Watertowers

I live in suburban Chicago. This means I live in the middle of a sea of towns that are distinct only for their indistinctness, a sprawling quilt of unicolor patches, each one blending into the next one, and each one just about as inaccessible as the last (which I will write about some day). There's no way to tell them apart; the act of crossing a street takes you from one to another without even the remotest piece of observational evidence to tell you that you've just gone from one to another.

It amuses me that even their distinctiveness is the same. Whereas a lot of people barely know what their city hall looks like, each of these towns does have one distinct and individualized piece of architecture, that just happens to look the same as all the others. That is to say, each town has one (and apparently only one) water tower, usually decorated with a fancy version of the town's name. Since most of Illinois is flat, and since most modern housing developments look alike (the area has grown in population by factors of ten or more since the 1970s), this really is sometimes the most distinctive, and visible, signal that the place you're in actually has a name, and is not just the suburban version of flyover country (trainover country?)

I've been a lot of places in the year I've been here, so I'm compiling a list of all the towns I've visited or been near, along with the water towers that I've found, for my own knowledge, so I know just how much of the area I've covered. It also gives me an idea of just how many towns there are within "driving distance"

( Water towers visited )

Keep in mind that some of these towns might be too small or too new to even have a water tower, but this gives you some idea of just how far I've traveled...and how many of these little towns there are out here to make traffic confusing.


ETA: I know that there are many towns with more then one water tower, so why did I write that?

And In Other News

In other news, I've managed to finish Persona 3. That makes a grand total of two video games that I've managed to finish this year (Persona 3 and Fallout 3). Meanwhile, I've bought more than two.

Persona 3 is probably best known for being the game where you shoot yourself in the head. This is strangely fitting, and actually I think adds to the visual of the game rather then subtract from it, although it doesn't really have much of a point. It should more be known as the game that tried to bring the mechanics of Japanese dating sims to the United States, and partially succeeded. It's a very strange game that, like most games, doesn't live up to it's potential, but that is also strangely addicting, to the point where the game record claims it took me 103+ hours to finish it once through.

Anyway, if you really have a lot of time to burn, it's a game I recommend, but keep in mind, it's not everyone's thing, and if high school drama exasperates you rather than makes you laugh cynically, then it's definitely not for you.