Mystery envelope update

I've just packaged up the card I found at the library last Saturday. I included the unopened envelope, as well as a hand-written letter:

Dear G.,

I was in the downtown branch of the public library this weekend browsing the knitting books, and this card fell out of "Knitting Without Tears." I don't know how long it's been in there, but if you're anything like me (and you must be a little like me, if you're a knitter), it drove you crazy that you lost that card to Mary before you got to mail it. Now you know where it went! Thanks for letting me carry around a little bit of a mystery for a few days.

[my name and email address]
(in case you want to let me know what was in there... or not. Just in case.)

That last bit felt so much like writing to a pen-pal for the first time, all sweaty palms and "please write me back, I'll be ever so glad! Please tell me about where you live and whether you have any pets!" Kind of goobery. Can't help it. This is fun. Updates as they come. If they ever do. This may very well be the last I see of my mystery card.

Today on the train: how is it that I was home sick all day yesterday, and it's only just now, on a massively crowded train, that I have an eye-watering urge to cough? Doesn't this cold know that the key to getting spread around is flying under the radar, rather than alerting all the meatbags around me what's up?

I might be a stalker!

On Saturday, Chris and I went to the massive main library in Chicago, downtown in the Loop. We had to pay some fines give back to our community, then found ourselves browsing for more books to take home. Chris was lost somewhere in the music section, which is conveniently on the same floor as the knitting books. As I was leafing through "Knitting Without Tears," a small sealed envelope fell out.

*DAH DAH DAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!* <-- That there is supposed to be thrilling denouement music. MYSTERY ENVELOPE!

It's got a full return address on it, along with the name "G. Van Moer," and is addressed to a "Mary Chesebro." It's a small card, perhaps of the thank-you variety, and I can't tell much through the envelope other than it's got an illustration of some leaves on the front. Clearly, Ms. G. (I think it's a woman based on the writing) wrote the card and put it in this book, intending to carry it with her until she got Mary's address. Unfortunately for both G. and Mary, due dates are a bitch.

I will find far more enjoyment in sending it back to G. Van Moer than in opening it, so I'm going to mail it in a larger envelope, along with the story of how I found it. I think I'll even include my email address, in case G. has anything interesting to communicate back to me.

Stay tuned, 1.5 readers.

Horto in Urbs (in Horto)

Chicago's official motto, in Latin, is Urbs in Horto, or "City in a Garden." One of its unofficial mottoes, of course, is Daniel Burnham's "Make No Little Plans." I would further like to submit for consideration "Don't Make Any Plans If You're Waiting for an El Train Outside of Rush Hour" and "Make Plans Only if You've Paid Mayor Daley's Plan-Making Tax of 12%."

Anyway, we started our own little city garden here in the Sky Palace today. We planted bell peppers, roma tomatoes, chives, cilantro, and sweet basil -- all from seeds. I'd really like to do hops, as well, but I don't think they're suited for our enclosed deck because 1) I think they need deep soil, rather than containers and 2) they kind of grow really really tall. But I can dream, can't I?

Against better judgement,

I've signed up for a 5k. I know, I was surprised too. I haven't run since high school, and I did so sullenly even back then. But I found an awesome podcast training regimen online that trains you up gradually over several weeks, so I have hope.

I'm still not sure what I've gotten myself into. I know it's just over 3 miles, but still. I think it's something they put into the water here in Chicago. This is the most runningest city I've ever seen. Every spring, right about early March, the signs go up all over for 5k's, 10k's, and half and full marathons. And here I am, being part of the problem.

I'm told there's beer at the end, so there's that.

Bad Copy of the Day Award: Verbal Edition

I generally hate "businessisms" such as "I'll ping you later on that" or "at the end of the day." I hate them a lot. Just use normal words, and stop talking like an asshat. Usually, the same tired phrases are recycled for years, mostly because salespeople have very little imagination. So my ears always perk up when I hear a new one. In this situation, a business deal had stagnated, and my coworker was discussing the need to allay her client's anxiety regarding lack of progress:

"We just want to show him some movement in the water."

Why "in the water"? Why do you need that metaphor at all? If she had been talking directly to me, which she wasn't, I would have been terribly distracted by imagining all the things that might create movement in water -- a boat wake? The Loch Ness Monster? Underwater volcano? Corpse floating downstream?

I'm just not cut out for Corporate America, I guess.

