Saturday 1.23.10

Extra Credit

I came to work today. I drove a car, which I parked in a 10-hour metered spot. It cost $7 dollars. A service was just starting at Immanuel Lutheran Church on Pontius Street. I have been meaning to see this church. I passed by, then stopped and turned back. Now is the time, I say to myself. The mass is a memorial to Robert Anderson, a priest who died two weeks ago, at the age of 70. His son and daughter were playing cello and piano while their friends and family assembled. The church is creamy white as if a certain light had leaked in and saturated everything. The bulk of the building outside belies the coziness of this interior. I sat for 10 minutes in a pew before leaving. I wanted to work on the blue line. I walked through Alley 24 to access NBBJ. I have come out this way, but never in. The sensation is homier than the commercial entrance on Yale. Shaped garden beds to left and right with small round plants, small doors covered with a dash of canopy, brick walls, blinds.

The Blue Line

I wrote for 3 hours on the blue line. I met a hedgehog who does wonderful things here at night. He comes up through a little door in the floor to bless the drawings on the presentation boards. When I am lost, I look out the window. I refer to the view, to the way the line is moving, to what it's moving through. It is not fast writing. It is slow and thoughtful. I finish another 1/4 of it. I'm at my half-way point, about to come back into the waistline window. A friend meets me for lunch. We discuss ideas for an alleyway project. I feel so far still from what it is, what is needs to be. I spend the rest of my day researching these ideas. The blue line waits.