5/13/04 1:39pm A twenty-four hour trip to Albany, a blitzkrieg through finals week, an E-board meeting and a Starcraft game, a torrent of orange slices, goodbyes, and sweltering heat out in the hazy Buffalo afternoons. This is literally my final hour in the Spire, and I'm going to miss it very much, but really, the Spire is made by the people who have lived here for the past year. It's been great, guys, and next year is going to be the exciting conclusion. Now it's just me and the only damn interstate highway that I've called home for two decades... Albany, here I come.

5/7/04 11:50pm Alright, so last night's Studio X was a travesty even when compared to the average Studio X. That's really all I have to say about that. It was, however, a good career cap for the handful of people that are graduating, and singing Bohemian Rhapsody on stage with so many classic LT standbys from my freshman year was pretty emotionally charged. It kind of hit me that when I come back next year, I'll be a senior, I'll be among the members with the longest club history, and that's kind of scary. I was flattered to be elected Vice President of Little Theatre, and I'm just going to have to do my damnedest to help the club along, help build momentum, and help to bring in and teach the generation that will soon replace me and everyone I know here. So that's something. Strike was hilarious, lasted way too long, and involved a lightning storm that reached its high point when I came bursting back into the theatre yelling, "Hey guys! Glendale is on fire!" and it was true. I woke up early today to go set up for Springfest, reported to Koessler under a brightly shining sun. Set up some tables, took a nap in the sun, got burned pretty badly, my face still hurts a lot. After escaping, I played the trans-campus couch marching game with Hasheen, Ben, Bob, and Johnny. Clubroom time was incredible, a lot of good people, Tequila and King of Spain, King Kamehameha, excellent times. I had a rather existentially poignant experience walking back to the Student Center from Springfest setup; I walked back with some random freshman girl who I had never talked to before, I have no idea what her name is, but for some reason we walked all the way back together, almost as if we were friends. We talked about nothing in particular. I dunno, it just struck me. Anyway, after clubroom time, we hit Springfest with a vengeance, and by we I mean me and some Little Theatre types, I saw all kinds of faces, I was out in the sun, there was fried dough, blue sno-cone refills, more people, people I know, people dispersed and came together and divided and I couldn't score some free chicken because the line was too long, I escaped afterwards into the Chapel, my eyes had to adjust to the darkness, listened to a vocal recital, made sure Katie Thomas didn't wander back to Springfest to find nobody there, we visited Jenn at the Honors House, I rocked the suburbs for an hour, had chinese food, wore a pink T-shirt, wandered over to Bosch, pretended to be drunk, had a piece of cake, heard Bohemian Rhapsody again, escaped, came back to the Spire, absolute randomness ensued, singing at the top of my lungs with Jerod and Phil and B-Waff of all people, cut mold off of some strawberries and ate them, listened to Mozart's Requiem in its entirety while Brent poured out his soul by way of his own tragic inebriation, and now I'm here listening to the one important biblically-ripped hit by The Byrds and that's really all there is to it for me. Sunburned, reflective, and it's only just after midnight now, I have a whole lot of options for tonight yet. So this is kind of how my junior year here is wrapping up.

5/6/04 7:19am So about half an hour ago I woke up, after about four hours of sleep. I was extremely confused. I almost went back to bed, but then I considered all of the stuff that I could get done if I had three extra hours of my day tacked on before my first class even started. Thusly, I got out of bed and put in three loads of laundry, and now I think I'm finally going to tackle the blocking for my reflection paper. I'm also going to shower, shave, probably make myself breakfast, and maybe even do a little editing in Banchich's Nichomachean Ethics commentary. The air is a little cold, but the sun is up and shining over Sisters Hospital, so what am I waiting for? Today attacked me early, and I'm going to return the favor. Onward!

5/2/04 11:19pm Well, there goes another Little Theatre season. The show closed today, another nine hours in Lyons Hall, and I'm really gonna miss spending the lion's share of my waking hours with that cast and crew. Honestly, the fun that I had while working on this show is exactly the reason why I do theatre in the first place. It makes me feel like all of the time and effort that I've sunk into the club has been worth it. It's a great feeling to look at a set coming down all around you and think to yourself, "You know, we all built this together. We poured our hearts into this, we cooperated, we did what we came here to do, and people liked the result. We liked the result... the result that we built." Yeah, that's pride. I want to feel pride in something that I've accomplished together with my friends. Honestly. So the weekend was pretty solid, my family sans Jon came up, Mike went out with some of the cast and staffers and me to Pano's and then to midnight freezing raining Putt-Putt, Greg's really nifty house in Tonawanda, a good time was had by all. Johnny and I battled Furniture Land at strike. After the strike meal, I collapsed on the couch in the theatre, all kinds of good people filled in around me, Joan's music was going over the house amp and my headshot was resting like a funeral portrait on my chest and in that moment there, yeah, I was at home in that theatre, I was chilling with my second family, the crazy and dynamic and passionate troupe that call themselves Canisius College Little Theatre. Another show built up, flown, and struck down, all by our own hands. Awesome.

