The Death of Imagination

I am still recovering from the weekend.

Mostly from Saturday. Sometimes the conversation at cocktail night is so good we lose track of time, but I don't think we've ever lost track of it the way we did this last time. Falling back didn't help; a couple folks were surprised to look at their phones and see it was only 1:30 a.m. when it was the second time that night it was 1:30 a.m.

Upon reflection, I can see a number of distinct phases. One starts with the arrival of my college friend Guge and two of her high school classmantes, all of whom were coming from a memorial service for a fourth classmate. One of these is a gay man who's on the spectrum and--apparently--hot for me. The other helped me coordinate Monshu's cremation and memorial service.

It was she who had the idea to tell real-life ghost stories and the gay guy had a doozy. I lowered the lights, lit a skull candle, and he told about seeing a ghost in the restroom of a local restaurant when he was seven. "It was a just a void," he told us. At the time he'd been panicked, and of course none of the adults he told believed him.

The next day, he discovered that it had followed him home.

For nearly ten years, he saw the mysterious floating shape intermittently, never talking about it to anyone. When the cats where in the room, they would watch it, too, confirming to him that this was more than a figment. Then finally, one Christmas morning, his father said something to his mother which revealed that they'd been seeing it all along, too. The whole family had and had never spoken of it. He wept with relief.

None of them ever saw it again.

After the women left, things quieted down for a bit, but predictably veered more toward the sexual. This only intensified when a new acquaintance from Wichita arrived with a drunk friend in tow, and they were all thirsty. It got raunchy; this is one of the only times ever I could imagine this gathering mutating into a sex party. And talk got real. We went from sexual positions to discussing the evolution of the notion of the gay community.

To complicate things, the Scouser who I'd nailed back in July was there and I really wanted to nail him again. Ultimately, it looked like the only way to swing that would be to escort everyone to the bar (Ghost Boy kept insisting) and double back--which we gladly did, but it added at least another half hour onto an already long evening. By the time he left, it was nearly 4 a.m. CST.

Maybe I could have slept in more, but after about five hours, I was itching to start on the day, since it was a pretty one and I had plans. I left about 12:30 and made terrific time to Pilsen. At ten to two, Nuphy and I met at the new crepería attached to Panadaería Nuevo León, where the portions are enormous.

It's a bit sad to see him navigating with a cane these days, but at least his mind still seems plenty sharp. We had plenty of time to talk as we made slow progress down 18th to the museum. The crowds were huge but thinned out massively by 4 p.m. By that time, we'd managed to find and lose everyone in our group at least once.

bunj was there with e., who sadly couldn't stick around. innerdoggie and tyrannio made it, too, along with lhn and prilicla. It was an outing like we haven't had in years and, despite my tiredness, I enjoyed every moment of it. Pilsen is a feast for the eyes and spirit and we made our merry way to the restaurant (Nuphy took the bus and beat us there) stopping frequently to comment and investigate.

The restaurant--a new place Nuphy wanted to try--wasn't all that. It advertised itself as a cocktail bar, with a huge list of margaritas and mojitos, but after bunj tried to order one of the latter, they announced that they were out of mint. The interesting array of tacos was tasty, but the sauces were tainted with unnecessary jalapeno and my duck was cold and overcooked.

But it all hardly mattered. We chatted away about food, death, and everything in between. It's amazing to me the comfort level you can have with people that you've known for nearly three decades; as I gazed around the room, I felt a twinge at the thought of each of these beautiful people departing the world forever.

But for now, they're all here, and Day of the Dead was a timely reminder to keep doing things with them while they are. Normally a Sunday after a big night out is an emotional nadir for me, but the lift I got for those hours together carried me over it and even lasted into the next day.

Today's depression caught me even more off guard by coming on the heels of a delightful weekend. Sure, Sunday I was moody and draggy, but that's typical when I've been out late. It usually doesn't carry over into the week.

