Diary: Life these days, these times.

It has been a long time since I've posted here, but of course, these "intermissions" are not unheard of in the history of Blue Skies Falling, and they have become lengthier and more frequent in the last few years. In the first few years that I kept this blog... basically from 2003-2005 and from 2005-2007, I posted a great variety of content with few interruptions. There was a long interruption in 2005, 2007, and a six-month break in 2008. There have been more breaks since then, and the current lapse is, I believe, about three months.

I enjoy blogging and given the current line of work I am doing, media consultation, it is not unhelpful to my career. But it is also very time-consuming, and with so many major life changes underway, I have to rank this a somewhat low priority.

That said, a lot of the damage has been in the sheer disarray of the last several months. From around Thanksgiving efforts for the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne, Australia kicked into high gear, and I didn't really have time for anything else through mid-December.

After that had concluded, there was actually a lull that lasted for about a week, but I wasn't going to spend it blogging. I was enjoying the fullness of a long and mild autumn giving way to a white and wet and gorgeous Chicago winter... I was reading books, watching movies, catching up with my friends. Dealing with very important preparations for not-so-future events. And getting ready to move. There was a trip for Russian food. There was a trip to see the Nutcracker. There was a Christmas tree which I bought and dragged home even though I had only gone out for a wreath. There were meetings and consultations with new clients (that's right, now I have "clients" instead of "bosses").

In the two or three days leading up to Christmas, I packed two years of frenetic and memory-drenched things (like the first season of Taxi) -- I've been back in Chicago for almost as long as I lived in New York -- so that when my parents arrived for a visit on Christmas day, the furniture was all rearranged and the boxes were stacked high. Early the next morning, the movers came and we absconded to the new place in glamorous Edgewater Beach.

The week between Christmas and New Years was completely consumed by moving. There was a lot of stuff to clean and take care of in the old place... the purple and blue and shamrock green and salmon pink walls had to be painted back to the same shade of dull bone white. By by the time New Years Eve rolled around (and after a particularly dizzy all-nighter), I was sleeping in very late, and the old place was locked for good.

New Years Eve and Day were a delight, surrounded by friends from Chicago (where I haven't celebrated that day in years) and a good friend from Flint who made the trip down for the holiday. We celebrated from a loft in East Garfield Park with a spectacular view of the Skyline, but got home easily. The next day, we met with friends for brunch, a trip to the Garfield Park conservatory, and pizza and games. Two days later, a two day trip to Kentucky. Two days later, I had a hospital procedure that has knocked me somewhat out of commission for the last week. Although I did manage to make it down to Hyde Park last Saturday for a magnificent 16-hour marathon of the extended version of the Lord of the Rings movies.

It was worth it.

This isn't just a prolonged excuse... or even mainly. I know the numbers show that not many people stop by here anymore, and it isn't likely that any of these excuses for my hiatus will ever be read.

But I also think it is important to document times like these... the frantic, inescapable, mazey, insomniac times that (thankfully) only seem to crop up for a couple months once every year or two. The feelings that bubble to the top when you move around heavy and fundamental things deep down are, of course, a very peculiar sensation and they generally preserve the atmosphere of these times far into the future. But the actual steps involved... the craziness from one day to the next... this is also worth remembering.

It's worth taking the time to write down for that reason alone.

Diary: Should I Call It Platform Surfing?

Sometimes, if I get onto the CTA platform and an outbound train is waiting with no inbound train in sight, I'll hop on the outbound train and ride north, and catch my train to work further up the line. It's fun. It adds a little variety to my morning. It means I'm more likely to get a good seat, and if someone looks like they need a seat, I can always offer it to them (something many passengers are not always inclined to do). In the past I've ridden as far north as Thorndale, which is three stops out and about two miles away.

This morning I added a bit of a gamble to this game. An inbound train had just left, an outbound train was waiting for me, and the next inbound was just setting out from Bryn Mawr, less than a mile away. I hopped on the northbound train, got off one stop up at Berwyn, and caught the southbound train just as it pulled into the station.

It didn't save me any time.

But it was fun, and that's what Fridays are for.

Year 31: The Year of Somewhere Something.

