December, 2001.

DIARY

I was living with Ben Buckley in a shithole apartment in East Humboldt Park, Chicago. While the roaches had not yet become the problem they would later on, the radiators weren't reliable. We'd stopped going up on the roof. My writing was suffering in general, but I kept the spirit alive by working on Harry Potter fan fiction. I worked at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital through Advanced Resources, doing an assortment of moving, organizing, sorting, and filing tasks. I liked this assignment, though. It was quiet, the walls were labyrinthine, adn there was always free coffee and Lipton Cup O'soup in the break room. Even though it was, without doubt, visually the dreariest place I've ever worked, and there were politics at the time among my coworkers, I'll never be able to really see it as a negative time.

Perhaps that's because at the end of the month, after Jess had gone home, things opened up with hope briefly. Ben left and let me use his car. On one Saturday I drove up to Edgewater and met Curt C. for a long conversation at Kopi Cafe. There was something pristine in the air afterwards, and I walked south to Foster, east to Broadway. I spent some time online at the Edgewater branch of the library, and continued north to the little cinema on Sheridan just north of Devon. I saw the Harry Potter movie for the second time. I went to a party in the neighborhood thrown by Sarah Y. and Becca. It ended up being one of the last times I saw some certain people from UT, but I ended up crashing for the night and heading down to Hyde Park for RCIA the next day.

The trip back to Michigan for Christmas was another adventure. I got off to a muderously late start and the traffic was death on the expressways. So I didn't take the expressway. I drove on State Street until it ended at 130th street, and discovered Chatham and Roseland and other neighborhoods I'd read about but never spent any time in. I finally merged onto I-90, switched to I-94, and got home sometime well after midnight. I spent time with my family that week, but I also drove around with Sam and Emerson. We went partying for a night in Detroit. The next week, I'd catch a ride down to Ohio to spend New Years with Jessica's family.

Where were you in December, 2001?

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