two.points.collapsing

back to school, back to school, to show my dad i’m not a fool…

yes i know that is probably an overused reference and i apologize. here’s one i’m sure none of you will get: “my spoon is too big!… my spoon is TOO BIG!”

anyway, i’m off to work and classes and all that soon, and the break is officially over. it was nice though. we wrapped it up pretty well yesterday with a second viewing of the royal tenenbaums (still love it upon re-viewing), plus a trip to the new huge-as-anything independent record store in town, amoeba records, which was ENORMOUS and totally excellent. i bought two new cds that i can never find, both for 10.98 each. definitely going back there soon. then we went to in-n-out for dinner, came home and watched my new phantom menace dvd. sure, it’s a dumb movie, and i realize that, but i still love it.

so there. wish me luck at another semester of this “learning” stuff.

oh my god, i can’t believe i forgot to include this yesterday…

the most excellent part of my whole winter vacation that made having a flight delayed for three hours worthwhile:

i’m walking through LAX on the way to claim my baggage and go home to see shannon, strolling along casually and at least a little bit glad to be “home”, as this city has sort of come to be called. who do i see walking distinctively (no one else has a similar walk that i can think of) a little ways ahead of me? george bush? heidi klum? brad pitt? big bird? justin timberlake? no, no, far better than any other dignitary, supermodel, superstar, pop icon or any of those things. i saw the one and only SINBAD! that’s right, he was standing right there, in all his red-dyed hair, weird-goatee having, rambling, track-suit wearing glory.

i mean, i like my friends and all, but it’s sort of sad that this moment, which will probably be the best of 2002, had to come so early. now i feel like i have nothing to look forward to.

ha.

okay, to wrap up the backlog–thursday night i hung out with shannon, who had to fly away to italy at 8:30am friday. we went out to dinner with some of her other best friends (not the best–that would be me, of course) to the cheesecake factory, and that was fun. i recommend oscar’s barbeque chicken sandwich; man, that sandwich was a taste sensation. then the two of us came back here to just sort of spend a few hours together before going to bed at two, waking up at 4:45 to get to the airport the requisite three hours early for international travel. we saw her off around 7:30 i think, and it hurt. i came home and went back to sleep until noon.

i have to say, spending that time with her was both amazing and heartbreaking. it doesn’t seem right that someone that means so much to you should have to be completely kept from you for 4 whole months, and it was a very bittersweet evening, because it just felt so right to be around her…

i shouldn’t whine too much though because that helps nothing, and she is coming back in may. at least i hope she is–i guess there’s always the chance that some italian beau will whisk her away and that will be that. we’ll see, won’t we.

note: nothing cool has happened since then, really, except that all my roommate are back in town and we’re about to start classes on monday. that’s that for now; welcome to the finally-all-caught-up collapsing.

alright, i want to get caught up so i can talk about the present again, so here’s the last few days of the trip:

tuesday; new year’s day

waking around two, we headed over to my high school roommate’s apartment at u of i (yes, i went to a high school at which i lived. no, it wasn’t private school. yes, there were girls. for more info if you don’t understand, visit the site) to say goodbye to the whole crew. then gabe dropped me off in the town i grew up in–the illustrious bourbonnais, illinois–on the way back to his house in gurnee. i spent that night at my grandparents’ place, and it was really nice to see them. they’re so nice and i love them, and all that family sappy stuff…

wednesday, jan. 2

late morning, my pal emily came and picked me up to bring me to her place in glendale heights. we didn’t have much of an adventure, although we did have some delicious giordano’s deep dish pizza downtown for lunch. i felt kind of bad because i think i was a little burned out by this point and maybe i wasn’t the most fun companion for emily that day. however, emily is another one of those people where i don’t feel like i have to be having some sort of exciting escapade, necessarily. just being around her feels good. top tier friends like that are not easy to come by, and i think she’s the greatest along with most of the people i spent a night with this past week. we wanted to stay up all night since i had to wake up at 7 or something to get ready to head to o’hare, but we fell asleep around 2:30 because, well, we’re so cool it’s exhausting.

thursday, jan. 3

woke up, and went to the airport. sad to have spent so little time trying to cram so much quality time with friends into a week out of the year. can’t wait to graduate and be able to travel more often and visit everyone more regularly.

