Holding Out For That Teenage Feeling

A retreat into the kitchen

2010-11-15T00:23:00.002-06:00

I haven’t written in awhile. Not here, not anywhere else. To be frank, I just haven’t felt like it. I realized a few months ago that all my composition was being done in the kitchen—in pumpkin bourbon cake, in potato leek soup, in Brussels sprouts and quiche with roasted beet salad. And that was ok with me. I took pride in my tangible accomplishments, in the compliments at work and from friends. I knew that I was making something of value, something that made people feel good.

Every time I’ve thought about writing, I’ve gotten a little afraid, really. It’s like when you put off that thank-you note you’ve been meaning to send—after awhile, the grotesque lateness of the note completely overrides any goodwill of sentiment, and it becomes impossible to send. Or maybe the only parallel with that example is the guilt, the sense of “supposed to” that just never becomes enough to actually do it.

I’ve been working a lot. In the last six months, maybe nine, I’ve found my place at work, and I’ve been filling it. I’ve been trying to make myself indispensable, trying to line up more people to need me. I work hard and then I come home and cook. I finish cooking and I eat, then I don’t really have much left. I talk on the phone to friends, I watch television on my computer, and I read sometimes.

I make excuses to myself for the writing. I think about how I need to move over to fiction, but I have no characters, nobody alive in my brain except the me me me. I even jotted down some notes on the bus a few days ago. I wrote a little elegy for my grandpa on his birthday in mid-October. I’ve maintained good conversations and I’ve read some great books.

I could turn this bit into an allegory for my dating life. I could pull the taffy of this piece into a two-flavor essay, the fear of writing but also of reopening myself to others. I could paint the scene in a few colors: the dull red glow of both my new humidifier and my clock radio as I can’t sleep, the light of the computer bouncing off my caramel-colored glasses, the familiar grey and purple print of my duvet cover forming a mountainous background to the computer on my lap. The startling loudness of my keys clicking away for the first time in months—it’s all there.

But I won’t. Instead, I’ll define myself in a new bundt pan; the thick, gorgeous cream that forms when butter and sugar are mixed firmly by hand; the most perfect breakfast sandwich with banana pepper, bacon, and an egg cooked just to yolky perfection; a butternut squash lasagna with basil béchamel; beets so sweet they stain my hands; corn chowder with caramelized onion and andouille sausage… Composition so perfect it lasts only a few days, maybe even a few moments. I’ll take it.

Purchased and Forgotten

2010-06-13T12:45:00.002-05:00

We have the internet now! We've been without since Memorial Day, and here's something I wrote in the meantime that I thought would make a good blog. Title coordinates to the below: I would never forget my internet purchase.

I made it about a block and a half before I realized I’d forgotten my book in the store. I paused, just after crossing under the El, rummaging through my purse and finding it devoid of book.

“Do you need a bag?” the girl had asked after a particularly flustered transaction. I’d spoken softly and dropped the pen and any other number of insignificant gestures.

“No, thanks,” I’d answered, and she set the book on the high counter, next to my lunchbox.

I had simply grabbed my lunchbox, closed up my wallet, and forgotten to sweep the book up. I turned where I stood on the sidewalk, passed again by the bartender having a slow 6:30pm cigarette, by the smelly homeless man who’d murmured something about sex as I’d passed the first time, by the music club where I’d last been with you.

I walked back in the store and a different person was behind the counter, a guy. “I,” I started, “forgot your book?” he finished. We both smiled and I looked down at the book, seeing a new addition. The girl had affixed a yellow post-it to its front.

“Purchased + forgotten,” she’d scribbled in script big enough to cover the whole sheet. Purchased and forgotten.

I had bought the book almost from habit, from necessity. I was taking a trip the next day and needed something to read on the plane. I’d had a long day, a long week, and I needed an interaction with the outside world that felt normal. This used book store feels like mine now when I walk in it, and it’s comforting. I mostly just wanted to do something that felt like me that didn’t remind me of you, but as always that proved impossible.

The book was Sarah Vowell’s “Take the Cannoli,” a collection of essays. I made it about halfway through before I realized she had written most of its contents while living in Chicago, working for Chicago Public Radio. Just like me (if she had been a sales assistant instead of a contributor to This American Life). The first few had me in stitches, but I was sad to realize that a few moments dragged, that every line wasn’t spectacular.

I still don’t know how I feel about the book. Mostly I enjoyed reading it. Mostly I thought she did some nice things with language, with engaging the reader and not making it easier on us. I don’t know, I guess maybe I felt some of it was forced.

This morning, digging for chapstick, I found that post-it on my nightstand. Purchased and forgotten. The book long since finished, I kept the post-it, the accusation of my inability to hold on to what I thought I valued, or to be held onto; the label I felt sometimes belongs on my forehead. I’m glad I read the book, and I’m glad I went back for it. But I’m still not sure it was the right purchase.

Volcanoes and Grocery-Store Tulips

2010-04-19T17:34:00.002-05:00

I'm on day 2 of stranded, day 11 of vacation. I landed in London on a Saturday morning, intending for a long week of vacation and rejuvenation with a friend who's been here since 2006. I'd explore London while he worked, then the two of us would scoot to Paris for a few nights for some real excitement. When we met at the train station to catch a train to Paris, we beheld the beginning of the chaos--the volcano had erupted that morning, and flights from noon onward had been rerouted. That was on Thursday, and today is Monday. British airports have been solidly closed, due to a large cloud of volcanic ash invisible in the clear blue skies. My Sunday flight home was canceled, and I found myself, in a pattern developing these few months, with broken plans.

So I sucked it up and stayed in London...sounds tough, I know.

My friend's flat here is large and lovely, with four bedrooms and four inhabitants. The neighborhood is quiet and the backyard is a lovely patio with two benches perfect for grabbing some spring sunshine. The house is a tall, narrow thing, with several sets of stairs. I am sleeping in the living/dining room, on a long red couch from Ikea. The only other communal room is the kitchen, so I feel bad for hogging half of the shared space. While I was vacationing, I wasn't around too much, but now that we are in the holding pattern, I've set up camp with a computer in this living room. Not only am I haunting the common space, but I'm a whole second person that my friend feels responsible for.

Naturally, I decided to make a curry, to try for amends. Not a British curry (Indian), but a Thai curry. I went to the store today to pick up supplies (Thai curry paste is not easy to find in English grocery stores), and saw all the flowers for sale. I always think it's lovely to come home to fresh flowers, so I thought it would be a nice touch. I went for some tulips, a big batch, and carried them home in their special flower bag. I always feel like Mrs. Dalloway when I'm walking home with a bundle of flowers and some festive foods.

I got home and divvied the flowers up in the kitchen and common room. No one had arrived home from work yet, so I was quite pleased with myself, the empty house, and the flowers and curry supplies.

The food went over famously, but standing in the kitchen with three males, all of a sudden, I found my tulips being mocked! They weren't mocking me for buying flowers, so much as teasing each other over the idea of bringing flowers home to men. My friend is American, and the other two are English and French Canadian.

It has been fun being in London, because all the people I've met have represented a fair swatch of Europe: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Ireland, France, etc. But standing in the kitchen with those boys, laughing about tulips, I felt like maybe I wasn't so far from home after all.

Work in the Big City

2010-03-18T14:01:00.002-05:00

This is why my job is cooler than your job. Today, someone sent out an all-staff email, looking for a lost water bottle. Another person replied with one that said he could not find his John Deere mug ("Really, it's true" he said.) He finished with this:

I guess nothing runs (away) like a (john) deere (coffee cup).

I could not help laughing aloud. On a day where I supremely don't feel like laughing, aloud or otherwise. ("Really, it's true.") This morning, on the train, I hit a new low (or high, depending on who you talk to). I was trying to board, and as the train pulled up, I was a little worried at the number of people around me on the platform. But then I saw that the middle aisles were clear, and so I knew I'd be ok. The doors opened, and the area inside the door was rather crowded. I stood with one foot on, one foot off, waiting for people to shuffle and make room for the new people boarding. But no one did it. I looked down the aisle, still half empty, and finally I yelled, "Move IN!" And they did.

It's 70 degrees and beautiful today. It's supposed to snow on Saturday. I think these extremes are what the lit nerds call "pathetic fallacy."

Check, check

2010-03-04T15:15:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, I went to my friend Todd’s house to work on this interminable project for my dad. Dad, who designs crash-prevention radio equipment for airplanes, was looking for some new voice talent to read traffic messages that would play for pilots while in the air.

When my dad gets an idea in his head, he always thinks it will be easy to accomplish. Then, he takes the most circuitous, complicated way of accomplishing it that is humanly possible. That’s why he’s an engineer, and I spend my free time writing my feelings. Anyway, this project seemed easy at first: record my voice, reading several messages, and send the files to Dad for insertion into the program. I had access to recording equipment and a list. Files were recorded, and sent. I was ready for my mile-high fame.

Then, the first set of files didn’t work for Dad. Instead of admitting that he didn’t know what he was talking about when it came to audio files, he insisted that I use this specific, ancient software that is a free download and can only be used on a PC. I borrowed a friend’s laptop, and spent a long afternoon shoving my face as close to the laptop’s mic as possible, trying to get the messages to record at a uniform volume. They worked well enough, and he put them in the trial run of the program.

Now, he’s ready to throw some money at this, so I’m ready to re-record. He wanted a male voice too, so I contacted Todd, who has a home studio and enough free time to help me out. Plus, Todd is a teacher, so he’s always up for extra money. I went to Todd’s after work, and he had this giant mic all set up in his kitchen. We were ready to roll.

We recorded our samples fairly quickly, and laughed a lot about messages like “Fail,” which Todd, in his Chicago accent, kept pronouncing closer to “fell.” We got the ones we liked, and then remembered an inspired clip that Abi came up with. I went to the mic for one last time: “One, ah ha ha ha!” Just like the Count, from Sesame Street. Then I laughed a real laugh (hello, the Count is hilarious), which Todd caught on the recording.

I went back to his computer to listen to it, and Todd was laughing hysterically. “Look at your normal laugh,” he said, “it’s perfectly metered.” I looked at his recording software, and saw four blobs, growing slightly in size, but spaced precisely the same difference apart. “Play it,” I told him, so he did, and we both giggled and the sound of my recorded, staccato laugh.

He wasn’t exaggerating. It was strange. It was almost like hiccups, but more precise. I realized something. “Todd,” I said, “we are looking at the graphic representation of the intense energy I am spending controlling every outward motion of my body.” And it was true. Listening, it was almost like “ok, I can laugh now, but hold on one sec, don’t want to overdo it, ok again.” I am so lost in my own head right now that my body has kicked into major social survival mode. Made for a good Count, though.

I’ve always been pretty interested in the way the body and mind interact, especially as someone whose crazy mind is always affecting her body. It used to be that my mind-body connection was specifically a mind-stomach one. These days, I think I’m physically internalizing it all in my head. I’ve had a headache for a week and a half, and I haven’t slept solidly through a night in just as long. And now, I think the sheer force of my stress has left me open for some strange cold. I haven’t been sick since Thanksgiving, which might be a personal record for me. I keep trying to will myself well, but I don’t think it works like that. Laughing is good though, even if it is in staccato.

Back and Crankier Than Ever

2010-02-19T16:26:00.004-06:00

And now, I pose the question: can one make up for lost time with an obscene amount of words? I didn't think so, but bear with me.

A particular friend of mine has been a good commiserator about our current inundation of weddings and babies (the babies are more her thing, I’ve only got a direct line on one of those). Every time I look at my calendar, flooded with weddings, I feel a little bit of dread. Dread at spending the money, dread at the same old circus with the same old people in the same three churches. But every time I actually attend one of these weddings, I’m filled with joy—these are my friends, people I love, being truly happy and inviting 400 people to share in this happiness. I think it’s safe to say that I’m torn on the idea of weddings, but here’s the rub: I worry that for people my age, wedding is getting thrown above marriage. With these big productions, we forget that these people are having more than just one big day. They’re changing their entire lives forever. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but really, isn’t that what they’re doing?

So for purposes of this discussion, you should be coming away from that paragraph with two thoughts: Beth is afraid of getting married at this point in time, but she’s very happy for her brave friends who are up for it. And in this frame of mind (combined with a somewhat confusing dating life), I received from my friend the following link: Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.

I guess “grossed out” is safest way to describe what I felt when I read the title and description for this so-called book. I looked it up at the library, but availability was low. Then I realized that I have a list of actually rewarding books I want to read, so I settled on a compromise: the article excerpt, as originally published in The Atlantic. (The Atlantic!?!?)

The pendulum swung as I read. I began angry, became furious, calmed to disbelief, hit depression, quickly transferred that to condescension, found a point of concurrence, and bounced back over to questioning. I came away wondering: who the hell is this written for? It seems that she’s speaking in the voice of a middle-aged mother, lecturing the young and marriageable. Settle now, ladies, before you’re stuck with a sperm donor and no partner to trade off duties with. So first, she’s assuming that we all want kids. [As someone very, very afraid of marriage, I find it hard to admit that yeah, I probably will want to have kids someday, but there it is. I guess you could say that I’m her target audience here.] But I know plenty of people with no interest in children, and I don’t see this changing. Maybe she should put this in her already frightening title: “Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough so you can pop out some kids who act as entitled as you do.” With a title like the one she actually chose, she obviously wants the book to appeal to a broader audience than the child-hungry twenty-something. In the article, the only argument she makes is that you should settle so you can start a family. Which still grosses me out.

But let’s get to a dissection of the article, shall we?

“And all I can say is, if you say you’re not worried, either you’re in denial or you’re lying. In fact, take a good look in the mirror and try to convince yourself that you’re not worried, because you’ll see how silly your face looks when you’re being disingenuous.”

Let’s look at her tone here. It’s hard to discuss tone with just a two-sentence snippet (more are below, for other purposes). I read the whole piece in two sittings. It took two because I was just too angry to continue after sentiments like the one above. I think she’s trying to make me, or any single woman, a little mad here. But why does she get to speak for all women? From the scant bio at the bottom of the piece, I can tell that she’s a successful writer, assumably living on the East Coast (I picture Manhattan, but can’t remember if this is true or not). This woman is in no way living a normal, everygirl life. She had the money not only to have a child with one income, but to create that child in a lab, and have it implanted in her body. I don’t think insurance covers that. In fact, I don’t know that most writers HAVE insurance. So yes, I’m angered by her condescension here. (I could also do a stylistic analysis of the prose—the use of first/second person, the interjections via commas, the “joke” and the use of “silly” with “disingenuous,” all adding up to a wanna-be conversational style while still trying to keep the reader down so that she’s the expert. But that would be boring.)

“Our culture tells us to keep our eyes on the prize (while our mothers, who know better, tell us not to be so picky), and the theme of holding out for true love (whatever that is—look at the divorce rate) permeates our collective mentality.”

First of all, the mothers thing. She refers to the wisdom of mothers a few times throughout this article. I suppose that’s not strange, since her message is all about enabling motherhood. I don’t know about you, but my mother has never encouraged me to be less picky about the manboys I date. Because my mother isn’t like all mothers—because all women aren’t the same. Imagine it.

Second of all, how about holding out for self-respect? How can you respect yourself if you don’t respect your partner? This is horrifying. The word is PARTNER, not robot who shares in child-rearing tasks. Another quote:

“My friend Alan, for instance, justified his choice of a “bland” wife who’s a good mom but with whom he shares little connection this way: ‘I think one-stop shopping is overrated. I get passion at my office with my work, or with my friends that I sometimes call or chat with—it’s not the same, and, boy, it would be exciting to have it with my spouse. But I spend more time with people at my office than I do with my spouse.’”

What is the point of having a partner if you’re getting all your passion filled at the office? Just don’t get fucking married. Don’t have kids. I feel like this man is doing his kids a disservice by creating a passionless family life. Why do you have kids if you spend more time at work than you do with your spouse? Gross.

There’s a lot of pop culture in here, from “Friends” to “Will & Grace” to “Say Anything.” I’ll just include the quick note that I wrote after reading her discussion of this stuff: THERE’S A WHOLE PARAGRAPH ABOUT “FRIENDS.” WHAT THE FUCK. She says just two paragraphs above to ignore what our culture says, then she measures behavior by TV shows.

Later, she goes into why her books are different than those other self-help books, where she has the gall to make fun of, to mock self-help books she admits to reading. Because those other sarcastic, plucky books for lonely women are different from this sarcastic, plucky book for lonely women. At one point, she makes the argument that avoiding settling is a further form of the invincibility that you feel as a young person: “Those of us who choose not to settle in hopes of finding a soul mate later are almost like teenagers who believe they’re invulnerable to dying in a drunk-driving accident. We lose sight of our mortality.” Yeah, this sounds a lot different than self-help to me. Empower yourself in no longer thinking like a teenager, by facing up to your own mortality. That doesn’t scream lady-filled seminar to me At All.

“Unless you meet the man of your dreams (who, by the way, doesn’t exist, precisely because you dreamed him up), there’s going to be a downside to getting married, but a possibly more profound downside to holding out for someone better.”

Let’s ignore the crap around the parenthetical, because Gottlieb finally comes to something that I can agree with. People get confused about ideals and dreams because they can dream about themselves becoming doctors, or writing the great American novel, and (to an extent) can tangibly make that happen. Words can appear on a page, degrees can be earned. But dream people never surface. Maybe it’s because I’m younger than Gottlieb, but I still have the silly hope that when real people surprise me, they’re doing things better than I could dream up. Not just with romantic partners—even my immediate family and my closest friends surprise me in their abilities to love and interact with me.

Last quote, I promise. You still with me on this rant?

“This doesn’t undermine my case for settling. Instead, it supports my argument to do it young, when settling involves constructing a family environment with a perfectly acceptable man who may not trip your romantic trigger—as opposed to doing it older, when settling involves selling your very soul in exchange for damaged goods.”

This whole time I’m wondering, does this woman not have a support system? When I am 40, my mom will be 65. Let’s say I decide not to get married, but at 40, decide I want to have kids. Not only would I count on my parents, but also my three brothers, 2, 6, and 11 years younger than myself. I’d count on aunts, uncles, friends already married and raising kids who at that point will be trotting through junior high. I understand her point that to raise kids, you have to be part of a sturdy family. But I think her playgroups, or wherever she’s getting those bitter-spinster-settler quotes, aren’t providing the “family environment” that I feel now in my simple groups of friends, let alone my actual family. (PS—“Damaged goods?” Hello pot, this is the kettle, you’re black as coal.)

So I think I’ve spent enough words proving to myself that this woman is an idiot, that I’m different, that I’m able to raise a family without some guy who bores me but is stable. If I hadn’t spent so many words on this, I might try to argue a case for women who want conventional happiness (families, husbands, but god, no picket fences) but are smart enough not to read books like this or live lives like the one Gottlieb champions. But I’m betting no one has stuck with me this long, so I’ll call it a day.

The P Word

2009-10-02T19:03:00.000-05:00

There’s this habit that I’m really good at—that lots of people I know are good at. It’s such a common thing, almost a joke most times. It’s procrastinating. “Oh, you know me, I never get anything done on time.” “Well, I work best at the last minute.” These lines aren’t even funny, because they’re so clichéd, so overused. We hear “procrastinate” and we think immediately of deadlines, of long nights filled with coffee and blaring screens and the sleepless drunk that settles on a room full of students/workers/creatives when a project is due.

But the procrastination I’m thinking of is a different beast. It’s the supposed-to kind.

I like keeping a blog, or I wouldn’t have started one. I obviously set no specific deadlines for myself. Some friends I know want to post once a week, or three times a month, or even once a day. They set themselves goals and they generally meet them. Sometimes I meet mine. But most times I don’t. There’s this strange self-doubt that creeps in on something so simple as writing a meaningless blog entry (to be seen by, at this point, maybe only five people). Who cares? I tell myself. Why doubt myself on such a moot point? It must be a symptom of something greater.

And indeed, this step-by-step process of excusing the supposed-to’s crops up often in my daily life. I can’t write a blog because nothing funny happened to me today, because I’m too tired, because I have to get ready to go out, because I have nothing positive to say. Each step presents its own logical reason. I can’t take out the trash today because it got too dark and now it’s cold. I can’t apply for that job because my cover letter needs a fresh set of eyes. I can’t finish those dishes because my stressed out body won’t take another second of being on its feet.

