Epiphanies
I woke up this morning, and suddenly things started dawning on me.
1.) I should stop smoking so much--not necessarily because it's bad for me, mind you, but because my parents "fired" me from invent-a-job a couple weeks ago, and $3.20 per pack Wisco cigs (yeah, Indian reservations!) are a whole lot easier on the budget than $6.50 per pack Chicago cigs. Lighters are more expensive down here, too.
2.) I need to stop waking up after 10. It dawned on me that there's so much of the world to see, and how will I ever see it all. Yeah, right, my ass, like the world needs me in broad daylight more often. Really, I'd just like to read a paper again before the news of the new day has already mostly happened. This problem will no doubt ameliorate itself when I get a real job.
3.) I need to clean my apartment. My clothes are marginally organized in stacked piles all along a wall in my bedroom, but it's still a little ridiculous for a grown man to have his threads strewn all over the place. I also need to get some garbage bags and do a Goodwill drop off of t-shirts and shit that I'll never wear again.
4.) My hair has gotten too long. I look like I walked off the set of "That 70s Show" which was much more acceptable when I was 18 as opposed to 28. Far past the point of simply needing a shave, my back-of-the-neck hair has completely assimilated with the rest of my coif. The whole tangle of hair looks pretty rock star, but it's hard to take myself seriously when I wake up looking like Robert Smith of The Cure.
5.) I need a girlfriend. I'm sick of spending so much time alone, and I've put in more than enough boozin'-with-the-buddies time this summer to justify my manhood. I also would like to walk into a restaurant with a hot girl so that I can sneer at all the dorks who are out on Sausage Night. Oh yeah, and: ass.
As you might know, I am normally quite comfortable with continuing the status quo. (I'm reminded of a certain "Family Guy" episode in which Peter, who's riding a big circus elephant, exclaims, "Look, Lois: two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who's resistant to change!" Well, where the fuck is my elephant? And, where's all that weight I lost last winter? Come to think of it, if you find it, give it to Lara Flynn Boyle.) Breaking with tradition, however, I decided to forgo invent-a-job and be productive for a change. So, in reverse of the order listed above, here's what I did about my morning realizations:
5.) I called Heather, a very nice girl I met while buying adspace for the golf course. She works at the Sun-Times, it seems like she knows very few people in Chicago (she was quick to point out that she'd just moved here a couple months ago), and she lives a couple blocks up the street from me. We're set to go on a date of some sort on Thursday. I've got Cards tickets for me and Seamus, but my boy hooked it up and said he'd sacrifice a scalper's fee in return for the possibility for my getting laid. After all, that's why he's my best friend. I think I might call Heather and see if she wants to hang out tomorrow as well, though I might just go to the Cubs game solo or with Seamus. We'll see what happens.
4.) I went and saw my guy at Truefitt and Hill, Ilia. He chastized me for having seen my father twice since I last visited him. (When I'm working, I go see him about every 4 weeks, because my hair is essentially uncontrollable and sprouts faster than mold on bread. My dad, by stark contrast, has a wicked case of male pattern baldness and goes about every 3 or 4 months. Combined with the balding factor, and our family's propensity for quick-growing hair, his hairstyles typically resemble a cross between a bowling ball and a fern--just part of his schtik, I guess.) I asked Ilia if he remembered the last time I'd gotten a haircut, so he had the receptionist look it up. Turns out my last appointment was way back on June 15th. I reminded Ilia that I actually cancelled the June 15th appointment. (It was a 1:20 start against the Marlins, top of the 8th inning; I was standing in the undertunnel near the 110-111 sign at Wrigley, when I realized that I wouldn't have quite enough time to make a 5 o'clock appointment, so I called and cancelled about an hour before. They lost that game, by the way.) My actual last appointment was May 21, the day my sister graduated from Loyola Law. I took so much crap about how short I had it, about how uber-guido I looked, that I just grew it out. So Ilia cut it not too short, but short enough. Now I look like an MBA seeking a position in the finance field, as opposed to the dude who runs a golf course. I'm going to miss golf course guy, but so it goes. Progress can suck, I suppose.
3.) I did four loads of laundry this afternoon, and the cleaning ladies worked their magic. Our combined efforts uncovered about five awesome shirts I had presumed stolen. It's also nice to have clean towels again. Since I've been driving up north all the time, this was the first time I did laundry in my building in months, as my parents' cleaning lady is pretty bored these days and will chastise me in Polish for not regularly dropping off the laundry. However, on my quest to feign self-reliance, I somehow managed to slam my hand against the card-reload machine, gouging out a considerable amount of skin from the knuckle on my right index finger. It hurts like a bitch. Bill, one of my brother's best buddies from college, was in here making a serious business call. I was in the bathroom, with the door partially closed, when I applied a layer of NuSkin to the wound. I didn't know the stuff had so much alcohol in it, so I started screaming, "OH FUCK! OH MOTHERFUCKER! OH FUCK FUCK FUCKER SHIT FUCK!" When I realized Bill was on the phone, I instead started kicking the bathroom wall, which probably wasn't much of an improvement from Bill's point of view. At any rate, only I could injure myself during the laundry process. From my parents' cleaning lady's point of view, serves me right.
