It all started at my coworker's concert.

Scratch that. It all started when I was 11 years old.

One Friday night, my family (or a decent portion thereof) and our family friends (and a decent portion of them) went down to Woodfield Mall to see "The Breakfast Club". This was a big deal: it was the first time I had seen an R-rated film.

That night, I was introduced to the inmates at Shermer High School. And one in particular.

Molly Ringwald swiped my heart. Oh, sure, I liked Ally Sheedy: I remembered her as Matthew Broderick's girlfriend in "WarGames", and in this particular feature, she played that girl who I would later apply the "Loner" label to once I started figuring out how to really label people, and I thought she was cute. But Clair Standish: she was *gorgeous*. She had a set of eyes that could melt your heart, a set of lips that were red, pouty, and plush (had I known to use that term at that point). But what completely grabbed me was the hair. The color seemed to pop on the screen. I had never seen such red hair in my young life, and all I knew was that this was something I found absolutely absorbing.

To be fair, I had never been attracted to what you'd call the supermodel type. I remember falling for Belinda Carlisle back in the Go-Go's hey-day, and she sure didn't fit that model. And I liked Mindy Cohn (Natalie on "Facts Of Life"), which definitely would not have put me in the "normal" group. My slightly off-kilter sense of attraction had already taken shape by this point. But Molly was different. She was the impossible-to-get perfect girl in my adolescent brain.

At some point in the next year or two, I was introduced to "Sixteen Candles" (which was released the year before), and the flames in my young heart grew even hotter. Again, she was working with Anthony Michael Hall, but their on-screen relationship was different: while Hall was the geek again, this time Molly's character (Samantha) was more sympathetic to Hall's (The Geek). By that point, due to forces outside my control, I had come to the realization that I was clearly closer to The Geek than Jake (the dreamy male lead character that Sam had a crush on). But Sam was gracious to The Geek, and was willing to help him. At this point, I visualized what Molly must have been like: this combination of Sam and Clair with an incredible body that was heaven-sent. I had built her onto a pedestal.

(Aside: a year later than I met the closest thing in my youth to what I built Molly up to be in terms of personality and beauty, but without the red hair and lips. I remember screwing that up horribly, and kicking myself for blowing my chance at what I assumed to be the closest thing to heaven I would ever find.)

And finally, much later, I saw the last movie in the Molly/John Hughes Trilogy, "Pretty In Pink." This cemented it. I related to Duckie (Jon Cryer's character). I loved the scene in the record store, when Duckie slid in and lip synced "Try A Little Tenderness" by Otis Redding to her. I cursed the fact that Andie (Molly) didn't end up with him. It validated the realizations I had that I was clearly this weird little guy that might end up with a girl, but not *the* girl.

As life moved on, this crush did the two things that most kids' crushes with movie stars do. First, Molly started taking on roles that didn't match those two that set my heart on fire, and I comprehended the fact that she was an actress, playing said roles, and that you really don't know who the hell this person is beyond the fact that she's a person (albeit one who was six years older than I was). Second, I because a teenager, and an adult, and obviously the odds I would ever see, much less date, a movie star were very, very high. My crush because the kind of adorable memory that you bring up amongst friends and are occasionally teased about.

Approximately 27 years after that movie night, I was waiting for fellow co-worker and awesome singer Mia LeBlon to sing. A group of us from the office were talking when Ed mentioned this group called 826 CHI. They help inner city school kids learn how to write creatively. They were having a fundraising event in a couple weeks that he was going to. He rattled off the attendees: Jeff Tweedy of Wilco (for which he was quite excited), Luis Arerra, and Molly Ringwald.

My head shot up. "Wait: Molly Ringwald? *The* Molly Ringwald?"

Ed confirmed what he said.

"Oh wow! I'm a huge Molly Ringwald fan! I'd love to see her. Any chance I could go with you?"

He said that tickets were $125/person. This dimmed the odds considerably. I did not have $125 in disposable income. "But I can see if I can get you in."

I was delighted. I entered the date on my calendar and sat back to listen.

Fast forward two weeks to Tuesday afternoon, when Ed mentioned that the odds were 50/50 that a ticket was available. He sent me the link to the info: business casual, at The University Club Of Chicago, with cocktails at 6 and dinner at 7. The next morning, I put on a red button down shirt and a pair of jeans and brown shoes. Actually, shoe: I had broken my left little toe earlier in the week, and needed to wear a clunky orthopedic shoe. I packed a pair of khakis for the event. I thought for a moment, then grabbed a blazer. I really didn't want to look like I walked in from my shift at Target.

When I got to the office, I crossed paths with Ed. I was in my blazer with my jeans. "Do you think this is okay for tonight?" A week earlier, I had dressed up for a business casual event, only to discover that a whole lot of people were wearing jeans. Ed looked me over. "Yeah: I think you're fine."

"Okay. Let me know when you find out go/no go." I headed back to my desk. A couple hours later, I received the email: I was in! The only thing between me and an evening with Molly was a couple of meetings.

It was in one of those meetings when I heard my phone buzz. It was a text from my wife. There was an issue with our house back in Michigan. We've been dealing with Bank of America in trying to get a short sale processed for nearly 18 months. However, at the same time, we had to deal with a *different* part of BoA who was trying to "secure" the home, which meant changing the locks and effectively ending any chance of getting the sale done. This meant frantic, energy-draining phone calls to former neighbors and our agent, trying to get things tied down. By the time I was able to finally get things to some semblance of calm, my brain was fried.

I went with a group of coworkers down to the bar. I figured I had time for a couple drinks before heading to the venue. I told them I had to plan on leaving around 6:30. As the hour approached, I was feeling more and more comfortable with my co-workers (along with the half-price vodka tonics). I debated skipping the Molly event, but I figured Ed had gotten me the tickets: it'd be rude to not go. Had I not broken my toe, I'd have simply walked the five blocks on a gorgeous day. Instead, I headed over to the cab stand. Ten minutes later, I was at the club. It was one of those classical, old-school mens' clubs, with a gorgeous lobby. The doorman greeted me.

"Can I help you?"

"Hello! I'm here for the Molly Ringwald event."

"I'm sorry?"

"There's an event here tonight with Molly Ringwald."

"I'm sorry, I don't know of that event. Let me look it up."

I began to panic. Of course, in my mind, it was just the Molly Ringwald event. I grabbed my phone and started pulling up the e-mail. "Are you referring to the 826 dinner, sir?"

I brightened up. "Yes! That's it!"

"Unfortunately sir, we have a no denim policy here at the University Club." My shoulders slumped. I made the executive decision to not bring my backpack with me. My khakis sat back at the office.

