Race

I think about race a lot. Every day I am confronted with it.

I've never been in such a position before, working with an even mix of black and white people. I've never lived in a place with an even mix. In Chicago, the mix was international. I heard different languages every day. If I ever saw a black person in my neighborhood, I was surprised, because that area was primarily Eastern European, Hispanic, or yuppie white. Unless I was in the South Side, I never went anyplace that was primarily black. And that was once, when CTA insisted the fastest way to Midway was the Red Line straight south, then a bus across the South Side to the airport. (For future reference, it is most definitely not the fastest route.) But it was the most interesting. I watched the train thin out and become completely populated with blacks. By the time we reached the bus station, I was the only white person in the crowd.

When I was a kid, my parents were friends with the sole black woman in town. She had two kids; Hans was in my class, and I didn't like him because he wet his pants in kindergarten. But Hans had a brother a year older, and I worshipped him because he was the fastest runner in our school (grades K-2).

I guess because my parents were friends with their mom, and they didn't make a big deal out of it, it didn't dawn on me that the family was different than us. My parents never said a word about race. So was it my own inner morals that cringed every time (and frequently) I'd hear a racial slur from classmates growing up? I don't know. Somehow I just knew it was wrong. But I wonder sometimes if I tell that story about Hans and his family to show off that I Am Of Course Not Racist (what with my token black childhood friend and all)?

(In this context, at least, it is Just A Story About My Childhood.)

We have interns from a local hospital who take turns volunteering for our medical clinic at work. They work in 4-week rotations. The current doc is kind of bitchy. The first time she was here, one of my co-workers, K, gave her a tour, and the doctor was pretty standoffish and unfriendly. K was talking about her being bitchy, and said, gesturing to another black co-worker, "I think maybe she doesn't like us." I wondered if that was her automatic reaction when whites weren't friendly to her. (I was rather pleased, and, well, annoyed, when the doctor treated me with the same rudeness as she had K.)

Tim says yes. That it's the same reaction he has when a black person doesn't like him.

One of my co-workers--I don't think she likes me that much. It's just a feeling I get. It never occurred to me that she might not like me simply because my skin color, though. I assume that it has to do with my personality. Is that incredibly naive, or innocently blissful of race issues? Insecure about my own personality enough to not think about anything else? (I am fairly proud of myself for not catering to her or bending over backwards to get her to like me. I am who I am.)

I have lunch often at Subway in a section of town where I am often the only white person in the store. I say, "yes, ma'am" and "thank you," and keep my head down. But that's the way I behave no matter where I go in this town, because I'm not entirely comfortable anywhere here. And I'm not generally a rude person. But I wonder if I'm extra polite in an all-black establishment because I'm constantly aware of being the lone white? And am I trying to overcompensate so they don't hate me, or are rude to me? Am I trying to blend in so I don't insult anyone with my mere presence?

My preoccupation with it both bothers and intrigues me. I worry that I am secretly racist. I know that I probably am, in ways I don't even realize or could never even articulate. So I don't stop going there. I like living through uncertainty and not being entirely comfortable. I think I am learning so much about myself and the world here.

From inside a black and white

I did a ride-along with a police officer at my internship. We started around 3:30, just when Evanston Township High School was letting out. LG, the field training officer I was riding with has a regular shift at the school, so we parked on the south end of school. A block down, she said there was another car posted; a paddy wagon cruised in front of the main entrance, and one or two undercover detectives circled campus. I couldn't believe it. It seemed excessive, but LG said there were fights there nearly every day. We sat there for 45 minutes, but the kids all filed peaceably past.

About halfway through our watch, a white car filled with boys and booming music pulled up to the light next to us. Immediately LG said, "that car's on a special watch," and punched the license into her computer to verify. I guess someone a few streets over called in to complain that this car was speeding on the street, and the boys in it were smoking weed. I got momentarily excited, because I thought LG might go after them, but she said she couldn't move during school duty, and we'd catch them later. (We didn't.) She said if she came across them again, she'd find a reason to pull them over.

That instigated a really interesting conversation about drugs and the law. Evidently if an officer pulls a driver over and has suspicion of illegal activity (like smells it or something), they can say, "Would you step out of the car, please?" and when the driver and/or passengers do, that action gives the police the legal right to search the car. And if the driver refuses to get out of the car, officers can do whatever they need to in order to remove the person from the car.

LG also told me the difference in smells between burnt and unburnt cannabis. I kept my mouth shut. It's a good thing if a cop thinks you're too naive to know about that.

Then we cruised Evanston, and I got to see all the bad parts. (I had no idea Evanston had an underbelly!) Once there was a bank hold-up call, and LG decided to race to it, despite being all the way on the opposite end of the city. She said it's usually a false alarm, but in case it wasn't . . . By the time we got there, the call had been cancelled, but it was pretty exciting to be in the car with the sirens going, speeding through rush hour.

After that, she pulled over a woman who illegally turned right on red--right in front of us! LG said that if she pulls someone over, she's going to give them a ticket, no passes. LG wants to be a traffic cop. I thought that sounded pretty boring, just going after driving offenses, but she said that it included doing accident reconstructions.

