Free Falling
© The Author, 2005

Thursday afternoon sanity and comfort enveloped me in the most unlikely place. Who would have guessed that such lofty inner peace could be found at Union Station? Somebody ought to tell monks suffering silence vows, head shavings, and rugged mountain living that they need only to happen upon a good street musician to soothe their need for a harmonious soul and connectedness to mankind.

To be sure, I am talking about good street musicians here—not the guy who daily assaults Red Line passengers with a nasal, a capella bastardization of “Under the Boardwalk,” frequently letting the harmony sag into a dreary, minor key version of the song. This is not the type of music that the aforementioned monks should feel at ease about, although I doubt a monk would get even half as annoyed as I do about it.

The type of serenade I am talking about is nourishing. It feels like getting a warm hug from someone wearing a soft t-shirt fresh from the dryer. You can inhale the music and it smells and feels like a mug of steaming tea. No matter what urgency pushed you on only minutes prior, suddenly you are awakened and alive and preciously present when a good street musician shares their magic with us lucky pedestrians. As corny at it seems, whenever I hear it, I am moved; my eyes well up with tears and I am suddenly aware of everything inside of me, which is so easy to become disconnected with during the course of the daily grind.

My mamacitta is in from Michigan visiting us this weekend, and Thursday I was eagerly awaiting her arrival at Chicago’s Union Station during the insanity of rush hour. I had just come from work, and I was tired and irritated at careless rolling suitcase drivers tripping me and cutting me off as I navigated my way to the Amtrak area. I was about 20 minutes early and the tea stand in the food court was calling my name.

I ordered a ridiculously overpriced ginger mint tea which furthered my agitation (I might as well bought an entire box of tea bags at the grocery store for the amount I paid to litter the earth with yet another paper cup), and I was about to head back into the bustle to wait for my mom, when a familiar chord drew my eyes to a guitarist. He was playing guitar and singing amidst a nearby landscape of food court tables occupied by commuters of all sorts.

I stopped and listened to him, sucked into an emotion wrought rendering of Tom Petty’s “Free Falling.” He sang for knackered businessmen nursing cool beers from plastic cups, letting the alcoholic fizz soften their bones before heading home. He sang for an Amish woman absentmindedly shoveling MSG laden toxic red chicken from a Styrofoam take-away container into her mouth. He sang for a beautiful Hispanic woman sipping a smoothie and running her hands gently over her bountiful, pregnant belly. He sang for a homeless man drifting to sleep on a pile of discarded Chicago Tribune’s. And he sang for me.

His voice lilted and dipped and brimmed with feeling and he played his acoustic guitar sweetly to the music of Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, and Melissa Etheridge. Here, a beautiful black man with fuzzy hair peeking out of a worn blue baseball cap, serenaded commuters with songs that at that moment seemed to have the unabashed grit and the grounded dedication that is the general idea of the Chicago—The City of Big Shoulders. The musician conveyed a vague collective feeling of searching for something bigger than your reality, but not having the foggiest idea of where to find it. And somehow we all needed to know we weren’t alone in that.

Soon, a crowd gathered around the musician. A matronly black woman shushed an annoying blonde girl with a cell phone that was probably cemented to her pretty little head; everyone wanted to listen to this guy play. The tables were filling up quick so I grabbed a seat at a table occupied by a middle-eastern woman draped in a brilliant purple sari gently rocking her baby girl back and forth in a stroller.

“He’s good, no?” The woman asked me.

I looked around at all the ethnicities, ages, religions gathered around to find solace in this man’s music and smiled.

“Yeah. He’s really good.”

Where have you stumbled upon peace lately?

My apologies for the melodramatic post this weekend. Something that my husband and I had been counting on and preparing for all year fell through in a way that completely blindsided us. I’m an over-zealous girl and my Achilles heel is my confidence. I let my faith in myself and others and my enthusiasm for life eliminate all doubt. Usually this works out great for me (my mamacita calls it “my sparkle.” Aww, shucks…thanks mom!), but I am starting to realize that perhaps a little doubt is healthy. That way when rejection happens (as is bound to happen sometimes to those who actively pursue the life they desire), it is not so completely out of left field. Anyhow, while I can’t get into details in my blog (this being a public forum and all), for those of you who it matters to: Scotland is a no go. But after a completely devastating weekend, Plan B’s are in motion. For those of you who are wondering what I’m talking about, give me a few months and I’ll dish.

After sticking with me through a brief depression and food poisoning, I think you all deserve a little cheer. This essay is void of angst and brimming with happy, disgustingly cute things. Enjoy!
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We’ll Make Great Pets
© The Author, 2005

It has occurred to me that our cat thinks he is the master of our apartment. And really, who am I to argue? Giles Alejandro Scimitar is here hour after hour, day after day, watching us trot in and out of his palace. We go to work so that he can lounge in the lapse of luxury, nibbling on the finest that Purina has to offer. Our kitty does not feel the least bit guilty if his expensive food is wasted in the throes of leaving a juicy, quivering hairball laying in wait on the hardwood floor beside our bed for my bare foot to meet its early morning doom. In fact, I think he secretly enjoys it. Giles is King and he answers to no one.

