When the siren blared in the cafeteria, we all knew what to do. After all, we were third graders and tornado drills had become old hat at Louisa Wright Elementary. But, even for us elementary elders, this was our first "real" tornado during school, which was bone-chilling enough…but there was an even bigger issue at hand. It was Tuesday. It was Chicken Nugget Day.
I rarely bought lunch at school. Occasionally, I got a carton of chocolate milk to go with the bologna sandwich my mom had packed me. On certain Fridays, I bought a slice of the freakish four-cornered pizza (which I only bought because everyone else did and, foolishly, I always believed that with enough attempts I'd figure out what everyone loved about the cheese slice).
But Chicken Nugget Tuesdays were the holy day of the school-bought lunch calendar—even better than November's Thanksgiving Lunch or the rare May Ice Cream Social. The chicken was spicy, breaded and piping hot. A heaping serving of barbecue sauce accompanied the meaty morsels. And the sides—well, who cared about the sides? They were merely a backup chorus to the poultry lunchtime luminary.
This particular Chicken Nugget Day had arrived after a long drought of chicken nuggetless lunches. I had long awaited the arrival of a lunch calendar that featured my favorite meal, and this Tuesday was a saving grace.
I spent my morning classes distracted, checking the envelope of lunch money my mom had sealed for me, contemplating whether I would savor the chicken's flavor or lose control and down the nuggets quickly. The anxiety in our reading class was palpable—the collective body of the classroom leaning toward the door, begging the teacher to release us before the other third graders got to the line before us.
After a brief reprimand on how we needed to pay better attention to our studies before lunch, the teacher released us. We piled like bulls out of a stockade into a messy single-file line, pushing and stepping on one another's feet to speed the procession to the cafeteria. To our dismay, we were the last class to arrive. Sixty other third-graders stood in line, some already happily trotting to their tables with their trays laden with the feast.
We waited as patiently as one can expect hungry eight- and nine-year-olds to wait, biding our time in line until it was our turn to skim our tray across the stainless steel serving station, thanking the hair-netted cooks and paying the head lunch lady with the bills and change that had turned damp and warm in our little hands
I was ecstatic. Rushing to a table on the east side of the cafeteria, I quickly sat and bit into my first nugget. The smoky, spicy flavors rushed into my mouth, and for a moment, I was happy.
Then, the siren.
I hesitated, picked up my tray to bring it to shelter with me, then put it down and shoved two nuggets into my mouth instead. The teachers acted quickly, sending some of us into the hallway and others, like me, into the bathrooms. There was stifled laughter as girls and boys entered opposite sex bathrooms, subsequently followed by a hissing "Omigosh, grow up. You are so immature," from the more worldly third-graders. As I was directed into girls' bathroom, I looked back longingly at the empty tables, lined with their pastel green, pink and yellow trays. The smell of chicken still lingering in the heavy, humid air as the shriek of the siren continued.
As we waited, some of us assumed the safety position—heads between knees, hands over heads, a few of us held hands as a quiet reassurance, and then there were those of us who could still taste the barbecue sauce that smeared our sticky lips and counted the minutes of precious lunchtime that were stolen from us.
After an agonizing period during which I successfully memorized the beige, brown and black tile pattern on the bathroom floor, we were allowed to return to our tables with only minutes left in lunchtime to finish our now-chilled lunches.
I pressed my index finger against the soggy breaded surface of the nugget, releasing cold grease from the tepid meat. Letting out one little sigh mourning the loss of my favorite lunch, I picked up my tray and threw the remnants of Chicken Nugget Tuesday into the trash.
Maybe it was while looking deep into the soiled black garbage bag at the torn white flesh of our class's nuggets that for the first time, I recognized that vulnerability pervaded even our lunch calendar. If violent winds could extinguish Chicken Nugget Tuesday, then what else might blow away without warning?
Or maybe it wasn't that deep. But I never bought Chicken Nugget Tuesday lunch again; and to this day, when I order chicken nuggets or pop some in the oven, I instinctively scan the sky for warning signs first while flashes of beige, brown and black tile flicker before me. I bite into the flesh. I won't have another meal stolen from me again.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Life Lessons in the Lunchroom
Friday, July 25, 2008
A Mega-Recap
It’s been one week since my brush with the Megabus, and I’m now privy to that world of tiny seating, efficient driving and bizarre road stops that Megabus encapsulates.
After staying up scrubbing the floors in my apartment until 3 AM on Thursday night, I was looking forward to a good minimum four-hour nap on the bus Friday afternoon. J and I rushed over to the random corner in Chicago where Megabus handles pick-ups, where we were met by throngs of the masses, waiting for various bus routes.
“Is this bus going to Minneapolis?” asked one lady.
“No, Indianapolis, then Cincinnati,” responded a random woman, who seemed to be a representative of Megabus and in charge of the pick-ups and drop-offs.
“Then Minneapolis?” asked the lady hopefully.
“Um, no,” said the random woman. Megabus is such a confusing experience that even we proud Americans forget simple geography.
I handed over my printed-out reservation confirmation, and J and I plowed our way through the narrow aisle to snag the last two seats open next to one another.
(We were ten minutes early to our 3:30 bus and it was packed. Later, around 3:35, a girl who I’d like to refer to as “Northwestern Stupid”—ask me to define that for you another time—arrived with her friend. They wandered the aisle, looking surprised that no paired seats were open five minutes AFTER the bus was scheduled to leave and slamming people with their backpacks as they turned and turned.
Finally, they settled their eyes on one 20-something college student who had clearly arrived early, settling in with his laptop, bag and some chem notes arranged neatly over two seats.
