Preparing to leave Chicago is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. While I’m about to embark on one of the greatest adventures of my life, I’m also leaving behind four years of friendships and experiences.
As I do during most great times of change and the turmoil that comes with that, I’ve spent a lot of time lately reflecting. This week, it’s on my own actions and the actions of the people around me.
I was reading an article in The New York Times today that discussed the problem of not knowing what you cannot know. (I’ve been wondering a lot about this specific thing lately, so it was pleasant to find an article on it. It made me realize that perhaps my thought trajectories have a purpose or at the very least, some semblance of normality. Linked here.) I often wonder how much of my life has been spent fumbling around simply because I did not know that there were alternate opportunities. This has lately made me wonder if I might have flourished in marketing or business during my undergraduate career, where I spent four years floundering in confusion as to my future. I wonder now how much floundering I’ve yet to do, simply because I’m unaware.
However, at the moment, I’m resigned to my fate because I’ve got a plan that will take me to at least December. During that time, I do believe there will be a lot of soul-searching and a lot of re-designation of life’s particulars. I am going to take August to revel in myself, do some volunteering, and hopefully do some meager babysitting in an attempt to get some petty cash. And after that, I’ll come back in debt, homeless and jobless, but at least I’ll have had adventure and experience and a slightly thicker resume and I’ll be lacking all of the student loans that my peers have accrued throughout their collegiate experience.
I’m looking at the great Cape Town adventure as a semester abroad, something that nobody should be deprived of and something that will be life changing no matter what happens. (It’s also costing what the five week Rome study program would have cost, so for that, I’m wildly grateful. Rather than spend five weeks, I get to spend eight-plus and do something so much more worthwhile [hopefully].)

I’ve digressed, of course, but you knew that I would.

You’ll remember our friend Ian, unless of course you don’t. He was Hunter’s roommate during their junior and senior years of college. He had two suicide attempts during the time that I knew him, once while they lived on the South Side, the night that Emily and I left to drive back to St. Louis the summer of 2008 and then once again January 31st, 2009. Neither of them were particularly successful: once, he took some Adderall and then immediately told a bus driver what he’d done and the second time, he disappeared from a party to send veiled text messages and to wander the city by night. We were frightened both times, but the second was the last straw.
I’ll leave out things that happened in the interim, things that I would prefer to forget myself, but I’ll say that it wasn’t as though he was without any fault in the ultimate outcome.
My last words to him were, “I love you,” at five o’clock the next morning, when he came back to the apartment on Magnolia to collect his things. He left through the back door, down those gray steps. There had been tears and shouting that night, anger and hurt feelings shared by us all.
And he was gone.
We went out to breakfast that morning. Me, Emily, Hunter, Coupe and Kyle. We gave thanks for our strong friendships, for the love that we shared together.  After that, we didn’t hear from Ian and we made no attempt to contact him either. He settled things with Kyle and Hunter and Coupe, figuring out the bills, etc. We made cruel jokes, said hurtful things, and shut him out. The butt of all the jokes was Ian. At the time, it seemed like the sensible thing to do: band together and knit back together our hurt feelings.

Time passed.

I often wonder what he’s doing with his life. I don’t really care to know, as some of the things that happened between us don’t deserve an answer, but now I wonder if we should have handled it differently.

