The Weird Chapter

I'm the kind of woman who begins to read many books, sometimes more than one at a time, and then never finishes them. I've consumed the beginnings, and sometimes the middles, of more novels than I can count, but the ends seem to always be lacking, or aren't to my taste, and so I never read them.
I'm distracted, true, but leaving the story open-ended is something of a novelty, enjoyable in its own right. To not know what happens is to be able to write the end for myself.

I've entered a chapter of my own life I'm going to call "The Weird Chapter," in which my own story seems to have done some looping and rewording of its own and I, as the protagonist and probable heroine, am merely a character in this book, bound hopelessly to the text as it is being created, following the words, the story arc, the plot details at a fervent, relentless pace. I'm blind to the next page, running through sentences and structure but finding neither for myself.

The main characters of this self-titled "Weird Chapter" are myself and Cat-Carlos, sometimes addressed as Boobs or Chicken Nugget, who in actuality should just be renamed No on account of how much the word is directed at his curious creature self.
He is my animal companion, the constant and trustworthy yet fallible creature sent with me on my adventures, and although he stays locked into the room I now temporarily call home, there are times when he is let out, usually as far as the hall, and will follow me, only to sit curled into a black cat ball of fur and watch me intently as I wash my face or apply makeup in the bathroom mirror. He's ever watchful, wary of intrusion and desperate for things he's not seen before.
He's currently in a dresser drawer, having attained that height by stepping carefully from the bed to a suitcase oddly situated in the middle of the floor and then leaping from there to the neglected drawer, left open by its user (me). He's sitting on a stack of clean, hairless clothes, which won't be hair-free for long, a task he finds quite to his liking.
Other characters go in and out. Of course there's Mom and Dad, the two figures never present at the same time but always present in some form, whose authority overlaps but is inconstant and no longer legally binding. The girlfriend, whose house I reside in and must seem to her merely a shadow who slips in during the night and sleeps the morning away. Sometimes there is no sleeping at all. This chapter involves a lot of living and not very much rest.

This is the action chapter, hopefully, the chapter in which the heroine (me, obviously) comes to certain realizations about herself and her world and ultimately her life and fate and then attempts to fight them, or go along with them, or do whatever she might do with them in order to survive to continue on to the next chapter.

But this chapter stretches on.

There is the past, so intertwined with the present it's hard to remember that we're in the weird chapter and not staring down the high school chapters, those unruly things, or the odd moments of college that left me confused and the readers baffled and sometimes rightly alarmed.
But this chapter has a lighter feel to it, even though it is arguably the most muddled and oddly contrived bit of the whole piece. It radiates the inner beauty that may have been ever present but is slowly starting to seep out, it radiates confidence and joy, both feelings flowing around it and through it but having no specific origination point.

And on a side note, the heroine has realized that sometimes what the people in her chapters seem is the complete opposite view of what the reader may perceive. She's truly blind. Perhaps the narrator should start suggesting the future with a better bit of foreshadowing? Or perhaps wouldn't mind writing in some dialogue or thoughts for the heroine that she might consider to take seriously?  As this chapter began, there was the law and now there is the reminder. Not of the law, that's been left behind, for every character has their own subplots in which they are engaged.

The reminder is the memory, brought back to life, resurrected in its own right, which now stands fully formed and present. So perhaps it shall need redefinition, as it now occupies a newer, brighter, clearer segment of the book of Life (ah, for lack of words). The heroine is finding herself engaged in dialogue, quick and comfortable, and memories, reminders, those foolish emotions that come along with everything that is now. Entirely enamored, she can't feel except for what she's feeling now, there truly are no time for those silly consequences. We can find those later, we'll hash through them in some upcoming chapter full of thought but hopefully lacking regret.
For now, there is the memory, growing stronger daily and the possibility, which drives our narrator to keep creating and pressing time into the pages.

This is how the weird chapter is progressing. Ever onward, flying, as the reader and the heroine attempt to keep up with the breakneck pace of the author's work, but momentous in each daily evolution. Momentous is a horrid word to describe this chapter. Perhaps we shall go with quixotic.  Yes, that.

Quixotic, dear readers, is the weirdest chapter yet.

The General Update

San Francisco has come and gone, and with it went so many things.

It closed the chapter of the book I'll later call college and it tied up the ends of friendship. Not in any negative way, but in a way that will cement the bonds I have with those girls. They are all contained and were expressed perfectly in that week.

I returned to Colorado lighthearted, which seems to be the theme of this summer so far, having made a decision and set of realizations that would free me from something I had mentally shackled myself to.
And then it happened, change and chance and perfect timing and thus my life began again, reinvigorated with a sense of freedom.

I'm hanging in the strangest balance at the moment. I am nowhere and everywhere, yet I'm no longer worried or wavering in my steps. I told Mom the other day that I think I'd find myself in South Africa and she gave me a look and said something about me calling her to let her know where I was once I'd figured it out.
I returned her look with one of equal exasperation.

But here we are now staring down the end of July and I'm wondering where all the time went. Summer is almost over and weeks are slipping past me without me ever thinking about it. Hours, days, I've no time for anything. I feel as though that sense of urgency is actually adulthood approaching but I'm trying to stave it off as long as I can. You only live once and that's exactly what I'm trying to do.

There are also some things that remind me that the past is never really quite the past and that friendships created can be maintained or preserved even if they are forced to languish in a stagnant state for a long time. Sometimes it's just the people you know that can make you believe in yourself and in your life and in your dreams. (That was way too happy for my usual outlook, but for some reason, this summer has brought with it possibility and intrigue and all the wonderful things I so adore.)

I'm excited for my next few weeks in Denver.

P.S. - Aunt Jan wins awesome Aunt of the Week points for gifting me with an exciting assortment of Clinique swag. I'm always so thrilled with funny little stuff like that, because somehow it's always exactly what I needed. I'm going to wear the eyeshadow out tonight, so I'll report back on my findings.

Mishmash

I've come to the conclusion that I really enjoy traveling.
Maybe it's the constant shuffle between Denver and Chicago, which sadly is drawing to a close at the end of this month, or the amount of places that I've been given the opportunity to visit, but either way, I've been in love with the world.
Luckily, however, I usually have a pretty nice bed to sleep in and this one is no exception. Soft and spacious, it's been hard to get out of. Maddie wasn't here last night, as she left yesterday to return home because Paul McCartney is more important than us, and I slept poorly. Hoping that it doesn't affect my enjoyment of today.
We've run out of steam on tourist things. We're heartbroken that we won't be able to make it to Alcatraz. I'm sick of bus transfers and swaying and holding on up and down hills. It's a much worse system than Chicago and I'm grateful for the CTA more times during the day than I ever thought I would be.

