UrbanTherapy.

you know – the one where we tell y’all that we’ll be around watching ‘a christmas story’ over and over until it’s time for football, and that you’re welcome to join us if you’re in town and have nothing better to do.

sound familiar? it should. here’s last year’s, and the year before that.

so, yeah. we’ll be here, eating nom, drinking kool-aid, and watching tv. call before you come over, though, so we’ll have time to put on pants. no, seriously.

and now, a little something to reinforce your holiday spirit:

Six years ago, I wrote this. Just interesting to see what I had to say two jobs, two apartments, and so many mini-epiphanies ago.

Right now? I will spare you from the mess my brain’s in. That’s all I got. Tomorrow’s another day.

Stream of consciousness isht,that’s how I’m rolling…

At Midway, I was waiting at the top of what amounted to a long ramp. About 50 feet of a very slight decline leads into the security area. At the top, right outside of the entrance to the walkway to the Orange Line, is the flight arrival and departure board. I was standing there, waiting for Paul’s plane status to for from “LATE AS HELL” to “IN RANGE” to finally “ON GROUND”.

While I’m standing there, masses of people go back and forth, on their way to the Orange Line or out to destinations myriad. What I found most endearing, waiting for the damned status to change, was a young girl who reminded me of how important it is to have fun whenever possible.

She was charged with pushing the stroller for her younger brother, whom Mom was carrying. The stroller was empty, which made her following act guilt-free. She felt the ground slope ever so slightly and took it as her excuse to run. She gave herself over to the ever-so-slight pull of gravity and sheer exhilaration of going somewhere fast.

Stolen from a message board I hang at, where it was stolen from somewhere else…  The question: How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once?    

The specifics: 

— You are in an enclosed area, roughly the size of a basketball court. There are no foreign objects. 

— You are not allowed to touch a wall. 

— When you are knocked unconscious, you lose. When they are all knocked unconscious, they lose. Once a kid is knocked unconscious, that kid is “out.” 

— I (or someone else intent on seeing to it you fail) get to choose the kids from a pool that is twice the size of your magic number. The pool will be 50/50 in terms of gender and will have no discernable abnormalities in terms of demographics, other than they are all healthy Americans. 

— The kids receive one day of training from hand-to-hand combat experts who will train them specifically to team up to take down one adult. You will receive one hour of “counter-tactics” training. 

— There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup. 

— The kids are motivated enough to not get scared, regardless of the bloodshed. Even the very last one will give it his/her best to take you down.

 . So, how many? Someone noted that, with the right music blaring, they can take just a couple more…

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/rnr/398156284.html

Because Chicago’s RnR section is rife with assholes who spew hate-mongering BS, I don’t expect this to last long or for people to jump to conclusions about the racial identities of the participants. I thought it odd enough to write up.

Identity theft ramblings! 10MB and not quite 15 minutes.

Fuck Dell. And fuck Chase.

So, I woke up Friday, and the charge was gone. GONE! I figured they had stopped pursuing it, and all was good.

Wake up this morning, and the money is gone. GONE. So I call and file trhe claim, and they wont give my money back until I file it, whiich will take a couple of weeks. Dine, whatever. But I can’t get any more money out of it, because the account’s closed. So I have $14 to my name right now.

Call Dell. Dell cant tell me shit about the order, who placed it, or anything, because I don’t have the order number. OF COURSE I DONT HAVE THE FUCKING ORDER NUMBER! I DIDNT PLACE THE ORDER! They CAN look it up if they have the trasaction number from the bank. Cool.

Call the bank back. There is NO INFORMATION regarding this purchase other than the fact it was paid to Dell in that amount. Details will NOT be available until TUESDAY.

I am seeinng red. But, I have some plans.
Dell doesnt ship to P.O. Boxes, since they use UPS. So I can TRACK the package, including who signed for it. And will unleash the fucking hounds of war. When I get the transaction number, I can ask Dell for payment information and find out who actually bought it, and where they say they lived. Oh, they’ll probably get this shit delivered. But I’ll be damned if I let them keep it.

A note: I don’t think I got ripped because of online buying. It’s pretty easy to be a delivery person or something and pocket the number off a card. I really don’t think I got fucked over because I bought shit online (and will continue to do so.) I think the risk is actually greater when handfing your card to a real person, who can take your card info a helluva lot easier than hacking a secure server.

So, what did we learn?
-Dell sucks.
-Chase sucks.
-I didn’t get screwed because I buy things online, and you aren’t either.

i’m up waiting for the dryer to finish so i can rescue my laundry. our living room windows are open, and in the past 15 minutes, i’ve heard:

1) random yelling, followed by a female yelling “SHUT UP!”, followed by a male yelling “SHUT YO’ BITCH ASS UP!!!”

2) a woman who’s either out having a very good time, or is doing a oscar-worthy impression of meg ryan’s infamous scene in ‘when harry met sally’.

it’s times like this when i love my neighborhood. i’ll love it even more when some nimby-type people (nimby=not in my back yard) get it through their skulls that prohibting the two liquor stores on the corner (and cvs) from selling booze is not going to solve everything that ails this neighborhood. but that’s a rant for a different day.

e’s on a plane to DC, and I’m here.

Quick notes:

-It seems that I’ll have to redo the site. AGAIN. I am unable to delete the spam that invaribly finds its way here, which sucks and blows. Sure, it gives me an excuse to redo the look of it, but Movable Type, our publishing system, is a bitch and a half. So, if I allow comments, I can’t clean the spam from them later.

-In a couple of weeks, I’ll be in an art show! I’m really excited. Details to come, but my work will be out in a gallery setting with quite a few other artists. Feeling excited aboiut that.

Have a great week! Further bulletins as events warrant.