May 17th

The problem with relationships and the beginning of them are the games that are necessary to play. After the first date you have to wait X number of days. If you call someone and they do not pick up, you leave a message but cannot call back for X number of days again. Therefore that waiting period inbetween and hoping you get a call back is awful. You think of everything negative and wonder where something could have gone wrong. Or for me, all the messed up women (so I would like to believe) I have gone on a date with and never would call back, have messed me up here. Although, all those single women out there that are reading this (all none of you) I am single, funny, likes to go out to the bars or to dinner and love my family. Sounds perfect, right? Yeah, so I have heard.....

The one problem with when you start to date someone is that you are almost sending someone else to go on the dates for you. Someone who listens, cares and pretends to really be interested in what the other sex is talking about. You listen just enough so that you can ask questions back, but the rest of the time you are thinking, this beer or wine simply tastes delicious. Or, I wish a buddy could see me with her right now, proof I am not gay, proof I can go on dates with attractive women and that I do not instantly scare them off. You wish it was almost legit to have a picture taken so early in the dating scene to prove it to other women that I am able to go on dates with attractive women, because that is the time when women want a man, as soon as he is unavailable. Booze helps too.

So I am dealing with the fun stuff of selling my house as eluded to in the previous posts. The fun part of this process is seeing where else you may move. The down side is still waiting for someone to make an offer and for it to actually sell. Then you get the joy of moving and when you move you forget how expensive it is to buy the little things every new house needs. Even after all that, I am still real excited about the prospects of moving to a new place. In my mind it is going to be the Rain Man Suite when in all actuality it will probably be closer to a view of a brick wall or of an alley. Nothing like waking up in the morning on a Sunday, stepping outside to your porch or balcony with the Sunday paper in hand, ready for a relaxing morning, with the balcony overhanging the alley, where the neighbors decided that would be a good place when they got home from the bars last night to take a piss or to vomit, only steps away from their actual home. Or, the other pleasure, having the balcony right over the garbage. "Such a lovely morning, and do I smell rancid milk and rotting chicken bones? Fantastic!"

So the weather in Chicago has gone from spring-like to winter-like in a matter of days. Yesterday was no exception, until about 4PM when I looked out the office window and saw no clouds, a blue sky and a bright thing I was told was the sun. Amazing how in Chicago spring can come and go like a $2 crack rock. The great thing about when the weather gets nice in Chicago, nights at Wrigley Field are wonderful. Much more fun if the team decides to win some games, but it really is a great way to spend the night, as for me, tonight is that night. But, much like Chicago this time of year, the weather in the 70s is suppose to dip into the 60s and 50s tonight with major T-Storms a possibility. Great times!

May 12th & 13th

So what if I already failed at a few days of blogging on this column. For the first time in months I have actually been busy at work. I had a nice little 6 hour meeting on Friday that destroyed the day.

So the work on my home is done. Yes, I am enjoying the ritual of moving from early homeowner who after the down-payment on the home has to enjoy the beauty that is Ramen Noodles all over again from college, to actually having the funds to put in solid improvements into my home in order to sell it. See my first blog about this. Well, the work is all done now. Friday evening, Saturday day and part of Sunday day I spent cleaning, vacuuming, mopping, mopping, cleaning, getting on my knees like a $2 whore and cleaning the stuff no person ever wants to clean. But I did, and it’s done. For now.....I still need to clean the one room in the house that had no work done in it, the bedroom. It was the storage place for everything that was breakable during the entire process. Now all that crap has to go back. Amazing how miserable it is to do all this work just so I can leave it behind.

Saturday night I had a wedding. It was in the Sears Tower on the 66th floor. Now, that is a way to get married, looking down upon the entire city of Chicago. The wedding was a great time. A whole bunch of friends were there, including one who recently moved to Virginia to be with her fiancée. I am not gonna lie, I think the true value in the Average 20-something life of a guy at a wedding is to do two things, drinking all the free liquor one can and hope to be in the pants of some bridesmaid at the end of night. Unfortunately, there were no single women there I would do this with who was not a close friend and I would be participating in the single most awkward event of the entire wedding process when dealing with drunk 20-somethings, the sleeping with a close friend and then the awkward awakening the next morning. Trying to explain what happened and then trying to act like nothing happened the next time you are out with them on a normal Saturday night. It can go one of three ways, one, you will forever be awkward around the other person because you know (theoretically) what each other looks like naked (although if enough of a drunken stupor, you may have imagined things that were or were not there that do or do not exist)and will forever feel awkward around each other. Two, every time the two go out, you somehow find your way into one or the other's bed by the end of the night for meaningless sex (IDEAL SITUATION), Third, you act like nothing ever happened, you chalk it up to the glories of booze and move on with you night. Order of desirability for the average 20-something, 2-3-1. Friendship is always nice, friendship with sex; you get the best of everything, the sex without ever having to meet the parents.

