Reflections: 2.011

 

2011 could have been better, to say the least. Since I'm one who counts my curses before my blessings I will start there:

-Thousands of dollars were spent on ankle surgery
-$700 total was stolen from me
-The boyfriend of 4 years said the "over" word
-Half the year I sat alone in my apartment icing, the other half I exhausted myself working 7 days a week
-One of my cousins passed out of this world
-I found out which of my friends aren't going to be there for me when I need them most
-Not one, not two, not three, but FOUR flat tires
-Two leases ended- resulting in two stressful moves

But counting my curses first means I end on a good note. I'm not as dark as I may seem.  Ultimately I want to count my blessings, and to be grateful for the wonderful things that came out of the pandemoniac year:

             -I finally put a ring in it (my nose)
-Nick and Lizzy tied the knot
-Pat and Suzanne exchanged vows
-While sitting at home waiting for my ankle to heal I found new hobbies
-Physical therapy started teaching me how to take care of my body for long term dancing health
-Tomatoes, basil, and parsley were all grown successfully
-While teaching at Blue Lake I got to work with fantastic kids and coworkers,
                 *met wonderful inspiring people
                  *relaxed on the beach
                  *saw my family
                  *discovered kombucha
                  *found my color
-Meat was finally removed from my diet (if not strictly)
 -I saw the Grand Canyon
-Fuser moved in with me (at the moment he's eating a printer cord...)
-I still get to invest in the person I love with my whole heart. And every day I am grateful that- in spite of all that's happened - we found and maintained love in the discord
-Every day I get to wake up and combine two of my lifelong passions-  teaching and dancing
-I blogged!...even if it's not so good
-My financial situation went from "barely scraping by" to "scraping by"
-Some amazing new friends came into my life, and they understand me without needing explanations
-I decided what path my career will take next and started looking at graduate schools
-My new apartment is wonderful and the landlord's wife has cooked for me on occasion
-Logan Square is a great place to live and drink
-I was in a movie (fuck yeah)
-"Christine Hands" appeared in numerous dance programs as "performer"
-My choreography was presented at four different professional venues
-Rudolph Nureyev's Swine Lake, colored nail polish, Lula's Cafe, Bacardi Orange, Game of Thrones
-Everyone in my family is healthy enough
-Let's talk about the amazing friends who never stopped answering the phone no matter how many times I called in hysterics
-I made a hat among other projects
-This year I stayed cool in air conditioning
-Nearly all my bills are paid off
-I acquired an I-Phone
-My Jessie and Brian came to visit

When I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep. And I fall asleep counting my blessings.




The world's falling apart, everything crumbling around us, but for every curse I've got 4 blessings and for every loss I've gained something new. So though I'm looking forward to a better 2012, I want to end the year with a touch of gratitude.


 Happy New Year to my friends, enemies, and everyone else.

I expect the first thing my mother will say when I come home for Thanksgiving is that my clothes don't match

Today I'm coloring myself
with a box of crayola crayons
mustard yellow tights
carrot orange fingernails
golden toenails
peacock blue socks
fire hydrant red sweater
eggplant purple hat
charcoal gray coat
maroon skirt
cream white sweater
bark brown boots

I'm a clashing blinding colored explosion
And peeking out from my layers of clothes
is a pale face
chameleon eyes reflecting the brightness
of my saturated canvas
enlivening my inner spirits
with an outer expression
of my joyful rainbow

Older

Cheeks are sinking in
Imperfect skin around eyes
A frozen frown here.

two chiseled lines inbetween my eyebrows
three long lines zigzagging across my forehead
every year more expensive make-up
every year the youthful glow fades from my face
every year I look more beautiful



Do you remember college parties?
Do you remember my fat cheeks and tight skin?

I always wore some stupid outfit- never quite in sync, yet never quite making my own fashion statement. Just lost in my wardrobe.

We would drink and drink. Now, if I drank that much, I would end up in the E.R.
Relationships were always painful and pointless, but so simple and uncomplicated.
Hangovers couldn't get us fired back then.
Remember random hook-ups? Drunk on the carpet? Alcohol is not performance enhancing.

I remember waking up with two other girls asleep in my double bed, Becky's make-up smeared all over my pillow. I still sleep in the same bed; now I wake up with the cat curled up at my feet, and the alarm reminding me that only God and orthodox Jews get a Sabbath.

I remember junky apartments and wrecked carpets, cheap beer and lost nights of glorious abomination.
I remember Luke Skywalker puking on my kitchen table one Halloween.

Where did that silly girl go- with the damaged red hair, dark roots fading into gnarled locks of fake strawberry blonde? Dancing on a chair with her arms over her head laughing in her boots and bare legs with that jean skirt I've long since shrunk out of when the baby fat fell off and she sallowed into me.

