August 2010 Archives

Friday
Heather D. threatened more than once to kill me and skin me alive. It's always the quiet ones...

Mike and Chad left for Western Illinois University today. They were roommates, which turned out to be a mistake. Their poor school habits reinforced each other, and Chad only made it a semester, which Mike managed to hang on by a thread through the following summer.

Saturday
It's funny reading how into Fresh Fields I was. It was an early competitor to Whole Foods and Wild Oats Market; that type of grocery store was so new and different back then.

I'd forgotten how close Mitch and I got that year. We had lunch together during the school year, and he was a budding thespian. I took him under my wing a bit, and unfortunately I didn't stay in touch after I left for college. He was pretty hurt, and I don't blame him. I'm glad we had good times back then, though. He was a really good guy. Brandon, he and I stretching one story over three hours sounds like a wonderful way to spend the evening.

Wednesday
Oh Katrina, my muse... There was a joke among a certain circle about the Katrina L. School of Art, because she was so photographed or drawn or painted. She was (and still is) amazingly photogenic. I was honored earlier in the year to shoot her acting headshots -- twice, because the first roll I accidentally shot over an already-used roll of film. That roll yielded some of my favorite photos from back then. (I really need to find and scan them!)

Destiny was Gerald's dog, I think. The idea of neutered destiny was quite evocative, though, I thought.

Thursday
Melissa and I spent a lot of time on the phone the first half of August, and I finally decided to go over to her house after work. Her parents were very laid back -- more trusting of me than they should have been, probably. But nights like this were the norm; the whole family hung out and enjoyed each other's company immensely, and were happy to bring friends into the fold. I had a great time bonding with Melissa's family, and considering how stressful my own home situation was at the time, evenings like this made me fall in love not only with her but her whole family.

Monday
Addresses, not much else. Although Brooke could now read my secret writing.

Tuesday
I managed to squeeze attending a surprise party for Craig W. in between work at my dad's office and Baloney's, then had a super busy night after I got off at 9:15pm. It was kind of amazing how much would happen in one night.

Saturday
My first and only Phish concert, down at the World Music Theatre, now known as ...the First Midwest Amphitheater, I think -- whatever it is, down in Tinley Park. I went with Bryant, Amanda, Tori (I think) and I don't remember who else. Bryant was already a huge fan, I think through his older sister, and excitedly recorded the set list here. It was a fun show, though not really my thing -- and the many Phish-heads I met later in college bugged me enough to write them off as a band. I can tolerate them in small doses now.

Sunday
Heh, poor Suzanne. She was right -- I never quoted the deep things she said, just the silly stuff. Then again, I did that with everyone.

It may not seem strange for three of my closest friends to randomly come over for coffee, but nobody came over to my house to hang out. My house was always so crazy -- we'd remodeled the year before, and with two younger brothers and a mother in the throes of a rather tumultuous menopause*, I mostly wanted to stay the hell away and so did my friends. Plus, Brandon and Suzanne lived 15 minutes away by car and Jill lived at least half an hour away, so getting all of us in one place on a whim was often a challenge.

*My mom had thyroid cancer when she was 18, leading to its removal. She was on a couple of medications to compensate for that, and when menopause hit, her hormones were thrown way out of whack. She started having terrible mood swings, flying off the handle at the drop of a hat. Once, she screamed at 8-year-old Danny, who said he didn't want to go to bed, "Are you questioning my authority?!" No, he's just 8, and doesn't want to go to bed. Once her medications were adjusted, she became much more pleasant, but meanwhile it was not a fun time.

Thursday
We awoke for our third day of camping to discover it was still raining. When it finally stopped, we decided enough was enough and opted to head home instead of sticking around for another night. Our campsite was so muddy I got dressed standing on top of my shoes.

It ended up being a good thing Mike's dad didn't let us leave the state -- Mike's steering column broke on the way home, and he had to hold the steering wheel up to keep the ignition from disconnecting and conking out the car. His arms were aching by the time we got home.

Occasionally we ran out of room on a particular day, and skipped back a few days for extra space. The rest of this page is from August 25, which is chock full of quotes from a different road trip. Clearly I had deep thoughts about TV and media even then.

Friday
The sticker says "Foreign" -- it was attached to a pile of mail at my dad's office, where I helped sort and stuff mail today. We mailed in bulk through the post office, so we had to make sure to keep foreign-bound mail separate.

