04.29.09
Toolbag Wednesday #21: Angsty Pre-Birthday Tears
Yeah, yesterday was kind of a stupid bad day. The kind when nothing seems to work right, when everything is just…off.
It began with the rain actually raining up under my umbrella while I stood waiting fifteen minutes for my bus, only to be splashed by a rabid cab on my walk from said bus to Union Station, where my train was running hella late because a semi ran off the road in a far off place called Libertyville, knocking concrete onto the tracks (no one was hurt). And all day long, I verged on homicidal because I forgot my bobby pin to hold back my hair. My solution involved a paper clip at one point, which gave way to scotch tape (believe me, I don’t care what I look like- it’s the suburbs). So by the time I rolled into calligraphy class, I was shooting daggers at the perky and effusive Brides. Bah.
Which is when I received an email on my BB from a friend (the same one I wished a baby for at Christmastime). Turns out, she’s planned a baby shower for the Saturday of my birthday. It’s well documented by now that I am, in fact, going to hell, so I’ll just say it: WAGH. I know that’s childish and dumb and dumb, but it’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to. Now, I know this planning of The Baby Shower has nothing to do with me. It’s not a conspiracy against me, it’s not mean or intentional…it’s a celebration.
But I don’t want to go to a baby shower for my birthday. I go to ALL of those things- I celebrate ALL of those Life Moments that everyone else is having…the engagement parties, the bachelorettes, the wedding showers, the receptions, the birthday parties of husbands, the housewarmings, and now the babies and the coinciding baby showers, baptisms, and birthdays. I realize my whining makes me a bad friend, but I do go to these events because I am happy for my friends. Just like they’re happy for me that I seem to have found a guy who seems to really like me and is actually what you might call “a good one.”
And the thing is, I’m happy to be where I am, happy that I haven’t had any of those celebrations of my own with the wrong person. But, the crack in the foundation is that I don’t have anything else to celebrate…except my birthday. So no, I don’t want to be at a baby shower. I want to be at the spa getting my hair and nails done because I haven’t done that in over a freaking year, then go have champagne and dance with friends all night.
If only it were that easy. If only I didn’t have to go into Planner Mode, but could instead just say, “hey, why don’t we do this?” and just kind of throw it together. My birthday is a full FIVE weeks away and it appears that if I want anyone to share it with, I need to plan it and lock them in now. But the whole idea of having to do so makes me feel all icky and self-important and just…no.
Days like yesterday make me want to put on sweat pants and crawl under a rock (i.e. build a fort under the covers and stay there), which is precisely what I did the minute I walked in my door last night. Yesterday was definitely a toolbag.
04.28.09
Stuck Between a Profit Margin and a Recession
I don’t write much about work these days. Why wallow in my bad attitude, I figure. Besides, I’m lucky to be employed and working for a company that thrives in a down economy. And it’s downright tacky, if not impolite, to complain about your job when there are heaps of people who’d do it for less pay and perhaps need it more.
That said, I’m stuck because I work in a place where careers go to die. And at 28, that’s nothing if not disheartening. I can’t leave right now- I won’t for obvious reasons- but there’s nothing rewarding for me to do here and no opportunity for growth or professional development- believe me I’ve tried for two years now. As it is, it’s becoming quite clear that, to them, I’m basically just a word monkey. A monkey who flings shit (soon-to-be-disregarded and/or arbitrarily rewritten first drafts) at the zoo keepers (middle management). And the only challenging thing about my job is not getting upset about locking myself in this cage. Red wine helps. At least until a few weeks ago…
The IT Nazis had to go and add insult to injury by blocking WordPress, which is why I’ve been posting and commenting so sporadically. I’m exploring a work-around, but for now suffice it to say, my little ray of workday sunshine has been squelched by the austere clouds of their HR web access policy.
At least there’s still You Tube…for now.
04.24.09
Taking Heart
I walked from the train station this morning, humming a song to myself, smiling at the silly, obese, suburban office park geese, tipping my head backward, eyes closed, breathing in the sunshine. What’s the worst that could happen, my consciousness whispered into my ear.
