Open Letter to Myself

Dear Self,

For the love of god, stop complaining about the weather in Chicago. Yes, it's the end of May. Yes, it's only 65 degrees. Yes, it's mostly cloudy, and threatening to rain, just like it has been 5 of the last 6 days. Yes, it dropped 15 degrees in an hour yesterday, and you were freezing on the way home from the library.

Two choices. Move, or shut up. It's like this every year, and every year you complain about it. Everyone you know is really sick of it, I'm sure.

The average high temperature for May in Chicago is 70 degrees, and that's at O'Hare, and as close as you live to the lake, it's always going to be like this. So again, move to Naperville, or Cincinnati or Phoenix (there may be other options, I'm not sure), or shut up. It's 68 now, that should be fine. Go outside already.

Also, please don't forget to take the garbage out. That is all.

Regards,
Self

A Gift

So yesterday, after a spirited set of tennis at the park with the roommate (he lost his serve halfway through, and to be fair, was feeling the aftereffect of the sleep aid he took the night before, so it was more competitive than the final 6-2 score would indicate), I saw something hanging from the front door. Usually, something in a little hanging bag on the front door like that would be a course catalog/brochure from the local community college, or a flaming bag of poo.

But this was a book, with a green leatherette cover, with a brochure tucked in with it. The faux-gold leaf detail was the first tip, this was a religious tract. Oh goody.

See, we live in what the roommate has called "the most liberal Zip code outside of San Francisco," so we have people of many faiths and races here. I'm not sure if that makes us more fertile recruiting ground for the Jehovah's Witnesses and the other proselytizers or less, but we do get the occasional knock on the door that we have to politely blow off. But it turns out this was different...

Dear Neighbor,

Please accept the enclosed book as a
gift from the Muslim community...

And thus I saw the title "The English Translation of the Message of the Quran." Hmm, this was new.

Then I had a stunning moment of self-awareness (not really stunning, and probably not all that self-aware). The fact that it was the holy text for one religion I don't believe in (Islam) made it somehow better than it being the holy text for another religion I don't believe in (Christianity). Does that make me the kind of namby-pamby liberal that Ann Coulter (who is anything but a Christian) is always on about? I can hear her sneering "oh, sure, they love the Quran, but if it was a Bible, they'd have had some kind of fit." And she'd be entirely missing the point, but she'd also have a grain of truth in there. Because if it had been a bible, I'd have scanned up and down the block to see if the people delivering them were still there, and if so, I'd have jogged my copy back to them and said something charming like "here, don't waste the dead tree on trying to tell me about your invisible man in the sky." But since it wasn't the Bible, I actually set it down on the kitchen table, with absolutely no intention of reading it, but certainly no intention of making a show of tossing it out, either.

So is the Christian Right, which of course really is neither (no, I never will get tired of that joke, why do you ask?) actually correct about me? Or is it simply that complicated but genuine notion that I was raised to be more polite to the neighbors than to my family? The president keeps talking about having more respect for those that disagree with us, and I keep thinking "yeah, what he said" without really considering if I need to do the same.

Sorry, I guess this is one of those posts that raises more questions (1) than it answers (0). But that's what you get for now.

Reading is Fun, Learning How is Really Irritating

So the boy, as you can see from the little "About Me" section over there, is 5 years old. That, in and of itself, is not a problem. He's adorable and precocious, and just generally a lot of fun/work. But there's a growing issue, and it involves the unholy marriage between learning and entertainment that is PBS (more accurately, PBS Kids).

Our morning routine, at least for the last few months (those months corresponding to those in which I have nowhere in particular to be in the mornings) has been pretty stable. With the exception of the days when Mommy takes the late train and lets Daddy sleep in, we (the boy and I) get up at 7ish, stumble downstairs (he bounds, I stumble), fish a granola bar out of the box, and turn on the TV (at this point, a lot of you parents out there are thinking "Gah! You turn the TV on in the morning? Don't you know that the latest research indicates that the developing neuroreceptors of preschoolers are 11% more likely to show a decreased response to stimuli if they are allowed to watch television before 11AM?!?!? Don't you love your child?!?!?" I'm here to tell you now: shut up. Seriously. Shut the hell up, and go back to making your child a neurotic germophobic wreck by subtly resenting him for taking away what was doubtless a promising social life). The choice on TV was automatic, to the point where we didn't even need to discuss it most mornings. One episode of Curious George, one granola bar, one glass of milk. He could watch the first one (each episode has two separate cartoons) while he ate the granola bar, then get dressed during the second one, and if you need me, I'll be dozing off on the couch over here, the dulcet tones of narrator William H. Macy gently drifting into my last few moments of attempted sleep for the day. When George was over, it was time to put on shoes (both of us), and get off to school/daycare/whatever it is.

Recently, though, events have conspired to change this hard-earned routine, and I'm partially to blame. First, there haven't been many new episodes of Curious George lately, and it really started to get old. If I had to watch the one where George and Hundley are on the deserted tropical island (that exists approximately half an hour off the coast of what is generally assumed to be New York, but I'll save that for a "Kids' TV nitpicks" mega-post that will probably have to be published in multiple 8,000 word segments) one more time, I was going to have to take Mr. Macy hostage. So I deleted a few from the DVR, and went about searching for another show or two to record, just to freshen things up. And that's how we ended up with "Word World."