Sometimes I miss her a little. Her goofy drunken escapades- smile so wide her mouth threatened to turn inside out. And that stupid picture with two cigs in her mouth, sunken eyes displaying days of binge drinking when the first boyfriend who stuck around for more than 6 weeks stopped sticking around.

But I love the new wrinkles inbetween my eyebrows. I love the hollow place where the baby fat used to sit on my cheeks. I love being older. I love wanting for things that require the maturity and perseverance of age. I love working, and the solace of my space, my things, my clean linoleum floor, and working professional's apartment with the family below me.

I love the deep, meaningful pain of real loss and the complicated mess of relationships when the word "marriage" can hold real promise, and real terror.

Still, sometimes when I'm heading home at midnight on a Saturday, I think about Sunday mornings drinking a gallon of kool-aid, reading Faulkner in my bathrobe, waiting for the hangover to dissipate in that drafty old house with no insulation.

We were all living in dumpy shitholes drinking shitty beer eating shitty food and having shitty sex.

And now we're older. 

Ode to Food

Food. We need it. We want it. We love it. Sometimes it disgusts us. Sometimes it excites us. It's a a privilege to truly enjoy it. Here are some foods that I've been thinking about this week:

Ode to Cheese: Stay away you evil temptress. Do not tease me with your soft, white form. Do not let me sink my teeth into your flesh, and wet my tongue with your sharp, slightly pungent taste. Do not let me roll you to the back of my mouth and swallow gently. You feel so good going down, but hurt so much. 

Ode to Juice: I want to suck you down all day long. You intoxicate me as I chug gallons and gallons of you. It's puppy love and we're giddy...infatuated, but I don't want to get the taste of you out of my mouth. I love you in any form- to me you are perfect.

Ode to Chocolate: Life partner: I'm sorry I strayed. I cannot live without you. I tried to find comfort in another, but I see the error of my ways. Only you can truly make me happy. I'll make it up to you, I promise I've learned. Already there are two bags of chocolate in the cupboard. Please believe me, I'll never make the same mistake again.

Ode to Meat: I try to leave you, but I can never go. You see, you give so much to me. You fill me up with your substance, in a way nothing else can. I don't want to be with you. You're not kind, and you bring down the world around you to get to the highly processed form I see you in each week. But no one can give me what you give me. No one satisfies my needs quite the same.

Ode to Tomato Red Pepper Soup: You're just the flavor of the week. Thanks for helping me get through a rough patch. It's not you, it's me. I really care for you but I just don't see this working out long term. You just don't have enough substance. Honestly, I need a foodstuff with more calories. But thanks for the Thursday morning cuddling session.Whoever you end up with is a lucky woman.

I Dissolved

Last night I dissolved.

Like an alka seltzer dropped into a glass of water, tiny particles of me came shooting off to fizzle and disperse around the room until all that was left was a thin vapor where I used to be.

I sat far too long on your couch drinking far too much wine . With each glass a part of my mind disappeared into the ceiling. Each hour became darker, and the words escaping my lips became the words of an occupying alien. Time became a dark red shadow in which you were conversing with an intruder while the real me was floating around in the atmosphere with the stars.

I sank like a melting snowbank into your couch where you found me pooled in the cushions at 3:30 am. Nothing left of me, just a skinny drunken form sinking ever lower into the furniture, so wine-logged I was threatening to drop through the floor and into the foundations of the building.

Yellow on my fingers

Yellow on my fingers

Red on my toes

hair in my eyes

a ring in my nose

do you want to watch me dance 

with laughing abandon in my skintight pants?

do you want to feel my teeth bite your lip

and the firm press of me on your hip?

can your ear feel the breath of a chuckle

while Yellow fingers are on your buckle

and Red toes inch between your feet

still blurring with the pounding beat?

does it make you jealous

that we're not in my bed

and that my pulsing Colors are just in your head?

tonight I'm dancing alone in the candlelight

and the Red and the Yellow combine to make Orange

When I shatter, nearly all my tiny glass shards make it back to their origins

Old medical records show a historical link of melancholy and the belief that one is composed entirely or partially of glass.*
 

I am glass. 

My skin is a thin glass layer. Beneath it course the rivers of my existence, small sapphires of blood sliding through the valleys and gullies of my veins.

My face is a stained glass window. If the sun shines on it just right the colors will mix together into a rainbow panoply. Features cut and melded together into a mesh of me. Look closely- can you see yourself reflected in the blue/green glass of my eyes?

My heart is a glass figurine, thrumming and humming in spite of its composition, pumping the life force through me. If it shatters a million tiny sapphires will pool in the river bends and sit, lifeless, lost. It floats in my ribs, dangerously close to the glass of my skin. It should be buried deep, deeper within but instead there it is, the most delicate of my organs, asking to be broken.

 

My legs are fragile glass pedestals. If I put them down with too much force they will shatter, and if I put too much weight upon them they will buckle. I balance precariously upon their bases, fearing with each step that part of my ankles or knees will crack and chip.

