Two Blogrolls to go.

If my Wondertwin Powers were up to 100%, I'd be living la vida fantastico like Chad Fox.

Who I found through Joe.My.God's story about Kinkiness. Best Quote of the evening:

"Nestor, if you stick that up my ass I'm gonna poop that pickle across the room. I'm not kidding." I do have my limits.

"You're no fun," he responded.

Gimme Gimme Gimme

The bartender at the Sidetrack said: "people sure do like to give you things. I wish people would give me free stuff like that," pointing to my stack of loot for the weekend. This included:

• Coupon for free chips & guac, from Chipolte
• Coupon for free burrito from same
• GSB bumper sticker
• Beige baseball hat, GSB logowear
• Flyer for free Hepatitis A&B vaccination
• CD for same
• Tinfoil gumwrappers
• Rubber charity wristband (orange)
• Lint (found in pocket)
• Penny (found on street)

I offered her the pick of any of this, or a cash tip. She laughed, but took the cash.

Toothpaste for Dinner

Eli sent me this:
Toothpaste for Dinner


...whose author also gives great advice, like this:

I was just wondering, if you could have any superpower in the world, and one
wish come true, what would they be? —Teneille

Teneille, I would be flyin’ around
with a thousand dollars. It would be sweet.

Natalie rocks.

I am a sexy beast, baby.

Back from Columbus. Now, all I have to do is close a couple of multimillion dollar deals, find a new love interest, and get my back hair zapped (not necessarily in that order).

Look Homeward, Angel

I'm back in Columbus for a week, for the 4th of July holiday, and a little downshifted time. It's a good vacation spot, especially since the holiday results in a lot of auxiliary events. Everyone's throwing a cookout, for example, so I've got all the beer brats I can handle, and more.

Everything moves just a little bit slower, and everything aims to be just as cool as anywhere else, except that there's a little less of it than it would take at any given time to reach a critical mass of coolness.

Sort by

At the last stop on Michigan Avenue, all of the busses were sorted by number. Eight 151 Sheridans within 15 minutes, followed by three of the usually very rare 145 Wilsons. Then, a pair of 147 Outer Drives, both so packed that I ended up riding pressed up inside the front windshield of one of them.

Strange pickup lines #168

Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful, he leaned over the counter of the booth, and asked: "Are you... Australian?"

"No," I said, "except when I stand on my head."

Chicago Chainsaw Massacre

At 3AM this morning, I woke up to the sound of a chainsaw revving.

I thought, "Surely, it's just an asshole on a dirtbike, doing doughnuts on the street outside my apartment."

We get our fair share of lively partiers with loud engines, but this wasn't one of them. It was, in fact, a man with a chainsaw, outside my window. I had a momentary flash of Friday the 13th paranoia, before seeing that he had been sent by the city to remove a large tree branch that had fallen across my street. All the same, it took a while before I could get back to sleep. I've had these weird nighttime rescue missions happen before, when I was so tired, I thought I was hallucinating the fire trucks, or the DEA raid down the way.

But no, I live in the world's most exciting neighborhood (at 3AM.)

Writer's Workshop

"Are you a writer?" she asked.

"Yes...yes I am," only after I say this do I realize it's true.

"I knew it. You look like a writer."

(Is that, "You look like a writer: sexy, hip, intellectual," or "You look like a writer: disheveled, antisocial, frumpy?")

"So..." she says, "what do you write?"

"Novels...and things. I've finished a first draft, but need to go back and edit it."

"Is it due out soon, then?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it. It has a long way to go," I tell her. Then I tell her I'm also a consultant, which is also true, but which feels like a cop-out somehow.

I ask her about what she does (runs a tea website, spends a lot of time outdoors). We chat for a while, and then I leave to catch the 146, thinking I'd better get back to this writing stuff, because it's not good enough to look like a writer.

Overheard on the EL

Girl on Cell Phone: "I mean, he was going on and on about his vacation, like it was, I don't know, Paris or the Riviera or something. He went to Schaumberg. Give me a break...what did he do, stop by the IKEA?"

Everlasting Blogstalker

The local coffee house, Pause, is the spot to sit in the summer and work on your blog posts, or in my case, the last MBA paper of my life. Huzzah.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who likes the place. While I'm sitting in the front window, a clatch in the back are namedropping the Chicagobloggers weblisting are in the big back table, a couple of Gen X slacker types are tap-tap-tapping away at laptops in the church pews, and a guy who looks suspiciously like local microceleb Jake from NoFo is sitting out front giving me quizzical looks because I'm staring squinting stalking politely trying to figure out whether I recognize him or not.

Either way, hi, Jake.

The Galactic Federation

This past Saturday was a classic example of Chicago event juxtaposition:

• Memorial Day, with attendant parade
• The International Mister Leather Convention
• The England-US soccer match at Soldier Field

I go into a bar downtown which is populated by 1/3 guys in leather and fetishwear, 1/3 people in soccer hooligan jerseys and scarves, and 1/3 indian tourists, wearing tunics & saris. I'm imagining the tourists going back to their country thinking that everyone in the US either dresses like All-England or like a leatherdaddy.

Sweet.

Overdetermination

Brian Eno wrote a great book called A Year with Swollen Appendices , which was basically his diary for 1995, with some essays tacked on the end.

I read it and said, "I can do that," which resulted in close to ten years of journal entries in (at this point) seven of those big black sketchbooks they sell at Borders, plus two little hardbound notebooks picked up on trips. This in turn spawned the webpages, and the novel that stares me in the face and says "edit me". Now that the third degree is nearing completion, I may actually have some time, energy and inclination to do that. In turn, this will spawn the movie, the broadway revival, and the action figure with the kung-fu grip.

When I first started, what I really wanted was to become the kind of person that interesting things happened to...things I could put into a journal, for example. What actually happens, of course, is that in addition to doing more interesting things, one becomes more aware that everything one does is more interesting.

This leads to the mistaken impression that everyone else would find one's life equally interesting. Leading to this post.

Back in the Saddle Again

After a year away from active posting, I'm back and in an all new location.

For the old weblog, and so forth, go here. For the new stuff, keep yer peepers open.