Farewell, My Little Viking

Emergency Room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital

2010-07-31T11:30:00.001-05:00

Fifty finches, parakeets, cockatoos. My name is Mr. Rivera.

Ambien, Ativan, Lipitor. My beautiful wife—she’s 10 years older.

I already have three psychiatrists! I came for a psychologist. My beautiful wife, I’m driving her crazy. I want to talk and she doesn’t want to listen.

She’s an alcoholic. I steal for her. I steal six beers for her, every day, for the last 10 years. Never get caught, and I’m worried. I am committing a felony.

I didn’t say that I am Santa Claus. I said that I like Santa Claus. He brings presents to children. Six beers, every day, the last 10 years.

Yes, a referral, that’s what you call it. You can call Dr. Joseph but you will probably get Dr. Elaine. She helps Dr. Joseph.

It is Thursday or Friday. I am 48 years old. The month is July. Yes, I know.

I told you. Fifty finches, parakeets, cockatoos.

Great Day for a Breakdown

2010-06-03T01:27:00.006-05:00

The last time I sputtered—that’s what I’m calling it—was two years ago and tears—the fibrous heart-kinds and saline face-kinds—but not as chilly or cerebral, at least how I’m remembering it. I never got around to writing about the incident (I will) because there are a lot of supercilious details: non-FDA approved caffeine pills; Mets at Cubs, seven rows behind dugout, soundly believing one in 42,000 spectators had to be a doctor; sitting on the shower mat for hours, warm streams reviving nothing and waiting for vultures; riding to the hospital, straddling a forgotten quart of tom yum soup in a slow-moving cab; EKGs and IVs and residents’ pens scribbling, reducing me to an incident that happened 11 years earlier; midnight sedation and afternoon revival and dropping my cell phone in a glass of water, the first motion—the first test—of my groggy new life.

Tell me—what sick clown runs into somebody they know in the emergency room? I was inexplicably self-conscious that this patient, this acquaintance—an alcoholic gay sex columnist from my college newspaper, remembered for such headlines as "Barebacking is Whack", and presumably admitted for the same anxieties or overdoses and looking just as shitty and unhygienic—saw my nipples peaking through my gown. More self-conscious about him than the tattooed, hetero-anesthesiologist pricking me four, five, six times and making frustrated jokes about uncooperative veins, unmistakably gawking at my splayed and shivering chest.

No, I’m not going to talk about the last time. It wasn’t an artful trough. The latest sputter might’ve been, as far as breakdowns go. It began:

“Manager, I’m not coming into work tomorrow,” shaky, but so are sailors, at times. “I’m very much freaking out.”

It continued like this:

“Boy I Slept With Two Years Ago, do you want to buy me a Manhattan? If I don’t have bourbon and bitters, I might die.”

Repeat times four. (Rejection, from even the girls.)

Then tears, strictly saline face-kinds. Those all-familiar goosebumps; wobbly and wavering and blinded, and I sit naked for hours, nowhere to go, renewing my predilection for memorizing nuance of ceiling, cracks, without something tactile (necessarily).

I stare off into atoms. They found my brother naked—a grisly, unmentionable detail—and I regret revealing my own blatant exposure to my mom the next day. I spend the better part of morning trying to convince her, “No, I’m not depressed. This is exhaustion. This is a sign of loving life with every ounce of being, and being let down. I’m your happy kid.”

It goes:

I can’t sleep so I text Ricardo to ask if one-year expired sedatives are passable—he is in law school, not medical school—and he prescribes only one. I take two. Potency undergoes a half life. He expects good things for my 89 years and I shall not disappoint.

I try:

To play it cool. I go to a pizzeria-brewery, the daytime talisman for ‘back to normal,’ considering the stay-at-home dad clientele, my usually stabilizing bacon-mushroom-clam order. I can do this. I am an object of interest. I switch to the charcuterie-whiskey bar, the early evening harbinger of hope. I write 12 pages of notes, mute and right-leaning, like drugged ants crossing a page. I read all cuckoo’s nest.

And:

In a stupor, I try going to my job the next morning, a fish with wings. I feel obtuse and duckling, like I’m jutting out and spilling over. Revolving doors and minutes after my security badge takes me past the last portal, I’m ushered into an accusatory ambush—a peer mediation meeting with someone I didn’t even know I had a problem with?—and I erupt and quiver and make pet sounds.

This is highly unlike me. I am sent home with pay.

Then:

Naked, again. On a bed without sheets. I ask Cait what her favorite Audrey Hepburn movie is of three. “Sabrina,” she says. And I vow to watch Sabrina, because I can never sit and watch a movie; I can never give myself time to myself; to rest wringing hands or tautological thoughts, for even two hours. I can never do what regular people do, even though I promise, my leisure isn’t spent any less self-interestedly.

I watch Sabrina. By that I mean, I eyeball the DVD case, still shrink-wrapped and balanced on its centimeter spine next to a horizontal me, still very naked in bed. I don’t open the case or view the movie. But I watch Sabrina, next to me, upright in compendium with Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Roman Holiday, simply there if I want those two hours, or four hours, or six. I pay for my time.

At dusk, the last shiver dissipates—a smoke ring, a fugitive pall. I could handle this any number of ways. Another bath, where I run the chance—rather, penance—of having to look at myself. A resignation letter. Pills with more potency and less half life.

If:

I sunk too low, I wouldn’t have stories.
If I rose above, I wouldn’t have pride.
I never knew either to make a distinction;
That’s why the coroner will find me alive.

Sick Day

2010-04-24T22:55:00.010-05:00

Your Forgetful Chronologist painstakingly made sesame-ginger pork-and-shrimp wontons with her Easter leftovers. No recipe; only daring.

Homage to my Guatemalan and Polish roots: I used the remaining 30-hour garlic-and-beer marinated holiday pierna and cabbage in lieu of bok choy. What a bitch to fold.

Hey, let's soup this shit.

I think I let the green onions simmer too long. Still vaguely successful.

Letter from Los Angeles

2010-03-29T13:04:00.020-05:00

We saw Greenberg and Greg wanted to know why a 25-year-old would willingly subject herself to a 40-something misanthrope and all I could say was um; I need to treat my stomach better when I get back, better than tacos and milkshakes, I had this episode where I was swimming in dark beer and medication and deposited three pounds of puppy chow on the sidewalk, and then we took a picture of the vomit, I had never seen so much, it seemed like the Hollywood thing to do; I'm not sure about graduate school, I don't do well in institutions, I'm bootstraps and breadwinning and there are many names I haven't read, and every year that passes, it seems like there are more; when I crashed my bike I was filled with a liter of wine and my arm turned purple, then yellow, aurora borealis from wrist to shoulder, and I took pictures of scars because that, then, seemed like the Chicago thing to do; and I remind you that you have to be careful, you are irreplaceable, I saw you made your dad write in all caps, don't keep doing that. Last day here, can I bring you a souvenir?

Twenty to a Pack

2010-02-27T16:36:00.006-06:00

Last night put me on some crazy eightfold path shit, Vee. Vee? Vee! Are you listening? Scraping the bottom of the carton, spoon that could knife. It doesn’t always come full circle. Sometimes it comes serpentine, meanders; doesn’t come at all. That was some closure, you can’t get mad at it. Have you ever seen Strangers on a Train? I whacked yours and you whacked mine. They could never muster the courage. We overlap; all fuck-me boots and whiskey smiles and ten-car pile-ups (could they, really, pile up)? Let’s go to sleep. Yes, now. Now. Lights.

==

If I smoked cigarettes I’d be more deliberate. It’s worked into the play. It’s puff, consideration, puff. Eyes skyward, ash, exhale, ash. I’m much too straightforward a girl to sail, did you know that? I hate jargon and I hate strings. [Ash.] Sailing is just jargon and strings. [Ash.] Knots. You know what? If you were my boyfriend, I could say, “I love my boyfriend,” and for the first time in my life, actually mean it. [Flick.] There’s no ocean. It’s Chicago. There’s no fucking ocean.

==

How We Met, because we still haven’t. Nobody asked you to fall for the idea of me. (That would be exhausting.) You were selling your dead girlfriend’s belongings on the front lawn in the summertime. I looked to passersby for the source of ice cream sandwiches. They melt; her paperbacks and records and coats won’t, will never. I have reverence for dedications, the inscribed. You’re older, I want older, but we must matriculate together; to-get-her.

==

Contraction, I have favorites. Excited apostrophe, rashly stamped, too late for some. You wrote me on my birthday. “I know we’re not friends, but.” Prove that I’m not your adversary; anniversary! Does your hair still fall over your eyes? I don’t want to see you, but I kind of want to know.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre: 81st Year Commemorative Edition

2010-02-11T21:28:00.004-06:00

A little blood, a little moonlight. See, I'm not so useless after all.

"When You Have The Gift, Like We Do..."

2010-02-02T00:16:00.011-06:00

VII.

What the palm reader said. We wait until we are settled—sidled—onto bar stools, wind left whipping—wincing outside—to talk about indentations and impressions and fates. Kay’s aura is relatively clean and Stevi has a cracked crown and I, well. My heart is blocked.

“She said I have to free my brother from limbo,” I confess.

“How are you supposed to do that?” Stevi wonders.

“No fucking clue. Maybe instead of calling her hotline I should sleep with another Crowley Brother?”

Our cackles hit the ceiling before our chins tilt upward and, elbows bent, we wield beer cans like archers, aiming acutely. For all the ill prognoses, we can’t dismantle the mirth. Kay is first to leave.

“There she goes, there she goes again.” But we don’t grieve.

This was supposed to be my year to be selfish and now I’m half-considering what munitions are required for an overnight in purgatory. I am $20 poorer and cannot contentedly believe such restlessness could be my vocation, that such a waiting room could even exist. I can only shrug and sigh. And acquiesce.

I will spelunk for story’s sake. I will set you free, on my own terms. If you promise not to climb on my back.

VI.

“Ter, raise your hand,” Dean implores.

“Why, what was the question?” I ask dazedly.

“The question was, ‘Who actually liked high school?’”

My palm obligingly shoots up and the room giggles, not at my expense, but at my distance, distinction. I am a girl off-tempo, particularly this evening, and never quite deserving of the extemporaneous Most Likely to Succeed.

My forearm retracts when I remember that I had dreams.

V.

I lose three pounds while I’m home for Christmas. I want to gorge on meats and cheeses and pastries, but I can’t choke it down. The refrigerator squeals at me, smugly, like a malevolent bottled-nosed dolphin, every time the door is opened and closed. The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with me—only what’s not wrong with me—and I frankly stop caring after I am prescribed something strong and given permission to get back on the bottle.

When I am autopsied, you will find your burden, writhing or swimming or circulating. I take on your burden, and yours, and yours. People will tell you that I’m mature, that I’m responsible, that I’m an old soul. I hate that. They can’t see me collapsing under the weight of their shortcomings.

“Why do you keep chasing after your brother?” My mother is serious, almost grave, and she turns my chin with her right hand so I can’t divert my gaze. “Why do go for these charity cases? You’re not going to save him.”

When you cut open my insides, it will be hard to tell that I was striving for immutable beauty. That I was trying for ineffable truth.

IV.

Boxing Day feels like a blanket. I am somewhere else, but clothed and centered. I don’t parade my quixotic residue in a sad or impaired or lofty way. It’s just how it is; I moved. But this couch is still crouched in my heart; this basement is still my brethren. I make promises to play songs on a guitar, songs that I never learned. I drink more than I need and stay longer than I intend. My left hand delivers a heavy pour into a steaming mug at my right, and a boy who knew Older Brother compliments, “Definitely his sister.” Or, I take it as a compliment. The intonation crosses air to remind me of blood we shared. And I remind the boy that I met him 14 years ago, maybe, when my dad drove him home to save a batch of cookies he accidentally left in the oven.

There are new friends in old places because I choose centrifugal force.

III.

I can’t think about One without thinking of The Other. I’m prone, squirming, sweating, reliving the 11 courses of Christmas dinner, the table wine and lager, the rote of early morning catechism. Littlest Brother wants to know why lone tears keep forming at the crest of my eye, submitting to gravity in soundless cascade, and I can only lie: I’m drunk. There’s a worm eating my stomach. I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Anger was never my forte; it never seemed an evolved enough emotion to dedicate myself to fully. I’m reluctant to dabble in negative space. But what I would tell One—I deserved better than I Don’t Know. And what I would tell The Other—You got your Validation of Marketability and I got my Free Beers, so let’s call it a draw. I am loath to loathe, but I can escape. I will escape and sing.

II.

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” he says.

“It’s knowing when to fight,” I volunteer.

“Shakespeare said that. But what do I know? I’m just your cab driver.”

“With all due respect, sir. William Shakespeare didn’t drive me home tonight.”

He smiles with his eyes closed. I exit before he can speak. I need a bed and I don’t wait for my change.

I.

I was conceived after a wedding, which I knew. I was a week late, which always surprised me. (I mostly make excuses to leave bed early because I realize this doesn’t last forever.) And, my mother tells me now—as I unwrap a layer of aluminum foil, a layer of banana leaf, to reveal chocolate molé and sweet corn masa, a chunk of pork and a strip of pimiento—she tried to dislodge me from her womb by eating only tamales, but I wouldn’t budge. Then she tried to induce labor with a gigantic heart-shaped box of chocolate. Only when the grid was emptied, and the snowstorm had stopped, and the post-Valentine’s Day sales died, could I fathom an entrance.

She tells this story like my foray into living was regal and pronounced. When I unwrap layers it reminds her of lengths. I hope that after twenty-five years I may weave a tale of indigestion for my brood.

This is a happy anecdote that will never make it to a book. To you, it hasn’t made a murmur. But I keep it here, waiting for something to kick.

A Brief History of Dads

2009-12-09T00:39:00.005-06:00

If you've tried looking me up, the DSM IV doesn't have a place for my kind. So here it is, succinct susceptibilities to explain my predilection for the older gents. By no means complete, but some of the features that make me complete, birth to present.

1985

Pushed out of the uterus on the early morning of Mardi Gras. Adapts well to the notion of being naked and ogled by elders in exchange for beads.

Spends crucial mental- and pulmonary-development months starring as The Lucky Baby at Babylon Lanes, a tobacco-tarnished talisman passed around her parents’ bowling circle.

1986

Dad introduces his wobbly, clapping daughter to the Amazin’ Mets in a victory against Houston on July 3. Apt preparation for the coke-snorting, room-wrecking, egomaniacal jocks who would hit on his wobbly, clapping daughter in fraternity houses 20 years later.

1987

Demands to dress up as “Chinese food” for Halloween, prompting her mother to tailor a politically incorrect interpretation of a Japanese geisha and forevermore equip her with an alias to entertain businessmen at tea houses in Kyoto.

1988

Imaginary boyfriend, Billy, debuts. He is 21, drives a red Cadillac, lives on Mexico Island and does not win Mom’s imaginary approval.

Learns how to play poker in Atlantic City, and is thereby inducted into one of the largest of old man milieus before entering kindergarten.

1989

Develops first pseudo-sexual crush on Mike, her public pool’s swim instructor. Foreign to effectual flirting, takes to splashing at inopportune, unrequited moments. Never advances beyond the level of Guppy.

1990

Develops first pseudo-puppy crush on Steven, the oldest kid on the school bus. Vaguely familiar with the biological concept of peacocking, she is drawn to his Reebok Pumps and his ability to consume a whole cupcake in two bites.

1992

Sees her grandfather for a final visit before mandatory estrangement, the direct result of him trying to strangle her grandmother with a telephone cord. The first of the familial males to isolate her, she mourns a Dennis the Menace-watching and soft-boiled egg-eating partner-in-crime.

1993

Seeks counsel in her five-years-older BFF on How to Write a Dirty Letter. Drops a note that alludes to “playing doctor” in the sweatshirt hood of yet another schoolbus crush—Sean, the freckled, brace-faced and ribbed sweater-wearing elder statesman of Hobart Route 9.

1994

Takes the amateur pornography short story circuit by storm with an offering penned by herself and a sleepover accomplice, in which protagonist Sydney Cartwell, an Australian with a BIG PENIS, decides to HAVE SEX while using A CONDOM with a girl who says MMM. For an entire paragraph. Her mother finds the story on loose leaf paper in her bookshelf. The accomplice is, undoubtedly, never invited to sleep over again.

Harbors an improbable crush on Rob, the affably misunderstood community college professor who runs an astronomy course in her enrichment workshop. Quickly learns that inflatable starlabs are the most romantic place to meet your fellow air sign.

1995

Copes with the stroke of her non-estranged grandfather, a pitfall that renders the mental and physical faculties of her biggest fan completely non-responsive. Noticing the incalculable vacancy in his eyes when she floats her softball sportsmanship trophy before his face, she internalizes this as her symbolic death of patriarchs.

1996

Wooed by the wondrous world of America Online chat rooms in a hot, dial-up minute, she lures such luminaries such as SirSexySam, Shlngboy99 and KingSc0rp with pictures of girls cut from magazines and promises of future nudies.

1997

Develops the most inappropriate, never-to-be-seen-or-mentioned-again crush possible on her brother’s uncle—no, not her uncle—at her brother’s understatedly tragic funeral. Um. Don’t judge her grief.

1998

Male history teacher wins her over with such lines as, “You’re much too fun for the Ivy League,” and “Yours was the second-bloodiest diorama I graded this year.”

Fine-tunes the finite identity of Julee Wellington, her promiscuous 23-year-old Manhattanite artist Instant Messenger alter ego. Forms lasting correspondence with Brian from Seattle, with help from a picture of her friend’s skate punk older sister. And promises of nudies.

1999

Reads Lolita. Claims to not see “what all the fuss is about,” but curses her rearing and genetics for not allowing a nymphet pre-pubescence to take hold.

Watches Robin Ventura hit his legendary Grand Single in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series on television, in a 15-inning game lasting five hours and 46 minutes. Masturbates for the same length of time immediately following the game.

2000

Remains completely undaunted when mother gives birth to a miracle baby and the hometown populace immediately assumes it’s hers.

2001

Wins first prize in a poetry contest for an entry with graphic references to statutory rape. Reads prize-winning free verse in a hotel banquet room before her parents. Oh, joy.

2002

Watches the movie Beautiful Girls. Not Timothy Hutton’s best role, but it basically. explains. everything.

2003

Male English teacher writes in her senior yearbook, “Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.” Swoon.

Loses virginity to a junior after senior prom. Never sleeps with a younger guy again. Ever.

2004

Assumes a three-year-long crush on The Boy in the Study Lounge, the lone of her dormitory contemporaries to use a trucker hat to hide male pattern baldness and wear old man slippers to solve problem sets.

Finds a minefield of dejected dads when she starts working the overnight shift at Home Depot. Just sayin’.

2005

Creates a football home game T-shirt slogan that attempts, for the first time, to elucidate her long-standing unnatural proclivity in a Big Ten forum. Ahem: Thank Your Dad for Parents Weekend.

2006

Nearing blackout, puckers up for the kiss that lives in Evanston infamy—her coordinates, Bill’s Blues, and her victim, a 50-year-old golf course groundskeeper unflatteringly dubbed “Mike the Irish” by his cohorts.

2007

Tiring of peers, opts to date a 37-year-old part-time tennis instructor, beach bum, drunk driver, progeny of an electrical engineering professor and Mike the Irish acquaintance. Breaks it off after he texts her a picture of a rainbow, but not before employing his brute strength to help her move to a new Lakeview apartment.

Joins an intermediate-level co-recreational slow pitch softball team in Roscoe Village. Embraces her veritable-ringer status as the cookie-baking, sock-wearing, youngest 20-something on a 30-something squad.

2008

Forms the band Weekend Dad with Kay and Espe. The Hawaiian shirt-and-Doobie Brothers concept never makes it past the first rehearsal.

Finds unhappiness with a 34-year-old reformed heroin addict and ex-convict bartender who is evicted during their courtship. What else is new.

Tries to semi-retire the term “dad” in favor of the acronym “IUs” (Irresponsible Uncles) to better describe her conquests. “Dad” rebounds as the irremovable colloquialism when she considers the probability of her trysts’ seeds’ whereabouts.

Forms a fleeting penpalship with a 43-year-old NASA rocket scientist and microbrewery stakeholder from Maryland. His Julie Newmar fetish take correspondence to a taxing level, then a very terminated level.

2009

Sensing distance from her roots when she takes to dating guys within ten years of her own age, registers “worldsgreatestfather” as her personalized Facebook URL. Blessed be.