That was about the highlight of the afternoon. It was pretty slow. None of the calls were for us, though we did check on two other incidents (two boys fighting, and a drunk, injured man) to see if the officers there needed help. We cruised past all the parks where kids usually hang out and get into mischief, though no one was that day. LG took me to one of the parks where the Latino gangs usually are, and pointed out, "That's so-and-so. He's a Latin King. And that's so-and-so. he's in Los Locos." She told me a lot about gangs, which was super interesting. I guess when a Latin King murders someone, he gets to tattoo 5 dots on his hand, like on a dice. Those who specialize in thievery get to tattoo 3 dots.

Towards the end of the ride, we came across two drug officers who LG is friends with, and we parked in a community center lot and talked for a while.

LG said I should do a ride along on a Saturday night. It would definitely be more action-packed than this afternoon was, but it was really nice to see more of Evanston, and get familiar with some of the areas where my future kids (clients) hang out.

Thinking back

The day after I graduated from college, my belongings were packed in the back of a truck, and my parents and I drove to Chicago.

Growing up, every time we'd visit, we'd arrive the same way, from the south, up the Dan Ryan to LSD, and then the home stretch to my grandparents' home just north of the city, in Evanston. Coming up Sheridan Road in Rogers Park, I'd get a thrill of excitement, because to me, Rogers Park was the city. It was the embodiment of everything I believed Chicago to be.

So I was finally there! The city was mine! (Well, sort of. The fact that I lived in what could technically be called a suburb didn't phase me.) Evanston wasn't a typical suburb, anyway. It was a cross between being its own city and a small town.

That summer, I ran the baked streets, getting to know the cafes, vintage bookstores, and thrifts. I worked at a cafe near Northwestern, and I flirted with the intellectual professors who'd spend their Sunday mornings over my coffee and a newspaper. Sometimes nights I'd walk through the neighborhood on the lake, the one with unbelievably fancy mansions and daydream about what it would be like to live in one.

I was lonely still, missing my Kansas boyfriend and worried about job prospects, but it was also a glorious time, filled with newness. The world unrolled itself at my feet, and I could have done anything.

Memories like that rush back at the touch of hot summer wind, or the smell of coffee beans freshly ground. Certain music can resurrect the exact feelings I had at any given moment during that period. The experience is so deeply imprinted upon my psyche.

It goes without saying that there is an entire chamber of my heart devoted to Evanston. I still work here, 9.5 years after that beautiful summer. So I was excited to also do my internship here.
And it's different.

I'm older.

I'm seeing a different side of the city, the one where 25% of the citizens live at or below the poverty line. Where the streets I formerly skipped down, if I turn left instead of right, I discover low-income areas I never knew existed.

Knowing about the urban problems that Evanston's pretty, tree-lined streets cover up sour my memories of the perfect college "town" I used to know. It's hard to enjoy its beauty when I know about the uneasy alliance between the priviledged and unpriviledged.

But sometimes, sometimes sometimes, I'm able to walk into the organic cafe that's near my internship, sit down with some tea, and be transported back, unfettered, in the glorious spell that this place once cast upon me.

Football season

I love football season. Football, I am indifferent. But football season I love.

It hearalds the fall, newness, and the memory of high school games. Racing to the stadium an hour early for pep band. LeAnn and I careening down Main street, pulling on our uniforms as we drove. (Well, I was able to wiggle into my flag corps outfit and flash passersby; LeAnn had to wait until she could stand up straight before being buckled into her straitjacket of a marching-band uniform.) In the early days of the season, the late afternoon sun would still be hot, and we'd stretch across the concrete steps amidst a cacophony of brass and woodwinds warming up. Then we'd line up by the locker room, instruments aloft, flags whipping in the breeze. The toms started pounding out our school song, drumbeats on the warpath, and the football players would stream through our tunnel and onto the field. There was a glorious feeling of belonging, of togetherness. Sometimes catching glimpses of a grass field crisscrossed with padded, uniformed players, and rickety stands holding family and friends makes me nostalgic for my own Friday Night Lights.

(It wasn't until my senior year that I could even follow the game, that I understood the direction our team was running pointed to our goal. I still don't know which positions stand where on the field--and I really don't care--but at least I have some sense of what happens.)

In college, the season signified lazy Saturday afternoons in the dorms, distant cheers from the stadium and, for one year, a glimpse of the field from my room. Rising late, lunch in a nearly empty cafeteria, and trips to Walmart in the afternoon. Blaring Alanis's "Jagged Little Pill" while preparing for a night out, drinking screwdrivers from plastic mugs if we were lucky enough to corral a 21-year-old before the liquor stores closed at 9 p.m.

After college, it took me a few years to lose the fall expectations, to get used to life continuing as usual, no school year to begin. And football became related to my relatives, turkey and stuffing, ham, kielbasa, and sauerkraut. Holiday dinners.

