Resting beach face

I know I say this every other week nowadays, but I really think I've reached a point of overextending myself socially. Saturday I checked Messenger and saw that a new person had accepted my friend request. The only trouble is I don't recall sending any such request. My first reaction was: Is this some kind of new scam? Is there a way of hacking FB in order to friend you without your consent?

But I looked at his profile and he seems real enough. We have 15 mutuals, there are pictures of them with him, and his profile says he lives in Chicago. But I don't recall ever meeting him, let alone sending a friend request. So I did what seemed sensible at the time and sent an apologetic reply asking, "Where did we meet again?" No response, so I'm still in the dark, but I guess we'll run into each other again somewhere?

Oh well. I made yesterday a beach day and met a bunch of new guys anyway. But the one I spent the most time with was Hildy, who looks so changed I didn't recognise him at first. Still cute as a button, though, and almost flirty with me. We took a couple dips in the water together and during one of them he confided in me that he didn't really find me handsome until I cut my hair. Pretty much everyone seems to feel that way, so it doesn't bother me to hear it (even if it does make me think slightly less of the complimenter).

I gobsmacked him by reminding him that it'd been five years since we met. He's still just shy of 30, so that's like a huge chunk of his adult lifespan. Since Necessary Evil ended, we see each other very sporadically and generally don't have a great deal to say. But he confided some other things in me which made me think that we might have some unsuspected points of commonality.

It was as close to a perfect summer day as you ever get in Chicago and the beach was packed for at least 30 meters from the water. Several friends said they were there but in the crowd I must have missed them; I only found Pasillero because a mutual friend saw and grabbed me. His husband was there so that made the task of concealing our intimacy even more burdensome. It makes me value even more the rapport I once had with Rubeus where the two of us could flirt openly without discomfitting our partners.

A candle in the darkness

Saturday was a scorcher and I wanted nothing more than to laze in bed and read. But it was also the day of the largest anti-ICE rally downtown and I told myself that if I can't drag my ass downtown to march for a couple hours against putting children in concentration camps then what fucking good am I.

Even so, I almost didn't make it, but I made a leap of faith and hoped that the pains I was experiencing would subside. Worst case scenario, they wouldn't and I'd just have to get back on an air-conditioned train and head back home. Fortunately, it didn't come to that and I found innerdoggie and tyrannio with very little trouble.

I don't know much about Indivisible Chicago, but both the organisers and the crowd skewed older in a manner that's become familiar to me over the past couple years. I found myself wondering, if street protests don't appeal to young folk (and they appeal little enough to me), then what might be forms of direct action that would? I hope someone hipper and more motivated than I is working on this question.

In any case, it was the usual mixed bag of speeches punctuated with a sub-sub-Dylan protest song while various shades of Reds circulated among the crowd hoping to make recruits. We warded them off for the most part, though we did allow ourselves to be accosted by an earnest young man canvassing support for granting refugee status to a Lithuanian dissident. He was quite happy to hand us some pre-printed letters to send to our Congresscritters (and which naturally haven't left my bag since).

After a bit more than an hour of this, we headed off south through the financial district (deserted on a Saturday, of course) towards ICE's downtown office. "Close the camps (now)!" and "No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!" were the most popular chants. I thought we'd circle the office for a bit but after passing it we were being routed back north--presumably back to Daley Plaza--so I proposed to tyrannio (innerdoggie having left already for an art class) that we pop into Native Foods for lunch.

There was a brief cloudburst as we talked about food and books and then we went our separate ways. He headed back to Hyde Park, but I decided I needed to get some errands done first. The Verizon staff were very kind but ultimately couldn't do anything to help me close Monshu's account except hand me a phone number. Between the Rack and DSW, I spent over an hour trying things on and left with only two new pairs of shorts.

After that, it was a quiet evening. My neighbours made a brief appearance after sunset and I ran into the Ghostbuster from across the road who needed to borrow a pair of shears. Did any of it make a difference? It's hard to feel that it did. I made a social media post and it got likes, so I guess virtue was signaled adequately. But I crawled into bed under the oppressive status quo that will continue until regime change. And that's the best case scenario.