If you're friends with me on Facebook, the pictures of the trip are up. There are some necessary security precautions, so if you're a friend of a friend, you'll not be able to see the album. I'll set some of my favorites aside to post here once I get a bit more time. It's been a lovely journey through a lovely city and the place that we are staying is beyond amazing. I have a thing for any place that has granite countertops and an outdoor patio with a grill. Soft carpet. Walk in closets (not that they've been used at all).

After Cape Town, I wonder what it will be like to come back to Denver and make a life? Honestly, this trip is two parts adventure and two parts delaying adulthood. I'm not sure what it's like to make new friends or to find a new place to live in a city I no longer understand. It will be interesting. I'm going to give it a year and if I find that it's not working out for me, or that I'm unhappy in some monumental way, I'm going to pick a new city (or Chicago) and pick up and move there.
But hopefully Denver will be a suitable spot; I long ago decided I wanted to raise my children there. It's not bad crime-wise and it's just urban enough to be interesting, but also maintains a very laid-back attitude and is usually friendly, welcoming, accepting and progressive. The political culture is present and wildly different than the Chicago scene; good schools - better private ones; good prices; proximity to adventure (but sadly, no lakes/oceans). It's diverse, although I find myself at times wishing it was a more diverse city. We shall see how it changes in the next ten or so years before children are on the scene.
Colorado is the healthiest state, well-educated, apparently good for singles (ugh, dating). Maybe this will end in my  favor?

More of San Francisco

I am wholly in love with this city. San Francisco reminded me at first of Boston, but now I've come to the conclusion that it's nothing like Boston at all, in any way.
It's not like Chicago, either. Last night, I asked a group of people where the nearest 24 hour liquor store was and they looked at me like I was absolutely crazy and asked me where I was from. Late bars? I asked hopefully. Not a chance. Apparently they do things differently around here.
The public transportation is insane. And not necessarily in a good way. While I feel like it does a decent job of covering the city, there are cable cars, street cars, buses, trains....any and all vehicular forms are used here and it makes it quite confusing.
 A big disappointment was the Golden Gate Bridge, which wasn't planned out for tourists very well at all. There were three working bathroom stalls on the side of the bridge that we were on, and for the women, a line that extended quite far into the parking lot. I was glad to have brought hand sanitizer with me that day, definitely. The parking lot had service by one bus line, and buses to go to separate areas of the city left from the same spot and were numbered the same.
But.
This has been one of the greatest adventures of my life thus far. I could not love the women that I am with any more if I tried. It's been stressful, at times, relaxing, at other times, amazing, fulfilling, perfect.
Katie, Carolyn, Madeline, Anna and Leah are five friends I shall carry these memories with for life.
Last night was our big "going out" night because three of them (Madeline, Katie and Carolyn) are leaving today. We went to Asia SF last night to get dinner and watch gender illusionists lip synch what we thought were going to be show tunes. It was definitely a bit more raunchy than show tunes, but it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
Delicious three course dinner, dessert, drinks - free shots (an experience a selected few of you will hear about).
After, we got lost in a rough part of the city, made some quick decisions and got out of the situation. Along the way, we saw a huge group of police officers and firemen. They honked their truck horn at us and waved, which we found hilarious.
After some confusion and terror, we ended up back on the cable car/street car and got off at a random stop. The Mint bar was doing karaoke. This is where our night ended. Madeline and I did "Wonderboy" by Tenacious D. The other girls did something from Fiddler on the Roof.
At some point, I was outside and a man who told me he'd fallen in love with two girls who'd moved to Denver let me ride his street bike, something I had never done before. Another man who was out there had friends with him from Denver and we all danced for the rest of the night.
It was great.
Today we are planning on doing some walking tours of the city and riding a cable car and doing an at home dinner.

I keep forgetting I'm in California

Hello from San Francisco!!


Madeline and I are on our way to watch the World Cup finale but after that, we should be exploring the Haight today and then the evening is undecided. Perhaps Chinatown?

Tomorrow, if things fall into place, Katie Morton and I shall be riding over the Golden Gate Bridge on a tandem bike. It may very well be the most interesting thing we've ever done.

Last night was interesting. Maddie and I both landed about the same time, and then after getting my luggage, we went down to the BART and paid $7.95 each to take the train to 24th and Mission. From there I was quite distracted by a cart selling bacon hotdogs for $3.50. However, I was more intent on arriving at our destination alive, so we headed to the house on foot.
Hills. There were hills. At some point, we realized it was going to be a much more difficult endeavor than we had originally planned and I hailed a cab. Six dollars later, we had arrived.
Katie, Anna and Carolyn had been out in the Castro at the gay bars and were slightly worse for the wear, so Maddie and I left them to sleep and went out back to a bar we had seen on the ride to the house.
We had barely been out of the house five minutes when a motorcyclist made a U-turn and mumbled something odd. We walked on.
The Dubliner was playing a wonderful selection of music and we settled in to drink a couple in the last hour before the bars closed. I told the man who sidled up next to me that we were spending the summer backpacking up the west coast, starting in San Diego and ending in Seattle.
A man from Hungary tried to steal my camera (possibly), and after prying it from his hands, we left him to go home as the lights had just come on.
We made it home safely, read for awhile, and slept peacefully and woke this morning refreshed and ready for today.

We've got reservations at a restaurant that features feminine-looking Asian men lip-syncing to show tunes for the thirteenth. Excitement.

The odd thing about this place is that everyone seems to know we're outsiders. It's strange. I feel as though I normally can manage to blend into the places that I go.
Expect pictures; this is a beautiful city.

Great (mis)Expectations

It's happened.
It's been happening.
It's going to end badly, not for all parties involved, but for me.
Love isn't patient or kind, or any of that bullshit.
It's painful and reckless and full of terrible decisions and one-sided feelings.
And it's inevitable.

I'm not usually the one in my situation. I'm normally the one tearing up hearts, leaving nothing but tragedy and lost hope in my wake. But this time, it's different.
This is the first time since that one time, and man, that was rough. That was three years of my life that tore me apart, bit by bit, until my soul was shattered. I lived on my expectations, my hopes, the possibilities. Lived for them. I still can't listen to the song that was his ringtone then, it reminds me of long nights of waiting and of nothing and of broken promises and tears.
And one day it was over; the pain was gone, there was no feeling at all. A twinge of selfish joy, perhaps, but nothing else. It was done, I was done feeling it, I'd moved on.

Time.

