marmar thoughts

2010-10-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

When you've struggled to make ends meet or to throw together some semblance of normalcy, little victories are of the utmost importance and gravity. Moments when you realize you're okay, you're doing this thing yourself, god damn it, and that you're standing strong enough that the next wind won't blow you over. You've got roots in the ground. Upright. A human.

There are moments of ridiculous pride that I keep to myself. For example, I refrain from busting into the bedroom where my love is napping, to scream, "LOOK! I MADE A SANDWICH!" Lots of people make sandwiches all of the time. Hell, I made them for a living for four years to get myself through undergrad. But this sandwich, this sandwich I made at home, with meat and cheese from a deli counter that my living wage allows me to buy. I spread hummus on the bread, too.

All I'm saying is, it's a far cry from last year when I ate one meal a day, at work, because it was free. And I didn't turn my heat on because it was too expensive.

And I just made an awesome sandwich.

2010-08-18T02:34:00.000-07:00

We watched a documentary tonight, No Impact Man. It is about a writer who, along with his wife and daughter, sets out to live a full year without creating trash, without causing carbon emissions, etc. They compost, they bike, they make their own soap. They eat locally grown foods. The project itself is daunting and impressive if not impractical for most people, and the family is unwittingly bourgie at best and obliviously pretentious at worst. At the end of the film the two things that stayed with me were, I suppose, not really the "take aways" the project had intended. Alas, these were mine.

There is a scene in the film that is so touching. Tonight was the second time I've seen the film, and it still struck something inside of me; the first time, I teared up. For those of you who know me, you know this is rare. I don't cry during movies, especially if the scene involves humans. If a dog dies, forget it, I'm done for, but otherwise, I can appreciate it, aloof and unaffected. Yet something about this scene stays with me. It is toward the end of the film, the wife is burned out on the project, all of her creature comforts, and what most Americans have come to regard as basic needs, taken from her or greatly modified. She hears her husband and their toddler daughter in the bathroom, making a lot of noise. She's rolling her eyes, exhausted, and shuffles into the bathroom, to find them standing in a bath tub full of home made laundry soap and clothes, stomping on them to wash them. At first her face reads, "I'm going to kill you for putting me through this" ...then, something changes. She gets in the tub with them and they're all stomping, and they start giggling, and there is this amazing moment where the husband and wife lok at one another over their daughter's head and laugh, kiss, and share those eyes that only a couple that has been together a while shares.

When I first saw this film, I was going through my divorce. I think I was longing for connection, for family, for a sense of stability, and that scene spoke to that for me. I missed looking into someone's eyes and knowing what their eyes were saying. I missed being pissed off about small things and then being reminded that they don't matter because at the end of the day, I have this amazing human being who I stomp on laundry with, who also chooses to come home every night to stomp on laundry with me. He chose me! A person you think the world of thinks the same of you. Incredible.

Of course, that wasn't what had been happening in my marriage, or it wouldn't have ended. I was getting pissed, and staying pissed, at the beginning and the end of the day. I had convinced myself that most people felt that way. But then I kept seeing evidence to the contrary: my fathers who have been together for 25 years this October and are so in love with one another it is tangible in their home; my mother and stepfather who move around one another in the kitchen as if it is some ancient tribal dance that they've been doing their entire lives; and, this couple, pants rolled up and kissing in a bath full of dirty laundry and Borax. I wanted that. I felt cheated because hadn't I gone through all the motions? Met a boy, loved him, married him? I had done these things yet never felt that joy. I wanted that joy so badly.

Tonight, of course, there is no pretty bow to tie this up with, no "And this time while watching it, I did have that sort of joy!" I do have joy, and love. I love a man and he loves me, and it baffles me; not in a self-deprecating way, but in that awe of my luck, that someone I find so endlessly fascinating chooses to spend a majority of his time around me. This is a happy surprise. This is a welcomed development. And while we're not stomping laundry together quite yet, or sharing a look that is fueled by years of tears and fears and broken promises and perfect brithday gifts, there is an understanding of that feeling, a kernel, if just the simple knowledge that yes, love is joyful.

Toward the end of the film, the man is talking about the community garden he took part in. He talks about the project coming to the end of its year, and how amazing it has been to be more connected to the earth, and really seeing the seasons change. I think of all the markers of the seasons: Halloween candy out? It must be late September! Christmas decorations? Probably end of October. Et cetera. But for a year he saw what the earth would yield at different times for him to eat, and he appreciated it in a new way.

This time last year began it all. It was this time last year that I was spiraling desperately, so sad I couldn't breathe under it all, and I decided the best thing for both of us was to let it go. I wrote about it, and in one of the many poems I wrote, I spoke of the flowers that come this time of year. I had spent a lot of time walking the dogs to get out of the house. I would notice the tiny Chicago yards and gardens on these long walks. Last August, I was particularly taken with sunflowers and black-eyed susans. I started doing some writing exercises, and one of them was a free association word game. I chose these two flowers. From sunflower I got buxom, ripe, full, knowledgable, alive, laughter, wise. For black-eyed susans, I got young, petite, inquisitive, giggle, innocent. I think the similarity in color and the vast difference in size helped to set up this dichotomy, this yin and yang for me.

After an interesting year, I am reminded of last August, one year ago, as I saw my first sunflower of the season today. I had been seeing black-eyed susans for a month or so, and I kept holding my breath, waiting for the sunflowers. Here they are. They are blooming again, it is August again, and I am alright, I made it, I saw the earth turn. I saw myself turn.

I'm feeling the incredible impact.

2010-07-10T15:24:00.000-07:00

I love going to Planned Parenthood on protest days. Now, before you all peg me for someone who just likes to stir up trouble, as someone just looking for confrontation, let me explain myself.

I work nights. I usually get home around 2 in the morning, 1:30 if the public transit gods are working in my favor, but, since most transit systems seem to be designed by the minions of The Evil One, this rarely happens. Especially if I'm sick, if I know the dog desperately needs to go outside, if it's raining, snowing, or if there is a cute boy waiting for me at home. The minions know, and they laugh from their home in the tunnels of the subway, and in the folds of the accordion bus connecters.

Of course last night I was in no big hurry to get home, but I arrived rather quickly. But, I couldn't sleep. I usually go to bed around 3AM, but at 5, I was still rattling around the house, making to-do lists in my head, reflecting on the last six months of my life...?! Whatever. It began to stress me out though, as I had to get up and get to Planned Parenthood in the morning to pick up my birth control pills.

First, I know that I can go to a pharmacy and get this prescription. But, I believe in Planned Parenthood and want to support them. I used to work for them, don't have much money to donate to them, so I figure I might as well give them my money via Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

I dragged myself out of bed on very little sleep and realized, Shit, it's an AB day. An "AB Day" is a day on which the clinic, if it provides them at all at that location, performs abortion services. It doesn't usually produce longer wait times for supply pick-up as there is a separate waiting area and all, but to get into the facility, you have to cross a line of protesters. Flash forward about an hour and I am there, waiting to cross the street, seeing the protesters. I've been a clinic escort, a clinic assistant, an HIV test counselor, a sex educator. I know this scenario well. But something about it every time makes my heart race. There weren't many people today doing the Lord's work, just a few people praying, and a few people holding signs. There were the clinic escorts in their chartreuse vests to open the door for me, to shield me from the protesters. I felt safe.

I walk toward the door and there is a guy holding a sign that says, and I am not making this up, "What if YOU'RE mom was pro-choice" 1) Your, not "you're;" 2)if she was, she'd probably be attending pro-choice actions with me. A lot of pro-choice women are mothers. This just in!

Excuse me for fixating on the sign. It's just that it was the last thing I saw, this glaring grammar error, before it started flying toward my face, ending in a good smack. Right. I got smacked in the face with bad grammar and misguided information. It wasn't hard, or on purpose, Dude just turned and didn't see my tiny ass there.

As I reflected on this, I really have to say, it's good for me to go there on AB days. It's good to be reminded that while my generation takes for granted access to contraception and abortion, we shouldn't. I was going to pick up a prescribed medication, one that I take for two reasons: for a health concern, and for contraception. I am treating a condition and being responsible. You can't block my access to abortion, birth control, and accurate sex education. By blocking the latter two, you are helping to create more of the former. And, though it wasn't intentional, I still got hit in the face for trying to pick up a medication. That is ludicrous. And sure, I know I choose to go there instead of a pharmacy where it might not happen. But, there have been many reports of pharmacists refusing to fill a BC prescription for "moral" objections; I know that won't happen at Planned Parenthood. Also, it's a health center. I should not be confronted at a health center, no matter the services people seek there. It's a health center, and my health is not your business.

But, to end on a happy note, once I got into the center, they asked what I was there for and they comped my pills as "sample" packs because they felt so badly! :o) To quote the always hilarious and brilliant boyfriend, "Poor Jesus people. They wanted to stop sex and instead they gave it to you for three free months!"

Thank you, Jesus! :o)

"The universe works on a math equation that never even ever really even ends in the end..."

2010-06-17T17:14:00.000-07:00

--lyrics from "Never Ending Math Equation," Modest Mouse (1998)

Since moving out on my own at age seventeen, life has been, as it is for most adults, a balancing act of income versus expenditures. Last fall, this rose to a frenzied level as my husband moved out, and I took on the mortgage and everything else all on my own. Life was a "never ending math equation." It came down to the pennies, and I recorded every cent I spent and made in a Word document, my account balances always at the front of my brain. This caused an obscene amount of stress that I could feel, physically, and that others could see. I got down to 98 pounds, and the fact that I had little money to eat didn't help.

But things are better now. Much better. Life is startlingly wonderful, and it's almost hard to remember the woman I was in those months. Almost. I hope I don't ever forget, as I learned more about myself during this time than I ever have. Aside from mushy, touchy-feely new age knowledge of "the self," I also gained an immense understanding of the way to move forward, especially financially.

I still find myself tripping over math problems, every sojourn to the grocery store incomplete without a calculator. I won't buy anything that isn't on sale. I check my bank account daily. I still keep that Word document budget. And even with my paychecks from my new job that pays so much better, I panic, thinking, I need more. I need more money. I don't. But I'm so used to existing in panic mode, that I can't relax and enjoy a modest, but normal, financial life. I am going on vacation this summer, I bought some new clothes for the new office job, and I signed up for an aerial arts class. I'm doing some fun things. But, not without fear. It was sudden, plunge into not having enough was shocking. It really was.

I'm hoping to find a balance. I'm hoping to always remember how hard it was.

2010-05-27T23:36:00.000-07:00

It's one of those nights when I can't shut my brain off, can't keep myself from reflecting, even when I know some of the trails my mind is due to wander down are not good for me. I know it, yet, tonight, it seems as if it's the only way. Shall we?

Five years ago today, I graduated from high school. I stood outside my high school for the last time with my high school boyfriend, said good-bye to my first real boyfriend, and was waved at by my estranged best friend's family from their mini-van. Wow, I had thought to myself. Things have certainly changed.

There is a quote from one of my favorite writers, Thomas Lynch. He is reflecting on life, on the had-I -known-then-what-I-know-now moments. He says, "In my fifties, I imagine the man in his twenties, who never could have imagined me." That quote makes me feel two things. First, I feel hopeful. I think about being fifty, and how wonderful I might be, how great life might have turned out, and how I can't imagine it now, in my twenties. I hope the fifty year old Mar is saying to twenty-something Mar, Just around the corner is something wonderful, if you could just wait long enough.

But then I think, what if I don't become a wonderful person by my fifties? What if I look back on my twenties thinking, What happened to her...? I can't bear that. I can't. So I guess I'll go about the business of creating the former.

Life is so good right now. But, in typical Catholic Irish fashion, that just means I'm waiting for the inevitable horror, the tragedy to ruin it all. The longer I go without that happening, the higher the stakes, the scarier the downfall. Perhaps it's scarier, this time, coming from what felt like rock bottom to me. August-February were the hardest months of my life. I don't think I have ever felt so many things at once, to such staggering extremes, for so long. It really was painful. My entire life changed. Now that things are evening out, I can breathe a sigh of relief, but also fear a return to the bottom. I don't want to go back. I don't want to feel hopeless like that again.

Positive changes, as of late: I met one of the most amazing men, and, oddly, he enjoys my company too. I'm not offering that as a happy ending, a Cinderella moment, but, as a happy beginning, as an acknowledgement that yes, fine, I will concede that not all humans are awful and that I want to be in close proximity to some of them. I welcome it. In other more life-changing, and I mean that, banter, I got a new job that pays, literally, twice what I made at my last job. This means paying all of the bills, and on time, and not having to sell my home, which was about to happen. It means keeping my dog, feeding him and myself, and having a little extra money to enjoy life too. I am sticking my toe in the water, trying new things. I'm smiling a lot.

I'm remembering that evening, five years ago, when I couldn't possibly imagine that five years from that very moment the high school boyfriend next to me would be my ex-husband; that my mother and I would actually have a relationship; that I would be a single woman who owns her own home in Chicago, filling it with books and dog hair and attempts at cooking. I couldn't imagine feeling the sadness I just overcame, nor the strange freedom and elation I feel now.

I would have been shocked to know what friends stuck with me through it all. People I would have guaranteed to have been there are not, and people who were mere acquaintances, or not even known to me yet, have carried me through. I blink. I stare. I blink again. Is this my life? Is this me? Is this the woman in her twenties, imagining the girl in her teens, who never could have imagined me?

I guess it is. Here I am.

"And I know it's best that in this empty heart of mine is where I begin the movin' on..."

2010-03-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

I feel like I can finally catch my breath.

The past eight months have been a blur of every imaginable emotion. I’ve exclaimed, during the same day, or perhaps even in the same hour-long period, that I’d never been happier, but also that I’d never been more lost. These things were both true.

I left a relationship I had been in for five and a half years. Sure, relative to my pending lifespan (fingers crossed, I suppose!), that is a blip on the radar. But at 23, it’s significant.

In the past eight months I have tried to make a marriage work, failed, sought a divorce; lost my in-laws, whom I loved more than I can ever convey; taken on a mortgage and bills on my own; started a new job; fallen in love, poured the entirety of myself into a relationship that was more about commensalism than mutualism, and then watched that relationship end in what can only be described as a spiraling mind fuck that left me sleeping abut two hours a night, not eating, and missing class and work. Over the course of the eight months, I’ve lost 22 pounds and while I’ve been healthier in the last month, still can’t seem to gain it back. I’ve listened to copious amounts of sad music, feeling sixteen again, lying in my bed crying, identifying with trite song lyrics. I’ve ignored my friends except for when I needed them and called them in hysterics.

I don’t like that person. I don’t. So I’m quitting that.

In February, I decided I’d had enough. One can only be sad for so long. One can only live dishonestly for so long. I thought I had learned, and heeded the lesson, back in August, but it has taken more heart breaking tutorials. I’ve observed who has stuck by me, who has listened to me cry about the same things time and again. Several people have driven to Chicago just to spend the night with me. As it turns out, my mother is incredible. These are things you miss when life is going your way. Friends are fun, mothers are obnoxious and overbearing.

Throw a divorce, a dysfunctional new relationship, and a loved one’s suicide attempt in the mix, and you understand what friends and family are really here for. It becomes real clear.

I feel myself bouncing back. With the spring, I am happier, I am smiling, I am laughing. I’m surrounding myself with positive people. I will finish applying to grad school, finish books I could never concentrate on, commit to laughing more than crying. I’m listening to more happy music. I’m seeing the light. I’m feeling the breeze.

I hope I can trust again, love again, and find myself again. I am laughing again, which is a good first step.

falling in love

2009-12-10T01:20:00.000-08:00

I had a moment tonight when I fell in love, all over again, with my city, and my dog, and my life.

Really, perhaps, I was falling in love for the first time.

Life is so different now. Everything is different. It's funny; you change one component, albeit a rather significant one, and all the others seems to look different, feel different, smell different, sound different. Walking on the east side of Winthrop Avenue, my street, heading north, I passed the small playlot where David and I would take Jake to run off-leash the first winter after we had adopted him. It was cold and clear and snow was on the ground, on our boots, in Jakes paws. We laughed. David and I hadn't laughed or smiled like that for some time. Winter in Chicago wears on people, you know.

It was the winter, I always told myself. Or the summer, or the spring, or the autumn. It was always something.

He moved out three months ago. And this place looks so different. Thanks to two best friends who, in conjunction with their ability to listen to me cry on the phone at odd times of the night about the same thing I cried about the last time I called, are incredible artists. The condo feels like mine, and not ours. It helped me move on. They helped me move on.

I haven't written about this yet, really, because I don't believe in blogs being tools for unearthing thoughts, be they negative or positive, about others. My divorce, the end of my marriage, the end to six years with someone, is not anyone else's business. But I write. It's how I express myself best, it's how I deal with things. I am attempting, now, to deal.

Bear with me.

He did nothing wrong. I don't hate him. I love him. And for all the laughter and good memories and photos of us smiling... in Jamaica, Charleston, South Carolina, duckpin bowling, and, yes, of course, at our wedding... for all of those millions of moments that only we shared, or those that were captured on film... for all of those millions of moments there are millions of tears and millions of regrets and millions of moments when my breath catches and I know I'll never breathe again.

But then I do. And I'm not sure how or why.

But tonight after work I fell in love. It was late and my street was deserted. The street lights lit up the snow and the cars and Christmas trees, which usually make me sad, peered out at me in a friendly way from my neighbors windows. Jake skipped happily ahead of me at the end of the leash. My street wears winter well. It looks good covered in snow and ice. And as I passed the playlot I remembered laughing in the snow and taking photos of Jake doing just about everything those first few days, and I remembered sharing that with David. I remembered. And somehow I was still able to be happy, to smile, snow blowing in off the lake into my eyes and fogging up my glasses. I smiled at Jake and the thought of myself, alone.

