yyt

Am all enthusiastic on my second foray in to wandering before work, again I have to head over to WGAS’s Fair Grounds where the annual MFA/4H fair takes place but don’t have to be there until 11 AM. Even better I’ll have to walk between the exhibition grounds and the school twice.

I see all sorts of potential in wandering the West Loop except that it is raining. The type of weather that Joãozão and the leiquinhas seem to rebel against. Besides I am tired after the evening on the Island and three hours sleep. My constant companion - the below 49th headache - was stronger than usual, defeated, I head to the school.

For some reason three hours to waste at the school didn’t seem all that appealing and it is now only a drizzle and the headache would be there walking or fuming I decided to walk. With two hours to make it to gallery, I headed south of the Loop hoping that I could get away of the utopian fortresses – lots of glass, lots of guards one non governmental building even has x-ray machines - of the Loop.

Wasn’t good, was seeking out situations rather than walking receptively. I can tell as I fall back to the formal. Walked along Harrison knowing that at a time there were smaller shops and by the river encampments. No longer. The area is so tarted up that restaurants are now banks, and everything else is a condo. Nothing that would actually be found in a real neighbourhood – tavern, food shop etc.

Daley has cleaned up the homeless. There are at least three a block outside the utopian fortresses but where they live has been obliterated from sight. I used to be able to count on some encampments on the banks of the river - better view than the usual underpasses.

Walked in a daze until I got to Clinton then decided another ploy that works in rectilinear cities. I looked up and down the streets to see if anything peaked my interest.

Headed south toward Roosevelt Road – more because it seems that I could see a new utopiaville being built. I also wanted to photograph a café that had been on the corner so long it had become an ikon, a beacon of safety in the area late at night.

It was still there, sandwiched between the Starbucks and the soon to be built Wholefoods just down from the Panera.

I was getting exercise but nothing much else.

Turned right in Roosevelt and entered a different world. Local shops, trades that I thought were dead - schmate, wigs, nail parlours, furriers - remnants of what Maxwell street used to be crushed into one block as across the road was a Home Depot.

Could tell I was out of the Loop as a cop hops out of a car and tells a nattily dressed chap to move on.

-i am waiting for a bus.
-wait for the bus over there. move it.

now I wanted to slow the pace but the time of the meeting was approaching. Didn’t dally –except to let the cop know he was being watched (like he cared). Walked up on the east side of the Dan Ryan hoping to find some possession stored in the relative safety on the verge of the interstate. It seems that one person had escaped Daley’s clean-up.

A vest pocket park here, a graphically numbered building dock there formalism at the Citgo station. No chance of choosing streets due to the expressway. I was at the WGAS Fair Grounds ready for the five minute meeting.