Warped

An angry letter I wrote to the world this morning, inspired by the gajillions of people that crammed into Chicago for a rally:

Dear Blackhawks fans,

Just because you have waited a tortured, arduous THREE YEARS since your team's last championship doesn't give you the right to be a gaggle of gooseshits.

Honestly, it doesn't even feel like you're doing this for the love of hockey, it feels like you're just acting like a bag of dicks because you think Chicagoans are supposed to act like a bag of dicks.  This isn't a cock measuring contest, it's a celebration.  This is about pride and love and a battle well fought. 

I used to love sports.  Did you know that?  LOVE.  Never was athletic, but I tried as hard as I could to be the best that I could.  It was fun.  I loved hockey, I loved baseball.  I used to follow horse racing religiously.  Lately nostalgia's been working overtime and I'm thinking I should get back into racing, but...it can be incredibly depressing.  When an average of 1200 horses are euthanized on the track each year due to injury, probably cuz they're all jacked up on painkillers so they keep running even after they shatter their own bones - I mean, that's what made me stop watching in the first place.  Hell, that's why Luck was cancelled.  People kept on murdering horses out of mercy.

Then again, the danger makes it exciting. Exciting and terrifying and depressing. 

Whatever, so at one point everything switched in my brain and I stopped caring about sports.  At one point sports became a burden instead of a hobby.  Don't remember when.  But at one point everything stopped being fun.

DON'T THINK I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE TO FEEL JOY.

But this?  Crazy fans running around this city in a wasted stupor because you think you're supposed to?  This isn't joy.  This is a mockery of it.  This is just a bunch of fucking clowns walking around douching each other and then arguing about whether they're better at douching than all the other doucheclowns.

Am I so jaded, or are they so deluded? 

I guess it's inevitable that I would change.  I'm not talking about the old days, I'm talking about what it takes to feel joy.

...

Last week, Jessica and I just took a ten-day road trip through eight states.  Someday we will talk about how much I loved South Dakota.  I think, this summer, I'm going to do a post a week about things I love.

We stopped at a place called Pioneer Village, a museum of America's history and rapid industrialization, fashioned by adventurist and plastics mogul Harold Warp who is, officially, my new hero. 

Pre-Pioneer Village, we drove and discussed humanity's priorities and how they've shifted throughout the ages between third and second and first world nations.  In the past humans felt differently about death because they were surrounded by it - we died at a younger age, most people killed animals routinely for food, etc.  Progress and industry shifted first world humanity's priorities completely: survival is no longer a need.  It's an interest.  The immediate question is not "how will we live?" it's "do we like how we live?"

The next day we detoured from our route for a few hours over to Pioneer Village, where we were introduced to Harold Warp, Colossal Collector, and hanging above our heads was a sign with a Warp quote that I will now totally paraphrase because I can't exactly remember it -

Man first fights for the right to survive, 
then the right to create art, 
then the right for power.

Which is what I was trying to say but way better. 

...

When I was younger, sports were art.  For me, of course.  I can't speak for the world, and I can't assign a different value to another person because I am not another person.  This isn't a hokey, "back in my day things meant something" post, because today IS my day, as are all the days after and before, from birth to death, so that saying makes no sense.  But I've grown as a person, and my perception has changed.

So again: When I was younger, sports were art.

Now that I see them as a quest for power, I've lost interest.  I don't give a shit who wins.  I just want to marvel at a thought well-created, an action well-executed.

...

And that is why all you fucking Blackhawks fans annoyed the fuck out of me this morning.

- Rassles

What Happens In the Oreo Lounge...Happens Every Day.

(Scene: An office. Friday afternoon. Three twenty-something girls are chatting in the "break room," but none of them call it that. About two years ago one of these ladies (that means me, a-holes) changed the room's Caller ID to "The Oreo Lounge," no one else in the office knew how to work the phones to change it back. She considers this a personal victory. Back then, there were fuckloads of Oreos, like, all the time. Which is weird, because back then she was thinner. She is now considering an all-Oreo diet. She remembers how well the Oreos softened when she dipped them in her coffee (The Oreo Lounge was always out of milk). Those were some delicious fucking Oreos. Perhaps a trip to CVS is in order. Oooo--and white cheddar Cheez-Its. Those need to happen.)