4/30/04 2:47am The show opened; it's going really well. I'm pretty miffed that two of my best friends in the entire world, Zonk and Megh, are both experiencing automobile difficulties and can't make it out to see it, but I'll get over it, and I'll be home soon enough. My parents are coming up on Saturday, which is peachy keen. Random snippets of things that have been going down here... I walked out to my car the other day, and, long story short, my rear-view mirror had disattached itself from the inside of the windshield. I went to an auto parts store to buy glue for it, realized I forgot my wallet when I went to pay for the stuff, the guy gave me a half-off "membership discount" or something, I had to dig for change in the cushions of the back seat of my car, I got the glue, still haven't fixed the damn thing yet. Thoroughly embarrassing. My brother Jon's birthday was a couple of days ago, but we've both been doing shows and I haven't gotten the chance to talk to him. Meh. He's sixteen now, so he can get his permit, which reminds me, today my illustrious and delightful youngest sibling informed me that my parents just bought a new Civic. It's a stick-shift though, which means I will probably drive it never. I wonder what color it is. I got a letter in the mail telling me that I got my CEEP grant renewed for next year, much to my chagrin. I've worked exactly zero hours for it this semester, and I feel really bad about that, but it seems like both Dr. Banchich and I have been really busy with stuff, I don't think he got a grant to work on the Zonaras stuff this summer, so it's slow going in the area of editing that thing. I need to get grinding on his Nichomachean Ethics commentary, though. After the last dress rehearsal, the editor of the Quadrangle showed up in the theatre with two trays full of chocolate-covered and white chocolate-covered strawberries and plates full of cheesecake. Whoa, that was something else. I wore my bowling shoes this evening. Oh, and my sister also told me that I got "a really pretty book" in the mail, which I assume is my Hebrew-English lexicon. So my task for this summer, I think, will be to pre-emptively teach myself Hebrew so that I can get the most out of taking it in the fall. I like how Mike is done with classes and finals and everything already, and is home now with a goofy-ass away message like "ALBing it up in the ALB" or something like that. I threw the frisbee around a little bit today (it was gorgeous out), and that only made me want to go home even more. If I don't make it home next weekend, I'm going to miss the tulips. So help me, I'm going to miss the tulips.

4/23/04 4:34pm One of these days, I am going to start going to bed early and getting up early. I think I will begin this practice sooner than later.

4/22/04 2:32am Throw this one in the old chronicles... Alpha Sigma Nu induction, parents up for a Tuesday night, lunch in Loyola, and to top it all off, Mike broke his car key while waiting for his chocolate milkshake at Pano's. So help me, he snapped his car key in two with his bare hands, without trying, and for no reason. He, Bill, Pat, and I walked home. Just got back. Life is amazing and wonderful and strange.

4/18/04 4:23am Sometimes the most poignant of our experiences are stricken from history, but not tonight's. I had a blast tonight in the Lower Spire, the RST majors busted on over after the social at Dr. McNutt's house, which, incidentally, reminded me very much of the Pastel place back in Albany. Good food, "Do I dare open the dean's refrigerator," a fast-paced retort match between Fr. Fiore and Jenn Huer over the North and the South, there were brownies, good times. As Jason put it, there was an eclectic mix of people in the Lower tonight, between RST uniques like Jerod, Jon, and Jenn, Graham in for a bit, the usual crowd and Mike's friend from home, "Military" Doug. I played/watched about seven hours of Halo, completely self-destructively, but Jerod could not accept that the team of Huer and Bard could continuously stomp his team in CTF. Many a rematch was run, and a good time was had by all. The show is coming along really well. We did a poster run down part of Elmwood today, that is, I talked to clothing store owners and asked if I could put up posters for the show while the girls browsed. Hilarious. I had a jamming Billy Joel experience last night, and tonight it was Random Acts of Elton John, which is quickly becoming a Spire sensation. Yeah, this is sensational. So, I guess the point is that it doesn't take an orange and purple crescent moon sunrise to make an important episode in a life, but it sure as hell doesn't hurt. Here's to Warthog teamwork, rolling the old d20, eggplant parm, the River of Dreams, waltzing around in boxers on the stage during an Admissions event, and everyone who contributed to this fabulous weekend.

4/15/04 2:05am Today was a happy day; I didn't really get out and enjoy it, but what I saw I liked very much. I was up last night until around 7:30 in the morning slamming together a paper for the Catholic social ethics course, got a solid five hours of daylight sleep, and hit the ground running this afternoon, my work is out of the way for the moment and I feel fine (or, as I happily reported to Katie at rehearsal, I'm somewhere in the realm of fantastic plus one). Easter in Boston was really cool. I ate very well. Another thousand miles later, I've boomeranged back to Buffalo, rounding out my whirlwind triumvirate over the past two weeks that has covered Ontario, West Virginia, and Massachusetts. I dragged myself kicking and screaming through two out of four of this semester's major papers early this week, and now I am as free as a bird for a day or two. It's a particularly good feeling. Alex inexplicably flew the coop not too long ago, and Dan has already converted his bedroom into a room of particularly Dannish goodness. We had some good times, Alex, but if you've got to fly, you really just have to fly. We'll definitely remember you, and it'll be rough not having you around for the radio shows and the next FF7 races. That's kind of the way life rolls... Brent, on the other hand, has reported that he's staying on for another year. Sometimes I wish life would throw me more surprises, but on second thought, I should probably be careful what I wish for. Things are really good right now.

