and though I know you can't appreciate it, I'm only happy when it rains
Ten Feet By One Foot: The Story of an Uncompleted Quest
[See how the narrator cleverly demonstrates her current circumstances, viz., working in a highly academic bookstore, with the title that recalls so many academic books. She has also made good use of the devices of foreshadowing and irony. This will be on the test.]
Sunday, August 28
2:18PM: After taking an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the letter S stands for South Concourse, I fling myself down the hallway to my train track, on my way to visit my alcoholic uncle and his long-suffering, sweet yet acerbic girlfriend. On my way, I am arrested by an intriguing sight: an abandoned Union Station directional sign, made of wood painted green with brass fittings, has been left leaning up against the wall.
"I really want to steal that sign," I immediately think. "Don't be an idiot," I immediately think back. "It's probably ten feet long, and at least a foot wide. What on earth would I do with it anyway?"
I start off towards my track again, then pause and turn back. The sign is not forlorn, exactly, so much as expectant. Signlike, really. What kind of woman would I be if I didn't steal that sign? How could I hold my head up, ever again, if I just passed it by?
2:20PM: I try to take the sign apart for easy carrying; it is constructed of several planks within its brass frame. I consider that if I could even get one plank I'd be satisfied with the day's take.
I fail.
2:22PM: Incited by a nearby white-haired gentleman, I pick up the whole sign and make off towards the train with it. He calls encouragement after me. I feel a fit of pooka-ears and mad giggling coming on.
2:25PM: Passerby are surprisingly obliging about my giant sign. They don't get upset that I'm trying to navigate a crowded track with it; in fact, they apologize for getting in my way. (I'm already thinking of it as "mine"; we've formed a deep connection in so short a time, I feel. It's as if I've always known it, as if we were made for each other.)
I recall the white-haired gentleman's initial words, which were: "They won't let you take that on the train, you know." He thought he was being ridiculous in his implication that I could possibly be considering picking it up and taking it.
2:27PM: A uniformed guard-type guy informs me that I can't take the sign on the train. "Where did you get that?" he asks in confusion. I inform him that it was not in use and "someone" said I could take it. He seems to actually believe me, but firmly reiterates his command. I resolve to come up with a better story.
2:29PM: I place the sign carefully outside Track 8. It begs me not to go with enormous, limpid sign-eyes. The white-haired gentleman, who appears to have wandered after me, expresses his condolences and notes that what he really appreciates is a girl who won't give up.
3:32PM: Sam! I think. Sam will know what to do! I call him from the train. In what is probably a reasonable move, he refuses to babysit the sign while I am in the suburbs. We agree to regroup later; I will call him if the sign waits for me and doesn't leave me for some hotter, younger sign thief.
3:35PM: I use up most of my charge calling my mother so that she can guilt trip me about how I don't call her enough. [This is one of those clever bits that doesn't seem important now, but will later in the narrative!]
9:44PM: I return, having been regaled by my uncle's drunken assertions that my father has "the morals of a goat"; I am also thoroughly reassured that my driving is, in fact, bad enough to force his girlfriend to chain-smoke aggressively.
I come up onto the concourse and nearly stagger. There my beautiful sign is, in exactly the place I left it. I rush to it; it has been knocked over by the careless feet of passengers, but it remains its glorious, slightly chipped, extremely dusty self. "My dear," I weep, and clutch it to my chest. [Not really; in this last sentence, the author makes use of that most glorious literary device, "metaphor", i.e., lying.]
9:46PM: I call Sam. "Sam!" I cry when he picks up. "It's still here!"
"Where are we meeting?" he demands. (What a great friend.)
"Well, I'm in Union Station." I glance down at it. "I'm not sure how I'm going to get it back. It's pretty big."
"How big?"
"Um ... well, it's almost twice my height, I'd say ...."
"What? What on earth are we going to do with it?"
"That doesn't matter," I scold him. "Do we know anyone with a car?"
"... No."
"Yeah, I thought not. Damn. Well, what ...." There is a sad little beep, and my phone cuts out. It is, of course, out of charge. For a moment I swear mildly, mostly at myself for not having his telephone number memorized. Then I go back to contemplating the sign; I'm on my own now.
It looks back at me with its beady little eyes.
9:50PM: I make it out the front doors of Union Station, having been molested by no one except for a few teenagers who saw me and cried, "I want one!" (I asked their advice on getting it back to Hyde Park. They had none.)
