Looking Forward: "Things Are About to Change"

I was surprised to look back and see that this here blog is nearly eight-and-a-half years old now. There have been numerous instances over By My Count's lifetime in which I've openly wondered what the hell I was doing here. For the most part, it has largely been about putting my predictions for various events in writing.

On October 14 of last year, the wife and I found out that we were about to become parents. I have mentioned this only briefly in some recent posts, but there's no getting around it now. The wife's water broke just as we were preparing to go to bed this past Tuesday night and our beautiful baby daughter arrived early Wednesday evening. The moment I heard the first cries of our child brought tears to my eyes as well as my wife's, and it immediately becomes the new favorite moment of my young marriage.

So is BMC now destined to become something entirely new? Tales about dirty diapers and baby burping? No, probably not. But I can say that I am anticipating that all of the posts that had become "annual" types (quarterly and final thoughts on the Four Bs, full predictions for each of the four major sports, etc.) will probably be abandoned. In all honesty, By My Count is probably the least successful of any social media endeavors of mine (I started a little Twitter account last month that already has more pageviews than this blogs had in its entire lifetime), but I never intended to make money off this account or break any new ground. For the most part, it became mostly just an excuse for recording my thoughts about my favorite sports teams (and the Oscars). If anybody else wanted to read them for some reason, that was cool.

If anything here is likely to survive, I would assume it would be the playoff predictions I've always enjoyed making. But I can't say for sure seeing as this is my first go-round with child-raising, and the baby's taking a bit of a priority over blogging. This is not so much a farewell as it is just a simple explanation why it could be a while before you hear from me again.

The Progress: In which persistence finally pays off

Friday began with a bit of bad news when I received an email informing me that the SEO Trainee position I was to be interviewing for on Monday had been filled. Sure, I could still interview on Monday if I wanted because there was the real possibility that another position could open within the next few weeks if the company landed the couple big bids it had going on.

I was reading the email on my cell phone at my current job while preparing for an afternoon function in which overly fussy Austin-area businesswomen were going to be getting a rather cheap lunch and talking about more efficient ways to use their Twitter and Facebook accounts (or something like that ... maybe I just heard both mentioned several times because, well, they were women and that's seemingly all they ever talk about anymore). As soon as I ran into my general manager, he informed me that he had received a complaint about me from one of the guests at one of the previous evening's events. Apparently I acted "rude" when she asked to have something wrapped up. I asked for something more specific since I didn't know what I could've done wrong and was only told "not to let it happen again."

I've been looking high and low for anything other than a restaurant job for years now, and while this new place that represents my first job since arriving in Texas has certainly become more profitable in recent weeks, at that moment it was beginning to feel as though even this job was now on shaky ground.

Fast-forward a couple hours to the middle of the event on Friday afternoon and another email has come in. This one is a reply from somebody I interviewed with almost two weeks ago for a writing job. Since I hadn't heard from her earlier in the week, by about Wednesday I was assuming they went with somebody else. Still, I opened the email and thought it began with the obligatory thank you for coming in the previous week. Familiar with how these rejections typically go, I was sure the next line would be some variation of either "we've decided to go with another candidate," or "we can not extend you an offer at this time."

The Arrival: In which just getting here was an adventure

After ™ last flew up to Illinois to spend a long weekend with me between her birthday and my own, I reminded her at the airport that the following three weeks until I saw her again would go by pretty fast. I had been saying it primarily to comfort her that unlike, say, the more than two months before that visit when we'd last been able to see one another, this final step was going to arrive much faster. And sure enough, before I knew it—before I'd even remembered to formally change my address, before I'd been able to land a job to start when I arrived, before I'd finished packing ALL of my belongings—I was at O'Hare on May 18 boarding a one-way flight to Texas.

We first moved ™'s stuff from the Houston area to our new apartment in Austin, and then the following day began the roughly 19-hour drive back to St. Charles. While the original plan was to drive as much as we could on the first day and find a hotel when we got tired, we instead ended up stopping for a bite to eat in Memphis that evening and just staying on the road until we arrived at my parents' house early that Saturday morning. After catching some shuteye, we had some rather lackluster Pizza Hut for dinner that evening with my parents and my aunt and uncle. Later that night, we went out with a couple friends of mine in downtown St. Charles.

Over the course of those three weeks between ™'s visits, I kept waiting for the moment that the relocation was really going to hit me. But even as I reminded myself that certain visits I was making could be my last for quite some time, it still didn't seem real.

