Category Archives: Rumination

The prosaic story behind the portal to another dimension

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Pepperland
The Pepperland

As I’d written before, the building at 57th Street and Lake Park Avenue evoked my thoughts of portals to another dimension. This, and the actual story behind the building, reveals how disconnected I feel and am from where I live (perhaps I came here through a portal?).

On a February visit to Istria Cafe, I’d noticed that the stark tower that had first snagged my attention had been painted a garish combination of purple and yellow that clashes with the deep red brick work and that the steel security door and window covers had been removed. The building was back in business. The next week a sign over the front entry proclaimed it to be “the Pepperland.” How Beatles-esque, I thought, but, perhaps still distracted by the lonely sound of train whistles in the night, my mind was still on portals and alternative universes.

I looked up the Pepperland online to see if there were any information or news about the building and its reopening. Indeed there was, along with the building’s most recent history as a party house near a campus renowned for its supposed lack of social life (a popular campus t-shirt: “Where fun comes to die”). Who knew the University of Chicago has a Frisbee team? Certainly not an old, reclusive nerd like me.

So, it turns out that, despite the grim look the building presents to the street (not unlike the grim fortress facade that Glessner House presents to the Prairie District), the Pepperland’s design is conducive to neighborly conviviality, a concept purportedly out of step with the University of Chicago’s popular (or un-) reputation where the life of the mind kills the life of the body.

Perhaps the Pepperland is still a portal to another dimension, just not the one I had imagined — less Alice Through the Looking Glass and more University of Michigan.

Limitations

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As I grow older and forgetful, I realize that my memory isn’t failing. Nearly everything I ever knew is still stored. It is only that it’s more difficult and takes longer to access. Twenty years ago the name of my kindergarten teacher would have come off my tongue instantly, even automatically. Today, if you asked me who she was, my slower processor would have to do dig through nearly 48 years’ worth of accumulated files, and I might hesitate for few moments. I may even appear to have forgotten her name altogether. But it’s still there, under the detritus collected over many years. My processor works sluggishly in the background until it does find the data at 3 a.m., by which time I have forgotten why I was trying to recall it. Or, at 6 a.m., as happened recently, in a dream I hear the name, slightly distorted, of someone I have not thought of in nearly 30 years. My processor burped it up randomly.

Although I don’t know much about either the human brain or its favorite toy, the computer, I believe that how they work is based on similar principles. Mechanically, they are different, but in some ways their ultimate functionality is the same. Walking on land, swimming through water, flying through air — no matter how it’s accomplished, it’s a form of locomotion that moves you from Point A to Point B. And so it is with human and electronic minds — both store, both access, both process, both calculate, both communicate. Surely by now science fiction writers have touched on every conceivable integration of human being and machine from sentient computers (HAL 9000/2001: A Space Odyssey) to computerized humans (Roger Corby/Star Trek) and, of course, androids (Data/Star Trek). The question is: Do computers think like humans because that is the only way of thinking we know and understand? Will the next revolution in human thought come when we discover other ways to perceive, compute, and think? Or are we married forever to one way because it is the only one we can imagine? Is our own thought, and the electronic extension of it, limited by our design?

My brain is like a computer whose hard drive is full, whose memory is faulty, and whose processor is failing, and life is like a program. If X, then Y. Everything, no matter how complex, could be reduced to choice. Events may be cumulative, but at each step there are choices and events that determine the next choices and events that determine the next, running parallel to one another, for the duration of each creature’s life — and potentially beyond, because what we do and have done affects other humans, other creatures. We’re in the program, so it’s hard to see it from a detached perspective. We live on the plane of our existence, not above it.

Somehow this reflection brought me to the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates.

As we know, under orders from President Barack Obama to do what was necessary if Captain Phillips were in “imminent danger,” Navy SEAL sharpshooters killed the three remaining pirates, the ringleader having already given himself up. It was a reasonable plan that was well executed and, most important, successful.

