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Driving home today, in front of the MacDonald's at North and Kedzie, was a full-piece, fully-dressed (re: spangles, sombreros) Mariachi band playing live, on the sidewalk, in this crazy-heat. And behind them, in the MacDonald's parking lot, the cops had a line of guys spread up against the fence as they searched cars. I call this little tableau "Summer in the City (part one)."
Today the heat index is nearly 100 degrees. And I'm wondering, when I lived in Prague, it was easily this hot and I didn't mind. I'd sit for hours in sweaty-ass cafes with the laptop, writing whatever and drinking wine, red wine no less, the air all hot and thick and that was a little slice of heaven. Here, in Chicago, I find myself planning my day around air conditioning: does X place have ac? No? We should go to Y then. So I'm asking: what's the difference? It's not a humidity thing--Czech Republic and the Midwest are pretty balanced so far as weather goes, so I'm guessing it's in my head. It's the American vrs. the European mentality? When I first got back to the States last December I certainly anticipated the expected culture shock, but everything started moving so fast (find an apartment, semesters beginning at both schools, etc.) that I missed a lot of it. But now, summer-break, I'm feeling it. I'm feeling ... American-y. And I'm feeling like that's a problem. Maybe it's time to take off again? Except I've only sat still now for six months.
This Friday, July 1st, seven p.m. at the Hideout, I'm reading for Messinger's Dollar Store reading series. If you haven't been, here's the jist: they buy random objects from the dollar store and give them to Chicago area writers. We have to write a story that incorporates the object. So, my object was a plastic bling-type necklace, big and gaudy, heavy chain, the works, and on the end is a six inch marijuana leaf. Some inspiration, huh? Here's the carrot I'll dangle in front of your nose: the story involves A. speed dating and B. Tone Loc.
Another survey from Erika's blog, which she titled "Fill Out This Music Survey or I'll Cut You."
The last CD I bought was:
I buy them so rarely now ... I download everything. It would be Outlaw Family Band, a live bootleg from their last show at Martyr's
Song playing right now in iTunes:
Be Be Your Love, Live at KCRW from Rachel Yamagata
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:
Yellow Butterfly, Tahiti 80
Float, PJ Harvey
Ain't That Something, Scotty Karate
The Spiderbite Song, Flaming Lips
Only You, Yaz
The flight home from London stalled at the gate for computer reasons, and we all sat there very squashed together in airline seats (economy. sans legroom) for four hours until take-off (at which point everyone cheered). The flight itself was seven and a half hours, so eleven and a half hours total sitting very uncomfortably between the buxom Russian woman and the tiny Lithuanian girl. While I was in the bathroom my book (Dan Brown. Oh yes. Angels and Demons) fell off my chair and slid somewhere far away. The in-flight movies included two cartoons, X-Men and something very bad where Vin Diesl (who I LOVED in Pitch Black, I'll have everyone know) is taking care of small children. Changing diapers, et all. I read the Duty Free catalogue a hundred times (LOVE those ramps you can buy to make it easier for your dog to get on the furniture!). So: what to DO with eleven and a half hours when you have no book, no films, no interesting conversation?
Drink.
I’d been in London for three days and had just (sort of) adjusted to the time change by the time I flew back, so by the time I got OFF that plane I was crazy backwards jetlagged (felt like those scenes in Fight Club where Ed Norton is all "You wake up in Detroit. You wake up in Duluth. You wake up in Hamtramack," etc. but he's never really awake), hungover, pissy, needing a good massage and starving. We rushed home and Christopher took care of me because he's wonderful. He cooked me dinner, sort of fed me—I imagine it like walking someone through an acid trip—and finally, we both passed out.
And woke up at three o'clock in the morning to the sound of tinkling water. No, we hadn't left any faucets on. No, it wasn't the air conditioner. It was Mojo, peeing on the floor BECAUSE WE'D FORGOTTEN TO TAKE HIM OUTSIDE. And he must've REALLY had to go 'cause he's peeing and peeing and peeing. Immediately, the guilt slams through the soup in my head. I'm trying to tell the dog to stop peeing, to hug him and apologize for not taking him out (which he could give a rat's ass about, he wants to go outside), to clean up the pee, to find all the places where he might've peed while Christopher gets his shoes, gets the leash, the poop bag, throws open the door and discovers our hallway light is burnt out.