What stuck with me that last night in St. Charles had to be a moment outside one of the bars just after last call. ™ was hugging me and a girl I'd never met before but was was apparently a friend of one of my friends looked at us and wondered aloud to us why she couldn't have something like ™ and I had. The girl, probably somewhere in her mid-twenties, had just gotten out of a long-distance relationship.

When other friends and co-workers used words like "jealous" or such in response to learning my relocation plans, I had sort of downplayed it as them just being nice. But on that last night, something in that one girl's eyes finally made me feel lucky. After three or so years of convincing myself nobody else in their right mind would ever want to be in my shoes, I finally experienced a real moment of having somebody else saying they wanted what I had.

Ultimately, I was only beginning to realize how lucky I was.

Final Thoughts on 2010-11 Chicago Blackhawks: Rest in peace, Jimmy

Not that it hasn't been pointed out thousands of times or makes the excuse feel as though it would serve any real purpose, but it's hard to repeat after winning the Stanley Cup. Marian Hossa was coming off three straight years in which he played for teams with seasons that lasted all the way into June, so I can forgive him for missing some time during those regular seasons.

But looking back at this year, it was a struggle all season long just to compete. And while the team went out with an unbelievable bang that was oh-so-close to being an an accomplishment of historic proportions, there won't be any Blackhawks hockey this summer.

I suppose that gives me more time to figure out how I'm going to get the team's radio broadcasts when I'm living in Austin and the puck next drops for the team, but this year was a slowly painful realization that his year's squad just quite simply was nowhere near as good as what we had last year.

I knew this year's run wouldn't be the same when the guy I watched most of last year's playoffs with, Jimmy, passed away from lung cancer on April 20.

The Countdown: Three becomes two

In this area, we've endured what I was told was a record amount of snow last month, but now nearly every last sign of white has all but disappeared and it's getting closer to being so comfortable outside that I can once again sit on the stoop in front of the house, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and complete a puzzle or two. It's now becoming more frequent for the morning to begin with me actually asking myself, "Do I need a coat for this?"

But the shift feels a little bit more substantial this particular spring at this particular time, and not just because it appears that the shovel's not going to be looked at again until Thanksgiving. I'd be more giddy about the prospect of sitting outside for a couple hours again to start the day if I were even able to stand still right now.

That's largely because more than three years after I was being arrested for another DUI, I had my probation terminated early last Thursday. And now without any more check-ins at the courthouse to essentially document that I've been staying out of trouble, I'm finally free to go do whatever I want.

It's still sinking in as to what that even feels like. After three years of being what I described as a "prisoner of the state," I've now got two months to take advantage of this newfound supposed freedom.

Five Years Later: What's really changed?

What you see in the background of that image there is what I refer to as "my journal." I bought it at a Borders or some other bookstore back in 2004, primarily for class when I was back finally finishing college. When I bought that hardcover item, I imagined that I would fill it out quickly and rush to replace it—repeatedly.

And nearly seven full years later, despite the binding falling apart and giving the appearance that it's been opened with far greater frequency, I'd say I'm a little more than halfway through it. Journaling every single day, as it turns out, is a routine I just never could get into.

Of course, the excuse that I make for not writing my private thoughts down on a more regular basis is because over time, I've developed a number of other places to publicly record them. My Tumblr has occasionally become one such venue for me in the past couple of years, but this particular blog has been another for five years now, today.

While I've made a note of this anniversary on one previous occasion, I don't think the past three years on BMC have really allowed me to post another "greatest hits" sort of series of links. Still, I do think it's appropriate to kind of look back, briefly reflect on what's happened and then get back to moving forward.

"Holiday Break" follow-up: It's a long story (but a happy one)

I had always felt that people who claimed to find love on the internet were creating a sort of forced romance. Of the few people I knew personally who met significant others over the web, it was almost always through an online dating service. And my very first impression of those kind of those kinds of sites was forged by a former co-worker of mine, a nice enough fellow who had been engaged at one time but had things fall apart when his fiancee turned out to be something of a psycho. As a result, he seemed determined not just to seek a new girlfriend, but most certainly find a future bride.

When he spoke openly about testing the waters of online dating, his profile was public, and so of course, other co-workers and I had to check it out. What struck me most after viewing it was the overall sense of desperation that was conveyed in his "preferences." Height? Any. Religion? Any. Nationality? Any.