"We've had to turn away a few people tonight. There are a couple places you can purchase slacks."

I sighed. "That's alright. I have a pair, but they're back at my office."

"Again, I'm sorry, sir."

Stepping outside, I debated what to do. This would be two more cab rides. It had been a long day, and I was very tired from dealing with the house crap. I contemplated heading towards the train station and home. I hailed a cab.

"35 West Wacker, please."

Back to the office, up to my desk, grabbed the pants, changed, and down to the cab stand. I walked past the bar where I assumed my coworkers were still inside. Maybe they saw me and contemplated what the hell I was doing. Hailing the third cab in 20 minutes, I headed back to the club. The doorman saw me and smiled. "Welcome back, sir. The event is on the seventh floor."

I walked to the elevator and headed up to check in. I was sitting at Table 10. This depressed me: I would probably be in the back of the room, barely able to see the stage. In the cocktail lounge, I decided to simply have a Diet Coke and wander around. I tried to find Dan, the gentleman Ed asked me to say hello to. I realized pretty quickly this was a group of people who knew each other in groups, and I made the executive decision to simply run out the clock until the dinner chime rang. Discovering that the dining room was two floors up, I took the elevator.

I saw that Table 8 was right in front of the entryway. I started to walk towards the rear when I passed a waiter. "Where is Table 10?"

"It's right over there."

He pointed not towards the back, but the front of the room, stage left. I thanked him. I wondered if the people who numbered the tables at my wedding also handled this room.*

* We had 12 tables in a rectangular room. The head table was on the long side. The dance floor was on the short side. For some reason, they numbered the tables towards the dance floor. Instead of having Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 in front of us, we had Tables 1, 4, 7, and 10. Suffice to say, my family at Table 3, in the far corner of the room, wondered exactly what they did wrong.

I walked around the table. There were no name signs on any of the seats. I picked one that was in front of a large display, but gave me a nice view of the stage. I realized I had to do a little follow-up work on today's home-selling stress. I took my blazer off, placed it on the chair, and headed for a corner to make a few phone calls. Just dealing with this brought the tension of the day back, and I regretted not getting one more real drink during cocktail hour. After about seven or eight minutes, I headed back to the table.

By this time, many of the tables had filled in with people. I sat back down and introduced myself to the couple to my right. Chatting with them briefly, I turned to speak to the woman on my left. I started eating my salad and drinking my water and explaining my job, which, as it often does, turns into people's horror stories about some website they hate. While chatting with her, Ed's friend Dan stopped by. I introduced myself.

"Oh, Ed mentioned you! You're the big Molly Ringwald fan!"

I dropped my head slightly in embarrassment. "Yeah, I am. I'm surprised that I'm sitting so close to the stage. Thank you for that!"

"I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time."

I thanked him and returned to talking with the nice woman. While that happened, I noticed that my seat was right next to Table 9. Sitting directly across the aisle was a woman in a black and white print dress. Her back was to me. I noticed she had red hair in a ponytail.

While continuing my conversation, a part of my brain broke away for a moment. "Is that...", then cut myself off. No. They wouldn't put one of the headliners at a table on the side instead of at the front of the room. I rejoined the rest of my brain and the conversation already in progress.

I quickly stole another glance. It was a gorgeous dress. The redhead was carrying it very well. The servers took away our salad plates. The talk turned to not-for-profits. I acknowledged that I understood the unfortunate imbalance between the work they did and the money that...

Out of the corner of my eye, the redhead had turned her head about 30 degrees. It wasn't enough to see a full profile. But it was enough to see one thing: her lips.

Her red, pouty, plush lips.

The portion of my brain that was on cruise control with the conversation suddenly disengaged. I turned my head enough so that what had been the corner of my eye was now clearly in sight, and the entirety of my brain confirmed what that one portion of my ADHD-divided processor had identified.

It was Molly.

Molly was four feet away from me.

I tried to return to that conversation, but the goal of it had changed from "engage in witty banter with a complete stranger long enough to keep me amused until Molly took the stage" to "bring this conversation in for a landing as quickly as possible so we can focus on the fact that MOLLY RINGWALD IS FOUR FEET AWAY FROM YOU."

Make no mistake: the fact appeared in my brain in all caps.

But the woman, who obviously did not know that the woman I had a crush on for almost 30 years was now right next to me, continued talking, and I, like a pilot who suddenly couldn't remember how to land a plane, just kept this conversation going, if for no other reason than I didn't know what the hell to do with myself at this moment. I was the dog who had suddenly captured the car.

At that point, dinner was served, and I was trying to listen and talk and peek and listen and talk and peek and take a bite. At one point, I apologized to her. "I'm trying to get something taken care of with my house back in Detroit, and I need to send a quick text to my wife. I hope you won't mind."

"Oh, of course not. What's going on with your house?"

"We're trying to sell it, but we're having problems with the sale." The SMS app could not load quickly enough.

At this point, the conversation shifted to the house, which opened up her conversation, which would've been just fine in almost any other circumstance, except that what I really wanted to do was to focus on the fact that MOLLY RINGWALD IS FOUR FEET AWAY FROM ME.

Finally, it opened, and I could send a text to my wife Julie. "I'M SITTING FOUR FEET FROM MOLLY!!!!!"

I put the phone down on my thigh. We were back to talking about house prices and the market and somehow I was able to keep this going while the rest of my brain was undoubtedly still working through the data point. I kept stealing glances over to Molly, as if at some point I would look over and discover that it was a mirage, all the while continuing to talk about mortgages and being underwater to a woman who could've told me she was willing to give me her condo in Lakeview along with the four club box season seats for the Cubs and a foot-locker filled with unmarked, non-sequential $100 bills and had it be put in the "file for later" box.

Finally, Dan got up and headed to the lectern on stage. I had no idea that he was going to be the host for the night. As it turned out, he's a board member at 826, which was why I was seated near the front of the venue and right next to Molly's table. This allowed the conversation to come to a comfortable conclusion, which allowed me to turn my chair to face the stage, which allowed me to keep stealing glances to Molly. It was at this point that I realized that I hoped that no one from Table 9 would see me acting like (at best) an overly obsessive fan or (at worst) a maniacal stalker.

Dan introduced a video, which led to another gentleman who introduced Molly. He admitted that when he told his friends that he was going to introduce Molly Ringwald, they were to a person insanely jealous of him. He showed off that he was even wearing a pink shirt. "Get it?" he said.

Reader, a word of advice. If you are saying something you think is funny, never, ever try to *sell* the funny afterwards. This is especially true when you're taking to more than one person or to someone you would not want to see you in an extremely intoxicated state. To try to follow this up with a "Get it?" or "Isn't that hilarious?" or (worst of all) an explanation of why this was funny is to stink of desperation. Let the bit stand on its own. If it doesn't work, just move on to the next one.

