Simulated Nausea

Wade and I are ready to flight the crap out of that flight simulator!

(P.S. That green thing in my hand is a straight up barf bag!!)

It was a suggestion that initiated growing excitement: "How would you and your roommate like to try out the flight simulator?"

At first, I have to admit, I was a little skeptical. A video game, at what, Chuck E. Cheese? No, Kyle assured me, a for real simulator that commercial airline pilots train on before they can officially say: "Uuuuuh. Folks. This is your. Uuuuuuh. Captian speaking." How cool is that?

I was the first to fly because, well, I'm a lady! (And I'm sure it didn't hurt to be dating the flight simulator operator/maintenance guy.) I was trying to be a safe pilot. Keeping the plane level. Bank right. Bank left. Then Wade took off from O'Hare Airport, and we were zooming all over. Climb quickly. Dive hard. Ducking inbetween the poorly rendered buildings of Downtown Chicago.

On my second go, I was a little more adventurous: Diving under the Golden Gate Bridge. Wade and I yelled at each other as I pulled us up, just 10inches from the water. He tried to pull a loop-de-loop, and the thing felt so real as it stalled and fell back to Earth, I just about got sick.

Pretty awesome time!

Youth Inspired Fall Romance

After 10 years of abstinence, I've jumped back into bed with the Halloween spirit. It was a long awaited romance, which started in a pumpkin patch and climaxed with a Nightmare Before Christmas themed design and roasted pumpkin seeds.

Photo courtesy of Mr. Kyle Wright, famed pumpkin genie, still photographer,

and patron of the Save the Janet Foundation.

Casper the Humping Dog

I was talking on the phone late Saturday night, when a leg of my chair fell through the deck. I lost track of the conversation for a few seconds, but even when I got back on track, I was pretty disheartened. Having your own weight push a hole through solid wood is not a good sign.

I was playing accomplice to my roommate, who was dog-sitting for his cousin, and I wouldn't have been outside had not said dog, Casper, become enamored with my leg and desparately tried to mount it over and over. And over again. He would come at me, make a play, and after I pushed him off and yelled, he'd make one lap around the couch and try for the other leg. I'm trying to flirt here, and this is just too distracting!

So I go to sit outside and break the deck, and I thought, Good job fat ass. Then I pulled the offending chair leg from the hole just to inspect it a little. The chair only slid about one-quarter of the way through. And then I, perhaps because I got anxious that the gravity and the chair would conspire against met, moved the chair over to one side, and switched to another for the remainder of the conversation.


I found my roommate and immediately confessed. He was unphased but said he'd make sure to tell his cousin. With that out of the way, we sat in the basement watching Heroes. I sat next to him on the couch, and then began round two. In vain and desparation, Casper the Humping Dog was trying to persuade a threesome. He'd play for my roommate, get rejected, walk behind the couch, and make a play for me. Between this and the bad acting that is Heroes' first episode, those two hours were the longest of my life.

When it was time for bed, we tricked Casper the Humping Dog into his kennel. Then, four hours later, we awoke to his barking howls. My roommate let the dog on the deck, and we cashed in a couple more hours. Of course, when we went to collect the dog, he was busy, digging out the rest of the hole I exposed the night before. I pulled him away, and chunks of deck fell off of his paws and snout. While I stood in shock, Casper made one more attempt at my roommate.

And that's how I got humped by Casper the Humping Dog.

Bustime Entertainment

About the time the man--covered in every color paint (blue, green, red) and wearing shorts that were so short that the legs of his boxes showed out the bottom--walked on the bus, the pair behind me began talking.


First they catelogued the people they knew who looked at them and thought they had it all. "But people never think about the time I was kidnapped and held for ransom," said the man.

"You're right," said the woman in a it's-a-damn-shame tone.

Apparently the pair was returning from a dream interpretor, which they termed a dream consultant. The woman got all excited, realizing she hadn't told her most recent, vivid dream to her counterpart.

In said dream, said woman and extraneous friend were in a zoo. The woman dream-magicked herself into a pen with a bear and its cub. She began describing some gate, which looked like this:

"Which is just silly, because with a triangle gate, I mean, what's that fence supposed to keep out?" says the woman laughing gently at herself.

"Now, let's not debate the nonsense of dreams," said the man.

"I'm just trying to give you an idea of what the gate looked like." And she went on to say, that the dream consultant told her the bear symbolized her parents and that the three pointed gate only proves Freudian theory of the child, mother, and father being the center of a person's life.

"Yes," said the man, "Isn't that the truth!"

Then, the man said he needed to make a phone call. He got up and walked to the front of the bus where the painted man was sitting. When he came back, he said some mutal acquaintence of theirs was going to the same concert they were headed for.

"He said he wouldn't miss it for the world," the man said.

"I just thought it would have sold out, and he couldn't get tickets," the woman replied.

"Well, I'm sure when he said he wouldn't miss it, he only meant that if there were tickets available, he would get some and go to the concert."

"Yeah," said the woman, "I get it."

The New Job

"Metals don't just go running around naked in solution," was what my boss told me when we were doing a quick chemistry briefing about how the heck his lab equipment works.

Later he made falafel for everyone, and we discussed the fact that Hilary Clinton is unelectable, but Obama is kind of naive. Afternoon conversations revolved around getting one of the lab guys laid with his "gramma" friend. Then we shot tequilla from the "evidence locker."

Luckily for me, I tend to get involved with pretty cool companies. My last one gave us icecream when we participated in fire drills. What's not to like? Keep from dying in possible flames and get icecream. Or don't. Here in the big CO, we get lunches made for us daily. If you can get over the underlying, constant panic of going broke at any time, this job is pretty laid back.

The Things that Colorado Janet Does

Colorado Janet is taking measures above and beyond those that Chicago Janet has taken in the past. Colorado Janet takes figure drawing classes and sketches nude women. Observe!

Colorado Janet goes to the Rocky Mountain National Park, and sees Aspen trees turning yellowy-gold up the mountains. Observe!

Colorado Janet sees Elk. She sees lots of elk.

Colorado Janet hikes to the top of the Tundra when it rainy snows and clings for dear life to rocks as the wind blows.

Hooker in a Bind

I've got posts in the works right now, but until they're ready, here's a little something I wrote about a year ago (07/23/2006):

A hooker went looking for an apartment today. Well. Not really a hooker. When I asked her what she does, she said, "I'm a dancer."

"Really?" I said. "Where?"

"Bachelor parties."

"Interesting." I wasn't lying. It was interesting. I wanted to immediately look over from my computer, which was displaying all of the one-bedroom listings under $1000. I wanted to survey her. The body of a woman whose sexual prowess is legendary. Stripper. Synonymous with lust. Endless appeal. Sexual mystery.