9:53PM: I have accepted all sorts of kudos from the various tourists loitering at the taxi stand, and am examining the taxis, wondering if I want to pay the fare. A uniformed Union Station guard-type guy wanders up to me. Damnation, I think, aren't you guys supposed to stay inside the station?
"Where'd you get that?"
"It was on the floor. Don't worry, it's okay if I take it."
His expression is unbelieving, but his face softens at my wide-eyed innocence. "... How do you ...?"
"I asked," I tell him confidently. (I can't believe I'm giving him such total brazen flimsiness, but it seems somehow appropriate.) "The guy I talked to said it was damaged and was being replaced, and that I could take it." I then, carefully, appear struck with contrition. "Gosh, I guess I should have gotten a badge number or something, huh?"
"Yeah, probably." He looks at the sign dubiously.
"Sorry about that. Hey, do you have any ideas on how I can get this to Hyde Park?"
"... Hyde Park?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure any of these taxis will let me take it. D'you think they'll let me take it on the El?"
"Uh ...."
"I don't know," I muse. "Maybe I couldn't get it through the doors."
"You should ... stay here while I check on this," he realizes. "Yeah."
"Okay." I'm almost disappointed I didn't get to feed him the line about how I need this for my absurdist movie.
9:57PM: I have failed to convince a van-type taxi driver that it is a good idea to try to bring the sign along, mostly because we have no rope. I make a mental note to treat life more like D&D (carry 40 gp worth of silk rope at all times!).
Another guard-type guy passes, looks at the sign curiously, but does nothing. I make another note of this, as evidence I can cite later in case someone tries to tell me I should have known I was doing something terribly wrong. ("But, really! I mean, a guard walked right by and didn't do anything, so I figured it was okay! I'm so sorry to have been any trouble ....")
The last guard-type guy I spoke to has not returned. I actually think about waiting for him, just so I won't feel like I'm too much of a horrible liar, but instead take off down the street.
10PM: I make friends with a drunk guy named Patrick, who offers to have a friend drive both me and the sign back to Hyde Park when the friend picks him up. I'm not sure the sign will fit in his car when it comes, but this will, I figure, at least give me time to come up with another solution.
I while away the time thinking about that, assuring passerby that yes, this is indeed my sign, and reflecting that while I have done more dangerous things than allow random guys I don't know to drive me home, I've never done them for such a good reason.
10:08PM: Someone asks me if they can buy the sign. I refuse.
10:12PM: Patrick's friend arrives. Patrick, with touching dedication, attempts to get my sign into the car despite both the voiced doubts of myself and his friend and the fact that his car is less than half big enough. "This is gonna happen," he declares, actually picking it up and shoving it in; it takes him an impressively long time to register the fact that only four feet of it can fit.
10:14PM: Having bid my goodbyes to Patrick, I start walking towards the Green Line. My undoing is the guy on a cellphone who doesn't even look like a Union Station guard at first glance (he doesn't have his jacket on!). "Ma'am!" he says loudly as I pass. "Where are you going with that?"
I'm two blocks away from the station! I think in frustration as I say, "Home."
"You can't take that! It's Union Station property!"
"No, you don't understand," I assure him. "It's fine. Allow me to explain ...."
"If someone said you could, they were misinformed," he barrels over me. In the ensuing few minutes, I gather that Union Station saw me filching the sign on their security footage, and sent out guards to comb the surrounding blocks for me. I have to wonder why they didn't find me sooner; maybe some of them were secretly on my side. Anyway, I guess this tells us that the Union Station guards are both (a) inept and (b) lacking in things to do (but as any good gamer will tell you, this is typical of the guard population).
He buys my excuses and lets me go, but insists on keeping the sign; I don't even get a last embrace.
11:02PM: I catch the train from Van Buren, having spent a productive time getting lost in the Loop after accidentally walking north instead of east. I am in a strangely fabulous mood. I conclude that the following is the moral of the story:
A good getaway car cannot be overvalued!
Also, keep your cell phone charged to max (or maybe don't call your mother, but that seems like a rather immoral moral).
The end.
...
The $2 Bill Project Continues!
I have tons and tons of $2 bills. I would have photographed myself rolling naked in them and rubbing my face in them and stuff, but I don't have that many, so I photographed Tigra rolling naked in them instead:
How did I get them, you ask? Well, children, I actually managed to get Citibank to order them for me through the Federal Reserve. That was an excellent conversation, let me tell you:
(I call and am transferred many many times. Finally, I get hold of someone who can actually do what I want:)
Me: So, I'm going to need a large quantity of $2 bills.
