in which my subconscious brutally mocks my homesick and lonely conscious

i.
8/29/2008
The department party was Friday. It started with animal races. I wasn't sure what animal I should turn into for the race so I decided on Lucario. I won, but I was disqualified because Lucario is not an animal. (He is a Pokémon.) This was okay because there was a literal fountain of booze at the end of the racecourse.

ii.
last week some time
Nick, three of my former roommates, and I were riding a weird, open-air El train through the city when I noticed my SOSC professor two rows in front of us. I avoid looking at her and hope she doesn't recognize us if she sees us.
Everything goes according to plan until we all get off at the same stop. We duck into a gift shop but she follows us in. She's having a hard time finding friends in the new town, she tells us. She doesn't know what to do.

iii.
9/2/2008
Saturday afternoon I walked off the Amtrak train at the Port Authority in New York (≈ Chicago). After a long train ride, I'd arrived back in the city in time to head to a party that night with some college friends before Sunday came and I had to do whatever it was I'd come for (I couldn't remember, and thinking about it made me sad, so I tried not to).

The party was only a few miles away and I decided to take the dirty, deserted underground tunnels rather than the sidewalk because I needed space to think. After a train ride that long I'm usually in the mood to give the first person who speaks to me a hard kick in the teeth. This is no state to meet old friends in.

A surprising amount of sunlight made it into the tunnels, and when I looked up at the ceiling I noticed that it was sort of egg carton gridded like Washington, DC's Metro tunnels. I decided, therefore, that next time I was there I should stencil a Number Muncher and some Troggles into a 6x5 section of the grid. I took my camera out of my backpack and took a photo of the ceiling so I'd remember where the spot was. When I pulled the camera away from my eye I noticed the guy who runs citynoise standing a few meters away.

He asked what I was up to in the tunnels (he was clearly looking to tag something himself or take photos of what was already there, or both). I told him my plan and he pointed out that it wasn't really clever and that MECC nostalgia is way overdone. I changed the subject to Sonic Youth and, a few minutes later, went on my way.

When I climbed out of the tunnels the sun had set. I saw the building whose address I was heading for right away; turns out the party was at Millikan. I'd arrived late, which was good. The UChicago kids were drunk enough to be dancing and there was a good chance everyone I knew who was coming was already there.

I headed for the booze table. On my way down to the basement from there, I ran into J-- B------ and the last person I'd expected to see-- B---- B-----. He looked younger than I'd ever seen him. I pulled the baseball hat I was wearing (brand new with hologram stickers on the bill) off my head and handed it to him.
"Look what I found!" I said.
The hat was grey and had the words:

A + sftv
LOS ANGELES

embroidered on it in navy blue thread.
"It was the closest I could find," I said. "Apparently that's the name of their new baseball team."
He was amused, but not very, and the potentially awkward conversation was saved when J------- came down from upstairs and asked me for a minute.

"So, we bought the building," he said, "and we're making it a fraternity. If you and Nick want to live here we need to know by Wednesday." He handed me a floorplan showing which rooms were open. There were a lot more bedrooms than I had thought; they'd probably bought out the neighbors or something. Whoever "they" were.
"A fraternity?!" I felt like I should be disgusted or something but I was mostly just nonplussed by this point.
"Yeah. Rho Alpha Pi. It's the Scav Fraternity."

Our apartment in Honolulu is very nice, but who wouldn't want to live in the Scav fraternity? Something bad was about to happen, though, and I couldn't tell which city it would happen in.


