The Disco-Ball Messiah (12/5/04)

I just don't see the appeal of a do-it-yourself Messiah concert. I seem to play more than my share of these this time of year, and while I'm grateful for the work, the performances themselves tend to be pretty awful. Do ordinary people really enjoy the challenge of trying to sing rapid mellismas? In four-part harmony?! Do they prefer just to listen to the orchestral accompaniment of the choruses, sans vocalists? Or are these concerts just an excuse for them to wear their finest holiday sweaters out on the town? It all seems a bit masochistic to me, yet these concerts have become time-honored traditions at many area churches, and people turn out in droves year after year.

Don't get me wrong-- I like the idea of audience participation, especially during holiday concerts-- there's nothing like a rousing sing-a-long to get people in the Christmas spirit! But there's a big difference between a sing-a-long Messiah concert and the do-it-yourself numbers I usually wind up playing for.... namely, the budget. Sing-a-longs hire a choir or, at the very least, place professional ringers in the audience to help carry ticket holders through the lesser-known choruses. Many people bring their own scores to the performance, which suggests to me that they're at least familiar with the oratorio, while most do-it-yourself-ers take a score from a box on the back pew as they enter the church and hope for the best. I've participated in a sing-a-long Messiah before as an audience member, and it was great fun, but make no mistake--those choir parts are definitely not meant to be sung by the average church congregation. I think they're hard-- and I'm a musician! So, if you ever find yourself debating which of these concerts to attend, ALWAYS go for the sing-a-long-- it's worth the price of admission, people! And this is why....

The gig I played in the uppity North Shore today should, for all intensive purposes, have been fantastic. I was playing with some of the most prolific freelancers in the area, and the soloists were all professional opera singers. The school auditorium wasn't packed, but there were a respectable number of people in attendance. I found it odd that the program advertised the concert as a "rendering" of Handel's Messiah; I didn't know what that meant, and it never occured to me to ask. The only trepidation I had was that we were performing the entire oratorio, and not just the Christmas portion, which makes for a looooong afternoon.

The overture was lush and beautiful, and the tenor's opening recitative and aria were superb... then things slowly began to go downhill. Once "Ev'ry Valley" had been "Exalted", the ad-hoc chorus rose to sing "And the Glory of the Lord". The lights weren't up in the auditorium, and the audience wasn't seated according to voice type, so people were sight reading in the dark and without the safety of being surrounded by unison voices. While it wasn't terrible, it certainly wasn't good. The next chorus, "And He Shall Purify", has a very difficult bass part that continues through much of the piece. The audience was all but silent. It was so bad that the soloists began singing along, which they felt compelled to do throughout much of the next three hours.

"For Unto Us a Child is Born", the second most familiar chorus in the piece, offered the soloists a brief reprieve. As we trudged on toward Part the Second, I became increasingly distracted by a squeaking, creaking noise behind me. It sounded like the brass players were really fidgety (not that I blamed them-- they don't play much at all), and the risers upon which they were sitting were groaning in protest. I turned around during an aria in which I was tacet and, to my horror, saw an interpretive painter at the back of the stage. Dressed in a pair of white, paint-splattered overalls and standing on some rickety-looking scaffolding, this artist was theatrically offering his "rendering" of the afternoon's festivities. With a flourish, he scrawled "King of Kings" and "Prince of Peace" and the like onto a large canvas sheet, which served as a makeshift backdrop to the orchestra, using a large, pretentious calligraphy.

The audience (thankfully) managed not to giggle during "All We Like Sheep", and continued to dutifully muddle through the increasingly obscure choruses. I really think that the only reason they came back after intermission was because the "Hallelujah Chorus" had been moved to the end of the concert-- that's the only reason most people come to these things, anyway! By the time we reached Part the Third, the chorus was practically nonexistent.

Fifty-two numbers and nearly three hours later, we finally get to the "Hallelujah Chorus". The audience suddenly came back to life and, for the first time all day, I heard people singing en masse. Just as I was thinking that this would be a nice ending to an otherwise long and painful performance, the stage crew turned a spotlight toward the ceiling and activated the dusty disco ball that dangled down from the ceiling. It was, well, garish. I was so stunned that I stopped playing altogether, gaping instead at the little squares of light reflecting off the audience and the auditorium walls. It was unprecedented, and frankly, a little sacrilegious. I've never seen anything like it before, and never hope to again. We got a rousing (albeit obligatory) standing ovation, though (that's why the "Hallelujah Chorus" is usually performed last) and amazingly, people were still willing to mill around afterward and enjoy a reception held out in the lobby. I for one couldn't get out of there soon enough-- let's hope next week's Messiah concert goes better than this; I don't think it could be any worse!

