A Michigan Wolverine in the Windy City: turnberryknkn

turnberryknkn

A Michigan Wolverine in the Windy City

Dec 01, 2002 20:51

As I've said so often in these pages, I've been very, *very* lucky in my life for so many reasons: above all, loving family and wonderful friends; friends from every quarter of my life, from high school days and engineering halls to med school wards and activist circles, to the worlds of fantasy of Usenet and the new friendships I have been so lucky to find in the SCA.

As I too have written before, it was friends from one circle --rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan, home of the Darkfriends-- who brought me to the Diaries in the first place; but after more than a year, those friends actually only form a fraction now of the total community of friends here on the diaries. As I wrote about in this LiveJournal entry, there are now many different circles of friends represented here, as a peek at my LiveJournal friends page and the color marks demonstrate, including some of my dearest and oldest friends which long pre-date my coming to Usenet, and many of the wonderful folks I've met in these diaries whom I have yet even the honor to meet in person.

There are beginnings to all wonderful things, and this be the tale of the March day long ago, where I met, in person, for the first time so many of the people with whom I have reveled and rolicked these many past glorious years, when a Michigan Wolverine first came to the Windy City and the Tower. Enjoy. :-)

Chicago, March 4th, 2000

"Come on --baby don't you want to go /
Oh come on --baby don't you want to go/
Back to the same old place --Sweet Home, Chicago!!"

Chicago --City of the Big Shoulders, headquarters of the American Medical Association, and my favorite city on Earth. So when med business brought me to the City of Midwestern Darkfriends I tossed out a note onto the group and before I knew it this DarkFriend Social (DFS) virgin was on his way to being inagurated in style...

Saturday morning publius1, missysedai and _constantine contacted me by ICQ and arranged an early meet in advance of the main social, ran to lab to polish off a few last minute procedures, and hoofed down to the local Amtrak to catch the train on in to Chi-town's Union Station. Taxied up to my brother Gauss's place at Northwestern Med, stashed my stuff, peeked into Ghirardelli's in case the Darkfriends were still there, then pulled into FAO Schwartz on the dot at 4PM. Circuited the main floor (FAO has the _coolest_ stuffed animals on Earth!), went up the escalator, turned the corner, and cashing out at the Barbie counter was a _very_ familiar looking Aes Sedai with long dark hair and glasses....

missysedai was picking up a FAO Schwartz Barbie for her sister, and with that completed we rounded the corner to the Star Wars toy section and quickly ran into the dapperly suited _constantine --but no Publius. Proceeded to round the rest of the store looking for Publius and eventually Constantine found him and brought him outside where Missy and I were waiting.

Hailed a taxi and headed up to Pizza Capri. Sundry conversations about the insanity of Michigan drivers, the difficulty of finding fine spices in downtown Chicago and the obligatory double entendes, with Publius whacking various people with his newly purchased big stick and Missy ending up at one point with a five-dollar-bill clenched between her teeth. (You had to be there. :-) ) We pulled into Pizza Capri about 4:30ish, asked for a reservation under desdenova or prince_corwin, they didn't find one but wisely decided to seat us right away in a nice corner away from the other patrons. Alchohol and appetizers were ordered, and we settled in a quite amusing series of random conversation topics awaiting the other Darkfriends who were not due for another hour. Publius shared a quite stunning Port, we attempted to float a dime on Constantine's Guiness and Missy showed off the Pooh Bag o' Death, and soon the graceful desdenova and the equally dapperly suited, goatee-less montoya appeared. Finally, prince_corwin arrived ("I felt a Shadow --oh, Corwin's here...") and our circle of Seven was complete...