Female: Er ... a large quantity? How much is a large quantity?
Me: Oh ... I'd say $500 is a good amount to start with.
Female: (pause) And you want that in $2 bills?
Me: That's right.
Female: O ... kay .... (I can feel her silent questions echoing down the line, but she's too well-mannered to ask until we're done:) Um ... by the way, may I ask what you want them for?
Me: You see, I'm doing an economic experiment in which I try to reintroduce a little-used currency into a small area.
Female: (clearly unprepared for this answer; perhaps she expected something more exotic) ... Er ... okay. Good luck.
Yay for the-customer-is-always-right America.
My major distribution channel, as mentioned, is that I've been giving them out as change at work. If you want to be awesome and help us out on this, then I'd be more than happy to swap you $2 bills for the appropriate amount of your own money, but you have to promise to spend them in Hyde Park. (You know you want to!)
I'm hoping my manager won't catch me at this, because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like it if he did. Although then again it's difficult to imagine what words he'd use to criticize me. "Giving out $2 bills as change reflects badly on the store"? "We here at Bookstore X That Is My Bookstore do not have a sense of humour that we are aware of"?
...
Looks like I finally have an Autochthonians character concept:
"Rain, after all, is only rain; it is not bad weather. So also, pain is only pain, unless we resist it, when it becomes torment."
~ the I Ching (filched from foxfour)
(04:36:21) justinb04: a mom and dead babies in sexual contact in a blender would really be something.
(note: from a conversation with someone else)
EJGRgunner (2:14:56 AM): so I'm not dead
MsFireCat (2:15:03 AM): I sense a "but"
EJGRgunner (2:15:20 AM): nah. I'm just bragging
Action-packed library photograph contest
Okay, who's gonna come to the library with me and a digital camera for this? Come on, free comic if we win!
What's the problem with video game violence again?
I'd like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids - a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing. I'm talking, of course, about high school football. I know a congressional investigation into football won't play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2.
CostCo is selling original, master artists' sketches. Including at least one Picasso.
As Qat puts it, someone at CostCo HQ totally did this just to say, "Sam Walton can suck it!"
[See how the narrator cleverly demonstrates her current circumstances, viz., working in a highly academic bookstore, with the title that recalls so many academic books. She has also made good use of the devices of foreshadowing and irony. This will be on the test.]
Sunday, August 28
2:18PM: After taking an embarrassingly long time to figure out that the letter S stands for South Concourse, I fling myself down the hallway to my train track, on my way to visit my alcoholic uncle and his long-suffering, sweet yet acerbic girlfriend. On my way, I am arrested by an intriguing sight: an abandoned Union Station directional sign, made of wood painted green with brass fittings, has been left leaning up against the wall.
"I really want to steal that sign," I immediately think. "Don't be an idiot," I immediately think back. "It's probably ten feet long, and at least a foot wide. What on earth would I do with it anyway?"
I start off towards my track again, then pause and turn back. The sign is not forlorn, exactly, so much as expectant. Signlike, really. What kind of woman would I be if I didn't steal that sign? How could I hold my head up, ever again, if I just passed it by?
2:20PM: I try to take the sign apart for easy carrying; it is constructed of several planks within its brass frame. I consider that if I could even get one plank I'd be satisfied with the day's take.
I fail.
2:22PM: Incited by a nearby white-haired gentleman, I pick up the whole sign and make off towards the train with it. He calls encouragement after me. I feel a fit of pooka-ears and mad giggling coming on.
2:25PM: Passerby are surprisingly obliging about my giant sign. They don't get upset that I'm trying to navigate a crowded track with it; in fact, they apologize for getting in my way. (I'm already thinking of it as "mine"; we've formed a deep connection in so short a time, I feel. It's as if I've always known it, as if we were made for each other.)
I recall the white-haired gentleman's initial words, which were: "They won't let you take that on the train, you know." He thought he was being ridiculous in his implication that I could possibly be considering picking it up and taking it.
2:27PM: A uniformed guard-type guy informs me that I can't take the sign on the train. "Where did you get that?" he asks in confusion. I inform him that it was not in use and "someone" said I could take it. He seems to actually believe me, but firmly reiterates his command. I resolve to come up with a better story.
2:29PM: I place the sign carefully outside Track 8. It begs me not to go with enormous, limpid sign-eyes. The white-haired gentleman, who appears to have wandered after me, expresses his condolences and notes that what he really appreciates is a girl who won't give up.
