Hunt Journal #3

Last night, while I was sleeping in my tent, I heard a quiet, repetitive, high pitched sound coming from nearby. I was reading when the noise began, but it worked quickly to unravel my concentration. I pictured a bird first. Something small and dark, picking through our camp, following a scent and looking for scraps.
At night. I turned off my flashlight.
What kind of bird would make so much noise at night while foraging? A small bird that did that would not last long. We sleep at night, but there are plenty of hungry creatures that wake at sundown.
Something bigger then. I thought about my rifle, lying next me in the tent. I don't keep it loaded, and the shells are in my bag, outside of my tent. Why do I do that?
I lower pitched noise joined the high one. This one seemed familiar to me.
It grew just a little louder, as I listened; I soon recognized it.
It was Luke. And the first noise was Celine.
I turned my flashlight back on, and the beam splashed over the butt of my long rifle, the carbon looking very dull under the harsh light.
I picked up my book and continued to read.

Hunt Journal #2

I looked at the end of what I wrote yesterday. I stopped in the middle of a sentence. I thought about picking up where I left off, but I just didn't feel like it. It's stupid.
We played cards last night. I forgot about how annoyed I'd been. Writing helps sometimes.
This morning we awoke to fog. A lot of fog. We talked about delaying a day, but Luke and I both were concerned about losing time. We have a finite supply of food, and delaying could cost us more than we want to pay later on. We decided to start this morning, regardless of the fog.
We brought headlamps with us, so it wasn't so bad. The beginning of the trail was well delineated, and visibility was better than I thought it would be.

I was surprised that Celine wanted to come on this trip. In the past, when James, Luke, and I went off on one of these hunts, she always declined. She's been quiet, but very careful with Luke. And Luke, he's been strange towards her.

Hunt Journal 1

We left Portsmouth just before dawn this morning. Myself, James, Luke and Celine in Luke's bronco. It took us all day to drive to the trailhead at Chopper's Curve. We just finished eating dinner, and I was feeling irritable, so I went off by myself to sit in the truck and write this. I feel silly, really, but a strong sense of anger stirred in the bottom of my gut while we were eating dinner. In a way, I feel like I shouldn't be writing about this, or even thinking about it, knowing how much time we're going to be spending together from here on out, but I feel that I need to, so I am.
It was James. Dammit, I've known him for a long time, so this shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. It was the way he ate. He chewed with his mouth open. I'd never noticed it before. I don't know how not. It's the sound. The sloppy chewy noises. The sound of the food and saliva squishing between his teeth and around his tongue. It was really horrible. We were sitting together, eating our sandwiches

Free Cell

You may have played it. I know that I have. Recently, I've been ill, and I've rediscovered it.

To describe to you just how numbingly involving this game can be, I'd have to crawl into your head, sever all of your ties to reality, and then massage your brain with a scrub brush.
I've spent perhaps 10 hours in the last week playing this game.
It tracks my percentage of wins/losses, though I never manage to keep it higher than 85%-90%.

The "Help" section of the program states that: "It is believed (although not proven) that every game is winnable."

I felt that I was getting really good at the game, and was starting to wonder just how good I could get. If I was careful enough, and only played the game when I wasn't tired, could I eliminate enough of my own errors to win every time? Is that even possible?

That bothered me, so I decided to find out. The day I decided to do so, I didn't have internet access, so I had to figure this out without research.

Hypothesis: All possible initial arrangements of the deck can lead to a win.

Ok. From that, I set out to prove how one could win every game, but that soon became a formulation of tactics, which I already know that I don't have enough of a mastery of to be able to win every time. It began to seem impossible to prove that every game could be won.
Then I remembered that there are very few situations in which I lose, and realized that it would be much simpler to imagine a game which could not be won, if that were possible.

Challenge: Find an initial arrangement of the deck in which no win is possible.

The picture at the top of this post is what I came up with.

1. If the aces cannot be freed, the game cannot be won.
2. Picking up any four cards will not free an ace.
3. Every card is at least four cards away from its top or bottom mate (the number before or after it of opposite color).
4. No more than three cards can be brought to a top mate before a no-win situation is reached.
5. The only movements that allow three cards to move to their top mates, do not free any aces.
6. The aces in this initial arrangement of cards cannot be freed, so this is an arrangement that cannot be solved.
7. If this arrangement is included as a possible game in Free Cell, then there is at least one game of Free Cell that cannot be won, therefore:

It is not possible to win every game of Free Cell.

I'm sick.

I woke up last Tuesday with a sore throat, feeling a little low on energy. No big deal, I stayed up till 2am writing and playing the god forsaken hellspawn that is Freecell (I recently rediscovered it; it has plagued me before. (I'm also reading: "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves." How's my punctuation?)).

Wednesday morning I woke up with a more painful sore throat. Nose, not so stuffy, but I felt something hibernating in the center of my head. Going outside and doing things proved to be confusing and exhausting. I left my home for only 3 hours, but when I returned home, I wanted a full body massage and mineral bath.
Instead, I played Freecell for a little while, then remembered that doing that is an abysmal waste of time and played Starcraft instead.
Later that night, I went out to the grocery store and bought a bulb of garlic and a can of cream of chicken soup. And some Ho-Hos. I was craving them.
That night I crushed the whole bulb of garlic into the soup and heated it until it was warm, leaving the garlic mostly raw. It took me an hour to eat it, so I watched a movie while I did so; "In the Realms of the Unreal". I cried afterwards.

Thursday morning, I woke up, barely. I was quite definitely sick. The garlic I had consumed the night before had had the necessary effect; it made me smell really funky. I spent Thursday in a dizzy, woozy fog. I went to an art store and bought things. My nose dripped like a little kids, though I managed to keep from tasting boogers, except for what slid down the back of my throat from constant and painful snorting. That night, I watched a movie with a friend and drank two beers and smoked. Why did I do that? I got really dizzy because my ears clogged up like thick corks. I ate another bulb of garlic that night, but I accidentally cooked it until it was palatable because I was distracted by playing Freecell.

Friday I had to go to work. I bought Dayquil. It's changed. They removed the psuedoephedrine, and replaced it with phenylephrine. Sure, if you just glance at the active ingredients, it looks similar, but my beleaguered immune system knows the difference. It was nearly as assaulted and oppressed by chemical stimulants as I had hoped. Phenylephrine is a poor substitute for the crack-esque mania of psuedoephedrine. America is a country flushing down a sewer; freedom does not exist.

I think today is Saturday. I'm having trouble breathing and swallowing.
I'm getting better.
I told my supervisor that I had food poisoning today, asking to go home early. Then I felt bad and told him that the food I'd eaten hadn't poisoned me, but only tasted bad. Then I explained that I really was feeling quite ill, and that I'd like to go home 20 minutes early if I please please may; I feel like passing out. He let me go! That allowed me to spend the 20 minutes that I might have spent drearily rasping nearly obsolete questions and statements at people I'd rather not meet, typing this instead.

I'm going to go home now and play some Freecell.

There was a

device that existed to send messages. Two people had helped me to create it, and were now telling me that, in order for the messages to be effective, I had to put my heart into it.
I unbuttoned my shirt and opened the skin on my chest with my index finger. I pulled my heart out of my chest, a strange sensation, an emptiness opening inside of me; though it came out easily.
I placed my heart into the machine, and it began to work. We discussed the machine, and they showed me how it could be used.
After a while, I began to feel a numbness in my legs and arms. I realized it came from removing my heart from my body and felt concerned. I retrieved my heart from the machine and looked at it. I wasn't sure which way was up. I stared for a few seconds more, chose a direction, and inserted it back into the hole in my chest.
Presently, the numbness faded, to my relief.

I'm Fucking Hilarious

My co-worker was telling me about a meal she was preparing to cook later that night.
She was asked for advice on how to cook a certain piece of meat.

"My roommate was a really good cook, but she's gone now, " she said to me.

"Has she passed on?"

"No, she just went to Bermuda."

"Oh, that's what my mom said about my grandma."

Disconnected

I currently don't have internet access, which is partially why this hasn't been updated in awhile. I'm not sure that I even want to have internet access in my home. I've noticed that I can spend hours just reading news stories, and suddenly my morning has become my afternoon, bleeding into evening, once I've showered and eaten. Maybe it's better for me to only encounter it once in awhile, then my access is short and to the point.
I'll see.

To anybody who reads this, thanks for reading.

I'll start this up again, once I absorb it into a new routine.

Rain falling on an absence

I just spent a week in Wisconsin, camping in the forest and eating cheese curds. Consequently, the time leading up to the trip, and the time spent re-adjusting to city life has put a gap into the maintenance of my blog.

So here is some filler for that gap. Think of this as the insulating foam of my sequentially arranged thoughts.

Today's foam is my first poem written in Japanese.

一番目の日本の詩

背中が痛いですから
川へゆっくり歩いて行った。
雨が降り始めた。
私は雨に『何をするか』と聞いた。
雨は何も言わなかった。

Ichiban me no nihon no shi

Senaka ga itai desu kara
kawa yukkuri aruite itta.
Ame ga furi hajimeta.
Watashi wa ame ni "nani o suru ka?" to kiita.
Ame wa nani mo iwanakatta.

(my) Japanese Poem #1 (or First Japanese Poem)

Because my back hurt
I walked slowly to the river.
Rain began to fall.
I asked the rain: "What are you doing?"
The rain said nothing.

somethings in the something... daaaa da daaa

I acquired a song today while I was working. Unfortunately, I don't know the title or artist that sung it, and it is only in my head. I'm not even sure I have the lyrics right; I only know how it goes. I can sing two lines from it:

"[Something's] in the [bedroom], where we [lay].
The [moon] is always [over], when you [go away]."