This is the perfect segway into Sunday. Mother's Day. Yes, I did trek all the way out of the city to the hollow lands of the north suburbs. You know, where people go when they are ready to give up on life and the enjoyment of living amongst two million people per square block. With plenty of drinking and eating establishments close enough you can throw a tennis ball from you balcony and hit six of them at once. Anywho, my brother, sister-in-law and I bought the Mom a Nano for Mother's Day and for her birthday, but I could not show up on Mother's Day and present the Mom with nothing, so I arrived with Tulips and a card. The one great thing about spending time with the Mom and the Dad, is anytime I am with them, I definitely get to eat better than I do at home, especially during the Ramen Noodles phase (yes, I think my sodium levels were about 3,000 times what they were suppose to be at that time). The Dad got steaks that were 18-400 ounces. Huge. A whole potato and corn. It was a meal straight out of the farmer's house in Iowa. Good meal, but I think I am about to explode after eating it. And let me tell you, nothing better than driving home from the suburbs back to the city with a full load of clean clothes (did not have the Mom do that) and a full load in my stomach. It is like getting onto a roller coaster after just consuming a funnel cake. Or like sitting on a five hour flight in the window seat after drinking 8 beers in an hour.....something has to give.

Anywho....thats all I got from now.

May 11, 2006

I think instead of my catchy titles of each blog from my sports site, Occasionally Coherent Ramblings and then simply increasing by one number, I am just going to mark the date.

The idea of this site is to mention the funny and boring shit I notice on a daily basis, but it will be on a one day lag. For instance, this post says May 11, but it will refer to May 10th events.

What am I trying to accomplish with this blog? Well, like my other blog, simply wasting your time. But, I am going to try and show, mostly to all my lady readers (hi Jayne) what a guy is thinking in other situations (other than food, beer, sports, boobs and sleep) but, contrary to popular belief, a lot of other things go through our heads (when am I eating, where am I drinking, female's asses, where am I watching sports today).

You will see what life is like for me as a 20-something professional. This does not mean that I go out drinking beers every night with friends ogling women...just on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. One thing to expect, unless it is the weekend, I take the day off or a really random something happens at work, I will not be discussing it at all. So when there seems to be a blackhole in my life from 8:30-6PM each day its only because there pretty much is a blackhole in my life from 8:30-6PM every day.

Now for the show....

Yesterday I got home to find my house still in shambles. I have put in a considerable amount of finances into my home so that it can be sold and I can buy a different home that has everything I just put into it, but that costs more and may have one more bedroom/bathroom. These issues sum up to one thing, I am a moron to spend $6K on updating my home so I can move away from it and move into somewhere that has the exact things I already have. Mercy.

I thought a good way to deal with this would be to take a bike ride. This is the first time my bike has worked...well, since I bought it. I had to assemble it, and even though I am decent with my hands (ladies...) apparently bicycle repair is not on the list. Plus, a few things broke that I did not have, so I had a professional fix it. Now it rides perfectly, which is real nice in Chicago for exercise, to get somewhere and getting to not worry about parking and enormous gas prices. I live a block away from one of the largest parks in the city of Chicago and from the Lake. (Note to reader, anytime I say the "Lake" it is in reference to Lake Michigan. One of the Great Lakes that borders Chicago.) As I was biking through the park, I bumped into a friend who is an ump for softball, he was down an umpire for 16" Chicago-style softball and asked if I would sub. Now, once you get to know me, you know I said yes. Good times, people listen to me, me telling people where they could put their opinion if they thought I made a bad call. Good times.

I got home from the ride and umping, no big argument happened in the game, and where the pipes were from my kitchen sink that were to be addressed the following day by the plumber, were leaking beyond the bowl and bucket I left behind. The best part, the plumber was supposed to be out the week before to fix the cold water in the bathroom. So with no water in the kitchen and no cold water in the bathroom, I am currently left with only warm water from the bathroom faucet in my entire place. I will never, ever again do any significant work on my home without having some decent back-up option. I would be willing to pay a good premium to avoid having to do major work on my home again in the future. Therefore, if you have a fixer-upper home, do not even bother wasting your time on me. I will pass on it faster than Corky from "Life Goes On" could pass on putting together an entire, understandable sentence.

Ok, I think that is a good starter post on the new blog. I think I like this idea, lets me vent and deal with the stupid shit I deal with on a daily basis. May 10th just did not have anything real stupid to deal with. I wish each day were like May 10th then. Unfortunately I live in this place called reality also known as "My Life".

One thing I can do without in the city, that the Fire Department and Police Department will still use their siren and horn at like 2 AM. For the few morons on the road at 2AM on a Wednesday night, they are either asleep at the wheel, drunk or can see really bright flashing lights. The use of the horn in the middle of a residential area seems to serve one purpose. The Firemen are pissed that they are awake for what will, most likely, be a false alarm at 2AM, so they feel everyone else within a 3 miles radius should be awake as well.

Also, Dudes on Crotch Rockets that feel the need to make the bikes get real loud at 3AM because they are drunk and are trying to impress the drunk girls at 3AM, Stop! I hate you and hope that you are trying to be so cool and impress the women that you stop paying attention and get hit by a bus or a streetlight pole. Just use your feet or a bicycle like every other normal person in a city.