stands next to your love
IT’S SO FLAT
If I have lunchtime errands, the route I take involves crossing the same street twice (which is totally possible, fuck you Heraclitus). This is because of crazy construction activity and blocked-off sidewalks. This could be kind of a drag, but now I look forward to it because of SMASHED RAT!
A smashed squirrel is a pretty standard thing in Chicago. You know the kind—completely devoid of organs or guck (where did that go? stuck to the car tires? spread and diffused and soaked into the pavement?), flush with the street, basically just a flat gray strip of matted fur. But a smashed rat is something special! Rats are usually more wily and less interested in crossing streets, so they do not become smashed as often. Plus, that tail! The State Street Smashed Rat is really perfectly smashed, too: you can see the outline of his little face and body and the tail is still long and pinkish despite being smashed.
Obviously, when I pass Smashed Rat I need to say “SMASHED RAT!” Smashed rat is the new dead bird. Yesterday as I was waiting for the light to change I said, “smashed rat” and a fellow pedestrian heard and gave me a strange look. So I pointed down and showed him the smashed rat so he could SHARE THE JOY.
STRANGEST PRESEASON
I have been slowly easing into my football-coverage-following schedule. I don’t like reading about the draft so I have to be careful not to start too early with reading NFL blogs and Sportscenter and stuff. Would that I had left the reading until later in the preseason, so as to have missed the BRETT FAVRE BLOWJOB-FEST. Seriously, I’m pissed. I was so happy to be done with that doofus. I was so looking forward to listening to sportscasters not acting like they are getting paid by how many times they can say “Brett Favre” in one sentence. “Well, only Brett Favre can do that, because he’s Brett Favre, so he made a Brett Favre type of play…” (By which they do not usually mean, “threw into triple coverage for an interception.”)
I cannot be so evil as to wish injuries on him, but I can wish for a big spaceship to come take him AWAY, right?
SICKLY AND SMART-ASS
This summer cold came on like Katrina, with a few days of sniffle-warning and then a sudden deluge of every symptom in the symptom book. I cannot breathe out of more than one nostril at a time, I have a fever (and not any of the good kinds [Pac-Man, disco]), and a raging sore throat. I went to the drugstore to get Sudafed, and of course you have to sign for the good drugs now. I made a point of signing “I am not a tweaker,” all in sloppy cursive, instead of my real name.
Although maybe I lied about the tweaker thing, because pseudoephedrine + my usual intake of tea has caused me to be rather spazzy during this work-from-home day. I still feel sick, but I feel very energized and upbeat about being sick.
—mimi smartypants in triple time.