E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com Archives March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 current Blogs Mandapants farkleberries Uranium City Records The C.M. Sienko Foundation Storyteller Musings Solotarian Views Lynne Wiora Tek Poker News Blog Some Biscuits Evil Eye Emporium Niggling Doubts Pressure Release Sara as Mommy runswithscissors Defective Yeti Afternoon Delight trancejen The Terrarium Bird Nird Slipperily Tofu Hut Stereo Gum Links Fixed Gear Gallery Get Crafty This is Grand Featherproof Books Gapers Block Chicago Bird Watching	No one must know my terrible secret... House of Noh! Saturday, March 29, 2003 The rain came down in blasts Friday morning – barrages of big, long, comet-tailed, slashing drops. It was the kind of windy Chicago rainstorm where there’s no use in putting up an umbrella because the next gust will grab it and turn it inside out. I guess it’s true what my Mom had told me when I moved to the city. I had scoffed at her at the time. “Brian,” she had told me with motherly concern, “when you’re in the city you’re going to need both an umbrella AND a raincoat!” “Right! I had responded sarcastically, “I’ll need the raincoat for the drops of water that pass through the fabric of my umbrella!” Waiting at the bus stop I saw other people who had tried to put their umbrellas up into the wind. A foldable umbrella won’t re-close once it’s been pulled inside out and I saw at least three people that morning clutching half-unfurled black vinyl and steel-splined crippled bird wings at their side. The only type of umbrella that can hold up in this type of weather is a golf umbrella. The problem with a golf umbrella is that you have to be asshole to use one in the city. Granted, in an open space like on a golf course a golf umbrella is a great idea. But on a crowded sidewalk a golf umbrella with its huge radius and thick, stiff splines is a cause for concern for anybody on the sidewalk who has eyeballs and isn’t wearing safety goggles. Also, in many situations there obviously is not enough room for everybody on the sidewalk to use golf umbrellas, but the old rich white dudes who carry them don’t think they are doing anything wrong with them, in fact, they seem almost smug – like they think they are clever to use their golf umbrella while everybody else’s little umbrellas bend and break in the wind. The rich old dudes are like, “check me out! I’m dry and comfortable while you proletariat are soaked to the bone!” Whenever I see somebody walking in the city with a golf umbrella I think to myself, “there goes one of the people who must be making resource allocation decisions in this nation.” Well anyway, that’s one of the things I was thinking about as I stood there at the bus stop Friday morning. I had plenty of time because the buses seemed to be running late. I also had time to write a haiku (although I believe that technically this would be considered a senryu) and I would like to share it with you: That guy wearing paper lunch-bags like mittens who kept sneaking up behind me while I was trying to ignore him and kept touching me on the ear with a stick he broke off of a tree and demanding that I buy from him a ragged zip-lock bag full of miscellaneous french fries that he had obviously collected from discarded fast food containers just got on the 145, I think I’ll wait for the 146, on this rainy day. There was something wrong with the 146 I got on with the other wretches from the bus stop. I had to stand in front because the bus was mostly full and I saw that the bus driver kept squinting and cursing under his breath as he drove. A few blocks down the road he pulled over and made me stand in a puddle in front of the bus in the rain and move his wiper blades around as he shouted instructions and cursed at me through the windshield (I would like to think that he selected me for task because of my readily apparent able-bodiedness). When I got back on the bus all the other fellow passengers slapped me on the back and gave me hearty congratulations, like “good job!” and “way to fix our bus!” – they were all genuinely appreciative and I was touched. But my repair work was for naught because after another few blocks the bus driver pulled over again and dashed out the door and into traffic. That was the last we passengers saw of him. A few moments later another bus driver poked his head though the side door and yelled at us to get off of our bus and get on a bus behind it. We all trooped through the rain to the next bus and there was weeping and general wretchedness. Somebody had left the windows open on the next bus and all the seats were wet and people clamored to quickly slam the windows shut like they were crewman shutting hatches on a depth-charged submarine as a fresh pelting of wind and rain rocked the bus and all the elderly or infirm or dry-clean only passengers wailed. The whole experience reminded me of the cargo ships in Loren Green’s fleet on “Battlestar Galactica” – the rag-tag ships that carried the last survivors from earth after it had been destroyed by those robots