Blue Skies Falling

Friday, July 04, 2008

Diary: The Dog Days. The Fourth of July. Other adventures.

Yesterday was the first of the dog days, by the Old Farmers Almanac's definition: The 40 days between July 3rd and August 11th coinciding with the heliacal rising of Sirius, the dog star. Sirius does not rise at this time anymore, due to the precession of the equinoxes. The period marks out the hottest days of the summer, although so far this summer has been uncommonly cool.

Yesterday I stayed in from the Chicago fireworks. I was a little too tired and worn out from the excitement of the last few weeks. Today I'm going camping in the upper peninsula with Sam and some friends. I'll be back in the city on Sunday.

Labels: DIARY, weather

// posted by Connor @ 8:22 AM

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Diary: The Year of the Magnet Castles

YEAR 30 was THE YEAR OF THE MAGNET CASTLES

Soundtrack:

1. Doris Henson, When You Go
2. Funkadelic, Cosmic Slop
3. Smashing Pumpkins, Starz
4. Smashing Pumpkins, Bring the Light
5. M.C. Breed, No Frontin' Allowed
6. Eminem, Evil Deeds
7. Ladytron, Cease 2 Exist
8. Mazzy Star, Unreflected
9. Elisabeth Blair, Secret
10. Unkle, War Stories
11. J.T., Murder Mitten
12. Nova Moturba, Burning Rain
13. Sufjan Stevens, Chicago
14. Tori Amos, Black Swan
15. Radiohead, House of Cards
16. James Brown, There Was a Time
17. Joy Division, Love Will Tear Us Apart Again
18. Miles Davis, All Blues
19. Bjork, Mouth's Cradle
20. Bjork, One Day
21. Tori Amos, Girl Disappearing
22. The Velvet Underground, Heroin
23. Kansas, Carry on Wayward Son
24. R.E.M., Hollowman
25. Ladytron, Discotraxx
26. Radiohead, Iron Lung

Navel Gazing:

What a weird year... I always listen to the music and then make up my mind about what the year should be called, but it's never premeditated, and if I have an inkling beforehand the result usually isn't what I expect. As a result, the name may be more intuitive than allegorical.

I don't know exactly what a magnet castle is.

I do know that the last year felt sort of like an add one extension to my MFA eduction... I felt that I was learning and in a very structured and deliberative way. However, whoever was deliberating wasn't me, because most of the plans I made this year didn't quite pan out as expected. A little spooky. The year itself was vivisected between two cities, cut up with numerous weddings and funerals, I broke a lease so I wasn't living where I expected, and I didn't get the job I expected. In fact, I've worked three different jobs in the last twelve months, and soon I will be working the fourth. I spent the hottest summer and fall of my life in New York only to arrive in Chicago just in time for the coldest winter and spring since 1995-1996. My very capable wife is finishing up her career education, and I am in the role of breadwinner for the first time ever. The permutations on the Gothic Funk enterprise have been... interesting. And my big literary achievements this year have been a few successful readings, more way-pre-dinosaur time travel stories, an adaptation of Beowulf more violent than a Frank Miller comic, and the publication of a naughty poem. Still no word on Hungry Rats. I've been with such a fog that I haven't gone to church or posted here in months. Kind of strange: I have gotten a lot of reading and writing and exploring done.

One thought, though, does strike regarding the name: "Magnet Castles." Could they be cities? After all, cities, and specifically city centers are concentration fabricated metal things that could be more conveniently magnetized than an arbitrary patch of countryside. Or perhaps more meaningfully, cities are metaphorical social magnets, siphoning resources and human beings and repelling each other, with tension in both directions. In the second instance, this has certainly been the case for me this year. One of the last substantive posts I published here was a 21 point comparison of New York and Chicago. I still buy most of the arguments I made there, but in another way they seem frivolous, silly, kind of missing the point.

Of course, maybe it's frivolous and silly to compare cities so obsessively from any angle. But I can't escape the impression that moving back to Chicago transformed New York for me, and utterly changed Chicago itself. When I first moved to New York, I disliked the city. I was going there because a good, solid MFA program had accepted me, but I wasn't thrilled about New York itself. When I left last November, I had come to accept a grudging affection for that city. Now, in June, there's nothing grudging about it: I can be almost as full-throated in my praise of New York as I am of Chicago. This is in spite of the fact that the same things that bugged me about New York before (the crowdedness, the speed and impatience, the pretension, the Yankees) still bug me. Chicago does seem smaller than it did before, but I do not know that this is significant either. The most enduring impression I've ever had of Chicago is that it is a fundamentally lonely place, and maybe that's part of my affinity for it. I feel that maybe I am a fundamentally lonely person, which doesn't mean that I'm always feeling lonely or sad, nor does it mean that I revel in the melodrama of isolation. But solitude motivates me, stimulates me, and brings things into clarity. I've always felt that I do my best reading and writing alone in diners, when I am at a booth and all of the other booths are crowded and noisy, or when I'm up alone at five in the morning when the rest of the neighborhood is quiet and dark. That is one thing I've always loved about Chicago. The Red Line is lonely, the skyscrapers are lonely, as is the lake fading into nothing far away, empty and blue, and gray in cracking ice through the winter. Anyone who has seen the Loop at night (giant quarter-mile high shadows fall across empty alleys and streets) knows how lonely it can be, and it is a far cry from Midtown Manhattan. Blue and still and peaceful. The Blues radiated from here, after all.

On to the final point on magnets and castles and cities and things. If one accepts the notion of a human soul (and I do) and accepts a definition of city preferring institutional and social interaction at one place as opposed to the physical shape of the place itself, it is quite reasonable to say that a city has a soul. This is true in almost as literal a sense as can be said of a human. Comparing one city to another is a lot like gossiping about our friends and enemies: we may make honest and worthwhile observations, but we can never quite touch on the substance of what they are in such a conversation. Maybe that is why I am so touchy and invested in Flint, although I have not lived there for a substantial time since 2003: it is a soul that I've felt that I've known. Maybe I've been a bit of a hypocrite when it came to Chicago and New York.

Anyway...

A long and short year... an chopped and trunchated year... all sorts of meanderings. I do feel like I've grown a lot, but can't really pinpoint how or when.

Labels: Chicago, DIARY, New York City

// posted by Connor @ 10:01 PM

Friday, February 29, 2008

Concept: About this Blog.

If anybody is still readingthis, I realize that I haven't posted substantially or regularly for some three odd months now. It is difficult to attribute this to being "busy" since I've been busy for most of the time that I've kept this blog. But I've certainly busy in different ways than I've been before. For starters, I have been looking for a serious job (Dec. - Feb.) and working at a serious job (this past week). The pressure is on, the stakes are higher; for the last two years my wife has worked hard so that I would have the luxutry of pursuing a graduate education, and now that the tables are turned it is something of an imperative, I feel, to responsibly return the favor. So when I've been job-searching/working, a number of things have had to fall behind, and one of them is this blog. Second (and this is most strongly reflected in the development of the Gothic Funk Nation), this blog has simply not been an effective vehicle in promoting my career... I have had a few dozen readers, many with whom I maintain email contact, and many of whom only follow my career casually. It isn't the fault of readers; it is, however, a sign of how oversaturated the net is with erstwhile bloggers. Unless I'm posting about scavhunt or politics in Genesee County, this blog never seems to get the hits to warrant the amount of energy that goes into weekly posts.

I do want to continue to maintain this blog, and I do intend to pick up again. I like the opportunity it provides for correspondence, and I like that it is a convenient way to journal my life and adventures in a public and accessible way. But I have to strike a balance where the amount of payback – in readership and energy invested – is more balanced in general. I'm drafting short stories and novels, striving to be published, and supporting a family. I cannot sink an hour or two a day into a blog that is not promoting these interests.

I am interested in your thoughts. I do think that once I start posting regularly again, it will be easy to keep up. But I also hope you'll understand the changes that have been going on at hereisnowhy.com, and that you'll continue to check in and keep up.

More soon?

