Random Thoughts

1. All over the city sidewalks you can see the ghosts of tiny disasters. Nothing too radical or tectonic. Just evidence left behind that someone was recently disappointed. Or confused.

(Every so often, there will be a ghost of an advanced disaster. I once followed a trail of blood from dumpster around a block to the front door of a house. I Nancy Drewed my way to the conclusion that whoever it was had cut themselves on some glass and had to go for stitches. Of course, I never discovered the real story. Maybe there was foul play and I misread the clues.)

Often the ghost involves food:

A torn paper bag, surrounded by 4 oranges. One is half eaten.

An opened styrofoam container, skidded over with cake and icing. The icing is pink and blue. There is a large Reebok shoe print in the middle.

A hamburger with one bite out of it, resting on a short wall at the bus stop.

An empty Frosty cup on the ground. Five feet away is the actual Frosty.

Part of a CD by the curb.

A whole unopened package of sausage links resting in the sun.

I wonder what happened in the aftermath. What typhoon did the wings of that smirched cake set off?

2. Tonight, walking from Ashland to Broadway, I discovered a face up penny in the crosswalk. I almost passed it over. I've mentioned my preoccupation with face up pennies before, and being fairly superstitious, I turned right around in front of the coolster dudes at Schuba's and claimed it.


I figured this penny to be especially lucky since it was A) Beat to hell and B) in a busy cross walk. Luck builds with potential danger in retrieval. (I once saw a penny on the third rail of the EL tracks. Untold ecstasy awaits the brave.)

When I came up from picking it up, however, the bus passed me by.

I'm still holding out hope. Maybe I'll win the lottery tomorrow.

Speaking of which...


3. The Mega Millions Jackpot has advertisements like this up all over town:

Based on what I've heard as the nightmare lottery winners suffer in their post-win years, these ads offer a grim visual that I don't think the designers intended.

Or maybe they did, who knows?

4. Favorite word this week:

Flum⋅mox

  /ˈflʌməks/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [fluhm-uhks] Show IPA

–verb (used with object) Informal.

to bewilder; confound; confuse.

1837, cant word, origin uncertain, probably from some forgotten British dialect. Candidates cluster in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, southern Cheshire and also in Sheffield. "The formation seems to be onomatopoeic, expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily." OED

5. Least Favorite word:

Snatch.