2.) I returned a call from a guy at a money manager, and set an interview for Thursday afternoon. They do a lot of heavy-duty quant, econ and financial analysis, and nearly everyone in the firm has an MBA, a CFA, or both--I think it'd be right up my alley. I also found out that I got a great recommendation from my former boss, which I was not particularly expecting. The bottom line is: I can't work for a big company, and I don't really want to be in front of clients until I have a deeper understanding of the markets. And, my chances of being able to grow out my hippie hair again are much, much better at a firm of 15 people than some massive outfit. Also, I'd like to be able to say, "I'm on a first-name basis with my CEO."
1.) I did nothing about the first realization of the morning. At the Cubs game tonight, we didn't even go to our seats. (They were Section 205, Row 15, way out in left field--they sucked, but I got them for free.) Instead, we opted to stand in the SRO aisle behind Section 216, so we could smoke butts throughout the game. It's also a sign of what this season has become: I'm equally concerned with the goings on of the field as with making fun of clueless tourist-types. We stood next to these German people for much of the game--I'd prefer to avoid exactly the ball-busting we delivered, because it was just too easy--the dude was wearing pink capri pants and a two-toned Taste of Chicago shirt--it was like the proverbial baby's candy. Also, we saw this old guy who had his shirt unbuttoned exposing the hairiest chest I've ever seen. Drunk before the game started, Seamus stopped the guy and said, "Dude, you gotta sign my scorecard!" The guy stopped and said, "Yeah, sure," as though such a thing happens every day. Seamus looked at the small kid with the guy and said, "Your grandpops is a rock star, kiddo!" The old guy was a good sport about it, though the kid was utterly confused at Seamus' obsession with his monkey-hairy grandpa. At any rate, I took zero steps to curb my smoking. (Four out of five isn't bad, though, don't you think?)
By the way, the Cubs beat the Reds 4-3 in 10 innings tonight, thanks largely to a 3-for-5, 2-runs-scored effort from Matt Murton who, for reasons the dopes in the Tribune Tower will never ever be able to explain, was lingering at AA West Tenn as recently as two months ago. God, what a waste of a season. All that talent, all that opportunity, and they're not even .500...I'll just stop before I get started.
So, to close, it felt good to accomplish something today. I hope I don't get too used to it, though, because being productive in the future will no doubt lead to a greater sense of responsibility, and that could lead to difficulties in material-gathering for What I See. And, as I've said before, I am highly conscious of my duty to you, the reader, to act like as big of an idiot as possible and live to tell about it.
1.) I should stop smoking so much--not necessarily because it's bad for me, mind you, but because my parents "fired" me from invent-a-job a couple weeks ago, and $3.20 per pack Wisco cigs (yeah, Indian reservations!) are a whole lot easier on the budget than $6.50 per pack Chicago cigs. Lighters are more expensive down here, too.
2.) I need to stop waking up after 10. It dawned on me that there's so much of the world to see, and how will I ever see it all. Yeah, right, my ass, like the world needs me in broad daylight more often. Really, I'd just like to read a paper again before the news of the new day has already mostly happened. This problem will no doubt ameliorate itself when I get a real job.
3.) I need to clean my apartment. My clothes are marginally organized in stacked piles all along a wall in my bedroom, but it's still a little ridiculous for a grown man to have his threads strewn all over the place. I also need to get some garbage bags and do a Goodwill drop off of t-shirts and shit that I'll never wear again.
4.) My hair has gotten too long. I look like I walked off the set of "That 70s Show" which was much more acceptable when I was 18 as opposed to 28. Far past the point of simply needing a shave, my back-of-the-neck hair has completely assimilated with the rest of my coif. The whole tangle of hair looks pretty rock star, but it's hard to take myself seriously when I wake up looking like Robert Smith of The Cure.
5.) I need a girlfriend. I'm sick of spending so much time alone, and I've put in more than enough boozin'-with-the-buddies time this summer to justify my manhood. I also would like to walk into a restaurant with a hot girl so that I can sneer at all the dorks who are out on Sausage Night. Oh yeah, and: ass.
As you might know, I am normally quite comfortable with continuing the status quo. (I'm reminded of a certain "Family Guy" episode in which Peter, who's riding a big circus elephant, exclaims, "Look, Lois: two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who's resistant to change!" Well, where the fuck is my elephant? And, where's all that weight I lost last winter? Come to think of it, if you find it, give it to Lara Flynn Boyle.) Breaking with tradition, however, I decided to forgo invent-a-job and be productive for a change. So, in reverse of the order listed above, here's what I did about my morning realizations:
5.) I called Heather, a very nice girl I met while buying adspace for the golf course. She works at the Sun-Times, it seems like she knows very few people in Chicago (she was quick to point out that she'd just moved here a couple months ago), and she lives a couple blocks up the street from me. We're set to go on a date of some sort on Thursday. I've got Cards tickets for me and Seamus, but my boy hooked it up and said he'd sacrifice a scalper's fee in return for the possibility for my getting laid. After all, that's why he's my best friend. I think I might call Heather and see if she wants to hang out tomorrow as well, though I might just go to the Cubs game solo or with Seamus. We'll see what happens.
