Life Rap

I love riding the bus. And one thing I've noticed over the past decade is that, much like a house, a warm bus attracts vermin during the cold months. Rats and mice I've never seen, thankfully, but bugs ... cockroaches, ants, different kinds of flying insects. They occasionally make themselves visible, even in the dead of February.

green lacewing

I don't kill bugs. Well, I do. But I feel very guilty when it happens. I will kill mosquitoes, though sometimes I blow them off my skin. I will kill thousand-leggers — those most-unwelcome Chicago visitors — because they sting. And cockroaches. I know I'm supposed to kill them, too, but once every 10 times or so I just can't. I admire their resiliency and stay my hand. Gunnery Sgt. Hartman would say that's how I become a dead marine — to hesitate at the moment of truth. But in this case I'm only letting a cockroach crawl around my house at night and eat the eyelashes of my children. (Sorry, Erika.)

That's my platform on killing bugs. I try to stop the kids from tormenting them, though they honestly don't know what they're doing. Ella "petting" an ant is meant as an affectionate gesture. She doesn't know what death is yet. Like all parents, that is the conversation I look forward to the least. In the meantime, I just try to steer them back toward the sandbox and say that the ant needs to go home. 

The Poet Laureate of Humboldt Park

In the past year I've become a big fan of Saul Bellow. I feel bad that it took me that long to read him, but as I often say about important bands I missed when I was younger: There's only so much time and money. With books it's even more of a time commitment.

I consider Bellow America's greatest post-WW2 novelist. For me, it's also a bonus that he grew up in Humboldt Park — the neighborhood where I lived when I first moved to Chicago and now very close to my current home.

If we're to believe Charlie Citrine in "Humboldt's Gift" (my favorite Bellow novel) is a stand-in for the author himself, then Bellow lived near Kedzie and Division. Erika and I often take the kids on a jog to this intersection because there's a nice playground there.

In the book, Citrine says that by the mid-70s his old house had been torn down. Today there's a very conspicuous vacant lot on Kedzie just north of Division between two brownstones.When I'm at the playground, I like to look at that lot and think it was where Bellow's childhood home stood. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't.

The park itself makes appearances from time to time in his books — often as a symbol of the rough but uncomplicated nature of youth. Over five years of living about four blocks away, we've grown to really love the park as well: as the backdrop for a run, a kids' pumpkin-picking or a late-night drive down the boulevard, the moon on the lagoon and the skyline in the distance.

Right now I'm reading "Dangling Man," Bellow's first novel. At one point the main character, Joseph, visits the old neighborhood. And there he remembers a bit of his childhood doings in the park. This is in 1943, but I was happy to read it was much the same then as it is now:

Sunday was warm, hinting at spring. We visited the Almstads. In the evening I walked in Humboldt Park, around the lagoon, across the bridge to the boathouse where we used to discuss Man and Superman and where, even earlier, with John Pearl, I pelted the lovers on the benches below the balcony with crab apples. The air had a brackish smell of wet twigs and moldering brown seed pods, but it was soft, and through it rose, with indistinct but thrilling reality, meadows and masses of trees, blue and rufous stone and reflecting puddles. After dark, as I was returning, a warm, thick rain began to fall with no more warning than a gasp. I ran.

Fear of Flying

I'm afraid of flying. Yes, I've flown in the past, even to Europe, but when I moved back here to Chicago the fear intensified and I haven't left the ground since. It's been a point of friction with Erika, who would like to go to Mexico, Italy and other points across the country and globe. I want to give her, and our children, these experiences more than anything in the world. And yet my fear has vexed me.

I've tried things to combat it, from CBT to drugs. This afternoon I'm going to pick up the next pill prescribed by my doctor to deaden my thoughts and senses so I can, hopefully, make an aerial passage. We'll see. We're heading to Southwest Michigan this afternoon for a long weekend vacation, and I'm planning at some point to indulge in a little mild controlled substance transgression by taking a wonder pill, drinking some wine and staring at the fireflies while Erika reads her book.

I hope this new drug will work, but I know that whatever "works" for me now can never completely erase my anxiety. It was never completely gone anyway when I flew before, as a kid or as a young adult. (Well, it actually was on one particular drug, but I won't touch that stuff ever again.) Ultimately, I must feel some kind of psychological discomfort. This is known as facing your fears.