I never foresaw the outcome of the breakup before I did it. I sometimes wonder if I should have stayed in the relationship just to avoid the aftermath, but then I realize that there was no option to do that. The reaction to the breakup confirmed everything I was thinking and solidified the fact that what I had done was right. (The manner of the final break up may not have been the most tactful, of course, but there was a complicating situation that had arisen in the meantime that necessitated an immediate and complete break up.)
After, I realized firsthand what the group mentality can do. I’ve lost more friends than I can count simply because of that group ideal of banding together. Because I’d hurt him, that I’d disrupted the flow of normalcy, I was no longer welcome. There were incidents, of course, and there was the final end. People who I counted among my confidants, among my very best friends, no longer speak to me. They pretend that I’ve committed some unspeakable act against them, that I’m despicable. They joined in calling me disgusting names behind my back, spreading lies and betraying confidences.
Running into mutual friends who’ve “de-friended” me on Facebook is always a sick pleasure for me. I love being polite and nice, and I love to see their reactions. I’m not the evil person I’ve been made out to be. But to them, I am. I hurt one of their own and have suffered the consequences. And while I’m not particularly hurt by it as I was never truly one of their company, I am more hurt than I thought I would be.
The immaturity and lack of respect shown by these individuals toward me makes me think about how I acted when I was a part of that group. And it makes me think about the Ian situation.
What could we have done differently?
What should we have done differently?
Were our actions correct?
Probably not, but at the time, we were unaware of different avenues of expression of our grief and dismay.
I feel badly, and while I’m not sure exactly what I would have done differently, I do know that we handled the situation immaturely and disrespectfully. Perhaps we were right to cut him out of our lives based on the stresses we were facing as a direct result of his actions, but we were not in any way correct to say some of the things that we did. We were in no way right to make the generalizations that we made.
And so, I am apologizing. None of us were right. Not you, not me, not us, not them. But we could have acted differently. And we should have.

Next time I’m faced with a situation that involves the termination of a friendship or some other severe conflict, hopefully I will be able to step back and take a look at the situation before I act in a way that I may someday regret. At the very least, that might present a positive outcome from an otherwise miserable situation.

Bruise watch: Day 7: Purples, yellows, hints of green. It’s not so much the bruise that’s worrying me at the moment but it’s the fact that I’m still in pain when I walk on it. But there’s no way I’m about to go to the Wellness Center for it, so it’s going to have to wait until I get back to Colorado.

I met Wade Williams at Dairy Queen. It was many years ago. We became friends after I called the number he wrote on a receipt.  His friends had dared him to do it. And so he had.
We’ve been friends for years. I haven’t seen him since high school.
Wow, has it really been that long? We talk here and there.
We are the two most opposite people on the planet. He went to Colorado Christian University. Granted I did go a Catholic high school and a Catholic college, but we are religious people on very different planes. I’m spiritual (and consider myself to be in that typical post-adolescent transient philosophical stage) and he is religious. Deeply so. In ways I’ll never comprehend.
But tonight, he paid me a high compliment.
It made my night and reinforced to me that friends come in all forms.

Wade

The last time I went to sleep was for an hour, this morning. Before that, it was Sunday night.

Somehow trivia stretched into a visit to Mullens, our favorite Wrigleyville bar, which stretched into darts and then I met some Irish (Madeline was like, “It does not surprise me at all that you just came back in and said, ‘I met some Irish, let’s go.'”), which stretched into a joining of groups and then the late night bars. By then, it was past four, and the sunrise was calling to us. We climbed the lighthouse, pulling out fencing to crawl under before attempting to scale the ladder leading to the top. We were unsuccessful, and so we waited patiently, dangling our feet over the edge as though we could touch the water. We couldn’t.
The sunrise never came, but the light did.
And so we drove to Midway.
And then I came home. And then closed my eyes. And then I opened them, dashing off to babysit in the suburbs. It was a long day.
I dared not sleep while the kids were napping, for fear I’d fall into a deep, necessary sleep. And so I watched “Twilight,” that teenaged vampire movie.
And then I took the wrong highway because I was nearly a zombie at that point. Two hours later, I arrived home.
Only to leave again to do more trivia.
Third place tonight.
The trivia announcer tells me he always enjoys our wrong answers. They’re always hilarious, he tells me. I smile.

The thirteen pounds of furry black animal has been renamed Carlos. I love him. I’ve been making my absences up to him with Fancy Feast (which is fancier than you’d think), and so he’s got this roundness about him that I find entirely too endearing. He’s in love with plastic bags. Not to eat, but to sit on. Currently, he’s lounging on a Target bag.
He went for his first car ride the other day without his carrier. He hates getting in; I’m assuming he thinks we’re going to the vet, because that’s where we’re always going and they hurt him so much every time. But once he was in, he laid calmly and napped. Until I got out and then he gave me these fearful yellow eyes and I kissed the glass and told him he’d live.
Not surprisingly, he did.

