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.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Back and Crankier Than Ever
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.
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.
Friday, October 2, 2009
The P Word
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…
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…
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The Graduate
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
[Miss]ouri
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.
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.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Pinheads
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?
Monday, February 16, 2009
Meatloaf Cupcakes and Everything that Followed
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.
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.
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