I came home and cried all night. One should never rummage through forgotten drawers alone, especially when emotionally precarious. But I did, and I cried, and called in the aid of a good friend, yet again. And by the end of the night, too too late to be awake, I am alright again, and perhaps I can even fall in love again with this new life of mine. I don't think the occasional crying jag means that I can't. I think it means I am, for once, not the strong one, not the one others come to, but the one that needs her friends desperately. It's uncomfortable being that person suddenly. Perhaps this is part of my new life, and a facet of myself with which I must fall in love.

Sunbeam Mixmaster

2009-10-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

My mother inherited
an old stand mixer.
The kind
that swirls
and grinds
and blends
seemingly unrelated matter into
warm scones and soda bread.
It was not her mother's
but my father's mother's---
it was white and black and chrome
and, aged at least 40 years it would still groan
churning
turning
on yet another kitchen countertop.

It is some nonspecific day
in the specific 1940s
and there is a war
and there are ration cards
and there is not enough to eat
when there was already not enough to eat since the 1920s
(before they stopped roaring).
My father has a number pinned inside his clothes.
If the Germans
or the Japanese
or the Italians
invade, this number will help account for my father.
All children have a number.
It is eerily similar to children
in concentration camps.
But instead of wooden, flea-infested bunks
no food
no clothes,
my father sleeps on a cleaner bed---
not clean, but cleaner, as clean as can be managed---
behind blackout curtains
his stomach is mostly quiet
and he has clothes. But they are embarrassing.
His mother spends hours
throwing things into pots and pans
and the mixer
and hoping that whatever comes of the blend
will be enough to feed her family.
She is glad for potatoes and their heartiness.
The mixer also cradles seaweeds,
sent to her illegally from Ireland
so she might make some sort of living.
She makes toothpaste and other apothecary items.
She is the midwife in their small New Jersey Irish community.
Balms and candles
soothing women as they bring another being
to soothe and number
into this unreal world.
I often wonder if my Irish Catholic grandmother
made abortifacients
not because she was "pro-choice"
but because she knew her world
and because she knew the hardships of relying on a
stand mixer
to pay the rent
to feed the children
to be.

It is a specific day in
a specific time
in a specific suburban kitchen of my youth.
1995. My first Communion.
My father is already dead
my mother is thinking about that today,
she wishes he could have seen this milestone
which makes me regretful now,
the adult atheist daughter,
that day meant so much to her.
We spent the morning baking.
The tradition in her family,
a cake shaped like a lamb,
is failing like my Catholicism eventually would.
The head falls off
we prop it up with tooth picks and
use icing as glue
and we try desperately to hide our
desperate efforts
which
of course
makes it look all the more desperate.
Yet this mixer has seen desperation before
and if it were to personify
would likely explain to my mother
myself, and my godmother
that desperation does not come on days
that also see expensive white dresses
clean, flowing curls on
little girls
and a buffet spread out on an oak dining table.
These are not desperate times.
I,
my grandmother's stand mixer would say,
have seen desperate times.

But this is me.
I am this queer amalgamation
of a desperate woman
grinding seaweed so she might buy clothes for her son
in which she will pin his identification number
in case evil men on another continent---
her home continent---
get it in their minds to blow his limbs across the Hudson;
I am also
of a desperate woman
grinding flour and eggs
grinding an axe,
as it were,
with her god.
"I am desperate. This is desperation,"
she might reply to the personified mixer.
"I have a little girl
who has no father.
I have love
and no lover.
Don't let the oak dining table
or the crisp white dress this May morning
fool you.
This is desperate."

The amalgamation,
Myself,
I sit in yet another specific time
and specifically recall the way
I came
to be,
through the women in my life.
And I think about the man
my father
who bridged the gap between those
differing desperations,
three women, all desperate
all tightly wound and all
regrets.
A stand mixer;
the common thread.
Maggie, desperate to make a living
Carol Ann, desperate to find a way to keep living
Mary-Margaret, desperate for that stand mixer that no longer works.
Finally.
After about a 50 year run.
And I am desperate to display it on a shelf
to tell it's story and be near it
to remember it in the well-appointed suburban homes of my youth
and to imagine it in the ascetic tenements of my father's youth
and to cling to it,
desperately,
as those who have touched it age
leave
and live only through
my poetic personifications.

A little slow on the uptake...

2009-09-19T15:48:00.000-07:00

I love music. Admittedly, I don't know much about it, and don't know any new artists. At all. Since I don't own a car, I don't putter around town listening to the radio as I run errands. I know "modern" folks have these little boxes o' sound called MP3 players, and I have one that doesn't work too well from several years ago that I no longer use. If I wasn't going through a divorce and suddenly having to pay the mortgage all by myself, along with every other expense you don't realize you have until you examine them all, I'd probably by an iPod. But, alas.

I am proud to report though that I joined the modern people in some small sense yesterday. I bought something from iTunes for the first time! But don't get too excited... I bought an album from 2003 that I just discovered this week. Damien Rices "O." I LOVE it! Here is my favorite song. These lyrics kill me. KILL. ME.

"Cannonball"
There’s still a little bit of your taste in my mouth
There’s still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
It’s still a little hard to say what's going on

There’s still a little bit of your ghost your witness
There’s still a little bit of your face i haven't kissed
You step a little closer each day
That I can´t say what´s going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love, it taught me to lie
Life, it taught me to die
So it's not hard to fall
When you float like a cannonball

There’s still a little bit of your song in my ear
There’s still a little bit of your words i long to hear
You step a little closer to me
So close that I can´t see what´s going on

Stones taught me to fly
Love taught me to lie
Life taught me to die
So its not hard to fall
When you float like a cannon.

Stones taught me to fly
Love, it taught me to cry
So come on courage, teach me to be shy
'Cause its not hard to fall,
And I don't want to scare her
Its not hard to fall
And i don't want to lose
Its not hard to grow
When you know that you just don't know

"afraid"

2009-09-11T21:06:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of my last post, I am going to do, or notice, something each day that I am afraid to do...and do it anyway. This could be fear, like being scared to be hurt, or fear of just failing.
Yesterday I went to the hardware store, picked out paint, carried it home, carried the ladder up from the basement, stood on a ladder and painted. I would usually rely on my S.O. for this. I couldn't. So I didn't. And I did just fine. I didn't fall off the ladder, die, only to be discovered 5 days later when a neighbor calls about a smell coming from upstairs. So that's good.
Today, I walked the dogs by myself at night.

Fear.

2009-09-08T21:41:00.000-07:00

"As a girl, she dreamed about having a silent home, just to herself, the way other women dreamed of their weddings. Instead of collecting lace and linen for her trousseau, the young woman buys old things from the thrift stores on grimy Milwaukee Avenue for her future house-of-her-own---faded quilts, cracked vases, chipped saucers, lamps in need of love.

"...The daughter claimed that she had been taught that a writer needs quiet, privacy, and long stretches of solitude to think. The father decided too much college and too much gringo friends had ruined her. In a way he was right. In a way she was right. When she thinks to herself in her father's language, she knows sons and daughters don't leave their parents' house until they marry. When she thinks in English, she knows she should've been on her own since eighteen.

"...At the end of the evening she finds herself searching for a ride home. She came on the bus and [he] offers to give her a lift home. But she's not going home, she's got her heart set on a movie that's showing only tonight. She's afraid of going to the movies alone, and that's why she's decided to go. Because she's afraid.

"...What is the woman in the photograph afraid of? She's afraid of walking from her parked car to her apartment in the dark. She's afraid of the scuffling sounds in the walls. She's afraid she'll fall in love and get stuck living in Chicago. She's afraid of ghosts, deep water, rodents, night, things that move too fast---cars, airplanes, her life. She's afraid she'll have to move back home again if she isn't brave enough to live alone.

"...I meet Norma Alarcon. She is to become one of my earliest publishers and my lifetime friend. The first time she walks through the rooms of [my] apartment on North Paulina, she notices the quiet rooms, the collection of typewriters, the books and Japanese figurines, the windows with the view of freeway and sky. She walks as if on tiptoe, peering into every room, even the pantry and closet as if looking for something. 'You live here...' she asks, 'alone?'

'Yes.'

'So...' she pauses, 'How did yo do it?'

Norma, I did it by doing the things I was afraid of doing so that I would no longer be afraid. Moving away to go to graduate school. Traveling abroad alone. Earning my own money and living by myself. Posing as an author when I was afraid, just as I posed in that photo you used on the first cover of Third Woman. "

---Sandra Cisneros, from the introduction to the 25th Anniversary edition of her book, The House on Mango Street.

700 W. Bittersweet Place

2009-08-16T19:42:00.001-07:00

Buxom sunflowers
and
nervous black-eyes susans:
the nursing mother
and
the sweet clumsy virgin.
Perhaps I am both on days like today
---all teacher,
and,
all protege.
But what woman is not possessive
of both
swelled breasts of dependence
and
tightly wound flesh untouched?

So,
we proceed.
I
am both
the abject,
the never-enough.
Yet here perfection is achieved
In submission to learned August rain.

23rd Street Runs into Heaven

2009-08-14T17:19:00.000-07:00

By Kenneth Patchen

You stand near the window as lights wink
On along the street. Somewhere a trolley, taking
Shop-girls and clerks home, clatters through
This before-supper Sabbath. An alley cat cries
To find the garbage cans sealed; newsboys
Begin their murder-into-pennies round.

We are shut in, secure for a little, safe until
Tomorrow. You slip your dress off, roll down
Your stockings, careful against runs. Naked now,
With soft light on soft flesh, you pause
For a moment; turn and face me -
Smile in a way that only women know
Who have lain long with their lover
And are made more virginal.

Our supper is plain but we are very wonderful.

2009-08-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today was the most amazing day. It started out with me sick in bed, coughing so hard that my sides hurt, my brain hurt, and the dogs weren't even willing to share a sleeping space with me. All in all, disgusting.

But then I started cleaning, and feeling a little better. I still made it to the show tonight, Spring Awakening. It's been a long time since I've seen live theatre, especially a musical. And, for a musical, it was good. It was just nice to be out and about, a night on the town. All by myself.

When I got home, I had a mountain of packages waiting for me. Most of them were books for the semester and, finally, my dream came true! One of the used books I bought was an old library book! The musty, ragged cover, the card pocket still inside.

I am a whore for old, creaky bindings and pages scented with the kiss of other books and fingers.

One package was from a catalogue. I ordered a hilarious tshirt, and two pairs of pants... THAT FIT REALLY WELL! This never happens.

Okay. The pants were vain. But seriously, 5'2" biatches around the world will allow me this. It is damn hard to find pants that fit when you're the height of a middle schooler with the hips and ass of a normal woman.

"Wild Things in Captivity" (D.H. Lawrence)

2009-08-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

Wild things in captivity
while they keep their own wild purity
won't breed, they mope, they die.

All men are in captivity,
Active with captive activity,
and the best won't breed, though they don't know why.

The great cage of our domesticity
kills sex in a man, the simplicity
of desire is distorted and twisted awry.

And so, with bitter perversity,
gritting against the great adversity,
the young ones copulate, hate it, anf want to cry.

Sex is a state of grace.
In a cage it can't take place.
Break the cage then, start in and try.

"Hey little freak with the lunch pail purse/Underneath the paint you're just a little girl" --Tom Petty and the Hearbreakers, "Zombie Zoo"

2009-08-08T15:29:00.000-07:00

I cleaned my bookshelf today. It was a general reorganization, dusting, and reevaluation of the books I wanted to keep and those I could muster the strength to part with.

Name a point in my life. A momentous occasion of considerable import, or a random Tuesday in 1998. I can probably tell you what book I was reading. I associate times in my life with what I was reading during that time. I held A Tree Grows in Brooklyn a little longer than the rest of the books as I dusted, remembering the ten consecutive years I have read and re-read it. I passed off Fear of Falling as quickly as possible, because it was the book I was reading when attacked on a bus in 2008. When I had finally worked my way down to the most neglected and chaotic mess, the bottom shelf of old theatre books and scripts, I found a book so special that I felt compelled to share it.

This is a notebook I bought in Broad Ripple (an area on the north side of Indianapolis, that used to be cool and funky). It was from a store that smelled strongly of Patchouli, and they sold long, flowy skirts, candles, and things made out of recycled items. I bought this notebook there to hold my acting notes; things I learned in Saturday morning classes, things directors said that struck me, and quotes from acting teachers and actors I read.

Relatively few pages are filled. But, looking back, I think that was because most of what I learned doing theatre was not in the form of a bulleted point or quick note to jot down. It was more than that. However, coming across this notebook today, turning its crispy, delicate pages, I began remembering the passion, love, and joy that theatre gave me. The alacrity with which I approached it.
A list of "dream roles." I played one, Anne Frank, in 2002.

My loopy handwriting and address, in case I ever left it in some coffeeshop after finishing my Mocha, my drink of choice in my early teens before real coffee sounded appealing.

When I first moved to Chicago at 18, I remember mourning the loss of the theatre community, the creative outlet, and so many other things about it. It had been my life. I wondered if I'd ever feel that way about anything again.

Today was the first time that I've encountered one of these nostalgic moments and was able to think, Yes, I do love something as much as I loved this. And that made me feel content and excited.

2009-05-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

Stirring my oatmeal, the smells hit my nostrils and suddenly I am not here, but there, living on the south side, downtown, the South Loop. It is 2005. I am new. I am not at home, yet I feel more comfortable than I have in... years? Months? Ever?

I always get sentimental this time of year. Kids are graduating, others are closing another year, gearing up for the next. Some people are moving. Lots of people are getting married. Summer promises a lot, it seems. And I can't help but think about the promise of summer 2005, for me. Eighteen years old, headstrong, stubborn. I left Indianapolis, the only home I could remember, and the friends and streets and mochas and rebellions that made up my teenage years. In my head I had created a life for myself in Chicago. it was going to be fabulous.

Four years later... and it seems so much longer. And, finally, I feel fabulous. My life is completely different than I thought it would be. For the better, I will add. I would be miserable leading the life that eighteen year old had planned. But tonight, I am sentimental. For a late night snack, I chose a packet of instant oatmeal, Cinnamon Bun flavor. As I stirred the hot oats and water, I remembered eating the stuff every morning before walking uptown to my retail job off Michigan Avenue. In an instant I saw that first apartment, too expensive but too cute, a great first Chicago apartment, with its sideways view of the Sears Tower, its walking distance to both the Art Institute and the largest homeless shelter in the city. A far cry from the suburb I had been raised in. I heard the creaking utility closet door, the cat running past it to use the litter box. I heard the calm quiet of downtown weekend morning, all of the business suits slung over backs of chairs until Monday.

All that from some hot cereal.

2008-12-26T16:01:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about so much lately, and perhaps that is why I haven't written. It's not a lack of words I have but a plethora that is the problem, this time around. And still, the words twist around themselves inside of me, trying to make their way out into the world, but they become ensnarled in one another.

Life is beautiful and hopeful and shiny and new and old and comfy, too. This is a good mix, I think.

We didn't travel to Indy for the holidays, but stayed home. This was partly because David couldn't get off work (food service+holidays+new guy at work=no way), but also because we couldn't afford it really. And, David needed to save all of his paid leave for our vacation in early January. Some family members understood this, and other did not. It was evident from their phone calls on Thanksgiving and Christmas that they felt sorry for us, like whatever we were doing was obviously second best to being in Indiana. Sure, we would have loved to have seen Madelyn on her first Christmas... but, we will see them in a week or so. And, we were with our Chicago family, Jay and Dwayne. We laughed and ate and sang and had a great time. I was home for the holidays.

The longer I am here, the harder it is to imagine leaving.

The way the leaves stain the sidewalks after a good rain...all browns and green and yellows. The way the dog walkers all know one another, the only crazy people out in every weather imaginable, watching our dogs circle for that perfect place to make a deposit. The roar of the 'el out our window. The mix (and clash) of cultures on every block. The die-hard Cubs and Sox fans. Tiny neighborhood businesses. This is Chicago. And everyday it becomes more like home to me. It becomes harder to convince myself that this isn't where my life is, this is only life for the time being. I begin to see my future here. And I don't know what that means.

Christmas yesterday. How strange. All of this build-up, planning, gift buying... and I'm not even Christian. I feel so strange on Christmas day. Yesterday went from stange to sad though. Our closest friends up here, my "two gay dads" Jay and Dwayne, had to put their 16 year old dog down on fucking Christmas night. I know. Awful. Every few hours during Christmas, the vet would call with an update. They became grimmer as the day went on. Late last night they took a cab over to the vet hospital and made their decision.

It made us so... aware. Aware of how much we love our dogs, how lost we'd feel without the sound of their tags jingling, their snowy salty paw prints on our hardwood floors. It reminded us that while Jake is only 3 and Lucy only 1, we will someday have to make the same decisions. It was a hard night. They had no idea why they had lucked out, but they slept with us last night, because we just wanted to be near them. Imagine, two grown people and two grown pit bull in a full-size bed.

The sidewalks are ice rinks that are slowly melting to puddles. In 11 days I'll be drinking pina coladas on a cruise ship.

Strange.

2008-09-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a feminist. I am consistently at a loss for articulate words and phrases when someone asks, "What is a feminist?" Allow me to defend my apparent stupidity by saying that gender studies, women's studies, and feminist studies scholars devote semester-long classes to this concept, books, articles, and an inordinate amount of hours, to this concept. We, as feminists, are constantly trying to figure out the definition. So it's challenging to articulate.
The closest thing I can compare it to, because it's an easy point of reference for a lot of people, is claiming identity as a Christian, or under any other religious doctrine for that matter.