4/10/04 1:03am "What's today?" "The ninth." "Ah, nine." So I scrawled out my signature on the check, and there it was. Been really busy lately, but not with anything in particular. "Blue Leaves" has come and gone, good run, musical rehearsals and tech have been taking over my life, in addition to a ravenous addiction to blowing money (which I don't have) on Magic cards. Absolutely shameful. Meanwhile, my life is blasting forward, and it's all been reflected through a whirlwind of travel and feeling older and watching bizarre films that have only fed my delusion. If you want to keep your feet on the ground, do NOT watch "Spirited Away" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" within a day of one another. Incidentally, I highly recommend both of them. So last Thursday morning I got up early and went down to West Virginia with Fr. Fiore, we cut through a fog bank near Erie and made fun of just about every town name in Western Pennsylvania. The man is absolutely hysterical; I was near tears after more than one of his offhand remarks, and it made the trip go a lot faster than I thought it would. So my first trip to Wheeling, WV was for a meeting of the Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society. Essentially, it's a whole bunch of biblical studies professors getting together in a hotel and reading off their papers to one another. This amounted, basically, to me skipping a day of class to go and sit through ten hours of hardcore lecture time, and I actually enjoyed most of it. Highlights included singing "My Funny Valentine" along with Dr. Duling's jazz piano stylings, waking up in my very own hotel room for the first time in my life, and meeting George Smiga, whose "Pain and Polemic," a book on the anti-Semitic question in the gospels, I had used pretty extensively for my Pharisees paper last semester. He bought me a ginger ale. The conference was held at this resort up on a hill outside of Wheeling, in this very lush-looking hilly West Virginian setting that was a very welcome break from the pancake-flat, pre-twister-Wizard-of-Oz kind of environment that I normally live in. Lots of people there asked me if I was presenting anything, and I just kind of smiled and said something like "No, I'm a junior -- undergrad." And I guess all of the "student" papers are from people in the end of their doctoral studies, but to hell with 'em, I'll present next year anyway. I went back to Buffalo with a professor from Niagara who was pretty hip, listened to music that I had never really heard but thoroughly enjoyed. It rained the whole time. Back in Buffalo, the show had its closing weekend, there was strike and tech and more rehearsal and more assignments and I didn't write my paper for Dr. Lee and I'm going to take damage for it, I still haven't even started the damn thing, it was very sunny today and I hit the UAlbany library to see if I could find something that I could use. Jon came along with me (he was banned from the MUD for twenty-four hours). Here in Albany, it's been cool and clear, and I thought that nobody was coming home but it turned out that just about everyone came home, so I've hung out with Megh and Billy and Zonk and Tom and Kennedy and the brothers Campbell and Sainato, Bill Przylucki, and tomorrow I am going to Boston with my family to visit my brother, it'll be a grand old Easter for the Bards in New England. Stopped in Utica on the way home, Tutu took me to the Trackside. Eggplant parm. Fantastic. So I'm sitting here at home, we ship out to Boston tomorrow morning, I ship back out to Buffalo in two days, I really need to find a job for this summer, it's all more or less spinning out of my hands, I'm really not sure how it's going to end up, but I know that things are basically solid right now. So I'm going to leave it at that.

3/29/04 6:15pm There's nothing like a ridiculous journey, a rush of the wind, and a brightly shining sun when it comes to getting me back onto a decent mental track. I only got about four hours of sleep on Saturday night, but somehow the events of Sunday and today have picked me up and put me right where I think I need to be. Cheers.

3/26/04 3:29am Today was right vivid. When I got up this morning, I was exhausted. I got ready, walked into the common room, said "morning" to Nick, who happened to be there, unlike a normal Thursday morning. I took my customary six ounces or so of orange juice, goddamn Tropicana this morning because the usual stuff I buy was sold out, except for the "Plus Calcium" kind, and I was not about to go in for that. The light streamed into the common room as I opened the blinds, took my pack, and left. Bible as Lit was lame, except afterwards the professor asked if I had taken my NT stuff with Duling, and I said "hell yeah," and Norman Perrin's name came up, so there you go. I went to drop off my CEEP application. I walked into the Academic Affairs office, there were three secretary-looking people there, and one of them was like "CEEP?" and I said "CEEP." So that was an amazing interaction with another human being. I went to the clubroom, went to lunch and the conversation turned to "Square One," the old PBS math show for kids out of the late 80's, so then Bill and I were on a mission from God, the word "Google" was used as a verb, and minutes later we were watching music videos like "Angle Dance" and "One Billion is Big." My life was summarily made at that moment. I was having so much fun, I decided to skip Eastern Religions, I looked for the dreidel but didn't find it, Hasheen said he had a Magic 8-Ball function in his PDA, he didn't, but he moderated a coin toss, it was an Indiana state quarter, the one with the race car on it, and it came up tails. No class. So there was more chilling and more Square One, the song about the number nine, we begrudgingly went to Medieval Phi. Fortune smiled upon us, though, and Schultz declared that class was only going to run for twenty minutes because she was bouncing to go to some lecture, which she encouraged us all to attend. We slammed Anselm for twenty minutes, and then everyone got up to leave. One of the quiet girls who sits at the front-right of the classroom had incredible knee-length argyles on, I really wanted to compliment her but didn't. So the question came down to what the heck we were going to do with our free time. Dan had to go back and do work before the show, Graham seemed to be fluttering around, Milt and Alex booked it, Byron and I looked at each other and were all like "let's go play some 'it,'" and meanwhile Schultz was heading down the hall, looking back at us, and actually said something like "Are you guys coming or what?" so the gauntlet was down. I was standing there, literally at an intersection, the ones going to the lecture had taken the bridge to the tower, Byron was heading downstairs, Graham was standing there with me, and what the hell was I going to do? I followed Byron downstairs, and then my academic-ambition sense kind of overpowered my desire to goof around, next thing I knew I was up in a tower classroom listening to some extremely accomplished man with a vaguely British accent going on about democratic pluralism and phenomenology. Dave Covert's blue ballpoint pen and my left arm collided, and I still have a blue line there. I stammered out some question at the end of it, the guy actually complimented me on the question, I paid my dues I suppose, meanwhile those argyles were still over there to my right, Julie I think her name is, but whatever, I left the place without saying anything, I was back in the Spire, Brent hit me with some really heavy news, I responded with tortellini, spinach, feta cheese, and pomegranate juice, Derek was killing Nazis on the television screen, I got dressed and shaved for the show, headed to the theatre, yelled at some people, set things up, there was a Shop-Vac involved, the Grand Old Duke of York, there was a show, amazing show. We need to get more people to see it. Afterwards, an IM from Amine at Albany High, changed back into my old jeans, Truesdail across our laps in the back seat of the car, cranberry juice and a fix with spinach and bacon at Pano's, watched Notting Hill, hated it, Dan got loopy and we acquired two metal rings on the walk home, the birds were chirping at 3:15 in the morning and I said, "Wait... birds." Some days just strike you a certain way, I guess.