Tributosaurus

2009-11-28T15:06:00.017-06:00

Acceptance is malleable, 12 years having known you hidden, 12 exhumed. We overlap. Specious zipped sterility. To anything I give humans; circling packless, patchwork of whereabouts, requesting cirrhosis as finale. Slept with two brothers to figure you out. Human skull, utility knife, two beer bottles filled with piss. Why I shared a room with the younger, perioding between the legs. Strategy, soundly, to make not noise; rope on flannel, tightened till I belted. Uniformed reform, prepared for auspicious noon. Sleeping bag, minus musk, Seminole Indians to distract me. (Bitch didn't do her half of the report.) Overcast, overture. Canon, cannon, canyon; easy to fossilize. Finalize, as a mutable thing.

From the Archives of a Very Dead Brother

2009-11-06T19:48:00.005-06:00

Internal debate: One of many warning signs, or could we all stand to benefit from a vision of grandeur?

My Heart's Just Not In It

2009-09-16T13:51:00.006-05:00

September makes a good case for reincarnation—tired-but-crisp panoramic, silent-but-rustling demeanor. I feel old tracing the contours of new objects. This is supposed to be makeout weather, but it's making me wither.

For the purposes of this blog, I'm on extended book leave. You might see me in a coffee shop, slouching, backspacing, contrabanding my banishment. I haven't been stringing sentences to my liking. Memories are in danger of being corroded by revisionists. Five weeks ago, my mom apologized for letting my brother abuse me as a child. I can't be so sure that he did.

Simply: I'm getting to a point where I will have known my brother dead as long as he was alive. I'm nearing a limit of minor authority and major storytelling; I'll turn the option to audience to determine relevancy. When People in Bars ask how many siblings, I might just cut him from the list. It will pain me, in the beginning.

Superficially: this is the third straight week my morning commute has involved fantasies of hurling myself before an oncoming train or being carried away by red balloons or being kidnapped by a schemer who mistakes my family for having savings. Something is off. I'm her anxious kid, and sometimes her grisly one, but never more than that. Never requiring disinfectant, reprimand, tourniquet. She’s overheard me eulogize, “Life is beautiful, even when it isn’t.”

It seems as if I want to jettison baggage, but I keep boarding passengers. Zealots with charisma—always unemployed—accusing me of sacrificing dreams to day jobs while accepting my handouts. Rasputins who drink my beer, make my clothes smell like cigarettes, eat ribeye steaks in my bed. Amazed at how easily I bruise. This is where I could use, at least, the disinfectant and the reprimand.

But tourniquet, I turn to quit. I wither in this weather, when I should know better. We all know better. I could afford to sit up straight.

Mass Romantic at Critical Mass

2009-07-06T23:53:00.017-05:00

When everyone had viciously paired off—girl with boy, in bathroom, in coat closet—my crush had left because his crush disappeared—I left. I went to find my shoes, I waded through vomit on the stairwell to find my shoes, and I left. It was the 54,864th time I had wished the story ended differently, and the 54,864th time I had done nothing to protest.

..

Geoff thought he owed it to me to wipe the slate clean. “Every time she saw you in here, she told me, she wanted to win,” his confession, on New Year’s. I have this terrible habit of returning to the scene of the crime at critical points of absolution.

“How do you mean?” I ask. I’m naïve, but maybe not.

“Courtney. She would ask me, ‘Is that Bobby’s girl?’ And then she would tell me that, the times when you would leave, she would go home and sleep with him and consider it a victory, considering your popularity here.”

I just assumed that Bobby, a fuck-up at so many things in life, was at least faithful to me. I indulged most of him—jail time, drug addiction, eviction, forgery, unpaid tabs, onions from a previous tenant rotting in the refrigerator, pathologies, fisticuffs, fetishes. I shrugged bemusedly when I started getting phone calls asking for him by birth name (the calls bore a welcomed semblance to the Popcorn & Movies Video calls that would plead for me to return Dead Brother’s porno rentals on behalf of his soul). I turned my head when he ruined his best friend’s credit. But now I knew there was a Courtney and another girl named Terror, who spelled it differently. Now I knew that I would spend January 1 drinking until blackout and January 2 getting tested for everything.

“Kay, it shouldn’t bother me like it does, but it does. I thought I was the one unsociopathic and unselfish thing he had.”

“Terror, stay there. We’re coming to get you and we’re bringing you to Little Vietnam and we’re not coming back to Lakeview for a really long time.”

My head drooped in my bowl and my hair entwined with pho noodles and I meditated on the positives of coming up negative.

..

I only went home with you because you looked like Charlie Day—he’s the likeable one on that show—except in the morning, you didn’t. Your boss had announced last call and I knew I had, maybe, 45 seconds to convey my best and worst intentions; which, I swear, I only needed five of those seconds, wallflower I’m not. Even though I had sworn off bartenders, swore I was cured, I told you my name and why I was staring, and you said, “I work here, you don’t have to go.” You were an actor (once) and I indulged this, until I couldn’t, and so I suggested a 4 a.m. tour. You took me to inspect the lines, showed me the inventory, told me the names of ghosts haunting the bar. We caught a cab on Armitage, and before you told the driver where we were going, turned to me and started, “I don’t mean to be forward, but…”

You didn’t ask me any questions and your radiator made it too noisy to sleep. Your apartment was messy; you owned trunks and instruments and chairs without knowing their histories, a personal vexation; you owned books whose plots and characters you didn’t understand. You thought we were kindreds because we cried at the same two Eels shows. The only thought that stalled my morning beeline for the door, my half-sweater still half-off, was that maybe I should steal your pot. But Logan Square is far too incestuous for souvenirs.

..

Because, the rule is, Sir, that in those 45 minutes, I am not an abstract. In those 45 minutes, because my night could have wound any which way, and I chose you, I must insist that you care about the one you’re with. Even if you must lie. I can only live regretless when I know the present is accounted for.

..

“I want to make pretentious mix CDs for you.” – m4w, 23, Logan Square

I didn’t go in trying to prove that I could, connect with a peer, that is, maybe. That I could have sex that didn’t make me sad or dizzy or prompt me to count plaster cracks or ceiling tiles. I found you in Strictly Platonic. And you were good on your promises, and I on mine—e-mails, B-sides, bourbon pecan truffles, apple pear pie. It took an adorably long time for you to undo my belt—“It’s a military issue”—and you fake-snored and I thought you could be enough for a Chicago winter. But we watched a movie with subtitles and at the credits you pulled away. “I might be moving to Los Angeles this weekend.”

That is, maybe. This town is selfish.

..

I will tell you swiftly: you are not my soulmate so stop texting me. I don’t know what that word means. “It was so good meeting you. I would like to take you out to dinner sometime.” *Meeting* you. I am wary of gerunds. Regretful that I know stories about your mom, the school teacher who remarried your dad’s best friend; and your lesbian stepsister—you two are inseparable; and the intricacies of Minnesota, sleepier than I had guessed. Buddy, you have no idea who you’re dealing with. You interrupted when I tried to count off ghosts who matter to me.

..

For my birthday I wanted nothing more than to serve guests drinks while wearing roller skates for eight hours in my party dress. This domestic subservience fetish may be the salient (rather, lone) anti-archetypal trait a Type A mother passed on to her Type A daughter. I find it endearing, and maybe you do too?

A guest texts me while I’m blow-drying, eyelining, blushing.

“Is ur 80yo boyfriend gonna be there?”

I don’t know which boyfriend he’s talking about, 80 years old or otherwise. Shrug.

I text back. “He has his kids this weekend.”

..

“How many guys did you date this week?” I hang up. I hang up on Dad. I’ve never hung up on a parent—I am (typically) that mature—but I’ve never heard him drip so snidely, judgmentally, at this distance. He calls two minutes later. “I’m sorry. I know there are a lot of losers out there. I wouldn’t want you to rush into making a mistake.” I don’t rush; I painstake. “Eff you, lemme talk to Mom,” I demand.

My dad is in the business of odds, it seems. He likes to tell me when the Mega Millions jackpot is running above $100 million, and what recent karma (I think Catholics call it something else) is sectioning off his prize share. I should have leveled. “See, Dad. The odds of you winning the lottery are one in 175,711,536, whereas as the odds of getting someone to come home with me is about one in two.” Or. The sad part is that I think I’m leveling.

I don’t hunt for sport. I am guilty of peacocking, chasing boys who make me cringe, over-committing time to casualties. You are not trophies, but aversions averred. We don’t have much time! But never sport.

At the end of Raising Arizona. “But I saw an old couple being visited by their children, and all their grandchildren too. The old couple weren't screwed up. And neither were their kids or their grandkids.” I cry because I want that.

..

“How come your room looks like a hotel?” Kay quizzes me from home.

“I don’t… know?” I inflect, uncertain. “How does it look like a hotel?”

“Your bed is made. Who is this guy?”

“Oh, that’s Sean. We met at InnJoy. Total Captain America. He’s from Oregon and teaches physics to minority students in Garfield Park and bikes everywhere and lived in Guatemala and speaks better Spanish than I do and he gave me a book to read on government-assisted coups, it’s weird.”

“Sounds weird.”

“Yeah, also, he’s really aerodynamic. He has a shaved head and the rest of him is kind of hairless. I guess it helps out with his superhero speed and costume.”

“So are you going to get a date out of this?”

“I dunno. I can’t date a Captain America. I mean, how long until he finds out that I’m a complete asshole?”

“You’re not an asshole!”

Which counts, if only a little bit, coming from the roommate who punched a friend in the head while vomiting over a balcony.

“But I'm not Wonder Woman, unless we're going by my FICO score.”

..

Back to odds. I try so hard 100 percent of the time, I leap so fast for love, that it’s only natural to believe (in a vacuum) that someone would try for me.

And that’s how I found myself flailing and screaming and crying at a party (unprecedented) and kicked out of three cabs in one night at a windchill of 25-below-zero, wearing only one mitten and lugging a fifth of whiskey, dripping on and over and inside my messenger bag.

I kicked myself out of three cabs to vomit in the snow. I’m scrupulous.

The first cab let me go. The second cab didn’t want to. “Miss, stay here. I can’t let you freeze to death.” The driver clutched my palm with his right, stroked the back of my hand with his left, the engine idling. This was the human contact I had been waiting for all week. Most girls would have freaked. “Miss, I can’t let you go. I’m not saying this as your cab driver,” he intoned. “I’m saying this as your friend.”

Always was a flight risk, Friend. The third cab didn’t want to let me go, either. “I’m new in town.” Breaks off, reaches for the glove compartment. “Here, I have some napkins. I’m new in town and I’m looking for friends. Will you be my friend?”

I exit. Still immaculate, but I feel like irrefutable trash. How, I wonder as I stumble up sickly fluorescent stairs, did they see the goodness in me?

..

Captain America calls and I’m not sure if I want to answer. I pick up; I don’t bother to disguise my surprise.

“This is really awkward for me,” he begins. “The doctor said I should tell everyone I’ve been in close contact with…”

This is it. This is the end. The death of my sex life. People are never who they seem to be and there is no such thing as a liquor-logged 3 a.m. lesson learned and I need to cloister myself and, of course we were protected, but stop it, don’t look at me. Holy fuck. Bobby didn’t give me anything communicable—not after cheating on me with two girls or getting evicted or the cat with fleas or those onions that would probably still be in the crisper had I been able to go back to bed that morning without the mold haunting my dreams. Captain America, you ruined my life.

“The doctor said I have bed bugs.”

I exhale and then I pause and then I repeat his last words, alternating pitch on the syllables: relief on “bed”, levity on “bugs”...

“Bed bugs? Bed bugs?”

“It’s not really that funny,” he insists. “It’s pretty painful.”

“Oh, no. I’m a writer—this is hilarious.” I catch my breath. “It could have been something so much worse.”

“Well, I suppose that’s one way to look at it. Let me know when you read that book. Maybe we can do lunch and talk about it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

I hang up and I laugh. Just a little bit, and then a lot. Buddy, that’s the only way to look at it. Trademark guffaw, head thrown back, I can’t contain myself; I roll off the bed. “FUCK.” The floor hits hard and doesn’t care that my life has gone back to normal. Pause. Raucous laughter resumes! I continue laughing under my bed, knees tucked at my chest, feet hitting the radiator. It sounded like he had a lot of calls to make.

..

I haven’t burnt out, and despite your fears, I don’t expect to. Sad and beautiful are inextricable adjectives. I believe that, and so long as the two words remain appendages to these nighttime ambiguities, I don’t worry about me. You don’t worry about me, and I don’t worry about me either.

..

“Free Asobi Seksu ticket for victim of ennui.” I posted that Craigslist ad because I needed someone who needed to believe (again). Know that the audition was an invitation to distraction, because I can’t take myself too seriously.

The Winner, tattooed all over, in only black ink—brackets and prime numbers and summation signs. His ennui extended to writing unsettling letters to his ex-girlfriend on Craigslist and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that his muted serial killer tendencies—unemployed and roommateless and lifeless art hanging as a reminder that he didn’t matriculate; immaculately clean apartment that he insisted was dirty; not wanting to ask me to take my shoes off at the door, but twitching when I pretended I wouldn’t; a dog, Harvey, named after the Jimmy Stewart film—turned me way, way on. Loneliness packaged in pleasantry—“we’re the hottest people here”; “you’re wise beyond your years”; “I can’t thank you enough.” We ended on a “see you soon,” a beautifully sad see-you-soon, him in boxer shorts and me bounding to Casual Friday in a recycled, off-the-shoulder, ripe with Empty Bottle beer-and-hipster stench, and me being the one of us two who actually believed it.

I thought I learned my lesson, but I drank half a bottle of Bushmill’s just to make sure.

..

I spend my days alternately wanting greatness and praying I am swallowed by the jaws of dark matter. It will take a special person to understand my desires to be both famous and infamous. I am self-aware; I know how to read for comprehension, how to write for an audience. But these are compromises, not avenues.

It was the 54,865th time the cab driver had no idea where I lived, and maybe the first time I wasn’t sure I could help him out.

..

“Do you want to come over?” I ask.

“I’m not sure. I don’t want to be like that guy in your blog. That’s Not the Kind of Love I’m Used To.”

“There were different elements at play,” I insist. “There was another girl there that I didn’t write about in case she read this, it was complicated.”

I have more damaging first impressions than anything I could possibly hide here, but I am forced to consider that I might have never been the underdog that I think I am.

..

Her husband is dead by the first week of May and my Bartender regards me, not differently, not peripherally, but not quite directly, as if I’m either in the foreground or background of objects: short (whiskey) or tall (Pabst Blue Ribbon), edible (bereavement casseroles) or legible (sympathy cards); tangible and memorable (photographs) or untouchable and inconsequential (“I’m going to have to ask you to leave”). But with this foreshortening, she is strongest for me, in a way I didn’t ask of her.

“I loved him so much, Terror. I had to prepare for this day. He’s 15 years older, oh, but I loved him so much. I didn’t want to have to leave him. I would stay for 12 hours and drink coffee and rest in that uncomfortable chair until I could see him smile. That’s how he would repay me, because that’s all I needed to see. And I told him. Whenever you’re ready to go.”

I take a sip from the short, a gulp from the tall. “It would be my great fortune to have a fraction of those feelings.”

“Niña. It will take you time. You see things nobody else sees.”

Getting back to ghosts. I don’t see them, but I feel their urgency. We’re going to die soon. We don’t have much time! With love, you’re supposed to be fundamental and rapture-ready. And you can scratch your head—why now, Terror?—but this has always been me, matchmaking and leaning against walls at parties and scoffing at mortals, knowing that the world will see me as a cynic, but acquiescing to the notion because it’s somewhat cynical to believe that you’re the last living romantic.

..

Interlude: This Isn’t the Kind of Love That I’m Used To.

..

I practically gave you the lead for your story: Air Sex Championships lead to real sex. I hope this works out, if only to tell everybody how we met.

Everything else I said last night? Let’s not over-think it.

Runner's Postpartum

2009-06-28T13:16:00.009-05:00

At least you can guess where some of my time is going. I've lost six pounds since I stopped running distances over five miles (don't worry—I'm drinking dark lager and eating nachos on the porch as I type this), mostly due to sauna-like conditions of my third-floor walk-up and the renaissance of summer produce (Terror, we're vegetables; we've been around for years). If you buy me an air conditioner I'll go back to being salacious. Otherwise you're looking at what threatens to outmode my prose. Freezer bags of edamame can bring a blog down.

Requiem For a Backyard

2009-06-10T17:09:00.007-05:00

What I Remember About Summer (not Last Summer, but Two Summers Ago): Nightswimming before the lightning came, Me and Five Guys, drinking with an unusual two-piece confidence. Subscribing to simplicity, swaddled in towel, not thinking my feet were ugly. Watching others cannonball; hating our jobs, caring for jokes. The dog licked my hand and I did not blink. Dean let me drive his car home. I don't have a driver's license and I had a three-beer buzz. This town used to tie me down but now I do the tying.

I was the Only Girl in the War Room. Seamus and Eric were as passionate as the night before, scribbling questions for the lawyer, poring over maps. Developers wanted to build so that they wouldn't have access to the top of their hill. "This is your birthright, Dean. If you don't fight now, there won't be another fight." I was stoned on the sofa, lying on my back, legs imaginary-cycling in the air, moved by rhetoric, evermore in love with the David versus Goliath. But I couldn't get angry. I left this town and I changed my name and in my mind there was no way I thought they'd lose. Seamus trusted the lawyer. "His name is Bennett and that's Latin for 'blessed' and I'm glad I looked it up." I'm glad he looked it up.

They said they would have accepted $600,000 for two acres (and, knowing what you know about how my people live, know that this would have changed lives), but they were only offered $100,000. You don't take money for land purchased in the Hamptons in the 1970s. The mother was working three jobs and land was what they had. I had my prom night on that hill. This was what was left of their father. Seamus and Eric fumed and their cigarettes crept inward. "Fuck, I'll just give it to the Shinnecocks and make 'em call it Crowley's Last Stand. No one builds on native land." I sat up. I am a native son.

We welcomed the downpour. "You can sleep over if you want." That was the line Seamus used all week. It had become our punch line, but we didn't laugh, even though I don't think we were hiding it from anyone. "I wish I could, but my flight's tomorrow." The shuddering of shutters and throes of thunder and shaking of sheets could have forced us to show a little depth. Like the hole. Seamus said a couple of things when he was naked, but I remember the bit about the hole. "Today we filled the hole in the backyard." His father had dug it 25 years ago for a foundation that never came. Nobody knowing what it was for, what grandiose plans he had for the earth, steered us from talking about my brother or his divorce or me convincing him that 34 was going to be better than 33. It tampered the dirt, packed it tight, over the things I would have said, so I said nothing and stayed completely still as the wind whipped through my four-man tent and grazed at the tiny hairs on my back. I thought of mankind in a quest to secure life's metaphorical tent flaps, like me fucking your friend to osmosize the good parts I tricked myself into not remembering. I wish I could, but this time I walk away.

"You Look Like a Picasso" / "I Feel Really Jumbled"

2009-05-27T20:32:00.010-05:00

I've been cheating on this blog with our sitcom; short fiction; e-mails to loved ones; pitches to magazines without the words "parent" or "luxury" or "living" in the title; chapters of memoir; a marketing plan for our literary magazine; a guest list for our launch party; a spoken-word piece for open mic; illustrations for a Web site; constructive networking; podcasts with Kay; securing a loan for the bar and bakery (accredited as a community college) I'm opening with Enby when he moves to Chicago (he better); forty hours a week downtown.

Lies, except for the e-mails to loved ones. Reacquaint yourself with the tagline: It's hard to grow up when there's whiskey in your oatmeal. Given my month, I'll volunteer: It's harder to ride a bicycle after two bottles of wine. It's easy to collide with a parked car and crush a side mirror with your elbow and eat pavement and laugh uncontrollably and flee the scene. Behold, the Gallery of Hurt.

My two softball teams and half-marathon training aren't really helping the contusion situation.

Or take this weekend, for instance. What genius thinks she'll make her gonzo subsect debut by eating an eighth of psilocybin mushrooms and following herself around Palmer Square Park with a reporter's notepad and pen? Terror S. Thompson, surely.

I'm most impressed with the consistent degradation of penmanship. Now I know why Christians think they speak in tongues.

Mayfest looms and, Blue Cross Blue Shield, you're on standby. Don't worry. I'll get serious when summer calls for a dispassionate existence. What color is my parachute? She's a redhead. This season cannot go quietly.

A 19-Year-Old Riding the #74 Will Be Getting a Tattoo of This Clown Whore on Saturday

2009-05-14T02:22:00.004-05:00

Directly above the words "Mexican Pride," in cursive, on forearm. "Cool, right?" Under his mohawk, he regards me, unravels me, ashamedly, as a (relative) cougar, Caucasian; unexpectedly caught in the rain and overexposed (white) whiteness peaking out from a Limited Too skirt; it is the Fullerton bus. "You think it's hot? You can keep this, mami."

Not a direct find, but Davy Rothbart (papi) would be proud.

