Finding New Things to Love

I'm in love with the radio station that we're listening to at work right now, 93XRT. Everything current and otherwise, just a good mix of music. U2, Brandi Carlile, Bob Dylan, Ben Harper, Counting Crows, Snow Patrol, Shawn Mullins, just to name a few bands that have been on that I've been keeping track of the last few hours. I'm in love. Plus, there's also This American Life! I should find a way to go to one of their live tapings....

I'm also in love with a TV dinner brand called "Eat Right" that is not available in the ATL. I had turkey slices with cornbread (just like real cornbread with cornbread consistency) topped off with a light sauce and cut carrots -- for all I knew, I was eating real food. (I know, right?)

I realized today that part of the reason that online chatting is so fun is that you can interrupt someone and you're not interrupting them. You can just keep talking if you want to and the other person can fend for themselves in terms of getting a word in edgewise. And you can always catch up with each other and read over what each of you said if there are somehow two different conversations going on simultaneously. It's one of the ultimate forms of multitasking all within one "conversation."

Lost in the Day

It took me all day to get to where I am now -- ready to get to work. And now, it's actually time to end the day, to wind down, get ready for tomorrow, be at peace with the day's events. Why did it take me so long? I got a few things done, admittedly. I haven't left my apartment. I watched hours and hours of the West Wing. I assembled a cabinet/shelf system for my kitchen and I unpacked a few boxes and made brunch and later, dinner. I did a little bit of cleaning, a little bit of organizing, and some reading. I played on the Internet a lot.

Just now, I started unpacking boxes in the sunroom, realizing that it's really too late to begin any of those projects. Have to wait till tomorrow. But tomorrow, there's church and hanging out with Jeff later. Maybe I won't get anything done at all. But I needed today. I needed a day of leisure. I haven't had that in several weeks, in over a month, really, and in the wake of the move I needed to just take it slow for a day. My conscience is screaming at me that I could have done so much more, that I need to learn to not be so lazy. And while I agree, I'll give myself this day. I won't give myself many others while I'm in the process of unpacking and acquainting myself with this new city of mine. But I'll give myself today.

I was starting to wonder where some of my clothes were until I unpacked a box just now -- one of the duffel bags I'd packed to go in the car with me had been left in my bedroom and thus had been packed in a box with a group of other random items in the process. Here were most of my bras, undergarments, and summer t-shirts I thought I would wear or want in the first few weeks. I was starting to think I needed to go shopping but I just needed to unpack. I wasn't insane thinking I'd packed these items. I only forgot to separate them from what the movers packed.

I'm looking forward to a time when I no longer compare everything in Chicago to something in Atlanta or something in Atlanta that I no longer quite have to something in Chicago that's new. I wish I talked about it less with coworkers but evidently it's what's on my mind because that's what I talk about. Endlessly. I talk about it. Others' patience will wear thin eventually.

Everyone asks me how's Chicago. What's it like living here. It's fine, I tell them. I'm not really at a point where I can tell them what it's really like. I don't have my routine down or parking or my neighborhood or friends or.... My life is still in transition. I appreciate their asking, however. I simply don't know what to tell them. I share random details about my street or work or the cute little restaurant my mom and I went to on her last night here called Cafe Turquoise, which had the BEST Mediterranean food. Pictures later when I found the cord that attaches my camera to my computer. I thought I'd packed it in a reasonable place to come with me and yet I find myself without it already....

What to Do?

I woke up this morning and realized that wasn't anything I HAD to do. I woke up on my own at 8:30 AM (not surprising but I was exhausted, so I'd hoped to sleep in). My internal alarm clock rarely fails me even though I'd prefer to find a way to reach inside that precarious part of my subconscious that thinks that I am a morning person and slap it across the face. And thus, probably why it cowers somewhere in my subconscious.

I have a variety of things I need to do a some point in time, preferably sooner, but I realize I don't have anything I HAVE to do. I'll do something, don't get me wrong, but this the precise reason my mom wanted to stay longer or at least steal me away from work for a few extra days and help me weed through all the mundane tasks of organizing and moving in. She could only do so much while I was at work (which is frankly very selfless of her to be here and doing it). I need to put together a wall cabinet, find my light bulbs, assemble my television connection cords, assemble a bench, clean out my sunroom where all the boxes have been put, find a way to hang all my remaining clothes somewhere outside a closet, buy and install shelves above all bars that hold up clothes in the closets I do have, et al. I'm just not entirely certain where to start.