As a Christian, you believe in a few core things. So do feminists. For Christians, when asked what a Christian is... can you imagine that range of answers, depending on the denomination, age, location, and world view of each person? It's sort of the same thing for feminism. But, I assume all Christians believe that Jesus died for them, on a cross, to save people from their sins. I assume that all feminists would say that women are oppressed, and that feminism works to end that, or save us from that, to neatly tie the two subjects together.

What I've been struggling with though is not just the definition, but what it means when I call myself a feminist. What does that actual act of claiming a feminist identity mean?

Have you ever seen those people outside military funerals, or any time a new state legalizes marriage equality? At Pride Parades? They have colorful signs that say, "God Hates Fags" or "Thank God for AIDS"? There are other really charming sentiments as well, but you get the idea. Now, the man who runs this campaign, Fred Phelps, is a Christian pastor. He and his church (Westboro Baptist Church, whose website address is actually GodHatesFags.com) claim a Christian identity. They are Christians. They stand outside military funerals, and protests the inclusion of gays and lesbians in the military (though I'd like to explain the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy to him, because I believe it's closer to his ignorant beliefs that he thinks!). Even if the service person killed is not gay, he takes it upon himself to demonstrate. He demonstrated outside of Matthew Shepard's funeral, the victim of a brutal anti-gay hate crime in Laramie, WY in 1998. He now protests productions of the play, The Laramie Project, too.

From talking to my Christian friends and family, I know that this is not the prevailing attitude of Christians. Yet, Fred Phelps and his church claim that identity. And, shouldn't they? They believe in the life and death of Christ, and agree with other Christians that it means salvation from sin.

So what is a feminist? The word has become so loaded, a caricature of it's real meaning, over the years. To pervert it makes it really easy to dismiss it. "Embrace feminism in policy and lawmaking? But they're a bunch of man-hating lesbians! We can't do that!" See? Easy. But what if people knew what feminism really was, a quest for equality between the sexes? That's harder to discount, because, ladies and gentleman, that would be called discrimination.

But, just like Fred Phelps the Christian, there are questionable people claiming a feminist identity. The media refers to Sarah Palin as a feminist, yet she supports the idea of women in Alaska paying for their own rape kits. Most feminists would agree that making sexual assault harder to report, investigate, and recover from is very anti-feminist. But then, she must have some faith in the notion of gender equality, if she has propelled herself to high-ranking positions like mayor and governor. Someone who believes women have no place in politics or the professional sphere wouldn't be there. So is she a feminist?

We had a discussion in my transnational feminisms class the other day about defining feminism, shared a moral crisis (Oh shit! Do we have to claim Palin as a feminist?! Shit shit shit!), and wondered who the hell we were to define feminism. Then, we discussed a piece of feminist thought that changes me every time I read it.

bell hooks. She is awesome. We discussed her piece exploring the concept of "I am a feminist" vs. "I advocate feminism." My mind, it was like it just cleared. Some stopper had been removed, and the revelations flowed. By calling oneself something, one is essentially defining it by their own being. Fred Phelps defines Christianity for some people. Those people learn to define Christianity as hate-mongering ignorance. When the media propels this notion of Palin as feminist, feminism could be portrayed as all the very traditionally un-feminist things she stands for. Especially with feminism, which is so misunderstood, we don't need these random labels and definitions applied to us.

Claiming an identity is empowering. Calling yourself a feminist, making yourself part of that movement, that realm of thought and possibility... enchanting. But what if we all started to say, "I advocate feminism"?? Essentially, "I advocate for the rights of women"? That has a different meaning.

It also makes us more proactive, I think. I call myself a feminist, but what do I do about it, besides call myself that? Do I volunteer with any women-centered organization? Do I seek the best pro-woman candidate, talk to others about voting for that person, donate to their campaign? Do I keep myself aware of issues affecting women and talk to others about them? Am I BEING a good feminist? So often, the VERB gets lost when claiming an identity. When we say, as bell hooks, that we ADVOCATE something... that requires more work and commitment.

To be a "good" Christian, however that is defined, takes a lot of work I assume. So does feminism. And my challenge to myself, and to all my feminist allies, is to remember the verbs behind our identity. What are we DOING, aside from claiming a word as our identity? What definition of feminism are we creating? How can we better at both?

Flamingo Fetus

2008-09-02T05:54:00.001-07:00

When I sleep, it tends to be in one of two positions: curled up in the middle of the bed in a fetal position, or on my stomach with one leg stretched out and the other bent up so that my left foot is touching the right knee. Like a flamingo stands.

I was thinking about this last night as I tried to fall asleep. What makes some people find these positions? Why do I sleep like an idling flamingo or a floating pre-human? In my almost-sleep, I contemplated the nature of both stances, both beings, both concepts. Both flamingos and fetuses live in, I would guess, relatively warm, moist, places. I mean, I've been to both. Florida and the womb, I mean. I remember Florida slightly more vividly than the womb, but I tend to think of Florida as only DIsney World, thus what my brain lets me recall from my experiences there is generally inconsequential. I try to block things like Disney World out. And yet, I'll probably go again one day when my niece is old enough to appreciate it, yet young enough to miss the creep factor. Or, if Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ever do another hometown tour in Gainesville when I have money.

The womb, where, actually, my niece is now, seems like a great place. I really wish I could remember the womb. Floating around, not even having to breathe for myself. That's the life. Or maybe it's stressful. I don't know. I was, you know, working. I was making myself into a human. All I know is that it must have been pretty jarring to leave that little cocoon and be thrust into a blinding hospital operating room, doctors trying to free me from the cord wrapped around my neck. Whoa, sailor!, I must have thought. Quit smackin' my ass, you have to buy me dinner first! I don't just cry for anybody!

Thank Dog he or she was persistent though. Otherwise I would not have begun breathing, which means I still wouldn't be breathing, which means I'd be dead. I wouldn't be writing this, and I surely wouldn't have ever developed my avian nocturnal stance. Or anything else for that matter. And when I'm really pressed to make a decision, I think I might have to say that the flamingo way of sleep has got to be my favorite. It takes up less room I think, which probably makes David happy. It probably promotes better posture. And, who knows, maybe I look sexy with my one leg all flexed like a graceful dancer. A flamenco dancer, perhaps.

My mom still talks about our trip to Spain and reminds me of the night I got drunk watching the "Flamingo" dancers.

I think flamingos, or flamenco dancers, are way sexier than fetuses. More graceful. More mature. More worldly. Pinker.

2008-08-15T08:41:00.000-07:00

As I was climbing the stairs to our condo yesterday, breathing hard under the weight of three bags of dog food, I started to think about winter. The snow, the ice, the way the wind off the lake just cuts through people. I thought about taking Jake outside in the front court yard or late at night in the playground across the street, made into a ghost town by the bitter season. I remember how Jake made the winter blues that always envelope me so much more bearable. His salty paw prints on my new gleaming hardwood floors were a small price to pay.
I also thought how strange it was that this will be our second winter in the same place. I haven't lived in a an apartment for any more than 9 months or so since I moved to Chicago. It feels good to lay down some roots.

I've been thinking a lot about morality lately, and what that means for me. What that word means, really. I've always thought of things as right or wrong... and I've always seen the room for grey area, too. But I really began to consider what it all meant for me as an atheist. I guess I realized that all along I had never done things in fear of hell, or in pursuit of heaven... but I did them because I knew they were right... or wrong... or in between. And though some of the things I feel strongly about may seem silly or inconsequential, they are nevertheless on my list, important to me, if only me, and thinking about living my life by these principles makes me excited.
**Shop local as often as you can. Support local business. Local businesses create a nieghborhood, really. And as much as I love Target, it does nothing for the landscape or community on Peterson Ave. Often local is more expensive, but it's usually always beeter.
**Thinking about the environment is not a new agey hippy thing. It's sort of our responsibility. And buying a canvas grocery bag is not enough.
**I've learned the difference between hearing other people out, and tolerating ignorance. I used to be able to say, "You know, agree to disagree." But where would we be if we all just decided to gracefully avoid racial inequity, gender inequity? We still do. But at least some people were brave enough to say, "No! Your ignorance is not an opinion I have to accept and make room for!" I'm tired of making room for people like this.
**Your feelings on sexual morality are perhaps right for you. They are probably not exactly right for every other person. Stop thinking you hold the answers.
**Not everyone wants to get married, have babies, or do other conventional things. Asking people incessantly when they will do these things, and then prying when they say they don't ever want to, shows your lack of creativity. There are so many fulfilling ways to live a life.
**Traveling is important.
**Reading is important.
**The show you have to watch on TV, that you skip studying for, skip reading a really good book for, skip having sex with your partner for, probably isn't that good and you'll not remember much about the show in a couple of days.
**Take advantage of the fact that we are not the past generation. There is a lot more we can do. Do it.

...there are more, I guess. These are just some of the ones I have been thinking most about lately.

strange day

2008-08-14T16:14:00.001-07:00

It isn't often that things throw me, or shock me... but today, things did. Or I should say, one certain thing did.

2008-08-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

I am on my way out the door to catch a bus to Indy. I, along with two other women, am throwing a baby shower for my sister-in-law. I'll also get to see Molly on Sunday. Other than that, I'm in and out. You know, I used to feel bad about not seeing everyone... but there are two kinds of people in Indy anymore: the ones I try to see, but understand when I can't, and the ones that just don't matter. Does that sound strange?
I've learned a lot in the past year about what friendships I'll be keeping. There haven't been many surprises. Although, there have been wonderful surprises concerning friendships I never thought I'd be able to repair. Two of my best friends I've ever had... two people I made mistakes with, laughed until I literally wet myself with, people who witnessed the best decisions of my life... two people that I have reconnected with, who were in my wedding, who are back in my life.
There are sweet surprises in life. Many of them.

Sad storm

2008-08-04T09:59:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting in my second floor office, in an old house with no air conditioning, with a type writer in the main office, and a toilet downstairs that can barely digest it's own bowl water, let alone...well, anything else.
The window is open. It's raining slightly. Weather like this makes me think of good rains in my life. Rains where I could stay inside, stare at it. Rains that I sat outside in. Rains I kissed in. Rains in other countries, rains with good friends... and now, rains at work, that I enjoy through the creeky window, that I can smell through the old and damp floor boards.
I've been interning at Chicago Women's AIDS Project this summer. It's non-profit, low budget at it's finest. After spending over a year at Howard Brown, and a little less than a year at Planned Parenthood, it's been an experience to watch the operations of a small facility that gets no research money, no big government grants. The Ryan White Act funds us, sure... but it funds our lease from a church, while PP and HB build million dollar modern structures. Our old radiators become book shelves in the summer time, and I wonder where all of these extra books and journals go to in the winter.
It's funny how sex, something that we all have built into us, hard-wired in us, is something we don't talk about. I wonder if we talked about it, if it would cause less problems. What I've seen over the last several years tells me that is the case. But I find myself omitting my stint working retail in a sex toy store from my resume, and being very careful when I tell new people what I do, where I work, what I want to do ultimatetly with me life. Because there's a rhetoric, a politic, a set of beliefs and standards behind it all, and some people don't think the things that I work on should be talked about. Or dealt with.
I say, tell that to any of the clients I've had over the years.
Now, with the toilet burbling downnstairs, and the light rainy breeze coming at me through the window by my desk, I remember the big budget operations I've worked for. Amazingly, the problems are the same. We still have an unmarked door, so our clients feel safe coming inside. We still answer the phone in code. We have plain, unassuming envelopes, address labels, and email addresses. We still fight for the same things. People are still, despite our efforts, coming up positive. Many positive people are still not able to access health care. You can still, ultimately, buy your longevity. Sure, you can live a long and rewarding life with HIV--- if you have the money. Good insurance. And I guess I just wonder, for all of the cliche politics I hear from both sides, how this happens. The Republicans say they respect life, that life is important...they call themselves PRO-LIFE, even. But when it comes to the lives of some people, people who are people and not fetuses... the free market reigns. The Democrats, especially with the advent of a black man and a women running for office, has talked a lot about equality. Yet, people of all races, gender identities, and creeds are not priviledged to the same health care as everyone else. Of course, the Dems are doing a better job than the Reps... but it's not good enough. Nowhere near it. Nowhere.
It's been over 25 years since the HIV case began coming out. And where are we? Where the hell are we?

"I'm Getting Older Too..."

2008-07-19T08:54:00.001-07:00

"...I've been afraid of changing because I've built my life around you..."

I love the song Landslide. I love those lyrics.
How is it that I can get through funerals, my own wedding, and other emotion occasions without crying a single tear, but I read a poorly written book like Marley and Me, or hear a Fleetwood Mac song...
and I just dissolve.

I took my love and I took it down
Climbed a mountain then I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I've been afraid of changin'
'Cause I built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too

Well, I've been afraid of changin'
'Cause I built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too

Well, I'm getting older too

So, take this love and take it down
Yeah, and if you climb a mountain and ya turn around
And If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide brought me down

If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills

Well maybe ...
Well maybe ...
Well maybe ...

The landslide will bring you down.

Connect your mind with your heart...

2008-07-15T12:14:00.001-07:00

Summer of '99. I am crazy, twelve years old, insecure, unsure, the picture of adolescence. I take a four-week acting class with Jamie Gannon, that I can't even begin to recount here. I've tried to write about it several times and never quite capture everything it meant at the time, and everything it has meant since. Perhaps this is a disparaging thing to say as an aspiring writer, but maybe some things aren't meant to be fully explained by prose, poetry, dance, music, or paint brushes. Sometimes, life is better. Living the moment was the real art. To capture it in another medium would be a poor replicate.
Jamie sent me an email today. It's been a long time since we've corresponded. Although after nearly a decade since seeing one another, I think we've done pretty good. Whenever we do connect, I recall those fleeting memories of the sticky theatre rooms without air conditioning, the creak of the rehearsal room floor, the smell of the foyer, the plush of the lobby seats, the sound of the harmonica as I lay on the stage. I remember what that summer, what theatre in general, did for me.

I remember being on stage and not being worried about a world that seemed to be crashing down around me. Sure, some of it was silly adolescent nonsense, though that didn't make it any less real and painful at the time. And some of it was more... much more. Theatre was an escape from it. Jamie taught me the art, I made it the escape. His words echoed back to me later, reminding me that it wasn't meant as an escape. I needed to start living my life again. And I did. Without theatre. He made me ask that tough question, and even worse, answer it honestly.

"Mary-Margaret, you have to ask yourself if you can be happy doing anything else besides theatre. If you can, if you even think you might, you can't become a theatre professional. It's that hard and that demanding. So, can you do anything else?"

When I said I could, it hurt. Moreover, it was terrifying. What the hell else could I do?
I sent Jamie an email telling him what I was up to, I guess all of the things I never thought I could not do because they were not theatre. And although the moments are fewer and farther between than ever now, I always wonder what would have been. As always over the past decade, he said exactly what I needed to hear, without prompting, without me even bringing up those feelings.
"Rock on with your social activist self! I think it's wonderful that you find so much fulfillment in helping others; you wouldn't have found that as a professional actor or director, I'm fairly confident of that."
Isn't it sad and strange how sometimes it takes others to tell you, to remind you, that you are to some degree, fulfilled?
The last day of the workshop nine years ago, Jamie had one piece of advice for each of his students. He spent hours on this, thinking of just the right thing for each of us, the one thing he needed us to know. He told me, "Connect your mind with your heart."
Each day I find that what I think about is what my heart is feeling. Sometimes they stray, do their own things, but I'm working on it. And a man I haven't seen for nearly a decade, who lives thousands of miles away, is still a guiding voice in my heart and mind. I'm sure that will never change.

2008-07-05T19:53:00.001-07:00

Married life is exactly like life before marriage. Except we're out a small fortune and there are about three gazillion million pictures of the two of us.

Katie Webb took some, in addition to the photographer we hired, and so far I've only seen Kate's handy work. This is why you have art majors for friends:

Yep.

2008-06-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

2008-06-20T09:39:00.000-07:00

I work tonight, cleaning the store like none other. Tomorrow is our grand opening, and Jake and Lucy will be coming with me. We also have a booth at the Clark St. Midsummer Fest (MIDsummer? Don't depress me). Jake, Lucy, and humans I work with (I talk to humans sometimes, too) will be running back and forth between the festival and the store. Nuts.
David and I are both off Sunday. Weird. We'll be running wedding-related errands,like going to Kinko's to print off the programs that I just decided we needed two days ago, deciding if David needs a new suit and buying one if necessary, and meeting with Dwayne to figure out what our ceremony is going to look like. We also need to go to PetsMart to get Lucy a name tag.
Monday I am getting my hair cut and doing a walk-through with the caterer at our event space. Tuesday I work, and it is David's LAST DAY at Soldier Field! HOLLER! Wednesday I work, and David sleeps, trying to make up for not sleeping for the past year he's worked at this hell hole. Thursday, I work, and we clean the condo because....
Friday friends and family begin arriving. We are having those who are in town that night over here and how we're fitting 16+ people in here is going to be...special.
Saturday more people arrive, and Jay and Dwayne are hosting a rehearsal and dinner. That night we'll be hanging out with the wedding party.
Sunday is the day. Lots of food, alcohol, and music. And the day after, we leave for a week of Tom Petty, cook outs, sleeping in, and free happy hour at our hotel.
Woot.

