Previous Installments of What's On My Mind

Here's what's on my mind at 3:28 am on Thursday, 23 March 2000: My aunt will be 52. She lives in Seattle. I shall have to call her, first to wish her a happy birthday, then to ask her to buy me a P-I on Monday. Patterson will be 21. I definitely have to call her. Last year I called her and she wasn't in. Maybe she'll be in this year. The Kingdome would be 24 if it lasted into next week, but it won't make it that long. For some reason, I am really upset about this. I didn't even know it was going down until yesterday, watching the ads for ESPN Classic's "Classic Kingdome Countdown", which will conclude with the stadium going boom. The ads didn't even look real; it took a few trips to the web sites at the Times and P-I for the reality to really be real. I was in Seattle, in 1996. I didn't see inside the massive building, but it was clearly there, clearly a part of what I saw of Seattle. Now, suddenly, it's going to be, well, not a part of Seattle, just a piece of lore, a 24-year blip in Seattle history. I just don't understand, I guess. The Seahawks are moving to Husky Stadium (which is no picnic ground; I saw that, too, when I was in Seattle) while they work on building a new x-million-dollar stadium partly over the rubble which will be relatively unobstructed on Sunday. I plan to watch the demolition on Sunday. Whether or not I will cry remains to be seen.
Here's what's on my mind at 2:36 am on Monday, 27 March 2000: Monday marks my seventh and final Fantasy Baseball draft for 2000. It's a multi-list draft, not live, so it's out of my hands now. Still, I'm anxious to see what I get. My grandmother seems happy to be bailing out of Prairie Lakes (the place south of the Post Office) and heading to a condo in River Place (the joint across from Central). My mother and I both get to run point for the big moving day on Monday, since my aunt is calmly avoiding this move by simply staying home in Seattle. (Wise move. She was point for the last move, and it really wore her out.) I'm currently facing the prospect of two beds in my room, which, while cool to an extent, I do not right now have room for. Oh <expletive deleted>! I haven't taken the trash and recyclage out yet. I need to do that.
Here's what's on my mind at 10:21 pm on Friday, 31 March 2000: The 2000 softball season has started. I will try to update the ihsa2000 page after every game; whether I will be that good remains to be seen. The players attacked the head coach's house last night with 122 rolls of toilet paper; it was quite a sight this morning when practice turned into clean-up detail. The team is big this year, and put on some power yesterday in Streamwood. It should be a fun season. Unfortunately I will have to miss the doubleheader at Neuqua, since I'll be in Iowa for my cousin's wedding. Ashley Luke just committed a foul for Penn State. The freshman from Waubonsie Valley is not going to lead me to victory in the Women's Tournament Challenge, however; I needed a Penn State win tonight. 89-67 the Huskies win. Now either Mara or some guy I don't know will win the group, depending on who wins Sunday. I don't really know what to say about that third one. I haven't talked to my cousin Chris since, oh, I don't know. He's getting married next Saturday (hence, my trip to Iowa). I can't track exactly when we grew apart; it just happened. Most people I have known I slowly grow apart from, and I never really notice until after it happens. This phenomenon I knew about. The unusual part is when it happens in reverse; I learned this week that I can also grow closer to someone without noticing until after the fact. I also need to work on learning about idiosyncrasies. Different people are called that for a reason. I am, I suppose, a rather emotional person. I react more strongly to some things than other people might. So what, you might ask. Well, I need to learn to expect those different reactions and what they mean. I suppose part of my problem is that I sometimes underestimate the effect of something on someone when that individual has what seems like a mimimal reaction. If someone is usually one who shows little emotion, an apparently small event (when compared with the standards of another) is actually a significant thing.