I've had to face my fears all my life. Everyone has. Sometimes I feel like I've had more than the average person. All I can do is live and manage them as best I can. I'm at least heartened that my kids don't appear to be afraid of anything. I bet they'd love the plane.

……………………………………

The stop-gap solution has long been road trips. Erika and I have always enjoyed them, as a couple and before we knew each other. I took the Greyhound bus a great deal in college, doing the eight-hour ride up the 71 from Cincinnati to Buffalo. I also took it from Atlanta, Tampa and Gainesville. And when I moved to Syracuse, the bus was my way of getting to New York City. I never owned a car till we moved in together in 2004.

I can still tell you what the stops in Columbus, Rochester, Cortland, Scranton, Knoxville, Orlando and Cleveland (always my favorite) look like. And of course the mighty Port Authority terminal on Eighth Avenue — the country's biggest bus station. I would be practically jumping out of my seat in excitement when we pulled into one of its many docks there under the yellow lights, all of us dumped out into New York, scrambling like ants from a broken hive.

The great zine explosion of the '90s really fueled the romance of the bus thing. Seems like a third of everything written in every little pamphlet back then had to do with being on the Greyhound and meeting bizarre characters. For whatever reason, I was never moved to record my experience, partly because I recognized a glut in the market and also because nothing noteworthy had ever happened to me in transit. I mean, I saw a lot of the country and different kinds of people, from ex-cons to Mennonites. But I was never harassed, hassled or hit on once in eight years.  

It was a very solitary experience for me, with just a few exceptions. I enjoyed the company in those rarer moments, but it did more to highlight the fact I was usually alone on my journeys, as wondrous as they could be. Like so many moments in my life, it seemed, I spent them solo, silent and in thought. A part of me wished someone could always ride along on every trip.

I did eventually find that companion and left the bus behind. Erika and I have taken so many wonderful road trips over the last nine-plus years, all the way back to that first quick jaunt to Milwaukee in August 2003. Sure, it wasn't Rome, but we had fun staying in a hotel for the first time together. It's kind of become our thing —hotels in exurbs, vacation rentals, Midwest resorts — and it now includes our kids. We've been going to Michigan for more than five years. It's a sacred place for us.

But after awhile one does want to see more than farm fields and rest stops from a moving car or bus. And that brings me back to my psychological roadblock.

……………………………………

We pass O'Hare airport every time we visit my in-laws. With flying on the brain lately, I've found myself watching the planes as they take off — always my least favorite part of the experience. Sometimes I have to avert my eyes as a jet shoots upward at a steep angle. Other times, I marvel at a big, slow-moving 747 taking to the sky, much like the one I was on from JFK to Paris. Almost like a giant bus. Maybe it could be like that again. Maybe this drug would make it be like that even if it really wasn't.

I know inside of me there's an air traveller trying to get out. He's done it before, and I truly believe he can do it again. I don't just owe it to my wife and kids. I owe it to myself: to see the world and experience more of life. I want to die with as few regrets as possible.

And no, I don't think it will happen in a plane crash.

Young Man Blues

In many ways I’m not a nice guy. Ask Erika. She’s probably seen all the unpleasant facets by now. … … … Well, not all. I have been hiding one not-so-nice trait, though in my defense it’s only manifested very recently. See, I enjoy scaring people with my children. Particularly younger people.

……………………..

We’ve lived in Logan Square for about five years now. Logan Square: the new whitebread baby-making center of Chicago. Frankly I get sick of the family vibe around here, and I have two kids.

I’m at least heartened by the fact that Ella and Archer — the Tomax and Xamot of the North Side — do a lot to shatter the lib-yuppie dream of sharing, caring, not swearing 21^st century child rearing. My kids are high energy and often require a hardline response. I hear my dad’s South Side bark at times emanating from my lips. When I raise my voice at Palmer Park, the other whitebread parents stop and look at me. Whatever.

It's still a nice neighborhood. Saturday night we went to the latest installment of the local concert series — a beautiful sunset evening that mellowed into the high 70s. I do love seeing bands play in front of the Federal Column, or whatever it’s called, in the grassy turnaround island — the streets lined up perfectly at the south and north points, harkening to some great period of city planning now abandoned. I also dread, more than a little, that I have to spend the entire time keeping my charges from running into traffic.

If you’ve ever been to one of these things, you know that it’s about 70 percent people in their 30s — most with little kids — 20 percent single and coupled people in their 20s, and 10 percent all other ages. Saturday night there were even more small children than usual. They all weaved in and out among the parents and hipsters, laughing and screaming and resisting arrest. A free-range human chicken coop.

