364 Days Later

October 16th, 2005. One year ago, today.

On that day -- a summer-like Sunday in early fall -- I went with a huge group to hike through the fall colors at Starved Rock. The group was so big it would have been impossible to know everyone there. However, about twenty minutes into the hike, I couldn't help but notice that this attractive woman -- we'll call her "Sheryl" -- was hiking close to me and, when we stopped early on to take a full group picture, put her hand on my wrist.

We spent the rest of the day talking and flirting and getting to know one another. By the end of the day, we were sitting next to one another at dinner and enjoying a delightful meal. I asked her out at the end of the hike, and we went out to lunch that Thursday. We had a good time, and she asks me to go to Great America with her and her friends. I, of course, say, "Hell yes!"

The Thursday before we go to Great America, we meet for dinner. Then decide to see a movie. We're making out in the theatre by the end of the movie. And holding hands and playing grabass the whole way to her train.

Safe to say I was looking forward to this trip. Hand job while on the free-fall ride, anyone?

Until the trip came, that is. Sheryl was strangely distant the entire time and I could tell something was very wrong. The shoe dropped the next week, when she said that had met someone else and wanted to see him, but wasn't sure that I might not be right for her, so we should stay friends and see what happens. Incidentally, she also asked if she have her cake and eat it, too.

This send me for a bit of a spin, but in about two weeks, I was back on my feet. A guy from Australia was having a good-bye party. This was really my first time out since Sheryl dumped me, and I was soon right in the thick of things. At the end of the night, I'm making out with "Raven" -- a bespectacled, dark-haired woman with an amazing tongue -- on the corner during a snowfall. Wondering what happened with this? Read "The World's Longest Bad First Date" below.

This ended in early December. Needless to say, after two straight romances that ended after a two weeks, I've been better. I pretty much spent a month playing World of Warcraft (Togg, 60 Horde Rogue, Kirin Tor) and not going out.

I left my apartment for New Year's Eve. Ironically, Raven's new boyfriend was there, and I had zero desire to have anything to do with him. In an attempt to stay away from him as much as anything else, I wind up spending the entire night with Bosco, Ankles, and Lizzidi. Thus, pretty much initiating the friendships that would pull me out of my self-imposed exile.

My slow build to humanity was capped in late June when I went with the three of them to the MS150 ride in Western Illinois.

The next week, the second act of Raven took place.

However, this time I had my friends to keep me in the real world and not disappear back into hiding.

In late July, I went on a camping trip. The Attendees were Carl and Chris, Jenni Headphones, Raven's now ex-new-boyfriend, and a woman named Adele, whom I vaguely remembered meeting her at the hike the year before.

We went climbing the next day. She was a little better than me, and was teaching me what to do. The chemistry was obvious. A week later, we went kayaking down the Chicago River -- lovely smell. Three months later, we're still dating.

Over the weekend, we went on another camping trip. Then, after we got back, we went to her place. At the exact conclusion of the year after I first met her -- and so much other chaos started -- at a hike through the fall colors at Starved Rock.

He was also sent to bed without dessert

At this point, everyone who follows football has seen the footage and has been thoroughly shocked by it. I'm speaking, of course, of Dallas Cowboy's lineman Andre Gurode's vicious and unprovoked headbutt to Tennessee Titan's lineman Albert "Stompy" Haynesworth's cleats. Gurode was so determined to cause serious damage to said cleats that he temporarily forgot that he wasn't wearing a helmet and opened up two cuts on his face near his eye that required thirty stitches to close and left him with blurry vision.

Unbelievably, the NFL punished Stompy for this, handing down a five game suspension for his conduct. As every articlue discussing it is pointing out, this was the longest suspension in history for an on-field incident.

How fair is this? Stompy was already upset because the Cowboys had just scored -- I mean, really, who would think you'd get scored on in a football game? -- and then has his cleats bloodied, and he now has to serve a suspension.

Stompy is just lucky that Gurode didn't put out his eye or it might have been a seven game suspension. If, God forbid, Gurode had killed himself, it would have been ten.