~


commentary:
i. Although not obvious to anyone but me (and why should it be?) this is a direct response to a moment the previous day where a pair of notices posted on the walls of the department office caught my eye. One concerned dogs and how they should never come anywhere near campus unless they were service animals; the other detailed the grave consequences of bringing alcohol into a campus building (regardless of the bringer's/intended drinker's age, and even in the dorms). The two notices brought to mind the many pets I ran into at the U of C, and my old dept.'s weekly party, respectively, and I was acutely homesick for a few seconds, revisiting the sadness I'd felt when I found out I hadn't been accepted to their M.S. program. (It seems that it may not actually exist in the first place, and part of my reaction was due to the fact that at the time I thought I wouldn't get in anywhere if my own department wouldn't take me, and frankly I didn't deserve to get in after my crappy performance as a summer intern, but I'd been pretty damn depressed at the time.)

ii. You don't have to be Jung to figure out who the professor represents in this one.

iii. I very much agreed with P----'s assessment of the Number Munchers idea and was more ashamed of myself for thinking of it than angry he didn't like it. Also, I didn't realize this until I woke up, but RAP is a funny name for an organization whose theme song has blatantly neglected the genre.

the Shoreland team's name is the Untouchables

A few weeks before Mother's Day, apparently as some sort of preliminary judicial inspection, I stop by a garage that is a satellite of Shoreland Scav's HQ. Everyone is very busy; they're crossing things off on checklists and cleaning / oiling / packing up a brand-new looking blue-gray 80's hatchback, preparing to set out on a cross-country scavenging road trip. On a shelf I notice a dusty yellow Robie the Robot; it had been there last time I'd visited, but I'd assumed it was someone else's. But then I thought about it: only two teams had gotten the item last year, it was highly unlikely that Shoreland had acquired the Robie belonging to the other team, and the Robie Shoreland had was mine! We'd found my robot!
"Hey, D-----, this is the Robie we had last year, right?" I called to one of the guys going on the trip.
"Yeah," he said, without looking up. I put it in my backpack.

The road trip crew pulled out of the garage. Their trip would function both as a test run for the actual Scav road trip (figuring out division of labor, location of cheap hotels, etc.) and a search for interesting objects that might be of use for non-road-trip items. Sometimes I was on the trip with them; having just been drilling their Performance captain about trademark laws, I would suddenly find myself in the hatchback's back seat, singing with the other passengers as we drove through the Badlands. Sometimes John Flansburgh was on the trip with them. Sometimes both of us were in the hatchback with the Untouchables, and Flansburgh was telling a story that made it seem like another place and time entirely. Sometimes I was sitting back at Shoreland HQ reading papers for my classes or carrying out other aspects of the preliminary HQ inspection (first aid kit? check).

I was conversing excitedly with SL's Construction captain about the slick new tools the team had acquired for this year when the hatchback pulled back in. The Untouchables ran up to greet their teammates, who emerged from the car carrying weird metal objects, LPs with hideous cover art, and exotic beverages. Last of all, a blue-green dicynodont, I think a Lystrosaurus, crawled out of the car. He walked over to me and nuzzled my leg.

"Where in the Hell did you guys find a dicynodont?!" I yelled.
"We don't remember!" said B-----. I wondered if Flansburgh's time-travel stories had anything to do with it.

I reflected on what a shame it was that, as far as I could recall, having a dicynodont was of no use to any of this year's items. I wondered if it would be immoral (i.e., partial) of me to add one to the list. Had Lystrosaurs made a sudden comeback, so that other teams might be able to get one too? I wasn't sure. Also, someone should probably tell the Field Museum.

pretend resolutions for real problems and no resolutions for pretend problems

1
J------- W------- finds my missing yellow robot. Hooray!

2
I successfully convince a facebook friend that anthropogenic global warming is a real problem. Hooray?

3
I suddenly find myself about to proceed with a major life event. Since I did in fact find myself in the situation suddenly and did not have time to give any consideration to what's going on, I tell my mom I am going to stop the event.
"Oh really?" she says. "Well, why don't you just go ahead and tell that to your Aunt Kristi who flew in all the way from Mexico."

because that last one is too creepy to keep on top for long (not that the middle of this is much better)

here is one part of my judge's application i can share with you:

1/6/2007

It was midnight, and the captains had gathered at the clearing on the Point where Ida Noyes and Rockefeller Chapel stand. We were waiting for the judges. Suddenly music started blasting out of hidden speakers and the judges, wearing graduation robes, descended from the sky on pulley-and-weight assemblies that allowed them to jump several stories up again once they’d landed. They bounced around in this manner until the song ended, then landed gently. [I remember trying out the rig myself later on. It was so fun.]

