June 2010 Archives

Tuesday
Happy birthday, Jill!

Huh, I apparently went to Nikki's with my friend Brooke R. I have to imagine it was a little awkward (which might be why Brooke came along) but I know we remained friendly after the break-up. I ran into her a couple years later (at Yvette's) and she was very glad to see me. Guess I did a good job of letting her down easy.

Wednesday
Proof that I'm not looking "into the future" very much as I write this: I totally forgot that I left 1954 in Julie's car when we went bowling, and that I'd back-logged to fill in the gap.

Reading this dream description, it sounds like a weird anxiety dream about work. Particularly odd, because the concession stand was the least stressful job I've ever had -- including stuffing envelopes for my dad's PR firm when I was kid.

I think the first bit, about the concession stand being a mess, was based on my first day working the stand. It happened to be the day after another kid was fired for making a complete mess of the stand -- candy was strewn throughout the stand and the supply closet, trash bags were piled under the sink instead of taken a couple hundred feet to the dumpsters and were breeding maggots, and he'd managed to puncture a soda syrup box so the floor was sticky despite being mopped. My first day consisted of cleaning the concession stand while my boss worked the window, and then being trained on how the operation worked.

Unfortunately, the mother of the kid who got fired threatened to sue, so he was back on the job a week later -- but under closer supervision. He got a lot of grief but never had another incident, and by our senior year he was in charge of the pool concession stand while I ran the ballpark stand. We got along OK by then, but I never did quite trust him.

Sunday
Here's another example of me hanging out with groups of classmates I didn't usually hang out with. I was friends with all these kids, but other than Gerald, I rarely interacted with them outside of school. And here I am, going bowling and watching The Muppet Movie with them. It was a blast.

I was really close friends with Oumi in elementary school, actually. He was another smart kid who wasn't part of the cool kid clique. We drifted apart in middle school, and somehow barely saw each other in high school, despite both being in a lot of honors classes. However, where I gravitated toward the arts, he was more into math and science. Despite this brief hangout, we didn't reconnect and become friends again. Our paths remained separate. Such is life.

Monday
I don't remember where Brandon went, but I guess he was back. Which was obviously a good thing.

Kafein, in Evanston, was one of the places one of my circles of friends (the one that included Suzanne and eventually Brandon) would go whenever we wanted a change of pace from Barrington and the immediate environs. It was -- and still is -- a coffee shop in Evanston just a couple blocks from Northwestern. It was -- and might still be -- a vital "cool" hangout for high school kids wanting to seem sophisticated and mingle with college kids. Looking back, I wonder just how many of the kids there were actually in college; I'm sure we weren't the only high schoolers from north and northwest suburbs who had that idea.

Anyway, it was an important alternative to Yvette's and Denny's and Hillcrest, and it had a hip alternative vibe that we really dug. And it took an hour to get there, so you had to weigh whether the ride was worth the time, since you'd have to get back at a reasonable hour. Nine on a weeknight once would have been way too late. Now that we were graduates, and since it was summer, it was just fine. That cake was unbelievable.

Friday
Happy birthday, Dad!

The Moody Blues at Poplar Creek. I'm not much of a fan, but it was a fun show to see in an amphitheater, and it was a cheap ticket. A bunch of us went and hung out on the hill, laying on blankets and enjoying the music. The stage lighting was really stunning -- as I tried and failed to describe here.

This was the night it really hit me that I wasn't going to see most of my friends again for a long time, if ever, once I went off to college. I went into a major funk and was pretty depressed by the end of the show. I remember I slept on the couch in the basement that night, and spent awhile on the phone with Gaby, Shannon and Brooke, who were all worried about me. I explained to them as best i could what I was upset about, but I don't know if they completely understood.

Saturday
And then Saturday was my graduation party -- as well as my dad's 50th birthday party. That made for some chaos, as a bunch of kids and a bunch of my parents' friends gathered at the house. My party was expected to mostly occur outside, but a thunderstorm rolled through and drove us indoors for part of the afternoon.

Mr. Faust came to my party, but as the only adult he ended up moving over to my dad's party after awhile. I was glad he came, but it was hard to keep him engaged while also having fun with my friends.

The bowling ball (actually, a gift certificate for a ball) I received as a gift was from my bowling buddies Heather, Leslie and Melissa, and was easily the gift I was the most excited about. I picked out a midnight blue model, and wanted an 11-pounder, my usual weight, but ended up with a 10 because I would have had to wait for another person to order the same size -- apparently odd weights are special orders only produced in pairs.

Wednesday
Happy birthday, Walt!