I have a crush. It's a bad crush. Not that it's bad to have a crush, it's healthy and normal and normally wonderful. It is wonderful.
But he's not feeling for me the way I am for him, and even though I'm aware of that, I'm worried that I'll let my heart get in the way of my head, as it tends to do. I don't want to hope anything, I want to live and breathe in the moment and be free but constant. Consistently is lacking in that aspect, as is communication of those expectations. I need to keep myself in check by constantly evaluating the situation and taking it for what it is: nothing. Fun. Reckless fun. Great reckless fun. Perfectly great reckless fun.
That's all it is, that's all it will be. And I'll take that.

I'm here and there; I've not been consistently in the same city for years. I'm back and forth, unsettled, technically free. I'm young and I'm beautiful, intelligent with a seemingly bright future ahead of me. I am everything, but I'm not that yet, I'm still on the cusp of all that is life. I've yet to succeed in business, or work in an office, or make a salary. And I know I'm young yet. It will all fall into place.

There's still time.

It's always the wrong time.

And this is what is happening now. I've caught a glimpse of something that I so dearly want, a person who's driven and intelligent and funny and kind and I've begun to realize those are all of the things that I want. Not stupid boys, I want a stupid man.

And so this crush will have to ride itself out, while he pines for another and I so willingly accept the job of placeholder, keeping time while it passes.

There are no choices but the ones you make in the moment and those are the choices that shape the way you are and forever will be. But I've never been one to make rational choices; I wouldn't be Katie Barry if I did. If you know the consequences yet you still make those decisions, what does that make you? Foolish, obviously. Desperate, not quite. Aware and idiotic, alive.

And to lust is to be alive; it's a reminder of what we're searching for: that possibly singular blinding connection.

I'll be old enough, one day. But by then, some other possibly smarter man will have realized the true value of my personality and seen the scope of my endless possibilities and unique perceptions and swept me off my feet.

And if not, there's always eHarmony.


(dear lord that was emo; I'm sorry. I'm exhausted. It's not an excuse but I'm using it and I stand by it. Part of me is mortified to post this, but part of me thinks it will be cleansing. I hate crushes. They're so fun and so annoying at the same time. But here's to more wonderful years of fun crushes and late nights, and mostly, dancing. And here's to crushes, because where would we be if we weren't always yearning for something we couldn't have?)


Um, also, I'm going to San Francisco! I'll be back on Friday, so perhaps there will be intermittent blog posting but perhaps not. Oh dear, this is going to be wonderful.
Ah, the waning days of my youth certainly do bring about a wild amount of adventure.

I long to travel. Everywhere. I want to visit everything and know everyone before I'm thirty with kids and a mid-level office job.
I want to live.
And that's exactly what I'm doing.
Au revoir, and expect pictures.

I'm so lost and yet so settled.

I've spent the last twenty two years figuring out who I am and I think I've finally come to terms with me.
I've been loving being back; I sort of like being alone but always having somewhere to be, if that makes sense.
I'm excited to eventually find someone to share my life with, but I really truly do understand the value of one's own company. I am finding that I enjoy this time in life: unsettled, aware, alive, terrified, excited, anxious, restless, adventurous, beautiful, intrigued, curious, apprehensive, confident, nostalgic, reflective, quite sure: of nothing and of everything.

I am quite sure. But mostly, I am Katie Barry. And that, my friends, is not a bad thing to be.


There have been so many thoughts lately, and actually the push to write more fiction, so tomorrow, the first day that there will be breath for me since moving home, I will be breathing, and writing, and sipping tea. And then, of course, adventuring, because what day would be worthwhile without some sort of wild tale yet untold?

There are the things that have come back, the curious twists of fate, the possibilities. Exploration begins, tentatively, as does the working out.

Becoming a woman (in the real sense of the word....I used the phrase the other night and my friends were properly horrified) is not the easiest thing to do. There are things they fail to tell you, of course, that you must figure out. One of them is that living in the Midwest will make you love processed meats and cheeses and give you extra curves and things you never thought you'd have. I'm off to hike tomorrow, maybe? Morning? Red Rocks? yes. If I could be anywhere, always, it would be there.

I also can't wait to write the Subway tales, I think you'll find those at least mildly amusing.

I never believed anyone when they told me time would start to fly by as I got older. 

I'll never forget thinking that middle school would last forever, and that high school wouldn't be a time in my life I'd someday look back nostalgically on. 

College didn't even seem endless; it was there and it was done and now it's over and I feel as though it never happened, even though I'm quite sure it did. 

Twenty two is young, I'm constantly reminded of that. But it's not so young that I've not lived a full life, not so young I've not been molded into a wholly unique person. 

Lately, I've been embracing myself, and finding it entirely freeing. Meeting new people, doing new things (please do not judge me for this overly broad statement; cutting bread and putting meat and cheese and condiments on it entirely counts as something new), preparing for great adventures, being generally at ease with the things around me: I'm throwing myself into all of that. 

Not that on the inside I'm not absolutely terrified. Africa for three months? What if life as I know it changes when I return? Of course it will. I will be changed when I return. 

But some things never change. And that might be the best part. 

I'm home. 

Thank you, everyone. I'm here because of you. Not here, here, but here. 

Home, or something like it.

We have arrived.
The trip out was eventful, of course, but we made it in one piece with no trouble. After a late start on Thursday, we got to Des Moines. Both Mike and I were tired and hurting from the packing and cleaning, and the cat was ready to stop as well, so we stopped and got a hotel room for the night. Having AAA does have its advantages, and with a discounted room - I think the discount came to about $5 - we went down to the pool to swim and then ordered food and fell asleep.
Of course, we slept in later than we had planned and then headed out for Omaha. After lunch of hamburgers complete with hamburger-cupcake dessert, we went to the zoo and then out for dinner. After that, we played in the yard and then with the neighborhood kids.
Mike and I slept down in the basement but were distracted by the Wii, and so got another late start on Saturday. We made it home by about one.
Saturday night I went to a friend's barbecue and then had to be up early to start my new career as a Sandwich Artist. Not to brag or anything, but I'm a much better sandwich artist than the other new kid who were training next to me. I just sort of jumped right in and began creating and the other guy hung back.  I'm not going to lie, it's going to be interesting work. Not particularly challenging, but I feel as though I can figure out some way to spice my days up.
Ah, Colorado. We shall see how it all goes. Well, I hope.
I'm still spread out, not quite settled in. My stuff is all over this house and I still have a garage full of things at Mom's to organize. I'm waiting for my three suitcases to arrive via UPS and once they do, things should get a little bit better. Hopefully.

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.

Moving to Denver: 2010: Cat Update

I apologize for that last post.
My life list should actually look more like this:

To Do:
Stop being such a melodramatic bore.


Instead of doing anything on either of those lists, I spoke with Mom on the phone for well over an hour, referenced Virginia Woolf more than I should have, and then promptly overworked myself about cat nail clippers. You know, that sort of afternoon.
Carlos' nail clippers are missing. And his claws grow faster than baby's fingernails. So perhaps my Sunday drive today should be to PetSmart (Is it PetsMart? Or PetSmart? either way, there) to get some new ones that won't shred his nails.
That way I can prove to myself and him that I'm not a bad mother.

