Every Picture Tells a Story 8/15/19

Ever since the heart attacks I had four years ago (has it really been that long?), my memory has been a work-in-progress. Sometimes, I can clearly recall something--an image, a factoid, a movie title, whatever--from many years ago. Sometimes, I can't remember what I had for lunch.

For whatever reason, I was able to remember that today would have been Mrs. Fluffy's birthday, so I'm posting the picture of her and J.B. standing at Cloud Gate (a.k.a. "The Bean") in Millennium Park.

Still love you and miss you, Gretchen.

"The Wettest Halloween in 19 Years"

That oddly specific phrase kept popping up on weathercasts and websites in the days leading up to All Hallow's Eve. Weather is of some importance on this day, as you might well imagine--trick-or-treaters and their parents need to know whether their little boys and ghouls need to wear a parka or rain slicker over their costumes. We've even had snow on this day, though (thankfully) not very often.

But rain. Oh yes, we've had rain. 19 years ago today, we had buckets of it.

The odd thing is, I remember that specific Halloween--for reasons that really didn't have much to do with the rain.

It had more to do with Gretchen.

Long before she was Mrs. Fluffy, Gretchen (pictured above in Millennium Park with JB)and I dated for about six months. We broke up formally on Valentine's Day 1995--a shitty memory to have of a day I don't particularly care for anyway--but remained close friends until her passing in April 2011.

Gretchen loved her some Halloween, and we wound up celebrating three or four together--she attended at least a couple of HMBs, including the second one ever (at JB's place) and the first one ever held at the original La Casa del Terror--but only one as a couple.

The forecasters of today don't exaggerate the weather that day in 1994: it was coming down in blinding sheets sweeping out of the north on howling winds. Awesome weather for sitting inside and watching horror films. Horrible weather for doing damn near anything else.

Gretchen and I lived within walking distance of each other then--she in Wicker Park, I in Ukrainian Village--so I hoofed it as fast as my long legs would carry me to her place--which was, unfortunately, north and east of me, so I spent the whole time walking right into the wind. Even my leather motorcycle jacket was no protection against the gale. By the time I got to Gretchen's, I was utterly soaked. Even my underwear needed to be rung out. And it was a cold rain, too--good thing I had a warm apartment (and warmer woman) waiting for me at the end of my trek.

We didn't watch monster movies that night. Instead, we watched the Monsters of the Midway--the Bears were playing the Packers on Monday Night Football. That turned out to be a horror show of a very different kind, with the Bears getting crushed 33-6 by their arch rivals in a sloppy, muddy, bruising mess of a game.

At least Gretchen made dinner--she was a more-than-fair cook--and we had a great evening together, even if the weather and the Bears tried to dampen (see what I did there?) our spirits.

I wish Gretchen were here to celebrate this Halloween--and a lot more Halloweens to follow. But that's not how things worked out.

Still, legend has it that on Halloween, the barriers between the here and the hereafter are at their weakest and spirits can come and go as they please.

If that's the case...hop on by, Gretchen--I've got a fresh, hot bowl of white borscht soup waiting for you and a pumpkin-scented candle to light your way.

Every Picture Tells a Story 7/23/13

The best I ever looked--at the wedding reception for Mr. & Mrs. Fluffy, 7/02.

A Decade of Adoresixtyfour

Today marks the 10th anniversary of this blog.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I mean, I guess it's pretty awesome that I've been writing and/or posting photos here (and at this blog's predecessor site, which had a dedicated URL that, for some insane reason, I paid for instead of using Blogger's free, easier service) for so long. As mind-numbing and eye-blearing as my day job can be, it's good--healthy, even--to have an outlet for my more creative impulses.

This blog has also been a great venue for expressing emotional traumas of varying degrees--from the deaths of close friends like Kaytee and Gretchen, to the passing of beloved pets like Lottie and Ms. Christopher (who left this world three years ago today--anniversary convergence), to the continuing lack of love/dating/sex in my life (trust me--anyone reading this, no matter who you are, has gotten some more recently than I have) and the related woes of Valentine's Day, to the slow-but-certain vanishing of the city I grew up in to the personal reaction to the national tragedy of 9/11--much has been vented here. Also good. Also healthy.

But what has that decade amounted to, really?

Am I in a better mental/physical/spiritual place than I was in October 2001? Not really.

