when the to-do list is longer than my arm

it's been some time since I felt like I was getting anywhere with some of the more technical aspects of my life. everything has been in this weird limbo, from the apartment to my jobs to school.

my apartment, which I procured sometime toward the end of July, has been in renovation (which was originally intended to take two weeks) for nearly a month and a half. It may still not be ready next week. This both excites me and disappoints me. I'm glad to have the extra time, and to know that the apartment is getting a major face lift (new tiled floors, cabinets, painting) and I look forward to having a new place to rest my eyes and mind. I just keep having to reconsider when I'll actually be able to settle in. But it finally looks like it'll be next week. keep your fingers crossed for me.

So at the coffeeshop, when I returned, it was meant to be for a month. Three months later, the Summer of Sorrow passing (and ultimately becoming the Surreal Adoration Reigns Supreme, ahem, SARS...) and I've still been working at Siena. Part of the problem now is I have to decide how much longer this can go on. I wouldn't mind working there, but I think it'd be nicer if I got paid a little more. Even fifty cents to a dollar. I took a pay cut to come back on, since Kim hadn't been paying anyone as much as me she got used to paying a lot less to my replacement. Once I get into my apartment, I have a feeling the commute is going to kill my desire to work there much longer. I'm half tempted to seek out a job at the Heartland Cafe (since it's a block away from my apartment). Or consider the idea of doing something completely different. Oh the annoyance of limbo-feelings.

At least I finally registered for classes. I have two classes in the fiction department with teachers I've already had and thoroughly enjoyed. I'm going to take yoga! (finally after two years, my wish is fulfilled! maybe it's my year!) And, I'm going to try out an Art History class, though I am least excited by this prospect.

It's not that I don't think art history is a valid and good subject to be versed in. I think it'll be invaluable for my truthful-but-mostly-misinformed reviews over at the Chicago Arts Blog. [where I go by the name nativechicagoan.]

I just don't want to take a class that is going to require a lot of work. I'll admit it. Already completing the graduation ceremony has made me as unmotivated as possible at the thought of returning for one, last, final--the end!--semester. I wanted to put all my effort into my fiction writing classes (and writing as much of my novel in that setting as I can in the next four months).

But it's a full load of classes and I can't expect that it'll be easy, even if that's what I would prefer. At least it's not five classes, as I tortured myself with all last school year and still managed to come out on top (dean's listed, but of course).

The good news is that time has passed. time that seemed interminable. like an eternity. and that is what I am I most glad for, that passing time means healing and reformation and the possibility for something greater than what I had known to come into my life. I am keeping my eyes open and my heart clean.

stine

back home

I flew in on the red eye this morning. That was rather exciting actually. Imagine it, I actually got to fly in the sky all night and then say that I flew in on the red eye flight. The most amazing thing about flying at night was that I could see so many stars! There were so many stars that I couldn't actually make out any constellations. That's the only good thing about city light pollution, only the really strong stars stand out, and the constellations are easier to spot. If only flying at night wasn't so bothersome I would always want to.

The only other notable thing was my tendency to suffer terribly in the ears from the acsent and descent in elevation (usually I get a terrible pain in my ears right before we reach the point where the city is visible) was the worst yet. It felt like someone was twisting my ear drums and pulling them out of my earholes, and then my nose was stuffed up but dripping and I got this terrible spasm of pain along my forehead that collected into my sinuses. Then, as the tension and pain became nearly unbearable, as I was gnawing on my knuckles to keep from screaming out loud, my right ear released its pressure, almost like a cartoon, I could feel the air being pushed out of my compressed ear drum like a fissure of steam.

I jumped right into work at noon. It began with fanfare, a lot of customers came in right at that time who missed me while I was away, Walter even made a special return visit today just to see me, Laura and Nick stopped by, and all in all, it was the best welcome home I've had in some time.