To me, the whole thing reinforced the notion that this entire approach equated to begging to get laid. It always seemed that a romantic interest was something you discovered unexpectedly, hence the joy of explaining how you met. Using a dating service not only seemed to encourage some dishonesty to make yourself sound more appealing, but forced you to probably place more pressure on yourself to make any potential match work.

So my conclusion based upon the few examples I knew personally—since I was determined never to try it myself—was that romance and the internet were two entirely different things. Any attempt to combine the two was manufacturing an emotion that's best enjoyed when it occurs naturally.

Gimme a moment: Holiday Break

I realize I still haven't even updated my picks from Week 11 (I went 11-5, for the record) and this would be about the time the Power Rankings would be getting posted while I rushed to get Week 12 Picks ready for three games on Thanksgiving and ... oh, well, you know what? All of that's going to have to wait, I'm afraid.

See, now that I've been working again for a whole, oh, four months now, I've decided I'm going to use the upcoming holiday for a little mini-vacation of sorts. I really earned it, of course. And by vacation, I mean I'll be taking the rest of the week off starting tomorrow to help someone pretty darn special see Chicago for the very first time.

Needless to say, I have no intention of taking away from that time just to post my picks to this blog before the deadline. Sorry.

But fear not, for I have screencapped all the results from last week and will post the belated picks after the fact next week when I'm back to the normal schedule. Oh, and hopefully I'll elaborate a little more on what I actually do this week.

In the meantime, enjoy your Thanksgiving, dear readers.

Final Thoughts on 2009-10 (STANLEY CUP CHAMPION [!!!]) Chicago Blackhawks: I can die a happy man now

The last time I attended a championship rally for one of my Four Bs was in 1998, when the Chicago Bulls were in Grant Park celebrating their sixth title in eight years and basically saying the dynasty was over.

It was the first time I'd actually made the voyage to the city to take part in the festivities, which by that point, seemed to be an annual part of summer. My friends and I were also now a couple years into our individual college experiences, and me being the sap that stayed home to go to community college, that particular year marked the time I began the love affair with alcohol that pretty much became the nucleus of my twenties.

The night before that rally and the train ride downtown involved many repeated shots and sips of Jack Daniels or whatever vodka was in that Sprite bottle, and one buddy had to take one of the girls back to the 'burbs after she got sick. But I was so incredibly proud of my own developing tolerance in those initial stages that I brought a sign to the rally proclaiming, "I'M DRUNK" with an arrow pointing down. I wanted the whole world to know how great a time I was having, but instead the sign (it read "FUCK KRAUSE" on the other side, by the way) ended up being placed over a different buddy's chest after he passed out in the park as soon as we arrived. People passing by would stop and have their picture taken beside our intoxicated friend while he slept and I could only laugh, completely oblivious to the disaster the Bulls were about to become and thinking that this party was how it would be every summer, every year, for the rest of time.

So it was a strange yet wonderful feeling this past June when after nearly two years of being off the sauce, I found myself in the city once again to be part of the madness that was the day honoring our World Champion Chicago Blackhawks. If my own feelings about just the rally are hard to put into words, then what, really, can be said about all of the glorious moments from this unforgettable season? 

Stupid Fucking Virus: Never, ever, EVER pay to have malware removed

I had planned to squeeze a different post in for the last day of July, but instead spent far too much time this weekend dealing with something called "Antivir Solution Platinum." It is yet another bogus piece of computer security software that not surprisingly ends up high on the Google search results when I typed in those first three words to the title of this post.

My friend once told me how he came to learn a lot about computers simply by fixing any problems on his own, and now that he's got a kid, he can no longer run over to my house to fix our PC after Mom or Dad (but certainly not me, of course) fuck some shit up old-school by clicking on one of the fraudulent security threats. So the past three or four times this has happened, I referred to the video in this post and followed those simple instructions. Until this weekend, the trio of spyware-killing programs did the trick. You can and should download all three—seeing as they're all free:

Things you couldn't care less about: Obligatory fantasy update

If you take over first place in a fantasy league where nobody's really participating, does it make a sound? Does it resonate with anybody at all? Or is everybody in this league really that bad? And how bad am I for having spent a majority of this season struggling to catch a guy who hasn't made a single adjustment to his roster since the draft day when he picked his team?

