civically srealisma where I grew up is not as cranky as the big city, but it fairly conservative in an unhealthy way. Stuck conservatives in it for the sake of conservatives, ready to go down with the ship because they like themselves that much. ( oh yeah I can see that in myself. Just not politically ) For the city, It is a crotchtedly grindstone approach that removes more normal notions of harmony that puts us/them on the shitty side of people's opinions ( usually ). We're always trying to improve the reputation. The sun rarely shines on this city in the Etheric realm brought about by the greater population of the country and the world. kind of maligned. The machine. The jungle. The murder. The corruption. The cops. The weather. Streets and sanitation... When people like us, I tend to think it's because all the fun loving people here might have shown them a good time, which surely happens quite often. I'm not comfortable with the sense of us and I take those gray clouds as a slight on my own character. An untruth. Truly. I suspect it might be fair to say every Chicagoan puts up with it? (I'm not sayin I'm not exempt from a version of jerkhood though. I don't really live there though. It is A City Nearby. you know. It's such a bear. It's too big, somehow. I wouldn't choose to live here, there, whatever. If I had some youthfulness in years in me, some naïveté maybe. Big and invisible, taking it on oneself one can pretend to get away with various personality quirks, somehow) Or it's just that relentless Midwest inferiority complex writ big city: the cubs'll never win. Never. The only time it'll be deserved is when we can secure superheroes. I do think our museums are damn tootin' though. a stream of consciousness, a train of thought. 120713 what's it to you? who go blather from