Spring Break, Day Two

Scott Hardie | March 18, 2002
Sunday. Got up late but quickly. We were going to go to Colonial for a sit-down-restaurant breakfast, but they were packed, so we hit Spaghetti Warehouse instead. It didn't take much convincing. :-)

Came home, went online, wrote what I did yesterday. We were going to get showers and call Jason to start our evening as planned, but Mr. Lee invited us to go to the grocery, and we said yes without really thinking about it. I wouldn't have gone if I'd known it was going to take an hour and a half.

I think I saw Tom Franklin at Meijer. (This is a childhood friend of mine who I haven't seen since high school. I'm neutral about him, unlike most other childhood friends.) He looked like Tom all grown up to adult size, like most of us from back then now look. He had a brown birthmark on his cheek, just like Tom did. And he walked with that swagger, the one that rap videos teach, which Tom was already doing by junior high. If it was Tom, he seemed to be doing well by himself - clean, wearing a leather jacket and no visible accessories, carrying a cell phone. I didn't try to talk to him out of not having any desire to talk to him, but even if I did, I would have hesitated because I stank and my hair was messed up and I was wearing dirty clothes and I needed a fucking shower. The Lees like to sleep in, so Kelly and I can take showers only between 3pm and 8pm.

Got home, got cleaned up, called Jason. He had some friend over from WIU and they needed to take naps, but he wanted to go out afterwards. I didn't mind the late time so much as him inviting someone along, but he apologized, and the other guy left to go home anyway. Jason came over and we hurried to a Mongolian BBQ at the corner of North Avenue and Schmale Road in Carol Stream. Kelly and I had passed it on Saturday and made a mental note to try it. We wouldn't have if we'd known how far away it was from St. Charles, since we were supposed to see a movie forty-five minutes after we got there. The actual Mongolian part was closed, so they just had a plain Chinese buffet open. Kelly and Jason didn't like it, but I thought it was pretty good, better than the Macomb and St. Charles Chinese buffets. The place used to be a fish restaurant, and they hadn't taken down the old decorations, so there was a big nautical theme going on, like we were in Long John Silver's. A week earlier, Jason had made a joke about me writing a list of all the old catchphrases he and I have used over the thirteen years of our friendship, so I actually wrote it and presented the list, item by item, to him at the table. These won't matter much to anybody but Matt, but some samples include: Mah boo gie, no freestyle walking, "Blake!", man with his pants down, having fun, outta my house, pickles on the side, I'm the ga-vhaat?, and of course, tragic comedy.

We hurried to the Charlestowne Mall and got there just as "Resident Evil" had started. The first thing I saw was the vial hit the laboratory floor. My full commentary is here. Why do people feel so comfortable talking in movie theaters? Jason leaned over a couple of times to make stupid comments to me, but he was surrounded in front and behind by people talking. One hick in front of Jason kept talking tough: "I wouldn't let that shit happen to me! I'd put a bullet in my head first! ... Uh oh, here come some dogs. I'd just kick them dogs in the head! That'd stop 'em." SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!

After the movie we headed to Colonial for ice cream. (I felt bad about dissing them earlier. Okay, not really.) Jason, of course, loved the movie, while Kelly hated it and I generally disliked it. We also disagreed on "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back," which he loved. I introduced the subject of video game movies, and I said that "Final Fantasy" was good, but Jason, who liked it when I saw it with him in the theater last summer, said, "nah, that was kinda bad." What the fuck ever. Jason accused Ryan of not growing up and progressing as a person, but it sounds like Jason's the one who's not changing.

So we took Jason home, did some laundry, and went to bed. I had weird nightmares all night, not about school for a change, but I can't remember what about. We woke up at 5:30 to drive home. Dunkin Donuts was good - much better than a McDonald's breakfast, which to me is just about the worst food on Earth. I met Kelly's boss, who pulled up just after we parked at Kelly's workplace. He seemed... fine. I barely talked to him. I don't know what the big deal was about meeting him. So Kelly left for work for a day, I drove here to Macomb, planning just to check my messages and get some sleep, and I've been online for two hours now. But I'll be done soon. Really. :-)

I have to write my story tonight. The six pages I've got so far (it's a 25-30 page assignment) are really shitty. If I have to, I can grind out another twenty pages, but I feel like dropping it and starting over, after I take a nap. In previous creative writing classes, I've had wonderful ideas that practically wrote themselves. Now I don't have any such ideas, and I'm feeling the pressure of a deadline. I'll see what I can do. I'll turn in complete shit if that's what I have to do to graduate this semester.

Matthew Preston | March 18, 2002
Ohh man, you didn't see the whole movie! You missed a great intro and one that was completely without credits. Something I can't remember ever seeing.

Scott Hardie | March 18, 2002
I do hate walking in on movies after they've started. I rarely miss anything by doing so, but I feel like I might be missing something that's really cool. In this case, I might have.

Lots of movies just start with the production companies and the title, with no credits. Your favorite series, the Star Wars films, all start this way. My favorite film from last year, Moulin Rouge, starts this way. There are many others.

Matthew Preston | March 18, 2002
Damn, you're right... how come I only noticed it now?