March 2010 Archives

Wednesday
Why shouldn't it be Lumberjack Day, I ask you?

Remember "coed naked" t-shirts? They were all the rage in the early '90s, it seemed. I don't recall how we arrived at Coed Naked Mud Amoeba, but the tagline fits the mold quite nicely.

Part one of the two-day marathon of scatological quotes: "Poop! Can you watch my shit?" Well said, Kevin.

Thursday
Part two of the scatological quote marathon: "Oh pooh -- I forgot my bottom." (I think it was in reference to a bagel.)

On the left side of the page, April Fools jokes from elsewhere. On the right, April Fools jokes (or maybe not) at BHS. And in the center, Mother Nature's April Fools joke -- snow. Thankfully, here in 2010 we've got beautiful weather to enjoy.

I have to wonder about that first one. Sodium hydroxide (aka lye) and sugar create a noxious gas, not an explosion. So I'm thinking this might have been a hoax, based a misremembering of the legendary reaction between pure sodium and water, possibly conflated with potassium nitrate and sugar.

Monday
I've mentioned before that before 1954, I had a series of open journal-sketchbooks called Jehovahs. 1954 didn't quite fit the Jehovah mold, but it wasn't the first to bend the rules. Its predecessor, Jehovah IV, was unusual in that it was the first one to develop a theme. And that theme was frogs.

I don't recall exactly how it started, but this particular Jehovah spent considerable time in RQ, where it served to relieve the stress of struggling with the subject matter. (It was a seriously intense class; it took more effort and concentration than most of my college classes.) Jeremy, Brandon, myself and others began sketching frogs for some reason -- I thin it started with a drawing by Jeremy and went on from there. Soon lots of people were joining in. We had frogs from around the world, frogs in odd situations, frogs doing strange jobs. Lots of fun.

When the semester ended, I left Jehovah IV on the bookshelf in the RQ classroom so the next semester's class could continue the tradition. Unfortunately, the kids in the freshman English class that also used that room got a hold of it and defaced a few of the frogs. That put an end to its being left on the bookshelf, but it didn't stop the froggage. Eventually every page was filled, and Jerry instituted two new books, Buddah (or more likely, Buddha) I and II, to keep the tradition alive. I have no idea what happened to those books, but I still have Jehovah IV, safe and sound in my home office.

Secret writing:

Gaby has the unbelievable ability to influence my mood at any time, apparently simply by suggestion. Today, she finally told me (sort of) what's up. She mentioned she was afraid to tell me, and I instantly felt nervous.

It would have been nice if I had written down what she told me, because I have no recollection of it. I suppose the fact that I noted my reaction to Gaby rather than my reaction to the news means it wasn't all that important.

Tuesday
I guess I felt "I'm My Own Grandpaw" was funny enough to merit recording it in my book. *shrugs*

B.A.S.H. was a satirical counter-organization formed by a couple friends in response to S.E.A.L., an animal rights club that was formed by a couple of other friends. S.E.A.L. stood for something along the lines of Students for Ethical Treatment of Animal Life, and was well-meaning but somewhat hapless. B.A.S.H. stood for Brutalized Animals Save Humans, and was nominally in favor of animal testing but mostly just in favor of antagonizing S.E.A.L. More on that later this week.

Saturday
Born Again Pagan Day? Beats me.

I guess Jess and I were supposed to have a photo shoot, but that didn't happen.

Instead, Emily and I drove with Mike to Rockford so we could watch him compete in a taekwondo competition. He didn't do so hot, but then again he didn't expect to. And he broke a bone in his foot, which sucked because it hurt a lot but couldn't be immobilized, so he had to just let it hurt until it healed.

Sunday
Ah, I nice quiet Sunday. Always nice to recharge.

Thursday
So, here's a rare case of someone totally disregarding the "don't post in the future" rule -- and doing it big, by taking up most of the page. Oh well.

