Sudden showers

The last Tuesday in August finds me somewhat reflective, although not more so than normal in terms of visible light. It's 90° again. This has been a hot summer in Chicago, coming on the heels of no spring at all.

Soon the weather will break, the chill will set in, and we can all get back to complaining about how cold it is. In the meantime, I'm mainly tired of sweating so much.

*****

I recently took a nice mini-vacation with a friend, canoeing 40 miles of the Wisconsin River with nothing but our wits, far too much food, miscellaneous gadgets and as much comfort as could be fitted into our watercraft.

Though we slept in a tent on a sandbar, it would be hard to say we were roughing it. This was fine, as neither of us are noted for our hardy ruggedness.



The second day of our intended three was punctuated in the late afternoon by a rumble of thunder. We had recently talked ourselves out of correctly reading our map, so it was easy to carry our wrongness momentum into a belief that it was not actually going to rain. Though cloudy, nothing we could see had the dark look of rainclouds. Even long after it became clear to us both that rain was imminent, my friend shushed me during the thunder in the hopes that he could trace its origins to the nearby highway, some anomaly in the pavement or a vehicle that would put us in the clear.

Still, we searched for a place to put ashore. Thunder, after all, means lightning, and being in a metal boat on water didn't seem like the most wondrous place to be if giant bolts of electricity were milling about.

It had begun to rain by the time we found a spot to put ashore, on a little clearing which seemed to be the origin of all the mud in Wisconsin. We peered bleakly around at the mud and the giant mosquitos and hoped the rain would subside before we would have to make camp. It grew cold, and we found our jackets, put them on. The rainproof fabric was just another interesting sensation on my skin, in addition to the sunburn, sand, sunscreen and bug repellant. I fastened the hood and pulled its drawstring.

Before long, the rain began to subside, and we glared one last time at the muddy sinkhole before shoving the canoe back into the water in search of a better place to camp. We had seemingly no sooner pushed off than my friend spotted the bridge over the river ahead. This meant we had gone far in excess of our intended distance for the day, and now were less than a mile from our extraction point, with something like 21 hours to spare.

This was when the rain truly began.

It was possibly the hardest rain I have ever been outside for, or it felt that way. The tiny drops pelted the surface of the river so that it resembled stucco. Within moments I was blind, the sunscreen and insect spray rushing into my eyes from my forehead. My glasses were no help, as they beaded and obscured as much or more than the chemicals. We began shouting to one another over the roar of water. We would make it to the landing and figure it out from there, we agreed, the sooner the better.

We paddled hard. Harder, probably, than any previous point on the trip. I was in the rear of the craft, responsible for the steering. I shouted again that I was nearly blind, and that my friend should call out if we needed to alter direction. A pool of water was forming at my feet inside the canoe, and I began to wonder if I would need to stop paddling and start bailing it out. So in my blindness, I kept one eye on the rapidly rising water in the canoe and one on the bridge ahead that signaled safety and potential dryness.

In a strange way, this sudden storm was the most fun part of the trip, truly exhilarating. Though I was worried about our various calamities, I also felt kind of wonderful.

My cell phone was working, and we arranged for a ride back to the place our trip originated. In a flash, our trip was over, and we were left with only the mundanities of slogging back to Illinois. I have to say that even now, nearly two weeks later, I still feel a small amount of the sadness I felt when I realized we were headed home a day early.

My friend and I have made plans to repeat the trip. We have discussed the things we should do differently next time to enhance the experience. We have talked also about camping sans canoe in the fall when the weather turns crisp and a campfire becomes a lifeline. Perhaps most importantly, we seem to have rekindled a friendship that seemed as though it had lain fallow for too long.

*****

Forgive, please, the length and rambliness. I'm rusty.

Tag plus time equals post

Taffiny tagged me in June with this meme. She expressed doubt that I would undertake it, but I always intended to. Better late than never, I suppose. It's 8 questions.

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
Probably goofing off. It was the late summer of 1998. Our first album was still newish. I was freelancing at the place that would later make me a department head for the first time when I was 25. Whether at work or not, I spent a lot of time listening to Patty Griffin's Flaming Red, Tragically Hip's Phantom Power, Grant Lee Buffalo's Jubilee. The three shared a bill in Chicago that October, but I was unable to attend when I contracted strep throat.

2. 5 things on your to-do list for today?
1. Start making to-do lists.
2. Try to do a blog post. (Maybe a meme of some kind?)
3. Undo space/time damage caused by recent experiment.
4. Learn to play the cello (if cannot complete today, abandon).
5.

3. What would you do if you were a billionaire?
It is hard to imagine that I could somehow become a billionaire without being a completely different human. One of those money people. I presume the spirit of the question is that I should imagine that I awaken one morning with a billion dollars but nothing else different about me or my life? Hmmm. I guess if I put it into the bank at, say, 5% interest, I'd make about 50 million dollars a year. I should be able to live on that, so that'd be step one. Step two is the inevitable orgy of spending on music and possibly a house to put my new acquisitions in. I'd have the cats gold-plated, install a chocolate faucet in the kitchen. Realizing how passe a gold-plated cat is, I'd then encrust them with precious stones. If I had any time left, I'd work on my novel.

4. What are three of your bad habits?
Uno: I have been known to disappear for months on end (see: blog, elsewhere).
Dos: I smoke.
Tres: Sometimes I pretend that I can speak spanish.

5. What are some snacks you enjoy?
I would never risk the ire of any snack food by championing another in such a forum. I am a big fan of snacks, and I adore each one for its merits.

6. What were the last five books you read?
I have not been reading much lately. I am a bad man. I just reread Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut and Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card. And I really enjoyed Miranda July's short story collection, but I think that was last summer. As was Minx's A Coven of One and Caroline's In Search of Adam.

7. What are five jobs you have had?

1. In college, I worked for a while as a telemarketer. We did not sell anything, just conducted surveys. My telephone name was "Mr. Fletcher." I was able, the one time it came up, to tell a caller that a fletcher was a person who made bows. I once phoned Lou Reed's house to speak to his wife about her credit card. He was very polite, and it took every ounce of self-discipline I possessed not to tell him what a fan of his work I am. This job ended catastrophically when they attempted to promote me.
2. In high school, I worked for a frozen yogurt shop. It was there I discovered coffee. We were forbidden to change the radio station, but we always did when the customers were gone and we were doing cleanup. One night, we accidentally locked ourselves out of the office, and could not change the station back. A wildly physical comedy ensued which culminated in my climbing through the ceiling, falling through it and into the office, and being fired for same. One of the only times I have ever been fired, incidentally. Driving home that night, my friend's car erupted in flames. Good times.
3. Also in high school, I dressed up in a bear costume to be the mascot of a local bank at fairs and such a few times during a summer. This is the origin of the line "there was no fan in the head, and there should have been" which I still use from time to time. In order to cool off without revealing that I was secretly just a normal human male, I would take advantage of the fact that ride operators would let me on for free, and when whatever ride I was on reached speed, cool air would rush in through the vents where the eyes were.
4. Returning to college jobs, I worked in a local "chain" record shop for a few months. This was right around the time that such entities were being thoroughly destroyed by the massive big box stores. I started in January, 1994, and there were 33 locations throughout Chicagoland. By the end of spring, there were, I think, 3. I used to play PJ Harvey's 4-Track Demos album when it was time to clear the customers out so we could go home. I was convinced for years that I was the only person on earth who actually enjoyed that record.
5. For most of my adult, post-college life, I have been primarily employed as a graphic artist. There is almost never a dress code, and I was always free to dye my hair when I chose.