Nat: I just like, you know, being spontaneous. Like Howie is way more down to earth about stuff, but I'm like hey, you know, let's go out to dinner, let's see a movie, let's do something! But all he wants to do is watch baseball.

C-Bird: Same thing with Eric, but instead of just like, going out, we've got team conflict.

Rassles: Why'zat?

C-Bird: (she rolls her eyes) He's a Cubs fan. (the co-workers nod in understanding. Nat sucks in a breath)

Rassles: (taking a sip of her coffee) I like him.

C-Bird: You would.

Rassles: You guys are so brave. You're like a sixties bi-racial couple. Will your children be raised to be snobs or racists?

Nat: What's that? Cubs or Sox?

(Rassles nods, gravely)

C-Bird: I can't even think about that right now.

Nat: I think she'll teach her kids to be more open-minded about which team they choose. Things aren't always in Cubs or Sox. Sometimes you gotta hit that-uh-Bear middle ground.

(The three girls laugh a little, and do that thing where they simultaneously sigh out "yeah," and then they politely laugh again.)

C-Bird: Still, getting him to go out with my friends is like herding cats.

Rassles: I love that phrase. But I like to substitute "cats" with "hamsters." I support alliteration.

C-Bird: (completely ignoring her) It's like we're settling into this routine.

Nat: Yeah. Come home, work out, eat dinner, watch TV, sleep.

C-Bird: Lather, rinse, repeat. Everything gets so boring. Let's shake it up a little, you know?

(A man sticks his head into the Oreo Lounge)

Thomacz: Ladies! I've just been off the phone with Action Man. He has given us permission to leave work around two this afternoon, provided the mail has arrived.

C-Bird: Thanks!

Rassles: Thank you, sir.

Nat: I knew it.

Thomasz: You ladies are very welcome. (he pops back out to go spread the news to other co-workers)

Rassles: Yeah buddy. (she turns to her co-workers) We should totally celebrate and grab a drink or something. An off-work-early drink of awesomeness.

C-Bird: Yeah, I prolly should just get home. I told Eric that I thought we were getting off early, and we were gonna grab an early dinner.

Nat: Yeah, I can't either. I gotta work out.

Rassles: You work out every night.

Nat: Well, if you've got a schedule you stick to it.


So much for fucking spontaneity.

...

Worst. Scrimmage. Ever.

Is it too hard to ask that you just keep up with me? (Not you guys, that guy. From upstairs.) Because if you can't follow my line of conversation, if I have to keep on handing you spoken footnotes every time I reference something, if you just stand there like a dumb bastard...

When I'm on, when I'm talking? This shit's real. We're the leads in a Robert Altman flick, and I'm playing five characters. You cannot trip, you cannot hesitate, you cannot rewind unless it's part of the joke. It doesn't need to make sense, you asshole, this is about meandering and leaps and propulsion - do you trust me? Because if you do this right, if you know who's on first? There could be magic.

Dude, I have been trying very hard to have a crush on you, but this is just not working for me. You aren't funny or smart or even a little bit cute. I can't do this anymore.

We're breaking up.

Fuck you, I know we weren't dating in the first place, but this whole chance routine? The one where you bring our mail that gets accidentally delivered to your office and then you loiter awkwardly in front of my desk? Not working.

If you had the fucking sack to play along - I just - I mean - is that so fucking hard? People, all of you, serious question: is it so hard to find a proper verbal sparring partner?

Obviously you're paying attention to me, and that's flattering and all, but the fact is you're a squirrel. You aren't shiny and you can't fly, and I kind of hate that you're what I have to work with. You're like an afternoon snack of salt-less crackers and things that are just not delicious and how is this fair when that bitch over there got interesting snacks, like girl scout cookies and bacon and cigarettes.

