St. Francis

The St. Francis we normally think of when we think of St. Francis is the dude from Assisi. There are tons more but we just need to focus on Assisi for now. See St. Francis' dad totally didn't want him to be a saint...or a priest...or anything religious, he wanted him to be greedy, join the family business, and grab a whole bunch of lira. Franky didn't do that, sure he got drunk for a bit with his thirteenth century frat buddies, but then he took off his fancy clothes and started talking to birds. That's what I always knew about St. Francis, our patron saint of animals, c'mon everybody bring your pugs and tabbies to church so we can bless them. St. Francis wouldn't hurt a fly...and that is my question. Sure he wouldn't hurt a fly, because flies don't do anything bad, a little annoying, a little unsanitary, but the true test is whether or not he would hurt a mosquito.

Normally mosquitoes feast on fruits and nectar, and act like civilized insects, but when those female ones need to lay some eggs to continue their miserable species, they have to suck blood to get a precious egg laying protein. They are kind enough to inject a mild anesthesia into your skin before gorging on your capillaries, but it is the after that really gets you. The bump and the excruciating itch come from antibodies in your skin reacting to the antigens in the mosquitoes spit. All of these facts are only to show you, dear reader, that I have researched my foe. I know her, I know what she does, when she comes out to play, and I also researched whether or not these fuckwads do any good for our world. From what i have deduced the main purpose the mosquito serves is to feed birds who could totally find something else to eat, spread deadly diseases (see malaria, see west nile, see yellow fever...see the list going on and on), preserve dinosaur DNA, and do this to my leg...


each one of those pieces of duct tape covers one of these...


and those are just ones that i have gotten in the past 24 hours. It is proven that mosquitoes are more attracted to certain people based on the "scent" from a person's skin. My skin must smell like that fucking chocolate factory in the West loop. Even St. Francis would flip out and smash a few mosquitoes if he had been itching non stop for four days. Well, even if the saint wouldn't...I would.



Dead...so so dead...



I've killed about twenty, and I have been leaving the carcasses around the apartment in the hopes that their sisters will get the hint and stay the fuck out of my room. Maybe this is cruel, maybe sadistic, maybe I am bringing death vibes into the apartment like Ralph says...but what the fuck else am i supposed to do. Let these useless mother fuckers eat my flesh like it is sunday brunch? They have made me paranoid, I jump at the slightest tingle on my skin, I flip out every two seconds and claw at myself. I am either going to get one of the millions of diseases carried by mosquitoes or I am going to be put in a mental hospital.

I am going for a more natural route, in honor of hippies and stuff. I stole a mosquito eater from a spiders web in Ralph's room, and freed him in my room.



He's hanging out dangerously close to that ceiling fan, but I'm going to let him take over and keep those little fuckers from getting me. I'm afraid to sleep. They smell my exhale, they see my body heat, they hear the blood in my body calling them like a dinner bell. My god. If only deet didn't give you cancer.

P.S. St. Francis wouldn't kill them. He didn't even kill a wolf that did literally eat a few humans in a village in Italy. Instead he took the wolf from the mountains, brought him into the town and brokered a treaty between the wolf and the towns people. You feed him, he doesn't eat you. God, if this dude could broker a deal between a wolf and some villagers, could you imagine what he could do for us now?

where am i?

when we moved into this place i truly believed i lived in wicker park. I thought this because the annoying ska rock guy from apartment people told me it was wicker park, my roommate told me it was wicker park, and my friend down the street confirmed it was wicker park. I was convinced, and so i would walk around scoffing at visitors from lakeview and the suburbs, and i would feel so mighty in the fact that this was my neighborhood.

it isn't my neighborhood. i don't live in wicker park. I either live in ukranian village or east village...or on the cusp of both. this wouldn't be a huge problem either, as living in ukranian village or east village or on the cusp of both allows me to say that wicker park is so passe, and i love saying things are passe. however, i was also under the impression that neighborhoods were directly related to wards, and that by living in wicker park i would live in the 1st ward...however i was wrong about both. wards have fucked up boundaries and it is sort of hard to figure out which one you live in (it took me about half an hour, and i am only partly sure of which one i live in). I think i live in the 32nd.

who cares? you ask...why would i, a girl who is still registered to vote in oregon, doesn't plan on staying in chicago for long, and finds chicago politics way too confusing to think about, care about which ward she lives in? i care because the first ward got those blue recycling bins, and i didn't! i really want to recycle, but i know those stupid blue bags just end up in the landfill anyway, and i am not going to go out of my way to track down blue bags, sort my trash, and inevitably make more garbage by adding a colorful plastic sack to the huge landfill. i won't do it. but throw some cans into a blue bin...now i would do that. I would feel good doing that, it would alleviate my guilt plagued conscience (those plastic water bottles are like piles of sin in my bedroom). I wanted that blue bin, so bad. when i was under the false impression that i would soon be receiving one i was fucking pumped, like i actually talked to people. I bragged about my up coming blue bin.