Pets are such a queer idea, really. How did anyone conceive that it would be a good idea to have an animal roaming about their living space? I am tempted to argue that the trouble of an animal lurking about your quarters is worth the inconvenience (not to mention the potential injury), if only for a snuggle every now and again. But somebody had to domesticate pets. And something makes me doubt that somebody snuggled much with their bobcat or jackal before it bit their face off. Perhaps violence was the whole point—a wild animal living in your quarters was the Stone Age equivalent to my keychain Mace. But when did man’s best weapon become man’s best friend?

One of my favorite pet stories is belongs to my partner. When he was a skinny, gap toothed, six-year-old kid with oversized glasses, his dad thought that he might be able to coach the nerdiness and inclination to comic books out of him with a good old fashioned fishing trip. They embarked on their trip in the early morning and by late afternoon, Shaun was getting crabby; they hadn’t caught a thing. Nothing was biting but the mosquitoes (I always wanted to write a hillbilly line like that!), and they were ready to pack up and head home when suddenly, Shaun’s line started wriggling and struggling against him. With the help of his dad, he reeled in his first love, and its name was Fish.

Upon seeing his shimmering aquatic friend, everything that Shaun’s dad had told him about the point of fishing (catching fish for food or throwing them back until they get bigger) went out the window.
“It’s my fish!” Shaun argued when his dad tried to throw it back, “And I’m keeping him!” For some ungodly reason, my in-law’s allowed Shaun to keep a four-inch rainbow trout as a pet in an un- aerated five gallon bucket of water, set on the back porch to boil in the sweltering Michigan heat.

When Fish died, Shaun was devastated. He cried for days. He had lost a dog during a move before, but nothing compared to the loss of this swimmy little beast. His mom cut all the pictures of fish out of his coloring books, fish sticks were banned from the house, and all mentions of water, fish, or wetness were prohibited. He could barely even stand to bathe, for the water on his skin was too similar to how the scales and fins of Fish must have felt in his final days.

Now if that’s not an example of kindred spirits, I don’t know what is.

My first pet was Sasha Cat: a grey fur ball with shit for brains. Unlike normal cats, who feel the instinct to burry their poop, Sasha cat was fine with crapping in wide-open spaces. She had no qualms about popping a squat on the linoleum of the kitchen floor, or laying a fresh load atop the living room coffee table. Something was wrong with Sasha Cat.

My family thought it would be a brilliant idea to get a dog when I was in fifth grade. Instead of picking a reasonable dog, like an old, worn out one on death row at the pound, they nabbed a high-strung yellow lab fresh from its mother’s womb. Jessie Jane enjoyed about two years with our family before puberty brought out her forbidden desires. Jessie Jane had the hots for my mom.

Now, you can’t really blame Jessie; my mom is a good-looking lady. But her unquenchable thirst for my mom took on obsessive, jealous tendencies as time went on. She especially grew ornery when my little brothers (Anthony was in kindergarten at the time and Julian was in preschool) joined my mom and Jessie Jane in the garden. The final straw came when Jessie leapt from my mom’s side to pummel and nearly devour Julian as he emerged from the house to hang out with our mom. After that, there was no more Jessie.

At some point in a child’s life, they want a pet simply because it promises to raise their level of coolness. For me, that pet was a Peach Faced, Hand-Fed Love Bird. I imagined that I could train my bird to perch on my shoulder like a pirate’s parrot, and let it snuggle up to me like in the pictures from “Peach Faced, Hand-Feb Love Birds: An Owner’s Manual.” But once I got him home, I cursed the book for never showing a picture of the bird shitting down the owners back or furiously biting the owner’s earlobe off. Aside from frequently gagging at the smell of the birdcage, I ignored my bird for the most part, so much so that my mom was constantly nagging me to take care of the swarthy thing.

One Friday I was headed out the door to spend the weekend with my dad.
“Did you feed your bird?” She asked. I honestly couldn’t remember, but my room seemed to be a landfill seeds, so I answered, “Yes—God! I can take care of my own friggin’ bird!”

Imagine my horror when I returned Sunday night to find the nightmarish thing laying stiff and cold on the bottom of his cage. I recoiled, dry heaving; I had never seen a dead thing before. And then I noticed—oh shit—the bird feeder was empty. Without missing a beat, I filled my dead bird’s feed bowl to the brim with seeds and I fetched it some fresh water.

And then I screamed.

My brother had a similar experience where an innocent animal was sacrificed to the childhood craving for a trend-setting pet. Make that two innocent animals.

Like me, my brother was in middle school when the trendy pet became a pressing, immediate concern. Instead of a bird, my brother simply had to own a gerbil. You’d think that my parents would have learned that a today’s desire for the perfect pet is tomorrow’s riga mortis-ed corpse, but my brother just so happened to conceive of the idea while all five of us were crammed into the family minivan driving two days straight to Colorado to visit my mom’s parents. After my parents refused his first suggestion that when we get home they buy him a gerbil, he thought of a new tactic. He refused to say anything other than, “Gerbil,” in a monotone, seething voice for the entire trip.

“Say hello to Grandma and Grandpa, Anthony.”
“Gerbil.”
“How ‘bout a game of mini-golf?”
“Gerbil.”
“What kind of sandwich do you want?”
“Gerbil.”

At wits end, my parents bought him not one gerbil, but two once we got back to Michigan. And in a month, they were such second-class citizens that Anthony kept them in a fish tank in his closet for about a year.

One day during the summer, I spotted my brother gagging and flailing out of his room.
“What?” I asked.
“My gerbil died.”
“Did you feed it?”
“Yeah! Just yesterday!”

