May 2010 Archives

Sunday
Some light quotes for a light Sunday. I don't recall whether these all occurred at the same time or separately, nor whether they were in connection with Gen's surprise party -- although I suspect not.

No idea who Robin was. Nice little design around her birthday, though.

Monday
Meaghan was Pete's girlfriend his freshman year -- or one of them, at least. I have a feeling the "much sadness in the room" was her breaking up with him, though I could be wrong.

I like the metaphor of strainers and velcro for male and female metabolisms. Not sure it's entirely accurate, but it rings true in some ways.

Friday & Saturday
Now you see why Friday bled back to Thursday for space. Lots of miscellaneous quotes and a big conversation between my brother and his best friend at the time. These two days of writing mix together so thoroughly that it's easier to just talk about both days at once.

I'm not sure which Adam I was supposed to call about prom. Considering our prom was the week before, I really have no idea. I guess whatever it was about though meant we were lame, Suzanne and I.

Jill and I were very proud of the yearbooks. We were on the core group who made the thing, and poured a lot of energy into making it really cool. The cover featured foil lettering and black printing on a black background for a glossy effect. The section dividers were drawn by artists from the senior class, including a handful by yours truly. We got as many of our friends into it as we could, and we got it done pretty close to on time. (It was delivered before the end of school, so that was a big plus.)

The mostly scratched out note to talk to Gaby about a trance... So Nikki started hosting this poetry group on Thursday at her house -- a bunch of her friends and mine would get together and read our recent poems and then give feedback, and then devolve into just hanging out and talking most of the time. On this particular evening, a couple of us did a thing that was meant to drop you into a sort of meditative trance. You laid down with your head in someone's lap and closed your eyes and counted backwards from 10 while the other person (usually Nikki) described you going down into a safe place in your mind, filled with doors. You were supposed to open doors and see what was behind them and talk your way through it. I did it, and I guess Gaby was behind one of the doors. Probably not surprisingly, Nikki wanted me to talk to Gaby about it. Since I crossed it out, I'm guessing I did, but I don't remember the discussion. My memory of the whole experience is pretty fuzzy.

"Christian is our intercom!" It was totally true. Christian worked at Yvette's, mostly as a busser at this point in time, and would get sent inside or outside to deliver messages, let people know when food was ready or a parent was on the phone, or whatever. I think someone said Yvette's should get an intercom, and Lorrie's response summed it up perfectly.

I'm not sure what prompted my brother to write about being hurt by a friend, but it's a rare occasion that he wrote anything at all, let alone about his feelings. Pat was moving to another state, so it's possible some things were said out of hurt, but Pat's response also, in its muddled way, is an uncharacteristic outpouring of teenage boy emotion in a (semi)public place.

For the record, I did not then and do not currently own a Twister. But maybe I should.

Wednesday
Finally got hold of someone at the park district and secured my concession stand gig, apparently. I don't remember getting the run-around, but since Dana was the third person I'd written down to talk to in 1954, I guess I did.

The "Free Manure" / "Pony Rides" signs on Miller Road cracked people up all the time. It was right next to the gas station I used a lot when I had Fufu the Killer Rabbit, my first car, because it was the closest place that carried diesel. (Fufu was a diesel -- hence "killer" rabbit.)

"A Fall for Icarus" is one of the poems I'm most proud of from back then. It's still pretty bad, but I thought I did a good job with the imagery, at least. If you were to analyze my poetic output from high school and college, you'd probably work out that I had some issues with public perception versus private persona, and that I was relied upon to clean up after friends a lot.

I don't remember why Brandon transcribed it into 1954 instead of me, but there you go.

Thursday
So, a certain circle of friends of mine stole this idea from a couple of their friends from a summer school program at Harvard. If you're well-versed enough in international politics -- or are at least hanging out with people who aren't -- you can talk about people in code by assigning each one (ahead of time, in secret, presumably) a country and discuss international relations. "Russia's dealings with England have been chilly as of late..." You get the picture.

