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.