So, time to go make some breakfast (turkey bacon, fried eggs, waffle, and a apple, for those interested). Then I'm figuring out how to put in order my worldly possessions. After carting them 700 miles north in a process I was not able to oversee or supervise that involved loading and unloading them on several large trucks, I still don't know what to do with them. Why did I buy all these things?

Why did I ever think these things would make me happy? They're what I have from my life and yet they're nothing; they're just things. There are other, better things that I could be doing with my time. I could call my father; I have yet to wish him a happy Father's Day almost a week since the day itself; I could pray for the world; I have yet to find any organizations to volunteer with in Chicago; I could call my sisters. So I should tackle these first -- there will undoubtably be time in the rest of my day for all the other mundane but necessary things that I must do to finish moving in.

Mom = Home

My mom has been here for almost my entire existence in Chicago, really. The same day my worldly possessions arrived, my mom arrived. She's been here since and will leave tonight. She's been incredibly selfless in helping me get settled -- today she said she'd clean my kitchen floor.

Once she leaves, I'll officially be away from my family and friends. I've been in limbo the last week, in a good way, with my immediate family very present in my life in simple physical presence here, both Laura and my mom. Now I'll have to forge ahead alone. It's not a bleak thought but I'm aware that life will be very different. It just makes me that much more grateful for my family. It's always good to be reminded that we are not alone.

Hard Water (makes my life harder)

There's something in the water.

Every time I take a shower, my hair seems to get dirtier. It's a tangible feeling, not just my own paranoia about my hair. It's losing its luster, it's shine. It's limp and changing to a duller color of brown instead of the subtle red highlights of my former life (seems so long ago, though only a week.) I'm pretty sure it's the hard water.

This is annoying. Should I talk to my landlord? Even the cheapest systems that you can buy to soften your water are around $300. Is that asking too much?

If you know anything about tablets that I can stick in my shower head, please let me know. The Internet has been worthless to me in this endeavor except to deprive me of hope....

Love Stories (Loving Stories, Not Stories of Love)

I love stories. Fiction, non-fiction, half-truths, personal experiences, second-hand accounts, tales of others from my hairdresser, news, journalism, gossip, you name it -- I love hearing about other people's lives and how they unfold.

This is not profound. I feel silly even writing it -- except it's true. And while I do my best not to gossip, I find myself analyzing my friends' lives because I love them and their lives are interesting to me. I'm invested. More than that, I'm simply invested in people's lives. I love stories about anything and they never get old. I love books and reading and I've been doing that since I can remember. I love music and how it tells a story and it's meaningful beyond the notes on the page, even when there are no words beyond the notes on the page.

I have degrees in English and Journalism, two fields that record the stories of peoples' lives. My hobbies include reading, writing, photography, collecting quotations -- all things that catalog life and stories. One of my favorite blogs is Our Labor of Love, a blog of a photographer that does mostly weddings but also other photography engagements. I love looking at everyone's unique wedding story. They're all the same and yet somehow very different.

I adore movies -- every kind, with the possible exception of horror and gross scary movies that are more about creative ways to kill people slowly or grotesquely than anything to do with a movie. I love documentaries and reality television (real reality television, not I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

Six months ago and I started aggressively listening to This American Life, which is a Chicago radio station (it's like I knew I'd be moving here) that offers stories of people once a week in a strange mix that all fit together into a strange sort of common link. It's difficult to explain, but amazing stories ensue.

I always love the backstory to everything -- like discovering WHY Chicago is such an architectural gem. When the city burned down in 1871, they invited all the architects of the country (perhaps the world) to come and rebuild it. Though the fire was devastating, it allowed Chicago to be what it is today, both in the Downtown area and all the neighborhoods surrounding it (read: not suburbs, but neighborhoods. All part of actual Chicago). It feels very planned and it is. Now if only Atlanta's burning down and reconstruction had been so successful.... I love it but I mean, let's be honest, there's hardly a grid system in much of the city and 12 streets named Peachtree? Seriously.

But I love that Atlanta has the story. People say it's not the same as other cities -- and it isn't. It doesn't have that same city feel. It's too sprawling, it's not laid out quite right, there are no seamless neighborhoods like Chicago, there is laughingly public transportation and thus a city where everyone drives, it's filled now with chain restaurants that have replaced local gems, and somehow it doesn't work to live in a lot of it, as the grocery stores and living amenities are all in some places while businesses are all in others. There is some small mixture but that sense of community can often be lacking. And thus the endless miles of suburbs. But I love it. It WAS home to me. I loved that I could go to any music concert I wanted and had easy access 15 minutes down the road. Endless restaurants, culture, music, movies, festivals, whatever -- it's an interesting center in the south for all things coming through. So you get that big city feel without actually having a proper big city -- but it works. So no, it can't really compare with New York or Chicago or Los Angles or San Francisco or Houston or Boston, or any of these other unique cities with so much history and architecture. When our city burned down, we were in the midst of actual civil war reconstruction and we were not left to our devices to rebuild, stuck for years in the process of rejoining the union. Even though I don't really understand the clinging to the past, it's no wonder that civil war history remains every day in the lives of all the people who remember and talk about it and reenact it. It shaped Atlanta as it is today. It seems to me to be one of the great reasons why our city is different. It's the strange red-headed stepchild to all the other big cities of America.

