R.W.B.

I know I should ignore the people ranting about how we wouldn't be "targeted" if we weren't breaking the law.

But consider this:

Halbastram and I were traveling on I-55, leaving my mother's house & heading back to Kansas following some holiday.  Naturally, as with most holiday travel, there were plenty of officers on the highway.  We caught the attention of one trooper, who tailed us for at least a mile trying to run our plates before finally just pulling us over.  He approached the window and did his whole "license, registration" spiel and noticed that the insurance and his license were two different addresses (we had just moved from Manhattan to Lawrence and hadn't changed over our IDs yet).  For some reason, this prompted him to ask Halbastram to exit the vehicle and go sit in the squad car while he ran his ID.

After placing Halbastram in the car (with the police dog, no less), he then approaches my window and asks for my ID.  I hand it over; unfortunately for me, it was still an Illinois license.  As we moved to Kansas just to attend school, and my license wasn't expired, I just didn't bother because I didn't think we were staying here permanently.  He proceeds to play 20 questions with me, asking why we had two different licenses, where I went to school, how old I was, if we were married, where we were coming from, etc., i.e., questions he already had the answers to because he had just finished asking Halbastram those very questions before moving him to the squad car.

I don't exactly know what his game was, or what he was hoping to gather from that, but he kept Halbastram in the car for about five minutes before letting him go with a warning.

Why he had to remove him from our car to do so just baffles me, but I'm fairly certain race played a huge part here; and I feel confident saying that because I was harassed about my ID as a passenger once before, while riding with My Lady through Naperville.  And in the Naperville case, since my ID said "Chicago" while my lady's said "Joliet", this guy wanted to know what we were doing in Naperville.  As if it were utterly impossible for two people of different races from different towns to be friends on a little road trip.  Once we mentioned "college", he seemed a tad bummed that it wasn't something more worth his while.

And no, having a completely valid ID from one state while being a student in another is no reason to harass passengers.  What would have happened if I told him that I didn't have an ID?  Legally, I'm not required to have one on me as a passenger.

The point is, you don't have to necessarily be doing anything to arouse the suspicion of some; sometimes it's as simple as "riding in the car with your husband" or "being a black passenger in Naperville."

And yes, I know #notallcops; but #notallblackpeople also.  

Missed-conception

Halbastram & I met over 11 years ago, and almost immediately, we knew this was going to be a long term thing for us. So we would nonchalantly start planning our future: where we would live, what I would do for a living, the places we would travel, the kids we would have. That last one was especially one of our favorite topics, as downtime would be filled with what pop culture name we would bestow upon our children. A superfan of the hit 80s TV show “The Fall Guy,” I decided that my first born son would be named Colt. We even got our family on board with little Colt, and in the time leading up to and after our marriage, we would talk about the soon-to-arrive Colt and all of the love he’d receive from his family.

Over time, that enthusiasm all but faded out. After seven years of marriage, we didn't have to explicitly say it for most people to figure it out on their own. Simply put, conception wasn't written in the stars for us. We figured this out on our own within the first few months of marriage. Of course, we knew that sometimes it takes time and that baby-making isn't always as simple as just laying down together, as multiple episodes of Maury would have you believe. Six months later, however, we knew that we needed to perhaps speak with someone.

For the better part of 2008 (like ALL of 2008), I was in and out of specialists’ offices, having all manners of tests run on me to make sure that my parts were in working order. After pushing our health insurance to its limits and being put in as many uncomfortable positions as the lady doctor’s could think of, I was cleared as having a healthy, perfectly working reproductive system. That meant Halbastram needed to make sure his man parts were in perfect working order as well.

But before that could happen, 2009 happened: the year that we lost everything. Jobs, cars, condo, livelihood. And health insurance. Suddenly, with new problems on the table- such as, how are we going to feed ourselves today?- the thought of bringing new life into the world seemed like a distant concern.

That didn't make us give up, though. And that didn't make me any less sad- knowing that month after month brought another failure, another disappointment. I couldn't look at someone’s new baby pictures, or read a birth announcement, or pass a baby section at a store, without feeling like I had clearly done something wrong in a past life to suffer this way. The worst feelings would come while watching trashy talk shows or the news, seeing parents take their gifts for granted by abusing them or just having them because they can’t stop partying and then using them as pawns to get what they want- I couldn't help but think of how unfair life truly is and as a result I've just stopped watching daytime TV (with the exception of Judge Judy).

Now that we’re back in a better place, we’re starting the medical procedures again and hoping for better results this time, although I’m not as optimistic. Many people will say that 31 is still pretty young and that it could happen for me the minute I stop thinking about it. The problem with that is that I've been thinking about it for seven years now. It doesn't just go away. Somewhere deep inside me I have faith that something good will happen for us, but I don’t get my hopes up too high these days.

I've found other ways to share the love that I have to give: I’m hopelessly devoted to my friends, family, Halbastram & silly little asshole cat, Humphrey T. Roosevelt. I will never stop living my life because of a little infertility but I will never stop trying either. So here’s to hoping that Little Colt Seavers graces us with his presence in 2015 (or 2016 or 2017...I can wait a lifetime).

Confessions of a former delusional baseball fangirl: a photoblog

My new life as a total baseball fan began on June 4, 1999, when I won tickets from Pizza Hut to watch the White Sox play the Pirates.  My life as a total baseball fangirl would begin shortly thereafter when I noticed a certain redheaded player by the name of Josh Paul.

I don’t remember when exactly I noticed the insanely hot backup catcher, but from the moment I laid eyes on him, 15-yr-old me had already started planning our wedding.  I wrote sappy love letters that he would never see when I was in class; I would daydream about being a baseball wife; and I would talk non-stop about him to my friends.

And then, I started seeing him in person.

Soxfest is an annual fan convention that I attended every year just to get a glimpse of my fantasy man.  I attended my first Soxfest in 2000 and my last in 2002.  In just those two years, I met Josh Paul three times.  I would drag my poor best friend and my sister with me because I was so painfully shy and knew that I couldn’t manage meeting His Greatness on my own.  

And I was right, because after I snagged his autograph and a picture with him, I broke down into tears like a teenybopper at a Backstreet Boys concert and had to be led away by my slightly embarrassed friend.  Luckily for everyone involved, Mr. Paul didn’t see my spectacle.