But when I helped him fish out the corpse of the gerbil with a pair of chopsticks (because he had bloated up to such enourmous proportions that even our biggest soup ladle couldn’t handle him), I doubted that the gerbil was a healthy, happy, alive little bugger just the day prior. His body was decomposing and liquefying into the surrounding cedar shavings. The other little Gerbil had been nibbling away at the dead one and was growing feral and crazed now that we were taking his food source away. The live one died shortly after.

Kids should not have pets.

However, bonding with an animal as an adult can be one of the most soothing, soul nourishing, quirky things that can happen to you. As feisty and stinky and incessantly noisy our kitty can be, he is our rancid little ball of fat fluff forevermore. He calms me when I ‘m sad and makes me laugh when I am jolly. He even has tricks! Bring out any item that is vaguely furry, be it winter hat, stuffed animal, or faux fur blanket, and he’ll mount and mate with it. He thinks it quite impressive. Giles Alejandro Scimitar is eager to meet every new person to come to our home; he’ll jump right up on you and sniff your mouth so that he not only knows you, but everything you’ve eaten that day.

While I don’t quite understand the bond between us, I felt it from the moment I looked into his cute, round little eyes at the Anti Cruelty Society over 2 years ago.

“Love me,” he said. And I did.

Who is your ball of fluff?

Thanks for all your concern. I felt better Monday night, but the rest of this week unfolded to reveal bad news after more bad news. I’m too shaken to write anything right now. No one is sick, no one is dying, no one’s heart is broken, so its not tragedy. It’s just a stupid optimistic me, getting my bubble burst and as always, being so damned surprised about it. I am embarrassed and sick to my stomach about how foolish, how naive, and how completely delusional I can be. I don’t really know if I can write anything right now. Please bare with me—I might feel up to something later on this week. And I may or may not be able to explain myself then.

I am a dumb ass.

The snake egg that was yesterday’s fun food exploration has hatched inside of me.
Today, a hateful serpent is writhing in my stomach; it’s hateful tail thrashing about the contents of my belly angrily, leaving me at the mercy or the toilet—perpetually wondering from which end of me my bile will exit.

Already a broke ass hoe, now thanks to the snake egg that has left me retching at home today, I can expect a smaller check next payday.

I am dying.

Never again.
Until next time.

P.S.
Since I am no longer amused by this, I don’t mind bursting your bubble. I’m not entirely certain it was an actual snake egg. It could have been anything’s egg–except a chicken’s. But I lead you on for kicks with this quote:
“It was about the size of an egg you might find in a small birds nest. Or, as my wild imagination suggested, a snakes den.”
Oh yeah, “I ate a snake egg today” probably diddn’t help much either.
Trust me, if my imagination was wild yesterday, it is rampant today. Now I’m certain it was the egg of an evil serpant.

Unidentifiable Floating Objects
© The Author, 2005

I ate a snake egg today.

It all started with me waking up sick of the city. For those of you who are city dwellers without cars, you know what I am talking about. No matter how much you love your city, you are bound to wake up some days and feel like the masses of concrete, the sidewalk dog shit, the spilling over garbage cans, and that general smell is threatening to suffocate you. And you’ve got no car to escape it.

At first, I thought I could cure my unrest with my typical treatment; one bakery cookie and stroll about the neighborhood. But the bakery cookie was chewy today. And my sandal was slip siding around on the sidewalk due to some restaurant grime I’d acquired on the sole of it from a leaking garbage can that was being pushed along by a dude in front of me.

“Let’s just rent a car today and get out of here,” I turned to my partner and suggested with a smile. I checked my checking account online that morning—I had zero in my account, $8.00 owed to “checking plus,” and a grocery list for the veggie stand. And we were already blowing a portion of my $13 allotted cash for the produce market on cookies. I’m guessing his checking account was similarly doomed because my partner laughed out loud.

Being broke sucks.

“Do you want to go to Stanley’s?” my partner asked me, referring to the afore mentioned produce market.

I glared at him.

The bus was coming—which never happens at convenient times. And we were right near a stop. “Let’s get out of here and find somewhere new.”

Thirty minutes later we were in Vietnam, located conveniently off the Red Line at Argyle.

A small strip of noodle shops, bakeries, and waving lucky cat and potted bamboo stores lined street. Our eyes were glued to the neon signs, our noses were tickled by a new stench (a fishy one). We went into a local grocery store and browsed the strange items; rows of whole fish on ice watched us from cloudy round eyes, red bloody sausages encouraged us to breathe from our mouths, and rows of exotic candies made us smile. A bag of 75 cent Jackfruit chips seemed the perfect purchase after a fun twenty minutes or so of marveling at all the strange and funky smelling goodies.

After munching the jackfruit chips—which differed only in color (these were orange) and slightly in texture (there were airier) from dried banana chips—and nosing about the shops, my husband was getting hungry.

We moseyed over to the restaurant that had the least amount of white people in it, which was a big lunchroom type of place whose sign was a green army tank that curiously read, Tank Noodle.

We entered Tank Noodle and were seated at a huge, round table with a lazy Susan center cluttered with hot sauces and cups filled with plastic chopsticks.

“Isn’t this a big table for just two people?” I whispered to my husband.

