character development. [part one]
05/31/2006 02:41 p.m.
hello my name is _______. my real name is francis. mostly people call me frankie. my dad calls me frank. some people call me freddie. still others call me dirty. these are just names.

these are just words.

these are intervals of time. that add up to days. and these days seem like they're all bleeding into one. packed in deserts, long car rides, in airport terminals, transporting effortlessly from one soon-to-be-memory to the next. and for all the memories i've experienced lately, i've been married to none of them. they all feel like flings, like one-night stands, and each one semi-sort-of embodies the next one.

a little more than two weeks ago i was camping out in the desert to experience the experience that is coachella. initially i had planned on writing an extensive blog about these few days, but for some reason i never did. maybe because i spent a week recovering from two days in desert conditions, maybe because on the last day there i slept poorly, smoked some extravagant pot, drank liquor on an empty stomach, took benadryl to ease my sinus problem, and ate very little... maybe these two days of my life are forever lost in the haze of desert heat and the vibrant intensity that is and was daft punk.

maybe the haze of desert heat and the vibrant intensity of daft punk are forever lost in my inability to recollect a coherent amount of details. maybe not. maybe my disappointment in the madonna performance effected my desire to write about my days at coachella. maybe it was the stench of sun-heated port-a-potties. maybe it was... something else.

so there was daft punk that closed the saturday night show and that was... holy shit! and then there was tool whom closed the entire event on sunday night. and then there was tool... i find that it is beyond me to try and capture tool in words. so i won't try. you simply had to be there.

the crowds at coachella were enormous. we were herds of people grazing through a desert landscape, scattered with signs of artistic impressions. we were hippies; but nothing like the original kind. we were musical addicts looking for a fix.

these are just thoughts.

fast forward two weeks or so and i'm flying to chicago. it is mother's day weekend and i am flying into chicago to graduate from college. this will be a long story made incredibly short: wednesday; eleven fifty-five pm, my flight departs from los angeles, thursday; six am, my flight lands in chicago, tom and steve show up to surprise me at the airport, we go to clark's, steve takes exams while tom and i sleep, we wake up, we go to a tattoo parlor, we each get a tattoo...

friday; afternoon-ish i meet up with d.capone for brunch at bongo room, the food is delicious she pays as a graduation gift, we meet up with my parents at the monaco hotel at wabash and wacker, my family and i head to giordano's for chicago-style deep dish pizza, then i depart and head to sean halvorsen's apartment for a keg party in honor of his graduation, we get drunk...

saturday; met up with parents again, they take me to morton's steak house for dinner, the food is amazing, the bill is phenomenal, we eat and laugh and drink and laugh and eat, i head back to steve's, i head back downtown and meet up with nicole at miller's pub, we have chocolate martinis, three to be exact and she pays as a graduation gift...

sunday; before heading to the uic pavilion i have a drink with my parents in the hotel bar, then we take a cab to the pavilion and i graduate, we're all happiness, monday; morning we meet up downtown, i give my family one last walking tour of downtown chicago, including my old apartment, we eat lunch at portillo's and then head to the airport, my flight landed in los angeles at seven:fifteen pm.

everything i just shared, even the missing pieces in the middle, all of it meant so much more than i anticipated. i appreciated every moment of that weekend and can not thank all the people involved enough for all of their love and support. this is me expressing love for you.

and so, that is where i am at, the things that i am still digesting while my life in los angeles continues to take shape, while my life in los angeles continues to take flight. there is so much more that i have to share... this blog is rushed, lacking in insight and failing to communicate the greater things at work in my life.

let us consider this part one of a blog series. this is the setup. the opening sequence. this is character development. i am the narrator.

[insert musical score by danny elfman.]

this is... to be continued.