According to Pino.

Monday. Art History.  I know it is a class that is all about participation and getting the thoughts of everyone who wants to give their opinion, but sometimes people need to just stop talking. Every class has those people.  -The same person that always has something to say. I have that in my art history class. He sits right next to me. I'll call him Pino. The worse part is not that he always has something to say, but what he says sometimes, is just ridiculous. Today we we were talking about how people have been socially taught how to know what art is and isn't. Pino raised his hand and said, "Yeah its just like that girl who really liked to dance. You know her? She was, like, in class and she couldn't stop dancing. You see, some people thought she was autistic, but her parents didn't know what to do...
My teacher, Ivan, just leaned against the white bored, trying desperately to follow and understand. "Yeah..." he said, trailing off, covering his mouth, not quite sure what to say. "Anyways," Ivan continued, "from a very young age we are taught that a tree is green and the trunk is brown. Why? Why can we not change that?" 
The whole class was quiet. Then, a hand went up. It was Pino's. "Yeah," he went on. "They found out that that girl loved to dance so much, that they put her in a dance class and she did really well, actually. She has been on broadway and she is, like, really famous now, sometimes." It took the class a moment to realize this guy was serious, and then across the room, someone began to chuckle, then someone else on the other side. It spread like wild fire, but under control. I had to turn my head 180 degrees away from him.
Pino didn't get it. In fact, according to him, we could all learn a few things that only he could share.   Famous dancers, doctors that send little girls to Broadway dance camps and urban button factories, are just a few thoughts the world needs to know, According to Pino.

I will never wear sweatpants in public. -Mostly and only because I care about people thinking I don't care. There will always be people who wear these clothes in public and, I'm sorry, we cannot escape them. Paul and I were thinking this the other day as we came across a sweat-suit coat. Like sweat pants and a sweat shirt, but in the form of a suit coat. "Now, those of you who have given up on society can look nice and STILL be comfortable!!" ...Maybe that was their slogan.
After that, I went to class. As soon as I sat down,  Pino walked in an sat his stuff down and hung his coat on his chair. He went out for a few minutes and I realized the coat he was wearing was the sweat-suit coat. -The very one Paul and I were looking at a few minutes before.  I checked the door to make sure he wasn't there making sure no one would touch it.  I grazed it with my hand. It was nice. Soft between my fingers. Part of me was repulsed by it.
...Another piece of me heard the coat calling to me. A feeling that stabbed morality in the heart.
I quickly pushed it away so it couldn't do me anymore harm.

Ferrari Walking

The weekends in Chicago are busy times for people who own expensive cars to drive them around, showing everyone they own and drive an expensive car. There are Ferraris, Lamborghinis, plenty of  Bentleys, BMWs, Fords, Toyotas, and Hondas. Most days these fancy people sit their fancy cars in the garage, waiting desperately for the weekend to come so they can drive around in meaningless circles. Paul and I were in the area, pretty much doing the same thing. You see, we were getting him an application to work at a fancy clothing store for fancy people to shop. Unfortunatly, they were closed. And we had gotten all dressed up to show off that, we too, could be fancy people, could enter a classy, expensive store and act fancy. Too bad. We walked down one street for a while, although we didn't do any loops so other people could take a gander.
Sure, we looked the part from far away but, come close and you could hear us bickering and pounding out ideas on our new business: Guided Tours of downtown Chicago. Provided by, "Best Kingsmen Top Tours."
"Hi, I'm Hooper Shaque and this is my buddy, Piper Colten. We'd like to thank you all for actually signing up to come on this tour. We are just so excited to show the real Chicago; the trades and secrets that make this place the greatest place on earth!... First, we need some coffee.  So, lets go sit down, fritter a few hours and just chit-chat like real Chicagoans! Okay everybody, now climb in this here wagon and we'll be on our way!"

Assortment and a 5th Grade Dream

A bowl of Beef flavored Ramen soup, a piece of pizza I forgot that I didn't finished from about a week ago, six chicken nuggets (with barbecue sauce), an Oatmeal Cream Pie with three-times as much cream in it, and a cellophane wrapped cinnamon roll, I found in the back of the cupboard.This was my dinner tonight. Never have I had such a sad, stupid, stubborn little meal. An overall tone of colors and hues one finds in desert drab, sickened me and called to me at the same time. "Eat me. Eat me, you thumb-bumping, never-good-at-any-sports-ever boy." Maybe it was 5th grade Matthew pushing to be known again. "You'll always get picked last and ignored in gym. You will always lose in four-square. Do not ever play basketball again, seriously. Love is not made of sand and plenty of gravel, Matthew. You cannot spray racism away, Matthew. And Matthew, dumping cola all over the teacher's grade book really was your fault...But, I accept you in my deliciousness of all that in unholy." 

