By any stretch of the imagination, tonight was supposed to be spent a) in a bed, b) sleeping in said bed, c) gathering my strength by sleeping in said bed and d) prepping for a 9 a.m. race and gathering my strength by sleeping in said bed.

None of those four conditions has been fulfilled. Instead, I’m running around a 75-year-old building that looks like a castle, studying up on arcane history for 150 articles that will compose the largest feature ever - by far, at 30 pages - this magazine has ever seen. Excuse the emphasis, but this is going to be the best fucking issue. Ever. And the publication has been around since 1880.

So much for the race.

Just 48 short hours ago, I listed my somewhat dicey turns of phrase that will inevitably appear in print. So - the poorly-chosen phrase updates for Thanksgiving Day are

• ‘four separate glacial periods between Newfoundland and Ireland’
• ‘compared to an astronaut, Captain Nemo and Lewis and Clark’
• ‘Anyone feel like a luau?’
• ‘an obscure hamlet in rural Alabama’
• ‘the original temple to our mother goddess’

By the numbers, I’ve ’slept’ (read: stayed overnight, working) at the office two (2) times in three (3) nights; I’ve made approximately one hundred seventy four thousand, three hundred twelve (174,312) individual keystrokes and consumed five (5) bags of coffee grinds. The grinds were consumed in liquid form, but I have no idea how many cups that equals.

And just for good measure, I’ve given twenty-two (22) dirty looks to coworkers who say asinine crap like ‘hey, you look tired.’

Best. Fucking. Issue. Ever. Give me your address and I’ll send you a copy when it’s printed in January. Maybe.

The ‘this’ in the above title refers to ‘staying up literally all night at the office working on a story – or, more specifically, 150 of them.’ ‘Shit’ refers to ’shit.’

The clock on my machine reads 4:36 a.m., meaning that I’ve been staring at some form of an LCD screen and typing for the better part of the last 20 hours. And at this point, I think I’m going to make it through the next day without a major breakdown or methamphetamine. Granted, working this late and writing has its peripheral creative benefits, with inadvertent fun phrases working their way into my articles. Thus far, I’m planning to publish

• ‘Show Me the Money: The Financial Godfather’
• ‘tubular bells’
• ‘respite from war’s horrors’
• ‘Canada, Eh? Going International’
• ‘the proud papa of one hell of an idea’
• ‘this modern litigious environment’
• ‘the anti-climax of an empty banquet hall’

At this point, I can’t tell if my writing reflects a mindset that’s either slap-happy or apathetic – and whether those above phrases are sheer genius or deranged meanderings that shouldn’t see the light of day.

And I wasn’t joking about 150 articles. I’m finishing number 47 (‘Bells are Ringing: The Carillons, Restored’) as we speak.

I had a conversation yesterday that piqued my interest. I was walking out of a training session, discussing my former involvement with sixosix magazine with a classmate, and it turns out she’s pretty much doing the same thing we all are: trying to figure out just what the hell is going on. You can use your own definition of what I’m talking about, since I’m mostly interested in what’s going on in the general case.

Side note, in the interest of full disclosure. I have no idea how I made it to my class Saturday morning, given that I was still at the Cubby Bear at 1:30, rocking out to Cracker, my favorite band of the last, oh, 12 years. Unfortunately, the pic I snapped of the band didn’t turn out. See above: it’s more of a night-vision laser show than a band onstage. But I digress.

To that end, she’s been keeping a journal for the last ten or so years, and plans to do something with it. What that thing may be hasn’t yet become clear, but obviously whatever may or may not be in her notes will be great fodder for a book.

If found this intriguing, as I’ve been keeping a running tab of interesting stories that could be used to flesh out characters, as a novel has sometimes been known to do. A few highlights follow.

Oh, you silly kids and all your hipster irony. The Washington Post reports on ‘kill whitey’ parties, where a DJ named ‘Tha Pumpsta’ screams, appropriately (inappropriately?) ‘kill whitey!’ into the mic to get the crowd moving. He does this in a hip, self-deprecatingly ironic way, of course.

Bad date stories. A friend recently told me about her worst first date ever, which involved drunkenness, the guy’s parents and a hair fetish. Classic.

