The Weekend Wrap Up: Nightmares and Expectations

The twins that I babysit for always use "sleeps" as a way to countdown to things, like the next time you'll see someone.

Two sleeps until S comes! I've been out of sorts (and in my head) about this whole ordeal for the past few days, and it will be nice to reset all of that.

Ready for last night's real live nightmare?

I was at G and G's house - but it was all dark, just like you'd imagine a dungeon. And M, Dad, and I were all sitting stiffly at the table. I had my hands clenched in my lap.

We were talking to G and G and there were Christmas decorations everywhere.

Then, she told us the reason she'd invited us. She spread her arm out, bent at the elbow, sweeping toward the living room.

Our heads turned in unison.

There, in the living room, were the scattered remains of their Christmas celebration. Papers, boxes, plates of food, all glinting under the eerily twinkling lights of the Christmas tree. She'd invited us over to clean it up.

I woke up breathing heavily, convincing myself it wasn't real.

It's not real.

It's oddly telling, though.

I wish my brain could stop chewing on it, though, and just swallow it so I don't have to taste my own bitterness every day.

*breathes deeply, thinks inner peace*

On a positive note, I went to IKEA this weekend! Emily and I woke up early on Sunday and headed out there before they opened (good call - no lines, parking, etc.). We went into the cafe to have $1.99 breakfast and .50c coffee, then somehow ended up going through IKEA backwards. But it was lovely. I got a new duvet - white with gray flowers on it - and new gray sheets. I also picked up wineglasses so I won't have to serve guests in my everyday drinking glasses anymore.

It was fun and busy.

I really enjoy all of their odds and ends and kitchen things more than I enjoy anything else.

$5 for 6 wineglasses will get me every time.

I was at Mom's house yesterday doing my 1800 loads of laundry for the week, and we were chatting. It's nice to have someone so wizened to bounce ideas off of. I came away from our conversation reminding myself that I'm 23. I think I forget that sometimes. It's not so much that I'd like to be older, it's that I measure myself against people who have five or ten years on me and wonder why I don't match up. So for today, I am trying to embrace 23, however one embraces something intangible like that.

I also came away from our conversation very curious about what other G has to say about S.

But let's save that for after his visit - I can only imagine how this going to go. He's meeting Dad and J on Wednesday, and I haven't told him that yet. And then he's meeting Mom on Thursday. Ah, well, surprise surprise!

The Chicago Trip

I didn't blog about my Chicago trip last time, either.

I didn't take any pictures this time, which I'm kind of bummed about.

I think it's because I never know what to say. I don't want to say too much, but I feel like saying too little would damage the experience.

It was perfect.

S picked me up at the airport like a gentleman. He was right on time, too. I misread the text directing me to a quieter pick up location, so he had to do an airport loop to fetch me.

Saturday included a grocery store run, sushi and BLTs for brunch (don't ask - it made me very happy), a softball game - I forgot my sunglasses and nearly died in the heat, and his dad's birthday party. I was determined not to be stressed, and so I wasn't. (That's worked twice this weekend, but failed miserably once. So I'm shooting 2 for 3 on mastering stress.)

It was a very lovely evening. I spent it eating chocolate cake and talking to a million people. I reminded his grandmother that we'd met previously - when she told me she wanted to trip a 4th grader at a basketball game. It was great. I really hope that the consensus was solidly in my favor at the end of the evening.

Sunday was a calm day. I made that watermelon salad and headed to a friend's BBQ. I forgot how hard it is to park in Edgewater (just south of Rogers Park!). The BBQ had been moved inside, thank g-d, because it was miserably warm outside. I went outside to inspect the new grill, stayed outside for about five minutes, and came directly back in.

Then we headed to his mom's for dinner. His mom is also wonderful.

After one too many White Russians, I declared that we need to leave "now!" And so he took me home. That's when, overwhelmed by my own emotions, I began to cry. Such a noob mistake, I can't believe I did that. At least I made it back to the safety of his house so I won't be known in his house as "the girl who cried" for the rest of my life.