3/25/04 1:49am Welp, I don't know where to begin exactly. Spring break, this time around, was very welcome and way too short. I escaped Buffalo in a tattered and exhausted state, crashed with my grandparents and made it home, and finally got a good amount of food in my stomach. I got to see Zonca and Kennedy and Tom and Schuman and Megh, we went to see the incredible "Bubba Ho-Tep," Mike Bard was home for the end of his own spring break, so things were status old-school in the Bard household for all of about two days. Mike conned me into actually taking my car to Boston with us, so he and I and the old 3-1 hit the road for another spring break New England adventure. The details of my time in Boston aren't really that important. I had almost completely lost the ability to hear anything thanks to my cold, so that was pretty irritating. I ate really well. I rode the 'T' for a total of almost nine hours, I'm pretty sure, in less than four days. Weston Jesuit. Cambridge. The North End. Harvard Divinity School. RISK. Billy's apartment. Still no hearing. Anna's Taqueria. Bartley's Burgers. Toe Jam and Earl... the original one. Icarus Wings. Slept on Mike's hard-as-hell floor for two nights, early mornings after both of them. Duling's textbook was being used at Harvard. The snow started falling, I had to dig my car out of a snowbank near the Fenway, in front of my brother's dorm, there was a cell phone and a 'T' token in my pocket, I read a chapter or two of a bad William Kennedy novel on the 'B' line, long story short, it was a really great trip. The rest of break passed quickly, a really bad bowling incident, watched more movies, saw Lily Mercogliano, skiing with my cousins and Jon and Jenny O'Connell, really good chilling and catch-up time with Allyson, throw it all back in the car, pack it back to Buffalo, more than a thousand miles in all. From the minute I was back in Buffalo on Sunday, I haven't caught a break until this evening... Wednesday. Research had to be done. Honey and Hinduism? Other work had to be locked down. CEEP re-application? Rehearsals had to be attended, late-night tech for the show that opens tomorrow night, teaching Old Testament prophecy to the high school crowd, memorizing lines, finding ushers, hitting Pano's, finding a Badlands in a Revised booster pack, my first true dual land, ever. Great week so far, I feel like I've been hit by a steamroller, and all I have left is this cough, some plain yogurt, and a definite will to carry on. I am down with the way things are right now. I am so down.

3/11/04 7:12pm Been sick for almost a week now. Played water polo this evening for some Fate-related and otherwise masochistic reason. Had peanut butter for dinner. In two hours, I am getting the hell out of here and going to my grandparents' house, and tomorrow it's Albany. Something tells me that I might have thrown a little too much on the stove for this semester, but uhm... too bad. I'm not going to whine about it. I'm just gonna deal. Step one: go to Boston.

3/6/04 9:17pm A snapshot. I was fading groggily back into the present when I realized that this is how I really hoped it would be. There were pink lawn flamingos coming up from behind two little television sets, with Mardi Gras beads hanging from their necks, a New Kids On The Block poster hung on the wall behind them with floppy disk innards hanging from the ceiling, videogames out of their cases, Alex was right behind me checking out some Magic cards and explaining how telephone brain implants are on the technological horizon, I looked over the couch that I was collapsed on to see a poster of Cosmo Kramer, and there was Jason working with wires and anti-static sheets and blue LEDs, transplanting the guts of his computer into a new case. I was about to stumble back downstairs, noticing the foilage (yes, the foilage) on the table when I heard some kind of shouting from the back rooms, Bob and Brent and Tony were busy playing Starcraft on a map that Bob had built, Brent was complaining about the map and Bob was leading a half-control of siege tanks up the map and Tony was enthusiastically shouting orders, I smiled and went back downstairs, spinning around on the stairwell landings in my argyle socks. Bill was on the couch playing Silent Hill and remarking how he should probably just pick up a PlayStation of his own one of these days, Pat and Byron were playing Magic with Mike, who is basically just learning how to play again. I sat down at the computer, checked on our IRC channel, and yeah, so that's where we are tonight. I love living here so much, I can't even explain the feeling that I get when I consider what we've all built here, together. Honestly. I was on that couch upstairs, basically out of my mind and in the future somewhere, the dishwasher was running and I thought my hairline had receeded a bit and maybe a family, my family... my future family even, well they were around, but then I came rushing back, and nope, thank God, I was in the Upper Spire and there were two flamingos staring at me. This is a snapshot of my life in college, and wow, I am glad I am not in the future just yet.

3/5/04 4:15pm It's downright warm outside, first of all. It's like a spring teaser trailer, but I know better, and there is going to be at least one more deep freeze this winter. So, stop taunting us, spring. Honestly. I wore those new sneakers that I got for Christmas for the first time today, which worked out. Bill and I went to go buy about... $188 worth of Magic cards for the sealed deck tournament tomorrow, which was glorious. The real reason why I'm writing, though, is just to say that I played last night. I played the trombone for the first time in like a year and a half, and it felt great. Sure, the Pep Band here is broken and desperate, but wow, I had so much fun. I'd take that over Concert Band any day of the week. For crying out loud, we played Get Ready, just like in high school, and I was there. The instrument was back over my shoulder, Ryan Artis was on my left, Lutzy was down there in the pit, and it was real. Wow, it was real. So I'm going to start playing again... I forgot how happy it used to make me.

3/3/04 5:01pm One of these days, humility is going to come up from behind me and beat me, repeatedly, over the head with the humble stick. And I'll probably deserve it. That's all.

3/1/04 5:16pm Woke up today a lot later than I wanted to, and with a splitting headache to boot. Said headache has hardly dissipated, much to my irritation. Yesterday I went to see the Gospel According to Gibson for the third goddamn time, this time around I went with Fr. Fiore and Dr. Lee, went for coffee with them afterwards, felt extremely cool. Dressed up for the Oscars last night, lots of good people at Jeau's, goddamn Lord of the Rings swept categories it shouldn't even have been nominated for, still pissed off about that. Wow, I want today to be stricken from the record. Can I take a mulligan, please?

2/26/04 12:04am McCann's Irish Oatmeal, I love you. One day, I hope to make you as happy as you have made me.

2/24/04 1:46am Back from a pre-release screening of Mel Gibson's "The Passion," and I have so many things to say... they will not appear as a rant here. I'm going to actually have to work for this one, to present my thoughts in a coherent and traceable fashion, or everyone will think that I am some kind of stone-hearted bastard. The movie was very powerful, I guarantee that it will have a tremendous effect on any person of faith (or any person with a shred of humanity in them), as it did on me. I will insist, however, that the story of Jesus of Nazareth as it is captured in the gospels does not, by any stretch of the imagination, require Mel Gibsonification to send its message to the world, and that a Hollywood treatment coupled with a futile harmonization (cf. Tatian's Diatessaron) of the four evangelists and their distinct messages will never do the material or the history behind that material the justice that they deserve. More later.