Before you begin pondering that litany of questions, however, let me remind you what my roster originally looked like back on the eve of April. And this was my attitude less than three weeks into the season. And now? Well ...:

Sweet, Sweet Fantasy, Baby: Where one contest ends, another begins

We've finally reached the conclusion of the Beyond the Blue Line 2 league tournament, and luckily for me, I will not have to honor Steve-O's demands to publish a full screencap with an accompanying essay lavishing praise upon his squad had his second-ranked team defeated my third-ranked team. Thankfully that did not happen, as Steve-O's goalies essentially got outplayed across the board by my pair of netminders and we're left, appropriately enough, with my Ovie-led team meeting Ms. Bette's squad that boasts Sidney Crosby.

And if I'm looking at the upcoming week's games correctly, then Ovechkin should have an extra game in comparison to Sid the Kid, so advantage me—for now.

The Greatest Walk in All of Chicago

I had written a piece a while back for a Freelance class in college talking about the very experience I had today, one I'm afraid I haven't partaken in quite as often ever since I graduated college and subsequently stopped being in the city as often. In that piece, I mentioned how I had learned to utilize my U-Pass (the college's public transportation pass that allowed a student to ride every CTA line for free) such that the color of every L line corresponded to a great food destination. The Red Line, for instance, led to Mister J's Dawg 'n Burger, just off the Chicago stop (Double cheeseburger with fries and shake for less than five bucks, but Dagwood and cheese fries with bigger shake on pay days). The Brown Line went right by Mr. Beef on Orleans, which if you could get past the multiple photos of Jay Leno also had other local celebrities but more importantly a massive turkey sub that was also less than five bucks and could often qualify as my lunch and dinner.

But my piece emphasized the romantic nature of every single visit to Bombon Cafe via the Green Line. It used to be a once-a-week treat to myself, as I'd easily spend $20 every time I went. Still, the trip in itself left me walking on air for the remainder of the day, if not the weekend.

Today I hopped on to the Green Line from the Clinton stop—only a few short incredibly windy blocks from Ogilvie Transportation Center, where by suburban train arrived from. It was only after I reached the platform that I realized I was on the wrong side of the tracks and had to race down the stairs, hustling up the opposite side and just squeezing in between the closing L doors. Clinton was not my typical point of arrival, but it worked out well today since the very next stop was the traditional point of departure: the Ashland stop at 1601 W. Lake St.

Just a thought (or two): On things like "just a thought (or two)," other tags

This is your song for this weekend. It might be the song for next weekend too, but we'll see. Don't think about it, just play it.

If you scroll on down past all those other wonderful sites I link to there on the right (Hello, new followers!), and the archives I only realized I can actually sift through a few months ago, you'll notice the collection of tags. Most of them are pretty self-explanatory, but two near the top need to be cleaned up.

The first is "notable links," which was probably just created by me when I first began tagging posts more than a year into BMC's life and needed something to affix to the extremely short comments with hyperlinks that made up much of this site's inaugural year and was what I thought constituted blogging. These days, they've got an entire site for that kind of thing. But since then, most everything I post has "notable links" of some sort (they're notable ... aren't they?). So either that tag dies with this post, unless I think of a better way to employ it.

The other tag that has grown to encompass just about everything in it's vagueness is the one in the title of this here post, "just a thought (or two)." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.

So that tag's going to be reviewed, possibly removed from a number of posts and from now on have its first letter capitalized and hopefully become an occasional feature here at BMC in which I can talk about a couple things on my mind in one post that are NOT me making predictions or posting reaction to those predictions. I mean, we'll have time for that too.

Oh, and whenever I do put up an edition of the new (!!!) "Just a thought," it will feature this picture of Jane Krakowski simply because I fucking love it. I love the way it looks on my Tumblr, I love the way it looks on the other Tumblrs that reblogged it, and of course I still really love that contribution of hers to Esquire. Love it, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!!!

But I will not jack off to it.

No, but I will mention "JACKING OFF" on this blog, because ... well, apparently it gets me hits. Don't take my word for it though:


Yeah, so this post's the first one that comes up on a Google Image search for that top item there. Even though I didn't explicitly use that exact phrase, I'm debating changing the subhead for BMC to that now.

Or maybe I'll just make a tag for it. Bring on the traffic.

Your Web experience can only avoid the "IRL" aspect for so long

As you might recall, I wasn't rushing to sign up for Facebook for the longest time, and then when the excuse seemed best ("USERNAME?!"), even that backfired. But that got corrected, there I was, and I guess the idea is that I'm supposed to go back and reconnect to all these people I really couldn't be any less interested in talking to. Not right now, at least. That's what I tell myself.

