Megan Stielstra's Blog

I woke up this morning to somebody leaning on my doorbell for ten minutes and when I finally answered (nine a.m., pre-coffee, snippy), “WHAT?!” my lovely, wonderful, rock star of a new neighbor, Zach, yelled, “Megan they’re towing your car!” (Dear Zach: THANK YOU) and I ran down the stairs barefoot in my pajamas and jumped into the car AS THEY WERE HOOKING IT UP TO THE TOW TRUCK and the driver laughed and took pity on me. What happened next was fifteen minutes of me trying to find a parking spot and not being able to because the streets were lined with ginormous tour buses.

FYI: I live next door to the Aragon Ballroom, a fairly landmark Chicago music venue (which may very well be one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen, all Spanish mosaic and colored brick and sculpture. Needs a little TLC for sure, but, man, the LOVE that went into building this thing is visible nearly eighty years later. I’m still very new to Uptown and am just starting to learn its history, but the dog and I go on these long walks in the morning and every time we turn a corner there’s something new to blow my mind [last week’s Chicago Reader did a cover story on Uptown and I learned a great deal, especially The High Ground and A Hundred Furnished Rooms]).

Also FYI: I’ve lived here since December and this was the first time I couldn’t find a spot, so I do NOT regret not buying the parking space that came with our condo (because A. it was forty grand [!!!!!!!!!!!!!] and B. it won’t even be BUILT for another two years [!!!!!!!!] [“BUILD a PARKING space?” you ask, to which I say, ‘RIGHT??!!!] and C. the idea of paying [re: borrowing. And paying killer interest on] FORTY GRAND to buy something that DOESN’T YET EXIST while there is still STREET PARKING APLENTY [with the one exception of, you know, this morning] is a little out there. Even for me).

So ANYHOW, I had to park all the way down at Argyle, in Vietnam Town, and walk the six blocks barefoot in my pajamas (and I thought that my getting married would put an end to my walk of shame days. HA!) past roadies (and you KNOW that’s the way to start your week. Walking—on the city sidewalk without shoes, which, like, OW—past a team of tour roadies in your blue nightgown) and these HOARDS of fourteen-year-old girls who must be skipping school in order to camp out in front of the Aragon and catch a glimpse of whoever’s in those tour buses. When I got back inside (and thoroughly washed my feet) I looked it up on the internet: OK GO, the guys who did the tredmill video, and Snow Patrol. They do that song without any chord changes, right? That played on Grey’s Anatomy when Izzie realized she didn’t want to give up being a surgeon? My friend Kim said she saw them before got big and they’re really good, and she has impeccable, very non-mainstream taste in music and the thing of it is, both Kim and I, back in the day, were pretty indie-rock [ie we liked the music and also dated indie rock musicians] and ten years ago would’ve gone on some big tangent about selling out and Fuck the Man and blah blah but honestly, I just don’t CARE anymore—I LIKE the idea of an artist making a living and, you know, eating, and since my thoughts on selling out are better expressed here I’ll just say Rock on, Snow Patrol. I don’t know any of your songs except that one but maybe Kim [Kim?] will burn me some of it and also it says here on the interweb that your show is sold out which, like—Good for you! Enjoy my street!).

FACT: the Aragon was here first. I moved into its neighborhood, and not only DON’T I have a problem with my street being taken over by roadies and buses and pre-teen girls (cue giggles), I LOVE it. It’s part of the character of this place, like the people and the architecture and the (awesome) Vietnamese food and Montrose Dog Beach and Café Too and a million other things. Back when I waited tables at the Bongo Room, this guy moved into the apartment above us and started bitching up a storm about how EARLY WE WERE MAKING NOISE. And it’s like, COME ON. This is a BRUCH RESTAURANT. A BRUNCH RESTAURANT that has been operating for over ten years—we’re GOING to be noisy at seven a.m.! There’s going to be music and laughing and people and crowds and delivery trucks and glass breaking and boxes thrown on the back porch and if you don’t like it, then you should not have moved in above a BRUNCH RESTAURANT!

SO. Note to self: keep Aragon schedule on fridge and park a couple blocks away the night before show days, because there’s going to be parking problems on show days, just like there’ll always be thousand drunk people walking back to their cars at two o’clock in the morning. The first night that happened, Christopher went out and bought earplugs, these little pink foam things that are like hitting a mute button. You never know just how much noise you’re dealing with until there is none: no wind, no cars, no radio, no conversation, no dog toenails on hardwood floors, no zzzzz’ing from the computer moniter, no ring telling you there’s a new text message or a new email, no hammering, no laundry, no dishwasher, nothing. Nothing. Just the sound of your own breathing.

My favorite film, Princess and the Warrior, has this breathtaking scene involving a tracheotomy with a Swiss Army Knife and a Big Gulp straw, performed underneath a Mack Truck by a suicidal thief who spontaneously cries when other people are sad on a Nurse in a mental ward who’s the daughter of a nurse in a mental ward so she’s always lived in a mental ward but supposedly isn’t mental, ANYHOW, she gets hit by the truck and knocked in the head and can’t hear anything. No sound at all. Silence—which initially is great, it’s really peaceful and everything, until she realizes she can’t hear her own breath, and then she gets scared.

When you have these little foam earplugs in, all you can hear is your own breath. It’s so loud, like thunder, but only because of the absence of all the other sound.