Diary: March 2004.

I was living in McKinley Park, and several things that were visibly coming together were nevertheless still dim in the distance. I wasn't working on Urbantasm much at all. I was temping at NMFF via Advanced Resources and had started to germ that, if I'd proposed to my girlfriend, and if she'd say yes, we'd need to come up with a plan for life, since neither of us had really built much career-objective positions. But then I was also gearing up for one of the most anticipated Scavhunts ever, and was, in the meantime, attempting to salvage Pinter's A Dumb Waiter from the slow motion wreckage of the Nocturnal, a theater group I had helped to start. I remember the predominant feeling being of exhaustion and a sort of dim frustration with things.

April would be much more exciting...

Where were you in March 2004?

Diary: December 2004.

I say it all the time: 9/04 - 9/05 was a great year! One of the best. So here is the December installment.

This was in many ways a kind of sedate month; Chicago was cold that winter and so far exceedingly wet. Sam and I went to a pub on Broadway and listened to stories of the ghost of an alcoholic who was easily placated by placing a cup of vodka at the foot of the stairs. The drink would be gone in the morning. We walked in the bitter cold down Kenmore and Argyle, past all the neon lights of the Lao and Vietnamiese restaurants there, and on down Broadway to the Green Mill for free jazz. It was a long walk, about two miles, from our apartment. We were a block from the beach but it was too cold to go out there. It was around then that Sam got his job at Cherry One and quit at the Lego store for good. I was settling into my job FT although it was a temp job. I spent weekends in Hyde Park and tried to make as many scavhunt meetings as I could. I was also spending nights putting together my grad school applications and reading up on my Artaud and Kaufman.

On December 10th, Lisa and Jenny Blair hosted Gothic Funk Party #2. From Lisa's account:

This party involved Gothic Funk apparel (with plenty of selection for anyone who showed up un-gothic-funkified), Tea of varying types, home-made fortune cookies with Fortunes written by Amber and by my old friend Josh, Unicorn rainbow pops, Christmas lights, projections, nachos without any dip, candy canes, two kinds of cheesecake, blueberry coffeecake, oranges, apples, beer, soda, One pizza, a Mystery written by Connor, a murder, culprits, a clue (which was mistakenly eaten), a Tarot-card reading Booth with Connor as Reader, a chalkboard upon which drawings were made based on what was overheard of the Tarot readings, four of which occurred (drawings by Amber, Steven, Joe, Lisa), and music:
Bert & Ernie Sing-Along, The Southwest Michigan State Choir, Bjrk, Space Odyssey 2001, Star Wars, Chilling Thrilling Sounds of The Haunted House, Radiohead, Patsy Cline, extremely sexy dance music from India, Symphonion Music Box, All Time Polka Hits - Six Fat Dutchmen, and The Age of Aquarius - The Fifth Dimension.

Two weeks later, as Sam gave us a ride back to Flint in his increasingly unreliable Beretta, with wind spitting through the air and darkness, I discovered Postal Service. Christmas was fine. I was shocked the day after when the tsunami hit; I became obsessed with it for awhile. It's hard to understand such a thing, so much water, when the most water I'd seen in a home, a house, was six inches standing in my basement back in Flint, or an occasional overlapping river. I seem to recall it was snowy though. I celebrated Christmas with my family but not my girlfriend... the last time this would happen. I rode down to Ohio for the New Year. I sent off the first of my grad school applications to Washinton state and Louisiana.

Where were you in December 2004?

Diary: October 2004.

I have to point out from time to time that it is completely random which month I write about... half of the time, I flip a coin, with heads meaning that I write from the most recent four year period (ie. 2001-2005) and tails meaning I write about an earlier time. The other half of the time, it's a raw calculation of one year from 1978 to the present. I have to explain this because it sometimes seems like serendipity, the way things add up.

As I've said many times, 2004-05 was one of the happiest and most eventful times in my life, and October was no exception. It started out early on when Sam and I threw a housewarming party for our new place in Edgewater Beach. We'd managed to kill most of the roaches through successive layers of poison, and had just unpacked enough that we could really enjoy the spectacular views. I invited people over early for swimming, but I was the only person to dip in the seashell and seagull crusted waters licking the rocks of the Thorndale Beach. I went home, and changed into my Hawai'ian shirt. I thought Hawai'ian shirts seemed Gothic Funky, and that was a party of how the whole thing started. Amber, who I did not know that well back then, was one of the first guests, and we listened to music and hung out until Sam got back and others started to trickle in. The night was deja vu, because I hadn't seen many of these kids in over a year: Joe and Mercedes and (bless him!) Ben. Maybe twenty or so people came out and we demolished a case or two of Old Style. I know that I drank 10 because I made a pyramid out of the empty cans as I finished them.

I'd spent much of September applying for jobs all over the neighborhood but as this latest unemployed stretch grew toward and beyond two months I had to do what I always did in those years; called up Advanced Resources and ask them for an assignment. After a couple of busted attemps to count people using the urinals at Bears games (I kid you not) I got an assignment at a Lasik surgery center at the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation. By this time I'd worked at five or six different departments of this institution and while the overall atmosphere was a little grouchy when I showed up, I settled in quickly. It would turn out to be my favorite assignement of all; an assignment I would hold for a year and, with interruptions, eventually become the job I have today.

I was also boring down on this Gothic Funk thing. The phrase was infectious to me. I picked up Walpole's Castle of Otranto and finished it in an afternoon; then I was onto Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho. I remember I stayed up late compiling playlists and soundtracks to these novels. I was really getting into electronic music for the first time, listening to a lot of Orbital and Underworld and a little Infected Mushroom.

I still remember the weekend I took the train home... Amtrak... eating bagels and drinking coffee the whole way, and reading Radcliffe's masterpiece as I went. It was on the train that I read of her first encounter with the fatal castle. I was hooked. This became my favorite novel.

Early in the month, I had applied for a canvassing job that I did not get, but the interview was held in the West Loop and I was so excited that I bought a cover of the New York Times and sat in a coffee shop on LaSalle street read all of the important looking articles with small print.

A lot on the plate.

The real story for me at this time was the election, which is key to what I'm doing with this blog today.

I volunteered here and there, and I blogged a lot. Did I change any minds? Probably not. But it was a start. I wrote this and this and this and this and more.

Where were you in October 2004?

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?

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?