8. What are five places where you have lived?

1. No matter what rumors may be floating around, I have lived my entire existence right here on Earth.
2. I have twice made my home in Denver, Colorado for reasons beyond my immediate control.
3. One block from my current apartment.
4. Three blocks from my current apartment.
5. My current apartment.

Phoctober the twelfth

This is Murphy. Or possibly The Murphy.


Once, long before we met, Blogreader, I was coaxed out of my apartment by a small group of Workers. Together, we attended a professional sporting event. It was a baseball match between the Chicago White Sox and some other group of baseball players.

Soon after taking our seats, we noticed Murphy. He was hard to miss, so engrossed was he with noticing us. He stared at me specifically for much of the first segment of the game, but when I switched seats, I noticed that he kept his attention on the seat I had taken. This made me feel abandoned.

We named him Murphy, as this was what was printed on the back of his shirt. Of course, if his name was actually Murphy, then this was probably also his father's name, and the father never once turned around to confront us as we talked about the weird boy who was staring at us.

By the time we fled our seats in the face of a strong, sudden spring storm, we had created a full story of Murphy. He could, for instance, see into your very soul. He knew every thing you had ever done wrong. He could start fires with his mind, and control the weather. We blamed him for the storm, for the balance of the score in the opposing team's favor, for receding hairlines, relationship problems, poor quality ballpark food, for anything we could think of. It was very cathartic. For his part, The Murphy never once spoke to us or acknowledged in any way that we might have noticed him as well.

Several months later, as I was roaming the streets of London, I stopped by my hotel and checked my email. Enclosed I found this, from Micah:



He haunts us still.

*****

Other Phoctobering:

All Phoctober posts from this site.

Sognatrice on dark and light.

Absolute Vanilla shows us the fungus among us.

Scarlett gets leafy.

Matthew hits the Appalachian Trail.

Worldly Minx shows us her front gate.

Kyklops gets a puppy, forgets to be cool.

Signs gets found in the supermarket.

It isn't too late to join the fun. Just do a photo post, mention Phoctober, and come and tell me about it in the comments.

Summer, summer, so long (part 2)

(The first part of this post is just below, and additional images can be found on my Flickr page, which links via the animated gif at left.)

It is the night I enjoy. This shouldn't surprise anyone who's been reading for a while. It was also no surprise to me that returning to the carnival after sunset felt more like a real experience.

It was the last night of the fair, and technically summer was already over. The actual equinox had been some time in the afternoon. I was trying to feel it, to be in that zone of special attention. I was eager to assign meaning to the carnival, the passing of summer, the dawn of autumn.

It wasn't easy to even feel autumnal, hot as it was. I was forced to spend a certain amount of brainpower thinking about sweat and heat, which knocked me clean out of the atmosphere I was attempting to create within my head.

Still, wandering a carnival alone can be an interesting thing. Immediately I noticed that the sense of people having fun was much greater than it had been during the afternoon. The barkers were busy calling victims to their tents. I don't know if it was because it was the last night, or if they were doing it all along, but I noticed many of them guaranteeing prizes to the children of those with the pursestrings.

"I'll make sure the little one wins," I heard more than one of them say. It struck me us unbearably sweet. Carnivals are, after all, the province of children. That single block and the tiny overflow onto side streets was no doubt an endless new world for some of the children who hurried back and forth beneath the colored lights.

I know that these things always seemed that way to me, when I was young.

I walked and I watched, snapping pictures when the mood struck me.


It occurred to me that I might be able to see the skyline from the heights of the ferris wheel, so I plunked down four dollars to be slowly spun to its apex. The operator was not gentle, though, and each time I reached the top and stopped, I found myself in a wildly swaying basket. With all the motion and my camera's low-light limitations, this is the least blurry shot I was able to get. The others are more...abstract.


I was able, however, to get some general shots of the carnival from up above it.




After the wheel I became camera-shy. I don't know why. I think it had something to do with not being content any longer to merely observe. I wanted to experience something as well. Perhaps the notion that I might have enjoyed the wheel more had I merely looked around rather than fighting with my camera sparked this idea.

I walked up and down the length of the carnival several more times before finally deciding that what I truly wanted to do was get some small slice of the fun I would have had here as a boy. I wanted to be flung and shaken by a great beast of a machine, spun and dizzied and out of my own control. I wanted to tap into something primal with speed and wind and motion.

Another four dollars got me enough tickets to accomplish this feat.

Some of you may know that about five years ago, my chronic stomach problems developed in such a way as to make me carsick. So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I kept circling the machine I had chosen, retreating, pondering maybe just riding the ferris wheel again. Here is the ride, which is also in the last post as the example of last year's cell phone photography, what Minx is calling the "red spinny thing."


Eventually, nervous beyond speech, I dared to climb the steps and hand my tickets to the operator. I sat alone in a dangling cab, pulled the enormous bar down over my head and body to secure me within it. Four or five times I nearly raised it up again to exit. I honestly did not know if my stomach could handle it.

The fact that I can debate myself endlessly sometimes meant that I still had not completely made up my mind, stay or go, when the ride let out a metallic groan and began, ever so slightly, to move around its axis. The machine's purpose was to spin and spin until we were lifted into the air and parallel to the ground, then it would tilt and sway us around as we hurtled through space, trying out this angle or that until the operator decided we had gotten our money's worth.

The beginning was tough, the slower part. I focused my eyes on the empty car in front of my to minimize the dizzying effect. Soon enough we were airborne, whirling and hurtling along. I gripped the bar tightly, pushed it down into my leg with enough force that it briefly hurt, and I wondered if I had crushed the cigarettes in my front pocket. I had the thought that I would really want at least one to remain undamaged should I survive my ordeal and walk upright among people again.

People like these sorts of rides for different reasons. For me, I suspect, it is the exhilaration immediately following the ride which makes me love them. My body telling me for the span of the ride that I am in peril, that I might not survive, only to be reassured in a set amount of time by a slowing down and a stopping. A new lease on life, a chance to live again.

