Birthdays are the Best Days

Every time I ride bikes with the boy I heart I think of this - the time in the Muppet Movie when Kermit and Miss Piggy ride bikes and the other Muppets join them and the reprise of "The Rainbow Connection" swells and general Muppet joy abounds...That's what riding bikes is for me - a chance for freedom, a chance to go wherever in the city my heart and legs decide to take me, a way to spend time with people I heart in a fun way... Well, that's what riding bikes is like for me most of the time: like the time Dave and I saw steel being made ONLY because we were riding bikes back to Wicker Park OR the time a UPS driver shouted at me "Are you turning left" and I said "No" and he replied "Then I'll let you go ahead Miss" and I joked "I don't want to mess with you and your truck" and we shared a laugh..

But sometimes riding bikes can hurt. Like, say it's your birthday and you are riding up Clark near Wrigley Field and it's a beautiful day full of yummy mexican food and drinks with a friend who is one of the best in the world to me, and going shoe shopping together and laughing that the DSW has a whole section (a SECTION people!) of metallic shoes, which is too much shiny even for me! And you maybe buy a cute pair of shoes (black mary janes the color and style that are like crack and this is the THIRD pair of black mary janes I currently have, which is redonkulous!) So, say your two blocks south of Wrigley Field and the wind is gusting and you foolishly hung the bag with the shoebox on your handlebars and in an instant the shoebox is jammed between your knee and the handlebar and a gust of wind comes and your are slow motion falling - until you look up and you are lying, actually LYING on Clark looking up at a car that thankfully stopped to witness your tumble from the bike you love, the bike that brings you Muppet-like joy...That's when bikes are not the best...

The rest of my birthday weekend was full of good stuff; good food, good friends, more good food, good time with the boy I heart and good time pottering around the apartment by myself. The silence of autumn has come to Chicago and it's nice, to just sit still for a bit and read a book....I guess it's just a sign of how old I've become.

Hot Shit!

Hot damn it's a beautiful day today! I mean, ditch work, go to a park and lay around reading a book beautiful OR even better yet - hop on blue steel (my bike) and bike the lakefront, find an empty bench and sit there and read... I love the beginning of fall, even though it apparently makes me feel like an extra from Degrassi Jr. High..

Yesterday I went downtown to the old job (the job that sucked my life away for five long years) for the last time. I had volunteered to help out and I have and now it is over. Which is a relief on so many levels. It's so strange to look back a year and realize that I was still pushing my way through every day, biting my tongue and not getting paid nearly enough to do it. This time last year I was also just closing a show and starting rehearsal on another - a schedule that I don't miss, working with people who I certainly do miss. Is it always hard to stay in touch with friends, is it harder because the folks I thought were friends were really acquaintances? Doesn't it seem redonkulous that my phone bill is constantly over a hundred dollars but, I feel like I don't keep in touch with anyone....

Yesterday on the way from job I like to job I no longer have to do I listened to This American Life from a few weeks ago (NERD ALERT! I know, I know..) It was the heartbreak episode which I had half listened to at work weeks ago but after talking to the Cazzer about it I wanted to listen again. First off I heart This American Life, I heart it because it's like a radio version of 2nd Story, I heart it because Ira Glass is so nebbish and wonderful. And I zoned out on the train and listened to stories about heartbreak, about the moment when the bottom drops out of a relationship and the mess of an aftermath. And it has happened to me, and it has happened to everyone and it is one of those universal emotions that can feel so uniquely your own. I had my heart broken in a big way a few years ago. A slow steady breakup that was never officially verbalized (as in "I think we should break up") but done in a form of excuses given back and forth (i.e. Him: "I can't do this, it's not fair to both of us" Me: "We can make this work...but, but, BUT we're in love"). And it sucked. And it hurt and it kept me up at night and the only good thing about it was that I lost weight - really that was it. The most redonkulous part about this episode of heartbreak is that unlike normal people who would nip this shit in the bud I let this break up go on for over a year - a YEAR of me thinking that maybe things would work out. So, I'm listening to this podcast of This American Life, thinking about the heartbreak in my life (which is what I LOVE about the show, that it makes me relate on such a human level) and suddenly Phil Collins was talking, and he was talking to me (and also, apparently Caz since she and I had discussed this part) or it seemed like just to me. And he said something along the lines of: you will always miss people who meant a lot to you, who broke your heart and it made sense...You can try to escape, go to Paris, London, the northside from downtown but your memories (both good and bad) will always stay with you. They are your ghosts and the house they haunt is you. ....
P.S. Phil Collins is stuck in my head now...BOO

This, That, The Other

1.THIS: The smug face of Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette, a movie that despite both of our better judgements Dave and I watched this weekend..I wanted to want to like it. I wanted there to be a story, I wanted it to be more than pretty pictures that signified nothing - I mean NOTHING. How could such an interesting story be so boring? How could Steve Coogan be in a movie and it be bad? These are questions that haunt a person...or a person like me. It has taken viewings of at least four episodes of The Office and a handful of Arrested Development to wash the taste of bad dvd from my mouth...
2. THAT - That feeling that settles over me when the first cold rainy night hits Chicago. It feels the same as the last day of summer vacation, a strange mix of loneliness and comfort and the electric ache of loss... It's strange and unexplainable. Riding home, a steady patter of rain hitting my face I felt peaceful and kept telling myself that the summer is not over and the winter is not officially here but part of me knew I was lying.. Needless to say I was all over the map last night but happy that I had a weekend that was full of laziness and much needed cleaning of the apartment, and the moment where I realized my friend Jess was riding on the opposite side of Damen and we shouted hello to each other over the rush of cars and, of course, full of love from friends and the boy and all that good shit kept me grounded while I felt that strange rush of feelings last night...


