NOMCY.

Not on My Commute, Yo.

I went yesterday evening to what I thought was a community meeting on the proposed Union Pacific North Line project on the Northside. I was expecting a song-and-dance from the folks at Metra and UPRR about the work that needs to be done, how they’re going to attack it, blah-de-blah. There are a couple of things about the project that I think are worth noting, by way of some backstory on the project itself:

• There are several bridges that the train travels over – it’s elevated in the city – that are 100 years old. Damn, that’s old. As one might guess, these bridges need work. I can’t argue with this; I want to have a safe commute.
  
• I commute primarily from the Ravenswood Station. Metra has noted that this is the busiest station on the UP-N line, which sounds about right, given the traffic I see day in and day out. For being such an important station, it’s not available to a number of people because the current station is not ADA-compliant. Plus, the shelters suck. Busy station + crappy station + need to be accessible = We’re getting a new station. Staffed. With a ramp and much more overhead coverage to protect us from Chicago weather. Again, this is something we can pretty much agree is a good thing. I can’t argue with this, either.

Here’s what I WILL argue with, though: Last night’s meeting was not met for the majority of people who commute via the Ravenswood Station. As my good friend @ProfSwyers put it, after hearing from me about the meeting for all of about 30 seconds, “Oh. That meeting was for the NIMBYs.” Not in My Backyard. The audience of that meeting was the people who live along Ravenswood Ave. This was a meeting to allay their fears about the construction, the noise, the landscaping, the drainage, the parking (theirs and commuters), etc. Even the Tribune described it as a forum to display “plans to rebuild bridges and embankments along Metra's Union Pacific North Line,” a forum to display plans of what the NIMBYs will have right next door.

The meeting was no Q&A, like I’d hoped. Instead, the meeting was 10 or so posters presenting plans for proposed work at different intersections along Ravenswood Ave. There were before and after drawings of the embankments, the parking, and the landscaping. There were numbers of parking spaces and square feet of greenery pre- and post-construction. There was only one posterboard devoted to the station itself; I found it rather uninformative, other than it telling me that the station would be south of Lawrence Ave., where the current (old) station is. As a commuter, I found the meeting to be pretty much useless.

So, like a good PITA (Pain in the Ass, while I’m dropping acronyms), my comment sheet was full of questions. Lots and lots of questions. Here are just a few:

• How are changing traffic patterns along Ravenswood Ave. going to affect commuters, particularly cyclists?
  
• What effect will there be, in terms of the schedules, for the construction of and switching to and from, the new third track, which is making it possible for the north and southbound trains to not be constrained to one track?
  
• What amenities will the station have? Does the public have input on them?
  
• Will there be increased or decreased numbers of bike racks?
  
• Are there community organizations that are committed to partnering in maintaining the landscaping, like the Andersonville Gardens? What about stretches of the train landscaping along industry or in areas with high rental numbers? (I got the idea they want to turn the landscaping over to communities to maintain. Um, what?)

I followed up my questions with a critique of the meeting. Yeah, I’m THAT person. You need to know, though, that there was very little time and publicity for us to voice our concerns the first go around with this project, when they decided they were going to take one of the two tracks offline during construction. The schedule changes were, well, awful. And you know, we could have rolled with a lot of this stuff. Like I noted above, we commuters want to know that we’ll be safe on our trains. Schedule changes? Inevitable. But these were unmanageable. Not only did the times make it more difficult to get to work on time, the trains weren’t on time. The City of Evanston threw a fit about service to the Central Street Station, and eventually, Metra walked away with its tail between its legs, muttering “back to the drawing board.” Having gone through that mess, when we felt helpless and frustrated and ignored, you might understand why a forum for commuters to give input might have been a good idea. People just need to feel like they’re being heard. And, putting those poster drawings online would enable a lot more people to comment, since the window to view the plans was actually pretty short.

But us? We don’t own property along Ravenswood Ave. This project might not be in my backyard, but it’s a substantial part of my work life, as someone who doesn’t have the option to drive because of a disability. I spend 90 minutes every day on those trains, so I’m a little interested in knowing how this project is actually going to affect me. Maybe I should buy a million-dollar house on Ravenswood Ave. and find out.

what's exciting this semester?

I'm taking a GIS course this semester. Most people look at my like, "Um, GIS? That's... What IS that?"

Take really interesting data about Chicago, and chart it out, geographically. I'm a very visual person (difficult sometimes, also being a visually-impared person), and with my love of both maps and cities, this gets me excited.

Imagine, then, my fascination this morning when I picked up the Red Eye (Shut up, Carrie. I do the sudoku.) and they had this article from the Chicago Tribune about population changes across the 6-county area:

Chicago's population drops 200,000

Census data also show collar counties grew in numbers, diversity

By William Mullen and Vikki Ortiz-Healy

Tribune reporters

10:00 PM CST, February 15, 2011

Chicago lost a hefty 200,000 residents in the last decade, most of them African-Americans, while suburban counties grew dramatically in numbers and diversity, according to 2010 census data released Tuesday.

People continued to spread out far from the region's urban hub, as thousands flocked to Will, Kane and McHenry counties, all of which experienced a second decade of vigorous double-digit growth, the numbers showed.

