In March, 2005...

DIARY

On the night of the first day of Spring, not much was going on at the Stockade. Sky came over and he hung out with Sam and I for awhile. I don't remember the exact details but there was some sort of drinking involved; presumably bourbon or beer. Maybe Sam's fancy brandy. And probably .mpgs and the like.

After awhile, Sky and I set out. I was a little tipsy but he was tipsier. He had to get home so he could be up in time for work the following morning. I tried to persuade him to go on a suicidally long but murderously joyful walk with me, but as usual, his sense of purpose and discipline trumped mine. We walked to Thorndale, and he said goodbye. I continued north.

It was a fierce gale of a night. The wind felt like a hollowed out marble, invisible and stories high that rolls across your back, crashes down between buildings, and returns. A swollen night. Spitting rain. It was distinctly wet, though it felt like sleet or hail, it was so cold and fast.

I was taking pictures along the way, having set my camera to the Vivid function, so that later when I examined them, the oranges and greens all flaired out. I walked north to Devon and up and about the Loyola campus. It was so cold, but it seemed like a promising beginning of spring. This was before we went through one of the longest droughts in Chicago's history. For all I knew it would continue to rain, with the flush skies growing warmer as the months went by, and the city responding with that aching black-and-green, peat-and-moss that Chicago does so well.

At Loyola, the newer brick buildings are thrown right together with their old reddish hewn granite hulks. They aren't as regal as those at the U of C, but their faces aren't as harsh either. Uglier. Friendlier. It was dangerously slick, the ice freezing as it hit the ground, but I navigated along the crusty grass, the silvery flagstones, and even the rocks that bent out over the roaring lake. It was quite empty. For all I might guess, the city had been abandoned with the lights left on. But the streetlamps were bold and orange and rioted on all the ice and wetness. It was almost daylight by the track that wound round, and down by the lake, the artificial sun set behind the two chapels and the apartments on Sheridan.

I didn't go on a suicidal walk. I ended up getting tired myself, and cold after just an hour. I walked back along Sheridan, as empty as the campus, and the new apartments, like those in Vancouver or Rio or Hong Kong and whatever other cities, threw out their bleak individualities... a strucco pattern, a paint, a name: Malibu East. That has to be said ironically, right? And I got home, downloaded my pictures, and went to bed.

I should have stayed out all night.

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What were you up to in March 2005?

END OF POST.