plotting

I just talked to my friend about the stuff we'll do when I go to Chicago and I'm so excited. He asked what's left of Chicago for me to see. One word got us both excited: cemeteries.

It's no surprise that I'm fascinated with cemeteries. I love cemeteries, the creepy feeling I get stepping close to the plots, the way people choose to remember their loved ones etched in stone and marble. Tonight we talked about which ones we'd hit. There's Forest Home Cemetery that has the Haymarket Martyrs' Monument. I was interested to learn that Forest Park was known as the city of cemeteries, with a 30:1 ratio of dead to living residents. I'm keen to hit Graceland because it's the most famous cemetery, with huge numbers of dead architects. There's a Burnham exhibit at the Chicago History Museum, so I want to visit his grave after the exhibit to let him know what I thought of his plans. I'm sure he's got nothing better to do than to hang around by his plot and listen to random people talk about his plan for rapid transit in Chicago in 1903. My friend informed me this evening that he's got a friend who is a gravedigger at Graceland. If you're going to be a gravedigger, might as well be at one of the most impressive ones in America. There's one on the southside that my friend wants to see, but it might be a bit too much death. It's supposed to be a fun trip.

The White City tour he's concocting has me excited. I've been reading up on how much of the landscaping is still in place on the 1893 Exhibition grounds as Olmstead designed it. The spot where the Murder Castle used to stand makes me more nervous than you'd think since I'm spending a significant portion of my time looking at where dead people are buried. Wish I had known about the Toronto connection when I was there; I'd be interested to see where the house was where they found the children buried that started to unravel the whole H.H. Holmes mass murder spree.

Mostly unrelated, last week I read something about how someone in Vancouver figured out that buildings are cheaper to renovate than to tear down and rebuild with new materials. My friend created the May T. Watts Appreciation Society Energy Calculator last year, which was all the rage with the preservation crowd because it's the first calculation of energy savings when using a pre-existing building instead of rebuilding. He's brilliant. We keep hoping someone in Vancouver will catch up and organise a preservation conference here so he can come and speak at it about this calculator and his day job as a historic preservationist without having to actually pay for the trip himself. It also makes me want to start doing research in building preservation so I can write articles and we can go to the same conferences. Research and writing... it sounds like school.

Didn't wind up getting anything done that I halfheartedly thought about doing tonight: no kirie, no sewing, no laundry, no baking. Lots of sitting around, though. Watched two movies. Off to bed now. Am on Day 13 of 15 and need to rest up for the stretch.