It was also a beautiful day, so I wasn't the least surprised to find that I'd managed to schedule a four-hour RPG session for the heart of it. This was JB's idea, and I was looking forward to it. He told us to scare up some players, so I asked Sad Cub, who initially agreed, but never asked me the time and then informed me that he had to run errands.

I find it ironic that JB initially objected to him because he'd thought he'd be "dull" given that the player he did invite didn't seem to contribute much. To be fair, I don't think any of us was at our best. I even dozed off at one point. (In my defence, it was after the homemade apple pie with homemade ice cream.) The game itself was another PbtA, Zombie World, with the twist that it used cards as a mechanic rather than dice.

We ended with about an hour of fading sunlight left so I got to fit in a bit of a stroll. I suspected the leaves would be particularly striking after having been washed clean but the previous day's storms and I was right. Any doubts I had about how pretty this fall would be have been laid to rest.

It was a marked contrast to my stroll along many of the same streets the day before. Then it was pouring rain and so, despite being the same time of day, quite dark out. I was too stubborn to call a ride, a decision I came to regret almost immediately. Thankfully, I wasn't completely soaked when I got home and my friends came to pick me up for the next event.

The afternoon get-together was another wine-tasting at mikiedoggie's. It was one of the best yet: everyone agreed that there wasn't a stinker in the pack and the final tally was very closed. Yet again, I placed near the bottom, so I think my faith in Independent Spirits may be wavering. After the prize was awarded, I inadvertently started a run on Mikie's 12 year-old Yamazaki (which I would feel worse about if he hadn't been going around himself giving generous pours).

However, the most interesting feature of the tasting from my point of view was a beefy daddy from Boston. He and his husband were friends of the organisers and in fact spearheaded a similar club in Boston. At first, I tried to be subtle in my appreciation, balancing my time between chatting him up and chatting up his husband. But after tasting a dozen wines, that caution went by the wayside.

Just before our outrageous flirting got too out of hand, I discovered that he was going to be at the same Halloween party that evening. I didn't know quite what to expect from it; I knew the crowd was mixed, so there would have to be some breaks on lewd behaviour. But I also knew how to get away with quite a lot even in an environment like that.

So I showed up ready, but even I wasn't ready for the Bostonians to arrive in TERRYCLOTH BATHROBES. It was only a wig party, but apparently their friends thought they needed to put in a little more effort. Although I appreciated the easy access this afforded, it did make it rather difficult to pretend to care about making conversation with everyone else.

Finally, after a couple hours, I invited Beefy to "tour the upstairs", which I'd seen once before. After a bit of Feydeau-esque comedy, we finally slipped out onto the upper deck for some hanky-panky in the cold rain which had thankfully slowed to a mere drizzle. He urged us back in before we got too carried away, but he connived with me to engineer a couple more opportunities over the course of evening. It probably ended up being more fun than a straightforward hookup would have been.

I ended up mooning over him a bit the next day. Besides being sexy and very into me, he was also smart and interesting, a prison psychologist who was happy to talk wine and gay media and probably a bunch more topics if only there'd been the opportunity. I was left with that familiar melancholy of being reminded how many supremely attractive men there are out there and, at the same time, how I don't have one to come home to.

At least I found a temporary respite from that in a three-way with my hosts. I'd had it in my head as a possibility ever since meeting them, so when it unfolded it did so very naturally. Given how drunk and exhausted we were, it was surprised we had as much fun as we did and we agreed to pick up again at more convenient time.

It was so dark when I woke up this morning I thought it was at least an hour earlier than it actually was. I wasn't expecting rainclouds, and certainly nothing on the scale of what showed up. It was a huge storm system bearing down on us and I decided to get myself out of the house early in the hopes of beating it to work.

Right as I was on the brink of leaving, however, it began to rain. The radar showed a gap between this advance thunderstorm and the greater mass behind it. I thought I'd aim for the gap and took things leisurely. At one point, I even took my clothes off and climbed back into bed to read a bit more Fuentes (only 22 pages left!). But when I rechecked the radar, my gap had closed up and it was just rain, rain, rain until midday.