This particular stripper was a banker until her supervisor denied her time off on a Wednesday afternoon about five years ago. (Was it really a Wednesday? If it were me, I can't be too sure I would remember, but this stripper said Wednesday, and she seemed to have a good memory.)

"I had a friend that was doing it at the time," she explained as though stripping in Vegas was something casually common like drinking, knitting, or bobsledding. Stripping is just something you get in to by happenstance.

People would ask me, as I drive them around showing apartments: "How did you get this job?"

"There was an ad in the paper, and I called every day until I got an interview." This is happenstance. I saw a help wanted sign in the stripper-store window, and I decided to apply, is not happenstance.


"That guy who just passed us," she said referencing a 5-foot 2 dude wearing a white-base, purple ringer that had the word "Wonka" written in characteristic script where a breast pocket might have been on a less socially awkward shirt. "That guy was at a party I did a couple of weeks ago. That's the thing about working in this area: If I go to the Cubbie Bear or something, I'll definately run into someone. They'll come up to me and be like 'Hey' and they're all careful about coming up to you if they think you're with a boyfriend."

The guy in the Wonka T-shirt didn't do anything at all.


While we were driving about, we had covered a lot of topics. Actually, she did most of the talking. She grew up in Chicago. She took off a Wednesday afternoon from the bank, and then, jobless, moved to LA. Once out west, she considered continuing her BA in writing that she started at UIC. But most of her credits didn't transfer, and she wasn't privy to spending money on coursework and books just because her American History course didn't include a component of California state government.

Then she moved to Vegas where she worked strip clubs and eventually got into bachelor parties, which were the sweet life of exotic dancing. This of course supposes that a person's ideal work hours are Friday and Saturday from 9 in the PM to 1 in the AM.

From what I gathered through round about answers, she left Vegas for two reasons: (1) she split with the boy she moved there for and (2) she wanted to finish her writing degree. "I've got two semesters left, if I work hard."


The think I immediately noticed about this girl was her vocabulary. Off hand, I can't remember the exact words that impressed me. But my syntax, I'm pleased to say, would give most seventh graders a run for their money. Her's had my brain's personal assistant thumbing through reference materials at lightning speed. "Psst. She means promising or good," my assistant whispered in my ear.

Disney World Parenting

"Go in the bathroom and see if she's on the phone." First of all it was a little too demanding for my taste. Secondly, I may be 24, but I still think I'm a kid, so don't ask me to do adult things, such as help raise YOUR kids.

I was in Disney World last week, and man, was it fun? It was! A nice little trip down memory lane that included Peter Pan, my parents, and my cousins. Every summer when I was a kid, we went on vaca with my cousins and their three boys. Our collaborative vacations ended when, 13 years ago, they finally popped out a little girl. Of the boys I grew up with, I knew two of them pretty well: one two years older than me and the second two years younger.

But on this Disney vacation, I finally got to spend time with the two youngest kids that I didn't really pay attention to growing up. (One of them is my cousin V, 20, who Kate thought was hot from a pic of he and myself at my bro's wedding.) It was kind of fun to see Vito had his own little spunky personality. While we were in line for Space Mountain, he learned that if you had a special ticket, you could get a wristband and stay in the park for an extra three hours after close. Then he conned some kids in line to let us borrow their tickets, and we rode Pirates of the Caribbean until 2 in the am.

My cousin A, 12, is another story. I thought she would drive me bananas because she's that age when girls get whiny and annoying. Instead, she wanted to be my bff, and that was fine. The problem was this: Her parents own several businesses back at home. So they gave her a cell phone to get in touch with them in case of emergencies because they can never be certain at what locale they'll be. Of course, she's cute and she gave her phone number to everyone, including boys.

So the whole trip, she's lying to her mom and saying she has to use the bathroom so she can check her VM and call people from the stalls. Which is ri-dick. I get wind of what she's doing because now she wants me to read text messages that boys send her and listen to their VMs. She's got like 4 boys telling her, I love you, I miss you, when are you coming home? Some of the more funny things that they said included one boy saying he wrote a song for her because he misses her so much. Second funny thing: One boy said he deleted all of the songs from his iPod and made a playlist of tunes that makes him think of her. (Which I thought was hi-LAR-ious!)

So I don't know what to do, right? I mean, these things would be funny in a made-for-tv movie, but this is real life, where sassy young girls get molested and stuff. I say, "A, are you smooching boys?" Of course she says no. So I say, "It's okay to talk to boys, but don't go smooching, okay?" I continue and tell her don't think that when you turn 14 or something that the rule doesn't apply. I said, when you think you want to smooch a boy, talk to your mom or someone first. Because she's kind of a cute little girl right?

But she's goofey. We were walking and she sort of tripped, and I said, "What did you do that for?" She says, "I didn't do it on purpose. I only trip on purpose when I'm trying to impress a boy." I was like, jigga WHAT? Number one, that's nutz. Number two, does it really work? Because I might try it out sometime this weekend. And she wears makeup around and low cut tops and pouts out her lips on purpose and when she fixes her hair in the mirror, she finishes saying, "Now I look pretty."

I go to my mom and tell her about A using the phone in the bathroom, and ask if I should tell on her. My mom says, she thinks it's better that my cousin trust me. Then my mom says, I should pull my cousin to the side and reassert that she shouldn't smooch boys and tell her to avoid boys who try to touch her.

Well, then I'm getting all nervous. Because all of a sudden, I'm supposed to have a role in this girl's life? I mean, I'll watch cartoons with her, but trying to have any hand, even a small one, in keeping her out of trouble kind of freaked me out! What if I mess up? And, let's not forget, I'm not a model of how to avoid bad behavior with boys.

Then my mom tells me that V tore into his parents when A and I were in the bathroom eariler. (I was trying to squeeze out a crap and she was on the phone again.) V went on all about, how could you give her that phone? Don't you know what you're doing giving her that phone? And my older cousin, Anth, let's fly about all of the boyfriends she has. According to my mom, they were going to take the phone away later.

So then, that night, they apparently started getting mad at her about the phone and told her not to bring it to the park the next day. Well, she brought it anyway, and told everyone that it ran out of batteries so it's no big deal. Of course, it was not out of batteries and she ran to the bathroom every 30 minutes to turn it on and check her VM.

Later that day, we were sitting in a restaurant, and A gets up for the bathroom to wash her hands. And her mom says, she's not using the phone this time because it's out of batteries. I say, The phone's not out of batteries and that she's been using it all day.

There. I felt relieved that I'd done my part, you know? So everyone at the table stares blankly at eachother, and my cousin's mom, says, "Janet, go in the bathroom and see if she's using the phone. "

And I went on the express track to freaking out. I say, "I'm not a disciplinarian. What am I supposed to do?"