He mentioned Molly's new show, "The Secret Life Of The American Teenager," of which he said, "I've seen one episode, and it's really good." This would be nice if the show hadn't been about to finish its fourth season, with 86 episodes in the can. I thought about how awkward this felt to me. The moron had barely done any research besides what he knew off the top of his head. The only thing missing was him doing his best Gedde Wannabe "What's happenin', hot stuff?" impersonation.

He finally got to the end of the introduction, and Molly stood up and walked to the stage. It was the first time I had seen her standing up. And she was *stunning*. And not "you've had a crush on her for 27 years so it wouldn't really matter what she looked like" stunning. She carried herself like someone who could stop a room cold. All I knew of the woman was what I saw in a bunch of films and interviews. This was a real person, and an incredible one.

She began to read from her new book, and I sat in a mixture of rapture and awe. Molly read quickly, almost too quickly. I wonder if she was nervous reading her own words aloud to a room full of people before. I wouldn't assume the skill set of being an actress translates to this task. She finished the section, back sold the book, thanked everyone, and started walking back to her seat. Towards me.

Molly had reading glasses on, and she hadn't taken them off before she got to her seat. The glasses worked with the persona in my mind. She was smiling as she came towards me, past me. I was looking at her, hoping like hell that whatever look my facial muscles were doing at the time would lead her to think I was some crazy fool, as if my face would give away every single aspect of what I was thinking. I knew I had no poker face.

She sat down. I returned my focus towards the stage and the next speaker. At this point, I realized that I hadn't checked my phone. (the speaker was off) There was a message from Julie. "I'm very happy for you, love. :) Maybe you can ask how I can be four feet from John or Neil! ;)"

John and Neil are John Cusack and Neil Patrick Harris: her two childhood crushes. But I didn't think she understood that when I said "four feet", I was referring to the literal distance versus the general idea of being close. I needed more proof.

Luis Arrera was on stage now, telling stories about his childhood growing up in Tijuana. They were funny stories, great stories. At the same time, I realized I needed to show Julie how close I really was. A photo would do. But I also didn't want to look like an insane idiot who was taking a photo of Molly Ringwald sitting at a table from four feet away.

I had an idea.

I turned the camera on while my iPhone sat on my leg. I bounced my eyes between Arrera on stage and my screen, trying to frame a shot while not making it obvious I was trying to take the photo, thereby moving into the aforementioned stalker range. I tapped the photo button, and saw the shutter close and open. I turned the phone so it was face up on my leg and confirmed the photo. It was one-quarter of the back of her chair, and her ponytail, and her shoulders, now covered in a jacket her seatmate had given her. There was absolutely nothing to show it was really Molly. I hoped the ponytail would be good enough. I tapped the buttons to send it to her with the caption "THAT'S HOW CLOSE I AM!!!"*

* Yes, I am completely aware that texting in all caps is the equivalent of shouting. Believe me: if there was an ability to bold and flash the words, I'd have done that as well.

** No, I am not sharing that photo with the world. I feel creepy enough knowing I had taken it.

A few minutes later, I felt the phone buzz. I looked down.

"Stay calm and don't drink alcohol!!! Or Red Bull! For the love of God, do NOT drink Red Bull!!"

My brain chuckled at the idea of consuming an energy drink at this moment, thereby having my heart jump out of my chest with each rapid beat, like a hummingbird.

Arrera was done now, and Jeff Tweedy was on stage now, doing a short set with just his guitar. My brain was again bouncing back and forth between the song and Molly, my ADHD brain processing both at the same time, but quickly discarding the Tweedy portion and putting the Molly portion into the "DO NOT ERASE EVER NEVER EVER" folder.

Tweedy finished up. Dan took the stage one more time. He thanked everyone for coming out and wrapped up the evening. Coming off stage, he came back towards the table, where I was sitting. Molly hadn't moved. A couple people had come over, asking for an autograph, for which Molly appeared to oblige. This was quite decent of her. The evening was officially over. And I thought about what I should do next.

I have never been comfortable going up to people I don't know and introducing myself. Remember the cocktail portion of the evening? There was no way I could go up to anyone there and try to enter their conversations, or even strike up one with someone standing alone. Now I was contemplating a cold introduction to a woman I had dreamt about for 27 years.

"You should go over there," I thought.

"My God, no!"

"Why not?"

"You'll look like the damndest fool. What are you going to say to her? 'Hi, I've loved you since I was 11 and were gorgeous then and still are! MOLLY I LOVE YOU!'"

"You're right. Stay where you are."

"No, wait: you're four feet away from her. At least say hello."

"Hello? This ain't your long lost friend here. This is Molly! She probably gets a ton of doofuses just like you coming up to her."

"But this isn't just anyone...this is *Molly*! You will likely never be able to cross paths with her again."

"So what are we gonna do?"

"I haven't a damned idea."

It was in the middle of this heated internal argument that Dan stepped over to me.

"Did you have a good time?"

"Oh, absolutely. Now I just have to figure out how to go over and say hello to her."

Dan smiled at me. "You know, she is a very kind and nice person, and I'm sure she would not object to you coming over to simply say hello."

"I'd also like a photo, but I'm sure that I'd just look like a massive fool."

"Would it help you if I introduced you to her and helped try to take the picture?"

I couldn't believe my ears.

"Yeah! Yes, that'd be incredible."

"I'd have to find my camera..."

I pulled out my iPhone, still on the camera application, ready to go. "Just use my iPhone."

"Oh, good! Are you ready?"

"Sure."

This was the biggest lie I have ever told in my life.

Dan steps past me. I go to stand up. My heart is now racing. My mind is also racing. I am about to meet Molly Ringwald.

He leans forward between Molly and the woman who loaned her the jacket. "Excuse me, Molly? I'd like to introduce you to someone. This is Joe Hass..."

I stepped about a half-pace over to be in visual contact of her. I was looking at her. I smiled nervously, clenched lips.

"...and he's a long-time fan of yours, and he'd love it if he could have a photo of you and him."

Without a beat, the woman on the left cut him off.

"No pictures. No pictures tonight."

Now, to be fair, the photo was going to simply be the icing on the top. I don't remember if I even reacted to the statement. But I saw Molly seem to react negatively to the abruptness of her words.

"I'm sorry..."

Even though I had just heard her voice 90 minutes earlier, this was different. This was Molly Ringwald talking to me. Her voice was filled with empathy.

"...I've already said no to two or three other people tonight, and I..."

Out of nerves, my ADHD, and an attempt to reassure her that I was totally okay with this even though she would in all likelihood never see me again and wouldn't care one way or the other, I interrupted her.