Has this blog attracted thousands or hundreds or, hell, a dozen regular readers? Despite attempts to pimp it out on MySpace, then Twitter and finally Facebook, no, it has not.

There were several individuals who, that decade ago, urged/pushed me to do something with whatever writing/photographic talent I may/may not have, and most of them--most notably JB and Jessie--are still here. Others, though, are no longer friends while still others, as noted above, are no longer even alive.

So where, 10 years down the bumpy, toruous road, does that leave me? I don't know.

Does this blog matter in the great scheme of things? does it even matter that much to me anymore, given that, most days, I only post photos here, usually without comment? Where do I go from here, if anywhere?

On. I go on.

Treading water can be fine exercise, but it doesn't really get you anywhere. Far better to lean forward or lie back, start kicking my legs, and head for shore, even if shore is nowhere in sight and my legs are already tired--likely from the weight of this cumbersome metaphor.

(Oh...and for those wondering why I have the photos of a sunflower at the top of this entry and a sunset at the bottm? No particular reason. I just liked them. Hope you do, too.)

White Borscht and Wine

Whenever I get out to the Patio Theater (which I do as often as I can), I make a point of stopping at the Polish deli/liquor store a few doors down.

It's not a big place--as wide as a typical Chicago storefront, but a bit deeper than most. Its narrow aisles are crammed full of grocery items--some typical (milk, mustard, pineapple chunks, etc.), but many catering specifically to their Eastern European clientele. Like breads baked in the Old World style. Or freshly smoked meats (one whole wall of the store is taken up by the deli counter). And jars of white borscht soup.

I was introduced to white borscht soup (sometimes referred to as sour rye soup) by Gretchen (a.k.a. Mrs. Fluffy) back when we were dating. There was (and, I believe, still is) a tiny Polish restaurant on Division Street (a remnant, perhaps, of the time when the whole neighborhood was Polish, back in the days when Nelson Algren lived there and wrote The Man with the Golden Arm) where they served the soup, hot and fresh, with sausages or--if you were really lucky--a hard-boiled egg floating in it.

It's a fairly sour soup, but extremely flavorful and hearty (especially when the sausage and egg are added). Gretchen and I went there more than once for it, We also attempted to make it in her kitchen using one of the packets of dried soup you can find in many Polish delis all over the Northwest side. The results? Horrible. We left out some key ingredient (probably because the instructions on the packet were in Polish, which neither of us could read) and wound up with a pot full of foul-tasting paste. Not too long after, though, we tried a second time, with much better (and tastier) results.

I continued making white borscht soup long after Gretchen and I broke up, and we remained close friends after that as well, even after she and her fiance (and later husband) Greg (a.k.a. Mr. Fluffy) moved to the western shore of Michigan, where she and her family are from. I visited them from time to time, staying at the home she (somewhat) affectionately referred to as "Crumbling Cliff." I read poetry at their wedding and danced at their reception.

For one of Gretchen's recent birthdays, I sent her packets of (what else?) white borscht soup--wherever she was living at the time, the soup was impossible to find.

I switched recently from the packets of soup to the jars, which are somewhat easier to cook--I can concentrate more on what I'm going to add than the base of the soup itself, which is premade concentrate that only needs a quart of water to finish it. (I usually use either chicken broth or vegetable stock instead--much deeper flavor.) When I was out at the Patio this past Saturday to see Horrible Bosses, I stopped by the Polish deli after and picked up a couple of jars of soup and some fresh polska kielbasa to slice up and toss in. Add some onions, basil and black pepper, and serve along with some sunflower seed bread (also picked up at the deli), and you've got a bowl of comfort on a damp, gray night.

I also had some wine with dinner. Nothing special--whatever was in the discount bin at the liquor store. The glass I sipped it from, however, was special. It was a clear crystal glass, part of a set of six given to me by Gretchen as a birthday or Christmas present quite some time ago. I always use them whenever I drink wine (which isn't as often as it used to be). Sometimes, I'm careless--I accidentally knocked over one of the glasses back at the old La Casa del Terror and shattered it on the floor, something which wouldn't have happened had I taken it to the kitchen and cleaned it immediately. (Instead, I left it out and knocked it over later that evening.)