Upon missing my flight and spending the morning laying on his couch, sweating in the blistering AC-less heat and sipping a Gatorade, I realized that perhaps the night before hadn't gone so terribly. And by "hadn't gone so terribly," I mean exactly the opposite.

In the end, it was nice to have some time to chat about it. Being able to talk things out before you fly a thousand miles is really helpful. I informed him that I am indeed a girl, I do cry sometimes, and that it doesn't get any worse than what he witnessed (drunk tears are so attractive, let me tell you - nothing says "I'm a great girl, I swear" like puffy, red eyes, frizzy lion hair, and rings of mascara).

His response? "You were mad at me for things I hadn't even done [yet]!"

Ah, welcome to life with the opposite sex, my dear.

I had forgotten how much I love that city. I love the intensity, the illusion of calm, the people, the nights. I didn't get to the lake, to the Bean, anywhere, really, but I went everywhere I needed to go. The nights slipped away from me, standing on a rooftop overlooking the city - lights all around, never-ending noise. And the mornings broke beautiful, warm, sensational.
I felt so alive.

Relationships

This article in the New York Times is well worth your time.

Dan Savage is an advice columnist whose columns deal primarily with sub-cultural relationship problems. I don't always agree with him, but his advice is generally pretty solid and backed up by a wide knowledge base.
This particular article questions the point of a relationship: stability rather than monogamy, perhaps? Everyone does it differently, but I think it's important to realize that people have different needs. 

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what makes a relationship and what kind of relationship I'd want. (I can see you rolling your eyes right now. It's fine. I rolled mine when I started writing this and rolled them again upon re-reading.)

I've been more or less single since my last serious relationship came to its natural conclusion in January 2010. So a year and a half. I've had plenty of dates, and semi-boyfriends, in the months since, but no one has ever materialized as potential-long-term-partner material. 

I'd desperately wanted freedom. I found that, and have loved it immensely. I love being able to fall asleep knowing that I don't have to move my computer, or the stack of books I share a bed with. 

And yet lately, I've been starting to really question the idea of "partner." Through that questioning, I've begun to crave it. But perhaps with age comes selectivity, because people aren't managing to hold my attention as they should, or as I'd like them to.
The biggest test for me is errands. I find it romantic. I want someone who I will enjoy going to Costco with, someone who makes buying a blender exciting, or at the very least, less mundane. 

Of course, there are the few that manage to keep reappearing in my life. From a December party, at a friend of my then-boyfriend's apartment until now, we've maintained this strange and delicate relationship. It began with harsh words, thrown out off-handedly, then my answering, equally harsh lecture, then Mexican food, then this or that and a few other things. Flash forward to this January, actual consumption of Mexican food and then the strange events of that evening and Englewood. Then to April. I flew off to Chicago with few expectations, no presumptions, and came away tear-stained and puffy, joyous and fulfilled, hauling a backpack full of clean clothes. It was wonderful and terrifying because the glimpse of what I could have had screamed of normalcy. Here I am, off again, to walk on the edge of expectations and to figure out if my future lies therein. Is that the normalcy I've been seeking?

But what am I getting myself into? What is this? What will it be? We can't answer these questions because we're not sure if that's even where we want to go. "We"? Is there a we? Could there be one someday? What if it fails? The phone conversations are growing in length, in depth. What do I want? What does he want? I fall asleep with tired smiles on my face. I feel like he shares that (unless he doesn't, so that'd be awkward). It's weird to be on the same page, to have somehow gotten lost and landed there, separately. 

Jesus, this is ridiculous. 

But I like it. 

So I guess it's going to be alright. Or at least an adventure.

Ten days.

From Mom

I have kept a sticky note from mom for years (and by years, I mean, since maybe freshman year of college).
It came rubber-banded to a pack of Bicycle playing cards and reads:

Maybe these will come in handy on those Friday and Saturday nights when you don't want to go out and lose something. 

