Blogaversary

Reluctantly--because hipsters scare me--I offer you this link.



Normally I would run like hell from something like this; I discovered it entirely by accident, as a link in House in Progress, where I go when I start thinking what the hell have I gotten myself into? But there's a reason I link:



Six Oh Six is published, if its masthead is even remotely correct, near the place JP and I used to share--in fact, about five feet from a sidewalk that JP and I walked down almost every single day we lived there.



Our building is gone now. I drove down that street last year, on one of my house-hunting trips before I bought this place, and I discovered that they'd torn off the little storefront apartment we'd shared, and put up a two-story cinderblock condo--ugly as sin, poorly constructed, and no doubt selling for three or four times what I paid for this place.



Yeah, I cried. Wouldn't you?



I was lucky enough, a few days later, to find a website with pictures of EVERY SINGLE BUILDING in Chicago--something for tax-assessment purposes--and the site had a picture of the OLD 1460--not the new, ugly 1460. So I have a picture--in fact, I made that the touchstone of a project, in which I printed out the pictures of every Chicago home I'd ever had--but a picture ain't the real thing, boys.



Things change, I know. That's fine. I'd hate a static world. But SOME things shouldn't disappear like that. There are some things, mundane things, that should be made holy in hindsight--sacred by virtue of what happened AFTER. I'm sure everyone has at least one or two of those things, and I suppose it's not feasible to protect everyone's most treasured memories--there are so many people, so many things, that it would result in gridlock, and my dreaded static world.



So needless to say, I have a soft spot in my heart for things and places whose addresses I recognize that way....like Six Oh Six, which I would normally dismiss as being too-hip for me.



It was a year ago today that I started this blog. It's been one hell of a year; I wouldn't change any of it. (Well, except Bob the Plumber....) But today I was remembering what it felt like to be waiting to move into this house--the pride and joy of having DONE something like this. I need to remember that emotion more often, I think.



Happy blogaversary!