Here's what's on my mind at 7:41 pm on Tuesday, 04 April 2000: The Huskies are 3-1 now, after yesterday's dramatic 5-1 victory over the visiting Andrew Thunderbolts. Lisa Kamps broke the game open in the bottom of the sixth with, of all things, a safety squeeze. It was the first out of the inning, leaving no runners on base but driving in the tying run. By the time the second out was made, the Huskies had built a four-run lead. To me, the sacrifice bunt wasn't even the most impressive thing Kamps did at the plate; in the bottom of the third, en route to a three-pitch strikeout, she fouled the second pitch into my car. I had the front passenger-side window open, and she found it, on the fly, the ball landing on my front seat. Andrew cheered, much as they did every time a ball found a car; I just looked at Kamps in disbelief. I'm glad I had that window down, or I might have been a little upset with Kamps for shattering the window. As it was, a fan simply reached in and retrieved the ball, and my car suffered no damage from the ball. The team also showed a confidence I haven't seen since 1997. After the three-hit barrage by Andrew in the fourth, Jackelyn Diekemper asked me how many Andrew had scored. When I told her only one, she laughed and said they could get at least one. Then while Andrew was changing pitchers, the players asked what hitters were due up in the top of the seventh. When told to expect the 8-9-1 hitters for the Thunderbolts, they let out a cheer, confident that they could hold a three-run lead against the bottom of the order. Even if they don't get it done every time, this is a team that knows it can do the job, and that confidence will take the Huskies a long way this year. Of course, the talent in the lineup and in the circle will help a little. So far I haven't missed a game, although I would rather my day were a little fuller. I still haven't heard back from the two districts I sent applications to, which worries me a little. I may have to send out letters to more districts if I haven't heard anything before Saturday. I will be missing Saturday's games at least, and maybe Friday afternoon; I have to go to Iowa for my cousin's wedding. I'm not sure what to say about that. We always used to wonder who would be the first of us to get married (that is, among the 11 of us grandchildren of Grandma JJ and Papa Joe). Looks like it'll be Chris, unless one of us pulls a major upset in the next week. That seems unlikely, since Corynn probably won't upstage her brother, Jackie and Janine are only 16, and I'm, well, who on earth would I marry by the end of the week? Anyway, it will be weird, seeing one of my generation get married.
Here's what's on my mind at 11:59 pm on Thursday, 06 April 2000: I want to leave here in about five hours to go to my father's, and I haven't cleaned out my car yet. This is, despite what you might think, a major problem. I'm hoping I can just find a big box and off-load my trunk into it. I don't know what I'll do otherwise. There is still stuff back there from when I went to Springfield last August, as well as profuse amounts of paperwork from student-teaching. I need to go through it all and decide what to file and what to mark recyclable, but not now. Technically I don't need my car for this trip, but I think psychologically I need it. I refuse to spend six hours in Toni's van, and besides, it will be nice to have a "vehicle of respite" where any one of us can leave their own vehicle for a while. I wish I knew if anyone was bringing an iron. I could bring one, I suppose, but what about an ironing board? I can't really haul that in my little Civic, even if I have it all cleaned out. It seems to me I', going to need an iron sometime this weekend; how do you get dressed for a wedding without an iron? Not that I plan on wearing an iron, but to press clothes with before I put them on. I don't even know what I'm going to wear yet, either Friday or Saturday. I've got about five hours to decide. I've got five e-mail messages sitting over there on my bed (well, not my bed. My bed is the one against the south wall. This business of having two beds in my room is a little nuts. The e-mails are on the other bed). Those are important, as they are from a friend of mine who is easily my favorite person not a member of my family. That disclaimer is important. My favorite person of all time is actually me, but I'm related to me. Family is something I'll be seeing a lot of this weekend on some rather unusual turf: Iowa. Of my 26 living relatives (yes, that includes me), I expect to see 22 of them in the Hawkeye State (all but my mother, her mother, my mother's sister, and my father's mother's mother, who I just don't expect to make the trek). There are a few issues here. One is that number, 26. Family is a very proprietary thing to me, and I am very picky and choosy about who I recognize as actually being one of my relatives. My mother's aunt and her descedants, for example, don't make my list, much to the annoyance of my grandmother. My father's fiancée's children don't make the list, either, much to the annoyance of a couple of them. I actually have a major crossroads coming up in August regarding this; I don't know who I will recognize for what after my father gets married. The whole point of this trip to Iowa is to alter the meaning of family for some people, namely my cousin Chris and his fiancée Tracy. Chris is one of my relatives. Tracy won't be, although that is a difficult one to resolve. It is always the question, how wide is the umbrella. I have always used up one, across one, down one as the limit, with up two and up three allowed with no across. I can't just go across; I don't have any siblings and have never had any, which makes me unique among my 26 relatives; I am the only siblingless one. (That's frightening; I never drew that out to everyone before. But it's true.) Another issue is how I relate to those 26, or at least the 22 I'll be around in Iowa. I actually like the vast majority of my relatives. I'm not going to air my dirty laundry here about any I may like less, but they exist. I can't really put people in a hierarchy, although I have tried on occasion. I have been asked who my favorite cousin is; I have ten choices for this one. The problem is that there is an inherent unfairness in the question. Chris and Corynn are the other Tier Ones, so there are reasons I would rank them ahead of the others that have to do with shared experiences and closeness from before some of my other cousins were even