2008-06-17T08:46:00.000-07:00

There was another video for this song that was way cuter, but I think there was a copyright issue, so this is the one from the songwriter's site. The first video was all about same-sex marriage, and this is a little more encompassing, but also a little more fluff. Hmph. Oh well. The song still makes me happy. I'm actually using it in my wedding next week.
Cheers to California Supreme Court, same-sex couples everywhere, and to the continued quest for equality. We're not there yet... but we're getting closer and closer.

2008-06-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been so stressful. Of course, things could always be worse. They always can be. But I just feel like I'm going to explode.
Lest you peg me a predictable bride, this has nothing to do with the wedding. I'm excited for that, and knowing that I'm only two weeks away from seeing so many of my friends and family is about the only exciting thing going for me.
Moments like these make me realize why some people have religion. If I could attribute this to some aligning of the stars, to fate, to some grander lesson, to some master plan, yes, it would be a little easier to digest. I find myself, against my better judgment, my reason, and rationale, wishing I could believe in something like that. Julia Sweeney talks about the "band saw theory," saying that when she needs something random, like a band saw, she wishes she had a church. This church, with it's close-knit group, it's family-like atmosphere, would be full of older men with band saws lying around in their sheds. She wouldn't have to throw down a hundred bucks for a band saw she needs once. It's about community, really.
I always had community doing theatre. If I needed a band saw, there were several options in the scene shop, and there was always a cool mother or father of a cast member who could dig something up for you, somewhere. We came together most nights out of the week, spent our weekends together, and shared more personal information with one another than I think you do in church. I had the community, the access to band saws.
What I never had was the general comfort factor of knowing someone else was in charge, that somehow, it might be alright in the end. That it was part of a plan. I never bought it. When I grew up, I began to realize the implausibility of the notion, however nice it was.
But really, overall, and this is always easier to say when things are going really well, I am glad that I'm in control. Or, rather, maybe, that nobody is. It makes the victories sweeter. It makes the bad times less resentful. Who is there to blame or question for rape, growing up too fast when your father dies, financial troubles? I don't struggle to praise and worship the orchestrator of these things. Because I know they just...happen. Some things just happen. In our effort to explain it all, we've concocted some ridiculous stuff. Like the Greeks explained the world through myths, we continue. Somehow though, people don't see the correlation there.
I've read a lot of atheist/believer dialogue regarding the atheist's bitterness toward god for bad things, and that is why he is an atheist. To the contrary, I've had a really wonderful life. Sure, there have been hard times... I think most people have had hard times. I've gone through a lot at a young age. So have a lot of other people. It's not that. I'm not bitter, because that implies that I'm owed something by something or someone. I know that isn't true. I also don't think I had to go through these things to learn a lesson about life, or that I'd be less well-rounded, less of myself, had I forgone those experiences. Also, there have been some really terrific things. In most ways, I am very fortunate. I have more than a lot of people. Usually, I have no reason to complain. I'm not an atheist because I'm mad. I'm an atheist because I don't believe in anyone to be mad at.
I didn't choose this path. I just can't MAKE myself believe in something. I think if there is a god, it is probably more appreciative that I'm honest, rather than falling on my knees for something I'm not quite sure about. I think Buddha said it best:Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
And something about it, I cannot reconcile with my reason or common sense.
And the past few years have been a journey to appreciate that.

2008-06-08T15:50:00.000-07:00

So the week after getting our family photos back....

Our family grew.

Meet Lucy, Jake's little sister.
Lucy Schnorbus-Sweeney, you are one cute little girl.

2008-06-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

I'm glad Obama won the nomination. But maybe even moreso, I'm glad Clinton even ran.
I remember talking with my mom in the car when I was really young. I asked her if a woman could be president. She said that there was no rule against it, but it had never happened. The conversation left me with this sense of wonder and hope. My mom said, "Someday..." I wondered as I got older if I'd ever see that someday in my lifetime.
In middle school, a male teacher---yes, a teacher--- told us he thought a woman could never be president. It made me so angry. It was as if he didn't realize what he was doing to this room full of students. For the girls who thought it could happen, he dashed our dreams. For those girls who didn't believe in women, he confirmed their lack of confidence. For the boys, he solidified the fact that only they would be the leaders of our country.
In college, I got a facebook account. A young woman I was friends with, who I thought I respected as a strong woman, joined a facebook group called something like, "Women shouldn't be president because they change their mind too much!" or some other pithy remark about women being unable to do the job. Not only was I underwhelmed by the tired and unimaginative PMS/uncontrollable emotions jokes, I was surprised than any woman would think this was funny, or even acceptable.
Clinton campaigned for president during the early days of me calling myself a feminist. I disagreed with her politics on some fronts, wanted the presidency to take a different pattern than Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton, and I was uncomfortable with her ties to big business and interest groups. I liked Obama.
But that little girl who has been waiting to see this since her mother told her it was possible, who wanted to prove a chauvinist teacher wrong, who wanted that young woman unaware of the power women to realize it... for that little girl turned feminist, I am so thankful for her campaign and sort of sad to see it end. I hope this doesn't give way to comments such as, "See? Women CAN'T be president!" We can do most anything, really. And Hillary has shown a new generation of women what is possible.
I hope this isn't a one-time thing. I hope I don't have to tell my nieces that one time, some years ago, a woman named Hillary Clinton almost did it. I hope I don't have to explain to her that not only is it legal, but it's possible. Men and women alike voted for her. I hope it doesn't end here.
But history isn't always linear. Progress isn't inevitable. Sometimes history is circular; rights are won, then taken away. Look at the attacks on Roe v. Wade, or Anita Bryant's effect on the first gay rights ordinances. We have to keep working to assure progress. Other women have to run. We have to support these women.
Her campaign was inspiring, but it also reminded me of the problems we still face. I heard a few, but very few, racialized comments toward Barack; but it seemed EVERY criticism of Hillary came down to gender. She was a bitch, a witch, she was PMS-ing, her hair was too masculine, along with her pantsuit. It was as depressing as the morning after Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi first appeared and newscasters were discussing her designer labels and how good she looked for her age. There's still a long way to go.
But Hillary, whether or not I agreed with her politics, made some headway.
And for that, I have to thank her.

2008-05-26T19:25:00.000-07:00

I feel like this is the Chicago I signed up for. Chicago in the summer, at the dog park, with my hubby, eating dinner on my balcony surrounded by my plants, listening to the red line train to Howard rumble by, only to be outdone by the red line barreling southbound to 95/Dan Ryan. Yep. I think this is what I had in mind.

My worst fault is, and always has been, looking forward. Sure, we should all keep an eye on the horizon, be as prepared as we can, but that's not what I do. I'm rarely prepared, and always disappointed. For as long as I can remember, I've just been waiting for the next phase of my life. Of course, the most significant phase was moving out, to Chicago, starting school, becoming an adult. I spent high school wishing it would end, "planning" for the next phase of my life. Once I chose Chicago, it was over. I might as well have not even lived in Indy. I wasn't present. It was as if it had nothing to offer, nothing more to give. I was convinced, with an admittedly inflated ego, that I had "done" Indy, I had conquered it, and that it was time to move on. I was seventeen. I was young and naive.
And then I got here. And I had nothing left to think about. My "plan" had materialized. After the initial excitement of living downtown subsided....? What? What's next? I had to know what was next. Suddenly the independence I had so longed for wasn't so exciting. I went from child to adult overnight. I missed the four year intermission of college life. I got a full-time job three days after moving out of my mother's home, had a cat, renter's insurance, worried about health insurance. Things I had taken for granted were random, but jarring. I had never considered where recycling bags came from, how much toasters cost, or what happened when I didn't have enough money to pay for my cell phone. Those things were just always there for me. I wasn't ready to admit I didn't have it all figured out.
I've never been comfortable with "I don't know." How easy it would have been to answer "How long are you going to stay in Chicago?" or "What do you want to do with your life?" with a simple, "I don't know." I always had an answer. And I was always on the move. Molly and I moved in to 780 S. Federal St #506 July 9th, 2005 and were out March 20th, 2006. We had learned the city neighborhoods and realized that we could have an apartment three times as big with our own bedrooms for half the price. We moved to the Northwest side of the city, to the Lincoln Square/Ravenswood area. I changed schools and majors. I lived at 2442 W. Cullom #1 until January of 2007. David and I moved in together, still in Lincoln Square. But not for long. September 28th of 2007 we bought of first home and moved in. It's in the Edgewater 'hood.
I use the term "hood" quite purposefully. The grit of the city, the urban landscape, with all of it's problems and joys, is here. It's the experience directly opposite of my suburban upbringing, and directly parallel to the urban New Jersey I was born in. There's something very "full circle" about it all. And something feels more natural here. The dog beach, MonDog, and the dog park, Puptown, are close. We are five blocks from Lake Michigan. We are about the same distance from Andersonville's Clark Street area. We are a five minute walk or less from bus routes 92, 144, 146, 151, 36, 22, and my personal favorite, 147. We are literally around the corner from the Berwyn red line station, as well as the grocery. There's independent coffee places and two Starbucks. This is my home. For now.
Lately, we've been rehashing the plan of moving back to Indy after I graduate next year. It's tempting when we pay 10.25% in sales tax and realize that if we sold our condo even just for what we bought it for, we could buy a house larger than we need, and plenty of yard for Jake to run, for us to relax, for David to grow his veggies and herbs. But, there's something sort of charming about doing it like this:

As I sat outside tonight, Jake at my feet, the sounds of the alley and the train in my ears, the sight of the Broadway St. cathedral's bell tower in front of me, I tried to take it all in. All of it. The good, the not so good, the bad, the indifferent. I know one day, if we leave, this urban nest of ours that at times make me feel like a damn foreigner only three hours from where I grew up, will be a sweet memory. Maybe I really grew up here. Maybe I'm missing the growing, the lessons, the sweetness of life, by, as per usual, "planning" it all away.

2008-05-25T20:12:00.001-07:00

Why don't people RSVP to weddings?
Rude.

2008-05-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

Katie Webb's wedding was beautiful.

Being in Indy with people I love was beautiful.

Jumping for joy Thursday evening when I watched the news and learned that California decided to recognize gays and lesbians as full citizens by recognizing their right to marry was beautiful.

Having Katie Mac in Chicago with me for a couple days is beautiful.

The new Dave Sedaris book is pre-ordered and waiting to ship to me on June 3rd. That is beautiful.

Life surprises me sometimes.

2008-05-09T20:10:00.000-07:00

I keep hearing Bob Marley in my head...
I miss the summer of 05.

2008-05-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

This is the last week of classes and, for the most part, I'll be done. I have no exams, just papers, and I can BS my way through a paper much easier than a test. I'll have to go downtown one or two days next week and then it's off to Indy for Webb's wedding! THEN, Mac is coming home to Chicago with me for a couple days.
Summer.
I love it.
Chicago is amazing in the summer. It'll be even more wonderful this year because having a dog makes you go outside three or four times a day. And how can I look in those beautiful brown eyes and say no to a trip to the dog park?
The weekend was awesome. Friday I worked on homework, relaxed, and went to a job interview for a second summer job. I haven't heard anything yet, but my fingers are crossed. Saturday David and I got up reallllllly early to participate in Bark in the Park, which is an annual 5K for dog lovers and their dogs. It benefits the Anti-Cruelty Society, where we got our Jake. He saw so many old friends and we found his picture all over one of the posters there. Awesome. Sunday we got engagement pictures done (yes, the month before the wedding. Oh well!) at the beach and the park. It was a great dog-centric weekend.
Summer. It's here...

2008-05-02T14:18:00.000-07:00

It's alarming to not know what side of a controversial issue to stand on, when the issue is of the utmost importance, when the issue directly affects every important part of your life.
Marriage equality. Good or bad?
I'll talk your ear off on the reasons marriage should be available to all people. First, to deny it, is something we call discrimination, ladies and gentleman. Not cool. It was only about 40 years ago when people were shocked at "miscegenation," and Loving vs. Virginia was actually a case to be tried. I'm not saying racism isn't still a problem, as if GLBT issues have replaced it as the "new" prejudice, but I am saying that there are commonalities in all oppressions, and that ignoring those commonalities is why we are here, denying people the right to marriage.
Marriage is a basic right of citizenship---as well as military service. These two institutions, marriage and the military, are central to our understanding of America and our culture, and our place within it. These two institutions exclude gay people. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was an attempt by Clinton to end the overall ban on gays in the military, but it ended up backfiring and we are left with the witch-hunting tactics of "Don't..."
Along with marriage come children, and family, more generally. Adoption by same-sex individuals, or artificial insemination, surrogacy, etc, is sought after, and hotly contested. I think there's something wrong when we equate what sort of sex people have, and who they have it with, to what kind of parent they might turn out to be.
So for years I've believed these things, understood them, discussed them, fought for them. I've sent money to campaigns over it, screamed about it, not dated people because of it. I've made friends around it. So when I started reading Michael Warner and George Chauncey this semester I was left thinking...
Um...uhh???
In fighting for equality, it's clear that the movement has quit fighting for acceptance. That is, acceptance for QUEER people, people who are gay and wish to live their lives separate from heterosexual norms. They don't want to get married, or serve in the military, or have children. The inclusion into these ways of society are assimilation, carving a space out in a world that isn't theres. And, on moral principle, a world they don't want.
Marriage is a discriminating institution. Aside for excluding gays and lesbians, and previously excluding interracial coupling, it works to legitimate sex in very narrow terms. It works to say when and what sex is okay. It helps to judge those who wish to remain outside of it.
The idea that part of the "gay agenda" (hehe, couldn't help it) is military inclusion is rather interesting, considering the early gay liberation movement, which came out of, or was parallel to, the anti-war movement.
So where the hell are we in the movement? Somewhere strange, indeed. While I think that everyone should be able to choose marriage if they want to, I realize now that the more people getting married, the more it will work to uphold marriage as the ultimate and only legitimate relationship, and that marriage isn't a choice, really. Choosing to be outside of it, straight people face endless questions and ridicule, judgment, and the continued notion that they are somehow not a real family, or are "living in sin." So if we allow gay and lesbians to get married, won't that just further stigmatize those who choose not to? Won't be creating sort of a secondary marginalization?
It's interesting stuff, folks. And I don't quite know what camp I'm in. Of course I really believe we should be DE-legislating, taking away the 1,049 rights a couple gains when they marry, and putting us all on the same even field...but I doubt this Judeo-Christian, marriage-centric society will do that anytime soon. I think we'll allow same-sex marriage first. With that said, doesn't that speak to a growing conservatism in the GLBT movement? If the real radical change would come from changing society as a whole, and we're looking at merely bolstering the discriminatory systems already in place... then what the hell are we doing? And where is the movement going?

2008-05-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

I started counseling last week. This time, I am not the counselor. I am seeking counseling.
I spent my first year up here an an HIV test counselor. I loved it. LOVED it. It was the first time I really saw myself changing the world in the way I see it needs to be changed. Clients hugged me, cried on me, and I just knew I was on to something.
After three years in this city, I've developed a love/hate relationship with it. The hate, an awful thing to feel, has taken over lately. I hate the way I can't afford to do anything but pay bills, I hate that I have to walk everywhere and share the bus with crazy people, I hate that my best friends and family are not here, I hate that there is so much crime in the city, I hate that the bus or train is always late, I hate traffic, I hate school because I feel like graduating and using what I've learned, I hate
that I'm not happy.
I'm happy when I leave the city, or rare moments when I stop and look at the lake for a moment. I'm happy with David.
But my unhappiness is starting to blur those moments, and I take it out on David. That's not good.
I don't like who I am right now.
And, for once, the person who is always stretching herself to save the world, is trying to save herself.

2008-04-29T10:35:00.000-07:00

I love having artsy friends... and, when those artsy friends are bridesmaids...holler!
Me: "I need a veil. Shit! The one I bought looks like shit!"
Mac: "I can make you one."
Me: "Just go buy that one we saw. I liked it. I guess. I'll give you money."
Mac: "Dude. I can make you one."

Pretty much everything I say is met with, "I can make you one."
Me: "We need to put a backsplash in our kitchen."
Webb: "I can do it."

Me: "I need throw pillows!"
Webb: "I am making you some for your wedding shower gift. How many do you need?"

Fabulous.
Webb is getting married in about three weeks, and I'm getting married in eight. I'm glad Mac is a good sport. I'm glad, for her sake, that we aren't normal brides.

My bus got rerouted on the way into town this morning and I got to drive past the Lincoln Park Zoo. Sweet. I should go there more. I should do a lot of things more. One day I might leave Chicago and actually might miss it, too.
Might.

2008-04-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

I went to Indy for about 48 hours to pick up my wedding dress.
When David and I first decided to get married, I didn't want a wedding dress. I wanted to not even have a "wedding." But I'm an only child, and David's the only boy, so we figured we'd do it for the fam. I still didn't want to spend money on a dress. My mom wanted to go look, and I kept tossing dresses aside because of price. My mom told me that since she wasn't paying for the wedding, she wanted to buy my dress.
I thought, what the hell? How often will I get to wear a gown? So I found one. I picked it up Friday and this feminist has to say,
Holler!
I LOVE it. It is magnificent. It's very vintage, which is what I wanted. Seeing it on me, made for me, not being held up with clothespins this time...I was way excited.
I think that's okay. I'm making peace with our decision to play into the heteronormative institution. Sort of. I still don't think we should have to get married in order to claim one another as family, to make owning our home easier, etc etc. But until we change that system, here we are.

2008-04-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

In Indy for a hot minute. Woot.

2008-04-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is not okay.
What I'm feeling, what I'm thinking...
not okay.

Women! Read, react, and let's fuckin' change the world!

