If someone had told me as I sat at that

Boston Red Sox

game, that I would be fighting for my life and those of my friends a few days later, I would have thought that they were crazy. But here I was, tied to a chair by a diabolical defrocked Jesuit priest, along with the liquor store owner and my friend. We were all helpless. But what did they plan to do with us? “You tormented, sick fool,” I said to the defrocked Father Rich. I realized that I sounded like the Adam West version of “Batman” but didn’t care. We found out that they had been running drugs. They faked deaths at public places and got young people to feel sorry for them and do work for them, including making drug drops. No young person would suspect. Donna got a hit on the head when she got too close to a safe in the closet. Don saw their secret and they sent him a message, but he didn’t keep his mouth shut. And I was a nosy broad who just couldn’t keep her nose in her own business. Now we all had to die. Father Rich had been defrocked for quite some time. He teamed up with the two other con artists and carried out this charade. I had wondered why there was a closed casket at the old lady’s wake. Now I knew. Because there was no body in the coffin, The Texas Holdem Gang was the muscle of the group. They got a little out of line, but they were getting spring. Then “Father Rich” would control them. So this was it/. No more life. That guy would get his “Friends and Neighbors column” back and I would be left to die in this dark, miserable house. It was then that I saw Joe in the window. And behind him were a slew of police. We were saved.

There’s this really popular bar a few blocks away from my new apartment called the Map Room.  Maps hang from the walls and on the tables.  There’s a stack of map books and neighborhood directories in every corner.  I was in there last week and looked through an Edgewater Chicago neighborhood guide.  I don’t spend a lot of time in Edgewater.  In fact, I wouldn’t even really be able to tell where Edgewater is other than it’s by the edge of the water.  Still, I was sitting on a stool, waiting for my friends to show up and I didn’t want to keep drinking and drinking.  A dim, dank bar isn’t the best place to read, I’m aware, but I could still make out the colors of the maps and the printed text underneath them.  It wasn’t anything really that interesting.  Just information about the hotels and restaurants and cafes and everything else in that neighborhood.  There’s more there than I thought, but it still doesn’t make me want to go visit.  I’ve had friends who have lived up in Edgewater and I’ve visited their places, but I didn’t know at the time that this was Edgewater.  They’ve since moved, but it was good to know I suppose. 

It’s such a horrible cliché that all artists are starving artists working day or night jobs to get by.  You typically think of a writer or a painter working as a bartender by night to pay their rent and for their car and everything.  I’ve ever heard of some artists who take up trades or construction or something like exterior wall cleaning, but people do what they have to do.  I’ve known a few guys who are so certain that they’re going to get discovered and become huge rock stars that they lack all other ambition.  They still live with their parents and they work these worthless jobs that go nowhere that they don’t put any real effort into because they’re going to be rich and famous some day soon.  Real soon.  I feel bad that a lot of artists, particularly writers, give up once they graduate from school.  They don’t have time with their “real jobs” or they find out that they weren’t ever that serious to begin with.  They don’t have the motivation of a writing class or a painting to get them working.  But like anything else worth doing, you have to find time to dedicate to your art. 

I was talking with a friend the other day about what I should be doing now that I am out of college and what she and her brother wants to do when they get out. I have not actually quite decided yet, which is why I still sell shoes but she seems on track. She is looking to get into bankruptcy law or something like that. She already actually has an internship studying Washington DC Bankruptcy Laws this summer. The more and more I think about it I should have gotten an internship in something during the summer at some point in college instead of working all the time. She said her brother is all set too. He is graduating soon with a teaching degree. The only thing is that he cannot find a job. She said her dad tried to get him a job at the school he works at, which is his old high school, but they do not have any openings for him. I suggested he take a look at some state programs and see if he cannot get some placements there through the different programs. I know a couple of friends how have done it, the only thing is that they my not get placed where they want location wise.

One year when I was working at an overnight camp we went to see a lumberjack competition on one of our days off. It was one of the most fun, unique and entertaining experiences of my entire life. We were so out of place there, and people gave us some funny looks. I guess all those cheese fed Wisconsin natives have never seen so many Jews before. It was really impressive to watch all of the competitions. They used all sorts of different cutting tools as they raced through cutting through gigantic logs. It was amazing to see how fast they could saw through those logs. It was also funny to be to see that every single one of the lumberjacks basically looked like Paul Bunyan. I kept telling my friends I wanted to go look for Babe the Blue Ox. That was really only one of the fun days off we took. Another time we went to a Brewers game at Miller Park in Milwaukee. We tailgated with the rest of the Brewers fans and enjoyed a few beers. The game was fun, and the Brewers even won. Those kids of days of with good friends are the great memories that make me miss going to camp. 