with the blinking red Knightrider lights for eyes. Sometimes my work environment pushes me toward existentialism – the whole above-described Friday morning didn’t really seem to matter. Even after telling everybody my story I still got in trouble for showing up to work late and I was made to take down the braided invisible-tape clothesline I had made and hung in my office to dry out my socks. Brian 2:45 PM Thursday, March 27, 2003 I’ve just been roundly rejected. I would understand if the pop machine on 41 inspected my dollar bill and then decided that it would prefer a different one. Like, there might be people out there who would draw George Washington on a piece of notebook paper and try to trick a vending machine with it. I would understand if... I don’t know, maybe my dollar bill was all crumpled up and the vending machine just couldn’t be sure. But the vending machine wouldn’t even take a taste of my dollar bill. I held the dollar bill up to its mouth and I could hear gears whirring but it never grabbed onto my bill, not even just a little teeny tiny taste. I think that’s a slap in the face, and, quite frankly, my feelings were hurt. Through a fog of rage and scorn and shame I suddenly felt an overriding urge to tip the machine toward me, but fortunately before I tipped I saw the warning sign on the machine. If I had tipped it, five lightning bolts would have struck me in the head. Brian 11:48 AM Saturday, March 22, 2003 I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about identity theft. I guess the scam is that people dig through your trash and get your social security number and address and other information. Then they pretend to be you and run up debts and do embarrassing things in your name. I used to worry about identity theft, but I don’t anymore. The reason I don’t worry is that recently I’ve been taking all the pre-approved credit card offers I get in the mail and tearing them in half. Then I put them in a plastic bag, fill the plastic bag with hot water, and let it all soak overnight. Then in the morning, if I have some handy, I’ll mix some cat poop in the bag with an old wooden serving spoon that I keep for that purpose. I feel confident that nobody is going to steal my identity now. Because, like, who on earth would ever want to pretend to be that paranoid disgusting guy who mixes cat poop in with his junk mail before throwing it away? Brian 12:31 PM Monday, March 17, 2003 Did I tell you that I’ve been out of town? Last night I finally got a chance to get a good night’s sleep in my own home. I curled up in my sleeping back next to the heater under my desk and fell asleep. Mr. Kitty knocked a plastic cup of water off my desk onto me while I slept, and after that he kept waking me up by putting his dirty cat paw on my lips (I don’t know why he insists on doing that). So I guess things are pretty much back to normal now. Brian 1:27 AM Saturday, March 01, 2003 OK, so I finally got a chance to figure out my technical difficulties with this blog. It turns out that the source of my difficulties wasn’t the “man,” a secret shadow government, the microchip in my penis that makes beeping noises, or even Google who just bought Blogger (please! no more baby-talk names!!), that is, at least not directly. So I take back all the horrible things I said about the above-mentioned entities and microchips during the period I was unable to post. One of the reasons my technical difficulties were so frustrating was because I wanted to tell the world about the very special Valentine’s Day I had this last February 14th. Quite honestly, I didn’t have very big plans for Valentine’s day. But on the El ride home I met, just by fate, a very special person. You know that homeless guy who goes from car to car trying to get people to buy ziplock bags full of tube socks by shouting derogatory things at people and then laughing? Well he was giving me the hard sell on these tube-socks and I said some things I didn’t really mean. He said some hurtful things about me too. I can’t remember who pushed who first but all of a sudden we both had big fistfuls of each other’s jackets and were staggering around the car trying to knock each other’s heads against the poles on the El car. It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to put on the safety glasses I carry in my bag so that panhandlers can’t spit in my eyes should such an altercation arise. Most of the people on our side of the El car ran to the other side. Some people pulled out cell phones and threatened to call the cops. It was a bad scene, but like any good musical, the tube sock salesman and I broke the tension by bursting into song. I, unfortunately, don’t have time to tell you about our whole performance, but let me just say that it was magical. Our grand finale was singing a duet of “Anything you can do, I can do better” during which the tube sock selling guy pulled a pair of boxer shorts out of his backpack and swung them in big rodeo circles over his head faster and faster until chunks of feces flew out of them. It was a very special Valentine’s day. Brian 1:03 PM

