Re: Locale

I had a horrible, vivid nightmare last night. I dreamt about my teeth and how I couldn't close my mouth without intense pain. It felt like all of my teeth came loose and one of my right top molars had moved behind my right bottom molars, so my jaw wouldn't close properly. So I just kinda sit there, opening and closing my jaw, spitting blood. All I can think about is all the pain I'm experiencing. Finally I build up the courage to look at the mirror. What I see is every single one of my teeth split down the middle. Like if you take a knife and just cut your teeth in half, that's what it looked like. Lots of blood, lots of yellow spit. That's how I woke up today.

Since I have sleeping issues I usually wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I go back to sleep, sometimes I struggle. Regardless of what happens, when 8:15am rolls around I have to get up for work. Sometimes if I'm lucky I can sleep the entire night and I'll wake up to Andrea saying goodbye. Her work schedule is inconsistent, so sometimes she'll leave while I'm still in bed. Anyway I get up, brush my teeth, piss, get dressed, grab the lunch I made the night before, check the weather(because the weather is all over the place, you just never know), and I start walking to the train station.

I walk west down Taylor to get to the train station which I didn't used to do because it's much faster to go north of Laflin and then go west on Polk, but I like walking down Taylor because all of the restaurants are on Taylor, so there's more to look at in the morning compared to walking though quiet residential streets. I see the same old man sitting on his stoop smoking. The single mother waiting with her son for the school bus. I jaywalk across Ashland Ave because it's the busiest street and I have no time to wait for the signal to change, but I hate standing on the divider when trucks and buses whiz by. I always think they're going to swerve into the divider while I'm standing there.

The Pink Line has gotten way more crowded as of late. Probably because no one wants to drive anymore because gas here is like $4.50/gal. I try to find a spot right next to the door so I can just lean up against the plexiglass. I only get on the train for two stops, so I don't want to sit down. Just get on, and get off. After I get off in the River North district, I have to walk around the river to get to my building. I really wish there was a bridge right there where I can just walk directly to the Sun Times Building where I work, but the river curves right in front of that building, so it's totally cut off. Looks like it's on an island if you look at it from the train.

I don't really want to say anything about work other than I am the at my lowest when I'm at work. There's nothing to look forward to and just being there sucks the life out of you. Okay, maybe I'll say a little more. I hate the job because it's the same thing everyday. I type information for the same companies in the same windows and I do that the entire work day. I hate the people there even more because they are horrible, hypocritical, sloppy, judgemental, butt faced miscreants. Gossip and ghetto speak pollute the air. They talk shit about each other when their backs are turned. Sunflower seeds, sticky fingers from eating glazed donuts, and rubber bands all over the keyboards. And no one works. No wonder our managers hate us.

The highlight of my day is sitting in the building lobby during breaks to people watch. Mainly girl watch because there is an art school in my building. The way Chicago is, as with most large cities, a lot of people share buildings downtown because lack of real estate, so you get a mix of different things in every building. Like I said, I work at the offices of The Chicago Sun Times, but Bank of America also has a floor. There's also a Holiday Inn, and the art school so it's frickin' amazing to sit there and watch the girls walk by. Most of the time they're going outside to smoke. I always tell people that the girls are really the best in the Midwest. California isn't even close, sorry.

After work I walk back to the station, take the train, walk home, get the mail, and greet Andrea. So it's just the morning except backwards and it's darker outside. We make dinner together. She mans the stove, I chop onions and garlic. Everyday I chop onions and garlic because no matter what we're eating we always have onions and garlic. Andrea always complains about chopping onions so one day I started doing it. It doesn't bother me. Eventually she added garlic to her recipes, so I started chopping that. I kinda take pride in chopping vegetables now. I watch Food Network closely whenever they're chopping and I try various techniques. I even bought good knives and a sharpener, so I'm pretty serious about it.

We sit down for dinner and talk about our day. Most of the time we don't say much because the TV is on, other times we have in depth conversations about work politics, or about our feelings. After dinner I do the dishes while Andrea relaxes on the futon in front of the TV that I sleep on. We watch prime time TV, and then the rest of the night we do our own thing. I usually play video games or watch a DVD while Andrea paints, or studies. It's been sort of difficult as of late because of the lack of space. Like I've been wanting to work on my backlog(which is a list of games that I've been meaning to finish)before the heaving gaming season starts, but I haven't been able to play that much because we're sharing a TV, and you know...wifey rules. I have to wait for her to go to bed before I can get any gaming done, but I'm trying to avoid that because if I play video games past 12:30am, I won't be able to sleep.

Look out for my impressions of MEGA MAN FRICKIN' NINE. Also, Hi Rok. I can't wait to read your first entry.