I had fun in Granville. Made it back to my place with little to no problems. But, really, once I made it back I hoped on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. If the truth must be told, I am not suprised. Due to extreme fault in my own personality I am prone to this sort of thing. I'm suprised it doesn't happen more often. First I left my phone charger in the Buxton Inn (America's most haunted inn). Which was okay because I had a spare charger in my truck. A friend of mine had packed the truck somewhere close to my place but I couldn't find it in the dark on Saturday night. I couldn't call her to ask her because my phone was dead. And I couldn't charage it because the charager was in Ohio. And so on. I wrote her an emai and called it a night. The following morning (Easter) I got up. Found my truck, found that it had no spare charager. Went to a show, alone, because I couldn't call anyone. Struck the show, watched UK lose over dinner then went to go hang another show. Again, alone. Got really angry at the space and off loop theatre in general. Mainly edision houses and clip lights. Came home, breaks were failing on my truck. Almost got myself killed. Blowing stop signs and all of that. Chris did not come home so I could not use his phone, I offically did not even call my mother on Easter. I am offically out of the will. Slept. Dropped my truck off at the auto place that I live above. Went to a meeting at Columbia. I now know linesets. Got invited to another meeting. Missed it because of the CTA, couldn't call to say I was running late. Went to lunch. Struck some lights and got dropped off up north. Was many hours late to the space and without my truck to pick up the ice cream cart for the show like I said I could. On the bright side tech went well. Took the train/bus home. Bus was slow, as always. Got a phone charger, checked my messages. Truck done. Hot. Working at the Court at ten. Good to know. Need to get ice cream cart. Possible. Got my truck back this morning, bought things I need for tech tonight, obtained ice cream cart. Chris went to the theatre this morning, enjoyed himself. My phone is working and I'm chillin' in the booth at The Court. I think I'm offically off of the ride.

So after the first night of tech, I will admit I am feeling notably better about my chosen profession.

I had a fantastic time last night. Fell in love with two girls. At the same time. As a pair. Instantly. Seriously thought about transfering to Dennison University. And by seriously I mean the fifth glass of wine and knowing (for a fact) that I was going back to Chicago the following day. I will say that I like parties (big and small) and I like drinking. And I don't so much mind meeting new people and calling them friends. It might be true that I don't want to grow up.

Maybe it is an age thing with Molly and Kristina, and maybe it's just the cultural devide (we do know in the morning we have to work together), but I want to go out, sit around, drink. I couldn't have imigined them liking the "bar" that I went to on Monday night. Though I'm sure that both of them have had similar experiences in life. I did have a really great talk with Molly the night before last, chatting at the bar about cause and effect, the nature of the universe. That woman is lives her life in a way I can only imigine. And, in my imigination, it's a really beautiful way.

What the fuck kind of friends do I have that they'll take my soap and flush it down the toliet? Thanks, asshole.

Damp ground, damp town today. Reminding me of spring. Good feeling, spring. Rebirth and all of that. The same story we've always known, but just been afraid to say. I don't think there is such a things as forever and ever, amen.

Anusha was right, the place was swarming with police in ten minutes. That's crazy. Even for my home town standards of Normal, Illinois that's crazy. We're not in Normal anymore, Toto. Midwest, though, for sure. But, before that, the placed was packed. Packed. If you can believe it. Which, I suppose I can. I played some "Guess the Townie" and I was straight up off. The. Hook. (I don't know what I mean by that.)

But it's really the same shit on a different day, in a slightly different way. With different faces and different places. And I was to thumb my Chicago nose at them, but all Chicago has is slightly better DJs, better lighting equipment (that they don't use any better), and more aggressive lesbians. It's the same high school ritual that I remember, just with booze to make us feel like we did back then, before we had been hurt, when loving was easy.

Had a dream last night in which a cop asked me for a cigarette. Told me he assumed I smoke because I hadn't shaved in a couple of days. I told him that I had forgotten my razor at home (though I certainly was in a large city). He said, "Ah, twenty five," to me while nodding sagely. I believed him for a moment before my conscious mind reminded me of my age and woke me up.

I feel really capable, in that three-year-old sloppy sort of way.

Have you ever noticed that it's really easy to walk somewhere when you have no idea where it is or how far away it is? I have.

Spent most of the afternoon with Michelle of NIU fame today. She had bailed on Illinois around a year or so ago and made her way to Columbus to kick it old skool with another Josh that she claims as her own. A Josh to which I am "Tall Josh." With people like Weidner and Kentuck in my life I wonder at the wisdom of this. We walked all around this Granville. This Ohio ideallic, Norman Rockwell sort of village. Cute, sure, quaint. Nothing I'm wholly interested in. Summers, maybe, for a BBQ. The privacy of coming home. Of truly coming home. There is a bit of the farm in me. But the city calls and calls and calls.

