My first job in the Senate was answering constituent mail. Not just letters, but emails and (often irate) phone calls. There were about six of us covering our large Midwestern state, most in our early twenties, divided into issue areas. I was in charge of health care, abortion, and numerous “children and family” issues.
Our supervisor was a sweater-vested, mustachioed man who really would have been better off being a junior high algebra teacher. He developed a packet for the Legislative Correspondents that included a number of sample letters, tips and pitfalls to avoid. It opened with a quote from his own father (who I think actually was an algebra teacher), “Do not write to be understood. Write so that you cannot be misunderstood.”
Bullshit.
I worked on Capitol Hill for almost ten years. I graduated from writing letters to writing speeches and op-eds and press releases. And trust me – there are plenty of times in politics where you just want to hit that sweet spot between saying what you mean and meaning what you say. Ambiguity rules most of the time.
When I left government for the private sector, it was way, way worse. Absolute garbage like “suboptimal efficiencies” and “leveraging key stakeholders” seem to be of far more value to the corporate and non-profit world than real English. There is this limited universe of jargon and if you aren’t borrowing heavily from it, then you are regarded with suspicion. I have seen clients visibly relax when I finally break down and throw out something about “target audiences” or “messaging.”
I’m not naïve. I know that different professions come with different cultures and languages and norms. But as I try to make the transition to some “real” writing, I feel sort of like a Replicant going against her programming.
Ideas and phrases tumble around in my brain, but by the time I go to write them down, they’re all clenched up and scrubbed down.
And I don't trust my own voice. Even up there, when I wrote "should have been a junior high algebra teacher" my brain immediately started scolding: Well, that's just what you think. Who are you to say what another human being should or should not have done with his or her life? Just because he wore a lot of sweater vests doesn't devalue his work...
“Resist the urge to be fair,” said Stephen Elliott when I went to his workshop earlier this month.
I’m adding to that – “Resist the urge to write talking points.”
23 December 2009
11 December 2009
Tales From the 22
The first really cold day – cold enough that I pull out my puffy white Princess Leia coat for my trip downtown. It hasn’t been cleaned – I was banking on not having to use it until January, so it’s a little dingy and I apparently used it as a coaster at some point last winter, as evidenced by the dirty round stain on the front right breast.
I shouldn’t worry about how I look in this get-up. Chicagoans take winter seriously, and even in my self-consciously snazzy neighborhood, pretty much every woman on the street is wearing some version of this coat. My ex-boyfriend used to call me “The Grub” when I wore it, and I guess that’s not an image I really want to fixate on, especially since I’ve been experiencing an acute case of “can’t keep my pants zipped” and “damn, this skirt fit last winter.” I want to be an alpine goddess, but instead I’m all grubby.
On the bus, I try to prevent a full-on downward spiral by taking deep breaths and looking out the window. “I am a literary icon….I am the Leader of the Rebel Alliance…” all kinds of little made-up mantras.
She gets on at Division. Tall, pretty, thin. Her hair is long, straight and black, in one of those messy ponytails that also look perfect. She plops her bag down on the seat in front of me and starts dialing her cell. Here are the things I can tell about her: she is some sort of a cocktail waitress, she just rolled out of bed and she hits the self tanner way, way too hard.
Then she starts babbling to her friend in that dumb white girl voice that so many people use these days.
Listening to her is like picking a scab, revolting and irresistible.
How did I get here? What’s the use of being all tortured and poor and feeling like a fatass on a public bus? Why didn’t I just quit eating and get implants and start serving drinks at Crescendo when I was 23? I want to be like her. Pretty and stupid.
At Hubbard, she starts pulling the cord frantically, still on the phone. “What’s going on with this bus? ” she asks her friend on the line. “Is this Kinzie?” She pulls. Pulls. Stop Requested appears on the front sign, so I don’t know what she’s waiting for. Maybe she can’t read it?
She pulls it again and again, looking out the window.
“Is this Kinzie?” she calls out to the guy standing at the back door, ready to get off.
“Yeah,” he says, and steps off the bus.
She leaps up, slings the bag over her shoulder and stands at the door as it closes in her face. Still on the phone, she stands there, staring. The light’s about to change and she’s going to miss her stop.
