Look, I have plans. Big ones. Not really, maybe modest-sized ones though. There are several more stories to be told and I'm pretty sure I'm the girl to tell them (because they've mostly all happened to me and first-hand knowledge tends to work that way) Might even tell the story of why it took me a month and a half to make my way back here. Then again, who knows? This might be part of that. I don't really think it is, but it *would* be understandably difficult to put one's thoughts together over the total ridiculousness that often takes place next door.
I...... can not even describe the noises my neighbor, a girl I suspect to be in her late 20s to early 30s, makes when she comes home. Apparently her "widdle dawggie is the cutie wootiest widdle boy in da world!" I mean it's a combination between baby talk so sickening it gives me a cavity and these weird high pitched squealy shrieky noises. And it completely boggles my mind for two reasons:
A) I've seen her dog. Sure, he's cute, but mainly because I think dogs in general are cute. Looks mid-age, mid-size, some sort of Boxer mix(?) Nice enough looking dog. Nothing to have a conniption over because you just can't believe such a thing can even exist.
and 2) Every time. EVERY FUCKING TIME! Sometimes on the weekends I hear her come home from running errands or whatever as much as 3 or 4 times a day and EVERY TIME it's "sha-ba doo-be-doo-we-wah-woah-wen!?!???? shoo-be woo-bie doo-bie-do!" (Now imagine that first "sentence" with vocal inflection lifting into the stratosphere. The second is the come down.) It's possible she's saying actual words and I can't make them out through the wall. But even if they are, I'm pretty sure the words have been so 'baby talkified' that my rendition is closer to what she's phonetically saying than anything from the English language.
Originally I thought getting to know her would be kind of cool. She's my neighbor, she looks around my age, her kitchen opens onto the back porch we share so I can see that she's often stocked with wine. These are all good things! But now I'm kind of afraid. No one can talk that much baby talk to an animal that often, can they!?? So I'm starting to wonder... it may not just be that she sees her dog and is flabbergasted at the fact that this wide-eyed creature of 100% pure uncut cute exists and, by luck of the gods, exists IN HER HOME!!! That might just be her natural voice.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The BEST story about Chicago busses and trains and God-y dudes you will read all day!
OK, let's get the party started and let's get it started right! This is kind of what started this whole thing. Pretty much the best story I've told in... two day.
I felt this needed to be recorded. For posterity.
Yesterday I wanted to do two things before going home: A) Stop at a Sally Beauty Supply and pick up some hair bleach and 2) Get a little necessary grocery shopping done. So I mapped it out before I left and figured the best way to go. Taking my old friend, the 156 bus! (we go way back, two apartments ago it was my lifeline) So I get out of work at 4:30 which is awesome because up until like 4:55 that bus is usually plenty breathable (past that... solid mass of craziness) There's one guy waiting at the stop with his Popeye's when I get there. So I wait. And wait. Finally Popeye's dude is like "I don't know what's going on but I've been here over 20 minutes." He leaves. I wait another minute or two and think in my head how I can take the 22 bus (which has a stop a couple blocks over) and relatively achieve the same end results. (Turns out Popeye's dude was thinking the same thing) As is another lady carrying a Trader Joe's bag. She also has a little bit of the scoop, saying that she saw the 156 earlier on a non-route road so it seems it's been re-routed. Re-routed but... not telling anyone where it's re-routed too. Well now... that's kinda awesome.
So a 22 bus comes by...........and keeps going. Drives right past. I mean I know we're getting later and they're full but usually they at least stop just in case a person or two can squeeze on! At this point most of us have been waiting over half an hour for a bus and the lady offered to share one of her bottles of wine from TJ's if anyone had a corkscrew but no one did. (Too bad. I don't think I need to tell you how awesome that would have made the story!)
So another 10-12 minutes and I am FINALLY on a 22 bus. Stop at Sally's. Now I have to catch a 36 to get to the grocery store. It's another 10 minute wait for the 36 bus, maybe a little less. When we're dealing with the 36 though, that's actually good. I think it got that route number because it's usually 36 minutes between busses...at which point 4 in a row will pass :P The bigger issue is there were all these god-y people on the corner, trying to get donations or people to sign petitions or something. (Funny. Usually it's animal or environment people doing this) I can't remember the name, but it was a god-y group. That's OK. I mean a little overly enthusiastic and annoying, but at least they, you know, have working minds. They can turn their over-enthusiasm right on to the next person when I say "sorry, no time, no money, no interest, my god doesn't actually believe in pandering" (note: I don't really say that last one.)
