Greg Boose's Things Breaking points on the verge of pointless.

This is the closest I’m going to get to the Blackhawks parade downtown Chicago today, but this girl in front of me on my morning commute was all I needed.

Illustration by Chris Simmons

This is my fourth day of the new job and everything has changed. Except for the commute.

We’re down in Naples, Florida, this week and my dad took us all out looking for alligators in the Everglades yesterday.

After a disappointing hour, we finally started spotting them in the never-ending ditch/moat along the highway.

We found a spot to pull over and we all piled out and my wife was able to take the below picture of me with some of the gators:

Luckily we got back in the car before the giant scorpion surfaced.

(Later in the afternoon we went out looking for space invaders. I think we got some decent photos but I’ll have to check the camera.)

So I’m feeling a bit guilty that Google’s Nexus One smart phone is a flop.

Which is ridiculous.

But anyone who knows me knows that I take ownership of everything everyone around me, and when I like someone I want to make sure they are successful comfortable.

I am a ridiculous fan of Google.

Gmail is the best email I’ve ever logged into.

Google Maps are the only maps I trust.

It’s the only search engine I use.

For fuck’s sake, I wrote an entire 83,000+ word novel in Google Documents.

But, Google, guys, you didn’t have the next iPhone.

I was so hoping you would have it - because I’m such a fan of your canon of work - but it was pretty apparent you didn’t in your very first commercial.

If it’s any consolation, though, your free Google application - with its voice search function - is definitely one of my favorite apps on my lover iPhone.

Maybe stick to software?

Goodbye, work badge. You got me into a server lab I had no business being in and you allowed me to again view corporate America from the flimsy bottom of its digestive system. I will never forget the way you burned a hole in my pocket.

I’ve written about this guy for The Huffington Post and The Nervous Breakdown before, but I just can’t stop my infatuation with Farhad Khoiee-Abassi.

Because he can’t stop changing his signs.

Like every two to three days.

And he’s out there every day.

When I first ran across “The Sign Guy” on the corner of Randolph and Clark Streets, which is across the street from where I worked, he held up a couple of signs that read “Agent Chris Saviano, Stop Raping My Wife!” and “Mayor Daley, The Dictator.”

And then during the ‘08 election he changed his signs, for the first time in two years, to one that read “Senator, Obama, Spare My Only Child For Me, Please.”

It was such a big deal to me that he changed his sign to anything, but even a bigger deal that I realized he followed current events and didn’t just sit at a table in a dark basement chanting and banging the butts of his forks.

After the election, he changed his sign(s) again, and Farhad Khoiee-Abassi went on to announce to the morning commuters of Chicago that he was officially going on a hunger strike.

He held a sign plastered with the words “Hunger Strike” at the top and below it, “Chicago Since 4.10.09 Farhad.”

This was disconcerting.

My favorite schizophrenic was going to wither away and it seems there’s nothing anyone could do about it because he refused to talk to anyone, to let anyone aid him in his mission.

Whatever it was.

But then…

Two days later his sign was slightly altered.

It said “Hunger Strike Chicago Since 4.12.09 Farhad.”

Good!

He ate.

But another hunger strike, Farhad?

Really?

Because it seems like you couldn’t handle a good hunger strike and gave up pretty quickly.

But okay, man.

This time is going to be about commitment.

About raising awareness.

About showing how serious you are.

About… Fuck me!

He changed the sign again, two days later: “… Since 4.14.09.”

Dude.

And so this has gone on, a perpetual hunger strike for almost a year, his sign changing every two to three days, always looking gaunt, but always there.

This past week:

So I’m left wondering.

Not why he can’t go through with an honest-all-out-all-American hunger strike - I mean, shit, you gotta eat if you want to make it to the corner the next morning - but more I’m left wondering what dish or sandwich is keeping him from following through.

I imagine he trudges home every day.

Exhausted from not eating for two days.

The toes of his shoes dragging along the street.

And then he looks into a window that he told himself he would avoid this time, cursing himself as he pushes open the front door with his head down, and he says, “Yeah, I said I’d never be back. But I’ll take one of those five dollar foot-longs, Spicy Italian on the Monterrey Cheddar bread. You know what, better make it two. It’s gonna have to last me.”