While we’d been watching this, someone had set up a small puppet stage a short distance away. It had an English countryside backdrop, a gallows, and an inflatable hangman. Several other captains and I gathered by the stage. A judge went up onto it, pulled a lever, and the inflatable hangman dropped, achieving a massive inflatable hard-on when he hit the end of his rope.

“Is this balloon stupid?” the judge asked gravely.

Assuming this was some sort of contest to see how long the captains could go without admitting that yes, the balloon was insanely stupid, I said no. The judge reeled the hangman back up, pulled the lever again and asked the same question. Again, I lied.

Eventually I noticed that the captains who said “yes” were receiving white boxes and running away. Guessing that the boxes contained the list, I said “yes” the next time. The judge gave me a white box, and I ran away to open it at a picnic table where some other Shoreland scavvies were waiting. I opened the box.

It was full of Sour Patch Kids.

“Damn it,” I said.

My dad, jogging by, stopped to tell me that the real list release was on the other side of the Point, in a giant white tent I’d somehow missed. I ran to the tent. Inside a giant game of “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?” was being filmed, featuring the real Chief. A Shoreland kid [ed. note: the kid was clearly Mr. Stand, which was odd because I didn't know him yet at that point--I remember recognizing him from this at one of our first meetings] had already made it there and was doing us proud.

tomatos and radio wires

5/27/2007

Behind a (usually) securely locked door located near the RM apartment, the Shoreland has a hallway leading to three basement levels full of stuff from its hotel days (a lot of early 1970s Fisher-Price toys, a small garage full of landscaping equipment, an incredibly upscale steak restaurant that looks the same as the day it was closed except with a thick layer of dust all over the stacks of menus and silverware). They removed the three flights of stairs so students wouldn't go down and mess around in these places (the University certainly wasn't going to maintain them or otherwise do anything useful with them). We're going anyway, of course; it's just dangerous as hell without stairs.
J. got to the first basement level by jumping; that idea scared the living hell out of me (three story drop if he missed!) so I took an extra T-shirt, looped it around some plumbing, and slid down to the steakhouse on the second basement level. D. stood by the doorway to the lobby and watched to make sure no one was coming.
The bottom basement concealed a portal to a place reminiscent of Coney Island at sunset in a pixelated GTA-like alternate universe. The guy my aunt had been dating in the late 1980's challenged someone else to a waterboat race with grim stakes and airbrushed t-shirts; I took a light beer from the mini-cooler and went back to the Shoreland for fear that I'd be stuck in the place once "I Ran" stopped playing from loudspeakers I couldn't see.
Back in the sub-basements, I picked up an old toy gas pump with a face and started bringing it up to the lobby level. I arrived at the door to find a man who greatly resembled Lars Schvartz in a RH&C Engineering jumpsuit asking my confederates to leave. He was smiling, though, and seemed amused that we'd discovered the subbasements rather than pissed at us.
He told us of a three-story greenhouse in Fallers, where some apartments on the west side of the hall had wooden balconies with a gorgeous view of Hyde Park. One June night about 20 years ago, a student had a party in one of the apartments that got out of hand and ended with people falling off the balconies to their deaths, so Housing glassed off the entire area and planted some tomatoes in a thin layer of soil at the bottom. The tomato plant was now three stories tall and bore fruit the size of basketballs, but no one could eat it.
"It sustains itself," said the engineer. "Sunlight comes in through the glass, and the tomatoes that fall to the bottom water and fertilize the plant."
A few years ago, someone had gotten into the greenhouse somehow and left four Shoreland shot glasses sitting on a third-story rafter inside as a taunt to the people whose apartments used to have access to the balconies.
Later, I'm back in my room trying to talk sense into a SL Scav teammate who thinks we can get shirts printed for 99 cents each.

