I’ve been digitally picking flowers along my walks, frequently asking Mitch to pause while I take a picture of a flower. My interest in photography started in 2005 and has helped me feel more connected with myself, my surroundings, and other people. Dating me does mean occasionally pausing on my behalf while I take a picture of something, but I’m mindful to limit how often or when I ask. There are places to go, appointments to keep, countless things to see, and if I really want to photograph every other storefront along a city block, I’m capable of returning on my own time.

Also, I want to remain capable of enjoying less-mediated experiences. In the last of my Columbia years (the post-hubby era), I shared selfies taken in my seat before nearly every movie I saw at Ragtag Cinema. The lighting in the main theater was reliably sufficient, and I tended to show up half an hour before the show started, giving me time alone in a mostly empty room. If the theater was already filling in, I didn’t bother, but it was a fun way to remind myself and assure my friends that I enjoy my own company. But, between the fact that I’m usually not in my own company when I see a movie in Chicago and the theaters tending to be dimmer and more crowded here, I decided to stop trying to document how cute I look while waiting until it’s time to silence my phone. Fortunately, nobody has expressed their personal disappointment about this decision. (Anyone curious to know what movies I’ve been watching can follow me on Letterboxd.) And, more importantly, this decision hasn’t lessened my experience of going to the movies.

Lately, I’ve gone on solo outings with my earbuds in, but nothing playing. After decades of engaging with the world from within a sonic bubble, I like that I no longer feel the need to insulate myself with music. Sometimes I’ll listen to the new Ladytron album while riding the train, but it feels more intentional and less like I’m trying to avoid something or stay moored within my thoughts.

This new tendency also confers safety benefits and gives me more opportunities to hear city birds. While waiting for a train the other day, I heard a ring-billed gull flying towards the North River. I love it here.

*Yes, this is based on Steven Wright joke’s about owning the world’s largest seashell collection.

Attempts to devise an explanation that sounds more interesting than “I guess I didn’t feel like updating” will only prolong the next update. So, gap acknowledged. Let’s try to get this blog back on track.

About once a week, I take a break from my job search to go on a solo exploration. With the weather warming up, I’ve been making excursions to the lakeshore.

My mind hasn’t fully grasped the size of Lake Michigan. Looking across the water reminds me of gazing at the Pacific Ocean when I grew up in California. I know the next shore is closer, but I still can’t see it.

I used to swim in the ocean in my teens, but don’t feel inclined to jump in the lake anytime soon. My youthful sense of immortality ebbed as my knowledge of the dangers of swimming in natural bodies of water flowed. I’d board a boat, but I’m not inclined to plunge into any water that isn’t chlorinated. I’ve watched too many bad TLC series in hotel rooms to go underwater in a lake without worrying about inhaling a snootful of brain-eating amoebas. I overcame a childhood fear of drowning only to have it replaced with another horrifying fear.

Acknowledging this new anxiety genuinely makes me feel old, in a way that memes pointing out that the gap between the present and Back to the Future has exceeded the 30-year time gap within the film can’t quite muster.

I’ve explored Montrose and Diversey harbors so far, though I’ve neglected to jot the down the punny names of any boats moored at their respective marinas. Montrose Beach features a bird sanctuary. While walking through the sanctuary during migration season, my birdsong recognition app made my phone heat up as it sorted out the cacophony of trills, caws, and chirps. The sanctuary includes a stretch of shoreline reserved for nesting piping plovers. Onlookers crowded the perimeter on both sides to peer through binoculars and telephoto lenses. I purchased a monocular online with plans to return to see the chicks hatch in June.

A few weeks later, I tried out my monocular at Belmont Rocks near Diversey harbor, a part of the lakeshore presumably named for the massive rocks buttressing the seawall. (Is it a seawall if it’s not holding back a sea? I’ll look into that someday.) I was able to observe some off-shore structures, including the William E. Dever Crib lighthouse, which looks like a circus tent. Unfortunately, the lighthouse doesn’t permit visitors, so I’ll need to board a boat someday to get a closer look. Or buy a better monocular.

Not far from Belmont Rocks is AIDS Garden Chicago, a city memorial that features Self-Portrait, a 30-foot metal sculpture by Keith Haring. I love how this sculpture changes mood as you circle it, running from one angle, celebrating from another, and righteously angry a few degrees later. I like not knowing if, in my above photo, this sculpture is excited about spring or furious about the dandelions blanketing his lawn.

I later spotted Canadian geese nibbling fluffy dandelion hands while a mallard drake tailed me, quacking and hoping I might drop some bread. But the city enacts fines for feeding wild animals. Any food that might appeal to a duck would likely appeal to a rat. And right now, it’s in my best interest to stay in the city’s good graces. Sorry, ducks. I know it’s a cliched statement said by people with awful opinions, but I don’t make the rules.

Also, I thought city birds were afraid of women. What gives?

One of my rules when I first moved to Chicago was that if I want to see or do something in this city, the only thing holding me back should be my time, money, or energy. I regret that, in my marriage, I would often not do things simply because my husband didn’t want to. After we separated, I vowed not to stay unhappy to sustain a future relationship.