3:32PM: Sam! I think. Sam will know what to do! I call him from the train. In what is probably a reasonable move, he refuses to babysit the sign while I am in the suburbs. We agree to regroup later; I will call him if the sign waits for me and doesn't leave me for some hotter, younger sign thief.
3:35PM: I use up most of my charge calling my mother so that she can guilt trip me about how I don't call her enough. [This is one of those clever bits that doesn't seem important now, but will later in the narrative!]
9:44PM: I return, having been regaled by my uncle's drunken assertions that my father has "the morals of a goat"; I am also thoroughly reassured that my driving is, in fact, bad enough to force his girlfriend to chain-smoke aggressively.
I come up onto the concourse and nearly stagger. There my beautiful sign is, in exactly the place I left it. I rush to it; it has been knocked over by the careless feet of passengers, but it remains its glorious, slightly chipped, extremely dusty self. "My dear," I weep, and clutch it to my chest. [Not really; in this last sentence, the author makes use of that most glorious literary device, "metaphor", i.e., lying.]
9:46PM: I call Sam. "Sam!" I cry when he picks up. "It's still here!"
"Where are we meeting?" he demands. (What a great friend.)
"Well, I'm in Union Station." I glance down at it. "I'm not sure how I'm going to get it back. It's pretty big."
"How big?"
"Um ... well, it's almost twice my height, I'd say ...."
"What? What on earth are we going to do with it?"
"That doesn't matter," I scold him. "Do we know anyone with a car?"
"... No."
"Yeah, I thought not. Damn. Well, what ...." There is a sad little beep, and my phone cuts out. It is, of course, out of charge. For a moment I swear mildly, mostly at myself for not having his telephone number memorized. Then I go back to contemplating the sign; I'm on my own now.
It looks back at me with its beady little eyes.
9:50PM: I make it out the front doors of Union Station, having been molested by no one except for a few teenagers who saw me and cried, "I want one!" (I asked their advice on getting it back to Hyde Park. They had none.)
9:53PM: I have accepted all sorts of kudos from the various tourists loitering at the taxi stand, and am examining the taxis, wondering if I want to pay the fare. A uniformed Union Station guard-type guy wanders up to me. Damnation, I think, aren't you guys supposed to stay inside the station?
"Where'd you get that?"
"It was on the floor. Don't worry, it's okay if I take it."
His expression is unbelieving, but his face softens at my wide-eyed innocence. "... How do you ...?"
"I asked," I tell him confidently. (I can't believe I'm giving him such total brazen flimsiness, but it seems somehow appropriate.) "The guy I talked to said it was damaged and was being replaced, and that I could take it." I then, carefully, appear struck with contrition. "Gosh, I guess I should have gotten a badge number or something, huh?"
"Yeah, probably." He looks at the sign dubiously.
"Sorry about that. Hey, do you have any ideas on how I can get this to Hyde Park?"
"... Hyde Park?"
"Yeah. I'm not sure any of these taxis will let me take it. D'you think they'll let me take it on the El?"
"Uh ...."
"I don't know," I muse. "Maybe I couldn't get it through the doors."
"You should ... stay here while I check on this," he realizes. "Yeah."
"Okay." I'm almost disappointed I didn't get to feed him the line about how I need this for my absurdist movie.
9:57PM: I have failed to convince a van-type taxi driver that it is a good idea to try to bring the sign along, mostly because we have no rope. I make a mental note to treat life more like D&D (carry 40 gp worth of silk rope at all times!).
Another guard-type guy passes, looks at the sign curiously, but does nothing. I make another note of this, as evidence I can cite later in case someone tries to tell me I should have known I was doing something terribly wrong. ("But, really! I mean, a guard walked right by and didn't do anything, so I figured it was okay! I'm so sorry to have been any trouble ....")
The last guard-type guy I spoke to has not returned. I actually think about waiting for him, just so I won't feel like I'm too much of a horrible liar, but instead take off down the street.
10PM: I make friends with a drunk guy named Patrick, who offers to have a friend drive both me and the sign back to Hyde Park when the friend picks him up. I'm not sure the sign will fit in his car when it comes, but this will, I figure, at least give me time to come up with another solution.
I while away the time thinking about that, assuring passerby that yes, this is indeed my sign, and reflecting that while I have done more dangerous things than allow random guys I don't know to drive me home, I've never done them for such a good reason.