The ankle is another issue entirely. I played ultimate frisbee and then kickball yesterday, neither of which are activities conducive to healing. I now have a solid mass just above my ankle bone. I'll keep you updated for developments in that department.
However, I love running around. I also love it when neighborhood moms say that 22 year olds can still have popsicle breaks. Perfect evening.

Firetruck on my street and others fast approaching. Hopefully it's the second great Chicago fire and I can finally capitalize on my renter's insurance policy.
(Cute joke, I promise. I'm pretending that I'm not leaving and have therefore not begun packing. It's that sort of week as well. It might be easier if half of my possessions were charred. It would certainly make packing easier.)

The short-lived audio player will return, just after I've made some adjustments. That one was cumbersome and ugly, and if it's one thing that I prefer my blog not to be, it's that. (Take your pick, cumbersome or ugly.)

I'm going to hit up the PetSMart (there, end of discussion) downtown and make sure that I can get Carlos  what he needs. Maybe he'll want to come with? We're trying to practice car driving. (Redundant, I know.) He's not been bad at it; the only thing he HATES is getting in. And with those claws? He'd be a free cat in no time.

....
(Some time later)

I've returned...I have a new dog carrier for Carlos (since he's too big to fit comfortably in the cat ones) that should be spacious enough for the road trip. (I'll hopefully be able to fit a small litter box and some food/water in there as well....fingers crossed!) I didn't want to go too big, he doesn't need a cat palace. But he also got a new collar (it's adorable - white with dark brown flowers along it) to replace the one that was lost when he had his surgery. I'm not going to bother paying to make a tag or anything, he's microchipped and easily recognizable by all of his physical injuries.
Apparently, his teeth are out of order too. The front fangs are behind other fang-like teeth (I'd like to say incisors, but I'm most likely wrong. Fangs are incisors, right?) but should be in front of them. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to bother him although it might explain why he eats like a hyena.

Today was beautiful: hot and sunny, the Pride parade was today. I didn't go, instead I chose to decompress (and rest that ankle) and lay around watching the NCIS marathon on USA.
Perfect day.

I'm off to my friend Harrison's for our last movie night tonight.

The countdown has begun.
I'm at home today, not doing much of anything.
Lots to do: cleaning, obviously, a 6 page paper due Wednesday, packing, etc.

Tomorrow: A test at 2, then work from 5 until midnight.
Tuesday: Apparently, Mike flies in.
Wednesday: Final
Thursday: work
Friday: Denver.

Not much to write, not in the mood to write about much of anything.

Be at peace tonight.

Truth, Lies and the In-Between

Is there a disparity between who you are and who you present yourself as?
I've been wondering that a lot lately.
It's interesting. I've recently become close with a girl whom I was introduced to by a mutual friend. We share the same group of friends, for the most part. People often ask her why she's friends with me. She's confused by that question.
I'm confused as well.
And it's been making me wonder what the perception of me is in the social circles that I run in.
Of course, I try to follow the golden rules: acting to others as I'd like to be treated, trying not to do a terrible amount of gossip, kindness, respect, loyalty, etc.
But that's where things get gray.
Everyone thinks that what they're doing is correct.
Of course, I was watching reality television when I came to that conclusion. The Real Housewives series is a showcase of points of view. Since you see the drama unfold and then hear interviews that reflect the opinions of the participants, you get a glimpse of the ways that conflict operates. Of course, there's great truth in the idea that there are always three sides to the truth: yours, theirs, and the real truth. And I've come to the conclusion that no one knows the real truth about anything. Watching the housewives talk about their dramas, I find my sympathies rarely change but that sometimes, I'm not even sure who I want to sympathize with. Instead, I watch their impending arguments with fascination. Each is convinced that her opinion is correct.
One was lauding the fact that her son was in law school, yet I read in a law blog yesterday that he'd been kicked out for being unable to pass. Her reaction? To criticize the school for being unable to handle his learning disabilities. The blog's response? "And given that the practice of law involves lots of learning, maybe it’s best that those with JDs not have LDs." I can see both sides of that argument. Who can't? There are things I'd like to do with my life, but won't because I know I lack the skill set. Doing crime scene investigation and evidence-analysis? My dream job. But I can't because I lack the mathematical prowess.   

I'd like to merge the truths that I feel about myself with the truths that people feel about me. I know that everyone feels differently about everyone based on their situational relevance and proximity, but I would hope that someday I may merge all thoughts about me as a person in order to create a singular image of a composed, classy (but still fun), irreverent, intelligent, feisty woman. However, if anything, this has served as a wake up call to me that I need to reach out to the people around me and work on revealing my inner self rather than working on projecting something that may be an inaccurate reflection of myself.

My blog the other day received some criticism that I welcomed, although I was unsure as to how it fit into the scheme of the thought process. I had been intending for that particular post to be a contrite look at a past situation by analyzing and comparing it to a more recent situation. I wanted to show personal growth and make amends, even though those amends won't be heard by those who need to hear them.
However, rather than let the commentary do anything other than annoy me, I will say one thing: when you're going to call someone stupid on the internet, please make sure you do so after correcting your grammatical errors. It increases the power of your argument tenfold.

Think about whether or not your actions support the outward image that you wish to present. Obviously, that image might be different based on different situations, but if the end goal is respect, then hopefully even your less savory experiences (such as Friday nights out) might reflect your ability to support friends.
Today I was a better listener. That's been a big goal for me. Listening is really hard for me, because I'm always brimming with information that I want to share. Today, I was quiet and I supported my friend while she talked.
See? Working on it.

in between

It's 3:17pm.
I've done nothing today except reheat leftovers and look for information about the oil leak in Egypt.
It's hot in the apartment.
Cat is laying on the floor in front of the fan.
The ankle thing has put a cramp in my style, but today I'm going to go for a walk. And take pictures of the things in my neighborhood that mean something to me. And I'm going to buy cherries from the Devon Market and I'm going to have a wonderful evening.
It's going to be the perfect by yourself sort of day, the kind where you don't clean and you don't care.

I'm afraid to start packing because I'm not sure how it's going to go. Mom wants Mike to fly out and then join me for the drive back. I'd be alright with that.

"If I could change one thing about tomorrow..."