We live on the top floor of a very high staircase. And it's very, very dark. And we're both still half asleep, and Mojo is running around all happy 'cause now he gets to go outside and Christopher is running all around looking for a flashlight and suddenly he yells, “Christ Almighty!” I run into the bathroom and THERE IS BLOOD EVERYWHERE. THERE IS BLOOD EVERYWHERE and it is coming from Christopher. It seems that he reached into the drawer where the flashlight lives, and for some reason, the various parts of our dismantled food processor were in there as well. Christopher was half-asleep and in a hurry, therefore he didn’t LOOK before he reached and ended up grabbing the exposed blade and slicing off the top of his finger. At this point, we’re both much calmer (a peeing dog equals panic but a true crisis brings out the best in us both). We wrap the finger and go online. We google the following: when does a cut require stitches? and educate ourselves on the various forms of cuts and stitches until a sufficient amount of time has passed and we unwrap the cut to see if the bleeding has stopped.
No, it has not, and off we go to St. Mary of Nazereth (the one with the medivac helicopter landing pad on Division and Oakley). There, the kind emergency room staff welcomes us—they are experiencing some down time after the insanity that was Humbolt Park’s Puerto Rican Independence celebration—and escort us to a room where four people (one triage nurse, the admitting nurse, the doctor and a second triage nurse ‘cause the first triage nurse “doesn’t like to do the gross stuff”) plug Christopher into beeping boxes, stick needles of anesthetic into his finger and sew him up using two sets of pliers.
“Can you give me some information about him?” the admitting nurse asks. She is holding a big clipboard.
I say of course, and tell her his name, address and birthday. I am keenly aware that, after fourteen months together, apartments on two continents and travels to six countries, this is the first time I’ve had to speak for Christopher. I panic a little: I don’t know all the stuff I need to know! I don’t know if he’s had a tetnus shot in the last two years! I don’t know his social security number! Note to self: obtain boyfriend’s medical records and all government paperwork for memorization in case of (knock on wood, salt over shoulder) emergency.
“And who are you?” asks the nurse.
I tell her, “I’m Megan.” Please remember the late hour, the jetlag, etc.
“But who are you to him?” she asks, nodding towards Christopher, who is being bandaged by the triage nurse who is okay with the gross stuff.
“I’m his … ”
“Domestic partner,” said Christopher from the other side of the room, and the nurse wrote this down and moved onto something else. This was an acceptable response for her paperwork. He’s much better at this sort of thing than me.
Every night, the ice cream truck parks outside my house. With our front windows open, we hear its song which I believe is a wordless, jingle-belled version of Camptown Racetrack. Every night. Every night WELL PAST TEN O'CLOCK. Sometimes ELEVEN, eleven at night, in the dark, Camptown ladies sing this song, do-da, do-da, Camptown Racetrack five miles long, Oh diddley do-da day. GOING TO RUN ALL NIGHT! GOING TO RUN ALL DAY! BET MY MONEY ON THE BOBTAIL NAG, SOMEBODY BET ON THE BAY. CAMPTOWN LADIES DING THIS SONG, DO-DA, DO-DA, CAMPTOWN RACETRACK FIVE MILES LONG, OH DIDDLEY. DO. DA. DAAAAAAYYYYY ...
So, everywhere we go, people stop us to ask about the dog. What kind of dog, how old is the dog, where'd you get the dog, etc. Our friend Patrick asked if we were annoyed by this.
