Midwest Living

Scene:  Home, preparing for Angelica's sister Ariel's high school graduation party.

Frenzied, pre-party activity.  It is 12:45 pm, 15 minutes prior to the beginning of the Sunday afternoon open house.  Subway sandwiches have been ordered and set up in the kitchen.  Cake from the Blue Ribbon Bakery proclaims "Congratulations Ariel!  2010"  in white and yellow frosting on the dessert table in the dining room.  

Angelica is transferring two sheet cakes -- peanut butter and Texas chocolate -- to the remaining space on the dessert table.  On the opposite side, pushed against the wall with the stereo that's blasting Michael Buble tunes, is a separate table loaded with cheese trays, deli meats, veggies and dip, potato salad and pasta salad.  Angelica's hair is puffy with the humidity of the June day and 30+ years of exasperation with her upbringing.  

Ariel and her best friend Chelika have put together a bowl of "Oreo Fluff"  for the event. Oreo Fluff consists of two extra-large packages of Oreos crushed up and mixed into four tubs of Cool Whip.   

Mom:  Why did you put the Oreo Fluff on the dessert table?

Angelica:  Because...it's a dessert?

Mom:  Some people consider it a salad.

Angelica:  It's Oreos.  And...Cool Whip.

Mom:  I know.  But some people consider that to be a salad.

Angelica gives a long stare

Angelica:  Well, then I feel sorry for those people.   

-fin-

Winter Tale

When did it start?  January, I guess.  When I discovered the ice creeping up the inside of the second floor windows.  That’s when I began hearing it like a quiet whine.  When I started looking for ghosts in the hallway and somehow expected to run into one sipping tea or swishing skirts, but just generally going about its business like she knew all along.

It never was a ghost.  I cursed my way through another session of scraping the windshield of my pickup.  Shivering violently, I waited ages, ages for the fucking engine to warm up.  How could the sky be so grey but the snow shine bright enough to sting my eyes?  Somewhere past the backyard the river was still flowing.  I would get these elaborate ideas in my head that I would walk down there in boots and coat and mittens to watch the icy current.  Maybe they would see me from the street and think how tortured I must be, how picturesquely tragic.  But it was too cold for anyone else to be walking around near the park anyway, so I just got into my truck and drove to Meijer. 

We had started out that winter watching Hitchcock movies in the front room.  Vertigo.  Rear Window.  Rope.  I used to think I hated old movies.  Assumed they were yet another affectation of the people I knew who prided themselves in being moderately counter-culture. 

Then one day, I was paging through my roommate’s art appreciation book and I settled on a street scene.  It was an early photograph of a street I know I had been on when my parents took us to the City in the 8^th grade.  All those men wearing hats.  The fruit stands and the dogs sniffing around for discards.  They never thought they were going to be art or history or anything to be appreciated.  Not like that.  They were just living their lives.  I got the dizzy pit in my throat I used to get when I would think about outer space and I had to slam the book shut and walk around the library. Digging nails into palms and biting the insides of my cheeks, pain reminding me I’m still inside of my flesh.

I started noticing them as much as I could. Not the storyline or the dresses.  But the eyelids.  The individual teeth.  Things these long-dead actors didn’t give a passing thought, but that proved to me they were once as alive as I am.  And how someday I’d be equally dead.

Those weeks of hot panic have passed.  Now I’m just moving through the house, watching the street through the curtains.  Perking up when the heater clicks on from the ancient basement.  Not thinking of the wet boots I pull on and off throughout the day. 

Image:  Lake George Window, Georgia O'Keefe 1929

Evie Jo

Evie Jo Becker ate glue.  Not paste, which I could almost understand.  My mother bought me some once for preschool.  It came in a little bucket with a smiling cow’s face on it and the lid held a little white paste spatula for spreading.  It smelled fresh and heavenly.  But I didn’t taste it and it eventually dried up into flakes.

No.  Evie Jo ate glue.  Right there at our work tables.  Mrs. Shea would come to each one and dump a blob of Elmer’s on a piece of paper in the center for us all to share.  There were popsicle sticks that we were supposed to use to spread the glue onto our first grade craft project.  Some of us used our fingers.  But Evie Jo  – every single time –  would take a finger full of glue and pop it right into her mouth.  Some at our table would squeal, tattling to the teacher that Evie Jo is eating glue!  She’s eating it!  And Evie Jo would smile and say, “It’s good.” 

The whole thing was almost overwhelmingly undignified to me.  On top of the shared – and now contaminated by Evie Jo – glue blobs there were the shiny square wax crayons that came in boxes.  I hated that we were expected to use these oily, subpar crayons with corners that hurt our fingers and didn’t grip the paper the same way Crayolas did.  I couldn’t wait until second grade when you could bring your own box of crayons from home and store them in your very own desk with a lid, instead of sharing these impotent sticks that some of the boys would brace between their ring and pointer fingers, middle finger over the top and then *snap* down on their knee, breaking them in two.  They got in trouble for that, but the rest of us still had to use the greasy leftover nubs. 

