February, 2004.

DIARY

I was in the middle of a very frustrating year.

I lived in McKinley Park on the South Side, a trapdoorey and secret-passagey neighborhood with all sorts of holes and paths. But I was also forty-five minutes from my friends by CTA, even further psychologically, and close to broke from saving up to propose to Jessica and for other future events.

Two other factors were worse than these two combined.

First was my work situation. I was working at the hospital on an assignment that had circumstantially become not much fun. The pay was mediocre but not awful, the work impossible and stressful but not stressfully impossible, and the people nice for the most part. But I couldn't finish the tasks, and probably let this fact damage the progress I did make and there it was. There were no windows.

Second was my extracurricular situation. I'd taken all of my undiminished and undefeated theater hopes and dreams poured them into the Nocturnal, a group that was a partial inspiration for the Gothic Funk. However, in 2004, the Nocturnal mainly just gave reasons to hate theater and mistakes to avoid in the future.

A few things kept me afloat in the midst of all this. It was quite a cold and snowy winter as I recall. That was nice. The Thorn Soujourn D&D campaign was in full swing, and we brought Dan S. onboard. Scavhunt planning was starting to pick up, moving into its most tumultuous, and debatably most glorious year ever. What else? Oh, yes, saving for the ring itself could be kind of exciting.

Where were you in February, 2004?

END OF POST.