Harrowing Tale II: The Reharrowing

Mice: Surprise!
Birds: Surprise!
Gus: Duh, duh, duh... Happy Birthday!

- Mice, Birds and Gus (a heartwarming scene), Cinderella



Above all, self-control.

- Stepmother (a different scene), Cinderella



Don't know what it is I did so wrong,
Now I know what I got,
It's just this song.
And it ain't easy to get back, takes so long.

- Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone), Cinderella

Halfway Across the Sky

"Do or do not - there is no try"

Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back


"This world meets nobody halfway. If you want something, you gotta take it... as long as you lose like a winner, it doesn't matter... all you can do is try."

Lincoln Hawk, Over the Top


Boy I need your touch,
Your love, kisses, and such.
With all my might I try,
But this I can't deny:
I play it off but I'm dreamin' of you,
I'll keep my cool but I'm fiendin'.

Macy Gray, I Try

Harrowing Tale

Hello, all.

While I transition from not being sick to wanting to do anything but lie down and complain. I thought I might grace everyone with a poignant story that will go a ways toward showing a few failed attempts at social interaction. That way, when you read further stories (and there will be, I swear) about me triumphing over my very nature, you’ll be extra super impressed. This technique is what Lindsay Lohan refers to as “raising the stakes.”

Met: Ace

Met: Ace

“I just want you to know you got off kinda light with what you got, you know what I’m sayin’? I’m pretty sure I had a pistol on me that day.”

Chicago Cares Volunteer Project - Jackson Park

Chicago Cares Volunteer Project - Jackson Park

No more than fifteen seconds after I meet him, Ross is laying out a soft-spoken tirade about oak trees. Ross is older, be-flanneled, with long, gray hair tied in a ponytail. He also looks so much like John Denver that he may very well be some parallel universe's John Denver that put down his guitar one day and said “You know what, to hell with this guitar nonsense. I’m gonna be all about trees from now on,” and then spent a lot of times out in the woods and didn’t die.

Ross talks slowly (but without pausing) about the oak trees that have been around for 10,000 years and about the species of birds that could certainly find other feeding spots than here and that the overall response to the removal of the foreign plant species is less than informed. Here he stops for a moment, looks at me over his sunglasses and says in a low, conspiratorial tone that “this place is not without its controversies.”

Night One - Part Two

Having Carlos approach Mary and repeat the thing that I had just said to everyone (“Imagine the sort of awesome fucking job that would let you drunkenly masturbate during the interview,” which could be construed as crass, you know, out of context), isn’t exactly the first impression I would want her to have of us but it gets her attention. She’s taken aback, but when we manage to tell her that about Elvis Crespo, and Carlos throws in his award-winning masturbation gesture a few times, for emphasis, Mary says “Well, if it's a long flight, that’s okay then.”

Night One - Galway Bay

The first thing I see is a Dalmation sitting on a barstool, its large, mournful eyes fixed on a takeout container of Thai food. This makes me turn around to look back at the stairs we’ve just descended to be sure I didn’t make a wrong turn somewhere. I figure maybe I'll a sign reading “Thai Food for Grieving Dogs” or “Ye Olde Dog Sittery” or maybe “That Fever Dream You Had That One Time.”

But, no, I’m in the right place.

I eventually get used to the Dalmation, and the fact that he’s seated on a barstool instead of sitting on the floor like, you know, a dog would, and I even manage to get used to his doleful gaze that later settles on all the popcorn being thrown in our faces. But as prepared as I think I am, an hour later when a second dog viciously attacks my leg, I pretty much scream like a small, easily frightened girl.

Meeting People Is Easy

Hello. My name is Andy.


I'm gonna throw some facts at you:

I am a writer (At least until this Administrative Assistant thing really takes off)

I have lived in Chicago for seven (7) years.

I have met every single friend that I have through work or school.

I have no idea of how to meet people.


I would like to begin by blaming the American school systems for this. Every friend that I made before I moved to Chicago was through my proximity to them in a class. And then, after moving to Chicago and no longer being able to lean on the school environment, I've made friends through work. In either of those two cases the stress of meeting people and making friends is more or less alleviated. You see these people so damn often and have at least one thing in common (the situation which allows you to see these people so damn often), that it's not such a large step to go from seeing them in one situation so damn often to seeing them in another situation so damn often.

Because of this, I have become lazy and bloated in my friend making skills, just the way The Man wants me. Well, I won't take that from The System! The System that I'm just now making up, that's what the hell I'm talking about! And I certainly won't become one of the Man's System's damn Robotic Sheeple, or Sheepbots, or Sheeptomitons, or perhaps Robaa-a-a-a-ats. No, sir and/or madam, not me.

So I plan to figure out how exactly to meet people in this city. How? By going to places where there are people and befriending the living crap out them at any cost. At the outset, I'm pretty sure that cost will be cover charges and a heaping helping of pride, but maybe - just maybe - it will also cost some tears and legal fees. In the end, I hope to walk away from this with a gaggle of friends, but actually plan on walking away with numerous stories (awkward and not) to share with all of you.

In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for places in Chicago I should try, by all means let me know.

Schedule permitting, I will make my first attempt this weekend.


Wish me luck.