But it might not have been. If any one of a number of things had gone wrong, the results might have been quite different. Captain Phillips might have been killed, which would have been a tragedy for him, his family, and his friends, and a disaster for President Obama and the Navy. Even if the mission had simply failed to retrieve Captain Phillips, we’d be asking hard questions about what went wrong and why the world’s strongest and most advanced military couldn’t rescue an American citizen from a handful of thugs. Obama and his administration would still be haunted by the mistakes made and trying to reestablish the public’s trust in their leadership. If A happens, Captain Phillips is retrieved. If B happens, he isn’t. If C happens, he is killed. Imagine all the branches that would lead to each of those outcomes, and all the branches that would stem from them. That’s how life works, or at least that’s how we see it. It’s all about possibilities, probabilities, and choices.

Perhaps that’s why virtual reality, games, and role playing are so popular. Unlike life, there are no real consequences of going with choice A, B, or C. In a “Somali Pirate” game, Captain Phillips would not be real, and neither would be the choices, decisions, or blood.

But the world is real, at least it seems so to us, and so is the program, faulty as it and the hardware and the operating system may be.

Still, I wonder how many worlds there are, and how many ways in which to perceive them. We’ll never know as long as we are trapped within our own limitations, which prevent us from escaping them.

Listen to them, children of the night . . .

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By day, Chicago’s Loop — the downtown business district of soulless, gleaming glass-and-steel towers interspersed among blackened vintage relics — bustles with activity. Elevated trains and buses disgorge city-dwelling office and store workers by the thousands, while commuter trains haul in warm bodies from the suburbs. Dishes and glasses clang in restaurants bars, while takeout containers and cups are filled. Delivery vehicles block streets and alleys. Lines form at government agencies, post offices, and banks. As the morning wears on, families and tourists vie with workers for sidewalk space and bus seats. After 10 a.m., the shoppers appear. At lunchtime, those can spare a few moments pour out of their office buildings seeking lunch or bargains or to run errands. And between 5 and 7 o’clock in the evening, the process reverses itself, with mostly urban young people staying behind for after-work conviviality and theater- and opera-goers appearing at select restaurants in the theater district and surroundings. Later, temporary lines form at cab stands as each production lets out.

Such is dawn-to-dark life cycle in downtown Chicago.

Despite the drinkers and diners, the theater and opera attendees, and the less studious of the new wave of art students roaming the streets, much of downtown Chicago consists of near-dead zones after late office hours. In some areas, you may be surprised to find yourself the only person walking on that block, or that you’re sharing it with its mostly unseen homeless residents. Often, they’re not the homeless you meet during the day, asking for money outside the train stations, stores, and restaurants, who disappear with the changing shift. To me, they seem to be the hardcore homeless. Several years ago, when a visitor and i left a pizza restaurant around 9 o’clock, one of these hungry-looking men stopped us to ask not for money, but for our leftovers, which we turned over to him. He clearly needed them more than we did.

Most suburbanites I’ve known are uncomfortable being downtown after the streets are no longer crowded with their kind. From a practical standpoint, they don’t want to miss their express train or the next one because after rush hour (really three hours) the trains just don’t run very often. The later it gets and the fewer trains there are, the farther away the suburbs recede. There’s more charm in being at home in the bosom of one’s family and in the comfort of one’s home than in being pursued by gaunt homeless men who want what’s left of your pizza. When someone tells you he or she is from Chicago, it’s likely they mean that they work in Chicago during daylight hours but rarely have seen the city after 8 or 9 o’clock at night. There’s safety in distance and numbers.

I didn’t watch the television series Beauty and the Beast regularly but did see enough episodes to know that it captured a mood of urban darkness and danger at night, real and perceived. Contrast that setting with the perfect and dreamlike pastel houses and manicured lawns of Edward Scissorhands, in which the improbable castle on the improbable hill, where evil seems to dwell, could represent the suburban fear of the urban unknown.

