Drowning Myself the Slow Way

I know it's good for you to drink a lot of water, especially instead of pop or coffee or anything else that has extraneous sugar and chemicals, but perhaps I am drinking too much? I used to drink a liter of water in the morning before/during my first class. For the two years that I carried "The Liter" (as it was called by my friends) I was the only person I knew that didn't get seriously sick come cold/flu season. Plus, I seriously prefer humble tap water to almost any other beverage. I feel like I'm totally doing right by the world! However, good for me or no, I've had to urinate 4 times in the last two hours and it's getting annoying. Maybe I should eat something.

Halloween

Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. I love that there are no cultural or religious differences that exclude some people or force others to participate. There's nothing one is "supposed to do" and no age where you're expected to stop being silly. Plus, costumes are fun! I love getting dressed up and seeing how creative other people get. So this year I decided to do it up right and go to Ohio University (not to be confused with The Ohio State University of football fame). OU is famous for its Halloween celebration, and the reputation is rightly deserved. The entire little town of Athens, OH, was on its feet and on the street. There was a party in literally every house and apartment building, and thousands of people were crowding the streets talking and dancing to the live bands. Almost everyone was dressed in their Halloween best and most of them were pretty well buzzed. Comparatively, our group was pretty sober, which allowed an even more hilarious perspective on the spectacle.

I was dressed as Waldo from "Where's Waldo?", and it was a fantastic re-creation if I may say so. In addition to the shirt, glasses, and body/face, which I already had, a friend knitted me the beanie hat with the poof on top and I made myself a red-and-white striped cane out of a dowel and some shiny spray car paint. I really enjoyed the unanticipated "audience participation" aspect of the costume, where about every 20 feet someone would get all excited and yell "I FOUND YOU!" My costume made a lot of people happy that night. The friend I was visiting (only one guest per OU student to try and contain the revelry) was dressed as Poison Ivy a la Uma Thurman in "Batman Forever." She put some thought and work into it; her costume was hand-made and pretty intricately detailed. Many of the men and several groups had similarly original ideas. My favorites were:

Dudes: (1) AIM Buddy Icon, (2) Rubik's Cube, (3) Optimus Prime, (4) Keg (with the tap coming out of a silver helmet), (5) "Shamed" Guy (who looked like he just woke up after a rough night of drinking to find his friends had written all over his face. Also hilarious for a spot-on Matt Foley impression.)

Groups (mixed gender): (1) Beer Pong Game (garbage cans turned into Solo cups, and a ping-pong ball), (2) Tetris Game (with all the different shape blocks), (3) HANK Squad (from the Starbucks commercial where the band follows a guy around singing his name to "Eye of the Tiger" to get him pumped up in the morning. They all had "HANK" T-Shirts, signs and sang along with a boombox. Got the crowd involved too!), (4) Pirate Ship (standard pirate costumes, but all traveling together in a giant cardboard ship!)

For the women, however, the general rule seemed to be "it doesn't matter what your costume is, as long as you look like a ho!" Other than one Audrey Hepburn and my friend Poison Ivy, I was disappointed with the general lack of creativity here. But hey, I'm not here to judge. If I was a state-school chica I'd probably have fun showing it all off once a year too.

Women (most common): (1) Angel (slutty), (2) Army gear (slutty) aka "GI Ho", (3) Other typically male figure (policeman, fireman, construction worker, referee with annoying whistle) (also slutty)

Ladies of refinement, all, I assure you. Not surprisingly, there were also police thoroughly peppering the town. Some of them got dressed up too!

Police (most common): (1) Plainclothes ("just a cool parent hanging out!"), (2) on horseback, (3) on foot in uniform, (4) in/around car

All around it was a fabulous time. If you get a chance while you are still of an age where you can inconspicuously be amongst thousands of drunk college kids, you should check it out. One final note: Natural Light, perhaps the most famous of cheap and awful beers, did some serious business in Athens this weekend.

coffee

I usually try to avoid drinking caffeine. It stems from the regular insomnia that I dealt with in high school, much less frequent once I hit college. The other side is that I get attenuated to caffeine very quickly if I start drinking it regularly. After even a few days of having a Pepsi with lunch I start noticing that I feel tired in the afternoon without it. It's unfortunate because I rather enjoy coffee and coffee-based beverages. I might enjoy coffee more because it is a "luxury" (albeit a commonplace one) that I only afford myself occasionally. This morning was such an occasion. I walked into the kitchen at work and found it smelling wonderful, like some non-specific baking. Surprised that someone would be baking at an office, I look all around: oven, microwave, cupboards, no luck. Just when I was about to give up I realized it was the coffee, some flavor along the lines of "crumbly apple crisp." This is not the type of thing one allows to pass one by, particularly on a morning that I'm feeling that muffled weight that comes with dreary weather and too-little sleep. I can feel my neurotransmitters getting excited already.

Go (to) Chicago!