ME: I think people just want an excuse to communicate. No one's comfortable appraching another person for simple or obvious reasons, like 'hello, you seem interesting' or 'I feel lonely today and am in need of human interaction', and a dog gives someone an IN, a conversation starter, although perhaps I'm just very naive and these people are hitting on me. It's true I've never been asked out more in my life since getting the dog. I remember, when I was single, my friend Jeff and I trying to figure out a place to meet men that wasn't a bar. Shit, we should've borrowed a puppy and gone to the dog park. Overall, though, I don't mind people asking about Mojo because it gives me an opportunity to talk about local shelters and petfinder.com and hopefully influence people to adopt instead of going to a breeder. So maybe in that way I can do some good.
CHRISTOPHER: Yes, it annoys the hell out of me.
So, yesterday we were at the pet store. There, not only does everybody ASK about the dog, they think it's okay to TOUCH the dog. To pet him and sit him and, in some cases, PICK HIM UP. Okay: my dog is twenty-eight pounds. That's too big for cutsey picking up. Second, he's MY DOG. Asking me about him is fine, but while you're asking, ask if it's okay to touch him. I don't know you or where you've been. Keep your hands off my boy without permission. Third: he could be a violent attack dog. Instruct your kids to ASK before they TOUCH. That's just common sense. And then, yesterday, this random woman TAKES a squeaky hedgehog OFF the shelf and gives it, twelve dollar salestag and all, to Mojo ("Play with this, puppy!") and he lays happily down on the linoleum and goes to town on it before I even turn around. So now, sitting in my living room as Mojo chews that verysame hedgehog (it makes a grunty, burpy sound when it squeaks which is actually much more soothing than the stuffed pig somebody gave him as a present, whose squeak was of the high-pitched grate-on-your-nerves variety), I wonder, did I buy it because A. he loved it B. he'd already gotten it all Mojo-chewy so I felt obligated or C. that random woman was really a secret consumer mole whose job it is to give animals toys of her particular brand name so unsuspecting yet loving dog owners such as myself will whip out the credit card? If A, then fine. I love my dog. B is more complex: my folks raised me on "You break it, You buy it"; however, maybe that LADY should've bought my dog the friggin' hedgehog if she's gonna go putting it between his teeth while I'm looking at dental bones and C. C! stinks of Red States and marketing strategies and big business and stuff I try to steer clear of. So please, please, please keep your corporate shenanigans away from my puppy. It'll be hard enough when I've got a CHILD: let's keep the dog pure, shall we?
(and, for a dramatic finale, Mojo finds the sweet spot on the hedgehog: burp. burp. burp)
Our internet has been down for a week. Our internet is (to me) a complicated system involving shiny boxes—one of them white and glowing like a space-egg—with flashing red lights and multiple cords and Comcast guys scaling exterior walls to drill holes in the building and at the end of it all my house is wireless and I can download movies while taking a bath, find recipes from theotherwhitemeat.com in the kitchen (that last comment seems to indicate that I, like, cook), write stories in my office in the back or, from my bed, search Craig’s List or rate movies on Netflix or blog (as a verb) or whatever I’m doing to quiet the noise in my head. The End of the Day noise, which, for me, used to be very loud, but quite suddenly is nonexistent because I am a teacher and the semester has ended and now I am Not Working for three whole months, Not Working meaning not having to be at XYZ by three o’clock with the multiple things read/researched/prepared and can, instead, sit here in the air conditioning writing stories with a cold icy beverage (Stoli V?) nearby which is really more work than it sounds. It is this kind of work: the going from No Time to Nothing But Time, when it’s very easy to put aside all the things you have to do (finish rewrite. Submit. Prepare paper for London on Thursday. Did I mention I’m going to London on Thursday? To present a paper on Gender and Writing in Education for the National Association of Writing in Education. I told that to someone the other day and said someone replied, “How come you’re presenting at a NATIONAL conference in LONDON?” Okay. I’ve been working hard on holding back the sarcastic comments (I think, in this instance, it was “D’UH!”) that rush up my throat when people say such things because, well, it’s nicer, and I’d like to be the nice girl instead of the sarcastic bitchy girl—
Bookmark that, I’m going to come back to it later.