“Can you open this door?” She yells up at the driver as he’s about to pull away from the curb.
“All you have to do is lean on it!” booms the man in the seat next to me, distinguished in his white hair, herringbone wool coat and briefcase.
Dumb girl gets the message, pushes the door open and wobbles out into the street in her Uggs, still talking of boob jobs and parties at Stone Lotus and her boyfriend.
My seatmate turns to me, “That is a very foolish young woman,” he says in his loud lawyer voice.
“Yes.” I say, nodding. “Yes, she is.”
And I resume my mental diplomatic mission to Aldaraan.
I shouldn’t worry about how I look in this get-up. Chicagoans take winter seriously, and even in my self-consciously snazzy neighborhood, pretty much every woman on the street is wearing some version of this coat. My ex-boyfriend used to call me “The Grub” when I wore it, and I guess that’s not an image I really want to fixate on, especially since I’ve been experiencing an acute case of “can’t keep my pants zipped” and “damn, this skirt fit last winter.” I want to be an alpine goddess, but instead I’m all grubby.
On the bus, I try to prevent a full-on downward spiral by taking deep breaths and looking out the window. “I am a literary icon….I am the Leader of the Rebel Alliance…” all kinds of little made-up mantras.
She gets on at Division. Tall, pretty, thin. Her hair is long, straight and black, in one of those messy ponytails that also look perfect. She plops her bag down on the seat in front of me and starts dialing her cell. Here are the things I can tell about her: she is some sort of a cocktail waitress, she just rolled out of bed and she hits the self tanner way, way too hard.
Then she starts babbling to her friend in that dumb white girl voice that so many people use these days.
“I’m so tired. I shouldn’t have stayed out so late with Brandon and those guys. But I’m not going to get to see him until, like, New Year’s. I mean, he’s going to be pre-partying and then football, and if he’s pre-partying, there’s going to be an after party. And when he parties he likes to get fucked up, you know? But I’m like, it’s going to be two days before Christmas and the day of my boob job? So I guess he’s not going to like, be there to take care of me? But whatever. I mean he gets fucked up. But I’ll be ready to go out by New Year’s. They do the surgeries on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and the woman said that I’ll be sore for like, four days after, but in about a week I should be fine, so by New Year’s it’ll be a week and two days, I think I’ll be fine. I’m so excited. So I don’t know if I’ll see him on Christmas, though. I’m staying out at my mom and dad’s so that I can like, be there after my boob job and for Christmas and whatever. He said he might come over. I’ll be sore, but it will be worth it. And I’ll see him on New Year’s anyway…”
Listening to her is like picking a scab, revolting and irresistible.
How did I get here? What’s the use of being all tortured and poor and feeling like a fatass on a public bus? Why didn’t I just quit eating and get implants and start serving drinks at Crescendo when I was 23? I want to be like her. Pretty and stupid.
At Hubbard, she starts pulling the cord frantically, still on the phone. “What’s going on with this bus? ” she asks her friend on the line. “Is this Kinzie?” She pulls. Pulls. Stop Requested appears on the front sign, so I don’t know what she’s waiting for. Maybe she can’t read it?
She pulls it again and again, looking out the window.
“Is this Kinzie?” she calls out to the guy standing at the back door, ready to get off.
“Yeah,” he says, and steps off the bus.
She leaps up, slings the bag over her shoulder and stands at the door as it closes in her face. Still on the phone, she stands there, staring. The light’s about to change and she’s going to miss her stop.
“Can you open this door?” She yells up at the driver as he’s about to pull away from the curb.
“All you have to do is lean on it!” booms the man in the seat next to me, distinguished in his white hair, herringbone wool coat and briefcase.
Dumb girl gets the message, pushes the door open and wobbles out into the street in her Uggs, still talking of boob jobs and parties at Stone Lotus and her boyfriend.
My seatmate turns to me, “That is a very foolish young woman,” he says in his loud lawyer voice.
“Yes.” I say, nodding. “Yes, she is.”
And I resume my mental diplomatic mission to Aldaraan.
22 November 2009
True Love
“Before you go, there was one thing I meant to tell you last week – try meditating on ‘true love.’"
