So it's nearly June out there and I've come to the realization that I have gotten really bad a blogging. In fact -if I want to be brutally honest- I've gotten pretty bad a writing as a whole. Sure, I used to knock out a few of these every other day or so (not to mention the fact that I'm shirking my duties over at GUNAXIN... I'm sure Phil's just thrilled about that...), but lately it seems I'm just drained. I don't know what it is... work, seasons changing, laziness... something. Regardless this complacency has to stop and there's no better time than the present. Right? Right. Okay, on with it then...
So where were we? Right. College. Northern Michigan University. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had an absolute ball up there in Marquette. I was never one of those kids who longed for their parents when I was away on lengthy Scouting camping trips or other various periods of time I was away from home, so getting out of the house for a year was no big deal. In fact, I knew right away that I likely wasn't going to live back at home for any extended length of time anymore. Which turned out to be mostly true, but we'll save that for later. So Andrew Boldt (my roomie) and I became fast friends with quite a lot more in common than we figured right away. We both liked comics, we both like good music (though of varying genres), and we both liked horror flicks. Seemed good to me and we got along famously pretty much from the get-go. I was a smoker at the time, and back then smoking in the dorms wasn't the damnable offense that it is now, so he even let me do that as long as I had the window open and a fan blowing out. And I, in turn, didn't mind when he dressed like a woman and tried on wigs. Wait... I don't think that ever happened.
Anyway, we had our classes separately since we were studying vastly different things: he wanted to be a doctor, and I was heading in either the direction of either graphic design or journalism. So while he'd have a veritable library of tomes on becoming a physician or a surgeon or whatever it was, I loaded the room with canvasses, easels, paint supplies, and artist sundries of every shape a style. And then I was asked to begin writing and drawing for the Wildcat Weekly: a publication for, of, and by college students covering all the news and op-eds fit to print. And thus began my first real foray into the printed word and seeing my little doodles in a local publication.
Andrew had a computer, something I pined for but had yet to acquire at the time. It was mostly used for games and drawing silly pics on Paint, but it also offered a very archaic modem and the ability to email on the campus. After all, it was 1992/93 and the prospect of sending electronic information via phone lines was still in its infancy on college campuses, and all that one could really do was send text. Which, as it turned out, worked perfectly for a guy, like me, who was writing for a paper. Andrew let me use it when necessary and I ended up kicking out maybe twenty articles and a dozen or so pictures. It was great and I made enough scratch on the side to supplement the cash I got from my parents. It was pretty sweet.
And the visitors came. Oh did they. I was far enough away that monthly visits were pretty common: My dad and step-mom, my mom and step-dad, my grandparents, and best of all, my best friend Kevin. In fact, were it not for him, I might not have made it back to Portage on a few vacations. You see, he took it upon himself to come up and visit, and bring me both home and back several times. It was a pretty cool set up and my parents even supplied gas money for him. Seemed good to me. One time, he was able to stay a few days since Andrew had gone home for a long weekend. We got pretty drunk and more or less smoked and wasted the weekend away doing nothing. It was pretty cool. Ironically, he hated traveling over the Mackinaw Bridge and would become a sweating, frightened, stiffened zombie the entire distance of it. It was pretty funny.
Next: A Year Is All I Could Take... and I'm glad for it.
So where were we? Right. College. Northern Michigan University. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had an absolute ball up there in Marquette. I was never one of those kids who longed for their parents when I was away on lengthy Scouting camping trips or other various periods of time I was away from home, so getting out of the house for a year was no big deal. In fact, I knew right away that I likely wasn't going to live back at home for any extended length of time anymore. Which turned out to be mostly true, but we'll save that for later. So Andrew Boldt (my roomie) and I became fast friends with quite a lot more in common than we figured right away. We both liked comics, we both like good music (though of varying genres), and we both liked horror flicks. Seemed good to me and we got along famously pretty much from the get-go. I was a smoker at the time, and back then smoking in the dorms wasn't the damnable offense that it is now, so he even let me do that as long as I had the window open and a fan blowing out. And I, in turn, didn't mind when he dressed like a woman and tried on wigs. Wait... I don't think that ever happened.
Anyway, we had our classes separately since we were studying vastly different things: he wanted to be a doctor, and I was heading in either the direction of either graphic design or journalism. So while he'd have a veritable library of tomes on becoming a physician or a surgeon or whatever it was, I loaded the room with canvasses, easels, paint supplies, and artist sundries of every shape a style. And then I was asked to begin writing and drawing for the Wildcat Weekly: a publication for, of, and by college students covering all the news and op-eds fit to print. And thus began my first real foray into the printed word and seeing my little doodles in a local publication.
Andrew had a computer, something I pined for but had yet to acquire at the time. It was mostly used for games and drawing silly pics on Paint, but it also offered a very archaic modem and the ability to email on the campus. After all, it was 1992/93 and the prospect of sending electronic information via phone lines was still in its infancy on college campuses, and all that one could really do was send text. Which, as it turned out, worked perfectly for a guy, like me, who was writing for a paper. Andrew let me use it when necessary and I ended up kicking out maybe twenty articles and a dozen or so pictures. It was great and I made enough scratch on the side to supplement the cash I got from my parents. It was pretty sweet.
And the visitors came. Oh did they. I was far enough away that monthly visits were pretty common: My dad and step-mom, my mom and step-dad, my grandparents, and best of all, my best friend Kevin. In fact, were it not for him, I might not have made it back to Portage on a few vacations. You see, he took it upon himself to come up and visit, and bring me both home and back several times. It was a pretty cool set up and my parents even supplied gas money for him. Seemed good to me. One time, he was able to stay a few days since Andrew had gone home for a long weekend. We got pretty drunk and more or less smoked and wasted the weekend away doing nothing. It was pretty cool. Ironically, he hated traveling over the Mackinaw Bridge and would become a sweating, frightened, stiffened zombie the entire distance of it. It was pretty funny.
Next: A Year Is All I Could Take... and I'm glad for it.
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