December 2010 Archives

"What happens when you run out of pages?"
"The year is over."

And here we are in 1994, out of pages. In the following year, my college experience both improved and got worse. Melissa and I broke up, slowly and painfully because I really didn't want to do it, even though it was for the best (clearly). Before it was finally final, though, I started dating a woman named Murray (it was a family name) who had also recently ended a long-distance relationship, and we had a mildly dysfunctional thing of our own for almost a year. A couple years later, I might have had a chance to get back with Melissa, but I really hadn't dealt with my depression and other emotional issues surrounding our breakup, and I handled it poorly.

To be clear, I don't have regrets about that. Had I stayed with Melissa or gotten back together with her, there's no telling whether we would have lasted. And either way, if that had happened, I never would have found Cinnamon, whom I can't imagine being without.

I also got involved in the school newspaper and helped launch an independent monthly called "The Response." Those experiences led me down the path of starting a blog in 2001, starting Gapers Block in 2003, and countless other projects since then. Would any of that have happened if things had gone differently? Possibly. Possibly not.

What happened next with 1954? Well, the site is staying up, obviously. My plan is to go back in on occasion and add additional thoughts and memories as they come to me. This has been a really interesting exercise, and one I'm glad I undertook. If you have an old journal like this, I recommend going through and revisiting it in a similar manner.

Thanks for reading!

Thursday
Yvette's yet again. To give you an idea of how important a meeting place it was, the list of 14 people on the edge of this page represent at least seven different friend circles I had in high school:
- My senior year lunch friends (Brooke and Gabriela)
- The Rotating Intellectuals (Bryant)
- Theatre (Liz, Jesse, Daneka)
- Childhood friends (Tim)
- Art department (Al, Katie)
- Yvette's, essentially (Christian, Dan)
- Honors kids (Grechtsteiner, Bryant, Brandon)
Throw in Melissa, who was with me, and there's eight. And of course there was overlap between groups.

It was great seeing everyone, but it reinforced how unhappy I was at school at the time. That was going to change (for the better, I hoped) as I switched to a new dorm the next quarter, but being back in this environment where I was surrounded by friendly faces and deep relationships just heightened the homesickness I was already feeling.

Friday
Melissa and I went to Bryant's house for New Year's Eve. It was a fun party, and in the midst of it, Bryant tried to get as many people as possible to do a polar plunge with him out on the lake. Only Amanda and Tori took the challenge. Tori lasted all of about two seconds, but Bryant and Amanda tried to outlast each other and went longer. I doubt they were in the water for more than 30 seconds, even still. (Bryan't quote, "I could tell you the duration in inches," is hilarious.

Melissa had to be home by 1am, so we sadly didn't get to stay long after the countdown to midnight.

Tuesday
Here Suzanne describes her semester in her patented "life in stick form" cartoon style. She, Jill and I (and possibly Brandon and/or other friends, I don't quite remember) got together at Yvette's to catch up and talk about our college experiences so far. I recall Jill and me coming away from it annoyed with Suzanne, but I know longer remember why, beyond a vague sense of feeling like she was being snotty about attending an Ivy League school while we did not. Whatever it was, it was more petty on our end than hers, and we didn't talk to her very much for awhile after that. It was dumb, but that's petty teenager stuff for you.

I wonder where I smelled mace. maybe just Jill or Suzanne's from his or her purse? Considering how little experience I had with Indian food at that point, I suppose it has a very passing resemblance to curry spice.

Wednesday
Here's another of Christian's sketches from that era.

Sunday
Heh, funny to see our current vice president saying something silly. He hasn't had a whole lot of opportunities to put his foot in his mouth lately. And Larry King gets his own ambiguous statement out there, too.

My aunts and uncles left that morning after one last breakfast at my grandparents' house, and my mom took us to the mall to meet one of her high school friends who lived (still lives, I suppose) in Arizona. I vaguely remember it.

Monday
Ever been to Sedona? I love it up there -- well, I love the canyons and buttes and all that, not so much the touristy shops. I scrambled down the canyon and explored near Midgley Bridge just north of town; there are official trails to walk now, but back then, you were on your own on improvised paths. It was pretty awesome, and a great way to end our holiday trip.

Friday
As lame as Old Scottsdale is, right across the street is Scottsdale's gallery district, which is actually pretty good. It rivals (or did, anyway) the arts districts of much larger cities, and while the work on display often leans toward decorator-oriented stuff (best placed over a sofa or the dining room credenza), there are some galleries with truly good, thought-provoking art.

In my family, Christmas Eve dinner is much more important than Christmas Day dinner. We're Italian on that side -- my grandmother immigrated here when she was 8 -- so we do the traditional seafood heavy meal, with fried calamari and smelts, oysters Rockefeller or some other preparation, and a seafood gravy over pasta that's so good Peter has requested it as his birthday meal a couple of times.

