Greetings from my new home in Manhattan!

While its been ages since I last wrote, my blog absence is not for lack of things to write about. Since my last entry was compiled at a kitchen table an ocean away, I’ve lived through the following:

* Shaun and I said goodbye to friends, life, and work in Scotland. Behold some Goodbye Party Pics:

Chipmunk friends: Dan, Bryony, and Steve.

Shaun and Dan act creepy with a fake moustache.

Me, Saulka, Suzie, and Bryony act like shellfish.

Dan, Steve, Shaun, and Alan as wales. The animal, not the country.

* Next, in what was the two most stressful days of my life, Shaun and I stayed in a roach motel in Queens while we worked with an illiterate broker who had only an intermediate-level grasp of English to secure a two bedroom lease in Washington Heights, an Uptown neighborhood in Manhattan.

* Ten hours after signing the lease, we boarded a plane to Flint, Michigan, where we were picked up by Shaun’s family and whisked away to his childhood home, where we took lodging while visiting friends and family for ten days.

While we were visiting, I arranged for some family portraits to be taken. Cute!

* In addition to non-stop visiting, we also freed our belongings from storage (we were renting a furnished apartment in Scotland – our stuff was packed away in Michigan), arranged for a moving company to drive it 13 hours to NYC for us, reclaimed our cat Giles, and attended my mom’s pirate wedding on Mackinac Island. Here is a picture of some vow-takin’ pirates:

* Monday, October 8 at 6.30 am, the day after the pirate wedding activities wrapped up, Shaun and I boarded a plane headed to NYC with our cat Giles in tow. Note to self: Cats and airplanes should never, EVER mix. Not unless you want to receive the dirtiest looks of your life on account of the howling bag of cat that you’re holding; caterwauling is NOT the noise that people want to hear before sunrise.

* We slept on the dirty floor of our apartment on Monday, as our stuff wasn’t scheduled to arrive until Tuesday. Here are some pictures of our empty, empty place:

The bedroom, sans bed.

Guest room/home office

Living room, with cat!

Kitchen

Bathroom

* We moved in on Tuesday, as best we could. We are still living out of a lot of boxes; we have to make time to visit Salvation Army for shelves and cabinets and stuff to actually unpack the items into. As so much of our furniture came from various Chicago alley’s, we didn’t feel the need to bring it with us: it just wasn’t worth its weight in shipping.

* I started my new job on Wednesday. I like my boss a great deal. And I get to rewrite/edit scripts, which keeps my mind awake and alive. I’ve been working a lot of late nights, trying to keep on deadline AND learn the job that I’m doing simotaniously. I think this will get better soon. Fingers crossed.

* On Saturday, Shaun and I started the new improv class we signed up for at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. My hope is that we make new friends while stretching the creative muscles that will help us generate cool ideas faster and be able to present them with greater confidence. These are skills handy for any writer, I think. And so far, the class is great.

* Sunday, I was knocked on my ass by a killer head cold. Seriously: my neck was unable to hold my snot-filled cranium upright. I laid in bed, slept, whined, and watched Weeds on DVD.

Today I feel a LOT better. Plus, I get to take the morning off(ish), as I worked so many late nights last week. And what better thing to do than check in on the blog?!

I wish I could have been writing during the insanity of the past few weeks. There were some juicy bits, for sure. But over the next few weeks, I’m going to be writing about my first handful of true New York Moments. I’ve been making a list so that I don’t forget any.

But for now, I just wanted to throw a quick blog up to let you all know that I’m here. I’m alive. And I’m happy.

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.

Home smells like nettle tea. Good mail lays scattered beneath the slot: my race pack for the 10K on Sunday, a check. Put on the kettle. Heat up some tatties. Boooong – the computer comes alive. Homecoming emails from Caitcat and Grandpa greet me, make me smile. Charge up the iPod. Update my podcasts; ready for my morning workout.

Our space is empty, cleared out, ready for our departure, but it is full of us still. Our smell is here. The moon is full tonight and coming through the window. I think it will bring us good things.