By the final band — an all-female indie pop act — I was pretty gassed. Archer, red faced and sweating, still didn’t stop. He climbed the stairs in front of the stage, slid down the stone ramps, pulled up weeds and chirped his loud chirps. I sat on the grass in front of one bank of PA speakers, the entire audience facing me. I wasn’t the only parent doing this, but I was maybe doing it with the most exasperation.

As Archer made continuous loops on the ramp, I became aware I was in the line of sight of a sizeable bloc of 20-something young men, lounging and drinking beer to the left of the stage. I knew exactly who they were looking at: the chick in the mini-skirt playing guitar right behind me. But in my perverse, not nice way I hoped that their eyes also drifted in one-millisecond shutter snaps to me: the older guy in a striped Linus shirt, a shell-shocked look in his eyes. The smile then came to my face. Yes, my young friends. Get a gander. Because this will be you someday.

……………………..

Perhaps to someone looking in from the outside, they see me — running, yelling, disjointed, burying my face in my hands — as unhappy. I’m not. I’m fucking stressed out at times, but I’m not unhappy. Yet it’s this stressed-out aspect of parenthood that I like to accentuate in public settings, coupled with a screaming kid in my arms, to gently, sadistically frighten the young dudes out there. (My kids by themselves do a good job of frightening older people, just to cover that demographic.)

I was a 20-something dude once. I found the thought of having kids repugnant. Back then I would look at guys in my current position — some poor slob with half-shut eyes toting his papoose in a Baby Bjorn— and sneer. Idiot. Sucker. Drone. What’s this guy’s problem. He might as well be dead. Not me. No way. Never.

Then I met someone who took more of an interest in kids than all the other young people I'd ever known. My girlfriend, Erika, would talk to any baby or toddler in any restaurant, grocery line, post office or oil change place we went. At first I found this irritating. I’d roll my eyes, wait for her to finish, then go back to explaining why Michael Karoli never really got his due.

To make a long story short, I came around to Team Baby, and I eventually transformed from a critic to a believer in the great adventure — you know, Commitment — and all that it brings. It's not always easy, but it’s light years ahead of anything I’ve ever experienced before. All the records I bought in my 20s, shows I saw, beers I drank can never compare. Even that time I met Bob Bert.

This trip can definitely scare a man at a certain point in his life. And if he matures and it still isn’t for him, hey, I understand. It’s a deep biological imperative that secretly and powerfully guides all the phases of our lives, but humans have always had the ability to say no: to reproduction, to gender roles based on this, to wedding showers. I support anyone’s choice if it makes them happy.

……………………..

But I know a lot of those guys at the show on Saturday will eventually feel the call and make the choice — pretty simple statistics. And like I did way back when, they’re already secretly grinding away in the back of their heads strange, unsettling new questions: Can I still get drunk on the weekend? Do I have to buy a minivan? Will my partner make a good parent? I once thought about all this too, only I was lucky enough to live with the biggest no-brainer mother-to-be in Chicago, so that was never an issue. It was more about the timing of the whole thing.

So why would I, now at 35, try to muddle some young man’s mind over this, perhaps the greatest decision he'll ever face? I told you. I’m not really a nice guy. Like all members of a “club,” I feel, falsely, a certain right to haze pledges. Do you have what it takes. Are you ready for this. Do you realize you’ll have to handle human shit, with your bare hands, more than once. I've felt the burn, and I guess I want people to know. Particularly guys in striped tank tops and boat shoes.

I don’t fault a young man for blanching in hesitation, much in the same way Tommies did when ordered to leave their trenches and fight. But if those dudes had peeled their eyes off that lady drummer for one second, they would’ve seen Archer James, finally tired, rest his little head on Dad’s shoulder in loving resignation.

In that sense, I know I'm actually trying to sell the whole trip, once you get past my dime-store sadism. I won’t pretend anything that happened to me Saturday night gave anyone any kind of hope for their own future. But I pray it at least made it apparent I wasn’t in hell.

Woundup will never die

Man, it's dusty in here. Time to clean off the cobweb-covered keyboards. The seven-person content team is on their annual summer retreat — this time to some dump in the UP. Normally they go to Mexico, but you know … These Tough Economic Times. … I'm sure they've got a lot (of reefer) to (smoke) talk about up there.