~ Connor

Labels: DIARY

// posted by Connor @ 1:42 AM

6 comments.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Diary: The Mysteries of Chicago, Part 1

I've started rereading Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, one of my favorite novels of all time, in preparation for the inception of the Gothic Funk Nation this February. The timing of all of these events, however, is uncanny, since in some ways the "plot arc" of December 2007 for me had a lot in common with the early English gothic novel in general, and The Mysteries of Udolpho specifically.

As such, when I'm trying to make excuses for the fact that I went AWOL here for the last fifty-or-so days, I might as well attempt to tell the story in the gothic style towards which it is most intrasigently propelled. I sit here now, on an uncharacteristically warm night in January in Chicago – a steamy and cloudy night with thunder and lightning, and perhaps later even hail and tornadoes – and I think back a little over a month, when everything was different...

I did post here less often in the weeks leading up to the move. It had been a very mild autumn in New York; it hadn't snowed at all by Thanksgiving, the leaves were changing in fits and starts through November, and by the last week many were still green and clinging to their branches. I went to the Met and the Frick Collection for the last time. I ate at Kinara's and El Paisano. I read from my novels at the Guerrilla Lit reading, and Marco and Scott put together a going away party for Jess and myself. It was the sunniest I'd ever felt about New York, but of course, we'd been gearing up to move back to Chicago for months at that point.

As the date approached, however, a few things began to come unravel. For the most part, it was nothing worth worrying about: moving is never simple, and of course the actual packing took much longer than I'd anticipated. The logistics of the move were in flux until the last minute, and most disconcertingly, three months of searching had not procured me a job at all. Friends were on the lookout, but nothing had really materialized.

The one saving grace was the apartment: I had found a place through a for-the-moment-unnamed rental agency, and they had taken Skylar around to several places. He recommended one: a large house in the East Village renting for $800. It had a basement and an attic, though I wasn't to have access to these parts of the house. A retired Polish policeman lived in a small apartment at the back; the house had been his family's and his ex-wife was the landlord. More, he believed that the second floor, which his parents had inhabited, was haunted. Skylar told me about this and showed me a number of pictures: a wrought-iron fence; tiny closet-like bedrooms and massive, looming arches connecting the dining and living room. Although the heating would be expensive in the winter, the house was too good a deal to pass up. The rental agency had faxed me the paperwork and I had mailed them my signatures and $1600 in rent and security deposit. I was happy to have had, at least, this one important issue resolved.

On the night, Friday, that the move finally was to take place, I picked up the Budget truck, and Jess helped me pack all day and then left for class. About the time Jess left, Scott arrived and helped me pack, and then Marco showed up at around eight. He had taken two weeks off work to help me with the move, and then to finish his novel. We'd planned on leaving at eight, but with expected and unexpected delays, we didn't really get on the road until midnight. I got a parking citation for leaving the truck parked and unattended in front of my apartment before heading out. We drove down Flatbush and crossed the Manhattan bridge. We took the West Side Highway. A strobe went off in my face for pushing through a red light. The night was not off to a good start.

We crossed the Washington Bridge and made it out of New Jersey after two. The weather was mostly fine, though a bit windy, and the only unnerving thing about this phase of the trip were the massive and sometimes spasming semis barrelling down along both lanes. It took over four hours to cross Pennsylvania on I-80, and both Marco and I were tired as we crossed into Ohio and the sun came up. We stopped at a rest area and I shut my eyes for fifteen minutes. Then, we continued on. We crossed the Cuyahoga River and the sun shot out from behind the clouds. We passed a horrific accident in which a passanger was impaled through the head by the corner of a shouldered semi truck. We drove through a couple hours of countryside and finally through Toledo; the first city of any size we'd approached since we'd actually left New York. On their northern spurs, both Ohio and Pennsylvania are quite desolate and intimidating. We stopped for a moment in Luna Pier so that I could update my parents on my progress and look out over Lake Erie. Then we jogged agross the crumbling and potholed roads to I-23, and drove the rest of the way up to Flint and Flushing. It was after noon when we finally arrived.

The next 24-hours were a fair respite. It was my mom's birthday, and after Marco and I had taken a four-hour nap, I took her out to Red Lobster for dinner, and my dad treated Marco, my sister, and myself. We got a decent sleep that night, and I dashed off to church for the Sunday opening of Advent at St. John Vianney in Flint. We had a lunch and got on the road again.

The last stretch of the drive was much shorter, but more harrowing. It was freezing rain, and occasionally whiteout snow, for the entirety of the two hundred miles between Lansing and Gary, and the trip must have taken at least an extra hour or two. There was black ice under the overpasses, and while the semi drivers seemed now to understand the laws of physics, many others were driving too far out. The snow finally subsided for good as we left Hammond and entered Chicago. We took the Skyway, and on the huge bridge at city limits we couldn't even see the skyline because the air was too thick and wet. We cruised fast along the Dan Ryan, but the Robert Taylor Homes had all been torn down, and it looked like the countryside for awhile. We passed over and through and alongside and under the Loop and exited onto Augusta. I followed Augusta and Milwaukee to the rental agency, where the landlord had assured me I could pick up the keys, checking on the time and date.

It was locked, however, and all of the lights were out.

Twilight was falling on Chicago, and there was no way to get into my new apartment.

Labels: Chicago, DIARY, gothic

// posted by Connor @ 7:29 PM

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Diary: Yes, I'm still alive.

I'm here and I will be posting again soon.

I haven't forgotten anyone.

Labels: DIARY

// posted by Connor @ 4:39 PM

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Diary: I Need My Coffee.

As job and apartment hunting has become more and more pressing, I've cut exercising and most of my blogging to free up time. Now I'm about to consider reversion to pre-graduation-from-grad-school caffeine levels (eg. as much as I want). The way I figure, caffeine isn't like crack or nicotine. I really can go back to my current reduced level as soon as things settle down a little. Right?

Labels: DIARY

// posted by Connor @ 5:28 PM

Monday, November 05, 2007

Diary: November, 1991.

Something I forgot to recount in the description of October was how late in the month (I have no idea why, but I emphatically believe it was the 20th, our director, Tony Coggins arranged a field trip to U of M Flint (which he attended) to tour their theater facility. Stagehands walked us through, explaining the flies, the spots, the rehearsal spaces and black boxes. It was a bright, sunny Saturday, crisp and cold; perfect October.

Maybe I remember that now because my main memory of November was how the play came more and more to take over my life. I had a fair number of lines to memorize, and while I don't remember our exact schedule I know that we came to spend several hours a day rehearsing after school. I was also involved in the band, and so I was pretty busy. The collective effort involved built toward a feeling of intense belonging and ownership with this group of people. It was something that, for a long time, seemed to specifically apply to theater, and is the main reason I became addicted to it for so long. But that moment hadn't arrived yet; it was still in the works.

The previous month's vampire obsession had also led me to rent Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. I beat the game, one of my very favorites, for the first time on Thanksgiving. My cousins came over, as did my grandparents and aunts, and later in the day we went for a walk back to the river. It was an amazingly mild day... windy, but we barely needed to wear jackets at all. In the field behind our barn there was one point where a dried out grey lumber post had been driven into the ground before the horse shelter. As we walked back I looked at it, and everything seemed about that time seemed to swirl around the point of that post: vampires, the gothic, theater, and impending cold. All swept up in gray grass, leaveless tree branches, gray skies, and wind.

Where were you in November, 1991?

Labels: 1991, DIARY, November

// posted by Connor @ 4:59 PM

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Diary: In October 1981.

I don't remember a thing.

Where were you in October 1981?

Labels: 1981, DIARY, October

// posted by Connor @ 5:05 PM

3 comments.

Diary: October, 1991.

I was in 7th grade, and had recently auditioned for, and cast in, the Junior High Drama Club's inaugural production of The Wizard of Oz. I was to play the Wizard. The play quickly became my new social group and, between that and band, I must have asked five or six girls to go out with me. They all said no, and I learned that an assembly-line approach to dating is not efficient. For some weird reason it gives people the impression that their individuality is incidental.