Years ago I thought of writing a story or even novel about the city’s life after dark, when shifts change from the white-collar desk jockey to the cleaning crews who toil overnight on carpets, cluttered desks, acres of glass and flooring, and countless counters and toilets. As one group leaves and the other arrives, and darkness settles in, the atmosphere changes. With fewer people on the street, the sense of unease and danger increases, a sense exploited in the 1989 Batman film, in the scene in which Bruce Wayne’s parents are murdered after a night out.

But I didn’t. I’ve never lived a suburban life, nor have I cleaned toilets at night or been a shift worker at a place like UPS, picked up by a special CTA bus, nor have I been a denizen of the streets, nor have I spent any time on Lower Wacker Drive except passing through in the safety of a taxi or a friend’s car. I would be writing something that simply wouldn’t be true to life, unable to balance the light against the dark, or to capture the mood. It would be an obvious fake.

Whether I’m at work or at home, at any given hour, night or day, I can’t conceive of what is out there. A couple of months ago, the police broke up a dogfight in progress, with even seasoned officers shocked and sickened by the brutality of the scene they found. This week a puppy mill was busted. Then there are the endless reports of child and animal neglect and abuse, spouse beatings, gang fights, robberies, rapes, murders — the list goes on and on and on. And it’s all happening within a few miles of the mostly serene lakefront scene out my windows. Only the people who confront these horrors every day — police, firefighters, social workers, and others who are on the front lines out there — could capture the true-to-life, complete picture of the city’s good, bad, and ugly. Although I don’t retreat to the suburbs, and I have had a few scary moments confronting reality, still here I am, looking out at life from a vantage point well away from it, a zone of relative safety. And I am too old, too comfortable, and too frightened to leave it.

Relativity

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Who would have guessed that a couple of links to my humble rumination on the virtues of the physical act of writing would draw so many visitors from so many places? Instead of agonizing over human foibles and behavior and worrying about why things are the way they are (imperfect), clearly I should focus less on writing and more on the tools of writing.

I jest, of course, although in the past few years I have begun to look enviously upon those who have a definitive set of tools they carry about with them, tools that seem to imbue their unseen labors with physical substance and reality. It might be someone with a bucket, brooms, and brushes, or with a hard hat and tool belt. It might be a musician with instrument case in hand. Or it might be someone like the young woman I saw on the bus with her “Art Bin,” no doubt bursting with all kinds of fun colors when opened.

At most I have a notebook and a pen/pencil case (pens, pencils, correction fluid, erasers, sharpeners, glue stick, scissors) to define me. They’re tucked away in a bag, and they are things that anybody and everybody uses in their home or corporate office. Oh, I have colored pencils and markers, too, but in my hands magic doesn’t flow from them, just childish scrawls.

That I like the substance of things is evident from the clutter I’ve accumulated since my 2003 move, after vowing to clean up my act and my place. I think I’d prefer a neat, uncluttered space, but somehow being surrounded by dusty books, paper, pens, and pencils makes me feel real.

March was a difficult month. I was busy with work to the point where I couldn’t think, and then I noticed more and more that time is slipping from me. Evenings and weekends are becoming shorter with each passing day that brings me closer to the end. Even an hour for lunch seems more like a half hour. Before, I could find time to be bored. Now, there’s not nearly enough time even for just a few small pleasures. When I’m sad (too often), I kill time by sleeping. When I’m happy (rarely), sleep is a luxury. And, perhaps because my body senses that spring is not that far off, something drives me to feel that I cannot afford the time for it.

My timeline is finite, after all, and I’m moving along it at what seems like a greater speed as I approach the end. Like a needle running along the grooves of a record, life started out in wide, slow circles. Now as it approaches the blank inner circle where the record ends, the needle seems to travel faster and faster over the shorter and shorter circles. I don’t know how long the music will last, only that it will end in silence.

And, right now at least, I’m not ready for the final note. There is so much left, or perhaps very little.

Time is relative in ways that even Einstein could not explain.

Why the pencil?