The swelling on my ankle is not going down. I am in considerable pain, but not enough to hinder mobility (sort of…) This injury is the result of a soccer game with friends and then a bunch of Chicagoans in the park on Saturday. A kid wearing glittering cleats (thus his new name, Glitter Cleats) kicked me, right before being yelled at to take it easy on the girl. That upset me, obviously, and it didn’t bother me until I looked down and saw the emerging mass that had become my ankle.
That night Maddie, Patrick and I joined Harrison for a comedy show downtown and then went to a bbq being held by one of his friends. I seriously enjoy conversation. It was odd; I knew no one there, but I decided to make the best of it. It was enjoyable.

I’m rambling.
I’m going to start posting my pros/cons lists for Chicago/Denver.
Chicago Pro: Humidity makes my hair curl gorgeously.
Con: Humidity makes all of my cereal stale.

June 15 until July 1st is going to be a very interesting time for me.
And by interesting, I mean the exact opposite.
It’s going to be very lonely, but I’m sure that I won’t mind just removing myself from the world and being. Perhaps it shall be me and my beloved city and that damn cat, all alone in our strange apartment or all alone on the train or at the beach or in line at the grocery store.

And I’l hate to see it go, as I slip away for the last time (of course, it’s never the last time, but symbolically, it is and that’s crushing). I’ll cry, just like I’m doing now, and that will be the end of it.

I hadn’t thought how to say to goodbye. I still haven’t.
I’ll stand in the middle of Michigan Ave and look south, toward the river and the buildings and I’ll say goodbye.
I’ll wander by the lake and look out and pretend it goes on forever.
I’ll walk west past Ashland and be surrounded by concrete and chaos and brick and history and I won’t forget the ways that I’ve felt here.
Summer lies to me, though, I must remember. In the winter, I am dreadfully cold.

And then I’ll drive down Lake Shore, reminiscent of Ferris Bueller taking his day off, and I’ll see the city and my heart will break. The glint of steel and glass in the sun will call to me, reflecting scattered bits of colored light through my windshield and it will be like the shattered bits of my heart, which finally thought she might have arrived.
Ah, Chicago, like a siren. So much to take in. Nearly too much to survive. But just enough to keep the adrenaline alive.

