I could have sworn the headline I just glanced at said "Reagan's Booty Has Arrived."

Reagan's Booty is actually a dance I've invented. You just get out on the dance floor, spend about ten years forgetting everything you ever knew, and then just lay down and stop moving.

What? Too soon?

I remember when he was shot. I was trying to watch Scooby Doo. The cartoon was interrupted with coverage of the event, and I remember that my mom was crying. I asked her last week if she cried more because it was Reagan, or more because of the idea of a President being shot, and she said it was the latter. These days, in retrospect, she hates his guts.

I didn't like him much as a president either. The air traffic controllers firing was enough for me. I don't think the man is in hell splitting a warm glass of piss with Hitler, but I also think that if we put him on the ten dollar bill we might as well do the same for Gordon Shumway, aka Alf, who was just as popular around the same time, if not more so.

So, as I said, I've taken this week off of work. It's now Wednesday, and I've accomplished much Freaks & Geeks DVD watching and New Yorker magazine reading. For the record, I've managed to stop talking to myself. Now I'm into spontaneous singing, which can be attested to by the man I startled while out on a walk last night. On the plus side, I did discover that my workplace is an exact 34 minute walk from my apartment, so I plan on using a lot more of the feets than the Firestones from now on.

I love walking. I wish I could do more of it here. When you get your feet on the pavement, you connect much more intimately with your surroundings. Last night, I noticed a life sized buddha statue sitting on someone's front porch, just behind a screen door. I never would've noticed that on a drive.

In that spirit, I do have a nice trip back to Chicago coming up. I'm going home the last weekend in June. Really, besides just seeing home and family again, the reason for the trip is so I can eat a lot of food. I've missed the Taste of Chicago these past two years, and I'm not going to miss it again.

Funnel cakes, vienna beef, and some good, good pizza, thankfuckinggod.

I've also been looking a little bit into taking what I do here on the road. I'm exploring some options, and talking to former professors, having people see what they can do about getting me a job similar to the one I have, but somewhere else. Like New York or Chicago. If I did manage to get something away from here, I'd only be gone for a couple of months, and then come back. I think moving to Chicago for a writing/story gig would be kind of a sideways move, as I wouldn't have the same opportunities there as I do here. But I'd love to be back in the midwest for fall and winter again.

So, what have I really been doing with this week off? I had all sorts of plans. I was planning to go to museums, do some running, some writing, hit some thrift stores I knew about. Those were some incredible plans, and they were neatly shoved to the wayside by a combination of poor sleeping habits ("Should I stay up til 5am tonight? I don't see why not!") and ass-on-couch-osity. The latter was brought on by the Freaks & Geeks DVD, and I don't regret it one bit.

But the ultimate in laziness this week? Like I said, I had this entire week off. Almost no obligations, and wide open empty stretches of hours with nothing to do. My bathroom was a complete mess, caked with dirt and grossness and mildew and the residue of a thousand showers. I had nothing this week but time, so what did I do?

I hired a maid.

Yep. I put an ad on craigslist, said "I've got a small, very messy bathroom, and I don't want to deal with it. I think it'll take two hours. Who wants a piece?"

A lovely young lady named Rosa emailed me and said she'd have someone from the maid service she runs combat the soap scum for $25.

I hired her. Rosa herself ended up coming out. She was 29, cute, and none of her maids were available that morning, so she took the gig herself. We ended up talking for about an hour whil she was cleaning. She's an aspiring chef, in culinary school, and does a few other things, like catering in the Palisades.

It turns out that her roommate is dating David X. Cohen, one of the producers of The Simpsons and Futurama, and Rosa often has him over for dinner parties. Dinner parties to which my roommmate and I, being huge fans of the aforementioned shows, are now invited.

I ended up giving her $30. Totally worth it.