Poor Walt. He was incredibly smart, really nice, but also socially awkward and very tall -- but not into sports -- so he stuck out for ridicule. We got along well. He was always encouraging me to take the test to get into Mensa, of which he was a member.

Secret writing:

I am never going to drink again. Every time I do, I end up puking. Not a good thing.

Heh. See, the problem was I didn't like beer, so I would drink booze -- which would get me drunk too quickly. Thankfully I figured this out and slowed my pace... eventually.

Thursday
And here is a diagram of Jess's birthmarks, rather over-diagrammed. Why? I don't know. I imagine it has a few things to do with the comments below and to the left.

I think every "good" kid gets the urge I give voice to here -- the urge to act out, be bad. As someone once said, "Nice guys don't get paid." My love life was really sucking right about now, and seeing lots of female friends pair off with assholes didn't help. And I'm sure whatever happened at Liz's party the night before instigated this particular rant.

Monday
"Meet Jamaica." Punnerific.

Most of the doodles here are by Mike; I think I drew the person roasting on the beach, though. The "Expose yourself to poultry" line arose from a conversation about food safety; naturally we saw the innuendo.

Mike and I watched Easy Rider at John B.'s house, with John and Mark M. It was a collision of two friend pools, and was a little awkward; John and Mark were sort of "frienemies" of mine. I'm not really sure how it came to be that Mike and I ended up there, but that sort of thing happened a lot that summer -- random groups of graduated seniors hanging out with each other.

Tuesday
It's true, I heart stream of conscious. It's a great creativity exercise. Ever try it? Just get out a piece of paper and write down a word or phrase, then whatever pops into your head next, and next, and so on, following whatever leaps of association your mind makes. Once you get going it won't take long to fill the entire page.

Secret writing:

I broke up with Nikki tonight. God it was hard. I then talked to Brooke R. afterwards. It was good to talk to her.

Looking back, I should have done this a lot sooner. Nikki and I were poorly matched, and it's clear in retrospect that it wasn't working for me.

Saturday
Nice spades. And apparently I showed someone named Erin how to write her name in my secret alphabet? Interesting. Not sure which Erin that was.

Someone got all Grateful Dead-y.

Sunday
"Security" by Peter Gabriel. Definitely written by Maggie. Not sure why.

Secret writing:

I realized a correlation between my problem with Gaby and the movie, "The Fischer King." Perry must fulfill his quest for the grail before he can go on with his life. I have to cry over Gaby before I can get on with mine. Hopefully it won't do any damage to Gaby to help me do it...

I had a very tough time crying back then. Still do, to some extent, but back then it was a major psychological block -- even when I wanted to, I couldn't make the tears come, couldn't release the build-up. I'm not sure crying over Gaby was exactly what I needed, but the instinct that I needed to let go of my obsession was correct.

Thursday
Somebody else's secret writing!

Hi Andrew!
Em just as cool as you but my language looks nothing like English
hahaha...

I'm not sure who wrote this, but I think it was Maggie. Or maybe Suzanne. Whoever it was, they knew Wiccan.

I went to Maggie's going away party (see the flier) at her friend Rashmi's house tonight. It was a lot of fun, despite a major thunderstorm.

Friday
Placenta Margarita (note my misspelling) was a "band" loosely composed of several friends who jammed on a variety of instruments and made up silly experimental songs. I don't think I brought the tape, or else I never got it back, because I don't have a tape of them. Christian still does, and has toyed with digitizing the songs.

Mike said yes to Iowa. More on that in a couple weeks.

I never did try this photo experiment, and digital cameras and Photoshop pretty much render it obsolete, but it's totally doable.

Tuesday
Ah, that's right -- the graduation cigars were from me! I think I bought them at Iwan Ries downtown. Jos&eacut; Gener Hoyo de Monterrey, with a maduro wrapper. That was a damn fine cigar. I occasionally bought cigars that summer and into college -- I also took up smoking a pipe in college -- and would often get that brand.

Secret writing:

"Only the Lonely"
There's this movie -- I don't remember the name -- it starred John Candy and it was named after some Fifties song -- "Only the Loneley" -- but that's not the important part. John Candy's mother in the movie was a stubborn pain in the ass. Her neighbor was this quiet man, and the only thing special about him except was he was in love with the mother. He was quiet but persistant about it, reminding her every once in a while, and every time she would deny she felt anything for him until the very end, when she finally admitted she loved him too. I can't help but hope Gaby will do the same.

Wow, I don't remember that movie at all. Funny how movies can make an impression at the time and then completely disappear from memory?