The main problem, I’ve realized, is that I ALWAYS have tomorrow to take out the trash, to wash the dishes, to give that cover letter another look. Being unemployed does strange things to people, and this endless wash of time has made me lazier than I’d believed possible. If I’m only supposed to do something, if it should get done today but could probably wait til tomorrow, I’m in big trouble.

Because here’s the thing about procrastinating: once you start, you cannot stop. The trash will sit perfectly well at the top of the outside stairs today because it did yesterday. That job went unapplied for yesterday and another day won’t hurt anything. Then, two weeks have passed, and even though you got the trash in the dumpster, the cover letter still doesn’t exist. And by this time, the job has been posted for a month, and why waste the energy applying for a job that is probably closed by now? Just like that. You are still on your couch, and another job will appear on the website for you to apply for and never hear back from.

I have gotten lucky. I had one interview, then another. A ripple in the routine is always a good shock. And now I have this collection of words, the first one I’ve bothered to create in awhile. I’m lucky on this one because I had someone call me out directly—get back to your stupid blog. (Well, she didn’t call it stupid, but I did. Stupid is OK if it gets you typing.) Now if I could only get back to yoga, I think I’d really be in business…

The Graduate

2009-05-31T20:35:00.002-05:00

I could apologize for my long hiatus from blogging, but we all know it wouldn't matter. Most people can't be minding too terribly that I've been two months absent.

This coming Tuesday, a mere 48 hours from now, I will be sitting through my last class of graduate school. I don't know what to think about this, I really don't. On the one hand, I'm terrified. That, I'm sure of. I have no real job and no reply from the seventy jobs I've applied for this spring. When school is over, I will have four days a week of temp work and only my social life to look forward to. My social life, and pending loan bills. But on the other hand, I'm elated. No more guilt for every minute I spend watching videos on the Internet instead of reading stylistics or composition theory. No more professors who love nothing more than the sound of their own voices. No more days that begin at 8am and end at 9:30pm. And, for chrissakes, I'll have a Master's degree. When you look at it like that, it seems pretty awesome.

When I moved to Chicago, when I signed on for those student loans and long, school-driven days, I didn't picture it all ending like this. I pictured internships, intimidating offices, page upon page of portfolio wonder. From the comfort of 2007, I saw jobs lined up and salaries that made me realize just how little I had made at the nonprofit in KC. Not data entry, not advertising copy-bitch, not recession or its impending doom. But here we are.

The thing is, I think I'm having the best spring of my life. It must be, because the days have fled so quickly that tomorrow it will be June. Two weeks from today, I will be in a rented gown, sitting through a hideously long graduation ceremony for a school I feel very little attachment to. I can't really say how I got here, and I know I can't tell you how I got here this quickly, but here I am. Here I am, and I know things are OK because I'm counting my graces: four days of weekly temping are better than eating lots of peanut butter and begging my parents for money. The sun is out longer each day, and the windows stay open in my bedroom. I have three amazing months to enjoy living with my dear roommate in this house with the backyard and the open kitchen which are perfect for parties. When my family arrives for graduation, I have a host of wonderful new characters to introduce them to. The whole family is coming, every last one of them, and that includes Emmy!

So even on this sleepy Sunday night, I'm keeping the panic at bay. It's ok that I can't picture what the next year will look like. I was wrong about the last two, and they've successively been the best yet.

[Miss]ouri

2009-03-31T10:39:00.004-05:00

Just one short week ago, three friends, one Yaris, two guitars, an amp, and some other equipment-crap set out from Chicago to end up in the wilds of Northeast Missouri. Yup, we went to Kirksville. In the name of the founders of Truman's strangest fraternity, an eclectic group of reunion-happy alums gathered in various dirty hotels to see if Kirksville was as good as we remembered.

In the Yaris, the three of us played "in my suitcase, I packed" and waited patiently to drink our High Life 40s as it grew darker and more Missouri-like. It's strange to sink back into the familiarity that ruled your life just four years ago as you drive north on that stretch of Hwy 63 with town names like Macon and LaPlata. It's strange and it's bizarrely comforting--here is that Comfort Inn, the one across from the drive-in that never seems to be playing movies. There is that trailer restaurant outside the Amtrak station in LaPlata, the one I missed out on. Here is the billboard with the binoculars, the one that reminds us of The Great Gatsby.

But I think the best part of the drive was the burning fields. Growing up in a city, but one that most people associate with farms, is funny. I feel an affinity toward farms, toward rural life, but I know relatively little about them. One of the things I do know about, though, is burning the fields in the springtime to clear them of dead plant life and ready them for planting. For whatever reason, we hit it right last weekend, and were repaid with the sweet, smoky smell of burning fields. We could sometimes smell it even when we couldn't see the telltale billows or the black char in the highway's neighboring fields. Another familiar comfort.

The weekend was full of drinking on the cheap. We had people from Kansas City, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, and St. Louis, and everyone enjoyed the college-town approach to beer prices. We haunted the bars that we called our own for a few years, looking scornfully at the incredibly young patrons now bellied up. But not too scornfully, because after all, that was us. We went to parties at the dirtiest frat house in Kirksville, and left too early to witness toilet-smashings (toilets unattached to plumbing, of course) and three-hour covers of "Slow Ride."

Kirksville did have a few new curves to throw. Our favorite Mexican restaurant has closed for mysterious reasons (serving to minors, perhaps?). Staying in a hotel when you used to know the renters in every house around campus was a strange experience to be sure. Staying in the Days Inn out on the south side of town was even stranger, and by "stranger," I mean "flat out disgusting." One room of girls had a vendetta with hotel personnel after remarking (accidentally) in earshot of a clerk that the place was a "shithole." Don't ever do this, as it will result in an unrequested 7am wakeup call and the refusal of all services, including clean bath towels.

The new buildings on campus and the fancy remodels were all a bit of a trip, but perhaps the best curve that the Ville had to offer was Geno's 70'S [sic] Club. I mean, we were all surprised to see that the number one dive for dancing, Toons, had been renamed Wrongdaddy's (wtf does that even mean?), but a brand new entity on the Kirksville club stage? Wow. When a friend came into Woody's hailing the light-up checkerboard dance floor, we knew we had to see it. After a generous man purchased some lunchboxes for the willing (or begrudgingly willing, a chug shot is the last thing the writer was ready for at the downhill of a crazy weekend), we walked a block and a half to the dance end of the square.

Before getting into the marvel that is Geno's, let's just take a minute to appreciate a town where every bar you want to go to is within a one-mile radius, where all your friends were living within probably a two mile radius, where parking everywhere is plentiful and always free, and downtown streets are slow, empty, and uber bike-friendly. Is it any wonder we got nostalgic for such a place? And now, there is Geno's.

We walked in past a most interesting bouncer, all showing our IDs and straining to hear the song that was playing. Music was temporarily forgotten as we entered the bar area and saw the spectacle. Tales of the light-up dance floor had not been exaggerated -- it was the focal point of the room. Reds, whites, blues, and greens were all neatly in squares under the feet of a wide array of Missouri's finest townies. The DJ (I begged my friend to get a picture) reined over all in a raised booth at the head of the dance floor. I can't remember the details of his mullet, only that it was awesome in the haze of the smoke machine. We wasted no time in joining the crowds to bust our sweet moves to AC/DC, Michael Jackson, and other staples. Wow.

Floors were slept on, bars were owned, eyes were burned by foreign solution, professors were visited, Java Co bagels were eaten, a stranger's bathroom was used, a friend's band was debuted, and all of a sudden, it was time to go home. We left fairly early on Sunday, checked out of our godforsaken hotel by 11am. (I'm not kidding, this place didn't even use fitted sheets! They just tucked flat sheets into the mattress. Often STAINED flat sheets. Gross.) We stopped at Sonic on our way out of town, as for some reason, Chicago proper hasn't caught on to the magic that is Sonic. The trip home never seems as long as the trip there, though this trip had its fair share of sleep dragging. I would like to say that we didn't follow up the Sonic breakfast with a Steak and Shake lunch, but then I'd be lying. We made it home in one piece and admitted that, despite promises of retiring in the Ville during the car ride there, we didn't actually think we would ever be back. Some things are best left remembered.

ps - catchy-title-punctuation credit goes to E, of course.

Pinheads

2009-03-07T16:31:00.007-06:00

A quick giggle from me to you. I'm working on a final project that involves, among other things, liberalism. In light of this, I figured Bill O'Reilly deserved some name-dropping in my piece. I googled his name to be sure I had it spelled right, and, after watching that hilarious video of him freaking out on Inside Edition, looked in briefly on the man's homepage. In my scan, I noticed a most ridiculous typographical error. Please note the way that Italy is spelled in his O'Round the World section above. Hilarious. A crusader of truth, a lambaster of liberals, and a man who can't be bothered to spell correctly the name of a country that is arguably one of the birthplaces of Western society. I mean, it only has FIVE letters. Italy??!!?!? Two Ls?!?!?!!? What is wrong with him?

Meatloaf Cupcakes and Everything that Followed

2009-02-16T11:36:00.004-06:00

I had a dear friend in town this weekend. It being Chicago in February, we did what any sensible fun-seekers would do: we ate. Uncontrollably.

The first stop in all this fun was the Bucktown Pub, which doesn't serve food but has a trivia night on Thursdays. I lured my friend with the promise of PBR and free popcorn, and the hope of the tamale guy. We were not disappointed when he appeared with his coolers, peddling homemade tamales with tiny, serving-size containers of red and green salsa. Greasy napkins and empty corn husks are always good balm for a loss at trivia.

But truly, this eating craze started a few months ago. I received an email alert for a new restaurant in town, The Meatloaf Bakery. A new meatloaf lover, I forwarded the alert to the friend who converted me. Elated, she said we would make a visit during her visit in February. As two women who pride themselves on fulfilling promises, we woke up on Friday, watched The Office and 30 Rock in bed, and then headed to the Promised Land.

The place was pleasantly designed, a tiny little storefront on Clark with a big, sunny window and bright, accent pinks and oranges to liven up the white walls. But these details were almost lost on Allison and myself when we approached the counter with the day's wares. This bakery boasts eight (?) different types of meatloaves, and three different serving methods. You can order a whole loaf, but they're not really lunch ready. After the loaf size, the option falls to a cupcake. A meatloaf cupcake. This creation is about the size of a large muffin, and in place of icing, covered in mashed potatoes. Not to be outdone, the tiny "loafies" made a name for themselves by being served in pastry shells, like little meatloaf tartlettes. YUM.

We ordered flights of loafies, a spicy one with chorizo and peppers, an Italian one with parm and tomatoes and angel hair pasta on top, and a burger one with cheese and bacon, and the smallest bun anyone has ever seen. For our cupcake, we split a traditional Mother Loaf with a demi-glace. I will not admit whether or not we went back for round two with some more small loafies. I will say that it was delicious and we walked out cackling about meatloaf.

After a brief art-viewing interlude and some false homework time, night fell and it was time to meet more friends for dinner at my favorite place in Chicago. Thankfully, Icosium Kafe specializes in savory crepes filled with fresh and (mostly) light ingredients. We drank wine and enjoyed bell peppers, goat cheese, pine nuts, spinach, carmelized onions, and a few million other ingredients that I'm forgetting.

Saturday involved brunch (quiche and juevos mexicanos and omelettes, oh my), a trip to the Garfield Park Conservatory, hot dogs, and a gourmet dinner at home--French onion soup broiled with baguette and jarlsberg, and a mediocre brownie sundae. Oh, and I think a McFlurry or two was eaten over the course of the weekend.

Just writing about all this food makes me simultaneously hungry and contented. This winter, I've found myself an insatiable eater. "It's the weather," my roommate and I tell each other. It's cold, and we need to keep up our energy. But with less and less work available to me, and days when I do work so full with work and school that I want to collapse, I wonder if I'm excusing too great of an indulgence. With February more than halfway over, I guess I'll just wait for spring to tell if it's winter blues that's fueling this tasty self-medication.

Battle Wounds

2009-02-11T13:48:00.002-06:00

There's a killer bruise on my right thigh, right on top. If this were shorts season, it would probably appear when I sat down. I got it Sunday night, trying to exit the Damen stop with a rolling suitcase, a duffel bag, and a messenger bag. I'm just terrible at schlepping things, and in my effort to push through the turnstile while managing all the bags, I misfired and nailed my thigh.

It's one of those bruises that I secretly love. It started forming immediately, and has changed colors each day. Yesterday, at its start, it showed all the colors: yellow, blue, purple, grey. Today it's a stormy blue-grey, to match the weather. I think I'm drawn to the colors of bruises, and to the instant gratification. Yes, I got hurt, and here is the proof, the mangled colors of muscle and blood and fat and whatever other tissue. I can feel the way my leg has changed, hardened, in that spot.

I registered yesterday for the last classes I need to complete my Master's. In June, I will be done with school and out of excuses for not working full-time. My diploma will be a bruise, a display that my brain muscles have changed, molded in spots. My student loans will be the proof that it hurt.

2009-01-27T13:29:00.004-06:00

Beth's Favorite Things of 2008, though they may not have come out that year:

Bon Iver's For Emma
Blitzen Trapper, Furr
Shearwater, Rook (mostly the concert, but the album too)
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (seeing her read too)
David Sedaris reading in January at the Steppenwolf, and his personalized book inscription
Cloud Cult, show at Schuba's in the spring and the "Meaning of 8" album
Hand-me-down coats, new down coats, and sales coats from Belmont Army
Brock O'Laughlin
Speed dating and all ensuing stories
The pink sandals I bought for $10 and wore all summer
Our housewarming party in Sept
Marrying off some of my besties
Dressing up as the Village People to go see Hercules and Love Affair
August vacations to Denver and the ever alluring Lake of the Ozarks
Visits from the fam
Every moment of the summer
Tall boots
Cooking and baking
The reinstatement of fried chicken and champagne
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
Freaks and Geeks

Winter Blues

2008-12-16T21:16:00.004-06:00

Sike! I'm not actually that blue this winter. Busy replaces blue most days, truth be told, though yesterday's bitter, bitter cold was enough to make anyone want to give up.

Nope, I wanted to write about winter because I wanted to sing the praises of one Bon Iver. Being the lucky girl that I am, the main dilemma of my week is whether or not to attend the Bon Iver show this coming Thursday - do I cram one more thing into an already busy pre-Christmas week?

To help me decide, I listened to "For Emma, Forever Ago" twice today while working on some freelance writing at a coffee shop. (Yeah, I just name-dropped freelancing - what up.) From my extensive musical reading, I feel fairly confident in reporting that "For Emma" was recorded in lonely Wisconsin hunting cabin one winter. I don't know why it took me until the snow falling at Thanksgiving to realize that "For Emma" is the perfect accompaniment to everyone's least favorite season. Well, everyone except my weird dad and brothers. I still think they're lying about loving the cold.

The album, as far as I can tell, was written for Emma. Though maybe not forever ago. (haha, sorry I had to.) This lucky Emma, whoever she is, had the good fortune to break our Justin Vernon's heart (even Bon Iver has an alter ego). I think Vernon's biggest success is the fact that this chronically lyric-obssesed listener doesn't know, and worse yet, doesn't care about not knowing, half the lyrics on the album. (Though I must say that the lyrics that do strike me hit HOME.) This album is about the way Vernon's broken heart sounds in a lonely hunting cabin, surrounded by snow and self-doubt. It's hard for me to describe. There's a lot of slight, slight distortions and strummy guitar. Voices lay softly on top of each other and create a minor howl at times. It's awesome.

Last spring, I had heard snippets of the album, and decided to buy it. The next day, my friend was lucky enough to score us two tickets to one of Bon Iver's sold out shows at this tiny venue called the Lakeshore Theater. We're talking high school auditorium tiny. Really, she wasn't lucky. She just showed up a few hours before the show and bullied someone into selling her the tickets. She's awesome like that.

Anyway, it rained that night and I had to make the best of really wet feet and a frizzy head. After an obligatory two vodkas (I had to pay my friend back for the ticket, and I couldn't let her drink alone), she and I found seats in the tiny auditorium. Now, the Lakeshore Theater is primarily a venue for live comedy - stand up, revues, what have you. I had never been in before, and was fairly surprised to see that there was no standing area. It was just seats. After a funny little opener, Bon Iver took the stage.

Vernon had two other people on stage with him. One, the bass player, I recognized because one of the guys on All Songs Considered had said "The bass player looks like he's 16." Vernon apparently had met this kid because he taught him guitar. The other kid, a drummer, looked barely old enough to buy me a third vodka. Vernon looked like a man who'd spent a winter in a hunting cabin, writing songs that speak to my innermost heart. He was wearing a flannel shirt and a beard a few days (weeks?) old. Good enough to eat.

Then, he started playing. I think I realized I was holding my breath about three songs in. Four songs in, I realized that everyone else was holding their breath, too. The happy truth is, Vernon sounds as good live as he does on disc. His voice is amazing. I haven't been to a concert that made me feel like that since I saw Wilco in 2005, and I don't know that I've ever been to a concert with the same rapt intensity from the audience. It was like we all thought that Vernon thought that he was alone in a room, singing, and we didn't want to burst in on his privacy and break the spell. So we kept still.

I can't believe how lucky we were to get those last minute tickets. I saw Bon Iver again in July, at the Pitchfork Music Festival. He managed to cast his net over that crowd too, but it certainly wasn't the same as that churchly still Lakeshore Theater performance, on one of his first touring go-rounds. So I think I'll sit this week out. It's snowy, it's cold, and I have a house full of cookies. I can listen to the album in my warm bed, humidifier at hand like a true nerd.

Is This Desire? (To Bring You My Love)

2008-11-09T17:43:00.003-06:00

There are days when I remember and rekindle my love of PJ Harvey. Today is one of those for a few reasons:

1. It is grey. It is cold. The wind is back and reminding me that I am an idiot for not locating my gloves yet. And above all, it is full-on dark at 5.45pm. Has been for nearly an hour.

2. I am in the library. I approach the library with mixed feelings, and debate giving this its own post. Right now, I am in my own private cubby, sitting on my feet of course and propped up enough to glimpse lights out the window next to this cubby. On my immediate right, the stacks. I look at these stacks and feel oddly comforted. On the other hand, behind me, two boys are debating the correct way to break down 3 x 4/3(pi). Even as I am thrust back to the comfort of my undergrad experience by the stacks, I am relieved by my exemption from it, from a world of boys who talk loudly in the library.

3. I am researching revision. If there were no PJ Harvey, I would be sleeping right now. Seriously, forcibly put to sleep by journals like "College English" and "Computers and Composition."

PJ Harvey is a little dark, a little soothing and a little scary all at the same time. She is pissed off and also condescending. She is, above all, in total control. So here I am, surrounded by too much work and not enough desire or time to finish it all. But it doesn't matter. Does PJ Harvey ever get the guy? Does he ever send his love to her? Probably not. But who cares?

Brush with Fame/Destiny/Bliss

2008-10-13T08:06:00.002-05:00

Last Friday began, bright and sunny, to an alarm at an early hour. My days have lately taken on a routine: wake to alarm, ready self for work, call the temp agency, hear that they have no last-minute appointments, then wait for them to call back with that last-minute work that will help me pay the gas bill AND still be able to go out to dinner. Though Friday was no exception to this pattern, ending with no call, a part of me was secretly thrilled.

You see, on Friday, I had an alternate plan. My friend, a nanny, had charge of one baby instead of two. This meant she could move about town freely, and I could join her. We both found ourselves in the sad state of never having seen our beautiful city by boat, so an architectural boat tour it must be! After a few hours of reading and an episode of the Daily Show online, I dressed to meet my friend downtown. For some reason I felt festive, and dressed to the nines. I bounced out of the house and enjoyed every minute of my walk to the El, ipod and all.

I waited on the Damen platform in the sun, basking in the fall that was due to us through all of September's heat. A train came shortly, and I made my way to a standing perch halfway down an aisle.

I soon began the business of observing people and trying to avoid being observed doing this. The fellow in the seat in front of me, dressed in fatigues, was my first subject, on account of his terrible gum smacking. Ugh. Next I scanned the ads on the slopes of the car's ceiling, then looked down the aisle at the lucky few who had scored standing room in the coveted spots by the doors. A guy with a large backpack, a very hipster looking girl, and... the bassist from Wilco.

