I can’t believe my girlfriend thinks I’m boring.  How can she say that?  I like movies like anyone else.  I love a good car chase.  And I go on roller coasters too.  But whenever we talk about work, she rolls her eyes and stares off blankly.  Why doesn’t she want to hear about the keyword research I do for my Internet marketing company?  All day, every day I get to look up all the different keywords people put into search engines.  This is supposed to be boring?  But this is my very livelihood and she thinks it’s boring?  All right, I know I’m not a homicide detective or an emergency room doctor and its not excitement all the time, but that’s not what everyone’s real life is like.  I know I didn’t like my job at first, but I learned to like it.  It’s how I pay my bills and rent and keeps me from living out of my parents’ basement.  Besides, her job is being a secretary.  I don’t want to hear about her answering phone calls all day, but I put up with it for her.  Why can’t she do the same for me?  There’s supposed to be give and take in any relationship. 

By now, the

Boston Red Sox

were way out of my mind. There was definitely something going on at Mrs. Murphy’s house and I figured that they were probably trying to cheat the old lady in some manner. I was glad she had her tazer to protect her. I decided to go over to her house and check on her to see if I was right. When I walked into the house, everything seemed odd. Mrs. Murphy walked with a strange gait, as if she was under a lot of strain. She led me to the living room where, upon my horror there sat Don and Donna, both tied to a chair, “What is going on?” I said before I lost consciousness. When I awakened, I too was tied to the chair. I was glad, however to see a friendly face. Father Rich had joined the crowd. Noticing he was not yet tied up, I motioned for him to untie me. But he did not make a move. “You young people think you are so smart. Cleaning closets. Making cash deliveries, and doing errands for the elderly,” said Father Rich in a voice that I did not think belonged to him. “You think all old people are helpless and dumb. I want you to meet your Mrs. Murphy. He then put on a wig and some fake contact lenses that made it look as if he had glaucoma. He as not a priest at all. Or he was just a crazy one. “I am sick of how old people are treated! Given a pittance on which to live. Not given enough food. I decided to help at my church, but they defrocked me. So I started taking matters into my own hands and empowering the elderly.” At this moment, into the room walked two people - the old lady who “died” at Wicked and the accountant. Only the accountant was wearing the uniform I saw him in the first time I saw him - one of a paramedic. How was I going to get out of this?

A lot of things get swamped into the gutter by where I live.  I even saw a Bucktown directory guide caught in a sewer grate the other day.  I see magazines, newspapers, and even textbooks on Catholic Church history for Catholic schools.  Sure, I see cigarettes and crushed Coke cans and rotten fruit, but all that’s not nearly as interesting.  What exactly makes someone throw a neighborhood guide into the gutter?  Why didn’t they think to throw it into the trash?  I can imagine how the textbooks got there.  A few students were milling around once school had let out for summer vacation and they didn’t know what to do with their books.  They certainly weren’t going to reread them if they had ever actually read them at all in the first place.  So they unzipped their backpacks and dropped all their books out into the gutter.  They didn’t care anymore.  And the ones I saw were probably the ones that hadn’t been run over and destroyed.  They’d just lie there until a passing car or truck did.   But bad does a newspaper or magazine have to be for someone who’s strolling along, reading it, to toss it aside into the gutter?  Well, who really keeps magazines and newspapers around after they’d read through them once anyway? 

The other night we were at a bar with a bunch of friends. My friend Jason, who is a carpenter, tried one of the weirdest pick up lines I have ever heard on a girl. He had been talking to this one girl for some time when he brought me over to introduce me to her. He told me that her name was Angela, and that she too was a carpenter. He told me that when he found out that she was a carpenter too, that he used the line, “I know how to use my carbide end mill.” I did not get why it was a pick up line, or why, as a carpenter she would enjoy it, but he told me it was chock full of innuendo, and that she dug it. I was mostly just glad that he was talking to girls at all. Usually he is too shy, and just hangs around the bar admiring them from afar. I always told him he would have more fun if he tried to socialize and meet some people, but he always tells me that the bars are not his scene. I think he would be more comfortable at a smaller gathering, with mostly people that he knows. 

I had a very productive day at work. I got to test out the new carbide end mill. It was really nice to work with and there weren't any problems with it. I'll probably get to do more work with it over the next several weeks. In a little while, I'm going to head over to my friend's house. He's been in rough shape ever since he broke things off with his fiancee. We're probably just going to play video games or something. Ever since the split, that's usually all he wants to do. Actually, what I'm really in the mood to do is rent some movies. I'm going to see if I can convince him to do that. My girlfriend had recommended a few good ones that she thought I should see. We didn't have a chance to watch them together because we've both been so busy lately and our schedules are really different now. I kind of wish she could join me tonight but she just started taking some night classes. I'm starting to think about doing the same. Seeing how excited she is about it is making me want to get out and be more ambitious too and learn something different.

 We decided to toss it all in and move to California. That was five years ago. We moved to Los Angeles. Never did we think that we would be listed in a column under Los Angeles Bankruptcy. But that's exactly what happened. When we sold our house back in Chicago, we made a nice profit on it. We had been in it 13 years. Of course, we did have to pay capital gains on it, because we had lived in it more than 2 years. It was a nice little chunk of change we really had not counted on. We decided that we would use most of the cash to purchase in Los Angeles, because it would be more expensive. So we were able to find the smallest house in a good solid subdivision, and bought it. We made some improvements, but then the value of the real estate began to zoar. Suddenly it was worth almost 30 percent more than what we paid for it only a couple of years prior. We were amazed. We talked with friends back home, and their property values hadn't gone up like here on the West Coast. Because we had almost outgrown the little house, and we saw an opportunity, we put it up for sale. We had buyers lined up.

I had visitors yesterday morning who watched cartoons and ate dried prunes.  This morning while I am sitting here writing in my diary, I find myself smiling at the antics of my neighbor’s nephews and niece.  The came to spend some time and caught Emily, the tenant who rents a condo in our four flat, as she was going out to the store.  She was on the way out with the three of them as I was coming.  I was taking my groceries up the stairs, when one of the boys offered to help.  He is all of eight years old, and has the most charming smile.  His Auntie Em, as he calls Emily, said it would be okay.  So he took off his Los Angeles Lakers cap and put it on backwards then proceeded to heft the heaviest of the bags up the stairs, saying he was going to miss his favorite cartoon because of having to go to with Auntie Em.  It seems they caught her on the way out of the door to go get groceries and he sadly, he would have to put up with it but would rather stay home and watch cartoons.  They stayed with me most of the morning.