Friday
Much witty repartee on this page. I don't know who told Christian he wrote on a slant, but his response is a solid snap.

When the Lapture occurs, everyone's lap will be saved.

I'm pretty sure I had talked to Jessica more recently than two months, but no matter, it had been a long while. I commemorated the occasion by turning her initials into a shield, which she then crosshatched around. I think she also wrote the mysterious coded message -- I was never able to crack it to find out what it said.

Tuesday

These abstract shapes started out, at least, as the negative spaces I could see through the page of the chili pepper on the prior Sunday. My dad and I spent the day driving back from Missouri, so I didn't have much to say.

Wednesday
I honestly have no idea what's up with this page. I don't remember who Tyler is, nor who set up the surprise party or who attended. I don't know why I'm being so harsh about the person who quoted terrible light verse and made vague reference to my habit of sneaking out of my house at night by exiting through my bedroom window and climbing down my chimney.

Sunday
Happy birthday, Em!

While my buddies Mike and Chad took a Spring Break road trip up I90 to Mount Rushmore -- stopping by the famous Corn Palace along the way -- my dad and I headed to Columbia, Missouri to check out Missouri University. It was the top-rated journalism school in the country at the time. (Still might be, although US News & World Report apparently no longer ranks journalism programs. Sign of the times?) I liked the campus and though the school was pretty cool, and might have gone there had they offered me honors as a freshman -- you had to wait till sophomore year instead. Ohio State did, so I went there. I drew this chili pepper at a Mexican restaurant the night we arrived.

Along the way, my dad and I made a running joke of the billboards advertising walnut bowls along the highway in Missouri. Later in college, when Cinnamon and I drove to Alamogordo, New Mexico so she could move in with her boyfriend (long story), we actually stopped there. I bought a small walnut cutting board, which we still have.

Monday
You can hear my enthusiasm ringing off the page, can't you? I actually did like it a lot, despite the "well-memorized 'information session'" we were subjected to.

Boy, how different might my life have been if I went to Mizzou instead of OSU? It's hard even to imagine.

Friday
Another day of random quotes and notes.

Secret writing: "Christine is here. What perfect timing." I'm referring to my ex-girlfriend here -- who I met and became interested in on the Stratford, Ontario trip on which I found 1954 -- but I have no idea where "here" is. Probably Yvette's.

My mom forced me to go to a year of confirmation class sophomore year. I was completely uninterested, so I screwed around a lot and sort of culture-jammed the experience. I chose Zeus as my confirmation name, and got a lot of enjoyment out of making "Jesus" sound like "hey Zeus." I feel a little bad in retrospect for making the teacher's life more difficult -- getting teenagers to concentrate on anything other than themselves and each other is challenge enough.

No idea why Joe thought he might die, but I'm guessing it was something lunch line related. Glad he survived.

Saturday
Woah, I called my dad a shit head! Sorry, Dad.

My dad's car was an '89 Honda Accord coupe, with a manual transmission. It really liked 48 MPH -- I got another ticket about a year later in it, doing 48 in a 35. Interestingly, his license plate number was OV 4830.

I drove my dad's car a lot in high school and college, and it eventually became mine. Friends nicknamed it "The Ashtray," because my father smoked in it constantly. He also drank coffee in it -- out of regular coffee mugs. He claimed the reason he bought it was because the dashboard would fit a mug and had a lip, which held in most of the spillage. Not all of it, unfortunately: the stereo burned out from multiple splashes (first the CD player, then the radio), and coffee went into the A/C vents as well, so there was a constant smell of coffee and soured milk whenever the heat was on. My brother Peter drove it for awhile in high school, too, and he tried in vain to remove the stench of cigarettes and coffee. Years after the last Merit Ultra-Light was smoked, the windows would still fog up on mildly cool days.

The Ashtray became my brother's once again a couple years after I moved back to Chicago. When it finally died, it had 189,000 miles on it and still reeked of coffee and cigarettes.