born. Jennifer would get discriminated against for the same reason; born 09 August 1998, she's someone I just met in comparison with all the others. I can't rank between Jackie and Janine fairly; I see one of them a lot more often. I can't be fair between Jackie and Nikki, either; I know both of them too well. Jackie is my favorite cousin born in 1983, but she's the only one. Same can be said for Janine in 1984, Corynn in 1979, Chris in 1974, and so on. Nikki is my favorite cousin born in 1986 (sorry Bryan), and that's the only meaningful statement I'll make about that. One of those people is also, out of all the people I know, one of two I feel most protective of. I don't really have an explanation for that, even for what that means. It is a transition to the end of this particular issue of "What's On My Mind", which so far has taken me 42 minutes to write. The last thing I have to say concerns the other one. She's the person who wrote those e-mails I mentioned a while ago, and, while she's not a member of my family, she's just as important to me as most of them are. Also like some of my relatives, we often think alike. It's not like we finish each other's sentences, although I have no doubts we could do that if we were ever actually in the same room, which we very rarely are. Four years ago, for example, we each used the word "horrid" to describe our sentence structure. This was within two days of each other, and we were on different continents at the time. It's gotten worse since then (or better, depending on your point of view). Those messages over there on the bed are, in part, examples of that. They also serve as a reminder (or will serve, when I take them to Iowa) that, although I love my family, and although I have some very special relationships within it, when not immersed in my family, I have at least one pretty special relationship outside of it. (It is now 12:51 am, Friday, 07 April 2000. That took a while.)
Here's what's on my mind at 9:32 pm on Wednesday, 12 April 2000: Sometimes the song just gets stuck. Usually I have a little clue why it came in the first place. I was at a wedding this weekend in Iowa, and several of the songs played at the reception in Ames were popping about for the next couple days. This one is weird, though; my mental jukebox is currently stuck on "Smoky Mountain Rain" by Ronnie Millsap. I can't seem to shake it. I also can't listen to it, except for the little blurb that I can pull off of CDNOW (listen to the blurb). It's really ridiculous. It's also hard to find a CD with that song on it, particularly if it has any other good Ronnie Millsap songs on it. Normally I like to maintain songs that are likely to get stuck like this in my personal CD library (which has about 147 CDs in it; I'm never sure exactly), but this one is really blindsiding me. I even looked through the old vinyl collection down in the bowels of the stereo cabinet. There's some good stuff in there: lots of Oak Ridge Boys, some Gatlin Brothers, Stadler Brothers, and a couple good compilation albums ("Country Hits of the '70s" looked promising; it did have "You Never Even Call Me By My Name" by David Allan Coe), but no Millsap. My mother is teaching Language Awareness classes at the insurance company where she works. My mother is a great crusader for correct usage, which is one reason why I have a hard time with people who don't care about correct spelling, grammar, and usage. (This is even true when I write e-mail; unlike some people, I think you are perceived by how you communicate; you will never see me, for example, write a message using all lowercase letters.) Anyway, I asked my mother what a dieresis is. She didn't know. I asked her if she knew what a tréma is in French. She still didn't know. For those of you who are wondering, a dieresis is the two dots over the e in Noël or the i in naïve that means that that vowel should be prounounced separately from the previous vowel, i.e., as part of a separate syllable. Sadly, most Americans have no idea what the word means, including the cretins who designed HTML; to make the character ë, I have to type "&euml;", where uml is short for the German word for dieresis. Part of what I said about correct usage and whatnot also goes with the last part here. I think that most people write to think. Anyone who has ever received a Long Letter from me (and you know who you are) can attest to the fact that I do. Some people keep diaries (a friend of mine once defined a diary as "that place where one is most honest with oneself"; she was actually making a comparison between a Long Letter she had received from me and a diary), others write random missives. I'm a missive person. I was talking with a friend of mine on Friday night while I was in Ames. We both talked about writing to think, and she revealed that she writes, too, but that which she writes she never intends to be read. Much of it is audience-sensitive. I feel that there is likely stuff she has written which she doesn't want me to read which I would like to read. That's part of what "writing to think" means; it means that you are still allowed the same privacy which you have in your own mind. When I write, though, I write to be read. I have to have an audience. I have to be cognizant of who my audience is, however. Nobody really reads this page, so I can say a lot of things here that I might not normally say to certain people directly. Still, though, a lot of things I say wind up in letters and messages to specific people, where my audience is very controlled. For example, I often say things to Mara that I won't say to anyone else. Sometimes there are things I don't want to say to her, though, and Patterson may get those, or somebody else. I wrote Chris's wife a letter yesterday, and I'm sure I said some things in there that I wouldn't want at least one of my friends to read, at least not right now. In time, some things change; I have said some things in the last few weeks and months that I really never thought I would say. Part of that is because I have this notorious problem with lying to myself (one reason why the quote above about diaries was so poignant), and part is because my relationships with people change and grow over time. I may lie to myself, but if I come clean, usually someone else is there to hear about it, whether literally or figuratively. It's just the way I am; while I may write to vent, to clear my head, to sort things out, or to really say how I really feel, I will always need an audience, for I will always write to be read.
