I made a remark to a friend the other day that I'd been thinking it was just a matter of time before a panhandler/bum hauled off and punched me after I denied their pleas for me to give them money. I've become pretty immune to the whole phenomena and at times can come off as downright rude. On my way to work downtown, I'm approached by at least three — sometimes as many as a half dozen — panhandlers on Chicago and Michigan Aves. It gets old. I merely walk past them as though they don't exist anymore. There's a tinge of guilt every time I do it, but I just can't deal with them anymore. If you give these people a second, or even a glance of acknowledgment, they'll beg you all the way down the block.

This evening after work, however, I'm walking by the McDonald's on Chicago Ave. minding my own business and I hear a man screaming quite loudly behind me. He's yelling about how he wants to kick somebody's ass or something. I turn back (he's about 10 feet behind me) to see what the fuss is all about. As I do this we both make eye contact.

"Whatch you looking at Superman? You want some?" He hollers after I had turned my head forward. I can't see who he's looking at, but I'm positive he's talking to me.

He speeds up behind me.

"You want some motherfucker! I'll kick your fucking ass motherfucker!" He screams as hordes of people (tourists, 9-5ers, other bums) are walking to and fro.

He comes even closer, to the point to where he's screaming a foot away from my face. I continue to look forward, and am surprised that nobody I walk past pays even a slight amount of attention to what's happening.

Finally I turned to him.

"Leave me the fuck alone, man," I say lightly.

"Oh, you want some? You want some?" My acknowledgment only seemed to aggravate him more, so I continued to look forward.

As I do this I can see, from the corner of my eye, him lift his left arm like he's going to punch me in the face. This makes me pretty nervous. I could feel my heart start pumping quite a bit faster and I was overcome with that numbing rush of adrenaline you get when somebody tries to pick a fight with you.

I'm started thinking of what I should do if he does take a swing at me.

I could either a) punch him right back, b) grab him by the throat and drag him to the ground, c) push him into Chicago Ave., d) keep walking like nothing happened, or e) stop what I'm doing and holler for somebody to find a cop to arrest him.

After a couple more feet of him screaming obscenities in my face, I turn right down another street and he keeps walking ahead. And screaming. I can hear him yammering after walking a good 50 yards away from him.

As I made my way towards my bike I began to calm down and think about how fucked up that situation could have gotten.

It was one of those moments where you're brought up right to a line of tolerability and you're not sure if you want to cross it, because you have no idea how the other person will respond. Deep down, the whole time, I wanted to tell the guy to fuck off and shove him away from me, but this would have only angered him more, and who knew if he had a knife, or a gun, or was loaded with so much crack that he could have unleashed a Tyson-esque flurry of jabs on me before I even knew what happened.

So here's a lesson to all you other urban dwellers out there: If some random stranger ever fucks with you on the street, the best way to get them to leave you alone is to ignore them.

Been fairly busy with work-related writings lately, and the last couple weeks have been fairly unspectacular. It's either been really hot and muggy outside, or rainy and muggy. Making any outdoor activity pretty un-enjoyable.

A couple interesting things happened, though, I suppose.

The Cubs, with their taking of this recent series with the Cardinals, took the lead in the NL Central. Honestly, I don't really give a damn about baseball. Haven't since I was in grade school. But I can't help but get a little excited about it this time of year in Chicago.

Sure, it was great when the Bears made the Super Bowl, but if the Cubs make the post-season, I think it'll have more of an effect on this city. The thing about the Super Bowl that sucked was that the weather was terrible. It was so cold that weekend that nobody could bear to spend more than two minutes outside. So unless you lucked out and got a table at a bar, you were literally left out in the cold. (Of course, it didn't help that they laid an egg during the game and ruined the tenor of whole evening. I suppose if they had won the streets of Chicago would have been overrun with fat, shirtless men despite the subzero temps.)

If the Cubs make the post-season, the coldest it's likely to get is in the 40s, which isn't enough to prevent even marginal fans like myself from making their way up to Wrigleyville during possible elimination games. The simple fact that there'll be actual series' instead of just 1-2 playoff games also means a Cubs push will likely have a stronger effect on the city than the Super Bowl. If they were to actually make the World Series, that would mean they could play upwards of five games at the Wrig. Each of them would bring borderline hysteria to any bar within 5 miles of the neighborhood. That's a hysteria I'd love to be a part of.

Also, saw one of the funniest/most random things I've seen on a Chicago street thus far. I'm crossing Division at Division and Ashland and there's this younger black woman (early 20s probably) is yapping away on her cell phone as she crosses the street about five feet in front of me. Walking the other direction is a haggard-looking older black man who's wearing that general look of irritation most homeless people have. Just as he approaches the girl on the phone in leans into her and screams angrily in her face, "I AIN'T GOT NO PHONE, BITCH!"

She turned to me as he passed; "Oh no he didn't!" She said.

"Yeah he did," I said shaking my head and chuckling.

(I feel compelled to mentioned that just before this happened another bum whipped his junk out next to the magazine stands by the vacant Pizza Hut at the intersection and started pissing away. Streams of people walked past as he did this [it was about 9p on a Friday]. Nobody broke stride or even paid an ounce of attention to him.)