I’ve done a lot of freelance work in my writing career. I’ve worked for advertising agencies, the government, a

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company, a job placement and advisory company out in California, a few insurance firms, and even written a few reviews of movies, TV shows, and more. I never made enough money to get by with all of those jobs combined, but they did give me a lot of experience in doing a lot of different forms of writing. And that will eventually lead me to getting a full-time job somewhere, hopefully with benefits or a 401K or whatever else comes with getting paid. But that hasn’t come along yet so I have to work a day job in the mean time. I have no idea what though. I’ve never been a waiter and doubt I’d be any good at that. If I want to work nights, a few friends suggested becoming a bartender, but I doubt I have the people skills for that. I can’t imagine putting up with people acting foolishly all night, let alone them acting drunk and foolishly all night. I have to work somewhere though. Hopefully, I won’t be reduced to working retail. That would drive me utterly insane and I don’t want that. No one wants that.

Donna was at the Los Angeles Dodgers game the other night and something weird happened.  It seemed that some woman had died.  This brought back all the memories of Wicked for me.  Apparently, the woman had been at the ball game having a good time and suddenly had a heart attack and dropped dead.  Donna was very distraught.  She thought of using the tazer to get the heart going but was advised against it.When I hear about this, I thought of Mrs. Murphy.  I only see her on Fridays now, since  Don is delivering scotch to her house.  I asked how she was doing and she said that she might be able to get an operation on her eyes to cure her blindness.  She is looking into lasik Chicago for some options.   I asked her if she wanted to go to Joe’s Cottage with me and Joe that night, but she said she was busy.  I then called Donna but she was doing something, too.  It was just me and Joe, which is fine with me, up at Joe’s Cottage. Joe and I are pretty much treated like celebrities up at the bar now ever since we helped nab the Texas Holdem Bandits.  My neighbor Mike was also up there so we talked to him for a while. The owner of the bar, whose name is Scott, said that our drinks were on the house for the month.  He said he got some pretty good publicity for his bar from the incident, although I don’t see how two thugs using his place as a hangout to catch drunks is good publicity, but I guess business is up. 

I’ve got a little Chicago neighborhood guide in the glove compartment of my car.  I never use it.  When I bought the Ford Focus, my father insisted I keep the guide in the car with me so that if I ever got lost I could refer to it for directions.  The thing is I now my way around pretty well from driving through downtown to the University of Illinois-Chicago every single day for class.  Before that, I took the train and memorized the order of all the stops.  I don’t really drive anywhere that I couldn’t find my bearings if I didn’t have to.  It’s mostly just my father worrying too much and thinking a little book can help me.  The books has really small print and had some sort of grid system setup that’d difficult to understand.  Really, the book’s of little to no use to me.  I only keep it because I’m too lazy to dig through my glove compartment for it and then throw it out.  If I really want to know the directions to somewhere that I’m going I look them up on the Internet. Those directions aren’t always perfect either, but they give me a decent enough idea on how to get where I’m going. 

It really feels weird to me that some of my friends are starting to get married. We have a wedding shower coming up next week. A few of my friends and I were trying to figure out what we should get them as a shower gift, when we saw a commercial on television for digital picture frames that were on sale at Ace Hardware. We thought it was a weird place to get a digital picture frame, but the price was right. The guy at the store told us they were right next to the cut tools. Sure enough, right down there aisle there were boxes upon boxes of digital picture frames. We looked through to decide which size, color and picture load each of them had, before we found the perfect one. It actually turned out to be a great gift, and they really loved it. While a lot of people simply got them things that were on their registry, we thought outside of the box and get them something that we felt would mean something to them. As they start their lives together, they can keep their memories in a slideshow in the frame. I guess we are just better friends than all their other ones.

We went to a really great steak house, run by world famous chef Michael Mina, called Strip Steak last month when we were in Las Vegas. We were seated at a table right by the kitchen, which was really cool, because it is an open kitchen. You can see everything the chefs are doing. You can see the grill, all the cut tools for the different steaks, and every last detail of what goes on in the kitchen. At the very least, it made the wait for the food seem much shorter. Before we had even ordered, they sent out some french fries that were fried in duck butter. There were three different kinds, one with truffle oil, one with paprika, and another that was plain. Each came with its own dipping sauce. Probably the classiest french fries that I have ever eaten. I ordered a Japanese Kobe beef steak, which was upwards of $170. It was with most delicious piece of meat I have ever tasted in my entire life. It practically melted in my mouth. They brought out all sorts of side dishes too. One was a mashed potato and lobster puree that was delicious. All of us sure left there satisfied.

