- The story of Hansel and Gretel fucks with my head. I can deal with the weird ass step mom wanting to abandon the kids in the woods and even the weird ass witch of the forest who's been living alone for so long and taking bong hits off tree sap or whatever the hell she's doing that she has turned herself into a cannibal. It's the dad that puts me off my lunch. He's so enamored with some gutter slut pain in the ass that he claims he doesn't want to abandon the kids but since the gutter slut wants to he just can't bring himself to say no. If I'd written that story it would have ended with dad all happy to see the kids return after the death of the StepMonster but Hansel would've gone all Clint Eastwood on his ass and thrown off the serapi and nailed him between the eyes with his six shooters...I think I need to create the American film industry version of our most hallowed fairy tales. Snow White is the 7 Dwarves concubine, Cinderella's Prince gives her the clap from hammering more ladies of the court than Tiger Woods on the Monday after a major, Bambi grows up neurotic as hell from Mom being killed at a young age and can't hold onto a relationship, and don't even get me started on that Marquis De Sade freak up at the North Pole who's all into fetish sex and cosplay.
- What in the fuck do you do with the Auschwitz "Arbeit Macht Frei' (work sets you free) sign after you've stolen it? I used to steal signs and flags and things with my friend Mark back in High School. So, on some level the sheer audacity of this is impressive but, like, you can't show it to anyone.
- It's that time of the football season when sportscasters and journalists step up their ongoing assault on the English language. "They control their own destiny" and all of it's derivatives. Destiny can't be controlled you twits.
- Christ, I hate Eggplant. I'm certain it's a left over scourge that God visited upon Job.
- The woman in the room next to me at the Hilton this week had one of those buzzsaw voices - nasal, grating, loud, and constant - that cut right through the walls as she'd talk to her friends or business associates until midnight every night. I learned an alarming amount about her sex life. She's juggling four guys and they're all bad in bed. Seems like at some point you have to at least consider that you are the common denominator in this bad sex equation. Just sayin'. She'd make up for it by falling asleep to the TV jacked waaaay the hell up. Awesome.
- I find it alarming that I live someplace so cold that traveling to Chicago in December results in a 25 degree temperature improvement. Don't get me wrong, it's still cold. But it ain't Minnesota cold.
- I have officially re-established my cred as a snotty power traveler. Got all bent out of shape today when I learned I wouldn't get upgraded to the Big Chairs. This is not a positive development.
- My trusty old steed (a 2000 Nissan Maxima) gave up the ghost back in August and I was carless for a couple of months. Beginning of November I bought a new one. I'm a little too enamored with it and think it's a sign of dramatic aging that the thing I like about it the best are the seat warmers. Renting a car for work this week that doesn't have them and my level of suffering and histrionics has hit the operatic level. I know I'm old and fat. Didn't know I'd turned into such a wimp.
- But it is really fun to drive around in my new toy.
- So wrapped up with work I've not really paid attention to the holidays approaching until now. That's kind of a bummer. Gonna find some non-shopping Christmas-y things to do this weekend and next week will take the time while I'm in downtown Chicago to stroll along the streets and check out the lights and wander into a candlelight service or two. When I get home I'm planning on a Christmas Eve Day trip to a big ass toy store and maxing out the credit card and then delivering a whole whomping hunk of stuff to one of the homeless shelters or orphanage's in Minneapolis. Not good for my debt load or credit rating. Really good for the soul.
- Found the best eavesdroppin' restaurant ever just a half mile from where I'm working. To wit...
- Couple next to me sharing a meal and a whole passel of naked hostility towards each other. To the point where they had a spat about whether the the butter was actually butter and gave a shit about the outcome of the argument. It was like a prison yard scene in a movie...no one backing down. Somewhere in the course of that I thought to myself, "somebody cheated on somebody and they're fighting about everything but that". Not 30 seconds later the dude says "So...you met up with Paul last Saturday instead of your friends." Pause. Pause. Pause. Pause. Deep sigh. "Nothing happened." Whoa, Nelly! Way too pregnant of a pause for that. Dude wasn't buying it even a little. It became clear that he was at a point where he was looking for The One and she was, rather emphatically, not. Finished off with the dude getting up to leave and her asking "how am I supposed to get home". Dude says, "Call Paul. I'm sure he's all about riding you." Good parting shot to a really bad night.
- The elderly couple on the other side of me dressed in mourning black eating quietly started chatting with the very friendly, very hispanic bus boy who was sweet as can be but struggled with English. While I couldn't hear what they were saying to him I heard him, before he broke away to turn his attention back to work say, "My heart, it hurts for you" with such sincerity that I choked up.