Men who embody the word ‘irony,’ in a non-ironic way. For example, a man who works for the Cincinnati bus company who relied on me to guide him around the public transit system of an unfamiliar city.

I’m sure there are more examples. If only I could document the unintended idiocy of everyone.

Myself included.

Item to Be Pondered: Did I make up that fairy tale? I’ve had at least three comments - some posted, some in person - regarding the supposed nonexistence of the coffee shop that was Good. My earlier post ‘losing donuts, gaining yuppies: a fairy tale’ reference a coffee shop around the corner that moved to another location, four doors north. But these three inquiries, one of which came from my roommate, questioned the existence of this shop. For the record, the papered-up shell of where used to be is still there. Maybe I’ll snap a pic tomorrow. But apparently I live in my own fairy tale, where I’m the only one who can see Good.

It was a strange weekend, in that I was true to my new ideal of getting up early to be ‘proactive’ or ‘a go-getter’ or whatever smarmy adjectival phrase you want to assign to the idea that weekends shouldn’t all be spent sleeping and partying.

I was up by 7:25 and to a (non-compulsory) training class on Saturday morning. That was a good start, but I needed to make the streak last both days.

Today I was up by 7:10, ran errands in Evanston, was home by 9:30, stopped by a coworker’s house and went to the bar to watch Arsenal lose, all by 10:15 a.m. [Side note: Chelsea won on a horrible, sloppy goal that ricocheted off Drogba’s knee - a £24 million striker can’t kick the ball? - and just ‘happened’ to bounce in the right direction. Dammit.] However, when I was returning home yesterday, I caught a glimpse of the Thunderbirds, the Air Force’s pattern flying squad.

My obsession with the Thunderbirds goes back, way back, back when I wanted to be a pilot, back to the days of the Dayton Air Show, when my dad snapped a picture of the four jets streaking over us in formation. While the picture didn’t turn out, I’ve had this romanticized notion of what the image would look like - which, incidentally, is remarkably similar to the cover of nearly every air show program in existence - and I’ve wanted to get that shot ever since.

So I see these F-16s streaking across the Chicago skyline from the window of my train and feel like a kid in a candy store. And this kid in a candy store is also hopped up on blow and is about to see his first R-rated movie in a few hours, so you could say I’m pretty excited. ‘Tomorrow,’ I think. ‘Tomorrow, I’ll grab the camera and head down to the air show.’

Sunday day dawns, bright, clear and cool. I start reading ‘The Hours’ on the train to Evanston and, as I get to just that transcendent point where the words coming through my headphones fade to the level where I no longer hear Iggy Pop telling me he’s ‘the world’s forgotten boy / the one who searches and destroys,’ (oddly appropriate lyrics for a novel based on Virginia Woolf) and the words cease to be printed on the page but somehow tangible, I have a revelation about [insert personal revelation here, self-discovery nonsense, you get the picture].

The day’s starting strong.

But just before Drogba’s piss-poor, yet heart-rending, goal, I hear the Thunderbirds are not flying today, since apparently something fell off one of the jets during yesterday’s performance. I’ve been waiting for a year to see this effing show and now the team’s not performing? Arsenal lost? Today’s horoscope said change was in the air - that must be it.

Suffice to say I did still make it to the air show and, with the extra time I found on my hands that should have been taken up with the Thunderbirds, we took in a Sunday matinee. Maybe things would turn out after all.

Tomorrow: Can I keep my early-morning streak going? If you find me unemployed next week, you’ll know the answer.

Upside to the day: I did get some kickass air show photos, though. Look to the photo gallery in the upcoming weeks. With a 300mm zoom, I could see the facial expressions of parachuters.

I’ve been trapped in ‘contemporary conference commons’ for the last few days, after entertaining high-level dignitaries like the mayor of Evanston - and a seemingly interminable number of undergraduates who would like nothing more than to get drunk, not listed to longwinded presentations - since last Thursday. It’s now 3 a.m., and I’m waiting for the car that will whisk me off to O’Hare for a flight to San Francisco.

By the numbers.

648: Number of photographs taken.
352 (approximately): Number of undergraduates running around like, well, college kids.
3: Number of daily newsletters written, edited, proofed and printed solely by yours truly.
0: Number of alcoholic beverages consumed.