Preparing to leave Chicago is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. While I'm about to embark on one of the greatest adventures of my life, I'm also leaving behind four years of friendships and experiences.
As I do during most great times of change and the turmoil that comes with that, I've spent a lot of time lately reflecting. This week, it's on my own actions and the actions of the people around me.
I was reading an article in The New York Times today that discussed the problem of not knowing what you cannot know. (I've been wondering a lot about this specific thing lately, so it was pleasant to find an article on it. It made me realize that perhaps my thought trajectories have a purpose or at the very least, some semblance of normality. Linked here.) I often wonder how much of my life has been spent fumbling around simply because I did not know that there were alternate opportunities. This has lately made me wonder if I might have flourished in marketing or business during my undergraduate career, where I spent four years floundering in confusion as to my future. I wonder now how much floundering I've yet to do, simply because I'm unaware.
However, at the moment, I'm resigned to my fate because I've got a plan that will take me to at least December. During that time, I do believe there will be a lot of soul-searching and a lot of re-designation of life's particulars. I am going to take August to revel in myself, do some volunteering, and hopefully do some meager babysitting in an attempt to get some petty cash. And after that, I'll come back in debt, homeless and jobless, but at least I'll have had adventure and experience and a slightly thicker resume and I'll be lacking all of the student loans that my peers have accrued throughout their collegiate experience.
I'm looking at the great Cape Town adventure as a semester abroad, something that nobody should be deprived of and something that will be life changing no matter what happens. (It's also costing what the five week Rome study program would have cost, so for that, I'm wildly grateful. Rather than spend five weeks, I get to spend eight-plus and do something so much more worthwhile [hopefully].)

I've digressed, of course, but you knew that I would.

You'll remember our friend Ian, unless of course you don't. He was Hunter's roommate during their junior and senior years of college. He had two suicide attempts during the time that I knew him, once while they lived on the South Side, the night that Emily and I left to drive back to St. Louis the summer of 2008 and then once again January 31st, 2009. Neither of them were particularly successful: once, he took some Adderall and then immediately told a bus driver what he'd done and the second time, he disappeared from a party to send veiled text messages and to wander the city by night. We were frightened both times, but the second was the last straw.
I'll leave out things that happened in the interim, things that I would prefer to forget myself, but I'll say that it wasn't as though he was without any fault in the ultimate outcome.
My last words to him were, "I love you," at five o'clock the next morning, when he came back to the apartment on Magnolia to collect his things. He left through the back door, down those gray steps. There had been tears and shouting that night, anger and hurt feelings shared by us all.
And he was gone.
We went out to breakfast that morning. Me, Emily, Hunter, Coupe and Kyle. We gave thanks for our strong friendships, for the love that we shared together.  After that, we didn't hear from Ian and we made no attempt to contact him either. He settled things with Kyle and Hunter and Coupe, figuring out the bills, etc. We made cruel jokes, said hurtful things, and shut him out. The butt of all the jokes was Ian. At the time, it seemed like the sensible thing to do: band together and knit back together our hurt feelings.

Time passed.

I often wonder what he's doing with his life. I don't really care to know, as some of the things that happened between us don't deserve an answer, but now I wonder if we should have handled it differently.

I never foresaw the outcome of the breakup before I did it. I sometimes wonder if I should have stayed in the relationship just to avoid the aftermath, but then I realize that there was no option to do that. The reaction to the breakup confirmed everything I was thinking and solidified the fact that what I had done was right. (The manner of the final break up may not have been the most tactful, of course, but there was a complicating situation that had arisen in the meantime that necessitated an immediate and complete break up.)
After, I realized firsthand what the group mentality can do. I've lost more friends than I can count simply because of that group ideal of banding together. Because I'd hurt him, that I'd disrupted the flow of normalcy, I was no longer welcome. There were incidents, of course, and there was the final end. People who I counted among my confidants, among my very best friends, no longer speak to me. They pretend that I've committed some unspeakable act against them, that I'm despicable. They joined in calling me disgusting names behind my back, spreading lies and betraying confidences.
Running into mutual friends who've "de-friended" me on Facebook is always a sick pleasure for me. I love being polite and nice, and I love to see their reactions. I'm not the evil person I've been made out to be. But to them, I am. I hurt one of their own and have suffered the consequences. And while I'm not particularly hurt by it as I was never truly one of their company, I am more hurt than I thought I would be.
The immaturity and lack of respect shown by these individuals toward me makes me think about how I acted when I was a part of that group. And it makes me think about the Ian situation.
What could we have done differently?
What should we have done differently?
Were our actions correct?
Probably not, but at the time, we were unaware of different avenues of expression of our grief and dismay.
I feel badly, and while I'm not sure exactly what I would have done differently, I do know that we handled the situation immaturely and disrespectfully. Perhaps we were right to cut him out of our lives based on the stresses we were facing as a direct result of his actions, but we were not in any way correct to say some of the things that we did. We were in no way right to make the generalizations that we made.
And so, I am apologizing. None of us were right. Not you, not me, not us, not them. But we could have acted differently. And we should have.

Next time I'm faced with a situation that involves the termination of a friendship or some other severe conflict, hopefully I will be able to step back and take a look at the situation before I act in a way that I may someday regret. At the very least, that might present a positive outcome from an otherwise miserable situation.

Write. June 2010.

Because I'm too tired to try to recount my weekend, and because I'm too stressed out to want to relive it right now, fiction:

“I’m sorry,” she whispered; then she was gone.

            He watched her go, staring at her cotton-clad back as she disappeared down the cheaply carpeted stairs. As soon as her footsteps were fading into the dark hall, he shut the door, slowly, hoping that he’d have a chance to throw it open in an excited welcome.

            But he didn’t.

            The reluctant click of the deadbolt cemented the end of her sound, and he went to the window to watch her pass through the gate. He stood near the window tentatively, hoping she wouldn’t glance up to see him watching her.

            She did.

            “Shit!” he said, before remembering that it was summer, and all of his windows were open. “Shit,” he said again.

            She stared, her eyes widening in faint surprise. She’d not been expecting him to watch her exit, but then again, nothing about tonight had gone as she’d expected. Look away, she thought. Look away. But she found that she couldn’t.

            Just his head now was visible in the lit window; he’d tucked his body back behind the wall.

            “Shit,” she said, disgusted, echoing his word choice but not nearly his sentiment. Finally tearing her eyes from his, she walked quickly in the direction of the train. She had no intention of taking the train, not tonight. As soon as she was sure that she was out of his line of sight, which was quite farther than she needed to worry about, she broke into a sprint. She’d done quite a bit of preparation in anticipation of their date tonight, and worn clothes that were not conducive to running.

            By the time she hit a street she knew she’d be able to catch a cab on, she was breathless. Her chest heaving and her heart racing, she threw her hand out blindly.  And she waited.

            As she was throwing her arm into traffic, he was finally pulling away from the window. He’d been hoping she’d come back to claim the lipstick she’d dropped. He didn’t realize that she’d left a trail of the contents of her purse behind her on her mad dash away. He wasn’t aware of the fact that she wouldn’t care.

