Bingo Bango

I picked up, off the street a few minutes ago, what is, literally, the biggest clue I've ever found: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27854613@N03/sets/72157623634589283/

It's like a classroom roll-down transparency of Africa and southern Europe, but just the borders and country names. So I guess teacher would pull down a geographic map and then pull down this transparency over it to reveal the politics. This is a great find. I'm really excited. I've just got to clean it up some and I've got myself something.

For the first time in so long, I didn't close by myself at work. So me and my coworker and his girlfriend went to a Mexican restaurant after work. There were actually two Mexican restaurants side-by-side, at the intersection of Roscoe and Clark. One is pretty authentically Mexican, and I've always wanted to eat there because it looks nice. The other one is lit like a nightclub and was blasting "Party Like a Rock Star" by Shop Boyz when we walked by. But it has a huge, gigantic sombrero protruding from above the storefront. Giant things, esp. sombreros, are fucking awesome. But there isn't a sombrero large enough to convince me to eat at a Mexican restaurant that plays music in the key of Shop Boyz.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=roscoe+and+clark&sll=41.973431,-87.667744&sspn=0.007115,0.01266&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=N+Clark+St+%26+W+Roscoe+St,+Chicago,+Cook,+Illinois+60657&ll=41.943743,-87.653748&spn=0.000222,0.000396&t=h&z=21&layer=c&cbll=41.943743,-87.653748&panoid=2qiDysm7KcGZkT9tWSp9Cg&cbp=12,45.49,,0,-6.75

Fiesta Cantina on the left vs. El Jardin on the right. Guess which one yells shitty music at you while you enjoy tacos and margaritas? We went to the other one. I had the salad and Christie and Ryan shared fajitas. Though we heard, loud and clear from next door, what we were missing while we ate, at least we were missing it.

Christie and Ryan couldn't finish all the fajitas and didn't want to take the leftovers home. So I said I would. But now I feel, like, guilty about not asking them again if they didn't for sure want to take them. I agreed, almost too hastily, not mainly for the free food, but because I didn't want the food to go to waste, you know? I should have asked them if they were sure.

Plus I forgot to thank them for letting me take their table scraps.

I don't know why the fuck I get so bothered about things like this. There they were, ready to discard a good portion of untouched and reportedly delicious food, with the billions of people in the world starving, and I swooped down from a rooftop of good deeds on wings of altruism and say "yes, I'll take that." Yet I still feel guilt.

I should be rewarded for taking that free food.

Then walking home from the bus, I found the transparency.

Hello LiveJournal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_cXqTqZO9s#t=6m50s

Shelley Winters dancing in Lolita is a bit heartbreaking.

I'm coming back to you livejournal.

Egg cartons have a "best by" date printed on them. What I'd appreciate more is a "worst on" or "inedible after" date. Because you can't tell with eggs until they're cracked.

I miss my mom's cooking so so much.

When we were young, Russell Bailyn and I were good friends. Russell was a hoot; nobody made me laugh more than he did. He was the youngest of three brothers; Evan a year older and Bradley two or more. His parents were divorced and he and Evan lived with Lisa, short for Melissa, Bailyn in Oceanside not too far from me. We both went to School #8, but weren't friends until 6th grade with Mrs. Krasnoff, nee Sontag. Russell gave Mrs. Krasnoff such a hard time. She would raise her voice at him to a point that scared the rest of us, but he was still a pain in the ass. It was great.

I wasn't always ready to admit to others that I was friends with Russell. He was nuts. He sat in the front row, his desk covered in Barney stickers with the inset of Janet Jackson's self-titled CD (the one where she's topless except for a pair of hands covering her breasts from behind, a hot one) propped up around the perimeter. He ogled the picture right in front of Mrs. Krasnoff and drew his own version with unconcealed breasts and an extra hairy bush instead of pants. One day he pushed Stacy Brecher across the room and into a metal cabinet. He got in a mess of trouble for that. Instead of apologizing to her, he said he'd put a jumping jack in her vagina and light it. He pushed Josh Kurot so far that Josh brought a knife to school and threatened Russell. Josh got suspended because of it. That's hilarious.

His father, Arthur Bailyn DDS, and Bradley lived in Great Neck. His father made a lot of money being a dentist, and shopped wholesale even though it was just him and Bradley in an apartment. Huge jugs of Hawaiian Punch and big things of peanut butter. For Russell's birthday one year, Dr. Bailyn treated me, David Miljoner, Lee Bergstein, and Russell to a night of fun in New York City. This included dinner at Jekyll and Hyde--a sort of PG-rated Chuck E. Cheese--and a helicopter tour of Manhattan. Dr. Bailyn's girlfriend came with us, appropriately aged and wearing a fur coat.