None of us were particularly interested in all that, but we had a blast assigning everyone countries. I was Italy, Jill was Switzerland (though she was originally Ulster), Suzanne was the Fjord Queen (aka Finland, but also Germany), Kate was Ireland, Christine was Belgium, Brandon was Chile (long and skinny and ruled by a dictator) and so on. One night at Yvette's we wrote out the whole list -- most of which was made up on the spot, but quite a bit of which was real code -- and it totaled more than 40 people, plus a half-dozen places. I still have the list.

I have no idea why Tim was the Dead Sea, nor Nikki Singapore.

Note that this bit was written on Friday. And most of what's on Wednesday was actually written on Thursday, I think.

Monday
The Monday after prom was traditionally Senior Ditch Day; you can probably guess what that means. Brandon, Suzanne, Jill and I (and maybe a couple other people? I don't remember) decided to spend the day down in Lakeview, including a picnic in Graceland Cemetery. Unfortunately for us, it turns out the cemetery doesn't allow picnics, so we were interrupted about halfway through eating. No matter, we were also there to do a mini photo fieldtrip, so we just moved on to that portion of our plans.

My list of stuff to bring included "peperoni" sticks -- beef snack sausages from the Gilmer Road Smokehouse (long gone now, sadly) -- and muffins from the Sarah Lee outlet. You could get a dozen huge muffins for $6, which was an awesome deal for perennially broke high school students.

The quote from Ms. Cullen, the AP art teacher, about Christian was a bit out of line. Everyone thought she was a bitch, though, so at least it was in character.

Tuesday
Ah, the things you come up with hanging out in coffeeshops. Our list of summer book ideas didn't amount to much, but The Raven made it halfway to production as a literary zine. We mostly talked about what it would look like and didn't get very far on the actual creation of content. "Mail Order Deity" was a title Brandon used for a couple projects in the years after.

Saturday
OK, prom. Prom went well. Suzanne came and picked me up (we were spending the night at her mom's apartment downtown, so it made more sense), but not before a couple photos of me in my short-panted tux and her in her houndstooth silk pajamas and marabou-feathered slippers. Then we were off to Katrina's house to pick up her and her date.

Prom was where it always was -- at the Sheraton next to Woodfield in Schaumburg. The food was decent, and it was a lot of fun dancing and hanging out with all our friends. I remember dancing hard to Violent Femmes' "Add It Up" -- as most of the "cool kids" walked off the dancefloor and all us ran on.

Afterward, a bunch of us headed downtown -- as in the actual downtown Chicago, not the "downtown" meaning the entire city that suburbanites often use. If I remember correctly, we were planning on taking a night time cruise on the river, but we arrived too late for the last ride. I really don't remember if that was the case, though -- all I really remember is wandering around near the Michigan Avenue Bridge with Suzanne and Katrina and her date (who was from some other school) and eventually parting ways. Suzanne and I went up to her mom's apartment, which was at Michigan and Superior. It was an efficiency -- basically just one room with some closets, a kitchenette on one wall and a bathroom. Suzanne's mom had the apartment so she wouldn't have to commute to Barrington while she was taking classes downtown, so it was plenty for her. But it meant there was only one bed, a small futon mattress, for we "friends" to sleep on.

What could happen?

Sunday

Secret writing:

Suzanne and I screwed around last night. I should be ashamed, but I'm not. I actually enjoyed it. Hmmm...

So, yeah. Stuff happened. I'm not going to get into great detail, but it was the start of an on-and-off flirtation and messing around between us for the rest of the summer.

(This is definitely one of those moments where the public nature of this blog conflicts with the intent of the project. I'm still in contact with Suzanne, and it wouldn't be very hard for someone to connect the dots from me to her. Granted, the events I'm writing about happened 17 years ago, but that doesn't mean someone wouldn't get upset. It's the reason people are only being referred to by first name for the most part here.)

We met up with Katrina and her date later in the day and went to the Shedd Aquarium, hence the references to fish and the awesome pun from Katrina about seeing-eye frogs. The Shedd, incidentally, is one of the best touristy places to go if you've got a hangover or didn't get enough sleep the night before -- it's dimly lit and relatively peaceful, if you're there when there aren't too many kids.

Thursday
I thought Pete's friend Pat looked a little like a pika, in that he had a somewhat rabbit-y face, with small ears. He embraced it.

Wow, remember how big of a deal the finale of "Cheers" was? That show practically defined "must see TV" for years.

