Holiday Break, Day I

I'm home.

I did a little update to the blog, changed the name, added a section. Made it feel a little more homey, I think. I had pictures I was going to upload into this entry, but the plug is down on the main floor and I'm feeling far too lazy to go and get it.

It's been a while since I've done a real entry, so this is gonna be one of those rambling posts that go all over the place. The others won't be as bad. Here we go.


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I've kinda stalled out on The Long Goodnight. It was going really good for the past few months, and I went blitzing through the 20,000 word mark and just hit a wall. I'm still hoping to finish it by January 1st, but I'm being realistic enough to say that getting 60-80,000 words in 2.5 weeks is a little ridiculous and intense. That's not to say I'm not going to try.

In terms of story it is still barreling forward and I'm still wholly invested in what it's trying to do. The reason that it came up flat is that I've been buried in a swamp of school and grad school application work. And I bought Mass Effect for my Xbox 360. Dumb move. Avoid at all costs. It will swallow your soul.

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The semester is over.

I took the GRE a week ago and it was exhausting, but I'm glad that it came out alright. Now I've got to finish the rest of the application process and cross my fingers. The thing that made it interesting is that all the math is made to be complicated but also really easy to solve in a totally out of the box manner. This balances the engineering majors taking it with the English majors. They suggest six months of studying to fully prepare. I crammed a twelve hour session the day before and did alright.

This semester has been all sorts of grueling, for really no reason whatsoever. People I've talked to agree completely with me. The weight of it all. Just the mindset. People are tired, and now it is break. I've got one more semester left and I'm counting the days.

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I'm home, but for the first time I'm not sure it's where I want to be.

Things are changing. In Chicago I'm finally getting a small group of friends that I actually want to hang out with, and who I (in the month I've known them) hung out with from time to time. It's making city more than bearable and actually somewhat desirable. I don't know quite how to comprehend my feelings on that. I was so determined to be done and be gone and never return to that city, but if I have friends there it's not so bad. And suddenly I'm kicking myself (only somewhat) for living like a hermit for so long. I had no excuse (that made sense), and now I'm kind of paying the price. We'll see what next semester holds.

I started writing music again. When my muse shut up for a while life became really strenuous. I mean there is only so many times you can leave prayers and burnt offerings to that wonderful person living in the basement of your brain before you start to wonder if they ever plan on unlocking the door and chatting with you again. It's not a lot of song. Only a repetitive chorus and a verse. I really like it though. My friend Ryan has been rubbing off on my writing style a bit. I can feel myself reaching for hooks and trying to find something more poppy. Doing that has always come very tough to me. I can point out good ones in other songs but I am terrible about doing it myself.

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I want a cat.

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here are those lyrics:

If I let you through this door
than you'll be wanting more and more
but all that's left is me
my old house you blew away
and I thought that would sate your hunger
no, what will it be?

come and knock knock on my door
what are you waiting for


I promise that I'll actually finish that song.

To bed I go. Tomorrow there will be pictures and stories with less ambiguous rambling.

The Overly Long Long Overdue Entry

I'm getting really terrible about remembering to update this..

It's been a busy week since last I wrote in this thing.

I used the Lake Front trail to commute in to class on Monday. On the train from the Morse stop to the Harrison stop of the CTA Red Line it's about 50 minutes. On a bike it was about the same. That and the view is far better than the hobo sleeping across the aisle. I get to watch the sunrise over the lake, see some nice parks, Buckingham Fountain, and I get exercise. Only downside is that I get to look like a goof using a bathroom in the library to change into my pants for work.

The Haslett Men's Ensemble, the nationally renowned choral ensemble that came from my High School, and a group that I am an alumni of, sang for the induction ceremony for the new president of the American Medical Association. His son, Evan Davis, is also an alum of the Ensemble, and so to accommodate him the group was opened up as an Alumni Performance. Eight gents (including myself) joined the Mens for their Tuesday night performance, including our staple, "A Hymn To God the Father" and another classic, "Viva Tutti" which translates (according to the sheet music) as "Hail to Women!"

The gig was at the Hilton right on Michigan Ave. in Chicago, which was a very convenient location for me (right across the street, south of Columbia). They put the men up in hotel rooms there. For meals they got to eat in the South wing of the Executive Suite.

After the performance, that Tuesday, we took a tour of the Hancock Building, followed by a quick desert at the Cheesecake Factory.

The next day the gents were given a brief tour of the touristy side of Chicago. I skipped out on Class and tutoring to join them. Sometimes life just gets in the way. The day began with a glorious breakfast again in the Executive Suite, and then a visit to Shedd's Aquarium. Ben Henri, the newest member of the Music Department Faculty at Haslett was telling me about working at Sea World, and we had a few laughs over the hilarity of the Dolphin shows. Then we were witness to the saddest looking Sea Lion I think we'd ever seen. It was half flopped onto the shore of its cage lying catatonic.

The next part of our venture was to Chicago's famous Navy Pier. I split away from most of the Men's guys and stuck close with a few of the Alumni, David Theis and Dan Voegler. There are only so many times you can see Navy Pier before it becomes really really boring. Needless to say, this time was well past one too many. For the last part of their day I hooked back up with Ben Henri's group on the Magnificent Mile. We spent the majority of the time in the Apple Store (no complaints there) playing the I Spy children's games.

Having people visit Chicago is by far my favorite thing about being here.