Somehow, I managed to break another of the wine glasses Saturday night. No, it wasn't another alcohol-sodden mishap (not that you'd be unreasonable in suspecting such), but an accident during the preparation of the white borscht soup. I had way more sausage than I needed for the meal, so I reached into the cabinet beneath the kitchen counter to grab a Ziplock bag. My hand came nowhere near the shelf where the wine glasses stand--at least I didn't feel it touch that shelf--but one of the glasses nonetheless tumbled off the shelf, bounced off the back of my hand and smashed to pieces at the bottom of the cabinet.

I would have felt bad about this at any time--the guilt of breaking a present from a dear friend can be overwhelming--but I felt especially bad about breaking the glass Saturday, which was two days shy of what would have been her birthday.

In other words, today.

As you may or may not remember, Gretchen passed away in April.In her honor, her husband, Greg, is running in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon to raise money for AIDS Chicago, a cause close to Gretchen's heart. (She lost several friends to the disease, and she and I did at least one of the AIDSWalk Chicago events together when she still lived here.) You can make a donation to Greg's run here.

Please give something--anything--if you can. It's a important cause, and it would be a great way to honor the memory of Gretchen, a great friend who is missed very much--especially on this day.

For Dinner Last Night...

White borscht soup with Hungarian sausage. Mrs. Fluffy would be proud.

RIP Gretchen

That's her on the left with JB at Millennium Park a few years ago.

You always think there will be enough time to get together again. To snort at each other's jokes again. To watch you pick Italian beef off a pizza because you think it's really mushrooms again. To cry or drink Manhattans or light up or bowl a strike or two again.

But that's not always the way. Sometimes, there isn't another "or" to be had.

Sometimes, you don't get a chance to say "goodbye" to someone who was always there for you. And sometimes, you have to write words that you absolutely hate, even when no words are adequate.

Miss you, Gretchen.

No News I Can Use

Saturday morning, I was eating brunch in my usual spot--I hadn't planned on going out for food, but after the previous evening of celebrating a co-worker's departure with many V&Ts, something more substantial than a bowl of oatmeal was necessary--when the TV behind the counter displayed some breaking news: An earthquake had been reported off the coast of Oregon registering 6.0 on the Richter Scale. I don't know much about earthquakes--we rarely get them here in Illinois, and when we do they're usually a 1 or a 2--but I do know that's kinda big. One of my MySpace/Blogger friends lives in the Portland area, and another MySpace friend is from there, so I was a touch concerned about everybody's welfare.

After I finished my skirt steak skillet--which, along with at least half a dozen cups of coffee, did an admirable job of muzzling my hangover--I did a bit of grocery shopping and stopped back at La Casa del Terror, assuming I'd be able to readily find news on cable to let me know whether or not the Northwest corner of our country had tumbled into the Pacific or not.

But what happens when you assume? That's right--ass, you, me.

I tried many of the news channels--MSNBC, CNBC, Headline News, CNN--only to find them taking up time with weekend programming. So if I wanted to protect my identity from a thief or find out about life in a maximum-security prison, I was in luck. What if I wanted to know about Portland possibly being flat as a pancake? Too bad.

The only cable news network running live coverage of any kind was Fox. They were not, however, covering Oregon (had I imagined that story?)--they were reporting on Atlanta, where a tornado had struck the downtown area and more threatening weather was on the way. This was also of concern to me--Mr. and Mrs. Fluffy live down there. Were they okay? The footage didn't look promising. But at least Fox was showing something. I may not like them much--their motto is "Fair and Balanced" when they're anything but--but at least they were covering the story. (Even CNN, which is based in Atlanta, didn't cover the story as extensively as Fox--CNN should be embarrassed.) I shot an email down to Mrs. Fluffy and waited.

The next day, she replied--the tornado had passed within a mile of their home, but they were fine. As for Oregon, it wasn't until this morning that I read that the state was still, in fact, part of the mainland--the earthquake, while substantial, had happened in the ocean, well offshore, and no substantial damage had been reported.

Good to know. Too bad most of the organizations charged with reporting the news couldn't inform me in anything approximating a timely manner. Or did I just have the misfortune of tuning in at the wrong time--like, when I actually needed information?

Can't Take Anymore

Mrs. Fluffy, a friend of mine who now lives in Atlanta recently lamented that she missed the CTA.

