Lucky Strikes

Hey, today's Friday the 13th! Woooo!

Yesterday was gorgeous. Amazing clouds in the sky, like mountains. I took several pictures of them, they were so lovely. The wind was really strong, made the bike ride home hellishly slow, wore me out near to breaking! One neat thing as I went along the piers across from Buckingham Fountain -- the wind was so strong, it was taking lines and rigging on the masts of all of the sailing boats and thrumming it against the masts, making a wind chime kind of symphony out of the masts, all different tones. I wished I'd had some audio recording equipment handy to catch it; it would've been a good addition for NPR's "Lost and Found Sound" -- I don't know if they're still doing that, but it was really neat.

We went to the lakeshore, near the breakwater, past the "Castaways" fake ship. It was fun to see all the stuff going on: the volleyball; the dodgeball/bombardment; a hippy chick doing hula hoop on the beach, entirely in her own world; some kids playing with giant orange frisbees (they were as big as trash can lids; all the bikers, joggers, people on the dating prowl, while the City began to light up as the sun went down, the land breeze cool and pleasant, the lake softly surging. It was really pleasant, although as the sun went down, I couldn't help but think of "The Lost Boys" -- the press of people everywhere, the carnival atmosphere, all of that.

I'm glad it's Friday; we're doing stuff with friends on Sunday, and I think we'll go downtown Saturday, show B1 the globes they've got lined up all over the park. He'd love that, I think.

Titanium toes and laser discs

I really, really need to get some steel- or titanium-toed slippers. Christ. Years ago, I nearly punted a cast-iron table with my left foot, nearly broke a couple of toes, broke some toenails. Anyway, I have a weekly track record of toe-stubbings. I swear, I should track it, see how often I do it. This morning, I whacked my left foot against my sneakers, tore free one of those toenails that hadn't ever fully recovered from the whacking of years ago -- imagine the toenail like the hood of a car, flipping up from my toe. Aughh! I didn't want to rip the bastard off entirely, so I peroxided it after taking my morning shower, then bandaged it so it wouldn't snag on my socks when I put'em on. What a PITA! So irksome.

My upper left arm is blistered from the sunburn I got a week ago. I've been putting aloe on it. I'm such a sun sissy. I've joked with Spousette that if we ever moved to Hawaii, I'd have to become nocturnal. I told her I'm built for clouds, cold, and snow. Give me a kilt, a claymore, and some Highlands to feud upon and I'm good. Spousette's all for the sun and the warmth. B1 is like her, like fair but doesn't burn (that magic mix!) while B2 and I burn very quickly! B2 is like a little marshmallow, is only starting to get a few freckles across his cute baby button nose.

Got our new DVD player (B2 had trashed the old one). The new one is so nice and compact; it's a fraction of the size of the other one (imagine an encyclopedia -- it's about that same length, but thinner). Gotta love miniaturization, baby! Hopefully B2 won't demolish this one, too, since it's light enough for him to pick up and hurl, our little Luddite! I was going through DVD withdrawal, so I'm glad it showed up when it did.

Shallot didn't invite me to her birthday outing this weekend. I'd love to know what her reasons are, although I doubt I'd know for sure if it was real or bullshit. I only found out about it from Homegrrl, and asked Leona if she was going, too. Maybe she thought it should be girls' night out or something, is doing her patented friend triage, or else figured I'd not turn up, or she's got some boy in tow and doesn't want me to tease or embarrass her while she's impression-managing the fella, or else she's miffed at me for some obscure reason. Ah, well. I wished her a happy birthday, anyway, to be gentlemanly. But if you know me, you know that sensible people want me at their parties, because, as Homegrrl puts it, I'm a "Sparklie" -- I light up in social settings.

After today I'll have logged nearly 225 miles on the bike in three weeks! Woot!

Good morning

I biked in this morning; it was idyllic -- the sun over the lake, the lake lightly churning waves, looking like the ocean. The Great Lakes are truly inland seas -- stupid European who named them "Lakes" missed it by a mile. Or else they were being snide or something, or perhaps thought nobody would believe them if they said they were seas. Imagine how full of fish they had to have been, what a wonderland the New World had to have been -- it's like Christians returned to Paradise, but didn't recognize it when they saw it, and turned it to Hell, instead. Certainly, looking at the industrial wasteland that is East Chicago and Gary can only make one long for the dunes and woods that once hugged those shores, and the paucity of life in Lake Michigan pales before what was once there.

So, TB is now gone; I knew I'd be screwed over when they did the office move-around, that she'd get that corner spot, would flee, and then it would be less likely for a piker like me to get that spot. I can just see Tsarina (aka, Cherry) listening to me make my pitch for it and saying "Well, we just made the move a few weeks ago; seems kinda soon to move again, doesn't it?" Mmm, yeah.

Nearly done with the six pounds of sweet Italian sausage I bought last Friday at Costco. If I finish it by tomorrow, I'll have eaten about a pound of meat a day! Woot! Another life experience I can check off my list, I guess! When I told Leona, she was envious.