"I think these data from here and elsewhere in the country reflect that the United States has become a suburban nation," said Scott W. Allard, a University of Chicago associate professor of social service administration. "It is a continuing migration from the city out to the suburbs while there are also immigration waves directly to the suburbs as well."

In the 2000 census, Latino immigration fueled a modest 4 percent population increase in Chicago, marking the city's first decade of growth since the 1940s.

This time around Chicago's Latino population was up just a little more than 3 percent. The white population was down a bit, while black numbers dropped nearly 17 percent.

Latinos and Asians accounted for the metropolitan area's biggest population increases during the 2000s. In both cases, the biggest gains for those groups were in collar counties, not in the city or suburban Cook County.

"The biggest (change) is finding more minority people in different places in the metropolitan area where you didn't used to find them," said Jim Lewis, a demographer and senior program officer at Chicago Community Trust. "That and the loss of black population in the region and the state."

The census information isn't yet complete enough to track where blacks who left the city went, Lewis said. The figures indicate some have moved to suburbs, but a slight decline statewide suggests some African-Americans have been moving out of the region entirely, Lewis said.

Carried by the collar counties, the population of the six-county Chicago region grew almost 3 percent during the decade, to 8.3 million. That's down significantly from the region's 11 percent growth in the 2000 census.

Some of that slowdown was chalked up to the economy going south late in the decade.

"There was just a big boom and then we got to the end of the bubble," said Dennis Sandquist, director of planning and development for McHenry County, who attributed some of the slowdown to the downturn in the economy. "Our hope is that when things pick up, it picks up to a sustainable rate of growth."

Despite the slower rate of growth, demographers said people continue to be drawn to ever more remote suburbs by job opportunities, affordable housing and better-funded school districts.

"Looking at the whole metro area, we are up over a quarter of a million people, which shows that we remain as an attractive place to people," said Matt Maloney, deputy chief of staff for policy development for the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. "We anticipate other metro areas in the Middle West will show that they are having trouble maintaining population, so that is a plus for us."

DuPage County, long the region's epitome of booming suburbia, barely grew at all. The county lost about 45,000 white residents, which was offset by more African-American and Asian residents.

"You could say that Kane County is the DuPage County of yesterday," said Rob Paral, a Chicago demographer. "The things we're saying about Kane County today is what we said about DuPage County 20 years ago."

Chicago wasn't the only place in Illinois to experience population drain. A number of rural counties through the state also saw population dips. Overall, the state grew just 3.3 percent during the decade, to 12,830,632.

That will cost the state one of its 19 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Chicago's population decline could also have consequences for its residents, according to Allard.

"The city will likely have to prepare for some cuts in federal grants based on population formulas, perhaps tens of millions of dollars over the next decade," he said.

For the second decade, Aurora and Joliet experienced dramatic growth. Aurora (197,899) passed Rockford (152,871) to become the state's second-biggest town, while Joliet moved up three places to No. 4, with 147,433 residents, nearly 40 percent more than in 2000.

In those cities and others, Latinos found homes far from the city's traditional ethnic enclaves.

According to Sylvia Puente, executive director of the Latino Policy Forum, some of those newcomers have achieved middle-class status that enables them to seek out better housing stock and schools.

But most, she said, have followed the development in the suburbs to work as landscapers, cooks, housekeepers and other blue-collar jobs.

"We've continued to see that all the Latino demographic growth that has been outside the city while the city's (Latino growth) has been flat," Puente said.

DuPage County "is now part of the old inner ring of communities, with all the characteristics of older Cook County communities," said Lewis of the Chicago Community Trust. There has been an aging process there, with lots of empty nesters and a decline in white population."

Cook County's population loss could have been even worse if it had not been for the recession and crash of the housing market, said Kenneth Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire who was for many years based at Chicago's Loyola University and continues to study the city's population trends.

"Migration data suggest that the … loss from Cook County slowed precipitously near the end of the decade because the number of people migrating out of the county slowed," Johnson said. "This occurred because the recession had the effect of freezing people in place due to their reluctance to try and sell homes or change jobs because of the difficult economic situation."

Better yet? The accompanying graphic. This, my friends, is what I'm doing this semester, making maps like this to analyze data. It's so super cool.


And, I intend no copyright infringement. I didn't want to hotlink the image and bog down the Tribune's site.

what I've been doing when I haven't been blogging

Yeah, yeah, yeah...  I haven't blogged in awhile. I've had a good excuse; it's called life.

Work -- It's been busier than ever, but there are silver linings in that dark cloud. I've been busy because our first-year students are seeking out the help they need. That's never a bad thing. And! We're hiring another person to do academic support, which is amazing (and means I'll not be so crazybusy in the future).

So, here's what's actually interesting -- I LOVE my urban planning class, which I'm taking at University of Illinois at Chicago.  Fascinating stuff, kids! Lemme tell you what I've been up to with that:

I did an observation paper on the changing patterns of riders on the CTA's Purple Line Express trains.

I'm currently working on an economic analysis paper about a commercial block in my neighborhood. That research involves reading about my neighborhood's history and looking into info on several businesses on that block. I recently finished reading a study of the local impact of local businesses versus chain retailers, looking specifically at my neighborhood and at least 1 of the businesses I'm studying.  Both this project and my observation project are classic urban planning projects.