I am leaving my therapist’s office, a blue and purple painted cocoon with glass Tiffany lamps and a comfy blue recliner. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me. I’ve been knocked off my game by a recurrence of unreasonable sadness and lack of motivation.
“I think that’s what you’re really needing in your life right now,” she says, and sends me on my way.
Over the last year, she has coaxed my cynical self into trying some guided meditations. I held back for a time – it seemed a little bit like “The Secret” or some other weird Oprah shit. But I’ll be dammed if it didn’t start to work. Really work.
Riding back to my neighborhood on the 36 bus, I turn the idea of “true love” over a few times in my head. I tack it up in there, like a Post-it on my wall.
I had been writing at Starbucks for an hour when my phone jingled with a text message from The Russian:
Do u want this cat?
The Russian and I don’t have a relationship so much as a chemical dependency. One that’s been going on for more years than I care to admit and that’s featured failed attempts on both of our parts to have a real boyfriend/girlfriend.
At the end of the summer, The Russian’s youngest sister, just out of college, moved to the City with her two cats. But her new roommate already had two cats, so one of the sister’s kitties was sent to live with The Russian.
The Russian and The Cat developed an uneasy coexistence, punctuated with exclamations of “Cat! Fuck off!” (The Russian) and bouts of bed pissing (The Cat).
“If he pees in my fucking bed one more time, I’m putting him out in the street,” said The Russian one night, as The Cat lay purring on my chest.
“Nooo!” I protested on behalf of the sweet black furball, “He’s just lonely.”
“Don't you want another cat?” he asked me.
Not especially. The prospect of being single, living alone with multiple cats hits a little too close to the stereotype for my liking. But I made him promise that if he got to the point of booting The Cat to the streets or a shelter, he’d call me first.
So here we are, a couple months after that fateful utterance. A flurry of texts reports that The Cat has to go, there’s a six-month waiting list for the no-kill shelters, and the sister is in tears.
Back at the apartment, I look into the blue eyes of Andromeda, my sweet six year-old Siamese mix. “Brace yourself,” I tell her. “You’re getting a little brother.”
Within an hour The Russian’s impossibly tall, beautiful and apologetic sister is standing in my living room clutching a pink cat carrier and a sad plastic Jewel-Osco bag with The Cat’s meager belongings: a box of Purina Indoor Cat Formula and one toy mouse with a bell on its tail.
Before I go to bed, I dutifully turn on my meditation CD, trying to push aside the sounds of Andromeda’s territorial growling and The Cat’s curious trilling. I send up my request for True Love, and The Cat tangles himself in the window blinds.
I get about one hour of sleep.
It’s been a few days. The Cat has been renamed Odin. He and Andromeda are getting along surprisingly well, though he can’t understand why she won’t just play with him already. He has a meow loud enough to wake the dead, smoky tufts of fur between his toes and can entertain himself for a good hour dribbling a jingle ball all around the apartment with his paws like a soccer player.
I announced the news on Facebook, to congratulations and ribbing from my friends. “What’s the official cat lady threshold?” asked C.
I’m telling myself that it’s five. And that this is the last one.
And I guess I’m not sure how I feel that I sent a request for True Love into the Universe and in return I got…..another cat.
Siblings (with toy)
I am leaving my therapist’s office, a blue and purple painted cocoon with glass Tiffany lamps and a comfy blue recliner. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me. I’ve been knocked off my game by a recurrence of unreasonable sadness and lack of motivation.
“I think that’s what you’re really needing in your life right now,” she says, and sends me on my way.
Over the last year, she has coaxed my cynical self into trying some guided meditations. I held back for a time – it seemed a little bit like “The Secret” or some other weird Oprah shit. But I’ll be dammed if it didn’t start to work. Really work.
Riding back to my neighborhood on the 36 bus, I turn the idea of “true love” over a few times in my head. I tack it up in there, like a Post-it on my wall.
I had been writing at Starbucks for an hour when my phone jingled with a text message from The Russian:
Do u want this cat?
The Russian and I don’t have a relationship so much as a chemical dependency. One that’s been going on for more years than I care to admit and that’s featured failed attempts on both of our parts to have a real boyfriend/girlfriend.
At the end of the summer, The Russian’s youngest sister, just out of college, moved to the City with her two cats. But her new roommate already had two cats, so one of the sister’s kitties was sent to live with The Russian.