Friday
I bet you didn't even know there was a Pickle Day, let alone an international one.

The second quote from Bret refers to a story about my prom tux. I realized when I went back to make sure it fit properly and everything, that the guy fitting me was Lance, one of my closest friends when I lived in Lake Zurich. I moved shortly after I turned 10, and we didn't keep in touch for the usual variety of reasons 10-year-olds wouldn't keep in touch pre-Internet. It was weird seeing him again -- and realizing it as he checked my inseam.

I decided not to tell him it was me. I don't know if he recognized my name, but he didn't seem to (or he didn't know it.)

Tuesday
Wow, three eye descriptions in one day! My eyes were "dark aqua" in the morning, blue-green at 5:15 and "milky green-blue" at 11pm.

No idea what I thanked Gaby for. Nor do I know what sort of dance the "Costa Rican Boogie" is -- Google turns up nothing.

Wednesday
The number at the top -- 14 -- signifies the number of school days until the last day of school for seniors.

I don't know who Ryan H. was -- neither of the ones in the yearbook look familiar -- but he apparently stole a Cadillac hood ornament and got cut.

And here's another, clearer example of how changeable my eye color was at the time -- it went from dark to light in the space of 20 minutes.

Sunday
Heh, Jill memorialized our prom crashing.

Nice worm, eh? I got pretty good at this style over time.

Dark green eyes today -- so probably like they usually are now.

Monday
Secret writing:

Pete, Pat, Charles and Jason found a "shitload" of marijuana by the railroad tracks.

I think it turned out to be stinkweed. Or at least not very good. There was sort of this no-man's land between the high school and the Ice House, along the train tracks and Flint Creek, where kids from certain crowds would hang out. The landmark in this area was "the slab," which was a concrete slab big enough for several people to lay down on, right on the edge of the creek. It probably capped an intake point for the nearby water treatment facility, or a storm drain, or something. Chances are the pot was grown, intentionally or not, by some of the kids who frequented the spot.

It appears from Google Maps that a bike path now cuts through the woods where the slab was, probably eliminating it as an elicit hangout.

Angie Wanke was one of the foreign exchange students that year, and she won a sports championship of some kind (I don't remember which, and she isn't listed in the yearbook as being in any individual sports -- just girls' basketball, for which she wouldn't have been singled out). I don't remember BHS doing very many "days" for students in years previous, so to have two in one year (this one and Tania G. Day) was very unusual. And since Angie was an exchange student, most of the school had no idea who she was or why we were celebrating her.

Q101 launched a "retro" '80s music show on this date in 1993. It seemed really weird for a decade to be retro just four years into the next decade.

Friday
Heh, apparently my to-do list today included telling Missouri University I wasn't coming.

Suzanne returned from her not-quite-a-full-year abroad in Europe today, (well, probably on Thursday) and we went to Around the Clock, a 24-hour diner in Crystal Lake, to catch up.

At some point before she came home, I asked Suzanne to come to the prom with me. As romantically a shambles as I was, I apparently recognized that I should go with a friend, not some random girl. I'd been to two proms already (one crashed) and a couple Homecoming dances (well, Homecoming dates, anyway -- the dance was mostly for freshmen and sophomores; everyone else went out to dinner and some other activity) and knew that it was an experience best enjoyed with someone you knew well, or would want to have a lasting memory with at least. Suzanne agreed, but only if she got to attend in her pajamas. I said that was fine. You'll have to wait till next weekend hear how it all went down.

As an aside: I always admired Suzanne's handwriting.

Note the much more specific eye diagram at the bottom of the page. This is pretty much how my eyes look most of the time, if you could see them behind my glasses. Well, maybe not the yellow pupil. ;)

Saturday
I guess I went to see Jungal Book with Suzanne tonight, instead of Nikki as previously planned. Not sure why the switch, but whatever. Suzanne and I both had so many friends in the play, I'm sure we enjoyed watching and supporting them. I'm also sure it was a strange feeling for me, watching a play from the audience instead of being in it.

Wednesday
"Carpe diem, mother fucker!" was a phrase Brandon and I started saying to encourage each other and ourselves to quit worrying and being indecisive and just do it.

It's been a little while since I wrote anything in secret writing.