The words in [brackets] are the words that I'm not sure of. Whatever is actually sung does sound somewhat close to to these words though. I've tried googling these lyrics, but I haven't been successful. I know that the version I heard today was a punk cover of the song, with a male vocalist; slightly sped up too.
The original version was popular about 3-6 years ago, I think, and was sung by a female vocalist with a fairly high voice; at a slightly slower speed than the punk version.
I would attach an audio file, but I don't have a microphone.
I should get one.

On the shore

The city is beautiful. It is like a giant shimmering lake of light, encroached upon on one side by a giant shimmering lake of liquid and jello quaking. The buildings tower and I sit still, like a rock on the edge of it. Boats swim and stream along the edges, near the rocks where I am one, and the water rushes in their wake; disturbed like a cup of soup in a shaky hand. The wake creates waves, rushing out ponderously from the boat's path. The path can be seen in the light that the city gives off, even when most of it is asleep. The stars barely make a mark in the sky; we are turned in upon ourselves, here in the big cities. The rest of the world and the galaxy and the universe hardly exist, compared to our work schedules and alarm clocks and appointments. The water rushes outward and slaps like a friend at the rocks, where I am one. Mist hovers above the lake, a parting gift from the heat of the day; one that will last through the night till the sun comes around again, coming up over the lake like a great big friend and a great big hug. The night won't last.

Which came first:

the cement sidewalk or chewing gum?

I thought about this this afternoon while I sat at a table outside of an ice cream shop. I was looking around at the cement and noticed oh so many irregular black stains on the concrete. Each one was unique, and represented an individual wad of spent, cast away bubble gum. So many! So much history! These smears and stains seem to last as long as the concrete does.
Was there ever a time when concrete walkways were relatively pristine, and free of gum smears? How recent is this epidemic of gum graffiti? Was there a crackdown on this sort of litter shortly after chewing gum was invented and people started to notice the problem? How quickly did it get out of hand? Or have cement sidewalks always been this way, the invention of chewing gum having preceded the sidewalk?
When I think about cement, I think about the Greeks and the Romans. I believe that one of them created it, so cement walkways have probably been around since then. As for chewing gum, I don't know when it was invented. I think in the 1900's. Maybe in the 1800's. I believe it's much more recent.

I decided to do some research when I got back to an internet connection, and this is what I found:

Concrete, as we know it today, was patented in England in 1824 by a man named Joseph Aspdin, and is called portland cement, although the Romans used something in their structures that was very similar to that.

The ancient Greeks chewed a gummy substance called mastiche, which was derived from the mastic tree. The first commercial chewing gum was not produced until 1848, in the state of Maine in North America.

Portland cement began to gain popularity in Europe in the 1850's, but was not manufactured in the US until the 1870's.

The sort of sidewalks that we have today began to appear in the 18 and 1900's.

Conclusion:
It appears that concrete sidewalks began to be crafted in the 1800's, which is also when chewing gum began to appear as a mass produced product in modern society. They seem to have a nearly tandem rate of growth. It seems likely that the occurrence of gum-spotted concrete walks grew along with the implementation of concrete walks so gradually that it was never really recognized as a problem. There seems to have never been a pristine era of gum-free cement.
Even the Romans may have faced the problem of scraping chewed and spent mastiche wads from their cement creations.
In dealing with this question, there seems to be only one apt analogy for me to use:

The chicken?
Or the egg?

Aloes

I opened a bottle of wine tonight.
I went into my kitchenette and opened the drawer to get the corkscrew, but saw the two-pronged cork puller first.
Two posts ago, I related the disastrous events that resulted from my second, and last, attempt to use that cumbersome beast of a bottle opener.
Tonight, I remembered a comment my friend made to me about that attempt: that the third time's always a charm, except that in my case, there seemed to be a negative progression, and that a third attempt would probably kill me.

I was tempted. Believe me, I was tempted, but that's why I kept the thing.
As a reminder, and as an option. It's good to have options.

Earlier today, I exercised another option that I had: to re-pot my poor, overcrowded and suffocating aloe plant.

The big mama plant had sprouted 6 babies in a six inch pot that I had let live over the winter and spring; they grew larger as the weeks went by. A month ago, I had taped a sign to the pot that read: "re-pot me please!".
The sign did not go ignored, but did remain for a month without attention. After the third week, my friend told me:
"You've had that sign up for three weeks now, and you still haven't done it. Give it to me. I've already got potting soil."

I felt badly. I already had a fern that looked like it was dying, and now my friend had berated me for not taking care of my aloe plant. I became resolved, and that resolve took tangible form today. I bought a bunch of pots and cactus/succulent potting soil (with bone meal!) and I must have been feeling ambitious because I bought myself a new little succulent to sit on my window sill as well.

I spread out newspaper over the laminate floor in my kitchenette, and took to separating the mother and babies from their pot with a butter knife. (an incorrect family analogy. doctor and clones would be more apt, but I'll stick to what's more sympathetic for plot purposes) It turned out that I had purchased enough pots for the mother and four of her babies, but that left the two measliest babies lying on the newspaper, their roots bare and unprotected, only tiny bits of black soil clinging to their bodies. I picked them up and put them in the trash.

I turned back to the empty bags of soil and folded them flat to put in the trash as well. In doing so, I saw the two leftover babies lying at the top of the can. They looked forlorn and sad; I felt really badly for them.
I picked them out and laid them on the newspaper and looked around. I still had a small pile of sandy soil from the agave plant that I'd re-potted with the others. The special soil was gone. I scavenged my studio for containers that would have good drainage, but didn't find any until I came back to the garbage and saw the little disposable container that the new succulent baby I'd purchased had come in (also re-potted; I'm a maniac). There was enough soil to put one of the babies into that pot. I used a ziploc sandwich baggy as the drain tray for it.
That left one tiny, malformed from overcrowding, poorly rooted (it had grown too close to the main stem to form strong roots) aloe baby with no pot and not enough soil left to put it in.
I felt sad for it for a moment, but nothing could be done. I put it into the trash and let go.

I looked over at the others that were freshly re-potted and felt good about them. Two are presents, but the rest are mine. Perhaps I'll try to give one to my neighbor that I so rarely see.

As for now, this glass of wine that I'm drinking (liberated from the bottle with my trusty corkscrew) is for the sad little aloe baby that just couldn't make it.
Bon voyage, my little homie!

Solstice Tooth

I missed the Summer Solstice.
It occurred last Wednesday, the 21st of June, and marked the day of the year with the most sunshine that we're going to get, unless you live on the equator in a tropical paradise (or third world nation), or at one of the two poles and desperately spend all of your time trying to stay warm.
"missed it".
I suppose I didn't really "miss it", although I didn't realize I was experiencing it. I got up early that day and actually saw the sun rise; or evidence of it rising at least, as the sky got lighter around the buildings that constantly surround me here in Chicago. After my sunrise activities, I napped until noon and then went outside for awhile.
I played soccer with an 8 year old boy who has one humorously conspicuous permanent tooth grown in in a gum line recently emptied of baby teeth. He told me that he knew how to drive a stick shift, but that he just wasn't tall enough to see over the steering well. He also told me that he knows 4 languages. I asked what they were. He told me he could speak French, Chinese, and English. Then he stopped to count and told me that he only knew 3 languages.
The disparity between this boy's abilities at the age of 8, and my abilities at the age of 8, are enough to make me question our being of the same species. I'm only 26, and I've already been left behind by evolution...
Regardless of my lack of conscious knowledge of it (which probably has to do with my inferiority to the capabilities of most children; me being a member of a receding species), I had a good Solstice, and I'm glad.

I'm not very fond anymore of most of the holidays celebrated in America. I grew up with Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentines Day, Thanksgiving, and a few others, but I've found that in recent years, even the last few that I found thrilling have been losing their glow.

Last Christmas, I noticed that the Winter Solstice was marked on my calendar. I questioned a few people as to it's meaning and then looked it up on the net. Least amount of daylight in the year (for my hemisphere) and the first day of winter. Oh... neat. It represents death, but also renewal, as the days get longer from that day forth. And it's governed by the rotation of the earth around the sun, not the relatively arbitrary date of the birth of an Important Person that may or may not be a fabrication of necessity, and whose birthdate may have also been politicked in order to better subjugate and assimilate a rival culture.
Screw that shit.
I'd rather mark my time with the planet and share that marking with countless cultures that have erupted and exploded on this globe since the history of man began.

These are my major holidays now: the two Solstices, the two Equinoxes, my birthday, and my Chicagoversary, August 1st, the day I arrived in Chicago.
I like declaring these holidays as my own. They give me something to hold onto and identify myself with when I'm feeling empty and detached from the rest of mankind. They can be cultural anchors for me, when I want them; however, I am finding that I am just as likely to ignore them as I am any of the other holidays, as evinced by "missing" the summer Solstice by three days.
In practice, a holiday is just another day to pick out of the distractions that constantly call for attention; one day is just as important as the next, really.

Clumsy

That is a cork puller. I have one just like it, and had tried to use it, just once, before tonight. I was unsuccessful at removing the cork the one time I tried. Recently, I'd found some instructions and decided to give it another go.
The principle sounds simple. The two blades are gently inserted inbetween the bottle and the cork, starting with the longer blade. When both blades are in, you then slowly pull while turning, and the corks comes out. Simple.

The first time I tried it, I managed to get the blades all the way in, but I also pushed the cork a quarter of the way down. Then, when I tried to pull the blades out with the cork, the blades came out, and only little tiny chunks of the cork came with it. I had to rescue the bottle with a corkscrew. After finding instructions, I realized that I hadn't twisted as I pulled. That must have been the problem.

