July 2010 Archives

Saturday
An interesting little poem -- really more of a snatch of dialog -- by Nikki, apparently written during a party at her house.

Could the sketch have been by this Tim Hockin? I don't know -- and I don't recall who Tim was? I think so. Seems to be the only one on the internet, and he did go to ISU. I wonder if Nikki found it flattering all those many years ago.

Sunday
Salute the Moon was a "not-so-ancient Indian ritual" dreamed up by Bryant. The bunch of us met up at his house in Tower Lakes and had a little bonfire on the beach by the lake. When the moon was high in the sky, we went out on the pier, stripped naked (or close to it for some of the ladies) and performed a pseudo-spiritual "salute" to the full moon above. After which we jumped in the lake for a skinnydip. We tried to swim over to a small island, but it was too dark to see where the path up from the lake was, and I cut my foot on a submerged piece of glass in the rocks, so we headed back. Despite the cut, it was a lot of fun.

This was the night my interest in Melissa was re-kindled.

Thursday
I really like the sketches on this page -- strong crosshatching, tight close-ups. Very graphic. The diagonal is dividing line is puzzling, but it sort of works.

I think "P.S." is Paige, but I'm not positive. I like the phrase at the beginning, "Imagine famous, maybe." I'm not sure if she's talking about 1954 being worth millions or pennies, but it's a fun little stream of conscious.

Friday
I agree with Gaby, hard-core candy should not be thrown at people's heads.

Dr. Ruth's address is here because I came across it in Bacon's, a media directory used by PR professionals. I was probably looking up addresses for a media list for my dad. (I never wrote Dr. Ruth, in case you're wondering.)

Tuesday
See? I'm not the only one with teen angst.

Wednesday
One of the best things about hanging out in diners was always the snippets of overheard conversation. Weird quotes taken out of context.

But really, it was about being bored, with nothing better to do.

Sunday
Every once in awhile, I come up with something that with a little polish could be in a stand-up comic's routine. Let's clean this one up a little: "Dating is like picking fruit: early on, you choose only the most attractive, appealing specimens. By the end of the day you're stuffing anything in your bag."

My bedroom had windows that opened out onto a sort of bunker-like portion of the roof, which made it very easy to get in and out and hang out up there. Suzanne and I laid on the roof, gazing at stars, and spotted a surprising number of shooting stars -- though I wondered at the time if we didn't start imagining them.

French's Mustard has an interesting imagination for what a band of dinosaurs would look like. Drums, guitar, singer, violin?

Monday
Who's Jenna and why do I have to tell her how much money I have?

I hung out with Gaby and her friend Krofty, Brandon and Suzanne and probably a few other people today. I only met Krofty a couple times, but she was bubbly and fun.

I can't believe I said Another Stakeout was a very good movie. My how my tastes have matured.

Friday
I wish I could remember where that sticker was from -- some food product from either Baloney's or the concession stand. It stood out as funny to me for some reason. And, obviously, as an excuse to get a little design-y with the page again.

Saturday
Gaby, her sister, Gerald and I drove up to Woodstock to see our friends Wil and Towny in a performance of Phantom, a dramatic, non-musical telling of The Phantom of the Opera (an adaptation that predates the Andrew Lloyd Webber version, in fact). The Woodstock Opera House was beautiful, and Wil and Towny were fine in their small parts. My strongest memory of that portion of the evening was seeing a woman with severe rhinophyma -- the tip of her nose was literally elongated and bumpy from it, and slightly purple from the rosacea. It's burned into my memory.

After the show we went to Around the Clock in Crystal Lake, "my" diner.* We got the big eight-seater booth in the corner and goofed around like teenagers, but not so much that we didn't overhear some shocking statements from one of the men sitting with his wife/girlfriend and two other people in the booth next to us. Remember kids, half and half will not cure an upset stomach.

What ever happened to Clearly Canadian? Did the market for sugary, fruit-flavored fizzy water just dry up?

*Mike, Chad and that whole crowd sort of claimed our regular diners, the one we hung out at or preferred the most. 'Round the Clock was mine -- Crystal Lake wasn't exactly close, but it was the closest 24-hour diner to my house; I'd have to drive all the way across Barrington (no short drive) and part of Palatine to get to Denny's. The owners were friendly (or at least tolerant) and it served cherry cheesecake and its own "epicurean blend" of tea. It was a mix of orange pekoe and "flowery darjeeling," and really hit the spot.

