Although I was dreading the prospect of sprinting around the busy city on a hot and humid and possibly thunderstormy day, it turned out not to be at all bad, with pleasant breezes blowing in off the lake.

I still haven�t managed to make it to Millennium Park, which tempted me by displaying its sexy, curving bandshell in small pieces between buildings. Next week�s archival trip will start at the Symphony archives, so I�ll probably try to check it out then, since I�ll already be by the lake. V�s photos have made me want to see it all the more.

It�s been interesting reading all the coverage of the park while I�m researching the early years of the Grant Park Music Festival and Chicago�s two world�s fairs. The press coverage is really quite similar. And the coverage of all three events tends to quote the Chicago�s master-planner Daniel Burnham�s famous saying �Make no little plans.� Based on plans and news coverage alone, the park is a worthy inheritor of Chicago�s history of public space.

Next week, bean, you will be mine!

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I was a woman on a mission today, having just learned that the archive will be closed for the first two weeks of September. I need every second there that I can get. Although I didn�t have a lot of time to stop and smell the roses today, people-watching on the el is always a good time. Here are a few things that I saw.

An elderly man with a slight stoop wearing white linen pants, a grey linen blazer and a straw boater hat with a span of burgundy and navy blue ribbon circling it. I half expected to see white bucs on his feet, but no, only black dress shoes, quite worn, but carefully polished. He looked like an aged Gatsby.

A very young woman with kohl-rimmed eyes, a streak of fuchsia in her hair, a stud in her nose and a ring in her eyebrow and a wide leather band around her right wrist. In one hand she gripped several rolls of film. She wore her dark jeans low and her pink Hello Kitty tank high, revealing a waist criss-crossed in stretch marks that surely meant she had had a child (this based on the resemblance to similar marks on my own waistline). I wondered how old she was and how old was her child. I was also happy to see stretch marks displayed like a badge of honor.

A couple in the dark as to which train to get on to get them to Chicago and State but who knew enough to know which door to exit before the annoying CTA voice directed them. They were laden with luggage and packages of what appeared to be framed pictures of some sort.

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Sometime between the time I entered the train station and the time the train departed, it began to rain heavily. I missed the transition altogether. I am regretting the decision to leave my cardigan at home. It is so cold on the train that my middle fingers have gone dead white. I am huddled up to my nice warm computer, hoping it will help to make up for the frigid temperatures, which surely must barely top 60 degrees. And I in my tank top and flippy summer skirt. I may look cute, but I have lost count of my goosebumps.

Elliott Smith is singing �Needle in the Hay� in my ears. I am hit with the sudden urge to watch The Royal Tennenbaums yet again. A cell phone rings. The conductor passes. Emergency instructions are delivered a little too loudly over the P. A. as we pass a soggy St. John Cantius and slide off into the netherworld of the suburbs.

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