I did get to ride the roller coaster that starts in New York New York! That was fun...a fast ride, but fun. I wished that I could buy the photo of me on the coaster, but I looked fat and Marilyn looked funny, so we passed. We agreed to get one next year when we return to vegas and have a ride on the coaster again. I did look positively delighted in the face, however! It's been a while since I've been on a roller coaster.

cheers.
stine

it's hot!

it's so hot that I don't want to go outside anymore. I don't want to get sunburned (my precious pale skin can't handle the rays) and no matter how diligently I apply and reapply, sunscreen doesn't matter. I still get burned somehow.

however, there is a lazy river and a pool, so maybe I can be tempted to go into the water at some point. just not anywhere close to noon. maybe more around four.

i'm leaving tonight on a plane and I feel like I've barely had a Vegas experience. but it was overstimulating nonetheless.

buffets are a vegas experience, I suppose, but the seafood buffet, which seemed so promising, was a misery. there were no grilled scallops, just breaded and fried ones that looked like mini hockey pucks and tasted like a packing peanut. the shrimp was pretty good, but only the mexican style and not any of the other kinds. i tried to get salmon but the grilled one was out and the teriyaki style one was unappealing in appearance. and then, there was lobster. and we know how I feel about lobster. [would anyone like to chew on globs of rubber?]

today I'm going to go down to the strip and send out some postcards to my nephews and ride the roller coaster. and then I'll come back and think about the pool situation.

the conference that I went to, the reason I came here, the reason Marilyn brought me here, it filled in the blank of what the purpose of my life was gonna be, and I am glad. and, no, I'm not going to join the peace corps. and Marilyn had no influence over my choice, just my presence.

most of all, i can't wait to return to the center of the tornado.

stine

what I want to be for valentine's day:

topshelf inamorata.

so even though I thought I would be here yesterday....(long story)

vegas is pretty cool. it's definitely got that fervor about it, that kind of catchy excitement that I felt when we landed and still feel sitting in a neutral palate of a front room trying to type on Marilyn's laptop. Someone is playing music somewhere that is faint enough but bass-filled that my heart wants to beat along to it, and every so often a car zooms by. we are at the end of the strip, and as I came in from the airport I could see Mandalay Bay and some other things that looked familar from television and what not.

the weird thing is I've always been places first and then seen them on tv, like when Amelie was all popular, I had just gotten back from my trip to Europe and I sat through it with an intense excitement, especially during one scene in which Amelie is outside in a stone park and there is a carousal, I kept freaking out thinking to myself, I was there! I was there! I stood right there!

so. Maybe this is what it'll feel like to go to New York someday, just that sense of familar-ness despite having never been there.

oh and, goggles called it "vague-ass" and when beth called me and said, "oh, you must already be in vague-ass (due to her adorably cute canadian accent)" I nearly lost my vocal cords laughing. seriously, almost swallowed whole. gulp.

In my head, I'm already back in Chicago and planning out the days between the 29th and the 5th of September and wondering how horrible it'll be to move into my new place and start school all in the same week. Can't be so bad, right? right? at least I'll finally be moving into my new place. we hope.

I will try to update at some point during my stay (maybe sunday or monday) since I have access to Marilyn's laptop.

oh, and don't worry, I definitely will not be doing anything that you wouldn't do, or anything you would do, or anything in between and yeah. I mean, listen, here's what I'm excited about: seafood buffet. come on, what kind of person comes to vegas and is thrilled beyond belief that there's such a thing as a seafood buffet? not someone who's going to be doing what you wouldn't do, or would do, whatever the case may be.

wow: my coworker is calling me to ask me to work his shift tomorrow/today, in a mere thirty minutes. I don't have the heart to answer and tell him I can't make it, because I'm in Vegas, baby!

stine!

p.s. (yes, I seem to have become happy enough with life to feel emboldened enough to use exclamation marks. don't worry, it'll pass. Not the happiness, just the effusive use of exclamation marks.)

vegas, here I come!

So my fabulous friend Marilyn has two weeks in Las Vegas via her timeshare and has invited me to come out for some r&r before school begins and to kiss away the squirrelly-ness of this the Summer Of Sorrow (SOS, which I must credit Walter with this witty phrase. Damn you Walter for thinking of it first!).

To say that this is almost necessary for me, well, I hate to sound like a stuck-up-bitch, but it is. I am so goddamn burned out. On all of it. The last two weeks at work have been full of me shaking my head at the absolute stupidity of every other person (but they just can't help themselves, can they?). The apartment has been further delayed to the end of this month, which just means two more weeks of being a step above being homeless. All the mail has for me is bills. My computer no longer recognizes the internet connection at Marilyn's (even though it happily did before!), so I have been without the lifeline that is the internet for me. I am totally stuck in Tortilla Flat, haven't gotten fifty pages in, even. My swimsuit and other necessary items to travel to a hot climate where swimming happens just so happened to be in the bag at the highest and furthest back point of my storage locker.