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I wrote this around October 8, 2007, and completely forgot about it, apparently.

To write is to put clues about your mind, heart, and soul on paper or similar medium, to share yourself with the present and future through the unique combination of words and handwriting.
 
The act of writing is a sensual experience; the smoothness of the pen or pencil’s glide across the page and the appearance of letters that form words that form sentences can be intensely satisfying, while any scratchiness of graphite, point, or nib offends the senses.
 
Writing is a form of magic that connects our brains and hands in a way that typing cannot equal. When we type, at least part of our brain is unconsciously distracted by the mechanics of the action. “Where’s the backspace key?” “How do I get an umlaut?” “How do I magnify the page view?” Using the combination of hardware and software disrupts the flow of thoughts in a way that a pencil doesn’t. It may need sharpened once in a while, but we can rotate it to obtain the best point without giving it a thought.
 
There is also the question of where to write. You can take a notebook computer almost anywhere if you don’t mind carrying the weight, straining to see the screen in the glare of daylight, wondering how long the battery will last, and worrying that it may rain. It’s easier — and lighter — to pack a pencil, eraser, sharpener, and small notebook. (You can even find a waterproof version if you don’t want to be deterred by the rain.) Whether you find your intellectual and creative inspiration at a library, cafe, park, forest glen, or beach, the pencil is always ready to channel your thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
 
Like the computer with its “Delete” key, the pencil is forgiving. A good pencil writes darkly without smudging, and a good eraser allows you to tweak your words as much as you like without making a mess. When your pencil point no longer suits you, you can sharpen it to your own personal taste.
 
Just as you can choose “skins” for your computer applications to customize their look and feel, you can choose pencils whose appearance appeals to your taste and makes a statement about you. They can be round, hexagonal, or triangular, or flat in the case of carpenter pencils. They can be thin, regular, or large, especially for children. Pencils can come in virtually any color or pattern conceivable, including natural wood. Some are adorned with cartoon characters, while others sport animal patterns — striped like snakes, spotted like leopards, or dotted with the “eyes” of a peacock’s tail. Others are painted a signature color, such as Rhodia orange, while some, like the Faber-Castell Grip 2001, are metallic. There is, of course, always yellow, the established standard if you don’t want to stand out in the crowd.
 
The wood, eraser, and ferrule offer you other opportunities to show off your preferences and personality. The unusual black wood of the Rhodia and Ticonderoga Noir are sure to attract attention, while the distinctive painted brass ferrule of the Mongol indicates simple elegance. Erasers can sport interesting colors as well. The Rhodia and Ticonderoga Noir feature black erasers, while the Helix Oxford and Musgrave Natural are topped with white. Of course, many art and European pencils dispense with the ferrule and eraser, an option you may prefer for its clean lines and style.
 
The Faber-Castell Grip 2001 comes with its own grip in the form of raised dots along the sides of the triangular barrel. For other pencils, you can go without a grip, or you can choose one that suits your fingers — triangular, round, edged, or ergonomic like the Stetro. Some are hard and solid, while others are a soft gel. Some grips even double as an eraser.
 
Erasers come in a variety of sizes, shapes, materials, and colors. Those designed for children (and the young at heart) tend to be playfully colored and/or patterned, for example, Papermate’s Expressions line, while pink and white seem to be the standard for adults. Materials include pumice, vinyl, and plastic, among others. Practical shapes include rectangles, squares, and triangles, but there are novelty erasers that emulate everything from food to sea life. Some are designed to be collected as much as used. Yikes, a line of pencils and erasers designed in the 1990s for schoolchildren, is remembered nostalgically by young adults for their cool appearance that separated them from ordinary pencils and erasers. Some teachers even banned Yikes as a classroom distraction!