One of my best friends from college, Bennett, is really good with computers. He started college as a business major, but and after veering away from business and then ultimately returned, he ended up graduating with a double major in both business and graphic design. I met Bennett the first week of college, freshman year. He lived on my floor, and when I was having some trouble setting up my computer, he came to my rescue. Apparently some of the software the school had us set up was slowing me down, so he overclocked some components on my computer to make everything run at top speed. While he was helping me out, we found out that we had a ton of stuff in common, and have been good friends ever since. I even came to Las Vegas with him, his father and one of his best friends from home for his twenty-first birthday. We had so much fun! We stuffed ourselves at the seafood buffet at the Rio, and did a whole bunch of gambling. We even ran into Mike Tyson! Now that college is over, he lives in Austin, Texas and I live in Chicago. We do not talk as much anymore as we used to, which is sad.

The biggest headache is not being able to find what I'm looking for! There's this one photograph from Megan's birthday and she's going to be so upset if I can't find it. I told her that if I keep losing photographs then she's going to have to help me figure out a data storage solution. If I had something like that then I wouldn't have to worry as much as I do. The car key and the other stuff I can't keep track of is one thing but some of these photographs are irreplaceable. I think I'll give her a call tonight so we can sort through what I have. I'm hoping that it's just on a roll of film that I haven't developed yet. I'm really looking forward to being more organized. Plus I'm anxious to have everything in a place where I can find it right away so I can share all the crazy moments. Once all of us get together we really do know how to have a party! In fact I'll just say that the photograph I'm looking for involves someone jumping out of birthday cake and her holding up a really bad birthday card that she received from a guy who has been trying to get her attention for months. The mischief we get ourselves into can only be fully appreciated in the photographs!

Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, but I was born with a golf club in my hands. Both my parents were professional golf players, so it was naturally assumed that I would follow in their footsteps. Instead I became a golf trainer. From a young age I was taught how to play golf, and every day I was at the golf course playing, swinging, and practicing. Every day I tried harder and tried to perfect my swings, my aim, and my love for playing. But something inside of me just shouted out loud and clear that this was not my passion in life. I tried to hide my lack of enthusiasm as the days went by, but eventually my spark of euphoric disguise faded into not even a glimmer, but to a nonexistent light. My parents had high hopes in me, and as the years went by they became more and more distressed knowing that I would never make it to the Pros. All I can say is that I tried my best and so I did the next best thing. As the old saying goes, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

My best buddy Marcus and I are always telling each other stories to freak each other out.  His last one he told me was that he was wandering around one Saturday afternoon and ended up in the alley behind the Chicago Laser Skin Resurfacing Clinic and found all this old skin and actual faces piled up and rotting in the dumpsters behind there.  I just knew he was lying and that something like that couldn’t possibly be true, but he said it with a straight face and sounded so shocked that I almost actually believed him for a second there.  Later that day, I was even walking by the Chicago Laser Skin Resurfacing Clinic after having grabbed a coffee at the local Starbucks with a lady friend and I couldn’t resist.  I snuck around into the back alley and looked into the dumpsters.  I didn’t smell anything, but, still, I shut my eyes when I flipped up the lids since I halfway expected to find something.  I was so intent on not finding anything that I had convinced myself something had to be there.  And it was empty.  Once I saw that, I burst out laughing.  I couldn’t believe what I had been thinking.  Then again, it was empty.  That didn’t mean that there couldn’t have been something in there earlier.  Maybe I’ll have to drop by there again just to check. 

All I hear is the ticking of my watch. I look quirky and idiosyncratic glancing at the clock in my classroom every three seconds. The twenty-five girls in my classroom were split up into groups of five to make a project about Lewis and Clark. So my group decided to do something creative and make a presentation of the type of food/drink they had on their journey: hot chocolate! We all loved the idea and someone in my group even thought of dressing up as chefs and wearing chef hats. Today is the day it is due and I always get really nervous when I have to stand up in front of a crowd and talk. My palms got all sweaty, my knees sort of wobbly, and my throat kind of scratchy. I wasn’t even up there and I was still nervous. My group was the last to present our project, and in a way I was thankful but I really wanted to get over with it already. My white chef hat kept on tilting from one side to the other, threatening to fall of as I turned my head from one angle to the next while walking up to the front of the class, looking around the room at the girls around me, watching my every move. When I got up there, it really wasn’t all that bad, and it was over before I knew it.