A Digest From the Diary of Early Millennial Angst

2009-05-06T22:58:00.006-05:00

Here is the preface. I was exhuming notebooks, double-clicking files, hungry for history, when I stumbled upon a series I started writing at the end of high school. Chicken-scratched or Arial 8-point, it was nailed under the banner of The Last Fortnight—requisite nihilism, laments, pre- and post-virginity; enlightening and (mostly) embarrassing.

Here is the surprise. I didn’t realize how disturbing my sense of humor was as a teenager. I had always assumed I had gotten worse. I didn’t realize that before the stork dropped me off—good-natured, well-adjusted Midwesterner—I was bitter and battling in a way that I denied, absolved, can’t believe, can’t remember. This isn’t me. I don’t do phases; I am unphased. But as consistently dark as I was, my writing was precocious and daring in a way that makes present day boring, bereft. The ancient method was at the (uncalculated) risk of isolating anyone who tried to get close, but these days I’m scraping to find skeletal, circulatory, nervous systems. Maybe.

Here is the disclaimer. It is not absolutely necessary that I share this—I have drowned the bitterness, I can appreciate content out of context. I thought it would be a fitting aperitif for the entry that (I hope) will follow.

==

High School Graduation Entry:
“Dean and Marco and I smoked blunts. Ate Teddy Grahams. On Dean’s roof. Mastic Beach seemed so still. There was no pomp, no circumstance. It was like being born and not having your father in the delivery room. We'd been indoctrinated to believe that we were shot off like cannons, beginning our trajectories with alarming speed. When really, the town below couldn’t give a shit.” (age 18)

Honest Treatise on Seasonal Affective Disorder:
“It's not that winter didn't leave me any solace. There was binge drinking.” (age 19)

Guilt-Laden Approach to a Drunken Hook-Up:
“I don't want a morning after. I want a morning-after-that and a morning-after-that.” (age 18)

Cynical Regard for Someone Else’s Feelings:
“Dean tells me he loves me, he’s always loved me. I don’t believe him. I can smell his love on his breath. But I let him trace the contours of my hand in silence.” (age 17)

Metaphysically Egotistical:
“So I remember reading somewhere that the afterlife, or the netherworld, or whichever, is located three feet above our terrestrial plane; the dead hover at heights of toddlers, yardsticks. When I’m recumbent on the bed I wonder if the dead are snuffing ashy heels into my shoulder blades. I used to think that, but I started living underground. I get the feeling that the dead haven’t followed me downstairs.” (age 18)

Fun I’ve Had Working Retail:
“If they had played a third Phil Collins song, I swear, I would have started shooting.” (age 19)

Typical Entry Sign-Off:
“I walked home. Alone, streetlights. I’m so fucking baked.” (age 17)

Passive-Aggressive Attempt at Getting Over You:
“When horseshoe crabs mate: the male climbs on top of the female and they do it, do it, do it. After the female has her way with the male, she flips him over on his back. He writhes belly-up in the sand, in the sun, waiting to die. I just wanted to share that with you.” (age 18)

Disheartening Teen Prediction:
“I'm the girl who'll make it to a Porno Bloopers videocassette before she makes it to an actual porn.” (age 17)

Odious Post-Mortem Sibling Rivalry:
“So much for graduating high school with a 103-point-something GPA and not having a drug problem and being respectful when your parents are just going to compare your black sheepness to the child who necessitated two recruitment officers, a probation officer, missing persons reports, a panel of lawyers, two hundred hours of court-mandated community service, job firings, two psychologists, one psychiatrist, two sophomore years left unmatriculated, a new phone number, a new family, a gruesome reconstructive surgery and a burdensome funeral.” (age 18)

Better Late Than Never:
“I was never interested in the human condition until I was forced to examine my own.” (age 16)

Better Early Than Late:
“I’ve read Nabokov. I know how this one ends.” (age 16; re-quoted in this blog in 2008)

First Signs of Withholding:
"'Your brother was an incredible guy,' says Seamus. My brother was a bastard. He chased my mother around the house with kitchen knives, got expelled from school, pawned my Game Boy for drug money. 'That’s kind of you to say, Seamus.'” (age 17)

A Philosophy Paper Due in Less Than an Hour:
“Nobody cares about the existence of God. My parents, my brothers, they’re in Florida working on their tans. I've never been.” (age 18)

The Week I Insisted I Write from the Perspective of a Male Alter-Ego Who Was Cracking:
“It is the Twenty-Eighth and I’m not crazy about being crazy. So maybe you’re right about the death part. The bullet evokes such wonder and awe. But maybe you’re right about the ‘us’ part. Disregard the grievances, and seize me, seize me.” (age 16)

Um, The Day the Male Alter-Ego Decided He Had Enough of This World:
“And I would end with ellipses, hoping you’d follow...” (age 16)

Successful Evasion of an Inquisition:
“Back to Dean's room, sitting on his bed. We do mad-libs. We flip through a men's magazine and I critique bodies like a traitor to my own sex. I don't know how Dean slips it into conversation, but he asks about a boy. If I like a certain boy. ‘I don't know, Dean. I don't know if I like him, but we've been talking. My life is shit, Dean, and when your life is shit, sure, everyone's a possibility.’" (age 18)

Disapproval of a Numbers Game:
“Hollis—our drug dealer—keeps talking about wanting to see my breasts. ‘How come Evan got to see them?’ That was high school. I was drunk. Evan's harmless. You've slept with fifty-four girls.” (age 18)

False Hope:
“After seven years I see my brother not as the sunken ship, but as the message in the bottle yet to wash ashore.” (age 19)

Paid Furlough, Vernal Guilt

2009-04-24T16:42:00.007-05:00

The sun is reflecting, transmuting, bouncing from abandoned storefront to dented car hood to sinewy bicycle spoke; the air is ripe with lust, mulch. I spend the morning heaving and dry heaving and taking names in vain and I don’t leave my bed until someone tells me it’s 81 degrees outside, start your weekend, yayfuckingyes. I exhume flip-flops, willing to expose chipped nail polish at the expense of painfully severing winter webbed feet. Neighbors take notice. “I love me some white girls!” he yells from his station in the semi-circle, onlookers in the arc tittering, my belly's contents rebubbling. He means me, though I’m not girls plural. I can never bring myself to check WHITE (NOT HISPANIC) on a form and the flip-flops are a minute feature of the composite. I waddle to the wireless café, so I can osmosize weather via customer joviality, a door propped open with a tub of wall putty, while I reply to Dad’s e-mail, which begins, “Honey Child, I cannot begin to say how sorry I am.” He really has no reason to be sorry, to begin with Honey Child, to begin calling me Honey Child. The professors lean against the red wall (not the burnt orange or taupe walls) and talk of peace marches and social movements, but add buoyant words to the discourse—“gleeful.” I will work toward glee. The inescapability of ultraviolet waves brings me back to a dysfunctional relationship two summers ago—he was older than the usual elders, had an awful proclivity for daytime drunk dials that shared the state of his dividends, the temperature of lake water, the disdain for my day job. We only started dating because my jankyass phone dialed his number when my bag pushed against the partition on a rush hour train. After the initial palpitation (it went to voicemail), I decided: girl, you’re in it now. Usually Kay is the Ernie and I am the Bert. “You called before?” “I only called because I was returning your call. Is everything alright?” “I called you? Oh, I must have accidentally dialed when I was looking up your phone number to get the discount on toilet paper at Dominick’s.” “Do you realize how many tard clauses there are in that sentence—you forgot your card, you use my number, you’re buying toilet paper, you accidentally dial? This is good TV.” I want a summer of reflection, transmutation—I want to bounce, short of encouraging my parents to feel embarrassed for me, which has been the custom between April and September (and sometimes the clowning bleeds into October, if the right teams reach the playoffs). They don’t need to know I killed the last of my sick days.

Must-Have Late-20th Century Childhood Relic in Fair Condition

2009-04-20T21:36:00.017-05:00

See that kid, on the left? I banged him. I totally banged him.

I recover this—my commemorative 1992 Crayola crayon tin, a Christmas gift from a godparent, oxidizing in the basement of my parents' house—when I am home for Little Brother's high school graduation, inflatable cacti in the backyard, the matriculatory shebang. I skate into the kitchen, present my findings. "Mom, I slept with this boy!" She greets my sexclaration with a raised eyebrow, her involuntary reaction to my voluntary blurting. The eyebrow—a scant line of black fuzz, the result of daily cosmetic upkeep and a freak Bunser burner accident—pulls at her upper lip. "You're drunk. Help me with dinner." I am drunk. I was hoping to open a mature debate on the perceptions of time travel pedophilia, but I am sated by her dismissal, possible disapproval.

I can't convince her that the cowlicked boy in pajamas is an ex-boyfriend—my longest relationship, the only one I’ve allowed her to meet. "But this kid has a neck and Brock didn't have a neck." He lost his neck, sprouted a round head with an overpowering circumference, like a pumpkin you’d pick for a jack-o-lantern. "And you’re a better artist than he is." She says this as if we were childhood contemporaries considered for the same congeniality contest—as if cartoon meritocracy should have commissioned my classically trained aunt to use my likeness, worthy and dexterous crayonist, on eBay kitsch.

I will say, Brock stuck to his Crayolas. He drew me adorably asinine cards for special occasions—penguins loitering under palm trees, snowmen holding hands, Snoopy’s doghouse hidden in pastoral pastiches. There’s something to be said for brand loyalty, or boyfriend loyalty, or any motherfucker who risks a happy landscape knowing your stick figures come from a darker place.

The dog. I remember the dog, or pictures, or mentions. His name was Sam, and at the end of his life I seem to recall him wearing a helmet, dragging his head on the linoleum. Brock came to my apartment and I couldn’t comprehend words between spasms, sobs. “Your dad died?” I asked in disbelief—but not really. His dad is an older dad, a senior vice president with heart problems, hobbies limited to country club memberships and Zagat-rated restaurants. “No, my dog died!” I was relieved—selfishly so, that I wouldn’t have to teach him how to grieve—and I let loose an inappropriate laugh. My pets are piled in a mass grave—bird sleeps with dog sleeps with iguana sleeps with dog—but our people are scattered. I couldn’t explain the laugh without sounding insensitive, desensitized. I can't explain it now. I knew the tin existed, at this point. It’s a shame that Carolyn has no creature to clutch in the frame. But, I wanted to tell him. We saved Christmas from a weightier pall.

I might have been good at manipulating wax, once upon a time. But I looked at this boy on a box, rusting in my hands, and ascribed a tally mark before I told a story. I can boast the value of a collector’s item, but I never could appreciate a still life.

Being Stalked by Hipster Urkel Isn't Fun

2009-03-23T22:08:00.003-05:00

But here's proof that sometimes, if your wooer can't take a hint, he'll combust with little or no resistance.

The sociopath's name has not been changed. Chest bump to Joey Jump Off for help with the rebuttal.

===
Pavan to Terror // March 6, 11:04am
Subject: Feel Like A Trip Straight to the Bottom (Lounge)
..
How was the concert? I had to work later than I expected and missed it. Do you want to see this band at the Bottom Lounge on Wednesday, 3-11:

http://www.myspace.com/womenmusic

The album they released last year is fantastic.

===
Terror to Pavan // March 6, 2:00pm
Subject: Re: Feel Like A Trip Straight to the Bottom (Lounge)
..
Can't. That's my little brother's birthday. I'm taking him out. Maybe a raincheck.

===
Pavan to Terror // March 6, 3:37pm
Subject: Re: Feel Like A Trip Straight to the Bottom (Lounge)
..
Your brother's birthday certainly takes precedence over a noise pop band, let alone one from Canada. Rain check sounds good.

===
Pavan to Terror // March 16, 11:39am
Subject: Whistler
..
Want to get a drink at the Whistler sometime this week? I haven't actually been there that much but hear it's a cool space.

===
Pavan to Terror // March 23, 1:09am
Subject: Like Really?!
..
If you haven't found some guy, who is most probably a total douche, we
should watch the Mets in a real game at some bar.... Can only
promise good times if you hang out with me. Like really.... Stop
chasing after older guys who are not Mets fans..... Why bother when I
know so much more about music than the guys you see will ever know?

===
Pavan to Terror // March 23, 9:44am
Subject: Re: Like Really?!
..
Wow... really drunk when I wrote this. Please disregard. :)

===
Terror to Pavan // March 23, 11:53am
Subject: Re: Like Really?!
..
My definition of a total douche is someone who equates musical knowledge with my emotional happiness. Please don't e-mail me.

===
Pavan to Terror // March 23, 12:24pm
Subject: A Regrettable Denouement
..
Totally deserve your anger... and promise to never email you again.
You're definition of a douche is most apt, and it was me when I wrote
that email. My apologies.... :(

I'd Prefer the Corporate Ladder if it Were Shaped More Like an Escalator

2009-03-18T19:12:00.009-05:00

Terraism #148, as provided by Mace: The best way to celebrate a promotion, and to really show management they made a solid choice, is by calling in sick the day after its announcement.

I'm such an asshole.

Pathos as Public Service = Pretty Sneaky

2009-03-05T19:32:00.006-06:00

If you haven’t been keeping up with my dating life, worry not. Chicagoist has been archiving the juicy details.

http://chicagoist.com/2009/03/03/spotted_missed_connection_free_asob.php

Yup, it finally came to this. I reach the height of my Internet celebrity when an online local interest magazine busts me for doing what I do best—being a creep. The phenomenon of hearing “Thursday” live on a Thursday has taken a backseat to a much-Twittered (Tweeted?), highly anticipated Date of the Century.

With a little help from Magic 8 Ball, Mr. I Signed Up for a Half-Marathon But Should Probably Quit Smoking, a 27-year-old from West Town, narrowly bested a Greg Dulli-worshipping, 29-year-old Northwestern law student with an MFA in fiction. (The cosmos and toy manufacturers alike are notorious for steering me away from doppels.) I was told by a Chicagoist editor that if anything “hilarious” happens with the date, they’ll run a follow up.

I mean, if it does go south, I’m sure my voracious disaster fetishism will prompt me to repeat the social experiment in two weeks for the Red Red Meat show.

Another Photo of Something I Made

2009-02-24T21:11:00.006-06:00

Pan-seared tilapia tacos with pickled cabbage, salsa cruda, avocado and sour cream.

Hush, now. I'm back in training.

I Still Think My Dad Is Dying

2009-02-19T17:23:00.003-06:00

This week, in honor of Birthday, we turn to our guest columnist, Terror's Daddy-O. Since January, he's been scaring the family with unusually nostalgic and sentimental e-mails, leading some of his children to believe that he has developed a terminal illness. "Dad, are you dying?" He swears his evaluative confrontation of impending mortality is just empty nest syndrome. I hope so. Because his prose is lovely and our tribe never typically communicates in this manner and we still have to get drunk at Epcot Center. A coworker tells me that it's the only Disney park that serves alcohol.

t,
You are the sunshine of our life. You came into the world on a night with leftover snowstorm snow. Your mother still rides me about leaving her on a bloody gurney to hang with you in your pink incubator. I told her that you were helpless and I didn't want to lose you in the big bad hospital. I think I had to walk next door to the Bay Shore Burger King to smuggle in a hamburger to yo mama to make up for the abandonment. The visitors at the nursery window referred to you as the Chinese baby. When we left the hospital, it was unseasonably warm (50's) and the snow had all but melted. Yes, I proceeded ever so slowly crossing the railroad tracks in Bay Shore. We got you home safely where your birdhouse bedawaited you (I think the elevated level selection on the portacrib was the interim stop, but who's counting). At least that's how I remembered it 24 yrs ago. (When your mother was 24). Hope you are having a fine day. Will talk to you soon.
D

A Device to Buoy Vessels Over Shoals

2009-02-11T19:49:00.007-06:00

I've been putting off real work by making collages for Mr. Lincoln's birthday. Like this one.

Gosh, I have too much emancipation on my hands.

You're Allowed to Tell Me that My Proclivity for Swan Songs is Getting Old

2009-01-31T19:32:00.007-06:00

Backdrop: Internet café, Magnetic Fields' “I Die,” a hopelessly in-love couple breaking bread at the next table.

I am uncannily polished at saying goodbye. I always leave room for hello (again). It’s like leaving room for cream and sugar.

My Last Conversation with Older Brother: him telling me he was skipping Thanksgiving but would see me at Christmas; me hearing his voice waver but not having the heart to call his bluff.

My Last Conversation with Mother’s Younger Sister: reassuring her she would see Lake Atitlan (again), but from a drastically different angle.

My Last Conversation with Mother’s Father: him telling me that I should paint light colors before laying the darker ones; me asking if my acrylic duck looked real—like, really real, Grandpa. (He’s not dead; just disowned, no doing of mine.)

Everyone deserves a beginning. I repeat this mantra to girlfriends who deserve better. If you court trying to convince me that couples are better served skipping the honeymoon, I tune out. I want to flutter. I want to be nervous; I want to bite my lip and feel as if you’re judging me. I want to tear into you (tonight), but casually pretend that this happens to me everyday (tomorrow).

The boys I’ve slept with have nothing in common except for me. If there is an afterlife, I hope that I’m afforded a slow dance with everyone who has passed me by. (Correction: I do most of the passing by.) Such a fucked up prom I elect to relive.

My Last Words to a Lascivious Townie (a Beginning with the Understanding there would be an End): “I’m cool. We’re cool. I’m a cool girl. I just don’t want to fuck you anymore.”

My Last Words to a Boyfriend (a Beginning, an End, Lingering Benefits after an End): “So, who gets to keep the mutual Facebook friends?”

My Last Words to a Bartender (a Beginning, an Eviction, a Means to an End): “I was hoping you could maybe do the one adult thing I deserve from you and just accept that I'm not your girl.”

My Last Words to a Bartender, Part II (a Beginning that didn’t Dignify an End): “Are you still up?”

My Last Words to a Dead Brother’s Ex-Roommate (a Beginning overshadowed by a Hometown with No End): “I can’t stay.”

My Last Words to a Fellow Flight Risk (Scarcely a Beginning): “I'm of the feelings school that believes in as-many-attachments-as-possible; I'm pretty sure I'm only going to live once—I say this with earnestness, not facetiousness—and I'd like to take down as many people as possible. Not in a Paul Bunyan felling trees kinda way (quantitative). More in the ‘I'd like to make more than a baby whale splash’ kinda way (qualitative).”

My Last Words to a Complete Stranger (a Beginn—): “Don’t steal my stuff.”

Etcetera. And by that, I mean: understand, on the continuum of gut instincts and falling headlong into trysts and welcoming emotional exposure to the elements, there are definitely more than seven types of goodbye.

You slut.

This Post Has Been Deleted By Its Author

2009-01-11T03:39:00.007-06:00

Congratulations, Terror. After living in this town for five years and frequenting your local bar for five months, you managed to score a Missed Connection that’s unmistakably you! Isn't this the ponderously lustful and crestfallen ode you’ve been waiting a hipster lifetime to read?

do you masturbate? - m4w (whirlaway)
Reply to: pers-988330708@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2009-01-11, 1:31AM CST

you know i was right.

Location: whirlaway
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

..

No sir, you were not right. Ye late-thirties Web designer whose claim to roots in Detroit poverty was outmoded by a sweater vest and timepiece that could make the Greatest of Fratsbys blush; ye who accused me of being standoffish because I chose to spend my Saturday night with whiskey and a crossword puzzle rather than indulge your SUV- and aerosol-defending co-conspirator’s disbelief of global warming; ye who asked me if I needed help with the clues to said crossword puzzle, averring that mastery of RedEye sudoku credentialed a takeover; ye misogynist who felt it necessary to ask me why I don’t get turned on by strip clubs; ye uncouth who felt it necessary to ask my friend, not through the door and sitting for more than two minutes, if she masturbates regularly; ye whose French surname is pronounced "bro," a birthright predestining ineffable frustration and erectile dysfunction, as evidenced by a kink-inspired need to show up to the friendliest of neighborhood bars on the most hatch-battening of we’re-all-in-this-together nights to talk dirty to the youngest girl present and prompt Maria, a matron with a high tolerance for douchebaggery, to ask you to leave; ye sociopath whose aforementioned frustration led him to post an online retort to publicly unwound his pride after his ass had been bounced.

In case there’s still some confusion as to whether or not I’m talking about you: Thanks for the drink, Mike. Have fun dying alone!

Hungzover

2009-01-10T22:25:00.003-06:00

Jazz wafts underground at Grand; I stray, take cover behind a concrete column, reappear. “Hey, remember in movies when people used to hide behind trees?” One asks, “Huh?” and Another warns, “Don’t make her repeat it.”

In two hours I polish off a bottle of White Zinfandel, just me; too sweet for just me. In two more hours, I vomit at The Corner, a surprisingly scrubbed toilet catching the sloshy bounty, and reemerge to chastise a fifty-something for jukebox selections. It’s inconsiderate to subject us to eight-minute songs when my empty stomach feels like an eternity.