The Russian and The Cat developed an uneasy coexistence, punctuated with exclamations of “Cat! Fuck off!” (The Russian) and bouts of bed pissing (The Cat).
“If he pees in my fucking bed one more time, I’m putting him out in the street,” said The Russian one night, as The Cat lay purring on my chest.
“Nooo!” I protested on behalf of the sweet black furball, “He’s just lonely.”
“Don't you want another cat?” he asked me.
Not especially. The prospect of being single, living alone with multiple cats hits a little too close to the stereotype for my liking. But I made him promise that if he got to the point of booting The Cat to the streets or a shelter, he’d call me first.
So here we are, a couple months after that fateful utterance. A flurry of texts reports that The Cat has to go, there’s a six-month waiting list for the no-kill shelters, and the sister is in tears.
Back at the apartment, I look into the blue eyes of Andromeda, my sweet six year-old Siamese mix. “Brace yourself,” I tell her. “You’re getting a little brother.”
Within an hour The Russian’s impossibly tall, beautiful and apologetic sister is standing in my living room clutching a pink cat carrier and a sad plastic Jewel-Osco bag with The Cat’s meager belongings: a box of Purina Indoor Cat Formula and one toy mouse with a bell on its tail.
Before I go to bed, I dutifully turn on my meditation CD, trying to push aside the sounds of Andromeda’s territorial growling and The Cat’s curious trilling. I send up my request for True Love, and The Cat tangles himself in the window blinds.
I get about one hour of sleep.
It’s been a few days. The Cat has been renamed Odin. He and Andromeda are getting along surprisingly well, though he can’t understand why she won’t just play with him already. He has a meow loud enough to wake the dead, smoky tufts of fur between his toes and can entertain himself for a good hour dribbling a jingle ball all around the apartment with his paws like a soccer player.
I announced the news on Facebook, to congratulations and ribbing from my friends. “What’s the official cat lady threshold?” asked C.
I’m telling myself that it’s five. And that this is the last one.
And I guess I’m not sure how I feel that I sent a request for True Love into the Universe and in return I got…..another cat.
Siblings (with toy)
Welcome Odin
16 November 2009
Depression & Lethargy
The change of season. The holidays. My recent bout with swine flu.
I'm an American, and a problem-solver and was raised in the Protestant tradition. So I've been thrashing about trying to put my finger on what has caused this recent fog of sadness to settle in like a low pressure weather system.
While the cause is elusive, the evidence is unmistakeable. This apartment has been full of thirteen-hour sleeping binges, rumpled pajama pants, dirty hair and spider solitare on the computer. Writing? Not so much.
I've been dealing with this my whole life, so I know some reliable antidotes. Yoga. Long walks outside. Reading books, watching movies. Homemade soup and a glass or two of wine.
And there's this part of me that stays outside of myself, exasperated. "You just watched Sophie's Choice for God's sake! How could you possibly be so whiny about your life after that?!" Or: "Why can't you be one of those people who throws herself into her work? You could have written a whole book by now!"
Trying to be patient. Trying to be gentle. It's harder than it looks.
I'm an American, and a problem-solver and was raised in the Protestant tradition. So I've been thrashing about trying to put my finger on what has caused this recent fog of sadness to settle in like a low pressure weather system.
While the cause is elusive, the evidence is unmistakeable. This apartment has been full of thirteen-hour sleeping binges, rumpled pajama pants, dirty hair and spider solitare on the computer. Writing? Not so much.
I've been dealing with this my whole life, so I know some reliable antidotes. Yoga. Long walks outside. Reading books, watching movies. Homemade soup and a glass or two of wine.
And there's this part of me that stays outside of myself, exasperated. "You just watched Sophie's Choice for God's sake! How could you possibly be so whiny about your life after that?!" Or: "Why can't you be one of those people who throws herself into her work? You could have written a whole book by now!"
Trying to be patient. Trying to be gentle. It's harder than it looks.
13 October 2009
June in the Apartment
What she is doing is laying on the bed. But not in the bed.
She is face down, horizontally at the foot of her bed at 2:00 in the afternoon. Her eyes are closed and, although she is wide awake, she has decided she will not move from this spot.
“Get up!”
