Last day in Scotland. Tomorrow, early, we are on a flight to NYC to secure an apartment. Wednesday we will be in the cradle of our hometown, at rest. In a fortnight my mom will be married. Soon after, on October 10, I will start my new job.

I am alternately weeping and angry and overjoyed. And in typical ChicagoArtGirl23 fashion, my skin has betrayed me. Words are not enough to express my feelings during this transition – my body must push out any remaining emotional scraps through my sad, abused pores.

This year had been the most beautiful, hideous, amazing, adventure of my life. It has changed me and made me think and created something new in me. I’ve unearthed so many treasures here, so many shiny things. Not every day was good; creating a life in another country is hard work. Trying to accomplish the simplest task can exhaust you; can leave you wondering if you have the stamina to keep going. No, not everyday was good, but every single day was fantastically interesting. And perhaps that is the most important lesson that was articulated for me here: Interesting trumps Good every time. I wouldn’t trade our oftentimes-scrappy year here for all the security and comfort in the world.

Thursday was my last day of work. My leaving party was at one of Glasgow’s most delicious restaurants: Gandolfi. There, with the glow of candlelight and merlot softening the world, I got teary eyed and proposed a toast to my crazy, beautiful colleagues. We work together, sure, but we were also friends. We hung out together; we went to the pub and to film festivals and to birthday parties and movies together. We were a part of each other’s life in a way that took me by surprise.

When I first began that job, morale was at an all time low due to change in directorship and the daunting task of programming a nationwide festival without any semblance of leadership. And the culture was so different! Phone calls ended with, “Cheers! Thanks! Bye” before the phone was slammed down with a “What a Load of Rubbish!” or a “What a Steaming Pile of Shite!” or an “Utter Bullocks!” It was an office of Australians, English, Scottish, Irish people with me as the token American in the organization. They learned that I wasn’t a gun-toting cowgirl and I learned to laugh at and love their colloquial vulgarities. We all got along and became family, especially as we were all huddled together working 80 weeks during the main festival period. Some teams would fall apart under that type of stress; we got slaphappy, rolled with it, and had a good time. I was lucky to fall in with such a great group of people. I will miss them always.

Our friends made through Glasgow University also came as a surprise. School friends these were not: these are the kind of people that let you stay in their apartment rent-free for three weeks between leaving this country and moving back home. These are the kind of people who you talk about life with, who you stay up all night playing board games with, who become a part of your everyday, who you wish as much good for as you do your own family.

I can’t believe we are leaving the one place that we’ve ever truly fit in at. But perhaps we fit in because of what living here has taught us, of how much we’ve grown here. I notice it in Shaun more than myself, probably because as self-aware as I try to be, it is always easier to see change in someone else.

Shaun has gone from being the quiet guy, who you know is super smart, but whose hilarity comes as a complete surprise, to the guy at the center of the table, holding court. He’s become a master of reading his work aloud, of marketing his work. He’s more confident than I’ve ever seen him, he is how he is when at rest or among his closest friends all the time now. It is a beautiful metamorphosis. It makes me smile to see him being himself more often.

I think that this year out, spent nurturing our curiosity, finding ourselves in so many situations that you just can’t help but to grow in, has changed us. Made us more us. And we have to keep this momentum going; it’s taken us across an entire ocean so far. And as sad as I am to leave this place, I am eager to see where the momentum takes us next.
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How were you feeling the last time you overhauled your life?

Okay, Xanga peeps. I’ve just finished a mega-blog, complete with loads of fun pictures, about Shaun and I’s August trip to Greece: Ruins, Fried Fish With Eyes, and Other Tales From Greece. Check it out at The Loch Ness Blog.

Enjoy!
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Is it just me, or does organizing photos from your trip take just as long as planning it?

The helm of my life has been the Wheel of Fortune this week. I woke on Friday morning, happily thinking that we’d move to Chicago in October and secure jobs once we got there. I went to bed Friday night ecstatic, overjoyed, and dazzled with a new job and life lined up for me in NYC. In a span of 12 hours on Friday, I found out about an amazing opening at an incredible company, applied, interviewed, and accepted thier offer. New York City, here I come.

ChicagoArtGirl23
Assistant Producer, Studio X

ChicagoArtGirl23 (aka Truly) joins Studio X fresh from coordinating marketing efforts for The Six Cities Design Festival, Scotland’s nationwide celebration of design and the creative industries. After an incredible year working and reveling in Glasgow’s smart, exquisitely raw contemporary cultural scene, Truly makes her stateside return this October to New York City. With a career that began in the marketing department of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and an educational background in Television Writing/Producing, Truly is driven to connect people with brilliant and engaging cultural offerings. She spends her time away from work with her nose stuck in a novel, listening to NPR, exploring new neighborhoods, traveling, and running for as far as her body will carry her—although preferably not all at the same time. _______________________________________________________________________________________________
What twists of fate in your life have left your mouth hanging wide open?

::Random Tangent::
Details and all the fun bits will come soon, but at the moment I’m up to ears happily revamping our exit strategy (we still are on a flight out of Scotland on 23 September), going to millions of good-bye do’s, planning Shaun’s B-day Bonanza (he turns 28 on the 19th), and cracking away at work to deliver the September 18 conference that I was contracted to market. I am a bee!

Note how neither of my feet are on the ground. Did I hop the race? Did I leap it like a little gazelle? Apperently. Superfly.

