Well, it turns out that Facebook isn’t a complete piece of shit that singlehandedly is eroding what little privacy we have left while simultaneously reducing our already short attention spans!

It does have its moments.

Okay, okay – I’m not even talking about how my friends are on a kick posting old pics of us, pics that make you sigh nostalgically and say, “Ah, youth.”

Pics like this!

I mean, Lakeview Links? That became some cool small concert venue that I never went to, and now it’s been torn down by the CTA to make way for the New! and Improved! Belmont El Station.

I finally figured out how to add a high school to my Facebook profile. I graduated from Monte Vista outside of San Fran, but my frosh year I was still in Seattle, at Eastside Catholic. And some of those kids are the ones I’d love to reconnect with.

So once I found some of them, I saw that there was even a group for people who went to Sacred Heart School, which is where I attended junior high. The first person on the list was Mrs. Gilroy, one of my 7th grade teachers!

Mrs. Gilroy was great – she taught Art amongst other classes, and I tend to romanticize her quite a bit. I’m pretty sure she told us she used to be a guitar-playing hippie nun once upon a time. Well, I befriended her on the ol’ FB, and she was like, Didn’t you have a friend who had a similar name as you? (She also said she recalled how well I got along with all ages of kids, from kindergarten to 8th grade. Aww.) At first I was like, Huh? I can’t remember any other Matts….and then I was like, Duh! She was talking about Kevin, obviously! We both had the same last name.

So I wrote her this email:

Great memory! My best buddy at that time was Kevin Wright! We lived across the street from each other and had the same last name.

Know what’s funny? i vividly recall one day when you told us how you’d be really still as a child and go into the woods and call the animals to you! Sometimes i wonder if i imagined that story….but i’ve always thought of you as magical, like some Snow White figure. How hilarious (and sweet) is that?

Later in the day, she replied:

Well, y’got that story a little twisted.  Once while I was still a nun I got a letter from a guy I’d taught with who was in VietNam.  He was backpacking around the world, sure he had stomach cancer and his days were numbered.  Wanted to make the most of life.  Well, a letter from the Mayo Clinic caught up with him and told him he’d been misdiagnosed and a few meds would be all he’d need.  I went to the riverbank and sat on a bench (in Kittaning, whatever river that is) and just thought about him with deep joy in my heart.  A baby bird came and sat on the bench, then hopped onto my shoulder.  It truly was a magical moment.  Nowadays I am a miserable old grouch who chases squirrels, traps them (and releases in nearby woods), yells at them.  Sigh.  So much for being saintly.

Ah yes, you and Kevin!!  Thanks for jogging the memory!  What a duo!  You both had a fair amount of moxie!
 

Whenever i wear this sweater, i always think about how Cyndee once told me that her sister had the exact one……..when she was, like, little and shit.

I have to say i get lots of compliments whenever i wear it. I donned it for Lex Luthor’s party this winter and Jason practically tore it off of me in a fit of covetousness. Even one of the F2M trannies at Pause begged me to give it to him.

“You’re one of the only guys who could pull that sweater off,” Diane said. Which was sweet.

I wore it once to an all-you-can-drink Sunday Bloody Mary Sunday at Stanley’s in Lincoln Park, and all the meatheads gave me strange stares. I think i stirred up feelings inside of them that they didn’t know existed.

We went to Tiffin on Devon Avenue for super-yummy Indian food to celebrate Cyndoya’s and Nigel’s belated birthdays. Cyndee took a pic with her new iPhone to send off to her sister. Here you can see me modeling the best part of the sweater — it’s got the same flowers and bugs on the back as well!

I felt only mildly idiotic posing in the middle of the restaurant.

I’ve always kinda sorta been obsessed with serial killers. I used to go to the park in Seattle where Ted Bundy committed one of his first murders, and in high school the Zodiac Killer supposedly sent a letter to the local paper saying that he was going to drive around in his “death machine” on All Hallow’s Eve, in the shadow of Devil’s Mountain (Mount Diablo, which was near my house).

So of course i was fascinated when Benj sent me this story yesterday. Apparently, there is speculation that all of these drunk college boys who drowned across the Midwest were actually victims of a serial killer. At least 40 of these deaths, which were ruled accidental at the time, are now suspect. They’ve found smiley faces by many of the areas where the bodies entered the water — but the smiley faces are all different!

And some of the deaths happened simultaneously, so they think it’s a syndicate of sorts.

One of the victims is Brian Welzien, who i remember washed up in Indiana some years ago. I followed the case closely — he was out in Chicago on New Year’s Eve, but separated from his friends in front of his hotel. They figured he went for a walk by the river…and somehow fell in and drowned.