2008-04-21T11:00:00.001-07:00

Not only did the creep who did this remind me of why I am a feminist, but the ensuing drama to report him bolstered my convictions.
I was on the 147 northbound bus today coming home from class. It runs express, making no stops from Michigan and Delaware to Foster and Marine Dr. all the way up Lake Shore. At Delaware, this guy got on and sat next to me, even though there were a lot of empty seats where he could have sat by himself. After he sat, he started moving around, and I was reading, just thinking he was trying to get settled. Then I notice his hand on the seat near my thigh, and that he has started rubbing the side of my leg. He was so slick and obviously so experienced at this,at first I really thought he might be adjusting, trying to get comfortable, etc. But then I realized it and I just had these flashes in my brain of things I've read on feminist blogs, namely HollaBack, and in my books and articles, in my classes, which deals directly with this. But I was frozen. I'm sure if someone else told me this happened to them, I would say, Why didn't you slap him? Why didn't you scream really loud to the bus driver? But when it actually happened, I didn't know what to do. I was frozen and silenced just like he wanted. I told him to stop, which he did for a second, and then started again. I leaned further into the bus wall, but he did too. A few moments before the bus was coming to the next stop, he quit and got up to walk to the back of the bus to exit. I got my phone out, ready to take a picture to show the bus driver, police, and to post at HollaBack. But I couldn't see him and when he got off he wasn't in a position for me to get a shot. I exited the bus, not knowing what to do. Walking to my building, I called 311. I was on hold for 10 minutes, then finally transferred to another answering service, where I had to know and enter my police district number. I had no idea, so had to waste another 5 minutes listening to the options. When mine finally came up, and I was transferred, it said the number had been disconnected and the line went dead. I got online and googled the Chicago Police, found my precinct, and called them directly. I told the man, "I was sexually harassed on a CTA bus today. I don't know how to report it." He took my info, not the info of the fucking guy, and said he would send a car over to me right away. I waited for 20 minutes and when no one came, I called 311 again, only to be put on hold. After 10 minutes or so, I asked them to transfer me directly to an officer. I got a woman, which made me so happy, and she had me tell her all of the details. I couldn't remember what shoes he was wearing, I'm a bad judge of weight and age, and I felt like shit saying he was "Hispanic" because I felt like a scared little white girl, telling on the man of color. I felt like I was betraying my anti-race bias that I always yell at other people about. I was enraged that now I need to start noticing the color of peoples shoes, estimating their weight, and be suspect of anyone who sits next to me on the bus or train.
The officer took all of the info, was very professional, and she was making me feel a lot better.But, then she took my address and told me my police report number. Then she said, "You'll receive a victim's report in a couple of days."
I fucking hate that word.
I started crying and she said that if I see him again to call 911 right away with my report number, or if I'm on the bus, to tell the driver immediately.
So now I'm a victim who has to carry around my police report number.
It's been over an hour and still no officer has shown up, as was promised to me. And I know that I wasn't raped. I GET THAT. But I don't think men, or women who have somehow escaped the experience, understand how infantilizing, demoralizing, depressing, and scary this is.
I've had men make comments on the street, yelled from an open window or whatever, or male coworkers who have said that one thing that went just a little too far. But those situations have a certain degree of distance. They are words and they were never serious words. Those men never looked me in the face and they were yelling at every person they thought might be female, drunk after a Cubs game. I'm not saying that's right, and I know that might be completely violating to some women, but that has not been my experience.
This man was in my personal space, touching my body, trapping me in a bus seat so I could not move or get up. That is violating.
It is also violating that it took over an hour to report, when this asshole is long gone, maybe on another bus with another woman.
It's violating because it made me realize that for all of my strong talk and the blogs and article and books I read, the classes I have taken, the papers I have written, and the activism work I have done concerning this, I still fell "victim." And I guess I"m just wondering what the hell I'm gonna do about it, what all women are going to do about it, what we're all gonna do about it, and what the police are going to do about it. Because none of what happened today was okay. It wasn't okay for this guy to do what he did, and it also wasn't okay for me to devote my entire afternoon to reporting it.
I'm at a loss for words now, shaking, and just want to fall onto the couch with the dog and cry a little. But I first wanted to put this out there, articulate it, because even though I feel sick, violated, and livid, I will not feel ashamed. I didn't do anything wrong and if my feminist activism hasn't made me brave enough yet to slap a jerk at the beginning, it HAS taught me to be brave enough to not feel shame in, essentially, being a female.

2008-04-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

For all of the plans and big ideas I have, I am always amazed at the unplanned business of life that makes me smile. I tell myself things like, Once you get through this semester, Once you graduate, Once you can make more money, Once you go on vacation.... once these things happen, then you'll be happy.

But then last night David and I went out to dinner and talked about the wedding, which we haven't done a whole lot of. We mention things in passing, but we devoted an actual conversation to it over dinner. I realized in that moment that what makes me happy is laughing so hard with the man I love, planning more of our wacky wedding. That makes me happy.

After dinner we walked back home to pick up our Jake. Leash and poo bags in hand, me ventured out into the perfect 70 degree night for ice cream and a long walk. That makes me happy.

As we were rounding the last corner, almost home from this perfect night, we walked into what was most probably a drug deal. It happens. We just kept to ourselves, continuing our conversation, walking around the group of guys. One guy, high or drunk or somehow impaired, yelled, "Hey, gimme that dog! Gimme that mother fuckin' dog!" He keeps yelling this at us, following us. The yummy fries, chicken wrap, and cherry ice cream fell out of harmony in my stomach, rising into my chest, my heart racing. Fortunately, he didn't follow us around the corner.

There are some pros to having gang activity in your neighborhood. It keeps a certain level of safety, honestly. Gangs are protecting their turf and generally don't want the police around. They try to keep a lid on things. There are guys walking down my street at night, loitering on corners, and usually they either pretend not to see me, or they tilt their hat in an oddly mannered, old-fashioned way. I'm not a threat to them. I'm not disrupting the street. I don't walk a 2 pound dog in my Jimmy Choo stilettos like the people they see turning their affordable apartments into condos. I have a certain credibility in my over-sized Irish sweater, a pit bull at the end of my leash. They know I have some street smarts the way I carry my keys with one poking out between each knuckle and pepper spray dangling at my wrist. They leave me alone.

But sometimes there are problems and I have to admit to myself that a part of me yearns for the homogeneous suburbs. Then, I feel guilty the rest of the night, and try to think of ways I can help. If we just improve our schools, these young men would have options. If we just stop expecting young black men to commit crimes, maybe they'll stop living up to our expectation. I wonder how the hell I can change it all.

Last night really shook me up. The thought of someone trying to take Jake away from us, although under no circumstances would David and I have let him win that battle, shook me. It made me realize my strong love for this little creature in my life, and how much I treasure a lazy day, strolling around the city with the two men in my life.

2008-04-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

Guilty pleasure? The Housewives of New York City. LuAnn is my favorite because she's sort of a real person. Alex is my favorite because she's the most ridiculous.
Don't judge me!
I have so so much work to do for school. I need to run to renew my public library card during my first break of the day and then check out a couple books for my research paper that I really haven't started. What I need to do is take the train two stops north and get my ass into Gerber Hart Library. How excited am I that I finally have a reason to make an appointment to visit the special collections?
I want it to be summer. I want it to be my wedding weekend just because so many people are going to be in town for three days and I miss them all so much.
My dress is in. That's a relief. I won't be naked on the day I get married. I need to make a special trip to Indy though to try it on and bring it home.
After three years and owning a home, I still feel like I live my life in two places.
I'm worried about money, but realize how lucky I am. I'll be fine. We'll make it. A few more weeks of mac and cheese and refried beans and we'll be back on track. It's strange; I'm either freaking out about money, or David's working 80 hours a week and money's great, but I don't see him. After him working at this job for a year now, I've done both scenarios. Obviously, there is nothing better than having him home. Last Sunday was so perfect. We walked to the lake front, spent some time at the dog beach, and later in the evening took Jake out again but walked to get ice cream. I won't get many of those days as work picks up for him. And instead of spending those days worrying about how we're going to pay the bills next month, I think I'll start spending it laughing and smiling and appreciating my life, and his life, and how they merge and intertwine, but also how they separate.

2008-04-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

Within the same four hours, during the same phone conversation, with the same person, I laughed, cried, discussed Rocky Horror Picture Show, the best bowl of chicken noodle soup in New York City, feminism, heteronormativity, and my "big gay wedding." I could only have a conversation like this with my Marty.

Marty, or Martin as others call him, is my best friend. We've been friends for ten years. We grew up together in those critical adolescent years. We did everything together. All of my pictures of him are old school, not digital, and I don't have a scanner. If I did, you'd see pictures of us in costumes from numerous shows, in formal wear from our annual symphony outing, with pink and blue hair sitting on the rainbow bridge in Broad Ripple, asleep on a huge rock in Central Park, and this June, we will vogue it up at my wedding.
There is a gap, though, in the photos. We had a rough patch that lasted from about my sophomore year of high school until last summer. Four years. I guess that's more than a "patch." It was almost half of our friendship. We spoke, but not about anything important. We went months with no contact. We both hurt one another, and it made me so sad to be losing him that I couldn't talk to him anymore. I wanted to lose him once and for all, so I didn't have to do it again every six months.
Last summer, I told him that. I said it was everything or nothing. That led to a conversation that lasted for hours, pulled over on the side of I-69, when the conversation got too heavy for the dashboard we were talking at. Basically, we realized that we had both gone through some personal shit---to make a drastic understatement--- and in an effort to ignore the problem, to make it less real, we didn't tell anyone; even each other. Had one of us been brave enough to talk about our trauma, we would have realized that we were both going through the same thing. We could have helped one another. But we didn't.
After last summer, things have changed. We are us again. We've dealt with out pasts...together, this time. We've made one another a priority. I asked him to be the man of honor in my wedding. I can't imagine having anyone else there with me. He constantly reminds me of...myself. He knew me before I grew into this person, when I was struggling with my identity. We helped one another define our morals, our beliefs. He knows me. And after years of struggling to define ourselves apart from one another, here we are again.

2008-04-12T16:13:00.000-07:00

I always hear about these helpless bachelors, eating processed junk, ordering pizza eight nights a week, living in squalor.

I am that bachelor.

I live with a chef. He takes care of all that. He's in Nevada for work this week and I have to say that I am, indeed, a gross, helpless bachelor.

I can make food. I am getting better. But I'm just not motivated. It's so much easier to order in. I'm thinking about challenging myself to stay away from the grocery store until he comes home, eating the rest of the cereal, oatmeal, and other random things lurking in the cabinets before they go bad. I'll save money and food won't go to waste.

The idea, though, of just eating cereal for the next 4 1/2 days just isn't appealing.

I have also eaten an abundance of frozen egg rolls.

However, I did clean a lot the last two days. I got a lot of reading done for school Monday. Jake and I went on a long walk today and explored more of Lakewood-Balmoral historic home district. I have a love affair with all things vintage and those homes, bungalow, cottage, or soaring mansion, make me swoon. SWOON!

I sort of realized while looking at my class schedule for next semester that I am basically minoring in Dr. Jeff Edwards. He is my FAVORITE professor, my adviser, and I have taken 4 classes with him. Most of the minors at RU consist of 6 classes... so, two more classes with him and I think I'm gonna try to make them give me a certificate. :o)

Okay. I think I really really need to use the oven for more than heating up frozen egg rolls. I am going to the grocery. Sigh.

Oh, and Jakester says hello. He wants you to know that this is his impersonation of Yoda. He's very proud of it.

2008-04-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

I just read in today's Chicago Tribune that Indiana just passed legislation that forces businesses selling any "sexually explicit" material to register their business... and pay $250 to do so.
Is this a symptom of a largely Christian, largely Republican state? Or is it just another testament to our sex negative culture, no matter where in the country you are?
I think it's a little bit of both. I just want to know who decides what is sexually explicit. For instance, one of my best friends Katie McAtee and I... both reasonable, intelligent women. But, we have VASTLY different definitions of "sexually explicit." Because of her beliefs and personality, she would probably draw the line a lot sooner than I would. And that's okay. It's not that either of us is wrong. It's opinion. And I don't really understand how that is going to be enforced.
You know when you read about really bizarre moments in history and it just makes you wonder if everyone in that time period was high? For instance, when I learned during my African American History class that the FBI raided the Black Panther Party's offices and called its breakfast program for low income kids who otherwise went hungry, "insidious activity." Or how we remember HUAC and McCarthy. Generally, we agree that these things are ridiculous, or at least the extent to which they went. Someday, when we finally reach that sex positive culture I'm gonna work my ass off to find, we'll laugh at Indiana and this ridiculous law too.
Granted, this $250 isn't a lot, considering it's a one time fee (I believe so, anyway). But it's the idea of the thing. A business owner is being penalized for selling products relating to sexuality. Where will the line be drawn? Can we buy general education books, since Indiana doesn't allow comprehensive and honest sex education in its schools? What about college book stores that sell anatomy books to med students, such as gynecology texts? What about feminist literature? We feminists deal with sex. What about GLBTQ material? This is yet another systematic way to oppress GLBTQ people. I see this spiraling until it starts to include anything remotely related to sexuality, in its most general terms.
During the Comintern, people freaked the fuck out. Librarians were to report to the government anyone who asked for books by Hegel, Marx, and other "red" writers. Is this not reminiscent of that? Do we not see the connections?! I know, it's not the same. But doesn't it have the potential to be?
History repeats itself because no one is ever fucking paying attention. A month ago, John McCain went to a Holocaust museum and signed the guest book, "Never again." While he was signing that book, men, women, and children in Darfur ran for their lives. Never again? Looks like it's already happened, as has been happening, for a very long time. But we can't imagine the past horrors being repeated. We can't imagine them taking another shape. We're looking for another Hitler to oppress another generation of Jews. We're ignoring groups like the LRA and the tiny soldiers and rape victims because we're missing the connection. Or worse, we just don't care.
But I care. And I care that an interest in sexuality is being criminalized. And why? Don't we all have sex, or at least wired for sex? Isn't it natural, sort of like eating or sleeping or other things we have a natural urge to do?
You too can have this natural urge! But you must know that we won't tell you how to protect yourself, we have the right to tell you what sexual acts to perform (sodomy laws were being enforced up until the 1980s!), we have the right to deny you access to birth control, a medication, if it makes the pharmacist squeamish. Then, we'll blame the liberal comprehensive sex education, that we don't even allow to be taught, for the teen pregnancy and STI rates.
Make sense of out it. You can't.

2008-04-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

I have one hour to pull together some sort of short essay on a book debating the Civil Rights Movement.
I am, of course, doing other things.
I love the Vito and Jimmy John's but my mouth now tastes like said sandwich and probably will the rest of the night. Gross.
In order to graduate on time, I will have to do an internship this summer, take 16 hours this fall, and 18 next spring. These are all really writing and reading intensive classes too. I also have to take two science classes because Columbia College sucks ass.
I just found Julia Sweeney's blog... I love her. Not just because her last name is Sweeney, like me, but because she's one of the only women writing about atheism out there. I love Dawkins and Hitchens, for sure. Hitchen's God is not Great makes me tingle. But if one of the critiques of religion is its patriarchy and, above that, outright misogyny, shouldn't women feel they have a place as an atheist/agnostic commentator? There just aren't that many. Or, maybe there are, and we are willing to hear them and are more apt to listen to a man tell us about science and evolution and those very male denominated fields. Whatever the reason is, more women need to be represented and Julia rocks. Maybe I'll be the next Sweeney to take up the cause.
Okay. For real. I need to go write this damn essay.

2008-04-02T09:30:00.000-07:00

I've never been too much of high maintenance girl. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, mind you, and a lot of the reason I'm not may be financial... but this Saturday I am getting a pedicure and manicure for the first time. I'm actually sort of excited, and sort of nervous.
Aside from reading news coverage of the flesh-eating disease that proliferated in pedicure foot tubs a few years back, I am nervous about the lady seeing my nasty wintery feet. I feel weird having someone tend to my feet... I mean, it's sort of a nasty job and makes me feel weird asking someone else to clean my feet up.
As far as the manicure, I have really weird hands due to my genetic disorder. People never notice it until I point it out, but I'm sure someone with the sole purpose of tending to my hands will notice and I will have to explain to her that since I don't really have thumb nails, she only needs to do eight digits. Will she feel like she has to prorate my session? Weird.
I am on campus and don't have a camera readily available as to show you my hands, but let me find a photo on an NPS site. All us NPS-ers have the same hands.

Okay. Here I am!

So, I don't really have thumb nails, like this person. I do have index finger nails, unlike this model. But, I don't have distal joints on those fingers, like the model, meaning I can't bend the tops of my index fingers. There isn't a joint there. My nails on those fingers are really flat, so I could never affix fake nails to them. These fingers also have a weird crook in them, because of the deformed skeletal features I have. Of course, my left index finger is exacerbated by the time I broke it by accidently ramming into my friend John's bony ass while on stage... anyway...
So I'm going to get a manicure and I think that it's funny, considering at some moments in my childhood I would tuck my thumbs inside my fists to hide them, wouldn't wear shorts or skirts because the skeletal structure of my legs are sort of...funny... and I have a huge scar on my right knee from trying to correct said structural problems. And now I am willingly giving my hands to the scrutiny of a manicurist.
I always think it's sort of rude when people inquire about WHEN David and I will have children. When I tell them we don't ever want to, I am amazed by the even more ignorant question, WHY? Now, these people aren't family or friends asking. I don't mind discussing my life with people already in my life. But I think it's rude to assume you have the right to ask about anyone's personal life if you aren't a part of it. But, I don't ignore the question. I tell them that I don't really want to risk passing NPS to my child... and while that is one of many reasons that we have decided to remain childless by choice, it's a good one to throw out there because it makes the person feel really bad for asking. I don't tell them that NPS is a pretty livable condition and that my kids, even if they inherited it, would have even less NPS-related afflictions than I do. I just let them think what they want, feel badly for prying, and think of me as a martyr.
It usually ends my conversation with said eegit (forgive my Irish heritage) more quickly than, "David and I just prefer pit bulls..."
One day maybe we'll adopt one of the 130,000 kids up for adoption in the U.S. before creating a new life...or maybe I'll get knocked up and all of a sudden be really excited about it. But right now that's not the plan.
And I don't see how that is anyone's issue but mine. Well, David, too, I GUESS! :o)
But, alas, here it is, on my blog, for all to see. Now you don't have to ask.

