In which I am a Lunatic: a rant, a rave, a bunting, a balloon

Happy noontime in Chicago! I am writing this on my own computer. Yes, that's right, dear young McGillicudy is back, and she says hi.

Actually, Best Buy called me at 8:30 this morning (really, Best Buy? It's Saturday. I don't sleep that late, but really?) to tell me Gill was ready for pick-up. Happy as a Moose with a Muffin, I decide it's a good plan to walk the 1.5 miles to Best Buy even though my knees were sore. See, I figured that Gill and I would need some quality vegging time to celebrate her homecoming. So I figured some good exercise would offset the vegging. (I swear, I'm not that obsessed with my computer, but my mother's is so slow and clunky and I miss all my pretty word documents).

Anyway, as it happens they did not have the parts to transplant Gill's screen, so they refunded me $50 and I got to walk back 1.5 miles with an equally sick computer in 80 degree weather.

Along the way to and from Best Buy, I get to walk over the Chicago River. Between the houses and the Amtrack tracks/river is lots of brushy area where I sometimes see barn swallows. So excited am I to see city birds that are not starlings-sparrows (not even interesting sparrows, just boring old house sparrows)-gulls-pigeons, that I always wish I could somehow climb down there (for reasons I'm not really clear on, I also get this crazy urge to throw my cell phone off the bridge when I walk over it. I like my cell phone.), but that place is high on my list of Places I Do Not Want My Body Stashed because dude, they'd never find it. I did get to see two red-winged blackbirds chasing a crow, which is always good fun. And on my way back there was this indigo bunting just kinda chillin' on a telephone wire. That pretty much made my day. Totally made up for the whole walking three miles for a still-busted computer thing.

Stopped by Starbucks on the way home, read two Eula Biss essays out of Notes from No Man's Land. Begin Rave:
Okay, no, for serious, I know that I have a major crush on Eula Biss and that I am a nutcase who needs to calm down but y'all must buy this book. She writes about race in a way where I can actually read it. I don't have to feel secretly guilty for not being interested in a race-talk like usual. I think she manages to struggle on a personal level but balances her own tidbits with really interesting and more often than not horrifying but unique and interesting facts. Like, I don't feel as though I've already read this, like I usually do when I'm reading semi-impersonal essays about race. I think I slept funny, because I kept wanting to cry. Oh, speaking of crying, though, Eula Biss has the most finely developed sense of timing ever. She runs you almost into the ground with Sad and then makes a wryly hilarious side-comment that bounces you back up again, making you ready to face the next wave of Albeit-Interesting-Sad. Go buy it. I know, it won't be as cool without the barely legible "good luck with your writing" note (sorry, must brag) but it is fantastic. Read. Okay.

So I dragged myself the rest of the way home (actually, fortified with caffeine and Good Book + having sat down for a while, it was more like a slightly-less-than-brisk stroll). My building has three entrances, but I only have a key to get into one. Attached to this one was an overfilled pink balloon.

Why?

Why would you attach an overfilled balloon TO A DOOR?

You are just asking for someone to slam it between the doors, and it will pop, and all hell will break loose. I hate balloons, and could not bring myself to even try to get in that way. When I finally bypassed the door-that-requires-an-actual-key by using my little magnetic thinger to get into the basement and the elevator only to find another balloon in the elevator. Have I mentioned I do not like balloons? Why, why are balloons necessary to indicate things like open houses and baby births? All they do is wave ominously in the wind and then ALWAYS catch on something like a rough brick or a tree branch and then they pop. I hate balloons.

Well. Now that I've spent way more words than should ever be spent on Lunatic Phobias on my balloon issue, I am going to leave this place and watch some more crappy crime shows.