This weekend, I treated the apartment to a deep cleaning. Tim didn't have class. I scrubbed the stove while he exercised in the living room. He had the game turned on while he lunged, squatted, and did various exercise-y things. Alabama spanked the hell out of South Carolina. Periodically we'd chant: "Roll Tide! Roll!" (I feel that since Alabama is paying for Tim's degree, we should have some school pride.)

It was a perfect, beautiful day. In the evening, we went to a class dinner; at 7 p.m., twilight had already settled in, and the night vibrated with excitement, with beginnings. The biggest, orangest, Georgia peach of a full moon sat on the horizon.

I love football season.

Glorious sadness

Just a small town girl, livin in a lonely world
She took the midnight train goin anywhere
Just a city boy, born and raised in south detroit
He took the midnight train goin anywhere

When I was in college, I had what I thought was a great idea for a short story. I think it was about an abused woman. My boyfriend at the time started yelling at me, "Why can't you write anything happy??" He didn't understand when I said that sadness was more compelling.

I've always been drawn to it. I have that luxury, I suppose, given that I have had a overwhelmingly normal, functional life filled with much happiness. There's a hyperreality to sadness, an idea of, "this is it; this is what it means to really feel."

That must explain why I am obsessed with 80s music. It's desperate and sad, melodies that plaster themselves across a heart and chest that is barely keeping it together. One note away from falling apart. Listening to it summons the feelings, the physicality of it in an instant.

When I was in junior high, I got invited to a slumber party at D's house. I don't know why. Perhaps her mother suggested it. We certainly weren't friends. She was sweet and kind, and popular for those reasons, but she also continually sported a leather jacket from her much older boyfriend (she started dating high school boys when we was in the 5th grade, yet as far as I knew, never suffered any vicious talk behind her back about it). To note that these jackets, the succession of them, were probably Members-Only jackets really puts a damper on how thoroughly bad ass they seemed. For she didn't date the cross country team, the basketball team; she dated the guys who took welding for the express purpose of pouring their creative energies into making water pipes and got caught smoking behind the gym instead of participating in P.E. class. Guys she somehow tamed into watching their language and politely extinguishing their butts when she came around.

This was the girl who invited me to a slumber party. This was the girl about whose parties I'd heard whispered rumors. To say I was rattled and mystified at my invitation is an understatement. I wondered if it was a joke or if she had somehow lost a bet and I was the butt of it.

It was unlike any sleepover I'd ever been to. We got to order pizza, and drink Mountain Dew in her room, making prank calls on her private phone line. Her bedroom walls were plastered with posters of Warrant, Stryker, and Motley Crue. We watched videos on MTV (a channel I had only heard about). D talked knowledgeably about the themes in her favorite song, "Janie's Got a Gun," using words I had never even heard before, and she sighed over Nikki Sixx and Janie Lane.

Then her boyfriend drove past. He and his friends picked us up, and we cruised Main for a while. It was something I knew older kids to do; never imagined I would do it, too. The high school boys blared their hair metal and tolerated us waving our arms out of the windows in the air stream and shrieking.

It was almost too much for my system. Wired on caffeine and newness, the whole evening had a dreamlike quality. It became imperative to cross my arms in front of my chest, holding myself together in an attempt to keep my chest from breaking open and merging with the night. I didn't know how to stop it, how to put on the brakes and regain control out of the heady dizziness that the night became. I didn't want to. I didn't want it to ever end. It was wildly beautiful, desperate, and sad. I couldn't have articulated it then, but I sensed something beyond my experience, beyond my maturity, about the gorgeous tragedy of boys looking for excitement in a dead-end small town, of beautiful, ripening girls, children really, anxiously expanding the boundaries of experience.

Happy International Women's Day!

I am celebrating (if you can call it that) today by preparing for my internship interview tomorrow with an agency that specializes in working with sexual trauma. I am beyond nervous. I wrote up possible questions and role played with Tim to practice. He pulled out all the stops and acted like it was a real interview, and I don't know if it was that or what, but I got so nervous and tense that my body actually started spasming. Sometimes I feel awkward talking shop in a pretend way, with people I know. It just doesn't feel natural. I hope that's what it is, and not a preview of how the real interview is going to go. I am simultaneously 100% terrified of this internship and committed to having it for my very own.

Ack.

Edited to say: wow. The potentially most nerve-wracking interview ever, and I left there bouncing up and down and couldn't stop smiling! There was a group Q&A period (seven of us), and then we each took turns interviewing with two different people. They really were racing through it, so I had to make sure to really put as much of myself into each answer, and add things when they didn't ask. I'm glad this wasn't my first interview--I've learned a few things since I've started this process.

I interviewed first with a woman, and it seemed to go well, but when I interviewed with the man, I knew that things were soaring. He had lived in Mississippi, so we bonded over the south, and when I asked what he was looking for in an intern, pretty much everything he said fit exactly who I was. Also, he said that when he and the woman were looking over resumes, they'd put either a check plus or a check minus on each one (for whether they wanted to interview the person), and rarely did they have the same opinion. Then he showed me my resume, which had their checks plus plus on it!