Them you can shake. The crazy god-y dude that steps up to the bus stop not so much. He kind of looked like god (according to Michaelangelo anyway) And also wearing dirty chinos. AND he had to pass right by the god group, but didn't even seem to notice or respond to them. But he was definitely crazy. Just talking really loudly in a preachy voice while everyone tries to ignore him. Of course he gets on the bus with me and I'm just glad I only have to ride it a few stops because it's taking all that's in me not to be like "oh please, SHUT UP." I mean REALLY REALLY low on patience at this point, because he actually was quite amusing. I just didn't even want to hear his voice. At one point he says that Jesus taught us what it was like to be cut into 1,000 pieces and.... I may be a few years away from my Catholic upbringing but I'm pretty sure that's NOT one of the things he taught us. Also he says "I had a vision of Jesus once. He burned my toes." Guy? I don't think you found Jesus, Jimmy Hoffa maybe, not Jesus.
So thankfully I get off soon. Get my groceries. See the usual insane long line for checkout. Remember something else I needed at the back of the store. Come back and magically the line is like 1/3 of what it was! This is to note, I was having good luck everywhere BUT with transportation. At Sally Beauty I walked in and cute scruffy hipster dude is like "can I help you?" And I say "hair bleach" and he takes me over, asks what I'm doing, helps pick out the best thing, even working with my fears of destroying my hair (I accept bleach will DAMAGE your hair, but I'd like to not melt it if I can) and picking out something a little nicer to hair that should still give me a good bleaching effect. It's just the traveling.
OK, so I get out and now I have to wait for a 36 bus AGAIN to get the rest of the way home. I walk up a stop from where I got off because it's a more main one and I'll be able to see the bus better. Plus it has a sign with a texting number (You text the number with a code and it sends you info on when the next busses are arriving. This is awesome, bee tee dubs.) So first I text to see if I should bother sit down. Busses coming in 17 and 18 minutes. Well that's the 36 for you. I sit down... and crazy god-y guy must have gotten off at that next stop!!! Because there he is across the street, standing in front of a Presbyterian church like they'd said "ummm no, you're too crazy for us, you need to stay outside" yelling and screaming at everyone who passed by. To get home I had to transfer to ONE last bus and there was a screaming crying baby on the bus the whole way and at that point I almost didn't care. I was like "Fuck you, baby. This is transit nightmare LITE!"
So that was that. Then this morning I'm taking the train in like I usually do. I get to the platform when I usually do. On the walk there I saw a southbound train (like I take) go by about 3-4 minutes before I got there and the trains usually run every 6-8 minutes. There was a northbound train going by when I got there. I waited. FIVE MORE northbound trains passed and nothing. One more went by just as another southbound was FINALLY showing up so counting the first one I saw that was SEVEN northbound trains passing before we finally got a southbound!!! I mean there's only like 4 stops before mine. That's the START of the route. Did they forget how to send trains out in the morning!?? On top of that the driver was just putzing along at a kind of slow mid-speed (in other words, not slow enough for there to be a reason like track maintenance, just slow enough to be annoying.) All in all, my usual 30 minute commute ended up being an hour and 15 minutes and I'm pretty sure I somehow pissed off the CTA gods. I guess that's better than pissing off 'real' god. I hear he burns your toes.
I felt this needed to be recorded. For posterity.
Yesterday I wanted to do two things before going home: A) Stop at a Sally Beauty Supply and pick up some hair bleach and 2) Get a little necessary grocery shopping done. So I mapped it out before I left and figured the best way to go. Taking my old friend, the 156 bus! (we go way back, two apartments ago it was my lifeline) So I get out of work at 4:30 which is awesome because up until like 4:55 that bus is usually plenty breathable (past that... solid mass of craziness) There's one guy waiting at the stop with his Popeye's when I get there. So I wait. And wait. Finally Popeye's dude is like "I don't know what's going on but I've been here over 20 minutes." He leaves. I wait another minute or two and think in my head how I can take the 22 bus (which has a stop a couple blocks over) and relatively achieve the same end results. (Turns out Popeye's dude was thinking the same thing) As is another lady carrying a Trader Joe's bag. She also has a little bit of the scoop, saying that she saw the 156 earlier on a non-route road so it seems it's been re-routed. Re-routed but... not telling anyone where it's re-routed too. Well now... that's kinda awesome.
So a 22 bus comes by...........and keeps going. Drives right past. I mean I know we're getting later and they're full but usually they at least stop just in case a person or two can squeeze on! At this point most of us have been waiting over half an hour for a bus and the lady offered to share one of her bottles of wine from TJ's if anyone had a corkscrew but no one did. (Too bad. I don't think I need to tell you how awesome that would have made the story!)
So another 10-12 minutes and I am FINALLY on a 22 bus. Stop at Sally's. Now I have to catch a 36 to get to the grocery store. It's another 10 minute wait for the 36 bus, maybe a little less. When we're dealing with the 36 though, that's actually good. I think it got that route number because it's usually 36 minutes between busses...at which point 4 in a row will pass :P The bigger issue is there were all these god-y people on the corner, trying to get donations or people to sign petitions or something. (Funny. Usually it's animal or environment people doing this) I can't remember the name, but it was a god-y group. That's OK. I mean a little overly enthusiastic and annoying, but at least they, you know, have working minds. They can turn their over-enthusiasm right on to the next person when I say "sorry, no time, no money, no interest, my god doesn't actually believe in pandering" (note: I don't really say that last one.)