“Ummmmm,” said the girl through her nose. “Can you move over there?” she pointed to an open seat next to a woman who clearly had no interest in sharing her space. “My friend and I are traveling together, and there’s an open seat over there.”
Miraculously, this guy moved for these girls. People like this deserve medals...or the seats they originally chose when they arrived on time. Moving on...)
I was disappointed to realize that, despite my pillow, I wouldn’t likely be falling asleep any time soon, and at least not for any long periods of time. I had heard legends of the double-decker Megabus, but we hadn’t been so lucky to land a ride on one of those. The bus was packed tight, and it wasn’t easy to relax, or lean back, or do much else other than ride in a semi-fetal position with my feet resting on my bag and my knees up against my face.
The ride itself was fine, replete with Pride and Prejudice reading, music listening and The Office watching. I might take this opportunity to point out that the albums I listened to (The Beatles, Coldplay, Once) were all UK artists, and I was struck by how much good music that country turns out. It was a British-themed Megabus ride.
When we arrived, John and I to have some extra time downtown in Cincinnati, which could have been really bad if the area was as desolate as it normally is. Instead, a summer music festival was happening in Fountain Square, so we both tried a BL Lime (too lime-y, yet it covered up the tinny taste of Bud Light, soo... kind of a draw) and admired the Square while we waited for my family.
As much as I complained when I lived in Ohio about there not being anything to do there, I have to admit that being in the Square and watching the music was really nice and provided something that busier urban areas don’t have--tranquility. Unlike my experiences in Chicago or New York, where outdoor music and movie nights are jam-packed and the beers are 8 bucks instead of four, this little outdoor concert was relaxing and calm, with space for kids to run freely and people to break out into dance occasionally. It was great.
The rest of the weekend was not so peaceful, with an early Saturday wake-up, a trip to a sketchy warehouse to pick up a Uhaul, and lots and lots of packing. The best part of the weekend was a dip in the pool and a trip with J and family to Dewey’s Pizza. Oh, God—Dewey’s pizza... a miracle upon miracles. MMmmmm Deweeeyyyyss x-pepperonnniiiii pizzzaaaaaaa....
J drove the whole back to Chicago on Sunday, and I cannot thank him enough for it (or all of his other help loading and unloading our truck). We listened to lots of bad music on the Uhaul radio and were forced into conversation (awwkwarrrd!) on the ride back. We also ate Penn Station. Mmmmm... Penn Statioooonnnnnn Clubbbb sandwichhhhhh.
The family stayed a night with me, helping me get stuff together, and slowly, slowly, slowly the apartment comes together. I’ll post pictures, I promise, as soon as I can!
Friday, July 18, 2008
It's here!
It's Megabus day. I'm taking the 3:30 bus from random corner in Chicago to random corner in Cincinnati--with one pit-stop at random corner in Indianapolis. I'm hoping John brought his camera so we can document the journey!
Friday, May 23, 2008
BEST NEWS EVER
I know that since I defended myself against TONY as I am not the spawn of Carrie Bradhsaw, I've managed to write about Craigslist's Missed Connections, pick ups in dance clubs, and (God save me) The Bachelorette. But I am apparently on a roll, because I am now blogging about shoes.
I just ordered this pair of [EDIT: Jeffrey Campbell] shoes, and I already own them. I've worn them thin and scuffed them to oblivion. They look AWFUL, but I insist on wearing them because they are the most amazing versatile, wonderfully comfortable but cute shoes I've ever owned. And, on a sad little whim, I googled them today and VOILA! There they are! And for only thirty bucks.
I am SO. EXCITED.
Now, to celebrate the Memorial Day weekend, I'm headed home with boyfriend in tow for a weekend of horse farms, bourbon, fireflies (hopefully), swimming pools, and strip malls!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Your Burden to Bear
To me, this moment was as important as my first driver's license or passport. At age 11, I would have my own identification card--a weighty two-by-three inch piece of plastic marked with my own name and photo.
I stood in the steel-barred line, nervously adjusting my glasses, and considered removing them for my photo. Cold fluorescent light blanched my skin, and the unheated room seemed sterile with its white walls and concrete floors. Pounding against my rib cage, my heart struggled like a prisoner who wildly shakes iron bars to break free. I crossed my arms, certain that not even my spring jacket could hide this thumping betrayal of my nerves. A cold sweat broke out across my face, my glasses slid down my nose. I felt as if I was about to be processed rather than photographed.
"Are you excited?" my mom asked cheerfully.
I shrugged and nodded at the same time, pressing my chin against my chest and focusing my attention down at my feet. I pushed my toes up against the insides of my sneakers until they hurt, hoping that the pain might distract me from worrying about my glasses.
Ahead of me in line, older kids from the nearby high school were waiting for their turns too. They flashed bright teethy smiles at the camera and then waited as a bulky printer grinded and then sputtered their likenesses onto the card. One by one, they grabbed their cards when the machine finally spit them out, fanning them theatrically in the air to dry. After looking over one another's and laughing, they shoved the cards into their wallets and purses.
A purse. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind until now: I didn't have a purse. Where would I keep my new card?
As quickly as the problem had arose, its only solution dawned on me in a cold realization. I would have to buy a purse, of course. The "pretend" purses I had wouldn't do. Some girls in my fourth grade class already had real purses, anyway. Now, my time had come.
Suddenly, this card bore a much bigger burden than I had expected. The photographer called me forward, and I reeled, my future spinning before me:
When this photo snapped, the machine would cough up my own black-and-white image on a glossy canvas of plastic. Pressed into my hand, the card would demand a safe-keeping place. Hung about my shoulder, the purse would bear other responsibilities--more cards, dollar bills, and what else? I eyed my own mother's bulging purse as I pressed my feet into the two painted soles before the camera. What was in that thing? Was this overpacked fate mine as well? It seemed that within a few months time, I'd wear a diaper bag and push a stroller.
