FAREWELL, NEW FRIEND
Today will be my last day with the Irving Park brown line stop until next year, when it will—like Addison and Montrose before it—reopen in all its antiseptic gunmetal glory. I am sad. Irving Park and I have only been together a few short months. I shall miss looking out at the old Manz warehouse building in the morning as the sun comes up behind it, burning the wispy cirrus orange and pink—half the world in front of me, coming to life, exhaling a cold breath over the lake, westward, over me to the other half. I'll miss alleyway below, the old cars decaying in the grass and gravel, the demolition and new construction. I'll miss my short morning walk. The faces in morning traffic.

DINNER
Last night, I branched out from the usual Panang Curry Chicken and tried the Gang Hung Lay with sticky rice from Sticky Rice. Unbelievable. It tasted so good that my shoes flew right off of my feet.

Lauren branched out herself and got the Gang Som with Shrimp. She took one spoonful, scrunched her face and said "I don't think I can eat this. It's too spicy."

I like to think I have a pretty high spice threshold, so I tried a spoonful. Holy fucking hell, that shit was spicy. So spicy that my shoes flew back on and then flew off again. There are foods I've tasted in my life that have made me wonder what kind of person is actually able to eat them, but the Gang Som was spicy beyond all proportion—only a dragon could possibly enjoy that stuff.

SMALL WONDER

I have today's featured photo on the Chicago Public Radio website.

IMPOTENT
I'll let Glenn field this one.

BOURBON COUNTRY
Forty. Below forty. Low- to mid-thirties. Winds out of the north northwest at twenty miles per hour with gusts reaching into the forties. The isobars are packed. Upper-level lows. Here we go. Let's go. Are you ready? I'm ready.

My new coat makes a behemoth of me. (Oh, the perils of online shopping.) It keeps my core warm but not hot; it strikes the correct balance; it breathes. This morning's first outdoor exhalation bloomed gray around me. I start later earlier than before. The time change confounds my rhythms.

Lauren and I spent the weekend in Louisville, Kentucky—a five-hour drive down through Indiana and across the Ohio River. The air there was warm and clear during the day and chilly at night. The food was good and plentiful. Red wine spilled could not dampen our spirits. Kentucky spirits would later lift them to uncharted heights as we shivered outside with cigars.

On Sunday, the city parks spread out before us all green and red and yellow. The hills obscured downtown altogether, and for a while we pretended to explore Louisville's unseen corners, there amid the oaks and brush, the hearty copse crunching 'neath our shoes, the dogs running up ahead, tongues lolling laxly from their mouth sides. Our hamstrings burned. We made for the car and then headed down side streets among the old homes and mansions, past the small airfield where vintage biplanes ruled the runway.

We took off shortly after that, drove back north through mighty wind shear.