And I did feel that exhilaration as I wobbled through the gate and down the steps from the ride. I had not even felt sick once we got moving, had conquered that small part of myself for at least a small moment of time.

I walked down the length of the carnival once more, and back again. Now I was smiling slightly to myself. I was a part of the carnival, I was one of the revelers, there in the dark on the last night of summer.

The resolution of forgotten cliffhangers

Back in June, I wrote a little about how I was buying a car. Then I mentioned having taken it back. In the interim, I have been tooling around in the old Mahtmobile, waiting and waiting for the idiosyncrasies of my grandmother's estate to be resolved.

On Saturday, they finally were, and I went to the friendly local Department of Motor Vehicles to make everything official.

I also mentioned on my birthday that my big celebratory plans involved checking to see if my driver's license had expired. I never actually got around to doing that until Saturday, either. Fortunately, there was no need to get in that line.

Anyway, behold! The new Mahtmobile. I had trouble convincing the insurance agent I spoke with that it was owned by a little old lady who did not drive it very often. When I gave him the preposterously low odometer reading, he actually made an attempt to dissuade me from buying it, as he thought I was being swindled. How strangely nice of him.

For reasons passing understanding, a replacement ignition key costs $37. Even the cashier at the dealership where I had it made had some difficulty with this concept.

"You drive a Saab?" she asked.

"Nope, a fifteen year-old Buick." We both furrowed our brows and looked confused and displeased.

I rounded out the day by dumping my old car behind the barn at my friend Ian's place. Yeah, he has a barn. Doesn't use it for anything that I'm aware of, but there it is, next to the wood shop which used to be the map of july rehearsal space.

I sat around and chatted with Ian and his wife for hours. They let me creep through their backyard to satisfy my photographic urges. Here are some results of my foraging:






And while we're on the subject of photography, I have decided to do a picture post each day during the month of October. That would be in addition to any normal posting. Some of the images will be new, some culled from my Flickr page. I am calling this exercise Phoctober, because it sounds clunky and wrong and vaguely vulgar. It made me chuckle. I'd like to encourage any of my readers who like taking pictures to do an image post or two more than normal during the month.

Hometown

The path from Chicago to Naperville is a simple one. Direct, too. One needs only to wade through the traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway until it merges with I-88, formerly called I-5, and recently redubbed the Ronald Reagan Memorial Tollway, for those of you thinking of making the trek and wishing to navigate by Presidents alone. From there you have your choice of several exits.

I took the first one.

I took the first Naperville exit, aptly named Naperville Road, and headed south. Before long, I unconsciously veered off onto a shortcut to where I was headed. As soon as my brain realized that I was taking a shortcut, its particulars dissolved, leaving my only with guesswork and memory to guide me.

My guesswork succeeded. My memories were sound.

I went to high school in Naperville, learned to drive on its streets. How is it that I can remember how to drive and not where this street goes?

For all my eagerness to escape, I find it is Naperville which leaps forward most easily if I am asked to name my hometown. I am not from here. I have few remaining ties. It is simply the circumstances of a rather nomadic childhood coupled with the importance one attaches to the years of puberty and those that immediately follow—becoming an adult and such—that give it this claim on me, or me on it.

I parked the car and began to walk.

The names of the streets were all familiar. They looked like the right names. I wondered to myself how many times I might have walked these streets. The names were familiar, and I felt like I knew where I was, but it seemed at least possible that I had never been here at all, had perhaps only read a particularly vivid novel set here. Down this road is the spot where the protagonist quarreled with a friend, only a few feet from where they had met in the first place. A mile in that direction and you'll be at the library where the protagonist watched "A Hard Day's Night" 30 times in a video carrel through headphones, trying to somehow memorize John Lennon, the better to emulate or become him.

Friends had warned me to look out for how different everything would be, how much had changed. I was struck instead at how much it looked the same. I was in an old part of the city, home to a college campus and some old houses. Each looked more or less as they always had. Those girls giggling themselves down the sidewalk on their way to or from class may as well have been the same girls for whom I used to detour when walking this area in the warm months, in my 8th grade hope that some of them might be out sunbathing.

As I walked, I now felt that I truly knew where I was, how these streets fit together to form the part of town I was in. I could not, however, recall exactly how this fitted into the town as a whole. I could picture in my mind what it looked like when this area gave way to to the more highly developed downtown area, which I knew was west of me, but not a sense of how far away that was.

A very tall brunette brushed past me on my left.

"Excuse me," I said. "How far am I from a restaurant?" Already, just the phrasing of the question made me feel weird, like I was claiming I had crashed in a meteor, or perhaps that my follow-up should be to to act manic and crazed and inquire as to the year or the name of the president. For her part, she took it in stride.

"A couple blocks that way." She pointed west. So now the distance was more or less fixed. It felt closer than I would have guessed.

We each walked on, her now a few steps ahead of me. She had a particularly unflattering walk, no doubt due partially to what appeared to be very uncomfortable shoes. Women confuse me.

After a few paces, she stopped and turned back to me.

"Actually, go a couple blocks this way first, then a couple that way. You go that way now and you'll just end up at the post office."

"Ah," I said. "And the post office, I take it, has substandard fare?"

She laughed a genuine laugh and was suddenly pretty.

"I don't know. Haven't seen the menu."

"Mustn't judge, then."

I walked on.

Yard sale

"OK, Alex. We'll take twenty for the antlers and ten for the hat."

The antlers in question were mounted to a block of wood, and sat atop a pile of t-shirts.* The hat was in Alex's hand, a gray fedora which he turned to peer at from different angles.

I was just walking by, affiliated with neither Alex nor the woman with the dyed red hair who was presiding over the collection of cast-offs along the sidewalk. This was just another neighborhood yard sale that I happened upon during my weekend wandering. I would not have even known Alex's name had the woman not used it.

I had seen perhaps a half dozen of these sales in the hour or two I was walking around. Coming across a yard sale has always been something I enjoy, like finding that a thrift store has unexpectedly materialized in the middle of a residential block. I like to look at the things people have selected for themselves and then decided they no longer had a use for.

On one of the last truly nice weekends of the season, they had bloomed like late summer flowers all over the place. I took a note of the impromptu signs taped to streetlights and stop signs at nearly every intersection and adjusted my walk to take in as many as I could.

The signs for these events are nearly always misleading. One told of a "Huge Family Yard Sale - Something for everyone!!!," but contained nothing but cast-off clothing items, some of which had clearly been bought in bulk from a discontinued uniform company. Another, which had also promised a wide array of items, did not exist at all. Instead of the tantilizing promised books, records and furniture, I found a small piece of paper taped to a door. A shaky hand had written "No Yard Sale Today." A third, which did not list a location and which I never found, promised a "Yar Sale," which I can only assume meant that they were selling off equipment used in piracy.