It’s really that last number that troubles me so much, considering what I do consists of a) inane conversation, b) photo of said poor conversationalist, c) awkward attempt on my part to escape, repeated a goodly number of times. Just to add some spice to the mix, sometimes I take photos of old men and children. A glass of Scotch would be more than welcome.

Songs that keep me sane: ‘Intro,’ Martina Topley-Bird, and ‘E-Pro,’ Beck. It was decided that in order to survive the final slide show - which I’m missing! I’m leaving early! Ha! - and its mundane subject matter, good songs were necessary. Dave and chose ‘Intro,’ a funky little number that sounds like a mushroom-addled Nina Simone, and ‘E-Pro,’ which is simultaneously accessible to the average undergraduate while remaining delightfully nerdy and elitist. Ah, subversive PowerPoint presentations.

After a long, long day of work, there’s nothing quite as refreshing as wallowing in the pain of others. Or reminding yourself that your life could be worse, whichever. So traipsed on over to PostSecret and let the pathos flow.

In the hallways of an endless, anonymous confessional, there has to be a lesson to be learned. My first reaction - is this my secret? ‘I laugh at the pain of others?’ - was to take the flippant route and say ‘of course the stripper said she loved you’ or ‘no wonder you don’t have friends (you’re ugly and have a bad disposition),’ but for every jokey, cheekily ridicule-ready posting on the site, five others with the emotional punch of a shotgun (ironically) mock your mockery.

Apparently the Buddha was right with his ’suffering is the universal condition’ shtick. Tonight’s take-home message, which changes depending on the time of day I look at the site, my mood at the time, etc., was that yes, you’re a horrible person, you sender-of-postcards-to-PostSecret. But here’s why I keep coming back: I’m so much worse.

Let’s hope this site doesn’t fall into Oprah’s hands: The last thing the world needs is an army of glassy-eyed drones, free from their shackles of guilt purchased for 37 cents a pop, overrunning the countryside.

Dammit. There I go being flippant again.

Fact of the day: Lance Armstrong’s resting heart rate. It’s freaking 32 beats per minute. He’s an effing robot.

According to a comment made by James on Sunday’s post, I should ‘consider the appropriateness of the words “karma” and “attenuated,”’ both of which appeared in a discussion on Don Quixote and conventional wisdom. And he’s right: I wrote ‘attenuated’ when I mean ‘attuned,’ so points for James. I guarantee - I can say this with some confidence, after a prior mixup involving ‘emphatically’ and ‘empathetically’ - I won’t have problems with an inversion on that particular word pairing again. I’m going to reserve the right to use ‘karma’ in the given context, however. Good to know I have editors out there; otherwise I wouldn’t learn anything.

On to the sick humor part of the equation: I love it when small children make age-inappropriate jokes, as is the running gag on ‘Wonder Showzen.’ Were it not for a plug from Neil some time ago, I would no have watched for more than a minute or so, as the show is just freaking psychedelically twisted … but then comic brillance ensued.

Scene: The viewer is treated to a first-hand walkthrough of a chicken slaughterhouse, finding out just how an incubated egg becomes your Swanson TV dinner, while three or four kids give their Mystery Science Theater-style voiceovers.

Plantive-sounding boy: [Watching drumsticks being loaded into tin trays] I wish they could make a mother’s love.
Obviously Adderall-ed girl: [Without missing a beat] They do. It’s called boxed wine.

It’s not often that I recommend a show on MTV. It’s technically MTV2, but still.

Newly-discovered semi-old-skool classic album: ‘Polydistortion,’ Gus Gus. This album’s neither that old, being from 1997, nor that classic, as it’s not exactly in heavy rotation, but I’ve heard at least three of the songs on it in different contexts, from Thievery Corporation mixes to a track in the iTunes rotation for some time to an obscure Oakenfold mix. And gee whiz if the rest isn’t great stuff too. Standout tracks: ‘Believe’ (is that a cowbell I hear? You know, fever and the only prescription and all that, said Christopher Walken), ‘Gun’ (but only with your headphones on or the bass way up), ‘Why?’ (you never ask that question to a Fender Rhodes) and ‘Polyesterday’ (which, after repeated listens, may in fact be better than the Thievery remix).