Indeed it was. Soon, two hungry Vietnamese guys were seated at our table with us. We took our clues as to how to eat our delicacies from them.

The worst thing about Tank Noodle is its impossibly huge menu. I have never seen a menu with so many offerings. There were about 200 entree’s to choose from and over thirty different smoothies. After the waiter asked us twice for our order, we finally chose at random. Shaun picked a familiar, Asian standby, cashew chicken. I chose some sort of noodle bowl at random. We ordered spring rolls and a pineapple smoothie to share.

The first thing our waiter brought out was a plate piled high with bean sprouts, basil, curry leaves, and lettuce. At first we feared that the waiter had brought us the wrong order, but then we looked around and saw that every table was complete with a heaping bowl of greens. Then we deduced that it might be the equivalent of receiving a breadbasket at an Italian restaurant. Luckily we had the hungry men at our table to spy on, and it seemed that the pile of greens was designated for heaping on to the entrées that would come shortly.

Soon our spring rolls came. Unlike the spring rolls that I am used to—small little parcels with dry rice wrappers the consistency of philo dough containing veggie stuffing—these spring rolls were wrapped in a moist and chewy rice dough, and to my delight and my husband’s dismay, they had three magical shrimps in them. The Tank Noodle spring rolls were also much bigger than the Americanized spring rolls I have grown accustomed to. They were a good six inches long and stuffed to the gills with goodies. They were more like burritos than spring rolls.

Next, our pineapple smoothie came out, complete with tapioca balls at the bottom, and sliced strawberries and mangos littering the top. The drink was so cute in its presentation that it prompted the hungry men that we shared our table with to order smoothies of their own. The drink was cool and refreshing and not too sweet, but perfectly icy and delicious.

When our entrée’s came, I was surprised at the size of my bowl. It was closer in size to our bathroom sink than to any bowl I’ve ever seen. Along the top, beads of red grease danced above a tangle of thin rice noodles. Following the lead of our dining companions, I dumped some greens and some spices atop my soup and dug in. The noodles were perfect; they were warm and slithery perfection. The broth was pretty vague in flavor, but perhaps that was the point, as there were so many condiments to dress it up with.

My partner’s dish was predictable and familiar looking, but delicious nonetheless. I nibbled a cashew from his plate every now and again, appreciating the damaging delirium of MSG.

As I munched away at my noodle dish, I began to unearth some pretty startling food items buried within the strands of noodles. The first item that I discovered was a red cube, that looked vaguely like a beet, only cloudier, with a bit of a grayish tinge. I severed a bit of it into a small, testable chunk and popped it into my mouth. It was completely flavorless, and it had a texture that was a bit firmer than tofu.

The purple chunk was not the only unidentifiable item in my noodle bowl. Soon, I harvested a pink bit of what appeared to be an animal part. It was porous and spongy and it tasted porous and spongy. But otherwise it was pretty mild.

I continued on with my noodle munching for a time, watching a large piece of what I am pretty sure was the whole tongue of a goat-sized animal dodge my chopsticks. I was working up the nerve to try another prize.

As I stirred my pot further, my chopsticks fished out an egg—and not a chicken egg. I am fairly accustomed to fish eggs as well, and it was no fish egg that I have ever seen. It was about the size of an egg you might find in a small birds nest. Or, as my wild imagination suggested, a snakes den.

I skirted the egg for a while before I declared, “I’m trying this egg.” I popped it into my mouth.

After crunching through a layer that seemed the consistency of freezer burn, the yolk exploded in my mouth. A gooey, thick coating surged between each and every one of my teeth and I hurriedly forced a swallow, praying that I didn’t have a rude, all-American grossed out look on my face.

“I’m full,” I said, gulping greedily at my water.

Leaving the restaurant, I thanked my husband for spending the best $20 we have spent in a while.

“I hope you don’t think it’s a waste just because I didn’t finish,” I said, “because it was exactly what I needed.”

How do you escape?

Pho Xe Tang – Tank Restaurant
4953 N. Broadway
773-878-2253

Edit: I changed the title–I always think of better ones while running, and I went running after I posted.

Also, dig my new profile pic! I wish it were me, but its not. It’s a frame from a video by one of my favorite contemporary video artists, Cao Fei. This is from the 2002 video, Rabid Dogs. While this video is not up at our current exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Universal Experince: Art, Life, and the Tourists Eye, (one of my many jobs is in the Marketing Department there), you can see my other favorite in this exhibition–Jeff Koon’s 1986 scultpure, Rabbit, or as I like to call it (in a screaming, happy voice), “KOON BUNNY!” Here is a picture of that for your veiwing pleasure:

Anyhow, I’ll leave this post alone from now on, I swear. ::smile::
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I’m a Slave for You? The Emancipation of Britney Spears

© The Author, 2005

“It’s simply an outrage!”
“It’s disgusting!”
“I just can’t believe it.”

This is the college youth of America, my friends. They are eager and willing to participate in society—to form educated opinions, to hold intellectual discourse, to breathe a breath of fresh, albeit naive air onto the stale old mismanaged problems handed down to them by their elders. The youth of America has the energy, the will, the drive, and the un-jaded optimism to identify the wrongs of this world and create change. There is hope for this world yet.

“I know—it’s totally disgusting. Britney is just way to young to have a kid.”

Oh, wait. Never mind. I guess we’re hopeless after all.