My womb is a glass vase, empty. No flowers sit within its lips. It sits, expectant, deserted, purposeless.

I am a glass creature, fragile and delicate. But I am beautiful, transparent; my inner me is not hidden behind opaque walls or shrouded curtains. It is on display, behind the glass case of my countenance. It sits, exposed, for viewers to see. It isn’t hard to shatter my casing and steal the valuables; I’m not protected from the elements within. I am there. I am here. Do you want to reach inside and hold my gentle heart, feel it within your hand, feel how it would only take a rough squeeze to destroy the essence of me.

*http://thirdcoastfestival.org/library/999-re-sound-149-the-piano-show?closed=true

I Meant Forever

"What part of forever/ Don't you understand?"
--Cee Lo Green

I Meant Forever

When I say "I love you"
What I mean is "forever."

Two pillows, side by side:
His and Hers.
I was always leaving my confines,
Crossing the fence,
Invading your territory,
Trying to get closer.
I wanted to climb inside of you
And curl up with my head on your heart,
And sleep enveloped in the pulsing, pumping organs of your chest,
Feeling your lungs squeeze me like a hug with your breath.

Now one pillow is lonely
Like a bed in a museum.
Unused artifact displaying history of nightly invasion/ occupancy.
Now that I am behaved on my side,
Saving your place, will you come back
And hold my hand across the border
As I sleep peaceably beside you?

When I say "forever"
I mean until the end of my life,
Though selfishness and cruelty replace
The 'love' that left,
And you took breaths so big your lungs suffocated me as I slept in your chest.
Long after your arms held me in the dark and I tried to climb onto your heart,
Long after I have given your pillow away
And crossed the border to stay in his veins,
Long after I have reclaimed the pieces of myself that I lost when you left me,

I will love you.

I desire to be deemed your darling

Nowhere I would rather be but in your arms
Peacefully.
Me holding you, you holding me
Talking/laughing/silently.

Hold me safe and tight;
Wipe my tears as I cry;
Remind me I'm your darling
And my other fears will die.

Touch me Unexpectedly,
Surprise me with a Kiss,
Let your body speak to mine
Wanting/ Needing/ bliss.

Meet my eyes across the room,
Meet me with a look.
I'll follow your form as you traverse
And love you with a glance.

If you put your arms around me gently,
Tell me that I'm loved,
I'll return it on you tenfold;
Be your ever faithful one.

I'll always be your darling if you'll hold me when I cry,
Whisper to me softly that this love is for all time.

This Biker's Worst Enemy

Cities I've biked in: Coppenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, Sandhausen, Freiburg, Iowa City, Hinsdale, Chicago

Cities I would like to bike in: all of them (excepting London, Tokyo, and Napoli)


The boyfriend has informed me I generalize too much but nevertheless I must start this post with a generalization: biking is the best way to get around a city. Of course, not every city is bike friendly so already I have undermined any credibility I possibly had in this entry.

Nevertheless, I can think of no human experience comparable to the sensation of soaring down a bike lane with the sun on your shoulders, air on your face, and traffic at your back. I imagine I'm a bird flying through the city high above the trials an travails of those poor commuters in their steel cages. Were I bird, I would shit on them, but I am mere man and alas cannot and must not do so.

At night, the city glows a dim yellow and the roads are clear. On a bike, you have the best view of the streets and sights you soar past. Walking is a snail's pace, and in a car you have to crane your neck to look up into the rooftops. On the bike you roll past the city's offerings with nothing above your helmet except the sky and the smog.

This week I got on my bike for the first time in months, and for the first time since crutches. After the painful dawdling of metal legs, flying toward Michigan Avenue on two wheels past taxis and SUV's was exhilarating.  Following a successful stop at the shoe store I strapped my shopping bag to the the handlebars and optimistically mounted my bike.

After the subsequent 45 minutes biking uphill into the wind, I stumbled into my apartment ruing the day I bought that damn Sidewinder.

Therefore, today I will be inspired by the inconveniences that are available to a biker. I have rated my most loathed nemeses below on a scale of 1-10. (Minor Inconvenience - Satan's Gift to Bikers)

These are this biker's enemies:

Intersections: (0) I love intersections. Sneaking through on a red light, or darting past stopped cars are some of the biggest advantages to the sweaty seat of the bike. There's an intersection in Chicago where Ashland, Elston, and Armitage meet. It's a big, open intersection with criss-crossing traffic patterns and deserted surroundings. Riding through with the sky above me and my periphery aware I have the sensation I am in an Imax theatre, leaning back in my seat, watching as the city and sky rush by me.

Other Bikers: (1) Other bikers don't bother me too much mainly because I am so slow I never have to pass anyone. I haven't yet figured out how drafting works, but I'm sure when I do other bikers will in fact become a positive part of my biking experience.

Fat Bikers: (2) It's pretty embarrassing when they pass my skinny ass but, again, when I figure out this whole drafting thing I will look forward to fat bikers.

