Scattered Thoughts From Inside A Heat Wave

So hot, all you can see is red.

 Chicago isn’t made for this 100-degrees-and-humid weather. Damp, sticky muck like this is only appropriate for tropical beaches where one can recline under the shade of a mango tree while drinking directly from a coconut. Here it’s just gross.

Is it wrong—okay—how wrong is it to pretend I’m late for something when I see little kids selling lemonade? I hurry past with a helpless shrug. Sorry kids! I just don’t have time to stop for your watered-down Minute Maid. The worst part is that the heat makes me actually want the lemonade, watery as it might be, I just don’t want to have to interact with children.

It’s no wonder there are so many murders in the summer. This heat makes me want to tear down the traffic light for taking too long to change. It makes me want to stab the stupid trees for not making enough shade.

Seriously though. Why isn’t there more shade? It’s after 2pm. Shouldn’t the shade be more?

I wonder if slinking along these tiny isthmuses of shade along the edges of the sidewalk makes me look like I’m practicing to be a ninja.

No. It doesn’t. It makes me seem more like an unusually sweaty vampire.

Okay. Fine. I look just like everyone else: like a grumpy, sticky slug trying to survive without punching anybody in the face.

Why is summer the season of festivals? In this kind of heat the last thing anyone wants to do is stand close enough to a stranger to incur accidental touching. It’s the kind of heat that makes one’s own sweat intolerable—stranger-sweat might as well be radioactive E.Coli mixed with Ebola. This is why fights happen.

Festivals should be in the winter when it’s so cold one finds oneself  surreptitiously spooning a passed-out Cubs fan on the train just for a little extra body heat. Those are the desperate days when they should hold festivals. They can set up fire pits and roast whole pigs accompanied by steaming, bottomless cauldrons of  glögg. Everyone would want to dance and mingle and huddle together and everyone would buy way more alcohol and food than they do at summer festivals.

Hmm. That might lead to drunken orgies instead of drunken brawls, which, I suppose, could be a different kind of logistical headache.

Uggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

This heat is dumb. Beads of sweat are rolling all the way down my back and into my underwear. Yes, that’s too much information. Isn’t that the problem with grossly oppressive heat though? Everything is too much information. The heat makes people feel licensed to take off shirts and wear things that are very short and very white and very small, exposing parts that are better left unexposed. Smells become more potent: you can tell exactly where a dog relieved itself and where a restaurant’s grease disposal is and who on the train isn’t wearing socks. It’s all too much information!

Thank god for central air. Ha ha suckers with 'fans' and 'windows.'

Wait. Is the air working? Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

We Need To Talk About The Weather

In Chicago, Big Boss Weather is King.  It's either the weather's way or you'd better move to California--which is exactly what I think about doing about halfway through each winter I've spent in Chicago. 'Time to move back west,' I tell anyone who will listen, 'yep, I'll be damned if I spend another winter walking into tiny, wind-driven ice-shards that  always seem to blow into your face no matter which direction you go.' That last part is often just muttered to myself as i plunge through said ice-shards, known in more optimistic circles as 'snow,' cursing internally every step of the way. I used to get so angry with the weather. Like a rebellious teenager, I was fed up with having my life defined by this external, inexorable force that just didn't get me. I like to look cute and wear heels, Weather, stop putting this gross muddy snow all over the ground! Dammit Wind! There you go ruining an otherwise beautiful day and forcing me to stagger down the sidewalk fighting to keep my skirt down like a misguided Marilyn Monroe parody. I tried to call Winter depression anything else. Surely something like the Weather, that small-talk starter, that minor factor in deciding what to wear in the morning, couldn't be causing anything more than a case of the grumps? Weather seemed too trivial to have anything to do with serious mood alterations.

Six Corners And A Wobbly Line: Wicker Park Vignettes

This is a reproduction of an actual event in the way that a show like Dateline might stage a 'dramatic reenactment' of actual events. The dialogue and the way events unfold is neither exact nor precise in part to protect the innocent etc, etc, and largely because I can't remember exactly the way things were, and also because sometimes one must edit occurrences to make for a story that flows together a bit more. Thus, we can take the following as 'based on a true story' rather than as 'the real 100 percent accurate story of real life'.

 

In the post-apocalyptic war zone that is the 6 Corners at 4am your small group of friends or co-workers are your only allies against the unpredictable Infected. The Infected stumble haphazardly into the street. They fight. They yell. They puke. They relieve themselves in alleys and generally comport themselves as though law has vanished. Many operate obliviously, abandoning themselves to the chaotic will of Bacchus. Others, however, seem to have a keen nose for new flesh. They sense those who are un--or less-- infected and force undesired interaction.
Having just recently emerged from work, my little group of four counted among the, relatively, un-infected. The warm glow of whiskey and a beer only just touched our cheeks. We were at that most vulnerable point when the heady joy of post-work camaraderie makes 'I have some beers in my fridge, why don't you all come over' seem like a viable option even though everyone knows the correct answer is 'I'm going to take this cab home right now.' So we stood in loose formation. Cigarettes were lit. Jokes were told. A scuffle down the street drew our attention momentarily, and then he was upon us. A Stranger. His approach hit us at our weakest point.

The Abandoned Screenplays Series: Internal Dialogues In A Local Coffee Shop

FADE IN

EXT. CHICAGO STREET - MORNING

As we look down the length of a bustling Chicago street, we glimpse the outline of the Hancock building and the Chicago skyline in the distance. A biker wearing a Chicago flag -emblazoned Chrome (tm) bag across his back speeds down the street. A pedestrian stops to get a Chicago Tribune out of a newstand. As we float down to sidewalk level, we see the front of  a small, but busy coffee shop. Our gaze focuses in on flyers posted in the window that announce shows at places like the Empty Bottle, Martyr’s and Metro, we linger on the Chicago addresses of these venues.

Director’s Note: Did you want to maybe throw in five or six more references to establish that we’re in Chicago? You know, just in case anyone’s missed it?

Writer’s Note: Is that sarcasm or are you serious? I can’t tell in this format.

977 Words About A Hot Dog

A blurry beacon in a hazy night.

In order to define the Perfect Hot Dog (or PHD if you’re acronym-inclined) we must first establish three irrefutable facts:

Fact One: No hot dog worth discussion exists outside of Chicago.

Fact Two: Vienna Beef

Fact Three: Finally, achieving the PHD requires the confluence of Place (Chicago), Ingredients (see Fact Two), Cost (reasonable), and, crucially, Time.

In order to illuminate the importance of that last element, Time, I fear that we must depart our solid footing on the brick wall of Science and Reason and wander onto the slippery sand dune of Hypothesis and Anecdote.

Imagine if you will, dear reader, those single digit, pre-dawn hours when night scandalously mingles with morning. It might be 3:00 or 3:30am near a busy intersection. Imagine the darkness. Imagine the confusion. Picture in your mind’s eye the drunken denizens of those nameless hours making their way in various grades of stumble towards speeding taxicabs or late-night buses.