So, in lieu of sandwiches...

2008-03-29T14:41:00.000-07:00

I quit my two year long gig at Potbelly Sandwich Works.
!
Two years of a crappy, get-me-through-college, I know I can be replaced, corporate bull shit.... it's all gone! I haven't not worked in college. I've always had rent or a mortgage and everything else life brings. Now, I have a sugar daddy. :o) Okay, what I really have is a fiancee with a career, which is quite the concept to the struggling student that I am. So, this wonderful man and I paid bills last month and crunched the numbers and figured out that I'd be able to enjoy being a student these last couple semesters of my degree.
Oh. Cool. What a concept. And what are these days of the week I have now, referred to as Friday, Saturday, and Sunday?
What did I do today instead of making sandwiches?

I made, from scratch, without the help of my chef fiancee, or anyone else, broccoli potato soup. And it turned out really, really well.

Then, I sat down, put on the mixed CD I made for the housewarming party Molly and I had for the Cullom Ave. apt, almost exactly two years ago, March 25th, 2006. I sat and thought about how life changes, how she and I are both engaged, and both homeowners (quite a switch from the cat piss scented apartments of our past). I enjoyed my delicious hot soup, though it was not as warm as my fuzzy memories.

So excited by this excellent mixed CD I made, I began to dance. I got caught by my neighbors. I waved and kept going.

The point of me quitting my job was, officially, to give me more time to study. But, my bookcase sat untouched.

But I still have the rest of the evening and tomorrow, save the morning when David, off work the WHOLE DAY!, will make us pancakes before we head for a romp at the dog beach with Jake.

My job wasn't hard, it didn't stress me out...but, somehow, I feel so much better. I don't know if it's because I don't have three days or more blocked away in my mind to just stand on the line, asking people who are on their cell phones "How are you today?" and "Mayo, mustard, hot peppers?" And, now I feel that I have time for school and the beautiful things in life like cooking, thinking, dancing, and hanging out with this beautiful little guy.

2008-03-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

"Do you ever feel like the best years have already gone
Come and gone and you didn't even know
they would ever go?
That they were the best?
I would have savored them more..."

I feel empty inside. I miss being creative. It fed me in a way I guess I didn't realize until I was starving for it. But there is no time.
I see no purpose right now. I see no reason. I see no greater cause, no eventual epiphany, no voice.
I think I've lost my voice.
And in searching, madly, throwing off old pieces of myself that are better than the whole I have now, I wonder if I'll ever be there, completed, authentic, happy, content.
I wonder if it was just the way things are when you're 13. Those days are never to be had again.
I wonder what I've compromised, what I'm settling for, where my passion went, where this cheap imitation of life came from and why it's still here.
Looking for a geographical solution, again, I wonder if I'm not just running away again. Will I really be better for it this time? Am I just trying to find excuses?
But it's too much here. That I know. I am not here. And suddenly I realize that I am just a ball of tears, Jan Arden lyrics, comfort food, and memories.
I only laugh at memories.

2008-03-13T10:02:00.001-07:00

This city wears me out. Waiting for the bus yesterday and riding it home I just saw the congestion of rush hour, the mess of it all, and felt so closed in I couldn't breathe.
I think I always feel that way right before I know I am going to be in Indiana or some other place that offers a little calm.
But last night, when I got home from the awful commute, David convinced me to go on a walk to the dog beach. We walked up and down Lake Michigan, on the sand, in the park, and then watched Jake play with the other dogs in the fenced in "Mondog" (Montrose Ave Dog Beach). It was so fun. The sun was setting, it was almost 50 degrees, and it was just perfect. I can't wait to go tonight, with a camera. It made me forget the craziness of the city and reminded me of how much I love water and trees and dogs.
I could breate deeply, smile, and let the wind tangle my hair with the smell of the lake.
Perfect.

2008-03-10T09:10:00.001-07:00

After being sick for over a week and missing a few classes, I am so behind. So so behind. I had a lot of time this weekend to catch up, but of course I didn't. I went to work, came home, walked the dog, and took a lot of naps. I watched a lot of TV. I spent some time with my thoughts. I still feel pretty tired from being sick and the weather, coupled with my current attitude, isn't helping much at all.
Someone I went to high school with passed away earlier this month. I just found out about it via the eerily omniscent facebook. Like the other deaths of former classmates, I didn't know her well. I spoke to her some, but not a whole lot. But again, I am sitting at the computer, holding back tears, because it scares the shit out of me how quickly life comes and goes. We have these plans, these goals... and we say things are meant to be. But those important goals and convictions for our lives are sometimes interrupted by death.
I've always been a morbid person. I consider it realism, but others have labeled it morbid. Call it what you will, I always have death on my mind. When David was trying for a year to convince me to adopt a dog, all I could think about was the heartbreak of one day putting it to sleep. Whenever David is later at work then expected, thoughts race through my mind about his body at the bottom of Lake Michigan. If I walk Jake alone at night I bring pepper spray and spend the whole walk not enjoying Jake's company or the breeze off the lake, but examining each and every passerby, the atheist, praying, even, that these people just see that Jake is a pit bull and don't look into his kind sweet eyes. A couple of my classes are in hallways where a lot of theatre students have their classes. Whenever I hear them making a lot of noise during rehearsals, I know there's a school shooting happening. I know where I'd hide in each classroom I sit in. It's hard for me to get close to people, because I know one day they'll be gone. One of the members of my intentional family (family I've chosen intentionally, not of blood relation) has HIV. There's a part of me that wants to keep him at arms length, because I know one day he'll be gone.
I know those who consider this "morbid" are right when they tell me that Jake will be around for at least 10 years, barring all disasters. I know David leaves work with an army of big kitchen guys carrying lots of knives with them. I know most of the people in my neighborhood are women walking alone like me. I know out of all the colleges and universities, a very small percent will ever be involved in a shooting. I know I have many years left with my friend. I also know that life will be much more enjoyable, that I 'll smile more, if I think more positively. What if I just loved Jake without thinking so far head? What if I just walked him, enjoying my surroundings and the quietness of the usually hectic city? What if I just loved the people in my life fully?
It means I would get hurt later. It will hurt worse when they go. I learned this at an early age and I can't seem to shake it. I don't know that I want to. In a way it makes me feel safe, like I'm cheating this birth and death cycle, like I have it figured out and I'm prepared for it.
Then, I guess we never are. And in being so negative and guarded and worried now, I'm not eliminating the hurt in the future. I'll just have both, where most normal positive people just have the one. I know that. But my experiences tell me to act otherwise.
I'm having a problem maintaining a healthy balance in a lot of areas of my life.
It makes me feel crazy.

2008-03-07T14:38:00.000-08:00

One week of school and then Spring Break. I am going to start it in Indy for my wedding shower and seeing Rod's show at his new theatre (congrats!) and then I'm going to a panel discussion where I will hear Mike Sherry and John D'Emilio speak. Get excited!
I will then work all week, before returning to Indy on Friday for Webb's wedding shower. Haha. Wedding madness.
I'm excited to be in my hometown. There's something grounding about it. Everyone's a lot more real there.

On why weddings are nonsense

2008-03-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

Now that I have the engagement ring, now that I have receipts from a photographer, the event space, and I'm trying to scrape together a deposit for a caterer, I realize
It's all bullshit.
I thought maybe I'd get caught up in it once it started getting closer, once the planning really started. But honestly, it's all becoming more and more ridiculous. We should be using this money to renovate the bathroom so we can resell this place someday. But instead we are spending thousands of dollars to tell each other what we already know: we love each other, we'll be together forever, etc. Sure, the buffet we're having sounds DELICIOUS, and I'm excited to see all of our friends and family in one place.... but, really, it's just a big show. I didn't want to register for gifts, I wanted to ask people to donate to a charity in our name. But people got mad, saying that we needed to register so we could have a shower, and that we "needed" things. Now that we have registered, we have found things we really do need, but I don't care about stuff. I just want to be with David, which I already am.
I got on TheKnot.com today (a wedding site) to see if they had any pictures of decorated cupcakes. There's an advice column on this site with stupid questions like, Can I do this or can I do that... sure, it's your wedding! The question today was whether or not all the bridesmaids HAD to match. What law of nature would be broken if they didn't? Would the bride and groom be less married at the end of the day?
The banner at the top of the homepage was, "Who had the best wedding of 2007?! Vote now!" The best wedding? Please.
I'm not stressed about my wedding at all, but what I am stressed about is this heteronormative culture I am contributing to, this materialistic culture, and why I need to spend thousands of dollars just to validate my relationship.

2008-03-03T07:56:00.001-08:00

I am sick, again. Next winter I am going to live in a bubble. I get sick every year.
Saturday, the Cook County Board approved a raise in the home buyer transfer tax (it was only $7.50 per $1,000 when David and I bought). It's going up to $10.50! I'm just thinking that homeowners are really good for the economy that isn't in trouble, according to our really intelligent president (not for him and his cronies, I guess)... and it's becoming harder and harder to own.
ALSO, affecting renters and owners alike, the sales tax is going up again! The sales tax is my city is now 10.25. Are you kidding me? What is it in my hometown? 6?
This just adds to the mounting frustration I've had with Chicago as of late and I'm done. My heart is ready to drop out of school and go somewhere small, somewhere less expensive, somewhere that lets me keep the money I make and do something fun with it.
I'm ready. But I have almost a year until I can do anything about it. I know I've been at this juncture before and I ended up being really glad I stayed in the city. But this time, something is different. I know it's time.
Caroline Rhea is on TV right now. Who told her she was funny?
When are the Kathy Griffin specials coming back on Bravo?
I want the election to be over. I want feminists to understand that expecting women to vote for a candidate because she has a vagina is pretty patronizing. What if the female candidate was a really conservative republican? I bet not many feminists would be voting for her.
I'm pretty frustrated with things right now. Everything I am excited about lies far into the future and I just want it to be here now.
I'm not a patient person.

2008-02-29T19:04:00.000-08:00

I waste time. I watch TV, I get on the internet... and things don't get done.
I did clean the kitchen and the bathroom tonight. I did the laundry.
Jay and Dwayne are possibly coming over Sunday for dinner so that gives me a reason to clean.
I am going to see The Labirynth (yes, the David Bowie flick of your youth) tomorrow night with some friends from work. Every time I plan things with them I think, Should I stay in Chicago?
I don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. I have lives planned in my mind in multiple cities. They are similar yet vastly different. In each of these lives I carry with me the fear that I should be somewhere else and I just wonder why I can't find a home, a place where my soul resides, a place I know I need to be. And then I think what if I never find that and I spend my whole life dragging my husband and dog back and forth across the country, packing up my life, renting a U-Haul, getting new checks, new address labels... what if I never find a home?
My soul is unsettled. I feel like, for the first time in a long time, I have things figured out. I know what I want to do with my life (well, mostly) and I know what I'm good at. I know who I'm going through life with. I know what's important to me. I know what I believe.
But there's this part of me that calls me somewhere else, says I'm not standing in the right place, shifts the land under my feet until I topple over, legs and arms, mind and heart, tossed in different directions. I don't know where to go.
I don't know where I belong. My independent spirit is better suited to the thirteen year old I once was, when the world was wide open and nothing tied me anywhere. I like what ties me to Chicago: my hubby, my dog, my friends, my house... but when you're that young, when you're thirteen... you think, maybe I'll live in Oregon, on the coast, in a lakehouse. I'll write all day long. That's all I want. When you aren't thirteen, when you've lived some of your life, you realize that you probably couldn't afford a lakehouse in Oregon, you wonder how you'd drive your carsick dog that far, and you wonder if your current condo has enough resale value yet. You worry. When you're thirteen it just sounds like fun. Everything is plausible.
I know I am still so so young. I know I don't have kids (not that I ever will), I know I don't lead a life that bores me... I have ambitions, I have a passion for life. But so often I miss the girl I was when life first began to present its options to me, when I had all the confidence in the world, when my choices were not attached to job prospects, real estate...adult stuff.
I know we all remember the past more fondly sometimes. I know I'm not unique. But somedays, as I ride the bus south, along the lakefront, or when I walk around the city, I just think.
I think.
I wonder what the hell I'm doing.

2008-02-26T08:41:00.001-08:00

He's been gone 16 years. I just realized that on my way downtown today. Staring out the grimy bus window at frozen Lake Michigan. I just thought. I just realized.
16 years.

why i write

2008-02-21T11:29:00.000-08:00

At night, my balloon lamp glowing in the corner, my collection of Trolls and E.T. memorobilia casting shadows on the wallls, my parents would take turns reading to me, my little brain imagining the illustrations, the scenes, the faces. I decided that for each year of my life I should get one book. So, the night of my fifth birthday, I selected five books for my mom to read me. They were short picture books, but still a hefty load for a mother who'd worked all day and then worked all night at her second job as a wife to my dying father and as a mother to my adventurous young self.
While my mom did most of the reading in the house, my dad did most of the writing. He had been somewhat of a freelance journalist in his hometown on Bayonne, New Jersey. After we moved to Indiana, he would send the newspaper back home regular updates on his new life outside of the city. I imagine him lamenting the homogenous cul de sac we called home, dreaming of the immigrant neighbors he once knew who would bring him bread and stews in his bachelor days and came to bless me with their spells and potions when I was born. He wrote to them about his luck in finding an Irish community in his new city, but how they were all men merely decending from "the green place" and some had never even been there. With pride he recounted being chosen to ride on the Ancient Order of Hibernians float in the Indianapolis St. Patrick's Day parade. I wonder how many people read my father's words so far away in his old life, his old city. I wonder how many of them still remember a passage or a word or a quote or even his name.
My few memories of him lead me to our solid oak dining table where he always sat to write. He would set out his mug that read "DAN" in huge brown letters down the side, fill it with tea, and then begin to write. I remember hearing the typewriter that always sounds so loud and obnoxious in movies, but at home it came out like waves on the bottom of a boat, or a breeze, or rain.
Whether it was an actual joy I found in words while being read to, a way to mimic my father, or the realization that I would never be able to mimic my mother's musical abilities, I took to stapling together construction paper, making my own paperback books. I would examine books my father had by his bed or by the sofa or in the car or in the kitchen---he read everywhere. I would examine the way the books looked and remake them. On the back of my homemade books I would draw a picture of myself and write a short biography. I would make a cover, a title page, and leave a blank page before the story started like I often observed in "real" books. I would hold books, smell there musty pages, their clean and new pages, listened to the way their spined snapped, the way the library's protective plastic jacket crackled, the definitive way the pages and covers came together with a slam. I got to know their bodies in an intimate way, opening them and closing them and holding them just to see how it felt.
Too young to tackle all of the pages in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, my mom took me to see it in the theatres when Susan Sarandon and Winona Rider made it a popular story again. I felt a sudden kinship with Jo when Professor Bear pointed to her ink-stained hand. Her travel to big cities and lofty universities became my visions of my future, and the image that I tried to articulate when adults would ask, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Traveling to New Jersey and New York the year after my father died to visit his family, I thought about the movie and if I'd ever live in New York, and if my dad would be proud that while he left his urban home, I would come back to it.
One of my favorite writers these days is Thomas Lynch. He is an undertaker by trade, and it greatly influences his writing. His ideas about death and life are attractive to that part of me who encountered the death of my father at a young age. It helps explain it to me, explain my mother's actions at the time, explain the way I felt. Most importantly though, Lynch's lapsed yet loyal Catholicism and his Irish heritage bring me to my living father. The concrete memories of him are few, but the essence of the Irishman, writing in a darkened dining room in the suburbs of Indianapolis in my youth haunt me, taunt me, make up a crucial part of my identity. Perhaps his identity as a writer is why my identity is so tied to words. It is me, but it is also him. I am not the first Sweeney to claim space on pages of newpapers and journals, to struggle for hours in a dark house in the wee hours of the morning, the love of my life supporting me, but also finding it strange. I am the second, even if I'm the last, I am the second, so that my father was not the last. So that he is not entirely gone. So that he is still with me in a real way that I can touch, see, and believe. Not relegated to a ghostly or angelic make believe, hovering above me with a god I have never been able to acknowledge as present or plausible, but hovering in my mind, in my hands, in my words. He is there. So am I.

