As you can imagine from such a pretentious blog title, I’m about to spend several paragraphs making this T.S. Eliot title relate to my mundane everyday life. Grab some java and pin those eyelids up A Clockwork Orange-style.

This actually isn’t going well at all. There’s a beautiful woman manning (or womaning?) the counter at Barnes & Noble at the moment. She’s single-handedly threatening to derail this entire entry. Don’t I need to buy something? Anything? I did just acquire my first blue-ray player not so long ago, so maybe I should load up a shopping cart full of overpriced discs. She’s staring RIGHT AT ME from 50 feet away. Wait, can you tell the direction of a gaze from 50 feet away?

Well, this is unfortunate. Due to the expensive costs of electronic ink, this will have to be cut short. I traveled to Chicago in early July, not for my usual urban meandering, but to meet an old friend I’ve known for 8 years yet have never met. And since this blog was at one time the official diarist of my life, I feel a sense of duty to document the occurrence. With a 10mm fisheye lens.

Of course, she also documented our touristy adventures. The Bean was not to be missed (and really, still draws me after dozens of visits.) And a simple quest for self-rising flour capped a rather lovely day.

My father, upon seeing her photos, send me an email remarking on my rolled-up pant legs (due to fountain-splashing.) And that’s how we get to the excerpt from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” below.

Nice to finally meet you, Laura.

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.