Nightmares of a Dream Job (2/12/05)

I lived in constant fear of being promoted. I immediately knew that something was strange about the small publishing company, but I ignored my instincts in favor of landing a salaried job that combined my two main interests– music and journalism. I’m a classically trained musician with a knack for writing, but the fact that I was grossly under qualified to work as a magazine editor was irrelevant; it didn’t take long to figure out why.

While I don’t know as much about grammar as I probably should, my on-the-job training only made matters worse. The publisher was very particular and his editing criteria were peculiar, to say the least. Pronouns were all but forbidden, which made interviews especially difficult. The awkward sentences in the finished drafts were so different from the original transcriptions, I was shocked that the interviewees ever consented to publication. Starting a sentence with a gerund was grounds for termination, and the commas I mistakenly placed after prepositional phrases had a mysterious way of vanishing in the final edits.

I overcame an annoying habit of using topic sentences. Introducing a new topic was "needlessly stupid"; instead we used run-on sentences to segue from one idea to the next. Other errors included hyphenating compound adjectives, while failing to place a hyphen between an adverb and the word it modified (one twelve page article was heavily-laden with these.) When I challenged this assertion and told the publisher that compound adjectives should be hyphenated, he cited example after unhyphenated example (of adverbial clauses) from Strunk and White to prove his point.

I spent two frustrating production cycles re-editing every article I was assigned, because I had started several sentences with the "wrong" subject. When I finally figured out that the publisher was rejecting the use of past and present participles, not subject order, I cringed, realizing the only option I had left was to write in passive voice.

Articles frequently came back with circles around "forbidden words". I kept a list of words the publisher arbitrarily decided to abhor, with "achieve", "help", and "goal" being the most common offenders. "Reveal" once prompted him to scrawl the words SPARE ME FOREVER nastily in the margin. It’s funny, really, this forbidden word list. "Good" was listed seven times as the suggested replacement for words from "adequate" to "ingenious", and "because of" always replaced "due to," regardless of grammatical implication.

I wouldn’t have minded adhering to such bizarre editorial guidelines if I hadn’t been blamed for the dull prose that inevitably resulted. I know how to write in a conversational style-- I just wasn't allowed to do so. I wasn't even allowed to use the word "allow"-- it was on the list.

The constant criticism and lengthy commute quickly became unbearable; as soon as I saved up enough money to live off of while I found another job, I fled. It’ll take some time to fully recover from this experience; although my writing style is still on the mend, I thankfully managed to escape with my grammatical integrity intact.


[This is for all you fellow word nerds out there....]

Save a Stray (7/30/08)

Something about the way she was lying on the sidewalk made me hit the brakes and throw my car into reverse. The petite long-haired tabby was lying in the residuals of a puddle from an early morning rain shower, and when I approached she lifted her head, looked at up at me with big, plaintive green eyes and mouthed a silent hello. I could immediately see that she was rail-thin and too weak to stand, so I ran across the street to my grandfather's downstate residence (which I had just been visiting), borrowed some towels from the old people, scooped up the small cat and put her in my car.

I didn't have the money to take her to a vet, which it was becoming increasingly clear that she needed, so I called my mom's work and the receptionist gave me directions to the nearest animal shelter. As I was driving, I rubbed her whiskers and scratched her chin, which she seemed to enjoy. She tried to chat, but because she was so weak, all she could muster were silent meows. At that point, I noticed that her gums, her nose, and even the little pads on her feet were completely white, which is often a sign of malnutrition, sometimes worse. I knew she was in pretty bad shape, but I've heard countless stories about the injured, abused, and neglected cats that come through the doors of the no-kill shelter in Chicago where I volunteer, many of whom were on the brink of death, that make a full recovery and go on to lead happy and healthy lives. So I was worried but hopeful when I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the shelter's veterinary clinic.

The vet was outside walking a dog, and I asked him if he could help. As he walked with me inside the building, he first asked if the cat was mine, then he asked if I had hit it with the car. Both answers were of course no; I told him that she seemed sick. He pulled the towel back, took one look at her, and-- before she was even out of my arms-- stabbed a syringe full of euthasol into her abdomen.

