The Intelligence Estimate

Wow! Jen and I went to see a Marx Brothers double feature last night at the Music Box Theatre and I must say that place is AMAZING! It was built in 1929, so the movies we were watching (Duck Soup, 1933; a Night at the Opera, 1935) could have actually be screened there as new releases. If you ever get the chance I highly recommend catching a movie there. We may go see Citizen Kane there tomorrow.

http://www.musicboxtheatre.com/

I feel like I am negotiating Chicago very well. So much so that I sometimes forget that I am in the third largest city in the United States. Occasionally things will happen that bring that back into stark focus.

Jen and I were out with some friends Wednesday night at a little local coffee place called Starbucks. It's a tiny mom and pop operation that looks like it's poised to take off like a rocket! We were laughing and carrying on and generally being polite coffee-sipping bohemians when in bursts a crowd of people and one of them exclaims, "Where's the midget?!" No one could even be bothered to look up from their coffee.

Now I come from a very small town. So small that everyone wants to see everything all the time because they never know when the next thing is going to happen. It's supply and demand. There is NO supply of excitement, some there is a HUGE demand. So if someone simply walks into a restaurant everyone turns around to see who it is and decide whether to talk to them or about them. If someone burst into the Co-op and screamed, "Where's the midget?!" there would be some reaction. Now, no one would say anything to the guy. They would just stare him down until he left. But his story would live on for YEARS! Or at least until some other earth-shattering event replaced it. The next time the high school basketball team went to state he'd be forgotten. But for the time being he'd be a legend.

So I feel like I owe it to the people of Grundy Center, Iowa to bring that excitement to them. For the sake of the community I will do just that. Because who knows when the next 6 foot 7 inch center with an outside shot will come to town?

Jen and I are planning a barnstorming tour of Iowa next week. Every day we are going to be in a different city. January 2, Van Horne; January 3, Grundy Center; January 4, Des Moines; January 5, Lacona. Then Jen and I have some solo dates the next week. Mine will be in and around the greater Chicagoland area and Jen will continue to entertain the troops in Iowa. Be sure to catch the tent-show if it comes near you!

James, my friend at work, had his apartment broken into a week or so ago. When he was retelling the story the other day he was running down a list of items that were taken. "TV, DVD player, DVDs, paper shredder...." HUH? What kind of thief steals a paper shredder? Ones with lots of light typing and filing to be done? Ones who are worried about identity theft? Yeah, that's probably it. They didn't want anyone to steal their identity or their credit card numbers, but they didn't want to go through all the work of heading down to Best Buy and shelling out $40 for one. So they decided that the best course of action was committing a felony. Man I hope the police can stop these criminal masterminds before they strike again.

I heard on the radio today that according to the MacArthur Foundation adolescence doesn't end until the age of 34. And I have to believe them. They are the people responsible for the Genius Grant, so it's their job to know stuff. But that means that my wife, a card carrying adult, is married to an adolescent...and that makes me nervous. I fear that she'll grow tired of my talk of study hall and school dances. That she won't help me with my geometry. I'm so awkward around girls. ARRRRGGGGHHHH! No one understands me! I'm gonna go lock myself in my room and write some poetry.

I woke up to David Sedaris on NPR this morning. He was reading an excerpt from "The Santaland Diaries." It was very funny, but that didn't change the fact that it was 6 a.m. on a day when I didn't have to be to work until 6 p.m. So David was shut off shortly after he was done. Jen got up and I rolled over and burrowed into the covers.

As I drift off to sleep I dreamed of a gathering of old men who were talking about long-haul trucking. They all regaled one another with stories of oddities they'd encountered along the highways. They all hushed as the elder of the group started spinning a yarn about a device that a friend of his had concocted. It was a funnel attached to a length of hose that ran out of the truck's cab. This little beauty, properly utilized, rendered bathroom breaks unnecessary.

That's when I piped up about a device that first came to my attention through a David Sedaris essay. The device is called The Trucker's Buddy. It is a length of tubing attached to an empty bag on one end. The other end widened out into a deep cylindrical funnel that attached to the trucker's penis with surgical tape. The whole thing was worn under the pants and the collection bag attached to the trucker's leg.

Well, this just horrified the collection of elderly truckers. Apparently collecting urine in a sanitary bag and disposing of it later was a more disturbing prospect than driving a 20 ton missile down the road with their penis flapping in the breeze while leaving a very disgusting trail behind them. I was very unsettled by their condescension and ridicule. I argued, but they remained irritated at the thought of The Trucker's Buddy. "That's no buddy of mine," one shouted.

