December 26, 2024
At Pinstripes, cocktails are half off from 16:00 to 18:00 on Thursdays. It’s about $65 for two hours of bocce. Not a bad deal I guess.
It’s the day after Christmas. I leave my party toward the end of the game to go home and walk the dog before our dinner reservation. I’ll meet them there.
I ride the #2 Hyde Park Express from Grand and McClurg down Michigan Avenue to State and Washington, where I hop the Blue Line subway toward ORD.
On the bus, two girlfriends board with their toddlers and sit near me. Seems they’re on their way back from Navy Pier. The kids are tired and cold, snuggled in their fleece blankets.
One is watching me with interest. I smile. Then she pulls a rope of snot a few inches long from her nose and contemplates it.
I pull an individually wrapped wipe from my backpack and hand it to the mothers, who had been searching frantically for one of their own to intercept the child’s finding before she could eat it.
They expressed profuse gratitude and we joked about the branding: Dude Wipes.
November 10, 2022
Traffic is never perfectly safe at the intersection where our apartment is situated. Crossing the street requires vigilance, and some audacity. On weekday mornings sleepy drivers blinded by the rising sun face aggression from those more alert and less patient. The honking is constant. We hear things calm down after rush hour twice a day. Then, late at night, an unnerving lawlessness sets in.
Out intersection is close to the highway, clogged with commuters by day and thrashed by drag racers at night. In between, a line of hipsters and tourists fill the sidewalk and bike lane waiting for a seat at the popular brunch spot next door.
In the cold months, low golden sun screams in our living room windows in the morning, the electric stress of morning traffic surging through the intersection below. Drivers blare their horns at one another in hopeless fury, aware of nothing but the imbecile ahead making them eight seconds late. Residents endure, pushing their strollers, pulling their dogs, drinking their coffee and carrying on.
Noise is weaponized here, fraying even the most hardened city dweller. Any driver who lies on their horn more than two seconds deserves a cup of hot coffee through their window, but it hardly ever happens.
The aggression escalates, always. There is no aspect of life, none of the five senses, no human process or ritual immune to violence now.
Magnesium, cholesterol medicine interactions affecting sleep and sleep data collected by a new ring she’s wearing. Reviewing data from last night and recent trends in an app on her phone, which now her friend is holding, scrolling through and remarking, comparing with her own sleep issues while the phone’s owner—the one with the ring—fixes her coffee. Cream with two spoonfuls of sugar.
A man outside the cafe I’m sitting in stops on the path through the small park outside. He must be feeling himself today because he’s been taking selfies for the past five minutes. Longer.
Holding his phone as far as his limbs allow, and cocking it at an artful angle in his hand. Shot after shot. From behind him I can only faintly see his expression change when the muscles in his jaw flex. Everything flexing.
I think for a moment of recording him, of sharing it with a friend or publishing it online to mock his narcissism. But I think too of the way self portraiture is a form of self love. If your appearance makes you feel good surely there’s no harm in capturing it when not at the expense of others. But the immodesty too. The issue’s unsettled.
He sets his backpack down and gently rests the phone against it on the ground. Touching the phone as little as possible for fear of knocking it over, marring the pristine glass housing. He taps a button on the screen to activate a timer. He steps back then, unsure of the phone’s stability. He kneels, either posing or too nervous with the phone precarious out of his reach.
Crossing his arms now, he strikes a new pose. Suddenly projecting confidence. Dramatic change, the contrast jarring.