"You'd be here all night and it'd be insane. I completely understand."

She smiled, and reached out to touch my right upper arm, almost as a gesture of appreciation and understanding.

"Thanks."

It was then that the realization of the momentousness of the entire thing overwhelmed my brain.

And I could not speak.

I was standing in front of Molly. I needed to say something to her. I was looking into her eyes. The 11 year old part of me, the 38 year old part of me, the part of me that had been beaten into submission with a wave of soul sucking events and for whom this was the greatest gift. All of them was waiting for the other to come up with something; something that wasn't going to make me look like the biggest asshole/stalker/loser/pathetic moron in the world.

The best I can come up with as to what came out of my mouth next is that I believe that people like hearing praise and acknowledgement of what they did. That so often in life we do things and others don't pause for just a moment and acknowledge the effort. Sometimes it's the smallest words that can give you a little boost and gift.

"Thank you for your movies." I paused. "They meant so much to me growing up and helped me a lot."

Samantha smiled at me. Clair smiled at me. Andie smiled at me. Molly smiled at me.

"Thank you! That's very sweet of you to say."

I'm sure a subconscious part of me realized that I had not made an ass of myself and now was a good time to step away from the table ahead of the game.

"Well, thank you again for coming out tonight. Safe travels back home."

"Thank you." Molly replied.

I stepped away from Molly and I turned to Dan. "Thank you so much."

"You're very welcome."

And I walked out of the room. I headed to the elevator, waiting for it to head down. I was floating on air. I looked down at my phone to check the time. 9:32. My train home was leaving in eight minutes. When I got to the lobby, the doorman hailed me a cab. Unfortunately, because of construction around Union Station, he had to drop me off on the other side of the station. I looked at the clock on his dash. 9:37. I would have to run three blocks in three minutes to try to catch the train.

With one foot in a dress shoe. And the other in an orthopedic shoe.

I'm a runner, admittedly, but I'm a distance runner (and a particularly slow one at that), not a sprinter. That said, I took off at full blast. My arms were pumping left and right. My breathing was deliberate: two steps in, two steps out. There were no clocks on the platform: all I knew was to keep running. It was two-and-a-quarter blocks down the platform until I got to the station itself, where I finally saw a clock: 9:39:28. I had 32 seconds to get across. By this point, my lungs and legs ached: I had gone well past VO2. I had one more sprint across the mostly-empty hallway to go from the north to south concourse.

The loud slamming of the rubber sole of the orthopedic shoe rang through the hallway. The clock in my mind was sure time had run out. I slowed up briefly to make sure the automatic doors opened. I rounded the corner, knowing that the train would leave from track 8 and I was at track 14.

9:40:15. I kept running towards the track. The worker at the door looked at me. He pointed towards the train.

Without stopping, I violently nodded my head once.

He turned down the platform. "ONE MORE!"

I made the final turn. The conductor was holding the one door open. I planted my left foot, encased in the orthopedic shoe, and leapt onto the train.

He released the door, and I bent over as I heard it slide shut.

As the train slowly made its way down the tracks, I found an empty seat two cars in and dropped down. Every memory was freshly replaying in my exhausted mind. I tried to collect my thoughts. The fact that she was so polite, gorgeous, kind, sweet, heart-melting: everything that my mind had built up around Molly, was proven true in that fifteen-second interaction.

I didn't grab my headphones when I went back to change my pants. I opened up YouTube and entered in a few key words. I held up the lousy iPhone speaker to my ear and closed my eyes.

"...it makes it easier, easier to bear. You won't regret it, no no. Some girls they don't forget it. Love is their only happiness, yeah. But it's all so easy: all you gotta do is try, try a little tenderness."

Society often puts celebrities on a pedestal, and we act shocked when it turns out that they're just a human being, which is then hung out for the world to get the vapors over. I've learned to avoid those pedestals for that very reason. But even I have just a few people who are up there,, and it turns out they completely and utterly are worthy of being up there, and give you a night that you'll never forget.

Thanks, Molly.

* My stunning lack of organization continues unabated in this area.

* There are no photos of people anywhere. For a man who is married, has an adorable niece and two nephews, this seems rather surprising.

What you do see is a photo of a dog. The photo was a handoff from Julie to me when I was commuting back and forth originally from Detroit. This is because, while I could always get my wife on the phone or in a video chat, Ayana would refuse to do so. This was my reminder of her, happy, and looking particularly spunky.

Ayana, you see, was my dog. Our previous dog, Doogie, was born in Julie bedroom. When she had to be euthanized at the age of 14 1/2 in 2004, Doogie had adapted to Walk Boy, but she remained, at her core, Julie's puppy. When Julie discovered Ayana, I had to be persuaded to do so.

The girl struggled to adapt, much to my fury and general irritation. She struggled to get up and down the stairs. She was not keen on the idea of going to the bathroom on our walks. And she was really fighting the idea of being in another home, having been rescued from two different homes the past year.

Fortunately, for all parties involved, she became acclimated. And the more she became acclimated, the more she made it abundantly clear that she preferred the boy.

The Boy (as I would be referred to when it came to the puppy) would become the go-to parent. When Julie would leave the bed at night, Ayana would assume that this was her opportunity to spend the night in bed with The Boy. When I would work from home, Ayana would sit in the family room, staring at me, and occasionally nudging my arm for scratches or a walk that was insane by any sort of canine standard.

You see, she knew that The Boy was a sucker. And being a very smart German Shepherd, she played that card every single time. Pathetic eyes? No problem. Being disturbed when The Boy lay on the ground underneath her? Roll onto her side and insist on scratches. Performing any sort of basic task? That calls for two treats.

Julie, of course, played the role of heavy. "She doesn't need treats every time she looks at you funny," she would remind me. This didn't matter. It wasn't a question of *need*, you see. It was a question of wholesale adoration: a two-way street that neither party was interested in stopping. Somewhere, Caesar Milan would shake his head.

As I would use the computer, Ayana generally played the role of comfortable sidekick. Sitting next to me, she would use her nose to pop up my arm, insisting on either a walk or attention or, at the bare minimum, an acknowledgement that she was bringing something to the damn table, beyond what the screen would acknowledge. This was even more adorable/irritating when it came to the mornings, when she would bother only one of us for a constitutional, regardless of day of week or time. Ayana knew which side The Boy laid on, and which side needed the gentle reminder that she could go for a walk.