She says, "Just go in there and let us know if she's on the phone."

The deal here is, A's mom desperately wants to believe that her daughter isn't growing up and lying to them (which is what this whole thing right now is really about), to the point that she's trying to avoid having to witness it, but simultaneously knows that it needs to be stopped.

I say, "Sorry, I'm not comfortable with that." And she gets up and goes. Of course, A is NOT using the phone this time. This was good for all of us, because it would have exploded into a black hole that sucks fun from a light-hearted vacation. Anyway, isn't that CrAzY!

Raising kids is tough, and I really don't want to be a part of it, prolley forever.

Mosquito in a Nudist Colony

-"I'm leaving right now. I'll give you a call when I'm getting closer."

"Yeah," I say, "give me a call when you're about 20 minutes away."

-"OK."




::ring ring ring::


-"I just turned on to Balbo."

"You're that close already?" I was panicking, sopping up over-easy egg yolk as quickly as I could. No time to salt the stuff. Pack it in and roll.


My cousin had never been to the Art Institute of Chicago. I don't think she'd ever been to an art museum or gallery period. And when I finally got over there, she was ready for a good time. Glowing face. Always smiling. She was always the loudest person in vicinity.

She had no particular interests. Should we pay special attention to the French Impressionists? The Rennaisance? "Whatever! I just wanted to come here! And you know I couldn't convince my husband or son to go!"

When we got inside, it was like I lit a gunpowder trail into a fireworks shed. She zig-zagged across rooms, skipping corners and moving on. "OH! Look at THIS!!" She'd rush right up to something and point with her finger as if she wanted to simply stroke the air just next to the canvas.

Beep!

"Do you HEAR something?" she'd ask, nonchallantly inching her nose toward the paintings, and some little seismograph-alarm would start freaking out.

It took three rooms or so before I was able to point out that most paintings have little explanatory plaques next to them. Most said, donated by some rich people who need to have their names etched permantently on something besides their tombstones. Others has more useful information.

In a room of sculpture, there was a string hanging from the ceiling. Small, doll-sized clothes were attached to it at different intervals. I read the plaque aloud, and found that this artist's signature was hidden on the tag of the yellow dress on the floor.

"OH!" And before electricity jumped through my brain quick enough to get what was happening, my cousin lent over the protective, stay the shit away, string and moved to pick up the little yellow dress.

BEEP BUZZ HOLLER

It was like we were trying to escape from Alcatraz, and in zooms the Warden, a nice looking security lady that was annoyed by the sounds yet tickled by this mosquito in a nudist colony.

Wait! Wait! I Fantasize!

When I walk to work, I go through a progression of thoughts. For the first two miles, I think: "Hey! I'm walking! Look at all these dogs! This sidewalk needs to be replaced! That cloud looks like a gymnast!" In the second stage, I retreat into my head, and start fantasizing. (See April 16, 2007)

And because I was going to see Wait! Wait! Don't tell me! that night, the majority of my fantasies were topically thematic and included becoming best friends with Mo Rocca and impressing Peter Sagal to the point that he convinces NRP to make me a panelist. Eventually, I abandoned those thoughts and went on to more realistic ones--winning Project Runway.

I had low expectations going to see Wait! Wait! I've listened to entire shows before without smirking. But J from work had brought it up as an idea for a combo-birthday event. The trick was she only wanted to go on days that featured Paula Poundstone on the panel, and I only want to go on days that had Mo Rocca.

Clearly, I had big, incomplete plans for Mo and me. It's like that episode of SouthPark with the gnomes. My plan went a little something like this:
Of course no amount of fantasizing could have prepared me for what happened: I became scared out of my mind! I had to drag J into the photo, and I couldn't say anything to him except, Thanx. Great show. And although it really was a hilarious show, I said this without enthusiasm and ran away. So, I'm not sure if Mo Rocca and I will be best friends, but, hey, I got my picture taked with Mo Rocca!

Photo is HERE!!




Can you tell I'm terrified of touching him? Hahaha!

Octa-Tales and The Evolution of Young Women

L and I have been utilizing company property to grow an octopus. She retrieved the prize from a bag at the end-of-the-project party last July. I, having pulled out a pencil or a toothbrush or something equally inferior, fixed on the octopus. Its orangish skin. Its fierce eyes.

The front of the package raved: "It grows 600% in only 72 hours!" The back of the package provided three drawings illustrating the progressive size increase. By drawing three, the octopus gets so big that it climbs out of its container!

The thing lay dormant and small in her cube for almost a year. This was not out of lack of excitement. Nearly every week, we'd talk about growing the octopus. The problem was remembering to bring a bucket to work on Monday so as to maximize observational time during the week.

"What will I do when you're gone?" She asked me this in a very real, non-idiomatic way.


Over the past two years, L and I have become somewhat unlikely friends. Our boss picked up on this and often announced during meetings that "the two of them seem to get along very well, even though they have nothing in common." This always strikes her as odd. Almost as much as my reprisal of last weekend in which B and I found ourselves in a cab with an unknown third passenger. ("Buddy, where did you come from?" and "What is this guy doing here?") "Wait," L stopped me, "were you drinking?"

Despite our many moral inequalities, we have compatible self-reflective natures. We both wrestle with the same questions, such as How important is family? How fulfilling should a job be? and Can one convince oneself of being happy or is happiness really based on something other than willpower?

When we decided to work from Borders one afternoon we got to talking about lamenting over mistakes in our past. "I generally don't bother with regret because it's a waste of an emotion. I'm more of a fate-believer. If I make a mistake, it was because I was supposed to make that mistake."

"What if you make the same mistake twice?"

"Then, clearly, I didn't learn enough to move on from it the first time."

I've only very recently started feeling regret, and both instances had to do with her--not calling her that week she was helping her parents move through Alabama and the weekend we were in Nashville for a conference and she got the call that her Dad, a lifetime nonsmoker, had lung cancer. Of course there was nothing I could have done. But I still feel regret. It's like Uncle Jimmy says, "There's nothing worse than not being able to help someone you love."

"You know what's a good idea?" I'd say after we'd been bleeding hearts for a bit, "We should grow that octopus." Months ago we said that. Hundreds of trips to CVS. Mid-afternoon naps in her living room. Her Dad got worse. Nana died. Friends left town. Lovers dissipated. "People come and go, but mostly they just go."

Finally one of the gumshoes in our department stayed for a late evening and found that, at the end of the day, the blue recycle bins get dumped into the same trash bag as the black trash bins. (The discovery caused quite an uproar with tons of people on the floor, all of whom religiously recycled, but none of whom ever bought recycled notepads, yarn, or bicycles.) So last Monday, after L had calculated that I only had 13 regular days left in the office, we decided to make the first good use of those recycle bins and perform our experiment.

