This is my backyard:

For once, a mess is not my fault.

I've lived in Chicago for four years now, and I've gotten along pretty well -- same apartment, nice (though crazy) landlord, reasonable number of parking tickets, no big hassles. Recently, I think, the city itself woke up and realized that I wasn't having a real big city experience. So I've been fighting a mechanic who over-charged me $2000 in September (I finally got it back today!) and my car wouldn't pass emissions inspections and our building got sold to someone who was going to gut-rehab it into condos. Only, they didn't have permits. So the city gave them a stop-work order. But not before they had gutted enough apartments to create that mess in the parking lot behind the building. And there's no cold water in the bathroom (water comes out -- but it's hotter than the hot water). And so on and so forth. (Oh, yeah, and the city shut down the two theaters I do most of my shows at.)

Yay, Chicago!