I haven't been thinking about Gaby for a long time, but since I kissed her yesterday, I haven't been able to get her off my mind. To explain: I kissed Gaby to see how she would react. To my surprise, she kissed me back. I've been trying to figure out why.

Whooboy. I remember that. We were sitting next to each other on the stairs by the entrance to the school -- the ones that went up to the LD classrooms. The light there was bright but diffuse, in contrast with the rest of the entrance area. I can't remember what we were talking about, but it was probably an argument over emotion and stuff. I told her to close her eyes and she did, and I leaned over and gave her a peck on the lips. She reflexively kissed me back, and then was just sat back stunned. I don't remember what happened after that; she probably got angry and left. And I rekindled my infatuation with her for awhile longer.

I read this hear and think, Duh, of course you couldn't stop thinking about her. Meanwhile, I was still dating Nikki, and probably crushy on another couple girls. God I was such a mess. It's a wonder I got anything done with all the romantic whiplash I was giving myself.

Thursday
Linda and Ardee were Park District employees; Linda was the manager and Ardee was mostly the security guard, but was put in charge of the concessions stands that year, for some reason. I called to make sure I had a job at the ballfield concession stand that summer. I worked there every summer of high school -- it was an OK job that paid decently, and I was manager, essentially, from sophomore year till senior.

Ardee was an extremely pear-shaped woman who spent most of her time in a small-body Toyota or Nissan pickup, driving around the park watching for kids sneaking over the fence after cutting school (which was on the other side of the train tracks from the park) or smoking near the little petting zoo or whatever. She had a spiked mullet and coke-bottle glasses which she claimed she wore to see better than 20-20, not because she was blind without them. She and her "roommate" (what? I barely knew what a lesbian was back then) lived near the middle school, so I saw her sometimes when I went to visit Mike. I thought she was kind of weird, but she would drive over to Bell's Apple Orchard in Lake Zurich a couple times a week in the summer and buy a dozen apple cider donuts for us to sell in the concession stand, so she was OK.

I think Jill's "yearbook birthday" meant we were going to celebrate with a cake in yearbook class, which was first hour. Not sure about that. I am sure that the "unofficial field trip" to see Jungal Book was pretty easy to arrange, because it fell into my open hours.

Oh poor Jeff. The guy was just so used to being picked on that anything would set his defenses off. "Does anal retentive have a hyphen?" was my way of poking him when he was getting anal about something in Phelan's logic and rhet class. Jill and I were somewhat shocked that we had to explain what anal retentive meant; it was a fairly common term, we thought, but somehow he'd never learned what it actually meant. When we explained it, he completely agreed that he was anal, and understood that it wasn't necessarily an insult -- hence this comment. (And really, being anal retentive isn't always a bad thing. Also: it doesn't usually take a hyphen.)

The note about the color of my eyes is something that'll pop up a few times in 1954. I have green hazel eyes now, but occasionally when I was younger -- say, high school through college -- the color of my eyes would sometimes shift into the blue range. It wasn't simply an inference or contrast with what I was wearing, either. It seemed more influenced by my moods and the time of day. The later it was, the more likely they were to be blue, for some reason.

Monday
I was just telling a friend on Friday about my awful experience with the AP Lit & Comp test. Besides being far too little time to write three essays, the literature discussion topic was just about impossible for our particular class. We were expected to discuss examples of humor in at least two of the books we read for class. Keep in mind, our AP Lit & Comp class was the aforementioned "Religious Quest in Literature." We read stuff like The Death of Ivan Illitch, The Brothers K and Heart of Darkness. Not much humor to be had. I spent a good while wracking my brain for two examples in what we'd read, and I wasn't the only one who struggled on this one. I'm sure it lost quite a few students a point or two on the test. (If memory serves, I got a three.)

I think there's some writing under that dark rectangle, but I can't make it out.

Tuesday
These are layouts for pages in the yearbook. I'm not sure what pages -- one's labeled "J.B." and the other "SR. VAR.", so probably the sports section. Possibly the senior insert.

Saturday
Springfest was(is?) a spring outdoor festival at BHS. It was founded my freshman year, and for some reason earned a mention in the Wikipedia entry for BHS, so maybe it is still going. (No mention of it on the school's official site.)

