus and beef while making merry with Modelo after refreshing Modelo. My stomach filled to capacity; the way home a savage blur.

In the morning, after the cranial pounding subsided, I sat inside with a book and listened to the rain and let the fresh air through the window to do what it does best—its healing powers soothed my beer-addled pleasure centers. Later that day we would run into familiar people—six of them—at different times at different places throughout the city. It was strange but good.

That night I saw Frog Eyes at Schuba's. Carey Mercer brushed right past me. He sang his fucking heart out and charmed everyone's pants off. His self-conscious quirks and mannerisms brought the house down, his Canadian accent as thick as the gray layer of cigarette smoke hovering overhead. It was a sight to behold and a sound to be heard. I stomped my feet until hours wee and left wanting more.

I didn't see sun until Monday, when it broke through the morning clouds and dried the city's surfaces just in time for kickball. The air was warm and thick. We created a carnival atmosphere with help from cup after glorious cup of cold mixed beverage. We stumbled forward into late afternoon, the sun coloring our shoulders and sweat salting our wounds. I played for the losing team, but didn't feel like I'd lost anything. Indeed, we all repaired to a nearby apartment and continued to drink down drinks with vim—winners and losers both. We grilled and ate meats, fake meats, corn until we couldn't eat anymore.

And when at last my eyelids stung from the utter sleeplessness of it all, I headed home and collapsed onto the couch, gasping for water, for more, for a long night and good dreams. I had everything I wanted. And nothing was wasted.

2007-05-24T11:32:00.000-05:00

KIBBLE
I ride the bus with black-haired men who read Fortune and Forbes and who hire experts to groom their fingernails and press their pants. I am a child by comparison, desperate to untuck my shirt. Perhaps the magazines are a discipline. No matter, I want no part of it.