At this time I was also reading Dracula by Bram Stoker, and devouring it. The book filled me with suspense and while it took maybe a week to get through the first section by Jonathan Harker, I read the rest in just a few days. I called it my favorite book, and read my Dungeons and Dragons Ravenloft supplements to get a better sense of Vampires. Ravenloft talked about the "gothic" which was a word I understood in a palpable, visceral sense more than any particulars:

Gothic was a location afflicted with limited light.
Gothic was cool and beautiful and lonely.
Gothic was old; a broken and decrepit relic of something that had once been powerful and inspiring.
Gothic was windy and autumnal.

These were my happenstance impressions based on the sound and shape of the word and whatever associations and imagery I had built in on my own. A few years back, when I reread Longinus' theories on the submlime, I'm amazed how close I got to grasping the "gothic" in '93, just by chance, and knowing nothing about the Romantics or about Germanic tribes and the legacy of the Roman Empire.

At any rate, my 4th hour Skills for Adolescents somehow got into a debate about the existence of God, with me taking on the "nope" view. Mr. Gromak had, of course, spoken in my favor, saying that I thought about things seriously – that I was reading Dracula, "one of the classics," (in fact, he knew this because he had told me to put it away after catching me reading it in class). The other kids took this as proof of some sort of satanic inclination, and harassed me until I started crying and ran from the room (drama queen that I am was). Mr. Gromak chased me out and assured me that I wasn't a satanist, and I remember after school I walked over to my grandmas, throwing walnuts through the holes in the chain-link fence.

I learned my lines.

I made lists of girls I could date and thought about how much I really really wanted a girlfriend.

I pored over Ravenloft and thought about this "gothic" thing.

Where were you in October 1991?

Labels: 1991, DIARY, October

// posted by Connor @ 4:45 PM

Diary: In October, 2003

Actually, for a moment of overlap... at the very end of September I vaccumed and finish cleaning out my house in Flint, met with the landlord and retrieved the deposit, and said goodbye to the 1600 block of Maryland Ave. I renewed my license, spent the night at my parents, and the next day my dad drove be down to Chicago. We ate at Salonica with my girlfriend (they were making their famous egg-lemon soup on this day), and while my sinuses were acting up, it was a nice example of autumn-perfect. They sky was all moldy cheese, and it was raining, chilly but not so much that I could see my breath, and the leaves were already falling and lying on the black pavement at the bottom of clear puddles as bright yellow jags. I said goodbye to my dad and he drove home to Michigan. I left most of my stuff in my girlfriend's dormroom, but I had made plans to couch-surf at my friends' Marina and Kaury's while I was looking for an apartment. Kaury and I stayed up late, drinking coffee and talking about Scavhunt.

This time, at least I had a job... good ol' Advanced Resources had been contacted by the Neurosurgery Department at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation (NMFF) where I had worked the prior Spring. They needed some clerical help and agreed to take me on in that capacity.

I really took a couple risks that October, and they didn't entirely bite me. I wanted to expand my horizons and live somewhere different and new, by which I mean unfamiliar and old. I was set on either Bridgeport, Back of the Yards, or Canaryville, on the South Side or Edgewater Beach, Uptown, and Rogers Park on the North Side. After spending two weeks after work, from seven until ten, stumping from 32nd to 51st, and between the Dan Ryan and Ashland, I nabbed an unclaimed Bridgeport Newspaper and called about a place in McKinley Park, "right across from the Orange Line" at the very generous price of $425. This was important... I'd already turned down a beautiful apartment in an Edgewater Art-Deco masterpiece for $535 because I needed to save up for an engagement ring. The matter was that close in my mind.

The apartment and neighborhood were strange and wonderful and sullen and weird and perfect. 3613 was right across from the Orange Line... if you ever take the train out to Midway from downtown you can see it vividly as you pull out of the 35/Archer station, on the left, a third story window of an 1880s-ish tenement rising right out of an automotive body shop. The body shop owner, a cheerful and reasonable man named Gerald (probably my favorite landlord ever) showed me the studio, tiny but just rehabbed. I looked out over Archer Ave., and had a fine view of a the Orange Line and heavy freight tracks, as well as the Sears Tower and Aon building. My only complaint was the hard water, which with time left a gritty film over the walls of the shower. I filled out the application, and it was accepted...

The neighborhood was just as unusual and vivid as the apartment. On the south and a bit to the east it faced the massive remnants of the Union Stockyards, but these were visually removed by the Central Manufacturing Center, which was originally the nation's first industrial park in 1905. This sat on Pershing Road. Just north, oddly enough, was McKinley Park, one of the city's sub-flagship parks, a gorgeous half-mile long, quarter-mile deep piece with a lagoon and huge old oaks. The rest of the neighborhood was a mess of triangles and rectangles trying to make sense of the chaos that Archer and the Shipping and Sanitation Canal made of Chicago's grid system. See, in New York people can deal with such things. But it made an institutional wreck, and my favorite example was just a few steps down my own trapezoidal block. Three alleyways cut in making a triangular sub-block, a stomach of sorts, which consisted of one massive vacant lot, and one house. What the house's address was or how they got their mail, I can only guess. Nor do I know what they thought of having their house surrounded by three alleyways. Following Archer southwest led to Brighton Park and Archer Heights. Following northeast led to Bridgeport, Chinatown, and ultimately, the Hilliard Homes.

My apartment was also convenient. I was within two blocks of the park, a Jewel, a taqueria, a Unique, two diners, and the Orange Line. It took me forty-five minutes to get to work (and that was if the Red Line was moving slowly) and forty-five to get to Hyde Park. Unfortunately, nobody at the U of C has heard of McKinley Park, so I had few visitors. In a way, this was nice too. On one of the first nights, when my girlfriend helped me cart my things up from Kaury's and I was unpacking in sweaty stillness (it was in the eighties), Mark S came over to hang out. It was a fun time, but seemed distracted, and then a cat was run over out on Archer and it made the most hideous squalling sound as it died I'd ever heard.

That was the month when I got into baseball. It was under an unfortunate circumstance... the Tigers had just had their worst season ever, almost tying the '62 Mets. The Cubs, on the other hand, had made it to the Division Championship and were favorted to beat to Marlins and move onto the World Series. That was, of course, the year of Steve Bartman and other catastrophes. And while the Cubs have been gradually shuffled to the bottom of my list of likeable teams, they helped to jump start my interest in the game, which grew each year as I saw my team, my Detroit team, doing better and better.

Finally, preparations were underway for the doomed production of Nocturnal Project No. 2, the Cenci. It would really pick up steam in November, and I hung around UT, interviewing and recruiting actors, and reasearching the strange tryptich of Radiohead, Percy's Cenci, and J.M.W. Turner.

On the second-to-last day of the month, I went to Mercedes' Halloween Party, had some sweet vodka drinks, and made up with Sean, with whom I'd been arguing.

On Halloween I rode up to Irving Park for the kick-off to my first NaNoWriMo. I didn't know anybody there, but I did spend some time talking to a topologist from the U of C.

I thought I knew how I'd start my novel: Your tender toes never felt such wind but once.

Where were you in October 2003?

Labels: 2003, DIARY, October

// posted by Connor @ 2:52 PM

Monday, October 22, 2007

Diary: In October 1984.

I remember essentially nothing.

I was six years old and in 1st grade at the Valley School, in Gail's class, and finally taking a few steps toward reading. Steps further into arithmetic. I would have been into dinosaurs, and drawing a lot of pictures of them, but I was also increasingly fascinated by space travel. I presumably fought with my little sister a lot. My friends from school were Brian, Scott, Andy, and Aashish, and I went to visit Brian in Flint Township at one point. I was also friends with many of the kids on the block. This might have been the year I went for Halloween as a Dinosaur... in fact, I think that must have been the case, because it was probably the next year that I went as a witch.

I wish I remembered more.

Where were you in October 1984?

Labels: 1984, DIARY, October

// posted by Connor @ 2:46 PM

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Diary: In October, 1999.

September 1999 had been a big month. I want to say that October began a few days after my Flint friends – Josh, Sarah, Sam, Mitch, and Bree – had headed home and I went down to the Pit for a ginger ale with Cynthia and Armand.
Wracking my brain, I cannot remember all of the classes that I took that quarter. I think I was taking a Biology sequence. Not one of the Nat Sci sequences (because I fashioned myself a badass), but nothing for geniuses either. It frustrated me. Biology classes always do. I think I took a G.S. Hum criticism course as well. Not the one with Ted Cohen (that was my Fourth Year), but the one with Herman Sinaiko. Maybe.