Why is Gurode still allowed anywhere near a football field? Attacking defenseless cleats like that just can't be allowed in this league. Gurode needs to be in a rubber room getting happy juice pumped into his system twice a day, not out where he can damage the equipment that has been honed and developed painstakingly over decades to make athletes the best they can be.

And, please NFL, let Stompy back out there. Lord knows he's a stand up guy and a credit to your league.

Wow! 3 posts in 2 days

Talking about Nicole and "Children of Eden" made me remember this Letterman "Top Ten" list I created for it. Needless to say, most of these things really happened. Including the director telling the cast, "We don't have the rights yet, so I need everyone to go home and pray tonight."

The top 10 ways you know you’re working on the worst musical ever made.

10) The strategy for acquiring the rights: “Start praying.”
9) Your female lead isn’t allowed to kiss your male lead because “19 is too young to be kissing.”
8) The cast mumbles its lines 3 days before opening.
7) The wooden giraffe is more life-like than your male lead.
6) The Assistant Director crushes the Choreographer’s leg with a ladder.
5) Wondering if the cast will “accidentally” set the Assistant Musical Director on fire is the most suspenseful part of the night.
4) Notes take an hour and a half.
3) The director tells the cast: “Miracles have been known to happen in one day, let alone two.”
2) The director doesn’t see a problem with telling the cast: “Miracles have been known to happen in one day, let alone two.”
1) The Assistant Director relieves boredom by coming up with the top 10 ways you know you’re working on the worst musical ever made.

Congratulations Michael and Nicole

My friend Nicole -- who can be found to the right under "Places means places" -- called me this morning to tell me that she and her husband Michael are expecting their second baby.

I met Nicole working on the second show I ever did -- a rather ordinary version of "The Cherry Orchard" -- but we really bonded while doing "Children of Eden" a few months later. "Children" was one of the most miserable experiences of my two years in theatre -- the play is a story adapted from the bible which is, at it's heart, about family conflict. The director, however, was a born again Christian who was determined to shoehorn it into her own beliefs and make it a conversion piece. My amazing friendship with Nicole really started because we spent 90% of our time in rehearsals mocking the director, and for some reason terrible experiences tend to bond people.

Nicole first became a mommy almost three years ago -- almost exactly three years ago, actually. She and Michael have been wonderful parents to Olive, who is always happy, clearly loved, and already is starting to develop independence and self-reliance. At the same time, Olive knows from just a look on Nicole's face when it's time to stop doing something. Interestingly, it's a similar look to the one that used to freeze actors in their places.

So, Michael and Nicole will get another chance to do everything right in 9 months. I'm personally pulling for a boy, because I already have birthday presents to about the age of 13 picked out.

Below is a great picture of Nicole and soon-to-be-awsome-big-sister Olive. Good luck!

Pass the tissue... and a twenty

Yes, okay, I've been missing. Many reasons for it, none good. There were actually a couple times that I sat down and started typing but didn't finish: complaining about Chicago drivers in the rain, describing how the priest at my theatre friends' wedding decided to bring up MacBeth during the homily (for those who don't know, it's a cursed play whose name you cannot speak inside a theatre).

However, I was driven back into mocking idiocy by the Crocodile Hunter's funeral a few days ago. Perhaps some of you haven't heard, there wasn't much media attention given to it, but conservationist Steve Irwin -- the "Crocodile Hunter" from a bunch of documentaries and a two-hour documentary posing as a feature film -- was killed by a stingray a few weeks ago. Tuesday night, bored out of my mind, I was scanning channels and came across the Crocodile Hunter's memorial service on Animal Planet. At least, that's what I thought I'd come across. What I'd actually found was the Steve Irwin telethon.

Every single speaker -- including most of his supposed best friends -- goes up to the mic and says something along the lines of "Don't cry for Steve, he's in a better place, but the animals he loved need your support, and you can do that by donating to blah, blah, blah." The coup de grace had to be his eight year old daughter taking the stand and reading a prepared statement -- literally reading it off of a piece of paper -- about how wonderful her daddy was and how we all need to support animals now.