I’m supposed to write the book on happiness this year, metaphysicians agree. Loath to accept. I’ll be content if I can write a literal book. You know, not a figurative one.

There was a short-lived series in the early-nineties called Phenom about a phenom. I know nothing of preteen tennis players and everything of feeling unspecial because I ran out of time.

Billy Joel wrote “Vienna” for me and yeah, I would say that.

Text message from Little Brother: Mom thinks you died.

Boy, is she wrong!

Letter From YouTube

2009-01-05T20:47:00.006-06:00

24. Don't violate copyright, even if it's a kiddie theme song from a shitty decade.

..

Dear Terror,

Video Disabled

A copyright owner has claimed it owns some or all of the audio content in your video Sam dancing to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme. The audio content identified in your video is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" by Toon Tunes. We regret to inform you that your video has been blocked from playback due to a music rights issue.

Contractionary Proactionary: an Air Sign's Defense Against Another Shitty Year

2009-01-04T22:56:00.004-06:00

1. Don’t get mugged. Especially, don’t get mugged twice.

2. Don’t date anyone who euphemistically refers to his drug rehabilitation or incarceration as “my little vacation.”

3. Don’t date anyone who euphemistically refers to his eviction as “the big move” and loses your shit when his landlord empties his apartment on the front lawn.

4. Don’t let your father prevent you from getting a federal stimulus check.

5. Don’t try yoga.

6. Don’t tip 50 percent on a tab when you’re already fucking the bartender. That’s just desperate.

7. Don’t play the first half of your softball season hopped on uppers and the second half of your softball season crashing on downers. It makes you abrasive and fucks up your batting average.

8. Don’t get assaulted by members of the armed forces.

9. Don’t leave a party if you’re having a good time. Chances are, wherever you’re going will leave you poor, groped and depressed.

10. Don’t insist to personnel at Advocate Illinois Masonic that you’re having a heart attack without first consulting your family’s mental health medical history.

11. Don’t forget to take measures against chafing when running a 13.1-mile race dressed as a comic book character during Chicago’s largest rainfall in 137 years, as to not boast permanent scars akin to a victim in the movie Jaws.

12. Don’t live in Lakeview.

13. Don’t visit Evanston.

14. Don’t give out business cards to people who live in the suburbs, have six children and only answer to the name Socrates.

15. Don’t switch to light beer, no matter how bad this recession gets.

16. Don’t get cheated on.

17. Don’t slap the owner.

18. Don’t heed the psychic’s advice. It’s better to find out the hard way.

19. Don’t play flip cup with Franzia and not expect to carry your roommate home and offer a thank-you blowjob to the guy who helps you clean up her vomit.

20. Don’t let a homeless man convince you in the morning, “I can show myself out.”

21. Don’t be an under-glorified secretary to an anime-worshipping, apolitical soap-boxing, pewter turtle necklace-wearing pseudo-Taoist, whose six months of seniority on you allows him to simultaneously take credit for your genius and force you to fix his mistakes.

22. Don’t break the bed frame.

23. Don’t sleep in. There will be plenty of time for that later.

Exultation in the Modern Era of Japanese Weaponry

2008-12-31T18:48:00.021-06:00

My checkerboard slip-ons slipped halfway off, laptop dangling dramatically in hand, bomber jacket draped over forearm, I attempt an exasperated simper, hoping to signal to security that I have less than six minutes to make this plane. I must board this plane. For the first time in the history of dysfunctional homecomings, I have complete immunity from killing Baby Jesus—for on this day, exceedingly east of Bethlehem, I learn that Little Brother has blown a sizable chunk of his college tuition on a sword.

I don’t know much about the sword. I don’t know what the fuck my brother—already on academic probation and berated daily for sleeping until two or three in the afternoon—was thinking. I only know that I could have breezed through baggage claim at Islip-MacArthur with graphic recollections of a botched double abortion and not raise as many eyebrows as He Who Thinks He’s Ninja.

I feel for the kid. I know first semester culture shock is debilitating. I know my parents will chart his missteps according to my academic trajectory. I know that I am a horrible person because I will publicly condemn the sword, but truly cannot wait to see that shit unsheathed—can I hold it, have you named it, can you take my picture with it?

I sprint to Gate B16. I will make it in time to not ruin Christmas.

..

When I set my luggage down in a bedroom that was once mine (1988-1994), the first thing I notice is a crucifix made out of clothespins tacked above the twin bed. Really.

At this juncture, the most I can do is shrug and comment bemusedly—“well, that’s special”—in the way that Kay did when a man sitting behind her on the Clark Street bus started stroking the faux fur lining the hood of her winter coat. My parents’ fundamentalism leaves me fundamentally unphased.

I decide that part of my mother’s Christmas present will be me dressing up and going to Mass and eating Jesus wafers, even though I haven’t been confessed or holy watered in years. Personally, I’m curious to see if that Eagle Scout with the Prince Albert I blew sometime ago in Manny’s mother’s car will be sitting a few pews ahead. Or I can climb the donkey in the manger and ride. Sacrilege, yes—but I’m not the one who squandered my tuition on a sword.

..

As is the native custom, we go to a casual dining establishment my first night back in town. We decide on Smokey Bones, though the parking lot is shared with a marginally superior Red Lobster. Well, I’m not so sure about this—I debate the competitive virtues of congealed butter versus congealed barbecue sauce, but end up casting my vote No Confidence when it dawns on me that both meals end in a moist towelette.

Am I getting too old for calamity? I’ve been away so long that I can’t tell, but by the way my parents fret over (possibly recessionary) portion sizes and swear that $11.49 once bought more than a plate of buffalo wings, cole slaw and fries, I reassure myself that I am not an entitled snob. I feel sorry for them for dragging us into deep-fried purgatory, but that doesn’t keep me from wearing everyone’s palpable discontent as a narrowed and vacant expression on my face.

“Go hit on the old men,” Little Brother goads. These are not my old men. Smokey Bones is No Country For Old Men. The restaurant (“restaurant”) services a nearby Courtyard by Marriott and lures a combed-over business class with a circumstantial lust for chatting up local horse faces—makeup by Mary Kay, wardrobe by Donna Karan, perfume by Kohl’s—slurping Long Islands (“wow, that’s original”) by the bar. Despite a yearlong intensive tutorial, Little Brother still can’t identify a colloquial Dad. No wonder he's on academic probation.

“Would you like to see a dessert menu?”

“No, we’re going to Dunkin' Donuts. This place sucks.” Ever tactful Littlest Brother comes to our rescue. Since last I saw him, he’s packed on fifteen pounds with his Michael Phelps diet—apparently it doesn’t work when you don’t swim eight hours a day—and is testing the tensile strength of his cuteness.

I don’t think I was ever cute in a way that is paraded before wait staff. Little Brother was, surely. Fuck, was Little Brother adorable. But his child actor guild badge is tarnished, unrecognizable now. Maybe this is part of what makes him sleep in so late.

..

Within a span of twenty minutes, I spill a Diet Coke, dollop my skirt with spinach dip and break a plate at our pre-pre-pre Christmas party. “Opa! This means good luck in the New Year.” No Mom, this means I’m suffering delirium tremens as a result of spending the last 48 hours completely dry. I try to reverse the course, pouring a glass that is three-quarters brandy and one-quarter egg nog. The course leads me to the couch, where I fall asleep on a partially gift-wrapped bundle of slippers and socks.

..

“Do you think Mom would like the movie Juno for Christmas?”

My father frowns. “Your mother is a conservative like me.”

“She doesn't kill the baby, you idiot!”

I can’t help what happens next. My eyes water, my face grows hot, I take shallow breaths. Every time I come home and show that I’m trying, he aches to be nothing more than an ideology. And all that I am to him—despite being his mature, unsuspicious child with an unusually oceanic capacity for love—is an oversimplified political orientation masquerading as an unruly passing phase. It takes my father a verse of Daryl Hall singing “Jingle Bell Rock” for him to realize that I’m crying.

He cuts the silence demurely. “No, I think your mother would like that.”

..

It wasn’t an outright goal, but I am completely tanked before the first guest arrives for our pre-pre Christmas party with the Polish side of the family. Not wanting a meal where I break dishes, I dust off an ancient bottle of bourbon I find on the topmost kitchen shelf, scavenge a snifter from the curio (or maybe it's a votive holder) and swallow like a sailor lost at sea. My 17-year-old cousin Ellie is the only one kind enough to call me out, unless you count my godfather demanding to know who massacred the dinner rolls (answer: me) or my cousin Sergei smiling wily every time I accidentally bump into him (or a misplaced wall). I had always thought Sergei was gay, but when I learn that he’s a University of Chicago alum, I consider that he might just be heinously awkward.

..

I had forgotten that I do, honestly, like New York City. The most immediate trade-off I observe is between cost of living and namedropping. At Harmony House, I recognize television guest star and theater actor Joey Slotnick at the table next to ours. I think he got his start in Chicago, but I could be wrong. I consider relaying the sighting to Gawker. Then I realize they don’t care about this fuzzy-haired nonentity for blind items.

We carry on to the Rubin Museum of Art. We shop for Asian trinkets near The Bowery and eat dim sum opposite a wall of television sets. We eat arepas in East Village and I treat myself to an $11 glass of non-boxed wine. We go to Arrow Bar. We take a free water taxi from Wall Street to an IKEA in Brooklyn.

IKEA represents all I’ve ever wanted out of a relationship. Minimalist, inexpensive, pre-fabricated, Scandinavian, sustainable, obnoxious, matching, adorable. Every showroom dually exposes my domestic and romantic shortcomings. Every smooth edifice of furniture yells—“Use a Phillips head, Terror, and true love will inevitably follow!”

When we take photographs of our group living out my wildest fantasies in mock homes, I am well aware of how pathetic this is. But I should be unnerved when all I aspire to is a status totally within reach. That’s probably why I’m still at my job and have no framework or future for this blog.

But I guess you would have to understand where I came from. I can’t help what I'm attracted to.

..

The misconception about me is that because I know things about some things, and because I know how to do some things, and because I can influence people to do some other things, I can’t possibly be a girl who is easily impressed. And so to the doubters, I say—you’re wrong; fuck off.

..

For reasons I can’t figure out, the little girls in Littlest Brother’s third grade class are in awe of me. Three of his classmates tug at my shirt and exclaim some combination of “You’re so pretty!,” “You’re very pretty!” or “You’re so very pretty!”

Seriously? Have they even seen Marco's mom?

This was revelatory. Why do I drop hundreds of dollars at bars every month looking for similar validations that seldom come? Do you mean to tell me that instead of drinking and being forgetful, I could volunteer and be revered? That’s messed.

Those three little girls almost make up for the class’ disorderly behavior and desecration of the "Mexican Hat Dance."

..

I don’t feel so very pretty when I arrive at Dean’s house with a bottle of Jameson in hand, but I suspect that the odds are stacked in my favor (see: bottle of Jameson in hand). I suspect that this is the Christmas where Dean and I consummate a ten-year friendship and add another chapter to the history of our feuding families. I suspect right.

To be clear, there isn’t really a feud between us and the Crowley clan. It is simply a case of my mother hating Mrs. Crowley. I know my mother hates Dean’s mom as far back as Older Brother dating Dean’s sister, and then Older Brother moving in with Dean’s brothers after he and the sister broke up. After Older Brother killed himself, my mother became obsessively fearful that Mrs. Crowley, already a mother to 11 children, wanted to steal me and Little Brother and add them to a burgeoning brood. I can’t explain how my mother became so irreparably irrational because I could never seem to see the same things she did in the same tragedy. I can only tell you that my relationship with Dean stands on the back of well-conceived lies, the faultless removal and reattachment of bedroom window screens and a three-year precautionary hiatus.

To be clearer, I should mention that I slept with a Crowley brother at my graduation party—a divorcee who lived with Older Brother and is 11 years older than Dean. I realize, Reader, that you might be polarized into Camp Creeped Out or Camp Highly Amused. Suffice it to say, this is how a small town functions. We function by barely functioning. And now I function, having been reminded that casual sex does not have to be a wrenching, dispassionate affair. Even when we were in relationships with other people, we sensed the inevitable would happen—Greg Dulli crooning from the speakers, a jealous cat clawing at my head. It was as sad and beautiful as I could have hoped.

I left his house feeling ready for winter’s wrath.

..

Sword sword sword.

My hometown suffers from severe stereotype threat and we middle siblings, though expatriates, are willing to fall headlong into diagnosis. We are in the dining room and I smile at a worked up Little Brother and tell him, “You’re the depressed one. I’m the one who suffers from anxiety. Calm the fuck down.”

The family thinks I’m incorrigible, yet they hardly know me. When prompted, they overshoot my actual promiscuity by a minimum of two standard deviations. I just say everything that I am thinking because I think it will help. It will cure us. Nothing else was working.

..

The Eagle Scout I blew in Manny’s mother’s car shows up for Mass on Christmas Eve.

..

After Mass, we pile in the Chevy. In our skirts, shirts, blouses, blazers. We go to Taco Bell. My mother has decided to give up, play dead. No fondue this year.

If she’s phoning it in, so am I.

..

Christ, a savior, is born. He brings me roller skates.

..

There is frost on the windshield but my father won’t let me get out of the car to scrape it. I can tell, not knowing when I’ll be in New York again, he is nerve-racked, a little miserable. “I wish we could do more for you.” There is a lilt at the end of his lament, but it is not a cue to have me reassure him otherwise.

“Don’t worry, Dad. You guys do enough for me. And whatever I need that I don’t have, I go out and find.” Only half true, but he doesn’t need to know which part.

When I exit the vehicle, I know I am in the midst of a renaissance.

Coming out here, I wasn’t so sure. I had spent the prior four weeks overextending myself for a small business with a questionable profit margin. Balancing the business with the full-time research gig. I had been self-medicating with booze in a less humorous vein, so I wouldn’t dip into the lorazepam. I had reached a stalemate with a boy I had been hopelessly devoted to.

But there is equal nobility and mobility in still being able to exit. And because I do, I know that I flew in for an immunity I never actually needed. I know that this time I will make him cry, because I am the one of us two who understands the difference between coming and going.

Baker's Dozen

2008-11-30T16:00:00.006-06:00

The beginning.

Make me make you something.

Terra-Dactyl's Recessionary Confectionary: Baked Goods for Hard Times®

2008-11-28T08:27:00.015-06:00

Yo, check it.

This week saw the semi-successful launch of my holiday bake sale. If we're friends in real life (Chicago) and you would like to place an order, I'll send you a flyer that isn't cut off by my piece-of-shit scanner. Sorry, but only Logan Square residents qualify for reindeer delivery. Marzipan dildos will not be available (by request) until Valentine's Day.

I Only Date People Born in 1949

2008-11-20T23:19:00.006-06:00

Is it so wrong that Bruce Springsteen's facial expressions in "We Are the World" make me never want to use contraceptives again?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmxT21uFRwM

Studying up for company karaoke. (Liar!)

This Changes Everything

2008-11-18T18:43:00.003-06:00

If summer was: a responsible lack of self-control; too much in rent; too much to drink; racing sewer rats at dawn; racing Cubs fans at dusk; any excuse to act wounded and take a sick day with my sick bartender; not letting ironic or existential trappings deflate my kiddie pool; being poetic in flip flops; being typecast in my own sitcom; staying up late; staying ready for danger—fall is: none of the above. Lakeview, I ran away. I left you, a popsicle dripping down sidewalk grate; an ephemeral antifreeze rainbow; an affection that leaves me unaffected. I took the things (friends) I could not replace. And in I squeezed (sprawled), betwixt Latino families and undergraduate hipsters, in Self-Esteem Square; to a street where the caves of Lascaux have been unfurled onto the sidewalk—stencil prints of galloping urban oaks, leaf-by-leaf precision—our dogs sniffing, after a heavy rain.

What is there to navigate? Espe asked me if I ever considered myself a Faux Adult, as the season has ignited a sense of risk and wanderlust in her, a need to pull away occupationally, familially, continentally, et al. I fail at feeling adolescent. I’m arrogant, I know; but somehow I can’t keep the asinine from being the most planned or ponderous. I’ve only ever felt like Adult Emeritus—a neuroses first compartmentalized at age eight on breezy, inconsequential days when my 16-year-old brother with the probation officer would drop my 3-year-old brother on his eczema-splotched head under my miscalculated vigil. Hey, what was I talking about? Fall never needs my navigation; the elements hardly ask for input. I have given up looking for something selfless.

I think I found a selfless bar. My last bar left me pop-psychologizing fellow fuck-ups—and damagingly, convinced me I was a fellow fuck-up. “We’re cut from the same cloth,” Ex-Bartender says. Don’t even. You are ham on white bread, no crusts, Hellmann’s mayonnaise. I am finely ground almonds, confectioner’s sugar, a splash of rosewater—kneaded, sculpted, hand-painted, dotted with a clove, too delicate for consumption. (Don’t even.) My new bar doesn’t pose a threat. My new bartender is a fifty-something Mexican woman and I am not tempted to sleep with fifty-something Mexican women. She likes my cooking.

I am enjoying a somewhat meteoric rise. (It’s hard not to sound like an egoist when you are the president of your local bar’s Spanish Club.) Every night it’s a different story that keeps me out until one or two a.m. Some stick out like glaciers; some boys spar better than others. There is a writerly law clerk who accused me of being a cynic—until he kissed me and downgraded the Terror Alert to sarcastic. He kissed me again and called me honest. Then he went into hibernation. (Or picked the “nice lady” he was dating over this “kiddo,” the presumed flight risk. Fucking Capricorn.) I wish I could know more of him, already knowing (per Google research) that our 10K split times synchronize. New Bartender likes to remind me that he still doesn’t have a girlfriend, but she senses I’m tired of carrying the passive and fatalistic ones. She’s been trying to steer me back to my demographic (hence the comic appointment to Spanish Club), and I let her because it’s almost winter and I need the material.

My Quebecois Yale alum neighbor accused me of loving Ex-Bartender. I only write effusively about Ex-Bartender because his existence is easy to ridicule and the likelihood of him scanning my online oeuvre for mentions of us is archaically low—he only uses his computer to manage fantasy football and baseball teams (again, file under: his existence is easy to ridicule). It’s the Ex-Ex-Bartender who burns. I have a masochistic respect for chicanery. If you can fool me, you must be worth my time. If you can fool me, I won’t whisper it here. I also have high deference for near-death experiences, which is why I never posted a formal entry detailing my trip to the emergency room.

Kay lost her job. Our company made sweeping layoffs; I am the jerk roommate who was retained. Day One of Severance Staycation: Kay sells a personal essay to a Canadian Web site for $25. Day Two of Severance Staycation: Kay smokes three bowls and watches half a season of The Simpsons. The Rest of the Week: Her day planner teems. She is offered a writing job, a tax job, a PR job. She is inaugurated as a shot girl (who will likely wear a slutty elf costume from now until Christmas) at Howl at the Moon. I can’t wait until she tells her grandchildren about the recession. “While Terror massaged data in a windowless asylum, I wrote riveting prose at a sunny coffeehouse alongside fellow crusaders of the novelty restaurant and bar economy. Unlike Terror, I was not forced to switch to Pabst Blue Ribbon.”

I want to be a part of history. We will write ourselves out of this town. Then our show will get canceled when viewers sense we’ve sold out to California and have little left to prove. But we’ll need that; it will have become frighteningly apparent that I need to leave because I miss leaves. Adult Emeritus (secretly) begs to stay up-and-coming. It is hard to know if that is selfless or selfish.

Things You Can't Do in Mittens

2008-11-18T02:13:00.008-06:00

Smoke cigarettes. Flip the bird.

Maybe winter will make me a better person.

Room at the Inn, Part II

2008-10-27T22:38:00.004-05:00

The homeless Canadian left me his phone number on the back of a cookie fortune resting on my nightstand. YOU WILL SOON BRING JOY TO SOMEONE. Prologue to a proposal.

Prelude to a Prologue

2008-10-27T20:27:00.005-05:00

Flanked by three walls of cubicle, my trembling, Googling fingers return a fact so devastating in meaning and so exponential in capacity, I have no choice but to stutter, scream, shake, sob and scare everyone in the vicinity of my workstation. Older Brother—the brother who killed himself 11 years ago—is alive. He is living in South Australia. I refresh the browser to harness my disbelief. Nothing changes, because everything already has.

He is smart for escaping to an English-speaking island continent. He always liked sharks. He is definitely not smart enough to change his name or expunge felonies that inhibit him from finding a job that pays more than a ladybug ride operator at an amusement park.

You don’t believe me. If ever there were a brother who could (and would) fake his own death, it would be Older Brother. I know because he’s tried before. Yes, I saw the body. I cupped his cold chin and removed my hand only when I was positive I didn’t feel the pitter-patter emanating from his throat. I spent Sundays directing prayers to a box—twelve by six by six inches—in a much bigger box, where his ashes were sleeping. But you forget; I know him better than temperature, better than physics! Every night for 11 years, he comes to dissolve the edges of my dreams, like ghostly fingerprints on a Polaroid. He is a whisper of the force he once was. I know it’s because he is concentrating on not being found.