Gaahhhh.

This is very aggravating.

Okay, I'm asking your name today, and if you fucking stutter?

"It's ah uh sorry I'm uh uh Jim hey."

Go home.

...

Fun With Foreigners, But Not the Band

So yesterday at a late-night barbeque I had the pleasure of meeting a fifty year old drunk ass Polish man, who has nearly half of his teeth and a thick, heavily slurred accent. He was the only one of his kind, struggling through a slop of skinny drunken hipsters.

After we watched the landlady throw a giant wicker basket on the firepit (which I'm pretty sure was an old wheelbarrow full of flaming two-by-fours) and nearly set the tree on fire, Gyna and I started making friends with people we didn't know. Being me, I got to talk to a close-talking drunk twice my age. He loves me. Duh.

"I beeld house. For you. Yes?"

"You want to build me a house?" I turn to Gyna, who is next to me, talking to a guy that's our age, with a full set of teeth. "He wants to build me a house."

"Oh god," she shakes her head.

"I know."

The Polish Man interjects. "Yes, and we have sree chilren. All boys."

"Oh, really? Okay then."

"You are spayshel. Veree. You are streeling, yes? Streeling?"

"Stealing?"

"Yes! No, no. You are um, carree? You carree beeg theengs?"

"Strong?"

"YES! YES! I know. Eez no bullshit. Some say bullshit I say no bullshit. But my Eeenglish, is...meeeeeeh, you so-so, you okay, you Polish, you bullshit. No bullshit. I am Polish. I am talking to spayshel girl, who my son like."

"I am definitely special. Exactly."

"Yes. And you have dance?" He tries to dance with me.

"No, dude, I'm not gonna dance with you."

"You have dance, and we dance. And we do this? You have pen?"

"No, sorry, I don't have a pen."

"You have pen, and you write...name...and you write tellofone."

"Dude, I'm not giving you my phone number."

"You frend? We frend. Son frend."

"Your son?"

"Okay."

"How old is your son? Do I know him?"

"I have son and he is, um, he like...shport. He um," the guy starts thrusting his his hips and pumping his fists, and my eyes bulge, "he do zis, on snow...in mountain...in um...snow. He has hat, he has...shport, he has...no fear. NO fear!"

"He skiis?"

"He do that, yes. Skeeze? Skeeze. Yes. His is very big skeeze." He reaches over and squeezes my arm. "You make mossle."

"Um, okay." I flex.

"You are skeeze?" He starts the thrusting thing again.

"No, I don't ski. I would like to ski, but I have this problem, you see, it's called, severe uncoordination and subsequent falling all the time. Aaaaaand I like saying things that you won't understand."

Uncomfortable silence. I sip my beer. Gyna is chatting away. I look around for a way out, but then the Polish Man starts yammering again.

"You are baseball?"

"I am baseball? Yes. Yes, I am baseball. Are you baseball?"

"Me? I um...no. I am beerd, and I clean, and I no have beerd. I have...knife. I creem on face."

Oh, jesus. "You cream on face?"

"You see--" he grabs my hand and makes me feel his cheek "--is clean. Veree. I do that."

"Oh, you shave. Are you a barber?"

"Ohhh, no, yes. I like dark beer. You? You like?"

"Do I like dark beer? Sure. It's fine."

"My Eenglish is not good. Is focking bullshit."

"Exactly."

"Ackzaktillee? What is zis ackzaktillee? You say?"

"It means, um, you are right. You are correct."

"Oh, I am veree ackzaktillee. All ze time! Veree ackzaktillee!"

What fun the foreigners are.

...

The Adventures of Poppy and His Ridiculous Spawn: Part 1

Saturday afternoon, I had to visit Poppy with my Dad and sister. They've officially given him three to five weeks, and earlier that day my Dad and uncles went out and picked a cemetery plot. Nothing to cheer you up from pre-death cemetery trips like a nursing home.

"If he's just in there wearing a diaper, I'm walking right out the fucking door," Katsisch snaps as we step out of the elevator.