Why, God? I frantically thought as the flash went off. Why had I signed up for this card?
"Here you go!" smiled the photographer when the machine finished printing my destiny. "Have a great season!"
As my mom and I walked back to our Toyota station wagon, I carried my new weight in plastic, staring at my reflection and thinking quietly about my future.
"Do you want me to carry that for you?" my mom interrupted my thoughts.
"Oh!" I turned to her, surprised "You'll keep it for me?"
"Well, sure. You don't have to hold onto that," she said. "Just don't let me forget to give it to you when you and your friends go."
I looked back down at the card where my likeness stared wide-eyed back up at me:
CAITLIN G."Okay," I smiled, handing it over to her and thinking about another year free of my fate. "I won't forget."
PARAMOUNT'S KINGS ISLAND AMUSEMENT PARK
SEASON'S PASS 1996
Monday, March 24, 2008
More Le Gross
OK, I couldn't resist another post. Wonderfully in-the-know Anna C. shared this link with me--your state has an Easter egg, in case you're like me and didn't know about it.
And if you're like me, your state's egg is hideous. If not, consider yourself lucky. I noticed a couple beauties, like Rhode Island and Kansas. But really, Ohio takes the ugly cake no contest. More gchat commentary below.
me: up until now i never realized how much my state looks like a shorter, fatter version of africa!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Hometown Proud
I’ve often tried to describe the dismal city that is Dayton, Ohio, but I think passiveaggressivenotes found the best photo to sum it up.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Naked as We Came
I finally gave in and bought the new Iron & Wine album, The Shepherd's Dog, and it brought back a lot of nostalgia for Sam Beam's older stuff. There's something about his music that just makes me feel like I'm seven again, lying in the grass on a lazy July afternoon with a stack of library books next to me and a peanut butter sandwich in hand. It's a really nice thing.
This video of Naked as We Came really captures that feeling.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
A Trip to the South
J and I drove down to the Ohio River on Saturday--a short jaunt from Lebanon, really, but one that ended up consuming our entire day as we wound up and down the Ohio and Kentucky banks. For J, this trip into Kentucky was his first venture into "the south except for Disney World," and for me, I hoped it would be a confirmation of my love of the raw and unrefined relics of southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. In between the rusting, abandoned hay balers and the darkly weathered tobacco barns, I wonder how I grew up only forty minutes from another world stuck in another time.
Our first stop was on the Ohio side of the river--Ripley, Ohio. A quick Google search told us that Ripley offered us two sure-bet stops.
First, the Rankin House, a home-turned-underground railroad stop whose reverend-owner helped over 2,000 slaves to freedom over forty years. After two missed turns, one settler cemetery and two wild turkeys later, we found our way to the startling top of a ridge where the little home teeters at its peak.
From the home's modest front steps, you can see the Ohio-Kentucky border carved for miles in either direction by the river. I stood at the crest of the hill with November wind licking at my face, imagining the people who stood on that very spot 150 years before me and wondered what they thought as they faced south from this summit, whether they too looked at the landscape as a map and saw it as if it charted their lives--at the bottom of this hill was their past to the south, and through the threshold of the door behind them was their future in the north.
It was not easy to keep these lofty thoughts in mind as J and I entered the museum/house itself. Neglect in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had worn the floorboards and walls thin, and a stuffy, self-important 30-something curator was droning in contemptuous monotone to a couple with two anxious kids in what used to be the family's dining room and now served as the gift shop. J and I opted to do the self-guided tour, which was a pretty quick one since there weren't many signs to read and the family's original furnishings have all gone on to posterity. We hit up the gift shop on the way out, paying our $3 each to the curator who seemed miffed that we handled the house without him.
On our way out of town, we made our second stop at a Ripley, Ohio winery (they exist!) for a wine tasting. While I had expected the rolling hills of the river valley to house a picturesque olde-tyme Gothic Revival farmhouse with rows of faded fall grapes around it, I was dead wrong. Instead, John and I rolled up to a 1970s Ranch house three blocks behind a McDonalds in a totally residential neighborhood.
WINE TASTING, proclaimed a sign to reassure us that we wouldn't be knocking on some poor old lady's door if we dared approach it. After I parked, J and I took a good look around us and then at one another.
"Are we going in?" J asked.
"I guess so," I shrugged, checking out the middle-aged ladies decked out in faux fur coats and home perms who were carrying two cases of bottles each.
When we did get the courage up to leave the car, we discovered that the house had been gutted. Where floor-to-floor carpeting and La-Z-Boy furniture should have greeted us, concrete floor and dozens floor-to-ceiling barrels consumed the room. We opted for the $6 wine tasting option--two glasses with the winery's insignia and tastings of four different bottled wines. We mingled with only one another, avoided bumping into other tasters for the obligatory chit chat that might follow, and scarfed down crackers and Kraft cheese. It was awesome. At the end of the fourth glass, we decided to buy their new release, a 2005 Petit Verdot, fermented right there in those barrels. And we kept the glasses.
As we crossed into Maysville, Kentucky, J took a shot of the WELCOME TO KENTUCKY sign, commemorating his first trip "south." Appropriately enough, Maysville appeared totally shut down for the day (it was about 3 P.M.) and nothing seemed open. We did, however, drive by the town's theater which displayed a plaque that boasted Rosemary Clooney's childhood in the town.
A few miles down the road, we hit up Augusta, another town that claims Rosemary Clooney (this time with a Rotary International clock in her honor). More exciting Clooney claims lie in a house just off the state highway in Augusta, where George grew up. (We hoped to glimpse him at home for the holidays, but we didn't have any luck.)