As someone pointed out later, seven of us, one for each Mortal Sin. I'm not sure which one I am, but I'm pretty sure it's not Lust...
These were all people I had come to know over the last half year via their posts to Usenet, and in Missy's case, over ICQ. Meeting them in person, now, finally,the Darkfriends and their voices were pretty much as I had pictured them, all an extrodinarly friendly and warm bunch, except for Corwin, which I am obliged to say is as impressive a Bad-Ass in person as he is by reputation. ("Who the hell are you?" (grin) "A pleasure to meet you too, Corwin.")

prince_corwin

Heeding the warnings against ordering the large sized entrees (except for Constantine, for which the lasanga came only in one size) we ordered food and dove into the conversation --European history, sweeps week hijinks, Corwin's new job, political commentators ("I was always hoping that Michael Kingsley and Pat Buhcanan would one day just settle it once and for all --you know draw Scottish Claymores and scream 'There Can Be Only One!') the relative salaries of Darkfriends ("Shut up, stock-option boy..."..."I'm just a poor Grad Student." "Well, at least you're not _paying_ to work..."), more sexual references. Publius took an inordinate interest in far northern locations shown on the exposed portions of his massive world map ("Point Resolute --I want to go there sometime before I die." "Why not go to the South Pole --you can go further south on land." "Why not head West --you can go even farther..."..."Kalmuchunk. Nova Zemla. I like those names." "Alright, Publius, next birthday we buy you an Atlas...")

Food arrived in it's anticipated huge portions (Constantine's Lasanga was impressively large --"If you want a definition of nonplussed, you just need look at Constantine's Face") and a sniff-test eurupted over the identity of Corwin's soda (the panelists conlcuded he had been mistakenly served a Diet Coke). Eventually the dinner wound up ( (conspiratorially) "It's time for Dessert!") and we strolled on over to Stars our Destination.

Would you believe they actually have Sandman action figurines now? This and other things --a brief discussion of the sheer suckage of Piers Anthony, the discovery that the major SF awards are a pet peeve of the nice book lady Alice (IIRC, it was Constantine who had to flee her violent rant), various authors of all kinds. Another hapless Darkfriend, cornered by vicious junkies and pushers, began a Bujold addiction, Publius on an impluse buy purchaced one of those huge expanding/collapsing spheres, Corwin picked up an Internet Tarot Deck ("I've got five books on Tarot." "Well, did you own a deck?" "No," and bought one) and we hiked on over to Publius's place, with it's fantastic security ( "Doesn't your place have a key lock?" "Yep, it's just not necessary to use the key.")

Since the last DFS there, Publius had acquired an impressive set of furniture and painted the walls a nice consistent, slaughter-house dark shade of red. Missy set about firing up a new table candle lamp ("Watch those eyebrows!"..."Hey, is the flame supposed to be that tall?" "Publius, do you have marshmellows?") and the rest of us settled in around her for more conversation --Corwin explaining why metal in microwaves arcs ("I could explain more, but that would require me to cover these walls in vector field equations"), a discussion of the relative suckage of Usenet feeds on many ISPs and the rudeness of neighboors ("It was great --we had the fusebox for the entire complex in our basement. When the neighbors got too loud..."..."We had a really annoying neighbor --in addition to everything else, she used to try to sell us perfumes and stuff." "So an Avon Lady?" "She wasn't an Avon Lady--she was a crack whore!"), the dearth of intelligent posters from Australia and AOL ("Well, I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this, but you have [power deleted]'s credit he's pretty persistent." "Yeah, but so is Jock Itch...") and dating prospects for the noveau rich in Belmont ("So I should set out and go acquire myself a trophy fag?" "You mean, Who Wants to Marry a Gay Multi-Millionare?").

People were inordinately amused by Publius's collapsing sphere. Pictures were taken, stories told, of how Constantine once lost his eyebrows ("Now, our TA told us we couldn't melt Pyrex...") and of Corwin's TAing days ("Do you think your students were really trying to kill you?") and many others. Eventually, much to my regret, the time came all to soon for me to take my leave (I had an appointment to meet a friend at 11:30 PM)...

Sincere thanks to Pubilus for having the DarkFriends again, Desdenova and Corwin for setting up the details on the ground, and everyone else for making me feel extordinarly welcome at his first DFS --it was a blast...the first of many years of wonderful adventures, right up to this very day. :-)

March 2005: Many things have changed in the years since: the FAO Schwartz and Stars, Our Destination have shuttered. The newsgroup itself from which we all first arose has, so I have heard, largely gone quiet. Many things happened in the years since, both that which we remember fondly and that which we wish we could forget. But for all the changes, the best of things never changed: among which, the friendships which began that day -- and all the countless other friendships and stories which began from that which began there, one weekend in the Windy City. And for all of that, too: to those who began it all, again, a thank you. :-)