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.