Your Friendly Neighborhood Library

In an effort to extract motivation from any available source, I spent the day downtown moving randomly around the city reading in different locations. I was outside, inside, at Starbucks, at a nearly deserted café and finally at the big, bad Chicago public library.

Actually, to be more specific, it was the Harold Washington Library Center I ventured into when it (finally) opened at 1 p.m. today. And, a vrai dire,* I was disappointed from the minute I walked in. The whole place was very sterile and very early 90’s - rounded edges, pastel colors, extreme fluorescent lighting.

But I found a secluded corner and hauled out my gigantic volume of Montaigne’s Les Essais. No sooner had I cracked open the book then a policeman began banging chairs around behind me.

“Morning,” he said. It was 1:15.

“Uh, hi.” I looked up from Montaigne. (But who am I kidding? A piece of lint could have fallen from the ceiling, and I would have gladly been distracted by it.)

“I don’t mean to scare you…” he began, but scare me he did. He basically told me if I stayed where I was, I was just asking to get mugged or raped by a homeless person. “Let’s just say, things have happened.”

So needless to say, I followed his advice and hauled all my junk to a table nearer the information desk, in plain site of several library employees. But the policeman seemed to reappear every 20 minutes or so, banging chairs again as he did his rounds. I don’t think I’ll be making any special trips back there anytime soon. So much for that idea.

*i.e. "truth be told"