Having been driving for several hours in what felt like a haze of November gray, I realized my body would shut down in a matter of minutes without a dose of caffeine.
"There has to be a Starbucks here."
"There's a cafe over there," John pointed to a quaint, hand-painted sign that did, in fact, say CAFE.
"Do you think they have Starbucks?"
It was here that I realized I am a city dweller. I grew up in a town that got its first Wal-Mart when I was nine and its coffee shop my junior year of high school, and where, up until recently, the only shops on our main street (other than the 200-year-old Golden Lamb and staple Ice Cream Parlor) were antique markets, and this whole daytrip, I had been explaining the art of tobacco making and covered bridges to J. But here I was--in a town of 1,200 people where between the antique shop and general store on Main Street there is literally a trailer home parked in an empty lot--and all I want is generic coffee, in a thick paper cup that I can carry.
We parked the car ("Look, J! No meters!") in front of the cafe, and peeked in. A friendly woman with dirty blonde hair swished up, carrying Christmas decorations.
"Oh!" she smiled, surprised (there was no one else in the restaurant). "Y'all just caught me puttin' up the Christmas decorations! It's that time of year alrea'y. Now, y'all want somethin' to eat?"
"Um, actually," I said, becoming increasingly aware of my cheeks flushing in embarrassment, "do you have coffee? that we, um, can carry out?" I glanced nervously at the white-washed chairs and bead board walls, well aware of how my conscience was yelling at me to be polite and sit down for a whole meal since, after all, it was Saturday and she had no business.
"Oh, of course! I just finished a pot!" she smiled again and proceeded to describe what amounted to Starbucks grinds in a coffee pot in back with such a flourish that it sounded like she had grown the beans herself and my mouth watered.
"Sounds wonderful," I said and then poked around the Christmas decorations and handmade soaps while we waited.
Some minutes later, her high school-aged daughter reemerged from the back, carrying my coffee and J's peppermint hot chocolate, her eyes locked on J with a shy smile on her face. It occurred to me that probably not many 20-something guys pass through Augusta on vacation, and I smiled too--partly for the feeling of knowing exactly how that girl felt, and partly because that home-brewed Starbucks was the best damn coffee I've ever tasted. We walked down to the river bank one last time, and then got in the car, ready to head back home.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Fear and Loathing
I was never a normal child. Rather than the carefree child I should have been, I emulated something more like a worrisome grandmother who takes Lou Dobbs seriously.
I’ve whiled away days looking at old diaries, reflecting on exhausted hopes and fears, and wondering how I came to be the way I am and was. I still have no explanation for the hours I spent fretting as a young child, concerned about things like—if I lay in bed on my back, I’ll turn into a corpse; or if I don’t love my dog with diabetes enough, she’ll die; or what if I grow old and become like the Chicken Lady down the street in her dilapidated Victorian house full of chickens and their feces.
When I was in elementary school, I got a brand new diary—a plastic book stuffed just slightly with some synthetic material that softened its cover. Plastered on the front, of course, is the word “DIARY” in curvy, sophisticated letters. Below are a pair of pink and purple ballet shoes, balanced precariously on a line of unmelodious notes on a music staff. I can’t tell you when I first bought the diary because, for some reason, I tore out most of its first pages—seemingly an entire section of pink papers have gone missing in the series of pink, yellow, and then blue lined pages. So, the early years remain a mystery.
However, the plot thickens quickly from the first entry about my elementary school’s May carnival to the third entry dated January 26, 1993, which reads directly as follows:
Tonight, I was getting scared because I always—hold on. [Here, I vaguely remember hiding my diary under my pillow as my mom came in to tuck me into bed. I was very suspicious of my mother and convinced myself she was reading my introspection. Every few pages there is an entry written with forceful capital letters like, WHO IS READING THIS!! Of course, if I had any real investment in hiding the diary from Mom, I would have probably not used string to tie the key of the diary to its tiny lock for constant easy access. Anyway, as I was saying:] Sorry. Well let me get back to what I was saying. I have thought my parents steeled me away from the hospital and then pretended that I was their child. [I told you. Suspicious.] But I was also worrying about MORGAGES, TAXESS, CHECKS, BILLS! It’s just a disaster. I’ll wright back when I’ve got this all sorted out.
Well, I haven’t exactly got it all sorted it out. But I am “wrighting” back to say that at least can look back at my eight-year-old self, a gangly, freckled girl wrought with self-doubt, suspicion and fear of finances, and sympathize.
Although I eventually purged the image of my so-called mother and father ripping me away from my rightful parents--some young, good-looking and successful couple, of course--moments after my birth and wielding me home like a trophy, I didn’t get through it easily. Before I could accept my parents as my own mom and dad, I first had to believe that my dad was having an affair with his secretary, then that my mom had secret children from a previous marriage, and finally that there may be more of my siblings hidden in our barn. After several investigations, I determined that these half-siblings didn’t exist after all and that my parents have legitimately conceived and birthed me.
But old habits die hard.
J tells me that I worry about small problems as if they’re big ones, and that if I don’t have any problems, I create them.
At age ten, I started a section in another diary (I had dozens, most of them, like this one, half-full and sporadically dated) dedicated to “Child Advice.” Child advice…from a child. At the time, I saw this as my breakthrough. I, at age ten, would write and publish the first ever by-a-kid, for-a-parent book of parenting advice. I was like Jane Austen, a social iconoclast, breaking down stereotypes and an editorial pioneer, forging words into new territories.
7/18/95. Another note. Sometimes your child will lean towards you, then more towards their father. If you have a son, he’ll go toward you when he’s real young, then toward his dad when he’s probably somewhere between 5-11. Don’t be left in the ‘woman’s place!’ Are they playing baseball? Cheer ‘em on, if you can! Then when your kids are grown up, they’ll be by both of you!