For Danny, Christmas is still all about the presents, but back then it was a blinding force. He was 9 at the time, though, so it makes sense. By the time we finally opened presents, he was on the verge of a meltdown in anticipation.

Saturday
Maybe I can't remember Geronimo because Tombstone was so damn good. What happened to Val Kilmer? So much promise, and now he seems to mostly slum around in crappy B-movies.

That racist quote from the guy behind us at the theater? It was said in earnest and with a little bit of surprise. The guy had no idea how racist he sounded.

Wednesday
Old Scottsdale is a bit of a tourist trap. Lots of cheesy gift shops and jewelers selling nearly identical stuff, heavy on the silver and turquoise. Although I'm not exactly thrilled to go, we ended up there almost once every trip. There were a couple shops we'd hit every time, perusing the crap. I'm pretty sure this was the trip I picked up this plaid hoodie-pancho.

Thursday
It seems like every trip we take out there around Christmas, the guys go see a movie while the women go shopping. That time, it was Geronimo. Not great -- I don't remember a bit of it.

Jalapeno's is still there! It's now called Jalapeno Inferno, apparently. I don't think we ever went back after this trip, despite it being good.

Remember Service Merchandise? It still exists, too, in the form of a website. I must have done a little last-minute shopping there.

Monday
Not much to say about this... errands all day. But I got to spend time with Melissa, which I relished every minute of. Since my family was heading out to Arizona for Christmas, it meant I wouldn't see her again for a week or so.

Tuesday
Ouch -- up at 5am, land in Phoenix at 3pm. That had to have hurt, considering how much of a night owl I was (and still am).

Although it sounds luxurious, the limo was just a private car, as opposed to a cab. My dad had picked up the habit at some point with regards to travel to and from airports -- limos are often cheaper than cabs, because they don't have meters and you can negotiate a price with them.

Despite the long day, I jumped at the chance to go with Grandpa to pick up my aunt and uncle at the airport. My grandfather was a great storyteller, and I never passed up a chance to listen to him. I learned a lot in that hour-plus.

Saturday
When we lived in Lake Zurich, whenever we needed to go to the mall we'd go to Hawthorne. For some reason, when we moved to Barrington, we started going to Woodfield instead. Not really sure why -- it was still farther to get to Woodfield after we moved.

At any rate, Mike, Chad and I went Christmas shopping at Hawthorn that day. I recall we stopped at Orange Julius for "orange whips."

And yeah, Mrs. Doubtfire was pretty good.

Sunday
Huh, that was quite a day. Funny seeing how Tim, Pete and I did a little CD trading for Christmas. Sounds like it was a pretty fun day.

Pete and Brooke continued to get closer after I went off to college. I learned just recently, though, that he and Gaby became friends, too. That struck me as weird, for some reason -- but then again my friends changed quite a bit over the course of high school, I shouldn't be that surprised.

Thursday
When I was in high school, it was not unusual for college kids to come to the high school to visit teachers during winter break and after school ended in the spring. So Brandon, Craig and I thought nothing of visiting a couple teachers that day. I think I spent a good amount of time telling Mr. Griffith about my Faust class and how well RQ had prepared me for it. We mostly just joked around and chit-chatted with D. and Engle, and I asked Mr. Mueller, another of the art teachers, if Brandon and I could come by the next day to do some paper work in his classroom the next day. He said yes, so...

Friday
Brandon and I returned to the high school to make a box and blank book as my Christmas present for Melissa. Mueller consulted on the best way to construct the box (it was something he'd taught us in class) and Bran shared advice on bookbinding techniques. I used a beautiful blue Italian paper for the box and the book cover. The box was just big enough to hold two cassette tapes and the book. I gave her Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine and Brenda Khan's first album; they were sort of two sides of me that I wanted to share with her.

The evening was quite busy. Once my dad got home (I had to wait for a car; Brandon had driven earlier) I headed to Melissa's and we exchanged presents, because my family was heading out to Arizona for Christmas. She loved her gift, and I loved what she gave me -- a shadowbox with two butterflies representing the two of us (one was orange and brown, the other midnight blue and black) and a wire sculpture of a tree, made by a local artist whose work I'd admired for years at Art in the Barn. We ended up scrapping our original plans and instead hung out at 'Round the Clock and talked for a couple hours, then drove up to her old church in Woodstock. It was dark, but not locked, so we went inside and looked around by the light of the emergency lights.

At 1 I met Mike and Emily at Denny's and we caught up with them. It was the first I learned just how bad they'd done at school -- I sort of knew Mike was doing poorly, but Emily was a surprise; it turned out she spent a lot of time partying, like a lot of freshmen do. Hearing how they did made me feel a little better about my first quarter.

