I live here now.

I wrote on another blog as kind of a side project during the winter of 2007, and eventually my side project turned into my main project and this blog has been sadly neglected since then.

I'll still use this as a sort of half-assed photo blog, but for the juicy stuff you can find me here.

Pictures of Chicago

From my trip in June:

The Publisher's Row Book Fair



The Hancock Building?



More Skyline



Lake Michigan



The Ba'Hai Temple

They're more afraid of you than you are of them...

When I was in second grade I fell off a playground slide and landed knees first onto the razor sharp woodchips below. I paused, looked down at my bleeding knees, and promptly launched into a series of tortured wails and sniffles as I limped over to my teacher. This woman, who I'm sure was a perfectly nice and caring lady, had somehow managed to make me angry in the early part of my second grade tenure so I held for her a white-hot, unadulterated, and rather satisfying loathing that has still never been mitigated after all these years. She knew this, and I think because of it she had ceased to be nice and caring in return, so when I approached her to ask for nurses and Band-Aids, she rolled her eyes toward another teacher and made some comment about me being "seven going on two" and how I just needed to get over a little blood. I felt the blood that wasn't currently dripping out of the wound on my knee boil a little and I slunk off toward the monkey bar, plotting some sort of grand scheme to avenge my bruised feelings.

The tears weren't so much for the blood or the pain, but more a response to falling from ten feet above the ground and thinking "This just happened to me!" It was shock, and nothing more, but I wanted it acknowledged that I could've been brain damaged, in a head to toe body cast, or dead. Someone needed to appreciate it. But in that instance, no one did. I decided after that point I was going to become one of those toughass kids who never got scared or reacted to anything, so I developed a fairly intense plan for dealing with pain, surprises, and things that scared me. I was hardcore about forcing myself to walk the entire length of the burning hot concrete around the perimeter of our city pool rather than dipping my toes in the water periodically like all the other kids. I would hold bugs in shaking hands, letting them skitter over my palms and up my arms until I could rationalize that their spiny antennae and glistening eyes were nothing to be alarmed about, and they were every bit as scared of my own huge eyes and probing fingers. So when I fell off some sort of playground equipment the following year, I looked down at my knees again and noted with clinical detachment that this time the injury was WAY worse and that rocks were even stuck in my skin and everything, but that it didn't matter as I brushed off my shorts, walked calmly to my teacher, and asked for a nurse pass. I mentally patted myself on the back when I heard another third grade teacher remark, "Did you see those knees? That girl is TOUGH!" It was awesome not being scared of anything.

There are, though, a few things I still can't quite get over. Cockroaches, for one. Nuclear war. The idea of having my house burglarized while I'm in it again. And no matter how many times I use my armchair cognitive behavioral therapy, I still can't quite get over being afraid of the dark. I once sat on the floor of my garage for fifteen minutes to prove to myself that there was absolutely no one waiting for me in the water heater closet, but even with the irrefutable evidence in the back of my mind I still make a mad dash for my door as soon as the lights go out in my car.

So today, when I stepped into the deserted hallways of the school where I work, the familiar rush of quiet terror started up the back of my knees and settled firmly in the base of my spine. I knew the building was kind of dark, but I was unprepared for just how dark it could really get when no one else was in it. I had to walk down two windowless corridors to make it to my classroom, and every sound, every strange light made me more and more frightened as I went deeper into the center of the school. The Xerox copiers whirring on hibernation mode turned into twin sentinels guarding the gate of a pitch-black institutional labryinth, air rattling through their lungs as they watched me with glowing green eyes. I saw outlines of things lying on the floor...THINGS. I knew, had I possessed the ability to turn on the overhead lights that the THINGS would just be the usual assortment of projects and posters and wall art that lose their adhesiveness and fall off over the course of the weekend, but I held my breath as I picked my way through them and prayed none of them would touch my foot. I would absolutely lose my shit if anything touched my foot. Please don't touch my foot.

I made it safely to my classroom, turned on every light I had, blared Public Radio from my computer, hoping that Garrison Keillor's dulcet tones would keep evil at bay, and finished with my work as quickly as possible. I had to take two rather large plastic bags home with me, so I grabbed one in each hand and started back down the hallways to my car. Going out was almost worse than coming in because my eyes were completely unaccustomed to the darkness this time, and the sun had set a little lower. The garbage bags were too heavy to sling over my shoulders so I drug them as fast as I could through the school in kind of a stop-start cadence. I kept my eyes straight ahead on the main doorway and breathed a gigantic sigh of relief when I saw a collection of neighborhood kids gathered by the entrance of the school. Neighborhood kids meant no hidden axe murderer in my mind. People don't die eight feet away from other people, except in John Carpenter movies. The rational thought process kicked back in, and I headed toward the doorway proud of myself for leaving behind my silly phobia about the dark.

So it was kind of unexpected when one of the kids looked in my direction, shouted something and motioned for all the other kids to run off with him. I suppose the sight of a person silhouetted by the sun in a supposedly empty building, lurching through the hallway and dragging two rather large plastic bags might be kind of a frightening sight if you weren't expecting it. Even if the serial killer with the two victims clutched in her hands was really just an elementary music teacher with lots of tie-dyed t-shirts and her own fear of the unknown to contend with.

