Helloween

And goodbye as well. With Halloween 2012 drawing to a close, I'm also looking to fill my four-post-per-month quota. I'm weakly making it onto the weekly. I should be calling it Balloween since I'm feeling progressively more and more like balls.

Today I didn't get round to dressing up, but I was rocking a crew-neck t-shirt, which isn't that odd except that I'm so accustomed to the v-neck in the last few years that I actually feel a touch out of sorts in a crew-neck. Like my neck is confined or something stupid like that. Of course strangers don't know that I nearly exclusively wear v-necks (no, seriously, I cut my crew-necks into v-necks a lot of the time), so as usual, all in the brain. The moral of the story is that there's very little story here.

Smoking line, the cut-off line for cigarettes, so you can't. smoke. here. Each morning I walk by the Merchandise Mart and I'm fascinated by the smoking line that is painted onto the sidewalk. Fascinated because it exists, but also fascinated because it is obeyed. The idea is that the entryway is not flooded with smoke, and it's a nice concept, but given the wind in Chicago, the efficacy of the smoking line is questionable. That, and it's also really intriguing to me to see an arbitrarily painted line observed, one that adheres to the 15 foot rule. Why fifteen feet? Why not.

As you can see, I'm not too into linking the disparate parts of this post to one another. What I am into, is wondering if Skidz brand clothing will return. Peep these shots below. Those aren't costumes, those are fashion!

Merry go round indeed! They're not skidding! Or are they?

This girl right here!

Happy Halloween folks.

I Don't Work Here

Quite frequently in my life I'll be in a place of business and someone will make an inquiry of me that is the sort of thing you might ask an employee of that place of business. This is a roundabout and dumbass way of saying that people tend to think I work at most stores I'm in, regardless of attire. I certainly don't dress to code at any of these places. One of the earliest I can remember was coming off some temp office work during the summer before starting college and rolling into Bed, Bath, and Beyond to get some bedsheets before leaving for school in a day or two. I informed the woman who asked me where something was (that's right, I don't remember this detail just over eleven years later) that I in fact didn't work at the store (I was wearing a button-up and slacks — side note, people apparently hate the term slacks), and then directed her to where the item in question was. How can I remember that I directed her correctly but not remember the item? I just can.

In the years since, I've sold tennis racquets, shoes, advised a few folks on whether or not to buy certain articles of clothing, and I suppose that's about it. Actually, in a few recent instances I've dispensed doughnut purchase suggestions but then, for reasons even I can't fathom, I already wrote an entire (and long) post about that.

When I'm not mistaken for an employee, I can often be found giving directions, taking pictures of you when you're on vacation, or aggressively being hounded by canvassers (I include homeless people in this designation). Something about my general demeanor must make all of these things happen. The thing is I really don't mind most of these interactions because I enjoy helping people, I just can't figure out what it is that suggests I am either an employee or an expert on directions.

At any rate, I've a feeling I've blogged about this nonsense before (I've really got to get in the habit of checking that beforehand) but if you haven'r read it, it's new to you.

Next time you need help shopping, your photo taken, or directions, well, I'm bound to be in the vicinity.

Renesaince Rambling

I was on some company website the other day and I don't know how the hell I ended up there in the first place, but one thing I always check out is the team page. It's tough to write a bio about yourself or have one written about you, but either way it tells you a bit about how a company wants to portray themselves. And I'll say that generally I don't like it. On the bigger corporate side, these bios tend to be formally written, dry, a touch boring, but just contain the facts. This is as expected for what they want to portray. It's the smaller places though, the newly-launched tech and media ventures, or the ad/design shops looking to be edgy/cool that I tend to take the most issue with. I get that even when trying to avoid tooting your own horn, you still have to make note of some accomplishments so that someone who's never heard of you can get an idea of, well, your accomplishments. But too much of it seems to come from the same school of what's cool like, perhaps they are trying too hard.

The reason I bring it up is that one of the team members lists himself as a "Renesaince [sic] man." Apparently spelling is not part of his Renaissance. 

In more boring news, I'd also seen that someone on LinkedIn who was in my network had fallen into my 2nd tier. As this individual was in the 500+ connections realm, I thought it was pretty interesting that they would specifically disconnect from me. Perhaps it was in response to my not accepting what I presume was his wife's invitation to connect, though I'd never met her in real life. The thing is, I'm not a prolific LinkedIn user, and all of the people I'm connected to are people I know or have met in real life. And not every person I know in real life and is on LinkedIn is someone I am connected to there.