Wednesday
Here's my Yvette's preferred customer card -- well, one that Christian punched full for me and I never ended up using. As a regular, I got treated to a lot of things. Sitting at the bar doing homework or just hanging out, the owner or an emplyee would occasionally pass an experiment over to me or a friend -- a different roast or grind, a mocha with a new syrup flavor, a "broken" cookie. And occasionally I got a top-off of my customer card. Nice perk!

I used to have an Yvette's t-shirt -- one of just a dozen or so made. It was cream colored with the Yvette's logo in green. I wore it with pride. At some point in college it ended up with a big coffee stain on the belly (no surprise, considering how much coffee I drank), and I finally gave it up.

Sunday
Hey look, the sticker off the back of my school ID!

This was a day of graduation parties, which don't register in my mind at all, I'm afraid. I have vague recollections of hanging out on Brandon's back porch for awhile, and that's about it.

Secret writing:

Brandon and I talked at great length about two problems I've been dealing with. I am most definitely not over Gabriela, nor do I believe I ever will be. However, this is not the bigger problem. I am not comfortable with my relationship with Nikki. She protects me from other people, something I do not need or want. At the same time, she showers me -- no, make that pelts me -- with compliments and doting looks, something(s) I don't deserve and cannot stand. The problem I have with Gaby doesn't help our relationship, either. And lastly, Nikki is so cautious of her body that if I so much as graze something off limits, she moves my hand to a different area altogether. I respect her, but I don't think I can be patient that much longer: I've already seeked out physical affection elsewhere. I know I should break up with her, but I don't know if she can be "just friends" anymore.

So there you go. The situation in a nutshell. Wonder what I'll do? So do I.

Monday
Yay! Graduation day! It led off with the senior breakfast at a banquet hall in Rolling Meadows, for some reason; Mike, Chad and I (and possibly some other guys? I don't remember) met beforehand at the Gold Eagle, a diner near the park district. We got to the mandatory(!) breakfast a little late, but didn't miss the explanation of how everything would go down later on.

Graduation was at Poplar Creek, an outdoor music venue in Hoffman Estates (on the edge of Barrington Hills) -- our graduating class was 512, so we needed a big venue to hold the families. Poplar Creek closed the following year, and I'm pretty sure we were the last class to graduate there. It was about as you'd expect: lots of excited kids in red graduation gowns, proud parents and extended families, lots of cheering. We memorialized the classmates we lost, and our co-valedictorians, John B. and Amanda P., gave good, witty speeches. We all walked across and afterward we hugged and laughed and celebrated in ever-shifting groups. Mike, Chad and I got together for a photo, and we got cigars -- I think from Mike's dad.

I was supposed to meet up with them and other friends later that night for a party at Heather F.'s house (which seemed odd, since she was a junior), but when I arrived nobody's car was there and the house seemed deserted. I went home sad, only to find out later that everyone had parked a block or two away to avoid suspicion, and they'd gone to the basement to party. I felt left out, but also sheepish and naive that I didn't realize I wasn't being left out on purpose. (If it were a few years later, we would have all had cellphones and it wouldn't have been an issue.)

Trip LeCheeseburger was the, to my mind, hysterical misalignment of letters on a McDonald's sign. Mike decided it sounded like a great alter ego name.

Friday
Greg was my best friend from fourth grade through eighth grade. He moved up to Wisconsin in either eighth grade or before freshman year, so we started to lose touch in high school, but it was always easy to remember his birthday because it was two months after mine -- and one month before my other best friend back then, Tim.

Secret writing:

The pain in my back mirrors the pain in my heart. I'm stting here in Gaby's basement, being ignored by everyone (especially Hernando) I'm not completely upset about being ignored, except that it makes me feel like I've already left for college and am looking back on my friends going on without me.

This is just the beginning of my poor assimilation to the idea of going off to college, leaving my friends and family behind. Much, much more later in the year. Hernando, by the way, was Gaby's cousin who forbade her from dating me, touching off much of the drama earlier in the year. By this point I guess I was at least allowed in the house, but our relationship hadn't warmed.

The "B" in the little quoted exchange is Brooke R., I'm pretty sure. I don't know why she hated me in this particular instance; it was something she said whenever she was upset or embarrassed. I probably teased her about something -- and judging from the tone of the rest of my writing, I was in a grumpy mood, so that's likely.