As a class, we have an ongoing project, doing planning in a real-life community.  We're working in North Lawndale with the Lawndale Christian Development Corporation, who has an affordable housing project underway on 16th St. Our project is helping them to plan for use of vacant lots along 16th.


View Larger Map

Specifically, my group of 5 is looking at the neighborhood demographics and the project's stakeholders.  About a month-and-a-half ago, a handful of us went to a community meeting at the local police station and got a picture of who we're working with.  On Saturday, we're meeting with a bunch of our stakeholders to listen to what they want for 16th St.. We'll also tour the affordable housing that LCDC is constructing and take a look at the strip of 16th that we're working with.  We're working with real people in a real community in the city that I love.  This semester, we're only scratching the surface on this project, but even that is a real cool experience.

I'm so glad I'm taking this class.  It's hitting on so much of what interests me about urban studies and giving me an idea of what's out there -- academic and otherwise.  I'm also really enjoying my classmates.  There's the guy who interned with the Chicago Housing Authority, who I'm entertained by, even if I don't usually agree with him.  There's the guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's also doing his economic analysis on the neighborhood.  He and I have shared resources for the project. There's K, who, dare I say?, is my first UIC friend. She's working on the demographics project with me, and we met last weekend to talk census data, which I worked with when I took my Chicago geography class in the summer of 2009.  I got to teach her about how to get the data, and we talked about what we're looking for and what we're doing with the data.  When we digressed over coffee, she told me about the epidemiology of violence (see this project, for example) course she's taking, which was totally fascinating.

I was talking to a friend last night about her recent crush and the excitement and giddiness that comes along with that.  Honestly, I think I have some of that going on when it goes to what I'm working on. I really like it.  I'm challenged and stimulated.  I have things to say, and my opinion is relevant.  It's nice to be pushing my mind to work in these ways and to be academically engaged.  I have no idea what I'm going to take next semester, but I'm looking forward to the next challenge.

the world is lovely when you're sleeping (and I'm not)

I'm one of those people who prefers to work at night, when the world has gone quiet. Finally, then, I'm able to think, to speculate, to ponder, and to just write. My academic genius muse works third shift.

This in mind, it's no surprise that I'm not a morning person.  Not at all.  I hate mornings, in fact.  I'd love to stay up till 2am and wake up for the day at 10am.

And yet, here I am, in the office at 7am, after having not left campus last night until after 8pm.  For those playing along at home, that means I got home last night at 9:45pm, woke up at 4:30am, and boarded a train at 5:58am.

That train at nearly 6am is a beautiful thing.  Metra calls it the Sunrise Express, which is apt -- we watch the sunrise while zooming past a number of stops.  The train ride is about half an hour, which shaves at least 15 minutes off the normal commute. And, it's gets us to campus -- with a stop at Starbucks first -- just before 7am.

At 7am, all the little college kids are still sleeping. The town is quiet. The campus is very, very quiet. This is the time of day that people snap photos of deer who boldly venture with their young onto our lush, green campus.

The city, too, was quiet, both walking home last night and walking to the train this morning. At night, I usually stick to the main roads on the walk home, but train construction has lead to the opening of a new train platform, north of Lawrence Ave.. In the interest of time, which is indeed precious at 10pm, it's faster to exit at the north end of the platform and continue along Ravenswood Ave. and through the residential western part of my neighborhood.  Walking the quiet streets in the dark (though with ample street light) always makes me hear my worried mother, fretting about me waking home alone.  Sure, something bad could happen, but that could happen at any point at any time. I choose to walk home, head high and unafraid.

At day's end, I'll again travel home in the dark, having gone with members of the awesome class* I'm taking to do some fieldwork, and I'll rise even earlier than I did today to head out to do some field observations alone.  Like all the nights in grad school that I stayed up late to write, I'll enjoy the quiet that settles in as I walk to the train, the lovely silence quieting the noises in my brain, letting me enjoy simply being in the city I love.

_________

* I'm taking an introductory course in urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).  it's a mixed undergraduate/graduate class at the 400 level, so while we're discussing material that's new to many, it's still rigorous, engaging, and one of the best parts of my Mondays and Wednesdays. Everyone asks, "So, are you doing another degree?" to which I reply, "Right now, I'm just taking a class." My future is on this path...somewhere. I'm just enjoying the journey and discovery this semester.

I had my toothbrush with me; I should have made myself at home.

The suburbs are a whole different adventure from the city. For reals. I experience both on an almost-daily basis, and I always feel relief when I exit the commuter train at my neighborhood stop in the city.

Little public transportation is the biggest problem I have with the suburb in which I work. And when I say "little," I mean pretty much nothing besides the commuter train. After all, rich people all drive.