Mike's diner was the Golden Eagle -- or whatever its Albanian mob owners were calling it that month. It changed hands among the family frequently as part of some tax fraud, so it had a half dozen names before they finally sold it to one of the waitresses. Mike sat in the back corner booth, near the bathrooms. Chad's was Hillcress and Charlie's was Denny's, despite the fact he had to get a ride to it, because he didn't drive.

Wednesday
A very designed page. I drew the piston after the fact, probably on Thursday.

"Bowl Your Head Off!" was a marathon bowling session at Brunswick Lanes in Lake Zurich, during which I stabbed my thumb with the nail of my middle finger when I let go of my ball. It's hard to imagine how exactly that happened; the action doesn't seem natural when done in slow motion on purpose. My thumb bled just a little, leaving a small streak of blood down the thumbhole of my ball. It's still there today (yes, I still have my ball), a faint brown line.

Thursday
I don't recognize the handwriting on the upper half of this page. Funny quotes though.

Monday
Very chaotic day here. Not much in specific to point out other than the quote up in the corner from Chris was pretty typical of him. "Sympathy will get you nowhere, but it might just get you laid." One of those aphorisms that when you think about it, doesn't quite add up.

I'm not sure what sort of soybean product Suzanne was claiming to be. Tofu, maybe?

Tuesday
I have no idea who broke the rule about not writing in the future; whoever it was was mighty proud of his or her self-professed rule-breaking nature, but not to enough to sign his or her name.

See the quotes at the bottom of the page? Even though Tim could be annoying, he could also be really funny and witty.

Saturday
Yeah, Ska Fest! This was such a fun night. I absolutely loved The Pacers, who came on and told the audience, "We only have half an hour, so we're going to play everything double time." and proceeded to do so. I danced my ass off, and bought a t-shirt and their tape afterward. Mustard Plug was pretty good and The Exceptions were just OK, so we took off after them and missed Skapone and whoever the top of the bill was. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that we went to Cafe Voltaire before heading home.

Sunday
This day didn't get started until 5 o'clock thanks to the rain, but we then packed a whole lot into the remains. Ultimate frisbee on a wet soccer field is slippery good fun; we had to dry off a bit before doing much else. I'm pretty proud of how this page was designed and drawn.

Thursday
I should still make that bumper sticker.

As I said, we registered for classes at orientation. For some dumb reason, I opted to take three honors-level classes at one time -- honors English, philosophy and a Germanic Studies class titled "The Faust Theme in German Literature" that sounded a lot like RQ -- plus college algebra and honors survey, which was sort of an intro to OSU. This might have been the one way in that being an honors kid at BHS screwed me: this schedule didn't sound like a big deal.

Friday
I never read The Greening of America, so apparently I didn't find Hope's advice as important as she did. I also did nothing at all with the rave flyer she gave me -- which may have been a mistake, but I seem to recall her telling me later that it sucked. Meh.

That Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead quote is one of my favorites.

Tuesday
Off to Columbus for freshman orientation. I don't remember both my parents being along for the trip -- I only remember my mom being there.

Wednesday
I met four other incoming freshmen at orientation. Two of them I saw again in the fall, and one of them I continued to run into occasionally throughout college, despite being on a campus of 53,000 students. Molly and Melissa were who I saw in the fall. Melissa was also in the Stadium Dorm, and Molly was in one of my first classes -- which we knew at orientation because we picked our classes there. And I ran into Molly serendipitously for the next four years and beyond, when she went to work for a friend of my friend Damon.

Maxwell's was one of the bars on High Street, in the area known colloquially as "12th Avenue" because that's where the strip started, or "freshman ghetto" despite students of all ages and years going to them. The second line secret writing says "No carding at the bar." I expected to be turned down when I tried to order a drink, but I had no trouble -- possibly because of my deep voice and possibly because I ordered a Wild Turkey on the rocks and the bartender wanted to watch me suffer. Unlike my last encounter with Wild Turkey, this one went fine.

Sunday
Happy birthday, Tim! I'm a jerk!