Kids with buckets of water: (3.) Never ever bike through the low income neighborhood on a 95+ day when the fire hydrant is on. The likelihood is a kid with a bucket will dump its icy contents onto you and your messenger bag as you try to get through the flooding street. And, if you're like me, you may just squeeze your brakes with the force of the hulk, and point your pale, wet snout at the snickering child to yell: "Are you serious? What the fuck is wrong with you? Didn't anyone teach you any fucking manners?!" thereby proving that in fact, no one taught you any manners either.

Moms and Strollers: (6) If you zip past a woman about to cross the street, she won't even flinch. If you zip past a mom with a stroller as she's about to cross the street you a). run the risk of running over a stroller, hence securing a spot in hell b). run the risk of being chased down by the most deadly of all predators: angry mothers.

Garbage or Sewage Trucks: (4) The smell of rot ploughs into my nostrils but the ebb and flow of traffic prohibits me from either leaving the garbage truck in my wake, or being left far behind. So I must bike, gagging, along behind the garbage truck until either it turns onto another street.


CTA Buses: (5) Sharing a lane with a bus is like sharing a bathtub with a walrus.

Potholes: (6) Potholes, especially the deep quarries along North Avenue, are the only things in the city that make me glad for my heavy purple bike and its shocks. Bouncing over the old, torn up road I can feel my teeth rattling against one another.

Doors: (7) Flying open, into your path: the car door. And hence, we enter the danger zone.

Pedestrians: (8) At least drivers know  they are supposed to be paying attention, even if they don't. Pedestrians forget that they are not the only thing in the city. In Amsterdam I watched a drunken tourist step into a bike lane and promptly get run over. One morning I was zipping past the Lincoln Park Zoo when a young woman stepped in front of my bike. I stopped so fast I almost went over my handlebars. Face to face with the girl, who had never bothered to move, I yelled "fuck" at the top of my lungs, again proving that in spite of my mother's best efforts she did not raise a lady. My heart was still pounding as I started pedaling past her. She yelled sorry, but sorry wouldn't have saved either of us if I had hit her.

Distracted Drivers: (9) All drivers are on my top list of enemies. On a bike one just assumes that they must do the thinking for not only themselves but all the cars around them. The advantage of the bike is how quickly you can evade an accident, if it can be evaded. Of course, not all can be evaded. The number of white bikes chained to lampposts around the city attest the perils of the bike and I keep my fingers crossed that, with as slow as I am, most cars will manage to spot me trundling toward them.


Wind: (10) The wind is Satan saying:  "God doesn't love you." I have, on occasion, gone backwards when trying to make my way along the lake on a windy day. And going backwards when half the drivers on the road are all but aiming for you is not conducive to survival. Darwinism is out to get me and I cheat death by taking the train on the windiest of days. I have no intentions of ending up in OZ.

Last time I was at the Art Institute they had a video which featured a biker with a built-in bike lane. The video showed a biker maneuvering through a dark city with green LED lights marking a bike lane in front of and behind him as he went. I like the idea of this aggressive way to stake claim to the road that should rightfully belong to the biker. But I wanted the exhibit to show more bikers: what would the roads look like if we replaced all the cars with bikes? Probably something like Coppenhagen. Now add green LED bike lanes to each of these bikes: what a wonderful panoply of bike lanes would ensue.

Georgia O'Keefe Summer of Yesteryear

Sky Above Clouds IV

Summer in Chicago calls back a barrage of  memories: Lake Shore Drive, the Art Institute, the North Avenue Beach....all of these are places from my childhood which are now encapsulated into my adulthood as I've returned to live in the city of my childhood summers. However, there's a different ambiance in my memories, one which can't be tainted or altered or replaced or replicated by new memories.

Last summer I drove Lake Shore Drive everyday for two weeks in the stifling heat with no air conditioning. My windows were down and as I sat in rush hour admiring Buckingham Fountain and the gorgeous lakefront property I didn't once in that time think about the day my mom's car died in traffic around Monroe street with my sister and I in tow. We were both young enough to sit in the backseat, and I vaguely remember some panic emanating from the front as cars rushed by all around our stranded vehicle. Before I could realize what was happening a thin black man was single-handedly pushed us to safety. I remember him looking exhausted as he pushed our fat car out of the center lane.

I think about that day when I think of Georgia O'Keefe's clouds floating away into oblivion. Hanging above the staircase hiding at the end of my favorite exhibits, Sky Above Clouds IV makes me think of my childhood. I always think of those clouds like the lake: bright and blue, both bringing with them a sense of endlessness as they disappear as far as the eye can see. Somehow the blue lake and the white clouds intermingle to remind me of elementary school summers in the city, when we girls were all healthy enough to travel together to the lakefront for day trips while dad was at work.