Navel Gazing:

This has been the fifth cycle of four years since I started giving years names. High school and college made firm the pattern of lumping them into four years (maybe each year approximates a season?) but life events have, for the most part, had an odd way of conforming more or less closely with this. The first cycle was maybe the strongest exception. I started out in one city and ended in another. I started out having been home schooled for over four years and ended by going into the third school building (after elementary school and junior high) in three years. But the second cycle of years conformed neatly to high school and the third to college. The fourth cycle was marked by low-paying temp work, a lack of career focus, and the frustrating shuttling back-and-forth between Michigan and Illinois. The one steady stream throughout the whole thing was my girlfriend who, appropriately enough, I married at the end. We didn't plan our wedding with this in mind; it just fell out that way. After Belize and a trip to New York the next cycle started; early marriage. My wife and me against the world, so we divided that time between Chicago and New York, and I got my MFA and she got her own degree and now we're expecting to add another human being to our family. Again, we didn't plan the timing this way... this "major event" once every four years. But here I am and things are just heating up as another cycle of four begins. When the sixth cycle ends, my child will be four. And I wonder what I would have thought as a child, as a fourteen year old who decided to give each year a name, if I had know what those names would be and what they would portend.

Year 12 (when I was 11) was the year of Stellar Fire.
Year 13 was the year of Summereve (whch I did not know was the name for a feminine hygiene product).
Year 14 was the year of the Trampoline.
Year 15 was the year of the Mask.

Year 16 was the year of the Storyteller.
Year 17 was the year of the Broken Mirror.
Year 18 was the year of the Counterflood.
Year 19 was the year of the Agit.

Year 20 was the year of the Power Sack.
Year 21 was the year of the Hunter Divides.
Year 22 was the year of Delving.
Year 23 was the year of Conjunctisylphistry.

Year 24 was the year of the Horizon Divides.
Year 25 was the year of the Bossy Big Toe.
Year 26 was the year of the Synchopated Sailor.
Year 27 was the year of Deep Wells.

Year 28 was the year of the Shark's Lullaby.
Year 29 was the year of the Hidden Rain.
and year 30 was the year of the Magnet Castles.

The year that has just passed (mid-June 2008 until tomorrow) is officially named:

THE YEAR OF SOMEWHERE SOMETHING

1. RADIOHEAD - MY IRON LUNG
2. MOBY - EVERLOVING
3. WALL-E - DOWN TO EARTH
4. ELISABETH BLAIR - DUCK DUCK GOOSE
5. TING-TINGS - WE WALK
6. NINE INCH NAILS - THE GREAT DESTROYER
7. THE GO! TEAM - LADYFLASH
8. SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES - ENDING THEME
9. WEST SIDE STORY - SOMEWHERE
10. JOHN CAGE - 4'33"
11. THE SMASHING PUMPKINS - G.L.O.W.
12. THE WHO - WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN
13. THE SWANS - LOVE WILL TEAR US APART
14. CANNIBAL CORPSE - I WILL KILL YOU
15. THE PRODIGY - VOODOO PEOPLE
16. PAPA WEMBA - YOLELE
17. SUFJAN STEVENS - STAR OF WONDER
18. LOUIS ARMSTRONG - WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD
19. THE BEATLES - DEAR PRUDENCE
20. PRINCE - COMPUTER BLUE
21. KATE BUSH - CLOUDBUSTING
22. SPARKS AND SPOOLS - GARDEN
23. LOU REED - WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
24. THE LEMON PIPERS - GREEN TAMBOURINE
25. PATTI SMITH - BREAK IT UP
26. THE UTAH SAINTS - SOMETHING GOOD
27. LAURIE ANDERSON - O SUPERMAN (FOR MASSENET)
28. AIR - RUN
29. BJORK - EARTH INTRUDERS
30. BJORK - DECLARE INDEPENDENCE
31. WILL SMITH - MIAMI
32. EMINEM - SAME SONG AND DANCE
33. APHEX TWIN - AGEISPOLIS
34. RICHARD WHALING - THEME FROM "PAINT SMASH"
35. LADYTRON - DEEP BLUE
36. PEARL JAM - OCEANS
37. MADONNA - SKY FITS HEAVEN

Diary: It's my Birthday, and I'll Go to the Green Mill if I Want To.

10:30ish tonight. I think there's a $7 cover. You know, at the corner of Larry (Lawrence) and Broadway: http://www.greenmilljazz.com/

The Patricia Barber Quartet: http://www.patriciabarber.com/

Feel free to show up if you want. Or bring anyone you want to. Or don't show up at all.

But whatever you do, have a lovely day!

~ Cx31

Diary: Phenology: July 9 - 15, 2009.

An abundance of squirrels. There are millions of them. I've never seen so many as this year. About a month ago, I noticed something; when I visit Michigan, squirrels are prime candidates for roadkill. But I never see roadkilled squirrel in Chicago. So have the Chicago groups evolved (or learned) that cars are common, and deadly?

