The Unknown Cynic

December 27, 2016 New Orleans, Louisiana As I'm sitting at a picnic table under an umbrella in the courtyard of the India House Hostel in the Mid-City section of New Orleans, I am reflecting on the past four (five?) days and nights that I've spent in the Big Easy. It's a good day for reflection. The sky is overcast, the ground is wet and the trees are still dripping a bit of the remainder of the latest shower. The temperature is noticeably cooler today, which is nice. I have just bid goodbye to a nice German girl who was hoisting her backpacks onto her shoulders, front and back. By her own admission, she has too much stuff. In one of her hands is a plastic bag full of items that would not fit into her luggage. I'm left to assume that she purchased some t-shirts or other memorabilia from New Orleans, perhaps as gifts for people back home, where she told me she is headed.  She strikes me as someone who is not a novice at traveling, and has stayed in many hostels

December 20, 2016 Chicago, Illinois I believe that I promised at one point to tell you about my experience with a part of the sharing economy that has become a large part of my life. As you know, I have been hosting guests through the Couchsurfing (CS) website for over three years. This has been a good opportunity to meet people from different countries and cultures. And I definitely have enjoyed the social aspect of it. Not long after I began hosting guests, there was an invitation on the local (CS) page to enjoy Thai food in a local host's home on a Sunday evening. This was definitely appealing to me, and I joined up. When I arrived at the upstairs apartment, I found that there were a lot more people than I had expected. Friday (the host - cute name, cute girl) explained that there were a few people from CS, some were from her community garden, some from Mealsharing, a couple of coworkers, etc. I asked her what Mealsharing was, and she started to explain how people s

December 19, 2016 Chicago, Illinois There's a blue Post-it Note bearing the number "3" stuck to the bottom-left corner of my computer screen at work. For the last month, I've begun my mornings by replacing the previous day's sticky note with a new number, counting down the days until I clock out for the final time at this job. Now that I've been into the single digits for almost a week, the number seems to be an accusation. It reminds me that I still have much to accomplish before I leave. This past weekend, I spent almost all of my time trying to get my apartment emptied and cleaned. It's been frustratingly slow trying to sell my belongings. Using Craigslist wasn't particularly successful. Many people asked questions about items they were interested in, but very few actually showed up and purchased them. I was lucky enough to get rid of the bigger, more expensive items, but I was deeply discounting much of the merchandise. I posted flye

November 23, 2016 Chicago, Illinois With the exception of a short stint in the ritzier River North neighborhood of Chicago, I've lived in the same apartment building on the south side for the last three years. The first two years, I rented a 400 square-foot studio on the 18th floor. I moved in without much. When I separated from my now-ex-wife, I pretty much took what would fit in my car. I had no furniture, no kitchenware, no electronic entertainment. I had planned to go back and get a few items, because there were plenty more than necessary for her. She, however, told me to give her a list of what I wanted, and she would decide what she would let me have. Fuck that. Not in the mood to kowtow to her over material items, I decided that I'd just start over and buy all new things. And thanks to IKEA, I was able to get the basics fairly inexpensively. Of course, there are always items that you discover you need later on. When I began hosting couchsurfers, I found th

November 19, 2016 Chicago, Illinois Hello Readers, It's been a few days since my last post. I've missed you. I apologize for allowing myself to get so distracted that I didn't take a few minutes at least to write something. I don't really have a good excuse, but my not-so-good one goes like this: I've been so busy at work and then with trying to sell off my belongings at home and Netflix. I've accomplished quite little that I had hoped to. I tell myself "tomorrow", but then I'm still tired and hungry and unmotivated when I get home from work. This morning I got all busy and motivated. After dropping my roommate off at the train station so she wouldn't be late for her new job, I went and hung flyers in all of the buildings in my apartment complex, even though I wasn't supposed to, according to management. Then I returned home to continue organizing my sale and putting out new items. My living room looks like a consignment

November 8, 2016 Chicago, Illinois It's election day here in America. I voted already, but have neither the time nor desire to watch the coverage of the polls. I'm still busy putting my belongings up for sale. I'll find out who won tomorrow morning on my way to work.  Unless the country blows up tonight. At any rate, I'm sharing another story that I composed in the past. This one was penned in 2003. I still remember writing it out longhand with a pencil on notebook paper while at work in a paper mill. And I recall how lost I felt at the time. I'd love to hear how it feels to you after you read it. Barbara Ann I don't exactly recall actually meeting Barbara Ann Hanson.  I was the new kid in the second grade, having moved to this small, Southern community from the northern Midwest.  Everything was so different here.  I had a little difficulty adjusting to the new environment.  I was a little shy.  After some of the other children had check

November 5, 2016 Chicago, Illinois As I mentioned in the previous post, I came across some older writings that I had tucked away in a file case. This particular story I find fitting because I'm currently trying to organize my belongings for sale and I find myself wondering how I managed to collect all of these items that I have surrounding me. This happened probably about six years ago... On an absolutely gorgeous spring Saturday afternoon, my daughter and I decided to put off our chores for a while and retrieved our bicycles from the garage for a ride. We pedaled first to a sandwich shop where we split a meatball sub sandwich. It's okay, we weren't riding for the exercise anyway. With no particular destination in mind, we ended up following a series of bright yellow signs guiding us to an estate sale in one of the neighborhoods off of the main street.  There were several vehicles parked along the streets in front of and beside the corner house where the sa