Just use smaller words, m'kay?

There is a person, in just about every large office in America, whose sole purpose in life is to make Funundrum's eyes bleed. I haven't met them all yet, and I hope never to get close to doing so, but I know they're there nonetheless. The person I'm talking about is generally female and either doesn't have a college degree or went to one of those progressive schools that encourages you to discuss your feelings, perform an interpretive dance, or go on a peyote-influenced vision quest rather than sit a written math final. Yo, I got news for you -- your glowing coyote spirit guide is not going to help you solve for x.

I'm going to step back a moment here and tell a little story about the Best Teacher Ever, my high school English teacher, Mr. Kopacki. When it came time to teach us how to use "who" vs. "whom," he made us all swear that we would abide by the very simple First Rule of "whom," which is as follows:

If you're not absolutely sure you can use it correctly, don't.

American English has developed in a very democratic, somewhat sloppy, but mostly useful fashion. It's the Snap-On Tools of the linguistic world. It's evolved to not really need the word "whom," to the point that its usage is generally an indication that someone's using it to look smart... which they then fail to do.

Which brings me back to the peyote-using underachievers. At my last job, it was my boss. At this job, it's the head of operations. It may be someone different where you work. But their modus operandi is always the same: they have to send out emails to the whole office, which freaks them out and challenges their self-worth, so they do everything possible to underscore the gravity of their authority on the subject at hand. You will know them by the way they mark every email "urgent." You will know them by their use of animated GIFs in the body text. Most of all, you will know them by the gratuitous and patently incorrect infestation of "whoms."

I've written all this and I don't even have a good example of the ridiculous things this woman sends out. I suppose I'll have to edit in the next couple of days to put something in here. But I thought I'd like to share with you, my two readers, the nearly unshoulderable burden it is being me.

For reals.

I lie awake nights wracked with guilt over not writing on this blog. So, there's that.

Welcome to the inside of my head.

How come, in Star Trek, Data never just plugged into the ship directly so he could do his job way more efficiently? I could see him wanting to do the human thing as much as possible, but for as often as the Enterprise was 3.6 seconds away from losing life support/getting sucked into another dimension/exploding, seems like it would be a prudent course of action.

It just seemed to work so well for R2-D2. Just saying.

Too bad "Jesus" doesn't have an umlaut in it

I was kicking around a free font site for beer logo ideas, and ran into a bunch of fonts by the same woman. They all have that slightly dorky, cheerleader/preschool teacher/cupcake shop look, and have names like "Complete in Him" and "Loved by the King." It's clear that the woman is 1) a Christian and 2) terrible at naming fonts. One of the fonts had 46 comments on it. Now, there's no way that a mediocre font like "Complete in Him" could foster that much constructive font-related discussion, so I had to check it out.

The comments tended to fall into two categories: "I love Jesus and you love Jesus and we rock," and "I have a preschool/cheerleading poster/cupcake shop, can I use your font?" There was only one comment that bridged the two categories, both shamelessly and seamlessly. As always, I've fixed the spelling and punctuation so your eyes don't bleed. You're welcome.

"Hi to my sister in our Lord Jesus Christ! Your fonts are truly a blessing to me. I can see it is made from inspiration from the Heavenly Throne Room of our Father God! May I have the privilege of seeing you one day at the feet of our Lord Jesus... Then you can teach me all your fonts... Blessings, Ulanda"

I just can't get over "Then you can teach me all your fonts." Praise the Lord and pass the italics.

Can't talk, I'm using the backhoe

In addition to the awesome letter from P&G (see below), I also received some pills for my dog from an online pet medication website. According to the warning label, this medicine may impair my dog's ability to drive or operate machinery. She is supposed to refrain from doing so until she knows how it affects her.

Bad Copy of the Day Award: Mail Call Edition!

You're lucky I've got some editing experience. It means you won't have to read the really boring post I just wrote, then deleted. The short, and much better, version is that I got a refund check in the mail after complaining to Procter & Gamble about their tendency to package deodorant in canisters with faulty mechanics. Here's part of the message that accompanied the check:

"We have shared your experience with the appropriate people here in our company for future learnings."

Bad Copy of the Day Award

And just think, whoever wrote this is getting paid a salary to work at one of the country's larger insurance brokerages.

Just get a raincoat with a good hood on it.