Within 24 hours, it was slightly bigger. The researchers wondered if it would increase 600% in length or volume.

Day Two. Not much more growth. Researchers decide that, if experiment repeated, starting volume should be determined. Researchers postulate various methods that could be used to measure volume: displacement, calipers.

Day Three. Almost no change from Day Two. Researchers begin to use words such as disappointing; they flip over the package to compare the illustrated octopus climbing out of its line-art container to the real foam octopus still quite submerged in the recycle bin. Researcher bring outline of octopus, traced at the experiment's beginning, to the copier and attempt to blow it up 600%. Researchers determine what the width of one tentacle should be at 600%. Return to the recycle bin and curse the Chinese for getting their hopes up. Colleague walks by and says, "You know, 600 percent really isn't that big." Researchers consider cursing her too.


With the official experiment concluded, we just let the thing sit through the weekend. By Day Seven, when we came back into the office, two of the tentacles were stretched and reaching out of the water. "Small victories, J. Small victories."

Brits Hear that We Americans Luv dAvid Beck'um

"I 'ear you Americans luv dAvid Beck'um," C said to me.

"He's okay," I said, "But I don't like his wife. She's too flashy."

"Oh yes!" he replied with rising excitement. "I 'ear she's dating other men! Behind dAvid Beck'um's... be'Ind 'is? be'Ind 'is?"

What can possibly be cuter than a little 7-year-old Brit tapping his lower lip and trying to come up with the proper idiom to discuss celebrity smut? (Only one million puppies!--and that's only if they're all real fuzzy AND chasing their tails in unison.)

As far as little first graders go, C wasn't the worst reader. He wasn't a reading stud neither, and that is why his British mama decided he needed reading help outside of class--to keep up with the Americans he now sat next to in school.

The thought was kind of silly to me. In America, we always hear about how our kids are so far behind in math and science, but we never hear that our reading skills are above average. (If I'm reading this Washington Post article, Jan. 2007 correctly, American students outread 18 of the 22 top-performing industrialized countries.)

In actuality, I don't care why C comes in! I just love having him around. He's so blissfully energetic, completely wide-eyed about his trans-Atlantic move. His happy-go-lucky attitude is entirely opposite of the "everything's going to shit" perspective I've inherited from my Dad. And that's why it's so appealing. I think of how I have dealt with change throughout my life, and, man, if it was a subject in school, I would have been held back for about 3 years before some principal would insist that I get socially promoted. The even more shocking thing is: Moving between countries is no small change! AND the catalyst for this intercontenental adventure was his parents' divorce.

Another tutor and I had discussed this: "You know, kids are much more resilient than we give them credit for. Sure some of them are sensitive, but some of the younger ones hear their parents are getting a divorce, and they think, 'Cool! Now I have TWO houses!'"

It reminded me of young children who've lost their mothers. A co-worker had lost his Mom when he was five. "All of my brothers and sisters were upset with me because when my Dad got remarried, I started calling his new wife Mom." He said it wasn't until he was in college that he started have dreams about his biological mother. Like he was too young to deal with it when it happened, but once he could wrap his mind around the events that occurred, the memories tried leaping the gap between his sub-conscious and conscious minds.

My high school and college friends who lost their mothers had a terrible time coping! It was as if at some older age, they had started to visualize their futures, and their parents were always in it. One of my friends lamented that her mother wouldn't see her graduate or help her put on her wedding gown.

I don't know what C's relationship with his Dad was like before the move. But I do know that his situation doesn't dominate conscious-thinking neurons. He just speaks matter-o-factly about topics of concern to him, saying things such as:

• "Michael Jackson is quite ugly."
  

-or-

• "The Queen is very lovely, and maybe she can teach the American President to be less rude." (when discussing the Queen's upcoming tea with President Bush)

But in the meantime, he taps his lower lip, trying desparately to communicate his pressing, important thoughts: "Be'Ind 'is?"

"Behind his back?" I offer.

"Oh yes! That's it! Be'Ind 'is back!"

Things I Fantazised While Walking Home from Work

1. Owning a house and making someone else mow the lawn.
2. Whether performing the reproductive act while buried under avalanche snow will postpone hypothermia or bring it about immediately following the deed.
3. Classes I could take in the summer.
4. Sitting in a leather chair, clicking a pen, and seducing people to buy whatever it is I'm selling.
5. Starting a foundation that supports cab companies with 100 percent hybrid fleets.
6. Ballroom dancing.
7. Having a wiener dog.
8. Having a big sheep dog.
9. Being a dermatologist and removing patches of questionable skin on some one's neck.
10. Whether inducing heavy breathing, as if I were exercising rigorously, would prolong hypothermia if buried under an avalanche of snow or tire me out and cause me to die right quick.
    
11. The steps I need to go through before I can complete a painting I have stored in my Mom's basement.
12. Laughing at how funny it might be to get drunk in the house I own, ballroom dance around its living room, then trip over my sheep dog.
13. Planning the kind of duvet cover I would make myself if only I felt I wouldn't be moving around so much.
14. Wearing a white swimsuit.
15. Reading all of the books I've got so I can go to the store and buy some new ones.

It's Polite to Ask First

Although my plans are ever-changing, and I seldom feel responsiblity to account for my newest-fad train-of-throught, I would care to legitimize this one: Why I've decided to move home this summer.

Mom is really having a hard time. Last week was her spring break and most of the time, if I called home while she was alone, she was crying. So I decided to go home for the weekend.

On Saturday I wandered into Nana's room to borrow supplies from her sewing box. I walked in and said to myself: "Nana, can I borrow a needle and thread?" In my mind, I could hear her telling me it would be okay, and then she would give me detailed instructions about how to find the sewing box. 'It's in that closet, on the floor on the right. Look in there.' (She always gave specific instructions on where to find things. But for most stuff, it was pretty simple. On the closet floor, there was only the sewing box.)

When I went to return it, Mom found me and asked what I was doing. Then she said, "Did you ask to borrow Nana's sewing needle?"

Who's more nuts? Her for saying it, or me for preemptively doing it? "Yeah," I said. Then she lost it.

Sunday night, before we went to bed, Mom said, "Janet, thanks for coming home to spend time with me." Broke my heart.

Broke my heart.

Urban Signs of Spring

People say Chicagoans don't have spring. We go from snowy and cold to rainy and cold. To the dismal heat of heavy, humid summers. But I say we do have spring, and it's easy to identify.