Fuck. It's John Stirratt. John Stirratt is on my train. Though I haven't seen Wilco an obsessive number of times, I've seen them a few different places. I also may or may not have seen and loved "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart." Stirratt always sticks out to me, because he looks like a kid I went to college with. Wilco has held a special place in my heart since September 2005, the first time I saw them and the first moment I remember feeling good in my haze of post-graduation depression that summer of 2005.

I feel my eyes grow in circumference and my mouth fall open an inch or so. I quickly look away and immediately begin sweating. I mean, sweating. I think for a second I may faint in this hot train car, which has by now made its way underground en route to downtown. My hand slips and slides its sweaty way down the pole. "Pull it together Beth." I take a big breath and will myself to calm down. It works a little.

I sneak another glance, because maybe it's not him. Oh no, oh yes, it's him. It's definitely him. I inch my way down the aisle, an easy task because for some reason Fatigues Gum Smacker has left his seat and is crowding me all the way down to the area by the doors. I have the distinct feeling he's trying to graze my ass with his hand, with his backpack, with anything at his disposal. I squirm around and find myself not six inches from Stirratt. I put both slippery hands on the pole and try for some subtle observation. He is wearing nice jeans, camel-colored suede shoes that look pretty comfy, and a jean jacket over a tshirt of unremembered color. He looks pretty tan, and up close he is older than I expected, closer to my parents' age than mine.

What to do? My brain runs circles, but the one thing I know is that I will never stop regretting it if I don't say anything. I look at my fellow passengers and wonder a) why the hell they don't recognize this ROCK STAR on our train, and b) how badly I'll be embarrassed if these people hear me geeking out over this unassuming man who is just trying to live his Friday.

I formulate a plan. When we get to my stop, at Clark and Lake streets, there is a likelihood that he'll exit the train. There are always a lot of people who do. I will step off the car slightly behind him, catch up to him, and try to gush without looking like a creepy stalker. I will tell him that I love Wilco, and I love Chicago. But then we come to Clark and Lake, and he makes no sign of leaving the train. I take advantage of our slow approach to dive in before I can overthink it.

"Hi." I smile in my nicest, least creepy way.
"Hi," he smiles back, friendly as all get out, and looks away.
"I'm sorry, but are you...?" I trail off, not wanting to mispronounce his name.
"Oh, yeah. Yes, I'm in Wilco." He sees that he is not going to get away with so little conversation. "How are you?" He smiles again.
"I'm great, how are you?" I'm beaming.
"Good, thanks. Thanks for listening."
"Oh, I just... nice work!" Oh lord. I pause, looking for something, anything, better than 'Nice work.' "So, do you live in the city year-round?"
He is the nicest person alive. "Yes, I'm just up in Logan Square."
"Oh cool! How fun! I just moved to Bucktown." I'm blowing it and I don't even care. We've come to my stop, and I have to jump out before the doors close. "Go Blue Line! Have a good day!" is all I can manage before leaping out the doors, smiling smiling smiling. I walk to the exit, ride the escalator up to street level, smiling smiling.

I'm smiling, even though my head is saying, "Go Blue Line?" (I'm reminded of a time-honored tradition in girl world - "I carried a watermelon?") I reach the street, phone in my shaking hand, and call the friend that I know will appreciate this best in the world. "Beth," he says about two minutes into my mad recounting, "I can't understand a word you're saying." I suppose shrill doesn't translate well to the phone. I meet my girlfriend on the river, dance around her and the stroller, telling and retelling her about my new favorite Chicago moment.

Saint Mary of the Angels

2008-09-28T21:25:00.003-05:00

September has, once again, proven to keep me busy. Most of the month's preoccupations have been centered on our new apartment, and most happily. After a few weeks of house-arranging flurry, we finally got ourselves to the good part: a housewarming party. I must say, with all due modesty, that it was quite the event. With three roommates, and our powers combined, we drew a fabulous crowd. A packed house, a lot of booze, and even a love connection or two amongst our guests made us all very pleased with ourselves both during the party and in these days following.

Hosting parties is something that brings me enormous pleasure, and I've often wondered why. I think probably the combination of the stimulus and the constant attention is a pleasing one for me. I've come to realize that I really do love working a room; bouncing from person to person and feeling that I have something to say to each. When you're hosting, you never get stuck too long in the corner with the person who wants to talk about his rock collection, or the ex-boyfriend that she is just better off without. There's always the next guest you have to greet, the music crisis to be solved, the corkscrew that only you can find. It's a big cocoon of people who came to see you and talk to you and have fun with you. Loud, alcohol-soaked fun.

The fun does wear off a little when it's 4am and you're pushing that last group of dudes, friends of a friend's friend, out the door. But then there are stories to be told, cans to be picked up, and all of Saturday to sleep and loll around and repeat all the funny stories over and over again. My college roommate came to visit this weekend, and she woke up exclaiming about how fun Chicago is. Even Saturday's trip to the super-hip dance club felt a little anti-climatic after all of Friday's hullaballoo.

But today is Sunday. The house is mostly clean, the fridge almost devoid of beer, and homework waits to my left. Friday's Indian Summer heat finally left and we didn't break 70 today. It's fall - it smells like leaves and everything feels cozier. The guests are gone, and KC and I had a nice "reading time" (read: nap time) on the couch before an impromptu beer in the hood.

Our new neighborhood, in addition to having several most interesting bars, is home to a gorgeous old church. I have walked past it a few times, and ascertained that it is indeed Catholic. So tonight, after the fortifying beer, I walked up the somewhat imposing stairs and found a seat for the 7:15 Mass. The church proved as beautiful on the inside as on the outside, though not as quiet.

I wish I could say something about connecting with Mass, but the service was overly traditional for my tastes. I can say, though, that the hour was not a wasted one. After all these years of neglect, there's still something comforting for me in a Catholic Mass. Though I usually don't get much out of the actual content, the ritual of the thing is familiar, and in putting me on autopilot it lets me get some good thinking done. An interesting cap to a standout weekend, if nothing else. After all the performing, all the talking, and laughing and dancing, it was certainly a relief to sit anonymously, with no one to please but myself. I guess they can't all be parties.

This time of year

2008-08-12T12:41:00.004-05:00

I generally keep track of time by summers. This was the summer I went to that place, the other the summer I turned 21, the next the one where I dated that friend of this guy.

I'm packing for a trip today, which involves quite a feat of precision. In scanning my tank tops, I saw one I remembered buying before a particular summer trip to the left coast. The shirt and the memories immediately threw me back to that trip, but I won't bore the reader with those emotional details. Instead, the shirt brings another kind of revelation - so many summers have passed in a certain adult/pre-adult period of my life that I cannot keep them separate.

Let me explain. The trip from which the shirt originated took place in Summer 2006. In packing for my trip now, Summer 2008, it took several steps to uncover the right date for this fated shirt's trip. It feels like too many people overlap, like I spent too many summers with too many of the same thoughts, and now they've grown to a blur.

I've been out of college for over three years. (This is another handy measure of my time - how long has it been since the safe haven of college?) When that gap was only two, it was easy to pick tiny details from their appropriate year. Now the years are three, and it still seems I spent them loving the same person, taking the same trip in two variations, waiting in the same sweltering months for the same visits over and over.

Likewise, the years in college take on more of a graininess. Instead of taking that trip to NY the summer after my junior year, it simply becomes a trip I took one summer in college. Lake trips are virtually indistinguishable, and trying to place the night I saw Wilco or Regina Spektor or (hehehe) Tom Petty in the sweltering heat becomes a certain impossibility.

I read a short story last night in which a character has a total recall that makes every "memory" a part of her very real present. Here's a bit from author Deborah Eisenberg:

"No act of mind or the psyche was needed for Sharon to reclaim anything, because nothing in her brain ever sifted down out of precedence. The passage of time failed to distance, blur, or diminish her experiences. The nacreous layers that formed around the events in one's history to smoothe, distinguish, and beautify them never materialized around Sharon's; her history skittered here and there in its original sharp grains on a depthless plane that resembled neither calendar nor clock."

First of all, this is gorgeous, and I'm realizing now that it must have stuck with me and catalyzed this train of thought without my recognizing it til halfway through. I'm finding a lot of comfort from this passage, and its ability to paint this recall as sharp and painful. At the same time, it's a punch in the stomach. How does our brain decide that it's time to smooth, to beautify, to forget? Why does summer ever have to end?

Blog Project Extraordinaire

2008-07-30T22:06:00.003-05:00

Here's the assignment: To write a short essay about something that happened to you in a very specific place. The goal was to make the essay more about the intrinsic connection to the physical place than about what actually occurred there. (And yes, mine doesn't quite cotton to the rules - I'm sorry Ryan!)

Here are the players: Bryan, Emily, Mandy, Meredith, Ryan, Stacy, and Tom

And here, because I'm a procrastinator, is "Via Chicago" (love on that Wilco, yall)

When I first came to this city, I noticed the doors, but not in that cheesy, entry hall poster kind of way. (Didn’t everyone have those when we were kids? The doors of Ireland, the doors of Kansas City, red and yellow and purple doors that looked the same in every town.) I took the train into the city from Midway airport, and I noticed that the doors of the train close to leave a small gap where their bottoms meet.

I came to Chicago to visit friends and hear music. Literally – we went to a music fest all weekend. My first experience with sight-seeing came from a glimpse of Millennium Park via bus windows, and ended with the skyline framing a Wilco concert. In the meantime, we drank. I was mystified by my friends’ buzzer and security doors. I didn’t know how to keep the bus doors from banging me on the way off. I loved the way the lake looked like it never ended.

One year later, I found myself readying to move. Two years later, I’m sweating through my first summer in the city – the first I’ve spent without central air for many, many years. On the way home from work today, I had a tremendous headache. It came and went in paralyzing waves and I tried to convince myself I was breathing them down.

I boarded an elevated train and scurried about, looking for a seat. I found one next to a good-sized man and his good-sized bag, but at rush hour you don’t complain about seats. I watched the doors close as the stragglers behind me filtered into the train’s dirty aisles.

That gap is still there, at the rubbery base where the train’s two sliding doors meet. I see it every time and think how can they have left that? In my seat today, I watched the train’s air-conditioned air get sucked through the hole no bigger than a silver dollar, imagining its trajectory over the brick buildings and ancient tracks below.

The hole makes me flash back to winter, to the mental blocks I put in those gaps when riding to and from school or work. My friends and I exhaust ourselves enjoying every moment of this summer, working hard to visit every park, catch every free concert and buy food from every street vendor we can. They told me all winter it would come to this, these throngs of happy people and bumbling tourists and DRUNK Cubs fans, but I had to see such a transformation to believe it. What kind of a place stores up its happiness for three short months?

Chicago fits me, because I’m forgetful. I remember winter’s cold, unforgiving gaps but I’ve forgotten the mystery of a good scarf. I’ve forgotten the camaraderie of a bus stop full of freezing, angry people who somehow realize that the only way to get through it is to wallow in one another’s frustration. I’ve forgotten how stylish I feel in boots, in all boots, even if they are caked in slush. In those days, the closing doors of the train are a welcome sight, hole or no hole. There is happiness to be had, even if the bars’ patios are all closed. But for now, I get to wallow in my forgetfulness. I get to pretend it will never be winter again and there will be concerts and visitors and boys and bars every single weekend.

The headache kept interrupting my enjoyment today, the jolting of each stop crushing my brains and forcing my eyes to uncomfortable places in their sockets. I marveled at the relative lack of crazies on the train, and kept my eyes focused on the doors. Eventually, they opened to a person-sized gap instead of a small, forgotten one. I got out and walked down the streets, full of people and noise, and breathed my headache out with the train’s stale air.

The Green Line Stops are Few and Far Between

2008-07-23T19:03:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite things about living in Chicago is my access to live music. There are big names, and little guys, and the guitarist from that one band's band. I'm lucky to have friends with similar musical tastes and similar thirsts to see and be seen at the small and and fabulous venues of Chicago. Even in the cold of Chicago winter, we made it to some choice shows. (Yelle at prom, I mean Logan Square Auditorium, anyone?)

But now summer reigns supreme and that means one thing: festivals. At the beginning of May, someone sent me a list of all the summer festivals one could find in our fair city. Pizza fests, jazz fests, rib fests, neighborhood fests, even cheese fests!! Obviously, there's just not enough Beth to get to all of these. But last weekend, I did make some time for the Pitchfork Music Fest in Union Park. Overheard after the fest? "It was the bestest time ever!"

I know, I know, Pitchfork is a total scenester scene. So we put on our best 80s sunglasses and hit the town! For 50 bucks, Saturday and Sunday presented quite the bang. Despite a little mud and some sweet humidity, the music killed. The food vendors were plenty, and they had Chicago microbrew for only $4 a beer! Being Pitchfork, the site has reviewed its own fest, so you can read that here. My personal highlights were: Bon Iver (duh), M. Ward, The Hold Steady (sorry KC), and the bits and pieces we caught of Fleet Foxes and Apples in Stereo (not together).

But the real story is, of course, behind the music. After Spoon finished the thing up on Sunday night, we made a beeline for the train stop located conveniently outside the park's boundaries. We thought we might beat the crowds by leaving before the encore finished, but when we got to the lines reaching from the El platform all the way down to the street, it was clear how wrong we'd been.

Instead of waiting with all those smelly unwashed hipsters, we decided to head west along the train tracks to pick up a Green line train at the stop BEFORE the festival's Ashland stop. We're pretty tricky like that. We made sure to ask some fellow music fans about the location of a station ("Oh yeah, if not at Damen then at Western) and trudged off down the increasingly abandoned street below the tracks. In the social geography of Chicago, we were heading toward a questionable part of town, but we weren't worried because a stop would come along any minute.

So away we walked, four white-girl music fans full of microbrews. We didn't make it three blocks before our first pit stop to pop a squat (not me!) and then, not four more til our second (again, not me). Fortunately for our bladders, the street was becoming more and more abandoned. Unfortunately, this did not make us feel any safer.

After awhile we came along a Chicago first for me - a group of people congregated in the street, blasting music and lights from their cars. A street party, for lack of better words. A block party, without the children riding their bikes. A party worthy of Wichita's teen crowd, according to our resident expert. But these were NOT Wichita teens. They invited us to join them, we declined, and the night continued. (They were playing a really fun song, though. That one that goes "Do do dodododooo What about my boyfriend?")

Finally, we came to a busy street, the western-most place where we were told an El stop would be. No stop in sight, we decided to cut our losses and call a cab. The company insisted on an address, and so they were given the street address of the check cashing facility we stood in front of. [We found out later that the next stop was not for another SIX miles.]

We waited at this corner for the cab around fifteen minutes before we called them again. Our order had not been picked up yet, so we abandoned the check-cashing corner in hopes of a bus. By this time, we could officially announce to one another that our spirits had broken. After a few inquiries after our destination by a man outside McDonald's, we made our way over to Madison and prayed for an east-bound bus. One came, and we retraced our steps, ended up downtown, and took the train on home. A journey of maybe 6-10 miles took us two hours. The whole time I was carrying a rolled-up outdoor blanket that looks like something I ordered off the Stuff White People Like website.

This was an interesting experience. At no point were we lost, but at the same time, we had no control over our progression. We couldn't retrace our steps once we'd come a certain distance, but we knew that we just kept walking deeper and deeper into a muddle. Things worked out, like they always do, but the ends of some weeks feel like the end of Pitchfork: trying to choose the lesser of two evils, with a big of mess to wade through before coming to a safe end. Is the music worth it? Yes, but only if there's cheap beer.

25 means old and wise

2008-06-23T13:14:00.002-05:00

I began my job at Initech in late January. With my low status, I was banished to a cubicle near the loud, slamming door. Every time someone goes out to lunch, goes to the restroom, runs down to Dunkin Donuts for a cup of coffee - bam. Bam. Bam. All day long.

This slamming has got nothing, however, on the Travel Agent. She's on the phone all day. She has a terrible, West Suburbs accent (exACKly). She gets mad and she slams her elbow into the desk. She lets the airlines' bad hold music play on one loud speakerphone. In short, she's the kind of woman who owns multiple jean jackets. And she sits directly across from me. One thin, non-sound-absorbing wall of partition stands between me and grammatical errors each spoken conversation.

(I'm not exaggerating about the grammar thing. This woman, in her need for superiority, answers everyone's "How are you today?" with an "I'm well, how are you?" So not only is she using "well" incorrectly - with the verb "to be," the word "well" is actually describing the subject, and not the verb. She thinks she's being smart and using an adverb, but what she really wants is "I'm DOING well." This kills me, slowly, day by day.)

Last night, I went to bed in a euphoria. It was my 25th birthday, and I felt such a great love from family and friends that I slept like a baby. I arrived at work this morning and saw the vague, jean-jacketed shape as I trudged to my desk - but I realized that it probably doesn't matter. What a waste of time to begrudge the annoyances she provides - being grateful makes me feel so much better.

So I'm grateful that so many of my friends wanted to make me feel special. I'm grateful that my parents and brother could come visit me for an extended weekend. I'm grateful that my dad installed all the window a/c units in my apartment. I'm grateful that I don't own jean jackets and that I don't have to be on the phone all day.

And if that doesn't work? I'm grateful for my headphones and KEXP Seattle.

SIDE NOTE: I'm currently reading The Perfect Man by an author named Naeem Murr. I saw him read from this book in January or February, and bought it on the spot. He's a British fellow living in Chicago, and the book is a pretty gorgeous treatment of some un-gorgeous subject matter - the stuff great literature is made of. Takes place in a small Missouri town outside STL, and finds its center in a group of adolescents in the 1950s. Though I haven't finished it yet (give me til the end of the week), I'm recommending it. Mostly to you, Mr Useted. Hurrah for summer reading!!!!!

If you can't stand the heat...

2008-06-09T12:56:00.002-05:00

Wait a few days, and it will rain.

My roommate left on a turbulent Weds. I say turbulent because I had quite a Tuesday, and some of it leaked over into Weds. She is traveling in Central America/Cuba for two months, and I find myself in a strange predicament: living alone. I haven't yet reached the one week mark, but it seems weird to come home and know that she won't be there. I have two goals: don't overdo it on the TV, and keep the place clean. These seem like reasonable goals, since a few sets of visitors will keep the clean thing motivated, and the TV is taking a backseat to my massive summer reading list. The strangest part is waking up in the morning, getting ready for work, heading to work, working all day - and not talking to anyone, through all of that. I'm not counting a thank you to the bus driver or an awkward "Good morning" to the person leaving the bathroom as I enter.

I don't think I do well without telling people even a sampling of what's in my head. In Chicago, it's so bizarre to think of the zillions of people around you, and not exchanging thoughts with any of them! (It's probably fortunate, as well, but that's another point altogether.) Does everyone need this weird personal validation of existence?

Speaking of validating existence, finals are almost over and I feel crazed about the grade I'm going to end up with from my eccentric essay professor. He and I have had interesting interactions lately, and I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm leaning toward good, but I don't know if that will end up as good as the A I want.

And with the end of finals, a whole summer of guilt-free living. I can go see movies, or read novels, or spend time being lazy with friends, and I won't have to feel guilty about not doing homework. What a thrilling life I lead. I can't wait to initiate myself to Chicago by going to the lake's beaches and attending free concerts at Millenium Park's Pritzker Pavilion. I think I can handle even a Wagner symphony if I get to stretch out on the lawn with a bottle of wine.

Can you tell I'm on the bus a lot?

2008-05-12T22:56:00.003-05:00

This morning, I was surprised to see how crowded the bus arrived to my stop. I'm fairly close to the start of the line, and I've never had to stand for my morning commute. This morning I certainly didn't have to stand, but I didn't have my normal pick of seats.

I let the shift of the bus throw me into a two seater next to some girl, and immediately started the business of settling myself. I adjusted my bag on my lap, made sure my ipod was on a pleasing volume, and got my book out. I'm reading The New Kings of Nonfiction, a collection of essays edited by Ira Glass (hell no, it's not for class - in my dreams). A collection of essays makes for a great bus book, because of their length. Short stories are also ideal, and Marilynne Robinson's Gilead was bus magic.