Dad laughs at her, and puts his arm around her shoulder. "He's not going to be wearing just a diaper. Well, no. He will be. And you're gonna like it."

"I hate it here. Old people smell funny."

"Like bad meat at Subway," I mutter and glance around the nursing home, where Poppy moved on Tuesday.

"He's probably just going to be watching the Cubs game," my dad changes the subject. "We aren't staying for long."

"An hour," Katsisch bargains. "Tops. You know we're only going to talk to each other. He doesn't give a crap."

"Of course he does." Dad is getting nervous and pissed. Probably because she's a little bit right, and he knows it.

I smack my sister's arm with the back of my hand, "Dude, just shut up and deal with it. The less you complain, the less awkward this is gonna be."

"You don't want to be here either," she hisses, "And no hitting."

"That's goddamn irrelevant."

"I give you permission to kill me if I live to be eighty five. I refuse to be diapered and gangrenous."

"Sister, I'm honored, but it might happen sooner 'cause I bought a gun like eight years ago and etched your name on a bullet now shut the hell up."

"Well, I'm murdering you back."

"No, because I'm gonna...ummm...live forever."

"Both of you shut the hell up," Dad whispered, pointing at Poppy's name on the door to our left.

"Hi, Poppy!" Katsisch cheers all falsely as she turns into the room, with that forced volume that so many people reserve for the elderly. I watch her hand snap to her mouth as she pivots towards the wall, shaking with giggles.

"Hey there, Domer," Poppy smiles and tries to pull up his bedsheet. Probably so he can cover up the fact that he's totally just laying there in his fucking diaper, with his pruny, saggy legs all splayed out and a half buttoned flannel shirt, exposing a pale, wrinkled belly. His foot is bandaged. Damn. I really wanted to see that gangrene.

Calmer, Katsisch and I say hello, settle in, and watch the Cubs game, while Poppy pulls his sheet up, kicks it off, rolls it in a ball, unrolls the ball...constant fidgeting. I know, it's common, and there's a medical reason for it that I don't give a shit about.

We try conversation, but it's just a half hour of old man sighs and one-word answers. Want to sit up on your bed? How's the Cubs game? What's the score? Man, that Milton Bradley is a bitch, huh?

Poppy's having none of it.

...

What Happened To Numbers Five Through Eight

Interview. Continued from yesterday, where I ramble on and on and end abruptly with nary a conclusion, nor lesson, nor moral. So thanks, Sarala, for your questions and fun.


5. You like lists. Write me the two following lists:

Ten Reasons to Live In Chicago [the number is irrelevant]

• Kuma's Corner: I know, I know, I talk about this place all the time because every single bite, every sip, every sound at this restaurant blows my mind. The menu itself, like the actual physical listing of food and drink in ink on paper, is subtle discourse at its finest. Plus it's delicious.
• Wrigley Field: I don't give a fuck about baseball, first of all.  The bars surrounding Wrigley Field are populated by people that are the exact opposite of me and what I value in life and human beings in general. But just one day at Wrigley Field is enough to sustain the other three-hundred sixty-four. Half the fun of Cubs games is reveling in the frenzy of the stadium and the neighborhood that houses it. Shit sings. Fuck the Cubs, fuck baseball, fuck teams, fuck the organ, fuck hot dogs, fuck Old Style. Look at the fucking rooftops...the entire city is there and watching. Can they see me? They can see me. And I'm a part of it. There's intoxication built into the bricks, and once you've caught that swell you forget that they can see you, and when did the turbulence kick in? Fuck, turn it up, turn it up, turn it up. And it hums.
• Experience middle child syndrome from the viewpoint of a city in a nation. Geographically, spiritually, emotionally, chronologically. Watch our struggle for recognition from the inside, feel the city surge with hope even after it gets collectively kicked in the balls and just goddamn refuses to stop wishing that someday, somehow, if we whine enough and start enough fights, we'll get that respect.
• Smell the despair and lean on its shoulders, because Chicago is a lonely place, filled with lonely people who really, really depend on each other. Is it weird that I love that? Does anyone else feel that about this place? The corruption of soul, the crooked pride, the brothers that grow from it? No? I feel that here. It's neat.
• Food. Hot dogs, deep-dish pizza, chili, sliders, foot-long Italian beef sandwiches.  Grease, clogged arteries, heart attacks. Cholesterol on a stick.  Mow like wow.
• This town has more bars per block than any other city in the country. Some town in Wisconsin wins the bars per capita contest, but around here, you can't walk more than a block without passing some place to sit and get drunk.
• The fucking glory of summer in Chicago cancels and exceeds the depression of winter.  Now, I love the winter.  But no one else does, so I'm alone in my happiness, which grows into depression.  And to further amplify my conviction: I hate the heat, but it's worth it in Chicago. There's just so much shit to do and not do and lounge and avoid and act and live, it's great.
• Honestly, the changing of the seasons is essential to the feel of the city. It's impossible to fully appreciate good weather when you've never been through the bad. In a town where the air temperature, exclusive of wind, has scale of 130 degrees to play with throughout the year, you're on your toes.