Certainly Claudia Allen's Playwriting class was the most memorable. I was listening to the Lords of Acid's Voodoo U nightly, but then the new Tori Amos, To Venus and Back came out, and I added it to my rotation. It was somehow less abstruse than Choirgirl Hotel, while also being meatier and more supple. With songs like Lust, Suede, Spring Haze, and Concertina, I never figured out why so many of my friends considered it a bomb. The last was partial-inspiration for a scene of the same name that I wrote for Claudia's class. Rachel Silverman acted it out, quite effectively, and this might have been the academic high point of my entire college experience. I still have it, somewhere.

This week, whatever week it happened (Fourth Week) was the key to my Autumn Quarter. See, you all think that I'm silly for giving the years names, but it really vied for a long time with a system similar to the British habit of naming eras after their monarchs. I'd develop long-term, hopeless crushes on unattainable girls, and while I was already naming years, I often thought of them in terms of these romantic unfulfillables. It wasn't fair to me, myself, since it inevitably overshadowed my own achievements and other experiences. It also meant that I was putting humans up on pedestals, which is, ahem, unwise. During the summer I fell hard for A.S., and during winter break, I fell almost as hard for A.H. In Chicago, my crush for S.A. was not mild, but certainly gentler and less encumbered by delisions of reciprocity. It's probably part of the reason that I had such a productive quarter, as well as why that autumn was slightly less memorable than the months before or after.

The whole thing with S.A. started in the Playwriting class when Rachel read my "Concertina" piece, and S.A. asked if I was a Tori Amos fan – if the piece had had anything to do with the song. That was the moment when the crush started off, and I consulted with Armand and began various dorky strategems of my own.

I wasn't a complete romantic wash, however. I'd had encounters the prior summer, in sufficient numbers to have a bit of experience and know what I as doing. It was just that I could never evoke the response I wanted from the person I wanted. An example of this happened walking back from the Reynolds Club one night early that month, when Armand (?) and I ran into AJ and one of is friends. As we walked back to BJ, Armand talked to AJ and I talked to his friend. We hit it off and she followed me back to my room where we talked for another hour or so. She explained that she was bummed because October had always been a good month for her romantically – 100% of the time in fact – but here it was the 15th and there was no sign of anything happening. I commented that, well, if Halloween rolled around and none of the fish were biting, she was free to stop by.

You should never say something like that if you don't mean it from the core of your being.

I could flirt and even deliver pickup lines, but if S.A., for example, wasn't interested, then all of the flirting in the world wasn't going to make a difference. On the other hand, I went (in a bit of a cowardly way) to hide in Armand's room on Halloween, because a housemate (Ed) had told me that the "October Girl" was looking for me.

This was before our dorm became haunted; that was to happen in November.

And speaking of Armand, the most exciting weekend of the month really revolved around his 21st birthday, Halloween, officially (this might have actually happened the first weekend in November?). He was one of the most popular people in the dorm, and so unassuming that four of us, individually and independently, decided to throw him a surprise party. We ended up combining our plans with the effect that I don't know if Armand's ever fully recovered from that weekend. On Friday Lisa M. and I were to ride to Minnesota with him to visit his friend at Carlton College (since nobody had planned anything for his birthday). We took the Red Line up to Wrigleyville (during which I got into an argument with a Scientologist) and borrowed Lisa's brother's car. From there, we drove north toward Wisconsin, taking a detour to Rockland where we were to covertly rendezvous with Ben, Liz, and Armand's friend (whom we had arranged to transport to Chicago). I was to make contact with the second group, but they had been delayed, and I had to leave on the pretext of snatching a cool looking sign. An hour later, the connection finally happened. Armand was relieved just enough to not be angry with us. The next day, we threw a party at Ben's apartment, and after hanging out there for several hours, I took Armand out to the Checkerboard for some Blues. It started a great new tradition, in fact, cut short only when the Checkerboad closed due to missed rent payments (though I believe it's open again in Hyde Park now). The lounge even had their own driving service; an old man in a beat up Buick brought us back home.

Other things were going on, of course. I had spent most of the month readying my proposal for Artaud's Cenci for University Theater. I made at least one or two trips to Canaryville. There was certainly one night when Irinia, Bela, Lisa, Liz, Ben, Armand, Chris, and I all made a picnic dinner and ate it in the grass on Stagg Field. We threw a frisbee, and tried to jump high enough to touch the goalposts, but we couldn't.

Where were you in October 1999?

Labels: 1999, DIARY, October

// posted by Connor @ 2:11 PM

Monday, October 08, 2007

Diary: In October, 1987.

In October, 1987.

I don't remember anything about October, 1987, really.

Actually, I do think I can scare up at least one memory with some reliability:

I would (I believe) have been a Wolf Scout in Cub Scouts in Flushing. This means that this would have been the month where I fell victim to an overactive imagination and got scared by thoughts of the headless horseman at a pumpkin carving Cub Scout meeting. Prompting my mom to go to bat for me: she was talking on the phone about it after I had gone to bed.

I believe gymnastics had been attempted and abandoned, and figure skating was in full swing. We would have had the Disney Channel at this point, but not a Nintendo. I don't think we'd gotten the computer yet, but we did have a VCR. I would have been aware of Santa Claus (but evidently not the Headless Horseman). It was two years before the paper route and almost a year before discovering Dungeons and Dragons. Victor from church was not a friend at this point but Justin was (a situation which would reverse). My best friend, though, was Jeff from across the street, and now that we'd joined forces after years of war, we could terrorize the younger Teslars a block away. Well, okay, "terrorize" might be a strong choice of words.

I can place a lot of contexts here: what had already happened or what happened yet. But 1987 was long-enough ago that I don't remember anything specifically. Except that cub scout meeting, and my mom on the phone.

Where were you in October 1987?

Labels: 1987, DIARY, October

// posted by Connor @ 5:00 PM

Monday, October 01, 2007

Diary: In October, 1995.

The randomization of these accounts of months has been weird lately... they almost seem to be pointing toward an actual narrative.

If you like you can pick up here from September 1995, and the huge house-wrecking party described at the end of that entry actually happened in October.

At said party I played my electric clarinet. What this meant was that I electric taped a microphone to the bell (with the effect that notes went way flat), plugged in my amp, and ran up to stary playing. As long as I could continue without losing breath, the feedback distorted in a way that would have worked nicely onstage with a rock band. Unfortunately, this ghettoish setup was as sophisticated as I ever got.

Compared to roucous September, October was a month of meditation and recalibration. I borrowed Vitalogy from Greg and listened to it practically every night. Some days, I'd listen to "Immortality" a few dozen times in a row in my room. There was a lot of lying on my back on my bed and staring at the ceiling. I drove with my sister to Sunset Hills in Flint Township and drove around, studying and exploring the crematory grounds, obelisks, and mausolea. I wasn't a goth. I wasn't obsessed with death. I was intrigued by autumnal decay. This was, after all, the coldest year I can remember. The leaves had started turning in late September; they fell in mid-October. Michigan wouldn't really warm up for good until late May.

I was changing in other ways as well. I had really come to a point from which procrastination was no longer possible. Through tenth grade, I'd drawn pictures in class all day, came home, and listened to music all evening. I also had plans to go to Northwestern University at best, and the U of M at worst. These two lifestyles were becoming quickly incompatible... I'd taken the college prep course at high school, and both Algebra III/IV and Chemistry were ready to hurt me if I didn't pick up the pace. Northwestern wouldn't love a few Cs and Ds in meat-and-potatoes classes my Junior year. So I was studying pretty hard every night – a change from the intense fits and starts that had gotten me through other years – and while Chemistry continued to suck hard, I gradually brought Algebra under control. I think my mom was impressed that I was finally doing homework without coercion. I started writing poetry, and my Creative Writing teacher said, "Connor, this is amazing."

