Trip to Chicago, Part 5. Monday, May 8th.

DIARY

The next morning, I woke about ten, Jess at eleven. Sky and Sam had left for work, and Bill was putting some fnishing touches on his assignments for film class. I made us all pancakes for breakfast with some improvising, then Jess and I headed out to meet Dan S., who was in town for a couple days from Seattle.

I'd met Dan somewhat unexpectedly one night two years ago when I was falling asleep in McKinley Park and my phone suddenly rang. I rarely communicated by phone with anyone but Jess and my parents, so I thought there was perhaps an emergency. Instead, a U of C kid I had never met was telling me he'd heard about my Dungeons and Dragons campaign and wondered if he could join. These days, though, Dan works with Microsoft in a more cooperative climate than mine.

We were running late. The Chicago bus had hit heavy construction on the ride from town the night before, so to save time, Jess and I walked three blocks further and caught the Grand bus. Unfortunately, in great Chicago style, blocks of Grand were also torn up meaning that Dan had arrived at Pizzaria Ora several minutes before us. We had a nice meal for about an hour, talked about our lives, marriage and roomate difficulties, and Dan left to make his flight from O'Hare.

A point of indulgence, however: Pizzaria Ora. This was my first experience of deepdish in over half-a-year. Not one bite was wasted.

Friends of the Womwaw unite!

Both Sam and Sky worked near this part of River North, so after we'd seen Dan off, we called them and all met up at a coffee shop (?) deli-type place under the brown line.

She probably thinks I should stop taking pictures of things for about two seconds.

After we said goodbye to Sam and Sky, we continued on to NMFF where I stopped by the Laser Vision Center, asking if Steve could "fix my Presbyopia." We decided to meet for lunch on Wednesday, and I talked to Sean for a few minutes. Then, Jess and I continued on toward the Blue Line. We were on our way to meet Lisa.

We would've made time for Conan, but he hasn't been returning our phone calls.

We took the Blue Line to the 18th Street stop (a particular route I'd never taken) and met Lisa in front of the station. We took a walk through Pilsen, passing it's astonishing library, with Lisa apologizing for her place in advance. On the contrary, I thought it seemed perfect and weird and exciting. We had to walk down and alley and up a labyrithine twisting stairway, at one time across a landing made of glass blocks. The space itself was surprizingly spacious with windows looking onto adjacent buildings and alleys and one onto the stairwell we'd just climbed.

And here we visited for about three hours, eating pastries, drinking tea and beer, and having the SECOND great conversation on Gothic Funk, which fleshed out many problems for all three of us, and ultimately led to The Conversational Manifesto by Lisa.

After night had fallen, Lisa drove us over to Ivo's so we could feed Jonathan (her pet hedgehog) who we played with for awhile, carefully holding him on my shoulder and feeding him grubs for which he nosed through the soil. Then, onto Ukrainian Village. Jess lay down. Lisa drove Sam and I past my old place near Humboldt Park (ah, the memories, cough) and then to Division and Damon for beer. We headed back, hung out awhile. Lisa went home. Sam and I watched more UTube. Once again, no sleep until after three.

END OF POST.