Tonight:

Firstly, I've been keeping bottles of wine on top of the fridge in my studio. It gets warm up there sometimes; I've noticed that bread molds more quickly when I keep it up there. Heat also pressurizes liquids in airtight containers.
I came home from work and took the bottle down, setting it on the counter: a bottle of Charles Shaw Shiraz. Otherwise known as two-buck chuck. I took a small white glass from my cabinet and set that beside the bottle. I then opened the cutlery drawer and removed the cork puller. I unsheathed the prongs and removed the metal foil from the top of the wine bottle. The foil came off well and neatly; I felt adept, but not for long.
I carefully pushed the longer of the two blades inbetween the bottle and the cork. A very tight fit, but I was able to get it in there. The second one was a little harder. The angle of the cork pulling blades is very strange, as they curve outward. It's difficult to insert both blades. I found that the second was having trouble, and, relying on the sharpness of the tip to find it's own way around the cork, I pushed down with a little more force.

It happened very quickly. There was a very loud popping sound and I felt wine splash all over my face and chest. There was wine in my eyes, and as I stood there, still holding the cork puller in one hand and the bottle neck in the other, I felt it burn into my eyeballs; I blinked stupidly for a moment, staring in offense at the bottle: how dare it?!
The first thing I did was turn on the water at the sink (I was luckily standing next to it) and take off my glasses to wash them, and my face. I put my glasses back on, water dripping, and looked around.
There was red wine everywhere. It was on the counter. There were scattered spots on a few of my clean dishes in the dish rack, as well as in the clean pans that I keep on the range. I cleaned those first. A couple of the drops had made it into my small white glass. There was wine on the floor too, but that was my last worry. There was wine on the white paint on my wall, and I could see it dripping down. I was surprised at how high up the streaks ran as my eyes followed them, ending at the ceiling, and a huge red splotch of wine that was up there, still dripping onto the floor, and me. I wiped the walls down with a sponge, and then dragged my computer chair over to work on the ceiling. The chair wasn't high enough, so I had to climb up onto the counter and sink rim, still wet from the wine and water used to clean it, and balance there in my socks while I scrubbed the ceiling.
I wasn't fast enough. There are faint red splotches and streaks all over the wall and ceiling in my kitchenette.
And my white shirt. It's in a bowl of detergent and hot water, soaking, but I have little hope for it.
Me, I finally came back to my bottle after all the cleaning. A cork floated at the top. I had to use a butter knife to push the cork away to let the wine flow out. I'm drinking it right now.

And I'm going to keep the cork puller. It's done me wrong, but the top portion is a really wonderful beer bottle opener. I thought about throwing it away, but no; I'll keep it around as a reminder to never use a cork puller again.

Something totally awesome

I just found that if you search for "lunatic" and "nate" in google, my blog is the third result down.

Also, a search for "nate martin" brings up a first result that is totally not true. Thanks to Kyle for first finding that. Even though he never updates his blog.

hungry?

"$8 for that. That's not bad."
"Yeah, that's a lot of peanut butter."
"Yeah, and I'm going to eat it all tonight."
"You're going to puke."
"Uh-huh. And then I'll eat it again."
"It might be good...no. That's acidic food. Pickles and-"
"My cat does that."
"It's actually a good idea, nutritionally. If you could bring yourself to eat your own feces, you'd need less food."
"That's what college was like."

My simulated life

It seems to me that I spend a lot of time trying to stay happy. Or get happy? Or not feel badly?

I have to sleep. That's first. Very few things can cause me to maintain a sense of peace if I've not gotten enough sleep for several days in a row. I begin to feel paranoid and awkward.

Eating well. I cannot live on ramen alone, and feel good. I've tried. There's got to be some variation for me to feel good. Or decent, at least.

Seeing people.

Not seeing people.

Finding things to do that I find worthwhile. Maintaining that sense of worth in those things. Continuing to do those things.

Not being a waster.

Being a waster.

I just want to feel good about my life, but there are so damn many things crowding for attention, sucking the bad feelings out to blossom like poison fungi. It's so much maintenance.

I used to play "The Sims". I discovered that my roommate at the time had the game, and set it up on my computer. I named my little sim, picked out his look and chose a profession for him. I made him pee and clean himself and get to work on time and sleep and make friends; I even tried to set him up with a female sim that I created to live down the block from him. Then he electrocuted himself, trying to change a light bulb, and died.
I'd never even lost a pet before that.
I got over it, and moved on to the girl down the street and her female roommate. I concentrated on making them go pee and get to work on time and meet friends and dance and talk. I bought them a bookcase with the money they made from working so that they could read and become educated and not electrocute themselves while changing a lightbulb.
They advanced in their occupations and I bought them better appliances to try to make their grooming routines more efficient; it takes so much time to bathe and eat and pee (do sim's poo?). Then they needed to have more friends to advance in their jobs, so I created four more sims using KISS skins that I found on the net and moved the band in on the opposite end of the block from where my first poor sim died of ignorance. Who wouldn't want to party with KISS?
The cops, apparently.
The first time the girls invited the band over, a lady cop showed up at midnight and gave them a ticket for a noise disturbance. I was furious, everyone got upset, and my girls didn't get enough sleep, making them hell to wake up in the morning. How would my government employee ever make and keep 8 friends to fill the requirement to advance to astronaut training if she couldn't even have a small party without the cops showing up to make her feel badly? And why did the cops even show up? The only other houses in my sim neighborhood belonged to a dead guy, the empty house that the KISS guys lived in, and a rich mansion at the far end of town.

At this point in the life of my sims, I stopped for some evaluation. Six months had gone by in my life. I was drinking a lot, and hated my job. I didn't have a girlfriend and often forgot to put the garbage cans out on Sunday night. I wasn't shaving very often.

I was taking care of my sims better than myself.

Fuck.

That bitter revelation was enough to sever my surprisingly weak emotional ties to my sims, and I deleted the program from my hard drive.
A few months later, I moved to a new town and got a girlfriend. I started shaving more frequently and got better about taking the garbage out, and I feel confident that if I can make enough friends out here, I can eventually become an astronaut.

List

Here is a list of things that I keep next to my computer monitor:

Bjork movie: Drawing Restraint 9
Rockie
Die Mommy Die!
Comas + brain study
Hawking - Brief History of Time
Get incense
Draino for sink

Pearl: glass bottles?

I learned some new things

The meteor that hit the Earth 65 million years ago and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs left what is known as the Chicxulub crater off the coast of the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico. The crater was formed by a 10-14 kilometer wide meteor impact, and set off an ice age that ruined the dinosaurs, allowing mammals to gradually take over in dominance. I remember hearing about this extinction from my teacher when I was in the second grade and we were studying the dinosaurs.

What I don't remember ever hearing about, is a greater, more complete, extinction that took place much further back in Earth's past.

Apparently, about 250 million years ago, there was an extinction event that killed off almost all life on land and life in water in a very short period of time. Various causes have been suggested, including prolific volcanic activity and a large impact from space.

Very recently, what appears to be an enormous crater has been found in Antarctica. It is about 500 kilometers wide, and would have been caused by the impact of a meteor about 50 kilometers wide. That is a rock five times the size of the one that killed the dinosaurs.
After that enormous smash and die-out, dinosaurs gradually became dominant over the next 185 million years, until they were killed off by the lesser impact, 65 million years ago.
Primates got their chance, and started thriving 60 million years ago, but didn't start walking upright until about 6 million years ago. That was a big leap, as it left our hands free to do things other than move around; things became much more complicated. Homo Sapiens have been around for less than 250,000 years.

The Earth is estimated to be about 4.7 billion years old. Life began over 3.9 billion years ago, according the oldest fossil records, but it was single cellular. Multi cellular life didn't begin until about 1.5 billion years ago.

In about 5 billion years, our sun will have used up all of it's hydrogen and have inflated into a red giant, swallowing the inner planets, including the earth, but we've got less time than that for life as we know it. The sun is gradually heating up as it burns off it's hydrogen, and in about 1 billion years, things will be too hot for water to exist in a liquid state on this planet; bad news for us.

So.

Our kind of life form has been around for 1.5 billion years, and only has another 1 billion years to go. We're over the hump. This is Thursday in the week of perfect evolutionary conditions on this planet. It doesn't get any better than this! We're, "it", as far as this planet is concerned. I suddenly feel much more important.
I need to go to sleep now.
For all I know, tomorrow could be a very big day.

Junk

Tonight, I had a craving for junk food.
I walked into 7-11, thinking about ice cream, and saw nachos.
I grabbed the large container of nachos, and thoroughly drenched them in cheese and chili from the mechanical dispenser.
Then I got a strange snickers brownie ice cream thing, as they didn't have my favorite ice cream cookie sandwich.
I came home, knowing that I needed to do my laundry and go to sleep early, but dug into the cheesy nachos immediately. I began eating them ravenously, but settled into a languid motion of picking and chewing as I finished. I then got my laundry together and down to the machines, came back and ate the ice cream thing.
It was ok. Not wonderful.
Now, my laundry is in the dryer and I feel like junk. I need to suck water and sleep.
Urgh, my freakin stomach feels like lead.