E-mail: Brian7Morris "at" hotmail.com

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Mandapants
farkleberries
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Storyteller Musings
Solotarian Views
Lynne Wiora
Tek
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Some Biscuits
Evil Eye Emporium
Niggling Doubts
Pressure Release
Sara as Mommy
runswithscissors
Defective Yeti
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trancejen
The Terrarium
Bird Nird
Slipperily
Tofu Hut
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House of Noh!

Saturday, March 29, 2003

The rain came down in blasts Friday morning – barrages of big, long, comet-tailed, slashing drops. It was the kind of windy Chicago rainstorm where there’s no use in putting up an umbrella because the next gust will grab it and turn it inside out. I guess it’s true what my Mom had told me when I moved to the city. I had scoffed at her at the time. “Brian,” she had told me with motherly concern, “when you’re in the city you’re going to need both an umbrella AND a raincoat!” “Right! I had responded sarcastically, “I’ll need the raincoat for the drops of water that pass through the fabric of my umbrella!” Waiting at the bus stop I saw other people who had tried to put their umbrellas up into the wind. A foldable umbrella won’t re-close once it’s been pulled inside out and I saw at least three people that morning clutching half-unfurled black vinyl and steel-splined crippled bird wings at their side. The only type of umbrella that can hold up in this type of weather is a golf umbrella. The problem with a golf umbrella is that you have to be asshole to use one in the city. Granted, in an open space like on a golf course a golf umbrella is a great idea. But on a crowded sidewalk a golf umbrella with its huge radius and thick, stiff splines is a cause for concern for anybody on the sidewalk who has eyeballs and isn’t wearing safety goggles. Also, in many situations there obviously is not enough room for everybody on the sidewalk to use golf umbrellas, but the old rich white dudes who carry them don’t think they are doing anything wrong with them, in fact, they seem almost smug – like they think they are clever to use their golf umbrella while everybody else’s little umbrellas bend and break in the wind. The rich old dudes are like, “check me out! I’m dry and comfortable while you proletariat are soaked to the bone!” Whenever I see somebody walking in the city with a golf umbrella I think to myself, “there goes one of the people who must be making resource allocation decisions in this nation.” Well anyway, that’s one of the things I was thinking about as I stood there at the bus stop Friday morning. I had plenty of time because the buses seemed to be running late. I also had time to write a haiku (although I believe that technically this would be considered a senryu) and I would like to share it with you: That guy wearing paper lunch-bags like mittens who kept sneaking up behind me while I was trying to ignore him and kept touching me on the ear with a stick he broke off of a tree and demanding that I buy from him a ragged zip-lock bag full of miscellaneous french fries that he had obviously collected from discarded fast food containers just got on the 145, I think I’ll wait for the 146, on this rainy day. There was something wrong with the 146 I got on with the other wretches from the bus stop. I had to stand in front because the bus was mostly full and I saw that the bus driver kept squinting and cursing under his breath as he drove. A few blocks down the road he pulled over and made me stand in a puddle in front of the bus in the rain and move his wiper blades around as he shouted instructions and cursed at me through the windshield (I would like to think that he selected me for task because of my readily apparent able-bodiedness). When I got back on the bus all the other fellow passengers slapped me on the back and gave me hearty congratulations, like “good job!” and “way to fix our bus!” – they were all genuinely appreciative and I was touched. But my repair work was for naught because after another few blocks the bus driver pulled over again and dashed out the door and into traffic. That was the last we passengers saw of him. A few moments later another bus driver poked his head though the side door and yelled at us to get off of our bus and get on a bus behind it. We all trooped through the rain to the next bus and there was weeping and general wretchedness. Somebody had left the windows open on the next bus and all the seats were wet and people clamored to quickly slam the windows shut like they were crewman shutting hatches on a depth-charged submarine as a fresh pelting of wind and rain rocked the bus and all the elderly or infirm or dry-clean only passengers wailed. The whole experience reminded me of the cargo ships in Loren Green’s fleet on “Battlestar Galactica” – the rag-tag ships that carried the last survivors from earth after it had been destroyed by those robots with the blinking red Knightrider lights for eyes. Sometimes my work environment pushes me toward existentialism – the whole above-described Friday morning didn’t really seem to matter. Even after telling everybody my story I still got in trouble for showing up to work late and I was made to take down the braided invisible-tape clothesline I had made and hung in my office to dry out my socks.