Two hours after I exited a mosh pit on a baseball field, courtesy Death From Above 1979, I uttered the phrase ‘you know, I’m going to spend the night with a whiskey and the new Harry Potter,’ at which point I was called a ‘tool’ or somesuch. Instead of sticking to my plan, however, I ended up babysitting a six-month-old. Too bad the parents didn’t factor in the cost of future therapy sessions because they left their highly impressionable child in the hands of three people who spend the better part of the evening laughing at Reno 911!

So I started book six today. As in this morning. Then went to the office for eight hours. Then to the gym. Then back home. To finish the book. And I did. I suggest you do the same. I wasn’t into the first 400 or so pages as much as I was to, say, book five, as it seemed like Her-Officer-of-the-British-Empire Rowling has fallen prey to life as the imitation of art; she writes this one anticipatingly, provokingly - because she knows the scrutiny to which every possible thread of this one will be subjected. The first books stood on their own, but each subsequent addition must work on the same framework. While still expanding the story.

That being said, Oh! Yes! I did finish it in one day because it deserves so! Book seven can’t come soon enough.

Sometimes work is great. I’m creating, designing, writing, delegating and (add your gerund of choice here) with sunny abandon, happy to be alive. But then, not two hours later, I’m falling asleep at my desk and making snide comments to coworkers for no apparent reason. Work has officially turned into This Really Sucks mode. Theories:

- Tidal fluctuations [unlikely]
- Hong Kong’s major market, the Hang Seng, closing down 0.18 percent [world markets make me *shiver*]
- The ending to Old Yeller hitting me like that time Stephen King was mowed down in the middle of the street [impossible: never actually seen this movie]
- Overwhelming workload getting the best of my mood-buoying crack habit [highly likely]

Anyone? A cookie for the best explanation - I’m at a standstill myself.

Anticipated music event of the week: Intonation Music Festival. Union Park’s going to be rocking this weekend. The Decemberists: Check the catchy little number ‘Sixteen Military Wives,’ complete with a Rushmore-style video. Jean Grae: Underground hip-hop from a former Herbaliser collaborator. Andrew Bird: Formerly with the Squirrel Nut Zippers, now doing the funkiest violin work since Jean-Luc Ponty in the ’70s. And Prefuse 73!

The ups and downs of the weekend left me grasping at straws, much like Warren G’s unfortunate female friend at the beginning of Dr. Dre’s classic ‘Deez Nuts’:

Warren G: Hey did what’s-his-name done get at you yesterday?

Warren G’s lady: Who that baby?

Warren G: (singing) Deez nuts!

It’s the old misdirection gambit, during which things appear to be going in one direction, but are actually going somewhere completely different. Uneasy feelings that something went completely awry during my party Friday night - think Sublime’s ‘What Happened?’ - strange encounters with people who say ‘I’ve known who you are for years, but you don’t know me,’ dancing with my former bosses (two of them simultaneously), breaking into the apartment of a Northwestern student (in all fairness, he did give us the keys), getting more birthday-wishing phone calls on the 24th rather than on my real birthday, et cetera: Wow. No wonder I’m still getting a handle on events. I leave you with the above: Bar gift certificates and a woman’s shirt. I think the symbolism is evident, showing that despite the guillotine of existential dread hanging over our mortal heads, we find time to express ourselves in frivolous and fleeting orgiastic spurts of desperate grabbing for the threads of meaningful interaction.

In short, despite the nuttiness, the weekend was a good party.

Board game of the month: Trivial Pursuit. So the power went out yesterday afternoon. What the hell was I supposed to do with myself? It was a little hot to head down to the Taste of Chicago, so we broke out the Trivial Pursuit. Did you know, for example, that Myles Standish was the only professional soldier aboard the Mayflower? There’s your next cocktail party tidbit.