            She wasn’t yet aware of the fact that fate would throw them together again. 

Friday house cleaning

Bruise watch: Day 7: Purples, yellows, hints of green. It's not so much the bruise that's worrying me at the moment but it's the fact that I'm still in pain when I walk on it. But there's no way I'm about to go to the Wellness Center for it, so it's going to have to wait until I get back to Colorado.

The days are passing quickly. I spent a good portion of yesterday cleaning. It's a slow process and I don't feel as though I accomplished a lot. I've been lounging today; I think I'm still trying to catch up from the weekend and the settling in of that horrid sleep schedule. But there will be cleaning today and then there will be game night with some friends. 

We have an open house tomorrow morning, so Carlos and I are going for a drive. (I will have to hide his litter box somewhere...) I don't want anyone to know I have a cat this late in the game, although I'm sure that he's been spotted hanging out in the windows. 

The people below us on levels one and two have moved out. It's weird; I always used to talk to the family on the first floor. The dad was always going to work at weird hours and once he almost gave me a bike when mine had a flat tire. The mom was always trying to wrangle the two kids. One once told me to "have fun at college." It was adorable. 

I've been cancelled on three times for babysitting this week. Once from a woman whose child had developed hand, foot and mouth or something for Wednesday day. And then I filled Wednesday night, but her book club was cancelled and so was I. And my regular Thursday afternoon cancelled as well. It's always nice to not have to work, of course, but at the same time, I've been looking forward to that income. It's going to be a really rough couple of months financially and any extra cash helps. 

(I'm going to put out a nannying post once I get back to Denver....hopefully someone will pick me up for six weeks post or even some random evenings.)

I still hate Kobe Bryant. I don't want him to be compared to Michael Jordan; it's frustrating. He's not a good human being. I have this conversation at least ten times a year, and I think this year I'm going to learn all of his stats so I can throw down with people and fight them about his supposed greatness.

The weather in Chicago is insane right now. It was hot today, then it turned cloudy, and now the sky has opened up as is unleashing torrents of rain on the city. Carlos hates thunderstorms. At the first sign of distant thunder, he was under the couch. As the storm grew closer, I looked down to see how he wa doing. He was gone.
I always know where to find him when I can't see him in one of his normal haunts.
I crawled down and looked under my bed. There in the darkness, next to boxes from my bed frame and assorted items, I saw two yellow eyes. He doesn't come out once he's under there. He'll sit there until the storm has passed. I love him.
I met someone else's cat last night, and I will say that it is nothing like mine. It was small and skinny and very cat-like. It seemed fragile and dumb. I was so happy to get home to see Carlos, who is thick and smart and has intelligent eyes and a pensive gaze.
We're going in for vaccinations on Thursday. (At my vet they're half-priced on Thursday and I have a $10 coupon.) He's going to be upset. He hates that. 

Wade Williams

I met Wade Williams at Dairy Queen. It was many years ago. We became friends after I called the number he wrote on a receipt.  His friends had dared him to do it. And so he had.
We've been friends for years. I haven't seen him since high school.
Wow, has it really been that long? We talk here and there.
We are the two most opposite people on the planet. He went to Colorado Christian University. Granted I did go a Catholic high school and a Catholic college, but we are religious people on very different planes. I'm spiritual (and consider myself to be in that typical post-adolescent transient philosophical stage) and he is religious. Deeply so. In ways I'll never comprehend.
But tonight, he paid me a high compliment.
It made my night and reinforced to me that friends come in all forms.

Wade

well im gonna go, 630 breakfast comes early, im so glad i got to chat with you, you are so cool, you know that right? i have not met too many people who are have the zest for life, wit and intelligence you do

Bruise Watch: Day 5

Attractive, yeah?

Another wild weekend.

(The ankle: see below. I promise my feet aren't normally this unattractive...not that feet should be attractive, but...)

The last time I went to sleep was for an hour, this morning. Before that, it was Sunday night.

Somehow trivia stretched into a visit to Mullens, our favorite Wrigleyville bar, which stretched into darts and then I met some Irish (Madeline was like, "It does not surprise me at all that you just came back in and said, 'I met some Irish, let's go.'"), which stretched into a joining of groups and then the late night bars. By then, it was past four, and the sunrise was calling to us. We climbed the lighthouse, pulling out fencing to crawl under before attempting to scale the ladder leading to the top. We were unsuccessful, and so we waited patiently, dangling our feet over the edge as though we could touch the water. We couldn't.
The sunrise never came, but the light did.
And so we drove to Midway.
And then I came home. And then closed my eyes. And then I opened them, dashing off to babysit in the suburbs. It was a long day.
I dared not sleep while the kids were napping, for fear I'd fall into a deep, necessary sleep. And so I watched "Twilight," that teenaged vampire movie.
And then I took the wrong highway because I was nearly a zombie at that point. Two hours later, I arrived home.
Only to leave again to do more trivia.
Third place tonight.
The trivia announcer tells me he always enjoys our wrong answers. They're always hilarious, he tells me. I smile.

The thirteen pounds of furry black animal has been renamed Carlos. I love him. I've been making my absences up to him with Fancy Feast (which is fancier than you'd think), and so he's got this roundness about him that I find entirely too endearing. He's in love with plastic bags. Not to eat, but to sit on. Currently, he's lounging on a Target bag.
He went for his first car ride the other day without his carrier. He hates getting in; I'm assuming he thinks we're going to the vet, because that's where we're always going and they hurt him so much every time. But once he was in, he laid calmly and napped. Until I got out and then he gave me these fearful yellow eyes and I kissed the glass and told him he'd live.
Not surprisingly, he did.

The swelling on my ankle is not going down. I am in considerable pain, but not enough to hinder mobility (sort of...) This injury is the result of a soccer game with friends and then a bunch of Chicagoans in the park on Saturday. A kid wearing glittering cleats (thus his new name, Glitter Cleats) kicked me, right before being yelled at to take it easy on the girl. That upset me, obviously, and it didn't bother me until I looked down and saw the emerging mass that had become my ankle.
That night Maddie, Patrick and I joined Harrison for a comedy show downtown and then went to a bbq being held by one of his friends. I seriously enjoy conversation. It was odd; I knew no one there, but I decided to make the best of it. It was enjoyable.

I'm rambling.
I'm going to start posting my pros/cons lists for Chicago/Denver.
Chicago Pro: Humidity makes my hair curl gorgeously.
Con: Humidity makes all of my cereal stale.

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. 

Au Revoir, Chicago. You've been but a dream.