Heat and paint

I noticed that my vinyl shower curtain was limp today, it's plastic slightly warm, a little more pliable in my hands. I intended to take a cool shower, to alleviate the heat of the day, but the water pressure in my building denied me my desired amount of cool water, leaving me with a quite warm shower instead.
I went to the craft store today, so that I could buy materials to paint with. I was recently given three tubes of acrylic paint, and have been itching to use them.
At the store, the woman at the counter where the bags are checked was busy with another customer and told me to check my own bag, pointing towards a free clip with two identical tags locked in it. I felt a small thrill of freedom as I stepped behind the counter with one foot, and attached the clip and one tag to my bag, taking the other tag to put in my pocket.
I shopped for awhile, thinking about the four things I knew I wanted. The first item, they were out of, and the second item, a new pen, they were nearly out of as well. Actually their selection of pens is diverse, but the brand that I like was mostly gone. I settled on blue pen.
Next, I needed a cheap palette and a brush.
Found the palette easily. $.49; I bought two.
The brush took longer. Their brushes cost from $4-$60 and I took awhile finding the cheapest brush that I liked. As the act of painting came tangibly closer to occurring, I decided that I wanted some more color too, and bought two more tubes: ivory black and cobalt violet.
I went back to the counter to pay, and an oriental man was buying a few things. His facial features, hair, and accent seemed Japanese to me, but I've often been wrong before. I watched him pay and thought about asking him. I thought about what I would say to him. Atsui desu ne? (It's hot outside, yes?) Or: Hajimemashite. (Pleased to meet you.) Perhaps he's in a hurry, and I'd put him in a situation where it would be impolite to rush off, but would make him stressed and quick to end any conversation we might have. There's always something to worry about, isn't there?
I felt hungry, and opted to not attempt waylaying him.
He left, nearly forgetting his change, and it was my turn to pay. My bill came to $20, twice what I planned on. Next time, I won't plan.
I accepted my things, declining a bag, as I'd brought my own that was waiting for me behind the counter. I moved to retrieve bag myself, but was disappointed as she beat me to it.
I thanked her, left, and rode the train home.

Hot

It's become hot, here. Very hot, and all at once, coupled with a thick and cloying humidity. I have been dripping sweat for days now. Summer has ensconced Chicago in heat, and I welcome it.
I have a cold beer and a glass of ice water in front of me. At a BBQ last night, I made tequila sunrises for people and napped on a porch after eating a huge meal.
I've been reading Raymond Carver and Stephen Baxter and I just finished an amazing book about pygmies.
Sleeping has become a strange and warm affair since the weather lost the humility that it maintains through the chillier parts of a Chicago spring. My dreams have turned sweaty, and my mornings have been sunny, disconcerting things; my alarm buzzing rhythmically from the direction of creeping sunlight. My dream state has been interrupted too abruptly, two mornings in a row now. The heat slows my mind while the humidity fogs it. I cannot say right now, with exactness, where the dream ends and reality begins. I don't mind it, though. The days and the nights continue. I'll write this and go to sleep. Tomorrow I will wake without an alarm. Good night.

Ragged Things

...into air, back up so high for a moment and then back down again, but to a different place. Perhaps we'll go out to the island and watch the moon for a bit and listen to the monsters dance and sing. The demon lovers rest on a rock beyond the tide and melt like magma upon one another.
We rest and think about the queens out buried in the trees, behind the walls. Workers hurrying in both the light and the night. They are busy and the queens wait. We could wait forever on the shore, watching the signals flare out from the other islands. Not ignoring them, but letting them exist with us. It is a reverent thing, in the glinting lights, the loud and whimsical singing, the lone spot of moon overhead, crying like a virgin, seeping translucence.
Quick, as quick as we can. The light is faster and the shore does not end. The islands do not open until the end when it is already too late. The light fades and I am high again, looking around, waiting.

I'll be honest

I'm a pirate.
Not the kind of pirate that lives on ships and secret fortresses. I don't pillage towns and carry off women with me in my ship. I don't capture ships to steal their gold, and I don't fly a jolly roger from my mast.
I tried living that way for awhile, but I didn't like it. I nearly lost an eye, and I only finished paying the medical bill for it last month.

I do, however, pirate bandwidth.
When I moved into my apartment, I planned on not having the internet, in order to save money, but when I connected my wireless adapter, I discovered an unencrypted network with a good signal. I was connected to the internet, and for the first time in 8 years, I wasn't paying for it.
Too good to be true?
Sometimes. I had no connection for the last eight days, and just when I was getting excited about blogging every day again. Oh well.

I don't feel at all bad about using this bandwidth. People rarely use their connection to it's full capacity, it's more efficient to share. I'm not greedy in my use of it. When I download or upload, I limit my speeds. I don't want to choke their connection. If I could figure out where the signal was coming from, I would be willing to pay part or half the bill, in exchange for, perhaps, moving their router closer to the window.

For now though, I just mercifully thank the unseen soul that has left their network unencrypted. Thank you thank you thank you for the months of internet connection.

Rabbit

A few days ago, I was walking home at night. In a small patch of greenery to my right I saw a rabbit. It did not move, and it's eyes were wide open.
As I passed, I wondered if I could be quick enough to catch it; I was already very close.
I read a book once (or saw a movie?) which explained how to kill a captured rabbit.
I pictured myself holding the rabbit's head in my hand, and swinging the body around my head like a sling with a stone in it, breaking the rabbits neck. I didn't have any plastic bags with me so I thought that I would just hold it under my jacket; it was dark, and I was only a short distance at home.
Then I thought about what I would do with it. I pictured myself in front of the sink, and thought about which of my knives I would use. I would need to slit the arteries in it's neck, so I would probably use my smaller, serrated steak knife. Then I would tie it's feet and hang it over the sink to let the blood drain out. That done, I would need to gut it next. I thought about a vertical slit on it's belly from it's neck to it's groin, but I would need to not cut into the digestive tract, to keep from contaminating the meat. I would probably have needed to look up the anatomy of a rabbit online.

I remember working at a grocery store in Utah. I'd been feeling a little pointless, and started thinking that I might want to join a big brother program.
The next day, a boy came into the store and started talking to me. And kept talking to me. He stayed for 3 hours that day, just talking to me. I was mystified by how quickly I'd found a little brother.
One day he went fishing and brought me a small cooler packed with ice. Inside, were three tiny bass, and a catfish.
I took them home and put them in the sink. I'd never gutted a fish. He'd told me briefly what to do, and I started by scraping off the scales with a knife. Then I gutted each of the fish, their slimy and tubular entrails slapping down into my metallic sink. It was... strange, and when I finished I had 8 little fillets of fish.

I didn't try to catch the rabbit. I walked past it and went home. The brutality required to catch and kill my own food is not required of me where I live, but the knowledge of what does happen to allow me to eat some of my meals, lingers at the periphery of my thoughts.
I can say, though, that the fillets I separated from the bodies of those fish were extra delicious.

Hail

A large low limb had been cut from a tree at the edge of a park in Salt Lake City, Utah. The pattern of rings in the cut caught the eye of someone. That person told someone else, and soon, a small shrine had sprung up at the base of the tree. A set of wooden stairs with a platform was built to allow easier viewing of the pattern.
Walking up that short staircase, you would pass dozens of prayer candles and bouquets of flowers, all renewed weekly, if not daily. At the top of stairs, you would have a clear and close-up view of the pattern. I don't know what you would see there.
What I saw, was a shape formed by the rings in the wood that could be interpreted as feminine. It could have been a feminine figure with a shaded hint of a cowl over her head. It could have been the Virgin Mary, as all of the candle lighters and bouquet refreshers said it was.

I have heard that the most important word in your language is your own name. When I am in a public place and amidst other people, I often hear my name, and things pertaining to my life, spoken of by people that turn out to be strangers. I hear what I want to hear sometimes.

In an underpass on the north side of Chicago, a stain formed from dripping water, on what looks to be a patched portion of the concrete wall. The stain contained a pattern that somebody recognized, and word of it spread. Now there are prayer candles and fresh bouquets of flowers. A ceramic statue of Jesus rests beneath the stain; the head is broken off, but a drawing of Jesus rests in the hole.
Again, the pattern is reminiscently feminine; the shape of a cowl could be suggested, and one eye seems to have white flecks around the iris.
It could be the Virgin Mary.
It could be a stain on a wall.
I don't really know what it is, but I do know that I'll never be able to see it the same way anyone else does.

Gambling

My gambling strategy for video black jack.
Insert $20 into the machine.
Bet 5¢ on the first hand.
Lose.
Bet 10¢ on the next hand.
Lose.
Bet 20¢.
Lose.
Bet 40¢.
Lose.
Bet 80¢.
Lose.
Bet $1.75. (There was no way to bet $1.60 on that machine.)
Lose.
Bet $3.50.
Lose.
Bet $7.00.
Lose.
Feed another $20 bill into the machine and bet $14.00.
Lose.
Feed another $20 bill into the machine and bet $28.00.
Lose.

Take a deep breath. If you smoke, light a cigarette and take a couple drags.

Feed $60 into the machine in whatever denominations you have and bet $56.00.
Lose.
Laugh and cry loudly and take your Gin & Tonic from the cocktail waitress.
Take your remaining $8.20 and play very conservatively until you have had at least $111.80 worth of free drinks from the waitresses.
Then walk carefully to your room, and go to sleep.

Hare Krishna

Walking on the street, I heard singing from up ahead. I looked and saw a procession of people in robes and heard a familiar sound:

"Hare Krishna hare rama hare krishna hare rama..." Hare Krishna.
The man leading wore a purple robe and carried a drum slung over his shoulder. He was bald and smiling and singing while beating his drum. About 10 people followed behind, walking at a merry(?) pace. Most of them wore the robes common to Hare Krishnas all over the world, including a woman walking slightly behind the drummer, carrying a small amplifier and microphone and singing into it. They all appeared quite friendly and happy. At the end of the procession, a woman dressed in a business suit that looked more appropriate for walking in the Loop than trotting after a group of Hare Krishnas handed me a photocopied pamphlet and a baggy of popcorn. I thanked her and continued on my way.

A while ago, I attended a bible group meeting in their assembly building. It was a small group and they were all very friendly. They mostly seemed happy to be there and wanted others there to share in that happiness. There were grapes and there was pizza and one girl had baked cookies and brought them; all this food was shared among anyone who wished to partake. The cookies were very good.