The Woundup family had fun in Wisconsin, and we are gearing up for our weekend's visit to Michigan, the fourth partner in the new pan-Chicago Geographical Zone. That's right, southwest Mich. is officially a part of Chicagoland because one little county, where our hideaway lies, now is included on the Channel 9 weather forecast map.

Ella still is a little too small to ride on a bike or in a bike trailer — one of our favorite pastimes in Mich. Perhaps on the next visit. Ella, however, is rapidly advancing in the eating/drinking department. Mom fed her lentil soup last night, and she can now drink out of a glass, which is a lot of fun to watch.

Lunch beckons. Woundup breathes deeply. … The afternoon is a blank canvas of (sleeping under my desk) all possibilities.

Another day in the Protectorate

Another day, another trip to the Daley Center to attempt to get copies of Ella's birth certificate. I like to laugh at everyone I know who lives in suburbs and small towns, but this is one area where they have the advantage. I'm willfully entering the record-collecting center for Cook County, Ill., which encompasses more than 5 million people. There's going to be a line no matter when you go.

I got scared off Friday by the wait. I tried to go yesterday, but the building was closed for Illinois' favorite celebration: Casimir Pulaski Day. Today, I will not relent. I only wish I had an iPhone, so I can read more Brit history on Wikipedia. It's always a good time to revisit the English Civil War. Wish me luck.

For the love of the game

Do you think we've all grown a little closer in Chicago living through the cold these past two days? It's a nice thought, but kind of a silly thing to believe. I'm not afraid to call myself silly … or stupid. The older I get — yes, it's time for the granddaddy of all cliches — the less I know. Or rather, the less I'm willing to pretend that I know everything. It's very liberating.

Sometimes you have to just — cliche No. 2 — let go. Let go to the cold. Let go to the fools clogging up your block with lawn chairs. Let go to workplace miscommunication. … Monday I thought I wouldn't make it, between the weather, work, home repair and neighborhood strife, but here I am, still kicking on Friday. Someday we'll all be gone — this city might be gone — and no one will remember how bad the parking was on our block or how good a job we did on the newsletter rollout. They won't remember us at all. But we have the sun; we have weather; and when the cars are finished passing at Trumbull and Grand on a cold morning, it becomes very silent. To me, that's the true sound of life. It doesn't ask anything of you except to listen.

It's very liberating.

H-Hour

A lull in the snow. I hope if holds up for the next 1.5 hours. I bought a frozen pizza to eat when I get home. I will then wrap more presents.

Pushin' too hard

It looks like another snowglobe in the Loop today. I think we're all getting a bit sick of the winter. If we can hang in there, the weather people are saying things will warm up above freezing Friday and get sunny beginning Sunday. Erika is out there driving on the streets. I really hope this eases up. We all could use a break.

The natives called it "Wind That Howls Through Glass Bus Stop Enclosures"

All the buildup over the coming super storm naturally has left me skeptical, like most two-bit blog writers. But though a similar warning went by without incident two weeks ago, there is no reason this one won't deliver. The best-case scenario would be that the storm would miss us. Second-best would be that it hits, but it's not so bad. Third-best would be that it hits hard, but we get to leave early and not come to work tomorrow. I'm crossing my fingers for this last one, though I don't know if Chicago could take two crippling rush-hour snowstorms in the same week. It's starting to feel a little like Buffalo, except with way more cars and angrier people. I think there's a potential chamber of commerce ad campaign here, but I'm not sure for which city.

The taped dollar

Sunday night while coming back from the hair place, I stopped at Foodsmart on Armitage, between California and Sacramento. Rain mixed with sleet had been falling all day, so I hoped to get a bag of sidewalk salt before it turned to snow (which it did later in the evening). Sure enough there was a stack of heavy, yellow salt bags right next to the newspapers up front. Lacking cash, I took $40 out of the ATM. I then brought the bag to the counter and set it down.

There was a middle-aged woman behind the register, and she was very slowly and methodically taping together a one-dollar bill down the middle with clear scotch tape. She did not look up and did not hurry herself to finish this job. If we had been in a small town, the woman most likely would've apologized, put the dollar down and rung me up. Not so in the City of Big Shoulders. I really took no offense; I was in no hurry. I paid for my bag of salt (five dollars and change) with one of the twenties from the ATM. She broke it and gave me back the difference.