No surprise. I often hear people from other cities (both friends and random strangers) say that it's so much easier to get around in Chicago than in (insert your city here). They have a point. The Chicago Transit Authority covers more ground than most cities and, for the most part, they've done a decent job, moving tourists and natives alike about the metropolitan area for decades. They haven't been remotely perfect--waits for buses or trains could be frustrating, but at least you had a pretty good idea you'd get where you needed to go when you needed to go there.

Lately, though, CTA has been falling down. A lot.

CTA will no doubt say that they need better funding at the state and federal levels, and no doubt that's true. Trains and buses aren't cheap. Neither is maintenance of said buses and trains. Neither is maintenance of the extensive rail system those trains ride on. They will also no doubt say that they've done a fine job with what they've been given. With that, I would respectfully--even disrespectfully--disagree. Going just on what I can see and what I experience nearly every day of the week as a rider of CTA, they don't spend what little money they receive very well.

Example: whenever I see CTA work crews, whether on the tracks or at street level, the same pattern repeats itself: four or five workers will be standing around, arms crossed, mouths flapping about the weather or the war or last night's game or whatever, while only one or two workers are actually, you know, working. (Friends of mine who frequently ride trains and buses have reported the same pattern.) CTA has claimed that they don't have enough money for maintenance crews. Perhaps they should consider smaller crews that do more--or any--work.

Another example: the federally funded Brown Line reconstruction project, which will take years to complete and cost many millions of dollars to expand or rebuild existing Brown Line stations to handle longer trains and accommodate the handicapped (most stations don't have elevators or ramps), has been mishandled from the get-go. The initial bids came in way over budget, causing CTA to scale back the designs and revise construction schedules, making it necessary to close stations for extended periods of time (rather than keep them open throughout construction, as initially promised) and cut back amenities at the reconstructed stations, like canopies that stretch the length of the stations.

Two of the stations that have reopened, Kedzie and Rockwell, are ugly, boxy, chilly things. (Quite literally chilly--there are no heat lamps on the platforms, and the ones installed inside the stationhouses are so high off the floor that only someone my height can feel any warmth at all.) If they're the shape of things to come, I don't want to see what's coming.

Even the recently reopened Francisco station, which does indeed have heat lamps on the platform, is little more than a pale imitation of the stationhouse that stood there for nearly a century--its look and feel are, most politely put, strained.

The buses don't seem to be running much better, with long waits no matter what the time of day or weather. It's not uncommon to see two, three, four buses arrive at once. Once, at the corner of Western and Addison, I saw no less than eight Western Avenue buses go past me headed north, while I waited for one westbound Addison bus to show up; after half an hour, I gave up and walked home.

On another occasion, I waited for a Western bus on the way home from Mom's house at a fairly early hour on a weekday evening. It was bitterly cold, and the temptation to take a cab was great. Still, I waited, feeling seeping away in my feet and fingers as the minutes went by and taxi after taxi approached, slowed to see if I wanted to hop in, and drove away, leaving me freezing in a bus shelter that holds back the wind as effectively as a collander holds water. After 12 cabs had rolled past me, I yielded to temptation and jumped in the 13th cab. There was still no bus in sight.

And now, CTA is telling riders that things will get worse--much worse--before they get better. Starting in April and continuing for the next two years, one track of the Red Line will be taken out of service in the high-traffic corridor between Fullerton and Belmont, both of which will have their stations reconstructed, and the Red Line trains will have to run on the tracks that serve the Brown and Purple Lines.

To be fair, both stations have needed renovation and expansion for some time. The Belmont station, in particular, is in rough shape, with narrow, dark stairways and lamp posts that, if you lean on them, tend to lean right with you. unfortunately, to clear room for these new, improved stations, the CTA had the glorious, gothic Hayes-Healy Gymnasium demolished (with the permission of the building's owner, DePaul University) at Fullerton, as well as the longtime home of Belmont Army Surplus (where I once bought a leather jacket to impress a woman who, to no one's surprised, wasn't remotely impressed) at Belmont.

The construction of these two expanded, upgraded stations will cause drastic reductions in service at rush hour (up to 25 percent) and a near doubling of commute times for the better part of two years. So CTA is encouraging its passengers to find other ways to get to work. Take buses. Ride Metra. Carpool. Crawl.