Northwestern held an information session in Grand Rapids, and my parents drove me out there. We sped up and down the hills and the trees were spectacular, veiny redshot and orange. We spent the afternoon with my grandma, and stopped at a particular scenic view where I noticed graffiti left by an exchange student from Flushing. On other days, Paul and I would go to my grandma's house to watch a cable-only special on the war in Bosnia. We were also planning an educational theater workshop series. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Brandi. Mitch and I talked about starting a band, but we never really got it together. I spent most evenings at home.

Toward the end of the month, though, something had developed. My heroes, the Smashing Pumpkins, were preparing to release their first album in the over-a-year since I had discovered them. It was a double album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and it was the biggest news in Alternative music since Kurt Cobain has lost several pounds very quickly. From my own unbiased perspective. I was picking up my brother and sister from junior high when I heard Bullet with Butterfly Wings for the first time. I was pulling in my driveway when I heard 1979. I had to get this album on the day it came out. I had to. But I didn't have a job or any money. I would receive some money for bringing home good grades, but my parents hadn't received my report card yet.

On the week before it came out, I listened to Gish, Pisces Iscariot, and Siamese Dream especially, putting myself in the proper spiritual frame of mind to be up-to-speed and fully receptive.

On the night before it came out, the debut concert at the Chicago Riviera broadcast via Simulcast, and I listened from my parents' Saturn, parked in our garage in Flushing, Michigan. I huddled in the cold with a tape recorder perched on my lap and watched the carbon light streak through slats in the wooden walls. I went to bed at about one in the morning.

The next morning I borrowed $20 from a classmate. The moment that school was over I bolted down to Best Buy and bought the new album. I took it home and listened straight through, reading the lyrics as I went. My brother and sister got home from their music lessons. Somewhere in the house, there was an argument about responsibility or something. My room was a mess. The light was on, and it made a contrast next to my windows as the sun went down and even the Poplars outside went purple and black. The songs that impressed me the most that night are – for the most part – not the songs that impress me today. I liked "To Forgive" and "Cupid de Locke". I still like "In the Arms of Sleep." I wasn't particularly impressed with that album on the first listen, but it continued to challenge me, and still challenges me twelve years later.

A week later, right before Halloween, my friend Mitch tried to get me to skip school to go into Flint with him. I didn't. I was worried about being caught, and anyway, I felt like I was catching a nasty cold. In fact, I was in bed most of Halloween night with a headache and a stuffed nose. But that's okay. I was way too old for trick-or-treating anyway.

Where were you in October 1995?

Labels: 1995, DIARY, October

// posted by Connor @ 4:41 PM

Monday, September 24, 2007

Diary: September, 2002.

A generally frustrating month at the beginning of an overall interesting year. In fact, in many ways this summer seemed the most "typical" of the four years after finishing college. I'd been out for a full year, and had spent the summer living in the basement of my friends' house. It was an affordable arrangement, which was good, since I never locked down employment in the thriving Flint job market.

At the begining of September, I moved back in with my parents for a couple weeks, and they let me borrow the car to visit Sam in Marquette for a weekend before heading back: I ran a Lake Michigan circle tour. On the 15th, my parents drove me to Chicago, and we all took my girlfriend to the Lincoln Park zoo for the day. I remember it was quite cold, but I hadn't brought a jacket along. On the way out, we unloaded all of my stuff at my a friend's (very small) Hyde Park apartment... I was going to stay there just until I'd locked down a job and a room elsewhere. These were both issues, however, which went on, unresolved, well past September 2002.

At the end of the month, though, Gemma contacted me about filling an open part in her play, Tales of the Lost Formicans. I said "yes."

Where were you in September 2002?

Labels: 2002, DIARY, September

// posted by Connor @ 1:15 PM

3 comments.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Diary: In September, 1983.

When going back this far, I have to fall back almost exclusively upon confirmed and memorized facts rather than actual memories. I'd just turned five years old. My brother had been recently born, and my sister was two. In either late August or early September, I started attending Valley School which was, at that time, located in Grand Blanc Township. I do remember, albeit indisinctly, the way the school looked. It was at the "end" (or maybe the "middle," but if so, it was well-isolated) of a subdivision, with a slope inclinning to a basin where the school and parking lots were located. The school was flanked by a hill on one side (which we'd use for sledding when it started to snow), and on the other a broad field with a stream running at the edge. I remember that the school was outside of Flint, and my parents drove me there each morning. I want to say that this was most often my mom, although my dad dropped me off some times too. Also, I remember that we had to take at least a hemi-pretzel exit ramp from the expressway, and this was one of my first memories of such a plan. The way the road curved so insistantly as it road struck me as strange, or maybe even funny. But I don't know for sure which of these impressions were from September '83, and what came later.

Where were you in September 1983?

Labels: 1983, DIARY, September

// posted by Connor @ 2:28 PM

Monday, September 10, 2007

Diary: In September 1995.

June 1995 - June 1996 (Year 18) was one of the most momentous years of my life, but I didn't realize it as early as September. The whole summer had been swept up in one massive project, the second Flint Youth Theatre production of Trace Titanic which had toured to Minneapolis in early August. Because of the rehearsal schedule, I was unable to attend training sessions for the Michigan Renaissance Festival Academy. I was allowed to participate at the Apprentice rank for the second year, and for the first year there I wasn't used in a play.

Once Festival started, it pretty much dominated my schedule to the exclusion of all else. I didn't really take school very seriously – in particular, I refused to spend much time on Chemistry and Algebra III-IV almost on principle – I hadn't been cast in the FYT production of The Fall of the House of Usher, so I could focus my full attention upon Festival.

At Festival, I focused less on the program itself than I had ever been before, which was unfortunate since the workshops were more serious that year than ever before or after. I had a huge crush on a girl named Michelle, the "girl with the blue shoes," who had absolutely no romantic interest in me whatsoever. Meanwhile, a girl named Lisa told me that she liked me, and I did not reciprocate. I was very stupid about these things, as Lisa was pretty awesome: kind and reliable and trustworthy and interesting and inspiring, whereas Michelle was "mysterious" and "spritely" and just a little "haunted." While new and old friends – Mike, April, Melissa, and Brandi – helped me woo an increasingly exasperated Michelle, it rained day in and day out. I remember once standing in a tentful of rain while we all bobbed our heads to the Digital Underground. On another night, Brandi sang a beautiful rendition of Disarm that haunts me to this day. Once, my tent flooded and I slept in the backseat of a friend's truck. Another night, I slept in the trunk of my parents' Saturn (keeping the seats open so I wouldn't get shut in). We'd usually go out for Subway after the Festival, but when it rained, we ended up at Denny's instead.

Now writing this today, I feel bad that I remember less in detail about what was going on in my family (as opposed to, say, 1985, when that's all I remember, or 2005, which is more of a balanced mix). I also have to feel a little chagrined that I remember little about school either. I've almost lost track of the classes I was taking (Algebra, Chemistry, Concert Band, Spanish 1, Creative Writing Independent Study, English 11... okay). College, for being only two years away, and Northwestern, for being at best a stretch just then, was an eventuality I ignored. So when I say that "this September was different," that it launched me into such an amazing year, I can't think that I was necessarily more mature or realistic than before. I had, however, somewhere along the line at FYT and the Renaissance Festival, surrounded by friends and family who thought I was talented, charismatic, empathetic, fun, picked up a greater poise and ease in interaction then I'd ever had before. Here's my indulgent hypothesis: Poise and ease kept me from being distracted by trivialities that had always bothered me before. Now, I was able to build my maturity and sense of responsibility. In September, though, I was still pretty selfish.

I lobbied my mom for permission to hold the end of Festival party at our house in early October. Despite her very frustrating experience with the 1992 cast party for The Hobbit she agreed. I ended September by developing a crush on a cute girl in my Spanish class who kept staring at me each day, and by getting ready for the party. The girl, as it turns out, was only staring at a poster on the wall behind me. The party, as it turns out, went off without a hitch.

Where were you in September, 1995?

Labels: 1995, DIARY, September

// posted by Connor @ 1:42 PM

4 comments.

Friday, September 07, 2007

Diary: Mini-Implosion.

By way of explanation.