With a work meeting at 9:30 and appointments in the city at 1 and at 3, my day looked something like this:
10:45 -- meeting is finally over, and I leave my office to meet my friend D. The commuter train we take, which is walking distance from our campus, doesn't run a southbound train in the 11 o'clock hour. I wish I was kidding. D agreed to drive me across town to the other train line.
11:10 -- arrived at the west train stop
11:20 -- boarded my train. I have a monthly train pass for unlimited rides, but it's still kind of a naughty thrill whenever my ticket doesn't get checked. That happened today.
12:25 -- arrived downtown at Union Station, where I promptly grabbed some junk (read: fast food) for lunch. After lunch, I wandered out to catch the bus.
12:45 -- FINALLY a bus arrives. I watched 3 fly past while waiting to cross the Clinton St. to the bus stop. I hate feeling rushed, but that looked like an unavoidable problem today. I didn't have too far to go, maybe a mile, but it was 90 degrees and humid. I wasn't going to walk.
1:00 -- I rolled in right on time.
1:30 -- I rolled out in plenty of time. And then I waited. And waited. And finally a Blue Line train arrived, running express from Racine (my stop) to Jackson. I love when I'm fortunate enough to get on an express train that's not going to bypass my stop. That always happens when I'm on a Red Line train heading express -- it starts its express stint at Wilson, two stops south of mine and truly walking distance from the house.
2:20 -- I rolled in early for my dentist appointment and was out of there in an hour. Golden. Except for the part about me waiting for the Brown Line forever to head north.

Between 10:45 and 3:30, I went from my office to Lincoln Park, essentially, with only two real stops in between. That's crazy to me.

Sometimes, I feel like I spend my whole life on trains. On days like today, that's actually pretty true.

what the new blog name means, at least today

This has been one of those weeks were the world pauses for moments during which I'm nearly moved to tears when I think about the fact that I live in a city that I love.

I waited for my friend D on Tuesday morning, staring out the front door of our three-flat to the gentle rain on our city street. He lives in the city. The two friends of ours who would also ride to work with us live in the city. None of us live within what I think of as walking-distance of one another (I'd bike it easily, though). We all live in spots where a lot of what we do and need happens within less than a mile of where our homes. We all live in this city of nearly three million people, and on that Tuesday morning, the distance between us seemed small, thinking about the four of us drawn together by our jobs initially and now by our friendship. In such a big place, where I don't even know my neighbors' names, I know a handful of people I could call in the middle of the night who would be there if I asked them to be.

On days when the weather is bad, I know my mother thinks of me, worries about me walking in the rain or the snow, when she walks to her garage and drives her car to work. I walk 3/4 of a mile to the commuter rail, and I'm carless by circumstance -- it was never a choice. I have friends, though, for whom it is a choice, and they, too, make the trip to the commuter train, which we ride thirty miles to work.

City life is different. When you live your life without a car, it's just how you live your life. I think people who are used to driving can't understand why we would make this choice or why we don't feel our lives would be fundamentally improved by driving. I think of it as weighing out your options. Is it a bigger hassle for me to walk to the train than it is for someone to drive to work? Sure, when the weather's bad, I'm sure that it is a bigger hassle, if we were to put them on a scale. But, I'm free of other hassles drivers have, like the maintenance of a car, the cost of auto insurance, the price of gas, the headache of traffic. Maybe that balances out what hassles I face. Maybe the freedom to bike places is a pleasure I have that you don't. Maybe the environment is a little better because some of us take the train or the bus or move under our own motion.

These are all such big life issues, and yet, it's all so simple to me in ways. I love where I live and with whom I live. I love the city that separates us and brings us together. I may groan at the time spent on the train, until I think of all the laughs and tears my friends and I have shared in those moments.

I'm just really happy in Chicago. This is one of those weeks when I know that with absolute certainty.

I hear Miss Hannigan...

... and she's screaming, "KILL! KILL!"

There are so, so many reasons why I hate UnitedHeathlcare. Here's today, reason #457:

Taking my morning pills, I though, "Hm, it's been awhile since I ordered that prescription and since they called to say it'd been shipped. I better go online and check."

Sure enough, it was shipped on October 27th. Via UPS. And delivered on October 29th.

And left at our front door. Outside. In Chicago.

UPS freaking left my $200 in prescriptions at the freaking front door. And, they were promptly stolen. The package was left without a signature. Who even sends stuff without requiring a signature? And, who sends SOMEONE'S MEDICATION without requiring a signature? What the fuck?! In the past 3 1/2 years with UHC, I've never had my meds come UPS. If I knew they were coming UPS, I would have had them sent to work to be signed for, which is exactly what I told the lady on the phone.

Even better? I have to pay for a whole new shipment. I shit you not. After 25 days of the package going missing, I can officially request a refund. Until then, the package can't be officially gone. For 25 days, someone gets my 3 months of drugs and all my info, and I pay another $200 and cross my fingers that the package arrives before I run out of meds. Unfuckingbelievable.

(I will admit I should have checked on this sooner, not that it would have mattered in the 25-day business.)

EPIC FAIL. Way to go, UHC. Way to go.

Where's my public option? I need the hell out of UHC's reach.

a weekend with a mix of rain and sunshine

Anne's parents were here over the weekend. They're good folks, and of course, we had a nice time.

Anne's paternal grandmother died not long before she was born. Parts of her life are well known, while some details remain shrouded in mystery. One of those mysteries has been her early life in Chicago. Anne's Aunt Mary has recently been doing some genealogical research, and between her research and Anne's dad's great uncle, we learned the name of the street she was born on: Grenshaw.

In my summer class on Chicago geography, we worked with a lot of homeowner data in Chicago's Puerto Rican neighborhood, so I learned how to find a lot of information online. I thought, Surely there must be a way to find her birth certificate, so I poked around the city websites. And, I found it. Fifteen dollars later, we knew a bunch more information about Anne's grandmother, including the address for the house in which she was born.