Here's what's on my mind at 1:26 am on Friday, 14 April 2000: I finally got my login from schoolsports.com on Thursday, and I spent much of Thursday getting it up to speed. It's still not perfect yet; I've got to finish the batter-by-batter game logs for Glenbard South and Benet. I hope the rest are all uploaded and correct. Diekemper's broken foot is giving us all a little bit of a headache, but Mercer pitched brilliantly at Glenbard South, despite getting tagged with an "L". Rough seas ahead, of course, with the DuPage Valley opener on Monday. My trip to Iowa was about more than Iowa. It was about more than my cousin getting married. I don't know that I have even fully digested it all yet. I had two brief arguments with my father, but in the end I agreed to be his best man when he gets married in August. That was a tremendously difficult decision for me to make, and I got absolutely no help with it. I also talked to Mara about five times from Iowa, the most significant conversation of which was Friday night after the rehearsal dinner. That conversation has been rated "Good" by both of us. I actually learned a lot about my best friend, most of which I already knew. (That last sentence looks like it doesn't make any sense, but I'm sure it would to her.) She refused to help me with my decision for my father, although she told me after I made it that she agreed with it and would support it. I think she knew what I would do before I did; she put forth exactly the same arguments I did, albeit after the fact. The rest of my family was in Iowa, too, and I have some issues to confront there involving just about everybody. Not bad things, just realizations about how people change (or don't) over time. I suppose the biggest thing I saw and heard in Iowa was myself. I saw pieces of myself in many of the people I dealt with. I guess that's one thing friends and relatives do: they allow you to more closely examine yourself by mirroring parts of you in themselves. My father and I are somewhat alike. My cousin Nikki and I are a lot alike. My cousin Corynn and I have similarities, as do me and my best friend Mara. Still, I am like each of those four people in a distinctly different way (or series of ways) than I am similar to the other three or a host of others. It's a useful thing for introspection, although I am usually so focused on introspection (for lack of other mental stimuli, I think) that this whole experience has been overly engrossing. (Ooh. Three distinct ten-letter words. Power sentence.) The one out I've had this week has been in the verses of music that have rumbled through my head. Here I present a few that seem to reflect my mood, in no particular order.
Here's what's on my mind at 2:32 pm on Thursday, 20 April 2000: I really don't have any money. The essential problem with that is it is unlikely to change for a few months. I don't have a job, which is a bad thing for one's income. I paid my AT&T bill yesterday, but that wasn't the bad one. I'm trying to initiate a spending freeze now in anticipation of my next AT&T bill, which is, to put it nicely, not going to be pretty. I know some people who have very intense dreams. I really don't know what I have, since my retention rate is not very good. I do know, however, that it is getting harder to identify the difference at times between thoughts and dreams. (To clarify; thoughts are things I have conscious control over, while dreams are not.) I retain dreams most often at about 11:00 in the morning, after I have (allegedly) been awake, then return to sleep, then wake up again. April showers bring May flowers and softball scheduling nightmares. Every day, it seems now, we're supposed to play, and every day it rains on us. Of course, if it snows, that's another story; Huskies play in the snow. But now we've scheduled a DuPage Valley Conference game for the Saturday before Easter, and we narrowly miss back-to-back games against West Chicago. At this rate, we'll start bumping non-conference games just to get the DVC schedule played before regionals. (I think last year that happened to everybody but us; we finished our conference schedule on time.)
