My friend K

Thinking about music, I dug out an old tape, dusted off my Walkman, and started listening to the mix tape that changed my life. Well, the person who did.

I met K at my first job out of college. Six months into it, and two girls started inviting me to eat lunch with them in the staff lounge. They were sweet, and I was lonely, but we didn't have a lot in common besides being the entirety of young people at ALA. One day, a new girl sat with us. One of the girls (a Polish girl whose name I have long since forgotten) usually dominated the conversations, and this day talked about her neighborhood, Hyde Park, in slightly derogatory racial terms. I don't remember exactly what, but it was the sort of talk that made me feel uncomfortable immediately, but nothing so outragiously heinous that you could pinpoint it and say something against it. Or, nothing I could. But K called her on it. She challenged what the girl was saying, and eloquently debated her side. I was horrified to be part of the group, and thrilled at her arguments. I wanted to tug on her sleeve and say, "I'm not with them. I don't agree with what she says. I'm different."

Somehow she must have known already, for in the next week or month, we ran into each other again; she put her hand on my arm, looked into my eyes, and asked how I was in a way that made me believe she really wanted to know, and did I want to have lunch. I fell partway in love with her.

She was completely free of artifice or casual office chitchat. She could talk to anyone about anything, and our conversations, stolen throughout the day through instant messages and afternoon breaks to the cafe next door to work, slid immediately into the deep end of pool: relationships, hopes, and dreams. When we met, she had just been dumped, cheated on by a suave, beautiful, dreadlocked reggae musician who was well known in the Chicago music scene. I never understood how any sane man could treat her badly, or why she would put up with it. If I hadn't heard the stories, I would have envisioned her in a really healthy, loving relationship with an incredible guy.

She was the person we all wanted to have a drink with. To have K come to one of your parties was a coup. At one of mine, she came late and spent most of the time drinking and smoking on the back porch (she claimed shyness and being uncomfortable at parties), but with her came an entourage of interesting people. Her beautiful, Peruvian not-boyfriend cleared a space in the living room for dancing and broke several hearts that night. I fell for another of her beautiful friends, a Mexican man with long silky hair and a shy smile, whose undocumented status allowed him only to work as a restaurant advertiser, or, the person who drives around stuffing building foyers with restaurant menus. She laughed and smiled and taught me what to say to him. It was always startling and slightly exotic to hear fluent Spanish come out of her, for she was a blonde Swedish giantess.

Once after work, we walked to the House of Blues to catch a free Indigo Girls early concert. Half the city must have known about it, because people lined up for blocks to get in. K was always affectionate, holding arms, a kisser-goodbye. As we walked, she grabbed my hand, and we walked for blocks like that. Given the large turnout of lesbians in the line, I wondered if it had something to do with that, but it also seemed so innocent; there were no conspiratorial glances, yet I secretly hoped people thought we were together.

About kissing girls, though, she always said, "Don't do it. It just gets you into trouble," and quit drinking tequila because of that.

She taught me to accessorize. I was still an awkward country girl who suddenly had to dress for the office, for drinks out, for parties, for meeting cool and interesting people. I've never been able to pull off a sarong like her, and I realized that nothing I did or wore would be as cool as her, for it wasn't even the dress, the accessories, chunky necklaces, flowing scarves; it was the air that K exuded.

The mix tape came from an evening of wine, candlelight, and the perfect joint. We were laying around her living room, listening to music, and she found out I loved folk. So she made me the mix of Greg Brown, Ricki Lee Jones, Shawn Colvin, and so on. I listened to it so much that I could hear one line from a song, and know what song followed.

We didn't hang out as much as I would have liked to--part of that was an abusive boyfriend who hated me spending time with her--but when she'd hear about a feminist art show, she'd invite me. In the fall, we drove up to Wisconsin for a stretch of country road filled with potters' open houses, antique barns, and fall festivities: pumpkins for sale, hot apple cider.

One Friday, she invited me to the Flat Iron building in Wicker Park for their First Friday open house. K had caught the attention of a lesbian artist at a street festival who invited her to the opening, and she didn't want to go alone. We drank beer and walked in and out of artists' living rooms and studios. She found her artist friend and they went off to talk. I was left to make friends myself in whatever studio I had been left. Something I both feared and appreciated was being with her--or not with her--at parties. She didn't pander to my shyness, but expected that I could make my own way and meet people the way she could. I wandered into a huge loft space where a rave was taking place, and out onto the metal fire escape that hung over the intersection of Milwaukee and Damen. I shared a joint with the boys out there, and, warmed by the high, I felt myself melt into the city night.