Saturday, we headed over to the North Lawndale neighborhood and found the house.



(That's her dad.)

After her parents flew home on Sunday, her dad emailed a few pictures to his siblings, along with the copy of the birth certificate, and he CC'd Anne and me. It's been a joy to see the responses from his siblings, reading how much it means to all of them to have this information. I'm happy I could give that to them.

Anne ran into one of our neighbors on her way in from the garage on Sunday, after dropping off her parents at O'Hare. We don't really know our neighbors that well, and in a moment of channelling her mother's extroversion, she stopped to chat with him.

He's living with his best friend in an apartment that's made me happy -- from the street, you can see the beautiful red color they painted the living room, and the bay windows have been flanked with beautiful flower boxes with amazing arrangements. The best friend told Anne about his friend, who went about creating the perfect space in that apartment. He wanted that work to continue around him until it was finished, even as he spent the weekend in bed, dying of cancer. The doctors did not expect him to survive the weekend.

The weekend was bittersweet. All around us... life and death, beginnings and ends, discovery and loss, joy and sorrow. Seemed fitting, really, that the weekend was a mix of cold rain and warm sunshine.

well, isn't this special

Our governor apparently got arrested this morning on federal corruption charges.

And, the state is collectively heaving a sigh of relief.

After the last gubernatorial election, one of the other volunteers at Planned Parenthood attacked me for not voting for Blago because of the good work he'd recently (at that time) done for women's access to healthcare in Illinois. I won't and didn't deny that was good stuff, but he's a corrupt bastard. I'm again pleased to say that I didn't vote for that asshole.

how long till the next mayoral election?

Wow, I'm seriously hating Daley right now. Like whoa.

My friends* over at Chicagoist brought us this gem this afternoon: City Buying Police Department 2,000 SUVs, Still No New Officers.

The cost of these SUV? Almost fifty-three million dollars.

I haven't liked the superintendent since his start (in the not too distant past), but it's pretty clear now that he's a slimeball. How could he go along with Daley (slimeball as well) giving this much money to the police department for cars when he knows that crime is up** and they [claim they] don't have money to hire more officers?!?!?!

If you have a minute, go read the Chicagoist posting. Seriously. Their commentary is excellent, spot-on.

_____________________________________________________
* I actually do have a friend who writes for Chicagoist on the weekends.
** I have no proof of this, but I suspect crime's gone up since Weis has been superintendent. That's worth researching.

this feeling... it's indescribable... hope

It's been so lovely reading what friends have to say about the election. I've so enjoyed the excitement resonating through their words.

But you know, there's something special about being from Chicago.

Not only did we prove we're not afraid to have an African-American president, but he's ours. I cried tears of joy last night as I watched the crowds my friends were part of gather on the grass I've walked on downtown, as they cheered for the man from Chicago, as he humbly accepted the honor of the presidency.

I've always been proud to be a Chicagoan, even with all of Chicago's faults. It's been a long time that I've been able to say that's also how I feel about being an American.

Knowing how hard the road will be for Obama and for all of us does nothing to crush this feeling of joy.

various and sundry

Here we are on a rainy Monday. It's hard to get too distressed when we're finally getting to experience fall weather. I'm glad I finally got some real shoes, since I think the days of sandals are fading fast. Today, I'm wearing my Earth Shoes (a rec from Roly), and I'm pretty darn pleased with them. Cute and comfortable. What's not to like? (I had to steal socks from Anne. Don't tell.)

Saturday was very eventful. I started off with the normal volunteer gig at Planned Parenthood. I left around 9 to head down to the Hyde Park neighborhood (where Obama lives--there, now I've made it a meaningful reference), where the University of Chicago campus is located, complete with hospitals, including one for kids. As such, there's a Ronald McDonald House right near by. (If you aren't familiar with the work they do, go check them out.) This was to be my service site for the College's Annual Day of Service. The service day events got off to a rocky start for me and my gang of students.

After waiting for awhile for a Red Line train, I finally made it to the Garfield stop, where I didn't have to wait too long for the #55/Garfield bus. We headed through Washington Park, and I exited at Cottage Grove as my directions had indicated. I walked on down to 57th street, obviously in the medical district. I arrived at what should have been the RMH to find a construction site. Luckily, there was a cop nearby, and for the first time ever, I asked a cop for directions. As it turns out the house, which moved a year ago to its new location, was only 1 block from where I exited the bus. By the time I got back up there and figured out where I needed to go to get in the house, I was half an hour late.

My kids turned up a half hour after me--at 11am. We were supposed to be cooking lunch, which was to be served at noon. Yikes, kids, not a lot of time there. We hurriedly got our food supplies unpacked to find the College had provided us with lunchmeat, bags of chips, and cookies. Super lame lunch. And, who only sends one kind of lunchmeat? Hello, people. The families who stay at the RMH come from all over the world, and I would imagine that some of them, for religious or cultural reasons, don't eat ham. Hell, I don't eat ham.

The lunch took virtually no time to prepare, so we ended up doing other odd jobs around the house. Sandy, the weekend house manager, gave us a tour of the place and told us about what they do and how families get connected with them. Pretty cool, kids. And, the house they have now was brand new a year ago--and it's fabulous! I was all-around impressed with the service site. With our service day organizers? Not so much.

