Should I Take Body Guards to the Wiener's Circle?

Good morning, campers!

Got ya some Alpha-Bits there. Did you know that if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room with some Alpha-Bits, they will eventually eat an unabridged version of "War and Peace"? It's true.



Though they are just yards away (and famous for their charbroiled hamburgers), I can't bring myself to go to the Weiner's Circle for a hot dog. Those women in there are vicious. BUT! I have an idea. Right now I work with some of the toughest, trash-talkin' women this side of Pulaski. I was thinking of showing up to the Wiener's Circle with them as my posse to trade in these street witticisms that not even the British could understand. Just a thought. My bodyguards.


Just a thought.

x.

Runner's Envy

You know, I really do envy runners - the stamina and dedication it takes to make one's way through thickets of SUV-sized sidewalk strollers, slow-walkers and the like, and to - as Nike likes to say - Just Do It. In high school, during the Paleozoic Age, I ran track. I was mostly a sprinter, longer running just wasn't in the cards for me. To this day, I wonder if people can work up to that somehow, even if they can barely run to save their lives.....

Right now I'm working to build up stamina so I can actually just work out longer. (It's crazy; I know it.)

I'm not a runner, though, not yet. More of a walker, though a speedy one. To quote Futurama's Fry, I make Speedy Gonzalez look like Regular Gonzalez....

Beyond the Relationship Event Horizon

Ah, love! Let us be true to one another!

OK, here's the question of the day: at what point does the person that one is seeing or, as the kids like to say, "talking to", become More, become somewhat Official? To put it plainly, I guess it would be just asking, "Is this person my boyfriend?" Some would say, Ah, just ask the other person. C'mon. Aren't you, after all, seeing this person?

Well, yes. But this is a murky area and I don't want to jinx it. (Yes, I said jinx. Some things just shouldn't be messed with even if the approach of superstition is irrational.)

Someone once said - it might've been Socrates but I think it was Steve Winwood - "Just roll with it, baby..." Wise words.

Time, I believe, time. In the meantime, I guess I'll continue to find my way in the dark. Just don't rearrange the furniture.

x.

At Once on India and Reading.

One day, Bombay became Mumbai, now I've found that in 2001, Calcutta became Kolkata. I guess, beyond all considerations economical, philsophical and political, the biggest question is, Why didn't anyone tell me?? I had to read about it in The Atlantic, like a commoner. (This is actually a very good article about Kolkata, with its new name taking on Bengali nuances, and how the city itself is growing, slowly trying to distance itself from its impoverished past.

There is no seque here.

I have way too many books to read, yet I'm interested in these:

• Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach.
• The Fortune Cook Chronicles, by Jennifer 8. Lee (Yep, that's her name.) Not just about Chinese food but about the Chinese cultural diaspora.
• Skim, a graphic novel by Mariko Tamaki.

It's been far too long since I've been zine shopping. When I do go, I'm looking for the latest issue of Caboose, which regularly makes me laugh. Liz, the author, recently became my friend on MySpace, so now we're, like totally BFFs forever!

These days I'm still reading Kenzaburo Oe and a book about books, which might sound strange...But it's true.

Later, crew.

x.

Oh, Why Didn't You Tell Me??

(Hey there.)

This morning, worming my way onto the #36 southbound, I spied an empty seat to my left, an aisle seat. Mostly I don't care if I sit or stand, but since it was there, I took it. Within nano-seconds, I realized why it had been vacant on such a crowded bus: O' the aroma! (O' the humanity!) Of course the fellow in the seat next to me seemed oblivious to my micro-panic, my eyes as they shifted to the woman across the aisle who smirked knowingly as if to say, "Ha ha! Sucker!"

I worried that like some kind of airborne virus, the stench would somehow adhere to me, making me look like the unwashed culprit. I sat for a few more stops until we came closer to my exit. Someone immediately snapped up the vacant seat. (Ha ha! Sucker!)

When I lived in New York, I remember watching as a man working at one of the subway newsstands sprayed Lysol directly onto the huge, rasta-haired man with the poncho. The funny thing was that, like most hulking creatures in movies, the poncho'd one failed to react to the disinfectant flying at his face and body. He simply kept looking on at "Barely Legal" et al. (Homeless or not, a man's got needs, ya know...)

I don't know why I take the bus more often than the train. Sometimes the slow, annoying pace of the bus suits my mood, as in "I'll get there when I get there..."

I really should take the EL more. I really should.

X.

Yes! I am re-inaugurating this blog, hence the broken champagne bottle on the side of this laptop. (By the way, don't do that. It'll mess with your keyboard.) Well, welcome.

Quite recently, I made a strange purchase of curry flavored peanut butter. (I actually bought it for my Dear Friend but keep forgetting to give it to him.) I WILL give it to him. (Remind me! Remind me!)

O' Chicago! When will the madness ever end? It's been winter for nine months now! Oh, OK. I exaggerate, but still... And the thing is, I'm not even a fan of warm weather, either. Spring! I like spring but that's it.

So far, I've lived in three major cities: London, New York and now Chicago. The best transit system is London. They win. (Blighters.) Then NYC. Then .... a gap. Then Chicago.

Good night, Chicago.

-X.