Perspective is a funny thing sometime.

Hello, friendships.

I have this story about opera and Wolverine and Wal-Mart I really want to share, but I'm going to wait because right now, on April 14th, it is thundersnowing. Gary Lezak's wet dream finally came true because it is thundersnowing gigantic, scrumptious flakes the size of small field rodents all over the place. What a truly contrary night.

I've been spending a lot of time, probably more than my Teutonic Efficiency Gene wants to allow, thinking about what I was doing this time last year. This pasttime sort of took on a special meaning today as I sat at my desk and signed my teacher contract for 07-08. On this day last year I accepted my current job, and I remember pulling my car to the side of the road and just crying huge, fat, ecstatic tears that the most awful school year of my life was finally, mercifully over. Of course, I had another month left to go at the school and all the awkward explanations, the coming out about my separation to all my colleagues and friends, but it didn't matter anymore because there was a future waiting for me the following August. My job, if not the rest of my life, was going to be monumentally better.

I assumed that because this huge chunk of my life had fallen into place, the rest of me would feel better too, but the months from last April to February sort of seemed like one long hazy block of angst. The anger inside me was profound, and I never thought I was going to be able to get to a point where I could just relax and breathe and be alone without torturing myself with my inner monologue. I developed new and perverse ways to torture myself, and I spent the okay days wondering when the next bad one would hit, and I knew...just KNEW...that the world would always exist for me in shades of dingy grey and it would never, be vibrant again.

For some reason, after my grandma died the raw anger started slipping away. I found myself more and more often alone in my house and enjoying the silence rather than resenting it. I started realizing that I could buy groceries for just myself and no one would pass judgement for my singleness. Interactions with my friends and family stopped serving as stops on my epic quest for the perfect amateur therapy and started becoming conversations again. And finally after all these things fell into place, I realized I was happy again. Quietly, shakily, but yeah...it's good.

I'm happy.

I'M!

HAPPY!

For the record..

I feel compelled to announce I received a piece of Viagra spam mail from someone named Andrew Warhol. I always knew he was overrated, but even I didn't think he would've sunk so low in the world. Nor that he wasn't actually dead.

I promise to update soon.

A tempest in a TV

Last week I decided to get rid of my cable service after developing a small but intense rage issue when I found out my cable + internet bill had risen from $60.00 to $100.00 after removing the promotional rate that used to be non-temporary but had been arbitrarily temporary and subject to revocation all along.

I was pretty smug for dropping TV, partly because I managed to wait out my company's customer service endurance challenge and stayed on hold for two hours to get it done, partly because I view television mostly as a huge black hole waiting to suck the productiveness out of my day and the intelligence out of my brain (empirical evidence includes not only my willingness, but absolute slavish devotion, to keeping up with new "Maui Fever" episodes on MTV), but also because it was $60 bucks gone from my cable bill, and that could be used for much more purposeful things. Things like lots and lots of cherry lip gloss or 420 pieces of Bazooka gum from the counter of the Mexican restaurant down the block from my house.

So since I was all pleased with myself, I called my parents to let them know I had just made a Responsible Adult Choice and that they could start showering me with adoration and apologies for assuming I am a screw up most, if not all, of the time.

Unfortunately, the conversation went more like this:

ME: So, I decided to cancel my television subscription. Isn't that great?

THEM: Are you in financial trouble again?

ME: No...I just realized the four shows I watch are already on the Internet for free, and I don't really think there's anything else valuable on anymore.

THEM: Why wouldn't you want TV?

ME: I just told you...it's cheaper and I can get whatever I want from the Internet.

THEM: What about news?

ME: I read the news online or in a paper as I eat breakfast each morning.

THEM: What if there's a tornado?

ME: Um...we have sirens here too.

THEM: Well, if you needed money you should've just asked.

ME: *Sighs* I'll see you this weekend.


During the aforementioned weekend, I received a fancy television antenna from my father who proffered it with a look of total incredulity that one of his offspring might actually forsake television. And in a way, I can understand that, because my father works a physically grueling job with horrible 12-hour shifts and by the time he comes home, the only thing he has energy to do is sit in his recliner and watch television. That's sort of been the culture in my family since I was little; the TV was my babysitter when I was a latchkey kid, it was what eased family tensions after a dinntertime argument, and it's what my dad and I bonded over whenever I was home in college. We didn't have to talk, or think, or interact. We just...existed...and the TV played a vital role in that.

But now apparently my father is telling family members that I really didn't turn off the television voluntarily; that it had been disconnected because I couldn't pay the bill and that obviously makes me a little mad. I guess he didn't want me to know he was saying those things, though, because when I made a joke about it he got really, really angry and hung up the phone. I'm translating that as embarrassed that he had those suspicions and probably frustrated he didn't feel like he could talk to me about it if he did think that. In the end, my brother got yelled at for telling me and I got yelled at for bringing it up and now I'm sitting here scratching my head and having a major WTF moment. How was that our fault?