The Brooke mentioned here was a good friend I met through my friend Bryant. She was fun and somewhat silly, and incredibly self-deprecating. She had a crush on my (and on Bryant, simultaneously) but never expressed it, and I was much more interested in her as a friend. Which turned out to be torture for her, as I had serial crushes on several of her close friends and went out with some of them, including Gaby and Melissa (more on her in a couple months), and put her in the position of being my confidant and moral support through those relationships. And then I all but cut off contact with her when I went off to college. (To be fair, I cut off contact with almost all my friends in Barrington, but it was particularly unfair to her.) Our friendship never really recovered from all that, which is entirely my fault. She had every right to hate me after all that.

I injured my knee sometime that day or the night before, and had a big bruise on it -- that's what my "quote of the day" is about. And the weird quote beneath it was written by Christian.

Wednesday
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

The quote "I'm not Irish, I'm not Catholic, and nobody ever kisses me anyway." was a slightly longer version of something I traditionally wrote on a piece of masking tape and stuck to my shirt on St. Pat's. (I usually left out the Catholic part.) It got me a lot of kisses. :)

Maggie (the one who stumbled across a dead body with her mom) gave me the four-leaf clover she found on the lawn, which was awfully nice of her. You can also see her figuring out how to read and write my secret alphabet on this page. And mentioning that she was moving to Sheboygan, Wisconsin after school ended.

I liked Maggie a lot. She was very petite and looked about 11, and as a result wasn't taken very seriously by a lot of people, but she was quite sensitive and intelligent. And you could tell she was going to be beautiful, and always look younger than she was. (I knew her mom from Yvette's, and her mom's looks backed up that theory.) I've always wondered whatever became of her.

Note the "Damn, foiled again!" Clock's still up.

Thursday
And the next day, success! The clock was ours! I ended up being the one who took it home. Its cord had been cut short so it could be hardwired into the school's electrical system, so I bought a new cord at Ace and put it on. It hung in my room and various college dorms and apartments, but developed a bad gear that made it lose track of time rather quickly. It's now in a box somewhere in the basement, waiting for repair.

You may recall that Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fischer were in the news a lot in 1992 and 1993. That's all I have to say about that.

Waco was also in the news a lot; the siege of the Branch Davidians started February 28. So the RevCo/WaCo joke-type-thing was topical at the time. (Side note: When I arrived at Ohio State in the fall, I was surprised to find a drugstore called Revco just off campus. I could never shake the idea of an industrial band running a pharmacy.)

Monday
Today was declared "Random Irrational Day" by my close friend Jill. The randomness of the quotes here back that up.

The note in the middle by Lisa S. is in reference to what I wrote around the edge of the page, starting in the top left corner. I still believe that: saying "I love you" has been rendered pretty insignificant by the number of times and ways it's said these days. I try not to swear very often for the same reason; if every sentence contains profanity, it loses its impact.

I also dislike hearts as a symbol for love, so I made up my own -- the little shape you see just below the start of my thought, in the top left corner. I used to draw it on my hand and sign letters with it. I always meant to get a tattoo of it, but never did. Still might.

Nina and Dan got married years later after an unexpected pregnancy; not sure if they ever actually each other's blood.

Secret writing:

I have no problem in particular with Gabriela's cousin not liking me except she will listen to them before herself.

Grrr... I'm sorry Gaby.

Gaby had an older sister, but she also had several male cousins who acted like big brothers -- overprotective, controlling big brothers. And early in our relationship I set them against me by showing up unannounced to give Gaby a mix tape. It pretty much ruined any chance I had of having a normal relationship with her.

Tuesday
A sad day among us coffee fiends: Juan Valdez died on this day in 1993. Or rather, the actor who played him died.

