I Was Commuting Downtown

On the twenty-fifth of April I wrote that I went to bed writing at midnight on the 23rd and then slept pretty well.  I heard, as if from far away, my companion talking in her sleep.  The next morning she told me that in her dream she had gone to a bar when she had forgotten her credit card and had had to make a 200 dollar tip.  I dreamt that I was in an SF where it would snow regularly.  The country had been conquered by pre-modern Germans.  The dream looked like a TV drama.

We realized we would need to do laundry and our artist friend (who does tattoos) had told us where to go the day before.  We grabbed a bag and walked up Sawyer.  There were construction guys.  We had to circle the block at Kimball because Milwaukee was angled there and we didn’t see Diversey Street.

We made the laundry and walked to Intelligencia and then walked back to switch to a dryer.  Some guys were repairing a sign.  Then we walked to Lula.  We had to walk around the park at Logan Square.  We sat in the back.  My companion had creamed nettles and I had bacon and eggs.

We crossed the park and got some Divvys and returned to the laundry.  We passed the construction guys again on Sawyer. One of them said he had a fixie.  My companion dumped the laundry and we headed to Humboldt Park via the boulevards and Palmer Square.  She left me alone for a moment while we cruised around the lakes.  I noted that the parks are odd south of Humboldt because they are on the edges of neighborhoods.

At Franklin I decided that I didn’t have enough information to identify what had been on Governor’s Parkway previously.  I was under the impression that there had been an old factory there.  We decided not to continue along the boulevards at Lake because there was a bike path that connected to Ashland station under the tracks.  While there I thought that I could take a photo but a pink line train came along and we boarded that instead.

It was a short train.  We got off at State and Lake and walked across the river.  My companion took photos of the Marina condos while we descended to the Kinzie.  She really wanted to see new coffee shops so we found a place called Bow Tross.  On the way I saw one of the presenters from my session but only talked to her for a second.  We had a delicious tart and some coffee.  I went over to the Merch Mart alone and my companion met me there.  We then boarded a Brown Line and went to Congress and Jackson.  She lost a broach that her roommate had purchased for her.

I wanted to see a store there but we discovered that it was a hip hop brand and neither of us were interested in that type of clothing.  We rented some Divvys then and rode out to the lake.  That was where we discovered that it gets really cold in the shadows downtown.  In the sun it warmed up though.  We took pictures of the Willis tower from the lakeside and then stopped by a yacht club.  I snuck in alone.  When I came out again my companion told me that her phone had died so we decided to figure out how to recharge it.

We rode the Lakeside trail to Oak Street and dumped the Divvys for a drink at the Drake.  We tried to charge the phone there but had no luck.  I texted our artist friend instead and also got a call from some recruiter in Stockton.  I was really disinterested in the job that he was offering but his boss in San Ramon was calling me right after.

My companion had been calling the Hancock Center the Death Star up to that point.  We went to Bloomingdales near there and walked around.  We looked at boutiques and then went inside to look at their jackets.  My companion checked out a vintage shop there.  We went to Washington Square then and caught the Red line to Argyle.  On the way we passed over the Italian place we had gone the night before and Wrigley Field.  There are bleachers above the buildings there.  I also noted that there are four sets of tracks at Argyle.

We walked by the St Augustine school and then walked up State Street.  There were a few neat shops there but most of them were closed.  We went to Lady Gregory’s then and had some drinks.  We made plans to eat with our artist friend at Rez’s but later we found a few places that may have been better.  We got a really big table and I went in the back and found the place was huge.  When I came back I found we weren’t alone anymore as our friends had found us.  We had falafel and Mediterranean salad.  We got some beer and talked about my companion’s roommate.  I thought the food was ok but there was too much and I wasn’t able to finish it.

We went to Simon’s Tavern then and met a local girl—a musician that tours on occasion.  She told us that she played the violin.  They talked about the good old days when they both used to live in Andersonville/Uptown.  I gave up on trying to participate then.  Sue took us to the store then and we caught an Uber ride and said bye.  I noted while looking out the window that Chicago is a different place when viewed out a car window since some streets like Ashland are designed for cars.  At the place my companion and chilled on the couch and then I took some time to be alone for a while before going to bed around 11.

In the morning I slept through the alarm but got up a bit later and left.  I went to Intelligencia and after eating I filled up a cup for the road.  On the train I sat next to a lady that wasn’t happy that I sat too close to her.  I felt like I was commuting downtown.  I got off at 1 West Randolph Center and went to Wacker where I saw a ghost bike and then went to the Illinois Center.  I accessed the wifi then and eventually found the room that a well-known transportation advocate was presenting in.  I was in time to catch the end of the first session.