Thanks, Mom. 

Breakups, the beautiful things that crush our souls. (Kidding)

There are those moments in life where nothing happens as you might have expected that it would.
And then there are the moments where everything goes like you thought it would and it's entirely underwhelming.
Beneath the small struggles that encompass our daily lives, there are something bigger and more beautiful at work.

To quote Ryan, who took me out for a wonderful dinner last night: "Maybe I have it all wrong and you are just some ruthless asshole that just roams the earth hurting 39 year olds.  But I don't think so.  Behind that tough facade I know you are very sweet...You are a shining star amid a crowd of 40 watt light bulbs. You seriously are an amazing individual."

I laughed when I read this, becuase he signed his email with a typical rude Katie Barry sendoff.

This weekend brought the end of the biochemist. We tried (perhaps valiantly) and failed. We both knew it was coming, but he brought it, and deserves credit for it.
I had announced the impending breakup (can you break up with someone you weren't actually with?) to several people, and so feel quite fulfilled by my ability to feel out my hunches.

I cried like a small child, much to my embarrassment. I later told him that the unleashing of cathartic tears was 80% the result of wine consumption and 20% my wounded ego.

I'm not sure that he understands that I was not solely involved with him and therefore am not as devasted as if I'd lost my house, or had my bike stolen again, or if my cat was run over by a truck. This registers at, "Damn, I spent that $20 I was going to save." on the emotion-scale. Upsetting, annoying, but entirely survivable.
By the way, that might be the worst analogy ever, but I am sticking with it. The more I read it, the more I'm alright it. And the more I want to check my wallet to make sure I have that extra $20.

I am slowly realizing that there are people who will not adore me. (Surprise, surprise. Something we've known all along but can finally catalogue for posterity.)
I realize that two people, no matter how lovely individually, can be perfectly wrong for each other.
I am realizing that perhaps the parting of the ways should happen after the 3rd bad date and not after the 20th.

I am young, free, and quite content to wander for awhile.
I know what I want. The problem is that it's in Chicago and needs to get its shit together.
I'm kidding - that's the most perfect non-relationship I've ever been it. I hope it only changes for the better and never for the worse. We've known each other for a year and a half, and in that time, there has been so much miscommunication and craziness, but also so many really wonderful moments.
I hope that my July visit is either as good as the April one or better.
And contrary to popular belief, I did not go to South Africa because of him.
(Just so we're clear on that.)

Ha.

Here's to the waning (and wonderful) days of my beautiful youth.

(I'm going to read this when I'm still single and 45 and have a lot of cats and thick thighs and quite possibly an addiction to TV dinners and not laugh at all. But for now I think it's funny. All of it. I am a walking episode of Seinfeld and I'm alright with that.)

Blues, among other things

I babysat the three little boys for the last time last night.
Blaise is two now, and he can annunciate my name. Hunter and Luke will be five in September, so we talked about me leaving and they told me that maybe they'd go on vacation while I was gone too, but wanted to know if I'd be back for their birthday. When I told them I'd be gone, Hunter looked at me and said, "Maybe you can come over the day before."
We had a good night. Two of them weren't feeling well, so we made juice popsicles and watched too much Thomas the Tank Engine. I choked back tears while we were reading stories, and then again when I put Blaise to bed. I've always had a special bond with him; he's such a happy baby.
Then, things got bad. I put Luke to bed in the boys' room and he wanted me to sing to him, so I asked him what he wanted. "A song about you," he said, so I sang something. "Actually," he said after I'd badly sung a short, made-up song, "tell me a story about you." So we talked about them, and Carlos, and life.
I told him I loved him and tucked him in and then went to find Hunter, who was in the other room. He wanted to sing to me, he said. He hummed me a song and then asked me what my favorite part was. "The middle," I answered.
"It's Tinkerbell's birthday song," he said. "Now you sing me one."
I hummed Blackbird.
And then I cried.
They gave me a beautiful card and each of the boys gave me a piece of paper they'd decorated.
It's been a wild two years, but as I told her when I left, I'm wildly more prepared for motherhood. I remember when I had just started with them and I'd find myself overwhelmed at times. Now, I can weather tantrums calmly without being stressed at all. Last night, there were those tired tears that only sleep can solve, a problem so simple it wasn't, and Luke telling me he had to have popsicles by midnight. The only problem? They weren't frozen yet.
I looked at him and I said, "What do you think will happen if you don't have one before midnight instead of waiting until tomorrow?"
He thought about it.
"Nothing too bad, right?" I said. "Now, you may have banana or applesauce."
The tears continued, but I continued doing what I had been doing and I didn't bat an eye. Later it was applesauce that solved the problem.