2/22/04 8:52pm Wow. Times like these make me worry that I'm going to step outside and get killed by a meteorite or something, because I've been so lucky and so happy lately that it seems like any minute now my luck is just going to run right out, just to balance the universe again. Meghan Towle has been reminding me of how truly lucky I am, and this whole weekend reminded me of my senior year of high school and the feeling of exaltation that went with it. Yeah, there was glory this weekend. On Friday, Big Pat and I went to Amy's for both lunch and dinner. Seriously. The first time we went with my brother Jon, and immediately after, he had to catch the train from the station downtown, so I headed for the 33, but the entrance ramp was blocked off for some reason. Crap. So I said, "alright, time for some side street action," and it was a warm and sunny day, but the clock was ticking, I thought it was fast, but nope, the train was going to be leaving that station in a handful of minutes. I ran about four red lights, we finally made it to the Exchange Street station, and goddamnit, the train was already there, I powerslid into a handicapped spot and yelled to my brother to get the conductor to STOP THE TRAIN. So I jumped out of the car and pleaded with the conductor guys, they sped Jon into the station, he signed his ticket really fast, and jumped onto the train as it started to move away, just like in the movies. Holy cow, I could not believe how close we came to missing the train, through a random set of circumstances, if I had missed one more light, if Big Pat had gone for another coffee refill, if anything had been different, we would have been sunk. The train took off from the station, I could still hardly believe it, and I drove back to Canisius, the sun was shining brightly and my spirit was about a mile high. I actually called Jon on the cell when I got back, just to make sure that he was actually on the train, and I didn't just imagine the whole thing. Seriously, it was like I was a Crazy Taxi driver. Wow. So we all went to Amy's for dinner, then Bill and I stayed on the train and went downtown to go see Movin' Out, which was pretty nifty. The choreography and lights were awesome, but I had a few big problems with the show. First, the "story" was weak and not really discernable, and they should not have even tried to string Billy Joel songs together in a logical fashion without any kind of dialogue in between. Also, hearing someone that was not Billy Joel sing Billy Joel songs was some brand of blasphemy, so that was a little bit unsettling. In all though, the show was more or less enjoyable. Shea's was a really beautiful theatre; I had never been in there. After the show, we nerded it up some and went to bed late, which I cursed myself for the next morning, because I had to get up at like eight for this leadership training thing, which ran for six and a half hours. I went through that like a zombie on four or five hours of sleep, went home and crashed, and then around eight, everyone headed over to Palisano to start setting up for the FUSION gaming night in the Palisano. Wow. We had everything set up in about forty-five minutes, seriously, everyone was so excited that the tables and chairs and televisions and everything just kind of flew around the room, DDR on the big screen was working fine, Halo on the hub worked perfectly, my worst fears were put at ease, old-school Nintendo systems on the flying televisions near the windows, and then the people started streaming in, and we realized that we had something absolutely incredible on our hands. Honestly, I was in such a state of shock and euphoria the entire night, I was absolutely beaming, and I was not alone. Jason, Byron, Derek, Pat, Alex, Bill, Mike, Maria, Tony, B-Waff, and EVERYONE else that was helping to run things, seriously, everyone seemed extremely pleased with the way things turned out. Yeah, I was floored. So a ton of people showed up, I was bouncing from station to station helping people and smiling and shaking hands and before I knew it I was talking to the whole place on the microphone and announcing two DDR tournaments and we ran out of soda (Res Life never runs out of soda!) and everyone seemed to be coming together and sharing in what we like to do best and it was absolutely amazing and worth it, for the first time in a long time I felt completely happy with everything that was going around me, and completely happy with what my friends and I had accomplished together. That feeling, seriously, is worth more than anything... realizing that you have actually built something with your friends, built a COMMUNITY of people that can share their interests and joys together. Wow. We went out to Pano's for milkshakes to celebrate, Byron could not contain himself, and started laying down elaborate and grand plans for the future, but quite frankly, at that point, right there at that table, with a vanilla milkshake in front of me and my friends surrounding me, right there I didn't care about the future, I didn't care about building any further, I didn't care about the legacy. I was happy with what we had done, and that was more than enough for me. We all went home and collapsed, I woke up about twelve hours later, it was sunny again today, I cleaned my room, and I feel extremely accomplished and ready to jump into the groove and show this semester who's boss. My mom was not kidding when she told me that the BTL on the old 3-1's license plate stood for "Bard the Lucky." Meteorite, you can knock me off whenever you need to now, but if you don't, I will keep on doing what I'm doing, I will keep building what I have been building with some of the greatest friends a guy could possibly have, and we are going to go for broke, because that is why we are here.