At least I hope so.

Sometime along the way, I started working at the ballpark, possibly with the hopes of seeing him more, but it was around that time that I started noticing a blue eyed pitcher by the name of Mark Buehrle.  I switched my focus towards this new Missouri boy during his second season with the team (he went bleach blonde…I normally don’t go gaga for blondes, but you have not seen Mark Buehrle as a blonde, presumably.  It was…magnificent).  However, after being rebuffed by the ace (a story for another day), I decided that perhaps Josh Paul was the guy for me after all.  So I decided to do something dramatic.

I asked him to marry me.  Sort of.

I wrote about this experience in a previous blog:

I decided that, during my senior year, I would make a sign asking for his hand in marriage and wait for him outside of the players’ parking lot. My friend and I go to the game, leave and wait up to an hour following the final pitch…and then we saw him, walking to his SUV with his lady. And suddenly, I lost my nerve.Where it went, who knows? But I begged my friend to show him the sign for me. So she called out his name and held up the sign. The prettiest, biggest, most gorgeous smile crossed his face. And I realized that he was smiling at the girl holding the sign; not me. And I felt like a colossal idiot, especially when he walked over to autograph the sign…and then handed it back to her. She may have given it back to me after he walked away, but the experience will never ever really be mine.

Although my attraction to Josh Paul would never completely wane, over time I stopped being gaga.  As evidenced by my photos above, I still have my various trinkets from my fan girl phase. 

I keep them around as a further reminder that I was a strange teenage girl with the oddest habit of crushing on the most random people.  But I’m not sorry.  Dude was superfine.  But then this happened:

And I don’t know how to feel anymore.

The last boy in my high school life

 The other day a song came on the radio that reminded me of an old high school boyfriend.  And I really mean OLD, in that he was a good ten years older than me.  Don’t worry: we dated during my senior year, so I was legal in the eyes of Illinois.  Still, the idea does bother some, I know.  I don’t pretend to understand why he was interested in a high school girl that couldn't get into any of the clubs or bars.  He was nice enough: we had a standing date every weekend when we didn't work (we both worked at the United Center & Comiskey Park) and any random days during the week when I could get out of the house.  We saw pretty much every new movie that came out while we were dating and we spent a lot of time in the car just talking (ok…some talking…).  And it didn't hurt when I was assigned to his section during work, because that became makeout time (he was a Team Leader for our company, so I’m pretty sure that if they knew we were dating I would have been assigned to his section much less).

We met innocently enough: I was working his section at the ballpark and he was flirting pretty heavily (although he would later claim that he was just having fun, not flirting).  I had just broken up with my last boyfriend following my return from a rather strange internship, so I was rebounding hard and any attention was good attention.  I gave him my number after work and thus began our interesting 9-month courtship that, even after twelve years, I still don’t understand.

Maybe it was just me being a lovestruck teenager, but no matter how much I pressed the issue, it seemed as though I couldn't get *Juan to tell me he loved- hell, even LIKED, me.  Even after dating for nine months.  It was frustrating.  And I can’t even give him the benefit of the doubt that he was just in it for the intimacy of a younger woman; we never took it to that level and he never asked me.  But for whatever reason, for him, we were just hanging out.  Nothing more.  We weren't boyfriend and girlfriend.  But I stuck with him because I loved his stupid face.

Maybe he was just waiting for me to graduate high school before he pursued something more?  I never found out, as I broke up with him right after graduation so that I could be free to see as many college boys as I wanted.  However, I soon realized that I needed to get through the summer first, so I tried to ask him back out, at which point I was rejected because I clearly didn't have loyalty.

The irony wasn’t lost on me: what did he think the last nine months were?

After being rejected, I threw out the box of trinkets that I had collected during our courtship.  And I wondered how we could have accumulated such a history without being anything official in his eyes.  One of the items was a chocolate rose that he had bought for me when I had to work on Easter.  He’d had the day off, but he picked me up after work and had waiting for me in the car the rose, a pint of milk (I used to drink A LOT of 2% milk in high school) and a copy of Maxim magazine (I had recently told him about my attraction towards the fairer sex).  He then took me to the mall for some shopping and to see ‘Big Trouble’ at the movies, which I had been waiting to see since September 2001 (it was delayed for obvious reasons).  I had pretty close friends who weren't that tuned in to me; why would a non-boyfriend do such things for me?  I dwelled on these things after the fact, but at the time my stupid teenaged brain was too blinded by the “aww, how sweet”-ness of it all.

Juan was never cruel to me; he never called me names or was physically aggressive.  He was a genuinely nice guy.  Just weirdly distant.  At any point he could have ended it, but he still showed up to take me out to see whatever movie I wanted. 

I don’t get it.   

Don’t get me wrong: teenaged me enjoyed our time together, but I often wondered what was even the point.

Just like I wonder what the point of telling this story was.  Oh yeah: I heard a song on the radio that reminded me of an old high school boyfriend.  And I really mean OLD, in that he was a good ten years older than me…

*obviously not his real name, although all of my high school friends know his name because I never shut the hell up about him.

Throwback Thursdays: Screaming about Flag Football edition

Before meeting my Lady during our freshman year of college, I only had a vague understanding of the punk genre and zero knowledge of the existence of Hardcore (outside of porn, that is). While it still isn't my preferred listening pleasure (I listen to a lot of awfulness, and The Beach Boys), there was something very ironic and invigorating about listening to Ten Yard Fight, a hardcore straight-edge band, scream football/hardcore analogies through the speakers while we were getting nice and boozy with cheap vodka (Skol!) in her dorm room. Or while driving down to Florida for spring break and listening to the album over and over because it was only 23 minutes long. Apparently there are only so many football terms one can scream out at a given time.

I miss those days of trying to find the balance of having as much fun as possible while making sure we do well enough in school so that we didn't end up as hobos (although, as we quickly found out, school doesn't necessarily prevent that); of trying to hide the boys in the closet even though Campus Safety was already well aware that they were in the room (cheap vodka prevents discretion); and of sitting in Steak N Shake at all hours of the night/early morning because it was the only thing under-21 college kids could do at a small religious college in the suburbs. No matter what we got into, she always made sure we had a rocking soundtrack to accompany us. Such as hardcore songs about flag football. You’d be surprised how much cooler flag football sounds when it’s screamed at you.