For the uninitiated, Word World is a PBS show where all the characters and many objects are made out of letters that roughly form the shape of the thing. Thus, dog. And so on. In this universe, if you needed, for example, a ball, you would need to find a "b," an "a," and two "l"s, then put them together, wherein they would magically cling together in the shape of a ball. Again, nitpicks aside (what sort of matter are these letters made of? How do they know what kind of ball?), the annoying part is that a) it generally takes the characters the entire 7 minute segment to find the requisite 4 to 5 letters, even though it's a known fact that Dog has a giant pile of all sorts of letters strewn about his house, and b) you have to do the word building while singing "It's time to build a word/Let's build it/Let's build it...Yeah!" to what I believe is an old House beat from the mid-90s. Needless to say, I can't really doze off during this.

Of course, the boy is mesmerized. And this morning, just as I was considering donating the TV to charity or stabbing my eardrums with a knitting needle (and subsequently lamenting the fact that we don't own knitting needles), I hear "Map...m-a-p. Ball...b-a-l-l. Drink...d-...daddy, how do you spell drink?" "Mmmph..rrrgh...erfft...nnnenggh" I replied, which apparently was close enough. "Drink...d-r-i-n-k."

"Good job, buddy," I said, and then it occurred to me. Drink wasn't one of the words on the show, and ball was yesterday. Holy crap, this stuff just might be working. I wonder if there's a new episode this afternoon...

Liveblogging my roommate's hookup

For the last 8 months or so, a friend of mine has been living in our basement. It's cool.

The one issue that never really came up (that's a bad pun...you'll see) is the problem of...well, let's say overnight guests (see? Bad.) The bulk of the problem comes from the fact that I really don't want to have to explain to the 5 year old what that strange woman with the rumpled hair and the roommate's dress shirt on is doing in our bathroom at 7AM. Luckily, we had one thing going for us in this regard...the roommate is terrible with women. Ok, two things. Not only is he generally terrible with women, I don't see a whole lot of women being attracted to the following scenario at a bar: so, you're almost 40, you're an unemployed member of a profession generally seen as recession-proof; you live in what is essentially a dorm room in the basement of your friend's house, and you want to go back there now? Ok, sure, where do I sign up?

But all that has come to a tragic end this evening. Because the roomie has just brought someone home (to his infinite credit, he called ahead and asked if we minded). A rough timeline:


3:30 PM The roommate departs. Who leaves for a date at 3:30? What are they, 70 year olds hoping to catch the senior special over at the Old Country Buffet?


3:31PM I forget about the whole thing for about 6 hours.


9:30PM Phone rings. Seeing the roommate's number, I look for a comfy place to sit as he gives me the tale of woe about how bad the date went while he waits for another friend to show up at the bar.


But no, this is the "uh, you mind if we come back to the house? I'll take your stunned silence as a 'yes'" call. They are to arrive in about 20 minutes.


9:30:30PM My wife, hearing the plan, nearly sprains something rolling her eyes. She decides to go to bed. In retrospect, this is why I married her. She is much, much smarter than I.


9:40PM Because I am the most awesome wingman in the history of wingmen, I rush downstairs to the roommate's room, and clear a rough path from the door. He's not what you might call a tidy person, so this is no gimme. I initially went down there to make sure there was no stray dirty underwear sitting out, but then decided it would be a mitzvah if I helped a brotha out.


This is not without it's cost. First of all, I don't want to know why there was an unopened bottle of squeezable mayonaise on the nightstand. Second, no human being should need that many tubes of Carmex, and I shudder to think how those two facts may be related. But I digress.

I clear off the bed, feed his cat (not a euphemism), and turn off the computer monitor. I briefly consider dimming the lights and turning on the stereo, but I'm running out of time, and I can't immediately recall where my "Barry White's Greatest Hits" CD is. Plus, that'd be a little on the nose. Don't you think?

9:50PM I'm back upstairs on the couch. They arrive, through the back door (again, not a euphemism). I am thus spared the awkward "uh, hi, what are you kids up to?"


9:52PM The roommate runs upstairs to use the restroom. "Did you clean my room, or were we robbed?" He is appreciative, but that might be the Labatt's talking. In fact, the Labatt's is not only doing the talking, it is also controlling most of the central nervous functions at this point.


9:55PM Having unfortunately paused the DVR, thus muting the sound on the TV, I'm treated to my first noise. Oh great, I think to myself....she's a screamer.


9:55:03PM Correction: that was him. I think. This could be a long night, what with me needing to attempt to forget I just heard that.


9:59PM Well, that was quick.


10:10PM The roommate emerges, naked (GAH!) No, wait, he's got pajama bottoms on. Close call there. He is entirely too pleased with himself. Which is unusual in that usual he's pleased BY himself. He gets a glass of water, walks toward the living room, and gives what I'm sure he thinks is a "Victory is mine!" arm raise salute kind of thing that actually looks more like Tommie Smith and Juan Carlos at the Mexico City Olympics, or maybe Nixon's farewell wave after a fifth of Old Granddad. I am simultaneously appalled and bemused. Then it's back downstairs for mandatory cuddling.