For the writer or artist, society’s observers of life as it happens, nothing compares to capturing the moment with jotted notes or a quick sketch. Whether for writing or drawing, completing a crossword or sudoku puzzle, or marking up papers or carpenter’s wood, the pencil is not only a useful tool, but a statement about who you are and your tastes. If you see someone on the bus working the New York Times crossword with a generic office supply store pencil, you can guess that this is a utilitarian person willing to use what comes to hand. If, however, you spot someone wielding a Palomino, Tombow, or Faber-Castell, then you’ve seen an individual willing to search for a quality tool of the trade, the low-tech equivalent of the best, fastest computer processor.

Jeep lovers have the “Jeep wave,” given to anyone passing by in a Jeep as an acknowledgment of camaraderie and shared interest. Perhaps pencil aficionados need a nonthreatening equivalent when we see someone who takes pencils as seriously as we do. What might that be?

Eyes on the prize

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My two weeks and one day of vacation are over, so I have to adjust myself from expectant to adaptive mode. My time is no longer my own, and the rest of a long, cold, gloomy winter looms.

At Bonjour the day of New Year’s Eve, I heard a man who was sharing his table with two older women explain what he was doing. Every year, he writes his list of goals for the new year and mails it to himself on December 31. Although he always has access to it on his computer and to the mailed printout, something about the formality of receiving mail, opening it at the end of the year, and assessing his success works for him. I may try this. If I don’t formalize what I want, the odds are excellent that I will never achieve it.

As Susie Bright points out, the goal is not what we think it is. For example, my real goal is not to lose weight. It’s to experience the health, well being, enhanced physical ability, and perhaps improved confidence that weight loss would bring. Weight loss is a step toward that objective, and understanding that may make it easier to reach. It’s not about cutting fats and carbohydrates. It’s about the freedom of feeling healthy and energized. If, to use the jargon of business borrowed in part from war, we focus on strategies and outcomes, not on tasks, how much more we might accomplish.

Beating yourself up over a failed or missed task, a slice of cake eaten, or a pound or two gained doesn’t do any good. Perhaps great people know this instinctively, and that is part of what makes them great. They “don’t sweat the small stuff.”

I don’t profess to be great, but I can stop being stubborn and refusing to set goals because I feel disappointed by setbacks and doomed to fail. Taking the weight-loss example (one of myriad possibilities), I don’t have to set a goal of losing 20 pounds and then fret when the scale is disagreeable or my clothes are uncooperative. Instead, I’ll try to think about how I feel, why I feel that way, and, most important, how I can feel better. And I can feel better by doing, not just by wishing, much as I love to dream. Dreaming is important, but so too is living.

Bush the Third

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Not to my surprise, Former President George H. W. Bush apparently doesn’t agree with my ideas about the family business. The New York Times The Caucus blog reports:

You may think you’ve seen the last of the Bushes in the White House, but the Bush family seems to have other ideas.

Former President George H. W. Bush said today that he would like to see another Bush in the Oval Office.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Mr. Bush said he thought his son Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, should run for the Senate when Mel Martinz vacates the seat in Florida in 2010 — if he wants to.

He then added, “I’d like to see him run for president some day.”

Mr. Wallace seemed a bit surprised. The elder Bush had just been saying that he thought the attacks on his son George W. Bush, the current president, were unfair. (Well, he said he thought most of them were unfair; some were fair, he said, but he declined to say which ones.)

But after all that the current president has been through, Mr. Wallace asked, why would the father want to expose another son to such attacks?

“It’s about service,” Mr. Bush said.

The former president added: “Right now is probably a bad time because maybe we’ve had enough Bushes in there.”

Next up: Jenna Bush.

It’s about service, after all.

Hint: It’s okay if others wish to serve, too.

The family business

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I’m halfway through Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. Franklin, I learn, was at the vanguard of “compassionate conservatism” and “trickle-down economics.” While he believed that consumption by the rich boosted the productivity (and prosperity) of the poor, somewhat ironically Franklin was also a founding member of the emerging American middle class and a devotee of the myth that hard work and frugality are the cornerstones of American success.