2008-02-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

I was watching LA Ink last night (don't judge me...) and a girl came into the shop wanting a tattoo of Rosie the Riveter... except "Can you, like, make her face skinnier? Make her prettier?" The girl basically wanted a sexy pin-up girl with a bandana on her head, flexing a muscle. Which is fine...but the girl was talking about this tat being a symbol of the strength of females in her life.
She used the term, "Girl Power."
I remember "girl power" as being something on obnoxious pink t-shirts when I was a little girl. The words were usually surrounded by something typically female, like flowers, and other shirts hanging near it said things like, "Girls Rule, Boys Drool." What this does to establish equality between the genders, or to empower women alone, I'm not sure. But I got to thinking about it after this girl on LA Ink kept using the phrase Girl Power. I thought, do you mean Feminism?
Maybe feminism is too scary a word for some people. Probably, because most people think it means they can't love men, or they have to be butch, or a myriad of other things that we all know too well. While some women have identified as feminists through cutting their hair and not sleeping with men, feminism is in, fact defined as a quest for equality between the sexes. And isn't that what we all want? What's so scary about that?
It's the reason no one in mainstream politics calls themselves a feminist, or even uses the word. We talk in code about "women's issues" or the "female vote" ...even Hillary, who has been so supported by feminists unwilling to vote for anyone else, merely to see a fellow sister in the presidency, doesn't use the word. Because it has become loaded and scary.
I think that's an example of why we need feminism more than ever. Those who don't want equality between the genders LOVE that we're afraid of the word, afraid of the movement, afraid to take action because we don't want the label. That keeps us deradicalized, decentralized, and silent. Perfect.
So what we have today, instead, is Girl Power. What ideology exists behind this phrase? Surely not dialogue about reproductive rights, the suffrage or equal pay. It is vague and void. It doesn't tell girls what their power is, or what power they don't have that they should.
Feminist theory and thought exists so women can talk about these oppressions. It exists so we might no longer be oppressed. Girl Power just doesn't cut it.
I guess the girl on LA Ink really did mean girl power, and not feminism. Making Rosie the Riveter skinnier and prettier... seeing beauty the way a man might see beauty rather than a woman, a FEMINIST, who might look at a woman like Rosie and see the beauty in her strength, her ability to have short hair and wear something besides a dress.
But, just as Rosie the Riveter served as a temporary propaganda poster during the war, feminism seems to have served an older generation, their wants and needs, and now the heart and soul of it is gone. It has been reduced to girl power.
When I saw Judy Shepherd (Matthew Shepherd's mother) speak about her son's murder and the current state of gay rights, she asked, Where all of my hippie friends? Where all of my student protesters? Where have you gone?
Where have you gone? The new generation doesn't understand the work you did for us because, well, you're not doing it anymore. Where are you?

2008-02-11T09:23:00.000-08:00

We took Jake on his first long car trip this weekend. The only other time we've had him in a car was bringing him home when we adopted him. On the way back, he drooled more than any dog I have ever seen. But the trip wasn't that far, and once we got him out, he stopped. We laughed it off. Apparently he drools a little when he gets nervous.
A little turned into buckets during our three hours to Indy. It was, without any exaggeration, as if there was a faucet in his face that wouldn't turn off. We had his blanket under him, and there were good portion of the blanket that were saturated, soaked through, with drool. His little paws looked as if he'd been jumping in puddles. It was funny...and gross. I guess cars make him nervous yet, and it makes sense. Some of us humans sweat when we get nervous, and dogs "sweat" by panting. If this was what happened, Jake was one nervous dude.
Pictures will come later today when I get home. I can't describe it well enough to give you the full effect. Hilarious.
I'm starting to worry about our sanities, though. I have this voice that I do...that is supposed to be Jake. I think it is how Jake would speak, and more than once on our car ride, "Jake" and David and Mary-Margaret had coversations. They weren't long. Don't lock me up yet. But perhaps the two humans in Jake's life should be mindful of the trend, and to keep it in check.

2008-02-04T09:40:00.000-08:00

The past week has been full of emotions. I don't know where to begin. Long story short, I have realized that my friend Chris was right last year when he told me that weddings bring out the worst in people. It will bring up old family drama, old agendas, and feelings get hurt all too quickly. The strange part is, none of it has to do with the point of the wedding, which is the two people gettting married. For example, with me, it has been about my mom's husband's children and now about my mom and her best friend. Go figure. The stories are too long and not interesting to anyone else, so that is all I'll say. Weddings are ridiculous.
Speaking of weddings, a big ol' slice of heteronormativity for ya, I started classes last week and discussions taking place in my classes touching on gender/sexuality have made thinking about my wedding really interesting. It's helped me to put it in perspective, helped me to define what getting married means to me, and has helped me to, essentially, raise the middle finger to any and all who are trying to tell me, and us, what being married is all about, what a wedding is supposed to mean, and how we are supposed to go about all of it. Why is marriage this one-size-fits-all model? Not just that it's held as this ultimate goal, or ultimate state of a relationship, but that within marriage, it has to be a certain way? Again, not even something as "controversial" as same-sex marriage, but within the context of my heterosexual marriage, I am still being told how to go about it. It doesn't stop with one man marrying one woman; the DOMA definition (grrrrr Clinton!) is not enough. I have heard the following statements since expressing the fact that I am getting married:
1* "No more going out with your male friends, just the two of you! Get it out of your system now!"
2* "Well, now wherever you go to grad school he has to go...or if he finds a job in a different city than your grad school, someone will have to compromise. Shouldn't you guys wait until you're older, more settled?"
3* "When are you guys having kids?"
4* "I can't believe you're getting married. Aren't you like...a feminist or something? Aren't you a queer community ally? Are you selling out?"

1* This implies that I just won't be able to keep myself from sleeping with any of my male friends, or that they aren't trustworthy, either. Couldn't this also be said of close female friends? You don't know anything about me, jerkface! :o) Not to mention that some married couples choose to have an open relationship. I don't know that I could do it, but others can and really enjoy it. Your definition of marriage is not everyone else's.
2* Well, that ship has sailed. We own a home together. We live together. We have a dog together. I don't need a legal document to keep me in the same city, the same household, as David. I choose to do that. We've already moved to Chicago together, chosen to stay in Chicago together, and look forward to being nomadic together in the future, if that is indeed what the future holds. As David says, "we're both set...career-wise, I mean. People eat and have sex in every city."
3* Never. And I think if Planned Parenthood really stood for a woman's right to choose, you wouldn't have to be of a certain age or be psychologically evaluated before having a tubal ligation. What if we change our minds? Then we do. But I don't see how that is any of your business and where you have room to judge if our minds will change or what our lives will be missing if they don't.
4* Yeah. I'm a feminist and I'm also a huge supporter of acceptance for all types of families. David and I are already a family, legally or not, and until we can be fully recognized as such without getting legally recognized as a married couple, I guess we'll have to buy into the system. Plus, one of the issues I work behind is marriage equality...if I think everyone should have the right to marry, doesn't that mean staunch hetero feminists as well? We are planning our wedding with our morals and beliefs in mind; for instance, I am not throwing a bouquet. The idea of having my single friends clamour to be the next one plucked from her miserable spinster life is not in any way cute, not even for a photo op. We aren't using any readings with gendered language. We want the legal recognition, so we're getting it...and using it, unashamedly, to throw a big party for our friends and fam...and to register for gifts. :o)

So those are my thoughts.
If you cared.
Which you most probably don't.

2008-01-19T16:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I posted. I find that when I have the most to say, I don't say it. Maybe I know that if I write it down, I must deal with it, think about it.
David and I adopted a dog from the shelter this week and he is pretty wonderful. His name is Jake, but of course I call him Jakers, Jakey-poo, and Bat Boy (have you ever seen a pit bull's ears? Seriously). Last night David came back from taking The Bat for a walk and I was cleaning up. We had this little rhythm with what we were doing, and it was strange. We weren't tripping over one another or asking one another to do something; it was like we each new our role in the moment. It made me think about other people who spend a good part of their 20s in dorms. Answering to RAs, paying a lot of money to have a curfew... not being able to truly inhabit their living space. And I looked around me, at my kitchen, and me Swiffering the floor, and David making Jake sit for his treat, and I thought, wow. Look at the feminist being so domestic.
I've struggled a lot recently, especially, with what being a feminist means. I've struggled with my choices. I guess I can only compare it to the way other people struggle with being true Catholics or Christians or parents. It's an ongoing commitment and it's not easy. Sure, it's easy and natural to believe this is what you are, you know it's right and worth your trouble... but it's hard sometimes. And how does a feminist get married?! How do I stand in a white dress, which has been used to signify the way a woman "is" on her wedding day, and how do I do it while being a feminist?
I've answered these questions for myself... but it's a process.

Holiday Drama

2007-12-29T18:01:00.000-08:00

I wasn't in the Christmas mood this year. Sure, I am always annoyed by the money I am expected to spend, the knowledge that I don't need anything yet have to come up with something to tell people to buy me... but this year it didn't feel like the holidays at all. I don't know if that means anything about growing up or moving on or changing. But I just didn't get it this year.
So Christmas night I got into a fight with my mother about some stupid stuff that I don't have time for. It's not a secret that I think her husband is an ignorant, pompous ass (and that is edited for your reading pleasure) but somehow they both assumed they would invite HIS family to MY wedding.
Yep.
Tell me if I'm nuts. But I didn't grow up with him or his family. By the time my mom remarried, I had been on my own for at least 6 months. I have met his kids once or twice each. We don't know one another. We aren't "family." My mom knows we are planning a small wedding. David and I are paying for it. I am not paying for the children of a man I don't like to eat. If I passed any of them on the street I wouldn't know them. If I have to meet people at my wedding, they probably shouldn't be there. We are inviting 100, expecting about 75. They don't make the cut.
Do you understand that? Or are David and I hateful and crazy?
So somehow, instead of just deferring to the people who are hosting the wedding, who are paying the wedding, who are planning the wedding, who are GETTING MARRIED, a confrontation had to result. Long story short, I am tired of dealing with the drama. So I left town with David that night and went home. He had to go home that night anyway because of his work schedule, and I decided to go along. Most of my friends I planned to see understood. When I'm upset I want to be with David and I want to be home. That's where I went.
And today my friend that I moved up here with moved back to Indy. I am so excited for her. She is starting her career, buying a home... but I can't help but feel that a chapter is gone, an era has ended. She started this adventure with me. Today she came by my place to drop off some stuff I had left at our old apartment. One of these things was our grocery cart. I remembered the first time we went grocery shopping together... we were so used to shopping in Indy where you buy everything and load up for trunk and back seats. Well, we forgot that we had no car and had to carry all of our stuff about ten blocks home. So we bought this old lady push cart that a lot of people use up here to haul stuff around. It was red and we named it Ruby. I have so many memories of us dragging that thing down State Street and then down Cullom Ave. In our busy lives sometimes the only times we had good conversation was while pushing that cart around. We struggled to lift up the steps of our first apartment building, struggled to keep the cat inside as we rolled into our second apartment, and today, it is sitting in my storage unit in the basement.
I know it's silly. But today the cart, and the fact that she didn't need it anymore, was sad. A definite shift has occurred, life has changed, and now Ruby is but shoved into our hall closet or teetering down Chicago streets, us laughing or discussing or complaining or comforting around it. And I guess I just realize that life is changing. I am here with David in our very own home and she is moving with her love to Indy to their very own home. My other friends are growing up too. And it's eery.

Pigeon Man

2007-12-20T00:00:00.001-08:00

There are eccentric characters in every neighborhood of Chicago. Lincoln Square, the neighborhood I called home for over a year, had Joe, the Pigeon Man. He sat on the fire hydrant at the corner of Lawrence and Western and pigeons would flock to him. They sat on him, he fed them, he talked to them. There is a burned-out abandoned building there, next to the Walgreens, and when he wasn't around, the pigeons would line up in the windows and on the roof. When he came, they would swoop down to him.
I never saw him sitting there; maybe I'm always in too much of a hurry. I didn't use that intersection a whole lot, as I work south of the Square and he would sit on the north end. I have seen him the past two weekends though, waiting with me for the #49 Western bus. I have noticed him at the bus stop in the past; I noticed him because he was bent forward, had a walking stick, and wore all blue, like a janitor. He wore his watch stretched over his shirt sleeve.
Last Sunday, I was waiting for the bus after work. He was waiting there with me. Another man came up, and started talking to Joe. He seemed distant, like he didn't want to talk. But the man was asking him if he'd read the paper, and what he was going to do about the article. I was intrigued, but got no more information, even during the bus ride. Joe got off at Lawrence and Western, where I assume now he went to sit on that hydrant, as usual, and feed the pigeons. On the bus though, the man who had asked Joe about the article chastised him for not wearing a coat or hat. He said, "Joe's a wonderful person and I don't want him to get pneumonia or somethin'." I'm a whore for people watching, and the whole exchange was very interesting to watch.
So today, I do my usual read of the Chicago Tribune online and as I'm scanning the local headlines, I see "Lincoln Square Pigeon Man Hit by Van." I began reading it, because I lived in Lincoln Square for a while, still work there, and had no idea we had a Pigeon Man. When I saw the man's photo and read about him, I realized the man I had seen on the bus was this Pigeon Man and that he had been killed Tuesday when he was struck by a van.
I just remembered the other man on the bus worrying about Joe not having a hat or coat. Two days later, he gets hit by a van. It was just..strange. It reminded me that you never know, do you? I see this man on Sunday... I don't know anything about him. Then I read today that he is dead, and that he was this local legend. The article the other man was informing him about was discussing some local politicians trying to pass an ordinance that would fine people $1,000 for feeding pigeons. This mysterious bus ride I had Sunday...article, what are you going to do about, man dressed in blue janitor garb, the other man called him Joe, he had a bag of bread with him... it all comes together in this article about his death.
It makes me sad, I guess, because this man had this love for these creatures that the city is trying so hard to exterminate. It makes me sad that he died. It makes me sad that I just saw him, two days before his death, and I didn't know, he didn't know, none of us knew he was going to get hit by a van 48 hours later and die. That's the mystery, the eeriness, the unsettling thing about life. We don't know.
Tonight, there are candles at this fire hydrant. There are lonely birds on the Square. There is a girl at home, up too late, wondering about life and death and, to quote on of her favorite monologues, "...how amazing it all is." The characters of this city, like the Rastafarian who sits under the Berwyn red line station and sells incense. Like the Finger Lady on the Blue Line. Every neighborhood has one. I wonder who will take the place in Lincoln Square.

"I don't want a facebook wedding!"

2007-12-13T10:45:00.000-08:00

When David and I decided to get married next summer, which I guess means that we are now engaged, David said, "I don't want a facebook wedding." He is hilarious and wise at the same time, which is one of many reasons I am marrying him.
He went on to say that it doesn't really matter to anyone else when and where we are getting married...if it does matter to anyone else, they will get an invitation in the mail with all the information they need. He told me how it annoyed him, the posting of pictures of the ring, as if that's what getting married is all about.
That's true. It's so true. This is why I love him.

2007-12-07T10:21:00.001-08:00

With so much going on in the world, so many causes that need passionate people...
Last night I saw Nightline, and there is a group of Evangelicals that go to a Mormon convention every year to try and convert the Mormons to "true" Christianity. There was a man yelling at a teenage kid, "Your Jesus is not the real Jesus. He is the brother of the Devil!"
...?
Another woman said she felt sorry for the Mormons because they had been deceived.
I wonder if these evangelicals know that people think THEY have been deceived. Just a thought.
There are so many problems... problems people are dealing with here and now. People are hurting right now. I guess I don't understand putting all of our efforts toward people who aren't sick, poor, or enslaved just because you don't agree with their religious views. Are you kidding?
I suppose they are trying to save these people from some sort of awful afterlife... there are people, though, suffering a horrible LIFE, current life, and I think our efforts would be best used in that direction. We know this life exists... we are here, now, living it. Some people are not living it well. Let's help them before we worry about a supernatural life a good part of the population doesn't even believe exists, while everyone else is stil debating what it looks like or how you get there. There is no debate that people are suffering right now. Let's start here, shall we?

2007-12-03T08:36:00.000-08:00

I have to say that this post is inspired by two other bloggers: Dana for the subject and by her poetic telling of it, and Mindy for her honesty.
I don't know how often in my life I've been truly honest. I mean truly honest...with my myself and others. It seems as if I was always getting myself into situations that I had to hide from, or felt I had to, or situations that I assumed other people in my life wouldn't approve of. As I ran around in early high school not caring what people thought of purple fishnets, I guess, looking back, I cared deeply what they thought about ME. I had all of these ideas... I had these dreams. Some of them ended up materializing in the future and some did not. For example, I knew for so many years that my best friend Martin and I were going to move to New York and he was going to dance and I was goin to act. Or stage manage. Or write. Or everything. Life is wide, wide open when you are young. I miss that. I miss the possibility of the impossible. I was going to leave Indiana, and never ever look back. I didn't need anyone there and they didn't need me. Maybe this seems sad. But in a way it was refreshing. I could go anywhere. What did happen was that I did move to a big city, although it wasn't New York. I moved with another good friend who I knew through theatre, but neither of us aspired to be actors or dancers or anything theatrical up here. In fact, I didn't really know what I aspired to be. And while I did leave Indiana and at this point don't know that I'll live there again, I still have ties there. They are stronger, even, then when I lived there. David's family keeps a part of me there. I love them. I, as Hallmark-y as this sounds, have his two sisters who are now my sisters, my two brother-in-laws, and his parents. They are a reason to be there. I didn't know that was going to happen. I didn't know that I would have a life partner and that we would share a mortgage. I didn't know. I wasn't expecting to have such a strained relationship with my mother, or with Martin. I guess I was disappointed by them. I didn't expect to be giving my life over to the career and field I am going into. When I peered into my future in middle and high scool, I didn't see myself weeping alone in my office after giving my first positive result as an HIV test counselor. I didn't see myself staying in Chicago for my family here, Jay and Dwayne. I didn't think I'd be pursuing such an archaic major, Social Justice, for Christ's sake, and I surely never thought I'd do something as normal as living with a man and having a mortgage and entertaining the idea of getting married.
When I told an ex-boyfriend that I wasn't going to major in theatre, he said I was "selling out." As if everyone who does not have a creative career is somehow a part of the system, The Man, and therefore not valid. Tell me how I can sell out by entering a career where I will work for the rights of others and make hardly any money. I knew that when he said it years ago... but at that point in my life, I let him say it. I let males tell me a lot of things then. I let men do a lot of things then. I went along, an unwilling but non-protesting victim. Some of you know about this awful time in my life, and some of you only knew the happy, passionate facade I used, as I hid by keeping myself busy doing theatre. I hid in my characteer's lives, painstakingly creating their lives so I did not have to face my own. I just wonder what if I had been consious all those years, what choices I would have made.
And here I am, now, a self-proclaimed feminist, I've worked with rape victims being tested for HIV, and there is a part of me that wants to cry with them, maybe harder than them, because unlike them, I am not still in shock. I want to tell them that it's alright and one day they may eve see it as an asset. Hell, I want to shout to them, it may make you change the world. But I don't. Because I know I wouldn't have understood it then and my last thoughts were about my future, because I didn't see my future. I was too busy hiding from the present.
What is the point of this post? I don't know. I've just been thinking about my life a lot lately, and how so many people don't really know me. Even those who think they do, who I consider my very best friends. And it gets heavy, this knowledge, this past, and I thought I'd let some of it, this fraction of it, go. Even if no one reads it, it is here and not here, with me. That was the point, I suppose.