Raspberries on a tree in an overgrown vacant lot in Canaryville. They were gooooood.

Countless lightning bugs. Amazing bugs. The Michigan farms win, because there's nothing as magical as a thousand fireflies lighting up over a fallow field. But it's pretty cool to see them flash bright by the dozens in front of brick tenements.

Noisy birds nesting.

My pepper plant has sprouted bell peppers.

But (alas) the days are growing noticeably shorter. Chicago summer is brief and bitter this year. Bitterish, but not bitter.

Buzzing mosquitoes.

Diary: Phenology: April 2 - 22, 2009.

I haven't been consistent in updating here, but minus my time in England I have been in Chicago. The first part of the month was uniformly chilly, typically in the thirties and forties. More recently, it's vacillated between chill and rainy days and humid and warm days. I love this vacillation, and the trees and plants are waking up daily.

I have noticed almost innumerable strains of birdsong when I walk down the street, often fighting over mating opportunities.

Even more innumerable squirrels.

Sap moving in a few trees.

My flowers, which I think are geraniums, are bright and pink in the windows.

The ice is gone from Lake Michigan (but certainly not from the North Atlantic).

Diary: England and Aftermath, Part 2 of 2.

Here's what I've been doing since then.

The wife picked me up at the airport last Wednesday evening (wow, has it already been a week?) and we zipped home via the Mexican restaurant La Gallo Bravo. That night we started a nature film that we were too tired to finish.

The next day I was all ready to begin my job search take a few days off. I know, I know, early to bed, early to rise... in my defense I spent a lot of that time spring cleaning, and I haven't really had a "break" (aside from the occasional three day weekend) since I moved back to Chicago in December 2007. And even then, my "vacation" was spent moving from New York. So I felt I deserved this. Thursday's accomplishment? I beat Super Mario World. I also ate some delicious Peruvian ceviche.

The next few days were filled with more video games, a lot more cleaning, gearing up for the big job search, nature documentaries, RPGs... but the high point for me was the nightwalk. I don't get to take these very often anymore, or at least I haven't made the time, but during much of my life taking walks at night was a way for me to resolve important issues and dilemmas.

In this case, not just the job search, but to take a personal inventory of my life and objectives. I will soon be published, and in the last year I have written for two periodicals and have published an arts journal. I worked in a skilled position requiring specialized knowledge. My resume has changed drastically in the last several months even. On the other hand, losing my job in this economy is an obvious up-front loss of personal financial viability. Fortunately, the wife is very impressive on this front. The long and short of it is that I'm in a position conducive to taking well-considered profitable risks, and I will spend the next several months doing so.

It was nice to come to this conclusion walking among the factories and foundries of Chicago's West Side, and then north along Lincoln Park West and Sheridan Road until I got home as the sun came up. I walked maybe thirteen miles, and every mile was beautiful.



This picture was from Google Earth (Panoramio).

Of course, I slept through most of Saturday.

On Sunday, I went to a reading salon that Lisa set up and read from Hungry Rats. It seemed to go over well, but the comment that particularly delighted me was, "wow, that was gory." The story wears shoes like "noir" and "experimental prose," but it's also meant to be the literary equivalent of a slasher film. Shocking gratuitousness is both easier and difficult in words than in literal images. But I digress...

During the last two days, I've launched my job search in earnest. I spent a lot of Monday at Borders researching the job market and focusing my objective. I want to get back into the writing/publishing industry if possible, ideally as a teacher or as a freelance editor. There are discrete paths that can be taken toward these goals with my qualifications, and I've chosen several that seem the most reasonable. I'll keep you posted.

In other news, I've been as busy as I usually am (sleeping six hours a night, roughly). I'm still doing some writing for the Chi·Town Daily News, spring cleaning. I have five months to wrap up my research for Urbantasm, so I'm doing a lot of reading for that... right now, background on the rivalry between Ford and Nissan (Halberstam's The Reckoning, which is a tome of a book), and the sixth volume of the University of Chicago's Readings in Western Civilization series: Early Modern Europe: Crisis of Authority.

Diary: England and Aftermath, Part 1 of 2.

The week before last was my last week of work at Northwestern. It was bittersweet, but each day we too busy to really stop and reflect. There were a lot of loose ends I wanted to tie up before heading out. Each of the doctors came and spoke with me personally, and Vicki and I went out to lunch with Pam, Steve, Andrea, and Dr. Rosenberg. On the last day, Mary brought in cookies she had baked and many of the techs brought in sweets and cake. I stayed until almost seven, cleaning and clearing off my desk.