So, upon departure, I took myself to the Apple Store and bought an iPhone. And, I love it. LOVE. I need to remember to charge it every night; I'm running low on battery already today. I can't even think of where to start with my gushing because this phone is just made of so much awesome.

Laying in bed last night, I talked myself into getting up at 5 today and catching an earlier train than I normally need to take to go swimming on campus. The campus sports facilities are an untapped resource for me, and I'd heard there was open swim from 7:30 to 8:30 MWF mornings. I was the only one lap swimming, but I didn't care. It felt go to be there doing it. I only did six laps, which is fine. I'm out of shape and didn't have the entire hour to spend there, anyway. I was able to shower and everything and still be in my office by 9, which is what time I normally get in when I take my regular train. Not a bad morning over all, thought I think I may need to bring a hair dryer. Did I mention we can use the sports facilities for FREE? Why should I pay for a gym membership?

So, that's what's been happening around these parts.

PS The Cubs are in the playoffs!

Google Street View: The Newest Undercover Cop!

Holy cow! Have you seen this?! Gawker has a post on what appears to be a drug deal caught by the Street View crew taking pictures on Chicago's South Side. You can even see the license plate of the car involved. SERIOUSLY. Go check out the Gawker post for their set of screenshots. Here's a sampling from Google, if you want to take a look for yourself:


View Larger Map

I hate our governor

I can't even be happy about all the good he's done for women's health. Right now, he's pissing me the hell off.

We're now four days away from Doomsday for transit cuts without revised state funding. And you know what? Last week, the legislature approved a tax increase to end the crisis...and the governor wouldn't sign it. Instead, he inserted an amendment to it that all seniors ride free and sent it back to the legislature. It's a nice idea in theory, but a bill that could have passed last Friday now sits, waiting for the legislature to approve it--approving it the first time was a narrow margin.

And so here we are. A good--though depressing--graphic was in the paper this morning, showing the effect of the loss of 81 bus routes (that's more than half) on the city.

To recap, that damage represented by those maps is the governor's fault, at least for this week (and in my book). And being the jerk he is, he added insult to injury yesterday when he told seniors to "hold your nose and take a bus for free." *blink* If I worked for the CTA, I would be HIGHLY offended. Hell, being a rider, I'm highly offended. What does he think about the transit system of Chicago? Apparently, he thinks it stinks from the funk you can only imagine...urine, vomit, and Gawd Forbind....the homeless! (note sarcasm) No wonder he's not in a hurry to fund the CTA. He obviously hasn't paid any attention to the work Ron Huberman (my CTA crush--I can admit it) has done to make the system more efficient and cleaner. (The first time I rode on a Red Line train with a newly waxed floor, I was afraid to set my shopping bags down for fear it was wet...no, it wasn't wet, it was just that clean.

If you can stomach his rhetoric and get through this without laughing yourself silly at his craptastic hair, you can hear the advice to seniors straight from the ass's horse's mouth.

As for me, I guess I'll get a helmet, find my bike somewhere in my mom's basement, and fork over the extra $10.80/month it's going to cost me to ride the train to work because Metra got a raw deal, too.

Fuck you, Rod Blagojevich.

a letter to my state legislators

I'm sending this through SaveChicagolandTransit, though I may print and mail it, too.

I'm taking the time to not send the typical form message preprinted here because of how important transit it to me--I want you to know that by my taking the time to write this. I hope you'll take the time to read it.

I'm legally blind. I can see well enough to read regular books, but I don't see well enough to drive. My vision problem is genetic and cannot be corrected.

I grew up in Kankakee, where I had to rely on friends and family for rides. They implemented their current bus system after I started college.

I attended college in Decatur, where I again primarily relied on friends for rides, though I did take the bus there occasionally.

I did my graduate school work at Illinois State, where I lived in the town of Normal and relied heavily on the bus system to get me to and from the university and for running errands. For big things, like grocery shopping, I primarily relied on friends.

When I searched for a job after graduate school, moving to Chicago was my dream. I knew I needed to be in a city with a good public transit system, and I hoped for a job in Chicago. My dreams were realized.

I've been living in the city for almost four years now and depend on the CTA for my trips to and from work, to and from the grocery store and Target, to and from friends', and to and from fun and cultural destinations throughout the city.

When I say that I "depend" on the CTA, I mean that. Because of my low vision, I'm too nervous to ride a bike around the city for fear of being hit by a car. I'll never be able to drive a car, and if I could, I would still take public transportation because I believe in the benefits to the environment. Chicago is a great place, but I can't walk everywhere.

I started a new job in Lake Forest in the fall of 2006, so now I also depend heavily on the Metra to bring me to and from Lake Forest, like many of my colleagues do.

Though I qualify for services for the disabled, such as Supplemental Security Income and reduced fare transit for people with disabilities, I don't take advantage of any of these services. I make a fine living and believe those services should be saved for those with lower incomes than mine. I can afford to pay full fare to ride the CTA and Metra, so I do. Please know that I'm not one of those people "milking" the system. In fact, I rely on the CTA to take me every Saturday morning to the clinic where I volunteer, helping many low-income women in the city have access to affordable healthcare.

I hope you can see from what I've written what an important impact public transit, particularly in the Chicagoland area, has and does mean to me.

Right now, I'm scared.