When I was in elementary school, I stayed the night with a friend and his mother and sister at their apartment in my neighborhood. They were very poor, as poor as my mother and I were. When I awoke in the morning, my friend told me that we were all going to the local Mormon ward for breakfast because they offered donuts to anyone who came. I walked with them, but instead of going to the ward, I walked home.

-

The pamphlet I received from the Hare Krishnas lays on the table next to my door. I ate the popcorn a few days later. It satisfied my hunger while I prepared a larger meal.

reaper collecting, widow weeping, banker counting

Shots were heard.
A window smashed.
I'll never sleep as well as I used to.
The night she died, I'd drunk four cups of coffee and a six pack of beer.
I peed the bed and woke myself.
I laid there for a long time, contemplating my predicament as she lay asleep beside me. Then I noticed the broken glass on the floor, and the blood on the windowpane.
And the blood on the floor. The blood on the blanket.
Only after that, did I notice that she was not sleeping.
She lay on her back, above the blankets, and she was cold when I put my hand on her naked belly; her mouth open and slack, a small worm wriggled in one eye socket.
The blood on the floor was very old.
I noticed the smell, and sat up fast, waking as I did so.
Waking up in my bed,
and my apartment,
and alone.
The worm wriggled in the back of my mind as I got up to pee.

Water

"Want to go jump in the river? " Ethan asked.
"Yes," Jason replied, though a little shiver of hesitancy trembled through him.
"Is it shallow enough for me to touch bottom? Because you know I can't swim. Well, I can sort of swim, but only for a few feet, and only underwater."
"Oh yeah, you'll be fine. You jump in and you can touch bottom right afterward."

Ethan drove them for awhile through the small town, and, coming to a park, parked the car. They got out and walked along train tracks alongside the river until they came to the spot. There was a short embankment to climb down, and then a short wade through the river to get to a big rock. From this big rock, Jason understood that he was to jump into the river and then swim a very short distance back towards the shore and the shallows.
Wearing swimming trunks, they both waded out to the rock and climbed up on top. Ethan explained to Jason where he should jump into the water. The river ran downstream at a medium speed, but as it hit the large rock, swirling vortexes of water formed, creating a barrier between the shallow area that the rock protected and the rest of the river. Ethan explained that he should jump just to the left of the swirling water, but into a spot that was still deep. From there, it was a short swim into the shallows.
Jason felt that he could do it, and stood for awhile on the edge of the rock, staring down into the swirls and currents. The wind was cold, and the water was colder, but the sun shone hotly down on them.
"You can go first, and then I can jump after you if I need to,” Ethan told him.
"Are you a fast swimmer?” Ethan asked, imagining himself floating down the river and full of water.
"Yeah,” Ethan said.
"Good. If you see me go under, then come in after me."
Jason stood there and took several deep breaths, stood a moment longer, looking from the water to the shore, and jumped.
He hit the water and went under with a splash. As soon as he was in it, he stretched out his body towards where he thought the shore was. He put his hands in front of him and tried a breaststroke, but he flopped around a lot; his body was not moving well in the rhythm of the river. He felt the breath he took up on the rock straining in his lungs. He let his feet down, hoping for solid ground, but felt only water. His mouth opened a little bit, and he felt some water enter; he swallowed, rather than breath it in. He had a sore throat that day, and the cool water was a slight relief.
He suddenly found his head above water, but hadn't fully exhaled his first breath completely. He took in what air he could, and saw that the shore was no closer.
Then he went under again. A little more water entered his mouth, and he swallowed it again. He tried swimming forward more, straining his arms against the water. His head came up again and he yelled, "help!"
He went under again, and strained more, but it was no good.
When he came up again, Ethan was there. Jason got his arm over his shoulders and said, "Help me."
Ethan started paddling for the shallows, his face scrunched up, supporting both their weights.
They made it to the shallows and separated.
"Did you swallow any water,” Ethan asked him.
"Yeah,” Jason said, breathing fast and hard. "But I didn't breathe any in. Only a little bit. "
He coughed and looked back at the water squinting.
He didn't feel cold.
He didn't feel warm.
He just felt not dead.

Wendover, Nevada

I went into the starbucks and ordered a grande caramel machiatto. The girl took my order and turned to the new guy at the coffee machines and started giving him instructions. It took a little while for my drink to be made. As I had placed the order, I had taken out my wallet and my credit card and was still standing with them out in my hand while they made the drink. I had spent the previous evening and night and morning drinking and gambling, and my stomach was a little rotten, my mind slow.
They finished the drink and announced it at the little serving spot at the end of the counter. I walked over and took the drink and said, "thank you." The girl told me to have a nice day. My wallet was still in my hand, but now I'd retracted it a little bit under the coat that I had hanging off of one shoulder.
They both turned away from me to do something else. It was not busy. I walked out to my friends and we left, as I put my wallet away.

Working at Whole foods as a cashier

I began talking to a customer on Sunday as I rang up his order. He looked to be about 36 years old, and seemed happy, though a little tense.He came around the side and started bagging for himself.
"I worked hard for a long time to be able to afford this for myself," he said to me.
The customers that come into my store are commonly upper class and primarily wealthy. I see a lot of young people that have obviously not had to worry about money in their lives so far.
"What do you do?" I asked him, expecting to hear that he was a lawyer or a financial adviser. I often hear people talking on their little ear phones to invisible partners about buying and selling homes and stock while I work. This has become quite standard to me, right along with the women with their Prada and Louis Vuitton and Chanel bags and wallets and belts and glasses.
"I'm a waiter, " he said to me.
I honestly thought he was joking.
I looked up at him, prepared to accept and join in on whatever humor he wanted to share with me.
He was serious.
It was close. I was one slight muscle movement away from joining in on his joke, and making an ass of myself. My robotic self was humbled.
I said nothing for a moment, but continued to ring his order as he bagged.
"Where do you work?" I asked.
He mentioned a restaurant that I've never noticed, but is on my way home in a very affluent stretch of restaurants and boutiques. I told him I probably knew of it, and we didn't say much else. He paid and left, and I continued to work.

Sakura no hana.

The first time I can remember noticing a cherry blossom was a year ago this April, in 2005. Near my 25th birthday. I saw a tree a few blocks from my house covered in the most awesome blossoms (apologies for the fatuous alliteration (I just wanted an excuse to use "fatuous")) that I'd ever noticed in quantity. Orchids impress me more, but they do not give the sheer visual onslaught that a large cherry tree does.
The flowers are fat and beautiful like a voluptuous belly dancer. They are in your face and showering all around.
I had to ask my girlfriend at the time (a floral worker) if they were what I suspected they were, and had my first mental recognition of cherry blossoms confirmed.
So strange that I could live 25 years without noticing such an awesome event.
It's not because I'd never seen them before. I clearly remember picking cherries from a tree in my friend's backyard when I was 10 years old, and seeing all the rotting cherries laying in the grass. It's the blossoms that did not enter my memory.
Strange to wonder to about all the things that I cannot remember, that I've no idea I've forgotten, or never noticed; all of the dark spots that surround my memory like the night sky surrounds the earth.
So many things to forget each day!
I just microwaved a tiny pizza.
I could forget that too,

but I won't. In fact, I'm going to surround it with the emptiness of my stomach.
Forget that!

Flowers blooming like cackling hyenas

From the side walk I heard a sound from the street; that of a small dog barking viciously. Curious, I turned my head to the right and looked around. I saw a man on the sidewalk with his bike, stuffing something into his yellow backpack. The sound ceased. I saw cars stopped in a line, waiting for traffic to start moving again.
The barking started once more as the cars began to crawl forward, and it was coming from a white SUV with it's windows open. I looked inside for the dog, but all I saw was a woman in the passenger seat, her mouth open very wide, her head shaking in violent little jerks with each bark of the dog. She was the dog. I watched her for a moment, just long enough for it to register in her or her friends thoughts that someone was staring. I'm sure I'm not the first. Maybe it kept her laughing.

walking home

The weather was nice and warm on my walk home from work tonight. Many people were out, and I chose to take a more populated route along a busy street; perhaps because I was planning to spend my evening alone in my room, writing. The juxtaposition appealed to me.
I found myself walking behind a couple holding hands. I settled into the rhythm of their footsteps, about 20 feet behind them, rather than keeping my pace and passing them. They held the sidewalk between them, walking widely and then closely, varying their distance. The man had the collar of his polo shirt turned up, a current sign of a cavalier attitude among those that own many polo shirts. They were both young, twenty at the oldest, and they seemed carefree and worriless to me. They appeared perfectly comfortable in the affluent neighborhood, as though it matched them perfectly.
As we walked, I noticed that I passed a home on my right that seemed to house the elderly. A large complex, I often saw old folks watering a garden or lounging on portable chair-frames with wheels on the far side of it, when walking through the adjacent park.
It was dark out, but the long walk leading up to the front entrance of the building was lit from below by lights lining the walkway. At the far end from me, I noticed a figure in shadow, sitting. I saw wheels underneath the sitting figure, but it did not seem to be a wheelchair; likely one of the chair-frames that double as walkers that I've seen before. The figure sat there alone, far from the street, but with a clear view of it. I noticed no movement.
I passed, and the figure passed, and I hastened my gait and passed the couple in front of me, surprising them briefly as I walked around from the street side.
It was strange to me to think that I felt more in common with the lone figure sitting on that walk than I felt with the two young lovers I saw on the street.