The sometimes confusing and frightening world of niche fiction

Thanks to Amazon’s delightful Kindle Unlimited service, I’ve been able to read a lot of novellas and short stories by indie writers.  There’s a vast array of fiction- coming of age stories, science fiction, reflective pieces, socially conscious tales, etc.

What I’ve also discovered is that there is a lot of niche fiction out there.  Fiction that would normally stay within fan fiction circles and personal journals are now bourgeoning subgenres that comprise serials and have loyal readers.

I wrote a while back about how the internet and the boom of the e-book have made it easier for people to get their work out there- for better or worse.  I’m sure before the e-book you’d have to search around in small, alternative book stores to get your niche fix. 

With the digital marketplace, you can now anonymously type in a few keywords and you’re 99% likely to find an author who shares your weirdness and wants to make money off of it.

Are you into dinosaur porn?  Covered.  Naughty retellings of classic fairy tales?  Covered.  Taboo teacher-student relationships?  Soooooo covered.  (Oh, is it covered.)  Black women being seduced by their billionaire white bosses?  As I found out today, also covered. 

Did I mention the dinosaur porn?

I’m not one to stomp or negate someone’s fetish or choice of fiction- I ship Sherlock & Dr. Watson so hard that if I had the confidence I’d write stories from here to eternity about it.  But there’s only so much time I can devote to trying to figure out the logistics of dinosaur/human sex. 

Just like any new endeavor, there has to be a pioneer in these niches.  How does one get into such niche fiction?  How does one find out that there are people out there just waiting to ship Sir Triceratops & Madame Lady McHuman?  Do you just write it and toss it out there and see what sticks?  Do you sniff around message boards or fringe sites to see what people are into?  Do you just know that this is what the people want?  If I were to write an erotic story about a society girl whose greatest fantasies occur in the form of weathered New England fishermen in full sea gear complete with sea smells, would I inadvertently stumble upon a group of readers who have been waiting for this connection their entire lives? 

Seriously, would you read that?  Because I’ll write it if you ask nicely.  I sold out a long time ago.

The teacher/student stories are the least weird of the bunch, although perhaps the most taboo as far as real-life is concerned.  The majority of them deal with the barely legal senior high school girl falling for and/or being seduced by the new, mid-twenties-ish, slim, well-dressed English teacher (one or two replace English teachers with math teachers).  These stories also seem to have the biggest readership.  I think it’s safe to say that, unless you went to a school taught completely by trolls, everyone has had a tiny crush on at least one teacher.  At most we mention it to our friends, or write about it in our journals, and forget about it as we continue on with our lives.  The better authors go beyond just the "ZOMG! I want to totally make out with my teacher!” and explore the emotional turmoil that each affected party goes through in the forbidden romance situation.  Digging into the psychology behind such relationships makes these some of the better written stories, despite one’s feelings towards the subject.

I don’t even need to read the dinosaur porn to know that anything else is most likely superior.

However, what a lot of the stories suffer from, as I sort of hinted to above, is that most seems like something straight from a personal diary.  They’re so hastily written and concluded that it’s almost as if the writer was writing more to satisfy a dream they had as opposed to drawing in potential readers (although I did read them anyway, so I’m not sure who wins here).

Regardless, as I mentioned before, I love that people are writing and putting their stuff out there and that there are eager readers giving them an audience.  E-books are breathing new life into authors and potential authors and I love it.  If this seems slightly contradictory to what I spent the last 700 words discussing, I apologize.  I started this post two days ago with zero direction and then started back up today while watching the Royals blow game one of the World Series and I may be four consolatory drinks in, so, sorry about that.

Keep doing your thing, weird niche fiction writers.  Someone out there loves you & your craft.

Just talk.

The passing of Robin Williams is not something that I am taking lightly.  No, I didn't know him personally and honestly, if asked who my favorite comedians/actors were, I’m not so sure he would have made the list.  What’s impacting me the most is the news of his struggles with depression.  Millions of people struggle with depression every day and, much like how people felt about Mr. Williams, I’m sure there are those out there who people look at and think, “how can he/she be depressed?  They seem so normal and happy.”  A writer for Cracked.com wrote an insightful and heartfelt look into why comedians and comedy writers often struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts.  And while I personally don’t fall into that professional category, I do understand wanting to always appear on and ready, not wanting to show anyone any other side of you, any weaknesses. 

Even as I write this, part of me wants to hesitate on calling what I have “depression.”  For as long as I can remember, I have been referred to as emotional- highly emotional, if the universe felt like being particularly shitty that day.  I have this ability to absorb emotions.  It’s almost like The Blob: I take them in, I store them, I feed off of them: happiness, anger, sadness.  When people mourn, I mourn twice as much for them.  When something goes wrong, or when I get upset (and it doesn't take much for that to happen), I shut down: I let it simmer.  And then I get inside my head and can’t get out.  I start turning over every phrase, every movement, every moment, replaying it in my head over and over again until I can’t even think coherent thoughts anymore.

If none of that makes sense, I apologize.  It barely makes sense to me, which makes it hard to put into words.  But the bottom line is that I spend a lot of time in my head.  Which means that a lot of what I’m feeling never comes out.  And it gets to the point where I don’t want to do anything or see anyone.  And just letting things fester unresolved is not healthy for anyone, physically, mentally or emotionally.

I know there are a lot of us out there like that, who spend a lot of time in our heads without anyone being any wiser- not our friends, our families or our lovers.  Part of that is because we don’t want to burden others with what we’re going through; part of it is that we feel no one else would understand.  I know that I have a lot of supportive family and friends and a kick-ass husband.  But when they’re happy or going through their own issues, why bring up mine? 

Following Mr. Williams’ untimely passing, I've been reading many stories from individuals who echo my sentiments, my inner quarrels.  As a community, we acknowledge that talking is something that we need to get better at, but are slow to correct.  And on the flip side of that, perhaps there are those out there who could become better listeners.  “But how can we become better listeners if you won’t talk?”  Sometimes it’s as simple as asking how their day is, what they've been up to and how they’re feeling.  Sometimes it’s more complicated and isn't always easy to spot.  For me, being surrounded by my family and loved ones keeps me out of my head, because it keeps me occupied.  And that occupation makes a world of difference.

