tee oh em bee
DON’T OPEN THAT BAG
My favorite wi-fi network, detected by my iPhone as I ride the El to work, is “bag of assholes.” A close second would have to be either “super hockey flying jesus” or “I hate Ibrahim.” Awww, what did Ibrahim do? That one is extra-special to me because whenever I have to “name” any computerish electronic object, like a hard drive or a portable electronic device, I usually name it Ibrahim Elbowskin.
IBRAHIM IS WORSE THAN THIS BRICK
While the bus was stopped at a light the other day, I saw a homeless man drawing on a brick building. He would make an x in the center of a brick with a piece of chalk, and then he would yell at that particular brick for a while before moving on to the next one. I admired the dedication it took to hate on each and every brick of a building.
I’LL TAKE A VENTI SHUT-UP JUICE
Yesterday morning I felt uncharacteristically peppy and pleased with everyone and everything. You know, the dopey epileptic Russian-mystic feeling. You are all my brothers! I kneel down and kiss this sidewalk, for its very molecules of concrete are infused with the essence of Creation! That sort of thing. This feeling tends to get me into trouble, because I live in this densely packed, modern-day metropolis and not a 19th-century wheatfield.
Feeling like this, I swiped my card in the lobby and headed up to work. A guy in the elevator was trying to pry off his takeout coffee lid, and the process was resulting in a lot of odd plastic sounds.
Guy: Could I make any more noise with this lid?
Me: You could record an album of coffee-lid sounds.
Guy: Uh ha ha ha ha ha ha. Probably not.
Me: It could be great. Folk art, you know. Found music. You could be a coffeeshop Wesley Willis, except not insane.
Guy: Ha ha ha ha ha. Huh. Well. I’ll think about it.
Me: Wow, why can I not stop talking? You’d better keep the coffee to yourself, I don’t need any!
Guy: Okay, have a good day. [leaves, probably thinking oh my god, keep her away from me]
SURPRISINGLY FUN
LT’s work had a family outing to a nighttime White Sox game. There was a shuttle bus thing, but we made sure we had the car because we didn’t know if Nora would last a whole baseball game. I wasn’t sure I would last a whole baseball game—I don’t care for baseball and had never been to a game before. Shockingly, we stayed until the bitter end (Sox win! Fireworks!) and had a pretty good time.
- Weather makes a ton of difference—it was a gorgeous night. Although it is a shame that you can’t see any skyline from Comiskey. (Yes, I know it’s not called that anymore. Sellouts.)
- BEER!
- Speaking of beer, a live baseball game follows a definite drinking curve. In basketball, it is constant bread-and-circuses from the tipoff onward (thirty-second timeout; grab the t-shirt cannon!) Football games are a fairly steady, maybe even slightly grim, march toward victory, with a regular amount of cheering and spectacle throughout. At the baseball game, the hoopla seemed to exactly mirror the buzzed-on-Miller-Lite trajectory—calm and pastoral for innings 1 through 5, getting rowdy around inning 7, and by the end there is just all kinds of shit on the Jumbotron and people are dancing in the aisles and oh wait, there’s a game still going on?
- Nora insisted on keeping track of the runs in a small notebook, even though I assured her that the score and other pertinent statistics would be a matter of permanent, public record.
- There was free food on the “patio” where Nora ate two chicken legs and a hot dog. Then during the game, cotton candy and Crackerjack. I will not be getting any Parental Nutrition Awards this weekend. And where does it all GO? Forty-two pounds, the girl is!
- There are amusing signs on the stadium seats that urge you to text a certain phrase to a certain number if you witness someone being an asshole (and presumably security will show up to take care of it). Ratting out assholes via cell phone! It is like a high-tech alternative to punching a guy in the face.
—mimi smartypants is no batter no batter.