I've only gotten about 10% done this week of what I've meant to have accomplished. I've been going to sleep at about eleven each night, my big accomplishment I think is watching Rome three times, I stood up friends for a hang-out at least once, and I'm behind in both reading and writing. On the other hand, it's been over a month since I've had a "normal" weekend, everyone is in the midst of personal chaos, I always put too much on my plate to begin with, and Rome deserves the attention.

On Tuesday, all the NYC kids started going back to school. I was going to consider Tuesday my own "back to school" day, by cranking out a Silurians draft, starting on the Postmodern Prometheus revision, and mailing into two sci-fi submissions. That will have to wait. Maybe this upcoming Monday will be my new "back to school" day. If taking a week off can prevent a nervous breakdown, that's going to save me trouble in the long run, right?

I'll be officially checked out until Monday. Jess and I have a wedding in Maryland tomorrow. (Congratulations, Judd!)

Also, Happy Birthday, Emily and Joan.

Labels: 2007, DIARY, September

// posted by Connor @ 10:36 AM

Thursday, September 06, 2007

In September, 2001.

This remeniscence would feel indulgent if it hadn't been randomly determined and if I haven't been posting these memory pieces for a couple years now. That is, I didn't aim for this recollection, nor have I plunged right into it.

At the end of August, I finished up my last class at the University of Chicago. I graduated around the 27th (give or take), and went home to Michigan for a rough month. I have to be honest: I remember very little of that month except for, you know, the obvious parts. I don't remember what I was reading or what I spent that month doing. I vaguely recall that I had several family get togethers with my grandma and aunt. We may, for example, have gone out to some movies or for a drive every now and then. I was in RCIA, but I don't remember if I was attending Mass. I don't remember which, if any, of my friends were around at the time, other than Sam. It's my impression that it was a relatively still month for me. With a notable interruption.

On the morning of September 11th, my dad woke me up becuase of you know. I came down and within five minutes I saw the first tower fall live on TV. I thought it was an illusion, or something caused by distortion in the way the dust moved; I was mistaken. But my dad pointed out what was obvious – that the tower had just fallen. At this point there was a lot of news, albeit fragmented, and nobody really knew the scale of what was happening. The earlier WTC bombing and Oklahoma City were the closest comparisons, in my memory at least, and this was immediately something much more immense. A plane had gone down over Pennsylvania, and yes, by now they had confirmed that these were commercial airliners. My girlfriend was supposed to be, that morning, flying from Chicago to Oklahoma to meet her family at an army base. The scariest moment, for me, was calling Midway airport to learn the status of her flight. Was it airborne? Had it been grounded? Yes. It had been grounded in either Kansas City or Chicago. Later: It had been groudned in Chicago. My girlfriend had gotten on a bus and ridden home.

I drove into Flint to see what things looked like: if people were in a panic, if the police were out in force, if businesses had closed for the day. To slip into about my fifth clichè on this post (they're kind of inevitable when you're my age and talking about 9/11), I'd never seen the city so dead. Granted, downtown Flint is typically dead, but there are still people around on a weekday afternoon. Saginaw Street was downright silent. I drove up to St. Michael's and asked if there was a chapel where I could pray. I was directed to one, but the secretary seemed confused as to why I was there. I thought it was absurd to think that she hadn't heard, but later I realized that this was probably the case. It would have been nice for me to have told her. Later, I picked my dad up from work, and they were talking about the events on the radio.

That night, my parents gave me permission to drive to Chicago for a few days, to check in on my sister and girlfriend. I got there late that night, and (clichè #6) felt a thrill as I rode the Skyway up over the Calumet River and the Sears Tower came into view, pale and ghostly and punching holes in the clouds. I took Caitlin and my girlfriend to a diner, and we talked for several hours. I dropped my sister off at about two or three, and got into Hyde Park a half-hour later.

I don't remember much else about that weekend. Once I was short change for a parking meter, and when I asked a construction worker if he could make change for a five, he just paid the meter. Any other week, this would have been unlikely in Flint, and probably unheard of in Chicago. Saying goodbye to my girlfriend was hard, but I had Caitlin with me on the ride back. We lit a candle as part of a patriotic radio thing, and we were happy to see people in other cars doing the same thing. We drove through Gary on 90, and somehow I missed the switchoff onto 94. We had to backtrack. Caitlin had trouble keeping the wax from dripping onto her hand; probably partly the fault of my driving.

Looking back, the way that time matched up to my life strikes me as kind of weird. I left college, and for the first time in my life I had no discernable goal, no money, and few friends or family in proximity to work through things. This was my fault, largely. I'd put off the job search until the last minute, and moved to an unfamiliar neighborhood far away from everything I knew. It would end up being the worst year of my adult life. Incidentally, I was part of the 12% that disapproved of Bush, even then. I'll say I "suspended judgment" for that week, but he seemed to be harsh in rhetoric and unsubtle in thought, emphatic but only on one note. And already the compromised congress was pledging to support executive action with no indication of reciprocal intent. Already, there were hate crimes speckled here and there. The Patriot Act was mentioned. For me, the burst of patriotism was poignant and I felt it in my gut, but it only lasted for that week. I could have maintained patriotism if I'd seen a rational policy behind it. But we were playing marrionette to several actors. We were playing right into their hands.

Where were you in September 2001?

Labels: 2001, DIARY, September

// posted by Connor @ 4:04 PM

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Diary: August 1997.

I started out by turning nineteen years old, but beyond that, this month is very hazy to me. I slogged through the first drafts for Urbantasm, really not knowing exactly what I was getting myself into (ie. now, a decade later...) Although I'd been developing Urbantasm for a rough year at this point. This all meant that I was in the family room about three or four hours a night typing. It was very slow. It's amazing to me how slow my typing was back then. It would take over an hour to turn over a single double-space page.

Still, a few of those chapters haven't been cut, though their content has changed drastically.

I was also running tech for Flint Youth Theatre's production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown which was an ecstatically fun production, and so I was spending a lot of the time with the cast/crew: Josh, Angie, Demetrius, etc. etc. The production was over near the end of August, though. Likewise, the "major" event of the summer had been my participation in the Young Playwrights Conference in New York City. It was too soon to be in full gear preparing for college (orientation started on September 17th).

So I guess I'm left with the impression that August was kind of a staying period before and after major events.

I do remember sitting on the front porch and eating chicken salad on warm evening's with my family. I also remember a string of very frustrating guitar lessons. I finally remember spending a Saturday following Brandi (who is Lyn) and Melissa around the Renaissance Festival. But I think that most of these things actually happened in September. I can't say for sure.

Where were you in August, 2007?

Labels: 1997, August, DIARY

// posted by Connor @ 5:03 PM

4 comments.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Diary: Michigan Trip, August 2007.

Last Wednesday, almost a week ago, I left work at 5:30 after crushing through a heavy load of caption updates. I took the train to the bus and the bus to the airport, and I got my ticket and a hot dog and a coffee and waited for the plane. My flight left on time and I read Hughes/Honour on the way, sitting next to a very talkative group of interior decorators heading home from a conference in Connecticut and a family in Tigers' caps and jerseys that had gone to three of four Detroit-Yankees games, the Yankee Stadium tour, and the Cyclones. We landed at eleven something in Romulus and I met Cody and Catherine in the baggage claim, and we drove home through Detroit. Michigan was twenty degrees warmer than New York. We listened to hip hop and a storm broke around Waterford, with lightning arcing down like a claw complete with an opposible thumb. It was a huge storm, but it blew over about the time we reached Flint, and the rest of the ride to Flushing went smoothly. We got in around one, and I sat up and talked with my parents for awhile before we all went to bed. I had a strange and compelling dream.