The trip to Chicago was a success! It is a fantastic place, very large. Chicago is geographically much smaller than New York City, with about 1/7th the population, but it felt much bigger in a way. I think it's because in NYC all of the buildings are 20 stories tall with their facades right at the sidewalk. It has the effect of making you feel like you're in a maze, with no concept of how far the maze stretches in any direction. In Chicago, especially downtown, the buildings have great variation in height and distance from the street. Many street corners have 10 or 15 feet of sidewalk before the steps to a building, and that building may only be 5 stories tall. This lets you see past the building to other buildings behind it and the ones behind those. Instead of a maze, you feel like you are in a valley of a drastically hilly area.

Speaking of changing your perspective, it's also notable that viewing the city from the Empire State Building in NYC is very different than from the Sears Tower in Chicago. From the ESB you feel like you are standing among giants, 1000 feet in the air looking accross at the skyscrapers of downtown. From the Sears Tower (and an extra 500 feet up) you are looking down at the tops of skyscrapers. Even the John Hancock Center, itself almost as tall as the Empire State, gives a deferrential shrug to the Sears Tower. Looking out from the "Skydeck" we were sometimes inside, sometimes above, the clouds. On a clear day you can apparently see 4 states, but you can't see where Chicago ends.

The "L," or the elevated train system, is also really cool. A very Gotham City vibe, even though I'm pretty sure that in the DC world Gotham is analogous to NYC and Metropolis is moreso Chicago. The main difference, also apparent in the palpable representations, is that Metropolis/Chicago is much cleaner. (And the Superman/Batman difference, of course, though currently lacking in real-life.)

Diverging from the physical city, Chicago has some of the friendlier inhabitants of the big cities I've been to. From the people who you accidentally bump into on the street to the bartenders at the overly-crowded (but still hilarious) Second City to the security guards at Sears Tower (Alex: "Hi, we're tourists!"), people were generally very nice to our band of strangers. We were lucky enough to be visiting when the White Sox were in the World Series for the first time in a century. The city invited us into the excitement by lighting up the buildings downtown with "GO SOX" and "SOX PRIDE," and a bar crowd that exploded in cheering and high-fives all around whenever they scored. My favorites, though, were the panhandlers who thanked us when we denied them money. ("Any spare change?" / "Sorry man." / "Hey, thank you.") I realize that they probably don't get treated like human beings very often, so for someone to look them in the eye and apologize they might feel some gratitude. As simple as it seems, it's a lot nicer than being screamed at or called a racist (*ahem* Cleveland. That's a story for another time.)

I could see myself living in a place like Chicago. It would be a good place for grad school, a good place to have a family, a good place for an alien baby to be raised by an All-American family to become the city's protector and a national symbol.

CHI-TOWN ADVENTURE 2005

So tomorrow morning I will be going to Chicago with 3 friends of mine, Brian L. Latko, Alex Hamberger, and Andy Boron. Latko has a job interview on Monday and instead of having the company fly him out we decided to put the money towards a wicked road trip. The rule is (apparently) you have to have an awesome last name in order to come, whether it be because it rhymes with your first name (yours truly), it is fun to say every time (Latko), or it's just straight-up funny (Hamberger, Boron). The other rule is that you have to be good friends with the rest of us, which really isn't a rule. Alright, there were/are no rules associated with this trip. NO RULES!

Actually, no, I rescind again. There should be a few guidelines in order to maximize the fun and ridiculousness that is impending on this trip. Feel free to use these for road trips of your own.

1) We must leave for this trip

Everybody knows that the greatest bane of a trip is getting out the door. It seems like everyone in the world has been particularly bad about this recently. It's supposed to take 6-7 hours to get there, so I suggest we leave at about 10-10:30am. Thus, even with breaks for lunch and potty and if we hit traffic, it should drop us in the Chi-bucket around dinnertime. I am all about packing and LEAVING and not going back just because we forgot someone's favorite pair of socks.

2) Get cash before leaving

They may not have our banks in Chicago, so let's all make sure we have cash prior to going. No one is allowed to be "that guy" who doesn't have cash so he borrows in tiny increments from everyone else, eventually making his indebtedness incalculably complicated. Getting cash is the only delay I fully accept as reasonable prior to leaving, but we should do it today instead.

3) MUSIC

We will mainly be listening to iPods and CD's (preferably the former) as the radio is lame. Bring what you want to hear, or no complaints about what others bring. Shotgun is in charge of DJing/navigating/keeping driver awake, driver has the final say as to all disputes.

4) No wet dreams allowed

We will most likely be splitting some beds here. Even though I know the 4 of us are imminently non-homophobic, exposure to someone else's unconscious happenings is something we all want to avoid. This shouldn't be a problem if everyone "strokes out the easy one" (to quote Andy) sometime prior to leaving. I went to Chicago four years ago with three similarly fantastic people, and this was our rule then.

5) Everyone must drink Chai

Let's just get in the spirit of things, huh? Whether it's before we leave, on the road, or as a snack in the city, we should all celebrate Chi-town with a Chai-drink. I mean, it's only 3 letters short of CHIcAgo! You can be sure that is there was a drink called "Bulf," people in Buffalo would drink it like Canadian Beer. Or maybe not, "Bulf" sounds like a grosser drink than Chai.