Lots to talk about on this page, but I really want to focus in on a small note in the middle: "The clock will go!" The Bagel Boys was what our little group of third hour open guys called ourselves (John, Joe, Ted, me and a rotating cast of others). The clock in question was a standard issue school clock in the cafeteria that had ceased working. We decided it needed to be taken. We devised a plan as to how we'd quickly remove it from the wall and sneak it away, and actually did it later in the week. I'll hold off on revealing the result.

Saturday
Oh boy! Yak Shaving Day!

Secret writing:

Gabriela has wanted to talk to me for a week about something, though I didn't know what. I'd like to think -- to hope -- that she wants to tell me she's breaking up with Kyle and wants to be mine. Wishful thinking, most likely.

Sunday
Secret writing:

I don't know if it's an objective opinion, but I don't particularly like Gabriela's boyfriend, Kyle. He seems to me a rather childish dork. But I might not be objective.

Duh.

It's stuped to ask this question, since Gaby is the only one who can read this besides me: Am I an idiot to give Gaby the key to read all my obsessive writings about her?

Double duh.

I am no better than the lowly mole.

Huh?

Hi Mike!

Well, at least Gaby's not the only one who can read me obsess over her anymore.

Thursday
Ironic that this page should include a note about me being sick. The recent pause in progress with this blog (not that you'd notice, since I'm keeping to posting these on the proper dates) was due in part to my attendance at SXSW Interactive and in part due to a sinus infection I came down with the last day at the conference.

The "flat surfaces are my friends" quote was taken out of the context of a digression by my AP Logic & Rhetoric teacher, Mr. Phelan. I think he was talking about twisting his ankle on some uneven ground.

A.B. suggests you think about how many people are making love in the world at any given moment. Deep, man, deep.

Friday
"The 1st Pull-Out Section in 1954" was a couple of notes back and forth between my friend Brandon and me, also during Logic & Rhet. They're written on the backs of two halves of a notice that I owed $6 for the scripts for David & Lisa and Our Town, the two other plays I did senior year beside West Side Story. (I was a father in each of those, too -- one of the parents in the former, Mr. Webb in the latter.)

In the first, we discuss Crystal Pepsi and the weird trend for clear drinks. The second starts out talking about "Beavis & Butthead" and move on to talking about my brother Peter, who was a freshman at the time, apparently making the sophomore baseball team. That didn't turn out to be true -- in fact, Pete quit baseball altogether. And despite "Beavis & Butthead" never really getting funnier, it became one of MTV's biggest hits. Oh well. Years later the show became a frequent target of one of my first favorite websites, Suck.com.

Now, on to the actual Friday page. This quote from John F. is one of my favorites ever. Pennies are pretty useless.

The fancy border and illustration make this look like I'm highlighting something important, but ironically, I drew it before I wrote what it surrounds. And then I went ahead and wrote something about being upset that someone didn't tell me they were mad at me or something -- I don't actually know what I was ranting about, specifically, but it was something I've worried about a lot over the years. It's difficult to know whether others' perception of you matches your self-perception, and that bothered me.

The fact that this self-serious rant is contrasted with flowery notes from a gaggle of girls is pretty great, I think.

Tuesday
The secret writing: "Hi Gaby!" Yep. That's why I scratched out the secret writing on the previous page -- Gaby figured out how to read my coded alphabet. Yikes.

A few other friends figured it out over time; I usually put a note in like this on the page when they did.

Wednesday
Yes, it snowed on March 10. It's not that unusual, but apparently I was a little unhappy about it. Thankfully we're just expecting fog and rain today in 2010.

My friend Maggie had some unusual luck: she and her mother were walking near the train tracks through town one day in January and found a dead body. She became a minor celebrity in the school because of it. I think my quote here about her being a corpse magnet arose from her finding a dead animal, not another human.

Sunday
My friends Wil and Ryan and I started in theater together. I'd been a line-less dancer in Bye Bye Birdie, but my first speaking part -- and Wil and Ryan's too -- was in Tom Jones, the spring play. I played Partridge, the narrator, barber and companion of Tom -- which was the biggest part, by number of lines. I forget what parts Ryan and Wil had, but it was our first time on stage, speaking, together. And this was the last time we'd all be on stage together. So we took Sharpies and made our mark on the stage in a spot where so many other seniors had before.