As I was passing Alex and his haggling opponent, I was starting to get sick of yard sales in general. I'm glad that they still exist in our eBay-obsessed world, but the amount of miscellaneous crap was becoming wearying. And this was one of the sales where the person who organized it clearly thought of herself as an entrepreneur. A box of pins from the 2006 Olympics sat in the sun with a sign explaining that you would find these for $6.95 anywhere else, but here they were only $4.00.

This made me a little irritable. I sort of hate the assumption that the original price of an item has any relevance once it is sitting for sale on someone's lawn. Maybe this would have been a good deal if I were some sort of collector of Olympics memorabilia, but I doubt it. And if I were such a creature, the 2006 Olympics were recent enough that I would doubtless have already added these items to my collection elsewhere.

"Sir! Sir! This hat!" Alex seized my arm as I attempted to pass. He spoke with a Slavic accent, which is not at all uncommon in this neighborhood.

"This hat," he repeated. "What do you think?"

He thrust the fedora at me. "Uh, a fine hat," I said.

"Yes. But what? Five Dollars?"

"A hundred, easily, in a store," the woman countered.

Alex rotated the hat again, inspecting it and clearly expecting me to do the same.

"Is fine. Yes. In good shape, but I think maybe needs some cleaning, yes?" He made a show of pretending to brush some dust off the brim.

"In a store, a hundred," the woman repeated.

"Well, this is a yard sale," I said slowly. "The original price does become sort of irrelevant." I was torn between my desire to flee and the fact that the woman was giving me a perfect opportunity to vent my displeasure at her pricing method.

Alex made a triumphant crowing sound, raising the hat into the air.

"Well, he's not the one selling it," the woman countered, casting a baleful glance at me.

"True enough," I said, freeing myself from the conversation and resuming my walk. I was no longer the unwitting accomplice of amateur hagglers, and that felt nice.


*A note about the antlers: I do not personally think it's cool to kill something and take a trophy. I am consistent in this belief. I don't like it when serial killers do it, either. Just so you know.

A keen eye for detail

The ability to notice, to actively observe and mentally record things in one's life is one of the most important traits a writer can possess.

So you can probably imagine how great it felt when I was out for a walk the other night and suddenly realized that an entire building that used to stand on a major intersection near me had vanished into rubble.

I've been taking a lot of walks lately, and had probably passed the missing building four or five times in just a few days.

The pile of bricks behind a chain-link fence was the former home of the somewhat crappy Lighthouse Diner, which if nothing else served for a time as the only 24-hour eatery in the neighborhood. It was not infrequently filled with transients and neighborhood crazies and always seemed to be right on the verge of spinning off into chaos. I tended to go there in the middle of the night, when the drunken remnants of the local bars would also be pushing themselves in for some pancakes or a hamburger, unwilling or unable to simply go home and let the night end.

I frequently ordered egg sandwiches, if only to marvel at how they never prepared a sandwich even remotely resembling any of the previous egg sandwiches I had had there. Each one was indifferently crafted from a new concept of an egg sandwich by the artists behind the counter. They were like snowflakes.

I once read an entire Nick Hornby book while sitting at the counter in the middle of the night drinking their coffee. I, too, was unwilling or unable to simply go home.

I moved to Colorado, waited two years, moved back. Shortly after my return I wandered ravenous to their door in the small hours to fuel a marathon work session. To my chagrin, I discovered that the Lighthouse now closed at 8pm most nights. I never found myself there again.

So, goodbye, Lighthouse. I'm sorry I stopped coming by.

And I'm sorry I failed to notice that your building was gone.

Samarat-ish

Wandering through Chicago afternoon heat not long ago, smoking a cigarette, I saw a woman on a bicycle staring at me. I blinked at her and continued walking on the sidewalk. I was a little surprised when she pulled up off of the street and headed straight for me.

She had that look in her eye that suggested she was about to ask me for something. My guess was a cigarette. I reached toward my pocket to retrieve one.

"Can I use your phone?" she asked. I continued to fish for my cigarettes. My brain told my hand "not cigarettes" and made me cock my head to the side.

"Excuse me?"

"Can I use your phone?" She explained in detail how she was working for a promotional agency but using her own phone, had gone over her limit and the phone had been disconnected. She wanted to call her father in California and have her service restored. She asked if I had free national calling, which I do, but pretended to be unsure about while I made my decision.

I cannot reconstruct in my head why I agreed to let her use the phone. I took it from my pocket and handed it to her with a look that I hoped said "please don't run off with my phone." I suppose it was the notion that I would want someone else to be helpful if I had a similar problem.

She placed her call and walked several steps down the sidewalk away from me. My eye went to the bag and bicycle she had left next to me, trying to ascertain if I could sell these items for as much as I had paid for the phone should she break into a sprint. I had already decided not to chase her if she decided to betray my kindness. I was already too sweaty, and I figured I could have the phone shut off in less than a half an hour. All I would really lose was my settings and contacts contained within the phone. Unless, of course, there is some huge scam involving stolen cell phones whose machinations I am unaware of. I tried to imagine how such scams might run as I appraised the items next to me.

The bicycle would maybe fetch $50, tops. The bag was more of a mystery. She had her purse with her, so I knew not to expect it to contain her driver's license or credit cards. It didn't seem heavy when she put it down, so gold bars was unlikely as well. Paper money was a possibility, but the mere fact that she had left it behind made this possibility seem remote.

I puffed on my cigarette and shifted my gaze from the possessions which would become mine should she flee to the woman herself, speaking into the telephone with a measure of agitation. She was at least as old as I am, and her face suggested she had a couple of years on me. I was a little concerned that someone might reach this age and still be dependent upon a parent to keep her phone alive. But such things are certainly not unheard of.

She finally finished her call and walked back to where I was standing, wiping what I presumed to be sweat or grease from her face off of the shiny surfaces of the phone. She thanked me several times, repeating the story about the promotions agency and her father.

"Thanks for not assuming I was a psycho who was gonna run off with your phone," she said.

"Well, I was prepared to sell your bag and your bike," I admitted.

"So, this thing...I'm promoting this show next Friday. A couple bands and a burlesque show." She reached into her bag, which I could now see was filled with small glossy cards advertising her event. "I'll put you on the list if you want."

I took possession of the cards she pressed into my hand.

"Seems like if I decide I'd like to go, I should pay my way in to increase the chances of you having continued cell phone service." She didn't seem to find this as amusing as I did, and pedaled off soon afterward. She said she would put me on the list anyway, under "phone man," should I opt to attend.

I walked home, thinking about the youth who had offered me a shot of what seemed like vodka on the street several months ago. Is it weird that I am more likely to give something to someone who asks on the street than to take something which is offered for free? I eye both groups of people with a certain amount of suspicion. I suppose that's something.

