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

yeah, that's kind of an understatement. i almost moved over there almost 2 years ago, there was a place north of chicago on fairfield. landlord was teh hott and she lived upstairs. awesome place but i found a better deal on augusta later that week.

--Partied in Oshkosh on Friday night, really overdid and had to play a parade + two sets on Saturday morning with a crushing hangover.

--Made a bacon veggieburger

--Saw horrible, horrible hip-hop band from Mpls and had to leave

--Watched the first half of the Battlestar Metallica mini-series. You're all right it is good stuff.

--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?