So if you or someone you know are struggling with depression, please do not hesitate to talk to someone or seek out a helping hand.  The world may be a fucked up place, but there are solutions and plenty of people who want to make it a little less so.

R.I.P Mr. Williams- and to the many others that we've lost.

Four Years a Kansan

I think I'm finally getting used to life in Kansas.

As of August 10th, we will have been here for four years.  Since we moved here just to go to school and wait out the Great Recession of 2008, I never really considered this my home.  Home was always Chicago. Whenever we talked about going to Chicago for the holidays or just to visit, it wasn't "oh, hey, we should go stay at my mother's"; it was "hey, are we going home this year?"  I didn't even bother to register to vote or change my license until I absolutely had to.  In my mind, I was going back home as soon as I finished my degree.  No point in changing anything, right?

Four years later...

I think part of the reason it's taken me so long to assimilate to Kansas is that I honestly haven't been giving it a fair chance.  I haven't exactly tried to learn anything about what makes it unique or what it has to offer.
And it does have a few positives.  I mean, the cost of living is ridiculous cheap (when compared to Chicago). Gas prices are considerably lower.  It's located in a nice in-between spot, giving me an equal distance between my family & Halbastram's family (both trips take roughly 8hrs).

But then there's the problem of having to drive everywhere.  Seriously- people who bitch and moan about how gross and crowded and whatever their public commuting options are: I will trade my commute with any one of you.  Sometimes, when the weather gets bad, as it does in Kansas between December-March, and you can't(won't) dig your car out, it'd be nice to have that bus as a back up.  Let someone else worry about trudging through the snow.  I've got nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Bad weather in an exceptionally hilly location (yeah, Kansas has hills.  It's not the total flat barren wasteland pop culture has lied to us about) ain't nothing to fuck with.

And so there I am, in my tiny economy-sized automobile, struggling to keep from spinning out on the icy highway, while Toby McPickupTruck whizzes by doing 80mph, spraying gunk in my direction, partaking in general dickery as he is usually wont to do.  And even though the weather is treacherous, I make sure to take at least two seconds out of my busy commute to give him a nice Seasons Greetings!, courtesy of my middle finger.

I do this about three times a day.  Year-round.

Sure, sometimes the train cars smell like New Year's Day and their on-time rating is somewhere in the negatives, but I will surely take that option over the Snowy Hills of Death.

Some days, I will look out the window and think, "take the risk or sick day?  What's that?  Ice storm?  I suddenly don't feel well..."

But it's not all doom and gloom.  August more than makes up for the aggravation of a Kansas winter commute. Which is not a bad month to celebrate a 4-yr moving anniversary.  I'm not sure how many more of these winters I can take but while we're here, I'm going to make the most of it and enjoy the cheap gas.

Until we meet again...

The (writer's) struggle

“Teaching’s just something I do to pay the bills while I finish my novel.  I’ve been working on it for five years.”

“It must be very good.”

“It’s a piece of shit.”

And with that line, I think Donald Sutherland captured the essence of pretty much how all first-time/part-time novelists feel about their work.  I’m not a fan of anything I write and yet I continue to work at it.  Writers are a bit of a masochistic bunch.  We toil and torture ourselves for that perfect sentence, that perfect adjective, that perfect paragraph, that perfect “call me Ishmael” opening line.  And even after all of that, even after people tell us, “hey, that’s a pretty good story,” we’re still not convinced.  It could be so much more, so much better.  Which is why we never stop writing, never stop trying to achieve that literary perfection.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren't “writers” out there who must be stopped, writers with confidence where there shouldn't be any- especially now that self-publishing e-books has made it easier than ever before to give unpublished writers a chance to gain an audience.  Unfortunately, that means that everyone and their grandmother who has ever had a brilliant idea once in the 7th grade is now clogging up the bibliosphere with their nonsense.

But, shouldn't we be happy that people are actually writing things for others to read?  Technically, yes.  I do have a special place in my heart for people who promote reading as a viable leisurely activity (even if they’re only doing it because they’re absolutely convinced that they will become the next J.K. Rowling or Stephen King). 

Also, in a bit of a twist, I’m quite jealous of the confidence that some of those writers have, to just put out their product and throw caution to the wind and your opinion on their writing be damned!  But, alas, I am Donald Sutherland in “Animal House.”  Yes, I have been working on my piece of shit novel for almost 10 years but I will never stop.  

House of Knives

During the summer of 2004, I needed a summer job.  I was living in the city with Halbastram, who was not only paying my rent but also footing all of my bills.  While that was nice, it should have been unnecessary, as I was a completely employable, able-bodied young person.  So I scoured the internet and newspapers, looking for work.  I came across an ad in the Tribune looking for an "office assistant."  Having spent the last two years as an office assistant, I decided that this was a job that even I could manage.

I called to set up my "interview" and arrived at the office building a few days later (fun fact- Halbastram would later work for the property management company that owned the building where my "interview" took place).

When I walk in, I notice at least 10 other young people and am thoroughly confused.  Why are there so many people at my interview?  Why is there so much competition for an office job?  At the start time, Johnny Jerkstore walks in and hands us all a sheet of paper and a pen.  He informs us that we need to fill out some information so that we could be considered for the wonderful world of Cutco.  Yep, the door-to-door knives company.  Not an office assistant position.  A sales position.  I can't be sure, but it seems to me that many laws were broken with their deceptive advertising.

A couple of Russian girls who were there with their mother realized the ruse and decided that they were going to leave.  Obviously this wasn't the ad they answered either.  They politely handed him their paper and pen and, as they were leaving, Johnny Jerkstore responds to them with, I kid you not, "yeah, good luck.  I'm sure Burger King is hiring down the street."  What a professional.

He then goes on about how he started as a college kid with a summer job and how it's blossomed into a career where he gets to bully teenagers who decide that they don't like being deceived.  We then have to listen to some bullshit about the history of Cutco and how to be a dickhead salesperson so we could hawk expensive knives to housewives and the elderly.