June 15 until July 1st is going to be a very interesting time for me.
And by interesting, I mean the exact opposite.
It's going to be very lonely, but I'm sure that I won't mind just removing myself from the world and being. Perhaps it shall be me and my beloved city and that damn cat, all alone in our strange apartment or all alone on the train or at the beach or in line at the grocery store.

And I'l hate to see it go, as I slip away for the last time (of course, it's never the last time, but symbolically, it is and that's crushing). I'll cry, just like I'm doing now, and that will be the end of it.

I hadn't thought how to say to goodbye. I still haven't.
I'll stand in the middle of Michigan Ave and look south, toward the river and the buildings and I'll say goodbye.
I'll wander by the lake and look out and pretend it goes on forever.
I'll walk west past Ashland and be surrounded by concrete and chaos and brick and history and I won't forget the ways that I've felt here.
Summer lies to me, though, I must remember. In the winter, I am dreadfully cold.

And then I'll drive down Lake Shore, reminiscent of Ferris Bueller taking his day off, and I'll see the city and my heart will break. The glint of steel and glass in the sun will call to me, reflecting scattered bits of colored light through my windshield and it will be like the shattered bits of my heart, which finally thought she might have arrived.
Ah, Chicago, like a siren. So much to take in. Nearly too much to survive. But just enough to keep the adrenaline alive.

"Their Dangerous Swagger" by Maureen Dowd

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/opinion/09dowd.html

From The New York Times:

It was set up like a fantasy football league draft. The height, weight and performance statistics of the draftees were offered to decide who would make the cut and who would emerge as the No. 1 pick.

But the players in this predatory game were not famous N.F.L. stars. They were unwitting girls about to start high school.

A group of soon-to-be freshmen boys at Landon, an elite private grade school and high school for boys in the wealthy Washington suburb of Montgomery County, Md., was drafting local girls.

One team was called “The Southside Slampigs,” and one boy dubbed his team with crude street slang for drug-addicted prostitutes.

The young woman who was the “top pick” was described by one of the boys in a team profile he put up online as “sweet, outgoing, friendly, willing to get down and dirty and [expletive] party. Coming in at 90 pounds, 5’2 and a bra size 34d.” She would be a special asset to the team, he noted, because her mother “is quite the cougar herself.”

Before they got caught last summer, the boys had planned an “opening day party,” complete with T-shirts, where the mission was to invite the drafted girls and, unbeknownst to them, score points by trying to rack up as many sexual encounters with the young women as possible.

“They evidently got points for first, second and third base,” said one outraged father of a drafted girl. “They were going to have parties and tally up the points, and money was going to be exchanged at the end of the season.” He said that the boys would also have earned points for “schmoozing with the parents.”

His daughter, he said, “was very upset about it. She thought these guys were her friends. This is the way we teach boys to treat women, young ladies? You have enough to worry about as a 14- or 15-year-old girl without having to worry about guys who are doing it as sport.”

Another parent was equally appalled: “I think the girls felt like they were getting targeted, that this was some big game. Talk about using people. It doesn’t get much worse than that.”

Landon is where the sons of many prominent members of the community are sent to learn “the code of character,” where “a Landon man” is part of a “true Brotherhood” and is known for his good word, respect and honesty. The school’s Web site boasts about the Landon Civility Code; boys are expected to “work together to eliminate all forms of disrespect” and “respect one another and our surroundings in our decorum, appearance, and interactions.”

The Washington suburban community of private school parents has also been reeling this spring from the tragedy involving former Landon student George Huguely V, a scion of the family that owned the lumber business that helped build the nation’s capital.

Huguely, who was a University of Virginia lacrosse player, was charged in the brutal death of his sometime girlfriend, Yeardley Love, a lacrosse player on the university’s women’s team who also hailed from Maryland.

The lovely young woman’s door was kicked in and her head was smashed over and over into the wall.

The awful crime, chronicled on the cover of People with the headline “Could She Have Been Saved?,” raised haunting questions about why Huguely had not already been reported to authorities, even though other lacrosse players had seen him choke Love at a party and his circle knew that the athlete had attacked a sleeping teammate whom he suspected had kissed Love. Huguely had also been so out-of-control drunk, angry and racially abusive with a policewoman in 2008 that she had to Taser him.

In The Washington Post, the sports columnist Sally Jenkins wrote about the swagger of young male athletes and the culture of silence that protects their thuggish locker-room behavior.

“His teammates and friends, the ones who watched him smash up windows and bottles and heard him rant about Love,” she wrote. “Why didn’t they turn him in? ... Why did they not treat Yeardley Love as their teammate, too?”

Some of the parents of girls drafted for the Landon sex teams think that the punishment for those culpable should have been greater, and the notification to parents should have been more thorough. Was the macho culture of silence in play?

Jean Erstling, Landon’s director of communications, said she was “aware of the incident” but that “student records including disciplinary infractions are confidential.”

She said that “Landon has an extensive ethics and character education program which includes as its key tenets respect and honesty. Civility toward women is definitely part of that education program.”

Time for a curriculum overhaul. Young men everywhere must be taught, beyond platitudes, that young women are not prey.

American Exceptionalism

Still not about teen pregnancy, my apologies. I've managed to convince myself that talking about it will lead me to write about eventually.

However, this article caught my eye this morning. It's from Feministe, and I thought you might enjoy it. It makes me think of those damn chain emails that always irk me so much and then spark posts where I try to say something like what is written below but fail miserably in my attempt.

And thus, written by guest blogger S.E. Smith, is "American Exceptionalism and You."

Enjoy:

Talking with a lovely Canadian the other day, we were discussing a really common problem we encounter on the Internet: The assumption that all readers are from the United States, and thus have a detailed understanding of issues that pertain to the United States and are deeply interested in these issues.

There’s a term, ‘American exceptionalism,’ that is used to describe some of the interesting social and political attitudes that surround the United States. Officially, it has to do with the idea that the United States is somehow exceptional or special, occupies a special position on the global stage by virtue of its accomplishments, deserves a special place in history because it’s just so darn unique. None of these things are true, but they directly contribute to the way the United States engages in foreign policy and interacts with other nations, behaving as the self appointed playground monitor that can do no wrong.

And this plays out in the way that people in the United States interact with the rest of the world as well. There’s a dominance that happens; US English is assumed to be the primary mode of communication, for example. Sites assume that readers can access Hulu videos (only available in the United States, but you already knew that, right?). Or that all readers are up on current political events in the United States. There’s also an implication that everyone from the United States has shared values and life experiences that acts to erase many people.

This very term, ‘American exceptionalism,’ speaks to the special place that the US thinks it occupies. Did you know that there are 36 countries in the Americas? That the Americas span two whole continents and the Caribbean? That US English is not the only language spoken in the Americas? Yet, the United States has coopted this term, ‘American,’ all for itself. Some people have even taken special care to weaponise this term in the immigration debate, demanding that the United States should be closed to people who aren’t ‘American.’

