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Primaries, folks. The good people at Metroblog put up links to find out where you go. And if you're thinking, Oh my god, there's so many names, I don't even know where to START! I don't have time to research all these people What shall I DO! I suggest going to the site of whatever political organization you feel strongly about (for example, I went to Planned Parenthood). Usually, they list candidates they've endorsed.
Look at this. Scroll down past the unusual scholarships (unless of course, you're left handed and think those people will pay for college) and you'll find some useful links to funding information.
Look at your right hand. This is the state of Michigan. About two inches West of the base of your thumb is my hometown. I don’t go there very often; my dad lives in Alaska now, and he’s had renters in the house for the past ten years (FYI: he kept the MI house thinking [wisely] that he someday wouldn’t be up for the Alaskan snow-ice-island lifestyle, and that as soon as he retired, he could deer hunt for the entire month of October and have a place to crash. Always thinking ahead, my dad). Recently, however, the renters decided they needed to build their own equity (build EQUITY! Christopher and I have been discussing the possibility of sometime in the near future having a very serious conversation about buying a place in order to—yes!—build EQUITY! And whenever I say to someone, “Christopher and I are discussing having a discussion about buying a place,” they say, “It’s smart to build equity”) and moved out. The next renters are not moving in the next fall, which means my childhood home two inches West of the base of your thumb is empty (literally. Not just empty of people, but also of all furniture and towels and pots and pans and all those things you’ve always had but never realized you need until they just weren’t there. Like, I brought tea and a teapot but forgot a mug. We brought wine and the glasses but forgot the corkscrew. We brought sheets and an air mattress and a blanket but not six extra blankets ‘cause it’s bitch ass cold in Michigan two inches West of your thumb!) So we can stay here whenever we want.
CHRISTOPHER (last Thursday, on my voicemail): Hey. Hey, how’s your day? Mine is … there’s just a lot going on, you know? And … I’m just calling to say I’m not sure what’s going on this weekend but I think we should get out of it, whatever it is, because I just took Friday and Monday off work and I think we’ve got to go to Michigan, and, you know, build a fire and lay around and read books and play with the dog and see like five movies and sleep and go out to eat and just not do all this for five minutes, what do you think?
Or maybe I’m the one who said all that and Christopher said:
CHRISTOPHER: That’s a great idea! I’ll take off work!
Because he is the one with the job that must be “taken off” and I am the one who can put my job in a backpack and carry it all over Chicago. See me and my job spread out at an upstairs table at the Bougeouis Pig! See us at No Friction café on California Avenue! See us at the round table on the 2nd floor at Myopic! The 2nd floor of Webster’s! See us on the couch! On Jeff’s couch! In the passenger seat of the car, at Amy’s dining room table, at Bongo Room South before class, at Jimmy’s after class, and, now, at ZousZous in downtown Chelsea, drinking Chai while Christopher sits across from me, reading East of Eden and looking very relaxed, very far away from HTML and Java and all those weird languages he speaks Monday through Friday and am thinking, It is very, very, VERY nice to slow down. In Michigan, it takes ten minutes to drive somewhere that’s ten minutes away, whereas in Chicago it takes a half an hour ‘cause you’re stuck in traffic all the goddamn time. I woke up this morning and thought, “I am still tired thus I will go back to sleep,” as opposed to setting my alarm for an hour before the hour I would’ve woken up still tired and making myself get up because I have no time to be tired. Here, there is all the time in the world to be tired. Here there is:
• A lake outside the living room windows, the wind pushing waves right at us.
• Stars at night. Ones you can actually see (re: no pollution).
• Space for Mojo to run and run.
• A fireplace and stacks of wood to the side of the garage and Christopher’s Texas-boy love of building fires (as apparent by his sudden accent, i.e. “Baby, you done seen the matches?” or “Toss me some a that there kindling, huh darlin’?”)
• Nostalgia. Everywhere.
• Zingerman’s, Kerrytown, Fleetwood Diner and The Common Grill.
• Time to read (for pleasure!).
• Scrabble (Christopher kicked my ass. He attached LASTING to INVESTMENTS for seventy-five points. I got kind of smarmy after that. I am a sore, sore loser).
• Sweatpants and sneakers instead of mascara and high heels.
• Rest.