Tuesday
Errand running always meant a lot of driving; we lived 20 minutes outside downtown Barrington, and at least as far from any other shopping area.

I'm pretty sure this was the only time I visited Chris M.'s apartment while he lived in Barrington. There may have been one other time. He and I weren't very close until after I graduated college. But there were at least a couple times when I hung out at Hillcress with him and Dan O. Odd.

Wednesday
Picking up Brandon was obviously exciting for me, considering the extra large text.

Sunday
Funny, I don't remember what I got Melissa for her birthday, and I didn't record it here. I probably gave her something store-bought, as opposed to the Christmas gift I made her -- more on that in a couple days.

I can't get over how much I liked her entire family. I thought her older sister was cool, her younger brother reminded me of myself at his age, and both her parents were awesome. As shitty as my homelife was (or I thought it was) at the time, her family seemed idyllic to me.

Monday
Hanging out with Tim was always good. There was no pretension with him, no feeling like I had to show how smart or cool I was. I do miss that. This evening was therapeutic for me -- I needed some low-pressure hangout time, and that's what I got. Along with some diarrhea jokes.

Friday
Wayne's World II wasn't nearly as good as the first.

Saturday
I liked going with my mom to the gem show at the O'Hare Convention Center when I was a teenager. While my mom went to check out the jewelry, I was there for the crystals, geodes, fossils and other cool stuff. But this time, I was unimpressed. Possibly because I was still shell-shocked and depressed, but I think I just had lost interest, or there was less of the stuff I was interested in that time.

Wednesday
I moved most my stuff out of my dorm and into storage unit today, then studied and worked on my final paper for my Faust class that night at Idiot Boy, a newer coffee shop north of campus. Insomnia was my regular haunt, but I knew if I hung out there I wouldn't get anything done because all my friends would be there too, so I tried Idiot Boy out. It had a low budget but edgy feel -- it was filled with old sofas and thrift store furniture, with black walls, dim light and loud music.

Thursday
I was up overnight working on my paper, with my notes written haphazardly on a scratchpaper notepad. Because my Mac was now packed, I typed it in a computer lab. When I finished, I hit print but didn't hit save, which was an awful mistake: the computer lab printers were notorious for crashing, and could take your computer down with them. Which is what happened. Having not slept at all the night before and not much in the preceding days, I was devastated. This was my favorite class, the only one I really cared about, and I was now in danger of failing. There was no way I could retype it before I had to leave for my flight home for winter break.

So I went to my professor's office, pleaded my case, and was allowed to type it and fax it to him -- though I'd be marked down for turning it in late. I called my mom to let her know, and after she picked me up at Midway she took me to her office (she was doing secretarial work for the local realty association at the time) and I re-wrote my paper on her computer. It wasn't nearly as good -- I was a sleep-deprived emotional wreck -- but at least I got it done.

I got a B, which was marked down to a C, which I think brought my overall grade in the class down to a B. I got an A in English, a C in my philosophy class, and an F in math. Not an auspicious start, but I could always use freshman forgiveness to erase that F, right? Sure -- except that I failed it the second time, too, which meant both Fs stayed on my record, pulling my GPA down even further. Crap.

Monday
Did Robert Mapplethorpe die that weekend? Hmm, no. For whatever reason, this self-portrait was in the New York Times that day, and I cut it out.

Tuesday
There was another bit of this character description taped in here, but it came untaped and disappeared years ago.

I wasn't terribly familiar with the rockabilly punk scene at that time, but this description makes it sound like the kid was a part of it. Most of Columbus' punks were either main line punks, straight edge or gutter punks (crusties), so it was weird seeing a greaser at Insomnia.

Saturday
More Dec. 28 annexing. Apparently Jill was filling us in on the feminist reasoning behind using "y" in womyn and other words, which led to our wondering what other words a y could be added to, and which aren't empowering.

Sketches by Brandyn -- er, Brandon.

Sunday
Annexing, continued. "Cannonball" by The Breeders was apparently on the stereo. (Andee was me; a jokey spelling referencing my dislike for the name "Andy.")

The cactus comments are from me -- I spent Christmas in Arizona at my grandparents' house. Their neighborhood was surrounded by undeveloped desert back then (it's not anymore), and we'd take walks out into it to kill time. As I say here, it's very easy to accidentally run into cacti, and I came back with a little bit of cactus quill still embedded in my thumb.

Thursday
Happy birthday, ORF!

Friday
Another lost day. I just realized, this was the weekend before finals, and I was also moving to a new dorm the following quarter and therefore had to pack up my stuff, so I may just have been studying and packing to do much journaling.