Monday, September 15, 2008
Diary: September 2004.
This was one for the books.
On the day last weekend of August I held a Housecooling Party at my small studio in McKinley Park. I was almost one year from being married and (hopefully) grad school, and one of my best friends, Sam, was moving to Chicago to be my roommate. We didn't have much by way of concrete plans, just vague ideas and a lot of optimism. I told him that there were only two Chicago neighborhoods where I was interested in living that year: Edgewater and Roseland. Sam said that he didn't want to live in a ghetto, so I started looking in Edgewater. About a dozen people arrived for the party and Sam showed up midway through. My girlfriend gave some of our friends home and Sam and I collapsed on the futon.
The next day we called and checked out four apartments on the North Side: a courtyard tenement in Rogers Park, a carpeted penthouse with roaches in Edgewater Beach, a really nasty spot off the Bryn Mawr stop that smelled like cat piss, and a slightly overpriced rehab in Lakewood. We went with the carpeted penthouse and filled out our application.
On the next day, we got up early and took the Orange line into the Loop to look for work. He needed to line up a job and I'd declined an offer to work with the Department of Orthopoedics because the pace seemed too frenetic there. We browsed through the easy access floors of the Sears Tower, but nobody better than Wendy's was hiring, and so we slowly made our way along Wacker. Sam applied at a Lake Michigan cruise ship; I decided to take a pass. We got back tired. We got a call approving us for the apartment. Sam got a call giving him jobs at the Lego Store and on the cruise. Things were looking good.
We'd prorated my South Side apartment for four days and so we spent a whole day making multiple trips in Sam's little car back-and-forth: Archer/Damen/Stevenson/LSD/Hollywood/Kenmore. Kenmore. Our joints were sore but by eleven the our stuff was mostly moved. We got back to the South Side, grabbed dinner at the New Archview and walked home in the sweet sweatfog of butchered bacon floating on the air from the Yards. The next day, I realized our cleanup job didn't really pass muster so while Sam left to start setting up the new place, I stayed behind and cleaned. I finished around mid-afternoon, got my deposit back, and caught the Orange and Red Line home. That night we drank beer, set up the computer on the windows, and played Worms until 2 AM. It was hot out, and kids in this new, strange neighborhood were shouting out on the street. Everything seemed bright and loaded with opportunity, and it was one of the best times I've had.
I spent the next week applying for jobs during the day and working on the apartment in the afternoon and evening. I finally had a room I could decorate as I wanted: with maps and papers from pillaged National Geographics covering every inch of wall. My view looked out on the Edgewater Beach skyline and while this was Chicago, it felt like a resort. Our building was 40% Bosnian per the landlady (she was a Bosnian Muslim, herself) and while the elevator smelled like pee, the halls smelled like heaven. We quickly discovered that we could access the roof, and sometimes I'd drive down to Hyde Park or Bridgeport for role-playing, with Beaucoup Fish blasting and the wind hard as the skyline rose like comb bristles over North Avenue ahead.
I was getting hate mail from Canaryville residents on a regular basis now, as well as some supportive notes. I was applying for jobs and not being granted interviews, and finally, reluctantly, asked Advanced to put me back on their assignment roster. It wasn't all great.
But it mostly was.
I attempted to walk to Joliet along Route 66 (take 2) but I only made it as far as Harlem. I was distracted into going to the Mall of the Impaled Cars and the Car Pelt art. It was a good distraction. That mall, a great landmark, had been demolished, but Joliet is still there (more or less).
I listened to the song Cryptorchid by Marilyn Manson.
I decided to read Gothic novels and I read the Castle of Otranto.
Sam's dad visited and took us out to Ethiopian food and then we walked north along Broadway to Loyola. We walked back home along the lake.
I went back to Michigan for the weekend and went to the Michigan Renaissance Festival with my sister, my girlfriend, and Lisa. Later that night I went back to the campfire and saw many people I had not seen in a long time. When I got back to Chicago that Sunday, I took a seat at a McDonalds on Bryn Mawr and wrote of my plans, and what I must accomplish that year.
I spent most weeknights in Edgewater Beach and a couple nights each weekend in Hyde Park.
I listened to the song Fingerbib by Aphex Twin.
I started to read the Mysteries of Udolpho.
Toward the end of the month, I left at dusk and walked along the beach south to the Foster Street light beacon. It was a horrible, bleak and angry night, cold and spitting rain from the sky. The waves were tremendous. I crossed Lincoln Park and Margate Park, followed Sheridan and Larry to Borders and closed it out reading about writing programs. I took St. Boniface cemetery to Clark and mulled over the possibility of law school instead of writing, before I turned north. I passed Emily just south of Foster and cringed and continued on through Andersonville and Edgewater. It warmed up but Rogers Park was desolate and I passed into Evanston. I wound up at a Burger King and finished the first volume of Udolpho, and continued north to the Bahai Temple. I exulted through its gardens, then I hurried back south through the lagoon and the tenements and got back home as the sun came up.
I was reading about Neanderthals and Mesopotamians.
All of this happened in September, which is why I call it "one for the books."
Where were you in September 2004?
Labels: 2004, DIARY, September
1 comments.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Diary: September 1996.