Glasgow is chilly. Old sweatshirt weather. Tomorrow is work and bank and library. Tomorrow is, “welcome back!” and “how was it?” Tomorrow is not the start of limbo. It is real and I see that now.
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What is the first thing you notice when you come home from a long trip?

Immediately after leaving the over-priced internet cafe that I wrote the last post in, I felt like a horrible jerk for having dogged on Athens in the midst of its national emergency. People’s lives are lost, charred, and broken and all I can do is complain about the dust? What is wrong with me?!? 

I can only chalk it up to the exhaustion that sets in at the tail end of travels. The smoke inhalation didn’t help any, either. Also, we didn’t know what was going on for a while. We had no idea that the fire shown on the ferry boat’s bar TV on Friday night (with a report in Greek, of course) was on was ripping its way across the entire land. We assumed it was one, localized fire. Not hundreds. Saturday we were off to the sights bright and early, without flipping on the tube. It wasn’t until the day went on and smokey ash blanketed the city and armed gaurds filed through the streets in riot gear, that I started to get a little freaked. And a little sick from breathing. Was that fire on TV right outside of Athens? We checked into an internet cafe to look it up on BBC. The fire was everywhere. And my reaction was self-centered and resulted in a terrible blog entry. My apologies. My insensitivity was gross and the good people of Greece deserve better than that.

Anyhow, today as fire fighters from all across the EU fought the blazes, Shaun and I went to the Museum of Cycladic Art to see a contemporary photography and video exhibition. It was curated with such careful thought and the work was fresh and fabulous. One particular piece completely captivated me: True North by British film artist Isaac Julian. If this man’s work tours to a contemporary art museum near you: go see it. You’ll feel clean after. The nestled bits of your brain that have been dozing will wake up.

This time tomorrow we’ll be back in Glasgow. Four more days in our apartment. Then we’re in our friend’s second bedroom, then house-sitting until my contract is up. Lots of real life, grueling stuff coming up. Saw an online posting for a great job in Chicago. Will be applying as soon as we land. This trip has been beautiful. But I’m starting to get antsy: I’ve got shit to do!

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Have you ever had a very public, selfish reaction?

Half of Greece is on fire! 

Roaring flames are eating up this country; first the forrests decided to combust and then a bunch of psychotic arsonists decided to help them. The burning began on Friday. Saturday, the sky over Athens was sooty and nauseating; a perpetual dusk settled over the city. The sun was an angry orange ball. Giant chunks of ash swept through the air. My eyelids grated and stung. I sneezed gray. I got headachy and weird and sick and had to lay down in the hotel as the day heated up, scorching and dehydrating and parching everything. The day was toxic.

Aside from being surrounded by fire, Athens is a mixed experience. The Acropolis and Zeus’ Temple were incredible – we spent early Saturday morning soaking it up, before the day got too hot and while we were still so excited that we all but forgot about the sooty air. We spent today (seriously, from open to near close) in the National Archeological museum, which was amazing. But the city itself is depressing. It’s dirty and covered in graffiti and filth and smells and big dogs and hungry cats and cigarette butts and the heat. Oh, the heat. The heat is trapped inside the city in a bubble of hell, making the tight passageways even more claustrophobic than they would be already. The architecture is just sad: cruddy, ugly, washed out, dust covered 1960′s and 1970′s block residencies tower above, their first floors bearing security cage-covered shop fronts. I can’t help but think that coming from the wide open natural beauty of Crete and Milos is making me extra sensitive to the grit of Athens. Plus, it’s not like we’re seeing it in it’s best light, what with the fire and all. So I’m not being totally fair.

We’re enjoying ourselves, though. Staying indoors as much as possible. (Really – you can’t BREATHE outside.) We went to see a Tarantino movie, Deathproof, last night to escape the toxic air.  It had subtitles in Greek that I suspect were done poorly, as Shaun and I seemed to be the only ones laughing riotously at some points.

All for now. Am sweaty. Be well. Stay away from matches. Send thoughts of comfort and respite to those country men and women of Greece, stumbling through smoke-billowing olive groves, a wall of flames licking at their heels.