Sound and Fury.

These are things that have happened since I decided I wanted to be a cop, since I wanted to save the world.

I asked the man at the grocery store where the cream cheese was, and he said, 'between the beer and the butter'. Naturally.

The last image I have of my Chicago neighbourhood is, at 4:30am, an eight year old driving a car in the middle of the street, giving me an evil look that rivals the worst of my life.

Later that morning, a man who just arrived from Iran asking me if I knew if Starbucks was hiring.

Watching Fox News on the plane from Chicago from LA and starting an argument with the old man beside me because he was a bigot. Or because I am a bigot?
Remembering how much I enjoy riding a bike around, pedaling so fast that I don't have to for the next minute, coasting along and watching everything pass me by.

Sweating.

Worrying.

Dinner with family, getting my cousin to eat her vegetables.

Missing your soup and your hands.

To My Eight Loyal Readers...

This morning on the bus to downtown four different people tried to help this guy tie his tie. It was funny, and everyone around was really getting into it, cheering them on. The mission was not accomplished by the time he had to exit the bus, but I have faith that before his job interview or date or whatever he was on his way to his tie was in the Windsor knot he so desperately needed.

On a related note, I have decided that my life needs some direction of it's own.

I joked to my girlfriend this morning that I am going to become a cop. I couldn't quite get a read on her reaction, but she wasn't appalled by the idea.

So, after navigating through the OPP sight for over an hour, I swear to God I just e-mailed their recruiters for some additional information.

Imagining myself in a uniform cracks me up, but watch out people, I am the law! (in my mind)

The tone of my previous posts has been rather stark, I agree. I assure you all is well with me, and with my relationship. I guess I never expected to be so affected to the way of life in our little bubble, Humboldt Park. Poverty has a way of seeping it's way through every little crack.

It's sad to see such apathy on the part of this kids, and these kids with kids.

I was pacing around the apartment last night, waiting for the landlady to come pick up the rent. I would open the door every five minutes or so, not seeing her, cursing her name. Each time I looked out I saw something surreal. A girl no older than 12 stuffing a toy machine gun into her shorts; a different girl on a bike with a kid no older than two sitting on the handlebars, holding on for dear life; a group of five or six teen aged boys riding by on their BMXs, three of them holding screwdrivers in their mouths (I assume they were just doing some bike repairs, right?).

In two weeks I will out of here, and off to Los Angeles. A breath of fresh air, perhaps.

But leaving the one I love alone, to step out of the way of babies riding bikes or ignoring men whistling at her and staring for a few seconds too long, that's not at all comforting.

let it flow (excerpts from journal)

fights and yelling and dead ants and empty bank accounts and my ass through a coffee table and feeling so lost, so incredibly lost and not being able to keep my head above the water but knowing that in time, a short time, everything will be fine and all of this will just be past and maybe just something that happened that one summer in chicago but maybe it will help me grow and learn and know how to deal with shit when it creeps up like that rotten stench that grows from the garbage bins outside of our door.
yeah keep walking buddy don't look at my girlfriend like that or you will get what you deserve just keep strutting and go home to your wife and kids and stare at them.
get out of my face woman, i love you but i love me more so shut up, i ain't afraid of death but i am afraid of my momma, he can't hit me anymore because he is in jail now for that drug charge are things that we hear and this is chicago and these are the lives of the people all around us and for them its about fighting but for me its about biting my tongue.
ive never felt so far from god as i do now but i think that that is god telling me i need be closer.
hey landlady youre a real piece of work you know that? i bet you do landlady.
why do people think that going to church is salvation when the minute they step out of church they start acting like they are drunks staggering out of the club swapping numbers and smacking asses?
what is it with these people and fireworks, it sounds and looks like a beautiful baghdad
out there tonight but just shut up already.
your love is unlike anything i have experienced before. just keep it coming, and ill catch up with you.