Anyway, the point is this road trip is going to be flippin' sweet. The last notable detail is that we will be driving Latko's Latmobile, an Audi A4. This is a great ride, despite being a little small. (I once accidentally turned off the ignition key with my knee while driving on the highway. OOPS.) It has an attitude all its own. Imagine a world where, if someone cuts you off and you are too polite to comment, your car flips them off for you. Imagine a world where your car gives you a high-five every time you parallel park well. Imagine a world where your car is your friend, and you are glad to have him on the trip with you. This is the world of the Latmobile.

T-Minus 18 hours until liftoff!

An Interesting Story With No Point

I go through these phases about once a month where I have weird, dramatically vivid dreams. I've been in one recently, and every morning I wake up and I'm sort of confused about where I am because I thought the dream was real. Sometimes I feel tired from having such an active or realistic dream. That happened to me this morning, so that when my alarm went off I felt like I'd be ripped out of reality and dumped into a bed. I felt as if I'd been on some huge epic adventure, but the details were quickly slipping away from me. The only thing I remembered was one image...

I was standing in my bathroom and there were maybe two dozen sticks of my flavor of deoderant on the counter. I thought it would be fun to use more than one at once, so I picked up about four in each hand and applied them to my underarms, which gave me excellent coverage in about two strokes.

That's it. Out of a whole epic adventure, that was the only thing I remembered. I just can't help thinking, perhaps my subconcious is telling me that I'm stinky? sniff sniff.

Tie Game

One of the things that amazes me the most about the world is that there are men who do not know how to tie a necktie. I should rephrase, that there are men who regularly wear neckties who do not know how to tie a necktie. To this effect, I have ridiculed, and occasionally taught, friends of mine. In a hurry, the old standard Four-In-Hand will do, though I can never get it to balance well. I usually go for the full Windsor, and I honestly think that there is no defense in the world for the Half Windsor beyond laziness.

A while ago I heard that some mathematicians had worked out every conceivable way to tie a standard necktie. Nerdy? Yes. Necessary? Debatable. Awesome? Totally. I finally got around to reading what they wrote (which was published in Nature magazine, if you doubted its actual merit) and I was thoroughly impressed and amused. I sat here and tied a bunch of them just so I could lay them out and see the differences. Peep dis. The second page describes the nomenclature of the moves, and the "Conclusion" describes how to construct the ten most aesthetically pleasing knots. Not surprisingly, the four "named" knots appeared; these included the aforementioned Four-in-Hand, Half/Full Windsor, and the simple, practical and often overlooked "Pratt." They also presented 6 new knots in varying complexity. It's interesting that the simplest of their knots, basically a first-knot, is popular among the youth of red China. I could also see it being popular with US punk or pop-rock kids if some fashion-savvy frontman sported it on a magazine cover. Someone call Billie Joe Armstrong or Brandon Flowers. Tell them some nerds have some important fashion advice.

2 Things I Do Not Understand

1) Why is it that when I am outdoors and I walk past someone who is smoking, I can smell the smoke for about 100 feet after I passed the person? From what (I think) I remember about particles suspended in a gas, and how much the air moves around outside (even if you can't feel it), I would think that the smoke would be totally dispersed within seconds. Perhaps I have a superhero-like sense of smell? Once I smelled my friend's cup of Coke to determine that it was diet instead of regular. She was all amazed and excited, like I had performed some astounding feat of superhuman olfaction. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, to be honest, because Coke and Diet Coke are really quite different in constitution. This might be something I should investigate further. Maybe this weekend I will follow around some smokers and see how long I can tail them by only using smell. Policeman smokers. And I'll dress in a black trenchcoat or something so they don't catch on that I'm running an experiment. That sounds like a good idea.

2) Why is there Jägermeister in the freezer at the office at which I'm temping? These seem like pretty sober people, by all definitions of the word.

This was only going to be about the smoke/smell thing until about 30 seconds before I sat down.

this is what my head looks like! (front)

I am adding this picture here so I can link to it in my profile. Perhaps it is also good to be redundant in such things. Maybe you forgot since you last looked?

Brace Yo'self fo' Tha Deluge

Given my current situation in life, which affords me lots of spare time, I have slowly slid into the world of blogging. I never really considered it until exposed to my friend Ben's blog and various blogs of fictional-type characters. I started formulating ideas for writing and posts while on the bus, walking, and other times when my mind was clutching and scraping for stimulus. As I looked into the idea a bit more I found that blogs are as numerous and variable (in both content and quality) as internet pages in general. I felt in no way obligated to make a blog on a specific topic, but I think it is a fairly benign way to write something in a venue where it might be seen by others without causing them interference. (I had previously considered, for example, writing "letters to the editor" or posting my thoughts in anonymous newsletters in bathroom stalls. But those (a) would probably be annoying to others, as I might find such things annoying; (b) cannot be done at work; (c) require more work than my opinions may be worth anyway.)

So here I am, blog, writing about a blog on a blog. And by addressing that last sentance to the blog itself in the second person, I suppose I am truly blogging to a blog, on a blog, about blogging. This is probably known as metablogging (it certainly should be) and is very likely a stereotypical first topic. WELL CHILL OUT, BLOG. I'm just warming up.