The summer of my yesteryear is an impressionist summer: filled with images of clouds and poppy fields, haystacks and blue stained glass. Dare I blame the constant trips to the lion-guarded museum and never ending trips to the galleries immediately west of the grand staircase filled with the Monets, Van Goghs, and Renoirs for my consistent nostalgia, my unending association of seasons with memories, my strong sensation of my past like photos snapping before my eyes with not just the scene but the mood of an entire period of existence. I remember life in impressionist scenes.

London 2006: the dorm in Kensington, hot with that dorm smell; the corner against the brick wall where I made-out under the security camera for hours; roses and vine-covered architecture; the silver Ferrari; the quiet lane; the outdoor seating at the cafe; the culinary school around the corner; heat and newness and excitement- so much excitement I could never sleep; the sound of the garbage truck in the morning and that feeling of awakening: enlivening and rebirthing: the otherness of being somewhere so new so perfect; the late day exhaustion and the sticky bliss. Last time I went to Gloucester Road it was cold and cloudy. It wasn't the place of my yesteryear where I sat on a white balcony in an England shirt overlooking a posh road with a Penguin in hand. A view down Gloucester Road. Late afternoon stale light. Reds, greens, pinks, light blues, and silver. Lots of green hangs over the gray stone pavement.

Iowa 2007: Total contentment. The white-walled house with my London pictures inundating my brain with idyllic memories. Hours spent with Middlesex in Dad's old chair by the window. The Farmer's Market and the drive through the corn to Mt. Vernon. My spot at Lake MacBride, swimming off the rocks. Everything steeped in sun. Mornings at the Java House waiting for the sun to rise feeling like a morning serving customers at the perfect cafe from my memories. Him. Sweaty sex and his bleach-stained T-shirts. His hair cut too close to his head so a halo of white skin poked out around his ears. Lying out on College Green wishing I had the patience for a suntan. A girl sits on a beige chair reading. White morning sunlight. Green trees through the window. White walls and a beige rug. Her face is still and the room is tidy, white and black frames decorate the white white walls. She is small in the scene.

London 2008: Limehouse. Dirty and gray. Cold. Poverty. The man with the smile etched into his lined face pushing his walker in front of his swollen wrapped feet trying to cross the road at Bondway and getting only halfway when the light changed. Looking back and wondering if, how, I could help. Watching in horror as traffic..... waited? Shocked. The smell of bacon and croissants wafting from the coffeeshop at the station. Breaking a sweat speedwalking through the tube with Coldplay in my ears. Life in Technicolor. Reading the Metro and feeling gray and bleak. Dr. House and pidgeon shit. The flat in All Saints and the yellow wooden peace and quiet above the roar of the dirty scummy city below. Life, in its brutal essence. A girl crowded on a gray, dirty subway car. People sit pushed together. No one smiles. Newspapers and the black of the Tube walls racing past the car.

London 09: An idyllic disaster. A confused explosion of distress and unabashed gluttonous pleasures against a backdrop of quiet walks and pastoral Surrey. Still open wounds. A blurry cataract-drawn pastoral scene of a green with an old brick building behind. There is an unidentified figure, a few blurry dots in the background. the midday sun is blocked by a single white cloud, casting an aura of foreboding.

My summers each come with their own impressionist painting, steeped in light and mood. Some have thick brush strokes, some a cloudy atmosphere. Some are a human scene, some distinctly location. They are all my impressionist summers, dominated by a mood and remembered by their atmosphere. Now my Chicago summers wait for their own impression, for which I will wait a little longer as I look toward the Sky Above Lake from my Westside prison of gray metal crutches.

My Wildflowers are Dead in a Dunkin' Donuts Bag

My wildflowers are dead in a Dunkin' Donuts bag under the back porch which I flooded with my compost bucket that has not composted yet because I haven't got any worms.

It's not a metaphor for life.

This summer marks the third summer in a row I will be stateside; moreover I will spend the entire summer recovering from ankle surgery. The prospects aren't good for a successful summer. Therefore I mapped out the things I love about Europe and life that are absent in my American life. When I think of bliss I think of Montmarte on a summer day. Cliche, I know. Even calling it cliche is cliche. But I imagine a sunny, white-walled apartment with flowers and cat on the deck, overlooking a small neighborhood street lined with cafes and outdoor seating. I imagine a baguette and bruschetta on the table and espresso or red wine in my hand. (Probably espresso since the time is early morning, but if I can't drink red wine at 10 am in my fantasy when can I? I surely wouldn't be eating bruschetta at 10 am... so on second thought we will move the time to 11:30 or 12 and I will have wine thank you very much.) Music floats through the room, there's an open book on the table, and somehow in the midst of all this bliss I've found time to write.

Where does Dunkin' Donuts fit in? Watch:

I set out on my 10 step plan for a European Humboldt Park summer of domestic, one-footed bliss.

Step #1: Sunny white-walled apartment. The living room is mostly white except for that one mint wall...close enough.