the day was fine and all, except that the flight was delayed three and a half hours, and i wanted to get back here to hang out with my california friend shannon who had to leave early friday for her semester in italy. that, however, will pretty much bring me back to the present since nothing noteworthy has happened since that sad goodbye friday morning, so i’ll save that last juicy little tidbit until tomorrow.

alright, i’m getting somewhere here:

monday; new year’s eve

after grabbing some lunch from senor tacos, a tasty place in matt’s neighborhood, and getting things ready to go, gabe and i took off for u of i in his car. matt and bill followed in another. a while later we were in gabe’s room in champaign, we’re at a bar he works at to eat dinner, then we’re going to the new year’s party full of old friends in the apartment of a nice girl who graduated with us. i have to say that in general i have never had an exciting new year’s eve. i’ve spent the majority of them in my life with family, a few with a small group of friends, but never gone to a party really. so it’s maybe not a huge statement but still holds weight when i say this was the best new years i’ve ever had. sure, i didn’t have anyone to kiss at midnight, but i hadn’t kissed anyone in months anyway so i guess i’m used to it by now. i did have a blast though. i saw a bunch of old friends, some of whom i hadn’t even expected to see, and loved it. we were all having such a good time we almost missed counting down when midnight came around.

this was also only my second experience with intoxication, but did not result in any vomiting or humiliation–well, unless you consider deciding with your friend’s girlfriend that it would be fun to trade pants for ten minutes and giving up your baggy cargo pants for some form-fitting chick pants (that were surprisingly flattering and fit a little too well) embarrassing, which i didn’t–it was all good. it was all about having fun and laughing with a room full of people that i love seeing. well, and an ex-girlfriend whom i’m sure is an agent of the devil, but whom i managed not to talk to at all, only point mean comments toward when talking to my friends. aah, give me a break, she’s a bad person, i didn’t feel bad making fun of her behind her back. it was funny. she’s evil.

we then left the party and went to gabe’s place around 3:30 after having a hell of a time (i’m pretty sure the cab driver thought we were asses thanks to gabe talking about his ex-girlfriend, “the fucking whore” and demanding the cabbie tell us a joke…haha). then we talked and drank a bit more there, and had one of those bonding conversations where you talk about girls you’ve dated in a level of detail only acceptable late at night with the closest of friends. by 5am we were beat and had had a great time so we all crashed hardcore. happy new year, started off right.

i like this. i’m sitting here eating beef taquitos, sipping an a&w, and remembering the great week i’ve had.

sunday, dec. 30

sunday gabe and i went to matt’s place in palatine. there was nothing remarkable about this night, to be honest. we ate stuff from their refrigerator. we played tony hawk 3 on ps2. we watched green day: behind the music. later on charlie and bill, two more high school friends, came over, and we played this weird board game called tri-bond. but i’ll be damned if that wasn’t just a great, great night. i think it’s miraculous how with some people, whom you haven’t seen in almost two years, things just click automatically once you’re all hanging out again. we were joking and laughing nonstop and having a ball doing really nothing. i love those guys. i miss them already.

time for the next day’s worth of installments. i really hope anyone reading this isn’t thinking, “just shut up already, your trip was only interesting to you, and i don’t want to hear about it.” well, then come back monday, i guess, i should be caught up by then and you can read about my first day of school. for now though:

saturday, dec. 29

my pal gabe picked me up from lynn’s place and we went into the city again to find our friend madilyne, kill a few hours, and go to a lucky boys confusion show at the metro. i’m not a big lucky boys confusion fan really, but (A) gabe knows a few of the guys in the band, and after calling one, got us all on the guest list, making it a free concert for all four of us (matt came later). it’s hard to turn down a free rock show. also (B) it meant i got to go to the metro again, which is cool in itself because i hadn’t been there since high school, obviously, what with me living in california and all. and i think that’s still one of the best places to see a show i’ve been to so far. it’s just the right size and for extra fun, you can feel the floor moving when a lot of people are jumping on it. you have to love that.

