This week: I read a poem in the New Yorker. Read it again.
Last week: Missed the lunar eclipse. Migraine.
Last night: Stepped on a crayon drawing, rain-plastered to the sidewalk close to midnight. Under the orange glow of streetlamps, I studied its sun, mom and girl. The mom was bigger than everything.

In 1986, my cousin Sheri and I huddled in a cotton blanket together on our grandma’s back deck. We were just girls and the night was deep and ancient. My dad plucked us from our beds to watch Halley’s Comet streak across the sky. The corn silo looked down on us, mute. The pool held a lima-bean swath of stars. The woods swayed, woozy.

I remember my cousin’s dark tangled hair, close. I remember my Grandma’s nighttime face, waxen without makeup. I remember my dad’s enormous arm, extended to the sky and pointing.

I wrote this funny little short story Sunday evening. As those readers who attended high school with me might guess, it is VERY loosely based on a real person. Aside from the proposerous arrogence and nudie pics, the rest is just fiction, baby. Names and town are both fake, lest there really is a town called Clarksville with a history teacher named Gill Macdonald.

Untitled

When I saw the crow, dead beneath the gravestone, I knew I had a perfect image on my hands. Rain slicked autumn leaves clung to the bird’s feathers. The etching on the gravestone read: HOPE. I would call it: Untitled.

My photography show, Art for Feelings’ Sake, is only three days away. So far, with the assistance of a handful of willing sophomores, the theme of the show centers around the nude female form. But I had still been seeking that something special to tie it all together. My instincts tell me that this rotting bird is it.

In preparation for the opening, I’d sent press releases to Artforum, Frieze, and The New Yorker: MIDWESTERN HIGH SCHOOL HISTORY TEACHER BY DAY, PROLIFIC ARTIST BY NIGHT! ART FOR FEELINGS’ SAKE EMBODIES STRUGGLES OF GILL MACDONALD. My hope is that at least someone from the corporate media will show face. But I am no stranger to disappointment, especially in the fickle frivolity of the art world.

After college I’d tried to nudge my way into the elitist gallery system to no avail. Chicago curators declined to show my work, intimidated by the raw power of it. One gallery owner had the audacity to say that it felt like I was, quote, “hitting her over the head” with symbolism. In my opinion, the portrait this was in reference to – a lone coffin, entitled Shit Happens – was poignantly, subtly subversive.

After three cold weeks in a Chicago hostel, eating nothing but the cheapest lentils and the most fetid beans, my bowels had suffered enough. If I was too ahead of my time for even the biggest of cities, then the world would just have to wait for me.  Until then, I would teach and practice art on my own terms, on my own turf in Clarksville.

I’d only graduated from Clarksville High five years before; it was an adjustment for me to be back after my time in the art world of the Big City. If it weren’t for Bernie’s Beans, I don’t know how I would have got through; it was the nectar of his sweet beans that kept me sane in my first term teaching at Clarksville High.

One day after school, I sat writing poetry with a mug of dark roast in the shadowy corners of Bernie’s. The air was thick with coffee and crullers. In a moment of pause, I noticed that beneath a smattering of crude rooster woodcuts and a cross stitched sow, lay a breathtaking wall of exposed brick. It was a wall I could work with.

In an instant, my artistic desires stirred. I put my palm to the wall and imagined it covered in images of softness. Images of Susie and Melissa, images of Trisha and Beth. I awaited until art education might prove beneficial to the girls’ academic achievement before I approached them with the idea. My work was difficult, but necessary.

Now, three days from the opening, my nudes are framed and mounted. My black turtle neck is laundered and pressed. Flyers have been designed and distributed. And now, with the addition of Untitled, Art For Feelings’ Sake will be elevated from brilliant to epic.