They painted over it soon thereafter. For the first time for years. I was so angry.

But here, on this day and page, it's a celebration. I wish I knew who wrote some of this, particularly the writing in green. Damn that non-waterproof ink!

There were two teachers in the play, and with my hair grey (from white shoe polish, believe it or not) and my deep voice, I was mistaken by many people -- including the art department's secretary, who knew me well -- as one of them.
The note that ends with "(SCHRANK)" was written by Mr. Eisenbacher, one of the history teachers; the other was a first-year teacher fresh out of college who played the social worker.

Mr. Eisenbacher was in his mid-40s, I'd guess, and had never been in a play before. He really got into it, though, and took it seriously. He asked me for advice on more than one occasion. I didn't think that much about it; I would have done the same for a freshman. But as thanks, he gave me a coffee mug. I was touched.

Monday
This secret writing wasn't secret enough -- I scratched it out so even the people who figured out how to read it couldn't. What did it say? It's written right there -- at some point later (college maybe?) I read through the scribbles and translated most of it. I couldn't quite make out the second to last word. It's pretty sensitive stuff, so it's not that surprising I wanted to hide it -- especially considering what happens tomorrow.

This wasn't even the depth of my infatuation with Gaby. It was baaaad.

Kind of like these drawings of doors.

Friday
Seriously, we sold out the senior citizen performance. That's unheard of.

For a lot of people, their last show senior year is the last time they ever act on stage. While Friday night's performance was the last time on the Johnson Auditorium stage for Wil and Amy, it ended up not being the last time ever for Wil (I don't know about Amy). Wil (now known as Will; he was trying the one "l" thing back then) is a professional actor now, seen in commercials and onstage in LA. Katrina, from the other lead team, is also a professional actor. And speaking of...

Secret writing translation:

Katrina is the perfect girl to marry -- she is the kind of girl you want to spend the rest of your life with.

This sounds like I'm totally crushed out, but I wasn't. After our non-date, I recognized that she wasn't interested in me, and I was fine with that. She was such a cool person -- and smart, and funny, and beautiful -- that I couldn't help but think that whoever got to spend their life with her would be incredibly lucky. I knew that wouldn't be me, but I couldn't help but envy whoever it was.

This note caused some trouble eventually. I told Cinnamon about it (or she discovered it after I showed her how to read the writing) and she probably didn't entirely believe that I wasn't crushed out. No, that's not the trouble. The trouble came at my 10 year reunion, which for some reason I strongly felt Cinnamon should come with me to. One of the very few people I was really looking forward to seeing was Katrina -- and as it turned out, she was looking forward to seeing me too. We were having a great time catching up ...and then I introduced her to Cinnamon, who was off somewhere else, getting tipsy. Upon meeting Katrina, Cinnamon blurted out, "Oh, you're the one Andrew wanted to marry."

I can't say for sure our joyful reconnection was completely ruined by this revelation and my subsequent embarrassed explanation, but Katrina did seem to get a little more distant for the rest of the evening, and never followed up on our earlier vague plans to meet up for coffee. Cinnamon still feels bad.

And you wonder why I kept some writing secret.

Saturday
"Plug cool," by the way, was an inside joke among the Jets. They've got a song about "staying cool." I don't recall where "plugging" came from, but during West Side Story it stood in, essentially, for a certain f word.

And look! More secret writing!

I think Gaby is mad at me... But I found out she isn't.

I have no idea what that's about.

So, this was my last night on the high school stage -- as well as the last for my friend Ryan V., and Mark M. I didn't expect it to be such an emotional experience, but it hit me hard. I had one more performance the next day.

