Doesn't take much to get me going, does it?

When I was out to lunch this afternoon I stumbled across a bank of newspaper bins containing most of the area's free weeklies, including New City, a paper near and dear to my heart thanks to its irreverant content, and the fact that they used to publish my work on a semi-regular basis.

It's been a while since I've flipped through a hard copy of New City, but I grabbed their latest issue because the main feature was a list of the top 45 most influential people in the Chicago music scene, and even though I don't follow such topics as rabidly as I once did, I still care enough to want to brush up on the latest and greatest every so often.

Whist skimming the names of the people on the big list, my eyes drifted over to a box that almost passed for a sidebar, but was actually an ad for upcoming shows being held at a place called Reggie's Rock Club. Reggie's is an all-ages club that's been on my radar for about a year now, but I've yet to find good enough reason to go check it out.

Until today.

The first event in the ad to capture my attention was something called All Girl Rock 'N Roll Arm Wrestling. I wasn't sure if this was the name of a band (hey, you never know), or an actual arm wrestling event, so I promptly took to my keyboard to look it up.

Turns out Reggie's was indeed hosting a female arm-wrestling tournament, although it took place last Thursday night. I didn't have to feel bummed about missing this for too long though, because as I continued reading I learned that the all girl arm-wrestling thing takes place on the first Thursday of EVERY month, which means that if I'm up for it I can catch the next installment on April 2, the night before I leave for Seattle.

Don't ask me why, but the prospect of seeing something like this live and in person makes me positively giddy! I guess I'm endlessly starving for examples of tough women, hopeful that I'll eventually find one who I relate to enough to emulate.

And oh yeah, I'm sure my embarrassing but profound affection for the movie below might have something to do with it as well. :)

Billy

Sweet merciful crap, I think I just hit on one of the reasons I've been sort of down in the dumps the last few days!

Tonight I was part of a conversation that led to me talking about my childhood friendship with a boy named Billy, probably one of the most important relationships I've had throughout my lifetime. Several hours later, when I was walking home from the train, it hit like a train wreck that last Thursday would have been his thirty-first birthday.

Would've been, but wasn't because Billy died in August of 2001.

He and I had been out of contact for several years when it happened, and I didn't find out until the following January, after his mom tracked me down through classmates.com or some other such website, and sent me an e-mail bearing the bad news. It was fucking devastating, because even though we were no longer close, I still carried around a lot of really fond memories associated with him.

It would have been nice to post a few of those on his actual birthday, but since I missed it, a belated list of random recollections will have to suffice.

I believe Billy and I first met in kindergarten, but we didn't become true friends until second grade. I don't remember what led to us becoming playmates, but once we did we were damn near inseparable. He was the first boy I ever had a crush on, and at seven years old I was convinced I would marry him.

I came to wrestling fandom on my own, but Billy is largely responsible for sustaining my level of enthusiasm for it. He loved Hulk Hogan as much as I did, and along with his brother Michael, we spent hours playing with WWF action figures, and staging reenactments of our favorite matches.

Billy, Michael, and I were also one of an audience of about ten people that ventured to a theatre to see No Holds Barred. It was kind of sort of my first date, because at that point he had asked me to be his girlfriend. I was sooo proud to hold this title, even though I don't think we even got as far as holding hands.

Billy and his brother loved Nintendo even more than they loved wrestling, and I spent hours in their bedroom watching them play. I was content being a spectator because I sucked at every game except Duck Hunt and Tetris, and I remember being more excited than anyone the afternoon that Billy FINALLY beat Mike Tyson.

Even though Billy and I never did anything romantic while we were officially boyfriend/girlfriend, I swindled him into kissing me when we were in second grade. He was over for a visit and I initiated a game of house, casting him as the father, me as the mother, and Michael as our kid. Within the context of these roles, it seemed perfectly reasonable to request a smooch from him after I handed him his imaginary lunch and was ready to send him off to work. Somehow I was more aggressive at seven than I could ever be now. Go figure.

Billy had extremely curly blond hair, and as we got older started to resemble Ian Ziering from the original 90210. In eighth grade my girlfriends and I loved to tease him about this, and we pulled a prank that involved posting a pin-up of Mr. Ziering on the inner side of his locker door. Billy was pissed, but took the joke in stride.

By the time we got to high school we had drifted in completely different directions, with no friends overlapping our respective social circles. However, I'd still bump into him on occasion at the bus stop on the way home, and when I did he was just as friendly as he'd been when we were best friends. He'd even bring up our past, saying "Remember when we used to play He-Man and watch wrestling?" I never got a chance to tell him how much that meant to me, how surprised and pleased I was that he didn't forget me.

Typing that last one made me a little choked up, so I think I'll wrap it up here. I know I'm hardly scratching the surface of all I experienced with this boy, but I hope this will serve as enough of a loving tribute until I can come up with something more concrete.

Cheers to you, my old friend.