I must have looked as horrified as I felt, because one of the veterinary assistants came over and gave me a big hug as soon as I set the poor little tabby down on the table, saying the world needed more good samaritans like me. The vet looked at her, then at me, and smiled sadly as he told me the cat was dead before I had brought it in, and went to go finish walking the dog. But she wasn't dead. That was the worst part.

Upon hearing the clinic door slam, the cat gasped loudly. Terrified, she tried to leap to her feet, but was too weak to do so. Her heart, instead of stopping, beat wildly. With every bit of remaining strength she had left, she began howling, her terror showing in in the whites of her eyes. I looked helplessly at the assistant, who took her pulse and told me that her white nose and gums must be from very poor circulation and not just malnutrition; feline leukemia was the likely suspect. She then told me that the vet must not have injected the lethal cocktail directly into her heart, and at this rate, it was going to take a while for her to die.

At that moment, I felt directly responsible for the hell in which this little tabby suddenly found herself; I had single-handedly handed her over to her executioner. Fighting back tears, I stroked her head to try and calm her. The assistants spoke over her as she lay there dying, commenting on how clean her white belly was, and shaking their heads when they suspected that she wasn't completely feral. Then they started debating where they should go for lunch.

I couldn't stand to stay and watch her die, so as soon as she quieted down and stopped struggling, I apologized under my breath, collected the old peoples' towels (the vet picked her up by her feet so I could grab the towels-- like a roped calf at a rodeo-- and told me they would properly dispose of her), washed my hands and left. I looked back once more before the door closed behind me-- the poor little tabby was still breathing, looking up at the disinterested vet with imploring green eyes.

Even though I was horrified and completely unprepared to witness the tabby's euthanization, I do not blame the vet or the clinic workers for the tabby's death. I'm sure that the vet instantly realized how sick the tabby was and acted as quickly as he could to end her suffering, and that their seemingly detached and calloused reactions were out of necessity-- a coping mechanism of sorts, to get them through the day. Kill-shelter workers in particular, who euthanize thousands of dogs and cats each year (many of whom are younger and healthier than the little tabby was) have to become a little detached from their job, which would otherwise be too overwhelming for most people. I, for one, don't think I could ever get used to seeing animals die needlessly-- it's heartbreaking.

It's a sad, sad reality, though, for millions of homeless cats and dogs every year who aren't lucky enough to get adopted. Whatever reasons people have for not spaying and neutering their pets, I can attest now that the grim alternative facing many of their unwanted offspring is much, much worse. Shelters love to share adoption stories, and trumpet the happy endings, but I think more people would be compelled to get involved with and support shelters if they knew exactly what happened to the animals who get passed over by potential adopters. While most people would rather not hear about the unlucky ones who ultimately wind up in the dumpster out back, these animals still deserve to have their stories told; their misfortune could spur someone to change the fate of another helpless animal.

I challenge every shelter in America to tell their communities about at least one of the beautiful, trusting, and bright-eyed creatures who didn't get to leave the shelter through the front door, a victim of an overwhelmed and underfunded system, whose only crime was not finding a home quickly enough. Shelters work tirelessly to save homeless pets and end animal cruelty, but despite their best efforts, they continue to fight an uphill battle. Perhaps a heart-wrenching story (like the little tabby's, above) will be the impetus that spurs someone to donate, adopt a pet, spay or neuter their own pet, save a stray, or even relinquish an animal they are unable/unwilling to properly care for.

That awful experience made me even more grateful to be involved with the no-kill shelter where I volunteer; I wanted to write them a big check, but had to settle for donating a few extra hours to caring for it's many residents. This shelter would have named the tabby upon admission and taken the time to examine her; even if the outcome was the same (this shelter only euthanizes when it would be inhumane not to), I'd like to think that they would have been able to administer the injection in a way that wouldn't have caused further suffering. I cursed myself for not recognizing just how sick the poor tabby was, thinking in hindsight that it might have been better to have carried her to a nice spot in the woods instead; somewhere soft and dry, unlike the wet sidewalk where I had found her, or the cold, sterile table where I ultimately left her.

The Oprah Show (8/31/05)

After nearly two years of trying, my old roommate finally got tickets to a taping of the Oprah show. The day of the taping, we took the green line el to the station closest to Harpo studios, which turned out not to be all that close. Our carefully applied makeup had all but melted off by the time we finally met up with my roommate's other guests, about 9:30 that morning. We waited in line outside the studio for more than an hour, and when they finally let us inside, they promptly raided our purses of cell phones, pens, and mascara, but in turn fed us lunch (which turned out to be the highlight of the day!). We were corralled into a large waiting room full of crazed middle-aged women in brightly colored tops, and were held there for the next 2 1/2 hours, listening to and watching a video montage of her first twenty years, which looped indefinitely.