Anyway, in my enjoyment of Malcolm Gladwell, I didn't bother to stare at my fellow bus patrons the way I normally do. I did notice a smug young man across from me, with a faux-hawk and fancy aviators, who I felt was looking a little more than usual. Usually I'd attribute this to my stunning beauty, but this was Monday morning. The girl next to me shifted, and suddenly I realized - we're wearing identical jackets.

I have this green jacket that isn't really my style. It was a gift from an aunt at Christmas, and I really do like it, even thought it's something I'd never pick. The jacket is a hunter green, and it's this cheap quilted polyester stuff. That makes it sound really offensive, but I promise it's not. Anyway, it's definitely cheap, and this girl next to me had on another incarnation of this cheap jacket. So I looked for further matchings: big purse? Check. Oversize sunglasses? Check.

The similarities stopped there, as she had on jeans and flats, and I black pants and boots. But I almost started to laugh anyway. Of all the empty seats on the bus (though there weren't a ton, there were certainly more than one), I sit next to this girl with a matching jacket.

We love the city because you never know what's coming. But on the bus in the mornings, I know what's coming: kids my age, with overpriced coffees and giant bags, making their way to work downtown. My neighborhood is just college with money. If an older person is riding the bus, they stick out immediately as an anomaly. It's funny the things you can learn before you're fully awake in the morning.

ps - Malcolm Gladwell rocks. And Emmy gets to meet him!!!!!!

Six words

2008-04-23T16:23:00.000-05:00

School update: The collage I made, with the scissors and the glue and some provided construction paper, now hangs on my fridge. I showed it to everyone I could possibly show it to, and now I think it's going to start making its postal rounds. Hopefully not before I've scanned it and posted it on this blog. Putting pictures on my blog has not been an ambition of mine, as pictures are most certainly not my strong suit. But I fear this collage may be too good to pass up.

The essay class, on the other hand, has not brought as many smiles. On our first day of class, I had a few clashes with the professor, a man who has told our class that we haven't had enough "recreational experimentation," aka done enough drugs. Anyway, in our very first day of class, I was being my loud, opinionated self. I thought he was joking around, but then at the end he argued my point, and settled the argument by saying that I needed an attitude adjustment, and to perhaps have a drink before class. Hell, he didn't care, I could bring a drink TO class. As I had plans to do heavy drinking AFTER class, I simply shut up. I like him, but the man is a blowhard. Here's my least favorite part of the class - the text. This is an amazing point in time for nonfiction, but this guy has us using a text that came out over 10 years ago. I can't wrap my head around it. (Actually, I can: I think he wants to give us a historical appreciation for the maturation of the genre, but still, ick.) I think I'm back on the ins, though, because the other night, I was the only person in class who knew who Judith Martin was (Miss Manners).

And finally, one of my friends at school directed me to the following: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/14/sixword-memoirs-by-w.html

This (blog entry about a book that sprang from a magazine article) focuses on telling YOUR story (memoir, if you will) in six words. Apparently, Ernest Hemingway's shortest story was six words: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Here are some from me:
Swimming head surfaces occasionally for air.
Wrinkled nose leads skinny life astray.
Loud-voiced; hungry girl seeks work. (this one also doubles as a homeless person sign.)

Make a girl happy and post your own six word memoir in the comments section...

Visitors in the Night

2008-04-18T09:47:00.000-05:00

This morning, I woke up at about 5am because I thought my bed was moving. “That’s not possible,” I thought, but then it kept doing it... and doing it. It felt like someone underneath it had put his or her feet up and were moving them inches from side to side. So I figured out that there were only three explanations:

A ghost was under my bed, and shaking it around.
A rapist was under my bed, and shaking it around.
I was imagining the movement, or dreaming it.

After freaking out for a few minutes (ok, probably 20), I reasoned myself away from the rapist idea. Why would a rapist wait under my bed for hours after I'd already gone to sleep? I decided to go with the obvious reason (#1) and went back to sleep. I woke up thinking about it, but decided I wouldn’t tell anyone about my ghost because they’d think I was crazy. Then, I got to work, and a friend sent this link:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/illinois.earthquake/index.html

This has been my first earthquake. In the warm light of day (alright, it's cloudy), it seems kinda cool that I could feel it all the way up here in the big city. Plus, this way, if I ever think there are ghost things going on in the middle of the night - something I'm not exceptionally prone to, but as I get older I realize you just never know - I can now blame those strange occurrences on earthquakes. Done and done.

Have a good weekend all!

The old Monday morning commute

2008-03-31T13:07:00.001-05:00

Two things of interest on this morning's bus ride:

1. As of last Monday, the city set up my bus route with some nice new buses, replacing the stanky old ones. On these new models, there is a step up to get to the back of the bus, somehow creating more room. I don't know how they do it. Anyway, the shallow for this step is parallel with the first set of seats on the risen back part.

This morning, I sat in an aisle seat in this first row of the back. The girl next to me kept fiddling with her stuff, which is bus sign language for "Get up and move now, this is my stop." When we finally did come to her stop, I shuffled together my two bags and the book I'm reading (Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, which I highly recommend). I went to scoot out into the aisle to let her pass - her name was Jen, I saw it on her work ID badge - but neglected to account, spatially, for the sunken step and almost twisted my ankle right off.

"Ooops," I said in a high-pitched kind of way, as I scurried to get out of Jen's way so she didn't miss her stop. I think I clocked the woman across the aisle with one of my bags in my hurry, and amidst all this I giggled a little at myself and how ridiculous it was that I had almost fallen on that step. Unfortunately, I didn't notice anyone else laughing. If you want a little icing on this picture's cake, I was wearing mid-calf rubber wellington boots that are black with big white polka dots.

2. The second bus event happened after my little display of Monday morning grogginess. As I settled back into my seat, I noticed a man directly in my eye line. I noticed this man because he was playing with a pretty old model of a cell phone, and the phone was emitting a series of loud beeps. Due to the beeps, and his slightly disheveled appearance, I wrote him off as a bus kook.

The bus stopped, and a girl sitting next to the man got off the bus. I saw him ask the girl in the third seat a question, then jump up and yell at the driver so he could exit the bus at that stop. He hurried off, but didn't let go of the door and yelled, "Miss! You forgot your wallet!"

I looked down at his hand, and saw a wallet, then looked up at her surprised, thankful face. What a nice thing for him to do. He got back on the bus, and things continued as usual. If he hadn't done that, the best case scenario for that girl's wallet would have been getting turned in to the bus driver or something. That scenario seems unlikely to me. Almost as unlikely as some guy leaping off the bus to return someone's wallet. We'll see if that remains the highlight of my Monday.

Classes start back up tonight with "Text and Image," a combined section class which is both a writing class and a new media studies class. I got an email from the professor last night which requested that we bring a scissors and glue stick to tonight's class, if we had them. Apparently, I'm going to be responsible for designing things. Though many who know me are aware that I don't really like doing things I'm not good at, I guess grad school is about pushing one's boundaries. I'm actually getting more and more excited for this class as the day goes on. Tomorrow night I have a sure-fire winner: The Essay. A whole class, essays, and the infamous Prof Sirles, who referenced drug use during the MA in Writing Qualifying Exam earlier this winter.

Spring has sprung! And on Opening Day, no less...

The course of true love runs orange

2008-02-24T10:15:00.000-06:00

Found this entry from a month ago. I guess I started it during finals and forgot about it.

Last night, I trudged home from the coffee shop in the dark, a little tired and a little cold, with a head full of rhetoric. I came to the weirdo intersection at the top of my block, and turned onto crooked Clark Street behind a couple, probably in their 50s. This couple was fairly nondescript, except for the one thing I noticed immediately - they had on the same coat. It was a grey coat, one of those deals with the protective outer layer and probably a fleece liner underneath. It had embellishments of orange and a dark blue covering the shoulders; and a detachable hood, which the woman was wearing and the man had apparently removed.

I walked right behind this couple, thinking several things: First, I thought that they were ridiculous (could they not go to the trouble of finding their own coats?), then I thought that I would never be caught dead in matching coats with anyone, then I wondered if they had the same size coat, then I wished I had a hood on my own coat, and so on etc. There were kids my age walking behind me, and I could hear the girl teasing her boyfriend and asking if he was going to get a peacoat that matched hers. I wrinkled my nose, and wanted to turn around and frown at them. Suddenly, I realized that the matching coats weren't offending me at all. Maybe I even liked the matching coats. Even now, I think of those two and it's nice. They didn't care how they looked, which is an anomaly these days.

So hooray for nerdy middle age. I don't know if I'd ever go so far as to have matching coats, but far be it from me to judge...

Is publishing your fiction in a blog the height of cheese?

2008-02-21T10:29:00.000-06:00

Recently, I received this assignment:

A morbid piece of trivia inspired Robert Olen Butler’s Severance, his new book of stories. As Tom Barbash writes, Butler had learned that a “human head continues in a state of consciousness for one and a half minutes after decapitation. Having then determined…that in a ‘heightened state of emotion, we speak at the rate of 160 words per minute,’ Butler arrived at a new—and unlikely to be replicated—art form, the vignette of the severed head, told in exactly 240 words. 62 “talking heads” are at the center of Butler’s collection, including John the Baptist, a German woman who angered Hitler, and Nicole Brown Simpson, who catches a last glimpse of her husband. It appears O.J. is running for the end zone and, she says, “I can see what’s tucked there in the crook of his arm and it is me, it is my head, and I stare into my own eyes.”

For your Dead Head Vignette, select a figure from your cycle or invent a new one who will fit into your cycle and imagine his/her last thoughts in a heightened state of emotion and in exactly 240 words. How will this unique perspective shape your prose style? What do they see that sheds new light on the events in their world? A truly inventive title should begin the piece. Remember, this is YOUR work--be imaginative...did the person lose his or her head in a car crash, a climbing accident, a dream? Remember, exactly 240 words.

I chose Steve, the father of Sarah, a couple of people I wrote out just this week. I was having a little trouble figuring Steve out, so I thought this would be a good chance to figure out what his deal was. I think I got a start at least. If you like, read what I wrote below. Or... Write your own! It was pretty interesting to think about.

“The Door”

Shit…shit, I left the door unlocked. Sarah will kill me if – oh my god, I’m already dead. Is this what dead looks like? I wish someone would sew me… ew, there’s my body. That’s me, that’s my…why the FUCK did I want to rush for that stupid elevator? I couldn’t gotten the next one. Now Sarah will have no, oh god, what have I done? Her mother’s a drunk and now her dad DECAPITATED himself in an elevator? Who will take her? That fucking bastard Mike. I never… I wanted to, FUCK. How could he do that? How could I be so impotent? I deserve to die a horrible, ridiculous, impotent-man elevator death. Oh Sarah. If I could just catch the next elevator, God, I swear I’ll fix it. I’ll fix her and I’ll fix him, oh I’ll fix him right into prison. I want to make it right. I want to help my daughter. I want to have 25 minutes with Emily at the office, 15 sweaty minutes, it’s been so long and now I’m dying, basically a reborn virgin, but don’t say birth because this is its opposite… How did those doors do that? What the fuck kind of he-man elevators are those, anyway? Every day, I rode them (45 minutes, Emily, that’s all I wanted), and they seemed so innocuous, so innocent like my beautiful baby daughter, so sure and smart until he….

Politicking

2008-02-04T08:34:00.000-06:00

I read the blog below this morning, and it strikes something that's been bothering me for awhile, so I decided to share it. Let me preface my introduction of it by saying that I still haven't decided which Democratic candidate I'm voting for in the primaries tomorrow (though, let's face it, Obama will more than likely win Illinois). It's been hard for me to decide, and so, in true Bethian fashion, I've put it off. I find both Clinton and Obama appealing in very different ways, but from the minimal reading I've done it looks like they have a lot in common, policy-wise.

However, my decision-making process has been hampered by an intense anger at "Hillary bashing." I hear from friends, or fellow students, or family members that Hillary is "evil," Hillary is "crazy." There is a flipping facebook group called "One Million Strong against Hillary Clinton" (or something similar, I can't remember). Last summer, when I saw that my old roommate had joined this group, I laid into him. "Why," I wanted to know, "must you hate someone? Can't you instead find some other candidate to support? What good will hating her accomplish?" Obviously, it's too late for such arguments in the world of televised ads and debates. Our system has made itself into a monster of criticism. Fine.

But here's my theory: Hillary Clinton is, above all else, a politician. She's smart, she's shrewd, and she's been in or around politics for a very long time. The public and the media attack her for a variety of behaviors, but aren't these simply the behaviors of male politicians which we've seen for years? Example: she is often called "calculating." I'd agree that "calculating" is not a flattering attribute. However, I also think that any politician around is going to be "calculating." Hillary Clinton is being attacked for normal politican behaviors because she's a woman. I think that deep down, we've all coached ourselves to believe that women aren't like that. And so it makes me angry. Please read (or skim, or whatever) the blurb below. Think it over. And don't forget to vote!

(Side note: perhaps H Clinton's behavior is doubly noticeable because she's running against a candidate who is so highly un-political, who presents an image of the idealist for the first time in a long time. Just a thought.)

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/all-you-need-is-hate/

My $7 Nose Salt

2008-02-01T13:30:00.000-06:00

Today is day 6 of My New Job, of The Rest of My Life. The cubicle has its disadvantages (it's a cubicle) and its benefits (everyone leaves me alone so I can blog on the clock on Friday afternoons when there isn't much to do).

I'm working for a software company, hereafter known as Initech. It's not a bad gig, really: the pay is very good and my coworkers are kind and flexible. It's no FOA crew, but it'll work. The work is odd. One never pictures themself in the places one ends up.

Because it is February, because it is cold, because I have so very little self-restraint when it comes to weekend benders, I find myself with a lingering sinus issue. As I am uninsured, I decided I would fight this sinus infection on my own, no drugs and no doctors. Step One of this self-healing went like this:

Last Saturday, after brunch (no, I didn't accidentally elbow the busboy while I was gesturing wildly with my fork), I headed to Whole Foods to buy a neti pot. The neti pot has been recommended to me for two years now, but I couldn't bring myself to buy what is essentially a nose-douching device. But these are different times, and last Saturday I left Whole Foods with the little pot, some $7 nose salt, and a German chocolate cake brownie.

I'm pleased to admit that the pot has some lovely benefits. It really does make me feel less stuffed up, and I can tell when a day passes andI haven't used it. Also, it is the time of my roommate's life when she gets to watch me stand over the sink and attempt not to drown in my own salt water.

In spite of the weather and the sinuses, this is my best quarter yet. Classes are truly enjoyable, I met David Sedaris at a book signing, I'm making some money, and earning partial scholarships. Hot Chip and Justice will both be here in the next month or two, not to mention some heartily welcomed visitors from home (brothers, aunts, friends, oh my!). I feel badly for neglecting my blog, but I think it's the result of increased productivity at school. I'll take it.

(So if you don't know what a neti pot is, look it up on youtube. You won't be sorry.)

I look better in sepia tones

2008-01-10T15:27:00.000-06:00

On January 1, I determined that 2008 would be the year of the positive. I woke up that day with a hangover, and my roommate and I decided to yuppie it up and drive her car to collect some friends for a Bowl-watching party. In my disabled bodily state, things seemed sharper and it was difficult to keep up with the positivity. However, the Bowl-watching party ended up being 3 dudes and 5 rambunctious ladies, so I spent most of that time giggling.

When we went back out into the world, I started to recede from my football happy state. It was cold and gray and slushy in Chicago, and even though I was in car, I wasn't in my bed. We passed a couple on a street corner, all bundled up and waiting for the light to change so they could cross the street. They held hands, and began to jump as they waited, bouncing up and down. "Christ, aren't they chipper," I thought to myself, silently hating them with their energy and their hand-holding.

"Look at that couple," our friend Jenny said. "They look like cute jumping beans."

And already, I'd failed. I laughed, and told Jenny I had been looking at the same couple, with a moderately different take. My days here are somewhat manic. Yesterday, I went from being completely frustrated with the Illinois Secretary of State (an attempt to get a new driver's license) to completely thrilled with myself and the possibilities that the city holds (after a fairly positive job interview).

Update: I got the job. I will be making an hourly wage larger than I've ever before received to spend three days a week in a position that is in no way appealing. I was so happy to hear I'd gotten the job, truly I was. I begin the year with my financial worries (a blooming, leafy plant that was planted in Sept when I moved here and has grown to catastrophic proportions) eliminated and with two classes so far improved on last quarter's I can't think of a metaphor to illuminate the difference. The gods are promoting my positivity, and I've no choice but to act on it.

In preparation for Christmas Eve mass, hungover

2007-12-24T17:42:00.000-06:00

Favorite Holidays, ranked from most to least:

1. Halloween
2. Thanksgiving
3. St. Patrick's Day
4. 4th of July
5. Memorial Day/Labor Day
6. Summer Solstice (I don't actually celebrate this, but think I should start.)
7. My birthday/friends' birthdays
8. Christmas
9. Valentine's Day
10. New Year's Eve

The saving graces of Christmas:

1. Wrapping my brother's gift in an egg carton.
2. Our annual ugly sweater party
3. Cookies
4. White Christmas/Love Actually/It's a Wonderful Life/Linus
5. Nat King Cole
6. Festivus
7. Families who drink

In the vein of Allison's subterannean homesick blues

2007-12-14T09:17:00.000-06:00

It is 9:15am on a Friday morning. My first quarter of grad school completed, I'm sitting on my parents' loveseat, enjoying the hour before I have to be at work. Really enjoying it. There's no one in my family's house, and I realize that this is the first time I've been alone in a few weeks. As I drink my tea and putter around on my computer, I realize how relaxing this is. The TV is off, no one is stomping around the house, and I can make all the loud sounds with my nose that I want.

I miss my place in Chicago. I don't know if the emotional tumult of moving created a dramatic shift in my brain, but something happened and my parents' house is not my place anymore. My apartment is my place. The sense of comfort I feel in my parents' house will never go away, but it has changed dramatically. There is no way for me to finish what I started while I'm in this house. I don't know what it is that I've started, but it has been abandoned these many days now.

I've had the "coming home" conversation with many people my age. For some, the home they grew up in stopped being their home once they started college. Some felt it shift after they got home from being abroad. (Side note: What enormous privilege we have.) I think for me, this is the first time the shift hasn't felt like a bad thing, like a betrayal. After I graduated from undergrad, I came back home and tried to make this my life. I tried for two years. And I was happy here, but I wasn't full. And maybe I won't be in Chicago, but for now the difference is so great that I'm at least distracted.

Side note: Check out this website Emmy led me to. It's a bunch of graphic designers who created a phony medication in an effort to display the manipulation of our nation's health. It is so funny. Be sure to take the quiz.

Cooking for the Vice President

2007-12-10T19:26:00.000-06:00

Last week, Kansas City had the great pleasure of hosting VP Dick Cheney for a day. Over the past three weeks, I've had the great pleasure of being in Kansas City. Thus, our paths have somewhat collided.

In these KC weeks, I began the work I came home to do: make money. The easiest (or so I thought) outlet for this cash flow would be working for my friend's mother, a caterer. I signed on to work parties and do prep work and dishes in the kitchen. Mostly, it turns out I am a slave to the kitchen. Imagine my shock at the foot and back pain gained by working a 9 or 10 hour day on one's feet. Life is full of new experiences. A borrowed pair of running shoes from my mother has improved my outlook tremendously, though.

Last Thursday, the kitchen was catering a luncheon for someone we were referring to as "The Republicans." This fundraiser featured a special, mystery guest, a VIP that had to remain unnamed due to security measures. Yes, you put those pieces together correctly - I cooked lunch for the Vice President. I, Helen E, chopped vegetables for Dick Cheney's crudite. I, Helen E, mixed roasted red pepper dip with twice the amount of required garlic (whoops) for Dick Cheney's enjoyment on the pita chips I created myself.

Actually, the truth is, Cheney wasn't allowed to eat any of the food our kitchen prepared. Security was too tight. My boss had to go meet with Secret Service the day before, and all the servers working the party had to report their dates of birth, full names, and social security numbers to these same Secret Service. Apparently, before the party began, they were all forced to wait in the garage while they were supposed to be setting up. Those SS guys aren't effing around. I was supposed to work that party, but I got cut at the last minute, due to poor turnout. I think some higher power never meant for me to meet that scary devil of a man. Our forces were never meant to collide.