so the show was decent and i had a lot of fun. we had some food at matt’s older sister’s apartment in the city (located only a half-block away from the hilariously named gay bar “the manhole”, who’s marquee read “new year, same hole” on one side and “santa came. merry christmas” on the other), and we had some free deep dish pizza which rocked my tastebuds. gabe dropped off the other two and we went to his house and played video games until 4am and that was that for saturday.

okay, i’m really tired but i want to keep up with this. i’ve never liked writing in paper journals, but now that i’ve started this, i feel like i need to keep a record and so i’m going to follow through. “so brian,” you ask, “what’d you do your second day in chicago?”…

friday, dec. 28

dominic brought me over to my old friend (and ex-girlfriend) lynn’s house friday afternoon, and seeing her in itself was quite a trip. i used to be completely in love with that girl. she broke my heart too. aaah, high school. but we’re older and wiser and now we still keep in touch and i still think she’s a real cool cat. it was nice hanging out with her and talking about life and things, while we took the train downtown and walked around the city. what a beautiful night it was. chicago is so much prettier than any part of los angeles. and to top it off, right as we came up out of the el stop, it started snowing. i was so happy that the fact that it was 15 degrees out didn’t really even bother me.

we got coffee at the virgin megastore to warm up, and we talked. we went to see this spanish ghost movie called the devil’s backbone she said was supposed to be good (and wasn’t–i give it a thumbs down), and we talked. we got some food at the pick me up cafe, and we talked. we rode the trains and busses home, we watched the zero effect at her house, which she’d never seen (which i love–i give it a hearty thumbs up)… and we talked. it was a really great night. i can see why i used to be so infatuated with her, because she’s still completely beautiful and really interesting, but it’s nice to know that i can be aware of both those things and just appreciate her instead of being frustrated because i can’t have her. that was a good, good night.

plus we talked about sandman, and dave mckean, which would make me love any girl at least a little bit.

okay, i’ve had a big day (today–which i’ll get to eventually), so i’m going to bed now.

alright. i’m back at my apartment in LA, home from the fun-filled week trip to illinois as of yesterday evening (instead of early afternoon–thank you, 3.5 hour flight delay), and i’m ready to start catching up the record here on collapsing. i don’t have much to say from before i left for illinois, so i’ll start trying to recap the fun things from the trip here over the next few days. it seems like there’s so much it’d be hard to do at once, if at all, so we’ll see how far i get.

thursday, dec. 27

it’s always reassuring to know there are weirdos everywhere, no matter where you are in the united states. as i walked up the ramp into the terminal at o’hare i saw the biggest weirdo ever. first: the guy was wearing a cape. a long black cape with a purple lining, fastened across his chest. not a coat, not even a cloak. this was definitely a cape. second: the guy had a gross pony tail, a gross goatee, and was very, umm… well, ugly. third (and best by far): the guy, standing against a pillar in an airport terminal, was wearing headphones and playing air violin. and not in a fun, whimsical fashion as if it were a joke. he was intently and very seriously playing air violin as if he were practicing for an upcoming performance or something. i about laughed my head off, except that i was scared of what a weirdo like that could do to me.

then i hung out with my man dominic at his place. we went to johnny’s for the best beef sandwiches on earth (as voted by numerous chicago publishers, apparently) which were goddamn tasty. and we had some portillo’s for dinner too. mmm. later that night we just hung out at one of his friend’s places with his high school crew, which was fun. they’re great kids and fun, and it made me jealous that all his old friends still all live in the same town (none having moved to, say, houston, texas) because i never get the luxury of just sitting around with a ring of old buddies and just laughing and having a good time. or at least, almost never (see new year’s eve, coming soon).

so that was day one of the adventure, more to come soon…

sneaky sneaky, i’m back on the computers again. i just can’t seem to stay away.

i’m not going to divulge anything yet, until i can sit down long enough to write a proper story. but last night was outstanding and hey, happy new year.

hope your 2001 was as good as mine (or better).

hey everybody…

sorry i haven’t been around lately–i’m visiting friends like crazy all over the chicagoland area and haven’t been on a computer since i flew in here on the 27th. but i’m having a great time and i’ll be home to resume regular blathering on the 3rd, so hang in there.

and happy new years. hope you’re having as good a time as i have been this week, and as thrilled to be around a whole bunch of people you really love, just like i am.

see you in 2002.