I already know that excitement, the optimism of falling in love. Know what it means to wake up with a song in your heart, walk down the street with a bounce in your step. I know how it feels to suddenly find those words spilling out of your mouth- you’re saying them before you even know them to be true. It just is. And you love.
I already know too that corresponding heartache, know longing, yearning, consumption, burning, falling, breaking. I know what it is to want the very thing you cannot have. Know how it feels to be left behind, let go, given up on, lied to, cheated on, rejected, disregarded, abused. I know the pain of facing sad realities, and having to choose good bye.
I’ve known such unspeakable sadnesses, things I wish so desperately to unknow at times. But I’ve also known such uncharted heights, such unforgettable laughter and compassion. And here I stand.
Knowing both, I gave up believing in the kind of love everyone says is still out there; the kind that gives voice to poetry, inspires, creates. I gave up believing it was anything more than fiction.
Until this…possibility. I might touch it with my finger tip, might look it in the eye, might call it by name.
What’s the worst that could happen that hasn’t happened already?
04.23.09
Night Light
I would give up being able to remember my dreams each night to forget ones like last night’s. My dreams are lucid, controlled, memorable. My nightmares are just as in-hand, though in them I’m trapped- aware that I’m dreaming, unable to change a thing, unable to wake myself up. When I do, I’m panicked, crying, broken. It’s just a dream, right?
There is so much good, so much to be happy and hopeful about these days. Yet, my mind still takes me back and downward to a time that’s ingrained in my very pores. There’s no separating myself from what has been, from who I have been, and what I used to know.
In the cold, disorienting, night time quiet, those memories haunt me, scream at me, claw at my hair and face, tear at my chemise, drench me in cold sweat, smack me awake. The echoes of words thoughtlessly flung, the muted sounds of our conflicts, the look in his eyes, in mine: it’s visceral.
All was not as it is now. There didn’t used to be this all-encompassing hug that I wake up to each day and go to sleep with each night. There didn’t used to be these friends, nor their smiles and laughter and care. There didn’t used to be the parents that I know now. Didn’t used to be this peace I’ve found within myself.
Before, there were such countless dark hours. Sometimes, they find me still. But for once, more often than not…there’s light.
04.21.09
Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover, And By Book Cover I Mean Me
I recently had a conversation with someone about dating and how the last book a person has read- or any book really/ the fact that they do or do not read actual books- can tell you quite a bit about them. Take The Da Vinci Code for example. He sheepisly shared that if he saw that title in a woman’s online dating profile, he’d keep on looking elsewhere. I like him immensely for that…admittedly for many other reasons as well.
It’s sort of but not really like how I once saw a woman on the bus reading a book entitled, Why Am I So Angry? Brow furrowed, I was amazed at her sheer defiance of what anyone around her might think of her reading interests, then inspected her closely for signs of latent anger. Why was she so angry? I suddenly felt compelled to know.
At the moment, I find myself reading Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs against the better judgment of my friends Emo and GDF (who, incidentally, we need to rename because the acronym doesn’t do her fanciness justice). I was in the mood to read something really different and asked them what they thought of the book and whether I’d like it. Yes, it’s great and no, you’ll hate it, they answered matter-of-factly. But my reading tastes can be very disparate, not to mention that I’m a fan of the sex, Tylenol PM, and Cocoa Puffs, I countered to no avail. Now that I’m reading Klosterman’s pop culture manifesto I have to say…I fucking love it.
Which ultimately got me to thinking, if generalized assumptions are to be made about us based upon the books that we read, can one book best encapsulate a person? Is it possible for a single book to do so? Or is it something that can only capture the youness of you at a particular moment in time and not necessarily the youness of you now or in the future?
I don’t think I’ve yet read the book that quintessentially is “me,” but Shopgirl came awefully damn close. You?
04.19.09
Snapshot
I want to capture each thought, question, and hope. I want to remember this feeling, this moment for what it is, for what it could be. Want to note it as a thing of significance.
