Dru sent us this. It’s posterized, Warhol-esq. The idea, mainly, was to show what she had described to me while on her walk to work in Downtown Chicago. I’m not sure it’s appropriate work attire at the advertising agency where she’s part of the new acquisitions team. It probably is appropriate garb for navigating the mean streets where, as a matter of self-protection, one must have a tough, no-nonsense, ‘leave me the f alone’ demeanor; the fallback being, in the most dire emergency (and she got this advice from me when she was in college) to ‘just act like a crack whore; everyone will leave you alone.’

I decided this would work after, walking to a local liquor store (maybe it’d be called a bodega there? maybe just on TV) when I was there to help Dru move off the campus at Loyola), I observed this woman shaking and messed up, and observed the tough looking locals were keeping a distance. I will allow that maybe the ‘crack’ and the ‘whore’ may be wrong; she was, at least, crazy. I can do an impression if asked; though, when walking dark city streets at night, I prefer to try to look big and tough, and, if possible, walk in the street rather than on the sidewalks. Safer.

To my knowledge, Dru hasn’t had to use the ‘possibly very nice woman though obviously and seriously messed up or crazy’ ploy.

Then again, when wearing a fashion statement (as with the Ballin’ hat she’s been known to wear when it’s cold), sometimes fashion gets one stopped by street toughs for a question like, “Hey, Girl; so, yo, say; like, where can I get me one of them?” It could be “one of those,” or “one of them there?” How do I know? I live in the country; and I probably shouldn’t have added the ‘like’ to the imagined street lingo.

Well, the answer is: The graphic shirt was designed by the Fat Jew and Pizza Slime (these aren’t my nicknames, they’re, evidently, official), and was delivered in a pizza box that, and Dru claims may have just been her imagination, sort of smelled like pizza.

Okay, here’s Dru’s other “Fat Jew” shirt, a tank top, the photo taken with the camera on the phone Dru dropped on the floor at the Hodgson’s while home in the northwest last Christmas. Or maybe it was taken with a shaky hand at a Chicago nightspot.

And, finally… finally because I can’t think of a way in which any of this could be surf-related, here’s my daughter and her cat, Mister Pugsley (who has his own Facebook page). I don’t buy into the idea that he looks anything like me. Yes, I have the mustache, the intense look, but, mostly, I do manage to keep my tongue in my mouth.

Wait, on editing… not sure my daughter has her tongue in her mouth.  Okay, good; Dru, use that as part of the fallback crazy act if, and we can only hope it isn’t, necessary, in the midwest’s surf capital, Chicago.