I decided to view this as a dam-breaking task. It's been over a year since I've done anything SFØ-related, mostly due to a twisted sort of perfectionism: I tend to think that if I can't do something perfectly the first time I try it, it's not worth trying to do. This has led to quite a lot of not-doing things, which kind of sucks. Right now, if I worry about the schplank, I'll never end up doing the task. This particular task seems well suited to the sort of don't-worry-just-go-for-it mentality I'm trying to cultivate.

So late this afternoon I got on a northbound Green Line train at Garfield, sat down, and wrote the following:

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5:25 "This is 51st." Nobody gets on. There's some sort of odd box next to my seat that emits a series of clicks whenever the train starts moving. There are eight other people in the car. 47th; Two men get off. Nobody has gotten on at the last two stops. A backwards seat may not have been the best choice for seeing out the window; everything is getting farther away. 43rd. None on or off. "Indiana is next" ... I'm always amused by certain El stops. "This is Grand" - what positivity! And the places you can get to on the El - California, Indiana. "This is Chicago" - Indeed it is! And here we are at Indiana. The girl in front of me with the Tweety jacket and a small foil-covered bowl gets off. The man across the aisle from me is making crinkling noises - he just got up to brush crumbs/dust from his lap, the abruptly sat back down. I feel a little weird writing about him without his knowledge. Now he's talking to the girl in front of him - and then me! He's asking if he can give me some change to use my phone. I decline, but feel bad about it - maybe I should just let him use it. What am I worried will happen? We just left 35th/Bronzeville/IIT, and the first other white person got on there. The guy next to me asks if the Edison Express is still running. I don't know. Or wait, did he say Addison? Either way, no idea.

Now we're pulling up at Roosevelt. I briefly make eye contact with a woman across the car who's on her cell but not talking. Now she is, but I can't hear her. We pass a day care center; little kids are running around on big bright pieces of plastic. So when I thought we were pulling up at Roosevelt before, I was wrong; we're doing it now. The man who was next to me gets off. I decided to move to a seat next to the window. There's an ad on the opposite side of the train that asks "R U smart?" "Attention passengers - we're being delayed, there's a train ahead of us." I can see the lake - what street is this we're stopped at? There's another ad that says that 99% of Illinoisians think organ donors are sexy* (*Results may be skewed). Of the five other people here, -- no, six, there's another guy at the very end of the car - three are looking out the window, one is on the phone, and one has his eyes closed (I can't see what guy #6 is doing). Now we're moving again, and tipping a little to the side as we turn. Now we're stopped with the car at a weird angle - back higher than front, right much higher than left. Problem with signals, says the conductor. I'm at the lowest point in the car. I should've taken a picture there! It looked pretty cool. I'm grateful that we're near the Loop and the buildings are blocking the sun. Out the window there's a lovely bright red building. The girl on the phone is talking about her plans to play basketball and join track and cross-country.

We just stopped at Madison & Wabash and the occupancy of the car doubled. Lots of the new arrivals are listening to music, talking on phones, or reading. Pretty much all of them, I think. Randolph & Wabash; there's a man taking pictures on the other side of the platform. "Why did they want all this information?" asks a woman to her phone. I don't catch the answer. She's looking at her nails. The car is filling up; I may have someone next to me soon. "Soon" turns out to be "right now." The information woman is saying something about a plunger and security. There are people standing now; my half-hour is over, but there are so many more people to observe.

I disembarked at Clark and Lake, took some pictures, then got on the next southbound Green Line train and went home to make dinner and think about my next task.