hey.
I am sick.
But not really sick. Just what I like to call "pre-sick". You know, your throat stays dry, you have a headache, lots of snot and a bit of a cough. In other words, your body is crashing and waiting for the first oppurtunistic infection or virus to come and really lay your ass out.
Happily, this has not happened to me yet and I am doing my best to prevent it.
Also happily, it happened after all my finals so I can just wallow in my sickness knowing that it's not interfering with too much.
I've got so much reading to do but that damn siren television makes me keep coming back!
Listening to Stripped-Christina Aguilera
Note: In typical rock snob fashion I will make clear that the only reason this woman is in my cd collection is because I didn't stop the record club I'm with from sending it out. An oversight that cost me full retail and the knowledge that this will stand out in my carefully vetted collection like a sore thumb(right alongside that Rod Stewart album I bought to turn-over at a better price, but there were no takers on half.com and so now I'm stuck with it). However, she's got a great voice, and for all of last year I adored "Dirrty" as a nice piece of radio and video trash that I would listen to/watch whenever it came on. So mea fucking culpa, I guess I'll cop to my pop needs and move on....now where did I put that Kylie cd?
posted by a clark at 7:08 PM

Went out yesterday with LaLinda. Avoided all responsibility and commonsense by shopping(shoes and a cute Army styled jacket for me and a new mobile phone from LaLinda as a Christmas gift!) and hanging out to watch "The Two Towers" (which I haven't seen since last Dec.). Then we went out for multi-drinks and karaoke.
Just for the sheer hell of it all.
Today, I WILL study since I have a last final tomorrow. No hangover, so no excuses.
Listening toBad Girls(deluxe edition)-Donna Summer, Donde estan los ladrones?-Shakira
posted by a clark at 2:18 PM

First final of two finished! Money and the Economy.
I think I did well. It was longer than a fuck in any case. 20 essay questions! Goddamn!
I seriously got a hand cramp.
I need to really study for the next one though. Intermediate Macro.
I ran an errand I'm not ready to talk about (nothing serious just part of an ongoing attempt at employment, i'll leave it at that for now).
Back to Milwaukee: So we get into town. Cold as a fuck at 11-ish. Now starts a long walk to the bars. In Milwaukee they conveniently stick all the gay bars into a 3 or 4 square mile configuration. There are straight bars as well but because of the convenient layout, everything is accesible.
Mind you, I only found this out after a 3 or 4 mile hike with LaLinda leading the way through beautiful (no, really!) industrial desolation and the wind whipping us as he attempted to get his bearings and remember where things were from his last vist the year previous.
Note: I felt like an idiot at this point as I have learned over the years to not just take his word about some things. I love him like a brother, but I like to know where the hell I'm going, what time to leave and arrive, etc. So I looked up Greyhound info just to be sure (he had called as well) but forgot to figure out the bar thing before leaving Chicago. Thus, we wandered like Jews in the desert.
I got pissed.
And just when it seemed like a wild goose chase, we found the first bar, a place called (as I remember) "Boom". This place looked like a stereotypical gay bar to be found anywhere in America. It even had-gack!-two hugisimo rainbow flags flapping in the cold night air.
Note: I hold some sort of weird residual gay-shame involving embarassment at being noticed to be flaming when not intending to be. So going into a place with two HUGE rainbow flags was like having an arrow pointing down at us, with the caption "TWO BIG FAGS". It's silly, I know, but I'm part of the last generation to grow up embarassed about gayness (or so I hope). It's my trauma, I will get over it.
Anyway...we sit, have a drink, inquire about other places. I am shocked at the fact that every bar, club, and dance palace in Milwaukee closes at 2 a.m.
What the fuck is that about?
But we are not to tarry too long as we have decided to hit as many places as humanly possible in the time allotted. Happily there is a huge clock tower in the near-distance. So we are constantly apprised of the lack of time.
Off we go! Fluid next (big deal), then La Cage--regrettable name and the place looked like a nightclub from the 80s Britain. To top it off, it was apparently 80s night. The effect was, as I said to LaLInda, enough to make me do a flashback to my younger self first out clubbing and nervously trying to be comfortable in the highly uncomfortable, highly caucasian, highly insular Chicago gay scene on Halsted and the Belmont area.
We then hit a couple of other places, noted by LaLinda and forgotten by me.
The total: 6 bars in under 3 hours! A new land speed record by both of us.
Then a long walk back to the downtown area through lovely industrial desolation and the new, obviously oh-so trendy loft district. Truth to be told, I could see myself living there. It reminds me of Printers Row years ago, before the complete suburbanization of South Loop Chicago.
Then, Dunkin Donuts across from the station for a drunken croissandwich breakfast. Then the bus for last call to Chicago! We couldn't sit together, but it didn't matter as we napped and arrived back in Chicago in about 1hr. 30 mins.
We were so happy about that after the hellishly long ride to Milwaukee.
Back home by 6 in the morning.
And that was the quick version of our trip.
I swear I can have fun crossing the street...
Listening to: Tempermental-Everything but the Girl, Frantic-Bryan Ferry, Stronger than Pride-Sade, Arc of a Diver-Steve Winwood, Burnin'-The Wailers(well, over the weekend anyway).
posted by a clark at 12:02 AM