I'm scared that the huge cuts and fare hikes (as I'll be affected by both the CTA and Metra fare increases) that are looming in less than 2 weeks. I wonder how overcrowded CTA and Metra will be when I need to get around the area. I wonder how long I'll have to wait in the cold for a bus because there will be fewer on the road. I wonder how much farther I'll have to walk to get places (this is an important concern, as well, as I have pretty serious asthma).

I know a lot of people throughout the state won't be affected by this budget crisis one way or another, whatever happens in Springfield, but thousands of us in the Chicagoland area who have no choice but to depend on transit will be greatly affected. Honestly, the thought of how much longer commuting may take makes me nearly cry tears in frustration.

I hope you'll do whatever you can to help revise the fare structure in Springfield that provides funding for mass transit in Chicago, and I hope you'll do whatever you can to prevent the deep service cuts Chicagoans are preparing for on January 20th.

I follow the work of the CTA with interest, and I believe that Ron Huberman and his staff have done a lot to not only improve the CTA (since his start as president) but to cut spending where possible. I don't know what more they can do to prove to Springfield that the CTA is committed to the best service at the best price.

I ask you now: what will Springfield do to prove to the CTA (and Metra and Pace) that its committed to the people of Chicagoland and their needs for transportation?

I had righteous indignation for breakfast

I got all worked up about the fact that only half of our state legislature bothered to show up yesterday when they were called back into session. According to this morning's Red Eye, which I read on the train, only 70 of 118 members of the House and 14 of 59 members of the Senate showed up yesterday (page 10). Transit in the Chicago area is in serious trouble, and if something isn't figured out at the state government level, MAJOR CTA cuts are due January 20th:

The CTA will eliminate 81 of its 154 bus routes; lay off more than 2,400 employees; and raise fares to record levels. In addition, with more than 700 fewer buses operating due to the bus route eliminations, the CTA will close three of its eight garages. Service on the remaining routes will be provided by other locations.

(For those of you not in Chicago, it's a lot of things, including a method of determining allocations of transit funding that hasn't been updated since the 1980s. You can read about it from transit advocates over at SaveChicagolandTransit.)

So, here's where the misguided righteous indignation came in... Today's the primary caucus in Iowa, and I got SUPER PISSED at Barack Obama for no-showing to this session Blago called yesterday--he was obviously in Iowa.

And then I remembered he's my US Senator. *headdesk* Did I mention I'm sleep-deprived?

I got to thinking, though... What has he done for me lately? He's a baby senator who's spending his time running for president. Shouldn't he be proving himself as a national political leader by rocking his first term in the Senate? Instead of his political work, we're hearing about his political campaign. I want to hear about what he's done, not just what he thinks he could do as president.

So, despite the fact my sleeplessness had me bitter and confused this morning, I still think I can't vote for him [in the IL primary], not until he has more time under his belt. 'Course, if he ends up being the Democratic candidate, I reserve the right to revise this paragraph.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

(Don't take that subject line as a cue to start singing holiday songs. I'll have NONE OF THAT until after my birthday, thankyouverymuch.)

I love this time of year. The leaves are so many different shades of beautiful, and with the college town's tree-lined streets, walking around campus is, for the most part, a joyful experience. I love these cool temperatures and the smell of leaves. Plus, Halloween is just plain fun. Candy and costumes? Can you really go wrong there?

BUT! I don't want to neglect the most wonderful thing about this wonderful time of year...

It's new phone book day!

...

*crickets*

...

Yes, folks, the campus phone book arrived in my mailbox today, and I'm rejoicing! Because I'm that kind of geek.

You see, I'm all about spaces and maps. I love them. And, looking through the information about my colleagues fascinates me. I look to see where they live. For the people who live in Chicago, I place their addresses on the map in my mind, pondering their train stops, walking distances to the trains, and neighborhoods. I'm a very visual-spatial person, and this is right up my alley. So, I sit and read the phone book. I've done it for years. The white pages are fine, but it's more interesting when I know the people, like a campus phone book (did this as a student, too). I'm disappointed when I find a colleague's home address isn't listed.

The other thing I find interesting about a phone book like this one is the relationships. "Learn to pretend there's more than love that matters" isn't my favorite quote for nothing. I like to see when people list their partners, and for couples who work here, who does and who doesn't list their partners.

I'm not interested in memorizing addresses or spouses names or trick-or-treating and the homes of the college faculty. I just like to think about places and people.

I've already spent 45 minutes with my nose in the new phone book. I'm far from done. :)

some people annoy the shit out of me

After dealing with Bitchy Mom yesterday morning, I ducked out early to do my last weekday escorting shift at Planned Parenthood for the 40-Day Vigil the antis are putting on. It's...amazing, and that's really the best word. All over the country right now, hundreds of people are giving up parts of their days to pray at abortion clinics. They're do busy worrying about women going in and out of an abortion clinic to do anything in their own communities to help kids, low-income women, teens. That's one of the most frustrating things for me.