The Breakfast Club at the Tivoli

The Tivoli Theater opened in Downers Grove, Illinois in 1928, three days before my grandmother was born. Downers Grove would later give the world the band Styx and Denise Richards, but I always think of the Tivoli as being the real treasure of the city (close on its heels are a certain used bookstore and a record store where I bought quite a few Beatles albums).

We started going to the Tivoli in the early 80s, after moving north to Naperville. There were plenty of closer places to see a movie, but I tend to think that the classic atmosphere and decor were why my mother drove the extra miles to sometimes catch a flick at the Tivoli. It seemed like more of an event than just popping into the nearest darkened room to watch the releases of the day.

Which is not to say that the films were always worthy of the architecture. I can recall seeing Splash there, and Footloose, among others. I also saw The Return of the Jedi there.

Later, we moved to Woodridge, much closer to the Tivoli, and it became our primary film venue. During this time, it was the second Indiana Jones flick, Beverly Hills Cop and The Breakfast Club that I watched here for the first time.

It was The Breakfast Club that got me thinking about the Tivoli this morning. I woke up with David Bowie's "Changes" stuck in my head for some reason, and somehow followed the song into its usage in that movie, where they display the quote about how the children are quite aware of what they're going through.

Watching it in the theater, it struck me as the first time a film seemed to be speaking directly to me, to people my age who were not necessarily cool or popular. And the quotation burned itself into me.

At the time, as a sixth-grader, the lyrics and the song were much the same as the Tivoli to me: something from before I had consciousness. Things of any vintage at all were somehow either timeless (if they had any relevance to me) or merely old (if they did not). The Tivoli and the song were timeless to me. David Bowie, in that moment, may as well have been Shakespeare or Poe.

Now that I am older I can place things in context. The theater, with its art deco stylings and its 1400 fairly comfortable seats, truly was timeless. The song was, at the time the film came out, less than 15 years old. While it would perhaps prove itself timeless in due course, in 1985 it was merely a hit from the previous decade.

I imagine that somewhere in a darkened theater right now, and 11-year-old is watching a film which uses some song from the mid-90s and having the same response. And then I realize that there really aren't any movies out there which are trying to speak to this younger generation in the way that The Breakfast Club tried to speak to mine. Certainly, no one seems to be making any money doing so. All the 11-year-olds are undoubtedly out seeing Transformers, if they're in a cinema at all.

A beautiful morning

I ventured forth to obtain a sandwich from an enormous corporation to serve as my breakfast. The storms of the night were gone, and the remaining clouds were as rich, creamy and textured as a watercolor. This made the Hancock Building and the other spikes of steel which line the eastern sky seem much closer than normal, like they had been pulled inland because of the rain.

The birds were out in force, doing whatever they do in the mornings. One tiny black one with a yellow beak hopped across the hood of my car as I waited at a light, stopping only to chirp at me as it passed. A congregation of gulls had come in from the lake to murmur at one another on the signs and rooftop of the Burger King on Chicago Avenue.

There's a bakery I'd never seen before just before Damen Avenue. The Bleeding Heart, which appeals both to my fondness for ghastly things and my political orientation. I wish I'd seen it before I'd purchased a sack of food at McDonald's. Each letter of the name is laid out on its own wooden circle, painted an unfortunate pink. I plan to wander back there in the next couple of days, to see what it is like.

Last summer, the combination music store/cheap diner (boasting the "Best Sloppy Joes in town," served under a wall of used guitars) experimented with having a curbside coffee cart. I pulled over out of curiosity and they gave me a free cup in honor of being a new customer. The cart is no longer something they do. My guess is that they were handicapped from the start simply by being situated on the north side of the road. The cars who can pull over most easily are pointing at poorer neighborhoods. Had they crossed the street and picked up some of the traffic headed east, toward the financial and business hub of the city, they might still be there.

Or maybe they just gave out too many free introductory cups to folks like me, who are not generally up and about during the morning hours. At any rate, I never returned to buy a cup.

The rain seems to have cleaned the air, washing away the recent rash of heat in the process. I looked at the glow in the east, slightly to the left of the Hancock Building, so easily mistaken for the Sears Tower even by lifelong residents with a poor sense of geography. I looked at the layers of clouds and the birds and the buildings.

It was a beautiful morning in Chicago.

Like spider legs

Well, I have been tagged again. This time by Cailleach, for eight random facts about myself. Leaving aside the argument as to whether one can achieve anything approaching "random" for these purposes, I'll give it a shot.

1. I cannot write in cursive or lower-case letters. My cursive was impossible for even me to decipher, and I just sort of forgot how to make lower-case letters. I make non-capitalized letters in small caps. Only my signature is cursive.

2. I have never seen an ocean, or any body of water larger than Lake Michigan. This dovetails quite nicely into my irrational fear of water and the fact that I cannot swim.

3. In January of 1992, I decided to keep track of all the books I read. At the end of the month, the total was 53. I doubt I've ever duplicated that feat. I've never tracked my reading like that before or since.

4. Every place I visit, I decide I would like to live there. I nearly spent a winter in Athens, GA because I liked it during a brief stay. The only exception I can think of was Denver, CO, which is also the only place I have ever visited and then moved to. Twice.

5. I was briefly the editor of a music magazine after leaving college. My interview was held in an Arby's. Six months later, at my first professional audition in Chicago, I landed the role of the editor of a music magazine in "The Blank Page," by Adam Langer (Adam is now a bestselling author). I played the same role in the film of the same name, so I have now had more experience playing the editor of a small, indie magazine than I had being one.

6. I once quit a job because my employer wouldn't allow me to listen to music. I was shoved into a room all by myself, and wanted to listen through headphones. My boss looked like Captain Kangaroo, and didn't believe for a second that music makes me more productive. It does, and every job I've had since has confirmed that. At the time, this seemed like a trivial reason to leave employment to everyone but me.

7. Until I started blogging, I never had anything resembling a nickname my entire life. Now people call me variations of "Moon" or "Mr. Topples" even sometimes in real life. I'm still not certain I approve of this.

8. In the period after map of july's first record came out, we played some pretty diverse shows, including a bar mitzvah and the lobby of a 30-cinema theater on the day Godzilla opened. There was an enormous inflatable lizard on the roof above us.

As usual, I tag no one, but let me know if you take a stab yourself and I'll come by and check it out.

Differences

My visit to the suburbs this weekend was once again a reminder that there is an entirely different world just outside of the city limits.

I stopped for some of the affordable cigarettes mentioned in the previous post. The gas station I went to had not locked the doors to the mini-mart, even though it was past eleven. I did not have to shout my requirements through four inches of bulletproof glass. Even stranger, the clerk behind the counter was a young female. This never happens where I live, as young people in general don't typically work in gas stations after dark. I had started to assume that after ten or so, no one worked at a gas station anywhere in America without that person getting a share of the profits from the business. There's just too much risk.