Investigators are saying that there’s now a good chance that these guys were actually kidnapped and tortured for hours before being dumped into the water, which washes away the physical evidence.

There were flyers that Brian’s family had put up around Chicago, and i just thought he was such a dreamy soccer player boy, so i stopped into the Addison Police Station one morning on the way to work.

“My friend owns a store,” i said, which was the truth. “She wants to put up a flyer in the window,” i said, which was not the truth. I wanted a copy for my journal. Is that so wrong?

“Follow me,” an officer said, leading me through a labyrinth of surprisingly narrow hallways to a room filled with policemen sitting on fold-up chairs in front of a chalkboard having their morning briefing. It was all so Hill Street Blues. Officer Friendly found a stack of the flyers and gave me one.

I clutched it to my breast and thanked him. Later that evening, i glued it into my journal, wondering why God had to kill such hot snatch.

We talked about the Smiley Face Killer at Second Story yesterday evening, at the official Cheer Up Alex Ross Party. Most of the victims were white, athletic, good-looking, bright students.

“Why do they have to kill off our best?” MyMaMain asked forlornly.

There are songs that make me revert back to my angst-ridden adolescence. Songs that i want to play over and over. And then maybe one more time for good measure. Sufjan’s “Chicago,” Rilo’s “Portions for Foxes.” They’re usually melancholic. When i was younger, i’d put songs on repeat and copy the lyrics into my journal.

If there’s no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I’ll follow you into the dark
Then I’ll follow you into the dark

As Duke and i start up Squirrel Row (not its official name), we see three black ladies bent over a car with an open hood.

“Excuse me,” one says, and i instantly feel sorry for them. They’re holding jumper cables and looking utterly clueless. One of them has a derriere you could play poker on. Her shirt is riding up to reveal two tattoos on her lower back. The tattoos are of eyes. She sees you comin’ up behind her!

I walk over, but i don’t look hopeful. “Neither of us has a car,” i warn them.

To be honest, i don’t even know where the friggin’ battery is. If left to my own devices, i’d probably blow the car up if i tried to jump it. I bend with the ladies, though, trying to appear helpful.

“Here’s the battery,” one points out helpfully. I furrow my brow and nod pensively.

“And see how it’s got NEG written on it?”

I do. I nod.

“But we can’t find the POZ anywhere!”

Duke and i poke around a bit, but come up empty.

“Yah,” i sigh, no longer willing to fake it. “I think you actually need to find some real men.”

And they thank us, which is sweet of them.

And on the el, some woman decides it’s a good time to get into a fight with her boyfriend or husband or whatever he is……..from the opposite end of the train car. I can deal with this for awhile, but when some yuppie chick plops down near me, chattering away about granite countertops in the guest bathroom, i put on my iPod.

Get off the el, head to the office. Right outside our lobby door, i pick up a teeny-tiny Barbie-sized shoe. It’s a pearlescent pump. Some lilliputian Cinderella has left it in her haste.

Up in my office, i put it on the desk in front of Dawn. “Look what i found outside our door!”

“Guess what I found outside our door,” she one-ups me. “A pile of poop!”

The Propellerheads comes on my iTunes in the morning, and i do a quick Google to find out where the Joisey-accented girl was sampled from.

I search for “he’s got a nice body he’s wearing velvet pants”

and look what gem pops up!

It’s Jake Gyllenhaal on the set of Prince of Persia.

Oh, and you’re welcome.

Being the super-important condo association president (no one else will take the job), i have to sign some permits for the work that needs to be done, so i pop by the apartment upstairs. The couple has two adorable daughters — Coco, the demonic terror, is about 5 and as cute as a button, and Aria, who is 10 but has been going with her father to plays her whole life and has been exposed to many “adult” themes.

So there they were the other day, at American Girl Place with Gramma. There were Conversation Starter cards, and they picked one that read, “What job would you refuse to do, no matter how much you were paid?”

Aria thinks for a second, then replies, “I wouldn’t want to be a prostitute or a stripper.”

That’s my girl.

Can you believe that this

is part of the same building as this?

That’s the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Fran. You can see more how these two elements relate on their website. (Special bonus! One of the current exhibits, “Jews on Vinyl,” features a record that has “Bagels and Bongos” on it.)

My boyfriend’s on TV! Is yours?

Okay, okay, so it’s not really “TV.” It’s Northwestern’s journalism program’s website (we affectionately refer to ourselves as Medilldos). He’s not really that short — honest! They just filmed him funny.

He makes his entrance toward the end of the clip, by the by.

Duke landing the helo….just joshin’! He was listening to me say something stupid on these hanging headphones at MoMA.

And here’s me doing my very best Jessica Fletcher. If you didn’t know, i’m totally obsessed with Murder, She Wrote!