Age 10, and already I feared my own unborn Oedipus.
In my oldest diary--a blank journal stolen at age 6 from my mom's closet, I wrote in its first three pages a children's story, illustrated with a red Bic pen. A simple three-pager, it was riddled with a child's fear of abandonment and her secret desire for a pet cat rather than her moody miniature Schnauzer.
Cat and Keeteen, By Caitlin, 1991
[page 1:] I have to go to the store wiffout Cat and Keeteen.
[Here we see two cats left sitting lonely at a closed door.]
[page 2:] Mamma, I'm scaerrd abot Cat and Keeteeen. Mamma saeys, Its OK. Dont warry abot Cat and Keeteen.
[Pictured: Daughter clings to mom's hems.]
[page 3:] Yay! Cat and Keeteen!
[Here, our heroine has returned home, stick arms thrown up in the air while Cat and Keeteen jump at her feet.]
Monday, August 27, 2007
My Big White House
In August 1987, my family moved away from the pretty, curved lanes of our Wilmette neighborhood to the unknown--Lebanon, Ohio. There are few things I remember about this period of time (I was, after all, only 32 months old). Mainly, I remember the large cardboard boxes, whose rough edges, in my many attempts to make forts or climb them, managed to slice open my hands and knees many times over. I also remember a profound sense of sadness, though I couldn't quite place that description of feeling at the time. I knew things were different than they had been and that things were changing. I simply didn't like it.
Then, one night, shortly before we left, my mom took me on a walk around our neighborhood. It was one of those walks where we brought the stroller, but I would jump out and then push the contraption myself, playing Mama to my doll Baby Nikki, who was named after our six-year-old neighbor (who I revered). We trailed about the quiet black street, the decorative rocks that flanked the road catching the last orange-pink light of sunset. It had rained earlier that day, and the wetness held fast onto the light in its last moments. My mom had already explained the move to me several times, but I asked a lot about it. As we rounded onto another street, she explained again.
"We have to leave Caitlin's Big White House"--that's what I called our home--"to move into a New Big White House," she told me. The prospect that the new house would also be Big and White was somewhat reassuring, although not entirely welcoming. But it wasn't just the house I didn't want to leave--I didn't want to leave Nikki, or our other neighbors, or the garden we had, or this neighborhood. My entire world revolved around about a square mile radius around Lake Avenue and Meadowlane Road, and I wasn't about to leave it.
As I shuffled my feet along the blacktop, I spotted a different white house, not quite so big, but close enough to our home. "Couldn't we move to This Big White House?" I asked.
"No, honey," my mom said. And then she explained why, but I stopped listening because I realized that it was inevitable. We were leaving My Big White House, we were leaving my world.
Eventually, my parents closed the sale on our house, and that night we stayed in a motel near Old Orchard. We hit the road in the middle of the night--3 AM, actually--so we could be in Lebanon the next morning for my parents to finalize those papers as well. I don't remember any of this, but I do remember stopping at a Perkins somewhere in Indiana as the sun approached rising. I wore my Doctor Denton's jammies and padded around the restaurant, excited now about all the activity.
I fell asleep for the rest of the trip and woke up as we pulled into Lebanon. My eyes adjusted to the light as my neck, gone limp in sleep with my head lilting onto my right shoulder, now craned to see what was around me. As things came into focus, a large, baby blue building towered over me at the corner of what I'd later know as Broadway and Silver Streets. We continued down the town's main street, already bustling with weekend tourists, and finally made a left turn to trudge up our long, hilly driveway. There, at the top, was the New White House.
I'd like to say that it was here--where I got out of our Jeep Wagoneer, running about our huge yard, hugging the towering trees and chasing butterflies--that I fell in love with my house, that I adjusted. But I don't remember. Here, everything goes fuzzy again. My mom tells me that I cried sometimes before bed and asked when we could go back to My Big White House. I didn't understand, it seemed, that this wasn't just a long vacation where we brought all of our belongings. But, evidently, I adjusted. This New Big White House allowed for lots of Big Changes as August slipped into fall that year--a big girl bed, potty training, some light swimming lessons. And eventually, it wasn't the New Big White House, it was just My House and it was home.
I guess I write this out so that as I pack up the things around me, interview for more jobs, try to convince my parents that I haven't ruined my career future and cope with leaving behind a city, a boyfriend, and a life that I love, I can remember that it'll be okay. That there are more Big White Houses in my future.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Another Homecoming
Arriving back in Lebanon yet again is less exciting and more deja vu each time I am on break. This time, the dullness of my hometown is compounded by the total awesomeness (and lack of a close-by replacement) of New York.
I'm afraid that I'm destined to be THAT girl who's like: "Oh my God! Well you think THAT sandwich is good?? AT SIXTH AND TWELFTH IN MANHATTAN I ONCE HAD THIS SANDWICH THAT RIVALED GOD." yackyackyackyack.... It's like when I came back from studying abroad in the south of France and everything was about the Mediterranean and apricots, except this time it's all about the East River and pizza. And oh-mi-god-lemme-tellya-bout-the-pizza-!!-pepperoni-like-you-wouldn't-believe-sister-!!.
And let's face it: I really hated New York for the first month or so I was there. HATED IT.
The crowds. The smells. The subway stabbings. The drug dealing elderly women on my stoop. The cooped-up feeling of a boyfriend-shared, one-bedroom apartment. The yelling on your corner at 2 am. The elbowing for room on Sixth Avenue. The Staten Island accent. Did I mention the crowds?
I once spent the entirety of forty blocks underground on an express train that was crawling more slowly than the local tracks with my nose pressed into one man's armpit and my ass pressed into another man's palm.