My night with Tim might sound boring -- miniature golf and bowling -- but it was probably a lot of fun. Tim was a lot of fun to play minigolf with, and when it was just the two of us, he usually wasn't such a spaz. :) Our scores reflected our comparative skills in golf and bowling -- Tim had lived for a couple of years in a golf course community, and I bowled much more regularly than him.

I sort of remember this late-night conversation with Pete. We're not exactly close now, but back then we were really hit-or-miss. He could be a serious jerk sometimes (I suppose the same could probably have been said about me), other times we got along great. Getting ticketed for cigarettes wasn't his only brush with the law that summer -- another time my dad had to go pull him out of the Tower Lakes police station after he and friends got busted for throwing an underage party on the little island Bryant had tried to take us to during Salute the Moon. His friends were a bad influence, and I hoped to convince him to find more productive -- or at least less law-breaking -- ways to have fun.

Tuesday
After the awesomeness of the Iowa trip, Mike and I decided we wanted to do a true road trip before heading off to college. Our original plan was to head up to Stratford, Ontario -- he was on the same Shakespeare Festival trip I was when I found 1954 -- but his Fiero had been acting up and his dad forbade us from leaving the state. Instead we found a small state park down near Bloomington and headed out.

We stopped at a kitschy cool old restaurant, The New Log Cabin, on our way down, and had a great time riffing on the menu. The owner's nickname was "Ol' Horse," and the horseshoe sandwich (a Springfield-area specialty, apparently) on the menu was named after him -- we questioned the wisdom of listing a sandwich that could be construed as containing aged horse meat.

Moraine View State Park was a bargain, and we soon learned why: it's a breeding refuge for a rare species of locust. The bugs were the size of cicadas and hovered everywhere. The "primative" campsite was decent but incredibly mosquitoey -- we were close to a small lake in the center of the park. Mike sprayed the tent with repellent to try to keep us alive overnight.

A carnival was going on in the small town of LeRoy nearby. We stopped in the local grocery and bought meager supplies: cinnamon buns, corn on the cob and some beer -- and then headed to the carnival. We flirted vaguely with some local girls, went on a couple rides, and headed back late enough that it was dark. Fortunately we brought a flashlight.

Wednesday
Raccoons raided our food overnight (which we'd stupidly left out on the picnic table) so we went hungry until we drove into town. Dairy Queen turned out to be the hotspot in LeRoy, and the Harley Davidson dealership and an antique shop turned out to be the only other distractions nearby.

We didn't bring much cash, so when we were gassing up the Fiero I spotted an opportunity to save a little money. There was a corn field next to the gas station, and I snuck over and grabbed a couple ears. Unfortunately, it was feed corn, so it was barely edible roasting over the fire, and Mike and I made do with canned beans. It started raining around dinnertime, and we discovered that Mike's bug spray had de-waterproofed our tent. I seem to recall our finding other campers who shared their beer and bud with us, but otherwise it was a pretty miserable night.

Sunday
Happy birthday, Mitch!

Monday
Yep, it's that time: when people start heading off to school. I think I got all these addresses at a going away party, though I don't remember whose.

Of these people, I only really stayed in touch with Jill, Suzanne and Brandon. I saw some of them again the next summer, and kept in vague contact over the years (Facebook has helped that considerably), but yeah.

Friday
Man, what a different world I lived in back then. I haven't seen a musical in probably a decade. No, I take that back -- I've seen Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Interesting to see myself write such an insensitive comment about some of the performers, including some I knew.

One of the amazing things about dating Melissa was how unconcerned her parents were about when I got her home. Right from the start, they trusted that even if we were out late, we were safe.

Saturday
Ah, the Knothole World Series, when the Knothole coaches let loose and got goofy. They were a bunch of college kids, and had a sort of frat-boy camaraderie that I just started to crack into that year -- partly because I'd been too shy in years prior. They were all good natured and friendly -- they pretty much had to be to work with a hundred or so 6- to 12-year-olds -- and did a lot of clowning around when they weren't out of the field.

Actually, they did quite a bit of clowning around when they were working, too, and the Knothole World Series was sort of the culmination. They spray-painted the helmets with funny designs, had announcers calling the game -- which was played on the "big" field directly behind the concession stand (as opposed to the smaller ones flanking it) -- and had fake advertising billboards out on the outfield wall. It was fun to watch and a blast for the kids. I remember playing in it when I was a kid, and it was the highlight of every summer.

Wednesday
Wow, In the Line of Fire. What is it with me and incredibly un-romantic movies on dates?