November 2, 2003, around 3 a.m.
 

Around the corner from the Logan Square bus stop I pry open the massive window of my third-story apartment in a dilapidated 19th-century graystone that reeks of squalor and before I write an e-mail I wonder about the dimensions of my cell so I grab my 12-inch wooden ruler and move it along the walls pushing aside furniture, and after finding it to be 10 feet square I am curious how many quarter inches that would be and then how many millimeters so while I calculate I lie down on my back on the flea-ridden, plaid futon that came with the furnished apartment and I put my feet up on the wall and kick them to the rhythm of the music I have just begun to compose in my mind...

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