And while I can honestly say that Facebook has yet to inspire any sort of enthusiasm or curiosity about it for me, I can say it will honestly bug me when I do go back and see this picture. I really haven't taken it upon myself to try and accumulate as many of my friends as I could find as quickly as possible, but when all the rest of my old colleagues from The Chronicle added me shortly after I joined, I figured maybe Mr. Sulski didn't check in that often. And so, because it's Facebook, I assumed that maybe like me, Sulski just didn't bother that much with it.

It was only last week I found out that he had been fighting cancer for three years—right about how long it's been since I graduated, and hence, last saw him.

Only days after I found out via e-mail that his condition was most certainly not good, he died Thursday morning with his wake and funeral this past weekend. I immediately went through photos from an old holiday end-of-semester party with The Chronicle staff from a few years back and put up a post on my Tumblr (the site where virtually everyone I maintain contact with are people I've never even been in the same room as, but also still where I prefer to spend a majority of my online free time).

None of the "likes" that followed for that were all that unusual or unexpected, but one note on my dashboard did seem particularly noteworthy:


You know, a song I posted ... in July. Just a coincidence, of course.

Jim Sulski was 52. I was only able to attend the wake, but it marked the first time I'd ever been to an open casket service. It's hard to recall the many things that were going through my mind at that moment, but mostly I'm sure I just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. Considering how I was most of the times Sulski had seen me, I'm sure he would have been happy just to know I was sober. (Then again, when I graduated and he hugged me after coming off the stage, he told me, "I don't want to see you when you're not drunk.")

I saw a number of people at Sulski's wake that also wrote their reactions to the news, including John Kass, Richard Roeper, my other advisor at The Chronicle, and my one-time assistant for the section. I also saw the man that trained me for that same job, again realizing how long it had been since we had last spoken. I came to that realization a lot. Much like the reminder that I wasn't the only one that didn't land a job "in the field."

There were equally moving obituaries from the Tribune, the Sun-Times, the Chicago Journal and—of course—the Chronicle. There was also this guy that I don't know but he seems to be talking about the same person, and that's kind of how I was this past week: I kept looking for more stuff about Sulski, like maybe the news would change.

Now the one thing I fear is the day that the pending friend request on Facebook goes away, as I'll almost certainly be tempted to believe there's still a possibility of seeing him one more time. But even when that particular reminder disappears, Sulski's memory will live on. I hope his passing teaches me to better express how sincerely I appreciate those I still have around.

UPDATE: More Sulski tributes from James Ewert, the friend holding the sign in the legendary photo I use to promote this here blog, and a moving piece from heartofanewsie.

Yet another example of my exquisite timing

I'd been letting an awful lot of those special vitaminwater caps collect dust this summer and decided tonight that I should probably hurry up and cash them in before they—


Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me, right?

Nope. Promotion ended Monday. Nice.

So, here I now sit with, I don't know, 30-40 of these caps that are totally useless. I may look more into what can still be done with them, but I won't be getting my hopes up too high. Besides, I've got bigger fish to fry these days. (And who needs your dumbass MySpace site when I've still got free music via Tumblr anyway?)

Seriously though, if I can be forgiven for overlooking this stupid expiration date, it's because of the mild shitstorm I've just found myself in—albeit a shitstorm of sudden employment possibilities, so hopefully the connotation of the term is just as much positive as anything.

I am preparing to train tomorrow for a transcribing position that will allow me to work from home and make a few extra bucks. This would be in addition to the copywriting position that's also offering work from home on flexible hours with more extra bucks. And then there's the old restaurant wanting me to stay on at least one shift a week while most of my time is taken up at the new country club job.

So suddenly, I'm looking at possibly holding down four part-time jobs. And considering the money I'm going to need heading into these possibly brutal final four months of the year, then yes, the timing is indeed exquisite.

But all of this said, while I've certainly had posts in mind for BMC here (two of which I began, but have yet to complete), hopefully you can understand that things have been a tad bit hectic these past few weeks. And while I fully intended to squeeze in a few items before this blog becomes inundated with posts relating to the NFL season, it appears that I may actually have to be content with creating those other types of posts during football season.

