On the subway today, I was dismayed to find myself standing in the doorway across from an old fellow talking to himself. Over the noise of the train, I couldn't hear very much, just a continual stream of what sounded like a standard religious-maniac-with-aliens fixation in a vaguely European accent. As we came to the next stop, I heard his last two sentences: "They have come to earth to help us. And, of course, to make movies."

Now, he had me. I waited for more, but he got off the train.

Our unanticipated guest.*

Coming home this afternoon, I noticed something strange behind the strawberry plant container on the porch. I thought it was an old knit hat, but on closer inspection it turned out to be the rear end of a cat. This was attached to a friendly, but very scared, kitty with no collar and no apparent home.

For lack of a better name, I've started calling it Anonymo. Anonymo is currently staying in our guest room, away from the resident cats, who are very curious. He seems to know how to use the litter box, much to our relief.

So we're making flyers and seeking the cat's owner. Eventually we'll call a shelter, but we want to try to alert the neighborhood, if he's run away from home. I figure if my cats had run away, that's what I'd want other people to do.

If you're in the Chicagoland area and know of any other avenues we should take, let me know.

5 p.m.: Updated to say that Anonymo (aka "Roy")'s owners contacted us after seeing a flyer in the corner coffee shop, and he has been returned home. Adios Anonymo! Come back any time.

Yesterday morning, as I went out to get the newspapers, I noticed something strange.

My building has received 30 copies of the current Ikea catalog.

Shrink-wrapped.

I recognize the catalog, because I received one with the newspaper earlier this week. One copy is fine; 30 is not. There aren't even 30 people living in this building.

I left the copies on the porch, hoping that whoever left them would come back for them. But another neighbor brought them into the lobby, where they sit, stacked, waiting for someone to take action.

Obviously, the dull thing to do is throw them away, where they will ostensibly join their bretheren in some far-away landfill. But hey, as long as we've got them, I am taking suggestions for other things to do with them.

Here are a few ideas:
1. Extended art project involving papier-mache.
2. Decoupage building entryway.
3. Use stack as low end table. Send photo to ReadyMade.
4. Figure out some way to sell to collectors. ("Yes, every copy of this catalog was signed by Bill Clinton!")
5. EBay! EBay! EBay!
6. Use as props for musical "Swedish Chef" coming to a theater near you.

Send suggestions. Or contact me for a free catalog (shipping not included in this special offer).

Bob is all the buzz today. He even has his own couch (although, on the show, I don't recall him using one). It seems an uncharacteristic pose, but I don't have a better idea. It's hard to make a statue out of that confusing train ride in the opening credits.

For now, Bob reclines downtown, although eventually he'll move to Navy Pier. We're glad to see him!

This weather is sick. That's what the record store employee said to us 15 years ago as the sky turned a summer pre-tornado green (and I could not stop laughing).

By "sick" he meant "intense" or "crazy." He used the word the way the kids today use "wicked"--good or bad, only thinking made it so. Now years later, again the weather is sick.

A row of low dirty clouds are rolling across the skyline, faster than you or I could ever run. When I look again it's here, the storm, and tiny figures many stories below are moving faster on the wet pavement. One is putting up a red umbrella. Another is making a mad dash for the curb.

On the river, passengers on a tour boat have formed an amorphous, struggling mass at one corner of the top deck. They are bottlenecked at the stairs, trying to get below decks. Are they polite or is brute force leading the day? From this height all those moral bearings vanish and they are no more than ants on an anthill. By the time they all get downstairs, the boat has already reached the dock.

Up here, it's raining harder now, with the wind creating wet gusts, almost very thin watery clouds. The weather is sick, but at least it's egalitarian. The boats keep moving, the bus bears down with shining headlights. Far away, a tiny figure runs to catch it.

Do you read politician blogs? I confess I never do, because I always figure that they're written by some PR-minded staff member. This UK report details a study of political blogs and their value, interactivity-wise (via the Guardian).

This paragraph explains my doubts better than I ever could:

However many jokes they tell or safe vulnerabilities they expose, the public will never relax in their company and will be ever suspicious that today's 'spontaneous" blog entry was yesterday's faxed 'message' from the party HQ. Blogging politicians are always going to be seen as a little bit like those old Communist apparatchiks who had to sit in the front row at rock concerts and pretend to swing to the beat.

The house is abuzz because the new ATHF DVD is out. We don't actually own it, but since we're catching up on episodes via TiVo, it's a similar kind of experience. Here's a review and some background reading.

This article summarizes each episode on the DVD. Sample:

The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past comes to visit Carl from the future to tell him that his house has been built on an ancient Elven burial ground. This causes all the water in Carl’s house to turn to blood. Carl gets tired of this really fast and puts the house up for sale. Glenn Danzig (playing himself) buys it up and moves in next door but proves to be a bad neighbor.

Meanwhile, disturbingly, according to this quiz, I am Master Shake.

Last Friday, I walked north under a threatening dark sky. Ducked into a nearby hotel and read for a while until the storm passed. An hour later it was still spitting, then the spitting turned back into rain while I walked to a hardware store to look for soil testing kits (which they did not have). Went to a nearby cafe and sat under the awning, out of the rain, surrounded by friendly birds (shown above). When the sun started to come out again, I walked about a mile north to a garden center and was caught in another heavy and sudden shower, so I waited under a tree for it to pass. Bedraggled, I finally made it to the garden center, where it turned out they didn't have soil testing kits although the guy on the phone had said that they did. So I sloshed back the way I came, hitting yet one more hardware store, where nobody had ever heard of soil testing kits. It looked like the day was a wash (in more ways than one) so I headed back to where I started. On the way I was stopped repeatedly by some Greenpeace kids, the ones who cheerfully ask if you "have a second for the environment." It took all my willpower not to stop there, on the sidewalk, and tell them that the real question is does the environment have a second for me?

Not only do we have opinions, we have history, too! High Street, Columbus, Ohio, 1910.

So apparently Ohio, my home state, is now considered "ground zero" for the presidential campaign (according to fellow native George Stephanopoulos). This is surprising as the rest of the time Ohio, like the rest of the midwest, is mistaken for the part of the country people from the coasts fly over. But in this election year, the media has figured out that people actually live in Ohio and they can't stop breathing down their necks to talk to them about their opinions. Here are some samples:

The normally peerless Guardian has sent a reporter to Ohio and is reporting through the lens of "America divided." This is more of a hoary old cliche than I'd like to see about my home state, especially when it could apply in any state, but I'll keep reading to see if they hack away at the undergrowth.

Not unsurprisingly, perhaps, representatives of the right-wing extreme are treated as scary but fascinating exotics native to the place ("The high street of Canal Winchester...feels like the kind of place where the Waltons would have felt at home..."). (I'm sorry to say it's no secret that these people can be found in any city, not just in poor Canal Winchester.) The second installment is about abortion as a dividing issue; again, not really breaking news.

I haven't lived there in 19 years, but I'm sure there are some interesting progressive individuals in Ohio. For example, even Kucinich or some of his ilk would be a good place to start. Here's hoping the media finds them, too.

And here's hoping the "Five Ohios" series out of Cleveland won't make the same mistake. This project divides the state into regions and looks at them in depth, including demographic breakdowns and a photo section. For some reason I hope for a more nuanced look from this effort, but we'll see. (Ack, skip their political forum, though.)