(It occurs to me later that if, like they said, they had 50+ applicants and only interviewed 12, probably all of us twelve were the check plus pluses, but in the moment, it gave me great confidence, and I settled down and felt very comfortable in the interview.)

Everything their agency does is amazing and terrifying, and I want to work there so badly. It would position me incredibly for finding a job after graduation. I would learn SO MUCH there.

There's just one issue I have, and I wasn't sure whether or not to bring it up, but I was feeling so comfortable with the man that when he asked if I'd seen their web site and was there anything on there I was nervous or uncomfortable with, I was honest. I told him it was the fact that their agency seemed like a private practice, and since they essentially were, and the interns exist mostly to help the DCFS-mandated clients, Public Aid, and others who can't afford it, do they feel like they're doing a disservice to the underpriviledged?

I worded it better than that, though, and he wrote down my question before answering, so I think he was impressed I brought it up. He said yes, and it was a struggle the agency was constantly dealing with, and I can appreciate that.

I don't want to help people who can afford to pay me a lot of money. I want to work with those who can't afford it. It makes me uneasy to think about working in a private practice, but the place also really excites me for the therapy opportunities it presents. No way could I turn that down.

At any rate, I left feeling on top of the world. I was only with six of the other eleven people they interviewed, but out of that group, I felt very confident that I was the perfect fit for the internship.

Nobody Knows Me

And I like cream in my coffee
And I like to sleep late on Sunday
And nobody knows me like my baby
And I like eggs over easy
With flour tortillas
And nobody knows me like my baby

And nobody holds me
And nobody knows me
Nobody knows me like my baby

But it was a dream made to order
South of the border
And nobody knows me like my baby
And she cried man how could you do it
And I swore that there weren't nothing to it
But nobody knows me like my baby

And nobody holds me
And nobody knows me
Nobody knows me like my baby

And I like cream in my coffee
And I hate to be alone on Sunday
And nobody knows me like my baby

When I was 17, I met my boyfriend at a church youth rally. He was tall, lanky, with a shock of dark hair hanging in his eyes and a deep scar on his cheek. He spoke French to me and tucked me into his beat-up motorcycle jacket, and when I found out how embarrassingly too young for me he was, it was too late. I was already smitten.

We lived two hours from each other, so our relationship was a torrid, letter-writing affair that lasted for a month or two. I invited him to my senior prom, and he was excited about wearing a thrift-store suit with giant safety pins instead of cuff links. I was a grunge girl; I should have rejoiced in my hip, hot boyfriend, but instead I was mortified by the idea, and soon we broke up.

The one thing I got out of the relationship was this Lyle Lovett song. I bet somewhere at my parents' house, in my old bedroom, I could still find the mix tape he made me, stuck between yearbooks and old prom pictures. There was no play list; the song came on between folky alternative songs, and in the context of those, I assumed it was a folk or acoustic rock song.

Four or five years later, I was getting to know my classmates during my stint in a creative writing program in Ireland. Someone brought a Lyle Lovett CD and put it on the stereo. His big-band country sound gave no indication that the album contained this song. In my vodka and orange juice-induced daze (a typical state that summer), I may have started crying at the song. It reminded me of my past, and a song long forgotten.

So then I knew who performed it. Yet I never made any attempt to own the CD. I still don't. I have tracked down a copy once or twice to put on mix CDs, but it's not a song I want to own. It's one I want to be surprised with in unexpected moments.

Like at roadhouses in the middle of Iowa, during road trips with Tim, when we knew nothing of our future, only that we loved each other fiercely. He put a few coins in the old jukebox, and the song came on. We sat in the sticky bar booth, looking at each other, tears prickling our eyes as we listened together, and part of our future together fell into place.

On that note I'd like to end, but I have to add, it wasn't until Tim that I actually listened to the lyrics in the second verse. I was so smitten with the beautiful melody, Lyle's lonesome voice, and the beauty of the idea of knowing someone so well that I didn't realize the song was actually about infidelity. I wondered why I have always been so drawn to songs about pain and heartbreak. (Another noncontender and gorgeous song completely unfit for our wedding was Zepplin's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You." Rats.)

But I'm reminded tonight of The Princess Bride, and a line my friends and I would recite to the screen every time we watched it: "Life is pain, highness!" (Prince Humperdink--I think) and I think part of the beauty of heartbreaking songs is the music putting eloquent words to what we know of our own lives.

Sundays in the South

I have my weekends planned out pretty well. One day is for relaxing, the other for shopping. (It always surprises me how many groceries we go through a week.) The shopping day often also requires a trip to Target, which is never an appealing way to pass an hour or so. So this weekend, I defied my usual practice and spent Saturday relaxing, cleaning, and napping with the kitties. It was perfect. But that didn’t mean Sunday dawned and I jumped out of bed ready to shop.