Remember how it felt to run into the street, hopping over rain puddles, to meet him. Remember that excitement, trepidation, joy at his greeting. Remember the thought in your mind the moment you first saw him. Keep it. Cherish it. Perhaps one day share it with him; others.
Remember too how your hand felt in his, how he took yours to help you out of the cab, how he lightly touched your lower back as you stepped through the door. Remember laying in bed this morning with those first thoughts of him.
I scribble endlessly on napkins and receipts and journal pages, hoping to always remember. Meeting him means….something. Or, at least, I want it to.
04.15.09
Toolbag Wednesday #20: Recession-Be-Damned Brides
Rrrrrrrraaaarr.........
Wedding season is once again upon us and lucky me, I’m in the thick of it. No, I’m not a bridesmaid again. And no, I don’t have a series of weddings to attend this year, though there are one or two on the horizon. I’m in a calligraphy class. Platinum Weddings edition.
I promise you, I’m not completely delusional. I knew going into it that there would be a large contingent of brides. In fact, the bride to jaded singleton ratio is 2 to 1 (if you include the instructor who is married, and for an added bonus, also expecting). That said, of the three of us who aren’t affianced, one might as well be because she’s already got her whole wedding planned out to her boyfriend of eight months. I shit you not.
So here’s the thing….yes, I knew what I was walking into. I knew there would be much ballyhooed talk of duchess satin gowns with cathedral trains. Knew there would be thorough discussion of caterers, reception venues, string quartets, roses vs. peonies (peonies), and the merits of fall weddings over spring. But the play-by-play is astounding. These brides are swirling in their own worlds right now, seemingly oblivious to the recession and the threat of job loss (I don’t even know if any of them are employed because apparently their sole identity is BRIDE).
Take Gold Coast Princess for example. She was on a particularly engaging tear last night, describing her two-years-in-the-works fall wedding extravaganza. We’re talking the works…Holy Name Cathedral and the Palmer House, she currently has two wedding dresses, plans to invite 465 of her closest friends and family, and has 12 bridesmaids and 3 flower girls. Aghast, she of course will not be using the calligraphy she’s learning to address her own invitations (she’ll just pay someone to do it). Tell me again why you’re here?
Then there’s Prim and Proper Bride who opted instead for a “Destination Wedding.” Now, I can totally get behind that, but her version involves going to Florida with a current invitee list of 88. Maybe it’s just me, but destination wedding, to me, equals 10-20 people max.
Needless to say, I don’t talk much during class. I can’t even bring myself to care about any of their plans, to ask follow up questions, pipe up with my own ideas and opinions. I pretty much just keep my head down and focus on the angle of my pen as I curve the tale of my lower case “P”s. My inner monologue, however, ranges from “girls are stupid” to “you’re a spoiled whore.” It’s obviously best that I hold my tongue.
I just think it’s incredibly stupid to drop 25-50K on one day of your life. ONE. That’s a down payment on a home. That you can live in when the wedding is over; tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
Whatever happened to simple, elegant, and to the point? Whatever happened to a wedding being about the beginning of a marriage, about two people and the start of their new life together? Why do so many weddings take on a momentum of their own, losing track of the catalyst for the event in the process? Why is it more often than not merely a blow out party?
I can’t help but wonder about the men marrying these women. If I were one of those dudes, I would totally call the whole thing off. I’ve spent four hours with these women so far, and not one of them has spoken their fiancé’s name. Not even Down-to-Earth-Thirty-Something-Schaumburg Bride.
04.14.09
I Don’t Know You, But I Want To
He is the Joe Fox to my Kathleen Kelly. The NY152 to my Shopgirl. We’ve exchanged charming emails for the past few weeks. Emails that I fervently look forward to each morning when I wake up and each night before I go to sleep. I open my laptop, click on my inbox, scrolling through the names until I find the one I most hope to see. His.
What will our discussion be today? What secrets will we whisper to the electronic page? What childhood story or literary anecdote or aloof observation of city life will we share? Will his email make me laugh, smile, snicker in my chair? Will he be flirtatious? Will I? Who is this man who has so captured my interest?