A few years ago, I think maybe at this same suburban gas station, I experienced another odd thing. I was attempting to refuel my car, and went inside since I wanted to pay cash. I told the clerk I wanted to fill the tank, but didn't know how much it would be. I offered to give him $20 and return to either pay the remaining total or to claim my change. He looked at me as though I were potentially dangerous, or as though my English was fatally flawed.

"Yeah," he said slowly. "We could do that...or you could just fill it up and then come in and pay."

I marveled at how trusting he was. Even a credit card purchase at the pump requires that you punch in your zip code for additional authorization at the stations near my home. It would never have occurred to me that I could pay after I filled up the tank.

Somewhere around this time I went with Craig to see a film at one of those 30-screen multiplex cinemas they grow out there. I had a feeling of unease as we stood in the ticket line, and had trouble identifying what it was that was making me uncomfortable.

At first I thought it was simply the sheer number of teenagers around us. I thought it was just that I was so unused to seeing large groups of kids or something. After a few minutes, the real source hit me.

"Why are there only white people here?" I asked Craig under my breath, like I was scared they would hear me.

Maybe that's how you know you live in a diverse city: when the sight of only white people in a crowd can be frightening, even though I happen to be white myself. I'm sure I blended right in to a casual observer.

I caught sight of a small cluster of Latin kids and relaxed.

Dreams in review

Getting a fever after Memorial Day means the official kick-off of the Summer Blockbuster Dream season. For me to get dreams this long and vivid usually requires that I be wearing a nicotine patch, but the last few days have been like a film festival while I flitted in and out of consciousness. While I don't often recall my dreams, here are my reviews of a couple that stood out.

***SPOILER ALERT***

The reviews which follow may contain plot information and other details. If you have not already had the dreams in question, you may wish to skip the rest of this post.

Dream #1

Synopsis:
I am flying to London with my friend Craig and my high school girlfriend. I am excited about the trip when talking to Craig, but nervous when talking to the ex-girlfriend, fearful that the things I have planned will not be good enough.

Judgement:
Although sometimes historically accurate (and a pretty decent reminder of how absolutely crappy that relationship was) I found the constant cycling between the ex-girlfriend scenes and the more lighthearted Craig ones a little heavy-handed. The point was made the first time. Also, as I was conscious of the unpleasant aspects of the former flame without any plausible explanation being given for our being back together, it felt more than a little contrived. Since I did not seem to know any of my Brit-Blogfriends in the dream, I felt they could have been introduced to add a little depth to the character of me, rather than the ping-ponging, rather limited one on display. A waste of a decent premise (a trip to England) that seemed more about recovering old neuroses than exploring new ground.

Overall:
D+. A mediocre experience that left a bad taste in my mouth. Not recommended.


Dream #2:

Synopsis:
GoodThomas and I are waiters in a large restaurant. True to form, GT takes his job seriously, while I appear to view it as simply a means to an end. I am about to punch out when GT is slammed with too many customers, and I agree to tag-team his tables with him.

Judgement:
As GT and I are both former actors, I found the notion of us waiting tables believable. The dialog was often good as well, as GT and I were seemingly quite good at bantering with each other and our tables. While bantering is often a strange thing to find oneself doing in a dream, both GT and I stayed pretty much in character throughout, and in these scenes both of us seemed more likable than we might have in separate dreams. Most of the third act involved my using GT as a sort of wingman to pitch woo at a female customer, while I completely neglected the tables full of people. This resolved itself a little too neatly when virtually all of the other tables miraculously emptied, leaving us time to sit and chat. At the end, my friend Ian arrived at the restaurant as I was punching out, possibly setting the stage for a sequel.

Overall: B+. Despite some third act problems, the dialog and setup were both believable and entertaining.

What if he was Heathcliff?

Headed up to the 32nd Ward tonight to see Michael Penn play at Schuba's. Schuba's is the type of place that makes for good concerts, and they tend to book the sort of acts who will benefit from the intimacy of the room.

Michael is the brother of Sean and the late Chris Penn, and you may recall him having a hit in 1990 with "No Myth," which you might think is called "Romeo in Black Jeans" or possibly "Someone to Dance With." He makes fun of this confusion in concert. He also hates to banter between songs.

It isn't that he cannot entertain a crowd with idle chat, it just seems to be something in which he has no interest. He's always looking for ways to replace this activity with something else. At a show I attended in 2000 (a tour with his wife, Aimee Mann) they used a comedian to handle all the chat that might need to take place while musicians were tuning. He was a great fit for the show, and the whole night was hugely entertaining.

This time, he had a microphone set up near the sound board for the audience to have a try. He told us that anything was fair game except for comments about him or Q & A. Most of us were reluctant to get up and try to entertain the crowd, but a couple of folks got up there and told a joke. I can't say this added much to the show, as Mr. Penn was far and away the best entertainer in the room. He usually got a laugh just responding to the person with the microphone. But of course, no one had come to see Slightly-Tipsy Middle-Aged Woman do her comedy routine.

He still sounds amazing, and there was a kazoo solo. What more needs to be said?

Schuba's was one of the places we were very hungry to play during the map of july years, but both times they asked us to come down were times when we were already booked to play another room. It was painful to have to decline. I'd still love to play Schuba's, but I have to admit that my chances are pretty slim unless I put together another band. Might happen one of these days. Who knows?

*****

Don't forget to vote for your favorites in the GBA(s)FC #2. Take another look at the rules (at the bottom of the contest page) if you have any questions about how to do this.

Toothpaste, time management, and trying something new

Junior was talking with Loudmouth at the counter as I approached to purchase my cigarettes. Loudmouth was telling Junior that hip-hop was dead, and that he should rely on Bon Jovi and Warrant to serve as the music for a gathering Junior seemed to be planning. Loudmouth beamed at me as he said this, delighted at his joke.

"I'm more of a Kiss fan," Junior said.

"What'd they ever do?" Loudmouth asked, before fake-headbanging and singing the chorus to "School's Out."

"That's Alice Cooper," I said, jabbing my finger upwards in what has become how I order cigarettes from Loudmouth, who is never not talking. I then held up six fingers and he pulled down six packs of cigarettes. If I wait for a chance to speak, I can be stuck there for hours.

"Alice Cooper," Junior said, somewhat wistfully. He entended his fist to me. I know from previous encounters that I am to extend my fist to come into contact with his. Awkward as this gesture may be, it is infinitely preferrable to the "high-five."

Junior listed some Kiss songs as Loudmouth rang me up. I offered "Beth," but was told that didn't count because it was a ballad.

"Man, I loved Kiss," Junior said. "I used to put toothpaste in my mouth and..." A customer cut him off with a question, leaving Loudmouth and I to speculate as to what exactly he used to do with toothpaste in his mouth.

"...and rinse," said Loudmouth, grinning.