I actually considered just calling in and going back to bed for a little while. After all, I've got personal hours to burn before the end of the fiscal year. Unfortunately, I also have a ten-session training course this summer and I'm only allowed to miss one. So I resigned myself to getting damp and at least waited out what seemed to be the worst of it.

I didn't do too badly. The rain dampened my sleeves and parts of my backpack, but I stayed mostly dry. I decided to give up on the shuttle (since rain plays havoc with its on-time performance) and actually had decent timing with the CTA. The rain was even lighter from the station of the library. Then I got into work and saw that my training session isn't until mid-afternoon.

Ah well, at least I won't have to water the lawn tonight--which is good, because Hump Day is belatedly coming over. I'd prefer to have him tomorrow so I could spend this evening doing laundry and recovering from back-to-back dinner dates (Uncle Betty on Tuesday and Big Red last night), not to mention a coffee date yesterday morning, but this works better for him.

Yesterday I had tentative plans to have dinner with Big Red (he's in the process of buying a place and could use some hand-holding) but I got hit up by a FB friend who was passing through. He was very gracious about allowing me to cancel because that's the kind of great guy he is.

Plans for the evening started very unpromisingly. Yoga Mohawk only told me he'd be arriving "late afternoon". I gave him some basic information about the CTA and went about my day. As it got close to five and I had heard nothing, I pinged him. He immediately answered a text with a call which is Not Cool in my book, and then didn't pick up when I called back which is Really Not Cool.

Keep in mind that he'd given me no advance warning he was coming and no idea what he'd hoped to do during his one evening here. He finally got back to me while I was waiting for the shuttle (since I didn't want to get on the train without a destination), told me he wanted to explore Old Town, and told me to pick a taqueria there. Old Town is great neighbourhood, but it's not where I pick if I wanted tacos. It's not even in the top ten. But before I could communicate this, he'd picked a place (randomly, I suspected) and a time. Resignedly, I agreed to meet.

I should maybe clarify here that, while he is a genuinely interesting person online, he's also kind of a dick. (In fact, I might've had forewarning of his visit except that I'd snoozed him some weeks ago after a dumb argument about Ariana Grande.) But he's also well-muscled and I kind of wanted to see him naked, so I made a deal with myself: I owe this guy nothing. I have an oral commitment to meet up, but if I'm not feeling it, I can just make my excuses and go home without an ounce of regret.

The menu for the place looked GERDrific, so I stopped at a bagelry on the way and wolfed down a sandwich there, carefully concealing the evidence out of some misplaced notion of propriety. It was, in fact, a place he'd chosen based solely on location and rating. Moreover, he knew less about the city than I'd assume and had no clue we were in the heart of Yuppie Central. "This place has been super gentrified for over 30 years" I told him, not without a little disdain.

But all that said, the place was fine. The server was very helpful, particularly after he revealed a severe onion allergy, and the food was tasty, though eating the beans was something I'd come to regret. (I suspect they were laced with chipotle.) He turned out to be nicer IRL than on the webz. (Yes, I know this is the way to bet, but being wrong about it is heinous.)

He wanted to explore a bit so I suggested we head lakewards. After a few blocks, I realised how close we were to the Midwest Buddhist Temple and plotted an itinerary that would take us past it. He enjoyed it, along with several other architectural gems along the way. Eventually we reached Lincoln Park and I pointed out the Lakefront, but he was underdressed for a Chicago spring and didn't feel a need to reach the beach.

I could tell if he was interested in anything yet so I walked him back to his hotel and contrived to get invited up to the room. (He was staying at the Ohio House Motel, which I didn't realise had been recently renovated, so he basically insisting on giving me a peak inside.) Once in, I asked for advice on ways to strengthen my legs without hurting my back and dialed up the flirting until he finally twigged.

He told me that he had no idea I was "romantically interested", which almost makes me roll my eyes, and that he wasn't up for anything more than cuddling. We did and it was nice. I never did see him naked, but I got to squeeze everything important, so I left content and even managed to catch one of the last express busses north after forgetting where the nearest HoDaR stop was.