2/19/04 8:07pm It's been pretty hard-hitting, this week, I don't even know what's going on here, but a lot of good stuff has gone down. Jon has spent the last three nights in the Spire, and tonight is his last, and he seems to be having a pretty good time nerding it up with all of the residents of this fine establishment. If there's one thing that I can say about this week, it is that it has been anything but typical, between having my brother around and only having two days of classes (throw in a couple of class cancellations too); everything I have to get done is swirling around me but barely any of it is actual honest-to-goodness school work. My first day of teaching on Tuesday went really well, I thought, but it's definitely going to be an uphill battle to get the kids actually interested in the Old Testament. At least I am not a priest or some other stodgy old authority figure (or at the very least, I don't look like one yet, hehe) thumping the book like it's some kind of implement of torture. If there's anything I've learned about all of the teachers that I really loved studying under, it was that every single one of them was genuinely excited about what they were teaching. For some whacked out reason, I actually have that excitement when it comes to the Old Testament, so I guess I have that much wind behind my sails at least. Also on the burner this week is the impending FUSION event in the Palisano, which everyone around here is super-psyched about. One of these days, maybe Sunday, I will actually catch my breath and click into the work-and-play groove that I need to be in, I mean, the weekend in Albany was fine but it didn't do much for me in the way of time management. I have a feeling that this semester is going to start running me ragged really quick if I can't start figuring all of this stuff out. Today in the clubroom, because Medieval Philosophy was cancelled, many of the Little Theatre men were able to converge and start doing what we do best, which is, of course, lightswitch rave and dance like maniacs. It was me, Rich Kraemer, Dan Lance Dan, Graham, Truesdail, Ben Cranston for a bit, Bill Flann on the lights of course, Bob Poltis swinging from the doorway, my little brother looking on in bewilderment, and guest-starring Jessica Marinelli as the girl who stood watching from the doorway, Sebabu from Multicultural Programs as the guy who came by and gave us all his trademark pound, and Brian Smith as the director of Student Activities who asked us politely to turn the music way the hell down and stop screaming so loudly. I guess that was fair. So the clubroom was rocking and rolling, and it looks like things are going to be really seriously fun this semester, and maybe we will actually rediscover what it is to "Go For Broke." Throw in the production staff meeting tonight, auditions for the next show next week, a promise to join Pep Band, midterms coming my way very soon, Dungeons & Dragons gobbling up Wednesday nights, and oh buddy, it is not going to stop and I am going to love every second of it. I'm going to throw back to Stan Lee and my high school "enlightenment" when I say to you very heartily, "Excelsior!"

2/16/04 11:35pm This weekend was outstanding, I woke up just after noon on Friday, the sun was shining brightly, and I knew it was time to just hit the road, and leave all of this nonsense, the work, the games, the heartache, seriously, leave all of it behind. I blazed out of here, too, it was one of the fastest and easiest rides I've ever had from Buffalo to Albany, it was gorgeous out the whole time, the music was right where it needed to be, and everything just sorted itself away in my mind. I got back to my family and a new bookshelf, which I assembled myself, and that took most of the evening, but it felt really good. The computer was crashing all over the place, so most of the weekend, I was free from the screen. Excellent. Friday night I went to bed happy and settled, staring at this bookshelf, which was pretty sexy, in an "I am now officially fifty years old" kind of way. Saturday I woke up in the early afternoon, sun still shining, and I split with the rest of my family out to Jiminy for some skiing. I was on the mountain, the sun was setting, honestly, nothing else mattered but me, my family, and the moment, there and then, everything was great and nothing will ever take that away. We went to Gateway for a late dinner, the four Bard men still decked out in our Under Armour collars, and the ginger ale was actually not flat. Caught up with Zonca later, then Tom the next day, we went bowling, I bowled pretty poorly. Honestly, the whole weekend was great, I actually rested; I naturally didn't stop worrying about things really and for the most part my mind stayed on Buffalo issues but there was some good time spent centering and refocusing my energy, so it was well worth the trip. I came back today with my brother Jon in tow, the nerds are all back and slamming, and nothing, I mean nothing, is going to derail me. Yeah, life is tougher back here. Yeah, stuff keeps falling down around me, new commitments and work keeps piling up, but goddamnit, I will handle it or I will die trying. I'm going to tap right back into the momentum I had building up last semester, I will hit the groove that I have been looking for, and I will do it with that classic and wry wiseass smirk on my face, because life is so goddamn hilarious. So uhm, hit me with it.

2/11/04 1:29am Let me just say this, before I go to bed now, that music is maybe the most incredible force on the planet. Music lets us communicate things that words alone can never even approach, and that can make all the difference in the world. It certainly has tonight... just thought I'd go to sleep with that idea in my head. Yeah, so happy.

