am supposed to be sewing today. there is a huge list of fabric oriented things that need to be done- but i feel i've worked too hard already to not blog. last night made some spectacular dinner- will post pics of that, as well as photography lesson 2, soon. my house has been cold- the radiator in my main room is only heating on one coil. which makes some things hard- i can't sit in front of my computer and just veg- i need to keep moving or my fingers freeze. but there are other simply delightful things about it. i pulled out my second duvet and am sleeping like the swedish. honestly, how cold to people keep their houses in sweden? ikea calls my duvet a 4 season duvet- you use the thin one in the summer, the thick one in the fall and spring, and both in the winter. but in chicago, that's always way too hot. i use the thick one in the winter, the thin one in the fall and spring, and just the tiniest corner of it over my belly in the summertime. summertime is never a fun time to sleep. my feet are always cold, but it's too hot to heat up a water bottle- that is uncomfortable and rediculous. but when your radiator is broken, oh.... crawling naked under my double duvet and sticking my feet on the cuddly tigerente waterbottle cover is heavenly. it's just so thick and fluffy, the 9" of down or whatever. natural fibers are amazing. i don't care what the vegans say. but boy is it cold to crawl out from under there in the morning!
luke came by last night to bleed my radiator and try and make it work. and it is better- bout 1/3 of the coils work now. while we were waiting for it to heat up we were looking at my other ones, and i showed him the beautiful wraught stuff on the one in the kitchen- i will take photographs, soon. and he was all, wow, that must be one of the original radiators! this building was built in 1906, it just had it's hundreth birthday. he told me hannah greg's apt upstairs is one of the 2 left that still have the original woodwork. mine is sadly all painted, a gagillion times. i was jealous and wanted to move upstairs, but luke told me to just keep my month to month lease, because he's currently asking $100 more a month than what i'm paying now. that's ALOT of money! but really, the place is worth that. but i couldn't afford that.
and now, having this talk, curled up under my duvet, i keep having these grand historical musings, imagining me living here in 1910, when the building was 4 years old instead of 100. how at the end of the day at work at the flower shop i'd climb the stairs to the elevated train stop at quincy, and browse the advertisements for fancy hats or new bungalows until the train comes. and i'd get off in my cozy tree-lined suburb, and when i got home the gas lamp above the door would be lit. i'd open my shiny brass mailbox with it's tiny key and maybe there'd be a check from my mother or a postcard from my grandma, appalled i'd want to live in the city, esp. with all the news of fires she keeps hearing. i'd be all, grandma, the big one was 25 years ago. i'd put my wet mittens on the radiator in the hallway, perhaps, or if it wasn't wet just inside the hall closet, with it's giant mirror- such an extravagance. i'd take off my bustle and put on a day dress. i'd put a teapot on my big potbellied stove and make myself a cup of tea. maybe i'd have the day off in 1910, just like 2007. maybe i'd take a trolley downtown, cause the trains are running so slow. maybe instead of going to a branch i'd go to the main library, right on michigan and randolph, and shiver a little at the grandness of the mosaic-ed writers up in the dome. or maybe i'd do like today, and walk down to the fabric store on broadway, then come back and sew while there's still so much light coming in through the window above my sewing machine in the closet. such hard work hidden behind doors i can barely imagine, those french doors all heavy dark wood, the mirrored panes clear and new.
can you see how i've gotten a little carried away with this? i keep trying to figure out who lucille was. i think she was the owners wife, and she died of cholera during construction. he loved her very much, but she was a wild independent thing like me, and that's why her husband did something as crazy as giving a lease to a single woman. it's interesting- i know historically there's so much less middle class, people are either extravagantly rich or barely surviving. i tend to imagine myself historically as, like, a factory worker chained to my machine. but maybe i could make good enough money for a roof as extravagant as this one sewing back then- it reminds me of a facinating set of pie graphs i saw in the newspaper a while back- comparing family expenses at the turn of each century. now, a third of one's income goes to housing. then, housing was barely a sixth, but like 50 percent went to clothing, and a huge other portion went to food.
so that's what i'm musing on as i'm sewing today. maybe i'll put on my hoop skirt and play pretend around the house. what are you contemplating today?
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