Yep.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.