The other thing, the other part, is that my life has been so full, to the point of absolute brimming, to the point of no sleeping, no time for myself, which on the one hand I love, but on the other hand, I just can't take much of it before I have to put it all to halt. So this trip to Vegas happens to fall during a time when the whirl is just a little too exciting and the world as I knew it is completely about to change (again, for the second time this year!) and I am just cowering underneath the eye of the tornado (with all his gray-ness), thrilled, excited, and terrified all at once.

Also, there is still the sting of what was.

The best part of my day was sitting on the swing outside with Nina and watching her eyes go wide at the speed I was causing. Then a bubble of her sweet laughter floated to my ears. A rabbit ran across the yard. The clouds were all puffy and dense. And there was no one else in the world right then except for me and her. She saw all of it. She talked about the clouds, the sky, the bunny, the swing, the speed, the airplanes overhead. She is a marvel to be with and a wonder to know. That we are merely two people connected through others makes our existence precisely so enjoyable. There is nothing to do, nothing to be, and no rules to follow, at least for some moments.

If only I could live that way all the time.

stine

the prospects of dating in the year 2006

As I begin to awaken from the fog that was my life, I see another bleak terrain, also known as the dating world.

There are so many things I've already been encouraged to do...

primarily (and ironically by two people who are my friends and dated each other unsucessfully) I have been told consistently that online dating is the way to go. Having been an internet junkie since the late 90's and having met many people via the internet, this idea doesn't outright repel me, but it does have it's tinges of creepiness. The thing is, if you are online in some community and you happen to hit it off with someone through a chat room or email, great (after all, it worked for beth and ed). But this whole dating online thing just seems like a whole 'nother beast, one that is kind of depressing and sad. I don't know. I guess it just seems weird that if you're a nice person and charming and whatever, you ought to be able to meet people in real life and sucessfully navigate the details of the dating world with them. I suppose I haven't fully formed an opinion on the matter.

So in some effort to see what was out there and how it worked, I put up a profile on The Onion's personals and waited to see what would happen. Nothing did. A few guys emailed me and wanted to carry on a semblance of conversation based on our profiles via email, and I didn't really enjoy the conversations, so it went nowhere and I deleted my profile altogether. I found most of the people on there were fairly intelligent and sounded pretty great, but the same hesitation they have in real life in approaching women seemed to carry over to me, because I got lots of views and no offers. In some cases, I was glad for the pause, in others, it would've been nice to meet some of these guys. And the truth is, with the lack of requests to actually go out, I was beginning to feel like I had no marketable qualities and that's the very thing I'm trying stop feeling these days, so I figured it was time to cut it out. I think the people who are on The Onion personals are not as serious as some other dating sites, but I'm glad I checked it out.

Another thing about dating that I noticed the last time I was single has become a thriving and maddening thing. Dating and hanging out have become synonymous. I have been on so many pseudo dates it's not even funny. And to even begin to wonder if they were actually dates is the maddening part. It gets to the point where I say to myself that it doesn't matter much, but I guess for my own peace of mind and my own internal storyteller, it'd be awfully nice to know. Yes, I wish I could read minds.

It doesn't help at all if he's just being a good friend who is also happy to pay for you, call a week in advance, and pick you up and drop you off...Yeah, to a lot of people that sounds like a date. But when I'm out with these guys, it just feels like hanging out. It's so weird. Now I just say if there's no attempts to penetrate the fortress of my three feet of space, then it's not a date.

My friend Marilyn has thrust two books on me that she claims every single woman should read, which of course, I had never read. It's called The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right & Rules II: More Rules to Live and Love By. These books get a lot of knocks for being anti-feminist and full of manipulative techniques (sounds right up my alley!). So I kind of skimmed through them and decided that yes, they kind of deserved the knocks, but I also like the underlying current of the idea: don't chase men or you will be unhappy. I have been a man-chaser since way back, and it always led to my own disappointment. The men who have approached me and ultimately became my boyfriends were not hunted down by me and I think this is why on some levels, our relationships worked. I don't really plan on doing The Rules, but it had some ideas that I will definitely consider as I traverse the rocky soil of the dating world.