Getting Older

"Sunrise Assisted Living of Lincoln Park
with a community for the memory impaired"

These are the words on a sign that I frequently walk beneath when leaving my apartment. I look into the building attached to the sign as I walk past, and see soft yellow lighting and lots of browns and yellows and pastels. Flowers sit in vases, always fresh (or fake) and big thick drapes are held back in the day time to let light into the communal areas that I can see into on the ground floor.
If I walk past at dinnertime, I see many of the elderly gathered around tables in the dining area, silver ware and silver drink containers and silver wheelchairs and the people all moving so slowly, their faces like old weathered stone, mostly immobile. It's a rich neighborhood, and this must be an expensive home to live in. A place where the upper middle class come to die, when they can't remember what to do anymore.
When I walk past at night, there is often an ambulance parked outside. People that I see attending the ambulance and it's activities rarely look very worried. They do not move very quickly. They are not in a place of urgency, but a place to forget things.
A place to finally forget to live, after such a long time of remembering.

Sam

Sam was tired. Sam was bored.
He got home from work and set his suitcase on the floor. It was an old case, and he knew that the other sales reps looked down upon him for having such a beat up old case. He'd patched a hole in it with black electrical tape. He sat down in front of his computer and stared at it for a little while. A picture of a sunset, somewhere tropical, was frozen on the screen. He lit a cigarette.
He'd spent most of that day learning to compile spreadsheets with Excel to conform to the companies database records, typing numbers and staring at grids for hours; it was numbing, and his fingers felt like dull pencils.
"Fuck," he mumbled. He looked down at his suitcase, next to the computer, fallen over onto it's side where he'd set it. The tape over the hole was peeling up at the edges, little gummy bits of stickiness holding onto bits of dirt. It looked grimy.
He turned off the computer monitor and got up, leaving his small apartment to walk to the corner store. Bought a bottle of vodka from the mustachioed man behind the counter.
Went back to his apartment and poured a shot. Drank it and felt it burn down to his stomach. Spreadsheets, sales figures, client names, profit margins.
He poured another shot right after the first and drank that one too.
Neckties, starched shirts, ironed pants, patched up holes.
He drank two more shots and laid down on his old couch. He closed his eyes and watched the redness behind his eyelids fade and dull to a darker color as the sun slowly set beyond his window, beyond his darkened computer screen. The alcohol settled into his stomach and along his spine and into his brain, cuddling up with an unsettled crunch of tension coming closer to view. Things left undone.
He opened his eyes, turned his head and looked out the window. Darkness outside. Street lights on, shining and bouncing light in. He sat up, got up, took off his tie and dropped it on the floor.
He left his apartment again. He walked back to the corner and turned and followed that street up to the next one, a wider one.
Cars raced past, making the green light. He walked down that street, stopping on the sidewalk, halfway between the stoplights at either end of the block.
He watched the headlights coming from both directions for a time, the closer ones zooming by from left to right, and the cars flying past on the far side from right to left, the vodka warming his limbs, his fingers; thinking of dull pencils.
He picked a lone pair of lights coming fast from the far right, bracing himself and tensing his legs. He waited for it to get to the green light and come through the intersection. Breathing deep and fast, he waited for it to come towards where he stood, nearer, nearer, and when he wasn't quite sure about it anymore, he lunged forward, running across the street.
The car came at him as a bright leviathan of swiftness. He ran as hard and as fast as he could strain himself to do, directly into it's path. The car's brakes screeched as it tried to stop and the lights swerved erratically. He felt the heat of it as it came on him and jumped forward; felt it's mass moving under and behind him, just missing.
He landed on the sidewalk and kept running, his blood flushing his face, and his lungs bellowing. The screech of brakes ended in a metal crunching crash and thump. He ran into an alley and kept going to the next block over. He slowed down, and noticed a bar. Went inside, sat at the bar and ordered a shot of vodka. The bartender looked at him strangely, but didn't say anything. Sam's hands were shaking and he was red and sweating. He paid for the shot with cash, drank it, and left the bar. Outside he hailed a cab. Sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer, as he got into the car.
Sam told the cabbie to take him downtown. He'd find a bar down there, further away. He thought that he'd probably call into work the next day.

parking lot

My connection to the internet has been experiencing datum interruptus, which leaves me with a larger hole than I'd really like in my chronicling. So it goes.

-------------------------------------------
A large busy parking lot.
A sunny day in winter, chilly but just a little warmer any place the sun hit, easing zippers and buttons on coats just a bit.
Five security guards monitor the parking lot all day. They drink coffee, chat with people and each other, and watch to make sure noone parks their car and leaves the lot to go somewhere else. It's a free lot, but high volume, so it has to be monitored to protect against abuse. Most of the guards will try to warn someone if they are seen leaving the lot, but sometimes there's no option other than to tow the car away; that is the threat and the occasional reality.

A small of group of people dressed affluently walked out of the lot. A wife and husband, a kid, and a friend, prepared for an afternoon of shopping at the neighboring stores. Their car was parked in the lot that the security guards monitor.
One of the guards stood in the shade of the building at the edge of the lot, watching all the cars. A young woman was jogging away from where he stood, moving towards the family that was then on the sidewalk.
"Hey, " she yelled to the them. "I gave him $10 bucks, so we should be fine!"
The parking guy moved a little further back against the building as the family walked to the corner.

My teeth

During most of my adolescence and early 20's, I hated my teeth. I liked the bottom row, but my top two front teeth, and most notably, the space between, bothered me.
It's taken a long time, but I am comfortable with my teeth now. I like them. They are distinctive and large. When I smile, people notice. My teeth draw attention.

There are some practical aspects to the gap though, that I've had to learn to deal with.

It causes me to have a slight problem with "th" sounds and an occasional whistle with "s"'s. Flecks of spit are more likely to escape through the gap when I speak. Most of the time I can control it well, but I have to be careful when I've been drinking or when I get excited.

One aspect of my toothy separation that I didn't notice till more recently, is the effect it has upon my bite. When I pick up a sandwich and bite into it, a small portion of the sandwich does not get severed, and the sandwich retains a small bridge to the bite that is in my mouth. To fully separate a bite from a sandwich, I need to take several quick bites from side to side, or I need to take one bite and tear away to the left or right with my head.
Bacon is the worst. I seem to never be able to bite all the way through a piece of it. Pepperonis on pizza are almost always eaten whole by me. Strands of fresh onion are also a problem, as they tend to fit nicely into the gap. I'll pull away from the sandwich with my mouthful, and find an onion ring dangling from my lips.

Today, whilst eating a delicious sandwich I made for myself, I discovered a new tactic for sandwich eating which may be a valuable tool in my arsenal of survival techniques.
I pick up the sandwich and squish it pretty flat. Not forcefully, but just enough to compact it a bit.
Then, to bite, I open my jaws, insert the sandwich and bite down, fast! Then pull away just as quickly.
I surprise the sandwich.
It worked!

American money gets uglier

I am jealous of the currency in other countries; not because of the value of it, but because of the color in it.

I started seeing the new $10 bill at my work a week or two ago. The first one I saw, a neurotic woman was about to use to pay for her purchase.
"Is this real?" she asked me.
"That's odd," I said, looking at the bill.
I marked it with the counterfeit-detector pen, and it looked good, then I held it up to the light, and it had a watermark in it.
"It seems real, but I've never seen it before, " I told her. "Maybe it's fake."
"Well then I want to pay with it," she said, appearing anxious about the possibility that her money might be counterfeit.
"I'll take it," I told her. "It's probably a limited edition. Look, it says 2004 on it. It's two years old, but it looks new."
She quickly changed her mind and took the bill back from me. "Good," I thought, "it was probably a fake."

The next day, I saw a few more, and now they're everywhere. I don't like the redesign. I do not appreciate it's aesthetic feel.
The bill looks like a dehydrated person pissed all over it, and then left it in the sun for a week. Then a conservatively prudish and retarded art school graduate was given a red highlighter that was almost out of ink, and told to: "go wild!"; which the graduate did with it's typical lack of gusto.

A Google Image Search for "currency" yields a whole page of links to money that is prettier and more colorful than ours. I'm not including coins in my jealousy; our coins are satisfactory to me. It is our bills that I would like to see really improved.
I believe that Australia has the best example of why our money seems deficient to me.
Their money has depictions of famous Australian artists and prominent members of the culture. Here, you have to be the president to get on a bill. The bills are vibrantly multicolored and shiny and made of plastic. If I were to make space money from the future, I would make it look a little like this.
Our bills are drab and mostly of the same color palette; the few attempts to add color that have been made so far appear to be the work of a printer dying of leukemia; it's soul leaking out with the marrow of it's fading ink.
We are security obsessed, and are ignoring the face we show to the world. The lack of aesthetic appeal of our money is just one more example of the sad state that America is grasping at in it's current decline.

what i did today

I shampooed my hair today.
I picked up the small shampoo bottle that I keep in the shower caddy, and found that it was empty. I reached around the outer shower curtain liner to grab the large bottle of shampoo that I keep on the window sill for refilling of the small bottle. (I prefer to use the small bottle because it opens from the bottom.)
When the small one was full, I squeezed a large amount into my palm and lathered my hair with it. I rinsed. I repeated with a smaller amount of shampoo.
I grabbed my bottle of conditioner and squeezed a large amount of that into my palm. I lathered and lathered and lathered and then rinsed that out.
My hair clean, I reached for the bottle of face wash (also a bottom opener) that I keep in the shower caddy next to the shampoo. I squeezed a small amount of the goop into my left palm, closed the lid, replaced the bottle back into the caddy with my right hand, and brought my left hand up and smeared the goo into my hair, in the same spot I'd put the conditioner.

