Hindsight is 20/20 and my Eyesight is Not...

I feel like this song captures the moment of my life right now, the clouds keep rollin' on in.It's always so much easier to look back on something and shake your head saying, "I was so foolish to have done it that way. Everything would've been so much easier had I taken a different course of action." Ah. Such is life. You live and you learn. Lately I feel like this has happened to me a lot. The majority of my days are filled with good decisions, or at least easily fixable bad ones... not so much the case right now.

I feel like the big city is eating me alive. Everyday it takes something from me. Money, CTA cards, my iPod, my bike, my sanity. I wonder if I can hack it, or if I'm fooling myself into waiting for the inevitable failure.

Yeah, my bike. My bike that my mother and step father gave to me as a college graduation present. My bike that was really nice and had a smooth ride and a comfy seat - I need to stop or I might cry. My Schwinn that I would say like "SCHWING!" I'm actually still reeling from the situation/realization that the world could be so cold and cruel as to take this thing from me. That's what I'm trying to remind myself, it's just a thing. Even if it was a really, really nice, expensive thing, that was a gift, that is something I won't be able to afford for months, and by then I won't be able to ride it because it'll be -20 degrees outside. It's just a thing. They didn't steal me, so that's good. This is why I can't have nice things. I don't take care of them. My mother frequently reminds me of this.

Here's what happened. Friday I rode my bike to work because it was supposed to be a beautiful day. The morning time was great, but the clouds rolled in by the time I was leaving the office, and as it's already terrifying to ride bikes downtown - what with the crazy motorists/peds, lack of bike lanes - I opted to take the train to Pitchfork instead of ridin' my bike. I planned to run downtown and pick it up Saturday morning, but it was still raining... also, with the rain and biking, I'd be afraid to fall. I saw someone fall while riding in the rain and they skidded about 15 feet - in the road, in traffic! It was frightening. I didn't want that to be me, so I said I'd do it Sunday. There was no time on Sunday - or was there? It'll be there Monday, I said. No worries. Monday, Monday, Monday. I walk to work, I see a bike chained up, I assume it's mine. No worries. Why didn't I ride it home Monday? Was it raining? No. Tuesday seems as good a day as any. I decided to work from home so I could do some serious apartment hunting (that's another thing that I'll get to in just a moment). I woke up without an alarm clock and it was glorious, geared up and went out for a run downtown to get my bike. It was only supposed to be a 4 mile run (to the office is actually 3.5, but I was going to ride my bike so it'd be gravy), but when I got to the bike rack I didn't see my bike.

Are you fucking kidding me?! Harry Potter, please stop having sex with my bike (super silly side-note; I feel bad for the guy because it was behind closed doors... a little awkward, yes, and seemingly impossible, but people have strange fetishes, I hope this isn't what happened to mine - it was very good-looking) and take off your invisibility cloak!!


I wanted to sit down and cry like a baby. I wanted someone to tell me that everything was going to be alright. I wanted to scream, FUCK YOU, MOTHERFUCKER! I wanted to shank a biker. I wanted to steal someone else's sweet ride.

Running home I felt like all the bikers were mocking me. Oooh! Look what I have. Oooh! I'm going so much faster than you. Oooh! Look at me fly by on my wheels, and look at your stupid feet. 7-8 miles, a good training day, but I really wanted to ride my bike.

I was hoping I was wrong. I hoped that I would come to work today and I would see it. I didn't. My friend told me that abandoned bikes get picked up by the city and I should call them... I don't have the serial number that I know of, but I figured that I could describe it to them and if they have it, I could search the mess of my room for something with something claiming my ownership on it. Sheesh!

I can't tell my mother either. I wanted to when I talked to her yesterday, but I couldn't bring myself to it. One, because she would say, "What were you thinking?" and I would say, "I wasn't" and she would say, "That's right." And she would use my full name when talking to me, and I would know that meant she was disappointed with me, and she would say, "You've been doing this [not thinking] since you were a little girl. Remember when..." And I would sigh, say "I know, I know!" and get sad and eventually angry, but mostly sad because I feel like life keeps punching me in the stomach.

One good thing happens and then, like, 12 bad things follow. Not really, but it feels that way.

For instance, my friend was talking about her child-self thinking that becoming an "adult" was some sort of destination where there'd be a party saying, "YAY! You made it!" And I said, I'm still waiting for that surprise party. I think it'll happen with my next promotion. Everyone on the street will know and they'll jump up and down and dance as confetti rains from the sky. And there will be people walking around on stilts, handing out balloons and caramel apples. And everyone will rush up to me with flowers and gold and they'll say, "You made it! We're so glad you're here! Look at all these wonderful things you've done, just think about what's to come!" And they'll hoist me up on their shoulders and sing, Hip hip, hoorah!! Until the sun goes down, and then the crowd will disperse and we'll wave into the distance until we are all but mere specks on the horizon.
That hasn't happened yet, and all the time I feel like this is in front of me, but they're running away - because I'm not at that place in my life yet, I'm still struggling everyday - turning the corner right before I turn the one before. I see a flash of confetti here, a disappearing stilt there, but it's nothing big, and then I get the wind knocked out of me because I get blind sighted by the glitz and glimmer of the present moment, thinking about one thing too much then everything else builds up to bad and tsunamis me.