Aside from the VP, cooking has been a trip. It's tiring, but I must say that I've had worse jobs. The other day, I was peeling carrots, and had no less than four smells assaulting me: carrots, thawing lobster, baking chocolate, and sauteeing onions. It's quite stimulating, plus I get to listen to NPR all day. I like to feel like I'm up to date again. Though each night when I come home, no matter how glorious the food smelled that day, I flipping stink. Apparently that vibrant mix doesn't travel well. There are worse things, I suppose.

Fun Stuff

2007-12-07T17:43:00.000-06:00

Check this lady out. She's got it goin' on. I giggled while reading.

I found her on this, most excellent, Chicago art-dudes site. Many thanks to Abigail for sending me their way.

Today, my (temporary) work catered a party for some local Republicans. These dudes happened to be hosting VP Dick Cheney. Unfortunately, I had to stay back in the kitchen to wash dishes and make horseradish sauces. I guess the world wasn't ready for a Cheney/Maggard pairing just yet. Maybe someday??? More on the catering later. I have to ice down my thighs and drink four beers to recover first.

And now... hockey

2007-11-11T15:44:00.000-06:00

That’s right, the Chicago Blackhawks. We entered the United Center at the Michael Jordan entrance – easy to spot because of the giant bronze statue of Michael Jordan. Our party was a party indeed – us three lovely ladies and one loquacious five year old. After going through the labyrinth of hockey fans and special VIP entrances, we reached our box seats.

The first thing we saw was a woman putting the final touches on her free hotdog – sesame bun and all. We were living large. Aside from hotdogs, there was a sweet buffet of free food and beer. Budweiser products in cans. I felt the event merited Bud Heavy.

Though it never would’ve occurred to me, my roommate warned that it would be cold. Even in our fancy seats, it was pretty chilly in that iced United Center. In case it isn’t clear, this was my first hockey game. What better way to spend a Friday night than at my first hockey game?

The Blackhawks played the St. Louis Blues, and everyone got a free Blackhawks ballcap as they walked in. When you looked out at the crowd, you could see a series of bright red heads clapping and cheering as the players did their warm-ups. After warm-ups, the sea of red disappeared for the singing of our national anthem. I have never heard a national anthem cheered so loudly or emphatically before. The stadium used its many light-up signs to display waving red and white stripes, and stars of white on fields of blue. It was pretty amazing. I’m surprised I didn’t see anyone crying.

The game started soon after that – 3 periods of skating and scoring attempts. I took to asking my neighbors to the left, St. Louis fans, questions about the hockey. I was really curious about why the referees weren’t announcing their penalty calls over the loudspeaker. Also, unlike football or even baseball, there was little-to-no narration. Most of the other fans didn’t seem to mind, and I soon found myself as involved as the next person. Much like football, hockey is a full-contact sport, and it’s pretty exciting to see those guys smack up against the glass like a bird who didn’t see it coming.

I have never seen such perfect ice as this was after the zamboni machines cleaned it between periods. I bet that well-maintained ice wouldn’t look as good if it weren’t for the shovel girls. Instead of cheerleaders, it would appear that hockey teams have a set of scantily clad, able-bodied young women who skate out in their leg warmers and their bikini tops with shovels, to remove ice debris. Our five year old companion looked at these girls, then turned to me and said, “They must be freezing!” Freezing indeed. My friend’s nephew is wise beyond his years.

In fact, the attendance of this tiny wise man made the game much more exciting for me. His enthusiasm was contagious, and we had many a good laugh at his interchanges with Tommy, the Blackhawks mascot. I sometimes wish there were more funny five-year olds running around in my life. If he hadn’t been at the game that night, my friends and I would’ve drank a lot and made fun of everything. As it stood, we drank plenty, and made fun of more than a few things, but I also felt like I was more allowed to get excited about what was going on around me. We could cheer without being mocking, we could see the game through the eyes of a five-year old who played his slide whistle (think like a clown has) each time something got exciting.

In addition to the slide whistle, I was expecting to hear a lot of Journey and the like blaring over the loudspeakers, but I was surprised to find quite a mix. At one point, my friend pointed out that they were actually playing the Arcade Fire. I caught two snippets of Elvis Costello at various points throughout the night, too. It just goes to show, hockey is full of surprises.

Pigskin, anyone?

2007-11-06T12:47:00.001-06:00

I sat down to write a post about football, and ended up writing a poem. Let's try this again:

This weekend, we drove 8 hours to KC all for the sake of football. My ever-generous friend had her dad's amazing Chiefs tickets, and we meant to capitalize on them. (I also meant to wash the three loads of laundry I brought home in the trunk, saving myself $6. Yes, I'm to that point.)

Gameday (Sunday) dawned sunny and bright, with an extra hour of sleep due to Daylight Savings Time. The high was 71 degrees, and I had my red t-shirt and red bandanna, ready for action.

It's funny, but ever since graduating from college, I've been more of a football fan. I limit myself to professional football, though this year it's been fun to keep up with MU's record, etc. When I moved up here in September, I found myself watching Chiefs game feeds on NFL.com, cursing our lack of cable. Though those Chiefs are really struggling this year, I'm more determined than ever to be a fan.

Back to Arrowhead. We arrived in the parking lot at about 11am, with plenty of time to drink a beer and take in the spectacle. I watched the over-sized cars streaming across the lot, parking and unloading coolers and grills. You could hear music from people's stereos, and smell their grilling meats. The people next to us let us use their chairs, and people threw footballs between the cars. I looked around me at the astronomical spending power of America, and it didn't bother me one bit. I was too excited to get into the stadium and spend $7.25 on a lite beer.

The game started, and my friend and I screamed and cheered with the best of them. We befriended the toothless man who would yell, "Move the chains!!!!" each time the Chiefs got a first down, and scowled at the loudmouth Packers fan behind us. We ate nachos and drank beer and cheered for touchdowns. The weather was perfect, and the Chiefs almost won. On the whole, it was a great day. For some reason, I can't get enough of watching those giant men run into each other, sling passes down field, or run as fast as they can to jump on someone and stop them in their tracks. Go Chiefs!!

An Assignment

2007-10-23T15:08:00.000-05:00

Tom has asked, and he shall receive. The assignment is below, and it's much more appealing than the homework I'm facing right now...

List 5 things that certain people (who are not deserving of being your friend anyway) may consider to be “totally lame,” but you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of. Own it:

1. I can sit down and eat Wavy Lays with Dean's french onion dip as a meal. I can sit and eat that until I am full. Many think this is gross; I think it is glorious.

2. My dancing. When dancing, it may look to outsiders like I'm extremely white and extremely sans rhythm, but in my head, it looks AWESOME. I love the way I look (in my head) when I am dancing. It's an added bonus when friends are embarrassed about this dancing, really.

3. My dad will occasionally drunk dial me on Monday nights when he gets home from his weekly basketball night with friends. When I tell people about this, it gets mixed reactions. Some think it's awesome or hilarious; others think it's a little sad and give me a look like maybe my dad has a problem. He doesn't, and I love those drunk dials because they are funny and affectionate.

4. I make a huge scene when a song I really, really like comes on in a public place. These songs take me by surprise, I get really excited, and I either sing along, gasp, or both. People think this is annoying but I think it is awesome.

5. I like to walk around in my underwear. Pants are for work. The only one who thinks this isn't embarrassing is my roommate. She's part of the "pants are for work" foundation. I think it's glorious.

Note: This took me a really long time to come up with. I think that I'm a pretty open person, and also I think it's tough to associate things that others find embarrassing with pride. There's almost a contradiction there, because if others weren't around, nothing would be embarrassing. Right?

Do these jeans make me look fat?

2007-10-15T22:01:00.000-05:00

There's a girl in my Monday night class. After the second meeting of this class, I went home and wrote about a remark she'd made, something I thought was a little silly. Here's that bit:

“It just doesn’t seem… academic enough.” Can we not enjoy a break? Can we not look for importance in the different? Obviously, being enrolled in graduate school makes me interested in being scholarly, more interested than the average bear even. But does scholarly have to mean source citation, cutting arguments, voices culled to all sound the same?

I think that must be it: she’s afraid of her own voice. I came to class completely behind what I’d written, even though I knew it was NOT my finest work. I felt sure that it was my voice there on the page, and for me that was enough. Perhaps Miss Skinny Jeans/Cute Bags doesn’t feel comfortable in her own voice. And I think for a student that far advanced in the program (she’s at least a year in), that’s a disservice.

And... scene. So then, I thought I was done with her. No. She continues to grow more and more ridiculous as class goes on, meriting rants on the bus ride home, rants with classmates, rants on the cell phone. Turns out, girl is NOT afraid of the sound of her own voice - as a matter of fact, she loves it. Loves it loves it loves it.

This girl + another rambler (it's called e-nun-ci-ation) + two missed buses = me buying a six pack and a bag of chips on my way home. I finally settle on my back porch with a pilsner and my laptop, ready for some writing release, when it starts to sprinkle. I spill half my chips as I scurry inside, ready to admit defeat (and drink some beer).

At least my roommate and I have some old school Nintendo in the works... her ebay-ordered Dr. Mario just came in the mail today. If I could just get her to stop reading her homework, we'd be in business.

Pet Sounds

2007-09-29T23:41:00.000-05:00

Today, an amazing thing happened: my bed was delivered.

There I was, having some lunch in the kitchen when the buzzer rang. What luck! The men from Bedding Experts had arrived to deliver my mattress, box springs, and frame. One minute, I'm letting them in and showing them where I want the head of my bed to be and the next I'm looking at a whole bed, put together and so far off the ground.

The air mattress I'd been sleeping on for 29 nights sat very, very close to the ground. In fact, it was actually right ON the ground. Now, I'm sitting up so high I can hardly believe it. My room looks like a real place, not a storage room for boxes and plastic drawers.

There's a part of me that feels rather silly, being so enthralled with a new bed. I could wax poetic about how this is the first bed I've bought, the first that is truly mine, but here's the thing: a room doesn't look right without a bed. Now, things look right. This is my room, and I can show it to people, and they can think, "Wow, that Beth really has it together."

I think this sense of room accomplishment is simply building on the fact that I spent Thursday night painting this tiny place all by myself. Looking at this gray paint, you can tell I was a first-timer. You can also tell that I didn't have a stepladder, because there's an uneven inch or so at the top that still shows the white underneath. I decided, being cheap and lazy, that this inch is "spunky" and so it's staying. It's staying, and it's amazing.

I also patronized the cool local record store today, buying the Beach Boys's "Pet Sounds" and the New Pornographers's new "Challengers." The Beach Boys album is to get me ready for life, and the New Pornographers album is to get me ready for their concert in a few weeks. Though I think I was born ready. Then, I went to Best Buy and bought "Knocked Up." What's a successful day without "Knocked Up?" It's Saturday night, and I'm blogging in my new bed, listening to the Beach Boys. It doesn't get more successful than that.

The Old Apartment

2007-09-20T22:29:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting out on my back deck to avoid paint fumes, and I can still smell them wafting out the window behind me. A VW Jetta full of gay men just flew down my alley, BLASTING "It's Raining Men." Yes, it only took me about 8 beats to realize it was "It's Raining Men." I flipping love Boys Town. Seriously, I do.

This story - the paint fumes and such - really begins on Sept 1, the day my roommate and I moved in. When I arrived at the apartment, she had a look of fear on her face. "Well, the bedrooms are the same size, so I just took the one with the worse paint job." I poked my head into her room and saw the lavender walls with the frothy mint green trip. Whoa. "I know," she said, "I'm going to dream of unicorns and ponies tonight."

I walked the five steps to what would become my room: navy blue. Dark, gloomy, navy blue. I threw my crap in there and went down the three stories for another load. Upon really being moved in, one of our first tasks was landlord harassment.

Finally, this morning, a painter arrives at my door. "This is you?" He's pointing to his printout, a paper with my address on it. I peer through sleep-blurred eyes. "That's me," I manage, and let him in. I scurry around, trying to dress myself and tidy the crap in my room while he's making trips to his truck to get his equipment. He comes back up, I tell him not to let the cat out (my roommate would lose a part of her soul if I lost the cat) and set off for the coffee shop.

I returned home at midday. The man - about 40 or so - has been joined by another man, closer to my age. They have cued up the iPod (mine) on the dock in our living room and are rocking out to Mos Def. I think they are Polish, and I know they are not native English speakers. I eat a sandwich on this same back deck, switch my backpack for a purse, and set out for more walking about.

I saw a lot of my neighborhood today, and when I came back, the place was transformed. The walls were all a blessed, calm, bright, wonderful white The cat was high on paint fumes, and I was overjoyed. The older man was by himself again, and I think he was listening to Sade.

This city has given me 110 new reasons to love it today, but I'm far too tired to list them all. Someday I'll buy shoes that actually have, I dunno, arch support or something.

On the Bus Mall

2007-09-12T23:08:00.000-05:00

I scurried from my apartment to catch the #8 in time to head south and make it to my 545pm class. I hopped gaily on the bus and inserted my temp transit card, unsure of how much credit remained.

"INSERT .50" I read (aloud of course) as I began digging through my foot-long purse for change. I quickly and triumphantly came up with two quarters. Peering hesitantly at the money collector, I fumbled with my quarters. Finally,

"Where do I put these?" I had to.
"Right there," said the bus driver, gesturing vaguely. I saw the familiar dollar bill slot, saw the card slot, but no coin drop.
"There," said the guy behind me, irritated by this point. Aha! I caught sight of what had been in front of me the whole time and sheepishly dropped my quarters in. I made it to class on time, with very few dirty looks from my fellow passengers.

Fast forward to five minutes after 9pm, when I'm crossing the street to hit the slowest McDonald's in the city. I need to change out a $5 bill so I can ride the bus home. I wait in the longest line any McDonald's has seen at 9pm for $1.10 worth of french fries. I would've gotten ice cream, but the wind is starting to stick, so fries it must be.

I take my tiny bag of french fries and plot a packet's worth of ketchup in its bottom, just to make sure things are as messy as possible. I feel as gross as I used to feel walking down the streets in Sevilla while eating: people don't do that there. They walk down the streets and smoke, they don't eat.

I cross the street, licking salt and ketchup from my fingers as I approach the bus stop. A girl, about my age and about my same social background (read: middle class and white), is standing at the bus stop at the most bizarre angle. I pause to look up from my feed bag and realize that she is, in fact, kissing someone. So you've got me, eating fries from a McDonald's bag, and you've got this couple so in the throes of young love that they've got to kiss even while waiting for the mundane effing bus.

I proceed to finish the fries within probably two minutes, crumpling the paper bag in my hands, trying to hide its origins. The couple is looking antsy, wondering "Where's this bus? Where is it?" Eventually they leave, arms linked round one another, and I see him put her in a cab. Suckers. Five minutes later, I'm on the bus, and that girl is sighing her love in the backseat of a cab. I think about the bowl of cereal waiting for me at home, and sigh my love in the bench seat of a bus.

Campus Connection

2007-09-04T21:13:00.000-05:00

With my friends pointing me in the right direction, I packed a bag this afternoon and headed for my first glimpse of DePaul’s campus. It seems strange (really strange) that I’ve paid tuition to a school which I haven’t even seen, but here I am.

I walked north on Sheffield street, making a quick stop in Bank of America to open an account. This will be my Chicago bank. David Facio was my customer service representative, eager to learn all about me. He recommended a s’more shake from an ice cream place which I’ve already forgotten the name of, though he said it twice and I repeated it after him.

After getting my temporary ATM card and setting up my internet banking, David let me loose on the city. I continued north on Sheffield, relying on my directions to walk until I hit campus. I walked along, passing kids just getting out of school, and signs that said “Single? Try depaulsingles.com.” I stopped in a 7-11 to buy band-aids for my blistering heels.

I walked and I walked. I began to worry that I had gone too far, had somehow missed campus, when I saw a DePaul U bookstore. Relief.

I hit campus a block or two later, and walked by all the housing buildings until I reached the Student Center. I figured I’d wander through there and maybe get my student ID, if I had time before my orientation.

The Student Center was FULL of students, undergrad students who aren’t old enough to drink in bars. I walked in, a bit shell-shocked, and wandered through seas of “You are toooo sexy,” and “I just told her STOP and ohmygod, it was so funny.” I looked around at them, at how young they were and how they were all acting brave for their first college appearances. They had the air of owning the place and being totally lost at the same time.

I breezed through the milling crowds to the Student ID Services. Crowded. I peeked in at the line to pick up your UPass. Way crowded. I gave up, needing to check my email and confirm the start time of orientation. I decided to look for the place where all the big kids were hanging out.

In my search for the library, I first walked past Schmitt Academic Center. This name sounded familiar to me, as perhaps the site of my mysterious orientation. I popped in there to see if maybe there was a schedule, to bypass the internet and go straight to the source.

I peered in auditorium rooms, no schedule to be found, and watched more milling crowds of undergrad students. I went out the way I came in and continued to wander amongst the big buildings, feeling certain I was getting close to the library.

There it was, right next door. The girl at the Reference desk helped me connect to the library’s wireless, and told me “Welcome to DePaul.” We laughed, and I walked my computer over to a corner desk by the window.

The familiarity of the library is incredibly comforting in the face of so many changes. Everything in my life right now is unfamiliar: my new bedroom, new bathroom, new kitchen. Coming to campus, seeing the faces of the undergrads feeling more un-anchored than I do, is comforting. At least here I know what is going on. I know that the library will have corner desks by the windows. I know that the Reference section is the place to get help, because those desk workers never have anything else to do. I know that no matter how silly I look wandering around lost, no one else will notice because they are doing the same thing.

I’m back.

Wet Hot American Summer

2007-08-23T10:42:00.000-05:00

I'd say this summer has certainly been something to write home about, but it's not yet over. A week from Saturday, I and many of my things will be slugging up to Chicago to take residence in a new apartment in that new city. I'm starting to get nervous. Real nervous. I'm forcibly reminded by these moving anxieties of two similar summers' ends.

Aug 2001, a sad and lowly freshman in a new school. I remember my parents driving me up to Kirksville in our sweet minivan, me sleeping on the back seat. I fell asleep and hoped the drive would never end. I started crying in a Staples store, and my mom hugged me, saying "I was going to be mad if you didn't cry." I couldn't eat dorm food until I was truly hungover for the first time. Things went uphill from there.

I remember the night before that trip in the minivan, the muggy KC August and the interior of Stef's ancient Green Machine. Why did we think we were different, that no one else had ever undergone such an uprooting? But we did. I did. Thinking back now, I know that I wouldn't relive high school for the world.

Aug/Sept 2003, left behind in my parents' home, in my summer job, while all my friends returned to school. I was working and preparing for my first trans-Atlantic flight, for a stay in the apartment of Spanish strangers. I had forgotten the terror of those last weeks until recently. It still surprises me - how can such a happy person, so excited to live, be so frightened of a thing she's waited for?

Two nights before I left, I watched "Wet Hot American Summer" after my parents and brothers had gone to sleep. Engrossed, I found myself shocked on the couch after the movie ended. I watched special features, little shorts on the making of "Wet Hot American Summer," anything to postpone the fact that soon I'd have to accept such a monumental task.

Now here I am, sitting in a room as messy as it's ever been, with scanty packed boxes lining the periphery. I'm leaving this afternoon to visit friends, and I won't return until 3 days before my scheduled move-in date. What was I thinking? Did I think that if I didn't pack, I wouldn't have to deal with my fear of the unknown? Did I think I could lie on the couch watching special features forever?

Things will get done; they always do. I will move a week from Saturday. I will start school again after a gap of two years, and I will work hard to impress my peers and professors alike. I'll somehow have enough money to eat, to go to concerts, to buy beers after long weeks. But for now, all I want to do is go rent "Wet Hot American Summer."

Step by Step by Step

2007-08-12T17:18:00.000-05:00

Though I hate to be another brand snob, I made a new purchase this month which has given me hours upon hours of pleasure. Yes, it's a macbook. I'm a first-timer, but so far the transition has been smooth.

