1,001 Chicago Afternoons

I was a bit too stunned to ask the men why they were carrying crates of live pigeons.

I don’t even know if “crates” is the right word. Trays of pigeons? Pallets of pigeons? Port-o-coops?

Whatever the contraptions were called, the men piled out of the mid-sized car carrying two of them just packed to the brim with pigeons. » Read the rest of this entry «

A wide-windowed bookstore lets the light in.

It lets the light shine on the paperbacks and hardcovers, on the genre books and the gimmicky think pieces. It lets the light shine on the copies of post-apocalyptic social satires and on the coming-of-age novelas and on the histories and the historical fictions and on the science-for-laymen and on the celebrity politico bio exposés.

A wide-windowed bookstore suns the books, the natural light making the dust jacket designs and author photos crisp and sharp and lovely.

It must have driven the woman nuts. » Read the rest of this entry «

I used to approach bookstores like married men approach strip clubs. » Read the rest of this entry «

I haven’t been very good lately.

I’ve been good about going to work and coming from work and riding my bike and taking my lunch and talking about my feelings and making the bed and doing the laundry and arranging the July 26 reading at the MCA and using the blog to promote the July 26 reading at the MCA and brushing my teeth and keeping up on the dishes and cooking once in a while and running this weekly playlist thing with my friends and no missed stories 348 in and I got out to visit my folks and I bought myself some new undershirts and a couple button-ups and I’ve been shaving at least two or three times a week.

But I’ve had Chinese soup containers of frozen compost in the freezer for months. » Read the rest of this entry «

The movie theater on Western makes you constantly feel you’re on a high school date.

It’s the same bright shiny posters-and-neon from when a movie was the only place you could feasibly go for a few hours in the dark with that girl from Spanish class or the one who asked a friend to ask a friend if you’re seeing anybody. » Read the rest of this entry «

Peace to the old man sipping drinks at the VFW bar.

And the bagpiper on the condo roof.

Peace to the newsman, chasing stories for cartoons.

Peace to the lady who jammed in Tunisia.

And peace to the one who makes really sexy ladies’ underthings. » Read the rest of this entry «

The ketubah has been read, the glass smashed and didn’t she look lovely walking down the aisle? So happy. Tears in her eyes. I almost lost it too. » Read the rest of this entry «

In back of the record store where people re-buy their youths through song, old technology and a disturbingly large collection of ’80s kids toys replicas, there is a door. » Read the rest of this entry «

It didn’t hit me until later, after the bar, the packed crowd, after the sweat-covered me with my hair standing on end cooled and combed and got safely back at home where my girlfriend now slumbered as I kept checking @ourmaninchicago’s live-tweeting of the bottle of Jeppson’s Malört he won at the thing, it didn’t hit me until then what we just did.

We put on a show. » Read the rest of this entry «

“They have weddings annually at the jail, the county jail,” Darryl Holliday said as he sipped a canned craft beer handed him by a tattooed pixie at a Logan Square bar. “The inmates get married to their signif- to their SOs at the jail, at the courthouse.”

“They’re basically waiting in line to do this and it’s like people trying to get their license at the DMV,” Erik Rodriguez said. » Read the rest of this entry «