Caterwauling

Millennium Park, originally uploaded by dcwriterdawn.

Those of you who are following me on Twitter (sorry, I don’t add people unless we’ve met in person) know that I’ve spent the past week in Chicago, basically having the time of my life.

So before that “I got out of town and away from all the B.S.” shine wears off, I just wanted to say howdy and share this lil iPhone photo of the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park.

I really missed being in a big city. Chicago is a cleaner version of Baltimore, and with much more to do, IMHO.

Some of the highlights:

Sushi Wabi — one of my boys ordered for me and it was a seaweed-wrapped orgasm, is all I can say.

Naha — the wine was a 2005 pinot noir with a smoky flavor and the foie gras is the best I’ve ever had. Nom nom nom.

Harry Caray’s — I paid $35 for the petit filet all by itself, and added a salad with the best Caesar dressing I’ve ever experienced, and of course topped it off with a nice Chianti. Sweet Jesus, I gave up meat a few weeks ago but couldn’t POSSIBLY go to Chicago without trying a steak. ;9 They can dress it up for you three different ways, with a gorgonzola crust or a house-made sauce. But I had it naked with what tasted like a simple salt-and-pepper crust. I remember Tweeting that I could die happy after that meal.

Park Grill — OK, I am aware that my highlights are food-related, but seriously, this meal cost me the least and made me pretty damn happy. The peach salad was meh, mostly because the dressing was abundant and I forgot to request it on the side. But the watermelon gazpacho was to die for. It tasted like it had Cajun spices in it and was topped with a shrimp and some tiny calamari rings. Good stuff. The eatery was also just outside of Millennium Park, so the city view was spectacular.

Oak Street Beach — I got here purely by accident, mostly because I was just so busy wandering that I figured I’d go till my feet screamed for mercy. It just so happened that I could rehabilitate my tootsies in the sand along Lake Michigan. Aaah, paradise.

Magnificent Mile — A hootenanny of stores all along Michigan Avenue. I barely bought anything — I guess I’d had enough with paying $15 each way for my one piece of checked luggage that I wasn’t willing to ship more shit home for a mere $35 for the second bag. Yaaar.

I tried to get into the Apple Store the day the new iPhone came out. Epic fail — the line went around the block. Not that I could afford it anyway, as my hotel just for the last three nights cost more than my stimulus check!

I purposely ran into an old friend along Michigan, where I believe we proceeded to talk for two hours. And I got to play with his new iPhone, so nyah. God, it was so good to catch up with someone who “knew me when.” It’s been about a dozen years but it felt like merely 10 minutes had passed since we’d last hung out.

I’ve come to regard it as a rite of passage now, running into people I grew up with/went to school with, in cities far away from where we first crossed paths. It’s a sign of growing up, I guess. It’s nice to know that there are people out there rooting for you — and you, for them — even when you don’t get the chance to hear/say it in person.

Wicked: the Musical — My friend warned me that I’d be singing the songs long after I left the Oriental Theater last night. He wasn’t kidding. OMG, loved, loved, LOVED it. It was the story of the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch as roommates and even friends in the prequel to “The Wizard of Oz.” And don’t think I am not eyeballing the “Defy Gravity” v-neck T-shirt even now. I was just bummed that the only apparel they had that said Chicago on it was a blah men’s T-shirt. But seriously, I got a GREAT seat at the last minute and that is just dandy by me.

I did a lot more stuff in Chi-town but we’ll leave the business stuff out of it. All in all, though, it was a great trip and I was thrilled that my boys invited me. I spent enough money that this sort of has to qualify as my vacation, so it was a win all around. And I’d LOVE to say it’s good to be home but, well, Twitterers know THAT story. …

The blog usually goes dark around July Fourth, and I mean that in any sense of the word you want to give it. I don’t often post and if I do, it’s pretty depressing, so why bother?

July 3 brought my great-grandmother Anastasia’s birthday (she would’ve been 100) and July 4, just as fireworks are starting to be shot off across the land, brought the nine-year anniversary of my grandmother Rose’s death. July 5 marked both the birthday and date of death for my great Uncle Stan, Anastasia’s brother.

It oftentimes takes everything in me to make it to July 6, so here we are and phew, am I glad that this particular anti-holiday is over.

I’ve waxed and waned over the failure of the healthcare system for every death that I’ve experienced, so I’ll spare you the Charlie Brown’s teacher routine and just say how glad I am that I knew these wonderful people, even if it was just simply too short a time to really get to know them.

I’ve never talked about Uncle Stan, mostly because he was some strange entity who lived on the farm with Aunt Josie. What little I remember of Josie was that she always wore sheer white tights and hadn’t shaved her legs in decades. I also remember that she claimed she bathed in Clorox, although I don’t think anyone could survive that kind of trauma.

