Well, well, well.

I finally managed to finish the project. You know the big important project they had me doing? The one that only I could do? The project that is just so taxing and difficult and complex that it justifies the tens of thousands of dollars I owe the government for my education?

Yeah, well I got it done. I well fucking organized those pieces of paper and then I gave them to someone and they took them and put them in a drawer. Yeah.

Maybe, like, six months or so from now, someone is going to take those papers out of that drawer and look at them. That's going to be a pretty cool day for me. I can see it now: I'll be in LA, I'll be working on a series. One morning, I'll get a phone call from a teacher at this school.

"Bill? Hey, it's Mr. Melman. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, buddy. Remember those papers you got organized way back in the day? I had to look at one of those papers this morning. Thanks to you, it was easy to find the one that I wanted. They were well fucking organized."

"Niiiiiice," I'll say, trying to act cool. After Mr. Melman hangs up, I'll call my wife and my mom and weep with pride.

I love low wage clerical work.

Hmmm. I couldn't think of who to link to on IMDB when I wrote 'wife' back there. My celebrity crush slot is currently empty.

Also, there really is a Mr. Melman who works with me at the high school, but he's a guidance counselor, not a teacher. I really like him, and I think he's a cool guy. Just last week, he ran all the way up the Hancock tower (tallest building in Chicago after the Sears tower, which itself is the tallest building in the world after the Petronas towers) for some kind of benefit.

My favorite part, though, is that his name is Mr. Melman. Is that not the classic high school name? With that name, you are pre-destined to be a high school guidance counselor. No debate. It might even be Illinois law.

Ron Melman: Guidance Counselor. Bob Dylan: Same amount of syllables, but it sounds cooler. Folk singer.

This is how life works.

Oh, this is also how life works: Wednesday night, Sally and I made a second attempt to go see 'Amelie.' Of course, the only showing we could make that night had been cancelled for a special screening of something else. The newspaper and the theater hotline had neglected to mention that fun fact. So, instead of French eye candy, we got American food nastiness. It actually turned out to be a pretty nice night.

Anyway, this hot sexy bitch* (watch me forget the explanatory asterisk at the end of this entry) thinks I'm a woman.

She has a couple of different reasons for this, so I think she might be right.

Reason #1: I like to bake. That is indeed a reference to food rather than the marijuana. Yeah, so I like to use my oven. Does this make me so womanly? If you macho assholes must scoff at me, let me ask you this: Does your apartment smell like yellow cake? No? Well, mine does, because I made a big ol' yellow cake the other night just because I was in the mood for it. And it smells good. Last week, I baked some fucking oatmeal raisin cookies, OK? Does that negate my penis? I say 'no.' In fact, I think that eating an entire cake all by yourself just because you feel like it is a pretty manly thing to do. Eating a tub of ice cream: Woman. Baking a cake and saying "This is my dinner tonight": Man.

I've always been this way. When I was a kid, one Christmas I asked for an Easy Bake Oven. I loved making those shitty miniature cakes. When I finally got old enough to not care about the oven, I smashed it open. I remember being amazed that there was just a fucking lightbulb inside. A lightbulb!

Reason #2: When I was a kid, I read all those Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary books. This prompted her to call me a "good guy," which is pretty close to being a woman. Also, I don't know too many guys who read (or, at least, will admit to having read) those books. Every time those Scholastica book order things came along, I was all about it. I was all into Blubber, Ramona Quimby, Mouse and the Motorcycle, Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing, Henry Huggins...I'm sure I'm forgetting a million of them.

My favorite of the bunch was 'Dear Mr. Crenshaw.' It was about a boy who lived with his mother, whose father was a truck driver and was always away. The boy continuously wrote letters to an author named Mr. Crenshaw.

Two images from that book stick with me. In one scene, the boy and his mother go for a drive and get take out fried chicken. They sit in the car, eating it, and when they're ready to eat their mashed potatoes, they realize that they didn't get any plastic forks. So, they have to use the ends of their chicken legs to scoop up the food. The other image, which I'm fairly certain is from the same book, is that the boy is laying or looking up as he walks through a forest. He looks up into the trees, and there is a sudden explosion of butterflies. He talks about how beautiful it all is, with the sun streaming through the branches and these hundreds of butterflies flying everywhere.

Those are just two great, great moments. And the cover art on that book. A serious looking kid staring at a piece of paper as he ponders what to say to Mr. Crenshaw. You know, call me whatever you want for having read those books when I was younger, but I'll tell you that any book that inspires ennui in a 5th grader can't be all bad.

Reason #3: As a lesbian, I really enjoy sex with women. Oh. No. Wait. I just enjoy lesbionic sex.

Did you know that most lesbians I've met in my life don't seem to like me? True story. I call it My Lesbian Problem. They seem suspicious of me. Lesbians, I assure you: When you are in my proximity, I am not imagining anything untoward.

That oughta do it.