On Thursday, I got up early, and spent most of the morning book spelunking. Meanwhile, in downtown Flint, a large building collapsed. At 11:30, Catherine and Cody were ready to go to Band Camp, so we drove down to Oxford, which is midway between Lapeer and Pontiac. After I dropped them off at about one, the car was mine. I gassed up and drove back into Flint, making runs on the PHs (not home), the Crawfords (not home), and FYT (sleepy and nearly empty). Dejected, I went to the Atlas for a coney, two eggs and hash browns, and a half-dozen cups of coffee to raise my spirits. Flint is the greatest city in the whole wide world, but almost everyone I know there has moved away, so I often end up getting a little lonely while I'm there. My waitress was superlative, so I borrowed some of her energy and decided to think my way into a solution. I knew that I could find people if I was creative. At a little after four I paid my bill, fired up the radio, and took the Corunna road back toward Downtown. I went to Carriage Town to the Good Beans cafe, where I visited with Ken (who I haven't seen in a couple years). It turns out that he'd sent my wife and I a wedding gift but that it had been mislaid in Chicago because we'd already moved. But things seem to be going as well as can be expected in Carriage Town, and the local theaters have formed a consortium called L.O.F.T. – League of Flint Theatres – for mutual promotion. After exchanging information, I set out to find Lyn. I thought that I remembered what street she lived on, and I thought that I could remember the house. I knew that the street was off Fenton Road. But I didn't know where. After touring the whole stretch from Hemphill almost south to Grand Blanc, I arrived. It was good that it had taken so long; she had just gotten home. We spent the rest of the evening at her house, often on the porch, playing with Z and talking about music and friends. I was grateful. She gave me a lot of hip hop to check out. By eight it was starting to cloud over, though, and I had to pick up my wife from the airport. So I headed south on 23, which swung into 96 before looping into 275. I avoided the swollen storm that was making its way from west to east across Livingston and Oakland counties, got to Metro without incident, picked up the wife, and we made a stop at a Taco Bell populated entirely by emo boys. We called it the 'Emo Bell.' Back on 23, though, north of Brighton, we drove right into a second storm that dropped so much rain that I couldn't see anyone before me or behind me, and would've pulled over if I could've clearly seen where the shoulder stopped and started. When we finally got home, we repeated the process of the night before. Stay up, talk, and finally go to bed.

On Friday, I meant to go to a daily mass for St. Bartholomew. But I slept in. Evil, sinful me. I confirmed plans with Katie (who I'd finally reached after several months of trying), and my wife and I headed out to hit the Goodwill on Pierson Road. The Goodwill on Pierson Road was closed down. That's a real shame, because it always was the very best Goodwill. Instead, we hit the Goodwills on Saginaw and Center Roads. There are a lot of Goodwills in Flint, and our quick, efficient sweep netted several quite-cool shirts I saw at K-Mart back in 2003 but was too broke to afford, and a jacket for the wife. We continued on and picked up Cody and Catherine from Oxford; made it home by a bit after five. It was time to go meet Katie. We drove down to Genesee Valley and just as we were pulling off of Lennon Road, I heard something that I've never heard in New York. Tornado Sirens. There were two tornados in Fenton, which is generally considered to be about the most far flung of Flint's suburbs. Global warming schlobal schorming. Actually we'd left a nadir in the sticky!hot New York summer just to arrive for the most eventful weatherful week in the Midwest, since Chicago also got swamped. The storm held up David and Katie, but while they were waiting for it to blow over, my wife and I sat at the Bar Louis and drank martinis and beers. Then our friends arrived, and we visited with them for an hour, sharing information, talking about Flint and kids, and eating the largest appetizer plate of nachos I've ever imagined (seriously, the thing was as big as my head; easily worth two entrees). After an hour Dave and Katie had to take their kids to Katie's brothers wedding, but I did get to see her mom again, and Lily, who's grown so much that it's truly terrifying to me. Simon, on the other hand, was serious and silent. My wife went to get her hair cut, and we picked me up a pair of jeans and khakis, and a hoodie, because I've always worn Sam's, and it's too big for me.

On Saturday, I'd thought of going to the Crim. But I slept in. Evil, sinful me. Also, for the first day of our visit there was no major storm in Michigan. Which was fortunate, because it was also the day of my mom's party, which was outside. There was some mist and rain early in the day, but it cleared up in the early afternoon. First, I made a trip back to Genesee Valley to find my journal, which I'd left at Steve and Barry's the night before. I couldn't resist the opportunity to get a green tinted watch that caught my eye, and a matching silver watch for my wife, and two gothish rings from Hot Topic. Flint is a cheap place to get yourself blinged out. I got back in time to arrange a blitzkreig reunion with John and Carol Crawford at their house, and the wife and I were at home for good around three. Now all day long (and actually, for several days) my mom had been getting ready for the party this Saturday. It was an all-purpose party of sorts: my birthday, as well as my wife's, my brother's and sister's, my grandma's and aunt's, my sister's new job, my graduation, and my brother's pending graduation. When the weather was clear for good, we set up a tent out back and tables and chairs. We also had a plug-in fountain that Cody-the-engineer upgraded with rocks to be more effective. It all took a while to set up, but Peg came over. The work was manageable, and so we were able to go at a steady pace. Around six my grandma and aunt showed up, and so did family friends from Flushing. We ate salmon and chicken, pasta and couscous, brownies and ice-cream cake and a lot of bruschetta. Eventually, the sun went down, but we had light from Tiki torches and rice lights that Cody and I had put on a tree. It was gorgeous, and there weren't too many bugs; a perfect August evening. Late August. Because August is winding down. After the family friends had left, the rest of us went inside to the living room, and drank coffee, read cards and opened presents (mostly cards). I got a set of dice in a bag that Caitlin hand-knitted, and my Aunt gave me the third season of Taxi. The best part, of course, of these events is always the sitting-and-the-talking, and we managed to hold people awake until almost one.

On Sunday, I was supposed to go to mass, but I slept in too late. I did, however, go to the UU Church with Caitlin to see Cody and Catherine perform, and to touch base with Rita and various other ne'er-do-wells from my ancient past. Evil, sinful me! We took our time at the coffee hour, walked through the memorial garden, and finally got home around one. My wife and I went into Flushing to visit with grandma for awhile, and when we got home, my mom took us with Caitlin to see Hairspray in Birch Run. This was fun. The film was colorful and noisy, and set in Baltimore of all places. Afterwards, we took the back roads home to avoid the traffic on 75, and Cody and Catherine prepared us a three-course British meal. Leek soup, a potato stew (I don't remember what it was called), and berries with cream. Finally, Lisa came over and my wife and I went for a ride with her. We ended up at Angelos and ranged over every subject ever. We got home at 1:30, and Lisa drank some coffee and set out on her way.

Monday was crappy for various reasons. Almost all of them had to do with heading east again. But we said goodbye, and my dad gave us a ride to the airport. When my wife got home from class that night, we ate Indian food from Kinara's and watched our Rome DVDs. Next week, Cody and Catherine will be visiting again.

Labels: 2007, August, DIARY

// posted by Connor @ 3:26 PM

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

In August, 1986.

Well, I turned eight.

I'm sure that a lot of things happened in August, 1986, but what I remember almost to the exclusion of everything else was the weekend of my birthday. We celebrated a couple days early because of the trip that weekend involved. I got a camera, and my grandparents came over. I got a picture of my step-grandfather sitting on our new couch in front of a quilt that my mother had knitted years before. After the trip, I would climb a rope ladder to a tree house in our front yard, and sit and read. I still played in the back yard on the swing set, and gradually expanded the radius of bike riding to take in everything between Tuscola and Montclare, Commonwealth and Franklin.

The trip itself:

For my birthday, my dad took me up to the Agowa Canyon Tour Train. We drove through Michigan, past Zilwaukee and over the Mackinac Bridge, over the Soo Locks and into Canada. We stayed in motels and ate pasties in the UP, and stopped at Castle Rock and Mackinac Island on the way back. It was one of the first times I recall feeling more adult. After all, these were great and grave landscapes – cliffs and channels – and there were large distances – time in the car – between them. For the first time, travel itself was exciting, and not just time that had to be tolerated between destinations.

Certainly one of the most significant weekends I remember from my childhood, and one which made me thirsty for more. From that point on, a trip with my dad was almost an annual adventure.

Where were you in August 1986?

Labels: 1986, August, DIARY

// posted by Connor @ 3:34 PM

Monday, August 13, 2007

Diary: August, 1985.