Saturday
Megan J. was in my brother Peter's grade, but I knew her through the park district. She was a CIT -- counselor in training -- for the PD's summer camp, and she and a couple of the other CITs would come visit me at the concession stand on occasion. She was very pretty, with long blonde hair and a great body, a bit of an airhead, and also a very devout Christian. I was attracted to and repulsed by her in nearly even amounts, but we remained friends. She invited me to her 16th birthday party, and all I remember was that there was a pool in the backyard. I have an image of her in a one-piece bathing suit, looking like the nubile young teen she was... and that's all I remember about the party.

Wednesday
I asked Roberta, my boss at Baloney's, about the apartments above the sandwich shop and theatre for a friend who was looking for a new apartment; unfortunately they were all occupied.

How about that portrait of a Push Pop?

Thursday
So yeah, there are my hourly wages. In addition to the park district concession stand and Baloney's, I also worked part time at my dad's PR firm. I saved up a good amount of money that summer. Good thing I did, too, because I didn't work my freshman year at Ohio State.

Monday
Ah, Jess. It's funny, she would regularly bug me about not hanging out with her very often, and yet she didn't really make much of an effort herself. Oh well. I have no idea who the "Sue" she's referring to is. I also don't know why she says it's 8th hour, since we weren't in school... unless we were there at the end of the day for art classes. Could be...

I taped the plastic "security thread" from a $20 bill into 1954. It turned out to be fairly easy to remove it from a crisp new bill -- of which there were plenty, since this feature debuted in 1990. It was rumored to be magnetic, but apparently it was just plain old plastic.

Tuesday
There's nothing written behind these cards taped into the book -- which, as noted, are Singapore transit and phone cards from my friend Dave H. I'd originally taped them to the outside edge of the other page here, but that proved a tear risk.

Bowling and Taco Bell weren't usually a noteworthy event. Well, not the Taco Bell anyway.

Saturday
I went over the Suzanne's on this day, and she showed me her secret hangout, in the crawlspace above her garage. It was lit by Christmas lights and reminded me a lot of my own former secret lair in the crawlspace behind my closet. That space was lost when my parents remodeled the house and my room doubled in size, but it was an important retreat for me. As it was for Suzanne.

I took the opportunity to make out with Suz again -- and in the process her knee got bruised on one of the beams in the crawlspace. By this time, I was fully un-committed to my relationship with Nikki, and was just looking for a good opportunity to break up with her. Years of pent-up attraction between Suzanne and me began to leak out bit by bit, and we had a weird "friends with benefits"-ish relationship for awhile.

David was a close friend my freshman and sophomore year. During our junior year (I think) he and his family relocated to Singapore when his dad got a job there. He went to the same school as the kid who made headlines for getting caned. According to Dave the guy was a complete jerk and deserved the sentence.

Sunday
I became a major fan of Georgia O'Keefe in high school; her vibrant yet minimalist paintings really spoke to me. I wrote both the red and black entries here at the same time, with the color to separate them.

This was a rather magical night. Brandon and I had an amazing time walking around the lake by his house, aided by the full moon. When we got back, my constantly changing eye color had lightened considerably for some reason; if they'd been changing to help me see better, they should have gotten darker, to help absorb more light. Right?

Thursday
Nice comment about orchestra members; wish I could read the name. Laura Bh...?

The water-blotted quote that leads off with "You insignificant..." is something I seem to recall Nikki saying on occasion, in full dramatic effect, but I don't think that's her handwriting.

Friday
Woot! Senior's last day! And a short one at that. I believe I walked home from the high school, through Barrington Hills and over to Kelsey Road. It was nice and relaxing. And I apparently went to be particularly early that night -- Even back then, I didn't typically go to bed before midnight unless I was sick.

I don't think I talked with my student counselor, Mr. Cragan, about the Myers-Briggs test, but I did eventually take it, and have repeated it a couple times. Back then I was an INFP, and over the years I've shifted to be more ENFP. Pretty accurate description of me, really.

Tuesday
Last week of school for seniors!

Secret writing:

It's no a good thing to we wanting to cheat on Nikki. Thanks Brooke B___ for being faithful to her boyfriend, otherwise I would have done it again. I just wish she didn't get me so horny.

Oh man, Brooke B. She was one of those secretly hot girls -- she didn't dress trendily, she was a little shy, and she had glasses that sometimes hid her honey-colored eyes. We flirted a little over the years, and on this particular evening, in the back stairwell of Yvette's, we made out. We went on a couple of dates later that summer, but by late summer I was serious with Melissa and had mostly forgotten about Brooke. She went off to school somewhere in Iowa and met a guy who I think she married.

Wednesday
Justin went hog wild again. Nice Hot Shots! Part Deux quote.