At the end there was a quiz where it would be determined who would be fit enough to join the CircleJerk of Lies.  I didn't participate because I didn't want anything to do with this guy or that company.  So I figured, "well, I didn't take that idiotic quiz, so they won't be calling me."

Hahahahaha.  Joke's on all of us.

Less than two hours later, they were calling me, telling me how great I was at the "interview" and they wanted to get me in training right away.  They called me no less than twice a week, wondering why I won't come work for them.  I tried the "I found another job" routine, but they were ready with the comeback: "well, that's the beauty of Cutco: you can do your sales on your time."  I started turning my phone off but they would ALWAYS leave a message.  Finally, I just told them that I was moving overseas to do some charity work due to a religious awakening I recently experienced.  There was no witty comeback for that.  What could they say: "well, you can sell knives to the poor foreigners once you finish building their houses"?  Nope.  That wasn't in their training manual.

Halbastram owns Cutco knives, and they are nice.  But there's something to be said about a company that allows a person like that Johnny Jerkstore to take advantage of teenagers looking for summer money or money for college.  It was slimy and so ridiculous.  There's no shortage of people looking for work at any given time.  There are people who willingly become telemarketers (I even applied to become a telemarketer in high school).  So why lie about it?  Just say, "hey, we need you to sell high-end knives to people who have more money than they know what to do with."  Whatever the job, there's someone out there willing to do it.

Take Johnny Jerkstore for example.  They needed someone to bully teenagers into sales positions.  And he was just the man to do it.  For better or worse.

The beginning of a (culturally different) beautiful friendship

While I was in Grad School, I became friends with a really nice South Korean student who liked to tell me the differences between South Korean and U.S. customs (this was seriously a daily lecture). I knew where the conversation would be headed because she made it a point to start with the key words “In Korea…”  I knew that I was going to get some pretty interesting lessons about her home country, as well as some grating generalizations about America that she was hell-bent on believing based on her handful of years in the States. However, there were some nuggets of information that I found absolutely fascinating. Some of the things she explained to me included:

Generational Etiquette:
-younger South Koreans usually pay for the drinks if they are out drinking with their older co-workers.  She was older than me by ten years, which meant that I would have been on the hook for large amounts of beer purchases.  Luckily, being a poor graduate student got me off the hook more often than not.  Drinking would play a big part in our bonding experience, as I will explain a little later.

Workplace Etiquette:
-it is completely normal to have a "work husband" (oddly, my "at-home" husband is not on board with this idea).  From what I gather, a “work husband” is just someone that you’re closer to in the workplace than anyone else.  You talk often, go to lunch together, and possibly give each other back rubs.  But that’s where the physical intimacy ends.  There’s nothing romantic about having a “work husband”: it’s just an overly platonic workplace relationship.  She had a “grad school husband”, a tall, dark and handsome fellow grad student from Saudi Arabia who was generally a hit with all the ladies.  So it was just a natural fit, I suppose.

Drinking Etiquette:
-when South Koreans go out drinking, it is typical to completely down the first beer as quickly as possible as a means of setting the tone for the evening/outing.  And this usually set the tone to 11 because when you down your beer in a handful of seconds, you’re not there to take it easy.  You’re there to have a good time and a good time will be had, dammit.  And it was embarrassing for me, because I could not keep up with this tiny Korean lady who had ten years on me.  

Touching Etiquette:
-being touchy was par for the course.  We held hands often. We’d be walking to class and she'd either lock arms or grab my hand. Or we’d be sitting in the library and if she was telling me a story she'd grab the seat closest to me and reach out for my hand or leg.  Here in middle America, a lot of people have been taught/conditioned to be weary of a person who you don’t know well touching you in what could be described as an intimate manner.  But it was the most natural thing in the world to her to be comfortable with a person she'd only known for a few months.  And because I’m not a blazing reactionary, I understood and accepted her friendship.  It was comforting.

Enjoyment Etiquette:

-she also had a very LOUD laugh and explained that that's how you show respect to a person and show them that you are enjoying their company: by being as animated as possible.  When you made her laugh, the entire room knew that she was having a good time.  And it in turn affected the rest of us and made us feel giddy and happy.  This was amplified when beer was involved (see above).  

In addition to learning about our cultural differences, she also presented me with delicious Korean cuisine that I’ve yet to be able to replicate or find anywhere else.  I’m sure there are Korean restaurants nearby, but there’s just something about the smells of her apartment when I would visit that would make my heart flutter. She’d serve up Korean sushi, kimchi, rice noodles, beer, more kimchi, and did I mention the kimchi?  I’m very happy that my first kimchi experience came from a home kitchen.

After graduation we lost touch, as she went back to Korea with her husband and children and I stayed behind in Kansas.  I miss our friendship.  Also, going out just isn’t the same without someone leading the charge with that first beer.

*bonus: she knew how to open a beer bottle on the edge of a table without fucking it up.  she’s my hero.

My Un-Sophisticated Pitch

May 15, 2014

NASCAR

PO Box 2875

Daytona, FL 32120

NASCAR Executives,

Every year, the Christmas season brings about a plethora of holiday movies.  Some are classics, some are remakes of the classics and some are contemporary tales that the whole family can watch and enjoy.  One thing that seems to be missing from much of the holiday movie cornucopia is the niche movie.  I know there are some out there, but for the most part, many of the movies are made to appeal to a wide variety of viewers, and as such feature very conventional storylines and relatable people.  However, I think that it is possible to make a niche movie while also appealing to the demographic who might not normally enjoy this particular niche.

Allow me to explain.

I recently came across the Harlequin collection of NASCAR-themed romance novels and was completely floored by the idea.  I know there are many different subgenres of romance novels, but the female NASCAR fanbase is rather large, so combining NASCAR with romance was absolutely genius.  But then I got to thinking: wouldn’t that combination make for a great Christmas movie?  Most contemporary Christmas movies involve an element of romance, so people who might not be fans of NASCAR would still be interested in a Christmas romance.  And two out of three ain’t bad.  It’s a formula that stands out from the normal crop of movies and sounds like a winning combination to me.