I woke up a short time later and was pleased to find out that it was just a dream. I was back in a world where truckers will pee anywhere and everywhere.

Jen and I saw King Kong tonight. (It was very uneven and the pace suffered at the beginning, but ultimately a worthwhile film.) When we lined up to buy tickets we picked a line that had only ONE person in it. We figured it would be the fastest line. However, the lady in-line was probably in her late 60's or early 70's, and, unbeknownst to us, the cashier was explaining on-line ticket purchasing to her. And the old lady was not having any of it. I think the tutorial needed to start off with, "Ok, a computer is a typewriter with a TV attached to it and a telephone coming out the other end," because this lady was looking at the cashier like she was speaking Latin. Come to think of it Latin may have been easier for her to understand. It would be a throwback to the days of her childhood when Caesar ruled her hometown with an iron fist!

"So I pay Fandango and then I come in here and trade in what they gave me for tickets?" The cashier tried to explain to her that you are given a barcoded ticket that you print out and take to the ticket tearers in the lobby, but that was beyond this woman. "Well, how do they know I have a ticket?" Because you print it out at home. "But then how do you get paid? I just paid Fandango, not you." Trust me it all works out. "And so then I can skip the lines here and go right to the movie?"

So while I was waiting in line to buy our tickets our progress was being stymied by a woman who getting an explanation on how to save time buying tickets. Irony, no?

I think 5 sequels were made while we waited for our tickets.

The inevitable finally happened. Our cat Molly had to be put to sleep. Jen called me at work this afternoon and said that Molly was very weak and unresponsive this morning when she got up. Her exact words were, "I think this is Molly's last day." That got my attention. When I got back from Iowa last night I complained about how much the apartment stunk. It seemed Molly had diarrhea all weekend and had been defecating all over the apartment and herself. As a result, the apartment air was a thick, acrid fog. I bitched up a storm and finally yelled, "I can't live like this." I feel awful for having said that. I felt like Molly heard it and just gave up. She lived with incredible medical problems for almost 2 years and her whole condition changed overnight. I felt responsible. I know I'm not. I didn't give her cancer or a broken paw or a sore on her lip or a missing tooth or any of her other million maladies. But I still felt awful and selfish. I was only concerned about how the situation effected me and my sensitive nose. When Jen told me it was Molly's "last day" all I could think of was how horrible a task was ahead of us. Molly was miserable and limp and just staring off into space, not focusing on anyone or anything. When I finally caught up with them at the animal hospital Molly's breathing was very shallow and she seemed to be drooling some kind of thick white fluid. Jen brought her to the hospital in the only container we had, a green recycling bin. There's a morbid irony. I remember the serum they injected her with was pink. I remember thinking that it was an intensely festive color for such a bleak and somber task. It's also Jen's favorite color. At this very moment I don't care if I ever see the color pink again.

*COPS is filmed on location with the men and women of law enforcement*
*Cue the cheesy faux-reggae stylings of Inner Circle's one and only hit..."Bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you...."*
*Roll the montage of shirtless ne'er-do-well's and roustabouts getting into zany hijinx and shenanigans.*

I got pulled over Friday night on my way home to Mom's. I was traveling down Highway 30 near Tama/Toledo, Iowa. I was following a red car that was following another car that I couldn't see. The two of them would speed up and slow down and speed up and slow down. After 5 and a half hours on the road I had lost patience with anyone who wasn't traveling as fast as I wanted to. So I decided to pass the red car.

For the record, if it please the court, I'm on a long stretch of open road. I haven't seen another car for miles. There is no one coming. And in the interest of full disclosure, when I passed I was going over the speed limit. In the heat of the moment I decided that I would go ahead and pass the OTHER car as well. So I passed them both. This was about 4 miles outside of Toledo, Iowa.

Well, when you arrive in Toledo you immediately come to a stop sign at the intersection of Highway 63. When I got there a cop was waiting on the other side of the intersection and as soon as I turned on to 63 he flung his lights on and I pulled over. As I pulled into the parking lot of the convenience store I realized that there was not ONE cop, but THREE! Actually there were two city cops and one county sheriff's officer.

The sheriff's officer came up to my window and immediately started with the attitude.

"You in a hurry to get someplace?" You mean like anywhere but Toledo, Iowa? Yes!

"Yeah. I'm going home and I'm a bit late. Was I speeding?"

"Is that why you passed me in a no passing zone?" Apparently he was OTHER car in front of that red car I passed. And he decided that his best course of action was to call me in to the city cops, trail me for four miles and then make a big scene out of pulling me over with two other cops for back up. I guess he thought he was taking down the Jesse James of moving violations.