After I got home last night, I called my friend Patrick (who met Maddie a few months ago on his first night in Chicago) and told him I wanted to go out. Then I called my new Irish friend (how funny is it that we majored in the same thing? However, he also has a Master's degree and I do not) and asked him what he was doing. He was at a blues place. So Patrick and I went. The place has two stages, and the musicians switch back and forth between the two all night. One of their group had talked to the musicians after the first set, and they invited him up to play with them. The club was open until 3:30, so we stayed there as long as we could. (I'd only gotten there around one.)
I ended up home with McDonald's breakfast around six thirty, and I managed to find what I believe is legal parking (it's street sweeping day, but there weren't any signs) so all is well. That group of guys is hilarious. They're seven guys here for the summer, excited to meet American girls, but so far have only met Irish ones (and me, but I don't think I count. They keep asking me if I have girl friends. I tell them I'm working on it). I have thoroughly enjoyed the couple of weeks I've had with them and am going to be sad to miss their summer here.

Mike gets in tonight! I'm not sure what we're going to do, I have a huge final tomorrow, and still think I'm going to write a six page paper, but haven't decided yet, so it might be a laid back night in.
I'm miserably unprepared for this move and it's starting to make me nervous. I know that I don't have much to do in Colorado, but Dad is leaving just before I get to his house and the idea of being somewhere unfamiliar at a high-stress time with Carlos and other cats is stressing me out. I'm employed, though! I start at Subway next week. I'm about to the best qualified "sandwich artist" that ever lived.
But South African preparations must begin.
Ah, summer. Hopefully Denver is ready for me.

Matisse and a Picture Post

I'm prefacing this post by saying that it's about 85 degrees in my apartment right now. My brain is being slowly over-cooked. Also, the bugs have taken this warm weather as an opportunity to crawl around. I don't mind them, but I do.
Maddie and I are switching back and forth between "Say Yes to the Dress" and "SportsCenter." That very much sums up our lives.

Today I joined my friends Greg and Carolyn at the Art Institute downtown. The city was hot and muggy, but full of energy because this morning was the Blackhawks' Stanley Cup celebration parade. The streets were full of people dressed in bright red, hot but happy. We spent a pleasant afternoon perusing parts of the museum; we saw an exhibit featuring many Chicago artists trained at the Art Institute (SAIC). Then we went and saw the Matisse exhibit. I generally stay away from modern art, so I don't know a whole lot about it, but having Greg as a tour guide added to my experience.
I'm in the middle of attempting to upload my photos of Matisse (only one, since photography was prohibited and I had to sneak it) and also of my one true love, the Impressionists.
                                      
                                                                   Below, Lake Michigan.

If you quint, you can see me! I'm wearing a blue Oxford and brown shorts in the bottom right, below! 

Above, a man whose suit was tremendously horrible. It was part chartreuse and part rust, and when he walked, it seemed to change color in the light. And he has Gene Wilder hair circa the "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" era. Scary.

                                      
                                          

Above, the Art Institute lions wearing hockey helmets.

I've been thus unable to retrieve my pictures from today, so be sure to check back because I'm going to post them tomorrow (or whenever I get them...apparently my 3G isn't so hot right now, or the fact that I'm trying to simultaneously email 25 pictures from my cell phone may have slowed progress). But I want to talk about Matisse a bit, so it might be worth it. 