Back in my day, at least, it was an opportunity for students' bands to perform and a variety of other activities. In 1993, it included a sand volleyball tournament. I'm decent but not great at volleyball (evidence to the contrary aside), and I like playing a lot, so I joined a team with a few other OK-but-game guys and entered the competition. And were soundly defeated by some of the jockier guys in our class.

My friend Kevin performed, too. It was one of his first public performances as a musician -- but it was far from his last. He does it all the time now.

The second night of Experimentals went well, and the afterparty at Heather's was a lot of fun -- the map is directions to her house (well, was -- she doesn't live there anymore.) We had a bonfire, and then went inside and hung out some more after the mosquitos started biting.

Sunday
I have no idea what this is a diagram or map of. Nor why there only appear to be B, C and E on it.

The fact that I went to a park with my girlfriend instead of sticking around home on Mother's Day should tell you a little about my relationship with my mom around this time. I'll say that it's improved greatly, and leave it at that. Happy mother's day, mom!

Thursday
Happy birthday, Brandon!

So, my friend Kevin and I were in gym together. He was a goofball, and both of us enjoyed screwing around in class. (When we were in circuit training the two of us did a lot of stage combat -- until I accidentally kicked him in the face when I was only supposed to fake kick him in the face, and scratched his cornea. I still feel bad.) At this point, the weather was nice enough that we were outside playing volleyball. Kevin kept saying "Poop!" when he missed a serve or bump or whatever, and our gym teacher yelled at him to stop. Kevin protested, and Coach snapped back at him, "Don't bullshit me, your language is inappropriate." Classic.

Friday
This was the first of two nights of performances for my experimental theatre production. It went "great," as I note near my thumb. Nikki came to see it, which was quite an ordeal since she lived in Palatine and didn't drive, and wrote a very girly note afterward. Yep, I asked her out. It was a little weird introducing her to all my friends at Yvette's, the coffeeshop we all hung out at. Should have been a sign.

Tuesday
Oh yes, Miss Teen Illinois went to our school. She was one of the Marias in West Side Story, and had such a ridiculous Latina accent that to this day, I still can't pass Keeler Avenue without giggling.

Anyway, we had a special "day" in her honor, which primarily consisted of an announcement over the PA system in the morning.

The sandwich shop I worked at in high school, Boloney's, had a number of entertainingly named sandwiches. I had all of them while I worked there. My favorite was one I made up: the "Wich Came First," which contained egg salad and turkey salad (which was served instead of chicken salad; turkey breast is generally cheaper for food service companies) with lettuce and ranch dressing on a pita. Tasty stuff, although I think I eventually switched to yellow mustard. The ranch plus all that mayo in the salads was just overkill.

I did a lot of hand tracing in 1954 -- both my own and others'. It was nice organic shape, readily at hand (heh), and fun to play with.

Wednesday
On this day, I made up a joke.
Q: What did Patrick Henry say when he walked into the whorehouse?
A Give me Libby or give me Beth.

Not enough smutty historical jokes being made these days.

There are a lot of references to both Joey Buttafuoco and Larry "Budd" Melman in April and May. They're almost all by a guy named Justin. I don't really know why, but he was thoroughly amused by them.

The weird black shapes on this page was drawn to mirror the one on the other page -- which hides some writing. I don't know what's under there, but I seem to recall it being offensive, not sensitive.

I don't think I ever heard any Peace Love & Pitbulls, despite Christian's recommendation, but according to their Wikipedia page, they influenced Marilyn Manson. In some circles, that's high praise.

Sunday
Happy birthday, Pete!

I went to the Art Institute to see their Magritte retrospective. I was already a fan of Magritte, but the exhibition cemented him as a favorite. The list of "names to look up" were from painting titles.

My friend Suzanne worked in the Art Institute gift shop that summer, and scored me one of the lightpost banners from the show, which was one of the floating men from Golconda. I still have it, and until recently had it hanging in the hallway near the bathroom.

Monday
So, here you have the order and set design for my experimental theatre collection of dialogues. The performances aren't until Friday and Saturday.

Despite being an actor, I was pretty interested in stage design. I went on to develop a concept for scenery and lighting design for a minimalist production of Faust as my final for a class in college. More about that later, naturally.