"I didn't realized that I'd done that, I'm sorry." It was a bit of a lie, but...wait, no it was entirely a lie. But he was being an ass and I didn't want to get a ticket so I felt somehow justified. But he keeps up the attitude.

"You didn't realized you passed me?"
"No, I remember passing two cars, I just didn't realize it was a no passing zone."

Apparently Enus didn't want to hear any of that.

"Well they put up BIG signs out there that say no passing. And in case you didn't notice, it's winter out here. The roads aren't safe!"

I didn't have the heart to tell Sheriff Storm Front that I'd been driving for five and a half hours I knew the condition of the roads better than he did because, again, he was an ass and I didn't want a ticket.

"You're license ever been revoked or suspended?"
"No."

Somewhere in this mess I gave him my license. He handed it back.

"Ok...well...pay more attention next time." And he walked away in a huff.

I don't think he missed out on giving me a ticket out of any generosity of spirit or that he was seduced by my charm. He left my vehicle as pissed off as he approached it. It seemed more like he wanted to give me a ticket but he had to be at his wife's company Christmas party in 10 minutes. So the James Gang lives to ride another day!

*Fade to black, roll credits.*
*More insufferable reggae music*

I did what's called a "crew trail" tonight at work. That's when a person on staff (in this case we'll call that person Chris...no relation) sits in with members of the crew as they do all the backstage work in the show. I got to...or rather CHRIS got to...usher, sit in the band loft during a couple of numbers, watch the stage manager call the cues and watch the backstage crews do all manner of things that I can't even begin to explain. Now that I've seen behind the curtain, the mighty wizard is much MORE powerful than before...unlike CERTAIN wizard's I could name! It's a great show to watch, but when you know how much work is going on behind the scenes it's an AMAZING show. Now I know why they have the crew come out and bow at the end! Wow!

We had our holiday party for work last night. We had a Secret Santa program (What's the Jewish equivalent here? Mysterious Macabee?) and the accompanying photo is the gift I gave. See, in keeping with the company asthetic, we had to MAKE our Secret Santa gift. So what you see there is four lengths of PVC pipe, four pipe connectors and a whole lot of drawing. Within minutes of opening the present the person I gave it to broke it. He pulled the picture out of the pipes. I don't know why, but I blame the open bar. I fixed it for him and showed him how it was all attached so that if it happened again he could fix it himself. The next time I saw him he had broken it AGAIN and didn't seem to care if it got fixed. This time I blame the conga lina that had formed behind him.

I don't know WHY I try. I do and do and do for these people, and what does it get me? Another day older and deeper in debt! Next time I'm just gonna give my Secret Santa a plaster imprint of my hand. Mom seemed like those and they're VERY hard to break!

I tried to do laundry tonight and it turned into an epic quest for quarters.

I originally was 2 quarters short of being able to dry my clothes, so I decided that I was going to go to the pizza place up the block and get some dinner and a dollar in quarters. So I get back and throw my laundry in the only two driers we have, throw my money in them and press the button. This is the part where, in an normal life, the driers fire up and toast the clothes to a fluffy golden brown and everyone lives happily ever after. Not here. The first drier roars to life just fine. The second one dims the lights in the room and dies. I try again, same results. I try a third time and this time it not only dims the lights but sucks enough power to actually kill the other drier. So I restart the first drier and then try to start the second drier which now doesn't even go through the motions of being a working piece of electrical equipment. So now I need more quarters...again.

I rummage through the house, which I know will turn up nothing because I've already done it when I was searching for the LAST set of quarters. But I stumble upon some old tokens from a laundromat in Des Moines and I figure "What the hell!" I run downstairs to try out my fake quarters and realize that I've left them up in the apartment. I run back up and try again, this time WITH the tokens. And, of course, they don't work.

I return to the apartment to regroup. I throw on my jacket and leave the apartment for the dorm next door. They have a laundry facility in the front of the building. I've seen it through the window a hundred times. They have to have a change machine there. So I wander through the needlessly winding halls and finally stumble upon the laundry facilities. But they use a stupid card system to pay for their laundry. You have to put money on the card and then put the card in the laundry machines. It's all very high tech. Like living in the not-too-distant future. It's how I assume the Jetson's did their laundry. Well the Jetson's had a robot maid to do the laundry for them, but the principal still applies. I go to the next room where there is a Coke machine and a candy machine both with dollar bill changers on them. I put a bill in the candy machine and hit the coin return button hoping for quarters. I just got my dollar bill back. Next I move to the Coke machine. It won't even TAKE my dollar. I leave. My dignity stays behind to kick the washers and driers.

