Earlier in the week I had mailed a package from the local post office-type place down the block from me. They handle FedEx and UPS, have shipping materials, and host P.O. boxes. It's a convenient little place run by two older gay men.
The other day, while mailing something, I went to pay with a credit card. "It has to be over $5 for a credit card," the guy told me. Sadly, I had no cash. "It's okay, I recognize you," the guy told me. "Just pay next time you're in."
Yesterday I stopped in to buy some stamps. The other owner was working, and I said to him "I was in here the other day, and I only had a credit card, so I-" He cut me off, looking at a small piece of paper taped to the register. "Was it on Tuesday?" he asked. I nodded. He read off the piece of paper: "Cute guy with glasses." I could feel myself turn red, and nodded. I suppose that was me.
Yesterday, as I enter an ATM vestibule, a woman passes by me, leaving. As I approach the ATM she has just used the machine angerly beeps and flashes at me, and I realize she has left her card in the slot. I grab the card, running out into the street and waving her down as she's stepping into a cab. "I love you!" she says, taking her card. I nod and say you're welcome.
When I get back into the vestibule the man at the second ATM - who has watched this entire occurrence - scoffs at me. "You shouldn't have done that, buddy," he says, shaking his head at me like I just screwed up big time. "What? Why?" I ask.
"How else is she ever gonna learn her lesson?" he asks, a superior smirk on his face. "Huh?" I say. When he doesn't respond I say, "I mean, wouldn't you want someone to give you back your card? Haven't you ever forgotten yours somewhere?" The man doesn't respond, but simply shakes his head at me and goes back to taking out his money.
Sometimes I wonder why I never have trouble getting a date, and then I remember that my competition is assholes like this.
05.26.08
New NY Tourism Slogan: "Come Here to Find Love!"
Byron wants to see the new Sex and the City movie. Badly. I won't even go into the embarrassing behavior he exhibits when the he sees anything about the film.
I, for one, am not going to see it. And let me show you the three seconds of the trailer that singlehandedly (Get it? Singlehandedly? Haha! They're single women!) ruined the movie for me:
Seriously? To fall in love?
Now I'm not saying that's a bad reason to move somewhere. Just a dumb one. Reasons why I've moved someplace:
- Lower rent
- Close to the train
- It had a dishwasher
- Spacious floor plan
- Utilities included
This morning Stine and I went to the farmer's market down on Clark. Since it's still relatively early in the season it was slim pickings on the produce, but Stine bought some purple asparagus.
"Do you think purple asparagus tastes the same as regular asparagus?" Stine asked as we walked home.
"Well, there's only one way to find out," I said. "I'll look it up on Wikipedia when I get home."
Usually I'm not one to share personal details on my blog. You people don't really know about my siblings, or my job, or how I spend my Friday nights. But lately things have been changing. Lately I've been liking someone, and it's been forcing me to think outside my usual box. See, she and I are a bit different.
"She invited me to this annual event her and her friends do," I tell Byron today over lunch. "They tube down a river and drink beer and...and..."
Byron gives me a confused look. "And you plan on doing this too?" he asks. I shrug. He says, "I mean, you don't really do those things." I nod in agreement. "But what do I do?" I ask. "I'm just worried, like, what if I don't drink beer and she doesn't like me and-" Byron stops me. "If she doesn't like you for not drinking beer then you shouldn't be with her." I roll my eyes. "Well duh. And I know I'm being stupid and she would never do that, but-"
Byron stops me again. "When I was with Dave we used to go camping. Camping. Me. With the outdoors, and the smelly, and the no shower. Me. Byron. Camping." I nod. "And you know why I went?" he asks. I shake my head. "Because he loved it, and he was always happy when we were doing it. And I loved being around him when he was that happy."
He continues: "Michele called me the other night to complain about something Dan was doing, and I told her the same thing. This isn't college, where we can be cavalier with relationships, or where you go on a date with someone and they have a weird laugh or something so you don't go out with them again. This is a woman you really like. And you shouldn't freak out over stupid stuff, or be afraid of trying. If she wants to float down the river, then you float down the river with her. And if you don't want to drink beer, well, bring a huge thermos of gin and tonic. But don't be dumb and not even try."
He pauses. "We're kinda getting to be adults now, Josh. And we can't just freak out and be bratty about things like this. We have to try new things. And if you like someone then you should sacrifice for them."
Byron nods and stares at me for a second and then goes back to the slice of pizza sitting in front of him, and thus endeth the relationship pep talk of '08.
So I guess I'm saying that you may be seeing pictures of me floating down a river. Don't be alarmed. I'm just trying something new.
