Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of April 19, 2026
If you ever want the Ellis Island experience circa 1907, swing into the Chicago City Clerk’s office in Portage Park. The number of different accents is loads of fun and reminds you of the shared American Experience, which is that city bureaucracy is no fun for any of us.
The Pristine City Clerk Worker [Revisited]
No one likes having to go to the Office of the Chicago City Clerk. Not even those who get paid for being there. The desk workers on the first floor in the City Clerk’s office are of the same ilk as DMV workers.
The Pristine City Clerk Worker
No one likes having to go to the Office of the Chicago City Clerk. Not even those who get paid for being there. The desk workers on the first floor in the City Clerk’s office are of the same ilk as DMV workers. They are always tired, annoyed, smarter—yet dumber—than you, wield a surprisingly unnatural amount of power and have a general disdain for a good majority of humanity. And who can blame them? They work for idiots and get dumped on by the citizens who elected those idiots all day long.
Being an escort for me was like being a scrapbooker on Etsy for most other single moms trying to pick up some extra money. The only difference was that I could make a few thousand bucks for one hour of potential discomfort versus making a few hundred for several hours of suffering through handmade clip art. I’m a pretty open-minded person, but I cannot for one second believe that there is any joy in being hunched over a desk, cutting and pasting other people’s memories together. It seems so lonely and juvenile.