This morning I looked in my wallet for a dollar to feed into the Coke machine, and I found the scotch-taped bill. Apparently I was in more of a hurry on Sunday night than I thought because I failed to notice that the woman gave it to me as part of my change. I don't know if any Coke machine will accept this dollar, and I'm even wary a convenient store like Foodsmart would refuse it. I guess you could say I got screwed twice: having to wait and getting back damaged currency. For a retail transaction, that's a impressive feat.

I console myself by saying that it's all a big give and take. … Though maybe there is no system. Or maybe you're always on the receiving end. Or maybe it's just Chicago. … Or maybe I should just forget it. … Yes, that's probably the way to go.

At least he was doing what he liked

I was especially careful this morning crossing the corner of Homan and Grand. I was nearly hit by a pickup truck there yesterday while trying to catch the 65 bus. This is perhaps the most pedestrian-unfriendly intersection in Chicago, with vehicles making blind turns under a Metra bridge right into the designated crosswalk. I don't think it's really meant for foot traffic, being in a kind of no-man's warehouse land between Humboldt Park and the West Side.

Whatever. I was too reckless, running out on Grand like that. I don't want to die before my child is born — particularly in such a stupid fashion. Getting killed as part of a CTA commute might make a kind of poetic sense (the system always wins), but you'll probably be viewed as an idiot as the years pass, until you become a joke in your great-grandson's stand-up routine …

"I can't say I come from a lucky family. My great-grandfather was hit by a bus."

(Now appearing Thursday at the Comedy Hovel.)

(More than a few) Moments of peace

Navigating the rough waters of backed-up work: the price to pay for a three-day weekend of fun. But I've managed to keep my ship afloat and relatively dry since 9 a.m.

It's a price I'll always be willing to pay. Erika and I had a really nice time in Three Oaks. The weather was absolutely beautiful, with bright sun glinting off the area's many multicolored trees. Our little hideaway was cozy, as always, and we stocked it well with food and drink. I admit I watched a little more DirecTV than I should've (MLB playoffs, college and pro football), but Erika managed to get me out of the house for a couple of bike rides, including a 14-miler, numerous walks downtown and an evening visit to New Buffalo, where we sipped our beverages by the small harbor facing west (back toward Chicago) before adjourning to a microbar indoors to keep the friendly young bartender (a local actor and musician) company. Later, Erika stopped with her well-buzzed husband at legendary Redamak's for some cheese fries (mine) and a veggie flat-bread sandwich (hers), enjoyed greatly back at the house.

Three Oaks thrives on seasonal tourism, and it was still in full effect this past weekend, perhaps because of those beautiful leaves. We saw lots of Illinois license plates on Audis and Lexuses, as foursomes of gray-haired flatlanders cruised the farm fields, stopping at overpriced antique stores. I don't know if that will be us someday, but we do want to bring our child(ren) to this wonderful place. When the grind of dark, dreary Chicago starts getting to us, we can remind ourselves of this other world only an hour and a half away: the warm house on a quiet street and the feeling that the city isn't everything.

Don't go to southwestern Michigan

Just keep reading that subject line. Meanwhile, Erika and I will steal away to Three Oaks this Friday evening for an extended weekend of fun. I've been looking forward to it for months, and I'm going to get some very good beer at Whole Foods in anticipation.

Why am I being so secretive? Dutiful Woundup readers will be able to locate my gushing SW Mich. report from a while ago (though I won't point you in its direction now). It seems interest in our little hideaway has increased over the past year. I won't pretend this blog has contributed to that, though write-ups in the Trib and Time Out most likely have.

We only discovered the area a year and a half ago ourselves. I'm sure we look like interlopers to the long-time visitors (and all of us invaders to the locals). Such is the nature of humankind, played out year after year over centuries. I don't really need to get into all that. I only want to drink my Belgian tripel in peaceful seclusion. See you at the cottage! (Well, see me, not you.)

Greetings from New Jersey

Hello, Woundup fans! It's been too long. Well, I don't know if I should inundate you with a blow-by-blow update, so I'll just say we're having a very nice time in New Jersey. Erika's AP English training at picturesque Drew University is going well, and I'm enjoying all the amenities of the Morristown Hyatt. (Erika got a steal of a deal on Hotwire.)

