Chicago has its merits. For example: my apartment has a large garden in the front yard where I am sequestered if I wish to smoke because of my girlfriend Bertie's so-called allergic reaction to cigarette smoke, which she has failed to show any scientific documentation for, but that's another story. It could be 15 degrees and I'll be outside shivering trying to block the wind so I can light up a smoke. This is not the point I'm trying to make either.

So today after reading the paper and chasing my cat Nikita around the house for fifteen minutes I go outside for a smoke. the weather is perfect, no wind, and the right amount of clouds so I'm not under some naked sky of the sort they have in LA. My garden faces the sidewalk and has a row of tall shrubs about whose genus I have no clue, but they're big and provide me with a nice barrier to the people walking by. There's a park across the street, which is a one way street, so it's a quiet Midwestern street. I'm outside reading The Great Sheep Chase A Wild Sheep Chase but if you've already finished the thing we can always argue against that legion of nitpicking Alex Trabeckian jerks who demand every "t" be crossed. you know those nitpickers who think we need to research what we actually say. I suppose we could make an argument that the title of the book written in Japanese actually translates better to The Great Sheep Chase making them seem really unsmart. k]Know what I mean? --RK To his editor, who decides to leave the damn mistake in, if only to make things more complicated than necessary. by Haruki Murakami - a great book when I see this very pretty blond girl walking her pit bull. »