10:15PM Or not. At least I know this will be quick, and thankfully, the hockey game I'm watching is sufficiently interesting, if not quite loud enough. C'mon, Vancouver, let's make some noise!

10:20PM Up til now, I've been afraid to go into the kitchen, which is where the door to the basement is. I fear the noises, I fear the awkwardness of who might come up the stairs, and so on. But dammit, I'm hungry, and I need a sandwich.

10:22PM Ok, sandwich acquired. Ugh, forgot the chips. Cover me, I'm going back in.

10:35PM Footsteps on the staircase again. Multiple. Oy. It's both of them. They are fully dressed, back in bar costumes, and headed out, but she just wanted to meet the people he lives with. Because I'm still eating my sandwich, I do not stand up to greet them. I do notice, however, that in my haste to get in and out (ha!) of the kitchen, I made the sandwich on my 5 year old's Spiderman plate.

She seems nice, in a "just barely not drunk enough that I need to have my roommate arested for date rape" kind of way. The three of us chat for a few moments, and when the roommate mentions the 5 year old, she is surprised that there is a child in the house, despite the fact that she is literally standing in the middle of about 30 Hot Wheels that we neglected to clean up at bed time. She also says "oh, but he's probably asleep now, right?" I look at the clock to make sure it is actually nearly 11PM, then mentally cross off the list titled "Possible Jobs Held by the Person I'm Talking to" the entries "rocket scientist," "brain surgeon," and "day care professional." At least it's a good bet that she didn't notice the Spiderman plate.

10:45PM They depart, and it's unclear if he's taking her home or if they're going back to the bar. Nonetheless, the idea that has just hit me requires swift and immediate action. After all, straightening up the room was a good deed, and I just can't let that stand.

10:50PM You know that old computer paper with the holes along the side that comes in a big continuous perforated sheet? My in-laws had a box of it laying around and gave it to my son for his burgeoning art career. So I borrow a 6 foot or so section of it, and, using the boy's Crayola markers, make a large George-W.-Bush-on-the-aircraft-carrier banner reading, of course, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" complete with suggestive rockets and fireworks. Careful to avoid looking at anything too closely or touching anything, I hang the banner over his bed.

12:05(ish)AM Having just barely drifted off to sleep, I am briefly awoken by the sound, two floors down, of hysterical laughter mixed with unspeakable profanity, both directed at me. Mission Accomplished, indeed.

Uh-oh time

So here's the thing. I'm unemployed. I was let go at the end of February from a well, from a really crappy job. No, that's not right, the job itself was fine, midlevel Marketing BS. It was the situation that was crappy. My old boss was a Mayberry Machiavelli (until I figure out how to embed a link, I'll do it, but until then you'll have to accept my explanation that that's what they used to call Karl Rove and his ilk, but more generically I'm referring to someone who fashions themself a great strategist/thinker when really they're a couple of elements short of a periodic table). She was a "couldn't be bothered with the details, until something goes wrong, in which case I'll be all up in your business about the details, but let's be clear that my hands are clean here because I didn't even know anything about this" type. There was enough dysfunction around me that on one hand, I'm glad to be free of that place, and (some of) the people.

But you know, no matter how hard you try to be the guy that doesn't get wrapped up in what can charitably be called a "career," losing a job hits you eventually. It's been 4 weeks today (coincidentally, it's also been exactly a month, since it was February), and I guess today's my day. Not sure what triggered it, but I was walking down the stairs, and I thought of a name. It was the name of someone I was supposed to call back in February for some consultation on...whatever the hell, it doesn't matter. But that led me to realize that I hadn't crossed that phone call off my mental to-do list. That led to a couple other things that I realized I was still thinking about. The results weren't good. For some reason, I started re-living a lot of the nonsense that went on there. I started thinking about the politics, the mind games, and the way people treated each other. I felt the familiar feeling of being lost with no help. See, you weren't allowed to ask for help, not that you'd get any if you did. I remembered how every assignment was vague, every project was open-ended.

At the grocery store, I saw a guy who I thought was someone from there. I was only off by about 20 years, 50 lbs, and a race. I have no idea what I'll do if I ever actually run into anyone. Thankfully, that only happened maybe 3 times when I worked there, and that was almost 4 years.

Clearly, I'm not as over this as I thought.

So, now I have a blog. So now what?

A lot of people tell me "you need a blog." Ok, one person. And I think she was kidding. But I suddenly find myself with a lot more time these days, so time to get on with it, I suppose.

No expectations on what this will be. Meaning, I don't have any expectations, and I don't yet know what this blog will be about. I'll likely spout left-leaning politics pretty frequently (because there isn't enough of that on the interweb). And once it's in season, fantasy football (see earlier parenthetical). But really, I'm setting this thing up as a placeholder on the off chance I feel like I have something original or interesting to say, which really kind of seems conceited, when you put it that way.

At any rate, more to come...