I walk to the student union figuring that there must be a dollar bill changer THERE! Long story short, there wasn't. So a half an hour and a lot of swear words later I made my way to the train station and got some quarters from the convenience store there.

And when I get back to the laundry room in our apartment building the first load of laundry is done drying. I go to get the clothes out and, guess what? They are STILL WET!

Honestly, Public Television doesn't have to beg this hard for money!

It was brought to my attention by a friend of mine here in town that it has been a few days since I've updated my blog. Since his simple existance hangs on my every word, I thought I'd introduce the rest of you to him and get him off my back all in one swift motion.

This dapper young man about town in the photo is Ryan. He's the unfortunate soul who refreshes his browser window every few minutes to see if I've updated my blog. He, like myself, is new to Chicago. We both work at the Blue Man Group ticket office. He is 22 and has a double major in theater and something really useful like greek/classical studies. This photo was taken with my camera at work one day by Ryan. This was the last picture taken with my camera before it got broken. Now it would be hasty to assume that because he was the person who took the last picture with the camera that he was the one who broke it. It would be hasty, but it would also be correct.

See, shortly after this picture was taken Ryan handed the camera back to me and I took a seat near him. I was holding the camera up looking to see if he'd taken any more photos on the camera. There are always threats of pictures of his butt, but so far there's been no follow through. Ryan was standing behind me. As I was looking at the photos Ryan made some wild gesture behind me (probably defending his innocence in the butt photo debacle) and he accidentally struck my hand. The camera flew across the room, hit the thinly padded concrete floor, bounced twice and rolled into the corner.

Now, to Ryan's credit, he was immediately appologetic and offered to pay to have it fixed. I said I'd get back to him. It turned out not to need anything more than a good smack to get the lens back in place, but I didn't tell Ryan that. Not right away. Where's the fun in that?

Now then, I hope this little story has served to give you e-mail subscribers a slice-of-life look at my life here in Chicago and introduced you to a fellow blog reader. But more importantly I hope it will end his nagging. But honestly, I suspect once he sees his name and photo on-line he will be so addicted to the attention that he will start juggling our wedding china just so I'll write about him again.

Anyway, I'm thinking about making these "Who's Who" features a semi-regular occurance in the blog so you guys can all get to know one another. However, don't feel like you have to trash my stuff just to get mentioned here...that's Ryan's job.

There was a great deal of snowfall today in Chicago. I don't know the total yet becase it is still snowing but I'd say a good 4 inches. Anyway I walked a short distance from work today to deposit my paycheck and on the way there I barely looked up. See when it snows this much this fast things become very slick very quickly it is best to watch very carefully where you are going. One of the few times I looked up I was greeted by a man in a bright yellow jacket walking with a friend. The many in the yellow jacket looks at me and says, "It's a lot of snow." I was speechless. I was half a block away before I stopped laughing. I'm glad I had that man in my life to point out the obvious. That's probably why his friend is with him, because he overlooks the obvious. They need each other. I shudder to think what would happen to the friend if yellow jacket wasn't there reminding him to breath in and breath out.

A while back I thought it was a swell idea to install a device that I downloaded from The Weather channel called Desktop Weather 4. It is a program that displays the current temperature all the time in your desktop system tray. I stand before you now to tell you I was wrong. It was a stupid idea. I've been at my computer most of the night and I've watched it plummet 5 degrees in the last 2 hours alone. It's 7 degrees but with the windchill it feels like -6. That's right we have a negative six degrees in the ole' thermometer bank. We actually OWE degrees.

Do you think Rosa Parks separated her laundry into whites and colors?

I'm sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am. I didn't realize it was a one-way street. Ignorance of the traffic laws is no excuse; I only offer that in way of explanation. Clearly you had been having a bad day and/or have an explosive rage disorder that manifests itself in embarrassing displays of self-righteous anger the likes of which the world has rarely seen. And I know that my gross contradiction of the posted right-of-way was disconcerting at best and cause for your head to detach itself from the howling, flailing mass of indignation that your body had become at worst.

I know that I was in the wrong. I admit that, and I apologize. Clearly the pain you felt from my actions was tantamount to me extracting your spleen from your body by way of your nostrils using nothing more than a coat hanger and some soothing words as anesthetic. I apologize. I'm sorry. And in the spirit of the season I want to say that I forgive you for yelling at me in a manner not often seen this side of boot camp.

