Well, hello there, everyone! Yeah, I know, today I was supposed to be writing part 3 of the ongoing series I've been tackling here this week, detailing my own history with addiction and co-dependent relationships, as a way of providing context for some recent opinions I posted on the subject. But I'm up to the point now, though, where I'm ready to talk about the incredibly complicated relationship I had with my ex-girlfriend; and I realized that I would just do a real disservice to both her and me if I ended up rushing through that particular entry, or not getting my thoughts just exactly right. So, I've decided to defer it until next week, when I'm back in Chicago and can have this nice quiet apartment in order to write it, versus the continuous chaos of my parents' home in St. Charles, Missouri, which is where I am now (for the Thanksgiving holiday). So instead, today I thought I'd just get up some of the random notes I've been compiling here this week, simply about this and that and the other thing. I hope you enjoy, and I'll speak with you again on Monday.

--So, my parents convinced me to go out on 'Black Friday' with them today, and I'm still trying to decide whether it was a good or bad idea. For international readers who might be confused, 'Black Friday' is the term here in America for the day after Thanksgiving (an American holiday celebrating the fall harvest), wherein every store in America has these insane one-day sales in order to kick-start the holiday shopping season, and therefore every single person in this country goes out and actually shops on that day (hence the 'black' part of the phrase). And so Black Friday is always both kind of fun and kind of stressful every year at the same time - fun because there are so many people out, and such a feeling of kinetic energy in all these stores and malls, but stressful of course for the obvious reasons.

Of course, the best thing about going out shopping with my parents is that, parents that they are, they always end up picking up the bill at the end of it all. So, I finally got a new pair of shoes, which I've been needing for something like a year now; and I got a new pair of pants as well, and a couple of new sweaters, and we all had lunch together when it was all finally over, and that's always nice. And then of course it's always fun to go out with my dad in particular into forays like that, because my dad is just exactly as much of a bitter smartass as me, so we have a great time making fun of all the people around us and talking about how much we just want to punch everyone in pure disgust. (Man, my poor mom - I don't know why she even goes out in public with us when dad and I are together.) Anyway, so that was kind of fun...but I sure am damn glad it's over.

--Well, it's official - Chicago has now had more bank robberies in 2005 than in any other year in the city's history, including the Al Capone era during Prohibition. Sigh - yet another sad sign of just what this country has become because of the "leadership" of George W. Bush. Yeah, like we needed another one.

--Journal update, part 1: Last week I mentioned how I finally found out who wrote the overall plotline for the infinitely complex and entertaining "Evan Chan" 2001 online viral game, originally designed as a sneaky promotion for the Steven Spielberg movie A.I.; it was, in fact, this science-fiction writer named Sean Stewart, who apparently is just this fucking genius although I've never actually read any of his work. Well, anyway, a reader of mine named A.O. wrote in to let me know that Stewart actually has a page up at his site detailing his experiences with writing the game - of why he chose that particular storyline, of why the producers of the game decided to do all the freaky little things they did (including hiding clues in the A.I. television commercials, running classified ads in Turkish newspapers containing clues, even telephoning the more well-known game solvers in the middle of the night and leaving creepy-ass messages on their answering machines). And let me tell you, Stewart's little behind-the-scenes report is just absolutely fascinating, especially for those like me who actually followed along with the game in 2001 as it was unfolding, and tried to solve it themselves. Anyway, thanks, A.O., for the tip! (And I'm sure you get incredibly sick and tired of this, of course, but I can't hear your initials without starting to sing, "A! O! Let's go!")

--Journal update, part 2: Last week I was talking about utopian societies for some reason, and ended up gently poking fun of the Objectivists for their sometimes-cool but mostly-completly-fucking-wacko views of the world. Well, guess what I discovered this week? There's an entire online dating website devoted just to Objectivist hookups. Good Lord, could you even imagine trying to date a crazier person than an Objectivist? Well, that is, besides bisexual atheist urban artists who have a habit of divulging every secret in their life to the general public online? We all know what sons-of-bitches those people are.

So, regular readers will remember that my hearing aid broke last week, the very first night I got into St. Charles for the holidays - which just fucking sucked, because the entire reason I have the hearing aid in the first place is for weeks like this, where I am constantly interacting with other people from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. So, we made an emergency appointment with an audiologist here in St. Charles, which finally came a couple of days ago. And sure enough, the news wasn't good - it turns out something inside the hearing aid broke, and it had to be shipped off to the Siemens factory (and will be shipped back to me in Chicago sometime next week, after it's fixed - and thank God it's still under warranty). Right as we were getting ready to leave, though, my mom asked the audiologist, "I don't suppose you have something like 'loaner' hearing aids, like a car dealership does?" And the audiologist thought for a moment, then said, "You know, we do have a box of old hearing aids here, if you'd like to use one of them for the remainder of the week."

So that was fantastic, although as you can see in the above photo, my loaner hearing aid is one of those old-style ones, that are huge and actually hang over the top of your actual earlobe (versus my regular one, which is literally the size of a fingertip and fits down into my actual ear canal). And yeah, I definitely feel like a fuckin' grandpa when I'm wearing it, and am convinced that everyone is staring at it every time I'm out in public. But hey, it works, man, and that's all I really care about. So anyway, we'll see if I get my regular hearing aid back anytime soon, or if I'll be running around Chicago for a couple of weeks yelling "Zuh?" to everyone I meet.

--Early Christmas present! Leather suit jacket! Good Lord, I look so hip I want to kick my own trendy fucking ass! All kidding aside, though, there's actually a practical reason I requested this gift as well. See, regular readers of course know that I'm in the process of trying to open a new arts center in Chicago; and so in the last year I've been finding myself having to attend an increasing amount of high-scale artistic events in the city as part of this process, gallery openings and museum fundraisers and all that other frou-frou crap where I can meet rich patrons of the arts and pitch my business plan to them. And as pathetic as it is, and as much as I disagree with it, I've learned a very important lesson in this first year of attending such events; namely, rich patrons of the arts will judge the validity of your opinions solely on how expensive an outfit you're wearing. And this is frustrating to no end, needless to say, because you and I know that a person's wardrobe doesn't have the first single thing to do with how smart a person is, or how valid of a business plan that person has put together and is trying to pitch to others. But for now, I guess, if I want to get money from these people, I have to play their little game according the rules they themselves have invented; so unfortunately, like I didn't have enough goddamn things to worry about, I've also got the burden now of putting together a couple of expensive little outfits to wear to these high-scale events - you know, just trendy enough that everyone understands I'm an artist, but conservative enough that rich patrons don't hand me their fucking empty wine glasses because they think I'm a waiter (which, unbelievably enough, actually happened to me at one of these fundraisers last year).

P.S. Plus, well, okay, I admit it, I look smokin' in a black leather suit jacket. Ow, my ass! Who did that?