2/9/04 6:35pm Holy cow ("You're not a cow, Bard"). I'm trying the best I can to come up with a way to summarize this past weekend, but honestly, there's no way I can even begin to do that. So many amazing, awful, and wonderful things happened, so many types of thoughts and emotions slammed through me, I mean, really, what can I even say? Things started rolling on Thursday, when I had to make the call about whether or not I was going to drive the Bible Study club to Rhode Island. I looked at the solid red line imposed over I-90 on weather.com, I called home to see what the Berkshires were gonna be like, and I decided Thursday evening that it was a no-go. Wow, Fate. Looking back, I am amazed at how much that decision, to not go to Rhode Island, afforded me, just in terms of sheer quantity of events. Thursday night I went to dinner at Nikki's house, which was very nice, I had a great time. Then, the entire kosmos shifted, and Friday was born somewhere around the time I got finished with a draft of my essay for Alpha Sigma Nu, the Jesuit Honor Society. The essay was on like my personal ideals and everything, so I began the weekend with a written statement of identity, which framed everything pretty ironically. I wandered around campus and crashed in the Little Theatre clubroom, where things were great and wild, I don't even know who was in there really, but I was conscious of the fact that my day, maybe my whole life, was becoming extremely incoherent. I was mooing pretty frantically, if that even means anything. So, anyway, I walked with Tina and her friend back to the Village, and after I made it to the Spire, the nerds convened and I showed Jason the Minus World glitch in Super Mario Bros. Then he showed me how he could double-jump, and pretty soon, he and Derek and Bill and Big Pat and I were double-jumping left and right, and that got pretty wild. We met up with Brent and Mike for dinner maybe, or something to that effect, we played a whole bunch of Magic, and Halo was introduced to the Spire, which summarily ended all of our lives. In the middle of Halo, I talked to Nikki, apparently things were not as great as I thought they were, long story short I started jumping on my bed with the rain stick listening to Ben Folds' "Underground" with the freshman looking on in awe, the priest dancing like a fool, the guys were playing Halo and everything was rolling and my heart had left the building so it was, as Jason pointed out, definitely time to go to Pano's. The guys paid for my baklava and cranberry juice, there was more Halo and even Starcraft after that, I think I tried sleeping around three in the morning but yeah, there was no way in hell. Mike ended up crashing in the Lower Spire because his roommates were being assholes, we all woke up early, Brent was here at like ten in the morning, Derek had left after spending the night, we hit Tony's Ranch House (eggs sunny side, white toast, home fries, extra bacon yes please) and then the Super Flea Market in Cheektowaga, where I bought Snake, Rattle and Roll for the NES (fulfilling a childhood dream that I have had for roughly fifteen years) and black satin covers for my Magic cards, we played more Halo after that, hell, I think we even played that night, yeah, in the freshman dorms, after we heard that there was free cake in Palisano. After all of that nerdy tomfoolery, I thought I was going to bed, but no, Jeau invited me over to Florida Street for waffles, which turned out to be pancakes, and good pancakes at that, so I ranted with Rich Kraemer; Liz and Bill were in the other room, and it was all pretty mellow and I was feeling a lot better and there was 70's music and hell, we even danced like maniacs when Truesdail and Dan Lance Dan showed up. I slept for a good eleven hours (wow, did that feel good), got up Sunday afternoon around 3, Dan Lance Dan was smiling at me in his bathrobe with the Magic deck in his hand, so we played in our underwear in the common room for an hour or so, the "Jump" deck that I made on Saturday was working really well. There was something about free stuffed mushrooms in Palisano, oh yeah, Sunday evening I talked to Jason for a good long while about life, the universe, and everything, which reminds me, on Friday night, somewhere after Pano's and between Halo and I don't even know what else, Jason revealed that he had broken up with Jess, earlier on that same exact goddamn day. Wow. So by Sunday, Dan Lance Dan made the observation that everything was back to Code Green in the Spire, which, honestly, is extremely accurate. Jason and I responded last night by drowning our sorrows in chocolate milkshakes at Pano's, then heeding the call of Fate and driving downtown; Jason wanted to hit the Skyway, and I was not about to argue, so we did. Wow. After that, I caught up with Meghan Towle, which was extremely needed, and helped a whole lot. Seriously. On Saturday night, it was clear as a bell outside, the moon was shining brightly, Big Pat pointed out that we could actually see some stars over Florida Street, and damn it, he was right. So, I guess you could ask me, "Bard, how do you feel," and I could say a whole bunch of different things to you, but really, I feel alive. I have felt so many different things in the past few days, I have seen so many people and run so many missions, I have been slammed hard but I have bounced back quicker than I ever have before. Over the weekend, everything changed but the way I feel about the people around me. I love you guys all so much, honestly, I have no idea where I would be without the exceedingly random and wonderful people that surround me for no logical reason. I am going to keep rolling, because that's what I'm here to do. It's our failures that let us grow the most. I knew that then, I understand it now. Wow. I'm going to appeal to Jimmy Buffett on this one... "Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but I know... it's my own damn fault."

2/7/04 12:14am I guess I always knew that I had "the small of two pieces." I guess I'm not as fit a representative as I thought I was. It's our failures, though... our failures that let us grow the most. Thanks for the baklava, gentlemen.

2/1/04 2:48pm Doing pretty good here on a Sunday afternoon, talked to my sister some, which was quite nice. Bill made eggs this morning, and I supplied the grapefruit, plus toast from both of our bread stashes made for a very nice breakfast. It's been a hell of a week... very cold outside, and the impending traffic jam of the semester is definitely taking shape. On Wednesday, I got positively slammed in my Greek class, which is no longer a one-on-one tutorial because my professor saw fit to bring in a smart kid to show me up. She's really cool, and adds a lot to the class, but wow, I am going to have to work about fifty times harder to stay in it. That's actually fine by me, because at least I will learn Greek this semester. Hrm. I didn't go out for the first Little Theatre show this semester, much to my chagrin, because Fr. Fiore informed me that this conference in West Virginia that I am going to with the RST people is the second weekend of the show. Meh. The good news is that this sheds some light on the rest of April, and I will be free to audition for the musical, which I'm actually more keen on anyway. I guess it'll all work out, then. The FUSION meeting on Thursday was pretty awesome. A bunch of kids came out of the woodwork, mostly to play Halo, and we gave them all of the information they needed, so basically we're well on our way to building some kind of online nerd community at Canisius. This is very good news. On Friday I gave a tour to a pre-Jesuit from Long Island, who was a really nice guy, and I got to eat in the Faculty Dining Room, which was pretty nice, albeit still Chartwells. After that, I went with Ski Club to Holiday Valley, where my least favorite area, the Tannenbaum area, suddenly became my most favorite area. It seemed to me that the lift was new this year, a lot faster, the line was much shorter. Favorite trail thus far... Independence. I didn't really know anyone very well, but I introduced myself to a kid from Cortland, a freshman who was very nice and definitely a faster skiier than me. I really don't know how he could vault ahead of me so quickly, maybe I'm just more conservative or something, but we'd just be running along and he would like rocket out of nowhere. He beat me down to the bottom basically every time. So skiing was very fun, but took a lot out of me; I went home and collapsed. Last night I finally got to spend some time with Nikki, which was delightful. We went to go see Big Fish (second time for me), and I noticed a whole bunch of little things and motifs this time around, which increased my appreciation for the movie even more. She seemed to like it well enough, so that's positive. This brings me back to today I guess, a Sunday afternoon like any other, so I have to gear up for the week. I'm feeling really good, though. Yeah, this is a good place to be.

1/26/04 6:08pm There is something very therapeutic involved with cooking. I think I like it, seriously. I never realized that throwing butter and spinach together into a pan and applying heat could mean so much to me. I'm going to point this realization out as a smaller part of a rapidly emerging theme system for this semester: first, life is not very simple, and second, I am rapidly beginning to feel like an adult, which is ludicrous. I found a gray hair yesterday and I completely freaked out. Flann laughed at me for a good long while. What else can I say... ah, today in class, yeah, Contemporary Catholic Social Ethics, that one we can file under the "life is not that simple" heading. In one sitting, we pounded through the nature of law, Aquinas on a whole bunch of stuff, Aristotle's 55 favorite things, Thomas Hobbes, and to top it off, Fr. Lynch called this girl in our class a republican under his breath, in a tone that I can only describe as "highly amused." That was a high point today, I'd say. Yeah, life is like a game of Rock Lobster that nobody bothers playing. Honestly. Welp, here comes a semester, it's finally assumed its proper form. Said Cloud Strife, "I think I'm beginning to understand..."