And because I forgive you, I will refrain from calling you a self-absorbed, self-loathing rage machine hell-bent on reducing others to quivering lumps of doubt and fear in an attempt to compensate for her obvious shortcomings as a human being. That's right, I will not call you the myriad colorful names that flew through my mind as you corrected my horrendous driving faux pas. I will not hurl any of those epitaphs because I can see that you have many problems of your own to work out. Best of luck in your future driving endeavors. May our paths never cross again, you hideous, loathsome creature of the deep.

Yours in Peace,
Christopher Alan Gummert, Humanitarian at Large

This morning Jen and I received a package from my mom and step dad. It contained a nice anniversary card (our only one!), some stamps for mailing our Christmas letter, two boxes of Girl Scout Cookies and the cake topper we used last year on our wedding cake. The anniversary card contained some money that I promptly spent. I got a hair cut and lunch for the both of us. Well, the hair cut was for me, but lunch was for both of us. Jen and I watched the third Harry Potter movie in preparation for the 4th Harry Potter movie which we intended to see this evening but didn't. We may still go tomorrow. Sunday (which is TODAY actually) is shaping up to be a huge movie day. We intend to see Harry Potter AND the Johnny Cash biopic. (That's two different movies by the way. Johnny Cash is not IN the Harry Potter movie...but that's a cool idea!) As long as I'm free associating, "Thanks for the stuff Mom. We appreciate it!"

Anyway, we went to a production of a show called Plaid Tidings. It is the holiday sequel to Forever Plaid. Well, the singing was excellent, but that's about all you can say for the show. The story was non-existant and the dialogue was atrocious...but the yokels we saw it with ate the show up! And while I'm complaining about them let me ask this: when did wearing shoes in a theater become OPTIONAL? I saw sitting next to two teenagers who had their shoes off. I could have chalked that up to youthful indiscretion, but there were two ladies a row down from us who were fifty if they were a day and THEY had their shoes off too. What? We're not in your living room so please keep on all the clothes you wore INTO the theater!

Then Jen and I got a horrid dinner and a terrible diner and came home. This is why you do your anniversary over several days. Some of them are bound to have bad crap in them, so you want to play the averages. The more time you have the more opportunity you have to get it right!

I will likely not be blogging tomorrow because I will not be home. Jen and I are spending the night at a hotel downtown courtesy of my boss. He called in some favors and got me a gift certificate for this posh place on the river just off Michigan Avenue. If there's a computer in the room I will tell you about it, but don't count on it. I know they have wi-fi access at the hotel, but all I have is this desktop, and I'm not carting it downtown for the evening for you or anyone else.

I'm writing to you as we draw to a close the first day of ANNIVERSAPALOOZA!

This weekend marks our first wedding anniversary and we are doing it up in a grand style, namely by actually getting to spend time together. It's a novelty to us sadly. She's so busy with school and work and I am always either working or performing that we hardly ever see each other. So this morning Jen got up and took a test and then we spent the rest of the day together. We watched some TV, did some shopping, had great dinner at Jack's on Halsted (amazing cherry pie! And the potatoes that come with the NY strip steak are fantastic!) and then we went and saw The Blue Man Group. They were "papering" the house tonight. That's theater talk for "giving away free tickets to our friends because the show didn't sell well today." I think we spent more time together today than we have since we've been in Chicago.

Our actual anniversary is on Sunday, but we're taking off the whole weekend. Tomorrow we plan on sleeping in and taking in another show that I wrangled free tickets to. More on that later.

Suffice it to say that this anniversary business is a pretty sweet deal!

I left the house tonight in search of a good Mountain Dew fix. They are continually running some promotion or another where you can redeem a winning bottle cap for a free Dew when you purchase another one. Well, I was the proud possessor of such a cap and I was going to go get myself 2, count 'em TWO, Mountain Dews. One for now, and one back up! Because you never know when you're gonna need back up.

Anyway, I did not go to Dunking Donuts because they have rebuffed my free soda advances before. "We don't accept those," they told me, "try next door." I go to the convenience store next door. "We don't take those." Ok. I now only have one option available to me. It is a bar/convenience store down the street. (Sounds crazy, but it's true. Inside the front door if you walk to the right it's a bar and to the left is a convenience store!) I walk in, grab me two Mountain Dews and stride confidently to the counter and nonchalantly slide the bottle cap onto the counter. The slack-jawed mouth-breather behind the counter just stares at me. "We don't take those." I just grit my teeth and eeked out, "ok, just this one then."

I get home with my Mountain Dew and my rejected bottle cap. And when I get home and open the new bottle I realize that the bottle cap of the Mountain Dew I just purchased was a "winner" as well. Now I have 2 bottle caps I can't use anywhere!