I realized that I had just smeared daily wash facial cleanser in my hair at the same moment my hand smushed it in. I removed my hand and squinted at it stupidly. I felt the cleansing goo sting a little on my scalp; I washed it out and tried again, remembering to put the goo on my face that time.

girth

I choked and laughed reading this story.
Fat people, oh my god, fat people.
Fucking america.
My favorite quote from this story: "Syringes with the longest available needles -- 4 1/2 inches -- couldn't penetrate the fat."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

humidity

I got in the shower today with a plan to wash my hair, but when I stepped into the tub, I again noticed the mold that has been growing on the inside of my shower curtain liner. I've been here 5 and a half months, and enough of it has appeared to annoy me. I've been planning on cleaning it for awhile, but it's been an easy thing to put off. I only see it once a day, and I am naked and myopic and trying to get myself clean, and usually in a hurry as well; the mold gets ignored.

Until today. I didn't have to be anywhere. Time was not an issue.

I got a bottle of cleaner from under the sink, and the sponge that I keep next to it. I didn't even have to step back out of the shower. The water ran warmly from the showerhead.
I sprayed the curtain all over with the cleaner and proceeded to scrub at it with the sponge. Scrubbing either end of the liner was easiest because I could spread the curtain against the tile wall and have a hard surface to scrub upon. The end where I enter and exit had the most mold, so it was good that it was easiest to clean; the reason for the extra mold is that the end of the liner tends to fold back on itself when wet, and then sticks together, trapping the moisture and aiding the growth.
Cleaning the middle section was harder.
I had to put my left arm behind the liner and sandwich it between my hand and the sponge on the other side, allowing me to scrub one hand-sized section at a time. My progress slowed, and I turned off the water faucet; all pretenses of a quick cleaning job at the beginning of my shower having washed down the drain with citric cleanser and invisible granules of scrubbed mold.
The mold in the middle section of the liner was centered on vertical folds still remembered by the material from it's days on a shelf at the store I bought it from.
When I finished the middle section, I sprayed the whole curtain again, and then went over it with my eyes and the sponge, catching spots that I'd missed.
When I was done, I turned the water back on, and turned the nozzle to wash the remaining cleaner from the curtain.
I resumed my shower, and washed my hair.

My curtain is clean.

Miracle

I've been wearing my glasses a lot recently.
Last night, I'd been drinking.
I took my glasses off, set them down, and then put my contacts in.
After I put my contacts in, without thinking about it, I put my glasses back on, as they were in a spot I only place them in temporarily; such as when I am changing shirts, or showering.
I put my glasses on, and suddenly my vision turned blurry.
I squinted my eyes, and reached up to rub one of them, then I noticed that my peripheral vision around the glasses was excellent.
I pulled my glasses off my face, and I could see!
I ran to the window, leaned out, threw my glasses out into the street, and screamed:

"Hallelujah, I can see!!!"

-------------------

This morning I woke up with a hangover.

I couldn't find my glasses anywhere.

Then I remembered why.

And wrote this.

Waaaaaaah!!

There was a child somewhere nearby, crying and having a tantrum.
A man walked up to me in a nice hat, laughing.
I looked at him, and I started laughing too; we both knew what we were laughing about.
"I sometimes enjoy the cries of children, " I said.
"I think I'd like to do what he's doing, somedays," the man said.
"Yes, " I agreed. "Me too."
And we laughed some more.

Croissant (sp?)

I was working as a bagger at a grocery store.
A woman was purchasing 3 croissants in an open plastic bag from the bakery.
The cashier picked up the bag to count them and then set it down.
"Did your finger touch that?" asked the woman of him, quickly.
"No," he said. "My finger just touched the wrapper."
"I don't want them." She said tersely. "Take them off."
"Ok," he said, and set them aside.
I looked on in shock. Because a man who is unfamiliar to her may have briefly touched one of her croissants with one or two fingers, she was unwilling to buy them. What did she think may have been transferred? Should I be worried? No, I don't feel worried. How does she think those croissants were made? Does she think that no hands have ever touched them before?

I don't know, and it made me sad. It made me think of the paranoia that seems to be so harshly gripping so many Americans. What are we so fucking afraid of, that we can just throw away food like that for the most asinine and remote dangers. Why are we so worried all the time? We have very little to worry about, compared to most of the world. It bugs me.
I took them back to the bakery and told the clerk there that:
"A customer didn't want these anymore because a cashiers finger may have touched them."
I said it kind of loudly, I suppose. I heard a woman behind me say, "well, I wouldn't either."

Goddammit, that was enough.
"Here, I'll take them, nevermind." I was pissed. I knew they were just going to throw them away, for what seemed like no good reason to me.
I took them over to the customer service desk and bought them. Screw the paranoia.

I just ate one of them.
It was delicious.

Successful day

On my walk home from work tonight, I sang. I sang the whole way, on my two mile walk. I sang noises and it was circusy, but sort of drunk walking with my feet flipping out widely on each step.

Me me me.

I exercised my Japan fetish heartily today.
I went to Mitsuwa Marketplace with my Japanese friend and a fellow Nihongo enthusiast. We wandered and spoke and shopped and ate and I spoke more Japanese in a day than I ever have. It was wonderful. I feel so small in my knowledge of the language and constant exposure to just how much there is to learn, but I'm gaining a confidence in my ability to learn it and speak and understand it. Today I really broke through the stress boundary that has encircled by shaky grasp of the language. I spoke it thoughtlessly a few times, and forgot to be nervous.
That's great!!
Best I've felt about the language so far.

Roast

I was participated in roasting my friend Shabaz on his birthday this Wednesday at a cafe. Here is the speech that I wrote for it (Shabaz was sitting on the stage with me while I spoke):

"Last night I drank until dawn, and I've had a lot to drink tonight. Before I got up here, I was worried that I might pass out first. Now that I'm here, I'm worried I might pass out on the stage. If I do, just drag me to my seat and tell the cops that Shabaz slipped Rufies in my drink. He's that desperate.

A few days ago, I was wondering what I could say about Shabaz tonight, other than to curse him for being a worthless isolated hermit of a layabout that didn't bother to read my mind so he could find out that I'm a huge Arlo Guthrie fan before he didn't invite me to go to the concert with him. I almost learned the guitar just so I could cover Alice's Restaurant, you bastard.
[singing]'Oh, you can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant' - except redemption Shabaz. I'll hunt you like the middle-eastern sand lizard that you are, and I'll be reading this again at your funeral.

[At this point I flipped him off, and then walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek. The crowd made a sappy sound.]
"What you don't know is that I have cyanide on my lips."

"Yeah, so I thought of saying all that, and then decided to say this.
Shabaz is my friend, but I haven't known him for very long, so that could still change.

I talk a lot, but Shabaz talks too long. He doesn't know when to close his mouth. One time when I was listening to him talk, his mouth stayed open for so long that an entire family of spiders crawled inside, lived their natural lifespans, died, their little spider corpses shriveled and turned to dust, all in his mouth while I watched, and before the end of his story, which he never actually reached because he fell asleep in his chair while he was talking to me.

Finally, God bless, Holy Shalam, and allah, and whatever else might be relevant to the mystery seasoning packet you call your genetic history. May your mother rest in peace, knowing that she left her son with such caring friends as all of us here tonight. Happy birthday Shabaz."

Unread, and un-spellchecked

This night.
Seemed a good place to start laying words down.
The trouble is where to go next from there.
The keyboard is unresponsive to my fingertips. One word leaps to the next with the agility of a retarded long jumper. I could be a disfigured cheetah closing in obviously on a kill that will never be.
However, I could be anything, though I sometimes feel that that is reserved for other people. People with will and perseverence. I have endurance, but have not had much else. Never had much gut, or strength, or individuality. I was the one that took punishment and ran away quickly. I didn't want more than what I found without trying. I wanted to be left alone, generally. I could have played video games forever by myself in a closed room for a long time and been happy. Forever, if I'd had the best selection selected for me on a monthly basis, but that involves other people. No way to be alone and be happy for me. I had to find a way to interact.
I've been gradually looking for ways to do so for years. I've gotten better at it, I suppose, though I'm not proud of it. I'm still the same sad kid I was when I was 15, but now I've learned more about the art of distracting myself.
Shiny baubles and all kinds of things; shiny shiny shiny!
I must be kept busy, or life starts to stain through.
Here is where I lay.
The first day of spring will come soon. We will have some equanimity around that, which will be nice.
If I don't contradict myself, I'm happy.
Come on then world, fuck me with your best stillettos on, I'll be waiting with the meanest reviewers to nail you to wall with your brethren, and cry about it afterward.
A good drink always needs a home.
Enough of this.

Noon: Part 2

She stopped looking at the city and looked down at her feet, then at the ground and gravel and bits of broken plastic and glass that littered the shoulder of the road. She didn't like when her father was upset. She didn't know what to do. She kept her eyes on the ground, trying to identify different things there near her. There was a lid and straw from a soda cup, crushed flat and browned with dirt. There were bottle caps and a crushed can. Next to the can was something small and white and round. It looked like it could be soft or brittle. She crouched down and moved her head closer to it. It had a yellowish color stained into it, and was small, about the length of half of her index finger. She reached down and picked it up very carefully. It was fragile and very light, like a piece of hard dust. One end of it ended smoothly and roundly, like her finger tip, but the other end had a hole in it and was burst open, as if something had ripped free and escaped from it. She looked inside it and saw a little brown husk of something within. A discarded skin. It was a moth's cocoon, picked up and blown by the wind, but she didn't know that at the time.

She dropped it back on the ground and stood up. She looked again at the city, burning. She felt a wind blow over them, hot and rich with the smell of something strong and unpleasant. It left a taste in her mouth, hot and plastic. Ashes scattered in the sky and blew like leaves. She was scared. She reached for her dad's hand and found it, fidgeting with his pant leg. She grabbed it and he held her hand.

They stood there for a long while, watching the city burn with the others on the side of the highway, the radio in the car broadcasting worried voices into the air around them as moths would bounce around a bright light.