November 5, 2016 Chicago, Illinois Today I began taking pictures of my belongings and throwing them up for sale on Craigslist. I came across a folding file with some of my older writings inside. I thought I'd share a couple of poems that I wrote several years ago, back when I was inspired to write poetry. Hope you enjoy. The Lighthouse Above the waters tall she stands The great lady guiding me Though beaten by the surf and sands Unmovable and firm is she Face to the wind, she does not stoop Nor cower when fierce storms rage She protected lives of countless men Steering vessels in another age If not for her constant light That bright beacon from her lens The world may have had fewer ships The sailor fewer friends Joceyln At times when I am treading gingerly The darkened alleys my mind has created I gaze at her while she is sleeping So peaceful, so trusting, so dependent At this mountainous task I ofte

November 1, 2016 Chicago, Illinois Holy crap! It's the first day of November and the daytime temperature reached 75 (where's that key?...dammit!...must be some way to....) DEGREES Fahrenheit (24 Celsius) this afternoon. It's unbelievably warm for this late into autumn. But I'm not complaining a bit. The trees are exploding with color, and outside is absolutely gorgeous. My roommate made arepas - a taco-like thing from South America- filled with chicken and avocado, and we decided to go outside and eat our dinner picnic-style on the grassy common area of the apartment complex. Maybe Chicago is trying to woo me into staying. If so, it's pulling out all the stops. This may actually be a historic year. The Chicago Cubs baseball team is in the World Series for the first time in 71 years, and haven't won the championship since 1908. After going down three games to one over the weekend, it looked pretty dismal. But they have clawed their way back, and toni

October 27, 2016 Chicago, Illinois It's 12:01pm and I'm sitting at my desk surveying the amount of paperwork scattered around atop its surface. Among all of the documents relating to our upcoming ISO audit are a parking ticket that I should probably go ahead and pay, and a Chicago Board of Elections notice giving me the information on the location of my assigned polling place on November 8. I have no intention of standing in line waiting to cast my ballot. I'll either do early voting at another location, or take the option of voting by mail. The current song on the radio is Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again".  Listening to David Coverdale belt out the power-ballad brings me back to the days when I first had access to cable, when MTV actually played music videos, and the visuals of Tawny Kitaen lap-dancing two Jaguar XJS's was wreaking havoc on my religion-induced celibacy. Earlier today, one of my friends alerted me to an online quiz designed to asc

October 24, 2016 Chicago, Illinois I have five bosses here at GND Machine. Two, brothers George and Donald are the original owners who started the business in a home garage back in the 1960s.  They are now in their mid-to-late 70s, and still come in every day to the shop. George, who is the older of the two, and is pretty mellow and easy to deal with, usually arrives around 11am. He will change into his uniform, grab a coffee, then walk around the entire shop greeting every single worker before he begins to work on whatever project he has going. Donald, on the other hand, comes in around 9am, greets whomever is in the office at the time, and then turns into Mr. Crankypants. He'll spend hours sitting next to Paul, the engineer, fighting with him about how something should be designed. This is fun for us, because Paul, who thinks he is never wrong about anything, arguing with Donald, who wants everything done his way, is just comical and breaks the monotony.  My other th

October 21, 2016 Chicago, Illinois One of the perks of my job is the free coffee that is available throughout the day. It is a godsend in the morning when I need some assistance in joining the world of the conscious. I'm not trying to say that it's Starbucks or Peet's quality coffee. We don't have a Keurig machine.  Our coffee gets delivered to the shop in white boxes from a coffee service which also infrequently maintains our antique Bunn restaurant model drip coffee maker. It's actually pretty simple to use. Lighted toggle switches turn on and off the hot plates on which the glass pots rest. Another switch is pushed once to begin a cycle that sprays heated water over the ground coffee that rests in a paper filter held by a removable basket. The coffee itself comes in prepackaged bags that are just the right amount for one pot of the liquid version of the "magical fruit" that is thought to have originated from Ethiopia back in the 11th century.

October 21, 2016 Chicago, Illinois Happy Friday, Friends.  I'm sitting at my desk in the office of my workplace. It's pretty quiet today. The office manager and I are mostly alone in here, with the occasional interruption of someone walking in to ask a questio... hang on.. Okay, back. Angela, the office manager just told me sotto voce to "listen to the radio", her code for me to grab my phone and begin dialing. For the last week, we (mostly her, but she enlists my help when I'm in here) have been trying to be the 25th caller at 10am, 12pm, and 5pm to the local radio station and recite the silly phrase advertising the station's format. So far, she has been the 11th, the 15th, and the 18th caller. I was the 12th the other day, but mostly it's just a busy signal that is constantly in my ear after dialing over and over. I find myself keeping my head behind the computer screen as I call, hiding a bit so the boss doesn't suspect that I'

October 17, 2016 Chicago, Illinois It's been a busy week again. I seem to pack my days and evenings up with work and play. This includes art shows, music venues, mealshares (I promise I'll explain that soon), and whatever else gets me out of the apartment. I ended up being a bit tired this weekend, and stayed in watching Netflix for a few hours. The clouds helped to convince me that it would be an okay idea. The only thing that I wrote was a mildly irritated email to the property management about the car in the parking lot with the alarm that STILL continues to go off by itself.  Despite the assurances I received by way of reply today, I'm currently listening to the intermittent yet constant beeping of the horn. Trying to take it in stride. I just finished cooking a spaghetti squash that my roommate got at an organic farming co-op yesterday. My first time ever trying it. I made a homemade sauce while it was roasting in the oven. As soon as it cools a bit, then be