Step #2: Flowers.

Pre Wildflower Genocide

Flowers are a bit burgeuoisie for yours truly, even in my EuroFantasy, but herbs are practical and bring me to #6-baguettes and bruschetta. You can't have bruschetta without herbs or tomatoes. Strawberries bring to mind London summers, another place of joy in my mind so I will plant those too. I plant my garden, including wildflowers in an attempt to bring some pollenating insects for the berries. (A gardener suggested native plants and when I think of Illinois wildflowers come to mind.)

I plant enough seeds in each pot so I could transplant some later on (30-50 per pot). -Mistake 1- Within 2 weeks all the plants (except strawberries which suffered a terrible fate) were sprouting seedlings. Lots and lots of seedlings. My cilantro now looks like grass. There will be a genocide of cilantro when I decide which plant should live and thin the rest. I had no idea that thinning didn't mean transplanting when I started, so when my cilantro begins to look like my parent's overrun weed garden I decide it is time to move some plants -Mistake 2- over so I can have two pots of each herb going all summer.

I start with wildflowers, sagely, as those were always the least practical plant in my container garden. I do as told on You Tube, watering them an hour before transplanting, tap the pot, and then VOILA dumped them out. (Let's call these -Mistakes 3 and 4 collectively-.)

No root ball....uh-oh....(No shit no root ball these are no more than tiny little bean sprouts- you know the kind you put on your sandwich? Dipshit. ) Previously, when you asked what happened to the wildflowers I may have told you it was the cat. I lied. I happened to the wildflowers.

After half an hour of desperately sticking little sprouts back into the pot and planting some new seeds since the rest are going to die, I decide against transplanting any more plants. I make some new pots with the new Miracle Gro soil that weirds me out and is NOT a part of my French fantasy and put all pots on the deck. Four days later I have one live wildflower seedling.

-Mistake 5- is not my fault, but fate. I wake and it is pouring rain. The boyfriend, who I could usually get to rescue the pots, is working OT and I have no one (save cat) to help me bring in the new plants as it torrentially downpours. I decide plastic bags are going to be the best I can do on one foot, and I finally hop over to the door to see little seedling carcasses floating in a puddle of death in the wildflower pot. I hop out in the rain (surgery dressing, pajamas, and all!) to rescue the plants but (-Mistake 6-) the deck is flooding. If you put your compost bucket (which is not compost yet but just watermelon rinds and mildew) on top of the drainage pipe to keep the cat from escaping to certain doom to the alley below through the drainage pipe, the roof will flood.

I get the water gushing off the roof (thankful the building below is currently unoccupied as I can't be accused of any resultant water damage) and rescue the struggling oregano and preserve the dignity of the wildflowers. Each plant gets its own happy hat of plastic bag and the wildflowers are pushed under the deck in a dunkin donuts bag. I hop inside, smearing mud all over the walls, but content that my flowers are rescued.

The sun comes out a few hours later and I hop back outside to unhat my happy little plants (-Mistake 7 as it is sun-showering.) By the time I come home from work it is chucking buckets again and I am back out in the rain on one foot and the wildflowers go back under the deck where they have been for two days until I see a clear blue sky (-Mistake 8-? CO2?)


They never even made it to seedlings, so I won't bother telling you what happened to the tomato seeds, because I don't know. Needless to say I won't be getting tomatoes this summer. Not even the fast sprout hybrid (wait did that say fast sprout or no sprout?).

So what's the lesson? Besides call my friend the gardener before any more gardening disasters? There's always a grand conclusion, especially if it involves a Mississippi-sized flood on the back roof.

The lesson: I'm writing about it. I've spent 50 dollars on soil and seeds and planter kits and all I've got are dirty garbage bags on the back porch and mud on my little shoe the doctor gave me for my healing foot. I have 8 Mistakes, but I've got step 2 of Christine's road to happiness: "flowers and cat on the deck." Does it matter that because of cat the deck flooded and the flowers are dead? I will keep you posted as I decide.

Wicker Park

The fountain is empty except for some dead leaves, but the sun is bearing down upon the benches circling the park's centerpiece. I find a seat just beyond the shade beside a man with a bag of chips and a book. Looking around, my eyes will pass over some people, whose days will continue on unnoticed by me. Other participants in this scene I will notice for no particular reason.

For instance, a tan dark-haired woman sits reading in the sunlight. She wears a red coat and a red headband in her short wavy hair. It's the same haircut my mom wore in the early 90's. There are deep lines in her face, but they're not the fine lines that hang off the sagging skin of an old woman. They're tight crevasses in firm skin that has been aged by weather; they sit on her face like valleys in a dessert. A younger man and woman who are holding hands come and greet her. Hugs are exchanged and a brown paper bag is pulled from a satchel as all three settle back on the bench. 

Some people will impose themselves into my conscious coincidentally. Some people will impose their existence onto everyone else around the fountain shamelessly. Some people are noteworthy quite by accident.