Ten Reasons To Get The Hell Out Of Here, Like Tomorrow [see bracketed follow-up of previous list]

• Fuck this fucking weather.
• How can one stay in shape or get in shape with consistently giant portions of fatty goodness? I mean, sure, I could start like, running or something. Or walking briskly. Or getting off the couch. But it's so hard when there's all this eating to be had.
• Daley, you corrupt motherfucker: fill in these potholes fucking right now, or I'm just gonna sledgehammer the entire street.
• This town's elevated subway system is entirely designed to discourage ethnic diversity, because the neighborhoods with the least white people are the neighborhoods where they didn't build any trains, making transportation much more complicated for people who live near or within those neighborhood patches. Like me. Even though my neighborhood consists nearly entirely of old Ukrainian men. Whatever.
• Wrigleyville
• Hipsters. Hipsters and their superior bullshit, the name-dropping and the condescending accompanied smirk, their smarmy hair and their "skinny" jeans (fuck you, they look stupid on everyone) and their cultural stranglehold and worship, misuse, and abuse of irony. How they stand there at concerts, too placid and cold to react to the music. How everything I like is automatically bad (fuck you, I like Walking Tall) because I don't have plastic fashion glasses and intentionally clashing but slightly complimentary patterns to my clothes because of my carefully-constructed quirkiness. 
• Even worse: the people who emulate the hipsters, the recent converts from the high-class neighborhoods who show up and dress like the hipsters and live in their hood, adopt the elitist personality and then they don't have anything to be elitist about, and they all copy each other and don't care about shit all unless it's their scene or their image or whatever they hear on The Daily Show (I should add: I love The Daily Show. I watch it every day. Stop trying to pawn it off as your own ideas.  We're all on the internet.  You cannot fool us). They're going to drive me to genocide.
• Stop building banks where there used to be hot dog shops, because all you're generating is really, really angry drunk people.

6. You wrote in a recent post: "Never start an argument with an ignorant bastard who thinks his business parking in the middle of the road for several minutes during rush hour is far more imperative than the flow of traffic." This kind of behavior is one of my pet peeves. I once posted about it. I'm in your corner but I need your advice. Should we both sign up for anger management classes?

I've been pretty good about controlling my anger lately, actually, which is one of the reasons I did not get out of my car yelling like fuck-all at that guy the other day. When you grow up all sorts of Italian/Irish/Catholic, every little thing is taxing your sanity. With this background in mind: I gave up fighting for Lent last year, despite the fact that I'm not Catholic anymore, but because I feel shamefully guilty about everything. I gave up nothing this year. Possibly pride.

So, yes. Either anger management, or Catholicism.


7. The big debate in my house is Mac vs. Windows. Which do you pick?

Well, I'm a Mac fan, because my laptop is the shizznet. This has risen not from actual computer literacy and shrewd technological experience, but an unrelenting devotion to anything supported by Justin Long.