3. The OTHER - I am not a joiner by nature. I quit Brownies when I was eight years old for a myriad of reasons (ugly uniforms, pressure to sell cookies, bratty girls) but, mostly because I don't like groups they make me feel awkward and more alone than before I was grouped with other folks and they kind of creep me out. I also have been asked to join several theatre companies around town and always said no - because of the above reasons, because I wanted to do a bunch of different projects instead of settling down with what that company did, because I don't do stage/production management work for free... But, I met these people - these really awesome, amazing people who produce work that engages me, who want to do big things in big ways, who are led by one of my heroes (a ladyfriend who sneezes glitter and poos rainbows, she is so amazing!) and they wanted me - who definitely does not sneeze glitter or poo rainbows, who is slightly intimidated by the thought of doing big things in big ways - to join them. And I did, and they are awesome and Sunday night I hung out with them and it made my weekend!

Things that are Yay!:
1. My Birthday- Is coming! YAYAYAY for cake and presents and brunch with friends and even for turning a year older! I'm so excited!
2. Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - So good, so heartbreaking and real and such a good memoir of a childhood of raising yourself...
3. Arrested Development - Who is funnier Lucille or Buster? GOB or Tobias?? It doesn't matter really because they are all so funny! How I heart the Arrested D!

Things that are Boo:
1. Cold Hands- The season of cold hands has begun and I am not a fan of feeling like my fingers are going to break off all the time.

Ticking and Tocking

Time is moving suddenly forward in stops and starts and mornings that feel like repeats of the morning before and nights that are never long enough...I have been having trouble sleeping lately which might have something do with the book I've been engrossed in reading - The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn. A book that is about the Holocaust (including nightmarish descriptions about what happens when humanity is sucked out of a population and brutality is all that is left..) and family and the mystery of why we are who we are and what role the past and our ancestors plays in uraveling that mystery...

This made me think - I know, it's dangerous - about my past, not just the recent past but, who my family are... Because to me in the present my family is myself, my mother, my older brother and my sister-in-law (plus, Mikey and Jess who are such good friends that they are family). That's a small gang, really nothing more than a handful. Of course I have more genetic family than that - Uncles and cousins who I haven't seen for over ten years, long lost family members who leave behind those ever changing family myths that are passed down in a game of telephone until one day my Mom turned to me and said "I think that your Great Aunt on your father's side was part Native American."

This lack of connection to the past - to what is essentially my shared history, my inheritance, my reasoning for why I am what I am has recently made me feel a little lost at sea. Maybe it's the end of summer, maybe it's the whole getting older thing but, the need for self knowledge - for time and space to figure out me, for that selfishness that benefits everyone- has become a priority lately.

Oh! Also, Dave and I watched Starsky & Hutch last night (god bless you Owen Wilson you butterscotch stallion) and it was not nearly as un-funny and terrible as I had remembered...I'm just sayin'...

Three Days Turned Into Four....MAGIC

This is how my Sunday morning began...Well, not that particular idyllic view that is on top of this babbling but, close...But let me back up a minute. To get to THAT I first had to 1) Get so drunk on two (only two! I am such a lightweight!!) afterwork martini's (bought by the bestest boss!) that I spent three miserable hours vomiting and saying things to the boy who hearts me most (and who I, needless to say especially after this rigmarole heart the most as well) like "How can people be bulimics OR alcoholics??" and "This is going to pass, like a thunderstorm, right?" 2) Meet up with the bestest of best friends Mikey the following morning with a mouth that felt like a cotton ball and a head that was pounding in time to my footsteps...and we had a great day - just really lovely day of knocking around Andersonville and that easy feeling of spending time with an old friend eased the hangover away. 3) Get up at 4:30 in the morning. In the morning, I say! That is early, that is not "It's so late at night it's early morning" it's so early morning that it in fact feels like a nowhere time of day because really, no one should be up that early...but Mikey and Dave and I were because....Sunday morning my friend got married, on Lake Michigan and it was beautiful and worth the early morning wake up call..

This early morning led me to feel like actually the three day weekend had magically transformed into four days...not in a lovely "Oh surprise! You've been so good you get a bonus vacation day" way but in a "You get to wake up early everyday of your vacation, making the days feel like weeks and your eyes turn into little slits" way.. It was still lovely to spend time with loved ones, best friends who make me realize that distance doesn't erase the fact that they are my family, cute boys who let me nap afternoons away while they do useful things, and brides who float down a grass path making me think for a moment that maybe this marriage thing is really a bit useful, maybe there is magic in the moment that everyone you love surrounds you and confirms that you and the person you are with are in love and will be in love for a long time...

Plus, Lake Michigan at sunrise is gorgeous...jaw dropping beauty for as far as you can see...