balcony log, cont.

(Monday 3/30): Finally we got a sunny morning, but by the time I took my afternoon walk, the clouds had rolled in. Big puffy white guys with dark gray underbellies.

I accidentally kicked over the Bud Light bottlecap on the balcony that was gifted to me by my upstairs neighbor. That got me reminiscing about "drunk night 2" with HGR, numbers, Dante, and Lopen. I drank rum and coke, too much too fast. Lopen told me to slow down, but I was already having trouble reading the chat and didn't see his message. I spent most of the night falling-down drunk and puking into my open dishwasher lid before I managed to crawl into bed.

After that, I was left with most of a bottle of rum that I didn't want to drink. I ended up using it slowly over the next year in cooking. A dash of rum is great in french toast (though don't add too much or it becomes gross).

I haven't heard anything from Lopen for the past month. Hope that dude's okay.

(Tuesday 3/31): Another cool cloudy day. A bird of prey wheeled overhead, black wings outstretched, gliding on air currents. A nostalgic sound filled the air: the solemn ringing of an outbound Metra train. Remember when I used to take that train every day? What an exciting, decadent lifestyle.

(Wednesday 4/1): Sunny and bright, but when I stepped out for my afternoon walk, my balcony was in shadow because it faces east. Note to self: Take morning walks on sunny days. A skunky-sweet smell wafted up from below—presumably a downstairs neighbor smoking pot. (I've never done pot, but I've heard that's how it smells.) I think their air vents are connected to mine, because I sometimes get that smell in my bathroom.

(Thursday 4/2): Hauled myself outside at 9:15 a.m. and was rewarded with a foot-wide strip of sunlight draped across my balcony. The ultimate luxury.

Saw the kidnapping van drive out of the parking lot. The van in question is abnormally large, solid black with no logos or markings, and all its windows are tinted black. It is almost certainly not an actual kidnapping van. Nevertheless, I make sure not to walk directly alongside it, just in case a door opens and someone pulls me inside and I'm never heard from again. Anyway, guys, kidnapping is not an essential business activity! Stay home!

(Friday 4/3): 69 degrees out: T-shirt weather! A tree across the parking lot is covered in deep red blossoms. (From here, they look like berries, but you can't have berries in April, can you? They're probably blossoms.) I had 20 minutes of peaceful walking, and then my downstairs neighbor came out to her balcony. She's always having loud phone conversations on speakerphone and it's always about covid and she's always smoking (tobacco today). I guess it's possible I'm unfairly maligning her due to a biased sample. If she were on her balcony and not talking and not smoking, I would have no idea she was there.