Those walks were where she knew she owned The Boy. This was where she discovered she could get away with almost anything. The pull of a leash inevitably overrode the desired route I had in mind, turning 25-minute strolls into 60-minute journeys, through various routes. The simple route would turn longer, and there never seemed to be a point in which there was too much. Once we moved to the apartment here, she would simply go, to the point where I would have to set a timer to mark when the turnaround point needed to happen. Had I not, I'm very confident she would have walked to the Kankakee River. Indeed, she learned to play The Boy so well that when Julie would walk with us, there was much disappointment from Julie, at both of us, in equal measure.

Through three different job changes that brought me here, including a nine-month stint in Maumee, Ohio, and six months in Valparaiso, Indiana, during which time I would be gone for four nights to three weeks at a time, my returns were met with the kind of adoration reserved for astronauts, World Series heroes, and any teen idol. There was jumping, pacing, waiting, and general hope that *finally*, she would enjoy a *real* walk, and not whatever Julie had been foisting on her.

This would become even more obvious when Julie would text pictures of Ayana, sitting forlornly near the door, staring at it with the desperate hope that it would open soon. I would promise Julie that she does this when she goes as well, but she never seemed to do it at a moment I noticed or had my phone near me. Ayana, you see, focused on how The Boy would return from an adventure that us mere mortals would seem to be bored with this.

Over the last three weeks, Ayana started slowing down. First there was the cough. Then there was the slower walks, hobbling on one leg. Then the appetite started to disappear: adding new things would be a stop gap, only to be rejected. Each step was a different diagnosis: the cough was probably just a cold; the hobbling was a torn ligament; the appetite loss was from the various meds. But all the while, the ears went up when The Boy was around: there was the desire to go longer, further, but the body simply wasn't going along with it. When there were quiet moments, Ayana would lie on her side, and I would scratch her, and her breathing became labored and struggled. It was The Boy, after all.

Today, of course, was the day she made it clear that her braveness could only mask so much. The x-rays would reveal that it was not a cold, nor a ligament tear, nor a med issue. It was cancer, which had simply overtaken her lungs and legs and God only knows what the hell else like the fucker it always is. There was only one option.

The Boy has folded up a few of the blankets and beds around the apartment, spread in various locations. The uneaten last meal has been taken out to the trash container. The basket of toys remains: with one exception (Moo-moo, the cow we purchased the first day we brought her home from the rescue group and managed to make it for the entire seven-plus years), they will probably be donated to new homes and new puppies who will love them. In three to five days Ayana will come home one last time. She will sit next to her "big sister" on a shelf.

At 6:40 AM tomorrow morning, my alarm will go off. There will be no need for a walk. The Boy, like the girl, has gone away.

1. Thanks to the fates for making sure my wife was already up when Freese hit the home run, because my shouting of, "No. NO! NO!!!!!" at increasingly higher levels of volume and disbelief clearly would have done so.

1a. My apologies to the folks in 3323.

2. As a Cubs fan, I have two teams I dislike: the Cardinals and the Mets. But there's a difference in the feelings towards them. You dislike the Mets because, well, they're the Mets. In "This Old Cub", Pat Hughes reads an e-mail from a young (male) Cubs fan who was dating a Mets fan. He couldn't explain to her why Cubs fans dislike the Mets so much. Ron Santo's elegant two-word reply: "Dump her." But the Cardinals are rivals, and there's a level of respect towards the fans and the team

For validation of the latter fact, note that the fan who managed to get Freese's home run ball was not mobbed on like a bunch of rabid, insane wolves. Note also that said fan basically gave up the ball for a signed bat and ball. That's a Cardinals fan. That's St. Louis.

2a. As an aside, he took his buddy to the game: a Cubs fan. There are photos of the two of them in the clubhouse after the game, each wearing their appropriate team's t-shirt. No disrespect, but if I am ever so lucky as to go see a Cubs World Series game at Wrigley Field and have an extra ticket, I will not be bringing a Cards fan with me.

3. I am not a fan of Joe Buck, but his call of the Freese home run, channeling his dad's call from 20 years earlier when Kirby Puckett hit a home run to send the '91 World Series to Game 7, was spectacularly appropriate and wonderful. AJ Dauliero e-mailed him after the game and asked "Seriously, did it just come to you or did you have that in your backpocket for a while?" Buck's response: "It just fit. Its always there."

3a. If you have not seen the calls, here is the magnificent mashup of them. For what it's worth, it got really, really dusty in the apartment when I watched it.

3b. Tim McCarver was doing color on both broadcasts. My God, RETIRE TIM!

4. Realize that, if there had not been the rainout on Wednesday, we would have had Game 6 on Wednesday and Game 7 on Thursday. Instead, we will get a Game 7 on a Friday: a day when bedtimes, work the next day, all the regular excuses simply don't matter. We'll all order pizza in or go to a bar or someplace and just experience it. There's a lesson in this somewhere.

5. I have never been more glad to not be a fan of the two teams involved in a sporting event. I went through overtime of the Men's Hockey National Championship earlier this year, with the emotional drain after the goal went in to steal the title away from the Wolverines. I remember, eight years later, taking my bare hand and smashing the moulding in my basement during Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS. Had I been a Cardinals fan, I'm sure several things would've been broken, and we would have won the damn game. Had I been a Rangers fan, well: that security deposit was nice while it lasted.

6. It was noted in a couple of articles that some of the spectators at the game last night left after the seventh inning, when the Cardinals were (a) down by three runs and (b) had a 6% likelihood of somehow winning the game. The next paragraph is addressed to them, and I will tell you that I am typing this with the solemn face.

If you had either a birth or death in your family that you had to attend to, you are excused. As for the rest of you: you are fucking scum. You should not be allowed to attend another sporting event for the rest of your life. You should be identified in some sort of database that makes a sex offender registry look like a "Best Candy" locator on Halloween. In your obituary, the lead will be "[Name], who left Game Six of the 2011 World Series after the seventh inning, thereby missing one of the greatest endings in the history of sport, died [date] at the age of [age]." If I ever cross paths with you, I will punch you with every fiber of strength in my being in the groin and gladly serve whatever punishment is handed down by the judicial system. Oh, a scarlet letter isn't good enough for you. You should be branded in a manner that is impossible to hide. I mean, it's bad fucking enough that you're leaving a ball game early, which just puts you in the sixth circle of hell on its own merit. But a World Series game?!? At home?!? When your team has already come back from having a <1% chance of making the playoffs?!? And this is the time you decide, "Oh, fuck it: let's go beat the traffic"?!? What's that? Someone gave you free tickets? You're not much of a Cardinals fan? Then here's a question for you: What the fuck were you doing there? I was offered tickets for Game 4 of the 2006 ALCS (the Ordoñez home run game that sent the Tigers to the World Series), and I turned them down for this simple reason: there was likely to be someone who would appreciate that seat more than I would have. Whatever excuse that you have is bullshit. Whatever reason you want to give is worthless. You don't leave that game early. You are everything that's wrong with sports from a spectator perspective. Go the fuck away and never, ever come back.