My therapist recommends that I establish for myself a criteria of the sort of man I want to be with and then weed out the prospective men in my life using that. While I think this is a good tatic, there's some things to consider. One, any criteria I establish will simply be an amalgamation of all the things that I am attracted to and all the things I liked in various guys. So essentially, my criteria will read like a hideous composite of Frankenstein. And my criteria will mostly be based on superficialities or fantasy, so what's the point in that? Sure I would like a date a guy who reads constantly, loves to travel, and also happens to be a male underwear model, but what are the odds of 1) finding that, and 2) him being like minded enough to be someone I'd be interested in spending time with? What if he hated Vonnegut or never wanted to go to Paris again? I just think the criteria is a good filter, but it's not really possible to base my whole dating life on that.

The truth is, I think about being single for a while and it sounds good. I have some loose ends with school to tie up before I get my degree. Right now, that's my top priority. I won't have much time to worry about all of this once school starts next month, but I probably still will. I have to get my apartment together, I have to get my stuff in order, I have to start writing again. I have projects to do and ideas for projects every day. It seems more exciting to me to spend time alone, where there is no ambiguity and I can be sure of myself.

I was talking yesterday with this guy Paul at the coffeeshop about the idea of being more alone, but less lonely than ever. I've noticed that even though I am more alone than I've ever been, I don't feel lonely. I feel very satisfied with how I've been spending my time lately. And I think that's what I'm going to strive for. Spending my time well and satisfactorily.

stine

l'etranger

I read Albert Camus' The Stranger the other day (thanks to beth and ed's open bookshelves). It was so short that I literally read it in a day. I liked it a lot. I thought the way the main character was portrayed was funny and I liked how everyone threw their hands up at him, especially his lawyer. But the truth is, what he had to say was just as logical as or more so than what people expected to hear him say.

I thought it was interesting that I was shocked that he got such a harsh sentence. I couldn't believe it! I was stupified!

Also, I thought the way he talked about his lawyer being an extension of himself was phenomenal. It so seemed to explain the dull glassy stares on the defendants in all the Court TV cases. Well, except for those Menendez brothers. They had a special kind of dull stare.

stine

rosemont, here I come!

one of my long time wishes is to visit the comics convention in San Diego. I haven't made it there yet, but in the meantime, a friend has invited me to join him for the Wizard World in Chicago. First off, I am not eager to visit the big boys of comics, since I mostly prefer small press published work. And, I'm not big on superheroes, but that is what the big companies focus on. And big companies is what Wizard World is all about.

Ever since the opening of Chasing Amy, and probably other countless references to comic conventions, I've always wanted to go to at least one big silly one that I didn't even care about, just to check it out.

It is with eager anticipation that I've begun to look forward to tomorrow. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I suggested that we dress up as something. I don't want to feel left out and conservative by wearing normal people clothes. John suggested Papa Smurf & Smurfette...no way I will paint myself blue on a day other than Halloween. I suggested a nearly normal Clark Kent & Lois Lane. More superhero-ish than The Smurfs anyhow...we'll see.

stine

writerly thoughts

I am currently reading Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It has passed the "good book test" (simply registered by the amount of time spent consuming it and wanting to do nothing else), which should be no surprise since it won the Nobel Prize and all.

I find the story exhilarating and amazingly well told. So well told that I often turn off my writer's sense and become a true reader, unhindered by what I know about writing, though I still find myself marvelling at different things that Marquez was doing in the novel, I feel remarkably free in reading it.

The only thing I've longed for is character insight or development. I feel like they are merely instruments in Marquez's palm, designed to do or provoke something. In other words, they are slightly flat, two dimensional, but I think that is just the way of latino writers or storytellers. I felt a similar longing while reading Isabelle Allende.

The only stupendous thing to report is a customer at the coffeeshop recently asked me how my book was going...yet she asked for it by title. clark st. union. This tells me two things: one that the title is memorable (hooray!) and two: I really need to start getting my shit together with it.

One of my goals is to have it done within a year. I think that is fair and attainable. I know I will be able to write more when school starts and a pace of writing is forced on me (at least five pages a week). But that seems so meager and disrespectful to the work as a whole. I don't know. I am considering joining a writer's circle... At the very least, it would be nice to have a reader who will ask a lot of questions of the pieces to jog the mind into writing what the reader really needs to know.

stine