Balancing act

So, I'm riding a midday train home from work, and there is this teenaged person standing up at one end of our fairly empty car. He has it all to himself, but instead of taking a seat, he is standing in the middle of the isle, facing the front of the car (and away from me). He is sort of short and squat, has long hair, is wearing all black, including a long black coat, and has headphones on.

I can only explain what he's doing as, well, super-hero training. See, he's taken this sort of spread-legged stance and his holding his arms slightly away from his body. He's focusing ahead with great intent, and is rubbing the tips of his fingers together on each hand in a sort of "I'm getting ready to do a backflip" kind of way. As the train speeds ahead, his goal is, I think, to remain not only balanced, but focused. The train swerves, and he quickly adjusts his stance to compensate. The train picks up speed, and he leans into it. We hit a bump, and his legs bend more to absorb the shock. All, I'm hoping, to prepare him for crime fighting later in the evening. The soundtrack he's chosen must be blaring in his head, helping him to find the strength to battle the city's foes.

This is actually sort of an impressive effort, except for the fact that this guy is terrible at it. He is falling over. He is crashing into the wall of the train. He is throwing his arms in circles every so often to try to remain upright. It's ridiculous. Each time, he sort of bounces back, as ready as ever, lightly rubbing his fingers together, bouncing delicately to regain his composure. No sooner does he do that then another swerve or bounce or slow-down occurs, tossing his plump little body in some unpredictable direction. It's outstanding.

We arrive at Fullerton. The doors of the El hiss open, and he turns to leave. Only, I was wrong. It's a she. She. She is my flailing and failing teenage super-hero. I'm shocked. My mouth must be hanging open, because she catches my eye and flashes some sort of weird sign with her hand. I think maybe it is vulcan or rock-n-roll or something. Maybe she's just waving. Maybe someday she'll save my life.

She exits, and I'm pretty much sorry to see her go.

The rest of my ride home is uneventful. I turn up my iPod. Green Day comes on with "Jesus of Suburbia," and I close my eyes to the rest of the train, choosing to lose myself in the song for the home stretch.

Indeed

The first thing that happens when you walk out in 6 degree weather is that it feels like someone has pulled your pants down. I'm not kidding. I could be wearing thick cords or heavy trousers, and I would still feel that below-zero wind on my legs within seconds. It is profound. And then, as you start walking to the elevated, you realize that your skin is possibly detaching from your face. It kind of hurts and kind of feels exciting but mostly just feels very cold.

It's cold out, and there is no denying it. I often think that, in Chicago, the cold brings strangers together. You see someone on the street and look at them as if to say "yeah, I know what you mean." But not this cold. This cold alienates. It makes you to too afraid to lift your head and look directly at someone, for fear that your eyeballs might freeze up or retreat into your brain. This kind of cold makes walls between us like a big ice cube tray.

I attended a party this weekend (leaving sweet A at home to care for the kids) and realized how much more work it has become to engage with people that I don't know. I used to sort of love it. I used to go to a party, find some person whom I'd never met, and talk. Talk about them, talk about me, talk about... things. It was fun and interesting to find out a little of someone's story under the faint fog of a few drinks. [Note. I have a friend who likes to play this game he invented, "Indeed." The goal is to stay in a viable conversation with someone who's sloshed for as long as possible using only the word "indeed."]

Anyway, I realized within a few minutes of throwing my coat and scarf on the guest bed that I really don't enjoy this kind of thing anymore. It's too much work. I want to see my friends, thank you very much. I want to catch up on things with people I already know and care about. That's hard enough as it is, finding the time for that.

So, I met a few folks (including some youthful, energetic women who had light-up ice cubes in their cocktails), but I mostly stuck close to my good buddy U, who made me a smashing apple martini. I left fairly early, which by my standards was actually very late, and walked slowly to my car in the bitter cold.

I sort of liked it better out there than inside at the party - preferring, for the moment at least, my little ice tray compartment.

Indeed.

It does look like antifreeze

Had a 24 hour stomach thing, awarding myself the title of Captain Vom. My mother always said that "you feel like you're going to die, and you're afraid you won't." So true.

I felt it inappropriate to bring our new iSight webcam into the bathroom with me to give my brother a live feed of my, er, episodes, but I'm now starting to regret my choice.

See, we have these new webcams spread around my family. As expected, we're all logging on all the time to check in with one another. It's pretty fun, and the technology has really come a long way. Of course, the truth is, we have profoundly little to say to one another by, like, the third web chat of a given day. We've pretty much covered everything by then, except for the requisite "hey, how's the lighting over HERE?" and "Dad, you're out of frame again, man." But, of course, my folks love watching my two-year-old daughter run around the house clutching her very, very flat teddy bear and shrieking at all kinds of things, like, for instance, the kitchen cabinets. It's a new level of communication: observational. Economy of language at an all time low.

It makes me think about how completely life-altering it must have been when the telephone first became widespread. Communication had always been work. I mean, imagine having to always get all of your thoughts, questions, and answers into a letter. A concise letter. And then having to wait for a response. That's called effort. But to then be offered the ability to talk to someone in real time whenever you saw fit... well, communicating surely become less work and more convenience. One could ramble. One could get instant gratification.

And now, it's lazier even than that. It's observational. Just set up a couple of cameras and go about your business (be it shrieking or throwing up).

It's like you're all back in the same house.

We paid money for this.

Slip of the...

We went to our new favorite brunch place this past weekend with K and R. I had the chai french toast.

As K was ordering, he asked if his omelet came with potatoes. Our sever said that it did, and K shook his head, simply saying "could you please sixty-nine those?"

Our server turned a sort of raspberry color, as K's partner R calmly added, "I think that's eighty-six, honey."

Republic of Bananas

I ordered pants from BR. I love their pants, which seem to fray less quickly in the cuff region than other pants I've tried. I wear my pants into the ground.

This morning, I received a phone call from BR's customer service department confirming my shipping address. The woman was inarguably sweet. She confirmed the shipping location and asked if it was my work address. I said that it was. She said that the order was slightly delayed because they had to confirm this address, but now that she'd done so, it should ship any day.

I said "Good. Because I'm sitting here at work with no pants on."

She made a sort of sputtering sound and gasped. Turns out I made her laugh such that she sprayed coffee all over her computer keyboard. She laughed and laughed and thanked me for shopping at BR. Then she sort of dawdled getting off the phone. She finally hung up after thanking me again.

I guessed I had made her day.

But that wasn't right. In truth, she'd made MY day. All I did for her was make her laugh and possibly get a new keyboard from the BR IT department. What she'd done for me was make me feel good about myself. For those two minutes I was the swell, charming, funny guy she'd been lucky enough to land on the phone first thing. So much so, that she stalled at the end of the conversation. Boy, did that feel good! Then I thought about what that really meant. Then I didn't feel quite so good.

Still love the pants.