Sometimes working at a college really gets me down. Yesterday, I was waiting for a student to show up for his appointment in the lobby of the Writing Center where I work, when I stumbled upon the aforementioned conversation. Before the Britney comment, I assumed that from the heated tone of the conversation, that this dialogue had to do with the fact that Oregon decided to annul the gay marriage certificates issued in that state, or perhaps it was a local discourse over Chicago public transit service cut backs, or of the FDA’s recent decision to lift the ban on silicone breast implants, despite gruesome disclosures of ruptured implants leaking silicone from women’s tear ducks, nostrils, and ears. I assumed that this heated conversation was about anything other than Britney Spears recent case of preggers. Sadly, I was wrong.

These silly students continued on at length about Britney’s fat ass (although most college kids and their doughy freshmen 15 are much worse off than Britney ever will be), how the young pop star was too young to have a child, how Ms. Spears and Jason What’s-His-Name are doomed for divorce, how Britney’s bun in the oven sets such a bad example for women, blah, blah, blah. I listened on, my mind angrily churning. And I’m not even a Britney fan.

Their trivial conversation got me thinking about a recently published Time Magazine article about Twixers, which for those of you who did not read the article, is a stupid term invented by marketers interested in persuading twenty something’s to leech off their parents so that mommy and daddy will foot the bill for expensive stuff that they “need” (you don’t want to know how many people I see with Ipods given to them by their mommy dearest), instead of getting off their butts and working to support themselves. Plus, the longer they leech, the longer Twixers can delay adhering to a budget scraped together from the earnings of an entry-level job that probably won’t allow them to spend their meager paychecks at the bar, or at the new H&M store opening soon at a mall near you.

This leeching works out pretty well for our economy. Not only does it provide businesses with the frivolous spending of Twixers and their dumbly accommodating parents, but it also provides the shit job market with a way to weed out many potential candidates for jobs, since the Time Magazine Twixer article states that most employers don’t consider anyone under 26 an adult. Aside from this Twixer situation irritating me as an independent, college educated, mature, and financially responsible 23 year old trying to find full time work in a world where I am apparently not a grown up, I am also annoyed at my peer counterparts who support this nightmarish behavior, because they are reinforcing the Twixter truth to our elders, which is creating a society where young people like myself get blindly lumped into their lame ass demographic. I typically hate labels, especially those invented by marketers, but when people so blithely play into the labels they have been given, without taking the time to create change and dismantle the stereotype—then the labels tend to stick.

I wish that these Twixers at the Writing Center would step out of their cushioned apathy for a moment to get even half as enthusiastic and opinionated about any issue that is not Britney Spears fetus. But the Twixter mentality that they embrace not only results in young people having even more difficulty with the always tough job of competing for full-time employment after college, but it also impedes their ability to give a shit about the world outside of the happenings in Britney’s uterus. Laziness sprawls out from the Twixer’s approach to independence and into the realm of how they regard the rest of the world. The average Twixter seems uninterested about formulating articulate opinions on government, global policy, culture, and society at large. Plus, I don’t think it is psychologically healthy (for parent or Twixer) for a 19 to 25-year old to have his or her mommy do their laundry and eat her food like mommy’s home is a goddamned hotel.

I don’t mean to insult anyone who is temporarily living at home after college while they conduct a job search, as long as they are being honest and hard on themselves—they need to know that no entry-level, post undergraduate job they will find can maintain the standard of living that they grew accustomed to in their parents home. Luckily, the personal growth that accompanies independence is more valuable than that. They need to know that formulating articulate and educated opinions is important, and valuable, and necessary for us to collectively plot and scheme ways to fix this shitty world we’ve been handed. These opinions and schemes will be what we use to create change when we are the bigwigs employing others. Also, those living at home to conduct a job search should be careful to respect their parents and their home during the (short) duration. Many awesome 18-25 year olds who are temporarily living at home understand and implement all of these things and more. But many do not, and I have to deal with their resignation to Twixerdom weekly. To them, I don’t mind being insulting.

Listening to the Twixers at the Writing Center prattle on about Britney’s bun in the oven, I was becoming enraged. I tried to suppress my big mouth—I begged it not to open and bite off the heads of these kids (because kids are apparently what they want to be seen as) to get their lips to stop flapping about how Britney’s fertilized egg is a travesty. But eventually, my opinions started burning a hole through the inside of my mouth, so I had to at least open it to let them out.

“Britney’s fetus is the absolute last concern I have for this world,” my diatribe began.

“Yeah, but she’s not going to be a good mom,” a mascara-ed, blonde lump of collegiate cleavage stated.

“Why? Because she bears her midriff? Well your mom probably did that too before she had you, and I’m sure she might still if your birth hasn’t ravaged her body. Besides that, even if Britney isn’t naturally a good mom, you damn well know that she has enough money to afford to for someone to raise her daughter well for her. What concerns me is the moms who have to cope with a welfare system and pay rates that are so shitty that they have to leave their kids home alone while they work their asses off for minimum wage.”

“But that marriage is going to end in divorce and then that kid will be from a broken home.”

“What is this—1950? How many of your parents are divorced?”

All the Twixters raised their hands. I raised both my hands.

“And look at how well off we all are. 50% of all marriages end in divorce, so you are probably right. But that has little bearing on how a kid is treated or turns out anymore.”

“Yeah, but she is so young,” a pimpled, pale, pile of sticks interjected.