• Time to write (stories, journal, book and blog)
• A movie theater up the road. Thus far: V for Vendetta—
CHRISTOPHER (as we walked out): Did you like that movie?
ME (thinking about government conspiracy and media manipulation and violence as a means towards justice [I’m sorry, but blowing up a building teaches me What Exactly?] [especially when said building is full of little kids, like that elementary school under siege in Beslan and me in my apartment in Prague, watching the 24 hour coverage on CNN international, calling my mother and saying, “Can you believe this?” and her saying “Believe what?” and me saying, “Turn on CNN!” and her saying, “All that’s on CNN is Bill Clinton’s book tour,” and me understanding, for the first time, how different the media really is at home vrs. abroad and then—and THEN—the school just explodes, on my TV, and little kids in the underwear are running all around, crying and screaming, except for the ones that were dead, and if I didn’t get what it was all supposed to mean THEN I’m sure as hell not going to get it from a Blockbuster movie] and what would I be willing to die for and writing my entire autobiography on a slip of toilet paper and why was V the only one who lived through what everybody else died through at that quote/end quote “detention facility”? none of which has to do with the following facts:
A. I usually don’t like films [or any art] that spells out its meaning. Which V for Vendetta does. Kinda like a two-by-four to the face.
B. I love, love, love The Matrix, and have been breathlessly anticipating the Watchowski Brother’s high-action special effects follow-up extravaganza, which this movie was most certainly NOT. Am I pigeon-holing them as artists? You better believe it. What I wanted was some ass-kicking and what I got was a [very pretty] sermon, and I’m already a part of the choir they’re preaching to): I certainly have a lot to think about.
CHRISTOPHER: Is that what makes you like a movie?
ME (thinking about all the movies I “like” if not “love”—Princess and the Warrior, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Amelie, City of Lost Children, Triplets of Belleville, Things You Can Tell by Looking at Her [Oh my God I just found out the guy who wrote/directed that movie is Rodrigo Garcia, who was also a writer/director for Six Feet Under, Carnivale, and the Sopranos and is also the son of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who’s one of my favorite writers ever on the whole entire planet (The Handsomest Drown Man in the world reigns in my top five short stories of all time, along with We Didn’t by Dybeck, Hold on to your Hat by Joe Meno, Compassion by Dorothy Allison [THE DOROTHY ALLISON READING AT THE METRO LAST THURSDAY NIGHT WAS, HANDS DOWN, THE BEST READING I HAVE EVER ATTENDED IN MY LIFE. SHE IS MY HERO, AND I WANT TO WRITE LIKE THAT/READ LIKE THAT. SHE FINISHED READING AND I RAN—DID NOT WALK, NOSIR—OUT OF THERE, GOT IN MY CAR AND SPED HOME. WHY, YOU ASK? TO HAVE SEX. IMMEDIATELY. AND I’M NOT SAYING IT’S MY GOAL THAT ALL MY WORK WILL MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO GET IT ON, I’M JUST SAYING IT WAS HOT AS HELL] and Video by Meera Nair) and it’s just such a coincidence! I just put his new one, Nine Lives, to the top of my Netflix queue], The Matrix and Raising Arizona. What qualities do they all have that make me “like/love” them? None, I think. I like/love each for entirely different reasons): Maybe.
—and Capote—
CHRISTOPHER (as we walked out): Did you like THAT movie?
ME (thinking about how fascinating it is to see the writer’s process. How it effects the work, sure, but also their lives: friendship, romance, health, values, etc. I thought of that James Baldwin line, I want to be a good writer and an honest man. In order to be one, Capote had to give up the other. How does what he did—being honest in the story but dishonest in how he obtained the story—fit into the whole Making up the Memoir debate that’s raging right now? And how dies it fit into my life as a writer? It’s a question I’d want my students to consider: how far will you for your art? If we take Capote as an example, going all the way destroyed him in the process. He was pathetic, depressing, agonized. As was the film. As it should’ve been. But does that make me LIKE it?): It was really interesting.
CHRISTOPHER: Is THAT what makes you like a movie?
ME (thinking I’d put the film Capote in the same mental file as Requiem for a Dream. And Monster. And all those movies that I found absolutely amazing and wonderful and I do not need to see them again ANYTIME soon because they were A. disturbing or B. depressing as hell): Maybe—
• Time to sleep.
I need one of these today.
