sunrise soon forgotten

I leave for my adventure in 7 days. When I found out I was going on this trip three months ago, I couldn't believe I was leaving in three months. Now it's a week before I meet that gate at the airport, and I am filled with a sense of anticipation, the likes of which I've never felt. The nearing prospect of visiting places I've never seen makes me feel like I'm floating. I have seven days to get my shit together.

We've started production in Chicago. Adam (my partner in crime) and I were doing time lapse on the streets. We strapped the camera to the hood of my Saturn, immediately turning it into the "Movie Mobile," and cruised down Lake Shore Drive a few times. We hung out on a bridge over the highway for a couple hours watching the traffic, shivering, and thinking up the best ways for Adam to pick up the jogging chicks. After sunset, we threw the camera onto the hood of the car again and rolled down Michigan avenue through the loop and into Lower Wacker- the basement of the city.

Later this week we'll be sitting in Millennium Park filming the sunrise. We scouted it earlier this week, with only a little difficulty. I guess the case with Millennium Park is that it "opens" at 6am. But sunrise is half over by then, so we intended to be there at 5am, to catch the whole show. Of course when we get there at 5, there's a drunken couple being chased by a fat, angry security guard who in turn saw Adam, Thom, and I setting up my camera. To our chagrin, she hassled us out of the park with a hell of a lot of sass to come out of one woman's mouth. She sat and read her paper, doing nothing, and we stood with our toes at the edge of the park being sarcastic and thinking up names for her- we settled on Clarice.

A cloth encased golf cart rolled up to remove the sign that discouraged people from entering the park at night. We asked if that meant the park was open. He said to give it a few minutes. We liked him. We called him Bernard. While we edged our way into the park, we were hoping that Bernard could wrestle out the stick shoved up Clarice's ass, and tried our luck at 5.45am. Bernard was successful and so were we. We sat and watched the sun rise until 7.30. Other photographers were coming out on that Sunday morning, but we had our turf staked. We made snide remarks on their lack of commitment and enjoyed the view.