(no subject)
i sit here, languishing at the dull shelter. the Big House is the major party. recently we set out a suggestion box there--a few guests and i sat around guffawing as they stuffed the box with preposterous ideas (a harlem shake video shot in the dorm, with myself wearing a papier mache st. francis head, etc). a few gay guests explained that they basically have a fan-fiction oral narrative of the love affair they presume goes on between me and my colleague john. me and german timo took to playing wake up music over the PA system, kicking off with my announcing "good morning franciscan house, this is your captain speaking..." and inviting guests to come up to the desk to give us music requests. one guest requested hammer time, which got the dorm hopping.
my quest to become king of the chicago homeless got a nice boost in the past week or two. figuring out what's going on in pgm, the city's biggest shelter, is not unlike speculating about the internal politics of north korea or the romulan empire. however, some sort of coup occurred there, leading to a new leadership that has for the time being lifted the joint's ban on outside caseworker types. suddenly i can mill all over the previously off-limits campus to make friends and influence people.
things are pleasant presently, although i'm going mad poor--with cortney in town indefinitely, and my dating some dude, you would not believe how many meals out i'm buying. so long as i have infinite time to kill, i might as well try to reconstruct the past month in journal format.
4/15--as i talked to kieran on the phone, holly kept bursting into my room dancing and making faces, excitedly trying to get my attention. turns out that our bartender, diane, had invited us out to simone's for dinner. we drank a ton of these fancy mexican hot chocolate martinis. we weren't planning on drinking much, but those things tasted sooo good. diane's ex-fling showed up, and we played at pubquiz. it was all pretty exciting to be at a table chilling with diane, her acting as though she's not way cooler than us.
4/18--saw lost in the trees at schubas, and it was lovely.
4/20--easter brunch with the roomies, kimberly, and ben. i totally blew holy week, with the history fair keeping me from mass during the week and a shelter night switcheroo keeping me from easter vigil. but it was all pretty fun.
4/25--kimberly, ben, and i saw what was billed as a performance piece based on beetlejuice. it was, in actuality, just a live production of beetlejuice. i apologized to ben, "i know we said you could pick the next play last time this happened..."
4/26--mesler, anne, and i planned to pop over to dan's with pizza and beer, since he's too ill to ever hit our drinky nights. he ended up in the hospital, so we failed at that. i suggested "hey, y'all already cleared your schedules. why don't you come over and we can have pizza and beer here!" that day had been lovely, with holly and me strolling about in the newly warm weather. i bought a new geetar. holly had been avoiding her one needy, loud, racist friend mike m, but we bumped into him (and everyone else we know) while walking around. so he came over too. eventually he chased anne and mesler away, but we had a lovely time until that point. if only that boy could learn to stop talking. he's actually very sweet, in his way.
4/29--go out with new dating fellow enrique to village tap. i spent the night at his place, he drove me to work in the morning. that afternoon, aida, mesler, and i discussed how important we look dressed like doctors, as we were visiting dan in the ICU.
5/2-- holly's birthday! it was an interesting cross-section of society, as holly only is friends with two types of people: impossibly quiet broody loners, and uncontainably loud spazzy extroverts. i was happy sitting with the former, exchanging stilted conversation until we were periodically interrupted by the shrieking of the latter. lots of bridgeporty illuminati were there--diane, alex, etc, adding to the interesting mix. datey interest enrique showed with tons of firewood, earning him some brownie points. as mike m and enrique bickered over mike m's impossibly racist statements about latinos, diane gesticulated across the room exaggeratedly mouthing "separate them!" at me. i was endlessly tickled that i was in a scene, at my house, wherein my bartender was trying to get me to separate the neighborhood eccentric from a guy i'm seeing (who, incidentally, was revealed to have been in counseling school with holly's best friend). i was incredibly happy that diane's new dating interest is so nice to her--at one point she slipped me the affectionate poem he had typed up for her on a typewriter.