Thursday was back to the daily grind. Have to write another essay for my Prose Forms class. This one is about the history of my cabin with the slant that I'm interested in the story behind my inheritance. I need to call my Grandma and get the stories from her because she knows the story the most.

This week is the Taste of Chicago Festival. I went down there today and left fairly quickly because of the ridiculously large crowds. I will definitely be returning when my Mom comes down on Tuesday to spend some time with me.

Next weekend is the yearly bike trip from East Lansing, Michigan to West Branch, Michigan. It's about 150ish miles. We do it over three days. We ride from the Haslett Community Church to the Northwoods Boy Scout Reservation. We've been doing it now for about 4 years, and I haven't missed one yet.

Saw 1408 last night and it was good!

My mom sent me this article, and I laughed uproariously. Read it through and you will too...


And in other news my mentor, Mort Castle, has had his story "If You Take My Hand, My Son" performed by the AMFM Theater as part of their horror audio productions: "The Grist Mill." The production was awarded the Gold Ogle Award. The Award will be given at the CONvergence Convention in July. The Ogle was named for the actor who portrayed Frankenstein's Monster in the 1910 film Frankenstein.

Firefox has decided to stop acting up, which is nice. Now all I need to do is find my digital camera...

After a brief hiatus I'm back to update!

Last Friday I attempted to do the 70ish mile ride from Rogers Park to the Wisconsin border. It was the first time that I'd been on a bike in a really long time, and needless to say I was feeling very ambitious. I woke up early, had a bowl of cereal and was on the bike. My route was to follow the twisting and weaving paths of Sheridan all the way north. It's a beautiful route on the Lake Michigan Circle Tour. For the most part of the way north it was a fairly smooth ride. Then, just after Highland Park in a small town called Lake Forest, I blew a flat and it all went to hell in a handbasket. I ended up walking about 4 miles back from Lake Forest (who doesn't have a bike shop or a walmart) and then wandered around Highland Park till I found a shop. I replaced the tire, and was inflating it and it exploded. The tire was defective and popped like a gunshot when I put air in it. The second tire was fine, and then I hauled it the whole way home. Defeated but tan.

Then just two days ago I decided to go for another ride. This time down the Lake Front bike trail in Chicago. All went fairly well, until about 8 miles into the 40 mile ride (a little more manageable), I blew another flat and was forced to wander around until I found another shop (that took 2 hours). Then I did the rest of the ride. It was very excellent. I plan on using that trail as much as I can to commute to class every day. Good for the heart. There's this great church I found on the south side that looks like some monastary out on the edge of the lake. I didn't get a picture, but when I go back on Friday I'll make sure to snag one.

I went and saw Day Watch. A Russian film based off the book of the same name. It's the second in a large horror series called the Night Watch. Seeing the second in a series is thoroughly confusing. Russian films are even more so. There was a preview for a documentary called The Gypsy Caravan. I'm really excited for this film because I've been really into a lot of gyspy and gypsy sounding music lately.

Today I spent the day up in Evanston with Tricia Bobeda. She was editor of the school paper, The Longboat, while I was a senior. She's now going to school at Northwestern for (you guessed it) Journalism. We wandered around an art fair, and saw a show by many of the students at Northwestern. It makes me miss live shows and musical theater, and wish that I'd remember to get to one more often.

I think I figured out the way to tell Arthur's story. I've been struggling with the method. It's a good story, I just don't know quite where to start. It came to me while listening to Styx on the train home from Evanston. Just to keep it slim, I'm thinking it's going to be in a conversation between him and his sister. It piggybacks off methods used in Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian (which is a book I'm currently listening to now) and the TV show "How I Met Your Mother.

I need to go start laundry so I have something to wear tomorrow...

A friend mentioned to me this idea the other day. He was saying how every college needs its own super hero team. This is in reference to the Marvel Civil War (which was more like a civil dispute, but that's for another time). It's spring now, and that means running season, which also means I'm going to be listening to American Gods in a marathon-like manner, because it is a spectacular audiobook, and a great excuse to keep going (though i can already quote most of it). So when he said that every college should have its own super hero team I started thinking, well hell, every college should have its own pantheon of gods.

So I started writing it.

It's turned into a pretty interesting short story. There are different factions within the gods. The sports gods, and the Greek (more like patron saints of the fraternities), there is the God of Beer, and there is the God of Good Grades, and then there is a demi-god (very Loki-esque) called the Procrastinator, who leaches off the worship of other gods, and is the arch-nemesis of Grades.

Right now I am working on a conversation between Grades and Beer. It seems that the sports gods are rather unsettled by the fact that Beer (who is the greatest of all the college gods (think about it)) is knuckling in on their territory with the advent of Beerpong.

I've got some friends coming down tomorrow to spend the weekend with me. We're gonna hit up a John Vanderslice concert (hopefully). I've got a ton of homework that I need to do, that I'm not doing... Figures that this is going to happen with the end of the semester.

If you're reading this, go check out the comic book, The Damned: Three Days Dead. It's a crime-noir set in the 20s with demons. Pretty good stuff.

Trying to finish the Hero vs Mr. X, the first novella in the book I'm writing called "Hero of the Second City." If I stick with it, I should have the first draft hammered out by the end of April, willing to push it into May if I need to because of homework...evil evil homework.

~Nathan

PS: Was searching around the internet when I should be working and stumbled across...

How bout dem apples?