This all coincided with Holy Week. So this week had started after Palm Sunday at St. Ita's and the wife and I also went out for Holy Thursday at St. Gertrude's. On Friday, I got to church, flush from my last day of work, and a little bit hungry. But it was a beautiful service. (As it turns out, I would miss the actual Easter vigil and service.) I walked the half-hour home afterward, luxuriating in that April spring coldness. I decided, however, to skip out on Sam and Bill's disco set. I had really wanted to attend, but it was already late and I had to pack to go abroad.

I put on good music and Dead Man's Chest and was up packing and cleaning until 4 in the morning. At 8 I got up and after downing a breakfast of bananas and fried eggs, I was out the door (a little late), and (after doubling back to check the apartment, because I was inexplicably afraid I had left the gas burner on) cut across the cemetery and grabbed the Larry bus. And I made it to the plane alright.

The next day was weird; eastward flights usually were. I flew to Washington Dulles over Zanesville, hopped on a flight to London Heathrow. I sat next to a very kind Saudi man who was very talkative, despite the fact that together we knew about 20 words in common. He spent half of his vacation with his son in Manchester, and the other half in a Saudi village with his wife. "She has seven children," he told me. I was too fidgety to sleep, even though I'd deliberately avoided coffee and bought a whiskey to make me drowsy. The sun had risen over London Heathrow when we landed, and I found it to be one of the most unerringly complicated airports I've ever been in. Also, the authorities threatened to not stamp my passport because I didn't know the address of Catherine's parents where I was staying. Despite all of this, I made my connecting flight to Manchester and was met there by mom, dad, Cody, and Catherine's mom, Laura.

When we got to their home in Lymm, I finally fell asleep for a few hours, but got up in time for a delicious chicken dinner, and a walk/tour of the area. And this is when I rediscovered my camera!



Evidently this is a very old canal that helped to connect the early Manchester cotton works to the seaports at Liverpool. Lymm is a small town and this canal (filled with a ton of brightly colored shotgun boats) at one point crosses a road as the road crosses a stream. This is known as vertical variation.



Dad and Cody.



Caitlin and Catherine.



Who says stocks are falling all over the world?



Lymm.

Later that night, after some discussion of logistics, Catherine drove me with Caitlin and Cody to their flat just north of the city where I would be staying for the next two nights. We were hungry, and ordered a pizza, and talked about the things you talk about when you only see your siblings in person twice a year.







The next day I was too busy/distracted to take photos. After a slow start we got out to meet up for the rehearsal lunch. Sadly, my wife, grandma, and aunt were unable to attend, but my mom, dad, and sister were all there. On Catherine's side, there was her mom, dad, sister and her husband, and several other relatives. One of these, John, had a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of recent rock, and he gave me a mix of Muse. Cody and Catherine also gave me a CD by Elbow, which I've listened to several times since I got back.

We stopped off at the house in Lymm for some early opening-of gifts, then headed out to the Unitarian Church for some rehearsing. Auspicious signs.



In the last decade, my family has tripled in size.

Soon they will be able to say that the sun never sets on us.



Practicing for the first dance.



I told Catherine that I like this photo a lot.

After the rehearsal Cody and I headed back to his place alone. I took him out for Indian food near his place, and we stayed up for awhile. He didn't seem nervous... yet!

The next day was a slow flurry of activity. Slow because I think everyone was a little groggy, but flurryish because, of course, you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. In my case, I made three obnoxious mistakes. The first (and worst) was that I had never worn a shirt with "French cuffs" before. So while I just thought it was a nice British fashion to wear your shirt sleeves a full inch below the suit, in fact, I looked like a big doofus until my dad pointed this out to me after the service. If anyone was upset about this, they didn't say so. Second, I left my jacket (and passport) at Cody's place. Third, the next day, I left my rented suit in the hotel room.

Given the chaos I've seen at any number of weddings (including a little at my own) this one went pretty smoothly. The flowers my mom had put together were absolutely gorgeous, the bridesmaid dresses were sharp and graceful, and I've never seen so many wonderful hats. Catherine was enchanting in his white and flower-embroidered dress. The church which (in a fit of Unitarianism) had clear panes was absolutely open and flooded with light. Cody and Catherine are both musicians, so the music was as full and significant as the vows and sermon. Also, my brother got a little vaklempt during the vows, but that's okay. His voice carried the depth of affection for Catherine, and her owns vows were reassuring and filled with their own care.

