FireVaney

Never mind that the faucets for both the bathroom sink and the tub trickle no matter how tightly I twist the knobs to the right. On the bright side, the drains don’t clog. Even brighter, I don’t pay the water bill. And never mind that I hear every step made by the neighbor above. (And I don’t mean God.) He likes to drop things. I’m not talking about little thumps and bumps or creaks, but rather MAJOR NOISE just about whenever anyone moves around up there. And never mind the blindingly bright porch light next door. It’s left on all night and it’s aimed directly at my window. (Deliberately, of course.) And never mind that the lovely young lass next door doesn’t care who can hear her having sex. And I can’t say I’m a huge fan of so many uninvited guests—viz., the ants, the silverfish, the cockroaches, and the millipedes. I believe I’ve been quite tolerant of all the noisy human slobs who are, unfortunately, my neighbors. But surely they’re worse off than I am. Why else would they be livin...

So, maybe, probably, mayhap, I’ll be living several seemingly short blocks from my ex-girlfriend (who hates my guts), my loony great-aunt (who nobody speaks to), and the man who runs the theatre company I might’ve been kicked out of (jury’s still out on that one). That said, life might become more interesting with my probable move back to Edgewater. I’ll miss the energy of Lakeview, but I can’t say I’ve taken much advantage of it. I hate moving. I HATE IT, I HATE IT, I HATE IT. If I move, I won’t be moving until July. And yet already I can feel the pangs of stress that accompany the act of hauling all of one’s own crap to a new location. I’m reminded of the warning Ole Palahniuk offers in his Fight Club : “Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”  17 April 2001

The Playboy woman, whose old fogy folks don’t want her to rent the apartment to a cat owner, keeps calling Eryk. She keeps telling him how much she likes us (or likes him —although I get the sense that she’s not into guys—or perhaps she assumes he and I are a couple, this being “Boystown” after all). But Eryk will not part with that darn cat. * Although the Playboy woman pulled the “For Rent” sign from the building’s front door four days ago, she told Eryk that she’s showing the apartment “to a few more people.” Are we her fallback prospects? Either way, she is very friendly. But then personability is key when your job involves coaxing young women to disrobe and pose for a globally circulated publication. Then again, the place has been on the market for three months. So… she’s picky? Well, you gotta be a picky if you’re the one auditioning Playboy Playmates. Amirite?  18 April 2001  After being strung along for another week and a half, the Playboy woman told Eryk that her m...

You’re not gonna believe this. So, Eryk Eiríkr and I looked at a smallish two bedroom-ish apartment just five doors east of my current address. The woman who showed us the place (on behalf of her parents) works for Playboy magazine—for real! She has the arduous job of auditioning models—yes, that’s right, in the flesh. If we took the place, she told us she’d throw in a couple of Playboy T-shirts. The major drawback to living there, if we choose to do so (we’ll know tonight, after we look at several more potential bachelor pads), is that the one bath room is only accessible through one of the bedrooms. Meaning: One of us would have to sacrifice some privacy. 12 April 2001 Yeah, so, Eryk owns a high-maintenance feline named, Queenie. * I’ll explain. One may only pet this cat around her neck, under her chin, on most parts of her head, and up to halfway down her back. Touch her anywhere else and without warning she’ll bite you. She’ll also bite you once she’s had her fill of being pett...

A fellow tenant placed a fig tree in the lobby. Shortly thereafter, somebody took it. I never saw the tree, but I did see the sign. It was posted, presumably, where the tree had been placed. The sign demanded the return of the tree. I could not tell you if the tree-giver had secured permission from the landlord to place the tree in the lobby in the first place. I doubt it. This isn’t a building full of neighborly people, as far as I can tell. It’s a twelve story building full of strangers who don’t give a damn about disturbing their neighbors with the blasting of music or the late-night cries of sexual climax. While the lobby is spacious, the apartments here are all fairly small. The place shares some of the characteristics of a modestly priced hotel of the early twentieth century. But what sort of tree-lover would take a tree he or she presumed was up for grabs, and then, recognizing the error, not return it?  26 March 2001

