I was feeling a little nostailgic today. Found some websites about stuff from my hometown of Oak Park, Ill.:

Frank Lloyd Wright, a kick-ass architect who lived and worked in Oak Park back in his early years. When I was a kid, his buildings fascinated me. They still do.

The Ernest Hemingway Museum in Oak Park. This place was a bank back in the days. I was always impressed that a town as small (pop. 55,000) as Oak Park was the birthplace and hometown of someone this famous. I never got too into Hemingway’s work — good stuff, just not my cup of tea — but the fact he grew up in my hometown (or I in his) always made the area feel creative and artisy.

Village of Oak Park webpage. Notice the Starbucks.

Here’s where my dad goes to church. The building is a Wright joint. Been there. The services are very casual and progressive. Like my old editor used to say: “Going to Unitarian Church is like sleeping in.”

Somebody has a hard-on for Oak Park in a major way.

When I lived there, I never had any idea this strain of religious counterculture was in our midst. Scary.

Here’s the history of Oak Park. Spellbinding.

I find things like this quite frightening. I imagine a day when throngs of pubescent women will be arching their eyebrows compulsively in an attempt to nab themselves "hotties." And what of poor, talentless Patti Lamberti, the author of this piece of literary rat crap? I mean, her attempt to be helpful and chic is nothing short of gut-tighteningly hilarious... And not because she meant it that way. Seriously people, read this load of bullocks and tell me if I'm out of line.

Miya, the dearest human I have ever known to exist and an absolute ace at cooking delicious meals and being generally sweet and wonderful, has periodic bouts of insomnia. And not insomnia in the clinical sense (where one can’t sleep for days on end and is eventually declared insane by a board of psychologists). Rather, it’s the old wake-up-at-4 a.m.-and-dammit-can’t get back-to-sleep variety. Surely, we’ve all suffered at times from this affliction. It most often occurs when one must pee at some ungodly hour of the night or has had a terrifying nightmare of some sort.

The strange thing about Miya’s insomnia is that, after she’s told me about it, I suffer the same variety of insomnia for the next few days. So today I’m not feeling particularly well-rested and chipper. I have main-lined coffee for a better part of the day to stave off my drooping eyelids but have only succeeded in making my heart beat faster than hummingbird wings. This is somewhat unsettling. So I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this kind of insomnia-via-loved-one.

Tomorrow I accompany my darling to her office Christmas party. Rumor has it that there will be carol singing and a clown. Must remember to bring mace.

Anyone else see these new anti-marijuana ads on TV?

I’ve seen three of them. Here’s a short rundown:

• spot 1 – Two kids are in the study smoking weed and laughing and carrying on. Typical weed scene, right? One of them pulls a handgun out of his dad’s desk drawer. Waves it around and shoots his friend in the face. The message here is that responsible parents don’t leave loaded handguns in their desk. Especially when there is a bullet in the chamber. Right?

No. The message is that smoking weed makes you so idiotic and careless that you will probably shoot your friend in the face.

• spot 2 — Four guys are in the drive-thru of a fast-food joint. A little girl is riding her bike on the sidewalk perpendicular to the drive-thru window. The guys in the car are clearly high on weed, because they keep messing up their order. They realize they don’t have any money and ditch the drive-thru idea. Of course, on their way out of the parking lot, they mow down the girl on the bike. The message here is that children should not be riding bikes on the sidewalk AND definitely not riding bikes on the sidewalk against traffic. Right?

No. The message here is that when you get stoned and drive a car, you might run over a little girl on a bike because weed renders you completely blind and stupid. And if you don’t hit her with your car, you might just shoot her in the face accidentally.

• spot 3 — (Perhaps the strangest; definitely the most contradictory) A girl is at a party, stoned out of her mind. Some guys start molesting her. The message here is that you should never, under any circumstances, sexually assault anyone. Right?

No. The message is actually that girls who smoke weed at parties are inviting rape. If you smoke weed, you’re on your own, ladies. It will make you defenseless and you could be raped. You’ve been warned by a TV commercial, so if it happens it’s your own damn fault.

The contradictory thing about this last ad is that the caption tells you that “smoking marijuana impairs your judgement.” Yet the girl can be clearly heard to say “no” as the boys molest her (implied, off camera). Now, if marijuana impairs her judgement and she says “no,” does this mean that she would accept the boys’ advances if her judgement was sound and she was not smoking marijuana?

Weird.