What I have always loved about drugs and large parties is the insularity, the perfect aloneness. I can't remember a thing about the rave, nor the guys who shared their smoke with me. I only remember myself and my thoughts, how the orange glow from the street signs and bar lights created a new world for me.

Eventually I stumbled out of the party, and somehow found K. We drove to Clark's, open all night, for breakfast, and she laughed at my wide smile and love for everything, and chided me for not finding her when they were passing around the joint.

After a year or two, she left Chicago to run a school in Mexico. My problem back then was not understanding why she wanted to be my friend. In the face of her friendship, I wanted to be confident, an equal counterpart, but I never believed someone like her could truly want or need the friendship of someone like me. So I fell out of touch. How much would I like to have done things differently?

But perhaps she existed in my life so shortly for a specific reason, to show me the person I wanted to be.

On my own

On my own, I order pizza with sausage, pizza with pepperoni, pizza with insane amounts of cheese. On my own, the dishes sit in the sink past one meal, and the counter fills with old leftovers from a cleaning spree that emptied the fridge but fizzles after the containers reach the counter.

I forget to clean the litter box, or take out the trash, though it reaches the overdue mark with the load after load of dirt and dust that I empty after each mad vacuuming.

I listen to Alabama Public Radio all night, through Thistle & Shamrock and strange Irish throat singers, and All Things Acoustic, and Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour, and I stay up late thinking about things I want to write.

On my own, I turn on low lighting and stay up late, listening to mournful female singers like Suzanne Vega. I watch Fergus watching me from the bed, waiting for me to go to sleep so he can curl up above my head, and I wonder at how much intelligence I see in his eyes.

I stay up late because I know I won't be able to sleep, know that I'll toss and turn without Tim by my side. I wake up abruptly, without anyone to curl up against but Olivia with her rough kitty tongue and death breath.

On my own, I clean, or I don't. I revel in quiet, empty, clean rooms, or I don't see anything at all.

Specialization, again

I haven't heard back from the Loyola student advisor. I want to visit campus when I'm in Chicago. I've been perusing their web site a lot, and my previous post about needing to know what specialization I want?

I can't find it now, so I'm not clear if it's a concentration or an emphasis (or even what the distinction between those is), but what interests me is a clinical focus on small-group therapy. It occurs to me that one of my favorite parts of the job is the support group I lead.

I have not been schooled in the art of group therapy, so it's not terribly in-depth, but I do the best I can. Actually, I've never received any guidance or instruction on what the groups should be like, other than "domestic violence education," so I am flying blind, but it seems to be working out well.

The other women's counselor (with whom I alternate sessions) usually shows a video, and asks if anyone has anything to say about it. Well, maybe she asks discussion-provoking questions; I don't know. When I showed a video and asked for thoughts on it, conversation--and thus the end of group--lasted approximately thirty seconds. So now I do more interactive groups designed to spark more discussion and creativity. Today I am having them make collage posters about what it felt like to have to ask for help. Last time I did this, the women spent more time browsing my old magazines than making the posters, so I'll have to figure out how to guide it differently this time.

But I was thinking, why couldn't I base a career around doing small-group therapy?

Cheese high

Fondue party last night. Tim and I spent an insane amount of money on good cheese. And it was worth it. I wonder if the recipe was for appetizers, because it claimed to feed 6, but Tim, his classmate Lauren, and I polished off the whole pot.

The cheese high is a spectacular, strange phenomenon. As the cheese disappeared, we started laughing more, smiling wider, scrounging for the last bits of cheese at the bottom of the fondue pot because suddenly it tasted even more delicious. It wasn't simply joy at good food and good conversation--we had a physical (physiological?) reaction to it. It felt exactly like being stoned--minus the desperate need for sleep that usually kicks in half hour after I get high. Tim and I have experienced it once before, at a previous fondue party. (Everyone around the table sat around going, "Whoooa. Dude. What is happening??")

This high contributed to "Hell yeah! Let's make chocolate fondue!" and believing white chocolate liqueur and amaretto would be for thinning and flavoring the baker's unsweetened and semi-sweet chocolate (the only chocolate left in the house) and heavy cream. The result was a fudge-like sludge that slowly separated, yet everyone claimed was delicious. By that time, three other people had arrived, and the bliss of chocolate and friends overroad the dubious consistency of the fondue.

