Oops! I did it again...

Yep. New play. You don't have to come see this one.

http://petheatre.com/ghostwatch.html

Damn! Damn! Damn!

The CTA has me mad again (I know it didn't take long).

January 6 they're chopping more bus routes (this is all contingent, of course, upon that never-far-from the spotlight "state funding" which the state is using for something downstate and we want for our CTA and no one can pinpoint exactly where it's coming from but Ron Huberman is bent on making us all see is readily available if the governorovich etc etc would just stop being difficult).
Among the bus routes that will be axed:

11 Lincoln/Sedgwick (I LIKE this one!)

49X Western Express (so now my best and closest bus commute will take 3x as long)

50 Damen (I think I'll just remove the "e" and rechristened the street "Damn"

56 Milwaukee (why? whyyyy?)

92 Foster (so the bus I can use to get to work (the ONLY bus I can use after they axe the Damen is going too. Awesome. I don't mind walking and biking some of the time, but that myth about Chicago being really cold sometimes is actually true for a small part of the year I'd like to call 'Winter')

also on the block are the Diversey, Grand, Armitage, Division, and Montrose buses. I am so mad and I really am starting to wonder if I'm going to ever go to Wicker Park again. They're making it damn hard and I'm extremely glad if this bill goes through that my housemates and I didn't move to Ukranian Village when we had the chance last summer. We thought there were buses that went there. We were wrong.

I know it's been said, but there are petitions and letters to sign and send on www.savechicagolandtransit.com. Sign them and send them and maybe we can get both city hall and Springfield to recognize that this is a really big fucking problem that they need to solve soon and in a real way.

Damn, babies. Damn.

As promised...

Well, I did work the marathon, and it was the craziest, spookiest one ever. For those of you who don't follow it, they called it yesterday at about 3 1/2 hours due to the excessive heat and humidity (it was 88 degrees and so humid my eyeballs were sweaty). There's a ton of debate going around right now on message boards and in the press about whether the city fell short, whether LaSalle Bank shortchanged everyone on water and Gatorade, whether it should be an individual's choice to finish an event they've trained for for half a year or more, or whether canceling the race was a good idea that saved lives. Something most people don't know, it seems, is that most years someone dies at the marathon. I remember last year it was a big deal that no one died. So far one man, a 35 year old Michigan police officer, has died from this one, and the last I heard several additional people are still in the ICU. I saw some of the people in the ICU part of the medical tent, and they really didn't look so good. In my tent we called for medics more times than we ever had in the past. We had our own EMT, a sweet guy on a bike named Elvis, who we kept hopping around for 4 straight hours. Short story short, it was a mess.

I can definitely understand the argument that individuals should be responsible for themselves. I've gone through training with several marathon runners who are also my patients, and I know how much they stake on race day. No one wants to train for something for months and months -- some for years and years -- and then not be allowed to see it through. But I also can tell the detractors that there were wheelchairs of people lined up double-thick outside the med tent waiting to be triaged because there wasn't enough room inside. The medics ran out of IVs. There weren't enough doctors. We had people in our tent both packed in ice and waiting wrapped in blankets with blue lips for 40 minutes because there weren't enough personnel to come get them. I agree that responsibility lies with the individual -- no matter how devout a runner you are, you make the decision with every step you take on a hot day that you can finish that step and you won't endanger yourself. But the city and the event can't deny that they also have a responsibility: when you invite 45,000 -- up this year from 30,000 -- people to come run in your streets, you make a pledge that you will be able to supply them with water and medical attention when they need it. There came a point yesterday when the city couldn't make that pledge anymore, and they called the marathon. I believe it was absolutely the right decision. The people running who swore they could have made it couldn't see the reality: that at the end of the run was a medical team stretched beyond its staff capabilities. We had so many people coming to us for cramp relief they were waiting more than an hour. Even with the race called at 11:30am, we were in the tent stretching cramps until 3:00. We couldn't have coped with any more finishers, much less any more injured and in pain. The heat was too much for some people, and that was sadly inevitable. I think that in deciding to cut its losses and stop things before they got worse the marathon officials had to make a tough, unpopular call, but unfortunately there weren't a multitude of great possible outcomes on a day that hot. There are even rumors going around now that Bank of America's buyout of LaSalle means there won't be any more Chicago marathon, but I think that's totally premature. One bad year won't stop this tradition. Someone will sponsor if B of A won't. But I think this year will be a cautionary tale to everyone involved in the future -- runners may think twice about running here, and next year I hope the water stations are over-supplied and the med tents over-staffed.

My inner jock gets one day a year...

I am so excited!!!

www.chicagomarathon.com

It hit me the other day that the Marathon is my favorite annual event here. I have several patients running this time and am working in the Trophy Tent as a massage supervisor, which means I get to wake up super-early and do what I love and be in the middle of the action and get paid for it!

More to follow after Sunday. If anyone wants any watching tips or ideas of good Marathon-celebrating stuff to do, let me know!