I've never been a big fan of umbrellas. An umbrella uses up one of my two usable hands, I must hold it for the duration of desired protection from rain, and it does nothing to keep the lower 80% of my body dry. Here in the Windy City (tm), there's the added problem of the winds that whip through the steel canyons of downtown, especially in the vicinity of Sears Tower, which pretty much manufactures its own weather patterns. Umbrellas don't do well in such a harsh environment. This picture was taken at the corner of Jackson and Wacker, right next to the Sears Tower. I took the picture and then proceeded smugly, protected from both wind and rain by my Marmot rain jacket. I am less smug now that I see how blurry the photo came out. Stupid CrapCam.

I think it's safe to post this now.

I very much hate ZOMG SUPER PINK CANCER OCTOBER PINK BOOBIES PINK MONTH (tm) for more reasons than I care to go into right now, mostly because it's late and I have to work in the morning. So I had to hang on to this picture until the rage subsided a bit. I saw this on my way into work one morning and was just... astonished. It's a street sweeping truck. It sweeps the streets. It is also very aware of breast cancer and would like you to be the same. Just... no. Come ON. It's a street sweeping truck! Where will the madness end?

Man, you know what I love?

I love that every day when I leave work, I turn east towards the lake and take a 10-minute walking tour of Chicago. I cross a crumbling iron and concrete bridge over the mighty Chicago River, then pass the Sears Tower and smile at the tourists taking their picture in front of the Skydeck sign. Sometimes, when the moment is right, I offer to take it for them, so they can all be in the photo.

Further down Jackson street, while waiting for the light to change, I look to my left and see the Rookery -- a beautiful building in its own right, but also the place where Daniel "Make No Little Plans" Burnham dreamed up the parks, harbors, and avenues that saved Chicago from itself. To the right is the Chicago Board of Trade, which has one of the finest art deco interiors (and hell, exteriors) I've ever seen. After passing the Federal Reserve building, I cut across Federal Plaza and between the impossibly airy monolithic Mies van der Rohe-designed federal buildings. Then it's an approving nod up to Calder's Flamingo sculpture before I head down into the belly of the subway for the ride home to my neighborhood.

This is the greatest city in the world, and you won't convince me otherwise. Unless you're willing to front me a plane ticket to your city of choice for analysis purposes.

Man, you know what I hate?

I hate that when I sign into this blog, it tells me -- nay, admonishes me -- when my last post was. I live in a big, important city now. I'm busy doing big, important things. Nothing strange or anything of note ever happens here.

Nothing at all, including the following posts I've been saving up.

Funniest typo I've made all day

Applican't

"The die is cast."

After ranting out that last little post, one of my friends brought it to my attention that the saying "the dye is cast" could be useful if one interpreted it as "the cloth is colored -- there's no going back now." She also mentioned that it could have been a quote by Julius Caesar (purveyor of fine blended orange drinks and salad dressing).

So I looked it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alea_iacta_est

Turns out, the quote "The die is cast" is attributed to Caesar after all. The "die" refers to one of a set of dice, as in "the game has begun/the move is made." I like this meaning -- it pleases me. A Google search reveals that an awful lot of people use "the dye is cast" to mean the same thing. I guess I'm not completely against it, as the metaphor has some sense. And I am aware that similar bastardizations of sayings are what make this language great (and damn difficult to learn as a second language).

But... still. I cling to my outmoded belief and shake my tiny fist nonetheless.

Bad copy of the day award

Unfortunately, I've been seeing more and more "professionally edited" items online with terrible mistakes. I'm not sure if it's because of staffing cutbacks, increased usage of Web 2.0 user-generated foolishness, or a global conspiracy to cause me, personally, to go insane, but I've seen ridiculous crap popping up on AP and Reuters-type stories more and more. I don't always put it up as a BCD award, mostly because it would just be depressing. On to today's un-ignorable example*:


What does that even mean? What is the symbolism of throwing pigment? Has nobody ever heard of a, say, die-cast toy car, wherein metal is formed into a final, unchangeable shape? Aside from the questionable use of the metaphor, you can't just use different words that sound the same! Your phrase is meaningless! WHY AREN'T THERE MORE EDITORS LOOKING OUT FOR US? WHY, GOD? *breaks down into untintelligible sobbing noises*


Thank you for your time.

*Yeah, I was reading about Paula Abdul leaving American Idol. I never said I had much pride.