all the world's a stage we're going through
A RATING OF GLASSES OF WATER AT VARIOUS BARS THAT I MENTION HERE ALL THE TIME, PROBABLY TOO MUCH, PROBABLY GIVING YOU A SKEWED VIEW OF HOW I REALLY SPEND MY TIME, BUT OH WELL THAT'S THE INTERNET, AND IF YOU THINK I AM SOME SORT OF GLAMOROUS DRINKY DRUNKY PARTY GIRL I SUPPOSE THERE ARE WORSE THINGS YOU COULD THINK, ALTHOUGH I AM SURE YOU HAVE THOUGHT SOME OF THOSE WORSE THINGS ALREADY, AND HERE IS PROOF THAT SOMETIMES I DRINK WATER INSTEAD OF OLD STYLE
1. Goldstar serves the best glass of water of all my usual haunts. The right amount of ice, served in a nice big pint glass, and the water is fresh and cold out of the nozzle thing. Susan will even give you a straw if you ask her. Ask her!
2. At Secret Polish Bar (not named because I am afeared that it will suddenly get hip and then it will be ruined for all time), the water tastes kind of flat and weird. However, it is usually served in some totally fancy glass, like something in your grandmother's china cabinet, which makes up for the flat weirdness.
3. The water at Delilah's is fine, but they clean their glasses way fanatically and do not rinse as well as they should, so there is sometimes a faint chemical smell wafting up from your water. You won't mind so much after the second beer.
4. At Beachwood they do not seem to have any running water at the bar, and instead pour you a glass of water from a jug marked “DRINKING WATER.” This freaks me the fuck out.
5. At Rainbo Club you are not cool enough to have a glass of water, so when you ask for one you will receive a withering look from the surly, silent bartender. This always causes me to act aggressively dorky on purpose, just to piss them off even more. The last time I was there I said, “Hey, could you get me a glass of some cool refreshing AITCH-TWO-OH, Big Guy? Thanks baby, you're the best.” I saw him pointing me out to the barback later that night but you can't throw someone out just for talking like a stereotyped beatnik, so I firmly intend to continue that persona should I ever end up there again.
Sunday night was a Goldstar night, with this not-so-secretly Canadian gentleman, who was here for the Chicago Improv Festival, and who was at least a entire half-bushel of fun and good times. To be frank, actors and me have a bit of a sketchy history—in college, no one managed to annoy me quite as effectively as drama majors, unless it was girls in peasant skirts and ankle bracelets who smelled of an alfalfa/patchouli blend and wrote bad poetry about their vaginas. Doug managed to avoid all these pitfalls, the attention-whoriness of actors and the vagina-rhyming of the hippie poets (WHERE IN THE WORLD WAS I GOING WITH THIS?). We drank beer and ate pizza and I even brought LT, which I think marks only the second occasion that LT has met anyone “from online.”
Speaking of online, if you invited me to join this thing called Friendster and I did not respond, it's because I am ignoring you. Not you in particular, but the entire phenomenon. I cannot in good conscience participate in what I mock, and there is very little I mock more than ostensibly grown-up people enthusiastically entering this little online popularity contest. I am a spoilsport like that. I kill chain letters and I won't be your Friendster friend. I can be your real friend though. Is that good enough?
HERE THE MANUSCRIPT BREAKS OFF
Should you catch a social disease from some random Friendster hookup, you can always join this herpes-related dating service! The name of the site, “ChicagoFriends.org,” will have special resonance for you if you happen to be a Windy City herpes-infected Quaker.
Best Amazon list I've seen today.
Did you know that the medieval poem “Sumer Is Icumen In” contains a reference to farting deer? Yes, that “bucke ferteth” part should not really be translated as some sort of twisting leap, as it is in that link, but as exactly what it sounds like: a male farting deer. Unfortunately this here Internet does not contain nearly enough information on Middle English etymology for my liking, so I can't confirm this for you right now, but I am hitting the library after work. Stay tuned. For farting deer.
“Do not assume that, because they eat their own droppings, that they are ill or unclean.” Why I'd never!
Signs of the apocalypse, part IX: The New York Times reports on the trucker hat phenomenon. (registration required)
Godawful bridal attire.
—mimi smartypants is like a kid in a candy store.