Now the sludge is mixed with strawberries and walnuts and packed into wax paper because Tim, who was subsequently experiencing the chocolate high (I didn't), thought it would make good fudge. We'll see.

Mr Toad

Walking through the complex last night, I greeted Mr Toad who lives outside our apartment. I see him most nights, and almost step on him every time. He lurks in the shadows of the pampas grass that circles the pool, and seems like a rock kicked unknown onto the sidewalk. He's present more often than not after rain storms, which makes me think I don't know much about toads, as I always associated frogs with water, not toads.

Growing up in the country, I'd see toad outside at night all summer long. I love frogs for their relationship to water, but I love toads for their stoic solidity. They were silent and slow companions on my night strolls through our farm.

My family's cottage in Wisconsin, established by my maternal great-grandparents and handed down the generations, is called Toad Hill.

Mr Lizard

We also have a new friend who haunts our front porch, and swings from our balcony's drainpipe. He's brilliant green, and mesmerizes Olivia, who will perch on the railings, looking hopefully up at him as he hangs out upside down. She seems--for now--to realize jumping for him is impossible, so she prays he will come within reach of her claws.

He is no longer than my thumb.

Specialization

I dreamt last night that a woman from Loyola called me to say, "We've looked over your school records and don't think you'll be able to hack it here, so don't even try."

Just my insecurities manifesting themselves in dreams, I guess. The older I get, the less sure I am of my intellectual capabilities. That and I haven't done school work in a good eight years. But besides that, I'm worried about what to specialize in as a career. I have the vague idea that you're supposed to know it before you do grad school, so there you can hone your skills, but since I don't know yet, I'm hoping grad school is the place where I can explore what specialization I want.

I might be burnt out on crisis.

Dr. D, she of hip psychologist fame, says the common thread running through my speech when I talk about work is wanting to help people feel safe. I wonder what job in which I could participate in that? (That's not crisis work, I mean.)

All Het up

Today I encountered a lot of petty bullshit. Sometimes I am in awe of how mean-spirited, petty, and vindictive women can be when they have bigger problems they don't want to face. I ended my day confronting a client, "I've heard this report about your behavior. Did you do it? What about this report? Is it true?"

"I have witnessed myself the way you bully and pick at other women. It needs to stop."

Only it didn't. I left work only moments before she blew up at the other clients. How do I know this? Because I got a phone call. At home. From a client. This is the second time in two weeks that I have been called at home about client problems and complaints.

It's my fault, really. One day I took a client to a job interview right around the corner from my apartment, so I dropped her off, gave her my number, and went home to have lunch with Tim. I paused before handing over my number, but then I thought of the alternative, her calling back to the agency, and them calling me on my cell phone. It just seemed easier this way.

Oh boy was I not thinking. After the first call (and subsequent huge blowup that ensued that night, getting both my boss and I in trouble), I forgot to tell the client, "don't ever do that again. Throw away my number."

So she gave it to another woman who had a problem tonight to discuss with me.

Luckily, I can refer most problems (ish) to my boss, and she's used to being called at all hours with client strife and agency crisis, but I haven't heard back from her yet tonight, so I'm not going to be able to sleep. Wondering how the situation is playing out has me on edge all night.
About my job, I thought: "At least I can leave work at work," for I am pretty good at that. But I can't when it calls me at all hours.

What also makes me not be able to sleep are my actions before I left work. Initially, I was pretty proud of myself for confronting a slippery, bitchy, bullying woman. I've needed to for a while, but never much have the nerve.

But then I think, "that's why she blew up at the other clients." If I had just kept my mouth shut . . .

If I had just kept my mouth shut, then I'd have to put up with daily tattlings from other clients, though.

What the hell is the right thing to do in this situation? I'm sure not looking forward to tomorrow.

First Friday

It would be embarrassing to say that I'm buzzed from four tablespoon-sized cups of wine, so I'll say it's the excitement of having something to do with a new friend tonight.

My new work friend Fran and I went to the art museum for their First Friday activities. Wine tasting, snacks, cash bar, a jazzy country band, and art. I invited her to go because we had recently talked about the special photography exhibits that were about to close at the museum: Ansel Adams and William Wegman. We wandered the halls (the building and grounds are extraordinarily beautiful; the regular art collection merely so-so) and tried to carry on a conversation as the band's danceable music and loud voices of other people bounced off the tile floors. Terrible acoustics, there.