I hardly know him. But I know he is a dog-lover, an avid reader, a poetic writer, baseball fan, and divorced man in his mid-thirties. He still believes in love. Worries about social conformity and constraint in the same ways I do. And he claims to find himself smitten with me…but how can that be?
By chance, fate could have tossed us together countless times. We share the same grocery store, the same coffee shops, the same bus route to work. We could have bumped into one another at the farmer’s market, could have exchanged strangerly smiles in passing on the sidewalk, could have thumbed through the same stacks of the local bookstore. Maybe we have.
I wonder at times what his smile looks like, if his eyes would light up when he looks at me. I wonder what makes him laugh, makes him happy, makes him…insatiable. I wonder how he kisses, if he’d hold my head in his hands, softly but with determined intent. I wonder what his voice sounds like, wonder at the sound of his speaking my name. I wonder at the possibility…
I do not know quite how he found me, but suddenly there he was. There was his first email, his first quandary, first attempt to know me. And now that I know he is out there, I look for him everywhere. I peruse the nameless masses, wondering if I’ll look into a pair of eyes and just….know. It’s him.
We haven’t yet met by chance, but maybe one day soon we’ll meet on purpose.
04.09.09
Spectator
Before getting up and in the shower this morning, I read that a man died on Lake Shore Drive. It didn’t say why, but his car rolled over, hitting the embankment of the Oak Street Beach curve. Afterward, everything else about the morning went on as usual. Bags were packed. Buses came and went. Joggers jogged. Dog walkers dog walked. Everyone moved about the city in their morning rituals.
Later, on my own morning ritual bus ride, I happened to look through the window across the aisle and there it was. In the bright sunlight, the car was already gone and the pockets of traffic had long ago cleared. But the light pole that the man’s car must have also hit, balanced precariously, toppled over the edge of the curve, reaching outward toward the lake. Reaching.
The whole experience struck me as odd.
I was surrounded by life, crammed into a square foot of personal space, caught in the web of habit, and yet, here too I could point through a window pane and say: “There. Someone died there today.”
I looked around the inside of the bus as we ambled through the curve. No one seemed to notice. No one looked up from their Red Eyes or their iPhones. No one said a word.
04.08.09
Toolbag Wednesday #19: The Denizens of Lincoln Park
I’m sorry, but I just have to say it: I effing hate Lincoln Park. Hate, hate, hate it. I hate the people, the pretension, the one-up-manship, the prosaic, white bread, same-sameness (and quite frankly, Wicker Park and Southport have gotten just as bad). For all its self-importance, Lincoln Park is little more than a fancier, more compact version of the suburban hell that is Naperville.
Lincoln Park is McMansions and couture “dogs” no bigger than your hand. It’s designer chocolates and superfluous leggings and oversized sunglasses. It’s Intermix and Barney’s New York Co-op and their Recession-be damned frivolities.
Admittedly, I used to spend a good deal of time there once upon a time. I grew to love Pasta Palazzo, twenty for $20 tickets at Steppenwolf, brunch at Toast, shoes from Lori’s, and what I still think is one of the better farmer’s markets in the city. I came very close to a Lincoln Park fate. But those acquired pleasures were long ago ceded to an ex in The Break Up and I can’t say I was all that sad to see them go. Not really my style after all.
So when I found myself for the first time in over a year unavoidably in the haven of the Trixies and their Chads (and their mid-to late-thirties/early forties counter parts: the kept wives/stay-at-home baby factories and the men who “love” them), I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. It’s even worse than I remember.
Do these people really not know what a cliché they are? How out-of-touch with reality they come off? How tacky? I mean, I want a LV Speedy 30 too, but it’s practically a month’s rent for me and that’s just STUPID. The handbag I carry these days cost me $34 a year ago and I love it. Plus, there’s the Chicken Hut on the corner down the street and even though I refuse to eat there, I’m cheered by its very presence.
True, the “mystique” of Lincoln Park may be beyond my means, but I’m proud to recognize that it’s something I neither aspire to nor miss. Okay, maybe I do miss Sweet Mandy B’s, but still.
