Monday, March 1 & Tuesday, March 2

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.