Having felt a little different, a little outside everyone else for much of my life, I can relate. That's why it's my city. Things change, however, and who knows what I'll say in five years, assuming I'm still living in this gigantic city called Chicago. Maybe I'll think of it as mine one of these days.

But the point is, I love stories. I write because I love stories. I'll always have to do something with stories. Everone loves music and movies and reading. Is it as simple as some people like to read and others like to lose themselves in movies and others like the way notes sound when put together? Or do we all just love stories?

Stubbornly Awake

There are times when I don't want to go to sleep. Sleep lies on my body heavy but I resist. And then, when it is time to wake up, all I want to do is sleep. Small child that I am, I'm enjoying this time to myself, just surfing the Internet, unpacking, and watching random episodes of The West Wing. Why is that I don't want to be doing what I'm supposed to be doing? I love sleeping -- why can't I just let go of today and move on to the next? What do I think I'm gaining by depriving myself of sleep? I'm stealing time from tomorrow by being awake right now. All too soon I'll have to pay the debt.

I was going to say that I'm just working off Eastern Standard Time still except that would be some fairly flawed logic, seeing as how it's 2:21 AM EST right now as opposed to Central Standard's 1:21 AM. Either way, it doesn't really matter. Either way, it's still Monday and I haven't let go of Sunday.

Perhaps there's something missing in my life, some activity or task I have left unfinished. This is some sort of subconscious drive to stay awake because I have sense of unfinished business in some area or another. What can I accomplish at 1:20 in the morning? But here I am, stubbornly awake.

Move to Chicago: Check

I arrived in town on Monday morning, my wordily possessions arrived on Wednesday, my mother arrived Wednesday night, and my twin sister arrived Friday morning. Some unpacking has occurred in addition to cleaning, eating random food, hanging out with family, and a fair amount of working included. I was on call this weekend, which was regrettable but necessary, and it wasn't as bad as you may think. I did work some fairly long hours but they were stress free hours.

It's strange being in a different city, sort of like an extended visit that feels like it will never end. At the same time, life isn't so different. There are different problems to deal with, including parking, that have never really been an issue. The sad thing is that I used to avoid places in Atlanta that had valet, parallel, or limited parking. I can avoid these situations no longer. They are in fact, part of my daily life now. They say that whenever God closes a door somewhere he opens a window -- but I think the phrase that is more appropriate for this situation is that I have to learn to face my fears or life is a test or this was a lesson that I needed to learn or that things happen for a reason. Unfortunately, other than that the irony of the situation is not lost on me, I find no comfort in any of these ideas. It sort of sucks to have to look for parking all the time. But whatev. I'll get over it. (I'll top comparing everything to Atlanta soon, I promise)

Back to my original thought: it's funny that being at work is actually comforting because it's something that I know how to do. It's something I'm good at. And the people there are familiar. And even though I still feel a little like a nomad because I don't have a permanent office/work space at work, it's nice to be there. It's a point of reference in a strange city. I still want to go home at the end of the day, I'm certainly not thinking about pitching a tent at the office but it's good to point out that it's a comforting place in an otherwise alien place to me.

And now I'm sitting in my kitchen unpacking and watching Stranger Than Fiction as a tribute to my new city. I wonder where Harold Crick lives?

Perhaps the most surprising thing to me in this entire process is how nice people are. Everyone is so damn nice everywhere I go and it never ceases to surprise me. Everyone is happy to help.

Driving to Chicago

"I am an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way."
-Carl Sandburg

Today I drove five hundred-something miles to Indianapolis, IN in a two-day trek to Chicago, IL -- my new home.

It was a good day, surprisingly. Somehow I have never driven this far before in my life. I have ridden in cars for trips that spanned weeks across the country but never have I been driving and certainly never was I alone. And while I had fervently wished that someone would come with me as I planned this trip, I found myself grateful to be solitary today. It was like the calm before the storm except I see no tempest. Yes, there will be the whirlwind of getting settled but that is a resettlng and not the destructive side of the elements.