chicken legs

Tonight, we made barbecue chicken legs. It only took us a year to finally put the baby grill together and use it. We waited too long, because it was so good. Too good, probably.
And thanks to Honduras- less food and hungrier people, I am able to eat at a higher velocity. Something like 2:1.
We don't talk much during eat-time. Unless it has to do with how good the meat is, other meat we should get, foods that would compliment the meat, waffle fries, cookouts in parking lots of games, joining the Chicago Community Football League, chicks, big speakers, brass knuckles, recent fights we were in, Fila shoes or Bugaboo Jeans. Anything else and its drowned in the chomping of meat because we are just a couple of guys trying to have a good time.

match, set.

The nice thing about having the sink so close to the toilet, in the bathroom, is that you can wash your hands while taking care of business, because you just got home after riding public transit and you don't want to wait until you get out to have those 2 oatmeal cream pies.

Lost In Transition

A few months ago I woke up itchy all over my legs. It was really bad. There might as well have been a homeless man sleeping with me, because I'm sure his situation is not any better. Although, he probably has them all over his body. In his mouth, in between his toes and crawling in and out of his anus hole like ants on parade. However, it was not from a homeless man, because when I checked every morning it was just me.
"Its Bugs!" I'd say the next morning. Convinced I was right, though I rarely was, even though this time was different, I began looking closely at my sheets, daily, with my desk lamp. Any little speck could have been a bug, but upon investigation, most turned out to be just skin, hair, or thread. No bugs, but not good enough. After I vacuumed the mattress all over, under the seams and in the crevices, I felt a little better. I actually thought I'd get a better sleep and not itch and scratch my itchy-ass legs. I woke the next day even worse and did not know what to do. The sheets were still new- only a few months old. "Still itchy," I told Paul and Brigid, walking out of my room late. "I just don't get it." They were already up. I had not slept well. Paul's eyes hardly moved from their steady position of "Steve Wilcos," on TV. " Have you washed them?" Brigid asked, looking up at me. " Yeah, but they are still new. - Only a few months old "
"When was the last time you washed them?" She asked.
"I don't know... like three months ago. I think?" Paul's eyes slowly shifted from Steve to me. They both looked at me like a was holding some kind of wild, jungle lizard.
"Hueso," Brigid began. "You have to wash your sheets every 2 weeks. -Sometimes every week."
"I haven't been doing that," I told them both. "I did not know this."
"Yeah, pal. Thats why you are getting the itchies," Paul finally chimed in.
Feeling better that maybe I had figured it all out, I tore them off the mattress and put them in my dirty clothes pile. Three weeks later we did the laundry and for the first time, I was actually excited to do it. That night, I put my sheets back on, feeling positive. And for the first time in a while, I got a good night sleep.
About a week later, I woke up with something feeling like a bug bite. It felt the same as before. Like bugs. I was itching. Maybe I didn't vacuum well enough, I thought. So, I washed them, yet again, feeling agitated about the whole thing. And it was the same thing.
After a group meeting, we came to the conclusion that the sheets must go. Maybe something in the dye was bothering me. Or maybe, it was that they were made in India. No one knew.
I found some loner sheets of paul's that were too small, packed away in a box and planned to use them through the weekend with plans to buy new ones the next week.
Three months later, I asked Paul to just go with me, because apparently I was having problems deciding on some. We found a home-goods store near to our previous apartment. they had a lot of options. At the time, I had been looking at K-Mart sheets and found some cool zebra-patterned ones I really liked. I hope this place would have them, but also tried not to get my hopes up too high. There were three mini-isles full of different kinds, colors and thread count. I began to aimlessly walk around, which is probably why I never got any before. One of the workers was in the area shelving some products. He was on a knee and grunting as he bent down. He was wearing some big red suspenders that I liked. They held his old jeans up, but boy, I wish I had those suspenders. His hair was long. It was some dirty blond color and unusually shiny. I continued to walk around, feeling the different, dirty samples that hung over the packaged ones. Paul asked me what I thought. "I don't know." Then, a low voice of an elderly man rang out, "can I help you two gentlemen find anything?" It was the person who was bent over grunting. This was no ordinary man, though . His hair was not shiny and dirty blond by the nature of our fellow man. It was fake and plastic. It was a wig. A head of lies. Soon, he stood right in front of us, describing the sheets that are, "really, going like hotcakes."
"Really?" I asked. "You must be kidding. At these prices, how could anyone not need more sheets?"
This was the most lost man-in-transition I have seen in a long time. "You see, the great thing about these sheets, is that they are are really stretchy." He made hand motions of being stretchy and the image of him wearing only a diaper popped in my head... "I guarantee they will fit." I saw his old, wrinkled hands as he mimed stretching sheets. They were too weathered to be working in a home-goods store. They belong on the field, harvesting corn or wheat...something like that. He had to have been in his seventies and trying trying to hide the wrinkles on his face with the hottest pink blush his beautician could find in the back of the boutique. It was blinding and really popped out with the deep blue shade of eye shadow, sloppily colored on above his bright blue eyes. He lathered on, what seemed like hours ago, a different shade of hot pink lipstick that differed not enough to his blush. I tried my hardest to not make any sudden movements and throw off his concentration enough to be found out. The "flub-jiggler" that comes with old age, swung to and fro under his chin with the emphasis of his phrases. That and his clothes, were all he appeared to have as part of being a man. I would like to say I wasn't thinking about the "flub-jiggler," and I would like to say that I was concentrating on his speech. I would like to say that. But, I cannot and I'd be a damn lair if I did say I was concentrating on what he had to say. It would only take two fingers to pinch, squeeze, slap and flap that thing all night. Time would fly, but unfortunately I came to work. I accepted everything he had to say, making the right amount of eye contact with him and panning of the store. "Thanks," I told him. It felt really warm in that store, as I backed up and headed in the isle Paul had abandoned me for, a minute before. "Those ones seem pretty nice," he told me. "Yeah. I just with they were softer. They seem stiff."
"They will soften up when you wash them."
"Are you sure?"
"Well," he said, "go ask her, him. Her...umm...hmm...." He stopped and just pointed. I went back to him and as I was about to ask him if they were the best choice, when a call came on his walkie-talkie. "Shelf help is section D," the voice said. Keep it together, Matthew and we will both get through this, I thought. Grabbing the microphone, I noticed his nails couldn't have been more prettily painted. "Stephanie here, I got it," he said to the voice. "Thanks Stephanie," it replied. "I have to get out of here very soon," I told Paul...and myself. I picked the sheets Stephanie told me to get, mostly because he said they were "going like hotcakes," and I know I like hotcakes and like to talk about them. As we headed toward the register to check out, we both stopped and saw Zebra-patterned sheets. "We will feel them?" I declared. I wanted them. Badly. Paul brought up the point that they were less threat count but same price. "But, they are a novelty. And I like novel things," I said, smiling like an ass-clown. "I know and novelty can cost a lot," he countered.
"Fine." So we walked out with my new sheets. Only took half a year!