My mother explained it like this before she declared the family "just so darn messed up" and hung up on me: I should've known my father well enough to anticipate that a joke like that wouldn't be perceived as something funny, but as an insult to him. I should've realized that if he talks about one of us to another family member, that the information is supposed to be confidential and not talked about even if I do find out about it from someone else. And I should've known that telling my father something like giving up television is going to be viewed with skepticism and alarm.

Well, no...I didn't know those things, because our parents NEVER TALKED TO US ABOUT ANYTHING. Mostly what I know about my dad is that he likes "The Golden Girls". His favorite TV snack food is popcorn or cut vegetables. He can tell you the name of any actor or actress in a movie, but he has a harder time remembering details about the plots. He wants to go to Hollywood someday and take a studio tour so he can find out what a gaffer and a best boy are.

But I don't know what my dad thinks and feels about things, and I didn't know he'd completely wig out over something I perceived as so trivial in the course of my life.
And I didn't know because my parents are so neurotically private and closed off that the stupid television must've been a relief to have around, because it ensured that no one in the household would have to do any extraneous thinking or feeling or connecting that might actually help them become whole, happy individuals and maybe even a functional family.

Good riddance to all of it, I say.

And they're all made out of ticky-tacky...

My hairdresser, fondling my scalp with her marijuana-scented fingers remarked that she heard sirens pass the hair salon yesterday afternoon. She pronounced it "Sigh-reens", like she was auditioning for a bit part in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and her delight at hearing the sigh-reens was mitigated just a bit by the fact that there "weren't a whole lot of 'em". After she had manipulated my problem hair into something that passed for a style, she sold me a completely unnecessary bottle of rosemary clarifying shampoo that smelled like paint thinner and I drove home to my little compound of ecru quadplexes nestled like tiles between giant mocha-colored piles of earth, as if our domains were Mayan temples situated among long-forgotten burial grounds.

I turned right onto my street, paying more attention to the dripping iced tea I was balancing between my knees than the road in front of me and almost hit a police car blocking the two lanes to my house. A portly man who looked like Captain Kangaroo in a service uniform motioned for me to roll down the window and told me I couldn't get through, that a unit was burning down near the cul-de-sac. I saw smoke coming from the general vicinity of my house and leaped out of my car, sprinting toward the fire. It was a series of stops and starts...full out running to make sure it wasn't mine, and a pause each time I realized it COULD be me and what would I do? My jerky progress was interrupted once in awhile by groups of strolling rednecks, alternately horrified and excited by the scene and breaking out coolers of Busch in their Dale Earnhardt festooned garages. If my neighborhood weren't so transient, I would imagine our block parties would look similar.

I folded my hands across the front of my shirt and walked with my head down, bracing against the gale winds that charged down the street. I had forgotten a coat, and the yokels were giving me odd looks as I hustled to get to the fire. I wonder if they thought I was one of the residents, in shock and wandering aimlessly while my possessions turned to ash inside my house. If they did, their concern didn't seem evident and we mutually avoided one another's eyes as I passed.

I reached the turn around of our cul-de-sac and drew in a sharp breath, partly out of relief because it wasn't my unit, and partly because the one next to me was completely engulfed in fire. I expected people to be crying, to be milling about and wailing for one another and their possessions, but I only saw firemen trying to outpace the wind with their hoses and a cluster of grim-faced Midwesterners, pulling flannel jackets and bathrobes tighter over their shoulders as they watched their life burn away. I suppose when you live in a place like I do, there aren't many things inside to be destroyed, and the pioneer mentality supersedes sentiment; times are hard, they'll always be hard, and we'll pick up and move on even if God shits on us again like he did today.

I asked a nearby policeman if I could go into my house and he stroked his mustache, considering.

"Way-ull...", he responded in a nearly pitch-perfect imitation of John Wayne, "I heard the unit next to the one on fire might be in danger of exploding if the fire gets into the gas lines somehow, but since you're one of the interiors you should be okay. Just start runnin' if you hear popping sounds."

Cold comfort, but I was freezing and at the very least I could grab my coat. I sat at my office window and watched the activity for a bit before I left, noting how the displaced residents sat like monoliths in the ambulances parked all around the neighborhood. They didn't speak and sat ramrod straight, maybe mentally willing the day to be over, or to just rewind. I watched the firemen and policemen cart out smoldering furniture and douse it with water in the middle of the yards. Neon orange condemned notices were put up on all four doors, and the front screen doors, loose on the hinges now from so many shoves and slams, fluttered like Kleenex on their hinges.

I've become fairly desensitized to human tragedy recently, I suppose like everyone has, but this has been weighing on my mind so much. There's the obvious thought that this could've easily happened to me, and that I should probably get renter's insurance as soon as possible in case my neighbors get careless with a cigarette or a firecracker, but more so the idea that a simple accident could ruin not only my life but four sets of lives as well. That my neighbors, whom I absolutely do not trust or like, might have to help me get out of our burning house someday. That we are intertwined, by contractual obligation if not by choice, and that those nameless people I waved at each morning as we pulled out of our driveways for work aren't going to be there anymore. That their lives have been incontrovertibly altered, and that they may never feel safe in their homes again.

Just...wow.