As I said, this final third of 2009 is gearing up to be a pretty wild ride, so I'm trusting that if nothing else, I will have plenty of things in addition to the usual to write about. I'm not sure how I'll hold up physically or mentally as we enter 2010, but damned if I'm not anxious to find out.

To Each Their Own

I hate closing on Thursday nights, mostly because of the difficulty in arranging a ride home at midnight when the doors close. I hadn't spoken to the ex in probably a little over a month, which I really had no problem with. The relatively quiet beginning to summer suddenly saw a spike in memorable evenings in July and, well, new job and all, things were looking a bit nicer these days.

But when the ex first chirped up last week with one of the usual, familiar rehearsed texts about missing me and then another came in Tuesday or Wednesday, I took the opportunity to respond by asking if she would like to give me a ride home on Thursday night.

Would she?! ... Could she?!

The ride back to my house involved much of me catching her up to speed: my quitting the chain restaurant, my starting at a country club closer to home and my recent trip to Atlanta—a subject that I quickly grew uncomfortable with, seeing how:

• a) she expressed disappointment that I "went without her"
• b) I never really intended to bring her in the first place when we were dating (I talked of a "summer road trip" with the boys)
• c) and certainly looking back now on how things did turn out, the idea that I would even remotely reconsider changing them or regret anything (READ: NO)
  

Luckily, that topic died down before any real sordid details could be withdrawn from me and when we did arrive at my house, it only seemed natural that she would come inside.

When first looking at my room—a place she obviously hadn't seen in more than a month—she marveled at how clean it was. And indeed, my bedroom is admittedly pretty pristine compared to when we were dating. Actually, I'd be willing to say that right now after countless hours of organizing and general cleaning, the place looks the cleanest it's been since I moved in.

I thought maybe that alone would be an indication that things were truly different now, but I mistakenly assumed this would go much smoother.

Fast-forward to the morning when the ex catches a glimpse of something else that's changed. I remember at one time here on BMC where I was going to start a glossary for my nicknames I had for exes of mine. But I ultimately scrapped the idea, mentioning somewhere in there how I wanted to begin referring to any future girlfriend as the "groundskeeper," seeing as one of the more fascinating and telling things about ladies is their requests concerning body hair maintenance. (The only thing that comes to mind is this.)

And I guess the ex didn't like what the most recent possible replacement groundskeeper had asked for. Or she was pissed that there was another groundskeeper at all. And then she proceeded to spend the entire morning trying to make me feel bad about it.

I reminded her that we broke up some three months ago now. The phrase I uttered more often than any other this morning had to be, "I think you're just telling me what I want to hear."

I got to saying that a lot since most of what she believes is an appeal to my emotions comes across rather as rehearsed and repetitious.

If you were to take her at her word, then my ex has had some incredibly bad luck—and we're talking about a lot of phone calls she never got, text messages she never received and just about every other sort of totally random explanation for one letdown after another in our relationship.

Or if you have a slightly more cynical nature and have some pretty good reason to believe that you're not getting the whole story in a lot of these cases, then my ex is pretty clearly a pathological liar.

To this day, I've been told that the first text message I "shouldn't have seen" was just a joke and that the other one, I guess, didn't really exist. Or something like that. (She never bothered with an explanation, insisting instead that she never sent anything like that ... since meeting me.)

It might sound kind of silly, I guess, to still be holding the rather damning contents of a couple text messages against your former lover, but when it appears you're not the only one who's being talked dirty to, what feelings of exclusiveness in a relationship are you supposed to still pretend you feel? I could only conclude I couldn't.

And so that's why I bailed on the second-longest relationship of my life—which just goes to show you how meaningless the lengths of relationships are too. (I'm almost always the dumpee rather than the dumper, so it's kind of odd that both of my longest relationships were the only two [real relationships] I can recall that ended when I pulled the plug.)

I couldn't ever see myself realistically trusting this woman again, and I mean really believing her like I know I ought to be and like I know I have in much happier relationships in the past. I know something like that is probably out there, so it's stupid to convincing myself that I should settle for less.

But just as I get overly self-righteous about how wronged I was, there's the ugly truth about a wee little bit of responsibility that I have to accept: I was wrong for going into her phone to find those text messages.

When explaining to that most recent possible groundskeeper about why the ex became an ex, she was more than a little put off by my admitting I acted so paranoid.