I hated New York.
But like every other sucker who moves to the city, I fell for it.
After the sun goes down and the sidewalks radiate heat from the day, a breeze blows in from the Atlantic and it's hard not to love it. By dusk, the city rushes quietly home--by bus, by car--and the din of clinking flatware against white porcelain plates plays like distant hands on ivory keys in Carnegie. Walking along 82nd, the squeaking friction between a wine glass and the terry cloth drying it is louder than your footsteps while the old man holding both these items stares at you through his thick glasses from his fourth floor apartment and you think that it's nice he doesn't live any higher than the fourth floor if he absolutely must live in a ritzy apartment on the Upper West Side and that you have maybe seen him on the subway with a camel-colored briefcase and you know there's only the one wine glass and that he has dined alone.
When the weather cools down, the leaves change color--setting the city afire in oranges and golds. And you love that even after months of becoming a jaded New Yorker, the sight of the Chrysler Building's triangulated, impossible tip first buzzing and then bursting into light like an inverted firecracker against a dark canvas sky still takes your breath away.
There's a lot wrong with New York, but the real problem is that there's too many things right with it. You can't always love it, but you can't leave it either. If you do, you can hear the chk-chk, chk-chk of the subway, the clacking of stilettos against pavement, the honking of taxis and the fizzing, crackling electricity of the city as it turns on its lights. It's too much to bear and you know you'll be back.
Thursday, December 7, 2006
A Christmas Struggle
The copy I had seemed old to me, which made it special. Its cover was hard and big--I couldn't cover it with both my hands spread on its surface. Like most kids, the idea of this man who lived forever and just made presents all year consumed me. It made sense that he existed. Who wouldn't love just giving gifts for a living and having an army of elves and cavalary of reindeer at your disposal?
But how was Santa the one who got the gig? Had nobody been giving gifts before then? Did Santa start Christmas? No, the baby Jesus did. I had that book, too. Even at this young of an age, the basic commercial and spiritual clash of Christmas was baffling me.
'That's tacky,' my mom said when the apartment across the street from our house put up a 'Happy X-Mas' light-up sign. I asked why and she explained that the 'X' took all the nice things out of Christmas--that it made Christmas all about buying stuff and not about being with family and friends. 'Why bother putting up the sign if it doesn't even spell the whole word out? It's missing the real message.'
So I would return to my studies, poring over the famous Christmas Eve text, looking for clues. After my mom shut the door, I'd pick the book back up from its spot on my bookshelf and, unable to read the majority of the words, I would stare at the pictures. There had to be something I was missing, and once I found it, the whole Santa-Jesus-Christmas thing would become clear to me. Instead, the pictures--out of the context of the story itself--became more confusing.
Most confusing was the last picture in the book. Santa had finished his big night--the gifts delivered, the cookies eaten, the milk drank. But here on the last page, without any words to explain, was Santa--lying out in the sun, stretched onto a beach chair with sunscreen slathered thick and white on his nose. He was holding a drink with a little umbrella in it like the ones that I could get at TGIFriday's with my soda if I asked the waiter nicely. He was on vacation.
A slew of questions arose: Did he stop at home or did he leave the reindeer on their own to get back to the Pole? Where's his suit and does he always wear yellow swim trunks when not in his suit? Where's Mrs. Claus? Does she get a vacation, or do she and the elves slave over the next year's toys beginning on December 26th without any help from Santa? When does his vacation end, does it last a week or until December 23rd of the next year?
After a year, I got tired of trying to figure it out. I had learned to read almost all of the words in the book, I had stared at the pictures for hours on end, and nothing was becoming more clear. Santa, I guessed, would remain a mystery.
Perhaps driving this Christmas quest was my personal relationship with Jesus. I don't, however, mean 'personal relationship' in the way that a Catholic grandmother might mean it.
I really mean 'relationship,' to the point where at age four, I had a crush on the Biblical figure and wanted him to be my boyfriend. (Note: Jesus not always this air-blown.) Of all my imaginary playmates ("Charlaines" my five-dollar pink bear bought at KB Toys, Barbie, Grover from Sesame Street, and Elmo too--until I found out he was a 'he' and not a 'she' and I felt terribly cheated), Jesus was my favorite. He was the most real and the nicest.My friendship with Jesus came crashing down around me my last year in preschool. On a sticky August afternoon, Jesus and I were playing outside under my favorite tree in my backyard. My dad had made the swing--a totally, utterly rough tree swing with rope that would give even the toughest sailors callouses and a flat, hard, butt-numbing board for a seat. I loved it. So on this afternoon, I--willing to be a good friend and share--was pushing Jesus on the swing since it was His turn. Then, something happened. It might have been because I hadn't been spending much time lately looking at the illustrations in my Mom's childhood Bible, or maybe because I had waited so long before I did share the swing with Him, or maybe I was just pushing too hard... But suddenly, unexpected, Jesus flew back much farther than expected and I was hit in the face.
I fell onto my back, knocking my head on the ground. Worst of all was my chin--scraped by either His foot or the butt-numbing swing itself. I ran inside, crying and confused. While I sat in her lap, my mom put Neosporin, gauze and medical tape on my chin and I explained to her what had happened. Through my tears, I made a vow. I was done playing with Jesus.
It wasn't that I didn't believe in Jesus, I concluded, I just wasn't friends with Him anymore. I went back to studying my 'Twas the Night text. Sadly, Santa still wasn't providing explanations or answers as he smiled over his tropical drink. Even more devastating was when, clued in by context about a month after my break-up with Jesus, I found out that Santa was not real.