The race map indicated that, after making a right turn from Lower Randolph, we'd run south along the lakefront. We'd pass the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and Soldier Field, then double back to just north of the Field Museum before cutting across underneath Lake Shore Drive and back into Grant Park.

It was as I made this turn that the rain, which had simply been dropping slightly, started to fall. The puddles began to grow on the track. I looked over to see the rain hitting the lake, hard enough to be able to show over the waves. Having happily announced in my last Facebook update before the race that there was no rain, Mother Nature had decided that it would again punish me for my weather arrogance (my first violation was the first time I ran 10K at Central Park, asking for no rain, and instead getting a dew point in the low 70s).

I was quickly soaked. I passed the four-mile marker going east, still trying to figure out how the hell I was running about 11-minute miles when I usually do around 12:30s. The runners coming back north were on my left. They had energy, power, passion. I had to remember to breathe in on two paces and breathe out on two paces while running in soaked socks and shoes.

When driving south on Lake Shore Drive, you quickly go from Randolph to the south end of Soldier field in about five minutes. I had never noticed how truly *long* it was. And despite having the knowledge as to the point of the turnaround, it seemed to be going and going. I was frustrated as the rain kept coming.

I had originally tried to make peace with this weather. Failing at that, I was now muttering my curses at it. I had never run in rain before. It felt like I was doing miserably (despite the clock). I didn't even look to my right to see where I was in relationship to the stadium, which would've given me some sort of idea of how much further it was to the turnaround. Simply focused: two in, two out.

When I did, finally, get to the turnaround, I was almost stunned. There were two volunteers down there to let us know that we could head home. It was only then that I saw where I was (oh, yeah: there's a football field around here!). The rain had let up just a little bit. I was still getting drenched (though, to be honest, I had passed drenched a while back).

It was as I got even to McFetridge Drive that, inexplicably, the sun came out. It was hardly a warm sun with the rain coming down; more of a light enhancer, evident when I went in the tunnel underneath Solidarity Drive. I was still muttering about how much I hated the rain, how much my legs and stomach were irritating me, wondering why I had started doing this: thoughts I normally never have, even on really bad training runs. The five-mile marker gave me two indications: I had but a mile and a quarter to go, and I was *still* doing these outrageous 11-minute miles that had no basis in logic, reality, or, well, anything.

As I and my fellow runners were rounding the curve around Shedd again, our heads looking back along the skyline, there came a series of noises from the runners ahead, ranging from gasps to audible "Wow!" to "Look at that!" I wondered what they were seeing. I looked up.

The sun managed to hit at just the right angle to form a rainbow. But not just at any angle. The rainbow started at the corner of Grant Park, bending up and over at a low angle to have it appear to just clear the rooftops of the building along Michigan Avenue, ending somewhere around Michigan and 14th.

At that moment, I heard a voice in my head.

"Okay: I gave you a rainbow. Now stop blaming me and FUCKING RUN!"

I am, of course, confident that this was a stream of consciousness moment, built out of this beautiful sight, my frustration, the weather surrounding me, my knowledge that this was a doable task, and just my brain being, well, my brain. But I also know that, had someone told me this story, only identifying that voice as God, I would completely nod my head and go, "Yep. I completely believe that you heard God. I have no doubt."

I passed underneath Lake Shore Drive, in the tunnel, making the turn to run along the Drive. For the first time, I was running along traffic: the noise of the highway at my side. It was loud and busy. I didn't care. I just ran. It was pure running, feeling in a zone. The six-mile marker showed that I had finally slowed down, and I felt this mild feeling of disappointment.

As I got closer to the final turn, I saw Julie, who was rather stunned at seeing me as I told her I was running around 83 minutes and was now at only 71 minutes. This was the second time I had spectacularly overestimated my time to her (two weeks ago, I told her I was running 37-minute 5Ks and approached the finish line at near 35 minutes).

I crossed the line remembering the two big pieces of advice I remembered from my first race: keep running until you cross both timing pads and smile. Julie walked over to me and I collapsed, sobbing into her shoulder: satisfied. drained and soaked. It was only the second time I've broken down after running: the first was after I ran for 20 minutes straight for the first time in my life.

It's 12 hours later, with my second round of 600mg of ibuprofen pulsing through my bloodstream. I remain in stunned disbelief that I did this, as much as I was in disbelief a year ago when I ran my first race. I'm committed to my next goal: a half marathon next year.

And I'll go to sleep tonight thinking of a rainbow.

The voice mail my niece left:

"Hi Aunt Julie. This is Victoria. We just wanted to tell you we're on the road and we should be there around eight o'clock. But we're going a little...becuase we're going a little slow because there's snow...a decent amount of snow up here. Bye!"

The automatic transcription that came along with the WAV file:

"Hi Dan, this is Victoria. We decide to tell you we're on the road and you should be there around 8:00 but we're going out because I go I those because they know up I see your mind now up here. Bye."

So let's review the responses from today's news that the city of Detroit lost the population of Scotsdale, Arizona (or, for a more localized feel to this, the population of Grand Rapids + 30,000 people):

The mayor and the city council president both come out saying the city was undercounted and expect to find 50,000 more people, without noting that, even if they find all 50,000, that would still mean the population would've dropped *20%* in the past decade (or the population of Oxnard, California). The only city in the US with a bigger drop was New Orleans, and they've got a pretty good excuse.

The governor basically reminded us that the only way to get out of this problem is to "reinvent" the state by "working together with relentless positive action," which he apparently defines as blindly slashing any municipal budget, especially education, because the absolutely most logical way to solve poverty is to choke off any possible help for people to learn how to get out of the problem.

The Macomb County executive that gained came out was "excited for Macomb County" and decided that was "reason to celebrate," despite the fact that no one every really *wants* to live in Macomb County and that, without the region as a whole, it's basically a glorified Calhoun County without a MAC school in the middle of it.

The Wayne County executive pointed to a potential project that's two years from its initial announcement with absolutely no sign of actual building as an opportunity that might create 64,000 jobs as a positive sign of the future. Good news: I might be $244 million richer tomorrow if I buy a Mega Millions ticket! But I should probably still plan on mailing that rent check in.

Finally, the Oakland County executive said it "speaks volumes and is very disappointing. … Detroit is in desperate straits. … [Oakland County] took a huge drubbing with the automotive industry collapse. A lot of those guys and gals left the state." He did not gloat. He did not brag about the fact his county gained population.

