shunt/the idea of chicago vs. the fact of chicago
logan’s pretty brainfuck gorgeous this evening, per most of the time, but i’m really frayed because the commute out from downtown was really complicated and technical. i bike from state/jackson to my place on palmer square by doing this: state north, adams, jefferson, fulton a block over to des plaines (where it turns 2-way for a block), over two lanes to turn left on milwaukee while going downhill very fast, then milwaukee all the way out to armitage, stave, a jog on california to palmer, then a jog from palmer over to the alley behind my apartment building. the hardest parts are, of course, adams between wacker and canal, milwaukee through chicago/ogden/may/elston, the crotch, and the turn left from des plaines onto milwaukee, which - after almost two years of doing it - remains fully 110% adrenaline-gush thrilling every single time. naturally, IDOT’s adding a traffic light at the top of that hill does precisely fuck-all to temper the speed of people driving over it or to give me an easy way to short-circuit the lane change with no oncoming cars eastbound, as i expected when they started building driveways off that area into a notional future dominick’s over a year ago, because its light cycle is over five minutes and i have, after about 50 times cresting that hill, only hit red once, probably by IDOT’s design.
my commute in differs drastically around downtown - instead of taking des plaines to jackson in, i hang a left on kinzie and cross the river twice. kinzie, wells, wacker, state. the hardest part about my commute in is state street; i have to contend with cta buses, two construction sites, and some of the more hardcore among the fixie set. (not to implicate her or anything but i once saw finch beat a cta bus by at least twice-speed at state/monroe.) i can do this in part because the commute out is much more aggressive and hostile than the commute in, because drivers are hungry and exhausted from their days at work, and because people tend to all leave the loop at the same time, so traffic is more congested as well. it’s also a tick more depressing to head out at 5p during the winter, daylight wastings time, because it’s entirely dark and yet super-populated on every possible thoroughfare. also also wacker eastbound in the morning is one of the best sights in the entire city, despite the row of aggro-buttnostril cabs in front of that one hotel at dearborn.
but yeah, commuting out sucked tonight. as mentioned, adams between wacker and canal is often a bad part, and tonight i was stuck behind a bus going exactly its speed, 2ft behind its rear bumper so nobody could cut me off, in the smack middle of its blind spot, as two cars tried to lane change into me. when i was burning speed to catch up with the imminent green at des plaines/kinzie/milwaukee a SUV, waiting at the red immediately to my right, laid on its horn and then the driver said he hoped i go to hell. (i prob will, thanks.) and then at chicago/ogden/milwaukee/may i hit one light and missed the other and dropped my iphone on the ground and had to ditch my bike and miss the next light and make sure that the phone was ok. (it was.)
the whole vibe was fucked. you can sort of suss out this collective feeling from all the drivers around you, like how they are treating the road and each other, and by proxy how badly they want to get home. eventually after a while it fills the atmosphere and it suffuses your own actions when you’re biking out. it just always seems more acute when you’re leaving work, you know? like heading in you are mostly just starting afresh and heading into work is much different from heading into this dynamic series of unknowns, this free time, outside work. and so my nerves are still on edge, and i sort of have no idea how to resolve this very complicated and ethereal series of tensions other than to just give up on the possibility of working tonight (i mean, i am updating a weblog, and that does not exactly fucking constitute writing about the beauty and possibility of interface design), despite my being alone and all Captain Of My Destiny™ the whole time (the special lady’s in wisconsin with her fam), and kill a beer and sleep it off.
when i walked into this coffee shop i ran into ken and said hi to ken. dude grew a face sweater something fierce. i think he is doing ok.