Look at a birthday celebration like a Cadbury Creme Egg, the kind you get during an Easter egg hunt: You unwrap the foil with some nervousness, which is part A, the beginning, before enjoying the first bite of chocolate and sugary goo, which is part B. The next few bites are pure enjoyment of candy goodness, all considered parts C, before then you find yourself getting sick of this too-rich treat: part D. The metaphor:

Part A: ‘Oh, shit, it’s my birthday. Maybe I’ll actually have fun this year.’
Part B: ‘Thanks for wishing me well, everyone. This is a pretty good day.’
Part C: ‘It’s great to see everyone at my party. I hope you’re all having a good time celebrating,’
Part D: (disintegration into drunken stupidity)

Thanks all for coming out.

Once you get to the phase of your life during which things become, well, repetitive, you tend to fall into a set routine. Part of my typical work commute involves reading the front section of the Chicago Tribune, then moving on to skim the sports pages’ baseball scores before opening the Tempo section and immediately folding the penultimate page in half with one forceful, yet gentle, motion and, without even glancing at the comics - OK, fine, sometimes I read ‘Get Fuzzy’ - beginning to solve the day’s crossword in my head. Without writing anything down. The aura of flat-out freaking brilliance surrounds me every morning as I step off the train, mitigated only by the fact that no one is paying attention.

The point here is that yes, I have my brain-teaser puzzle pastime. So when this freaking sudoku (or is it Sudoku? Dammit, I don’t even know if it’s capitalized) thing came along, threatening to usurp my beloved word game, I looked at it like I’ve looked at many other brash pop-trends-come-lately - liking Maroon 5, watching ‘Desperate Housewives,’ reading Harry Potter - namely, with complete disdain.

The only problem is that I ended up loving all of the above items. I will not do this with sudoku, which this morning I noticed was placed above the crossword in the RedEye. Above the crossword? Not on my train. Look at it! Witness its smarmy integers! A 16th-century Spanish cardinal of the Inquisition would have a field day enumerating the ways the devil is manifest in those ordered squares of numbers. I already have plenty of addictions, and I don’t need a number game clogging the brain pathways responsible for remembering a four-letter city in Oklahoma.*

Programming environments of the day: JavaScript and Flash. Check out the beatnik industries image gallery beta test and witness the power that is a camera phone, Photoshop and a Flash-based photo show.

*Enid.

I had the pleasure of spending both Friday and Saturday nights each with a close friend and, while I thoroughly enjoyed my time, both nights left me with the same feeling, albeit expressed in two different ways.

Similar theme from both nights: We all need to move on, to find that which truly drives us, and since we’re all able, capable people, our skills, talents and dedication will see us safely through. In the specific case, I need to do some real work in finding that path.

Divergent theme from both nights: I should (a) work on the Next Great American Novel and continue writing and editing, or (b) get serious about this law school business.

Either way, it’s something to work on.

News of the day: Apple to move to Intel chips. Yes, I’m a geek. Apple is (most likely) going to announce tomorrow that it’s changing its chipset from the PowerPC line to Intel processors, which is going to create some sticky issues – if you can trust the Wall Street Journal and News.com. Given my rant of a few days ago on problems in reporting, that may not be a safe bet. For a slightly more detailed discussion of the matter, make sure to read John Gruber’s brilliant discussion of the matter.

There’s a strange dichotomy between the person that I am at work – this includes transit to and from, as well – to the person that I am at home. It’s an interesting phenomenon that every day I come home with some sort of ‘yes, tonight I’m getting my shite together, I’m going to pay those bills and do that laundry and return those phone calls and e-mails and then I’ll call that soup kitchen and see when I can swing by to volunteer and, and, and …’ but of course none of it happens. Home has become that magical volition-sapping drug that makes me stare for hours at eBay and watch inane sitcoms, as in, ‘dammit, why was I watching Dharma & Greg again?’

Maybe I should try to bring some of that work environment, that let’s-get-this-project-done atmosphere. At least I would drink less beer that way.

Obsession of the moment: Tiger Woods 2005. I was given prior warning, but paid it no heed. Now I pass this warning to you: Do not start playing this. It’s a freaking narcotic that leaves you tapping your veins, tying off and screaming, ‘more! More! I need to score a 75-under on a four-day tournament at Coeur d’Alene! My handicap is only 17-under!’ and then you realize you’re a junkie for a video game that emulates golf. Not that this has happened.