What I remember most about Stan and Josie was that they talked about “kidnapping” me, of taking me to the farm because they never had any kids of their own and they would have loved to have me there.

Sad to say, I spent my youth pretty fucking freaked out over visits from Stan and Josie.

Two weeks after my high school graduation, shortly after we lost Aunt Josie, Uncle Stan showed up on the doorstep with a cashier’s check for me. My grandmother had apparently told him how I had applied to several top-notch colleges and had gotten accepted to every last one. Only problem was, I didn’t have two dimes to rub together.

Sure, I got a full, one-year scholarship for the school I ended up choosing (for that very reason), but room and board wasn’t covered and I really wanted to socialize myself that first year. (Read: I wanted to get the fuck away from my family at the first-available opportunity.)

The amount of the check isn’t important — those of you who had your parents pick up the bill for college would say that barely bought you a semester. But to me, it was a million dollars.

My grandmother and I had many fights over that money … she wanted me to buy a car, live at home and find a job till I got married. *bwahahahaaa* I figured I had a genius-level IQ and a desire to make a difference in this world, so I was going to use it for school.

I ended up making the money stretch for a few years. I got lots of loans and grants and found that apartment living cost a third of what the dorms did. (Without having to buy a meal plan, I didn’t have to eat, so that helped!) I know some people around me were resentful because I got that helping hand, and I was sometimes forced into being generous.

I used the last of the money on a round of roommate roulette that meant I couldn’t finish my senior year on time. So I worked three jobs and saved and ended up having a year-and-a-half-long senior year when I did go back.

Anyway, I guess in the hustle and bustle of life, there are so many seemingly forgotten people at unmarked graves, whether via cremation or simply the family’s inability to afford a headstone. And I don’t want this world to not know that the people who have helped to shape me were here.

I didn’t get this far on my own. Yes, I fought every step of the way, but sometimes when things looked downright hopeless, a gift appeared out of the bloody blue, at the exact moment it needed to.

Along those lines, I made a friend this week. We both grew up in the same area, we both lived at the same apartment complex two years ago and never crossed paths, we live in the same area now, we both take our two cats to the same veterinary practice and to the same doctor, to boot. Plus she mentioned she’s been wanting to visit a new church, and oh gee, it’s the one I’ve attended for the past seven or eight months! We’re the same age and she’s about to inherit her mother the way I did. It’s just spooky, how someone can strike up a conversation and it’s like, how have we not met before this?

I was telling another friend that I’m more giddy about having a new friend than I am about getting a date. Dates are hell. Dates suck. I don’t care if there’s free food, as I am eating rabbit food these days anyway.

Dates are playing dress-up and pretending to be whomever it is that they think they want you to be, even though they don’t know what the hell they want and you really have to spend the whole time subtly grilling them on whether they’re really the victim they present to you or whether the common denominator in all their failed relationships is the fact that their dick won’t stay firmly in their pants.

You wonder whether they’re attracted to trainwrecks because they either have too much sympathy for people in need (ooh, aww, reminds me of me!) or because it allows them to keep the world at arm’s length and they are simply too self-involved to ever love anyone or anything but their PlayStation or Wii console.

Anyway, a FRIEND! Now THAT’S something joy-inducing. Someone to do things with, talk to, experience things together … someone who won’t tune you out while you’re talking because somebody with a nice rack bobs on by.

Don’t get me wrong … a good date DOES get the ol’ juices flowing. But in my quest to really, truly find out who I am and what I’m supposed to be, I’m jazzed when I meet someone who has either been where I’ve been or is headed where I’m going because that’s a signpost along my way.

This isn’t to discount the importance of people who have come along my path already … they were there for a reason. And while perhaps it’s my own doing (or lack of doing) that they aren’t traveling beside me right now, I have fond memories and a lot of gratitude that they showed me the next destination and, in their own way, prepared me for it.

And, in turn, I will replicate Uncle Stan’s actions to someone else who’s praying for a miracle, when I am in a position to perform one. That’s all it is, just a cycle of seeing who/what you DON’T want to become and instead emulating those whom you DO respect and admire.

And the thing about a friend? It’s just nice sometimes to have someone who’s right where you are, along for the ride. Even if we offer nothing but moral support to each other for a brief period, till we get to our next stop on the journey. If it’s the same stop, great. If not, so long and thanks for all the fish.

All right, time to pack and launder and work my eleventy billion hours and get no sleep and roll out to the ‘burbs to the airport and meetings meetings meetings and finally a reprieve. Bah. God give me strength to get through the next 72 hours!

Was this what I was dreaming of when I was working so hard to get into/stay in college? I don’t think so. But it’s sure not bad. I feel like I’m finally coming into my own, whatever that means. I feel like Anastasia, Rose, Calvin, Stan, Josie, Donald, Lenna and all the others who have left us during the past few years saw that I would go far, even when I couldn’t. I am glad they could see it then, since they can’t see me now. Or maybe they can.