There's that saying about dogs resembling their owners, and vice versa.

I think we could say something similar about weddings.

This one was eclectic despite its modesty.

After the ceremony, we went outside for photos, grabbed a few drinks in the social hall, and headed out to the reception. Cody and Catherine had selected a museum restaurant; it occupied the seventh floor of a glass-enclosed triangular-shaped building and offered a magnificent vista of the Manchester skyline as it came to life and light. We were just a block away from the giant Ferris wheel, and my dad got some great photos. In addition to wine and hors d’oeuvres, there was killer swing music, a chocolate cake and a "cheese cake" (as in a stack of cheese wheels), a lot of talk about accents and travel, and Ian and I made speeches. To brag a little, while our speeches were very different in style, I think they complimented each other very nicely.

After this we went back to the hotel we were staying that night. I was exhausted. I checked my email and went to bed, though I stayed up for an hour to watch a documentary about a man who deliberately strands himself out on mountaintops and tries not to die of hypothermia.

The next morning, things had slowed down just enough for me to remember my camera again, and take some pictures.



I love the guy in the background, who has that expression on his face that says, "damn, I'm photogenic!"



I was able to collect my jacket from Cody's, and with the help of Laura, I was able to return my suit. The whole family took me to the airport as a group which, while it might seem a small gesture, really meant a lot to me.

Flying west - into the sunset - is the opposite of flying east. It feels like the most natural thing in the world, and I end up feeling more, not less, rejuvenated. The plane, interestingly, flew literally right over Flint on its nonstop trip from London to Chicago. Figure that. Growing up I never thought of the jets passing overhead as crossing a third of the planet.

Here are some pictures of Canada's glaciers, Michigan's fields, and Chicago's sprawl. From the air. As for my impressions of England, I'll have to wait until I go back to visit. Everything was much to fast to notice much except for the left-hand traffic.

Diary: Phenology: March 26 - April 1, 2009.

In the last week, I have noticed how cold and snowy it got again! Snow, as a surprise... a sure sign that it's almost spring.

Diary: Phenology: March 19 - 25, 2009

In the last week, I have noticed a few squirrels in the neighborhood.

Body: Today is the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord.

According to Wikitravel:

The Basilica of the Annunciation is built above the sunken grotto which according to the Roman Catholic faith was the home of the Virgin Mary and the place where she received the Annunciation (the announcement of the imminent birth of Jesus). The large and impressive modern-day church is built above the remains of churches dating back to Crusader and Byzantine times, still visible on the lower level. The church boasts dozens of pictures donated by Christian communities around the world. The Largest Church in the Middle East and one of Christianity’s Holiest shrines, its imposing dome dominates the Nazareth skyline and is an ideal landmark and starting point for visiting Other churches. It marks the spot where the Archangel Gabriel Informed the Virgin Mary that God had chosen her to bear his son; there is also a tradition that Mary lived in a house on this site. The complex of the modern Basilica is built on two levels. The lower one,Making the traditional Roman Catholic site of the Annunciation, contains ancient remains of churches from the Byzantiane and Crusader eras. During archaeological excavations, relics were found dating back to the Canaanite settlement of Nazareth, Though the most interesting find was of a typical Nazarene house, hewn out of the rock, from the Roman Period. The upper level, built between 1959 and 1969 on the site of an 18th-century church, is in strikingly modern architectural style. With its stained- glass windows highlighted against bare stone.A garden and courtyard connect the Basilica to St. Joseph’s Church and Workshop. Admission to the Basilica is free.

"It marks the spot where the Archangel Gabriel Informed the Virgin Mary that God had chosen her to bear his son" reminds me of one of the most famous episodes in the life of Muhammad, where the Angel Gabriel transported him to Jerusalem before escorting the prophet to heaven. This event is celebrated by the Dome of the Rock.

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: Phenology: March 12 - 18, 2009

In the last week, I have noticed a sudden multitude of singing birds. At first I thought that they were exclusive to the Magic Hedge on Lake Michigan, but then yesterday I noticed them on my walk to the El.

I have noticed that tree branches are suddenly heavy with buds, so much so that they hang lower than before.

I have noticed that the grass now seems brown and green, whereas before it was simply brown.

I have seen all of the ice melt from the lake except for a couple isolated inlets.

Diary: February 2009.

