1,001 Chicago Afternoons

“Sal’s late,” the fry cook said.

“He was late yesterday too,” the man on the end of the linoleum counter said as the waitress topped off his coffee.

“It’s always quiet ‘til Sal gets here,” the waitress said, rushing back to refill the pot. » Read the rest of this entry «

My apartment’s radiator sounds like Snap, Crackle and Pop have a fourth elf friend named High-Pitched Whine.

There’s an empty room in the basement off from the laundry room with brick walls, no window, a dusty concrete floor and some bits of long-broken glass. It’s the single creepiest room I’ve been in. I call it the Murder Room and want to hide a clown mannequin in there. It would be just standing there, looking.

And someone spilled like a ton of cat litter in the stairwell and didn’t clean it up. Used cat litter.

I love this place.  » Read the rest of this entry «

Welcome dear friends and hear now the story ‘a
A far-away land known as Gubernatoria
Where the grickle-grass grows and Whos have elocution
And each problem comes with a slogan solution.

There are Grinches and Sneeches, and Loraxi aplenty,
Enough to appease the Seuss cognoscenti.
But the land has a creature foul ’nuff to make eyes well
More than the other brain-kids of Ted Geisel. » Read the rest of this entry «

My wife’s school has active shooter drills. » Read the rest of this entry «

They’re all pretty there. They’re all pretty in a way I find pretty too. » Read the rest of this entry «

I’ve spent the last few days sick, limiting my Chicago exploration to the kitchen tea kettle and my adventure to whatever’s on Netflix.

As my writing output during this period has been limited to text messages about soup and several rude limericks about members of the presidential administration, I am today, Jan. 1, 2018, turning to you the readers to make this site’s last year a great one. » Read the rest of this entry «

More years ago than I care to admit, I was lost in the snow outside the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois.  » Read the rest of this entry «

I have a neighbor who doesn’t know my name.

He does, sort of. He knows it now and again, “Paul, right?” I say yes. He asks the same question about my wife’s name. I confirm he got that right too.

I don’t mind that he barely remembers me. I mainly know him because of Rocky, his little dog he walks in the morning, at night and presumably in between while I’m at work. Outside my apartment window is one of Rocky’s favorite spots for business, so I see the little black-and-white furball with his skittering little paws and the lumbering old Latino in the Cubs hat more often than they see me.  » Read the rest of this entry «

Vanity license plates are one of the strangest displays of clout Illinois offers. They’re highly sought after and passed down through politically connected families for generations, with the lower number the bigger display.

“Low-number plates, that shows you have big you-know-whats,” an anonymous political operative told Chicago Tribune Magazine in 1999. » Read the rest of this entry «

When I started this site my worry was getting to my goal. Now I’m scared I’ll get there too soon. » Read the rest of this entry «