It was weird sitting alone on the stage, with nothing but the safety lights on. A big, empty space. I had never been out there alone, without even an audience. Incredibly humbling.

Wednesday
It's not typical for a high school play, even a musical, to sell out one performance, let alone its entire run. We did one or two sold-out nights with Man of La Mancha the year before, and I don't think we sold out a one for Bye Bye Birdie my sophomore year. And yet we did with West Side Story. That was a great feeling.

As I've mentioned before, I played Doc. Since my hair was pretty long at the time -- brushing my shoulders, almost -- that meant I had to get a haircut to look the part. So did Jonathan ("Towny"), who had a laid-down mohawk at the time. We both put it off as long as possible, but this was the day the length had to go. So to say goodbye to our long hair, I bought a can of Aquanet and we both sprayed our hair straight up during our third hour open period. I had to hang my head upside down while Towny sprayed mine. He put his head at the edge of a cafeteria table so I could spray his mohawk on one side, wait for it to dry, then spray the other. We left a fan of hairspray residue on the table; I feel bad for whoever ate there during lunch.

The long self-pitying quote was by Lisa, one of the theatre regulars. She played Anybodys in WSS, an orphan kid who isn't claimed by either gang. At the time, I wasn't sure if she was writing in character or not. With distance, I think she was probably writing as herself. Like so many of us in high school, she was awkward and self-conscious; maybe it was just closer to the surface for her, or a more constant state. She certainly had friends (though I dunno, maybe she was fighting with them at the time).

Apparently the crucifix in the Maria's room set belonged to the mother of Mr. Deignan, the theater tech teacher and set designer. Funny that he was so proud.

Thursday
Performance week was such a marathon. Each night we did a 7:30pm performance, but on Thursday and Friday we did matinees, too. That 7:30am call was a tough one the morning after opening night. And for the middle schoolers to be rude on top of it really pissed us off. Thankfully, Mr. Faust told the middle school teachers just how disappointed we all were.

Rob H., one of the only black kids at my school (we had minorities, but they were mostly Latino or Asian), played a policeman in the show (Officer Krupke's right hand man). Unfortunately, his costume emphasized his, uh, package. Noticeably. It was the comedic talk of the night.

Monday
You know about "rabbit rabbit rabbit," right? If you say it first thing on the first of the month, you'll have good luck all month long. Or something. Turns out it's somewhat complicated.

Much of this page relates to or was written during West Side Story rehearsal. The quote in red was written by Katrina; I'm not sure what its meaning is, but she wrote it more than once in 1954.

Katrina was Anita in one cast for WSS, and Amy was Anita in the other. They couldn't have been more different from each other. Katrina was studious and sometimes shy, while Amy was outgoing and a partier. But they both brought fire to their role, which definitely called for it; Katrina's was more smoldering, Amy's had more heat.

I introduced the guys in the cast to Brylcreem to help slick their hair back '50s greaser style. Some of the guys playing Sharks died their hair black to more authentically look Puerto Rican. One of the Marias, Tania -- our Miss Teen Illinois -- wondered if Brylcreem came in black. No, Tania, no.

Tuesday
Nothing better than a photo field trip with Mr. D. Wish I wrote down where we went -- but I think the Existentialist Crap stamp gives me a clue. I bought the stamp at the Paper Source on Chicago Avenue, which means we were probably wandering the River North area for our field trip. We ate lunch at Hooters, I recall -- what? there weren't a lot of options in that neighborhood back then -- and took photos of the giant inflatable rat some union activists had out front, and of a group of servers checking out the protest from inside. I remember wondering why the place was called Hooters, since the stand-out asset on most of the servers was their great legs and butts.

My friend Christian was more of a skate punk at the time, but he had goth tendencies in his art, and liked to play with fascist imagery on occasion. You'll see some of his art later in the book, but here he is in text. "Be a part by taking apart" was an oft-seen revision of the phrase "Be a part by taking part," which appeared on BHS datebooks.