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I appear to be allergic to my allergy medicine, which is a pretty dilemna...
As announced in our last installment, I went off to the Goose Island Brewpub for the SF&F MeetUp, which started at 8PM. I took a Claritin before I left the house, because they help somewhat in staving off adverse reactions from exposure to the various everyday chemicals that most people ignore but that can really do a number on my peculiar system. (This is why I haven't been able to work a Real Job in so long: I can't spend 8 hours+ at a stretch cooped up in recirculated air with copier toner and carpeting and wallpaper et al.)
I arrived at GIBP about 10 minutes before the SF&F MeetUp was to start, and no one else had showed yet, so I asked after the Boardgames MeetUp, which I knew to have started an hour earlier in another part of the same venue. They were downstairs, so I went down to observe for a while, and quickly became drawn into a round of Cartagena...
I did think, a while later, to at least go up to check on the other MeetUp, and said hello to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pam and spot (who were two-thirds of the attendees that had showed up thus far), but alas, the Boardgame MeetUp had already snared my affections for the evening, so I went back downstairs to sample Ninja Burger and Star Munchkin, before sitting in on the end of a session of Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Adventure (kittylad does quite a nice British accent) and wrapping it up well after ten.
And this is where that Claritin re-enters the story...
I decided that despite the hour, I was simply too revved-up to plod obediently over to the North&Clybourn Red Line stop and zip right home. So I lit out down Sheffield with the vague intention of catching the Brown Line at Armitage and switching at Belmont.
Now, I've had previous experience with over-the-counter Claritin. Back while Claritin was still a prescription drug in the States, it had already gone to OTC in Ontario. So, like the rum-runners of old, we would make periodic forays into the Great White North to hit any of several Shoppers Drug Marts in a broad swath of territory that we came to be more intimately familiar with than the side of the border where we ostensibly lived. (Tourists in Windsor: don't miss a stop at the Italia bakery on Erie street, especially when they have the tomatoes-on-bread thingies up at the front counter. Hey, so I'm a bread freak...) The Canadian version of Claritin cost (circa 1995) CDN17.99 for the box of 18 in the non-decongestant formula, and it was a take-and-forget sort of thing, one every 24 hours and that's the end of it until it's time to try to remember when you took the last one.
The American version of Claritin circa 2004 is also available in a 24 hour non-decongestant formula, but let me tell you, this is not quite the same stuff.
We first noticed that something was a bit off the weekend before last when we went to see "Shrek 2". I took a Claritin in the car on the way over, so I could sit in the theater's recycled air for the two hours without running amok and biting people, and by the time we were plopped in seats snarking at the ad-slides that our theater shows while the auditorium's filling I had such a bad case of motormouth that Mum began to remark upon it. Since this was the first Claritin I'd taken in ages, though, we didn't think to suspect it as a possible cause of this uncharacteristic behavior until later on in the week, when a couple other sessions where I couldn't stop babbling also happened to coincide with days when I'd taken a Claritin to counter the worst of some spring-pollen-sneezies. (There's an elm tree, which is one of my few "outdoor" allergies, in the yard next door, and I swear ALL the pollen dropped off of it in one big glob Tuesday before last and headed straight for my apartment.)
So there I am, strolling along Sheffield in the waning hours of the evening, grooving on the peaceful street setting of well-kept older townhouses on a warm night of brilliant moon and backlight fragments of clouds. And pondering. "This is rather approximate to the period of my current work's technological setting, this neighborhood of late-Victorian townhouses, perhaps we had better soak a bit more of this up for later reference...? And anyway, what the hell time is it even, does the Brown Line run this late? Maybe we ought to head down to Fullerton and catch the Red Line there. Or maybe Belmont, there'd be more people at this hour. Or, well, gee, I'm still not tired, if I go back now I'll just be pacing around that tiny apartment..."
If the north side didn't devolve into less and less palatable conditions the farther north one progresses, I'm not sure how far I might have decided to go on foot tonight; I like to walk, and I like to walk in a city at night, and it's one of the tragedies of my current situation that I can't live in a place where I'd feel secure in rambling around after nightfall. I realized tonight how much I've missed that freedom to wander along imagining the lives behind the pools of light, to have the sleeping hive nearly to oneself in the never-quite-dark, catching fragments of story from the few passersby. (I still regret not asking that group in Dublin where they were going with the scuba gear at that hour, but then again some things are better as mysteries.) In the end, having rather run out of neighborhood ahead that I felt comfortable strolling alone in at such an hour, I wound up catching the Red Line at Addison, with the usual lot of drunken Cubs fans to chaperon on the platform. Distance from GIBP: 2.7 miles. It was 11:45, according to the LED board on the platform (they get "train coming" announcements, we get guard-dogs), so I decided I had better call it a night and headed straight home, despite not really being "done" walking yet. I suppose I could have gotten off the Red Line a stop ahead of or after mine, but while my neighborhood isn't really "unsafe" by the measures of these things, it still has overtones of unsavoriness to it that make me want to scuttle a bit even in the daylight -- and ironically, after going all that way, the only time I crossed the street to avoid potential unpleasantness was for a group in the scant block between my exit and home... {sigh}
Still rather jazzed-up. I'll eat my dinner, which Mum put in the fridge when I hadn't manifested myself by the time she was cooking it, and then go watch something violent on TV. Or perhaps I may just come back to Formerly to spork a couple of tonight's new plotbunnies to the wall; now that I know that most of the housing-stock of my setting would most plausibly be in the line of a townhouse plan, due to their social arrangements, a few ideas are already suggesting themselves...