Oprah's infinitely helpful staff got on the intercom every 10 minutes or so and told us that if we didn't pee that instant, then we wouldn't be able to use the bathroom again until after the taping. They were very convincing in giving people a false sense of urgency on the matter-- I think I made eight trips to the bathroom in a couple hours' time. The staff also worked the already crazed ladies up into an absolute frenzy, by telling us that this was the first day of taping on Oprah's brand-new twentieth-anniversary stage set, and that we were especially lucky because we had the good fortune of sitting in on TWO tapings! Women were crying, fainting, throwing up in the bathroom and refusing to eat their lunch because they were so nervous/excited/delusional about getting to see Oprah! Even my roommate and I thought that it greatly improved our chances of being at least one fun show-- maybe two! My roommate was hoping for some free stuff, while I would have liked to see Oprah's cute designer guy or a crazy makeover show, or something of the sort.

We snagged pretty good seats once we finally got into the studio, and while we waited for the queen of day-time television to grace us with her presence, the staff made us rehearse our reactions to her syndicated highness. For example: "I'm Oprah.... I'm walking...."; we cheered wildly. "I'm Oprah.... I just said something funny...."; we laughed maniacally. "I'm Oprah... I just said something shocking...." we gasped loudly, feigning wide-eyed horror. It went on and on; people were into it, though! You know how the show opens with a shot of the audience flipping out the moment Oprah enters the room? Yeah, that's real. One lady even asked if she would have the chance to show Oprah her lovely jean jacket, which had an Oprah acrostic (where each letter of a person's name is used as the first letter of another word) hand appliqued on the back. The staff member remained surprisingly straight-faced, and suggested she wait until the "After the Show" taping, which thankfully, never happened.

The first show we saw was a follow-up on post-partum depression. Brooke Shields was the special guest, and while I suppose it was exciting to see a celebrity, the show itself was kind of a downer. Oprah actually seemed a little accusatory of Brooke's criticism of Tom Crazy (I mean Cruise), despite his criticism of her decision to take anti-depressants for her illness. I was a little uncomfortable with the whole situation, but we had really high hopes for the second taping, which turned out to be about.... Pedophiles, and other sexual predators. It was horrible. One section of the audience had been molested as children, and another section fantasized about putting their babies in the dryer.

People were bawling, Oprah was crabby and yelling at her stage crew; they switched couches probably a half-dozen times before they settled on a furniture set that was suitable to use. The only free stuff we got was Kleenex. It was still cool to see a live taping, but by the time we finally got out of there (after 4:00), all I wanted to do was to curl up in a ball somewhere and never leave the house again. We got stuck in the rush-hour commute on the way back as well, and by the time we finally got home, we were exhausted.

The only upside to the day is that Oprah often chooses her "Favorite Things" audience from guests who attended one of the first tapings each season. Keep your fingers crossed for me! I'm fully expecting a phone call from one of Oprah's people this fall, saying "we realized that those tapings we made you sit through in August were really tough to watch, and we'd like to invite you back to see a show that's a little more fun. Oh, and by the way-- if you have to pee, you'd better go now, because you won't be able to once you're in the studio!"


[I did not get invited to the "Favorite Things" show, and to this day, I can't watch Oprah without making a trip to the bathroom. I'm sure she'd be thrilled to know that her show has such a powerful (or is it Pavlovian?) effect on me....]

OBAMARAMA 2008 (11/05/08--abridged)

I'm not normally one to seek out a crowd. In fact, when I see a rowdy mob forming, I'm more apt to walk away than I am to enter the fray. That said, something was different about election night 2008. When I became one of the lucky few to snag a ticket to this historic event, I knew I couldn't stay away. Despite the worriers and the pessimists who warned me of the possibility of riots, assasination attempts, and worse, I was drawn to downtown Chicago and wanted nothing more than to be surrounded by the like-minded folks converging in the streets in and around Grant Park.