Here's what's on my mind at 3:26 am on Sunday, 30 April 2000: It is 3:26 am on Sunday, the day after ICTM State. I think. I haven't slept yet since the events that took place on Saturday afternoon at Illinois State, and all I can think is, did this all really happen? was I really in Normal? The things that happened at my tenth trip to ICTM State transcended ordinary strangeness, bordering on the surrealistically incredible. Let's go back to the beginning, shall we? Was I really up until 3:00 am last night watching a movie on TV? Was Kim's date still in her room with her then, did he leave at 2:15, or was he ever there at all. Then was the clock in the twins' room in Joliet really an hour fast? It just doesn't make sense. Did I really eat eight jalapeño cheeseburgers from White Castle at 8:00 this morning? Did I really go to Normal?
No, wait, it gets better. I got there and immediately found Morse and Petersen. Then we went down to the pit. Everything seemed normal there, but that would change. The second line of the ICTM State Math Contest Song had changed! It's in the program, plain as day, as "And the Mathletes are here to stay", which makes no sense, considering one of the major to-dos today was that this was the last ICTM State which will be held at ISU. But there was Richard Rhoad, with his hair seemingly a little long in the back, singing it as if nothing were awry. Speaking of hair, Stevenson's coaching staff came by the pit, most of whom know me. I was looking the other way when someone else came up and said, "Looks like Jason is losing some hair there." Without even looking, I said, "Nice to see you too, Mrs. Hamilton." No way, I couldn't have said that, but I must have, because I remember the rest of the coaching staffs from both Stevenson and Naperville North howling with laughter. While we're on the subject of Stevenson coaches, did I really see more of Stevenson's head coach today than either Naperville North assistant? We came back from Orals and ... okay, that can't be, either. I've never seen an orals presentation, ever. But I saw the one today! It was this bit about circles and inversions, and we chatted the oralist from Harlem and a couple other coaches and parents in Stevenson Hall, which I have never been in, so that doesn't make sense. And we had a parent there today who rode the bus? That cannot be. No, but we came back from the orals and there in the pit was our head coach, sitting there reading, and next to him was Stevenson's head coach, reclining as best she could on the couch down there and trying, it appeared, to sleep. But that has to be right, because I remember Stevenson's coach leafing through Naperville North's coach's CDs looking for something to listen to. And besides, how would we have had all the scores for the Patriots; we were comparing notes with them all down the line. We had more information about how Stevenson was doing than we usually get about all other schools combined, just because their head coach was hanging out in our pit with our head coach, fraternizing with the enemy. I would be willing to believe that I'm making that up, because it really seems to weird. But then during relays, when the Stevenson head coach was in with relays, our head coach was singing along with his CD player while grading tests, and he didn't even notice! He just kept singing, "hold my hand...", until somebody walked up to him and did just that. I didn't really see that, did I? Then we packed up and went to awards and demo. Stevenson was the #4 seed in the demo, and they clobbered top-seed Naperville Central, while we mopped up #3 seed Glenbrook North. Then we annihilated Stevenson in the final, while the moron running the show lost count of the number of questions that the other moron couldn't unveil properly. Naperville Central wound up with a tie after eight questions at 4-4, and so took third by virtue of their higher seed. I know that's the rule, but it never really happens .... Then the gloom-and-doom show. Well first I went up to see Lincoln-Way, who wound up tenth (Lincoln-Way placed this year? I mean that's wonderful if it really happened.), and I couldn't find their head coach. I talked to one of the assistants, who also was my clinical supervisor at Lincoln-Way. (Did I really see her today?) Then the gloom-and-doom. Were we really 42 up on the Patriots after the first round, and only 28 behind IMSA? Then what? IMSA had a 210 second round, and we gained 25 points to close to within three. Then after two-person, with only relays and orals to go, were we actually up by one? But our oralist had a 20 at regionals, and IMSA got a 50. We couldn't be in the running. But then Mrs. Nenne said that the difference between first and second was only three points. We all knew at that point that we had lost a valiant fight; that may have been the clearest thing all day. But then it was gone; suddenly Capen Auditorium exploded with a deafening roar. I heard the second place score, and I heard Mrs. Nenne announce IMSA; I never heard the champion. Did we really knock off the Titans? Coaches everywhere congratulated the Huskies, and we did seem to walk off with the first place trophy. Still, I never heard Mrs. Nenne say who won. Did any of this really happen? Does any of it make sense? Does anyone care?