“My mom had my when she was 19, and she was a good mom. Britney is 24. She has made more money than any of you will make in a lifetime. She has a career and she works her ass off. She has a family that gave up their entire lives so that Brittany could writhe about in halter-tops and sing pop songs. Something tells me that even if Brittany doesn’t embrace the joys of motherhood, her family will still ensure that the kid is spoiled rotten. There are a million and one things that need your attention in this world, and Britney’s fetus simply is not one of them.”

I wish that these students at the Writing Center and that all my peer counterparts could see that we are a powerful group. We may not have much spending power, but we are loud mouthed, opinionated, creative, and full of vibrant energy. If only we were all raised to channel those assets properly. If only we weren’t raised in a society that has newspapers that give Britney’s pregnancy front page billing (on days when Michael Jackson hasn’t chosen to wear pajamas to court), then perhaps the youth of America could value their minds and opinions enough to spend time thinking and discussing new strategies to all the real issues that this world has. But since our society is full of Bill O’Reily’s, Rush Limbaugh’s, and Chicago Sun Time’s—all of which prefer to forego real intellectual discourse for blind, emotional appeals that sell advisements—can we really expect more than the apathy, the blind resignation to ignorance that seems to be all that Twixers are willing to contribute to this world?

After I voiced my harsh analysis of their criticisms for Britney, a Twixter girl glared at me from beneath the shrouds of her hooded sweatshirt. Her apathy had been insulted and I was the culprit. From her Lip Smacker-ed lips, the mantra of the Twixers commenced,

“Whatever.”

Good Little Rockers Eat Lentils
© The Author, 2005

Imagine if you will, the following hotness: orange shoes with chunky black rubber soles, an orange and hot pink flowered mini dress, two spiky pigtails complimented by two gigantic gold earrings fashioned to resemble the face of King Tut. If that outfit doesn’t make you compulsively dial the fashion police, just picture the ensemble decorating the gawky, braces and glasses clad, skinned-kneed pile of bones and angles that was my 11-year old self.

Hot, I say, Hot!

It was not just for my beloved full-length mirror that I was rocking this obviously rad attire for. No—this outfit was meant to be seen and lucky for me, I had the perfect place to be seen in it. I was going to my very first concert—THE B52’s!

My family grew up in a suburb of Detroit whose main offerings to the world include decent public schools and a ski-hill/concert venue called Pine Knob, which my family lived about a mile from. In the summer time, I would sleep with my windows open, and receive murmured lullabies from the likes of Motley Crue, Eddie Money, The Blues Brothers, and Patty LaBelle. So, at age 11, I was more than ready to party at the Knob, especially when my mom mentioned that my favorite band of all time would be coming to play a show.

The B52’s and I have always been tight. One of my favorite games as a girl (who am I kidding—you know I still do it) was to make believe I was the director and lead singer in music video’s and live concerts. I had a canopy bed that had detachable knobs decorating the top of the posts. These made perfect microphones. My costumes were picked out with great care and the process of selecting the perfect costume made for a very messy room. My audience was a captivated array of stuffed animals. They went wild cheering—you wouldn’t believe it, they usually were so well behaved! Needless to say, the process was handled with the greatest of care, and when I wasn’t impersonating all four of The Bangles, I was all four of The B52’s.

On the day of the concert, my mom and I walked to the Knob to avoid traffic. Strutting past the elementary school that I had just graduated from in my outfit of hotness, I remember feeling so teenage. The very fact that I had absolutely no qualms about my mom coming with me to the concert is pretty telling of how teenage I was not, but I was happy in my delusion.

Entering the concert I was so excited to see people dressed funkier than I! Pink hair! Neat tattoos! Drag queens! Stripy tights! Combat boots! Unfortunate mesh shirts! Girls with short hair! Boys with long hair! These ocular confections made me giddy—in our small town of soccer mom’s with paunches, working stiffs in khaki’s, and preppy looking kids and teens, the varsity jacket was the height of fashion culture. Seeing the audience dressed to the gills in wild clothes made me feel like finally my instincts towards crazy costume clothes were not so strange after all! While my look has tamed a bit since middle school and high school, the diverse and far out fashions of the B52’s audience assured me that it was cool to dress as crazy as I wanted. This assurance came in particuarly handy when I was later to attend a very preppy high school, while sporting short crayon red hair, purple cat-eye glasses, home-sewn purple velvet bellbottoms, orange micro-mini skirts, and knee high combat boots.

My mom and I happily made our way past the awesomely dressed attendees to our seats in the shaded pavilion. I sat next to a lisping man who complimented me on my earrings (my beginnings as a fag hag). My very cool and not at all paunchy or soccer-momish mom sat on the other side of me. To my mom’s great joy, the lisping man to my left asked coyly, “Are you two sisters?” I was too young to realise he was complimenting her–it just made me feel like I looked way cool and definatly older.

Soon, the concert began and I went wild. Dancing, jumping, singing, cheering, and getting swept up in the collective excitement of the band was exhilarating. When I closed my eyes I could imagine myself on stage; I could visualize the fans cheering for me. It was an even more satisfying fantasy than my stuffed animal’s cheers—and they were a rowdy bunch. My mom was up on her feet dancing with me and I was pleased to see that she also knew the songs word-for-word as I did. I was surprised, looking around me, to see that not everyone was getting as crazy as we were.