I've been so busy playing with my new toy that I'd forgotten about the ancient (6 year old) pc still sitting on the top of my $5 desk. After the rush of grad school apps earlier this year, I'd forgotten that this giant monument was a real, live, working computer. Today somehow became tech day (I still can't figure why the drivers on my computer can't get connected to the printer, but I gave up after two hours of error pages).

Tech day led to the amateur cleaning of my old college pc. I plugged my flash drive in and began to navigate all the old folders. I copied all school work, and thought I'd finished when I remembered Kazaa. That's right, in the days of the dorms, I had used Kazaa for all my free downloading needs.

I paged through those downloads today, and laughed at the mix-up of rap popular in my freshman/sophomore years (NORE, etc) and male singer/songwriters (Jason Mraz, Howie Day, and of course, John Mayer). There were some songs I couldn't bear the thought of deleting forever, so before I knew it, I was making... a mix CD.

Aug 07 - Final Mix from College Dell

1. Ani Difranco - covering Bob Dylan's "Most of the Time" Fab.
2. Eddie Vedder - "Throw Your Arms Around Me" Sadly, the sound quality is abhorrent.
3. Ben Lee - "Cigarettes Will Kill You" Catchy as hell.
4. Cody Chesnutt - "Look Good in Leather" Sample lyric: "mothafucka I'm coooool, with attitude and ego to spare." Yes.
5. Counting Crows - covering Van Morrison's "Caravan" One of Van's best.
6. Counting Crows - covering Psychedelic Furs' "Ghost in You" Forgive a girl for nostalgia.
7. Indigo Girls - "Galileo" An essential from most mixes created in college.
8. Jackson 5 - "ABC" Who can refuse?
9. Jamiroquai - "Virtual Insanity" Still great, from the ATO basement to today.
10. Les Miserables - "On My Own" It's gotten into my head a few times this past summer, I figured why not?
11. Live - "All Over You" I had room.
12. Lucinda Williams - "Passionate Kisses" Old-school and wonderful.
13. Goldfinger - covering The Cure's "Just Like Heaven" This song stays great in all incarnations.
14. Willie Nelson - "Maria (Shut Up and Kiss Me)" In spite of the quiet, backup presence of Rob Thomas, Willie Nelson makes musical magic.
15. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - "Tracks of My Tears" An American classic.
16. King Floyd (?) - "Groove Me" Irresistible link to the "Swingers" soundtrack.
17. The Band - "The Weight" Always good. Always.
18. Tom Waits - "Martha" Who didn't discover Tom Waits in college??
19. And to close, Wyclef Jean - "Perfect Gentleman" How many pre-drinks in dorm room 158 were consumed to this song? Still makes me want a Natty Lite.

"What I Know About Men"

2007-07-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my brilliant friend Allison, who is also so very culturally hip, I came across this article from the Guardian. Read it. Seriously, read it. It's called "What I Know About Men," and it's taken from an interview with superstar 19 year-old Hilary Duff.

I didn't know whether to cry or punch a wall as I read this article, though on the second reading I mostly just laughed. I knew Ms. Duff was on my "Naughty List" as soon as I read her statement: "I'm not, like, a crazy feminist." Pardon me?

The misuse of the word feminist is something that bothers me to distraction. I consider myself a feminist. I'm sure there are many of peers who wouldn't identify themselves as such. I think they wouldn't because the label has taken on a life of its own, a stereotype that is unfair and rarely true. Hilary, feminism does not mean man-hating. Feminists aren't all wiccans who neglect to shave their armpits and ride bicycles made of hemp. Being a feminist simply means that you believe that women and men are equal. No sex is better; no sex is worse.

A second moment (directly after the first doozy) came where I took issue with Hilary's uneducated politics: "I think women definitely need men. Like, I couldn't imagine having a girlfriend!" She then goes on to list all the things that "guys" make her feel, which assumably couldn't be attained in a female-female relationship: security, comfort, affection, fun, drama. (These are directly quoted, I'm not making the "drama" one up, I promise.) It's funny, because many of the lesbians I know have relationships where ALL of these essential elements are present. The one thing Hilary doesn't mention (a penis) must be too R-rated for a teen scene queen.

All of this tripe is in with other, terrible stereotypes about women that Hilary admits to perpetuating. Women are definitely home-makers, girls purposely act dumb in front of guys they like, etc etc. The part that makes me want to cry is that Hilary Duff's primary audience is preteen girls. A 12 year-old will read this, admiring Hilary Duff for her super-clever "Lizzie Macguire"-esque abilities, and for years she'll want to avoid being "a crazy feminist." Why do we allow that as the stuff of role models? It's gross. It shocks me that, in 2007, a 19 year-old can be quoted as saying "women are definitely homemakers," and no one bats an eye.

I'm not saying Hilary Duff is this huge water-mark for culture, but she's still fairly well-known. People will still see this article; albeit mostly British people. I hope that most girls are raised in homes that know better than to look up to stuff like this.

So what do I, Helen E, know about men? They listen to you much better when they're attracted to you. Some of them like books. Most of them like music. That's about all I've got.

A sad state of neglect

2007-07-20T13:35:00.000-05:00

My life right now has been reduced to bullet points. I'm no longer afforded the luxurious time of paragraphs, of sentences that link to one another - only harsh, ugly bullets.

I am moving in one month and 10 days.

I am starting school, and borrowing a lot of money to do so.

I haven't been to school in 2 full years. In fact, I am unsure whether I've engaged my brain in 2 full years.

I am leaving this job in 6 days. I fear my desk will never be clean.

I have to pack all my things. I have to part with clothes that I don't wear, but that my brain still thinks I need. I have to weed out my books, my most comforting possessions.

And finally, I am going to be poor forever. Chicago looms, with open arms of fun, and I will have to pass up on All Fun because I have no money. Literally, all fun. I'm sure I won't have one bit of fun.

Now, a story: last night, I went to the 3&2 Baseball Park to watch my youngest brother (12) play in the championship game for his league. The weather, despite the humidity, turned out to be beautiful as I sat with my dad and my aunt and ate peanuts. We watched my brother play only one inning - the first - as his team struggled to keep up with a far better one. The rest of the time, he sat on the bench. Dad and I would look over and see him, in the corner of the dugout closest to the fans, talking to a group of the girls in his class who came to cheer the team. Did he miss the baseball? We couldn't tell.

I learned a few things last night:
1. Never pass up an opportunity for free baseball on a beautiful night with family to accompany you.
2. There is nothing I miss less than being a junior high girl.
3. Sometimes, warming the bench is enough for someone, if they get to be part of the team.
4. Maybe, if you know you're going to be sitting on a bench for 2-3 hours, you should bring a cushion. Who cares if it's an old lady thing - benches hurt butts.

I think she said "feck"

2007-07-02T14:27:00.000-05:00

Saturday night, I came home about an hour before bar close to relieve my stomach of the Kelly's/Joe's pizza that I'd just eaten. I crawled into bed feeling vaguely unsettled, with a beer/pizza/taco/thai curry combo that was rather unpleasant.

I turned on the TV (my nighttime boyfriend) only to hear... Alvin and the Chipmunks! "Christmas Time is Here" is one of my favorite carols, and I knew that it could only mean one thing: Almost Famous was on TV.

Being tired, I tuned in for about the first twenty minutes. I realized how fantastic that set-up was, despite any flaws in the rest of the film (and by flaws, I mean Kate Hudson. Kate Hudson is not good on an unsettled stomach). Crowe took Frances McDormand (always amazing) and paired her with Zooey Deschanel (spelling?) - what a duo. Then, he pairs Philip Seymour Hoffman (maybe my favorite working actor) with the fictional Lester Bangs character. Delicious. And he manages to play nearly all of Simon and Garfunkel's "America," as well as "Sparks" by the Who, some Iggy Pop, and, of course, Alvin and the Chipmunks.

"The only true currency we have in this bankrupt world are the things we say to each other when we're being uncool." Not bad for 3am on a Saturday.

I Feel it All

2007-06-27T13:56:00.001-05:00

Well, I knew when my friend ercwttmn had lapped me that it had been too long since I'd posted a blog. The last couple of weeks, being high stress and high activity, have left me a bit cranky. And you know, if you don't have anything nice to say...

So let's talk about Leslie Feist and Laura Veirs, as a little warm-up. Thanks to a dear friend of mine, an envelope from STL arrived with burned copies of these two lovely ladies' latest discs. I'd been chomping at the bit for Veirs' "Saltbreakers" after sampling a few tracks on my internet radio station, and it was as good as I expected. Pair it with the Shins' "Wincing the Night Away," and you've got yourself a nice little nautical adventure. Enchantment under the sea.

Feist, whom I love to see live, didn't disappoint either. I think her latest disc is much, much better than "Let it Die," which I bought excitedly after seeing her at Lollapalooza last year and abandoned after a few months. I read a review in the NYTimes of her latest NY show, and the writer said something about how Feist is the word "chanteuse" embodied. I couldn't agree more; what IS it about her voice? "I Feel it All" is my favorite track so far.

I turned 24 last Friday, and celebrated with many of my dear friends. I spent a lot of the old "birthday week" discussing how 24 seems much, much older than 23. Maybe I'm really letting myself settle into 24, knowing that the year ahead is more on track with the me that I think I am. On the other hand, there's this, summed up beautifully in an email sent by my fellow future student: do you ever worry that the heads will figure us out? like, we'll show up and they'll take one look and say, "wait, we thought you were someone else!"

Wait, we thought you were someone else! On days like yesterday, where I ping-pong between feeling like I'm running a 70 person training and feeling like I'm running a 70 person training into the ground, I wonder what the university will make of me upon my return to academia. Either way, I can't imagine a Beth not going back to school, so I must be doing something right.

Stories from a Sober Weekend

2007-06-12T15:50:00.000-05:00

Indulge me in a scene: It's a sunny Saturday afternoon at the lake. 5 beautiful ladies in kids' sunglasses (all the extras they had at the lakehouse) take off for a boat ride with two young gentlemen. Jeanie's cousin, antsy for some outside stimulus, steers the boat in the direction of what he's heard is "a good dive bar." "This should be interesting," thinks the girl who can't drink.

Their boat pulls into a cove. A crowded, crowded cove. There are two oversized yacht-boats parked at the edge of a cram-full dock. A girl, caucasian in descent but brown in color, waves a skinny arm to signal an open spot behind one of the yacht-boats. Her cash tips are tucked into the waistband of her rolled up cotton shorts, because her bikini top doesn't afford any pockets. Billy, aforementioned cousin, steers the boat into a small spot next to a loooong, long fast boat. A glorified cigarette boat, if you will. The heroines mill about their own boat, applying sunscreen and taking in the sights.

In the long boat next to these lovely ladies, there are young men. Skeezy, skeezy young men. In the boat across from the ladies? More skeeze balls. Our protagonist has the distinct feeling of being ogled. She ignores the feeling to look out on the general chaos around her.

Inland from the crowded dock is a small swimming beach, with its own, bused-in sand. The beach is littered with children, and sits in front of the establishment. The protagonist, expecting a dive bar, was surprised to find the lake's version of an outdoor (privately owned) Applebee's. This wonder was called Louie and Dave's or something equally lake-y.

After everyone finishes their road sodas, our heroes leave the boat and walk down the long (ogling) dock to approach the restaurant. They find a table and plop into the plastic deck chairs, inspecting menus of fried goodness and pizzas. Frozen drink machines swirl sweet daiquiris behind the free-standing bar. These confectionery drinks are over-priced, but adequately liquored, or so they tell our protagonist. She orders a glass of water and pizza.

As the food is served, they notice the true ambiance of the place. A trip to the women's bathroom displays two toilets, separated not by stalls but by a single partition. A friend asks the protagonist if this is, in fact, a converted men's room with toilets where urinals should be. They wind their way back from the bathroom through crowds of bleach-blonde hair and fake Coach purses.

A one-man band is playing Jimmy Buffet covers and bad country music. There are three, maybe four women dancing and hooting on the large dance floor in front of this troubadour. Occasionally, the young children of these women join them for a dance. They wear the kind of two-pieces where the bottom piece is a ruffled skirt, and dance with drinks in hand. At a table near the dance floor, a man is holding a tiny dog. The dog is wearing a life jacket.

After eating, the group of our interest orders a drink for the road and retreats to their boat. So much for stimulus: our heroine is inundated with bad cover music, dancing ladies, dogs in life jackets, and sunshine. They motor the boat over to a deserted cove, and spend the rest of the afternoon floating on fun noodles, boat anchored safely in quiet waters.

And in other news: I stole the following link from my friend Tom Drew. Read it and you'll understand why this "gay bomb" was too good to pass up.

The Space Arranger

2007-06-05T10:02:00.000-05:00

Debbie Debee entered our Foundation on Aging lives last month. A board member dragged her in to find ways to freshen up our office. Our office (four rooms and a "kitchen"), would need... well, it would need a lot to become fresh again. It lives in building that, ironically enough, smells like old people. The walls are covered in a scratchy-textured wallpaper that is cream? dirty white? thatched with the exhaled dreams of tired accountants? I don't know, but it's ugly.

Debbie Debee's main objective, her killer idea to make the office more inhabitable, is "softening" the light with sheers, "just a sheer, to soften that up." For example, a sheer on the glass that sits next to the door, and affords me a beautiful view of the wood-panel wallpaper in the hall. She wants to put sheer curtains up on a window that looks out into a hallway.

Here are some phrases overheard when this space arranger was in our office yesterday: "As much as I'd love to be able to put some throw rugs down..." or "That was obviously NOT designed by a woman" followed by knowing laugh. "We need what I call a 'mama drama piece,' something to draw the eye up here." What?!?

My reaction to this woman and her behavior is strong: I think she's a fool, and I resent her for wasting the time of my boss and myself. This may not be fair - she's here to help, she's working as a volunteer - but it's hard to accommodate oneself to unrequested help. We know our office is a dump; what's to be done about it? She refers to the office as stark, but I want to let her know that this is a not-for-profit that we're running, not a brothel. We're allowed to be stark.

The Like and The Dislike/The Sound of Settling

2007-05-31T09:35:00.000-05:00

Let's be clear: I do hate the Eagles. I have always hated the Eagles. Unlike my (more musically savvy) friend Tom, I didn't realize that it was trendy to hate the Eagles. On the contrary, I hated the Eagles for a pretty basic reason at first.

My mother hates the Eagles. Hates them. My mother is a vocal woman (anyone surprised?), and soon I realized, hey, she's right, it's a bunch of whiny crap without the balls to go full-out country. Thus, I hate the Eagles. For much the same reason, the following bands are lumped into a "why do they still play them on the radio" category - Foreigner, ELO, BTO, Boston, etc etc ad nasuem. Many people love these bands. "More Than a Feeling" stirs the souls of men, and I must admit that I can sing along with it. But thanks to my mother, I derive no pleasure in these sing-a-longs. To tell the truth, it really is thanks that are due to my mother. These are throwaway bands, and I'm well occupied spending my musical time elsewhere.

But what about the delicate balance between letting someone else's likes and dislikes dictate your own? Generally, when kids are at the formative age where they really notice what's on the radio (junior high for myself), aren't they also at the age where their parents are the very last place they'd look for cool music tips? One would think that I'd have learned to love the Eagles, just because my mom hated them. I've always wondered about this; the only thing I can come up with is that their music is so obnoxious, I had no choice but to agree with my mom.

On to the spark for the blog - This morning, here at work, I connected to the radio station out of Seattle that I listen to on the internet, KEXP. They played a great new song by Softlights, a band I hadn't heard of but will now look for, and followed it up with "The Sound of Settling" by Death Cab. I think, in most musically avante garde circles, that "The Sound of Settling" is that song that made it big on the radio that true fans aren't supposed to really like anymore. (Actually, I think many of those avante garde circles would have me leave Death Cab behind altogether, buried with the textbooks of my college days. Oh well.) But I love "The Sound of Settling." I like the catchy beat, and I think the lyrics are terribly clever. I mean, the man is talking about what settling sounds like. Give him some credit.

It's funny, though, because were I still DJing, "The Sound of Settling" isn't the song I'd pick from Transatlanticism to play. I wouldn't want people to think I wasn't a true fan, etc etc. I'd certainly let the dislikes of the minority (automatically the likes of the majority) decide what I played (probably "Tiny Vessels" or "Title and Registration"). Reverse snobbery has always driven me crazy, but I perpetuate it often. I think my mom (and the Eagles) would disapprove. Maybe settling actually sounds like obscure Scottish groups when all you really want to hear is "The Pretender" by Jackson Browne.

Existence Validated - Yessss

2007-05-24T11:28:00.000-05:00

Because it had the word story in it, I read it. Because I was at work, I read it in pieces. I love to read the NYTimes each day at my desk: I feel like it's healthy for my vocabulary (yet to see that payout) and good to stay connected, even if it is a slanted connection. Today, "This is Your Life (and How You Tell It)" was the fourth-most emailed article on the online version of their paper. Obviously, the title intrigued me as a nonfiction writer.

When I read the following, I rushed to the blog, eager to show my 6 readers the importance of memoir:
When we first started studying life stories, people thought it was just idle curiosity — stories, isn’t that cool?” said Dan P. McAdams, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and author of the 2006 book, “The Redemptive Self.” “Well, we find that these narratives guide behavior in every moment, and frame not only how we see the past but how we see ourselves in the future."

Maybe it isn't so strange that I find myself waking up and narrating the details of my surroundings in my head, generally in third person (meta-writing, eat your heart out). However, the article turned out to be mostly about the use of stories in psychoanalysis. Interesting enough. Everyone loves to tell their life stories, but it turns out that the manners in which we tell these stories are patterned enough to show similarities between healing habits of subjects. Your stories and your health: on the next 20/20.

In music news, my opinion that the Eagles are the most over-rated band ever is validated by Wilco. Check it out on Spinner.

Where everybody knows your name...

2007-05-18T13:50:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my friend Tom Drew, I spent an hour of this otherwise tedious day reading and rehashing the Debbie Masten debacle. For those unlucky few readers who didn't attend Truman, a few details:

Debbie Masten was the Mayor of Kirksville, but more importantly the owner of Too Talls, Two. Too Talls was, to me, an afterthought of a bar - two whole blocks from the Woody's/Dukum corner of magic. As a freshman, I had a dear friend whose boyfriend (a senior) was always at Too Talls - thus, we hated it. I made my first appearance at the place for a hallowed trivia night in my junior year - or was it senior? Trivia night was born at Too Talls, and it grew to be a fine young tradition over those months. Highlight of my first trivia night? Being the only person in my group to know the name of Wilco's lead singer.

Then, on New Year's Eve 2004, a fire broke out at the bar. The remainder of my senior year, rumors flew that Debbie, owner of Too Talls, had set the fire herself for insurance purposes. These were actually less rumors than certainties held by the old, wise, bar-going circles of Truman students. Trivia night moved to Woody's - the place where everyone knew my name - and so I was happier with the state of things. Debbie Masten became an even-more ridiculous figure than anyone thought possible.

As a matter of fact, after I left Truman, someone else bought Too Talls, Two. This person renamed it - Too Talls: The Inferno. I heard from a friend who still lived in town that the servers all halted what they were doing at midnight to perform dances in firemen's hats. This, I had to see. I next found myself in Kirksville for New Year's Eve, 2005. My friends and I hastened to the scene of the crime. Reports of the dancing? True. A giant projection screen, showing artful music videos like "My Humps?" True. We left after an hour and a ridiculously bad tasting shot special - juice and sucrose, it would seem - to seek haven at Woody's. That was the end of the affair for the Inferno and I.

Then today, I read an article from the Truman State Index (thanks, Tom). Memories came flooding back: the red bowties, the upper-level table for trivia, the time we won the cash bonus because the questions were about John Irving books, the dance contests. Some days, the small town of Kirksville seems laughable, but I know this much: no way could I go to any bar in the world but Woody's, and get charged $5 for a night of gin and tonics strong enough to kill my alcoholic grandfather. I miss that familiarity and rockstar treatment. I definitely miss trivia night - Kansas City has got NOTHING on the boys' trivia. You'd think KC could get the small town flavor down, but no, trivia is all a pretentious exercise in who knows the most obscure BS possible. I miss geography questions, and Simpsons questions, and the challenges between rounds. Sometimes, I miss everybody knowing my name.