My weekend ending up being social despite the fact that none of my scheduled events worked out. Friday's happy hour was sacrificed to condo solidarity and the fallout from that was that I didn't have the energy to clean up my place for Saturday cocktails. I had mixed feelings about walkthelight's Superbowl party on Sunday; I was happy to be invited, but in the end I decided I couldn't attend in good conscience and took a friend up on dinner instead.

He drove me out to Budlong Woods for dinner at a Korean sushi joint, Sushi Joon. It's not a large place and all tables but one were taken up by a large party of queer youth celebrating a birthday. The remaining table held a family who said they'd be leaving "in half an hour to forty minutes", so we decided to take a stroll in the unseasonably warm weather and check in later.

On the way, we passed Utjeha Café, which looked vaguely Balkan (I later Googled and found that it owes the name to a resort town in Montenegro), and a Colombian bakery. We popped into the later to get warm but unfortunately the lights threatened to give my companion a migraine so he waited outside for me while I bought some flan, arepas, and rosquitas de yuca, something neither of us had seen before and both liked.

Not only did the family clear out shortly after we got back to the restaurant but so did the birthday party, so we went from not having a seat to being the only customers. We split a bowl of seafood soup with soba noodles that was generous without being overstuffed, a serving of tempura, and a couple of rolls. I began to regret having a snack before I left the house.

I hadn't gotten much done that day on account of having been out pass two and up until 3 a.m. at Touché. It was nice to arrive early for a change. I got to chat a bit with strangers at the bar and to enjoy some really eclectic DJing. At least three or four times I stopped my conversation dead to exclaim "Oh my god I can't believe they're playing this" and I was far from the only one.

It was a busy night, with plenty of frisky good-looking men I didn't recognise, and I should've been somewhat horny on account of missing my rendezvous with Pasillero that week, but somehow the whole scene failed to stir me. I had several fun chats and got attention (some of it unwanted) but my willy failed to wake up. Maybe I'm just Over It?

My depression may be ruining my house but at least it's not trapping me in it. As it compensating for last week's stay-at-homeness, I got out all three days.

Friday was a happy hour at the Anvil. It was small turnout but I was ready for some release after a long week back at work. Someone had loaded the jukebox with good dancy songs and I was on my feet a lot. I ended up playing two songs myself: "Just Like Honey" by the Jesus & Mary Chain and "Genius of Love" by Tom Tom Club. The latter came on just as everyone was leaving but a small coterie kept me company until the end.

I ended up having four drinks in a little over two hours which didn't really hit me until we were at the gringo taqueria across the street. The room was still spinning as I betook myself to bed a couple hours later. I thought I'd have a terrible hangover upon waking up (I'd unintentionally mixed alcohols due to a crystal skull shot from a friend and mystery shot from the bartender) but it wasn't so bad.

It's not like I had much planned that day, just coffee with the bears. It struck me this time how well-integrated I felt. I was the centre of attention a couple times and more people were calling me by name. Unfortunately, I couldn't interest anyone else in a stroll along the lakeshore so I headed out alone.

The wind was fierce and the snow particles were icy, but it was worth it for the waves and the solitude. Some woman was out on the beach feeding pigeons. I trekked up to Granville hoping to beard gop at home and watch the waves from glassed-in comfort, but I was foiled by his unexpected plans-having.

Sunday I met up with bunj, tyrannio, and innerdoggie to take in a show of contemporary Indian art in the soon-to-be renovated Hall of the American Indian. If I'd ever been there before, I don't recall it, which is just as well because it is dire. The exhibits are virtually unchanged from the 50s, just artifacts (original? reconstruction?) with next to nothing in the way of context.

Stumbling into the Pawnee Earth Lodge, we found out that one reason for this is that the cases are so old that some can't be opened without being completely dismantled. The Lodge is a good example of what American Indian exhibits should be: an interactive reconstruction of American Indian life with well-informed docents on hand to answer questions--and we posed some tough ones. ("Where did they poop?") The cuter of the two bears working that afternoon called it "the best conversation I've had all day", which made mine.