Nice try, Fucker. I booked a flight to Adelaide. We are going to meet and I will carry my half of the burden. Mom is worried sick.

I'm Glad My Dad Replaced the Slats with a Sturdy Frame

2008-10-27T09:16:00.008-05:00

There is a homeless Canadian rave promoter* sleeping in my bed. I hope he doesn't steal anything.

Subversion of a Crossword Puzzle

2008-08-23T21:50:00.009-05:00

I found this creative non-fiction piece while packing up my bookshelf for the big move. The year was 2006; I was not sleeping and thinking in riddles. Naturally, enjoy.
..

Prompt: Subversion of a Text
Result: Subversion of a Crossword Puzzle

Haiku, e.g. I know what you’re asking and there are better examples. Karate: I took lessons until I was eight because I wanted to be a ninja (turtle). Sushi: I’m not good with chopsticks. Hello Kitty: Like on Danielle’s lunchbox. Hiroshima: I’m sorry. Origami: I can still make a crane and a drinking cup and I’m not someone who cuts the paper to bypass folding. JAPANESETHINGS. Doesn’t fit. Idiot. Acrostic, ballad, clerihew…

Fifty percent. Is HALF.

Anonymous writer, perhaps. Sweet Valley High, tell-all biography. Front yard pages of the magazine. Who’s kissing who, who’s backstage, who’s dining where—always uncredited. Instruction manuals, ingredient labels, billboards, graffiti, overwhelming sadness. I was once an anonymous writer, perhaps. Slipped sexually suggestive material through a SLIT (17 Across, Narrow opening) in my crush’s locker. He didn’t make a move. Mine was not a case of overwhelming sadness. SE R TAD I R R.

Genetic attribute. (TRAIT.) Belongs to Mom: Taste buds, breasts, hips, neck, chin (multiple), some freckles, cheekbones, internal suffering, tolerance to hard liquor, antibody resistance, duration of menstrual cycle, small nose, well-formed eyebrows (before she singed hers off with a Bunsen burner), acne during puberty, size of hands, back fat, size of pores, cinderblock thighs, ability to cook meals, color of irises (hers a little darker), ability to clean rooms, obsessive compulsiveness, dyed hair (affinity for), piercings, responsibility at a young age, popularity, lingering exoticism. Belongs to Dad: forehead/hairline, spatial (any type of) reasoning, jaundiced skin color, eye shape, straight hair, emotional repression, sports (affinity for), neck, chins (multiple), fingernails (bitten), feet (ugly), blood pressure, cheeks on top of cheekbones, extreme passivity, sweat glands, bone structure, crooked teeth, cynicism (not political beliefs), other freckles, more acne, calves (lean), lint-trapping innie, test scores, work ethic, no trace of exoticism. Belongs to me: scar on my nose (too late for stitches; no ball in the house), height (the average of them).

African country. This anonymous writer, perhaps, exploits the us versus them. They are savage, far away, with plenty of demarcation. Our (lack of) answer hinges on us not knowing (caring). A bushman thinks fifty states is just as absurd. Hawaii is more complicated than Madagascar. We both have territories that fit. Idaho, Texas, Maine. Niger, Egypt, Libya, Ghana, Gabon, Congo, Sudan, Benin, Kenya, it’s KENYA, it’s KENYA. Look, the map shows mountains and deserts and waterfalls and it seems to be an interesting place. I dog-ear the page, well-knowing I will never return.

Resound. Sound again. I picture myself in a tunnel, bathing in decibels. Holding a conch to my ear. HELLO, HELLO, HELLO. I am queasy. How did you fit a reverberating memory in such a tiny space? There are better clues. Greek nymph. Soviet submarine. Unix command. Internet protocol. Framework for Java programming. Marvel superhero. Between delta and foxtrot. and the Bunnymen.

New York city. Not City. You are asking to be less impressive. Focus my attention upstate, on topography, natural resources. I ache to make a borough fit. Bronx has five letters but I know it’s not what you mean. Real cities make people fit. BRONX. The joke is on you, starting a five-letter word with X. (Xerox, xenon.) Fine, hand me that eraser. If we played by your rules no one would visit cities. In five letters you must hold mass transit systems, museums, shopping districts, hot dog vendors, high rises, children playing, pollution, homelessness, apathy. Forty-four unprovoked gunshots to the body. Two very big buildings, crumbling, coming down. You skirt City to avoid sadness and now I understand. I put UTICA in its place.

Greek letters. Delta is one, but not the one between delta and foxtrot. I know Greek letters. I see them right before I blackout. In the bushes or some sophomore’s bed. (If there are no sheets on the bed.) I remember you between bouts of chastity. It took forever for me to learn your house’s name. A sign with ivy creeping: a circle with vertical line, an L turned on its head, a triangle. I know delta. I know turned on its head. I came back to learn your friends’ names. Phi, then gamma, then delta. This alphabet is only useful when you want (someone) to get to know your body. Gamma and delta don’t align. I will come back to you.

Sibilant “Yo!” Easy. PSSST.

Like liters and grams. You measure red wine in liters and pot in grams. I know(;) I squandered youth. Whites are measured in liters, too. People who do the measuring call it litres. It is: half the capacity of the soda bottles my mother buys for parties. It is: the weight of a paperclip. We learned in third grade. Somewhere around sixteen, weight became mass. We were older and they told us it wasn’t weight unless it had direction. I know no direction from too much measuring. If I had a vector to guide (pull) me, I wouldn’t be filling white boxes with black next to black boxes. It is a factory for packaging ennui. Arrow says, this side up.

Utah ski resort. My ex-boyfriend never took me. I’ve never been skiing (or ice skating) so I asked and he agreed because he has money. Not Utah; too far. I only know of their Mormons and saltiness. We decided Wisconsin, fake hills, imported snow. Something not too intimidating for a beginner. He went to Europe for Thanksgiving, skied in the Alps. I just wanted him to repeat something he had already done, this time with me. Be indulged. We didn’t end up going. We had a snowball fight instead. We’re not together anymore, but that’s not why. I just remembered (noticed) that ski is in my (Polish) last name. I will come back to you.

Piece of cake. Easy. EASY.

Wash. neighbor. Could b Ore. or Ida. or B.C. (as in not b4 christ.) Also a neighbor 2 P.O. (as in not post office), V.I. (as in not very important), P.S. (as in not post script), Mt. St. Hlns (she’s inside, actually), strts, islnds, fjrds! It must b pretty in Wash. Words muted so easily by the magnitude (as in not alt. in ft.) of nature. It is brevity. Fleeting panoramas. B sure 2 c it b4 u die.

People with a gender bias. Are men and women. Children, some. Republicans, published sociologists, transsexuals. Prostitutes, protesters, pediatricians. Feminists, for sure. Exploiters of the colors pink and blue. Designers of public restrooms. Underwear manufacturers. Advertisers of two dollar drink specials (Ladies Night). Policymakers, editors of newspapers and magazines, the inventor of the tampon. (The condom, for that matter.) East Coast companies that monogram your towels (his or hers). The writers of the Bible. Gym teachers, dock workers, etiquette coaches, rappers, pornographers. There will be bias whenever you choose. It is everyone shoved into seven little boxes, but I will make it fit.

The Last Days at Camp Keenan's

2008-08-23T17:43:00.001-05:00

Today's forecast:

"You do a great impersonation of a cynic. Those who know you well, though, know it is an act. Of course you care. Passionately. You can be extremely trusting, almost naive, in your willingness to support people and causes. Hence the situation we find you in now. If someone else were in such a position, you would advise them to have more faith in their own self-worth. Yet you seem to be choosing instead, to believe in a fairytale. That's your prerogative. But you have no right to pretend you're being hard-headed when you are secretly being soft-hearted. Face that truth. Then own the consequences of whatever you choose to do."

Eerie; appropriate. Cainer, tell me what to do.

Oral Hygiene Quandary in Ravenswood

2008-08-10T15:38:00.006-05:00

[inner Terror monologue]

Tooth #1: “Jenny, you were very brave. I see that you’ve been brushing and flossing—you have some shiny teeth! Here, bring your chart to Patty at reception and ask her for a sticker. We’ll see you again in six months.”

Tooth #2: “Hey, girly. Make yourself comfortable in the chair and breeeeathe in the happy gas—I promise I won’t rape you while you’re under. I mean... I’m a dentist. It says so below. Yup, ‘dentist,’ see?”

OK, now guess which one is covered by my PPO.

Living Will

2008-08-05T00:05:00.008-05:00

I.

I’ve been a ghost; around, but away; making hard decisions delicately and delicate decisions, hardly. There is much I want to tell you, but little I want to burden you. I’ll whisper in your ear, half-hoping that you’re asleep, half-praying that your body stiffens in the bed next to mine, signaling that you’ve digested my digest but just can’t return the words.

II.

As my Almost-Boyfriend, a recently evicted 34-year-old bartender, ex-convict and former heroin addict, wheels his stolen bike (stolen, as in a $750-value Gary Fisher purchased for $50 from a peddler in his back alley) down Ashland Avenue, he urges me to stick it out and be his girl while he navigates just-another-rock bottom. He is highly likeable, but sometimes hard to love, and so I say no, and then say yes, and then retract (again) on his birthday, when the present I buy him, a Kryptonite KryptoLok (retail value $38.99), is greeted with “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight” and a swarm of angry friends looking to collect their debts. He doesn’t blame me for bailing—he admits, the smartest decision a smart girl can make—but I feel guilty for the timing. I feel guilty whenever Bartender thanks me for the bike lock, his lone gift this year, and furnishes the key as if it were the key to my heart.

It’s hard to leave people. I still sleep over twice a week.

III.

I’m told:

January 1, or New Year’s Day, marks the first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. The Eastern Orthodox Church observes the civil New Year on January 14. Chinese New Year, also know as the Lunar New Year, falls between January 21 and February 21. Losar, the Tibetan New Year, falls between January and March. Nava Varsha, a celebration observed in regions of India, falls between March and April. Hola Mohalla, New Year’s Day in the Sikh Nanakshahi calendar, is March 14. Iranian New Year is March 20. The Baha’i New Year coincides with the vernal equinox, March 21. Assyrian New Year is observed on April 1. Punjabi New Year is on April 13. Cambodian New Year is celebrated from April 13 to April 15. So on. So forth.

I decided:

After being dumped, mugged (twice), defrauded, disenfranchised and admitted (but closer to committed), May 15 was as good a day as any. The reissue date on my non-driver ID—the third copy in a span of six months. Not a New Year—a reissue.

IV.

Adam wasn’t going to let us give up on ourselves. Four dud apartments and four hours wearier from searching, our leasing agent was determined to, literally, put us in our place.

We found her in Logan Square. A three-bedroom, two-bathroom, 2100-square foot rental with mondo-office space for our two black lab-collies, art studio, writing lab, video production equipment and rock band.

When Adam realized that we were going to take her, he opened up. His ex-girlfriend, a zookeeper named Amy, broke up with him on New Year’s Eve, right after he bought her Lenny Kravitz tickets. He hadn’t spoken to her in eight months.

In the car, reading her text message: “ ‘If you see Adam, tell him Happy Birthday.’ If you see Adam? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Is she pretending she misdialed? How about, ‘If you see Amy, tell her to fuck off.’ ”

Adam, we tell him, you have to reclaim the zoo. “Whenever I get divorced,” I beam, “I keep the bar.” Yeah, he says, but I don’t have to go there and make a scene and parade around or bring a new girl. Sometimes it’s not worth going back to the zoo.

I can tell he is not sure if he believes that. Sometimes it’s not worth going back to the zoo, but it might depend on the season.

V.

He won’t let go of my wrist. He won’t relinquish my softball bat and he won’t let go of my wrist—when I tell him to let go, to give it back, when I tell him he’s hurting me, he clamps tighter to both. We are in a public place; we are in a bar. He is a United States Marine on medical leave; I am a civilian, a girl, five-foot-four. He is the drunker of us, and so I maintain some control; he is stronger, and so I can’t loosen his grip. I can’t determine, for the life of me, what set this motherfucker off—he hasn’t seen combat, this I know. I think back to a book I read in elementary school about a girl named Maisie who joins the boys’ wrestling team. Explode, explode! I want my arm back. I drag him off the bar stool, bring him closer to the floor. We’re crouching, we’re grappling; I’m trying to distract him by pulling on the bat. Asshole, I want my fucking arm back. I’m trying to swing my bat upward, still in his hands, to knock him in the skull. We’re in a bar—why hasn’t anyone noticed? –clink—bat touches ground. The bartenders hear this sound—clink, clink—their ears perk like terriers. “What the fuck are you doing? Get off her, you fuck!” My Bartender lunges, tries to pin my attacker by the shoulder, cracking a bottle of Triple Sec with his knee. The other bartender startles the Marine into submission, breaks us apart—I can’t remember how it ends. It ends, it has ended. He is kicked out, swiftly. There is nothing to see here. “Everybody out of the bar! We’re closing up.” Except you. Except me. I sit down with Bartender and a glass of ice water, visibly shaken. “Relax, just talk to me, tell me what happened.” There are no bruises; just incredulity. It’s just us, so I allow myself to cry. Bartender is confused, but maybe not surprised. “Ever since boot camp, he hasn’t been the same.” It shouldn’t make sense, but it does. I remember—the staff sergeant at our dining room table, telling my mom that if Older Brother still wanted to be a Marine, they would (gladly) work around his assault charges. Some boys snap, this I know, but some go in already broken.

VI.

In the middle of the night I try to imagine us as roots of the same tree, intertwined but individual, growing but pushing downward. I can’t hold this image for long. I must have planted this tree on Long Island in my old backyard, where it’s just sand, no soil, and the ground can’t support two people with such mangled bark, such stagnant sap and so many fucking rings.

I wasn’t gravely distressed by the incident with the Marine, but I didn’t get to bed until 3 a.m. and so I called in sick to work. Me and the Ex-Almost Boyfriend (or maybe it’s back to Almost Ex-Boyfriend) spent the afternoon smoking weed and watching the Cubs sweep the Brewers. Like Kay says, the best part about boys who don’t have money or ambitions—and Bartender in particular—is that they’re extremely good at hanging out. I can never let go of past or future for more than a few seconds; I’m constantly remedying or readying for a truth learned or a truth to be revealed. In some ways, creatures without prospects are the most beautiful and free. And oh, that Thursday, were we prospectless creatures!—gazing, grazing, fucking, napping—as we fit perfectly and saw perfectly fit.

We’ve already lived heavy lives without each other, and maybe that’s why we never bring ourselves to talk about the serious stuff—we only talk about how bad we want it, how we plan on pleasing each other, how good it makes us feel. There is more than 11 years between us—there is bad boy and honor student, unloader and receptor, optimist and cynic. We wouldn’t feel distance if we knew direction. He has to wait, he says. His felonies don’t get expunged for another year-and-a-half.

I am beyond waiting. He knows. He makes an analogy, but he still knows. We’re an atom, baby. You’re the electron, moving around. I’m the proton. All the problems, the bar, the dead weight that keeps us in orbit—those are the neutrons. No matter what happens, we’re always going to be attracted to each other.

VII.

“To her, the world is painfully beautiful, and she greets every day with an unscripted childlike awe.”

Such Verdure

2008-06-19T23:26:00.007-05:00

Pictured: Ginger-Sesame Beef Satay with Lime-Peanut Sauce over Scallion and Raspberry Herb Salad.

Not pictured: Me licking the plate. I fucking love cooking in the summertime.

Fuck, Marry, Kill...

2008-05-24T13:19:00.005-05:00

... Mom, God or sandwiches?

Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End?

2008-05-11T21:07:00.015-05:00

“Everytime we find a bar that’s good, we promptly set a bridge afire.” – Kay

Evidence to support:
(* = bartender/staff-related blacklisting, † = patron-related catastrophe, § = unofficially or officially banned for being assholes)

Celtic Knot, RIP February 2007†
¹Bill’s Blues, RIP April 2007*†§
Chili’s of Evanston, RIP July 2007*
Nevin’s, RIP August 2007†§
The Long Room, RIP October 2007†
Harrigan’s, RIP January 2008*
²Friar Tuck’s, RIP February 2008†§
³La Fiesta Mexicana, RIP February 2008*§
Ginger’s Ale House, RIP March 2008†
Keenan O’Reilly’s, RIP pending*†

Evidence to the contrary: None available at press time.

In summation: The pain and persecution we’ve endured cannot be properly conveyed without alluding to the Indian Removal Act signed into law by Andrew Jackson in 1830. Appropriately, we heavy-heartedly refer to these aforementioned establishments as our (Pub) Trail of Tears. If YELP.com site administrators had any sense, they would take extreme measures to prevent us from writing reviews.

==
¹No, I was not banned for the should-go-unspoken incident with the 40-year-old groundskeeper and Danny Bonaduce look-alike not-so-affectionately dubbed Mike the Irish. Nor was I banned for, what legendary blues bassist Felton Crews calls, “public servitude.” The official reason for exile, per the bouncer: Kay is “too drunk” and I have “an attitude problem.”

²Tell me, how can they possibly kick out a girl for pissing in the men’s urinal when the women’s room is out of order? It’s not like we defecated in the sink.

³We did not steal your fucking maracas.

Reconcilation: a Chicken in Every Pot, a Tupping in Every Room

2008-05-08T23:54:00.017-05:00

Ever since Lauren the Psychic’s Daughter told me I’d be meeting my soul mate this year—a dark-haired, light-eyed Aquarian “more pure” than I’m used to—I’ve been considering like-minded, kind-hearted boys a bit more. I’ve never fully subscribed to the soul mate concept. My mom claims her and my dad are soul mates, but I’ve seen her throw too many kitchen appliances at his head. When people ask me how they fell in love, I extol them as Two People Who Met in a Bar. She says they’re soul mates, but then immediately touts the virtues of companionate love—Terror, not all couples have a joint checking account. Me and your father are pretty progressive. We make such a good team! I already have a team. We play softball at Hamlin Park on Sundays.

Heartbreakingly, she thinks I’m impractical for wanting crazypassionatelove. Not irresponsible love devoid of trust or pooled savings; I’m prepared to work hard. But I just want to shake her and say, Mom, I have plenty of friends. I need someone who wants to do it on every piece of furniture we own. Seriously, we’re talking kitchen island, baby grand and heights you’d think only housecats could scale.

I think I’m the only person in my family with an active libido. The Others, yet-undeveloped or semi-retired. Little Brother has never expressed a desire (to me) for more than “a big house, a fast car and a nice wife.” Maybe he’s being evasive. It’s nonetheless wise he chose pre-med. I’m not-so-secretive about my desires, thus I’ve been labeled unrealistic whenever I stress an interest in the commensurate package. Who doesn’t want weekends filled with sex, crossword puzzles, sleeping in, brunch, running with black labs and home improvement projects? (Did I mention I get turned on by tool belts? Also, factoid: hardly abashed when the wind lifts my skirt in front of a construction site.)

Now, for something commensurate to evolve, back to Lauren and my cards or whatever. I should be seeking something more pure. But that’s not star sign-related; that’s common sense. In the past two years I’ve basically dated two types—selfish and older. Selfish, because I confuse unsubstantiated narcissism with misunderstood genius. And older is a no-brainer. Older guys, as a demographic—though you might not think so—come with fewer deal-breakers. For example, they are less likely to read the RedEye on the train; less likely to have seen Dave Matthews perform live; less likely to prefer Jagerbombs over microbrews; and (surprisingly) less likely to wear Livestrong bracelets. But it’s still hard for the Gen X set to believe I’m more than a novelty act. Plus, they want to get married and start procreating right away. (Which I would consider now if I could pop out sextuplets and name them Penguin, Ampersand, Isosceles, Zephyr, Quebec and Nate. Who, me? Novelty act?) Like I wrote in my diary when I was sixteen, “I’ve read Nabokov. I know how this one ends.”

So maybe I’m left with fate (or fatalism) because it’s the control in this experiment. Clearly, the universe could offer up someone who’s better than the bad news I seek for myself. (This doesn't mean I should let my mom set me up with my brother’s karate instructor.) Eep, maybe I’ll end this post here because there isn’t much of a point to this drivel besides me airing hang-ups and proclivities to people who already think I’m a deviant. Of course, people who want me to stay deviant so I have stories for lunchtime.

Bottom line: I suppose I do carry more novelties than a Good Humor man. And summer's just getting started.

Only if Heather Matarazzo Promises Not to Play Me in the Made-for-TV Movie

2008-05-07T23:04:00.016-05:00

Somebody wrote a book about my hometown, which is—at once—exciting, confounding, unnerving, validating and disappointing. Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town. No, I’m not kidding.

