In May, 2002.

DIARY

The Year I named "Year of the Horizon Divides," spanning roughly from September 2001 to June 2002 was probably the shittiest year of my life. Which in a way probably says a lot for how good I've had it. Because in a literal breakdown, a fourth of the time I was relatively miserable, a fourth of the time I was simply frustrated, and a fourth of the time I was having a blast. (The last fourth of the time, I was asleep.)

I won't go into the ins and outs of apartment life with Ben, the roaches, and the Insane Latin Jyvers in Humboldt Park... at least not this time. There were basically substantial oasises of badassness I'd reach from time to time; when Sam came to visit and we heard the Blues at Rosa's, or when I met up with Josh and we walked from the Red Line to Hyde Park. But suddenly, in early May, I reached the Mediterranean.

That is, Scavhunt arrived. This was the first year in which I was a judge. It was also the year during which the documentary was filmed. MK was head judge. There were several legends judging, specifically Mike Campion and Moacir... and there had also been huge turnover the previous year, meaning lots of new judges: Sonia, Steve Cicala, Kaury, Monsour, Dembowski, Melissa, and myself. Five out of six of us were to return for at least one year.

It was also an inaugural year of what later became judge tradition. I cannot delve too deeply into the details of these rites and passages lest I disrupt the appropriate expansion of the universe, or worse, expose myself to legions of assassins my fellow judges would not flinch to deploy. I can, however, most likely, safely say that at some point that year the correlation of judges within the discrete boundaries of the Hunt itself became more indiscriminately nested. There were several reasons for this.

• Several of us, myself included, lived far away, and didn't have a convenient way to get home after the list release.


• Several of us (Sam, MK, Monsour, and Dembowski) lived together, automatically increasing the index of cohabitation.


• Several prime items (Niteline) were best tested in each other's company
  
• The release of the list that year required most of us to squat at Jimmy's, which resulted in the disappearance of several pitchers of beer.

The choice was finalized in a car driven by Periphrastic to deliver lists to Snell, BJ, and the FIST (among other tawdry details). We decided to simply remain... to take up floor and couch space at the shared apartment on Woodlawn near 54th, spray our sticky shirts with deodorant in the morning (which didn't exceptionally) work. I don't remember how many of us crashed at MK's that first night, but by Saturday it was all of the judges except maybe two or three. This would eventually become a perennial adventure involving lots of beer and Megaman. That first night, however, if I remember correctly, I was alone in the living room in the dark. There was enough light bleeding in from the street lights to throw a white shadow on the walls and racks of VHS tapes and DVDs, and that sort of splintered but somehow regal looking sub-polished hardwood floor that I've only rarely seen outside of Hyde Park. A fantastic storm broke out and the light was bright enough to see branches ripped to the south, a moment in which they could float north, slightly, then ripped and plunged again.

I thought it would be hard to sleep with that noise... the window was open... that breeze... like buckets of water falling all at once. But of course, I fell asleep at once. And four hours later, they woke me up again, to go to the Captains' meeting.

What were you doing in May, 2002?

END OF POST.