1/24/04 2:29pm As Dan Lance Dan would say, "oh goddamnit." First of all, I'm 21 years old, but I will deal with that issue later. Yesterday started out phenomenally. I woke up around 12:30 in the afternoon, you know, what with not having any classes, and I took a shower and went out to run some errands. It was a good and sunny day outside, I went out to Health Science and got my meal plan switched, tried to get a form from God's office but her peons turned me away, then it was down to the mail room to pick up two (2!) packages, one from Berncliffe and the other from a certain godmother at Commercial Traveler's. Contents: nice green shirt, new jeans, jellybeans (for the Jelly Man), Swedish Fish, a card from my parents written in modern Greek, and a Doors CD, which will help me fulfill my New Year's resolution. The packages were opened in the Little Theatre clubroom, which started hopping, the music was going, the lightswitch was raving, passers-by were gawking and smiling, and it was like everything, honestly, was right with the world. After about twenty minutes of frenetic dancing, I realized that I hadn't eaten anything all day, which resulted in a resounding "guys, I'm going home." I took my stuff back to the Spire and started cooking up some spinach, everyone was back and chilling there, pretty much, Nikki sent over an IM saying that her 'net connection was finally up, I put the spinach in a wheat pita with hummus and feta cheese, and it was very good. Then an already good day took a turn for the heinously awesome when Jason informed me that FUSION's Blackboard thing was going up, so the rest of the afternoon was spent getting it online and set up to our liking. I was so happy, at one point, that I actually partially phased out of existence while jumping on my bed (Derek has a picture to prove it). After that... ah, Chartwells dinner, meh, then a hilarious Starcraft game in which me, Derek, Jason, and Flann screwed around for a couple hours on BGH with one directive: be as funny as possible. So that was good, and then things just started tumbling out of control. Through a wholly not interesting twist of planning and invitations, I ended up on a list of people going to see Cold Mountain, a trip that was being organized by Jeau. Nikki, Jason, Jess, Adair, Rafal, and Truesdail were also there, so there are witnesses. Jason and I listened to "Fanfare for the Common Man" and downed one Mission Fig apiece before heading out. Nothing could have prepared us, though. The movie was beyond awful, do not see it. I'm serious, please, as a service to the memory of my carefree youth that was forcibly taken from me last night, DO NOT see Cold Mountain. So the movie completely destroyed my soul, I spent time with Nikki afterwards but it was too little, too late. The best day of the semester thus far collapsed into the worst night. This, of course, brings me to today, on which I am 21 years old. Goddamnit. Mike Bard called me at 12:05am, but I was, unfortunately, detained at Cold Mountain. My parents and Zonca called this afternoon, so that was pretty cool. It looks like the guys are taking me out to the Anchor Bar tonight for dinner, so I'm looking forward to that. Meh. I don't want to get older. Honestly. So this is kind of the standard afternoon of solitude, it's snowy out there, I'm kind of drowning in my own thoughts, and that's kind of the way it's gotta be right now. Well, 21 good years. I guess it's time to get on with it...

1/20/04 11:40pm Classes started today, and I really liked all of my professors. Bible as Lit was pretty straightforward, I've been exposed to the material a little bit too much, so I'm not too worried there. Chris Lee's class got off to a promising start, he addressed the class candidly, and he seems to be genuinely in touch with "this generation's" cultural identity and everything, which is cool. Medieval Philosophy was a little scary at first, but then we jumped into the actual lecture and everything started going really well. I'm in there (in my assigned seat!) along with Byron, Big Pat, Dan, Graham, Alex, Bob, Ben Cranston, Milton, and that William kid who tried to take up E-Greek in the second semester, so we are definitely there in full force. There were a lot of people in the clubroom around lunchtime, which was a good sign. I picked up a couple of tickets to see Movin' Out, the Billy Joel musical review, downtown in February, pretty psyched about that. This evening we all got together here and watched the State of the Union Address, while eating bacon. Bacon made things a little better, but the whole thing was kind of distressing. John Kerry's comments after the speech were pretty standard but still welcome; I may need to abandon my Kucinich button pretty soon, unfortunately. This isn't really a time for idealism... we need to rally behind someone who will get the job done, and if it means pulling someone from the center of the spectrum, well, that's the way the cookie crumbles this year. Things seem basically peachy keen here except for worries about housing arrangements for next semester -- trying to make everybody happy and balance out a long list of interests and needs, meh. Tomorrow should be interesting, between the first class for Contemporary Catholic Social Ethics and the return of Hellenistic happiness with the one and only Ban-Man. I bought a sleeve of "Mission Figs" along with the bacon tonight, so now it's just a matter of inventing a quest to try them out on. Adventure! It's part of a complete life.

1/18/04 6:30pm Back in Buffalo, finally. The last days in Albany were really cool, got to hang out with a bunch of good people, there was hot chocolate, a fire in the fireplace, I finished off work. It was really a solid break, but I'm very happy to be back. I came back into town yesterday and the family Begy helped me unload the old 3-1, it was snowing a little bit, but the trip was good and clear right up until about Pembroke (where there was a cop who had pulled someone over on the side... big surprise there). Jason and Liz and I went to go pick up Nikki and the four of us went to Pano's, and I had one of the specials, which was a good call. Also, I was challenged to and did successfully name eighty forces in Jason's life that are more negative then myself. After dinner and whatnot, we all went our separate ways, Nikki came back here, and the rest, as they say, is history. Suffice it to say that I am extremely happy right now. The sun was shining today, seriously... no force on earth could have brought me down. I just thought that I should share that. It's like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at the semester ahead, and I'm about ready to bust out the hang-glider and show everyone what it's all about. I'm so ready for this... here it comes, then. There really is no getting off of this train we're on. Wow. Just... wow. "There's a smile on my face for the whole human race, why it's almost like being..."