I was reading a post on Feministe.com about Sex and the City 2 and I got upset.
The original article can be found here: http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/06/01/defending-sex-and-the-city-sort-of-not-really/
If you choose to read it, peruse the comments as well. They’re bound to ignite some sort of fiery reaction in your blood, no matter your views on sexism, racism, ageism, and so on.
I take issue with a lot of the criticism of the show and of the sexism that the post suggests the show propagates. Yes, Sex and the City was popular when our economy was booming and when excess was the norm; the idea of keeping up with Jones’s really meant overspending and under-saving. Of course, that’s all come crashing down. But has it really? And if so, does that make Sex and the City irrelevant?
While the middle class and other socioeconomic underprivileged persons are arguably unable to spend, and of course revenue is down, has the recession trickled up to reach those wealthy who everyone was actually trying to emulate?
For some, yes. But for others, arguably most, no. We’re not re-aligning our mindsets toward redistribution of wealth or reallocation of government resources for some better purposes. We’re just biding our time until we’re  better employed and we can start spending all over again. Spending with the hopes of upward social mobility.
While the writer and the commenters (when not veering off to discuss the state of Muslim women in the world) believe that the women of Sex and the City care only for their clothes, shoes, men and money, I’m arguing that they too face very real-world problems, even in their carefully scripted, fairytale Manhattan lives. Emphasis on scripted, fairytale lives.
Carrie has long been a renter, and at some point (I’d like to say season 4) is forced to make the decision to either buy or relocate. She has no money, no savings; there’s not a hint of financial responsibility surrounding her character because the audience is well aware that Carrie is happy to spend her paychecks on fashion. She spends time considering what to do and it’s revealed that she’s spent the better part of $40,000 on shoes. That’s enough for a down payment. In the end, of course, it all comes to a resolution and the shoes are safe.
While a small incident in the show’s 6-year run, the money crises that Carrie suffers from shows that while perhaps Sex and City is merely a fairytale, it is also grounded in some sort of reality. While not all of us can afford to walk around in Louboutins (oh, and I wish that we could), we all face issues regarding our own use of money at some point.
Another issue, which I’m finding to be more and more common in my own life, is the issue of lending money to friends. There’s a row over that at some point as well, with rich Charlotte hesitant to lend money to one of the girls. Of course, I once sided with whichever of the women asked for the money, but now I understand much better to never mix friendship and money.
These examples show that while Sex and the City may very well be at its core a frivolous look at unrealistic women with expensive tastes, it’s also a show that understands that no woman, not even the best-dressed or most educated can escape certain problems. There are also bouts with sexually transmitted infections, cancer, raising children, etc.
It’s a show. I don’t want to spend my time watching my own life problems played up on the screen. I want to suspend reality and pretend that I too have the weight of the world upon my shoulders when I must choose which of my designer outfits to wear to the newest club opening. That’s the world viewers want to see.
The sprinkling of reality was just to taste.
Also, the article quotes another article which talks about the refreshing moment when Charlotte and Miranda discuss that their motherhood and how sometimes you do need a break from the children. It anachronistically refers to 1971 as first-wave feminism, but it would have actually been more like second-wave at that time. I enjoyed watching the women struggle as mothers. Miranda struggled a lot in the series after the birth of her child. She was unprepared to be a mother and encountered a steep learning curve. She has to fight to keep her friendships, she has to fight to learn how to raise her son. She turns to Magda, her cleaning lady, for help. Charlotte struggles with conception, turning finally to adoption. She is happiest with her non-traditional family and is forced to give up her perfectionist ideals in order to embrace motherhood.
And then there’s the religion problem. I’ve been avoiding it. I don’t want to talk about it. But I’m going to address it from my own point of view. I’m prefacing this like that because I believe that everyone gets tangled in their opinions and then everyone gets called a racist and we’ve got problems stemming from our own inability to define anything or to thoroughly understand the topics at hand.
Before this segment begins, we’re going to have to discuss the lens from which the audience is viewing the movie. Mostly white, American, probably Christian (I’m basing this off of what I know my blog readership to be. I am in no way negating the experiences of any other person, however, I can only draw on the experiences of a white, middle-class, raised-Catholic person, because that it what I am.) And that’s where the problems are.
As white, middle-class viewers, we come to the movie with certain preconceived notions. We need to be aware of our own limitations before we can thoroughly critique the limitations of any certain work.
I see where the writer wanted to talk about Muslim women. I see how he wanted to draw parallels between the girls from New York and the secret women’s book club in Abu Dhabi. I see how he wanted to show the similar spirits of both sets of women. I see this. But he failed miserably.
The Muslim women in the movie are poorly placed. They get very little screen time and are shown as caricatures of a collision between two cultures: Muslim women who desperately seek to become Americanized. I have a hard time believing that this is the case. Our own American lens, however, makes it seem as though “they” (any othered subset) would want to welcome our own Western culture.
One woman has decorated her outfit with color around the sleeves. Another eats french fries under her veil. At one point, the Muslim book club sheds their outer garb to reveal the spring collection of Louis Vuitton.
This attempt at subversive independence is poorly placed in the film. The author opens a door where there never should have been one, or if some opening, a window, intending to merely peek inside at the issue of religion, but instead fails to walk through this now gaping hole that is the issue of religion and culture, leaving the audience unfulfilled and angry. This wasn’t supposed to be a racist movie. But it was.
The Middle East is probably the worst setting the author could have chosen, and I’d be interested to see why he chose it. Now? Of all times?
To quote the New York Times article linked at the bottom, “The gravest of these sins in my unscientific survey are behavioral: the women act like ugly Americans and debase every aspect of Muslim culture they come in contact with. Also: they’re women. And middle aged. Girlish. Have had bad work done. Or maybe not enough.”
The characters, specifically Miranda, are aware of the disrespect that they (mostly Samantha) are showing to the predominantly Muslim culture that is surrounding them. They talk about it. The author attempts to parallel the wearing of the veils with the silencing of women while simultaneously showing Carrie as having tape over her mouth in a book review. The hastily reached conclusion? He’s afraid of her because she’s a women, not because her book may not have been the most insightful. His attempt to silence her comes from the fact that he’s a man.
The NYTimes shows the bind that women find themselves in. To age gracefully? Not allowed. To embrace plastic surgery? Not allowed. To age? Not allowed. To be immature? Not allowed. To be women? Not allowed.
Hello first wave feminism.
Aren’t we past that?
But we aren’t and that plays into why I’m still going to defend this movie. I’m not defending racism. I’m defending a film. I do agree that there were things that could have (should have) been done very differently.