A couple sits in silence. She sits on a bench holding a book open, but she is looking across the fountain. Her eyes are hid behind dark sunglasses. He is squatting on the curb beside her. His hands are folded and his face is drawn. They don't speak or look at one another.

"Colin! Colin, no!" A little boy turns and waddles back toward his mother. She has interrupted his game, but her only instructions are to stay close so it resumes shortly. His high voice chirps and chatters unintelligibly as he totters around, a puffy coat threatening to topple beneath stubby legs.

A crowd of poorly clad people, several in wheelchairs, are making a ruckus on the two benches closest to the park building. At first I find their noise unnerving, but as I look I am subdued. Laughter and  loud shouts of joy carry around the fount.


My attention is drawn to a gangly boy walking along the rim of the fountain. His khakis are dirt-stained but he is clean. He stops after a while and turns around. Dad is right behind him, walking the rim of the fountain like a tight rope, and he continues forward. Dad's jeans have holes and his T-shirt is faded. There's a dog leash in his hand, on the end of which a shaggy brown dog trots beside him. "Dad, how are you balancing like that?" "Walter is helping me," Dad declares as he totters on the fountain rim and his son jumps into the empty bowl. They make it around the rim before a woman in a long coat sits on the edge of the fountain, talking to two men.

Across the fountain, the trio with the lady in the red coat sit in silence, each with a book in their lap. Heads are bowed identically in the sunlight.

Colin really can't resist following Dad, Walter, and Son around the fountain as they take off on a race. He giggles, tottering after until his mother calls him back. Dad walks around the people sitting on the edge, but then he is back on the fountain rim. Dad isn't young. His hair has grey flecks but his demeanor is youthful. He calls for his aged dog to hurry along as he races Son back to the starting point.

Son jumps into the bowl to get around the woman on the edge, and though she looks at him they do not speak as he passes her.

The ruckus by the building rises again as there is an animated discussion about a marriage. A woman in a leather jacket gets up to make a point and someone else takes her seat as the group reorganizes like a flock of geese squawking as they bumble past one another.

Mom and Sisters show up as Dad sits on the ground on the fountain, Walter on one side, Son on the other. "Boys only!" He insists as Sisters start talking simultaneously. Son and Sisters take off on a race. The woman with the long coat hesitantly gets up from her seat on the edge as the children jump in the bowl to go around her. But before long they are on foot, breaking their self-made rules as they race on level pavement to reach Mom, Dad, and Walter first.

There is some loud laughing debate about who has won and the woman in the long coat looks over with her two companions. There is a teasing note carried on the wind toward me and the three burst into mean laughter. I decide I don't like them. They are dressed in recycled clothes with unshaven faces and messy hair. In another place they may have been friends with Mom and Dad and Walter. There is no Burberry or Prada on Mom or Dad. Dad wears sunglasses and I suspect he doesn't quite feel his age, but his children, wife, and dog look happy. The three who laugh don't seem to share smiles of joy. Their humor is at someone else's expense. They are old enough to be parents, but I wonder what their occupations are: weekend busker? resident snob? smelly bar local?

Colin is racing himself in circles around the fountain now. I hear him scream "winnnninnnnng" as he passes.

Across from me the man and woman with the books rise. They say goodbye to the woman in the red jacket. I wonder where the brown paper bag went.

Dad Mom Walter Son and Sisters take their leave to get pizza. Quiet follows their absence and the woman in the long coat and her friends are happily seated on the edge of the fountain again. Now, with the exception of the noisy group by the building who are finding great amusement in regaling tales of "the guy you play chess with, yeah him, his wife," it is quiet. We all stay seated on our respective benches. A jogger passes through, and a richly dressed family with heels and Jersey accents walk through, but there are no permanent interruptions to our solitude. We can all sit in our cloud of hipster ignorance and continue believing our single, childless lives are deserving of this solitude.

Midwesonal

The boots sitting just within my closet must be stowed, the down jacket must be folded away and boxed up, and the the box of hat and gloves must be stored under the bed. Yesterday was the first day of spring. Not March 21, the vernal equinox when the world was cold and miserable, but yesterday when the sun was out and the thermostat said 80 (or 26 for you metric scalers). It was "a scorcher" and, like the pale-skinned Irish descendant I am, I managed a light pink sunburn. The whole city seemed more alive than it has been in months, as if like plants we were all just waiting for a little sunlight before we peeked our heads out from under piles of pea coats and began to photosynthesize.

What is it about the spring and summer that enlivens us so? One would never have guessed we were still deep in a recession yesterday. The outdoor patios were packed and even house pets were making their way to the restaurants for some conversation and appetizers. Why are we more inclined to head out when the weather is nice? Just because we can sit outside and drink to a din of revving engines, sirens, and tires hitting potholes? There is of course the simple explanation that the weather is, after all, nicer out but we're Midwesterners: blizzards can't keep us in. So why will first breezy day of summer draw us all out, to find a little spare change in our meager budgets and lavish our money on a table at the cafe?

