2:50 a.m. Typing from the porch. From a wicker chair on the porch, overlooking a back lot of cracked concrete, crooked parking spots, and crisscrossed power lines.¹

Quiet. Trees in silhouette. Cool finally, after a summer of punishing heat.

A nearby window A/C unit kicks on intermittently. Rats move between overfull dumpsters and the underbellies of cars. The blinking lights of planes descend into O’Hare.

This is the city so many are afraid of, apparently. But everyone should experience a quiet porch here at least once. It mystifies me to see no neighbors taking similar advantage, even if I’ve long accepted that my hours are not normal hours.²

Anyway, it feels good to write like this, out here, about nothing in particular.

Some days you’ve got a topic, and some days, you don’t, and that’s OK. Introspection’s a worthy enough goal. I can already hear the “Get a journal!” haters, but let’s be honest, it’s boring when every blog post is a take.

Footnotes

1. Too much alliteration, but we’re leaving it. ↩

2. Some nights one of the houses next door will have a big backyard blowout later into the evening. Music, dancing, string lights, the works. Brings the block to life. It’s not quite the same, though, as it would be to see some other soul out on their wooden perch, alone, taking in the breeze. I can’t even get a smoker stepping out to rip one from time to time? I mean, c’mon! ↩