Something new instead of something old.
Recently I got that feeling, as though I hadn't updated in far too long; then I checked my journal and saw it'd only been a week, and figured I was good for a few more days. I checked in today, and saw that same comforting "Date updated: 2006-04-18 04:30:36, 1 week ago." Good try, for sure, but you can't fool me (twice), LJ. That's not a week.
On top of that perceptual snafu, I kicked out two disappointing drafts in a row. I was trying to tell a self-mocking-anecdote-slash-hyperbolic-tale-of-adventure, but it definitely came out stupid, and oddly whiny: "OMG I wuz on da El 4 so long d00d LOL lyk WTF" bullshit, you know. And somehow, once I began, expired grievances began to slip in, although surely you don't want to hear about dreams I had that reminded me of conflicts circa middle school, or entries from the Thoughtless Things People Said 1999 Edition. Even I didn't care. So while I hate to part with a phrase like "a more optimal deployment of chest meat," it wasn't really going anywhere. Instead I will tell you a short story with a happy middle and no ending, and then I'll go to bed.
I've found myself downtown on a couple of occasions recently, and I want you to know that I like riding around the Loop. I'm only ever down there in the early morning or the mid-to-late-afternoon, i.e., when the Purple Express is running from Evanston. (Otherwise I'd be on the Red Line, which is underground through the Loop, and which I do not love at all, actually.) The Purple/Green/Orange Lines are fantastic because they cruise around in the sunlight, running over the river and darting between apartment buildings and skyscrapers, cutting close corners and allowing you to look at reflections, and into windows (once waiting for a train down on Wabash I saw a black-and-white cat suddenly stand up in a third-story kitchen windowsill and stretch elaborately to greet her owner as he walked into the room). Mixed in with the modern glass towers are lots of older buildings, most of which have bands of decorative stonework. Since the tracks run so near the walls, from the train you can only see the buildings in pieces, each one separately: a repeated figure in the carvings, a bright patch of sun, a plane of gridded glass, or an old iron light fixture. I think about riding around and documenting the patterns in the stonework, turning them all into borders for manuscripts.
More prosaically, if you time it right you can be in a car already, comfortably seated, when Chicago's young urban professionals burrow out of their workplaces and pile onto the train. As I'm yet to hear there's any harm in considering clean-cut, neatly dressed twentysomethings (provided you refrain from catcalling, and particularly before Memorial Day, when they're at least not wearing khakis with the unavoidable blue shirts), feel free to look up from your book as often as you like.
On top of that perceptual snafu, I kicked out two disappointing drafts in a row. I was trying to tell a self-mocking-anecdote-slash-hyperbolic-tale-of-adventure, but it definitely came out stupid, and oddly whiny: "OMG I wuz on da El 4 so long d00d LOL lyk WTF" bullshit, you know. And somehow, once I began, expired grievances began to slip in, although surely you don't want to hear about dreams I had that reminded me of conflicts circa middle school, or entries from the Thoughtless Things People Said 1999 Edition. Even I didn't care. So while I hate to part with a phrase like "a more optimal deployment of chest meat," it wasn't really going anywhere. Instead I will tell you a short story with a happy middle and no ending, and then I'll go to bed.
I've found myself downtown on a couple of occasions recently, and I want you to know that I like riding around the Loop. I'm only ever down there in the early morning or the mid-to-late-afternoon, i.e., when the Purple Express is running from Evanston. (Otherwise I'd be on the Red Line, which is underground through the Loop, and which I do not love at all, actually.) The Purple/Green/Orange Lines are fantastic because they cruise around in the sunlight, running over the river and darting between apartment buildings and skyscrapers, cutting close corners and allowing you to look at reflections, and into windows (once waiting for a train down on Wabash I saw a black-and-white cat suddenly stand up in a third-story kitchen windowsill and stretch elaborately to greet her owner as he walked into the room). Mixed in with the modern glass towers are lots of older buildings, most of which have bands of decorative stonework. Since the tracks run so near the walls, from the train you can only see the buildings in pieces, each one separately: a repeated figure in the carvings, a bright patch of sun, a plane of gridded glass, or an old iron light fixture. I think about riding around and documenting the patterns in the stonework, turning them all into borders for manuscripts.
More prosaically, if you time it right you can be in a car already, comfortably seated, when Chicago's young urban professionals burrow out of their workplaces and pile onto the train. As I'm yet to hear there's any harm in considering clean-cut, neatly dressed twentysomethings (provided you refrain from catcalling, and particularly before Memorial Day, when they're at least not wearing khakis with the unavoidable blue shirts), feel free to look up from your book as often as you like.