Hello, It's me.

Or, rather, another photograph of me.

I've run across a couple of other shots of me that don't completely piss me off or make me cinge uncontrollably. (This is what happens when you realize your apartment is a disorganized mess, start going through drawers and storage containers to figure out what the hell you have, and find things you'd forgotten you even owned.)

Unfortunately, Blogger seems to hate one of them, a picture taken about 10 years, 5 jobs and 50 lbs. ago--it either rejects it as corrupt or sits there and does nothing, that little colorful wheel spinning and spinning infinitely.

However, Blogger did allow me to upload a slightly more recent shot, taken a few years ago in the backyard of my friends, Charlie & Teri, before we ventured out to Marquette Park for an afternoon of photography. (Charlie is the one behind the camera, snapping away with my Canon AE1.)

This is actually the second of two pictures Charlie took of me that day. The first, which I actually like much better than this one, I gave away to a friend (who was moving to another state) as part of a photo album chronicling her time spent in Chicago. I've only seen that friend once since then and never saw the photo again. (The photo I didn't miss.)

It's Never a Good Sign...

...when you try to upload photos of yourself to your bloggity and it rejects them as corrupt, even though they open up just fine on both your home and work 'puters.

Maybe the Internets would rather not know what I really look like. If that's the case. World Wide Web, you could just say so, y'know.

Until I can figure out just what the problem is, you'll just have to live with this image of me and Superbadfriend that she snapped after we saw The Fall at the Century Cinema. (If you liked Pan's Labyrinth, you'll probably like The Fall--it's similarly stunning to look at and heartbreaking to contemplate.)

Quote of the Day

"I heard you--I'm just ignoring you."

One of my co-workers, regarding something I'd just said--something not terribly important, obviously.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

Last night, I finally gave in and put the air conditioner in one of the living room windows.

It's not so much that I wanted to avoid driving my electric bill into orbit, though that certainly was part of it, and it's not like we haven't had days where I could have used the gentle hum and the cooling breeze from behind my increasingly decrepit couch, because we certainly have. It's not even that the air conditioner is a serious, literal pain in the back to jam into the window. (It's a small unit--minds out of the gutter, people--but it doesn't quite fit the window closest to the wall socket, so it's a struggle to get it up and in--what did I just say about your minds and the gutter?)

No, my reason for not installing the air conditioner sooner was more basic--we hadn't had any sustained heatwave, so I didn't need to. A hot afternoon here, a humid night there...those can be managed with a fan in the bedroom window and one in the doorway, and the living room has a ceiling fan to cool me down while I watch "The Next Food Network Star."

Winter tarried too long at the fair, and spring was a fleeting thing. Summer took a while to throw its damp, slightly smelly blanket over the city, and for a time I was determined not to let summer win, not to give in to the cool breezes to be had from the corner window. But now, our local weather forecasters have given the heavy word: We're to have a string of sizzle stretching into the coming weekend.

I could resist no more. I finally gave in and put the air conditioner where air conditioners go.

You win, summer. This time.

The Spider in the Bathtub

I woke up yesterday morning to two circumstances I had not anticipated and would not have wanted to deal with even had I anticipated them.

The first was a migraine that had blossomed overnight. If you've never had one, consider yourself fortunate--the phrases "blinding headache" and "ringing headache" don't quite do the migraine justice. The best you can do it pop some pain meds (Extra-Strength Tylenol PM is my flavor of choice), put on a sleep mask, lay back down and wait it out.

I sent an e-mail to my supervisor and co-workers to let them know that I wouldn't be in, but not until after I'd dealt with the second unforeseen circumstance: The spider in the bathtub.

It was a large black spider, or so it seemed through the haze of pain in the dim morning light against the semi-white porcelain of the bathtub. I've seen larger spiders--I once saw a banana spider in my grandmother's backyard, though most people either think my memory has exaggerated the size since my childhood or that I'm just making it up. (It hasn't and I'm not.) This spider in my bathtub was nowhere near that size--a bit bigger than my thumbnail, maybe--but big enough to to merit a "Jesus Christ!" from my lips when my eyes spotted it trying and failing to scamper up the slick, curved surface.

