Last weekend I went to Chicago for various parties and events. It was a great time — I ate good food, went dancing, listened to music, saw a good movie and most importantly I was able to spend time with pretty much all my people that I miss so much. However, I also contracted some sort of Hipster Malaria whilst at Pitchfork and I’ve been sick for most of the week. So sick, in fact, that I stayed home from work and have been holed up in my house for days.

This has given me a lot of time to catch on up my summer cable television programming. I’ve been watching almost non-stop episodes of Dog Whisperer on the National Geographic channel and Dirty Jobs on Discovery. I can’t get enough. I’ve even tried using Cesar’s dog psychology on Magellan (it doesn’t seem to work on cats, especially when they are sleeping) and I’ve developed a mighty crush on the host of Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe. Those who know me might be surprised by this, since I generally don’t care for the muscly, brawny, “I can lift that for ya” types. Nor do I necessarily go for poop-jokes – a major staple on a show about grody jobs.  But then in one episode he started singing (he used to be with the Baltimore Opera Company) and making up silly songs and I was sorta hooked. Plus I have great admiration for people who can walk into a weird situation with complete strangers, have to work with them ALL DAY, and be gracious and friendly and funny and productive. It’s a brand of social ability that I have yet to conquer and I’m sort of in awe of it.

Also it makes me grateful that I don’t have to wear waders for my living. Though I did enjoy wearing them for wading out into the blood-colored fountains to light torches during Fright Fest…but I think that is a very specialized, narrow area of wader-acceptance.