Upon stamping the life out of the aforementioned roach, I sprayed my place end to end with Raid Max, replaced twelve roach baits, and sprinkled boric acid along the threshold along the door to my apartment. After that, I tried to eat my chicken burrito (which, by then, was cold). Whilst nibbling and chewing and reluctantly swallowing, I contemplated the purchase of a plug-in pest repelling doohickey. Such doohickies supposedly emit bursts of sound that drive certain unwanted critters away. It is unclear (to me) if said doohickies target all pests or just mice. Either way, after prolonged exposure, might such a doohickey scramble the neurons of my own brain? In light of these aforementioned cogitations I’ve elected to put off said purchase. Even so, the day may come when I make the purchase anyway. If the liberal use of insecticide doesn’t give me cancer, then the plug-in doohickey will surely drive me mad. I think you’ll agree, if given the Hobson’s choice, that madness is generally pr...

Following another full day of standing on my feet and pulling endless shots of espresso and steaming gallons of milk, I came home to find a roach lying on the metal rim of my bathroom sink’s drain. If you’re a plumber, or you know one, you might call said metal rim a “flange.” I am not a plumber. I do not know any plumbers—not personally, nor professionally. But, occasionally, I like to be accurate. So I looked it up and there you have it: “flange.” You’re welcome. It was a fat one—the roach, not the flange—nearly more than half as big as a Hot Wheels Redlines Porsche 917. (I own more than several.) I haven’t seen a live roach since last August, when I signed the lease on this walk-in closet with a kitchenette, toilet, sink, and tub. This roach on my sink’s flange, although on its back, was very much alive. Methinks it was playing dead. Upon laying eyes upon it, I gasped and leapt across the kitchenette’s floor and swiped my steal blue bottle of Raid Max from its home on the far corner...

So this one guy hops aboard a Red Line train and offers copies of his writing to perfect strangers. He says he’s seeking feedback. I’d seen him pull this stunt before, some three years ago, aboard a CTA bus. To me, it seemed like a ruse, a con, a ploy. If you actually took a look at one of his pages, he might ask, “How much would you pay for it?” Possibly, he’d mean it sincerely. He might even promise to include you on the Acknowledgments page when he finally found a publisher. Well, he didn’t find any takers today, on the “L,” nor three odd years ago, on the bus. Here's hoping he’d revised his magnum opus since the last time we shared public transit. In sooth, I wish I had the courage to discuss his work with him. But then he might’ve followed me off the “L” and all the way home. I might’ve felt compelled to invite him in for a sampling of my mother’s legendary borsht. And after spooning up the last of a delicate teacup full of it, he might’ve threatened me with the rusty marlinsp...

Erryk and Jeffie rent an apartment above a block of empty storefronts on the far north side of Chicago. Unless you’re a gang banger, or a vigilante martial artist, you wouldn’t want to be caught walking the streets of this neighborhood alone at night. At least that’s the general vibe. Teenagers hang out in the recesses of storefront doorways and smoke dope in the cold. Up and down the sidewalk all varieties of trash stick to mounds of snow and ice. Erryk called the cops a few nights ago, when a homeless drunk broke into the building and made a nest for himself in the stairwell. When the cops arrived, Erryk watched through the peephole as they thrashed the drunk with their fists and their billy clubs.  18 February 2001

She’s a cute, slightly waifish dirty blonde. I don’t know her name. Let’s call her… “Veronica.” She used to work at the Dominick’s Finer Foods over on Chicago Avenue. Maybe she still does. Maybe she avoids me whenever I shop there. It’s a big store and I’m usually zeroed in on all the shelved comestibles for sale. Welp, turns out Veronica’s a neighbor of mine. Couldn’t tell you which floor. (There are twelve.) Gimmie a break, I’ve met less than half the people who live on my floor, let alone whoever lives in the rest of the building. And those few I do kinda-sorta know, I don’t know any of them by name. Either way, most don’t smile or say hello. Maybe it’s me. The way I look. Maybe it’s my deodorant—or lack thereof. Could be it’s my natural musk. You know, like I have repellant pheromones or something. Even mosquitos avoid me. I dunno. Should I ask? I could ask, sure. But then all the expressionless folk who tend to look straight through me as they pass on the sidewalk, or on the sta...