...Thanks Stephanie.

culterize

I met a friend from my speech class a few semesters ago, today because we hadn't hung out in while. She is always so busy doing homework and studying and doesn't make enough time for TV. I remembered when we met before, she was not so good at directions once she'd come up from the train. She wouldn't know east from west, north from south. Before we met this time, I was sure to send her easy, phonetic directions:

"its on Washington and Dearborn"
"walk one block west on Washington"
"Walk 1 block on Washington AWAY from Millennium Park"

I was waiting for about 30 minutes before she shuffled in; her hand covering her face. She slumped down in her chair across from me. "Hey buddy, hows it going?" I offered. She did not smile. "I did not know where to go when I got off the train, and I walked over there." she pointed towards Millennium Park. "Well, I sent you easy directions. Why didn't you read them? You got here." She put her hands over her nose and asked me to get her a tissue.

I like to hear about her Chinese culture. She has only been in the states for about 4 years, and is still learning about everything that makes America the Land of Opportunity and the Home of The Brave. She told me about her job in a restaurant, south of Chinatown. It gets pretty shady as you go south of the loop. "Is it dangerous where you work?" I asked, knowing it is not in the safest neighborhood. "Uhh, yeah we are safe. You see, we have these huge walls of glass over the counter that protect us." She turned and motioned a wall with her hands all along the cash register counter of the coffee shop we were at. "So we are safe," she confirmed. "Is there a little metal tray under the thick glass for customers to slide their cash," I asked, motioning sliding cash in a metal tray to match her stride. "Yes," she said, nodding her head. "Well, i'm glad you are safe. I was a fool to think other wise."


As a prepared for bed tonight- brushing my teeth for 2, dentist-ordered, New York minutes, I reboogered myself into a staring contest with the man in mirror. "What have you done?" I asked him. Most people de-booger, you see, probably while they prepare for bed, maybe in the car driving to work. Some people just do not care, I have learned from personal experience, and they find it quite easy to dig for booger buddies on the public transit bus. I tried to re-step my tracks and find the SOB that ended up sliding down the pipe. Luck was not on my side.