February has been defined by:

- Reading about adolescent suicide and General Motors during the 1980s.
- Frequent stops at "Luck's Food" which is my new favorite Vietnamiese eatery on Argyle.
- Tuesday Funk, naturally.
- RPGs with the scavhunt kids.
- The main event has been the preparation and execution of Gothic Funk Party #19 and the launch of the Paramanu Pentaquark.
- Since then I've been trying to decompress, revising Beowulf, and working on the scavhunt anthology. Which all seem mutually exclusive.
- I've also rediscovered The Legend of Zelda III: A Link to the Past.

Diary: January, 2009.

January has been defined by:

- Intensely reading Les Misèrables; feeling all "shook up" by it. The unabridged version.
- I went to the Art Institute to see the East and Southeast Asian Art, as well as Ancient and Roman Art. It's getting bigger, that Art Institute. Afterwards I went down to Hyde Park to drink at the Falcon with some Scavhunt judges.
- I also went to the MCA, and willingly submitted to the luminous immensity of the LED lights in the Jenny Holzer exhibit.
- Throwing my my wife's dinner and my brother's bachelors party. He came into Chicago on a Friday and we went out with Sky, Emma, Armand, Reinhardt, and Sam. We went to an Italian place in Old Town, then out to the burbs to play glow-in the dark mini-golf. It was cold. The next day, we all dress to the nines and took my brother out for his "inauguration into marriage"... Sam, and Cody's friends Andy and Ryan and I all dressed up as cabinet officials. We went out for Mexican at Fiesta Mexicana, then a play about Chicago ghosts, then a piano bar, then bowling. We closed out the night at the Golden Apple diner, dropped off Cody's friends in Evanston, and got home as the sun was coming up. The next day I went to church at St. Ita's and finished reading Les Misèrables. The next morning, I said goodbye to Cody.
- Somewhat less intensely reading The Romance of the Forest.
- In Chicago, -15 below zero, Fahrenheit.
- The Obama Inauguration, which was somewhat more affecting than I was expecting it to be, although it was still far less affecting than the actual election.
- Fire drills at work.
- Work slowdown due to the rough economy.
- Picking up intensity on the Paramanu Pentaquark. I had a long and intense meeting with Sean, Sam, Sky, Amber, and Bill about launch potentialities.
- The night before this, Barb threw Gothic Funk Party #18: The Storyteller. We saw Jim Henson projected upon the walls at the Peter Jones gallery theater.
- Work was busy though, inostensibly. This was our busy time of year.
- I didn't blog.
- I did read about several nations: Nigeria, Cameroon, and the Republic of the Congo. And I read Wordsworth and Coleridge.
- Every Saturday I had an orientation session for the Chi·Town Daily News. I also have done some work for a congressional campaign, and have been published in the Flint free monthly Broadside.

Diary: What Has Happened: New Years 2009.

I'm going to clip along a little bit faster here, because I want to get back to the present and write about the moment again.

For New Years we drove down to Ohio, where we celebrated 2009's birth with dad J and some delightfully bitter IPA at the Weasel Boy Microbrewery in Zanesville. I got my wife a painting, which was a significant purchase, but the sort of thing you have to leap upon when you get the opportunity. We got home awhile after midnight and caught up on some sleep, which was much needed at that point.

On New Years day we celebrated (of course) with sauer kraut and pork. We went to church, finished giving out our Christmas presents and spent some time picking up a last few items at the Colony Square Mall. We did not, tragically, have a chance to stop at Nichols for a slaw dog.

On Friday, we visited mom alone (since Bill is out of state), and Julie came with us. Then on Saturday we swung up toward Canton/Akron and went out to a Mediterranean place for lunch with Jeff and Chelsea. The town we were in was technically Massillon, which is comparable in population to Burton or Bridgeport. It's a big football town, and all around were gigantic murals situating the town in a divine order of athletic heroism ("and then God created Massilon"). Evidently each boy who is born in the local hospital is given a footbal. Weird as that is (after all, it is Ohio) the murals were absolutely visionary, massively scaled, beautifully executed, and diligently maintained.

Southeast Ohio is in the foothills of the Appalachians; it's gorgeous. We returned to Zanesville and visited with John and Sue for awhile, before spending the last night at dad's. The next day, we drove off past the giant basket of Dresden, saw Mandy and Justin on the way back, and got home late in the evening. It was a fun trip.

To be continued...

Diary: What Has Happened: Christmas 2008.

Christmas 2008.

I always mean to get these posts out later than I intend, and by the time I've written what's happened, it's all gone hazy.

