Chicago and Portland

Lately, I've been really nostalgic for Chicago. I've been remembering lots of places and certain memories keep popping up. Most of them seem to center around my DePaul years or living on Buckingham Pl. I have a super old blog that is going to go away soon but I used to write about neighborhood transitions. I bet if I took that list and checked to see what businesses are still around, I would find very few. Hopefully, I would still find some of them thriving.

I've thought about those neighborhood transitions, neighborhood characters such as burlap man, walking down Roscoe from my sister's apartment to mine, walking down Broadway or Clark to Lincoln Park, spending time in some of the few independent or secondhand bookstores, waiting at the Belmont El, sitting on the Belmont rocks with Elston, Chicago Historical Society (now called something else), eating at Salt and Pepper, beer garden at Sheffields, drinking and watching football at Joe's on Broadway, and even attending mass with my parents at Mt. Carmel. It all feels like yesterday when it is actually 10 years ago. I was using the Google maps streetview thing and I was back on the corner of Addison and Broadway and looking at the window of Joe's on Broadway.

So much of who I am was formed during those years. I miss the time when I had a wide open space to define who I wanted to be and how to live my life. I am scared that the older we get, we don't have as many of those opportunities. I guess I am nostalgic for those times when I was much more carefree and could just roam for hours. For the first time in ages, I am living in a neighborhood that allows me to roam. I live in Portland's Hollywood neighborhood. Instead of 3 flats, think of craftsman style houses. The business district is less dense and much smaller but there are pockets that remind of Lakeview. Okay, much less dense. I guess it is the old and new that remind me of Lakeview and that is about it.

Carrie Brownstein from Sleater-Kinney, recently read an essay (scroll down and you can download the essay) at the New School about living in the Hollywood neighborhood. She talked about the places she walks past that have character and are stuck in the past and how it compares to some of the newer establishments that quickly look old. Unlike Chicago's residential development that so drastically changed or businesses torn down and replaced with something brand new, the Hollywood neighborhood takes a different approach. She mentioned how Mark Lindsay's Rock and Roll Cafe is an attempt to bring back the old - the days of Paul Revere and the Raiders and Yaw's burgers. It is a great essay that reflects much of how I feel about this neighborhood after only a short time.

One regret I have about those days in Chicago is that I never documented those street scenes that left such an impression on me. I want to change that with Hollywood. I feel the need to capture some of this on camera and not through Google's streetview. Like those days in Chicago, I am in a new chapter of my life (really I am trying not to use a pun since I live above a library), I'm reflecting on lessons learned over the years, healing, and figuring out who I am and directions I want to take in the coming years. It is very similar to those Lakeview days. My neighborhood is the background to everything taking place.

Rain

Yesterday, I overheard someone saying this on the bus during a major downpour:

"This is one way of getting rid of homeless"

So compassionate.

It all comes back to....

Everything comes back to food. I read about Sri Chinmoy's death and all I could think about was the amazing breakfast at Victory's Banner in Chicago. It is one of my all-time favorite breakfast spots that is run by followers of Chinmoy. I am starting to make a list of the places I want to eat when I go back in December:

Victory's Banner
Salt and Pepper
Billy Goat

I detect a theme in my food choices. I should expand beyond breakfast and a cheeseburger. Trust me, there are lots of places I want to eat at and visit.

Canadian?

I was getting my coffee this morning at one of the coffee carts on campus. I asked for my drink. Woman next to me asked if I was from Minnesota or Canada because of my accent. First, she asked in a mocking way. Second, I am congested this morning.

I just glared at her and said I was from Illinois. Why would you ask someone that question? She didn't say...oh...hey...did you just move to Portland because you have an accent or did you see the movie, Fargo? She really wasn't pleased when I accidentally took her coffee. I guess she shouldn't distract me when I am waiting for my drink.

More Quotes

Mitchell Stephens, NYU professor speaking on Burma, "There are fewer and fewer events that we don't have film images of: the world is filled with Zapruders."

Herbert Muschamp, architecture critic who died this week, "A city is never more fully human when expertise - our own or someone else's - allows us access to ebullience, lightness and design."

Flowers that attack

Elston can ignore spiders and dead snakes but fallen sunflower stalks? Not so much.

Imagine the following scene:

Dog walking across street. Stops. Refuses to finish crossing the street.

Owner crosses street and starts to proceed down the sidewalk. Tries pulling the dog. Dog reluctantly starts to walk down the street but not coming anywhere near the sidewalk. Owner is screeching at dog because she is in the street.

Dog growls. Owner looks and sees 3 sunflower stalks fallen on the sidewalk.

Owner laughs. Dog tentatively walks past the scary sunflowers with a few more growls and then gets on the sidewalk once owner has cleared the area.