Now, this is my story idea: Growing up in a family full of race car drivers, Tracee knew that she was destined for the track.  She spent most of her free time learning the trade with her father and brother, leaving little room for romance.  But when a new hot shot driver rolls into town, Tracee realizes that perhaps the thrill of the sport isn’t the only thing that gets her engine going.  The two meet and begin a fast-tracked physical relationship, as Tracee isn’t willing to share her heart with Rusty and her love of the sport.  But when a freak accident threatens to take Rusty out of the sport- and her life- for good, Tracee decides to take care of Rusty.  It’s then that she begins to feel it: that slow burn- as her feelings for Rusty begin to overtake her love for the sport.  Can they finally share her heart?

It’s not the most sophisticated story, but as I mentioned before, most Christmas movies have a relatable theme on the surface and this one has romance, tragedy and conflict.

I hope you will take the time to consider my proposal, as I am sure a number of NASCAR fans and Christmas movie fans in general will fall in love with Tracee and Rusty and their story of love and survival.  And at some point we can work Christmas in there.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

T.E. Grace

That awful roommate I've been telling you about...

I’ve been hinting at writing a blog about my trials with my first college roommate.  Though we only lasted five weeks together, we managed to pack in enough drama to continue coming up in drunken conversations twelve years later.  The problems mainly stemmed from the fact that she didn’t care for my friends, who mutually didn’t care for her.  For some reason, although my actual friends never made me do this, my roommate gave me an ultimatum to choose sides; obviously, as that is a pretty dick move considering that I didn’t even count her as a friend, I chose the opposite of her- and was then rewarded with having to move out of the room and onto another floor of the dorm, where much damage-control had to be done, as she had been describing me to the other girls as the Devil Reincarnate.  It only took me a week in my new room to convince the girls that I was pretty fucking nice & cool, and, because why not?, I then turned those very girls- my new floor mates- against my former roommate.  Hey, I can be petty too if provoked enough.  And that was my chance to shine.

But, since I just gave a ridiculous synopsis of the very thing I was going to talk about, I suppose I’ll just entertain you with the “greatest hits.”  And although my Not Vanderbilt College friends already know the name of the person who became the first person I ever had to use the term “hate” towards, to do my part at protecting privacy, she’ll henceforth be referred to as Abalone.  Whether or not someone else reveals her, I suppose that’s the breaks.  But I did my part. 

For the sake of not rambling on, each instance will be presented via bullet-point.  Because I can ramble.  Even in bullet-point, incidentally.  But enough about me.  On to Abalone.

• Our first meeting started with introductions which were promptly followed by this question: “so, do you go to church?”  This is where the “some scary shit is about to go down” music would start to play.
• She told me that her fridge was like my fridge and that whatever I wanted, I could just grab.  The day I actually wanted a juice, I found that he fridge also had a lock- that she delightfully employed.
• One morning, I woke up with considerably shorter hair on a particular section of my head; after I moved downstairs, I learned that she slept with scissors under her pillow.  You do the math.
• After taking a shower one Sunday morning, I found that her entire freak show clan of a family was visiting.  I suppose I should take this time to mention that her family literally lived 15 minutes away from campus.  So at any point she could have gone home if she wanted to have some family fun time.  But those fuckers were always at the dorm for some bizarre reason.  But this one particular time was especially infuriating, because, again, post-shower.  I was wrapped in a towel & didn’t feel it was appropriate to just waltz in (although, looking back, I probably should have).  And although they had knowledge of my needing to get in, that whole circus act refused to budge.  So my Lady (who thankfully lived across the hall) had to go over & “politely” ask them to leave when Spineless, our R.A., refused to do so.  She is so named Spineless because obviously.  The dog-and-pony show finally got the fuck out, no doubt feeling particularly proud about their douche-like behavior.
• Remember, she’s the one who asked me about church the first time we met.  She’s supposed to be the super-Christian…
• The shower thing is even more upsetting because that was pretty much where were finally spiraling towards separation.  A week prior, she had complained that I kept my laundry basket next to my desk instead of in the closet like she kept hers because apparently we’re supposed to be lemming robots.  When I asked her why that mattered she responded, “because my brother saw your dirty jeans.”  Not my vast collection of thongs, g-strings or bras- my fucking jeans.  But, again, that means that her sideshow family was there too fucking much.
• Thennnnnnn…when I complained about the shower incident, she countered with, I shit you not, “well, you should have a robe like everyone else instead of just a towel.”  None of those Christian-like apologies I had been expecting.  The reason that I couldn’t enter my dorm room wasn’t because of her cave dwelling family taking up all of my private space- it was because of my cavorting around in an oversized bath towel.  I’m such a harlot.
• Her mother once tried to sympathize with my problems with being racially profiled by the local police with, “my son is profiled because he’s a ska-kid.”  Yeah, totally the same thing.
• The Straw that Broke that Stupid Camel’s Back: I once owned a ukulele.  My Lady once played an anti-Abalone song on said ukulele.  I may or may not have laughed at said song (I totally did).  Abalone overhears, gets upset that I didn’t defend her & demands that we meet with the hall director. 
• This is the meeting that forced me to move out. 

And so I did.  But, like I mentioned before, my first week on that floor wasn’t exactly a breath of fresh air, as everyone was going out of their way to avoid me (even my new roommate seemed to regard me with disdain).  After I finally got people to open up to me, I was told that Abalone had been telling them that I hung out with criminals (my super deliciously hot bobo boyfriend had, in fact, been to prison before, but he was as harmless as jello), I partied a lot (true story, but only with my closest friends), I slept around (false- again, super-hot boyfriend) and that I was dangerous (because I don’t own a robe). 

In the end I became happier and don’t regret that I had to be the one to move out.  My new roommate and I found ways to bond (watching “Third Watch” religiously; monthly Spam parties; cheese plate extravaganzas, etc.) and my Lady made that wretched Abalone suffer every day for the rest of the year, as she still lived right across the hall from her.  And all I could do was smile and think, “told you I wasn’t the bad one.”