Post-bar crawl

The bar crawl benefitting the Chicago Children's Hospital was a wild success. Madeline and I drew on mustaches with liquid eyeliner. Hers was small and possibly French and mine was a wild handlebar-curved-sort-of-ordeal.

We had a great time. Our friend Patrick brought his friend Duane and we went around to the bars. It was crowded, and we were glad that we'd been able to bring side beers with us. It definitely softened the financial blow and allowed us to add a little bit more, uh, refreshment to our afternoon. We made it through about half the ones on the list before we were sidetracked by a group of Irish/other people we met. And that's where things got interesting.
Maddie walked off to go the bathroom and I didn't see her for the rest of the night. She was on her way to get a cheeseburger when she decided to head home. (I heard from her, though, don't think I'd ever let her just walk away unattended.) I stayed with the boys and we stayed with our new friends, abandoning the bar crawl for pitchers at a bar next to Wrigley, or "the cubs stadium," as the Irish tweeted from my phone.
Somehow, we ended up on the train and then a bus and then the South Side on our way to a party,  which was not a great plan in that I was not as patient as I could have been, so we ended up heading back up north. I came out of yesterday with a twelve-pack of Bud Light that some guy bought and then left, so I feel like it was a success.
Today was understandably a very relaxed day. I lounged. I made sun tea. I ate strawberries. I drank Vitamin Water. I snuggled the cat.
Tonight, Maddie and I are ordering Chinese food and watching the MTV movie awards because a comedian that we love, Aziz Ansari, is hosting.
Expect a post about teen pregnancy at some point soon. (Obviously not my own teen pregnancy....but teen pregnancy in general.)

Juice.

It went well.
Of course it did, I was foolish to think it wouldn't.

I slept badly last night. Tortured by dreams that I couldn't escape from, I woke to find myself in an uneasy melancholy. Apparently, I was talking in my sleep all night. I'm upset by something, I know what, and I don't know how to let it go except to give it time.
Time. Screw time and feelings. I hate not knowing what other people are thinking. I hate wishing I could have something I can't. I hate that I had it for just a second before life got in the way.

I drove downtown this morning to make sure that Emily got to her law school open house alright and realized how much this city has meant to me. In a strange way, I belong in Chicago. I've never loved Loyola, but I've loved Chicago. I have a fascination with the train. I still love the train. There's something so raw and unguarded about it, something so connected and yet so fragile and broken. You are forced to sit around people you don't like, forced to interact, or merely to react to the those around you. It's beautiful. It's dirty. It smells. It's so satisfying and so stressfully slow. I love to sit with a book, lost for half an hour until I feel the train start to descend past Fullerton, the slide into the tunnel. Then the darkness comes and the rattling is somehow magnified by the proxomity of the walls.


But what is home? Everyone's moving back and forth and here and there, and I've realized that as much as I'd like to stay here, for awhile, I can't. I want to be in Colorado, to start my life there. Even though the city begs me to stay, I'm afraid if I do, I'll never leave. I can't fathom the idea of trying to raise children in a city like Chicago, and although it would be a wonderful place to get my social work grounding, I'd prefer to start my career somewhere comfortable.

Blegh, another blog with no purpose, only rambling. Perhaps the morning can bring a sweeter sleep?

Money is the root of all evil

There are days when I realize how much I really love my mom and how great a job she did raising me.
Ha, I realize that sounded a little funny, because I'm not some high-paid executive with a bright future. I'm just her daughter, the one that has all the weird issues, who lives in Chicago, who finally has a nice boyfriend, who believes in karma, whose car got smashed, who loves her life, who is going through so much weird trouble it's insane, who can't imagine what she's going to do after college, who's considering grad school, who loves her mother so much.