But it helped that it is gorgeous today. Sixty or 65 degrees, which I believe is unusual for this time of year here. The streets were quieter than usual, and I decided to go to the music store first as a treat. I was looking forward to walking in wearing my J. Lo velour track suit, and completely confounding the clerk when I asked for a “Teach Yourself the Concertina” book and a go at the drum sets. Of course, being Sunday, it was closed. I was disappointed, but since the day was so beautiful, and it was good to get out of the house, I instead thought about what I love about Sundays here.

Most things are closed. I used to love spending Sunday mornings having breakfast at a diner, or at Café Selmarie, so it was hard to adjust to nothing being open here. Now I love how quiet it is. Everything shuts down, so I’m forced to relax. I appreciate the slower pace of life. In Chicago, Sunday was a mad dash to do something, to maximize my weekend, my time off before I went back to a job that I (irrationally) hated. If I didn’t do something cool, I’d end up in the evening with a heavy feeling in my stomach, a serious depression facing the rest of the night. Angela Chase did say it best: “There’s something about Sunday night that really makes you want to kill yourself.”

(Was it really the frenetic pace of Chicago that made me feel like I never absorbed enough culture or city life? Or was it that I hated my job, felt stagnant in life, had a bunch of dreams that hinged on “next year” and “when x happens, I can do y”?)

At any rate, being here forces me to make the most of the little that’s here, and since I don’t like most of what’s here (though there is a real, authentic coffeehouse I keep meaning to check out), I feel more comfortable not doing anything. Relaxing, and enjoying my time off work.

I love this slow, deliberate pace of life. A quiet, reflective Sunday afternoon is my church. Wind in the trees the hymns, and a still pool of water my prayer.

Could I really spend my life in a small town that afforded this to me? Maybe I could, if it weren’t this small town.

Creepiness

This week, I had to go rescue someone whose car had broken down in the next town over. I didn't want to go, because it meant missing a baby shower for a friend I hadn't seen in a while, but there was no one else around to do it, and I figured, it's only about 8 miles away. How long could that take? I skipped my lunch hour and went with another counselor.

It was a grey day, raining intermittently. In the beginning, it was sort of fun, because I've not seen much Alabama countryside (I stick to the city). And the country is really pretty down here. Hauntingly beautiful on a dark day when it's been raining all week. Spanish moss hung from the trees, ghostlike in its winter grey-green. We were near a river, but there was also standing water making swamps in just about every field we passed.

But it wasn't until we realized we had no idea where this woman was that I started to regret the trip; and haunting no longer meant really damn pretty. It meant--haunting. We drove down one lonely highway for a while until my companion said, "I don't have a good feeling about this." In all likelihood, that probably meant "Jesus is telling me this is not the road we're looking for," but I have darker sensibilities, and I started to get a creepy feeling in my stomach. I pulled off onto a dead end to turn around. The road was crumbling blacktop, and it was hard to get traction once we got off the shoulder. I slammed on the brakes that put us into a tailspin when I realized, in front of us, rain-soaked and partially gutted, left for dead (they were), were two deer crumpled in the mud.

Where I'm from, deer are hunted for their meat and their horns. Not left to be scavenged by wild animals on the side of the road. Then it started to rain in earnest, and I got scared. Perhaps a slightly ridiculous feeling, because I was enclosed in a powerful van with another person, an impenetrable barrier to whatever I was scared of. Maybe? I felt (imagined?) a disquiet, unwelcoming presence in the country there. The South frightens me in many ways, but the most indescribable way is how I feel in the country here. I feel as though the wilderness could tear me to pieces without anything ever laying a hand on me. Like the desolation is a real person gone mad from loneliness.

My head felt shattered: a throbbing signal kept blinking in my right temple, sending pain waves throughout my skull. Air pressure headaches, I believe. Their power to cripple does little to dissuade me that this country is out to get me.

Chicago concerts

Of all the things I miss about Chicago, the biggest one right now is the Old Town School of Folk Music. I used to volunteer for their concerts—and I forgot to tell them that I moved—so I got a sign-up sheet for the spring 2005 concerts. And now my heart hurts from missing all these good ones:

Jan. 16: Robbie Fulks’ Secret Country (Bill Kirchen, Phil Lee)

Jan. 23: Eric Bibb
I volunteered for a Leo Kottke show about four years ago, and the then-unknown blues guitarist Eric Bibb opened for him. I was absolutely blown away. It was just him on stage with his guitar. He did slap bass, stomped his feet, and had a fantastic voice. He’s now my favorite contemporary blues guitarist. Fantastic!

Jan. 30: Danu
When I studied in Ireland the summer I was 20, one night we were out at a pub with a live band that night (I think it was the Quays). Officially a live band, not a pick-up group like most pubs there had in the afternoon. One of my classmates, Stephanie, had some connection to them (maybe she picked them up in another pub earlier in the day? Those were the sorts of connections she made.), and knew them. We drank a lot of Murphy’s, and pretended to Irish step dance on the dance floor (annoying drunk Americans, I know, I know). The band was amazing. I think we may have met them afterwards (but by now, one pub night in Galway eight years ago tends to blend with another). What I particularly remember from the evening is: 1. Irish guys know where Kansas is because everyone in the world is familiar with “The Wizard of Oz.” 2. Danu was amazing.