The United States, whether we like it or not, is a Christian nation. We can’t wrap our minds around other cultures, let alone other religions. We’re afraid of things we don’t understand. We want to crusade against anything “other,” anything different. We can’t fathom why certain things are the way they are and we get upset about the rights of other women in other places. But we still have a lot to work for as women in the United States.
We’re not free. Critics of Sex and the City come down on it for not having enough diversity, not having this, that, etc. Creation and maintenance of  the family is the focus of many women in our culture. Little girls grow up dreaming about their wedding day. Carrie makes it to that point in the first movie but eventually marries in a small ceremony at City Hall.  Sex and the City has the balls to show Carrie and her husband addressing the fact that they have no children and don’t plan to. The movie doesn’t cop out with Carrie getting pregnant. She’s setting her own terms for her marriage and her life.
The idea of housework and child-rearing not being considered work is something that women deal with on a daily basis. The “third shift” is the housework, something that many women who work full time still  have to do once they get home because of antiquated notions about feminine roles. Miranda quits her job as a lawyer in the film but hates being a full-time stay at home mom. Being a full-time mother just isn’t her thing and she regrets leaving her job. She finds another job where she is appreciated yet still able to make it to her son’s school events. She is defined by her career. Charlotte, however, is a full-time mother and she is fulfilled and exhilarated by her job (most of the time). She derives meaning from her work in the maintenance of the family, but part of her conclusion in the film was that she, too, needs time to herself away from the children.
There’s oppression right around the corner. Muslim women nothing. American women nothing. No single piece, no single article, no single film, book, or scrap of media is going to speak for all women of any culture, religion, race, etc. Oppression comes in all forms, religious and otherwise.
You cannot encapsulate the struggles of women or any culture into a two hour movie about girl power and friendship. The author tried and failed miserably. I’m forgiving Sex and the City its grave mistake of being set in Abu Dhabi. That was a dumb plot device that never should have been constructed. It set off a chain of hatred that someone should have seen coming.
I loved the movie. It wasn’t about materialism (there were no grand shopping sprees, no ridiculous spending); it was about love and marriage and life and choices. And in the end, female friendship wins and everyone is allowed to be in the sort of relationship of their choosing. That, my friends, is exactly what I paid to see.