It is her grandfather, his bald head floating upside down from the corner of the ceiling.
She ignores him. Pear-scented lotion has transferred from her skin to the sheets and she inhales it along with her morning breath.
“Come on, get up!” right into her ear.
“I’m sitting this one out,” she says to him, though the mattress.
“Sitting out?” He cackles. “You can’t sit out the month of June! Get up.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about” she snarls and shifts her face so it’s hidden beneath the pillow.
“Oh, so now I don’t know what I am talking about?” he taunts. He has grabbed a blade of the ceiling fan and spins with it, hooting down at her.
“Grandpa – cut it out. Just leave me alone.”
“OK. I’ll leave you alone, but do me one favor.”
She looks up and sees that he has pulled out a tobacco pouch. RED MAN is printed in scarlet block letters next to an Indian chief in full feathered head dress.
“No! Do not chew that in here, I mean it!” she sits up in bed.
Too late – he stuffs a pinch in his translucent cheek. She can see it in there, soaking as he hovers above in the lotus position like a demented Buddha.
“Go get me a can to spit in” he orders thickly through the accumulating saliva.
“No. I said I’m not getting up.”
“OK, then…” she can see him eyeing the white sheets, tobacco juice pulsing against his gums.
“No, wait! I’m going! Just wait!” she leaps out of bed and runs to the bathroom for a pink plastic cup. Running back with it, she remembers.
“Damn it, grandpa.”
He’s laughing at her. The pouch, the tobacco spit and the threat of stained sheets have disappeared.
“But you’re up! I got you up!”
Sighing, she heads for the kitchen. “Yeah, you got me.”
Sun is spilling through the window and she fills the coffee pot from the faucet, pulls a clean filter from the cupboard and dumps coffee from the jar in the fridge. Her stomach is rumbling from the long stint in bed as she sits at the table to make a grocery list. Strawberries, asparagus, half and half…
“Remember last summer, when you made s’mores on the stove?” Her grandfather’s head is poking up from one of the gas burners.
“Yeah?”
“You still have marshmallows in here!” his voice calls out from the cupboard.
She shakes her head and adds graham crackers, chocolate to the list.
She is face down, horizontally at the foot of her bed at 2:00 in the afternoon. Her eyes are closed and, although she is wide awake, she has decided she will not move from this spot.
“Get up!”
It is her grandfather, his bald head floating upside down from the corner of the ceiling.
She ignores him. Pear-scented lotion has transferred from her skin to the sheets and she inhales it along with her morning breath.
“Come on, get up!” right into her ear.
“I’m sitting this one out,” she says to him, though the mattress.
“Sitting out?” He cackles. “You can’t sit out the month of June! Get up.”
“You don’t know what you are talking about” she snarls and shifts her face so it’s hidden beneath the pillow.
“Oh, so now I don’t know what I am talking about?” he taunts. He has grabbed a blade of the ceiling fan and spins with it, hooting down at her.
“Grandpa – cut it out. Just leave me alone.”
“OK. I’ll leave you alone, but do me one favor.”
She looks up and sees that he has pulled out a tobacco pouch. RED MAN is printed in scarlet block letters next to an Indian chief in full feathered head dress.
“No! Do not chew that in here, I mean it!” she sits up in bed.
Too late – he stuffs a pinch in his translucent cheek. She can see it in there, soaking as he hovers above in the lotus position like a demented Buddha.
“Go get me a can to spit in” he orders thickly through the accumulating saliva.
“No. I said I’m not getting up.”
“OK, then…” she can see him eyeing the white sheets, tobacco juice pulsing against his gums.
“No, wait! I’m going! Just wait!” she leaps out of bed and runs to the bathroom for a pink plastic cup. Running back with it, she remembers.
“Damn it, grandpa.”
He’s laughing at her. The pouch, the tobacco spit and the threat of stained sheets have disappeared.
“But you’re up! I got you up!”
Sighing, she heads for the kitchen. “Yeah, you got me.”
Sun is spilling through the window and she fills the coffee pot from the faucet, pulls a clean filter from the cupboard and dumps coffee from the jar in the fridge. Her stomach is rumbling from the long stint in bed as she sits at the table to make a grocery list. Strawberries, asparagus, half and half…
“Remember last summer, when you made s’mores on the stove?” Her grandfather’s head is poking up from one of the gas burners.