2007-12-02T20:17:00.000-08:00

I am wearing a tshirt from high school. I didn't do a whole lot of activities in high school that came with a tshirt, but I have a couple. I'm wearing it and realizing that, really, it wasn't that long ago since I was in high school. But so much has happened and I am so changed that I can't imagine still being in that place in life. It was so great and awful, wasn't it? Both, together, back and forth, or at the exact same moment.
Sometimes I'd look back on "the good old days" and miss it. But increasingly I love my current place in life more and more. Look who I am, look what I've done! I want to say to the people in my life who I thought mattered and really didn't.
I want to go back to some moments though, most of them completely divorced from high school, but the occurred in that age range. Theatre, mostly. Now it's been... four years since I've performed and three since I did work on a show at all. In February I will be in the Vagina Monologues. I can't wait to be onstage again.
There is a part of me I left there, in those dark backstage areas that smelled of lumber, under the spotlights and the gobos... and it will always be there for me when I need to remember who I am, if I forget just a little bit. I smell fresh lumber and I remember.

2007-11-30T15:51:00.000-08:00

My mother always said that people die in threes. I think it's funny because, of course, people die every day. People die by the thousands, really. But it seemed that each time she knew someone who died, she knew of two more. Today, Evil Kinevil died, and yesterday Hyde, and I feel like some other well-known person in the last week or so. It made me think of this theory. It made me realize that you can prove anything really. Not too mention the other thousand people who died this week, we can pick these three, the first three we all think of, and prove this theory. What else do we prove by picking and choosing? Most things, I think. Especially when it comes to the bible and what those believers of the bible choose to adhere to. Leviticus? Come on! That's perfect! Often cited when engaging in the "Jesus loves you, Mike, and your friend, Todd, but not that you two have sex!" debate. It's there in Leviticus... but take a look at the rest of CRAZY MESS OF LEVITICUS! No pork, no shell fish, women can't wear red, can't cross a body of water while on her period.... yikes. I love me some bacon. I ate crab last week. My favorite prom dress was red and I live five blocks from Lake Michigan, and cross the Chicago River each day to get downtown. And, I am not heterosexist. There's my hand basket. I'm going to hell.
I've been told that these other rules in Leviticus are "outdated" or perhaps "allegorical." Bull shit. You can't pick and choose. How is one more literal than the other? It isn't specified.
But the master class loves pork and shell fish, benefit from water-side real estate, and want the freedom to turn heads at their charity balls in red evening gowns. Accepting homosexuals doesn't serve their purpose, and this is why they have chosen to follow this rule. In fact, to accept homosexuality as normal (read a science book. It'll teach you about evolution too!) would threaten their hold on hegemony. Straight men, regardless of race and class, have at least the advantage of being men, and being able to marry who they love, bestow financial and health benefits on their partners, and hold hands with their partners without being harrassed. It's heterosexual privilege. Shell fish don't threaten anyone's privileged status.
I say if you site this book, the bible, when defending the nation's denial of marriage equality, you first need to be reminded of the separation of church and state. But, if you insist on using this passage of this book that, gasp, not everyone believes in!, you should have to follow it all, baby! The whole shabang! Hey, I'm just trying to keep you accountable! I'm trying to help! If nothing else, this wll prove your point even further, that you are that serious about your anti-GLBT conviction. People will think, "WOW! They must be on to something! Look! Uncle Eddy used to love shrimp! He hasn't touched the cocktail all night!" You'll be such a martyr! Sweet!
And I know it will suck. You look so cute in that red dress! And crab legs? Wow. Yum. But, you know, while you're suffering those cravings and lamenting the money you spent on that red dress you'll never wear, just imagine how much harder it is to be unaccepted, chastised, and even killed for merely being who you are. Shrimp, ball gowns, people attracted to their own sex... it's all there together.
Hate is not a family value, nor is it very "Christian," if that is something you aspire to be. Maybe you don't think what you are doing is hating... but what if your group was singled out and denied basic rights and privileges? Wouldn't you feel hate from your oppressing groups? I doubt anyone nowadays looks back on the defenders of slavery as generally amiable folks. They hated someone. Not accepting someone based on prejudice is hate. Just because you don't commit a hate crime does not mean you don't hate. Denying a child the right to be legally protected by both her parents if they happen to be of the same sex is hateful. Denying a couple who has loved and supported one another for years the right to hospital visitation is hateful. And the fact that people don't see this as hate, or that it's anything like racism, is damn scary. Scarier still,that churches and our GOVERNMENT are backing it up. (just like racism!) We are better than this. At least I am. The rest of you can pick and choose between your hate and shell fish. I'm going to love and fight and scream and cry. I'm going to change it.

Confession

2007-11-28T08:35:00.000-08:00

Last night I....
I...
er...
bought something from WalMart. UGH. I hate WalMart. I have an unoffical ban on WalMart! I have always hated just being inside WalMart, but my sophomore year of college, I studied the company in a social justice class and learned of their sneaky and shaky ways. I vowed to never shop at WalMart. But, here I am, looking at my email confirmation that my new comforter and sheet set is on the way.
But really, where can you shop without abusing your morals? Even Amazon, which I think gets a fair amount of my income....eek... donates to the Republican party. But I can't quit Amazon. It's too incredible. And Target is now almost worse than WalMart as far as health insurance for their employees.
What is a socially consious person to do? The same thing happened when David and I were house hunting. I did not want to be an in-mover, a gentrifier. But, we bought in a rehab building in Edgewater because it's what we could afford. It seems like I have to find small independent expensive boutiques for all my wares and rent the rest of my life in order to have any integrity.

2007-11-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was awkward. I think there's a reason they say people kill themselves more frequently during the holidays than any other time of year. Not that I'm suicidal, mind you, I just... have a family.
I drove in with Molly from Chicago, which was nice because we never have time to just sit and talk for that long. When she took me to my mom's house, we left right away to eat with my mom's first cousin and her family. Long story short, it came to light that my mom has not told any of them that I bought my first home, because then she would have to tell them that David and I are living together. It made me wonder what everyone would say if they knew David and I entertain the idea of never getting married. If they knew we weren't going to have children. If they knew I was pro-choice and worked for Planned Parenthood, at a sex toy store where I teach people how to enjoy their sex lives more, that I used to be an HIV test counselor and taught people how to have sex more safely, and that I am going to graduate college and continue work in these areas as an activist. What if they new that if I do decide to play the game and get married, walking me down the aisle will be two men who have been together for 21 years and who lovingly refer to themselves as my Two Gay Dads? I had this feeling suddenly there that none of this was okay with anyone I'm related to.
Then I went to David's parent's house and laughed at dinner and discussed the problems of the world with people who understood me, or who could atleast respect where I was coming from. I was told by two different members of this family, my family now, that whatever David and I decide to do, they love me already like a third daughter. They kept asking what we needed for the new place and could they buy it for us for Christmas. It made me think of last Christmas, when David and I had our first apartment, and they bought us a dining room table.
And then I drove back to my mom's, late, after having coffee with my sister-in-law for hours, and felt like a stranger in this house. I didn't grow up here, I don't have memories here.
I'm realizing that no longer do I have two lives, Indy and Chicago, but one life, that doesn't fit when I visit my old one.

2007-11-19T10:54:00.001-08:00

This is why boys need to be raised to understand that women are humans, and not just recepticals for semen, AND why we all need to be raised to understand that sex is not a bad thing. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071119/ap_on_re_us/boys_rape;_ylt=Av_bbQnNtZL1PHzMBlFHr.NH2ocAI don't know if the girl in this story is a victim or telling a lie to save herself. But, really, either way, she is a victim. If she was raped, she is a victim. If she took part in completely consensual sex, she is a victim. Why? Because she feels she has to lie about it, because she believes her decision to have sex will get her into trouble. Granted, these kids are entirely too young to be having sex. (Yes, even a crazy liberal like me draws the line somewhere.) But this has happened before... women, especially teenage and college age women, feel that after they decided to have sex, they are dirty, they did something wrong. So they lie, because suddenly it's okay. Being raped is not a woman's fault. Choosing to take part in a consensual sexual activity can label someone a slut, a whore, and ruin a young woman's life.Something is seriously amiss in our culture if rape is a better avenue to travel.If she was raped, something is seriously wrong. Rape is wrong. There is something wrong when the University of Vermont does a study and finds at least a fourth of men in the school have committed rape, but didn't know it. We are all taught that rape is a stranger lurking in the alleys. Anything else is debatable, loses power, and ultimately makes men feel that they have freedom to do what they wish with our bodies, and makes women feel that certain types of violations are okay and normal.

2007-11-18T19:00:00.000-08:00

David and I went to Ikea today to buy things for the new place... curtains, a chair, hardware for the cabinets, some more glasses, wine glasses.. random things. I got hom and talked to one of my best friends who told me she and her boyfriend are going to put an offer on a house in Indiana.
I'm so excited for her, yet sad for her move from Chicago.
Life is funny life that. I realize increasingly that at the very same moment, it can be wonderful and awful.

2007-11-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

Walking out of work today, it was cold and rainy and grey. I thought, I might as well be in London. The Scottish Highlands, maybe.
I love Chicago. But sometimes I think of the other places I've been, even other places I've lived, and I miss them so. I miss stars and sunsets and skies that don't get caught on the spires of tall buildings. The fall colors are nice up here and last week, driving home on Lake Shore Drive, I could see Lincoln Park and it was all golden and red and brown, anchored to the earth by green. The sun was setting. The tall vintage apartment buildings were shining. Runners dotted the beach. In that moment I knew I'd never move. I'd never leave this place.
But then today I was not on Lake Shore Drive, I was wading through dirty puddles, waiting for a bus that is always late, and all I could think about was the summer David and I fell in love, traveling around Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales. I thought about driving to southern Indiana with Natalie. I thought about visitng the old tenement building where my father grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey. It smelled so damp on days like today. And then I thought about my father being from Ireland himself and how some things just come to a complete circle.
Then my bus came and I journeyed back to my corner of this city, on this rainy grey day, and contemplated life and love and rain.
Wherever I am, I will be okay. It rains most places on earth.

murder. marriage. sanctimonious bull shit.

2007-11-15T10:18:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry. I'm about to make a snap judgement. But the case of Stacy Peterson, the missing woman in Bolingbrook, IL has become national news now. Matt Lauer interviewed her husband on the Today show yesterday and he was discussing their marital problems. He actually said that she wanted divorce when she was "I'm not trying to be funny, but on her menstrual cycle."wow.Drew Peterson is not only a leading suspect in this case, but a moron. I think he meant "while she was mentrating" because women are always on a cycle. It's how we have periods every 28-35 days. We're on a cycle.Terminology aside, he's still a moron. Sometimes women do become emotional during different times of their cycle do to hormone levels... but usually not to the point where every 28 days we are serious about ending our marriages. Perhaps these women have bouts of depression, maybe they are bipolar... whatever. I'm not a mental health professional. Hey! Drew Peterson! Matt Lauer is interviewing you because not only is your fourth wife missing, but your third wife died mysteriously, too! They found your first wife soaking wet, the determined cause of death was drowning, but the bath tub she was in was dry. Her body has been exumed for a second autopsy. The best you can say is that sometimes when she was on her period, she wanted a divorce?? I'm tired of women being victims. I'm tired of men being raised in a culture where violence in okay, and since we are second to them, we are therefore worthy of their aggressions. I am sick of hearing that some woman has been reduced to a sex toy and a punching bag. And not able to control her emotions, reqesting a divorce merely because she is shedding her uterine lining. Perhaps he was abusive. Perhaps he was a bad husband and father.Maybe he didn't do it. Fine. Somebody did. Either way, yet again, another woman is gone. Conservative politicians and religious crackpots are against same-sex marriage because they say they are "protecting the sanctity of marriage." May I point out that Drew Peterson has been married four times and though he is under investigation for the murder of two of his wives, could legally be married in a church today. Heterosexuals don't need any help ruining the sanctity of marriage. A suspected middle-aged murderer of two wives could go to Vegas today and get maried to an 18 year old high school senior by a bad Elvis inpersonator. Hallelujah! Oh Holy Night! What a sanctified event! Maybe we would benefit from so many people eager to commit to one another, fighting for the right to. You know, and gay men wouldn't ever get divorced because they don't have "cycles." ....moron!

Jerry Lewis' TeleHATE

2007-11-14T12:01:00.000-08:00

It has taken me a while to write on this, because a) I have been writing for school (which I should be doing right now) and b) I had no idea how to tackle this topic because it seems so simple, yet people don't get it. How do you simplify a simple topic?
On this year's Telethon, Jerry Lewis called someone the F word... fag. I HATE this word. I have heard it used too many times in ignorance, hate, and fear. I hate this word. So, Lewis used it. On the live telethon. Did you know that?
A lot of people don't know because it was hardly covered in the media. I read about it in Chicago Free Press, the Chicago GLBT paper. Even then, it was just a blurb. I'm not mad at the GLBT community for not being more outraged; I think the community has learned to take the high road and not bitch about ignorant assholes like Lewis. What does upset me though is the coverage and conversation surrounding the Don Imus slur in contrast. He called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy headed hoes." Wow, Imus. Double whammy. Racism AND sexism! Sweet.
I'm not saying that didn't deserve the press. Of course it did. I'm saying, why hasn't Jerry Lewis been publicly ridiculed for an equally ridiculous comment? Racism sucks, it still exists, and we should still fight to end it. But shouldn't we do the same for heterosexism? It sucks, it definitely stille exists, and it's more acceptable, I think, than racism.
Issues of gender are ignored. Who were the people talking about Imus? Black leaders. May I point out that he didn't just use the word nappy, but hoes. Where was NOW? Where was Feminist Majority? Did they try to weigh in, but were ignored because they were feminists? Wouldn't surprise me, it happens all the time. Maybe that's what happened with the Lewis incident. The GLBT community, once again, ignored.
I forget how far we have to go sometimes. I live in a large urban area with multiple "gay neighborhoods" in town. I have friends who identify as gay, lesbian, pansexual, trans, and queer. But then I see how it really is.
Is it the Christian right, telling everyone that homosexuality is a sin? Is that the difference? I think we all need to be reminded that not long ago, we enslaved African Americans, used them for medical experiements, proved "scientifically" that they were different that whites, and interacial relationships were not just taboo, but illegal. Now, racist comments are generally not accepted in the mainstream and racism, though alive and thriving even, must operate pretty subtly. Not so with discrimination against the GLBT community. What's the difference? It's sad to me that people can't get over themselves and what they've been told and read a damn book. Do some damn research or some THINKING! There is homosexuality in the animal kingdom, to all of those who say it isn't a natural act. Straight people also participate in "unnatural" sexual practices. Marriage was originally a business contract, an exchange of the woman as property, and a smart financial decision. Now we've made it about heterosexual love and childrearing.
There are so many other points, but I know that at this point, it's just going to take time. People are still racist, years after civil rights legislation. I guess I can't expect much in a country where there is no marriage equality, adoption eqality, or where Fred Phelps has the right to speak. But, Phelps was sued recently, so that's a step. And why shouldn't I expect people to wrap their head around the fact that racism is no worse than any sort of discrimination and that discriminating against anyone hurts all of us? I guess I'm idealistic. I guess I should keep my secular, humanist views to myself as to not offend those people who so offend me with their ignorant hate of a community that I so dearly love.

"What happens to a dream deferred...does it explode?" -Langston Hughes

2007-11-13T11:41:00.001-08:00

I have deferred a dream. Or, I have tried. It keeps coming back to me, at night, during the day... it is everywhere. A note to Langston Hughes: it doesn't explode. It marinates, it itches the back of throat, a space in the back of my brain, and the itch is moving forward. How long can a dream be deferred is my question. There are reasons I have pushed it aside, but perhaps better reasons to realize it. I hate the term "dream" because it's cliche... and it makes it sound ethereal... somehow not grounded or real. I have deferred a part of me. A part of me is not being acted out. I am lying by ommission.
What happens to a dream deferred...does it explode?
I want it to explode. I want to feel the burst within me, light the fire, crumble the walls, shoot out of every orifice of my body! ...but I am afraid. Or lazy.
Or realistic.