Here’s another little piece that I enjoyed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/magazine/23lives-t.html?scp=3&sq=sex%20and%20the%20city%20extra&st=cse

or another:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/movies/06dargis.html?hp

Lake Shore drive at four thirty in the morning is dark, starting the slow progression toward daylight. As I drove, the fog rolled in and there was me, seeing very little ahead of me, and the fog, closing in around me, and the lights, leading the way home.
There was no sleep last night and I chased the moment and left, easing toward the center of the city and then home again. I parked, the fog lifting as I drew away from the lake. I walked home, down a tired, quiet block, the sky lightening above me and the moon still bright. I love the way the wrought iron gates of my building look in that grayish pre-dawn light. The black is somehow made more black by the gray light, and the green of the new summer foliage is greener and darker and more beautiful. The cobwebs hang between the iron bars and flutter slightly in the wind.
As the day progressed, the fog burned away and the sun came out, heating the earth. It’s sunny out now; I’m sure people are at the beach loving the sunlight. I’m at home, tired.
Perhaps tomorrow will be my day to get things done?

I’ll miss this place.

Oh the beach! What a lovely beautiful expansive stretch of land.
Laying on a towel in the sun, eyes closed, listening to music or the waves or the kids: that is bliss.
Blue sky, blue water, pale beach, my brilliantly white skin glistening (so much sunscreen!), the sounds, the books. I smeared the ink in the textbook with my oily fingers, then proceeded to also smear an article in Esquire, then proceeded to cover myself in sand.
I’m one hundred percent alright with that.
I’m one hundred percent more relaxed. The gorgeous man laying behind us helped a bit.
I’m hoping to get a little bit of color this summer. I’m against tanning, but I’m not against a healthy glow. I love the way freckles dot my nose. I’m using SPF 55 anti-aging sunblock for my face and a little less to my body. (By a little less, I mean a lot…I’m building a base here.)
Happiness. Bliss.
I could spend days near the ocean, near big lakes, near rushing rivers, and be perfectly happy.

Then I came home and made chicken salad.
My god, I think I make pretty good chicken salad considering I sort of just make it up as I go. (I think I pretty much know what goes in it….chicken, celery, grapes, (light) mayo, spices, lemon juice, etc.) But it’s chilling in the freezer right now (faster), and then I’m going to eat it. Madeline has never had chicken salad. I’m shocked.

We’re going to go out to celebrate the surprise birthday party of one of my friends tonight, so that should be interesting.

I’m against commercials that play on your worst fears, like that On-Star commercial about not being able to call for help. Lame. Fear tactics are a bad way to sell a product. Maybe.
We’ll know more as I continue marketing, but that’s just a thought.

I’ve been having blog block lately. I have thoughts and then lose them.

We saw Sex and the City 2 tonight. I’m a longtime fan of the series and while not wildly excited to see the movie, I was interested. And so we saw it. It’s adorable; the two and a half hours pass quickly. I found myself enjoying the storyline and although I have qualms about the racial undertones of the movie, I was willing to forgive them in order to suspend my disbelief and live in Carrie’s fairytale world for awhile.
I didn’t like the constant referring to the women’s ordeals; I thought it wasn’t addressed properly or thoroughly enough. I can see where the writer may have tried to bring it up, touch on it, without being racist, but I feel as though his intentions went awry somewhere along the line.
The movie was lovely. SatC always puts me in thought bubbles or sets of strange emotions, but tonight, it settled me. I love Charlotte’s wardrobe; the look is timeless and beautiful.

I keep sitting down and waiting for thoughts to spill out like they have in the past, and it’s just not happening.

I spent the past couple of days helping Maddie move out of her house. We drove down to Champaign so that she could store some of her things and then we looked at apartments. She found one that she liked while we were there, so that was lucky.
I’ve got about a month left in Chicago. And then after that, July shall be spent in odd transit, being held between two places and really living in neither. August will come quickly enough and then the future. Hopefully Mike’s passport stuff can happen ASAP and then we can go to South Africa; if not, I shall be going it alone. I desperately need to do something. I need to find myself all over again. I need to regain my inner strength and develop some desperately needed self-confidence. After that, I shall return and begin building the life I’d very much like to lead.
blah blah blah, I’m just typing.

The Hawks won the hockey game tonight.

Hopefully I’ll make it to the beach tomorrow and do some much needed relaxation and fiction reading.