(sorry...I rambled anyway)

Some stuff about college, but mostly stuff about John Mayer

Much like most people’s experiences, my freshman year of college was a confusing time.  Between dating a bobo (an extra super attractive bobo, but a bobo nonetheless), gaining all of the Freshman 15 and dwindling down my group of friends until only my soul mate was left (my Lady!), all I really wanted was to pass my classes, drink some cheap vodka and find and keep a roommate who didn't want to stab me in my sleep (true story: my first roommate slept with a pair of scissors under her pillow because of the people I hung out with…apparently all of my friends were members of Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock gang).

But this isn't about my struggles to find my place in the 2700-student, mostly Caucasian private suburban college.  Although a lot of struggling did take place, I ended my four years with a Lady, a Halbastram and a degree that impresses absolutely no one.

No, this is about how much John Mayer I listened to during that year and why the sound of his voice is now like the sound of nails on a chalkboard.  Or Adam Carolla’s voice on anything.

It started the spring before my freshman year.  I had done an overnight visit on campus, where I stayed with a freshman in her dorm (where major drama ensued*).  On the door of the person living directly across her was a John Mayer poster.  I thought, “he’s kind of cute” and used that as the springboard to purchasing his album and paying over $30 for that same poster on eBay (the early days of eBay, where you could still send paper money in exchange for your goods).

I listened to the album sporadically until I actually started college, at which point my bouts of isolation and depression could only be soothed by the calming whisper-singing of John Mayer.  And I think that whisper-singing business is why he could convince so many pairs of underwear to come off (that phrase goes many different ways…choose your own adventure): as Jerry Seinfeld once said, it doesn't matter what a woman is saying to you, as long as she’s saying it in that low sexy voice.  Same with Mr. Mayer: that comforting “Mr. Sensitive” style of singing wraps itself around every lonely woman and convinces her that he’s singing directly to them and that he’s the perfect guy that all of those regurgitated articles in Cosmo were talking about.  He feels what you’re feeling, he’s a great listener and, above all else, he’s fucking SENSITIVE!  And isn't that all the ladies want?

So I’d be lying in my depressing XL twin bottom bunk, headphones on, listening to Mr. Mayer whisper sweet nothings into my ear: songs about holidays, road trips, how he says things that he later regrets, that stupid song about my body being like an amusement park.

It was all so wonderful.

Even into my sophomore year, after I had met Halbastram, I still had those daydreams where I would meet John Mayer & oops! Somehow my clothes came off…might as well have some sex.

My fantasies weren't complicated.  I grew up with static-y Skinemax: I’m not fighting through the blurred & scrambled screen just to see some talking.  That’s what the crystal-clear HBO is for.  If I’m on Skinemax, we know what I’m looking for.  Same with my John Mayer fantasies: I don’t want you to sing for me- I have the CDs for that.  We don’t have anything to talk about- that’s what my therapist is for.  I’m here for the goods.

And then he opened his stupid mouth and ruined everything.

Now…I’m not saying that his “David Duke penis” line offended me- he’s entitled to be attracted to whoever he wants.  Sure, it puts a damper on all of my previous fantasies because they've become meaningless: if I had to do a gritty reboot of them, he’d have Michael Richards stop me at the door and tell me exactly why this isn't going to happen.  Anyway, by the time he’d made his dick-preferences known, I’d already discovered Jake Gyllenhaal and moved on to pouty-er pastures.

Naturally, my beef was with the phrasing.  There are 101 ways to say that you prefer to bone women of a particular ethnicity without sounding like a douchecock.  The man who wrote the song comparing a woman’s body to Six Flags did not hit that mark.  He somehow found #102, which is Douchcock Territory.  Perhaps he figured he was being clever, witty, and poetic.  After all, the man writes songs for a living: words should be his thing.

Words absolutely failed him that day.  And it was like the table being bumped at the party and the record screeching to a halt.  And something in me just clicked.  Somehow, his music just stopped working for me.  Maybe it was because the fantasies no longer made sense, so I couldn't fall back into dreamland when I listened to his music.  Maybe I was completely turned off by his shitty turn-of-the-phrase.  Maybe I just finally realized that John Mayer was a bit of a man whore anyway and hey, look at Jake Gyllenhaal & those perfect lips.

Whatever it was, now, whenever I listen to “Room for Squares” I go through three rapid stages: 1) nostalgia for freshman year; 2) remembering old fantasies; 3) “I wonder if he actually calls his penis ‘Mr. Duke’ when he whips it out …”

*Bonus story: when I stayed overnight at the college that one time, the girl who was hosting me was having a little trouble with her boyfriend.  Wait, did I say a little?  Because what I witnessed turned into a full-blown episode of ‘Maury.’  While we were getting dinner in the cafeteria, she saw her boyfriend dining with another girl.  Not necessarily anything amorous.  He just happened to be eating at the same table as another female.  While we were eating (or attempting to), my host’s roommate kept egging her on, telling her that she needed to confront him.  For what, I don’t know.  Like I said, he wasn't doing anything.  Apparently eating at a coed table is not ok when you’re dating.  Or something. 

Anyway, the rest of the dinner was pretty rushed as she wanted to confront him right away.  She didn't even seem to notice that I saw still there: she was out for blood.  So when she saw he was leaving, we hurriedly tossed our food, grabbed ice cream and followed him.  Seeing that action was not being taken swiftly, the roommate threw my host’s ice cream on the sidewalk and made her confront him right on Chicago Ave., which just happens to be a very busy street in downtown Naperville.  At rush hour.  For the entire world to see.  At this point, the bf was no longer with the girl he was dining with- they parted ways in the cafeteria.  Had she talked to him there, we could have avoided what came next. 

She storms up to him, and demands to know who he was dining with.  He tried to explain that she was a friend from some class, but then came the Maury antics: “some friend?  I never met her.  What class?  You can’t have dinner with me but you’re having dinner with her?  She didn't have anyone else to eat with?  I know when you’re lying to me.”  Bam, bam, bam!  He couldn't get a word in edge-wise.  When he tried to just walk away, it was at this point that she slapped his ice cream cone out of his hand (it really was a beautiful day for ice cream- if no one slapped it to the ground). 

Having accomplished this one little victory (I guess?) she turned and stormed away, with me and the roommate trailing behind her.  The rest of the night was spent in her dorm room, where she bitched about the boyfriend for the entire night until I finally fell asleep.  Early the next morning, I quietly slipped out to my mother’s car and went home, completely confused about what it was I was supposed to take away from that visit: boys are scum?  Roommates are instigators?  No one likes to actually eat ice cream, but rather they prefer to feed ice cream to the ants?  This is the 1950s and boys and girls can’t co-mingle at the dinner table? 