“Yeah?”
“You still have marshmallows in here!” his voice calls out from the cupboard.
She shakes her head and adds graham crackers, chocolate to the list.
26 September 2009
Secular Saints
When I was about 5 years old, Grandma S gave me a small hardcover "My First Book of Saints." Never mind that we weren't then and are not now Catholic -- I was fascinated by it.
Each saint had his or her own two page spread -- a stunning color illustration on the left with a short kid's prayer to the intercessor and then a short story of the saint's life on the opposite page. The saints were portrayed as ethereally beautiful -- flowing red hair on Saint Mary Margaret, green eyes fixated on a blood red Sacred Heart wreathed in thorns. Saint Rose of Lima -- so gorgeous she shaved her own head to avoid male attention, kneeling, pink lips parted as she feeds a little child from a bowl balanced on her delicate fingertips. Their faces were a mixture of passion and serenity; their stories were bloody and romantic. Visions! Murder! Burned at the Stake!
The Protestant church I grew up in wasn't too keen on the Roman Catholic patron saints. I loved the idea. Flesh and blood humans who were promoted to some sort of heavenly senior management position and who might be able to put in a good word with the Big G.
Last week, I found myself on a bar stool in Lakeview, regaling JP with tales of the time Freddie Mercury saved my life.
In another year, in another city, I hated my job. I felt it was eating me alive like row after row of shark's teeth. My coworkers and I spent our days in a cold sweat, struggling to keep up with the increasingly bizarre demands of our positions, trolling job boards for leads and cooking up elaborate escape fantasies. My friend N had taken to exclaiming "Please, Baby Jesus, get me out of here!" at regular intervals. Instead of Baby Jesus, I zeroed in on an icon of a different sort: St. Freddie.
In a job where I felt belittled and undermined on a daily basis, St. Freddie would remind me how important it was to sparkle, swagger and take control. His operatic wails were like holy incantations and I could picture him as an avenging angel, sweeping down from On High with his mic stand to vanquish my oppressors. He carried me through the last horrible six months until I won my freedom and a new job in Chicago. If I had any artistic talent at all, I'd make a little medallion of him to wear around my neck like a St. Christopher.
Last night, I finally got around to seeing Julie & Julia with two of my friends. Though Julia Child was still alive when Julie Powell was cooking and blogging, I instantly recognized her devotion to her own secular saint.
There are lots of them. Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson have their own temples, visited by millions of pilgrims. John Lennon might be one. Eleanor Roosevelt, probably. Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Virginia Woolf.
Who else?
18 September 2009
Being San Franciscan
I hate being a tourist. It's like admitting defeat.Maybe it's teenage residue, wanting to always look perfectly bored and cool. Or leftover small town anxiety. I never want to be that person dressed inappropriately, peering at a map, gawping at the buildings or the bus schedule. Having someone ask me for directions in a place I'm just visiting feels like a victory.
But I think it's more than that. Wherever I go, Bismarck or Belgium, I have to imagine that I'm living there. Here in San Francisco, writing at a coffee shop near my friend's place in Noe Valley, I'm pretending to live in a city where the weather varies by neighborhood. Where one block parallel, you find yourself climbing a hill that isn't there the next street over.
And then there's the fantasy life I come up with to match. The new friends, the perfect apartment with Robin's egg walls. How much more together my life would be in California, writing six hours a day, eating avocados and fish tacos...conveniently forgetting how you bring yourself along to every place you go.
I love to travel, but it really brings out the feeling of being the ghost in the machine. Like, how can I still be this same person when I'm looking at these hills and palm trees and an ocean full of Great White sharks? And the idea of choosing a place, of saying "this is where I live," feels like a million doors slamming.
I guess I'm hoping that it brings me perspective. This morning, I felt like someone slapped me with a fire poker when one of my hometown Facebook "friends" seriously and unflinchingly used the n------ word in his status update. This is someone who's never left our little town and I'm 99% sure has never met a black person. How can one stupid line make a place 3,000 miles from where I grew up feel more like "home" than the community that raised me?
Reconciling who I am, where I came from, and where I'm going is proving to be much more difficult than pushing the "Remove Connection" button on Facebook.