But Michelle is doing alright. Getting sick of J Crew (god bless) and getting sick of just getting by. Looking for grad school. Looking to move on. To move up. Talking about the old days, the new days, the new people and the new ways. I'm a hippie and she wears blazers. I still don't have a pair of jeans. She hasn't taken class in months. Bittersweet is the word that I'll use. No huge emotional upheavals, but what does it matter? The simple colloquial interaction is more than I could ask for most of my life. More than I could ask for anything or anyone. I miss her in that simple way that doesn't destroy that which I'm missing with useless longing. I miss her the way that I miss JR, the way that I miss Emily Jane. And maybe it's too easy for me, maybe I should rail and rage. But I do not know towards what end. I hope she goes to Columbia. Finds her way to Chicago. But, either way, I hope she is happy all of the days of her life.

I want to conclude something. Have little to say, though, in the way of conclusions. I could say I want to find more friendships like this and mean it, but they are forged in time and usually the sort of people that leave you, or you leave them. Just enough to know that you can't hold each other.

I had a dream last night in which I was beating someone's head in with a spoon. Two of that person, actually. They were clones or something. I had felt immideatly threatened by them. I was at a party. I took one out somehow, and the second I took down in the middle of the party and literally beat him about the back of the head with a spoon until his skull cracked open. At which point part of me thought that should do it, but another part of me, the part of me still terrified, continued to smash the gray matter I found inside. Smash the skull compleatly appart. This is the same histerical part of me that shouted at friends of mine, "Is he dead? Check, make sure he's dead. Is he dead?" I was stumbling away at this point, still holding the spoon lightly in my hand. They assured me it was true, it had happened, he was dead. I didn't believe them, though, and, sure enough, later this same man (men) came to me and said, "Tonight, it'll happen tonight." I had hope, of course, to possibly beat him again, and this time cut his parts appart and bury them, but what followed I was not to know.

I know I'm not ready to go to Ohio today. But I'm going anyway. I'm sure I had similar feelings on the day I was born.

While I'm aware I'm not very far from where I came from, I'm going to put it out there that I think I could make a go of it pretty much anywhere considered the 'western world.' I mean, I am a westerner. More specifically, an American. Which I know gives me certian advantages. I'm also young and white and male and so on. Privileges just dripping from my cock. Dripping all over everyone I find. Everywhere. But, for the most part, everywhere I go it seems mostly the same. Different, of course, but the same. "What do you think is out there, Steveo? It's just more buildings and more people."

Happy Birthday, Kelli O'Toole!

I have finally reached that point in my career where I have used my multi tool to cut up food.

It's like the whole world has just opened it's loving arms up to me. Full and wide and lucious. I am fucking online in the fucking booth.

They tell me it's a Friday, which I believe. But I'm told that Fridays are the end of the week. Which I'm not so sure on. The whole idea of week I'm not so sure on. What makes a week? This arbitrary system of days. Five in a row then two off. Step, step. Left, right, left. I defy thee, stars. I defy this system of week, finding it weak (and making a bad pun). I am young, I suppose, and strong enough, I guess. I can rest later. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. It shall be done. Press on, press on. Class this morning. Afternoon at the Court. Evening with Mad Shak. Meeting post performance canceled due to crazy bitches. Old friends and billiards at the pub. Sodomy and random online girls with the roommate. Tomorrow's a full day of tech. Eat that, conventional living.

Happy Birthday, Chris Wright!

Had a dream last night in which I could recognize and read my grandfather's handwriting. Granted it only said his and my grandmother's name, but I'm pretty sure it was clear to me. It was written on the back of a painting that had a little hold neatly burned into it. This was somehow important.

Saw the dawn this morning. Kinda crazy right now.

Still freaking out. Grand opening of CJ's Bar and Grill tonight. Hopefully the rum will soothe me. And a tasty BJ sure wouldn't hurt.

It is the overwheling choice that is choaking me. This is the price of freedom.

I had a dream last night that Billy Joel was on Canadan money. I think it was the toonie. It was a profile and he had a handlebar mustash and a mullet.

Happy Birthday, Laura Tennal!

Happy Birthday, Todd Presson!

God, fuckin' everything just blew up in my face. I should have stayed in Montréal.

I've gotta tell you something about that Jeri's Grill. And that thing is that it's awsome.