I don't think Lisa Bailyn dated much. She wasn't unattractive, but I think the stress of raising Russell took its toll on her morale. They didn't get along. Sometimes it was uncomfortable being over his house because of the screaming matches they had. But Lisa liked me, I reckon. I was polite.

Russell had a tent in his backyard where he had a stash of porno magazines that taught me as much as they confused me. I didn't understand why all the women spread apart their vaginas; it looked like that would hurt. We used his Zippo to make marshmallows taste like burnt paper and lighter fluid, set one end of a small length of twine and tried to smoke it. I didn't bother to ask how he got the Zippo and porn and stuff. I suspect he either stole these things or used his charm to persuade crooked Oceanside Flea Market merchants. One day he had cigars for us. We walked around the neighborhood smoking them while Russell fired rocks into the air with his slingshot and off in the distance something would break. Lee Bergstein's dad drove by and saw us with the cigars, and for the next couple of days I had that dizzying childhood fear in my gut that my mom would discover the horrible thing I'd done.

In middle school, Russell and I only shared Mrs. Fazio's orchestra class. I played violin, not poorly but without virtue. But Russell was a talented cellist, second only to the effeminate and overweight Jeffrey Brous whom Russell relentlessly tormented. He really let Jeff have it. He loved the cello. While I played whatever they put in front of me, Russell bought his own sheet music and practiced stuff he didn't even have to know. Once he showed me a composition he wrote, hundreds of notes written in pen on looseleaf paper. Then he played it for me. An hour later I finally stopped laughing.

Somewhere during high school he moved in with his father and finished school in Great Neck. We're friends on Facebook, and apparently he's a sort of financier now. I hope he's making at least one person's life difficult. That would be funny.

95% of all queers who put on their shoes on right foot first are assholes.

Best Buy Core Philosophies

Treat customers uniquely and honor their differences--as segment and individuals.

Invite employees to contribute their unique ideas and experiences in service of the customer.

Meet customers' unique needs, end to end.

I've lived here for a month now. From time to time, especially in bed trying fall asleep, I miss being in my familiar place. It's cold here. I wish it warms up soon; I'll be so much more comfortable then. It gets really cold in my apartment; the radiators are on a timer, I guess. And when they finally turn on, they give off an awful hiss that taunts me when I'm awake and wakes me when I'm asleep. So I turn them off and it gets cold again. But it'll warm up soon and I'll be better because of it.

I just hate going for days without seeing someone I'm used to, if not good friends with. It's going to take some work getting familiar with the people I see every day.

And the Russians that live above me are up to something, I know it. I just know it.

( I wrote this about a month ago.. )

All told, I made around $300 in MYSTERY BOX sales. I think some people still owe me money.

I live in Chicago now, for as long as I can. I haven't gotten a job yet. But I've only been here one week, so I guess there's time. Except for I'm starting already to feel the hurt. I'm supposed to have a job lined up at the Best Buy here. I've called them twice with no response. I don't particularly feel like trying to find a job elsewhere, unless this Best Buy pays me shit. I guess they have the same position available at the one I want to work at. I was Senior of the Media department, that's right. I reckon I can get by on what I made at the store in NY. I just need to get employed here in order to make money, obviously.

But other than that, what a smooth transition it's been. My place is really nice and I'll probably take pictures of it soon. Today I took great strides in making it look nice because I assembled the furniture I got from Ikea yesterday. I finally got all my DVDs out of the boxes and onto a shelf, which makes me feel at home. I don't have a DVD player, go figure, but I can watch them anyhow on my computer.

Today I ate a hamburger at a place called Kuma's Corner. The waitress looked like Juno and she had the same spunk. I think she liked me. Kuma's Corner is really good for burgers. All in all, the food is great here.

My neighborhood where I live is called Andersonville. There's plenty to do here, see for yourself. It's probably about 40 minutes by train north of the Chicago Loop, where all the buildings are. But that's the way it is here. I like it a lot so far.

My friend Gena has been helping me a lot. I don't think I'd be able to handle this without her.

I drove here, from NY, with all my stuff in my car, and it was fucking hell. Pennsylvania had snow all over it, to the point where you couldn't see anything, including the lines and dividers, for about 10 hours. There was a plow whose claw was sparking up something terrible, and I was stoned too, so it living nightmare. At one point there was a car facing traffic, having spun out, righting itself with a u-turn at like three o'clock in the morning for god's sake. I'm glad that's over. I really am.

I've only got two more boxes of stuff to unpack. It's my books and my other stuff. I've got to get more furniture, including a computer desk; I'm sitting on the floor as I type this. A laptop would be cool, but hey.

Wish me luck. If you need me, I'll be in Chicago.

Hey ladies. Would I look more or less handsome without this mustache?



I need an answer by 11am tomorrow.

My heroes in life are all film directors. Steven Spielberg is one of them. I don't give a care, he just is.