It was a neat event. I might have appreciated it in and of itself had my mind not currently been filled with Chicago again, so I compared it to the First Friday art openings I had been to there, and it was, well, very different. In Chicago, I could have indulged in more wine, because I wouldn't have to worry about driving home. And after the galleries closed, my friends and I would have spent many minutes narrowing down the choices of what to do next.

There are too many obstacles here: I considered inviting Fran to come over because we both enjoyed one of the proseccos at the tasting, and we could have gotten a bottle at Fresh Market, but then how would she have gotten herself home after we polished off a bottle together? And also, I need to clean the apartment because the MIL is arriving any minute.

But, I am making a new friend, and that's the most important part.

Chicago

What a day.

I don't know if I can even say that with much emphasis, because lately, every day has been one of those days. I came to the realization today, though, that I am not well suited for the job I have. It's just not in my nature to be aggressive and assertive, which the job really demands in order to do it effectively. And I hate thinking I'm bad across the board, when I know there are parts of my job that I really excel at.

So I was thinking about my future. Thinking about the possibility of returning to Chicago instead of sticking it out here and doing my graduate work through an extension program. And I came up with a selling point: Loyola has a really great clinical program, meaning I'd get a lot of experience in counseling, and then maybe I wouldn't have to work in a shelter again.

I also had an odd experience with a co-worker that made me think, "what era do we live in again?" I can't and won't make a blanket statement about how backwards the South is, but one co-worker sure is.

So I had these anecdotes as ammunition for talking to Tim tonight. "I'm not trying to pressure you, but I just have a few more reasons why Chicago would be a good next move . . ."

I didn't have a chance to tell him before he said, ". . . I've been thinking about animals in the zoo. How they're raised there, and if you take them out of the zoo, they don't thrive. That their habitat has become the zoo. I think maybe the Ellie habitat is hard wood floors, elevated trains, and tall buildings . . ."

And so we talked seriously about Chicago--what we need to do to prepare, how we would survive there on a grad student's loans and a new actor's sparse salary. Where we would live. Where we'd work. How we might have to base our lives out of his mom's basement for a month or two--a definite time limit there--to save up some money. How we'd bike to work and school to save on train fare and gas money.

Later, when I thanked him for the talk, I said, "It's good to at least talk about. I'll try not to focus on it too much and think it's a done deal" (because I have a tendancy to assume that when we talk about things, that means we decide to do them.)

And he said, "Well . . . isn't that what it sort of seems like it is?"

Water

Tim and Meghan had their first preview Sunday afternoon, and it went well enough that the director gave them the night off. We headed to the lake.

Meghan's not-boyfriend Byron is staying at a house on Lake Jordan. The back porch has a wooden staircase down to the dock, where a motor boat and a pontoon boat rest in their moorings. We took the pontoon boat out, putting aimlessly across the water. Various excursions down inlets and rivers yielded discussion of jumping from bridges (one spanned the river 80 feet above, over a river depth of 30 feet. No thanks.) and watching a young water boarder do back flips in boat wake.

The weather was perfect. We started out during early evening, and as the sun set, the clouds lit up in orange, and we drifted in the middle of the lake. The boat had a CD player, and Bryon played a mix CD he made as we dove into the water and floated on life jackets. We listened to the music float cross the lake and relaxed in the 83-degree water (that sounds hot, but it was perfect).

All weekend--probably due to skipping tennis--I felt low. Even skimming across the lake, wind whipping through my hair, I still felt tight bands constricting my chest, and a ball of dread in my stomach. I couldn't lose them, and I felt terrible, not being able to be fully present and enjoy the beautiful gift of an unexpected evening with Tim and friends in a blissful place.

But once I hit the water, everything melted away. After our first foray into the water, Meghan and Byron stayed on the boat, and we jumped back in, wanting to give them some privacy to talk, and wanting time for ourselves, too. Tim and I bobbed in the water, not ever wanting to leave.

(My hands are still water-wrinkled, two days later.)

When darkness fell, we headed in, and went for ice cream at a corner store a few miles away in Slapout.

The Boy's Store in Slapout, Alabama, is lit by the blinking yellow caution light that signifies the one intersection in town. It is a gas station, grocery, hardware, and bait store, and it's open to the late hour of 9 p.m. on Sunday night. Tim was enchanted with the tee-shirts, so we bought one, and a beer cozy, that said, "I'd rather be in Slapout!" We took our ice cream back to the house, and ate it laying on the dock, watching for shooting stars.

It was a break from reality. I can't wait to go out there again.