Rather than being upset about leaving, it all just sort of came and made sense. I've already made peace with leaving my family and all my friends and the extended "family" of those people that make up my daily life. All week long I kept reminding myself that I won't live here anymore, that this will no longer be where I am or where I will be. It never felt like there was a change coming. Life seemed too constant to be changing; too full to be lacking, too sweet to be sad at any type of ending. I'm waxing poetic but the simple truth is that I was driving down the road and everything made sense. There was no joy or sadness about it -- I was simply where I was supposed to be. And while flying the distance from Atlanta to Chicago is certainly much easier than driving, the drive helped put the distance in physical perspective. The thought kept coming (perhaps repetitiously so that I wouldn't forget it) this is the distance between where you were and where you are going. This is the distance between where you were and where you are and where you will be. It's not so great that you couldn't travel it in one day (if you're stubborn or energetic enough). It wasn't theoretical or imaginative or too big for comprehension.

I'm rambling, I apologize. I'm too tired to edit this evening.

Celebrating Leaving Your Parents With Your Parents

"...every generation moves away from the one before. It is curious that we Americans have a holiday, Thanksgiving, that's all about people who left their homes for a life of their own choosing, a life that was different from their parents' lives. And how do we celebrate it? By hanging out with our parents. It's as if on the 4th of July we honored our independence from the British by playing cricket and nibbling on crumpets.

Thanksgiving morning my parents take Owen to see the Macy's parade while Amy and I start making dinner. Let me repeat that -- my mother leaves while I cook. Specifically, cornbread dressing, a dish my mother has made every thanksgiving since before I was born. To her credit, she has not inquired about my process since she phoned to ask me if she should bring cornmeal in her suitcase. As an Okie, my mom only uses white cornmeal processed by the Shawnee Company in Muskogee. She does not even consider my cornbread to be cornbread at all because I make it with yellow cornmeal and, heresy, sugar. 'You don't make cornbread,' she told me in the same deflated voice she uses to describe my hair, 'you make Johnny Cake.' I'm standing at the cutting board chopping sage and it hits me what it means that she's letting me be in charge of the dressing: I am going to die. Being in charge of the dressing means you're a grownup for real and being a grownup for real means you're getting old and getting old means you are definitely finally totally going to die. My mother is a grandmother and my sister is a mother and I have decided the dressing will be yellow this year, therefore we'll all be dead some day. Happy Holidays!"
"-Sarah Vowell, Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Milestones from This American Life, December 14, 2001

In case it isn't obvious, when I am tired of listening to my ipod, I listen to radio online and right now I'm working my way through the entire archives of This American Life, trying to catch up with something I've learned to love only recently in an attempt to make it somehow mine historically despite the fact that we are only newly friends.

My mom is coming up to Chicago to help me move at some point and I'm very excited. Now our conversations run to things like when I'm coming to visit or when my family is coming to visit me. We've spread ourselves out fairly well with my parents in Atlanta, Laura in Boston, Christy and Alden in Houston, Uncle Bob and Aunt Janet, et al. in Idaho, Uncle Breck, et al. in Wisconsin, and so on. Uncle John and Aunt Deborah, et al. still valiantly staying in the Atlanta area and now they will be so far away....

Thanksgivings are some of my favorite memories from childhood, with Mimi (my grandmother) always cooking for all of us, even after Grandpa passed away, dinner at the home she moved to after his death, my sisters and I watching old movies that she had rented for us in the unfinished basement that never seemed creepy despite the exposed studs and insulation-exposed walls. So much light coming in from the floor to ceiling windows on the side made this impossible, I suppose. Trust Mimi to find the only unfinished basement in the world that has no element of creepiness. The food was always the same and wonderful. It was a day that no one seemed to fight. Everyone had endless amounts of time to be with family and laze the day away just lying around on couches and talking or watching TV.

It's easy these days, with everyone spread across the country and holidays comprising of family gatherings of only my immediate family members, to think that I don't have a large family or that I didn't have the same family experiences that I see other people having now. It's not that I don't have them; it seems that other people are having now what I used to have. Large, copious amounts of family members all together for Thanksgiving or Christmas or the 4th of July. I've had those memories. We're all busy and spread out now but we still love each other. I would be welcome at anyone's house, I could call anyone at any time and rebuild the physically estranged relationship into something measured with telephone bills, letters, e-mails, packages, and the elusive sense of knowing someone beyond the cursory details.