Feb. 5, 6: Alejandro Escovedo
Alt-country god.

Feb. 12: Lhasa
Slinky melancholy tango. The woman (never sure if she is Lhasa, or if that’s the group’s name) has an incredible god. This is what the Old Town Web site says about her: “She is a strange and unusual singer who is part hippie blues singer, part Edith Piaf and a smokey, murky version of Tom Waits as Mexican jazz diva.”

March 12: Ladysmith Black Mambazo
I know them mostly as the South African singers who were on Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album.

I would kill to go to any of these shows.

Sunday

This Sunday, I awoke sad. Tim went to church, so I was alone for most of the morning, breeding grounds for worse depression. The odd thing was, inside, I felt like being in a good mood, and I couldn't understand the sadness. It was as though I am used to the pattern of being depressed on the weekend, so I fall into it even when I'm not really in the mood for it.

But in the afternoon, I had arranged a tennis date with a girl from work. I was worried she was humoring me, and I had trapped her into playing with me. I don't know why I'd believe that. Surely if she didn't like me, or didn't want to play, she just would have said "no thanks," right? At any rate, we went during the hottest part of the day. I think every time I play tennis during the afternoon, I get sun stroke. So we didn't last long. But it was so much fun! It was easier to talk with her outside of work. I may have convinced her to come play with the other women I have tennis with on Thursdays. We already know one other woman at work who plays, so if we can find another, we could do our own doubles. It was a good idea to get out and be active, regardless of how hot, and it was really nice to connect with her.

For the past few weeks I've been craving El Rey, their fantastic organic cheese dip and margaritas. Tim came home for dinner and announced he didn't have to go back, so we took off with Meghan and Lauren to pig out. Meghan is also doing South Beach, and Lauren is trying to just eat healthier, so it was a treat for us.

El Rey, unfortunately, is closed on Sundays, so we ended up at a subpar Mexican restaurant, ten minutes before happy hour ended. Cheese dip, chili rellenos, and half-price margaritas are hard to argue against, even when the margaritas are from a mix, not fresh, but are pale and syrupy from the amount of tequila in them. And hot corn chips! Oh god, the corn chips! I swear, corn chips are what I miss MOST about dieting.

In the middle of the meal, someone remembered hearing about an Indian grocery store that was planning on expanding to have carry-out service. We swerved our way through several mall parking lots to find it, and it's true! It does exist! We picked up spices, frozen dinners, and a tip from the owner that it's best to come Thursday through Sundays, early, to get fresh, hot samosas.

It was heaven. We'll have to wait until August until they start with the carry-out food, but in the meantime, we have frozen paneer, and box meals.

Semester two

I started on Wednesday. I was a little anxious, because I hadn't seen most of my classmates in over a month, and you know how I get shy and stuff.

But it's so good to be back. It was like no time had passed, only better, since we all bonded at the end of last semester.

I have about five exercise partners now (though one I may have to fire, because she's 22 and built like a toothpick; and she took the elliptical next to my treadmill after class, and started chugging away on it like it was no big deal, and I just can't deal with the superfit when I feel like a saggy, out-of-shape old lady) and I have most of them convinced we'll be taking up racquetball, and a few want to swim laps, and we all want to start an intramural volleyball team. Hopefully each of us will want to impress the others with our dedication and stick-to-it-iveness so we'll continue, instead of the group devolving (as most groups I tend to be involved with) into a beer-drinking one. (I managed once to dismantle a book club with one fell stroke by saying, "It's easier for me to talk about this book if I have a beer," and that was really the last book we ever read together, but the first beer of many.)

The professor (the same one as last semester) simultaneously horrified and thrilled me by saying when we have our group projects for the class, she's not going to assign me to a group but instead will auction me off to the highest bidders. Reminded me of adolescents, when the girls reeeeally don't want the boys to know they're smart, and I used up my yearly supply of embarrassment with that comment. Of course I want people to think I'm smart. I just feel uncomfortable being singled out among my classmates. You're never too old to resent someone else for being teacher's pet, and I just want to be liked.

I have the exact same classmates but for one addition, and with the same professor, so we didn't have to do any introductions about what school we went to, what our field experience was, blah blah blah, but instead introduced ourselves to the new woman by telling new and unknown things. There were many jokes and laughter, and when one classmate revealed that it was another's birthday, we spontaneously broke into song, and it all just made me really happy.

I really didn't expect this from grad school. Not that I expected any social work program to be really cutthroat and competitive, but I've heard stories about general grad school experiences where people vie to put in their two-cents and try to be better than others. My class is so supportive of each other.

In fact, last semester, I was amazed sometimes at how open people could be. There were a few people who shared experiences that, if they happened to me, I would never in a million years verbalize to a class of 30. One girl had a sister who was travelling in South America with her boyfriend, and they were mugged and the sister was raped. She told us all about it one day, as explanation for why she had missed a few days of class. I think everyone was shocked that she opened up, but she must have felt an outpouring of support because this week, she gave us an update on how her family is doing. I think it's pretty amazing to foster that kind of trust in such a large group.

