As a little girl, I adored my Uncle James. We weren't very far apart in age, so he was always a lot of fun to be with. There are pictures of us as children--if I had a scanner, I would love to show them to you. We built forts out of pillows and blankets, we listened to records, we had a good time. I remember the fall when he went away to college, how my mom and my grandmother and I went to visit him. I was struck by the austerity of his campus, impressed by the buildings, fascinated by the library. I declared that I wanted to go to school there someday, though it was an all-male college.

I remember when he went to Germany one year. The entry in my Ramona Quimby diary is simple: "Uncle James came home from Germany today. He brought me colored pencils. Mike got me in trouble. We ate ham for dinner."

He graduated from college. He moved to Michigan. I saw him less but was envious of his life. This was around the time when I was first getting into alternative music (which, then, meant bands like R.E.M., the Cure, and the Smiths). He went to clubs and hung out in the city. I was just a dorky 14 year old who was trying to be cool.

I remember the day well. April 15, 1989. I took my ACT that day, I was already thinking about college, about my future. It was a warm sunny early spring day, I was at my friend Debbie's when the phone call came. My parents wanted me to come home right away. Uncle James was very, very sick and they needed to get to Michigan right away.

I could show you the exact place where I was sitting when my dad came in to tell me what was going on. Spinal meningitis, he said. Uncle James has AIDS. He probably won't make it through tonight.

He did make it through that night. And through a number of other nights. I remember my last phone call to him. We talked about music. About the new Sinead O'Connor album, which we both loved. He recommended The Land of Rape and Honeyby Ministry.

I watched him decline. I watched him waste away. I made tapes for him that I would play on the little red plastic Panasonic tape recorder that my mom bought me for Christmas in the fourth grade. Camper van Beethoven, The Smiths, anything that might cause some glimmer of recognition.

He lasted until late June. I stopped visiting in mid-June. My grandmother had been trying to feed him yogurt and he couldn't swallow. I couldn't watch any more. He was skeletal. He couldn't talk. He didn't recognize anyone. And there was nothing that anyone could do but wait, and waiting hurt. Because we all knew what we were waiting for.

He looked waxy and yellow in the casket. I cried through the whole service. And I thought, and I still think, "why him?"

He had such a future.

AIDS has stolen a lot of futures from a lot of people. It hurts me to think that he didn't make it to my age. He died just shy of his twenty-fifth birthday. I'm twenty-six now, and there's hardly a day when I don't think of him for some reason or another. What if this hadn't happened? Where would he be now? What kind of life would he be leading? We'd probably be trading mix tapes. Maybe seeing shows together.

My mother has been helping my grandmother clean out her basement. Several of the boxes belonged to my uncle, and there were two rings in one of the boxes. I'm going to put one of them on, and I'm going to remember him. I'm going to remember what an influence he was on my life, and how so many things would be different if he had never been around.

I know he's in heaven. I know he can see me. I know he can read this, somehow. And I want him to know that I love him. That his memory means a lot to me. That I miss him. And that someday, I hope that medicine will kill the virus that killed him.

In memory of James Andrew Festa, 1965-1989, Amplified to Rock is silent today.

The occasion? A show featuring Faraquet, Rocket from the Crypt, and Hey Mercedes (you know, that band that that guy with that weblog is in...the weblog with Drunk Henderson and Pumpkin Muffin and Jackson Browne). Saturday night at the Fireside Bowl. Doors at 6. Advance tickets available from the friendly people at Reckless Records.

Other plans for this weekend: Brian and I are going to star in my brother's final project for one of his TV production classes. It's a cooking show. And it's going to be good. I'll probably post some stills so you can watch the two of us act totally ridiculous while baking a pizza-sized cookie. (No, it won't be heart-shaped. Smartass. But just you wait--that couples weblog is gonna happen. We are so gonna share our feelings with the world.)

I had a productive day today, running around and getting things done. Now that I have a great master plan for where my life is headed in the next year, I can go about making things happen. Sending out transcripts and filling out applications and meeting with advisors and bugging people about letters of recommendation and all that business.

I have a lead on a part-time job. It won't pay much of anything ($400/month for 20 hours per week of work) but it comes with a handy tuition waiver, which will save me the grief of having to ask one of my parents for a loan to pay for school. I'll be a tutor in the Governors State University writing center, which seems like a pretty cool job. My specialization in English education is the teaching of writing, and I spent four and a half years doing substantive editing of dull technical writing, so I think I'm qualified. Heh. So yeah, I'll be really broke, but I can always pick up another part-time job if I need one. I'll just have to sell shit on eBay and cut back on my unnecessary expenses. No big deal.

I'm going to be in school full-time next semester--for the first time since spring of 1995. I'm going to meet with an advisor to plan my schedule and to transfer some coursework so I'll be able to finish my master's in English over the summer--before I head down to University of Illinois to enter their library science program.

2001 will be my Year of the Thesis: I'll be writing two in the first eight months of the year. I'm hoping to have the education thesis done by early March at the very latest (I've been sitting on it for almost a year, so it's about time I finished), and I'll have the English thesis done by early August. So I'd say that I have my work cut out for me.

Now that I realize that being productive makes me feel better, I'll probably try to do it more often: chop my day up into little bits of tasks that need to be finished and just finish, slowly but surely.

I get my severance pay and my vacation/sick time pay from my former employer tomorrow. I can't wait until all of this is over. I filed for unemployment earlier this week, now I have to wait for the adjudicator to call me and give me my phone interview. I won't know if I'll be eligible to collect unemployment until just before Christmas, which is kind of a pain in the ass. Partially because I want to buy presents for people and partially because I'm sick of thinking about what happened and I just want it to be over. I'm happy with my life as it is now, I wouldn't go back to where I was two months ago for anything, but I want closure. The sooner, the better.

Well, that, and all my friends went home for the holiday. So I guess that was the real reason.

Anyhow, I updated the sidebar links today. Finally. After saying that I was planning to do it two months ago. There's still a few missing--I lost some of my bookmarks when I got canned, so I'll be relocating them slowly but surely and adding them on. Blogger search is still down, so I can't just hunt down my missing weblogs, damn it. So if you think you should be in the sidebar, why don't you email me and remind me?

So Brian introduced me to the glory that is the Makeout Club. Of course, we both posted profiles--you can see mine on page 23 of the girls and Brian's on page "brian's picture and description were on this page. then the makeout club switched servers and they started over and brian and i decided not to do it again.">27 of the boys.

I'll just say that I'm glad that Brian didn't decide to use this photo, because then all the sXe girls would be all up in his bid-ness. Really, the more I look at that picture, the more I think that maybe I should just scrap amplified and start a cheesy couple weblog where we talk about our love and how we are so totally made for each other and that kind of stuff.

I must say, I have never seen this many vegan sXe fifteen year olds who are into metal in my life. And then Brian told me that all sXe boys are into porn, and I was shocked! Just...shocked! They don't eat meat or dairy or eggs, but they like PORN?

I now will tell you my porn-related secret. If you don't want to know it, then don't drag your mouse over the following blank space.

I guess this isn't MY secret, it really has nothing to do with me, but one of my exes designs porn sites for a living. I am one of exactly two people in the world who knows about this. Well, actually, three, because I couldn't keep my mouth shut and I told Amanda. Oh, and I think I slipped and told Brian a while ago. Of course, I didn't find this offensive in the least, I thought it was funny as hell, but certain people would apparently be very upset if they found out. Golly gee willikers, what if one of these certain people is reading this right now? I am such a little devil...with little horns and cloven hooves and a tail and a pitchfork.

I'm going to legally change my name to XnanetteX, I think. You think The Man would allow that?