Busses

Today I went to a training seminar for area resources. One of the sections was about the local transit system. Fifteen bus routes that don't even cover half the city, and end by 8 p.m. You definitely need a car to get around this city. I'd never even try to plan a trip on a bus; it'd be a major undertaking.

Discussing the bus system gave me a sudden sock in the gut. Chicago. Oh, Chicago. The busses there are dirty, smelly, and always running late. God I loved them. Knowing how to maneuver the city in them, being able to decide on a whim to go somewhere, and hop on the bus . . . that made the city mine. Even if I was walking down the street, not aiming to catch the bus at all, just the sight of one made my stomach jump with excitement, knowing what freedom I had if I wanted to go wherever I wanted.

I don't know if this qualifies as a spiritual experience, but it's definitely moving: riding the bus home from a bar, slightly buzzed, whizzing through the city. It's different than riding the trains, which sail above the city. The buses delve through the heart of it, and I take note of places every time we pass, check them off in my heart. I felt like such a living, breathing molecule of the city in moments like those.

And so it aches to remember, and realize I'm now living in a place where cars replace walking to the store, the bus, to work.

And then? The strange thing is that it's been a while since I existed with a constant ache for Chicago. I'd wake up missing it, get through the day missing it, and fall asleep missing it. As visceral as my response to the local busses was today, reminding me of Chicago, so intense too was the realization that I hadn't been consciously missing it lately. Like a cold sore on your lip that you worry and worry and are constantly aware of--that you believe will never heal--suddenly one day you wake up and discover that it's been ages since the cold sore has healed.

Denial

This evening, I had an insane craving for some sort of dessert. I generally only crave sweets when I have PMS. I don't believe in making that week any harder than it already is, so I always indulge whatever. I am anti-denial in a serious way.

While, say, I know I'd regret it hugely afterwards if I ate an entire carton of chocolate ice cream, I also know that I tend to only want one bowl, and I think it would be ridiculous to not give myself one bowl when it is tremendously satisfying and delicious.

But I've also always been able to eat whatever I wanted. I was blessed with good genes and an even better metabolism. And then I turned 27. Was it the age? Was it starting a new birth control? Was it that falling in love triggered some hormone that helped add twenty pounds? Suddenly--not suddenly. I've been unhappy with it for a while.--I hate the roll of fat that covers my previously flat stomach. (I'll admit it. I was vain about my flat stomach that I had through no talent or effort of my own.)

I guess it helps that Tim is only more appreciative the more I turn into a woman instead of the poky, boney girl he met. He recently admitted he had thought I was too skinny at first.

But still. This means if I am unhappy with it, I better do something about it.

Tonight when I considered getting a blended Coke float at Sonic, I thought about its deliciousness in my mouth, and then I thought, "I haven't gone walking in the park in a few days. I'll do that, then if I still want one, I'll go." I was tricking myself. What? I secretly remembered that exercise usually curbs any junk food/sugar craving.

It's weird. I don't want one anymore; I knew I wouldn't. But I'm not sure who this person is that decided to exercise instead getting Sonic. I hope this continues. I signed up for a tennis clinic at the gym Tim started teaching Pilates. And they have a pool!

Routine and more flip flops

Routine is so soothing. I love my Sunday nights with Desperate Houswives and Grey's Anatomy, and preparing my lunch for the next day. Setting out my clothes for the next day (strange how five minutes the night before seems to save half an hour the next morning), and getting into bed to read and cuddle the cats before turning out the lights.

Sometimes I wonder if routine just masks the fact that I feel pretty lonely right now. I've noticed I've been doing a lot of reminiscing, daydreaming about Chicago, college, even high school. I think I've been so sad about the person I am today that I have to remind myself that it's just a phase, a cycle of depression that I'll get through. And that I was once a dynamic, fun person, and I can be that again.

It's hard to think about making friends when I'm someone right now that I wouldn't want to be friends with. I hate the low self-esteem, the distorted view I have every time I look in the mirror. I think I hate it so much more because I know this isn't me. I've been a confident, beautiful, fun person, and it's not really me to be a hater.

On a happier note, though, I bought some Teva flip flops this weekend that aren't very uncomfortable, and I got all excited because I finally felt like A Real Girl. It seems so insignificant when I talk about it, but it's killed me my whole life that I have feet problems and can't wear cute shoes like every other woman. I don't need stilettos or thigh high boots. I just need to wear sandals in the summer with my cute skirts and shorts instead of tennis shoes and athletic socks.

Arrested Development

I think if I could watch a new Arrested Development every day, I wouldn't be so depressed.

