gentle cold breeze in the windows low late afternoon sun, its colors warming drowsy dog, a pretzel dozing in his fluffy donut bed, after playing at the park like the kids now screaming and giggling in the bath they will sleep well tonight
lesbian indie rock on the stereo
us making a shopping list for cocktails and dinner with a friend and home improvement – style upgrades, like a peel-and-stick accent wall with a zany maximalist pattern
afternoon beer #2 no time for art, no time to nap there is only time to be in this moment inadequately captured
get the camera
let’s go outside again.
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.