5/3-- in the morning, enrique and i took holly out to breakfast at harvey's. enrique wandered off home to prepare for some party. i wandered up to skylark to meet the kimberly crew. ben talked about a kentucky derby party where everyone was singing about darkeys smiling gaily. i told him about mike m's comments, leading him to observe "i thought racism was going out of style, but it's apparently totally hip again..." he then made a reference to how difficult mike m is. I was surprised, asking "you know him?" ben observed, "no, but i heard some people complaining about him walking around the neighborhood." again, bridgeport is amazing. i mentioned i had gone on a few dates, leading ben to interrupt kimberly midconversation to point out "i think your brother found someone who will actually go out with him..." enrique invited me to his party. kimberly's posse was heading north, so we all rode the bus together a bit.
i wish i could remember the various fun exchanges of recent weeks. my memory is appalling, so i'm going by my appointment book to fill in the void. holly one day, observing we were probably ordering pizza too often, stated "we are teenage mutant ninja turtles. all we do is eat pizza. and hang out in sewers."
i went on a few enrique dates, i went to california...
5/13--at skylark again, this time with the weird little dude who dumped me cos we were too physical. i feel like he's a good candidate to be my dudebro. primarily, i only note this night cos steve, owner of bernice's, happened to be there. he started waving and calling out to me--i was initially quite confused, as skylark is very dark and I couldn't figure out why an older guy would want to say hello so badly. my confusion quickly changed into a feeling of honor that he would go through the effort.
5/14--c-rock arrived in town. we tried to rage, but being incredibly old, we were home from maria's and in bed by 10:30.
friday enrique and i went out to an asian vegetarian place, where i hate veggie seafood soup. it was pretty fun, involving big rice pellets squeezed into shrimp-shape. i perused the menu, making puns enthusiastically. enrique exclaimed "you are such a goon." we watched walter mitty. saturday night, i took c-rock to see the house theatre's dorian gray play, which was pretty fun. again, we were a bit lame--we had thought about drinking during the show, but quickly realized we would probably pass out. enrique was at a cafe nearby, so he picked me up after cortney and my late night dinner.
enrique lost his phone charger at said cafe, leading to our having no alarm clock. so i missed mass for the 5 millionth time, but at least we got to go out for breakfast. at 1pm.
my quest to become king of the chicago homeless got a nice boost in the past week or two. figuring out what's going on in pgm, the city's biggest shelter, is not unlike speculating about the internal politics of north korea or the romulan empire. however, some sort of coup occurred there, leading to a new leadership that has for the time being lifted the joint's ban on outside caseworker types. suddenly i can mill all over the previously off-limits campus to make friends and influence people.
things are pleasant presently, although i'm going mad poor--with cortney in town indefinitely, and my dating some dude, you would not believe how many meals out i'm buying. so long as i have infinite time to kill, i might as well try to reconstruct the past month in journal format.
4/15--as i talked to kieran on the phone, holly kept bursting into my room dancing and making faces, excitedly trying to get my attention. turns out that our bartender, diane, had invited us out to simone's for dinner. we drank a ton of these fancy mexican hot chocolate martinis. we weren't planning on drinking much, but those things tasted sooo good. diane's ex-fling showed up, and we played at pubquiz. it was all pretty exciting to be at a table chilling with diane, her acting as though she's not way cooler than us.
4/18--saw lost in the trees at schubas, and it was lovely.
4/20--easter brunch with the roomies, kimberly, and ben. i totally blew holy week, with the history fair keeping me from mass during the week and a shelter night switcheroo keeping me from easter vigil. but it was all pretty fun.
4/25--kimberly, ben, and i saw what was billed as a performance piece based on beetlejuice. it was, in actuality, just a live production of beetlejuice. i apologized to ben, "i know we said you could pick the next play last time this happened..."