Brian 2:45 PM

Thursday, March 27, 2003

I’ve just been roundly rejected. I would understand if the pop machine on 41 inspected my dollar bill and then decided that it would prefer a different one. Like, there might be people out there who would draw George Washington on a piece of notebook paper and try to trick a vending machine with it. I would understand if... I don’t know, maybe my dollar bill was all crumpled up and the vending machine just couldn’t be sure. But the vending machine wouldn’t even take a taste of my dollar bill. I held the dollar bill up to its mouth and I could hear gears whirring but it never grabbed onto my bill, not even just a little teeny tiny taste. I think that’s a slap in the face, and, quite frankly, my feelings were hurt. Through a fog of rage and scorn and shame I suddenly felt an overriding urge to tip the machine toward me, but fortunately before I tipped I saw the warning sign on the machine. If I had tipped it, five lightning bolts would have struck me in the head.

Brian 11:48 AM

Saturday, March 22, 2003

I’ve heard a lot of talk lately about identity theft. I guess the scam is that people dig through your trash and get your social security number and address and other information. Then they pretend to be you and run up debts and do embarrassing things in your name. I used to worry about identity theft, but I don’t anymore. The reason I don’t worry is that recently I’ve been taking all the pre-approved credit card offers I get in the mail and tearing them in half. Then I put them in a plastic bag, fill the plastic bag with hot water, and let it all soak overnight. Then in the morning, if I have some handy, I’ll mix some cat poop in the bag with an old wooden serving spoon that I keep for that purpose. I feel confident that nobody is going to steal my identity now. Because, like, who on earth would ever want to pretend to be that paranoid disgusting guy who mixes cat poop in with his junk mail before throwing it away?

Brian 12:31 PM

Monday, March 17, 2003

Did I tell you that I’ve been out of town? Last night I finally got a chance to get a good night’s sleep in my own home. I curled up in my sleeping back next to the heater under my desk and fell asleep. Mr. Kitty knocked a plastic cup of water off my desk onto me while I slept, and after that he kept waking me up by putting his dirty cat paw on my lips (I don’t know why he insists on doing that). So I guess things are pretty much back to normal now.

Brian 1:27 AM

Saturday, March 01, 2003

OK, so I finally got a chance to figure out my technical difficulties with this blog. It turns out that the source of my difficulties wasn’t the “man,” a secret shadow government, the microchip in my penis that makes beeping noises, or even Google who just bought Blogger (please! no more baby-talk names!!), that is, at least not directly. So I take back all the horrible things I said about the above-mentioned entities and microchips during the period I was unable to post. One of the reasons my technical difficulties were so frustrating was because I wanted to tell the world about the very special Valentine’s Day I had this last February 14th. Quite honestly, I didn’t have very big plans for Valentine’s day. But on the El ride home I met, just by fate, a very special person. You know that homeless guy who goes from car to car trying to get people to buy ziplock bags full of tube socks by shouting derogatory things at people and then laughing? Well he was giving me the hard sell on these tube-socks and I said some things I didn’t really mean. He said some hurtful things about me too. I can’t remember who pushed who first but all of a sudden we both had big fistfuls of each other’s jackets and were staggering around the car trying to knock each other’s heads against the poles on the El car. It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to put on the safety glasses I carry in my bag so that panhandlers can’t spit in my eyes should such an altercation arise. Most of the people on our side of the El car ran to the other side. Some people pulled out cell phones and threatened to call the cops. It was a bad scene, but like any good musical, the tube sock salesman and I broke the tension by bursting into song. I, unfortunately, don’t have time to tell you about our whole performance, but let me just say that it was magical. Our grand finale was singing a duet of “Anything you can do, I can do better” during which the tube sock selling guy pulled a pair of boxer shorts out of his backpack and swung them in big rodeo circles over his head faster and faster until chunks of feces flew out of them. It was a very special Valentine’s day.

Brian 1:03 PM

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