NYSP dream #759, or, why is it always Kellen who gets the speaking parts in Occam's dreams

4/15/2007



I had to drive Nick and his friend Nick from high school to the airport. Once they were off, I went to visit my Aunt Eileen in Huron. We played miniature golf in her house (the Banks house from "Fresh Prince") while her friends had a dinner party. The subject of my progress in Tang Soo Do came up; no one, including me, could remember which belt I was training for currently.

I left the party when Occam's Razor showed up, and we rode our bikes in the rain to Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
I stopped to get a diet Coke at a vending machine and Kellen rode off by himself. He met us back at the vending machine about an hour later; we went back to the Vagabond and over drinks, he casually mentioned that he had ridden his bike right into the Tent of Tomorrow at the New York State Pavilion.

I went back by myself the next day and it was closed again. It was still raining, and in the middle of a field of wet, yellow grass, about 200 meters from the NYSP, there was a Metroparks-style stone kiosk with space for a campfire and several glass display cases of ice-age era artifacts from the area, with their original 1960's lettering. Another 200m or so in the same direction is the entrance to a dark ride about the ice age. An animatronic mammoth is rusting in the rain next to the ticket window.

I blink and the park is filled with people again. I haven't time-traveled, though (except for the 8-12 hours it took to get dark outside); the crowds are definitely the people of today. New attractions are everywhere, and every one has a restaurant. Where the Ice Age display cases were, an enormous shell-pink replica of the Taj Mahal has been built; next to that is a ride sponsored by Count Chocula cereal (whose restaurant, incongruously, is a newly opened location for the Nile, with a huge neon sign).

The State Pavilion's roof has been restored, and a line of people extends from the entrance. After waiting in the line for ages (during which time Kellen joins me), I ask a worker about the Tent of Tomorrow. She tells me that only the Theaterama (with incredibly exhaustive gift shop) and pop art galleries have actually reopened, but adds furtively that she can make Kellen and me fake IDs that will identify us as interior decorators hired by the Parks Department to assess the Tent's condition. She prints the IDs at the gift shop's register, and tells us that the gift shop is expecting (within a few weeks) a shipment of blue pencils that will allow bearers to enter the Tent legitimately.

Later that night, I see my RHs waiting to be seated at the same restaurant where Occam's is eating.
"Dude!" I tell them. "This girl at the State Pavilion printed fake IDs for Kellen and me that say we're interior decorators, so we could get into the closed part! Isn't that cool??"
"NO," says one of them stonily. "That's not cool at all."

A creepy guy who's waiting by himself for a seat seems to have overheard the conversation and is staring angrily at me.

Image from a stranger's flickr; if I remembered where I'd gotten it I'd credit him properly.

"scav dreams", or, "an indicator of how incredibly intense it is to captain an incredibly intense team"

5/10/2007: list release
We're all standing around in the "Please Wait to be Seated" area of what is probably an Olive Garden, waiting for D.
Finally it's been a while, and I (lovingly) say something along the lines of "Man, where is that asshole?"
My friends all look at me, variously shocked and disgusted. The restaurant falls silent and everything is uncomfortable.
"Kat, he died," someone says.
We're in the basement of his childhood home. I pick up a few of his old Ninja Turtle action figures from a cardboard box and cry into them.


5/11/2007: day 1
Shoreland Scav has literally no money, Nancy tells me. There will be no reimbursements.


i didn't sleep enough to dream the next two days
and then


5/14/2007: the hangover
I'm back at the post-Scav bonfire on the point, talking with the Friendliest Judge. He asks about my plans for Shoreland Scav next year.
"Well, we're probably going to sell T-shirts fall quarter, because once people have bought a T-shirt they'll be less likely to flake out, and winter quarter we'll see what happens after I find out how my application for Hot Side Hot goes this time," I reply.
He tries very, very hard to be kind as he urges me not to bother applying.