I went to four different bookstores in downtown Chicago before Borders on State Street (figures) was able to put a copy on reserve. I guess nobody outside of Shirley, N.Y., has any real interest in reading about our self-esteem problems. I’m only two chapters in and I’m already anticipating that I’m going to hate it. I took issue with the book jacket synopsis from go: “Kelly McMasters grew up loving her blue-collar hometown of Shirley. A service-town to the glittering Hamptons on the east end of Long Island, the place, though hardscrabble, was full of strong, hard-working families and an abundance of natural beauty. Comforted by the rhythms of small-town life, Kelly and her neighbors were lulled into a sense of safety. But, while they were going to work and school, setting off fireworks at Fourth of July barbeques, or jumping through sprinklers in summertime, a deadly combination of working class shame and the environmental catastrophe of a nearby leaking nuclear laboratory began to boil over.” Ugh, what is that crap?

We “hard-working families” don’t use the word hardscrabble. Ever. But diction aside, I can already tell this book rivals James Frey and Augusten Burroughs (and most correctly—a watered down Erin Brockovich, pardon the pun?) in the staged memoir department. McMasters is trying to imbue omniscience with outsider status, but in Shirley-terms, it makes her a joke. Everything about our conscience is hard-earned, nicotine-stained, reputation-heavy and she is everything our town is not: an only child, a non-city or non-island transplant, the progeny of a golf pro, non-Catholic and naïve to the point of believing that Shirley’s proximity to Brookhaven National Laboratory was the most tragic part of our childhood communitas. Maybe the tritium in our groundwater was the salient issue of her generation (I say this tongue-in-cheek; McMasters is my brother’s age) or people who moved into town in the early-1980s (McMasters became a Shirley resident in 1981 and I in 1988), but I can’t help but wonder why she needs a literary device as large as a nuclear reactor when a backdrop of domestic abuse, sex predators, violent crimes, drug use, church scandals, school district embezzlements, Playboy Playmates, a severed head turning up in the Forge River, a mentally retarded teen getting sodomized in the bowling alley or a homeless man burnt to crisp in his van would be more pitch-perfect. Pretty much the opposite of being “lulled into a sense of safety.”

Perhaps she thought these themes were too cliché. McMasters would have to sacrifice her memoir to write a disjointed collection of short stories. But that’s another thing—she doesn’t write like she grew up in this town. She is not blunt, jaded, compact, punchy. She sees a natural beauty; I see a beautiful squalor. (There is a discrepancy.) I guess it’s cool that my hamlet is getting rightful exposure for pleasantly fucking up childhood, but the populace needs to believe it’s for reasons other than radioactive. I’m not saying she doesn’t have a point—my mother doesn’t drink tap water because of rising breast cancer rates. But as someone who narrowly escaped and still has four family members living within city limits, still subscribes to Newsday to read hometown blotter mentions, still feels a tentacle tethering her to in-group anxiety, there’s an urgency for our evangelist to get it right, for us, the first time, for everyone’s sake.

I think, overwhelmingly, I’m just bitter because I believed it would be me or Irene (probably Irene) publishing the first book about Shirley. And more creatively titled. There’s still time, everyone says. And they’re right. Welcome to Shirley pales next to my book-in-progress.

I know working class shame, Kelly. I just paid $24.95 for a mediocre read in the face a recession.

Friends in High Places

2008-04-27T11:02:00.004-05:00

Seriously. Toni asks me for favors all the time. I was the one who came up with the nickname for Milkman.

(First Night) Back on the Bottle

2008-04-27T04:32:00.012-05:00

Drunk, obviously. Three-thirty a.m., obviously. Irving Park and Southport.

Boy: “I like you a lot. But I can't sleep with you. We’re going to go on a date. I’m going to take you out to dinner.”

Terror: “Wait, wait. Are you Born-Again?”

Boy: “No. This isn’t a religious thing.”

Terror: “But you live in Lakeview!”

Boy: “I know. Call me old-fashioned.”

Terror: “Well.” [groan] “I’m going to bed then.”

Boy: “Look at my arm.” [points to tattoo] “What is that?”

Terror: “Um. It's a tattoo.”

Boy: “It's a heart. It means I wear my heart on my sleeve. I’m not a casual sex kind of guy.”

Terror: [cosmic eyeroll; befuddled as to why Emo Boy invited her to his place and had her make the bed] “So, what, you want me to sleep on the floor?”

Boy: “It’s very special when I decide to sleep with someone. You haven’t passed the test yet.”

Terror: [looks at her bruises, considers the tests she’s endured this week—blood, chest x-ray, EKG…] “Fuck this. I’m nobody’s test. I’m going home.”

Boy: “Hey! Can I get your number?”

Terror: “No. This isn’t the kind of love that I’m used to.”

Boy: “What was that?”

Terror: “I said, ‘Thanks for the wine and mixed signals. Goodnight.’ ”

Boy: “It’s OK. I’ll get your number from Sofia.”

Terror: “I told you. This isn’t going to happen.”

Birds chirp. She walks briskly into the cool, salty morning.

Twenty-eight is far too young for me anyhow.

Things the Grandchildren Should Know

2008-04-17T23:36:00.006-05:00

I’m definitely a nice girl—but not necessarily a good girl—she got to thinking.

Dad’s from Brooklyn; Mom’s an immigrant, grew up in Queens. Met in a bar on Quarter Beer Night. Raised in a bowling alley. Moved to a poor, radioactive town. First poker game: Atlantic City, age four. Interrogated by Child Protective Services; doesn’t remember. Colored outside the lines. Brother’s the product of date rape; he knew all along. Raised on ground beef and FOX sitcoms in the early-nineties; raised with the Hudson Valley Food Co-op and Iroquois Indian values in the mid-nineties; raised conservative Catholic in the late-nineties. Brother almost went away for murder; Dad dug a hole, hid the weapon in the backyard. (Brother ducked on boot camp, later killed himself.) Locked in a room; filled a notebook with poems. Scorched her skin; did the usual drugs. Nervous breakdown at 17. Other Brothers weren't told shit. Never got a driver’s license. Passivity. [This slide blank.] Typical prom night. Most Likely to Succeed. Most Likely to Elope With an Humbert. Moved nine hundred miles. Enrolled; bore soul, rich kids took everything. Scorched, skipped meals for wine; settled. Sought love; found sex. She’s over it. I’m over it. You’re over this.

She never had a chance. Stories I don’t tell because I prefer jokes.

The Bad (Girls) Come in Threes

2008-04-13T23:39:00.017-05:00

Dear Diary. I’m sorry for the insubordinate absenteeism. Just because I’m a rockstar doesn’t mean I should neglect my fans or my craft.

Now, I definitely don’t use the term “rockstar” loosely. Because I’m pretty sure Scott Stapp considers himself a rockstar, and maybe the tattooed guy on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab who sang that “Butterfly” song and always walks around without a shirt. But these past two months have been a wondrous and self-affirming mess of imbibing and thriving; of spirited side projects and champagne sleepovers; of monumental coincidence and (my first) credit card charges. I live in the now because I’m mindful that there might not be a post-now. And it’s this winter’s-over swagger that has allowed for antics, oh, the antics!—basically everything shy of a blood transfusion, getting coke blown up the ass and a shark attack.*

Let’s consult the rockstar checklist.

I’m in a band. Yup, we started one. We’ve mostly been playing Johnny Cash and Talking Heads covers, but once you’re in a band the feeling is brash and resolute—it’s like, shuddup fucker, I’m in a band. We’ve been bragging at parties, conceptualizing liner notes, pinpointing influences. “Do we tell SPIN that we’re equal parts alt-country, post-punk, folk troubadour, discordant lo-fi, art school and rock opera?” It’s me on guitar, Kay on keys, Espe on bass.

We’re called Weekend Dad. Kay and Espe both have weekend dads and I… like to date weekend dads. (Although, to be fair, Espe’s is more of a semi-annual dad and I mostly date IUs—Irresponsible Uncles.) Potential (male) drummers would be wise to fax us a record of their childhood custody hearings prior to their audition.

Ego. You know, I never thought I had it in me. And I wasn’t sure of the exact moment when my self-imparted arrogance came to the fore. But this is the year that I decided—if I were a guy, I would totally fuck me. (And I don’t even have a thing for tits.)

This revelation surprisingly coincides with the week that I broke down and read a Chuck Klosterman book on the train. I had been avoiding him. He’s kind of an asshole. He uses the words “ironically” and “unironically” in nearly every essay he writes, revealing exactly how self-loathing he and the other melanin-deficit culture snobs are in their superiority—they cannot subscribe to the day-to-day activities of mass society without preemptively defending their caricatures of self within the absolute hipster framework. It’s pathetic, really. But for every sweeping and masturbatory generalization Chuck makes about the consumption of yester, he counters with a shout-out genuinely close to my heart—Eric Nies, where have you been all my life? People that “mass society” would need IMDB access to, at a minimum, skim the surface of these implications.

Oh, wait. I’m an asshole. I get off on this shit. I guess I didn’t want to admit that there’s a guy out there getting paid to be the jerk that I am (sans a 200-page bestselling treatise, obvi). Bastard. But it's this sort of eloquent narcissism that turns me on, I guess, because I'm a big fan of sparring, foreplay and pillowtalk.

Oh, but I wouldn’t sleep with you, Chuck Klosterman. No fucking way.

A reputation that has proceeded me.

Guy at Party: “Hey, aren’t you that girl who won mud wrestling at The Keg, like, three or four years ago?”
Terror: “No, that wasn’t me.”
Guy at Party: “It wasn’t?”
Terror: “I came in second place. And it wasn’t mud; it was chocolate pudding.”

A system of beliefs. Weekend Dad went to see a psychic. Or, more correctly, we missed the psychic and got tarot readings from the psychic’s daughter Lauren.

She told me that I would move closer to water (old place’s distance to lake > new place’s distance to river?), change jobs before the end of the year and meet my soulmate, a dark-haired, light-eyed Aquarian (“take it slow—you’ve been notoriously fast in the past”). I left feeling like Lauren’s cosmic credibility was about as high as mine. Or maybe I didn’t like being called a fast girl. I have a hard time trusting people with gloriously uneven and unkempt eyebrows, or any clairvoyant who can’t sense that her fly is open.

Cards aside, our interest in the Sextrology book Kay bought me for my birthday has piqued infinityfold. It started as a joke, then we unearthed similarities, then finite commonalities… and then we became star sign devotees. Mace chided, “You know, Terror, that’s how fetishes start out—as jokes.” But Espe eased my fear of Miss Cleo-caliber gullibility: “It’s not astrology; it’s sextrology. There’s totally a difference.”

Profundity, fecundity, excess! There is no moderation. I ate four hamburgers and a box of Girl Scout cookies in a single week. Miraculously ran 14 miles the next. Drank wine before work. (There’s five liters of Franzia sitting on my kitchen counter—relax, I didn’t uncork anything at 6 a.m.) At the peak of winter, we were taking cabs everywhere. Overdosing on post-coital brunches. I broke a drinking glass in my bedroom and didn’t clean it up for four days. (Rockstars love broken glass.) We developed an affinity for “perfectly legal” liquid incense. Speaking of…

Is nothing sacred? I had the most impaired Easter on record (and it wasn't supposed to be a hedonistic affair). It was with (somebody else's) Catholic family. We replaced church with Jesus Christ Superstar and gulped wine and smoked bowls on Kay’s back deck. Even the dogs had a Miller High Life. This is the high life, indeed.

A return to family drama. P'shaw. Let’s just say I won’t be letting my future kids spend unsupervised time with Grandma.

Well, Diary, those are my excuses. I still need to tell you about the Gutter Twins show ending at 3:01 a.m., skipping home gleefully in the snow and then having a fucked up dream where Weekend Dad is ushered backstage to give the band blowjobs. Or the Eels show—whiskey, quantum physics, an encore performance of “P.S. You Rock My World”—that inspired me to dig around in my brother’s past at the risk of making me a fugitive daughter. (Like I care at this point. See above.)

Well, Diary, I guess I just told you. Heart you. Doogie.

==
*Keith Richards, Stevie Nicks, Led Zeppelin, respectively.

Placeholder

2008-04-03T22:44:00.008-05:00

I'll post on Saturday. I'm tired. I have no patience for words.

Have an eggplant. Four minutes in MS Paint. Or, mmm, brushed with olive oil and grilled six to eight minutes on each side.

Pssh. And here you thought I was wasting all of my talents on snarkiness and pie charts.

Just Two Adults Gettin' a Stew On (Again)

2008-03-18T22:56:00.014-05:00

I haven't been to been to Mass in years, but here's my take on my mom's bacalado, in honor of Holy Week. I use tilapia instead of cod and I've added an Asian twist, but I think Jesus would be cool with that.

Terror Danko’s Quasi-Thai Bacalado
(Catholic guilt, optional)

Yup, this is my favorite one-pot meal. The recipe is easy, healthy, completely alterable, well-liked by dinner party guests and can be left to simmer somewhat unsupervised while putting your makeup on. I pair my bowl with a Negra Modelo, wink. Serves 4 to 6.

Ingredients

2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 medium red onions, thinly sliced
1 small red bell pepper, thinly sliced
3 medium red potatoes, diced
3 large cloves of garlic, pressed
3 medium tomatoes, chopped
Thai chili stir fry sauce
Juice of one lime
2 tilapia filets, cut into chunks (or your favorite saltwater white fish)
18-24 large shrimp, shelled and deveined, raw or uncooked
Salt and pepper
Fresh cilantro
1 jalapeño pepper, sliced
Corn chips
Sour cream

1. In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, sauté onions, bell pepper, potatoes and garlic in olive oil. When the potatoes and garlic start sticking to the bottom of the pan, add the tomatoes. Stir ingredients until the tomatoes break down and the saucepan shows the first signs of stewiness.

2. Add water to the saucepan, depending on how thick or thin you want the stew to be. Keep in mind, some water will evaporate with the heat and some water will be retained with the seafood. I tend to add 1½ to 2 cups.

3. As the stew begins to bubble, add the lime juice and slowly add the Thai chili sauce to your liking. I prefer a chili sauce that doubles as a stir fry sauce—you know it works well in cooking and it’s not just straight fire. (Don’t confuse this with concentrated chili paste or you might die.) I tend to add ¼ to ½ cup, but I’m pretty adventurous.

4. Let the saucepan contents simmer, stirring occasionally. When the potatoes are cooked through (you can test with a fork, but I prefer to taste), add the shrimp and tilapia filets.

5. When the shrimp get pink and the tilapia has flaked, turn off the heat and stir in salt and pepper to taste and a large handful of fresh cilantro. Don’t be stingy—cilantro adds amazing flavor and color to this dish.

6. Spoon stew into individual bowls. Garnish with a dollop of sour cream, jalapeño slices and more cilantro. Toss a handful of corn chips into the bowl—crushed chips give the stew texture or whole chips can be used to scoop out the stew. Seriously, this is the best part, aside from leftovers.

Good Friday? Nay, Great Friday.

Textual Harassment

2008-03-13T22:54:00.029-05:00

I think I’m going to quit my job and become a full-time pervert.

If you recall, two weeks ago I posted three Messed Connections—ahem, Missed Connections—of varying raunchiness and specificity. I wasn’t sure what caliber of lecher I would bring out of hiding, but two things became immediately certain: one, not taking the proper precautions to buttress my inbox or forward the mini-deluge to a dummy account was an amateurish oversight; and two, I definitely did not anticipate a cache of married men—some with atrocious spelling and grammar—to get me hot and bothered on my lunch hour.

In the end, I received 22 responses of substance. One for the blue-collar fantasy “Ripe fruit should give to gentle pressure,” one for the foodie-hipster musing “Lakeview boy with a Frank Black fetish” and the remaining 20 for the vague and adulterous “Office nymphet seeking married co-worker.” That’s not too confounding.

Let’s talk about the Lolita post. Even though I knew a high percentage of these e-mails were coming from creeps (well, in their defense, they were replying to a creep), opening each response was like unwrapping gifts on Christmas. The question became, Do I play with this toy or leave it in the (in)box and reach for another? In many cases, I couldn’t resist. Craigslist caters (panders?) to a fairly educated demographic, and I thus felt any respondent who could exhibit an iota of wit or took the time to string together a subject and predicate (or a lot of incendiary verbs) deserved to have a query answered. Plus, I wanted to try and restore the partial anonymity that was once second nature for me in the late-nineties and go back to acting super-coy with strangers, sight-unseen. (And ultra-plus, I was drunk for a slew of these replies and it didn’t help that I had people like Kay, Espe and Chinmay goading me to be bad, to stay bad and to not ever stray from bad longer than I would stray from, say, boxed wine or an abortion joke at a house party.)

To refresh your memory, this is the original post:

Office nymphet seeks married co-worker. Typical. - w4m
You. Late-thirties, married, works in my department in the Loop. Self-effacingly nice, highly embittered about the job, only somewhat of an aging hipster cliché. Me. Early-twenties, t-r-o-u-b-l-e. Let’s skip the elevator talk, postpone the post-punk recommendations and consummate on the copier.

And huzzah, here are some amusing exchanges:

Daniel (zen vegan): damn thats hot..can we role play & I can pretend to be the dude youactually posted for? I do have a copier at my place... :)
Terror (denouemental): Somehow I wasn't expecting a voracious retort from someone who calls himself "zen vegan."
Daniel (zen vegan): Well, we all have our moments.... and while I don't particularly enjoy eating animals, there are some carnal pleasures of the flesh I have no issues enjoying :)

Mike (chitown_guy): Your name does start with a C by any chance does it?

Andy (goodnight_dickhead): I think copulate would have been a better word to go with.
Terror (denouemental): Probably the better literary device, but consummate sounded more romantic. As romantic as having sex on a Canon 3570 can sound.
Andy (goodnight_dickhead): haha! but the 3570 is one of the more comfortable models. depending on the position.
Terror (denouemental): It's not the make or model, it's what you do with it. Turn-ons: Multiple copies, printing on "legal size.” Turn-offs: Running out of toner. Collating. (That's some nasty stuff.)
[Ed. note: God, I need a hobby.]

Its Mail (rem_ides): How about behind the water cooler? We'll be magnified if anyone catches us.
Terror (denouemental): Exhibitionist tenfold. I like your style.
Its Mail (rem_ides): I like yours, you remind me of poison ivy, like, from the cramps. Totally deck! [pause] [pause] My wife is frigid.
[Ed. note: Kay swore this one was my soulmate.]

Tom (imnot_tigerwoods): Hi There, I work in Chase Tower. . . . you?

(d_goofy): Why can't more women like yourself work in my office? Maybe you do and this is me you are talking about. What floor do we work on?
Terror (denouemental): Maybe I do. Eighth floor. Our building faces the park.
(d_goofy): No... I'm not lucky. I'm not the married man you are seeking. I really hope you find him though... it sounds like you both will have a ton of fun together. Good luck to you!

CT (christhomonster): this sounds way too familiar or maybe the scenario its just way too common place. any more hints about location?

P m (downtown_guy): can you advise what building in the loop?
Terror (denouemental): I work on the eighth floor in a building on Michigan. Roar.
P m (downtown_guy): Oh, I am not too far away. But you do sound cute.
Terror (denouemental): Shame. You sound pretty dad-tastic yourself.

T w (tweed74): I'm not your guy but I'm married also and I think you are AWESOME! If you guys ever do have a tryst...it'll be incredible. Good luck!
Terror (denouemental): I'm not usually this much of a homewrecker, I promise. Thanks for the encouragement.
T w (tweed74): how much older is he than you? and are you just in it for the sex? or do you "like like" him?
[Ed. note: TW’s harmless interest in my contrived epic kept this exchange going for three days. He seemed like he was at his own moral crossroads but didn’t want to explicitly say so.]

Matt Simon (boredchiprof): i just saw your cl posting about your married co-worker from last thursday and wondered if there was any chance it was about me... i seem to fit the description, but naturally i'd be shocked if i were actually the one... care to give me a clue? what does the guy look like? or what sort of office do you and he (or we?) work in?
Terror (denouemental): We work in a building on Michigan, facing the park. If Matt is your real name, it's totally not you.
Matt Simon (boredchiprof): i'm not a matt, but i also don't work in a building on michigan. i hope he responds -- you sound sexy!
[Ed. note: Fuck, I don’t care if he’s a Matt. I just hope he really is a BoredChi(cago)Prof(essor).]

And this went on ten or so more times. Oh, but how can I forget GGDs? Pay careful attention to this playa-playa. His setup, his delivery, his poach. Well… I invited it all, naturally.

Tim (goodgoddamns): T-r-o-u-b-l-e. You have a way with words.... which tells me that you have a way about you. Good luck with your copier consumation. [sic] – Tim

Terror (denouemental): I'm Pop-o-matic Trouble. Nah, I'm really not this much of a homewrecker. I'm just susceptible to older dudes in sexually charged office settings with catalog good looks and massive album collections. You seem endearing. Probably too young for me, though.