"I certainly hope that's what he was going to say. I wonder if he still puts toothpaste in his mouth," I said.

Junior dispatched the questioning customer and resumed his tale, pantomiming brushing his teeth this time.

"I used to put toothpaste in my mouth and then go out into the other room and go 'ahhhhh.'" With the last word, he pantomimed playing a guitar, rolling his head and working his tongue around outside his mouth. The "ahhhhh" does not do the sound justice. I can find no combination of letters that would do the job.

"I couldn't, you know, use real blood," he explained.

"Take care, um, music fans," I called out as I made my exit.

*****

Craig came by to jump-start my car this evening. My recent vandals had left the dome light on, and I had failed to notice, depleting my battery. When I tried to start it yesterday, it made no attempt to roar to life, and I nervously popped the hood to see if someone had come by and stolen my battery.

We stood outside the vehicle as it idled, giving the battery a chance to charge. I glanced in through the window and noticed that it's really dirty in there right now. It looked cleaner before the stereo gang pulled extra trash from under the seats in what I imagine was the search for the stereo's faceplate.

"I really have to clean out my car," I said.

"Yeah," he said dryly. "But how will you find the time."

So already my lack of Dayworking has opened me up to all new areas of ridicule. Fantastic.

*****

I did something new today, Blogreader. I took something I had written and submitted it. In this case, it was an entry for the "Endless Hour" flash fiction contest over at Clarity of Night. Based on the picture at left, contestants are to compose an entry of no more than 250 words. Since I sponsor such a contest myself (May 1st, if your calendar remains unmarked) I thought it might be a good idea to give it a whirl.

I wrote my entry in something like 20 minutes, but then spent quite a long time whittling it down to the proper length, and trying to make the story cohesive and complete within the insane word limit. I wrote it yesterday, and was quite pleased with the result, but on rereading it today, I was far less enamored with it. I did one final combing of the text and then submitted it anyway. I'm not figuring on winning a prize, and the other people I let take a peek all seemed to like it. I thought if I held off, I might talk myself out of the whole thing.

The point is, though, that I have never before submitted fiction anywhere. So the Clarity of Night contest is pretty much my virgin attempt to enchant strangers with things I have made up. Without luring them to my blog and having them read it here, that is.

I encourage any of you who think it might be interesting or fun to have a try yourselves.

It's weird, but now that it's out there, I feel even less sure of it than I did before submitting it. I wrote the story that the picture conjured in my mind, but I cannot help but feel that I should have written something funny instead. I am far more self-conscious about my writing when it contains no attempts at humor.

I'll probably post my entry here within a day or two. For now, though, you can pop on over to Clarity of Night if you have an interest in reading it. I'm entry number three (unlike the GBA(s)FC, there's no condition of anonymity, so I'm allowed to tell you that, or to post the story here if I so choose).

Let me know if you have a crack at it yourself. I'm very curious what other people will come up with. The two entries already posted are both quite different from mine and from each other, so I'm hopeful that there will be a lot of different viewpoints represented.

Another day in the neighborhood

I sat doing a crossword puzzle in a nearby coffeehouse this afternoon. At one point, I was speaking with GoodThomas on the phone, when the waiter came by to ask me a question.

Aware that GT was at work, I said "I don't know how your day is going, but a man just stopped by to see if I wanted my slice of cake yet."

The line went dead right around then. Coincidence? Perhaps.

*****

A little while later (after my cake if you must know), I went outside for a cigarette. As I stood there smoking, I noticed a group of five teenagers on the opposite corner, across the street from me. They were standing there passively, not going anywhere. I wondered briefly if perhaps they had taken my stereo. I wondered if they were on that corner to sell drugs.

And then I felt a little ashamed of myself for wondering such things.

A police car pulled up next to them, and two short, white cops who could have been twins burst forth. Two of the kids tried to walk blithely away, the picture of nonchalance, but they were quickly corralled to stand facing the wall of a building, hands atop their heads with the others. The building they were pressing up against housed a small store a few years ago. I don't know what happened to the store. I used to shop there.

They all seemed pretty casual about the whole thing, even the two cops who did not seek backup before undertaking to thoroughly frisk each of the kids standing there. From time to time one of them would turn around and say something that looked like a joke. It was unclear whether he was joking with his friends or with the police officers. After the initial wrangling of the kids against the wall, nobody seemed to be in much of a hurry.

The drugs, if there were even any drugs, were not in any of the obvious places. That much was clear by the fact that all were still being searched with nothing having been held up or tossed to the ground when I finished my cigarette and went back inside.

I was standing at a vantage that would have made a terrific photograph, and I was momentarily disappointed that I did not have my camera before I recalled the fact that people do not necessarily enjoy having their pictures taken while being frisked by police officers, hands on heads, legs apart, cheeks pressed against the wall of a building.

When I left the coffeehouse about fifteen minutes later, all seven of them were still there. The frisking was over, but each of the teens still stood against the wall, still held position. They seemed to be chatting idly, perhaps passing the time. A tiny flock of people had gathered around, and some of them seemed to be talking to either the police or the kids or both.

I walked home.

Like gerbils and créme brûlée...

I was reminded of this story while writing a comment to NMJ on her post about finding her new moisturizer smelled like bubble gum.

*****

When my cats were still just tiny kittens with eyes of blue, I had to take them to the vet a lot to get vaccines and such. At one point, I was given a vial of pink fluid and some plastic eyedroppers and told to administer a dose of the liquid to the cats by mouth twice a day.

"Will this be something they'll fight me on?" I asked the bubbly veterinary assistant. I have had experiences before where dishing out medicine involved cornering the animal and forcing it down their throat because they hate it so much. I was wondering if I should purchase falconer's gloves to protect my skin from supernaturally sharp kitten claws.

I'm sure I meant "on which they'll fight me," but she was kind enough to not point out my error.

"Oh, no," the very sweet, very empty girl informed me. "It tastes just like bubble gum!"

"Ah, yes," I replied dryly as she beamed back at me. "Everyone knows how much cats love bubble gum."

I wondered if she worked there in the pet clinic because the uniform was so close to being pajamas.

*****

Weirdly, I searched the entire internet and was unable to come up with an image of a cat blowing a bubble with which to illustrate this post. Does that seem right to you?

Burgled, Balsiti, Break

So today marks the beginning of certain kinds of freedom, and more or less the end of other kinds of freedom.

How this was all supposed to go was that at some point today, I would find myself magically transformed. I would have a glow about me. I would be working on my novel while lithe women fed me cantaloupe.

"I do not really like cantaloupe," I would say to them, and they would start to cry, as they had only wanted to bring me happiness. We would finally settle on grapes.

Fantasies aside, I was greeted instead by the telltale evidence that my car was once again burgled, and my stereo gone. The detachable face plate which is designed to avert exactly such an outcome was still in my apartment. The inside of my car looked like the part of a detective movie where someone's apartment gets ransacked by thugs. Stuff was simply everywhere.