04 September 2009
Say What You Mean/Mean What You Say
At 7:45 this morning, my niece A. called. She is three and a half, and on Eastern Time.
Sleepily, I scanned my brain for toddler conversation topics.
"Are you on your way to school?" I asked
"No." she answered. "I'm on my way to preschool."
One of my favorite things about A. is she demands precision with the English language. She refuses to call Spongebob Squarepants by his trademarked name. Why? As anyone with eyes can see, his pants aren't actually square. To A. he will forever and accurately be referred to as Spongebob Rectanglepants.
Earlier this summer I was on the phone with my sister-in-law, who was describing for me how A.'s little sister crashed A.'s dance lessons and even lined up for an animal cracker treat with the rest of the class when it was over. "She just marched herself right over and put out her hand."
"No, mommy!" I heard A. insist in the background. "She didn't march. She walked."
Get it straight, people.
Sleepily, I scanned my brain for toddler conversation topics.
"Are you on your way to school?" I asked
"No." she answered. "I'm on my way to preschool."
One of my favorite things about A. is she demands precision with the English language. She refuses to call Spongebob Squarepants by his trademarked name. Why? As anyone with eyes can see, his pants aren't actually square. To A. he will forever and accurately be referred to as Spongebob Rectanglepants.
Earlier this summer I was on the phone with my sister-in-law, who was describing for me how A.'s little sister crashed A.'s dance lessons and even lined up for an animal cracker treat with the rest of the class when it was over. "She just marched herself right over and put out her hand."
"No, mommy!" I heard A. insist in the background. "She didn't march. She walked."
Get it straight, people.
27 August 2009
We are the Ones We've Been Waiting For -- Saying Goodbye to Senator Kennedy
I was up way too late last night dicking around on the computer when the news came that Ted Kennedy had died.
It was certainly no surprise, as he had announced his brain cancer well over a year ago. And this news didn't come with the searing shock of Senator Wellstone's plane crash 2002, or the unexpected loss of Senator Simon a year later. But as CNN ran the tributes, I still had that odd feeling of blinking into the abyss after Gandalf.
More than 10 years ago, my first job was answering constituent mail in a Senate office. One letter was from an older man whose wife was in a nursing home. His Social Security and pension were not enough to pay for her long term care, and they had nearly depleted their savings. Medicare doesn't pay for nursing homes and Medicaid wouldn't step in and cover the cost because they still had assets -- basically their home and whatever money the man had set aside for his own later years. His choices were to deliberately make himself poor by selling the house and spending-down his assets or...what? Abandon his wife? Move her to a "cheaper" facility? (good luck with that)
Remembering that letter last night sent me cringing through the journal I kept as a 23 year old to read what I wrote at the time:
But what I hope doesn't get lost in the praise and lamentations is that we voted for change, so we have to embrace all of what change means.
It's so easy to feel small and Hobbit-like when we lose someone like Senator Kennedy. He was a great and flawed leader. But Ted Kennedy wasn't magical.
We have to find new ways to acheive the vision he and others had for us. Getting distracted by Hitler-moustached pictures of President Obama and endlessly interviewing the guys packing heat at town hall meetings isn't the way to get there.
I am honored to have shared some time here with him.
It was certainly no surprise, as he had announced his brain cancer well over a year ago. And this news didn't come with the searing shock of Senator Wellstone's plane crash 2002, or the unexpected loss of Senator Simon a year later. But as CNN ran the tributes, I still had that odd feeling of blinking into the abyss after Gandalf.
More than 10 years ago, my first job was answering constituent mail in a Senate office. One letter was from an older man whose wife was in a nursing home. His Social Security and pension were not enough to pay for her long term care, and they had nearly depleted their savings. Medicare doesn't pay for nursing homes and Medicaid wouldn't step in and cover the cost because they still had assets -- basically their home and whatever money the man had set aside for his own later years. His choices were to deliberately make himself poor by selling the house and spending-down his assets or...what? Abandon his wife? Move her to a "cheaper" facility? (good luck with that)
Remembering that letter last night sent me cringing through the journal I kept as a 23 year old to read what I wrote at the time:
Friday, I got so fed up that I had to take a walk to calm down. My fantasy was that I would encounter Senator Kennedy or Senator Moynihan in the halls of the Russell Building. And they could take me aside, and reassure me, and tell me that the country -- the world -- can be the way we see it. And that I could go back to my desk energized. Feeling like what I do does matter and that sooner or later, the mood will shift, and we will do everything we can (a lot) to alleviate people's suffering.