You know it's spring

• when you come across women, who sit in a tavern, but look as if they'd just comes from an audition for The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
  
• when 10 men in a bar all take shots on the one girl in the joint who's trying to use powers of persuasion to egg-on summer by dressing as if it were twenty degrees warmer.
• when a girl rides the Red Line and drinks from a Heineken bottle, not so expertly concealed in a transparent sandwich bag. Sipping from a straw. Sip Sip Sip. Then pulling a long black hair from the back of her head, forming a neat little crop circle amidst the tall fields.
• when three prostitutes all proposition the neighborhood bum in the alley behind your apartment, and the bum says, in a Polish accent, "Fuck you! I know how you are!"
  

Yessir. That's when you know it's spring. Because at just above 45 degrees, the crazy-repellant stops working.

Delayed Responses and a Two-Timin' Workin' Woman

To add to the list of things you'd never suspect, why not try 'going on an interview, bombing it, and then getting hired the next day'?

I've been trying to pay off my credit cards at a quicker rate, which thus far means I've been budgeting myself better. But it's difficult to really feel progress with only one income being pinched inward from both sides. So I've been trying to get part-time gigs for a while now. Nothing has come close to an interview.

In January, I applied to work as a tutor. I didn't get an interview. Then in March, I found the ad posted again. So I looked at my old application and decided to try to make my cover letter more enthusiastic. I got a call back the day before Nana's wake.

So of course I didn't return the phone call right away. I waited about a week and finally called back. If you don't do it now, Janet, you never will.

I was not confident about the interview. I didn't have my normal levels of 'interview energy' because (1) general depression and (2) when I walked in, they had me fill out a 20-page application. Also the girl interviewing me eclipsed me in bubbliness and enthusiasm.

So then I go home, thinking, 'Another opportunity lost.'

The very next day, BAM! Phone call. Hired. Start on the 31st!

That's how a girl gets through the 3 month screening process--persistance!

Blind Men on the Moon, Buoys in the Sea

"You look like a blind man walking around on the moon!" That was how Mom scolded John and me as we played pool when we were younger. He or I would take a shot and walk away with our cues still held in a lateral, shooting position. And she'd tell us to hold the cue straight up and down after comparing us to the visually impared in a gravity-free environment.

I always liked the analogy. Imagine! A blind man walking on the moon! Bobbing like a buoy, just like how astronauts do in videos. Slowly trying to detect the absence of nothingness around him. And the analogy works outside of pool too!

Like when I got accepted to college. I was bobbing along, working in a craft store. I didn't want to go to college. I didn't even apply. Bob. Bob. Bob. Then I came home from a day shift, and my Mom said the U of I called and wanted to give me a scholarship. All I had to do was send in the scholarship application and do an interview. Simple enough! And completely out of nowhere! Here I was, bobbin' around, not looking for anything. Not seeing anything heading my way, and there it was: a small 4-year scholarship, but free money nonetheless.

It applies to things that aren't so pleasant too. For example, I was bobbing along the weekend before Saint Patty's Day. A group of kids and I were at the South Side Parade. Drinking. Bobbing. Oblivious to the world. Then, that night, I get the call that Nana's dying. Just like that! No major warning!

When I talk about this, it's hard for others to understand how a 90-year-old woman's death can shock me. It does seem irrational to think that a person, of any age, is perpetual--especially a 90-year-old one. But she was youthful to the point that it was easy to forget about mortality. She went on a senior citizen's bus a couple times a week and walked around a mall. She never had a major heart attack or stroke or anything like that. She told jokes. She chatted on the phone, and she remembered everything--except how to program her VCR, but she couldn't do that when she was 75, neither.

We were all bobbing along, blind men on the moon. Lazily holding out white canes, never expecting to hit an object. Just like that. Seemingly out of nowhere. You're left to consider: "If I can run into something on the moon once, surely I'll always be in danger of finding something again later." But you can't persist, vigilantly looking and remaining prepared against what you cannot see.

When you're on the moon, you encounter problems at irregular intervals. Soon your guard is down. And you're apathetically bobbing along again. Like a buoy in the sea.

Bereaved in Chicago

In a letter to K and A:

My little 90-year-old Nana died this morning :'( The events leading to that took up most of my weekend, beginning at 6 in the AM on Friday... so, nothing too fun/exciting to report, except that I was so sleep deprived at one point that I almost went for real hysterical... and that could have been real interesting, honestly... it might have been interesting in a movie or something... just so you know though, I'm doin alright. When she was in the hospital, my heart broke into tiny pieces, but once she was out of pain, I felt sorry for myself, but glad because I really do have strong faith (believe it or not)... and I've seen enough people die to come to the conclusion that the remains of a person is not really the person you knew... you know? just kind of the box that holds the present... or like how the ring symbolizes a marriage, but the spirit of the relationship is what the marriage really is... something like that. But I know I'll miss her in ways that I can't even imagine yet.

Bananas and Interrelated Horseplay

I sat next to a banana on the train ride home today. It wasn't at the window seat, though, and that is why my gym-locker salad and I didn't mind it.

I bought the salad two hours before. I went to the grocery store with my Mormon friend.

"Do you think I could take this salad to the gym with me? You know? Unrefrigerated?" I said.

"Yes," she said.

I phrased the question wrong. Just because one could do something does not mean that one ought to do something. So my salad hung out in the gym locker for a couple hours while a scrawny little bitch kicked my ass in yoga.

At the end of the lesson, she said everyone should lie on their stomachs to cool down. "If you want, I'll come by and give you a crazy-Asian-word massage with my foot. Here, I'll demonstrate on you!"

"Me?" I don't like feet. Nor eyes. Nor tongues. But I seldom get bothered by feet as they are 70 inches away from my mind. "I don't know." I immediately re-regretted taking my socks off per her request at the beginning of the class.

"Com'mon," she said. I felt the way I do when someone tries to press me into sampling a condiment that I know I don't like. It's just ketchup. Try a little.

Earlier I was depressed and talking to Michael on the phone. I was depressed because earlier that afternoon I had gone to talk to K. Grace in HR. He confirmed what I'd been hearing from outside HRs: Sup, Janet, you're not qualified to do anything other than the exact job you're doing now. News like that could make me cry. I almost did and was grateful that, when I came back from my meeting with HR, everyone else in my cube row was gone--enjoying the treats and games of a baby shower that I missed so that K. Grace could tell me I've got nothing going on for myself.

So I was sitting at my desk and I thought, I have to go back to school--but for what? (Are you ready for the options I'm weighing?)

• MBA
• Masters of Biomedical Communication/Illustration

Now, if I were to take the Illustrator Route, I'll have bigger problems than more student loans: building a portfolio. My plan, then, would be:

1. Take a job as a 3rd-shift baker at Panera.
2. Get a certificate in studio from the Art Institute of Chicago for the
   
1. experience
2. prestige
   
3. references
3. Transfer to the University of Toronto for the M.S.

The Mormon said, "You know medical illustrators get paid about the same as us?"