Of course I missed you. What else would you think? Damn, I'm hung over.

Fuck, I get back into the country and head out for a full fourteen hours. Well, way to hit the ground running. Welcome back, Josh.

That thrice cursed alarm. It's like living in the dorms, except without the familiarity.

Show last, eh? Here I am, a stranger in a strange land. There is nothing keeping me here. I am homeward bound.

I fucking hate everything. Especially love.

I suppose you may be right. Sisyphus is bascially a happy man.

When the sound of someone's voice becomes more important than the message contained therein, you know that your feelings for that person exceed the norm.

I had a dream last night that there was a pharmacy across the street from the hotel. This morning at breakfast I spilled yogert on my crotch. I suppose all is well.

Snowing again today. Rather serious this time.

Their work-in-progress home and the things in it -- four televisions sets, including a big-screen TV in the living room; the latest and best video game systems for the boys; Amstel and Heineken beer in the fridge; a computer and printer for the brother, purchased so he "could do his projects," as though that were all it would take -- spoke to a certain sort of social ambition and what is arguably a lack of the most precious resource of all, time.

-Christie Blatchford; The Globe and Mail

Alright, however good of an idea it might be to put a towel in the microwave, be aware, it might catch on fire.

The internet knows I'm in Canada.

Flew in today. Tired. Ears kinda crazy, first time that's really happened. It's early, late, though, too. Finishing updating the plot and then onward, tomorrow. Nervious, of course, I suppose.

The story, as it goes, is nothing that anyone would ever believe. As fantastical as some stories get, flying men with tights and x-ray vision, there are some that we still never would really swallow.

So I get home tonight (and how wonderful that feels, just to think about: Home) and I turn up the heat and I'm putting away the shampoo and soap that I obtained towards the end of taking a shower tomorrow morning. It is around this time that I realize I don't have any towels.

I get up this morning to go to a meeting that wasn't happening. I am unable to call Kristin because my phone is out of service. I am late for work because I left things at home when I left this morning. At this moment I am tired in the theatre waiting for something that isn't going to happen. Fuckin' shit, man, bad ~~mojo~~ juju.

Got keys to my new place today. Going to be living in a room with Chris again and I must say I'm looking forward to it. CJ's Bar and Grill II. Many thanks to Margaret, Kristin and Josh for putting up with me the past couple of months.

Crazy-ass dreams last night. Something to do with cutting the throats of people. Me arguing with someone how hard you need to push, holding heads in my arms while I drew out their life. Blood, by the way, everywhere. All over the dream. Yikes. For sure.

Fuckin' shitballs. What do I do today? What do I do at all? I have just woken up from a nap. I wanted to go see Chicago Dance Crash today, tonight, whatever, whenever. At eight. I had finished building this catapult, not even finished it, but ran out of time, really. I was tired. Why? It couldn't be the wine, I've drank red, red wine before. I've slept in before. I've had full days. I am used to full days. Full ways. Full things. Empty bottles of wine. Empty bottles of rum. Inverse relationships. I ran away, you know? I came back, too, you know. "Forgot my name, of course, but you started to remember." And I'm torn, torn, torn. Asunder. I am off balance. Falling, calling. It seems coherence is beyond me. Well beyond all things.

I took a nap. I just woke up, a little bit ago. I missed the show. It's not like me. It's not how I want to be. I want to go to the show. And it's not a matter of free time, not these days. Not when gray January bleeds into February and I am Canada bound. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to stay. I don't want to leave this place, but I want to find my niche out of the cold, bury my nuts for the winter. Dig them up when I am hungry again. Find my stride, forget my naps, see my shows. Breathe deep. Breathe deep. You are going home, you are going home.

I am entering a green period in my life.

Lazy day today. Stayed up all night last night. All night. Was easily eight or nine this morning before I finally went to sleep. Slept the afternoon away. Didn't do much else. Wondering about the reason for life. But what else is new?

I might have found a place to live. What is this feeling inside me?

The holes in my shirt
Telling a story
As old as time
As I never could
As silent as a mime
As I never would

It smells like old smoke
Reminding me of
Last night
Last week
One beer too many
Waking up on the floor

There is always a blanket
Covering that stained shirt
My stained body as well
Before my memories I knelt
And I never could tell
Quite how I felt

Dreams last night about looking for a place. Strange cab rides and a gay door man. Didn't get the place, though. Bad sign?

While it is still true that I have never really lost a wallet, it seems highly possible that I could be losing my mind.

Really, when it comes right down to it, I have a pretty ridiculous nickname.