He was in the back listening.  I sat near the front and listened to the end of session discussion.  I noted down all of the different people that were involved.  I went and got coffee after wards and met a guy who taught at CCSF.  I returned to the same room then and my professor from grad school was there talking to the academic.

Many of the same people were there for the second session it was just that their roles were reversed.  One of the presentations was about vision zero and another was about truck routes.  The academic’s was about “street fights” but focused on the relationships between neoliberal and progressive politics in relationship to transportation.  When the presentations were done my professor said hi to me but only just that.

After this I went down to the bar for a drink and then to the poster presentations.  I was really early to meet my old coworker from the gas company.  However, the conference only had business meetings to offer.  I noted that I had missed a session that was distinct in its attendance by professors from my university.

I got lost in Illinois Center on my way to Millennium Park and once there I waited a moment before my old coworker showed up.  He took me to a Thai place on Ohio called Dao.  When I told him where I was working he told me he used to work for a company that my new employer had purchased.  He said he quit because of the possibility of takeover.  He said that was when we returned to the gas company.  Later he was on hiatus with them and that was how we ended up working together.

He said he had just gone to Green Bay for a meeting and had come back the day before.  I told him about my experience after working together.  I noted that he had family in SF.  As we walked back to his office he told me to forget about our last project and concentrate on large data systems.

I found my companion at the Giant Silver Bean then.  I had gotten lost under Millennium Park.  We took a lot of photos.  She told me that she had gotten up and had had coffee and went to Wicker Park and Ukrainian Village.  Apparently there is very little open around noon there but she had found new cape and ditched her old jacket.  We wandered the loop for a bit passing through the library.  We ended up going to the bars at the Wit so that we could check out the views from the top.  She got a cheese plate and we looked at the views.

After that we went to the Loop and almost got on the wrong train to Oak Park.  Once we were on the correct train we identified which station to get off at to visit Wright’s studio.  We saw the regional rail out the window as we traveled.  We got off at our station and walked up Ashland to Lake.  We saw several Wright buildings while walking around Oak Park and that surprised us.  We also noted it was late and damp so we went to a restaurant.  It was called Winberie’s.  We had prosecco and salmon on a plank with beets.  The hostess charged my companion’s phone.

We had a couple of drinks at the bar on the way out and then hopped in a cab.  I followed our trip on my companion’s phone and the driver wound through Oak Park on the way to our place.  He didn’t seem to like my directions so had us enter the address into his GPS.  It was pouring pretty good by then.  When we got out the driver insisted I give him all my cash.  We hung out for a while and I was in bed around 11.

On the morning of the day that I wrote this I was up at 10 but my companion had gotten up before me.  I had to catch up with her packing.  I made certain that my computer and notebook were accessible and then checked for transit options.  We left the apartment of a week then and rushed for a bus but that didn’t work.  We ended up in a cab headed down Milwaukee and got off at Damen where we had coffee at Colomb—it was beneath the station.

We talked and took photos there and my companion asked about other coffee shops.  As we were leaving a lady with a bike helmet told her she looked like her 3rd grade teacher.  We walked down Milwaukee to Worm Hole.  My companion had stopped in at a shop so I went in to order.  The place had a deLorean and lunch boxes everywhere.  I told the barista my name was McFly.  The coffee took too long.  We used a floppy disk to log into the Wifi.

We walked to Damen Station then and just missed a train and had to wait under the complementary heating lamps.  The ride took 25 minutes and then we had to navigate to the kiosk.  We went to the wrong one and when we found the correct one we were too late.  I told myself to calm down and we talked to a ticket person.  She told us we had to get tickets for the next plane, go through security and hope we could board our flight.

We ran and that worked.  I had to get a pen then and that was when I started to write.  Initially we had to sit separate but eventually we got to sit next to each other.  The lady on the other side was watching the movie Lucy and that was distracting.  We ate Pringles and had a few drinks.  While descending to PHX and my thoughts turned to disaster.

When we landed I was the most impatient of all.  My companion and I hustled around to out next plane and she needed food so we went to a brewery.  She didn’t like me being so impatient but I knew we didn’t have a lot of time.  When the food was about to arrive I went to the plane and my companion showed up with our food in boxes.  I finished writing as we finished eating.  The plane was half full.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.