CHICAGO, IL -

I’ve always tried to write stories on here with the site title in my head.

About times when I get nervous.

Or breakdown.

Or the.

And I thought that maybe I could look back over this past year and the 21 posts (I deleted one a long time ago I wasn’t happy with) I’ve put up on The Nervous Breakdown and give some updates.

Yeah, this is going to be kind of like watching a new episode of a sitcom only to realize that it’s one of those recap episodes. You’d rather not watch it and think the writers got lazy, but you do get to revisit some choice scenes. So it might be worth it. Or at least better than what’s on MTV.

I won’t go through them all, of course.

Story One (Life of Kleptomania Avoided With No Help From the Art Director of Pearl Jam’s 4th Album or Promotional Pens) took place in Moorhead, MN, where I was going to grad school. A simpler time and place. This piece explained a game I played at retail stores where I attempted to steal the pens that were on the counter.

Just wanted people to know that I’ve stopped stealing pens.

My brother is a doctor so I’m getting a mad amount of free pens, highlighters and staplers all the time.

So that’s good.

But I am on a napkin kick, though.

I’m taking stacks of them from eateries like they’re gross mints benefiting some place advertised with a picture of half-smiling children on a stoop to some big house.
There was Story Three (I Dream of Norwegian Men Shaking My Hand and Giving Me Back My Property) which was a sad tale regarding a lost disc and a mean Fargo man who taunted me with a single phone call.

I’m still dreaming of Norwegian men shaking my hand and giving back my property.

Story Six (If You Want Me to Write Your Film Then You Should Never Reprimand Me with a Slap on the Arm) had me dealing with an amateur director who I lied to in order to quit his film crew. I still think it was a great decision.

But I cannot get off of this event’s email list.

I CANNOT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET OFF THIS EMAIL LIST.

I’ve tried several times to unsubscribe, but somehow I still receive monthly updates from the 48 Film Fest.

I’m breaking down.

Whatever you want me to do, sir, I’ll do it.

Film you for 48 hours just sitting on a stoop of some big house with a bunch of half-smiling children who benefit from mint sales?

Sure.

Anything.

Story Seven (Pointing Out the Ignorance of Business Owners Can be Fun When You’re Standing Close to an Exit) was my first Chicago piece. Unemployed at the time, I walked up and down my street in search of misspellings and misplaced apostrophes.

This was a lot of fun for me.

And apparently the owner of one of these businesses, Neybours, found my story this July and commented:

“I wonder how intelligent you really are if you have nothing better to do than spend an afternoon looking for spelling errors on buildings. As the owner of Neybours I could give a shit less about the spelling or an apostrophe, it’s a logo! I can spell it or make it look however the fuck I want because it’s my business and my sign that I’m paying for, as long as it attracts customers. My restaurant was packed every night. So why don’t you use your time a little more wisely put your ball’s where your mouth is and open your own business SMART GUY and put all the fucking apostrophies (sic) you want in the name, maybe you can call it DICKHEAD’S…. HA,HA. From the guy you talked to on the phone.”

My posted response: “Didn’t Neybours close?”

Aside from the valet sandwich board across the street saying that they will put your car in “strage” instead of “storage,” another local sign has brought me to pound my steering wheel in annoyance many, many times:

(Act like you can see the ‘E’ behind the sushi sign.)

Now I can maybe understand being confused on which side of the ‘N’ the apostrophe went on, but to put it on the end of “BUY” is simply unforgivable.

I have an itch to talk to the owner, but I’ve decided to spend my energy on stealing the napkins at the sushi place.

They’re white and thick.

Story Nine (Five Dollar Bills Don’t Get You Out of Jams Like They Used To: A Greek Tragedy at the Fargo Downtown Street Fair) brought us back to Fargo, ND. I retold the time I went to the street fair and saw a past freelance subject who didn’t give me a deal on a smoothie when in my head I really thought I deserved it.

Someone in Fargo read the story and tipped off my subject, Maria S.