The details of this horrible revelation I do not remember. According to my mom, I asked for the truth in the car while on an errand drive with her. I asked timidly and in a way that my Mom took to mean that I had figured it all out, and even if she couldn't pull over on Ohio Route 42 to talk about it, she should be honest with me then and there. After she said that I was right, Santa didn't exist, she tried to explain that the spirit of Santa Claus was a real thing while I cried over my second loss. I've done a pretty great job totally repressing this memory. I do remember, however, that afterward I put the 'Twas book on the shelf indefinitely, deciding I was too old for Santa, and feeling more confused than ever about what Christmas really meant.
Things have changed in the last eighteen years. I no longer resent Santa for not being real and I'm not grudging on Jesus for that scrape he gave me on the swing. I don't keep a copy of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas nor of The Holy Bible bedside. I don't believe in Santa, and I'm pretty sure Jesus was an okay guy, but not the son of God or anything.
Some children in France are taught that Santa
was I'm not sure at which point Nicholas went from being Saint to being Santa and moved from France to the North Pole, but I'm okay with this story. Granted, it's bloody and dated (from the 1500s actually), but in it, Santa and God coexist and fight together in an epic battle of good versus evil. So I may not be sure how commercially and/or spiritually I want to spend my Christmas this year--the ratio of my time spent mall shopping and knelt praying now escapes me--but either way, they both beat the third alternative--spending seven years salty and in pieces at the bottom of a barrel. And I suppose that's a good reason to celebrate.
Thursday, June 8, 2006
Here I am, again.
I don't really use this anymore, but in a recent riveting evening of journal-comparison with J, I realized that it's pretty useful since it promises not to get lost in your closet or crash with your computer.
With that in mind, I'm updating.
I'm home for the second time after completing the six hour drive to/from Chicago for the third time in one week. (Talk about numbers and figures.) I find myself here, knowing that I won't sleep in my bed in Evanston until January and that I will, in two nights, be sleeping in New York...where I will be for six months.
I'm unnerved. Okay, no. I'm so upset and anxious that I cried for a long, long time Saturday night and then got drunk and cried more.
But I'm excited, too. I think.
This summer will be something entirely new. In some sense, even going to France last year, I've known what each summer after college would bring for me. I look back at my entries from this time of the year in my livejournal and I see similar themes. I'm moving out of the dorm and I'm getting ready to go home. Last year, when I went to France, I knew what to expect of the south of France. I had been there before, and besides, I'd spend the last month of summer at home again.
This year is different.I've never been to New York. Ever. Except on some bridge. Don't know which one.
I'll be living in a one-bedroom apartment with my boyfriend and best friend all summer. We will each work all the time and have no money, except enough to buy cheap wine and drink it in bed while watching DVDs on my new computer...cause apparently that's the plan.
That sounds so...adult.
Then I remember that I'm twenty-one and this is a time that things begin to happen in life. And now they are, in fact, happening. And...that's fine.
Monday, December 26, 2005
Smells like Christmas Spirit
CUE: C's nasal-toned voice..."It was Christmas Day."
(Shot of C waking up and looking like shit.)
"Of all the days to wake up with a cold. I couldn't even enjoy opening Santa's stockings with the kids."
(Shot of C with NIECE CARYN hopping around her, but C rubbing head, probably with a cold beer or wine bottle, since it's after 11 am.)
(Pan shot of WALGREEN's.)
"Good thing Walgreen's was there for me."
(SMILEY LADY AT COUNTER smiles at C, who's still rubbing her head with alcohol bottles as she stumbles through the door.)
"I couldn't wait to try Walgreen's new Wal-afed PE!!"
(C purchases WALGREEN'S GENERIC BRAND COLD MEDICINE and pops 3 pills, rather than one, while still in the parking lot and toting her bottle with her.)
"Now I can enjoy Christmas the way it ought to be." (Shot of C stumbling around kitchen, still with bottle-in-hand, chasing NIECE CARYN, with a tiara and Christmas wreath.)
Ahh, family Christmases.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Likes: Toasters, porches, lavender honey, and tight hugs
I sleep with my down comforter on, in 90 degree night heat, with no air conditioning in my house.
I raid my mom's closet every break to see if my taste in clothing has changed enough that I can take more of her old clothes. I always do.
I used to dislike the smell of cigarettes. I got used to it in France. I still don't smoke.
There is this sponge that my aunt claimed can clean up any stain. When she demonstrated by writing an obscene word on my grandmother's white purse in a Bic pen, the sponge didn't work. She still gave me one anyway.
I write in four different journals.
I just made that last fact up. I don't feel like counting exactly how many journals I'm writing in right now. We'll say four.
I am going to Evanston tomorrow.
I enjoy getting lost and not knowing where I am going.
When I was little, I caught fireflies and kept count of how many I caught every summer. One night I caught 300. That summer I caught over 5000. In addition, I caught one wasp.
I assume I won't get married until I'm at least 29, and that I'm not having kids until I'm 32. I also assume I might not have kids at all if my career is more important at the time.
I've got more skeletons than you do. Promise.
I hate possum.I also hate things that have lots of scales/holes/visible veins/fleshy particles. God, those things are disgusting. (This includes, but is not limited to, sponges, honeycombs, fish flesh.)
Hell for me would be loneliness.
Today I realized that, for me, college is half-done, and the hometown that I thought would never be the town I came back to from college has been that town. This made me laugh while I was driving and the moment felt pretty cathartic. I don't know why.
I've had more dreams involving Aslan lately since I was eight. These dreams rock and often involve flying.
My cats and I play games that involve chasing each other around the house. I am as entertained as my cats are.
I have to sleep and stop thinking random thoughts, or I'll never be able to drive to Chicago tomorrow.
To sleep.
Tuesday, August 9, 2005
It might sound silly, but...
