Deconstructing March 14th 2009

Yes, that's me inside of a grill of, if I recall correctly, a Pontiac. I think. Harry took the photo, it was my idea, though. It's on the back cover of PAIN GRIN, so we're talking maybe 1993. The tossing of the ashes was postponed until summer, but I planned to go and so I did. Took the train to the Loyola station, walked to Pratt then to the lake. Well, almost. I stopped just before the beach, because I was thinking how it was Harry and Diana's beach, and I wanted to wait until summer when more of us could be with Diana. Goofy, I know, but I felt like it would be trespassing. I'm crazy that way. I brought several graphic novels to read as I knew both rides would be awhile, plus the fact that there was going to be several hundred stupid twenty-five year olds staggering down Madison and Dearborn. So I'm reading WE 3, and don't ask me to explain it. It's brilliant, it won an Eisner award, written by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Yea, yea, that Grant Morrison, the one that killed Batman and had Batwoman with the ball gag. But this book, its...three astronauts, a dog, a cat, and a rabbit. Its poetry, all the bad and the sad in my world is going away in waves. The train ride would be maybe 45 minutes. And then the strangest thing happened. A young white kid in a brown parka started walking down the aisle. And he wasn't parking his bike. That's right: HIS DICK WAS OUT. He didn't have a raincoat on, he wasn't drunk or high. Security finally got him off the train, but as he passed me I said, quite severely, look, I am trying to read a book about three astronauts who happen to be a dog, a cat, and a bird and your dick really shouldn't be anywhere near me. The train car was maybe half full, so I had plenty of time to make my stand. When we hit the Loop and the drunken idiots boarded, I almost missed the parka guy, because he wasn't slurring every word (actually, he was quiet the whole time, oh, and he wasn't asking for money, a rare thing). I talked to Diana awhile ago, Saturday is a late day at the Art Institute, she first reprimanded me for not going onto the sand, then we both laughed that Harry would have loved the story involving me, the astronauts, and Mr. Peanut.