We’re in the midst of a raging, full-on snow storm. The weatherpeople predicted a couple inches, then six inches, and now they’re saying we’ll get a foot or more. Wow. I thought we were going to miss the front but no such luck. I had predicted a dusting at most but this storm is as intense as any we’ve had this winter. Today is Good Friday, too, by the way, and many of the local churches are canceling the traditional stations of the cross. Lucky kids!

This morning I woke at 3 and watched the first episode of Thursday’s “Miss Guided” hour. I think the show is decent but M seems to disagree. After that I answered yesterday’s messages and emails and caught up on tournament highlights. T was up a little before six. He and I watched one of his shows together until I decided to take out the garbage and head over to the Citgo for the Friday NY Times and Wall Street Journals. Tradition is tradition.

Later in the morning the snow started to fall. M had a doctor’s appointment so I downloaded some music and caught up on cleaning while the boys spazzed out upstairs. After M returned home T and I hit the hardware store (full spectrum lamp, it kicks ass) and the supermarket. You know, it’s not the snow that’s dangerous, it’s the dumbass drivers who go five miles per hour…then thirty…then five again…then stop…then go. F—king idiots. T was in hyper mode but we had fun. After returning home I put together the lamp and helped S experiment with his new keyboard. We had fun. I also worked out to another “Office” episode (the one where Michael threatens to jump off the roof) and took a shower. I’m starting to feel some of the fatigue now.

Oh, I haven’t talked much about yesterday yet. P and I drove down to Chicago for the Hopper/Homer show. Now, I usually do Art Museums alone but I like P, and he seems like the kind of guy who would be patient with splitting up and maintaining different museum paces, but no such measures were necessary. I thought we had fun. We met at the U at 8:30AM and drove straight to my hometown. He’s not familiar with the city, so I got to play tour guide, a role I secretly relish. We hit Reckless and Powell’s. P might be even quicker in bookstores and record stores than me, a rare bird, so we left both quickly and snagged lunch in Roscoe Village. I had hoped the Village Tap was open but the bar doesn’t open until five. Oh well. After lunch (veggie sandwich) we hit the Art Institute. Both the Hopper and Homer exhibits were excellent. I think I’m going to wait a day or two before I comment further. Were I to comment now, when tired, I’m afraid I would fail to capture what I want to say. P wanted to look for more bookstores up near Northwestern, so we drove around a while in Evanston but failed to find anything interesting. I’m not surprised. Evanston is overrated. We headed north and, on a lark, I called M to check on Giordano’s up in the northern suburbs. As luck would have it there’s a branch in Gurnee not far from the tollway. We quickly toured Gurnee Mills (yuck) before searching out an outpost of the best thick pizza I’ve ever had. They needed twenty-five minutes to half-bake our pizzas so we hit a local Borders. P felt badly because I had paid for parking so he bought me a decent edition of a couple of West’s novels. Once we got our pizzas we headed up north. I think we hit the U by about 6:30PM. Good day. I checked my office phone messages (mistake) and arrived home by seven. Thirty minutes later I was gorging myself on way too much pizza. Shoot me. Life is short.

I’m going to start posting a poem every Saturday. Keep your eyes open. Stay warm. Enjoy the last of winter.