so i totally forgot about my archery clinic w/ the lincoln park archery club today...it was about noon when i remembered, and it had started at 11am...by the time i got there at pulaski park, just about a mile from my apartment, there were only a couple people left. the instructor was still there, though, and he gave me a business card for someone who gives private archery lessons. it's all the way out in forest park, but i think my friends john & jon want to take the lessons too so maybe we could drive together...

anyways, i got the info i needed, and then i did a photoshoot right there on the grounds of the pulaski park fieldhouse...it's a pretty impressive building, actually. old...big...really turn of the century chicago...it was crowded w/ neighbourhood kids running around...i really liked the long hallway that overlooks the park in the back. i love long hallways in general...the angles they create are just so cool...

it was a lovely day today...i mean it must have been a balmy 27 degrees or something! wow! that's a heat wave compared to what we've had lately. it felt so good to be outdoors...i realized today that i don't get a lot of time w/ the sun these days since i basically go to work and then come home when it's way after the sun's gone down...the weekend is my only chance for time w/ the sun...so i really need to stop wasting time and get out there...maybe if i stopped staying up until 5 am on a worknight, i wouldn't have to catch up on my sleep on the weekends...we'll see...

so i finished reading life after god by douglas coupland for the upteenth time at around 5am this morning...that book just kills me every time...and this time it was even more significant because i've changed so much since the last time i read it, which was last march...last march when the rollercoaster ride a.k.a. my life began rolling...reading this book again was like looking into a clear pool of water and seeing my reflection...i don't know how doug coupland does it, but when he writes, it's like he's writing MY story...i'm sure everybody in my generation who reads that book feels the same way, esp. if they've got a few screws loose in their heads like me...

the last story really got to me...it's about the narrator's chilhood circle of friends and how they've ended up as adults...a generation that was raised without faith or beliefs...reading the story made me think of my own friends...how we've changed, stayed the same, gotten closer, gotten further apart...there's this one passage in that story that really resonates deeply with me...it's one of the narrator's friends who's speaking...

"i think about this...i think about how hard it is--even with the desire, and even with the will and the time--i think of how hard it is to reach that spot inside us that remains pure that we never manage to touch but which we know exists--and i try to touch that spot...man, what else is there? i've never touched that spot yet, but i'm still trying...oh, i know you guys think my life is some big joke--that it's going nowhere. but i'm happy. and it's not like i'm lost or anything. we're all too fucking middle class to ever be lost. lost means you had faith or something to begin with and the middle class never really had any of that. so we can never be lost. and you tell me, scout--what is it we end up being, then--what exactly is it we end up being then--instead of being lost?"

i'm looking for that pure spot inside me...i don't know why, but i need to touch something pure...and i want it to be something inside me...but unlike todd in this story, i did have faith to begin with...so does that mean i'm lost now?? sometime i feel lost, and sometimes i feel found...i swing on this pendulum of various extremes...back and forth, back and forth...life after god...what is there to life after god?

i'm going to the evanston garden lounge to see andi and i. then it's to the empty bottle for chinup chinup and appleseed cast. today i listened to fugazi's argument. that's all.