She threatened me with: “DEAR GREG. I JUST FOUND OUT WHAT YOU WROTE ABOUT ME. YOU ARE DEEPLY MISTAKEN! I NEVER TOLD YOU THAT THERE IS AN ATM MACHINE IN A TRUCK. ARE YOU FOR REAL!! WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SOMETHING UP LIKE THIS JUST TO MAKE YOURSELF LOOK GOOD?? YOU ARE SLANDERING MY NAME! I AM VERY UPSET ABOUT THIS AMD WILL LOOK FURTHER INTO TAKING CARE OF THIS IF YOU DON’T. I AM NOT THE KIND OF PERSON WO (sic) SITS AND WAITS FOR A BUCK… I HAVE GIVEN MANY PEOPLE FREE FOOD. I HADN’T EVEN RECOGNIZED YOU… I WAS JUST MAKING SMALL TALK WITH YOU… WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE. I MIGHT EVEN LOOK AT A LAW SUIT… DO NOT USE MY NAME ON LINE.”

I emailed Brad Listi (creator of TNB) and he told me to hold onto her emails, and then advised me to write even more about her.

I considered it.

But an hour after receiving the all-capital email, I replied to fully back up my account as pure fact and wrote that she probably didn’t remember it perfectly since it didn’t make such an impact on her at the time like it did to me.

After all, I was a poor starving college kid who entertained himself with remembering the little things in life.

Her response: “I know you are crazzzyyy. I never pointed to no truck… whatever… I wont waste time on this …I just know I would never ever ever make someone go get a buck… I give hundreds of people free food! It was one of those people who told me how stupid this thing was…”

Well, it happened exactly that way and it’s still up.

For the record: I’m not crazzzyyy.

Story Fourteen (You Really Shouldn’t Jump to Conclusions When Finding a Cache of Weapons, Especially If You’re Wearing a Space-Diaper) was written the day Lisa Nowak was arrested for assaulting that astronaut’s girlfriend. I read a few online articles about it and immediately got to typing.

This story was beaten to death by late night shows for months. In fact, it was everywhere: on every channel and site, and in every paper and magazine. Made me a little embarrassed to have written about it.

Nowak will plead temporary insanity this week.

And in every new story I’ve read about her the space diapers are mentioned.

Oh, man. What a thing to be remembered by!

I talked about growing a moustache for charity in Story Fifteen (Moustaches Aren’t Just for Rides Anymore; They’re for the Children) and I ended up not only looking scary, but I raised over $500 dollars for 826 Chicago.

Watch it grow:

Never again.

Thanks for anyone reading who donated. It truly made a difference!

Oh, Igor. Our story was enough to sustain Stories Seventeen and Eighteen (Igor Anatsko, Just Give Me My Money Already or I’m Going On a Whirlwind PR Tour in an Attempt to Fuck Your Shit Up and Act Two: Igor Anatsko, You’re Still Elusive and Being a Dick, But I’m Still On Your Case).

Where ARE you, Igor?

I know I’ve stopped calling and texting, but I thought I would have run into you at some point, at some train station.

Those two articles garnished the most feedback and emails out of any TNB post, and the sad thing is that I heard from 4-5 other people who have also been screwed by Igor and his Russian crew.

I’m torn on how to proceed.

A reader has tipped me off to an address, but I’m hesitant. I can’t stop picturing me knocking on a door with my camera out, coming face-to-face with Igor, his eyebrows combining then raising, the door slamming in my face, me knocking again, and then the door opening minutes later where I’m facing a snub-nosed weapon or a couple of big dudes with fat, shaved heads.

I get pummeled or shot over curiosity and $500.

Fade out.

Story Twenty (So Maybe I Don’t Have the Pictures to Prove It, But LeBron James and I Have a Special Kind of Relationship) ended up being linked at ESPN.com, so that was pretty cool.

Go Cavs!

And then Story Twenty-One (Walking Around Naked With Thousands of Other Naked People Is Totally Fine Until You’re One of the Last Searching for His Clothes), my last one about baring it all, was not well received by my mother. At all. In fact, I didn’t hear much else from any of my relatives on this one.

I was glad to finally get that story out there and off my chest.

So, that was Year One.

Gotta get started on Year Two.

More stories about times when I get nervous.

Or breakdown.

Or the.

Thank you to anyone who has spent time reading my stuff on here.

www.gregboose.com

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2007 at 6:47 pm and is filed under Addiction, Assholes, Games, Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.