What amuses me (if anything about the situation can truly be called "amusing") is that CTA President Frank Kruesi seems to really believe that riders will flock back to the affected lines once construction is completed--two years from now.

Maybe most riders will. But speaking for myself, if I have to alter my commute so drastically that I must seriously consider taking other modes of transportation, including the possibility of buying a car and driving to work (those of you who know me, STOP LAUGHING, DAMMIT!), there's no way I'd go back. It would be like a restaurant closing for renovations and asking me to find someplace else to eat for the next two years, but urging me to come back when they reopen.

And maybe that would work--if I liked the food and the service that much to begin with.

Nudge the World

As I compose this week's update at Polly Jean, the lime green e-mail machine, and sit in this desk chair whose springs have long since sprung and now threaten to depants me every time I sit in it, there is a coffee cup sitting on a Tiki-themed coaster atop my SuperDisk drive. Unfortunately, the cup does not contain coffee tonight, but, rather, Apple Cinnamon TheraFlu; I've been fighting a cold for the better part of a week, and as my sinuses remain jam-packed with fluids best not seen by human (or even nonhuman) eyes, I fear the cold is winning.

But it's not the cold, nor the coaster, nor the computer, nor the chair, nor even the sizable backside in the chair, that hold my attention tonight. No. It's the coffee cup, which came to me through a job I worked in one of Chicago's northern suburbs for just under five years (or about three years too long, depending on how you care to look at it) that has my eye--maybe even both of them.

Actually, though, even that's not entirely true: It's the words on the coffee cup that command me to stare at them in wonder. The cup itself is off-white (whether the "off-" part is by design or by age, I'm not certain) with a blue corporate logo on the side facing the Elizabeth poster (Ah, Cate Blanchett) on my "office" wall. (My "office" is really a bedroom which, since I now sleep on the increasingly uncomfortable futon in the living room, has been converted to house Polly Jean, the desk beneath her, the desk chair before her, and whatever other shit I can't fit into other rooms in La Casa del Terror--plants, action figures, free weights, comic books, clothing, porn tapes, a bicycle that hasn't been ridden in at least two years, etc.)

Facing me, though, are words in the same shade of pale blue as the logo. The words are attributed to the playwright Tom Stoppard: "...Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little."

I stare at those words often and remember that, when I graduated from college, I thought my fellow poetry mates and I were going to change the American literary landscape. No. Really. I thought that. Then I remember that, in one of my midterm conferences, my instructor told me, quite out of the blue, that the poet Wallace Stevens didn't have his first book of poetry published until he was 35. (Was he trying to tell me something?) The fact is, we didn't change the American literary landscape. Some tried, but failed. Others died before they could finish what they started. And still others abandoned the effort altogether and concentrated on children or careers or significant something-or-others. The arrogance and energy of youth settled into the bump-and-grind of everyday living.

And yet, even with all the years that have passed since then, and even with the time that has gone by since I left that job where I acquired the cup, its words keep coming back to me. "Nudge the world." Not "change." Not "reshape." Not "blow to fucking bits." "Nudge." Maybe that's how you go about changing or reshaping the world (though I'd rather not blow it to fucking bits, thank you)--with one little nudge at a time.

When I started this Web site exactly one year go today, I didn't go into it with the intent of changing anybody's world or mind or whatever; I really had no clue who would want to read what they'd find here (and I still don't); and I wasn't even sure how often I could get around to updating it (though, as it turned out, I posted 26 updates during that year, which averages out to one update every two weeks). More than anything, though, I just wanted a little corner of the Internet on which I could be somewhat creative--write, post photos, have a bit of fun. And if, in the process, I could "nudge the world"? Just a little? Even one tiny bit? All the better.

So here I am, sitting in a cluttered room, letting the springs in this chair eat my ass for dinner, and trying to gulp down the Apple Cinnamon TheraFlu before it goes cold. As good a way to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Adoresixtyfour.com as any, I guess. And if I have my way--which doesn't happen often, but, every once in a while, the very fabric of reality is split assunder and I do have my way--I'll be trying to nudge the world for a while to come.

Special thanks to JB, VB, Red Secretary, Mr. E, Sister Dee, the Fluffies of St. Joseph, the Grays of Dallas and everybody else who has encouraged, inspired, poked, prodded or otherwise given support over this past year. You all rock.