Tim: There you go again....having that way about you. I'll admit, I'm intrigued at this point even if you are only 23. [Ed. note: He meant to say *because* you’re 23. Pssh.] I'm not sure what "too young" for you is, but I'm 37 and I have an incredible collection of vinyl.

Did he say vinyl? Do I look like a girl who owns Nick Hornby books?

Whatever, I played along. This is where I get philosophical. Also known as lying.

Terror: I'll try not to have that way about me. Promise. I think I'm just like most nice girls in this city who want to get pounced on from time to time. One of the great things about my crush is that he willingly contributes to every double entendre and feeds into my fantasies by saying the smallest, most perfect things—but he's way too mild-mannered and devoted a husband to act on impulses. These are probably the qualities that attract me to him in the first place. Which is why I don't want him to have an affair. If it were anything more than a tryst he just wouldn't be pure to me anymore. [paragraph break] Thirty-seven is a good age.

Tim: Your sarcasm isn't wasted on me...I doubt you could stop having a way about you as much as a leopard could lose her spots... It sounds as if you've found the perfect relationshipwith your married man...No chance for heartbreak or disappointment. It's fun that he plays along withyou...I'm certain he is enjoying your interactions as much as you are. Like you, I spend time in an office and I certainly understand the concept of needing to break the monotony...I do have the luxury of working from home [Ed. note: “working from home” = the ultimate pervert; foreshadowing] and traveling from time to time to help me keep my sanity...but sometimes I need something more. Do you act on your implulses [sic] Terror? :)

And then, without waiting for a reply, he sends two pictures. Tim1.jpg and Tim2.jpg. He is, to most accurately describe him in my lexicon, a Beach Dad. A graying dirty blonde with scruff and a reddish tan—not a tanning bed tan—who shops at American Eagle and wears his choicest “surfer” shirts to attract the waitresses’ attention when he and the Missus go out for a Sunday dinner at Applebee’s. Fairly attractive, but he’d have much better luck if he acted his age and stuck to promoting Bounty Paper Towels or Wrangler Jeans. (God, what is with these near-40-somethings trying to act so hip these days? Don’t they realize that’s the exact opposite of what I want? I'll explore this bane at a later date...)

Wait. At this point, I don’t even know if this fucker is married.

Tim: I'm not sure if I have catalog good looks but I decided to send you a couple of pictures of me... For your viewing pleasure...

I’m stumped. I’m not quite sure what to write, because I either have to send him Terror1 and Terror2 or turn him down outright. Accepting an implied offer to fuck him while he has the "luxury of working from home" is not an option. So a day goes by, then two. Then…

Tim: Hmmmm?? I guess I'm not your type....

Oh, Beach Dad. You're so pushy. At this point, I give up. But his spirit will never die.

Yet I’m most intrigued by the two vigilantes who took the time out of their day to scold me over the nymphet post.

pat hagerty (johnnyfakename): whore

I M A Man (manfromchicago): Its [sic] not "T-R-O-U-B-L-E.” It is spelled " W-H-O-R-E." Glad to be of service.

[Ed. note: It’s called a contraction, dumbass.]

This was the only befuddling part of the experiment. Are there really people out there trolling Missed Connections with the expressed interest of playing morality police? I mean, have they even seen the Casual Encounters section? And c’mon, a “whore”?

Number one, these respondents are confusing whores with homewreckers. I’m miffed because clearly I’m not being paid for services rendered or required to attach a copy of my Craigslist posting to my 1040EZ. There is no evidence to suggest that I’m loose; only evidence to aver my daily restraint. And even if I coerced my hypothetical married man to cheat on his wife, I would not be the promiscuous character in this cuckolding adventure! Sure, I’d be guilty, but I'd be the monogamous one in the situation. And it’s clear this tryst is dependent on his decision to seduce—not mine.

Oh, and number two, I don’t go to your office and tell you how to do your job.

Phew. So, two weeks and what have we learned?

Romance doesn't sell. Copiers do. And in light of the recent New York gubernatorial sex scandal, I learned that I, in some respects, have the prowess of a “Kristen” and could satisfy the Internet’s version of a Client 9. (Quick sidenote: shortly after Eliot Spitzer became Attorney General—I think this was 1999—he came to my junior high school, presented me with the Triple-C Award and shook my hand. One of those Cs stood for “character.” Really.) But no, really. What’s the upside to this? What do I get from sifting through desperate, horny, hopeful or overreaching messages?

A pie chart. A few laughs. And the overwhelming desire to post again and again, just to see if the same twenty guys come back with greater longing, chronic libido or an unsolicited wallet size.

More Like Fucktown

2008-03-02T22:58:00.004-06:00

Kay, Espe and I are moving to Bucktown.

With our two dogs and our rock band. We're gonna make communal dinners and feature-length films. We're gonna paint the walls and sleep with our tattoo artists and keep a household psychic on call.

Spring has sprung, bitches.

Prozac for Perverts

2008-02-28T23:10:00.009-06:00

The city is depressed and I can’t help but wonder if it’s my fault.

Well, I can’t be egomaniacal and take credit for the shitty weather, you getting dumped, you getting cheated on, your seasonal affectedness, your holiday weight gain, your meaningless job, your bout with the flu. But I’m sure my delay of the Chicago mixtape (ahem, mix CD—that’s what the kids are calling it these days) experiment hasn’t served to brighten your blight. You five million unsuspecting city dwellers have no idea that I’m scheming to pull you out of the trenches. But still. What am I waiting for—the end of the world?

Fuck. That’s tomorrow. February 29.

OK, we’ll compromise, because I’m tired of reading these disappointingly unsexy posts on Craigslist, hollow with winter longing:

It is getting lame - m4w
Will you ever have the same feelings for me? I can't tell even when I sleep at your house. I have wondered for 2 years almost.

unfinished buisness - w4m – 28
I wish we could start over, without our turbulent history and finish what we had initially started...

6 months. Cirrus, cumulus.... - m4w - 32
Wonder if you ever miss me or if you mainly cared about the position I was filling. The arrangement was *far* more theatrical than I had expected. Wish we could have talked- either to fix things or to have at least ended on a better note. I *do* miss the small pieces of your identity that I was allowed to know.

Etcetera, siiigh. There are probably a half-dozen additional posts that somberly reference cloud types. Aren’t there any meteorologists in the tri-state area getting laid?

Laid! You might have something there, Terror. I think this is your cue to cut through the emo bullshit and (re-)sex up Missed Connections.

I’ll start with my grocer, culled and modified from a previous entry.

Ripe fruit should give to gentle pressure - w4m - 23
I stare you down on Sunday mornings. You're the produce guy at my neighborhood Jewel in the New Balance sneaks and the Notre Dame cap. You stack and pose hothouse tomatoes with the analytical finesse of an architect-née-Jenga champion-slash-Playboy photographer. I wish you'd take me, right there on that parsley patch below the organic bell peppers, just as the misters go off to "Singin' in the Rain." Seriously, you're too hot for horticulture. I despise Notre Dame and I definitely didn't *need* five pounds of baking potatoes last week, but I find myself humming "Lost in the Supermarket" after our fortnightly hum—I mean, encounters.

Hrm, I spiced that up unnecessarily. But it’s highly specific, so I doubt I’ll get replies. Let’s try this one. This is an archetype. Yes, it’s my archetype, but it could still be thousands of people.

Office nymphet seeks married co-worker. Typical. - w4m
You. Late-thirties, married, works in my department in the Loop. Self-effacingly nice, highly embittered about the job, only somewhat of an aging hipster cliché. Me. Early-twenties, t-r-o-u-b-l-e. Let’s skip the elevator talk, postpone the post-punk recommendations and consummate on the copier.

Damn, is it getting warm in here? I’m not finished.

Lakeview boy with a Frank Black fetish - w4m
We’re neighbors, sort of. You live in the building next door and I hear you blasting the Pixies’ “Doolittle” album whenever I start cooking dinner. (C’mon, is that not a grown man’s cry for help?) If I la-la-loved you, I would be making tilapia tacos, Caprese pizza, pumpkin ravioli, bourbon truffles, hazelnut biscotti (et al.) for two. Just sayin’, bro.

Aw, that one was actually kind of sweet.

But seriously, this is the cure. Self-loathing will not thaw the ground. Destructive yearning does not bear fruit. (In my case, fruit and vegetables and The Clash.) We need to shake the sheets—Ted Leo, credited.

Out of the trenches, Chicago! Because I’m about to get a dozen replies from trannies lookin’ to toss my metaphoric salad, whether I like it or not.

Kiss and Tell

2008-02-24T17:32:00.005-06:00

Sex is hilarious. And so is love. And most definitely, the build-up to the promise of either.

At least it should be, so dictates the biggest (romantic) disaster fetishist this side of cubicle life since Jan Levinson hold-the-Gould.

I realize I didn’t give you guys anything for Valentine’s Day. I’m a week late. (I was also born a week past due date, if there’s any February connection/consolation.) So here, take it. A partial list of partially ridiculous lines from boys (and girl) on dates, while making out, before sex, during sex, after sex. Memorable for the mere reason that I can remember them—which is saying a lot, considering the boozy context of, er, most?

Of course, when I say “sex” I mean light petting with my fully committed and fully-clothed boyfriend while reading each other passages from his Promise Keepers book and listening to Debbie Boone’s “You Light Up My Life.”

**

Date: “I’m really glad you agreed to meet me on a Tuesday. That’s when I see my ADD specialist in Evanston.”

**

Before Sex: “Wow, your watch has a three-color LCD.”

**

Making Out: “Wait. You mean you like me even though I have cancer?”

**

During Sex: “Where were you when I was in junior high school? Fuck. Don’t answer that.”

**

Before Sex, Him: “Whose car is this?”
Before Sex, Her: “I don’t know. It was unlocked.”

**

Date: “Yeah, I dropped out of Princeton, but I’m totally overqualified for the job I have now.”

**

Before Sex: “You’re going to laugh.”

**

Making Out: “Are you sure you’re 18? You look 17.”

**

Date: “I collected unemployment for awhile.”
//
Date: “Yeah, that was around the time I started collecting unemployment.”
//
Before Sex: “I’m really good at convincing the government I’m unemployable.”

**

After Sex: “Is your brother going to be mad that we used his Boy Scout tent?”

**

During Sex: “HOLYMOTHERMARYFUCKEROFGOD!”

**

After Sex: “I thought you were going to be a dirty girl. You did meet me at Nevin's on an alphabetical pub crawl.”

**

During Sex: “So, uh. When you’re done throwing up, you think you’re gonna finish?”

**

Making Out: “I love Dave Matthews. I mean, I love him. I want to name my first son Dave.”

**

Before Sex: “Before we do anything we should probably watch Purple Rain.”

**

Before Sex, Him: “Is that a tattoo?”
Before Sex, Her: “Why are you tan?”

**

After Sex: “Did you see where I stuck my gum?”

**

Oof.

Ripe Fruit Should Give to Gentle Pressure

2008-02-13T23:44:00.006-06:00

I'm in love with my produce guy.

The one who works at the Jewel on Southport and wears New Balance sneaks and a Notre Dame cap and stacks and poses hothouse tomatoes with the analytical finesse of an architect-née-Jenga champion-slash-Playboy photographer. Sometimes I wish he'd take me, right there on that parsley patch below the organic bell peppers, just as the misters go off to the tune of "Singin' in the Rain."

Oh, but don't get the wrong idea about us. Our wedding song would be "Lost in the Supermarket."

An Isotope is an Element with a Secret

2008-02-12T22:57:00.014-06:00

I.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of riding the Brown Line from Kimball to the Loop at 6:51 a.m. in February, you might have seen white clouds competing with the whiter plumes of smokestack for the foreground, enveloped by a neatly gessoed horizon—parallel strokes of bright pink, lavender and baby blue—illuminated by a rising winter sun. If you’ve ever seen this while listening to the Asobi Seksu song “Thursday”—a perfect song not exclusively perfect for the Brown Line or Thursdays, but for any suspension or elevation that touches you in your toes—then you must have noticed that the sky looked like a birthday cake for a sad clown, if ever there was a sad clown with happy clown friends who planned him a surprise. A layered pastel eyesore, peacefully and impeccably frosted.

That’s when you realize. It’s perfectly fine to be sarcastic but nobody earns the right to be cynical. It’s not up to us. Maybe nobody in your car is staring at the layer cake—your car is coughing, sleeping, reading, ipoding, decaying—but there is someone. Someone on your train or someone in this city who sees what you’re seeing just as you see it.

Isn’t that enough?

II.

I wouldn’t mind this nasty weather we’ve been having if it didn’t come with so many bullshit excuses. My car wouldn’t start. It’s too snowy for the bar. Girl, your love is biting like the wind chill.

I promised I wouldn’t catch your seasonal affective disorder. (“Go tanning,” my mother says.) But I find myself dressing in the same three colors and growing increasingly nihilistic about the things that typically control me—work, health, debt, sex, consumption, acceptance, appearances.

I tried to buy some necessities at Walgreen’s. My debit card was rejected. My bank changed my PIN and didn’t tell me. They were items I needed. Cold medicine, cough drops, tampons, dental floss, pocket tissues, saline solution, valentines. I surrendered my basket to the cashier. He: undoubtedly assured he had it more together than I, a girl drowning in her business casual who couldn’t muster the cash for over-the-counters. (Let me tell you, there is no cure for business casual.) There goes a hot mess without her tampons, he thought.

I had exactly two dollars left for the train. Hot mess.

III.

I used to build obstacle courses in my backyard. Me and my brothers would run time trials, Bossy Terror with a stopwatch around her neck.

Run up the slide!
Down the ladder!
Hop the log!
Jump off the swing!
Between the cones!
Through the chicken pen!

Yup, I grew up on Long Island. The epicenter of urban sprawl and we had six chickens. (Or maybe it was four and two roosters.)

The obstacles were even better in the winter. They involved any combination of snowballs, sleds, garbage can lids used as sleds, building and destroying, Genesis and Exodus.

My dad is a civil engineer.

I miss manual labor. It’s a wonder I didn’t join the Army.

IV.

I’m not that girl who complains about work. It’s not my style. But this was the first week in seven months that I’ve felt supremely bigger than the job that I do, exponentially smarter than the people giving orders and justified in feeling so indignant.

They hired a boy who came to his interview wearing supertight girl jeans. Yes, he’s an intern, but doesn’t that mean he should be trying harder? You can’t quell your indie stardom for a fucking job interview? Stevi echoed the same sentiments. “I hate when people think they’re too hip to not wear work clothes.”

My (acting) supervisor scheduled a 20-minute individual meeting with me (and individual meetings with seven of my coworkers—multiply those numbers out) to discuss output quotas and productivity. “You should be proofing about 60 pages an hour,” she says. I was told the average for beginners was 35. I was breaking 40. She laughs. “Oh, you mean you actually read through the stuff on the bottom? I just breeze through that.”

V.

Mary: Terror, I know you wanted bangs… but I just can’t do it. They’re not going to look good with your cowlick.
Terror: Aw.
Mary: But we’ll have fun. What do you think about going short and me using a razor?
Terror: I trust you, Mary. Just make me look hip, not hipster.
Mary: I promise you, Terror. We’re cutting off the bad. See that hair on the floor? That’s the bad. This is going to be your year.

VI.

There’s a reason a Venus razor costs $9 and the Bic imitations cost half as much and come four to a pack. I am bleeding from all of the important places.

VII.

I will not let precipitation and accumulation win. I own February. I am a groundhog, a cupid, a black historian, a president, another president and a leap year rolled into one. My birthday is approaching. My room is tidy. My bills are paid. There is fresh cilantro in my fridge. I am back to being human. I bought nice clothes; I bought play clothes. Little known fact: any clothing article with a hood has been clinically proven to improve my mood. I acquired another faux fur-lined hooded vest this week. I wouldn’t be surprised if I was a Klansman in a former life. (Or if I’m a shy, security blanket-type girl in this life.)

Now I have to figure out how to triage my illnesses and start making appointments to see doctors. Which is most important—the nerve damage in my lower back, the growth on my cervix or the cough I’ve had for three weeks that still makes my ribs ache? I’m so afraid to use my insurance. When I was in New York I saw a doctor who I thought was in-network, but now I’m stuck paying provider and lab fees. My roommate works for insurance lawyers and tells me my company barely exists. They’re not listed with the usual bureaus or accrediting arms or some bogus shit. I had a feeling they weren’t legit when this appeared on my statement...

Supersize me.

VIII.

I was watching Juno in the dark. It was that scene at the end, right after she gives birth. Tears roll down her cheeks with deliberate cinematic grace; they careen down mine until they are swallowed by wide pores. And then I hear the music. “It’s ‘Sea of Love,’” I croak. I always feel like such a tool when I whisper song titles to the friend sitting next to me, but then I realize why I do it. It is the unadulterated excitement of recognition. It's like when you were two or three years old and people sang Happy Birthday and you finally said, “Hey, I know this song!” That’s how it always is for me. My life is an amoebic soundtrack and, even when repeated, every day is new.

That’s when I get the idea. Where are the other sad clowns? I want to make every day new for you. I will make mixes and leave them in public places. Stevi told me about a girl who burned CDs and hid them on her campus a couple years back. Everybody hypothesized identity, but I’m making it so the city won’t have to guess. I don’t want this to be a Missed Connection; I want this to be a pass-along project where you listen to mine and make one of yours and we beat the cold. No track listings written out on the actual CD, but I’ll provide a link to this blog so the mystery can be properly revealed. So everyone involved eventually knows who moves me and what complicated contract they’ve unwittingly entered. So they’ll be more inclined to

TAKE ME
& THEN RETURN THE FAVOR.

Tentative launch date, February 18.

I want Chicago to carry a chain letter. I don’t ever want to feel supremely bigger or exponentially smarter than anything again.

Democrazy in Action

2008-02-08T00:25:00.001-06:00

(+) American Samoa

2008-02-04T20:00:00.001-06:00

I can’t overstate how satisfying it was watching Tom Brady trudge off the field with his pissed off “I date a supermodel, but right now I really need to punch a hooker in the face” face. I don’t really follow professional football—though I am a season ticket holder and ardent T-shirt maker at my Big Ten alma mater, she says kissing her biceps—but the only thing that rivals my indifference for the Giants is my hatred for the Patriots. So, pretty big victory for me… pretty big loss for everyone in this country who looks like a date rapist. (C’mon, Tom Brady = cleft chin, biological infant son who doesn’t share his surname, vacant post-Jagerbomb expression. What would you call him?)

I can only hope Super Tuesday delivers XLII times the upset—Bams over Hilz. No, we really don’t need that much brute force—everyone’s reporting a dead heat. An upset would have been my lover Kucinich in the White House, appropriating military spending to social programs. Psych!

I won’t be voting tomorrow, unless there’s a way I can skirt the necessary forms of (stolen) identification I don’t (currently) have. S’alright. Illinois is locked down, minus a Park Ridge knitting circle. I’ll focus my efforts on drinking and Crayola-ing results on my cutesy state map. I love democracy—it’s so festive!!11!1 Raucous caucus!!4/1!

Here. Enjoy some not-so-topical congressional scandal humor.

I consider myself a performance artist.

Last Night, When We Put Our Socks on the Radiator to Dry

2008-02-03T15:00:00.002-06:00

This was the recuperative weekend I needed to remind me that life is overwhelmingly good, even when it’s not. To remind me that there are people who love me. Liars and cheaters and thieves do not make up the lot of my ilk. I am not in a spiritual wheelchair—I just suffer differently. I am as beautiful in that skinny mirror at that Indian restaurant as I am when hacking up a lung in my polar bear pajamas. As I am when laughing with Kay about the mistakes I’ve made or curled up drunk on my bed listening to Gregor’s poetry. I am endearing because I try. I am hilarious because I am true.

I needed this weekend to remind me that staying indoors with nine people in the dead of winter—gathered in the kitchen, shiny and loud and laughing, spiking hot cocoa with whiskey and Irish cream—can be far better than going out. January was an adversary but February will be my friend. For the first time this year I feel like myself. Like a girl who hangs upside-down on the monkey bars, whose life is not tired but could inspire an American folk anthem. I am awake, especially when we talk candidly about death. (We are alive, especially when Kay and Gregor put off going to a mall in Tinley Park to buy galoshes and narrowly miss a shooter.) I am ready for your truth or dare. I am siding with the underdog, and therefore still winning.

Maybe Kay (and Thom Yorke) expressed it best. For a minute there, I lost myself.

Fireside Chat

2008-01-30T22:32:00.001-06:00

So I think I have the flu. My fever finally broke this afternoon, but I still feel like FDR.