8. Do you tell many people you know about your blog? Do they read it and what has been their response?

A shit ton of my friends know about the blog, and about five of them read it regularly. I'm guessing it's because they are self-obsessed and yearn to see their names in print, as am I. Even though my name is not on here. And neither is theirs. But they satiate my ego splendidly, and I'm pretty sure they think I'm the fucking bees knees, which is like the most daft expression ever, due to the excessive quantities of knees per bee.

...

There Are, In Fact, Multiple Row Sevens Throughout Soldier Field

So when my boss fast-talked me into accepting those football tickets, he spouted, "Row Seven" in between many adjectives and verbs and other forms of grammatical syntax that I've forgotten, because I ignore my boss as much as I can, as I did all of my English teachers.

Usually when someone donates tickets to my office (for all of the hard work we do servicing the community), they're phenomenal, and fuck yeah Bears game.

I soon remembered that there are, in fact, multiple Row Sevens throughout Soldier Field, and we could be in any one of them. This did not concern me.

One thing you should know about me: I don't really have a winter coat. There's this nice-ish looking camel coat I wear to work, with lining that rips a little more every single time I lift my arms. Not wearing that to a Bears game.

Let the layering of the sweatshirts commence. For extra luck with the cold, I topped it all off with my Homer Brewing Company sweatshirt, because I like beer, and it kept me warm when I was in Alaska. But most importantly, because I wanted the opportunity to mention, over and over again, that one time I went to Alaska, and I bought this sweatshirt and a growler of Red Knot Scottish Ale and drank it on a rocky beach where the sun rarely sets.

Thank god I've gotten that out of the way.

So yeah. We arrive at the game, and our spectacular Row Seven Seats are in Row Seven of the upper deck. Not only that, but they're in a corner facing goddamn Lake Michigan, and there be biting winds. And I be cold as all fuckery.

But the game was excellent. My co-workers ditched me at half time and left me drinking and sitting alone. About halfway through the third quarter some of the neighboring Phase 4 Fans gave up (come on, guys. Ten degrees? Nothin.) and pretty soon I had a radius of four empty chairs around me. I was not warm. But was I going to let a little cold front scare me away? Hell no.

And then I got very lonely.

I could survive the dropping temperatures in the Fortress of Solitude, but never its ever-desolate name.

So I got the fuck out of there. They had stopped selling beer anyway.

Then I met up with Gyna, who has been in California all week, and we went to a bar with a vast array of desecrated coloring books, where nearly every page of Spiderman, Biblical characters, My Little Ponies, Anakin Skywalker, and eerie Precious Moments children contains visible hand-drawn genitals.

So we whipped out our pens and helped them finish off all of the pictures they missed. Besides, the bartenders threatened to take away our PBR if we didn't draw dicks on stuff.

...

"You have to be to work early tomorrow."

See, this whole Holidaily postal obligation thing is really throwing me off. Because automatically once something is required of me, it's an assignment, and I just do not want to do it.

Like, "You have to be to work early tomorrow."

No I fucking don't, boss. I'm strolling in forty minutes late just like I do every other day. I might even stop and get myself some munchkins, just so I can tack an extra five minutes onto my lateness.

Here's the thing: no one is going to know if I'm late, because I have to open the office tomorrow. And really, what's the point of showing up late when there's no one around too afraid to reprimand you?

But anyway, there's this meeting for our board of directors, and the boss always nominates me to stay at the office to answer phones instead of hanging out at the board meeting.

I wish I could say this decision was because of my aptitude for timeliness and responsibility and the fact that when it comes to being in charge of anything other than my own sobriety, I am nonpareil. But I'm pretty sure the boss knows that before like, nine-thirty...I'm fucking useless. And he doesn't want the board members catching me napping during their speeches like last time.

They really try hard to keep me away from some of the members of the board. Once it worked in favor for us during an auction we held, because I sat around and drank with one of the younger board members (so, for Board standards, he was in his fifties) and he ended up spending like $20,000 on something worth far less. And he called the office a few days later and told me his wife was pissed and he had to charge it on multiple cards.