"But what if it's more fulfilling?"


"When I went to my first weight watchers meeting, they asked why we wanted to lose weight. I said I wanted to lose weight to show off in front of the people I used to be friends with."

"I know exactly what you mean!" I said. "It's like" I made a stabbing-and-twisting-the-knife motion.

"Yeah," Jen said. "Sticking it to 'em! The other women at the meeting said they wanted more energy to play with their kids in the yard. I said I wanted to stick it to the people who may take the info back to my ex-boyfriend."

"I know! Like, I've got a couple of things I'm looking to buy for that same reason. The I'm-casual-and-hot-and-better-than-you." I did have some hot little numbers que'd up on the computer. But when I got back to my desk, I bought the blue T-shirt with a picture of a squid on it instead. I bought this shirt because it was $13, which was $245 more economical than the hot items I had picked out from Vicki S.

I sought out Jen early in the morning because I wanted $1.10 to buy an OJ to go with my Cheerios. "You don't happen to have any strawberries, too?" I said. "To put in my cereal?"

"Sorry. You can use part of my banana."

"Ew. Gross! Banana!"

Mom and Dad Were Once People, I Suspect

As I grow up, I'm trying harder to imagine my parents as people. Apparently, I'm not the only person grappling with this. A video documenter examined this theme in a story about his parents, and how, three months after his mother's funeral, his dad was setting up to get married again. (LINK)

When you're a kid, your parents are a single unit. If they're together, it's always mom and dad. They're almost like a law of nature—two people who have always existed together, and probably did not really begin existing until the birth of their first child. I imagine that for children--excuse me, young adults--whose parents are divorced, there's some similar feeling.

As a child, you assume that your parents know everything. You learn that your sweater is a sweater by listening to your parents talk. Your parents hold the answers to puzzles, such as how to tie a shoe. When you ask questions, such as Is there a Santa Claus, you know your parents have the authority to answer that question. They have a vast knowledge that their young children accept as their parents' own exclusive mastery of the world.

When you get into the middle years, you start questioning some of that authority. But you do not do it because you recognize that parents are fallible human beings. You question authority because you want to win some control. You want to disconnect from the people who act as if they have all of the answers. You want to learn to experience and discover things on your own, without the parental filter.

At some point, though, you learn that your parents' command of knowledge is not inherent. Their wisdom, or lack thereof, was derived from their own life experiences. When I first had this notion, all I could think was: Wow! My parents had a life outside of my brother and me! Somehow they were real people and parents all at the same time.

I knew this in a kind of second-nature way. I knew this in the way that people wake up every morning and know the sky is still going to be above their heads. But I did not feel it! I did not feel the epiphany or the eye-opening realization that Yes! My parents are real people! Real people who had lives and experiences that have had nothing to do with me.

Young Parents
I did not begin thinking about it until I graduated from college. The idea of merging the words parents and people came with my firsts job. I was working with M. He was in his low-thirties and an awesome person! He was fun and energetic and young. He would spend time downloading music, laughing. He said things such as, "When I was a kid, I wanted to be a rock star or an astronaut—or both!" His charm was so youthful, you'd never suspect that he had two kids of his own.

He didn't have that authoritative, decision-making, life-managing poise that I associated with parents. He once found and purchased a tin can of squid "in its natural ink" and displayed it in his cube. It sat for more than a year next to a company issued award certificate that he modified, with bright red pen, into a bathroom pass.

But he wasn't irresponsible or negligent as a father. He told stories about what he and his kids would do over a weekend. When his little girl became big enough, he couldn't help but tell everyone how cool it was to see her enjoying her first trip down a playground slide. Or how his son had finally gotten big enough to help his wife bake cookies.

At some point, it occurred to me: My parents must be real people too! They had lives before each other, although they don't reminisce much on times before their early dating years.

I always knew my dad played guitar and college hockey—we had the sticks and pads to prove the later. But it wasn't until last weekend, when he was showing off the ukulele he and Mom bought from Hawaii, that I had ever seen him strum strings. Mom majored in Fine Arts, and although her college pieces hang still in their house, she hasn't produced anything new in my lifetime. It's difficult to imagine Mom holding a paintbrush. It's difficult to imagine Mom and Dad as anyone but Mom and Dad.

Even when they talked about human things, I could not make the leap. Not even when, sitting around the living room, Mom and Dad were talking about what it was like when they first got married. In a side bar, Dad said, as calm as can be, "When we first got married, every Friday night, your mother and I would rent a movie and order a sausage pizza. Then, we'd have sex. Every Friday."

"Don't say things like that in front of your daughter!!"

"What? We did, didn't we? Every Friday night."

It wasn't news to me that my parents got it on. Maybe this is why I still didn't hear this information and have that epiphany: Oh, right! They're people! Silly, bickering, sex-having people!


Money Toilets
Of course, Mom and Dad still get on my nerves. Especially when Mom forgets that I am an adult, and she gives me too much nagging input. But I forget just how much more trouble I've caused them, as people, throughout their lives.

T at work is low-forties and recently divorced with two sons. The divorce didn't seem messy. But the aftermath of having only one income is. In the divorce, he got the mortgage on the house, and he still pays child support and other expenses for his kids. He keeps the house that he can hardly afford so that he can make his sons' biweekly stay comfortable. He's canceling his cable so that he can foot 100 percent of his eldest son's car insurance.

With all of the changes and difficulties, T doesn't complain really. I only know these things because we cheer on one another's get-out-of-debt plans. If T spends meagerly, he'll be out of debt in four or five years. When he talks about these things, he says, "I just have to buckle down and do it. I'm not eating out for a few months.."

The thing that really hits home for me is that his sons do not know what's going on with their father's finances. They don't realize that every activity they add to their agenda has their dad scrambling to find new freelance work. He won't tell his sons these things. And he won't deny his sons a level of normal niceties, such as car insurance, cell phones, delivered pizzas. He sucks it up silently and provides, beyond his means, so his sons can have access to the things he considers normal.

I think, then, of my parents. Both worked low-paying Joe-jobs until I was in double-digits. Mom worked for years at a grocer chain. Dad held two or three jobs at a time for my entire young life. He worked full-time as a funeral director—a job he later explained to me as: "I went to embalming school so I could marry your mother."

When I was young, my grandmother lived with us. This served the dual purpose of keeping her near family as well as providing my brother and me with a constant babysitter while Mom and Dad worked weird hours, trying to provide for us: bikes, dogs, trees in the yard, decent clothes. But they put themselves out in the process.

When Dad lost his bread-and-butter funeral-directing job, savings got depleted. They spent in the red for five years, trying to keep giving us “normal” lives. My brother and I couldn't have noticed. There were a few more arguments, but we still ate well. Still went on vacation. And I remember, as a kid, feeling as if everything they gave was owed to me. I still thought this through college. I resented my parents for not having as much money as my classmate's parents.

