Chicago - Thus Far

So far, the worst part of the trip to Chicago has been New Year's Eve itself. After all my excitement, raised expectations that I was going to enjoy myself, work the room, meet some neat gals, etc., I fell flat on my face, found myself tired and nodding off during one jazz set, demoralized and - not wanting to be a pill or a burden to my traveling buddy - left. Got back to the hotel close to two a.m., relatively sober, full of regret.

Perhaps it was the sticker shock of the $55.00 cab ride which should have only cost $30 or $40 at most, perhaps it was the fact that three of us ate at a loud restaurant and I have a hard time hearing in a noisy crowd-filled place. Perhaps those two incidents prior to the art gallery set me up for a bad time. Perhaps it was not being able to speak to/call my wife and daughter, 800 miles away. My first New Year's away from them. Whatever it was, it didn't work, and I did not have a good time.

But today is a new day, and although it is cold, there may be plenty of things to do in Chicago, on our last full day here. Perhaps go back to Wicker Park and check out what is open, what can be explored. Timing prevented that from happening.

But yesterday was not totally lost. A double cheeseburger and a beer at the Billy Goal Tavern, sitting at a writer's bar...journalist's bar, more accurately. Then meeting up with a friend of my traveling buddy who got us into the art institute. We saw Gauguins, Picassos, Van Goghs, a whole bunch of older stuff from Africa, Indonesia and the Americas. The best part was the narration by the friend who went with us, who does not believe that art galleries should be treated like libraries, or worse yet, cemetaries, whose iconoclastic approach to art was a balm to the stuffy atmosphere that such large institutions cultivate. That followed by a beer and bourbon at this bar on Wabash and service from a very cranky, unfriendly waitress.

The day before was for walking. All the way up from Van Buren and State to Belmont Avenue and the Hungry Brain. A nice lunch at an Irish pub, some beers along the way, drinks at a place called Beat Kitchen. A nice time. I left early that night, too, so I would have energy for New Year's Eve. Funny.

So, that's Chicago in a nutshell. Fair to say my best times actually were just walking the streets, people watching, enjoying the sights and sounds and smells of Chicago...which feels less this time like home.

But then again, no place feels like home anymore.

I have no home.

January 1, 2008

The end of the year always gets me a bit melancholy, as it has been discussed on the blog prior to today. And going into Christmas and the New Year do the same. Ever since my stepfather was killed in a car wreck in January 1986, I have always had this sense of doom about the post-holiday period...many times nothing happens to justify it, but it is there. That crash after the festivities.

Last year the crash came later, around January 30, when Lisa and I agreed that what we had was no more and it was time to end it. And 2007 has been defined by that moment and that day. It's been a very long, slow death of a marriage. No papers have been signed yet, but I am out of the house, and my daughter is getting used to the new reality.

On the bright side, the new change in my life has led me to begin writing again, and I started painting later in the year. The writing culminated in a 30-page chapbook. The painting, which really has just begun, is being rewarded with my first public showing of a piece.

And I've made a few new friends.

But still, that sense of doom at the holidays still lingers.

Poetry Night - Chicago

Tonight is poetry night. The theme: Chicago! Mine is Carl Sandburg's "Chicago Poet."

My poem:

Chicago
(January 2008)

Beer and brats
and cold brooding
walks
cigars and thoughts
and hard drinking
bouts

my chicago!

escape from the cold
northeastern old
city
meander and smoke
and have numerous
epipanies

i'm not so happy
now
and
i can't fake it

but perhaps
i'll be transformed
and perhaps
i'll be refreshed
just perhaps
[hopefully]
i'll be naked!

(c) fprm, 12-27-07

Post-Holiday Blues

Last night accentuated for me the risk of suffering from a bout of post-holiday blues. This always happens to me, but usually after my birthday. This year, it is happening a bit quicker.

Although I survived yesterday and had a good time with my girls (wife and daughter), I kind of felt out of place in the home of my wife's relatives, like I did not belong. But then we got home to Summit Avenue, and I left there rather quickly (I am loathe to hang out at the place that once was my home but feels like it no more), went to see Charlie Wilson's War.

What a fun movie that was.

Then on Lark Street, I had a beer...there were a few bars open but the street and the scene was very desolate and to be honest, there is something a bit sad and slightly pathetic about hanging out in a bar on Christmas night. And on top of it all, the pint glass slipped out of my hand and crashed on the floor of the Lark Tavern. I went home.

First I thought I would paint, but I decided against it and just went to bed.

So, with the exception of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and going to see the movie, I felt very alone, and just a little sad.

This Sunday, I leave for Chicago, and that should be fun.

Merry Christmas

It's December 25, and the early morning celebration of Santa's visit has passed...successfully. Everyone was pleased with what they received. Pleased and grateful...and no attitude! Not bad for a coddled 5 year old!

And the cats enjoyed the wasted gift wrap paper all over the floor.

Although the worse is yet to come: being the only grandchild on my wife's side, total attention and adoration...and gifts galore.

As for my wife and I...all went well. Coffee, breakfast, a little wine, later the rest of a Henry Clay cigar.

Chicago 2008

A year ago, I moved into 2007 while finishing the last leg of a car ride with my family after our trip to Savannah GA.

This year, I will likely be at a New Year's Eve party in Chicago, IL...at an art gallery, with my fellow traveler and some other folk. Also, a trip to a Bavarian-style restaurant, to the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop and the Art Institute of Chicago to see some Gauguins, Hopper, and other notable works of art.

I always enjoy being home in Albany, but when I get to visit Chicago or San Francisco (that's Feb 8 - 11), it's always nice (albeit a bit difficult) to come back.

Christmas Eve 2007

It is about 4 p.m., and I am at the Summit Avenue residence - the home of my wife and my daughter. A day spent prepping the Christmas Eve dinner (meatloaf, garlic mashed potatoes, asparagus sauteed in red wine and butter), making some cookies for The Man and sharing with my daughter the residual cookie dough, and watching the Simpsons movie twice (actually a very good, very sweet movie with a redemption theme).

Tonight a light supper, some wine, and we'll allow my daughter to open one gift. The girls will go upstairs, I will likely settle onto the couch and watch a couple showings of "A Christmas Story." It is funny: the older I get the more removed I am from Ralphie and the more I sympathize with the Old Man.

The girls will go to sleep, I will nod off and The Man will come through and do his work, have some cookies, drink an egg cream and be on his way.

This Christmas is special: my wife and I are trying to provide our girl with some semblance of family, of continuity, of stability, even as the world around her shifts and changes dramatically. But at least for tonight and tomorrow, the day will be hers, and I will do what I do best: suffocate any expression of sadness or remorse for my contribution to this drama and go with the flow.