But it didn't happen that way. I ate some candy and went back to work.Now that Senator Kennedy is gone, I certainly don't expect the nation to start some version of the slow clap, culminating in riotous applause and health care for all.
But what I hope doesn't get lost in the praise and lamentations is that we voted for change, so we have to embrace all of what change means.
It's so easy to feel small and Hobbit-like when we lose someone like Senator Kennedy. He was a great and flawed leader. But Ted Kennedy wasn't magical.
We have to find new ways to acheive the vision he and others had for us. Getting distracted by Hitler-moustached pictures of President Obama and endlessly interviewing the guys packing heat at town hall meetings isn't the way to get there.
I am honored to have shared some time here with him.
21 August 2009
Northerly Island - Urban Prairie Paradise
My friend works on Capitol Hill as a spokesperson for a member of the Illinois delegation. One morning he was woken up at 5 am by call from a Chicago reporter wondering if his boss “would have any comment regarding Mayor Daley’s orders to bulldoze giant Xs into the runway at Meigs Field earlier this morning?”
“Fuck you,” said my friend, and hung up the phone. It was almost April Fool’s Day.
It was no joke.
Roughly six years later, I made my first visit to Northerly Island (technically a peninsula, but, whatever), the park that replaced the airfield in the wake of that dictatorial-yet-badass 2 am Mayor-sanctioned vandalism.
I headed out on my bike this August afternoon because I’m the kind of person who both wants to live in a major city and spend hours at a time not having to look at, hear, be around, or speak to other people. Blame it on a combo of growing up in a town where, like Cheers, everybody knows your name and doing a lot of camping as a child. I need my space. And then I need to be able to pick up Thai food, work in a coffee shop and all kinds of activities not possible if one lives out in the middle of nowhere.
As soon as I cleared the concert pavilion with its icky backstage-at-the-carnival vibe, I was smacked across the face with so much quiet natural beauty, I couldn't believe I was still in the City.
Is this a field of wildflowers taller than my head? Why yes, yes it is.
I am in love with these sculptures
“Fuck you,” said my friend, and hung up the phone. It was almost April Fool’s Day.
It was no joke.
Roughly six years later, I made my first visit to Northerly Island (technically a peninsula, but, whatever), the park that replaced the airfield in the wake of that dictatorial-yet-badass 2 am Mayor-sanctioned vandalism.
I headed out on my bike this August afternoon because I’m the kind of person who both wants to live in a major city and spend hours at a time not having to look at, hear, be around, or speak to other people. Blame it on a combo of growing up in a town where, like Cheers, everybody knows your name and doing a lot of camping as a child. I need my space. And then I need to be able to pick up Thai food, work in a coffee shop and all kinds of activities not possible if one lives out in the middle of nowhere.
So, Northerly Island.
As soon as I cleared the concert pavilion with its icky backstage-at-the-carnival vibe, I was smacked across the face with so much quiet natural beauty, I couldn't believe I was still in the City.
Is this a field of wildflowers taller than my head? Why yes, yes it is.
I am in love with these sculptures
This installation is called The Daphne Garden and the artist is Dessa Kirk. Just gorgeous. I'm a sucker for Greek mythology, too.
On the eastern shore, there is a rocky beach perfect for meditating and watching the sailboats go by.
A glacier made it.
Skull!! OK, not really.
Northerly Island is home to native flowers, plants and birds. And a couple of blissed-out hours there were the perfect remedy for my City-jangled nerves.
And viewed from this short distance away, I could remember all of the things I love about living here.
The best part? Aside from a few birdwatching ladies and some bicyclists, (well, and a Segway tour, but they cleared out pretty quickly) I hardly saw anyone else the whole time I was here.
I highly recommend Northerly Island for a quick little nature fix. Sure, you can still hear the cars on Lakeshore Drive, but pretty soon you're just focusing on the birds and the breeze.
And if you see me there, just...you know...leave me alone, OK?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