And while I want to vehemently argue that I've never done this before and her lying caused me to do this and I only did it twice—but look what I found!—I know full well that this in some way speaks volumes about my insecurity. I used to say "I'd never do that!" when girls spoke of the boyfriends they had breaking into their journals, and now here I was, basically showing the same disdain for one's privacy.

And while I cannot undo what has already been done or unsee what has already been seen, all I can do is move on and promise to never do it again.

That, and shave accordingly.

Cross Your Fingers

I've gotten so used to applying for jobs and forgetting about them that you couldn't imagine my delight this morning when I found out I was one of 15 applicants who made the "short list" for a copywriting position I applied for many months ago (or at least that's what it feels like). The position was something I stumbled across on craigslist and unlike the other copywriting jobs that required somewhere in the neighborhood of three-five years of previous experience, this one was looking for newcomers. I'd been dying for that opportunity to present itself.

The company started a Twitter account to keep us updated on how they were coming along with the many exams they received, and I immediately began fearing for the worst as weeks passed and I maintained my stance that Twitter sucks. Still, I did receive an e-mail informing me that the fellow in charge of the hiring enjoyed many of my responses on the exam and that I was on the "short list." Part of me immediately wondered how many of the 80 or so applicants also recieved a similar e-mail. That was probably more than a month ago. Since then, I've interviewed for other entry-level copywriting positions, ultimately being extended a job offer for absolutely none.

So now some three or so months after applying for this job that I wanted worse than any other position I've applied for in the past three years, I received another e-mail. And now I've come to find out that there's a phone interview in the next two weeks—not to mention that I need to call the steakhouse back on Monday, since that still remains a very good back-up plan at the moment.

But just as I have been anticipating making more money at a nicer restaurant closer to home without all the corporate B.S. I have been dealing with for the past year and a half, it turns out I have another opportunity to get excited about. Or should I not even get my hopes up? I was tempted to write something about the interview in my Facebook status, but thought better of it since I hate getting others excited for me about getting an interview and then informing them I did not actually get the position. (That's happened a lot since graduation.)

Ultimately, I'm thrilled that the "short list" e-mail from a while back was indeed not just something everybody was getting. And when I've made the final 15, it gives me tremendous hope that I must be doing something right.

End of an Era

I was still one of the believers that I didn't need a Facebook account. I thought MySpace could fulfill all of my little social networking needs and desires—of which I have not many.

Still, the past few experiences using MySpace's blogging software have been nothing short of maddening. Clearly, my interest in even signing on has dwindled ever since I was introduced to Tumblr back in September. Its simplicity is refreshing and it's no wonder to me why I and many others opt to "blog" over there, if that's what you want to call it.

And indeed, during the build-up to my little A.R.M. (use of exclamation point not consistent) weekend, it's hardly a surprise I talked about things more over there. But tonight, fully intending to write up a whole summary of that weekend, I couldn't have been more than a few paragraphs away from finishing when Firefox experienced a problem, had to shut down and, well, you can probably guess what was there when I came back: nothing.

Oh, sorry—the original title was still there. Maybe I'll use it in a future blog post recapping the weekend, but I doubt it.

I long ago came to loathe the folks who either on MySpace or Tumblr or any similar spot, really, felt compelled to announce their intention to delete the account. The call for attention was always the same threatening nature and I sincerely hoped that the person in question got what they wanted, but ultimately, I saw the same thing so often that I stopped caring. "Go ahead and delete yourself," I thought. "You can be replaced."

But I'm finally calling it quits on blogging at MySpace, which I believe is hardly a threat. If anything, I'm just holding out until the folks there can give me a reason to dedicate any more time to posts that cannot be saved as drafts during composition—as Tumblr and even Blogger here does. It's a logical safety net that we were often reminded when first learning about computers ("Save early and save often"), and yet the fine folks at MySpace seem to believe isn't worth the trouble. Good luck with that.

Do not, however, expect me to come away from this whole thing championing Facebook and singing those praises. As best I can tell from the two weeks I've had the account, the whole site is basically a MySpace 2.0, and I'm not particularly interested in going out and scrambling to reconnect with a bunch of people from my past. Counting friends still strikes me as being a total bore—and the return trip home last weekend with my ex actually insinuating that I had probably had more sexual partners than she has had made for some really interesting self-examination that I have often avoided ... but that's something I intended to elaborate on in closing out my story—before the whole thing disappeared, of course.

Maybe I'll come back to the thought another day.