Along with the stomping freak who uses the flipside of my ceiling as a floor, the folks with whom I share walls cannot tolerate silence. No, they must blast on repeat any of Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 singles of 2000 through their respective stereo’s speakers. This, in turn, forces me to blast all of my much less popular music to drown theirs out. It becomes a vicious circle of escalating sound. And perhaps the very point of loud music is to drown out all thought, fear, and pain. These days, who can bear to sit quietly and ponder life—let alone read a book? Indeed, the folks in this city—and perhaps the folks in every city—seemingly do whatever they can to stifle the natural inclination to think. At least, that is my impression. After all, the act of thought —the very act of reflection —necessarily slows production and consumption. And we mustn’t have that, no, no. Besides, we need not contemplate our lack of fulfillment or our actual worthlessness if we are too busy playing video ...

For the second time this week a girl—a beautiful girl—looked my way with desire in her eyes. I’m serious . It was desire! I tell you: DESIRE! And I did nothing— nothing! —but smile back. * This inaction, albeit chivalric , left me in a sour mood. Sour . SOUR! I left work a short while later hungry and ticked off. The weather outside: raining—no: sleeting! The fierce , unrelenting wind very nearly murdered an umbrella I’d owned for a decade. (Well, perhaps I owned it for only a half -decade, but still closer to a full decade than an actual half-decade. So, like, seven years? Six and a half? The point is that I’ve never owned an umbrella for this long in my entire life.) Whilst battling the elements, I stepped into a frigid puddle of dirty water— filthy, oily curbside water. It seeped through my left shoe, soaked the sock, and all but froze my foot to death. Amputation seemed a likely possibility. All this, only to find: no new issue of PerformInk . Meaning: I’d walked blocks...

Nearly everywhere coffee is served in this country you’ll find what we, at Chicago Coffee Cadre #7, call a “mixing station.” I.e., a stand where a patron finds plasticware, wooden stirring rods, a variety of sweetener packets, and creamer carafes. Additionally, our mixing stations (we have two) each feature a hole, six inches in diameter. Said hole exists as the opening above a hidden receptacle. Said receptacle awaits the rubbish that results from the addition of whatever you put into your coffee.  [If this is, indeed, you, have you ever considered just how many white / brown / pink / green / yellow / powder blue paper packets of sweetener you’ve ripped open and discarded in your lifetime? What if you had to keep all of those packets with you for the rest of your days? How on Earth would you ever get by if all idiotic “single-use” things—like sweetener packets and mixing rods—were outlawed?]  Most patrons of CCC #7 understand and appreciate the function of the hole in our re...

Ma bought me a futon. It’s twice as wide as the bed I’ve been sleeping on most of my life. So now I need to get rid of that old twin bed. But it’s a spare surface. For stuff. For piles of stuff. Yes, technically, the floor is a surface, too. So, what I mean is, the bed is a good raised surface. For stuff. For piles of stuff. Not that I have much stuff or many piles of it. But piles tend to multiply like gremlins  in water. Just ask StepDude. Three rooms of the house he shares with Ma are crammed with pillars of magazines and manuscripts and thick newspapers.  My new futon, like many futons, folds into a sofa. But I’ll have to take all the sheets off when I have company. Well, I guess I don’t have to, but it would be the hygienic thing to do. Or, maybe I just won’t have company. Should I change the pants I’ve worn all day before sitting on it? Nah. It’s not like I spend my days seated upon filthy surfaces. [Assuming I don’t venture onto a CTA bus or "L" train.] Rather, I sp...