So this is the post where I start to catch up on everything that was missed during the month-and-a-half when I was hardly posting at all. Then I will be on the level and it will be okay to return to business as usual around here.

So for starters.

PART I. CHRISTMAS

Now I'm going to forget some stuff, so bear with me.

I considered the feeling of Christmas to have started a week early, when my friend Paul came to visit. What was going on in the background? I was playing (and not beating, as happened in 1989) Pool of Radiance, rereading Les Misèrables, and railing about congressional impasses on the auto industry. Also, this whole year has been an attempt to wrap up the research for my novel Urbantasm, which I'll just brag is a huge effort. And it kind of overwhelms everything. I was trying to wrap up my Christmas story, which was harder than I had expected, and scheduling situations meant that when I was hope, I was often home alone.

I hadn't seen Paul since my wedding in 2005, although he is one of my very best friends. He's currently living in Oakland, but he and his girlfriend were visiting family in Detroit, and he came down for a quick visit. I met him at work and we took the Marine Drive bus back... it was a crystal clear afternoon, with snow just a couple days now, so everything was cold and gorgeous and sparkling. Back at the apartment we met up with the wife, and after visiting for awhile we set out for Polish food! (Chicago is the best place to be in the world for Polish food, unless you happen to be in Poland, or at my inlaws house). Afterwards, Paul and I stayed up late talking, which is an old, old tradition of ours, and he helped me unknot some mathematical conundrums for my novel. But I won't get into that now. The next morning, I had to work, so I said goodbye, and that was the last time I saw him. He returned to Michigan, and from there, to California.

The end of the year is a weird time. It's inevitably family-centered; ie. these are the people we have known: always. After that, it's friend-centered; these are the friends we have known for a long, long time; decades and lifetimes. Finally, it is home-centered; this is where you learned how to walk, to ride a bike, and where you caught the bus to school, and so on. With all of this history, it might seemed fixed into the past, but then, this is also the time of the year when people are fixed toward their futures. You hear what plans have been made, classes taken, jobs accepted, jobs left, moves planned, changes dealt with. It isn't quite like a reunion or a funeral, backward-looking. After all, a new year is immanent. So Christmas and New Years are overwhelming to me, in that they pull me in two directions. The present only seems ephemeral, and out of that sense of motion, I realize that I care about all sorts of things more than habit allows me to acknowledge, say, at the beginning of March or the middle of October.

So that's why Paul's visit kicked all of that out.

On the following day, Friday, my office hosted its holiday party, and other than the change of name and carpeting at the venue (and the fact that Sean wasn't there this year), this was also a familiar routine. I avoided karaoke this time, though. We went home, and carried on plans for the holiday. Somewhere in here I also went shopping on the Magnificent Mile which, impending economic crises notwithstanding, was choked with thousands of peoples and lights. I did this work at Macy's and Borders and Crate and Barrel. All of the places Where Tourists Go to do Their Christmas Shopping.

Skip forward an odd week. I got out of work around midday on Christmas Eve, that is, Wednesday, and my wife picked me up. We took Lake Shore Drive as it curved around the South Side, picking up Stony Island, and ultimately the Skyway. This is a great way to leave Chicago: you have the skyline in the rear-mirror for a long time, and then you have the Parisian-style boulevards of old Hyde Park Township before the sprawl of Gary and all its smokestacks. We made decent time to Michigan, grabbed the obligatory Taco Bell, and my wife shared all kinds of medical knowledge. As I get older, this trip seems shorter and shorted, so we blew through Paw Paw and Kalamazoo, and on through Battle Creek and Olivet and Lansing and Perry.

When we finally pulled into the driveway at my parents, we found a note that everyone was celebrating Christmas Eve at my grandmas. We turned the car around and headed back into Flushing. There, it was my grandma, my aunt, my parents, my brother and his girlfriend fiancee. A late night talking and visiting, going over small but interesting-sounding details. The dark solstice can give insomnia a glamorous sheen. That's what I was thinking of when I arrived at St. John Vianney church with Cody, which was packed because several parishes have combined.

I'm past a point of comparing individual Christmases. A few stand out for this or that significant reason, but it's become a reliably happy and comfortable day. On Christmas morning, we were slow to get up, enjoyed our coffee and orange juice, and now put off opening gifts, because it's a sort of delectable moment that you want to savor. Jess and I had given everyone a copy of the Santa story (or at least the edited first chapter) and we followed up with Christmas ornaments and more, and I got, among other gifts, several Ann Radcliffe novels, the Writers Market guides, and music by Prince and Chaka Khan. We talked to my sister on the phone, because she was in California. We watched A Christmas Story.

