Damn World Leaders, Get Off My Lawn

In case you are reading this and you are not from Chicago, this past weekend was the NATO summit and it was held right here in the second city for some reason (despite the fact that the G8 summit was like THE DAY BEFORE and half the people attending were already at Camp David for that and why couldn't you just have it there you dicks?). If you ARE from Chicago you are certain to already know this because OH MY FUCK what a shit farming nightmare.

There are two elements to hosting a NATO summit: visiting dignitaries and visiting protesters. The dignitaries fuck up traffic because god forbid they use the same roads as the lowly vassals who live here, so all the roads anywhere near where they currently are or might be going in the future are closed to the unwashed public. The protesters fuck up traffic by standing in the middle of the fucking street as close as they can get to where ever the dignitaries currently are or might be going in the future, or that they aren't going to at all but there was a rumor started that they might, or near any building that houses any company large enough that you've heard of them, or anywhere else they might suspect of quartering The Man.

Let me just stop for a second and remind everyone that I have no real political leanings whatsoever and whether you think NATO is good or bad does not interest me - I just wanted them to go somewhere fucking else. Similarly, I have no problem in principle with protesting about anything a group of people believes to be unjust - you are just in my fucking way. (Although when asked by a WGN reporter on the street what message they wanted to send to NATO, a disturbingly large proportion of them said that America doesn't spend enough money on education, which is true but leads me to believe they don't really understand what NATO does.)

Anyway, back to my entirely apolitical rant: NATO and angry college students fucked up my entire weekend. On Saturday I stayed in, being unwilling to deal with the mania any more than I had to, but even this couldn't be done undisturbed because every helicopter in Illinois was hovering over the city making it completely impossible to sleep or watch television. It was also the day I found out that Sunday was going to be completely ruined. There was SUPPOSED to be a nipple tassel making and twirling workshop at Studio L'Amour that I had been looking forward to for weeks. Alas, NATO struck again and I got an e-mail from Michelle herself that the workshop was cancelled because you couldn't get anywhere near the studio because the roads all around it were closed. Worse than that, it's been rescheduled for June 23, which means I can't go to it at all now because I'll be in Indianapolis that weekend for the 5K. I took my frustrations to Facebook, as one does, and wrote the following status: "And now NATO has fucked up my nipple tassel making class tomorrow and it's been rescheduled for the day I'll be getting chased by zombies. This weekend keeps getting worse!" Now, because I am me instead of someone with a life that remotely resembles some standard of normal, that first sentence seemed to me like a regular "People are fucking up my shit" rant. It wasn't until people started leaving comments that it dawned on me that making nipple tassels and running zombie races are not run of the mill every day things for most people, or that to have them ruined by NATO was at all unusual. Once I realized that, I was sorry that I didn't add "At least I don't have to leave trapeze class early now" because, you see, trapeze class slightly overlapped my nipple tassel class, a problem we've all run into at some point I'm sure.

It was rumored late in the previous week that the Occupy movement might try to shut down Boeing because they do evil things when they aren't busy making planes or something. Because our offices are in close proximity to Boeing, and also because Metra had restricted anyone from bring anything besides basically the clothes they were wearing (and even then you shouldn't be wearing too much clothes) on any trains, it was decided that we would close the office for the day and work from home. At that point, thinking I was smart, I decided that I was going to make a doctor's appointment for Monday afternoon and that way not have to schedule time off for it. One problem: my doctor is in a town that is 45 minutes to an hour away at the best of times. I decided to give that commute an hour and a half just in case. I got in my car and started driving sitting in traffic. It took me 45 minutes to go a distance that generally takes 10 at rush hour. Approaching the entrance to the highway I discovered why: the Kennedy was closed because OH MY GOD IMPORTANT PEOPLE ARE HEADED FOR THE AIRPORT AT VARIOUS TIMES FOR THE NEXT SIX HOURS. It wasn't hard to figure out that since it took me 45 minutes to travel 2 miles, it was unlikely I'd have time to cover the other 30 miles in time for my appointment, so I called (a terrifying experience all by itself!) to reschedule for a time when I AM supposed to be in the office, and then sat in traffic for ANOTHER 45 minutes to get back to where I started.

I cannot be happier right now that we lost our Olympic bid, or that the G8 moved to Camp David (it was originally supposed to be here too), and if we never host anything here ever again I will not be sad about it at all.

If we DO, well, I just fucking won't be here that weekend because FUCK. THAT.