On the last weekend before Labor Day Mitch and I borrowed my parents car to go camping at Warren Dunes State Park. For five dollars that year, one could camp on the parking lot ("ash-fault" the way Mitch said it), and so we pitched a tiny-dome tent and joined a sort-of weird community of St. Josephians, Benton Harborites, neighborhing rednecks, and plenty of high schoolers who wanted a break from home but didn't have a budget to do is explosively. We both longed to make a break for Chicago for a day, but my parents said 'no,' and since the car was theirs I was very reluctant to try to slide something by. We did get pretty close to attempting this, though; on day we actually started driving south, and made it as far as the south suburbs, but visions of parking tickets, traffic tickets, and unexpected news coverage terrified me, so we turned back, and I ate half-a-tank of gas as penalty. I spent most of the time on the beach reading Slaughterhouse Five and desiring dune-girls from afar, but way to nervous to say anything about it. On the ride home I got a ticket for driving 81 in a 65; the trooper write the ticket for 70. My parents weren't thrilled by any of this. The theme of the trip was getting what I deserved, but it was worth it and I can't say that my regrets are that huge.
When I got back however, we went to a seminar for college Financial Aid at U of M - Flint, and the package we bought into ended up being a lemon, but it was a forceful sign that the college hunt was reaching a fever pitch. I work on my early application for the University of Chicago, and I hoped and hoped that they would accept me, because accepting any other school as the school I wanted would have been an uphill battle. I knew I should be accepted there; I was meant to go there. I wrote a short play for one of the essay questions and put the application in the mail.
Flint Youth Theatre did a staged reading of my play September and after it was over I pushed out a complete revision in one glorious night sitting at home in front of the 286 in the dining room, looking out over the Cottonwoods. Walter helped me enter the play in a couple contests. I was cast as an invisible puppeteer in their play Visions of Sugar Plums and almost immediately developed a crush on a girl there named Carrie. I started in on Pre-Algebra, the second-most advanced math class I could take in Flushing, and it seemed that I would not do horribly there. Ditto Physics. Everything was going according to plan...
At the end of the month, my friend Jessica and I went dinner at Luigi's on the Eastside (I think) and then I took her to Flushing's homecoming dance. We almost immediately ditched it to hang out with my friend Demetrius instead.
Where were you in September 1996?
Labels: 1996., DIARY, September
1 comments.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Diary: September 1988.
I don't remember anything specifically from this month, so I will add a memory that may or may not have been from this period.
One autumn in the middle of the time when I was home schooled, my mom made a trip to a store based out of a house where she bought her teachers' supplies. I'd never been there before; I never really wonderd, I guess where all of our stuff came from: the Michigan Rocks and Mequon Math Books and Granny Grammer worksheets. I was in figure skating lessons about this time (which had gone better than gymnastics by a mile) and I think that this house-store was somewhere out by Elms Road. It was a modest house, a cape cod with white aluminum siding under wet leaves on a dark street; we went there early at night, so it must have been September or early in October. I had a very visceral, very physical wish to learn as much as I could. Here were experiments and samples and hundreds of books, and if I could just get through them all, I would understand the world in ways that I did not. Of course, in practice, sitting down and doing homework was always more of a drag (especially those Granny Grammers), but in that moment, it all seemed pretty adventurous.
Where were you in September 1988?
Labels: 1988, DIARY, September
2 comments.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Diary: September 2003.
This was a very quiet month.
It was the last month at my lease at an address on the Eastside of Flint: Maryland Ave between Minnesota and Iowa. I'd been working at Angelo's all summer, hadn't really made any money, hadn't really lost any either, and I decided to take a break. I didn't have any major trips or plans, so this month was filled with exploring and writing.
First, I decided to explore Flint's legacy more closely than I ever had before. I did this a lot through the Motor Cities National Heritage Site, which is great because it marks off sites by significance and relevance without regard for how convenient or developed they are. I spent a lot of time tracking along the factories on the northern branch of the Flint River, along Hamilton Avenue, in Civic Park and Bassett Park, Chevy in the Hole and the Fisher Body plants. I took about two dozen rolls of film, which I still have lying around somewhere, waiting to be developed.
Second, I wrote and read. I was working on Rose for Urbantasm, and I made it almost to the halfway point of that section using a consistant fractal deployment, more elegant than any other I'd attempted to date. My computer wasn't working, but my mom let me work at the computer stations at the library where she worked. Sometimes she picked me up, and sometimes I took the bus, but most often I enjoyed the long walk: south on Franklin to Second Street, west through downtown and south to 12th, and then some route south on Fenton to Bristol. It took about an hour-and-a-half. On September 11th, I read at the Good Beans cafe, and several people from the UU church came out to hear me (no Catholic did, however). It was a start.
Third, I got ready to leave. My girlfriend left for Chicago toward the end of the month. I had locked down steady (if not good) employment with my temp agency back in Chicago... I had determined that I would only consider the Far North Side (Edgewater, Rogers Park, Uptown) or a Stockyards district (Bridgeport, McKinley Park, Canaryville). I would end up settling in McKinley Park, because it was the cheapest option, and I could save up money because I planned to propose to my girlfriend. On my last weekend in Flint I drove my parents car, listened to the Doors, got my license renewed, vacuumed and cleaned the house. My landlord told me he was sad to see me go. As I was leaving the city that night, I thought of a story, based in Flint, where a consciousness of the ghosts of past crimes would compell a character toward terrible and present crimes. This eventually became Hungry Rats.
Where were you in September 2003?
Labels: 2003, DIARY, September
1 comments.
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
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
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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
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
1 comments.
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
2 comments.