I saw that Pope Benedict invalidated the other denominations of Christianity, saying that the Catholic Church was the only official one. Yeah, yeah. A little late for the Counter-Counter-Reformation, isn't it, Benny?

Speaking of reformation, isn't it time somebody tried to impeach Bush and Cheney? C'mon, people. Lordy.

200 miles biked by the end of today.

Randomness

RULES:

We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I'm in dire need of a new job; my current job will likely be gone by next year. But I don't actually care. Only in the most Pavlovian sense of awareness of it, like the inevitable financial doom unemployment would inflict on our family, but little more. I hate working for other people.

2. I really like Suede. They were a great band, even when they had to change their name to The London Suede they were good. Even when they're a little over-the-top, a little grandiose, it all still works.

3. I ate three slices of apple cinnamon coffee cake this morning. It was on a shelf at work, in honor of a coworker's last day. I thought a good way to honor her leaving would be to eat three slices of it.

4. I like cleaning laundry lint screens; it's very satisfying.

5. I'm an anarchist, although I will also answer to "libertarian socialist" if one must pigeonhole me. You can even find me in Wikipedia, if you knew where to look.

6. I can't remember my favorite color. It was blue when I was a child, what I'd habitually answer, but I don't honestly know if that's still my favorite color these days. I think maybe I don't really have a favorite, anymore.

7. I hate my writing, but I still do it, regardless. I constantly worry about my mediocrity as a writer, when contrasted with my prolific output -- like does the quantity of my output reflect the quality of it? I don't know. I feel like the magician on a stage; you know how the trick works, so it's not really magic, or even entertainment, exactly -- not for the magician; the trick either works, or it doesn't. Same with writing. It's more like a compulsion: I'm a writer, therefore I write. But am I a good writer? Damned if even know, anymore. I used to think I was.

8. My totem is Dog.

I tag anybody who reads this, if they haven't been tagged already.

Silverfishin'

I think I shall not bike today, given the likelihood of the obligatory late-afternoon Chicago thunderstorms. Gruh. But the rest of the week looks to be mostly clear, so I'll bike then.

Got those silverfish traps, and deployed them in our bathroom. They've caught some of the pesky little bastards, but not nearly enough -- my foot remains the best silverfish trap. I hate those things.

Really don't want to go to work today. Today's TB's last day, before her exodus. I overheard Costy talking on the phone about tying editors' salaries to the page counts of the publications they work on, although I didn't hear all of that -- but it does fit his more = better quantitative ethos.

So annoying -- I've still got a bit of a sunburn on my left arm; an archetypal trucker's burn! I was so careful over vacation to not get burned, paleface that I am, and then on the drive home, I cooked my left arm. Stooopid.

I watched "Hell's Kitchen" last night, wanted to do a happy dance when drowned rat Melissa was axed from the show. That was great. That bossy, bullying bag of rags needed to be dumped the week before, but I was glad she got what was coming to her.

As for who I'm rooting for, it's tougher this year, no real stars. I like Julia, just as an underdog -- her personality's kinda not-there, and I think she has no chance of winning, given her limits as a chef (she's a solid short-order cook, works well in the kitchen, but seems way out of her league, otherwise). I think Rock will be the one to win, because he combines culinary imagination with hard work and good kitchen skills. He's the likeliest to win, I think. The other guys are dopes; they've got no chance. Brooke the nanny has some talent, but isn't up to the task, and Jen the cipher, nah (although she handled her position in the kitchen very well last night). She's a possible dark horse, although I doubt it.

Disabled

The Internets at home was screwy over the weekend, irritatingly enough. I should probably recap the vacation, but meh, sez I. I'm back at work, my mood in the dumps, as ever. I could feel my mood slowly downward-spiraling as I neared the inevitable return. It's funny, but I lose track of what day it even is if I'm not at work. Isn't that funny? Utterly unstuck in time I become! Vacation 1 is down; Vacation 2 looms in early August.

So, I'd mentioned getting yet another rejection on a story, right? It was one I thought was my best, and was said to be a strong story, one the reviewer greatly enjoyed, but wasn't quite right for the magazine I sent it to. One of the suggestions was to shorten it a little, so I cut 1100 words from it; now it's something like 7.5K long, which might help it land somewhere. Sigh. I just can't win.

Speaking of winning, a buddy of mine won first place in a writing competition, earning the $2,000 first prize! I joked with him before submission time that if I didn't enter it, he'd have a great chance of winning (he'd told me about it, but it was too near the deadline for me to whip anything up for it). And sure enough, he won! That's a huge feather in his cap. Prizes are a great way for no-name writers to raise their profile. I need to do more of that, I guess, since my profile is non-existent.

Back in Chicagoland

Got back from the journey to Woe-hio yesterday, and am quite glad to have another day off from work today. Yay! I went to Costco today, snagged $452 worth of groceries, so we're stocked up, to say the least. I'm sorely tempted to buy a computer at Costco; they're so cheap and fancy! But not yet, not yet.