I have no memories from August, 1985 that I trust. I know a bit about what was going on then, though. I was no longer attending Valley School, but my parents were home schooling. I turned seven years old. Field trips at this time consisted of going to the Saginaw and Lansing Zoos and the Impressions 5 museum. I didn't wander too far from home, but I think I was usually allowed to go over to the Teslers', the Lameres', and the Punklins' to play.

But I can't pick out any specific memory and say, "ah, yes, I believe that that is from August, 1985."

Where were you in August, 1985?

Labels: 1985, August, DIARY

// posted by Connor @ 11:24 AM

Monday, August 06, 2007

Diary: August, 2004.

Once again I was involved in the Ojai Playwrights Festival, and again I worked as a literary assistant to Director Abigail Deser. This time we were developing Susan Miller's project A Map of Doubt and Rescue. As before, I was immensely impressed by the intensity and density of the work involved. It seemed a like a very pressured process – not in the sense of "high pressure" or "stress," but more like the compression of air in a kettle. It helped that the play itself was involted and complex.

I spent a lot of time with the intern students that week – Hallie was very busy – and Scott, Claire, and all of the others were a lot of fun. It was kind of nostalgic, too, since they were going through the same processes as I had in 1996 and 1997: college preparations and extracurricular mayhem. Of course, the landscape of Ojai itself is rich in poetry. One night I went on a solo nightwalk out into the brush. The stars were very bright, and the mountains were bulbous lumps on the horizon, but I was only out for maybe a half-hour before the howling of the coyotes chased me back. Another night, one of the technicians (from Seattle) took Scott and I out for a morning walk into the mountains. We walked for maybe three hours and must have climbed over a thousand feet. As with all mountains, they are much larger than they look from a distance.

After the Conference was over, Hallie and I drove back to L.A. and stayed with her friend in East L.A. The next morning they drove me down to Hollywood and took me to lunch before dropping me off for a day of traditional tourism. It was actually a blast, and Hollywood was much richer in character and poorer in glitz than I had expected. I wouldn't mind living there at some point, actually. I hiked Runyon Canyon and then took the subway to LAX and flew home.

The middle part of the month is a bit of a haze. Before moving to California, I'd finished up the most backbreaking (and soulsucking) assignment I'd ever worked for Advanced Resources. The Nocturnal had finally flamed out and I was starting to receive a surge of hate email in connection with a context page I'd posted for my play Canaryville Blues. This really depressed me, and I wasn't thrilled to be back in Chicago.

Fortunately, most of these frustrating things were behind me. I had a lovely afternoon when I went downtown with Lisa and my fiancee to watch OutFoxed and then we returned to Hyde Park and spent many more hours at the Medici. There is no coffee like Medici coffee, and those who think it is awful are dead wrong. That is all. Actually, I think we went to the Med and then the movie, then we walked through Millennium park.

Just a week after this, my fiancee was getting ready to graduate. Her family and mine came down for the ceremony, and the night before, her dad took a walk with her and I through Millennium Park (again). The next day, after the ceremony, we ate (again) at the Med. I had a chance to stay at a hotel in Hyde Park that I foolishly passed up for a ride back to my non-air-conditioned apartment in McKinley Park.

Just a day later, I had a housecooling party at my McKinley Park apartment. Colin and Nora came, as Hallie and my fiancee, my neighbors Ed and Carmen, and my to-be-roommate, Sam, who had recently graduated from Northern Michigan. We drank beer and played party games (Werewolf and Taboo) and eventually, everyone left but Sam.

The last few days of the month were sticky and sweaty and Sam and I scouted out and leased the perfect perfect bachelor pad in Edgewater Beach. Eighth floor ghetto concrete penthouse suite. But it had carpet. Cockroaches, but the sweet smell of roach poison. Tamales sold on the street, the beach less than a block away. It was hot hot hot that week. We spent days applying for every menial and half-romantic job across downtown and the North Side, and evenings schlepping carloads of my stuff from the South Side to the North. Sam got a job first, of course. He had more self-confidence, and I was holding out for better pay and a more regular schedule. Still, on our first night in Edgewater Beach, we played Worms on the computers in the dark (to keep cool) and we listened to kids throwing bottles on the street below. It was the official beginning of one of the Greatest Years Ever So Far.

Where were you in August 2004?

Labels: 2004, August, DIARY, Travel

// posted by Connor @ 10:17 AM

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Diary: In July, 1996.

One of those times I tend to look at historically (as I've also been reading about the Roman Republic and Empire this month):

I was absorbing the changes and developments of the last year, and gearing up for the powerful effects of the year to come.

That is:

I was taking a trigonometry class as Mott Community College so that I'd qualify for Precalculus as a senior that year; it was the second most-advanced class my high school offered.

I was also playing "Friend Hare" in the Flint Youth Theatre production of Bambi, which was a lot of fun. It was a surreal, ephemeral, dark-tinged version of the story, compared to the Disney version that everyone is more familiar with. During this month I'd gotten over my relationship with She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (Swomunoben) and my crush on I-Can't-Tell-You to develop a new crush on a girl named Diana. She lived in Woodcroft, in a massive old house that once belonged to a General Motors CEO. Her parents were lawyers, I think. There were big Doric columns under the porch out front, and the halls were narrow, the ceilings fifteen or so feet high. I went over to visit with Demetrius and Perrico and Josh and the others, and we'd watch TV. Diana was never the slightest bit interested in me, and I was only broken up about it for a week at most. I started to notice a girl named Lori instead. I asked her out and she said "yes," though we only went out for a week. She was jealous of my friend Katie, which was silly, and by the time September rolled around, Lori disliked me enough to key my car.

July was also when I got the Admissions packet from the University of Chicago and read their propaganda book (Dreams and Choices ? – was that it?) while riding up to Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp to visit my brother and sister. The book electrified me – it was the first collegiate sales pitch that defined study as a vocation, and a passionate vocation at that. All of the others had stressed their state-of-the-art facilities (Northwestern), progressive teaching philosophy (Sarah-Lawrence), study abroad (Kalamazoo), and career incentives (University of Michigan). For four years I'd had my heart set on Northwestern, but the book changed my mind in an afternoon. And I think anyone with a brain in their head would agree that the U of C was a better fit.

On the 4th Demetrius and I went to see the fireworks in downtown Flint, but we were almost set on fire when we jumped a fence by the river to take a shortcut through Riverbank park, not noticing that rows of sparklers had been strung up right over our head. I spent a lot of time driving around with Perrico and Demetrius and Josh, a lot of time at Paul's. We went to the mall to buy the Tonight, Tonight single and ran into Swomunoben in the food court. I was so startled that I walked off leaving my at the table Taco Bell. Back at Paul's house, we ate pizza pockets instead. Later that month we got into our first argument in about six years. A week later I went for a ride with Katie (was this the incident that made Lori so jealous?) and told her that I couldn't get over Swomunoben, and that I wished I'd never met her. Katie told me that this was silly, which surprised me. She had a strong dislike for Swomunoben and I thought she'd indulge in my admission. But she said it was the only real romanic event that had ever involved me, and so whatever I thought about the end of the thing, I ought to be grateful for the experience.

I had spent a year preparing and taking notes for Urbantasm, and I started the first draft sometime during the month. I wrote sixty pages, taking John Bridge up through the end of sixth grade.

It didn't seem like such a momentous month at the time, or even recently, but looking back on it now... I have to say...

Where were you in July, 2006?

Labels: 1996, DIARY, July

// posted by Connor @ 1:38 PM

4 comments.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Diary: Submission Rejection #2.

I received Submission Rejection #1 in 1999, so it's been a long time since I've been through this process. Within the next few months, I'll probably accumulate a large number of rejections and, one hopes, a few acceptances. That's the way it works. But I consider this moment, more than anything else, to mark my formal entry into professional writing:

Dear Mr. Coyne,

Thanks for submitting "The Fifth" to XXXXXXXXXX. With regret, I must inform you that we've decided not to purchase this work. I'm afraid the volume of submissions has made it impossible for us to comment on most rejections. Nevertheless, best of luck with this story and with all your writing.

Yours,
XXXXX XXXXX
Editor, XXXXXXXXXX

Labels: DIARY, Writing

// posted by Connor @ 12:26 PM