The highlight of the day was, and remains, Swedish meatballs.

But now I'm tending to ramble, which is what always happens in an entry like this. It's okay, because my memory is a little hazy. I planned "catch up" for Friday, although this was abbreviated and interrupted by weird scheduling all around. I did get to see Lyn, which was nice because I'd missed her on my last visit, and we stopped at Genesee Valley to do some more Christmas shopping. This is when I observed the new fashion trend among all the cool kids. You cut random slashes in the thighs of your jeans, evidently using an exacto knife (they didn't look like scissor cuts, you know?). After dinner, we went out again and saw Marcy and some other kids at the White Horse in Flint. We got back not-too-late, but we missed Sarah Crawford, which made me sad. On Saturday, I went for a walk in the township park with Cody, during which a mist came down on the river and all the snow melted, seemingly all at once. Our shoes were choaked and saturated with water. That evening, Jess and I met up with Dave and Katie at Ruggeros, and they're still trying to get us to move to the area. We watched several films: Eagle Eye and Michael Clayton and the grisly Burn After Reading (because all Coen brothers films are grisly). On Sunday, I went to church, I picked up a coney at the Atlas, and I interviewed a couple of Halls Flats residents to learn more abuot the history of the area. Mostly, though, it was ritual stuff I try to do whenever I'm in town.

At the end of that last hazy day at my parents', we all drove down to Mongolian Barbecue on Miller, which I had never been to before, and now I understand its popularity. From there, we said our goodbyes to my family, and cruised on over to Sam's house, where we visited with Emily and his parents for awhile. We picked up Adam in Glenwood Hills, and hit the road back to Chicago caravan-style. We kept in touch with walkee-talkees until we lost each other outside Gary.

But by then we were practically back.

To Be Continued...

Diary: December 1998.

This is almost recent history, so I'm somewhat surprised that I don't remember the details of this month better than I do.

This was my second year of college. I remember in '97 it was my first time home and my family and friends made a big deal about my return. By '98, though, it was old hat. Also, this was an odd year when the U of C took two weeks off instead of three.

I do remember that I reconnected with Sarah Crawford via Josh Aldred; I'd met her the summer before, but lost track of her when she went to summer camp. The three of us spent a lot of time driving around Flint, getting into various degrees of trouble that I won't detail here.

I remember a couple odd absences; for example, this was the first time in ages that the DeVoes didn't throw a Christmas party. So instead, we invited them over for pizza. Unless I'm remembering wrong, and we went over there instead.

For Christmas, my parents got me a Romanian-English dictionary, because I was talking about spending a summer abroad; but these plans didn't come to fruition until later. On New Years Eve I went to a collossal party at the Crawfords... the first of three I'd attend, and this was where I met Marcy, who I wooed off-and-on for the next year. And this was when Demetrius taught me a dance he'd invented to Madonna's Ray of Light. I bought the album and it was my favorite for the next two months.

In the last days of the year, a massive blizzard descended on the midwest, hitting the western side of Michigan particularly hard and burying Chicago in more snow that it had seen in 35 years. So to flirt with 2009, a little, I remember my dad creeping along at 40 mph along I-94 all the way around the lake. The trip probably took us six or seven hours, but he kept us out of the ditches on the side of the expressway. Many cars and trucks had spun out, and we could see them when the snow let up from time to time.

Where were you in December 1998?

In December 1983.

I was five, and I believe this was about a month before I officially became obsessed with dinosaurs. This far back, I remember events (like Christmas) and otherwise unfixable moments... I won't know for sure exactly what month or even what year I'm remembering.

That said, for as long as I can remember (certainly as far back as the mid-eighties) there is a moment that I associate with the early winter in 1983. I went to Valley School at this time, which is a private school that has spent most of its history leapfrogging from one facility to the next. When I attended, the school was based out of a one-story brick building in the middle of a great field surrounded by suburban subdivisions. This was Grand Blanc Township. One of the sides of the school faces a low slope, and on the first day that is snowed, sleds were dispensed. By sleds, what I really mean was that they had rolled red and blue sheets of plastic with grommet holes at the end to attach a yellow cord. When we unrolled these and layed on our stomachs or sat with our feet the length of the sheet, we could use them for sleds. I think that they were designed with this in mind. One of nostalgia-inducing toys that would probably never be allowed anymore.

Where were you in December 1983?

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?