I felt bad for the spider. No, seriously. It wasn't the spider's fault that it had fallen into the tub and couldn't climb out. Who among us hasn't been in a situation we'd fallen into and couldn't crawl out of, no matter how hard we tried? I was not about to pick up the spider--that altruistic I'm not--but through the pounding of pain in my brain, I came up with what seemed to be a reasonable compromise: I grabbed a potholder from the kitchen and propped it against the shower curtain, hoping that the spider would see this, climb up and get to wherever it had been going in the first place.

Satisfied that I'd at least tried to do a good deed, I stumbled back to bed for the better part of what turned out to be a gloomy, rainy day. When I got up later to use the bathroom, I looked in the tub and found it empty. I stayed up long enough to enjoy the line of thunderstorms that moved through in the evening, lighing up the sky with loud electricity, and grabbed a bite to eat now that my stomach had settled down. I went back to bed and dreamed strange dreams.

This morning, I still had a headache, but it was no longer blinding--merely a dull, intermittent throb behind the eyes. That, I could deal with.

What I couldn't deal with, however, was what I found in the bathtub. It was the same large black spider in almost exactly the same spot as I'd seen it the morning before.

"oh, for fuck's sake," I muttered as I went through as much of my morning routine as I could--shaving, brushing teeth, taking a multivitamin and feeding the Girlish Girls--before I'd have to deal with the invading arachnid once and for all.

First, I tried the same trick I'd used the morning before: I propped the potholder against the shower curtain, hoping the spider would take the hint. It didn't, standing absolutely still. Next, I tried scooting it toward the spot where the potholder stood. No good; it scampered away, but not where I wanted it to scamper. Finally, I laid the potholder in front of the spider. It seemed to understand this gesture and crawled onto the middle of the red-checkered pattern.

Seemed. It paused in the middle for a moment, leaving open the possibility of me scooping up the potholder and dashing to the back door to let the spider out (wouldn't be the first time I'd performed such a "rescue," though on those occasions it was an ant or a beetle or some less fearsome thing), but then it ran with surprising speed across the tub to the lip of the drain--then down it.

That move pretty much decided things for me. I wasn't about to stick a finger down the drain to try and fish the spider out. For all I knew, that was where it had come from in the first place. So I stepped into the tub, turned on the shower and didn't even glance at the drain. The spider wasn't seen again.

Will it be back tomorrow morning? Doubtful. Stranger things have happened, though. And there are stranger things to come, no doubt.

Quote of the Day

"It's not worth it if it's not chocolate-covered."

One of my co-workers, who was referring specifically to the doughnuts sitting immediately over my cubicle wall, but whose words are applicable for so many other circumstances as well.

Friday Is the 4th of July...

...which means today is Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day.

Unfortunately, it's also probably the last Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day.

Apparently, some of my esteemed co-workers find the excitement surrounding Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day to be a distraction. That's understandable, to a degree. We work in a large office with low cubicle walls, and every sound made by every person in the place carries far and wide.

Consequently, every belch or fart or laugh or sneeze can be heard by everyone in the general vicinity. Such must be tolerated; they ain't making these cubicle walls any taller anytime soon, if ever. However, the excessive enthusiasm expressed over toys is optional, not something that has to be endured or suffered.

So, even though no one in management has come to me to say that those of us who enjoyed and bonded more and more every Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day, the word has been spread to those concerned. This is, after all, a workplace. We are expected to work. Expecting anything more from a place of employment than a paycheck every couple of weeks is not reasonable. Not here. Not now.

For today at least, though, my Uncle Sam figure stands vigil over my desk, with Buzz Lightyear (on loan from the son of a co-worker) standing at his side, fighting the good fight until the very end.