An Assignment

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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."