One hundred percent of my college expenses went on student loans. When I saw the first bill, I felt cheated that I was responsible for it. My parents, by that time, were making very good money between them. But they were still paying off debts from 10 years prior when Dad lost his job. Neither of them had a savings or retirement plan to speak of, but I felt, without rationall thinking about it, that they had let me down.

Mom once told me that she was "a slave to this house". Fifteen years later, I know it wasn't just a colorful idiom. It was a glance into her humanity. It was the lamentation of a real woman with her own life-expectations--not just those for her kids.

Where I'm At Now
Even with the things I've realized, I'm still don't think of my parents as people. I have to get from the point of meditation on the issue to the nirvana of completely understanding the many facets of adult-and parent-hood. But I think I'm well on my way. I just need to keep myself from slipping backward into forgetting that Mom and Dad are really Karen and John.

Fashion Plates and Say What You Will

Little that J might say could surprise me. When he says something like "Did I tell you about the time I hung out with panhandlers?", as he said yesterday, I don't think "What?!" or "Really?!"

Instead, I think, Yes, that sounds about right.

Little that I say actually insults people. This is a good thing, because I don't sensor well.

The hockey game we were going to was set up to be a group event, but only J and I went. As we were training in, I chided him on his shiny shoes and long wool coat, saying I didn't realize that hockey had become a bis-cadge event. He said, " I actually bought these shoes because you were ripping on my old ones. Remember? You said it was time to put them down and I said something along the lines of piss off? Well, then I got these ones."

I didn't remember saying that. I supposed I was drunk at the time. But I said, now, completely sober: "I was thinking today that I say very personal comments to you kids. And it occurred to me that if I were a guy, you'd all consider me to be a jackass. But because I'm a girl, I can get away with it."

"Yeah. Well, you know, when you're living on your own and you don't have your mom to tell you things like, hey, buy some new shoes, you just don't think of it."

I wasn't pleased with being likened to the team mom--mostly because I think I'm pretty funky. But it's better than being a jackass, I guess...

"Do you recognize this sweater?" he asked.

"No," I said honestly.

"You found it in my closet once and said you never seen me wear it. So I thought, I'll wear it today."

"Well," I said, "that sounds like something I'd say." And I immediately decided to not tell him about the slight hole in the back neckline.

::sigh:: I'm a snob :(
Today I'm wearing a longer and bigger necklace than usual. My mom got it for me when she went to Hawaii, and it's a little more BAM! than the things I might normally wear. But there's nothing wrong with expanding your fashion tastes. This particular one, however, has made drinking from a watr fountain very difficult. And I imagine it will be the last of the long necklaces for me.

Barrel's Bottom Rents Last

The clawfooted tub on the 2600 block of Marshfield did not inspire the same romance, nor did it invoke a mediocre appreciation, as other, vintage clawfooted bathtubs might. In magazines and on cable tv, the four feet of such a tub would rise majestically from a highly polished marble floor. It would stand opposite a pedestal sink and an open organizational system for towels and toiletries.

But this tub on the 2600 block of Marshfield rose from an old laminate floor. The color of said floor was the yellow-tan tone you'd expect to see a newpaper turn following 15, 20 years of neglect. And the tub did not face a pedestal sink. There was no sink in the bathroom in the Marshfield apartment. There was no organizational storage system, open nor otherwise. Only a small toilet and a clawfooted tub, whose fourth foot was poised atop a general biology textbook.

In statues or paintings, when the subject has one foot poised atop a box, pillar, animal, or severed human head, many words come to mind, though they all have that serenely powerful connotation: triumphant, proud, conqueror. It's easy to gaze awestuck at such a figure, who cleary held mastery over something.

I sincerely doubt the tub had mastered general biology, and I say this forgetting that tubs do not invest in science. I say this with an air of pompousness: How could a tub, living in these conditions, ever improve itself to learn general biology?
Thankfully, one would not notice the textbook upon entering the bathroom. This was precisely because the textbook was from 1970--at least-- and the corner of it that was nearest the door was worn or chewed away, revealing pages that blended in perfectly with the laminate floor.

Aside from the bathroom, the rest of the apartment was in poor shape. So bad, in fact, that the bathroom seemed the highlight--which is why we started there.

The walls had holes. The wood floors collected dust balls so large, they must be considered dust rabbits, not bunnies. The dry wall rippled around the windows where water had come in and stayed. Then there was the second entryway.

The second entry was framed by an old wood trim--except, of course, where it was completely lack. Eight inched above and below the deadbolt were exposed. Where the trim began again, it was splintered and disrupted. The owner had replaced the absent accent by hammering a four-inch-long block of unfinished wood over the place where it seemed the deadbolt had plowed from its space within the frame to the inside of the apartment.

As an added sales aid, the owner took the sole lightbulb out of the main room. This gave potential renters a modified version of the "look around". It seemed that the owner believed, to view this place in its best light, required absolutely no light at all.

I hated bringing clients there. But everyone wanted to see it. It was the only apartment under $600 in all of Lakeview, and each renter wanted to believe this would be their gem--the perfect place that only they had been lucky enough to find.

Marshfield was in the database for months before I started apartment leasing in the summer of 2006. And soon I realized its usefulness. If clients had just seen an apartment they really liked, show the Marshfield apartment to make them understand just how bad the other options were. This isn't as manipulative as it sounds. It's actually doing the clients a huge service. The dumps remained available for months. But the gems--hardwood floors, eat-in-kitches, closets in the bedroom, and heat included--would stick around for a couple of hours or a day at most. As agents, we knew if a place would rent in less than a week. And if we showed a gem to clients who seemed keen on it, they'd surely be disappointed if they came back later in the afternoon and discovered it was gone.

But Marshfield was going nowhere fast.

Clients would ask me, "Would you live here?" and I would say something like, "I'd rather move back home with my nagging, coddling, nosey, controlling parents. But you don't really have any better option." I would walk into Marshfield and immediately start appologizing for the 40-year-old refrigerator and the moldy general biology textbook. I would point out the absence of the sink in the bathroom, but quickly announce that the kitchen sink is just a short trot away.

I knew I had no chance of renting it when I was showing places to a couple of college-student sisters. They were nice as can be. Fresh off the boat from Nigeria, I believe. They were used to living sparsely. They told me that they were not accustomed to air conditioning, and they were accustomed to sleeping in the same bed. We looked at the few places that were in their price range, of which Marshfield was the gem. In the end, they decided to stay another semester in the dorms.