Ladies and gentlemen, when Brooks Patterson, a man who spent 20 years battling the city of Detroit, who was a lawyer against integration and busing in Pontiac back in the 1970s, and is one of the three biggest reasons the racial divide in this region is a huge a gap as it is, is the voice of reason, you're pretty much fucked.

Today's Nascar Sprint Cup series race in Bristol is usually named the Food City 500. This year, to honor the death of the former track president from brain cancer, they renamed the race the Jeff Byrd 500. Byrd, by all accounts, was one of the great men in motor racing, going back to when he worked for Winston. He's probably as respected a person as you'll find in any part of that sport. Ed Hinton, whose covered Nascar in one form or another for 30 years, wrote a fine column about him earlier this week. (http://sn.im/27o0qx)

When I read that they were renaming the race, I had one thought: "I'll bet those bastards at Fox won't even have the common decency to refer to the race by that name." Fox (or ESPN, for that matter) will not mention a Nascar race by name unless (a) it's the Daytona 500 or Brickyard 400, or (b) the race sponsor bought time during the broadcast. To get around this, the promotional material will refer instead to the track name ("Nascar on Fox Live From Michigan"), with the exception of a once per race mention. But this is a person. And not just a person: someone whose been instinctively a part of that track for years and the sport for decades. Someone who died of brain cancer at 60.

Sure enough...catching up on my DVR today from my trip, I see the promo from last night's Cops. Here are the exact words on the closing slide: "Nascar on Fox Live From Bristol Presented By GoDaddy.com Tomorrow 12:30 pm ET/ 9:30 am PT Prerace Show Delivered By Pizza Hut."

Yeah, you know what, David Hill, executive producer of Fox Sports? Fuck you. Fuck you and every one of your accountants who sure as all hell couldn't just put "Paul Byrd 500" on that title slide. Fuck you and your promotional department who followed that logic chart really well. Look: I get the money thing. I'm not that naive. I understand you have to recoup your portion of the $4.48-billion rights fee the Frances got in 2007, and you'd undoubtedly have sold on-screen logo time during the third lap of this year's Daytona 500 if someone had cut you a big enough check. But really? One of the guys who helped grow the sport so you could make money on that rights fee? Can't even bother, huh?

I've grown to love Formula 1 racing in the past two years. I know I sell my soul just a tiny bit every time I listen to Bob Varsha, David Hobbs, Steve Matchett and Will Buxton on Fox-owned Speed. But you know when I *really* hate the broadcasts? The four times a year when the races go over to the mother ship, and I get to wait until 2:00 PM for a race that aired six or eight hours earlier. The anthems after the race? Gone. The pre-race analysis? Gone. What makes F1 different than Nascar and Indy Car? White washed away. And Varsha will often encourage Speed viewers to get their friends to watch the races on Fox, and I think, "Bob, why on Earth would I subject my friends to anything through the Fox mother ship filter?"

Fox Sports: holding the sports they cover in utter and total contempt since 1994.

A quick catch up for those who have lives:

The movers arrived today to pack up more things than will probably fit in a 950-square-foot apartment. Our stuff will move in by Friday, and we will be "in" by the end of that weekend. If you need our new address, drop me an e-mail. None of our phone numbers will change.

We will be celebrating the holidays in Illinois, as we need to give ourselves time to mentally and physically settle down.

My work is going fine: very challenging, learning new software on the fly the last two weeks, which has been both exhilarating and utterly frustrating. When I was at Campbell-Ewald, I had a coworker who sat across the aisle from me who, when I would yell at my computer for doing exactly what I told it to do which was the opposite of what I wanted it to do, would yell "GET IT, JOE! SHOW IT WHO'S BOSS!" He would've needed a throat lozenge by now.

Finally, a word on goodbyes: a couple people have asked if I was going to have some sort of goodbye party. I've resisted this for a few reasons: 1) I've been rather tired with the constant going back and forth, 2) the timing falls square in the middle of the holidays, and 3) Chicago is a scant five hours from Detroit and (according to reports) a very nice place to visit (as opposed to Oklahoma City, which was at least 20 hours or so of a drive and not exactly a tourist attraction).

However, as a friend of mine said, the party is about gathering friends, making memories, and just being social, and I can see where she's coming from. It's more of the good bye for the folks you're leaving to have some sort of closure (though that sounds far more dramatic than I intend). So I'm kind of torn right now, as any sort of party would have to happen after I'm gone. Please know this isn't some sort of backdoor or passive-aggressive attempt to make this happen. I just don't know.

Regardless, know that we love visitors, and we'll be back on at least some sort of regular basis.

In any case, now you know what's going on. Thank you, and don't forget the speakers.

In 1998, I was following the Cubs as they tried to win the NL Wild Card. At the time, I was working in downtown Detroit at the Kinko's at the Renaissance Center in the computer services department. This gave me a number of advantages, including being in front of a computer with Internet access (which was not particularly common). At the time, you could listen to Cubs games on the Web for free, which I would regularly do. However, the online scoring mechanism was (IIRC) not automated. For that, I would log into my AOL account (don't laugh; this is how I met my wife) and use the AOL Sports page. Admittedly, the data provided wasn't nearly as nice as it is now, but it at least gave me the basics: the line score, the pitcher and batter, and the count.

On this Wednesday afternoon, the Cubs were in Milwaukee. They were tied with the New York Mets, with the Giants three games back. Those two teams were playing in the afternoon, so the only game to follow at the time was my game: a 2:05 PM start at County Stadium. And it was the Cubs who had jumped out to a 7-0 lead through five-and-a-half against a team that was simply playing for pride. According to the fine folks at Baseball Reference, as the fans stood for the stretch, the "Win Probability" (the likelihood that the game would end in a win) for the Cubs was at 99%.

It was a quiet enough day that I recall doing very little except listening to the game. The computer services department (my desk and computer along with the self serve computers) were at least 50 feet away from the main service desk, on the other side of the store. The odd shape of the location gave me the ability to look busy while not accomplishing anything except listening to the game and watching the box score. There was no one in the self-serve computers, so I didn't even have a pair of headphones on: I just had my speakers turned up enough to hear what was going on. So at this point, I had opened another browser window and started looking at other things. And I heard the Brewers score four runs in the seventh, then one in the eighth. Still, as they went to the bottom of the ninth, with Rod Beck coming on to close out the game and the Cubs leading 7-5, he would now be in a save situation.

I was not really focusing on the delay that I was hearing between the audio broadcast and the live scoring, but by the bottom of the ninth, I have to admit that I was kind of aware of it. It was probably a good 45 seconds, perhaps a full minute, between when a pitch would display on the AOL scoreboard and my hearing the pitch take place. So as I heard the first out being posted, I would have seen that Beck had surrendered a base hit to Mark Loretta, and after Loretta would make contact, the scoreboard would indicate "Ball In Play" before flipping to indicate a runner on first with one out.