I'm not saying killing animals wholesale is a good idea. But this was the tackiest memorial service this side of the Wellstone funeral. The guy was beloved by millions around the world because of his personality and zest for life. Is his work really the part of him that his family and best friends will miss most? If it is, it seems rather sad.

Ouch... Ouch... Ouch... Ouch...

Just returned from a whitewater rafting trip this weekend, and I discovered a useful tool while whitewater rafting: a raft.

You see, due to me being a complete and total moron, I discovered the hard way what it feels like to go down the rockiest section of the Peshtigo river without a boat. When you're stuck in whitewater, you're supposed to kick your feet in front of you so that they don't get caught in the rocks below the surface. This is good advice. However, it leaves your ass down in the water to absorb the blows of any rocks you might hit. If you think about it, this is a good thing, because if a rock is going to hit you at 15 mph, the ass is as good a place as any. That doesn't mean that roughly 500 of them in a quarter mile stretch are going to feel good.

So, as I write this, my butt is as black and blue as it's been since the last time I visited Mistress Coehlo. (If you don't get that, you won't, but it is funny.)

I now understand the real point of a last meal

This week, I joined a group of friends on Rock Island -- a tiny outcropping of rock at the tip of the peninsula that separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan. Yesterday morning, I decided to go on a short hike by myself to get some alone time. The sun is starting to come up -- it is clearly going to be a scorcher of a day after a night of monsoon-like rain -- as I come to a sign on the trail. It seems that, a short hike away, is the quarry that was used to mine the stones used in most of the structures on the island. I decided to check it out.

A hike through the trees and up a steep hill brings everything together: a beautiful summer morning, a commanding view of the surrounding trees from the summit, and some time on a secluded hill all alone.

I am paying attention to none of this. Shortly after I reach the top of the hill, I realize that the dirt path I've come on isn't a trail at all, but a water runoff. Said water runoff has been doing its impersonation of Yosemite Falls for the last eight hours due to the aforementioned rain , so it is a little slipperier than usual.

No big deal.

I take a couple steps down on the path. Funny, it seems a lot steeper going down than it did coming up.

This could be a little tricky.

About this point, the panic alarm starts going off in my head (where the hell was it five minutes ago when it might have done some good?) as I realize I am quite a distance away from the trail I told my friends I would be on -- or any trail for that matter. If I fall and injure myself, it's going to be a couple of hours minimum before anyone finds me.

This is not good.

Oh, yeah: the nearest hospital is 55 miles away and requires taking two separate ferries.

Darwinism is about to claim another inferior gene pool.

Obviously I clambered down okay as I'm able to sit at my computer and type this. My friends and I laughed off my idiocy over lunch, and nothing more was said about it. Now that everything is said and done, however, I'm kind of disappointed that I let my perfect moment pass because I was worried about what came next.

That's all for tonight; I'll try to post some other events and thoughts about my vacation over the weekend.

You never forget

We've all heard the expression, "It's like riding a bike, you never forget." This proves to be another one of those lines like "It's not that cold," "The last seven checks must have gotten lost in the mail," or "This will hurt me more than it hurts you."

Before this morning, the last time I'd ridden a bike was just before I got my driver's license at sixteen -- or roughly 15 years ago. That was before Liz and Bosco convinced me to do the L.A.T.E. (Long After Twilight Ends) Ride this year, before doing the MS150 with them next year. (I volunteered for the latter.)

Obviously, to ride, you need a bike. I therefore borrowed one from a friend, and decided to get ready by riding from his place to mine -- roughly 40 city blocks. It starts out with me taking about two minutes to figure out how to get my feet into the pedals -- this particular model comes with straps above the pedals to hold your feet in place. Then, I'm weaving down the street like a four year old who has just had his training wheels removed. This is made more interesting as there are many, many cars less than a foot to my left.

Finally, I manage to make it to the bike path, and ride along the lakefront to my apartment. (Brief sidenote: is there a more beautiful site in the world than the female bottom in a bikini?) After about an hour and a half, when I arrived home, then it was like riding a bike.

Having said that, I had so much fun out there, that I now must buy a bike for myself, and you will be able to see me out on the bike path every weekend until the MS150 next year.