Scene: An early 1970's family sits around the den. Dad is watching football while mom knits. Little Bobby and Susie are sitting ankle-deep in the shag carpeting, playing Connect Four
Dad: Heya, kids, who wants to go on a good ol' family vacation?! Bobby and Susie: We do! We do! Mom: Now sweetie, don't get them all riled up so soon. Dad: Cram it Helen, I'm trying to bond here. Go back to your gin. Bobby: Where are we going on vacation, dad? Susie: Yeah, where are you taking us? Dad: Do you really wanna know? Bobby: Is it Disneyland? Dad: Nope. Susie: Is it Disneyworld? Dad: Nope. Bobby and Susie: Tell us! Tell us! Dad: We're all going to...Nixonland!
Historical Epic Book or Worst Theme Park Ever? You be the judge!
This morning I stopped into one of my favorite coffee shops and ordered a lychee berry iced tea. "You're getting the last of it," the owner informed me. "The last of it?" I asked. He said that his tea supplier had discontinued the tea and he wouldn't be getting it anymore. "But I'm sure I'll get some other fruity tea in here."
"That almost sounds derogatory," I say. "Some other fruity tea."
The owner waggles his head from side to side in a snarky Dennis Miller way and goes with it: "Yeah, those fruity frou frou teas. Ay! C'mon!"
Other things that sound slightly derogatory when paired with the word fruity?
- Fruity cream fillings
- Fruity jam and jelly spreads
- Fruity muffin choices
- Fruity pebbles
This month's issue of Fast Company names Chicago as the city of the year, and goes on for a few pages about why it's so great. On page 90 Tony Fitzpatrick sums it up best when he says, "This place gets in your bones and ruins you for everywhere else." Oh, it's so true.
Switching gears completely, I spent the weekend in Colorado, where I experienced several differences to the Chicago I know and love. Most notably:
1) Altitude sickness is very real, and evidently I suffer from it easily.
2) You can't buy liquor in grocery stores, only liquor stores. What's that about?
3) If you get anywhere near the Coors plant (i.e. the entire town of Golden) the air smells like hops, which to me smells like oyster crackers.
4) Dogs, for the most part, aren't on leashes. Again, what's that about?
5) Seriously. Altitude sickness is awful.
Don't get me wrong, my trip to Colorado was great, but Chicago, you truly have ruined me for anywhere else.
For years men have feigned compassion and sensitivity, and at the same time avoided the stranglehold of marriage, with 10 little words: "I won't get married until gay people can get married."
With today's landmark decision in California a lot of those guys now have to get married.
That's why I always say, "I won't get married until men can marry goats!"
Wait, what's that? A man married a goat? Aww crap. Fine! Get my rabbi on the phone. I've got some marrying to do!
This afternoon Byron and I are enjoying the beautiful Chicago weather, taking advantage of the sidewalk seating at a local coffee shop. In case you were wondering, that looks something like this:
As we're sitting there a man in a wheelchair passes by, but he's in the kind of wheelchair that has handlebars that pump back and forth, pushing him along, in lieu of pushing the wheels to make the chair move forward.
"That's the best thing ever," Byron comments.
"Sure," I say, "except for the fact that the guy is in a wheelchair."
First off, why does everyone look very nice and neat and my job has the crazy hair. Then, everyone else is wearing a collar, but I seem to be wearing some type of weird, bright, athletic shirt. I mean for God's sake, even the bounty hunter is wearing a pantsuit!
What is going on here, people?! When did my job become the Rodney Dangerfield of online degree jobs?!
Yesterday Byron and I met up with Jessica, who was having a bit of a rough day.
While walking down the street Jessica asked me, "Don't you ever just...just have one of those days where you wake up and you're like, 'Okay! Today things are going to change! Today I'm going to get out of my rut and turn things around, and today is going to be different!'" She turned to me, excited and hopeful. "You know what I mean, Josh?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Actually, I'm already pretty awesome. So...not really, no."
One of the longest run on sentences I've ever read, from page 168 of the spring 2008 issue of Antenna magazine, where the editors are evidently blind or sleeping:
"The only two things that beer doesn't go well with are contentious funerals filled with grief-stricken finger-pointers and Ajax footie matches versus Feyenoord FC, where FFC's drunken supporters, Het Legion, attempt to brain opposing fans with broken chunks of cement from Rotterdam's infamous train bridges while the travelers wait on train platforms, huddled like newborn turtles on the beach of some crummy, rat-infested South Pacific island, willing the11:04 to arrive early and get them back into Amsterdam where it is, believe it or not, safer."