I had only been in the leasing business for three months, long enough for my temporary license to expire. And during that time, only Marshfield was available from the start to the finish of my short career. It wasn't until Christmas time that I had gotten a call from a former coworker, inviting me out to celebrate that, in an apartment shortage, someone had finally rented the old Marshfield place.




LENT UPDATE
Four days of Lent and one Sunday: two margaritas (both on Sunday)! And I was in attendance for this weekend's mass...
Sha-Blam!

Forty Days Dry

For Lent, I decided to give up booze. Forty days on the wagon doesn't seem like a challenge to me. I've only been drinking for the past couple of years. It's just something I do to socialize.

Why are you doing this to yourself?
Here are three reasons I'm giving up the sauce:

1. If I stay out late on Saturday night, I can't motivate myself to go to church. And during Lent, I'm going to make the good effort to go every week.
2. I'm getting ready for summer, and all of those calories seem to be making my daily workouts less effective than they should be.
3. I would like to spend less money. The second I leave the door and head out into the city, it's $40. A $20 cab ride out to where ever I'm going, and a $20 cab ride home--nevermind the food and booze!!

What the Friends Had to Say...
So I went to play a soccer game on Wednesday, and I told my cohort about my new leaf. Here are some of the responses I got:

W said:

• "Are you kidding me? I took off work tomorrow so we could go drinking after the game!"
• "Do you really think you'll make it 40 days?"

M said:

• "You can't be serious? What are you going to do if you don't go out drinking?"
• "Are you studying for a test or something? Why would you do this?"
• "Why don't you give up something else? Like sex?"

J said, "What about the hockey game on Sunday?"

I told him that Sundays are not included in the Lent season. (If you don't believe me, start on Ash Wednesday and count days until Easter. You'll only get 40 if you don't include Sundays. A special thanks to Vatican 2!)

"Oh," J said, "so you can just come out and meet us up at midnight on Saturdays, then."

"Yeah!" agreed M, "That makes sense!"

I tried to explain that that would ruin the whole idea. Besides, I said, I'm bothered that you guys don't think I can get by without drinking! "The point is that if I get drunk on Saturday night, I won't be able to get myself up in time for church."

"Well, why don't you just not drink on Saturdays, but still come out with us on Fridays?" asked M.

It was an uphill battle against these nonCatholics. They just don't get that Lent is supposed to be a quite, calm, and reflective time.

Jeez! Even the heathen I'm boinkin' gets that!


LENT UPDATE
Two days without any desire to drink... take THAT doubting Thomases!

When It Looks and Tastes Like Food: It's Done!

Most things are not as difficult as people make them out to be.

I applied for a part-time job as a barista at a coffee shop near my house. I could, potentially, hop off the train after my day job, make cappicinos for college students, and with my revenue, get $80 more drunk each week. When I go in to apply, the manager, a hippie guy who forgot to eat everyday for the past 3 years, says, "Do you have experience as a barista?"

"I have 24 years of practical experience holding cups and pouring drinks for myself," I say.

I didn't get the job...


Cooking. Another perfect example. A group of friends and I were out for dinner. A pair of them are recently married. The wife says they have appliances they do not know how to use.

"What do you do with a mixer?"

If four of us could have stacked the notes in our voices, we would have made an excellent barbershop quartet when we responded: "Mix things."

Then came the cateloging of reasonable items that require mixing. For example, any dough that is preceded by an adjective: cookie dough, bread dough... Our one friend offered the idea of mashed potatoes.

"Mashed? Potatoes?"
The girl who brought it up proceded cautiously. Was our married chum joking? This launched into a whole orated treatise on how to make mashed potatoes. First, you boil the potatoes. Ah, but how do you know when they're done? Why, you stick a fork in them. A fork! Genius! Then you put them in the mixer... Yes, yes! Go on!

I have few qualms with being a snob, so I'll just go ahead and say it: Are you kidding? Mashed potatoes is the only food where the ingredients and the preparation process are in the name!

And cooking, in general! I'm a fair cook, and the trick to cooking anything is to keep looking at it and when it looks and tastes like food, it's done. If you're cooking fish, and it doesn't look like the food you got last weekend when you ordered it from a restaurant, it's not cooked completely.

When it looks and tastes like food, it's done!

Pre-Maturely Aging: Knitters, Cat Ladies, and Meetup.com

My page designer pointed out that when you're out of college, making new friends is like dating. You can't depend on running into someone the same time every week. When you meet them the first time, you must actively set up more opportunities to hang out. This becomes even more hazardous because dating and having friends cost money, and if you hardly know someone, you could just be spending on someone that you really could never be a good friend with. When money is tight, you just can't afford that.

As a 23-year-old woman, this is a two pronged problem: (1) finding women I might like and (2) forcing them to be my friends. So where do you find other girls?

This is how I went to my first Meetup.com event. If you've never heard of it, check it out. They have groups that meet for just about everything: investing, speaking French, playing flag football, drinking wine... what follows is my first experiment with attending a meetup.com function.

Meetup.com: Chicago Knitters Unite!
That's right. I believe in knitting in bars.

Why knitting?
I want to find people that do quiet, money-saving activities. Knitting is such an activity. Very calm. Not much in the way of dollar-dropping excitement, but you can talk while you knit. So there is that potential to meet people and decide whether you'd like to see them in other, money-spending, situations.

What's more, if you're saavy enough with a pair of blunt weapons, such as knitting needles, you can make some supa cool apparel items: shurgs, knit purses, funky hats. And, although they'll take you a million years to make, that's a million years you're sitting occupied at home, or with others, and not spending money. You see what I'm sayin'?


Is knitting really the activity for me?
Probably not. I am no professional knitter. Thus far, I've knitted two squares. I've crocheted some squares in my life too. But you're lookin' at a real-life wanna-be. And although I like to think I can be pretty artistic, I have very little pride in craftmanship.


What happens when a first timer goes to said knitting meetup?
Let's just say, whenever I'm sitting in a ten-person conversation on cats... no, not cats, kitties... I'm a little more than just a little disconcerted. Disclaimer: It's not that I don't like cats. I think they're cute, and I particularly appreciate the ones that think they're dogs, what with the fetching etc. But I've never had one of my own, and so I don't quite understand the appeal of treating them like human offspring and giving them little high-pitched voices to narrate the cat's thoughts.

So half of the group was not my speed, and unfortunately, the set-up of the room and the stationery activity that is knitting discouraged much movement. But I did enjoy working on a new square, if for no other reason than to have other people around me. And I also have high hopes that the other women and homosexual men will have something else to talk about aside from the timely topic: "Convincing your kitty to sleep in the bed you knit for him even after you move to a new apartment and the kitty says, 'I don't want to sleep on that because it smells like the old place.' "

I'll definately be trying this meetup again. But next time I'll be a little less punctual and a little more particular on who I sit near.