Here's what's on my mind at 2:02 am on Friday, 05 May 2000: Yeah, so I have a long list today. Patience, my friends. Yesterday (well, Wednesday) the softball team got plastered in one inning by Wheaton South 10-2. The inning in question was the seventh; the Huskies lost 14-3. After the game, Coach Williams called a meeting with the parents who were in attendance, which was quite a few. I don't know what was said there; I know some of the issues which led up to the meeting, but it is not my place to rebroadcast them here. I'm just the lowly scorekeeper. (Okay, so I'm not so lowly. But I'm still just the scorekeeper.) Unbeknownst to the coaching staff, Captain Karos and others called a players-only meeting while Coach Williams's meeting was going on. As a result of all of the above, despite the final score of Thursday's 4-1 loss at West Chicago, the Huskies played with a better attitude and more as a team than in any win this year. Wednesday may have been a key day in the season for the 10-10 Huskies; they seem more willing to lay it on the line for each other. We'll see if that is really the case on Saturday on the morning of Naperville North's Prom, the Huskies play their fifth game in five days, a 10 AM home tilt with the current conference leader, the Redhawks of Naperville Central. I know this is a bizarre (oh, I meant to look up "warren" in the dictionary. Please hold. Okay, a warren is a breeding ground for rabbits. I thought it was some kind of geographic feature. I feel better now.) Anyway, I now this is a bit of a non sequitur (like the definition of "warren" wasn't?), but there seem to be a lot of movies set in New York. I mean, I expect certain movies to be set in New York; movies I haven't seen like Escape From New York or Pride Of The Yankees. (Yes, I've actually never seen Gary Cooper play Lou Gehrig. I know, I should be ashamed. I'll try to fix that sometime.) But it seems like every movie I watch is set in New York. On The Town, West Side Story, When Harry Met Sally...., Radio Days, Die Hard With A Vengeance, The Apartment, The Producers, Miracle On 34th Street, Men In Black, As Good As It Gets; there are ten without much effort at all. Even Sleepless In Seattle, although mostly set in Seattle and Baltimore, has its climax in New York. I would be hard-pressed to come up with ten movies set in any other single state, let alone city. Let me see, Dragnet, Singin' In The Rain, The Truman Show, Star Trek IV, Stand And Deliver, My Blue Heaven, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, High Anxiety; those eight are all in California, more or less; some of those are a stretch. This adds yet another reason I would like to visit New York (I'd just like to visit, I want to see Madison Square Garden, my best friend lives in Brooklyn, and so on and so forth); I'd like to see where some of these movies are set. (Question: Name three movies where people meet at the top of the Empire State Building. My answer: Sleepless In Seattle, An Affair To Remmeber, On The Town. Try to name three movies featuring any other building referenced by name in under a minute. I don't think I could.) My next topic was computers. Computers have become too important. I got yet another notice from Sears about my account with them being past due. It was generated by a computer, one which obviously hasn't talked to the human I talked to about this problem back in February. (My account shouldn't be past due at all; I haven't used it since 22 December 1998.) Speaking of money I owe or do not owe people, my current bank account balance is exactly zero. (That's actually hard to do.) There's that rather large amount up there, that $83.60. That's my last AT&T bill, due on the 20th of this month. It's really large. My previous bill was about $36, and my next bill will be back to normal (about $30 or so). This bill, though, has a little over ten hours of phone calls on it, billed at at least seven cents a minute (almost four hours was billed at ten cents a minute). A large part of that $50.22 in calls came because I went to Iowa; other parts were due to a couple birthdays in that last billing cycle. Still, I need to come up with $83.60 in about two weeks. I don't know quite how this is going to happen yet. I need to find a job for this summer. I need to find a job for the fall, too. I sent out requests today for applications from eleven suburban districts, all of whom (I think) are looking for secondary math teachers. I even sent letters to Glenbrook and New Trier, as well as Naperville, Indian Prairie, West Aurora, and other more local districts. I hope I get hired by somebody. I