I had so much fun at my cousin's house today. He has about nine bookshelves full of magazines and we just sat there reading through all the art and music ones. He wanted me to help him think of a good data  storage solution for the best ones before donating them and so that's what we did. We turned it into a little party. I guess this is what art students do for fun! We started looking for some of the best photographs and visuals. Then we moved on to some of the articles that he marked little stars by because he thought those were the best. What's nice about the new data storage solution we came up with is that we are planning to separate all our interests by topic. It sure beats remembering some great photograph that you want to see again or article you want to read again but can't find. I mean there are literally thousands of magazines. Now we won't have that problem. By the end of it all we were buzzing with inspiration and ideas. We ran across some things we remembered from years ago that seemed to spark some outrageously original ideas. I think we each know what we're going to do for our next project!

That was truly a close shave for Dawn.  I mean, she was very close to declaring bankruptcy.  She couldn’t pay any of her utility bills, nor her dad’s funeral bill, which somehow her brother and sisters saddled her with.  Messages from these collection companies started to arrive in the mail, threatening her with larger fines and with imprisonment if she didn’t come up with a certain amount of money in a certain amount of time.  Dawn called me in tears one evening, on a day that she got not one, not two, but three of these letters in the same day.  She was beside herself: she works six nights a week at the roadhouse out on 35, and makes only a handful of cash, most of which goes toward groceries and maybe 200 bucks a month for living above Grace’s hardware store.  Grace is very generous about the rent because she knows Dawn is young and pretty much on her own.  She pretty much looks after her like her mother did, when Dawn was real little.  I asked Dawn if she had said anything about the bills to Grace, and she said, not yet.  So I decided to take matters into my own hands, and got Dawn set up with a guy over in Sevierville who deals with the FDCPA folks in Chattanooga.  Because of the distances in travel and everything, this procedure will probably take at least a few months.  I told Dawn to tell Grace everything, and maybe between me and Grace we can help her out until she can get the protection she needs.

My girlfriend of 2 and a half years Beth just bought me golf lessons for my birthday.  I have no idea what to tell her.  I don’t actually need golf lessons.  She only thinks that I’m playing all this golf every day because that’s what I tell when I run off to go hang with the guys.  None of us play golf.  We mostly get really drunk, watch sports or movies, or just sit around and talk.  It’s never anything that interesting.  Just idiot guy talk.  I feel bad about lying to Beth all the time, but she doesn’t like any of my friends.   She thinks that they’re all bad influences on me and drag me down to their level.  Of course I don’t really like any of her friends.  They talk far too much and love the sounds of their own voices.  And their idea of a good time is just go shop and shop and shop and they have to gossip about every little thing everything everyone they know does.  I know my buddy Nathan was engaged an hour before he called to tell me because Beth’s friend Kate was blabbering about it when she, Beth, I, and Kate’s guy were having coffee.   I still do my best to put up with all Beth’s friends if only to make her happy.  Why can’t she do the same for me? 

People look at my brother and think that in a few years or so he’ll be a leading candidate to get Chicago permanent hair removal done.  Ever since we were young, he’s had what has looked like a receding hairline.  Of course his hair wasn’t receding.  No one’s hair starts receding when they’re 7 years old.  But he’s looked like this all his life.  No one has ever understood it.  And it has never helped that for the longest time he’s gotten a Caesar cut.  When I pointed this out to him, he didn’t even know what a Caesar cut was.  I then pointed out that all he had to do was look in the mirror to see what one was and that was the way Julius Caesar used to style his hair back in the glorious days of ancient Rome.  John has never gone so far as to actually shave his head, though my mother forced him and me to get crew cuts a few times when we were younger.  I don’t think he actually needs Chicago permanent hair removal.  Really, I think he should just grow his hair out more and then comb it differently.  Then he’d look completely different. 

I always envied the chefs in their white uniforms and chef hats. With every job that I have worked in the kitchen of a restaurant, I have always been distracted at watching the cooks do their jobs. I love seeing how every type of food is prepared and the aromas that waft upwards with every breath I draw. Too bad I am part of the cleaning crew. I want an upgrade someday, but as of now I am not complaining. I get a delicious meal once a day, and when I do my work exceptionally good I am even allowed to order what I want to eat. Today I ate fettuccini pasta, and it blew my mind away! I savored every bite that I took, tasting and differentiating between every ingredient that was put in to make this delicious dish. The last forkful I lifted to my mouth and then slowly put it down. I just couldn’t finish that last bite. The cook walked in on me staring at my plate, and he told me that he was watching me eating. He asked why I didn’t finish, and I told him that I couldn’t possibly finish something as consummate as my meal. He then smiled, and thanked me for thanking him, because he made the meal especially for me after he saw how hard I worked every day, keeping the kitchen sanitary and garbage free. He said that he would gladly prepare that same meal for me every day—I was in heaven!