Important flip flop developments

I bought some, and I love them. They're Aerosoles.

They hurt my feet. I have a swelling bruise on one arch, and my toe muscles are all tight and sore from gripping the shoe beds. The flops are kind of heavy, because they have some padding.

But I still love them. I think my feet will get more used to them. They'll never be totally 100% comfortable, but I can't find any non-tennies that aren't.

I'm just excited to join the rest of the human race experiencing naked summer toes!

But with black straps:

Being alone

A few years ago, I discovered how much I enjoy my own company, and started relishing my time alone. If I wanted to go to a restaurant, I'd go. If I was bored at home, I'd take my book to a coffeeshop. Shopping, biking, sightseeing, I did it. It was something I had to push myself into, because at first, I just wanted to assert my independence, and remind myself that I could do it, but after a while, it became a habit. The only thing I never mastered was sitting at a bar alone, but after a failed attempt at smoking (for something to do with the hands), I decided it didn't really matter, and I was still an independent woman even without a regular attachment to a neighborhood bar.

It must be the culture of cities, though. Here, being alone just means being lonely. The wait staff wouldn't know what to do if I brought a book into a restaurant and ate by myself. Everything revolves around doing things with other people.

But Saturday night, after I went rollerblading in the park, I felt like doing something. I started driving out to Sonic for a blended Coke float, but then I decided to go to a movie instead. I hadn't planned on it, so I didn't know what was showing, but I was in time for Fever Pitch, which, well, I had nothing against. So I got some stale popcorn and a Coke slush, and settled in for the movie.

It was lovely. It made me feel so good about myself that I was able to entertain myself on a Saturday night, instead of sitting at home watching videos or being online. Being here has made me doubt myself so much. I didn't even think I was the same person who lived in Chicago half a year ago. But this little thing made me feel like I was back.

Plays

It's a running joke that I hate plays. And it's funny, ha ha, because I married an actor. I feel bad sometimes, but I know Tim hates what I do. (Well, he hates that a need for the job exists, and sometimes it's too hard for him to listen to me talk about it.) I mostly hate getting bored and feeling stupid because I don't grasp the grand themes that plays revolve around.

Once I watched a play that ended up with an explosion (in sound only, off-stage). Afterwards, someone asked, "That was tragic when she died, wasn't it?" and after I bumbled around and sounded like an idiot for a while, I realized the explosion wasn't random, and was actually an integral part of the plot. I'm not that smart sometimes. I just get bored.

And it's hardest to watch people I know. It doesn't matter how good they are, watching Tim and his classmates act like rustic peasants in Shakespeare, or like farmhands in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, is just watching Tim and his classmates put on accents and dress-up clothes. They never stop being the people I know. So when Tim asks if I liked his version of [whatever], I hem and haw and say, "You were fantastic!" Because he is fantastic. I just can't tell what sort of subtlties he's putting into the part. He's always my husband.

But last night I saw one that blew me away. Arthur Miller's All My Sons. Despite the fact that I analyzed whether or not I thought Tim could do all the male parts (he played the next-door neighbor), I still got lost in it. Well, sort of. When a character would rage or cry, I'd think, "That was a good display of emotion! Well done!" instead of just being into the story. But the ending! Oh, the ending! Tim and Meghan (who played his wife) warned me I would cry, and I scoffed at them. I was right. Sort of. Not crying. Full-on sobbing.

It was so powerful. The lights came up way too quickly after the end, and the actors cheerfully took their bows, oblivious to the fact that they just devastated us. I just wanted to go sit in a corner by myself and think about it for a long time. I had some time to kill while Tim got out of dress and makeup, and I started crying again when he appeared. But we then went to the dessert reception afterwards, and I felt robbed out of fully absorbing the emotion and tragedy of the play.

Because I don't talk enough about the weather

I went walking outside last night, and the weather reminded me so much of what I grew up with in Kansas. I can't believe I'm finding it down here; I love it.

There was something powerful about the melancholic dark dampness of Kansas springs. In Chicago, it was grey for months, and then suddenly in the summer, hot as hell. In Kansas, and Alabama, the springtime sun dips behind a cloud, and the sky turns into rumbling dark moments of thunder and rain. It reminds me of high school. As much as I think, in theory, that high school was something to be endured, survived, and forgotten, there were times of incredible brilliance, too. My favorite memories are enclosed in a rainy day.