don't know where my dream job would be. New Trier is a dream job almost by definition, but a large part of my being will always be attached to 899 North Mill Street. Either one would be tremendous pressure. Meanwhile, I need to find something more or less immediate. I'd love to go back to what I did the last two summers, since I'm qualified for that now. However, I'm no longer eligible for that position. (All be sad.) While I'm on the subject of morosity (my transitions are so weak they couldn't carry a newspaper, even the Downers Grove Reporter), I have been isolated of late. I haven't seen any of my family (other than my mother and grandmother who live here in N-ville) since Easter, and I haven't even talked to any of my friends since before Easter, either, other than at gaming on Saturday (Jim and Joel were the only ones there). My cousin Nikki's birthday is on Saturday (if you see her, be sure to wish her a happy birthday, not that anyone who reads this page is likely to see my cousin). I may go to Lemont after the NCHS game and see if she's there. Last month I saw a lot of my family; in fact I saw all of my relatives except my aunt who lives in Seattle. I also got to talk to my friends more, both local ones and non-local ones (see above-referenced phone bill). I miss a lot of people. Some I miss more than others. I have one friend I clearly miss most; anyone who knows me should know who that is. I even miss people who aren't my friends any more. I used to have a friend whose birthday is a week from next Wednesday. I haven't heard from her in probably two years, but I'm going to try to send her a card anyway. I'll be amazed if it gets to her after all this time, and she'll probably be pretty surprised to get it. Oh well, life goes on, and I keep watching "Flashbeagle". Wednesday night I was thinking about that Peanuts special from 1984, created in response to the dance craze of the early '80s. I found myself fighting to remember songs from the show; what was the first verse of "Listen to Lucy"? (It's "Lucy says, Put your hands on your head/Lucy says, Now turn around/Put your hands at your sides/Unh-unh, I didn't say, Lucy says/Lucy's the boss, so listen to Lucy, and here's what Lucy says") I know I used to have the soundtrack on tape from this show, complete with a song called "Woodstock" which isn't in the show ("Oh, Woodstock, you're a funny bird/You're the finest whistler we've ever heard/You can build a nest with the best in town/But you're flying upside down"). I can't find the tap around here, of course, nor is it listed on any online music stores I can find. Fortunately, I have an old tape (yes, actually recorded in 1984 off WBBM-TV in Chicago) with the show on it. I watched it last nioght, and I was amazed how quickly all the song came back. I had the lyrics down over 90% of the time, and I'm sure I know understand a few that I never knew when I was eight. "I'm In Shape" ("When other kids are fading at the finish/When all the others fail to break the tape/I saunter round the track and wave to Daddy/I'm in shape, I'm in shape, I'm in shape/She's practicing Peppermint Patty's P. E. program/She's in shape, she's in shape, she's in shape"), "Pig-Pen Hoedown" ("If you really wanna dance/And we stay here, we've got no chance/So bow to the ceiling, bow to the floor/Leave Pig-Pen here and head for the door/When you're doin' the Pig-Pen Hoedown, gotta have a caller you can trust/'Cause when Pig-Pen does the Hoedown, he really kicks up some dust"), "Listen to Lucy", "Snoopy" ("Who can fly a doghouse up in the bright blue sky/Who can wind up his ears, lift up his head, and fly/It's not a Rover, not a Fido, no no, not him/It's not a Lassie, not a Benji, not Rin Tin Tin/Well, it's Snoopy, Snoopy/Talkin' 'bout Snoopy, talkin' 'bout Snoopy/He can do anything; Snoopy makes everyone smile"), and "Flashbeagle" ("From the sole of his feet to the tip of his nose, he's got rhythm pumping all through his veins/He spins like a top that'll never stop with the power of a hurricane/He's a champion, he's the best, impossible to tame/People say that he's the best, listen to the sound of his name/They call him Flash-flash-flash-flash-flashbeagle/When he's in the room, the whole room starts to reel/You know he's Flash-flash-flash-flash-flashbeagle/When he jumps up high, he flies like a wild eagle") are all great songs from the special, the only Peanuts special I can think of that was so focused on songs. I wish I could find the old soundtrack tape, or even if I could find it to buy on CD. Good old stuff, locked in my memory, whether I like it or not. But of course I do.