Richard Harding Wood was riled up before Occupy. Along with other friends from Malden, the then-20-year-old started coming into Boston on weekends early last year wielding placards to protest the Federal Reserve Bank. So when Occupy Boston settled across Atlantic Ave from the Fed in late-September, it was a no-brainer for Wood to get involved.

Last night in Chicago was surreal . . . There was zero violence, unconditional love, and peaceful pandemonium. I accidentally stepped on some dude’s Jordans and he shook my hand . . . Cell phone lines were so jammed that people couldn’t reach one another, but I was far from alone. I must have wrapped my arms around 100 people .

As is becoming increasingly evident, the actions surrounding NATO add up to a perpetual protest. There's no beginning or end, with shit popping from activist crash pads to streets across the city, where clashes with police are getting more frequent and more intense around every corner. In the past few days I've had countless conversations with journalists, Occupiers, and every type of reporter and aggregator in-between about how most of us won't be able to file extensive accounts until things slow down a bit, since every second spent writing inside is a second that we could and should be documenting from the front lines.

I wasn't even at Daley Plaza for two minutes when I ran into Vermin Supreme. From Austin to Boston to here, I've seen him more than I've seen my family over the last six months . . .

Like Vermin, there were a few thousand other heads out there assembling peacefully at the National Nurses United rally . . .

I'm not following Tom Morello around the country. It might seem that way; in the past few months I've caught him at South by Southwest in Texas, and a few weeks ago for May Day in New York City, where the Rage legacy and Occupy icon organized a GUITARMY to stomp some blacktop swinging axes. But while Morello will indeed be in Chicago today, kicking for tens of thousands in Daley Plaza, his street-side spectacular is hardly the main selling point for my trek to the Windy.