then...those bins started popping up everywhere around me. across damen, they have 'em, across division, they have 'em, there is even one out back at my job. huge blue bins barely full, and there is not one in my alley. and i am fucking pissed, what am i supposed to do, haul my paper and plastic bottles across division and sneak it into one of those taunting blue bins? is there some sort of law about sticking your recycling into someone else's bin? i don't think it is fair, i know those wicker park yuppies (hey, remember i don't live in wicker park, i can call them yuppies) they aren't using the blue bin to it's full potential like i would. i deserve it, i'll be the fucking robinhood of recycling.

fuck you ward boundaries!!!

while we're at it, can i please get five cents back for my beer bottles?

terminator

i had a dream last night that arnold schwarzenegger was a really good guy. We were stuck on a mountain together, not like stranded in the forrest, but there was a ski lodge and chair lifts, but we couldn't leave...because of some sort of like non nulear holocaust...nothing to destroy the world, ore even us...but there was a bad reason we couldn't leave. He was wearing a t-shirt that said something about saving mt. hood, and i said, "yeah, we should." The whole time, me and arnold we're partners in crime, we went everywhere together, and i made fun of him a lot, and he had a really good sense of humor about it. I would say, "it's rediculous you are a governer." and he would say, "yeah i know it seems funny, but i really feel right doing it." cheesy stuff, but i could tell it was coming from his heart. He also skiied, and we were riding a chair lift, talking about skiing, and we had a really really strong bond...me and arnold. I woke up thinking, "maybe republicans aren't all that bad." and i wanted to tell Rose, "you know...republicans aren't all that bad." but i didn't, because most republicans do suck...just not arnold...although he is still rediculous.

unemployed/unemployable

I spent the summer after my freshman year of college back in Portland. With my dad hounding me to get a job, and no dignified employer willing to hire me when they knew I was leaving in two months, I started working at a cookie factory. When I got there they supplied me with a white jacket, blue latex free gloves, a hair net, and a face mask. A skinny middle aged woman with meth burns on her neck showed me the ropes. "Stack them five high, slide them to the edge of the belt, and the next person down there will put them in the box. They go kind of fast, if you fall behind yell for help." I stood posed over the white conveyer belt...my hands were up in the ready position like they tought me in elementary school P.E., a bell rang, the belt started, and cookies appeared. I stacked the cookies five high. I was rediculously good at stacking cookies. I would go faster than the belt. I'd work my way up to the plastic bar that seperated the stacking section from the drying section, then I would wait until mass of cookies reached almost to the end of my section, and I would start again, stacking, waiting, stacking waiting. We would rotate between cookie batches, and I would go the boxing station, or the labeling station. after two hours I would get a fifteen minute break, and I would smoke out on the picnic tabel, doing a crossword puzzle. Two more hours i would get a lunch break, where I would drink a V8 and smoke two more cigarettes. One more fifteen, and I was in the home stretch. My body would ache after the 8 hours, and my stomach would feel nautious after smelling warm chocolate chips for a whole shift, but it payed well, and I liked telling people I worked at a cookie factory. By the end of the summer my shift manager was offering me a full time position. 40 hrs a week, $13/hr, 2 weeks vacation, benefits. She didn't quite get the concept that I was going back to college...I was going to get a degree, and a real job, and be successful and artistic. On my last day, when she asked me one last time if i would like to take the full time position, I seriously considered it. I had been plagued by the thought that the cookie factory might be my calling. There are only a certain amount of things one person can be rediculously good at, and boxing cookies was one of my things. But I still said, "no thank you." and I packed my bags and moved back to Chicago.

The cookie factory sounds good right now. I have submitted about fifteen resumes for everything from marketing internship, to coatroom attedant. I've only had one interview, and I don't think i got the job. I have biked all over wicker park/nobel square, and talked to managers, and nodded when they said, "we'll call you if we're interested." I rode my bike in the pouring rain to an about to open organic pizza restraunt, and ruined my Creative Recreation shoes in the process. I said to the manager, "i'm sorry I'm so wet, it wasn't raining like this when I left my house." I held my resume out to him using only the tips of my thumb and forefinger in order to not leave soaking fingerprints on the paper. The man in a blue button up shirt barely looked at me and said, "we might call you later." I rode back home in the rain, almost got hit by a buick making a left turn, and then I ate ice cream.

I want to tell these people, "I was really good at boxing cookies, I was really good at making coffee, I was really good at organizing student intiatives, whatever the fuck it is you want me to do I will be really good at it."

But i don't...i just smile and nod, and say, "i look forward to hearing from you."