I was on break today and one of the reference librarians mentioned that a woman who works down in Conservation used to be married to Billy Corgan, the lead singer from Smashing Pumpkins. I then remembered back in high school my history teacher, Mr. Hedrick, told us about how his daughter worked for the Smashing Pumpkins as their agent, or manager, or something. I'm proposing a new game called Six Degrees of Smashing Pumpkins! ...on the off chance that anyone can actually qualify to play this game, e-mail me!

I was walking down the street today and I walked past the outdoor part of a restaurant. Sitting at a table was an entire family (mom, dad, brother, sister), and they were all putting on some type of lip balm. They weren't talking, they were just silently sitting at the table, some of them rubbing their fingers on their lips, and some of them just rubbing their lips together. It was kind of disturbing.

A Pretty Woman moment between my brother and I (after I had cleaned the house of the person he was housesitting for):

Me: So how much are you going to pay me?
Him: How much do you want?
Me: Well what were you thinking?
Him: I'll give you $50.
Me: Make it $60.
Him: Deal.
Me: $60 is good.
Him: I would have paid you $75.

TV Guide infuriates me. This year alone covers have included the likes of Robert Redford, Harrison Ford, Spider-Man (the movie version of course), a slew of Star Wars covers, and Ashley Judd. What do any of these people have to do with televsion?! Jesus people, you're TV Guide, not...I don't know...Entertainment In GeneralGuide. You don't see Cat Fancy Magaine writing about dogs and hampsters do you? Maxim isn't writing articles on Susan B. Anthony! But last week Winona Ryder was on the cover of TV Guide, and she hasn't been in a TV show since...I don't know...whenever it was that she played that lesbian sorority sister of Rachael's on Friends. And that was only one episode! Shame on you TV Guide. Shame on you.

I just finished watching Larry King Live, and tonight Anna Nicole Smith was his guest. Her whole new popularity with her "reality show" and America's obsession with her is messed up. ...Whenever I remember how right after September 11th, everyone said, "Things are never going to be the same again! We can never go back to how we used to be! This has forever changed us!" I have to just roll my eyes.

I was walking down the street today and saw a small cardboard sign taped to an apartment building wall: "Dear Bike Thief, if you change your mind & don't like my bike, please return it no questions asked. Here's the key if you need it."

Ah...if only life were that simple.

The way I figure it, animals are lucky. They can't confuse polite chit-chat in an elevator for a mating call. Or vice versa. Especially vice versa.

Jen: Are you going to the work baseball game outing thing?
Khatia: No.
Jen: Why not?
Khatia: It's so stupid.
Jen: But it still counts like you're on the clock if you go.
Khatia: I don't care. It's dumb. They couldn't pay me to go...and they are!

I was at emode today and I took a quiz to find out what I was in a previous life. Well, here's what it said:

Don't go bananas — in your former life you were a tiny monkey named Oompa. Here's what we know about you: Adorably sweet demeanor and sharp as a tack, you found success working with a street performer named Juan, who worshipped you and treated you like his own child. He bought you a gold satin jumpsuit with royal blue ruffles, a matching top hat, and a sequined bag for donations. He would play your favorite disco tunes on his accordion, prompting you to dance around and flirt with the crowd while you collected spare change and picked pockets. Everybody loved you. And you loved everybody. You and Juan took your gig around the country and raked in the riches. You were one happy little monkey.

I wish I were still little Oompa. What a fun life I must have had.

So I was at the website for The View today (Yes, the ABC daytime talk show; No, don't ask why), and they have a "Barbra's Mailbag" section on the site. It includes quick and fun questions like, "Have Meredith and Joy ever seen an RV?" "What's up with the pillows on The View?" "Is Joy dating Steve Martin?" and "Are there any other funny signs in the green room?" Then, out of nowhere there's a letter that asks, "I found my son's gay porn magazines. What should I do?" Yeah, like Barbra knows the answer to that.

Alright, well everyone knows that I'm a kind-hearted person...well, maybe kind-hearted isn't the right word. Compassionate? Sensitive? Not too cruel? Only minorly evil? Okay, so I'm a nasty bitch on occasion - and today is no different! The other day a co-worker and I were bored and we started doing searches for people on Google.com. Well I did one on a friend of mine who we'll call "Lucy" and got only one search result. It was a paper she had written for some Asian Lit thing (I called her to confirm that she had actually written it, and not some other "Lucy"). Now again, it's not that I try to be only minorly evil...it just kind of happens. I started reading the paper she had written, but I was soon forced to take a break...several breaks in fact. Yes...the paper was just that bad. It read as if it were written by a 14 year old high school freshman who was writing it at 1am the night before it was due, not a 21 year old english major in college. Of course you might think I'm being nasty here, and that I shouldn't judge...so I'm going to let YOU judge! You can view her paper here, and make your own only minorly evil conclusions. So sit back, relax, maybe grab something to eat, and enjoy the paper. (P.S. My favorite part is paragraph 4, sentences 4 and 5. I can only hope you'll enjoy them too.)

So the other day I was at my job (The library in the Art Institute for those of you who didn't know...those of you who are here from a referral and don't actually know me personally), and some boxes were sent down from the archival people on the 2nd floor. They told us to sort through this one guys crap and seperate the photos from everything else. And the thing is, it really was crap. They had just packed up this guys stuff (the man is now dead by the way) and shipped it to us. So included was the oddest collection of (again) crap. There were random scraps of paper with notes on them, Time magazines from 1983, reciepts from Rainbow Meat Co. when this guy had baught beef, his film developing reciepts, postcards from friends, credit card reciepts ("You think we can still use this credit card number?" a girl I work with asked. "It says it expired in 1979!" I said), and a bunch of other stuff. It was just odd getting a sense of someones life by sorting through all of their saved papers, reading letters friends had sent to them, and seeing notes they had written. It honestly had a deep impact on me: It made me go straight home and clean out all my old crap! I don't want some kids sorting through my shit in 2095!

On the train this morning...
Number of people drinking coffee: 4
Number of people on their cell phones: 0 (suprisingly!)
Number of people with a big fish mouth so they kinda look like Martin Landau: 1! (and man, was it a 1!)

Well, it's August 1st, and that's my one year anniversary here in Chicago. That's right, it was exactly one year ago today that I moved down here and started my job here at the Art Institute ...and there's really nothing humorous coming about that...I'm just saying it. So if you're waiting for something funny....pack a lunch....cause it's gonna be a while.