It just goes to show that peoples' online behaviors are weird. But then, people are weird. Especially in the sense that anything outside of our own prescribed systems is alien and difficult to understand.

Alas, Internet, I must give you a rest. Until tomorrow then...

Fall[acies]

You ever dislodge a booger and have it go up your nose? It's really disconcerting for some reason even though it's comprised of just those things that just left there anyway.

I was thinking about sinus infections because I get them every fall, and because my girlfriend's sinuses are always crap and I thought I'd make a hyperlink to someone signing the word "us." But in rudimentary googling, I returned no results. What a sad thought that in ASL, there is no us. Bad enough that it's already co-opted for A/S/L.

Mostly in fall I dream of cross country and the pleasant experience of running over hill and dale. Even the scent of port-o-john chemical leads to fond reminiscence. Of course it's not long then until it will be nut-bitingly cold. 

In other running news, the Chicago Marathon was yesterday. I was too lazy to get around to the course this year, but I did at least catch the last few miles on my computer. The NBC live webcast was rather awful, with cutaways every few minutes to interview god-knows-who or lend another update to the weather. I understand that not everyone happens to be a running enthusiast and they are trying to draw in viewers, but that is not the way to do it, especially not in the closing minutes of the race.

At any rate, watching these guys (Kebede and Lilesa), drugs or not, click off miles in the 4:40s and still be able to surge and drop into the 4:30s boggles my mind. And that they battled each other. It was an actual race. Multiple surges in races of 5k or less took their toll on me, though I suppose in the longer race there are more opportunities for moves and time to counter them. I can only imagine the horrible death of covering an early move and paying for it for 7, 9, 12, 15 miles.

One of the stranger aspects of the marathon to me is that you eat and drink during it (technically you're not quite eating in a lot of these instances). One year perhaps I'll get injuries figured out and be able to train to run a marathon in a time I'd consider reasonable. Maybe this will even be the city for it.

In political news, for the opening presidential debate it might be worth taking Matt Taibbi's word for it. 

42

Ah, the meaning of life. When you spend so much time looking for it, there's a good chance you might show yourself the meaning of being lonely. The idea that we're not alone in the universe, to me, also often comes down to what we define as our universe. It's semantic, it's aggravating, and there's a good chance it could drive you insane. But that's on the supposition that you're sane to begin with. And who gets to decide that is just one more can of worms. Why worms were canned and all that I'm not exactly sure of either, but when you open up that can, be prepared to go fishing. Does that mean vegetarians need not worry?

Okay, that's a touch abstract, and a touch not sensical, but I had to put something together in order to hit my four post monthly quota.

Have I actually said anything, though? And by what means was it dictated and arrived upon within the silly mass of what we call neurons and synapses and other scientific terms I'm blanking on. Hell, scientific is a term, and term is a term. But let's have this get terminal. No, not terminal, since I'm not really adept at programming, terminal, as in rather than this being the place where a flight takes off, or the descriptor for a bad illness except isn't every illness terminal because even if it doesn't off you it at least runs its course, does it not?

But this post has run its course. I like running courses.

Until October then...

The Wheel Deal

I was going to maybe go off on a little tire-ade about cyclists, hence the title, but I realized I did that within the last six weeks or so and as much as I repeat myself, that's a little recent even for me. Even if it wasn't, I'm not sure it was a wheely good idea anyway.

So I've come round to another topic, namely doughnuts. Not many abide by that classic (and more descriptive) spelling, and I'm often tempted to ignore it in favor of the colloquialism that is donut, but I'm going to draw an arbitrary distinction that seems to have been adopted anyway: doughnut=high-end, donut=more mass-produced. That is not to say I prefer doughnut over donut (though I certainly do on a number of occasions), merely that this is the distinction.

Like many, I'd long enjoyed the donut, and there was a time friends and I would wait until 2am for the fresh batch to roll out at a local Dunkin' in order to grab strawberry frosted and other treats. A Dunkin Donut fresh out of the oven? Pretty darn good. But most don't bake on site, and so you get less-than-fresh donuts. This is a recipe for disappointment. The other popular entrant is Krispy Kreme, which I find to be a touch too sweet, but I still can appreciate a soft glazed. The thing is, I prefer cake donuts. Or, to be fair, probably cake doughnuts. That hasn't stopped me from consuming many a Jewel offering  or, further back, Price Chopper, but given a choice I'll up the cost.

