November 12, 2004 | From: Eric Klinenberg. Dear Nicole, I'm glad that you're doing something. Now that I am in NYC it's hard for me to be as engaged in Chicago civic life as I would like. A few thoughts: Live Bait theater was working on a theatrical version of HW, possibly aiming to put it on this coming summer. I haven't heard from them in awhile, but you might check in to see what they're up to.

A few years ago an Art Institute student did a public art project that involved making mittens for the heat wave victims. I can't remember her name, but the school might be able to get you her info. Finally, you might call Little Brothers, Friends of the Elderly, in Chicago. They do terrific work with the isolated in Chicago, and they're a secular, non-partisan group. Otherwise, it seems to me this is a great way for you to get something going. I wish you great luck.

January 22, 2005 | From Barrie: Nicole! Thanks again for visiting my class on Thursday. I thought you'd want to know that my next class was so excited that we performed the piece again!!! Something about people calling living Grandparents is so.....can't seem to find a word...vital maybe...multi-layered. It just seems to matter. Thanks for doing this work.

January 31, 2005 | From Indi: i saw your website before i saw [your] email and funny that i thought about stenciling with beet juice too. i have a lot to say after reading your last documentation about social normalcy and cops' roles in confronting people that appear to be doing "unusual" things. it makes me think that cities are pretty fucking conformist if someone like you gets so much attention from enforcement. there's probably something to it about you being white too.

truthfully one of the first emotions that i often feel when i see your documentation is embarassment. and i want to explain this...i think it's this emotion because people don't do the kinds of things you're doing on a daily basis. it ISNT normal. it feels weird to someone who's been told to not stand out in front of a crowd. to blend into middle classness. drag performing was a huge step for me in this way. and part of me thinks this kind of art is self indulgent/ or getting a high from risk without the consequences and most of me thinks it really challenges me, and gets my head going, and illuminates social patterns that help me articulate them.

February 9 , 2005 | From Susan: you often talk about pieces that you perform, and I always wish that there was a link to the text. while I'm familiar with a tiny bit of your work, I am fascinated by the body of your work. my challenge to you would be to have a place on your web site where someone could hear you read.

February 25 , 2005 | From Alice: I just did my check on your website. I like the little yogurt balls. Doing something daily really gives a different sense to time -- the time of doing the thing, the time around it, the time after it, the time thinking about it in advance. (Sometime maybe last year, I realized a huge part of the power of art-making for me is in the phase of conceiving, where I'm mulling over an idea, turning it around, thinking about strategies and execution.)

The daily project makes me understand a little more daily prayer. Jewish prayer over the course of the day (morning, afternoon, evening) is very intimately connected with marking and making sacred the very moments we are in as we say the words, not that I'm much following the Jewish daily prayer cycle. But I am feverishly practicing for my next Torah reading (March 5th) which is a section of the bible I just adore. It gives exhaustive details about the building of the mishkhan, the portable temple (Exodus 37:1-16 is my part in case you care). What I didn't anticipate is that it's HARD. John and I decided it's kind of like chanting specifications for a construction project in a language you don't really know that well and where the notes attached to each word don't go in the same flow as they would if you were telling a story, but rather go in a more disjointed, list-like pattern. Actually, it's not kind of like that, it's exactly like that!

My other thought today is what about a locker room performance? Do you go to a locker room where women are weighing themselves? As I watched someone weigh themselves, I thought, I'd like to know how much she weighs and how she feels about it. Sometimes I almost ask or strike up a conversation -- yeah girl, I'm feeling the weekend too. This whole locker room ritual is a weird exercise in communal isolation.

February 26, 2005 | From Leah: I too love the wee moon by Abe's toe and your tongue like the universe's finger placing it there.

February 25 , 2005 | From bob: I finished reading all the entries for February on your website and oh my ----. You are doing some great things. I really liked the beach shadows from Feb 16th. The pictures are awesome and the last sentence is beautiful. I totally want to read some of your work; however, I am sure it is much better in person, and probably meant for performance rather than reading. It's awesome to be able to see so much of what you are doing, even if it is little snippits of your day. It's nice. I am glad you have a website and are doing this. It's awesome.

I also liked reading about the phone performance request from Karen. Is that your buddy Karen from CSTI? I totally got cold just reading about it. I think the pictures are awesome and added to the goose bumps. Did you get the answers to your questions, or were you too much in the process to get the answers...like, how long did it take before you started shivering. I totally get it that it would create a sense of loneliness. As I was reading it I also thought of the difference between dying from cold and dying from heat, both slow and painful. I imagine that the heat would drain your liquids first so then you deal with dehydration and then heat stroke, which gives you the shivers and fever like symptoms, so either way you probably feel like you are freezing to death and probably fall asleep first because you are exhausted from shivering and trying to get warm and then your gone. Either way, I don't like it. Thanks for taking me through the process.

Is it getting hard to think about those deaths everyday? Do you get sad for them individually? It's hard not to picture the elderly, single, in an apartment, 20 flights up...solo...and since you are often times doing this solo, is it hard and sad...or do you have a way to work through it to have a different outcome for you? I am such an emotional kid that if I thought about that every day, I would probably waiver between huge crying breakouts every now and then and anger for all the people that have forgotten about those deaths, and society for all the people who don't even know about them.

I used to think that I was a creative kid, but most of it has left me. It would do me some good to spend time with you sucking on almonds and finding places to stick them throughout a city.

February 28, 2005 | From Brook: wow. the photo of Saucy Cockteau and FoxyCoxy... is intense. (*wiping the sweat from my brow*) it was a grand time! can't say that i've ever had so much fun seeing someone wrapped in leather straps accost the queer community for cash, while offering them a chance to ring a dildo....