My only hope is that no one from school–small minded as they are–recognizes the goldenrod paper from the faculty resource room; I used it to create promotional materials. But did the community not owe me at least that in exchange for cultivating the minds of their supple-breasted daughters? Was I not due something for enduring their pedantic sons? I do not trust them to understand that a few reams of paper is a small price to pay for an artistic visionary. I sense there will be trouble.

I like Sunday brunch. It is a nice, social time that lets people enjoy the dregs of the weekend without making Monday mornings worse than they inherently are. Plus, what more could you want from life when you’ve got a poached egg, salmon, and spinach on an english muffin? Besides a mimosa. Which, oh look, is a part of it all. Chin, chin my friends.

I usually stress about the cost of dining out, and thusly avoid it, but once in a while a little brunch is just what the doctor ordered. I’ve had a strange few days.

Thursday night, I’d just come home from running and was stripped to my sports bra, stretching. Shaun was in the kitchen, fixing dinner. We were listening to Camera Obscura. There was a knock on the door. Shaun answered. It was our super, Victor, and two men.

“This is the building owner and The Inspector,” Victor said. Spatula in hand, Shaun let them in.

The inspector was a bulky trench-coated hasidic jew – the kind with the two long curls dangling down. He blushed to come upon me, half naked in yogic cow pose.

“Hi there,” I said. “Whatcha doin’?”
“My job,” he mumbled, refusing to meet my eye. I felt bad to have insulted him with my secular spandex. I had to remind myself that he was in my home, unannounced.

The inspector proceeded to go from room to room with a digital camera, taking pictures of everything. I thought it was kind of strange that he seemed to be inspecting everything, making sort of a digital floorplan. I’d assumed he’d come to inspect our heater, which we keep off as it leaks boiling water onto our neighbors below. But he seemed oblivious to it.

Soon, the men left and Shaun and I were eating our home-made mac and cheese. I was troubled by the men. I didn’t know why they’d been there.

“Do you think that inspector was from Yeshiva University? Perhaps he was inspecting the building, generally, to see if they wanted to buy,” I said.

The next time we move, it will be out of this city. We are not going to get another apartment while we live here. We commiserated, watched Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD, and went to sleep.

Friday, I mentioned the scenario at work. My colleagues were aghast.

“Why did Shaun let them in?”
“Well, we knew Victor. It seemed official.”
“Did you ask for ID?”
I laughed. They were serious. “I don’t generally ID people who knock on my door.”
“This is New York,” they said, “unless you want to be assaulted in your home, you ID.”
I felt like an idiot. They were right. Why was I so stupid?
 
My colleagues told me that since I live in a rent controlled building, my tenants rights state that my landlord has to give me 24 hours notice if anyone needs to be let into my unit. Also, they cannot terminate our lease. If we pay our rent on time every month – which of course we do – they have to offer a lease renewal when our lease expires in October.

The colleagues went on to tell me horror stories of crooked supers. The dean of student’s landlord was breaking into people’s mail, stealing their checks, and having a friend of his cash them. Our catalogue distribution manager invited his super into his home and similar events took place. A week later his place was burglarized. “I let them make a floor-plan of my stuff,” he said, “it was stupid.”

Ask for ID. Never let anyone in. Be suspicious. Assume the worst. Do not interact. Do not open your home up to anyone.

“I used to be nice,” my office mate told me, “but then I was mugged. Live here long enough and it will happen. Its just a matter of time.”

On my way home, a black car followed me close for a few blocks. A man jeered at me in Spanish from the passenger-side window. I dogged into an ally and ran home, where I cried. 

The next day, Saturday, a man masturbated at me in the landrymat. His penis was wrangled through a hole in his jeans pocket. I’d just put a load in the dryer and sat down next to him. I cracked open my book. Why is the bench jiggling? I looked over. Oh.

I moved. There is a mirrored boarder around this laundrymat. No-matter where I moved, the man’s eyes seemed to follow me. Everyone in the Laundromat knew what was happening and no one was doing anything. Everyone just seemed to be avoiding him. It was gross and weird.

