I -would- work in the factory where I was born, but I can't get a job there

Lately, I've been waking up at like three a.m. with ridiculous urges to eat cereal or go sit in the living room and stare at the light coming in the windows or, in the case of last night, puke. WTF? Anyway, it led to an unsettling night and so I woke up without ever really waking up.

Despite feeling like dish water, I got out of bed and checked my e-mails, which then made me feel like dish water circling the drain. First one from Roloff about internship workshops, another from the Career Center about the fast-approaching job fair, a third from the electric company (my bill is ready!) and finally one from my Online Journalism professor about our assignment. The last one requires a little explaining: a) it was an article Forbes ran calling Chicago the most stressful city in America using unscientific methodology and an arbitrary ranking system and b) that class gets under my skin. So I woke up groggy and was instantly bombarded with stress.

The Forbes article is perhaps the perfect example of how the impersonal (rising unemployement rate, sickening economy, the crumbling stock market) is getting increasingly personal. In this case, because fucking Forbes Magazine is saying your city sucks, but it got me thinking about my own life and how much has changed domestically since I started college. When I left home in 2004, my dad worked at "corporate" and made the most money he's ever made in his life, gas cost $2 a gallon, food was affordable and although the news industry was dwindling, it appeared relatively steady. In the past few months, my dad (along with 1,500 others at his company) was laid off and spent months unemployed, my family currently doesn't have health insurance and the news industry is rapidly changing and shedding hundreds of employees every year. So forgive me if I can't read yet another article about how much everything sucks right now. I can't pick up a newspaper or plug in an address and read about how the economy is tanking and my bills will be getting more expensive and the news industry is struggling. I can't do it, and -luckily- I don't have to. Cause I have my inbox.

Oh, also, I'm broke.

Maybe my body knew today wasn't worth waking up for. I'm going to go cuddle with my dog.

Larry for President

A change of species
With voters starting to feel jaded by the constant promises of change, one candidate offers real, biological change

CHICAGO--Lawrence "Larry" Roman Stoffel announced his official candidacy for president. Larry, or "Larold" as he is known to those who wish to combine his name with "Harold," decided he had seen enough of these candidates who offered realistic leadership qualities and policy ideas. In order to remedy the situation, "Mr. Bear" decided to run himself.

"I have seen enough of these candidates who are neither cute NOR cuddly," he said in a press conference Wednesday. "I am the only candidate who exclusively offers both."

Larry will officially be running as a Democrat, because he feels McCain already has the Republican nomination locked up. "I offer no advantage over McCain," Larry said, "I can't lift my arms over my head either."

A typical day on the campaign trail for Larry includes going into the backyard to 'do his business,' then sliding around in excitement on the tile flooring, dancing a bit, eating dry food, sleeping on his owner's bed, sleeping on his owner's couch, sleeping on his own bed, prancing about the neighborhood, then eating again, going out again and finally sleeping again.

What led such an active dog to duty? "I just have really great campaign photos. That's all you need, really. Just take a look around you: what are your other options? A chick with a dykey haircut, a guy who looks like he's got acorns lodged in his mouth or another guy with the complexion of super weak Ovaltine milk. Gross." After stunned silence followed this comment at his press conference he added, "I'm just saying."

In fact, analysts are predicting that it won't matter what Larry says, because he's just that cute. "He could call Hillary a dyke and make fun of McCain's melanoma and nobody really cares," an anonymous attendee said. "Come on, look at him! Have you seen him dance? Jesus, it's heart-warming. When was the last time a president was heart-warming? Presidents make my heart feel cold."

Despite Larry's overwhelming cuteness, fluffiness and adorableness factors, his campaign must overcome two major problems. "At first I was afraid I didn't have the balls to run," he said," but then I realized I don't have balls at all." However, this may help him with the key female vote. Females also lack balls.

Also, Larry is incapable of talking. All he can do is bark at his fellow canine constituents, who are predicted to come to the polls in record numbers (in previous years their voting total was zero), and through unofficial campaign spokesperson, Matt Monahan, who is currently the only person to get Larry to growl so far. Other than that, he occasionally howls at his owner, Michelle Stoffel, for attention. "Watch out America," she said. "He may howl at you, too."

Although America could not be reached for comment, most people report that they don't mind being howled at, because the howling is just so damn adorable.

Here are several photos, which Larry believes will convince voters that "politics are stupid; so vote for a cute dog." He hopes that pictures will be included on the ballot in November, so "really stupid voters will come out and just vote for the best-looking thing they see. And that will be me," Larry said.


Larry's official campaign photo. He looks both pensive and really cute as he stares resolutely over Lake Michigan in his hometown of Chicago, Ill.

















"I will clean up the mess our country is in," Larry said. "Just like I cleaned up the mess here. One thing at a time. That flannel shirt is seriously exactly the same as health care."
















Larry delivers a moving speech, or he's yawning....yawning at the status quo. "My campaign represents change," he said. "There's no bigger change than a change of species in the White House. Fuck Patches or Checkers or Spot or any of those little twats. I'm where it's at."



















Larry hard at work lying down and looking like you wanna squeeze him.



















Larry looking jaunty on the campaign trail. "I'm really well-behaved too," Larry added. "Everyone can stand me, and most people love me."





















