When You're Alone and Life is Making You Lonely

To complain about working for yourself -- and to most people, that's getting up at 10pm, staggering to the home office and toiling the rest of the day in pyjamas, feet in bedroom slippers propped up on a papasan, sneaking off to two-hour lunches -- is asking for cheap beer to be thrown in your face.

To be perfectly honest, working for myself means getting up at 6.30am, going for a run, showering, making breakfast, reading the paper, then toiling the rest of the day in a T-shirt and shorts, baseball and Jeopardy! on TV in the background where applicable, running an errand when necessary. So maybe throw a good beer in my face instead, something I can lap up. I still have to deal with conference calls, deadlines, phone and cell that ring when they shouldn't, excessive emails, and all the usual grimaces of cubicle culture.

And I have to face it all by myself. When I was 13 and had to choose between playing just one sport -- swimming, tennis, or softball -- I picked softball, because I wanted to play a team game. I do miss scampering to the kitchen for food leftover from meetings, running downstairs for desserts with Puckett, fun and games locked up in someone's office, and someone asking me how my weekend was on Monday, even dressing up for work. And what I miss most is my daily L commute. I miss walking down Southport to the stop, saying good morning to the station guard with the moustache, unwrapping my paper, reading it on the train, plugged in to iPod.

You can always go -- downtown. Thank god for meetings. I was downtown Thursday and Friday, and Friday was just the kind of day that makes you want to bubble wrap downtown Chicago and FedEx it to cities all over the world, with a Post-It tacked on saying, "Wish You Were Here!" Discounting the temperature, it was blue-sky sunny and picturesque -- so it was a beautiful winter's day, except it was October 13, Friday. Fair enough, trick or treat.

After my client meeting, I strode from the edge of the West Loop to River North, to Andy's farewell lunch at Puerto Vallarta. I was crossing the Wells Street bridge when I had a Chicken Little moment -- the sky was going to fall down on me. I'm thinking about bad vibrations and I look up -- why, it was only the L cranking across, and it made me smile, because through the girdles of the bridge, I could see the Merchandise Mart, where I used to nine-to-five. And I was happy I was out of there, and I could forget all my troubles, forget all my cares.

I continued on my walk, where unbeknownst to me then, a Corona and some marvellous chips and salsa were awaiting my presence. (Plus, lunch was on Ogilvy PR.) I paused the iPod to listen to the music of the traffic in the city, and wished I could linger on the sidewalk (but I was already late). All the noise and the hurry seemed to help.

Thank you, Petula Clark, for singing a fabulous song that can be paraphrased.