Had Franklin looked looked more objectively at his own career, and those of the hard-working poor, he might have arrived at a more balanced, accurate belief. Certainly hard work (including staying up all night to set type after a plate was broken) and his wife’s frugality (if not always his) contributed to the success of his business and helped him and his family to live comfortably as stolid middle-class citizens. For many that is success of a kind.

Franklin, however, was a success because in entrepreneurial fashion he saw, seized, and created opportunities, and, more than once, rolled over and sometimes drove out less astute or less ruthless competitors. He also built networks of like-minded men who could help each other and lend support to their respective businesses and interests. Like a modern-day self-made man, and with his appointment as postmaster, he could retire at a relatively young age — not wealthy, but not in debt, either.

When he saw his son, William, pursuing position instead of business or work, he advised him on the virtues of effort and frugality. Perhaps lacking the entrepreneurial spirit, William accepted appointment as the royal governor of New Jersey — a post that elevated him above his father and his middle class. Ultimately, Benjamin would side with the rebellious colonies while William remained a Loyalist.

The divergent paths of father and son and their mutual interest in politics reminded me of something I’d been thinking about since George W. Bush became president and later when Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president.

Although there’s nothing to prevent it, and my feeling disregards that the candidate may be as or more qualified than anyone else, it bothers me that American politics is dominated by a handful of families — perhaps most famously the Kennedys, and more recently the Bushes and Clintons. We’ve had father-and-son presidents, and almost a husband-and-wife set. We’ve had Theodore and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Beginning in 1989, George H. W. Bush was president, then one son became governor of Texas in 1995, another the governor of Florida in 1999. Joe Biden’s son, Beau, serves as attorney general of Delaware. And Caroline Kennedy is itching for Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat, representing New York.

Here in Illinois, we have the Madigans, among others: Speaker of the House Michael and his daughter, Attorney General Amy (not to mention Governor-for-Now Rod Blagojevich and his father-in-law, Chicago Alderman-for-Life Richard Mell). Cook County Board President John Stroger managed to pass on the baton to his son, Todd, whose performance to date has underwhelmed even those with the lowest expectations of him. More locally, Chicago Mayor-for-Life Richard J. Daley fathered Chicago Mayor-for-Life Richard M. Daley. In a nation of 305 million souls and in a city of nearly 3 million, the same names keep popping up. Where are the fresh faces of new leadership?

A friend tells me that I’m looking at this the wrong way. She points out that politics is a family business like any other and that members of each younger generation may choose to follow in the older’s footsteps, just as, for example, some children grow up to become doctors, lawyers, or coal miners like their parents. Certainly, many of the Kennedys seem to see themselves as devoted to public service, and for all I know so do the Madigans, Strogers, and Daleys.

Unconsciously, Benjamin and William Franklin (and perhaps Samuel and John Adams) were among those who helped start the American tradition of politics as family business. It may have made sense in the small world of the 13 colonies, in which Philadelphia (population 23,000) was their largest city and when American-style democracy was still years off. I am not so certain that it’s still a good model, or the best, for a complacent, celebrity-obsessed society more interested in names than accomplishments and looks than abilities. To succeed in politics requires money, influence, backing, name recognition, and personality — something both Franklins would have understood.

I think, or wish, we could do better than that.

As Spock of Star Trek says, “There are always possibilities.”

And opportunities.

Scattershot musings

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Last Sunday, the trees were glorious, and Wednesday the air was balmy at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. By Saturday, the trees that had glowed against the blue of the lake were bare against the gray of the lake, and the temperatures had plummeted to the 40s.

Only two brave souls sat outdoors together at Bonjour, each reading a newspaper section.

I frittered the days away with sporadic reading, browsing, and napping — I hadn’t indulged in the latter for months, especially not since my UFE recovery period.

It must be the weather. Because I can’t blame fluctuating hormones, at least for the moment, I’m laying my increased carbohydrate cravings and consumption at the feet of the shorter days and colder nights.