College is weird.

Positivity in the Bizarro World

Back in the distant past that was 2008, I started having a few health problems.  Nothing major, but noticeable enough that I realized that my zero years of medical training probably weren’t going to help me out this time.  After a brief visit with my general physician, she advised me to head over to the Building with All the Machinery in It so that I could have an ultrasound conducted.  I was also told that I needed to drink roughly ten gallons of water [citation needed] an hour beforehand, making the trip to the Building the longest drive of my life- and I’ve been stuck in L.A. rush hour traffic before.  The 405 has nothing on dodging stop lights and soccer moms in suburbia while carrying a full bladder.

As I arrive at the Building, I park my car a little too eagerly (read: completely jacked up and in multiple spots) and hop out so that I can get the deed over with.  As I’m closing the door, I hear a woman speaking, so I turn to find the source of the voice.  There is a woman sitting in the driver’s seat of a brown sedan parked three spots down.  I see she’s looking directly at me, so it’s safe to assume that she’s addressing me (possibly about my shitty parking).  Because I was currently living in the suburbs and my “you probably shouldn’t approach a strange person’s car” meter was in the shop that day, I walked towards her car.  She then repeated what she apparently had said earlier: it’s going to be ok.  I spoke to Him and he said that whatever’s wrong with you, it’s going to be ok.

Now, I’m a very spiritual person, but I’m also a realist.  If a person tells me that they have specific information about the Other World, but that I would need to part with all of my worldly possessions to access this information, I would tell them where they can cram their information and then take my worldly possessions out for ice cream just so they know that I’d never give them away.  But I also believe in the power of positivity.  The right positive energy dispersed at the right time can have the most amazing effects and I’ve never been bamboozled by people spouting positive, feel-goodery before.  So I walked away from Brown Sedan Lady feeling like this was going to be the most awesome medical-related visit of my life.  Who knows, maybe the Ultrasound operator would find gold bars in my insidey parts and refrain from asking questions.  So into the building I walked, with a new sheen of confidence and an urge to pee unlike any other I’d ever felt before in my life.

Long story short, I don’t know how much my enemies paid Brown Sedan Lady to come and give me false hope, but I bet they feel like it was money well spent.  Not only was everything not “ok”, but everything turned out to be one clusterfuck after another that would see me visiting a gaggle of doctors, specialists and even the E.R. in the span of a year.  It was like I was living in Bizarro World, where positive thinking and positive words only made things worse.  I ran out of health insurance (and, let’s be honest, energy) before my doctors could positively ID just what in the hell was actually wrong with me, but I’ve been assured by them that “it’s not really life-threatening, just inconvenient.” 

You’re telling me.

For the most part, I’ve been managing without the luxury of doctor visits for the better part of five years now (although sometimes I do wish those sweet latexed hands would comfort me in my worst moments).  If I’m the victim of some sort of “Stephen King’s Thinner” hoax, I cannot stress enough how I want to apologize or make amends for whatever or whoever I crossed.  In my mind, I’m starting to think that I need someone to approach me in public and give me a good, “hey, fuck you!” just to reverse the Bizarro spell.  But that’ll probably just make me cry.  So please, don’t do that. 

A Brief History of My History with Snow Days

My history with snow days.

I am a product of private school.  And as such, I became used to the idea of school closing down for whatever reason the administrators deemed necessary.  Too much rain?  School’s closed.  Fifty degrees below zero?  School’s closed.  One of the million varieties of religious holidays?  School’s closed.  (Just kidding.  I went to Catholic school.  We only acknowledged our holidays, of which there was one approximately every three days.) 

So when my mother decided that we had run out of money and I had to attend a public high school, I was given a very unfortunate reminder that the CPS apparently shares the same creed as the Postal Service: “neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night…”

As a kid, I would sit in front of the tv, anxiously awaiting the moment that my school would scroll across the bottom of the screen as part of the school closures.  Being a Catholic school with a name towards the end of the alphabet, the anticipation was always almost too much to bear.  But alas, the school’s name would scroll past and I would kick off my uniform, climb back into bed and watch eight hours of Springer, Sally Jesse Raphael, Donahue, Jenny Jones, Ricky Lake, and our other forgotten national 90s talk show host treasures.

I never gave it much thought that Chicago Public Schools were suspiciously missing from the scrolly list because, well, I saw my school’s name and to hell with everyone else.

But, oh, you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.

In my four years of public high school education, I don’t think I’ve ever had a foul-weather cancellation (but, oddly, Pulaski Day was always a school holiday…and I had to learn about Pulaski on my own, as he wasn’t even taught in school.  “Here kids, take the day off to commemorate a Polish hero that none of are even remotely aware of, aside from the fact that he’s a prominent street name in Chicago.”).  By my senior year, I started having to make my own snow days. 

Don’t get me wrong: I understand why some schools might want to remain open.  A lot of children will probably rely on the schools as warming and feeding centers.  But I lived a good twenty minutes from school (oh, the joys of attending a non-neighborhood Magnet school).  So if nothing was plowed or shoveled, a lot of my classmates and I were sludging through hell just to get to a building where we were going to behave like jackasses and pay attention to absolutely no one.

(Just kidding!  We were absolute angels!  Like, cray cray adorbz.)

Of course, my childlike mind saw any accumulation or drop of temperature as a potential Roland Emmerich movie and couldn’t understand why two inches of snow couldn’t be the standard closure measurement, like in Marks, Mississippi (according to family member accounts).  Looking back on it, perhaps I was being bratty.  Perhaps I was spoiled by my private school days.  Maybe CPS was just looking out for our best interest (which is evident by the amazing number of school closures in the past few years).  But, in the end, we’re Chicagoans.  We laugh in the face of “lake effect snow.”  A negative temperature reading won’t stop us from going to a Bears game.  But I didn’t appreciate this until I became an adult and realized my bosses didn’t give two flying fucks about a “snow day.” 

Wait…this sounds suspiciously like high school…