Them you can shake. The crazy god-y dude that steps up to the bus stop not so much. He kind of looked like god (according to Michaelangelo anyway) And also wearing dirty chinos. AND he had to pass right by the god group, but didn't even seem to notice or respond to them. But he was definitely crazy. Just talking really loudly in a preachy voice while everyone tries to ignore him. Of course he gets on the bus with me and I'm just glad I only have to ride it a few stops because it's taking all that's in me not to be like "oh please, SHUT UP." I mean REALLY REALLY low on patience at this point, because he actually was quite amusing. I just didn't even want to hear his voice. At one point he says that Jesus taught us what it was like to be cut into 1,000 pieces and.... I may be a few years away from my Catholic upbringing but I'm pretty sure that's NOT one of the things he taught us. Also he says "I had a vision of Jesus once. He burned my toes." Guy? I don't think you found Jesus, Jimmy Hoffa maybe, not Jesus.
So thankfully I get off soon. Get my groceries. See the usual insane long line for checkout. Remember something else I needed at the back of the store. Come back and magically the line is like 1/3 of what it was! This is to note, I was having good luck everywhere BUT with transportation. At Sally Beauty I walked in and cute scruffy hipster dude is like "can I help you?" And I say "hair bleach" and he takes me over, asks what I'm doing, helps pick out the best thing, even working with my fears of destroying my hair (I accept bleach will DAMAGE your hair, but I'd like to not melt it if I can) and picking out something a little nicer to hair that should still give me a good bleaching effect. It's just the traveling.
OK, so I get out and now I have to wait for a 36 bus AGAIN to get the rest of the way home. I walk up a stop from where I got off because it's a more main one and I'll be able to see the bus better. Plus it has a sign with a texting number (You text the number with a code and it sends you info on when the next busses are arriving. This is awesome, bee tee dubs.) So first I text to see if I should bother sit down. Busses coming in 17 and 18 minutes. Well that's the 36 for you. I sit down... and crazy god-y guy must have gotten off at that next stop!!! Because there he is across the street, standing in front of a Presbyterian church like they'd said "ummm no, you're too crazy for us, you need to stay outside" yelling and screaming at everyone who passed by. To get home I had to transfer to ONE last bus and there was a screaming crying baby on the bus the whole way and at that point I almost didn't care. I was like "Fuck you, baby. This is transit nightmare LITE!"
So that was that. Then this morning I'm taking the train in like I usually do. I get to the platform when I usually do. On the walk there I saw a southbound train (like I take) go by about 3-4 minutes before I got there and the trains usually run every 6-8 minutes. There was a northbound train going by when I got there. I waited. FIVE MORE northbound trains passed and nothing. One more went by just as another southbound was FINALLY showing up so counting the first one I saw that was SEVEN northbound trains passing before we finally got a southbound!!! I mean there's only like 4 stops before mine. That's the START of the route. Did they forget how to send trains out in the morning!?? On top of that the driver was just putzing along at a kind of slow mid-speed (in other words, not slow enough for there to be a reason like track maintenance, just slow enough to be annoying.) All in all, my usual 30 minute commute ended up being an hour and 15 minutes and I'm pretty sure I somehow pissed off the CTA gods. I guess that's better than pissing off 'real' god. I hear he burns your toes.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
The story of how it all began
Quite simple really. I was happily posting away on LiveJournal where I only let a teeny tiny amount of people read my random wordsplosions in case I want to... I don't know, bitch about my mom or something. (That's not the reason. She'd never find my journal. I've written for a sports blog on my company's website for over two years now and specifically told her how to get there several time and suggested she go read some of the things I posted even more often. Last week we're talking on the phone and she's like "I think I finally managed to find your blog the other day!" Ahhhh... congrats, mom. You get a D+ at "teh onlinez.")
But anyway, I'm posting along and someone else who shall remain nameless says, "You should write for the masses. They would eat this shit up!" Well we'll see about that! But just in case, here it is.
And then the title came about A) because if you're going to have a whole mess of something, the 'cool kid' way to indicate that nowadays is by adding "-palooza" to the end and 2) basically I read the comment, hopped on blogspot 30 seconds later, thought "what can I call the semi-coherent ramblings of my day to day life? Storypalooza...? It's avaaaailable!" Type. Click. Done.
But anyway, I'm posting along and someone else who shall remain nameless says, "You should write for the masses. They would eat this shit up!" Well we'll see about that! But just in case, here it is.
And then the title came about A) because if you're going to have a whole mess of something, the 'cool kid' way to indicate that nowadays is by adding "-palooza" to the end and 2) basically I read the comment, hopped on blogspot 30 seconds later, thought "what can I call the semi-coherent ramblings of my day to day life? Storypalooza...? It's avaaaailable!" Type. Click. Done.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)