Chicago is the single most bipolar place I've ever been in. In the winter it blows terribly. It's always gray. People walk around with their heads down, angry at everything, at the world, at you. No one is polite. It's dismal. During the summer it's the opposite. People come out in droves to exercise. They are friendly and excitable. It's almost too much for one to handle.

I went for a walk today from the corner of Chicago and State, out to the Lake and then all the way back south to Michigan and 8th. As I did I had a hard time remembering what exactly it was that I disliked about the city. It was beautiful and warm. I especially love seeing when all the boats are out in the harbor. The countless jolly rogers blowing in the wind along side the different flags for other yacht clubs.

Today has been mostly a homeworking day. Lots of catching up from my weekend at home for Ben and Kate's wedding. I did about twenty pages today. 10 of which I feel good about. The rest is just schlock I'm turning in for a grade. After a while that tends to be what happens. You do things, if only for a grade.

I'm starting to get through chapter two of The Center, and except for some minor changes, which I'll make later, I'm feeling really positive about the direction its going. It drives my teachers nuts when they start asking questions about things in it, and I can only respond with "I don't know." I know it's kind of a cheap excuse to say that, but it's also nice being completely baggage free while writing. If it's going to happen, it going to happen, if it's supposed to happen some way, it will, and if not, oh well, something else will happen. He's about to get some major payback against the guy who killed his wife. I get the feeling that it's going to take a sacrifice to achieve it. And then maybe I can actually start getting him West.

I ended up dropping one of my two classes after sitting through an hour of it. I thought it was just a general communications class, but it turned out to be a civil rights communication class. I know I sound like a racist jerk, but I'm fed up of hearing about civil rights. I'm tired of being belittled for being a white middle class male. I'm a firm believer that diversity is the biggest detriment to equality. And now I'm stepping down off my soapbox before rotten fruit gets tossed my way.

So as a result of dropping that class I had a four hour period with which to waste time. I was (for once) able to go out and actually enjoy a bit of this summer weather that Chicago boasts. I walked down to Buckingham Fountain and smoked my pipe with some fresh 50th Anniversary Blend from Campbell's Smoke Shop. I went down to the lake front and watched the sailboats for a while, and then, finishing my pipe, I walked back to the South Campus building. It's funny to me how many people stop to point at you for smoking a pipe. I know that it is becoming a rare sight, especially in today's youth (my generation), but I just think it tastes better, looks classier, and smells amazing.

I now have only one class this semester, Prose Forms. It's with my Fiction 2 Teacher, Lila Jokanovich (I think i brutalized her name (sorry)). I wasn't a big fan of her at the start of last semester, but she really grew on me. It was more of me growing and learning not to be such a self righteous jerk, and realize that, yes, in fact, she can teach me things. The class is off to a good start, but the work load is going to be nothing short of exhausting. That coupled with a tutoring session twice a week.

Lila, my teacher, really enjoyed what I sent her of the center, and is pouring over it, trying to figure out what part to submit to try and get it into Hair Trigger. HT is the fiction dept's anthology published every year of student work selected by the teachers, and then edited by a specific class. I feel like this time I really have a few things to run with. The Center that I gave to Lila I feel really strongly about. And surprisingly my essay from CRW Novelists (a class I took in the spring) also has been submitted. Shawn Shiflett usually doesn't submit stuff from CRW classes, and said that my essay was one of the first things he has submitted in a while. Enough tooting my own horn.

Tomorrow is comic day! I hope it isn't another quiet week. From what my friend Mike was saying tonight at Bar Louie's is that he thinks it is going to be. The only title coming out that is worth noting is The Spirit #6.

Almost finished with the 2nd of the Dark Tower Cycle. Expect a review for The Gunslinger in a few days.

I finished the majority of my moving in today. It was a whole lot of pushing piles in circles. I'd move a couple things where they should be, tuck a few other things away, and the pile would rotate in another circle. It is mostly frustrating. Packing is far easier than unpacking. Especially when you have more space.

I sent Mort Castle the first chapter of the Center. I finished it a couple days ago. It was one of the easiest chapters yet. I'm writing it with the mentality that I am going to just toss a page break when it gets boring, and keep it moving nonstop. Growing constantly to action and to intensity. Maybe I'll send it out to the F Magazine Novel and Short Story Contest. I need to get more things out anyways.

It takes me nearly an hour to commute from my apartment to Columbia. This gives me a lot of time to read. I also have a feeling that I am going to be putting a lot of miles on my iPod over the next year. I'm nearly a third of the way through the second book of The Dark Tower (The Drawing of the Three). I'm hoping to finish that book this week. I'm also hammering my way through the 22 disk epic of the Historian. It is very good. Everything the Da Vinci code should've been, and more. And it's about Vlad Tepes, the Impaler, or more importantly, Dracula.

Class starts tomorrow. I'm taking "The Fundamentals of Communication," and "Prose Forms." There are only 5 people in my prose forms class. This is both a blessing and a curse. I've got 2 days that I am going to want to miss. One is next tuesday because I turn 21. The other is the thursday afterwards because it is a few days before Ben Logan's wedding. If I've got the skips I'm going to use them. Life is just more important than the 12th floor.