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.

She stops right in front of my hedges and I’m quiet so as not to surrender my presence. The girl cum pit bull comes right up to the hedge not even 5 feet away from me. Her pit bull seems confused by her stopping, its tongue is hanging out and it is staring right at me. So I’m as still as can be wondering why she stopped maybe she’s admiring this shrub in front of my house; I think maybe its a rare shrub. Its not that pretty or anything just green and tall. So she bends down and pulls off her shorts and thong panties right in front of me then begins to pee on my shrub. Its 11 in the morning and she’s peeing right in front of me while her pit bull watches me. At this point many lines are blurred in my consciousness. I wonder what the pit bull is thinking; it must be confused over who is being walked. maybe it’s happy about this. I can’t tell. I am trying not to think, my main preoccupation is with being as silent as possible so as not to disrupt the world around me with my burdensome presence. I concentrate on the sound of her peeing and the sound of the pit bull panting. I’m no longer trying to avoid the pit bull’s glaring eyes because it seems we’re in this together, bonded in a special way. Ten seconds that seem like ten hours later she is finished with her pee and her cell phone is ringing and she answers then moves away from my shrub quickly leaving me to stare at the puddle she’s left behind.