I was only two weeks shy of having lasted an entire year without someone yanking my stereo out of the dashboard in the night. In both instances, the work was performed with at least a moderate level of skill: they always seem to leave me the wiring harness intact.

And this time, they didn't even break a window. How utterly thoughtful of them.

*****

I avoided going in to work today for as long as possible. I did this for two reasons. The obvious reason was because I really didn't want to go and have to do any work, but the real issue was the knowledge that going in meant packing up and going home and that going home from work today means that my commitment is over, and I am free to work on my novel as much as I choose.

Over the precipice I go. I should probably admit that I am terrified.

Technically speaking, I have no obligations of any kind lined up. I have nowhere to be, and nothing to do save for the things I choose for myself.

I hope the people I was working with will remember me for more than the last week or so, when a request to do something was often met with a petulant cry of "but I want to go work on my novel!"

Then I would begin crying.

It's the people I will miss, the social interaction and the exposure to other perspectives which make going to an office worthwhile (inasmuch as it is worthwhile). No more will I bounce a ball in GoodThomas' office, or cause him to hurl insults at me through various means. Two more skills, carefully honed but now of little use.

It seems that my primary tool of social interaction is to be this blog, for the time being. Please be kind and stop by often. I'm dying to talk to you. I promise I'll be nice.

*****

I took a little time while at work today to ascend to the roof of the building. I had never been up there, and there's no guarantee I'll ever have another chance. Who knows if I will be asked to work on the delightful fireworks project next year? Besides, I had my camera with me.

I got a lot of shots of rust, which are up on the Flickr page, along with other shots from the rooftop. The things on the rooftop fell pretty neatly into three categories: rusted or otherwise decrepit things, small bones left behind by ravenous gulls, and bird shit.

I also met a strange, wild-eyed man who lived up on the roof, fighting for space and food with the gulls and pigeons who occupy most of the vents and structures up there. That's him at right, threatening to shut down the power to the building if we did not hand over any sandwiches we had with us.

We gave him our sandwiches, and he told us he was the Amazing Balsiti, once a famous escape artist. He had declared his intent to escape from the very roof on which we stood, but had not been equal to the challenge. He was determined to remain up there until he got it right.

"Well, when we get tired of being up here, we're going to go through that door right there and then down the stairs," I explained slowly, pointing to our point of egress.

He rolled first one eye and then the other, muttering "amateurs" under his breath.

Later, sated by the sandwiches and somewhat more relaxed, the Amazing Balsiti produced a tiny man (seemingly from nowhere) who danced on his hand, sang "Camptown Races" a few times and vanished once we had all joined in.

150°

At a Dunkin' Donuts waiting for a cup of coffee, an impatient woman joined the line behind me and ordered a large coffee. The woman who took her order was new, still in training, and had some trouble with the cash register. The trainee then asked several times what the woman would like in her coffee. The woman ordering the coffee eventually made a glottal sound like a tiny cough to punctuate the beginning of a short burst of sigh.

"Jesus!" she said. "I shouldn't even be in here. I work at Starbucks!" She threw two singles onto the counter and looked around nervously. She did not seem to notice that I had begun to laugh at her.

*****

Today, at an entirely different Dunkin' Donuts (I like their coffee, OK?) I called my friend Micah, with whom I would be working for most of the afternoon, to see if he wanted me to pick him up something.

"I was just about to call you," he said before I could explain the purpose of my call. "I'm on my way to Starbucks. Want anything?"

I like coffee synergy.

Two days ago, Micah owed me $45. Yesterday, he owed me $50. After I bought him the coffee this afternoon, the total rose to about $52. I do not like where this is going. Especially as the person I know who might most easily break someone's leg is none other than Micah. I can't imagine he will let me hire him to do himself harm should he fail to make good on his financial obligations to me.

Plus, it'd be terrible if word got out that I'm not charging him interest.

To get Micah to smile like that, I just said "look stupid" over and over again in a very soothing tone, like I were giving direction to a small child. I think this shot was immediately after "OK, good, now: stupider."

*****

I think I saw some corner boys in my neighborhood today, standing blithely on the corner. They stood more or less facing one another, but angled so that together they had a nearly 360° view of the surrounding area. They didn't seem concerned about anything in the world, except for the fact that they were clearly watching all sides for trouble. I hope it was just a coincidence, that they were going about some other business. It's not like I don't think there are drugs for sale in my neighborhood, but I'd rather not have such openness about it so near to my home. That's the kind of behavior that usually leads to stray bullets prematurely ending the life of one of the local children, or the teachers at the school up the block.

Or me.

*****

I was up in Wicker Park, where I took a couple of pictures. One of the Double Door (on the Flickr page in color and then again in black and white because I couldn't decide which one I liked better) and the one at right: a currency exchange which was advertising a current temperature which was off by well over a hundred degrees.

To provide an illustration of how hot 150° would really be: when making a latte or a cappuccino, the milk is supposed to be heated with the steam wand until it reaches 140°. That's as hot as you can go without burning the milk.

I was at the same currency exchange many years ago on a first date. I hadn't had a chance to get my paycheck into the bank, so I brought it with me, and this place was the first stop of the date. They refused to cash it (it was for too much money, or so they claimed) and I was forced to ask her if she could pay for everything we did. I cannot recall ever seeing her again.

Spent a chunk of time browsing the stacks at Myopic Books, one of my favorite bookstores. The store is crammed with books on several floors. It is simply lousy with books of all types and vintages.

The fiction section—which starts on the rickety "balcony" and continues on the first floor—requires a map and a guide to navigate properly. There are cats roaming the aisles, or sleeping on the ledges. It is a terrible store to enter in hopes of finding a specific volume, but, as my friend Craig pointed out, it is a wonderful place to come across a book. I came across a couple of books for myself, and bought a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Palm Sunday for Craig, because I think he'll really like it.

"Hey, that's the dude who died recently," he said as I handed it to him.

"Yes," I said, somewhat wearily. "The very same...dude."

*****

Still have not quite untangled myself from the Dayworking. I expect Monday will end it, though. I hope Monday will end it. Should any of my coworkers or my supervisor log in to check my blog, I would really like to be done now, please.

Craig asked me what I was doing at work today. I told him it would be really difficult to answer the question without going into a lot of detail about what it is I actually do. Craig, like most people, has no clear idea what tasks I actually perform for money.

"I half expected you to say 'graphic arts stuff,'" he said.

That's certainly going to be my response next time.

*****

I have no intention of showing you pictures of all the people I mention on this blog, but I happened to have some fairly nice portraits of both Craig and Micah on hand.

*****

How have I been blogging for this long without ever using "coffee" as a tag?

This oversight has been corrected.