Tim and Greg and I became friends in fifth grade. Greg and I were in LAFEP, a French exchange program at one of Barrington's elementary schools, and Tim was one of Greg's close friends from his school. The three of use became inseparable through middle school, after which Greg moved to Wisconsin. Tim remained one of my closest friends, and my best friend our freshman year. But as we got older, our paths began to diverge. He started screwing with his class schedule until it got to the point where he had to go to a different school to finish, while I got more serious about it. His passion for cars deepened when we turned 16, while mine mellowed. And Tim's tendency to be a spaz around kids his age yet a perfect gentleman around adults was frustrating. I loved the guy like a brother, but he could be so annoying that some people just wouldn't with him. I had more patience with him than most, but he reached the end of it with me the night of his birthday party. Greg and I were ready to leave him at the bowling alley after all the crap he was doing there.

I don't see much of Tim anymore, at least partly because he lives in Galena. But he did grow up eventually, and is now an awesome father to two boys, an entrepreneur and a cool guy in general.

Monday
Pete's friend (and I suppose mine) Pat's birthday, and he wrote a typically odd little note about it. Which my brother finished for him, so I guess they made up.

Secret writing:

Suzanne and I fucked around again. Uh-oh.

Uh-oh because we were trying not to do that, I think. Pretty sure we'd agreed that it was better to just be friends at that point. Maybe not.

Friday & Saturday
Might as well address this one all at once. Yep, those are boobs. As explained on Saturday, Brandon and I went to a crappy "arts & craft" fair in Lake Zurich that was very light on the art and heavy on the "country craft." Brandon gave me this signed Penthouse collector's card (No, it's not worth much, unless you're a big Tammy Chapman fan) that his dad had brought back from some pharmacy/retailers' convention. We both thought it was hilarious for some reason -- maybe because it's so over the top? -- so Bran gave it to me to put into 1954. And then later at Yvette's, my friend Hope wrote the silly comment on Friday. I'm pretty sure nobody got jealous.

I went to see Sleepless in Seattle with Tori Saturday night. I guess it was a date, although she probably didn't think so; she seemed convinced that I wasn't interested in her. I wasn't deeply into her (obviously) but I enjoyed her company and thought she was cute, and yeah, it was a date. I really enjoyed the movie (I'm a total sap for that kind of drivel; When Harry Met Sally is one of my favorite movies) and bought the soundtrack that weekend.

Apparently my scanner can't handle fluorescent orange -- that's what color both the stickers on Friday are, not pale pink. Good to know for future scans.

Wednesday
Lovely drawing of, I think, Jess' eyes by Brandon.

Thursday
That's one way to work out some aggression -- breaking stuff! This wasn't the only time I took out my anger on soft drinks. Years before, while working at the ballpark concession stand, my boss Lee and I took a six-pack of store-brand pop that had been sitting in the stand for a year out to one of the ballfields and had a little batting practice. Soda cans are deeply satisfying to hit with a bat -- they typically crack open loudly, and spray their contents everywhere as they fly from the bat. You've got to be ready to wash up afterward, but it's good fun -- and cheap, too, if you use the generic stuff. I'm pretty sure I replaced the 2-liters after I did this (I seem to recall them being Diet 7-Up or something similarly unpopular).

The Stadium Dorm at Ohio State was a student dorm built under the western stands of Ohio Stadium. My grandfather lived in them for a year when he went to OSU, and it was the only financial aid I received from the school. The Stadium Dorm was a scholarship dorm when I was there, and was described in the literature as a self-sufficient community with its own cafeteria, study center and more, so I was excited to check it out. You'll have to wait to hear how it turned out.

Monday
Mike couldn't (or didn't want to) make a return trip to Iowa to take Dave home; fortunately, I was able to convince Suzanne it'd be a fun road trip. We did the to and from trips all in one day, which meant 10 hours in the car for us. I seem to recall her finding Dave annoying -- and the endless corn in Illinois and Iowa begat the running joke CORN MADNESS -- much like Space Madness from "Ren & Stimpy." But mostly it was an uneventful, kind of boring trip.

Tuesday
Good god, that's a bad poem. I don't have anything else to say about it. It's just embarrassing.