I've had some recent ideas for posts relating to things other than sports for BMC here, but I really wanted to leave the blog up for a few days with the ten most recent posts being entirely my predictions and comments about the NBA and NHL playoffs that I felt represented the beginning of summer (I just liked the way it looked, I guess ... sue me). Now that those are over, I'm ready to start putting more stuff up here since—unlike MySpace—I was able to save the ideas for a rainy day or some late night spell of boredom.

The forecast is calling for showers this week. And I'm an occasional insomniac.

I fought the law, and I won

I had taken a little too much time trying to think of a cute way to squeeze in a way of asking the lady to see me that night when I was texting her at the Caribou. I took a little more time when I was debating whether or not to buy the paper there or when I get into the city, when I'd be buying a New York Times anyway.

So by the time I actually walked out the door, I of course heard the bells clanging and saw the cars from the train make their gentle inch forward as the whistle sounded. I just kind of shook my head and smiled. There was another one coming in a half-hour that I normally would have relied on, but had I missed that one, then I'd have to wait an hour and a half or some shit, and, well, fuck that.

So I took my time walking up to the station and when I arrived a minute or so later, with nothing to do, I lit up a cigarette.


OK, see where that lady's walking out of? That's a little coffee place called Depot Express. Now see that little blue sign on the glass, past where she's walking from and just a little to the left of her eyeline? Yeah, that's where I was standing when I lit up my smoke.

There was nobody else around at the time, seeing as most everybody on the platform had just boarded the train. And the few who'd perhaps missed it were all now waiting inside the station's ticket office located around that little glassed area where the blue sign is. It was, after all, pretty cold out.

You could tell by how rosy the cheeks were on the heavy-set older woman who was walking toward me along the platform. Breathing seemed somewhat difficult for her while she tugged along her luggage on wheels behind her. She appeared to be headed presumably for the comfort of the indoor heated shelter of the ticket office when she looked at me as she passed and remarked, "You're supposed to be 15 feet from the door."

She continued to look at me but also continued toward the doors inside. Having not really seen her comment coming, the only thing I could originally think about was how long it had been since anybody had said something like that to me—or at least, in that tone. That, and I was internally asking myself if I was really within 15 feet of the door.

Naturally, my only reaction was to smile and release a snickering sound that hopefully indicated how amusing I found the whole thing. "Oh, you non-smokers ..."

I guess she didn't like that much because she stopped and came back towards me, sporting a nasty scowl and saying, "It's a statewide law ... idiot."

Idiot.

I really let that soak in. Had I been drinking, or even hungover the way I used to be, I'm relatively certain that by this point I would have really put the bitch in her place. When the ban first went into effect in Chicago a while back, I flicked my lit butt directly into the chest of the white-collar fiftysomething that did exactly the same thing and walked right on into Ogilvie. I could hear him shouting on the other side of the glass.

This woman, however, caught me on a good day. And so I laughed, hopefully letting her know how much I sincerely appreciated this amusing anecdote to missing the train—something that used to drive me fucking nuts.

I thought the matter was resolved after she'd scoffed and opened the door to the station, but she stopped and turned back toward me. "Would you like me to call the police?"

This was becoming the gift that just wouldn't stop giving. I'm pretty sure there was no way to keep a straight face with how entertaining I was finding all of this, what with puffy-faced non-smoker probably having her entire day ruined all because she was making mine.

I felt disappointed when she walked inside to make her phone call. I very much wanted to hear how such a conversation actually went.

Seeing as there was still much time before the next train arrived, I took my time finishing my cigarette and became increasingly giddy at actually getting to talk to a police officer to begin my day. It had been quite some time since I had had a conversation with one in which I wasn't balls-to-the-wall wasted. Today, I'd be able to address their concerns sober as a stone, sharp as a tack.

Alas, the squad car never arrived. Or at least the train did first, some 15 minutes later. But it was exciting for those few fleeting moments that made me realize how grateful I am to be a smoker. I do it almost entirely because cigarettes help me relax. The personal physical penalty I pay for smoking is the possibility that I might die sooner, which doesn't really frighten me as much as it should ... yet ... I guess.

Incidents like what happened this particular Wednesday morning at the train station are a further sign of how much more I need to pray for non-smokers, because if anybody really needs something that will help them chill the hell out, it's them.

And now I know what I must do if I should encounter this woman again: I will apologize for my rudeness and then humbly reach into my pocket to offer her a cigarette.

"You need this more than me."