Then there was the time I got sent to the Cubs game to try to convince those guys to (a) buy me drinks, (b) give us money, and (c) not purchase the Cubs.

My boss willingly put me in a situation where I spoke out loud to people with enough money to buy the Chicago Cubs.

He's got balls.

And hey, it worked.

...

Throwback

The greatest part of my job is the perks. I mean, other than, you know, saving the children of the world and being a big fat hero, people give us perky shit. Like, cool shit.

On Wednesday we were gifted four tickets to the Cubs/Braves 1948 Throwback game, row three, behind home plate. Booyah, I said.

I am like Crazy Cat Lady today, only with commas instead of kittens.

So yeah, Cubs throwback game yesterday was nothing short of BAD ASS.

When Theriot fucks up his face gets all scrunchy. He was so close I could have hit him with a button, had I chosen to throw one, or had I a button to throw.

Governor Blagojavich was three rows behind us. He's just as big of a douche as he looks. Fucking Donald Trump hair and flipshades and whatnot. I don't even like him, and I'm a huge liberal.

After the game I walked up to him all British-like, tapped him on the shoulder and said, " 'ello, Gov'nah," and bolted away all giggly and drunk. It was, perhaps, my proudest moment in baseball.

Co-worker Droz was working it with the richoldwhiteguys to our left, palming her business card and trying to score herself a Texas sugardaddy. That's my theory, at least, but she insists her intentions were in the best interest of BSF. She's wonderful, but she's full of crap.

I had some pleasant conversation with the drunken assholes in front of us. Discussing the weather, beer, ice cream, and what you do with teddy bears.

Halfway through the game, Droz informed me we were there for networking purposes...why do these people keep on trying to get me to network? Don't we have enough donors? I'm not good at networking, we've established this.

Thinking about it later, though, makes sense: put professional Droz with the CEO's from Houston, and let me talk to the drunken evolutionary throwbacks in front of us who focus all of their attention on the accumulation of Old Style. One of them was drinking Old Style Light. I called him a pussy, and he bought us some beer. Nice.

So I guess I'm okay at networking, but only if it involves Old Style and Wrigley Field.

It's odd, really, because I love baseball games, and I get all into it, but I've never been a sports fanatic. I get just as excited when I see the Kane County Cougars.

People get mad at me at games too, because I cheer for all the good plays regardless of team. That'll get my ass kicked, someday. That's what it is: I love the game, but I feel no loyalty to any team. If I had to choose, it would be the Cubs...but really, like I said, Kane County is the shit as well. Go Cougars.

I just think it's funny when I'm at a game with a hardcore Cubs fan and I have to explain the infield fly rule.

...

Yeah, they said that would happen in health class.

Definitely watched about three buses pass me by this morning. After the third drive by I started getting a little irritated. So I called out to my fellow transitors, "Where you guys headed?" At first people just kind of stared at me like I was the crazy person to avoid standing next to once we squooshed our way onto the next bus, so I added, "I'm going to Washington and Franklin. Anyone else headed that way?"

So this short woman was all, "Yeah, I'm just two blocks south of there."<

"Cool. Wanna split a cab?" I'm not gonna lie, I had to struggle to avoid suggesting we "go halfsies."

She laughs, "I guess."

"Anyone else wanna split a cab? Heading to the Loop?"

Some thirtysomething suit agreed to share with us 'cause he was going to Ogilvie, and then this other younger chick asked if she hitch too.

So we hailed a cab and piled on top of each other in the back seat, with the suit riding up front. Gave the cabbie directions, awkwardly introduced ourselves, made small talk about our jobs etc. etc. Cost me a whole three dollars, and in the end, was huge success.

Got to work and was almost immediately informed that before the end of the day I would be in possession of two tickets to the Cubs game tomorrow night, row ten, right behind first base.

Work ended, walked over to River East 21 and caught the 5:30 showing of Superbad, fun, with my supercool roomie.

So what we've learned today is this: I win.

...