The Pacific Northwest gallery had a different problem: too much. It was like a Salishan Louvre, with just so many examples of every sort of object that it was difficult to appreciate any of them, let alone take in the reams of descriptive information on offer. I'd somehow forgotten Boas' association with the Field and just how much non-linguistic material he'd managed to amass. We all megoed quickly and made our escape right at sunset.

My original plan was to join the protest at Daley Plaza. I knew there was one planned for Evanston, too, but I was worried it would be too small to make much of an impact. When I checked the RSVPs, though, there were over 1500. If even half that many showed, we'd spill out into the street and block traffic. Plus my buddy dedos was coming along to that one and bringing a couple other friends.

In the end, I was right to worry: maybe 10% of that number showed. Even more dismaying, in a college town with more than 20,000 students, the median age was well above mine (though that probably says less about youth enthusiasm and more about the recruiting reach of MoveOn). "I think most of these people protested Nixon," I told dedos. As if she were eavesdropping, one of the speakers read out a quote from Elliot Richardson.

I often find myself cringing at the speeches during a rally, but these were decent. The Methodist minister had me laughing with her and I wanted to ask the rabbi to lead us in a prayer for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The last speaker, the one who was meant to motivate us to take to the streets, was an odd choice--an aged Mennonite on a rant against false Christians. (I don't remember the last time I've heard a speech with more derivations from "Christ" in it, in or out of church.) But he kind of pulled it out in the end.

They had us march through downtown, which was kind of thought out in the sense that they had fogies stationed at each corner to make sure we didn't lose our way. I don't think I've ever been at a protest march before where I struggled to keep up with the pace. It got gappy quickly, which made chanting difficult; we had a guy in front of us who would try to take lead in the call-in-response he was hearing behind us, but always with a delay so we didn't know who to follow. Not that the chants were brilliant either. (NB: "Special prosecutor" is not a word that lends itself well to being shouted rhythmically.)

In the end, we ended up doing more chatting than chanting, as did the women in front of us, making it something of a cross between a protest march and a walking tour of downtown. We got some encouragement (and excited questions) from passers-by but the whole thing felt surprisingly improvised for an event supposedly planned a year in advance. (The idea was to have a ready-made protest for the moment Trump fired Mueller.)

I didn't regret turning up, but I felt afterwards like I'd performed a duty, nothing more. Afterwards, everyone wanted to eat so I suggested Sea Ranch with the end result that it was basically like any other Thursday night for me with just a little democracy-saving wedged in.

Today was a profoundly stupid day. I didn't prepare training materials for my student and thought I'd just wing it. So of course they were shot through with problems. After I put him on a different project, I thought I'd ask a colleague about one of them. In asking another colleague where she sat, I confused her name with that of my boss and it was minutes of confusion before I figured out what I'd done. She wasn't there anyway and neither was anyone else who could've helped me.

Whatever, it's almost over. And Postillero is texting me again. The radio silence made me a bit melancholy but it turns out he was in Ireland. He's away in Mexico for half this week and into next so no tryst for ten days and it's making me so horny I actually tried to get in touch with Clueless Furball again, which went exactly as well as you would think. He really is spectacularly bad at basic communication, to a degree that makes me wonder how he made it this far.

Fortunately I anticipated that and took responsibility for my happiness entirely into my own hands yesterday. I did make it to Open House Chicago, though only after taking all Saturday off to recuperate from life. And I scowled the whole way down on the el, telling myself this had better be worth getting out of bed before noon for. Long story short, it was. I didn't see the most interesting sites (not without a membership or the sense to RSVP), but every place I went had something interesting about it.