When I moved here, I let Mitch know that he is welcome but not obligated to join me on my outings. While he was at work, I’d hop a train or bus and go exploring. I’ve visited an insect sanctuary, toured the Puerto Rican and Swedish heritage museums, lost my way in Humboldt Park, ridden bicycles along the 606, photographed Tiffany lamps in a 19th-century mansion, and eaten in a falafel shop in the back of a jewelry store. I know how to show myself a good time.

But I also enjoy spending time with Mitch, so when he asked if I could save my plans to visit the Art Institute of Chicago until he could join me, I happily agreed. And then came the holidays, the flu, and below-freezing weather. But last Sunday, we made good on our plans, and it was well worth the wait.

I’d been champing at the bit to go because I didn’t want to miss their Bruce Goff exhibit. Many years ago, my interest in unusual houses led me to discover Goff, an architect who studied with Frank Lloyd Wright, but whose aesthetic sensibilities seem to come from outer space. If I believed that extraterrestrials have lived among us, Bruce Goff would make my shortlist of suspects.

The exhibit not only featured photos, plans, and models of his buildings, but his paintings, custom furniture, and personal belongings, including a player piano running one of his custom piano rolls. Goff had a love for geometric shapes and modern, synthetic materials, especially shiny and colorful ones. He even customized his T-square and blueprint case with mirrored tiles.

Most of Goff’s houses were built in Oklahoma and Illinois, many of them featuring hexagonal conversation pits. Unfortunately, not many remain standing. I can imagine they’re difficult to maintain; replacing the custom windows alone would be expensive. But I can’t imagine being rich and wanting a bland McMansion when I could live in an alien silo with bubble windows.

After I’d seen the Bruce Goff exhibit and the Thorne miniature rooms, I let Mitch lead the way. We were on the same page about skipping some exhibits in the interest of time – I don’t hate Medieval European art, but if I had to choose between a gallery of modern art or a gallery of creepy Christ babies that look like tiny old men, I’ll always pick the former. I could tell when there was something around the next corner he really wanted me to see, and I’ll admit that every time, I was delighted.

If I thought I was too old to be impressed by anything, I was proven wrong every time I saw a famous painting up close in person. A Sunday on La Grand Jette, Nighthawks, The Treachery of Images, American Gothic, The Child’s Bath, and too many others eroded any lingering delusions that I’m a jaded grump who’s seen it all. Impressionist paintings are cooler when you can see the texture of the brushstrokes. I was actually tearing up while gazing upon a few works, which might be a response to the current onslaught of AI-generated images and my renewed appreciation for work made by human beings. Generative AI can mimic existing artistic styles, but lack the ingenuity to create new ones.

“So, uh, I’ve started a blog again,” I said. “The audience is old friends who met me through online journaling and chat rooms.” (I didn’t want to explain what distinguished a talker from other forms of chat rooms, but I thought fondly of lively conversations on Somewhere Else and Cirrus Nebula.)

“That’s good!”

“I may write about you. Nothing too personal, definitely nothing intimate. But I can’t think of a good pseudonym for you. And you will likely appear in parts of my life I want to write about, so…”

“This is for your friends?”

“I have no plans or illusions about amassing tons of followers.”

“Just use Mitch,” he said, easily solving the dilemma I had created.

Mitch and I were having dinner at the counter of Little Goat Diner, our current favorite place to eat before and after seeing movies at the Music Box. We bought tickets to see Lady Windermere’s Fan, a 1925 silent movie directed by Ernst Lubitsch. The 35mm film was accompanied by a live pianist.

I’m not going to become a film purist — purism can quickly become a synonym for unreasonably high expectations — but after years of digital projections, it’s fun to observe the subtle differences with film projections. There’s a shimmery quality as the frames flicker past. Shadows are richer, because you’re seeing the physical impediment of light through a substance rather than an absence of HSV values. And, particularly in the AI slop era, the crackles and imperfections are pleasant reminders that human beings touched every part of the process. I enjoy pristine digital restorations, too, though, and appreciate the work that people put into preserving movies.

The movie, based on an Oscar Wilde play but completely rewritten for silent film, was an enjoyable, humane comedy about misunderstandings and reputations among British society members. Irene Rich was the standout as the maligned but effervescent Mrs. Erlynne. And, yes, the fan does feature prominently in the story.

This is only my second Lubitsch movie, following 1933’s pre-Code film Design for Living, where Miriam Hopkins forms a throuple with Fredric March and Gary Cooper. Pre-Code movies are interesting.

Mitch and I take turns playing the straight man and the comic. Last night, The Chicago Film Society had a slideshow before the movie, promoting their upcoming films for the season, one of which was for Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin.

“Did you know 1925 Soviet audiences ran out of the theater because they thought the baby carriage was coming at them?” I asked.

I thought he was going to tell me that accounts of people running from projections of oncoming trains were most likely apocryphal stories spread by early 20th century marketing folks, but instead he said, “That poster was totally made with AI — look at that unreadable text!”

He won that round.