I was out shopping today. Mostly looking for pants, on account of me not having any. Noticed a couple of things. Americans are fat. Fat fat fat. Goddamn. Fuckin' 42x30 pants! What the hell, fatty? I enjoy a good burger from time to time. Shit. Also, I had been looking at my knees in the dressing rooms. There seems something odd about them, about the musculature. Haven't really looked at them in a long while, so I can't really say if it's been that way for a while or what. Kinda weird.

Strange, I think, that I have all of these things to say until I suddenly have the time to say them. To do them, to move throughout them. To actually see what words I will dance with today. Then no words come, no sound can be heard except the unrhythmic tapping of my foot. Tapping to the beat of a different drummer, (if I may mix my metaphors) mine.

So I suppose I am beginning another chapter in my situation here. Another verse. Not the same as the first or the second or even the third (if there has been a third). I lost my clothes yesterday. Today, right now, you see me as I am. As all I can be. The nicest of the clothing that I have on, the only thing that I have to wear. My choice is somewhat limited. My situation grim. I would kick myself, if only I knew how. Fight myself, maybe, but I think I am doing that already.

I'm told you do it to yourself, and that's what really hurts. And it's true enough, I do do it to myself. But what really hurts is that cold Chicago air blowing from god-knows-where ripping though your clothes. Sitting and staring and not knowing where to go. I don't want to kick my feet up, I don't want this break here, though I do know how to spend my days. I want to work, to work, to work. To recover from this, to hope past this. But the only option for me now is to dwell in this. Rot for a bit and hope that maybe tomorrow I can hope.

I'm way past learning here, and that sucks. I'm putting a bad end to this. An exhausted end. I'm adding a terror to my life that I haven't known before. I heard water spilling this morning. I heard it, deep within sleep, and I knew it was close. And I snapped up, awake, ready to fight, to run, to die, anything, anything, anything but water spilled on me. Deep down I knew there is no recovery from that. That once this shirt gets wet there is no other shirt to wear. I have systemically made my greatest fears come true. What could possibly scare me after this?

You know what I miss most about home? About having a home? Blankets. My blankets. My black comforter that Buster ate. The blue one with stars on it that my mother gave me. The brown one with a horse that I'm sure my father bought before I was born. The two yellow ones, the one that's good for taking a nap while you're still wearing your shoes. I don't miss my bed, that false comfort. I don't miss the couches or the televison or closet full of clothes. I miss the blankets.

Fucking Falcons. Fucking Steelers.

Home to me is slippers. Is the absence of cold floors, of cold feet, of cold anything. Home is warm. Home is comfort. Home is the absence of stuggle. Surrender while being safe. Home is forgetting and absent mindedness not being punished hard and swift. Home is getting away and knowing there is somewhere to get back to. Leaving your work out. Putting your things away.

Went out to dinner at Buca's last night. Kentuck and Rachel and Daniela. A little bit of the old and a little bit of the new. After dinner a party at Kay's and then a slumber party at Josh's. All in all, a good time. Interesting, I think, when you know that you're at the beginning of something. Whatever that something may be. I felt this the first time I went out drinking with the Columbia electricans back in the day. I think I even felt it at my first Magic night. Tingles, all over.

Went to go see The Cherry Orchard tonight. Of Chekhov fame. It's an interesting show. B. Shaw was right about Chekhov, about the kind of theatre he was trying to make. And he made it, for sure, with this one. He was dying, it was his last show, and it is about nothing, really. Seinfeld has nothing on this guy. In and out the characters move, all having their moments. All feeling, all hurting. And you wonder why I don't consider it a comedy? Because in the end the thing that really moves throughout is the pain. Very few people feel joy. Yasha who is a fucking tool however you look at it. Lopahin whose victory is bittersweet, who fails to ask Varya to marry him, who gains the whole world, perhaps, but looses his soul, perhaps.

Still, though, in all living there is some joy, some laughter. "Come back here, you wild woman. I am in love with you." Amazing. Funny beyond belief.

This production, though, this event, I would say is excessive. The projections did nothing (nothing, you hear me?) that would justify having so many. So much. And these rooms, where characters would be, somehow, not really on stage but not really off, either. Fuck that noise. Money, it seems, can easily ruin a good theatre experience. The huge white wall, good. The pictures on the wall, good. The cue for Lyubov looking into the orchard, good. It is a subtle world that we live in. That they live in. Why add all these frills? Just because you can? If I had a knife I could cut you, but I wouldn't do it simply because it was possible.