10:08PM: Someone asks me if they can buy the sign. I refuse.
10:12PM: Patrick's friend arrives. Patrick, with touching dedication, attempts to get my sign into the car despite both the voiced doubts of myself and his friend and the fact that his car is less than half big enough. "This is gonna happen," he declares, actually picking it up and shoving it in; it takes him an impressively long time to register the fact that only four feet of it can fit.
10:14PM: Having bid my goodbyes to Patrick, I start walking towards the Green Line. My undoing is the guy on a cellphone who doesn't even look like a Union Station guard at first glance (he doesn't have his jacket on!). "Ma'am!" he says loudly as I pass. "Where are you going with that?"
I'm two blocks away from the station! I think in frustration as I say, "Home."
"You can't take that! It's Union Station property!"
"No, you don't understand," I assure him. "It's fine. Allow me to explain ...."
"If someone said you could, they were misinformed," he barrels over me. In the ensuing few minutes, I gather that Union Station saw me filching the sign on their security footage, and sent out guards to comb the surrounding blocks for me. I have to wonder why they didn't find me sooner; maybe some of them were secretly on my side. Anyway, I guess this tells us that the Union Station guards are both (a) inept and (b) lacking in things to do (but as any good gamer will tell you, this is typical of the guard population).
He buys my excuses and lets me go, but insists on keeping the sign; I don't even get a last embrace.
11:02PM: I catch the train from Van Buren, having spent a productive time getting lost in the Loop after accidentally walking north instead of east. I am in a strangely fabulous mood. I conclude that the following is the moral of the story:
A good getaway car cannot be overvalued!
Also, keep your cell phone charged to max (or maybe don't call your mother, but that seems like a rather immoral moral).
The end.
...
The $2 Bill Project Continues!
I have tons and tons of $2 bills. I would have photographed myself rolling naked in them and rubbing my face in them and stuff, but I don't have that many, so I photographed Tigra rolling naked in them instead:
How did I get them, you ask? Well, children, I actually managed to get Citibank to order them for me through the Federal Reserve. That was an excellent conversation, let me tell you:
(I call and am transferred many many times. Finally, I get hold of someone who can actually do what I want:)
Me: So, I'm going to need a large quantity of $2 bills.
Female: Er ... a large quantity? How much is a large quantity?
Me: Oh ... I'd say $500 is a good amount to start with.
Female: (pause) And you want that in $2 bills?
Me: That's right.
Female: O ... kay .... (I can feel her silent questions echoing down the line, but she's too well-mannered to ask until we're done:) Um ... by the way, may I ask what you want them for?
Me: You see, I'm doing an economic experiment in which I try to reintroduce a little-used currency into a small area.
Female: (clearly unprepared for this answer; perhaps she expected something more exotic) ... Er ... okay. Good luck.
Yay for the-customer-is-always-right America.
My major distribution channel, as mentioned, is that I've been giving them out as change at work. If you want to be awesome and help us out on this, then I'd be more than happy to swap you $2 bills for the appropriate amount of your own money, but you have to promise to spend them in Hyde Park. (You know you want to!)
I'm hoping my manager won't catch me at this, because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like it if he did. Although then again it's difficult to imagine what words he'd use to criticize me. "Giving out $2 bills as change reflects badly on the store"? "We here at Bookstore X That Is My Bookstore do not have a sense of humour that we are aware of"?
...
Looks like I finally have an Autochthonians character concept:
"Rain, after all, is only rain; it is not bad weather. So also, pain is only pain, unless we resist it, when it becomes torment."
~ the I Ching (filched from foxfour)
(04:36:21) justinb04: a mom and dead babies in sexual contact in a blender would really be something.
(note: from a conversation with someone else)
EJGRgunner (2:14:56 AM): so I'm not dead
MsFireCat (2:15:03 AM): I sense a "but"
EJGRgunner (2:15:20 AM): nah. I'm just bragging
Action-packed library photograph contest
Okay, who's gonna come to the library with me and a digital camera for this? Come on, free comic if we win!
What's the problem with video game violence again?
I'd like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids - a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing. I'm talking, of course, about high school football. I know a congressional investigation into football won't play so well with those crucial swing voters, but it makes about as much sense as an investigation into the pressing issue that is Xbox and PlayStation 2.
CostCo is selling original, master artists' sketches. Including at least one Picasso.
As Qat puts it, someone at CostCo HQ totally did this just to say, "Sam Walton can suck it!"