I could feel the energy in the air as soon as I stepped onto the el platform-- the city was practically humming. Impromptu street vendors lined the sidewalks, selling T-shirts, buttons, posters and the like to the people streaming by. We followed the crowd to the Congress Plaza; the semi-circular street should have been packed with rush-hour traffic but was instead packed with people. We arrived more than an hour and a half before the gates were scheduled to open, and already thousands were waiting to enter the rally site. We were shuffled through three security checkpoints, showing picture identification and printed e-tickets, opening our purses for police and secret service agents, (one threw away an apple I had brought to eat on the train ride home-- apparently it can be used as a projectile) and passing through metal detectors. The line, despite its size, moved quite well. They released people in stages, which prevented any bottlenecking or backups.

When we finally entered Hutchinson Field, the gated area where Obama was soon to speak, we looked out over a sea of people to the stage beyond, lined with American flags against a blazing blue backdrop. The media were EVERYWHERE, and with less than half of the field filled, we were able to move about quite freely for the next few minutes. We made a quick trip to the porta-johns so we wouldn't have to try and go once the park was full, then jockeyed for a space on the field behind some other short people. We had no chance of getting close enough to see the actual stage, so we settled for a nice view of the Jumbotron, where we watched a slew of CNN analysts make projections. We were shoulder to shoulder with people young and old, of every color and from all walks of life, and everyone willingly let down their guard and welcomed complete strangers into their personal space, partly out of necessity, but mostly because we were all united by a sense hope, inspiration, and our desire for change.

While we waited, we cheered each projection that turned another state blue, booed the states that filled in red, and filled in our own print-out map with pink and blue highlighters while we did the math on the electoral votes. We tried to stretch our legs and relieve the pressure on our throbbing feet, as we'd been standing for hours, but there was little room to move. We listened to an upbeat playlist during the commercial breaks and the crowed was momentarily entertained by the appearance of an "Obama" beach ball, which was promptly forgotten when the clock struck 10:00 and the Jumbotron lit up with Obama's photo and a graphic that simply read "BARACK OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT".

At that moment, nearly a quarter of a million people cheered as one. It was an almost indescribable feeling; the closest I’ve come to experiencing that kind of electricity is while playing a triumphant tutti passage in a bombastic orchestral piece. Surrounded by strings, brass and percussion, I can't hear myself playing, but it doesn't matter. At that point, instinct takes over; it trumps all of my senses. Once I've locked into the music, however, the recognition is instant and I know that I’ve become a part of something larger than myself, which is exactly what happened that night.

When the yelling and screaming subsided, I was stunned to hear the jubilant din replaced with sobs. People wept openly, so overcome with emotion, that strangers were compelled to hug and comfort each other and affirm that, yes, this was really happening. Before that night, I hadn't really given much thought to the impact this election would have on people of color. This is partly because the campaign went to great lengths to shift the focus away from race, but mostly because I have never experienced, first hand, the kind of prejudice and oppression endured by the thousands who fought for their civil rights in the 1950s and 60s.

I am not a person of color. In fact, if I was any paler, I would be translucent. While I can empathize with the oppressed, condemn the actions of the oppressors, learn from the mistakes that were made and vow not to let history repeat itself, I cannot fully relate to this contentious and turbulent time, because I did not experience it. But the enormity of the Civil Rights victory realized by Obama's election, a triumph more than forty years in the making, hit me square in the chest the moment the beautiful and articulate black woman behind me lost it, bawling and hugging everyone within reach and proclaiming that "we did this together! You and I, together! WE did this!" How liberating for her, and humbling for me, to be able to share in this victorious celebration.

Much of what followed was also witnessed in living rooms across America. We watched John McCain's gracious and magnanimous concession speech, and he was applauded by the crowd, a stirring show of respect for the years of service given by an American hero. The playlist reloaded while the crowd grew restless. Suddenly the mood shifted, and the crowd pressed forward, with near-crushing proximity. We prayed with the bishop, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, accompanied the singer of the national anthem when she stumbled over the lyrics, then erupted in cheers when the Obamas finally walked onto the stage.

Barack Obama delivered a concise and stirring speech, filled with more than enough eloquent quotes to satisfy the medias' soundbyte requirements for years to come, and spoke of a dream realized. He was surprisingly somber, perhaps fully realizing the enormity of the responsibility he is soon to assume. His warnings of a long road ahead, and the hard work yet to be done did little to subdue the boisterous crowd. I'd like to think that it's because people are finally ready for the challenge and are willing to come together to fix what's broken and to restore America's tarnished reputation.

