Winter has been holding steadily here in Chicago. Sitting on the Blue line I watch when the doors open, feeling the shutter just before the doors pull apart, I brace myself for the icy chill that lurks just outside. Its a cold that penetrates. The people stream in wearing their motley assortments of hats and scarves, yellow and chunky, city black and sleek, the few fair isles thrown in. They're like some lost flock of birds that has given up all hope of going south for the winter and just choose to stay and survive the winter. No one is smiling. In the midst of this sudden rush, the varied scent of colognes, cigarettes, and Styrofoam cup coffee sneak by, enveloped in steamy breath. Patches break to show watery eyes behind fogged eye glasses and frozen breath melts on scarves accompanied by the sounds of shuffling boots, rustling bags, gloves being pulled off, and sniffles, woven amongst the otherwise silent passengers. It almost conceals the piss-and-salted smell of the el, its ancient car just a void of plastic and utilitarian surfaces covered with uncertain stains and graffiti.I hold my purse closer, fairly certain that a bum probably did something gross and unacceptable in the general area of my seat, and I'm also quite certain that I wouldn't want my bag to come in contact with that particular source of the unthinkable. Many things are uncertain, but the el being trashed by homeless is a certainty that makes me unwilling to trust public surfaces.
I wonder about the lady doing her knitting in front of me. Its a chunky heavy type of wool, probably expensive and natural, a thick mustard yellow color. Knit - Knit- P
url -Purl, then purl again on her size 14ish needles. I watch the needles waltz forward and back, transfixed by her even strokes. She's wearing a home-made hat, you can tell because its that same mustard yellow of her current project, and it looks like she's working o
n another hat in a different pattern. I let my mind wander and imagine that she has mustard yellow interspersed in many places in her house, maybe in many parts of her wardrobe, or bookends, vases, and tiny porcelain cups with ducks painted on the side in brush strokes. I wonder if the wool is alpaca or some other fancy creature sourced material. She probably drinks tea, and gardens. There she goes knit-knit-purl-purl, and I realize that the train is going back underground- we're almost downtown. I sigh as I sink into my sound-canceling headphones and podcast, ready to start the day.
There's a Buddha on the Elevator
I went to Sushi Samba for the first time ever, because they were having a tweet up and I was curious what that would be. The first floor is standard restaurant, lovely ambient, if dark
lighting. It feels like you're in some kind of exotic aquarium.
If you get on the elevator with Buddha, to the left of the floor manager, you're transported to a sleek and glassy loft bar with coves and plushy seats, and views of the surrounding highrises. They had a live DJ, screens showing live twitter feeds, and LOTS of people. I
enjoyed watching them since it was too loud to talk or hear them. Not really my scene anyway. I'm more of a quiet dinner place with friends kind of person.
Winter Photos
About all I feel like doing during winter outside is taking photos. It's too cold for me to spend extended amounts of time and energy outside. I also miss the sunlight, but I've learned how to deal with that at least. Anyway, the day I took these, there was an odd warmth in the air, what I would call the "smell" of spring. It was definitely a false sense, as it's only January and we have at least four months of cold unending grey days left before the warm
weather starts stopping by.
The Melted Snowman
Reminder of Summer Days
Leaves and snow crystals
Still tracking
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