My Tie and I

Went downtown today, as I periodically do. Noticed progress on Block 37 construction, now officially known as 108 N. State. I hadn't walked past it since sometime late last year, when it was still a vacant lot. It has been a vacant lot, or at least a lot without a towering commercial structure, for nearly 20 years. It's cursed, in commercial real estate terms (and haunted by Arthur Rubloff? Never mind, a Chicago real estate reference of no importance elsewhere and not even apt, since I don't think he had anything to do with Block 37). But now the project is part way toward completion, in defiance of the curse.

En route to an appointment, I rode an elevator some floors with a woman about my age who told me that my colorful tie must mean that I'm "creative." She was quite certain of that. I was wearing a tie with drawings of food on it -- fast food, mostly, burgers, fries and milk shakes, with loose lettuce and tomato and other burger parts floating on a black background. The food items are in reds, green, yellows and lavender, but somehow (I think) it isn't garish, though it might sound that way. It isn't a designer tie, unless "Street Scenes" brand, made in Korea, means anything special in the realm of ties.

"What do you do?" she asked.

"I'm a freelance writer."

"I knew you were creative."

"Not my kind of writing. It's craftsmanship."

She was skeptical of that assertion, but that's all we had time for. A tie does not an artist make.