And then yesterday, we had another one of the things that frustrates me most when I escort: aggressive protesters. If you want to do your prayer line, fine. Whatever. I think it's a waste of time that doesn't do anything to prevent unwanted pregnancy. (You want to stop abortion? Do something to help prevent unwanted pregnancy!) We had two yesterday afternoon who were CHASING people who left the clinic. I had one couple who left, perhaps to get money, and when I opened the door for them, he said, "We'll be back." The two women in the prayer line watched them cross Division and then ran across themselves. And then, they stood there and talked to them. I'm not allowed to go far from my post, and since I was the only escort there with our security guard, I didn't feel comfortable leaving my post. It was painful--and a real struggle for me to know what to do--watching those middle-class, middle-aged white women with their rosaries chase down that working-class black couple and hold them in conversation. That couple never did come back. Our security guard was livid. He was so pissed that the man wasn't standing up for his woman, protecting her from the protesters, and while the gender assumptions bugged me, I actually had to agree. What she was going through was bad enough; the person with her needed to help her.

When they left, they stopped to talk to us. That's the worst for me because we're not allowed to talk to them at all. The tall one of the two aggressive women stood less than a foot away from me and proceeded to tell me all about Margaret Sanger and what a bad person she was and how she hated albinos (Hello! I'm a person with albinism, bitch! Person-first language!) and how I shouldn't want to support an organization that she supported because she hated me. The shorter of the two was all about messing with our security guard, telling him he had kind eyes and that she wished he brought his kindness elsewhere. She got on him, too, about Sanger and how she was a racist and the same stupid lines they tried to feed me. The tall one left saying, "God bless you," to me. I wish I'd thought to say back, "Why? I didn't sneeze."

It BUGS me to no end when people try and impose their views on me and other people. It's my decision to be there and much as it's theirs, and I'm not attacking them for it. I'm not attacking them for their religious beliefs. Nothing like escorting to remind you of people's black-and-white thinking and double standards.

An interesting thing's been happening, though. I listen to them do their rosaries, something I once did, and I hear my own voice in my head repeating the Hail Mary with them. And then, it becomes something else: The Prayer of St. Francis, a prayer of peace.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

I hear it sung by Sarah McLachlan (a lovely version), and the fact it came to mind "randomly" seems an apt move by my subconscious. It reminds me to work through my anger and frustration and focus on doing good work. And, to keep working at not hating. It's a work-in-progress.

My brother wears sweatbands.

Check out the cameo from my neicepuppy Miso.

If they weren't broke, I'd ask them to pay me.

I really like Ron Huberman, CTA president. I'm quite certain he's far from perfect, but he came into a difficult position and has made very positive changes to the CTA. Maybe it's just that he's got fresh eyes and ideas to bring, or maybe it's that he's got a new way of thinking. Whatever it is, I think he's trying to do what's best for Chicago. I've been watching back episodes of Connections on the train (video podcasts rock!), and seeing all the positive changes featured has really solidified how I feel about him. Despite his positive steps to improving the system, I still find myself frustrated, especially when the steps-in-the-right-direction negatively affect my travel.

Case in point: the slow zone elimination project. When it's over with, I'll be giddy, along with tons of other Chicagoans, that we're not sitting in or crawling through the subway.

Saturday, I was frustrated, and while it's convenient to blame the CTA, I'm honestly more frustrated with my poor planning than anything. Riding the Metra to and from work means I don't keep up with service outages, construction notices, and customer alerts like I used to when I rode the CTA everyday. And so, I didn't think about the fact that eliminating slow zones on the Red Line has meant rerouting the trains out of the subway. Anne alerted me to this, and I knew it was a major thing at night. I didn't look on Saturday morning, though, to see what affect, if any, it was having on weekend trains. All I thought was, "Rather than waiting for the slow-ass Clark bus, I'm going to walk my lazy ass to the Red Line to get to the clinic," with the two stopping at the exact same corner, one block from Planned Parenthood. The Red Line is faster and more reliable, but the bus is only one block from our apartment.

With my iPod on, I nearly missed the announcement at Fullerton that the subway was closed for the weekend and that my train would be staying on the elevated tracks, Sedgwick being the next stop. It's also the closest Brown Line (the elevated tracks the Red had to follow) stop to the clinic, at about 3/4 mile away. Annoyed with the trains already dragging through Uptown as they switch back and forth on the tracks, I knew this was going to make me even later.

I plugged along from Sedgwick to the clinic, deciding to not wait for a shuttle bus that would take me from the Brown Line station to my usual Red Line station. Apparently, the buses were running only every 20 minutes, which made this a good decision overall. Until a bird pooped all over my arm.

The thing about my relationship with the CTA is that when this stuff happens, it all makes sense to me. The CTA can throw this stuff at me, and I can just roll with it, change my plans, and get to where I was going.

Other people don't have this quirk.

Waiting for the Clark bus to head home after volunteering, I found myself with a big pile of frustrated Cubs fans, who were pretty unsteady after arriving at the corner to find the subway station closed. Word on the street had gotten out that they could get on a bus instead that would take them to Wrigley, but the real magic happened once I arrive. I can't even tell you how many people I talked to about the subway being closed, the work happening down there, alternate routes, the shuttle to the Brown Line, etc. I'm also not sure how many people were counting on me to get them to Wrigley Field for the game. Too many to count, actually. They saw my Cubs hat, listened to me talk about the CTA like I worked there, and were confident I knew how to get them to the game. We all PACKED the first Clark bus to arrive and headed north.

They all arrived 10 minutes before the first pitch.

This is probably the 10th or 11th time I've played the CTA Ambassador, though never before to such a big group of people.