A long, strange trip

Just a pair of items that have been bothering me. Way back on Day 7, Stacey and I were at the mall, where I bought myself a dashing new winter coat. As we were walking through the mall to JC Penney, I saw something that absolutely appalled me: the mall already had set up its "Holiday Village," complete with photo ops with the guy in the red suit. It's still October! I know we all like to start the holiday season early, but can we PLEASE get through Halloween before the Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/whatever decorations get broken out? This can only lead to one thing: ABC playing a double feature of "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and "A Charlie Brown Christmas." On the same night. In September. Also: when it rains, and you're using something the size of a beach umbrella to keep yourself dry, you damned well better know how much space you have on any given size. Otherwise, it's like someone who's used to driving a Beetle parallel pa

Back when this year started, on Day -8, for the first time in a long time, I made a few New Year's resolutions. To the shock of everyone - well, mainly me since I'm the only one who would care - I've actually followed through on them. The two resolutions that I thought would be the hardest to maintain are the ones that are now coming through. When the year began, I told myself I would quit smoking by the time I was 30. I have 28 days left in my 20s as I write this and I haven't had a cigarette in almost three months (it'll be three months in about a week and a half). Sure, a trip to the hospital was instrumental in helping me quit, but you take what you can get, right? The other resolution was to start going to the gym. While I was in North Adams, I had signed up for a $10 per month gym membership that I ended up never using. And after moving to Palatine, Stacey had been bugging me for months to start going to the gym with her, but because of my health issues, I alw

Days like today I really miss living in Central New York. It's not that I'm homesick, or that being in Central New York is so much better than being in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. It's the driving I miss. A day like today would be the perfect time to get in my car, roll down the window and go for a drive, going to visit any of the myriad friends I have a couple hours away, or just getting in the car to enjoy the weather and just drive around. I suppose I could get in my car and go for a drive here, but it's not the same. I don't know the area like I did Central New York. After all, I lived there for almost 10 years. And outside of my sister down towards Chicago, I don't really know anyone in the area. Plus, my car has been legitimately deemed a death trap by a mechanic just a month ago. I always suspected, but now I have proof. So instead, I'll sit on my balcony with my laptop and ponder what I'm going to do today or tomorrow or sometime later this

It turns out that the person who created the Facebook poll asking whether President Obama should be killed was, as the Huffington Post reports it, a juvenile. And apparently, the juvenile isn't being punished for creating the poll. And that, right there, is another example of why the that generation is going to run roughshod over the country - no one is holding them responsible for their actions and they get to be coddled by everyone from their parents to, apparently, the government. We hold forums on how to stop bullying in schools. We take away advanced placement classes because we don't want the kids in "regular" classes to feel like they aren't special. We make sure that every kid gets a trophy, even if they come in last place in a competition. Everybody is special, every kid is unique and no child should ever feel like they've lost, because everyone is a winner. The real world doesn't work that way. If it did, someone would have felt bad about me no