So far this year, however, I haven’t been as chilled outdoors as I am indoors, every day by midday. My fingers are aching even as I write this. We can do so many interesting things, solve so many problems, and conjure up so many improbable theories, but maintaining a reasonably comfortable temperature in a state-of-the-art office beyond remains beyond our ability. It gives women something to chat about as we warm our hands under warm tap water in the bathroom where, at my old job, the main activities (aside from the obvious) were networking and problem solving. Now we use the bathroom as a combination waste disposal facility and warming shelter, except the air in there is chilly, too.

When I started working, managers and above sat in window offices (with their backs to the windows) and worker bees aspired to move into a window office. Then design became more egalitarian, and offices began to feature cubicles, er, workstations with windows. I have two and one-half windows, and do so my cohorts. The other day I noticed that nearly all of blinds down the hallway are closed, which struck me as amusing — an admittance that the view is not as important as the perceived prestige once associated with windows. But there are two reasonable explanations: In this gloomy weather, it’s easier for the people across the alley to see us. And there isn’t much for us to see, either, except the people across the alley. Which is easy to do because they don’t lower their blinds.

With the change in weather, J. and I have not been as active. On Saturday we ate at the Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop, where we did not see Obama, just as we had not seen him at Medici on 57. Perhaps someday we’ll catch him at Valois Cafeteria or Mellow Yellow.

I started to watch the 1996 version of The Canterville Ghost with Patrick Stewart, but left the final half hour for the next morning — by which time it had disappeared from the on-demand list. Now I’ll never know how it ends . . . it was not bad for a modern version, although the father’s character was disturbingly inconsistent. It was strange enough that he greets his daughter only in passing as he rushes to gush over his boys. As the movie proceeds, he veers illogically between the rational and the emotional. As a scientist firmly grounded in the real, he refuses to believe in ghosts or any evidence they may leave behind. At the same time, based on only the flimsiest circumstantial evidence, he roundly condemns his daughter as a cruel, even dangerous prankster. Then he has the gall to whine to his wife that he and the daughter aren’t close like they used to be, to which the wife responds with grating predictability, “She’s growing up.” Too bad Dad doesn’t do the same.

As I was waiting for a bus that seemed determined not to arrive on Monday, I heard sirens, saw a number of unmarked black cars whizzing about officiously, and noticed that traffic was backing up down 57th toward Stony Island. Access to Lake Shore Drive had been cut off, with Everett being the only immediate escape east of Hyde Park Boulevard. Obliviously I assumed there had been an accident and wondered how late I would be.

Then I heard the helicopter and saw the spotlight hovering above.

“It’s the president-elect,” a woman told me.

“Really?” I said. I didn’t think he’d spend much time in Hyde Park anymore.

After a while a motorcade came along. I didn’t pay close attention, but did spot a black woman peering out of the open back window of one of the limousines.

The motorcade had passed before I realized that I should have been more interested.

“Did you see the hearse? It wasn’t the president-elect; it was a funeral,” the woman said.

I hadn’t seen a hearse, but I couldn’t swear positively that I hadn’t seen it, either, so I let that go.

“The only person I can think of who’s died is Studs Terkel, and I can’t imagine all that for him,” I said.

“He died a couple of weeks ago,” she noted erroneously.

“I won’t get that kind of sendoff,” I said, perhaps a bit wistfully.

“Do I look like I will?” she laughed.

Silence for a bit.

“History is being made,” she added, but not conceding the funeral point.

“A better kind of history,” I offered.

“You know it,” she said as I was saved by the appearance of an X28 bus.

On the Chicago Tribune site, I saw that Barack Obama had dropped his girls off at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, then he and Michelle had taken off for Washington, D.C., to meet with George and Laura Bush. Hearse sighting aside, I’m fairly certain that all the excitement, complete with choppers, was over that daily ritual of every family with children — the trip to school.

The online photo spread showed Obama, sporting a Sox cap, hugging his daughters, who in their neat school clothes and backpacks look like any other Hyde Park student on a school day. They were the only ones who arrived with a Secret Service, police, and news escort, I imagine. How fascinating it will be to watch them grow up over the next four to eight years, now that they are in an inescapable fish bowl.