I hope I’ve made them proud. And I’ve got a few miracles left in me yet. ….

Well, I did it.

I’m getting out of town, damn it.

Hell yeah!

I’ve had a really good week. Sure, I worked 40 hours in three days, but what else is new? But for every excruciatingly annoying moment, there was a pleasant one and an awesome one. So, win!

It doesn’t kill much of my vacation time, but the fund is pretty exhausted. Humph. Damn gas prices. Just filled up for $4.23 a gallon. *kicks the oil speculators*

I was having buyer’s remorse yesterday as I talked with my travel agent and kept repeating, “How much?” every time she gave me a hotel or a flight price. This is a business/personal trip, so at least the airfare’s taken care of. *whew* So I felt a little justified in splurging for the four-star hotel for “my” portion of the stay, since I oftentimes stay outside the city limits and spend the extra money to cab it everywhere.

Besides, I hear it’s going to rain the whole time I’m there (joy), so at least I’ll have access to a spa and room service. So if that’s the extent of my vacation? I won’t be mad at that.

What’s funny is how I keep hearing that we’re in an economic downturn (or is it a recession) and nobody’s traveling. Really? I couldn’t find an available hotel room or an empty seat on a flight to save my life. It’s pretty bad when it would cost the same to book on Expedia as it does to call an agent. The good part about booking through a live person, however, is that I can actually cancel or modify my itinerary and I don’t have to forfeit my life savings.

Now, the real trick will be seeing whether I can keep up my newfound vegetarianism when I’m out and about. It’s funny — I gave up meat a few weeks ago and I find I don’t miss it that much. I had to “cheat” because I got home from work at 10:30 p.m. on Thursday and all I had was a lousy Lean Cuisine in the freezer, and it was terrible. I don’t know if it was just the fact that it was a flavorless frozen dinner (I tried spicing it up) but bleah, it wasn’t so awesome.

Anyway, speaking of not so awesome, I’ve been cleaning all morning. It’s the first holiday I haven’t worked in probably a decade, so I had to do something with myself. It’s debatable whether I will attend any Fourth of July festivities as we have daily thunderstorms and another one is being predicted for tonight. And if there’s one thing I hate more than people crowds, it’s being rained on.

Why is it the one holiday in which I don’t have to wake up and go to work the next day has the crummiest weather on the docket?

There was a time when my friends and I blogged every single day. Multiple times, if we could swing it. But then days and even a week or so can go by, and none of us update.

It’s sad, really, because we are all so busy that tossing up a blog posting was our way of saying to the world that we’re still alive, and it was kind of our connection to each other. Especially for someone like me — who’s changed addresses, e-mails, jobs and phone numbers, not to mention that folks who use to know me probably wouldn’t recognize me if they passed me on the street — I understand that the blog is kind of my “still breathing” signal.

I had asked one friend whose blogging abated long before mine did, why she didn’t update anymore. She just kind of shrugged and said, “Don’t really need to.”

I don’t think it’s that I don’t need to use this space to record my life; maybe it’s that I’ve stopped wanting to. Or simply having time to.

I’ve been on this super-secret mission for quite some time now. Nobody really knows what I’m up to and it’s weird, not touching base with everyone to say, “OMG, you wouldn’t believe the ridiculously awesome things that happened last night.” Because although yesterday does not rank in the top 10 days of my life to date, the after-work hours (since the workday was what they call a “big fat fucking waste”) were just so, so surprising. And pleasant.

And maybe I want to keep a little of that to myself for now.

I remember with one of my relationships that I was just so SURE was going to turn out to be something, I blabbed. Not here. Well, OK, yeah I did. But in another place where I post, I was just all hopes and smiles and “OMG, I deserve this and I can’t wait to see where it goes.”

You know what that’s called? Jinxing yourself. Seriously. What a holy fucking fizzle that was.

So I’ve sort of trained myself to get my hopes up a little — just a teeny, tiny bit — but the less I share with the people around me, oftentimes the better it turns out.

It’s strange that way. And somewhat disappointing, because I really do love to document my journey. I dunno, I guess I just want to give others hope, that if I can make miracles work, so can they.

I also suppose I want to be able to see where I went wrong … and where I went right. I know that when you finally reach a goal, you can forget a lot of the details that got you there or the ones you could have eliminated to get you there sooner.

In any case, the important thing is that, even though I can’t really say what I’m up to, I’m still up to some things. And maybe it’s a blessing that I not get caught up in all the details till I can have time to reflect on them and make sense of them in a completely different context.

It’s weird not talking it out. But it’ll be OK because I’ll just have more stories to tell from the other side.