May 21, 2008

• I’m comin’ home

  I sent the following email today. What do I feel? Relief. Warmth. A feeling deep in my belly that every little thing is gonna be alright.

  Dear Friends & Family:

  Uh-oh! What’s this in your in-box? A mass-email from Truly! By now, you know the drill: this can only mean one thing. That’s right: I’m moving. Again.

  As many of you know, NYC has been a bummer for Shaun and I. Since we first discovered that the Big Apple was a bad match for us (about two months after we moved here), we’ve been hard at work positioning
  ourselves for a move back home to Chicago. That hard work is now paying off. And in the way that these emails usually start, I’ll say: the past few days have been wild.
  

  Friday, I was contacted by a colleague from my old job at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. She’d “heard a rumor” that I was looking to move back to Chicago (I confess: I’d been spreading that
  rumor myself, to my professional networks and mainly anyone who would listen). Anyhow, the MCA had an opening in management that my colleague thought might be good match for me; was I interested?
  Yes—very. A few hours later, I found myself in an impromptu phone interview. Tuesday afternoon (yesterday), I was officially offered the job.

  As of Tuesday, May 27th, I will be the new Visitor Services Manager at the Museum of Contemporary Art. So what’s with the super-quick start date? A massive Jeff Koons exhibition opens at the museum on May 31; its important that I learn how to do my job in a semi-seamless fashion before the exhibition opens. I think
  that starting at the same time as the Jeff Koons show is a good sign; he’s my favorite male contemporary artist.

  Seeing as how I start so quickly, Shaun and I deemed it best if I just fly out to Chicago this weekend with my essentials in suitcases. I’ll be moving in with my best girlfriend, Squee. While staying with Squee, I’m going to take the next few months and scour the city for a great apartment that Shaun and I won’t be leaving for a very, very, very long time.

  Shaun will be holding down the fort in NYC, continuing his freelance journalism and his day job in academic publishing. Shaun will be interviewing roommates to split the rent with for July and August (NYC is brimming with business-people and students seeking short-term accommodations, but if you know of anyone who might be looking for a big room with a closet, please send them our way). He’ll either be out to join me in mid-August or mid-September, depending on the outcome the Chicago job interviews he’s currently in the midst of. At that point, we’ll be renting out a moving truck and making the long, 13-hour haul back home. I’ll be taking a long weekend off work to assist him with packing up our NYC life.

  As happy as I am to kick start our new life in a city that feels like home, I’m very sad to be apart from Shaun for up to 4 months. Thats so long! A whole season! I’m trying to keep in mind that the distance is
  necessary; we’re both working to ensure that we have a sustainable, happy home moving forward.
  

  Anyhow, I’ll leave you with a funny story:

  Last night, Shaun and I went out for an Indian meal last night to celebrate my new job and our return to Chicago. At the exact moment that the waiter came with our food, a massive cockroach scuttled out from hiding, walked right out onto the table, and charged towards our plates of curry, thinking: “chow time!” I stood up, pointed, and screamed in the style of a 1950s horror movie–”A BUG!”–until I caught Shaun’s face. He was laughing. It was all just so horribly poetic. We laughed until we cried. The whole scene made us look like absolute crazy people to the other diners. Lucky for us, New Yorkers are used to being in close confines to wack-jobs. We actually ended up staying (we were moved to a different table); those buggers are everywhere. There’s no escape. Except the one that we were celebrating.

  Endless love to you all,
  
  T

  • 12:04 pm
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