4/26--mesler, anne, and i planned to pop over to dan's with pizza and beer, since he's too ill to ever hit our drinky nights. he ended up in the hospital, so we failed at that. i suggested "hey, y'all already cleared your schedules. why don't you come over and we can have pizza and beer here!" that day had been lovely, with holly and me strolling about in the newly warm weather. i bought a new geetar. holly had been avoiding her one needy, loud, racist friend mike m, but we bumped into him (and everyone else we know) while walking around. so he came over too. eventually he chased anne and mesler away, but we had a lovely time until that point. if only that boy could learn to stop talking. he's actually very sweet, in his way.
4/29--go out with new dating fellow enrique to village tap. i spent the night at his place, he drove me to work in the morning. that afternoon, aida, mesler, and i discussed how important we look dressed like doctors, as we were visiting dan in the ICU.
5/2-- holly's birthday! it was an interesting cross-section of society, as holly only is friends with two types of people: impossibly quiet broody loners, and uncontainably loud spazzy extroverts. i was happy sitting with the former, exchanging stilted conversation until we were periodically interrupted by the shrieking of the latter. lots of bridgeporty illuminati were there--diane, alex, etc, adding to the interesting mix. datey interest enrique showed with tons of firewood, earning him some brownie points. as mike m and enrique bickered over mike m's impossibly racist statements about latinos, diane gesticulated across the room exaggeratedly mouthing "separate them!" at me. i was endlessly tickled that i was in a scene, at my house, wherein my bartender was trying to get me to separate the neighborhood eccentric from a guy i'm seeing (who, incidentally, was revealed to have been in counseling school with holly's best friend). i was incredibly happy that diane's new dating interest is so nice to her--at one point she slipped me the affectionate poem he had typed up for her on a typewriter.
5/3-- in the morning, enrique and i took holly out to breakfast at harvey's. enrique wandered off home to prepare for some party. i wandered up to skylark to meet the kimberly crew. ben talked about a kentucky derby party where everyone was singing about darkeys smiling gaily. i told him about mike m's comments, leading him to observe "i thought racism was going out of style, but it's apparently totally hip again..." he then made a reference to how difficult mike m is. I was surprised, asking "you know him?" ben observed, "no, but i heard some people complaining about him walking around the neighborhood." again, bridgeport is amazing. i mentioned i had gone on a few dates, leading ben to interrupt kimberly midconversation to point out "i think your brother found someone who will actually go out with him..." enrique invited me to his party. kimberly's posse was heading north, so we all rode the bus together a bit.
i wish i could remember the various fun exchanges of recent weeks. my memory is appalling, so i'm going by my appointment book to fill in the void. holly one day, observing we were probably ordering pizza too often, stated "we are teenage mutant ninja turtles. all we do is eat pizza. and hang out in sewers."
i went on a few enrique dates, i went to california...
5/13--at skylark again, this time with the weird little dude who dumped me cos we were too physical. i feel like he's a good candidate to be my dudebro. primarily, i only note this night cos steve, owner of bernice's, happened to be there. he started waving and calling out to me--i was initially quite confused, as skylark is very dark and I couldn't figure out why an older guy would want to say hello so badly. my confusion quickly changed into a feeling of honor that he would go through the effort.
5/14--c-rock arrived in town. we tried to rage, but being incredibly old, we were home from maria's and in bed by 10:30.
friday enrique and i went out to an asian vegetarian place, where i hate veggie seafood soup. it was pretty fun, involving big rice pellets squeezed into shrimp-shape. i perused the menu, making puns enthusiastically. enrique exclaimed "you are such a goon." we watched walter mitty. saturday night, i took c-rock to see the house theatre's dorian gray play, which was pretty fun. again, we were a bit lame--we had thought about drinking during the show, but quickly realized we would probably pass out. enrique was at a cafe nearby, so he picked me up after cortney and my late night dinner.
enrique lost his phone charger at said cafe, leading to our having no alarm clock. so i missed mass for the 5 millionth time, but at least we got to go out for breakfast. at 1pm.