I did find an apartment that I really like, though. It was good, a 2-bedroom (1100) so I would need to find a roomie (550 + utilities would make 650-ish each - ah-nice!). The only problems, and these are slightly big... the entrance is in on the side, in between 2 buildings - kind of creepy, I would need to invest in some mace and have super fast unlocking skillz. Also, when the landlord was walking me out I noticed there was a note on the door from a tenant that reminded the other tenants to lock the door because a "trespasser" was found in the basement the other week. Well, well, well. That's just wonderful. So, I'll have a nice house but there's potential for me to be murdered while I sleep... maybe they were peaceful, just looking for a dry place to sleep, or nunchucks.
Also, the laundry machines were $2 a pop - OUTRAGEOUS!, but there is a laundromat right on the next block... I think I'm going to take it. I'm getting desperate, and hey! Maybe it won't be that bad. I think I'm going to take it.

Everybody's Working for the Wee-Wee-Weekend!

I bought new running shoes on Friday. I went to Fleet Feet Sports in Piper's Alley. I've never bought running shoes from them before. I waited for 20 minutes, holding a race bib with a "next customer" number on it. I wandered around the store, checking out shoes, triathlon gear (that's just crazy, though one day I would like to participate in one - give me 10 years, or maybe before my 30th year), and watching the general goings on about me while I waited.

I took the bus down North Avenue and then walked down Damen, after depositing a work check in the bank (I really need to get direct deposit -- save the trees, y'know?). Then, I got home and I thought, "Oh man. I really need to call Judy." (My step grandmother who lives in Evanston) So, I did. I expected the conversation to last 5-10 minutes. How silly I was! The conversation lasted about 45 minutes, with the first good-bye said at 30. My mother does the same thing, but I enjoy talking to my mother, for the most part, as she's super silly and says ridiculous things most of the time. Okay, okay. It was nice to catch up with Judy, but at the same time I couldn't help but think of her mean streaks of the past, and I was thinking about how I needed to get going on my run because I had plans to meet friends later in the evening.

This is boring stuff... I went running (IN MY NEW SHOES!), ate a slow dinner, drank some wine, and watched The Soup, then I got ready and went over to my friend's house and hung out outside until it started stormin', then we went inside to laugh, talk, and watch snippets of this Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, Overdrawn at the Memory Bank with Raul Julia - wasn't really paying attention... but it seemed awful(ly confusing - there was a part where monkeys and giraffes were stumbling drunk around the Sahara). Then I went home and slept.

Saturday I did nothing productive... really, and it was incredible!! Laundry (folded it Sunday), guitar, laziness, Baby's Day Out (sooooo good 2nd time around, you might wish I was kidding, but I'm not, and excellently cast!), Apocalypto (which I didn't love or hate... and the way it was shot reminded me of a PBS special, I kept waiting for a British narrator to describe what was going on when I couldn't read the white subtitles), and sleep.

SUNDAY! I woke up and went for a run, supposed to be 14, but I'm hoping I got closer to 15 as I ran for 2 and 1/2 hours. Oh man, and I definitely should've applied the Vaseline more liberally because I got some chaffage on my underarms (not as bad as this guy). I tried to wish away the pain as I was running. Occasionally it worked and I would have 10-15 minutes of endorphins numbing out the discomfort, then it would strike back with full force. I wasn't the happiest. I had to keep going, I was miles away from home and without my CTA pass. As I ran I thought about the chaffage, I couldn't help myself. I would try to think about anything else; about the old man who was trying to cross the path with his dog and cursed the bikers for riding too fast, about the time Alli and Lisa (two of my best childhood friends) came to visit me over Easter weekend when I was a freshman at DePaul and we took pictures on the pier, and of course, as always, pining after the sweaty men running in front of me until they were out of sight, but it kept going back to the chaffing. And the thought of chaffing kept taking me back to staggering around the finish line after my first marathon. While I was searching for Alli, I walked past a marathoner man and his supportive wife. She gave him a water bottle and a banana and asked him how it went. He said it went well, and that he feels pretty good. Then she said, Oh my! You're bleeding. He said, what? And then I noticed that he had two bloody nipple circles. He said, well, what do you know! That's bad news bears right there! I couldn't imagine how he didn't feel that happening! I was disturbed, and feeling very sore. I took an ice bath, but I'm still walking around like a mummy today, oohing and ahhhing on the stairs. I wish I had a little child or a midget to sit under my chair and massage my calves right now and wiggle my toes and rub aloe vera on my shoulders (they could sit on the chair's arms for that).

I made it home. Showered and biked over to look at an apartment. No, no, no, no! Oh, it was just awful! "Studio-style" for $650. Horribly small with a slanted floor. The woman showing me (the landlord's daughter) mentioned the utilities weren't that expensive. She said all I had to pay for was gas and electricity. She said that they paid for the water. I raised my eyebrow, thinking, really? You pay for the water? I'm pretty sure the city pays for the water, which I'm sure is actually us paying the city in taxes, so the we all pay for water. So, while yes, I supposed you pay for the water, I do, too. Needless to say, I'm not going to live there. On my way home I really hoped that I would find a nice place to live with an affordable rent, in the same neighborhood. That's the clincher right there. I have a feeling it's not going to work out that way and it makes me very, very, very sad. I don't like moving. Moving during childhood has scarred me into believing that life-altering/shattering times are just beginning and this often results in me crying myself to sleep.

On a happier note, I also thought it would be pretty funny to write little stories about my life after spending 1 year in the places that I could potentially live in. Like living in this place for example, I'm fairly confident that my Spanish comprehension would increase ten-fold. And my living standards would be significantly lowered.

What else happened? I went to the grocery store and made some delicious eggs with sauteed spinach dusted with cumin, thyme, Italian seasoning, minced garlic and onion salt for dinner. Then I watched the Simpsons, read a little, and went to bed at 9:30. Call me grandma, and I'll punch you in the face. I was tired.