When my laundry was done, I had to walk by the masturbator to retrieve it. The bench had stopped jiggling, but the man was now napping on the bench, legs splayed.

After all this, my dryer was broken. Everything was still wet. 

I know a brunch can’t fix this. But I hope it will make me forget about it for a few hours at least.

This blog’s been gloomy. I won’t deny that I’ve been battling gloom for the past few months, but this afternoon I was happy all at once. There are lots of great things happening; I’ve just been a bit numb to them. I felt them for the first time this afternoon.

When writing about “sudden epiphanies” I know you are supposed to compose a sense memory of that exact moment in time when the realization happened. But I have no such time. I was drinking coffee at my desk, sorting through a list of students who were supposed to receive screenwriting software and suddenly I was able to feel again. I was hungry for the first time in months. I laughed out loud at lame jokes my colleagues told. I came home and went running and I was really, really fast. The happy was just tangible all of a sudden.

Here is a list of the goodness:

* The colleague that I sit next to at work recently met the love of his life. Thus, he is stupidly happy and very fun to chit chat with.
* I’ve started picking away at a short story that I’ve not touched for months. It is funnier than I remembered.
* The writing workshop that I’m in is keeping me in good practice for when I am an instructor one day; I almost forgot how much I thoroughly enjoy helping others through their writing process.
* I bought a pair of jeans on Saturday. In girly tradition, I enjoy spinning around in the mirror to check out my ass in them. Not too tight, not too low, and not too short.
* I am drinking a new tea: Yogi Chi Redbush. Each tea bag tag has a message on it, like a fortune cookie. * * Today’s was “Open your soul and let the universe in.” I laughed out loud.
* I’ve set aside Tuesday nights, between work and before my 7PM writing workshop as Cafe au Lait time. I like mine in a mug, with extra frothy love and one packet of sugar in the raw. I make final comments/edits on the workshop pieces. I eat a tupperware salad from home for dinner. Sometimes I get a biscotti.
* Shaun and I have been watching the entire two seasons of Twin Peaks on DVD for the second time over the last few months. We got the DVD set for Christmas. I will never tire of it. Ever.
* I’ve been listening to a singer who is new to me: Jolie Holland. Her mastery of vocal dynamics and tonality reminds me of Billie Holiday. 
* One of my new New York friends just scored a job with Sesame Street. Isn’t that amazing? Amazing! She is fabulous. I’m seriously happy for her. I have a brag-worthy friend!
* All my friends are brag-worthy. I love them!
* My partner is brag worthy! The comic book guide he frequently freelances for is flying him to the San Francisco Comic Book Convention later this month to cover it. Happy travel. Happy paycheck. He is hyped.
* Partner’s day job is sending him to DC to lobby on behalf of first amendment rights in early March. I feel good to know that someone as well informed, as smart, and as articulate as he is standing up for these things in our country. We are in capable hands.
* At a party last Friday, I met someone who runs an interesting small company that organizes book events/readings at cafes, bars, and other non-bookstore places in the city. I’ve applied to help out part time, on evenings and weekends. I love running events. They also sell books at the events, so even if I’m only doing that, it would essentially be going to author readings and getting paid for it just to set up the table and sell the book at the end. Love it! Plus, I am really keen to make a little extra money. Life is expensive here and if I want to save a cent, I need some side work.
* I sent an invitation to my 16-year old brother to live with us this summer while he attends an art camp. So far, he seems pretty positive about it. I really hope he goes through with the camp application process; I just think that working intensely on his art could be a life changing experience for him. And on a selfish note, I just like having him around. He makes me laugh and I want to show him around.
* I am planning to go back to MI in May for my cousin’s graduation. I am thinking of driving back so that I can bring my bike here to NYC. My days in Chicago improved ten fold once I stared biking to work. Once you get over the scary, it is fun and way faster than public transit. I sort of worry, though, as I rarely see cars respecting the bike lanes in Midtown. It’s just as well that I won’t have a bike until my health insurance kicks in in March; I may get hit. I shall wear my helmet and do my best to avoid death. Its part of the fun. And probably just as dangerous as many things that happen in a day here. On the upswing, my boss said it would be find for me to keep my bike in our storage space if I wanted to bike in, so I won’t have to worry too much about theft.
* I’m hopefully entertaining this weekend – the Sesame Street friend and her very cool animator partner. I’m thinking of making them Spinach Pie, which I made when our dear old pal from Glasgow, Susie (she’s originally from Boston), was in town. It was a hit. And very fun to make. Crusts are fun. I shall try it on our new friends.
* In other cooking related news, I made my peanut-butter date cookies and brought them to work. They were a hit!
* I’m reading a good book.
* I renewed my subscription to Bust Magazine.
* I’ve been cleaning the park on Sundays with Shaun. The park has great potential, but it is a sea of litter. We’ve been collecting returnables there. Its been a while since I’ve lived in a state that had a deposit on cans. 5 cents is not as good as Michigan’s 10 cent return, but it will do. We collected nearly $4 in cans last weekend in an astoundingly short period of time. We are keeping a tally on what kind of cans we find. So far, El Presidente beer is in the lead. I plan on making a map of where different types of bottles can be found. I will mark the spot on the map where I found twenty used condoms and a case of Corona bottles. I will mark the spot where I found the red bull from which a roach scuttled and a slug slithered. It will be an anthropological study/artwork. We’ve been saving the deposit money to give to Shaun’s parents. They keep a bank account called the Grandkids Account. The idea is that the whole family contributes bits of money to the fund. When we all have kids and its time to send them off to college, the fund will be split by however many kids there are. Isn’t is so sweet you could puke? It’s fun, though. I like that family a great deal.