TROFIMOV:

Your father was a peasant, mine was a chemist--and that proves absolutely nothing. [LOPAHIN takes out his pocketbook] Stop that--stop that. If you were to offer me two hundred thousand I wouldn't take it. I am an independent man, and everything that all of you, rich and poor alike, prize so highly and hold so dear, hasn't the slightet power over me--it's like so much fluff flutter in the air. I can get on without you. I can pass by you. I am strong and proud. Humanity is advancing towards the highest truth, the highest happiness which is possible on earth, and I am in the front ranks.

One good thing that I've decovered about this cold: Free parking at meters. Though I would gladly pay fifty dollars for sixty degree weather today.

Still really fucking cold out.

So yesterday I walk into the theatre at about eight in the morning and I'm well. It's fucking freezing in the place all day. I walk out at eleven in the evening and I'm sick. Goddammit.

Happy Birthday, Bret Swanson!

Slept in my truck last night. My own foolish pride and all of that. Still looking for a place. Still is looking, still is looking. Disillusioned? A bit. Other feelings that I can't quite name.

Sometimes it hurts. So much. To have the ones you love.

My shoes are rusting. Huh, I never thought I would say that.

	FIRS:	In the old days, fourty or fifty years ago, they used to dry the cherries, soak them, pickle them, make jam too, and they used--

	GAEV:	Be quiet, Firs.

	FIRS:	And they used to send the preserved cherries to Moscow and to Harkov by the wagon-load. That brought the money in! And the preserved cherries in those days were soft and juicy, sweet and fragrant . . . They knew the way to do them . . .

	LYUBOV:	And where is the recipe now?
	FIRS:	It's forgotten. Nobody remembers it.

Boy it was one fuckin' lonely ride over here.

I've found that when everything is in transition in life, you don't get too attached to anything. You don't feel the same nostalgia when things change. You perhaps miss the old way every now and again, but a certain stoicism sets in. You accept the changes for what they are and deal with them.

Being raised in America I believe I have a very American view on history. I believe that things have been bad (worse) in the past and now they are better. That things are getting better. Right now. As we speak. But then again, I saw in my lifetime the end of the Cold War, the knocking down of the Berlin wall, and almost a decade of peace and prosperity. I suppose it's really easy to believe that things are getting better when all of that is going on. I've also seen in my lifetime the rise of the War on Terror, the creation of the Office of Homeland Security, the reelection of our president. On a personal level I don't have any kind of insurance, I have arthritis, a bum foot and so on. Yet, still, I try to force this progressive narrative onto my life. Things are of course better now then they were before. They will keep getting better. Well, if the truth must be told, I'm very happy now. Even with the uncertainty and the constant changes. Happy. I'm looking forward to having a home. Looking forward to taking Eye Cycle to Canada. Looking forward to remaking myself into the person I want to be. But does that imply better? Or just different? It's funny, but without nostalgia it's harder to say.

I don't want to run away from anything. I want to run towards it. Rip my shirt off, grab your wrist, and run heedless towards the future. Run towards what dreams may come. Towards the comedy and the tragedy. The pain and the joy, the tears and the smiles. I don't need to run from what I've known to find freedom, I don't need anything to hold me, though I wouldn't mind being held. I wouldn't mind holding you.

Lazy day today. Lunch at SLC. Dinner at Pick Me Up. Tech. Went well. Show looks good. Been kinda slacking on my responsibilities. Blame Laura, mostly. Blame myself, too. Not really a big deal, though. Will overcome. Will prevail. Have a real weekend this time. First one in months. Not really used to it. Not really sure what to do. I suppose I'd say at home and watch some movies or something, but that's not so much of an option. The key to being a transient, I think, is to keep moving. Stopping is what chokes you. Stopping is what makes you wonder why you have no where to go.

So I've just dumped a bunch of snow on everything I own in life.

I tell you what, there's nothing like going to a theatre and finding that it has no power. Means you can't do a lot when it comes to you dealing with lights. That need power.

Hit the ground running here in the city by the lake. Been working on a show for Experimental Theatre Chicago, opens this weekend. Looks pretty alright after the first night of tech last night. Big thanks to Kristin, without which nothing would have happened. And by nothing I mean the show. There would be no show. Have done this one before, The Bald Soprano at the Classic Studio, of Columbia fame. Turns out the last two cues of this production (in Stage Left Theatre) look a lot like the last two cues of the previous show. Shock and awe, I'm sure. But tech was fun last night, not too stressful, not too bad. Happyily, everything, really. Lots of happy going on. I love the theatre. So bad it hurts. Hurts.