Edited to add: Now, a few days after class, I've started getting e-mails on the class listserv about people who feel like they didn't share enough in class. Someone's self-proclaimed "generic" revelation about how she likes to travel was put aside to say that she's had a difficult past six months, and being in our supportive class has helped her get through it. I'm so grateful to be a part of this group.

Reason #1 why the south is better than Chicago

We went to a baseball game tonight. It was raining when we arrived, so the crowd huddled under the awnings to wait it out. Tim pointed out a girl with particularly nice calves. By the time the rain cleared and we found our seats, we discovered she was sitting next to us. Tim offered her his shirt to dry off her seat and she said, "Thanks . . . hey! You're a Shakespeare actor! I just saw your show!" and she introduced him (and me) to her family, and for the rest of the game, they talked about the theatre and exercise (she was a new massage therapist for a spa/gym in town). Her name was Chrystal, as most girls in Alabama under the age of 24 are named. She was at the game because of one of Tim's co-stars, who called up the baseball stadium and offered her voice for the national anthem.

The stadium gave a shout-out to all the actors, and one of Tim's classmates won a customized baseball in a raffle. I caught a hotdog from the hotdog cannon. I kept looking around, expecting to see people I knew.

As fun as Wrigley Field is, nothing like this would ever happen there. I like this small town.

Cold, cold, cold.

I heat up my rice sock before bed, and put it at my feet. Then I layer blankets and kitties on top. And I still wake up freezing (though relatively happy, sandwiched between two sleeping cats). But I wear my fall leather jacket outside, a scarf, and those stretchy gloves that provide absolutely no warmth whatsoever, so I guess it's not as bad as Chicago was.

I have already successfully forgotten how bad that cold was, and how I wanted to die each winter because I didn't know how I'd make it through once more.

I heard last night it will be beautiful by March, and the dogwoods and azaleas will be blooming, so there's really only one month of cold to get through. I could get used to this.

This weekend, we went out for dinner at Tomatino's (the pizza place I talked about in Moments of Grace) with some of Tim's classmates, and waited next door at Cafe Louisa (which is a coffeehouse I could spend hours in, reading and drinking tea) for a table to be ready. Two of the dressers from the costume shop joined us, so the conversation was only a little bit about theatre, and mostly about other things that interested me, too. They were fun to hang out with—both women who had grown up in the South, yet knew where the best transvestite show was around here (Prattville). So instead of going to the indie theatre across the street after dinner for "House of Flying Daggers," we went to 1048, which is the live-music club that, early evenings, is a good place to hang out with good friends, good conversation, and good beer. We left before the verging-on-hipster band started playing, because we were there for the conversation. And it reminded me of what I miss the most: evenings out with friends. I think I need them on a regular basis.

The future holds the promise of an evening of tequila shots and organic burritos. I'm discovering a hidden world here, and I like it.

Then, and now

This has been stewing in my brain for a while. A few months, really, since I started school and really got absorbed back into Chicago.

This time it's different. I've started to distinguish my Chicago lives as in Single Chicago and Married Chicago, and while that's not necessarily always the best descriptor, it is mostly apt. There was an excitement, an unpredictability, a wildness to Single Chicago. I was discovering everything for the first time. I don't know if I expected to pick up where I left off by moving back.

I'm seeing a whole new part of the city now. A part that feels old and settled, and not so flighty. More real. For one, I live further in the city than I used to. School takes me to an area I've never been, as well as my internship on the south side, and my school tutoring, on the west side. These areas and existences are so far removed from the (it seems like, now) priviledged life I used to have.

Sometimes I miss the constant rapture, the moments where I absolutely lose my breath over the fact that I live in Chicago. It feels more solid in my bones. Not something I even think about anymore.

And I think about what I used to love about the city, and most of it revolved around a life I don't have anymore. One that I can't afford to have anymore. It gives me a different perspective, not having money to do the things I used to. But really, I used to have the money to do whatever I wanted, and now I just have the money to do what I need to do.

I don't think Married is any better than Single, or vice versa. Just different.

Last day of work, and it was pretty overwhelming. One, for having to get everything wrapped up, no loose ends, and two, for the response everyone had to my departure. Usually a going away merits a departmental lunch, but mine included people from across the agency. And we went to Shogun, which is not particularly my favorite place to get sushi in the world, but considering all my co-workers used to wrinkle their nose at anything I brought in for my lunch, I thought it was a sweet gesture.

And a big basket of presents, some lovely and some well-intentioned. Somewhere in the middle of all of this--and then later my exit interview--it occurred to me that these people really liked me.

It's odd to be in a position like that. Does that sound strange? I guess I'm not used to people showing me that they like me. People are more effusive in the south.

I think I've been the obstinate, difficult sibling my whole life so I expect that people are always going to react to me in comparison to my sweet, personable sister. I guess it's pretty childish to still fall into that pattern of behavior. So maybe it was a pretty stupid realization to discover that I'm nice and sweet on my own, as an individual. But still, it was pretty cool.