Pouring Water on a Drowning Man

2007-05-15T14:36:00.000-05:00

While I am fairly tall for a woman (some might say average, I might say tall), I am highly disproportionate. I have long legs (score!) and a somewhat stunted torso (freakish). This is never more apparent than when I sit at my desk here at the Foundation on Aging offices.

My desk is a lovely piece donated by a lovely woman who volunteers on our Communications Committee. Because it was donated, my desk and I have quite the close relationship. I went to pick it up one misty March day last year, after about a month on the job. For help, I had the 17 year-old nephew of my boss. I think I weighed more than this guy, but he and I liked the same kind of music so I was immediately impressed with him.

He helped me carry the desk in pieces to the back of my family’s Aerostar van, which I had on loan for the day. I am not strong. This kid was not strong. It took a lot of out me. In the meantime, I was being peppered with phone calls from my drunk friends, for this was no ordinary misty March day – it was St. Patrick’s Day. Everyone, it seemed, was at the parade or crammed into a crowded bar. I, for sure, was moving furniture with a high school junior.

So the desk. We got all the pieces back to my office, and sprawled them on the floor of our office reception area (hence the term receptionist). I put them together with a screwdriver my young friend found on the floor of his car. It was shaky at best for many months, until I asked our building’s maintenance man (a story in himself, let me tell you) to borrow an electric drill.

Now, my desk stands solid under the weight of much crap – papers, files, flat screen, keyboard pens, phone, printer, papers, mail, etc etc and office infinity. Its L-shape accommodates a lot of crap. The crap sits on a surface seemingly normal-distanced from the floor.

This distance between the floor and the top of my desk is not good for me. The stunted torso is a great disadvantage while sitting at the donated desk. Most days, I cross my ankles underneath myself and sit “Indian style,” giving myself a few extra inches of false torso. It’s pretty hard for strangers walking into the reception area, expecting to be received by an adult, and being confronted with a spindly girl sitting “Indian style.”

On Water

2007-05-08T15:31:00.000-05:00

Kansas City has been experiencing a great deal of rain lately. Fortunately for six lucky 20-somethings, the sun broke loose over the Ozarks last Saturday.

Friday afternoon, a car was packed and I headed out with a couple of friends and a 30 pack of beer. Lake weekend had begun. After the obligatory twisty roads and Grateful Dead album – the Grateful Dead exudes sun, in my consciousness – we hit lake town. We broke out a celebratory beer and wound our way to Charles’ grandparents’ cabin. We unloaded the car in time to walk down to the dock and watch the sun set.

The weekend was rife with descriptions (in my head): the shocking cold of the water contrasting with the heavy warmth of the sun; the way beer tastes better when you drink it on a boat; bare feet on warm, old wood; the fluff blowing from the dock’s innards onto the water – a secret duck’s nest with seven eggs revealed. People fished; I dangled my toes in the water. I got up earlier than I would’ve liked, and slept sprawled on a couch in front of an open sliding door. I didn’t talk on the phone; I almost went the whole weekend without showering. Phones and showers aren’t necessary at the lake.

But the best part about this lake weekend, this cinco de lake celebration, was that nothing happened. Yes, we had fun. Yes, we drank too much and got sunburns. Yes, we laughed and talked and grilled. But no one fought, no one yelled, no one planned things or went anywhere. Nothing happened. The sun rose and set, people ate, drank and slept, and the lake welcomed everything. It was perfect.

Now I'm back home, back at work. I wake up at the same time, drive the same car the same direction, and sit at the same desk for the same amount of time. I go back home, watch TV, read books, and do it all again. This can all be labeled: this can all be called something. "Nothing happened" is unforgivable here, in the scope of this life. Structure rules and fills the time. All the water - the rain, the humidity - is a burden here.

So, to copy NPR, I believe in the lake. I think we're pretty lucky to spend a sunny weekend in May commandeering a lakehouse, riding a boat, sitting in the sun, and doing nothing. I believe in doing nothing.

Guns, God, and Guts

2007-05-02T09:12:00.000-05:00

This morning, on my rainy drive to work, I stopped at the stoplight that always gets me, the one at Shawnee Mission Parkway and Nall. I ran the wipers once and gazed at the other cars around me. Jackpot~ an old-school, white Suburban held the front spot in the left turn lane. On its back window, proudly lined up in the center, was a bumper sticker: Guns, God, and Guts are What Made America Free. Next to this glamorous slogan was a crude drawing of fingers, curled around the base of a handgun, with the barrel pointed straight at the unsuspecting Kia behind it.

I see things like this and I think about recent events in our country, about recent events in my hometown. I wonder if the person driving that Suburban has ever felt empathy in their life. I drive my car to work in the rain, desperately repeating "GunsGodandGuts, GunsGodandGuts" so I can quickly snap an email off to my friend. She and I like to compare absurd vanity plates, and I think this bumper sticker will be quite the feather in my cap. Like that, I erased empathy and replaced it with sneering mockery. The driver of that Suburban is no longer a person, but a symbol of everything that I think is wrong with our country right now. There's not a single cell in my brain that can fathom why someone would form a belief system that could support such a slogan.

Should I feel sorry for this driver the same way I feel sorry for victims of gun violence? The first thing that flashed through my mind when I saw that car was "I wish that driver would have someone he or she loved killed by gun violence. Then they'd think twice about guns and god and guts." But is that fair? It's not. Are handguns and their ubiquity fair? No, I don't think that's fair either. What a mess. What freedom.

Various notes on the body - Monday afternoon

2007-04-24T15:42:00.001-05:00

This morning I woke up with a crick in my neck. To be more exact, it’s a soreness. The kind of soreness that makes you think you have meningitis, even though you know you got a vaccine for that before you went to college. The kind of soreness that absolutely prohibits your body from supporting the weight of your head. I strain to move the great, massive, all-powering weight of my head to a place where my spine is straight, where I sit like a dancer instead of an office assistant. This is a great strain.

Yesterday, I went to my brother’s little league baseball game, and the wind was so strong that the game had to pause while dust clouds blew through each inning. When I went to bed last night, I realized I still had brown grit underneath my fingernails. I rinsed my face after the game to remove invisible sheens of dirt, and wished for one of those crocodile nail-brushes made famous in kindergarten classrooms.

Saturday, I spent the hours of 4am to 6am throwing up in my dear friends’ bathroom. My stomach is a strange thing. Though I had spent a good portion of Friday evening drinking beer, such a violent reaction is unusual for the free-wheeling pace of my drinking that night. I blame this bout of illness on some strange turkey given to me by my roommate for my lunch on Friday. Vomiting makes my brain feel as though it is useless, falling a distant second to the whims of my body and its chemistry.

Also, I’ve come to the conclusion that I may not be able to afford myself. A new insurance plan has driven the cost of a monthly medication from $30 to $50, and I’m currently itching my way through my last pair of contact lenses. In a recent visit to the dentist (my first in over a year), I was informed that my wisdom teeth are impacted and have to go. While my insurance covers the cleaning I had, the waiting period on major procedures like that is about 4 months longer than I’m going to be at my current job. Maybe my wisdom teeth are to blame for this exponential growth in my head’s weight. But for now, they stay, due to insufficient funds.

It’s been nearly a month since the Neko Case concert, and I still can’t stop listening to her. I think I’ve been bewitched. My body reacts physically to the song “I wish I was the moon.” When she says that so and so will recognize her because “I’ll be the one with my heart in my lap,” I know exactly what she’s talking about. Exactly.

It is nice enough outside today that I’m tempted to quit my job and try to get the band back together.

Is it symbolic? Dear Reader, you decide.

2007-04-13T10:56:00.000-05:00

Last night, I attended a date auction with my roommates. Why o why did we do this? Because my roommate's sister was an item in the auction (definitely the most eligible item, at that). Arriving at Old Chicago (way out in Burbia KS) just in the nick of time, the three of us slid into a booth with my roommate's mother and two sisters. To get my stats right, I should share that, auctionee aside, I was the only hip happenin young single at the table.

I realized I'd made a huge mistake (Gob Bluth-style) in my attendance when, not two minutes into the auction, my roommate's well-meaning older sister bid on the first bachelor on my behalf. This met with hilarity at my table, as I contemplated taking my heavy beer mug and clubbing everyone in the bar with it.

Did my presence at this auction mean I was desperate for a date? I didn't realize this when I signed up to come. I had thought I attended to support my roommate's sister, a girl with more balls than I. After my roommate's mother actually purchased this first bachelor, more out of pity for him than out of pity for me in my datelessness, we engaged in a healthy discussion of why I didn't want to take the date. My roommate raised a good point: the guy was cute, and advertised himself as a guitar player. I raised a better one: I despair at forced intimate situations, especially when they involve me purchasing someone else's time. Why on earth would that be fun?

As things settled down, my table began to watch the auction as spectators only. When the server delivered our dinners, we ate and talked and laughed. My roommates, on the other side of the booth, were sliced in half by falling sunlight (gotta love those longer days). Each time they picked up a fork, it sent a beam of reflected light to my side of the table. I turned to my left to talk to the bid-happy older sister. As I turned back to my plate, I noticed that my roommate had her hand raised at an odd angle.

Suddenly, my eyes were blinded with light, like the flash after taking a picture. She had angled her wedding ring/engagement ring diamond duo just right. We all laughed at her crazy trick - next she'd be burning ants on the sidewalk with her giant diamond - but now, I'm thinking about this gesture. If this were a real piece of writing, and not a blog, I'd turn that gesture into a symbol for the whole night, a burning presence of the pressure on women to be in relationships.

Invariably, the men in the date auction sold for much more than the women. A few of the bachelors ignited a bidding war, and the highest price of the night was paid for one young man (a bartender by trade) at $290. (Not a cute guy, by the way, wayyy too much hair gel and too many strategically placed rips in his jeans.)

The money earned at the auction all went to a charity supporting kids with lymphoma or leukemia, so the night wasn't a wash. But what a strange event. I told a friend before I left on this adventure that I'd give her a full report, and that hell, maybe I'd even write about it. I love to hide behind writing as the rationale for doing ridiculous things. Maybe I should've taken that guitar-playing date...

Drafts

2007-04-06T13:05:00.000-05:00

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about drafts (money too, but that's another story). A friend of mine is working on a personal statement, and this friend is not a student of writing. She asked me for help, as a student of writing, and so I edited her very capable personal statement. I know that she is smart and what's more, I know she deserves a place in any grad school she applies to. With that in mind, I gave her a very serious edit.

When she got my comments, she was upset. She felt that she'd finished the statement, that she had sent it to me for last-minute comma clean-up. I explained to her what it means to draft a piece of work, how I had written around 11 versions of my own personal statement last fall. (Note: maybe this is the reason blogging is inherently crap - a blog is the "shitty first draft" of any piece of writing, as Anne Lamott would say.) I took what I thought was a decently advanced draft, after 5 or 6 incarnations, to a fellow writer, who looked at it, underlined one sentence, and said, "Try freewriting from this to get where you need to." Disappointed, I started over, and over, and over. Finally, I found the one that worked, and I went to town on it, dissecting every sentence. I sent it off, and I felt good about it.

On days like today, when the sun is shining and I am not, I feel like drafting is a great gift and a great challenge. If I am my best piece of work, and my friends/loved ones are my editors, how lucky to have people to underline the good, to encourage me to get where I need to. They don't know where I need to get, I don't know where I need to get, but between us we'll figure it out. All these different incarnations of self: sister, daughter, friend, writer, secretary, supreme blues dancer, chef, driver, lover, courier - all of these are drafts. Some we'll keep, and work on, and some we'll throw out entirely. Others, we'll hide at the bottom of a drawer until we find them, years later, forgotten but full of promise.

Here's something I wrote last Halloween as part of the drafting process: (PS, tonight, I'm really holding out for that teenage feeling. Neko Case is gracing Lawrence, and I have an early-purchased ticket to a sold-out show...)

Why go to grad school? Why spend the money and the formative years?
I write because I want people to know that the streets of Spain smell like garlic at mealtimes. I want them to know how I felt when I climbed a church tower in the small town of Friedburg, Germany, and rang a bell that was the oldest thing I have ever touched with my hands. I want them to know that the weight of the bell frightened me, a shocking two tons. I inhaled dust there and I sneezed, because that’s what happens when people inhale dust. Everyone sneezes. Everyone sneezes, but no one makes the same noise when they sneeze as I do. It’s high pitched and sharp.
What happens when you don’t write? I already know this. I know that you wake up every day, and you take a shower, and you go to work. Work can be anything – a smoky restaurant, a doctor’s office, a messy desk in someone’s reception area. Work is sitting at a computer, staring at a computer, navigating a computer and sometimes – answering the phone. Every moment at the desk is a moment lost, because you aren’t writing or creating. Also, every moment at the desk is a medal, something you’ve won by doing it for yourself. You’ve done it, you’ve survived the life of a nonwriter. You’ve done it, you’ve given your time and your best efforts to a tiny not-for-profit who wants to make your city a better place to grow old in. You’ve done it, you’ve worked out a patient’s problem with an insurance company and saved them money. These things are all victories. Yet every night, you go home and avoid the dull fact that you are not where you should be. You are not writing. You are not documenting or synthesizing things that really matter. Correction: things that really matter to you.
I am a writer. I make drafts. My next draft will be a continuation of academia.

My mother was a Chinese trapeze artist.

2007-03-29T13:26:00.000-05:00

What is wrong with our country's parents?

Today, I was reading the NYTimes, and the following headline caught my eye: Child Wants Cellphone; Reception is Mixed. Unable to help myself, I started reading the article. It begins with the testimonial of a woman who bought her 8 year-old daughter a cellphone, after the kid begged for two years. When the article got to statistics stating that, out of 20 million American kids in the 8-12 age group, 6.6 million of those kids have cell phones, I stopped reading and started ranting.

I cannot believe that anyone finds it appropriate to buy such an expensive, maintenance-oriented toy for their children. What is wrong with people? What possible need does an 8 year-old child have for their own personal phone? It makes me sick. When I was younger, and even through my teen years, the ease of my parents at saying "no" infuriated me constantly. Now, I read things like this, and I am so grateful that when I was 8, there were no cell phones in my stocking.

Yes, technology has changed, and this affects expectations on all counts. But I still can't see the rationale in the way parents give their children everything. What kind of adults do these kids grow up to be? They grow up to senselessly burn fossil fuel, to isolate themselves from others with (unnecessarily) big houses in cookie-cutter suburbs, to contribute to a culture of waste that is massive by global standards. These people think nothing of their impact in the world, environmentally or ethically, because they were taught that things would be given, that everything is an entitlement.

Here's a great story my roommate overheard at a coffee shop in Prairie Village:

A woman (Erin calls them Country Club Moms, or CCMs) was telling her fellow CCMs about dropping her son off at day care. Apparently, the son threw a massive temper tantrum upon being dropped off. One of his teachers suggested to his mother that she try bringing a favorite stuffed animal next time, to make the kid feel more at ease. The mother looks at the teacher and says,

"Do you have any kids?"
"No, I don't. I'm a nun," replies the teacher.
"That's what I thought, so you don't know what you're talking about." And scene.

I wonder why the kid was having a temper tantrum in the first place.

Another week, another letter

2007-03-26T15:04:00.001-05:00

Friday afternoon, I was on my way home when I suddenly realized something important: as of this time next year, my car will be paid off. The extra $200 a month could be put to good use.

I called Stef with this information, and announced that if I saved this extra money, she and I could plan a trip to Europe. She treated these plans with the utmost of seriousness ("Uh, ok"), and we hung up.

I flurried in the door, shouting to Erin as I knew by the radio and the fumes that she was painting the kitchen. I dropped my bags ( how do I accumulate bags during the work day?) and stopped to chat for a minute, debating whether or not to take a Friday night disco nap.

I went to check the mail for my insurance billing, and found two envelopes of regular size. I flipped past the bank statement to reveal a DePaul envelope. So soon?! I frowned at its size and yelled at Erin to announce its arrival.

I carried it to my room, realizing that although it was only a standard-measuring envelope, it held more than one piece of paper: very positive. I opened it and read, shocked, that the English department had recommended me for DePaul's Master of Arts in Writing. I screamed. Erin screamed.

I rushed into the kitchen to stare at her, standing on a step ladder, grey paint on her leg. "Erin! I got in!" "I know, I'm so excited for you!" "But Erin, I had plans! Plans..." I thought about the call to Stef, the comfortable money and living situation I found myself in and pursuing, the ideas I'd been forming about teaching. I thought about living in Chicago, about uprooting and buying things like dishes and beds, about massive debts and eating Ramen noodles.

Then, I thought again about living in Chicago, about seeing concerts and seeing art. I thought about public transit and outdoor festivals. I thought about being in school again, about living for the sole purpose of learning and writing. Plans change.

I went on to a night full of NCAA basketball and Pale Ale. On my way home, I realized something. "Hey, my writing got in." I smiled, alone in my car. Not me, my writing. I'd be fine.

Entirely unrelated:
Read more from the NYTimes about pop music. This article? Discusses what they hail as "the end of the album." To my mind, the album will never die. Nothing can replicate the feeling of listening to one artist's idea of the way an hour should unfold. Listen to OK Computer, then tell me the album is dead.

The events of yesterday

2007-03-15T10:34:00.000-05:00

I finally made it home last night after seven. As I opened my front door, I was relieved to find it unlocked. I dragged my good-sized purse, my over-sized yoga tote, and my two plastic shopping bags into the house along with the hooded sweatshirt I no longer needed. Warm air pervaded and my feet marveled at the feeling of cheap Old Navy flip-flops worrying the space between my first and second toes. I used the two fingers of the hand holding my Chipotle take-out to pick up the letter with my formal name on it as I breathed “Oh shit.”

I dropped the shopping bags and purses on the floor in front of my bed, and made a break for the kitchen with my food and the envelope I knew was too thin to hold anything of comfort. You want packets, you never want letters. I put it all on the counter top, and opened the envelope the way I always open envelopes, lifting only a corner of the flap and using my thumb to rip one of the short sides, the side next to the return address: University of Minnesota.

Dear Helen, we regret to inform you…Nearly 250 applicants…Rigorous competition…only 13 accepted.

I simultaneously started shoving Chipotle in my face and dialing Emmy’s number. As I listened to it ring, I realized how gentle the jolt had been. Had I really stayed true to what I’d been telling everyone – I honestly didn’t believe I would get it? What’s worse, the rejection itself, or my numb acceptance?

After I told her, Emmy sounded more destroyed than I did. I continued to pile steak, rice, green peppers and salsa into my mouth. Emmy offered to come over; I told her to stay home and rest. I replaced phone with TV, flip flip flipping through the channels. I watched chefs – all male – compete in the World Pastry Championship. They constructed beautiful, delicate sculpture out of sugar and fake sugar, sugar substitute, all melted and poured, bubbly, into six-foot molds. The translucent colors and stark shapes impressed me. They brought chocolate to the correct temperature and kept it there, at that precise temperature perfect for molding and sheen. I hardly realized that chocolate could have a sheen.

Allison called, having received a similar letter that day. I listened to her, listened to her true feelings of rejection and disappointment. Her helpless fury did nothing to awaken my quiet. I continued to feel dull, dull, dull.

France won the pastry competition. The US took third. I sat, eating Chipotle, craving honey cake from Prague. The US cake was made of beautiful, rich layers of golden brown. It looked like honey cake, and I wanted more than anything to be sitting with my friends in their borrowed life, drinking champagne and eating cake in the middle of a Sunday. What a tactile memory – the creamy middle, the light airiness of cake that I’d never had before. I went to Prague to eat cake that I’d never had before, and last night I sat in my basement to eat, and watch TV, and feel completely cut off from anything I’d ever thought to be my essence.

The Glorious Patti Smith

2007-03-12T15:56:00.000-05:00

I found this article in the NYTimes today. If memory serves me, Patti Smith used to write music reviews before she started her delicious career of making music. Read this outstanding reflection on rock and laurels: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/opinion/12smith.html?th&emc=th.

What an interesting reflection on one's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is why Smith is an artist, and I for one am excited that she's being honored. I could bemoan the lack of true artists on today's rock and roll scene (see my senior seminar paper), but I'm too busy discovering the world of Elvis Costello, and celebrating the fact that I heard The Thermals on KC radio today (96.5, who knew??).

ps - I think the link should work, but if not, it's in the Opinion section.

Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing

2007-03-06T10:01:00.000-06:00

One of the duties that I've accrued in my time at the Foundation on Aging is the Payroll Conversion Specialist. I guess, when our payroll converts this Thursday, you can consider my far-reaching talents to have danced into the arena of HR. It's amazing the ambitions that keep popping up which I had never even dreamed of.

I've been working personally with a representative of our new payroll server, Erik. Erik with a K and I have communicated primarily via email, though I've had to phone him a couple of times to clear up some basic problems. After the past couple of weeks, I've realized something: he's a moron. I emailed him today, after he requested a reminder for our training time. I wrote him back to remind him that, though I had asked for one last Monday, we had not yet scheduled a training time. I told him that I was available all week. He wrote back and said "Please just let me know when is a good time? I am available all week." Is there an e-echo? No, he had just repeated what I told him.

I wrote back and requested a meeting at 11am. I clarified this to say 11am Central time, because Erik works on the East Coast. Minutes later, he sent me the official link for our web training, occurring at 10am Eastern time. Now, my degree may be in English, but last time I checked, you had to be able to tell time to be employed as a professional in any field.

I wrote back to Erik with the following: 10am Eastern time is 9am Central. If this is the only time you have available, that’s OK, but I’d prefer to do it at 11am Central time (12pm Eastern) so that my coworker, Jane Wilson, can join me.

Nice? I hope so, because in copying that text from the email, I realized that I spelled his name "Eric." Whoops. Who's the moron now?

Just cause you feel it...doesn't mean it's there

2007-02-28T09:46:00.000-06:00

The other night, I talked to both of my fake boyfriends right before I went to sleep. First one, then the next, so similar and yet so different. As I fell asleep, it suddenly struck me that it might be weird to have fake boyfriends. Whether we be planning fake future lives together (FB#2) or cautiously avoiding all mention of the subject (FB#1), it still might qualify as a big mess. In spite of all my bluster, I'm an easily persuaded young lady. Is it really such a good idea for me to inhabit these elaborate fantasy relationships (whether they be a conscious fantasy or an inability to let go)?

On the flip side, FB#2 argues that fake relationships function much better for him than any real relationships he's been in recently. And I must admit that each of these fake relationships make me pretty happy, in their own way. If I need to feel attractive, or witty, or even just amused, both are readily available. I don't owe either one of them anything that it's not in my power to give. At the end of the day, both are my dear friends. I guess this all comes back to the old "can women and men Really be friends" question. I'd argue passionately for yes, but most guys I know think that's a fantasy. And the fact that I need to call these friends of mine fake boyfriends, instead of just friends, might prove me false. So, dear Reader, what do you think? Can women and men truly be just friends?

Things that I love

2007-02-21T13:32:00.000-06:00

A) On facebook, when you are viewing your own profile, it says at the top, "Beth M's Profile (This is you)." Every time I read that, I have to crack up. Thanks, Mark Zuckerwhatever, because we couldn't all go to Stanford. (This is you) Are you sure that's me? Oh wait, yes it is. Whew. It's like the parentheses make it a subtle reminder to the ever-forgetful viewer. Gentle, sweet facebook. Ever so tactful as you allow for quiet reminders of the fact that all of our friends have more glamorous and fun lives than we do (according to their profile pics).

B) It is 58*F in Kansas City at the moment. At this time last week, I was fighting a cold and 5 inches of snow. I love the Midwest, in spite of myself. I cannot wait to get into the car, put on my sunglasses and some music, and roll down my windows. (Really, just getting out from behind the desk will be nice.)

C) I have two pen pals, one in Asia and one in Europe. Writing back to them makes me almost as happy as I am when I see I have an email from a far-away place. Soon, the ranks will spread to India. I admire these friends, and I love to live a life of privilege that allows me the same opportunities allowed them. A pen pal is a perfect relationship, it its own right. The person, far far away, has all kinds of exotic wisdom to share. You, in their home country, provide a tie to prove that home is still there, and still misses you. Plus, you get to write really long emails about yourself.

D) This morning, I went to Ash Wednesday mass with my dad. We went to the somber, song-free 7:00am service. I had forgotten until he arrived (later than me) that he had busted open the bridge of his nose while playing basketball this week, forcing him to St. Luke's for stitches. He showed up in a big white bandage (to protect the wound from the ashes), and looked like a total thug. The population of the 7:00am mass is usually a majority of solemn older people, and he really shook things up today. Though we did spot Big Joe Neenan in the front row. I'm sure he'll have something to say to Dad about his street injuries.

Criticism

2007-02-08T12:56:00.000-06:00

There's an article in today's NYTimes that discusses an uproar in the National Book Critics Circle about the nomination of author Bruce Bawer's nomination for an award. People are outraged that Bawer is nominated (for "While Europe Slept"), due to the outspoken "racism" of his material. Bawer criticizes Islam, and examines the possibility for conflict in Europe between those of traditional "Western" culture and those of Islamic.

Bawer's response to the uproar: “Some people think it’s terrific for writers to expose the offenses and perils of religious fundamentalism — just as long as it’s Christian fundamentalism.”

I agree with Bawer in saying that criticism of Christian fundamentalism is welcome to many people in our country. Most people I know won't hesitate to offer the opinion that Christian fundamentalism is an extreme that is both scary and possibly threatening. I could talk for days about the 2004 election, the Christian Right's role in said election, and the disaster that our country has become in the name of "Christian values." Bawer wants to know why it's not OK to do the same for Islam.

Here's what I think: I can't critique Islam in the same way that I can critique Christianity because of where I grew up. I encountered Christianity in every day of my life, whether that be in a school setting, or on TV, or in reading books or newspapers. I grew up in the Catholic Church, and I went to Catholic schools. I feel comfortable in my knowledge of this faith, and so I can expose its weak points. But with Islam, I'm not as well educated. I don't know any Muslims, and my somewhat perfunctory studies of the faith in high school hardly provide a basis for understanding. In my experience, privileged white people (like myself, like my friends) have no room to criticize anyone but themselves. It's an established societal norm that I'm not allowed to critique, say, black people, or Asian people. I can critique women, because I'm a woman, and I can critique dead white men, because everyone can, but with an experiential knowledge so limited, I don't like to voice judgement on people or groups I am naive about.

Is that right? I don't know. But that's how I operate.

(sorry for the rant. work is boring, and i have to keep my mind occupied somehow.)

They were always getting married...now, there's just a wedding

2007-02-07T15:37:00.000-06:00

I'm developing a love/hate relationship with telling people about My Living Situation.

"Yes, that's right, they're engaged."
"Really soon, actually."
"No, I'm not moving out after they're married."

This is where conversation starts to sour. People, mostly adult people (sorry kids, we don't count as adults yet in my head), look at me as though I just started to drool blood. I hear a lot of, "That first year, wow, that's a tough one." Like I'm in for major Strife.

It usually starts out pretty fun: the look of shock, the raising of eyebrows. I like making jokes about mooching, being adopted, etc etc. However, I'm getting a little tired of the "you wouldn't know, you aren't married face." In fact, I'm getting a little tired of talking about marriage in general. I suppose I can't have my cake and eat it too. Oh wait, yes I can, at the wedding on Saturday! Because then it will all be over, I'll still be unmarried, and my taxes won't be at all complicated to do, because I don't own a home. Life is sweet for the simple single.

Almost as sweet as my new, faux-fur, hunter green coat. For a picture, click here. It promises to be a choatic and well-insulated weekend.

Mirrors

2007-01-24T12:09:00.000-06:00

Over the last couple of months, I've been rediscovering my love for the Old 97s. Our slightly tortured history begins with my freshman year of college. A beautiful young ingenue, gracing the dorms of Truman, I am introduced to the Old 97s via the internet, by my friend Allison. This is my first experience with my very own computer and its very own high-speed connection, so I'm downloading like crazy. I ask Allison for some recommendations. Among others, she recommends two songs: "California Stars" by Billy Bragg and Wilco, and "Question" by the Old 97s.

These are two gorgeous songs. "California Stars" is still on every playlist I have in that computer, and it leads me to Wilco. The path to Wilco is strewn with happiness, great discs stolen from the radio station, and amazing live shows. What bliss. I think I'm finally ready to start uncovering Billy Bragg, but that's another story altogether.

Back to freshman year. "Question" is played over, and over, and over. I love it so much that I buy the album it comes from, "Satellite Rides" by the Old 97s. I listen to "Satellite Rides," and I enjoy it. However, it slowly falls out of my favor. (I'm sure I replaced it with the likes of Howie Day, or John Mayer, or some other acoustic marvel I found on the internet and in frat parties. ) I end up giving the disc to my wise friend Bridget, who takes it as a gift on the condition that I may someday want it back.

Then, last January, I decide to renew my interest. I don't remember exactly why, but I ask Bridget to give me a copy of my original, and she so kindly obliges. She gives to me in turn an album called "The Instigator," by none other than Rhett Miller (frontman of the Old 97s). Just one short year ago, I wore that CD out. I again neglected "Satellite Rides" in favor of the here and now.

I still have that Old 97s album. I've been listening to it a lot of late. It's been resonating. I think I finally found my way into something I've known for over five years that I would really like. What a great thing if this were a piece of fiction, and the album experience stood as a mirror for my self-discovery, a way into a life I've known for years that I would really like. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is the year I'll really get hooked.

Look down

2007-01-17T13:15:00.000-06:00

In my office, we occasionally get walk-in solicitors, trying to sell office supplies or machinery. These solicitors usually have on suits that don't fit, and a clueless look about them. Today, I looked up from my desk to find that a fellow Truman grad had wandered into the Foundation's humble reception area. "Hi, I'm..." he introduced himself and I cut him off.

"I know who you are. I went to Truman with you. I'm Stefanie Walters' friend."
"Oh, right! How are you? How long have you been at this job?"
"Nearly a year now."
"Do you like it?"
"It's pretty boring. How bout you?"
"Well, boring, but at least I get to move around."

I looked at my fellow Bulldog and tried not to smile condescendingly. I laughingly informed him that the Epson photo printer on my desk serves as copier for our humble office, and we both wished the other well. What a funny run-in - busted in our not so elegant post-graduate jobs.

Side note: I am starting to become dependent on John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. What a comforting duo of boyfriends to fall asleep with. If you aren't watching these gentlemen as part of your daily routine, I'd recommend it. They make TV worthwhile. I love them, dearly. Every night, at 10pm, I hum along to (the Yo La Tengo cover of) "Here Comes My Baby" and wait with a smile on my face.

Stanford and Son's Comedy Club

2007-01-05T11:06:00.001-06:00

Last night, my dear friend Molly took me on a romantic date to Stanford and Son's Comedy Club. She picked me up at 7pm and off we headed to good old Overland Park.

I had no idea what to expect from the comedy club, never having been before. In my head, I pictured a lovely intimate theater, with a plush bar. Molly warned me that her friends would be nerdy, but I still imagined scads of cute boys, all dying to talk to me.

We arrived promptly at 7:30, a half an hour before showtime. Molly's work friend Candace had asked that we arrive early in order to get her large group of guests (20) together. The entrance leads into the bar area. Not plush. As Molly put it, it looked like a somewhat cleaner (read: not rat-thriving filthy) version of the Peanut. And for future reference, go to the Peanut because they won't charge you 4.75 for a bottle of beer.

We walked in and Candace's group was gathered at a round table by the entrance. Molly made a valiant attempt to introduce me, but as she didn't know but two of the people, we headed straight for the bar. A quick survey of my surroundings and fellow attendees made me abandon my no-drinking policy for the evening and order a beer. The bartender (hooterific) offered up the night's special on rock lobster shots, but Molly and I took a pass.

I felt a little calmer with beer in hand as Molly and I walked back toward Candace's table. Almost there, we were waylaid by a particularly dapper young man. At first I was confused: is he part of our group? He began talking to Molly about work, so that answered my question. I surveyed this gentleman. He had the eighth-grade style horseshoe part going on with his hair. (Pat J circa 1996, anyone?) He began the standard 20 questions of bar small talk with questions about employment. Long story short, MB (short for Molly's Boyfriend) works for a financial company on commission and lives with his parents. In fact, he plans to live with his parents for 2-3 more years. Hopefully it's so he can afford more sweet striped button-ups.

Other highlights of our pre-show convo: Where do you live? What's your favorite band? How long do you brush your teeth at night? MB also introduced us to his friend John, whom I immediately started observing because he had to blink his eyes in a jerky way each time he said hello to Molly and I. In addition to the eye blinking, he had some funny twitching going on in his hands, and extremely excitable eyebrows. Any time either of these two fellows or Molly made a joke, I laughed. Not because the joke was funny, but because of the amazing situation we found ourselves in.

I took advantage of our spot on the back wall to scope out the rest of the crowd. Were we in Overland Park, or were we in Kirksville? Who's to say? Next to me were two very wannabe emo'd out boys, not possibly of drinking age, with the obligatory straightened hair girls. There was a man playing pool in a shirt that said "Fucking Slayer" or something along those lines. I saw a man the age of my father in the company of an Asian girl who looked like she was about my age. From her haircut and clothing, I gaged that she wasn't a native: mail order bride?

Finally, the awkward conversation ended and we filed into the "theater." Apparently, this place usually draws a pretty good crowd, but I felt bad for the comedians because the place felt empty. Not empty enough for them to put some space between the chairs they herded us to, but empty enough for the ceiling fan blowing furiously above me to freeze me out.

Molly and I checked out a guy on the back wall who looked like Billy Crudup from Almost Famous (in a bad way). We decided that he must be "the talent," from the sheer existence of his mustache. He was, in fact, the second comedian. The comedians, all male, emerged from a "backstage" which looked shabby and coke-ridden. The first two comedians were local guys. Molly and I agreed that the first fellow, who was ill and kept talking about tripping on "Tussin," sucked pretty bad. The second guy, Billy Crudup, was kind of funny but Molly took issue with his timing.

The third and fourth were the out of towners. The third guy, a skinny Catholic who grew up in Baltimore, was unanimously the best comedian of the night. He was funny without being too crude, but he wasn't tame either. Well played, Baltimore guy. The final comic, the headliner, was god awful. His name is Sean and he likes to talk about all the drugs and drinking that fill his life. Sometimes, he was funny, but for the most part he was slow and negative and terrible. He blamed his poor performance on a ravaging hangover from the night before. Highlight of his set: when he started up a dialogue with the Iraqi vet (in our group, coincidentally) after completely insulting the war and getting called on it by the vet. Nice.

Candance got a little restless toward the end (sitting next to me, of course). She didn't care for the fourth comedian either, and made that known by talking to every single person on the row individually in a fairly loud voice about her plans to head to Mickey's (? never hear of it) after the show. I wanted to strangle her: no matter how bad the guy was, there's no need to be so rude. Except maybe to the scary bar waitress, who basically punched people when they didn't get the "two drink per person minimum." Hott.

Molly and I waited politely outside the show to thank Candace. Alas, we lingered a little too long because MB whipped his phone out and took Molly's number. Fortunately for me, twitchy OCD guy was from out of town and didn't even try. Though MB did suggest that OCD massage my neck. "Just let him rub your neck, he's an amazing masseuse." "I'm not a toucher."

The night ended when I finally said, rather rudely, "So let's get in the car, I'm freezing." Molly and I spent the ride home coming up with ways to screen MB. A winning night, on the whole.

I've missed the boat.

2007-01-04T13:15:00.000-06:00

I woke up on NYE fully intending to write. Instead, I watched football. In the words of Regina Spektor, this is after all "Uh-Merica." (But the Chiefs ARE in the playoffs, hot damn!)

Perhaps this vignette is indicative of my 2006: paving the road to hell with my intentions, whether good or bad. I finally sat down two nights ago and took 20 minutes to make a catalogue of the year. For my own personal benefit, for prosperity's sake, for the sheer exercise of pen on legal pad. It seems to me that many of my friends took time at the end of the year to review its passing.

This catalogue is pretty boring, but much more full than I expected. I divided the year by its months, and watched the names affecting each month change. I shudder to think about what I left out.

The thing that interests me most is whether or not I'm the same person as I was at this time one year ago. Obviously, that's physically impossible: people shed 7 layers of skin each day. Think of the regeneration involved. In looking at my catalogue, I realized that I had accomplished a lot last year: I changed jobs, I bought my first car, I moved out of my parents' home. These are the tangible, financial-type growths. These are the proof that I am out there, I am succeeding, I am doing something productive with myself. There's no tangible way to show that I think about breathing in a different way, that I value more time to myself, that I try to read a book once in awhile instead of succumbing to numbing TV.

Things like that accumulate sneakily, like feelings. Can they be qualified to 2006? Not really. But it's nice to know that, over the span of 12 months, things change. I'm banking on that for the next 12 months...

Failure, courtesy of NPR

2006-12-18T16:16:00.000-06:00

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6196795

I heard the NPR story above when I was driving to work one morning. I got to the office and immediately located the text online, saving it to my favorites.

I find myself reading this article on days when I desperately need to calm down. Today was a funny day - I think that, due to an unfortunate combination of hormones and stress, that I've been frantic all day.

Christmas does that to people. So does the suprise engagement of someone that you've known biblically. So does a messy desk that never gets clean. So does the idea of Christmas shopping for your mom, with your dad. So does discussing internet connections with people in India who have to give you dumbed down, Americanized names - Kevin was today's lucky tech.

Regardless, read the article. Break many pots. That's my Christmas wish. Well, that and admission to grad school. An impeccable complection and a new job wouldn't hurt, either. BUT I do have a whole bag of homemade caramel corn, sitting at my fingertips. Nothing says Christmas like caramel corn. I'm off to live it up.

Of gray sky, of bitter stain

2006-12-07T10:02:00.000-06:00

Top 5 Fantasy Jobs:

1. Being reborn as photographer Annie Leibovitz, for the sole purpose of taking that Rolling Stone cover of John and Yoko.

2. New York Times features writer who publishes novels on the side.

3. Singer in a rock and roll band.

4. Gallery owner in Barcelona.

5. One of those Jager girls who walks around the bar, giving out shots. But only if they let me wear Hooters-inspired attire.

Why does our generation identify so strongly with our professions? (And with High Fidelity.) Every one of my friends wraps their identity in what they do for a living. If they, like me, are dissatisfied with their jobs, unchallenged or unimpressed, they're constantly apologizing for it. I myself choose the route of self-deprecation, making acerbic jokes about my occupation as a "Project Assistant," and getting offended when others make similar jokes. Only I'm allowed to point out the absurdity in what I do. When someone else does it, that feels like a threat, or worse yet-condescension.

Why do we judge one another for our jobs? Everyone I know went to college. Almost everyone has their bachelor's degree. We are intellecutally, on paper, equals. Some days, it feels like these discretions are noted because no one makes you take a certain job. Ostensibly, we could get any job we wanted.

In my experience though, that hasn't been the case. We need more experience, we need more schooling, we need better connections. Maybe these optimistic expectations are the result of our culture. America, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, become something from nothing. The intense pressure to become something. What a country.

Shovel

2006-12-05T22:06:00.000-06:00

Today, I stood on the front porch with a heavy metal shovel and worked to remove the ice/slush mixture that I have been slipping on every morning for a week.

The work looked like it would be easy. It warmed up today; it was sunny. What had been ice this morning appeared to be malleable slush, something I could kick away with my shoe.

This was not the case. I tried first with an umbrella. Yes, an umbrella with a metal tip. I used the metal tip to poke holes in the ice, thinking I could wedge off large pieces at a time. No.

I took to the garage for some real man tools. I found the shovel, scrapey metal, and dragged it to the front stoop. Cars drove up our block and stared at the little girl in the long red coat, hacking at her stoop with an earth-moving shovel.

I figured the shovel couldn't look as badly as the umbrella had looked, and continued my quest for a safe walk. I hacked and pushed and manipulated the slushy, rock-bottomed material until my back started to sing a little. Finally, I found its breaking point. I removed the large pieces and returned the shovel to the garage. Tomorrow morning, when I leave in my long red coat, my path will be clear - no matter how much crap I'm lugging to the car.