I sat on the phone with her for like an hour and a half today, just talking about life and everything in it. Talking about Hunter, our future, his future, my future, our relationship, Emily, the money issue, values, belief systems, life, school, the Dominick's/Safeway regional manager, rent, money, etc. It's hot today here, hot like I've not felt all summer.

Also, in relatively lame news, I may have been exposed to Hepatitis C when I was in the hospital in January for surgery. How fail is that? Some crazy nurse lady was stealing painkillers, injecting them into herself and then leaving the dirty syringes filled with saline for the patients. So I received a certified letter informing me of my possible exposure and then they told me they'd like to test me. Great. Love getting tested for Hep C. It's going to be awesome.
Good news though: out of the 5700 people possibly exposed, only like 7 have it. So hopefully I won't be number 8.


Ah, money, the thing we can't live without. The thing that drives us and drives us nuts.
Hunter is stressed out right now, and I don't blame him. He's hoping to get a second job at Starbucks (free coffee and health benefits!), so that should be nice.
I'm hoping to survive summer school. I've got a small part in an independent film shooting in August and I'm helping one of my professors cast a movie this next week.

Busy enough.

The Dominicks/Safeway regional manager called me today. He apologized, listened to me tell him that I was treated like a criminal, explained the policy (which is absolutely moronic, in my very valid opinion), I told him I understood the policy, but questioned its implementation. This exchange went on for quite awhile. In the end, I got a sort of apology, the promise that the store manager will be hearing from him personally, etc. etc. I told him not to get the workers in trouble, but that it was the manager and his female goon that embarrassed me and hurt my opinion of the integrity of the store. So you know, we evened out. Whatever. At least my emails got the attention of the regional manager. I feel a little bit better about that.

Well, a nice summer party tonight. Emily is out of town, so I'm heading down to South Michigan Ave to a friend's, where we will all hang out.

Good day.

Home

We arrived, straggling in on the edge of distress, driving manically, desperate to sign the papers.
Keys in hand, we marched through the iron gate, through the doors, up the stairs, up the stairs, up the stairs, up the stairs. Home. There we were. Ours.
We locked the bikes in the basement, we hauled things through the back. Tired, limbs shaking, we sat, two broken families finding consolation in our smallest triumphs, sipping liquid from the local 7-11 and conversing amid the piles scattered everywhere.
The dollar store, cheap purchases adding up, buying the things that we knew we'd need.
A quick shower, finally!
Dinner, guests, late night discussion.
Things wound down, wound up and all around, the night air lifted the curtains and blew them toward our sleeping forms.
We are home.
It's ours and we love it.

Gone.

We're getting ready, steadily moving forward, changing the plan. There's been a lot of yelling and frustration about something that should have been simple. It's hard for me to part with my stuff.
I find myself most content when I have less, yet I have this compulsion to always have more. It's a fact; it's not a habit; it's something I cannot yet change. Maybe as I ease into adulthood and come into being as my own person, I will be able to forego the material and embrace the singular ideal of life without clutter.
Remember when Mom and Dad got divorced and Mike and I lived out of duffel bags? I have decided that this is where my need for stuff comes from, the idea that perhaps I won't have something for a few days, the idea that someone else will take it and I'll never see it again, the idea that I'll be somewhere and not have what I need with me.
It's odd.
The new, revized Plan Z is this: Mom and Mike are leaving Denver at noon on the 7th. I leave before them, in the early morning hours. We meet in Chicago on Friday afternoon, sign the lease, hand over ridiculous amounts of money, open the doors to my new life and then settle in. Then they leave.
It's great, really. Hopefully this will eliminate the need for a.) shippping and b.) plane tickets for Mom. Maybe we will save money, maybe we will not. At this point, it's not about that anymore. It's about the fact that all of this is happening in four days.
I can't wait.
I have things to tell everyone, things I have mulled over and over.
But the thing I have to tell you is: I want to go abroad. I want to pack a bag and then just leave. I would like that very much.

Let's embrace what we have left of everything.

Summer in Pictures