As announced in our last installment, I went off to the Goose Island Brewpub for the SF&F MeetUp, which started at 8PM. I took a Claritin before I left the house, because they help somewhat in staving off adverse reactions from exposure to the various everyday chemicals that most people ignore but that can really do a number on my peculiar system. (This is why I haven't been able to work a Real Job in so long: I can't spend 8 hours+ at a stretch cooped up in recirculated air with copier toner and carpeting and wallpaper et al.)
I arrived at GIBP about 10 minutes before the SF&F MeetUp was to start, and no one else had showed yet, so I asked after the Boardgames MeetUp, which I knew to have started an hour earlier in another part of the same venue. They were downstairs, so I went down to observe for a while, and quickly became drawn into a round of Cartagena...
I did think, a while later, to at least go up to check on the other MeetUp, and said hello to
pam and spot (who were two-thirds of the attendees that had showed up thus far), but alas, the Boardgame MeetUp had already snared my affections for the evening, so I went back downstairs to sample Ninja Burger and Star Munchkin, before sitting in on the end of a session of Captain Park's Imaginary Polar Adventure (kittylad does quite a nice British accent) and wrapping it up well after ten.And this is where that Claritin re-enters the story...
I decided that despite the hour, I was simply too revved-up to plod obediently over to the North&Clybourn Red Line stop and zip right home. So I lit out down Sheffield with the vague intention of catching the Brown Line at Armitage and switching at Belmont.
Now, I've had previous experience with over-the-counter Claritin. Back while Claritin was still a prescription drug in the States, it had already gone to OTC in Ontario. So, like the rum-runners of old, we would make periodic forays into the Great White North to hit any of several Shoppers Drug Marts in a broad swath of territory that we came to be more intimately familiar with than the side of the border where we ostensibly lived. (Tourists in Windsor: don't miss a stop at the Italia bakery on Erie street, especially when they have the tomatoes-on-bread thingies up at the front counter. Hey, so I'm a bread freak...) The Canadian version of Claritin cost (circa 1995) CDN17.99 for the box of 18 in the non-decongestant formula, and it was a take-and-forget sort of thing, one every 24 hours and that's the end of it until it's time to try to remember when you took the last one.
The American version of Claritin circa 2004 is also available in a 24 hour non-decongestant formula, but let me tell you, this is not quite the same stuff.
We first noticed that something was a bit off the weekend before last when we went to see "Shrek 2". I took a Claritin in the car on the way over, so I could sit in the theater's recycled air for the two hours without running amok and biting people, and by the time we were plopped in seats snarking at the ad-slides that our theater shows while the auditorium's filling I had such a bad case of motormouth that Mum began to remark upon it. Since this was the first Claritin I'd taken in ages, though, we didn't think to suspect it as a possible cause of this uncharacteristic behavior until later on in the week, when a couple other sessions where I couldn't stop babbling also happened to coincide with days when I'd taken a Claritin to counter the worst of some spring-pollen-sneezies. (There's an elm tree, which is one of my few "outdoor" allergies, in the yard next door, and I swear ALL the pollen dropped off of it in one big glob Tuesday before last and headed straight for my apartment.)
So there I am, strolling along Sheffield in the waning hours of the evening, grooving on the peaceful street setting of well-kept older townhouses on a warm night of brilliant moon and backlight fragments of clouds. And pondering. "This is rather approximate to the period of my current work's technological setting, this neighborhood of late-Victorian townhouses, perhaps we had better soak a bit more of this up for later reference...? And anyway, what the hell time is it even, does the Brown Line run this late? Maybe we ought to head down to Fullerton and catch the Red Line there. Or maybe Belmont, there'd be more people at this hour. Or, well, gee, I'm still not tired, if I go back now I'll just be pacing around that tiny apartment..."
If the north side didn't devolve into less and less palatable conditions the farther north one progresses, I'm not sure how far I might have decided to go on foot tonight; I like to walk, and I like to walk in a city at night, and it's one of the tragedies of my current situation that I can't live in a place where I'd feel secure in rambling around after nightfall. I realized tonight how much I've missed that freedom to wander along imagining the lives behind the pools of light, to have the sleeping hive nearly to oneself in the never-quite-dark, catching fragments of story from the few passersby. (I still regret not asking that group in Dublin where they were going with the scuba gear at that hour, but then again some things are better as mysteries.) In the end, having rather run out of neighborhood ahead that I felt comfortable strolling alone in at such an hour, I wound up catching the Red Line at Addison, with the usual lot of drunken Cubs fans to chaperon on the platform. Distance from GIBP: 2.7 miles. It was 11:45, according to the LED board on the platform (they get "train coming" announcements, we get guard-dogs), so I decided I had better call it a night and headed straight home, despite not really being "done" walking yet. I suppose I could have gotten off the Red Line a stop ahead of or after mine, but while my neighborhood isn't really "unsafe" by the measures of these things, it still has overtones of unsavoriness to it that make me want to scuttle a bit even in the daylight -- and ironically, after going all that way, the only time I crossed the street to avoid potential unpleasantness was for a group in the scant block between my exit and home... {sigh}
Still rather jazzed-up. I'll eat my dinner, which Mum put in the fridge when I hadn't manifested myself by the time she was cooking it, and then go watch something violent on TV. Or perhaps I may just come back to Formerly to spork a couple of tonight's new plotbunnies to the wall; now that I know that most of the housing-stock of my setting would most plausibly be in the line of a townhouse plan, due to their social arrangements, a few ideas are already suggesting themselves...