Assuming that everyone is from the United States doesn’t just erase the identities, interests, and concerns of people who are not from the United States. It also makes it fundamentally challenging for people to engage with content on US-centric sites. The assumptions that they will know about things slung about quite casually with no context or background get really frustrating; who wants to Wikipedia their way through a blog post to understand what in the hell is going on? Not I, that is for sure.

And I note that when people who are not from the United States write, they often do so with a global audience in mind. They explain things as they go along. They provide context and information so that people can understand what they are reading. They add insight and commentary. They do not assume that readers will understand the ins and outs of their political systems or will know the titles of laws by heart or will understand coded references to historical events. As a reader in the United States, I still sometimes feel a little bit lost, in part because of the ignorance cultivated by the way I engage with media, but at least I am not completely at sea.

When I go to the front page of overseas newspapers, often it’s US news that dominates the headlines. The 2008 election was covered in exhaustive detail in publications all over the world. Yet, Britain recently had an election, and it received barely any coverage here in the United States. Many US readers couldn’t tell you what a ‘coalition government’ is, let alone why it matters. Australia has an election coming up this year, but you probably wouldn’t know that if you read the news in the US exclusively.

US newspapers report news in the context of ‘how this pertains to the interests of people in the United States.’ Foreign newspapers don’t do this. They assume that readers might actually want to know about things that are going on in the world, even if they do not directly related to events going on at home.

There’s an othering that happens here too. When I read news stories about things that happen in other countries, it’s all about the Other. Over There. Those People. And The Horrible Things They Do. No matter that the same horrible things happen here in the United States, no matter that the United States might actually have some culpability in those horrible things, some involvement in a history of colonialism and exploitation.

That othering crosses over to interactions online as well, with people regarding nations outside the United States as abstract, exotic places. A certain amount of patronising seems to develop. Even on sites that supposedly have an international bent, the assumption is that everyone is from the United States, as though people from other regions of the world can’t access the site, or are perfectly happy to remain on the margins, to allow other people to write about their nations and their experiences. Sometimes it seems like everything must be filtered through the US lens.

Considering what happened the last time someone at Feministe tried to point out that the United States is not the centre of the world, I’m sure this will be tragic to hear, but, folks? The United States is not the centre of the world. And the widespread insistence on centreing experiences and concerns that are primarily relevant to people in the United States, and to referring to these things as ‘American,’ effectively ignoring the existence of the 35 other countries in the Americas, is really a significant barrier to conversation, not just here, but on many sites across the Internet.

South Africa: Preliminary Information

I'm sidetracking off of teen pregnancy, although I'm coming back to it after I post info about South Africa.

WE'RE GOING TO SOUTH AFRICA!

Coinciding with this wonderful news, The Economist has been so kind as to publish a special report about South Africa (just for me, of course. It has very little to do with the upcoming World Cup being held there later this month).

However, I'm going to link you to it, because hopefully this will be the start of a very wonderful journey for all of us. (I'm contemplating starting another blog to focus solely on my experience because I'm hoping to do some actual analysis and writing while I'm there....but we can get to that later.)
Click on the words below for links to the individual stories.

The price of freedom

Jobless growth

Still everything to play for

Colour me South African

When the whistle blows (not part of the special report published this week)

The great scourges

Don't get ill

Last in class

Your friendly monolith

Hold your nose

"Money can't buy you class" and other assorted random things

Two posts in a day, be sure to scroll down for pictures of the Mustache Bash bar crawl from Saturday.

I've been getting back into fiction lately. I went to the local library (where I'm not yet banned and don't owe them large sums of money. Going to miss that small freedom once I get back to Denver) and got some books last week. Ah, the oppressive stacks of the cramped space reminded me of my youth, when I was quite a bit smaller and not as tall. I made an effort to look at the titles near the floor, but it was impossible to do. But I ended up picking out four hardcover books. Hardcover to remind myself what literature really is. The crinkle of that plastic wrap is a magical, comforting sound to my over-auto-tune-subjected ears. Two murder mysteries (um, because that is what I do best), a book by John Connelly called The Gates, and then Clinton Kelly's fabulous etiquette book. Thus far, I've consumed The Gates and the fabulous book about being fabulous, which I enjoyed, but was thoroughly relieved I'd not spent any actual money on it. I enjoyed The Gates immensely. It was light-hearted, even though it was about Hell.

But it's been making me realize that I should be writing. Seriously. I need to up the English levels on my blog. I need to stop writing such melodramatic trash so that you're convinced you're not following some sort of soap opera. Instead, I shall focus on social issues that I care about and whatever else I can drum up. Hence the teen pregnancy allusion in the last post. I will get to it. And when I do, you will come away astounded. (Not by teen pregnancy, hopefully. There's really not much about it that might astound.) But I'm going to be a real (and by real, I mean completely amateur, un-official, writing from my apartment) journalist about this and do some research. You know, get the real facts before I spout off about stuff that no one really needs  to know.

I finally took the cover off of my laptop because I'm convinced it's scratching my laptop more than it would be scratched had it remained uncovered. I'm in the market for a new case as of tomorrow, so perhaps a stop off at the Apple store is in order. I'd also like to check out the iPad, in case we do end up going to South Africa.

Um, did I mention the applications and deposits have been submitted? WE ARE GOING TO SOUTH AFRICA (most likely)! I couldn't be more thrilled. I'm terrified, obviously, as I am about to embark on a mission deep into the unknown, however, I think that when it's all said and done, my life will have been irrevocably changed. For the better, hopefully. Unless I'm not. But we can deal with that at some later point. But The Economist seems to be on my side. My mailbox today was full of a fourteen-page special report on South Africa, which I will read on the train tomorrow and report back on. I enjoy their coverage. I am keeping my subscription to their magazine, partially because I think the British spellings are cute.

Also, it's not "for all intensive purposes." It's "for all intents and purposes." I feel like an idiot. I want to issue an open apology to anyone I may have grammatically offended over the years. Just so you know.

The title of this post is in reference to a song, if it can be called that, sung by an over-privileged woman from New York (she's on the Real Housewives, a show I can't get enough of). It's a horrible mess of song but it's hilarious and catchy but not in a good way. Catchy in that it'll be stuck in your head all day and you'll be wishing for anything else. Even a Rickroll would be nice about now.
And on that note: a really bad song sung by a really annoying woman

I've realized that one of the things I love about my cat is the way he sighs. It's so adorable. One thing I wildly disapprove of is his need to go bolting out the front door when I open it. Lame. Chasing him down the stairs seems to be his favorite game.

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.)