4.) I went and saw my guy at Truefitt and Hill, Ilia. He chastized me for having seen my father twice since I last visited him. (When I'm working, I go see him about every 4 weeks, because my hair is essentially uncontrollable and sprouts faster than mold on bread. My dad, by stark contrast, has a wicked case of male pattern baldness and goes about every 3 or 4 months. Combined with the balding factor, and our family's propensity for quick-growing hair, his hairstyles typically resemble a cross between a bowling ball and a fern--just part of his schtik, I guess.) I asked Ilia if he remembered the last time I'd gotten a haircut, so he had the receptionist look it up. Turns out my last appointment was way back on June 15th. I reminded Ilia that I actually cancelled the June 15th appointment. (It was a 1:20 start against the Marlins, top of the 8th inning; I was standing in the undertunnel near the 110-111 sign at Wrigley, when I realized that I wouldn't have quite enough time to make a 5 o'clock appointment, so I called and cancelled about an hour before. They lost that game, by the way.) My actual last appointment was May 21, the day my sister graduated from Loyola Law. I took so much crap about how short I had it, about how uber-guido I looked, that I just grew it out. So Ilia cut it not too short, but short enough. Now I look like an MBA seeking a position in the finance field, as opposed to the dude who runs a golf course. I'm going to miss golf course guy, but so it goes. Progress can suck, I suppose.
3.) I did four loads of laundry this afternoon, and the cleaning ladies worked their magic. Our combined efforts uncovered about five awesome shirts I had presumed stolen. It's also nice to have clean towels again. Since I've been driving up north all the time, this was the first time I did laundry in my building in months, as my parents' cleaning lady is pretty bored these days and will chastise me in Polish for not regularly dropping off the laundry. However, on my quest to feign self-reliance, I somehow managed to slam my hand against the card-reload machine, gouging out a considerable amount of skin from the knuckle on my right index finger. It hurts like a bitch. Bill, one of my brother's best buddies from college, was in here making a serious business call. I was in the bathroom, with the door partially closed, when I applied a layer of NuSkin to the wound. I didn't know the stuff had so much alcohol in it, so I started screaming, "OH FUCK! OH MOTHERFUCKER! OH FUCK FUCK FUCKER SHIT FUCK!" When I realized Bill was on the phone, I instead started kicking the bathroom wall, which probably wasn't much of an improvement from Bill's point of view. At any rate, only I could injure myself during the laundry process. From my parents' cleaning lady's point of view, serves me right.
2.) I returned a call from a guy at a money manager, and set an interview for Thursday afternoon. They do a lot of heavy-duty quant, econ and financial analysis, and nearly everyone in the firm has an MBA, a CFA, or both--I think it'd be right up my alley. I also found out that I got a great recommendation from my former boss, which I was not particularly expecting. The bottom line is: I can't work for a big company, and I don't really want to be in front of clients until I have a deeper understanding of the markets. And, my chances of being able to grow out my hippie hair again are much, much better at a firm of 15 people than some massive outfit. Also, I'd like to be able to say, "I'm on a first-name basis with my CEO."
1.) I did nothing about the first realization of the morning. At the Cubs game tonight, we didn't even go to our seats. (They were Section 205, Row 15, way out in left field--they sucked, but I got them for free.) Instead, we opted to stand in the SRO aisle behind Section 216, so we could smoke butts throughout the game. It's also a sign of what this season has become: I'm equally concerned with the goings on of the field as with making fun of clueless tourist-types. We stood next to these German people for much of the game--I'd prefer to avoid exactly the ball-busting we delivered, because it was just too easy--the dude was wearing pink capri pants and a two-toned Taste of Chicago shirt--it was like the proverbial baby's candy. Also, we saw this old guy who had his shirt unbuttoned exposing the hairiest chest I've ever seen. Drunk before the game started, Seamus stopped the guy and said, "Dude, you gotta sign my scorecard!" The guy stopped and said, "Yeah, sure," as though such a thing happens every day. Seamus looked at the small kid with the guy and said, "Your grandpops is a rock star, kiddo!" The old guy was a good sport about it, though the kid was utterly confused at Seamus' obsession with his monkey-hairy grandpa. At any rate, I took zero steps to curb my smoking. (Four out of five isn't bad, though, don't you think?)
By the way, the Cubs beat the Reds 4-3 in 10 innings tonight, thanks largely to a 3-for-5, 2-runs-scored effort from Matt Murton who, for reasons the dopes in the Tribune Tower will never ever be able to explain, was lingering at AA West Tenn as recently as two months ago. God, what a waste of a season. All that talent, all that opportunity, and they're not even .500...I'll just stop before I get started.
So, to close, it felt good to accomplish something today. I hope I don't get too used to it, though, because being productive in the future will no doubt lead to a greater sense of responsibility, and that could lead to difficulties in material-gathering for What I See. And, as I've said before, I am highly conscious of my duty to you, the reader, to act like as big of an idiot as possible and live to tell about it.
posted by Pat at 11:53 PM
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