This was the kickoff to the gloomiest, grumbliest year of my adult life, but the summer itself wasn’t bad so much as fraught.
Throughout July I was working at the Chicago Park District’s Theatre on the Lake at Fullerton and the lakeshore. It was a fun job, and very mellow. It was balmy and hot in there, and the hours, Wednesday to Sunday, 3 to 9 PM, left something to be desired. But I was working with Curt and Veronica, and it was a lot of fun.
I soon discovered that it took an hour to commute from my apartment in Humboldt Park (Division and California, ish) and so I started taking the hour-and-a-half walk each way. Three hours of walking each way wasn’t that bad, and took me through Wicker Park, Bucktown, and Lincoln Park. I never really loved those neighborhoods as much as I did that summer. Sean and Ben and I were living together. One reintroduced me to the Legend of Zelda and Radiohead, and the other explained to me the principles of maintaining a covert rooftop garden. I drank a lot of iced coffee and stomped cockroaches. When I needed to get away, I went down to Hyde Park and visited with Jess, Milligan, Cate, and Amber. I was also taking ASL classes three day a week, because I was trapped as a student at the U of C. (And as I said, this was the good part of this year for me).
I also worked on reading some books – I don’t remember what – and entertained thoughts that my career was on the verge of launching. Unfortunately, I profoundly failed to develop those thoughts, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when nothing came of nothing.
Where were you in July, 2001?
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