Monthly Archives
Already : Hatachi Monthly Archives
version upgrade Thursday July 21
In preparation for the Big Japan Blog Changeover ™, I have upgraded to Movable Type 3.1. One of the stronger features of this new version is improved comment spam filtering, a consistent problem I have with open commenting.
One consequence is that comments may not appear immediately after you post them. Eventually, you will be able to log in, and then you will not have to do anything differently.
scenester overdose Saturday July 16
Last night I spent the evening in chicago with my old roommate Katy. We went to go see Her Friend's Band ™ at the Metro. You know, they opened for Troubled Hubble. From Champaign?
Right. Not so much.
Anyway, after the show we played some bar billiards next door to the venue; this activity reminded me how much of a pool snob I'm becoming. After Jupiter's, Esquire, and Crane Alley in Champaign, why would I ever want to play on a warped, six-foot coin-op bar table that has no cue chalk or cues that aren't warped? I didn't complain at the time, nor did I blame my losses on these factors, so I still consider myself within legal bounds of non-snobbery.
And then we went to SmartBar underneath the Metro. Katy knows someone who dated So-and-So that works there, so we got in free, and I found myself sitting in a booth with a bunch of bouncers and bartenders that work there. Katy went to use the ladies room and I sat as a fly on the wall to the following discussion (I am making up band names because I can't remember them):
Young Woman #1: I just got the new So-and-So's 7-inch compilation; get this -- there's a Japanese metal band on the other side, they're called A-So-and-A-So.Young Man #1: Oh really? Yeah, I saw the So-and-So's a few weeks back and I picked up That One Song on blue vinyl. It's a limited pressing.
YW1: Nice. They did a yellow vinyl one about six years back, actually -- I had that one way back before anyone ever had heard of them and I didn't even really listen to it. But I've still got it, and now it's awesome.
Katy says this is how the scenesters in Chicago are. Eric, hold strong. You're way too cool for this.
danyel's wedding Monday July 11
song: the eagles - desperado
mood: like a long time ago
i received an invitation in may for danyel's wedding. i didn't even know she was engaged; since about junior year, i haven't seen that much of her. i simply knew she was dating a guy from iowa that she met in rockford.
my inital feeling was one of obligation. certainly, i wanted to see danyel and her family, but i felt that this ceremony was irrelevant to the life that i now lead, and that it would simply be a 'token' wedding appearance. you know what i'm talking about when i say 'token'; we've all done that "i'm just going to go and show my face and support and then that will be that".
but that's not how it turned out, and i'm very pleased that i went.
i was the only ex-boyfriend invited to the wedding; i don't think that that merits some sort of medal, but rather, it highlights that danyel and i's relationship (in the strictest sense of the word) is no more than a memory of the past, and that no one felt threatened by my presence. it's not hard to write off three years in middle school and high school. but that's not where our relationship really ended; it only changed.
danyel and i have known each other for eleven years. she hated me, or at least, as well as any seventh-grader could, she loved me, at least, as well as any eighth-grader could. i supported her the best i could throughout her brace days, and i was there when she was dripping morphine to ease the pain of the freshly-installed metal rods in her back (scoliosis, for those of you who aren't familiar).
she watched me suffer the pain of gina; i watched her rebound on nick. at uiuc, she committed to someone who wasn't for her; i committed to no one, even the people that were for me. we've watched each other change and grow quite a bit.
yet, all of that changed in the past few years. both of us were distant; not by choice, but simply by circumstance. failing to have her in my life failed to remind me that i wanted her there, and the supportive roles she may have filled were simply taken up by new understudies. not that this is all bad -- i have made many new friends.
when i watched her walk down the aisle, literally, i realized that i wasn't happy with the current circumstances. how could someone who i know so well, whose family i know so well, be so ready to make such a huge decision in her life and i know nothing about it?
i told her at the reception that i was disappointed with the way things had been, and that i will make an effort to come by her apartment before i leave for japan. i will make an effort to meet and befriend her husband, because if he's that important to her, then he's that important to me.
so, about the song. i totally had a zen moment when i got in the car with sara to come back down to champaign. i was feeling all good about the wedding, and sara popped in a mix cd that malia made for her. the first track was the eagles off of 'hell freezes over': the very CD that i listened to essentially non-stop when i met danyel in seventh grade. i think i even made her a mix tape that had some of that stuff on there.
that's one downside to being closer to her again. she could tell story after embarassing story to my future girlfriend slash wife, and even back it up with pictures. oh, to be 12 again.
or not.
preparations are underway Tuesday July 5
I must be getting excited about Japan: I've made an Excel file containing most of the items I own, the date I expect to move them, who I am giving them to, or if I am taking them home or not. I've already created a todolist, and since I was on such a roll, I already did three of the things on said list.
Many times I half-ass things; a fatal flaw is that I am happy-go-lucky. I do not want to do that here, so I have turned into Wedding-Weekend-Phooze with the Excel and the planning.
I think I have decided on what to do about the blog. I want to open up my blog to the general interested public (read: many of my current coworkers), but inviting the professional world into my Japan jaunt also invites them to view my past blog archives since, well, 2001. I'm not interested in that; I don't want people I just meet for that matter reading those. I keep them up because people I well know might enjoy one of them, or even need to refer to one.
However, I don't want to start a "new blog": AH was started while I was in Japan, and I think it's rather fitting that I keep it going while I'm there. Rather, I have decided to disable the archives while I am gone. This way, I can hand out the URL freely, and people will only be able to read from right about now on.
I'll also disable many of the old albums such that they still exist, but are not easily viewable.
Comments?
the word is out Friday July 1
The word has been getting out around work that I am leaving in August.
I find myself explaining on an almost-daily basis why I am choosing to go to Japan, and expressing my regret that I have to leave Champaign. After nights like last night, too, I realize that certainly it's going to be more difficult than it usually is for me. Sara, Joe, Razdude, Todd, Kate, Mel, and I were at Crane Alley playing pool last night; we migrated to Sara's to chill for awhile, and then I went downtown to meet Monika and Jay.
I'm quite adept at leaving, or being left, and moving on. When I left high school, I was ready for the bigger pond of college, and never really looked back. Save a precious few, I don't have many friends from home, and that doesn't bother me. Someone I know once said that friends weren't really too much of a concern in moving about; the ones that need to stick around will be your friend even after years of separation, and the ones that don't need to will simply be replaced in the day-to-day by new friends in your new place.
I've been in the same place in the same social circumstances for about five years now. I've met hundreds of people. Many of them have left me, and I will leave many more as nothing more than a memory. Some won't even get that far. But the ones I will miss, man. I'm going to have to work out something on the phone or Internet phone or something like that.
I knew that this summer would be a great pinnacle of good times for me and a lot of people. It has yet to disappoint.