In Chicago, there seem to be two choices for high-end doughnuts, though I haven't exactly done a lot of research. They are Glazed and Infused and The Doughnut Vault. I will say, that my preference is for the former, judging only the glazed cake doughnut. Glazed's offering has the distinction of actually tasting of buttermilk, which I happen to enjoy. Doughnut Vault tastes, to me, more like a pancake. But wait, is buttermilk not often a type of pancake? This is correct, and yet because the Glazed offering tastes less sweet, I prefer it.

But from that exciting topic, I was struck by the interesting social phenomena unfolding around me as I waited for a doughnut this morning, in line at DV. Waiting for a doughnut was really foolish enough, but soaking in the ambience was good for me. Plus they brew the Metropolis Spice Island well. As the wait is long, it would be quite natural to perhaps strike up conversation with others around you but, perhaps by virtue of the types of people a boutique doughnut window attracts, none of these interactions came off as natural. The bungling man five people ahead of me who wanted to get cred for identifying the music playing and then giving credit to the women working there, as if his opinion should matter. Just take your doughnuts my friend, and be on your way. Or the girl in front of me who tried so to give off an insouciant cool. Says the asshole who just typed "cred."

Rather than hate these people as I might have done in the past — or simply on a different day — I feel bad for them. I would hope they could traverse the world without great nervousness and fear, especially when undergoing what should be the pleasurable act of doughnut purchase (although I suppose consumption trumps purchase for pleasure). Were that is was so easy.

I was just thinking how there used to be at least a touch more humor imbued in this here old blog. Note to self to bring a bit of that back.

Where has September gone? I simply donut know...

Style With a Smile

There exist bathrooms that have a urinal and a traditional toilet. They are men's restrooms and they lock and they are intended for use by only one person at a time. And yet, in spite of this, it isn't uncommon to see pee splashed across the seat of the toilet. I think this says a lot about human behavior. Maybe peeing in urinals just isn't some dudes' style.

Style is an unusual thing. As with many other things in life, there is blatant borrowing, if not complete emulation, but there is also much that is subconsciously adopted. One such element for me is wearing different colors of the same shoe. I've been doing this since about 2008 off and on, and while it primarily applied to my running shoes, it happens that I wear my running shoes sometimes when not running. But that wasn't the first time I'd seen this. Nike offered two-tone spikes in the late 90s, called the Jasari, a similar, but not identical concept.

Les Goblet went one further in the fall of 1998, wearing two different colors of Adidas trainers. Les Goblet is not his real name, but Les Goblet is a real person. Speaking to his shoes, I believe one was red, and one was blue. I can't recall the name of the shoe, rare for me, but I do remember that a teammate of mine had the same shoe in yellow. Why do I remember Les Goblet's name? Was it his unremarkable personal best in the 800m of something near two-minutes, his I'm-not-trying-but-I'm-totally-trying-at-trying-not-to-try archetype (is that even broad enough to be an archetype), or his shoes? I think it was none of them. I just happen to remember a lot of insignificant details. As for insignificant details I don't think Les Goblet would remember me. That's okay, I was shit at running then, and I was a sophomore while he was a senior at a nearby school.

But Les' shoes. Les is more sometimes. I thought that was a cool idea. I wanted to emulate it, and if I were ever asked, I like to think I would have given credit to Les, even though the name would mean nothing to most. But it took me a decade to do it, and when folks ask now, I never bring up Les, even though I'm known to be odd enough that inclusion of this largely superfluous detail might be expected.

In my years of doing this, I've received plenty of looks, commentary, and feedback, and strangely it has all been positive. Just as strangely I've not seen anyone else emulate it, but I've heard it's out there, as one my coworkers said recently he saw a kid wearing mismatched Jordan's in a neighborhood you would expect to see this kind of behavior. My neighborhood is also one where you would expect to see this kind of behavior. And it would be in the spirit of both hoods to want to stop doing something because someone else started.

That's dumb.  

It's too bad that the Emperor's new damn clothes has taught us nothing, and we can't live free of the perception of idiots. But then, it's my perception that they're idiots. And since this is growing tangential and at the risk of lines not directly touching, let's just agree not to pee on toilet seats and remember that if anyone says they're the authority on something, they aren't.

Anyway, I wonder what kind of shoes Les is wearing these days.