I spent many mornings waiting in the dark, cold, and snow, alone, for a school bus that never had a seat for me and my bass clarinet.

Yet I don’t envy them.

Not really.

Well. Perhaps a little as they get to see the world.

Still, there’s the fishbowl.

At least they’re used to it.

I think it would kill this lonely guppy.

On the other hand, a life of ease and comfort would suit me well just about now.

Stress free.

Woo is me

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Sure as shooting, if I sign onto a certain social network for more than a few minutes, my mailbox will start filling with woo notes — messages from men who purport to think that I’m their kind of woman. A handful are from young men who are not entirely subtle about their desire to score with an older woman. Most, however, are or seem to be from mature men seeing their soul mate/ideal woman (insert your preferred term here). Based on my profile (which does not show dating or a relationship as an interest), they would like to find out if I am The One.

Most of these woo notes have a few things in common.

  • They’re generic. They’re not addressed to me or my silly handle, nor do they allude to any of my displayed interests. They don’t even ask what I like to read or watch.
  • They refer to my appearance in some way (which may change while my photo has been temporarily replaced by a satirical political button).
  • The spelling and punctuation are so bad that often the notes are undecipherable. I try not to be a language snob, and I understand that for many using a keyboard and computer would be like me operating a jackhammer or even a needle and thread adeptly — unnatural, unproductive, even disastrous. Still, what does the lack of basic literacy say about the 21st century?

Here are excerpts from a couple of examples:

  • . . . kind of man that loves completly,maybe thats the reason why im being taken advantage of ,makes me feel like im a fool loving, is it always a crime loving from the bottom of the heart, my friend told me if you show all your love to someone, that the person will take advantage of you, is tha true? i dont think it is ,someone women are just being heartless, all i want is someone that can share the same gift of love with me , not just for a day or a night stand i want what i call forever love, . . .
  • . . . nice to write to you and will like to meet a woman like you someday . i am single man hardworking and honets faithful lovely sincer caring and kind . i dont have kids.i will really like to know you more because you are pretty and i may think you have good sence of humor ..and will like spending some time with you as well . . .

Now, I’m not actively seeking a relationship, and (spelling and grammar aside), these woo notes, as positioned, aren’t going to change my mind. I’m no expert on wooing anyone, let alone a woman, let alone myself. I can tell you what might attract my attention if not my interest:

  • Addressing me as an individual vs. shooting me a prefabricated woo note that sounds like it’s dropped en masse in the hope of luring a lonely fish.
  • Addressing me personally.
  • Foregoing the direct approach of seeking romance (sex) and engaging me in a topic of mutual interest. Were I to write a woo note, it might begin, “Robert, I read your comments about Henry Miller and think you’re off base. Here’s why” — in which case right off I would appear to be disagreeable, not to mention honest.

This is part of why I don’t write woo notes. I would introduce myself, but I wouldn’t ramble breathlessly about myself and my desire for a soul mate who loves all the standard stuff of bad personals — walks on the beach, candlelit dinners, and other things that people say because they think women want to hear them. I would try to engage in a dialogue that could lead to more dialogue and — dare I say it? — friendship. I wouldn’t try to convince anyone that I’m a lonely, misunderstood romantic tapped in a cynic’s universe. If he’s perceptive — that is, someone I could be interested in — he’ll figure that out without me having to spell it out. I would tell him what I’m looking for. Connecting with another person isn’t about making lists and ticking off each point. If we develop a relationship, that too will come out naturally.

Woo notes, which I’ve received since the days of Love@AOL, are monologues without an opening for dialogue. “I’m here to talk about me. I don’t need to ask you about you — whoever you are — because this woo note is a template I send to every woman whose photo strikes my eye. A few are bound to get a response someday, and that’s all I need to get an online chat or even a date or two.”

Besides, it looks like I’m not that special after all.