Saturday
So, we got up and headed back to Barrington with Dave in tow, alternating between the three of us driving, and making sure not to take I-80 home. Dave nearly got us killed when he tried to toss a butt out the barely cracked window while he was driving: He was trying to make sure it didn't land in the back seat (the car was a two-door Accord with really long windows) and he swerved toward oncoming traffic as he turned to do it -- I had to reach over from the passenger seat and jerk the wheel so we didn't hit a car head-on at 80mph.

We stopped at an Indian casino somewhere in Iowa. It was from before the tribes started making their casinos more like Vegas -- it had a gravel parking lot, and was just one fairly large, minimally decorated room. Thinking about it, it felt a lot like a hotel convention center; lots of burgundy, cheap carpet. We each limited ourselves to $10 to spend, which went pretty quickly.

I'm glad I took detailed notes about our evening's activities, because otherwise I'd have no recollection of swimming by the slab. Reading this, I remember wading around looking for Shannon's wallet. The creek was warm and not terribly deep, and I kind of knew we wouldn't find the wallet, but Shannon was really upset so we looked anyway.

Sunday
Man, was I mood-swingy. Thinking back on this period in my life, I think my hormones were in high gear, seriously fucking with my head. I'd be in a great mood one day, a low one the next, and anything might push me in either direction. Puberty was not easy on me.

I'm going to transcribe the whole passage, since the secret writing would be sort of out of context otherwise. The secret text is in italics.

Dave & I met up with Brooke, Shannon, Gaby & Maggie today. We wandered a bit & ended up at East Park. We walked from there to Mitch's to say hi. We left & Maggie went home. We walked down the tracks back to town. As we were now an odd number of people, I ended up alone. With every step I became sadder and sadder, until sadness became anger, which in turn grew with each step. Dave was hungry, & Shannon had to go home, so Gaby & Brooke walked to B.K. while Dave & I dropped Shannon at home & met them. We ate & then drove to the high school. Sitting on the front lawn, Gaby and Dave talked, Brooke looked at the sky, and I fumed silently. Gaby tried to get me to talk, but I just hissed. We drove over to town & climbed on the roof of the Merril Lynch Building for a while. We got down & Gaby & I went to a field by St. Annes while Dave & Brooke went to the beer garden to use the restrooms. Gaby asked what was wrong so I told her. She told me she had strong feelings for me, but she wasn't sure what the were or what to do about them. She insisted on getting me to opening up the things I hide the most. I refused at first, but she began to cry, so I gave in and told her about Anne's rape and about being bullied in elementary school. We all walked back to Yvette's so Gaby & Brooke could be picked up. The were, & Gaby got Dave's address before she left. Dave & I went home & he watched The Fischer King as I dozed off. Happy Fourth of July!

Anne was an ex of mine who confided in me about a sexual assault she was the victim of when she was younger. I got told lots of secrets during high school, and I bottled them up and internalized them, which along with my own pain and suffering gave me a great deal of psychological stress. Rape is a heavy thing to lay on somebody, and it was just one of many secrets I carried for people. I found it very difficult to let that sort of thing out -- and who would I have told? It would have been a violation of a friend's trust.

Thursday
On this day, apparently nothing happened. Which is fine, because I have a lot to say about Friday.

Friday
Dave, you may remember, spent senior year in Singapore, where his family relocated when his father got a new job. As I remember it, Dave had gotten into Iowa State but only on condition of taking a summer school program at the university. So Mike and I drove to Ames to pick him up and bring him back to Barrington for Fourth of July Weekend. Hoo-boy, what a trip.

Mistake number one was buying a six-pack of Jolt Cola before we left town. We wanted to make sure we stayed awake for the drive, see. Mistake number two was not checking into construction on our route. We ended up stuck in construction on I80 outside Iowa City, crawling along in single-lane traffic. It was nearly midnight. By this time, we'd drunk most at least two Jolts each and were practically vibrating in our seats. Mike and I started singing Elvis tunes, songs from West Side Story and who knows what else, and I mulled getting out of the car, walking up the road a bit and waiting for Mike to come meet me. We were also dying for a bathroom.

We finally got close enough to an exit to jump off and call Dave for a different route and use a bathroom (I think we also ate something to help combat the caffein jitters), and of course the traffic cleared so we flew the rest of the way. I remember being led through the dimly lit campus at 2am to Dave's dorm, where we tried to sleep despite the Jolt. I think I slept in an easy chair. That probably didn't help.