Prom. Junior, senior year? It doesn't matter anymore. They both took place during a spring storm. Suddenly school hierarchy melted away, and everyone was best friends. I attended both with my girl friends, no dates, and there was something fun and carefree about it, rather than depressing because of the lack of boy attention. I got to dance with someone I'd never admit to having a crush on. The (junior) prom I engineered ended up a masterful success. At an after-party, the class asshole taught me how to use a lasso, and we were friends for a brief moment. (That could have, of course, presaged our random drunken one-night-stands in college, but who knew at the time?) The after-after-party, the first party I ever attended that had beer (I was sheltered!), and an NC-17 movie. We ran barefoot in our princess dresses through the puddles to our cars, and we all drove home at dawn, still raining, to sleep for the whole weekend.

In Chicago, the grey-ness of winter drags at the soul, and it seems interminable to even hope that the sun is just in hiding. The grey days here have power behind them. A hint of menace, and thunder, and an exciting promise. Spring, rebirth? Seems like such a fucking cliche. But still.

Denver

Was fantastic. Going to Colorado always feels like coming home, but I've never loved being there quite this much. I felt like it could be my city, and I could fit in and love it. Boulder, too. I'd always felt a bit weird and out-of-place there, because I came from hippie roots, but I'm not really part of that anymore. But this time, I realized I could be whoever I really was there. And maybe reconnect with the hippie roots.

And it was wonderful to be around friends again. Like spending the whole weekend enveloped in a warm hug.

And Ethiopian food? I can't wait to move there.

I can't sleep

I can't sleep. I am dreading going to work tomorrow and having people find out that I dropped the ball for one of my clients. I don't dread people finding out as much as I dread the fall-out of me not taking care of something that I should have. That it will screw over my client when it was really my fault. Nothing will happen to me. My boss might be displeased for a little while, but I would deserve it, and can deal.

But I have an excuse. My head has been going a mile a minute in the past few days, trying to figure out how to best serve someone who is mentally retarded and incapable of monitoring her health. Spending hours on the phone with different agencies, most of whom say (between the double talk), "we can't help her; she's your problem now," and hours sitting at the doctor's office, waiting on blood tests and glucose monitors; she's all I've been able to think about lately. To the point where I am starting to feel anxious about being online at home right now, in case the night manager is trying to reach me to tell me the client is sick again.

And yet . . . it's not a good excuse. I routinely have up to five people I'm working with at once. It's part of my job to juggle them all.

Oh to be an editor still. To have my worst worry be that I let a mispelling slip into print, or a journal sent late to the printer. I did a freelance job for the old department last weekend, and I remembered all the parts about the job that I loved (not the parts that I hated). I am a little sad to have editing be only in my past. I sometimes wish I could meet with clients four days a week, and the fifth, run the production department, knocking out brochures, flyers, the Web site.

Working with people--the part I wanted when I was stuck in a quiet office editing all day--can be so overwhelming sometimes.

Music

Every time I listen to Ani's Little Plastic Castles album, it hurts my heart. I hadn't listened to much of her music, despite being an angsty feminist college grrrl with occasional "well, maybe I should date women?" inclinations. It came to me--from a boyfriend, actually--as I graduated from collegeand struck out for Chicago, and it has come to perfectly encapsulate the dreams, expectations, and feelings I have about the city.

I'm not much for lyrics. They're always the least important part about a song for me. When people include lyrics in their writing, I generally skip over them, because they don't resonate with me. But in "Deep Dish," I searched the lyrics particularly because it's a Chicago song. And this struck me:

this is only a possibility in a world of possibilities
there are obviously there are many possibilities
ranging from small to large
before long there will be short
before short there was nothing
when there was nothing
there was always the possibility of something becoming what it is

The album makes me feel like I'm walking alone at night in the middle of a deserted street in Rogers Park, walking towards the lake, my head back, my arms wide, embracing everything. A cool summer night, and I am perfectly alone, and perfectly full of contentment and the kind of experiences that make you gasp and say, "so this is what it's like to be alive!" It's enough of an overwhelming feeling that I can't listen to the album around other people, because they'd never understand why I choke up or suddenly become somber.

In truth, the album made me want to be a person I never was, and gave me dreams about the kind of life I'd live that wasn't a reality for the kind of person I am. So my life never lived up to the fantasy, and it took a while to realize that my life worked out exactly the way it was supposed to. So I'm not the kind of person who has lots of angsty politicos for friends, and I didn't live in a spare, dusty apartment with an intellectual cat, a fouton, and millions of books. No candles stuck in wine bottles, and dinner parties where we debated all the Deep Subjects. When it hurts that I am not the type of person I wanted to be, I try to remember that type of person wouldn't own a purple velvet couch. One purchased new, anyway.