But then Jeff Cirillo would wind up doubling down the left field line, moving Loretta to third. Beck would give up an intentional walk to Jeremy Burnitz, and while the pitch count flipped to 2-0, then 3-0, I would hear Pat Hughes and Ron Santo describe the Cirillo hit, along with the Brewers fans growing progressively louder.

This was not going well.

Beck would work Marquis Grissom to a full count, and I would hear the general angst from Hughes and Santo's voices as the four balls were sent to Scott Servais while I watched the numbers grow higher and higher until finally they flipped to B:0 S:0 O:2 and indicated that Grissom had popped up. There were two outs now.

It was Geoff Jenkins now, and as Beck worked him to 1-2 on the scoreboard, I finally was able to hear Grissom's at bat come to an end as he popped up. There was an audible sigh of relief from Santo now. "Let get the hell out of here" is the best description of that tone.

Jenkins would watch ball two go by. And then the scoreboard changed to "Ball In Play."

And it stayed that way.

Keep in mind, this is 1998. There was nothing odd about having a delay, and perhaps there was a minor connection problem, which wouldn't have been anything out of the ordinary. But it seemed like it had been up there for close to 30 seconds and I'm now listening to Jenkins foul off Beck's first pitch. What in God's name is going on? Finally, the scoreboard changed.

FINAL
CHC  7 10 1
MIL  8 10 1

I lurched forward in my chair in shock and disbelief. By doing so, the chair, which was on rollers, slid back. Having lost any weight being put on the chair, I went to sit back down, only to not have much of a chair left to sit on. I fell forward, landing on my ass. I was on the ground.

I was still trying to process what I saw when I heard Jenkins foul off another pitch. The count was 1-2. There was a sense of true optimism in Hughes voice. I had picked myself up off the floor in time to hear ball two go by.

"Three runs?" I thought? "Then it couldn't have been a home run." I realized that I now would have to listen to find out what the hell had just happened.

Hughes introduced the 2-2 pitch. "Jenkins swings and here's a lazy pop up, Brant Brown's there..."

At that moment, I'm sure I had the head tilt thing going, completely oblivious to where this could possibly be heading.

"...AND HE DROPS..."

And here is where, if you were close captioning the broadcast, you would type "[crosstalk]".

Because Hughes finished his thought "...THE BALL!" at the exact same moment that Santo screamed out "OH NOOOOOOO!"

But all I heard on what was undoubtedly an 8k or 16k feed was Santo's painful wail.

This time, I simply slid my body to the right side, which combined with the lack of tension in the chair, caused me to, again, wind up on the ground.

The sound of Santo's second desperate cry of "NOOOOOO!" was more than enough to simply cause me to freeze there. There was no where to go. I didn't need Hughes to tell me that the bases would clear, giving the game to the Brewers. All I needed was Santo's plaintive yell. As raw and powerful as you could get. The ball game was over.

I eventually got back up. I closed the browser window and shut down AOL. I walked very slowly back towards the other side of the store, a beaten man. My boss saw me coming over.

"What were you doing?"

Clearly she had part of the stabbing, though how much I didn't know. So I simply told her the truth.

"Dropped something."

I accepted a contract-to-hire position at Arc Worldwide (part of Leo Burnett) in downtown Chicago starting Monday, June 21.

You may recall me saying that I really wanted to stay in Michigan and wonder if I somehow know of a nefarious plot to have the state annex the I-94 corridor to take on Lake, LaPorte, and Porter Counties in Indiana and Cook County in Illinois. I do not.

That being said, the sad reality of the situation was that there are far, far more opportunities right now in the Chicagoland area. I had two former cohorts who had lined up interviews with a pair of local agencies, but (a) both interviews were for the following week, and (b) both would have, in all likelihood, dropped me into the automotive world. That is not a world I desire to be in at this moment, for a number of reasons.

Still, I do love Detroit, and believe in it. I know how great this area is. I want it to desperately succeed. You don't live in an area for more than 30 years without doing that.

On the flip side, this is Chicago, for heavens sake. This is one of my two favorite cities (and I'll be visiting the other in three weeks). The idea that I will be able to take mass transit to and from work for a significant portion of the trip is a wonderful thought: I look forward to being able to zone out for 45 minutes of my ride.

As I note above, this is a contract-to-hire position, so we are not frantically throwing things into boxes and scrambling out there. I will be living with my brother-in-law and his family, who have graciously agreed to let me stay there during the term of my contract. I'm sure his kids will be thrilled to have Uncle Joey on beck and call (especially if he takes them to a Cubs game again at some point). If and when I am hired full-time, we will pack up and find someplace to live.

For those who have noted the fact that my commute to Wrigley Field has significantly shortened: Yes. Yes, it has. Since my e-mail address, Twitter handle and IM screen names are all centered around "hassgocubs," I believe the fine folks at Leo Burnett are aware of this. Next step: convince the Ricketts family to install a Cat 5 port at every seat.

There are two things that were far bigger hangups than I would've figured

Ayana: I remember when Julie moved up here to be with me in November 2001. We had to leave Doogie at her mom's house until we bought our house and brought her up in July 2002. When we would visit Fort Wayne and see her, as we packed up the car on Sunday, she would look so downtrodden and depressed. And I know this is temporary, but I will so miss the puppy, and wish there was a way to clearly communicate to her how much this kills me.

My house: Last September, I had a rather unremarked upon record broken. I have lived at our house for longer than any other residence, passing our old house in Troy. A couple weeks back, I commented to my friend Judy about this fact, and she noted that she had a similar realization on her current home. The idea of moving is best summed up by Julie: "Can't we just lift this house up and move it somewhere else?" Oh, how I wish it was so, despite the fact that it's cramped, we're running out of space, and we have a back yard that is shamefully underutilized by myself. But it's my first house, and while we're so underwater that we may have to call Squidward Tenticles to find a listing agent, I approach it with a tinge of regret.

I am looking forward to next Monday, and wherever this next part of the journey is going to go. I have said repeatedly during the last four weeks that this was different than the last time because I believe I can make a career out of what I've been doing. When I left C-E, I really didn't know if anyone would hire some guy who had only been doing IA for 18 months. This time, I knew that someone would, and they did.

I've been closing these announcements with the same two paragraphs, and you know what? I think it still works well, so here they come again:

To all who helped me emotionally through the past four weeks: a simple thank you isn't enough (yet a five-figure check is too much), but I can't express how much your thoughts and good wishes meant to me. I'm extremely grateful for all of it.

Thank you for being such wonderful friends/relatives/former co-workers/cute chick that lets me sleep with her.