See? Good things. Also good: Shaun made homemade mac and cheese for dinner. I’m off to eat!

xo,
Chicagoartgirl23

The PDF on the NY State Board of Elections had an incorrect mailing address for New York City residents to send the thing back in to. This means that both times I tried to send it, they did not get it. This means that my registration did not process. This means no NY State primary voting for me and the thousands of other New Yorkers who attempted to register this way.

To be fair, the address listed on the form (32 Broadway, 7th fl, NY, NY, 10004) is a NY board of Election office, but the office that the registrations are to be sent to is:

200 Varick St
10th Fl
NY, NY, 10014.

Supposedly, the 32 Broadway office is supposed to forward anything on to 200 Varick, but this obviously had not been happening. Shaun also had issues and the only reason that he got his voter registration card was because when he called to say he did not receive his card the first time, the person who he spoke to offered to mail him a registration form. They did and it had a pre-addressed label on the envelope to send the back in. However, when I called the first time, the only assistance I was offered was “try again.”I did. And still nothing.

I found all this out because on Monday, when I realized I had yet to get my voter registration card, I just thought I’d call to check in. Again. I was sure that my name was on their list and my actual card was just lost in the mail. When I discovered that they did not get my registration yet again, I double checked that the address printed on the PDF form was correct. This is how I learned that it was not.

“Ooops,” the office manager said.

After getting off the phone with him, I called my city councilmen. I called/emailed the New York Times. I called/emailed the News Desks of our local TV news people. On NPR’s Morning Edition today, there was a small mention about NY voters who registered but whose names were not on the list at the polling site. Nothing more. I don’t think so, anyway. I don’t have a TV, so I’m not sure if anything got on there.

Disenfranchisement of a vast city population aside, it really pisses me off that I took the time to be organized about my political involvement in the midst of a very difficult move from across an ocean to a very difficult city where I knew no one, had barely enough money to survive, undertook a massive job hunt, and started a new job. Living here is just so retardedly, unnecessarily hard sometimes. Things are lost here. Slipping through the cracks is easy.