Last night was torture. (See: yesterday’s barely coherent entry hinting at the fun to come.) I hardly get sick and my 103.6°F was unprecedented, so when I had the same dream eight times in a row I was convinced I had brain damage. Hypochondriac Me was ready for the hospital, but thankfully my inner Oh, Just Let the Wolves Find My Body prevailed.

Also, it was pretty much the worst dream ever. I was handed a big assignment at work that I wasn’t sure how to tally in our company’s output tracking system. You know, Lisa says, “I want to help you, George Washington!” Bart returns, “Man, even your dreams are square.” My dream anxiety was translated into actual sweating and chills. I would have laughed myself out of the emergency room.

I’m ready for February. Well, I would be if it weren’t for the tragicomic material that’s been sustaining this blog. But seriously, I’m trying to figure out why this year’s gotten off to a less-than-auspicious start. (Perhaps we shouldn't have made so many fake, post-sangria New Year's resolutions, eh guys?) I consider myself a victim of: identity theft, memory loss, champagne for breakfast, shitty insurance coverage, rejection, memory loss, influenza, judgmental gynecology, a back injury I willed upon myself by lying to a supervisor, post-college ennui (the most overused genre-term in my mental repository, but until I find a better way to describe my life’s lack of direction, we’re keeping it), the writers’ strike, post-holiday lethargy, circumstance, et al. And above all, a victim of self-victimization, especially if it keeps you coming back.

January had its plusses. Namely, two: getting a tattoo (which needs to get retouched) and the employee recognition prizes I received this week (though I felt way sheepish taking a sick day only two days after they handed me my “You Make the Difference” certificate). But I think Febs will prevail. “It’s our year,” my mother keeps telling me, indubitably referring to the Year of the Rat. She’s cute. I’m also turning 23, which is the fixed age of the alter ego I created for myself in the seventh grade (“Julee Wellington”*) after my brother killed himself. See, now I’m cute. I’ve always viewed 23 as this perfect, escapist period between wise and wiseass, casual and committal, transient and settled. Hrm, I didn’t theorize this exactly when I was 12 years old; I was too busy using Julee to lie to strangers in AOL chat rooms. But Good Terror is clawing at the more adulty side of those dichotomies, which could only mean better results. Right? Pssh?

==
*For more on Julee Wellington, tune into Dads: A Brief History, Bad Terror's three-part series coming this February.

Better Than a 28.8 BPS

2008-01-29T21:20:00.001-06:00

My Little Mermaid thermometer says I’m 102.4°F.

Walking to the train tomorrow, the wind chill will be -19°F.

I am not pleased.

I’m also doing the cunty Chicagoan thing by writing an entry on the weather. “Man, my wiper blades are fucking toast.” Now let’s talk to a homeless person, a senior citizen and a dazed Latino kid getting on the school bus before we wrap up.

I really hate the news. I’m not the news. I’m NyQuil streaming over a 56K.

Stream of Listlessness, Chapter I

2008-01-29T01:00:00.001-06:00

1. Portmanteau is one of my favorite words.

2. I was thinking of buying Rollerblades to use strictly in the house. (Cue: Image of a 10-year-old boy in a mid-nineties television commercial, banging the screen door as he glides into the kitchen, asking his mother if there are any more pizza rolls in the freezer. Yup, I want that to be me.)

3. Also, my next boyfriend better own a Wii.

4. Fuck the Chicago Marathon. I should have signed up for this one so I could cross the finish line with a penguin tucked under each arm.

5. Seriously, how do you even charge $344 at a Dunkin’ Donuts?

6. If People says it’s true, I better get my nightshirt dry cleaned.

7. Was there anything more useless than the D.A.R.E. program? I'm not just saying this because I've smuggled drugs through an airport while wearing the complimentary T-shirt as a decoy.

8. Seriously debating Bonnaroo, dude.

9. Man, I hope the Mets sign Santana.

10. There's no way this year's birthday can top last year's birthday.

Yup, I made those invitations in MS Paint, sucka.

McNally Gets Randy

2008-01-29T00:17:00.002-06:00

FOX’s “Moment of Truth” was severely disappointing. I wanted bloodshed. I wanted couples asking each other if they were bad in bed, if they had ever cheated, if they had ever wanked it over their mother’s casket. (Oof.) Not Mark Walberg (“Temptation Island,” not “Good Vibrations”) asking a 46-year-old salesman with an oddly thatched head if he was a member of the Hair Club for Men.

I mean, to the credit of America’s stupidity, there were a few deliciously bad parts. But the bad parts weren’t consistently bad enough for me to create an ad hoc drinking game. Now, American Gladiators—I don’t even bother with a coaster for that shit.

I’ll tell you what was worth the price of admission. That exhibit, Maps: Finding Our Place in the World, at the Field Museum. It closed this weekend, so a lot of good my retrospective ooo-ing and ahh-ing will do. But Lame and I went to go check it out, and it definitely made my inner Carmen Sandiego whoop with glee. Seriously, maps get me hard. (Terra firma, duhhh.) I was floored by the inky intricacies, amused by the misguided frontiersman, awed by the sociological constructs, perplexed by the religious implications, elated by the tribal ingenuity. Not since I memorized all of the state capitals to earn my grandfather’s respect (and five dollars), or since my first experience stripping in front of peers (some start out with poker; we sixth graders in the William Floyd School District started with Strip Risk—that’s right, Seth lost more than Kamchatka that day), has geography held so much meaning. I love bearing witness to man’s unflagging efforts to document what we cannot fully understand or duplicate what we cannot physically hold. Never has an exhibit made me feel so big and so small.

If the attendees weren’t 52 percent graduate students, 47 percent senior citizens and 1 percent Lame, I would have totally posted something to this effect at the end of the tour.

Not to be a dick. Just to be a cartographer.

And it should be noted, my day ended at The Map Room in Bucktown. I didn’t plan it that way—that’s where Sofia’s birthday cavalcade ended up after the amazing wine and cheese flights. Ashes to ashes, bleu to gouda and maps to maps. This is me getting off.

Why Danny Romano Only Has Three Fingers on His Right Hand

2008-01-27T12:29:00.001-06:00

This morning I woke up and found a cache of fireworks on my dining room table.

Today could shape up to be a pretty good day.

Municipal Milquetoast

2008-01-27T11:22:00.001-06:00

I’m a bitch. Well, let me rephrase—I’m a bitch, in that, if I’m drunk at a bar and you can’t verbally spar with me for more than two minutes, I decide when the conversation is over. This means the sheltered, boring or pop culturally devoid will have a hard time getting my number; home schooled boys have no chance at all.

But I can definitely toggle the bitch switch on and off, depending on how close it is to last call or how antsy (read: desperate) I get. Remember that spikey-haired, man-tanning Yankees fan from the South Side? (“Girl, you’re so sassy in your little Steve Madden jacket.”) I think his name was Rob. Or Mike. Yeah, the switch was definitely off that night. Fuck, the switch was off, the generator was broken and the repairman said he’d have to talk to his union before he could even drive over and issue an estimate on the damage.

In my “I got non-violently mugged” entry, I forgot to mention that I was a bitch before the incident.

**
Scene: Streeters Tavern, 1:30 a.m.

Boy With Glasses: [approaches table] “So, I’ve got this situation for you. This Canadian railroad wants to reroute freight traffic through my town—”

Terror: “What’s your town?”

Boy With Glasses: “Arlington Heights. And it’s going to cause all this traffic and bottlenecking and I don’t want that in my community.”

Terror: “Oh, I see. ‘Not in my backyard!’ [really laying on the mock outrage] Why can’t they reroute the railroad through a village with a lower median household income?”

Boy With Glasses: “Exactly! So I’ve been organizing people, campaigning, going to protests—”

Terror: “Yeah, not exactly. Don’t you think in this post-9/11 world there are more pressing political issues to occupy your time?”

Boy With Glasses: “What’s wrong with getting involved in local politics?”

Terror: “There’s nothing wrong with getting involved in local politics. But the issue you’re talking about is traffic. And the only reason you want it to go through someone else’s town is to preserve the integrity of your perfect little village. Did you know there’s a war going on?”

Boy With Glasses: “What about building new track through Chicago?”

Terror: “Oh, sure. ‘We’ll just let those minorities deal with it on the West Side.’ What the fuck. Can I ask you a question?”

Boy With Glasses: “Sure.”

Terror: “Are you a homeowner? Do you pay property taxes?”

Boy With Glasses: “Uh, no, I pay rent to my parents.”

Terror: “Then how is this even your issue? And you want this train to go through my city, a place you stow away to on weekends because they don’t serve your gin and tonic, or whatever you’re drinking, past midnight?”

Boy With Glasses: “Well, let me give you a situation. What if—God forbid—my mother had a heart attack and the ambulance couldn’t get her to the hospital in time. What if the response time was three times longer because of that train?”

Terror: “Bro. You need to cut the umbilical cord. Seriously.”

Boy With Glasses: “Well, that’s one person’s opinion.”

Terror: “Yup. And you’re done here. Because I’m going to go back to talking to my friends.”

**

Yeah, pretty harsh. I can hear my mother's shrill voice from here: “That’s not how we find a husband.” (Though Professor Hunter might applaud me for applying relevant knowledge three years later, with a belly full of Jameson.)

It’s a good thing I gave up believing in karma a week earlier. Unless this has nothing to do with the wallet and everything to do with why Bartender of My Dreams hasn't come around for his biweekly conjugal.

Nah, couldn't possibly be.

Corporate Productivity

2008-01-24T18:44:00.001-06:00

Kay and Terror. Drunks. Besties. And now coworkers.

What the fuck was Human Resources thinking?

Crock the Casbah

2008-01-24T06:21:00.001-06:00

Eh. My adventures in slow-cooking were only so-so. The chicken-black bean-mushroom broth-cauliflower-onion-potato-lime-olive oil-garam masala-curry stew I made was passable, but nothing quite as… sexual as I had anticipated. Wobbling home in my snow boots, giggling uncontrollably and quoting Carl Weathers (“You know, just two adults gettin’ a stew on, man!”), I counted down to the moment I would uncover the crock and the steam would rush to my face and oh, oh, ohhhh.

Damn, I should have made it roux-ier. But I don’t keep butter on hand. Bad Terror (the foodie) is trying to get Good Terror (the Olympic hopeful) to come around on this platform.

Well. The recipe isn’t worthy of duplication, but here’s a picture. I added sour cream, but I wish I had queso fresco on hand. Doesn't look too appetizing if you're a stranger to the buffet circuit.

Still, my IKEA bowls are pretty badass.

Pssh, My Kitchen is NC-17

2008-01-23T00:18:00.001-06:00

I’m trying out my slow-cooker for the first time tomorrow. You have no idea how aroused I am by the idea of a one-tureen meal. I sometimes wish I could get hot for six to eight hours a session, while everyone was at work, without getting dry. (Oh, snap.)

I have slow-cooker recipes, but I think I’m just going to throw a bunch of ingredients in the crock and pray for the best. I have nothing against recipes. It’s just that the cookbook I want to use is propping up the coffee table that holds our old school Nintendo. And I really don’t want to disturb the Dr. Mario cartridge that’s wedged inside, for fear I’ll never boot that sucker again.

Here’s what I think I’m going for... chicken, black beans from a can, cauliflower, onion, mushroom broth, juice of one lime, a bay leaf, curry powder, coriander, olive oil, a dash of yellow mustard.

This probably sounds ridiculous and lamely faux-Indian, but I think it’ll turn out alright. If it’s uh-may-zing, I’ll post my measurements and take a picture. But if you tell me you think it's going to suck... and it actually does suck... I’ll post my other measurements and take a picture.

Damnit. This was supposed to be a Good Terror entry. In case there actually is an afterlife.

10 Things I Hate About Heath Ledger Dying

2008-01-22T23:40:00.002-06:00

Today was going so well that by 3 o’clock I was ready to declare it a “really good day.”

Mauricio sent us a postcard from Honduras with some Dr. King-inspired verse—how he dreamed that one day we would live in a world where we could drink Ron Botrán while climbing the Mayan ruins at Copán, hand-in-hand. What a visionary.

Kay interviewed for a job in my department and she was smooth, reeeeal smooth. Those ignorant to the Legend of Kay might assume an expatriate alcoholic with shingles, a dislocated ovary and an outdated résumé (you’re fucking hilarious, Kay) would have a hard time acting the part for a position downtown—but that couldn’t be a stylish power suit or a pair of librarian glasses further from the truth. Yup, and she even spent Interview Eve looking for the car she lost in Lakeview (“I could have sworn I parked on Halsted!”) and penning thoughtful preparatory questions on a bar napkin at Ginger’s while downing consolatory pints. What a champ.

Oh, and perhaps the most exciting news—my younger brother is moving to Chicago! He got accepted to Loyola (second only to DePaul on his list), which means wherever he enrolls, my favorite relative (duh) will be living a few L stops away. I mean, this is omgz major—the other 98 percent of our immediate and extended family live on the East Coast. If only I had warned him that the wayward Catholic guilt does not assuage at a 900-mile range…

Actually, this was shaping up to be a great day.

Then Heath Ledger overdosed.

I come to expect this behavior from Brad Renfro or Anna Nicole or the Viper Room guest list, but Heath, my heart can’t take it. I mean, I realize chastising a celebrity’s selfishness is a pretty callous response to Death in General (hey, I’ve been knocked around), but have you any idea how this has misaligned the universe? Seriously, 10 Things I Hate About Heath Ledger Dying.

1. Now I can only name three living Australian actors off the top of my head. One of them hunted crocodiles. The other two are wankers.

2. Hershey’s Heath bar will go back to being the most widely known Heath. Can you believe I’m 22 years old and I’ve never tried toffee?

3. Fuck, we get to listen to the Evangelical Right surmise that pills didn’t kill Heath Ledger—gay cowboy sex did.

4. The media is not going to leave Michelle Williams alone. Which makes me mad, because the deeper issue is seeded in our WB days, when America favored Joey over Jen. God, why couldn’t Tom Cruise overdose?

5. Lord, think of the YouTube tributes. Shittily spliced montages zigzagging from the Middle Ages, to an English classroom in California, to the Revolutionary War, to a flip book of lazily cropped head shots… in the span of a Celine Dion song. Gross.

6. As Dus brought to my attention, The Dark Knight will be touted as my generation’s The Crow. Because people are stupid and will ignore the fact that Heath Ledger didn’t die on set.

7. Because I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. (OK, I’m an asshole.)

8. But speaking of, Larisa Oleynik just lost her chance at a comeback.

9. I bet my book club will make me read Wuthering Heights.

10. Because it just doesn’t make sense when these 28-year-old former teen phenoms are still alive: Chris Smith (half of Kris Kross), Andrew Keegan, Tatyana Ali, Brandy Norwood, Mena Suvari, Patrick Renna (the Great Hambino), David Lopez (Alex on "Ghostwriter"), Chris Klein, Alison Fanelli (Ellen on "The Adventures of Pete and Pete"), Lance Bass, Vincent Kartheiser, Corbin Allred and Mike Damus ("Teen Angel," anyone?), Jesse Bradford, Rachael Leigh Cook… now if this pack doesn’t shout Heaven’s Gate, I don’t know what class of underlings does.

Shh. You don’t have to say anything. I think our YMCA offers sensitivity training.

57-Dozen Glazed

2008-01-21T23:53:00.010-06:00

I got mugged at Big City Tap on Saturday.

You’re probably thinking, “What’s an academic like Terror doing at a seedy joint like that?”

Or you’re thinking, “Mugged?!”

OK, I didn’t get mugged. Some twat stole my wallet. I wish I were mugged—I wish I were given the opportunity for confrontation, to kick that vertically-striped and heavily-pomaded douchebag in the taint. (By the way, that’s probably the most accurate composite anyone has ever provided without actually seeing their perpetrator.)

But I’m telling people that I was mugged, because when I told Officer Olsen of the Chicago Police Department that my wallet was stolen, he held back a chortle and called my high-functioning intoxication into question. “Miss, when did you say you lost your wallet again—3 a.m.?”

I know it sounds bad, but I didn’t lose my fucking wallet. A half-hour after the pick, the perp attempted to charge $344 to my debit account. At a Dunkin' Donuts.

Terror: “What the fuck. Does Dunkin' Donuts even have $344 in merchandise?”
Kay: “Well, if he’s on foot, he’ll be easy to catch.”
[both laugh]
Terror: “Oh, yeah. I have no money.”

I do have money. Washington Mutual was on top of the fraud protection before I even sobered up. Sometimes I’m thankful for Big Brother. (In my boozy stupor I accidentally gave the wrong Social Security number when trying to cancel my credit card—I blamed the flub on being a distraught victim of identity theft—hic!)

It’s just incredibly burdensome to lose so many items at once. I imagine sorority girls (or the parents of sorority girls) must go through this crap on a near-biweekly basis. Until I get my new plastics, I’ll be living on $29. Ergo, a week without bars.

So, the damage count…

-- A wallet. Not-so-nice, but compartmentalized to my OCD.
-- One credit card (previously unused), one debit card (with a twice-faded signature).
-- One Illinois state ID card. You loser, you thought you were getting an Illinois Driver’s License! That’s what you get for messing with sustainability.
-- One health insurance card. Which sucks, because I need to see my gynecologist, like, yesterday.
-- One voter registration card. I’ll be shit-shocked if this scum bothers to impersonate me or my political leanings at the polls.
-- One Chicago Plus 30-Day Pass.
-- One photo of Sam, age 4. One photo of Sam, age 5. Damnit, he’s never going to be that cute again. I don’t want to replace these with a tubby age 7.
-- One photo of Seth, a là Sears Portrait Studio, pointing a North Pole sign at his genitals. I don’t think I have to explain the sentimentality here.
-- One Jewel-Osco card. One Dominick’s card. Twice the savings.
-- One American Express gift card with a balance of $17. One Target gift card with a balance of $25. There goes Christmas.
-- One cracked and expired Mastic-Moriches-Shirley Community Library card. One shiny and expired Northwestern University ID.

I called my mom for sympathy, pity, empathy. Any of the three would have sufficed. And then I remembered who my mom was.

Terror: “Yeah, so, my wallet was stolen. At a bar. At 3 a.m.”
Madre: “Hrm, sounds like you had that coming to you. Not like that time my wallet got stolen at church. So maybe it’s time for you to grow up and drink at home and be indoors at three in the morning?”

Ugh. So after the cancellation debacle, the police report, the credit bureau alert, the splitting headache and the mom-imposed crossroads assessment (not the reason I started the blog, but the denial’s definitely notable for those keeping score at home), I can only come to one sound conclusion.

Mom must be boffing Officer Olsen.

Narcissism, Part I

2008-01-21T20:55:00.001-06:00

I’m a deadbeat blogger. You know this, I know this. I’ve started (and justly abandoned) four blogs in the last four years. I’m surprised Google didn’t mandate parenting classes before I delivered this baby.

But we’ll pretend this one has a gimmick. It’s about me being a grown-up in the big city. OK, fine—it’s about me trying to be a grown-up and circumnavigating blackouts on the road to accountability. With a lot of non-profundities, shopping lists, fantasy team rosters, prank calls, vigilantism, anatomy lessons and child actor gossip in between.

A lot of my peers are penning similar Quarter Life Crisis blogs, but let’s face it—that ship has sailed, I won’t make it to 88. Fuck, last month the bartender of my dreams told me, “You’re actually 35, but in the best possible way.” Why would I focus on denouement when inner turmoil is so fucking hilarious?

Protagonist, antagonist, go!

This is Good Terror. You can tell Good Terror is good because she’s wearing glasses. She freezes carrot soup by the Tupperware-full, is a registered voter, runs three miles a day and is paying off her fancy private college in a timely manner. She’s the too-young ironic T-shirt girl at Luna’s farewell show. If she lived in Bucktown, maybe she’d get lucky and some 32-year-old web developer would pluck her from the crowd to live with him in unwedded condo bliss. You know, cuddle up on the loveseat drinking microbrews, watching Wes Anderson films…

But that’s not going to happen, because Bad Terror somehow decided it was OK to live in Lakeview. Bad Terror’s life ambition is to open a bar, so she can wear jeans and be sarcastic every day of the year. She’s wrestled in kiddie pools of chocolate pudding at fraternity functions, broken relationships off via e-mail and has gone home at least once with someone in a Bears jersey. She doesn’t think in terms of right or wrong—she thinks about what makes a good story. This isn’t actually a picture of Bad Terror. She was hungover for the photo shoot, so Good Terror had to take off her glasses and stand in.

It’s not really a contest. It’s more of an education. Maybe Bad Terror will become more conscientious, romantic, feasibly contained. Maybe Good Terror will have a late payment (or a late period, god forbid), forget her address, leave more answers up to the Magic 8 Ball.

Maybe the two will sleep together. That would be pretty fucking hot.

Like I said, definitely a contest.