In the last five days:

I've taken 30 Sudafeds. The package warned not to take more than four a day, but I have a devil-may-care attitude about over-the-counter medication. Thirty, to me, seems only slightly extreme when compared to how I've been feeling.

I've seen three Tobey Maguire movies: Spiderman, Cats and Dogs, and The Cider House Rules. I'm a little Tobey-ed out, to be honest. Doesn't he ever do anything but grow from a boy into a man? He's had more turning points on film in the past few years than Kevin Arnold did in the entire span of the Wonder Years series.

I've read three and a half books: Sex And The City (Yes, believe it or not, I'd never read it before. Now shut up.), Ella Minnow Pea, Reason For Leaving (for which I have to write a book review in - whoops! - the next six days), and How To Be Good.

I've bought two books for myself: Northern Gothic and the aforementioned How To Be Good.

I've bought two books for other people: Sputnik Sweetheart and Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s.

I've had one book bought for me: Almost Transparent Blue.

I saw two bands (Swearing at Motorists and Matt Pond PA), both of whom kind of sucked. I don't like it when people in bands yell at the audience to be participatory, and that is all I have to say about that.

Also I got a facial.

***

I've been thinking a bit about my hometown, and how flat it is there. Kath is taking her new boyfriend to meet her parents this summer. He's from Staten Island, born and raised, and hasn't lived anywhere else, really, (which I think is probably part of his charm.) So I don't think he's really seen a place like my hometown, Buffalo Grove, IL.

Kath told me she was taking him this week.

"Do you think he'll freak out?" she asked.

"It's weird there, for sure." I said. "I remember when Rebecca told me she brought home her girlfriend for the first time --"

"The Norwegian lesbian?"

"Yes," I said. "She hadn't told her parents yet that she was gay. I can't remember if she said if they slept in the same room or not. Anyway, her girlfriend totally thought Buffalo Grove was the weirdest place in the world. And she's like, traveled everywhere."

"I'm hoping he won't think it's too weird. I want him to have fun."

"Maybe he'll love it. Maybe he'll be blown away by all the strip malls. 'A 7-11 on every corner! So convenient! And look at the size of that grocery store. Why, it's as big as a football field!'"

"I'll take him to a White Hen."

"You gotta do wheelies in the parking lot of the high school."

I never did wheelies in the parking lot of the high school when I was growing up. I don't even know how to do wheelies. But it sounds like something that needs to be done now.

All of the houses looked the same in my subdivision and they were all short and fat. The driveways were bigger than the apartment I live in now. Everyone had a backyard. The local church sold the cornfield that lined our backyards (and separated us from the people who lived in more slipshod housing, meaning houses that all looked different from each other) while I was in college and when I came back a bunch of wealthy Russian immigrants lived there, in new, big houses. It's really quiet in my old neighborhood, except when the Russians have parties. My parents don't have much to say to them.

I fear if my parents sold our house, someone might buy it just for the land, and tear it down and start all over again. It's hard to find a nice, clean, safe neighborhood to live in anymore these days. That's what these people would say to themselves when they were paying for a house they were just going to destroy anyway.

Not that it would be any great loss to modern architecture. And there's like eight other houses on my block that look just like it. Stepford houses.

***

I feel a little bit better, thanks for asking. This was a long and lonely week. Nothing reminds you that you're single more than when you're sick. You get an occasional offer to check in on you, but no one really actually wants to do that. They think they do, but they don't.

So you just sort of sit around and grumble to yourself and read and wonder what it is that you're doing wrong with your life these days that you're feeling sick and gross even though YOU DON'T SMOKE and YOU GO TO THE GYM and YOU TAKE VITAMINS and YOU DON'T PARTY (as much as you used to, anyway.) Also: why does your job suck so much? And: will you ever get laid regularly? What about: Why do you spend so much money on books and movies and esthetic treatments when you don't even have a retirement fund? Don't you need a retirement fund? Or are you planning on working till you die? And finally: Shouldn't you go easy on that Sudafed? What are you, an over-the-counter junkie? Some sort of pussy version of a drugstore cowboy? "Gimme all your Nytol!"

It's probably time to go back to work now.

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