Monday, March 29, 2004

There is fiction, gentle reader, and then there are real stories, tales so true and terrible that the line between complacency and action becomes thin. Here is a compelling Monday read.

Friday, March 26, 2004

One of the realities of business conversation that always seems odd is the incessant talk about weather. When there’s an important call I need to make, I sometimes tell my client I’m going to skip the vapid prattle about how much warmer it is there than here, and they seem to appreciate it. After all, gentle reader, at the end of the day neither of us gives two shits about the other’s weather. Yeah, it’s common knowledge that weather in Chicago is a harsh mistress, but do we really have to celebrate the fact?

I’m realizing, however, that weather plays a greater role in shaping people’s moods than not. With five solid days of rain looming ahead of us, there’s a tangible decrease of energy in the office. It’s not like everyone’s weeping and short-circuiting their keyboards, understand, it’s just the general atmosphere is more lethargic than last week. Right now, it feels like Old Man Winter just stepped out of the gym, which is to say damp and nasty. Thank goodness I’m such a frickin’ sunbeam with sugar on top.

Thursday, March 25, 2004

For reasons unfathomable I ingested a double Filet-o-Fish during lunch today, gentle reader, and I feel positively woozy right now. Perhaps it was the peer pressure, the unbidden draw of everyone doing it–and lovin’ it, as the red-haired demon’s PR department would have you believe–that made me pop for some fish product. And fish “product” is cunningly vague because I could’ve been eating trout, salmon, dolphin, or even marmot, for the love of Grimace.

That’s the unholy appeal of McDonald’s, I suppose. The food is so modestly priced that you cannot help but grab your wallet and stuff some money into Ronald’s gaping maw. You eat, you drink, you wipe your fingers, and twenty minutes later it dawns on you: the Hamburglar just made you his bitch, and all you could do was ask for extra sweet n’ sour sauce. Ahoy, mateys! I spy a heart attack on the horizon.