I pointed to a sullen looking group of people, somberly nodding their heads to the beat. I was too young to realize what being self-conscious looked like. “Mom, why aren’t they dancing?”

“I don’t know. You pay a pretty penny to go to a concert—you might as well have fun!”

My mom is full of good advice.

Later, I became aware of what being self-conscious felt like and have even suffered from occasional bouts of it—even at concerts. Thanks to that advice from my all-knowing mamacita, I am always able to shake the feeling loose, close my eyes, and get lost in the music. Soon, I am singing at the top of my lungs and dancing like the nutty thing that I am.

This Friday, my partner surprised me with the invitation to spend money that we don’t really have to go to an Ash concert. At first I hesitated, but then I realized that eating lentils and rice all next week would be worth going to get crazy at a show put on by one of our favorite bands. Shaun and I have always fancied ourselves good little rockers (witness the framed and autographed picture of Everclear on our wall! Witness our framed album covers as our idea of interior decorating! Witness my husband’s idea of a scrapbook—a cruddy photo holder with ticket stubs from every concert ever attended! Witness his idea of high fashion—band t-shirts!). Sometimes an immature move like using your money allotted to purchase a healthy, balanced diet to buy concert tickets is the best way to rock. Because at that point, have not only spent money on the tickets, but you are also going to be malnourished later, so you better damn well have a good time.
And, as always, a good time we had.

What was your favorite/first concert?

Messing with my Head
© The Author, 2005

I tried to make myself comfortable in the plastic salon chair as she circled around me, taking stock. Her belly was soft and tan and peeking from the bottom of her black, stretchy shirt; her midsection swayed gently as she combed and cut my wet hair. I contemplated my own belly–typically contoured and rib cagey, but daily transforming into a hard and rounded little bowl after dinner. Like snowflakes, no two bellies are alike.

Suddenly, in mid-cut, disrupting me in mid-silly-thought, a deep-rooted burp seeped out from under her breath. She threw her scissors down on the tray and grabbed a nearby water bottle with sudden urgency.

“I’m sorry–I just ate some pepperoni pizza for lunch and now I’m payin’ for it.”

I knew then that this hairdresser was a keeper.

Ever since my trusted childhood hairdresser, Barbie, took a razor to “feather” my bangs when I was twelve, I gave up expecting to look good emerging from the salon. But I do expect an interesting hairdresser. Even if they style my hair after a helmet or a mushroom cap–forcing me to pray no one recognizes me before I make it home to rinse the unfortunate style down the drain–all will be forgiven if they can indulge me with some good, one-sided conversation.

When I say one-sided, I mean that I want them to do the talking. After all, what do I want to pay good money to hear stories I already know for?

The hairdresser I had before this most recent, belching hairdresser was a transvestite working in a salon whose clientele was comprised primarily of longhaired Latina’s. For them, a haircut was just taking a dead centimeter or two off the ends. I usually sport a bob or a short cut–so the salon’s trannie stylist, who was bored with “not cutting hair”, automatically snatched me up.

Standing behind me and leaning down from his platform shoes, he would meet my eyes in the mirror. I would explain the cut I was thinking of, which usually involved lopping off a good few inches or so.

“Ohh girrrl! Your husband is going to be so mad!” This is a statement that all the Latina’s would echo. Apparently these Latina’s were with men who prized their long hair.
“No–he likes me with whatever hair I have.”
“Then lets cut it shorter! Let’s make him mad girl–we’ll show him whose boss, right?”
It was after spouting a few comments like this that s/he began talking about Sasha. While they were in “L-O-V-E and you know it, girl,” Sasha was so controlling that my hairdresser was constantly venting about it. Soon, my hair became the place where her latent urges to rebel manifested. My hair looked pretty crappy, but at least things were interesting.

My uncanny ability to hire interesting people to cut my hair goes back further than the vengeful trannie. One ex-hairdresser of mine was a very flamboyant Frenchmen who discussed (in great detail) the rumps of the girlfriends he had before he married his wife (a doughty beige woman who worked as his appointment setter). Despite his strange but ever present need to make me believe he was straight, it seemed quite apparent that he was not. This conclusion had more to do with the Chip and Dale air freshener dangling from his mirror than his lisp, or his total disregard for his wife.

I have never left any of these hairdressers for any reason other than the following: the salon goes out of business or I move to a new neighborhood. I don’t mind that these people aren’t the best stylists–they are all off-beat charachters who I enjoy meeting, and since the perfect hair cut is so ellusive anyway, I’ll settle for an interesting hairdresser.

My most recent hairdresser came to me when a street marketer prayed on my thrifty side and sold me a discounted promotional offer. I used it last Thursday to cut off my shoulder length hair in order to rock a nice, springtime short cut.

When my new hairdresser met me at the reception area, the first thing I thought was that her makeup was amazing. In the middle of the day, layers of silver, black, and gray melted into each other and sculpted her eye sockets into a metallic, surreal glamour. High arched eyebrows and liquid liner completed the look. Her makeup, tight pony tail, and big hoop earrings invoked a look that seemed to be a cross between a super hero and a sixties film star. It was impossible to imagine her with a bare face.

We were quiet for a time. I think she was suffering from some bad indegestion as noted with the beforementioned burp. But after a time, conversation ensued.