The other day, wandering around Facebook, I was repeatedly asked to fill out Captcha prompts. You know, those things that look like this:
While filling out the prompts some odd combination of words would occasionally pop up. Here, some of best combinations that could be turned into a movie, and what that movie would be about:
Mr. Brooklyn - When Brooklyn butcher Tony Congelio gets his arm caught in a meat grinder he thinks his life is over. But after his reconstructive surgery leaves his arm stronger and more powerful than ever, he's recruited by the New York Mets as their star pitcher. Congelio takes the Mets all the way to the World Series, and along the way he lifts spirits, inspires a team to believe, and earns the nickname Mr. Brooklyn.
The Formed - When a meteor crash landed in the backwoods of North Carolina, no one could have ever imagined what horrors it would be holding. Now, one farmer may be our last chance, before life as we know it is gone forever.
Be Downtown - The year: 1963. Bobby Warner, a nightclub owner in Detroit, plans a three day outdoor concert/protest to fight the city building a freeway right through one of the city's oldest black neighborhoods. Featuring performances by some of todays hottest stars as the legendary singers of Motown, Be Downtown will leave you clapping your hands and buying the soundtrack.
Code Duress - Operation Hangdog is a U.S. Military operation so secretive, only three men officially know about its existence. Early Sunday morning, one of those men, General Mercer, turned up dead. Now, with no where to run and no one to trust, the two remaining men must figure out the real reason behind Mercer's death before one of them is next!
Jury Unlikely - It's assumed that the jury in the case of Mahoney v. Roscoe County can be bought, and local millionaire Reginald F. Mahoney can walk free for the vehicular manslaughter of his half-brother, Jeb. But what Mahoney wasn't counting on was one juror who wasn't afraid to stick up for what he believes in, money be damned.
Paris Sources - Jon Albright, an American freelance writer living in Paris, is hot on the trail of of one of the biggest scoops of his career. The only hitch? He's in love with one of his informants, a beautiful Parisian woman named Isabella. Can Jon write the article of his life and get the girl?
Yesterday Drea and I began developing a vocabulary game. In the game each player will pick 10 words out of a dictionary, and the opposing player will have see how many synonyms and antonyms they can come up with for each of the 10 words. For bonus points a player can try naming the lexical category (or categories, if the word allows) that each word falls into (example: the word "fall" could be both a noun, a verb and an adjective). Excitement! We also made the ground rules that 1) No foreign words allowed, and 2) No technical jargon from either of our industries (important when the two players involved are a web developer and a metallurgist). Of course the rules can be adapted depending on the players.
"Maybe we should market this game for snotty intellectuals, along with your other game, Expatriots," Drea suggested. I agreed, and we quickly realized that we could make even more money if, instead of marketing towards adults, we created "educational" games for small children. Insecure parents eat that shit up.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how we created Professor Snootarium's Crazy Vocabularium!!!
(click the image for a larger view - and to read the board spaces)
"All the more reason for my laughter program, called," Drea struggles, searching for a name. "Jubilanics." "I don't know about that name," I say. "It sounds like you're talking about the Jews."
Drea agrees, and says I should probably take over the program development anyway. "And all I'll ask for is 10% of the profits." "10%?" I ask, "I'll give you 3%." Drea is insistent on 10%.
Me: Listen, I've got an awesome lawyer and I'm not above taking you to court to see that you only get 3%. Drea: What? I'll take you to court. Me: You can't take me to court. I've already taken you to court. Drea: Well my lawyer is just that good. Me: Oh yeah? Well my lawyer is so good, he'll invite your lawyer out to lunch, and then he just won't show up to lunch, and then when your lawyer calls my lawyer my lawyer will be all, "Psych!" Drea: Yeah, well my lawyer will invite your lawyer out to lunch and then at the end of the meal my lawyer will get up to go to the bathroom and just never come back.
Drea and I clearly have a very involved understanding of the American legal system.
Oy!Chicago just published part two in a series on young Jews who are running their own businesses and doing their own things, and it turns out I'm featured (click here to read the whole deal).
I actually share the article with Danielle Schultz, a boutique owner whom I've know for years but haven't talked to in forever. A few days after Danielle was interviewed she sent me an email saying, "It was the funniest thing! She was interviewing me for an article about young Jewish entrepreneurs. I asked her who else she was interviewing and she mentioned this web designer who quit his day job and started up with a partner. And I said, 'Are you talking about Josh Eisenberg?'"
Evidently I'm the Jew to know in the Chicago web design community. And now that I've been interviewed by a Jewish magazine I'm sure my mother can die a happy woman.
...Though it still couldn't hurt to marry a nice Jewish doctor.
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