I, like so many others, spent the weekend sitting out at the bars on Division, drinking beers and letting the sunlight defrost my frozen self. The sun seeped past my pale complexion and seemingly all the way into the part of my soul that has spent the last 4 months repeating: 2011 blows . Case in point, yesterday I had to wait 40 minutes outside for a bus, and I didn't even mind (rare occurrence!). I sat on a bench, reading, oblivious to everything except my own extreme contentment.

Life feels better today. Today we went grocery shopping and I was full of optimism. "I want to go to that cafe some time. Oh, and we should get sushi before you head to work sometime soon. We need to check out that French restaurant I was telling you about. Life is good. I can't wait for summer." These were unusual words from someone who spent the last three months informing people, "I'm not going out tonight. I'm tired," and dreading the summer months, when my pocketbook gets thin and consequently so do I.

I should move to California; perhaps my life would change and I would spend all my days sitting on the back porch reading, sipping lattes, and being perfectly content.

After all, I hate winter. I am incapable of heating my own body and spend the entire winter, from January-March, locked away under various blankets trying to convince either the cat or the boyfriend to come snuggle. I don't like going out even to a party in the cold, and this year I refused to clean my car for 6 months simply because I didn't want to spend that much time outside. I spent a weekend in Arizona this February, and though I didn't find Phoenix very much to my tastes, I also didn't want to leave. I had to return to a blizzard, and more shoveling myself out of parking spaces while lamenting the loss of each feather from my down jacket as one tiny iota less of heat. 

Now, summer is coming and everything is perfect. 

Yet, there is something about growing up in the Midwest that makes me indifferent to the seasons, in spite of my complete abhorrence of them. I would never dream of moving somewhere to stay warm. (For Heaven's sake I even went backpacking through Germany in November once- not exactly the Bahamas is it?) Top on the list of places I would like to move are Boston, New York, or Minneapolis. None of these cities have mild or temperate climates. I can in the same sentence I am complaining about the cold rave about wishing to move to Boston. What has life in the midwest done to warp my mind so I can't make this simple connection?

My thought patterns: Boston is North - North is cold - Cold is miserable- THEREFORE Boston will be a great place to live.

Is it because I am young and poor and too used to denying myself any pleasure? Is it because I dread the heat of an Arizona or Texas summer nearly as much as the cold of Chicago?

I do not believe there is any reason for my self-denial other than years of  enduring. I have lived with seasons all my life. And the truth is, I actually love the first snow, the wintery snuggliness, the cookies, the hot chocolate, the christmas decorations covered in a light dusting....if we could remove January, February, and March from the calendar perhaps life would be perfect. But then, where would be the joy in the first day of spring, and laying aside the boots and gloves? Perhaps the beauty is in the contrast, and the novelty of sun after so many months of cloud cover.

Converse Cat

I talk to my cat. Before you jump to any conclusions about the state of my sanity let me clear up any uncertainty on this point: the cat talks back. What he is saying may at times be a mystery, but more often than not our communication skills are adept.

For example, after a sneeze I will nearly always be greeted with a small clicking as the cat either says to me: "Bless you" or perhaps "There you go making that noise and waking me up from my nap again."

In the mornings I can be sure once my alarm is shut off a small black and white head will pop up along the side of the bed. Perhaps he'll get into bed with me or perhaps he'll wait until I get up, but the second I am on my feet there is a merciless whining that declares: "I want food and I may or may not want cuddling depending on how much food you put in my bowl. NOW."

While cleaning the room I will hear a small scamper and in bursts the cat with a soft rolling "brr," informing me: "I want to play" or perhaps in his mind: "I will destroy you."

Things get hairy when a loud yowl escapes him, and then I know to be on the lookout for the signs of a cat about to mark his territory. I will allow us this miscommunication on the basis of gender: I know nothing of these masculine urges to stake claim by administering uncanny amounts of cologne or refusing to use deodorant. Ultimately, spreading one's scent  (good or bad) all over my things. Here, our communication skills disintegrate.

Gender issues aside, I greatly value our conversations. We may be at an impasse as to the actual ownership of the things within my home and how they should smell but he nevertheless provides me the most reliable companion. There is always a familiar face at the door and there is always a companion sharing my space. There is entertainment in the unexpected whims of a feline who believes that ferrot rocher wrappers and soy milk tops MUST be chased under the couch. And there is someone who just wants to be loved. We may define love differently and we may offer it in different ways but we share in our deepest desires: we need each other. He needs someone to throw the ball and open the door to the patio, and I need someone to greet me in the mornings and follow me from room to room . He needs me to open the lid to the peanut butter and I need him to nap beside me while I read. Most importantly, we need each other's conversation. I need to hear him say "welcome home" and he needs to hear me say "dinner time."