Still feeling a bit like I’m laying low here in Chicago–haven’t called any of my friends here, kind of skulking around the edges of the U of Chicago campus like I really don’t belong there, which I don’t.

Made my first inroads toward legitimacy today, though: we dropped into the library to get me a “partner” library card: no picture, just featureless plastic with a barcode. But they won’t give me an email account. Damn.

I’m sitting now on our one piece of sittable furniture, which is a kick-ass chair that flips over into a stepladder; the computer is sitting on a game table, which I used last night to beat myself twice at chess and once at checkers.

I think this is the best room in the apartment–it sort of juts out to form a corner of the building and so has three sets of windows in it, there’s a kind of alcove where I’m sitting right now and the sun is coming right in through the trees and people even walk by on the street occasionally–yes, it’s not California, people walk.