Noon: Part 1

She was five years old at the time, sitting in the passenger seat of her dads old car, riding from Jersey towards Manhattan to go see her mom. Her dad and her mom didn't get along anymore, and she was made constantly aware of that, especially when the two were within speaking distance. She was unconcerned with the drive, she'd been on it many times before. The radio played the news in the background, men and women speaking in serious tones about things far away and close to home. Her father listened intently as he drove, seeming concerned about something. She mostly ignored him, concentrating on a book she had in her lap, something about squirrels and trees. She had trouble remembering the book later in her life, but could say that it was one she carried with her many places. It's odd to forget things that were once so closely well known to oneself.

Her dad slowed the car down, looking off to the left, towards the city they were driving towards, Manhattan. Something was happening. He reached to the radio and changed to a couple other stations quickly, then came back to the first one. It was silence for a moment, and then a voice came on. It was a male voice, and he sounded surprised and unhappy. She realized they were talking about the city her mom lived in. Her dad slowed the car further and pulled over onto the left shoulder of the highway. She looked at him. His long face was tense, his mouth set very firmly below his angular nose, lips held tightly together.

“What's wrong dad,” she asked him.

“I don't know honey,” he answered.

He stopped the car, and turned off the engine, but left the radio on.

“I'm getting out of the car for a minute, ok?”

“Ok,” she said. Her father got out of the car, and she could see that there were many other cars stopped on the highway. Very few cars were still on the road, but the ones that were sped past very quickly. She didn't want to look at her book anymore. She wanted to know what her dad was doing. The newsman on the radio was very upset and anxious. He didn't sound like they usually do, quiet and reserved. He was talking about fire and planes and Manhattan. She crawled over the seat to the drivers side where her dad had left the car door open and stepped outside, joining him.

Outside, she looked around. There were many people standing; a few were sitting. Some were yelling; a few were crying. Everybody seemed upset and they were all looking off to the east. She looked up at her father. She was short for her age, and her father always seemed so large to her, even though he was not a very tall man. His face was still firm, but his eyes were watering. There was a tear on his cheek. She looked away from him, and out to see what everyone was looking at.

Later in her life, when she was 8 years old and in school, a teacher discovered that she wasn't able to see what was being written on the board, even when she was made to sit in the front of the class. That teacher talked to her dad and he had her go to see an optometrist. She was found to be near-sighted and was fitted with a pair of pink glasses with little strawberries on the sides. As she got older she tried to think back on her childhood, and the things she saw. It seemed that her childhood must have been a mostly blurry place to her, but she couldn't remember it that way. Her most distinct visual memories were all of near things though. She remembered standing on the road that day, and what she saw when she looked to the east, towards Manhattan island.

The sky was blue above her, but there was dark smoke above the city. She could see the tall peaks of buildings, but they were not distinct to her. Below the buildings and climbing up towards the tops, there was bright orange light that jumped and flickered. It seemed to be all over the city and it looked hot and angry.

“Oh god, your mother...” her father said softly, and looked down at her, his face collapsing into a grimace. It was noon.

no habla espanol

I awoke fairly early today. At 10 am. I plan to do the same tomorrow. This marks a new consistency for me in a weekly schedule that usually involves waking up near noon each day.

I had time before I had to report to my job to do some shopping this afternoon and wandered up Clark street to do so. My desire: earrings!!

I ventured into Sally Beauty and found that they do sell earrings. I looked through their selection and found some that I wanted. The woman at the counter helped me retrieve them from the case; a pair of studs and a pair of hoops.

As she rang up the order, she said to me, "You're not Latino, are you?"
I looked at her. She looked to be about 40 years old. She was Latino, but I did not recognize her as such until she asked me.
It's a question I've had to answer many times. I have yet to work out a natural response that concisely sums up my situation.
I often say, "Yes, I'm half Mexican.", but when I say that, I know that that infers a cultural connection on my part to Mexico, when the reality is anything but.
My father is a full blooded Mexican, and my mother is very Caucasian (whatever that means now), but I don't know my father. I know his name, and have an address he might still reside at, if he still lives. My only memory of him is of a vaguely shaped shadow in a doorway from when I was about 7 years old and very sick with the flu, laying in bed. I've no connection with him, Mexico, Espanol, or any Latino community, so I feel near to a lie whenever I tell anyone that, yes, I'm half Latino. It is in my blood and my appearance, but that is about all.
So, after a moment of silence, I told her, "I've never known my dad. I don't even remember what he looks like."
"Oh," she said. She was quiet for another moment. Then she said, "I have a cousin who is half Latino."
It was not uncomfortable. Our conversation remained pleasant and short.
I felt pretty good about it, and happily left with my jewelry.

Metal

I've been thinking that I'd like to wear earrings again. I have two holes in each ear that used to be at a 14 or 16 gauge, but I've worn nothing in them for over two years now. I lost and gave away all of my earrings in the meantime.
The holes are still visible, and I've wondered about them, so I tossed four safety pins in a pot of water and started boiling the water. I boiled them for a few minutes, and then decided that I didn't really think it was going to matter and poured the water out and gingerly retrieved one of them.
I went into my bathroom and stood in front of the mirror, and began to push it into the lower hole in my right ear. I didn't get it in very far, and I was worried that I would deviate from the old hole while part way through and punch out of a new spot on the other side.
My ear turned red and began to hurt, so I stopped.
That was last night.
Tonight, I thought, "Fuck it," skipped the boiling, took one of the pins and went for the other ear. I jammed it straight through in one try.
It felt pretty good, actually. A self managed pain.
I cleaned it, and now happily have a safety pin through my ear.
One down, three to go.
Time to go jewelry shopping.

Happiness in Clicking

Recently I was roaming through links on Fark.com and came to one in regards to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I'd been curious about what that was so I clicked on it and read all about the Monster and it's status as a deity and it's co-validity with Intelligent Design in a scientific setting.
I then found a link on that site to a podcast that contained an audio clip of an interview with Richard Dawkins where he spoke in regards to a recent documentary that he had filmed: "The Root of All Evil?".
I felt compelled to see the documentary from there, and it was inspiring. His verbosity and reverence for the human spirit is enheartening to witness as he throws his energy against the dogma that is harnessing the fear of the world and spitting in the face of the very things it proclaims to protect.
I heartily recommend it.

"Tap tap tap tap tap."

After stepping off the train in a small crowd, I walked with them and chose to take the stairs down to the street level. I was moving quickly, and watching for a good route to take among the others already on the stairs.
A woman directly in front of me wore a long black coat, with the hem of a fancy dress sticking out from below, bunching up on each step behind her. I knew this would slow her down so I looked peripherally to my left and found I was moving slightly faster than the person that was there. I sped up a little bit and slipped in front of that person to come abreast with, and then pass on the left, the woman in the long dress.
In front of her, still on the stairs, I noticed a light bright blue glove on a hand. It was knit and had a little bit of other color on it, or maybe a white pattern. I liked it, and the way the arm it was attached to was poised out from the body of the girl moving quickly down the stairs.
We both reached the bottom at about the same time.
I heard her say, "I love-"
and she turned and looked right at me, hesitated for maybe a quarter second and finished with "-going down the stairs!"
Looking at her, I said, "Me too." Then I looked down at my feet and mimed running down stairs really fast with them and said, "Tap tap tap tap tap. Going down stairs is fun!"
Our pause to speak was barely a pause at all, and it seemed as though we never stopped moving. She turned to the right and I turned to the left.
We were headed in opposite directions.

Shiny shoes

My friend was visiting from out of town, and I was showing him around downtown a little bit at night. Walking, and trying to remember the very limited trivia I've absorbed about the city thus far, we found the Billy Goat's Tavern and went in for some dinner and drinks.
I remembered reading about the place as a famous hangout for reporters from the Chicago Tribune building across the street, and lo and behold, there were quite a few reporterly looking fellows having drinks at the bar.
We ate and absorbed the journalist brain juice oozing from the dirty walls and left to wander the city some more. We came near the State street bridge over the Chicago River and I was telling Chris about Marina City when we heard a voice.
"Hey man. Hey! Thems some nice shoes. Say-uh lemme shine em for ya."
We turned and saw a black guy in a thin jacket and wearing shiny Nikes coming up. Shine shoes? He spoke really really fast and I noticed that many of his teeth were broken, but some were capped with metal.
When my friend and I didn't immediately walk away, he quickly knelt down and pulled out a cloth and a bottle of shoe shine. He took my friends foot up on his knee, squirted some brown liquid on his shoe and proceeded to shine it with the cloth.
He talked to us the whole time.
He told my friend, "Okay, I got a riddle for you. You answer it, double or nothin, double or nothin."
"Don't do it," I told him. "Don't do it. You'll lose."
The shoe shine guy looked up at me and said, "You talk real fast, where ya from?"
"I've lived in Chicago for a couple years, " I told him.
He finished the shine on both shoes, and my friend and I agreed that they did look much shinier.
The man put his hand out and said something that neither of us understood, but we realized it was money time, of course.
My friend pulled out his wallet, and took the singles he had in it, $3, and was about to give it to the guy when he said: "Seven bucks, it's seven bucks."
"Damn," I said.
My friend laughed and pulled out a $10 bill and gave it to him.

The guy said, "Alright, Imma ask you the riddle. Okay. Now tell me, how many sons did your father have?"

I knew that my friends father was somewhat estranged from him. I asked him if he knew.
He said, "Oh yeah, I know."
I thought about what I knew about him and guessed: "3".
My friend said, "No, 4. I've got three brothers from my dad."
The shoe shine guy said, "Wrong! Shit, you know your dad didn't have no babies! That's what mothers do!"
With that he walked away from us, and we turned to cross over the river and see what else could happen to us in Chicago.