—and also maybe I can help educate people by explaining, in my teacher voice, that the United States of America is not the only NATION in this world, that other countries may also be called NATIONS and therefore Great Britain may have NATIONAL associations as well and, seeing as all of us in this world are interested in diverse points of view, said NATIONAL associations may have people from other NATIONS present at their NATIONAL conferences. Do you think that sounds bitchy? Or should I have just said, “D’uh!” Hey, is this parenthetical Elizabeth Crane-esque or what?) until tomorrow (because today I have to see the two o’clock matinee of Mr. And Mrs. Smith) so my question is: how to deal with distractions? The internet has not been a problem ‘cause it’s been down all week but now—after much plugging and unplugging and re-cabling on Christopher’s part—it is back, and what am I doing? Instead of working on my story about snow? I’m online, writing about NOT writing about snow, which is too pretentious and meta and Adaptation-y for me so instead I’ll talk about the ROLLER DERBY which I went to last night, which was the greatest thing I’ve seen, which is making me rethink the whole (bookmarked) Not Wanting to be Bitchy and Sarcastic thing because these girls were TOUGH, muscled and scary and beautiful, rock hard bitches for sure, on their skates in fishnets and helmets and elbow pads, stars sewed onto their bloomers which you saw everytime somebody knocked somebody down and then, holy shit, it was ON: the girl who’d gotten knocked down would go after the knocker-downer, skating superfast around the ring, catching up to her attacker, grabbing her around the waist and pulling so both girls hit the ground, rolling on top of each other like a barroom brawl except there were more superfast girls on skates headed right for them and the longer they laid there punching the shit out of each other, the more likely someone would be to trip over them, roll right over their pretty lipsticked faces. One girl’s nose spouted blood. Another was rushed to the hospital with a dislocated ankle. Two—on penalty for punching referees—had their wrists tied together with rope and had to drag each other around the ring and—AND—there’s two thousand (!) people crowded into the Congress Theater to watch this, this part-athletic skill, part-professional wrestling, part-supermodels-in-Mohawks and bustiers on roller skates, and everybody’s cheering and booing and screaming, even—ESPECIALLY—hypocritical “I don’t condone violence in athletics” me. I was standing on my seat, waving my fist in the air yelling, “Go QUIET STORM!” She’s my favorite. In roller derby, the objective is for each team’s Jammer (the player at the back identified by a big star on her helmet) to pass as many members of the opposing team as possible. The opposing team tries to block her (knock her down) and her team tries to block (knock down) the opposing team so the jammer can get through. Quiet Storm is this tiny, whipfast thing from Hell’s Belles. Nobody even sees her coming and then she’s passing them, waving (bye-bye!) and moving on to pass the next. Each team had a player like her (Anna Mission … From God from the Double Crossers, Hurricane Charlie from The Fury, Tex Anne from the Manic Attackers) but what made Quiet Storm the best was this: she’d hold her finger up over her lips and go “shhhhhhhh.” ‘Cause she was the Quiet Storm. And the crowd would hold THEIR fingers to THEIR lips and go “shhhhh” with her. It reminded me of Detroit Tiger games with my dad when I was a kid. Lou Whitaker would come up to bat and the crowd would chant “LOU LOU LOU.” He was everybody’s favorite and so was Quiet Storm. But, as I sit here thinking about it, I also liked her ‘cause she didn’t knock anybody over. She didn’t punch anybody. She didn’t swear, or yell at the referee, or cut anybody off or do anything illegal. She won fair and square and, yes … nice. I went up to her during intermission to ask for her autograph, and as she was signing the lady standing next to her gushed, “Isn’t she wonderful! I’m her mother!” I looked over to Anita Beer standing next to us, blood pouring from her nose. On down the line, another girl (Tara Heartout?) was nursing a bruised thigh. I thought, over my mother’s dead body would I ever roller derby. I’m just not tough enough.
But you can get your ass I’ll be sitting at the crowd at every match, eating a hot dog, drinking a beer, holding up an I HEART QUIET STORM sign and going “shhhhhhh.”