i never did this on purpose

5/10/2006

part I
i died recently and unexpectedly.
death is nothing so much as incredibly uneventful. God was there. he looked Hawaiian and was in traditional Hawaiian dress. he was slightly bigger than normal people, approximately the same difference as between a 12" GI Joe and a Ken doll. when i first met him he told me it was okay to come to heaven. he made some conversation about my field of study and so on (kind of sad and ironic given that that was all over with now) then went to a meeting or something like that.
Heaven was very boring, so i went back to earth for a while. i stopped in a nice but not ridiculous apartment in chicago (white walls, wooden floors, fruit bowl, nice kitchen) and surprisingly my dad was standing in the kitchen, talking about my death with his best friend from grade school.
i realised i was completely visible and could pick up objects. from this i understood that being dead was not different from being alive except that dead people were no longer allowed to pursue things--for example, i could stand in this apartment eating fruit all day if i wanted to, but i could never go back to school or go to dinner/on vacation with my family or friends. it would also be frowned upon (by earth people, not God, who was probably golfing) if i went to the movies by myself or anything like that.
dad wondered aloud how i was enjoying the afterlife. i walked from the living room to the edge of the kitchen and stuck my right arm through the door so Dad could see it. i formed my hand into the shape of the number 4, as in ****/5. it was grade inflation, to be sure, but i wanted to make him feel better.
"Oh wow," said Dad and his friend. "Neat." He was referring to the sudden appearance of my hand. He did not think to look for the rest of my body.
He expressed disappointment that I only gave Heaven a 4/10.
"no no no," i thought, and changed my hand-shape into a 6.
"Oh, I see," said Dad, and he felt better.

part II
adrianne, another roommate, and I hopped a megabus to los angeles for the weekend. scav was coming and we needed to talk to some people in pierce about it. when we got to pierce's HQ, i noticed a poster on the wall. it was a detailed schematic for item 307: a lamer version of the coolest item from my application list (which i never actually sent in). that annoyed the fuck out of me.
los angeles pierce was beautiful, with bamboo floors, red-and-black hammocks and futons, lots of glass, and walls in various shades of blue that sometimes opened out to the air. we could see the ocean from part of it.
i noticed that some waves in the ocean were several stories high. i didn't say anything because i didn't want adrianne and the other californians to think i was lame [where i'm from, waves usually don't get over 4 feet tall].
a tsunami was coming to destroy LA, though. we got on the bus back to chicago.

most likely a tribute

4/6/2006

having been dropped off by a greyhound bus, i wait for public transportation in a dusty, shabby town somewhere in arizona. i wait for hours. people--an old tourist couple with big plastic sunglasses, a young military family of three, some people who remind me of my parents--appear and disappear at the bus stop as they normally would, except I never see the bus that takes or leaves them. a group of kids who are probably high school freshmen walks past a little after 3:00. more strangers come and go.

as the sun is starting down, an old Tercel that is rusty maroon in some shots and dirty white in others pulls up to the bus stop (on the wrong side of the street). some shoreland kids get out and tell me it's okay, they have it figured out. we walk past a building that looks like former interior walls look when they are being demolished and into a small, square, tan brick buiding. it is completely featureless except for a very weathered generic advertisement painted onto one side.

inside it looks like applebee's or bennigan's would if it really were the beat-up neighborhood bar it pretends to be. we've been waiting by the gumball machines for a few minutes when i'm very suddenly smacked in the face with someone else's memories of the love of their life, needless everyday tragedy, their favorite records and their first car. i'm reeling and utterly incapacitated for the rest of the night.

while i lean against the vinyl-covered bench and wood-paneled walls, holding my head, the shoreland kids look through the oddly personal "crap on the walls" (fewer vintage Coke ads, more old photos) for something on the scav list. just after they find it, the 1988 pierce team, composed mostly of high school quarterbacks from the 1950's and people who look like Marty McFly, runs roughly into the bar and finds the same clues. nick walks in with a pad of neon pink post-its, writes something discouraging, and leaves for another bar. he is wearing a maroon sweater and a collared shirt: from this any idiot could tell that he was the captain of the new trier scholastic bowl team in 1988. i want very much to go home.