4 Things About Chicago
Four Jobs I’ve Had In My Life in Chicago:
Waitress/bartender/hostess/whateverthehell, Bongo Room
Teacher, Columbia College
Teacher, University of Chicago
Story Development, Serendipity Theater Collective
Four Movies About Chicago I Could Watch Over And Over:
Blues Brothers
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
High Fidelity
Flatliners
Four Places I’ve Lived All Over Chicago:
Hoyne and Potomac (Wicker Park)
Point and Armitage (Humboldt Park)
North and Humboldt (Humboldt Park)
Pierce and Homan (Humboldt Park)
Four Chicago-Themed Shows I Love(d) To Watch:
Chic-a-go-go
Good Times
Unsolved Mysteries
Roseanne (Chicago burbs)
Four Of My Favorite Foods Found In Chicago:
Pumpkin Pancakes, Bongo Room
Chorizo-stuffed dates, Avec
Godzilla maki, Sushi Wabi
Falafel from Sultan’s Market
Four Places In Chicago I Would Rather Be Right Now:
Webster Wine Bar
Myopic Books
MCA
Bourgeois Pig
Four Places I Would Vacation In Chicago:
The W
The Drake
The Sofitel
Amy’s House
Four Chicago-Based Websites I Visit Daily:
Bookslut
Venus
Chicago Metblog
Gaper’s Block
I'm getting a new website! Soon, shesellsseashells should link to the more professional-sounding (yet, I assure you, equally as silly) meganstielstradotcom. We even bought a FONT! My first FONT!
Dear UltraViolet, Aeon Flux, Catwoman, Elektra, Lara Croft et all:
We come for the hot outfits and the ass-kicking. Please stop ruining our experience with stuff like storylines, especially those that involve plagues, latent maternal instincts, or Genius side-kicks who live in hidden trailers or secret labratories.
Also, you can eliminate the dialogue all together. However much you try, none of you can be Trinity, and your weak attempts to rip off her Oh-so deadpan "Dodge this" are making me want to puke.
My students told me about a game you play with Wikipedia. You throw out two seemingly random things (say, "peanut butter" and "Batmobile") and then you see who can get from one to the other in the fewest links possible. The great encyclopedia race. So, Christopher and I raced the other night, and, granted, it was a hoot, we learned loads of useless information, proved the Oh-so philosophical concept that everything in life is connected (re: six degrees of Kevin Bacon) and killed a couple of hours reading the encyclopedia instead of watching our Firefly boxset AGAIN, BUT, in hindsight, we were sitting together in a room, both on our laptops, instead of, I don't know, TALKING TO EACH OTHER. And I can't get the image out of my head of like twenty of my students at some college party and instead of playing Truth or Dare over Everclear and Koolaid like I did, they are all sitting around, together, in the same physical proximity, all staring at their computers instead of communicating ("But Megan," you say. 'Perhaps they are communicating! Perhaps they're IM'ing!" And I say, "While I enjoy playing with the English language and advocate using one's individual voice, I am uncomfortable with abbreviations being used as verbs." I have similar unease with text messages [so many people getting into fights because of something "tex-ted." Again, as verb. As in, "He text-ed me that he didn't care and I was like, What the fuck do you mean you don't care?" or, "You could've tex-ted me if you weren't going to show up, God, you're so inconsiderate!"]. There is also the new trend towards using computer abbreviations--OMG, WTF, LOL et all--in standard speech, such as, "OMG, Megan, I love your sweater!" or "WTF do you mean by that?" They don't say, 'What the fuck do you mean by that," they actually use the letters: W-T-F. For some reason, I'm less alarmed by this [probably because it still necessitates TALKING to someone] and more amused. So amused, in fact, that I did it myself, in a mocking sort of way, and after a few weeks of such mocking, O-M-G and W-T-F have become part of my own vocabulary. Hypocrisy, anyone? And, speaking of hypocrisy, have we noticed I'm sitting here bitching about technology ON MY BLOG?).
Give me a face-to-face conversation any old day of the week. I had a kickass time last week playing Apples to Apples at a party, which involved lots of people sitting around a table drinking wine and throwing cards at each other and explaining why "roadkill" didn't represent "Nature."
In conclusion: don't text/IM/google me anymore, people. Call me up, and we'll figure out when we can get together for coffee.
(and I got from "peanut butter" to "Batmobile" in three links. Any takers?)