CHICAGO: If Hepatitis C Were Attacking Your Face Instead of Your Liver You'd Be Doing Something About It

--Jesse, sorry for dropping out of chat again last night, my computer crashed as usual.

--Digd0wn will definitely be playing weekends at the Gr33n M1ll just before Xmas AND Fat Tuesday.

On Friday I went to see the Fake Fixxiones rock the house at Alliance. On Saturday I spent the afternoon writing. I also watched Tristam Shandy (clever but not particularly entertaining) and then steeled myself to drive out to the suburbs for the BIG REUNION. Which was: hmmm, kind of fun, but also really weird and somewhat disappointing, too, because for all the people who were there that I was like "OMG that guy" there were twice as many who I wished were there. There were maybe 40-50 overall out of a graduating class of 300-something? But whatever: I got drunk on gin-and-tonics and heard this gaggle of girls say in disbelief, as I was heading outside, "John smokes?" (My goodie-goodie rep hasn't left me.) Then yesterday Kr and I did laundry and then went to see Nina Nastasia (boring, although I think EZ likes her?) and Jose Gonzalez (totally captivating) at the Lakeshore Theater. THE END.

you can have grilled cheese and salsa sandwiches with me for thanksgiving if you're here. or you can go to jenny & jeff's and have a real thanksgiving but whatever.

Also, for some reason, I'm thinking that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed When the gales of November came early. And that it's hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain.

...in high school you don't realize your lifestyles and ambitions are SO different from your classmates...

No, I totally did.

Yeah, I don't know that the suburbanites are incredulous that I'm living in the city as much as I'm incredulous that they're not. But most people are pretty boring.

I figured someone would say something like this. I dunno. I certainly had desires to be worldly and sophisticated that probably weren't matched by the majority of my peers, but I also really loved the community that high school created, and I liked knowing who everyone was and what they were all about. I mean, the roots of the whole "jaymc's spreadsheet" meme can probably be traced back to when I ran for National Honor Society secretary, and my campaign speech was basically like, "I'll be good at keeping track of our members, because I already know all of your birthdays." (In fact, I surprised a few people the other night by saying things like "...so Jermaine, you'll be 28 in a couple days, won't you?") My friend Adam and I made up bizarre animal-related nicknames for teachers, kids in our classes, people involved in theatre with us -- and I made crossword puzzles where all the answers were inside jokes about such people and wrote a song about some weirdo in my gym class. We were stupidly competitive about our class rank and gossiped endlessly. So I mean, I had a lot of affection for this community, and after a while, you think of yourself as one with it. That's why I didn't even think twice about going to the reunion.

That's an interesting dichotomy. I supposedly contribute to the world through my job, my band, etc., but don't feel any happier for it than when I was doing my own work and receiving individual praise for it and getting a sense of accomplishment that collaborative endeavors can't match.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HpovwbPGEoo

if anyone wants to start making weekly carpool trips to k-zoo let me know.

2. satisfaction of someone else (professor), toward a meaningless end (grades and/or pat on the head from one's "elders and betters")

Ideally, the satisfaction should be shared by you and the professor, especially in classes you like. And I didn't see grades and pats on the head as meaningless, since they boosted my self-esteem and motivated me to continue doing good work. I would love to feel valued and inspired by my "elders and betters," to have the same kind of mentor I had in Gail Gr1ff1n at this time in my life.

Oh, I did some of that, too -- I mean, I frequently talked back to teachers that I thought were full of shit (and a lot of them were), but I also bought into the whole "these are the days you'll remember" thing. I was nostalgic for high school the day I graduated.

no one joined anything at our high school. our senior class advisor was this ancient social studies teacher who told us he'd never seen a more apathetic group in his life. we didn't even care enough about each to other to form cliques.

For me HS was something to be endured

same here, it was a prelude to a big nebulous something else. like a four year taxi down a runway. oh, and of course high school also means infidelity and bad lunches but that goes without saying, doesn't it?

I did join band though. That was good. Until they made me march, then I dropped out. Not because I was too uppity to march, but because I was seriously bad at turning corners.

HS Cons:
everyone knew my parents -- couldn't get away with everything
mouth-breathing idiots not entirely escapeable
most of my friends being older and graduating 1-2 years before me
growing sense of doom & depression in 12th grade due to having small friend base (silver lining - got even more into punk rock)

There are parts I remember fondly, there are parts I'd rather forget. On the whole, I did it, and now it's over. I'm glad I never went to graduation because there are a lot of people I feel good about saying "fuck off" to and never seeing again.

The driver's ed situation in more detail: There was supposed to be a two-hour Homecoming assembly at the end of the day, but at about noon it was cancelled because the school had received a threat of gang violence, and everyone was told that we'd remain in our 6th period class for the rest of the day instead. Since 6th period for me was driver's ed, I was like fuck this. (To be fair, I didn't realize that we were going to have a quiz, which I then received a zero on and had to scramble to get my grade back up to an A by the end of the semester, or else I'd probably have reconsidered.) I asked myself where I'd rather be during 6th period, and I thought, Well, EJ has another section of AP English right now. I showed up, explained myself, and she was like, "All right, JC, as long as you know what you're getting yourself into," and the class -- many of whom I was friends with (as opposed to the mouth-breathing sophomores in driver's ed) spent the rest of the day talking about current events and stuff.

(Ha, xpost: Dan and I both used the word "mouth-breathing.")

I should have mentioned that AP courses kept me away from the mouth-breathing teachers, too.

Word.

People who delight in not only knowing the answer, but in the subsequent delight in their teacher's faces when they present it so eloquently, as they always do.

What I hated was all the teenagers around me. I had 2 or 3 friends throughout my high school career, and even they didn't last. I didn't even take part in lunch, but instead sat in the library writing, stealing books and cutting pages out of the encylopedia. (I still have a color wheel from the World Book.)

Looking back this is probably bad because I was actually suffering from a pretty serious depression. Also religion was ruining my life because I would have probably joined some kind of club but I wasn't allowed to go to Saturday meetings.

xpost-- I had a good rep with the teachers too. I got to use the faculty bathroom.