I haven't really processed how I feel about work yet. I left no holds barred during my exit interview, and I left feeling slightly sick. Even though I feel like HR needs to know what's going on in my department, to actually say it all outloud feels like tattling, or gossiping. No matter how frustrated or upset I can get, to complain always makes me feel like a lesser, despicable person. And for the past two months, I've had a daily countdown, and then suddenly it's here, and over, and I emerged from the day with a throbbing headache and my body was racing like I had downed several shots of espresso.

I don't know. I feel like things are all rushed right now with ending work and getting the apartment packed up, and arranging things in Chicago so I'm not going to have the time to contemplate on my feelings about the job, and leaving it. Which means I'll probably never resolve the conflicting emotions I have/had about it. But I guess that's really the way most things go in life. One thing ends, another begins, and you're always moving forward.

Corridor of smells

Sometimes I think I could ride through Chicago with my eyes closed, still knowing exactly where I am based on the smells.

I bike to work via Elston, an industrial diagonal that's quieter than expected during rush hour. It cuts through factories along the interstate and Metra lines. Within the first few blocks on my route, I pass Home Depot. Sometimes if they're busy, the fresh scent of sawdust will waft out to the street. A few blocks later, Dunkin Donuts' sugar and Popeyes' oil compete for air space.

The Metra has a stop at Ashland and Elston, and squealing brakes burn metal. At North, Stanley's fruit stand spills out onto the sidewalk. Last week the ground was littered with pineapple cores and rinds.

Further south, after Elston runs into Milwaukee, I pass the Matchbox, Chicago's smallest bar and the scene of frequent hijinks in my early twenties. And it's clear that, though I have moved on to more sober pursuits, there were many behind to take my place.

Somewhere in the area is a bread factory, but only my nose knows where.

I've reached River North by the time I start smelling chocolate, slightly burnt, like you'd smell from hot cocoa. Blommer's Chocolate Factory is where I leave the diagonal and plunge into Loop traffic, the frentic pace causing me to lose touch with smells and focus solely on watching for impatient morning drivers so I don't get hit.

Softball

I started softball practice today. I was a little nervous. I've never really played, and no amount of playing catch with Tim really equals a game. Luckily, 9- to 12-year-olds aren't really that great either. They sure do have a lot of attitude, though.

(I did go to one or two theatre softball games in Alabama, but I got heatsick pretty quickly from all the exertion. I hope it's not too bad in Chicago this summer, though I think I was even more out of shape that usual down south.)

It was fun. I was glad I'm good at catching already because then the girls didn't question why I was there. And I've been around Tim long enough to pick up a few things, so I was able to give them some pointers. (Um, mostly the ones I've heard him give me, like "watch the ball go into your mitt.") Most of the girls seemed to accept me pretty quickly; a few of them kept wanting to practice their throwing and catching with me, even during the water break.

I think after a few practices, I'll feel more confident with them so I can do more coaching. I'm still not sure what kind of dynamic S wants. She's the head coach, and has been doing it for seven years, so she knows all of the old girls, the rules of the game, and how to run practices. She mostly recruited me and a few other classmates because she needs bodies at the practices and games. I'm sure that will all get worked out soon.

It feels good run around in the sun and shake the grey winter off.

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?"

Home again, home again

Thursday, petting Tim's fuzzy, shaved head while he tried to exercise around me, I said, "I am ready to go home."

"Me, too, back to our kitties, and our own space."

"I'm glad we're considering it home now."

So I assumed the kick in the stomach I was feeling as we drove to the airport was actually excitement to return south. But it really must have been more like a premonition.

We got home Saturday night to an upright bass sprayed with cat pee, a $200 lab bill for a Chlamydia test I never requested, a food cabinet filled with strange black bugs, and no good Thai restaurant down the street from which to order take-out.

So we dealt by yelling, then retreating to our own corners of the apartment to do the only things we could handle: clean. Somehow I only feel motivated to deep-clean the bathroom when I am very, very angry. And thank god Tim does all the cat clean-up. I like that our relationship doesn't involve much yelling at all, but when the urge arises, we take space to calm down, then come back together when we're ready. And cleaning or unpacking speeds the recovery process, because it's more fun to hang out than actually work.

Then we opened a bottle of champagne, and watched some Arrested Development. It made the homecoming infinitely more tolerable.

But I hate being back. I like the slower pace of life, but I feel this big hole in my chest, where family and friends, and tall buildings and el trains, Indian spice markets and handmade paper stores, and good sushi and quiet bars with good whiskey used to be. I'm trying to figure out why I was looking forward to being back.

Getting to laze around in 70 degree weather in January is a compelling reason, though. And getting to see the kitties, who were very happy to have us around again. And being by ourselves again, in our own space. I forget when in Chicago at other people's houses, how much more comfortable I am in my own.

So we're home. And work starts tomorrow, and I hope it helps stop up this hole inside me.