It's easy to forget but I do have family. And I also have all the wonderful family that grew from the people I'm not actually related to -- the Bullards, Beth, Lyndsey, Philip, Chris and his mom, and others. They're all part of my family. They've never replaced my original family or the people that I would list on my family tree. They've stepped in to fill the holes left behind as my family went off each in their own way to live their lives. I could never hold it against them -- hypocrite that I am, I know better, particularly in light of my impending move to Chicago.

Time to fill the holes again. I have a strange sense of being grateful - that my life is open enough to welcome people in.

Your Belief Finds You

"The problem was I also no longer believed in God. Something had happened where Chariots of Gods had kind of been an occupying army in my head that had killed off the army that was God's army. And then when Rabi Smaller came in and killed off the Chariots of Gods’ army, there was just basically nothing left. I was basically a blank slate. I was a clean blackboard. And I have never found again any kind of religious faith since the time I was 14. I just don't believe in God. Every now and then someone who I'm close to who is Christian tries to tell me about Jesus. Whenever that happens, I've taken it very seriously and I have heard them out and I have looked at the bible and every time it's happened it's come down to this: that I find that I don't seem to have a choice over whether or not I believe in God. I simply find that I do not. And trying to force myself to believe – it would be like trying to convince yourself that you are in love with somebody who you're not in love with. Either you have faith or you don't, either you believe or don't. Your belief finds you and then you and it have each other. And once your faith is set, I think only the biggest kind of seismic event in your life can change that, even if you want to change it."
-Ira Glass, on “Faith” from the radio show This American Life, December 21, 2001

I should be doing anything other than what I'm doing at the moment. Packing, cleaning, organizing, sleeping, spending time with friends while I still can. But I was listening to an old episode of This American Life at work today from 2001 and loved the intro by Ira Glass, particularly the part about forcing yourself to love someone you don't love and that your belief finds you and then you and it have each other. Personifying belief as a companion you find.

Reminds me of several books I've read as of late, though I'm not really sure why. The Celestine Prophecy; Eat, Pray, Love; and The Sharp Teeth of Love. One about human energy, one about balancing spirituality with pleasure and knowing yourself, and the other about finding yourself while talking to a ghost from the Donner Party. I mean, really what ties them all together spiritually is the cannibalism....

Good night

Tonight I went to Malibu Grand Prix as a farewell activity with a diverse group of friends, both new and old. I forgot to call Glenda to give her the final details so she wasn't there but everyone else was (sorry Glenda, I'm a bad friend). It was good to see everyone and play. Sort of depressing to say goodbye and then go home to an empty apartment.

I will have driven something like 600 miles this time next Sunday. Getting ready to move this week and tying up some loose ends. T-minus one week.


Priceless: Blaring Hanson in Jen's car and crooning with Taylor Hanson in Mmmbop while dancing in dorky ways with Jen and Anthony while Jordan and Beth cower in the pain of over-enthuisastic silly music.

Skee ball, putt putt, riding go karts, Chili's....

Honorable mention to Mike for inadvertently driving a long way to be there.

Too tired to write in actual interesting sentences that form a paragraph.

Keeping in Touch

I'm realizing that I have to change the way I communicate with a large group of people. There are all sorts of people I see here and there -- we catch a movie, dinner, coffee, ice skating, braves game, whatever. But if I don't make an effort to stay in touch, even loosely, it's likely I'll lose whatever connection I had with these people. Connections have to be renewed or they go through the lengthy process of being rebuilt. (Much more expensive in emotional capital -- far better to just maintain friendships in the long run.)

I was looking through an old folder of personal e-mails and noticed that I use to send people e-mails all the time. I'd say hi, talk about my day, ask for advice, and generally keep in touch with a variety of people and friends that I'd made along the way. I'm hoping that as I move to Chicago I make all sorts of new friends and people to share my life with but that I keep the spirit of maintaining those old friendships. My mom is very sad that I'm leaving as the last of her children to leave the state but I reminded her that we can e-mail. She's on e-mail all day long at work and we can share stories from our lives or just say hi or anything. It doesn't replace phone conversations and visits but it can keep us primed and ready for those moments when we do (gratefully) get to be together in physical presence.

There's also regular, old-fashioned mail. I want to get back in that habit. At the height of my middle school fanaticism for pen pals I had over 100. I think I can manage to write a few pages to old friends once in a while.... Plus, who doesn't love getting mail?

Last nigh was an impromptu viewing of Up with Mike. I had no expectations so it was sort of difficult not to surpass them but I LOVED it. It was one of those movies that transforms me from whatever I am to happy. Small child that I normally am, it was nice to feel like a kid and just laugh and be happy for a night and not bogged down in the details of being an adult.