We watched the Bidens join the Obamas onstage after his speech, then began making our way out of the park. Even though there was only one exit, the crowd moved steadily out into the street and once outside the park, peoples' enthusiasm erupted. Mounted police and officers in full riot gear lined the streets, but although people were giddy, no one was unruly. The team of officers outside the Congress Hotel reminded many people of an ugly scene there that marred the Democratic National Convention of 1968, when riots erupted outside. Forty years later, though, the hotel became a backdrop for an enormous but peaceful celebration, and instead of beating protestors with billy clubs, the Chicago Police posed for pictures and joked with the celebratory public.

My friend and I walked arm in arm, so as not to lose each other in the crowd, which elicited an "awww" from a lesbian couple in plaid miniskirts who passed us. We walked an extra couple of blocks to a more remote el station, and got right on a train-- we even got a seat! The trains ran on a rush-hour schedule and at full capacity. It felt so good to sit, but we were really thirsty. We passed the time on the train with a crossword puzzle, and guzzled multiple glasses of water once we were back home and the threat (of being in a porta potty while history was unfolding) had passed. I learned on the news this morning what I already sensed-- that the huge rally went off without a hitch-- no riots, no fights, no arrests. So if the world is asking whether Chicago can handle the 2016 Olympics, I would have to say "YES WE CAN!"

Regardless of whether people voted for Obama or not, I believe this was one of those moments that has etched itself into everyone's memories. People will forever remember where they were on the night America elected its first black president, a moment that will undoubtedly change a nation. I am-- and will always be-- proud to tell people-- now and for generations to come-- that I was a part of it, that I was there.

Why I Hate the Montrose Bus (1/13/09)

It's no secret that I detest the #78 bus, and my excursion today is a perfect example of how this bus route represents the Chicago Transit System at it's worst. I was determined not to wait 20-30 minutes at the bus stop like I normally seem to do (which is strange, since the signs claim that buses run every 7-15 minutes during the day, and I rarely just miss the bus) especially not in single-digit temperatures, so I went online and used the CTA's bus tracker application. I left my home 10 minutes before the next bus was estimated to arrive, which gave me more than enough time to trudge through the snow to the bus stop one block away.

I arrived at the stop with minutes to spare, and watched a westbound bus go by. Ten minutes pass. My snot freezes as I watch a second westbound bus go by. After another ten minutes I start bouncing around, trying to keep the blood circulating in my feet, which got me little more than an appreciative honk from some guys in a delivery truck. Still no eastbound bus. Five minutes later, some guy pushing a shopping cart through the sludge in the street walks past and tells me that the bus is coming. Hallelujah! The eastbound bus finally rolls up and wheezes to a stop. The doors open, but along with the rush of warm air comes a tinny recording of Kenny G's latest holiday CD. I've been waiting all this time for THE CHRISTMAS EXPRESS.

Either this bus was running REALLY late, or I somehow wound up back in December 2008! The handrails were striped with red and white tape and made to look like candy canes, stacks of fake presents cluttered the space where people normally put their bags, wrapping paper covered all the ad posters, and the garland hanging from the windows was replete with blinking multi-colored lights. What might have seemed like a fun and even festive ride a month ago was just a garish and awful experience. I mean, the twelfth day of Christmas came and went last week-- LAST WEEK, people! But looking at the other passengers, you'd never know anything was out of the ordinary-- they just maintained the glazed stare that public transit riders have perfected so well-- no one watches anything in particular, they just make sure not to look at or acknowledge each other. Santa himself could have been sleeping in the back of the bus, and people would still be calmly looking through each other with that empty, unfocused gaze.

The bus ride couldn't end soon enough. I sprinted off the nightmarish bus of Christmas past and hopped onto the blissfully unfestive red line train (almost welcoming the familiar scent of stale urine), which I took to the Argyle stop. The worst part of my trip was when I came face to face with three pig carcasses while I was waiting at the crosswalk-- their bulging eyes foggy with death and their mouths frozen open, no doubt from the screams they uttered just before they were slaughtered. Some delivery guy was carrying them into a restaurant where I had eaten just days before-- I scrambled out of his way and into a deep snowbank, narrowly missing a snout to the forehead. While I realize that really has nothing to do with the CTA, I'm still choosing to blame that near miss on Santa's (very belated) express, because if it had come a half hour earlier (like it was supposed to) I wouldn't have been anywhere near Broadway and Argyle when that delivery guy was unloading Noah's Ark of Death. And THAT is why I hate the Montrose bus.