Also delightfully dorky, the Eli’s Cheesecake website. Clicking here will reveal the hideous splendour of the kind of marketing that only Americans would have enough cheese and corn in them to create. Yesterday afternoon before calling it quits and heading to the pub, my office spent a good half hour laughing at the site (my collegues chuckled: “This is where you’re going back to?!?” to which I answered, “This is where I’m from!”). There are downloadable cheesecake rap songs. You can also purchase a cheesecake t-shirt for your cat, even if your kitty ate another kitty and a big rock or two and weighs 75 pounds and is actually a pitt bull (no joke – the sizing chart states that the extra large will fit up to a 75 pound fur ball!). There are glorious pictures of round, Midwestern families in Hawaiian shorts and polos on tour at Eli’s. There are photos of a cheesecake mascot canoodling with Michigan Cherry Queens and Apple Queens. (“What the bloody hell is an Apple Queen?!?” The collegues laughed). Browse the site for yourself: it is beautiful in that big, unabashed, cartoonish way that is distinctly American. It is beautiful like Big Boy. Like Superman. Like cotton candy and rollerskates. I laughed until I cried at the Eli’s site. And then I cried a little in a bathroom stall for a million reasons, none of which include having collegues who like to take the piss out of eachother. And then I laughed again. And then I joined the work gaggle at the pub to kick it with Helen for what was to be my last time (she’s going away on holiday and I’m stateside before she gets back) and snuggled up to some lovely merlot.
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What fabulously dorky thing have you loved lately?

Sunday was race day.

When my friend and colleague Helen asked me to join her in the 10K Great Scottish Run, I had only the slightest moment of hesitation – I’d never run a long race before. But if I could do 7K (I’ve run a few here and there in the past), surely 3 more wouldn’t kill me. Plus, I was already running at least three times a week for fitness and mental clarity. Helen assured me that I was in good enough shape to leap right into training and aim for a killer time. Her partner is a marathon pro, and she’s run a fair number of races herself; it was good to have an expert on board to check in with.

Aside from Helen reassuring me that I was fit enough to run the race, I wanted to run it because the training schedule implemented structure into my life at a very chaotic time. I like having things to look forward to – even that something is as small as a new book coming out from a favorite author, a movie that looks incredible, a show that I am totally in to, an interesting exhibition that’s coming to town, a fresh New Yorker or Bust magazine in my mailbox, a 10K race. Looking forward to these small things are especially helpful when the larger picture of my future is temporarily fuzzy as we stagger across the ocean to set up our lives all over again for the third time in 5 years. Making it a point to get hyped up about the little joys that this world has to offer make it easier for me to chill out and take things one day at a time. They give me something concrete to focus on and celebrate. Training for this race did that for me in a major way. It made waiting to hear back from job applications bearable. It made reconciling my husband’s ideas for our next steps with mine less stressful. All the happy endorphins made saying goodbye to the loving, supportive community that we made here and letting go of this incredible chapter of our lives a little less painful.

I threw myself into training. Even in Greece I was vigilant about my schedule, waking before the sun to speed up a mountain, little lizards scuttling underfoot. I liked training. I pushed my body above and beyond the mileage requirements; I began training for a 1/2 marathon even though the Great Scottish Run was only a 10K. My body wanted to go further and harder and faster. I itched to wake up and feel the adrenaline pumping. Days without running felt strange, like my legs were irritated with the stillness of regular life.

The race itself was great. It was so packed towards the beginning and I’m not yet very good at passing people in those big, clustered crowds, so that was the only downfall. But the energy of the race was fantastic. People were dressed in costumes, bag pipers played throughout the route, an Indian band grooved near the 8K mark, a bride and groom with “Just Married” t-shirts exhausted themselves saying “thank you” to every “congratulations” that came their way. I ran the entire race; start to finish, with a big smile on my face.

Out of 5,636 participants in the Great Scottish Run, I came in 1,433 with a time of 54 minutes, 17 seconds. My goal was under an hour, so I’m pleased as a peach. And that day, I was faster than 4,203 people – that is insane to me! The top female runner’s time was 34 minutes, 40 seconds. She is a real superstar. Can you imagine tearing it up like that!?! Next time I race, I’ll try to get myself in a faster muster group, though. I think I could have wailed harder at the beginning if I didn’t have to pass so many people. Passing is hard for me because I am super tall and my stride is super long – I’m afraid of tripping people, or getting tangled in someone. I’ll get over it, I’m sure.

Poor Helen threw her back out and was unable to run. But I won for both of us and I am so grateful to have made a friend who would open me up to something that is such a good match for me. I prefer to run alone, but having someone to talk about the training with and to give me tips was the biggest help in the world.

In other news, we’re all moved in to our friend’s flat where we’ll be while I finish up my contract at work (our lease was up and needed somewhere to crash in Glasgow while I finished work). Homelessness is weird and living out of a suitcase sucks, but our friends are so warm and great and generous: we couldn’t ask to crash a better couple’s home until we are Stateside again on 23 September.

Also, I’m hard at work sorting through all of our photos from Greece for a photo-happy mega blog. I can’t wait to share them with you, my cheerful readers. I like doing photo blogging; its like scrap booking, except more people get to see it.
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What do you look forward to?

::Random Tangent::
This book, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, is amazing – go read it now. Seriouosly. It’s fresh and the character is rich. It’s The Virgin Suicides and The Heathers marinated, soaked to the bone, in literary grandure.

Also good: H&M. I never went into one before, but a friend mentioned that they had really long jeans there, so I took a peek. Not a huge fan of the trendy-Mctrends, but the jeans are LONG! I’ve not been able to find pants that are not floods for the longest time and when I do they are at the Tall Girl or Long Tall [Wilting] Sally, stores that think that just because you are an Amazon, you are also a sad, douty wallflower who likes high-waisters and argyl. I bought 2 pairs of sexy, dark, bootcut jeans at H&M last night. Best of all, they are not the gross kind that show your ass crack! So to all you Tall Glasses of Water out there: H&M. The tag may say they are a 34 length, but trust me: they fit like a proper, leggy 38.