Larry's supporters gather at his campaign center on Kenmore Avenue in Chicago. "LAROLD!" said Michele Mancuso, top right, a long-time Larry-lover. "Even my supporters are adorable," Larry commented.


















Larry '08.

The sleeve begins...

Fuck. Seriously, is that not beautiful. This boy's amazing.

I included this shot just to show how swollen my arm got. My skin is such a baby.


Obviously, it was worth it.

Sitcom Novel?

So I have this retarded/brilliant idea I've been passing around through the corners of my mind for a little while now. See, I don't like short stories, but I love novels. I don't like movies, but I love TV. It doesn't seem to make much sense, that I want to read full-length but watch 30 minutes at a time. I really like the self-contained plot, but then watching the characters grow throughout a season, watch them and their lives develop as they grow and change. Never has this been more brilliantly played out than in the Office. It's basically perfect. And I want to do it in novel form.

Yeah, I don't know, a sitcom novel. It would basically feature the same cast of characters, probably two to four main characters with eight to ten ancillary characters that operate throughout the whole novel. The book itself would be divided into somewhere between fifteen and twenty sections, of approximately the same length. These sections would include a self-contained storyline and basically read like an episode of a TV show.

And that's about as far as I've thought it out. But I'm pretty sure I want to use the characters from this short story I wrote. I just have to figure out an overarching plot line and then all the minor little events that will make up the sections.

So what do we think? IM me or comment, bitte?

Bah.

1) You know how people in the media talk about college students that graduate with loads of credit card debts and then they cut to some tent set up outside of spring break and some doofusy girl is talking about how she knows it's bad to have debt, but oh well. That's me, minus the whole spring break scenario.

2) I like to fancy myself some kind of music nerd. Then I talk to actual music nerds and realize I'm not. Alas, I have a life that involves things that aren't music. Like TV and drinking and writing and studying. It sucks but it's true. This was never more apparent than my stuttering, retarded interview with American Steel in which Rory proceeded to be the nicest dude ever and I pretended to have a single clue what I was talking about. Result: I'm a douchebag.

3) I'm tired. And I don't give two shits about school at all. Hence my grades are going to suck and my parents are going to spend all of Thanksgiving break poking me with sticks. It's how they punish us. Just poke, poke, poke.

4) I'm still deciding what I will ask Lincoln's advice for when I go to DC this weekend. Mr. Lincoln, how do I get my printer to stop dog-earing all my papers? Please, you freed the slaves and started and then ended the bloodiest war in American history, so surely you must know how to fix this.

This motherfucker is bad ass.

Don't tell my mom you guys.

- "Great Lakes/Great Escapes"//The Lawrence Arms (Oh! Calcutta!)

Modern Life is like picking berries on a sweet summer's eve

Modern Life is War at the Beat Kitchen 9/9.

Week in Review

My room is trashed. I'm currently surrounded by discarded Coke cans and beer bottles, plus an old pizza and my clothes, which have managed to explode out of my room into the hallway. There are various snack foods ingrained into the carpet. I haven't changed my clothes in two days. I spent the last of my money buying a cheap cheeseburger and some generic form of Dayquil. I've been sick all week and ensconced in newspaper, so my schedule has been sleep, class, newspaper; repeat. I stared at InDesign for over eight hours yesterday. I thought I was going crazy, plus I was swearing revenge on vigilante freshmen journalists who don't fucking understand what being 'unbiased' means. They also don't understand the difference between 'conspiracy theories 'and 'facts.' I know, it's a fine line. I skipped class today, again (off to a real great start!) and am contemplating if I should reply to this email the lead singer of Orange sent me, defending the similarities between "Suburban Home" by the Descendents and his own song "Republicans." I care way too much about people liking me (whether it seems that way or not). I'm going to Walgreens to go buy some new food with money I don't have. If I can get through Saturday night and only spend the last five dollars in cash I have, oh boy, I will be so fucking proud.


I can't decide if this is perfect or really lame.


I do wish my apartment didn't smell like ashen popcorn though. Ugh, roommates.

Many Days Have Passed

My drinking exploits this weekend have left me a little fucked up. Friday night I tripped over my jeans and fell on the corner of this trunk in my room and am now rocking a major bottleneck bruise. Last night I just couldn't get my ass on the barstool at the L&L so I landed on the floor like a cockroach on its back and that somehow fucked up my ankle. Sometime after that is where my memory cuts out. Too much beer. I handle the first like, four beers real well, then I get to about eight and I should be done, but at that point I need beers like Meursault needed water that fateful day on the beach. So anyway, I hit the point past counting, which I think means about 12 and I'm gone. Only this time I seriously was gooooone. Black out! Shout it out loud, the devil's keeping time on the brake pad now.*

Gross.

Two of these, about four cans of Miller Lite, two Old Styles and then who knows.

In conclusion, I'm out forty bucks at least.

I can't say I'm filled with pride. Blacking out does not equal pride. Not only that but I've basically spent the whole weekend in a venomous booze-filled haze or asleep. I think I've been sober a whole six hours out of the past 48. And to where am I headed tonight? A bar. A bar with cheap beer and punk rock. Goddammit.










*The Falcon/"Blackout"