Sometimes the most interesting bit was who I ended up talking to, like the earnest preservationist at the Cliff Dwellers or the hip young architect at Eastlake Studio or the guide-in-training at the Driehaus Museum. But the best--and least expected--conversation was the one I had at Tee Gschwender between 4 and 6 in the p.m. when, feeling achy and a bit dumb, I stopped in to refresh myself and ended up blathering away with a retired veteran, an aspiring social worker, and a baby dyke about to fly to Amsterdam.

So what did it matter ultimately that CF missed every hint I hurled at him to invite me over afterwards for bouncy fun times? I had a bemused waitress at Matsuya and my online posse to banter with instead. There was a lot of Monshu in my thoughts, of course, but also glimpses of the glittering potential of this city and my place in it.

Yesterday evening I had amazing CTA karma, narrowly catching a northbound Howard train before it went express at Bryn Mawr. (I paid for it this morning, narrowly missing the last northbound train before an express. C'est la vie.) As a result, I was sitting at the computer typing away my monshu digest when I heard the tremendous crunching sound coming from the back of the apartment. I didn't want to look; I figured if another pot had gotten smashed, finding out the following morning was soon enough.

A couple hours later, I was preparing to got to bed and overheard a conversation on the sidewalk just outside. "Holy shit, you're not getting through there!" said one of the two men. So I sprinted upstairs to check and saw what they were talking about: an enormous tree branch blocking the sidewalk. I was actually relieved to see it there and not on the hellstrip, crushing the plants which have defied the odds (and my neglect) to stick out this blistering summer.

It's still windy again today, but not like it was yesterday when I could almost lean into it on Sheridan road. And warm. And humid. A true summer's day in the second half of October. But because this is Chicago, tonight's low (11°C) will be Friday's high. I doubt I'll see another scene like I did last Saturday: a projector set up in the middle of a side street so the neighbours could gather outside to watch the opening game of the NLCS. Ever. (I mean, think of the confluence of factors: Cubs in the postseason, a block party planned for the middle of October, and unseasonably mild and calm weather.)

The only real failure of this year's Pilsen trip was tamales. Specifically that we didn't come back with any. I'd mooted the idea of stopping in at Día de los Tamales on 18th, but that was more of a hike than the Old Man was up to. We thought we might find a good postprandial pick-me-up at Café Monsiváis, but it was all savouries so we abandoned it for Panaderia Nuevo León across the street.

It was worth it for the experience alone. The woman behind the counter was a stitch. As we waited in line, she said something in Spanish about how much she loved Sundays because "everyone comes to visit me". We were behind an adolescent with a huge tray of assorted pastries. After he'd paid up, he had his head turned talking to a girl and your woman had to say, "Baby you chane!" three times to get his attention again.

I was worried about having no pan de muertos, so we made a run to Bombón first thing. It was a one-man show and the poor guy seemed flustered to have anyone else in the bakery with him. Eventually he brought out two medium panes and we bought them both. Thanks to monshu's terrible influence, this also probably marks the first time I've left Bombón without a pastel tres leches.

Going to and from the store brought us past Bistro 18, in the old Mundial space. Here was where we'd planned to eat lunch and I was more worried about a crowd there than at the museum, so even though it wasn't yet noon we grabbed a table at the window. Sunlight was streaming in and I was almost steaming before even ordering a cafe con leché. Since it was still early, I decided to go for coconut french toast even though the grilled fish was what really appealed, but monshu got the combo. It took only a couple of bites of this to convince me I needed to order a fish taco of my own, which was generous enough to constitute two at basically anywhere else I've eaten.

Service was slow for no apparent reason, however, so it was almost one by the time we made it to the museum. Still not as crowded as I feared. As usual, there was quite a range of ofrendas, starting with a three-tiered construction from Huaquechula in Puebla which is easily the most elabourate I've ever seen. Only a short wall separated it from a nearly postmodern altar to masked wrestler El Santo, who died in 1984. For some reason, there was a plethora of throwbacks this year, including Selena and Anthony Quinn. For the student-teachers slain in the massacre at Iguala, the excuse can be made that at this time last year, there was still hope of finding them alive. The memorial to them was so powerful it had me choking back tears.