RandomCha

I JUST FINISHED THE NEW DRAFT OF THE NOVEL! 46K words!

Why don’t I feel like celebrating?

I sort of have a plan. My grandmother wants me to come visit for a few days in June. So what I’m thinking is, I’ll fly to Denver on a Thursday and rent a car. Spend a couple days there and see my folks too. Then Saturday morning I’ll head south and drive down to Ranchos de Taos in New Mexico (it’s about a five-and-a-half hour drive) to see my friend Rob. He lives out there kind of in the middle of nowhere. Hang out in the desert for a few days. Then on Tuesday morning we’ll drive into Albuquerque. I lived there for about five years when I was growing up, 1978-1983. The MTV years, the cable TV years, the “Dallas” and “Tron” and birthday-parties-at-McDonald’s years. I haven’t visited since 1987. We’ll drive around Albuquerque for the day, hopefully have lunch at La Salida, and then that evening I’ll drop off the rental car and catch a flight back to Chicago.

It sounds exhausting in a way even just describing it. But fun. What do you think?

Wow. Lusia Strus. Her show last night. At the Neo-Futurarium. Brilliant. Flawless. And that was the last performance. This woman amazes me still.

I did not go to Neo-Solo last night. No, I was feeling lazy. Then I realized it was 4/20. So I rented “SNL: Best of Christopher Walken” and celebrated accordingly.

Tonight is dinner at T’s to bid Bon Voyage to Ben & Josh.

Right now I’m reading “Hegemony or Survival” by Noam Chomsky. Man is it heavy. But good. It was published in 2003. So 1/3 of what he wrote is now out of date, 1/3 is actually still going on, and 1/3 is ABOUT to happen. Political prescience is almost never good news. Lamely predictable, regrettable, frightening.

I think I may go see Neo-Solo at the Neo-Futurarium tonight. Andy is deep in final paper hell.

Well, I’m now only ten pages away from being able to start on a new draft of the novel.

And then, I swear, it’s time to get this bad boy out there.

(from thejeremyshow.com):

“I love celebrities. I really do. Can’t get enough. Oprah says that worshipping celebrities is dangerous because it takes you off your path to becoming your authentic self. Of course, she says this on television speaking to millions of viewers from her white leather couch.”

It was six years ago today that I told Zach that “something happened” while he was away in Kansas for work, something between me and this guy I had met online name Andy. That was the moment when I faced up to things and took responsibility for my actions, when I committed to seeing where things might lead with Andy. I had no idea what would happen, and certainly Andy didn’t either. I just knew I had to try, had to move forward into a scary uncertain place. Zach was probably the hottest, most devoted guy I had ever been with. The sex was mind-blowing (I admit to fantasizing about it, even years later) and he never stopped thinking about my feelings and needs and how to make me happy. Yet there was something I saw in Andy. I didn’t want to miss it. You could say I was crazy, or selfish maybe.

After all these years, Zach and I are still friends (he’s a staff producer for ABC News in NYC now and he’s the one who turned me onto “Lost”) and Andy and I are still together. I don’t know about destiny; I don’t think I believe in it when it comes to love. I think love is what you make it. It’s what two people build together. In the beginning it’s based on passion and emotion. But in order to stay alive, it has to become something else. Steadfast, constant. A perpetual motion. Love must become ACTION. Even on the days you don’t FEEL it.

It’s not that we never run out of things to stay. It’s that we never run out.

What you should learn from all this, what should make you feel hopeful and optimistic, is that no matter what you think, you can never predict where things are going to go.

I love you Andy.

It is a civil war.

Why can’t we impeach the bastard and fire everyone else? It’s hard to think of a period of our nation’s history when things have been so completely fucked up.

In Crain’s Chicago Business this week there’s a story about the empty parcel of land at Broadway/Wellington where there Dominick’s used to be. You know, before it burned down last year. Turns out the Dominick family owns the land but at present does not wish to sell the land to Dominick’s Inc., the actual grocery store business, so that it can be rebuilt. They (Dominick’s Inc.) WANTS to rebuild. But there’s speculation the family is holding out for a potentially-very-lucrative offer along the lines of a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. But they also haven’t ruled out selling the land to a condo developer (!) Because, yes, WE NEED MORE CONDOS IN LAKEVIEW! WE NEED MORE DOUBLE-WIDE STROLLERS CLOGGING THE SIDEWALKS and WE NEED MORE FACELESS, UGLY HIGH-RISE ARCHITECTURE! After all, there are already other grocery stores several agonizing blocks away … certainly NO PROBLEM for anyone without an SUV.

Alderman Tom Tunney is taking a hard-line stance against any residential developement on the site, at least according to the article. He wants a grocery store rebuilt, and he wants it to fit in with the prevalent low-rise structures on Broadway.

The bottom line is it’s gonnna at least be another year before anything happens. And so, Andy and I will continue using peapod.com