I cried throughout the entire ABCWorldNews broadcast tonight.
I grew up watching Peter Jennings deliver the news every night in my house. I'm not sure how many people between the ages of 3 and 18 watched the news as much as I did when I was little. In fact, I'm pretty certain I was more well-informed at the age of 12 of worldly matters than I am now.
It's reassuring to have a familiar face enter your home every night by satellite and tell you what's happening in the world. If they're there saying it to you, everything has to be okay to some extent. I learned almost every big news story through Peter Jennings. My first memory of anything particularly newsworthy is of the Berlin Wall coming down, and I remember watching him hold up pieces of the wall. Knowing Peter Jennings has died also makes these events I witnessed through his accounts seem more transient--moments that hung for a moment, suspended by media coverage and then slipped back under the tide of more important, pressing events. It also makes me feel old.
It was like the likes of Peter Jennings that got me saying when I was little that I wanted to be 'on the news.' For me, Jennings was a little bit like my dad, too. His ties and stiff collared shirts reminded me of my dad, who'd often still be wearing his own ties and stiff-collared shirts from the office when we'd all watch the news together.
I am not sure exactly why I wanted to write this down, but it seemed important to me. I didn't realize I'd be so affected by his death.
Sunday, August 7, 2005
A Little Memory
When I was little, I used to do these things I called "Moon Dances."
When there was a full moon in the summer, I'd get dressed up. "Dressed up" usually meant wearing my white slips that were meant to be worn under dresses, which I thought were really sophisticated without dresses over them. I'd also put on make-up, very exciting at the age of six or seven.
Once I was all dressed up, I would have my parents light all the candles on the porch. I'd choose a CD I wanted to dance to and turn the speakers of our living room stereo to face outside. My favorite CD's to play were either Pavarotti's Greatest Hits, Nat King Cole or Ray Charles.
Once it was all ready, I'd dance all night--on the patio, on the porch--and I'd run--up the walkway to the pool, around the pool and into the "back-backyard." I'd jump on my swingset and twist in between the bars and swing. In the moonlight, with my sophisticated white slip, I probably looked much like a streak of white searing across the dark smoky green of the yard.
I think that's nice. I hope that these types of things don't die with age.
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Back in the US of A
C'est la grande question, la seule, au fond celle que j'ai toujours entendue même lorsqu'elle n'était pas formulée, et quelquefois aussi je l'ai posée--les mots, les yeux--, d'autres fois non ou bien murmurée, juste pour voir, juste pour savoir--mais souvent non, souvent tue, réponse non sue, inventée, suggérée: est-ce que tu m'aimes, est-ce que c'est de l'amour, ce que tu éprouves, ce que tu dis, ce que tu fais, est-ce que c'est de l'amour, est-ce que c'est l'amour?
--Camille Laurens, L'Amour
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Little girls get bigger everyday
Two years ago I went to France with my fellow recently graduated friends and my teacher and/or best adult friend Linn King. We were there not long, but the experience changed me.
I came back, feeling bogged down by everything in Ohio. I was just where I was before I had left--a graduate of LHS, a girl with a boyfriend, an geographical-emotional nomad without a home base, a soon-to-be Wildcat (and what did that mean at the time? Nothing.), just a somebody who felt stuck.
France had opened up my eyes in a short amount of time. I realized how capable I was on my own--without my mom, my dad, my boyfriend, even my friends. Suddenly I was back where I had been before, and everybody expected me to rely on them again...and I couldn't.
For that reason, partially, Northwestern was an amazing escape and new discovery.
I was immediately swooned into the green campus, the gorgeous lakefill, Evanston in its north shore glory, my friends and their amazing talents, my professors who blew me away, and of course, Chicago. Here I was, this individual. Totally on my own. Nobody to rely on, even if I wanted to rely on somebody.
Coming back to Ohio was hell.
I say this with some hesitation, as I have some great friends here...and some particularly wonderful ones who have been nothing short of perfect in the last year or two. ...I think they know who they are.
But, let's set the rest of the bullshit aside. There are some people here in Lebanon who fucking suck. I'm pretty sure Lebanon must be a epicenter for lame-ass, back-stabbing, fair-weather, and generally mediocre and relatively uninteresting individuals. ...I think they know who they are too.
If that's just how it is here, there's nothing I want more than to just get back to this life I have started for myself. Where things were new, just starting, with all sorts of hopes for an amazing future for both me and one shared with my incredible friends. There was, and it goes without saying that there still is, so so SO much to look forward to.
Thus, when I got back to school for my sophomore year and was given one final reason to forget about home, I was more excited than ever to immerse myself in everything Northwestern, Evanston and Chicago. I'm pretty sure judging by this journal, and even moreso the personal changes I see within myself over the last year, I did just that.
I spent more time in the city, more time with new people, more time trying new things, and more time just discovering anything and everything in this past year than I ever have before. Not at any particular moment this year, but somewhere along the way, the realization seeped into me that... I am, in fact, done with home.
And no longer is this idea one that is just 'Home isn't home anymore,' or 'I feel out of place at home;' but rather, it is a full sentence; a complete idea: I am done with home.
It seems appropriate, then, that I should come full circle, leaving for France only days after returning 'home.'
To me, this trip is not just another study abroad, or chance to drink wine at age 20, or opportunity to see another half of the globe. This trip is, in part, an exercise of my newly-found individuality. I'm getting to stretch my limbs and say, 'Here I am,' to nobody but myself and whatever part of France is listening...and understands English.
I'm growing up, and that's kind of weird. But it's these steps along the way, and taking them slowly, that makes the growing all worthwhile.
PS. I'm going to miss you guys. A lot. (And most of you I already do miss a lot and am just itching for September already.)