“So, did you enjoy your Easter holiday?” She asked, seating me in her barber chair.
“Oh-we just rented movies and went out for beers. How about you?”
“Well, it’s not my Easter.”
“You don’t celebrate?”
“I’m Greek Orthodox. We have red eggs and no bunny and a different date. I spent everyone else’s Easter Sunday on my couch watching trash TV.”
I was hooked.

She smiled and we were quiet again. She pulled strands of my wet hair in front of my eyes and cut the better part of them down to size. Her arched brows furrowed and discomfort flitted about her face. My mind wondered to the pepperoni pizza and I realized that it would be horribly embarrassing for a hairdresser to fart while cutting someone’s hair.

“So, are your parents from Greece?”
“Yeah–I am too. Born and raised.”

I guess this explained why I liked to listen to her talk; her words dipthonged between her Chicago accent and her Greek accent, creating a harsh beauty.

“Are you planning on visiting Greece anytime soon?”
“I guess so. It’s just such a different way of life over there–everyone is so chilled out, but that can drive you nuts. It can make you too lazy to do anything with your life. It’s like my grandpa–he’s 86 and he smokes like a chimney, drinks all day, and eats lard 24-7, but he’s as healthy as an ox because the man doesn’t know the meaning of the word “stress.” He’s just chilled out like all the rest of them.”

“That sounds nice.”

“I guess. But when you grow up with it the act gets old. My main goal growing up was to get out of Greece. I went to live with a cousin in London when I was a teenager. Then i just traveled around until I was completely broke and too embarrassed to go to my folks. My aunt flew me over to the states. We were in New York at the time. She was the one who helped me with beauty school.”

“Why did you leave New York?”

“A guy. A million years ago.”

She sighed. The exasperation in her voice told me they weren’t together anymore.

My hair was falling about me in rapid succession now.

“Do you like your bangs like this–or shorter?”

I opened my eyes to look at my cropped hair in the mirror.

“A little shorter, please. So–do you think you will stay here in Chicago long term?”
“I don’t know. I mean, its all right here and everything but I just sort of stumbled into it. I just wanted to escape my parents and my hometown and see the world and suddenly I’m past thirty and I still haven’t really made a plan. For now, I guess I’ll stay and just travel a lot. I save everything to travel. I’m going to Ibiza in June.”

“Ibiza sounds nice.”
“I’ve not been yet. I’ll tell you about it when I get back.”

When her cutting was finished, I was happily surprised to find that my hairdresser was actually good at cutting hair, although her styling of it left a bit to be desired. But once I got home and messed it up a bit, I was quite pleased with the results. And better yet, I was pleased to have met such an honest, real, interesting, pizza eating person, especially in such a fake, skin and bones flaunting place as a salon. Hopefully my new hairdresser will come back from Ibiza to tell me about it. If not, I’m sure I’ll find another character to make a mess of my head.

Who does your ‘do?

These are a Few of my Favorite Things
© The Author, 2005

Who needs raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, or bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens?

Funny live theater and frozen yogurt with cherries
Paperback novels and my cousin Sheri
Making up lyrics to gleefully sing
These are a few of my favorite things!

Bakery cookies and Buffy the Slayer,
The Flaming Lips in my CD player,
New running shoes running shoes for my feet to take wing—
These are a few of my favorite things!

Meeting new people from faraway places
Swimming and splashing my friends laughing faces
Sweetheart-ed partners and new haircuts for spring—
These are a few of my favorite things!

When my cat bites,
When my job sucks,
When I’m feeling sad—
I simply think of my favorite things, and then I don’t feel so bad!

The weather has me all happy today. I’d write for real today, but my bike is calling. ::smile::

Hot Pics!
© The Author, 2005

One of my favorite hobbies of all time is photography. I’ve got an ancient Cannon AE-1 that I like to hit the streets and take photos with. My photography ranges in subject—it really is just a matter of whatever place I feel like walking to in a day, but lately my pictures have been mainly comprised of the little bits that make up my neighborhood. Non of these are stellar, but I like doing them and I thought you might get a kick out of them as well. I was inspired to post these by the great pictures on Sandiegogrl’s site.

Sandie’s nature photography makes me smile, and perhaps these will do the same for you.

This is a house that my partner and I stumbled upon during a walk we took in early march. I think they are just a tad religious. ::smile::

I have a little mini series of mannequin heads. I think they are cute—if you look closely, they each have their own little vacant personalities.

This cart man was so fun to photograph—I have a few photos of him (if scanning weren’t such a laborious process, I’d post more), and he was a total ham for the camera in all of them. He stopped everything and shoo-ed his customers out of the way, just to strike a pose for me. I was hoping for a candid shot of him serving people from his food cart, but he wanted to model for me solo. Very funny indeed.

I don’t know why I think this picture is so funny. I laugh when I see it—it’s just a burger king toy blown up really huge to look like a big, intimidating statue. Perhaps I think its funny that a ferocious fat man could be burger king’s idea of a fun kids toy. Kid opening up his kiddie meal: “Ohh! I hope I get the fat scowling man!!”

A quintessential Chicago “el” shot. Lovely, eh?

I don’t have a foot fetish or anything, but this picture makes me want to sneak up on it and give it a good tickle. It’s way too peaceful—it’s just asking for it. ::smile::

Here’s a collage I made for kicks. Sometimes I do that with my photography—mix it with my drawings and other people’s work I cut from magazines on rainy days.