Evie Jo was one of the gross kids.  Not just because she ate glue, but that was part of it.  She also had round, very thick glasses with pinkish brown plastic frames.  Dirty blonde pigtails tied with yarn ribbons.  She smelled like some of the farm kids, some combination of distant manure, wood smoke and vagina.  And she couldn’t speak very well.  She had to be broken of “ain’t” and “gots” and “them colors.”  She would address you loudly, embarrassingly. 

I don’t know what happened to Evie Jo.  She disappeared sometime around third or fourth grade.  What’s most likely is that her family moved.  Some of the gross kids stayed on through high school.  Looking back at them now, I can see that poverty and developmental delays and neglect were their real problems.  But who knows what drove Evie Jo to eat glue?

Classing Up the Joint

Have you ever noticed how, in European films, the protagonists usually have pretty menial jobs?  Amelie was a waitress in a cafe.  Penelope Cruz was also a waitress in Volver -- and in that movie, Penelope's sister does ladies' hair in her apartment.  In these movies, the main characters live in small, efficient apartments and take the bus everywhere.  When I was in college, my best friend K. studied in Scotland for a semester, and used to tease them endlessly about their British soaps.  "Don't you know TV is supposed to be about glamorous people???  Like 90210!  Who wants to watch regular people live their lives?"

I did my taxes last week, and there's nothing like TurboTax to make you call into question your life choices.  Its handy step-by-step formula asks you a series of questions.   

"Did you get married in the last year?"  No.   

"Did you add dependents or otherwise change your dependent status?" No. 

"Did you buy a home." Um, no, Turbotax.  How about you lay off me?  Damn.

At the end of the session, TurboTax illustrated for me, in helpful bar graph form, just how much less I earned in 2009 vs. 2008. (hint: a LOT less) 

To cheer myself up, lately I have been pretending I am European.  Tonight, that meant having a friend over for Arroz con Pollo, drinking tons of wine, and eating after 9pm.  Also, there was cake.  Delicious, simple cake with whipped cream. 

Orange-Yogurt Cake
adapted from Martha Stewart
Unsalted butter for pan
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup plus 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup plain whole milk yogurt
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/4 cup plus one Tablespoon orange juice
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large orange, zested and cut into segments
Powdered sugar, for dusting
(Martha says add 1/4 cup vegetable oil. I totally spaced on adding it, and loved the cake anyway)


Preheat oven to 350.  Butter an 8 inch round cake pan.  Stir flour, 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, yogurt, orange zest, 1 Tablespoon orange juice, egg and vanilla in a bowl.  Pour into pan.  Bake until tester comes out clean (25 minutes).  Let cool on a wire rack.

Put zest in a bowl.  Stir in 1/4 cup orange juice and 1 Tablespoon sugar.

Dust cake with powdered sugar.  Serve with orange mixture and whipped cream.

Spring

Oh my, it's March.  Here's how I spent my winter:

• stressing about money
• getting a second writing gig
• looking for a cheaper place
• borrowing cash from everyone I know
• stressing about money
• getting a third writing gig
• finding a cheaper place
• PANICKING about money
• Fighting with Bank of America (seriously?  fuck those guys)
• packing
• inhaling bushels of dust while cleaning the old apartment
• working my ass off
• moving
• unpacking
• stressing about money

So here we are, three months later.  New place, new neighborhood.  The cats are ecstatic -- there are way more squirrels and birds and dogs to watch on the 2nd floor than there were on the 11th.  We live next to an old creepy cemetery, which makes me feel like I'm always on the verge of a grand Victorian adventure.  I'm working a lot, so maybe I'm not on the verge of being hauled off to debtor's prison.

But.

When I got laid off a year ago I was understandably freaked out, but excited.  I promised myself that I would take time off, rewire my life and focus on my own writing.  My own voice.

When the time came to start earning my keep in society again, I got really lucky and got some great contract jobs.  Now, I'm busy, I'm getting paid and back to doing a version of what I used to do.  But when I ride the Red Line downtown, I look at the girls headed to the Art Institute in purple tights and tatoos and think "she looks like an artist."  I'm just a new version of my old self.  A little broke-er.  A little shabbier.  Still spending my days getting letters to the editor placed and on conference calls.  Even the way I approach my own writing seems so businesslike and soulless.

I imagine that girl on the L - working in a studio covered with inked drawings and full of music.  Drinking beers and catching live shows.  Lots of sweaty late-night sex on a mattress on the floor.  Smoking cigarettes in the sunshine.  I want that to be me.  But it feels too late.   

Spring has never been my season.  Especially in the Midwest.  That first warm and thawing day tricks you, and by the end of the week you're shivering and cursing, waiting for the bus in a too-thin coat.  I never know what to wear, what to eat.  What was previously tucked away now lays bare and terrible in the mud -- old pens and takeout cartons and dog shit.  Nothing green to take the edge off., except for gaudy St. Patrick's Day decorations in bar windows.

That's how my life feels.  Akward and ill-fitting.  Wanting to be something else.     

Will Write (talking points) For Food

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.”

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.

“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.