This is an excerpt from something I've been working on called The Big Book of Everything: THE BOOK of MONEY & CAREER

THE BEGINNING (Chapter 1)

1:1 Long after the universe had been created and well before Bill Buckner blew the world series for the Boston Red Sox in 1986, humankind multiplied.

1:2 First there was work and little time for anything else. Then there came tools that helped with work, so humankind used that extra time to work more.

1:3 And then there came machines, and a few incredibly violent wars. Those machines took over most of the work we had to do (like laundry and killing people). So we filled that time with more work, going about inventing more machines to do work that we didn’t know we needed to do.

1:4 And then we watched a lot of television. Such is the way.

This is taken from something I've been working on called The Big Book of Everything: From the BOOK of DREAMERS

Bobbo (Chapters 1-5)

1:1 Bobbo was from a small town in southern Illinois. When he was a child he looked at his father (who was watching TV) and he said unto him “I wish not to be like you. You frighten me. You are emotionally distant. Your eyes glaze over as you sit in front of the television, and Mom kind-of hates you. Did you used to be alive like I am?”

1:2 Then Bobbo ran away from home, never to return. Minutes after Bobbo was gone, his father looked up at no one and said “what?”

1:3 Bobbo decided he would become a clown since he already had a funny name.

1:4 Bobbo joined the circus and frolicked with the lion tamers and the trapeze women. But late one night, Bobbo noticed that he had been sitting in front of the television after work. His trapeze artist girlfriend had been talking for quite some time (for at least two-and-a-half years) and he hadn’t been listening to any of it.

1:5 Bobbo ran away from the circus and became a therapist. He dated lawyers. Late one August morning he hung himself. Such is the way.

2:1 Bobbo had a son before he died by the name of Winthrop. Winthrop said unto Bobbo, shortly before Bobbo killed himself “I wish not to be like you. You frighten me. You are emotionally distant—“ That’s as far as he got.

2:2 Eventually the guilt over his father’s suicide led Winthrop to kill himself.

2:3 Before he died, Winthrop begat Hildegard, Ritchie and Horace.

3:1 Horace one day climbed the highest mountain in the world. And when he was at the top of the mountain, his cell phone rang. When he went to answer it, he lost his footing and fell to his death.

4:1 Ritchie was very popular in school and so became mortally depressed upon graduation. He spent the rest of his life watching television.

5:1 Hildegard was a special woman. When others were getting careers, she decided to follow her dreams. When her dreams didn’t materialize before her just because she wanted them to, she didn’t give up hope. When she had tried as hard as she could, and still could not achieve her dreams, she laughed and switched dreams.

5:2 Hildegard had a special gene in her head that made her predisposed to happiness. Richie and Horace hated her passionately for this reason. Such is the way.

I stopped watching sit-coms when I decoded the humor. Every single joke on every single sitcom goes like this: "I'm not X. I'm not X at all. In fact, I'm the least X you can imagine." The speaker then demonstrates that she/he is X.

For example: "I'm not hungry. I'm not hungry at all. In fact, I'm the least hungry person in this room. You gonna eat that?"

Another: "I'm not attracted to you. I'm not attracted to you at all. In fact, if you were the last woman on earth I'd avoid you. " They kiss. Passionately. So funny.

I live in Chicago. Chicago is one of the big cities--third largest in the U.S. I got up from my desk a little while ago and took a walk around the block downtown. The weather is improving, thank goodness. It struck me that behind absolutely every sign, store, pebble, tree, blade of grass is human labor. Look at any square inch of your city, and know that at least one job was behind it. I don't find that depressing at all. I find it really inspiring. After all, our inventiveness was evolved as a way of furthering our species. And it worked. It may destroy our species as well, but that might be part of the natural order too, as certain leaps in evolution have led to the demise of other species. Inventiveness is human nature. Human nature is nature. Therefore a city is natural. It's the biggest evolutionary beaver-dam on the planet. And I like it. Yes, it has it's drawbacks. But this is a beautiful city. If you've never been to Chicago, you should go. It amazes me that I live here sometimes. It's so easy to become blind to how beautiful it is.

When I first moved here, I used to take the bus downtown from Hyde Park, and when the skyline and the lake became visible on Lake Shore Drive, I always caught my breath and felt simultaneously invigorated and intimidated. And then I would go to work for the American Cancer society, and plant my own blade of grass for future generations. That job had its drawbacks, too.