Oh, it hasn't all been sitting around the hotel room, though I have been watching an unhealthy amount of ESPN — particularly "First Take." The real reason we came out here was to see New York again — our last visit was in 2004. So far we've had smash-up vegan brunch in Ft. Greene, bowling in Williamsburg, dim sum in Chinatown and a German beer garden in the Lower East Side. It's been great to see Tim and Ted in their natural habitat. We even got to see the Viva Radio headquarters in Park Slope. And we reconnected with Jonathan and his new lady friend. Sounds like he's loving the city.

Tonight Tim is hosting a dinner party in Sunnyside, so we'll be off in a few hours for more high times with friends. We're hoping to sneak in the beach tomorrow, but that depends on the weather. In the meantime, keep Chicago clean for us, and if you could hold onto our mail, we'd really appreciate it.

Moment, enjoy the

It looks like Rafael Nadal might finally have ol' Roger Federer on the ropes at Wimbledon. I wish these two could spar in major finals for 10 more years, the matches are so good. They've become a real part of this decade. I remember sneaking peeks of last year's French Open showdown between them in my father-in-law's trailer (he had satellite TV) near the beach in Zion. No matter where you are, Federer vs. Nadal calls.

In other news, I'm taking my monthly trip down to Mount Greenwood, Gateway to the Southwest Suburbs. After that, I'll haul it back up to Trader Joe's on Clybourn and get the groceries. Just trying to stave off boredom, folks. Erika returns late tonight. Then ... it's back to work.

That went rather quickly -- the weekend. I guess I should stop worrying about the all stupid things that have occupied my mind lately and, yes, enjoy the here and now. After all, what else do we have? I mean besides satellite TV in a trailer near the lake.

It keeps calling me

I'm starting to jones for a Three Oaks visit.

Last year, Erika and I took a weekend getaway to southwestern Michigan, which, as some of you may know, is a popular regional vacation spot for Chicagoans. Erika, being the queen of Internet research -- seriously, if she wanted one of those hot-shot news librarian jobs at the Trib, she could get it -- did an exhaustive search of rental properties in the area. We're not made of money, so we wanted something cheaper, and she found a wonderful little rental house in the wonderful little town of Three Oaks, just over the Indiana border and a few miles East from more expensive, tourist-trappy New Buffalo.

We first went in March, when it was chilly and raining, and again in August around our birthdays, which included a great side-trip to Kalamazoo and the Bell's Brewery. But that was 10 months ago, and the itch needs scratching.

You might look at Three Oaks and call it a tourist trap, too. I won't go that far because, despite the pricey antique, furniture and preserves stores, it has a Left-Wing, artistic undercurrent, as well as a micro-sized downtown area, that lends it definite charm. Three Oaks boasts its own community radio station, health food store, art-house cinema, used book store and newly reopened vegan-friendly restaurant. It also has two great bars -- one where the bartender cooks greasy food right there for you a few steps down from the taps.

You also can rent bikes for trips through the green farm fields surrounding the town, and you certainly can ride over to New Buffalo and go up the tourist corridor through Union Pier, Harbert and Sawyer. You'll find more antiques, another bookstore, a great corner store, a Swedish bakery and some awesome Middle Eastern food. There also are some wineries (not as fun as you'd imagine and go with white) and the beach (water is cold year-round, but still good for sunning).

I like to think Erika and I will move to this area someday. Maybe one of us will make a splash with our writing; maybe one of us will be able to work from home; or maybe, after opening our vegan restaurant in Chicago, we'll open a bed and breakfast in Three Oaks. Whatever the route, I want to make it part of our 10-year plan. See you in Three Oaks!

Dork or no -- you decide

Yes, we went to the Cubs game yesterday. Yes, they won, and yes, we had a great time with Marie (on her birthday) and her friend John. Yes, I took four All-Star Game ballots and filled them out over the course of the game with, yes, four different rosters. Yes, I forgot to drop them in the little drop-box at Wrigley on our way to getting some Indian food afterward.

And yes, I'm mailing them to MLB today on my own dime.

Plant life

Shimmering, rippled

Are there paddle boats in the Humboldt Park lagoon? I want to say there are, which means there probably aren't. I want to say I've seen them before out there in the summer, which means I'm probably thinking about Central Park or the Lincoln Park Zoo.

I should go fishing after work today -- it's going to be so nice -- but I don't want to hurt any fish with a sharp hook. I guess we could walk around the lagoon and stare at it. There are benches ... That's a nice idea. Yes. This is our neighborhood now; we pay the taxes. It's time to enjoy it.

It's time to start enjoying ourselves.