...conveniently located minutes south of downtown

Right now I can't sleep because the hippies that live next door to me have friends over and they are being really loud. The hippies usually amuse me. Yancy is almost always barefoot and has long lopsided dreadlocks. He is from Tennessee and counts the day he got a job at Wild Oats as a pivotal moment in his life. Sandra has a job, but I had been drinking when Yancy told me where she works and I don't remember what he said. They talk about dropping out of school the way some people talk about finding God. I love the hippies when they are too excited about buying locally produced honey or sharing their concerns about my bicycle. I love them less when they are playing bongos in the attic over my bedroom or laughing loudly on the porch outside my window when I am trying to sleep.

Disappointed by the fact that I couldn't find a bachelor party hat comparable to the glittery penis headband made for bachelorette parties, I got creative and constructed one for Taylor made out of the penis headband and two "Jumping Jolly Pussies". He also received a "Boob Face" fake nose and glasses novelty item.

These are my friends Taylor and Joy. They are getting married next weekend. Tonight is Joy's bachelorette party. We are going to go to Wild Boys and then to TD's East.

The fact that I was receiving free cable was recently discovered by the cable company. As a result of this discovery I have been left only with local channels, public access, WGN, and inexplicably, the NASA channel. Although I am still somewhat in denial (over the past several weeks my obsessive checking of channels numbered higher than 25 has waned from once an hour to once every several days), I have decided that this sudden loss is possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me. I only had cable for a few months, but even that short period of time changed my view of life in ways I didn't like. I consider myself to be witty and intelligent, but after several weeks of watching Best Week Ever and the innumerable other comedian-commentated shows it has spawned on VH1 I realized that TV watching had reached an entirely new level of passivity. I no longer even needed to make fun of asinine celebrities and reality shows myself. VH1 has hired people to do it for me.

As I slowly emerge from my cable-induced stupor, I realize I need something to fill the space in my life that TV briefly occupied. I no longer remember what it was I did in the days before I had 72 channels, although I suspect it has something to do with the many books that line the shelves in my bedroom. Looking at them now they seem so much less interesting than they once did, like something that would have entertained a less savvy me. Something I did before I knew about the 40 most awesomely badder celebrity hair moments ever or before I knew what Ashlee Simpson does in her day to day life (hint: it has nothing to do with boring old books).

So in the interest of filling the time it will take to heal the IQ-depleting wounds that I suffered as a result of my cable viewing I have started this blog.